S3E37 Maria Emmerich
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
maria, eat, keto, people, recipes, carnivore, food, feel, book, lives, low carb, ketones, anymore, healthy, cook, kids, worked, protein, longer, slow cooker
Announcer 00:10
He was a morbidly obese surgeon destined for an operating table and an early death. Now he's a rebel MD who is Fabulously Fit and fighting to make America healthy again. This is Stay Off My Operating Table with Dr. Philip Ovadia.
Jack Heald 00:36
Welcome back gang. It's the Stay Off My Operating Table podcast with Dr. Philip Ovadia. I'm Jack Heald. And we are joined today by Maria Emmerich, whom I'm anxious to, well, we'll just let you set the table, Phil, get the thing going. And then I'm going to ask some questions, because I have questions for this woman.
Dr. Philip Ovadia 01:00
Yeah, I'm really excited to have this conversation with Maria. Many of my audience may be familiar with her. But there are probably some that aren't. Maria is again, one of the I would say OG keto-carnivore people that I started following very early on in my journey, was very excited that we finally got to meet up in person a little while back when we were doing the filming in Costa Rica for the Reversed Carnivore series, which should be coming out soon. And it’s just great to get to meet her in person and to get to know her a little bit more. But she really has been doing this for a long time, promoting this for a long time. And she's got a great story of her own to tell about metabolic health. So, I'll leave it at that for now, because we're gonna get into all the good stuff that Maria does. But Maria, why don't you just give a little introduction and a little bit of your background to our audience?
Maria Emmerich 02:14
Well, thank you, Dr. Philip. I don't think I knew that you were a fan or a follower or whatever. Because in Costa Rica, I was so busy cooking the whole time. I didn't have, I didn't actually get to talk to people. I was like, I was always making... We always had guests coming. And they're like, can you make some cardboard deviled eggs for the dancers coming and so it was kind of like a whirlwind. But thank you for that. Yes, I actually just celebrated my 26th keto anniversary this past month. When I was a teenager, I wasn't feeling well so I went to the family doctor. And at that doctor's visit, she told me I had something called PCOS, which we now know is basically a type two diabetes that affects female fertility. I was given something for depression. I was given a prescription for acid reflux, and I was given a prescription for IBS. And I looked at these prescriptions being like, dude, I'm 16. Like, I'm supposed to take these, like, I just thought that was kind of wild. And she said, it was nothing I was doing wrong. It was the cards I was dealt, but let me tell you, at the time, I worked at a coffee shop where before school started, I would go to the coffee shop, and I would make the scones and the muffins and the cinnamon rolls and whatever didn't sell, I would go back to the coffee shop after school is over and we would close about 5:30. Whatever didn't sell, I got to go home with, so I was making extra cinnamon rolls so I would have dinner. You think I'm kidding and I'm not. And I lived off of mochas, because they were free. So, I was just drinking milk as all the time. And at the time, that same week, I took my beautiful golden retriever, who was losing patches of her hair, to the vet. And the first question the vet asked me was, what are you feeding her? And I'm not kidding. It was a question that the doctor never asked me. But what's kind of funny now is when they asked me, I'm like none of your business. Don't worry about it, because most of them are like, “you’re gonna die of a heart attack, you know.” But there wasn't the Internet back then, but it was very easy to do some research and find out what causes PCOS, because being told you can't have your own children at age 16 is kind of scary. And it was very clear that excess caffeine, sugar and carbohydrates cause this. So, I had to really take a good look at what my diet was and living in Wisconsin, that's the culture is food, right? It's beer and pretzels. And so, I just started to recreate, like recreating my favorite things like cinnamon rolls and pretzels into these exotic low carb protein packed recipes. And I just kind of kept them a secret. I would make them so for some friends and family, but long story short, I met my husband at the young age of 17 and I was married before I could drink alcohol legally. And he was like, let's adopt children.
Jack Heald 05:25
I think it's interesting that you added the qualifier legally there.
Maria Emmerich 05:30
Legally, yes, right. I drink alcohol before I could. But now, once I turned 21, it wasn't fun anymore. But my husband said let's adopt children. So, we started adopting children. I went to school for Nutrition and Exercise Physiology. But I was a rock-climbing guide right out of college, because I was going to be a stay-at-home mom. I just, I really wanted to be a mom. That was my goal. And when he lost his job, that's who had insurance, that's who paid for the house, that's who paid for the cars. We basically, the bank took our house, we sold our cars, we had nothing. And someone said, well, Maria, why don't you write a cookbook or a nutrition book to raise money for your adoption? Like, that's a good idea. So, I literally rode my bicycle to the library, because I didn't have a computer and I started writing. And it was, people loved it. And now like before you know it, like Halle Berry has my books and Al Roker has my books. He’s making my recipes on TV. And it was just like, wow this is just crazy. And I'm still grateful. I'm really grateful for those hard times because I still live pretty simply and it helped me bring me my children. So.
Dr. Philip Ovadia 06:49
Yeah, just amazing story. And even though I heard it before, it still inspires me and it’s so great. Where did your, where did the cooking come from? Where did your love of cooking come from? And how'd you get into being a chef?
