Well, hello, ladies and gents Robert Sykes, ketose, a.com to
Dev, get special guest, Amy Burger on the line.
I've known Ami for quite some time.
I think I saw her speak for the first time at a, at a conference
in 2017. I followed her work since then,
and I really just appreciate her no-nonsense approach to the
ketogenic lifestyle, proper health and nutrition, a
well-formulated diets. We dive into a lot of the
controversial topics as of late, such as seed, oils, vegetable
oils, vegetables. In general, whether it's got a
bunch of anti-nutrients fight. So chemicals, that are going to
kill you. We talk about artificial
sweeteners, we talk about high-fat versus high protein.
We talked about all kinds of things, hormonal Health, all
kinds of topics that I think people would benefit from
hearing, a lot of which are controversial, a lot of which
are likely overblown and not as significant as people make them
out to be. I thoroughly enjoyed the
conversation. I've got a lot of respect for
Amy, she knows her stuff. She's been in the space for a
long time. I've got no doubt that you will
take something from this conversation.
So without further Ado, sit back, relax and enjoy the
podcast with Amy. Burger.
And we are live. Amy, how are you?
I'm good. How are you doing?
I'm doing wonderful. Well, I'm excited to chat with
you because we've met we met in person way back when I think in
like the 2017 low-carb cruise. And then we met again here
recently at the keto palooza, I believe, and I followed you work
throughout that whole time and I feel like you have very good
handle on just staying true. True to what you believe to be
true with regarding nutrition. But not letting yourself devolve
into the Nuance in the minutiae of just all the chaos that's out
there all the dogmatic thinking, and just siloed thinking that
people seem to have come up whenever nutritional Norms are
questioned. So I'm excited to just chat with
you about a variety of topics that included.
Thank you. Sounds good.
Let's dive into some of your whole like YouTube channel is
key to without the crazy correct.
Yes. What's the motivation behind
that? I feel like there's a lot of
crazy. And I want people talk about
Quito. Yeah, I mean I guess the main
motivation for it is I've been eating a very low carb,
ketogenic diet for a long time like over 15 years now.
And when I got started in this social media almost didn't
exist, like the internet was kind of the baby internet.
There was no Reddit. There was no Twitter.
There was no YouTube and so there was a lot less
information. About low-carbon keto diets out
there, but there was also a lot less misinformation and there
was much less confusion and conflicting information.
And I've said to so many people, I don't envy anyone whose brand
new to this now. Like, like, if I had to start
brand-new today, I don't even know who I would trust or what I
would believe. So I try to cut through a lot of
the extraneous, and unnecessary details, and the fear-mongering
and sensational. And just kind of give people a
really basic simple way to start.
And yeah, maybe over time everybody has to personalize a
little bit and get into the weeds and the details.
But to start out like like if you're going to do that from day
one, you're never going to get anywhere because you're going to
be so overwhelmed you're just going to quit.
Yeah, I totally agree. I've been doing the diet for
eight years now strictly and I feel like when I started what
you know, was not near as long ago as you were But when I
started there wasn't really any books or podcast or recipes, I
mean, it was not really a keto presence online.
There were certainly no keto products.
There was just no noise out there and I feel like because of
that I was able to just kind of start with a pretty pristine,
you know, understanding of it all and I haven't really
deviated to Too Much from what I learned back then because it's
never really failed to me. So now kind of fast forward to
today. And you see all this, all this
all this minutiae, all this, all this fear.
Goering and like people that are just starting, like, I don't, I
would have no idea. Like you said, where they would
turn, where they would look for a credible source of
information. What are some of the big topics
that really a guess get under your skin right now that have
really gained traction, but you just feel like it's totally
majoring in the minors. Oh boy, it's almost hard to pick
one. We can go well over Mineo Ming
pick multiple. Yeah, I know.
That's great. I I guess.
It. Wow, it really is hard to even
pick a first one to start with. I think people just need.
Okay. I guess even the word keto or
ketogenic is problematic because then people think that the goal
is to have a certain level of ketones, or the goal is to be in
ketosis all the time or they and I your world is a little
different with the bodybuilding and training and coaching.
But if my world is mostly weight loss, Type 2 diabetes, you know,
PCOS, all that, and for those people, they don't have to have
any super high amount of fat, you know, they don't have to be
chasing these like 80% fat macros and they don't, they
don't have to worry about oh, I heard protein spikes insulin or
protein turns into sugar. And so when they put the
emphasis on keto or even being in ketosis, that takes away from
the single most important thing, that that Makes this diet what
it is, which is the really low carbohydrate intake.
You know, it's almost like the message of actually keeping the
carbs really low gets lost because people are so worried
about their ketones or just even if the number one.
Most important thing is keeping the carbs low because that is
what induces the changes we want.
That's what keeps the blood sugar, low normal.
That's what keeps insulin low normal, that's what keeps the
inflammation away. Then that's what we need to
focus on. We don't really need to worry so
much that there may be, you know, some compound in in the
two sprigs of broccoli, that I'm eating, or, you know, it just
people people get wrapped up in these ant, the fears about
anti-nutrients and the gut biome and it's like.
You're so like you said that they're majoring in the minors,
and they're kind of overlooking, the most important part of all
this. Yeah.
Completely You feel like the protein things been a Hot Topic.
As of late, like for a while, everybody was very fearful of
gluconeogenesis. There was this, you know, talk
of it turning into black brown or brown sugar, chocolate cake.
Whatever it was that they were saying too much protein is going
to result in then, which certainly isn't the truth and I
feel like, at least my perspective is that as of late
it's like the pendulum has swung so far in the opposite direction
in which, you know, there's been this massive push for protein
which I think is great but almost at the expense of where
people are now. A fearful of dietary fats but
it's like that people can't realize that there's just a
healthy Middle Ground there. Oh, I could not agree more.
