What To Say To The Keto Carnivore Critic: Helping You Debunk Common Misconceptions

Episode Transcript
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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.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Lessons from
the Keto-Verse.
Today, stephen and I aretalking about the things that
you will inevitably hear whenpeople find out you are on the
keto or carnivore diet.
This would be things thatpeople, once they find out that
you have changed your eatinglifestyle, they might notice

(00:40):
that you've got no veggies onyour plate, or very few veggies.
You've got a big steak, but youknow not the usual
accoutrements that peoplegenerally fill their plate up
with.
Or you just ordered thehamburger patties and nothing
else.
Or people are asking you aboutyou know what's changed in your
life.
The doctor wonders why yourblood work is so much better

(01:02):
than it was the previous yearwhich happened to myself and
Steven as well and they'll askwhat your change in diet was and
you'll tell them and you willinevitably hear certain things
from them once you have let thecat out of the bag and let them
know what your eating lifestyleis.
Stephen, say hello to everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Hi everyone, good to be here again.
Again, thanks for joining us.
We really appreciate yoursupport.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yes, we sure do.
All right, so let's talk aboutsome things that Stephen and I
have actually heard from people,or we have heard just in
general reactions to when peoplefind out your eating lifestyle
is switched over to a keto orcarnivore diet.
This could be, like I said,professionals in your life and I

(01:49):
know Stephen's got some storiesthere family members, certainly
friends, your spouse, betterhalf You're inevitably going to
hear some of these things.
So I'm going to kick things offwith one that I hear all the
time, which is oh, you're on theketo, carnivore diet, you're
going to get a heart attack fromall that saturated fat and

(02:12):
cholesterol, and so what is theresponse?
So the reason why people thinkthis and we've covered this
previously in podcasts there hasbeen a vilification of red meat
in particular and meat ingeneral over the past 120 years
or so.
It started with a person namedEllen G White.

(02:35):
You're welcome to look thatstory up.
It's very interesting.
It continued with theorganization that she was a part
of.
Certainly, there have beenreligious interventions that
have said you know, plants arewonderful, meat is not or is
evil and you need to stay awayfrom it.

(02:55):
Ancel Keys in the 50s and 60s,telling everybody that saturated
fat causes heart disease, eventhough he had absolutely no
science to base that on.
It was purely his wish thatpeople ate less meat and wish
that people ate more plants, andvegetables, specifically and

(03:18):
fruits, and so there has neverbeen an actual randomized
control study.
There has never been an actualrandomized control study showing
that saturated fat and red meatcause heart disease.
It was only up until about 2015when the website CDC, american
Heart Association, started toactually uncover the fact that

(03:42):
there is no link betweensaturated fat, red meat and
heart disease.
If you understand the mechanismthat causes heart disease, and
as Steven and I both believethat this is a result of insulin
resistance, which is a resultof too much sugar in the
bloodstream, which is a resultof too much highly processed

(04:05):
foods and or carbs sugar butcarbs turn into sugar or sugar
itself.
That gets into the bloodstreamrequires the insulin to spike to
get the glucose into the cellsand at some point, the cells
just say you know what?
I give up, I don't have enoughroom, you, I can't deal with all

(04:26):
this extra glucose and theglucose ends up remaining in the
bloodstream.
Inevitably, you are much morelikely to get diagnosed with
type 2 diabetes as a result ofthat, and this is when some
serious problems start to happenaround metabolic health, around
heart disease, all sorts ofproblems that can occur as a

(04:48):
result.
So, stephen, let us know yourthoughts on you're going to get
a heart attack from all thatsaturated fat and cholesterol.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yeah, I had a similar experience completely
independently with two doctorson the weekend.
One was a naturopathic doctorwhere I was getting a treatment
with glutathione and I don'thave a significant liver issue,
perhaps a past history withnon-alcohol fatty liver not to

(05:19):
the stage of disease, butcertainly a factor and often
that's the case with withdiabetics.
Something is going wrong, uh,with your liver and we we're not
doctors.
I'm just expressing sort of myown experience.
But right away I was told, as Iwas using a glutathione to to
assist with hair loss, and um,she said, why are you concerned

(05:40):
about it?
And I said well, you know,vanity starts with capital V and
incidentally, I'm on a ketocarnivore diet.
And she said how can you be both?
They're not the same.
And I said, well, because somemeals are carnivore and some
meals are keto.
And she indicated that one, asyou just said, that there is a
higher likelihood, potentiallywith too much protein, that I

(06:04):
could increase the potentialityfor too high cholesterol and
possibly a heart attack, whichthere's absolutely no proof of
that.
And, coincidentally, too, saidthat an excessive amount of
protein could actuallycontribute to hair loss, which,
again, I don't believe we fallinto the excessive side of
things at all, which, again, Idon't believe we fall into the
excessive side of things at all,and that it's relatively

(06:26):
balanced.
I think it's a function.
I am 58, and a lot of men sufferfrom male pattern baldness by
the time they get to our age.
And again, it's just.
Even with someone who's gone toschool for seven years instead
of three, like your typical GP,they're still only as good as

(06:46):
the information that they lastlearned when they looked into it
.
And, coincidentally, at thesame time, I dropped in and paid
a visit to my optometrist atone of the big box stores and
hadn't seen her in months.
Last time I saw her, my sugarwas really high.
She could see it in my eyes andI flashed her my CGM, which at

(07:06):
the time was 4.1.
And I thought she was going totackle me and carry me down to
get a granola bar full of sugarbecause my sugar was so low.
She said you know, if you gohypoglycemic you could have a
heart attack.
I was nowhere close to goinghypoglycemic.
The only time my sugar wentthat low ever in the last eight
years was when I was onMetformin and went for a walk

(07:28):
and I severely crashed.
It's never repeated.
The lowest my sugar has been is3.8 and would only go there for
, I'd say, five, 10 minutesafter extended exercise and then
it would bounce right back upinto the fives.
So that's my general perceptionof things and I always go with
my own personal evidence from myCGM to say I don't believe I'm

(07:49):
doing harm, I believe I'm doinggood.
And obviously hair loss couldbe just a consequence of old,
being, getting older and stresson the body and so forth.
And I honestly think that theketo and the carnivore core in
the absence of those two, myhair loss would probably be more
significant.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, it's a great summary, and Stephen and I have
done a lot of research on redmeat, saturated fat, the
mechanisms by which thoseinteract with the body.
Both of us are convinced thatred meat and saturated fat are
not bad for us.
We're convinced that saturatedfat is actually an excellent
source of energy.

