Transitioning to Keto - Tips & Tricks

Ready to take your first steps into the world of keto or carnivore eating but feeling overwhelmed? This candid conversation between two friends who accidentally discovered they were on parallel health journeys cuts through the confusion with practical, immediately applicable advice.

Graham and Stephen share their hard-won wisdom about simple food swaps that can dramatically improve your health without requiring a complete lifestyle overhaul. They tackle common misconceptions about dietary fats, revealing why butter trumps margarine, why full-fat products paradoxically help you eat less overall, and how seemingly "healthy" low-fat options often hide surprising amounts of sugar and additives.

The discussion takes fascinating turns into unexpected health benefits many experience when ditching inflammatory foods. Both hosts share personal stories about chronic sinus infections, joint pain, and digestive issues that mysteriously disappeared after changing their eating habits. Their genuine surprise and delight at these "side effects" of better eating offers hope for listeners struggling with similar conditions.

What makes this episode particularly valuable is the emphasis on progress over perfection. The hosts acknowledge that occasional setbacks are normal and offer compassionate advice for getting back on track without self-judgment. Their approachable, non-dogmatic attitude makes complex nutritional concepts accessible, reminding listeners that everyone's journey happens at their own pace.

Whether you're curious about ketogenic eating, considering reducing processed foods, or simply tired of confusing nutrition advice, these straightforward tips provide a roadmap for making meaningful changes that stick. Try just one of these simple swaps this week and notice how your body responds – your journey to better health might be easier than you think.

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):
Hello everyone and welcome to Lessons from the
Ketoetoverse.
I'm with my friend, Stephen.
We are talking about tips andtricks for those people that are
, you know, tossing around theidea of a ketogenic or a
carnivore diet.
They want to reduce the carbs,they want to increase their

(00:40):
protein and fat intake.
Everyone's got their ownreasons for doing so.
We won't necessarily talk aboutthose today I'm sure that'll
come up on a different podcastbut what we want to do is we
want to provide some basic tipsand tricks for people who are
thinking about getting into this.
What are some things thatpeople can do to make, you know,

(01:00):
even minor changes in theirdietary lifestyle to start the
journey of their ketogenic ortheir carnivore diet?
Welcome, Stephen, to theepisode.
Thank you for being here.

Stephen (01:12):
Thank you, graham, looking forward to our
conversation today.

Graham (01:15):
All right, perfect, so let's.
These are in no particularorder, by the way, although we
do have some advice at the endthat I think Stephen and I have
used on our journey.
We've been on this for comingup on two years, I would say, or
close to two years, and we'vementioned this in Path Podcast,
where we were actually on thesame journey.

(01:37):
We've known each other for overa decade.
We were on the same journey butdidn't know specifically about
the food-related changes thatwe'd done.
We both came to the sameconclusion.
We both started on that journeyand decided to talk about our
journeys.
If that can help somebody elsewho's on the journey, we
certainly benefit from listeningto others and we hope that you

(02:00):
might benefit as well.
So my first one on the list,stephen, and this is one that's
a bit close to the heart I havesome family members who have
decided that for them, margarineis a healthier choice than
butter.
They are from a generationwhere they grew up and they were
adults in the 80s when theywere told that butter and bacon

(02:21):
and red meat are all going tocause heart disease and you
should switch off butter for thesame reason.
It's high in saturated fat.
Since then, I think since 2015,the American Heart Association
has come out and said thatsaturated fat does not cause
heart disease.
Saturated fat from things likebutter, bacon, red meat, even

(02:41):
avocado, these sort of thingsthat has no relation to heart
disease.
But there are still people whogenuinely believe that butter is
a less healthy choice thansomething like margarines.
And in addition to that, youknow, when people ask me about
different foods and they'll openthe fridge and I'll say, oh,
the margarine would be somethingthat I'd start with.

(03:02):
They'll say, oh, you know what?
I actually picked the margarinethat's made with olive oil, or
I picked the margarine that'smade with this healthy
ingredient.
I'll actually pick up themargarine container, turn it
around.
And the second item on the listis canola oil, which, to me, is
something that is not good forthe gut, very high in omega-6s

(03:24):
and can be a real problem.
I know, stephen, you've got alot of information when it comes
to this, so my first suggestionis switch to butter.
If you can get grass-fed butter, it's a little more expensive.
If not, go for the butter thatyou can afford, but oftentimes
grocery stores will have and youmight have to look for it up in
the corner or on the top shelfor something they might have a

(03:45):
grass-fed butter that tastesabsolutely delicious and, in my
opinion, is in fact healthy.
Stephen, what are your thoughtson that first suggestion?

Stephen (03:52):
Perhaps with a little humor.
I've read and actuallywitnessed that Margin is one of
those products.
It's an oil-based product.
Actually it's a petroleum-basedproduct and if you put it
outside, ants won't go near it.
Other animals won't go near it.
They won't eat it.
However, butter.
I've had my Bernese MountainDog jump on the countertop and
eat an entire bar of butter as aresult, and I've never had my

(04:14):
dogs come anywhere near Marginwhen I used to use it because I
thought too, oh, it's got oliveoil in it.
That was pre-diabetes andpre-illness, so I didn't
actually pay a lot of attentionto ingredients.
But I certainly know now thatmost of what you see on there to
your point is marketing as wellas look at where it is in the
ingredients list.
According to laws here you list, the most highest content

(04:37):
product is in the ingredients tothe lowest content.
So if you see it says containsolive oil and olive oil for your
heart health and it's numbernine on a list of 10 items.
There's not very much of it inthere.

Graham (04:50):
Very well said.
The next one on the list hereis and again, I have a family
member who absolutely lovestheir pop.
It's regular pop.
They drank it for a long time.
Unfortunately it has affectedtheir teeth.
I know it's affecting theirhealth.
Although this person isabsolutely lovely, wonderful,

(05:12):
high on life and has the bestattitude of anyone I've ever met
, they know that the sodasaren't great for them.
Very hard for them to stop.
So my suggestion is try and getrid of that high fructose corn
syrup or even those diet sodasand I really want to hear from
you, stephen, on this one thesweeteners, these artificial

(05:32):
sweeteners and we see them onmost diet sodas, actually do
spike your insulin, not yoursugar, which has the same
negative effect on our healthbecause, at the end of the day,
insulin resistance is caused bya regular insulin spike based on

(05:52):
the foods that we eat or theanticipation that sugar is
coming, which is what diet sodadoes.
So I would swap high fructosecorn syrup sodas and you can
read those on the label or evendiet sodas with something like
sparkling water.
You can buy those at the store,although you can buy machines
that make that at home and tryand get the cleanest water
possible, or even natural flavorwaters, which, in my opinion,

(06:16):
are better than, but notnecessarily as good as,
something like sparkling water.
So swapping sodas for somethinglike sparkling water as so
swapping sodas for somethinglike sparkling water as a
lifestyle changed even yourthoughts.

Stephen (06:27):
Yeah, I think that's a good strategy.
We've had to do the same.
My wife of 17 years actuallygot me into diet pops and even
during the period of diabetes,before I wore a CGM, I was
influenced by the marketing thatsuggested that diet pops don't
harm you and they won't raiseyour sugar.

