Well, hello, ladies and gents Roberts. Thanks, kiddo. Savage.com today I'm get special, repeat guests, Vanessa spin on the line, and we dive into all things body recomposition. She herself has seen quite a transformation with her own body composition Endeavors. She went from as she proclaims skinny fat too, geez. Now very tone she's been working out. She had a very successful transformation Journey with regards to her resistance, training Endeavors and nutritional manipulation.
So I want to kind of pull the curtain back and Diamond to what's worked well for her there. Are we dive into macronutrient distribution requirements, protein needs. What optimal protein and dietary fat looks like we talked about the importance or lack of importance of consuming, a ton of dietary fiber and vegetation. And we also kind of dive into mitochondrial Health. What are some key ponents key components of improving. Overall mitochondria Health, creating more beige fat or brown
fat, talk about cold therapy. We talked about red light therapy to talk about song. To use pretty much all things, improving human health and performance, and honestly, just healthspan. So really enjoy the conversation. I've got a lot of respect for Vanessa. Thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. I've got no doubt that you will take something from it. So that further Ado, sit back, relax, enjoy the podcast with Vanessa And we are laughs Vanessa. How are you?
I'm doing so well. Thanks for having me back. Hey, I'm excited to chat with them. Excited to chat with you. So you and I are going through similar Journeys. Right now, both have newborn how old is looking now, He's 21 months. But anyone? Yes, feel like it could be 22 in like you're saying it's the yeah, almost 22 months. Yeah, so you're about twice as far along as as we are with rigel, does it get easier that second year than the first year?
Is it about the same? I've been saying to Pete and a lot of my mom friends lately that I feel like recently. It's gotten a lot easier because I don't feel like if I look away from. Him for two seconds that he's gonna die. So that's been really nice because, you know, he can, he's more responsible, he understands danger more like he understands what it means to get too close to the edge of something or, you know, he understands like what hot things are. What danger?
Really starting to get that whereas before when they're just like potatoes and they don't know anything. You're like, it's very hard to you just have to be watching them every second of the day so it's hard to do anything. But stare at them and be with them. So, I do feel like it's gotten easier lately, he's also started to play a little bit independently which, you know, I love being with him as much as possible throughout the day and
I love playing with him. But it's also nice to get like a little bit of a break to be able to do something. Like, if I'm making dinner, he's not like, you know, I know he can just play nicely and so that's that part is getting easier but we'll see what happens if we have more kids. It's just going to, you know, No. Be the whole thing all over again. So yeah, I do. I do think it's gotten a little bit easier. Yes. What heaven is a sense of where the edges are is key like rigel
has no comprehension of edges. Like he'll be on the band and like I'm literally gonna like, just laser focus on because he'll walk off the edge. Like it wasn't even there and I'm like how do you not know that that's an edge. Yes. And and Pete taught him from when he was really young how to roll onto his stomach and slide down off the bed and we Take him to this place here called Little Gym, where he does a lot of, that kind of stuff. And it's really helped with, like, just any surface.
He'll like, turn himself over and then he'll slide off so smart. It's been, yeah, really helpful. How has your, I want I want to talk about your weight training journey in its entirety, but I kind of want to piggyback off of the the Luca discussion to like how is weight training been affected since having him? Like, has it been pretty hard to carve out that time for yourself? It's been hard but I do, I do find that I just try to not put
as much pressure on myself. So the times that I work out now or when he's napping, usually there's days when I can't leave him for a nap so he usually sleeps, he likes this fall asleep on me, so then I gently roll him off and then I, you know, put the baby monitor on and then I'll go do my work and I actually do it like not too far from where he sleeps. Like I just closed the door so I can just do a homework. Work out, you know, not too far from him.
So I try to prioritize it. But you know some weeks I get like foreign other times. I get like two or three and I just try to be okay, just like knowing that, you know, I'm doing something at least every week. I'm resisting gravity. I'm doing resistance training and, you know, it is more of a priority for me now than cardio or like any kind of other exercise.
Even if I don't get like a any kind of other exercise in like any cardio, active exercise or any other kind of exercise and as long as I got in the way training and then I feel really good about that. So sometimes my husband will, you know, watch him and I'll I'll do like a 40 minute workout, so I think it's just about making it a priority and, you know, just being okay with the fact that it doesn't happen all the time, but this is just a phase of life.
The season of life where I'm not going to get to do it as much as I used to, but I'm sure I'll get to do it again more in the future. Yeah, I think giving yourself Grace, you know, at this point is key because if you were trying to go about it with just this rigid mentality of, hey you got to get this many exercises in this mean days a week for
this long. He'd probably just go crazy and you can't it's not really fair to him to, you know, be that rigid towards him and how he's affecting your lifestyle. So it's, yeah, it's yeah. To be selfless. For sure, I get being a parent is not like anything before. She's become our number one, priority above everything else. And I've also kind of one of the things that's made me feel better about it. Funny enough is that he is a huge weight and I carry him everywhere.
So I had him in the carrier from almost pretty much when he was born and we walk through the city, we go on long walks, you know, several times a week and I either carry him in the carrier or Now, I just carry him in my arms all the time in the house outside the house and, you know, he's 30 pounds now. So I get a little bit of a resistance training from that also. Yeah. 30 pounds in a baby is totally different than a 30 pound dumbbell.
Like, I'll be holding rigel, you know, I'll carry him, I'll take him for a walk through like the park or something, and he's the heaviest. 22 pounds are picked up my entire life, you know, like I would rather pick up 400 pound deadlift, For multiple repetitions then carry him you know a mile because like it's just a different type of weight. It's it's different on you like it's not. It's not what I'm used to. It's much harder I think. Yeah it's funny.