(08:28):
Your brain uses it for ketonesand your body can use it for
energy.
This idea that people needcarbs slash glucose, which carbs
turn into for energy, is simplynot true.
There are many, many people whodon't eat any carbs at all who

(08:48):
feel much more energetic thanthey did in the past, and so we
always encourage people to dotheir own research and,
obviously, listen to theirhealthcare providers.
We're not here to get in theway of that, but we are both
convinced that not only do wefeel better eating red meat and
saturated fat, we are fuller asa result, we have more energy,

(09:10):
we're mentally more stable, ourmental health has improved
significantly on this journey,and so it is difficult to
convince people, and I havefound the older people are the
harder it difficult to convincepeople, and I have found the
older people are the harder itis to convince people and I'm
not here necessarily to convincethem.

(09:33):
But people you know very quicklybecome food experts even though
they've done absolutely noresearch whatsoever in their
entire lifetime on anything todo with food as soon as your
lifestyle questions whethertheir lifestyle is appropriate,
and I find that very interesting.
The way people react to food isthe same way people react to

(09:58):
politics.
It's a topic that people jumpinto the Dunning-Kruger effect,
d-u-n-n-i-n-g, k-r-u-g-e-r.
I highly recommend looking intothat.
Why people feel that they'reexperts at certain things even
though they've never looked intothem and to me this is one of
the biggest myths of ourlifetime is that red meat and

(10:20):
saturated fat are actuallyunhealthy, when Stephen and I
both believe that that is nottrue.
The next one on our list issomething that I have heard
personally from people, which isStephen, you will get scurvy
without vitamin C from fruitsand vegetables.
Are you still waiting for thescurvy to kick in?

Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yeah.
So in my case, because I am aketo carnivore, in my case, as a
diabetic, I am prone and havehad them and vowed I'd never
have them again.
And that is I had kidney stones.
I actually consume apple cidervinegar and lemon with water
every single day and I've neverhad a recurrence on touchwood in
the last several years from theproduction of kidney stones.

(11:08):
So I would definitely not be acandidate for scurvy, given the
vitamin C intake that I'mgetting daily from fresh lemons
Nothing pasteurized, it's allfresh.
How about yourself?
How's your scurvy coming along,since you're not.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, I'm still waiting for the scurvy to kick
in.
I think it was two and a halfthree years ago when I was told
that I was going to get scurvyand I had dinner with that same

(11:41):
person a couple of weeksU-E-L toeat, which was a horrible sort
of porridge-y type food, very,very low in vitamins and
nutrients that people need.
They weren't eating red meat.

(12:03):
If you go on a certaingovernment websites and the FDA,
I believe, is still saying this, uh, that they're saying
there's no vitamin C in red meat.
That's actually not true.
There is vitamin C in red meat.
Um, the body cannot makevitamin C.
Um, it is important, but youcan get uh, get vitamin C from

(12:26):
red meat, especially organ meatslike liver.
We recommend you limit theamount of liver that you eat,
but certainly in small amounts.
It can be extremely healthy,and so vitamin C is important.
There is vitamin C in red meatand I've listened to stories of
people who have been on thecarnivore diet for 10, 20, 65

(12:47):
years in one case, and they areall still waiting for the scurvy
to kick in.
So the Vikings, also on the highseas, did not get scurvy and
they mostly ate red meat, didnot get scurvy, and they mostly

(13:09):
ate red meat, and so this ideathat if you don't have fruits
and vegetables, that you'regoing to get scurvy is another
myth that needs to be debunked,in my opinion, and the more
people who go on the carnivorediet and the more people who go
on the ketogenic diet who don'tend up with scurvy at some point
, people are going to stopbelieving that that can cause

(13:29):
scurvy in your life.
It doesn't sound fun nothappening to me, and I don't
know a single carnivore that hasbeen diagnosed with scurvy, and
I've certainly looked.
Next one on our list, stephen.
Where is your?
You're going to be constipatedforever without plants.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
Yeah, so some interesting things to point out
with respect to fiber.
So one of the things that Ifollow from Dr Mandel and again
I'll put a diabetic twist onthis for those who are diabetic
type two or type one is Iregularly consume Greek yogurt,
high fat and very high in termsof grams of protein, very low in

(14:16):
sugar, and I'm quite particularabout what brand that I
purchased to make sure that ithas highest number of grams of
protein and highest fat.
And then I supplement it withthe phytonutrients either

(14:42):
blueberry, strawberry in smallquantities and fresh and washed
and cleaned.
And also what I do is I addchia and flax seeds for
additional fiber, which willneutralize any of the or at
least help reduce an offset.
The fiber will offset the sugar, the natural sugar that's in
the fruit.
And what I noticed from my CGMis I don't get a significant
rise in my sugar, especially ifI'm consuming it as per the

(15:07):
glucose goddess after I've hadmy primary protein.
So first my salads, then myproteins and then my fat yogurt
with flaxseed.
Now, in addition to thatbuilding off of the chia, what
I'm now doing, and you and I'vetalked about offline, is I'm
soaking as per Dr Mandel.
You can look him up talkingabout chia seeds, and Dr Berg as

(15:29):
well and you float twotablespoons and eight ounces, an
eight ounce glass of water ofchia, and also, for us diabetics
, is to add Ceylon, and theuptake can be further increased
by adding fresh ginger to thatmix.
I'm not entirely sure what itis in ginger that causes the
increased uptake of thosenutrients, but I mentioned this

(15:54):
to you, graham, as you recall,about two and a half weeks ago,
and one of the prescribedoutcomes of allowing the chia to
fully absorb the water andexpand is you're taking that
mass in, which apparently willalso reduce the oxidants that
are actually in some of theseplant-based seeds and

(16:18):
essentially remove them,especially if you do them in hot
water and then obviously letthe water drain and then put it
into cold water.
And what I found over the last,I'd say, three weeks is my sugar
is extremely stable at night.
I'm not getting any ups anddowns at all.

