Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - The Best Tips for a Successful Ketogenic Vegetarian Diet - With Dr. Sonya Jensen

Episode Date: July 4, 2022

For full show notes, resources mentioned, and transcripts go to: www.drmindypelz.com/ep128/ To enroll in Dr. Mindy's Fasting membership go to: resetacademy.drmindypelz.com This episode is all about keto vegetarianism and how it fits into low-carb blood sugar maintenance and metabolic flexibility. Dr. Sonya Jensen is a Naturopathic Physician that has a mission to change the way women understand their bodies and themselves. She believes that women are the center of their families and communities and therefore by supporting them, she is creating a ripple effect that will support the whole.   Dr. Jensen is a mother of two boys, a yoga teacher, a workshop and retreat leader, and runs her practice with her husband where they help their community move into a state of thriving from surviving. She believes it is everyone's birthright to live a happy, healthy, joyful, and abundant life.  Please see our medical disclaimer.

If the way you're eating isn't serving you, then your energy will be low. But if it is serving you, you're going to feel good. You're going to feel healthy. You're going to feel energized when you're eating a certain way. And when you're not, there's something going on because foods are medicine. And when it's not behaving that way, there needs to be a shift that needs to be made. Resetters, Dr. Mindy here. And I am on a mission to teach you just how powerful your body was built to be.

This podcast is about giving you the power back and, helping you believe in yourself again. Let's jump in. On this episode of the Resetter podcast, I am bringing you a sweet friend, a dear friend, a woman who has changed my life, Dr. Sonia Jensen. She wrote a book called Woman Unleashed. I have brought her to you all before. And in this episode, why I wanted to bring this to you is this was an episode we did back for my account. me back in January of 2021. And it was specifically about keto vegetarianism. And where does a vegan lifestyle, a vegetarian lifestyle, where does that fit in to low carb blood sugar maintenance and really metabolic flexibility? So I know so many of you have asked this question. What I love about

Sonia is just how she looks at health, how she looks at the body is very much in a line. with my philosophies and my values around health. And I know that so many of you out there don't want to eat meat, whether it's for ethical reasons or for health reasons. And yet you want to benefit from a fasting lifestyle. You want to benefit from low-carb living. So she's my go-to person. And in this conversation, we talked about how to integrate a vegetarian lifestyle

into the ketogenic world. And how do we get your body making ketogenic? without ever putting a piece of meat in your mouth. So Dr. Sonia Jensen, enjoy. And as always, I hope this moves the needle forward on your health. So excited to bring Dr. Sonia Jensen back to you. And if you love this podcast, go check out the one I did with her on emotions and traumas and hormones. And be sure to check out her book on Amazon called Woman Unleashed. It is an amazing book. So enjoy the conversation. And as always, I hope it helps.

I have a guitar lesson to get to, which is I'm envious. And I just want to point out, resetters, that this is my self-care guru. She is the, I should say my self-care mentor. This woman has mastered self-care like nobody's business. And she's the one that's always telling me, I need to take up more time off and get more habits. You're the one that introduced me to the rushing woman syndrome. I have so much gratitude for you and the way that you show up constantly taking amazing care of yourself inspires me. So I'm happy to release you from this webinar so you can go and do your guitar lesson.

Oh, thank you so much. It's always fun to learn a new skill. I can't say that my ear has picked up the guitar just yet. I'm definitely more of a drummer. But it's an interesting process for sure. And thank you. I mean, I still look up to you and everything that you're doing with your resetter group. You guys are doing amazing work in the world.

So thank you. Thank you. So here's what I'm going to do, you guys. We're going to jump right into it. This is a webinar format, which is different than our Zoom calls. So you're just going to see Dr. Sonia and I. And yet you can ask questions in the chat. Jessica and my team, they're monitoring the questions.