Maria Emmerich 07:11
Not my mom. She doesn’t like to cook. I just love food. I like delicious food. I think we all want delicious food, right? But I just knew that in order to get all those flavors, I have to like, I just had to kind of figure it out. I'm a chemist by nature, like figuring out will it work? Will it taste good with this and that? I think it's fun to play around with flavors, see what works. And I don't know. I think everybody wants delicious food, but they also want it to be healthy. Right? I think that's the problem. People have a hard time finding healthy food that's also delicious. And I think, I don't know, I don't feel deprived at all, my kids don't feel deprived. We're pretty loved. We're loving the food.
Jack Heald 08:03
Okay. Everybody likes to eat. And that tends to be the problem, is not well, it's not that we like to eat. It's what we like to eat. I found some before and after photos of Maria Emmerich. So, in addition to learning how to be healthy, you apparently had to learn how to get healthy. Tell us a little bit about that transformation, when it happened, what your experience was, trying to go from not healthy to healthy?
Maria Emmerich 08:44
That's a really interesting question. I don't think I ever got that.
Jack Heald 08:48
Transformation is what it's all about.
Maria Emmerich 08:50
You're right. And it was very difficult. And I think that's where people get stuck. But I'm a very stubborn German girl, who when someone tells me I can't do it, I'm going to do the opposite. And so, the fact that everybody's like, yeah, you're not gonna, cuz I was literally twice my size and people like, yeah Maria's not gonna get healthy and like my mom, I love her dearly, I hope she watches this. When I was cutting sugar, she made me my favorite pie. People are triggered when you're going to change or when you try to change, they think that you're going to become a different person. They didn't realize I was going to become a better person. But it was very difficult. It would have been very difficult if I wasn't so damn stubborn. But I am very stubborn. And I like the challenge. But I will say weight loss didn't happen right away. But what did happen is my depression boom, like I felt like a different person. I felt like this something lifted, my acid reflux went away. I never needed those prescription drugs; my IBS went away.
Jack Heald 10:05
Okay, you're going a little fast for me. You're a teenager, you've gotten this awful diagnosis, you've been handed a handful of scrip, which you're being told you're going to have to take for God knows how long. You say, no, I'm not going to do that. You do the research, and you make some changes. But I don't think you enumerated exactly what you did. What did you change? And how did it happen?
Maria Emmerich 10:33
Well, I knew that I had to give up sugar and carbohydrates. Caffeine came later.
Jack Heald 10:41
Okay, carbohydrates. And this is what, late 90s? What did that mean to you as carbohydrates?
Maria Emmerich 10:50
Carbohydrates. They meant bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, French fries, all sorts of potato shapes. Potato salad, the Wisconsin thing. Beer, alcohol. But starchy vegetables, I stopped eating fruit. Because I knew, I think fruit is nature's candy. And I think we should be treating it that way. Yeah, I just, the thing is, people were always trying to make me stuff. And so, I said, I have a gluten allergy. So, they, my family got educated on what gluten is. So, they would make me all this rice stuff. Like, yeah, I can't have that either. But what I should have said, which I probably, I wasn't strong enough. I should have said, I am sick. And I'm trying to get healthy. I can't have that anymore. Because I think I would have been respected if I would have said that.
Jack Heald 11:59
Yeah. But alright, so how long did it take? For the obviously physical transformation takes time, but the big component is the mental and emotional transformation. How long did it take until it was really, until this felt like, this is the version of Maria that I'm comfortable living with?
Maria Emmerich 12:25
Well, I don't think I was comfortable with myself for a while. But the fact, within days, I was like, this is it. I like myself.
Jack Heald
Really? Wow.
Maria Emmerich
Yeah. Within days... I mean it took me a while to find food that I really loved. But I liked how I felt, I liked that my stomach didn't hurt anymore. I liked that... I liked that things didn't hurt anymore. Well, I worked at, I volunteered at a nursing home when I was a teenager. And I asked my favorite patient at the hospital, what's the secret to a happy life? And he said, take care of your back. And I was like, is that like a metaphor for something? And he goes, no, if you're living in chronic pain, you can't focus on anything good in your life. Whether that be, you have stomach pain, whether that be, you have back pain, whether, whatever it is, and it's so true. It's so true. I couldn't focus on the good things because I always felt bad. I don't want to feel that way anymore.
Jack Heald 13:37
I'm there with you. So, 20 some odd years ago, you were, this was absolute wackadoodle nobody ever heard of it. Not being familiar with your recipes or your books, I'm going to ask the questions that come from not knowing. How in the world did you come up with these low carb substitutes for the foods you loved? The information, as far as I know, was not widely available 20 some years ago. What in the world did you do? How did you do this?
Maria Emmerich 14:23
It wasn't called keto back then. There was keto for epilepsy seizures. There was Atkins, so a lot of information that I got was research on that, what foods were allowed what but just, you could easily find a information on what is low carb, what are low carb foods, like what foods don't have carbs, whatever. So, focusing my recipes on that, man, I just made a bagel with ground beef, and you think that it's weird, but I have videos of my kids eating like, what the, it's ground beef and chicken and eggs and gelatin and it puffs up like a bagel and it gets bready like a bagel. Like, it's pretty wild. But I told you I'm a chemist, so I like to play with things. But I have this, it's called protein bread. And...
