The Dr. Josh Axe Show - Curb Cravings and Raise Healthy Kids | Kelly LeVeque

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Raising happy, healthy kids is no easy feat, especially amidst today’s sugar-loaded, stressed-out world. Holistic nutritionist and celebrity health coach Kelly LeVeque is here to share her tips and tricks to the art of parenting. In this uplifting episode, Kelly sits down with Dr. Josh Axe to share her pillars for family nutrition, bust sugar cravings, and reveal tips to get kids excited about real food. You’ll discover: The science behind Kelly’s formula for balancing blood sugar How to curb sugar cravings without deprivation Surprising nutrients that boost kids' brain health and prevent cognitive decline Clever ways to keep kids nourished The importance of having kids help with cooking meals Easy, delicious recipes your entire family will love This heartwarming and practical conversation will inspire you to create lifelong healthy habits for your household. Tune in to gain Kelly’s wisdom for fostering family wellness! Want more of The Growth Lab with Dr. Josh Axe? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook Tik-Tok Follow Kelly LeVeque Instagram Facebook YouTube Follow Leaders Instagram Twitter Facebook Email Newsletter ------- Links:  https://bewellbykelly.com/  Shop BWBK Protein Powder → https://bit.ly/3Uoh4T1  Watch The Be Well Podcast → https://bit.ly/3HItG00  Check out Kelly LeVeque’s Fab 4 Nutrition Courses → https://bit.ly/3HHh1KB Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two biggest deficiencies women have during pregnancy, and I'll kind of throw a third in there, but protein is probably the biggest. Healthy fats is the next. And then after that, it's things that build your blood, just generally speaking, which is green leafies, it's beats, it's part of what you talk about, you know, you're the fab, you're number four on your list. And so to create a new organ, a new person and a new or like, even building the placenta, it is so much blood, it's so much collagen, and your body's using so many stem cells. And so it's really, as you mentioned, is just create these stem cells, protein.

You have to have protein. Welcome back to the ancient health podcast, where we educate you on real health solutions that will help transform the way you live, feel, and overcome disease naturally. I'm your host, Courtney Bersage, along with Dr. Josh Axe and Dr. Chris Motley. We're so happy you've joined us.

Let's dive into today's episode. Hey everybody, Dr. Josh Axe here. Welcome to the show. This week on our podcast, we have a holistic nutritionist, Kelly Leveck. She works with a lot of celebrities. She wrote the book Body Love. She's also a mom of three. And she's somebody I followed for years in terms of learning a lot of her health insights and ways to balance health and family life.

And just generally being our best selves and so excited to have her today. Kelly, welcome the show. Hey, thanks, Josh. I'm so happy to be back. And like, it's just really great to see you. Well, you know, one of the things that I know that you and I share in common is this idea of, you know, there are there are certain things we have to have in our diet. Right.

And so, you know, a lot of times I see this happen to where people kind of go really far one way or really one far another. Now, I do believe that sometimes there's a time in place for that, right? So we have kind of the vegan diet on one side, and maybe we have carnivore or even lion diet, something like that far on the other. And I actually do think there's a time in place sometimes for some of those certain seasons in life, certain conditions, if we're talking about personalized nutrition. But I think what you teach really is relevant to the masses of people who are looking to lose

weight, burn fat, overcome disease, get healthy. And so I want to ask you about sort of what are those foundational pieces? Before I ask you that question, that's going to be question number two, what sort of got you into this field of health and nutrition? Yeah. Okay. So what got me in was I spent eight years in cancer and genetics. I actually went to undergrad for business finance and realized when I took nature of

human health and disease, my junior year at USC came home that summer, to my dad and said I should have been pre-med. And he went, that's great, honey, but I've been able to support you through college. So when you graduate, you're on your own. And USC is a, you know, at like most colleges, it's a price to pay. And so I said, how can I get into the health field from a business angle? From a business angle. And so I went into cancer and genetics. I spent eight years in cancer and genetics, really focusing on genetic pathways that grow tumors, focused in women's health, ovarian cancer and breast cancer. I was on the imaging side.

It was profoundly eye-opening and also equally scary to know that there were really healthy people coming into these offices with cancer. And also on the flip coin, people that weren't taking care of themselves coming in with cancer. And as you dive into the research, and I was sharing this research with oncologists, you know, an increase in A1C increases your chance of cancer. And so there were things that I said, wait a second, I've always loved health and nutrition. I've always loved being able to distill down this information and make it accessible to my friends and family.

There might be a career in this and there are things that are in our control. Yes, you know, you've heard the saying that your genes are the gun and you're, you're, or the bullet and your life choices pull the trigger. I just really wanted to inspire my family and my friends. And I was talking about it at a lot of parties, a lot of like hikes with friends. My girlfriend, Angela, finally said, enough's enough. Go back to school.

