Well, hello ladies and gents. Robert Sykes, Keto savage.com.
Today I've got special guest Kaylee Herring on the line.
She is a West Point graduate in the Army.
She is a Harvard Medical student, and she is going to be
running her first ultra marathon with a ketogenic low carb
approach in just a few weeks. So I wanted to bring her on the
podcast to talk about that, dive into her fueling strategy, talk
about her motivations for going through the Army, going into Med
school, what she's planning on doing that with that going
forward and just learn a little bit more about her.
She's doing some awesome things. I've got no doubt that you will
take something from this. So that further delay sit back
real nice to the conversation with Kaylee.
We are live. Kaylee, how are you?
I'm doing well. How are you?
I'm doing wonderfully well. So we got in contact through
Nick. Y'all both Harvard Med students,
correct? Yes, Nick's a good friend and
classmate of mine, so it was really a pleasure that he was
able to connect us. Awesome, awesome.
He's been. He's been blowing up on social
media. Right now he's doing all kinds
of kind of provocative experience.
Yo, yes, Nick always has something up his sleeve.
I I enjoy watching all the things that he accomplishes and
I'm always waiting to see what he's got got next.
Always something. You get quite a few things up
your sleeve too though. You got a ultra marathon coming
up this month, correct? I do in two weeks.
Actually the countdown, it's we're almost at the taper phase.
Nice, nice. Well, give me some some
background on that. What?
What got you an ultra running? Well, this will actually be my
first ultra marathon, which I'm super excited.
But I guess kind of stepping back, I first started getting
more into running in medical school.
I ran my first marathon, let's see, September of 2021.
I just finished up a lot of my clerkship rotations and I really
found some clarity and peace and training for hard things.
I've always played sports growing up, played rugby in
college, so it's just a natural transition for me I guess to
start running marathons. And the ultra was a little bit
more spontaneous. I've been following a lot of
just ultra athletes that I look up to and I'm like, well, you
know, I've got to give this a try.
So then all of a sudden I had an ultra on my calendar for July.
So I'm just super excited about that.
It's kind of just been a new thing for me in the past year
and a half, so. I love it.
So when it comes to to fueling
for these ultras, you're you're going about it from a totally
fat adapted approach. That's that's the goal, right?
Absolutely. And I think that was something
that's I was a little bit nervous about at first.
I mean, I've, I've never eaten truly ketogenic and that's more
so from a lifestyle perspective. I guess it's it was hard for me
is in college not having a kitchen where I lived, I lived
in the dorm all four years and in medical school.
It's expensive just eating in general and it's you have to be
very flexible. So I've never been able to truly
go keto until I guess now it's been about half a year.
And I guess, I mean, I don't have to tell you, I feel, I feel
amazing. And I didn't know how that was
going to translate into some of these longer endurance events.
But it's been great. And I feel like it's actually
given me an advantage in that I'm not coming across a lot of
the GI issues I see a lot of other runners encounter.
My energy is phenomenal. And in terms of fueling for this
ultra, it's been, it's been pretty easy.
I've been not having to require gels every 30 minutes or
anything like that. So I've I've just been really
loving it and it's really cool to see how an unconventional
approach can benefit by me personally so much of my
training. So I'm just excited to see how
it continues to help me as I keep progressing and hopefully
keep getting better and better. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm super
excited. So the marathon that you did,
I'm assuming that was more of a conventional fueling strategy.
Yeah, it was more conventional for sure.
I would definitely was not targeting a fat adapted state
per SE. It, it ended up being a very,
very big learning experience, we'll call it.
I think the only thing I ate during the entire, the entire
race, mind you, not in a fat adapted state was a couple of
fruit snacks. So I definitely paid for that
one. And the end of mild 20/18/20 I,
I hit a really big wall and I was like, OK, something needs to
change. I'm, I'm, I don't like to eat
really well. I run.
I prefer to just focus on the activity I'm doing and not have
to worry so much about trying to temper my energy based on what
I'm able to take in. And keto was just the perfect
solution to that. And I've run, I've run a
marathon since then and had a completely different experience.
