Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto savage.com Today I've got special guest doctor Morgan Nolte on the line and we dive deep, deep, deep into the world of insulin, insulin resistance, how to improve one's insulin sensitivity. What are some lifestyle factors that you can put into play nutritionally, activity based sleep and stress related to improve one's insulin
sensitivity. We talked quite a bit about mindsets and habits and routines because so much of one's compositional changes and health improvement stems from the mind state going into it. So thoroughly enjoy the conversation. I've got a lot of respect for her and what she's doing and the the the impact she's making. I've got no doubt that you will take something from this so that further delay, sit back, relax, enjoy the conversation with Doctor Morgan Nolte and we are live.
Doctor Morgan Nolte, how are you? I'm doing great. Thank you. I'm excited to be having you on the podcast because we're going to talk about insulin resistance from a practical standpoint, but we're also going to dive into mindset and habits, which is something I'm super passionate about diving into. So very keen to dive in. But before we do, can you give me some some backs? Like what got you interested in? I know you have a background in working with geriatric patients.
What led you to that path? Absolutely. So I loved my grandparents, you know, to be frank, eight out of nine of our grandparents were at our wedding, which was very special. I hung out with my grandparents a lot growing up and they really influenced my morals and my values and my marriage. You know, I, I chose the person I chose to marriage based on the, the marriage of my grandparents and we've modeled our relationship after theirs.
And I just think grandparents are amazing and they play such an important role in the family unit. And I've understood that role more and more as I've gotten older. So I love them. First of all, I just, I felt like I needed to pay it forward to the next generation of grandparents and I wanted to help them age well so they could be there for their families like mine were there for me. And now I have a new perspective because we have a six year old and a four year old.
And thankfully, thank goodness, we live a mile away from my in laws and about 30 minutes away from my parents. Especially going through COVID and those early childhood years running a business. Like I would not be able to pursue my career without childcare support for my mom's and they would not be able to support me if they didn't have the health to do so. And I was having a conversation with my son about what fills, what fills our bucket.
I said, I said, honey, honestly, what fills my bucket is like alone time. No offense. I love you and Leah, but I need some alone time. And he was like, and I said, well, what fills your bucket? And he was like time with my grandparents. And I just think that's so special. So I really loved that older population and I wanted to help them be healthy, to be there for their families.
But as I got into geriatric physical therapy, what I quickly realized was that I was often helping people in a way that felt like it was too little, too little too late, and in a way that felt like my hands were tied and my mouth was muzzled. So in PTI did a lot of post acute rehab. So someone had like a stroke, a heart attack, a fall, a diabetic amputation, those kinds of things. They would go to the hospital, then they would need rehab and I would work with them there or at home care.
So after rehab, they went home and I would go to their homes and work with them. And I just, I felt like as P TS, we often have this exercise tunnel vision. And I knew it wasn't enough like to, to really restore somebody's quality of life, we have to start far before age 70 or 80 or 90. And we have to include nutrition. We have to include habit change. We have to include stress management and sleep and those just those types of services aren't covered by insurance or
physical therapist. So after I had my son, I said if I'm going to work, I'm going to do something I'm so passionate about. I'm going to do something that I would do for free for the rest of my life. And so that's really how I created Civilly, which we help people adopt all of those important habits so that they can age well and be active and remain independent and not be dependent on medications or their loved ones to take care of
them. So that they can show up and do whatever they, you know, need, want and love to do as long as possible and be that positive role model. So that's kind of how I got into geriatrics and how I got a little bit out of geriatrics with the traditional sense.
So we work a lot with people in their 50s, sixties and early 70s to help them reverse insulin resistance, which is really what I stumbled upon because man, after this heartbreaking case after case after case after case of diabetes and heart disease and dementia, I started to realize during my lengthy history and physical reviews, I was definitely the PT that came early and stayed, stayed late and read all the documentation
and was very prepared. You know, everyone had a cluster of acronyms, DMHTNHLD, diabetes, you know, that stands for diabetes, hypertension, altered cholesterol. And it's like, why doesn't somebody just have diabetes? Like why doesn't someone only have heart disease? Why does this person with dementia also have XY and Z conditions? And it's because it all really traces back to insulin resistance.
So that was very eye opening to me because I don't remember learning about insulin resistance in school. I'd never seen insulin resistance on a history and physical. I'd never heard a physician talk about insulin resistance, and yet it was still causing all of these diseases. And I realized that we are treating disease way too reactively in this country, and we have to be more proactive if we want to preserve somebody's quality of life and impact that they can have with their life.
And so that's how I kind of zoned in on insulin resistance and inflammation was because as I researched disease more, because that's my passion is disease prevention. And if you can really live in a way that keeps your insulin low and your inflammation low, you're killing the most birds
with one stone. So to me, that was just the easiest way to teach this low insulin, low inflammation lifestyle to help people lose the excess weight, gain muscle, but most importantly, prevent and reverse diabetes because that disease will just take it out of you. So you'll know, as you'll learn, Robert, there are no short answers. They are only long winded answers from my corner. No, no, I totally agree on all
fronts. And I feel like that motivation for getting into your field and line of work is, you know, I can, I can relate with that. I've got, I'm fortunate enough to have been able to meet all of my grandparents, even a few of my great grandparents. I have a 2 year old now and his name is Robert. My name is Robert, My dad's name is Robert. And his dad's name is Robert, so there's four generations of Robert. And I've got a picture with all four Roberts together.
And I'm so grateful to have that. But then I look at my grandparents just as you have, and it's like they, they're dealing with things right now because they're kind of all at that stage in life where they're, they're on the pretty quick downward trajectory. I've lost two of them and the other two are, are they're just declining really quickly. And it's sad to see. It's, it's hard to see the people that I have memories of, you know, being a strong person in my life now kind of just not
able to do daily function. And if there's any way to reverse that or slow that or just mitigate against that in some form of fashion, I'm 100% on board with it. So I think the, what you're doing, the line of work you're in and just the lives you've impacted without a doubt is, is just my, my hat's off to you. I've got utmost respect for what you're doing. Thanks.
Yeah. And I think I just had a unique perspective where, you know, you said you have 4 grandparents, some great grandparents, and a lot of people only experience aging through the lens of their parents or their grandparents. And so I got a very unique experience working with hundreds and hundreds of aging adults. And so you see the patterns very quickly of like what people are doing or not doing that led to the outcomes that they have. And it's really, you know, this
is not complicated stuff. And I love Jim Rohn's quote. That's like, you know it all. It's all the easy things that lead to success or all the things that lead to success are easy to do, but they're all so easy not to do. And that really plays into the mindset piece that we'll get into later. But yeah, I'm so passionate about what I do just for that reason. I just love aging adults. I love families.
I think the more we can prevent disease and be responsible with the resources that we have financially, energetically, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, the better we can contribute to our family and society at large. Yeah, 100% agree. And when you look at, you know, inflammation as being the primary root cause to any type of ailment that people experience, especially as they age, so much of that can be avoided or most definitely
minimized. And when you look at the trajectory of one's lifespan, like you can really start to see that fork in the road take place after, I don't know, probably year 20 or 30. And then it just pretty much goes at a compounding rate from there because of their daily, you know, habitual patterns like what you do daily compounded over time defines your outcome 100% and all, all facets of life, your relationships, your, your health, your wealth,
everything. And when you look at people that are aging well, I mean, you look at their day-to-day life story in their 30s and 40s, like that's why they're aging well now. And the same is true in in reverse, like the people that are dropping off a Cliff right now, You look at what they've done during their 30s and 40s and continually compounded over time.