I I have a huge amount of respect for the people that are
spearheading this sort of higher protein angle, but yeah, it's I
think the unfortunate thing is, there's a lot of black and white
thinking out there. Like people don't appreciate
nuance and the gray area in between just because too much
fat might be bad, doesn't mean, we want to just go on a low fat
diet, you know? And and, and just in Increasing
protein and decreasing fat doesn't mean eating only egg
whites and only whey protein and canned tuna in water.
So people people just kind of misunderstand.
I think what some of the experts are saying to just because
someone says, hey, maybe eat a little more protein and a little
less fat which is completely reasonable in.
Certain cases, what people here unfortunately is, oh, I need to
like gorge on protein, eat all the protein I can and as little
fat as possible which of course is not what anyone.
Is ever saying yeah, yeah, it's people.
People have a tendency to just go to the extreme ends for
whatever reason I feel like they just assume that if a little is
good, a lot better in some situations.
That's absolutely true. But in regards to nutrition
certainly when it comes to fat and protein I would argue that's
definitely not the case. If like there could be an
argument there with the carbohydrates but operating on
the extremes of the guards defend protein, like neither is
optimal if you have optimal. I mean, either is optimal if you
are going so far to the extreme that your protein is causing an
expensive, dietary fat or vice versa.
Totally agree. Yep, when it comes to you
mentioned the the few sprigs of broccoli.
I feel like as of late, the carnivore Community has
certainly gained momentum to the extent where people are fearful
of vegetation and take this fear-mongering around the
anti-nutrients, the basically just all the phytochemicals
within plants that they have created an evolved from so they
can not be eaten. I guess, do you think there's
much weight in that like is that just a fallacy argument there?
Reason to really lean into that or is it just people again,
majoring in the minors, it's a little bit of both, I think so,
I did a video a while, back on anti-nutrients that.
Maybe we could include the link to because it's like, yes,
certain plants do actually contain compounds that cut.
The can be problematic, but most people just eating a small
portion of this as a side vegetable on their plate, along
with the fatty meat or something are never going.
To run into problems with this. A lot of the people that got
into problems with whether it's oxalates or go Trojans or
phytates or what have you are. Very often for more vegetarians
or vegans, who were eating huge quantities of this stuff all the
time like having a giant spinach smoothie for breakfast every
morning. Right.
Having almond flour. Bread.
Everyday. 6 pieces. So having it the poison is in
the dose, right? Because too much water can kill.
You too much oxygen can kill you but none of us is going to stop
drinking water and breathing are so um I don't I don't want to
like dismiss the concerns that people have though.
If you know, if somebody does react to even a small amount of
this stuff then yeah, avoid it. I have actually recommended the
carnivore diet to some people but I think they are blowing it
out of proportion. They're not wrong to be talking
about it, but they're blowing it out of proportion and they're
making everybody terrified. I'd of foods that healthy robust
long-lived people have been eating for thousands of years.
Yeah, I think that puts it very eloquently like I do not eat a
ton of vegetation and it makes it a very small percentage of my
daily caloric allotment. But when I do like, when I'm
craving some brussels sprouts or something sauteed in, you know,
butter and olive oil, I don't feel guilty about it like it's
not like this fearmongering in my brain, I don't notice the
performance benefit from it per se.
I don't notice any inherent, you know, Edge from a competitive
bodybuilding standpoint, but every once in a while just
freaking like the taste of some broccoli or some brussels
sprouts, so I'll eat them without feeling bad, about it
same same. But yeah, I think you're
absolutely right that the people that do seem to have this, you
know, they'll point to instances in which they or other people
have had, you know, issues with the oxalates.
And I feel like like you said, a lot of those people have been
following a vegan or vegetarian diet for years, on end prior to
this. And they're basically just Oxley
dumping though. So that's a pretty small
percentage of population. Yeah, I think it's pretty small
and I'm not dismissing the possibility that somebody might
react to smaller and smaller amounts of this stuff.
But that I guess people just need to realize that just
because somebody else reacts to something.
You know, there are, I could eat half a jar of peanut butter and
go about my day and meanwhile, there's some little kid who
smells a peanut and goes into anaphylactic shock so yeah, just
because one person is super sensitive to something doesn't
mean everybody is and I again I can only we everybody in the
keto world is so into thinking about ancestral health and
evolution and evolutionary biology.
And yes, the human, you know, Homo sapiens obviously evolved
eating meat eating animal fats but we also did eat vegetation
and I don't know that it was always a starvation food like oh
they only would ever eat plants if there was no dead animal
handy. And so I think, too.
To claim that these foods are somehow poisonous when healthy
people have been eating them for for ages is just kind of a
little short-sighted. Yeah, I agree.
What about fruits in which case? Many of the fruits that were
familiar? With today are just simply a
bioengineering version of the fruits that were present, you
know, 500 years ago. Yeah.
Fruit is again, fruit is what can I say?
I think the poison is in the dose, you know, if brute brute
can mess with blood sugar and Insulin, right?
Not as not as much as some other carbohydrates, but some people
are really sensitive to that. And I do think there is a case
to be made that the fruit we have available today is really
different than fruit was a thousand years ago. 10,000 years
ago, So, I think, you know, you don't, you can eat plenty of
carbohydrate without fruit, if, you know, or lower lower
carbohydrate vegetables that don't have some of the issues
that fruit might bring. Ya think it's a safe way to put
it for sure. What about artificial
sweeteners, kind of hitting you with all kinds of topics here
but I feel like these are all very hot topics in the keto
space artificial sweeteners. Often times gets a lot of
Kickback and truth be told when I first started Quito There
wasn't really this push towards natural sweeteners.
I mean, a see, sulfate potassium, sucralose like that
was just what was available. So, I was Downing artificial
sweeteners like they were going on the style and I still saw
tremendous success with the ketogenic diet.
So I don't feel like it's oftentimes as serious as it.
I mean, I feel like people should try to optimize.
I feel like people are losing sleep around whether or not they
had something that contains artificial sweeteners in it or
not. We are so on the same page
people, people are either Gonna Love Me Or Hate Me after this.
