Fuel Your Primal Power: Keto and Carnivore Meal Strategies

The quest for optimal health often leads us to rethink our relationship with food, particularly what and when we eat. In this practical exploration of keto and carnivore meal strategies, Graham and Stephen share their hard-won insights about crafting satisfying, nutrient-dense meals that sustain energy without triggering the blood sugar rollercoaster.

Breaking free from conventional eating patterns doesn't happen overnight. We dive into the transition period where strategic snacking can bridge the gap as your body adapts to metabolizing fat rather than sugar. From sardines with mustard to high-quality dark chocolate with natural peanut butter, we outline snack options that deliver satiation without inflammation. But the true revelation comes when you discover how proper fat and protein consumption can eliminate hunger signals altogether, allowing your body to focus on repair rather than constant digestion.

The continuous glucose monitor emerges as a powerful tool for personalized nutrition, providing immediate feedback on how specific foods affect your metabolism. Stephen shares his perspective as someone managing diabetes: "What I recommend is giving your body a chance to focus on digestion as opposed to just consumption and ingestion." This data-driven approach helps identify which foods serve your health and which trigger inflammation, even those marketed as "healthy."

For families navigating mixed dietary preferences, we offer practical strategies for creating meals that satisfy everyone without compromising nutritional integrity. From Italian-made pasta with natural ingredients to high-quality ground beef tacos, small upgrades in sourcing can transform family favorites into genuinely nourishing options. The conversation extends to eating while traveling, where sometimes fasting becomes preferable to consuming inflammatory airport food.

Ready to transform your relationship with food? Subscribe to Lessons from the Keto-Verse for more practical wisdom on fueling your body optimally while navigating real-world challenges. Your journey to metabolic health starts with understanding what truly nourishes your unique physiology.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Lessons from the Keto-Verse.
Join Stephen and Graham as theyexplore the keto lifestyle with
tips, science and stories toboost your health.
This podcast isn't medicaladvice.
Consult your healthcare advisorfor any health-related issues.
Get ready to fuel your primalpower.

Graham (00:19):
And welcome everybody to another episode of Lessons from
the Keto-Verse.
I'm here with my friend,stephen, and today we are
talking about keto meal ideas,keto and carnivore meal ideas.
We're going to cover some ofour experiences around snacks in
between meals.
We're going to talk a littlebit about our favorite meals.

(00:42):
What is a sort of typical weeklook like?
What are some of the thingsthat we are eating?
What are we helping prepare forour families?
We've got a little bit of adifferent scenario between the
two of us, so we're going to geta different perspective there.
And then we're also going totalk about what happens when
you're on the road and you can'tbring the foods that you want

(01:03):
to eat, and how does that?
How do you plan those thingsout?
I know Stephen's got a lot ofexperience in with his business
travel, which adds anotherelement of difficulty to keeping
with the food lifestyle.
So welcome, stephen.
Thank you for joining.

Stephen (01:21):
Oh, thank you.

Graham (01:24):
All right, here we go.
So let's start off with snacks.
Earlier on, when I was sort ofreducing the number of types of
foods that I was eating gettingrid of carbs, cutting out junk
food, cutting outultra-processed food, cutting
out ultra-processed food as Iwas slowly but surely moving

(01:44):
towards a ketoMediterranean-type diet, I did
find that having healthy snacksat home sort of could get me
from one meal to another, and Ithink one of the reasons for
that is I didn't have a good.
The reasons for that is Ididn't have a good understanding

(02:05):
because I had no history of howmuch fat and protein do I need
to have at every meal in orderto not feel hungry until the
next meal.
I generally eat two meals a daylate morning and then sort of
early dinner.
Late morning and then sort ofearly dinner Try not to eat too

(02:29):
late and so there were a fewsnack foods that came in really
handy earlier on that I'm goingto share.
I'm going to list the 10 of themthat were kind of my favorites.
What I found with these was youdidn't need to eat a lot in
order to feel full.
There were a couple of exampleslike sardines and I always ate
sardines with mustard because Ididn't love the taste, but I

(02:50):
knew that they were super goodfor me and actually super cheap.
As well as olives, I tried tofind the best sourced olives, so
I stayed away from the ones inthe plastic container that are
$2.99 or $0.99 and went with theones that are hand-picked.
It just made me appreciate themmore.

(03:11):
They tasted better and I wantedto eat them.
Yes, it was a little moreexpensive, but I didn't need to
eat a lot of food, so I'll startoff with those two.
Stephen, I know your experienceearly on was a little different
, and how are you doing withsnacks when you started and
snacks today?

Stephen (03:30):
It's an area that is constantly evolving.
To my taste Like, for instance,for someone who didn't really
eat a lot of desserts later inlife, I still enjoyed you, um,
the, the occasional piece ofchocolate or what have you.
So I did some research on itand found out there were some
bioflavonoids that are in higherquality chocolates.

(03:52):
Uh, so the lint?
There's a lint version that hasno added sugars.
So my approach to all of thesethings in essence is around what
does it do to my blood sugar?
That's kind of my my startingpoint, because I want to avoid
these spikes as much as possibleand still get the benefit you
had highlighted in terms ofprotein.
So I make poor man's peanutbutter cups.

(04:14):
I'll take 100% dark chocolateor 95% and pile all natural
peanut butter to the point whereI've got the full attention of
all three dogs in the house andI'll have a couple of squares of
that and it doesn't seem tohave much effect on my glucose.
And that just gives me thatopportunity, after I've stacked

(04:34):
a meal, to eat a snack which ispart of my strategy at the end
of a meal rather than grazing anhour and a half after I've had
dinner.
At the end of a meal, ratherthan grazing an hour and a half
after I've had dinner, becausethat's a habit that I followed
my wife into.
Where she would, she wouldgraze.
She would have four or fivemeals a day, so her entire day
is just a series, series ofsnacks.

(04:55):
So that's one of the key pointsof disparity between how she
eats and I eat.
She's also a vegetarian, so youhave to adapt and that's where
the challenge is.
Avoid triggers like sitting atthe television and watching
television.
Get on the elliptical, use theelliptical, watch the show that
you want to watch and that'llkeep you on lemon water and

(05:17):
other things that are reallyreally hard to do at the same
time as those arms are goingback and forth on the elliptical
.
So you don't really have a freeappendage to use the stuff in
snacks.
So that's kind of theMachiavellian approach I've
taken to snacks overall, graham.

Graham (05:36):
Love it, love it.
A couple other ones that I hadon my list For those that can't
avoid snacking in front of theTV.
I'm not generally a TV snacker,but pork rinds can be a really
healthy alternative to a bag ofchips or whatever else you grab
from the fridge that seems tolast 20 years.

(05:59):
Pork rinds can be an excellentsource.
Just read the ingredients.
I always recommend pick up thebag, turn it around, read the
ingredients.
If there's anything in thereother than pork or ingredients
you don't recognize, put it down.
There's definitely anothersolution and part of the fun, I
think, of this journey ispicking up you know the foods
that you are thinking aboutbuying.

(06:20):
Picking up you know the foodsthat you are thinking about
buying.
You know learning how to readfood labels on the back, not on
the front, and then putting thestuff back on the shelf where
you don't recognize theingredients.
Beef jerky an excellent option,very filling.
You can take that on the roadwith you.

(06:41):
You can take that on the roadwith you.
I've just found that it'sreally hard to find all-natural
beef jerky without a lot ofingredients that I don't want in
there.
There are ones out of the USthat I have ordered and tried.
They're expensive, so dryingyour own beef jerky is something
that I've thought about doingfor a while.

