I feel like that rarely gets brought up.
Like if someone's got digestive issues, they go to the standard
western medicine doc, they don't even talk about this stuff.
You know, it's really hard because they work in silos.
They have the tools that they've been taught, they have the time
with people that they've been given, which is very minimal.
It's all administration. It all comes back to money
making and you know, what are you doing to treat the patient?
How much more can we give them? People come to me and they want
to lose weight and I got to tell them, hey, look, we're going to
eat more. You're probably I'll be going to
put on some weight if. Your body is like, hey, I can't
restore thyroid function. I can't restore adrenal function
and and build these hormones unless I store a little bit more
fat, right? Like your body is pretty Dang
smart. Like it's going to do what it
needs to do. And if we're playing the long
game, we'll get you there, but we can't get you there in a
healthy manner to where you are going to feel good and you're
going to have optimal biofeedback eating 600 calories
a day. And we are live.
Liz, how you doing today? I'm good.
How are you? I am wonderfully well.
What did you have for breakfast? Let me ask you that.
Let's start with that. I'm actually in a fasting phase
right now, so I have had water, electrolytes, coffee with
cinnamon, and I did take some Bondi pier this morning, which
is like a kind of greens powder on crack I would call it, but it
is supportive of fasting. So that's what I've had today so
far. Are you doing like an extended
fast or you're just doing like an intermittent fast?
Yeah, so right now I'm doing something called, it's like a
pure fast program. So each day you kind of drop
your fasting window. To be honest.
I've just kind of stuck with like a four to five hour eating
window, looking at my ketones, making sure they're getting to
where I want to be. And then I mentioned this
offline, but I'm nine weeks postpartum.
So technically I should move into longer fasting windows, 24
hours or maybe 4872. But since sleep is a little bit
up and down, last night was real rocky, we're going to keep it at
the four to five hours. And my ketones are still, as I
say, ketoning, which is good. And so I think I'm probably just
going to hold here for a little bit and not go into some of
those longer fast until maybe getting a little bit better
sleep. Totally, totally makes sense.
Are you breastfeeding too? I am not.
So I was not able to. I struggled with my first and
then really struggled with my second.
Ended up with mastitis. And we've just said, you know
what, that is best. And I've got a business to run,
a toddler to take care of or he's not really a toddler, he's
5 1/2 and a newborn. So we're on the goat milk train
with some good, it's called begin baby, some Hmos, human
milk, ogletosaccharides. And then it's also got some
prebiotics to really support babies microbiome with
bifidobacteria, which is what we want.
So that I will say in some ways has been almost a blessing
though, because with the sleep and all the things it would be,
it's breastfeeding is challenging.
It's a full time job by itself, so.
Yeah, for sure. We, we've got a 2 1/2 year old
and then we're, my wife's 24 weeks pregnant as of yesterday
actually, so we got another one on the way.
So yeah, breastfeeding's no joke.
I mean, I mean, she's up non-stop throughout the night.
I mean, yes, it's, it's total chaos, but it's the best thing
in the world. Yes, it's so good for them and I
really, really gave it every ounce of my energy.
With my first, we were doing like the triple feed.
So he was born very small. He was 37 weeks, but he was 3
lbs nine oz. So he didn't latch.
He was in the NICU for a bit, so I was pumping and then finally
when he could latch, trying to do that and then also feeding,
right? So they call it the triple feed.
So where you're feeding them and then you're pumping and then,
you know, bottle feeding what you had pumped previously.
And I did that for I think about 3 months with him and then my
supply just kept dropping and dropping no matter what I did.
So this time after the couple of weeks and then getting mastitis,
I was like, you know, we're just not going to go through this
again. But it is amazing if you can do
it. And congratulations on the
second. And likewise, likewise, well,
this is not quite how I planned on this starting.
This is interesting because I feel like a lot of people that
have allergies or gut dysbiosis or any of that stuff often
oftentimes stems from their birth and how that all started.
I don't know to the extent that is the case, but can you speak
on that at all? Sure.
So the mother's microbiome passes down to generations.
So there's a lot of validity to, you know, children having some
genetic kind of predisposition with what is passed from the
mother. I think there's also, you know,
a lot that they are finding out more and more with the placenta
different, you know, things like heavy metals that they're, you
know, identifying and all these different toxins that are
passing through. And I always say we live in a
world of toxic soup. So don't, you know, take it all
on you as the mother? You know, you can only do so
much to support your gut microbiome.
You know, pre pregnancy, I always tell women, try to really
prepare your body for about 6 months because, you know, we
know that you're going to be the one that's building the human.
And so whether that's done through stool testing or it's
really just cleaning things up in your environment, I know it
can be really overwhelming. I also talk about the non-toxic
culture being toxic in some ways.
So really just making sure like, you know, you're prioritizing
your air quality, your water quality, especially trying to
eat as clean as possible, right? Grass fed, organic as much as
you can and support drainage and detoxification pathways.
Make sure you're pooping every day is the poop queen.
I talk a lot about that. But you know, at the end of the
day, I think so many women stress so much and they put a
lot of blame on themselves for things, you know, control the
controllable, control the controllables is what I say with
that. But there's a lot of truth to it
passing down to generations. And there's a lot of, I mean,
this is stuff that we started diving deep because this is my
wife's, like, passion. She's been diving super deep
down this rabbit hole. So like we had to have an
emergency C-section on our first and she just was distraught
because they couldn't, you know, get all that, you know, mucus
and everything that's supposed to set them up for success going
forward. And a lot of people have
allergies and stuff that are often times result of not
passing through vaginally. So we're trying for natural
vaginal birth this time. But it's crazy how so much of
this stuff has an impact that most western medicine docs never
even mention for these, you know, pre birth checks, which is
just crazy. Like this stuff is important.
That could legitimately have an impact on the baby, you know,
indefinitely going forward. Yeah, so I can actually speak to
this a little bit. I had an emergency C-section
with my first as well. I had something called
intrauterile growth restrictions.
So my son was basically my placenta crapped out, My son was
fully developed, but he was not gaining brown fat.
Anytime that they have that situation, they want to induce
you at 37 weeks. And my body went haywire.
So I ended up in something called HELP syndrome.
Liver enzymes skyrocketed, my platelets dropped.
So I was emergency C-section totally put under anesthesia
within 7 minutes of the doctor saying we need to go now he was
out. And you know, it's not at all
what you imagine, right? I'm sure your experience with
that, even as the you know, the dad and the spouse, I know my
husband, he wasn't allowed to be in the room with that emergency
C-section. So it's, it is just chaos,
right? And so going into my seconds, I
was very concerned about this and I toyed back and forth
because I know the benefits of going through the vaginal canal.
So because of the, I would call a little bit of PTSD that I had
from that first time, my body did not regulate.
I also didn't get to meet my son for a day and a half because I
was stuck in the the unit downstairs while he was in the
NICU. And until I could get my blood
pressure and things regulated, I wasn't allowed to leave on the
1st unit and on my first born. Yes.
So with my second, we opted to do a planned C-section.
And in preparation for this, I had a conversation with my
doctor and I said I'm going to do something called microbiome
seeding. If you guys have not heard of
this, you can go to tinyhealth.com.
I recommend this for women when they are pregnant.
They can do gut testing, you know, throughout their pregnancy
to see if they have enough even bifidobacterium to pass to baby
and breast milk. But also they have a vaginal
microbiome test. And so this is important if
you're going to consider doing microbiome seeding.
This is a little woo woo for some people.
My doctor looked like I had 4 heads, but you know, you got to
do what's right and what you feel comfortable with.
So essentially with the microbiome seeding, if you know
that you're going to have a planned C-section or even if you
think you are going to go V vac, right?
So you're going to try a vaginal birth, but might end up in AC
section again for whatever reason.
It's very simple. So you basically take some, you
know, sterile gauze and you insert it into the vaginal canal
for at least an hour, let it really get saturated and then
you put it into a sterile container.
And then when the baby is out, you would essentially wipe it
all over, you know, the face to try to get some exposure to that
bacteria. But you don't necessarily want
to do this if your vaginal microbiome is not in a good
spot. So mine came back, there was
nothing to report. It's like 99% all good.
But for some women, right, they might be experiencing yeast,
candida, vaginal vaginosis, different things like that into,
you know, you want to also consider that even if you're
going to go vaginally because there's a lot of things that you
could do to course correct that throughout pregnancy again.
Or if you saw that, hey, this then wouldn't be beneficial to
do the microbiome seeding, you would just choose not to do
that. But because of as what you said,
the, the good bacteria in the microbes that they get exposure
to in the vaginal canal prior to just coming into the environment
in the sterile environment, right?
You know, that can play a big role with allergies and asthma
and things like that. So we opted to do that because
my tests looked all good. We had a planned C-section.
Everything went to plan. My husband was the one to do it
with the vaginal, you know, gauze essentially all over
baby's face. So you can again, control the
controllables. But I can't tell you, right?
The research is kind of mixed. There's not a ton of evidence to
say like this Absolutely, you know, works.
Is it the same? I would say no, but it is better
than not doing it. In the case that you can, you
know, test your vaginal microbiome and see that it's all
good. I would absolutely do it.