And those were not good habits. And if you can just Simply put those right habits into practice early on, and then you're going to be so much better off for it. Absolutely. I, I equate it to saving for retirement, you know, is it, does it take sacrifice to not get the fancy car or upgrade your house or go out to eat every night? Like yes. And they're sacrifice either way. So I think that that's really important for people to understand with their health.
Yes, you're going to be sacrificing some of your time. Maybe, yes, you're going to be sacrificing some foods you used to eat, sacrificing the extra episode on Netflix at night, but what are you sacrificing long term that's so much more important? Your health, your mobility, your independence, your impact. And I think one of the problems with people changing those day in and day out habits are their current circumstances. And they let their current circumstances kind of run the show.
Like, oh, I don't have time, I don't have the money, I don't have the energy. And I mean, maybe we, maybe we just need to start with mindset because I think you don't do what you do. You don't get, you know, sub 4% body fat without that vision. Like you don't, you don't let the outside control the inside you, you make the inside drive the outside, the inside drives the results.
And I think there's a lot of important exercises and things that we can take people through to create that future vision of yourself, that future version of yourself and then make your decisions from your goals, right. So I'd love to learn your process of how do you not let your current circumstances impact your goals And you're in a such a beautiful stage of life with a 2 year old too, because I don't know about you, but like my kids didn't sleep for years.
And so it's very easy young parents, you know, to get the dad bod or the mom bod and kind of use, oh, I'm not sleeping or I'm really busy at work as like that external constraint to not pursue their goal. So how do you keep your mind sharp and focused and disciplined? I just have non negotiables. I think that's been and my, my, my superpower as a human being is to just get excited about doing something every single day that I can adhere to and puts me
on the right trajectory. It's like for me, a very tangible way to look at that is just the food that I eat and the activities that I perform, specifically the food that I eat. Like we all have 100% control of what we put in our mouth. And if you have non negotiable place that you just do not deviate from, even when all else is in shambles, if you're eating quality food, you're certainly going to minimize a lot of adverse effects down the road.
And then if you have that, that one thing that you can lean on, then you've got a solid foothold that you can use to climb out of whatever hell you currently find yourself in. So like for me, again, that's always been nutrition and some
form of weight training. So like right now, I'm in a very just crazy time with the business and just like stressors and chaotic and I'm not sleeping, I'm traveling, I'm flying, I'm doing these things, but I still eat the foods that I am proud to eat and I know are nourishing my body and I'm still getting in some form of activity. Even if it's not my 100% best, you know, workout regimen, it's
certainly better than nothing. And when you have those habits in place, my 80% is is still pretty freaking good. So like if you've. Got to lean. On to you can still. You can still move forward, you know. Yeah, I think I like that you call them non negotiables. I call them standards and my standards of behavior, I think the goal always drives the standards. I'd be interested to know some
of your standards. I know some of mine are a daily mindset routine, like first thing in the morning, I'm waking up, I'm reading my kind of vision statement, and it's really all-encompassing because for me, having good health at the expense of my relationships is not worth it. Having a thriving business at the expense of my relationship isn't worth it. I will have it all and I will have a thriving business. I do, you know, a thriving business, great health, great relationships.
And so for me, that daily mindset routine has to encompass all areas of my life. Otherwise, I'm very prone to like overdo it and run one area or the other. Usually it's business like overdo it on the work front, you know, So things like I expand in abundance, love and success everyday. That's from I think it's Gay Hendrick's book, the Big Leap. If you haven't read that one,
that's good. And then you know, I'm a present, calm, intentional and engaged mom, loving, supportive, compassionate and empathetic wife and wise business owner. Like I take inspired and energetically aligned action and I really just feed myself. I feed my soul, I feed my mind with what I want to hear in the day.
And that's almost like putting on glasses for the day where every single decision that I make is filtered through that lens of is this in line with my vision and is this in line with my values? And if it's not, the really cool thing is you'll start to feel it like in your heart and your soul. You'll feel that little tingle in your stomach that, oh, this decision is not quite right for me. And this food's probably not right for me and oh, I want to skip that workout, but that's
out of integrity with my values. So I think that that's important. Like I'm just going to run in the list. So like some form of stress management, weekly connection with my spouse is important. So we have like a weekly meeting where we go over like meal plans, our schedule for the week, budget stuff, different things to be sure that like we're filling our bucket. So our bucket filling activities, we call it. And that's a non negotiable for me.
Water, like sleeping 7 to 8 hours a night, moving, moving my body at least 30 minutes a day. All of these things, by the way, are how we address insulin resistance. So if people want to take notes, moving my body at least 30 minutes, strength training, ideally at least three times a week. What else? Protein, at least 30 to 50 grams per meal. Fiber. I think it'd be interesting to have that conversation with you on fiber and what else?
Oh, reducing added sugar as much as possible, prioritizing whole, real, unprocessed foods and then fasting. So for me, I think fasting's a really great tool and my goal is like 12 hours a day. So 12 hours is that standard where if I'm eating more than 12 hours a day, that's usually a sign that that's emotional eating or I didn't structure my meals well enough, that kind of thing.
So I think having standards is helpful to assess my own behavior and see, all right, did I let the external circumstances dictate how I showed up today? And if not, great, yeah, good for me, let's keep it up. But if I did, I need to dig in and study myself. Like I think self study is so important in this conversation because man, you know, we both have courses and there are so many books and podcasts and
YouTube videos. And I think that sometimes we confuse learning with entertainment and experience is really the best teacher. But how often are we actually sitting down to reflect and journal through our own experience and ask ourselves really valuable questions like where did I get off track today and why? What new emotional eating cues did I experience today? Where did I negotiate down with myself today? How did I justify skipping my workout or going off plan today?
What's one thing I'm going to do better tomorrow? Like what's one thing I'm grateful for today? What's one thing I'm proud of myself for today? We need to take the time to get to know ourselves and to to study ourselves. So those are kind of an overview of my non negotiables and kind of those cornerstone habits that we really help our members implement to live this low insulin, low inflammation lifestyle. I'm kind of curious, what are your non negotiables for the
day? Yeah. So it kind of depends on the season of life that I mean, like if I'm in a competition prep, it's going to skew things a little bit. I, I've got this philosophy that I, I refer to as tensegrity. So tensional integrity, because it's basically the polar opposite of balance. Like this notion of work life balance has never really sat well with me because by definition, if something is balanced, it is at equilibrium zero. And I don't want anything in my life to be 0.
So, and if something's, you know, on a teeter totter scale, basically if something's going up, then something else is going down, I don't want that either. So Tensegrity is basically I've got five primary pillars in my life, 5 buckets, 5 columns, you know, 55 big monumental sanctions, you know, I define them as relationships, health, well, spirituality and self
improvement. And as long as everything I'm doing in life is applicable to one of those in some form of fashion and they're all intertwined, then the whole, the whole being improved, so to speak. And there's times where I may be focusing on one more than the other. But even when one is not getting the primary focus, ideally everything is trending upwards. Like when I'm in a competition prep that's, you know, health, you know, section gets a lot more focus and a lot more
attention. When I'm in a business, you know, primary moment of business, like it's kind of like an always an underlying thing, but that's obviously getting more focused. But everything is trying to build those five pillars in some form or fashion.