And so I went back to school to become a health coach at first and ultimately went back to school to get all my premed sciences and my nutrition courses through UCLA and UC Berkeley and took the clinical nutrition exam. but ultimately wanted to just empower people with things that would make a difference in their outcomes. Like, we know that our food choices are, you know, implicate our chances of having cancer, of having diabetes, of having heart disease, of having stroke. I mean, we can't just like close our eyes, live our life, and then wake up in our 40s, 50s, and 60s with, you know, our body,

failing us. And especially I feel that now as a mom of three boys, you know, my husband and I just did full body MRI scans through Ezra. You know, like there are other brands that do that. But I like to take, I like, I think knowledge is power. And that gives us the opportunity to make really important decisions for our longevity. And so I'm super passionate about it. And I have been since I was younger. But I think I didn't really see a future for me working. in the hospital system as an RD because there are too many contracts with big, large businesses where, you know, the tray goes to the room and there is milk and cornbread and waffles and pancakes. The patient has diabetes. Like I didn't see myself in the position

to make real change in that. So ultimately, you know, it was a winding road to get to where I was. But I started my private practice in 2012. And I took it. full time in 2015 and wrote my first book in 2016. So it was it like it doesn't happen overnight, but I think if you have the passion and you're sharing it with the people that you love, you really can make a difference in people's lives and how healthy they are in a later age. And we all want to, you know, everyone's like working for retirement and trying to, you know, get to be able to enjoy their life. I'm like, why aren't we doing, why aren't we enjoying our life now, feeling the best that we can feel now, and also setting ourselves up to be hiking at 75 with our grandkids.

Yeah. Yeah. By the way, I love your background, being able to go and learn about, you know, genetics and cancer and hormones and all the things you were able to learn. And you mentioned their A1C levels. And so for everybody, you mentioned that's, you know, it's blood sugar. And it's just such an important part of, well, most conditions. I mean, we know that essentially, I would say the majority of conditions are related to either stress and cortisol release causing, you know, inflammation or its food. And then that's also, you know, causing blood sugar and balance.

Well, the same thing happens. If anybody has worn any, any device like an oar ring or woup band or any of those sort of devices, one of the things you'll notice is that when you get have anxiety, your blood sugar, you know, spikes. I wore levels packed. Have you ever seen, you know, and I don't know if you, you have any of your patients ever do our clients do glucose monitoring. But, you know, it was really interesting to me. It's like, wow, if I was on a, you know, if I got really worked up about something or got stressed about anything, how, you know, how stress in a very similar way to eating, you know, eating sugar, how that affects your, your insulin. And so for everybody listening, I mean, really one of the absolute keys to healing your body.

into, you know, staving off cancer is to keep your blood sugar levels balanced. And one of the things I know that you do, Kelly, and working before we started filming, you know, you talked about working with Halliberry, you know, you're working with her now and Jennifer Garner and just some, you know, incredible Hollywood talent. You know, what are some of the core principles that you teach them that help them, you know, feel and look, you know, 10 to 20 years younger, but also getting them looking really fit, like someone like a Halliberry or Jennifer Garner for an upcoming film. Yeah. I'm so glad you asked because this applies to everyone. You know, they specialize in being

phenomenal actors and they're interested in health, but they need the basics. And I think, as I said earlier, I love to distill the science down into the basics. And so when it comes to blood sugar balance, I know there are hacks out there and things you can do. and supplements you can take, but the reality is our body needs essential things, and those essential things actually support blood sugar balance as well. So those four things are protein. So I think amino acids from animal-based proteins to plant-based proteins based on your lifestyle, fatty acids, those are your omega-3s, right? That's coming from fish. You can get fatty acids from nuts and seeds as well. Those are plant-based. They're slightly

different, but they're still important, right? And then, then fiber and leafy greens. So when I think about fiber, I think about vegetables and fruits, but primarily vegetables as a source of fiber, but also things like avocado. They serve up an amazing amount of fat and fiber. So you're kind of hitting both buckets. So protein fat, fiber, and leafy greens are vegetables deep in color. And the vegetables deep in color piece, we're looking for antioxidants.

We're looking for polyphenols. We're looking for carotenoids. We're looking for, you know, luteins, zanthine, all these things that protect our brain and fight that oxidative stress. And so it's interesting to me that you just brought up stress being something that causes your cortisol to spike and you can see a change in blood sugar on your level of glucose monitor. I don't think people realize that blood sugar can change when we're not eating too. So the times when that happens, it's really aggressive working out.

