January 5, 2023 • 28 mins
In a special two-episode series, the New York Times best-selling author, scientist and physician tells why women’s health needs are different from men’s, and shares her female-focused plan to help women live a healthier life. On today’s episode: The focus is on food, as Dr. Sara takes us through her achievable and empowering healthy-living plan created especially for women: The Gottfried Protocol. She tells why the protocol works so well for women, how to do it, and how it can make a difference in your outlook and even your weight in just four weeks.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
I saw a lot of women I called them Mike
Keto refugees who are coming to my practice, and they
went on Keto maybe with a male coworker or a partner,
and had a similar experience to me. But they also
noticed they weren't sleeping as well, they weren't deriving some
of those benefits that men experience on Keyo, And so
(00:25):
that got me to figure out, Okay, how do we
work around this, how do we get this to work
for women too? That was Dr Sarah Godfried, scientist, researcher,
and best selling author talking about how she developed a
healthy eating plan that works for women. Now. Dr Sarah,
as she likes to be called, has an innovative, amazingly
(00:45):
effective approach to women's health, an approach that can help
women deal with stress, get more energy, and even achieve
our healthiest way in an enjoyable way. I am Kim
Azarelli and this is Santego's one dred women to hear. Today,
we're bringing you the second episode of a special two
part conversation with Dr Sarah Godfried on women's health. In
(01:06):
our previous episode with Dr Sarah, we learned why women's
physiology is different from men's and what that means for
our health. And we learned that a healthy metabolism is
the key to a healthy life. Now, just in time
to get the new year off to a great start,
Dr Sarah takes us through her approach to women's health,
what she calls the Godfried Protocol. We'll learn why the
(01:29):
protocol works so well for women, how to do it,
and how it can make a difference for you. Dr Sarah,
great to have you back on the show. Thanks. Obviously,
we've gotten to know each other a little bit over
the past several months, and I probably have watched many
of your videos and Phil, I know you very well
and have read your book and started on what you
(01:50):
called the Godfried Protocol, which is a four week plan
that you've layed out really well in your new book, Women,
Food and Hormones. And I just want to say it's working.
It is absolutely working. Yeah, that's how I feel. I
feel like I have I don't know so many good
things have happened. In fact, this is just anecdotal, but
I'm going to stick with it. Someone who lives in
(02:11):
my building stopped me on the street yesterday. Actually, we
ranch each other in the elevator he saw me on
the street and he said, you know, Kim. I was
gonna stop and say hello, but then I thought, no,
that woman looks too young to be Kim. And I've
actually lost quite a bit of weight, but I think
feeling more importantly, I just have a lot more energy,
and I feel like this protocol is really like the answer.
(02:34):
And I'm I'm becoming a little bit of a proselytizer
because everywhere I go, I'm like, well, what's your feeding window?
And uh, you know, what are your net carbs? And
so I think we need to tell the world about
the protocol so that I'm not just talking to myself, um,
and that people understand all this vocabulary. But Sarah, you
wrote this with a very specific goal in mind, which
is you've done the research, You've lived the research, and
(02:57):
you do believe that there is a difference between men
and women, and we all know that there is in
terms of hormonal changes in biology, and you've put together
what I think is a pretty genius protocol. So how
did you come on this realization that there was a
true difference between what men and women needed in this
in this type of in this type of I don't
(03:18):
want to call it diet because it's not a diet,
it's a lifestyle. Well, I would say, first, my entire
career has been devoted to sex differences, not for the
purpose of one up being or one downing one gender
or another, but really for the purpose of understanding both
men and women. So this came full circle for me
(03:39):
about five years ago when I went on a key
to genetic diet with my husband. He rapidly dropped about
twenty pounds. I had some initial success, and then it backfired.
It stopped working. I actually gained weight, and that's what
got me on this path of looking at Okay, we
know there's sex differences, we know there's gender differences when
it comes to medical all of health. Let's go a
(04:02):
little deeper. Let's understand why, especially the classic ketogenic diet
was not working for me and was not working for
frankly hundreds of women in my practice. So that got
me on this path to look at things like the
testosterone advantage. We know, for instance, that women have ten
to twenty times less testosterone than men, and yet it's
(04:25):
still our most prevalent hormone. So it's a hormone that
we really need to be managing and tracking. It's responsible
not just for sex drive and muscle mass, but also
confidence and agency. And so that was one of the
first pieces was looking at some of these hormonal sex
differences that were responsible for this difference that I saw
(04:46):
with my husband, and there's a long list of them.
You know. One is that because men have more testosterone,
they have more lean body mass about more than women.
They've got lower fat mass. We think women need more
fat mass to make hormones because fat is the backbone
of the hormones that you make. There's many other differences.
(05:08):
Estrogen can sometimes get in the way of success with
a ketogenic diet. We also, I believe women may need
more carbohydrates for the production of serotonin. So serotonin, as
many no is that neurotransmitter that's responsible for sleep, mood, appetite,
(05:30):
and carbohydrates helped to raise serotonin. So I saw a
lot of women I call them Mike Keto refugees who
are coming to my practice, and they went on Keto
maybe with a male coworker or a partner, and had
a similar experience to me. But they also noticed they
weren't sleeping as well, they weren't deriving some of those
(05:51):
benefits that men experience on keto, and so that got
me to to figure out, Okay, how do we work
around this, How do we get this to work for
women too? You know, so interesting, Like, there's so many
things that you've already said that I believe are sort
of myths that are really things that I'm learning by
talking to you and reading your work and and the research.