And what is really unique about Dr. Sonia is that, You're a vegetarian. Do you say you're a vegetarian? I heard that you're making a few changes. I'm calling myself a flexitarian. I'm 98% vegetarian. I'm going to say 95 to 98%. Yes. Beautiful. Okay. So this is really, really important because you're going to get to see how she uses the principles that we teach in the Reset Academy and this experience and she fasts and all the things that. that I'm teaching you guys, she does, and she mixes it with a vegetarian lifestyle. So let's start off with this. Give everybody a little bit of a background as to like your medical experience. And I'd also love to know like why you're a vegetarian.

Why don't we start off with those two things? Yeah. So I mean, I grew up in an Indian household. So being vegetarian was quite easy. And from a young age, I was taught how to combine different vegetables and foods and tastes. And I didn't realize that I was getting taught this because it was just our way of life. And throughout my high school years, I was vegetarian. And then I started experimenting with some meat and not really feeling that great.

And to be honest, when Dr. Nick and I got together, he was vegetarian. And then so I just switched into being vegetarian with him again because it was easy for me. And at that time, we were still eating fish. and then I watched Earthlings. I don't know if any of you out there has seen that document. Earthlings. Yes. It's a documentary.

And at that time, we were living in Taiwan and we decided, okay, well, while we're here, we're going to go back to just being strictly vegetarian. So there's lots of layers to why I chose this lifestyle. One, my health just feels a lot better. My skin feels good. My digestive system feels good. My mood, my hormones, everything do really well on this lifestyle. And the other layer,

for me in my teen years was the ethical piece with animals. I said to myself, if I can look that animal in the eye and kill it, then I can't eat it. So that was one of my choices that I made there. And then as I started to learn about the environment, and that's a whole other conversation. I know we'll kind of touch on.

I started to understand the relationship between us humans and animals and the world that we're living in. And my perception at that time was that if I'm eating this animal and its physiology is similar to mine, so if that animal is under stress, I'm then taking on that animal's stress. And from a yogic philosophy, it's taught that when we're in wanting to be in a state of self-discovery or self-mastery, by eating another animal's energy, we're taking on their karma. So then we're taking in all this energy that we are still working on our own karma and our own discovery that those energies are going to get mixed together and it creates confusion

or an internal battle within the body. So those are some of the layers why I chose this lifestyle. And in my practice, I have noticed individuals that do it well, do really well with their hormones mainly and with digestion. But those that don't know the ins and outs and the tricks that you have to utilize when you're going vegetarian, especially in today's world, that's where I see failure and that's where I see frustration. Yeah. Yeah. And thank you for bringing that up because I think this is what I really want to pull out of you because I don't even really, since I don't live a vegetarian

lifestyle anymore, I did when I was in my 20s. Applying the vegetarian lifestyle with ketogenic principles is a little difficult. And so, yeah, as you and I both are in alignment on, we're not, we know we're not meant to be in the ketogenic mode all the time. So variation can come in handy. And I really resonate with what you said about this idea of the stress hormones because I became a vegetarian when I was 20 because I read a diet for a New America. Have you read that book? No, I haven't. Oh, you haven't? You haven't heard this? I've never told you this story? Oh, okay. So the short version of it is that John Robbins was set to inherit the Baskin and Robbins fortune. And before he was to take over the business, he found out that

because of all the ice cream eating, now we probably know more that it had a lot to do with the sugar. But he found out that it was contributing to cardiovascular health along with the inhumane way in which animals were treated, along with all the antibiotics that were put in, the hormones that were put into the animals. And so he legitimately was like, nope, I'm not going to take over the inheritance. I'm not going to take over the family business. And he decided to become a vegetarian. And he wrote a book called A Diet for a New America.