As far as like non negotiables, I have, you know, just all with all the time, notwithstanding anything, eating the right food, getting up early, spending time with my wife, having a time of day where I can just talk with her about, you know, goals, aspirations, pros, cons, things that we need to work on.
Like I think communication is key with any relationship and I look at relationships that I admire and one of the common, you know, denominators amongst all of them is having a dedicated time to talk with your significant other. So having that as a non negotiable is key. You know, having some form of resistance training into the mix pretty much without fail is always there as well.
Getting sleep is something that I've always kind of sacrificed, but I'm trying to actually focus more on sleep at the moment. So getting that dialed in. But that's just kind of a few off the top there. And I have tried journaling and being more reflective at times, having time of like prayer, spirituality, and the journaling's been good. But there's times where it seems like I'm going through it in a distracted state. So I try to be mindful of that.
And if I feel like I'm just simply doing it to check the box, then I'll have a moment without it so that I can see if it's, you know, yielding a net positive or negative. But some form of reflection is always there, whether or not it's written on a paper or, you know, digital tablet or just simply taking a moment to pause and reflect, like some form of reflection is always in place. I love that.
And I completely agree with what you said about balance because to me something is only in balance for a split second. You know, if you're thinking about like somebody on the teeter totter or somebody on the balance team with their leg up in the air, like you can't maintain that. And so one of our company values is work, life harmony. And I like that better because, you know, think about like an
orchestra. There's a ton of different music or like instruments playing, but they all work together. And you know, sometimes the violins might be louder or the piano might be louder, but it's all in harmony with each other. And I think that's what's most important to me at this stage of life is just that I feel like, you know, work, life me harmony
is it is in place. And I think that there's really a lot of people that go through their life without the intention that we do. And I think if the listeners can take away like one thing from that, from this conversation, it's really to live with intention and attention. Because there's probably a lot of people listening right now doing more than one thing, listening and going for a walk, listening and doing the dishes, listening and driving the kids
to school or folding laundry. And that's fine. And but I think that in order to really connect with that future vision and hold the space for that future vision, we have to be present in our current life, you know, because the present moment is all that we have to produce our current, our future results. So I'm really focusing more and more. You mentioned, you know, sleep, it's kind of what you're focusing on. I'm just focusing on like meditation more and more.
Have you heard of the enhanced app? I really like that one. No, I've not heard of that. It's it's a meditation app. Yeah, it's a meditation app. I did the upgraded one. I think it was like 60 bucks a year or something, not too bad. And they have a lot of nice meditations because I have a very difficult time just like sitting and breathing. I understand that that's, you know, come back to your breath and all this stuff.
And I'm like, I am, but man, it's almost like I'm trying to like wrangle a wild stallion just sitting there trying to breathe. Come back to me, come back to me. So the guided meditations really do help me kind of calm the mind and and ensure that the choices that I'm making are actually in alignment energetically and with
my values. Because if we don't do that, if we're just going through the motions, if we're living to please other people, if we're living to meet the expectations of other people, that's just going to leave you feeling hollow. And I know because I've done it like, Oh my goodness, have you ever done that where you're just like maybe like before you started your business or something like that? Like, did you ever live for the
expectations of other people? Yeah, I feel like everybody does, especially when they're young and they don't really know who they are yet. They're trying to find their identity, but they look at people they admire, they try to emulate that. They don't really know what their own morals and values are they're standing on yet. And then like you, like you reach a point when you do have that defined, you do know who you are. All of the other stuff is just noise.
So anything that distracts from who you are and your calling is just irrelevant nonsense that you just need to get out of your life. I agree. But yeah, 100% and I think talking about habits, you know, habit stacking is great. Anything that you can kind of stack on top of one another. So I'm terrible with breath too. I feel like anytime I try to actually sit down, pause and return to my breath, I'm just like thinking about spreadsheets
and accounting and stuff. You know, it's not really good. But one thing I do during the winter months is I have like a stock tank that I use as a cold plunge and I'll sit in that for like two or three minutes. And that forces me to, you know, focus on my breath. But I don't have it during the summer because it's just a stock thing.
So I probably would benefit from having like a year long cold plunge set up because I feel like that is a great way to have it stack and that I am forced to focus on my breath, take 2-3 minutes out of my day to just be still be present. So yeah, that that that would be a very tangible thing for me to implement year round for sure. That honestly, I'm going to be honest with you and the listeners, that is something I have not gotten into is cold plunging.
And I have listened to podcast like Doctor Huberman had like a three hour podcast on the benefits of it. And I went to Hot Springs and where was it? Steamboat Springs in Colorado this February. And there's a place there called Strawberry Springs and they have like hot, you know, 106 and then like a 55 and like, I don't know, 30 or something degrees Spring. And yeah, I do hear from a lot of people, like newbies. They're just like, this is not my thing.
I just don't like it. Do you hear that? Nobody likes jumping in in the beginning and then it becomes like addictive but. It's. And like the the whole like health benefits from it. You know, I've got no doubt that they probably exist. I don't know to what extent they exist. But for me, the psychological component alone is worth its weight in gold. Yeah, I think for me that's what
it would be too. And and I've had discussions with friends about it and I'm like, you cannot tell me that sitting for three minutes in an ice back is ice bath is going to counteract the McDonald's or counter all of the inflammatory foods or like I I think it's almost like a cherry on top type
of strategy. And then the other psychological strength versus one of those foundational things, I guess that and that's what I've been focusing on over the last five years is building those foundational things. So speaking on the foundational things, I want to kind of put the curtain back on that for people listening that want to, you know, decrease or just improve their insulin sensitivity. I guess what What are some of
the core pillar movements? The low hanging fruit that wouldn't have a monumental bang for the proverbial buck? Yeah. Well, before we get to that, could we take some time to just kind of talk about insulin resistance and describe like what it is in case people are new to it? Totally rock'n'roll. Yeah. So insulin resistance, a lot of people haven't heard of the term, but it's essentially pre
diabetes, type 2 diabetes. It's I like to describe insulin resistance as the railway going from New York to LA and Omaha is pre diabetes and LA is type 2 diabetes but it's all in the same rail. Gotcha and it. Yeah, it happens when, you know, when you stress your pancreas over and over and over and it has to secrete insulin to keep your blood sugars under control. Eventually your cells start to kind of tune down or like tune out insulin.