Sons, for example, things that really stress our body and our body goes, ooh, is Josh running from a bear, we should give him some sugar, some glucose. So your body dumps all this glucose into your bloodstream, your blood sugar spikes and crashes. And this can happen also for moms trying to get their kids out the door, for people getting ready for a presentation at work, like people overcaffeinating. And so so many times I'll sit down with clients and they're under eating the essentials, protein, healthy fats, vegetables, fruits, whatever. whatever it is. They're significantly under eating and we'll get to what they're under eating, but they're stressing their body in a way. And what they don't realize is they probably have a crash in glucose that's increasing anxiety that is that is also leaving them full of insulin

in a state where their body's probably not burning their own fat for fuel or in a very calm, easygoing state. And they think, oh, this is just who I am or this is just how I feel. And I go, no, actually, when you're stressing your body, let's say you're taping a scene or Josh are being interviewed for the morning news or you're presenting to your team, you may feel good going into that fasted. You may feel really sharp, but it's so critically important to come out and fuel with the things that balance blood sugar. So protein has. has little to no effect on blood sugar. Fat, no effect on blood sugar. When you talk about fiber-rich veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, and even nuts that are kind of that mixed macronutrients

of protein fat and fiber, we're just seeing a very little blip on our blood sugar monitor. You know, I use levels. I love levels. I invested in that technology. I think what I've seen in practice is when I put levels on a client, what is so, amazing is they do the work. They see the data and then and it doesn't make them stressed out about food. It actually allows them to learn about their food choices. It gives them freedom to eat a little bit more. And, um, and what I love about what I call the fad for that protein fat fiber and greens is I use it with clients who are getting ready for these big movies. I use it for myself when I look at the plate or when I'm making a smoothie. So many times the smoothie is just full of fruit and there's no other

macro nutrients in that or like critically important pillars of health like that protein fat fiber and greens. And I use it with my kids. So it really is applicable to everyone. And it doesn't, you don't have to know blood sugar science to look at your plate and go, hmm, I guess I just have salad and like some, they're trying to be healthy, but they're under eating protein or they're trying to be healthy and there's no produce on their plate. Like there, it's such an easy check. list to say, check, check, check. Oh, I feel really good about my food choices. You can do it at a restaurant.

It's great. Kelly, can I ask you? It was really interesting when I, when I used my levels blood glucose monitor. And I would, it was interesting. I would notice if I would eat too much fruit, that's when it would spike. And so, like, for instance, if I tend to do coconut milk in a smoothie and I'll do some, like bone broth protein or collagen protein. Probably,

usually about, probably close to 50 grams is about what I do there in the morning. And then what I'll do is I'll add in some fruit. And I noticed if I did about three, fours, a half a cup of fruit, about like, you know,

something like that, I was good. But if I did like a, even a cup or more than a cup, I would notice on my, I was like, okay, whoa,

that's too much. And so it actually allowed me to really dial in about doing three fourths a cup. That's what my body can tolerate. It was really interesting. And then certain foods I thought, well, there's no way that this is going to affect my blood sugar did. Like I thought potatoes would cause my blood sugar to spike. But surprisingly, it didn't actually affect me that much versus certain fruits.

Like if I had a banana or other things, I saw a much bigger spike. So anyways, it's pretty fascinating too that, you know, certain things, certain foods actually affect people differently. How much do you encourage your clients to also listen to their bodies? Is there any level of also kind of trying to dial in? And by the way, I think what you're doing is, I mean, you're hitting the foundations, right? Protein, healthy fats, fiber, and nutrient dense, you know, green leafies and things like that. It's right on. It's what most people need.

But how much catering does sometimes you need to do for people? Well, I want to touch on the fact that, you know, in the beginning of my career and when I first started teaching blood sugar balance, I had to people say, you're demonizing fruit. And I'm like, I'm not, I'm not demonizing fruit. We just have to be, you can't, you can't deny the fact that eating fruit on an empty stomach is going to cause a massive blood sugar spike. Putting too much fruit in your smoothie is going to derail your goals because what happens is, is we have these artificial senses of hunger that come from a blood sugar crash. So on average, your blood sugar goes up for 90 minutes and comes down for 90 minutes. And in a standard American diet, it can deviate 30, 40, 50 points up and 50 points down.

That's milligrams per deciliter. And in the reality of it, I can make a smoothie. And my Fab For smoothie recipe actually keeps fruit to a fourth to a half a cup. Fourth, if you're picking pineapple, mango, or banana, something tropical and very high in sugar. And a half a cup. And people, you know, I know that people are going to use the half a cup scoop. or they're going to eyeball it. But I'm using a half a cup for low glycemic berries.

And they're like, you're demonizing fruit. I'm like, no, what I'm actually doing is I'm lowering your curve, your blood sugar curve. So you don't deviate up 30 points or 40 points from your smoothie because it's liquid. It's digested faster. I don't want you crashing and being hungry and needing a morning snack. I want that smoothie to sustain you, which means you absolutely have to have protein in it.

You have to have fat to slow down the digestion of that meal. Fiber also slows down the digestion of that meal so that it's not like drinking orange juice. We're slowing you down. We're elongating that curve. I'm not demonizing fruit. Please don't not put fruit in your smoothie. Add those polyphenols. Add those blackberries, those blueberries.

These are so protective of ourselves. But again, everything is in balance. And I think people think balance is staying still. Absolutely not. Like your body is creating the state of homeostasis and you can support it. And so a fab for smoothie on average is a nine or a 10 on levels. And we see no more than at the highest, a 20 point deviation. But on average, we're like under 10.