You know, this idea that first of all, that fat
(06:13):
is bad, you know, is always something that I think
you've kind of educated me on, and this type of
research has educated me on. Also the testosterone myth that
you know, testosterones a guy's thing. I think that's really
interesting what you just said, and I'd love to learn
more about that. And then also the relationship with carbs.
So I hope we get into all three of those
as you talk to us about the protocol. Yeah, I'd
say the myth about fat being bad is one that
(06:37):
just will not die. We have so much data now,
you know, over the past few decades really showing that
fat is essential. You know, your brain is fat. When
you eat fat, it helps you feel more satisfied in
terms of um appetite. It's also, as I mentioned, the backbone,
(06:58):
especially of sex form like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone d t A.
So we really need fat to function. The question is
how do you personalize the amount of fat. So when
I was in medical school and Kim, this was a
very long time ago. So when I was in medical school,
(07:20):
I went off of fat, I did plant based diet,
and my hormones became a hot mess because my estrogen dropped,
my breast got smaller, my mood was worse, my cholesterol
dropped significantly. We know that's a marker of depression. So
I really believe that we need to have these food
(07:43):
groups and we've got to figure out, Okay, what's the
right dose of carbs, what's the right dose of fat,
what's the right dose of protein, so that you really
have that metabolic health that we're after, right, Because I mean,
the popular culture has avoid fat skim scam, scam again,
this equation of like fat, that you're going to be
fat well, and it hasn't worked. It's been a failed experiment.
(08:05):
You know, as we have eaten more carbhydrates, especially refined carbs,
what's happened is that we've got a higher and higher
incidence of diabetes, we know that somewhere around eighty eight
percent of the US population is metabolically unhealthy. Many of
them don't even know it, and so this advice that
(08:25):
came down through the nineteen seventies and eighties to cut
back on fat really has has been a misfire. It
just hasn't worked. And so a more balanced approach I
think is the way to go. But for many women,
as they become more balanced, they need to have a
therapeutic pulse the way that I described it in the book.
(08:46):
So that's really how I developed the GT Freed Protocol
to help women do this four week pulse where they
can really personalize how much of each of these macronutrients carbs, protein,
fat are the best for them. Senecas one hundred women
to hear will be back after this short break. So
(09:17):
take us through how it works. What is the protocol
and why do you set it at four weeks? I
set it at four weeks because I think it's doable.
I also think that when you stay in keytos is longer,
there's some risks in terms of your cholesterol as well
as your level of inflammation, and so I think four
(09:37):
weeks is a pulse that is manageable. The first part
of the protocol, the first pillar is detoxification, and I
give folks about a week to get into a state
of open detoxification pathways. I think that's really important, especially
to flip that switch between burning carbs, which many of
(09:59):
u so are stuck in I was in my thirties
and forties, to burning fat, which is really the goal
with ketosis. So that first part is detoxification. I want
women to be pooping every single morning. I want to
really increase the amount of vegetables. I think we can
all agree that that's healthy. That's the crisipperus vegetables, broccoli, hauliflower,
(10:21):
russell sprouts, radishes, et cetera, as well as the alien vegetables.
So that includes onion, scarlet, gleak, the methylating vegetables, as
are the ones that help you inactivate certain hormones like estrogen,
and that includes the dark green leafies. So detoxification is
the first part. I see in my practice all the
time that women just don't have their detox pathways open.
(10:46):
Maybe it's because they're having a glass or two of
wine every night, or they're over the age of forty
and things just slow down. You know, I think a
lot of women notice that as hangovers hitting a little
bit harder, affecting their sleep more, and so we've got
to help out the liver. So that's the first part
of the protocol. Then you move into nutritional ketosis, where
(11:06):
you're eating with the macronutrient ratio that I found to
be the most effective for women. That includes sixty to
sevent of your total calories each day from fat, mostly
plant based fat. So there was just a study published
by David Ludwig at Harvard showing that if you keep
your total saturated fat per day at or less, that's
(11:31):
asssitated with the best cardio metabolic function going forward. So
sixty your total calories from fat, a portion of that
from saturated fat if you'd like to eat animal fat,
of your calories from protein, that's a moderate protein diet.
And then about the remainder so ten of your calories
(11:52):
from carbohydrates. But those carbs really need to come from vegetables.
And what I advise is that you simplify this by
focusing on net carbs, so less than twenty net carbs
per day, and that allows you to get the fiber
that you need to support your hormones as well as
(12:13):
as to support the benevolent microbes that are in your gut.
So that's the second pillar. The third pillar is intermittent
fasting because that really allows people to eat more carbhydrates.
So it kind of depends on what some of your
issues are how long that window should be. I love
that you mentioned, you know, those new parlance that you've
(12:34):
been using, like with your feeding window. You know, generally
what I like is for people to start with about
a fourteen hour overnight fast and then a ten hour
feeding window. Yeah, that that really worked for me. I
mean I started actually with sixt eight, but I then
I read in your book or maybe in one of
our conversations that you know, women don't need to kind
(12:56):
of shock the system. It's better to kind of ease
into it. And so I'm switched to a four teen ten,
which is very doable. And and I have to say
that now I'm not really hungry before that, and I
feel weird eating after that, like it doesn't occur to me.
So I feel like my body really appreciates it, actually,
and I think that's one thing that I'm learning from
this whole experience, which I again I won't call a
(13:16):
diet and I would love to talk to about diet culture,
but you know this lifestyle, like, I feel like my
body is happier in this mode, so it doesn't feel
like I'm being deprived. I feel actually the opposite. That's
certainly part of the benefit of this protocol. You know,
it's designed to get you into ketosis so that you
have the flexibility to switch your metabolism from burning carbs
(13:39):
to burning fat. And the analogy that I often use
to describe this as similar to a prius where you
can flip the switch between burning electricity or burning gas
depending on what type of fuel is available. So the
body is really designed to do this from Stone Age times,
and many of us just with the availability of food,
(14:01):
especially the the ease of carbohydrates and the deliciousness of carbydrates,
we tend to overdo it and get too high a
dose of carbs, and that's really what gets us into trouble.
