Well, hello ladies and gents Roberts.
Thanks keto, Savage.com today ever get special guest.
Nikki on the line is she is a dietetic student in Australia.
She is studying all about nutrition.
She is a very deep interest in hypertrophy building muscle
bodybuilding powerlifting. So our interests and passions
are certainly aligned in that regard and she has been
carnivore for the past two and a half years.
She is a wizard with all things nutrition.
She's get multiple scientific studies.
Her Instagram, like you should just start going down the rabbit
hole, and dive deeper and deeper.
When you go through a Content I've learned a ton and following
her. I learned a ton in this podcast
and I'm just super excited to dive in and let you all learn as
well. So without further Ado, sit
back, relax and enjoy the conversation with Nikki
And we are live. Nikki, how are you?
Good, thank you for having me. Absolutely.
I'm excited to dive in here because you are much, much
smarter than I am. I'm excited to learn something
here. I'm not even sure how I found
out about you. I think it may have been from a
post you on the carnivore. Cast a few months back, right?
I was, yes, yes. That may have been when I
initially saw you and I started following you on Ram.
Then all of your posts are deep dive into scientific literature
and Jim post and the two go hand-in-hand and you've been
doing a carnivore diet and there for quite some time, right?
I have, I'm almost up to what is it?
Almost two and a half years now and I love it.
Awesome, awesome. I definitely want to dive into
carnivore, but I'd love to kind of get a little background on
you specifically what it is that you're studying because you're a
you're in school currently, right?
I am currently studying dietetics at the University of
Newcastle and I'm about just over halfway.
So I've still got a little way to go but some yeah, I'm right
in the weeds at the moment. What was the motivation for
going down? That trajectory of study to
begin with. Well, originally I made up, I've
always had a really deep passion for nutrition and I studied
nutrition. When I came out of high school,
I always knew I wanted to do nutrition but mainly because I
had a lot of health issues and nothing completely serious, but
just, you know, Annoying autoimmune problems that I
suffered with and, and problems trying to control my weight.
And so, I went straight into nutrition, I guess.
Almost without even realizing it.
At the time I was trying to find a way to cure all the things
that I was suffering with. And as I got older and I had
kids, those things kind of progressed and got worse and and
I never really ended up. I did the course, but I never
ended up really using it. I became distracted with
different things. And, you know, I got married and
went overseas and all this. And then, after having kids, I
Ii-i've the passion was still there and I guess I hadn't
really found a a resolved for from, for my conditions.
And as I said, they seem to be getting worse and so, yeah, I
decided I wanted to. I wanted to learn as much as I
could about it. And so I decided this time
around, I'd go back and do dietetics because I could see
over the. Well, I think it was about by
that point about 10 years since I studied nutrition and let's
face it that none of the information that I had.
Received really was still able to be used and the industry has
changed a lot since then. And so yeah, decided that
nutrition. Unfortunately, these days, you
know, you can do a three year course to become a nutritionist
or you can do a month course to become a health coach, which you
can call yourself a nutritionist so I thought, no, no.
I want to I want to go a little deeper than that and I want to
have the respective of a dietitian and so that I can
actually, you know, really really work with doctors and
make some changes and Interestingly, by that point, by
the time, I enrolled for dietetics, I'd already started,
the carnival diet. So I went into the course
knowing that it would be a little bit of a struggle because
of course, the dietetics course is is very, it's the food
pyramid, you know? It's the it's the standard
American diet, that's the stranded Australian diet.
So I knew it would be a struggle and it has been.
Yeah, I'm always curious. Is when I talk to people that
are deep in study with we are to attrition as headaches, any of
that stuff and they follow a diet, you know, whether that be
a carnivore diet, a ketogenic diet but something very counter
to what the main, you know, philosophical thought towards
nutrition is within that scope of study.
How do you how do you balance that?
Like I mean I'm assuming you're getting a lot of other benefits
just like in the act of studying nutrition and how that all
operates in the body because some of those, some of those
concepts are going to carry over regardless but I I would imagine
it's not easy to have a lot of your peer group in support of
what you're doing. Yeah, yeah.
It's been an interesting journey.
I mean, I remember having a discussion with my my parents
before starting the course and I said to them you know, I really
am going to be open-minded and and obviously I have my own
bias, we all do but I really want to go in there with an open
mind, trying not to do what I think a lot of dietitians and
doctors do do And that's, you know, deciding that their way is
the only way and then they're unwilling to be open-minded to
other things. So, you know, I said to them, if
I come out at the end and I really feel like veganism is the
best way forward for health, then I will accept it, but I
will always do this diet for myself because I can I can't
unsee what it has done for me but you know having said that
the the interesting lie I find some of my courses.
Really obviously against what what I do and what I believe in.
And so I sit in the class and I'm and I'm just, you know,
biting my fingernails. I can't, I can't stand it but
then others are completely in line without even them really
realizing it, you know, for example, like a lot of the
biochemistry courses are very much in line with with what with
what I have learned to myself because it's science, you know,
it's looking at How does the body work?
What is the biochemistry of? How do we break down
macronutrients? How do we, you know, absorb
nutrients, it's science. It is already isn't and and
those courses for that reason, I really, really love.
And as I said, it's quite fascinating because from what I
have learned going in and learning some of the deep weeds
of energy metabolism, and I can see why something like a
ketogenic diet is amazing. And Superior so.
But without even the teacher, realizing it and it's quite
fascinating because I'll often, you know, I'm trying not to be
that annoying student. So I usually keep my opinions to
myself at this point because I am only halfway through but
there have been a few times where I've put my hand up and
said what would you think about this way of using the energy or,
you know, how do you think this might work for an athlete or
whatever and they they would just shut it straight down even
though, Might have just explained why fat metabolism.
What actually, you know, utilize a lot more energy and so it
might actually be more beneficial as soon as you say.
So you think something like a ketogenic diet might be
fantastic for an athlete. Then for example, because it
will give them longer-lasting energy and and then they'll say
I will we would never do that though because it's just so
terrible for your health, you know, conversation over.
So it's very kind of her plea devils.
Advocate here. So when you're going through
these lectures and you're studying, has there been
anything in particular that you've learned that has caused
you to not second-guess necessarily, but really kind of
put your, your personal biases, aside, and be like, well maybe I
am doing something wrong, because this is really, really
evident here. That's a really cool question.
I'll be honest, there has been one time and I am yet to go in
and really look into it because actually only the The day so
far, it's really just been them. You know, suggesting an idea and
then me, you know, saying would this work them saying?
No. And then me thinking, but that
doesn't make sense. But I won't push it but the
other day I was I learnt in Biochemistry.
That saturated fat apparently triggers the same Cascade of
inflammatory, the inflammatory Cascade.
Like is if you've it how do I explain it?
It basically turns things on that are involved in the
inflammatory Cascade when you have saturated fat and then he
showed us a study where people consumed a certain amount of
saturated fat and then, you know, and yes, it showed that
their asthma became worse very quickly within a few hours.