And I get DMs all the time for people who get on levels and say, oh, my gosh, my fab four smoothie. I am, you know, I'm not even hungry until 1 o'clock in the afternoon. That's never happened to me with a smoothie. or I'm not thinking about lunch. And that's because they're not crashing into lunch. They're actually just satisfied. And then that without the crash, they don't feel this immediate hunger. They kind of go, hmm, I'm kind of feeling hungry.

And I always say, please back it up. Like if you're all of a sudden you realize at one or two o'clock, oh my gosh, I'm so hungry, please back it up. And, you know, make sure you're making your lunch or ordering your lunch at like 12 or 1230. Because I don't want people at a state where they're. so hungry that they overeat. But I also, you know, it's amazing what can happen when we really understand the science. And so you also said you put 40 grams of protein in your smoothie, sometimes closer to 50.

Protein's been demonized in the last decade, maybe more, especially when, you know, we're talking about global warming or we're talking about health and TikTok and, you know, if they're getting small sound bites of information and they really don't understand your neurotransmitters, your hormones, your epithelial lining of your gut, your, you know, like your skin, your muscles, your hair, like everything is made of amino acids of protein. I am breastfeeding. I breastfeed my boys. I'm lucky to do this. I realize because I have my own business, but 18 months to two years, I am giving all of that protein, all of those essential amino acids, all of those nutrients away to them. Like, I need to be having one to 1.2 grams of protein per pound of body mass.

And that is like shocking to people. And when I sit down with clients, I'm like 100 grams a day. And if you can prioritize breakfast, what we see is a decrease of cravings at late night. That afternoon slump that you have, it doesn't happen. The cravings you have for chips, crackers, salt, all those things, totally, totally lessen. And so you think about all these things like, Ozambic. Like why is it working? It's working because people don't crave food anymore.

Guess what? Protein does that too. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's so good. You know, one of the things that I discovered working with patients in the past who were pregnant or even, you know, these conversations with my own wife is that two biggest deficiencies women have during pregnancy and I'll kind of throw a third in there, but, you know, protein is probably the biggest. Healthy fats is the next. And then after that, it's things that build your blood,

just generally speaking, which is green leafies, it's beats. It's part of what you talk about, you know, you're, you know, the fab, you're number four on your list. And so, you know, to create a new organ, a new person and a new or like, build, even building the placenta, it is so much blood. it's so much collagen and your body's using so many stem cells. And so it's really, as you mentioned, it's create these stem cells, protein. You have to have protein. And so it's, it's big. It's also really counterintuitive for women.

I think we feel like, ooh, if I'm eating all this protein or if I'm adding amino acids or even like creatines become popular, for example, again, it's like cyclical. I think. Yes, yes. They're like, well, I'm doing hit training. I don't want to get bulky. And I will tell you time and time and time and time again, when I get someone having, and these are women, me included, I'm having my smoothie.

And I told you before the show, I'm having three ounces of ground beef on the side of that smoothie to really just up my nutrient density to get that protein in. I don't think about snacking. I don't think about food in between. and the weight falls off. Like, it is amazing to see, and it's not, it's, it's, what's left is a very strong physical body. And the women that I work with are like, I have never been this strong. And I think I was under eating protein.

It's like every single time. And it's so. Hey, Kelly, you, you mentioned this earlier and I didn't want to, I, I don't want people to miss this. Because you had symptoms yourself when you weren't getting enough protein. I think you mentioned your hair and a few other things. Yeah. I mean, I will say, so this is my, I just had Julian, my third son four months ago. And after Sebastian, my first, I felt, I felt good.

Like my blood sugar was balanced. I, you know, felt I was back to myself and energetic. But then I got pregnant with Toshin. I got pregnant with Toshin. So Sebastian's four and a half. Toshan is two and a half. So this is five babies and or three babies in five years. Not five babies. That would be a lot. But three babies in less than five years. And after Toshin, I had postnatal depletion. My hair was falling out. My skin was dry. My nails were cracking and peeling off. Like I did not look. It really, it was very clear. I had, I had anemia. My ferretin levels were in the tank. When you think about that and you mentioned all these things that you need when you're pregnant, all the blood building things, all of the collagen, this is not a joke, not just thinking about me. Like I had major postnatal depletion.

It was showing up on the outside of my body. I was feeling tired. I had brain fog. You know, doing my job was hard. And I was, I nursed Toshin for nearly two years. And I know I wasn't taking it. seriously. When you are a mom and you are pregnant and you are breastfeeding, I was focused on blood sugar balance, but I wasn't focused on the quantity of protein and food I needed to eat.

I was balancing my blood sugar every meal, eating whole foods, but I wasn't taking it seriously when it came to like really taking a look at my day and saying, well, how much am I getting in? Because I had to have iron infusions when I was pregnant with Julian to get my. And I eat red meat twice a week. I eat force of nature, ancestral organ blend at least once a week. I love it. My favorite. So good.

You know, so it, so I think this has been shocking to my community that I take eating red meat seriously. I take eating organ meat seriously. And I still had such depletion. And so I built it back up. But let's talk. talk about iron and iron deficiency in pregnancy and iron deficiency in young children, it is irreversible cognitive decline.