Totally, totally did. Were you considering VVAC
originally? I was, and I, I wish that it
would have gone that way, but you know, my doctor and I had
this conversation of 39 weeks. The risk goes up to have
preeclampsia and I did not have preeclampsia with my first, but
I had induction or you know, labor induced preeclampsia.
And then also post delivery with the first.
Really, you know, a lot of blood pressure regulation issues for
whatever reason. I don't know if it was from the
medication they gave me. That's my hypothesis.
I know. And a lot of doctors don't want
to do inductions and use the plutocin because they see so
much of this, you know. But anyway, so she said if I go
before 39 weeks, that was the goal.
I was going to go vaginally, but I got to the 39 week mark and he
wasn't coming. So we did the scheduled
C-section and I would say that it went to plan as best that,
you know, I could have hoped for.
My husband was able to be with me the whole time.
We got baby right away. He never left our sights.
So we're thankful for that. My doctor was very supportive of
my birth plan and I will say that looking at my lab work that
they drew prior to my platelets were very low.
And I think had I tried to labor naturally, I would have ended up
in AC section anyway because when your platelets drop, that
puts mom at a greater risk. So, you know, I wish that it
would have gone that way, but it went as well as it could have.
And we have a beautiful baby boy and he's healthy, so that's all
that matters. Yeah, that is definitely what
matters. Like we were doing, we're
planning on doing a home birth for the first one.
And in Arkansas where we're at with the home birth, like our
midwife, like they're not legally allowed to deliver past
42 weeks. And my wife was like 41 week and
six days. And they're like, OK, you have
to get your Wellness check in. And like they they said, OK,
you're pretty much out of time. She wasn't really dilating.
So they, you know, gave her pitocin.
That didn't really make much of a difference.
And the baby was face presentation.
So I go, OK, you have to have an emergency C-section, otherwise
you risk, you know, issues to the, the spinal cord and it
could be issues there. So we had the emergency
C-section. Now we're trying to do a
feedback the second go around, but the, the doctor that we were
going through, the midwife, we're going through like they
have emergency doctors on staff, but they're now apparently no
longer supportive of feedback. So now we're back to the drawing
board of potentially doing a registered nurse midwife in a
home setting, but we live like 35 minutes from the nearest
hospital. So I'm like, you know, trying to
play it safe, but it's, it's, it's crazy.
Like you people that haven't had a kid with any complications
like this is just all foreign to them.
But once you've gone through it, you're like, there's so many
things to juggle. There is and you know, I've
talked a lot about this on my social media throughout and just
being so transparent with my followers, right?
As a functional practitioner and I won't specialize in gut
health. I know all the benefits, but you
really have to weigh the pros and cons and really decide for
yourself and also what feels right in your gut and what you
have the most peace about. Because no matter how it
happens, it's still, I mean, I think it's the biggest event of
a woman's life, you know, giving birth.
It's, I think I read the equivalent pregnancy in all that
it is, is the equivalent of running 40 marathons, which is
really, really wild. So, you know, for me, it's like,
I want to have the Peace of Mind.
Like you know you guys too, I'm sure with the the past emergency
C-section of just knowing that if this doesn't work out, we've
got the people there that can do what they need to do because
sometimes it is a life saving situation.
Yeah. All right.
So totally roundabout way to get health here, but how did you
become known as the Poop Queen? That is quite the the moniker
there. Yes.
So I struggled with chronic Constipation for eight years.
A little back story, I was diagnosed with children's
rheumatoid arthritis when I was a young girl and I was put on
Prednisone and methotrexate. They told me I never walk, play
sports, but by the grace of God my mom took me through all the
doctors and you know, I totally believe that I was healed from
that. She just really felt like we got
to get you off these medications and do a lot through food and
you know, getting off of all of that, I was normal.
Like I was able to walk, I was able to move.
I still have some, you know, kind of like joints, like issues
sometimes, but nothing like it was.
And I, I struggled a lot with my weight throughout, you know,
high school and college because of those medications too.
And, and also just family history.
I would say through the time though, of my teenage years, I
was really struggling with a lot of hormonal issues, hormonal
acne, PMS, all the things. And of course, doctor said just
put her on birth control, right? That's their solution.
Never talk about health history, lifestyle, diet, things that we
can do to try to manage this. So, you know, going through, you
know, ending high school and then moving away to college, I
started to notice like things getting a little bit worse and
ended up in a situation in college where I was getting a
colonoscopy done. I actually called my dad and was
like, cancel it. I'm not going.
I can't drink the solution, like the clean out solution.
It was so gross. So he's like, babe, you got to
do it. I'm already on my way.
The appointment's today like we're going.
So he said just take shots of it like you're playing a drinking
game. He probably hates that I tell
this story, but it's the truth. So we go.
And of course, they say everything is normal, right?
Like you are backed up and constipated.
It's just, you know, drink water, have more fiber and take
some Miralax. That was their solution.
And at the same time, I was really tired, rundown, fatigued,
you know, I had skin spots kind of developing.
And my doctors told me that it was the calories in, calories
out thing. So I went real crazy with Weight
Watchers for a while. I dropped 40 lbs, but I was
going to the gym twice a day. I was, again, a college student
at this time. So I didn't have any major
stress, I would say, in terms of, you know, working in the
corporate world, family and those things.
And so when I got, you know, to where I wanted to be, I was
like, cool, I'm good. I hadn't done any of the mental
work, the emotional work, right? Really understood what I was
doing. I was just reading points on
like labels. And so when I moved up north, I
gained 50 lbs back and I was, you know, again, just really
struggling. And so at that point I found a
functional Doctor Who determined it was my thyroid, Hashimoto's,
and went through a whole gut healing protocol, parasites,
Candida, H pylori, the whole 9 yards.
And that's really what sprung me into functional nutrition
because I started, you know, really taking an interest into
how our gut microbiome and, you know, how our diet and our
environment and our lifestyle really plays a role with how we
feel every day. So Long story short, not so
short here. That's how I got into what I do.
But as far as the poop Queen, that honestly was, I was
podcasting a few years ago and it's like I'm going to start a
new Instagram account called the Poop Queen because it's catchy
and it's going to help people fix their poo because you know,
I know what it's like to feel so miserable.
And from there it's just kind of really spiraled.
So it's not just me. I have a team, I have a
functional practice. We work with women around the
world, Fit mom, functional health is our practice.
And like I said, we have our podcast as well, or we focus all
things guts, hormones, autoimmune, you know, anything
to do with female health. I do work with some men but
mostly females. Nice.
And you were you were noticing
the Constipation initially? At what age?
Like what? At what point did that start?
So I would say the youngest that I really remember it, to be
honest with you, is I was going to babysit.
I had to have been maybe 14 and I was doing a Suppository
because I was stuck on the toilet.
I was like, mom, I got to go babysit these kids and I am so
miserable. So she got suppositories.
We did that kind of fixed it, resolved it from that, you know,
time being that's the the earliest that I remember it
being, you know, a real issue. It's horrible experience, but
you know, all throughout high school, like even in college,
my, my roommates, we would call it victory, right?
Like victory. I was able to go to the bathroom
and I'm talk a lot about Miralax as you know, the solution.
That's what every doctor, pediatricians even tell people
to use. And it's so harsh.
It's so toxic to the body that your body repels it.
And This is why for many people, including myself, I had such
horrible abdominal cramping and pain.
And then it would be just continuous evacuation, right?
So if you're not familiar with how toxic Miralax is, it's made
of PEG 3350. This is something they use in
like an antifreeze solution actually, and brake fluid, FDA
approved, but not for under the age of 17.
I don't know why it's FDA approved.
But anyways, under the age of 17, it's not FDA approved.
And there have been many lawsuits against Miralax because
of neuropsychiatric events happening with children, yet
pediatricians, it's still recommended.
It's the number one pediatrician recommendation for kids who are
constipated. And it's, to me, it's just
really heartbreaking. And I think that, again, there's
so many things wrong with our healthcare system that we have,
but it's a true disservice to people to tell them to take
something like this when we could simply turn to something
like a magnesium citrate that's natural and work as an osmotic
laxative can be much more gentle or even like a buffered vitamin
C or many other things, you know, in our diet and lifestyle
from a herbal perspective, that could be helping people resolve
this rather than just Band-Aid the issue with something that's
toxic. Yeah, brake fluid is probably
not the best option there. You know, probably not.
Probably. Not so at at that young age of
14. Do you think it was Hashimoto's
at that stage or do you think your thyroid started to down
regulate after years of that that chronic inflammation?
Like what do you think the initial catalyst was?
I think that it was just my immune system, you know,
completely gone haywire. I don't know, you know, because
I never had my antibodies tested till my early 20s.
But looking at the children's rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis
that I had, I mean, that's an autoimmune, right?
And so we know that that is a huge trust to the body.
Where does that generally come from?
Infections, right? Which Dr. Inflammation.
And so even correlating that to the horrible PMS that I had, we
look at that as a lot to do with our liver and gallbladder and
poor detoxification. And where is that coming from,
right? Not having enough of the right
nutrients and cofactors to really support the body
properly, doing things like methylation, glucuronidation,
sulfation, you know, really just supporting the liver.