And so in the of research, then I went in and did myself, I can
Taste right away. What probably going on.
It looked like they'd given the people a McDonald's burger and
now, there would be some saturated fat in a McDonald's
burger. But we can also tell that there
is a lot of other stuff in there.
Yes. Now I think it was burger
patties and cheese. I don't think she'll lie, the,
the bun as far as I can see. The picture looked like it had
the bun, but I can't imagine they'd be that dumb too.
Include carbohydrates, well, but maybe they are, I don't know.
But it was an interesting thing to hear because I thought, oh,
that's interesting. I've never heard that connection
before. I'll definitely look into it.
And as I said so far I can see that.
It's probably more other stuff that was in there as well.
And we know that they use seed, oils to cook the burgers, things
like that. So I don't know if that will go
anywhere, but I'm interested in researching it.
Maybe there is something to it, but I'd be Aged.
So, that's the only things there hasn't really been to too many
studies that have looked at you like like, for instance, red
meats been pointed to cause cancer or saturated fans but
there hasn't been too many studies that have looked at
those variables in isolation. Correct.
I mean most of them are like a meta-analysis in which people
are doing like a survey and they're consuming red meat but
it's also in tandem with a lot of processed carbohydrates.
There's not really a good quality study that I'm aware of
that looks at this in humans. Over the course of enough time
in which meat is pretty much the primary food group to the point
where it's almost an isolation. It's very unfortunate because
yes, I can confirm that the best way that we currently well in
Australia. Anyway, I assume it's the same
in the US, but the best way that we currently get information on
that sort of stuff. How much of each food group do
people eat, where we get all our data from is giving people food
surveys. And I mean, I imagined you
saying to somebody how many times in the last year, did you
have orange juice? And you're like, well, we know,
because we don't really drink our 20 for me.
I'm did you wait? I don't know fairies and you're
sort of thinking, I don't know, but six it could have been 10.
It could have been 20. It could have been five.
I don't know. And the problem as well, is
that, you know, red meat is, is in the same category as Pizza.
Hmm. So, I mean that these studies
unfortunately are very biased and it gives us really crappy
results. And so I think that yes, there
are a lot of studies out there that had that link, saturated
fat meat to a lot of issues but we need to look at it.
You know, we really need to take a look at how we're doing these
studies and unfortunately, it's not giving us very correct
answers. Yeah, yeah, totally.
Agreement. I'm not in like I read a lot of
studies but this is like I mean it's not my job in that sense
like I'm not a scientist, I'm not a doctor but I find a lot of
Fascination in reading these studies and trying to be on The
Cutting Edge. But for some of this just simply
trying to be healthy and, you know, avoid the Sea of
misinformation out there like it would be daunting to go out and
Google nutrition. And what's the best way to eat?
Because there's so much conflicting information out
there. And so many of these studies had
their own biases in them, and it's just, like, I don't, Don't
know what to even say the people that are looking online for
answers. I mean, honestly, I think just
simply being your own experiment and seeing what works and what
doesn't and having enough self-awareness to be able to
determine if something is working well for you or not is
Paramount, Yeah, I completely agree with you.
There. There are so many things that
can go wrong with with studies and I mean, some of them even
are unintentional and I mean, unfortunately, some of them are
intentional as well. I mean, we're all aware of some
of the studies that were done that were deliberately hidden.
I mean, the, the Women's Health Initiative.
I'm quoting here. I think we're, you know,
literally the information was hidden in a basement for like,
30 years was like it, there is a lot of information that we
Either that they hide, or they just don't make it very clear
in, might be an obscure texts, it's somewhere in the study
paper where people can't really find it.
It's, it's very hard to navigate and then on top of it as well.
There's there's healthy user bias, which can skew results and
it's, it's very difficult. And I mean, we have done a few
courses so far on understanding, how to interpret studies.
And I can tell you, I'm just, as confused as I was at the
beginning. Trying to interpret them.
And so I do put a lot of stuff to do with looking at papers,
but I can tell you, I I'm still trying to get my head around it
as well. It's very, very confusing.
And as you said, I think the best way is to look at what is
working for a big group of people, like, people that are
doing keto and people that are doing carnivore.
And I think what's amazing is that these sort of
conversations, get the information out there, people
try it. And then the more people that we
can see that are getting Incredible benefits, the message
travels. So I think that's much better
than any study can really give you.
Yeah, I agree when it comes to you, personally, you mentioned
that you were having some autoimmune issues with the data
that you're following prior to carnivore.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Is it like, I mean, I can't imagine it was a standard
American style diet. Was it?
Just consuming more carbohydrates, more vegetables
in general. Well, I say, what's interesting?
I do sometimes when I look back now and with the information
that I have learned over the last few years, I question
whether or not my my eagerness to resolve my health problems.
Maybe more so than the average person and then following a, you
know, going into nutrition and following a very plant based
approach. I wonder if I actually did make
my situation was, and I look at people that have come from that
are This space, whether it's Kato carnivore.
And, and I do often wonder the same thing because we're, we're
all here for a reason, you know, we're all here to either control
our weight or to fix some, some health problem that we have.
And, and so it's likely that we've gone to extremes to get
there and unfortunately found no success.
For example, you know, for myself the learning that I I
started to really have issues around.
I guess the age of about eight eight or nine.
I started to really have problems, especially with asthma
and hay fever, but they were the biggest ones for me and then, as
I have problems with my way to going into my teen years, you
know, like we all do. But I really struggled with it
and so, I tried to control it as much as I could.
And then of course, the learning that that I got was well, you
just exercise as much as you can and you eat mainly plant foods,
keep your calories low. And as I said, I think that did
probably more And then good, really?
I I cut out a lot of red meat, I never went vegan or vegetarian,
but, but I was just basically eating just, you know, some
very, very low calorie fish and then going into the the exercise
space and getting very much into bodybuilding and powerlifting
for a while. I was doing the very standard
thing. You know, I worked with a coach
for a while who had me on six meals a day of, you know, whole
grains and very very So fat, you know, just a lot of
carbohydrates, low fat and moderate protein that the usual
thing. And, of course, my cycle started
to change then, and it disappeared completely.
And, you know, I can see now looking back that it really did
make things worse. Yeah, yeah.
It's a tricky thing because you see, I mean, there's so many
recommendations out there for just cutting calories, but
there's never a discussion on the importance of Being in the
maintenance or even sometimes a caloric Surplus.
And I feel like for females especially, you know, when
they're hearing online and they're comparing themselves to
people that are, you know, wearing a size zero at all times
because they're, they're modeling for something to
whatever. There's this stigma that exists
and people just chronically under eat and that has a massive
negative effect on their overall metabolic rate, their ability to
build more lean tissue maintaining lean tissue and and
that's how the equations never really focused on.
Yeah. Yeah.
