Hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto savage.com. Today I've got special guest Jodelle on the podcast. She is also in Northwest Arkansas, so we had a bunch of chat about there she is in. We did like a podcast swap. So she was kind of asking me questions in the beginning and then I started asking her questions. So it's kind of like a 2IN1 scenario here. But she is a proponent of the repeat diet. So we talked about that. She is a stand up paddle board
instructor. She was asking me all kinds of questions about hormone function, kind of going between a building phase and a cutting phase, how to optimize that, how to improve overall fat metabolism. So we covered a variety of topics. I thoroughly enjoy the conversation.
I've got no doubt that you will take something from it, so that for the delay, sit back, relax, enjoy the conversation with Jodell. I'm super excited to be chatting with you, Joe Doyle. I know we're kind of doing like a split both podcast scenario here. So you'll be asking me questions, I'll be asking you. But yeah, where would you like to start? Awesome. Yeah, I'm excited about that. So kind of you're getting A2 for today, you guys, you're getting
2 podcasts and 1:00. So I want to dive in. You know you you've worked. I've heard several of your stories on podcasts with a lot of women who in that forty 50s, even early or late 30s are noticing that shift into what I call what's happening to my body phase. Where many women are starting to not recognize their body. Like they're putting on stubborn fat in weird places that won't budget. And no matter what they used to do to the weight off, it no longer works.
So we know what the hormones are at play, but I want you to talk to us about, in your opinion, why what gets out of balance with these women that creates so much frustration with their bodies? Yeah, it's definitely a multifaceted thing. So I've had several, you know, expert speakers on the the topic of hormonal health on the
podcast. I obviously am not a menopausal woman, so I can't speak from personal experience, but in talking with, you know, my clients and just people that are really in the know, again, it's multifaceted. So I feel like a lot of women, they will, I mean, they will see a pretty drastic decline in testosterone, obviously when their hormones do start shifting.
And if they have already put all the groundwork into place with the right habits, like they're already eating the right foods, if they're already training, they're already prioritizing their sleep, that most definitely helps. I feel like a lot of women are motivated to start doing that once they notice that those changes are happening for the
worst. And that becomes totally doable, but it's much trickier because they're having to then build all those habits into place right out the gates to kind of like make up for lost ground, so to speak. But when it comes to just maintaining, obviously you can't maintain it because your hormones are shifting.
But some of the best natural things you can do before going the route of exogenous hormones is to prioritize your sleep to make sure you're eating ample calories, ample dietary fat and weight training. Weight training is going to do wonders for increasing overall, you know, testosterone levels. That's also going to increase your bone density. When women start losing their testosterone, one of the first things to go apart from the muscle mass is the density and
the rigidity of their bones. And that's where they start to see a lot of adverse effects start to happen. They're more prone to injury, but you can most definitely bypass and mitigate a lot of that by simply, you know, implementing weight training. So a lot of women don't want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, which I totally get.
To do. That naturally is impossible, so just really prioritizing those healthy habits earlier on before those hormonal shifts start to take place, I think would be the single best thing they could do. Yeah, I love that you mentioned eating adequate calories because I feel like the the women in this this time frame in their life, they've done the whole mentality of eat less, move more.
And maybe that's where some of this hormonal imbalance come from, really malnutrition or lack of raw materials to make these hormones. Do you see that a lot? Are there women coming as far as coaching with you that when you look at what they're eating, it's really far under where they should be? Yeah, 100%. I mean realistically that's honestly the majority of my
clients demographic. You know, people like when you look at competitors that are actually stepping on stage and doing this from a competitive standpoint, they will have periods of pronounced fat loss and then a strategic, you know, muscle building phase where they are at a caloric surplus and implementing progressive overlook with their training.
But they have to have that reverse diet period where they transition from that, you know, low caloric intake, low body fat to return to a healthy stable, you know, homeostatic baseline. But if you're not competing, the same thing holds true because we're all humans. Like all our biology is similar in that regard. So, so many people, women especially men too, but you see this very pronounced in the
female demographic. They would just chronically restrict the under 8. That results in a corresponding down regulation of their metabolic rate. They find it harder to get more food in because their metabolism is suppressed and then they're often times not consuming ample protein and not weight training, they're just doing cardio. So you've kind of got this perfect storm, so to speak, taking place for hormones, caloric baseline and metabolism
to take a massive hit. All the while they're losing lean tissue in the process, which makes them more prone to injury going forward. And the less muscle mass you have, the, I mean, muscle is very metabolically demanding. So it's advantageous to have as much of it as possible. So you just kind of see this myriad of negative effects taking place when they chronically under eat.
And so many people don't track. And I totally understand and respect the desire to eat intuitively and not be a slave to tracking macros. But if you've never tracked and have no idea, no proxy as to what your actual consumption is, you may not even be aware of the fact that you're under eating. So intermittently, you know, tracking your intake and just kind of getting a pulse on that is very, very informative. Yeah, absolutely. I'm seeing the same thing.
When I coach women in this time frame of their life is when I look at their typical day and it's like what my my daughter should have eaten when she was like 5 years old. It's like very minimal calories. And I can relate. I started out my health journey as a bodybuilder without it being a competitor. I was not a competitor, but I wanted to my idea of getting that body was I'm going to live and eat like a competitor without being 1.
So I did the whole chicken and broccoli and tons of tins of tuna. You know, like so many. But then tell me why? Why did my thyroid tank and my fertility disappear? And I say this sarcastically, like if we really look at like, how is the body gonna function at an optimal level when you're giving it? You know, how are you gonna build a house when you have 1/2
by 4? Like you're not gonna build the proper foundation if you don't have all the raw materials to do so. So there's a better way with regard to women and their their fear of calories and their maybe their fear of fat. Maybe they shouldn't fear fat. Can you talk about a little bit about the benefits of women eating fat? Yeah, yeah, totally.
