Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - Carnivore Vs. Keto: Which is better for you? - Dr. Mindy & Maria Emmerich

Episode Date: June 30, 2020

What is actually making us sensitive to carbohydrates?   Maria Emmerich is a nutritionist who specializes in the ketogenic diet and exercise physiology. She struggled with her health and weight throughout childhood, which lead her to become such a passionate nutrition expert. "My goal is to help transform people's lives and start living again!" Maria specializes in brain neurotransmitters and how food can increase mental wellness. Her expertise has sent her around the world, speaking about ketogenic diets.                                                                                  In this podcast,we cover: Why the keto diet is beneficial to our furry friends The reason we shouldn't obsess over our blood meter Why everyone will have different macros The importance of variation A day in the life of a carnivore Why people really have heart disease Our sponsor of this episode is: PRIMAL KITCHEN | Use code: PELZ RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: July Fast Training Week July Metabolic Rest with Dr. Mindy Maria Emmerich Maria's Blog Maria's eBooks Maria's YouTube    

The information discussed in this episode is intended as general information only. It is not intended for one-on-one medical advice, and you should always consult your healthcare practitioner before making any changes. And if you like the content discussed in this episode, please go leave a review so that others can benefit from it as well. I am a woman on a mission that is dedicated to teaching you just how powerful your body was built to be. I like to do that by bringing you the latest science, the great, thought leaders and applicable steps that help you tap into your own internal healing power. The purpose of this podcast is to give you the power back and help you believe in yourself again.

My name is Dr. Mindy Pels and I want to thank you for spending part of your day with me. Okay, resetters. So I have a really fun interview with what I would call the fairy godmother because she was a true gift to the ketogenic cookbook world. This is Maria Emmerich, and she co-authored the ketogenic cookbook. Jessica, do you have that cookbook? I don't have that cookbook, but I mean, well, now we have like 30 of her cookbooks. I know. She smelled to us.

So she, this woman is a hoot, and she sent us. She said, I'll send you 11 of my cookbooks. Okay, for starters, let's just stop and ask, like, she wrote 11 cookbooks? I know. So much work. There's a lot of, like, these are dense. These aren't flimsy cookbooks. There is so much in there. I know. Well, and she kept talking about her paleo lasagna, but I'm like, what cookbook is the paleo lasagna? And I feel like I'm going to have to flip through every single one of them to find it. Well, the one that I still have trouble finding is the carnivore pancakes.

Oh, yeah. And there's carnivore waffles. The carnivore waffles. And then she talked about a carnivore bread, like, Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, you guys, if you want to know about she started, she has all these ketogenic cookbooks and then she moved into the carnivore world. And so she's really now resonating with the carnivore diet. And I guess like many of us, we get excited about a diet and some of us podcast and go to

YouTube and talk about it. And other people write cookbooks. So she has written the carnivore cookbook, which if you're interested in the carnivore diet, I really, really recommend that you check it out. But the other thing is, okay, so she is like this tiny and mighty woman. So Jessica and I can't wait for you to listen to this interview because she said she's a bow hunter. Yeah, she's got, well, yeah, you both have like this, like, booming personality in these tiny little bodies. So energetically, this episode is going to be amazing for you guys to listen to.

But yeah, just property in Wyoming. Or Wisconsin, yeah. And she hunts off the porch of her property. Yeah. So she, and she's just so filled with love and energy. And somewhere in the episode you guys will hear, she basically says like, oh, we had just gone into the pandemic when we interviewed her. And she said, oh, I'm totally good because I'm a bow hunter.

So I'm not worried about grocery stores shutting down. I'll just grab my bow and arrow and I'll go shoot some meat outside my house. The visual of that, I was like, what? Oh, my gosh. But then she also does ketogenic retreats in Sorrento, Italy. Yeah, we need to go. We totally need to go, but I have a question for you. Would you go to Italy and become keto? I don't think I could do it. I don't think I could be. I don't think I can do it. But she said no judgment on whatever you end up eating or drinking. So she's just there to teach while you. you know, maybe try to do keto. Yeah. So she did. She said, I brought that to her attention. I'm like, I love you. I love your energy. I love Italy. And I cannot imagine being doing keto in Italy. No. And she was like, no judgment. So you guys can hear what she says says there. So anyhow, if you're

interested in going carnivore, I highly recommend this episode. We really talked about the difference between keto and carnivore and why she evolved into carnivore. And she had some really interesting things to say about that. She is a macro counter. That's the other thing. She loves to count her macros. So you guys will, if you've picked up any of her cookbooks, she has all the macros in there. So hallelujah for Maria. And we're trying to get her to do a carnivore fast training week. And I think you reached out to her. She's not able to be with us live because she's doing cooking classes with Halle Berry right now. So stay tuned to what that looks. like, but we'll try to morph some of her recipes into our next fast training week.

Yeah. So we want to do a carnivore fast training week. So if you're not familiar with our fast training week, come check out our Resetter Collaborative. In Facebook, we fast together and we do all different variations of fasting. So, but you guys, this is such a fun episode. I mean, I really, Jessica and I think Maria had a good time too. We had a blast. Yeah. We had so much fun. So you're in for a treat. Enjoy. Okay, resetters. So, I am back with another huge keto influencer is what I'm going to call you, Maria, because this woman is the co-author of the freaking Bible of all ketogenic cookbooks, the ketogenic cookbook. I mean, that's what it's called. So let me start off by just welcoming Maria Emmerich to our podcast. Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you, Dr. Mindy. I'm so honored to be here. I feel like we're kind of spirits in a way. I know, I know. I agree. I agree. And, you know, like I told you in the pre-interview, I just adore your cookbook. It saved me when I first started to understand keto. My first reaction to the ketogenic diet was, holy shit, no way. We are not going to eat like this. And I went to Amazon, but I saw the health benefits and I went to Amazon. And I'm like, surely somebody's come up with a cookbook. And the only book out there was yours. And it's been a lifesaver. So how did you ever stumble upon this? And how did you create this amazing cookbook? What's interesting is that's not even my first book. I started writing that I started writing maybe seven years before that.

