Why Eating MORE Could Be Your Weight Loss Solution (Controversial Truth)

I feel like that rarely gets brought up. Like if someone's got digestive issues, they go to the standard western medicine doc, they don't even talk about this stuff. You know, it's really hard because they work in silos. They have the tools that they've been taught, they have the time with people that they've been given, which is very minimal. It's all administration. It all comes back to money making and you know, what are you doing to treat the patient?

How much more can we give them? People come to me and they want to lose weight and I got to tell them, hey, look, we're going to eat more. You're probably I'll be going to put on some weight if. Your body is like, hey, I can't restore thyroid function. I can't restore adrenal function and and build these hormones unless I store a little bit more fat, right? Like your body is pretty Dang

smart. Like it's going to do what it needs to do. And if we're playing the long game, we'll get you there, but we can't get you there in a healthy manner to where you are going to feel good and you're going to have optimal biofeedback eating 600 calories a day. And we are live. Liz, how you doing today? I'm good. How are you? I am wonderfully well. What did you have for breakfast? Let me ask you that.

Let's start with that. I'm actually in a fasting phase right now, so I have had water, electrolytes, coffee with cinnamon, and I did take some Bondi pier this morning, which is like a kind of greens powder on crack I would call it, but it is supportive of fasting. So that's what I've had today so far. Are you doing like an extended fast or you're just doing like an intermittent fast? Yeah, so right now I'm doing something called, it's like a

pure fast program. So each day you kind of drop your fasting window. To be honest. I've just kind of stuck with like a four to five hour eating window, looking at my ketones, making sure they're getting to where I want to be. And then I mentioned this offline, but I'm nine weeks postpartum. So technically I should move into longer fasting windows, 24 hours or maybe 4872. But since sleep is a little bit up and down, last night was real rocky, we're going to keep it at

the four to five hours. And my ketones are still, as I say, ketoning, which is good. And so I think I'm probably just going to hold here for a little bit and not go into some of those longer fast until maybe getting a little bit better sleep. Totally, totally makes sense. Are you breastfeeding too? I am not. So I was not able to. I struggled with my first and then really struggled with my second. Ended up with mastitis. And we've just said, you know

what, that is best. And I've got a business to run, a toddler to take care of or he's not really a toddler, he's 5 1/2 and a newborn. So we're on the goat milk train with some good, it's called begin baby, some Hmos, human milk, ogletosaccharides. And then it's also got some prebiotics to really support babies microbiome with bifidobacteria, which is what we want.

So that I will say in some ways has been almost a blessing though, because with the sleep and all the things it would be, it's breastfeeding is challenging. It's a full time job by itself, so. Yeah, for sure. We, we've got a 2 1/2 year old and then we're, my wife's 24 weeks pregnant as of yesterday actually, so we got another one on the way. So yeah, breastfeeding's no joke. I mean, I mean, she's up non-stop throughout the night.

I mean, yes, it's, it's total chaos, but it's the best thing in the world. Yes, it's so good for them and I really, really gave it every ounce of my energy. With my first, we were doing like the triple feed. So he was born very small. He was 37 weeks, but he was 3 lbs nine oz. So he didn't latch. He was in the NICU for a bit, so I was pumping and then finally when he could latch, trying to do that and then also feeding, right? So they call it the triple feed.

So where you're feeding them and then you're pumping and then, you know, bottle feeding what you had pumped previously. And I did that for I think about 3 months with him and then my supply just kept dropping and dropping no matter what I did. So this time after the couple of weeks and then getting mastitis, I was like, you know, we're just not going to go through this again. But it is amazing if you can do it. And congratulations on the

second. And likewise, likewise, well, this is not quite how I planned on this starting. This is interesting because I feel like a lot of people that have allergies or gut dysbiosis or any of that stuff often oftentimes stems from their birth and how that all started. I don't know to the extent that is the case, but can you speak on that at all? Sure. So the mother's microbiome passes down to generations.

So there's a lot of validity to, you know, children having some genetic kind of predisposition with what is passed from the mother. I think there's also, you know, a lot that they are finding out more and more with the placenta different, you know, things like heavy metals that they're, you know, identifying and all these different toxins that are passing through. And I always say we live in a world of toxic soup. So don't, you know, take it all

on you as the mother? You know, you can only do so much to support your gut microbiome. You know, pre pregnancy, I always tell women, try to really prepare your body for about 6 months because, you know, we know that you're going to be the one that's building the human. And so whether that's done through stool testing or it's really just cleaning things up in your environment, I know it can be really overwhelming. I also talk about the non-toxic culture being toxic in some ways.

So really just making sure like, you know, you're prioritizing your air quality, your water quality, especially trying to eat as clean as possible, right? Grass fed, organic as much as you can and support drainage and detoxification pathways. Make sure you're pooping every day is the poop queen.

I talk a lot about that. But you know, at the end of the day, I think so many women stress so much and they put a lot of blame on themselves for things, you know, control the controllable, control the controllables is what I say with that. But there's a lot of truth to it passing down to generations. And there's a lot of, I mean, this is stuff that we started diving deep because this is my wife's, like, passion. She's been diving super deep

down this rabbit hole. So like we had to have an emergency C-section on our first and she just was distraught because they couldn't, you know, get all that, you know, mucus and everything that's supposed to set them up for success going forward. And a lot of people have allergies and stuff that are often times result of not passing through vaginally. So we're trying for natural

vaginal birth this time. But it's crazy how so much of this stuff has an impact that most western medicine docs never even mention for these, you know, pre birth checks, which is just crazy. Like this stuff is important. That could legitimately have an impact on the baby, you know, indefinitely going forward. Yeah, so I can actually speak to this a little bit. I had an emergency C-section with my first as well. I had something called intrauterile growth restrictions.

So my son was basically my placenta crapped out, My son was fully developed, but he was not gaining brown fat. Anytime that they have that situation, they want to induce you at 37 weeks. And my body went haywire. So I ended up in something called HELP syndrome. Liver enzymes skyrocketed, my platelets dropped. So I was emergency C-section totally put under anesthesia within 7 minutes of the doctor saying we need to go now he was out. And you know, it's not at all

what you imagine, right? I'm sure your experience with that, even as the you know, the dad and the spouse, I know my husband, he wasn't allowed to be in the room with that emergency C-section. So it's, it is just chaos, right? And so going into my seconds, I was very concerned about this and I toyed back and forth because I know the benefits of going through the vaginal canal. So because of the, I would call a little bit of PTSD that I had from that first time, my body did not regulate.

I also didn't get to meet my son for a day and a half because I was stuck in the the unit downstairs while he was in the NICU. And until I could get my blood pressure and things regulated, I wasn't allowed to leave on the 1st unit and on my first born. Yes. So with my second, we opted to do a planned C-section. And in preparation for this, I had a conversation with my doctor and I said I'm going to do something called microbiome

seeding. If you guys have not heard of this, you can go to tinyhealth.com. I recommend this for women when they are pregnant. They can do gut testing, you know, throughout their pregnancy to see if they have enough even bifidobacterium to pass to baby and breast milk. But also they have a vaginal microbiome test. And so this is important if you're going to consider doing microbiome seeding. This is a little woo woo for some people.

My doctor looked like I had 4 heads, but you know, you got to do what's right and what you feel comfortable with. So essentially with the microbiome seeding, if you know that you're going to have a planned C-section or even if you think you are going to go V vac, right? So you're going to try a vaginal birth, but might end up in AC section again for whatever reason.

It's very simple. So you basically take some, you know, sterile gauze and you insert it into the vaginal canal for at least an hour, let it really get saturated and then you put it into a sterile container. And then when the baby is out, you would essentially wipe it all over, you know, the face to try to get some exposure to that bacteria. But you don't necessarily want to do this if your vaginal microbiome is not in a good spot. So mine came back, there was

nothing to report. It's like 99% all good. But for some women, right, they might be experiencing yeast, candida, vaginal vaginosis, different things like that into, you know, you want to also consider that even if you're going to go vaginally because there's a lot of things that you could do to course correct that throughout pregnancy again. Or if you saw that, hey, this then wouldn't be beneficial to do the microbiome seeding, you would just choose not to do

that. But because of as what you said, the, the good bacteria in the microbes that they get exposure to in the vaginal canal prior to just coming into the environment in the sterile environment, right? You know, that can play a big role with allergies and asthma and things like that. So we opted to do that because my tests looked all good. We had a planned C-section. Everything went to plan. My husband was the one to do it with the vaginal, you know, gauze essentially all over

baby's face. So you can again, control the controllables. But I can't tell you, right? The research is kind of mixed. There's not a ton of evidence to say like this Absolutely, you know, works. Is it the same? I would say no, but it is better than not doing it. In the case that you can, you know, test your vaginal microbiome and see that it's all good. I would absolutely do it. Totally, totally did. Were you considering VVAC

originally? I was, and I, I wish that it would have gone that way, but you know, my doctor and I had this conversation of 39 weeks. The risk goes up to have preeclampsia and I did not have preeclampsia with my first, but I had induction or you know, labor induced preeclampsia. And then also post delivery with the first. Really, you know, a lot of blood pressure regulation issues for whatever reason. I don't know if it was from the medication they gave me. That's my hypothesis.