I have a because I'm so I'm so in love with the gym saying and
I have been for so many years and especially when it comes to,
you know, bodybuilding and as I said, a little bit of power
lifting and I can see the, the whole female athlete Triad
issue, really? Fascinates me because it's
certainly something I've struggled with off and on many
many years. And, you know, I mean, that it's
that hole. Idea of, you know, you are
eating a little less calories and you're exercising a lot, and
so you just not getting enough overall and it's stressing your
body out and and so many female athletes at least have changes
to their cycle, and many of them completely lose their cycle.
And then of course, their bone density drops.
And as I said I experienced all these things myself over and
over and it was always a struggle to try and get my
period back all the time. What can I do to try to get my
period back and I think One thing that that is fascinating
and is very misunderstood is how important it is to get obviously
enough calories. But enough of the right
calories, you know, the usual protocol and that I was told
many many times by coaches was okay.
Well, let's keep upping your carbohydrates until you get to a
certain weight that you know until you put on a certain
amount of weight and to get in certain amount of body fat and
then your cycle will return. But by doing that, only by
carbs, Already. You don't really even adding
that much fat and then, I mean, for myself, my cycle never came
back until I started adding a lot of different supplements and
you know, going on all these crazy regime's and and at the
same time being something like 10, 15 kilos heavier, which is
not great for your mental health either.
And so what I am trying to understand and try to get the
message across pit as well, is that it's about how you feel
your body and how dense the nutrients are that you've given
doing it because the body is looking for certain things.
And if you're not providing it, just by adding back in more
grains, that's not really going to fix the problem.
Your body is looking for things and you need to give it those
things. And that is enough fat enough
protein and enough density of nutrients.
And so, as I said, I think prescribing just adding
carbohydrates to women in that situation is not going to get
them anywhere. Just going to make them put on
weight. Yeah, totally.
Totally agree. Especially in the context of an
athlete to mean. He's so many of these female
competitors in the bodybuilding space that they're just they're
eating hardly any dietary fat, they lose their cycle.
You know, months and months out from the show and then they just
feel miserable in the guys to, I mean, the guy's testosterone
tanks, I mean, it's just not a healthy sustainable process at
all going to bed at that traditional route.
So like for you, you know, you're training.
Your lifting heavy lifting intensely.
What is what is your everyone's gonna be a little different.
But what is your Personal like caloric intake, macro
distribution. Split, like how do you kind of
structure that that works well for you?
I'll be perfectly honest, and I don't want to be one of those
people. That's why.
I don't know. I genuinely don't know what my
calorie intake is at the moment. I don't know I, but I do cycle
my calories and because I've been in this, you know, because
I've been so aware of my food for so many years.
I mean, as I said, I started getting into the gym when I was
about 16 and I'm now 33. So, I've been in this place a
long time, I'm very good at eyeballing food, I know what
protein gives me more Protein rather than fat, I know the Lena
cuts under the fatty Cuts. So, what I tend to do is I aim
for about 100 to 120 grams of protein a day, I'm eating pretty
high. I'm pretty short as well.
So, but I feel like my body looks for it.
I, if I'm having less protein in a day, I feel like my body then
wants it the next day. More don't know how many grams
of fat I'm having but I do like to cycle it.
So what I do is sort of a couple of days in a row Go where I'm
doing more heavy on the fat. So I'll deliberately choose, I
usually do about two meals and for those two meals, I'll
deliberately choose, you know? If it's if it's ground beef or
to be like, 80/20, I'd go for then.
I would put in a little bit of extra fat.
From, you know, I actually like to air fry chunks of fat.
So I guess you could say, I'm probably eating quite a lot of
fat. I don't know how many grams that
would be maybe 80 to A day and then and then every few days I
drop it back a little bit and I feel like my body's at a point
now where it almost tells me when that they needs to be.
So I find that I'm craving less bad.
I'm craving more protein and so but because I'm at a pretty lean
level these days. I don't know what my body fat
is. I think it's maybe 15 or 16 or
something. I wouldn't want to go more than
one day where I choose Lena things.
And when I say I choose Lena things, it's like I don't Don't
go chicken breast and you know tilapia I go the just I feel it
as opposed to ribeye and so after about a day though I find
my body's looking again for fat. So I'm wanting more fatty things
and I just find that that sort of seems to work really well.
For me. I feel like it goes with my
Hunger cues, I feel really say Sedated by it and with my
knowledge on Just calorie cycling in general, I always did
carb cycling back in the day and, of course, now I don't
really do that. I don't ever do that but I do
still like the idea of of calorie cycling.
I think, it keeps your body guessing a little bit.
It sort of stops it from getting too used to anything particular.
I feel like it gives you sort of The Best of Both Worlds.
Yeah, I think your body works very, very well.
One thing that I have learned from my course, is that the, the
body He really likes to just be in a, in a balanced position.
It doesn't like to do anything that it doesn't have to do.
If you're not, for example, if you if you're not training in
the gym and you're not showing that it needs muscle, it's not
going to keep muscle because it's to Cal exhausted for it.
It doesn't, it doesn't do anything.
It doesn't need to do. So I like to mix it up and sort
of keep it guessing some days I'll have quite high fat some
days. I'll have lower-fat some days, I
have Protein. And I just feel like that works
really well. To keep me at a pretty lame
level without feeling ever deprived of that adds is the
quick? No, not this this it's super
insightful. I feel like the calorie cycling
is a worthwhile thing to dive into its you're typically doing
like a that to Fanny days or so and then Alene day and then you
just repeat that more or less. Yeah I usually do about 33 days
it's certainly more of a Pro fat than it is ever lean.
So it would be, maybe three, four even five days, some days,
and some weeks in a row, I might do quite a few days where it's
quite high fat. And then one day where it's
dropped, dropped back. And as I said, it's never it's
certainly not protein sparing, because protein sparing is like
30, 40 grams of fat a day. It's certainly nothing like
that, we've protein sparing, as you know, I mean, we're going
egg whites, we're going fish. You know, very, very lame for
me, it's not that lean, it's just it's leaner cut.
So I feel it, things like that and that would be one day and
then I'm right back onto the high fat, again, do you have an
opinion of the protein sparing modified fast?
I personally think if you're going to be doing fasting, I
prefer it because I'm a big advocate of as much muscle as
you can possibly have. I can see the idea behind it.
It and I've certainly experimented a lot myself with
it and I find it pretty successful and it makes sense.
Biochemistry, why is it does make sense?
You're dropping fatback enough that, you know, and especially
if you are if you are fat adapted, then if they're not
bringing in fat, then your body. Where else is it going to look
for energy? It's going to go back into your
stores of fat, but the key is that you really need to be very
fat adapter. From what I can see, as well.
The further you go and I posted something about this the other
day. The further you go with being
keto, fat adapted, you know, the more your body really does
genuinely prefer to just use ketones, it gets very used to
it. And there are places in in the
body like the brain that we do need glucose, we do need to have
that. But I mean it's so amazing.