And just to kind of touch on the calories, like the word calories gets a bad rap because, you know, people didn't really even think of things in terms of calories until food started being heavily processed. And that was on all the packaging requirements. So, you know, before packaged, before pre packaged foods and everybody was just eating Whole Foods. Like nobody knew, you know, they didn't equate a consumption, a meal with a certain amount of
calories. And then it was just a matter of tracking calories and eating less than you're burning is kind of like the general narrative. And it just had this negative connotation associated with eating a lot of calories. But if you swap that word out for fuel, because that's what it is, especially for eating quality foods, you know, the more fuel the better. There is definitely a point of
excess. But, you know, thinking of that in terms of a positive thing, a positive light, you know, fuel is good. And I just see way too many people under fueling overall. But yeah, as far as the dietary fat is concerned, you know, we had a whole lot of, you know, misinformation, propaganda and hearsay when it comes to fat being the demon. You know, there was a lot of money to be made in the nutrition space when, you know, we can go way back into the history of like Ansel Keys.
He did his, you know, 7 country study. And there was just a lot of fully designed information there pointing people away from dietary fat and putting, you know, it on a pedestal as the reason people are getting clogged arteries and gaining body fat. But that's just not the reality. Like all the sugar companies and all the, you know, big food and big Pharma hadn't so much to gain there. But when you look at quality dietary fat, like our bodies as human beings are comprised of
fats and proteins. So if we're consuming quality fats and proteins, they're much more highly bioavailable than other, you know, heavily processed alternative sources. So our body knows how to use them. If you look at cholesterol, that's not a negative thing either. Again, there's extremes, but the precursor to testosterone is cholesterol. So if you're not consuming ample dietary fat with quality cholesterol, then you are going to have a down regulation of
your hormone function. Whereas if you're consuming dietary fats at the right appropriate levels and it's all coming from good quality sources, you're going to be doing yourself wonders for hedging against those adverse effects. Like you look at competitors that are traditionally following a low fat approach, high protein, high carb, low fat. They'll see a very massive decrease in hormone function once they get below a certain caloric intake because they're not consuming near enough
dietary fat. And if your hormones tank, as they inevitably do with that approach, then again, your energy also follows suit and you're not able to train. The lack of training in the context of a low calorie diet results in loss of muscle tissue. It just becomes a negative feedback loop that just repeats itself. Yeah. Is that where we see a lot of people maybe in their 40s and 50s? Really they're trying to go back to what they did in their 20s that worked and now it's not
working? That sounds like it's really more of a hormonal piece from the effects of what we did to our bodies in our 20s when we were just trying to do what everybody else was doing, you know, and have you like, is this something that we can remedy because like by adding fat and getting rid of the fear of fat and, and women kind of consuming more fat, but maybe moderating their carbohydrate intake, Is this something where we can turn the hormones back on and they
can see some results in the other way? Yes, absolutely. I mean, there's, there's so much that can be done by just simply giving your body the basic building blocks it requires to function at a high rate. And when you look at the, you know, massive decrease in dietary fat consumption, coupled with the significant increase in heavily processed foods, sugars and carbohydrates, like it's, it's just a just a myriad of things that people have working
against them. Like, especially as we age to like, you can get away with a lot of mistakes when you're younger because not enough time has elapsed for your body to really, you know, be feeling the negative implications of those decisions. So you honestly can just throw caution to the wind for a lot of people. And it doesn't really become profound.
But once you start getting older, once your hormones naturally start decreasing anyways, and you're also doing those, you know, poor dietary choices, then everything becomes more apparent. You start to notice more joint pain and inflammation. Your memory, cognition is starting to take a hit, like everything starts to be Every compounding effect of the the dietary choices you make up to that point lead to how you're feeling and performing.
So if you can hedge against that by giving your body the basic building blocks it requires for optimal nutrition, that will certainly do wonders to hedge against those declining components. So you went from the mindset of that typical bodybuilder of like what I was talking about, the chicken and broccoli, tons of 10s of tuna and egg whites and all of that to adopting more of a keto approach. So you swapped out these carbs for more fats.
And that is not something you see in a lot of competitors, is it? They're still kind of sticking to the old mentality of body bodybuilding and and using high protein, high carb kind of consumption. What did you notice that you knew it was working for you as far as like dialing in your fat and maybe also even your brain health, you know, your moods overall and things like that?
Yeah, totally. I mean, the main, the main motivation for me to start keto was that I had a, you know, really negative relationship with food. I had a bunch of eating disorders. I would binge, I would purge. I lost 80 lbs in 12 weeks for my first competition, and then I gained 24 lbs in a day thereafter. And it just wasn't healthy. I was doing, you know, the traditional chicken, rice, broccoli, eat every three hours, you know, concept.
Then I switched over to flexible dieting if it fits your macros, which is probably the reigning champ in the, you know, natural spaces today. But my frustration with that is that there's not as much emphasis placed on the actual quality of those foods. It's just a matter of, hey, if you hit your macro goals, you know, your fat, protein, carbs
and calories, then you're good. But with keto, especially when I started way back in 2014, 2015, you know, the emphasis was always on quality Whole Foods. And with that shift, my hunger signaling improved, my relationship with food improved, and I just had a better pulse on what my body needed. And I didn't have any guilt associated with the foods I was eating because all the food I was eating was real quality
food. And I think guilt is a major catalyst for why people go through these negative feedback loops of binging and purging, because they have that sense of guilt associated with the foods they're eating. If you're only eating quality stuff because it makes you feel and perform so much better, you don't have that likelihood of guilt creeping in and therefore you don't feel the need to, you know, amend that guilt. So that was my main motivation.
And then the the benefits from a bodybuilding standpoint were just kind of a byproduct in. But once I recognized that I could actually compete at a higher level with a ketogenic approach, it just checked all the boxes for me and I had no need to deviate. Yeah. And I have a lot of listeners that are kind of in the pro metabolic circuit. They call it the, you know, really dialing in things for their metabolism.