I am, I, like, I can't stress this enough. It's a nutrient of concern with the NIH. And so when you think about being pregnant and you think about those critical nutrients, iron, vitamin D, zinc, like these. nutrients come from animal proteins and we can't we can't I mean I can't stress it enough like I was taking it so seriously and my numbers were in the tank because stress because my body needs more nutrients when I'm stressed when I'm you know bread the breadwinner for my family when I have two young toddlers when we're buying our first family home when you know you think of what

we're all kind of dealing with when we're going through the pandemic. It's like, wow, my body took a major hit. And I don't want, I don't want to not take it seriously for Julian. That's his future. He, he requires these nutrients to, for neuroplasticity, for connecting neurons, for his IQ is, is implicated based on my iron and ferretin levels, which is crazy. It is crazy. And just for everybody listening and some of the stuff that Kelly said here, and just to break this down, just super practical for everyone to take away. You know, she had mentioned, by the way, I'm not, Forces of Nature.

It's a, it's a brand. You can buy ground bison and beef where they add in some liver and heart. And you actually don't even really taste it. And so they've done such a good job with their blend. It's 100% grass fed. They add a small amount of organ meats in, but Forests of Nature. I think they're fantastic. We just started using them recently and love them.

The other thing Kelly mentioned here is organ meats. And listen, now, you can eat liver and sometimes I'll do chicken liver and onions and garlic and cooked up in coconut oil. And it actually over time, like I think you'll actually start to like it. Can you some ketchup with it? Just giving somebody people some practical stuff here. So anyways, I think that that's something you can do. But if you're like, I am not going to eat organ meats, then you can take capsules.

You know, there's a lot of great brands out there. I know we got them ancient nutrition, but there's also, there's a lot of companies. You can get them online. You know, look for ones that are raised in Iceland or New Zealand or just somewhere clean, okay, that you can get those. And then also, she mentioned building blood, green leafy vegetables, beets, lots of red meat and Oregon meats. And then maybe, you know, you also want to take, there's an urban Chinese medicine, Dong Kui that's typically good. you can take some iron, easily digestible iron supplements. But I'm just saying this because like my wife noticed a really big difference when she's

building her blood around pregnancy. And I really think if we've got, you know, women postpartum who also have even like just that fatigue and that just sense of like, I just don't have it in me. And, and sometimes depression. Now, now there's obviously some things hormonally going on, but I think postpartum depression, I think definitely something that can exacerbate that is when your blood is deficient. I mean, it's really, it just starts to show up everywhere. So anyways, I just wanted to add on to what you were already saying because I just think

it is just, I'm glad you brought it up because it's just so important. It is. And, you know, you're bringing up the postpartum period and we're talking about that. And it's, I mean, I'm in it. Like, I know how easy it is to run around and help all the boys and get ready for my work day and jump into that and grab a coffee. and then all of a sudden I turn around and I haven't eaten, but I've caffeinated. And that's kind of a recipe for like major anxiety.

Like I would say that, you know, I am not an expert in mood disorders or or those types of things. I feel like, you know, my husband jokes that I've been pretty even killed. He's like, you're just like a big ship and you just cruise along. But I even will say, like, you know, three babies and worrying about them. And if there's a day where I under-eaten over-caffeinate, it's, I know what I'm doing to myself. And it is, I even feel anxious. I'm like, why am I thinking that?

You know? And so taking a real inventory of what your sleep looked like and it's hard to control that in the postpartum phase. Like, I'm in the first four months. You know, I was upfeeding the baby in the middle of the night last night. It's not like I wasn't. And just taking an inventory of like, what are the controllables for you? And starting your day with protein is so controllable. And I think intermittent fasting becomes really popular.

But this is not the phase of life to do it. Yeah. So get up. And if you work out in the morning, I would say if you work out in the morning in the first like hour or so, then you don't have to eat before if you don't want to. but I'm like, I'm pushing my clients to eat within 90 minutes of either their workout or waking up. If they're a woman, especially in a stressful period, like any type of pregnancy, postpartum, work stress, or if they just kind of lean a little bit more that way because we don't want the food choices to also be adding to the stress that your body feels. You want your body to feel safe so that it can, you know, be its best self.

Yeah, that's so good. You know, as we're talking about food, obviously this is the foundational part and supplements for for supplementing the already really healthy diet. What are some of the supplements that you personally take? Like, what's your, walk me through your daily regimen? Yeah. So every morning I take a multivitamin, which I'm taking a prenatal by wee natal. I am a advisor for them, so I helped them formulate that.

I'm really proud of it, methylated vitamin. everything that you need. I think one of the biggest things to look for if you're taking a multi or if you're taking a prenatal specifically, sometimes even the prescription ones are not methylated at this point in time. And you're like, what are we doing here? You know, if folate and B6 and B12 are so critically important

to neural tube and development for your baby, let's make sure that those are actually being absorbed. So a methylated vitamin, you know, methylated B multi, I take an omega-3. So I'm using a like an anchovy version of that. I think if you're a vegetarian, definitely I recommend an algae oil versus a seed, right? Because that needs to be converted to long-chain omega-3. So make sure that, you know, you're sourcing that right.

