The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – April Federico, Nutritionist, Gut Health Consultant, Hormone Health & Type 2 Diabetes Expert on Achieving Better Health

Episode Date: August 20, 2023

April Federico, Nutritionist, Gut Health Consultant, Hormone Health & Type 2 Diabetes Expert on Achieving Better Health Theaprildiaries.blog April Federico, CEO and Owner of In The Pink, Inc. and Be Well By April, is a nutritionist, gut health consultant, and hormone health and type 2 diabetes expert who educates and empowers women to have healthier relationships with food, nutrition, and themselves. In February 2022, she nearly succumbed to diabetic ketoacidosis, and she was alcoholic for 4 years prior to giving alcohol (and coffee!) for good! On top of that, she is a social media and publishing powerhouse.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show. We certainly appreciate it, it guys thanks for tuning in

14 years going on 15 years next month uh what do we have like 15 we're going on 1500 episodes now it's just crazy and we do two to three new shows a day we do uh 10 to 15 a week so only on weekdays we're not working on weekends people what do you want from me already damn it you got enough to listen to you don't need two more days of content. There's plenty there. Go listen to it. You'll love it. Anyway, guys, we really appreciate you guys going on.

And as you know, I think many of my readers know I've lost over 100 pounds by intermittent fasting. And I lived a life where I did all the bad stuff. Not all the bad stuff. There were some things that were a little too bad. I was like yeah that probably shouldn't be a road i should go down but you know i ate pretty uh i ate pretty gratuitously and bad and uh if there was fat in it and high amounts of sugar i think it was 10 to 15 mountain dews at one point half a bottle of vodka every other night and uh uh eating out at fine

restaurants being single you know i can do what i want so uh i ate a little too many steaks and too much fat and everything else and so you know since then i've done intermittent fasting lost 100 pounds and we've had some great dietitians on the show and we have another one on today talking about how she overcame her uh her issue with diabetes for type 2 and how she helped heal herself and eat better and become more healthier and how she also helps other people do that as well and some of her input. She's the author of the latest book that has just come out called Diabetes Plate, Your Comprehensive Food Tracker for Typeabetics. Uh, April Federico is on the show with us today and she'll be talking to us about her amazing new book and her insights and

how she helps her clients get better with all the different stuff that they should be eating and help them get away from the stuff they should not be eating, or at least, you know, on a frequent basis. Uh, she is a nutritionist, gut health consultant, and hormone health and type 2 diabetes expert who educates and empowers women, and she might help some of us men here, to have healthier relationships with food, nutrition, and themselves. In February 2022, she nearly succumbed to diabetic ketoacidosis, and she was an alcoholic

for four years prior to giving alcohol and coffee up for good. On top of that, she is a social media and publishing powerhouse. Welcome to the show, April. How are you? Thank you so much for having me, Chris. I am doing fantastic. There you go. And I forgot to mention here in your bio

you are the ceo and owner of in the pink incorporated and be well by april so give us your dot com so people can find you on the interwebs please yes so my website for now i'm actually going through a significant rebranding but is the april diaries dot blog ah there you go there you go and that's's to support your latest book that you have come out. Now, I understand the Kindle version's out right now as of this recording, and then there's going to be a paperback?

Yep, there's going to be a paperback 300-page journal slash tracker, I should say, coming out next week. So next Friday, August 25 25th i believe it is um get your paper back there you go get your paper back to keep a journal you know i the one thing i learned is although it sometimes isn't fun to get on that uh get on that scale every day you know and see maybe like you know stuff you've you know, you stopped at Del Taco on the way home from the gym. You know, sometimes you see it and you're just like, oh man, okay, but back on track.