But once you flip that switch, as you have done Kim,
and you start burning fat, then you have key tones
in your body, in your bloodstream, also in your breath
(14:24):
and in your urine. And those key tones are not
just a marker of how successful you are on this
God Freed protocol. But they're also a signaling molecule, so
they reduce inflammation, they help you with being less puffy,
they help you get rid of excess fluid. A lot
of us have fluid retention starting in our forties and fifties,
(14:47):
so this is a major downstream benefit of the keytogenic diet.
And then you also mentioned energy. I think that's a
really important piece to highlight, because keytons are super energizing.
They give us focus and concentration and mental acuity. They
help us with appetite suppression, and that's part of the
reason why I think this approach is so successful for
(15:13):
so many women. I mean it's successful for men too,
but for women in particular. There's a way that I
think our culture makes us hungry, makes us hungry for more,
makes us hungry for equality, makes us hungry for soothing,
makes us hungry for greater solace. And what I find
is that those keytones really help with satiety, with feeling
(15:37):
like Okay, I'm at the end of my eating window.
I finished my meal, I'm done, I'm good. I can
go focus on other things without food thoughts kind of
driving me for hours each day. Yeah, I have to
say that, like my guilt level around food is pretty gone.
Like I don't feel guilty about you know what I mean,
(15:57):
Because usually you're like, oh, that was fattening or that
wasn't so healthy, or you know, like there's always some
after effect, and I have to say, like, because I'm
sticking to the protocol, I'm like, well, this is great
like olive oil, yes, avocado, as much as you like,
you know what I mean. Like, so the stuff that
I'm eating is good for you, and it happens to
be stuff I like. So I feel I don't feel
that same feeling of like, I mean, I don't want
(16:18):
to put down any particular diet plan, but like you know,
when you're on a plan and you feel like you're checking,
you're always like did I stick to it? Did I
stick to it? Am I sticking to it? I don't
feel that way with this. I feel like, oh, wow,
like this is complete freedom because I like what I'm eating.
I'm feeling a lot better, I'm losing a lot of weight,
and I just it's a totally sustainable lifestyle and it's
not about diet. I'm so glad you mentioned that because
(16:43):
you know, I think so many of us as women
exists along this spectrum of somewhat healthy to maybe eat,
disordered eating with restriction, with permission, and it can be
tricky to navigate. It can be really tricky to navigate,
and so we end up maybe over indulging or eating
(17:04):
something that we don't think is the best information to
be feeding our bodies, and then we have that guilt
that you're describing, and I think many of us, and
I'm talking about myself here, mostly we then serve penance,
you know, So we go on a strict diet, and
then it's about this white knuckling experience of making sure
(17:24):
that you're following it even though you're hungry all the time.
And what I love about key Tones and about this
particular approach to a ketogenic diet adapted for women, is
that it allows you to just let go of that
white knuckling, so you have, as you described, food freedom,
and that that's so beneficial because that really allows us
(17:45):
to concentrate on some of these other things that are
so important, like the mission that you serve, Kim, the
mission that I hope to serve with changing conversations about
women's health and There's there's something just so delightful about
being able to step away from that hunger and from
that you know, kind of constant inner saboteur that's telling us,
(18:09):
oh no, you can't eat that. Oh my gosh, you
had way too many bites of that chocolate cake. And
so I love that you're allowed to just away from
that inner dialogue that can be so harmful. Yeah, and
it's just too present, right, I think, like that's the
whole context of this conversation, which is the focus on
women's appearance, women's weight, the way we've all been educated,
(18:30):
and so that dialogue, which could be a healthy dialogue,
it's just too present, I think in the culture, in
each of our heads. You know, it's just taking up
too much space. And I think your point is so
well taken. This frees you from that. And I mean,
I'm definitely experiencing that. I never really uh you don't
know me very well, but you know, I'm not really
like a very appearance focused person. I'm you know, I'm
(18:52):
just so into wanting to do the things I want
to do that I just it's just not a big
priority in my life. I don't think about it that much.
But even I, who I would say is not that
focused on it, still had that inner dialogue all the
time of feeling guilty and just knowing that I was like,
you know, maybe that's not so healthy, Maybe that's like
a little fattening. Like it's just those those constant things
that you just constantly think about. And this it just
(19:14):
clears up so much space. And now I'm just I
feel like my relationship with food is much more positive.
And you know, my father always told me food, food
is fuel, like that's been his mantra, and I was like, yeah, great, Dad, Great.
But now I'm like, Okay, I get it. Food is fuel,
you know, and it's a it's a different way of
thinking about it. It is a different way of thinking
(19:36):
about it. You know. I think, Um, this is really
what I hope for women. You know, I want us
to move beyond the ways that we've internalized diet culture.
But I would also say that the other end of
the spectrum fat acceptance, UM body positivity, well all of
us can get behind the concept of a more inclusive
(19:58):
approach to different and body shapes and sizes and colors.
You know, many of us still want to fit into
the clothes that are in our closet, you know, like
I've invested a lot in the things that I wear.
I want to fit into them. I don't want to
just be a woman who is going through this aging process.
I love aging, but the natural aging processes that women
(20:22):
are gaining fat mass as they get older about five
pounds per decade starting in their forties, and they're they're
losing muscle mass again about five pounds per decade, and
so you may not even be changing your weight. That's
on a bathroom scale, which I think is a terrible
marker of metabolic health, but it's the one, you know,
(20:43):
It's kind of like shorthand that we use. You know.