I have a pretty contrarian view about this stuff again we you
know dr. Atkins wrote.
His first book, 50 years ago, 1972.
So you know People have been including things like sucralose
saccharin aspartame for decades and like you said, getting great
restate, their losing 100 pounds, they're reversing their
diabetes. So, clearly this stuff is not
standing in the way of most people getting the results they
want. And I emphasize the word most,
because there's always the outlier who, you know, finds
that a certain sweetener does raise their blood sugar, or even
if it doesn't raise the blood sugar, it just makes them crave
more and more sweet things. Hmm.
I think. I think we need to people in the
keto World. Need to be a little more clear
about the distinction between something like, artificial
sweeteners versus sugar alcohols which are different.
The sugar alcohols like a mouth at all, Mannitol Xylitol those
things. Do affect blood sugar and
Insulin more so than the artificial sweeteners like the
sucralose and the saccharine and all that.
So it just I do think there's individual responses and you
know, in an Ideal World we would Need anything, sweet.
We would just totally break or need for something sweet but if
and some people do that, right? Some people do steak and steak
only or steak and eggs and that's their whole diet.
But there are people who are going to want something sweet
and that doesn't have to stand in the way of them getting great
results. If they want to have a diet
soda, if they want to put a pack of Splenda and their coffee and
even somebody might have the end goal of getting off that stuff
completely but maybe use it when your new use, it kind of short
term as a transition and gradually decrease.
But I just Just, if I have a client who is having trouble,
you know, whether it's with weight loss or something else,
isn't working, artificial sweeteners, are not the first
place. I Look to troubleshoot, I don't
ignore it, but that's not my first suspicion usually.
Yeah. I feel like, you know, the
artificial sweeteners like Splenda that are not going to
have near the effect on your blood sugar insulin as something
like pure table. Sugar would, those are certainly
a step in the right direction from a physiological standpoint.
There's a lot of benefit there. I feel like from a Because
standpoint just simply having that sweet sensation on your
tongue, oftentimes leads to the tendency to over-consume in
general, the hyper battable nature of all these really sweet
Foods affect people. Just have to concede to
over-consume and I feel like there is I don't be curious to
get your thoughts on this. I've had multiple in the podcast
and I've had some people that that look towards sweets and
sugars as being akin to a drug addiction.
And I've had some people that think that it is a disservice
Vez to associate food as being an addictive substance in and of
itself. Where do you kind of fall on
that Spectrum? Um, I think the only people who
think that food addiction isn't real or sugar addiction isn't
real or the people that don't have a problem eating these
things, you know? Like that's for me to say I
could say, oh, gambling addiction who's addicted to
gambling. That's ridiculous.
Well, just because I don't have that personal experience.
Doesn't mean I can discount the real-life experience of other
people. So I do now.
Do I think it's as difficult to quit sugar?
It is to quit cocaine, probably not but I don't know I can't
I've not been a cocaine addict. I can't say but I think I think
we do a disservice to dismiss that and to kind of Gaslight
people because you know there there are people who will get in
their car at midnight and drive to the convenience store and
then they'll hide all the rappers from their spouse.
Hide the rappers from their kids and I think I agree with you
though about the physiological and metabolic effects of the
artificial sweeteners or a separate.
Kind of discussion from the psychological aspect and keeping
that perpetuating that addiction to the sweet taste, just keeping
keeping that need going and it's that If that leads people back
to the real thing that can kind of sabotage them with the
ketogenic diet. But I think most people can do
the sweeteners. Just fine, I'm not a problem,
but you can get getting back to the addiction thing because
that's more of an important issue, I think it is real and I
think going keto alone, get just getting off the blood sugar
roller coaster. Getting the so-called worst
offenders out of your diet or some people.
That's enough. They stop binging.
They the all the Things go away and it's like magic and for
other people, it's it's still a problem.
We can still binge on on steak on pork chops and maybe
metabolically speaking. That's not certainly not as
damaging but psychologically to still be stuffing yourself.
You know, stuffing yourself like uncomfortably full at every meal
is still a problem. So I just think he do and
there's actually been a little bit of published research on
this. The keto is really helpful for a
lot of People in that regard. But there are still a lot of
people that struggle. Yeah.
Feel like, you know, when I started it I was having all
kinds of disordered eating Tendencies and binging and
purging. And I feel like simply regularly
my blood sugar and insulin and just, you know, not feeling
guilty about the foods that I was consuming.
I think that was one of the primary drivers that alone was
able to help me break free of that downward spiral.
And I feel like from a physiological standpoint of
people are able to you know, not have near the DraStic highs and
Was there blood sugar the Cravings?
They're they're you know, bounce of just exhaustion etcetera,
Etc. That's certainly going to put
them in the right direction but then it becomes a psychological
aspect with regard to their relationship with just sweet
things. And gentlemen, if that becomes a
catalyst for them to over-consume, you kind of have
to tackle this from a psychological standpoint more so
that a physiological standpoint. But I feel like for the vast
majority of people if they could just simply gets all those
physical markers, metabolic markers, more lesson, check that
certainly paves the way for them to just have a better
relationship with food in totality.
I definitely think so. Yeah.
How did you get into it? You've been doing this for so
long. Was there like a specific?
You know condition that you were trying to cure or break free and
or what was your initial motivation?
Yeah, I was heavier II. Did it straight up for weight
loss? I was think I was I first
discovered the Atkins book when I was in college.
And like so many people though I started and stopped and started
and stopped like I definitely Not do low-carb continuously
from the moment. I discovered it, like, I
definitely had my stops and starts.
So if anyone out there has been through that, you are so not
alone. That's a very common, but I have
a family history of type 2, diabetes, cancer and stroke and
every most of the people in my family are heavy but I was at
that age. Thank goodness.
I didn't have any health issues. I was just heavy and I was
chubby despite, you know, I was exercising regularly.