That there are places like the muscle where their hybrid and
and they literally will just go, you know, I'm going to use fat,
it's becomes very easy for the muscles to use fat.
So any little tiny bit of glucose that you do have, will
go directly to the places that desperately need it.
And so, when I first started looking into the protein, a
protein sparing, I thought, yes, but you surely would start
breaking down a lot more of your, of your protein.
But I think what I can see is that provided that you've been
Fat adapted for enough time and I'm talking like at least 6
months, then you should really shouldn't be tapping into your
protein at all. But the key, there's a few
nuances, I believe you'd have to be eating, certainly enough
protein. So that you're not because when
we when we are going through gluconeogenesis, we are actually
using substrates that we need to break down protein a little bit.
So you need to be making sure that you are getting enough
protein. And that's why I'm not a huge
fan of straight fasting. For many days in a row because
if you are creating your own glucose, which you will have to
do, to some degree, you are going to be breaking down a
little bit of protein and some of your amino acid.
So you want to be stocking up things like your solo acetate by
adding in enough protein but you also want to have enough energy
stored on your body. If your and that will be
slightly higher for females, if you're a female that's only
nine. Nine percent body fat and you
trying to do protein sparing as opposed to fasting, I wouldn't
recommend it because you just don't really have enough to tap
into. If you're twenty percent body
fat, maybe you could do a little bit but where I'm at right now.
I always make sure that I'm bringing in some fat through my
diet. Even if it's a leaner day, there
is always some fat to use. Yeah, but the idea of
understands. Yeah, totally graphic.
There's there was one study I think that came out and perhaps
there's been more but Basically pointing to a protein sparing
modified fast approach being more muscle, sparing than a
similar amount of time spent in a true fast, which I get that it
makes sense. But my issue there is I don't
really recommend extended fasting as a form of, you know,
weight loss and fat loss. I mean, you can certainly
benefit from extended fasting done.
Strategically not too frequently, but I don't really
ever point to fasting. Per se as they primary way of
losing body fat. And I feel like a lot of people
especially people that are just simply motivated by the sing the
scale drop, they'll do a protein, sparing modified fast
and which the recommended caloric intake is, you know, 400
500, 600 calories. They'll see that drop in scale,
weight, and then just become addicted to seeing that.
So wind up spending far too long in that really, really low,
caloric intake State. Yeah, I completely agree.
I think there's a lot of things that can possibly go wrong.
I think you can, even if you are getting A lot of success with
that, I think it would be very difficult to to get back out of
that mentally, as well to feel like we'll hang on.
If I go back to normal eating there now, am I going to start
putting on weight? And I know for my, if I I don't
like to do too many lean days in a row as I said, because I don't
feel as good. I am pretty lean which which
makes sense why don't feel it's great.
But but certainly, if I was to do a couple of consecutive days,
I would start thinking Thinking, oh, well, is it going to, you
know, like, there's a lot of mental things, but can sort of
happen there. I also would be concerned that
people are lost my train of thought there, but I would just
be concerned that overall, that they would be getting enough
overall density of nutrients, because, I mean it's like, I'm
agreeing with you, I'm not a huge fan of extended fasting,
anyway, I don't really think it's the best way to do it,
because we both come from a very weak.
We like muscle and we don't want to do anything possibly going to
drop muscle but I also think as well if you're doing a protein
sparing day inevitably you're not going to get as many of the
nutrients because if you're going to go leaner Cuts like for
example, somebody that's going to do protein, sparing will
probably do egg whites. They'll probably do chicken
breasts, you know, fish there's a lot of nutrients in it, but I
think as far as I understand the deeper color, That the meat is
the more nutrient density. You're going to be getting
overall I mean let's that's why it beef liver.
For example is so nutrient dense it's and it's such a deep color.
It's filled with things, it's filled with iron and so I would
be concerned about somebody doing protein sparing too often
as well just because if they're eating a lot of chicken breasts,
eating a lot of egg whites, there's not a lot of nutrient
density in there and the organ meats and things like that.
I'm not saying you have to do organ Meats but I just think you
get so much nutrient density from Being a deep red, bloody
steak. Yeah.
Way more than you get from chicken breast so much that
would care as well. Yeah, yes.
I feel like, the, the protein sparing has just really gained a
lot of momentum, because it's kind of like the extreme version
of the, the train of thought. That if you have much fat to
lose, you shouldn't have much fat on your plate.
And I've never really agreed with that in its Essence from
the beginning. I mean, I definitely understand
the caloric load of fat and that you need to optimize that
calorie intake based off of your goals.
But I think the concept of the notion that if you have more fat
to lose, simply consume less dietary fat.
You know, is just an over simplification of the process in
my opinion. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree with
you. I mean the the, the concept of
the what we will tap into first and what we burn, first
oxidative priority does Fascinate me a lot.
And in a lot of ways I do but I do feel like the further I get
into my course the more I find that yeah the body really is a
machine. It's a machine.
Nothing, particularly magical happens.
It I used to look at the way the human body was is oh my God.
What if this happens one day, what nothing?
There's always seems to be a reason for things to occur and
and it's a machine. But having said that, I think
your body it does. As fast is, it's not as simple
as well. If you've got fat on your body,
don't ever eat any fat. Your body needs a certain amount
in order, for example, to absorb nutrients.
I mean, if you're, if you're eating a steak, for example, you
I've seen a couple of amazing studies showing that you'll
actually absorb more nutrients into your blood.
If you consume that the protein that you're getting with a bit
of fat with it, so for Bowl Mother Nature gives us a, for
example, of rib eye. It's a beautiful combination of
fat and protein. And there's a reason for that,
we're not to really supposed to eat protein on its own very
often because we just don't absorb it as well.
And so, my opinion of it is, I don't really ever eat anything
that I would never eat. Would never cut the fat off
deliberately. I sort of, as I said, I'd
sometimes choose Lena things because my Appetite calls for it
but I certainly think people can people usually do the best and
feel the best and get the best results when they just eat
protein as it comes in nature, if it's lamb chops and it's got
a bit of fat on any, the fact, if it's a steak and it's got
blood on it, eat the fat. I don't, I probably wouldn't eat
pork belly, every single meal of every single day.
I think people can probably overdo fat on a carnivore diet,
for example, or a keto diet if they're adding, copious Fat.
But I think, especially if you are somebody who is very active,
I'm certainly very active and so I add a little bit of extra fat
here and there, if I, if I want it.
But one thing I do love about the the keto diet and the
carnivore diet is that I feel like over time and yes it takes
it can take a while but I think over time your body because it
gets rid of all the other conditions that you might be,
you know, fighting but binge eating and things like that.
I think once it once You are able to bring your body back to
a nice Baseline of Health, it becomes quite clear what your
body is looking for and what your body needs day-to-day.
And and I mean that's a bit of an over simplification
simplification and I think it might not work that way for
everybody, but I think generally, you do certainly get
better at being able to know and understand what your body is
asking. For no, I totally 100% agree.