I know. And a lot of doctors don't want to do inductions and use the plutocin because they see so much of this, you know. But anyway, so she said if I go before 39 weeks, that was the goal. I was going to go vaginally, but I got to the 39 week mark and he wasn't coming. So we did the scheduled C-section and I would say that it went to plan as best that, you know, I could have hoped for. My husband was able to be with me the whole time. We got baby right away. He never left our sights.

So we're thankful for that. My doctor was very supportive of my birth plan and I will say that looking at my lab work that they drew prior to my platelets were very low. And I think had I tried to labor naturally, I would have ended up in AC section anyway because when your platelets drop, that puts mom at a greater risk. So, you know, I wish that it would have gone that way, but it went as well as it could have. And we have a beautiful baby boy and he's healthy, so that's all

that matters. Yeah, that is definitely what matters. Like we were doing, we're planning on doing a home birth for the first one. And in Arkansas where we're at with the home birth, like our midwife, like they're not legally allowed to deliver past 42 weeks. And my wife was like 41 week and six days. And they're like, OK, you have to get your Wellness check in. And like they they said, OK, you're pretty much out of time. She wasn't really dilating. So they, you know, gave her pitocin.

That didn't really make much of a difference. And the baby was face presentation. So I go, OK, you have to have an emergency C-section, otherwise you risk, you know, issues to the, the spinal cord and it could be issues there. So we had the emergency C-section. Now we're trying to do a feedback the second go around, but the, the doctor that we were going through, the midwife, we're going through like they have emergency doctors on staff, but they're now apparently no

longer supportive of feedback. So now we're back to the drawing board of potentially doing a registered nurse midwife in a home setting, but we live like 35 minutes from the nearest hospital. So I'm like, you know, trying to play it safe, but it's, it's, it's crazy. Like you people that haven't had a kid with any complications like this is just all foreign to them. But once you've gone through it, you're like, there's so many

things to juggle. There is and you know, I've talked a lot about this on my social media throughout and just being so transparent with my followers, right? As a functional practitioner and I won't specialize in gut health. I know all the benefits, but you really have to weigh the pros and cons and really decide for yourself and also what feels right in your gut and what you

have the most peace about. Because no matter how it happens, it's still, I mean, I think it's the biggest event of a woman's life, you know, giving birth. It's, I think I read the equivalent pregnancy in all that it is, is the equivalent of running 40 marathons, which is really, really wild. So, you know, for me, it's like, I want to have the Peace of Mind.

Like you know you guys too, I'm sure with the the past emergency C-section of just knowing that if this doesn't work out, we've got the people there that can do what they need to do because sometimes it is a life saving situation. Yeah. All right. So totally roundabout way to get health here, but how did you become known as the Poop Queen? That is quite the the moniker there. Yes. So I struggled with chronic Constipation for eight years.

A little back story, I was diagnosed with children's rheumatoid arthritis when I was a young girl and I was put on Prednisone and methotrexate. They told me I never walk, play sports, but by the grace of God my mom took me through all the doctors and you know, I totally believe that I was healed from that. She just really felt like we got to get you off these medications and do a lot through food and you know, getting off of all of that, I was normal.

Like I was able to walk, I was able to move. I still have some, you know, kind of like joints, like issues sometimes, but nothing like it was. And I, I struggled a lot with my weight throughout, you know, high school and college because of those medications too. And, and also just family history. I would say through the time though, of my teenage years, I was really struggling with a lot of hormonal issues, hormonal acne, PMS, all the things. And of course, doctor said just

put her on birth control, right? That's their solution. Never talk about health history, lifestyle, diet, things that we can do to try to manage this. So, you know, going through, you know, ending high school and then moving away to college, I started to notice like things getting a little bit worse and ended up in a situation in college where I was getting a colonoscopy done. I actually called my dad and was like, cancel it. I'm not going.

I can't drink the solution, like the clean out solution. It was so gross. So he's like, babe, you got to do it. I'm already on my way. The appointment's today like we're going. So he said just take shots of it like you're playing a drinking game. He probably hates that I tell this story, but it's the truth. So we go. And of course, they say everything is normal, right? Like you are backed up and constipated.

It's just, you know, drink water, have more fiber and take some Miralax. That was their solution. And at the same time, I was really tired, rundown, fatigued, you know, I had skin spots kind of developing. And my doctors told me that it was the calories in, calories out thing. So I went real crazy with Weight Watchers for a while. I dropped 40 lbs, but I was going to the gym twice a day. I was, again, a college student

at this time. So I didn't have any major stress, I would say, in terms of, you know, working in the corporate world, family and those things. And so when I got, you know, to where I wanted to be, I was like, cool, I'm good. I hadn't done any of the mental work, the emotional work, right? Really understood what I was doing. I was just reading points on like labels. And so when I moved up north, I gained 50 lbs back and I was, you know, again, just really

struggling. And so at that point I found a functional Doctor Who determined it was my thyroid, Hashimoto's, and went through a whole gut healing protocol, parasites, Candida, H pylori, the whole 9 yards. And that's really what sprung me into functional nutrition because I started, you know, really taking an interest into how our gut microbiome and, you know, how our diet and our environment and our lifestyle really plays a role with how we feel every day. So Long story short, not so

short here. That's how I got into what I do. But as far as the poop Queen, that honestly was, I was podcasting a few years ago and it's like I'm going to start a new Instagram account called the Poop Queen because it's catchy and it's going to help people fix their poo because you know, I know what it's like to feel so miserable. And from there it's just kind of really spiraled. So it's not just me. I have a team, I have a

functional practice. We work with women around the world, Fit mom, functional health is our practice. And like I said, we have our podcast as well, or we focus all things guts, hormones, autoimmune, you know, anything to do with female health. I do work with some men but mostly females. Nice. Nice. And you were you were noticing the Constipation initially? At what age? Like what? At what point did that start?

So I would say the youngest that I really remember it, to be honest with you, is I was going to babysit. I had to have been maybe 14 and I was doing a Suppository because I was stuck on the toilet. I was like, mom, I got to go babysit these kids and I am so miserable. So she got suppositories. We did that kind of fixed it, resolved it from that, you know, time being that's the the earliest that I remember it

being, you know, a real issue. It's horrible experience, but you know, all throughout high school, like even in college, my, my roommates, we would call it victory, right? Like victory. I was able to go to the bathroom and I'm talk a lot about Miralax as you know, the solution. That's what every doctor, pediatricians even tell people to use. And it's so harsh. It's so toxic to the body that your body repels it.

And This is why for many people, including myself, I had such horrible abdominal cramping and pain. And then it would be just continuous evacuation, right? So if you're not familiar with how toxic Miralax is, it's made of PEG 3350. This is something they use in like an antifreeze solution actually, and brake fluid, FDA approved, but not for under the age of 17. I don't know why it's FDA approved. But anyways, under the age of 17, it's not FDA approved.

And there have been many lawsuits against Miralax because of neuropsychiatric events happening with children, yet pediatricians, it's still recommended. It's the number one pediatrician recommendation for kids who are constipated. And it's, to me, it's just

really heartbreaking. And I think that, again, there's so many things wrong with our healthcare system that we have, but it's a true disservice to people to tell them to take something like this when we could simply turn to something like a magnesium citrate that's natural and work as an osmotic laxative can be much more gentle or even like a buffered vitamin C or many other things, you know, in our diet and lifestyle from a herbal perspective, that could be helping people resolve

this rather than just Band-Aid the issue with something that's toxic. Yeah, brake fluid is probably not the best option there. You know, probably not. Probably. Not so at at that young age of 14. Do you think it was Hashimoto's at that stage or do you think your thyroid started to down regulate after years of that that chronic inflammation? Like what do you think the initial catalyst was? I think that it was just my immune system, you know,

completely gone haywire. I don't know, you know, because I never had my antibodies tested till my early 20s. But looking at the children's rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis that I had, I mean, that's an autoimmune, right? And so we know that that is a huge trust to the body. Where does that generally come from? Infections, right? Which Dr. Inflammation. And so even correlating that to the horrible PMS that I had, we look at that as a lot to do with our liver and gallbladder and

poor detoxification. And where is that coming from, right? Not having enough of the right nutrients and cofactors to really support the body properly, doing things like methylation, glucuronidation, sulfation, you know, really just supporting the liver.

