Transcript

Leanne Vogel: You’re listening to episode number 18 of The Keto Diet Podcast.

Hey, I’m Leanne from healthfulpursuit.com. This is The Keto Diet Podcast, where we’re busting through the restrictive mentality of our traditional ketogenic diet to uncover the life you crave.

What’s keto? Keto is a low-carb, high-fat diet where we’re switching from a sugar-burning state to becoming fat-burning machines. If you’re in need of keto recipe food prep inspiration, I’ve prepped a free, seven-day keto meal plan exclusive for podcast listeners. The plan is complete with a shopping list and everything you need to chow down on keto for seven whole days. Download your free copy at healthfulpursuit.com/ketomeal.

Before we get started with the questions, the awesome thing this week that I want to share with you guys are the coconut wraps from NUCO. In my new book, coming out April 11 called The Keto Diet, there’s a recipe in there that is no beans hummus. I made it without the beans. It’s totally keto. I used NUCO’s coconut wraps. I just cut them up into little squares and used that as the crackers. It was so good. I had it the other day and I nearly died of happiness, of keto happiness. If you guys haven’t checked out NUCO, I highly suggest you give them a Google, check them out and tell me what you think.

Today, we are covering off a bunch of cool things including my thoughts on exogenous ketones, my thoughts about KetoPrime, a new supplement from Bulletproof, what to do if you experience depression after a carb-up, what it’s like to ditch birth control, the side effects of going keto, testing ketones, and really giving keto a chance in how long you should do it until you realize maybe it’s not good for you. Lots of things are happening. The show notes for today’s episode can be found at healthfulpursuit.com/podcast/e18. Let’s hear from one of our awesome partners before we get started.

The podcast is partnered with Vital Proteins. You guys know how much I love Vital Proteins. And, their Collagen Peptides, Beef Gelatin, and Marine Collagen have been transformed into Stick Packs. So if you love their products just as much as me, but you’re sick and tired of putting your collagen, or gelatin, into little baggies yourself, they’ve done it for you. Each Collagen Peptide Stick Pack, Gelatin Stick Pack, and Marine Collagen Stick Pack has 10 grams of either your Collagen Peptides, your Beef Gelatin, or your Marine Collagen, all in one little pack that you can put in your purse, you can take with you camping, you could even bring them on holidays. Each box comes with 20 Stick Packs. Super excited about this.

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I have two announcements before we get to the main content. I know I keep saying that. We’re almost there. The first one is, I would really, really, really love if you could post a review of the show. Even if it’s not a totally awesome review and you think that there’s stuff that I can improve on, definitely leave a review, even if it’s not the whole five stars that generally people will ask for. If there are things that you want me to work on, if there are things that you like, definitely add it to your review. You can head on over to healthfulpursuit.com/review. It will redirect you to iTunes where you can leave a review. It helps more people find the show. The more people that are listening, the more people that are reviewing, the more people that can find it, and the better the show can get.

The second announcement is that you guys are totally loving our new sponsor of the podcast, Thrive Market, and so many of you have taken advantage of their free almond butter offer, which is great. If you’ve been thinking of becoming a member of Thrive Market, the time is definitely now. If you’re not familiar with Thrive, Thrive Market is an online shop where you save a ton of money on food brands that you are really familiar with and that you love and trust. All you have to go is go to their website, filter for your favorites and load up your cart. The goods are delivered right to your door. Plus, for every new membership, and I really like this about these guys, Thrive Market donates a free membership to a family in need, a teacher, or a veteran. When you sign up for today’s free 30-day trial, you’ll get a free jar of almond butter. This almond butter is so good. I am obsessed with it. All you need to do is pay $1.95 shipping. This is available for US listeners only. You can head to thrivemarket.com/HP to get your free jar and start browsing their shop. If you haven’t taken advantage of that offer yet, definitely do because it’s pretty sweet.

For all my Canadian listeners, I definitely haven’t forgotten about you. We’re always looking for new partners that will do offers for both the US and Canada. There’s a couple coming up here pretty soon that I’m pretty stoked on. Definitely, listen for that starting next week.

If you have an idea for a podcast episode or you want to submit praise over and above the review, which you are going to leave at healthfulpursuit.com/review, you can reach me at info@ketodietpodcast.com.

We have a ton of questions to go through, super excited. Let’s just get started. First question is from Tiffany. She writes, “Do you recommend exogenous ketones to help accelerate getting back into ketosis after eating holiday sweets and falling out? If you have brands you like, I’d love to know them as well.” This also made me think of a lot of the questions I’ve been getting about KetoPrime, that new Bulletproof supplement. I will be going through that right after this.