And they might not feel very comfortable about the word keto because it's gotten kind of a bad rap in that community, but it really shouldn't because you have two sources of energy foods. You have carbohydrates and you have fat and your body can utilize either of them for energy. And what I feel like I see a lot in the pro metabolic community is people that feel better because they're doing high fat and high carb, but they're not
seeing the aesthetic results. So I get a lot of these pro metabolic women that reach out and then that say I feel good, but I'm not I'm I'm gaining weight. I have more abdominal fat than I've ever had. I feel like I can't, the fat won't budget. Is there a point where they really have to, if aesthetics are their goal, they're going to really have to choose an energy food. And with regard to hormones, it sounds like we really need to be dialing in the fat and kind of
minimizing the carbohydrates. Yeah. Yeah, from a performance standpoint, you know, if you're trying to take a dual fuel approach and metabolize both carbohydrates and glucose and fat and ketones, you're going to kind of find yourself stuck in this, you know, purgatory land, limbo land, so to speak. Because you're right. You know, your body can use either as a fuel substrate, but in order to optimize, you kind of need to pick one and prioritize your nutrition around that one.
That's going to be where the performance really starts to shine from an aesthetic standpoint, regardless of the diet you're following the laws of, you know, thermodynamics and you know, fuel, energy, caloric consumption still do apply. So like if you are eating all the right foods, but you're eating them in excess, you will still gain body fat.
So strictly from a fat loss aesthetic standpoint, you know, making sure that you're not consuming at an excess regardless of the diet you're following is going to be very key. So, you know, tracking your intake and just getting that dialed in efficiently is is my preferred method of taking, you know, going about that. Yeah. When it comes to nutrition, do you think women specifically could benefit from like a
cyclical keto? Like maybe they're dialing in their fats for the most part and then like once a week they're having some carbohydrates? Or are you strictly like they really benefit from just dialing in the fat as their fuel substrate as you mentioned? It's an interesting question. There's a lot of varying opinions on it. So what I've noticed is that there are definitely a demographic of women that notice, you know, more regular cycles when they do include carbohydrates.
However, they will often times notice that because they'll have a bolus of carbohydrates, then they'll regain their cycle or become, you know, normalized. But it's, I don't believe it's necessarily the carbohydrates that are the catalyst there. It's just simply the increase in food overall. I don't know of any female clients I've had that have had ample dietary, you know, caloric intake and noticed an irregular cycle. All else equal. It's not necessarily the carbs that are providing that.
It's just the adequate calories. So a lot of people that adopt A ketogenic approach do so for fat loss. So they will be in a caloric deficit and then they'll start to notice, you know, some some I'll effects hormonally if they don't provide themselves that time in a surplus or at least at a healthy maintenance. But if they are opting the route of a pure, you know, strict ketogenic approach, but they do give themselves time in a surplus, those hormonal cycles
also stabilize. So like, you know, I've been strict keto for a decade now. My wife has also been strict keto. She has totally normal and regulated hormonal function because she allows herself time out of maintenance or surplus intake. I totally, 100% agree with you because I actually brought my period back after being gone seven years. It was gone and with a more carnivore keto approach, like eating nothing but strict carnivore, that I was higher in fat and for years I had been low fat.
So I didn't see the increase in my cycle from adding carbohydrates. I actually saw it from adding fat. And so I totally believe where you're coming from is legit. You have to have that fat to make the hormones that make the cycle. So totally, I now there's different schools of thought on what exactly keto is traditional, you know, medicinal keto I think is, you know, 70 to 80% fat. But if someone's hanging in, like what I call myself is
carnivore with benefits. So I have mostly meat based, but then I'll add in vegetables that I like, like Brussels sprouts and things like that. And I'm aiming more towards like the 60% fat, 40% protein. And that seems to work pretty well with me or 30% protein and a little bit of carbs from the veggies. But as far as like your opinion on what kind of is beneficial for the hormones, what's kind of your macro range you like people to stay in?
Yeah, it's funny. I don't ever want to be seen as like this dogmatic person in the space because there's so many dietary, you know, culture wars and information silos. You know, like if you look at keto as it was used in the 1920s for epileptic children, it was, you know, incredibly high fat, like a four to one ratio, 80% of calories coming from fat, lower protein, very low carbs. I don't think that's necessary or optimal from a performance athlete standpoint.
I mean, I typically consume between 60 and 80% of my calories coming from fat, depending on where I'm at in a building or cutting cycle. But I'm consuming enough overall calories that even when I'm at 80% fat, I'm still getting ample protein because 80% as a percentage of total calories from fat from a 3500 calorie diet still leaves a lot of room for protein. So that's important, making sure you're consuming adequate protein.
But yeah, I think generally speaking, you know, people think of keto as. You know, 75% fat, 20% protein, 5% carbs, but I don't ever really like dealing in absolutes. So I, I change macros on a regular basis depending on the goals.
And I would advise everybody to do the same because everyone's going to have their own unique protein threshold, fat threshold, carbohydrate sealing, and just kind of playing around with those different levers to feel, you know, to figure out where you feel and perform best is the main thing. Yeah, I love the protein piece you mentioned because I think people that's another reason keto gets a bad rap is they
think it's low in protein. And that's where the muscle loss and the things like energy loss and hair loss and sleep issues comes from. If you're doing it appropriately, you're going to get more than enough protein. And especially like I think I heard you mentioned on a podcast that you're more keto bore where you're doing kind of more of that higher fat meat based approach to.
And it is not hard for me with with eating mostly meat to get that 60% fat, but also get at least 120 to 150 grams of protein a day, not hard at all. So is that is that true for you as well? Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm always like the vast majority of my calories always come from dietary fat, but it is normal for me to be existing between 150 and 250 grams of protein a day. And I hit that relatively effortlessly with my metabolic
needs and caloric intake. So I'm absolutely really consuming ample protein for my my body's ability to, you know, re repair, grow tissue, add more lean tissue, preserve the lean tissue I've got. And you're right, there's definitely a period where people in the keto space were fearful of protein because of gluconeogenesis and that kicking them out of ketosis and they would under consume protein.
It's interesting now the pendulum has swung so far the other direction that people are just over consuming protein because there is an upper threshold to that as well. Yeah. You know, so you have to kind of play around with it and figure out where your body performs best. But you definitely want to make sure you're consuming ample dietary protein for sure. Yeah, protein is going to be very pro metabolic, but also so
is the fat. When you're getting those hormones that you need, that's where that pro metabolic activity comes in as well. So I love that that we're breaking this down for people now when it comes to a really good fat source. You have something called a keto brick. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. So when I was doing my first competition prep via a ketogenic protocol that would have been in 2017. And at that time there was not really any keto products on the market.