But I was self-published then. And so, you know, but that served me well. What happened was I was 16 years old and I was twice my size. I was a really good athlete, but I was just a, you know, a big athlete, literally. I wasn't feeling well. So I went to the family doctor. And she gave me an antidepressant because I was pretty depressed. I was given an acid blocker, a prescription for IBS, irritable bowel syndrome.

And I was told I had PCOS, which now we know as a form of insulin resistance that affects female fertility. So it was kind of a type 2 diabetes that was affecting my fertility. And I was like, wow. That's a lot. And she told me it was just the cards I was dealt. Because my grandpa had diabetes. My uncle did. Like, it was just, you know, my fate.

But that very same week, I took my beautiful golden retriever to the vet because she was losing patches of her hair. And the first question the vet asked me was, what are you feeding her? And instead of, yeah, instead of giving me any medication, he just said, nope, you're going to start a raw beef diet, you know, the barf diet or whatever. And I was like, okay, you know, let's do it. And I was like, I'm changing my life. But guess what? At the time, I worked at a coffee shop where I made, I woke up early. I made the cinnamon rolls, the scones, the muffins.

I drank mocha's like they were going out of style because they were free. And then at the end of the day, what didn't sell at 4 p.m. Went home with me. Wow. And so I don't even know if I ever ate like protein or healthy fats. I was just eating cinnamon rolls, you know? And it's like, wow, I need to change, change big time. And I love food.

I will always love food. I grew up, like on my birthday, we always, I made it. I love cooking. I made this big pans of lasagna. And I was like, I am not giving up lasagna. And so I wrote a recipe. And this was, I mean, this has been 23 years. I'm almost 40.

I wrote a recipe for protein noodle lasagna. And holy Hannah, it is still like an Instagram sensation. You all must make it because I was like, I want lasagna, but I don't want the carbs. Right. And people are like, I feed this to people that don't even know what keto is. And they're like, what is this lasagna? It's delicious. And it's easier than making noodles because it's like I use Applegate Farms.

They're organic deli meat. Oh, I was going to say, what do you use for the noodle? If it's protein noodle. But yeah, I made a YouTube video. Yeah, check it out. I will. My kids are 9 and 10 and they eat this way. I'm not a sword order to cook.

but that's what got me. What happened was I'm going out off on a tangent. So that was 16. I met the love of my life at 17 and I was married at a young age and we wanted to adopt children because I still didn't. I was told I couldn't have kids. I didn't know what was going on. And so we started adopting but he lost his job.

And like that was really hard. I went to school for nutrition and so I just put everything I learned into a book to help raise money for my adoption, our adoption. And like it was just, people loved it. They loved the food. They loved the concept of it. And it just, it worked. And so that's what got me writing in the first place was my kids.

Yeah. Amazing. You know, something on the dog thing I want to point out, we had a dog, beautiful Rottweiler, just loved this dog, best dog I've ever had. She got lymphoma. And so I researched what's the best diet. and the ketogenic diet came up. And so we started doing keto for our dog.

She ended up living a year beyond the time that she should live. And the food looks so good. Literally, my kids' friends would come over and they'd be like, can I eat what the dogs eating? That's too funny. I know. That's what, like, think about what animals eat. They don't eat rice.

They don't eat vegetables. Like a wolf wouldn't eat that. Why were we feeding that to our dogs? And so honestly, we didn't have a, money so the the raw beef diet was really like it was raw I would grind up um raw beef heart and that basically was her diet and chewing on bones and that was funny did you see did you see like a change like we saw a change in her coat her hair she got shinier she got i mean it was amazing energy yeah like her hair grew back pretty much right away and for me the like my depression went away like i didn't

lose weight right away, but the depression that went away is what kept me on the diet. I'm from central Wisconsin, which is like food cat. Yeah, I'm like, we love food, we love beer, we love cheese, you know, like I was really weird. And I still kind of am to the community because I don't drink alcohol, you know, I don't eat the potatoes and, and all of that. But it's okay because I'm a stubborn German girl. I can handle it. Well, and you feel. good. I mean, I think that's the, I think that's the big thing about the ketogenic diet is that literally, like, the first time I heard that and the first time I heard intermittent fasting, I was like, okay, I looked at the science. I understood how it could apply the human body. And then I was like, not for me. And now I like laugh because this is how I eat all the time. So I can't even imagine eating different. So your first book wasn't the ketogenic cookbook, the one that you raised. So take me from there to how. you met Jimmy Moore and like how did you go from into this launch into this whole ketogenic movement? I would like when I started after college when my husband did lose his job, I just started my own

nutrition business and I would just like hold classes in town and then pretty soon like people outside of town wanted me to speak and then pretty soon outside of state wanted me to speak. And then I spoke in Russia like it just started growing and I didn't have a lot. any money to advertise. So it was all word of mouth. But I think when you when you serve your patients well, like they want other people to feel well. And so it just and they're like, you eat good food. You eat good food. So don't worry about it. But you have to plan ahead. You know, but we plan ahead in all other aspects of our life. Why wouldn't we plan ahead for success with what we're eating? And yeah. Like I.