Okay. First off, Tiffany, I’m really happy that you enjoy the holiday. I know that you specifically and anyone listening, too, is pretty fat adapted. You’ve been eating keto for quite some time, Tif. If you’re fat adapted and your body knows what burning fat is like, it should be pretty easy to switch back into fat-burning mode. If you’ve ever been to one of my talks and I’ll definitely be doing this on the book tour as well, information coming out soon. I’ll definitely be showing this on the book tour as well, I’m sure. You can find out more details about the book tour by going to ketodietbook.com/tour.

Usually, when I’m in my talks, I talk about how easy it is to switch from fat-burning mode like you’ve been burning fat for a year. It even starts as soon as three months. It’s pretty easy for your body to switch from having those holiday sweets to going right back to burning fat whereas what happens if you’re not totally adapted yet is that when you have those holiday sweets, your body, once it goes through those holiday sweets and it’s used up that fuel, it’s like, “Where are the carbs at? I want more carbs,” whereas, when you’re in fat-burning state and you’ve been there for quite some time, when you eat those holiday sweets, it’s pretty easy for your body to switch back.

In the case of exogenous ketones, which I’m going to be going through what they mean in a second but in your case because you know what they are, Tiffany, I would say that because you’re super fat adapted, you shouldn’t need a product like that to get you back in ketosis quicker because your body has all of the systems and processes in place to switch back into that mode pretty effortlessly.

My advice for you is to just eat like you would normally, go back into the grove of keto. All will sort itself out, probably in a couple of days. It shouldn’t take a very long time.

What are exogenous ketones? Maybe I should have started there first but I didn’t so we’re just going to run with it. They are a supplement to boost ketones. You might be wondering how is this different than taking MCT oil? Exogenous ketone powders have beta-hydroxybutyrate in it. This BHB is a very pure form of sodium which works with the MCT oil that’s also in exogenous ketones for absorption and staying hydrated. The oil is converted into a powder. The MCT oil powder, combined with the beta-hydroxybutyrate, can help with keto flu. That BHB reduces keto flu and the experience of lag when you first start to adapt.

I’m personally only familiar with one brand of exogenous ketones because that’s what I feel comfortable talking about today. The brand that I know of is KETO//OS. I’ve tried it a couple of times. Personally, I don’t enjoy it for a couple of reasons. I don’t enjoy the taste at all, not even a little bit. I’ve tried it in so many different ways. I just don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy the cost. It’s quite costly. Personally, it doesn’t make me feel any different. That could be because I’m already keto adapted. Taking it is just like making me be keto, which I already am, so I really don’t notice a difference, other than the fact that it contains caffeine. I notice the difference with the caffeine because I feel jittery and stuff.

They do have a caffeine-free type of powder and mixture but the decaf version has milk and the caffeinated version doesn’t have milk, while they have two versions but the only option doesn’t have milk has caffeine. For me, that’s sensitive to both milk and caffeine, it just doesn’t work for me.

Like I said, it has MCT powder, beta-hydroxybutyrate, natural flavor, malic acid, stevia, and caffeine. It’s supposed to have an orange taste but I find that the sweetener used is so overpowering. I get why they did it. It’s because I see this KETO//OS and any of these exogenous ketones being a really, really, really good supplement for somebody that is in the process of becoming adapted, probably coming from a standard American diet where they’re eating a lot of sweet things and carby things. For a person that loves sugar and is really not used to not eating sugar, they’re probably going to love KETO//OS because it’s super sweet and could really, really, I don’t know, taste really awesome for them.

Where I see this supplement being really great for is for people that are either on the path of the keto diet or having a challenging time adapting and can’t get away from carbs and need that push to start to feel what keto feels like, awesome, because if you take KETO//OS and you’ve never done keto before and you start your day with that, you’re going to feel … You guys know. If you’re fat adapted right now, people will feel like how you feel in a matter of a couple of minutes.

It’s sort of like this introduction to get people inspired to eat keto. It can also be good for a hard-core keto person, maybe for pre-workout or performance. I can see it being really beneficial. If you take the caffeine one right before a heavy lift, it could be really great or people that need energy during workouts. If you’re a runner, I can see it being awesome or even people that aren’t eating keto and just need a boost in mental performance before an exam or any sort of presentation but personally, I just, for all the reasons that I just mentioned plus the fact that if I want to promote it and share it with you guys and stuff, I have to pay something like US$420 in order to get the product in order to promote it. I don’t know. There’s something about pyramid schemes that I just aren’t really into. It’s not my jam.