I want to kind of dive into your weight lifting Journey as a whole because I feel like like you posted a picture recently on your Instagram that showed you at similar body weights.
But before you started training and after you started training and just totally different night, and a comparison, how you looked what your composition was like what your shape symmetry proportions were like and people get so fixated especially females they get so fixated on seeing a lower scale weight but they don't really give much thought to the the benefits that come with weight training and how that is likely going to, you know, skew the weight in an upward direction or not or
minimize total weight loss if that's accounted for, but it's all a positive changes, a b A+ you Trade off to have more weight but it come from All Quality weight. So I love to kind of dive into that because like I said, a lot of people struggle with that. Especially many of the female clients that I've worked with, over the years, they're hesitant to to weight train because they don't want to see the scale stay the same or even increase, and it can totally transform the
way. You look like a people had a side-by-side comparison of two different people of what they would aspire to look like they're more often than not going to go for the one with the better shape and unbeknownst to them that person often times. Weighs more than the person without as much muscle. Yeah, it's so wild to me because I was one of those people who was like, skinny fat or sort of toffee. We're like that on the outside, but on the inside and it really a lot of it comes down to how
you feel in your body as well. And I just never felt good in my body. Like, I always felt like I was overweight but I would constantly get feedback from, you know, Physicians, I saw her like, well, your BMI is fine. Like you're fine, stop worrying about this, and I finally started learning about body composition and you know, it's it's something that I wish every single person knew and when it comes to like scientific research and labs, they really
don't talk about weight. A lot like the Sports Nutrition Institute in Florida. They do a lot of research on body composition and nutrition. And nobody talks about body weight. Everybody talks about body fat percentage, and the amount of lean mass that you have.
And if Only we all did that, and we all understood that it would change things so much to, you know, if we could just have instead of having weight scales in our homes, we could just have body composition scanners, that were really accurate. It would make such a huge difference for people how they approach dieting and how they conceptualize weight loss. So I can't tell you how many clients I've had, who want to
improve their body. Composition, one of them pretty recently, she You know, was doing this higher protein approach with me and she went to go and get an updated body, scan and her. She stepped on the scale right before leaving for it, and she had gained weight and she was really upset and she thought all this is going to be a disaster and she got the body scan done and she was down like 6% body
fat. So she had put on a huge amount of lean mass lost a huge amount of body fat, but if she had not had The body scan done, she would have thrown everything out the window because when she stepped on the scale, she thought she was gaining fat. She thought she was getting bigger and she was actually getting leaner and fitter and the scale went up. So that happens all the time and it's when people understand it more, it really helps them.
I'm not saying you should never weigh yourself, but try to get a body scan done once or twice a year at least. And one of my big wishes is like, you know, Recommend Bond density, scans all the time at the doctor. Like, why don't you just get your body composition assessed at the same time? Like why are doctors not using that as a measurement because they're using BMI, which is really outdated especially when it comes to putting on more
muscles. So when I finally had my own body scan done, I saw that I was almost 40 percent body fat and the skin tech thought it was a mistake. But for me it was like, no, this is what I have been saying like this. Is what I've been understanding.
I'm not sit on the inside. So, I was able to really reverse that by doing, you know, X by changing up my macros doing intermittent fasting doing resistance training on a consistent basis, instead of focusing on, like, just cutting calories and doing cardio which I used to do. And it really never worked for me, and I was really miserable doing that. I was able to get my body fat down to 21 percent. Which I maintained between like
20 21 percent. Now, in, this is post pregnancy and I'm able to be in this state that I call like being effortlessly Lean. Like I struggled with my weight and food addiction and food Obsession for so many years and now, I just maintain a healthy body weight. 21%, is the athlete category. I don't consider myself an athlete at all, you know, I'm someone who just wants to maintain the lean mass that they have made.
Be build a little bit more muscle, but I want to be well, nourished and not spend energy or time thinking about like body fats, or that kind of thing, you know, I want to just like be able to free up all that time and energy for my project. So, it was amazing to see that and I try to share that as often
as possible. And it's a message that I really try to share, as make sure, you know, what your body is made of, you know, dexa scans are becoming easier and easier to get, they're becoming more and more affordable. Trouble all the time. I interviewed a company last spring that does like, remote body scans. And on trucks that are like, you know, something like 38 dollars or something, you can get a body scan done, it's so worth it to really know like what your metabolic Health.
It's basically what your body composition is so and it's way more encouraging. When you are on a journey to improve your body, composition to see that your lean mass went up in your body fat went down. Down as opposed to just seeing a number on the scale that could fluctuate or even go up because of those positive changes. Yeah, 100% completely agree. What when was the time frame for this?
Like when were you showing that 40% body fats and then how long has it been since then that you've been weight training? So, when I was showing that near 40 percent body fat, it was, when that was sort of the same time that I started doing keto and intermittent fasting. And then after four years, I my body fat was on 234 and I was happy with that, but I didn't feel like it was enough like it didn't, I felt like I should have made a little bit more progress in those four years.
So that's actually when I started my higher protein experiment, And I started doing weight training as well. When I first started the higher protein experiment, I just wanted to test doing higher protein so I just did that then I got the final scan done and I saw that my lean mass is going up, my body fat was going down, then I started adding in the resistance training and the combination of the two have just made like all the difference in terms of that.
So that took another two years to get down to 21 percent. Sent body fat. And I think adding the resistance training it made it made all the difference. Like I didn't really do much cardio in that time. I just went for walks. I listen to podcasts and go for a walk so I wasn't like everyone, a treadmill, or I would do some YouTube like high intensity interval training here and there But it wasn't, it wasn't all the time.