Before I talked to you, you know what I did? I just took out some steaks and some fish from the freezer so I can easily fry that up tomorrow for lunch. Like, I'm just always one step ahead because I love my mom, but she never had anything planned for dinner. And I could feel her anxiety, like, I don't know what we're going to have, you know? Like, she'd just get real anxiety. And half the time we would just have, like, rice with skin milk and cinnamon sugar. Yeah. Amazing. I mean, oh, I just want to plan ahead. Like, I just, it's just one step ahead. But it just was word of mouth. pretty soon Jimmy asked me to be on a podcast. And so I was on his podcast.

And it just like grew that way. And I'm almost like staddened with the whole like how keto has grown because there's so much bad information. I don't know how you feel about exogenous ketones. But everybody's like, just take the ketones and eat the damn muffin. And I'm just like, not a fan. Now you have like glucose and high ketones. That's just a recipe for disaster.

Yeah. Well, I think one thing that people don't realize. is that the ketogenic diet is in alignment with how the human body is meant to be fed. Yeah, babies are in ketosis. Right. So when you put an exogenous ketone in and your blood sugar is high, we don't, that's not how it's meant. I mean, your blood sugar is supposed to be down and then your ketones go up.

So you start messing with biology and we don't know what's going to happen. So I always tell people not a good idea. And don't even chase ketones because. the longer you've been keto, like I've been doing it for 23 years. Like my ketones are really low, but I also run in the morning. So I'm using the ketones for energy. My ketones are low. Do I get depressed about it? Yeah. Oh my God. That's such a good point. That's such a good point. So we in our group, our resetter group and all the fasting and keto we do, people, what I always tell them is take your focus off the damn scale. Let's put the scale away and let's like look at something a little bit that's more

which is the meter, the blood meter. But then they get obsessed about like, oh my God, I've been doing this. I didn't eat any carbs in my, and I'm still at point six. It's not going up. And I'm like, okay, wait, it's the mindset here that's broken. Right. So. And I think if you drink a bunch of alcohol the night before, your ketones are going to be real high. That's not a good thing either. That's right. And I think to your point, the longer you've been doing the keto diet, the more efficient your body gets when those ketones do pop up your brain's like hey I'll take those thank you and then in the meter the meter the meter doesn't tell is like you're looking at the meter because your brain gobbled them all up you don't need the what do you want them in your brain or on your

on your little blood stick like where would you rather have them so yeah like people sometimes they'll start to exercise and it'll go down more and it's like it's okay it's okay you know amazing yeah I want to dive into the cookbook here in a moment the other interesting thing though that you said that I just want people to understand is that I think when you show up in the world in your what lights you up and in your true essence, that's how how businesses are grown. It just, things just magnetized to you because you're being congruent with you. So when I hear you say, I just was cooking. I was passionate about it.

I just wanted to serve people and people came. I'm like, yeah, that's how it works. Well, you know, I think in all aspects of our life, if you want to be. successful. Stop being like, oh, you know, this coronavirus. Yeah, it stinks, but you know what? Grab the opportunity by the balls and just go for it because like when I was told about my diagnosis, I didn't get all depressed. Oh, I can't have bread. I can't have rice. It's like, you know what? I get to have steak and not feel bad about it. I get to have, you know, like all of these like I love hollandays and all these things I thought were so bad. I'm like, I get to have this.

stuff. You know, like when I was told I couldn't have kids, I didn't be like, hmm, I can't have my own kids. You know what? I have the two coolest kids. They're from Ethiopia and they are just rock my world. And you just have to be all aspects of that. If people, if you want to be successful, don't you agree? Oh, I love your attitude. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Nobody wants to be around. Yeah, right. Well, and when you are in the vibration of like complaining, you just get more things to complain about. But if you take a moment that feels, I always call it a sucker punch moment where you kind of get like news that you don't like. It's okay to feel it for a moment. But if you dwell in it, you're going to keep getting more news you don't like. So I love that. I definitely was sad. I mean,

we were in the process of adopting two kids. My husband lost his job. And if you know anything about adoption, when you lose insurance, all that money, all the headway you made goes away. You start at square one. Yeah, I got depressed. But it made you know. me fight hard. And it gave me time to write. And, you know, like I tried to find things like go kayaking when I want. And because you know what? When those babies come, you don't get to do that. No, you don't get to anything. Yeah. So I tried to, you know, anyway, I'm digressing onto a different topic. So, okay, so let's go into the cookbook and for a moment, because let me tell you in my community, the thing that has drove my team, the craziest, has been taking a recipe and figuring out

the damn macros. And that was the other thing that this book has. I do it on every recipe. Oh, come on, girl. You did this for how long did that take you? Oh, that's almost as long as writing the recipes. Yes. I mean, it is all math, but most books don't include that.

No, that was the game changer for this, one of the game changers other than they were tasty. But when I got this Bible, I was like, Oh my God, they've calculated the macros. You're so sweet. You're like a hero. Calculator for everybody, too. I don't know if you're inches in that.

Yeah, what is it? I have a free macro calculator. It's on my blog or website, maria, mindbodyhealth.com. In the corner, if you type in, I'll give you the link maybe. Calculator, because everybody's macros will be different. Mine are different than yours. Yes. And all of your patients.