But it can be a great option for people. If you’re trying it or you’re a rep, that’s awesome. I can see how it would be super beneficial. Not personally beneficial for me. My body is quite ketogenic and that’s how I roll. I hope that answers your question, Tiffany.

Onto my thoughts about KetoPrime. KetoPrime is a new Bulletproof product which is a supplement that’s intended to boost mental performance and blast brain fog by triggering the creation of new mitochondria.

Okay. I ordered it as soon as it came out because I knew everyone was going to be asking me what I thought about it. I took it every day in the afternoon, usually when, if I’ve not eaten the correct things or stuff, my brain gets a little bit slower, and I just noticed I need a pick-me-up. Normally, that pick-me-up is to have a fat bomb, or I’ll get to the other product that I use instead of this. I did, that instead. Instead of going to a fat bomb and stuff like that, I tried KetoPrime. I didn’t feel a difference other than being totally overwhelmed by the taste. It was super sour. If you guys follow me on Instagram Stories … You can follow me at Healthful Pursuit on Instagram. I did a video of me trying it for the first time. It was so sour, even talking about it, my lips are curling around my teeth because it was just so sour. Ugh! Bleh! Just thinking about it. I’m not a big sour person. If you are, you may love these. It has erythritol. I find that if I eat erythritol and I love the taste of erythritol. It’s so much better than stevia, but it gives me acne.

I was trying the KetoPrime for a while. I wasn’t noticing a difference with anything. I’ve chatted with a couple people. They have felt the same. I haven’t chatted with anyone who has had good results on it but that could just be that I haven’t spoken with them but what I love and what I do instead and what I would recommend trying out is that Bulletproof has a thing called Chocolate Fuel Bars. They’re chocolate bars that are dairy free and sweetened with xylitol and packed with MCT oil. If I’m feeling a little low in that afternoon time and I need a snack or a fat bomb and I don’t have time to make anything, this bar works so well. It is my KetoPrime. I love it. It’s so great. It makes my brain feel like it’s on fire. It’s around $6 a bar. It’s pretty much on par with those fancy chocolate bars found at health food stores. I think the Giddy Yoyo one that I love is $6.20. It’s about on par with that but totally aligns with your keto diet because it’s sweetened with xylitol. It makes my brain fire up. I hope that that was helpful on the KetoPrime situation. More on the episode after this message from one of our podcast partners.

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Now, going onto the second question. It’s from Dominique on experiencing depression after carb-ups. “Hi, Leanne. I’ve been following a keto diet for almost three months now and feel amazing. I lost some weight. My skin and nails are better, my mood is improved, and I haven’t had an anxiety attack since beginning my keto journey. At first, it was strict keto and tracking all the things but listening to the podcast and reading Fat Fueled has changed my perspective. I’ve incorporated a couple of carb-ups and I’m not tracking quite so religiously anymore.” Yay, Dominique. That’s awesome!

“I was even inspired to quit birth control and start tracking my cycles and fixing my hormones. My plan in respect to carb-ups was to continue the full keto Fat Fueled Profile in Fat Fueled because it feels good with the occasional, maybe weekly, evening carb-ups. I’ve tried this twice now, and the following day, I feel awesome but then, for the next four to five days, I’ve had a noticeable change in my mood. It feels like PMS but isn’t. My carb-ups haven’t brought on an anxiety attack perse, but sometimes it feels like I’m on edge and feel depressed over all. If I continue like this with weekly carb-ups, I feel like I’ll just be, depressed all the time. Have you had any experience with this yourself or with your clients? Do I need to experiment with different types of carbs to see if something, in particular, example, starchy vegetables or flour or sugar or fruit is the culprit?

“I want the keto way of eating to be something that works for me throughout my entire life and that’s going to mean the occasional carb-up whether it’s planned or not. I don’t want to have to worry about feeling depressed after enjoying a nice meal with my family. Just so you know, my first carb-up was a piece of birthday cake and some popcorn at a party. Second carb-up was a sweet potato with my post-workout recovery Vega which I think contains brown rice syrup. I am 31 and both of these carb-ups happen while I was still taking the pill. I’m a bit lactose intolerant so my dairy intake is low but I still enjoy butter, aged cheese and a bit of Greek yogurt occasionally.”

Okay, Dominique. I have a couple of ideas. First off, I think you’re definitely in the right Fat Fueled Profile for your body. Dominique is referring to the Fat Fueled Profiles in my book, Fat Fueled. One of those Fat Fueled Profiles is called full keto. That Fat Fueled Profile allows or just, I don’t like to say the word allows but templates out at least one carb-up a week. In a full keto Fat Fueled Profile, you have adapted. You’re now having one carb-up a week. In the case of Dominique, because of your anxiety, I would say that the foods you were using in your carb-up could potentially be where you are experiencing the depression after carb-ups.