So I was. I'm obviously doing something
right. No, for sure.
I, I, I am not a runner by any means.
I've done a marathon, I've done a few 50 mile marches.
I did like that David Goggins 4 by 4 by 48 ordeal.
So I've done a few endurance things, but I've never, I've
always done, you know, from a fat adapted standpoint, it's
like I've never tried to eat intra run.
But I would imagine that would just cause a whole host of GI
issues and just like distractions, like if I'm
running a marathon, especially like I feel like if you fuel
properly beforehand and you're, you know, on top of your
electrolytes and your hydration that there should be really no
need to eat during a marathon distance running.
Absolutely. And I mean that's one thing
that's so fascinating about the marathon is as you go for faster
and faster goal times, the margin of error is so much
lower. So if you can eliminate a lot of
those variables like the GI distress or all the different
gels and like you said, just be on top of your electrolyte
intake and really come at it from a fat adapted approach, you
won't you won't need to take anything in during the race.
And that's exactly what I experienced and didn't hit the
bunk as you might have might hear in some like running
communities. So that was definitely made the
marathon more fun and definitely makes me excited to try this
ultra. No, totally.
I I never bonked either. My issue was always just my
feet. Like I don't since I don't run
really. My feet were not conditioned for
the pounding that they took. Like from an energy standpoint,
from a fueling standpoint, I never felt a lack of energy
there. But man, my feet were just
destroyed. No, I, I totally feel that.
I think the time on feet is something that's gonna be the
biggest unknown for me going into this race 'cause I did a
practice 50K this week and endurance wise, feeling great,
fueling great energy was great. But my feet, like you said, I
was like Wolf, I've got to do another basically another 50K on
top of that. So it's, it's gonna be fun for
sure. I'm excited to see where I can
go in terms of the mental, the mental battles I'm going to be
facing. What do you do to prepare your
your body for something like that?
I mean, I guess with time on feet, it's just simply a matter
of getting more time on your feet.
That's pretty much the only thing you can do.
Absolutely. I mean, it's tough to log as
many miles as I would as I think I would want.
But having never ran one of these before, I don't actually
know where my optimal mileage is at.
But being in the hospital certainly helps.
I'm on my feet all day living in Boston.
I walk pretty much everywhere. So that's helpful from just a
day-to-day perspective. But in terms of the actual
training side, I've been focusing on just becoming
comfortable in the long runs and just quieting my mind and
staying patient in just the slow, the slow burn essentially.
And that's allowed me to build a lot of a lot of strength and
hopefully that'll that'll be enough to get me through get me
through this event. I like it.
I'm always curious.
Like how people, like I said, I'm not a runner, but I've, I've
dove into running as a sport and technique enough to be
dangerous, so to speak. And others like multiple
different styles of running, different modalities for
running, like the pose method, things of that nature.
Do you subscribe to a certain mentality when it comes to how
you how you structure your running form, or is it pretty
much just one foot in front of the other?
I think, I think somewhere in between.
I think while I'm running, I try not to overthink my stride per
SE. I've I've studied some of the
different different tips, text techniques for running, read
popular books, born to run and things of that nature.
But what I've really found that works for me, especially someone
I've had a couple of ACL reconstruction.
So taking care of my knees and hips have been very high
priority for me, especially as my mileage gets higher.
So I think one thing in terms of running form that I found really
helpful is just to find a stride that feels comfortable for me.
And by staying in that comfortable zone and you kind of
feel when you're getting out, I'm sure like for you, if a lift
doesn't feel quite right, you know, you kind of know you need
to adjust. And I just try to make those
micro adjustments as I'm going. And I think just with my overall
fitness, my running, my running form has improved and I just
feel better after runs that previously wouldn't have been
the case. Yeah, no, it makes total sense.
What kind of What kind of shoes do you use?
I recently switched. I've really been loving the
Saucony Endorphin elites right now.
Those have been those have been nice.