So that's really important to realize that we're not going to have the same macros. Yeah. So I think that's really important because I interviewed, oh my gosh, here's another woman. I'm going to lift up my books. I've got all my cookbooks around here, lift up my computer. Have you read, have you, do you know Anna Vocino? I do not. No. Okay. So she has a book. It's called Eat Happy. And we had such a fun conversation. And it's a ketogenic. It's gluten-free, grain-free. low-carb cookbook. And so we had a fun conversation. And she was like, I get emails all the time from people about the macros. And she's a comedian. And so she was like, one of the things I want to tell them is the world needs you to be the best version of you possible. And that doesn't mean spending an hour emailing me about macros. You could put that hour to better use in the world than analyzing macros. So when you say that macros are different for everybody, do you mean it's different,

like the calculator is different? Or do you mean people's how they should eat the macros are different? Your macros are going to be different than mine. Your amount of protein, fat and carbohydrate are different than my protein carbohydrate. Our lean mass is different. Our activity levels different. Male, female is different. Are you pregnant? Are you breastfeeding? You know, like all of that, your lean mass is really important to know. And that's why we broke it down into like, if you don't know it, I help you figure it out. Amazing. Yeah. You don't have to spend time. Like, did I know my macros when I was 16? Hell no. Right. It's okay if you don't want, like, I'm a minimalist in all aspects of my life. I really am. But when people are not seeing

the success they want, here's a tool to help you be successful. That's all. awesome. So this calculator, can you put in your lean mass and it'll figure out? So if I'm standing in line at the grocery store and you and I strike up a conversation and I, and you're like, oh, I have this ketogenic cookbook and a thousand other cookbooks. And I say, hey, what, what is the ketogenic diet? And we dive into macros. What are the macros? Do you give like general macros to people? Well, when they ask, what is the keto diet? I'll say, well, you, you, you're, you're, Your body can either run on, you know, sugar or a kid run on ketones. And if you eliminate the carbohydrates enough and you hit your protein goal, too much protein

will not turn into sugar. Okay. Let's talk about that. Oh, yeah, we're going to talk about that. I like it. And then fat will be a lever. If you want to lose fat, let's turn the fat dial down. If you are athletes or, you know, in it for epilepsy, like I spoke in Russia about

epilepsy. you turn the fat dial up okay but most people complain about keto that they're losing their hair they're always cold all of these things they're not getting enough protein if you look at your hair follicles it's made up of amino acids i don't like when people are drinking i i just i don't want to offend anybody like oh no you go ahead you can offend away this we're educating coffee fat bombs fat fast egg fast you will fail okay you might see it on the scale, but you can lose lean mass very quickly. And the only way to keep your lean mass is protein. Okay. And what would you say to the person who's a vegetarian? Do you think

they can do keto vegetarian? If they eat eggs, but they're going to have to eat a lot of eggs. Okay. Because vegetarian sources of protein don't signal mTOR that muscle building like animal protein does. Yeah, yeah, I can see that. I could definitely see that. But I do with vegetarians. you know. Yeah. Yeah, we brought Will Cole on on the podcast to hear his side of the keto vegetarian. Because we have a lot of, in our community, we have a lot of keto vegetarians. And I agree with you. They're not getting enough amino acids. Right. What I say is, okay, are you a vegetarian or a vegan because you love animals? Because I cannot argue that. I cannot argue that. If you think it's healthy, sit down because we're going to be here a while. because I'm going to show you all the anti-nutrients and vegetables, all the oxalates that are causing kidney stones,

all of these anti-nutrients that I once thought were really good. And some people, some people listening might think I'm crazy, but I'm planting a seed so you can at least realize the vegetables aren't where the nutrients are. And I have charts in my book where I show kale, blueberries, an apple, steak, and organ meat. what do you think has the most nutrients in it? It's not the kale. It's not the blueberries. Yeah, I would have said the blueberries. No, it's none of those.

Beef blows them. I should grab the book. Beef blows it out of the chart. An organ meat is even higher. Everything is higher. Interesting. And all of the kale, blueberries, and apple have anti-nutrients where you actually need more things.

So you know zinc. Oysters. Oysters are filled with zinc. You get like, I don't know, 200 micrograms of zinc when you eat oysters, like maybe four oysters. When you add black beans to it, it drops 70%. The bioavailability of zinc, you get so much less. You add corn tortillas to it. You get basically nothing.

Interesting. So it's not just what you're eating. It's what you're pairing it with, too. Yeah, it's the combination. People are going to be like, how do I find that? Is that in one of your books? It is. It's in either the carnivore cookbook or keto, the complete guide to success. Okay, so let's move to the carnivore diet because we get this question a lot too. And, you know,

I'm a big fan of variation. I think that one of the challenges that we have with diets right now is that we become zealots for one. Like, we walk around with like, I'm keto and everybody else sucks. I'm carnivore and everybody else sucks. And my take is like, you could be. all those things, your body thrives on variation. So we have splashed in some carnivore, especially for our CBO patients and had great success. So talk a little bit about the benefits of carnivore and where it differs from keto. So if someone would have told me to go carnivore when I was 16, I wouldn't even try it. I would have been like, nope, not going there. And so that's why I still am very passionate about keto because it is a, you know, carnivore is a subset of keto. And it might not be for

everybody. But what happened was, first of all, my kids didn't like vegetables. And we were at one of the holidays and my mom was kind of nagging me about the kids not eating vegetables. And so my husband started making charts of the nutrients, never thinking they'd go into a book. But we just picked all of these, like what everybody thinks is really healthy, like kale and spinach and all of this. And all the things my kids eat, they love salmon, they love beef. They love, I mean, I hide organ meat and things. So he did all these children. You know, right?

So we wanted to show my mom, he wanted to show his mother-in-law, my kids are thriving. And what's interesting, when they came to us from Ethiopia, they were like one and three. They weren't, they were so little, they weren't even on the growth charts. Now they're at the 90th percentile. Wow. You know, like does heal. And they are basically carnivores. But we still like eat gummy bears and stuff.

