Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - Falling In Love With The Ketogenic Energy System – With Ben Azadi

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

// R E A D Y • S E T • R E S E T This episode will answer all the questions that you have about ketosis and the ketogenic energy system.   Ben Azadi, FDN-P, is on a mission to help 1 billion people live a healthier lifestyle. Ben is the author of three best-selling books, The Perfect Health Booklet, The Intermittent Fasting Cheat Sheet, and The Power of Sleep. Ben has been the go-to source for intermittent fasting and the ketogenic diet. He is known as 'The Health Detective' because he investigates dysfunction, and educates, not medicate, to bring the body back to normal function. In this podcast, we cover: Why we need to tap into the ketogenic energy system It's true; babies are actually in a state of ketosis How to tap into the ketogenic energy system without changing your diet The first steps you need to make when switching to a ketogenic lifestyle Which carbohydrates you should ditch as soon as possible   // E P I S O D E   S P O N S O R S  Try Dry Farm Wines. Artisan hand-crafted wines that don't have the toxicity of conventional wines!  Feel the impact of Organifi - use code PELZ for 15% off all products!    // R E S O U R C E S   M E N T I O N E D Book: Keto Flex Ben Azadi Instagram Keto Kamp Podcast Keto Kamp YouTube Channel Continuous Glucose Monitor Studies Mentioned: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15573408/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15916931/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10652985/   // F O L L O W Instagram | @dr.mindypelz & @theresetterpodcast Facebook | /drmindypelz & /theresetterpodcast Youtube | /drmindypelz   Please note the following medical disclaimer: By listening to this podcast you understand that this video is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice and should not be relied on as health or personal advice. Always seek the guidance of your doctor with any questions you may have regarding your health or medical condition.  

And I love speaking about keto, as you know, Mindy, because keto is not a diet. It could be a diet, but technically it's not a diet. It's a metabolic process. 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 greatest 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. 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, on this episode of the Resetter podcast, I am bringing you my dear friend, Ben Azotti, who is the founder of Keto Camp Academy. So if you're not familiar with Ben, he has so much content out there in the world about the ketogenic diet and his new book, KetoFlex, is actually now going to give you the tools on how to flex in and out of keto. So one of the reasons I wanted to bring Ben on is to answer all of those crazy questions that we get on our platform, which is why am I gaining weight when I'm in ketosis? What happens when my cholesterol goes high when I'm in ketosis? What if I can't get into ketosis?

Are there any great hacks I can use to get into ketosis better? I mean, the list of questions goes on and on and on. And what I did in this interview, and I'm so excited to share it with you, is that I had him start from the beginning. Explain to us, why do we need to be in ketosis? How often should we be in ketosis? What foods do we need to change in order to get into ketosis? Literally every question I could think of about the ketogenic diet, about flexing in and out of ketosis,

I asked Ben. And he is an incredible teacher. He gives you the answers in a very succinct and usable way. And probably what I love about Ben the most is he's so motivational. I felt like I wanted to get my own notepad out and write down the one-liners of motivation that he was dropping on this episode. He actually, when I asked him the question of where do we begin to get into ketosis, he gave two answers, two steps that I have never heard anybody say before. And I'm not going to give it away because it's just too profound and awesome. And I want you guys to hear it

directly from his mouth. So Benazotti Keto Camp, his new book, KetoFlex, is now out for you guys to benefit from and enjoy. You can check out his YouTube channel. You can find him on Instagram. You can check out his podcast. This man is on a mission to change the world through the ketogenic energy system. Enjoy. Let's start with this. Since you are the, what I would consider, I think the world would consider this as well, one of the top keto experts. There are so many people that are hopping on the keto bandwagon. And some of those people are hopping on because they want to lose weight. Some people want to accelerate healing. But I feel like we are missing some of the basic premise of why we would want to go keto. And it all starts with this ketogenic energy

system. So before we launch it, you're so good at hacks. You have so many great ideas. Can you help us understand why it's so important to tap into the ketogenic energy system. I love the way you word that, ketogenic energy system. Yes, absolutely, because when we look at the body, we see that there's about 70 trillion cells inside of the body. And out of those 70 trillion cells, there's only two options for fuel. Either the cells are burning glucose, sugar, or it's burning fat, producing ketones. We know from research that when your cells are stuck as a sugar burner, a glucose burner, that could be highly inflammatory. And the analogy that I always give is picture a truck, a Mack truck, speeding through

the highway with all the smoke being blasted out of the exhaust pipe, going over the cars, the surrounding cars around it, paving the road with smoke. That truck is not healthy for the environment. It's not healthy for that surrounding environment. When the cells are stuck as sugar burners, it creates a lot of cellular byproducts, toxins, and smoke. It's not healthy for the cellular environment. When we look at obesity and cancer and diabetes, what do they all have in common?

Those are sugar burners. The cells are producing these toxins at high levels and it's creating an inflammatory response and it inflames the membrane. Now, bad stuff can't get out of the cell. Good stuff can't get in. Dysfunction occurs and then eventually symptoms and dis-ease. Now, the symptoms are not the problem. They are a result of the problem.

So when we could teach the body to switch to this ketogenic energy system, the way that you said it, that's like. teaching the cells to be a cleaner source of energy like a Tesla, cruising through your streets, much cleaner for the surrounding environment, much cleaner for your cellular environment. So we could do that by utilizing this ancient healing strategy called keto. And I love speaking about keto, as you know, Mindy, because keto is not a diet. It could be a diet, but technically it's not a diet. It's a metabolic process.

And every single one of our ancestors went through periods of time of being in ketosis. their environment forced that adaptation. And now we fast forward to 2021. Every single one of our cells are hardwired to go through periods of time of being in ketosis. So what I want to do with keto camp and with my book, KetoFlex, is educate you on how to get into ketosis, how to bypass some of the negative effects somebody might experience when doing so, and how to utilize it not for a short-term weight loss tool, but for a lifestyle strategy that you could flex in and out of.

I love that. And one of the things that I, like, ahaz I've had about nutrition recently is we've been debating the wrong energy system. We've been talking about how we should be eating to tap into the sugar burner energy system. And we haven't been talking about this ketogenic energy system, which is why I wanted to bring you on, why I wanted to have this conversation. And once we start to look at the quality of foods, the type of foods, and we teach people

how to tap into this energy system, I feel like we totally change the conversation around nutrition. And we get out of this diet's right. That diet's bad. We go back to how is the body designed? How do we tap into an energy system we didn't even realize we had? I love that. Yeah. So instead of debating diets, let's debate the energy system and what's better versus what's worse. Yeah, exactly. Now, I heard you speak recently and there was something you said again that just like hit me in such a profound way. And you spoke about how babies and breast milk, if you look like, that's one of the things we see in our, with our resetters is people are concerned about this energy system. They're concerned about being in ketosis. They've walked into their medical doctor's office and

the doctor's not so sure about it. But then if you go back to our innate, you know, years when we're little and we're breastfeeding, breast milk is actually ketogenic. Our baby's truly in a state of ketosis? Yeah, they are. And you could just go on pub bed and do a search for it. And I could give you the three studies that I referenced because breast milk has saturated fat and cholesterol. Yeah, there's some sugar in there, but the baby is so efficient at metabolizing and burning sugar that they still tap into ketosis and tap back out. Why is it that way? Well, we look at the brain, the brain is mostly fat. So the fact that the baby gets to go in and out of ketosis, so the baby is naturally keto flexing. It's so cool. It actually helps that the