And I see a lot more chronic Constipation having to do with liver and gallbladder health even than I do with just gut dysbiosis or infections like SIBO, bone toxicity, which I call Sipho, small intestinal fungal overgrowth, parasites like the liver really has to play a huge role in everything that we're exposed to. And so we live in a world of toxic soup. We know that our food is all Franken foods, right, Full of artificial sugars and ingredients and preservatives. So I think that was a

combination. I can't tell you that. I think that it was my thyroid. I also think there was probably a lot to do with the Prednisone and methotrexate, the steroids that I was on, you know, impacting the motility and just the whole system. Totally. So is most people coming to work with you and interact with you coming from a place of chronic Constipation? Is that kind of like the the primary demographic?

Yes and no. You know, obviously with the Poop Queen account on Instagram, if they're, you know, following me, they start because generally they've got my Constipation cure guide, but then they'll hear me talk about, you know, a lot of other things as well. I deal with it a lot, you know, in our practice, but we also deal with the opposites in terms of urgency. You know, people who have maybe even mixed, they'll say it's IBSI call that ABS catch all

diagnosis. It's really bacterial overgrowth in in most cases generally, but IBS is a syndrome. It is a diagnosis based upon symptoms, not necessarily a diagnostic test. You know, that they're running. And so there's many factors that can go into why your bowels are irritable. So we deal with both. A lot of times I have women who have had their gallbladder removed. I'm sure you have experience

with this. You know, many people who have done keto or doing keto, like have to take that into account in terms of, you know, their bile and bile flow, how they're able to properly breakdown fats and absorb these things. But we get, you know, women who've come in and they've had their gallbladder removed, they've had colonoscopies, endoscopies, you know, the whole 9 yards. And everything is just chalked up to normal.

And they're dealing with not just Constipation or diarrhea, but a lot of upstream issues in terms of bloating, gas, heartburn, acid reflux, you know, indigestion. And then maybe we're looking at their lab work, right? And we're seeing there's deficiencies here. They're not actually absorbing things that, you know, maybe they're eating infections that are driving inflammation, lead

to gut permeability, leaky gut. Now we've got joint pain, skin issues, brain fog, fatigue, neurotransmitter, you know, issues where it's depression or anxiety. So it it all is interconnected and everything works together. So if you are somebody listening and you are backed up and constipated, that's the bottom of our drainage funnel.

I can promise you, you got a lot going on north of your colon and you know the evacuation route because when you're not going every day, if I, I say it, if you're not pooping, you're not detoxing because things sit in your colon and they go back in line to get recirculated through the liver, which again places more burden on the liver. And if you've got a leaky gut, we've got something called lipopolysaccharides leaking out now into the bloodstream, which your body sees as an endotoxin

because they're so toxic. They're actually part of some very, what I would call like stealth infections, C diff and things like that. And so that lipopolysaccharide that goes generally first to the liver and the liver is like, whoa, whoa, this is not good. I got to take care of this. And it creates inflammation in the liver because it's trying to protect itself. Well, now when we, you know, have inflammation in the liver, the liver tries to protect itself by producing fatty deposition.

So we start to see triglycerides go up, maybe liver enzymes go up. And now we're dealing with the case of like fatty liver, non alcoholic fatty liver. And this is because of the gut. Liver access is so intimately tied together that this is a vicious cycle. Like they're talking to each other all day long one time or when you're eating food just one time, your liver releases bile into circulation 15 to 16 times in that meal.

It's so important this bile is there to go through the small intestine to help you as the host breakdown your fats, all your good fatty soluble, you know, nutrients and vitamins, antioxidants that you should absorb and you should be fed in the small intestine. That's where nutrient absorption should happen. But when we have dysbiotic bacteria, you know, there that's overgrown, this creates something called small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.

That bacteria is feasting on the foods that you are consuming. This is creating a lot of bloating and gas. Things start to ferment, right? So we get that gas and maybe sulfur is parts or whatever you want to call it. And then, you know, it's just like this double edged sword

that goes back and forth. So it's really, you know, when we think about digestion, we have to think of a north to South process and we cannot do gut healing work without addressing the liver and the gallbladder and this very intimate connection that we have with the gut, liver access. I feel like that rarely gets brought up. Like if someone's got digestive issues, they go to the standard western medicine doc. I don't even talk about this stuff. That's why my frustration with

them is so high. I mean, you pretty much have to go with the functional medicine, right? If you even want this to be part of the conversation. Yeah, You know, it's really hard because they work in silos, right? And they have the tools that they've been taught. They have the time with people that they've been given, which is very minimal. We actually just had a doctor on our podcast yesterday and I'll say she's kind of whistle blowing a lot.

She's leaving conventional medicine at the end of this month to go full time into functional medicine because she's, you know, sharing with us that it's all administration. It all comes back to money making and you know, what are you doing to treat the patient? How much more can we give them? You know, all these things. And it's just really sad because that is not healthcare. That is sick care, right?

And we appreciate it, right? If you have a, a broken arm, a gunshot wound, like don't come to me and function medicine. I I can't help you with those things. But we also have a system that's set up and designed to not look at the whole person, which it really is, is negligent. Like I, I don't understand it. I can't fathom it. We know all 11 systems of the body are intimately connected. When you address 1, you need to be thinking about how that

impacts others. Yet they work in silos, right? You have your General practitioner, your OBGYN, your endocrinologist, your gastroenterologist, and nobody is really talking to each other and considering how this might impact other things in the body. And so it's frustrating, it's angering. And that's why hopefully your podcasts like this and you know, the work that we do, we can

really help people. Even just free content, like I put out so much free content just to help people, like give them a little bit of direction to understand, you know, what their symptoms are telling them. And then how they can start to make changes if they're not in a place that they can fully go into, you know, a program doing testing and protocols. I feel like the tide is starting to shift. I feel like people don't just automatically go to their family

doc. They typically go online and you know, the functional medicine doctors, the people that are, there's a bunch of noise online too, obviously. But normally the functional medicine doctors are putting out a lot more content than your standard Western medicine doc. So the likelihood that they'll see better content I I think is, is increasing hopefully. Yes, I hope so. I would just, you know, we're always saying like be cautious of the Google machine because, you know, anything that you

Google is is dangerous. And I think it's looking at like trust the source, right? Make sure that whatever you are reading about, are you seeing multiple people talk about this? You know, for me, again, I talk a lot about stomach acid support. I reference doctors, I reference books. I talk about liver, gallbladder. I reference, you know, resources online that are our doctors and you know, again, books there things that you can do to

support your body. You know, naturally if you're having a gallbladder attack, what can we do if we have all these signs and symptoms before, you know, you land in the emergency room, hopefully not in a septic states, but before you land there. And their MO is to just remove the gallbladder. And your gallbladder is pretty Dang important, especially if you're going to be living a life that is low carb, more ketogenic, because you need that

bile. It's stored and it's concentrated 20 times more than just the bile that's being dripped, you know, from the liver continuously. So I think that while we can live without our gallbladder and while we can live without our appendix, we have to understand God designed us miraculously and He gave them to us for a reason. Totally, 100%. So when it comes to the gallbladder, those that have had their gallbladder removed that are wanting to do a low carb ketogenic diet, what's your take

on that? How should they do things differently? What can they expect? Yeah, absolutely. So first and foremost, I talk a lot about supporting with what's been lost, right. Oxbile is a great support that we can put into place when we don't have a gallbladder, especially if you're doing

higher fats. So for some individuals without a gallbladder, what they're going to find, and this is not everybody, but it's the majority of people, and I don't have stats to tell you percentages, but what they're going to find is that they get something called bile acid diarrhea. OK, so you have a high fat meal. And this could honestly just be somebody who's not doing keto. Let's say you went out for a

burger and fries, right? So you have a high fat meal and your liver is giving you this constant drip of bile, but you don't have enough, right? So it's insufficient because your, your gallbladder is not there with this concentrated and stored bile to release at the right time and the right amount for what's coming through the system. Then what can happen is that your body sees this is like, oh

gosh, I can't handle this. It's going to pull water from, you know, other organs around it and then just flood the intestines. And you end up in a situation where you've got now bile acid diarrhea and you're, you're not able to, you know, break the fats down properly in a way

that, you know, you feel good. And you can actually have a normal transit time to let food move through the digestive tract, the small intestine, absorb the nutrients, and then put all the rest for waste in the large intestine. So I'm a big belief and proponents that you need Oxbio for individuals even with a gallbladder who might just be struggling with Constipation or we're seeing, you know, again, signs on their lab work or they're having that right side