(07:02):
Might get into it this summer,but if you can find a good
source of beef jerky, that isvery, very filling and it'll
definitely tie you over to thenext meal and you can eat as
much as you want until you'refull.

Stephen (07:21):
I like your comment about pork rinds, graham,
because I, accidentally, I go,as we've talked about previously
to to my local butcher and Ibuy sections of half pounds of
bacon at a time because andthey're thick cut and they're
quite delicious Delicious, butfor a period I was, because it's

(07:43):
so busy at the butcher shop Iwas going and going into the
freezers and grabbing what wasthere, not realizing that it was
.
I was actually purchasing porkbelly.
It wasn't actually bacon, itwas.
It was basically pork belliesand the first thing that you
notice with pork bellies is theydon't have any flavor.
And buyer beware, because Ihave cracked a tooth actually on

(08:07):
pork rind and uh so that wasvery expensive uh bacon.
but the point is, is that whereyou were going with what you
were talking about?
Making your own beef jerky?
One of the big concerns withthese, um, these um, even
organic, uh managed uh baconsources or pork sources, is the
nitrites that they put in to toseason the bacon, and

(08:32):
everything's a matter of degree.
If you're cutting outeverything, pork bellies are an
interesting place to startbecause you can season it
yourself and cook it yourselfand, yes, it comes out as a very
hard crispy bacon, but you canback off on how long you cook it
and you can also do othermethods of cooking where it's

(08:54):
almost like a dry roast, andyou'll end up with the same
thing that you're paying for ina bag that's sealed and in
microplastics, and it's probablya better option, so I think
that's a good idea.

Graham (09:06):
Excellent.
I also had on here hard boiledeggs.
My wife loves to make them.
I'm very happy that she does.
You know, when you're hungryit's amazing how one or two hard
boiled eggs will fill you up,give you all the healthy
proteins you need.
Some people have a hard timemaking hard boiled eggs so that
they're easy to crack andactually get into.

(09:28):
Lots of information onlineabout tips and tricks.
If you're really struggling.
They make some super cheaphard-boiled egg makers that.
If you're invested in this kindof lifestyle, it may be
worthwhile having some of thosetools around where you can make
a dozen hard-boiled eggs at thebeginning of the week and now
you've got an instant snack thatyou can take with you on the

(09:49):
road.
If you're bored of thehard-boiled egg, then open it up
, mush it up, add some realbacon, you know, even add some
butter or whatever seasoning youwant on it and all of a sudden
it becomes a different meal Forme, you know.
The rest on this list are thingslike cheese, cottage cheese.

(10:10):
Try and get the healthy kind.
I generally try and buyEuropean cheese.
They don't pasteurize it.
I prefer it that way.
You know there are.
You know all natural cheesesthat just have milk as the
ingredient, and then you canfind cheeses that have a lot of
you know unrecognizableingredients.

(10:31):
Obviously, we recommend stayingaway from those, but you know,
things like cheese, cottagecheese, have always been, you
know, a snack that people haveeaten for hundreds of years, if
not thousands of years.
And then the last two on thelist, easy to throw into the
oven or into the microwave ifthat's your style, would be
things like hot dogs andhamburger patties.

(10:52):
So when I say hot dog, I mean,you know, without the bun,
without the sugary ketchup,without the relish, and
hamburger patties by themselves.
Throw some butter on there, alittle bit of salt if you need
to.
Those can be excellenttie-overs until the next meal.
Any other snack ideas, stephen,before we move on to meals?

Stephen (11:12):
Actually, it's a couple of ones that you introduced
reminded me of just this pastweek and I went to a First
Nations restaurant in a smalltown, ontario, and the owner is
not only First Nations, she'sactually a dietician and she
uses her knowledge of food tohelp manage her lupus.

(11:34):
We talk quite a bit about mydiabetes and her lupus and
targeting non-inflammatory typefoods, so avoiding the seed oils
, and that's kind of a segueinto the one challenge that you
were talking about earlier about.
You know what do you do whenyou travel.
It becomes the you're lookingfor a specific gravity of food
that's on that menu will causethe least amount of harm as

(11:57):
opposed to the most.
So sometimes it is accepting,especially if it's an
intermittent thing.
You're not doing it all thetime.
As you alluded to, I've spentweeks and even months and over a
year on the road.
So you have to be reallyconscientious about what you're
eating and where you're eatingand making sure that the source
of foods that you're consumingare not full with all kinds of

(12:21):
additives that would elevateyour inflammation.
And obviously clearest sign ofthat is what is your body doing
with it.
Are you processing it in anormal way or are you having,
you know, a bowel centricreaction.
You know, shortly after eatingit that's usually a very strong
sign.
That combination of stress inthe food is for some reason your

(12:45):
body's saying let's get rid ofthis.
So you're not getting anynutrition from it.
So you really have to listen toyour body and see what works
for you.
It's hard to go wrong to yourpoint with eggs.
It's hard to screw up eggs,even in what we would call
colloquially as a greasy spoon.
You can ask them not to do itin a particular fashion.
That might result in maybethings being added to that you

(13:08):
don't need.
So, for instance, you knowscrambled eggs, add some cheese
to it, add some salsa if it'sgood salsa.
But again, the more you add,the more likelihood you're
introducing things to it thatare not as good.
So your suggestion ofhard-boiled eggs, that's seven
grams of protein right there.
And you know, frankly, they'renow saying they used to say we

(13:35):
needed 0.8 grams of protein eachday.
They're now upping that to twograms.
So when you only have sevengrams in an egg and I typically
eat four eggs to satiate me inthe morning with usually
somewhere between a quarter anda half a pound of bacon and that
gets me through until myevening so that I don't require
a snack.
So that's part of my strategyis to up the amount of protein,
especially for someone like mewho is going to the gym all the

(13:57):
time, is trying to avoidsarcopenia by lifting weights.
You and I, at our age, we needthat protein by lifting weights.

Graham (14:07):
You and I, at our age, we need that protein.
Yeah, really well said, andthere's a couple of things that
you mentioned there that Iwanted to touch on.
So the main thing is, early on,when you are changing your food
lifestyle.
One of the things that I'venoticed, and I've heard others
that have, you know, gonethrough a similar journey talk
about, is when you change yourdiet, the body is going to feel

(14:30):
stress because it's used to youknow, in my case, packaged foods
, ultra processed foods.
It doesn't like it, but it'sused to it.
As soon as you starteliminating those processed
foods and taking the sugar, outof your diet and the high starch

(14:51):
foods.
The body is going to react andwhen it reacts it's going to be
under stress, and every bodyreacts differently to that kind
of stress.
Every body reacts differentlyto that kind of stress, knowing
in the back of your mind thatyou're eating good quality, best

(15:11):
sourced, you know, protein andfat meals.
Sometimes you do have to stickwith it for a little while.
I have talked to people whohave tried this and they've
found that it, you know, it'scausing bowel movements or
whatever else because of thestress that they're under, or
they're dumping a lot of water,they're dumping electrolytes and
they're not replacing thoseelectrolytes and others.

(15:33):
Those same people, when they goback and they say, okay, I'm
going to give it a try again,they find that when they stick
with it longer, they come up theother side in really good shape
.
So that is one thing to keep inmind.
Obviously you want to be undera doctor's health advice and
making sure that all of yourblood work results are where

(15:54):
they need to be and you'rekeeping up on the vitamins and
minerals that your body needs oris short of.
But that was one thing to keepin mind.
And then your other point abouteggs, I think, and the fact
that that's your main meal.
Every day, same here.
So now we're getting into meals.