There are people that have anxiety and depression that really do not do well on carbohydrates. I’ve had clients before that had major anxiety imbalances. It’s really frustrating for them. They do carb-ups and they includes things like fruit or things that have sugar or grains. They go off the rails. It’s really hard for them because they, like you said, Dominique, your body felt really great but your mind didn’t. We need to find carbs that make your mind feel good because we want your body to feel good and your mind to feel good. You did mention that you were still on birth control during those carb-ups. It sounds like you haven’t done a carb-up since because you’re afraid and totally fair enough.

What I would recommend is going for super-neutral GI foods so things like think of your paleo carbs, think of something that has fiber that’s totally natural. I would try to stay away from the birthday cake. Like, it’s birthday cake. Of course, if you’re at a birthday, just knowing that, “Okay, I’m going to have this birthday cake and it’s not going to make my mind feel all that great. Am I okay with that?” If you’re okay with that, totally go for it. If you’re not, you don’t totally feel like the birthday cake, just skip it. It’s totally fine but in the case of sugar, even fruit can offset your anxiety. You did mention that your second carb-up was a sweet potato and some of your post-workout recovery Vega stuff. I’m not totally sure if it has brown rice syrup but I like where you’re going with that in thinking that perhaps it’s the sugar behind that. I would maybe try the sweet potato again. Make sure that you’re having protein with it. Maybe just half a sweet potato and see how your body reacts to it.

If you find, then, that doesn’t work, I would try it again and add a bit more fat to that sweet potato. Third option would be to have your protein with the sweet potato and right before bed, have something like decaf Rocket Fuel Latte like maybe made with your favorite herbal tea or my bedtime shake that I have on the site if you just Google Healthful Pursuit bedtime shake. Something that’s going to give you those fats for the morning. Then, see how you feel. See if that helps with your anxiety.

If that still doesn’t work, then another thing you could try is called protein ups. This is something new that’s coming to my book, The Keto Diet, coming out on April 11. I’m so excited about it, I just talk about it all the time. I’m so sorry, guys, but in that book, I introduce two new Fat Fueled Profiles from the Fat Fueled program. I added onto them. In the book, we’re going to be talking about how to use protein as an alternative to carbohydrates if you’re sensitive like this and carbs just don’t work but you like the way they make your body feel with the carb-ups. You could try a protein up. That just means eating a ton of protein for dinner and so where the carbs would be, so completely very limited carbs like you do on your keto diet, amp up the protein, lower down the fat. Then, see how that goes. I hope that that was helpful.

The third question is from Alexandra on ditching birth control, which Dominique just did so how fitting is this? Alexandra writes, “What can I expect if I choose to stop birth control?” Okay, I don’t know 100% everything that you could potentially experience but I’ll go through what I experienced. I quit birth control in January, 2008. It was after learning just how horrible birth control was for my body. I’m not okay with giving myself these artificial hormones. I didn’t know that there were other alternatives for birth control. At the time, when I was younger and having painful periods and my acne was really bad, the doctor just put me on it. I didn’t totally know all the details. I’ve written about the details on the blog. If you just search Healthful Pursuit birth control on the Google machine, you’ll find some information about what I’ve written about birth control and just knowing the dangers and the details of birth control because it doesn’t mean that you have to quit it but if you’re taking anything, it’s good to know what it does to your body because it’s your body, it’s your life. It’s good to know these things.

When I quit birth control, I didn’t really experience it like anything really. I would say the one thing I experienced long term was a major decline in my sex drive, my libido was completely non-existent. I was not interested in anything to do with sex or anything. I think that can be a long-term effect if your hormones don’t balance out after birth control. I would say the number one thing, if I were to go back and chat with myself, I’d be like, “Girl, you need to find a doctor and you need to get them to test your hormones every month until you figure out where your hormone balance is,” because I would have gotten my period back really quick but instead, it took me eight years to get my period back because I wasn’t working with anyone and nobody really wanted to help me. They said my hormones were fine.

Now, having a normal period. Then, once I got my period back about a year and a half, I guess, now, I started hormone replacement therapy with one of my more natural doctors. I would say, in your case, the one thing that you can expect is that your hormones probably won’t be balanced and coming off birth control, knowing that you’re going to have to take care of your hormones because really, your hormones are, I would say, probably a little bit messed up right now. You just don’t know it because you’re taking birth control. It masks things and can also screw up a couple of things. That’s not to say that everyone that takes birth control, you’re doomed. I’m not saying that at all but if you’re coming from a place of going off birth control, it’d be really cool to just know that you’re probably going to have some imbalances. They can totally be figured out but if you come from that mind space, you can catch things before you go years upon years with no sex drive and really low hormones until you figure it out.