And the biggest, I think factors, there were upping my protein, and, from where it was before, which I think was a little bit too low for me and adding in the resistance training, made a huge difference. Yeah, people always ask, you know, like what percentage does it matter, you know, diet versus training. Like I said, 50/50, is it 70/30 that people always ask them that and I'm always saying it's 100% 100%.
Yeah, like if you get your nutrition down, You can be way better for it. If you get your training down, then you'd be way better for like don't try and you know, half-ass either or just do both. Well, exactly. Yeah. Just do both.
And I think one of the things that people underestimate is the amount of calories you can burn when you do resistance training and then also the after effects that you get like, you have that post exercise calorie burn, but then you're also building more muscle and turning more of your body tissue into metabolically, active tissue, which Which I think is a really big key to being able to not just lose weight, but then successfully maintained it afterwards without as much effort.
Yeah. And I think there's from a psychological standpoint, there's a lot of benefit to be had in weight training as it pertains to your relationship with food. Like there's like people can certainly take it to an unhealthy realm in which they they trained to work off the food and becomes this like, you know, negative feedback loop in which they over-exercise to basic as a fish. Form of anorexia in a sense.
But apart from that, I think the psychological component is very beneficial, like you're able to feel like you were earning the food that you're consuming because it is fueling your body's training activity for the day. And I think if you start looking at food as, you know, to the lens of it being fuel as opposed to this, you know, substance
that you consume. And then feel guilty about eating like, if you look at it through the lens of it being few, like it's just a much healthier relationship in its entirety. Yeah, I love looking at it that way, it definitely, you know, and you want to have powerful workouts. Like, there's nothing more satisfying than like really powerful work out where, you know, you're pushing yourself and, you know, you get sweat on and you just feel like, you know, you feel so good after
that. So you know, obviously there's endorphins but you're doing so much good for your body and you really can't get as good of a workout. If you're not feeling yourself properly, completely When it comes to your high protein protocol. Like what does that typically look like from a macronutrient ratio standpoint? Like what is that?
Looking like for you. So when I first started keto, I was doing traditional macros and so I was doing high fat which was for me was 80% fat, 15% protein and 5% car. But my carbs are usually lower than that, sometimes I guess they'd probably have a jerk average run, 20 grams. But I was doing the traditional keto macros, and I think there's definitely benefits to doing traditional.
Macros, but I found that for myself, have also having a history of being vegetarian who under eight protein for, so many years, like for at least, like, for most of my adult life, I was vegetarian. So I was under eating protein. I didn't really understand what protein was fully like I thought you could get protein from cucumbers. Like this is when I was in my twenties like I just didn't. I didn't understand the importance of prioritizing.
Teen and I was doing like the traditional Marcos at first with keto were better for me than the high carb approach. Like I definitely noticed, I felt more satiated, I love the ketones. I would get really high ketones, but like I said, over four years. I got down to 34 percent body fat and went for me when I
started. I did the high-protein experiment as an experiment and at the time A lot of my close friends, a lot of them are Physicians people in the keto space, they were like, don't do it. You know, you're just gonna get all this gluconeogenesis going to be horrible for you, but I really like went went hard on it and I went up to like I was eating 180 to 200 grams of protein a day and so that was a big bump for me in terms of the
protein percentage. And then I eventually settled down, it was hard to eat that much protein a day for me. I realized I probably didn't need that. That much, but I settled down over time to a little bit closer, like, for a while, I was at around 150 grams of protein and my percentage is went up from like 15 percent protein to for a while, like even as close as as 40 during some of those periods. But then settling back down
around, like 30%. And I find that this sort of modified ketogenic diet was more beneficial for me in terms of building muscle. Stimulating muscle protein synthesis that all of my meals. I needed to get enough protein for that and I actually really like eating protein. I think it's my favorite part macro so I found that it was a better fit for me in so many ways. I also felt this sense of satiety that I had never experienced before where I just completely stopped thinking
about food. Like, I would have to remind myself that dinner was Coming up and that was such a new sensation for me that I realized I needed to learn more about what was going on there. So I started learning about protein leverage, which was a hypothesis for a while, it's really pretty much been proven now. And that hypothesis is that we will overeat energy foods to get
our protein needs met. And if you then sort of flip that and you prioritize protein, then you don't have to overeat on energy so that that's what I found.
And it just simplified everything for me, made things a lot easier and I also found a lot of research on this modified ketogenic approach, which is done by a professor, Eric Burdon. And he was trying to find if there was a way to make you do more sustainable, more approachable, for families and children who were doing the ketogenic diet for usually alleviation of seizures from
epilepsy or other conditions. And he found that even with this like 30% protein, That they still had the same effective levels of like latency to seizure reduce seizures and it was much easier for the families and the children to do that and at one of the big critiques out there against ketogenic diets in children, is that it can stunt growth because of the reduced
protein. And so, this is also a way that that could be potentially avoided as if protein is not being restricted as Just like that 15%, if it's not needed to be like if there's a situation where it doesn't need to be. So I found there's a lot of research on this and that I could get into ketosis, I could achieve the benefits of like that there ketones have on enhancing lifespan helps been
longevity. I love the mental sharpness and Clarity that I get from it. The anxiolytics effects while still having a higher protein intake and also achieving my goals of Owing more muscle and triggering muscle protein synthesis more. Yeah, completely agree. I feel like, I mean, when you were doing traditional kidding macros, at 15% protein. I mean, do you have any idea, what your caloric load was back, then some, in your protein intake, must have been sub, 100 grams a day, I would think,
right? Yeah. It was definitely under. 100. Yes, lie under 100, like it was closer to maybe 65, 70. Yeah, pretty low. I mean, like, yeah, with you doing more of a modified Ketone, I have like, Thirty percent of your calories coming from protein. You're probably also consuming more calories because you're doing more weight training.