(16:15):
I for some reason well over ayear of doing this have had
anywhere between four and sixeggs.
It's generally scrambled,because I'm really a big loser
when it comes to coming up withsome other option.
I just know how to scramble myeggs.
My go-to every morning is I useRedmond salt.

(16:39):
Any sort of Himalayan ornatural salt is going to be just
fine for you.
I add sour cream to it and Itry and go out and get the best
sour cream that I can buy.
If you read my store at least,there's got to be five, six
different kinds of sour cream,all from the same company, and

(17:03):
they call it different things.
The one that I pick is the onethat you know.
When I read the ingredients,there's one or two ingredients.
I know exactly what those are,and when I go back to the cheap
sour creams that seem to youknow they add a bunch of
ingredients because they'veremoved all the good ones.
It doesn't taste anywhere nearas good.

(17:24):
So for me, my go-to meal, thefirst meal of the day, whenever
that is is going to be scrambledeggs, salt, sour cream, and
then I'm always adding some kindof beef to it.
That could be hamburger patties, and again trying to find the

(17:44):
hamburger patties with the leastamount of added garbage
ingredients.
The other day I was looking attwo boxes.
I had to choose between thefirst box the last ingredient
was sugar and the second box ofhamburgers.
The last ingredient was canolaoil, which I have no idea why
they needed to put that in there, but they did.

(18:11):
I chose the one with sugarbecause it was the last
ingredient.
It's going to be a very, verysmall percentage of the overall
ingredient list that I'm eatingif you're mixing that up with
the scrambled eggs, and I don'teven think about food until
dinnertime.
Sometimes I have to be remindedthat I better eat if I want to
eat before I go to bed.
So that fills me up quite a bit.

(18:32):
What is your kind of go-tofirst?

Stephen (18:37):
meal of the day, stephen, it really depends on
whether I'm doing a latebreakfast or if I am doing a
lunch, so I tend to mix it up.
So my lunch is my breakfast andmy breakfast is my lunch.
So you know, going back to whenI travel, depending on my
schedule, especially if it's ina different time zone, you have

(18:58):
that additional implication foryour body because your body's
going OK, so we still think it's6 am and it's actually 3 am
here.
How do we manage this?
So often, what I would do and Ifound remarkable results with
my glucose I think it wasbuilding metabolic resilience.
It's changing things around alittle bit so your body doesn't

(19:20):
go into a call it a melodicstasis where it's like just
singing along and everything isperfectly fine is you're
actually switching it up andgetting the body to adjust and
be proactive in terms of how itprocesses.
Because even in stressfulsituations and the kind of work
that you and I do, I found mysugar was lower when I was

(19:46):
traveling, as long as I wascareful about what I ate, and
typically I probably spent moremoney than the average person,
because, one, it's restaurantsand two, I insisted on eating a
healthy steak for dinner and,really ensuring that I was fully
satiated, avoided anyunnecessary carbs from potatoes
or starches.
So I essentially cut out as muchof the potential

(20:09):
ultra-processed components thatmight bleed into the menu at a
restaurant and had a goodold-fashioned Caesar salad or a
nice healthy salad, first to dothe stacking, to make sure my
stomach had lots of cellulose init before I introduced anything
.
It might've had some sugarsnuck into it and I had

(20:29):
extraordinary results my sugarsdropped by, I would say 20 to
25%.
So people who think thatthey're on the road, that they
can't eat healthy, actually Ithink it was healthier because I
was not given.
Actually I think it washealthier because I was not
given.
I did not allow myself anyoption beyond a handful of
macadamias, of having anythingto eat from call it six in the

(20:53):
morning until 6 pm at night.
So I literally was doing like a12-12 fast.

Graham (21:02):
Yeah, and you mentioned macadamia nuts another fantastic
choice.
Uh, as far as nuts go, I youknow from what I gather from the
research that I've done.
Uh, it has the most benefit andthe least negative results of
any of the nuts out there.
So we can add that to our listof snack recommendations.

(21:23):
Stephen, I know you hadmentioned that your wife is a
vegetarian.
Definitely that's going tocause some challenges around
what kind of meals you have as acouple.
Obviously, what kind ofingredients you're buying at the
stores.
You've figured out a happymedium, and so what would you

(21:46):
tell the audience?
Is, you know your bestexperience advice for getting to
where you got to?

Stephen (21:54):
So in our particular case, we've kind of taken an
approach of detente I don'tbother her about her eating
habits and she doesn't bother meabout mine.
So she lives the lifestyle thatshe chooses to live, and I do
as well.
And in the absence of our fourkids, there's not as much
pressure to run our householdlike a restaurant where we're

(22:16):
catering to, you know, multipledietary restrictions and
limitations and, candidly, inthose early days when I had to,
I was suffering from IBS.
I was either recently diagnosedor an undiagnosed diabetic I
was having.
I was at a stage, as we alludedto in an earlier podcast, where
literally it didn't matter whatI ate.
I was getting sick.

(22:38):
I had severe IBS.
So just the and this is theinteresting part just the
pleasure of cooking for myselfand making my own meal slows
down my metabolism, drops mycortisol and puts me in a state
of mind to go okay, I'm gettingready to feed my body, I'm
preparing these eggs, I'mpreparing this bacon, you know,

(23:01):
I'm enjoying a nicedecaffeinated coffee, and so
I've been kind of leaning intogetting ready to eat, as opposed
to the machine gun approach oflaunching into, you know, a fast
food outlet and grabbingsomething, looking at everyone
else, making sure they didn'tget served ahead of you because

(23:21):
you were there first, and allthe other tension and stress
that comes with that ultimatelyI avoid.
We don't actually eat out atrestaurants very much at all.
I will skip a meal quite easilyand quite regularly as part of
my intermittent fasting.
I'll just take it and go.
I guess I'm doing extended fastfor 24 hours.
I don't really feel like eatingin a restaurant, so there's

(23:42):
always that option as well.
And again, that buildsmetabolic resilience, teaches a
little bit of discipline and itkeeps your body on its toes when
it comes to how it managesinsulin, cortisol and
metabolizes sugar in your body.

Graham (23:58):
Yeah, excellent and I think we'll probably expand on
that in future episodes aboutthe fact that you have figured
out how to have a two-eatinglifestyle family and figured out
how to be happy and healthy atthe same time.
Getting into other kinds ofmeals Again.

(24:21):
For me it's basically egg, sourcream and some kind of beef
every single day.
Are you pretty consistent witheggs and something else for that
first meal or do you stick witheggs?

Stephen (24:33):
Well, I think I typically do for that first meal
and I'll sometimes pile in theadditional fat by having the
Greek yogurt with fennel seed,because I'm leaning more heavily
towards keto than I amcarnivore, and sometimes I'll
just go pure carnivore for ameal too, meaning just eggs and
bacon, for instance.
And I found just for those outthere with a similar condition,

(24:54):
I found that the fat Greekyogurt with just a few berries
for a diabetic not the cup and ahalf that Graham and my wife
would get away with is just backoff.
On the fruit, make sure it'sblueberries, blackberries,
something with a very lowglycemic index, with lots of
dense fiber, and add fennel seed, chia seeds.

(25:16):
I put three different varietiesand I also have a digestive
yeast they call it baker's yeastthat I pile on there as well
just to build up my microbiomeand ensure that I've got some
biodiversity in my stomach.
That's a key part of mystrategy that has particularly
worked well for me because Idon't have IBS symptoms anymore.