(16:40):
The only time that I saw aspike was when I was forced to,
because of commitments, to eatlate, and the chia two
tablespoons of chia in waterwith the Ceylon didn't do as
great a job.
But if I have three hoursbefore going to bed where I
haven't consumed anything.
And then I take that I'm seeingthe best results that I've seen
in eight years applying thatfiber and, as you know, as a

(17:01):
candidate with IBS, I don't knowif I should call myself a
candidate.
I don't like to call myself avictim, but by taking this
additional fiber and increasingthe amount of protein and
completely eliminatingultra-processed foods, I have
what would be described as amedically perfect bowel movement
and I'm not going six, seven,eight, nine times a day.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
It's once a day and that's it.
Yeah, and what Stephen wastalking about with oxalates chia
seeds is known to be high inoxalates, as is almonds, rhubarb
and a number of othervegetables, and these oxalate
crystals can be really damagingto the body over time and they
build up.
The body doesn't do a great jobof getting rid of them unless

(17:50):
it can bind to calcium, and soone of the ways to reduce the
amount of oxalates in chia seedsis to boil them in hot water.
You then get the benefit of thechia seeds um uh without some
of the problems uh that youcould experience.
Uh with oxalate poisoning.
Um highly recommend lookinginto oxalate poison.

(18:11):
Not a lot of people know aboutit Um.
All the food experts who tellme that you know I'm going to
die of a heart attack or scurvyor something else um have never
heard of oxalates.
Most people haven't Um and sopretty important um uh to learn
about them.
Uh, if you're having spinachsmoothies every day, I highly
recommend looking into them.
Toxic superfoods is a greatbook by Sally Norton Um she goes

(18:36):
into a great amount of detailon oxalates.
Highly recommend it.
Um, it's a great thing to havein your sort of knowledge
repertoire um that you can useand then adapt some of the foods
that you want to eat, likeStephen's chia seeds, and make
them a little healthier,potentially for you.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
Yeah, one of the things I wanted to add with chia
is the fact that it does havecalcium and a well-formed
calcium oxalate.
However, because the GFCs are agood source of calcium, one of

(19:30):
the things that that bindingprocess can do is it can
actually be processed, interated, with a teaspoon of apple cider
vinegar and a tablespoon offresh lemon juice.
So I don't run into those kindsof issues with kidney stones as
a result of the oxalis.
So some of these things cancertainly be countered.
So I think it's worthmentioning that what I'm trying
to get from the actual chia isto help manage my blood sugar,

(19:53):
and some of the side effectsthat you're mentioning, which
are valid, can be countered withsome of the other practices
that I apply in my dailynutrition.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, something interesting that I've learned
about fiber is I rememberspeaking to somebody again who
believes she knows everythingabout food but actually hasn't
done any research on anything todo with food.
She's just believed what she'sbeen told over the years and
that's certainly certainly verycommon and I think we're all

(20:25):
guilty of that to a certainextent and, um, she believed
that she needed fiber, um, tohave to be regular, as it
related to, um, your bowelmovements, and so there was a, a
rather large study done and andyou can google search this and
look into it where they hadpeople that were constipated, so

(20:48):
their bowel movements,basically, were blocked off.
The researcher that was talkingabout this had said you know,
this idea that fiber is going tomake you regular or it's going
to cure constipation it's kindof like trying to cure a traffic
jam by putting more cars on thehighway, and I thought that was

(21:09):
a really uh great way ofputting it.
And so he talked about thisresearch where they had people
that had, uh, suffered fromconstipation at the time of the
study and they separated theminto three control groups.
The first control group kepteating, sorry.
The first control group wasgiven more fiber.
The second control group wasgiven half the fiber that they'd

(21:33):
been eating up until then.
The third control group wasgiven no fiber for the amount of
time that this study was goingon and lo and behold, there was
a 100% improvement in the bowelmovements.
In other words, constipationhad basically ended for the
people who had been given nofiber over the course of that

(21:55):
study.
The ones that had been givenhalf the fiber had a slight
improvement, so lessconstipation, and the ones that
remained the same or were givenmore fiber had worse
constipation.
So the idea that fiber isrequired to have regular bowel
movements Again another myththat people believe that they've

(22:16):
heard for a very long time, butthey can't actually tell you
why they need fiber.
They just believe that theyneed it, need fiber.
They just believe that theyneed it.
So another myth that I think weStephen and I in our travels,
have understood that it's a myth.
That it's absolutely requiredDoesn't mean that it's not
delicious and can't be a part ofa diet, but the fact that it's

(22:38):
required is something that, inmy opinion, is not true.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
One of the things I wanted to mention, if I may, is
you know we're talking aboutthese things in a relatively
binary way.
It doesn't cause scurvy, itwon't cause your hair to fall
out, it won't necessarily takeaway from your blood tests as

(23:06):
they relate to indices like yourA1C.
But what's interesting is youand I have been talking about
this.
I've just scanned Reddit andlooked at some comments from
people that had experienced anyspectrum of the things that
we've discussed thus far,including hair loss.
And when you dig into it, whenyou find out which we need to be

(23:28):
cognizant of when we'respeaking to our larger audiences
, well, what else did you do asa consequence of going down the
route of carnivore?
I'm looking at one person whocommented and I think it's
appropriate to say that hewouldn't be an extreme example,
because I've actually talked topeople who have done the same
thing and I was even, for a time, considering trending to one