And I see a lot more chronic Constipation having to do with
liver and gallbladder health even than I do with just gut
dysbiosis or infections like SIBO, bone toxicity, which I
call Sipho, small intestinal fungal overgrowth, parasites
like the liver really has to play a huge role in everything
that we're exposed to. And so we live in a world of
toxic soup. We know that our food is all
Franken foods, right, Full of artificial sugars and
ingredients and preservatives. So I think that was a
combination. I can't tell you that.
I think that it was my thyroid. I also think there was probably
a lot to do with the Prednisone and methotrexate, the steroids
that I was on, you know, impacting the motility and just
the whole system. Totally.
So is most people coming to work with you and interact with you
coming from a place of chronic Constipation?
Is that kind of like the the primary demographic?
Yes and no. You know, obviously with the
Poop Queen account on Instagram, if they're, you know, following
me, they start because generally they've got my Constipation cure
guide, but then they'll hear me talk about, you know, a lot of
other things as well. I deal with it a lot, you know,
in our practice, but we also deal with the opposites in terms
of urgency. You know, people who have maybe
even mixed, they'll say it's IBSI call that ABS catch all
diagnosis. It's really bacterial overgrowth
in in most cases generally, but IBS is a syndrome.
It is a diagnosis based upon symptoms, not necessarily a
diagnostic test. You know, that they're running.
And so there's many factors that can go into why your bowels are
irritable. So we deal with both.
A lot of times I have women who have had their gallbladder
removed. I'm sure you have experience
with this. You know, many people who have
done keto or doing keto, like have to take that into account
in terms of, you know, their bile and bile flow, how they're
able to properly breakdown fats and absorb these things.
But we get, you know, women who've come in and they've had
their gallbladder removed, they've had colonoscopies,
endoscopies, you know, the whole 9 yards.
And everything is just chalked up to normal.
And they're dealing with not just Constipation or diarrhea,
but a lot of upstream issues in terms of bloating, gas,
heartburn, acid reflux, you know, indigestion.
And then maybe we're looking at their lab work, right?
And we're seeing there's deficiencies here.
They're not actually absorbing things that, you know, maybe
they're eating infections that are driving inflammation, lead
to gut permeability, leaky gut. Now we've got joint pain, skin
issues, brain fog, fatigue, neurotransmitter, you know,
issues where it's depression or anxiety.
So it it all is interconnected and everything works together.
So if you are somebody listening and you are backed up and
constipated, that's the bottom of our drainage funnel.
I can promise you, you got a lot going on north of your colon and
you know the evacuation route because when you're not going
every day, if I, I say it, if you're not pooping, you're not
detoxing because things sit in your colon and they go back in
line to get recirculated through the liver, which again places
more burden on the liver. And if you've got a leaky gut,
we've got something called lipopolysaccharides leaking out
now into the bloodstream, which your body sees as an endotoxin
because they're so toxic. They're actually part of some
very, what I would call like stealth infections, C diff and
things like that. And so that lipopolysaccharide
that goes generally first to the liver and the liver is like,
whoa, whoa, this is not good. I got to take care of this.
And it creates inflammation in the liver because it's trying to
protect itself. Well, now when we, you know,
have inflammation in the liver, the liver tries to protect
itself by producing fatty deposition.
So we start to see triglycerides go up, maybe liver enzymes go
up. And now we're dealing with the
case of like fatty liver, non alcoholic fatty liver.
And this is because of the gut. Liver access is so intimately
tied together that this is a vicious cycle.
Like they're talking to each other all day long one time or
when you're eating food just one time, your liver releases bile
into circulation 15 to 16 times in that meal.
It's so important this bile is there to go through the small
intestine to help you as the host breakdown your fats, all
your good fatty soluble, you know, nutrients and vitamins,
antioxidants that you should absorb and you should be fed in
the small intestine. That's where nutrient absorption
should happen. But when we have dysbiotic
bacteria, you know, there that's overgrown, this creates
something called small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.
That bacteria is feasting on the foods that you are consuming.
This is creating a lot of bloating and gas.
Things start to ferment, right? So we get that gas and maybe
sulfur is parts or whatever you want to call it.
And then, you know, it's just like this double edged sword
that goes back and forth. So it's really, you know, when
we think about digestion, we have to think of a north to
South process and we cannot do gut healing work without
addressing the liver and the gallbladder and this very
intimate connection that we have with the gut, liver access.
I feel like that rarely gets brought up.
Like if someone's got digestive issues, they go to the standard
western medicine doc. I don't even talk about this
stuff. That's why my frustration with
them is so high. I mean, you pretty much have to
go with the functional medicine, right?
If you even want this to be part of the conversation.
Yeah, You know, it's really hard because they work in silos,
right? And they have the tools that
they've been taught. They have the time with people
that they've been given, which is very minimal.
We actually just had a doctor on our podcast yesterday and I'll
say she's kind of whistle blowing a lot.
She's leaving conventional medicine at the end of this
month to go full time into functional medicine because
she's, you know, sharing with us that it's all administration.
It all comes back to money making and you know, what are
you doing to treat the patient? How much more can we give them?
You know, all these things. And it's just really sad because
that is not healthcare. That is sick care, right?
And we appreciate it, right? If you have a, a broken arm, a
gunshot wound, like don't come to me and function medicine.
I I can't help you with those things.
But we also have a system that's set up and designed to not look
at the whole person, which it really is, is negligent.
Like I, I don't understand it. I can't fathom it.
We know all 11 systems of the body are intimately connected.
When you address 1, you need to be thinking about how that
impacts others. Yet they work in silos, right?
You have your General practitioner, your OBGYN, your
endocrinologist, your gastroenterologist, and nobody
is really talking to each other and considering how this might
impact other things in the body. And so it's frustrating, it's
angering. And that's why hopefully your
podcasts like this and you know, the work that we do, we can
really help people. Even just free content, like I
put out so much free content just to help people, like give
them a little bit of direction to understand, you know, what
their symptoms are telling them. And then how they can start to
make changes if they're not in a place that they can fully go
into, you know, a program doing testing and protocols.
I feel like the tide is starting to shift.
I feel like people don't just automatically go to their family
doc. They typically go online and you
know, the functional medicine doctors, the people that are,
there's a bunch of noise online too, obviously.
But normally the functional medicine doctors are putting out
a lot more content than your standard Western medicine doc.
So the likelihood that they'll see better content I I think is,
is increasing hopefully. Yes, I hope so.
I would just, you know, we're always saying like be cautious
of the Google machine because, you know, anything that you
Google is is dangerous. And I think it's looking at like
trust the source, right? Make sure that whatever you are
reading about, are you seeing multiple people talk about this?
You know, for me, again, I talk a lot about stomach acid
support. I reference doctors, I reference
books. I talk about liver, gallbladder.
I reference, you know, resources online that are our doctors and
you know, again, books there things that you can do to
support your body. You know, naturally if you're
having a gallbladder attack, what can we do if we have all
these signs and symptoms before, you know, you land in the
emergency room, hopefully not in a septic states, but before you
land there. And their MO is to just remove
the gallbladder. And your gallbladder is pretty
Dang important, especially if you're going to be living a life
that is low carb, more ketogenic, because you need that
bile. It's stored and it's
concentrated 20 times more than just the bile that's being
dripped, you know, from the liver continuously.
So I think that while we can live without our gallbladder and
while we can live without our appendix, we have to understand
God designed us miraculously and He gave them to us for a reason.
Totally, 100%. So when it comes to the
gallbladder, those that have had their gallbladder removed that
are wanting to do a low carb ketogenic diet, what's your take
on that? How should they do things
differently? What can they expect?
Yeah, absolutely. So first and foremost, I talk a
lot about supporting with what's been lost, right.
Oxbile is a great support that we can put into place when we
don't have a gallbladder, especially if you're doing
higher fats. So for some individuals without
a gallbladder, what they're going to find, and this is not
everybody, but it's the majority of people, and I don't have
stats to tell you percentages, but what they're going to find
is that they get something called bile acid diarrhea.
OK, so you have a high fat meal. And this could honestly just be
somebody who's not doing keto. Let's say you went out for a
burger and fries, right? So you have a high fat meal and
your liver is giving you this constant drip of bile, but you
don't have enough, right? So it's insufficient because
your, your gallbladder is not there with this concentrated and
stored bile to release at the right time and the right amount
for what's coming through the system.
Then what can happen is that your body sees this is like, oh
gosh, I can't handle this. It's going to pull water from,
you know, other organs around it and then just flood the
intestines. And you end up in a situation
where you've got now bile acid diarrhea and you're, you're not
able to, you know, break the fats down properly in a way
that, you know, you feel good. And you can actually have a
normal transit time to let food move through the digestive
tract, the small intestine, absorb the nutrients, and then
put all the rest for waste in the large intestine.
So I'm a big belief and proponents that you need Oxbio
for individuals even with a gallbladder who might just be
struggling with Constipation or we're seeing, you know, again,
signs on their lab work or they're having that right side
abdominal pain. They're having pebbly stools
that are what I call, you know, floaters.
You don't want your OOP to float.