And I just wanted to streamline my entire prep operation. I wanted to take the guesswork out of meal prep and just simplify things. So I set out to create a really good macro based, you know, shelf stable bar that I could use as like a one of my meals. And I've did a lot of formulation and developed the keto brick and it's been going, going awesome ever since. My girlfriend at the time, wife now we developed a, a product with it.
We put it up for sale. There's a lot of demand for it and we've just kept production in house ever since day one so we could oversee the quality of the production. But the primary fat source in those bricks is a raw organic cacao butter. And we've recently started using beef tallow, grass fed beef tallow as well. And both of those are incredibly high sources of stearic acid. So a very easily digested quality fat source that is shelf stable and can fuel the body's needs from a dietary fat
standpoint. So there's been a host of benefits discovered as it pertains to stearic acid from a hormonal standpoint, from an energy demand standpoint. And just when it comes to dietary fat, there's so many fats out there, but they're not all created equal. So you can look at the macro profile of, you know, a, a vegetable oil and then have a similar, you know, fat content to, you know, an olive oil or like a duck fat or beef tallow.
But how those different fats, while they do contain the same amount of, you know, calories in fat grams per serving, how they respond in the body is, is wildly different. You know, how it responds to, to inflammation or how it generates inflammation or is anti-inflammatory. Like all of those things are dependent upon the quality of the fat, so not all fats are equal and being able to create something that provided a quality fat that took the
guesswork out of that was key. Mm hmm, I didn't know you had a beef tallow bar. That's exciting. Can like I truth be told, I haven't tried a keto brick, but this is the part of the interview you're probably not going to like is that I'm also a runner. I'm an ultra marathon but I'm a fat adapted runner so like I everything I do is low zone 2, very gentle on my body but also I do it with that. But I need to try a keto brick because it sounds like that's going to be something to utilize
in my next ultra. Well, definitely let me know a good shipping address. I'll get you hooked up. And I I have utmost respect for ultra endurance sports as well. I mean, several people in the keto space are ultra endurance athletes, Mike McKnight, Jonathan Shane, Zach Bitter. Those are all, you know, very successful ultra endurance athletes that all follow up, you know, fat adapted approach. And it's different than bodybuilding for sure.
But I've got utmost respect for athletes in general that are putting in the work. So yeah, doing it from a fan of that standpoint makes total sense to me. Yeah, I, I love where I can do something that is ultra endurance, but also I make the time to continue to lift volume and keep my body in a place of like don't, don't continually just breakdown muscle, put some back on.
So, but I'm excited to try that because it sounds like something that would be easy to digest when you are in an endurance sport to where you're not that like you said, the stearic acid is very easy to digest. You're not having something that's super heavy sitting on the gut while you're doing all
this stuff. Yeah. And from an ultra endurance standpoint, like it just makes so much more intuitive sense to me that you would want to be fat adapted because if you are, you know, glucose dependent, you know, you've only got a limited amount of that you can tap into. So you have to consume while you're doing these events. Otherwise you, you bonk as they say. But when you are fat adapted, you, your body has a relatively limitless supply of, of fat to tap into, even if you are
incredibly lean. So from an ultra endurance standpoint, which is going to be less glycolidly demanding? Like I feel like the only way to go is to be fat adapted. Yeah, I've tried both ways. And I like, I used to be a runner with high carbs and it was like I just had to fuel myself like every 30 minutes while I was doing something endurance wise. Or when I was just training, I just had to keep eating every two hours. And now it's like I can, I can do a 2 hour run with nothing.
Like I can just live off of the fat that's sitting on my body and then I can refuel after and have no problems. So it's like I really enjoy that.
I don't want to have to be tied to a plate or tied to a snack bar or a goo or something, so. I just actually had a podcast earlier this week with an individual that is in the ultra swimming, you know, sports and he did a 12 hour, 22 mile one way swim in a cold lake in Scotland completely fasted to prove that you can do it without, you know, continual mainlining of carbohydrates. And I mean it was super impressive what he did and he did it all fasted.
So the notion that you have to have carbohydrates to fuel for an endurance sport is just not well founded. Fantastic. I love that. That's so cool. OK, I just pulled up your website and I looked at the keto, the carnivore cake pop keto brick and people listening to this are going to love these ingredients. Grass fed beef tallow, carnivore protein blend of protein, beef protein islet, beef tallow, beef
collagen, beef organ blend. So you got kidney, liver, heart, pancreas, spleen, bone powder, marrow powder. Oh my gosh, like salt and stevia. This is so cool. Like I had no idea that you could do like a carnivore bar and. It tastes great, so great that we actually just launched that this past Sunday and it sold out in less than 24 hours. So there's not any right now to grab, but we will definitely be restocking. And that's super cool.
So I just want people to know that the where they can find that, so they go to ketobrick.com. That's it. Awesome. OK, cool. All right. So we've touched on the nutrition part. Now what about you mentioned weight training, Obviously we know that's important, but you know how much, how frequently for these women that are going, I'm doing all the things I'm not getting the results I want, then the fat won't budget. What are they missing? So weight training is an
interesting one. It's a lot of people overthink weight training. I mean, if you distill it down to its simplest form, building muscle is comprised of checking four boxes. One ample calories. You have to have more fuel coming in so your body has the building blocks necessary to add more tissue. Two, ample protein, 3, ample recovery, so adequate sleep and you know, time for your body to repair and grow more tissue.
And then four, implementing progressive overload so you're providing enough stimulus for your body to warrant the need for additional muscle tissue. If you check all four of those boxes, you will build muscle and a lot of people, you know, they over sensationalize things. They they just overcomplicate things where it's not really that complicated and anything is
better than nothing. So if if the listener is, you know, totally unversed in any form of training and they don't know how to do anything except walk on a treadmill, then just simply starting with body weight movements and resistance bands and calisthenics works totally fine. And you can graduate up from there. I personally like to have at least three training days a week. I typically target about four or five training days a week and I do a full body split.