So more and more is needed and the cells become resistant to anything that they, you know, have exposure to and high doses over time. So I like to say, like, think about it like an alcoholic. They used to get a buzz after 2 drinks and then, you know, years later, now it takes 5 drinks to get the same effect because their cells have become a little bit desensitized. And that's how insulin resistance is. The cells become desensitized to insulin. So more and more has to be
produced. And the problem with current medicine is we're not checking fasting insulin. So insulin resistance is flying under the radar completely for most people 'cause 88% of adults have some degree of insulin resistance and or metabolic dysfunction. So sometimes if you're not checking insulin, you don't know. But you could also look at like things like high blood sugar, high triglycerides, excess belly
fat, high blood pressure. All of those are very early signs of insulin resistance that should be paid attention to. And you know, if you don't do anything about it, you're going to end up with diabetes and heart disease and probably some sort of cognitive impairment. So get your fasting insulin checked. You don't need the physician usually depending on the state to help you do this. You can go to likeultalabtests.com and then
search for insulin test. We sell an at home insulin test like a finger prick 1. So you got to know your insulin. Ideally it should be two to six. So we need some insulin, right? Otherwise, you're a type one diabetic, no insulin is produced and you have to take it externally. Like type one diabetes used to be called the wasting disease. And I'd love to to talk to you a little bit more about this too, because sometimes they call insulin this fat creation and
storage hormone, right? Because when you eat glucose or carbohydrates, that's going to spike your blood sugar and that spike in blood sugar spikes your insulin. And if you're not using that that energy right away through exercise, it's going to get shuffled off and you know, put in your muscle glycogen stores or your fat stores. So that's why insulin is the fat creation in storage hormone. But mainly that blood sugar regulating hormone is what's
important. So if you have pre diabetes, if you have type 2 diabetes, you're absolutely insulin resistant, but you can be insulin resistant even if you have a healthy A1C and a healthy glucose, you really need to get that fasting insulin checked to see what's going on behind like under the under the hood essentially. So with that in mind, once we kind of have that shared understanding of all right, these are my symptoms, those are probably attributed to insulin
resistance. Again, pay attention to high blood pressure, high triglycerides, excess belly fat, high blood sugar, sometimes like carbon sugar cravings, and then numbness or tingling in your feet or your hands or other signs. Once we have that in place, there's some really important things that you can do right away. And I'm trying to keep it simple. This is not necessarily the order that I teach implementing, but I kind of like teaching like
this on a podcast. So people are like, just tell me what to do. And at times I'm like, OK, I'm going to tell you what to do. Stop drinking pop. How many? Yeah. Stop drinking pop, number one. Yeah, You know, it's just though, it's not even empty calories. I hate that term empty calories. These are damaging inflammatory
blood sugar, spiking calories. And if you, you know, just do one thing to improve your health, let's work on that pop habit and don't replace it with diet pop because the artificial sweeteners in there are terrible for your vet health. They're going to cause inflammation, not make anything
better. So that's one we really need to control the sugar in the diet because that refined and processed sugar and carbohydrate is typically what's spiking the blood glucose, causing a need for high levels of insulin in the 1st place. So the first thing I really recommend people doing on a podcast at least is reducing sugar. So pop liquid sugar, especially Gatorades, pop sweet tea, lemonade, icy drinks, and you'd
be oh, sorry, go ahead. Market is healthy like orange juice, like your body is still oscillating that like sugar. Yes, apple juice, orange juice, all those things. They're, they're just sugar. And, and it's so unfortunate because in our society today, again, I love that word desensitization because what is it like? I think nearly 8 out of every seven to eight out of every 10 adults in America is either overweight or obese. And like I said, 88% have some degree of metabolic dysfunction.
So sick is normal essentially. And we were at a College World Series game and there is a little girl had a in front of us. She couldn't have been more than 10. And in the time we were there for like half the game, she had something like a Sprite, you know, like a, a bottle of pop, a pretzel, an icy, I think it was like a icy slushy drink and then a box of candy. And I'm like, this family has no idea what they're doing to her. She has no idea what she's putting in her mouth.
And this is so sad. And I. Do you have any other children besides a 2 year old? Not yet, not yet, just the two year old right now. And he's, I'm proud to say, is eaten. He's eaten the best from the very beginning. We were even like eating like my wife was eating all the right foods, you know, while she was pregnant. So his his body from a from a epigenetic standpoint is just prime for success. He's going to be jacked.
I love it. My my son's pretty jacked too and I love it. So whenever we're out and about, he's 6 and people are like, Dang, you got some guns. They're like, Dang, you're Jack Dawson. And he loves it. You know, he loves eating protein. He loves working out with me. He loves doing pull ups like I, I just love the example that we could set. However, entering school is a, is a new ball game, right? Because we've created this
family culture. We as in like you and me, we've created a, a, a culture of health within our nuclear family unit. But when they go to school and they're exposed to it, if he's going to go to school and I don't know if he's going to be homeschooled or if you guys have talked about that. Probably homeschooling, at least
in the beginning for sure. OK, yeah, so we, we do public school and it was different, right, Because there's birthdays and sugar everywhere, sugar for reward, sugar for party, sugar at PTO events. And so that took a different level of communication and getting over fears of being weird, fears of being demanding, fears of being different, fears of the actual or perceived judgments and opinions of
others. Because all of those fears are gonna come up when you stop eating sugar and when you change your diet. And I think that's where that this mindset piece shines. It's like really getting over the attachments that we have to our existing habits, the attachments that we have to fitting in or being normal. Like how many people listening within the last week have eaten something that they didn't want to eat because somebody offered it to them even though they didn't really want it.
My guess is several, at least several people are like, yeah, that was me. So we have to get over these people pleasing tendencies to really live a healthy lifestyle and an unhealthy culture. Does that make sense?
Totally makes sense. That's interesting because it's, I, I'm in the bodybuilding realm and a lot of the, the bodybuilders in Myspace, they follow a flexible dieting, if it fits your macros approach, where they subscribe to this, you know, everything in moderation mentality, as long as you control for calories. And, you know, I totally get
where they're coming from. And there is, I mean, there's, there's no way to argue that if you consume at a caloric surplus, like that's going to have a, you know, negative effect. A, a, a significant caloric surplus of especially, you know, just junk foods. And there's benefits to being in a caloric surplus for times, benefits to being in the caloric deficits like calorie modulation
is incredibly impactful. And a lot of these adverse effects on these disease states can certainly be mitigated against by not overconsumption. Totally agree with all those things. However, the people that are in that flexible dieting, if it fits your macros demographic, tend to push this notion that, you know, it is not healthy to have this mentality of bad foods per SE. But I kind of subscribe to the exact opposite. Like I do not define a box of candy as food in the 1st place.
Like to me that is more akin to poison. And if you just simply draw that line in your mind and you no longer associate that with food in the 1st place and there's no guilt in not consuming it. So it makes it easier for me and others in my space to just remove that as a temptation. Because if it's not even considered food in your mind, there's not as much a risk of deviating and consuming it. Well, that goes right back to mindset. It all comes back to how we think.
I love that piece of advice. So I'm guessing that like, do you do holidays with your family like Thanksgiving or Christmas? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'll go to all those things. I'll I'll, you know, be a part, I'll be engaged, but I do not deviate from my, you know, nutritional protocol. Like I won't be. I mean, it depends if I'm going to, if I'm going to prep, I bring all my own prepped foods and I've got everything weighed
out and measured. If I'm not, and then I'll eat foods ad libitum, but it's still all the quality foods. Like I do not deviate carbohydrates. I don't have the sugars like I don't have that. Yeah. And I'm moving more and more in that direction. I think I was thinking about the differences between US and our approaches before I came on. I think the main difference is I'm, I'm like almost constantly
in maintenance. Whereas like with your, with your bodybuilding, you, you have like it just seems like you need a different strategy, right? And the, and the different, the goal drives the strategy essentially. So for me, I feel like I have a little bit more wiggle room and flexibility, whereas if you have that tight, tight, tight body fat goal, you just don't. And, and I don't have that goal because I don't want that goal. And that's OK.
People can have different goals, but I think the underlying strategies are all pretty similar. It's just kind of what you do with it. But from an insulin sensitivity standpoint, we really need to control the sugar, the, the refined carbohydrates. I saw you had an interview lately on, you know, bodybuilding with carbohydrates. I'm definitely going to check that one out. Yeah. I mean that's the. Norm for sure.