Jack Heald 15:15
That's one of the videos I saw. And I haven't even showed my wife yet. I'm looking forward to that. So yes, please tell us about it.
Maria Emmerich 15:23
Pretty well, that recipe I wrote decades ago, and I've been eating it ever since. But you whip egg whites until they're stiff, you add some dried egg white powder, and salt. So, it's totally carnivore. If you want to get fancy, you can start adding an allulose that helps caramelize the bread to make it brown. And it's just like Wonder Bread. And it's just protein. That's all it is. But that's the kind of stuff I just played in the kitchen. I really felt happy in the kitchen, I still do. Like, I am about to go on a trip, and I'm going to be gone for a while. And I'm going to miss cooking. Like, that's the I'll miss my kids, I'll miss cooking. I love it.
Dr. Philip Ovadia 16:03
Yeah. And, that it's such a great point that you're making because typically, we've been led to believe that getting healthy means restricting. And it's really just about rethinking, you can come up with delicious things to eat, and still be healthy. And I think that's what's so powerful about everything you've been doing and your cookbooks empower people because the doctor, if you're seeing a progressive doctor, and they're like, okay, you should go low carb, and then you leave the office and you're like, well, how do I do this? What does that mean? These are the types of resources that people need to be able to make it work in their daily life.
Maria Emmerich 17:05
Well, I think that's the type of... You can tell if someone's going to be successful or not, by their reaction, like, oh, Maria, so they can't have any bread anymore, I can't have any rice anymore. And they get all whiny about it. They're going to fail. That's anything in life. You know what, though, Jack, like when I was told I couldn't have my own children, my husband and I are like, let's adopt, and we were very excited about it. And it was very difficult, but we love what we did. We love who our children are. And I feel like nobody wants to be around the whiny, crabby person. So just like buckle up, it's gonna be good, it's gonna be fine. It's going to be different than Subway sandwich. But I'm still saying you can have a sandwich and yes, you have to make it. But nothing worth having was ever easy.
Jack Heald 18:05
I so wanted to follow this emotional slash psychological slash spiritual component, which is not really what this show is about, but you've pinpointed something that we often don't talk about. And that's the attitude that you bring to the prospect of transformation.
Maria Emmerich 18:31
But not just that, the whole life. Nobody wants to be around the whiny person. Bring positivity, it's a mindset, it is.
Jack Heald 18:43
Phil, what changed for you? I know the outward story, the story you tell in the book, but there had to be an inward change as well.
Dr. Philip Ovadia 18:53
Oh, yeah, definitely. And it's exactly what Maria is talking about. It's rather than just accepting my fate or complaining about my fate, though I'm destined to be obese, and I'm destined to get heart disease. And woe is me, there's nothing I can do about it. It was I'm not going to accept this any longer. I'm not going to accept these results, and let's figure out what we need to do about it. And that's very much what I try and have my patients understand these days and the people that I work with that you need to take control of your health. I've said it many times on this show, but that is really what it comes down to, if you're not willing to accept failure, then you're not going to fail. And yes, there are going to be ups and downs and you can't just wish it to happen, you actually have to put the effort in and make it happen. But want to do that, that, like Maria was saying is the greatest predictor of success is that you're committed to doing it.
Maria Emmerich 20:18
You know, I was searching for happiness and not being depressed anymore. And something I often reminded myself at a very young age is that food never made me feel better and like in the minute that you're enjoying it. But it's like, for 15 minutes of pleasure in your mouth, I felt awful for days and weeks, right? I had to find something that really made me happy. And at that time, I got to go on a beautiful trip to Yosemite and I went rock climbing, and I was in nature, and I realized how much I loved being outside. And I love just camping and being in nature and dirty. And I just, I love it. And so, when I do get in those moments, because we're all going to have moments of like sadness and bad things happen to us, instead of reaching for the cinnamon rolls, I reach for nature. And I felt better. So, I think that it's not always going to be the same answer for people. But finding something that brings you true joy, because food is not, it's not going to. Some people reach for alcohol, that's a depressant. You never feel better afterwards, usually do something stupid and regret it. So, I just reminded myself for 15 minutes of pleasure, I felt awful. The awful part was much longer, and not worth it.
Jack Heald 21:55
Yeah, I had a similar experience. I never really struggled with weight. But for years, I walked around with a pain in my gut, pretty much all the time. And I stumbled on to keto. And I dramatically slashed the quantity of carbs that I was eating. And the pain went away. I was like, oh, this is fun. I really like this. And let's just make sure it's the food. So, I eat the crap. And I have the pain and yep. And it's made it really easy to make different choices just because it's very clear to me that however much I may like, name it, it's not fun for more than about 10 or 15 minutes. And then it's hours or days of anything from low grain discomfort to serious pain. So, I'm big into avoiding unnecessary pain myself.