But there are multiple different ways to skin a cat. As a saying goes, people can do full body. They can do, you know, upper, lower, they can do push, pull legs. Like there's a million different ways to do it and you can stick with the basics of just primary compound movements and not overcomplicate things because what what what people make mistakes is they just try and
change things too frequently. I've been following the same training split for the past two years and my body is continually seeing progress. So I haven't felt the need to change it. So yeah, just starting where you're at and then improving from there is the key. And that holds true whether you're, you know, a 93 year old grandma that is wanting to not fall down the stairs or an elite level bodybuilder stepping on worlds. You know, like those basic principles hold true regardless.
I love that. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be like, my kind of rule of thumb is more days than that. Like even if it's just four days out of like the seven days, you're doing it more days than that. And it doesn't have to be an hour in the gym or in my case, like I have everything outside,
I work out outside of my home. But sometimes it's just, I have a barbell and I have like 4 exercises and I'm going to do them in a sequence of just kind of back-to-back and rest for a couple minutes before doing that set again. And I might just do that for 20 or 30 minutes and that's it. You know, it doesn't have to be grandiose.
And like you said, if somebody's just starting out, just lifting something, it doesn't matter how much you're doing, you're going to benefit to some degree from just starting to lift something versus just walking on the treadmill. Totally. I mean, it's, it's all about just the, the compounding effect of your day-to-day actions.
Like if you are, you know, getting better every single day and moving the needle, that compounding effect, it may seem insurmountable to, you know, think of changing your physique or losing 20 lbs or adding more weight to your bench press in the moment. But if you just simply work at it and chip away in some form of fashion, move the needle every day, then your body can't help but to improve.
And I feel like people just get, you know, so caught up in this short term mentality for these quick gains that nothing happens. Actually, that's not true. I mean, there is no such thing as maintenance. Maintenance is a miss. You are either getting better or you are getting worse. So it makes sense to me that you would stack the chips in your favor to improve as opposed to digress. So yeah, just just, you know, making positive momentum on a regular basis.
Love that. And with regard to bodybuilders, while they may not have their nutrition optimal when they're doing the tons of 10s of tuna, one thing about their routine is something we could all do better adopting and that's kind of the build, the bulking phase and then the cutting phase. So I know you kind of talk about that.
Let's break that down and why that actually why it's not a bad idea for us to put on a little bit of, you know, some weight in and maybe the chunky sweater season and then we can kind of cut it off later. Why is there a benefit to that? Yeah, kind of undulating through those periods is is key. I mean, just to kind of use myself as an example, just throwing some stats, you know, I am 185 probably as my average walking around weights. That's that's relatively easy
for me to maintain. And then I'll cut down to 155 or 160 for my competitions and I'll, you know, go as heavy as 202 hundred is not an ideal weight for me. I don't need to be that much in a surplus, but it takes more time to build muscle than it takes to lose body fat. So when I do a competition season, you know, I have six months of the year where I am prioritizing fat loss and preserving muscle. And I'll drop down my calories, I'll track everything very meticulously and I'll get to,
you know, sub 5% body fat. But I can't maintain that physique, that level of adherence and that level of conditioning without it taking its toll hormonally. So I'll spend more time in that surplus phase focusing on eating more food, embracing some healthy body fat gain, which does work to stabilize hormones, metabolism.
And also, you know, your, your nervous system, like if you are in a deficit or if you're doing excessive fasting, that's very taxing on your nervous system, you're going to spend more time in a sympathetic state than a parasympathetic state.
So while you, you know, can benefit acutely from that, spending more time than not in a, you know, surplus is going to be beneficial from a hormonal standpoint for up regulating your baseline metabolic rate, for building more muscle to improve your metabolic rate further, and just for ensuring that you're, you know, baseline calories are at a healthy range. Like it's no fun eating at a deficit for a certain period of
time because you're just hungry. So if you can kind of allow yourself time to embrace the body fat that comes with eating at a surplus, but knowing that in doing so you're going to improve upon your current physique the next time you cut down, it makes it a much easier pill to swallow. I love that because in nature we would do that anyway.
I mean, animals do that. They kind of like bulk up for the winter and then they kind of like lean out as as times get lean, you know, so I think if we would allow ourselves to do that, but it's it's so true what you said. I feel like so many people are like, I have to be lean and stay lean all year and that's so hard on your body. Like we really, it's OK to have the fluctuations.
It's OK to put on a little bit of fluff for a while and then go, you know what, I'm ready to dial it in because it actually boost leptin, which is that satisfying hormone hormone, but also one of the regulators of all the other hormones. So I think it's really important that people do a better job of like, you know, right now it's like winter or fall season. You can add a little fluff to yourself because a, there's a lot of like some of the comfort foods available.
You've got kind of chunky sweater season. Use it to your advantage. Go into the gym and lift heavy and then when it starts to get closer to spring and summer you can start to dial it back and cut some of that weight off and you'll actually enjoy life a little more too I feel like. Yeah, totally. And you don't need to get sloppy, but the more muscle you have, the better you look with
the body fat anyways. Because if you've had a solid foundation of, you know, shape and symmetry and proportions with ample muscle, the fat sits on top of that in still in appealing manner. Like I've still got visible ABS when I'm 200 lbs, So like I'm totally comfortable with the skin I'm in, so to speak. Like you don't have to let go of your shape, but allowing there to be a time where you do embrace some necessary body fat gain should be totally fine,
normalized and and healthy. That, that is what is optimal. But this notion, if you're just scrolling on people's, you know, Instagram highlight reels, you've always got to be shredded. It's just not realistic. Yeah, it's a lot of stress. It's a lot of pressure. That's one thing I don't like about social media that really shows people, man, I got to be lean all year and I can't and
I'm struggling. And sometimes it's more of the stressful thoughts around our bodies and around our, you know, whether it's nutrition or fitness that we're working on. That really is more of the problem than the nutrition or fitness itself. So you really have to dial in the stress management too, with regard to that. Like what do you do for stress management? I what do I do for stress management?