(06:48):
Well, I can tell you candidlythey make an absolute mess.
They're a grass fire for yourintestinal biome.
So I know in my particular casefrom drinking it for years,
part of the reason I haddysbiotic bacteria in my
intestines and poor general guthealth leaky gut, etc.
Was caused by a prolific amountof consuming these sodas.

(07:11):
So you raise the potential ofmaking your own, so to speak.
That's also a word of caution.
If you're using SodaStream orone of the other products is,
make sure you read what's onthere, because it says
old-fashioned lemonade.
There's nothing old-fashionedabout it unless you were a
chemist in the 18th century or19th century, and none of the

(07:32):
ingredients that are in thereare are particularly healthy.

Graham (07:36):
So what you can do is no better than than a, than a soda
or a diet soda.
These things are exactly thesame syrup that they put in the
junky pops.

Stephen (07:50):
Exactly and like.
So, for instance, if you addlemon fresh lemon add a little
apple cider vinegar.
It'll give you a nice spark towhat it is you're consuming.
We do that quite regularly.
Be cautious when you're doingit, because it is acidic and it
will cause the it to bubble up abit.
So use it, enter it in afteryou've you've done your
carbonization slowly, becauseotherwise you're going to be
wearing it.
But it's, uh, it's way, way,way, um, healthier.

(08:13):
Even just a dash of salt,graham, if you add some celtic
salt, uh, and I think I don'tknow, future podcasts talk about
the qualities of salt, butlet's assume that you get a good
salt, not the stuff that youwould necessarily get at a
discount store, but actuallygood quality salt.
I sprinkle a little bit of thatin there and you can consume
lots and lots of that.
The fizziness is usually whatpeople are attracted to, but

(08:35):
what they don't realize isthere's an addiction associated
with sugar.
Sugar is considerably moreaddictive than even cigarettes
and it's hitting the dopamineand your brain is reacting to it
and consequently it's hard toget off of that stuff.
I know it was for me and it'sstill a challenge for my partner
.
So don't beat yourself up ifyou have one occasionally but

(08:56):
know that it's not doing youanything other than that
effervescent feeling of oh, Iremember the feeling of having a
you know a can of cola.
Beyond that, it's not doing youany good as a diabetic, the
assumption that a diet one isdoing any better versus the
regular.
There's a whole bunch of otherthings that are in the diet pop
that are far worse than thesyrup that's in a regular pop or

(09:17):
soda.
So just avoid it if you can.

Graham (09:21):
It's funny how many times you and I have realized
that the diet version ofsomething or the low-fat version
of something is exponentiallyworse than whatever they were
replacing it with, which is partof the frustration of the
journey, also part of theenjoyment of learning these
things and making lifestylechanges.
I'm glad you brought up salt,uh, stephen, because my next one

(09:41):
here, and this was a journeyfor me as well when I started
off on this journey I wasabsolutely convinced that salt
was bad for us.
Reduce your salt.
This is what they tell peoplewhen they have, you know, blood
pressure problems or heartdisease, and certainly we're not
here to replace your doctor'sadvice.
But at the same time, we needelectrolytes, we need those
minerals that are in salt.

(10:01):
Our cells benefit from havingthose electrolytes to allow for
water, htl, to enter the cells,which actually gives us that
feeling of not being thirsty.
A lot of times, when peopledrink a lot of water and they're
still thirsty, they're flushingout a lot of their electrolytes
or they lack electrolytes whichopen up the pathways to allow

(10:23):
the cells to absorb that thewater and the nutrients.
And so my suggestion is toreplace the iodized table salt
with something like Celtic salt,which I think you're a fan of,
redmond salt sea salt.
These are, in my opinion, allimprovements.
One of the things that I willmention is iodized salt.
The reason they put iodine insalt so many years ago was

(10:46):
because there was a goiterproblem at the time in the West
and they realized that thegoiter problem was caused by a
lack of iodine in the diet.
It is relatively easy and cheapto add iodine to table salt, but
at the same time, what they dois they strip out all of the
other minerals that are insomething like a sea salt or a

(11:09):
Redmond's real salt that comesfrom a dried up ocean from over
a million years ago, when therewas no plastic.
So you're not going to getmicroplastics in your salt.
So one of the things that youmay want to consider and again
this is something that werecommend researching would be
to switch over to something likea Redmond's RealSelf that does
not have iodine in it, but maybeto add something like a Lugol's

(11:32):
iodine solution, which is arelatively cheap option, and
have a couple of drops of that afew times a week to make sure
that you're getting your iodine.
That is a whole lot of benefitsin addition to avoiding
problems like goiter.
And then you have the best ofboth worlds.
You get all the you know themany minerals in addition to the
electrolytes in salt, and youstill get your iodine or iodized

(12:03):
salt that we typically see inany diner, with something like a
Redmond's Real Salt, or maybeyou can name some of the ones
that you appreciate as well.

Stephen (12:13):
Well, salt's an interesting thing.
I mean you've raised the pointwith seawater and being
contaminated and peopleconsuming salt that's extracted
essentially from the ocean.
So that's definitelyproblematic.
But, as well as you know, a lotof people are really into
Himalayan salts.
I just recently witnessed atthe local butcher, a lady

(12:35):
biologist, I believe was herbackground had a means of
testing salts and was doing itfor the owner and he immediately
pulled off the shelf a numberof salts that were actually full
of lead.
So there was actually lead inthe salt.
So you know, to your earlierpoint and I think the theme is
consistent across these topicsis just because it says olive

(12:56):
oil on it doesn't mean one.
The olive oil that's in it isof any great quantity to provide
anything good, assume it's atthe right quantity.
Is the olive oil that's in itany good?
Is the salt any good?
What else is in with the saltthat they're not disclosing?
So it fundamentally comes downto understanding your supply
chain and understanding whereare they getting this from?
Where is it being mined orwhere is it being grown?

(13:17):
How are they preparing it?
What's in the soil?
Are the feedstocks that arebeing provided, whether it's
cattle or, if we remain on thetopic of vegetables can be
contaminated, and whether it'spesticides and a host of other
things.
This is all something that hasto be considered, because
anything that's going in yourmouth is going to stay there, at
least for a few hours, andcould result in health

(13:42):
improvements, or it could resultin adding to your unwellness.

Graham (13:46):
Excellent, love it.
One of the things that I had onmy list here was the idea of
switching to a better cut, of abetter source option of red meat
.
I love ribeye, so I'm justgoing to use ribeye as an
example.
You can use any cut of beef.
The best way to feel full, inmy opinion, out of all the ways

(14:08):
to feel full, is to get the bestsourced steak that you can find
and eat that until you're full.
You no longer want to eat thatmeat anymore.
That meat doesn't taste goodanymore.
That's when your body is sayingyou know what?
I'm full, I've got enough.
And one of the things that Inoticed and I challenged my

(14:28):
friends to check this out aswell is when you have a nice cut
of beef from somewhere, moreany red meat, really and it's
more red meats, I would say,than chicken or turkey or those
kinds of things that tend to beless satiating, in my opinion,
is, if you're having steaks acouple of times a month, even
just once, try and see if youcan find a regenerative farm or

(14:49):
a butcher that buys from aregenerative farm, and see if
you can find a grass-fed and itdoesn't have to be
grass-finished A lot of the timeI will eat sort of a
corn-finished.
This is when they fatten up thecow at the end.
I think there's lots ofopinions out there that it
should be grass fed, grassfinished.
In my opinion, if you can findsomething that's you know, the

(15:10):
majority of the time grass fed,even if it's corn or some other
way finished to fatten it up,sometimes those taste better.
Realize that.
You know later that night you'renot hungry for a midnight snack
anymore.
You may wake up in the morningand your first habit is to oh, I
got to have breakfast.