So you have a higher energy demand so you're still I mean, high fat as it pertains to a percent of total calories, you're still 70% fat which is, you know, higher than traditional carbohydrate-based diets. But yeah, it now you're consuming a protein to build and repair muscle and grow more muscles.
So that's all perfect. Yeah, it's it was, it's been such a positive change and, you know, it's one of the reasons like, the last few years, I've just started to really focus a lot of my content around protein.
And also, you know, I like, I changed my podcast from Fast, keto to the optimum protein podcast, because I feel so passionate about the effect that having this higher protein intake had on me. And it's not just higher protein than traditional key do. This is higher protein than the recommended dietary intake, which is Is abysmally low like if I go on the government website for, you know, dietary recommendations, and I put in my stats they'll recommend that I
eat around 35 to 40 grams of protein. Like it's it's so low and a lot of people don't realize that those targets for protein were set during wartime to avoid disease. Like they wanted to find. What's the minimum amount of protein that people need to eat in our population to avoid them? Getting disease but that's not the optimal amount of protein to make sure that you maintain your lean muscle and maybe grow your lean muscle.
And they also have, you know, we all know that you need to eat more proteins in certain phases of life. But so you have to have more protein when you're young, when you're growing, you have to have more protein when you're growing muscle. So if you're in your 20s and you're going muscle, you have to have more protein. If you're sick, you have to have more Protein, if you are aging at all, which, you know, I don't know, probably starts around 35.
You have to have more protein, especially if you're older, especially if you're older and 60. Like, most people need to be eating more protein. There's few instances in life when you don't need more protein. And there's so many situations where people could benefit from that. Like there's also pregnancy is another one, right? When you're growing, and you need more protein. So the recommendations for Are globally, very low.
And so when I say, higher protein for me or optimal protein, it's it's optimal protein. Whether you're doing high carb, high fat, any kind of Lifestyle, the amount of protein that we consume needs to be enough to make sure that the amount of muscle protein synthesis triggered in a day, at least meets the amount of muscle protein breakdown. That happens is every day.
So you have a net positive. On that end and you you know are in order to do that, people have to consume enough protein at one sitting. It's not just for the whole day, but you need to trigger muscle protein synthesis at all your meals in order to make sure to do that. So yeah, the protein recommendations are just really low and I think it's a huge reason why I struggled with food for most of my life because I just was under eating protein.
You know, I was really under eating protein for certain periods of life. All my life I was really under eating protein and it's just made such a huge difference. Yeah, it's absolutely Paramount for sure. Now when it comes to recommendations that are not the general recommendations by, you know, Western medicine or bureaucratic governmental entities, I would say about 1 gram of protein per pound of lean.
Mass is a really safe floor. Like, if you, if you eat that then you are certainly hedging their bets in your favor. And sometimes I'll push the Pull up above that if I'm in an aggressive building phase. But I think I'd be curious to get your thoughts, but one gram of protein per pound of lean. Mass is a pretty safe recommendation.
I think it's that's the same one that I have is one one gram of protein per pound of lean body mass and I find that it's just a very simple metric for people, but it, you know, it's it's
relatively easy to calculate. If you've had a body scan done, you'll know what exactly your lean body mass is You know, some people go by one gram per pound of body weight, or like your ideal body weight, which probably correlates like a little bit more of what you're saying with pushing it a little bit higher but sometimes people might need that if they've been under eating protein for a long time.
So when I was doing that, high-protein experiment, and I had those days where I'd go to 180 200 grams, I wasn't didn't suffer any negative consequences from that, I think I needed to like re protein my body, like I, It was so deficient for so long that I needed a period of time where I like overdid it a little
bit. So, but I don't think in general that it's great to be over eating protein on a consistent basis, because you can also get into situation where you're over activating MTAR, which is the pathway, that's, you know, activated through three, eating protein and consuming protein, and you have to have a good balance I think of not. Activating program for too much which is associated with
accelerated aging. And I've actually talked to a lot of body builders who told me that in periods, where they were eating, like way above that, the normal amount of protein that they would eat that. They noticed that they were aging faster, like they were graying more, their hair was growing more you know there were certain things that were happening that we're sort of accelerating their aging of it and it has been shown in research to do.
That as well. So it's a fine balance that you have to find because like now that I'm I have a child, I'm starting to focus more on longevity. Like healthspan, I want to live as long as possible so the way that I look at my goals and Outlook has changed a little bit as opposed to just like looking my best. I also want to make sure that I live as long as possible and I live well in those years and some of that goes hand-in-hand with having a great body composition but There's also
some balance to be found there. Yeah, I completely agree. I think you know there's there are certainly a push for more protein right now, which is great but I don't want people to hear that and just assume that there is no downfall to overconsumption. Like any too much of any good thing is not a great thing. So yeah, there's certainly a point of diminishing returns with protein, as well as it is
with any macronutrient. So I think having that conversation to balance out that the drive and encouragement for more protein is absolutely key +, As we kind of discussed on the podcast that we just recorded for your show like proteins, lot of great substrate for energy and it's not like you know teen and excess without ample fat has not going to yield true. Satiety.
So having both a fat and protein together in tandem is the The Sweet Spot. Yeah, I love talking about that with you because I constantly get questions from people like, well, why don't you do, you know, high protein, high carb, And I have tried it. It just doesn't work for me. Because although the protein is very satiating, the volume of food, that I find that I have to consume in order to get enough likes, a tidy from eating more volume.