Maria Emmerich 23:05
That reminds me, I worked with a woman who was a beautiful 32-year-old woman, she just had her first child. She was also having strokes. She was a type two diabetic that was only 105 pounds. And she said Maria, "I wish I would gain weight when I cheated. Because we're a vain society.” She looked like a beautiful, healthy woman. But she was so inflamed on the inside, that it was gonna kill her. But we are a vain society. We don't change it until it looks bad. She didn't have a lot of fat cells, the one she had were stuffed full. Getting fat as a protective mechanism, you know? So that just reminded me we often don't change things until it’s serious.
Dr. Philip Ovadia 23:57
Yes, until it's bad enough. Talk about, you kind of talked about the beginning of the journey. But now, as I think you've said, you're 26 years into this, talk about the sustainability, making this truly your lifestyle, because that's one of the other criticisms that oftentimes comes up of ketogenic, low carb. You can't sustain it. But obviously, you can, as you've demonstrated, and certainly others, but what's that like being 26 years into this?
Maria Emmerich 24:39
Well, in the past 26 years, I had two children, and they know nothing different. They're more carnivore than they are keto. They prefer meat. They are very expensive children, but they're totally worth it. At the same time, it's not because I'm not buying chips and all of that. They don't even know what an M&M is, which I love. But I feel that we need to, first of all start with the kids because we expect kids can eat whatever they want. Let them be kids this and that. But then they are 18 and they have these health issues, and we expect them to not have a sugar addiction anymore. When I say sugar, I also mean carbs. And I think they don't have a car, they don't have a license, they don't have any money. I'm in charge. You're in charge. So, it might be kind of gruff when I tell that to parents, but it's the truth but how does my diet look? I think whenever you look at your diet, it's going to change and evolve, and you learn things, and you're going to get better with time. For me, I always got overwhelmed when I looked at a college syllabus, like, oh, my gosh, I have to do all of that in a semester, I felt I would freak out. But when you take one step at a time, that's how I like to do things. And I would run marathons, and it was always one mile at a time, I didn't see that the whole 26 miles. And that's how I did it with diet like, Okay, I'm gonna cut the grains and the sugar out. I'm gonna like, it was always an evolving process. And it still is, such as, like, when my husband was diagnosed with his illness. And he learned all about oxalates. And all of these things were like, Dude, we're, I'm not going to eat those vegetables anymore, because I was still doing some low-carb vegetables. Not a lot, but some, but learning about the anti-nutrients in them. And when I first heard it, I probably wasn't ready to hear it. With time seeing the site, you can't deny, that right? And so just finding out more information with time, you can't ignore that. Like I tried to talk to my mom about vegetable oils, seed oils, and she's like, I don't want to hear about how vegetables are bad. I'm like, Mom, I'm talking about seed oils, because she's not ready to hear about the anti-nutrients in vegetables because she still gets upset that my kids don't eat fruits and vegetables. And I was like, yeah, they were just a waste of space. She wishes that they would, but love you, mom.
Jack Heald 27:18
Well, this seems like a good time to ask the question that when I was doing my research on you, I made a note to myself, ask Maria about this. And I don't know. It must have been something you said somewhere or something you wrote. My massage therapist is super health focused, and we were chatting the other day when I finished up my massage. She says, ah, I just can't lose this weight. I can't stay in ketosis. I tried to lose them, get rid of the carbs, but I just can't stay in ketosis. And I can't get rid of these last however many pounds. And I said, well, what Dr. Ovadia has said to me, and I told her what Dr. Ovadia said to me because I have the same problem. So, somebody is trying to get into and stay in a state of ketosis. And even though they're being good on the carbs, they still can't get the ketones up.
Maria Emmerich 28:24
Why are you reaching for higher ketones? Higher ketones have never correlated in any study that it helps with weight loss, not one. My ketones are very low. Why? Because I've been keto for so long. The longer you've been in ketosis, the more efficient your mitochondria are. I also run in a fasted state. So, I'm using the ketones for energy. Do I get depressed that I'm like point three? No. Doesn't matter. You want to chase results, not a number. And I would say, are you sleeping well? Are you eating dairy? Are you drinking coffee? Like the list goes on. Because dairy is a huge one. That's why so many of my books are dairy-free because we poopoo gluten in this keto community, but we never addressed dairy and majority of time, dairy is a factor. And nuts are usually a factor, nut flours. I would say coffee is a factor. Coffee makes you less insulin...
Jack Heald 29:29
Oh... You’re hurting my soul.
Maria Emmerich 29:33
I told you I worked at a coffee shop since I was 15. Like I had an IV.
Jack Heald 29:38
I think there's a coffee cup on my family crest going back 500 years and coffee veritas or something like that. Oh.
Maria Emmerich 29:47
It was hard for me to change. And caffeine increases androgens, which in a female body is what causes PCOS. I probably should have taken that more seriously in the past, it took me a long time to cut it because I loved it just like you did, I didn't think it was a big deal. But it raises blood sugar on average 8%. But more than anything, it makes you...
Jack Heald 30:12
Coffee? Coffee all by itself?