Journals are really important for keeping people on track, don't you think? I agree. And to your point about stepping on a scale, I would say break up with that freaking scale because it's not always correct i mean you could be gaining muscle for all i know i mean i am going through um personal training at the moment and um one of the things my trainer had told me um that was just my cat meowing i don't know if you heard her but i thought it was your trainer because you said you said uh my trainer told me and i heard that i'm like that's a trainer right there i wish um oh goodness but my trainer is great aj you're awesome um thank you and um but nonetheless he told me that like if you stop on the scale and see that you've gained weight

um that actually could be that you're gaining muscle and just losing fat. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes it's water weight. Sometimes you're just holding a bunch of water and stuff. I remember when I used to drink heavily, as I mentioned before, and you did in your bio, you bloat and you carry a lot of extra water because your body's trying to offset that dehydration that you're doing to yourself. So give us a little 30,000 overview of some of the stuff that's in the book, and then we'll get into some of the deets. Yeah. So the diabetes plate is not just a blood sugar slash

food tracker. It also has really valuable information in it, like how to manage your diabetes effectively and how to effectively read a nutrition label most of us don't know how to do that i mean let's just look at a nutrition label and just go like oh that's much calories okay and you know most people don't read the little hidden small part especially those old people with old eyes is the part that says servings number of servings and you're like ah it's got 100 calories in it that ain't too bad and then you're like yeah that's for uh one millionth of a millionth of a millionth of an ounce i would say it's actually per serving but you you're on the right track yeah per serving yeah yeah and then you're like wait there's like so just one bite of this is like

5 000 calories what's that who's that crumble cookie or somebody that there's like, so just one bite of this is like 5,000 calories. What's that? Who's that crumble cookie or somebody that there's some, there's some cookie, an astronomic amount of calories. So what else, what else do you talk about in the book? Just some tease outs.

Well, first I actually talk about who I am and a little bit about my story. And really how this all began was my night in the ICU. Actually, it was four days, but I'm just going to call it that fateful night, like the total rebirth of who I am. Well, I was a poet going to publishing school in Boston. And I one, it was actually Valentine's Day in 2022. I actually was feeling all the symptoms

from diabetic ketoacidosis, which they don't teach you in primary or secondary school, and not even in medical schools for that matter. Amazing, Chris. Wow. Things you need to know. You need to know this you need to know this yeah

where to put the periods and commas exactly so um yeah i was just feeling all the symptoms and not to be gross or anything but that night i puked like four times and it was all black bile so yeah so that really goes to show there was a lot of acid in my system. There you go. That's Fridays around here at our house. Oh, goodness. You're killing me. But all jokes aside, I almost died that night. And I don't know how, I don't know when, but at one point I just couldn't walk anymore. And I wound up succumbing to my mom's decision to just go to the emergency room and

i'm so glad i did because i i almost died that night i had ketoacidosis you can too yeah you can and it actually is more than likely that you can wow well i am very thankful that i am the girl who lived yeah and went to the doctor. You definitely go to the doctor sometimes if stuff isn't wrong, people, you'd be surprised. I've had people that have had heart attacks in my office and they're, they're, they're kind of mild, but they're still having a heart attack. And they're like, I don't want to go. Don't call the ambulance. I'm like, you know, we're sure going, but, uh, you know, it's, it's one of those things. So, uh, tell us about your journey. You, you, you, it sounds like you may have battled some alcohol on there.

Give us your hero's journey so we kind of understand how you got here and more in depth of that. Yeah. So to my point earlier about being a poet in publishing school, like writers, we tend to drink a lot. Ernest Hemingway style, right? I was like living my, I call it my Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle I love the city um I practically swear by it so Sarah Jessica Parker if you're watching this I'm a fan so um um but all jokes aside I was drinking pretty much um more than two bottles of wine per week wow yeah or at least like one bottle of wine per week and um and that just wreaked havoc on my system and um even my brother could guess like oh

she's gonna be diabetic and i mean he i don't know if he was joking or if he was serious but again he's a comedic so we're're just going to leave it at that. Well, evidently, it did happen to you then, right? Yeah, and they're actually saying that with girls who are in their 20s like myself, I mean, I was 25 when I got it. Wow. And I'm 27 now and have fortunately beat diabetes, Um, although I still control it with durians, um, basic law,

which is the nighttime insulin and, um, and just overall nutrition and exercise. Like I said, I have a personal trainer. So, um, I,

um, yeah, I lost my train of thought here, but, um, you were saying about how you were going through the process of uh you know you're drinking a little bit too much were you eating badly like i did for 50 years where you're yeah i completely ignored my health like mcdonald's and stuff yeah i went

to mcdonald's got uber eats got all that jazz like i said i was pretty much whining and dining whining and dining there you go and um i wasn't really watching my weight as well and i look at pictures from say um november 2020 or 2021 actually and um so this was like post-covid and And I didn't realize this, but I was actually suffering from COVID at the time. Oh, really? And this thing, it's more so linked, especially with girls in their 20s, that can get type 2 diabetes from having COVID. Yeah, there's some damages that come from that. It inflames the organs and the over-inflaming the organs can permanently damage them because, you know, you're not supposed to overheat everything in your body. Last time I checked my thermometer, but you know, there's that.

Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, like I said, I was completely ignoring everything that I was putting in my body and um just not giving an f and just kind of um saying like c'est la vie and because um I'm a huge Emily in Paris fan as well so wow okay and um anything by Darren Star I like so there we go yes and so you you went on this journey you have your would you call this a moment of clarity or cathartic moment where you end up in the hospital? And where did you go from there? Yeah, so, well, first I'm going to start when I woke up. I'm very convinced that I was touched by an angel of some sort.

Oh, wow. Um, actually went to a psychic and they said it was actually someone on my dad's side of the family. Um, but, um, I don't know if that's necessarily true or not, but, um, we'll see. Um, we'll find out someday, I suppose. We'll find out someday. Nobody gets out of here alive last time I checked, so. Exactly. But yeah, in all seriousness, I wake up and doctors are interrogating me about where I am. And I think at one point I said I was at my boyfriend's dad's pool party.

I was so disoriented. And I remember just trying to look for my phone just to text my boyfriend like this is what's happening and like i didn't even know what was happening you're completely out of your your system's completely shutting down or something on you yeah i mean i'm lucky it wasn't shutting down i mean at that point i was just like okay where do we go from here and how do we treat this and um yeah and after i was done being interrogated i then get doctors telling me like you do know you're diabetic right i'm like wow i do now horrible way to find out isn't it yeah holy moly yeah that was the rebirth of me yeah and i'm in my second life as i say and um i don't know how many lives you get but i think this is the best one yeah my best advice

is to don't push it exactly you don't want to be like a cat i'm like let's see how many nine lives we can go through you don't want to don't test the waters that's my advice don't test the waters yeah especially with your health well said um so you go through this journey you get on the other side of it how do you how do you get to the point where you figure out how to balance what you're doing uh you develop this journal and help other people. Yeah. So this journal really came a year after my diagnosis. So a little over a year, I should say. And I really credit Rebecca Caffiero from the Pitch Club, founder of the Pitch Club, and my friend and time management coach Alejandro Marquez for really pushing me to write this journal and to eventually publish it, which goes to show that anything is possible if you have the right mindset.

And something I was going to talk about today, Chris, was the Cicero method, which is how I eventually beat diabetes. Oh, wow. Yeah. And Oh, wow. Yeah. And yeah, absolutely. So it's funny because I need fingers to count the acronym. So bear with me. So it's like confidence and intelligence create emotional resilience to optimize. There you go. The Cicero method.

And so there's CI for each of those. Is that correct? Yeah. Confidence and intelligence. There you go. The Cicero method. And so there's CI for each of those. Is that correct? Yeah. Confidence and intelligence. There you go. None of either, which I don't have. So there you go. Oh, I'm so glad. Yeah, I'm the community relief over here. So the Cicero method, I like this. Give us one more time if you would, so that we can get those. People can write those down when they're driving in the car or something. Don't do that, people. Yeah, don't do that.

So it stands for confidence and intelligence create emotional resilience to optimize. There you go. This is something I wasn't really cognizant that I was following in the beginning stages of my diagnosis. However, when I got out of the hospital and back home, I remember crying on my bed profusely, just thinking like, why did this happen to me? And like, how did this happen to me? And eventually I just kind of put all the puzzle pieces together, but it still remains a mystery. mystery and i remember thinking like you know what i can bitch and moan about this all i want or i can do something about it and i i decided to do something about it i chose the latter because that's the best thing you can do in terms of dealing with a chronic illness. And it's because of that I'm able to teach and empower women all over the world about how to deal with their chronic illness and how to eventually beat their chronic illness.