Like, I don't know if it's a more of a stomach stretch thing that happens when you're, when you're eating more like just high-fiber foods and high protein. Like, that's supposed to be the Holy Grail of hell is like eating in a Protein to meet your protein needs and then also making sure that you're eating lots of fiber. But I find that it just makes me feel hungrier. I have to eat a lot more food in order to feel full.
And if I just eat like a high protein high fat meal that is so nutrient dense, I feel satisfied for hours and I just don't think about food and I think that's such a real indicator that My body is satisfied like it got the nutrients it needs so you
know, we're good. We'll let you know when we need more and I've become so intuitively connected to my body that I really feel and notice that and so like a couple times since I had Luke, I was like, maybe I should just try and experiment, like, just high protein and just eat like tons
of fruit. And and you know, low glycemic even just low glycemic, fruit vegetables, it just didn't work for me. Like I just felt like I was constantly thinking about food, so, I think people have to find what works for themselves and I know a lot of people prefer, high carb approach, maybe like some fat or low fat to a high-fat approach, but I just find the nutrient density, so much higher especially when eating a more like carnivore
style approach, you know, lots of eggs, lots of of beef, lots of liver. Like, I just find these Foods so satiating and so delicious. And, you know, it just Is up so much of my time and energy to be able to focus on other things. And I get the benefits of ketosis of ketones which are so amazing and they do so much for the body and for you know, he'll
spend. Yeah. I completely agree and I think you know not having to eat every few hours and being more deeply satisfied and be able to go hours between meals just simply from a productivity standpoint. Like that alone is worth its weight in gold but then also just from a digestive standpoint, I think it's much more Taxing on our digestive system to be constantly inundated with an influx of food.
And all of that high-volume fiber and vegetation has to be, you know, fermented to some extent in our gut, which our gut, our digestive tract, as a species is not really optimally designed to do. It can do because we're very adaptable as a species. But you know, we do not have the same digestive tract as a gorilla for instance or like a ruminant animal, like a cow or a deer.
So to inundate our body with a Ton of fiber as just going to put a massive workload on are done digestive tract, which I don't think is optimal from a longevity standpoint, either. Now this is some it's such an important point that you bring up and something that blew my mind. I had this wonderful guest on the podcast and his his name is escaping me right now, but he is an anthropologist and also he's like a food Anthropologist and he one day he was teaching, like
a class and they had died. They were cooking. I think like a, they were cooking ducks and he took out their their innards and he said that the Ducks have these Chambers inside, their stomachs that grind up grains. Like they, they have these like presses that grind greens up and he's like, it was such as this moment for him where he's like, wait. So we don't have these, you know, a lot of people know the example of cows which have like four stomachs to digest all of the grass.
Like our stomachs are not like that. We don't have those built-in mechanisms to a grind grains or Or, you know, we have to do it with machines, right? But ducks have it inside them, so like what does that tell you about? Like who should be eating the grains in the grass? Like it it's probably not us and I feel so much better. Like just not eating that kind of food and like like you said, just being able to just eat those nutrient dense meals and and not worry about it, and I'm
a way less bloated. Also yeah, way less bloated, less gas, just less discomfort threat. Today because you're not, you know, fermenting like you think of like the the process that is involved in making beer or Brewing kombucha. Like there's a fermentation process there that is going on internally in your gut. When you eat a whole bunch of you know, fibrous vegetation and I mean it's just a bunch of gases bubbling up in there.
Like if you can bypass all of that by just simply getting your nutrition elsewhere like you're probably going to feel better.
Yeah. I that was one of the big things for me. Also just with like high-protein and carnivores like wait I can eat like a. I can eat like several burger patties or ribeye and my gut is never distended you know and I just have a flat stomach all the time and whereas before like I constantly was so bloated and like uncomfortable and I was eating like all the especially like cruciferous vegetables like lots of Cabbage and I love eating cabbage and and Brussels sprouts and like, cauliflower
and broccoli. I thought these were such health foods, but like they were really making me. So physically uncomfortable and for hours and I just think it's probably a sign that it were maybe not meant to be eating eating all of that. And there's a lot of really interesting information coming out to about like antioxidants and you know, everyone thinks like we should have Lots and lots of antioxidants because, you know, they help us to deal
with free radical damage. And what's really interesting is they had to study with a bunch of athletes, where they megadose them on antioxidants and their performance was way worse. And it's because the free radicals that we generate, our bodies are supposed to create those antioxidants. Yeah. To match those levels of like whatever we do to our bodies in the gym to make us fitter and stronger and taking a bunch of Exhaustion has things either from all the antioxidants in plant Foods.
You know, it's not necessarily going to be designed in the same way. It's just like with fruit vitamin C there. It's actually the content of Vitamin C increases with the sugar content. So like a really unripe fruit. Has low vitamin C and a very ripe. Sweet fruit has high levels of vitamin C and that's because the nature knows that That we need those antioxidants to match the levels of free, radical damage that will come with the sugar in that.
So you want your body to be recreating those antioxidants and dodging ously? And what's really fascinating about energy breakdown in production? Like if we talk about the mitochondria a little bit and and eating higher fat diet as opposed to higher carb, what's really fascinating me lately is how we break down.