What I want is for us to to really understand
that some of these changes are occurring, and unless you're
doing something about it, you can wake up at age
fifty five or sixty and start to get these diagnosed
us that you don't want, like party vasco disease, a
(21:03):
heart attack, hypertension, even Alzheimer's disease. So all of this
is occurring in the body decades before that scary diagnosis,
and I really want for women to understand that you
can be empowered to do something about it. And it
can be, as you said, a lifestyle that is not
actually difficult. It's it's a way to really grab the
(21:27):
reins of your own health and your destiny, like your
your health span, that period of time that you feel
fantastic and you're relatively free of disease. Yeah, I'm I'm
telling you, I'm living it because I do feel that
if it was just for the waight, there's no way
I would do it. I just I'm not motivated enough.
You know, I feel I look good enough. You know,
(21:47):
if I'm a little, if I'm ten pounds heavier, um,
it's good enough for me. Like I'm not you know,
I'm not that type of person. But the idea of
being healthier, of feeling healthier, and of the longevity of
the health span, that's super motivating to me. And so
I'm telling myself, you know, this is just all positive.
There's like nothing negative going on in this, you know,
And so that is extremely motivating. And then thinking that
(22:10):
you know, you could be I mean, I love when
you talk about an end of one because this idea
that it's personalized, it's you know, it's a personalized approach,
and you have to know what works for you, you know,
you start to sort of feel that you feel like
what works for you, what doesn't? You know? Being able
to just understand how your body reacts to things is
very very motivating to me. Just I think it may
be that moving from this sort of I don't want
(22:31):
to say imprecise medicine because I think that's probably unfair,
but I would say maybe generalized medicine and first segmenting
out men versus women, that's a huge step in the
right direction. And then I think what you're doing, and
I think the movement that you're kind of part of
is doing is telling us all like, okay, you should
know you And I think that that's a very motivating
(22:52):
way to think about health. It is motivating. And I
would even say that imprecision medicine is a term that's
you quite frequently for the way that medicine has been
practiced for over a hundred years. And by that, I
mean when someone has depression and they get diagnosed with depression,
they often get started on an antidepressant. And yet we
(23:15):
know with most of the available antidepressants right now, that
you have to prescribe to about ten patients for one
patient to benefit. When it comes to statins. You know,
one of the most common drugs that are prescribed in
US medicine. You have to again prescribe about fifty patients
with the statin for one to benefit. So this is
(23:38):
in precision medicine. We know that the way that you
react to food is different from the way that I
react and the way that you can really personalize it.
The way that you can step into precision medicine is
to really understand, Okay, what's going to work the best
for me? Because there is no one size swit salt diet.
(23:59):
There isn't And this book is really more about a
template for determining how to personalized diet so that it
really supports you and supports what you want your health
for and whatever metrics make the most sense for you
in terms of measuring your health. So for some people
that might be their body weight on the bathroom scale.
(24:21):
For others, that might be their body composition, the percentage
of body fat or their fat mouths that they have,
or their lean body mass. For some people it might
be there fasting glucose or their average glucose as you've
been playing with with your continuous glucose monitor. So there's
so many different ways that we can define it. But
(24:41):
I think this point about precision medicine is so important
because we've always practiced medicine for the average, and I
don't want to be average, and I don't want you
to be average. I want us to be optimal. I
want us to really have you know, that best possible health,
the best possible mitochondria, you know, those power factories that
(25:05):
are inside of ourselves, which, by the way, start to
falter after age forty in women women but not in men,
especially in the brain. And that's why so many women
notice that they have this mental slow down. Their brain
just slows down a bit in terms of memory, in
terms of word finding, in terms of multitasking after age forty.
(25:28):
So what do we do about that? That's a metabolic problem.
One thing you can do about it is to feature
brain keytones. That works really well for the majority of
my patients. So, Sarah, I have to thank you for this.
I mean, just this introduction to the protocol is hugely
helpful because I'm learning a lot and it's a little
bit of a new language. But once you know the language,
(25:50):
you can really be freed. So I highly recommend the
book Women food and hormones. But Sarah, I really want
to just thank you for your work and what you're
doing well. Thank you so much him, It's been such
a delight. There is so much to learn from Dr
Sarah about the interplay between women's health, food and hormones,
(26:12):
but here are some of the key concepts we can
take with us today. First, one of the things that
makes the god Freed Protocol so effective is that it's
a ketogenic diet tailored specifically for the needs of women,
and it overturns a lot of the myths we've been
trained to believe. In the God Freed Protocol that is
good for you, Guilt is bad, and you can stay
(26:32):
on this plan without ever feeling deprived. Second, change can
happen and faster than you think. You can see a
big difference after just four weeks of being on the protocol,
says Dr Sarah. Finally, the god Freed Protocol allows women
to build a new, more positive relationship with food. The
(26:53):
diet culture encourages women to adapt a mindset of constraint
and frankly, guilt, but the god Freed Protocol encourage us
towards a mindset of abundance, encouraging us to eat foods
that will make us feel good and live healthier without
the guilt. To learn more about the Godfried Protocol, go
to Sarah Godfried dot com and check out her new book, Women,
(27:14):
Food and Hormones. And tune in next time to hear
about our next featured woman and discover why she's one
of Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear. Thank you for listening,
and please share today's podcast episode with others in your life.