Maria Emmerich 30:15
Yes. That's why it will cause you to have hunger later in the afternoon. Sometimes you want that afternoon, like the candy jar, something or your hunger is just more. It also causes sleep issues. And most people don't get enough sleep, let's just be clear about that. So, it also could be hormonal. So, like, depending on how old this woman was, what happens when your ovaries are no longer putting out estrogen and progesterone, and let's be clear, that's just going to happen if we get to be old enough. What happens is your body needs estrogen for things. And if your ovaries are no longer producing estrogen, you can get it from your fat cells. But you have to get some fat cells. So, it will downregulate your thyroid causing you to put on some fat, usually in the belly area. So, you can get some estrogen for that. So that's something that there's certain, I use natural supplements to help people with some like progesterone, estrogen, because usually when women are at a certain age, they can fall asleep, but they can't stay asleep. They wake up at like 2 or 3 AM, I'm fully awake. You can combat that you just have to talk to somebody that, hey, I need some help. Because if you're not sleeping well, it's going to cause your blood sugars to be elevated all day, your hunger will be increased, your moods are going to be decreased, it's harder to say no to some carbohydrates. Maybe it's harder to say no to dairy. You're not prioritizing protein. And here's the thing. You can put a stick of butter all over a bunch of white rice, and you will read ketones. Do you think you're gonna lose weight? No, because guess what, fat plus carbohydrates cause weight gain. You read a lot of ketones, but it's going to cause weight gain. So that's where people are doing a lot of mistakes with keto and that they're focusing on this higher ketone number by adding a stick of butter to their steak, which guess what the steak has enough fat in it anyway. And our Neanderthals who ate the woolly mammoth, they didn't have a butter churner. they just ate the woolly mammoth. It’s true.
Jack Heald 32:25
I love your style and your frankness. Okay, Phil.
Dr. Philip Ovadia 32:33
I wish we still had woolly mammoth to eat. So, one question I'd love you to answer is what's probably the most unusual thing that you eat or have eaten? Whether it's something you've made, or whatever it is during the past 26 years that you've been doing all this, and you have 10 cookbooks now, what would you consider the most unusual thing?
Maria Emmerich 33:04
Like, in the carnivore cookbook, there's a lot of organ meat like tongue. I mean, is it really that unusual? No, but to somebody else, they might think it's gross. If you cook it right, it’s very tender and beautiful. My favorite is probably sweetbreads, which are not sweet and they're not bread. But they're like the most tender chicken nuggets. You grill those up. They're like, beautiful, like, I don't even like chicken. But like, those are so good. I mean, I have a lot of like, weird recipes. I made my chocolate pudding that uses hard boiled eggs for Halle Berry. And she's like, nope, I'm not eating that. But once I finally got her to eat it, she's like, this is the best chocolate mousse I've ever had. And she didn't share it with anybody. She had the link. I'm not kidding. Like how this recipe came into play? So, we adopted the boys, and we still didn't have any money and what's the cheapest keto food or what was the cheapest keto food? Eggs. Maybe not anymore, but they were very cheap at one point. And my youngest did not like eggs and I'm like, you're gonna eat some eggs. We have to have this for a meal like somehow. And so, I had some hard-boiled eggs. I threw them into a blender with a can of coconut milk and little bit of vanilla, some cocoa powder, little like natural sweetener. I blended it up. It was like the best chocolate pudding, and he couldn't get enough of it. Super delicious and I kept that recipe a secret for a very long time to like, nobody's gonna like this. We're just weird.
Jack Heald
We're just gonna serve it.
Maria Emmerich
And it's all over the world. People in Australia are tagging me in their pictures of making it and stuff. And Halle and I made it in a video like it's weird, but it's so easy. And it makes really good popsicles like fudge-sickles. But you think I'm weird, but it works, man.
Jack Heald 35:13
My wife is sitting right there. We're gonna check this.
Maria Emmerich 35:23
Jack, you send me your address. I'll send you all of my books. And it's in one of them. So.
Jack Heald 35:29
Sold. Absolutely.
Maria Emmerich 35:31
I'm serious.
Jack Heald 35:34
Chocolate. In my head, chocolate lives in this special category. Oh, be quiet. I was talking to Siri on my watch. I don't know why Siri decides to do that every now and then. Chocolate lives in this special category all by all by itself, which is it doesn't count.
Maria Emmerich
It’s a free food.
Jack Heald
It doesn't count. Now, I'll admit, I prefer the dark chocolates. I've always preferred them even before I was trying to take better care of my health. I just liked the flavor. But it always lives in this “doesn't count category.” Do you have a food that lives in the doesn't count category?
Maria Emmerich 36:14
I believe that protein shouldn't count. I don't think we should count protein calories. Because they're the building blocks.
Jack Heald 36:23
Nobody's gonna bust you for having protein.