Breakdown energy. You know, inside the mitochondria in the electron transport chain the most free radical damage happens at the first step and the third step of that process on the electron transport chain. If you eat fats and fats are your primary source of energy, they skip the first step and enter at the Second Step at the second protein complex. So right there you are, cutting
out so much free radical damage. Just from not consuming a high amount of carbohydrate and that's going to lead to better like less aging more longevity, Better, Health overall, just from that one thing. So like all the the buzz about antioxidants and eating all of this, you know, fruit and vegetable. Like I think it it's a little bit misplaced and and now looking back at it, I think it's actually kind of like, not childish. Thinking, but it's like a less evolved understanding of how
Nutrition Works in our bodies. That now we're starting to understand a little bit better. Yeah, I definitely think we've been guilty of isolating things out and just letting it through
a very myopic lens. I mean, you can look at it, you know, some hailed, superfood, like some fruit that's get great antioxidants and nutrients in it, but like is our body, even able to synthesize those antioxidants and make use of Then once we consume and like there's so many things that that we have predetermined based off of this isolated, you know, substance within a fruit or vegetable but how it interacts with our bodies, a totally different conversation and I
totally get the benefits of having some hormetic stressors. Consuming things that create a hormetic response and that benefits over time. But, you know, you have to find the line between what type of, you know, dietary hormetic response, you want versus that of environmental, you know? Dress like that of, you know, sauna or cold therapy or training, or something of that nature. But I think, you know, you have to take all that into
consideration. You can't just look through a myopic length and say, oh, this is got, you know, antioxidants and it's going to definitely be absorbed and benefiting my body. So, yeah, hundred percent agree there when it comes to mitochondrial Health, what are some other Heavy Hitters that you've learned and discovered because that is going to be you know, one of the Paramount, things of focus when it comes to improving overall longevity and health span Yes.
I love to talk about sort of the six or seven ways that I've been researching and found to really support the mitochondria you mentioned cold plunging and that's one of the top ways and that's something I've really gotten into in the past year and a half and I do cold plunges in our bathtub at home in the winter. It's great.
I just have to fill the water with cold water and it reaches the right temperature for a cold plunge, but we were talking earlier about body composition and a lot of people know that if you want to have a higher metabolic rate, you should turn more of your body into lean mass. So you turn more tissue into metabolically, active tissue and what a lot of people are starting to learn now, is that you can also do that with your fat. And so, when you are born, you have a larger percentage of
brown. Adipose tissue are brown fat and it's brown because it has more Mitochondrial density or greater number of mitochondria in it, and the mitochondria are able to help us to generate heat as well as create ATP energy for us. It also create water for us with your born with a lot of it and then later in life, you don't have as much. We usually have a little bit left sort of around our collar bones. And when that brown fat becomes activated, it does a number of things, it has beneficial
effects on our ketones. It also, So basically signals are mitochondria to uncouple energy production from heat production so we can warm up and generate heat more efficiently. So when you cold plunge, you start to train your body to make heat more efficiently and in doing. So you take your fat tissue, which a lot of it, obviously is not metabolically active. It's more. So, storing energy and you can actually make it beige or brown
that white adipose. So you Egg white fat and make it more Brown. And that's because you're increasing the number of mitochondria in that fat and instead of just storing energy for you, it's now metabolically active tissue. So similar to how you can make more metabolically active tissue with more muscle. You can also do it by having more Brown fat in your body.
And the more often you are exposed to cold or do cold plunging, the more Brown adipose tissue you'll have, and you go through this process of cold adaptation. Um, so I've been experiencing it. It's absolutely amazing. I'm hot all the time. Not like I even become one of those weird people who's never wearing a jacket outside in the winter. Mmm. And like, I could pretty much wear shorts outside because my body is becoming so cold-adapted
so efficient at producing heat. But what's interesting about how it supports the mitochondria is that by uncoupling, the production of heat from the production of energy, you take Pressure off the mitochondria. And so the mitochondria can sort of have this like off gas and that means you're going to have better functioning mitochondria that are less burdened by having
to create so much energy. It it's almost a little bit like a hermetic effect in that it pushes them to become stronger and mitochondria have their own DNA so they can replicate at will they don't have to rely on the nucleus as DNA, they can just wrap the self replicate so they can Create more of themselves like they do by making the white fat more Brown.
And by having more mitochondria, you're going to have more mitochondria to take on more of the burden of doing all that heat and energy production every day, and also Water Production, which happens in the electron transport chain.
So it's very beneficial for supporting the mitochondria and some people do cryotherapy or just like being outside in the cold that can help but there's nothing as effective as doing an ice bath of cold Plunge. And you definitely need to check with your doctor to make sure that like you don't have a heart condition or it's appropriate for you.
There's different ways of doing it more gradually, but it's something that I personally been doing and one of the little tricks with it that I didn't know at first is that when you get in, you want to get in as fast as possible and go up to your neck, up to your chin. And the reason for that is that's where the brown fat is. And so if you do that up, To
your chin. You notice within about a minute or less that you start to feel comfortable in the water and it's because you've activated the brown fat. So your mitochondria are pumping out all this heat and you feel fine in the water. It's a little painful to get out again, when it's time to get out, but it's a little trick that I learned from my friend, Sarah Kleiner. And it's amazing. It's called like the turnover.
And if you are not immersing up to your chin, you'll just be A cold the whole time so it's a pretty key hack their. So in terms of the other ways to support the mitochondria fasted workouts, actually have been shown in the research to generate mitochondrial biogenesis. So that's the mitochondria replicating more of themselves.
What's really fascinating about? This is that there's research showing that if you are eating a higher protein or Protein and fat diet that you will get similar benefits to doing your workouts, fasted. And it's not as much but it's about 60 to 70 percent of the the rate that you'll get if you're eating protein and fat. So you don't have to do your workouts fasted, if you're mostly consuming protein and fat but if you are doing a high carb diet then you won't get the
mitochondrial. Biogenesis.