(15:31):
Well, check out if you'reactually hungry.
You may not be hungry untilnoon because your body has
filled up on something that's sosatiating, so fulfilling, and
it's got all the nutrients thatit possibly could use that it's
more than happy to go into.
You know that that state of I'mmissing the word here, being

(16:09):
serious here hungry, I didn'twant to eat.
I felt great, I had tons ofenergy, and so I had the benefit
of getting all those nutrientsand being full and being happy
and all the benefits of fastingas well.
So, stephen, your thoughts onswitching to a better cut of red
meat?

Stephen (16:26):
I'm also a ribeye fan and interestingly, I find that,
also like you, grassfed grainfinish is a more delicious cut.
There's less of a gamey natureto it because it is a little
different if you're used toeating Perhaps.
Maybe the grocery store meatshave a tendency to be fed other

(16:48):
things that are not nearly ashealthy, and so there is a
different texture.
There's usually a differentcolor to the meat, but there are
other factors that can affectcolor.
I just find, generally, thatthe ribeyes that I'm buying are
certainly not your largeindustrial size grocery chain
meats.
They're of a lower quality.

(17:09):
People tend to look at it andgo, oh wow, I could buy four
steaks for $20.
Sure, that's still way betterthan a box of Oreos for dinner.
But everything is relative and,as you work along this
continuum that you and I aretalking, like anything else,
it's its own continuousimprovement process.
So you're always looking atavenues of improving health
outcomes by improving thequality of what you eat.

(17:31):
You are what you eat, so reallywhat you're driving towards is
what do I enjoy consuming thatis of a high quality, that
satiates me and makes me feelwell?
I couldn't agree more.
In fact, recently I purchasedand I know it didn't come from
the same normal source.
I purchased some ribs andactually just cooked them up
last night and I've actuallydone some consulting with meat

(17:53):
processors in the area thatproduce bacon and pork, and I
understand.
Culturally and religiouslypork's a no-no for some people.
But for the purpose of thisexercise I opened up a bag of
what came from my butcher'sstore but was clearly not
packaged by him, because theyhad run out of the very
delicious ribs that theynormally have that comes from a

(18:13):
local farm.
My wife is not a meat eater.
Her immediate reaction when Iopened up the package once she
came into the kitchen was do wehave rotten eggs in the fridge?
What's that smell?
And it's interesting becauseI'm quite sensitive to that,
having worked across from aslaughterhouse and done the work

(18:35):
for one of the major USentities that produces
pork-based products and I couldtell you that it was almost like
a trigger, because thatparticular order was very
familiar to me because I smeltit every day I went into work.
So I don't know how healthythat was Now again.
Still way healthier than a bagof Oreos, but I won't purchase
those again.

(18:55):
I'll go without.
I'll double up on my steak,I'll double up on my organic
chicken instead.
Because, again, as we go alongthis process, graham, as you
know, you start to becomesomewhat differential to the
source, the quality, and whenyou have something that's of a
lesser quality, which more oftenthan not you and I are
experiencing on the rareoccasions we go to restaurants
it's nowhere near the quality,whether it's ribs or a steak,

(19:17):
and you're obviously paying morein a restaurant than you're
going to at home.
For even a very high qualityYou're not going to get a steak
nowadays, where you and I are,for under 50 bucks.
Money can be saved.
Your health can be saved.
Eat at home, know where yourproduct is coming from, farm to
fork, ideally, and, as you said,you can, sort of you know,

(19:40):
approximate what you're willingto accept.
Does it all have to begrass-fed?
I mean, dr Berg and others talkabout how important that is.
I would agree with you, rib-eye, that I don't even require a
knife, for that comes from mybutcher and my trust is.
In a way it gets puts you inthe right frame of mind when
you're eating it, because you'renot sitting there like you are
in a restaurant going.
I wonder how long this has beensitting there.

(20:00):
I wonder what it'scross-contaminated with.
I wonder if they based my, my,my steak in some kind of
vegetable oil to uh to make itlook more crisp.
You know the peppercorns lookdarker whatever it is.
So I think you're spot on inwhat you're saying with respect
to how and when and where youpurchase your meats.

Graham (20:20):
Excellent.
So the next one on my list and,Stephen, I'll let you start
with this one, because I knowthis is a passionate topic of
yours and you've got a lot ofinsight is trading seed oils,
and I'll explain what seed oilsare.
Is trading seed oils and I'llexplain what seed oils are, but
maybe I'll hand it over to you,Stephen, to talk about trading
seed oils with somethinghealthier, like olive oil,

(20:43):
avocado oil, or even tallow,which comes from beef, or ghee,
which is essentially butterwithout the protein.
So switching from seed oils tomore healthy cooking oil options
.

Stephen (20:57):
I think it's certainly something that people need to be
looking at it carefully.
There's tons and tons ofinformation around the brain
body benefits of omega-3s andhow they promote
anti-inflammation, whereasomega-6s are disrupting them.
And the issue is it istheoretically possible to get a
canola oil that is extremelyhigh quality and will not cause

(21:20):
that disparity between omega-6versus omega-3 ratios, which is
what's ultimately making us sick.
However, good luck finding it.
It's the same issue with someof the other oils.
It is possible to cold presssome of these oils, but there's
very, very few manufacturersthat are in that particular
streams because they're tryingto compete at prices and through

(21:42):
a manufacturing process thatisn't profitable.
Hence, a lot of palm oils,kernel oils, canola oils, which
are typically on industrialfarms.
They end up in these high heat,high processed systems.
Hydrogen oils, oils they're thesame thing that's in your
margarine.
They're all causinginflammation in your body.

(22:02):
So if you're consuming, justtake you were talking, you and I
were talking about this offlineprior to to this podcast.
Just look at the back of youryour favorite salad dressing and
look at xanthan gum and allthese other things that are in
there and it begs the questionwhy are those in there, red dye.
These things are not good foryou.

(22:24):
They're going to make youunwell, which means that, to
your earlier point, if you'reeating three things and two of
them are not good for you,you're not going to get the
benefit from that one thing.
It's not going to win the fightin terms of your overall health
improvements and outcomes, andone of the advantages whether
you're keto or carnivore, one ofthe advantages of carnivore is
you're on a much more strictfocus on that specific meat that

(22:46):
you're consuming and so you'renot getting any outside data
from maybe other things you'reeating that are unhealthy.
That then makes you think thatthe meat you just consumed is
unhealthy.
If you're having a body reaction, as we discussed before, I had
a long history of IBS.
I don't anymore it wasinherently caused by
inflammation from these bad oils.
So your French fries thatyou're buying, you can say, well

(23:06):
, hey, those are keto, right,because they're no.
Potatoes are created equally.
I mean, frankly, poinsettiasare a plant, but don't try
consuming those right.
So some things are just flatout not good for you, and
usually it's also the additionof that end product and how it's
processed that makes it evenworse.
So anything that's at a very,very high heat, like these oils

(23:29):
are typically used becausethey're very, very cheap Palm
oil is probably the cheapest onthe planet it's fundamentally
bad for you and what it causesis this inherent increase in
inflammation in your body, whichleads to symptoms of rheumatoid
arthritis and a host of otherterrible things, including
issues with raising the biome inyour stomach and destroying

(23:50):
good bacteria, and this is whypeople are feeling so unwell,
because it's crept into all ofthe products.
So if you are still keto, likeI am, and you are consuming
salads, make your own salad witha high quality extra virgin.
It's very important extra virginoil, olive oil or avocado oil
that's also cold pressed.
Know where the source is comingfrom.