That's a telltale sign that you're not breaking down your
fats properly. Then you could put some Oxbio
and maybe you don't need as much right as the person who doesn't
have a gallbladder. They likely need more, but it's
really person independent. You got to kind of find your
dose. What keeps you feeling good and
what keeps your bowels like your bowels or your daily health like
report card for women, your monthly cycle is your monthly
report card, you know, so you kind of have to play around with
that. But absolutely Oxfile, I'm a big
proponent of that. The liver doctor talks a lot
about this. They have actually a great book
that talks about how to save your gallbladder and what to do
if you've lost it. There's a lot of stuff in there
too from a more ketogenic, you know, diet.
I'm a big fan of doing what you can with your diet in terms of
staying, you know, in this ketogenic state, but using foods
that are more bitter, like polagogs, you know, things that
are going to stimulate bile flow.
So I start my day every morning with lemon water and a pinch of
sea salt. Even when I'm, you know,
fasting. If I'm not fasting, then
generally I'm doing like a beet juice that has lemon and ginger
and apple in there. It's really great.
Just, you know, cleansing the liver and supporting the
gallbladder, but it's not necessarily going to align
probably with a a real true ketogenic therapeutic ketogenic
diet. So lemon water, you could use
things like dandelion greens, beets, greens, arugula, anything
that's going to be bitter, you know, to the tongue that's going
to stimulate your brain that hey, we're getting ready to pair
for prepare for digestion. So it's going to help with
enzymes in your saliva secretion there from the stomach, stomach
acid support. We can talk a little bit more
about that too, especially with like maybe higher protein diets
like carnivore or something. But stomach acid is really,
really important. So we want to make sure that we
have robust stomach acid and, you know, then just really
rotating your foods as much as you possibly can.
So not eating the same foods all the time.
Hey, from a fat perspective, can I rotate my oils?
Can I rotate my seeds that I might be using?
Can I rotate, you know, my meats, right?
Am I always stuck with red meat and chicken or can I pull in,
you know, some, some salmon and some sea bass as higher fat
fish? It's so yummy, you know, or just
some of these other protein sources that you might not
gravitate towards within whatever the parameters are of
what you're trying to fit, you know, your calories and your
macro distribution really try to diversify because the more
diversity with our food, the more diversity in the gut and
our gut microbes. And that's important for the
immune system and to have resilience to be able to handle
things that we might be exposed to.
So I think that is really, really important to maintain
that good, you know, balance in the gut microbiome that we we
think about those things with whatever type of diet that we're
doing. From a from a rotational
standpoint, like I'll typically keep like when I'm really
getting dialed in for a competition prep and I'm
tracking on my macros to the tea all often times from a meal prep
sustainability standpoint, keep my foods consistent on a week by
week basis. When it comes to gut microbiome
and rotating, rotating the food supply, how regularly should one
do that for optimization like this one need to do it on a
daily basis or on a weekly basis.
Would that be fine? Yeah.
So I've worked with a lot of, you know, prep, you know,
competitors, bodybuilders, and I think that we can do everything
within a season, right? So from that standpoint, it's
easy. I totally get it.
If you can maybe rotate it, you know, week to week, that would
be good. But if you're really dialed in,
you just know what works for you works right, then maybe consider
other things that might be helpful.
So this might be something like a greens powder or Reds powder
or a probiotic, for example. I'm very cautious with
probiotics because I don't want to overfeed certain things.
But again, so you could rotate that right in that season to
support, but then on your offseason, that's where I would
really focus on that diet diversity and kind of variation.
So, you know, you would ask me what I had for breakfast.
Right now, I'm in a season of doing a little bit deeper
fasting for autophagy, mainly because of my genetics and
seeing what I need to do there. But then I'll flip out of this.
I'll go more Mediterranean for a period of time.
Like I won't always stay with fasting.
Like, you know, low carb. Right now I'm doing low carb in
my fasting window just because I'm trying to crank my ketones,
which I'd love to talk about ketones and not just low carve
keto, right, without tracking ketones.
So I think it's OK for, you know, that season that you're
doing 12 to 16 week maybe of the prep, but then really try to do
what you can within it. And then on your offseason, be a
little bit more diligent with, you know, really diversifying
different types of foods. Totally.
With regards to the bile, before I forget the amount of bile that
is secreted by the liver and that drip rate like that, that's
pretty adaptable, correct? I mean, it's not like that's a
constant. So if one is just starting a
higher fat approach, they might need to submit with the ox bile
in the beginning, but then they can likely taper that off as
their body up regulates that excretion.
How does that if they have a gallbladder?
If they yeah, if they have a gallbladder.
Yeah, if they have a gallbladder, yes, I would say
so, as long as your biofeedback is good.
So again, what I would be looking at from a biofeedback
perspective is how I feel after eating my meals.
Am I getting bloated and distended?
Am I getting, you know, gassy? Am I going to the bathroom every
day #4 is what you're going for. If you're looking on a Bristol
stool chart, snake like sausage, like easy to pass, you're not
straining to go to the bathroom, you're not seeing floating
stools. Again, that can be a sign of a
malabsorption and, you know, not breaking down your fats well
enough. So I think it's very personally
dependent. I know tons of people who thrive
right on a ketogenic diet or even a carnivore diet and aren't
taking a lot of supplements to support this.
But I think that it's also wise to support stomach acid.
OK, so stomach acid. So when I think about chemical
digestion, right, we have our mechanical, which is our chewing
chemical digestion is going to include your stomach acid, all
your pancreatic enzymes and your bile.
So stomach acid. We got to talk to the big man
upstairs at some point about this.
I don't understand why we're designed this way, but it down
regulates as we age. We have, the stats are that I
have seen is 40% less stomach acid at the age of 40 than we
did at 20. But on top of that stress.
And then if you are doing something like a vegan
vegetarian diet where it's very low protein, the body is like, I
don't necessarily need this much stomach acid because I don't
have enough like protein, right? So stomach acid is there to do 2
things, help you breakdown protein into amino acids and
also to protect you from different viruses, bacteria,
parasites that you might be exposed to.
Very, very important. A lot of people have heartburn,
acid reflux or GERD. They think that it's too much
stomach acid and that's not actually true. 9 out of 10 times
it's too little stomach acid. And the mechanism there, I
always give this example. If you think of a smoothie, if
you're going to make a smoothie in a blender and you put a bunch
of greens in there and frozen fruits and veggies, but you
don't put any water, any juice or anything to blend it, how's
that smoothie going to come out? Probably not real tasty.
Super, super thick, maybe chunky, right?
So this is what stomach acid does.
It's the juice. It's the kind of water to really
blend things and get it to this really small.
We call it chyme, right? That's really broken down
molecules that can then move into the small intestine to be
absorbed. So if we're not having enough
stomach acid, we're going to experience downstream effects
with the bloating, the gas, the bacterial overgrowth, you know,
Constipation issues. And I just think it's really
important to think digestion north to South.
And so to your point of like the bile, for example, if your liver
and gallbladder is doing well, like, yeah, your body should be
doing what it should do. And you should be able to flip
in and out of, you know, high fat or low fat or whatever that
is for you and feel okay digestively if things are
running optimally. But we also want to support
stomach acid too. And as you do that, maybe you're
taking a supplemental potain HCL stomach acid support for a
period of time. Well, your body should start to
up regulate the production and so then you can wean off of it.
The caveat that I give here is because stress depletes stomach
acid along with other vitamins and minerals you might consider
in high stress times like pregnancy, postpartum, right?
That's a very nutrient demanding time and also very nutrient
depleting time. Don't go towards the peptid.
If you have heartburn and you're pregnant, go towards the betaine
HCL or apple cider vinegar or something that's going to
actually support stomach acid levels so that you can absorb
all the nutrients that you're consuming.
It's a big difference between ingestion, right?
And digestion, actually being able to absorb it.
So those are two things that I think a lot of people miss.
And again, I wish conventional medicine talked about these
things from a reference. There is a really good book
called Why Stomach Acid is Good for You.
It's written by a doctor and he calls out conventional medicine
and pharmaceutical companies and all the PPI's that they put
people on because that is so damaging to the body.
We see a lot of malabsorption, we see a lot of liver burden and
even some liver diseases that are associated with long term
use of PPI. So if you read the pamphlet, it
says they're very clearly short term, like 6-8 weeks while you
work on maybe some other things and then you're off of it
because it suppresses your stomach acid and stomach acid is
so, so important. And part of the importance of
that too is also signaling to your pancreas into your
gallbladder to release, hey, we got stuff here.
We need to, you know, digest, give me some bile, give me some
pancreatic enzymes. So it's all important.
And so I think it just is going to be based upon your
biofeedback, how you're feeling as to what you need and maybe
then how much. So from a dosing perspective.
You mentioned that for people with gallbladders, I like a
product called Beta Plus and I want to say it's 125 milligrams
if I'm not mistaken. But you can alternate size of
the meal or every other meal, maybe what you want to take and
see how you feel one to two, maybe you need more, you know, I
don't know. If you don't have a gallbladder,
generally some people are in the the ballpark of like 500
milligrams, sometimes 1000 milligrams.