development of the baby's brain. So I agree, and my point is that burning fat is our birthright. We were meant to burn fat. But the problem is the baby gets weaned off of the breast milk and then it's given this high sugar baby formula. And then it instantly is taught to be a sugar burner. And then it grows up a little bit more. We're giving them snacks and Gatorade, processed carbohydrates. And it's just teaching this baby that's born to burn fat and then it's teaching it to be stuck as a sugar burner. So we just want to go back to our primal birthright and burn fat. So then, and this is a total side note. If I was a mother that was breastfeeding, would it make sense for me to try to follow the ketogenic diet to improve the fat content

of breast milk? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I don't know the answer to it with like a study, but I would hypothesize that if the mom is doing some keto flexing and getting some ketones, there could be a positive effect for the baby. We've got to find like a study on that. I think it's a great question, yeah. Yeah, I mean, because again, it's an energy system that we haven't been talking enough about. And I love your idea that the ketogenic diet is not a diet

because if it is a diet, then it's a fad. That's sort of the way I think people look at it. And I like to look at it. No, it's this energy system you just haven't been taught how to tap into. And, you know, you can tap into it a lot of different way. which leads me to my next question for you is, do you think you can tap into the ketogenic energy system without changing your food? Yes, of course, as you know, with fasting, right?

If you're in a fasted state, you're not eating any food. Your body needs to get energy from somewhere. So it'll switch and start burning fat. Now, that's not the optimal way to start keto. Right. But that is one method to do it. A lot of people, they go on Dr. Google and they type in, you know, what is the key? diet, what are the macros, what are the calories, and they'll see bacon and cheese and fat,

and they'll start to just overload themselves with these fats, which are not a bad thing if you're eating quality fats, but keto technically is not about eating a whole bunch of fat. It's about dropping your carbohydrates low enough so you could switch the energy source to burning your fat cells and allowing your liver to produce the ketone. So you could do that without making any dietary changes. You could do it with the combination of intermittent fasting and maybe even different fasting strategies and exercise because you'll burn through your glycogen stores and then you'll force the body to make that switch. So, okay, and then the reverse would be, what if I don't want to

fast? So what I heard from you is you said, yes, you could not change your food and just fast and you would get into this energy source. What if I don't want to fast? Then I probably need to change my food and what would I need to change? Yeah. So definitely. That's the way that I teach it, actually, for somebody who's brand new, is to not even fast yet. You know, eventually we could pair fasting with it if you want to do that. But the thing is to just monitor your carbohydrates. If you could eventually drop your total carbohydrates below 50 grams for the day, at the same time, increasing your healthy fats and some protein,

you will be get into ketosis. You'll be producing ketones because you're dropping your carbohydrates low enough. No fasting is required. Eventually, if you want to do fasting, it will be a good one-to-punch to pair. with keto, but it's not necessarily, it's not necessary to get into ketosis. So what I'm hearing is there's two sides of the equation. There's the food change that you can make and then there is the fasting change you can make. Correct. And then there's taking a whole bunch of exogenous ketones and getting in there artificially, but that's not a method I recommend.

I was going to say, what do you, what do you just, I mean, I don't hear that so much from people anymore, but just in case somebody's listening that what do you think of exogenous ketones? I think there's a time in place for them. You know, I would use them personally for myself if I'm going on an airplane, like before the airplane. I've seen some research that it helps with the radiation. Dom Di Augustino talks about that. I would take it after the airplane.

Maybe for like a brain performance hack, if I want to be sharp for Mindy right here on the Resetters podcast, I could have taken it. But other than that, I'd like to teach the body to do it indogynously. Sometimes also when somebody is following the protocols and they're three weeks in, they're still not really in ketosis. Maybe they could take it from a quality brand like systemic formulas for a couple days to prime the pump and then get off of it. So those are the times I would use it, but I wouldn't rely on the exogenous ketones. Yeah, yeah, I would definitely agree. So earlier today, I had the pleasure of talking to Dr. Ken Berry. And I saw that. Yeah. He's such a nice man. And one of the

things that I know that my heart and his heart links up on and I know your heart is in the same place, is how are we going to help this chronic disease, insulin, hyper-insulinemia issue that we have going on right now. And it all boils down to the quality of our food. And so my question to you on that is if you're listening to this podcast and you know your diet's not great, you know that you need to make some changes, what do you feel like is the first couple of steps that people need to make. How can we go into keto without diving all in, just sort of tiptoeing in?

Yeah, the first step I would make is to optimize your sleep. You know, if you can't get quality sleep, you're not going to be able to burn fat. You're not going to be able to reduce inflammation or even get into ketosis. Sleep is fundamental. And I would make sure you're getting at least seven hours of quality sleep. You could track it. But sleep, it's been shown just one poor night of sleep. on Scientific American has been shown the following morning to increase cortisol levels. And what

follows cortisol is glucose and insulin. And what follows that is ghrelin, your hunger hormones, so you're hungrier. And then leptin drops. So when you do eat, you're less satisfied. But also, ketones will drop when glucose goes up. So your will power reserves will be wiped out. Your immune system will be wiped out. You'll increase inflammation. You'll develop these plaque buildups, plaque buildup in your brain. It's just a disaster. And it's a vicious cycle because one poor night of sleep leads to more stress, you bingey, you get worse sleep, and it's just a bad cycle. So I would start with sleep, and then I would start with other fundamentals when it comes to health, which is I love talking about it. It's self-love and gratitude. I mean, if you don't

have that down pat, if you don't have some form of self-love and loving other people and practicing gratitude, it's going to be very difficult to heal because just having a toxic thought will be inflammatory to the body. Dr. Bruce Lipton explains this very well and backs it up with research. Negative thoughts, hateful thoughts, resentful thoughts, fearful thoughts lead to sound waves that penetrate the cell membrane, go into the nucleus of your DNA and it tells your nucleus of your DNA to produce specific proteins that lead to disease just from our thoughts. So if it's that powerful when it comes to negative thoughts, think about what it can do when it comes to positive loving thoughts. And it really starts with self-love. As somebody who was depressed and

suicidal and hated myself, I had to really be intentional with myself love. And I still do to this day. And when you do that, when you have the sleep, the self-love, the gratitude, because what you appreciate appreciates and expands, then you could do the keto, the fasting, the supplements, and all that will work that much better because you've laid a solid foundation for your health. Amazing. Yeah. I've never heard anybody say that the first two steps to keto or sleep and gratitude. That was beautiful. And I hope that everybody's listening to that. So my next question is I'm putting myself in the shoes of a person that's overweight, not feeling good, not sleeping well, low energy. It's easy to say sleep better and love

yourself. But what if I'm not sleeping well because of poor living and I'm struggling to love myself. Are there tricks we can do to get that person energetically pointed in a right direction before they step into keto or should they just try to make some changes and hope that the gratitude and sleep follow? Yeah, they can do both, right? So your environment is very important. Having people in your life who support you and want you to be healthier and happier, that's so important. It's very difficult to find that. I do an exercise with my Keto Camp Academy members where I have them grab a piece of paper, blank piece of paper, and I tell them, okay, I want you to draw a line down the middle and then a little cross at the top. On the right