And you should read it. You'd like it. His name's Ocean Robbins. Absolutely. Yeah, his name's Ocean Robbins. So he, but, I read the book and it was all about the inhumane way animals are treated and I just decided at 20 years old, I'm going to be a vegetarian. And I did it wrong. And quickly within a couple of years of being a vegetarian, I gained like, oh yeah, he's John Robbins. Yeah, Ocean Robbins is his son now. I gained like 10, 20 pounds. I got chronic fatigue syndrome. Like I became sick very quickly because what I became was a carbotarian. I didn't become.

a vegetarian, I just ate carbs. So, so explain to us just so we can get like really down into the nitty gritty. What does it mean to do vegetarian well? And what does it mean to not do it well? Yeah. So I think you really hit the nail on the head when you said you turned into a carbatarian. And that's one of the main things that happens when somebody converts into a vegetarian diet. They look at their plate and they start piling in carbs like pastas and breads and things to fill themselves up because if you're used to eating meat, you're used to a certain feeling of satiation after a meal. And if you're turning into vegetarian, you're not necessarily receiving that same feeling. So to fill that gap, many people will eat more bread and more pastas and

just more carbohydrates and then not feel good, of course, because of all the things that, you know, you've taught with the high glucose levels and then the hormones are off and now we're gaining weight and now we're not digesting our food. So bowel movements are off. And then that in turn is going to turn into depression, anxiety, and all these other things. So when we're not doing it well, we're not combining our foods appropriately and also according to our own constitution and our own bodies. So from my perspective, when I look at an individual, you look at their Ayuritic constitutions as well. So I am a very Vatha person in an Ayurbanic world. And what that means is that my body needs oils. I need them a lot. So if I'm going vegetarian, my oils and my fats are going

way up with lots of vegetables. So in order to do vegetarian diet correct, go ahead. You were going to say something. No, no, you keep going. I have another question on this, but keep going because I liked where you're going with this. Yeah. Yeah.

So when you're trying to do this the correct way, when I say to a vegetarian, if you look at your plate, is most of it actual vegetables? Because some people will call themselves vegetarian and not have any vegetables on their place. So you want to see, is it actually vegetables? and I'm going to say 50% in that plate needs to be vegetables. And then you want a big portion of the other part to be healthy fats. And then you have that small amount of protein.

And what that protein is going to look like, it's going to be different than someone that eats meat. So someone that eats meat might have like a small portion of beef chicken or whatever it is. For us, it's going to be maybe some lentils, some legumes, maybe different vegetable combination that brings out the amino acids in each other. those that do do grains, sometimes combining certain grains with vegetables will also bring up more amino acids. So learning how to combine these foods and learning and understanding the seasons that we're in can also contribute to better digestion because not even so much what we're eating is what we're

absorbing from the food. So for absorbing the amino acids, if we're absorbing the nutrients, it's going to make a huge difference being a vegetarian. Yeah. And so when you like when you say that plate, my brain thinks two things. One is, what does that do to your blood glucose? And this is a totally, like, off question, which is what about those people that say vegetables are bad, like the lectins and the oxalates? Like, how do we, how do we rectify those two pieces of it? Yeah. Yeah, I think, again, I'll use myself as an example. So what I did is I tested my DNA. So when I look at my background and I look at my ancestors and understand how they ate and then look at my own body on how I process fats and carbohydrates and proteins.

My body does better with vegetable protein rather than meat protein. So some of these things like Dr. Gundry talks a lot about leptins and lectins and what it's doing to our bodies. I think the missing piece there is how we're cooking stuff and also how we're combining them. I think the art really is in that when we're combining the different takes. So if I'm having a bowl full of vegetables, it's not just vegetables. I've got my avocado in there.

I've got ghee on them. I've got oils. They're like, you know, they're oozing oil as I'm eating them. So by combining that, you're not then increasing your glucose. And also in the fall, I'm going to have more root vegetables. But I'm not going to necessarily do that later in winter or the spring because my body requires something different. And so my glucose will not spike because I'm eating according to seasons as well.