Again, going to be person kind of independent there and and
what their biofeedback is telling them with all the things
that I mentioned before. So without a gallbladder, it's
probably safe to say that one would likely need to supplement
the bile salts and a stomach acid supplement pretty much on a
daily basis, especially if they're following a higher fat,
lower carb approach. Absolutely.
For the bile salts, bile acids, I want to say yes.
For stomach acid, I believe that everybody should be supporting
with stomach acid at least, you know, again, cycling it in
certain seasons, thinking about stress.
I don't think anybody in the world today is lacking stress.
So, you know, a big part of that too is like, are you eating in a
rush on the go or are you sitting down with your meals and
you're getting in a calm state, You're not distracted, you're
chewing your food really well. Again, 20 to 30 times.
So it's really I, I not throwing rocks at a glass house here
because this is real hard, especially with a newborn and
just life in general. It's really hard.
I keep supporting that. Chemical digestion is very
important. Absolutely.
I'm curious what your thoughts are regarding the chemical
digestion and the mechanical digestion.
Do you have a take on what a species appropriate diet is for
us as humans? Because like we look at other
animals and there's no question as to what they're supposed to
eat. Like they just nobody has to
tell them what to eat. They just know what is a species
appropriate diet. Whereas with humans, there's,
you know, hardcore vegans out there, hardcore carnivores and
everything in between. But when you look at the stomach
acid concentration that we have a species have, it's more
similar to that of, you know, vultures and you know, animals
that are predominantly carnivore.
And you've got the fact that we do not have a room and we don't
have a four chambered stomach. We don't have a very we don't
have a cecum like that of a orangutan.
That's obviously, you know, eating a lot more plants.
When you look at it from a mechanical standpoint, do you
think there is a species appropriate that for us or is
there not really good argument to be made for us eating extreme
one or the other? Yeah, I'm really not for the
extremes. And a large reason is I believe
that the more diversity that have in your diet and there's a
lot of research around this and things that we can you know,
look up and link here. But we are we are made of
bacteria, right? We have trillions of different
types of bacteria in our gut. And so when we go really, really
far one side, you know, or the other, we're not then feeding
certain microbes or bacteria that are really important, you
know, and so that plays a big role with our immune system.
So if we have more of a diverse diet and you know, we're able to
tolerate that because that's a different conversation, right?
Like somebody could be going on what they feel is the right
thing for them, whether it's carnivore or keto or vegan or
just whatever they might be airing towards one side or the
other. Yet their body is telling them
like I can't stomach this. I don't feel well.
My energy dips after I'm having bloating, I'm having gas like
upset stomach, gurgling, abdominal pain, all those
things. Well, we can look at a gut
microbiome test and see maybe what's off within their
bacterial balance, right? But I find that most people get
into this place of dysbiotic bacteria, not necessarily
because of diets like what we're talking about that are more one
ingredient, Whole Foods, but more so because they're stressed
out. They're running around with
their hair on fire. They're eating ultra processed
foods. They are drinking way too much
sugar and carbonated beverages and just, you know, things like
even coffee. I love coffee, but coffee is
notorious for mold. Like are you getting a good
organic mold free certified coffee or are you getting that
coffee that's sold at the dollar store, you know, that's been
sitting on the shelf? Who knows where it's coming
from? So I personally don't air on the
side of the extremes. I think the person needs to find
what's right for them. And I think that going through
different seasons of diet variation is very important for,
you know, a variety of factors like the immune system,
metabolic flexibility, you know, really supporting, again,
resilience. So if I go on vacation, I'm not
ending up in a state where I feel awful, 7 pounds, 10 lbs up
coming home because my body is like, what the heck?
I never knew how to, like, handle this stuff.
Or I've been on a very restrictive protocol for so long
and then I just fell off the Cliff, right?
It's, it's just like you said, your body is going to up
regulate and down regulate some of the chemical digestion, if
that's what you're calling for it.
And I, I believe that is a great design that we have internally,
but most people don't wean themselves off of these type of
really restrictive diets, right? They're like, I'm going to do
this until I go on vacation and then I'm just going ham.
And then they're like, why am IA wreck?
And I'm bloated and I look, I'm six months pregnant, You know
what I mean? So I don't know if that answers
your question, but I don't err on the side of like you have to
be this is the only way to eat for the rest of your life.
Yeah, no, totally. I mean, me personally, I eat.
I don't consider myself carnivore because I'll have some
vegetation from time to time. I don't eat a lot of vegetation,
though my wife does. So I'll occasionally have, you
know, a big plate of Brussels sprouts cooked in bacon,
broccoli, something of that nature.
And I don't eat enough of it for me to feel great to when I do.
Like, I can tell that it's kind of, you know, out, out of the
mind norm. And a lot of people in the
hardcore carnivore space look at them.
They just throw their hands up in the spell.
Oh, I'm definitely supposed to eat veggies.
But it's like they're eating nothing but rib eyes for six
months straight and they have a salad, and then they don't feel
great. But it's not really a surprise
because their gut microbiome needs to acclimate to that
ingestion. Yes, yeah.
I mean, it's just like if you were on a keto diet, right?
And then you just fell off the Cliff and you ate pizza and, you
know, burger and fries or whatever.
Like, you know, are you going to have what you need to break down
the carbohydrates and, you know, what's your pancreas doing?
So I, I agree with you and I think that people we need to
recognize that a lot of these diets were designed temporarily,
right? When we think about even the
ketogenic diet, the therapeutic ketogenic diet that was designed
to help, you know, people that are needing to get into
autophagy and, you know, calm things down in the body and, you
know, fight cancer and all of these things.
And it's a diet that people have then thought, well, this is a
diet lifestyle. Like that's the diet that I
should just do for the rest of my life.
It's kind of like vegan, vegan and vegetarians.
And that's fine. If you want to do those things
and you feel good doing those things, I'm a support for that
because again, everyone is very bio individual.
And I also believe too, we have to take into the mental
emotional aspect here that some people are like, you know what?
It's just easier for me to live this way because I know that if
I don't, maybe I am eating the entire can of Pringles or I'm
craving, you know, all these things.
And so I'm a fan of whatever suits you, that allows you to
feel your best. But then also, let's be mindful
that we should fill the gaps of maybe things that we're not
getting. And so again, for like a vegan
or vegetarian diet, who's not getting a lot of exposure to one
of the most nutrient dense sources on the planet, right?
Whether it's organs or just beef, then OK, let's give you
like a good B complex or a liver supplement, something along
those lines to just help replace what essentially is lost or
what's missing because you're not diversifying your diet.
Totally agree. I think there's a lot of
benefits to, it's kind of a different topic, but on the same
page. So I'm a big advocate for having
periods of time where you're in a strategic, you know, caloric
surplus, there's benefits behind there and then counteracting
that with strategic periods, time in a deficit.
That's why you know me as a natural bodybuilder, I'll have a
competition prep and then I'll spend more time than not in a
surplus building muscle. I feel like a lot of people miss
the boat because they'll just chronically under eat or they're
they'll chronically overeat, neither of which is optimal.
There's a yin Yang there. But from a digestive standpoint
alone, what is optimal in that regard?
Because like, it's probably not optimal for us as a species to
be just constantly snacking all day long.
Like I think when I'm in a surplus, I don't ever do
extended fast when I'm in a deficit because that's a
stressor on the body in and of itself.
But when I'm in a surplus eating a lot in abundance, I will do a
strategic extended fast to give my digestion a breather.
From that, you know, taxation of taking in more food and being
more active throughout the day. Is there any thoughts towards
how frequently one should eat to optimize overall digestive
function? Yeah, so I agree with you.
We are not meant to just be grazing all day long.
I forget the stats I heard recently.
It was like somewhere in the ballpark of people are snacking
and eating like 17 times a day. I think it's wild.
Right. And if I'm left to my own
devices, I mean, if I'm left to my own devices, like before
knowing what I know, yeah, I would.
You know, I used to think, oh, I got to eat 5 small meals a day.
I used to tell clients that like 10 years ago, I got to eat my
5-6 small meals a day for fat loss.
Really, you know, three to four hours when we think about, you
know, peristalsis and motility and moving things through the
digestive tract about every three to four hours is what I
would say between your meals is good for me.
Right now though, I am in a, like I mentioned before, a
fasting window and I'm not trying to just slash my
calories. Some people will do that, right?
They're going to use intermittent fasting and as a
way to diet, but they're just slashing calories.
And so I have found that within this window, I can get two solid
meals in. And if I'm not where I need to
be, you know, calorically, then I might fit in a snack in
between there and then I'm fasting again.
You know, so if you're somebody who's not doing some of these
longer fasting windows, I think every three to four hours, like
you're having a breakfast, maybe a lunch and then your dinner.
Or like you said, if I am having this time frame where I'm having
larger meals, then I'm fasting deeper between.
But part of the reason why this is important for digestion is
that any time that you start snacking and you bring food in,
the motility and the peristalsis, the motor migrating
complex is not doing its thing. And so that kind of puts a halt
to it, right? And so it's like these 90 minute
wave like motions that we get to move food through the digestive
tract. But then you're disrupting that
if you're eating every 60 minutes, you know, or whatever.
So I think that people, you know, really should not be
grazing all day long and that they should be eating
well-rounded meals that also support their blood sugar
levels. Again, if that's more on a low
carb side, cool. If it's more Mediterranean
based, cool. But again, most people in our
society, they do what I used to do.