side, I want you to list everybody in your life who supports you, who charges you up, who wants you to be healthier, who wants you to be successful. And how you know that person is on that side is because when you're done having a conversation with them, you're charged up. So they're charges. Like I always feel charged up with you, Mindy. Yeah, thank you. You want to put all those people on the right side and you'll be surprised that list is actually shorter than what you would think on the left side you want to put a list of all the people in your life who are not supporting you maybe they're saying fasting is going to harm you or they want you to stay at your job that you hate or whatever it is so put all those people on the left and what you want to do is just make

an effort to spend more time with the people on the right the chargers versus the drainers the drainers you're going to have a conversation with them they're going to talk about fear they're going to talk about gossiping and you're going to feel drained the charge you're going to feel inspired and you're going to be more motivated and inspired to actually go take care of yourself. So really do an audit on your environment because environment is more important than heredity. It could actually change a lot of your behaviors. I want to share a quick story about crabs in a bucket. You could put 20 crabs in a bucket and leave those 20 crabs in the bucket without a lid overnight. Come back in the morning and all 20 crabs will be there. And you might be thinking,

why didn't all these crabs just escape and break free? Well, they tried. And any time a crab tried to escape and break free, the other crabs clawed at it, drug it back down and did not let them break free because that's the way the crabs roll. So who are the crabs in your life? Make sure you detach from those crabs. That's going to be important. The next step on your journey here is to then just gradually make some changes, these small little tweaks that lead to giant peaks. There's a great book out there. I don't know if you've read it called Tiny Habits by B.J. Fogg. No. Anything about habit stacking and just creating small little changes each day. So when it comes to your nutrition, just gradually start decreasing your carbohydrates and at the

same time, start increasing your healthy fats and protein, start doing an audit on your environment, and then get this small little momentum and win each day. Take it to the next day. And this is just about beating yesterday, just getting a small percentage better. And then you'll get this momentum and eventually it's just going to become a habit. And it's going to be programmed into your subconscious mind where you just do it naturally. I love that. I had a good friend who I went through the cancer journey with her. She had metastatic breast cancer.

And one day we were sitting in her kitchen. They gave her three months to live and she turned it into 11 years. Wow. And yeah, it was profound. Talk about mindset. One day she brought out, if she was in her kitchen and she opened up a cabinet and she showed me a piece of paper and she said, these are the, this is how I categorize the people in my life because I realized that the people around me determine how well I will heal. And she had a circle

in the middle of the sheet with her name and then little circles that went out from that initial circle. And the people that were further out, it was all in pencil. The people that were further out from the circle were the ones she needed to stay away from. They were people. that were in her life, that she, that were draining her of healing energy. And the closer you were to the circle, then the more she was willing to interact with you. And it was in pencil because she would have to erase it and move the people around. And she even had her dog on there. Her dog was like right next to her. And I was so honored because I had made the list. I was like, oh my God, and I'm close to you. That's awesome. I'll just make sure if I'm ever out of favor

with you. I'll know that I got put out to the outer circle. I love that. That's such a great exercise and activity. And, you know, sometimes somebody will be on that list further away from the circle, somebody that could be your doctor that could be on that list. Well said. And you go to your doctor and you say, oh, I heard about keto or fasting and they're like, they just totally poo-poo it. And for your friend or anybody who has been diagnosed with a terminal disease, you know, when a doctor says your disease is terminal, they should really be saying that their ability to help you has been terminal and you find somebody else because who are they? Who is anybody to play God? I mean, you know as well as anybody else out there that the body is the physician. The innate intelligence is the physician.

So that activity is so crucial. I love that your friend did that. Yeah. Oh, that was well said. So, okay, and I just, I'm going to step this out because people listening at, you know, my resetters know, I love delivering great information, but I want it to move. people into action. So what I've heard from you is we're going to get better sleep. We're going to go into a state of gratitude. We're going to be mindful of the people that we allow to tell us, yay, you're doing keto or no, you're not, what do you mean you're going to do keto? You're going to die. So we're mindful of those people. And then we're going to slowly pull our carbohydrates out of our diet. Can you tell me which carbohydrate I should start with? Yeah, with the process carbs. So anything that's

a packaged or a bar or something like that. Start with the processed ones. You stick with more whole food carbohydrates like fruits and sweet potatoes and some any any kind of carb that doesn't require a label on it would be safe. You know, something else to note as well, you know, the vegetable oils, the inflammatory fats. I would also start there as well, not to overwhelm you in the beginning, but you do want to do an audit for these bad fats, which technically are all keto friendly, but they're worse than sugar. So I would make sure you do an audit. And I'll share real quick when I interviewed Brian Peskin and Dr. Kate Shanahan, and I asked them the question about cigarettes, smoking cigarettes versus these vegetable oils, what's worse for you?

They both agreed that vegetable oils were worse for you than cigarettes. And they gave some research that if somebody smoked two packs of cigarettes every single day for 28 years, the chances of that person developing lung cancer within those 28 years is about 16%. And then they compare that to somebody who ate these bad fats, vegetable oils, every single day for 28 years, their chances of developing cancer or heart disease was about 86%, which is absurd. Isn't that crazy? Dr. Kay Shanahan said it's closer to 100%. Crazy. And that's because they're just highly processed. They're inflammatory. They're very unstable. And they gunk up the cells and the membrane and they prevent your body from doing its job. It prevents this wonderful orchestra that

we have in the body. And some research has shown that it could cause inflammation around your cells, vegetable oils, for six to 12 months. So there, I'm going to give your audience a list here and they could write it down. Please. Yeah. Canola oil is one of the bad ones, corn oil, soybean oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, sunflower oil, peanut oil, cotton seed oil, grape seed and ripe sprang oil. Those are all the toxic ones there. Half flour and sunflower could be healthy if they're organic, cold pressed. But other than that, we want to make sure we avoid those. They're very unstable, toxic fats. And how would I know, like if I go out to a restaurant, how would I know if those fats are in those foods?

Yeah, good question. You would ask the waiter or the waitress, what oil do they use to cook with? And 95% of the time, probably it's going to be one of these bad fats. So what I do is I tell them that I'm allergic to these vegetable oils. And can you use an olive oil or an avocado oil or a coconut oil or even butter or larder ghee? And most of the time they have that. You just have to make the request. But you have to say you're allergic because you've got to get their attention that way. Just don't say you don't want them.

Say you're allergic and they'll listen to you. I love that. Well said. Okay. So now you're pulling out the breads and the more refined carbohydrates. You're changing the oils. You're pulling out sugar. okay, is there a point at which I now start counting macros or can I just do this organically?