Do you think you could take the, if you didn't eat according to seasons, if you just took that vegetables and legumes and maybe a little bit of fat and you ate that same meal all year round, do you think your blood sugar would respond differently to that meal in like winter compared to summer? I think so. Yeah, I think we were designed to eat with the seasons. And the body is miraculous and how it changes, even in its enzymes that's secreting in different seasons, even how we're digesting in different seasons.

Like digestion will slow down in the winter. That's just what happens. It's going to speed up in the summer. So I think if we're not eating according to that variation and we're eating a mono diet, it's going to create a whole host of problems, including blood, glucose, microbiome, all the things, hormones. Right. Okay. Because that, that, I've been really thinking lately from a ketogenic perspective, what we're supposed to eat according to the seasons. And I feel like if you, in the wintertime, we are meant to go. This is my, my feeling and I don't know are you Vedic medicine. So please tell me what, if there's an opposing belief, I'm totally open to it. But in the winter, we can go long periods without food because that's how we were primally designed when we were back in the cave person day.

in the summer we have so much access to food that I almost feel like we ketosis wouldn't be, we're not as meant to be in ketosis as long because nature has provided us so many fruits and vegetables. And so I've been really trying to tap into this seasonal eating a little bit more. Do you think that if somebody's going vegetarian, this becomes more critical than like if somebody's just doing like a straight keto where they're eating some meat and some vegetables. I think it's critical for both. Yeah, in the wintertime, for instance, it's in total alignment to what Ayurvedic medicine says as well. It's in the wintertime, we are meant to hibernate.

We're meant to slow down. So they call it the koffa season. And that season, so metabolism has shifted. So just eating one to two meals a day is enough. Being in ketosis is ideal. And those of us that maybe are more flexitarians, if we're going to eat meat, then winter is actually the time to do it. So you're eating less, but you're eating, you know, something that's hearty that's going to warm the body up from the inside. So I think it's crucial for us to start understanding and getting back to our relationship with nature and what it's providing us, depending on where we're living and what season of life we're also in, too.

I think that makes a difference. But I think what you said before was key, it's that bringing back that relationship back with the Earth. With the Earth. You know, you and I are both Zach Bush fans. And I've spent a lot of time in the recent months listening to a lot of plant-based experts. And I would say that this is the one thing I feel about a vegetarian diet is that we are meant to live in sync with the planet. And when we are living in sync with the planet, we are in harmony within our body. And we have gotten so out of sync with what nature is providing for us.

So I look at the vegetarian diet like, oh, I can take that concept and I can apply it to my life. I can look at what nature is provided for me. And I can lean into that. And then the keto part of my brain says, and then how do I do that in a ketogenic way? So the other piece that you mentioned that I thought was really interesting is that you, how many oils you use on your food. Would you say that every meal is heavily loaded with fat? It is, especially this time of year. So this time of year, for me, winter being in Vancouver, it's very cold and very drying.

So my nature is already so dry that those six tablespoons of fat per day isn't enough for me, that I need to pile in some more to keep. keep me in that steady state of ketosis and also to just lubricate the insides of my body so that things are moving as they should be. So my metabolism just naturally will slow down like everybody else is in winter. So in this season, having more of those oils. So I have two to four tablespoons sometimes. I was going to say, give us an example. Because in, so in this reset experience, We've got some low keto or some keto vegetarian days and that it comes up all the time. Like how do we help vegetarians bring their blood sugar down enough to be able to go into ketosis? And it sounds to me like what your strategy is is you really up your oils.

Yeah. So I'm eating two meals a day right now. And then in those meals, I'm upping my oil. So right before I have my meal, I'm going to take a tablespoon during I'm making ghee. So then I'll pour that over top of it as well. and then maybe even after. And I know you love Andrea seed oils as well. And he's got some great ones that you can do before and after meals for digestion.

But they're also helping support that oil and that fat content in your diet, too. You do his oils before and after? Which one do you do? So fennel, I do before. And then the coriander I do afterwards. He's a huge fan of the coriander. He, like, loves to talk about the coriander. Yeah, he does.