I think that that's honestly been one of my big you know In
favor of adopting a ketogenic diet as a lifestyle for the Long
Haul is that you continue to get more and more deeply adapted.
Your body is able to acclimate to the foods that you're
consuming and then be able to use them from a performance
standpoint much more efficiently, which brings me to
the next question, which is you mentioned, you've been carnivore
for two and a half years now. Yeah.
About two and a half years. Yes.
And you're also an athlete. You're training hard now is that
carnivore. There seems to be like a million
definitions for these days these days.
There's Your definition of carnivore include fruit and
honey, and things of that nature.
It did for a period. So when I first started
carnivore, I did about a year where I literally just did all
the meats and salt and coffee. But that was really the only
plant food I had. And then, of course, you know, I
started to bring things back in one side healed.
You know, the things that I was dealing with, I thought.
Yeah, I would experiment with avocado and I'll bring back in a
bit of On plant foods and yeah, that worked okay for a little
while, then I did a period where I bought it all back out again
and I was just eating meat and then I jumped on the honey
bandwagon as you as we all get goodbye and I did that for a few
months and gave it a good go. And and what was interesting for
me, was when I jumped into that, I had been doing just meet for
many months in a row. And so, I was able to see kind
of like, Night and day. The difference between adding I
was having about 2 tablespoons of Honey a day.
So for somebody, eating zero carbs to adding two tablespoons
of honey, that was a bit of a change and people could argue
that are well that's not really that much.
But for me going from zero carb, that was a bit of a jump.
There are a couple of things I noted from that.
I felt like my muscles were a little bit more swole with you
which makes sense because I It's your maybe.
I was storing a little bit more glycogen when we saw, you know,
carbohydrates for stirring a little bit more water.
So I felt like my muscles were a little bit larger.
I didn't feel quite as lean and the biggest one for me, well, I
didn't feel any extra energy in the gym and this brings me into
my the last conclusion, which I didn't like in the reason why I
dropped it back out again, the honey.
Because I felt like my Cravings suddenly came back.
I felt I noticed myself suddenly looking for things like dates
and looking for what sweetener can I add to my black coffee?
How else can I, you know, I just felt like it that the Cravings
really, really did come back and, and I felt like I was a
little bit more out of control of of that.
I also felt like in the gym, I didn't give me more energy, but
I did feel like, for example, fasting, I found quite
difficult, I felt like if I trained usually and I mean, this
might not be ideal for muscle building, but it works with my
schedule. I wake up.
I go to the gym, fasted, I'm always faster.
When I go to the gym, I feel like it just, I work the best, I
feel clearest doing that. And usually there's quite a few
hours in between after I've finished training to when I eat.
So, you know, I'm really training right within in between
the, the fasted state. But when I added In the honey,
even though the last time I was having honey was was before
going to bed, so it was my dinner meal and there were many,
many hours in between then and the gym, I felt like my energy
levels weren't as great and that makes sense, because I guess my
body was sort of saying, well, there's available glucose now,
so we'll start using that. But then, of course, once I'd
done 30, 40 minutes of training, I've probably depleted the
little tiny bit that I'm story. And therefore then my body's
like well where is it? I don't have any energy left and
so I felt the drop. So going back to not having any
honey. I certainly felt better overall.
I will say, I think I feel a little bit leaner.
I feel like my muscles maybe aren't as large but I certainly
don't have any Cravings anymore. So yeah.
Interesting experiment. Yeah, no, super interesting.
I feel like there's been a massive push for this targeted.
Keto, I guess approach targeted corner for Leveraging you know
certain types of starches and things like honey.
And I feel like my theory has always been that it's kind of
like putting you in some type of nutritional product or your
limbo so to speak. Like you're not really
optimizing for one or the other so you're kind of in this limbo
land and I can totally see the concept of if you're consuming
more carbohydrates, you're going to have more glycogen and then
you may have this Fuller appearance.
But from a bond, Building standpoint like for me and my
sport you know so many bodybuilders try and time that
just right and then have their muscles.
Super compensate with glycogen going into a show and you can do
that but it is really risky. I mean, you depending on what
variables and what leverage your pulling you run the risk of
spilling over and looking much much worse than had, you not
done any of that manipulation to begin with, and if you get your
electrolytes tile and then you are fully hydrated and you time
things properly, you can bring a relief.
You'll look without the carbohydrates and I've never
noticed any benefit from an energy standpoint or like a
recovery or just strength output standpoint with carbohydrates
relative to just stay in strict keto.
So, I've always just stayed straight keto, but I get the
appeal as to why somebody would want to make that experiment for
sure. It's it was certainly, yeah, it
was certainly an interesting, it was an interesting experiment
for myself and I don't know if I quite understand exactly.
What was going on there, but I mean, I one of my favorite
studies was the country, but it was called.
But I think it was all like Infinity with, but they looked
at the people that had done a low-carbohydrate diet and then
the people that had been doing high carb and, you know, they
did the muscle biopsy before during after, I believe.
And they had the same amount of glycogen stores.
So, you know, I don't know if I quite understand the whole
process of it, totally, but But I personally if I was to ever do
a bodybuilding show or something, I wouldn't add
carbohydrates back in. As you say I feel like it would
be too much of a slippery slope and and I feel like it could
compromise your results a little bit right at the end.
And as you said about the the electrolytes, I think that's
that for me was the biggest night and day change with my
training capacity was making sure I have the right
electrolytes. Yeah, I think that I mean, if
you get the electron style, then, and there's so many
things, so many things that you can manipulate with electrolytes
specifically. I mean, you know, a 1 gram
increase of sodium timed and the right instance is going to have
a favorable effect on your appearance for like, a 48 hour
span, you know, depending on where that equilibrium point
lies. But you, most people will never
really know that and realize that to that extent because
they're not lean enough to see that difference in water
retention. And I honestly just don't know
what they're looking for, because they haven't needed to
really get things down then, to that extent.
But you look at people that are like going for a long drive or
something and they're sitting in a car for six plus h they have,
you know, fluid retention in a demon around their ankles, you
know, even if they're drinking the same amount of water, if
they're able to distribute that fluid in the right spots,
ideally in the muscle tissue that in itself, you know, and
Peak properly for stepping on stage or a photo shoot or
something of that nature. It has a pretty drastic.
Big change in how they're they're appearing in that
moment. Yeah, it's a, it's a
fascinating. I think electrolytes.
And the whole electrolyte balance thing is, is one of my
favorite topics. I'm still yet to really fully
understand it and it confuses me greatly.
But, I mean, over the last few years of study, I really might
my favorite. Organ is the kidneys because I
just think they are the job that they do and when it comes to
fluid balance Johnson and that Pang of In almost every every
thing in the body, it's fascinating.
So yeah, I really, as I said at the whole concept, still
completely confuses me but electrolytes, I think are one of
those things that are really, really misunderstood.
And I really hope that people in this space that are not looking
into their electrolytes that they that they start.