(25:37):
Worked well for me because Idon't have IBS symptoms anymore.
And, what's crazy for those ofyou out there that have IBS
symptoms, it is aself-fulfilling prophecy,
because the second you startfeeling like, oh my God, I don't
feel so good.
And then you're driving, andthen you're thinking well, what
if I can't make this hour and ahalf?
Which causes a furtherinflection of cortisol and

(26:01):
insulin.
And then all of a sudden, thebody's pulling all of that
digestive process away from thestomach and digestive system and
it's ending up in your muscles,where you don't need it,
because you're not running froma dinosaur, you're not being
chased, but your body doesn'tknow.
And then you end upexacerbating the symptoms of IBS
and it becomes a constant loop.

(26:22):
So one of the key things is,once you get out of the
inflammatory foods and you stayaway from as you said so
eloquently last time stay out ofthe center of the grocery store
.
All that stuff is you know mywords, not yours, but all that
stuff is essentially poison.
It's not good for you, it willcause your body harm, and

(26:42):
moderation doesn't mean havingjust a little bit every day.
That's not moderation.
So what you and I are reallytrying to goalpost here is what
are you doing today to ensurethat you're living a consistent
lifestyle that not only suitsyour values, lifestyle that not
only suits your values butprovides the nutrition that your

(27:03):
body requires in order to nothave a relapse, either in my
case, with glucose or IBS or, inyour case, other metabolic
conditions that are making youfeel much older and very much
unwell.
So use your body as the referee.
It's the budgie in in in theopening of the coal mine to say,
okay, what did I eat last nightthat has caused me to have
brain fog this morning and notfeel well, and sometimes it can

(27:25):
be a little overindulgence withsnacks, like, as you said.
You're talking about snacksthat are, candidly, highly
nutritious, full of protein.
We're not talking about kibble,you know, cereal kibble or
something to that effect.
It's probably about as good asthe kibble that we feed our
animals.
So it's the stuff that youshould be avoiding and just

(27:48):
manage outcomes Because, again,if you get sick, your sugar is
going to go up.
So the last thing you want to dois feed in an environment
that's got higher sugar in itwhen you're under duress and add
another form of stress, whichwould be the food that you're
consuming.
There's a very good reason whywe don't tend to want to eat

(28:09):
when we feel sick.
It's because our body'sultimately engineered to say hey
, can't deal with this virus orcan't deal with this bacterial
infection and processing yourBig Mac Like it's just too much.
Sorry, big Mac's got to go.
And when people are in aconstant state of inflammation,
as I was, every day is a Big Macrejection day, because

(28:30):
everything to my body at thatpoint was as healthy as a Big
Mac.
I couldn't absorb any of thenutrition because I was in a
constant state of inflammation.
I would have been far better tofast for an extended period and
allow my body to develop a newlevel of homeostasis that was
more healthy, and I credit mynaturopath for helping me
through that process andensuring my biome was correct,

(28:53):
etc.
But I'm still sensitive and sowhen I eat something that you
know I overindulge have too manyblueberries, even though I got
polyphenols and there's lots offiber there, I see it in my
sugar, and so that ends upleading me to the elliptical.
I go for a walk, do whatever Ineed to.
Most nights, folks, especiallyif you're having a snack before

(29:16):
you go to bed, don't just eat itand sit there.
Go for a walk, do something andif it's dark, maybe consider
investing in an elliptical.
Because it's amazing, graham,how much if you're not wearing a
CGM, how much your bodybenefits from that light
exercise before bed, even thoughit's counterintuitive.
We were told.

(29:36):
You know, don't exercise beforebed because you won't be able
to settle.
I'm not talking about doing amarathon.
I'm talking about a very easypace on the elliptical where you
can hold a full conversation,like we're doing right now, and
you don't sound like you'respeaking in staccato.
That's more than enough of apace to bring down your sugar by
, so I brought my sugar down asmuch as 50 percent.

Graham (29:59):
Amazing, well said, the CGM that Stephen mentioned is
the continuous glucose monitorand the reason why that's so
important.
And you know people that areeating ultra processed foods and
snacking all the time.
They don't realize how manymeals they have in a day and
metabolically what's happeningis you're eating high starch

(30:20):
foods.
The healthy version of that, orthe healthier version of that,
could be potatoes or rice, butthe more likely source these
days is something that comes ina box with maltodextrin and a
number of other sugars andstarches which the body converts
into glucose.
When it does that, your glucoseshoots up.

(30:44):
The body sees that increase inglucose as a poison, as an
attack on the body.
It needs to mitigate thepotential negative impact of
that sugar by releasing insulinpotential negative impact of
that sugar by releasing insulin.
When it releases insulin, youare going from.

(31:08):
You're sort of going throughthis journey of hyperglycemia,
so your sugar levels are toohigh.
And then we all know the hangry.
They even have ads for junkfood talking about hangry.
When you go below yourthreshold that your body wants
to be in now you're hypoglycemic.
When you're hypoglycemic, yourgut is telling your body you've

(31:29):
got to eat something quick, andthe problem with eating
something quick is we often goand grab a peanut butter
sandwich, as I have done in thepast, or a bag of chips or a
chocolate bar.
We've all got our you know ourjunk food weaknesses and we now
start the process again where weour blood sugar has increased,

(31:49):
our insulin levels have tocompensate for that Over time.
You're going through this rollercoaster ride.
At the end of that rollercoaster ride is insulin
resistance, and when your bodyhas insulin resistance, you are
inviting a host of major healthproblems into your life and each

(32:10):
body is going to reactdifferently.
But certainly you know anythingwith an itis on the end, which
means inflammation in the bodyarthritis, for example, which I
experienced.
So the body is going tomanifest itself in that
inflammation heart disease,metabolic sickness All of these

(32:35):
things can come from this rollercoaster ride.
What we're trying to do here isshow you how to avoid that
roller coaster ride by eatingfoods that don't spike your
blood glucose and Stephen's anexpert at this because he sees
what every single food impactsbecause of a CGM.
So I thought maybe we'd just doa little review of why that CGM

(32:59):
is so valuable and why it canbe such an important piece of
data in, you know, finding thelifestyle that fits for your
body.
That's really really well said,graham.

Stephen (33:12):
I mean the thing that we've talked about this before.
I'm a huge advocate.
I do not receive anyendorsement whatsoever from the
company, but I wear a Libra 2and there are some challenges
with them, namely because I workout, I don't have a lot of body
fat.
I actually wear mine in areally awkward spot behind my

(33:34):
shoulder blade because I don'thave any fat on my biceps
triceps, where they typicallywell, they don't go on your
bicep but typically they go onyour tricep.
Stomach is a non-starterbecause, one, I don't have a lot
of fat and two, just because ofthe nature of how my body's
configured.
I'm tall upper body withshorter legs, so every time I

(33:56):
sit I rip it off.
It comes out of the stomach.
Bending the needles is a bitlike a fishhook in those.
It's not fun so and they'revery expensive.
So my experience has been thatthat's where I wear it.
Am I getting a true, 100%accurate glucose rating?
No, but I'm trending a baselinethat shows up in my HA1C.