Do I just keep working on the quality of my food? Where would I go from that point? Yeah, I like counting the macro carbohydrates, looking at carbohydrates and you can use a free app, you know, chronometer, my fitness bow, whatever one you want to use. Or you can just simply go on Google and type in what you ate and kind of calculate it yourself. This is not something you have to do all the time. but just to get an idea of how much carbohydrates you're having. So maybe not the first three or four days as you're just making these small changes,

but maybe after like five or six days you want to see if you're hitting that threshold or 50 grams of carbs or less per day. You might want to pull out an app and log in your food just to make sure you're hitting that marker. And you should be in ketosis. If you are less than 50 grams and you're eating more healthy fat and protein, you know, something else I would add is in the beginning to eliminate the snacking and just stick with your three meals a day. That could be a big difference as well in helping you getting into

ketosis. And how would I know I'm in ketosis? If I've only been like a sugar burner my whole life, how will I know that I'm in ketosis? That's like the magic, the million dollar question that I hear. Well, you could test for it, but let's talk real quick about some like natural ways to know without testing. Your mental clarity is going to be improved. You'll be losing weight as a side effect of getting healthier, you'll have better sleep, your skin will improve, you'll be able to skip a meal and actually feel better. These are signs of fat adaptation. Now, if you want to actually verify it by testing, there are three ways to test ketones. There is beta hydroxybutyrate, which is found in the bloodstream. The unique thing about BHB, beta hydroxybutyrate,

crosses the blood brain barrier, and it's a great source for the brain. There's also acetone, which is expelled in the breath. And then there's acetoacetatease. which is released in the urine. So there's urine strips, there's breath ketone meters, and there's blood ketone meters. I don't like urine strips. It's the cheapest one out there, and it's the most popular because people, it's cheap. But if your body is very efficient and good at metabolizing the ketones and using it, it's not going to spill out in your urine.

So it might just give you some bad reading, some false reading. So I don't use the urine strips or recommend them. Acetone with a breath ketone meter could be accurate if you get a good meat. I like biosense, but I'm going to focus on blood because you could get glucose and ketones. So I use keto mojo. There's some other apps out there or machines out there. So you could test your, it's a finger prick machine and you could get a result in within seconds. If you are 0.5 or higher with your blood ketone meter, congratulations.

You're in ketosis. You're burning fat, right? And the goal is not to chase ketones. The goal is to chase results. Just like we don't want to have a whole bunch of glucose in the bloodstream. and we don't want a whole bunch of ketones because it means your body's not really using it. So the sweet spot I've seen for ketones is 0.8 to 2.8. And then for glucose, you know, here's something interesting I learned today.

And I want to ask your question on this, actually. I want to turn the table here and ask you. Yeah, go for it. Yeah. Speaking of fasting glucose, like I said for years, the optimal range is 70 to 90. I recently interviewed a gentleman today, Dr. Anthony Jay. And he has shown research that if you're fasting glucose, he shared research that if you're fasting glucose, is 85 or higher, you 3x your risk of heart disease.

Oh, he wants it even lower. He wants it between 70 and 85. He says if you go to 85 or higher, it's actually toxic. Now, I've got to look at the research. I'm just sharing what he shared. So in general, I would say 70 to 90 is a good range to be for glucose. And then, yeah, hitting those ketone numbers. I mean, I would generally say on that, that it combined that with other markers of cardiovascular

dysfunction than maybe, but I think we already have, and I know you see this in your world, but in my world, we see so many people chasing those numbers, trying to get lower, trying to get into ketone. And it's almost like the obsession they had around the scale, they now have around the ketone meter. So if you had a family history of heart disease, if you know that your cholesterol, the numbers that you and I look at, not the total cholesterol and not just eligible. but the other numbers and that's a that's a whole other show um if and you know that your CRP is high and homocysteine is high and we've got other issues insulin is already high then yes

maybe but i don't want i wouldn't want my resetters to be freaked out because now all of a sudden their blood sugar is at 90 yeah when that's like better than most people so valid point absolutely yeah it's it's an important note i agree with you mindy you want to look at the full picture or not just be, I didn't mean to scare your audience. I was just sure. No, no, no. I think I, you know, the one thing that you and I, the world we come from is a is the multi-therapeutic approach world. And that is the world where you don't solve your health problems with one specific thing. You have to look at several things. Well, the same thing goes for testing. You don't identify your health problems with one metric. You've got to look at several. So, I,

I could, like the clinical part of my brain could listen to that and go, yeah, okay, I could see lower blood sugar absolutely is always going to be the best. But I also don't want to send people into a fear state because now they're at 87, which is still amazing, right? Yeah, absolutely. Multi-therapeutic approach. Yeah. What do you think of the continuous glucose monitors? Are you guys using those in keto camp? I love them.

I mean, I know you love them as well. there's such a great tool to give you an idea of what food is doing. Even keto foods that you might think would keep your glucose low, you might have a sensitivity to it. And it could be a trigger food, a food that's actually creating a problem. So it gives you great feedback on stress. I know you had mentioned you had shared before what it did to your glucose, what exercise could do, what a poor night of sleep could do.

I like that even better than a finger prick machine because it's giving you 24-7 access. And, man, if we could just have that readily available, to everybody in the U.S. What a game changer that would be. Totally change. Yep, it would be a total game changer. Have you worn one for a significant amount of time? For 60 days, I wore one, yeah.

What was your big aha for yourself? Well, what exercise, it was interesting to see what exercise did. I saw some really interesting readings where in the beginning it would go up like during the exercise, the strength training component part of it, the first 20 minutes of my workout. I would see like a 20 to 30 point increase. And then as I finished with. cardio would drop. So I guess my body was like dumping some glucose to be used for energy and then it

was burning it and dropping back down. So that was super fascinating. I also saw that coconut whipped cream jacked up my blood sugars like 150, 160, which it's not even high in carbs and it's keto friendly. So that was super interesting as well. What about you? What are some things? Yeah, I, cauliflower chips or anything cauliflower, the cauliflower pizza crusts, all the things that, same thing, the grain-free things I was doing, hoping that it was going to be lower carb, actually had more of an impact on my blood sugar than something like a gluten-free pizza or we get some ancient grain flowers that will make some like pizzas, typically what we'll make. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I actually was doing the cauliflower to get into ketosis,

but what I learned is it was spiking my blood sugar higher. So interesting. And you would have never known if you didn't have the machine, the device, yeah. Exactly. And I actually also learned I do really well with protein. So if I do protein, my blood sugar stays the same or it drops. And that hadn't always been the case. I had done the continuous glucose monitor about three years ago. And every time I ate protein, I started to get a spike in my blood sugar. But this go around, I did it for 30 days. And I walked around and I was like, carnivore loves me. Oh my gosh. I should be. doing more carnivore. It loves me. My blood sugar drops. And I recently chatted with one of the leads at Nutrisense, which is one of the monitors that we recommend. And she said, usually if your cells are getting much healthier, you will process protein more efficiently and you should see that your blood sugar drops with protein. Interesting. Yeah, I like that idea. And I've also

seen incorporating healthy fats at the same time of eating the proteins. Maybe some natural fats also helps with the glucose response from the protein too. Yeah, it's fascinating. But I agree with you. I think everybody should get one of them. I tell my resetters get it and then get it for at least 30 days and test every possible food that you can with it. So, and we did, it's really fun. I also learned that wine loves me. But then I know the story here you ask. Carrie Jones. I know. I did.