Alexandra, my recommendation to you would be to find an orthomolecular doctor or a hormone specialist that is totally cool with compressing their own or knows of a pharmacy that can compress and prepare natural hormones for you, whether it be progesterone or estrogen or DHEA or thyroid medication, a doctor that is okay with prescribing desiccated thyroid and knows what that is. I think it’s all just about making a commitment to bettering your hormone status because I cannot tell you how awesome it is to finally have a balanced hormone state in my body. It’s constantly changing and shifting. Sometimes, my DHEA has to go up or down.

I’m now starting to realize that it’s okay to supplement with the desiccated thyroid amount that you need. I always felt like it was okay to go up and down with my thyroid medication but that’s not the case. Now, over the last couple of months, I’ve been very consistent with 115 milligrams which is so much more than I thought my body needed of desiccated thyroid. Now, in hot yoga, I sweat like a normal person. It’s so cool. I’ve never sweat like a normal person.

I think what you can expect when you go off birth control, if you’re willing to make this commitment to bettering your hormones, you can expect awesome things. I hope that that was helpful for you.

The fourth question is from Chaz on the side effects of keto. “I’ve heard that there are many side effects to starting a keto diet. What are they and how can I plan to overcome them? The salt cravings, sleepless nights, how sometimes one passes out, like literally, and cannot get up from bed and brain fog. Many thanks for all of your work. Chaz.”

Okay. A couple of things for you, Chaz. The salt cravings, this is totally normal and a good indication that you’re not eating enough salt. The amount of salt you need will depend on your body. Personally, my whole rule is whenever I’m eating, put as much salt on it that I need until I’m satisfied. If you find like you’re craving a ton of salt like more than you think is natural, I would definitely chat with your doctor and see if you could test your adrenals. The best test for that is going to be cortisol AM. You can do that with a blood test. You can also do saliva if you have a doctor or a health care team that knows how to read those tests or is familiar with those tests. Just get an idea of what your cortisol’s doing, how that’s going. You’re going to need more salt on a ketogenic diet. That’s just the way it is. It’s totally okay. Please listen to your body when it comes to salt because if you crave salt, you probably need salt.

The next one, your sleepless nights. This is not a normal thing. Many keto people will disagree with me that it’s just like the hair loss. Sleepless nights and hair loss is what people would sometimes refer to as a keto cleanse. It’s just your body getting used to it. Personally, I don’t prescribe to that. Generally speaking. There may be instances where I would tell a client, “Just hold in there, wait a couple of days and if it hasn’t changed up, then do something about it,” but if you’ve had the best sleep of your life, all your life and maybe there’s been a couple of days where it’s off but generally speaking, you’re an awesome sleeper. Then, a couple of days into your keto diet, you’re all of a sudden not sleeping and staying up late and not being able to sleep.

This was my life for months on the keto diet. About three months in, I started experiencing sleepless nights like crazy. Could not sleep for the life of me. Personally, I hated it. It made me eat at weird times. It screwed up even more hormones. I just felt like garbage. If this is you, I would highly recommend switching Fat Fueled Profiles, maybe going over to the adapted fat burner Fat Fueled Profile where you’re having carb-ups twice a week or more of the daily fat burner Fat Fueled Profile where having carbohydrates every night. In the case of the carbohydrates every night, it’s just a touch. It helps you sleep and you feel great.

How sometimes one just passes out literally? Okay. I actually just spoke with someone about this today, actually about the fact that she’s been keto now for 20 days. She’s finding that she has her Rocket Fuel Latte or in most times, a Bulletproof coffee. Then, at lunch, usually around one or two, she’ll have cauliflower with some protein and a bunch of fat and then an hour later, she’s exhausted. She has brain fog. She could literally just pass out.

What we determined is that she probably wasn’t eating enough carbs, like overall carbs. She said that she was eating about 10 grams of carbohydrates. We said that we would increase that to hopefully, I’m hoping that she can get to 40 grams of carbohydrates. This is in addition to her telling me that her ketones were registering 5.6 with her blood test. That’s a lot of ketones. It doesn’t need to be that high. That tells me that she’s not eating enough and maybe not eating enough carbohydrates for her body in addition to the sleepiness.