(23:52):
meal a day, or what some peoplecall OMAD, as part of
accelerating my weight lossjourney and believing that
perhaps my body would appreciatethe break given the IBS.
The only issue there, as we'vediscussed in the past, is that
sometimes you can send your bodyinto an undernourishment and in

(24:17):
that state of undernourishmentthere's all kinds of things that
can go wrong, including hairloss, and for those that have
experienced it, it takes threeto six months for you to grow
back your hair, because you'reputting your hair in its final
stage of shedding and you'lllose large amounts of it, as
well as OMAD.
You may not be getting enoughprotein and again, you'll send

(24:37):
your body into starvation mode,which is not what the intention
of intermittent fasting was everdesigned to do.
You're not trying to shock yoursystem, you're trying to reduce
the amount of oxidative stressthat's in your body.
So again, people have, for ahost of different reasons, will
take carnivore or keto and lookat its basics, but then take it

(25:00):
down a path that's extreme, thatactually could result in
undernourishment, which hasnothing to do with keto, nothing
to do to carnivore.
It has everything to do withtheir decision about only eating
, you know, once every threedays, for instance.
Or applying what's called PSMF,which is protein sparing,
sparing fast, you know, for twoor three days, and they take it
too long and they start to haveall kinds of issues.

(25:22):
Or, as'm reading, oneindividual ate one lean chicken
breast a week and that was it?
So I mean, these are not whatwe're proposing and I don't
think any of those things shouldbe considered without talking
to your medical practitionerwhether it's a regular medical
doctor, dietitian or anaturopath to your own liking

(25:43):
and where you feel mostcomfortable, but this is still
supposed to fit within a healthylifestyle.
It's not supposed to besomething that you're shocking
your system with.
And if you start losing yourhair and extreme things start
happening, then if your moodsuddenly is very aggressive,
it's not the red meat, it's yourmethod of applying it.
That's an issue, because theevidence is just too strong,

(26:04):
with literally hundreds ofthousands suddenly it's very
aggressive.
It's not the red meat, it'syour method of applying it.
That's an issue, because theevidence is just too strong,
with literally, you know,hundreds of thousands of people
who who are using this, like youand I have have had good
medical benefits, because Ialways go back to first
principle, if I may, and whenpeople have come up with these,
these things, you know,including, um, um, the doctor
that I saw on the weekends, uh,who, uh, is my eye specialist

(26:28):
and had initially found, beforeI was wearing my cgm, that
something was seriously wrongwith my eyes.
And then I went and had mysugar check put on my first cgm,
discovered it was extremelyhigh.
I hadn't seen her likeliterally probably in a year and
a half, two years.
She remembered me.
I showed her my cgm and itshowed 4.1.
And, like I said, she wanted todrag me out to the aisle and

(26:48):
give me, you know, get a sugarygranola in me.
And meanwhile I felt fantasticand all I had done that day was
I had fasted, I was traveling, Idid not want to eat ultra
processed foods, I did not wantto eat something unhealthy and I
was perfectly fine to wait anextra couple of hours and, um,
and have a a really nice,sensible, healthy steak.

(27:11):
Actually, I had roast beef atone of my favorites uh
restaurants, uh, in town.
And, um, I checked my sugarthat night.
Uh, I didn't bring my chia when.
I did bring my chia when I wastraveling, but I forgot to take
it.
So I didn't even have thebenefit of that and my sugar was
fantastic all night long.
So again, it's, it'sinteresting you have to sort of

(27:32):
dig in when people say thesethings and say, oh, you know, I
read this, or I went on Redditand I saw that this guy lost all
his hair and okay.
Well, that's not what we'retalking about.
We're talking about asustainable lifestyle where you
see incremental sustainablehealth outcomes that are their
own reassurance in terms of thedirection you want to take this

(27:52):
thing, graham.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
How do you feel about that?
What are your thoughts wantedto talk about, because I hear
this reaction a lot and I'mgoing to throw it back to you,
stephen, because you veryeloquently have a great way of
explaining the fact that whatyou'll hear from people and this

(28:19):
is, you know, not necessarilypeople telling you you shouldn't
do it the keto carnivore dietthey're potentially saying why
they won't be able to do it,even though you haven't told
them to do it.
No one's actually said youshould do this.
They're just saying I'm doingthis, but people automatically
assume that that means thatwe're telling others to do it.

(28:40):
That couldn't be further fromthe truth If people want to
learn more about it and theywant to learn.
You know the potential upside,because I do think there are,
you know, a couple of differentgroups of people when it comes
to keto or carnivore diets, andyou could apply the same thing
with religion or anything elsethat you know people tend to get

(29:01):
heated about journey themselves.
They're interested in the why,the how, the.
You know.
They notice that you have losta significant amount of weight.

(29:22):
You are telling them thatyou've never felt better.
You feel 20 years younger.
The arthritis is gone, theblood work is back to excellent
All of these things that theyknow they would like to.
You know experience in theirown lives.
So those people that, whetherthey're interested in changing
their diet or not, they areinterested in listening to you

(29:46):
and I always enjoy thoseconversations.
Sometimes I can't shut up aboutit, so I warn people that I
could go on forever and theyneed to cut me off.
But there's a second group ofpeople who are just waiting to
be able to prove to you thatwhat you're doing is wrong, and

(30:07):
that's a very interesting groupof people.
They're not fun to talk tobecause they're just looking for
an avenue to throw out some ofthe things that we talked about
today, just looking for anavenue to throw out some of the
things that we talked abouttoday.
But the first group are very,very interesting to speak to and
one of the things that you'llhear from them is well, I don't
know if that lifestyle issustainable.