I don't I'm not going to wear a carbon plated shoe for the this
ultra marathon. I think it's a little bit too
long, so I'll just be in my Saucony trainers, but I found
that they've they've really held up well in the past.
I've I really liked Tokas but since switching to Saucony I
don't think I'll be going back until I find till I find
something better. I've I've seen the Saucony, I've
never tried those. I have tried the Hocus.
So is, is that like a super? Is there is there much of A an
arch support or drop in that you know shoe or or is it pretty
well zero drop? They have both brands have
different different styles in terms of the arch support and
the drop. And I think the differentiating
factor more so for me is when I put on a sockony shoe, it just
you can feel the quality of like I almost want to say plush of
the cushion, but it's not it's not too soft versus when I put
on a hookah, it feels more, I don't want to say less high
quality, but I'd say less soft and comfortable on my foot.
So I think it's just if you try on a Saucony and then maybe,
maybe you'll be able to see what I mean.
But I think and then in terms of how they hold up, the Saucony
has been taking the wear and tear a lot better than my Hocus
have. So must be something different
in the materials they're using. Yeah, no, it makes total sense.
So I've tried transition all of my footwear.
Like I've literally gotten rid of everything that I own that is
not a zero drop wide toe box shoe.
So I could try and let my foot be more a natural foot.
It's taken a little bit of getting used to for sure.
But I enjoy it. I think it's good.
I think it's good for my feet. But it it does take a transition
period for sure. Yeah.
So talk to me a little bit about about the race itself.
So it's in two weeks. What's the distance on this one?
So there's an ultra I guess starting out is any technically
anything longer than a marathon and the courses are designed
either by distance or time. So this is a time based course
and it's going to be at a a small little campground in New
York State and you can either do the 12 hour or the 24 hour event
and it's a one mile loop and essentially you have either 12
or 24 hours to complete as many laps as you can.
Nice. And what what did you out for
the 12 hour? 24 hour.
My husband convinced me to go for the 12 hour for my first
one. I've definitely had my name on
the sign up for the 24, but I'm going to start with the 12.
Especially since what I'm really gearing up for is a marathon in
October. So I don't want to overstretch
here with the first altar. Just kind of getting my feet wet
and seeing, seeing where I want to go from there.
Do you have like a a predicted distance for that duration that
you're striving for? I think my goal is to be over 65
miles. If I could get over 65 in 12
hours, I'd be super happy with that.
So that's the goal. And with that being a single
mile loop, like you can, I'm assuming like you can, you know,
walk to the center, take a break, just do whatever you need
to do. It's just as long as you're
running that entire 12 miles or as long as like you track your,
your distance over the 12 mile span, you can pretty much do
whatever you want to to recover, refuel, etcetera, etcetera.
Yeah, exactly. And that was one of the
attractive things for starting out with this is my first ultra
because one of the biggest challenges within the sport of
ultra running is navigating aid stations and making sure you're
properly packed and ready for treacherous terrain if you're
doing a mountain course. Whereas this one, I know I'll
always be within less than a mile to the aid station.
So my husband is very generously offered to crew me.
So he will be there at the main start finish line with any
electrolytes or fueling that I'll need.
And there's like a bathroom stop there as well.
So for me not having done one of these before that, that was
really comforting to know that even if I mess up, I, if I can
run the rest of the mile, I can get to whatever resource I may
need at that time and kind of correct it.
So people when I tell them about this course, they're like, Oh my
goodness, you're going to run a mile in a circle.
How are you? I would never want to do that.
How would you ever want to? And I was like, well, I mean, I
think it's great. And and while you're running, I
just kind of lose. I lose track of things and can
really just go in my own head and the world gets quiet.
So whether that's a one mile loop or a point to point course,
but yeah, I'm really excited for this format of race.
And I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be really
great. And the the extra twist is that
it's a candlelight ultra, so it will start at 7:00 PM and then
go through the night. So I'll be running most of it in
the complete dark. Interesting.
OK, so I was going to ask you about that.