I was eating what I thought was a healthy diet.
You know, my whole grain cereal and my skim milk, and my
margarine on my whole wheat toast, and the whole nine yards.
And I just spent so many years with really low self-esteem and
feeling, like I was a failure. And, you know, what's wrong with
me and being jealous of friends that could eat anything and
still stay thin. And so, you know, long story
short, I found low carb and it worked and it I could lose
weight without starving myself without, you know, going hungry.
I didn't have to like now, I'm not a competitor.
So, like, I didn't have to measure my food or way any of
that stuff. And then I was so fascinated,
like, wait a minute, I'm doing the opposite of what I'm
supposed to do here. I'm eating, more red meat.
I'm eating butter, like I'm losing weight, what's going on
here? And I started just doing a
little bit of research in a reading more books, even
starting to Read some of the, the published papers.
And I, I was in and out of a lot of jobs that I hated and it
occurred to me one day, like, oh, wait a minute, nutritionist
is a career. Maybe I could do that and I
could teach other people about this awesome low-carb way of
eating. So I ended up going back to
school to study nutrition and you probably feel the same way I
do. Now, weight loss is great and
Aikido is obviously effective for that.
But this way of eating is So amazing for doing so many other
things for Health, it really truly.
No other diet does that it's like, okay, weight loss is
great, but let's talk about literally reversing your
diabetes, reversing PCOS. Reversing non-alcoholic fatty
liver like basically, I won't use the word cure, but you know,
radically improving mental health issues.
So, yeah, that's a really long story.
But I came in at personally for weight loss and I still, I still
eat this way, lat. Largely to maintain my weight
loss but I keep it up now also to sort of potentially, prevent
any of those big metabolic problems from developing.
No totally. Have you been able to kind of
nudge, your family members and that same direction.
Nutritionally speaking to help out there are not even not even
a little bit. Unfortunately, you know, I
always say they know how to find me if they want my help.
And they're there are certainly a few who would benefit from it,
but I'm not going to Reach at them.
It's so sad. I'm in the same boat with my
family. It's like, you know, we can step
back remove ourselves from the equation and just look at the
situation objectively and like they have a lot of expertise at
their fingertips that a lot of people, you know, pay us or ask
us to inquire from us and we would happily give it to our
family members freely yet. They don't want to take
advantage of it and it's a sad reality.
I mean, I've had a few friend members that have shown interest
but it's unfortunate that that's the way it is.
The people that are most close to you, they just don't know if
it's, they don't see you as an expert in the field or they just
don't want to be given advice from a family member.
I don't know why that is the case.
But that is absolutely the case that everybody talked about
this, I think it's um, have you ever heard Ken Berry?
Talk about powdered but syndrome.
Yeah, I think that's that's what it is partly.
Especially when it comes to older relatives, like your
parents aunts and uncles. But even even siblings or
friends or cousins. If they're around your age you
grew up with them so they sort of see you as like oh my kid
sister or my friend like we don't ever see each other as
authorities because I think in our minds were all still like 11
years old right? Yeah.
So, um, it's it's frustrating, but I'm, I'm never going to be
the person who preaches or gets in somebody's face, you know,
like I said, they know what I do, if they want help.
They know where I am, and the quickest way to turn somebody
off to, this is to evangelize and to make it sound like, you
know, so much better than they do, you know, even if we do in
the realm of nutrition, It's just sometimes it's easier to
keep the peace and just kind of they know where you are if and
when they're ready. Yeah.
You just gotta live by example, and hope that they want to
replicate that aspect. That's something I got to do
totally deviated here. But what about some of the
controversial things that that I feel you have an opinion on what
about vegetable oils and the highly inflammatory notion that,
you know, people on a huge think that looking at macros alone,
they wouldn't really throwing caution to the wind towards
vegetable oils from macronutrient standpoint.
That seems to fit the ticket but then we start diving into, you
know, the inflammatory nature and the free radicals and all
that stuff is you have an opinion on any of that.
I do and it's very contrarian late.
I yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that corn oil and safflower oil
or health foods. I'm not saying anybody should go
to the store and get a jug of these things to fry their food
in. But just just like with some of
the vegetables and you know concern about those
anti-nutrients. People have been using these
oils for decades on low carb or keto diets and still again
losing hundreds of pounds. Reversing all these health
issues and I just don't, we do not.
And those are a couple of issues here real quick.
When you go on a very low carb diet, you are reducing your
consumption of that stuff without even trying because
you're not eating any of the high-carb foods.
These oils are used and like you're not eating potato chips
anymore, you're not eating cookies, and muffins and
pastries, and frosting and crackers.
So your intake of these oils is going to decrease by default.
And that so I feel like the main source of this stuff is caught.
It's mayonnaise, it's salad dressing, it's other kinds of
condiments. And then I just we do not have
any research. On the effects of these oils are
Omega. Sits, six fat specifically in
the context of a low carb or ketogenic diet because, you
know, and research suggesting, that's this stuff is bad.
Is used in what Humans or rats and mice on high carb diets on
diets that are probably typically, 40, 50, 60, %
carbohydrate. So what's really causing the
inflammation? There is it the oil or is it the
hyperinsulinemia on hyperglycemia?
I just there's too many people being successful with keto while
including those oils to say that there are terrible across the
board. But that being said, if people
would prefer to just avoid them on principle or just Case,
that's cool too. If people just want to use lard
and ghee and Tallow and like coconut oil, that's fine.
But again, you know, here's the thing.
We probably agree about this. When, when you tell people that
not only now, do they have to give up like 75% of what they
eat in a day. The bread, the pasta, the
cereal, the rice, the potatoes. Not only do you have to quit all
that. Now you can't get the normal
salad dressing you've been Using for 20 years now you have to
make it from scratch from organic avocado oil or you have
to make your own mayonnaise with bacon fat on ye or, you know, we
are automatically going to exclude.
A lot of people who don't have the money for that and keto.