That's what everybody does. Like me, me avoiding carbohydrates is certainly the contrarian in the room. Well, I think it's interesting, at least for my, my research, right, because I've done a lot of looking into things and, and reading through the evidence. And a big part of our program too is strength training. I think there's a lot of people that don't do that that would so benefit from it.
I actually got into strength training after I had my son, even though I knew the benefits, right? It's kind of like just because you know something doesn't mean you're doing something. And I'd go to the gym and I would have 20 minutes before the caretaker would be like, we can't handle him anymore. He's just like crying the whole
time. And so I said, OK, this running is not going to cut it. I don't have enough time to get a good running workout in. So I'm just going to start strength training because it's more efficient. And that was six years ago. And I tell you what, I have a better body composition today than I did even before I had him, than I did in high school because I've been strength
training and eating protein. Yeah. From a body composition standpoint, strength training is 1000% the best bang for your buck. It's amazing. It's so amazing. And I think there's a lot of fears around like getting too bulky or getting injured and, and all those fears can be mitigated. Again, that comes back to your thoughts. What are you thinking about it? And then is, is that thought true? Is that thought rational? And is there a solution to that
obstacle? So with your background in the ketogenic world, the what I've looked into regarding muscle building, there's so many different camps of thoughts on if carbohydrates are required to build muscle.
And the way that I think about it in my mind is bodybuilder will lift weights and then they will refuel with like kind of refined carbohydrates to spike the insulin and protein so that the insulin spikes and the protein and the carbohydrates can kind of be soaked into the muscles to refill the glycogen stores. Is that correct?
Yeah. I mean, kind of referring to insulin as you did earlier about this, you know, fat storage hormone, like a lot of bodybuilders on the, you know, professional IFBB stage, they will actually used exogenous insulin kind of in lieu of steroids or alongside steroids because insulin is an extreme growth agent. It causes everything to grow. It's not really selective in the growth. It causes muscle tissue growth that causes fat growth, that causes cancer cell growth, that
causes growth everywhere. So a lot of bodybuilders will leverage exotic insulin as an extreme growth agent. But if you are consuming add a caloric surplus to provide your body with ample, you know, building blocks to add more tissue and you're consuming ample protein and you're giving your body enough stimulus to ample training load that you give it reason to grow. It will happen. Muscle protein synthesis will occur. You got to make sure you're recovering enough from the
training as well. But you don't have to have carbohydrates to to build more lean tissue. Wow, that's what I've come to as well through, through looking through things cause insulin, you know, I said a fat creation. But yeah, it's an anabolic, it's a building hormone. I like to call it like the master conductor hormone of like a Symphony. And so if you're eating some steak, well, the steak is essentially like cow muscle,
right? And the cow muscle is broken down into amino acids and the amino acids will stimulate a moderate insulin response. Even though the blood sugar doesn't spike, the insulin still do. Like the insulin will still go up moderately because of gut hormones from that amino acid digestion. So the cow muscle becomes human muscle then. And to me, that's how the growth happens. It's like what nutrients are available and then let's shuffle those off into muscle or hair or whatever.
But from the science standpoint, it definitely seems true that you can still build muscle without carbohydrates. However, here's my next question to you from your I'm I'm just kind of digging into your personal experience because I've been wrestling with these questions in my own mind. With that, with a low carbohydrate approach, yes, we can build muscle. We're going to have less glycogen stores because we're not replacing whatever glycogen we burn. So does that, does that make
your training different? Like can you tolerate high intensity movements for very long or do you have to do a kind of like slower weight lifting? So you will have less glycogen stores in the beginning once you take a fat adapted approach to your nutrition. However, as you body, as your body builds up the metabolic pathways to optimize for fat metabolism, your body's ability to preserve and replenish, replenish muscle glycogen improves.
The point of where it's pretty much on par with some of that is consuming carbohydrates. So I have not consumed carbohydrates as a staple for 9 plus years, yet my muscle glycogen reserves are just as what they were when I was consuming carbohydrates because my body's built up that metabolic pathway. Interesting. So is it just kind of recycling excess amino acids or fatty acids or lactic acid into muscle glycogen?
Yeah, it all that and then it also you don't need to tap into the muscle glycogen, the stored muscle glycogen as frequently because your body is using fat metabolism for the primary fuel substrate. So you you preserve it better and you replenish it better in the absence of carbohydrates
like that. That is definitely a fear that a lot of people have when they remove the carbohydrates and they will, people experience a different performance in the interim because they're going from 1 fuel substrate to another. But once that adaptation phase does take place, all of those performance metrics should be right on par with what they were prior to swapping in the first place. That's good to know. And then my other question was repair and recovery.
So some of the, the literature will say carbohydrates are good to help your muscles recover after a workout. And I wanted to take, I wanted you to share your thoughts on that. So I I believe the opposite. I mean from my experience the exact opposite has been true. So when I was consuming carbohydrates I would have a lot more joint pain and inflammation even with calories equated for if everything else is equated for.
From a caloric standpoint, I noticed better recovery in the context of a low carb ketogenic approach. Ketones themselves are anti-inflammatory, so that helps in that regard. Some people will experience less recovery due to, you know, strained sleep or not adequate, you know, time in a parasympathetic state when they do switch over. But often times that's because they're over fasting, because when you switch over to a ketogenic state, it's it's easier to go longer periods of
time with that eating. And if you find yourself in a significant caloric deficit, even if it's, you know, subconsciously unplanned, that can be a stressor on the body for sure. A lot of people overdo the fasting, they overdo that deficit and that can certainly inhibit optimal recovery. But if that's not the case, they shouldn't experience a reduction in recovery.
I think that's a great answer to that and speaks to my personal experience for sure, because I've I've definitely tried to put muscle mass on in the past in a deficit and it's just very difficult to do in my experience. Totally. I mean it's difficult. I mean you could build muscle while losing fat in a deficit. If you are an untrained individual, you can kind of tap into those quote UN quote newbie gains.
But if you are a seasoned lifter and your body has acclimated to that training stimulus, then you're definitely going to optimize your building potential. If you are in a caloric surplus, trying to do two things that are somewhat competitive in nature is going to result in subpar results across the board. Yep, how was my experience and and recovery took longer too. I'm like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm
not that old. I shouldn't be taking this long to for my muscles to not be sore after that workout. And so yeah, I definitely noticed when I started eating more that did help my recovery efforts. So you know, when we're talking about insulin resistance, we, we're pushing the importance of lower carbohydrate diet, we're pushing the importance of muscle because muscle mass is where all
of this metabolism takes place. Like whether you're doing a ketogenic approach or just a lower carbohydrate approach, muscle is a huge place where your food is metabolized. It's a high energy organ essentially, and the more muscle mass we have, the more places we have to put carbohydrates in the form of glycogen before they're shuffled off into fat storage. So I love really emphasizing muscle mass.