This is Kim Azarelli, co author of Fast Forward and
co founder of Seneca Women. To learn more about Seneca Women,
(27:35):
go to Seneca Women dot com or download the Seneca
Women app free in the app store. Seneca's one Hundred
Women to Hear is a production of the Seneca Women
Podcast Network and I Heart Radio Have a Great Day.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, check out the
I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen
(27:55):
to your favorite shows.
I saw a lot of women I called them Mike
Keto refugees who are coming to my practice, and they
went on Keto maybe with a male coworker or a partner,
and had a similar experience to me. But they also
noticed they weren't sleeping as well, they weren't deriving some
of those benefits that men experience on Keyo, And so
(00:25):
that got me to figure out, Okay, how do we
work around this, how do we get this to work
for women too? That was Dr Sarah Godfried, scientist, researcher,
and best selling author talking about how she developed a
healthy eating plan that works for women. Now. Dr Sarah,
as she likes to be called, has an innovative, amazingly
(00:45):
effective approach to women's health, an approach that can help
women deal with stress, get more energy, and even achieve
our healthiest way in an enjoyable way. I am Kim
Azarelli and this is Santego's one dred women to hear. Today,
we're bringing you the second episode of a special two
part conversation with Dr Sarah Godfried on women's health. In
(01:06):
our previous episode with Dr Sarah, we learned why women's
physiology is different from men's and what that means for
our health. And we learned that a healthy metabolism is
the key to a healthy life. Now, just in time
to get the new year off to a great start,
Dr Sarah takes us through her approach to women's health,
what she calls the Godfried Protocol. We'll learn why the
(01:29):
protocol works so well for women, how to do it,
and how it can make a difference for you. Dr Sarah,
great to have you back on the show. Thanks. Obviously,
we've gotten to know each other a little bit over
the past several months, and I probably have watched many
of your videos and Phil, I know you very well
and have read your book and started on what you
(01:50):
called the Godfried Protocol, which is a four week plan
that you've layed out really well in your new book, Women,
Food and Hormones. And I just want to say it's working.
It is absolutely working. Yeah, that's how I feel. I
feel like I have I don't know so many good
things have happened. In fact, this is just anecdotal, but
I'm going to stick with it. Someone who lives in
(02:11):
my building stopped me on the street yesterday. Actually, we
ranch each other in the elevator he saw me on
the street and he said, you know, Kim. I was
gonna stop and say hello, but then I thought, no,
that woman looks too young to be Kim. And I've
actually lost quite a bit of weight, but I think
feeling more importantly, I just have a lot more energy,
and I feel like this protocol is really like the answer.
(02:34):
And I'm I'm becoming a little bit of a proselytizer
because everywhere I go, I'm like, well, what's your feeding window?
And uh, you know, what are your net carbs? And
so I think we need to tell the world about
the protocol so that I'm not just talking to myself, um,
and that people understand all this vocabulary. But Sarah, you
wrote this with a very specific goal in mind, which
is you've done the research, You've lived the research, and
(02:57):
you do believe that there is a difference between men
and women, and we all know that there is in
terms of hormonal changes in biology, and you've put together
what I think is a pretty genius protocol. So how
did you come on this realization that there was a
true difference between what men and women needed in this
in this type of in this type of I don't
(03:18):
want to call it diet because it's not a diet,
it's a lifestyle. Well, I would say, first, my entire
career has been devoted to sex differences, not for the
purpose of one up being or one downing one gender
or another, but really for the purpose of understanding both
men and women. So this came full circle for me
(03:39):
about five years ago when I went on a key
to genetic diet with my husband. He rapidly dropped about
twenty pounds. I had some initial success, and then it backfired.
It stopped working. I actually gained weight, and that's what
got me on this path of looking at Okay, we
know there's sex differences, we know there's gender differences when
it comes to medical all of health. Let's go a
(04:02):
little deeper. Let's understand why, especially the classic ketogenic diet
was not working for me and was not working for
frankly hundreds of women in my practice. So that got
me on this path to look at things like the
testosterone advantage. We know, for instance, that women have ten
to twenty times less testosterone than men, and yet it's
(04:25):
still our most prevalent hormone. So it's a hormone that
we really need to be managing and tracking. It's responsible
not just for sex drive and muscle mass, but also
confidence and agency. And so that was one of the
first pieces was looking at some of these hormonal sex
differences that were responsible for this difference that I saw
(04:46):
with my husband, and there's a long list of them.
You know. One is that because men have more testosterone,
they have more lean body mass about more than women.
They've got lower fat mass. We think women need more
fat mass to make hormones because fat is the backbone
of the hormones that you make. There's many other differences.
(05:08):
Estrogen can sometimes get in the way of success with
a ketogenic diet. We also, I believe women may need
more carbohydrates for the production of serotonin. So serotonin, as
many no is that neurotransmitter that's responsible for sleep, mood, appetite,
(05:30):
and carbohydrates helped to raise serotonin. So I saw a
lot of women I call them Mike Keto refugees who
are coming to my practice, and they went on Keto
maybe with a male coworker or a partner, and had
a similar experience to me. But they also noticed they
weren't sleeping as well, they weren't deriving some of those
(05:51):
benefits that men experience on keto, and so that got
me to to figure out, Okay, how do we work
around this, How do we get this to work for
women too? You know, so interesting, Like, there's so many
things that you've already said that I believe are sort
of myths that are really things that I'm learning by
talking to you and reading your work and and the research.
You know, this idea that first of all, that fat
(06:13):
is bad, you know, is always something that I think
you've kind of educated me on, and this type of
research has educated me on. Also the testosterone myth that
you know, testosterones a guy's thing. I think that's really
interesting what you just said, and I'd love to learn
more about that. And then also the relationship with carbs.