So I've got, I don't know if you're familiar with Mike
McKnight, but he's one of my good friends and he does all
kinds of crazy ultras. He does like the coca Dona 250
and and just all this, not like just insane stuff.
And a lot of the challenge there is, you know, figuring out sleep
during a multi day event through mountains, through different
time changes, all that good stuff.
So with you doing this at night, how are you going to structure?
Like, how are you like, what's what's the play my play for your
fueling strategy, your sleep recuperation?
Like, what do you think you're going to do going into it?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean those two hundreds, those
are those are a whole different beast.
Thankfully for me, I won't, I won't have to worry about
sleeping per se during the 12 hours.
Even if I did the 24 option. I think unless I was really
needing it, I wouldn't plan for sleep.
I guess that's one advantage of being a medical student is used
to kind of work in night shift and crazy schedules like that.
So in terms of sleep, I don't, I don't plan to sleep.
I think I'll have some caffeine on standby if I start to hit a
low kind of in the middle of the night and I think that'll be
helpful. But I feel I feel pretty
prepared from that standpoint. You can try to sleep a lot more
the prior day. What was that?
You're just going to sleep a lot more the prior night.
I'll try but my body is very regulated on sleep.
I imagine I'll get up at my normal 5:36 AM and not have not
be able to go back to sleep. So I might just have to take the
L on sleep for that one night. I guess one one night won't kill
you. One night won't kill you.
Exactly what? About what?
About fueling? What are?
You going to do there? Yeah, that is both a strategy
and what I'd call a game time decision.
I have a couple of foods plan that I know work well for me.
And honestly they're not that different than what I would kind
of be eating day-to-day. I don't plan to eat that much
per SE. I don't have a calorie goal.
I really go off of feel and that's what I've been doing for
my long runs and that's really worked for me.
I think the biggest thing for me is going to be staying on top of
my electrolytes because that's something I've noticed as I've
gone, as I've gone low carb and keto, that if I'm not on top of
that, I can start feeling very poor very quickly.
So I'll definitely have, I really like the chewable salt
tablets. I'll have plenty of those on
hand. I have low carb electrolyte
packets which are also really great and I'll keep them in a
vest, so I'll be sipping on that as well.
And then in terms of pre race, I'll probably just eat how I
normally would throughout the day.
I'm very animal based, ketogenic diet, lots of red meat, animal
fats, butter, things of that nature.
And then during the race, there's a couple, there's a
couple things I anticipate I want, I'm having my husband cook
up some bacon. So I'll be very excited for
that. Keto bricks, of course, I love,
I love the keto bricks during and after my long runs.
Actually after the marathon, the first thing I asked for, I was
like, where's my keto brick? It's in my, it's in my bag
somewhere. So that'll be on the table as
well. And then still still got to see
what other things I can really pack some calories in.
But I mean, in my experience, I haven't really required that
much calories. I mean, obviously more will be
better to have on hand, but I'm really going to let how my
stomach is feeling and how I'm feeling overall throughout the
race dictate kind of what I'm taking in and out.
Yeah, now that makes total sense.
I feel like a lot of people have this notion of what they're
supposed to be consuming and it's often times so far removed
from what their norm is that they're that they're going to
inevitably have some GI issues. Like I think like I, I don't
know what the traditional format is, except for you hear about
people carving up, you know, it just significantly the night
prior with pasta or something like that.
And I would imagine that would be disastrous the next day
during a long endurance event. Yes, I certainly would not would
not want to have to run this out on a full stomach of pasta that
is. That is for sure.
Yeah, not good. What what is the the norm when
it comes to people that are using a carbohydrate based
approach when they're using those goose?
Like, I don't even know what's in that.
Is it just like straight sucrose or what?
What is in that stuff? I'm, I'm not exactly sure
honestly. I know it's a combination of
multiple different sugars and I hear a lot of other runners talk
about just pallet fatigue and then by like hour 3 they're not
even able to get down gels. And to me that sounds absolutely
miserable. I don't know if you've ever
tried one of those gels, but they're gooey and they're super
sweet. And I am not, I am not a sweet
person at baseline. I definitely prefer more savory
salty things. So it's hard enough for me to
even eat one while I'm not running, let alone in the middle
of mile 40 trying to force down a gel.