And she said it's still got to be detoxified by the liver, Mindy. That's right. I was like, I brought her on. I was so excited. I was like, oh my gosh, wine. Wine makes my glucose go down. Does that mean it gets me into ketosis better? And she's like, yes, but your liver is trying to break down estrogen and it can't do

it effectively if you're, if you've got wine in you. And I was like, oh, okay. And you drink high quality wine like a dry farm, right? Yeah, we only drink dry farm. I feel really sad because we have a whole cellar full of really nice napal wines that I don't know if I'll ever drink because they're toxic. So, yeah. Yeah, it's too bad. So, okay, so now we've got gratitude.

We've got sleep. We're in ketosis. Okay, tell me where the flex part comes in because I know that a lot of people want to jump into the flex right away. But do you believe we should learn how to get into ketosis? first and then flex second? Yeah, exactly. I believe that's the goal. So in my book, KetoFlex, I talk about, I have my four pillar protocol.

And it takes about 60 days, 6-0, before we start flexing. So we're pretty disciplined, pretty strict for the first 60 days. We're getting fat adapted and then keto adapted, which takes a little bit longer, which then your mitochondria now prefers the ketones. Your body prefers the ketones over the glucose. So we do want to do that. We want to reset the metabolism, reset the hormones, and get keto adapted, and that could take about 60 days.

After you've done that, you've earned the badge to start flexing. You know, we talked about our ancestors doing keto. Well, they also flexed all the time. When they had tubers or honey or fruit, they didn't look back of their tribe and say, we don't eat that, bro, or keto. No, they eat that, right? So they always flexed in and out. There's not one culture in the history of this world that stuck with the same diet long term.

We could get into trouble, as you know, sticking with the same diet. Oh, yeah. We've all made that mistake. Right. So flexing happens after 60 days. Now, if at the 60 day mark, you still have insulin resistance and diabetes or some sort of metabolic condition going on, you could probably stay in ketosis a little bit longer as you heal some of that metabolic damage.

But in the book, I talk about 60 days. And that's the principle. It's the diet variation principle that you speak about where we intentionally flex out of ketosis. And that could be one day. That could be two days. But the goal is to have a day where you're, you're activating insulin. You're getting these healthy insulin spikes, as you mentioned all the time,

helps make these hormonal conversions, one of them being T4, inactive thyroid to T3. That's conversion needs insulin to make that conversion. So no fasting that day. We want more mTOR, which is anabolic growth. And we want to have more carbs. So 100 to 200 grams on that day of healthy carbs is the goal. I love the timeline you give because that's a big question we get a lot is how long should I stay in ketosis? How long will it take me to get into ketosis? So what I'm hearing you say is 60 days, give yourself some grace, just practice these first principles and then move to the flex. And I have two questions on that. When you move to the flex, then how often should you flex in and out of keto? Is there a specific amount of time? Like should I be more in keto half the week and

half out. Is there any research on what's best? Yeah. So the way that I outline it is if you want to maintain your weight or even put on some healthy weight or maybe you have just like five pounds left to go, then I like the 5-1-1 rule, which is just one day flexing out. If you have 10 to 20 pounds or so to lose at that point, then I like the 4-21 rule. If you have more than 20, 25 pounds to lose, then I like the 3-3-1 rule. Again, those are protocols that you always want to mix up and match. But for the 30 days, I would follow one of those pillars. Okay. And just so we keep everybody up to speed on that terminology, I'm sure it's in your book. I'm going to encourage everybody to go get your book. But tell me briefly what

511, 421 and 331 is. Yeah, mostly your audience, no, because you speak about it a lot. But for sure, I'll explain it. So the 511 is a seven-day protocol. Five days out of the week, you're practicing intermittent fasting, whatever your favorite schedule is. You're in ketosis eating keto-friendly meals. That's the five. The one is a 24-hour water fast, dinner to dinner or lunch-to-lunch-to-lunch sort of deal. The last one is your keto flex day. Higher carbs, no fasting, have your breakfast lunch and dinner. You're flexing out of ketosis. That's the 5-1-1. That's good for somebody who has about five pounds or less to lose or they want to maintain their weight. The 4-21 is when the same rules apply, four-days intermittent fasting, doing keto. But instead of the

one 24-hour fast, you're doing a 48-hour water fast. So you're going like Monday night dinner to Wednesday night dinner or lunch or whatever you want to do. The one is the same thing, keto flex day, higher carbs, no fasting. The 3-3-1 rule separates it by having a three-day water fast. As you know, it reboots the entire immune system. You get a lot of autophagy, a lot of fat loss. So it's a 72-hour water fast in those three days, three days intermittent fasting with keto, and then that one flex day applies as well. Now, you could split up the 72 water fast into 324 hour water fast, but if you want to maximize it,

I would go with the straight 72 hour fast. Yeah, I like that. That's a little bit of a variation than what I teach and I like it. That's really, yeah, I like the three-day water fast. I like that, especially for people. We've seen people with chronic conditions do really well with those three-day water fast, putting them in on a fairly regular basis. Yeah.

Yeah. Now, what if I get to the end of the 60 days and I'm still not in ketosis? Wow. Well, hopefully if we've done the right work, you'd be in there. But if you're not, you know, toxicity, you know, it could be that you have a lot of neurotoxins. You have something going on with your stress bucket underlying condition where it's causing maybe an inflammatory response where it's not allowing your body to adapt to being a fat burner. So I would look at these hidden sources of stressors, these hidden stressors. So toxicity, silver amalgam fillings, cavitations in the mouth, a moldy home, make sure your sleep is optimized. So I would explore those avenues. But that's very uncommon for somebody to do 60 days of the protocol, because not only

do I teach them the first protocol, which is getting you adapted to a fat adapted, we move into different fasting strategies in the second pillar. And then we do carnivore in the third pillar. So most people will be in ketosis and if not there has to be some sort of underlying stress are going on. Yeah. And I would agree that and it and it and it does happen. And I always say, I don't want people to give up on keto. This energy system is a gift. So that's why I want to make sure our audience listens and hears that that there's another reason. It doesn't mean you failed. It doesn't mean something's wrong. There's just another reason you got to go searching for. So I love that. Yeah. So I love you're so right because a lot of people,

they're comparing themselves to somebody else. We got into ketosis in three days. You lost 20 pounds. Please don't do that. Comparison is the thief of joy. It's going to really rob you of pleasure. Everything that you're doing, all of the wins and all the challenges, all of it is on the way, not in the way.

It's all part of the learning process. You know, it's not about competing against Mindy or me. It's about competing against who you were yesterday. You know, have better thoughts today than yesterday and just make those small tweaks. Years, not months. You say it all the time, right? It takes years, not months to get healthy. Just continue the path and stick and stay and it's bound to pay.