Maria Emmerich 36:28
My cheat food? Oh, I also was going to tell you this, like how do I make this a lifestyle or whatever you're asking me about that. So, I'm about to get onto a flight. And it's going to take me two days to get to Bali from here. Okay. 36 hours of flying. I'm certainly not going to eat the airport food or the plane food, right? And I don't do extended fasting, but I will pack my food. I will pack like, I make little like jerky or whatever. It will be my food because I will not break my diet. And I know that there'll be plenty of seafood and stuff to eat in Bali and was like, aren't you going to eat, like what about rice? And like, no. It's a Keto retreat. So, everything will be keto for the people that come with me on my retreat. But it's just, it's important to me because I don't see that stuff as food anymore. It's just substance. It's not nutrients. It just doesn't make me feel good. It's not worth it. So, whether... I also do a retreat in Italy. And at the Italy retreat. I don't care if any other people want to have gelato and stuff, but if they don't, if they want to follow my diet, they'll have plenty of my good recipes to have. They even made my chicken parm and my flourless chocolate torte. Oh Jack, you got to make the flourless chocolate torte.
Jack Heald 38:01
You are so singing my song here. This is fantastic.
Maria Emmerich 38:05
It’s so easy. It's like five eggs. You'll love it. It's super easy. You'll love that recipe. That's a good. That one I wrote. I don't know 15 years ago. It's good one.
Jack Heald 38:14
You may be my new hero.
Dr. Philip Ovadia 38:16
Yeah. So, what's your advice? One of the other things that you'll hear from people a lot is oh, I don't like to cook. I don't know how to cook. All these things sound so complicated. What's your advice there for people?
Maria Emmerich 38:32
So, I can't get hard on a person because they don't like to cook because I don't like to clean. I have a husband that does the cleaning because he gets really good food. I have a book for everything. For people that don't know how to cook, that don't like to cook, whatever it is. But I usually tell people if you don't like to cook, get a slow cooker or an insta pot because it does it for you. All I got to do is put the stuff in it. I still love my slow cooker because I just like how food breaks down in it, it’s easier. But if you forget the plan, I'm a planner. Because I learned from my mother who was not a planner. She would have all this anxiety around dinnertime like oh my gosh, I don't I mean, I don't have anything for dinner right? So, I'm always like one night ahead like okay, I'm going to take out stuff for tomorrow. If it's a slow cooker, I put the stuff in the slow cooker, put the shell on the fridge. But the slow cooker cooks it for you and you come home to a wonderful dinner, and you usually have leftovers, right? And I have two books that have completely different recipes, over 200. And one is... Anyway, they are instapot and slow cooker, so they have directions for the instapot and they also have directions for a slow cooker because it's completely different. How you would stack the foods, too, in each vessel. But that's what I would say, if you don't like to cook, get that. I don't know, it's super easy. I also like to smoke foods. I just posted on my Instagram and Twitter today that I'm addicted to smoking. Because I love smoked meats. I think that's just the bomb diggity and I love that I can be outside the whole time, and I don't know. I just love that. But a slow cooker. Get a slow cooker. Instapot. Do it.
Jack Heald 40:25
Okay. My wife bought me a smoker for my birthday.
Maria Emmerich 40:29
Nice, good wife.
Jack Heald 40:32
You got the Maria Emmerich seal of approval there on the on the smoker. And I've just started to learn how to smoke, and I love... I've never done it. I've eaten smoked meat. I've lived in Texas. It's the law there. But I'm just learning to do it and I can confirm it's awesome. But I have to ask you what is, and I realize you may not know the answer to this question, but is there a particular recipe that people continually come back to you and say Oh, Maria, this is the best? Is there one that stands above the rest? Or maybe two or three...
Maria Emmerich
For smoking?
Jack Heald
We're taking... No, anything. Is there, like is there one recipe that is like this is the one that everybody loves?
Maria Emmerich 41:22
Ah, the protein noodle lasagna? That one. Everybody loves protein noodle lasagna. That's a 20-year-old recipe that people are like, what the heck, even people that aren't keto. They don't even know there's no noodles in it. Probably, that chocolate pudding is a viral one. The flourless chocolate cake is a viral one. And that bread, the protein bread, that's a viral one too.
Jack Heald 41:54
I haven't eaten a sandwich for a long time. Because the bread is just not worth it to me. Bread is one of those things that just makes me feel crappy. But I love sandwiches.
Maria Emmerich 42:07
Do you have a stand mixer?
Jack Heald
Have what?
Maria Emmerich
Stand mixer.
Jack Heald 42:10
Oh yeah, yeah.
Maria Emmerich 42:12
Stand Mixer makes it for you.
Jack Heald 42:16
We shall make it so. It's going to happen.
Dr. Philip Ovadia 42:20
There you go. I'd love to talk a little bit about some of the other things like particularly you kind of were mentioning it the travel experiences that you've gotten into as well. Tell us a little bit about how that came to be and what those are like.