I can't even imagine. So I think from what I've seen,
that's the gels are what the high carb approach really
typically relies on, especially as it's harder and harder to get
down. Like no one's going to be eating
a bowl of pasta. Well, maybe during during the
race itself, but yeah, I'm glad that's not something I really
even have to think about. Yeah, I think like chowing out
on some bacon mid run sounds much more appealing.
Sounds delicious. Sounds like enough motivation
for me to keep going in that mild loop.
Yeah, absolutely. So, So what are you doing with
the medical school is what's, what's your, what's your career
path there? Yeah, I'm on the back half,
which is really crazy to say. It's been, it's been fast and
slow. I'm entering my 4th year of
medical school and basically just doing a couple of rotations
now and finishing up some coursework to see where I'll
ultimately go to residency next year.
So pretty excited about that. It's been, it's been long, hard,
good, bad it's but I'm really excited to start a new chapter
of life and start my actual medical practice.
That's awesome. Do you have any ideas to, I know
a lot of people wind up figuring out their actual, you know,
focus once they're in residency, but do you have any idea kind of
where you're leaning? Yeah, So I'll be applying to
radiology residency. I just love the diagnostic
puzzle that reading all the different images kind of brings
on. And with almost every diagnosis
now in medicine, relying on almost any patient that comes to
the hospital gets an imaging study.
So I really like the idea of being that doctor that gets to
touch all different kinds of patients and really influence
their care. So that's kind of what drew me
to radiology and but in terms of long term, I'm not exactly sure
where that'll take me in my career, but I think that's
something I'm definitely going to figure out once I start
practicing. Nice, nice.
And you're in the Army too, is that right?
I am, yes. I graduated from West Point
before coming to Harvard, so I am on the Army Medical School
scholarship program essentially, and I will be entering residency
as a military officer. Gotcha.
What was the the motivation behind going the route of the
military medical school? What was the the motivation
about any of that? Like, is that something you just
knew that you wanted to do from early age?
Medical school was definitely something I knew I wanted to do
from an early age. And then when I kind of got to
the process of figuring out how I can make that happen, I really
found a fit in the military and the service academies
specifically. There's one for Air Force, Navy
and Army. And when I kind of visited all
three of those academies and ended up applying, I ended up
choosing Army because I felt like that's where I best fit in.
And I really liked their medical program.
And I knew I had the chance to speak with other Army physicians
who had kind of gone through medical school through that
route, and I thought that would be a great fit for me.
And yeah, here I am. Awesome, awesome.
What's been the biggest headache or hurdle or obstacle in going
that path? Like, has there been, like, just
moments where you've been hitting your head against the
wall seemingly and asking yourself why in the world you're
doing this? Yeah, I, me and my friends often
joke that I, I kind of took the hard way to medical school.
The The Academy Is very great, but very different from any
other sort of traditional university.
So I had a lot of focus on military tactics and leadership,
obviously, which didn't leave as much time as I otherwise
probably would have to pursue my medical studies.
So I learned early on how to really prioritize scheduling and
optimizing my time, which I think has served me really well
in medical school, which was another complete transition and
something completely different than what I experienced at the
Academy, but a whole new set of challenges and just amazing
other people to work with. So I really feel like I've
gotten a full breadth of experience throughout my
training, and I'm excited to go back into the military and bring
back what I've learned from getting to study in a place like
Boston, and then bringing that back to the soldiers and
military families that I'll be serving.
So I think I've gotten a lot out of it.
I definitely could have done it in an easier way, but I can't
imagine the person I would be without I'm going through all
the steps of that journey. That's awesome.
So you plan on staying with the military then post Harvard
graduation? Yes, I'll be with the military
for at least the next couple years.
I do owe some time a service obligation from the Academy and
then also from medical school. Nice.