Because it's possible. But first you have to know that you are not alone. That's possible. But first you have to know that you are not alone. That's true. And that's the great thing about stories and books and everything else is people share their issues, their stories, and they help other people succeed. And so now you coach women. You help them feel better about themselves. I know women probably maybe more than men. They put more on their self-esteem and their personal value

as how they look and how they weigh. I know women have issues with the scale that most men don't. I look at it and go, whatever, man. But I know it's a big deal for them. Do I have that correct? I think you have it correct. I think it's both a women and men's issue and those are non-binary

there you go i think that um you know and it's like i said before break up with the scale because really it's not that doesn't determine your worth it doesn't determine your character it doesn't determine basically anything because you are not your weight. And diet culture really wants us to think that. And I'm fortunate enough to be a diet culture dropout. And to tell you the truth, Chris, I think that all of my binge eating, my alcoholism really stemmed from the trauma that I went through in middle school, high school, and even beyond in college. Like, I remember in middle school, I was bullied severely. And I talk about this more on my Instagram, at theapriltheterico. And, yeah, it's just like, I think about it, and I'm like, how did that happen?

Like, obviously, you can't control everything that happened in your life sure but you can control how you deal with things how you react to things yeah and that's where the emotional intelligence comes from in my sister method there you go hey can you hang on for one second hey with things weight machine we're breaking up pack your shit and move out. Sorry, I had to do that joke. It sounded lame at the time, but it came out better than I thought it would. So there you go. And I mean now.

Don't make me angry. I don't know what that means. So, you know, we tend to eat our feelings sometimes. We tend to use food sometimes to deal with the insecurities or emotions uh you know we've had people on the on the uh on the on the on the show that have written books about how uh we need to be aware of our emotions and our feelings and sometimes we're reacting to them without really thinking about them you know uh you know sometimes you're not really hungry you're just eating something maybe for comfort or it's going to taste good or it's going to make you feel good.

I'm going to a movie tonight. I'm going to see Metallica in concert. And I'm already prepping myself to not buy the big giant popcorn thing. Because the next morning I'm going to hate myself eating that, you know, jumbo popcorn with, I don't know, the industrial oil, gasoline, whatever butter they put on, which I'm pretty sure is the same thing they put in cars. And so I'm already prepping myself going, you're only getting a small bag, buddy, and the small Coke. So there you go. But we tend to, I like to go to movies and my favorite thing is eating a big thing of popcorn. And there's this equation. When I lost weight, I had to realize there were these

lies that I would tell myself in my head. Like I would go to the store and I'd be like, I, you know, I do all this work here at the store buying all this sugary shit and fatty stuff that I'm going to take home and eat. And I'll get myself a Coke and a candy bar on the way out as a reward. You know, and then it occurred to me one day i'm like you're not rewarding yourself you're destroying yourself this isn't this isn't a reward if you want to reward yourself buy some grapes or you know i don't get some get something healthier more to eat and so we kind of we kind of have this weird sort of mnemonics that we use or whatever, what's the word I'm looking for, where we associate emotions or things to food and we use it as a silly reasoning and then we tend to try and

comfort ourselves with food and it's probably not the best path to go down. Yeah, I agree. I mean, emotional eating is unfortunately one of the unspecified eating disorders that you can have. And the problem with diet culture is that people think that like, well, I shouldn't be eating anything. And like you said, when you do eat something, it's like a reward. However, it's kind of like a no-win situation because again diet culture is a huge bitch and um that should be the top the title of your next book diet culture the huge bitch exactly i think it should be like that i'm up for that i'm up for

that as well let's see that yeah but'm up for that as well. Let's see that. Yeah, but the thing about rewarding yourself is that there are better ways to do it. I mean, I think of the song from Grease, like there are worse things I could do. The song that Rizzo sings, Stalker Channing. And I think about my recent journey with exercising. And I'm addicted to strength training at this point. Oh, wow. Yeah. And, um, it's done wonders for me. It's helped me, um, to battle those alcohol cravings and to battle even coffee cravings. Um, I mean, I still have an espresso here and there, but it's not harmful. And, and that's what you got to realize it's the balance and one thing that i tell my