Maria Emmerich 42:37
Thank you so much for asking about that. It must have been not quite 10 years ago, this woman wrote me a Facebook message like Oh, Maria, we must speak, people on a Keto Italy retreat. And I was like, Craig, some lady asked me to go to Italy with her for a Keto like to be the host for a Keto retreat. And I grew up with not much a lot of money. I never was to Europe. I never thought I would ever. I always watched movies about it. It’s my dream to go, but I never thought I would ever be able to afford to go. And he's like, give her your phone numbers. See what happens. She, I talked to her this morning. I talked to her more than my mother. Like she's just a beautiful Italian woman. Ciao, bella, when we talk. She lives in California now with her family. She has beautiful kids. And she just like let's do let's do trips. And I was like, yeah, let's do it because she started a small travel agency. And she herself is Keto because her doctor recommended it to her. She got much, much better. And so yeah, we went to Italy. I'm not a crier. I literally, like got off this private boat onto the island of Capri. And I just started weeping. I was like, this is, somebody wake me up because this is just unreal. So yeah, we had a beautiful farm dinner over the coast of Sorento, like we made homemade mozzarella and homemade ricotta. And then he made it into like, my chicken parm, and it was just a beautiful experience. And we've done a couple of them since. Next week, I have a retreat to Bali. And then a month later, I go to Italy for the June trip and then Croatia in September and South Africa in November. So here I went from never traveling to like, I live on a plane, but it's really, I don't know, I feel very blessed and grateful. And I make the best of friends so you guys can come. You should come and the people that went on my last trip to Greece, a lot of them came to visit Maui because they just love to travel, and you make such good friends. I don't know. Have you ever been to summer camp? You make good friends at summer camp and it's like summer camp, you know. As an adult, we're planning everybody's life. Especially like, when you're a doctor, you're so, you're in charge of people's lives. And it's stressful. And I love that. I don't actually even look at the itinerary. I just know that when I show up at the airport, I have a private car to pick me up to take me to the hotel. There's always, the hotels are booked. The transportation is booked. The tickets are all paid for and planned for. The dinners are all ready. Like, I don't have to do anything. I just show up and be like, whoa, this is cool.
Jack Heald 45:42
It's like being 11 years old, it’s what it is. It's somebody else is taking care of everything to show up and have a good time.
Maria Emmerich 45:49
And I love it. So, I actually don't know what the itinerary is. I think we're going to Venice; I don't know. But it's just like, hey, I just, it was awesome.
Jack Heald 46:00
This is a lovely story, Phil. I had no idea it was gonna be like this.
Maria Emmerich 46:05
Thank you. You're sweet. You should come. Tell your wife, come to Italy.
Jack Heald 46:10
You don't want to go to Italy, do you babe? Yeah, she says not at all. You'd have to know her. Yes, she wants to come. Oh. So, with all this travel, and this has nothing to do with keto, but this is a lifestyle thing. And we're talking about health. I mean, at the end of the day, take charge of your own health. Dr. Ovadia has done it, you've done it, I'm doing my best to do it. Part of the health has to do with how we live in the world that we are in and it's a crazy time to be a kid. How, with this unusual lifestyle that you live, how do these kids, have these children of yours, how do they do it?
Maria Emmerich 47:11
Well, even before COVID, when they were just starting to be the age to go to school, we looked at each other, we're like, I'm not I'm not ready for them to go. And they weren't ready to go either. I mean, there's a lot of like, trauma that happens with adoption, their previous life was... It was intense. And so, they weren't ready to leave. We weren’t ready for them to leave. And so, we looked at each other and he's like, I'll be the stay-at-home dad, and I'll do the homeschooling.
Jack Heald
Oh, wow.
Maria Emmerich
So, I'm not very patient. He does it. And he's amazing at it. And they're now 12 and 13. And yeah, COVID sucked. But there's some really great things that happened from it, one of them which there's amazing homeschool opportunities. So, whatever we're not great at teaching, there's online stuff like Kai, my youngest loves photography and art. And so, he's taking all of these classes and photography classes. And my oldest one is brilliant at math, and he's doing advanced high school math. Like he's just amazing at it. And so that's what's really nice is that you can do that, but one of the reasons we want to do is because the food is atrocious. And also, there's a lot of bullying, they look different. But I was able to teach them to be proud of being different, not just on the outward, but what we eat. And so sometimes they make friends at the beach all the time. And there'll be a kid eating Skittles, and they'll like get into like how bad that is. And I'm like just be friends. But they want to change the world too. And I don't even have to like, be the, not that I was the police. But yeah, I had to, they didn't know what was good or bad when they're little. Now that they know, I don't have to do anything. They just don't want the junk. Because sometimes they get the junk and they're like, oh, gosh that was so not worth it and that didn't taste good, and it made me sick. So, yeah, I don't know. I'm very lucky to have a partner that has the same mindset as myself.
Jack Heald 49:36
Phil, your girls had the same response, or at least a similar response when you made this big change, didn't they?
Dr. Philip Ovadia 49:43
Well, at that time, I was making it they were very young. So, they didn't really realize but, they look at the pictures., and they're like, oh, dad used to be really fat. And I'm like, yes, dad used to be really fat, and this is why we eat the way we eat. And the feedback loop like Maria was talking about is powerful because they start to recognize it as well because yeah, they do have the stuff. And then they're like, yeah, it doesn't feel so good and so their preference now is basically carnivore stuff and some veggies on the side maybe and but they're very happy to just have a steak or just have their burger without the buns. And kids are smart, kids do pick up on this stuff. And if you're not I guess, if they know that there are options, and they start to pay attention to how the different choices affect them, I think that is the most powerful lesson to give them.
Maria Emmerich
How old are they?
Dr. Philip Ovadia
They are 10 and 12.