I mean, that doesn't mean that you have to start purchasing
element or anything like that but really making sure that At
you're not skimping on sodium and making sure that you're
like. I think people underestimate
just how much especially when you're in a low carbohydrate
State. How much extra sodium you
actually need. And for example, for myself,
whenever I drink water, it always has salt in it.
I always put salt in my water. I do sometimes have element as
well. But yeah, I mean, I'm
deliberately have a lot of salt. Do you have a lot better?
How many grams are You're probably consuming you probably
not tracking that consistently but just ballpark, I would go
for about six to ten. So I used to when I when I first
started out adding the, the sodium I would put it in a
little dish next to my, you know, water jug.
And I would make sure that I either put that on my food or
put it in my water. Yeah, I would say I'm probably
having six to ten got. Ya feel like that's That's a
good sweet spot especially for someone that's training is you
know, frequently as you are I typically start my clients at
like 4 grams and then titrate up from there to kind of figure out
their sweet spot. So to speak but it winds up
being around that that intake. I think they were days in my
last prep where I was logging like 10 12 grams of salt today
and my body tolerated. It just fine.
I craved it more. In fact and I was keeping my
potassium up pretty high as well.
But it's definitely interesting how you can shift your body's
weight. Here appearance, the thinness of
your skin all with just simply tweaking.
Sodium potassium fluid levels. Absolutely fascinating, I agree
with you. Yeah, it's not any one thing I'd
love to pick your brain on is hormonal health for females in
the context of a strict carnivore diet because there's
been a massive uptick it seems in in the keto space of females
coming under the impression that they can't have long.
Long-standing hormonal Health in the absence of carbohydrates
especially around their Cycles. My theory has always been that
the people that are having those issues are.
Oftentimes the ones that are simply chronically under eating
in general. And then when they introduce
more nutrition at Baseline that those symptoms typically
resolve. But I'd love to get your, your
thoughts on the matter. Yeah, it's a, this this topic
fascinates me again because I struggled with it so much
myself, I I don't know if I ever actually had.
For example, I mean, I didn't blood test, my one regret with
this whole journey, is that I didn't get a blood test at the
beginning and and then keep doing blood tests throughout.
So I don't really have a baseline to compare it to all.
I'm comparing two for myself is, is is just changes in my own
body, the return of my cycle. For example, after many years of
not having it and just by understanding of the body in
general and and and looking at people, In the community.
I think there are a lot of things going on.
I think it depends a lot on where you're coming from.
Do I see? For example, Hashimoto's, a lot
of women come into this space, trying to fix thyroid conditions
and I think with that one specifically, it can probably
depend on how long have you had this autoimmune issue if you've
had it, if you're in your mid 40s and you've had it?
Many, many, many, many years of your life, it is likely that
maybe that tissue is damaged, you know?
I mean, if your immune system is, is chronically attacking its
cells but the body's cells, there does come a point where
probably there is no return. And and I think there are some
people that maybe won't ever completely heal, for example a
thyroid issue and they might need to, you know, medicate for
that. And so I think we do Kind of
ODOT indicator diet. I think when it comes to
hormonal problems like that, there can be a lot of relief
from them sometimes, maybe not complete healing.
And I think that's depressing for some people because it's
like, you take on something like the kind of or Diet, you think,
great this will heal everything, sometimes, it might not, but I
certainly think it's it, can, it can take it to a level that is
much more manageable and maybe even take away all the symptoms
that you've that you've ever dealt with, but I don't
personally believe it's that. You need carbohydrates to make
healthy hormones because we don't make hormones from
carbohydrates. We make hormones from
cholesterol and from, you know, from fat.
And so I personally believe that friend from what I can
understand from the biochemistry as well, really?
Like it is very, very, very important to make sure that
you're getting enough fat. And you're getting the right fat
that your body can do good things with and your body
understands what to do with, you know, not Running cholesterol
and making sure that you're having enough saturated fat.
I think the problem is well with, for example, having a lot
of seed oils, you might be getting a lot of fat, but your
body kind of, it's a plant oil, your body doesn't really know
what to do with it. And then it, unfortunately, when
we break down different fats like that it can, it can make
your body go down different Pathways than it would have.
For example, the Amiga 32 Amiga 6, you know, if you have more
mega six, then you tend to go down that that's breakdown
pathway as opposed to the omega-3 pathway because we use
the same enzymes for those two types of facts.
So, I think when it comes to hormones, it's about making sure
that you have enough enough fat and that you're getting the
right fast. So from animal sources, you
know, the body knows what to do with animals.
Staff at it it knows exactly what to do because we are
animals and it's kind of like the same system.
Like I've had a beautiful analogy.
Once before of you give your body what it knows what to do
with because it's like putting you know it's like an iPhone and
having Samsung you know, a Samsung SIM card in an iPhone.
It doesn't know what to do with it.
So if you give it the technology that it knows what to do with
then then it will do good things with it for me, also, as well, I
think. A protein is a big, it's a big,
big deal as well, because protein, I mean, everything in
the body is protein, almost. I mean, enzymes.
You know, I'm just trying to think of all the things that we
use protein for. We need enough protein, and you
can't shun pretend, you can't shun the protein that we know
what to do with the animal protein.
Again, we are animals and we need the protein that we know
what to to use it for. Also nutrient density.
I think that's what the body is seeking out.
Its it's seeking out enough nutrients so that it no so that
it can make and build things that it needs to build.
And so, when it comes to hormones, as I said, it's very
important to get enough fat, the right fat and enough protein,
and enough, nutrient density. And for myself personally, I
never had to add carbohydrates in order to get my cycle back.
And in order to maintain a healthy cycle, my there were no
joke. I was able to get my period back
before. I did the honey experiment just
in case, anybody was going to ask.
So that was all just don't completely on meat and fat only.
And it didn't really, it didn't affect my cycle in a positive
way by adding it. As I said, I feel much better in
general. My cycle is completely regular
now on just back. Meet at that.
Yeah, yeah. No.
I totally agree with everything. You just said.
I feel like I'm not a female. So I when I say those same
things that seems to carry much less weight than when I went to
FEMA says. I'm so glad to hear all your
saying for sure. I kind of want to take this last
little bit and turn the conversation a different
direction here. So you you mentioned you have
kids. How many kids you have?
I had two little girls two little girls.
How old are they? I've got five year old and two
and a half, five and two and a half.
Okay, so you're in school, you're learning all about the
benefits of ample, vegetation fiber, you know, carbohydrates
for energy yet, you have found all the success with a carnivore
diet. How do you go about raising your
children and trying to do what's best for them when it comes to
nutrition? Yeah, it's a difficult one.
It's a difficult one. So what makes it tricky for me
as well as that I am recently divorced true so hit they the
kids spend a couple of days at their Dads house he people might
find this funny. He found a Seventh-Day Adventist
vegan said that their household is very good vegan.
That's a killer serial around then I guess.