clients and basically everyone everyone around the world even on podcasts is to just like manage your chronic illness without harsh restriction and i mean restricting yourself will only make you feel unhappy, and it leads to wellness with obsession, which is what we don't want. Yeah, and so you don't drink coffee either then, huh? No. I mean, occasionally I would crave a cup here and there, but I remember pouring myself a coffee this morning because we had a tornado warning here in Rhode Island. What? Yeah, it was so bad. Is that is that normal i mean it's gone now and um it fizzled out by like 10 a.m um i'm not sure where

you're located chris but uh oh utah yeah yeah so you're on the other side of the country does rhode island normally have tornadoes i thought it was kind of like you know the southern middle part of the country um no it's actually um east coast um okay yeah east coast i know we're having something really weird we're having our first hurricane maybe on california right now it's really freaking out yeah like 140 years or something it's our first one oh wow i didn't know that yeah yeah it's a lot of weird weather going on today. Yeah. Regardless, I was having a really stressful morning. And this is also where the cravings kind of show up in most people in stressful situations.

However, there are better ways to manage your stress. And that could be through journaling. It could be through meditation. It could be through journaling. It could be through a meditation. It could be through prayer. I mean, no matter what higher power you believe in, you really just got to make a promise to yourself, to yourself, because before you believe in God or the universe,

you have to believe in yourself, that you can make these changes all on your own. Because it's really the confidence that you can make these changes all on your own. And because like, it's really the confidence that you have in yourself that you can, that you can really beat your diagnosis. Yeah, definitely. You have to have confidence in yourself.

You have to move from, you know, like what you talked about early in being in the hospital bed and you're in the victim is you're in the victim mode. You're going, why me? Why this happened to me? And then you move from that to the empowerment mode where you embody confidence and you embody self-actualization

where you can embody losing weight and taking care of your health. And that is what gets you through the process. Does that sound correct? Yep, that's absolutely correct. There you go. So now you're on the other side of it. How do you work with people when you coach them and help them? Tell us about some of the different things that you offer to people in your variations because usually some people times coaches have multiple different programs they utilize to help people. Yeah, so right now I'm offering 90-day coaching which will soon be year long coaching, because really, a transformation does not take 90 days. I mean, it takes 90 days to successfully build habits like healthy habits, but it does not take 90 days to completely cure your illness. And I can't guarantee that you will absolutely cure your illness right off the bat. But I can guarantee that you will walk away with the confidence and intelligence that you need to go about your life on a daily basis with your illness.

There you go. And to be the woman that you were meant to be. There you go. I want to be the woman that I was meant to be. So there go. I want to be the woman that I was meant to be. So there you go. I'm just kidding. You never know. There's still time.

And so you help people do that. You work with mainly women, I guess. Do you work with men at all? I'm open to working with men. There you go. And like I said, I'm going through a massive rebranding. Like Be Well by April Wilson will will be in the pink ink. It's just a whole new journey for me.

As you can tell, I love pink. In the pink means being healthy. There you go. I think it's a perfect rebrand. There you go.'s important uh barbie was uh just on she had a big pink thing going on pink so women love pink there you go um it's uh it's i guess is it a favorite color women pink pretty much um it depends on who you ask okay well i

you know you guys you guys are so good about knowing like just amazing amounts of variations of color as men we just gonna go blue green red i don't know i don't know i still don't know what magenta is so uh but it's great that someone does because the world's a lot more beautiful that way uh so you have your youtube channel too where you give people advice you have your instagram where you give people advice Let's talk a little bit about What you talk about I never realized how important the gut health is

Let's get into some gut health Let's get into the gut Let's get right down there in the gut I sound like one of those opera singer vocal teachers Let's get in the gut Talk to us about gut health And why that's important and why the crap you're putting your gut makes a difference yeah so hippocrates was right when he said that you

basically are what you eat you consume and and it's true because like if you're um uh what's the nice way of saying this um fat yeah i guess so but um i don't like saying i did it i did it for you i don't like saying that word at all i'm just putting that there right now overly sizable sizable or i'll just put overweight there you go let's call it what it is yeah call it let's call it what it is. Yeah. Call it, call it like it is. And, and usually I'm a really blunt person. So usually that's not a problem for me, but you never know.