And I like, I don't know. really know why, but I need to go. So you do the fennel because I'm thinking fennel is licorish, so it's good for digestion. Is that why you do it? Yeah, it's a digestive stimulant and it calms the digestive system down and it helps to absorb food. So it just helps support digestion in general.

Okay. And then you do it afterwards to stabilize blood sugar. What's the after oil for? It's the same. It's for digestion and it also helps support immunity and circulation. So then I find, because things kind of slow down after you eat something. So you want to provide it with just a little bit more support to help absorb the nutrients. And how do you do like a tablespoonful?

Like is there a strategy behind it? So the Fenal C because his comes in the dropper, I'll do two dropperfuls. And then the coriander is about two teaspoons. Okay. And every meal or just your biggest meals? Every. Every meal. In this season.

Yeah. Every meal. In this season. Okay. Okay. Cool. Okay, now, how often do you test your blood sugar? So I'm going to be honest.

I haven't tested my blood sugar in a little while, but we're going to be fasting this week, so I will be testing it. I would say every couple of months, I'm testing to see what my food is doing to my body, and that's because I'm fasting during those times or I'm changing something up because the season is changing, so I want to see what my body is doing

and how it's responding to the shift. Okay. So it gives me an idea, and I think that's a great tool. to use when you are transitioning into a new way of eating or if some of your resetters that are already vegetarian and not knowing which foods are going to spike their glucose levels, doing the before and after can give you a lot of insight. Because I've come to a space now where I can get into ketosis very, very easily.

So if I just test my blood glucose during the day, when I'm just having my two meals a day, I'm in ketosis very quickly. So I think, yeah, the more people can do that, the easier it is for them to understand what vegetarian foods are going to help them or not help them. Okay. So you test when you're moving in and out of seasons. You use oils pre and post meal. You use a lot of fats in the meal.

And do you count macros at all? No. Again, in the beginning, yes, when I was transitioning to eating more keto and just in those transition moments, I want to know. more, but once you kind of get an idea of how your body feels and what you're doing, I think accounting is great to understand in that moment when you're trying to figure more out about your body. But then, then, you know, you just let the relationship kind of take over and you, you understand how you feel after certain foods. It takes the rigidity away from what we're doing and it actually

creates, like, love over the food instead of like it being a chore that we're having to eat or a task. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like there is this, it's like a step. So the first, the way most people's relationship to food is, is they just choose food off their taste buds. So it's like I just make based off of what my taste buds say. Then when they realize that, hey, I need to look at quality of ingredients, I need to stop counting calories, then they come over and they, and many of them in our world will start to understand, oh, there's these things called macros. And so, then they start looking at the protein, carbohydrate, and fat. And then once you get that down, you tend to go into what you're saying, where there's this

really natural cycle that you have with food. And I think for this group, this is really what I'm wanting people to do is if they signed up for this experience, their desire is to step out of that not having a relationship with food, just choosing your taste buds make the decision. Now we're counting macros, but what I love of what you said, because I would say that, So Koi and I are in the same place where we don't count macros. We're very clear. You can tell what a food does to you.

You can tell when you're in harmony with eating and you're not. And I think that's where freedom exists, right? I mean, that's where we can totally be free to love on food. And when we love on food, it's going to love us back. So I love that. But whenever I go to teach a resetter about how to do vegetables, vegetarianism with keto, there's this question around, well, what macros should I do? When you're helping the women in your clinic, do you teach them macros at all?

I don't. I'm not big on counting because I also have a population of women that have had eating disorders and other things show up for them. So I try not to create a fixation around numbers for them, but I do recognize that it's also needed in order to transition appropriately into a different way of eating. So when I look at protein carbs and fats, I'm going to look at, so vegetables will cover like the carbohydrate kind of section in the vegetable diet or plate. So again, mine is going to be between 50 and 60 percent. And then I'm looking at like 20, 25, 30 percent fat.