abdominal pain. They're having pebbly stools that are what I call, you know, floaters. You don't want your OOP to float. That's a telltale sign that you're not breaking down your fats properly. Then you could put some Oxbio and maybe you don't need as much right as the person who doesn't have a gallbladder. They likely need more, but it's really person independent. You got to kind of find your

dose. What keeps you feeling good and what keeps your bowels like your bowels or your daily health like report card for women, your monthly cycle is your monthly report card, you know, so you kind of have to play around with that. But absolutely Oxfile, I'm a big proponent of that. The liver doctor talks a lot

about this. They have actually a great book that talks about how to save your gallbladder and what to do if you've lost it. There's a lot of stuff in there too from a more ketogenic, you know, diet. I'm a big fan of doing what you can with your diet in terms of staying, you know, in this ketogenic state, but using foods that are more bitter, like polagogs, you know, things that are going to stimulate bile flow. So I start my day every morning with lemon water and a pinch of

sea salt. Even when I'm, you know, fasting. If I'm not fasting, then generally I'm doing like a beet juice that has lemon and ginger and apple in there. It's really great. Just, you know, cleansing the liver and supporting the gallbladder, but it's not necessarily going to align probably with a a real true ketogenic therapeutic ketogenic

diet. So lemon water, you could use things like dandelion greens, beets, greens, arugula, anything that's going to be bitter, you know, to the tongue that's going to stimulate your brain that hey, we're getting ready to pair for prepare for digestion. So it's going to help with enzymes in your saliva secretion there from the stomach, stomach acid support. We can talk a little bit more about that too, especially with like maybe higher protein diets

like carnivore or something. But stomach acid is really, really important. So we want to make sure that we have robust stomach acid and, you know, then just really rotating your foods as much as you possibly can. So not eating the same foods all the time. Hey, from a fat perspective, can I rotate my oils? Can I rotate my seeds that I might be using? Can I rotate, you know, my meats, right?

Am I always stuck with red meat and chicken or can I pull in, you know, some, some salmon and some sea bass as higher fat fish? It's so yummy, you know, or just some of these other protein sources that you might not gravitate towards within whatever the parameters are of what you're trying to fit, you know, your calories and your macro distribution really try to diversify because the more diversity with our food, the more diversity in the gut and

our gut microbes. And that's important for the immune system and to have resilience to be able to handle things that we might be exposed to. So I think that is really, really important to maintain that good, you know, balance in the gut microbiome that we we think about those things with whatever type of diet that we're

doing. From a from a rotational standpoint, like I'll typically keep like when I'm really getting dialed in for a competition prep and I'm tracking on my macros to the tea all often times from a meal prep sustainability standpoint, keep my foods consistent on a week by week basis. When it comes to gut microbiome and rotating, rotating the food supply, how regularly should one do that for optimization like this one need to do it on a daily basis or on a weekly basis.

Would that be fine? Yeah. So I've worked with a lot of, you know, prep, you know, competitors, bodybuilders, and I think that we can do everything within a season, right? So from that standpoint, it's easy. I totally get it. If you can maybe rotate it, you know, week to week, that would be good. But if you're really dialed in, you just know what works for you works right, then maybe consider other things that might be helpful.

So this might be something like a greens powder or Reds powder or a probiotic, for example. I'm very cautious with probiotics because I don't want to overfeed certain things. But again, so you could rotate that right in that season to support, but then on your offseason, that's where I would really focus on that diet diversity and kind of variation. So, you know, you would ask me what I had for breakfast.

Right now, I'm in a season of doing a little bit deeper fasting for autophagy, mainly because of my genetics and seeing what I need to do there. But then I'll flip out of this. I'll go more Mediterranean for a period of time. Like I won't always stay with fasting. Like, you know, low carb. Right now I'm doing low carb in my fasting window just because I'm trying to crank my ketones, which I'd love to talk about ketones and not just low carve keto, right, without tracking ketones.

So I think it's OK for, you know, that season that you're doing 12 to 16 week maybe of the prep, but then really try to do what you can within it. And then on your offseason, be a little bit more diligent with, you know, really diversifying different types of foods. Totally. With regards to the bile, before I forget the amount of bile that is secreted by the liver and that drip rate like that, that's pretty adaptable, correct? I mean, it's not like that's a

constant. So if one is just starting a higher fat approach, they might need to submit with the ox bile in the beginning, but then they can likely taper that off as their body up regulates that excretion. How does that if they have a gallbladder? If they yeah, if they have a gallbladder. Yeah, if they have a gallbladder, yes, I would say so, as long as your biofeedback is good. So again, what I would be looking at from a biofeedback perspective is how I feel after eating my meals.

Am I getting bloated and distended? Am I getting, you know, gassy? Am I going to the bathroom every day #4 is what you're going for. If you're looking on a Bristol stool chart, snake like sausage, like easy to pass, you're not straining to go to the bathroom, you're not seeing floating stools. Again, that can be a sign of a malabsorption and, you know, not breaking down your fats well enough. So I think it's very personally

dependent. I know tons of people who thrive right on a ketogenic diet or even a carnivore diet and aren't taking a lot of supplements to support this. But I think that it's also wise to support stomach acid. OK, so stomach acid. So when I think about chemical digestion, right, we have our mechanical, which is our chewing chemical digestion is going to include your stomach acid, all your pancreatic enzymes and your bile.

So stomach acid. We got to talk to the big man upstairs at some point about this. I don't understand why we're designed this way, but it down regulates as we age. We have, the stats are that I have seen is 40% less stomach acid at the age of 40 than we did at 20. But on top of that stress. And then if you are doing something like a vegan vegetarian diet where it's very low protein, the body is like, I don't necessarily need this much stomach acid because I don't

have enough like protein, right? So stomach acid is there to do 2 things, help you breakdown protein into amino acids and also to protect you from different viruses, bacteria, parasites that you might be exposed to. Very, very important. A lot of people have heartburn, acid reflux or GERD. They think that it's too much stomach acid and that's not actually true. 9 out of 10 times it's too little stomach acid. And the mechanism there, I

always give this example. If you think of a smoothie, if you're going to make a smoothie in a blender and you put a bunch of greens in there and frozen fruits and veggies, but you don't put any water, any juice or anything to blend it, how's that smoothie going to come out? Probably not real tasty. Super, super thick, maybe chunky, right? So this is what stomach acid does. It's the juice. It's the kind of water to really blend things and get it to this really small.

We call it chyme, right? That's really broken down molecules that can then move into the small intestine to be absorbed. So if we're not having enough stomach acid, we're going to experience downstream effects with the bloating, the gas, the bacterial overgrowth, you know, Constipation issues. And I just think it's really important to think digestion north to South.

And so to your point of like the bile, for example, if your liver and gallbladder is doing well, like, yeah, your body should be doing what it should do. And you should be able to flip in and out of, you know, high fat or low fat or whatever that is for you and feel okay digestively if things are running optimally. But we also want to support stomach acid too. And as you do that, maybe you're taking a supplemental potain HCL stomach acid support for a

period of time. Well, your body should start to up regulate the production and so then you can wean off of it. The caveat that I give here is because stress depletes stomach acid along with other vitamins and minerals you might consider in high stress times like pregnancy, postpartum, right? That's a very nutrient demanding time and also very nutrient depleting time. Don't go towards the peptid.

If you have heartburn and you're pregnant, go towards the betaine HCL or apple cider vinegar or something that's going to actually support stomach acid levels so that you can absorb all the nutrients that you're consuming. It's a big difference between ingestion, right? And digestion, actually being able to absorb it. So those are two things that I think a lot of people miss. And again, I wish conventional medicine talked about these

things from a reference. There is a really good book called Why Stomach Acid is Good for You. It's written by a doctor and he calls out conventional medicine and pharmaceutical companies and all the PPI's that they put people on because that is so damaging to the body. We see a lot of malabsorption, we see a lot of liver burden and even some liver diseases that are associated with long term

use of PPI. So if you read the pamphlet, it says they're very clearly short term, like 6-8 weeks while you work on maybe some other things and then you're off of it because it suppresses your stomach acid and stomach acid is so, so important. And part of the importance of that too is also signaling to your pancreas into your gallbladder to release, hey, we got stuff here. We need to, you know, digest, give me some bile, give me some pancreatic enzymes. So it's all important.

And so I think it just is going to be based upon your biofeedback, how you're feeling as to what you need and maybe then how much. So from a dosing perspective. You mentioned that for people with gallbladders, I like a product called Beta Plus and I want to say it's 125 milligrams if I'm not mistaken. But you can alternate size of the meal or every other meal, maybe what you want to take and see how you feel one to two, maybe you need more, you know, I

don't know. If you don't have a gallbladder, generally some people are in the the ballpark of like 500 milligrams, sometimes 1000 milligrams. Again, going to be person kind of independent there and and what their biofeedback is telling them with all the things

that I mentioned before. So without a gallbladder, it's probably safe to say that one would likely need to supplement the bile salts and a stomach acid supplement pretty much on a daily basis, especially if they're following a higher fat, lower carb approach. Absolutely. For the bile salts, bile acids, I want to say yes. For stomach acid, I believe that everybody should be supporting with stomach acid at least, you know, again, cycling it in certain seasons, thinking about stress.