You never know. Exactly. So yeah, like say if you're overweight and you're just consuming like alcohol, you're consuming all this crap that you're just like, like processed meats processed everything processed cereal the whole nine yards and that's just eventually going to affect your mood as well because your gut is essentially your second brain and it's true when they say um

that the intuition that you have in your gut is like your brain. There you go. A lot of people tend to ignore their gut feelings. You really shouldn't because if your gut is telling you to do something, you do it. But in all seriousness, yeah, gut health is really important and there's so much research being done as we speak. I mean, i'm a gut

health consultant so i deal with this stuff on a daily basis so um and there's constant misinformation out there so that just goes to show be careful where you find your sources there you go there's there's a lot of guys online uh guys and girls i suppose online that create a lot of different things but from my understanding the gut is directly tied to the brain. And if you have inflammation in the gut and you have issues with crap you're putting in there where you have poor gut health, you don't have enough probiotics, there's all sorts of different ways, especially with alcohol, you can wipe the gut biome, those wonderful bacteria that eat stuff and help you digest and, you know, make all that stuff good for, you know, disposal.

Inflaming of the gut can inflame your brain. We've had some doctors on that have claimed. Absolutely. Yeah. And I've learned over the years that the happier your gut is, the happier you'll be because, you know, you're not sitting there in the fetal position holding your stomach going, why did I stop at Taco Bell again? Yeah, it's true. You are what you eat and you eventually become what you eat as well. And in my case, I became diabetic and I was putting all this crap in my body.

And what I didn't realize at the time was that healing your gut, and you've probably seen all these memes saying, why is every female trying to heal their gut? And it's true. We are trying to heal our gut. And it's true. We are trying to heal our guts because, and men should too, because, you know what? Gut health is not only important,

but it's also vital for a healthy life. There you go. You talk about this on your website. The gut microbial helps break down complex carbohydrates, synthesizes vitamins, regulates your immune system, influences over metabolic processes. We had one doctor on the show who's, I mean, he's been a doctor for 30 years, a pediatrician and family doctor,

and he suggested that he's been able to heal certain amounts of autism, like not heal it permanently. I don't want to make a claim out there. Don't, don't take this the wrong way people, but he's been able to reduce the effects of autism in some kids, in some kids folks, uh, by taking care of their gut health. And he's found that, that when, if the gut's inflamed, there are signals that go to the brain, then inflame it. And a lot of that inflammation can cause, uh, autism to be worse. And so he's, he's found different ways to do it. So I was really

surprised by, you know, by, you know, all this data on how to do it. And I never really thought about it. I'm like, ah, my gut, you know, it's the, it's a trash sewer system of the, of the body, you know, whatever, man, have fun with that. But, you know, now I've had to learn to love my gut and go, let's put some good stuff in there so that, you know, I'm not in a fetal position after Taco Bell night on Fridays. Yeah. There you go. And so talk to us about the correlation between gut health and type 2 diabetes. How do those two equate and relate?

The correlation between type 2 diabetes and gut health is that, well, I'm just going to start with the alcohol portion of it because that's what I went through. It really messes with the gut microbiome and it messes with the healthy gut bacteria in your microbiome and also in your overall stomach. And you really should be consuming probiotics, which are in the healthiest foods you can eat and the probiotics, which are in say chickpeas and um so yeah the correlation between type 2 diabetes and gut health is simple your diet wow and a lot of people that you know i've had people say well i have diabetes or i've gotten diabetes i've had friends that have gotten diabetes type 2 diabetes because there is a difference uh between that and type i think one

um where uh if you don't have the damaged organs you you can come back from diabetes if you improve your diet you know start exercising start taking care of your body and quit using it as a dump for chemicals and in that you call food uh you know i I mean, it's so interesting, some of the crap that we have in our food. But, you know, I've had friends that were borderline diabetic or diagnosed with diabetes, and they've been able to come back off of it just by exercising, managing what they eat and everything else.

Now, you're a nutritionalist, so we've talked about reading labels and the backs of those labels. Let's get dig into that a little bit. Why is that important? Yeah. So it's important because, well, one, they don't really teach you much about this stuff in primary or secondary schools and not even in medical schools for that matter. However, um, I became a nutritionist because I want to know what exactly everyone is putting in their bodies. Obviously, I'm not monitoring what people eat, but I do give suggestions and I'm getting a little off topic here, but the importance of reading a nutrition label is that you don't know exactly what you're putting in your body. So if you don't recognize an ingredient, it's possible that your gut's not going to recognize it as well.