But what happened was my husband got Lyme disease. really bad. Like it went undiagnosed for over five years. And my publisher was the one who actually said, I think your husband has Lyme disease because we talk a lot. And I said, well, he was tested and it came back negative. And he's like, he didn't do the right test. He has to do the hygienic test. So we did that. And sure enough, he had Lyme and he probably had it for five years before. And at this point, at least he was keto because otherwise he'd be totally bedridden, but he was riddled with pain all the time. And looking into what causes pain, like axolates all of these things. He's like, you know, axolid are vegetables. He's like, I think I'm going to try to cut him out. And I was like,

okay. And I wanted to be supportive. So I just, we all kind of went along the journey with him. And oh my gosh, like he was throwing footballs, like stuff he's never done with my kids before because he was always in pain. So if you have chronic Lyme patients, I highly suggest doing that. But listening to stories of like Amber O'Hern, she has bipolar disease, but when she eats 100% carnivore,

she is off all medication. Amazing. It is amazing. Do you think that's because of the amino acids? I mean, the brain really needs so much. I can see the oxalates for the joint stuff and the pain, but depression, anxiety, bipolar. I would think that's because you're getting so much.

any amino acids. But if she gets even spices on her like burger, we were eating together lunch. And she was really concerned if there were any spices on a burger because that would even throw her off to need medication. So I think it's more than that. But it definitely is for, you know, chronic pain, autoimmune. We call it the ultimate autoimmune protocol. I don't have an autoimmune disease. So do I still have? I'm aware of what foods have a lot of oxalates because I don't want kidney stones. I don't want gallstones. Right. No. So I would choose like iceberg lettuce over spinach because spinach has a lot of oxalates. And what oxalates do, they bind the calcium. Then the calcium doesn't get into your bones. It gets built up in the kidneys. And you get kidney stones. And so yeah, that's why, you know, I'm just aware of what things have a lot of it. But I still like, I still like gummy bears. I still like, you know, we make those and we like, you know, certain things. You make them? Oh, yeah. I put it on my YouTube. There's three ingredients. It's delicious.

Okay. We'll put the link for your YouTube in there because that's, again, more ways to spice up our lives and help our taste buds. Okay, so tell me what does a day look like as a carnivore. This is, I haven't done, I mean, I like meat. I'm definitely more on the keto and some keto variations. And I've been thinking, I have a friend who I was at a seminar with. And she was, every time we sat down for a meal, she's like, oh, I'm carnivore only. I'm carnivore only for a couple of weeks. And she just kept ordering steak and nothing else. So what does a day look like? I hate to keep talking about my YouTube, but we were just in the kitchen.

No, it's all good. My carnivore waffles. And so we were making waffles. And it's just, there's no dairy in it. Because that's the thing, like, when people do carnivore with a lot of dairy, most people, they want to lose weight and feel better. And when you do a lot of dairy, you're probably going to gain quite a bit of weight and you're probably not going to feel as well. So there's different levels to carnivore, which I break down in the book.

But the carnivore waffles, it's just meat and eggs and you basically put it into a waffle maker. I know it sounds really, really weird, but it's really good. And then you make it as a sandwich if you want or whatever. You mix it around, like you blend it up? Yeah, you just like with a fork mix the eggs and ground beef and stuff. But like for me, that's not a typical thing that I would eat. So for lunch today, I had like, I still do intermittent fasting. I work best when I'm, you know, just clear.

My mind is clear. All of our grades work that way, you know? Right. But I had a filet mignon and I had a piece of halibut. And that's like my favorite, like easy lunch because it just takes like five minutes to fry those two things up. And then I usually have a later meal. and I know it sounds opposite, but I love scrambled eggs,

so I'll make scrambled eggs with salmon and I eat. I make carnivore bread, and so I'll have that on slices of carnivore toast. What's in carnivore bread? You got to see my YouTube. I will. I love this. This is because the creativity. Yeah, it reminds people of wonder bread.

I'll put my eggs on that bread and I usually make this. I'm not, I'm okay with dairy. so I'll make this brown butter cheese sauce. You ever make brown butter? It's like cheese. Yeah, no, I guess maybe not my version of, tell me brown butter. Brown butter? It's just, you take butter and you put it in a saucepan and you heat it really hot,

you have a whisk, and all of a sudden it'll froth up and brown flex will appear. Yeah, okay. I've seen that. Oh, right now I've had. It's like life changing. So I love that on lobster. I love that on shrimp. I mean, you name it.

But so that's like a real like. typical day for me. So, okay, so it sounds, I mean, it sounds really yummy. I was actually having a conversation yesterday with a woman who had a son or has a son with a brain tumor and she found the ketogenic diet just really brought. It actually shrunk his brain tumor. And her response to me when we were talking about like, how do you get your kids to eat keto? She's like, you put butter on anything and all of a sudden you have upped the taste and you'll

have no problem eating anything. You know, it's interesting. I have one son that can't do dairy. So throw that. That's why I wrote a lot of dairy-free books, too. Wow. Just because that makes a whole other game changer, but it just made me much more creative. Like I told you, nothing's bad. It's a challenge, right? Right. I love it. I'm going to overcome. And so no, yeah, we just like, for yesterday lunch, we had easy Chipotle at home. Everybody loves Chipotle. And so we had basically Chipotle. at home where I make these, you know, tortillas that don't have any carbohydrates in them. And yeah, they're just, it's good. Okay. So I'm sure people listening are thinking this. What, have you had your cholesterol checked? Yeah, I did. Great. I'm actually a lean mass hyperlipid

responder. Okay. Are you familiar with what that is? No, no, but it sounds like someone that usually is quite lean, exercises a lot, eat high fats. So that's my diagnosis. Are you familiar with with Dave Feldman? No. He is your next guest. Awesome. Dave Feldman. He is like the cholesterol king.