I don't think anybody in the world today is lacking stress. So, you know, a big part of that too is like, are you eating in a rush on the go or are you sitting down with your meals and you're getting in a calm state, You're not distracted, you're chewing your food really well. Again, 20 to 30 times. So it's really I, I not throwing rocks at a glass house here because this is real hard, especially with a newborn and just life in general. It's really hard.

I keep supporting that. Chemical digestion is very important. Absolutely. I'm curious what your thoughts are regarding the chemical digestion and the mechanical digestion. Do you have a take on what a species appropriate diet is for us as humans? Because like we look at other animals and there's no question as to what they're supposed to eat. Like they just nobody has to tell them what to eat. They just know what is a species

appropriate diet. Whereas with humans, there's, you know, hardcore vegans out there, hardcore carnivores and everything in between. But when you look at the stomach acid concentration that we have a species have, it's more similar to that of, you know, vultures and you know, animals that are predominantly carnivore. And you've got the fact that we do not have a room and we don't have a four chambered stomach. We don't have a very we don't have a cecum like that of a orangutan.

That's obviously, you know, eating a lot more plants. When you look at it from a mechanical standpoint, do you think there is a species appropriate that for us or is there not really good argument to be made for us eating extreme one or the other? Yeah, I'm really not for the extremes. And a large reason is I believe that the more diversity that have in your diet and there's a lot of research around this and things that we can you know, look up and link here. But we are we are made of

bacteria, right? We have trillions of different types of bacteria in our gut. And so when we go really, really far one side, you know, or the other, we're not then feeding certain microbes or bacteria that are really important, you know, and so that plays a big role with our immune system. So if we have more of a diverse diet and you know, we're able to tolerate that because that's a different conversation, right?

Like somebody could be going on what they feel is the right thing for them, whether it's carnivore or keto or vegan or just whatever they might be airing towards one side or the other. Yet their body is telling them like I can't stomach this. I don't feel well. My energy dips after I'm having bloating, I'm having gas like upset stomach, gurgling, abdominal pain, all those things. Well, we can look at a gut microbiome test and see maybe what's off within their

bacterial balance, right? But I find that most people get into this place of dysbiotic bacteria, not necessarily because of diets like what we're talking about that are more one ingredient, Whole Foods, but more so because they're stressed out. They're running around with their hair on fire. They're eating ultra processed foods. They are drinking way too much sugar and carbonated beverages and just, you know, things like even coffee. I love coffee, but coffee is

notorious for mold. Like are you getting a good organic mold free certified coffee or are you getting that coffee that's sold at the dollar store, you know, that's been sitting on the shelf? Who knows where it's coming from? So I personally don't air on the side of the extremes. I think the person needs to find

what's right for them. And I think that going through different seasons of diet variation is very important for, you know, a variety of factors like the immune system, metabolic flexibility, you know, really supporting, again, resilience. So if I go on vacation, I'm not ending up in a state where I feel awful, 7 pounds, 10 lbs up coming home because my body is like, what the heck? I never knew how to, like, handle this stuff.

Or I've been on a very restrictive protocol for so long and then I just fell off the Cliff, right? It's, it's just like you said, your body is going to up regulate and down regulate some of the chemical digestion, if that's what you're calling for it. And I, I believe that is a great design that we have internally, but most people don't wean themselves off of these type of

really restrictive diets, right? They're like, I'm going to do this until I go on vacation and then I'm just going ham. And then they're like, why am IA wreck? And I'm bloated and I look, I'm six months pregnant, You know what I mean? So I don't know if that answers your question, but I don't err on the side of like you have to be this is the only way to eat for the rest of your life. Yeah, no, totally. I mean, me personally, I eat. I don't consider myself carnivore because I'll have some

vegetation from time to time. I don't eat a lot of vegetation, though my wife does. So I'll occasionally have, you know, a big plate of Brussels sprouts cooked in bacon, broccoli, something of that nature. And I don't eat enough of it for me to feel great to when I do. Like, I can tell that it's kind of, you know, out, out of the mind norm. And a lot of people in the hardcore carnivore space look at them. They just throw their hands up in the spell.

Oh, I'm definitely supposed to eat veggies. But it's like they're eating nothing but rib eyes for six months straight and they have a salad, and then they don't feel great. But it's not really a surprise because their gut microbiome needs to acclimate to that ingestion. Yes, yeah. I mean, it's just like if you were on a keto diet, right? And then you just fell off the Cliff and you ate pizza and, you know, burger and fries or whatever.

Like, you know, are you going to have what you need to break down the carbohydrates and, you know, what's your pancreas doing? So I, I agree with you and I think that people we need to recognize that a lot of these diets were designed temporarily,

right? When we think about even the ketogenic diet, the therapeutic ketogenic diet that was designed to help, you know, people that are needing to get into autophagy and, you know, calm things down in the body and, you know, fight cancer and all of these things. And it's a diet that people have then thought, well, this is a diet lifestyle. Like that's the diet that I should just do for the rest of my life. It's kind of like vegan, vegan and vegetarians.

And that's fine. If you want to do those things and you feel good doing those things, I'm a support for that because again, everyone is very bio individual. And I also believe too, we have to take into the mental emotional aspect here that some people are like, you know what? It's just easier for me to live this way because I know that if I don't, maybe I am eating the entire can of Pringles or I'm craving, you know, all these things.

And so I'm a fan of whatever suits you, that allows you to feel your best. But then also, let's be mindful that we should fill the gaps of maybe things that we're not getting. And so again, for like a vegan or vegetarian diet, who's not getting a lot of exposure to one of the most nutrient dense sources on the planet, right?

Whether it's organs or just beef, then OK, let's give you like a good B complex or a liver supplement, something along those lines to just help replace what essentially is lost or what's missing because you're not diversifying your diet. Totally agree. I think there's a lot of benefits to, it's kind of a different topic, but on the same

page. So I'm a big advocate for having periods of time where you're in a strategic, you know, caloric surplus, there's benefits behind there and then counteracting that with strategic periods, time in a deficit. That's why you know me as a natural bodybuilder, I'll have a competition prep and then I'll spend more time than not in a

surplus building muscle. I feel like a lot of people miss the boat because they'll just chronically under eat or they're they'll chronically overeat, neither of which is optimal. There's a yin Yang there. But from a digestive standpoint alone, what is optimal in that regard? Because like, it's probably not optimal for us as a species to be just constantly snacking all day long.

Like I think when I'm in a surplus, I don't ever do extended fast when I'm in a deficit because that's a stressor on the body in and of itself. But when I'm in a surplus eating a lot in abundance, I will do a strategic extended fast to give my digestion a breather. From that, you know, taxation of taking in more food and being more active throughout the day. Is there any thoughts towards how frequently one should eat to optimize overall digestive function? Yeah, so I agree with you.

We are not meant to just be grazing all day long. I forget the stats I heard recently. It was like somewhere in the ballpark of people are snacking and eating like 17 times a day. I think it's wild. Right. And if I'm left to my own devices, I mean, if I'm left to my own devices, like before knowing what I know, yeah, I would. You know, I used to think, oh, I got to eat 5 small meals a day. I used to tell clients that like 10 years ago, I got to eat my 5-6 small meals a day for fat loss.

Really, you know, three to four hours when we think about, you know, peristalsis and motility and moving things through the digestive tract about every three to four hours is what I would say between your meals is good for me. Right now though, I am in a, like I mentioned before, a fasting window and I'm not trying to just slash my calories. Some people will do that, right? They're going to use intermittent fasting and as a way to diet, but they're just slashing calories.

And so I have found that within this window, I can get two solid meals in. And if I'm not where I need to be, you know, calorically, then I might fit in a snack in between there and then I'm fasting again. You know, so if you're somebody who's not doing some of these longer fasting windows, I think every three to four hours, like you're having a breakfast, maybe a lunch and then your dinner.

Or like you said, if I am having this time frame where I'm having larger meals, then I'm fasting deeper between. But part of the reason why this is important for digestion is that any time that you start snacking and you bring food in, the motility and the peristalsis, the motor migrating complex is not doing its thing. And so that kind of puts a halt to it, right? And so it's like these 90 minute wave like motions that we get to move food through the digestive

tract. But then you're disrupting that if you're eating every 60 minutes, you know, or whatever. So I think that people, you know, really should not be grazing all day long and that they should be eating well-rounded meals that also support their blood sugar levels. Again, if that's more on a low carb side, cool. If it's more Mediterranean based, cool. But again, most people in our society, they do what I used to do. They eat processed packaged foods.