And it's obviously going to react in a certain way that it probably shouldn't in a healthy manner. Yeah. It's going to be like, hey, man, what are you eating here? I don't remember finding this in the woods when I was a healthy manner. Yeah, it's going to be like, hey man, what are you eating here, eh? I don't remember finding this in the woods when I was a caveman. It's kind of interesting how our bodies are so attuned to still kind of what we ate from a caveman sort of aspect, like nuts, berries,

you know, good, healthy vegan sort of food. Yeah. That's called the paleo diet, Chris. Yeah. That's something I somewhat follow.

Um, I follow what's called, um, what Dr. Mark Hyman calls the pagan diet, which is like a vegan slash paleo diet, which is completely vegan. Um, I love meat, so that's not an option for me to cut it out. So it's kind of good for you too. I mean, sometimes a little bit of everything, but you can't have too much of anything really. I mean, I don't know. Maybe you can eat too much wheatgrass. You probably can. I don't know. I'm not going to try either. You know, we have a little of that every day. So, you know, one of the problems I have with nutritional labels is, and it still gets me this

day. Like I'll look at the back, I'll look at the calories, I'll look at, you know, okay, fat, sugar, and then it's that nutritional, it's the serving size that always gets me why is why is it important for us to follow that yeah so a common misconception chris that people have with nutrition labels is um when they look at the calories they think it's the calories of the entire box or something like the entire can whatever you're eating drinking but um the point point is that it's actually the amount of calories in a single serving. So, for example, if there are 100 calories in a single serving of popcorn, I'm just saying popcorn because that's what I'm going to go have today. I totally

forgot about that to be honest with you. With the engine oil butter. I'm going to call it the engine oil butter from here. Yeah, just call it that from now on. It looks like it when it comes out of the pump. Exactly. That's the amount you're going to get in a single serving.

That's the amount that you're potentially consuming. I think you know what I'm going to get in a single serving. And that's the amount that you're potentially consuming. Yeah. I think, you know, I'm going to do when I go to see the movie tonight, I'm just going to take a stick of butter, which is it's natural butter,

which is probably better than the engine oil butter that comes out of the pump there at the movie theater. And I'm just going to, you know, buy the popcorn butter free. And then I'm just going to bite off chunks of the butter because that might be healthier than the engine oil butter. I don't know. I might get sued by the movie theaters for saying that, but I don't care anymore. So let's talk about this tracker. Let's round

bound to your book as we go out. So in the tracker, why is it important to track your food, keep a journal and pick up your book so that people can track what's going into their gut? Yeah, well, it's not just for gut health, but it's also for diabetics as well. And you really don't have to be a diabetic to buy my book. I mean, you can buy it solely just to track your food. Because one primary reason that people track their food is so that they can lose weight. And it's important for people on a weight loss journey to know what they're putting in their bodies and what foods are making them react a certain way. And maybe they're maybe if they

drink a cup of coffee, and it's making them sick, well well that's probably a sign for them to stop drinking coffee or at least go see a doctor or something like that and um and put that on their to-do list and and also just um like say if they're eating like you know red meat and it causes them to get sick they probably want to chart that as well. Yeah. Especially if you haven't got that refrigerated. That's probably another reason why that's working out. You're getting sick? Hey, did you leave that out for a week on the counter? Yeah, that's probably why you're getting sick from eating that meat there, buddy. So watch out for that.

So people can track this. You know, the problem with, you know not not tracking and you know because everybody cheats a little bit now every now and then they they you know you go off the you go you know you go to mcdonald's for a day and then maybe you're like uh let's go back one more time and then you know then you're back into old habits and old problems you create. Is that the way most people go? Because I know that's the way I usually go. Wait, did you ask like if... If people don't keep track of their food intake

and maybe they're eating good for a while, they're putting it in the journal and then they go, I'm going to have a cheat day or something and then kind of the cheat day becomes two and three and four, five. And they're not putting it in their journal. So they're not being self-accountable. Yeah.