You may want to check that out, see where you’re at either with your ketones. You could try having a Rocket Fuel Latte instead of a Bulletproof coffee because that Bulletproof coffee can sometimes make people sleepy whereas the Rocket Fuel Latte, because of the little touch of carbohydrates and protein, it should work out a little bit better for your body and see how your energy feels over the coming days. Then, when you’re eating lunch or dinner, just make sure that you’re liberal with your vegetables. It’s totally okay, you’re fine. It’s okay. It’ll be fine. I know that when I gave myself permission to just eat what I wanted to eat on a ketogenic diet, I’m really beyond that. I said, “You can eat whatever you want.” I define what made my body feel good, what didn’t and I ate the foods that made my body feel good most of the time but sometimes, I didn’t. You know how it is but I would definitely look at those two things.

Then, if you are fasting, pay attention to how fasting feels in your body. If, when you fast one day, you feel tired the first meal, then check that out. If you fast and then you don’t feel tired, look at that and try to ask yourself, “What’s going on in here?”

As you get started, I think the main thing with the ketogenic diet and the thing that I love the most about it is that it allows you to get in touch with your body. In fact, I was having breakfast with my husband Kevin this morning. It was one o’clock. We call our first meal breakfast even if it’s five p.m., but I prepared some beef strips, which is beef, bacon stuff, and some vegetables. We had gone out for dinner the night before. I’d had a keto meal but right after we were having breakfast and I was talking about how my middle finger hurts so much, about two hours after that dinner last night, it was inflamed, and it hurt. It was crazy painful. This is my sign that I had a processed oils in my meal. I ask restaurants what kind of oil they use. They tell me. It sounds pretty good, and we’re good to go, but I know that they’re lying when my finger gets inflamed. The cool thing is that never used to happen. I was overall inflamed, but I never got these signals from my body.

Overall, I think the benefit to keto has been for me is really, really, really getting in touch with my body. Some people may say that this is a curse. I know I’ve spoken to so many of my friends and colleagues and clients where they’ve really try to get in touch with their body. Then, it’s almost like they wish they hadn’t because their bodies have a lot to say to you but I would personally, I feel that way a lot of the times, too. “Oh, darn! I wish I could eat ice cream and not know that I’m allergic to dairy. Ugh!” But I think, in the end, it just allows you to be more in touch with what makes you happy and healthy overall. It goes far more beyond the food that you eat.

I think for keto, the general consensus for so many people is that it allows you to get in touch with your body. Although you might be afraid or fearful of the side effects, I would also encourage you to look at some of the positive things that can come from your keto diet. Although you’ll have to figure out your salt intake and if you have sleepless nights, how do you overcome that but I would rather overcome those obstacles that are coming up instead of not dealing with them because there’s imbalances that you’re not dealing with because perhaps you’re not keto and that’s where you need to go.

The fifth question is from Ophelia on testing ketones. I didn’t write down her question because it was basically, “How do I test my ketones?” Okay. There can be a lot of confusion around testing ketones. I just want to say off the bat or right up at front is that you don’t have to test ketones forever. Once you’re fat adapted and you know what keto feels like, you really don’t really have to test anymore. I found it such a waste of money. Maybe if you have a breath tester, like the new keto breath tester that just came out, I heard is pretty awesome. I don’t have it because personally testing ketones really triggers me and triggers poor behavior because if my ketones were lower than they were the day before, I’m going to fast when I don’t want to fast. It just creates a bunch of garbley goop that I don’t need in my life right now or ever, actually, but if you are first starting going on the keto diet and/or perhaps you really love testing and it’s not triggering for you, and you’re a math geek and you just love knowing numbers and things like that, I recommend the blood test.

The problem with testing your blood is that although it’s the most accurate between urine, blood and breath, it’s also the most expensive. You have urine tests which is pretty inexpensive. The problem with that is that ketones are generally only dumped into your urine when you first get started. At certain intervals, it gets really complicated. Testing your urine, say, throughout the day is not going to work even when you first get started. If you’re first started, your intestine gets great in the morning. Just do it in the morning and be done for the day but urine testing throughout the day, I’ve experienced that it’s pretty useless and once you become fat adapted, you probably won’t be registering ketones any more in your urine because your body is using the ketones.

But the next one is your breath testing so there is one breath tester that I know of. It’s a reusable one that plugs into your computer. It’s called a Ketonix. I’ve heard that the new Ketonix are actually really fabulous. If you give it a try and let me know what you think. Basically, you just blow consistently into this machine. It tells you what your ketone levels are. It tracks on this cool app thing that you can download to your computer. Pretty interesting.