And then the rest is protein. So it's definitely a lower protein. So we're looking at, if you're looking at grams, when it comes to proteins between 20 and 30 and 40. And we go lower than 20 when we want to do more of the atophagy and we're doing more of the fasting. And we're trying to play around with what that's going to look like for that individual. So that's kind of what I would look at for the proteins.

I love that. So and what do you do for protein? Is it pretty much beans? Is that your main thing? It's mostly legumes and lentils for me. Some beans I do not do well with and some people don't do well with beans. and so lentils for me is a big source of protein. Okay.

So if you wanted to go into autophagy, we just got done doing autophagy fasting last week. So this is perfect that you said that. If you want to go into atopathy and stay under 20 grams, you would just bring your bean amount down, your lentil amount. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I would pre-measure it. Yeah.

Yeah, I would definitely pre-measure then. Yeah, and you'd be surprised at how much protein you get in a meal that's vegetable-based with just some beans or lentil. until you end up hitting a high amount of protein. So you actually do have to work at bringing that lower than 20 grams when you're doing the atophagy fasting. And the way to make sure that the hunger doesn't kick in is with the fat. With the fats, yes.

That's the key. Yeah, because last week, oh, my gosh, so many people were like, I'm so hungry. I'm so hungry. And I want everybody to hear this. You guys definitely register this, whether you're a vegetarian or not, that what she's doing, she's really leaning into fat to make this work for her blood sugar. Would you say that that's part of your secret? Oh, absolutely.

That's the secret, I would say, is the increase in fats. Because if you think about what the fats are doing, they're the carriers of your vitamins and minerals. So the only way your cells are going to feel satiated with the right vitamins and minerals that it needs to kind of give that signal to your brain that you're full is for it to have a carrier across that membrane. And that fat is what's allowing that to happen.

And so you need those extra fats in order for that to happen for your, for your brain and just for your appetite and all those things. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Okay. What do you say to the other thing that I've, I've been really like pontificating on is amino acids. So there's a lot of belief out there that if you're vegetarian, you're missing key amino acids. Do you feel like that's accurate or is there a way? How do vegetarians overcome that? Yeah. I think it can be. I think it can. be depending on how you're combining your foods. If you're, again, if you're having too high carbohydrates, I think that takes away from that. I think testing your amino acids is really important when you're a vegetarian to make sure that you're not already depleted going into such a diet.

I do take amino acids once in a while if I'm doing a heavier workout or if it's that season where maybe I am not eating well. There's stuff going on in my life. I just lost somebody very dear to me last week. and that week I made sure that I was eating a lot of amino acids or taking the perfect aminos. So I think recognizing those moments where you can't pay that attention to food combining and knowing what you need on your plate, that is a necessary thing.

Especially for women and your hormones. I mean, my hair was starting to change and I was like, okay, I'm not combining the way I should be. So I started adding the perfect aminos and that ended up changing the quality of my hair again. Interesting. I love the little subtleties. We were a couple hours before this. We were on a call with our detox group.

And I was sharing the little subtleties that I tap into that are from, that I know it's time to detox. And but what I love is that, and this is again, what I want you guys to get across is if you decide to go keto vegetarian or I call it keto vegetarian, I think what you're doing is probably just vegetarian. Oh, you're a flexitarian. That's what you said. I'm a flexitarian.

I'm a flexitarian. Yeah. I made a new name. Yeah, I love it. I love it. It redefines it. So, but what I'm hearing from you is that because this amino acid piece is critical that you have little subtleties that you go, huh, maybe I need to supplement now.

Is there anything else other than hair and stress being high that you tap it? Hair, stress, and just skin is another one and just energy levels. So looking at your energy levels, if the way you're eating, isn't serving you, then your energy will be low. But if it is serving you, you're going to feel good. You're going to feel healthy. You're going to feel energized when you're eating a certain way. And when you're not, there's something going on because foods are medicine.