(34:17):
That's relatively close, Iwould say within 5% of true
blood testing.
But what's most important forpeople like ourselves and
there's a lot of type 2diabetics out there and you kind
of alluded to it is thisinformation, this data is
informing.
And even if you're pre-diabetic, I recommend everyone to wear

(34:41):
one for a couple weeks becauseyou don't know what the food is
doing to you that you're eatinguntil you monitor it.
Even for myself, where Ithought I was eating well and I
thought I was doing the rightthings, it was actually a whole
series of things that we've sortof touched on before.
How often are you eating?
So if you don't eat enough, ifyou go to one meal a day,

(35:03):
there's a risk for certainpeople with your body and your
mental state of mind.
I certainly don't recommend itfor military people that have
PTSD like me, but going to onemeal a day, your cortisol is
going to rise because yourbody's reacting to the absence
of food.
Second issue for us at our age,particularly for men, we need

(35:25):
more protein.
It's hard to eat enough proteinin a day as it is without
feeling engorged from trying toget two grams per number of
grams.
So how are you going to eat 160grams?
If you're 80 kilos?
How are you going to eat 160grams in one meal?
That's a lot of protein whenone egg is seven, that's you're

(35:49):
talking eating several dozeneggs.
I don't think most people,unless you're a bodybuilder, are
doing that.
So we're under from anutritional point of view.
We're undernourished in termsof the protein we consume anyway
.
So what I recommend is that andyou alluded to this earlier

(36:11):
with snacking, is I give DrJason Fung, who's a nephrologist
that created the whole momentumaround intermittent fasting is,
even when you are having asnack, try to limit the window
in which you're eating to giveyour body a chance to focus on
digestion as opposed to justconsumption and ingestion.
Let it convert from ingestion todigestion.
So when you give it more timeto do that, that whole metabolic

(36:34):
process does what.
It lowers the amount ofcortisol that's in your system
because you've just fed yourself.
Your insulin will start to comedown and you can see all this
on a CGM.
If your sugar is not going downafter two hours of eating, like
if you don't see a substantialdrop on the CGM, that means you
ate something that spiked yoursugar.
That was definitely not goodfor you, and that's even looking

(36:56):
outside the bands that theyrecommend.
There are Canadian standards andUS standards and it's difficult
, unless you're a Canadian, tounderstand the Canadian ones,
the way in which it's measuredin the US.
So just stick to whereveryou're from and look at what
your bands are supposed to be.
For us Canadians what's normalis four to six and it's expected

(37:17):
to go as high as 10 after ameal.
But again, it should come downafter two hours and if it
doesn't, what I do is jump onthe elliptical If it starts to
go up, and I don't like thecurve that's being created.
I certainly don't eat a snackand I get on the elliptical
right away.
Bring it down.
Drink some water.
Why are you drinking water?
Because drinking water is goingto trigger releasing the sugar

(37:42):
through your urine and yoursugar will naturally drop down
because your bladder's full.
It'll absorb the sugar as well,and the exercise, of course,
will burn up the sugar, theglucose that's in your system,
because your, your muscles, aremetabolizing it and using it
through the light exercise.
So that's kind of the holisticapproach that I take.
I just monitor my body.

(38:04):
I probably have an absurd numberof observations that I make
daily on the CGM where I'vetested, sometimes because it
gives you the data and onesession of two weeks I'll have
1,449 checks on my glucose.
You know where I go in and Ilook at the app and that's the
beauty of this and it sets youup for success.

(38:25):
Because I'll tell you, graham,one of the toughest things is
when you go to the doctor'soffice and you get a surprise of
what your A1C is and you thinkyou're doing everything right.
It's already too late.
You've done damage to yourselffor a minimum of 90 days without
knowing it.
With the CGM, you can know thatday oh gosh, you know Graham
makes the best jerk chicken inthe world, but I must have eaten

(38:47):
something else that you knowthrew me off and I, you know, my
sugar was really, really highand you make a mental note of
that and you start cutting outthe foods or the snacks that
you're consuming that cause it.
So that brings full circle backto how you eat and I eat.
So I have four or five centralmeats that I eat.
I'll eat ribs, I'll eat steak,I'll eat chicken breasts, I'll

(39:10):
eat chicken thighs and I eatturkey and I eat salmon.
And the salmon that I prefer,candidly, is the smoked salmon,
which again, is got nitrites init.
So I minimize that to not morethan once a week, but I'm
getting a lot of high quality,non-farm but actually fresh
salmon.

(39:30):
So there's ways in which youcan enjoy it in moderation and
still get a high quality proteininto your body, get your DHA,
your EPA, in balance as well.
So the whole point is and wetalked about this in early days
what are you consuming that'shealing you or what are you
consuming that's harming you?
And I found that the CGM was agreat, great, great indicator of

(39:51):
what food was doing to my body.

Graham (39:54):
Yeah, instant results and a historical set of data
results where you can start tomake decisions really quickly.
If they're on this journey of,you know, contemplating a change

(40:20):
and there are different stagesto people changing their habits
the contemplation stage is okay.
I'm sort of I understand theremight be a problem here and I
don't know what to do.
They're going to think the samething about their family
because, you know, oftentimes ifthe parents aren't eating

(40:42):
healthy, then the kids probablyaren't eating healthy.
Right, that could be acombination of unhealthy foods
in the household and that's whatmy parents are eating.
I'm going to copy them becausethey're my heroes, heroes.
There's a story that reallyimpacted me that I learned
during this journey, and it kindof ties into the responsibility

(41:06):
of parenting and what food wecan give our kids.
So, after the Vietnam War and Idon't have all of the specific
details, but the details aren'tthe point the end result was the
point there was a mandate fromthe government saying that
shrimp was no longer healthy forchildren.

(41:27):
I don't know what the age was,but let's say children under 18.
And so parents, obviouslylistening to the government and
their recommendations, stoppedfeeding their kids shrimp.
Well, shrimp is, you know sortof a top five source of food and
an excellent source of protein,Very, very cheap in Vietnam,

(41:58):
and so obviously you know this.
This had an impact on on the waypeople eat, on the way parents
fed their kids Over the nextcouple of years.
What they realized was thesechildren were becoming emaciated
.
In some cases they were beinghospitalized and they couldn't
figure out what was going on.
They hadn't made the connectionon this rule, and so what they
noticed were there were somekids out there that were healthy

(42:20):
, and what was going on withthese kids that were healthy
versus the ones that weren't?
They actually visited the homesof the kids that were healthy,
and what they realized was thatthe parents had ignored the
advice about shrimp, and whatthey'd done is they'd ground it
up into the rice so that it wassort of hidden.

(42:43):
The kids were still getting theshrimp, but they didn't know it
, and the reason I mentionedthis is we were sort of you know
, I would say the kids wereeating very similar to us not
super, super unhealthy, butdefinitely not as healthy as
we're eating today and therewere a couple of meals that we

(43:05):
started to make and we werereally surprised by the results.
So the first one was spaghetti,something that the vast majority
of kids like.
It's almost always on the.
You know the kid's menu at thestore and a child like you know

(43:25):
some of my kids will not have asteak, but they will eat ground
beef.
I think they know where theground beef comes from, they
know where the steak comes from,but they're okay with one and
not the other, and that'sperfectly fine.
Obviously, if your kid lovessteak, you've done something
right.
But a good percentage of kidsjust don't want to eat that way,

(43:47):
and so what we ended up doingis we sort of sourced our
ingredients and we ended upbuying Italian made pasta.
So if you go to your store,oftentimes you're going to have
the cheap 99 cent pasta and youmight have to go and read the
labels and it might be at thetop shelf or the bottom shelf

(44:08):
because most people aren'tbuying it.
But you can make a pasta that'smade in Italy.
The reason why I chose that isbecause it doesn't have
glyphosates in it.
In the US they use glyphosates.
In Europe they don't useglyphosates, to my knowledge,
for their pasta.
So I felt like you know, eventhough it was pasta and that is
a high glycemic food that if wewere going to mix it with the