He's like a human pin cushion, okay? This is his life. No, I mean, he has. He'll experiment with everything. He had high cholesterol because he ate high fat, right? He lowered his cholesterol, but eating wonder bread and baloney sandwiches. Is that a good?

No, it went to the normal range where the doctor's like, oh, you don't need cholesterol. So mine are just under 300. Okay. But my calcium score, which you should be concerned with, is zero. Calcium score is if there's any plaque buildup in your arteries. It's zero.

So will I die of heart disease? No. And I have an interesting story. I had this client who her cholesterol was always like mine, kind of high. Her husband was a heart surgeon. And he always had low cholesterol. And he kind of teased her. And so I said, you know what, honey?

You're going to go prove him wrong. you're going to go get a calcium score. And she's like, I can do that because he works at the hospital. She had it done. Her calcium score was zero. He had it done. His calcium score was in the 500s. He was a day away from a stroke.

Wow. No lie. And he still thinks this to this day for opening his eyes to why his patients really have heart disease. It's not fat that's clogging your arteries. It's sugar causing inflammation. And it's the omega-6 oils. Omega-6, yep. Those vegetable oils, throw them out.

If you have canola oil, soybean oil, or anything with that, I mean, all those packaged dressings get rid of them because those are actually proving to cause us to be more sensitive to sugar and carbohydrates. What's worse, it's probably the vegetable oils. Yeah. You know, I was just on a call last night with our, we have a membership group called the Reset Academy. And we were talking about the cholesterol came up and we were talking about oils.

And I said, you have to look at your 369 ratio because that will be a bigger determinant of if you're going to get a heart problem or not. And what we see, I'm curious if you've heard this before, that what we see is that most people are living this high omega-6 life. So then they go, oh, I see all the great studies on omega-3. And so they bring omega-3 up to meet their omega-6. And yeah, it helps. But then all of a sudden one day they decide to bring their omega-6 down, their bad omega-3. six down, but they're still mega dosing on their omega-3s, and they've completely thrown the ratio off, and that's more dangerous than anything. I actually never recommend fish oil, cod liver oil,

that all goes in the garbage because you can only absorb about 80 milligrams of fish oil in a day, where people are doing 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 milligrams, and you can't absorb all that. And fish oil is a very heat-sensitive oil. So what happens, it oxidizes in your body and causes more issues than not. Eat your fish. I just had a piece of fish. Eat your organic eggs. Everybody complains about, oh, organic eggs are caught. They cost so much. Well, we live in Maui in the wintertime. Oh my gosh, you get cheap eggs for like eight bucks a dozen. It's ridiculous. So, you know, if you have this, but people will spend all that money on a fish oil supplement. Just buy the expensive eggs. I love it. And you can feed a whole family with one dozen that costs $6. I love it. I love it. Yep.

I love it. Don't go to Starbucks. Don't go to Starbucks. I used to work at those coffee shops. Those were like six bucks a drink. Yeah. We say that all the time in my office. We're like, if you give up your Starbucks habits,

you'll be amazed how much higher quality food you can eat. It's really, we have it all backwards. So I absolutely agree. If you're not buying gummy bears and chips and cereal and milk, I had a raw vegan client. She saves $200 or $2,000, dollars a year going from raw vegan all organic food to a carnivore diet where she buys expensive beef, expensive pork. But she didn't, when she was a vegan, she had to eat all the time. She said,

I was a teacher and I'd have to eat in between classes because I was always hungry. And now she eats once a day. Boom. And that's one of the challenges we see in our community is that when people are trying to go keto vegetarian or keto vegan, is they're hungry all the time? And that's a lot. And so I agree and I'm like, well, or they can't get their blood sugar down enough. And I'm like, I know. And I'm like, I love what you said about if you're doing it for the animal rights, I'm like 100% there with you. But if you're doing it for health, we need to have another discussion.

I thought that was brilliant. And so, but people really struggle to get their blood sugar under control when they're not eating meat. And that's the thing. When people have still that like dawn phenomenon where they wake up with high blood sugars even though they're eating keto, lower the fats. because you're overfueling your tank. You don't want to overfuel your car, you know,

but you're eating too much fat. Turn that dial down and you'll have much better blood sugars. So you would say lower your carbs, up your protein, moderate your fat. Yes. You know, like hit about 0.8 times your lean mass and protein. Most women in particular are not hitting that. That your vegan, vegetarian clients are not hitting that. the must they eat like 24 eggs a day, the vegetarian. But yeah, use your fat as a lever, you know. And I even

have a protein sparing modified fasting book out there that really amps up weight loss. But again, like you said, it's not all about weight loss. It's about feeling amazing, you know. Yeah. And so what about so this was another interesting thing, little test that I did is that I, so I have this patient who has really bad SIBO and she wanted to go on the carnivore diet. And I was like, let's try it. Let's give it a good. let's see what happens. I had heard meat and fat was really the best way to starve out. Bad bacteria, good bacteria in the small intestine. So I'm like, okay, let's try it. So she felt amazing. 90 days, all carnivore. So then I said, hey, can we test your microbiome? Let's do, we use a test called the gut, zoomer. I'm like, let's test your stools. Let's see what is going on with your bacteria. Well, I've done

thousands of these tests. And I was fully expecting her diversity to be off. I was expecting her good bacteria to be off. Like, I really was not, I was like she hasn't been feeding these good bacteria. Holy cow, was I wrong? Yeah. She came back with the best diversity I'd ever seen of thousands of people. And she had plenty of good bacteria. So why is that?