Yeah. Oh, I love it. You have some great one-liners. I think that's what should be on your shirts or all those one-liners. I love it. Okay, let's talk about carnivore because I know you've experimented a lot with carnivore. I was recently with you at dinner while you were on carnivore. So what I'm hearing that you just said is you would work to get into ketosis,

then you would practice 60 days of keto. flex and then you're ready to try carnivore? No, so carnivore is before the keto flex. It's the third pillar, right? So after the first pillar getting adapted to burning fat, then we move into the second pillar, which is fasting strategies. And the third pillar is called phase. We're phasing out all carbs, all anti-nutrients, oxalates and lectins that are commonly found in vegetables. Can they be bad for you? Yes. Do you want to avoid them forever? No. You want to just eliminate them. for about 30 days in a book I outlined four levels to carnivore. So I outline which level you want to do. Level one is the most extreme one, more for like autoimmune cases. And then you have more flexibility

as you go down the line. But it's tremendous for eliminating these foods that actually create inflammation in your body that are fruits and vegetables that we've been taught are healthy, but they contain these anti-nutrients and plants do not want to be eaten. They have developed these defense mechanisms. You've interviewed Paul Celadine. It's such a crazy concept. Right. It's like I think people have to hear it over and over again. I know that that is mind-blowing.

So explain a little bit why so that we don't lose people in this moment because there's some magic in this carnivore diet. Yeah, I mean, plants can't run away. They can't really defend themselves. So when predators came around and they didn't, if they didn't have a defense mechanism, they just died, they go extinct. They lose their species. So they developed this internal defense mechanism, which are developed.

they're called plant toxins, antinutrients, oxalids, lektids, lektins, phytates. There's over 50 of them that I've researched. And it's the plant's way of protecting itself. So when that predator ate the plant, it got sick and I didn't want to eat that plant again, and it saved the plant species. So there is an argument to be made that consuming these plants actually create a positive stress, a hermetic stress, which is true. But if we're eating them all the time and we already have leaky gut from pesticides,

herbicides toxins, then it creates that down curve of the hormetic curve and it leads to problems. So eliminating them for short term in the book I talk about doing it for 30 days could have tremendous benefits on your gut and inflammatory levels. Like for me, Mindy, I did it twice in the last year, 30 day protocol, 36 day protocol, then 40 day protocol. It did wonders for my energy levels, my heart rate variability, my sleep score, my autoimmune flare ups. I lost one. weight, my skin look better. I healed my gut tremendously. And when you remove the plant toxins and start working on your gut and then reintroduce them, that's the way to do it to really benefit from carnivore. And in the book, do you explain how to do carnivore? Because I do feel like if you think

keto's overwhelming, I feel like carnivore for some people is really overwhelming. Yeah, carnivore is actually, it's simple to do, but simple not to do because it's kind of, it's restrictive, but it's like eat this, don't eat that. But then when you're like in your day to day, it's kind of weird deal. You're a dinner table and you have fruits and vegetables. So yeah, in the book, I talk about here's level one. Here's what you can eat. Here's some supplements that help support you, why we want to have collagen, balance out your amino acids,

methanine glycine. Here's level two. Here's what you can eat. Yeah. So I have each level. And as you go down the levels, it's more flexible. So I'll briefly just explain the levels. Yeah, please.

Level one is just beef, red meat, and salt. Right? It's just like for severe autoimmune, it's going to get you the most results, but it's a lot. It's very restrictive. Level two introduces all animal proteins. So you could have the chicken, the poultry, the same thing, the bison, the meats. And then level three, you could have all of the above plus some eggs and dairy. And level four, all of the above plus some plant sauces like mushroom sauce or some ketchup, something like that. So as you go down the line, it's a little bit less restrictive. Yeah. And I like that. The tier system is nice because it gives you a little bit of flexibility.

Exactly. Now, what do you think? You have some great hacks for all of this. Like, I love where this conversation's gone because hopefully people are getting really good foundational ideas. And I always believe we should start with the foundation first before we start tricking out our diet or tricking out some aspect of our lifestyle. And I feel like in the case,

keto world, we have a lot of hacks out there. There's like, you know, I was on a masterclass with Dave Asprey the other day and he was talking about spermadeen and, and there's a lot of different little, like, one-off supplements you can take. Do you feel like those are necessary? And if so, what are some of the hacks that you're like, yes, people should take this? I do think they could help for sure. And you did a great job on that master class. I was watching it. Thank you. You're welcome. They could help, but you got to get the fundamentals down first. You got to get the basics. And then once you got that mastered, you could add something like spermadine or, you know, some basic supplements or hacks, if you want to call them that, would be like magnesium and

electrolytes and minerals. You speak about that all the time. Anything that could support this, orchestra in the body, the hormones and the sematatatabolism is going to be beneficial to you. The problem is that a lot of people don't get that fundamental, the, the, framework down pack? Yeah. And they take all these supplements, they don't feel a damn thing. I used to do the same thing because you've got to take care of the fundamentals and then it'll work that much better. So there's a time in place for it, but you got to take it step by step. You know, my chapter 21 is not the same as your chapter one, right? You don't do what me or what Dave chapter 120 is doing. Right. Your chapter is doing and then go on to the next chapter.

Yeah. And I think that's such an important point because it's easy to get distracted with those one-off packs, they're great, but don't lose side of the foundation, which is why, again, I hope this conversation really gives people a platform in which to fall in love with this ketogenic energy system and not get distracted. And then once you have a good foundation, go for it. Those things are phenomenal, but let's not use them as distraction tools. So, amen. You know what could be a good title to this podcast? Falling in love with the ketogenic energy system. Oh, I love it. Okay, done. That's what it's going to be. I love it. Okay. Now, I have to, because I know you and I live in very similar worlds and we get asked so many questions. So I have to ask you some of the questions that we see

thousands and thousands of questions on social media every week about hurdles that people get it stuck on, obstacles with keto. So I want to know your opinion on them. Okay. First, I went on keto and my cholesterol went through the roof. Why is that? Well, if you're just talking about total cholesterol, that's a good thing. You know, more people die from heart disease with normal to low cholesterol than with high cholesterol. So we want cholesterol, mix your sex hormones. The cell membrane is made up of cholesterol, by the way. So did your doctor or healthcare practitioner look at your HDL and triglycerides and all that? You already mentioned it, the inflammatory markers. So I would recommend you do some research. Go check out maybe day.

He felt then. He has some great research. I have some videos. You have some videos. You want to get the full picture, not just cholesterol, but your inflammatory markers. If there's high cholesterol, high triglycerides, low HDL, and high inflammatory markers, then we got to make some changes. We want to remove the sugars and the vegetable oils and eat some clean, stable fats.

But if you're doing it the right way and you know you're eating clean foods, you're not getting the sugars, you're not getting the inflammatory fats and you have high cholesterol, I wouldn't put too much emphasis on that unless you're looking at the full picture. Okay, great. And where I've heard you talk on that topic, I've heard you talk about the bitters before. Is that a time since the liver is what is going to make cholesterol? It's also what's going to make ketones. Can you talk a little bit about the biters and how that might help in that moment as well?

I'm so glad you asked the question because it's very important to incorporate bitters, especially in the first month. Because what that does, it helps thin. the liver to produce bile. And bile is necessary not just for detoxification purposes, which is very important, but also it helps you break down fat. And a lot of people who struggle on keto, they just don't feel good, digestive issues. It's because they lack the proper bile flow to break down the fat.

So bitter for the liver. You know, Dr. Don Clum calls the liver the soccer mom Oregon because she does so much for us. And it's true. We want to support her. We've treated her so bad with medications and toxins and alcohol. So bitters help support that liver. Some of my favorite sources of bitters are arugula, ginger, ginger tea, dandelion tea, dandelion greens, really organic, shade-grown coffee could help.