I mean, I've got a very structured routine, like I've got non negotiables in my life and if I am working towards a goal that does great for alleviating stress. I get stressed when I'm not working towards something, you know, I'm kind of people different things stress different people out. I get stressed when I don't have a goal that I'm working on when I'm not structured. So I always try and have that, but I mean, I've got a kid now too. I've got a 2 1/2 year old and he
doesn't care about my body fat. He doesn't care about the money in my bank account. He doesn't care about the business. Like he just cares about, you know, the little things going outside, playing the leaves, you know. So like, he is a massive stress reduction in my life because no matter what chaos today brings, if I go home to him and I'm just present with him, you know that that recenters me. Oh, I love that.
That's beautiful. Yes, kids are great personal trainers with regard to like helping us see that what's important in life and showing us like just move your body but have fun doing it and let's go play, you know, like they kind of remind us of that. But yeah, I love what you said about routine. I think that's a hugely underestimated part of a fitness and health journey is to develop that morning routine, the daytime habits, the evening routine, because that will keep you.
I'm the the same way away from stress because when you feel in control of your environment, your stress lowers and it's a way of, of combating the the anxiety of like, am I doing what I need to be doing for my body? When you develop that routine that works for you, whatever that is, and stick to it, you're going to see your stress come down overall in general.
Absolutely. And again, kind of going back to that compounding effect, you know, like if you have a structured routine, even if you're not capitalizing on, you know, a component or two of it, if you are still putting in the work over time, even if it's not optimal, you're still making forward progress. You know, like I always tell my clients, it's, it's better to be 90%, 100% of the time then 100
percent, 10% of the time. And if you kind of break it through in in that way, like you're still making progress. And if you're making progress, then you can be at peace with the day-to-day outcome. So I think having that is key because we as humans, we don't rise to the level of our ambitions and desires. We fall to the level of our routines and habits. And when you have the right routines and habits in place, you can still set yourself up for success. For sure.
Yeah. And part of that routine for myself is also, like, getting away from devices being out in nature, like you said. I'm assuming you're kind of that way, too. Do you are? Do you see the benefits of like, less blue light at night and being more, you know, into your circadian rhythm, such as like going to bed at the same time, waking with the sun, seeing the sunrise, things like that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, my, my personal pastime is, is being outside hunting.
I love hunting. I love to fill the freezer with quality food that I've, you know, harvested, cured myself. So that's kind of my form of escapism, just getting outside, getting away from the noise of our day-to-day lives and just being present in a very pristine environment. So yeah, being outside is is absolute therapy. Spoken like a true carnivore. I'm a bow hunter too, I just have only been doing it for about four years now so I
haven't nailed my first one yet. Oh awesome, yeah, I've got massive respect for bow hunters. Yeah, I just go out, but it hasn't happened just yet. I did see a yearling and she was only 20 yards, but I was like, she's only a year old. I can't let her go. What? What are you shooting? What are you getting? Super technical here, but what are you shooting? So I have a Eva Shocky. It's a, it's a Bowtec, the Eva
Shocky brand. My husband's a big bow hunter, so he got me into it. And I, I really enjoy it because even just going and sitting in the woods and not killing anything, I mean, I don't come home and fill my freezer, but the act of sitting out there and listening to the squirrels and watching the leaf fall and just being away from, like you said, all the noise is so amazing. Like I there's never a bad day in the woods. Yeah, 100% agree on all fronts there. That's awesome.
Yeah, very cool. Well, this has been fun. Like I hope that people can really take away the fact that you don't have to follow the trends of, you know, you can, you can look like a competitor without doing the competitor diet. You can add facts back in and still be pro metabolic. You can see the benefits outside of just fitness and nutrition of of the quality time in sunlight, in nature and putting your feet on the earth. Is there anything else they should know about you?
Something you're working on right now? So I've got always something up my sleeve. I'm actually hosting a bodybuilding competition next year. So if any of your listeners are interested in competing, we'll be hosting our own show in Northwest Arkansas on the 27th of September 2025.
So that's something the course I just launched, an online course that's incredibly comprehensive around everything we've talked about, about manipulating macro nutrients, finding your unique protein threshold, improving your composition. And that's at ketobodybuilding.com. I'd love to pick your brain about Ray Pete, because I know you're a proponent of that. So yeah, if you get some time, we'd love to just hear you dive into that spectrum.
Of course, I'm always happy to talk about Ray Pete, but yeah, that bodybuilding sounds really fascinating. And us being in Northwest Arkansas together, we still haven't met in person, but that's really cool that you're offering that right here. Yeah, I'm excited about it for sure. Nice. Yeah. So fire away. I'm happy to answer some questions.
Yeah. So as far as Ray Pete is concerned, actually just define it for me like kind of with keto and car, what are all these different subsets of what that means, what the the definition is? So what? What is Ray Pete's in your words? OK, so Doctor Ray Pete, he was a doctor, he just passed away a couple years ago at the age of 87. And he had he had research nutrition longer than most people have been alive.
So he was an advocate for being pro metabolic, which is taking care of your bioenergetic systems, such as making sure that you're feeding yourself with a higher quality of, of more of like this, the glucose itself to calm the stress. He was big on how stress affects the body and how the adrenals or the the things that are produced from the adrenals like adrenaline is calmed down through more of a sugar approach, like giving the body what it naturally runs on is
more of a glucose sugar. Also with the point of he was very big into the thyroid and how the thyroid needs to calm down. And there's ways to do that with protein and carbohydrates, but also fat. Like he wasn't afraid. He was a big advocate of fat too. So it was more of like a a nice blend of all of the macro nutrients that kind of gave the body all the raw materials to turn the adrenals back on, turn the thyroid back on after damage from stress and then also.
Whole Foods, that sounds like. Yeah, but with not a lot of emphasis on vegetables or some fruits. But his way was more like you don't want anything that can cause like a, a build up in the gut of lipopolysaccharides where you're giving like more inflammatory response to the gut and stuff like that. So his typical day was, and this is where it became more of the repeat diet, which I have to tell people was never actually admit it was the way repeat ate.