But but to your point, honestly, sleep is so important for building muscle because of the human growth hormone spike. I deal a lot with emotional eating with people who have insulin resistance because again, it usually stems back to how they're thinking and, and what their emotions are that are
driving their food choices. And it's like if you are not sleeping well, then you're not setting yourself up to eat well because you're going to have more cravings, you're going to be less satiated and you're going to have less willpower. So have you experienced that with your clients as well? Where And maybe yourself, I don't know if you have your, it sounds like you have your nutrition dialled in independent
of your sleep. But man, if I'm sleep deprived or like when my kids were young, I just had to give myself a lot of compassion on the food cravings. And I didn't give in obviously all the time. But I hear that a lot from people. They're like, oh, I just someone today. I was coaching someone today and they're like, yeah, I just feel like I've been, you know, having more sugar than I want to have.
And but also like I'm taking care care of my like aging in laws and this is going on and this is going on and this is going on. And I'm like, well, you're so stressed out and you're not sleeping well. I'm not surprised that you're having more cravings for carbohydrates and sugar because that literally increases a substance called MPY and cortisol, both of which will increase your cravings for carbohydrates and sugar.
So we have to really dial in that sleep and the stress management to dial in the eating habits. So I'm kind of curious, like, what are you doing to sleep better and, and what do you think has been the 'cause I guess of, of not sleeping well for you? Oh, A. 100% of the business like, like being stressed with the business and just having a million things on my plate on a day-to-day basis and having A to do list that never gets done is my reason for lack of sleep for sure.
But like the things that I've done to try and improve sleep as of late has been, you know, just staying asleep longer and getting to sleep earlier, which sounds super simple, but that's really what it boils down to. And I, I'm, when I'm in a prep, I am in a more sympathetic state just by default. So I'll tend to just be wired and wake up before my alarm goes
off just as a default. So like, I was waking up to 33 o'clock every morning without fail, and now I'm allowing myself to sleep a little bit later. And it's easier for me to do that when I am in a caloric surplus. Because when you eat more food and your body has to, you know, as the saying goes, rest and digest that food, be in a more parasympathetic state and relax, then you're, you're likely going to see an improvement in sleep
quality. Like when you are super depleted, your body is going to be wired for finding more food. And if you don't nourish your body enough, that's going to become even more prominent. So if you're eating at a surplus, not so you do that all the time, but having periods having phase when you are, you'll likely see an improvement in sleep quality, quantity and quality. And that's obviously going to have a beneficial impact hormonally and from a blood sugar standpoint for sure.
And do you already do the orange blue light blockers? I have a pair and I, I'll use them if I watch a show, but I hardly ever watch a show. So I don't really ever use them. But I do try and you know, wake with the sun, go to, go to sleep with the sun and just kind of stay in that relatively good circadian rhythm, natural circadian rhythm. But I do try and avoid any excessive blue light in the the morning and evening hours for sure.
That that really helped me I, I don't know if there's listeners listening right now. If you're struggling with sleep and you're watching TV at night and you're not already wearing like I, I do the Spectre, the brand, they have to be like orange or amber colored blue light blockers like the clear ones just don't do enough. But if you're not already doing those before bed, that can be a game changer because that allows your melatonin to come up naturally and your cortisol to
go down naturally. And you're not, as you know, with all the business stuff going on, like you're not going to sleep well if you're stressed out, like you said. And when you're in a prep phase, you're in that sympathetic state that that more stressed state for your body. I think it's important to listen to the body too. And if there's women out there, I kind of wanted to share this, this quick story on caffeine. Yeah, go. I'm not necessarily like or anti caffeine or anything like that.
I think it's individualized. But for me, what I was experiencing was almost like this overdoing it. So I'd have like 4 cups a day and still kind of like fluctuating energy, especially a dip in the afternoon. And then I would wake up at like 4:00 or 5:00 AM just like wired. And I'm like, I can't, I don't want to be this wired. I don't feel like I should wake up and have like these racing thoughts all of a sudden. And then what really hit me was
I got mid cycle spotting. So like I have a very normal cycle, thank goodness, but I was getting mid cycle spotting and I was looking it up and one of the symptoms could, you know, excess stress essentially kind of throwing the hormones off. And I'm like, I don't feel stressed out emotionally. I don't feel stressed out mentally. I feel like I'm doing a great job on those fronts. So what, what physically could be stressing me out?
And it was the caffeine. And so I had to like just completely switch to decaf, which still has some. But I don't know if you like what your take on caffeine is or if you do calf or or decaf, But for me that really helped with my sleep too. Yeah, I'm definitely an advocate for not overdoing the caffeine. Now there's been times in my life where I would absolutely overdo the caffeine, but I'm pretty much like I don't do any pre workouts.
I don't do any caffeine pills. Like I'll have two cups of coffee a day. They're big cups, but they're two cups and I'll pretty much have it at that.
And that's it. Yeah, well, I was surprised how long the withdrawal took for me. So I've been drinking coffee for like 10 years, and I switched, like I just kind of weaned down on it. And my energy was so much lower than what I thought it would be. And even after I switched from like 1 cup of regular to 1 cup of decaf for six weeks, it felt like it took my energy to recover.
And so I just wanted to encourage people, if they're considering switching from caffeinated to decaf, it's kind of like that fat adaptation phase that you were Speaking of. Like, yeah, you're not going to feel great initially. Yeah, you might have headaches. Yeah, you might be irritable. My husband really was the saboteur in that because even Dawson, even my son's like, mom, I think you should go back to drinking coffee because I was more irritable. But I'm like, Nope, I'm sticking to it.
My health is worth it. My sleep is worth it. And like once you're kind of over that hump, it's so much easier as you as you know from the fad adaptation stuff. And you can you can supplement L theanine with your caffeine as you titrate that down and that should help kind of blunt that that dropping off a Cliff effect, so to speak, in the withdrawals. But yeah, you definitely don't want to be beholden to the caffeine. No. And that's a good.
I did not do that. I just kind of like toughed it out, I guess, so to speak. I'm thinking about some other things that are important for insulin sensitivity. We've covered sleep and you know, when it comes down to sleep, I think having like that circadian rhythm is important. Blocking blue light after dark is important. Or like I, I usually say like one to two hours before you want to be asleep. Morning sunlight. They're just reducing sugar in your diet, reducing alcohol in
your diet is huge. And then that stress management that can look in, that can look so many different ways. But then physical activity, it's important. We're prioritizing strength training and different forms of cardio I think are important depending on someone's goals. Like you said, you're training for A50 mile hike right now, right? Yeah, that fifty mile March. So I'm trying to get in more steps as a baseline in preparation for just getting my feet conditioned for that.
Yeah, seriously. Like that's, that's a that's a big feat. I did a half marathon in May and I did not train well enough for that, but obviously I was doing a lot more running in cardio for that. And then nutrition. So I think that we should talk a little bit more about the nutrition front when it comes to insulin resistance because obviously you're in the keto realm. But if for people who maybe you want to be a little bit more moderate in their approach, I
just want to encourage them. Like you don't have to go all the way down to keto to improve your insulin sensitivity. But I think what's important is my understanding how what you eat affects your blood sugar and really trying to not spike your blood sugar after meals. So do you wear or have you ever like worn a continuous glucose monitor? Yeah, I've, I've gone through periods whenever I'm doing any type of experimentation where I'll put one in just to see what
the numbers are. But it's it's kind of boring because my. Number. I was just going to say yeah, they'll spike when? I when I train, which is kind of cool to see, it'll spike up to like 13140 intro workout as that muscle glycogen gets mobilized. But from a from all intensive purposes, my CGM is pretty uneventful. I could imagine. I think people are often very surprised because there's a lot of misinformation circulating out there about nutrition.