Yeah. Yes, it is.
Difficult to, you know, I mean I can't have my, I can't be too
particular about it because I think I just would lose my mind
if I think too deeply about what goes on in there, huh?
Ask them what they need in their house but when they're in my
house, I do give them a bit of fruit ice.
I don't ever give them bread. I don't ever give them pasta
anymore. I give them a lot of meat and I
make sure that it's always quite fatty meat.
And interested I'll tell you what's fascinating.
When they come home, they always hungry for meat, they always eat
better when it comes to the meat side of it when they have this
dad's house. So that's that's interesting.
I think I think kids bodies sort of are better at knowing what
they're wanting and then they they eat what their body is
asking for. But I don't, I don't, I don't
just give them meat. I give them a bit of fruit.
I just make sure that when I give them those Foods, I'm
choosing The fruit and veg that I understand the lowest in their
toxicity and as I said, I don't, I don't ever really give them
grains. Having said that though, I know
they're kids and if they're if they're out with friends or
we're out at the movies or something, they have treats, you
know, I I'm a I've always been a big believer in for kids if you
if you make something that they can never have it, they're going
to want it more. I think that's just human
nature. Specially for kids.
So I don't want them to be that kid that goes to other other
people's houses and and you know the chocolates come out and then
they go absolutely crazy and they can't you know, they just
can't control himself. So I want them to be aware that
there are treats in life and we can have those Treats.
But to know what we like to prioritize and mummy always is,
it's very I make a big deal when they prioritize their meat and
when they eat all their meat. Yeah, that's that's how I go
about it and I just hope that I can be an example for them.
And then as they get older, they will hopefully.
Look at what does mommy do. Mommy has a lot of Vitality and
Mommy has a lot of energy and she eats a lot of meat and they
are aware even at this age that, you know, mummy loves meat.
Yeah. So I just like to be the example
for them and then hope that they come to a conclusion like that,
as they get older and I guess the benefit that they have is
that. Yes.
Ok. They are not Always eating
perfectly and you know their health might suffer for it a
little bit then maybe they will develop some little autoimmunity
things but they'll they'll be able to come to me and ask what
do I do about this? How do I fix this?
If they start getting? For example if they start being
a little bit out of control with their weight, as a teenager,
I'll be able to help them resolve that in an hour.
I'll know exactly what to do to help them with that and it will
always come to make sure you're prioritizing your meat daily.
Yeah. Yeah, I think simply just living
by example like if they're looking.
I mean, because kids are smart. Kids are way smarter than people
give him credit for but if they're looking at you as an
example and they're looking at their friends parents and you
are much healthier than their friends parents than sure, they
can put two and two together and realize that it's likely because
of your lifestyle, which includes the activity that
you're doing the training, the the corner of or Diet, eating
enough protein and of dietary fat All Quality sources.
And I feel like kids to like if you like if they're eating at
your place and Feel good, they performed and they're able to go
out and play all day without crashing.
Then they go to a birthday party.
Eat a bunch of cake and they probably not going to feel good
afterwards and then you can just simply have them connect the
dots in their own mind as to, they don't feel good because of
that cake. You're so right, you?
So right I think I think unfortunately the the way that
we grew up, you know, it and certainly, I mean, my parents
were fantastic, they always tried to do the right thing but
that, you know, we followed that the standard Approach.
And, and it was very became very difficult for me to ever figure
out what is, why do I have all these problems?
Where is this coming from? And of course, they didn't have
the answers, they didn't know, the doctors didn't have the
answers. So I think, I think, hopefully,
as you said, I mean, my kids will be at a pretty good base
line and they'll be able to see hopefully like night and day,
like I see myself if I, if I go off diet which doesn't usually
happen because I don't ever feel like I need to but you know, if
there's some things in my food that I don't usually have.
That are not great. It's like night and day.
I can see the different straightaway and I think to
myself you know what, I'm not going to have that again because
that wasn't worth it. So yeah, you so right.
I think you've got to lead by example and and you know you
want them to see all foods as being okay, but some are better
than others and some are more of a treat and some are everyday
food. So yeah, I think, I think that
is absolutely the best way to go about it.
Well, Nicki, I don't want to take up.
Too much of your time here. But what is it that you're
studying. Now that you're most excited
about, like what's what's on the horizon for you?
Oh my goodness. When it comes to what do I want
to do with? This course, when I finish, I
have really no idea because I can, I'm frightened by the
industry a little bit. I'm frightened by not being able
to practice the way I want. I'm learning about there are
ways you can go about. For example, being that there
are changes in how you word things that stop you getting in
trouble. Like, for example, you can't
call yourself a ketogenic diet, Titian, but you can close that
the low-carb Titian things like that but I am also aware that
there are people like Gary dr. Gary fitt key and Tim noakes
that have gone into a bit of Deep Water.
By pushing things, like they said that that does that does
worry me a little bit. So I think where I can see
myself and what gives me the most excitement is, the idea of
being in research a little bit, especially when it comes to
athletic performance, I would love to end.
Rebuilding. I mean that's where my true
passions. Have always late.
I love the idea of seeing what people, what people can do in a
training, you know, in the gym if they are fueled with
different different fuels that, that's where my passion is.
So some kind of research to do with that would be fantastic, I
would like to see more on muscle building, rather than endurance,
for keep Durance, using key do so, I'd love to be able to do
some studies on bodybuilders. I think that would be
fascinating because there's just not much out there.
No, I totally agree and our interests are definitely a line
in that regard. That's, that's something that I
am very passionate about, obviously with my my line of
work and are of expertise and lifestyle but they're you're
right, there's not that many studies out there.
Most people most studies run a ketogenic diet or first of all
done over very short annotation phase like short.
So short that it's not really even, you know, Fair To call him
a d'ampton. And then most of those are done
in endurance athletes, there's not really much in these
strength training sector bodybuilding hypertrophy, you
know segment. So more studies out there would
be amazing. So by all means, leave the
charge in that regard. Can I ask you actually on that
topic? I mean, do you have you seen
many people using this approach like you do, or is it not
really? I have definitely.
So since I'm started, I started doing this.
Doing Quito in 2015, I believe 2014-2015 my first show with
keto exclusively keto was 2017. And since then, so I started
putting out a lot more content. I've had a lot of competitors
come to work with me that have come from traditional
carbohydrate-based, backgrounds, and then have gone on to do
shows, you know, with my Approach via a complete kit,
agentic State, and they've only spoken about it in a positive
light. Like they feel They've got
pictures, you know, to compare between what they look like when
they were on stage with carbohydrates versus a ketogenic
approach and they all look better and more improved, you
know what argument that I? Oftentimes get, his people will
look at my pictures and they'll say, yeah, but you built all
your muscle on carbs. You're just able to get really
lean with Quito and my counter to that is I just simply didn't
know about keto when I got into weightlifting and as you know,
when you start training, you know, you have that beginner
gained. Ace.