And if you ever listen to a podcast with doctor repeat, he will never tell you how to eat. He will never say that do what I'm doing because this works. He was very humble. He was very much just sharing with you the research that he had found and he would answer people's questions with research. He would never say you should do this and you should do that. He would give the research and let the listener decide for themselves what they should do. So I really respected him for that.
But his way, I mean, he would do kind of steak and eggs for breakfast. He was very big on orange juice because that quick hit of the magnesium and the glucose would calm an adrenaline response If the if the stress of the individual was so high that he could turn it off with things like an orange juice. He was big on milk because milk had kind of the same principles of calming the body, but also providing every single macronutrient that you need.
And then he was big on calcium, matching the calcium phosphorus ratio and balancing out the minerals, which he would advocate for like glucose and calcium and protein and things like that. So it was a really interesting approach because he'd do like steak and eggs, then he'd do like, I think he did like oysters for lunch and stuff like that. And then more of a meat based approach with like some custards for dinner and dessert, like a like an egg based custard with sugar.
So he would add sugar to certain things. He would, he was an advocate for like Mexican cola because it didn't have the high fructose, but you could get the, the adrenaline calming effects of the, the pure sugar in the cola. So it was really interesting. All of those takes that he had on it, I will always remind the people that come to me from that circuit of following Ray Pete. Like that was what Ray Pete did. He didn't say that everybody should do that.
What he did research was the effects of stress on the body, how progesterone both for men and women can be beneficial in calming that adrenaline rush in the body and calming the nervous system. And then also he did a lot of extensive research on like minerals and how powerful minerals and salt and stuff was to the body. So there were so many good things that he advocated.
But I feel like a lot of the community has taken it to this big extreme of like, we drink all the orange juice and all the milk and eat all the liver and eat all the oysters and then also have like egg custards And we feel really good. But we're not seeing any aesthetics or we're still having adrenaline surges and hypoglycemia.
Like, gosh, I can't imagine why, you know, Like so it seems almost like every, unfortunately, almost every person that comes from that community, I have to undo a little bit of the pre programming that they kind of got from like, and I'll say the forums or the community itself. Like there's a repeat forum, which he was never on. It was all the people that would like put their beliefs in as to what everybody should be doing. And I think it just got out of
hand and out of context. So I'm trying to slowly, like, clean up the community and go, you know what? We got to listen to the internal knowing of. Like, we're still dealing with high amounts of processed sugar when you're talking about juice. We're still dealing with high amounts of processed sugar when you're talking about Mexican cola. Yeah, it's better than the regular cola, but it's still not something that is a unprocessed
food. So, you know, common sense has died because no one knew that it died because nobody had any. But I'm trying to slowly bring that back in because logic, common sense or logic, human nature is not wrong. Like we have a creator that created us with, with the ability to reason and to look at things from the standpoint of like, just because so and so says this is good for me, doesn't actually mean that it is.
So that was what he did, and he was a very healthy individual for what he did for his body, but that doesn't mean that it's optimal for everybody else. Yeah, no, totally. I can respect that. I think, you know, I'm excited to see this, this increase in popularity of people that don't have a diagnosis of being diabetic are using CGMS to just see what different foods do to their blood sugar because it just makes it very data oriented, data centric. And people can just be objective.
Like people that are metabolically dysfunctional and are insulin resistant, they probably don't need to be slamming a gallon of orange juice in the morning, but they could know exactly how their body responds to that if they were, you know, monitoring what their blood sugar levels are doing 'cause like, you know, I'm not anti sugar. I don't really eat hardly. I mean, I don't ever eat any sugar. And from a ketogenic standpoint, your body can create the necessary glucose for the brain
via gluconeogenesis. So from an exogenous sugar intake standpoint, like I don't really ever consume it. But again, I don't ever want to be dogmatic. So people that do want to include more sugar, if they're able to simply look and say, OK, how is this sugar responding in my body? Am I metabolically healthy enough to consume this without any adverse effects? I think that is key. And so many people just never look at the data. They never are objective, but
they just. They just like justifying their sweet tooth. 100% yeah. And I'm, I'm not anti sugar either, but I think there's a time and a place for it depending on the individual. Like you said, if you're dealing with somebody who's diabetic or that might be a different story. But it goes, it reminds me of like I remember the the dogma of like, oh, drink chocolate milk after your workout. You know, like that was a big thing.
And if you know, it's not wrong or bad, OK, if you're going to drink chocolate milk, that's probably the best time to drink chocolate after a nice big workout. However, it doesn't it doesn't mean that that's right for everybody because there are better ways to get carbohydrates
and some fat in after a workout. If we're talking from a standpoint of optimizing your health, you know, so I, I feel like we got to let go of the, the dogma of, well, this doctor says to do that or is this protocol says to do that. And I'm very big on bioindividuality. Like eat foods that love you back. And by that I mean eat the foods that aren't, you're not in an
abusive relationship. If you eat something and you feel sleepy after or your heart rate race is after or conversely you have gut issues and or you get constipated, then obviously that's not a food that loves you back. So common sense and reasoning is a lot of what I go back to is like I eat more of a fat adapted way because I don't have joint pain. I sleep amazing, I can work out with no problems. I don't get done and feel like I
have to take a nap. So I know that works for me, but there may be people out there that need carbohydrates in order to feel that very same way. So instead of, you know, judging one way or another, I wish that the majority of the population would look at it from what what foods love me back. I, I'm not going to be in a relationship with someone who's going to beat me up. So I also don't want to do that
with food. I want to be in a relationship where the food is giving me what I need as well. Yeah, I totally agree. I feel like we need to just embrace, you know, really just getting more in tune with how our body feels and functions. Like so many people are just incredibly disconnected from what is even normal because they don't know what healthy normal feels like.
You know, it's, it's commonplace for people to have all kinds of over the counter drugs and medications and antacids, you know, just throughout the day, every single day. And that's just not normal. Like you should be able to eat foods that fuel you up, make you feel good, allow you to sleep, not be a slave to stimulants, energy drinks all day long to
function. And if we just allow ourselves to pay attention to what our body is telling us, we can We can know pretty clearly what it is that's working for us and what isn't. Yeah, and paying attention is key. I just had somebody reach out to me for coaching. That was like, well, I've been eating more of the repeat way for a while now and I'm still tired and I'm still sluggish and I still, my sleep is suffering.