And when it's not behaving that way, there needs to be a shift that needs to be made. Okay. Awesome. And I wanted, there's some questions I'm looking at on here. So I want to make sure that we address them. And this is the question we get on everything. Every, like this is probably the most common question, doesn't matter what expert we have on, and that is what fats are you eating? How do I eat more fats?

Give us an example of your favorite. Yeah, ghee is my favorite. Coconut oil I use for cooking, olive oil I use for drizzling and like just all over my food. And again, olive oil, I know there's some discrepancies around that and making sure you're getting good sources. I use walnut oil a lot. And then Andrea seed oils, the five seed oil. I say that one is one of my favorites. And that's what I drenched my salads in.

So those are like the big oils that I would use on kind of a daily basis. So you cook with them. You like when I sit down at the table, I put salt on my food. And I have done a lot of research on how great salt is. I'm thinking that and next time you and I get together and have a meal together, I'm going to observe what you put on. But I'm thinking that you need. You probably, if I was in your home, you would be pouring oil on top of your food even once it came to your table.

Yes. Yeah. We, so we cook with it. We pour oil on top of it. I'm eating it straight as well. Nuts and seeds is a big part of my diet as well. So I get some oils out of that. But when it just comes to specific oils with my food, that's what I'm doing on a daily basis.

Okay. And my other secret. Yeah. No, we need your tips. That's the what? Well, your skin, because your skin is the largest organ and where a lot of your absorption happens. So in the wintertime, I'm putting sesame oil on my skin, but 20 minutes before taking a shower and just letting things soak in that way too. Because the thing that we want to do is we want to wake up those cells and those cell membranes so that the oils can, again, move those nutrients from the vegetables into your cells.

So we sometimes forget how important what we put on our skin is. And so bathing in oil is the other option. I never even thought about what goes on my skin is. I mean, I think about it as it connects to my microbiome. But what I'm hearing you say is your key to stabilizing your blood sugar with all of this is oils everywhere. Oils in everywhere. Everywhere. Do you bathe?

Everywhere is like a fat. Mountain of oil. You probably put oils like in your bathtub, like oils, oils, oils is how you manage this flexitarian life. That's right. Yeah. That's right. Okay.

What's the 2%? You said you're 98% vegetarian. Why are you 2% meat eater? I am 2% meat eater because my youngest son is a meat eater. And I started to recognize he was feeling some shame. around being someone's, he has a constitution that I think requires meat, whereas my older son has a constitution like mine and it doesn't. And so I started dabbling with him a little bit.

And then I started to notice when around my cycle, I actually do better by having one or two meals that have some meat in there. And I'm noticed in the winter now, there's times where I dabble and I feel a little bit better. But I don't do it in the summer, but I will have some meat with him. So that's why my 2% is for my youngest little guy. I love that. I love that.

That's like my daughter said to me when she was like nine years old, she was like, why do we eat organic? Do we always have to eat organic? And so I was like, okay, well, let's have a meal that's not organic. Like we had a really crappy meal. I'm like, let's see how we feel on that. And then once we ate it, she was like, oh, I see why we eat organic. I'm like, yeah, let's show and tell works really well. Yeah, so.

Yeah, exactly. That's interesting. That's interesting. You're doing it around your cycle. Are you doing it right? Like, do you have a timing with it? Or are you just sort of intuitively doing it? I'm doing it the week before because if you think about what happens is we start craving carbs that week.

So then I thought to myself, well, what if I added a little bit of meat during that week? And what is that going to do? And it actually kicked my carb cravings. So what I decided to do is just one or two days before I will have a little bit of meat. And what did it feel like to eat meat when you haven't eaten meat in a long time? I'm not going to lie the first time, not so good because, you know, my enzymes, my everything is so used to, it was like a shock to my system. But then as I started doing it a little bit more regularly, it's been okay.