Like, it goes against everything I know. I know, right? This is all in the carnivore cookbook about these charts on what happens to your gut microbiome when you're not feeding it with like fibrous vegetables. And that's the thing. Like people think you need fiber for like the prebiotics, right? Guess what's a better prebiotic? Collagen.

How do you get collagen? Bone broth. Tissues of like chicken wings and ribs, all the stuff that we eat. I should have told you we eat chicken wings all the time. We eat ribs all the time. I smoke. I have a smoker and I smoke everything. And then I have a bunch of food in the freezer.

But all of those things have great prebiotics. They're actually much, much higher than fiber is. I think that a lot of medical professionals just think those are really unhealthy foods. So they push the other things. Yeah. Well, even in the functional medicine world, you know, when you go and you dive into looking at what prebiotic foods are, I've been studying prebiotic foods for years now, and I never heard anybody say collagen. Like, that's amazing.

The carnivore cookbook is going to rock your world. I can't wait. The first half of it is all of this science and showing you all of these studies and how your gut microbiome. It's going to change. It actually changes within a day. Wow. But it's ready to process the foods you're going to feed it.

And you know, you're not feeding it gluten anymore. So why even care if that fibrobiotics is the gut microbiome for, you know, gluten's is in there, you know? Yeah. Interesting. So, okay. And then where does fasting? You've mentioned fasting a couple of times.

One of the things that I point out to people all the time is that if you're trying to get ketones, it's not always about manipulating your macros. It's also about going periods of time without food where you're fasting. So do you fast? I only personally intermittent fast. I've never gone longer than a day. I don't want to lose any lean mass. And so I do best that way.

Yeah. And so you do like two meals a day. You have like you kind of. For a long time I did OMAD, but then I started getting picked. done for my size and people are cruel on social media. Oh yeah, they are. I have energy up the wazoo. Like if I, if there's something wrong, like I would, I wouldn't, you know, feel as great as I did. But well, yeah, I'll tell you a funny story on that. When I got into fasting, I did a, I had a big presentation I was giving to my community, a couple hundred people. It was in January.

And I was like, I wanted to show that you could have energy while fasting. So I did a five-day water fast. And then on the fifth day was the presentation. So I wanted to. show people like, look, I'm giving you guys a two-hour presentation. I'm standing up here. I haven't eaten in five days. This is the power of ketones. So it worked. Everybody got it. They understood it. A week later, I get a text from a friend of mine and she's like, you know, I noticed I hadn't seen you in a while. And I noticed like you're, you really, your cheeks were sunken in and you had a lot of wrinkles. I just wanted to know if that was the part of keto. And I was like, okay, wait a second. Like how should I take this? So basically you're telling me I look old. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like,

so you're going to use that as an excuse to not fast because you looked at me on a five-day water fast. So, yeah. But I bet in the carnivore you don't, you probably your skin and hair. I mean, your hair is gorgeous. Your skin and hair have to be thriving. Yeah. I mean, like I told you, I don't wear makeup. I actually don't even own any, you know. So I was like, do I have any powder for this interview? No, I don't. It is what it is. But yeah, no, it is. You're getting all of those good fats and all the collagen and amino acids. Like, all of that has to be incredible. So, okay, tell me. So there were two other things I want to make sure we touch on that are fascinated about you. One is that you do retreats. And the second one is you do one in Italy. Is the Italy one still going on? Because that's our favorite place to go. It is. So here I grew up, I mean, I didn't have. money growing up. Like we had like one family trip to like South Dakota. You know, I was like, whoop do you do? But, um, so when this woman reached out to me, she said, I, I special, I have a travel agency and I do specialized small group trips where we do yoga retreats or an art retreat in

Italy because she's from Italy. She now lives in California, but she knows all these secret places, right? She still has all these friends in Italy. She's like, I want, you know, I want you to be my keto girl. And I was like, what? I said, Craig, some lady Facebook message me that she wants me to go to Italy. He's like, give her your phone numbers. Yeah. She is now like, my dearest friend, I love her to death. She's this older woman that I just love.

And yeah, we're just pushed it off. We're not sure when it's going to happen, but it happens every year. And it might be in the fall if it works out. If not, then maybe we'll do two next year. And so what? So this was my first reaction when I heard it was like, okay, when I go to Italy, I drink wine and I eat pasta. So what is the best meats? Think about Italians. They have the great, these great meats. They have a lot of organ meat on the menu. And if you are a carnivore, they, we feed you like, they made my spaghetti bolognese and then they made zucchini noodles.

They made my chicken parmesan. And they're like, we don't know what keto is. we made it with your recipe. So did I like we ate on this farm that overlooked the coast of Sorrento. I mean, it was, I was pinching myself. We made our own like homemade mozzarella and homemade ricotta cheese and then we made food with it. And we have so much time for tours and that type of stuff. So it's, it's just like this great balance of everything, but there's no judging in my world. I was married to my husband for eight years before he even decided to come along this journey with me because we sat down at the table the first night, the first trip I ever took, and nobody sat by me. And I was like, listen up.

They were probably intimidated. Well, I said, as long as you don't judge me, I will not judge you. That's not my style. If you want to have wine, if you want to have lemon cello, if you want to have pasta, we're here to have a good time and learn. I'm going to teach you what I know. But I will never judge you for grabbing a cookie or something. And like, that's just, nobody in my parents, my brothers and sisters, my in-laws, nobody eats keto.

I still love them. Right. So if you want to come on the Italy trip, you do what you want. Don't judge me. I won't judge you. Oh, my gosh. I love that. Well, we're going to, we want to come.