Very cool. Very cool.
You haven't got to. All of my friends are in one
branch of the military or another, and most of them are in
the Army. So that's that's pretty awesome
that you're doing that. And then also simultaneously
going through Harvard Med school.
I feel like you are the quintessential example of
someone that does not know how to sleep.
I never get sleep. I try, I try my best to sleep.
I will say I've gotten a lot more sleep since coming to
medical school. I feel like I have a lot more
time there than I did at West Point.
But still still working on the sleep thing.
If there's one thing in my training that could be improved,
it's probably done. Yeah, and that's definitely why
I fall short as well. So when it comes to to medical
school, and I guess not Harvard specific, but just medical
medical school in general, I feel like the ketogenic diet is,
I mean, there's a bunch of studies being done in regards
to, you know, fat metabolism, ketosis, things of that nature.
But I feel like as a whole, that's still relatively
countercultural to mainstream thinking, which is probably one
of the reasons why all of Nick's posts are gaining such
popularity relatively soon, relatively quickly.
Because they kind of he he doesn't pretty cheeky stuff like
he'll do like the, you know, Oreo cookies, beats statin, you
know, comparison things of that nature.
But with you being in medical school and also following a
ketogenic diet, have you gotten much pushback or has has there
not been an issue there? I would say I've gotten much
pushback. Often my peers are just
interested because it's really, I wouldn't even say it's
counterculture. It's something that's just
almost not even addressed within our curriculum, which was kind
of surprising to me. So really all of the pushback
I've seen is actually more in the social media space and
seeing, like you said, some of those, the discussions on forums
of those different studies coming out.
But in terms of my medical education, I don't think there
was ever a point where we formally broke down the benefits
of the ketogenic diet versus more traditional medicinal
approaches. And it's certainly not something
that I see implemented regularly in the hospital setting in terms
of a holistic approach to patient care.
So I guess does that, does that answer your question?
It's just it's something that I feel like I've really had to
seek out and really educate myself.
And I mean, Nick spent a huge part of that and kind of not now
my own experience actually living a ketogenic lifestyle,
but that's really how I've been learning about it.
And that's really where most of my touch points come from.
It not from medical school, per Southeast.
So it's more so like an absence of information about it.
Then there is like a, you know, a stance one way or the other
against it or for it. Absolutely.
Gotcha. OK.
What was your motivation for pursuing that person?
Like was there any ailments that you were having following a
traditional carbohydrate based protocol or what was your reason
for dabbling into keto? I think, well, what drew, I
don't know if there was any ailments specifically that drew
me to keto, but one thing for me in terms of nutrition, I've
always highly prioritized what I've put into my body and Whole
Foods, whether that was carbs or not.
But one thing, I guess I started keto just cause more.
So I was curious. I saw some of the benefits of us
having for patients. I'd seen some studies you'd
mentioned and I was like, huh, wonder if I give that a try, if
I would actually feel different. And then once I was like, wow, I
actually had ailments, as you said that I actually initially
didn't even identify. I noticed my, my energy now is
so much more Even so much more consistent.
I don't feel starving in between meals, I don't feel crashes
throughout the day. I wasn't running quite as much
before so I can't really speak to.
I certainly wasn't taking in gels or doing anything like that
while I was running, so I don't know how my gut would
necessarily respond to that. But since, as, as I've said
multiple times since starting keto, I haven't experienced any
of that. So I'm glad I've kind of
bypassed ever having to. But yeah, I think the energy is
really what I've noticed that's been the most beneficial for me.
And it's certainly something that is compelling enough for me
to continue living this lifestyle because I find it very
sustainable and very fulfilling. Yeah, I would think from just a
practical use case scenario in and of itself, especially if
someone's got a busy, you know, day-to-day schedule, someone
that's in medical school, someone that's not able to just,
you know, take a break whenever and get something to eat.
Like simply been able to maintain a high degree of mental
focus and physical ability for significant periods of time
between meals. Like that alone I think gives it
a leg up on any other dietary protocol.