I feel okay. And I eat just enough to feel satiated. So I'm not overdoing it. But it's just enough. Oh, come on. It tastes good, right? Didn't it eventually taste good? Yes.

Yes, it did. It did taste good. Yeah. I have no issues with the taste whatsoever. Yeah. And I think that's, I was, so we were, I think I've told you this story that Sequo and I were vegetarian for a very long time and like a decade. And then I literally woke up one day. I must have been about, it was right before I got pregnant with Bodie. So it would have been like, you know, right, maybe it was like an intuitive hit that I was going to start to think about having a baby. and I just woke up and I was like, I need meat. Like it was weird. It was like a switch got turned on and perhaps it was my hormones.

And so then we just went completely over to meat. And I felt so much better. I dropped weight and I had more energy and I just felt so much better. But, you know, I look back on it now and I realize that a lot of that was just because I wasn't managing my vegetarian life very well. And like I said, I see the benefit and I watch people go plant-based and I see how they do. And I also know stabilizing blood sugar has to be at the top of our

priority list with any diet. So I love the way you approach it with so many oils. The challenge we just get is that people, I mean, what I'm hearing from you, and I just really want to emphasize this to my resetters is there's great care in how you put your food together. That you're, you don't just slap a meal out there. You're like very conscious about

what's on that plate and fat has to be a big piece of that. Absolutely combining. And for those of you that are eating meat, I know I brought up the energetics of the meat and the animal and all that. I think praying over the food or thanking the food if we're not praying. Because I think, you know, if you look at ancient cultures, there was a real true relationship with the animal. There was like a give and take.

So once you take an animal's life, there was prayer and gratitude over that animal's. body and we don't get to do that in today's world because we're going to our supermarkets. So I think if you have that plate of meat on there, just having reverence for the food that's going into your body, whether it's vegetables or meat, it makes a huge difference on the outcome of how we're feeling. I love that. One of my favorite people of 2020 that I met was Dr. Bill Schindler.

And he has a book he's writing right now called Eat Like a Human. And there were two things that he, that I learned from him that really sat intuitively well with me. And one was when you, what you just said, when you eat meat to have extreme gratitude for the animal you're about to eat. And in that he also recommends that you eat the whole animal, that part of the respect of honoring that animal is that you go, I think they call it nose to tail. Nose to tail. Yeah, kind of become a buzz phrase. And then the second thing, so eating meat is more than just shoveling it in your mouth, but it's actually honoring that another animal gave their life for your benefit.

The other thing that I learned from him, and it's on the lectin oxalate issue, is that he said if you ferment foods, in the fermentation process, you kill those toxins that the vegetables are giving off. And he claims you can ferment almost anything. The only thing he hasn't been able to ferment are potatoes. And so I'm curious, do you, does that sit well with you? And do you do a lot of fermented foods? I don't. My mother does. I'm still learning this process. So I will grab jars from her. And that's a big part of our Indian upbringing too, is we always had something fermented with our meals. And it wasn't the entire vegetable serving, but we had fermented stuff in there. Again, that's that combination. It's the combining of the fermented food and even lentils

before you make them, you soak them, you sprout them, and then you're cooking them. So there's a bit of a process to it, but you do it in that way so that one, you digest it better and you're actually getting the, the immunos and everything that you need from there. And it's easier for your body to break it down so you don't get those problems because there are many of us that can't break oxalates down. And especially children today, if you look at some kids with ADHD, even autism, if you look at their organic acid testing, you'll see most of them can't actually push their oxalates out of their body. So for them, fermented food is huge.

Amazing. Amazing. Oh, I love that. Okay. You got to get your guitar. I got to tell me, I don't want to be the detractor of yourself. Care. Tell me where people can find you because I know you probably piqued a lot of interest for my resetters.

Where do people find your information? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm on Instagram and Facebook. You can just find Dr. Sonia Jensen there. Our website is divineelements.ca and also doctors jensen.com. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it.

So please leave us a review. you, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.