Maria Emmerich 51:15
I mean, I talked about my mom a lot, but I do love her. But she was an egg. She is an egg. And I don't think that ever worked for me. I don't think it works for anybody. So instead of being an egg, I like to educate my kids, and try to make it a powerful decision for them to choose. And it just worked. I think the way you bring it up is very powerful that children, you sounded like you educated them, look at how dad changed, and they were proud of you.
Dr. Philip Ovadia 51:50
Yeah, and just I think ultimately just getting them thinking about it, it does seem at least that kids are thinking about this some now. It's not just, I mean, when I was a kid, you really didn't think about what you ate, you just ate what was there.
Maria Emmerich 52:12
I don't ever remember being hungry. I just ate.
Dr. Philip Ovadia 52:15
Yeah, and you just ate what was there or what they served you at school, what you got served at home, and you really didn't think about what you were eating. So, if nothing else it's just getting them thinking about what they're eating and connecting that to how they feel. And that will lead them down the right pathway ultimately.
Jack Heald 52:39
Well, I love that we're getting a similar story here from to people with children of similar ages. Because one of the things I hear when I talk about the food choices I make from parents of young kids, ohh, my kids would never be able to do that. And what do you say? It's just your kids eat what you feed them, then they're not getting in the car driving to the grocery.
Maria Emmerich 53:04
My computer is gonna move because I have to show you something. You get them this. Oh, yeah. Halle Berry wrote it with me. And most recipes kids can make on your own. It's there, very easy. A lot of no cook recipes. There's ice cream in here. It's a very easy book for anybody to cook from whether a parent doesn't like to cook or not. But it's not, I hate saying just a cookbook because cookbooks are hard to write. But it also is educational. And there's bento boxes and it teaches kids in a fun way. We use like superheroes to teach them what food does and what sugar does. And it's really, it's fun.
Jack Heald 53:51
For our listeners who are not watching and that would by definition be a listener, it's a book that Maria wrote with Halle Berry called Sugar Free Kids. Is that right?
Maria Emmerich 54:02
Yes, sir. I'll send you one then you can give it to the parents so they can't do it.
Jack Heald 54:07
I've got a bunch of grandkids and one of my grandsons is, good Lord, bless his heart, he loves candy. And I would really like to see that change. So, all right. Well, Maria, what is the preferred method for people to connect with learn more about, get involved with your work?
Maria Emmerich 54:43
Well, thank you so much. I guess the easiest place to go is ketomaria.com. It's kind of the landing site for everything. If you go all the way to the bottom, you'll find links to my free YouTube channel, my free support groups. There's a lot of free information. Everybody's struggling right now. And if you can't afford a book, tell your library to get them and then you could rent them out. That's a win-win, win for me, win for you. But I also have if, if you go to ketomaria.com, you'll find links to the retreats, you'll find links to the blog where there's thousands of free recipes. But if you want one on one support, I also have that link there, too.
Jack Heald 55:25
Ketomaria.com Just sounds vaguely religious, and I kind of liked that. Sounds like the beginning of a prayer. All right.
Dr. Philip Ovadia 55:36
That's one of the advantages of being in this world so early and having 26 years is you get the good, the good website.
Maria Emmerich 55:47
When I started blogging, when it first came out, and someone's like, you got to start a blog. So, I started a blog, and I named it, MariaMindBodyHealth. So that's my email. That's my blog. It's just crazy. So, we did a redirect. So, if you go to ketomaria.com, you can get to the blog there, but I do wish I would have been a little bit... Who knew what blogging was gonna do to my life?
Jack Heald 56:14
Yeah. All right, very good. Well, I will remind our listeners that all this information will be in the show notes, so you don't have to be scribbling it down. Just click on the link there, and it'll take you right there. Maria, thanks for being with us. You're going to get an email from me because I want those chocolate recipes. And I want to ask you, subscribe to Dr. Ovadia’s podcast here. And subscribe to Maria's stuff, too. I really like what I'm finding here. This is good stuff. And on Dr. Ovadia’s site, ifixhearts.com, you can take a test and check your own metabolic health. It's not as good as getting lab tests, but it'll give you a way to just kind of evaluate where you're at. Lots of people are doing that. It's helping a lot of people go from a state of not very healthy to a state of a whole lot more healthy. Well, I guess we reached the end of another good one.
Maria Emmerich 57:21
Thanks for everything. Well, thank you. It's an honor.
Dr. Philip Ovadia 57:24
Yeah, great conversation and thank you for everything you're doing. You're such a positive force out there in the world, in the Keto world.
Maria Emmerich 57:35
Dr. Philip, if you need any books to you, just send me that email. I'll send them out today.
Dr. Philip Ovadia
Sounds good.
Maria Emmerich
Thanks, guys.
Jack Heald 57:42
Thank you. And we will talk to you all next time.
Jack Heald 57:53
America is fat and sick and tired. 88% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy and at risk of a sudden heart attack. Are you one of them? Go to ifixhearts.co and take Dr. Ovadia's metabolic health quiz. Learn specific steps you can take to reclaim your health, reduce your risk of heart attack and stay off Dr. Ovadia's operating table.
Jack Heald 58:21
This has been a production of 38 atoms