They eat processed packaged foods.
They're stopping at Starbucks with a sugary latte and like a
bagel or something. There's not protein there, no
nutritional value to that. And then they're wondering why
their blood Sugar's all over the the place.
They're crashing, they're feeling like crap, they're
craving for more carbs. And so they're making more poor
choices, Right. So I think that's, you know, you
have to find what works for you and then go through season.
So I 100% agree with you on the periodization aspect.
I kind of liken this to, you know, sports where you're in
season, you're offseason, then you're coming back and kind of
doing like the the prep work and the practice and working on your
skills. You know, you should go through
seasons, you know, where you're doing different things, where
yes, you are in a deficit to achieve a specific goal, then
you're reversing out of it, right?
Then maybe you're on vacation for a week and you just enjoy
life and you don't stress about every morsel that goes in your
mouth weighing your food, all the things.
And then maybe you're going into that surplus to where your goal
is muscle mass, right? You're putting on lean muscle
tissue if you can. And of course, with that, you're
probably going to gain a little bit of fat.
So then you're going to want to go back into cycling into the
deficit. So I agree with you there.
And obviously the choices that people make within all of those
times is going to be based upon what their individual goals are
and what, you know, again, they feel best with.
No, totally agree with the honor of France.
It's, it's exciting to talk to somebody that like views things
the same way that's not a competitor because like I speak
to things from a competitor standpoint, but like the clients
that work with, I mean, most of them are not competitors.
But like we're all humans. So having periods of time and a
deficit, periods of time and a surplus, embracing a little bit
of body fat that comes when you're in a surplus, reversing
out of a deficit in a healthy manner.
Like these are all foreign concepts of so many people that
are not competitors. But it's like everybody would
benefit from this, whether you ever plan on stepping on stage
or not. Yeah.
And you know, when we talk about metabolic flexibility, that
allows you to be metabolically flexible, that your body knows,
like, hey, I've been here before, I'm good.
But instead we have this whole camp of people who have just
chronically died. I think, you know, women, if you
talk to your girlfriends like they're always on a diet, right?
Most of them, the better you want, you know who your friends
are, but you know, all the crazes.
And then we have the GLP wands and we have the HCG diet and we
had the fat free diet, right? We had all these different
crazes over the past, you know, a few decades and people are so
lost and they're like, well, what the heck then?
Do I eat? Every time you open up social
media, something else is demonized, right?
And like, I thought this was good for me.
And like, what are your thoughts on, you know, well, red meat
raises cholesterol, eggs raise cholesterol.
Hopefully, if you guys listen to this podcast, you know that's
not true. You've seen the evidence, the
research, like, you know, it's not true.
It's just fear mongering and then people just get so
overwhelmed that then they're kind of like in this paralyzed
mode and there's like, F it, right?
They get the case of that. I'm just going to go and eat
what I want because everything is bad for me.
I'm going to die eventually anyway.
And so, you know, I hope that we can also start to shift on my
podcast. We've talked in the past a lot
about, you know, reverse dieting, but you know, what's
important for your metabolism, for your thyroid to function,
for your hormones to be online for women, you know, especially
in the physique competitor world.
My business partner, she was in, you know, CrossFit for a long
time and competing there. She lost her period for three
years, you know, and so it's like, how do we also teach
people who do want to focus on aesthetics and compete that
there are very, very important things that we need to address
in the offseason so that we can maintain good metabolic health
and flexibility and hormones and all those things.
And then you know that the on season doesn't last 52 weeks of
the year, meaning you're not dieting 52 weeks of the year.
Yeah, 100%. I totally agree.
I mean, one of my biggest frustrations within the, you
know, competitive spaces, so many of them are just, you know,
fixated on the calories in calories app model exclusively.
And I mean, they'll eat a ton of processed food with no thoughts
given towards what that's doing to the gut microbiome, to
overall health markers, to blood sugar regulation.
So I've been trying to, you know, fight against that, shout
that from the rooftops for years, but there's so much
disagreement with everything. It's very, very frustrating.
So I think so much of it can be answered simply by eating real
food regardless. I don't ever want to be dogmatic
or, you know, exist in an information silo where I'm just,
you know, hardcore keto for everybody is the only way.
But it's like if everybody just ate real food as the majority of
their consumption, that would solve so many problems.
And that is an obvious, clear message, yet so few people do
it, probably from a convenience standpoint.
And that's why we're plagued with all the issues that we have
today. Yeah, you know, and I agree with
you in terms of like, there are so many people who still believe
calories in, calories out is like all that matters.
You know, I had an OBGYN say to me when I was tracking my
calories at 1200 and, you know, going to the gym, training four
to five days a week, doing boot camp.
Don't do boot camp. Please don't do boot camp.
Ladies out there listening strength strain, lift heavy shit
and walk daily multiple times a day.
But you know, she's like, yeah, you just need to eat less and
move more. And I was like, it's not
working. And so many people are stuck.
And so then again, they're resorting to peptides.
And I totally support those and, you know, using them in the the
right way. But we just have this still
crazy diet culture that people truly are sold on the fact that
it's calories and calories out is all that matters.
And it's not like when we dive into people's lab work and we're
really looking at, you know, blocking factors.
How is their gut microbiome doing?
How is their liver doing? Are we able to, you know, get
the proper signalling to the pancreas for insulin and all of
these different things that truly matter, You know, for
metabolic health? For some people, it's not
calories and calories out because they've been in a place
for so long that they've been trying all the things and
they've down regulated the metabolism that they actually in
fact need to reverse diet, bring things back online and then go
back into a deficit and hopefully see results.
But I know there are a lot of people on social media that
would just continue that, you know, preaching to the choir
that it's galleries, encounters. I mean, when people come to me
and they want to lose weight and I got to tell them, hey, look,
we're going to eat more, you're probably going to put on some
weight. Like that's a hard sell.
People don't get it. But it's like, look, what you've
done for the last 20 years clearly isn't working for you.
What's your alternative? You know?
Well, I always ask women, You're telling me that you are tired,
you are irritable, you're not pooping, you have digestive
issues and you've been eating this way for the past 10 years.
Where do you want to go from here?
Because I can't help you with all of these symptoms.
If you think calories are the only thing that matter and that
1200 calories that you have now put as like your, you know, step
point. Essentially what I'm going to do
is slash you to 600 and then you can't get out of bed.
Your fatigue gets worse, you know, your thyroid down
regulates and your all these other symptoms that you're
trying to fix, it's just not going to happen.
And so we have to also, I think obviously educate and explain
the whys behind what we're doing.
You know, for a lot of women that I've worked with over the
years, I would honestly say for me, with the right strategy to
reverse dieting, only about 10% of them, you know, really gained
weight and some of those people. Maybe weren't telling the truth
about how consistent that 1200 calories, you know, had been.
And so when we get them on a consistent pattern of just
eating, OK, maybe we are dropping weights or at, you
know, the worst for them, they are maintaining weight, but then
they're seeing improvements with the other symptoms, you know, so
there's a lot of ways that it can go.
I think, you know, as you know, we just have to be strategic
about how we reverse diet someone.
And then yes, there are the cases that it is a chance that
you're going to put on some weight.
And sometimes we have to go, you know, backwards to go forward.
You know, the body is going to do what it needs to do.
If your body is like, hey, I can't restore a thyroid
function. I can't restore adrenal function
and, and build these hormones unless I store a little bit more
fat, right? Like your body is pretty Dang
smart. Like it's going to do what it
needs to do. And if we're playing the long
game, we'll get you there, but we can't get you there in a
healthy manner to where you are going to feel good and you're
going to have optimal biofeedback.
Eating 600 calories a day. Never going to happen for
anybody. Totally agree.
I mean my 2 1/2 year old eats more than that every single day.
So like the idea that we as full grown adults should be consuming
the same as a 2 1/2 year old that weighs 34 lbs is just not a
realistic expectation. Yeah.
And again, you know, it's it's the culture that has been
created. And, you know, hopefully people
will come around to understanding that a lot of
this. I mean, if it was truly that
right, then why we have to ask a question?
Are so many people obese and overweight?
Right? Like everybody says, like, oh,
Weight Watchers worked for me. No, it didn't work for you
because you've done it 12 times. Like if it worked for you, you
would be sitting here telling me like, I've gotten to a place
where I can maintain. I'm doing an Instagram Live
tomorrow. And I have actually some some
funny questions. And one of them is like, do you
track your food? And I'm like, I can't tell you
the last time I tracked my food. Like I just even in this cut
that I'm doing right now, essentially like it's working,
I'm eating. I mean, obviously the knowledge
is there so I don't have to put everything on a scale.
Like I can look at things. But it's just, you know, I think
that we also get so dogmatic sometimes with some of these
things that people lose sight of how to eat.
Like you said, normal real food, how to build a meal and just get
nourishment in and not focus so much on the calories but rather
focus on the nourishment and what that food is going to do
for our body. 100% I'm curious, do you have a take on?
Yeah, obviously we're on the same page when it comes to hyper
palatable processed foods, too much sugar.