Then, the third one is testing your blood. I like blood because I don’t know. The breath thing with the computer and I have to plug it in. I don’t know. It’s just not my jam. For the blood, I don’t like testing my finger because it hurts like crazy but I test the meaty part of the exterior piece of my palm., It’s the meaty part right there. I poke it in there, test my blood. My recommendation is just do it once a day. Any more than that, you’re paying way too much money.

I hope that was helpful, Ophelia, for testing your ketones and know that you don’t have to do this forever. I would highly recommend you not, because at the end of the day, if you’re testing once or twice a day, that’s almost $200 a month. I can think of so many cool things to do once a month for $200. You can go to the spa or you get yoga membership or you go out with your girlfriends to the mountains for, a day and maybe even rent a hotel. The opportunities are endless. I would rather do all of those things, maybe one thing every month as opposed to testing my ketones. More on the episode after this message from one of our podcast partners.

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The sixth question is from Mora on giving keto a chance. “Why is it extremely important to give this way of eating a fair trial, like 90 days, and not give up too quickly? For me, it has taken a good three weeks for my body to adjust and weight loss has not been instantaneous. Everyone is unique and needs to make adjustments along the way as you have definitely talked about before. I probably would have given up sooner based on the slow-ish progress but I love how I feel. I find it so important to not have weight loss be the only objective of eating this way and of course, you have made that very clear in your Fat Fueled book as well.”

Then, Bailey writes in addition to Mora’s question, “Every time I try to do the high-fat thing, I stop losing and the scale fluctuates like crazy and I let it get to me. I wonder sometimes if this is healing or I’m just plain eating too much, so I started restricting again to see results. So, this is definitely something I’d like to hear more on. How can we tell it’s doing us good to stay higher fat that we aren’t eating too much and how long to wait for the adjustment, et cetera?”

This is an awesome question, ladies. It’s not as simply answered as I would like it to be. In fact, for Bailey’s question specifically is the going back to restriction and how do you know if it’s healthy. Episodes 19 and 24, you’re going to need to write that down in your calendar and remember to listen to those episodes because I think they are going to be really beneficial for you on that topic.

When it comes to giving keto a chance, my experience with keto was quite unique. I experienced results instantly but I experienced a lot of side effects. The first month was clear sailing. I did that video on YouTube. I’ll include a link in the show notes of my first 30 days on keto. I kept a journal and everything was going really well. I had a couple of issues but nothing too crazy. Over two months, I lost all the weight that I wanted to loose and I looked really hot but then, basically the next day, after reaching my goal, I decided that my goal wasn’t enough. I was going to go harder and stronger and faster and eat less and fast more and all the things, work out more. Yeah, crazy town. I started experiencing a lot of side effects like can’t sleep, hair falling out. Oh, man! Totally obsessed with everything and friends being concerned for me because I was starting to lose too much weight. When I restrict food, my body loses weight really, really, really fast but I go really, really, really crazy. This is not a good thing.

In the case of why you need to give it a fair trial is that every body is different. For me, I needed to give it 90 days to lose all the weight and start to feel crazy and realize that the way I was doing it was not benefiting my body whereas some people need to give it 90 days because their bodies, it’s harder for them to adapt.

Personally, I can adapt really quickly. My body switches back and forth, whereas some people, it takes weeks, even months to become fat adapted. They say the more you experience that fat-adaption process, those first weeks of becoming fat adapted, the more keto flu that you have and the more carbohydrates cravings that you have, the more you need this eating style. It’s your body is shifting from a very different eating style. It’s a huge adjustment. If you’ve been eating burgers and Diet Coke and junk for the last 20 years and all of a sudden, you switch over to keto, whoa! Especially a Whole Food-based approach to keto, that’s a huge change. You’re not going to feel very good. That’s just plain and simple but I would say for anyone that’s been eating keto and listening to their body and eating when they’re hungry and really in tune with that. If you’re not losing weight, it’s probably because you don’t have weight to lose. That’s really hard to hear. It’s hard to say because I know that even a year ago, had I heard that, I would have thought that I was crazy because, “No way. My body can’t dictate what size I’m going to be. I get to choose. I get to choose what size I’m going to be. I get to choose what weight I’m going to be,” but it doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t work like that.

In episode 19 and 24, we go through those concepts a little bit more in-depth because I know this is something that a lot of us struggle with. It doesn’t need to be a struggle but I get what it is. I went through it. It sucked. I totally get it.