So internment intermittent fasting I would say is like one of the tools that people could use and if they do their workouts and the morning or during the period of time that they're fasted, they'll generate more mitochondria and it's a great way to really support them as by having more mitochondria, but also you then can also get into ketosis and ketones really support the mitochondria because they signal To the mitochondria again to uncouple heat from from energy, providing them with
that, that ability to take some of the pressure off themselves. What's really interesting to about fat intake, we talked about how it enters at the second step of the electron transport chain, but over 100 ATP molecules are synthesized by oxidizing one, molecule of fat or fatty acid. And you only get about 40 if you are burning sugar for A fuel so you get way more energy, your mitochondria are able to produce way more ATP from fat than if you're eating a high carb diet.
So just doing keto itself is one of the ways to support the mitochondria. And that that ketogenic State itself like it doesn't necessarily matter which way you get into ketosis because you can get in and other ways. Like we were talking about on your interview on my podcast that you know, just a little Calorie diet can also get people into ketosis but there's you know, lots of different ways
doing having really good. Sleep is important for the mitochondria actually critically important because a lot of cellular repair at apogee and my toffee G specifically happens during sleep so we actually get rid of mitochondria that are not functioning so well the apoptosis and a top of G or as it's called My toffee G and it's really important to get rid of the mitochondria that are not functioning well replace them with better functioning mitochondria we really need to
get good sleep. Another way is getting a top G. We were talking a little bit about doing extended fast for a top of G, but that can be a big boost in he'll spend because of the etapa G that occurs. And, of course, the my top of G that occurs, then as well, because the body will get rid of and replaced. Mitochondria, that are not working as as well. Are there on the left? Go ahead and cut you off there. No. Go ahead. Did you have a follow-up?
Yeah. I was going to ask if there are any known modalities for gauging mitochondrial health, I got there any tests or there's like things of that nature test. I had this really great interview with this doctor. Who does he focuses on Quantum Health? It had a lot of them on the podcast recently, because I've
really been diving into circadian. 18 Health mitochondrial Health in the last year and he said there's no actual test before it. They can test a few other markers but he says like he can generally tell like how people are doing by their overall state of health. So like if you're thriving and doing really well, then your mitochondria probably good, but it may be something that we are able to develop in the coming years.
Some kind of like my whoever discovers that will really help Humanity. Because yeah, it would be a great way. And what's really interesting is, you know, towards the beginning of Life were born with. So many mitochondria mean we've got like 500 to 1,000 per cell and there's like 30 trillion
cells in the body. So an enormous amount of mitochondria but towards the end of life we tend to have about like only 25% left of mitochondria and also those mitochondria are operating at way less of a sort of Mille. They're just stopped. Sorry Like A reduced capacity. Yeah capacity. So if you you realize like you're you're able to make so much less energy in the cell and
all of your sales are cells. Are able to do like a quarter of what they used to be able to do. That means all of your tissues and organs are able to do a quarter of what they were used to. It, it makes total sense how we age but they have found in research that athletes. They tend to maintain a lot of their mitochondria number in number and function capacity towards the end of their life.
And that's showing you know exercise is one of the biggest ways to support the mitochondria, if you have more muscle, you have more mitochondria and doing exercise really boost your your mitochondria. And so that's one of the biggest Testaments, you know, To how exercise can really benefit us as humans and and also support longevity. And you know, it's so important to have proper rest and Recovery as we're talking about with
sleep. Now, the last two things, one of the the really effective tools to support the mitochondria that I learned about in the past couple years is red light therapy and it's really fascinating because I've started to understand light. Right more.
So as a nutrient and understanding it that way, knowing that we went from living, most of our time Outdoors to being indoors, you know, whether you're in a home or an office, like 90% of the time, especially in the winter time, we're inside all the time and the lights that we have in our homes and don't have red light in them and the windows filter out the red light. So, red light is naturally found in the Sun. And because we spend all of our time indoors. Now as a species we've become
red light deficient. And there's actually a receptor on the fourth protein, complex of the mitochondria in the electron transport chain. That is a receptor for red light. And so, red light being exposed to Red Light can really help support the mitochondria and it does. So in a number of different ways, it basically helps the mitochondria, make more seller energy, And to be able to thrive more so we can get red light
naturally from the sun. It's the most controversial concentrated at sunrise and sunset, which is why the sky is red and red light is one of the only wavelengths that penetrates the skin. So that's why it can do really amazing things and about 100 years ago, these I think they were Russian scientists were doing experiments on rodents to see if Is would harm us and what they found is that, by using red light, they started to actually experience all these benefits
like in their skin. So when you use, you can also get red light from red light therapy panels and when you shine the red light on different parts of the body, it helps
support the mitochondria. But it also stimulates growth growth factors and this is one of the newest pieces of scientific research that's come out about red light is That if, for example, if you shine it on your face, the reason it makes people look younger, is it stimulates growth factors of collagen and elastin in the face, if you shine it on your muscle, it helps you to build more muscle because it stimulates igf-1 and it also helps to reduce inflammation.
If you shine it on your scalp, people have had hair regrow because it's stimulating growth factors in the follicles. That was one of the things they noticed in the rodent experiments that they rodents were growing hair back on themselves. So it has all these incredible benefits and it also has so red light has like the visible red light and then there's invisible red light, which is the near infrared which people have been really getting into with like
near infrared saunas. So it's another way that you can support the mitochondria as well but near-infrared penetrates more deeply into the body and it's really amazing what it can do for the mitochondria. So there's also Some food supplements that have shown to help. So like, turmeric goat milk and goat cheese because of the MCTS and even dark, chocolate vitamin C and something called methylene blue, which is people are talking about more and more.