(44:32):
additional ingredients that Italked about or I'm going to
talk about, then you are goingto mitigate the impact of that
pasta on your insulin levels, onyour sugar levels and insulin
levels.
We switch to a supernaturaltomato sauce.
The one that we pick is Rao's.
If you're a Costco member, youknow you can buy two bottles of

(44:54):
this for $16.99.
Otherwise it seems reallyexpensive.
And why don't I just buy the $5one?
Because then I save $10.
Well, read the ingredients onthe back of the $5 tomato sauce
and read the ingredients on theback of something like a Rao's
tomato sauce.
You can recognize every singleingredient in the Rao's tomato
sauce.
I would pick the fattiestground beef I could find and

(45:17):
then I would add bone broth.
I wouldn't tell the kids thatI'd added bone broth, not that
I'm trying to hide anything, butthey wouldn't know the
difference anyway.
And then the last thing wasadding real Parmesan cheese.
So going out and buying theblock of cheese again.
Yes, I understand it's a littlemore expensive than the green
bottle or green container ofParmesan cheese, but once the

(45:40):
kids started to eat this type ofpasta and I have made this for,
you know, an unbelievablenumber of people, whether
they're coming over, whetherit's family parties, whether
it's my family, you know, once aweek I have made this for so
many people and they have saidit's the best pasta or spaghetti

(46:01):
that they've ever had.
And I think it's because, youknow, not only is it all natural
ingredients, but the reallyinteresting thing is they can't
eat the green container ofParmesan cheese anymore because
it tastes so much worse than thereal cheese.
So that's an idea for a meal.
And the second idea and I'llthrow it over to you, stephen is

(46:22):
we used to eat the yellow boxtacos.
I can't remember the name of itoff the top of my head, but
it's a yellow box.
All you need to do is addground beef.
Well, one day we decided well,the parents are going to have
romaine lettuce tacos, the kidsmight want shells, they might
want wraps, or they might joinus for the romaine lettuce, and

(46:43):
they have actually joined uswith the romaine lettuce more
often than not these days.
I'll go out and buy some groundbeef, I'll buy some taco
seasoning I found one that'svery carnivore friendly with,
you know, excellent sourcedingredients and I'll mix all
that together, obviously, addwhatever toppings you want, and

(47:04):
the kids will not go back to theyellow box taco mix anymore
because I was able to make them,you know, a taco that they
preferred.
There's two ideas.
There's lots of ideas out there, but two ideas on.
You know, thinking back to thatVietnam story, how do you, you
know, in a sort of covert way,provide your kids with really

(47:27):
high satiating meals?
Even if it's twice a week,you're still doing significant
benefits over, you know, givingthem the regular junk food that
we tend to give, because life'sshort, it's a fast and it's
difficult to figure out how tofeed your kids, uh, in a healthy
way.
Any experiences on your end,steven.

Stephen (47:50):
I've always been upfront with my kids as I learn
things, because probably, likeyou, I had not only the
challenge for a period where Iwas a vegetarian and my wife was
actually vegan and then headedme in that direction.
As a divorced and remarried dad, I had the challenge of the
dietary variety that my kidswere being offered by their mom

(48:13):
versus what we had in ourhousehold.
So there was always thispressure or expectation that we
would buy the same stuff thattheir mom was buying and
sometimes the stuff that she wasbuying we deemed as quite
unhealthy, and so there wasalways this tension.
And I've actually talked toother nuclear families, the
spouses, nuclear families, thespouses where there's a general

(48:40):
disparity in how the child isfed in one house versus the
other.
So I think it's a hugechallenge and it's remarkable.
Your shrimp story is an amazingstory Because you know, we were
told I just saw this today,actually, and I'm glad you kind
of opened the door for us totalk about this.
But this is why you have, in myopinion, the opportunity to be
your own self-advocate is, seewhat your body does with what

(49:03):
you consume and cut out thethings that we now know are bad,
but for a time.
When they first launched highfructose corn syrup, they
actually said it was farhealthier than table sugar, and
it is.
It's listed as a carcinogen uh,type 2 carcinogen it's.
It's worse than cigarettes.
I've recently learned thatfrench fries, because the way
they're prepared, are like forevery cigarette.

(49:25):
For every cigarette you consume,it's equivalent to a french fry
.
So as we learn more and moreabout about these, these sorts
of things, I think we have toput our foot down and say you
know, in the best interest ofthe kids, based on the
information we have today, I'mnot going to let my kids consume
that stuff, because when youand I were young, we were still
getting an enormous amount of,you know, food that was coming

(49:49):
from, oh, from the localfarmer's market, or even from
neighbors, in my case, and ofcourse, that stuff was in
fertilizer and the soil wasnutrient rich and the meats we
often in my day, because we werenot particularly well off is
the family would split on a cow.

(50:10):
So sections of the cow would besent and our freezer would be
full for almost a year and wewould eat whatever was in there
and we would complain when wegot to the bottom and the organ
meats were there and we had toeat liver and other things, not
realizing, of course, that thatwas probably the healthiest cuts
that we could consume.
So I think ultimately it comesdown to educating the kids.

(50:31):
I was never a fan of trying tocater to with the expectations
as a parent getting them totheir events and et cetera of
running a restaurant in my housewhere the kids got whatever
they wanted and we ate what weneeded.
But sometimes you have nochoice, especially when you have
circumstances like I justdescribed.

Graham (50:50):
Yeah, I think that's a really good point and I should
mention, because you brought upa really good point there about
am I hiding things from the kids?
The younger they were, the lessI was telling them, the less
they cared of their own meals.

(51:15):
And we're talking six months ayear, a year and a half.
We're not talking about a hugeamount of time.
I would start to explain tothem about the ingredients and
why it tastes so much better,and showing them the ingredient
lists and saying, hey, read theback of this tomato sauce
ingredient list, read the backof this tomato sauce ingredient
list.
And, of course, the good one.
They could actually read allthe words and it's just sort of
teaching them about how to eat alittle more healthy.

(51:40):
And now, you know, I've got amiddle child in university who
every now and then will send mea text with what she's eating
that night.
She is choosing some reallyhealthy foods because she
understands the impact of thosefoods on her health, on her, you
know, mental well-being as wellas physical well-being, and it,

(52:03):
you know, it definitely makesfor a proud papa when I see that
she's taken that knowledge andthat information and turned it
into a habit for herself as well, my go-to.
Yeah, sorry, stephen, go ahead.

Stephen (52:17):
Yeah, I was just going to ask you a question because
that's really interesting,because my kids do the same,
particularly in my case, becauseI have a son that has CPT2,
which is one of the rarestdiseases in the world.
So he has a genetic deformitywhere he can't metabolize
certain proteins.
So he's on literally theinverse diet to me and so he has

(52:38):
to be particularly carefulbecause he is to consume high
starch items and limited amountof protein.
So literally our diets couldn'tbe more different for in his
case, for genetic reasons.
So my youngest is in law school, still under an enormous amount

(52:59):
of stress, and she eatsextremely well.
Now I wonder if there's acrossover for how we mentored
our kids, you and I, because mykids are also very low consumers
of alcohol.
They weren't ones to go out andget you know in quotes wasted
in parties and stuff like that,and I have a?

(53:20):
oh, that's amazing because Ihave a monumental amount of
alcoholism on both sides of thefamily and I dodged that bullet.
But I was always concerned withmy kids that they would fall
into that, and so you're sayingthat your kids too fall into
that, and so you're saying thatyour kids, too, pretty much
avoid it.