(30:28):
What they're thinking is they'regoing to crave carbs, they're
going to crave veggies, theywant more variety in what they
eat.
Or it might come across as oh,I could never do that lifestyle
because I could never give up.
Insert food here, right?
I've heard ice cream, I'veheard cookies, I've heard peanut
butter, bread, pizza All ofthose things are delicious, by

(30:52):
the way, and I've given up allof them.
You've done such a great job,stephen, and I wonder if you can
reiterate this about this ideathat it's not that you and I
don't love the idea of bitinginto our favorite slice of pizza
.
It's that we look at that pizzaand understand where our health

(31:13):
is inevitably going to go if weput too much of that in our
bodies.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Yeah, that's great.
And that brings us right backto one, and thank you for
mentioning that brings us backto one of the original episodes
we did and you had asked me thequestion at the time, you know,
and we actually joked about mynickname.
When I was a kid I was calledCake Face, right, I mean.
I mean, there was nothing thatyou could do in a dessert, with
the exception of rhubarb pie,which I candidly believe my

(31:38):
grandmother must have hated mebecause she nobody eats rhubarb
pie.
You can't even get a bear toeat that.
But aside from that, with withthat moniker, as a young kid I
would even, by family, getteased and say, oh come on, you
know, like your cake face, youknow you're going to lose the
laurels of first place cake face.
And I said, well, you know it'scrazy.
I do love, you know, chocolatecake and I do enjoy a piece of

(32:02):
birthday cake and that sort ofthing.
But what I enjoy more is noneuropathy, having all my toes
not have an optometrist orophthalmologist.
Look at my eyes going.
You're going to turn into yourfriend over here who had 35 for
his trending numbers and nowgets injections once a month
into his eyeballs so he doesn'tgo blind.

(32:22):
So I'm like, yeah, I don't knowif even my most favorite Nona
in the world could surpassgetting needles in my eyes.
So I'm highly I would say,negatively reinforced too,
because, although things didn'tget that extreme with me, my
quality of life was prettyhellacious, especially during
the periods of COVID when I hadto rely on very limited number

(32:45):
of public washrooms.
And it's so interesting thatwe're talking about this,
because this weekend I went awayfor a few days of R&R, for some
recreational activities, and Iwas driving for like an hour and
went oh my gosh, I used to dothis drive and I'd already have
mapped out do I have sufficienttime to get to a gas station?
Because I have that feeling andyou can say, well, it's mind

(33:08):
over matter, well, matter or not, because of the improvements
I've made in my diet, I nolonger have that urgency.
I look at my sugar and go, wow,way to go.
I don't feel this extremedesire or need to eat before
noon or one o'clock.
I ate today at 1.30 in theafternoon.
Yesterday I ate at 7 in themorning.

(33:28):
I got up and I had eggs and allthe rest of it where I was
staying, a nice healthybreakfast with sausage and that
held me up for the entire day.
I didn't eat again until 6 30at night.
So it fundamentally comes downto feeling like you're in
control rather than beingcontrolled, and that is far, far

(33:49):
more nourishing and tastefulbite to take than any piece of
cake I've ever had in my mouth.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
Yeah, the last.
When we did the animaldocumentary review, one of the
things that we heard from one ofthe doctors in the documentary
was that your ideal state, thestate you're born with,
hopefully and I'm not talkingabout you know certain health

(34:18):
conditions that are outside ofthe influence of food, but we
are.
We are, for the most part, bornas healthy human beings, and
then we add damage to becomeunhealthy, and if you can remove
that damage, you have a greaterpotential to get back to that
feeling of healthy.

(34:38):
And there's a couple of thingshere.
I totally get when somebodysays, oh, I could never do that
because I like ice cream toomuch, and my answer to that is
keep eating the ice cream.
Maybe there's a bunch of thingson the list that you eat
because it's convenient, but youcould very easily get rid of
them if you were able to swapthem with something that you

(35:00):
didn't think that you may havethought was unhealthy in the
past, that you now realize isnot.
Ground beef is an easy one, oreggs is an easy one, guacamole
is an easy one, and so myrecommendation to those people
is don't stress out about givingup the ice cream.
Maybe that's the last thingthat you're ever going to give

(35:21):
up, or maybe you're still goingto have a spoonful or two every
now and then and you're going togive up the six scoops of ice
cream in a week.
But at the end of the day, ifyou had a list of the
ultra-processed foods that youeat and for the most part, ice
creams on that list unlessyou're very careful with the

(35:41):
ingredients or you're making ityourself there are probably a
lot of things on that list thatyou could get rid of beforehand
and leave the ice cream to theend if you want to go down that
path.
And so I would say, don't letthis idea that you couldn't live
without something get in theway of trying this journey,

(36:06):
because you really do have thepotential to make yourself feel
so much better than you feeltoday.
And if I had one wish, as itrelates to you know the way
Stephen, you and I have switchedover our lifestyles to this
keto carnivore way of eating isI wish everybody, even just for

(36:27):
a day, could understand how goodit feels to be of optimal
health.
Because if they did understandthat, I think the answer
wouldn't be oh, I could nevergive up the ice cream.
I think the answer would beactually, I feel so good that I
just don't want the ice cream.

(36:47):
It's not that it's notabsolutely delicious and I could
eat a tub of it.
It's that I don't want to feelthe way I feel when I'm eating
the ice cream and the pizza andthe breakfast cereals and the
you know triple deckersandwiches and the Subway subs
and all the rest.
I would rather feel the way Ifeel now, which is almost never

(37:09):
hungry optimal mental health,optimal physical health, tons of
energy, you know, going forwalks every day.
It's just a more enjoyablelifestyle.
So not judging people that are,you know, hooked on ultra
processed foods or ice cream oranything else.
Absolutely no judgment.
But I do wish people could,even for a day, understand what

(37:31):
good feels like, because I thinkthat could be such a big
motivator.
Unfortunately, the only way torealize what good feels like is
because I think that could besuch a big motivator.
Unfortunately, the only way torealize what good feels like is
to make a number of significantchanges in your life.
But what have you got to loseto try those things, to see what
it feels like, to say, oh okay,this might be why the keto
carnivore lifestyle is so muchmore sustainable than some of

(37:54):
the other ways of eating eating,um that people have.
The success rates are actuallyquite high, and I think the
reason is it actually is aneasier way of eating it.
Um, you, you go from all the800 things to you know 18 things
, um, but it's the, the way youfeel is ultimately the big

(38:14):
motivator when it comes down tomaintaining this lifestyle, and
I wish everybody could feel thatway.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
Yeah, I think one of the things I would say to people
in those situations if I wereto say to you and you and I used
to use public transit and wesometimes would drive into work,
coming from differentdirections into the city If I
said to you, listen, I can getyou to work 20 minutes faster
and make it enjoyable.
You'll enjoy it.
The scenery's great, butthere's a level five HF you know

(38:43):
H5N1 virus on this particularcar.
You'll have it to yourself.
It'll be all yours.
No one else is going to join you.
You know the scenery's great.
Like I said, it's a nice smoothride.
We'll put you right in themiddle of the train.
What do you think You'd say?
Absolutely not, wouldn't you?
What would you say to that?