They have been shown also to support the mitochondria but I prefer all the other ones because they don't involve supplements and the method are kind of stains your mouth blue. Yeah yeah yeah. I mean I would take the Chocolate. I like the dark chocolate one but and goat cheese goat milk. You know. Yeah, I just consume that regular because of the MCT is
and it tastes delicious. So with regard to the red light, is there like a specific amount of time someone's using a panel like they have to be exposed for 20 minutes to experience benefit or what is the the length of time recommended there? So it really depends on the panel. So depending on the power output power density, or irradiance of the panels, that will determine the length of time.
Because with red light panels, you measure it in the form of a dose and the dose is measured in units of joules. Jou Ellie s. So the amount of like jewels that you would want to get to dose yourself. For one particular thing, depends on the power output of the light, which is also its measured in like milliwatts per square centimeter. So like, for example, I recently launched a line of red light devices because I feel so
powerful about this amazing. And ality it just has so much science behind it. Like there's thousands of studies showing the evidence-based benefits of this and for the panels that I have, I created specific dosing schedules in the manual. So it shows like, you know, you use it for this many minutes on your skin 6 inches away for this particular thing. And then another thing will be you know, 12 inches away for like This many minutes. So it all depends on the power output of the device.
And it's really interesting because it with red light, it's this sort of belt bell curve. So if you don't get enough Jewels you won't see any effect but if you get too much then you have something called the biphasic dose response where you won't get benefits. Also so you really have to get
this like sweet spot. A lot of people recommend like an average like 10 20 minutes max a day so I don't ever do more than 20 minutes and I particularly use the panel's myself on my body to precondition or post condition my body before and after my weight training. So one of the cool things like, you know, how like it's an accepted fact that you can't spot reduce.
But with red lights you actually can because you Can generate blood flow to a specific body area by preconditioning that area with red light, and then doing your workout after so you're like, priming your mitochondria in that area, you're increasing blood flow to an area that maybe doesn't have as much blood flow and that's why they're stubborn body fat there, and then you can do the work out and you can also use it after a workout to help build muscle and also with Muscle
Recovery. Athletes are the ones who've been using red light the most because, you know, they're always looking for an edge and specifically with like lowering inflammation and also with like building muscle and and recoveries of there's just so many up different applications that you can use it for. But I do recommend people like check with the devices that they have based on the power output of their panels. That should determine like how long they should use it and where they should.
Should the distance they should be from them. Gotcha. Yeah, I guess. So, first question for you so I've been wanting to get a sauna and red lights for a while and I know the the near infrared saunas with the popular thing right now, but I preferred the heat that comes with traditional song. I like I like the traditional sun is getting hotter. But can I get the best of both worlds by getting a traditional sun? And then putting a red light panel in there or other Red Light House.
Typically not going to do well with that amount of heat, or does it even matter? I probably wouldn't put it in. Side. Yeah. Okay. Um, I I just I don't know exactly, but I probably wouldn't put it inside because I know that if you want them to last a long time like it's even good to like cover them when you're not using them.
So yeah, I wouldn't want to like damage the any of the components or the LEDs or anything, but maybe they'll come out with that in the future like a sauna with red light panels inside it and I'll find a way to not damage the Components, but I have to send you my Red Light Panel. So you can try it out. Is that if you're interested in it, I would love to see what you think of the ones that I have know, for sure.
Let's check them out. I mean, there's there's definitely a lot of research moving towards the benefits of red light therapy. And I've even heard of people like, you know, putting the red light in front of their the gonads and seeing an increase in total testosterone Matrix. I don't know if there's any validity behind that big, but that's a great thing, its massive for fertility, both for women, And Men, there's been two big studies done on fertility for women which is one of the reasons.
I'm also really excited about it because we have so much infertility these days and it's so bad in Denmark and Japan that they've been sponsoring studies on red light and one of them, the one in Japan had amazing results. The one in Denmark, like over half the women, got pregnant, who were totally infertile and resistant to IVF and one of them was 50. Just using this red light therapy on the abdominal like over the ovary.
So the ovaries have the most mitochondrial density of any part in the body, that think the brain, the heart, and the ovaries and women have the most mitochondria. So it's really fascinating how it can help with that and and yeah, men definitely see higher testosterone with it as well. Yeah, we'll definitely. If there's any studies that you come across that That you strike a fancy to send them my way because I definitely want to dive deeper into this.
And I'd love to learn more about your red light specific. What is the the brand there? If people want to go check that out. Yeah, it's called the tone Luxe, red light therapy panels and they're all on my website at ketogenic girl.com and I've got the sapphire it's a half body panel. It has four wavelengths of light in it and the diamond is the face panel. And I also have a portable one which I take with us. Us on the go and we're traveling.
Because once you start doing it, you don't want to stop and it's a really like nice therapeutic process. So yeah, I can see like it working really well, like, you just work it into your routine. Like I wake up and I read for 20 minutes every day. I could just use the red light when I'm reading that way. I'm killing two birds with one stone. Exactly. So make sense. Well, awesome. Vanessa, what, where else can people go?
I mean, you mentioned your website, is there any other things that we need to point to for people to find you? Yeah, I have a weekly Podcast, which is the optimal protein podcast and you can follow me on Instagram at ketogenic. Girl, you can follow the podcast there as well and check out the website which is ketogenic girl.com. It has all the tone, looks red, light therapy panels and it also has the tone breath Ketone analyzer as well. Awesome, awesome. Well, Vanessa, it's always a
pleasure chatting with. You always excited to see what you're working on and we will talk again soon. I'm sure, hopefully, I'll see you before to on for long in person but until then keep killing it. Keep making waves and there's everything I could do for you. By all means. Just let me know. Awesome. Alright, thanks so much. Robert was an honor to be here. Take care. Bye.