(24:10):
Check the source to make sureit's not polluted.
There's lots of news right nowcovering olive oils that have
been adulterated with otherproducts because of shortages
and seasons That'll likelyreconcile this season, because
it doesn't appear that Spain andPortugal and others where most
of the olive oil is producedItaly, are having the same
issues, or Greece, so we shouldhave a good crop this year.

(24:32):
So, again, what I do is I go toan actual vendor that only sells
olive oil.
I don't buy it at Costco.
I don't buy it at Loblaw.
You can, but you need to doyour research first for that
specific brand and find outwhere it came from and make sure
that it isn't a lower grade oil, because essentially then
you're comparing differentnaming conventions for still an
oil.
That's not very good for you.

(24:53):
So, yeah, I'm proponent of that.
Avocado oil's advantage, as wetalked about offline, is that
it'll take heat more so beforeit starts to break down than
than olive oil is.
So olive oil is uh there's lotsof research on this very best
when you don't cook with it atall and you just use it in your
salads.
I personally use it on mychicken to hold the seasoning is

(25:13):
.
I don't particularly like thetaste or flavor of avocado, but
I'm baking at a sensibletemperature 350, 300 degrees
Fahrenheit, so I'm not, you know, in the 500 range.
You know, on a barbecue usingit or something like that, where
you know the high heat couldactually start to damage the
molecules that are in the oliveoil.

Graham (25:31):
Excellent and I'd mentioned earlier.
I would talk about someexamples of seed oils, because
some people may not understandwhat that means.
Stephen mentioned palm oil.
You might see sunflower oil,safflower oil, soybean oil,
canola oil, canola oil being thebig one.
It's a Canadian product.
It's actually from the ripeseed, and so they changed the
name as a marketing option tocanola oil.

(25:54):
It is truly amazing how manyproducts in the middle of the
grocery store contain canola oil.
It's something that I'vecertainly moved away from.
Some people switch over to oliveoil.
They find really good sources,because it is difficult to find
ones that are still in a healthystate, and that's less so for
avocado oil.

(26:14):
So to your point, you know,going to a store that just has
olive oils, you're going to betalking to the experts about
which ones are the best options,and their reputation is going
to be, you know, resting on thefact that they're selling you a
quality product.
Some people may switch toavocado oil.
Again, it has a higher smokepoint, which means you can cook
at a hotter temperature, whichmay be an advantage for some.

(26:35):
Others have moved all the way.
Like me, I went from olive oilto avocado oil and I've stuck
with ghee, which is basicallybutter with no protein.
It has a very high smoke point.
I like the taste of it and Ican use it in cooking basically
anything and I don't have toworry about it, and you can find
relatively inexpensive optionsout there, although you can also

(26:57):
find the more fancy grass-fed,grass-finished ghee.
To me, that's not necessary.
I wanted to change it up alittle bit, stephen, and this is
something that I did in myjourney for about six months,
and that is to track what youeat.
For a little while.
Let's say, you don't want tochange anything at all, and
maybe while you're tracking whatyou eat, you may want to make

(27:20):
less changes to what you eat, sothat you can understand,
basically, your current state.
Using something likeMyFitnessPal, I know, is a
popular one there's a number ofthem out there that allow you to
enter in the food that you'veeaten in a meal, and it used to
be quite difficult to do this.
You'd have to do it on paper,you'd have to track and you'd
have to look up things.

(27:41):
Today, you can essentially sayI had three eggs, or I had, you
know, a stick of butter, or Ihad a steak, or I had a bowl of
cereal and it will do all of thecalculations for you.
It gives you an idea of acouple of things.
It gives you an idea of yourmacro ratios, which is
carbohydrates to fat, to proteinratios.

(28:01):
Those are the three macros.
It will also give you an ideaof your micronutrient intake.
So are you getting enoughvitamins and minerals to have a
healthy lifestyle?
When I was tracking these things, I had already made a number of
changes, and the reason Iwanted to track them was because
I wanted to figure out A, werethese changes contributing to a

(28:21):
more healthy lifestyle?
I believe they were, but Iwanted to make sure.
And then, b, was there anythingthat I was lacking?
I found out that I could up mycalcium intake, so I added a bit
more cheese.
I found that, you know, I wasprobably low in magnesium.
I knew I was low on vitamin D,even though I walked every day.
In the winter there's not asmuch sun, and so I had to up my

(28:43):
vitamin D in the winter.
But I spent six months trackingeverything in an app.
I didn't have to do it afterthat because I essentially eat
very similarly every week as faras my meal choices go there,
you know know, there's a fairlyshort list, so I know that I'm
getting what I need and, um, Iadded a few things cod liver oil
a really good quality cod liveroil so that I could get my

(29:04):
omega-3s and vitamin a and andso I made a number of changes as
a result.
But it was amazing to be ableto go back and track what I ate
and look at the history and, uh,and it gave me peace of mind
that the journey that I was onwas a sustainable one.
What are your thoughts on this,stephen?
I don't know if we've evertalked about whether you did
this or not, but I'm interestedin your opinion.

Stephen (29:23):
I haven't done it to that level of granularity that
you've done and actually it wasinforming for me to hear about
these particular apps.
Where I use it is integratedinto my constant glucose meter.
So when I exercise or when Ieat, I record the meals in the
app that correlate to whatevermy sugar or glucose is at that
time.
So the rationale behind that isto monitor where am I before I

(29:47):
start a meal?
Where am I two hours after ameal?
Do I normalize?
Did I have a spike?
And if I've had a spike, I'llgo back and look at well, did I
have a spike?
And if I've had a spike, I'llgo back and look at.
Well, what is it that Iconsumed?
Did I perhaps revert to someold habits, like you were
talking earlier about habits andhow hard they are to break?
Did I have a snack after mymeal, even if it was a keto, a

(30:08):
dark chocolate keto, with twoinches of organic peanut butter
stacked on it?
Did I have a reaction?
Are there stress factors orother elements that are going on
with my day-to-day life, be itwork or otherwise, that are
contributing to it?
Even as insane as it may sound,I've noticed that, depending on
what I'm even, and I rarelywatch TV, but when I do, if I'm

(30:29):
watching something that'sparticularly violent, it
destabilizes the entiredigestive process for me and
will actually cause my glucoseto go up.
So there are externalenvironmental factors that can
contribute to that and there'sways in which to manage it.
So I believe strongly in theholistic view of what it is that
you're doing and how you'redoing it, what your body's doing
in that moment.
And some may view that I take itto an obsessive level because

(30:51):
I'm constantly monitoring.
I can even monitor how oftenI'm monitoring.
It'll give me a readout for howmany times I've checked in that
two-week period my glucosereadings and it's likely, by
most standards, over the top.
But I'm that dialed into itusing that same method as you.
Now it won't give me the.
I'm entering the information ona historical basis of what I'm

(31:12):
consuming.
It won't say those four eggsyou had this morning have 28
grams of protein.
I know that.
I know how much is in my bacon.
I know that what my ratio needsto be, based on my weight, of
how many grams of protein I needto consume, especially as I'm
still trying to load up andbuild muscle because I spend a
fair amount of time weekly inthe gym doing strength

(31:33):
exercising, which again has animpact on my glucose and makes
me more metabolically resilient.
So I think it's a number offactors that you pointed at that
should include, at least as afoundation.
They say in real estate, theysay it's all about location,
location, location.
In this space that we'redescribing, it's all about diet,
diet, diet, and everythingemanates from that.