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Yeah, I'd say I'll skip the train ride today.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (39:04):
And I would say well, you know, it's just the flu,
right, like, you know, you'll befine in a week or two.
Well, I mean, really, that'sfood that's not good for you.
That's.
I'm not saying you're going toget H5N1 from a piece of pizza.
What I'm saying is sick is sick.
Ibs is IBS.
I don't really care if it camefrom from a and you know you

(39:24):
used to work with me we wouldhave bagels, you know from from
from downstairs, and and thatwould trigger me.
I could eat an apple and itcould trigger me because I was
in such an inflammatory state.
I got to a point where I think,if I sip water through a straw,
I would have had a reaction.
And I'm not saying that forlevity or to be smart, but the
point is, if you use thatanalogy, you wouldn't get into

(39:47):
that train every day if it madeyou sick.
Yet we do that with food andit's just as clear.
Well, I don't even want to usethe word food.
I would say, from aninflammatory standpoint, it's
not healing.
What you're consuming is nothealing you, it's harming you.
And, like you said about theice cream, if I may just swing
back to that, I would proposethat people do just the same as

(40:10):
sit-ups, just the same aspush-ups, just the same as
running is push yourself alittle farther.
If you have a bad day and youfall off, who cares that that's
already done?
Uh, it's just start again thenext day and progress, and you
might have six great days andone off day.
I don't believe in cheat days.
I think that's, that's acounter mindset that I can't get

(40:32):
behind.
But I promise you, after a fewweeks and I want to hear what
you have to say about this toowhen you do try a piece of cake
or you do try an ice cream cone,you won't one you won't eat an
ice cream cone.
Two, you will not eat an entirepiece of cake.
You may put one spoonful inyour mouth and go.

(40:53):
I can't believe how sweet thatis.
I can't do that.
That's just like I've justswallowed entire maple trees
worth of sugar and I don't likeit.
I actually don't feel good.
And that's not a mind overmatter thing, that's just a
change in diet and I can tellyou.

(41:13):
All you have to do is use arelative and ask them somebody
who does not like desserts andsay, hey, what do you think of
that?
And they're going to go oh,that's way too sweet.
How do you eat that?
I used to hear that all thetime.
My father was not a sweetsperson at all, my brother either
.
And they would say all the timewell, I just absolutely know I
could eat that and I I could.
I could inhale it in like avacuum.

(41:35):
Now when the kids will say hey,dad, do you want a little piece
of my cake?
I'll try it and it'll be thesmallest possible bite, just to
be polite.
And I know that amount's notgoing to do anything.
But I'm just amazed at how Idon't need that, whereas before
I could have argued a lifestyleliving on vachon cakes and and

(41:59):
ice cream and all the otherhorrible stuff.
Like I told you, people didn'trecognize me in the soccer field
without a piece of pizzahanging out of my mouth, right.
So here we are.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah, one of the things that I found kind of
fascinating is, uh, I put sour.
I try and buy the best sourcream that I can get.
Sometimes I'm lucky enough topick some up at the Amish farm
where we get our eggs, and thefunny thing is especially the
Amish sour cream.

(42:28):
When I taste it directly itreminds me of what cake used to
taste like, even though it'snowhere near as sweet.
So when I have something verysweet I actually have never
really been a sweets person, butcertainly if somebody puts a
piece of cake in front of me, orice cream or whatever, I would
eat the whole thing.

(42:49):
And now if somebody does that,I might have a tiny spoon fill.
If somebody does that, I mighthave a tiny spoon fill, like you
said.
Just to say that I did.
But one of the things that'sinteresting around this is if
you ever go to a party with avegetarian or a vegan, people

(43:12):
will know that that's the wayyou're eating and so they will
come up.
They'll make sure, if they'rebeing nice and hospitable,
they'll make sure that they havea vegan or vegetarian option
for that person.
What I find very interesting isI'll go to that same family
event where they know.

(43:33):
For the most part, my wife and Iare eating very similarly.
We've gotten rid of almost allcarbs and vegetables and fruits
and that kind of thing, but theaccommodation doesn't work the
same way.
So, you know, just as anexperiment, I'll sit there, you
know, at a cottage or whatever,and everybody's making snacks

(43:55):
and you'll see.
The number of times people eatin a day is actually quite mind
blowing.
I heard a stat on a podcastthat I was listening to today
that said that the averageperson eats between 17 and 23
times a day and it really mademe think about that.
And then I thought okay, if Ithink about sitting at the

(44:16):
cottage and everybody's goingback and some people are getting
a bag of chips and some peopleare getting some fruit, and then
they're getting fruit box andthen they're getting, you know,
a pizza slice, and it wouldn'tsurprise me that people are
actually snacking 17 to 23 timesa day.
They might have three meals,but they're having significantly
more snacks.
And one day the vegetarian whowas, you know, at the cottage

(44:41):
and of course we always makesure we accommodate for this
person to be able to eat I thinkit was the sixth time that day
that she had asked me if Iwanted to have a snack.
So it was cakes, donuts,cookies, pizza chips all the

(45:04):
things that I've given uphappily, even though it wasn't
the easiest thing in the world.
I'm now very happy that I haveand I just had to say really
kindly to her this would be likeme bringing you meat six times

(45:32):
and asking you if you wanted it,and scenarios where, especially
at the beginning, when you'retrying to make adjustments, it's
okay to let other people knowthis is a lifestyle that you've
chosen.
You are trying to get yourselfphysically more healthy and one
way that you can help is not tobe offering me these things.
I know they're there, I can goget them if I want them.