I take a probiotic every morning. And then in my multivitamin, it also has, antioxidants like lutein and ziazanthine so i'm not adding anything there and then um at night i take a magnesium and i'm pretty simple like i think people are surprised oh sorry and a vitamin d on top of that so in the morning or at night to kind of just depends um but i don't think people are realize if they're taking vitamin d they need to be taking magnesium for that to be available and you know bioavailable in their body those are really great symbiotics if you will like they they um they work well together So yeah, so multi-Omega-3 vitamin D probiotic.

And then at night, magnesium, if I feel like maybe my digestion is a little bit off, I might add another probiotic at night. But other than that, it's really like whole food based. I love, you know, keeping sauerkraut and fermented veggies in my fridge as added probiotics. If I'm feeling snacky, I'll go in the fridge and just take a spoonful or a forkful of that, cleanse the palate, crunch, and I'm good. which is also good for sugar cravings, right? Yeah, that's good.

You know, I wanted to mention that one of the things that's so interesting that I know that I've continued to, you and I both, I'm sure, continued to learn as we've read research over the years is how, you know, the importance of the absorption of certain certain nutrients are based on other nutrients. And, you know, we've all, you know, we've probably. read the research on, okay, vitamin D and how it relates to vitamin K or vitamin D and how it relates to magnesium, right, in terms of absorption or calcium and magnesium. But even also, then you've got boron and strontium and then phosphor, all these different things that are responsible for each other.

But one of the points I want to make for everybody listening is that this is why a healthy diet is even more important because, as Kelly said, let's say you're taking a vitamin D supplement. You know, one of the benefits, if you just ate a big thing of steamed spinach and grass-fed beef where you're getting a good amount of maybe magnesium in some of what you just had, it's going to help you better. And you have some healthy fats there, which is also really important. But it's going to help you better absorb the vitamin D supplement you just took. And so if you can take it with very, very nutrient-dense foods, as Kelly's been talking about,

it's actually going to help you absorb your supplement better. And the most important supplement for vitamin and nutrient absorption of all the rest of your supplements is probiotics, which Kelly mentioned she takes once, sometimes twice a day. So anyways, I think that those are just fantastic recommendations. You know, one of the things is I followed your channel over the years on Instagram,

which, by the way, if you're not following Kelly on Instagram, you should, she's got a great channel. And she's always posting some, you know, family friendly, friendly photos and recipes. But talk to me, what are some recipes that you're just loving right now for you and the whole family? Yeah. Well, I always go back to the Fab Four.

So we can talk about the recipes and I'll just break down where we're getting those veggies. So my kids really love curry. So one of the things, too, I think that's important to know. So I have some courses around blood sugar balance for kids. I have the Fab Four pregnancy, which is for when you're pregnant, Fab Four under four is for kids. And so that's about understanding, like, how kids learn to eat healthy and what the research tells us and then, you know, how to balance their blood sugar. So important thing,

because I didn't tell you that my kids eat curry, is that there's something called the flavor window, which is in the first 18 months of life. And the more that you can introduce a variety of flavors and foods to your children in the first 18 months, that's, you know, on average, they're eating around, you know, four to six months. So you introduce that the real food then, that variety really matters in that next year because you can introduce foods less and they're accepted versus when we move into 18 months and older, when you try to introduce more variety, more flavor, different types of vegetables, actually the number of introductions before they accept it doubles. So let's say you want to introduce curry and you

introduce it in the first 18 months, they may accept it after the first couple tries, whereas, you know, when we're talking about toddlerhood and independence, it may be, you know, the research says sometimes upwards of 20 to 30 introductions before they're accepting that food. And so really getting that variety in is a point. I knew that research feeding my kids and I knew that bringing them into the process also improved that. So I have kitchen towers, kitchen towers in which are like little stools in the kitchen that are safe for kids to like be a part of it. I have kitchen. knives, kids like size utensils, all the things. And I have, I even wrote a blog post on how to

get your kids involved, like even ripping cilantro. So off of stems. So my kids have been involved for a long time. So I don't want people to listen and be like, my kids would never eat curry or they'd never eat chili or that's, the foods are touching or they're mixed together. Like this was, I realized how much work this was. And it changed, you have to change your mind shift. You have to be okay with your kids making a little bit of a mess in your kitchen. You know, they're going to shake the seasonings on the veggies to be roasted. And there's going to be seasonings on the counter and on the floor. And so, you know, there are lots of options to get them involved, like that I share online.