Graham (53:41):
They generally don't.
They're not partiers.
I think the next generation,the stats, are that they're
drinking a whole lot less,partying a whole lot less.
I'm hoping it's not too extremewhere you know they're all
hiding in the basement, but Iknow my kids have a pretty
healthy outlook when it comes tosocial activities, so for the
most part they stay away fromthat.

(54:02):
I'm not saying all the time,but they haven't made it a
regular habit, which I think iskey.
At the end of the day, you canhave a drink every now and then.
I'm not a doctor, I'm not hereto give health advice.
I'm not a doctor, I'm not hereto, you know, give health advice
, but I think if the worst thingyou're doing is having a drink

(54:23):
or two once a week, that's not abig deal as long as you are,
you know, managing the rest ofyour life.
It's always better to avoidthat completely, and so the fact
that your kids have been ableto avoid it, especially when
it's something that's been inthe family, is a to say, two
drinks per day for men and onefor women.

Stephen (55:00):
And they've recently changed that to a maximum of two
or three a week.
So that's a.
That's a substantial change.
You do the math on two a daytimes, seven times four.
You know you're you're talkingabout, uh, you know 56 drinks.
Compared to what are we talking?
10 or 12?
It's, it's, it's massive, it'sa.

(55:22):
That's like a 400 percent uhcut in consumption, which
they're now saying is is.
Is anything more than that isunhealthy.
So that comes back to our pointis what is your body doing with
it?
How do you feel after?
If you're feeling like you havethe booze flu or you have IBS
from the food you consumed, thencut it out, because your path,

(55:48):
your critical path to where youhead, if you continue to ignore
that for decades, as I did, isliterally everything I ate, made
me sick.
And it was so depressing,graham, because even when I
thought I was eating a good meal, which probably 75% of it was
that extra 5% or 8% that was,you know, on the borderline and
that was over processed, made melose the nutrition of the

(56:10):
entire meal.
It was a complete waste of timeand money and, worse, it was
extremely hard on my body.
I would go for three or fourdays with constant burning
sensations in my abdomen frominflammation, and my
inflammation markers were quiteserious.
My blood pressure was not good.
Now my blood pressure is whereyou know.
On a keto carnivore diet isakin to somebody that's probably

(56:32):
in their 20s.

Graham (56:35):
Yeah, outstanding.
And I think one of thechallenges with the alcohol
recommendations is who are youstudying?
What kind of diets are they on?
Because I always find it alittle bit funny, just knowing
what I know and knowing what youknow, that you'll hear all

(56:55):
sorts of recommendations aboutalcohol, what should you do, how
much should you drink.
But we hear hardly anythingabout the dangers of ultra
processed foods, high starchfoods, you know blood sugar,
that kind of thing.
And if we heard a little bitmore about how bad those are for
us and if we heard a little bitmore about how bad those are

(57:16):
for us, you know, along withreminding us about other
lifestyle interventions that can, that can make improvements, I
think we would all be better off.
I'm going to list things.
I know we're coming up to theend list my go-to meal.
If I'm on my own or if I'mhaving to eat on my own, my wife
might be.
She's a psychotherapist, shemight be in a session.

(57:38):
The kids might be away.
My wife might be away If I'm onmy own, I got to cook my own
meal.
My go-to is the best sourcefatty ground beef.
I cook that up.
I then add a little bit of tacoseasoning, I add some butter
and I do not go light on thebutter, and then I add of that

(58:00):
meal I eat till I'm full.
It takes me 15 minutes to putit together and it's actually a

(58:21):
super, super cheap meal.
So when people are looking tofill themselves up, that can be
an idea.
Any go-to meals on your side,stephen?

Stephen (58:31):
Yeah, that's really a good question.
I try to keep a degree ofvariety.
I probably fall into thecategory of where I'm having
steak twice a week and it'salways very high quality.
I always wince a little bitbecause I'm getting it from the
butcher and it's, you know,anywhere from $28 to $35 per

(58:52):
steak.
But again, I look at what Ispend at a restaurant with some
highly inflamed wings that havebeen fried in vegetable oil and
that meal is going to cost me$50, with a drink anyway.
So I'd rather eat healthy.
I'd rather know, from farm tofork to in my stomach, where
this stuff is coming from.

(59:13):
So I think the reality is is ifyou compare and put a monetary
value on the quality of lifethat you're going to experience
by not taking care of yourselfwhich is where I got to when I
turned 50 to where I am now at,just recently turning 58,
there's no amount of money youcould pay me to go back to the
way I was, because my quality oflife was hellacious.

(59:34):
So I think- 100%.

Graham (59:36):
And Stephen just had a birthday, by the way.
Happy birthday, my friend.

Stephen (59:39):
Thank you, thank you.

Graham (59:40):
And what a great segue into our last subject, which is
when you're on the road, what doyou do?
Some of the things.
I'll just share my thoughts,and I want to hear yours,
stephen, because you've had alot more experience around
business travel.
Well, my wife and I are pickinga restaurant, and we don't
often these days.

(01:00:00):
We will go buy the best sourceribeye and again, yep, it's,
it's going to cost 60 bucks, or65 bucks for two steaks.
We haven't been able to goanywhere and eat for less than
100 able to go anywhere and eatfor less than 100.

(01:00:21):
And they probably weren't steaks, as you're reading, they
probably weren't ribeyes.
Well, they definitely werenowhere near as good, right?
So if it costs less, the steaksdon't taste very good.
Why did we do this?
If they taste the same, theprice is going to be twice as
much, so why are we do this?
If it costs?
You know, if they taste thesame, the price is going to be
twice as much, so why are wedoing this?
So I think we end up with whyare we doing this?
Why don't we just make a reallynice meal at home?

(01:00:42):
But the interesting thing tothink about is when my wife and
I are on the road and we want tostop at a restaurant, we're
going to pick any place that has, you know, good steak or beef.
If we can find a Koreanbarbecue or a Brazilian
steakhouse, we are the happiesttwo kids on the planet, you know

(01:01:03):
.
We have a place nearby.
We're lucky enough to have aplace that cooks their fries in
beef tallow, so those are theonly fries that we actually eat.
If you've never had beef tallowfries, I highly recommend, you
know, finding a restaurant thathas them.
There's an app called Seed OilScout that's Seed Oil Scout SOS,

(01:01:23):
and it actually has a list ofrestaurants in your area that
prioritize, you know, cooking intallow or cooking in olive oil
or avocado oil.
In other words, staying awayfrom the seed oils and the
hidden ingredients.
If we need something quick,we'll stop at a Wendy's and just

(01:01:44):
get the beef patties.
It's incredibly cheap.
Not all Wendy's do this, butyou know we can have a meal for
seven bucks each and pretty good.
You know.
Quality ground beef Again notgoing to be the best in the
world, but with all the fastfood choices out there, three
plain beef patties from Wendy'sis a good, you know way to fill

(01:02:09):
up on your protein and fatwithout getting a lot of harmful
ingredients in there.
Arby's roast beef I only getthe roast beef and you know I
don't do that often but anyrestaurants that have ground
beef and you just order theground beef.
It's going to be better thanand I always say that but what

(01:02:29):
is it better than?
It's going to be better thanhaving that Big Mac or some
other heavily processed foodwhere you don't know the
ingredients.
Over to you, stephen, to end usoff with some recommendations
on how to eat while you're onthe road.