(45:54):
These things, I know they'rethere, I can go get them if I
want them but by you puttingthem in front of me it's like,
hey, I know you're an alcoholic,but how about one scotch for
the afternoon?
It's not helping anybody, it'snot a good idea.
But I wanted to jump into thisnext one, stephen, because it
kind of relates to what we justtalked about the, you know,

(46:15):
because it kind of relates towhat we just talked about the
upteenth number of times peopleare eating in a day.
Every time they open the fridge, they grab a little something
of something, or a box ofsomething or a cookie.
They don't count that as meals.
One of the things that youmight hear from people is oh, I
could never do what you do.
Your diet sounds so boring.
How do you not get tired ofeating the same thing every day?

(46:38):
And I think what they becausethey haven't necessarily asked
the right kinds of questions isthey're just assuming that
you're eating a ribeye steaktwice a day and that's it, and
they're you know in their mindsthey couldn't possibly do that,
that they need a ton of variety.
How have you found thereduction in the types of foods

(47:02):
that you are willing to eat?
Equating to you know beingboring, or you're just eating
the same thing every day andit's not sustainable.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
Yeah, it's a really good question and I think it's
an appropriate one for me toanswer.
Just keep in mind, as we talkedabout in early days if there's
folks that haven't listened toour preceding episodes I started
for a while to try to addressmy health issues and health
challenges by going vegan,because my wife at the time was
vegan.
By going vegan because my wifeat the time was vegan and I

(47:39):
tried valiantly to consume avegan diet, thinking somehow
that I might get improved healthoutcomes.
And, of course, in parallel tothat, I wasn't doing the
in-depth studying at that pointthan you and I've done in
subsequent years.
But I was getting more and moresick and this vegan diet was

(48:02):
highly ultra-processed.
So again, as you alluded in,that previous example is people
will typically accommodate avegan with a vegan dish Almost
100% of the time.
Anytime I went to an event likethat, they're like oh, you're
vegan, well here.
Well, here you go, and it'snoodles, and noodles are starch,
starch is carbs, carbs is sugar.
So here I am a semi-controlleddiabetic.

(48:27):
Basically, I might as well justgrab, you know, a, a bag of
sugar and start to down itbecause, yeah, of course, it
wasn wasn't successful.
I had a nice label called vegan,and I didn't have a moral
dilemma I was looking at unlikemy wife, who doesn't want to
consume animals for that reason,and I highly respect vegans

(48:48):
that feel that way but thereality was it was making me
sick, and it wasn't the diet ofa vegan per se.
It was the options that wereprovided were actually
exacerbating my illness, becauseI was consuming too much rice,
too much pasta, too much this,too much that fake cheese, fake
meat, and they were full ofestrogen-based items and plant

(49:14):
materials that were quiteharmful, that were gimmicked as
being healthy and in realitythey were not.
So you have to be an informedconsumer, and you know the other
thing that you had touched on,too, that I thought was
remarkable what your earlierexample, and I loved it when you
said well, you know, if I wasan alcoholic, would you continue
to say hey, it's just, you know, have one drink, for instance?

(49:36):
Because the reality is that andI think this is probably the
most fundamental thing that weprobably should talk about is
why are you eating?
What is your intention?
What is your objective?

Speaker 2 (49:47):
If your objective is, yeah, if your objective is for
entertainment or is it forspecific health outcomes?

Speaker 3 (49:54):
Yeah, and I would say entertainment, I would insert
that's a good one for alcoholfor sure, but I would say it's a
social comfort that people have.
But the problem is that that isa very short term perspective
to look at things, because I canpromise you, yes, you will
enjoy for that 25 minutesconsuming that Big Mac.

(50:15):
It's the 40 minutes toimmediately follow it that will
change your mind about how, howbeneficial that is.
And, of course, there'saddictive qualities to these
respective foods that'll stillmake you go back to the trough
and eat that stuff and you'llget sick again.
Um, you'll need to run into thewoods and and and deal with it,
or try to find a publicwashroom, pulling the door

(50:35):
because somebody's already inthere.
I've been through all thosescenarios.
The reality is is that whenyour relationship with food
which we probably need to haveyour wife and who's a
psychotherapist and perhaps someother people come on when your
relationship with food is suchthat, oh, this is a social
process, especially with myroots being Eastern European.

(50:57):
That's what it was about.
But the reality is the food wasreally good because everything
was home cooked.
Now it's like, hey, let's gettogether, let's have a great
social night.
I'm going to go get those fakeonion ring things.
I'm going to go get thosecheesy orange things.
I'm going to go get some pizza.
I'm going to go get some rye,I'm going to go get some vodka.
There is literally nothing thatI just mentioned that is even

(51:20):
remotely healthy for you.
So like again to use theanalogy of the train or if I
said, hey, I just built a poisonchamber.
Do you guys want to come over?
It'll be great, we'll all getpoisoned together.
So your relationship with foodand I'm not trying to be overly
militaristic about it, but ifyou look at food as saying I'm
only consuming this to make mebetter right now than I was

(51:44):
yesterday or the day before,your whole relationship with
food changes, because now I seeit as trickery.
I look at a food and go, hmm, Iwonder how they've tried to
trick me with this and I want tosee what the ingredients are.
And I wonder how they've triedto trick me with this and I want
to see what the ingredients areand I want to study it and I
want to understand is red dyegood for me?
No, it's not.
Is this kind of derivative likeerythritol is a good one?