But recipes that we love is we love curry. So, you know, sometimes I'll make my own curry. But Mike's organics, curry, if you've ever had, is absolutely delicious. They have it on Thrive. And I'll take a protein. I'll, I'll simmer the protein in Mike's organic curry. I'll roast some veggies. I'll put them together and I'll mix it with my 50-50 rice, which is half cauliflower

rice, half white rice. Because I'm not keeping my kids on a low carbohydrate diet. Like I really focus on that. But I do make sure that I'm adding that they're having those starchy carbohydrates with protein fat fiber and greens because we know through the research that when we add those things together, the digestion slows, the blood sugar curve elongates, and it's not a spike and crash for them either. Because when you think about kids, how many times have we taken a kid to a birthday party? They have the dessert. 90 minutes later, you're dealing with a

flailing tantrum. Like, this is absolutely a part of the process. And so there are strategies I have going into birthday parties. My kids eat before they go. Like, and it's not, you know, even if I don't have time to get them like a full meal, I'm like, how here's a pack of lupini beans. Here's a chomps beef stick. Here's some olives. Like they're eating them, you know, in the car or or between soccer and the birthday party or whatever it is because one, it's like, I don't, if they want to just go and play at the park for the birthday party or swim in the pool for the birthday party, I'm not worried about pulling my kid out of the pool to eat the pizza. And if they end up having the dessert or whatever, I'm also, how are we rolling into protein next to balance their blood sugar? So that we love,

we love curry, we love chili, we love tacos. I mean, I'm Southern California. So Sebastian knows how to make our guac, which is so cool. He's using the garlic press. He's squeezing the lime into the bowl. But my favorite place to play and teach. with my kids and where they seem pretty calm, actually, is when they join me in my space. I think, you know, we segregate so much of our education with kids where we're like, now we're sending you to Kuman to learn math, or we're going to this piano teacher, or let's do some flashcards or practice your name. And I'm like, all right, guys, who wants to be my sous chef?

And I mean, the other day, we were in the cul-de-sac riding our bikes. And they were like, Mom, we want to be your sous chef. be making and I'm like that was one of those moments where I'm like I'm not going to forget that like they're having so much fun on their bikes but they actually just said they wanted to be my sous chef and we came in the kitchen they each have their little towers I have two they have their cutting boards and my little guy isn't big enough yet but everybody's involved and then what happens is they're trying my my youngest or my middle guy Toshan not it bash was really accepting of all the food. And when I look back at Toshan, I was really busy. It was like two kids,

business, house, all the things. I wasn't as calm in the kitchen with Toshan as I was with Sebastian in maybe that period, that really important period. He's definitely a pickier eater than his brother. But I see him now seasoning the veggies and he's eating raw broccoli covered in extra virgin olive oil and seasonings. And I'm like, you know, trying not to make, bring attention to it. I'm just kind of like peeking at him while he's doing it. Yeah. It's such a, you know, don't give up on your kids. Just don't label them as picky. Introduce, introduce, introduce, and then look for, where's the protein? Where's the fat? Where's the fiber and greens, which are those veggies or, or, you know, the produce deep in color. And if you have that on your plate and you're adding

potatoes or rice or something that is a starch, their blood sugar is going to be balanced and be okay because they're really active and you're getting them the basics that support the slowing down of that digestion. Yeah, it's so good. We see the same thing with our three-year-old. From one years old to two years old, we really tried to introduce so many things into her diet. And we see it now. I mean, it's like we we sent her to pre-year-old. school here and we put all kinds of things in her thing. We had, I think we had turkey and a bunch of some fruit and some veggies and stuff. And just is like the thing that she eats most of like, we just put a bunch of zucchini in there and she just ate a whole like a literally a whole zucchini.

And so it's just, you know, over time. And there are certain things where we're like, you know, she's like picking out. She was picking out. We had this, Chelsea made this stir fry with water chestnuts. And she like sat there and picked out every water chestnuts. But then by the end, she's, you know, just stopped it was eating the while. You know, so eventually sometimes you don't know, but what you're saying is, I mean, sometimes it'll just click. So you just, you have to be persistent. You have to stick with it. I have these childhood memories of my sister growing up. And my dad and my sister would standoffs because my sister would not eat peas. Yeah. And my dad's like an old military guy. And they would just, I remember my sister falling asleep at the table because, you know, he would just like,

you're not getting up from that seat until you finish your peas or whatever vegetable it was for the evening and my sister just you know sometimes she would give in but sometimes she just she just fall asleep at the table so we we grew up in clean plate club so you had to clean your plate times have changed now and um and i and you want your children to be able to have opinions and things but um if you're trying to really get the acceptance to food the research does say give them as much independence autonomy and um you know leadership in that space space as you can. I mean, we with Toshan on the days where he's not at preschool and bashes, and I know I'm going to the Ecology Center, which is like our little like everyday

farmer's market or we're going to the grocery store. He's in the cart with me. And I know, again, it's like, it's a little bit more work, but I'm like, bud, what veggie do you want to pick? You get to pick any one of those green ones. Pick your favorite green one. You know, and then it's like, okay, he's going to, he's going to chop it. He's going to help me season it. Like the more involved he is along the whole process, the more acceptance that happens. Yeah. So, again, one of the things I love that you were doing here and you're sharing this is there, and there was a study that came out recently on this.