It's all about having that accountability for yourself. Because, I mean, my personal trainer recommends like at least one to two cheat days per week. Oh, really? Yeah. I believe that too. And I'm not talking like eating like crap for a whole day like maybe just having like um uber eats for a meal or like something healthy like something healthy or something like pizza um but regardless i it kind of goes um it's kind

of counterintuitive to what i really teach about enjoying foods without restriction. However, it is important not to restrict yourself of foods that you love. However, it is all about being accountable for what you decide to put in your body. I mean, if you feel like crap, that's on you. If the food you eat makes you feel like crap and you end up lashing out on other people, then that's on you. And it does affect our mood and our state of mind. Because if you feel awful, you tend to maybe emotionally react or treat other people awful because you feel like crap and you're ground down. I used to have a problem where I would eat garbage and then go to sleep and I wouldn't sleep

well. And then that just creates a compounding effect of where you're just miserable. You just become a miserable person and you're overweight, so you don't feel good. You can't fit in your clothes and you just want to murder everyone, which is a bad thing, according to the judge that has to be on parole uh i'm just kidding people it's a judge joke on a callback um so so anything more we want to tease out about your book and what's inside and all that good stuff yeah well the first thing i would say is to definitely keep august 25th on your calendar and just buy the paperback and i'm on kindle right now for 2.99 so that's 2.99 for clarification i've had that problem before where i um or someone says like four or something i'm like 400

i'm like i'm like they're like no no no i'm like so i had to clarify that so it's probably in the show notes. And yeah. But you definitely want the book when it comes out because it's a little harder to keep that journal right on your, if you start writing on your Kindle, it's probably not going to come off. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. So I do. And I'm someone who likes to put pen to paper and that's how I remember stuff well. So there you go. There you go uh so any final

thoughts what do you want people to come away from when they read your book and also tell them how people can reach out to you work with you and get to know you better yeah absolutely well you can first follow me on instagram at the april federico that's federico f E D E R I C O and April like the month and then the the before that so there you go there'll be a link on the Chris Voss show and people going to order the book uh on your website they can reach out to you send you an email uh maybe communicate with you through Instagram yep and you can email me at aprilfedericonutrition at gmail.com. There you go. There you go. Well, it's been delightful to have you on the show, uh, April, we've learned so much from you and, uh, hopefully we can get some people to improve

their health and get to work with you and, uh, make your lives better. And, uh, you know, these crash course diets people get on are crazy i mean it really is just you know just take care of what you're putting in your mouth and i think there's a lot of you know people like oh i'm on this diet i'm on that diet and they're just constantly on these diet trends and fads and a lot of them really aren't that good for you like i remember i years years and years ago i i remember looking at some of the little diet drinks that you would drink that have been around forever. And, you know, I used to see them on TV all the time. And I started looking at them and I started looking at the sugar and some of the ingredients in them.

And I'm like, these aren't really helping me at all. No. And that's the key. It's those hidden ingredients that will eventually put you on the edge. Definitely. For example, and I'm not talking badly about these drinks, but the Celsius drinks. Oh, yeah. They're a good substitute for coffee.

However, they do have a significant amount of sucralose in them, which is a stuff to find in Splenda. There's always these hidden sugars nowadays. I was reading a New York Times article about all the different hidden ways they've taken in hidden sugar and high fructose corn syrup. And they have different names for it. I think one's called Mono something. And you'll read the labels. Now you have to look it up because they have trick words that they use for it now. Or I'll see, it's sugar-free, but it has stevia in it.

You're like, wait. I don't know. So there you go. People can order up your book wherever fine books are sold. Diabetes Plate, your comprehensive food tracker for type 2 diabetes. Thanks for coming on the show, April. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Chris, for having me.

There you go. And thanks to my audience for tuning in. Go to goodreach.com, Fortuness Chris Foss. YouTube.com, Fortuness Chris Foss. Follow there on the TikTok. We're starting it cool on the TikTok, Chris Foss 1 and LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, all those crazy places. Thanks

for tuning in. Be good to each other. Lose some weight. Eat healthy. And we'll see you guys next time. And that should have us out.