Like I love using Weight Watchers, for example, like fruit is free. Fruit is not free. Just stick on a CGM and eat a banana and then you're going to see like how high your blood sugar spikes or eat an apple or a Peach. People are so surprised that fruit, which is marketed as being healthy all the time, and I'm not saying it's unhealthy, I'm just saying it will spike your blood sugar. Like it's still mainly sugar. There's a little bit of fiber, mainly sugar.
And that, that's huge. Like I don't want to fear monger fruit by any means, but the fruit that we're consuming now is not the same fruit that we were consuming 500 years ago. Like it's all been, you know, pretty well engineered to be more more appealing. It's, it's been, it's been made to be sweeter. It's got more fruity flesh than it did 500 years ago or, or longer, obviously. So it's, it's not the same thing that it was. So you kind of have to be honest for yourself there.
You do and I think so. I like, I kind of like to garden. We live on a farm and in about 100 year old home and my in laws, you know, moved out about a year ago into a house they built. But my we still have a garden here. So my mother-in-law and I will garden together. And I tell you what, like we have some raspberries and our little raspberries are so small. And we have strawberries that are even smaller. And my mom has some strawberries and some blackberries and they are delicious.
And they taste way better than the ones in the store. And they're smaller, they're more colorful. And so you're absolutely right that fruit is being, you know, genetically modified to be bigger and essentially have more starch and more sugar and less of the fiber and phytonutrients that you get with like an organic variety. Yeah. Totally. So that's like one misnomer, I think another one that you've
I'm sure covered on the podcast. It's just that fear of eating cholesterol rich foods like meat or saturated fats, that's one that I really like to help people get over. Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely a pro quality fats. I had like AI had 24 eggs the other day. So I'd be, I'd be. In one day. Yeah, yeah. So like I, I don't, I'm not scared of that by any means. I have to ask you, OK, how did you have these 24 eggs? Like because I felt what was it?
I think it was an Instagram post and you know, I saw on your food log eggs and it was like 400 some calories. I'm like, I wonder how many eggs you had? Oh yeah, I just, I just, I'll cook it up with some duck fat or something like that. And then sometimes I'll cook my, you know, ground beef or ground lamb in with it. But often times it's just a big old mess of eggs.
Like if I'm travelling, that's kind of one of my go to, I'll just get a whole bunch of eggs cooking up and that's just a a good quality source of nutrition. Yeah, I, I don't know about you, but I'm always full after eating eggs in the morning. But that's another misnomer. It's like, OK, eggs are high in cholesterol, so I shouldn't eat a lot of eggs. I think everybody has that like Time magazine picture in their mind on like the eggs and then
the the sad bacon face, right? And we don't need to do that. Eggs are fine. There's so much good information online about cholesterol foods. I have a really good video on YouTube. It's called. LDLP versus LDLC, and that kind of explains to people, if you're concerned about eating cholesterol because you're worried your total cholesterol is going to go up or your LDL cholesterol is going to go up and your doctor is going to want to put you on a statin. It's like do not worry about
your total cholesterol. Do not worry about your LDL cholesterol. They do not mean anything when it comes to your risk for cardiovascular disease. What matters is your LDL particle number, and some would also argue the size of those particles. And you can't even determine that from a standard blood draw. So there's so much to unpack there. That's if you've already covered that.
That could be a whole podcast in of itself, but the the notion that a simple standardized 1 measurement, you know, total cholesterol panel should it is the differentiating factor between whether or not a doctor prescribed a statin is the most it's just a heinous crime in my, my opinion. It is. And I think for people who are like what the heck is she talking about? I'll just like give her a little bit like this is just a taste.
But the, I want you to imagine like the particle numbers, it's like boats on a lake and the cholesterol within those particles are the people on the boats. And the problem with the LDL particles happens essentially when they penetrate the endothelial wall. So they like inner lining of the blood vessel. So the more particles you have, the more likely it is to penetrate. And the smaller, the smaller those particles, the more likely they are to penetrate.
But like what's going to cause more damage, right? Like 100 people split up between 5:00 boats or one person on each boat and 100 boats on the lake. Like a dock is going to be more likely to get damaged if there's a hundred boats on the lake versus 5 boats on the lake. So it really depends on like how many boats there are, how many particle numbers there are, not how many people are on there. I'm kind of curious, what's your cholesterol level? Have you measured yours
recently? Yeah, no, my, my cholesterol is not like crazy out of the range, the reference range like in my, my triglycerides like bottom low like 36 I think was my last trigs reading. So super, super low HDL is very high. I think my HDL was like 120 or something last I checked. But yeah, my cholesterol ratio is always fine. My LDL always shows to be a little bit high, but not drastically high.
There's some people in the low carb space that see incredibly high numbers, but then they'll go and get like a CAC scan and everything will be showing 0. So like that can kind of put people's mind at risk too. Or peace, rather. Yeah, there's, I just really want to encourage people that like if you're worried about eating eggs or you're worried about eating steak, you do not need to be. There are some of the most nutrient dense foods you can eat. And there's a lot more to the
cholesterol story. Again, that could be a whole podcast, but helping people overcome these long held beliefs that they that they should eat as many fruits and vegetables as they can and they need to avoid red meat or eggs and eat a low fat diet, Like that's just nonsense, unfortunately for most
people. And going back to the eggs, I think that there's a lot of people who think they eat pretty healthy, but they don't because they don't really understand, like, what healthy is. And so like, yeah, I had a couple eggs for breakfast. I'm like, that's only 12 grams of protein. That's not enough to cut it. So we like I'm like at minimum, you know, at minimum 4 eggs with some other meat, 4 eggs or five eggs at a minimum if you're just having eggs. OK, back to your eggs.
Like how did you do the 24 eggs? Were they all scrambled? Did you have some hard boiled? Like that's, that's the most eggs I've ever heard someone eat in a day. So I need to know how you did it. No, they they were just all scrambled, all scrambled together with some duck fat that they were cooked in and and pretty pretty straightforward, so nothing fancy there. You didn't eat them all at one time, did you? No, yeah, that definitely didn't.
Yeah, I I do 2 meals a day. So one of my meals is pretty large, the other one's not so large. So my large meal, yeah, having 24 eggs in a sitting is nothing out of the norm for me. Oh my goodness. I just think about how would I feel after I ate 24 eggs? I don't know if my stomach could it could tolerate 24 eggs at a time. Well, you are right in saying earlier that a lot of people aren't eating, you know, enough protein in the meal if they're only having an egg or two.
Like a lot of people obviously over consume foods which is going to lead to all kinds of health adverse effects. But same is true in reverse that people that are under eating and they just don't know how little nutritional that are actually taking in. I mean, you've got to make sure you're consuming ample protein, ample dietary fats, ample
calories. There are no essential carbohydrates, so that can be relatively low, but you got to make sure you're consuming ample fats, proteins, and a lot of people just simply aren't doing that. Yeah, and I think I'd love to have the fiber conversation with you too. So I think that fiber, especially for people who do eat carbohydrates, I really like to teach them bias your carb intake towards the foods that are higher in fiber, lower in starch and sugar.
So we're thinking like avocados, maybe some raspberries, blackberries. There's we have different fiber charts and a free Food Guide people can download. But I think that's really important where if you're going to have carbohydrates, choose them wisely and then pair them with some protein or fat to minimize that blood sugar response. Yeah. So I. Agree. I think do. You have like a oh, go ahead. Sorry, no. I didn't mean to catch you off.