And basically, they found that, you know, in terms of kids being successful later on in life, one of the greatest things you can have them do is from the age of two to five years old, help and do chores. You know, they're helping in the kitchen. They're helping unload the dishwasher. They have their chores. They're doing on a regular basis. And it actually helps eliminate and or at least we're great.

reduce entitlement and boost work ethic. And so anyways, I was just noticing a lot of that as you were kind of doing that. And so that's a very, you know, it's a great thing, not only for their physical health, but also for their mental health and success later on in life. So, so good. Last couple of questions for you. Hey, what is one of the pieces of nutritional advice or something you've learned in the past five years that has sort of just really changed or improve your life in some way. You know what? I would say, you know, I like to really keep it pretty simple.

When it comes to, there was a study on homemade food versus eating food out. And what it's basically said was you're across the board increasing nutrient intake, decreasing chemical exposure, and, you know, creating an environment in which you're calming down to eat. eat slowly. And it's like all of these benefits came from making homemade meals. And it is, you know, with a busy family, with three kids, it is enticing to be like, well, it's DoorDash or let's go pick up or let's go to that restaurant. And I don't, um, it's, it's funny because I am not the kind of person that says I never eat at a restaurant or we're not going to meet friends or we're not grabbing food and going to the beach. Like that, that's not my reality. We do, you know, we're purveyors of the restaurants.

We support local restaurants around town here by the beach. But one of the things I really focus on every single week is the number of meals I'm making homemade. And that's something I stress with my clients because you really know what goes into making the meal. And you really are getting the benefits of it every single day. And so that would be something that I would just really encourage people to do. And that, again, comes to being a product of not living. I used to live in the mecca of Los Angeles where I had airwans and juice bars and organic, this, organic, that.

And, you know, I moved to the suburbs with my family and the access to those type of restaurants is no longer at my fingertips. And really leaning into that time in the kitchen with my family, that time at the farmer's market with my family. It's a stage in my life, but it naturally and easily made us change our diet in a way that we're really respectful of the amount of time it takes to grow this healthy food, to make this healthy food. And it's funny because we played this game with my boys at the table, high, low, buffalo. And high is what was your high of the day? Like, what are you grateful for?

What are you thankful for? Like, low is, okay, something didn't go right. You felt a little funny about something. It was tricky. Would you learn? And then Buffalo's like, add something funny or whatever you want to share. And recently, my, it's two and a half year old because he's finally playing. Like, there was a point where we go, high low Buffalo, Toshaninan, and he goes, my,

what's your high? And he go, poopie doopy. And now he's on this, like a broken recorder. he's like for this beautiful meal and all this beautiful food. And it's really sweet because it's, it is like such a special moment for our family. And I grew up with a family that had dinner every night. And it's a priority for me as holding space for my boys and ensuring that we're all,

we're all together for that time to talk about our day or to be great to God for everything, all the blessings in our life and to work through the tough stuff together. It's so good, Kelly. You know, I read a recent study that went through the number one habit that creates more family connection is family dinners, you know, or family meals just in general. And so I know that that was something growing up in the Midwest and Ohio. I mean, we just, you know, so many family meals bringing our family together. And I love the really practical, you know, high-low buffalo, which we sometimes do a little bit of that. The Buffalo one, though, that's actually new. I haven't heard it called that. So it kind of added in the fun sort of thing

of what happened today. So we're going to, we're probably going to start that in the Axe household. Thanks for that bit of wisdom there. I can't take credit. I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure someone else came up with it. But hey, you're the first. I've heard that, that tack on with. So thanks for that. Hey, Kelly, where can people find you at? Yeah. So I'm. I'm online at Be Well by Kelly across the social media platforms. My book is Body Love, a body love every day. I also have a food journal,

the Body Love Journal. And then on my website at KellyLevec.com, we sell a graspid beef isolate protein. I have courses on balancing your blood sugar. I have a course actually on the Fab Four smoothie. That's, you know, every Black Friday, we give that away with purchase so that people can really start to understand

how to make a blood sugar balancing smoothie. So lots of good stuff over there at kellylevack.com. And I'm on Instagram sharing how to how to not go crazy raising three boys and not end up in the ER with lots of stitches. So great. Yeah. It's so great. Well, hey,

I want to thanks everybody for watching. I want to thank Kelly Leveck for sharing her wisdom with us today. Kelly, we're really grateful for you. And I want to encourage you, hey, if you're not subscribed to the podcast, please subscribe. And also, hey, if you've been loving the content we've been putting out, please go to Apple and Spotify and leave a review.

We'd love to hear what you're loving about the podcast right now. Again, everybody, hey, thanks so much for listening. Thanks again to Kelly for sharing her wisdom with us today. Have a great week. Hey, Dr. Axe here. I want to say thank you so much for listening today. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to like and subscribe the show so you don't miss a thing.

Also, if you're in search of more natural health content, you can follow us at Health Institute on Instagram or subscribe to our newsletter using the link in the show notes below. Hey, thanks a lot and have a blessed week.