Stephen (01:02:48):
Yeah, and I think anytime that you're, you know
when you're in a state of doubt.
For me in particular, because Ipractice intermittent fasting
and I'm very conscientious aboutmanaging my sugar, I'm not
going to die if I skip a meal.
If I eat a meal in a restaurant, that is a very, very low
quality food.
I actually have learned timeand time again I would have been

(01:03:11):
better off skipping the meal.
So I don't eat when I go toairports, because airports are
not my friend, and so I'malready charged up, my body's
full of cortisol, and thequality of food in airports is
hellacious, and what you'regetting, you're paying.
I mean, recently I just you know, Graham, I just got pistachios

(01:03:31):
that were the same ones that youand I would buy here locally
were literally 400% more in USdollars than the same thing in
Canadian, here outside at aregular store, not at the
airport.
So I sometimes I just look atit and go.
You know what?
I'm going to make sure I'mproperly hydrated.
I'm going to make sure that.

(01:03:51):
You know, I use this as anopportunity to build that
resilience and fast until I canget somewhere where I have more
variety and I can sit down andenjoy a much healthier meal, so
I would.
That's just my take on things,because I can monitor it and
I've learned over the years thatany it's better to have no food

(01:04:14):
than bad food.

Graham (01:04:17):
Yeah, really, really well said.
The worst day from a foodlifestyle point of view that
I've had in the last two yearsis, on my way back from Germany
had a stopover.
I only had about 20 minutesbetween flights stopover.

(01:04:37):
I only had about 20 minutesbetween flights and there was a
lineup at basically everyrestaurant that you know didn't
have junk food, and so I endedup not being able to eat.
I hadn't eaten in like 15 hoursso I was getting hungry.
I ended up eating the planefood the food that they serve on
the plane and felt like crapfor the next 12 hours.
So it was.
You know, I was sort of forcedto because I didn't have a

(01:04:59):
choice.
I really did need to eat atthat point.
Usually I can easily go.
If I've eaten somethingsatiating, I can usually go an
entire day, but in this case Ihadn't the night before, and I
think I'll end it with this whenyou're hungry, we talked about
hypoglycemia, high blood sugarand hyperglycemia.

(01:05:21):
Sorry, hyper is high, hypo islow blood sugar.
When you get into that lowblood sugar phase, you're
getting messages from your gutthrough the vagus nerve to your
brain saying we need to eat, weare hungry, and what that is
doing that is the body sayingwe're in danger.

(01:05:43):
And when the body's in danger,it's releasing cortisol and I
know you know a lot about this,stephen is it's releasing
cortisol, and I believe theoriginal reason for that is
let's give you energy so you cango hunt, or at least go find
some food.
If you are able to eat highprotein, high fat, good source

(01:06:05):
meals and enough food in thosemeals to be able to carry you
over.
The thing that may be one of themost surprising things on this
journey is the opposite of beinghungry is not being stressed.
Your body's saying I'm totallyfine, we don't need any food.
I can.
Actually, you know, I'm notgoing to send you any messages

(01:06:27):
saying we need to eat.
I'm going to spend all my timetrying to repair, trying to
build muscle, all the thingsthat I'm trying to repair.
I'm trying to build muscle, allthe things that the body's able
to do, because we are notfocused on getting more
nutrition, and not being hungryis the most surprisingly
satisfying part of thislifestyle.

(01:06:47):
Your thoughts on that, stephen?

Stephen (01:06:50):
Yeah, it's really a fantastic way to sort of wrap
this up.
Yeah, it's really a fantasticway to sort of wrap this up.
I couldn't agree more, becauseyou know that when people start

(01:07:11):
looking into hormones and youstart equating them to
respective bullies and you'revacillating from parasympathetic
to sympathetic reaction, yourbody is in a state where it is
assuming and you can read up onthis in a book that talks about
systemic inflammation or causesthereof, called the Body Keeps
the Score or causes thereof,called the Body Keeps the Score

(01:07:33):
that particular book and whatI'm addressing here is how we
react when we're in a state ofstress and it's not the time to
introduce food into your body.
In a state of stress, you donot see on the savannah a
gazelle continuing to graze forgrass when it's being chased by
a lion.
It'll return to eating thatgrass pretty quick after getting

(01:07:56):
away from the lion, but it'snot worried about eating when
it's running for its life.
And it's not much differentthan us.
Because of our lifestyles andbecause of what we experience
with stress, we're actuallybetter off not to eat, and the
reason for that is unless you'reat 4% body fat or 3% and you're
not properly hydrated, thereality is that we bring a lunch

(01:08:17):
.
We you and I did this when wewere kids in school.
Um, we, we went, went to schoolwith a pack lunch.
Well, the pack lunch is the fatthat's already in your body,
and the crazy part is when yourbody goes from its sugar
addiction and dealing with aconstant digestion.
Uh, for one, you'll never seegrowth hormone in your body, or
very limited amounts, because ifyour body has food in it and

(01:08:40):
your cortisol is raised, thehormone growth hormone will not
be secreted and you pretty wellhave to have a digestive tract
that's free of food before thathormone will release, and
certainly not have stress,because your body's not going to
be in a state of repair when itthinks it's running for its
life.
And this is the inflammationthat we live with.
The analogy for lunchbox I'mboring from several prolific

(01:09:04):
writers in this space is that webring a lunchbox because the
lunchbox contains the food thatwe're going to consume.
We wear a lunchbox because thefat that we have in our body is
actually an extremely highquality energy source, far more
so than these sugar laden foodsthat we're consuming.
So when the body, the metabolicprocess, converts to consuming

(01:09:27):
our body fat, which is why it'sthere.
We actually will quickly flipthe switch and then we're
burning calories like crazy.
And you can actually feel thisin your body when you go through
the process of intermittentfasting.
My wife and I call it the yuck.
You feel the yuck for about 15minutes where that brain signal
again from the vagus nerve issaying hey, from the brain to

(01:09:50):
the vagus nerve, to yourdigestive system and back is
telling the brain, the vagusnerve to your digestive system
and back is telling the brain go, get food.
But if you push through thatfor 15 minutes or 20 minutes
it's remarkable.
All of a sudden you have tonsof energy.
I can give you a very simpleexample.
I used to go out and cut andsplit wood.
I heat my home with my ownhands from wood that I take on

(01:10:11):
my large property and I could goout when I was diabetic and
uncontrolled and within an hourand a half of being out there in
the cold I would sweat rightthrough my coat.
I'd feel awful.
I had limited energy because mybody was used to living on
sugar.
Once I became a controlleddiabetic and my system was

(01:10:32):
normalized, my wife wouldsometimes come out to the woods
and make sure I was okay,because I'd be out there till 2
pm, having started at 8 am andjust drinking water, and I was
perfectly fine.
I had tons of energy andendurance.
And I'm not cutting balsa wood,I'm cutting oak and maple,
heavy woods, lifting it, movingit with my ATV to my cutting

(01:10:53):
site and back again.
It's a very, very physicalprocess that I wasn't able to do
when I was addicted to sugar.

Graham (01:11:00):
Yeah, yeah, so well said .
I could not have said it bettermyself, and we always remind
people and always consult ahealthcare professional.
We hope some of the thoughtsthat we shared today can help in
the journey and we want tothank everybody for joining us
for another lesson from theKetoverse.

(01:11:23):
Stephen, thank you, have awonderful evening.

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
You as well, graham.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thanks for tuning into Lessonsfrom the Ketoverse.
Join Stephen and Graham nexttime for more keto tips and
stories to fuel your health.
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