(31:55):
If you're trying to enjoy yourwalks, as you do, if you're
trying to build muscle in yourmid to late fifties, as I'm
trying to do, so I don't atrophy, so I don't.
I suffer from sarcopenia, likeso many do at our age.
So these are things thatindividuals will be able to
modulate, but it ultimatelystarts with everything we talked
about in this webcast, which iswhat are you eating and what do

(32:19):
you expect the outcome to be?
Because if your body's findingwhat you just consumed, in terms
of what it's doing to yourbiome, how it's making you feel
unwell, you're less motivated togo to the gym, you're less
motivated to try to increase themaximum amount of weight you
push, you're less motivated todo two and a half miles on the
elliptical, you're lessmotivated to go for a walk with
your dog, as far as you would,because you don't feel that
great.
So this whole process.

(32:42):
Well, let me turn this into aquestion.
How many times have you had acold or the flu over the course
of the last year?
How many times?

Graham (32:51):
Had a flu, but it's the first time and I'm going to say
this was a month ago.
It hit the whole family prettyhard.
Fortunately it didn't hit mefor a couple of days so I could
look after the wife and kids inthe house, but it hit me.
But that's the first time thatI've had any sort of illness in

(33:14):
the last two years.
And that's the first time in mylife because I have a problem
with my sinuses and I actuallyhad an MRI to find out why.
Why was it that I was gettingthese sinus infections at least
once a year?
I could feel it coming on andit wouldn't go away.
And the problem is I neededantibiotics to try and get rid

(33:35):
of it because, as I found out,there's this divot in my sinuses
that the bacteria infection canhide and my body can't
naturally flush it as it wantsto.
I haven't had a sinus infectionsince I switched over to this
diet and it was so consistent inthe past and I'm talking
consistent for 25 years ofhaving at least one, if not two

(33:59):
or three, in any given winter.
Since I switched the way I eat,for some reason I have not had
a sinus infection.
I have not had to takeantibiotics, which you know,
doctors know is not good foryour microbiome in your gut,
because of course it's killingthe good bacteria as well as the
bad bacteria, and so I've neverhad more energy and I've never

(34:22):
been sick less.

Stephen (34:23):
Yeah, I want to continue to pull on that thread
a bit because a lot of what yousaid resonated with me as well.
I had several martial arts andsoccer injuries that resulted in
my nose being broken threetimes, and professionally once.
So I had a sinorhinoplasty andany time that for those that
don't know, the sinorhinoplastyis a pretty significant
operation.
My nose was essentially putback together and for the

(34:45):
longest time I had seasonalallergies.
Like you, I had sinus issues.
I would get really nasty sinusinfections, which is all
associated with inflammation,and until you raised that point,
I hadn't really thought about agraham in that context.
But I even went so far as tosee a specialist in my local
original hometown and he checkedmy sinuses because I said I

(35:09):
don't have a deviated septum, Ihave this, and that he goes you
don't have a deviated septum.
And I said, well, I'm havingissues with my congestion or
what have you, and he said no,you're not, because he tested my
airflow and everything else andmade a determination that that
wasn't the case.
So what was interesting is thatthe change in diet actually

(35:31):
made those symptoms go away.
I have a lot of very expensiveproducts that are burning
through their shelf life that Ipaid for, that I don't require
or use this time of year, as youand I both know, depending on
what your heat source is it'sthe winter air it tends to get
dry in your home.
I used to have much like you.
I would have one pretty, youknow, lose a week, week and a
half of work kind of illnessthat I would have to deal with,

(35:53):
whether it was a stomach flu.
Usually it was respiratoryrelated and, yes, we live
relatively close and I didn'tget the one that was going
around this time and there wereplenty of people that had it and
I think it's a combination ofmy vitamin regimen and diet that
prevented it the magnesium,making sure I have sufficient
zinc, getting D3 and pill formbecause you and I are
experiencing darkness by 4 pm,4.30.

(36:16):
It's getting better, but withthis weekend with daylight
savings time.
But the point is we're notgetting what we need and you and
I knew that, even with ourdiets and we went about
improving outcomes and I don'thave those symptoms anymore
Offline.
You were talking about how yourshoulder isn't bothering you
anymore because of the diet thatyou're on.
So this is how dialed in we arein our respective cases and how

(36:39):
interestingly it intersectswith what you experience and you
having sinus issues.
I don't think you and I knew upuntil this podcast that we both
had similar issues.
Now, isn't that interesting.

Graham (36:51):
Right yeah, 100%.
I guess it's one of thosethings that people just live
with, right.
They think they just I got tolive with it.
There's nothing I can do aboutit.
There's nothing I can do aboutthe arthritis or the shoulder
pain Anything with an itis onthe end, which means
inflammation.
There's nothing I can do aboutit.
Well, the fact is, there mightbe something that you can do

(37:12):
about it, and the only way tofind out is to give it a try,
don't realize.

Stephen (37:19):
They're just like consuming a bad diet has
knockdown effects.
Consuming a good diet hasknockdown effects too that are
quite positive, and you may notnecessarily always be observant
of what those are, and it takesa moment like this to reflect
and go oh, that's interesting.
I haven't had sinusitis now forlike three or four years.

Graham (37:39):
Why is that?
Yeah, I'm more than happy toleave that behind.
I got to tell you that thosewere constant 24-hour headaches
that made it difficult to sleep,and I would always fight it for
as long as I possibly couldbecause I did not want those
antibiotics.
And I look back fondly at thefact that I, you know, knock on
wood, I haven't had to do thosesince.

(38:01):
All right, let's move on to ournext item thing.
You know, small things that youcan do in when you're starting
out on your journey Ditching lowfat options with full fat
options.
This is something to me.
This is like.
There's a couple of subjectsthat we can talk about here.
The first is you'll see low fatadvertised all over the place

(38:25):
Oftentimes and you know we'lltalk about in reading the
ingredient list, hopefullyoftentimes what they replace
full fat with because fat isdelicious.
If anyone's ever had bacon andsome people can't have bacon or
choose not to, but for thosethat love bacon, there's a
reason why we love bacon it isthe fattiest of all fatty meats

(38:45):
for the most part, unless youget that awesome ribeye, and so
full fat is very tasty and verysatiating.
It's very filling, but we thinkif we eat fat.
I have a family member whoabsolutely is convinced that if
they had fat from a steak thatthey're going to get fat.
I found the exact opposite,actually, I'm full, I'm fuller,

(39:08):
I eat less and I tend to losethe right amount of weight to
get me to where my body shouldbe, as opposed to eating the
sugar and seed oils that theyreplace fat with in order to
offer a low-fat option.
So the first is you know, tryand avoid the low-fat options of

(39:29):
you know butter or milk, youknow cottage cheese, these kinds
of things.
And part two of that is take alook at the expensive sour cream
container.
Where I live, it's the goldversion.
Read the ingredient list on thetop of the line sour cream, or
at least one of the moreexpensive sour creams, and

(39:52):
compare that with the cheapestsour cream and you'll be very
surprised at how manyingredients they have to add to
the cheap sour cream to actuallymake it edible enough or tasty
enough that you'll eat it,versus the more expensive and
you know might be a couple ofbucks more.
They don't need to add anythingto it.