In the case of Bailey’s question is, “How do I know if I’m healing,” or, “How do I know if I’m just eating too much?” I would say, in the grand scheme of things, I remember the first day that I decided to eat when I was hungry, I ate so much. I felt like I ate so much. When I look back at my food journals because I was using food journals back then to just say, “Here’s what I’m eating.” Dude, I had nothing. I eat that for breakfast now.” It’s all relative. It’s so relative to what’s going on in your life right now and how you perceive what you’re eating.

In the case of Bailey, you’re saying the scale fluctuates like crazy, then you go back to restricting again. Yeah, of course because your restriction is creating a body that perhaps your body doesn’t want or is uncomfortable in. Based on my experience with using a ketogenic diet first to lose a bunch of weight in a state of restriction, and then being like, “Oh, wait a minute. This isn’t the life I want.” Then, using a keto diet to overcome those restrictive tendencies and to eat enough, I personally vote for eating enough and being the size that I am now.

Yeah, being the size that I am now, there are people online that tell me that I’m fat. That’s a thing. It happens. There are also a ton of people in my life and just random strangers that compliment me. At the end of the day, those compliments or people taking me down and things like that, I don’t let positive or negative things impact the way that I feel about myself but I do look at those instances and really question the whole thing. It’s just, it frustrates me so much that so many of us are focused solely on what our bodies look like and how that dictates our life experience that we don’t take a look of things outside of our body.

I like to think that I am a pretty good educator but when I was so deep in all the eating disorder, disordered eating restriction mentality stuff, I wasn’t harnessing my power of educating people. I was wasting my life.

Although, if you eat enough and you’re not restricting and you end up being “larger,” what’s the problem with that? Really, what is the problem with that? My life is so much better now knowing that in the process of healing. I don’t think you ever get to the “perfect” health but that I just eat when I’m hungry. I eat what I want. I know that keto feels good on my body so that’s what I eat primarily. I’m fat adapted, and life is good., When I feel like a carb-up, I have a carb-up. It’s no big deal. When I feel like emotional eating, I’m emotional, I eat. It’s a thing that happens. It’s no big deal.

You know what I think? A way to tell if you are “healing,” is when you look at the mirror and you choose love and you choose, to honor your body. When you prepare food, you choose to choose food that makes you feel good and when you choose food that doesn’t make you feel good, that you’re okay with that. You might know that you’re healing when you choose to hang out with friends and not worry about the food that you’re eating, or when you choose to engage in positive movement that makes your body feel good, or when you take a compliment without saying, “Oh, yeah. This hair? No. It’s like messy. I barely did it today,” instead of saying, “Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for complimenting my hair.” Those can be signs of health or when you get home from a stressful day and you eat an entire bag of potato chips knowing full well that you’re eating it because you’re stressed out, that’s healing.

Healing can mean so many different things to so many different people. Healing can be becoming fertile again which is what I really wanted to do. I wanted to get my period back. I wanted to ovulate. Now, I know with my monthly periods and my crazy ovulation, I’m so fertile, this girl now. It’s crazy that I’m on my path to health. I would look at some negative behaviors in your life or things that drag you down and things that take you away from really becoming that amazing beautiful person that you are and say, “Like, how can I heal myself to harness that power and to be better,” not for anyone else but for yourself because it’s pretty cool.

You can take your body a while to become accustomed to the keto diet. In the case of Mora, I would give it 90 days because your body can do cool things, not so cool things. You got to shift and listen and adjust and chat with your friends about it or other people that are eating keto and learning different strategies because each approach, the keto diet is going to be so different for other … Your diet’s going to look different than my diet. I’ll say I personally don’t eat a lot of fruit. You’ll be like, “Oh, my gosh. Fruit makes me feel so good on my carb-ups.” It’s all so different. That’s why I say, “Give it 90 days,” and know that your body may have other plans for you.

Whether you’re on keto or you’re vegan or paleo or Standard American Diet, whatever you’re doing, regardless of how you are choosing to feed yourself, really, at the end of the day, your body wants to make the choices. You standing in the way of that can, I don’t know, be really detrimental not only for your body but for so many other things. I would say just take some time, stop, drop, and listen to your body and see how things go.

I hope that was everything that you guys hoped to hear from me. I really like answering questions. It’s amazing we got through six questions. It’s awesome. The show notes for today’s episode can be found at healthfulpursuit.com/podcast/e18. Thanks, guys.

That does it for another episode of the Keto Diet Podcast. Thanks for listening in. You can follow me on Instagram by searching Healthful Pursuit, where you’ll find daily keto eats and other fun things. Check out all of my keto supportive programs, bundles, guides, and other cool things over at healthfulpursuit.com/shop. I’ll see you next Sunday. Bye.

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