I do not want keto to be some elitist.
Snob as thing, that only millionaires can afford like
this because the fact is this, you can eat keto at McDonald's.
You can get burger patties without a bond.
You can get a pepperoni stick and Pork rinds at a gas station
like you don't have to be a PhD. You don't have to be a
zillionaire and it just is so elitist when people make it
sound like you absolutely cannot have any of that stuff.
That's just going to it just excludes way too many people.
Yeah I'm one thousand percent agree.
I feel like like none of this was even in the conversation.
When I started keto, certainly not when you started exactly.
Yeah. Your to entry was much much
lower and now kind of going back to what we were saying earlier,
people that are Coming into the space and they're Googling, you
know, what is key to how to eat keto and they're getting dissed.
This massive diatribe of information about vegetable oils
and artificial sweeteners like they don't even know what an
artificial sweetener is at that point.
So it becomes incredibly exclusive and the barrier to
entry is very high. I feel like all that stuff is
good information. It's relevant information, it's
information that I want to know, but that's stuff that I want to
know what? Like the keto 7.0 overs.
Not the keto 1.0 version. Yeah totally.
So I'm right there with you on that one as well with you having
been in this space as long as you have have there been
anything anything that you've learned about following this
diet and lifestyle long-term that have caused you to question
whether or not? It was ideal optimal, especially
around the topics of like hormonal health for females.
For instance, there's been a lot of people suggesting that key to
a long term for females is not optimal for hormone standpoint
and Now, there's quite a bit of talk about being key to
long-term contributing to insulin resistance.
So I'm just kind of curious your thoughts on that.
Yeah, that's a great question. I think, you know, not everybody
needs keto, right? Right off the bat, not everyone
needs a ketogenic diet. Some people are perfectly
healthy and lean and fit and they aged gracefully eating, you
know, a not like a standard American diet, but eating a
Whole Foods real food diet, that just isn't super, super low
carb. But I think the people that get
into trouble long-term with keto, I don't think it's keto
per se. I think, and coming from the
bodybuilding world, you probably see this way more than even I do
there. Some people, women especially
just don't eat enough long-term and especially on on keto for
some people. Anyway, the appetite suppression
is so strong that they just don't eat.
They just eat too. Little and especially the ones
who combined eating too little with working out too much.
And so they're just burning out. And so that the problem there
isn't keto, the problem is that there accidentally starving
themselves. And so, I just, I think that's a
large part of it. It's not keto.
It's the way that it's being implemented. 1000%, agree with
you. I'm really glad to hear you say
that because I've been trying to shout that message from the
rooftops for years, people don't understand.
And this this holds true whether you're competing As a
bodybuilder are just simply trying to live a healthy life.
Like if you are chronically, restricting, your fuel and take
your going to have a down-regulation of your
metabolic rate your hormonal Health.
Like there's not anything good that comes from chronic under
fueling, people don't like to wear, you know, calories just
swap that after a few. Like if you were just simply not
eating enough fuel, your body is going to down regulate and
you're not going to perform optimally from a health
longevity standpoint from a hormonal standpoint like it's
just not going to be good and I feel like a lot of people you
know, they experience the weight loss, they feel This tiny
effective, you know, eating a ketogenic diet, they just simply
don't eat enough. They're not constant Congress.
Never they don't track, which is fine.
I'm not saying you have to track but if you are not tracking you
have no idea as to how much you're consuming.
And that amount is not enough, you're going to run into some
issues Downstream especially for females from a homo standpoint
and I feel like a lot of people have been advocating for
introducing more carbohydrates to help regulate woman's cycle
but I think honestly it's just a Band-Aid to the underlying issue
of just I'm not eating enough food.
I think so too and I'm I'm never going to say like if somebody
does feel better eating more carbs, that's fine because, you
know, even most people maybe that's wrong to say most some
people can reap the benefits of a ketogenic or very low carb,
way of eating at 50, 60, 80 grams of carbs that's still very
low carb for some people that might not be like actually
ketogenic but it's still way low carb enough to get the benefits
you want to. Especially if you're lifting and
you're exercising. That's a tiny amount of carbs in
that in that scenario. But so if someone feels better
with a little bit more starts, that's fine.
But yeah, I, my first recommendation would be just eat
more and I think this is where, this new emphasis on protein is
nice because I don't know that just eating more fat would be
enough to take care of these issues.
Like at least at least the protein is going to fill you up
more and it's going to come. Also you know presumably with
Micronutrients, that might help. But yeah, I just think it women
aspect and it could happen to men too.
But women just are so afraid to eat.
They really are. Yeah, and it's, I mean, once you
like the hardest sell, for me, is a code sick.
People come to me and they want to build muscle lose fat.
You know, that's ideal. Everybody wants to build muscle
lose fat, but if you have somebody that comes to me, and
they've been chronically under eating for years, because
they've been following this, you know, No this this phenomenon
which you gotta eat less to lose weight which is there's some
truth to that for sure. Like I don't want to downplay
then but at the expense of just never eating enough to feel your
body. Never being a surplus, never
take advantage of all the benefits that come from that for
them to lose weight having chronically under eaten, you
know, for years like we have to have a conversation around a
reverse dieting, ramping, their metabolic rate back up,
improving their hormonal Health baselines.
Like there's just so much that comes with that and oftentimes,
it does not result. V in immediate fat loss, like
there's a long game thinking there and I feel like there's
just not there's not really much incentive for people to talk
about the importance of eating more because that's not what
sells thing that's not what people want to hear but there's
just so much benefit involved in having periods of time when
you're at a caloric maintenance or even Surplus.
Yeah, the I don't have a lot of people that, that I need to talk
to you about, like, reverse dieting or kind of just
maintenance even, but that's, that's huge people.