(40:13):
You'll read an ingredient listof one or two things, because
the fat is not only filling, butit also tastes great.
So steven your thoughts onmoving from the low fat to the
higher fat options, and thiscould be ground beef.
It could be.
You know we all eat extra leanground beef.
I'm lucky enough to have agrocery store that has, you know

(40:33):
, other options other than extralean ground beef, because if I
eat the other options, the morefatty ground beefs, I'm fuller
for a lot longer and it tastesabsolutely amazing.

Stephen (40:45):
Yeah, it's interesting because the meats, the extra
lean meats, are actually moreexpensive than the regular
hamburger is, which is kind ofironic.
There's more.
There's, you know, usually moreprocessing that's involved and
a more secular part of theanimal that's being harvested
that is considered lean, as wellas what they're being fed.
So that's point number one.

(41:06):
Point number two, with respectto other products other than
meats, it's hard to find out howmuch sugar is on meat because
they don't one provide it, andI'm not being coy here.
There are some times whenyou'll go to the grocery store
where they've piled all kinds ofseasoning and stuff that's on,
say, a chicken, that's a rawchicken or salmon.
You have no idea what's in that.
And if you are a diabetic, as Iam, in remission or otherwise,

(41:30):
I would strongly recommend younot purchase those.
There's another reason for thatI strongly believe, having
known somebody that worked inthe industry and the family is
that some of those meats are notalways, but sometimes they're
on their way out.
There's only a day or two lefton them, and to make them still
appetizing, they'll douse themwith all kinds of seasoning and
hope you don't notice when youthrow it in the oven.

(41:51):
So certainly be cautious aboutthat.
But coming back to the otherthings like the butters and
yogurt I mean, and while notjust yogurt but also sour cream,
those are pretty big staples ofmy cultural family Sour cream
and yogurt was always present,but it was always Greek and it
was always.
The sour cream was like yousaid you spin it around and

(42:14):
you're not going to be confusedby what you're reading so very,
very standard ingredients thateverybody could understand.
You know milk solids and thatsort of thing and cultures and
what have you.
So that's really important.
And ironically, as a sidebar,if you look at the world's
tallest bodybuilder, olivierRichter consumes a massive

(42:37):
amount of 7,000 calories and I'mnot here to suggest that people
need to do that.
A big big part of his diet isthese proteins, including Greek
yogurt.
He eats probably what I wouldconsume in a week in Greek
yogurt, but he's on to somethinghe continues to add on muscle.
Greek yogurt is a protein.

(42:57):
But the thing I really want tostress, particularly for people
who are concerned about sugarCompare, compare what 4% cottage
cheese looks like compared to2%, and when you flip it over
and look at the ingredients,you're going to find sometimes
twice, even three times as muchsugar in the lower fat.
So think about that.
It's less fat, but it's waymore sugar.

(43:18):
Which one do you think is goingto cause you greater harm,
especially as a diabetic?
The same applies with yogurts.
Go ahead and pick up thatpretty labeled yogurt that's got
lovely black cherries on it andyou will find in that small
little container probably anequal amount of sugar as you're
finding in a can of soda pop,which we already covered, is not
a good idea, diet or otherwise.

(43:39):
It's amazing.
So five grams I know it byheart.
I have two brands.
Five grams is in the Oikosbrand, which is a Greek natural
yogurt, and the great part too,for people to pay attention,
particularly with yogurt, graham, as we're talking about this,
don't just look at how muchsugar is in it.
Also look at the percentage ofmilk fat and also look at how

(44:02):
much protein's in it.
There are Greek yogurts outthere that have 11 grams of
protein per serving.
That's a lot.
That's a chicken breast interms of grams of protein.
So there's ways to stack andassemble a very satiating diet
that includes these if you'renot lactose intolerant and if

(44:23):
you are been there too, butamazingly, as I cleaned up my
diet.
I'm not lactose intolerantanymore.
I don't have the sameinflammation.
I've taken out all the seedoils.
So my health improvements, myeyesight's better All these
different factors that we'vetouched on in previous podcasts
and we'll drill in in futurepodcasts fundamentally come down
to sticking to what you hadsaid in a previous podcast.

(44:52):
Stick to our ancestral diet.
Because why?
Because sour cream was in myhome, butter was in my home.
Even what we called Maslow,which was like a tallow, was
regularly used in frying pans toprovide some kind of oil to the
meat so they wouldn't stick tothe frying pan.
They didn't have Teflon back inthose days.
So you know it was a way thatwe just naturally cooked.
You know our salads had vinegaron them, which was essentially

(45:16):
the same benefit that you getfrom apple cider vinegar.
So when you decompose all thosemeals, what you discover, graham
, is every single thing that wewere consuming had a strong
health outcome before maybe eventhey understood it.
You know it wasn'tover-processed, it was made
fresh, it was made with love inthe kitchen, be it your mother,
your grandmother, one of yourother relatives.

(45:39):
And what you consumed,relatives, and what you consumed
the fish was fresh from themarket.
It wasn't frozen and stuck in afreezer somewhere at the back
of the grocery store.
Everything you knew for surewhere it was coming from.
The salmon didn't fall apartwhen you were trying to eat it.
It was still firm and fresh.
Or bought fish to the oneyou're catching in a clean lake

(46:04):
and you'll be shocked at thedifference in the quality and
texture of the meat.
That applies to everything thatyou're consuming when it comes
to meats or vegetables.

Graham (46:12):
I think it's such a good point about that.
And just to add and youinferred this the fattier and I
talked about this as well thefattier and when I say fat I
mean saturated fat the fattierthe food, the more full you're
going to feel for longer and thebetter it's going to taste.
And so people might say and youused a really good example of

(46:33):
or cottage cheese is going topotentially be more expensive,
but keep in mind that you aregoing to, overall, eat less if
you switch over to a naturallyhigh saturated fat food.
One of the next topics, and youknow hoping on a future podcast

(46:58):
, we can actually talk aboutsome of the foods that you and I
have come up with meals, snacks, that kind of thing because we
all tend to get hungry from timeto time.
How have we dealt with thosehunger pains when we get hangry?
But we want to, you know, avoidsome of the ultra-processed
foods.
So I'll leave that for anotherday.
But one of the things whenpeople ask me you know what's an

(47:20):
easy way to eat more healthy?
Because I'm so confused when Iwalk down the aisles in the
grocery store I see the hearthealthy symbol, I see the low
fat, I see the you know thehealthy cereal I see here in
advertisements.
This is good for you, that'sgood for you.
It's so bloody confusing that Idon't know what to buy.