So I hope we get into all three of those
as you talk to us about the protocol. Yeah, I'd
say the myth about fat being bad is one that
(06:37):
just will not die. We have so much data now,
you know, over the past few decades really showing that
fat is essential. You know, your brain is fat. When
you eat fat, it helps you feel more satisfied in
terms of um appetite. It's also, as I mentioned, the backbone,
(06:58):
especially of sex form like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone d t A.
So we really need fat to function. The question is
how do you personalize the amount of fat. So when
I was in medical school and Kim, this was a
very long time ago. So when I was in medical school,
(07:20):
I went off of fat, I did plant based diet,
and my hormones became a hot mess because my estrogen dropped,
my breast got smaller, my mood was worse, my cholesterol
dropped significantly. We know that's a marker of depression. So
I really believe that we need to have these food
(07:43):
groups and we've got to figure out, Okay, what's the
right dose of carbs, what's the right dose of fat,
what's the right dose of protein, so that you really
have that metabolic health that we're after, right, Because I mean,
the popular culture has avoid fat skim scam, scam again,
this equation of like fat, that you're going to be
fat well, and it hasn't worked. It's been a failed experiment.
(08:05):
You know, as we have eaten more carbhydrates, especially refined carbs,
what's happened is that we've got a higher and higher
incidence of diabetes, we know that somewhere around eighty eight
percent of the US population is metabolically unhealthy. Many of
them don't even know it, and so this advice that
(08:25):
came down through the nineteen seventies and eighties to cut
back on fat really has has been a misfire. It
just hasn't worked. And so a more balanced approach I
think is the way to go. But for many women,
as they become more balanced, they need to have a
therapeutic pulse the way that I described it in the book.
(08:46):
So that's really how I developed the GT Freed Protocol
to help women do this four week pulse where they
can really personalize how much of each of these macronutrients carbs, protein,
fat are the best for them. Senecas one hundred women
to hear will be back after this short break. So
(09:17):
take us through how it works. What is the protocol
and why do you set it at four weeks? I
set it at four weeks because I think it's doable.
I also think that when you stay in keytos is longer,
there's some risks in terms of your cholesterol as well
as your level of inflammation, and so I think four
(09:37):
weeks is a pulse that is manageable. The first part
of the protocol, the first pillar is detoxification, and I
give folks about a week to get into a state
of open detoxification pathways. I think that's really important, especially
to flip that switch between burning carbs, which many of
(09:59):
u so are stuck in I was in my thirties
and forties, to burning fat, which is really the goal
with ketosis. So that first part is detoxification. I want
women to be pooping every single morning. I want to
really increase the amount of vegetables. I think we can
all agree that that's healthy. That's the crisipperus vegetables, broccoli, hauliflower,
(10:21):
russell sprouts, radishes, et cetera, as well as the alien vegetables.
So that includes onion, scarlet, gleak, the methylating vegetables, as
are the ones that help you inactivate certain hormones like estrogen,
and that includes the dark green leafies. So detoxification is
the first part. I see in my practice all the
time that women just don't have their detox pathways open.
(10:46):
Maybe it's because they're having a glass or two of
wine every night, or they're over the age of forty
and things just slow down. You know, I think a
lot of women notice that as hangovers hitting a little
bit harder, affecting their sleep more, and so we've got
to help out the liver. So that's the first part
of the protocol. Then you move into nutritional ketosis, where
(11:06):
you're eating with the macronutrient ratio that I found to
be the most effective for women. That includes sixty to
sevent of your total calories each day from fat, mostly
plant based fat. So there was just a study published
by David Ludwig at Harvard showing that if you keep
your total saturated fat per day at or less, that's
(11:31):
asssitated with the best cardio metabolic function going forward. So
sixty your total calories from fat, a portion of that
from saturated fat if you'd like to eat animal fat,
of your calories from protein, that's a moderate protein diet.
And then about the remainder so ten of your calories
(11:52):
from carbohydrates. But those carbs really need to come from vegetables.
And what I advise is that you simplify this by
focusing on net carbs, so less than twenty net carbs
per day, and that allows you to get the fiber
that you need to support your hormones as well as
(12:13):
as to support the benevolent microbes that are in your gut.
So that's the second pillar. The third pillar is intermittent
fasting because that really allows people to eat more carbhydrates.
So it kind of depends on what some of your
issues are how long that window should be. I love
that you mentioned, you know, those new parlance that you've
(12:34):
been using, like with your feeding window. You know, generally
what I like is for people to start with about
a fourteen hour overnight fast and then a ten hour
feeding window. Yeah, that that really worked for me. I
mean I started actually with sixt eight, but I then
I read in your book or maybe in one of
our conversations that you know, women don't need to kind
(12:56):
of shock the system. It's better to kind of ease
into it. And so I'm switched to a four teen ten,
which is very doable. And and I have to say
that now I'm not really hungry before that, and I
feel weird eating after that, like it doesn't occur to me.
So I feel like my body really appreciates it, actually,
and I think that's one thing that I'm learning from
this whole experience, which I again I won't call a
(13:16):
diet and I would love to talk to about diet culture,
but you know this lifestyle, like, I feel like my
body is happier in this mode, so it doesn't feel
like I'm being deprived. I feel actually the opposite. That's
certainly part of the benefit of this protocol. You know,
it's designed to get you into ketosis so that you
have the flexibility to switch your metabolism from burning carbs
(13:39):
to burning fat. And the analogy that I often use
to describe this as similar to a prius where you
can flip the switch between burning electricity or burning gas
depending on what type of fuel is available. So the
body is really designed to do this from Stone Age times,
and many of us just with the availability of food,
(14:01):
especially the the ease of carbohydrates and the deliciousness of carbydrates,
we tend to overdo it and get too high a
dose of carbs, and that's really what gets us into trouble.