Apple cider vinegar. I also like radicios and what else do I like. I like herbs like rosemary and thyme and oregano. Those are also good. So we want to just have those bitters on a daily basis. And if you're really struggling, even with those bitters, then maybe incorporating like an ox bile supplement. could also help break down the fact. I love that. And recently at the seminars that I heard you speak, you listed a whole list out. It was so good. It was so good. Thank you. So, and I'm sure people can go

to your Instagram and I hope you've done a square on that or maybe it's in your book, but you have an amazing list on those bidders. It's in the book for sure. And I have done a square in the past. I got to repurpose it now that you're bringing that out. There you go. Now the whole world does. You know, in the book, there's in the back, I have what's called my keto camp blueprint where it's an aisle by aisle grocery guide for how to shop for keto. And I include the bidders in there for at the end. Awesome. Okay.

Awesome. Okay. Here, I know you've gotten this question. I've been doing keto forever and I'm gaining weight. Why is that? Well, I would focus not on weight loss in the beginning because the body does not lose weight to get healthy. It gets healthy to lose weight.

The reason the number on the scale fluctuates is numerous, right? If you have a monthly cycle, I've seen women actually retain more water. It'll show up on the scale. You work out, you're sore from a workout. You retain more water. It'll show up on the scale. Too many people put their worth on the number on the scale. It is, it drives me nuts.

It really does. Agreed. Yep. And I know it's important to get the weight down and get to your goal weight, but the body doesn't work that way. You've got to get healthy first. So what I recommend is give it a good set. seven weeks of a good effort, you know, following the protocols, pay attention to non-scale victories.

How do your clothes fit? How are your energy levels? What about your skin? Do you have more confidence? Maybe get some body fat done in your measurements and then step on the scale off for seven weeks and you're going to be in the right direction. Now, if you don't see the scale budge, even after seven weeks, going back to before for the person who can't get into ketosis, there has to be an underlying stressor.

Toxicity could be the number one thing here. because when your body is very smart, it wants to survive, that's the number one priority. And if it knows it has all these toxins in your fat sales, and if you're going to shrink and burn those toxins and those toxins will go into your bloodstream, that could hurt you. So in order to protect you, it could slow down the fat loss. So you've got to explore toxicity there. Yeah, well said, well said. Okay, what about sleep?

I go on keto and now I'm having trouble going to sleep. Is there anything I can do? That's common. Yeah, there's a few things you can do. you could have one to two teaspoons of raw honey right before bed. That could help for the first seven days, not something you want to do all the time. I also like banana tea. Banana tea is keto friendly.

And what you want to do is grab a whole banana, make sure it's organic and leave the peel on, just cut off the ends and then boil that banana with the peel on with a couple of, two cups of water and let it boil until the peel starts to turn brown a little bit. The peel of the banana has more micronutrients, magnesium, potassium, potassium than the banana itself that will seep into the water pour that water into a cup and drink it that could be a great way to get to bed it's like nature's nightwell oh i'm going to try that do you uh does it have to be a green banana banana does it matter the ripeness of the banana yeah the more yellow the better okay so like in the middle not brown not green correct yeah perfectly and and

organic would probably make the most sense please yes okay i just want to make sure we're clear on that. So, okay, my hair is falling out. I've been doing keto and now my hair is falling out. Yeah, you've got some good videos on this. I'd just go watch Mindy's video, but I'll add to the conversation. When you lose weight, it's a stress to the body. And when your body goes through stress, it will prioritize your organs and more important things, not necessarily your hair. So you could see some hair loss, but it could grow back stronger and better than ever before. So if this is happening in the beginning, this might be what's happening. There could also be a mineral electrolyte loss. So increasing your minerals. Mindy, you talk about that all the time. Increasing your minerals,

getting some high quality salt, and then making sure you're getting in some collagen and protein could help regrow that hair back. Okay, here's my next one. And I know you that you know the answer to that, to this. I mean, and our audience does, but you may have a new twist on it. Do men and women need to do keto differently. Absolutely. Yes. As Mindy preaches all the time, you know, in the book, I have a chapter, chapter 12 all about how to do it differently. And it's a credit to you. I gave you credit in that chapter. But yes, of course, a cycling women, even a postmenopausal women need to do it differently than men. Now, in the beginning, for those first 60 days, you could follow that protocol and be strict. But after that, when you do the flexing and the

variations, yeah, you've got to do it differently. Okay. Okay. Awesome. Can kids do keto? Well, the interesting thing about kids is that they all did keto in the past. However, I think kids naturally go in and out of ketosis if they're very active and they're not eating a standard American diet. I wouldn't intentionally put my kid on a ketogenic, like strict protocol, but I would for sure make sure they're eating clean fats, not overdoing it with carbs. And if they're so active, they will naturally flex in and out of ketosis. Okay. What about pregnant women? Can pregnant? We talked about breastfeeding. but could pregnant women do keto?

I would work with your doctor for sure. I've seen some pregnant women do it in the beginning. I wouldn't advise to it. You're in a growth phase. You want a lot more nutrients and caloric surplus. So I wouldn't recommend it for pregnant women, no. Yeah, that's what I always say to work on your microbiome. I mean, up your good fats, but work on your microbiome.

What about diabetics? Is it safe for type one? Let's start with type 1. Is it safe for type 1 diabetics to do keto? I have a story in the book, KetoFlex, from one of my members, David, who was a type 1 diabetic and he did the protocols. And he benefited him tremendously. Of course, he worked with his doctor. He monitored his glucose and ketones because you don't want your glucose to drop below 50. You don't want your ketones to go above 8.0. You don't want to get into ketoacidosis, which is a concern for type 1 diabetics. But if you do it the right way, it could tremendously

benefit somebody who's type 1 diabetic. Somebody is using their insulin, what? seven, eight times, ten times a day, you could drop that down to four or five times. So it'll help your quality of life for sure. And what about type two? Anything different that type two diabetics need to know? They still need to monitor their numbers. Very important. They could be a little bit more aggressive.

And they would, I would argue that every single type two diabetic needs to do some variation of keto and fasting to heal that lifestyle disease. Agreed, agreed. What do you think are some of the biggest mistakes like, Give me two or three of the biggest mistakes people make when they come to keto. Hmm, the biggest mistakes people make when they come to keto. Coming to it for the weight loss and losing, they're distracted when it comes to the health benefits because keto, as I mentioned, is not a diet, it's a metabolic process.

So change that around. Focus on health, cellular health, and look at keto as a health tool and the weight will come off as a side effect. That's number one. Number two is they make they're in ketosis for too long. You know, they fall in love with it. Vegan, carnivore, whatever it is, keto, they fall in love with it and they stick with it too long.