(47:40):
And I have been there so Icompletely understand where.
You know where this, wherethese people, are coming from.
I completely get it and Itotally understand.
One of the things that I do letthem know is when you go
grocery shopping, the idealscenario is that you've already
decided what you want to buybefore you go, already decided

(48:06):
what you want to buy before yougo, and you've eaten a higher
fat meal before you leave.
So it's an easy example ahigher fat ground beef, throw a
couple of eggs in there, mix itall up, eat as much as you can
uh, you know, half an hourbefore you go grocery shopping
and then where you can stick tothe perimeter, because that is
most of the time, if not all thetime, going to be better for

(48:29):
you than the stuff in the middleof the grocery store.
There are certainly exceptionsin the middle of the grocery
store.
You know I like to eat olives,but I prefer to get the you know
the better quality sourcedolives, just because I find they
taste better and I'm going toeat them.
I'm more likely to eat thembefore they go bad and you have
to throw them out because youreally didn't want to eat them

(48:49):
in the first place.
Those are in the middle of thegrocery store.
So I certainly have exceptions,but where you can make a list
so that you're already decidingwhat you're going to buy before
you go.
Don't go on an empty stomachbecause you're going to tend to
buy things that are quick,satiating foods like chips and
crackers and what have you,because you want to eat those in
the car on the drive home andstick to the perimeter where,

(49:11):
for the most part, you are goingto walk home with a healthier
grocery list.
You may have to eat it fasterbecause that box of food that
lasts a year it's not going tobe good for you, but it lasts a
heck of a long time.
You may need to go to thegrocery store more often, but at
least you have better qualityfood for you and the family at

(49:32):
home.

Stephen (49:32):
Your thoughts, stephen I couldn't agree more the way
you described it.
You know, staying to theperimeter, yes, I wander in the
center from time to time, eitherto traverse to the other side
or scoop up some coffee, andit's still something that I
enjoy, but I take my coffee, youknow I'm an intermittent faster
.
I take my coffee with my creamand, yes, it kicks me out of
ketosis for a little bit, but Islide right back in there and

(49:54):
very short order.
So, yeah, there, there'scertainly where you shop, how
you shop.
It's a great idea not to go inthere hungry because you will,
as you said, I've, you know,literally guilty as charged
prior to my diagnosis.
I would do that.
You would grab some chips andeat those while you're heading
home.
You know, to make a meal for thekids and these habits are habit

(50:20):
forming and they become beliefs.
Oh, you know, I was shopping,this is my little reward.
And you're eating somethingthat's filled with maltodextrin,
which is just another fancyword for sugar, and you're
getting this sugar spike and youfeel even worse by the time you
get the groceries unloaded.
You can't make your meal fastenough.
So now you're snacking on otherstuff and then you're not
eating a proper meal becauseyour sugar is elevated and you
know your body's confused bywhat's going on because you're

(50:42):
still trying to add food to itand then you have the risk of
overeating while you're tryingto eat a normal meal because now
your sugar's crashed, becauseit's 30, 40 minutes after you
started consuming stuff in thevehicle.
So there are a whole bunch ofhacks and tricks and you
mentioned some good ones toavoid and certainly how you shop
and when you shop and what youpurchase.
Very difficult to staydisciplined when you have an

(51:05):
empty stomach and you're in agrocery store.

Graham (51:07):
Well said, well said, and I know we're coming up on
the hour, and so I think we'vetalked about a lot of really
interesting options today.
Maybe in the future we'll getinto some specific meals or
specific snacks that may helpwith keeping us satiated,
healthy and feeling the best wepossibly can.
But, you know, one of thethings to keep in mind and

(51:30):
something that I've had to keepreminding myself as I've been on
this journey, is you know, Ithink when people make a change
to their health, an improvementto their health, no matter what
it is and in this case we'retalking about food when they
make improvements, that meanschange.
Change can be stressful, andwhat we end up doing if it is

(51:53):
successful, is we end upstopping the listening of one
group's advice and starting thelistening of another group's
advice.
And what we need to keep inmind is you are potentially on a
different part of the journeyas somebody else.
So if you're just starting outand you're just trying to figure

(52:14):
this out, and you might belistening to podcasts and
watching YouTube videos andreading books and that kind of
thing, you are on a muchdifferent point in the journey
than somebody else.
So you may decide and I'll usethis as an example and I want to
hear your thoughts on this.
Stephen is you might hear youmight decide that I'm going to

(52:35):
switch from canola oil cooking.
You know nice, cheap, giant jugcanola oil from Costco.
I'm going to switch that witholive oil.
I'm going to try and find thebest olive oil that I possibly
can, and somebody might comealong and go oh no, what you
should be doing is you should beusing tallow and ghee.
Well, you know what.

(52:56):
They may not be wrong, but youswitching from canola oil to
olive oil is a significant stepup in the journey towards a
healthier lifestyle, and so donot feel pressured that you're
doing the wrong thing whenyou're actually making a good
choice like that.
And so you're going to hear alot of don't do this or do this.

(53:18):
You're going to hear a lot ofdon't do this or do this.
I think people need to be awarethat when they're speaking to
other people, the best thing youpossibly can do is be an
advocate for them, to point outthat they're actually doing
something you know, doingsomething significant to improve
their health, and we shouldavoid, when we're giving advice
or when we're listening toadvice, we should avoid this

(53:39):
idea that, oh, even though I'mmaking an improvement, I'm still
not doing something as well asyou are and you're farther along
in the journey.
Because what that can do is itcan send you right back to just
buying the canola oil and givingup because you're too confused.
You've heard too muchinformation.
You're hearing all of thesedifferent opinions.
The fact is, you may end upgoing from olive oil to avocado

(54:04):
oil, to ghee or to tallow, andyou may decide that that is the
journey for you, or you maystick to a high-quality olive
oil that is significantly betterthan what you were doing before
.
You should pat yourself on theback and you should know that
you are on your own journey, andI don't call this a diet, I

(54:25):
call it a lifestyle.
You're on your own point inthat journey towards a better
eating lifestyle.
Don't let anybody discourageyou by thinking you're not far
enough along or as far as theyare your thoughts.

Stephen (54:41):
Stephen, I think you hit the nail on the head.
I think the biggest enemy isreally yourself and how you
perceive your own success andwhat you define as success.
I mean, I wear a CGM.
I had amazing sugar when I wasoverseas for work because I
couldn't snack.
There were no distractions, Iwas focused on work and what
have you?
There was a latency effect.

(55:02):
I got back home into certainhabits and I noticed immediately
the same as last time Itraveled that my sugar was up.
And then I got on my case aboutmy sugar being up, which raised
my cortisol, and I stoppedlooking at other environmental
factors that were increasingthat sugar, which had probably
nothing to do with anythingother than my cortisol, was up
from stress.
So it can become aself-fulfilling prophecy.
So that's number one.

(55:23):
So you have to be wise enoughand aware enough of what's going
on in your body and essentiallystrip away all of the factors
that might be contributing to adifferent outcome than you had
last time you consumed roastbeef.
Maybe the roast beef isn't bad,maybe it's not that the butcher
made an error in what it wasthat he gave you.
It may be that you may be in anagitated state and it wasn't

(55:43):
the best time for you to eat.
So just take a break.
You're not going to starve todeath by missing a meal.
It's not going to happen.
You might feel, oh, I'mstarving, but there's plenty of
evidence out there that peoplehave gone literally weeks, and
sometimes extended months,without eating, so you will not
start.
You certainly want to make surethat, if you're going to go down

(56:03):
that path to lose weight,that's not what we're talking
about here.
We're talking about generally,as you said, a lifestyle you
will have to modulate.
You will have to make changesand adjust.
There's something calledmetabolic resilience.
Your body will plateau, whetherit's weight training, whether
it's walking.
It will plateau because ourbodies strive for equilibrium.
So sometimes you have to switchit up.