It's everybody wants to just lose fat or lose weight so
badly. I'm so quickly that they, they
just can't even imagine going through even a short period of
time of potentially gaining some even if the law Longer-term goal
is to restore your metabolism. Yeah, there's definitely a long
game approached it. Like you want it to be
sustainable for the rest of your life not the not just the next
four months, I feel like when you change your thinking towards
that it becomes much more approachable but you know people
want that quick fix so just becomes a you know it's just a
conversation that needs to be had for sure.
What about insulin resistance? With long term key to feel like
that's something that has gained a lot of traction.
As a concept lately, I was just actually listen to a podcast of
Peter Tia people kept sending it to me about forgets, who his
guest was Jean. I forget.
But, but it was all about whether or not fat consumption
and I guess he quoted it as insulin sensitivity, within the
adipocyte itself. Basic is what's contributing to
towards overall physiological, insulin resistance, as a high
fat diet. Give me tonsil.
No, right. So I think there, there is a
problem with the phrase insulin resistance, in my opinion.
And that's where a lot of this confusion comes from there.
There is a phrase called physiological, insulin
resistance to differentiate it from pathological insulin
resistance, where one is a normal human physiological
response and the other is pathological meeting like
dangerous or problematic. So anybody who's been on a very
low carb or ketogenic diet for an extended below like a long
time. As one, quick example, if for
some crazy reason you would have to go take an oral glucose
tolerance test. I think you cannot just be on a
ketogenic diet for a year and then wake up one day and go do
an OG T. You are going to look like a
raging. Eric when you might actually be
in excellent, perfect health. And it's because your body is so
accustomed to burning mostly fatty acids, mostly ketones and,
and just internally producing whatever small amount of
glucose. It needs that when you all of a
sudden, drink 75 or 100 grams of liquid glucose, your body
doesn't know what to do with it. Your muscle cells, your fat
cells, everybody's like, whoa, what?
What is all this glucose? We don't need Need any of this?
We're humming along perfectly. Well, on fats are ketones here.
Why don't we just leave all this sugar here for the brain and so
it's known. It's not known among everybody,
but it's known among all the keto doctors and professionals
that. If for some crazy reason you
have to do one of these oral glucose test, you need to carb
up for about a week, but you need about 100 to 150 grams of
carbohydrate for five to seven days.
Just so your body can get real. Accustomed to dealing with this
glucose. And so when we talk about
insulin resistance, in somebody who lets say like you or me, or
somebody who's been doing a low-carb diet for a long time
has excellent blood work. Like in really good metabolic
Health. You look if you eat a small
amount of carbohydrate, you look insulin resistant because The
sometimes they also call it adaptation of glucose sparing.
Your body just doesn't, your body doesn't need that glucose.
And and again, you can reprogram it of a few days of carving up.
But yeah, if you all of a sudden introduce this huge amount of
carbohydrate, you probably will have a massive insulin Spike.
Because it just it just this is I really, really hate the
phrase, insulin resistance. It just it's problematic because
you're from You know why, why is your glucose going high?
Is it is it because you've been on a low-carb diet for two
years? Or is it because you have type 2
diabetes? These are very different
situations. Yeah, 100 degree.
I feel like like when Crystal was pregnant and we had to get
the oral glucose tolerance test. We actually opted out of it.
We were going through midwives. We had the ability to do so, but
we basically had her where CGM for two weeks instead to
illustrate that she was able to regulate her blood sugar and
healthy man. Yeah because we knew I mean if
we I mean she's been keto for seven years.
If she had taken, you know, seventy five hundred grams of
that glue Cola. I mean, she would have totally
failed it in an instant. Exactly.
And I feel like a lot of this is probably not a certainly, not a
scientific way to say this, but I like to refer to this as
basically the reverse or inverse of Quito flu.
Like, when you are born your more lesson, the ketotic state,
then you pretty much fed baby foods and you don't most people
don't get fat adapted until they return to a huge ink diet or low
carb diet. There's that that phase in which
your body has to To upregulate those metabolic pathways to make
use of those ketones and fatty acids, it's kind of like the
same thing in Reverse towards sugar and glucose.
It's not that you are inherently unhealthy.
If your body does not know how to temporarily and acutely.
You know, uprightly those metabolic pathways like that
would all return if you were to Simply consume carbohydrates on
a more regular basis but you don't necessarily have to do
that. So it's not like you're missing
out really Exactly, exactly. And even, you know, David Ludwig
from Harvard has pointed out that the adaptation to a
low-carb diet takes a while like like to get the biggest benefits
and start seeing the biggest results.
It takes several weeks. So these studies that are only
three weeks long. It's not that not that we should
throw them in the garbage but kind of we should but they're
not, we can't hang our hats on them.
Because what happens in the very short term is not always
representative of what happens over The long term and I had
another example in my mind that I totally forgot, but it was,
let me see. Oh, another example is, you
know, people again, like we were saying earlier that.
It's a lot of black and white thinking in the keto world is
very little appreciation for nuance and context context is
the king. So let's like, let's say, you
You're doing an intense workout, intense cardio, super high
intensity. Your blood sugar could double,
you know? I mean, let's say your blood
sugar is normally in the 70s or so you could it wouldn't shock
me if somebody was booking all out sprinting or something and
their blood sugar was 120 140. So if you look at your CGM or
you look at a hookah music, oh my God, my blood sugar so high.
Yeah, but what is the context? Oh, you're on a super, super low
carb diet, and you are doing this man.
Massive high-intensity effort. Congratulations, your body works
perfectly. That's exactly what your body
should be doing. It should be pumping out a ton
of its own glucose to fuel those muscles.
That's different from waking up in the morning and your blood
sugar is 140 for no reason or you know having a meal and four
hours later your blood sugar's 140.
So I think even with this you know, quote unquote insulin
resistance, it's all about the context what you know the human
body is so elegant. And so efficient that it never
does anything for no reason. So anytime there's an aberration
or something weird. We always need to say, okay what
what is the situation here? What's going on and why?
Yeah, I totally agree. I feel like I was actually just
talking to my employees the other day.