I mean, like for me when I'm out West hunting, for instance, like
I don't want to be able to packing a pack a bunch of food
with me and I might go 1012 hours between meals.
And that's relatively easy to do when you're fat adapted.
But if you're not, you've got to bring all these types of, you
know, MRE's or goose or just like additional weight in your
pack and you kind of stop all things before moving forward so
you can eat. And that's just not really
realistic if I'm trying to optimally perform it anything
that I'm doing. Absolutely, and that's what you
described perfectly describes my experience.
Yeah, well, hopefully as you're doing this 12 hour ultra
marathon, people are seeing you just passing by, lapping them
with a bacon in one hand and keto working the other and start
asking questions and maybe bring some more awareness to this.
Yeah, absolutely. I think that'd be a pretty
legendary photo of me running around with a couple pieces of
bacon in my hand. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
So that's in two weeks. What is the name of that event
again? It's called the Candlelight
Ultra Marathon. Nice, and where is that at?
It's in New York. I'm pretty.
The name of the town is escaping me, but it's about an hour away
from where my husband's currently stationed at SO.
Very cool. So that's in two weeks, you've
got medical school concluding, you're on the home stretch of it
now, but what is the date on that?
The date of graduation will be May 2025 S next spring.
Nice, nice. So that is something we're
celebrating for sure. And then you're gonna go back to
the Army, and then you're gonna be a physician practicing
position within the Army pretty much right out of graduation of
Harvard. Correct.
Very cool and with a focus on radiology, I love it.
Yep. Well, that sounds like an
exciting next few months. Next few years for sure.
I think anything like I'm always excited when I talk to people
that are in medical school or practicing physicians that are,
you know, willing to adopt more of a low carb quote UN quote
ancestral base dietary protocol, because I think it just makes
the most sense. And if I that would probably,
you know, cure a lot of people have a lot of ailments.
So anytime I see somebody that's going the traditional route of
medicine pursuing that as a lifestyle, I'm, I'm 100% bought
in and on board. So I think it's great that
you're going into the medical space with this, you know,
background. Yeah, absolutely.
And I hope to bring kind of some of this this mindset and some of
the lessons I've been able to learn and hopefully apply that
to military medicine and maybe just how we approach fueling our
soldiers in general. Because like you said with with
hunting, I mean in combat, it's it's a similar situation.
You don't know when you're going to eat.
So we could definitely potentially benefit from a more
fat adapted approach in that regard.
Well, the, the nutrition for, for soldiers is totally abysmal.
Like it's honestly, it frustrates me because I've got,
like I said, several friends in different branches of the
military and like the food that they offer at the mess halls is
pretty, pretty rough. And then the MRE's, I mean, I'll
tell you how bad the MRE's are. They're they're not even food,
really. Oh my goodness, yes.
I thankfully didn't have to eat an MRE at my most recent
training block because I did have the keto brakes and that
was enough to get me through a lot of the field time we were
doing. So I'm very thankful for that.
But yeah, those MRE's are tough. You you look at some of the the
Skittles and things of that nature that are in there and I'm
like, OK, I'm supposed to now have an optimal athletic
performance. Yeah.
And what's frustrating is, you know, I've had several people
that are either clients or friends or whatnot that have
reached out to me and they're trying to maintain a ketogenic
diets. But if they're out in the field
and they're only able to eat Mr. ES, like you couldn't really
even do it. Like you would have to just
fast. But I mean, you can only fast
for so long and still maintain some degree of performance.
So like they the military doesn't really even give people
that ability, from what I've gleaned at least.
No, I mean, that's spot on. We have vegetarian options in
the MRE, but I don't think there's enough low carb
components of those meals that you could even string together
one or two ketogenic friendly meals, which is, yeah, very
frustrating for someone who who's trying to maintain that
lifestyle and feels good from that fuelling.