(56:24):
Continuous improvement processof looking at your own body and
saying, well, today I did this,it worked for me last week, but
it's not working for him thesame way.
Well, switch it up.
Maybe look for even fresherfresh eggs, maybe look for even
better beef, and be in thatmindset of, hey, I'm doing this
for me and as far as otherpeople are concerned, I could
literally look at my resultsfrom last week.

(56:45):
I'm the same person with thesame inputs and the same inputs
and my reaction.
If I was a patient of self, ofhow I did last week compared to
how I'm doing this week, I wouldask myself the question, in the
absence of the information Ialready have, and go Stephen,
what did you do last week andwhat is different than this week
?
So the reality is being too hardon yourself in this journey is

(57:08):
completely unfair to yourselfand obviously, diving into a
bucket of ice cream because yourfriend's getting better results
and still manages to eat pizza,that's their journey, and I
love the word journey.
It's that this is not adestination and what's amazing,
what's amazing about that iswhen you think about how long
you've been sick without knowingyou were sick and you had IBS

(57:30):
and you had all these otherissues that you kind of pushed
away because you get the kids totheir activities.
I got to do my work, I got todo this or that and you have a
friend that says, hey, you knowyou okay.
Today, like I noticed, you knowyou're maybe spending more time
, perhaps not, at your desk andof course they're being polite
because you've spent majority ofyour day going in and out of
the washroom, because you'rereacting from your lunch that

(57:51):
was unhealthy or what have you.
So these kinds of changes thatyou're modulating, think about
it.
No-transcript.

(58:27):
Good for you.
In a matter of 15 or 20 minutesI can clock in on my CGM, but
don't expect that, eating beefwith one meal, all of a sudden
you're going to drop all theweight that you want.
All of a sudden your bloodmarkers are going to be perfect,
etc.
It's a progression and as youbegin to narrow the field of
potential inputs that arecausing certain outputs, you no
longer like.

(58:48):
You'll feel like you're back incontrol, because now you know
hey, it's not the meat and it'snot the yogurt and it's not the
salad and it's not the saladdressing.
So what else is going on withme?
Right now, and maybe a day ortwo later, you are unwell and
that's why your sugar's up,because your body's already
finding something that youhaven't experienced as a symptom
.
So be kind to yourself andrealize okay, I got next week to

(59:12):
do better.
If I so choose Now, if you'vedone something you know that's
not good for you, then you'veseen the results.
You can't argue with the math.
You know what the solution is.

Graham (59:26):
Better to know the solution than to continue to
accept the problem and theconsequences that come with it.
I think that's really well said, and one of the really
interesting things about thatjourney and everybody being on
their own journey is everylittle thing that you do to
improve your health, and thatcan be as simple as switching
from margarine to the bestbutter that you can afford or

(59:47):
the best sourced butter you canafford.
Those little things make littleimprovements.
If you do a lot of littlethings over time, you're going
to potentially see a lot ofimprovement, and one of the
things that you touched on soeloquently is by the time that
I'd hit what I think is my idealweight and I had more energy

(01:00:07):
and I felt better and my brainfog was gone and my arthritis
was gone and my IBS was gone andall of these things that boy.
Looking back, I'm like how theheck did you live through all
that?
What I realized is I wasn'tbroken.
There wasn't some fundamentalthing that was wrong with me.
You know I was just going toget old and I was going to die
sick.
That I, that I had this newlease on life, and it is exactly

(01:00:30):
what you just talked about thatcontrol and I think this is a
really good segue to the verylast piece of advice.
And and you touched on thisyou're going to fail.
There are going to be momentswhere you're going to fail, and
everybody has a differentversion of fail.
Right, I was at Costco last week.
For some reason I had a hot dogwith the bun, with ketchup and

(01:00:53):
relish.
I just I wanted it.
I probably went to Costcohungry and that wasn't a good
idea.
I went late afternoon, when I'mready to have that steak or
whatever it is, and I waswalking out of Costco and I
thought why did I do that?
Now, healthy occasionally, Iswitched it over, so in that

(01:01:14):
case, I was eating healthy mostof the time and I had something
that was bad for me, so itreally didn't affect me that
much.
The next day I did feel alittle bit of arthritis, but it
was a tiny little bit.
It was enough of a reminder tome to.

(01:01:36):
You know, maybe you just wantthe hot dog and not the bun.
Next time you don't want theketchup, you don't want the
relish, and you know what?
They're bloody tasty.
Maybe get rid of all the sugarstuff.
It's okay to fail, you know somepeople might say I had this
chunky thing on Friday.
I guess the weekend is ruined.
I'll start this new thing backon Monday.

(01:01:56):
You can do that if you want.
Or you can choose to startagain on Saturday morning, not
beat yourself up, pat yourselfon the back and say you know,
like you said, it's been 20, 30,40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 years of
eating a certain way.
That's gotten me to a certainpoint that I don't like.
It's not going to fix itselfovernight, and the habit change

(01:02:20):
to the point where it becomes alifestyle versus effort does
take some time, a lot of thetime.
It's better to do this slowly,make good decisions that you can
stick with, and if you fail,it's okay, get back up, try
again the next day.
You're not alone.
I've certainly been there andthat's called being human.
Your thoughts, stephen, as wewrap up the podcast?

(01:02:42):
Yeah, I think.

Stephen (01:02:42):
as a wrap up, all I would say is I couldn't agree
more.
And you know people that beatthemselves up.
All they're doing is getting intheir own way of their success
and just get back on the horse.
I'm not a fan of cheat days.
I don't believe in that.
I think cheat days set you upfor cheat weeks and cheat months
.
Just don't dwell on it.
Don't dwell on the negative,just carry on and go.
Okay.

(01:03:02):
So I'm not going to do thatagain, because I'm going to
remember next week how I feltand I'm not going to eat that
again.
I'm going to adjust.
Or maybe I'll have somesauerkraut and stack some stuff
in my stomach first.
That increases my bioreactivityand so I'll have an easier time
digesting what I'm consumingright after it, which is still a

(01:03:22):
healthy way to go.
I feel satiated and I don'tfeel bloated.
I'm not getting gas, I'm notgetting all these other
contributing factors, so it'sjust being dialed into what it
is to your point, to your body,and when you slip and slide,
it's just a gentle reminder thatyou don't want to go back there
.
It's not really a failure.
It might be more of a sidestepto say yeah, I remember that and

(01:03:42):
I see the same with my sugar.
I'll see it go up and go.
Hmm, what did I do?
Well, I had a decaf coffee atnine o'clock at night and that
stirred my you know myadrenaline, and now my sugar is
higher.
So now I'm going to have toaddress that tomorrow.

Graham (01:04:05):
So it is what it is.
It is what it is.
We're not robots.
We're humans.
We're going to make mistakes.
What also makes us human is wecan actually go back and fix
those mistakes.
It's not like you've murderedsomebody.
Eating that box of junk food orthat bag of junk food is not
the end of the world.
You can recover.
The most important thing is youtry.
Stephen.
Amazing conversation, Thank youso much for today and we'll see
you next time.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
Thank you Thanks for tuning into Lessons from the
Keto-Verse.
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stories to fuel your health.
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