Do you have a take one with the other when it comes to seed
oils, I mean, that's like the hype right now.
Seed oil, some people demonize it, some people say it's no
issue whatsoever. Do you have thoughts on it,
especially as it pertains to digestion?
Digestion health overall? Yeah.
So I think I believe in the principle of hermesis, right?
First of all, you're never going to avoid all seed oils.
They're just unless you're living under a rock or you're
like you're making everything yourself.
Even some of the healthier, right.
Alternatives to processed packaged foods are going to have
some what they define as seed oils, right?
So whether that's like sunflower oil or you know what not, there
is some evidence that I have seen that if it's a good
quality, like organic cold pressed, you know, type of the
processing, you know, you can have some of those oils in your
diet and not have an inflammatory reaction.
I think what people don't realize when we're talking about
the research out there regarding the inflammatory response with
seed oils is it's a lot to do with the the chemical
processing, right And where it's going rancid.
Because, you know, the, the other thing we have to think
about too is like, even if you have olive oil, but you're
cooking in a super high, you know, temperature, that's going
to turn that rancid and not be good for the body either.
So I believe that, you know, for me and the way that we run our
households, we minimize them at all costs.
But I'm not going to never go out to eat and enjoy a meal with
my family because it's not going to be, you know, made with
tallow, right? So I think that everybody's
threshold is a little bit different.
Of course, if you are constantly eating fried foods and you're
cooking with vegetable oil and canola oil and all that stuff,
we know that they're more pro inflammatory.
Do I think that it is the thing to focus on?
Not necessarily. I think people need to learn how
to eat 1 ingredient Whole Foods. And if they have some fried food
every once in a while, they're not going to die, right?
You're going to be OK. But it's the overall
inflammation load to the body. And so for that, that's where I
go back to. And I think about what is in my
environment, my air quality, my water quality, especially
drinking, you know, filtered water.
What am I putting on my skin every single day?
My body wash, right? My makeup, my all the things
that, you know, men and women use just for their personal care
products. Your toothpaste, you know, all
those things I think matter more before we get into the weeds of
like, Oh my gosh, they had something that was like not
grass fed or, you know, had some granola oil in it or whatever.
So, you know, I guess I'm not really answering your question
directly there, but there's evidence on both sides.
Some people are going to tell you that, you know, there's no
harm in it at all. I'm going to say that we can see
it before our own eyes, right? We have fast food and
restaurants that use these oils because they're cheaper and we
have people who are more obese and more disease than ever.
So there's definitely a correlation.
Is it causation? We can't say that in small
amounts. Think your body should be able
to handle it just fine. It's not going to be something
that is going to make you, you know, obese or 'cause, you know,
a heart attack. But it's the amount, the devil's
in the dose that people are using.
So I'm going to air on the side of avocado, olive oil, you know,
beef tallow, grass fed butter, those types of things for my
main sources. And then if I go out to eat or
go on vacation, I'm not going to freak out that it's going to be
in canola or vegetable oil. Yeah, no, I, I agree on all
fronts. I mean, I, I look at how things
are processed quite a bit and I don't think it's the, you know,
the reason we are in the obesity epidemic that we are now.
But it's like just from a critical thinking, common sense
standpoint, like if they have to deodorize it in order to make it
palatable, I probably don't want to consume it as the as a norm,
but I'm not going to like go way out of my way from a convenience
standpoint to avoid it if I'm at a restaurant or something on the
occasional time I do with my family.
Like you got to be able to live with the reality that we're in
right now. Yeah, yeah.
I have a good friend, Ben Azadi, and he created this card.
I'm sure you've seen his card, his allergy card.
And I think that's awesome, right?
I do. I think that's awesome and I
fully support it. I'm probably not taking it with
me to every restaurant. Yeah, no, for sure.
Ben's a great guy. I just, I mean, I eat super
simple restaurants when I eat. I mean, I get like a steak and
salad and I typically ask them if they cook it or what they
cook it in and if I have the option, I'll have them cook it
in butter. But like that's the extent that
I'll go with it, you know? I just had two and if people go
out to eat for breakfast, I'll always say, hey, can you throw
that? Can you make my eggs in butter?
Right? Little simple swaps.
I'll say, hey, you know, can you give me something on the side,
right? A dressing or whatever so I can
control again, maybe how much I'm being exposed to.
Or I'll just choose a vinegar Retz, you know, So I think
there's a lot of things that people can do to minimize the
exposures, but I just don't believe that anybody who is
because I think that food is, it's so nourishing to the body,
But we can't neglect the non-toxic culture can become
really toxic really fast and stress people out, like I said.
And you can't neglect that food is also social and it's also
emotional for some people, right?
Like my mom passed away in 2017. And there are things that I
think about, you know, or I just know, you know, from her in
terms of, for example, her favorite German chocolate cake
or Margarita, right? So sometimes, you know, around
her birthday or the anniversary of her passing of like, I'm
going to have this, you know, in commemoration of mom or
something. And we just can't stress about
every single little thing. Like you have to recognize that
people can become so like over the top with trying to avoid all
these things and demonize everything that's, you know,
again, you're just going to push people.
I think from a functional medicine standpoint, it's just
going to push people away because they're going to say,
this is too much. You guys are crazy.
I don't I can't live this way. I can't ever enjoy my life, you
know, and do the things that I would like to do with my family
and my friends. And so I think we have to find
kind of this way of sharing with them that it's all right not to
be perfect 110% of the time. And I try to portray that, you
know, on my social media in our podcast too.
Like I have my nails done. I know it's toxic.
Apparently my dip manicure is toxic, but it makes me feel
good. And I do a lot of other things
in my life to lower the toxic load or exposures to these
things that you have to pick and choose what is important to you
and what aligns with your values.
Because if you don't, you won't maintain it as a lifestyle.
Well, is your way too rational? How are you ever going to make
it big in social media if you don't over sensationalize
everything and become incredibly dogmatic?
What's the thing? I know.
I'm I'm I'm told that I need to be more repelling, but.
No, I. Have a hard time with that?
It's so pleasant because like everything you've said, I agree
with you 100%. It's like, I'm glad you have a
podcast because more rational people need to have a podcast
and get this message out so that people can find peace in their
life and have a good trajectory, a good path forward.
But like, you know, not obsessed about the things that don't
matter or major in the minors. Yeah, exactly.
And I think that's where some people get so caught up with all
these little things that until you have think about it like a,
you know, a pyramid, you know, or until you have the foundation
really set. Like you're doing the things
that you need to be doing. You're hydrating, you're getting
some good electrolytes in, you're walking, you're moving
your bowels everyday. Like you're getting good quality
food as much as you can organic. If not, you know, get at least
the clean 15 dirty dozen type thing until you have some of
those really solid foundations. All this other stuff, I think
like really doesn't matter until you want to get into the weeds
and you're looking at truly optimizing.
I do think that people have to start to go to pay attention.
I have a lot of people recently just constantly saying like
their struggle is bloating in gas and you know, Constipation
is part of that, but just bloating in gas, bloating in
gas, bloating in gas. And I'm like, are you taking the
time to slow down and to think about like all the things that
can impact one becoming bloated? Because we talked a lot about
chemical digestion and food and all that stuff too.
But there are so many products out there that have, you know,
like sugar free, you know, or these sugar alcohols or
artificial sweeteners in there that could be triggering
somebody. And, you know, they think
they're doing the right thing and they probably are from maybe
a macro calorie standpoint aligning with where they need to
be. But then they're not truly
looking at like all the other ingredients in that.
And I take myself as an example here.
Long ago, I was doing Quest bars and I would constantly be
bloated and gas like I didn't want to be around myself.
Why I kept eating those things, I don't know.
Well, I didn't know then what I know now.
But like all the sugar alcohols and the artificial fiber in
there, my body did not handle. And so even though it fit that
weight loss goal, that macro right where I was getting my
high protein and doing all the things right.
Like I think we have to use wisdom and discernment to
recognize that there are things that are your body's going to
tell you. Like, I don't want this.
I don't, I can't handle this, right?
This is not something that I like.
So pay attention to that and don't ignore it.
But in terms of what you see on social media, don't go over the
top with this and this and this and like nitpicking things.
If you're seeing good progress, your biofeedback is good, you're
feeling pretty good when you got the foundations laid and then
you want to optimize, you want to get curious about something
and start to look at, you know, things a little bit deeper,
Absolutely do that. But for somebody who's coming
from a standard American diet, who wants to, you know, get a
bit healthier, we would totally overwhelm that person by talking
about sugar alcohols if that was the first thing that we brought
up, you know? Yeah, it's classy 8020 stuff
like figure out the low hanging fruit, dial that in first.
Once you've got that established, then move on to the
next thing as you so choose. But yeah, don't, don't major in
the minors right up, right at the gates.
It's just that's that's it's going to not going to be
sustainable for you're going to deviate and be back in square
one in no time. You know, totally random, but in
regards to your quest bar analogy, our story, do you
tolerate Allulose very well? I honestly haven't had it in a
really long time. I try to stay away from anything
with OSE. I generally try to steer more
towards stevia or monk fruits. So I don't know if I tolerate
Allulose because I just, I haven't had it in anything
particular that I can think of. Yeah, I mean, it's super hot
right now because it's, it's technically a sugar, but it's a,
it's favorable from AGLP 1 standpoint.