What were you? Saying, oh, I was just going to ask about your fiber intake and if that's, I know you try to stay in that ketogenic approach. So do you have like certain foods that you eat for fiber? Do you not worry about fiber? What's your stance on fiber? I believe one's dietary intake of fiber should be relatively correlated to their consumption of carbohydrates. So if you're consuming more carbohydrates, it would stand to reason that you would need more
fiber. I mean, it's kind of like what you find in nature. So like if you're looking at fruit, for instance, you know, having that in isolation is going to have fiber with it, you know, by default. Whereas if you look at the apple juice, the orange juice, all that fiber strips is pretty much pure sugar, which is no bueno. If you're not consuming much carbohydrate to begin with, then your fire fiber requirements would also drop significantly.
I don't consume much fiber, but I don't consume hardly any carbs. So that's kind of how mine's correlated there. But if I am consuming, you know, vegetation, then it's primarily higher in fiber. Right, because the ones that are higher in fiber are usually lower in starches and sugars. And have you noticed, like just for the audience sake, in case they're fearful about it, have you noticed any adverse like bowel symptoms or Constipation?
I think most people would be like, Oh my gosh, if I don't eat fiber I'm gonna get so constipated. Yeah, that's definitely not the case. There may be like a two week transition period as your gut microbiome acclimates to whatever change you make. It's like a lot of people, they'll go, you know, strict carnivore for instance, and remove 100% all fiber, no vegetation at all. And they may experience a little bit of GI distress in that week or two that follows.
But then once their microbiome acclimates to that switch, everything stabilizes, they become totally regular, and there's no issues whatsoever. Yeah, that's cool. Thank you for sharing that. Just in case somebody was listening, they're like, what about Constipation? So I think that, yeah, fiber is individualized and I think it just depends on what you want like. Totally. I I Isn't it wild that like our government guidelines suggested, we eat 65% of our calories from
a non essential nutrient? I have found the most success by doing the exact opposite of what most government guidelines suggest. It's so sad. It's like, how much, how many resources are we wasting? Have you seen, did you ever see the original? Like, oh, the seven food groups, the original 1. The the pyramid. Nope, it was before the pyramid. It was right after one of the wars. The basic 7 is what it was called. Did you ever see that one? No, I've looked that up.
It's interesting you. Totally looked that up. Butter and Margarine was its own food group. I liked it. I liked it. Hey. I'm gonna look it up right now because it's really entertaining. So the basic because there's one line on it that just cracks me up it. Is crazy though, because like you've got the food pyramid and that should pretty much be flipped on its head and then you've got the I guess the current one is the the my plate recommendation, right?
Which like doesn't even have fat listed. Yeah, it's like, well, that's not evidence based because it's leaving out an entire macro nutrient. OK, so Group One was green and yellow vegetables. Group two was oranges, tomatoes, grapefruit. Group three was potatoes and other vegetables and fruits. Group four was milk and milk products. Group five was meat, poultry, fish or eggs. Group six was bread, flour and cereals. Group seven was butter and fortified margarine.
And then at the bottom it says in addition to the basic 7 eat any other foods you want. Interesting. So U.S. government chart, that was some of their earliest recommendations. Pretty much you, whatever you want, is what they were saying. Yeah, sounds like in. That's wild. Yeah. I think only #5 there would be the the necessary one.
I know. And the other thing too, I was doing some research and just the disappointment that I have in our government institutions for guiding the health choices of Americans. And in 2023, the American Diabetes Association came out and said it's OK if adults have a hemoglobin A1C of like adults 65 and plus. So if you're an older adult, hemoglobin A1C of 7 to 7.5. And mind you, the cut off for type 2 diabetes is 6.5. So they were essentially saying it's OK if you're over 65, if
you're a little bit diabetic. And I'm like, why the heck would they say that? I don't understand, Like, are we just reducing the standard? Are we giving up on people? I like? That was another one that was just mind boggling to me that we are normalizing diabetes to the point where we're changing the clinical guidelines to say it's
OK to be a little bit diabetic. Well, it's kind of like you were saying earlier about the, the majority of people, the masses are certainly in that unhealthy range, like they are all unhealthy. So the, the, the range in these like blood test panels, like when you go and get a blood test, the, the range that it gives you as a result, you know, that's not really based on a healthy demographic.
It's based on the average of the population size, which is not a healthy population to begin with. So everything, all the standards are getting skewed the wrong direction. And that that normalization is unfortunate because people are accepting of a subpar quality of living. Yeah, absolutely. And they're getting, you know how I I don't even know if it's
true. Like, have you heard of the analogy of like, if you throw a frog in a pot of boiling water, it'll freak out and try to jump out, you know, and realize something's wrong. But if you just boil it in the pot of water, it gets so used to it it'll just die. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely what's going on. It's what's going on, yeah. And I I completely agree with
you. I was looking at someone's lab work recently and the the lab report said the normal glucose value was 70 to 126 and I'm like 126 is diabetic. So are we just like completely ignoring the pre diabetic range now or what's going on here? How is just like? Yeah, when you look at the hormones too, like like testosterone as an example, like the range on that has shifted over the years. Everything is trending in the
wrong direction. The obesity rates, I mean, it's it's more than 50% of the population in America. You know, marriages end in divorce and people are are morbidly obese or something like that. Like the statistics are not favorable by any means. No. And I think that really puts the onus back on the individual to say how do I want to live my life and advocate for themselves and be the change maker and be the cycle breaker and live with intention and live with
discipline? Because I love that quote where it's like I'm going to live how most people won't so that I can do things most people can't. Totally. Well, it's unfortunate because we as a species tend to default to convenience and ease and comfort. Like that's just how we are hardwired to to go. Like we, we want to be comfortable. We want to have things be convenient. And we live in a day and age in which that can be easily had at our fingertips for pennies on the dollar.
I mean, it's easy to have DoorDash deliver food to your door. You can sit on the couch, watch Netflix and eat until your heart's content and not lift a finger. But that obviously is not going to bode well to, you know, optimizing your health and performance, especially as you age, that compounded over time. So you have to seek out these self-imposed hardships and adversities, especially in this day and age.
And if you don't weave that into your daily habits and routines, then it's going to you know, it's it's it's going to flip you upside down. Like you have to have those self-imposed hardships in place willingly. Yep, I love it. I completely agree. Well, we have run the gamut here, so we've covered a lot. We could probably talk for another hour and a half here no trouble, but we'll have to just do a follow up around 2 podcast that'd. Be great anytime.
Where Where do people go to find out more about you and your your program? Yeah, they can go to our website, zivli.com. So it's ZIVL i.com. It's a weird name. Ziv means to live in Croatian. And then the Li stands for low insulin and low Inflammation lifestyle. So that's why we chose that. They can also check out my YouTube channel. It's there's a ton of great free resources on there.
They can just search Doctor Morgan Nolte and I suggest they start with the Insulin Resistance for Beginners playlist on YouTube and then we have a great podcast called To Reshape Your Health as well. Awesome. Well, I would definitely get to that. Make it easy for people to find. You can't thank you enough for taking the time to chat with me today. And I can't thank you enough for putting out the content that you are to help people and make it accessible.
So keep doing what you're doing. Keep fighting the good fight. Yeah, right back at you. Thank you. You bet. Take care and we'll talk soon. All right.