They're stopping at Starbucks with a sugary latte and like a bagel or something. There's not protein there, no nutritional value to that. And then they're wondering why their blood Sugar's all over the the place. They're crashing, they're feeling like crap, they're craving for more carbs. And so they're making more poor choices, Right. So I think that's, you know, you have to find what works for you and then go through season. So I 100% agree with you on the periodization aspect.

I kind of liken this to, you know, sports where you're in season, you're offseason, then you're coming back and kind of doing like the the prep work and the practice and working on your skills. You know, you should go through seasons, you know, where you're doing different things, where yes, you are in a deficit to achieve a specific goal, then you're reversing out of it, right?

Then maybe you're on vacation for a week and you just enjoy life and you don't stress about every morsel that goes in your mouth weighing your food, all the things. And then maybe you're going into that surplus to where your goal is muscle mass, right? You're putting on lean muscle tissue if you can. And of course, with that, you're probably going to gain a little bit of fat. So then you're going to want to go back into cycling into the deficit. So I agree with you there.

And obviously the choices that people make within all of those times is going to be based upon what their individual goals are and what, you know, again, they feel best with. No, totally agree with the honor of France. It's, it's exciting to talk to somebody that like views things the same way that's not a competitor because like I speak to things from a competitor standpoint, but like the clients that work with, I mean, most of them are not competitors.

But like we're all humans. So having periods of time and a deficit, periods of time and a surplus, embracing a little bit of body fat that comes when you're in a surplus, reversing out of a deficit in a healthy manner. Like these are all foreign concepts of so many people that are not competitors. But it's like everybody would benefit from this, whether you ever plan on stepping on stage

or not. Yeah. And you know, when we talk about metabolic flexibility, that allows you to be metabolically flexible, that your body knows, like, hey, I've been here before, I'm good. But instead we have this whole camp of people who have just chronically died. I think, you know, women, if you talk to your girlfriends like they're always on a diet, right? Most of them, the better you want, you know who your friends are, but you know, all the crazes.

And then we have the GLP wands and we have the HCG diet and we had the fat free diet, right? We had all these different crazes over the past, you know, a few decades and people are so lost and they're like, well, what the heck then? Do I eat? Every time you open up social media, something else is demonized, right? And like, I thought this was good for me. And like, what are your thoughts on, you know, well, red meat raises cholesterol, eggs raise cholesterol.

Hopefully, if you guys listen to this podcast, you know that's not true. You've seen the evidence, the research, like, you know, it's not true. It's just fear mongering and then people just get so overwhelmed that then they're kind of like in this paralyzed mode and there's like, F it, right? They get the case of that. I'm just going to go and eat what I want because everything is bad for me. I'm going to die eventually anyway.

And so, you know, I hope that we can also start to shift on my podcast. We've talked in the past a lot about, you know, reverse dieting, but you know, what's important for your metabolism, for your thyroid to function, for your hormones to be online for women, you know, especially in the physique competitor world. My business partner, she was in, you know, CrossFit for a long

time and competing there. She lost her period for three years, you know, and so it's like, how do we also teach people who do want to focus on aesthetics and compete that there are very, very important things that we need to address in the offseason so that we can maintain good metabolic health and flexibility and hormones and all those things. And then you know that the on season doesn't last 52 weeks of the year, meaning you're not dieting 52 weeks of the year.

Yeah, 100%. I totally agree. I mean, one of my biggest frustrations within the, you know, competitive spaces, so many of them are just, you know, fixated on the calories in calories app model exclusively. And I mean, they'll eat a ton of processed food with no thoughts given towards what that's doing to the gut microbiome, to overall health markers, to blood sugar regulation. So I've been trying to, you know, fight against that, shout that from the rooftops for years, but there's so much

disagreement with everything. It's very, very frustrating. So I think so much of it can be answered simply by eating real food regardless. I don't ever want to be dogmatic or, you know, exist in an information silo where I'm just, you know, hardcore keto for everybody is the only way. But it's like if everybody just ate real food as the majority of their consumption, that would solve so many problems.

And that is an obvious, clear message, yet so few people do it, probably from a convenience standpoint. And that's why we're plagued with all the issues that we have today. Yeah, you know, and I agree with you in terms of like, there are so many people who still believe calories in, calories out is like all that matters. You know, I had an OBGYN say to me when I was tracking my calories at 1200 and, you know, going to the gym, training four to five days a week, doing boot camp.

Don't do boot camp. Please don't do boot camp. Ladies out there listening strength strain, lift heavy shit and walk daily multiple times a day. But you know, she's like, yeah, you just need to eat less and move more. And I was like, it's not working. And so many people are stuck. And so then again, they're resorting to peptides. And I totally support those and, you know, using them in the the

right way. But we just have this still crazy diet culture that people truly are sold on the fact that it's calories and calories out is all that matters. And it's not like when we dive into people's lab work and we're really looking at, you know, blocking factors. How is their gut microbiome doing? How is their liver doing? Are we able to, you know, get the proper signalling to the pancreas for insulin and all of these different things that truly matter, You know, for

metabolic health? For some people, it's not calories and calories out because they've been in a place for so long that they've been trying all the things and they've down regulated the metabolism that they actually in fact need to reverse diet, bring things back online and then go back into a deficit and hopefully see results. But I know there are a lot of people on social media that would just continue that, you know, preaching to the choir

that it's galleries, encounters. I mean, when people come to me and they want to lose weight and I got to tell them, hey, look, we're going to eat more, you're probably going to put on some weight. Like that's a hard sell. People don't get it. But it's like, look, what you've done for the last 20 years clearly isn't working for you. What's your alternative? You know?

Well, I always ask women, You're telling me that you are tired, you are irritable, you're not pooping, you have digestive issues and you've been eating this way for the past 10 years. Where do you want to go from here? Because I can't help you with all of these symptoms. If you think calories are the only thing that matter and that 1200 calories that you have now put as like your, you know, step point. Essentially what I'm going to do is slash you to 600 and then you can't get out of bed.

Your fatigue gets worse, you know, your thyroid down regulates and your all these other symptoms that you're trying to fix, it's just not going to happen. And so we have to also, I think obviously educate and explain the whys behind what we're doing. You know, for a lot of women that I've worked with over the years, I would honestly say for me, with the right strategy to reverse dieting, only about 10% of them, you know, really gained

weight and some of those people. Maybe weren't telling the truth about how consistent that 1200 calories, you know, had been. And so when we get them on a consistent pattern of just eating, OK, maybe we are dropping weights or at, you know, the worst for them, they are maintaining weight, but then they're seeing improvements with the other symptoms, you know, so there's a lot of ways that it can go.

I think, you know, as you know, we just have to be strategic about how we reverse diet someone. And then yes, there are the cases that it is a chance that you're going to put on some weight. And sometimes we have to go, you know, backwards to go forward. You know, the body is going to do what it needs to do. If your body is like, hey, I can't restore a thyroid function. I can't restore adrenal function and, and build these hormones unless I store a little bit more

fat, right? Like your body is pretty Dang smart. Like it's going to do what it needs to do. And if we're playing the long game, we'll get you there, but we can't get you there in a healthy manner to where you are going to feel good and you're going to have optimal biofeedback. Eating 600 calories a day. Never going to happen for anybody. Totally agree. I mean my 2 1/2 year old eats more than that every single day.

So like the idea that we as full grown adults should be consuming the same as a 2 1/2 year old that weighs 34 lbs is just not a realistic expectation. Yeah. And again, you know, it's it's the culture that has been created. And, you know, hopefully people will come around to understanding that a lot of this. I mean, if it was truly that right, then why we have to ask a question? Are so many people obese and overweight?

Right? Like everybody says, like, oh, Weight Watchers worked for me. No, it didn't work for you because you've done it 12 times. Like if it worked for you, you would be sitting here telling me like, I've gotten to a place where I can maintain. I'm doing an Instagram Live tomorrow. And I have actually some some funny questions. And one of them is like, do you track your food? And I'm like, I can't tell you

the last time I tracked my food. Like I just even in this cut that I'm doing right now, essentially like it's working, I'm eating. I mean, obviously the knowledge is there so I don't have to put everything on a scale. Like I can look at things. But it's just, you know, I think that we also get so dogmatic sometimes with some of these things that people lose sight of how to eat.

Like you said, normal real food, how to build a meal and just get nourishment in and not focus so much on the calories but rather focus on the nourishment and what that food is going to do for our body. 100% I'm curious, do you have a take on? Yeah, obviously we're on the same page when it comes to hyper palatable processed foods, too much sugar. Do you have a take one with the other when it comes to seed oils, I mean, that's like the hype right now.