It's supposed to increase satiety.
It's supposed to have all these perks to it.
I've have a few podcasts on Allulose.
But like if I have something with allulose, my personal, you
know, I, I respond similar to if I eat something with, you know,
a lot of erythritol or sucralose or Ace K in there, like Stevie
and Monk food are my kind of go to safe bets.
I don't respond that well to allulose, but some people seem
to not have any issues with it. So just curious if you had a
take on it. Yeah, I think it's going to be
watch the feedback that your body gives you, you know, and
again, so many people, and I see this more and more so with the
bodybuilders that I've worked with in the past, like their
goal is their goal and their eye is set on the prize, and they're
kind of swooping all these other symptoms under the rug.
And then I think for the women that I work with, the
population, especially, you know, moms, so many people think
that it's just normal. It's mom life.
My brain fog, my bloating, like whatever, those things are not
normal. And so we're sweeping things
under the rug until it's really roaring its head.
It's like screaming or slapping you in the face, you know, to
listen. So I think for people get
curious, maybe keep a food and mood journal.
That's what I do, you know, for some of my clients coming in,
it's like, all right, just get get curious here.
What did you have for lunch? How did you feel a couple hours
after? How was your mood?
How was your satiety? How was your digestion?
How was your energy? What are you noticing?
And patterns and trends there if things aren't the way that you
want them to be. And that can be like you
mentioned before, Brussels sprouts with bacon, one of my
favorite things. I have a threshold.
I can have it and be good, but if I meal prepped that by
Thursday, Friday, I'd definitely be gassy and and not feeling too
hot, right? Like I think it's just be
curious and look for patterns and trends and then know that,
hey, these are things that I can have on my like sometimes list
and these are things that I can have on my anytime list.
And then maybe there's things that you just don't agree with
right now. So you might need to cut it out
for a period of time and then, you know, come back to it.
Kind of what we talked about before with different diets from
a gut perspective, Gosh, I get a lot of people like coming into
our practice who have done low FODMAP for like years or SIBO
specific carbohydrate for years. And it's not the food, it is
your gut micro Biome. It is the dysbiotic bacteria and
the insufficiencies that you have that we need to address.
And then we should be able to bring those things back in and
eat a diverse diet. And I have several, you know,
cases and clients that I've worked with that it's amazing
for them to see just how much they can tolerate now that they
couldn't before. Because that's quality of life.
If you can't go on vacation and enjoy something or you're
sitting there and you're nervous like I'm going to poo my pants
or, you know, have to go back to the hotel room because I am
crumbled over in pain, that's not a way to enjoy life at all.
So we want to have diverse diet too, so that we can, you know,
enjoy those times and not have all that backlash and again,
right, feed the good bacteria and get all those nutrients in
and have short chain fatty acids produced and all the things that
we need. But just watch that biofeedback
and get curious with yourself and, and ask yourself like, how
is this sitting with me? Even if it's your favorite quest
bar that you microwaved and it tastes like cookie dough like I
used to do, if it doesn't fit with you, you know, sit with
you. Well, it's got to go find
something else. Yeah, I mean, just getting more
and too into your body and actually listening to what it's
telling you I think is a huge skill set that people have
definitely lost touch with over the years.
But I mean, just being able to do that, become more in tune
with things, I mean, that's going to give people so many
answers right there that they're not going to find easily on
Google, you know? And that other people can't tell
you, right? Like I don't, I'm not in your
body. I can't feel this.
I can't sense this. And I think a lot of it is
because we're so distracted, right?
We're distracted with social media, we're distracted with
work, whatever it might be, right?
So again, kind of what I mentioned before, if you can sit
down with your meals, try not to eat distracted sitting there,
you know, with your computer up or on your phone or whatever.
And sometimes you have to do that.
To be honest with you, the way that my schedule is, I generally
do that with my lunch, but I try to be mindful then of I'm not
inhaling my food and I'm setting my fork down and I'm really
chewing my food. Maybe as I'm reading an e-mail.
It's not the best thing to do, but it's better than just, you
know, sitting there scarfing something down while you're
watching TV or, you know, while you're doing something on your
computer and, you know, not at least giving your body the due
diligence of chewing your food to alleviate stress on the
chemical digestion. So I know that most people are
in this distracted state that they don't even make
correlations. They don't even pay attention to
those silent symptoms or not so silent, right, but subtle
symptoms that they're having. And your body can teach you a
lot. It's not anything that I can,
you can tell them. I can tell them Google machine
can tell them, their doctors can tell them.
It's up to you because you're with yourself all the time to
really be able to be that health detective and, and kind of, you
know, like I just said, get get curious and then track it and
look for correlations and trends.
Well, to to make this totally full circle here, if you have a
family, you got kids, make it a point to sit down and eat dinner
with them as a family and just focus on them.
Like I come home, I don't get to see my kid most most of the day.
My wife's with them all day long and just sitting down and having
dinner with him. It's the best thing ever.
And I refuse to like be on my phone or computer because I want
to watch him try to eat. 2 1/2 you said.
Yeah, his first meal, his first real food was like a big old
massive beef knuckle bone that he was gnawing on.
So that was good. But yeah, he's he's a dinner
time is always, always fun, for sure.
Messy, I'm sure these days we're headed back there.
He's pretty like now is to the point where he like goes out of
his way to make a mess. So it's a.
It's interesting. It's like his entertainment.
Yeah. I mean, so our son is 5 1/2 and
he, he's pretty good. It's really cute.
Like he says the prayer and, you know, he makes everybody sit and
stop. He's a lot like me as a a child,
very bossy at the dinner table. But you know, then it's just
what we we've dealt with and we have, I don't know why.
Well, they're old chairs, but they're kind of like that cream
colored chair. And now it's just like when he's
getting into whatever he might be eating, it's like, dude, you
know, not to drop food on the floor anymore.
You know that you need to have a placement here and how to eat
with a fork and knife all these things.
But what you don't know and you haven't learned is don't touch
the chairs with your greasy hands or whatever.
You know, it might be his, his pasta that he's eating last
night. Oh my God, so it's always fun
times as parents. But yes, dinner time is very
important. I would agree with you there for
sure. Well.
Liz, I can probably talk to you in another two hours no problem,
but be respectful of your time here.
What? Where, Where do people go to
find out more about you? What are you?
What are you excited about going for the year, the year 2025?
What's on the radar? Yeah, so you can find me on
Instagram at the Poop Queen. Our podcast is the Health
Revival Show. And then, you know, our website
is Fit Mom life.com. What I am most excited about
this year is we are actually going to be doing a Fit Mom Live
event. So two days in Chicago,
September 5th and 6th. It's going to be a women's event
where we're going to be talking all things metabolism, hormones,
gut health, weight loss and just really helping women connect.
With each other and breaks down some limiting beliefs of things
that might be kind of holding them back.
So I'm excited for that. We've been talking about doing a
live event for, gosh, I don't know, several years and I'm just
really looking forward to that. So that's what's on my kind of
radar and thought process right now.
Awesome. And when will people be able to
register for that event? Yes.
So we will have presale tickets probably in the next two weeks.
I'm not sure when this podcast will air.
I'll be talking about it of course on social media once we
get the the landing page and everything up.
Right now we've just solidified venues, solidified some speakers
that are gonna be flying in. We've got some really cool
people coming in, some mentors of mine, and then also a good
friend of mine actually from Canada, she's coming all the way
from Canada. She's gonna be talking about
menopause and strength training and how to train through that
season of life. So we're just excited and
putting the agenda together and then we'll have tickets
available probably in the next two weeks.
Awesome. That is super exciting.
We started doing live events this year as well and it's just,
it's so fulfilling. I mean, meet people face to face
and just building memories in ways that you can't through an
Instagram DM. Like it's it's hard to beat for
sure. Yeah, I think that's my husband
and I used to own a all women's strength training gym and we
sold it in COVID and it's the connection aspect is just so
different. Like I do a lot of telehealth
and I'm on Zoom with my clients. So we get to build that, you
know, relationship, but it's different when you're in person.
It's just so much energy, right? And that's what we really want
to bring because I know that many women, especially through
the past four or five years are starving for that in terms of
really having good connection with like minded people.
Because I don't know how it is in your world, But most of the
people that we work with, you know, they're on this health
journey because they're sick and they have, you know, a lot of
things going on and they don't have a choice.
But in their home, you know, maybe their husband doesn't
necessarily support it. They're ordering pizza and going
through the drive through all the time.
And so they feel sometimes just alone.
It could be like that for, you know, people you work with too.
I'm sure competitors or whatnot. Like they're bringing their food
with them everywhere if they're in season.
And I'm sure it's always helpful to have like minded people to
talk to and connect with. So yeah, we're excited for them.
Yeah, you got to ask him. Come, Roger.
Well, I got no doubt that you'll bring the house down there.
That's super exciting. I'm stoked for you.
I will definitely link out. Make it easy, people to find
you. And Liz, if there's everything I
can do for you, by all means, let me know.
I've truly enjoyed the conversation here.
Awesome. Thank you so much.
Take care.