I did a there was there was. I forget what university it was,
but the the keto bricks were in a study for the military and
they were comparing and they were trying to find like viable
options for, you know, ready to eat meals for people in the
field. And they were comparing the
bricks to Clif bars for like a weighted ruck to kind of like
replicate what would be potentially, you know, exerted
in the field. And the bricks beat out the the
Clif bars calories equated for. And I'm, I'm hopeful that like
enough momentum keeps gaining on stuff like this that, you know,
people can find other options, whether it's the brick or
something else. Like I just want people that are
in the military to have better options.
Like I know Phillip, good friend of mine, the, the owner of
Carnivore bar, he was in the military and that was his
motivation for, for building the Carnivore bar.
It's like when you're in the field and you're only have Mres
at your disposal, like you simply cannot perform optimally.
You're not going to be healthy. And if you're like, we got our
men and women out there, it's like you want the, the Creme de
la Creme nutrition for people that are on the front line.
And it's definitely not what you're finding an MRE.
Absolutely. And I hope somewhere within my
medical practice I can be a part of kind of pushing that change
forward because that's something I so strongly believed in.
And it's, it's really great to hear that the effort is there.
So it's it's good. Do you think it's like, is the
the military interested in pushing, you know, for, or is it
mostly just they're bound by financial constraints on what
they have a budget for and the budget's not really going to be,
you know, prioritize towards soldier nutrition?
Like what is the bottleneck on that?
I think there's many constraints and many that I wouldn't even
necessarily think of, but I think ultimately it's going to
come down to getting this in front of the right people, in
front of the right decision makers.
And I think once, once they can understand the benefit and the
benefit it will have for the fighting force, it will be
something that can kind of push past a lot of constraints.
And I think, I think there's hope is what I'm trying to say.
I think it's going to be a slow process.
Anything, anything in the military move slowly.
But I think we're going to have to adopt, we're going to have to
change what we're doing because how we're fueling our soldiers
right now obviously isn't isn't optimal.
Yeah, totally. Well, it makes me all the more
excited for what it is that you're doing, the background
that you're bringing to the table, and then hope for the
lives will be able to change with that information.
So we need more people like you out there fighting the good
fight, Kimmy. Appreciate that.
Well I'm definitely excited for the Ultra in a few weeks.
You have to keep me posted on that for sure.
Is there like, are you pretty active on social?
Can people follow along with how the run goes?
Yeah, I'm, I'm pretty active on Instagram.
You can follow me at Haley under score Fit and I'll be posting
all my race, all my race preparation is posted on there.
I'll be posting updates throughout the event and
certainly afterwards. So if people kind of want to
follow along, that would be the best place.
Awesome. Well, I will definitely link out
to that Kelly and make it easy people to find you and I, I
don't know what you're doing, how, how you're stashed on
Brexit doing, but I'm going to send you some more in
preparation for that run so that you don't have to worry about
that. Oh that would be amazing.
Yeah, yeah, no doubt about it. So I'll get you hooked up on
bricks. Hopefully your husband will have
you hooked up on bacon and you'll be just making some waves
out there and not bonking. Maybe I'll run the full 24 hours
with all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, dude.
I mean, I guess if you run in 12 mile or 12 hours, if you opt to
keep running like with like, do you have to sign up for that in
advance or could you in theory just keep going?
I'm sure they would let me keep going, but I think in terms of
my actual timing chip, it would stop at the 12 hours.
Gotcha, gotcha. That's still a pretty, I mean
the farthest you've run up to this point is a marathon, right?
So, you know, going 65 miles is pretty significant jump from
that. Yeah, I mean, it'll, it'll be a
challenge for sure, but I guess I could have jumped to 100
miles. So I in my mind this is a
smaller step but. Hey now, I'm stoked for it.
I've got no doubt that you can, you can hit that goal.
So definitely keep us posted, definitely post on social.
I'll make it easy for people to find you on Instagram.
And if there's everything you need from me, Kelly, you just
let me know. That, that sounds great.
It was a pleasure speaking with you.
Thanks for having me on. Hey, the pleasure is mine.
Thanks for what you do. Keep changing lives and keep in
touch. Absolutely.
Take care. Take care.