Seed oil, some people demonize it, some people say it's no issue whatsoever. Do you have thoughts on it, especially as it pertains to digestion? Digestion health overall? Yeah. So I think I believe in the principle of hermesis, right? First of all, you're never going to avoid all seed oils. They're just unless you're living under a rock or you're like you're making everything yourself. Even some of the healthier, right.

Alternatives to processed packaged foods are going to have some what they define as seed oils, right? So whether that's like sunflower oil or you know what not, there is some evidence that I have seen that if it's a good quality, like organic cold pressed, you know, type of the processing, you know, you can have some of those oils in your diet and not have an inflammatory reaction.

I think what people don't realize when we're talking about the research out there regarding the inflammatory response with seed oils is it's a lot to do with the the chemical processing, right And where it's going rancid. Because, you know, the, the other thing we have to think about too is like, even if you have olive oil, but you're cooking in a super high, you know, temperature, that's going to turn that rancid and not be good for the body either.

So I believe that, you know, for me and the way that we run our households, we minimize them at all costs. But I'm not going to never go out to eat and enjoy a meal with my family because it's not going to be, you know, made with tallow, right? So I think that everybody's threshold is a little bit different. Of course, if you are constantly eating fried foods and you're cooking with vegetable oil and canola oil and all that stuff, we know that they're more pro inflammatory.

Do I think that it is the thing to focus on? Not necessarily. I think people need to learn how to eat 1 ingredient Whole Foods. And if they have some fried food every once in a while, they're not going to die, right? You're going to be OK. But it's the overall inflammation load to the body. And so for that, that's where I go back to. And I think about what is in my environment, my air quality, my water quality, especially drinking, you know, filtered water.

What am I putting on my skin every single day? My body wash, right? My makeup, my all the things that, you know, men and women use just for their personal care products. Your toothpaste, you know, all those things I think matter more before we get into the weeds of like, Oh my gosh, they had something that was like not grass fed or, you know, had some granola oil in it or whatever.

So, you know, I guess I'm not really answering your question directly there, but there's evidence on both sides. Some people are going to tell you that, you know, there's no harm in it at all. I'm going to say that we can see it before our own eyes, right? We have fast food and restaurants that use these oils because they're cheaper and we have people who are more obese and more disease than ever. So there's definitely a correlation. Is it causation? We can't say that in small

amounts. Think your body should be able to handle it just fine. It's not going to be something that is going to make you, you know, obese or 'cause, you know, a heart attack. But it's the amount, the devil's in the dose that people are using. So I'm going to air on the side of avocado, olive oil, you know, beef tallow, grass fed butter, those types of things for my main sources. And then if I go out to eat or go on vacation, I'm not going to freak out that it's going to be

in canola or vegetable oil. Yeah, no, I, I agree on all fronts. I mean, I, I look at how things are processed quite a bit and I don't think it's the, you know, the reason we are in the obesity epidemic that we are now.

But it's like just from a critical thinking, common sense standpoint, like if they have to deodorize it in order to make it palatable, I probably don't want to consume it as the as a norm, but I'm not going to like go way out of my way from a convenience standpoint to avoid it if I'm at a restaurant or something on the occasional time I do with my family. Like you got to be able to live with the reality that we're in right now. Yeah, yeah.

I have a good friend, Ben Azadi, and he created this card. I'm sure you've seen his card, his allergy card. And I think that's awesome, right? I do. I think that's awesome and I fully support it. I'm probably not taking it with me to every restaurant. Yeah, no, for sure. Ben's a great guy. I just, I mean, I eat super

simple restaurants when I eat. I mean, I get like a steak and salad and I typically ask them if they cook it or what they cook it in and if I have the option, I'll have them cook it in butter. But like that's the extent that I'll go with it, you know? I just had two and if people go out to eat for breakfast, I'll always say, hey, can you throw that? Can you make my eggs in butter? Right? Little simple swaps. I'll say, hey, you know, can you give me something on the side,

right? A dressing or whatever so I can control again, maybe how much I'm being exposed to. Or I'll just choose a vinegar Retz, you know, So I think there's a lot of things that people can do to minimize the exposures, but I just don't believe that anybody who is because I think that food is, it's so nourishing to the body, But we can't neglect the non-toxic culture can become really toxic really fast and stress people out, like I said.

And you can't neglect that food is also social and it's also emotional for some people, right? Like my mom passed away in 2017. And there are things that I think about, you know, or I just know, you know, from her in terms of, for example, her favorite German chocolate cake or Margarita, right? So sometimes, you know, around her birthday or the anniversary of her passing of like, I'm going to have this, you know, in commemoration of mom or something. And we just can't stress about

every single little thing. Like you have to recognize that people can become so like over the top with trying to avoid all these things and demonize everything that's, you know, again, you're just going to push people. I think from a functional medicine standpoint, it's just going to push people away because they're going to say, this is too much. You guys are crazy.

I don't I can't live this way. I can't ever enjoy my life, you know, and do the things that I would like to do with my family and my friends. And so I think we have to find kind of this way of sharing with them that it's all right not to be perfect 110% of the time. And I try to portray that, you know, on my social media in our podcast too. Like I have my nails done. I know it's toxic. Apparently my dip manicure is toxic, but it makes me feel

good. And I do a lot of other things in my life to lower the toxic load or exposures to these things that you have to pick and choose what is important to you and what aligns with your values. Because if you don't, you won't maintain it as a lifestyle. Well, is your way too rational? How are you ever going to make it big in social media if you don't over sensationalize everything and become incredibly dogmatic? What's the thing? I know.

I'm I'm I'm told that I need to be more repelling, but. No, I. Have a hard time with that? It's so pleasant because like everything you've said, I agree with you 100%. It's like, I'm glad you have a podcast because more rational people need to have a podcast and get this message out so that people can find peace in their life and have a good trajectory, a good path forward. But like, you know, not obsessed about the things that don't matter or major in the minors. Yeah, exactly.

And I think that's where some people get so caught up with all these little things that until you have think about it like a, you know, a pyramid, you know, or until you have the foundation really set. Like you're doing the things that you need to be doing. You're hydrating, you're getting some good electrolytes in, you're walking, you're moving your bowels everyday. Like you're getting good quality

food as much as you can organic. If not, you know, get at least the clean 15 dirty dozen type thing until you have some of those really solid foundations. All this other stuff, I think like really doesn't matter until you want to get into the weeds and you're looking at truly optimizing. I do think that people have to start to go to pay attention.

I have a lot of people recently just constantly saying like their struggle is bloating in gas and you know, Constipation is part of that, but just bloating in gas, bloating in gas, bloating in gas. And I'm like, are you taking the time to slow down and to think about like all the things that can impact one becoming bloated? Because we talked a lot about chemical digestion and food and all that stuff too.

But there are so many products out there that have, you know, like sugar free, you know, or these sugar alcohols or artificial sweeteners in there that could be triggering somebody. And, you know, they think they're doing the right thing and they probably are from maybe a macro calorie standpoint aligning with where they need to be. But then they're not truly looking at like all the other ingredients in that. And I take myself as an example here.

Long ago, I was doing Quest bars and I would constantly be bloated and gas like I didn't want to be around myself. Why I kept eating those things, I don't know. Well, I didn't know then what I know now. But like all the sugar alcohols and the artificial fiber in there, my body did not handle. And so even though it fit that weight loss goal, that macro right where I was getting my high protein and doing all the things right.

Like I think we have to use wisdom and discernment to recognize that there are things that are your body's going to tell you. Like, I don't want this. I don't, I can't handle this, right? This is not something that I like. So pay attention to that and don't ignore it. But in terms of what you see on social media, don't go over the top with this and this and this and like nitpicking things.

If you're seeing good progress, your biofeedback is good, you're feeling pretty good when you got the foundations laid and then you want to optimize, you want to get curious about something and start to look at, you know, things a little bit deeper, Absolutely do that. But for somebody who's coming from a standard American diet, who wants to, you know, get a bit healthier, we would totally overwhelm that person by talking about sugar alcohols if that was the first thing that we brought

up, you know? Yeah, it's classy 8020 stuff like figure out the low hanging fruit, dial that in first. Once you've got that established, then move on to the next thing as you so choose. But yeah, don't, don't major in the minors right up, right at the gates. It's just that's that's it's going to not going to be sustainable for you're going to deviate and be back in square one in no time. You know, totally random, but in regards to your quest bar analogy, our story, do you

tolerate Allulose very well? I honestly haven't had it in a really long time. I try to stay away from anything with OSE. I generally try to steer more towards stevia or monk fruits. So I don't know if I tolerate Allulose because I just, I haven't had it in anything particular that I can think of. Yeah, I mean, it's super hot right now because it's, it's technically a sugar, but it's a, it's favorable from AGLP 1 standpoint. It's supposed to increase satiety.