But once you flip that switch, as you have done Kim,
and you start burning fat, then you have key tones
in your body, in your bloodstream, also in your breath
(14:24):
and in your urine. And those key tones are not
just a marker of how successful you are on this
God Freed protocol. But they're also a signaling molecule, so
they reduce inflammation, they help you with being less puffy,
they help you get rid of excess fluid. A lot
of us have fluid retention starting in our forties and fifties,
(14:47):
so this is a major downstream benefit of the keytogenic diet.
And then you also mentioned energy. I think that's a
really important piece to highlight, because keytons are super energizing.
They give us focus and concentration and mental acuity. They
help us with appetite suppression, and that's part of the
reason why I think this approach is so successful for
(15:13):
so many women. I mean it's successful for men too,
but for women in particular. There's a way that I
think our culture makes us hungry, makes us hungry for more,
makes us hungry for equality, makes us hungry for soothing,
makes us hungry for greater solace. And what I find
is that those keytones really help with satiety, with feeling
(15:37):
like Okay, I'm at the end of my eating window.
I finished my meal, I'm done, I'm good. I can
go focus on other things without food thoughts kind of
driving me for hours each day. Yeah, I have to
say that, like my guilt level around food is pretty gone.
Like I don't feel guilty about you know what I mean,
(15:57):
Because usually you're like, oh, that was fattening or that
wasn't so healthy, or you know, like there's always some
after effect, and I have to say, like, because I'm
sticking to the protocol, I'm like, well, this is great
like olive oil, yes, avocado, as much as you like,
you know what I mean. Like, so the stuff that
I'm eating is good for you, and it happens to
be stuff I like. So I feel I don't feel
that same feeling of like, I mean, I don't want
(16:18):
to put down any particular diet plan, but like you know,
when you're on a plan and you feel like you're checking,
you're always like did I stick to it? Did I
stick to it? Am I sticking to it? I don't
feel that way with this. I feel like, oh, wow,
like this is complete freedom because I like what I'm eating.
I'm feeling a lot better, I'm losing a lot of weight,
and I just it's a totally sustainable lifestyle and it's
not about diet. I'm so glad you mentioned that because
(16:43):
you know, I think so many of us as women
exists along this spectrum of somewhat healthy to maybe eat,
disordered eating with restriction, with permission, and it can be
tricky to navigate. It can be really tricky to navigate,
and so we end up maybe over indulging or eating
(17:04):
something that we don't think is the best information to
be feeding our bodies, and then we have that guilt
that you're describing, and I think many of us, and
I'm talking about myself here, mostly we then serve penance,
you know, So we go on a strict diet, and
then it's about this white knuckling experience of making sure
(17:24):
that you're following it even though you're hungry all the time.
And what I love about key Tones and about this
particular approach to a ketogenic diet adapted for women, is
that it allows you to just let go of that
white knuckling, so you have, as you described, food freedom,
and that that's so beneficial because that really allows us
(17:45):
to concentrate on some of these other things that are
so important, like the mission that you serve, Kim, the
mission that I hope to serve with changing conversations about
women's health and There's there's something just so delightful about
being able to step away from that hunger and from
that you know, kind of constant inner saboteur that's telling us,
(18:09):
oh no, you can't eat that. Oh my gosh, you
had way too many bites of that chocolate cake. And
so I love that you're allowed to just away from
that inner dialogue that can be so harmful. Yeah, and
it's just too present, right, I think, like that's the
whole context of this conversation, which is the focus on
women's appearance, women's weight, the way we've all been educated,
(18:30):
and so that dialogue, which could be a healthy dialogue,
it's just too present, I think in the culture, in
each of our heads. You know, it's just taking up
too much space. And I think your point is so
well taken. This frees you from that. And I mean,
I'm definitely experiencing that. I never really uh you don't
know me very well, but you know, I'm not really
like a very appearance focused person. I'm you know, I'm
(18:52):
just so into wanting to do the things I want
to do that I just it's just not a big
priority in my life. I don't think about it that much.
But even I, who I would say is not that
focused on it, still had that inner dialogue all the
time of feeling guilty and just knowing that I was like,
you know, maybe that's not so healthy, Maybe that's like
a little fattening. Like it's just those those constant things
that you just constantly think about. And this it just
(19:14):
clears up so much space. And now I'm just I
feel like my relationship with food is much more positive.
And you know, my father always told me food, food
is fuel, like that's been his mantra, and I was like, yeah, great, Dad, Great.
But now I'm like, Okay, I get it. Food is fuel,
you know, and it's a it's a different way of
thinking about it. It is a different way of thinking
(19:36):
about it. You know. I think, Um, this is really
what I hope for women. You know, I want us
to move beyond the ways that we've internalized diet culture.
But I would also say that the other end of
the spectrum fat acceptance, UM body positivity, well all of
us can get behind the concept of a more inclusive
(19:58):
approach to different and body shapes and sizes and colors.
You know, many of us still want to fit into
the clothes that are in our closet, you know, like
I've invested a lot in the things that I wear.
I want to fit into them. I don't want to
just be a woman who is going through this aging process.
I love aging, but the natural aging processes that women
(20:22):
are gaining fat mass as they get older about five
pounds per decade starting in their forties, and they're they're
losing muscle mass again about five pounds per decade, and
so you may not even be changing your weight. That's
on a bathroom scale, which I think is a terrible
marker of metabolic health, but it's the one, you know,
(20:43):
It's kind of like shorthand that we use. You know.