So that could create some problems. We don't want to stay in ketosis long term because it could affect the thyroid. It could affect your sex hormone binding globulent. It could also slow down fat loss. So that's a big mistake right there. Yeah. And that was actually my next question is how would you know you've been in too long? It'll depend on your unique.

situation. So again, if you're a diabetic, insulin resistance, metabolic damage, then you have a longer shelf life in regards to how long it should be in ketosis. It might be six to nine months before you get out. Somebody who's just, you know, healthy, they just want to improve their metabolic health. I like, you know, a three to five month approach before you start flexing in general. So I don't, I guess you could pay attention to some of your lab markers, maybe your thyroid health. If you start to see some of your results slow down and you think you need more keto, the answer is usually you need less keto. Yeah, yeah, it's really true. And it's a subtle. It's like, it's the hormetic stress idea, right? Like you're doing great, you're doing great. And all of a sudden,

you're not doing great. So you just have to really pay attention like that. I would totally agree on that. Okay. Let's see. I've got five. I want to finish this up with five of my favorite questions. Some of them are keto related. Some of them aren't. But let's start with the rapid fire five. So the first one is what is the one food that helps you with this whole ketogenic energy system that you could not live without? Olive oil, real fresh pressed, cold processed olive oil. I could drink it like it's water. I love olive oil.

Okay, awesome. Okay, what about, I know you have a morning routine. So tell us about your morning routine. And the one question that I know you probably get all the time and we just got to say it to the world is what is your, do you drink coffee in the morning? What's in your morning coffee? Like, do you use it as a tool for ketosis? Yeah, my morning routine is extensive. So I don't know if we have time to go over all of it. Okay, give me the quick version. Right. I waited an hour and a half. Well, I wait two hours before I check my phone. So I'm not looking at my phone first thing. I'm doing my gratitude journaling. I'm writing down my goals. I, one of my feet hit the ground, I've gotten into the habit of saying today is going to be a great day. I say it out loud and my girlfriend says it with me. I walk my dog, get some sunshine.

I go to my rooftop here at Keto Camp HQ and I'm reading a book, drinking coffee about an hour and a half after. That's the best time to have it. I know I've mentioned this to you before. That's when the cortisol begins to drop down. So I throw in some healthy fat like one tablespoon of grass-fed ghee. I throw in a little bit of some MCT oil and some sea salt in my coffee. coffee, read a book, and then I do some Zen. That's my morning routine. And how long does that take you? Um, so I wake up at 6.45. I don't start my day until 9 a.m. That's amazing. And just so everybody

knows, because you and I have had this conversation about coffee, why do you wait an hour or so before you have your coffee? Because if you have it first thing in the morning, cortisol is already activated and high and it'll pretty much render the caffeine somewhat useless. So you don't get the most bang for your buck, but an hour and a half after you wake up. up, cortisol naturally begins to go and decline. Then you have your coffee. You'll get, you'll get much more sustainable energy from it. Yeah, that's amazing. Okay, the book that has changed your life that you think everybody should read. That's a tough question, Mindy. And you're not allowed to say the menopause reset. I'm just teasing you. Surely there's a lot. What?

The reset factor? Yeah, the reset factor. There you go. I don't think that was the book. You know, anything from Dr. Wayne Dyer. So he changed my life with his books. He has so many books out there. The Erroneous Zone, I guess that book, The Erroneous Zone. It really helps you understand your thoughts and how your thoughts, it's your greatest power.

And that's the ability to choose your thoughts. And if you could change your thoughts, it'll change your life. So the erroneous zone by Dr. Wayne Dyer. Yeah. And it also depends on. when you read the book, right? It's like different books have different impacts at different points of your life. So if you could spend the day with anybody on the planet,

and I'm going to say alive, anybody alive on the planet right now, who would it be? I would love to spend the day with Elon Musk. I want to just get in his mind and ask him, do you really believe that we have to live on Mars? Like what's going on? I just would love to just pick his brain. for an entire day. That's why I would choose. Yeah. I have a patient who is on their, a part of the law wing of Tesla, and she got to have a meeting with him. And so we had a fun discussion about what it was like to meet him face to face. And that's cool. Supposedly he's

quite, quite an individual. So yeah, I would ditto that. That's pretty good. I love that. Okay. Last question. And this is what I think is the most important question to ask anybody. which is if you could get one message in everybody's brain on the planet. If you had one message for the world, what would it be? The word responsibility. Responsibility. That is your ability to respond. And that's in every area of your life.

Your ability to respond to what's going on in the world when it comes to the virus, the vaccine, your ability to respond to what people say to you, your ability to respond to challenges in your life. but your ability to respond is going to determine your happiness, is going to determine your health. And it wasn't until I took full responsibility that I changed my life. It's almost impossible to say those words, I am responsible and still feel angry and resentful. So taking ownership and responsibility is the start of dramatic change, is the start of transformation. And it really was the start for me, myself.

Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. I couldn't agree more. That was well said. Okay, how do people find you? Where do they get your book? When's your book coming out?

How can people engage with your information? Thank you, Mindy. You're such an amazing host. I love how you reiterate what you learned from me and you kind of summarize what we spoke about. You're really good at what you do. And I just love you, Mindy. So thank you.

Thank you. The book, KetoFlex, I believe it's going to be the greatest book out there ever written on Keto. If you wanted to just read one book on keto and nothing else, this is it. right here, 311 pages of keto gold. Right back here, you see, Dr. Mindy Peltz wrote me an amazing forward. I love it. And that's not why it's cold.

It's cold because of the information you put in there. Right, but your endorsement means so much to me. And Dr. Pompah wrote the forward. I mean, Dr. Fung wrote a testimonial, Megan Ramos, and a few other amazing leaders. So the book could be found over at ketoflexbook.com. You could pre-order it right now. It's going to be on full release on April 20. 12th. Love for you to get it, buy it for somebody else, gift it to somebody. I really put so much

effort and blood, sweat and tears over two years writing the book, and I'm really happy with it. Yeah. So it's going to be available on a Kindle and on paperback and then eventually audible. And then if you want to just check me out, Keto Camp podcast, Mindy has been on there two times. We'll get her back again. That'll be a great resource. And then the KetoCamp YouTube channel, of course. Yeah, you have a great YouTube channel. And I just think the more more of us that are out sharing these principles, it's like, you know, you think living on Mars is bizarre. You know, I think for some people trying to go keto feels like on Mars. And so we've got to just keep getting this information getting to people. So thank you, Ben, for everything you're doing.

And you guys, go check out his YouTube, go get his book and just dive into this energy system because it really wants to heal you. So thank you, Ben. Appreciate everything that you're doing for the world. Hey, resetters, I just want to start off by saying thank you so much for all your wonderful reviews and those of you that have left me comments on iTunes. I just greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness and how much you guys are enjoying these episodes. And it seems like you're enjoying them as much as I am enjoying doing them. One of the things that I've learned in just interacting with so many people is that we've really lost. the art of deep conversations. And for me, the Resenter podcast stands for having meaningful

conversations with people who are thinking about health, about life, about mindset in a way that we may not be getting on social media or in mainstream media. And so I just want to say, give you guys a shout out and just say, thank you for participating in this process with me. because as much as I absolutely love delivering the information to you, I love even more knowing that it's impacting your life. So please let us know if there's anything we can do to make this podcast more customized to you, to make it better. We are now officially in Season 2, and we are working to bring you the best conversations

that health influencers have, that mindset changers can give, and to really deliver you something that you're not able to get anywhere else. So from the bottom of my heart, as I always say my YouTube, from the bottom of my heart, I am deeply appreciative of you. I am deeply grateful to be on this journey with you. And let's get healthy together.