I talked to of them into wearing a CGM and they both work out and
I was talking to them about how, you know, my blood sugar's
typically around 70 or 80 and then I'll see it Spike to 120
130. Immediately post workout and
they were like, well, we don't want to see that.
At high number, right? And like what, totally depends
on the context. I feel like simply having
conversations around. That is so key.
But people, they just want to sound bites.
Like people want to hear the Twitter soundbite two things,
but you have to dive a little bit deeper, you have to dive
into the nuance and flesh things out, so that there is no fear
Monger. There is no misunderstanding and
people can actually take these this information and use it
towards actionable steps. Yeah, I see this.
This is why I'm incapable of making YouTube videos that are
like 10 minutes long. If you're really going to cover
all the different levels of nuance, you know.
Good luck doing that in eight minutes.
Yeah 100%. So here's another one for you
with you have been having been in the space as long as you have
and learned, as much as you have, what is something that you
believe to be true? And then I've totally switched
gears and done, a 180 degree turn on.
Oh, that's a good question and I'm sorry.
A truck just started up in the parking lot outside my building.
You can probably I don't know if the camera is picking it up.
Um, what is something that something that I've changed my
mind about that? Yeah.
Hmm. well, I guess It's a little nuanced, but I'll start out by
saying, you know, even wreck even recognizing that, a lot of
the conventional no nutrition stuff was wrong like oh you need
all those whole grains and saturated fats, bad for you.
And red meat is bad for you and all that.
Even after having accepted that, that was nonsense, I was still
very much like, oh, you know, we need a lot of vegetables, we
need a lot of greens, and a lot of this and that and the
carnivore people. Ooh there crepitus because I do
think like we said earlier they go a little too far in some ways
but to their credit, they have opened my eyes to the fact that
like no we actually don't need that many vegetables and some
people do best with none at all. I I think most people probably
do well with a little bit. I wouldn't want everybody to do
a strip carnivore diet but that definitely opened my eyes to
like how overrated fiber is and Even just just all those
vegetables in general. So, that's I don't know.
I don't know if that counts. Like I guess I guess I that
counts as a mind change, right? Because I feel like I mean, I
think I can attest that to. I feel like even when Kira was
really popular there's all these like keto smoothies and keto
drinks coming out because people just still fell into the
something you had to have greens.
Had have the micronutrients and to have the antioxidants.
And prior like, seeing this carnivore space pick up as much
as it has. I mean, it, you can't deny the
fact that people are excelling and performing at a very high
rate with hardly any Vegetables. Like I don't know what my
percentage of caloric Lyman is contributing from vegetables.
Been very miniscule, like probably one or two percent.
So I'm not, I don't claim to be Corner, bro, but I'm right on
the cusp of it. But I feel like there are
certainly a lot of examples of people out there that are
functioning at a very high rate in the complete absence of
vegetables. And I like things that make you
open your eyes. I like things that are not
contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian, but pushing the
envelope into what we previously.
Deemed Possible's that people. Nuys that there are.
There's more leeway. There's more extreme, there's
more of a spectrum than we initially realized.
Yeah, yeah. So I'm right there with you.
Well what's in the pipeline for you?
What are you excited about? What are you working on?
What's 2023 going to bring? Well, the biggest thing is I'm
writing my fourth book now and it's going to be about thyroid.
So it's not a keto book at all. Which is kind of nice to take a
break from writing about keto even though I do love Quito and
it's, I don't know when it'll be out.
It's going to be several more months, I think, but hopefully
sometime like in the late spring, early summer the book
will be out and There is I think, depending on when this
podcast comes out, we have a course called the keto Made
Simple course with adapter Life Academy.
And so that's like a really, it's three weeks of dedicated
support and coaching and and live videos.
So that's that's always a fun thing to do.
Nice nice. Well I will certainly link out
to that, make it easy people to find it as it relates to your
thyroid book. I'm sure a lot of that you know
goes hand-in-hand with what you've learned with.
You know, even though it's not specifically about keto, has
there been anything? And he red flags that have been
raised with regards to macronutrient distribution
overall caloric intake that have negatively or positively
impacted thyroid health. I feel like a lot of people have
issues with thyroid and I'm assuming it's probably going to
be similar to what we're saying earlier about them just simply
not eating enough fuel in general and a certain that
they're eating a lot of excess of carbohydrates in there and
some of this and that's going to play into that.
But if someone's following a ketogenic diet, have you noticed
the The vast majority of their thyroid issues seem to be
resolved. It actually goes both ways.
I think there's and, you know, unfortunately, there's almost no
published research on this. So it's all just kind of
anecdotal which we shouldn't dismiss, but we don't have a lot
of like, hard data there are, I would say that the thyroid cases
that tend to get better with keto and some do I see it more
specifically with Hashimoto's, the autoimmune thyroid.
So and we know, Quito is really good for many different
autoimmune things, so why shouldn't it be good for
Hashimoto's? But yeah, the other the other
stuff I think is is what you said.
Like just people not just not not eating enough and especially
not eating enough in the context of working out really hard and
your body. Does you a favor?
It's a protective mechanism, what it slows your metabolic
rate because it's like it doesn't want you to burn out, so
it's going to it's going to lower your energy.
It's going. Make you depressed.
It's going to make you cold and tired so you don't want to go
work out. It's trying to save you but it
makes you feel like garbage on the process.
But yeah, I think the people that you know, Ron the people
that start out fine and develop a thyroid problem on keto.
I do think those are largely the reasons.
Like, I don't think it's nobody is really coming into this
because of Coit origins or, you know, the anti-nutrients about.
That's not the cause of that in this context.
Yeah. What about totally going on
another Rabbit Hole here. But when it, Comes to thyroid
health and just hormonal Health. In general, there's been a lot
of debate around, you know, bioidentical hormones and
thyroid medication medication to try and offset.