It's supposed to have all these perks to it. I've have a few podcasts on Allulose. But like if I have something with allulose, my personal, you know, I, I respond similar to if I eat something with, you know, a lot of erythritol or sucralose or Ace K in there, like Stevie and Monk food are my kind of go to safe bets.

I don't respond that well to allulose, but some people seem to not have any issues with it. So just curious if you had a take on it. Yeah, I think it's going to be watch the feedback that your body gives you, you know, and again, so many people, and I see this more and more so with the bodybuilders that I've worked with in the past, like their goal is their goal and their eye is set on the prize, and they're kind of swooping all these other symptoms under the rug.

And then I think for the women that I work with, the population, especially, you know, moms, so many people think that it's just normal. It's mom life. My brain fog, my bloating, like whatever, those things are not normal. And so we're sweeping things under the rug until it's really roaring its head. It's like screaming or slapping you in the face, you know, to listen. So I think for people get curious, maybe keep a food and mood journal.

That's what I do, you know, for some of my clients coming in, it's like, all right, just get get curious here. What did you have for lunch? How did you feel a couple hours after? How was your mood? How was your satiety? How was your digestion? How was your energy? What are you noticing? And patterns and trends there if things aren't the way that you want them to be. And that can be like you mentioned before, Brussels sprouts with bacon, one of my favorite things. I have a threshold.

I can have it and be good, but if I meal prepped that by Thursday, Friday, I'd definitely be gassy and and not feeling too hot, right? Like I think it's just be curious and look for patterns and trends and then know that, hey, these are things that I can have on my like sometimes list and these are things that I can have on my anytime list. And then maybe there's things that you just don't agree with

right now. So you might need to cut it out for a period of time and then, you know, come back to it. Kind of what we talked about before with different diets from a gut perspective, Gosh, I get a lot of people like coming into our practice who have done low FODMAP for like years or SIBO specific carbohydrate for years. And it's not the food, it is your gut micro Biome. It is the dysbiotic bacteria and the insufficiencies that you have that we need to address.

And then we should be able to bring those things back in and eat a diverse diet. And I have several, you know, cases and clients that I've worked with that it's amazing for them to see just how much they can tolerate now that they couldn't before. Because that's quality of life.

If you can't go on vacation and enjoy something or you're sitting there and you're nervous like I'm going to poo my pants or, you know, have to go back to the hotel room because I am crumbled over in pain, that's not a way to enjoy life at all. So we want to have diverse diet too, so that we can, you know, enjoy those times and not have all that backlash and again, right, feed the good bacteria and get all those nutrients in and have short chain fatty acids produced and all the things that

we need. But just watch that biofeedback and get curious with yourself and, and ask yourself like, how is this sitting with me? Even if it's your favorite quest bar that you microwaved and it tastes like cookie dough like I used to do, if it doesn't fit with you, you know, sit with you. Well, it's got to go find

something else. Yeah, I mean, just getting more and too into your body and actually listening to what it's telling you I think is a huge skill set that people have definitely lost touch with over the years. But I mean, just being able to do that, become more in tune with things, I mean, that's going to give people so many answers right there that they're not going to find easily on Google, you know? And that other people can't tell you, right? Like I don't, I'm not in your

body. I can't feel this. I can't sense this. And I think a lot of it is because we're so distracted, right? We're distracted with social media, we're distracted with work, whatever it might be, right? So again, kind of what I mentioned before, if you can sit down with your meals, try not to eat distracted sitting there, you know, with your computer up or on your phone or whatever. And sometimes you have to do that.

To be honest with you, the way that my schedule is, I generally do that with my lunch, but I try to be mindful then of I'm not inhaling my food and I'm setting my fork down and I'm really chewing my food. Maybe as I'm reading an e-mail.

It's not the best thing to do, but it's better than just, you know, sitting there scarfing something down while you're watching TV or, you know, while you're doing something on your computer and, you know, not at least giving your body the due diligence of chewing your food to alleviate stress on the chemical digestion. So I know that most people are in this distracted state that they don't even make

correlations. They don't even pay attention to those silent symptoms or not so silent, right, but subtle symptoms that they're having. And your body can teach you a lot. It's not anything that I can, you can tell them. I can tell them Google machine can tell them, their doctors can tell them.

It's up to you because you're with yourself all the time to really be able to be that health detective and, and kind of, you know, like I just said, get get curious and then track it and look for correlations and trends. Well, to to make this totally full circle here, if you have a family, you got kids, make it a point to sit down and eat dinner with them as a family and just focus on them. Like I come home, I don't get to see my kid most most of the day.

My wife's with them all day long and just sitting down and having dinner with him. It's the best thing ever. And I refuse to like be on my phone or computer because I want to watch him try to eat. 2 1/2 you said. Yeah, his first meal, his first real food was like a big old massive beef knuckle bone that he was gnawing on. So that was good. But yeah, he's he's a dinner time is always, always fun, for sure. Messy, I'm sure these days we're headed back there.

He's pretty like now is to the point where he like goes out of his way to make a mess. So it's a. It's interesting. It's like his entertainment. Yeah. I mean, so our son is 5 1/2 and he, he's pretty good. It's really cute. Like he says the prayer and, you know, he makes everybody sit and stop. He's a lot like me as a a child, very bossy at the dinner table. But you know, then it's just what we we've dealt with and we have, I don't know why.

Well, they're old chairs, but they're kind of like that cream colored chair. And now it's just like when he's getting into whatever he might be eating, it's like, dude, you know, not to drop food on the floor anymore. You know that you need to have a placement here and how to eat with a fork and knife all these things. But what you don't know and you haven't learned is don't touch the chairs with your greasy hands or whatever. You know, it might be his, his pasta that he's eating last

night. Oh my God, so it's always fun times as parents. But yes, dinner time is very important. I would agree with you there for sure. Well. Liz, I can probably talk to you in another two hours no problem, but be respectful of your time here. What? Where, Where do people go to find out more about you? What are you? What are you excited about going for the year, the year 2025?

What's on the radar? Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram at the Poop Queen. Our podcast is the Health Revival Show. And then, you know, our website is Fit Mom life.com. What I am most excited about this year is we are actually going to be doing a Fit Mom Live event. So two days in Chicago, September 5th and 6th. It's going to be a women's event where we're going to be talking all things metabolism, hormones, gut health, weight loss and just really helping women connect.

With each other and breaks down some limiting beliefs of things that might be kind of holding them back. So I'm excited for that. We've been talking about doing a live event for, gosh, I don't know, several years and I'm just really looking forward to that. So that's what's on my kind of radar and thought process right now. Awesome. And when will people be able to register for that event? Yes. So we will have presale tickets probably in the next two weeks.

I'm not sure when this podcast will air. I'll be talking about it of course on social media once we get the the landing page and everything up. Right now we've just solidified venues, solidified some speakers that are gonna be flying in. We've got some really cool people coming in, some mentors of mine, and then also a good friend of mine actually from Canada, she's coming all the way from Canada. She's gonna be talking about menopause and strength training and how to train through that

season of life. So we're just excited and putting the agenda together and then we'll have tickets available probably in the next two weeks. Awesome. That is super exciting. We started doing live events this year as well and it's just, it's so fulfilling. I mean, meet people face to face and just building memories in ways that you can't through an Instagram DM. Like it's it's hard to beat for

sure. Yeah, I think that's my husband and I used to own a all women's strength training gym and we sold it in COVID and it's the connection aspect is just so different. Like I do a lot of telehealth and I'm on Zoom with my clients. So we get to build that, you know, relationship, but it's different when you're in person.

It's just so much energy, right? And that's what we really want to bring because I know that many women, especially through the past four or five years are starving for that in terms of really having good connection with like minded people. Because I don't know how it is in your world, But most of the people that we work with, you know, they're on this health journey because they're sick and they have, you know, a lot of things going on and they don't have a choice.

But in their home, you know, maybe their husband doesn't necessarily support it. They're ordering pizza and going through the drive through all the time. And so they feel sometimes just alone. It could be like that for, you know, people you work with too. I'm sure competitors or whatnot. Like they're bringing their food with them everywhere if they're in season. And I'm sure it's always helpful to have like minded people to talk to and connect with. So yeah, we're excited for them.

Yeah, you got to ask him. Come, Roger. Well, I got no doubt that you'll bring the house down there. That's super exciting. I'm stoked for you. I will definitely link out. Make it easy, people to find you. And Liz, if there's everything I can do for you, by all means, let me know. I've truly enjoyed the conversation here. Awesome. Thank you so much. Take care.