Yeah, Jessica, my right-hand gal who's listening right now, she got married in Italy last summer. So she was like, she did it last summer. Yeah, right. Oh, it was amazing. It was amazing. Yeah. So, but it's such a great idea to immerse yourself in information like that because, you know, like we, you talked about YouTube a lot. And one of the things we see with our YouTube channel is like, you're just getting pieces of information over there. And sometimes you get frustrated because you're only getting pieces, but you're applying the pieces, but you haven't put, you don't have all the pieces. So you go to a retreat like that and you get the whole puzzle. Right. And I see all of like the really bad. keto information out there.

Amazing. Amazing. So the most current book you have out right now is the carnivore cookbook. Is that? Okay. Awesome. That one and the keto air fryer book kind of came out at the same time. So everybody's like, so you're carnivore now?

I'm like, not all the time. But I know the nutrients are and I focus that on my plate. And I see the onions and garlic and, you know, if you're a strict carnivore, that's not allowed. But for me, that's the flavor and the colors and the texture. I'll use vegetables as that, but you don't see that. I like, I will never have a big plate of spinach because I know how many exhalates are in there. So I just, you know, I just use, you know, wisely. So we, we, we, you think, I mean, this is a tough prediction, but you feel so good, your health is thriving. Do you think you'll ever go back to eating vegetables? Oh, but like I do.

you know, I'm still, like, I have some, but just not a lot. Like I, like, which ones do you have? What way? So if you don't have to spend. Like I said, ice for lettuce or like onions and garlic for flavor. It's really not a lot of them, but I don't really like, you know, my kids so like them. And guess what? With this coronavirus, I get, I'm a bow hunter. I don't mean to offend any vegans or anything. But I bow hunt right here. And where do you live? In Wisconsin. Okay. So I have three chest free chest freezers filled with meat. And I have like butcher box mailed to me for like beef. And I don't have to go to the store.

Yeah. Amazing. In the woods. I don't have to see anybody, you know, and I don't. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. It sounds like an incredible life.

Thank you. I'm an introvert at heart. I mean, I love like people like, really you don't, you like to talk. It's like that's different. I'm an introvert. Like I like to be in the woods. and I, you know, I kayak and I paddleboard with the humpback whales. You should see that.

That's pretty cool. But like I love helping people, too, just like you do, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the things that really fires me up is the fact that so many people don't understand how their body works. And so what's so cool about things like the carnivore diet and the keto diet is that and fasting is all of a sudden you eat a different way and you're like,

this thing you're living in all of a sudden behaves a different way. and you're like, whoa. I love that. Yeah, they don't know how good they can feel. They really, really, I didn't. Yeah. I feel like I wasted, you know, the first 16 years of my life in this fog. Yeah, so true, so true.

So let's end on this. I love talking to you, by the way. Your energy is awesome. Yeah, I feel like I could chat with you all day. I'm so sad we're not going to see each other at KetoCon, but our paths will cross somewhere. So, you know, one thing that I love the heart of people. I love people who have had some kind of had pain and they've overcome it. Like I just love those are the kind of people that light me up.

So if you had one message for the world, like if you could just scream it from the, from the highest mountain, what would that message be? Oh my gosh. That one I wish you would have prepared for. Yeah, but this is how we get the authentic answer. I know, right? I think it's really like important to, I was just telling my kids this today to be yourself. and be authentic to you, even if it's like, I've spent years being picked on.

Like, especially the first 10 years of doing this whole keto diet, people thought I was weird talking about fasting. It was unhealthy and bad. But I just stayed true to myself. But, you know, for them, they're black. And I just teach them, you, we live in a white community and you're going to be different. But you know what? Rock on and show them that you are a fun, cool.

person, but you just have to be yourself. Don't try to be anybody else. And if you don't want to be a carnivore, I would still love you. You be you. If you want to be a vegan keto, like you be you. And just like love yourself. Oh my gosh. I love that. That brings tears to my eyes. When I first, we talked a little bit about YouTube when when I first my YouTube channel started take off, the hateful things that got said was was really interesting. And so I had. a lot of my colleagues say, oh, see, that's why I don't do social media. And I, and I, my, my answer to that is that I have made a pact with myself, that I will always show up as me. And not everybody's going to like me. You might not like that I don't always, you know,

I'm not always dressed up, but what you can guarantee from me is I will always be my authentic me. And I, and I think if we all did that, oh, God, the world would be a happier place. But think about all the greats in the world. They were all challenged and ridiculed. I mean, Alfred Einstein, so your ideas, of course,

are going to be like, what is she talking about? And that's okay, you know? Agreed. It makes you stronger. Yeah. Well,

I adore you. This was such a great conversation. Someday. Someday, maybe we'll be on your next retreat. We were already stocking the retreat yesterday, Jessica and I going, hmm,

that might be one for us. But you're amazing. So where do people find you? I have a free website with over thousands of free, that protein noodle lasagna is on there at Maria MindBuddyHealth.com. So we got me bears. Otherwise, I'm on Instagram at Maria Emric. I'm on YouTube.

I'll send you the link for that with all of those fun, yummy recipes I was talking about. That's great. Awesome. Well, thank you. And to my community, you guys, go stalk Maria. I always call it stalking. Like, when you get excited about somebody,

go stalker. She's got some. She's got some great stuff for you. So thank you for enlightening us. Yeah, this was awesome. Have a beautiful day. You put the whole foods in, you tits out, you put organic food in, and you shake bad toxins out.

You eat ketobiotic and your microbiome shouts. That's what it's all about. You put fast cycling in, you take over eating out, you put the good fats in, Trying seven fast types out You download carp manager where your food is all grafted out That's what it's all up That's what resetting is all