Some of these, these low numbers or high numbers is that
something I'm assuming. There's probably like a tiered
system like one needs to get their nutrition dialed and what
needs to be making sure they're consuming adequate nutrition
before they ever play around with the, you know, Exotics
hormones. I'm assuming correct.
That's that's what I would say. I mean medicine should never be
our first go to. We should try to figure out the
root cause of the problem and fix that, but having dealt with
hypothyroidism myself and I do actually take viroid medicine, I
believe me a burger is not starving herself and
over-exercising said, I think that is definitely not the
problem for me, but it's, I think if you can't identify the
root cause And then don't dismiss the the judicious
intelligent use of medication, whether that's hormones or
thyroid or anything else. Like, you know, just because
some medicines can really mess you up.
Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
You know, low thyroid can not to be hyperbolic here but it can be
completely debilitating, the depression, the apathy, the
constipation hair loss fatigue. I mean it's miserable and So why
should somebody spend two or three years trying to get to the
root of the problem and experimenting with supplements
and diet and this? And that, you know, maybe take
take the medication and and still try to find the root cause
still adjust these things about your lifestyle because you can
always reduce the medication. If you think you've maybe fix
the problem, you can always kind of work with your doctor to cut
back on the meds and see what happens.
But I just were very very anti medicine and the keto World and
I do think, too many people are on way too many medicines that
they don't need. The diet could absolutely fix,
but I don't think we should be completely anti the stuff when
it really can help. Ya, 1000% a green when is this
book slated to be published? Oh, not soon enough, I'm not
sure. We're actually we're doing some
revisions on the manuscript today.
Me and my co-author probably it won't be out until sometime in
the late spring early summer. Hopefully sooner than that but I
can't. - well, she'll have to get you back home when that does
go laughs that we can just dive specifically into thyroid
Health. That would be great.
I mean, that just, it's, it's so common.
I see it all the time because, you know, who's going to come to
me for help. It's going to be people that are
doing keto, but it's not working and 90% of the time.
Quote-unquote, not working means they're not losing weight.
And if they didn't have any hormonal imbalance, if
everything was fine, and they were just eating too much
carbohydrate a straight-up Low carb or keto diet would work
really well and they be losing weight.
So when it's not working and they seek extra help, I dig a
little deeper. And I mean, I'm not a doctor, I
can't diagnose anybody, but looking at the blood work and
looking at their paperwork, the symptoms, I can spot this a mile
away. So I think it's way more common,
it's super common, and it's very, very often undiagnosed or
diagnosed but improperly treated like they're not taking the
right medicine for it. Yeah.
Like when it comes to people, Like people listening to this if
they're doing all the quote unquote, right things, they got
their diet dialed in there, they're watching their intake,
they're making sure that their training properly, they're
getting sleep, rest, all that stuff.
What like what would be a good next step for them?
Getting a blood panel, done, a thyroid panel, done a
comprehensive panel, and just kind of seeing if there they've
got any markers that are out of line there.
Definitely. But I think the first step of
for that is like you said their diet, their diets dialed in.
How are we defining dialed in, you know, like, are they are
they eating 10% protein, because they're afraid of protein.
But so if they're doing like a, we could call it well-formulated
tomorrow. Stephen Finney's phrase, like a
well-formulated ketogenic diet. If they really have a good diet,
then yeah, depending on the kind of symptoms they're having.
I would recommend a thyroid panel but well and the first
step before that is even some people take medication that
makes it really hard to lose weight or makes you gain weight.
So, you know, if we eliminate that like okay, we they're
they're not on any of those medicines then yeah, I would do
thyroid but you always have to ask for a comprehensive thyroid
panel when you ask. Like, there's two whole chapters
on this and in my book, if you just ask for a thyroid test,
they usually only run one or two things and that's just Just not
enough like that would be like measuring just blood sugar
without insulin, right? And you and I know there's
millions of people whose blood sugar is totally normal but
their insulin is through the roof.
Hmm. And that's Miss that's missed
because doctors don't test it and the same thing happens with
thyroid makes total sense. Well, I'm excited for the book
to come out. I can't wait to read it myself.
Thank you. No.
Nobody wants it. To be done more than me.
Well, Amy, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you
today. Where do people go to find out
more about you? We said that your YouTube
channel was key there without the crazy.
Where else can people find you? Yeah, people can just search me
on my name on YouTube to Amy Burger.
My actual website is in desperate need of overhaul, so
the best place is on stall Slayer.com.
S t all like a fat loss stall stall Slayer.com or I'm on.
I'm on page. Creon.
And I'm Twitter is my main social media.
My handle is to it nutrition, túi' to nutrition.
And then this company that I helped with these online courses
for Quito is, it's really long name, adapt your life
academy.com and that's with um, dr.
Westman to awesome. Well, I will certainly linked
into all those make it easy for people to find you.
And again, I can't thinking of taking the time I really
appreciate your knowledge and expertise and I look forward to
your book and everything else that you continue to pursue to
Route 23? Yeah, thank you Steve.
And I just want to tell people, listening to me, they're
listening because they're your fans anyway, but you and I have
such different areas of expertise in specialty and yet,
like, when I heard you speak Aikido palooza, I was just like,
oh my God, this guy is just spot on.
So I think I think we agree about so many things even though
our areas of specialty or different.
Yeah, well it's crazy because like I mean I have like all my
Marketing Online branding is definitely catered towards, you
know, competitive body butters. But so many the principal like
we're all humans. Like so many the principles that
I applied to my competitive athletes are directly applicable
to you know 73 year old grandmother just simply want to
live a healthy life like it's a lot of it, there's a lot of, you
know, carry over there. So I think it's so good.
That's why I bring on people. The podcast that I know we're
not in the bodybuilding space because just so much to be
learned from everybody, that's pursuing true Health, you know.
Yeah. So thank you again.
Amy, definitely keep in touch. If there's ever anything I could
do for you, by all means, don't hesitate to reach out, let me
know. Alright, thank you, take care,
take care.