What I want is for us to to really understand
that some of these changes are occurring, and unless you're
doing something about it, you can wake up at age
fifty five or sixty and start to get these diagnosed
us that you don't want, like party vasco disease, a
(21:03):
heart attack, hypertension, even Alzheimer's disease. So all of this
is occurring in the body decades before that scary diagnosis,
and I really want for women to understand that you
can be empowered to do something about it. And it
can be, as you said, a lifestyle that is not
actually difficult. It's it's a way to really grab the
(21:27):
reins of your own health and your destiny, like your
your health span, that period of time that you feel
fantastic and you're relatively free of disease. Yeah, I'm I'm
telling you, I'm living it because I do feel that
if it was just for the waight, there's no way
I would do it. I just I'm not motivated enough.
You know, I feel I look good enough. You know,
(21:47):
if I'm a little, if I'm ten pounds heavier, um,
it's good enough for me. Like I'm not you know,
I'm not that type of person. But the idea of
being healthier, of feeling healthier, and of the longevity of
the health span, that's super motivating to me. And so
I'm telling myself, you know, this is just all positive.
There's like nothing negative going on in this, you know,
And so that is extremely motivating. And then thinking that
(22:10):
you know, you could be I mean, I love when
you talk about an end of one because this idea
that it's personalized, it's you know, it's a personalized approach,
and you have to know what works for you, you know,
you start to sort of feel that you feel like
what works for you, what doesn't? You know? Being able
to just understand how your body reacts to things is
very very motivating to me. Just I think it may
be that moving from this sort of I don't want
(22:31):
to say imprecise medicine because I think that's probably unfair,
but I would say maybe generalized medicine and first segmenting
out men versus women, that's a huge step in the
right direction. And then I think what you're doing, and
I think the movement that you're kind of part of
is doing is telling us all like, okay, you should
know you And I think that that's a very motivating
(22:52):
way to think about health. It is motivating. And I
would even say that imprecision medicine is a term that's
you quite frequently for the way that medicine has been
practiced for over a hundred years. And by that, I
mean when someone has depression and they get diagnosed with depression,
they often get started on an antidepressant. And yet we
(23:15):
know with most of the available antidepressants right now, that
you have to prescribe to about ten patients for one
patient to benefit. When it comes to statins. You know,
one of the most common drugs that are prescribed in
US medicine. You have to again prescribe about fifty patients
with the statin for one to benefit. So this is
(23:38):
in precision medicine. We know that the way that you
react to food is different from the way that I
react and the way that you can really personalize it.
The way that you can step into precision medicine is
to really understand, Okay, what's going to work the best
for me? Because there is no one size swit salt diet.
(23:59):
There isn't And this book is really more about a
template for determining how to personalized diet so that it
really supports you and supports what you want your health
for and whatever metrics make the most sense for you
in terms of measuring your health. So for some people
that might be their body weight on the bathroom scale.
(24:21):
For others, that might be their body composition, the percentage
of body fat or their fat mouths that they have,
or their lean body mass. For some people it might
be there fasting glucose or their average glucose as you've
been playing with with your continuous glucose monitor. So there's
so many different ways that we can define it. But
(24:41):
I think this point about precision medicine is so important
because we've always practiced medicine for the average, and I
don't want to be average, and I don't want you
to be average. I want us to be optimal. I
want us to really have you know, that best possible health,
the best possible mitochondria, you know, those power factories that
(25:05):
are inside of ourselves, which, by the way, start to
falter after age forty in women women but not in men,
especially in the brain. And that's why so many women
notice that they have this mental slow down. Their brain
just slows down a bit in terms of memory, in
terms of word finding, in terms of multitasking after age forty.
(25:28):
So what do we do about that? That's a metabolic problem.
One thing you can do about it is to feature
brain keytones. That works really well for the majority of
my patients. So, Sarah, I have to thank you for this.
I mean, just this introduction to the protocol is hugely
helpful because I'm learning a lot and it's a little
bit of a new language. But once you know the language,
(25:50):
you can really be freed. So I highly recommend the
book Women food and hormones. But Sarah, I really want
to just thank you for your work and what you're
doing well. Thank you so much him, It's been such
a delight. There is so much to learn from Dr
Sarah about the interplay between women's health, food and hormones,
(26:12):
but here are some of the key concepts we can
take with us today. First, one of the things that
makes the god Freed Protocol so effective is that it's
a ketogenic diet tailored specifically for the needs of women,
and it overturns a lot of the myths we've been
trained to believe. In the God Freed Protocol that is
good for you, Guilt is bad, and you can stay
(26:32):
on this plan without ever feeling deprived. Second, change can
happen and faster than you think. You can see a
big difference after just four weeks of being on the protocol,
says Dr Sarah. Finally, the god Freed Protocol allows women
to build a new, more positive relationship with food. The
(26:53):
diet culture encourages women to adapt a mindset of constraint
and frankly, guilt, but the god Freed Protocol encourage us
towards a mindset of abundance, encouraging us to eat foods
that will make us feel good and live healthier without
the guilt. To learn more about the Godfried Protocol, go
to Sarah Godfried dot com and check out her new book, Women,
(27:14):
Food and Hormones. And tune in next time to hear
about our next featured woman and discover why she's one
of Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear. Thank you for listening,
and please share today's podcast episode with others in your life.
This is Kim Azarelli, co author of Fast Forward and
co founder of Seneca Women. To learn more about Seneca Women,
(27:35):
go to Seneca Women dot com or download the Seneca
Women app free in the app store. Seneca's one Hundred
Women to Hear is a production of the Seneca Women
Podcast Network and I Heart Radio Have a Great Day.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, check out the
I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen
(27:55):
to your favorite shows.
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