And I'm like, why do we? Why are we doing things just because somebody tells us too, that really our body's going. This is not working for me. Like it's, it's that definition of insanity, doing the same thing and expecting different results. So one question people can ask themselves is what was I doing at one point in my life that really did work for me? Was there a time that I felt my most optimal? And what was I doing during that
time? And if it was reasonable, you know, I don't want to go back to what I was doing in my early 20s because it wasn't reasonable eating the tons of tins of tuna. But if it was reasonable, then ask yourself, do I is there something that I'm that I'm missing right now just because I'm paying attention to all the noise and the dog when the TikTok video is about nutrition that are out there?
Yeah, totally. And there's like a, like I said, a million different ways of skin, a can, there's so many different macro profiles that one could, you know, perform well at. But I think, you know, the, the vast majority, like all of us would benefit from just more real food, kind of bypassing all the, you know, heavily processed hedonic foods, like all the fast foods, all the, you know, overly added sugar foods and, and soft drinks.
I mean, 80% of people like in the classic 8020 analysis standpoint, like if people just removed the, the junk from their diet and lifestyle, like they would start to see and feel exponentially better. And then from there they can finesse and get that last little bit. Now then. Absolutely. And one other thing that Ray Pete was really a big advocate for was sunlight and being in nature. And he would, I would ask him, what kind of exercise do you do?
I mean, here's a man in his 80s and he said, if I was going to do what I could do, it'd be to chop wood. Like to go out and channel. I'm like, anybody knows that chopping wood is probably one of the best workouts you could ever get. Like anything outside in the sunshine where you are moving your body in such an intense way. Like no wonder that was his preferred performance making out so. Yeah, that's a good one. I do love chopping wood for
sure. Yeah. And there's something about sunlight that I mean, I always tell people think about, like when you go to a beach, you're on vacation, you're eating all kinds of stuff you don't normally eat, but yet you somehow you come back leaner and you've been at the beach all day. There is the power in sunlight, like sunlight releases lipids from your fat cells. And so regardless of the way that you choose to eat, you can see a big difference the more
you spend time in sun. I mean, you're getting that vitamin D, you're using up that cholesterol in the blood to make hormones and to make vitamin D. And all of that in conjunction with like the lipids that are being released from those fat cells, you can feel quite a bit leaner just spending time in the
sun. Yeah. I mean, if you look at, you know, our evolutionary history as a species, what we are doing in today's day and age is so far removed from, you know, what we have grown to, you know, be accustomed to. Like, we are eating all fake foods. We're never going outside. We're sitting at a desk. We're not moving. Like, you've got all these things working against us.
So like, if people can just start, you know, moving things towards what we have always been doing, and that will certainly be putting them in a much better position to have sustained success and progress and, and make it, you know, make it worthwhile. Like it. We're supposed to move. We're supposed to have quality sleep. We're supposed to eat real food.
And you look at what an average day in the life of, you know, a typical American is now it's like Netflix and, and, you know, TV dinners and it's just so far removed from our reality. So yeah, we we got to get the the trend moving in the right direction because our obesity epidemic and just metabolic dysfunction is, is on a pretty steady climb right now. Yeah, metabolic dysfunction for sure. And that goes back to like the whole logic and like, common
sense and human nature. Like you said, we are so far removed. We've become this indoor nation where we never were supposed to be. We were supposed to be out of doors. And your body responds to that. It responds to sunlight. It responds to, I don't know if you see these clients as well, but they've done so much research and they continue to do so much research online that they're spending all of their time online and they're wondering why they're not
getting better. A, it's the stress of like, OK, am I dealing with this, you know, autoimmune issue or now I'm Googling my symptoms and I have cancer apparently. You know, like it's like it goes to this almost obsessive compulsive mentality of like trying to figure out their health when they could simply just stop, go outside, spend time calming down because stress is a huge part of keeping weight
on your body. Stress is a huge part of eating improper foods because you're almost using them as coping mechanisms for the stress or even like alcohol and things like that. So it's like if people would just stop, get off the computer, stop Googling your symptoms, spend time outside, eat foods that love you back, and then, like you said, move your body in a way that resonates with you. You're not going to fail. You're actually going to see things over time get better and better.
Yeah, wake, wake up, watch the sunrise, eat a steak and do some deadlifts and you're. Good to go. That is a perfect way to end this podcast. Well, Jodel, where do people go to find out more about you? Because I know you're a a massive advocate for the stand up paddle board and we didn't even touch on that. Let's do that in Round 2. But yeah, what? What can you, my listeners, go to find you?
Yeah, I'd love to take your wife and you paddling and even your your son because you can stick him on the paddle board and they love it. They just sit there and just grin. And or if if it's like my daughter, she would just sing the whole time I had her on my paddle board. She'd just sit there in front of
me and sing. But yeah, so it's a get fit with jodelle.com and I do actually do paddle board lessons in Northwest Arkansas. So if any of your, I'm assuming you have quite a bit of listeners in the Northwest Arkansas since that's where we're located. So yeah, in the summer, if they want to come out, I have all the boards, I have all the equipment. I take you out for a good time. But also, yeah, I do coaching as
well. And then it's, yeah, it's just I don't really have social media other than podcasts because it stresses me out and I don't do anything that stresses me out. So they can just usually find me on my website site or on YouTube on my podcast, so. I love it. When's the the paddle board season start? Like what time of year does that pick back up? Yeah, mine never stops. I'll go out even when it's cold.
I just put a wet suit on and go. But most people that aren't crazy, they'll start back up like in May. So generally in late April, early May, I start taking people out again. Awesome. We'll we'll, we'll, we'll sign up for sure. I'd love to bring Crystal and rides out there. Let them experience that and we'll do some stand up paddle boarding for sure. Of course, that sounds great. Awesome, Jodelle. Well, always a pleasure.
I appreciate it. If there's everything I can do for you, by all means, just let me know. Same here, this has been great. We'll do it again because I'm sure we could just talk for hours. 100% we'll plan for it. OK, sounds good. Take care. All right, Bye for now.