But then after you've been Lifting for five-plus years like
the the amount of lean tissue you had year after year is just
not near as much of its miniscule.
It changes the shape. It changes your look changes,
the muscle maturity and everything.
But there's like I just simply didn't know about keto as an
option when I started lifting. And since Quito is as popular as
it is, now, I'm excited to see what this next generation of
athletes as looking like because I'm hopeful that there will be
athletes that have followed a ketogenic diet in entirely and
we'll be able to kind of see what their growth potentials
looking like. Mike.
It will be very interesting to see and I mean, I can tell you
for my myself. Yeah, certainly there is some
muscle memory there and of course, as I said, I've been
training for years but there there were periods in my life
where I basically wasn't training at all.
And that was postpartum. And I mean, really starting the
carnivore diet postpartum about a year postpartum.
And then from there almost wouldn't call it a blank canvas,
of course. Yes, I grew.
I agree with what they're saying.
You've got a bit of muscle. Right.
That's really. I mean you as I said, your body
doesn't hold onto things. It doesn't want to hold on to
its not going to waste energy so you know, muscle.
Unfortunately, we drop muscle very, very quickly.
So for myself, it was almost like a Baseline and building and
I've been able to build a pretty good amount of muscle using
using this approach using carnivore.
And, of course, I could be doing things even better.
I would assume I could be doing my training more around my meals
rather than during the fasting period, all this sort of stuff.
So, I guess if I really, really wanted to gain muscle, I truly
believed we could. Yeah, definitely.
But yeah. I mean, I look at my wife
Crystal. She, she has been keto for about
six years, and she's been training for about six and a
half. So, I mean, six months of, which
she was consuming carbohydrates, but the amount of muscle she's
built since that six-month span has all been ketogenic.
I mean, she's totally transformed, her shape and her
proportions and her strength. I mean, so, you know, I point to
my wife as example. Pointing to you.
I've often times is not good enough in the public eye for,
you know, scientific Bank studies for what you can build
from muscle building standpoint with ketosis, I digress.
Well, you know, I mean, every time we see, you know, what
people can can do, I think the more people that we can see this
happening with the more we get the information out and I think
I think it's important to look at people's personal stories and
but I mean, just on it very quickly, I think people
underestimate how How important protein is as opposed to
carbohydrates when it comes to training.
I mean, especially animal protein getting that loot
hitting that loosing threshold. Several times a day, is going to
give you way more muscle, building capacity than any
carbohydrate sources ever given you.
And I do believe that carbohydrates are not really
building new muscle necessarily. There might be helping you
stimulate a little bit more of an mtor, but it's more about
leucine and and I think carbohydrates really just make
your muscles a little bit puffier because you're holding
it. Water.
So personally in my opinion guys, it's about the protein.
Yeah, totally agree on that. Note, this is gonna turn into a,
to our podcast. But do you feel like there is a
benefit to consuming protein multiple times throughout the
day to reach that threshold? Or do you feel like as long as
you're consuming, ample total protein intake throughout the
course of 24 hour period, you should be fine.
I'm a big believer and splitting it up because from what I've
read and understood about it, you you need to hit that
threshold which is about 2 to 3, 3 to 4 grams of loose.
I would say three to four grams of leucine.
But once you hit over that, it doesn't really give you any
extra benefit from what I can see.
I mean, it I think everybody's a little bit confused by it as
well. What does actually happen to
that extra protein? Does it what does it do?
I would assume it just gets converted.
To glycogen. So yes, I think it's better
about splitting it up because if you just do own that every
single day, you're probably going to be going over your
loose end threshold, but you're not going to be getting any more
benefits to it. You're only going to spite the
loose end threshold once. So I'm a big believer in making
sure that you split it up at least into two meals, ideally
two to three. But making sure that if you
split that up, you you have to be still hitting that threshold.
Old. So if you're splitting it up and
you're doing six meals a day, I don't really agree with that
because then you're probably only getting maybe like one gram
of leucine. You might be making your meals
really small. So I'm a big believer in two to
three meals a day, split it up, and make sure you're getting
three to four grams of leucine per meal.
So that's looking like about 250 to 300 grams of some kind of
animal product. I would assume most animal
products will give you about that.
If you have like a standard steak, You know, if you have
more if it's a fattier cut like it's like ribs or something, you
probably going to need a little bit more for because it will be
more fat to protein as opposed, you know.
So so the leaner you go, the smaller amount of meat, you'd
have to eat if that makes sense. But yeah, I'm a massive believer
and splitting it up. Making sure you're getting
amount and and not just doing it once.
I totally agree, when I'm in a building phase, I'm always
having two or three meals a day. Only Duo mad when I'm doing like
a It and my priority there is not in building muscle tissue,
but I think you're right on track with that and just to
clarify for the listeners, that's 200. 300 grams of meat,
not 2 and 300 grams of protein. That's correct.
Because we need the essential
amino acids and leucine is the one we're talking about here Lu
seems the one that really is is very important for stimulating,
mtor, and stimulating muscle protein synthesis, and that is
only found in animal Foods. Foods.
Animal protein. Yeah, Nikki we're going to have
to do multiple podcast. Let me just get something more
questions, but I know nobody is getting along here.
Anytime, when is your studies over?
When is the, when you graduate So I'll be graduating in 2024.
I would love to there's an option to do honors.
I would love to do that, so that will probably extend it a little
bit more as well. So, yeah, I've got a little bit
more to go, but that's a good thing because I'm not quite
ready to get out into the workforce yet.
I don't quite know exactly what I want to do with it, so it's
giving me time to to figure all that stuff out.
But yeah, I've still got a little way to go.
Well, anytime you Studying anything that you find,
particularly interesting, you have an open invitation to jump
on this podcast and enlighten me anytime.
So take full advantage of that because I've learned a ton just
in this conversation. All the thank you and do so that
it's I love talking to people especially when they're from
specific backgrounds like this and especially when it's a
background that I absolutely love.
I love everything to do with hypertrophy.
So yeah, we'll have to share some ideas.
Yeah, absolutely. Where do people go to find out
more about Who's the Instagram? The the best best bet.
Instagrams, the best bet. Yes.
So I'm bio.com dot Nikki and yeah, check me out some cool
stuff. It's I'm sorry if it's a little
bit boring sometimes, guys, it's a go into the weeds, but it's a
good way to help me understand Concepts as well.
If I have to try and teach it then I it makes me understand
it. So, no, I think, I think it's
super interesting, super fascinating stuff.
So keep posting those studies that you are Thank you.
And if anybody has any things that they want me to research,
I'm always looking for when I have my down time, that's what I
do. I just, I go into topics.
I go deep into the weeds with with biochemistry.
So if there's anything people want to know, give me things to
look into. So, I love, I love having a
reason to look into something awesome.
Well, I'll have a, I'll have a list go in then.
Thanks for having me. You bet, Nikki take care, have a
good one and I talk soon. Talk soon.
Bye-bye.