(52:08):
That is a big, big one that'sbeing pushed right now for
diabetics, because they knowwe're monitoring our CGMs and it
doesn't give you a rise.
But diabetics, because theyknow we're monitoring our cgms
and it doesn't give you a rise.
But studies have just come outto suggest that there's an
increased likelihood, especiallyin higher volumes of erythritol
.
And they're in tiny little cans.
You're going to have two,you're going to maybe have three
and you're like, oh, it'skombucha, it's, you know, it's

(52:28):
great, it's consuming all itsown sugar.
It's fine, it's full oferythritol which has huge
vascular effects on you.
So I'm weaning myself off ofthat now that I've learned that
that's part of the process.
It is its own continuousimprovement process, your
relationship with food and whatyou're consuming, the volume
that you do it, and this is whyI'm such a strong advocate, even
for healthy people who use CGMsand folks.

(52:50):
I get no endorsement from this,I'm simply sharing.
The love is that when I eatsomething and eat something and
I think, oh, I really enjoyedthat, and then I look at my
sugar, it's like, well, I'mnever eating that again.
There obviously was somethingin there that they didn't tell
me about, because my bodydoesn't lie, my liver doesn't
lie, they did and that's a big Xfor me on those foods going

(53:11):
forward.
So really it comes down to thatrelationship.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
So really it comes down to that relationship.
I think this is such abrilliant point, to be honest,
because too often people have ahedonic relationship with food.
It is their entertainment andyou know, let's face it, there's
a lot of the you know peoplebeing with people.

(53:37):
And what do you do when you'rewith other people?
You either eat or you drink, orboth.
Very rarely, you know.
Do you have a bunch of peopleover for a party and serve no
drinks and serve no food?
It's almost.
It basically never happens.
And so these two things gotogether.

(53:58):
And so the question of what areyou eating and why are you
eating it?
It goes back to things you'llhear like well, what about all
these nutrient deficiencies, thevitamin deficiencies, the
mineral imbalances withouteating fruits and vegetables,

(54:20):
balances without eating fruitsand vegetables?
And I know I'm one questionaway from them realizing that
they actually don't knowanything about any of the
vegetables that they'rerecommending.
They just believe that allvegetables are 100% wonderful,
could not possibly be bad in anyway.
And the same people believe thatred meat must be awful because
I've been told my whole life itis.
I've never actually questionedit, I've never looked into it, I

(54:42):
just believe whatever peoplehave told me, and sure, all of
us again are guilty of that forlots of different things in our
lives.
But when I say, well, why doyou eat spinach, for example?
But when I say, well, you know,why do you eat spinach, for
example, they say, oh, it'sreally high in iron.
I'll say, well, one of thethings that I learned that

(55:02):
really kind of surprised me isthere are elements inside
spinach that will basically stopyou from absorbing any of the
iron from the spinach.

Speaker 3 (55:15):
Yes, ok, protecting itself it's protecting itself.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
It's protecting itself.
Plants want to protectthemselves and they've got lots
of different ways to do those,and it's really interesting once
you dig into that.
And so I'll say well, now thatyou know that about spinach,
that there's really not a wholelot, You're going to get some
oxalates.
I always hear, bacon has a tonof nitrates, right, yeah, okay.

(55:41):
Well, a cup of bacon has about10 milligrams of nitrates.
And I'll ask him how much doesa cup of spinach have?
How much?
How much nitrates does a cup ofspinach have?
Well, I have no idea.
I don't.
I don't think it has anynitrates.
Well, a cup of spinach hasabout 40 milligrams of nitrates,
so four times as much and onlya cup.

(56:01):
Most people aren't going to beeating a cup, a cup of bacon
okay, now you're talking.
But most people are going to beeating a lot more than a cup of
spinach.
And so I'll ask them how comeyou're never told about the
nitrates in spinach?
How come you're only told aboutthe nitrates in bacon, even
though it's a quarter of theamount?
Isn't that fascinating?

(56:23):
I found that fascinating and itmade me want to dig deeper and
made me want to uncover moreinformation, because now I'm
starting to realize I'm notbeing told the truth and I need
to dig into this myself.
And so, going back to thevitamin deficiencies, mineral
imbalances, that kind of thing,um, I recommend to anybody go on
, uh, any sort of um, my fitnesspal, or there's a number of

(56:47):
apps out there that you cantrack your food and um type in
in one day, uh, six eggs and twopounds of ground beef and see
if you have any vitamin ormineral deficiencies in the app.
You'll be very, very surprised,right?

(57:07):
Whereas the mental gymnasticsyou have to go through to try
and figure out what vegetables,the quantity of vegetables and
whether those vegetablesactually have bioavailable
minerals and vitamins is a nearimpossible task that I've found.

Speaker 3 (57:26):
Well it certainly consumes a lot of time, because
I can speak to that fromexperience.
Two things that I hear a lot,and I'm sure you do too, is hey,
man, I could never go on that.
It's too expensive.
Meat's got way too expensiveand I'm like have you looked at
how much I spent on vitamins asa vegan?
And I'm starting to wean myselfoff?
I still do my magnesium, I stilldo my zinc, I do ashwagandha

(57:51):
because it helps with my PTSD,it helps keep me regulated and,
like I said, I'm doing Ceyloncinnamon natural cinnamon,
healthy cinnamon.
I'm floating chia for 30minutes to turn it into that
gooey pasty stuff which lookslike fish eggs.
That's probably not foreveryone, but everything is
measured on outcomes for me.

(58:12):
What's it doing to my sugar?
That's where I start.
I've already hit my optimumweight.
I'm in the gym.
I'm stronger at 58 than I wasat 40, 35 or 30 because I'm not
fighting IBS and trying to buildmuscle.
I'm in the gym.
I'm stronger at 58 than I wasat 40, 35 or 30 because I'm not
fighting IBS and trying to buildmuscle.
I'm not fighting PTSD andtrying to build muscle.
So my focus, my mental focus,my mindfulness, my meditation,

(58:34):
all of it goes into play.
Because the thing is, the crazypart about all of this is when
you think about it, when youthink about gratitude, having a
sense of gratitude for what thebody can do.
How better to have that private, quiet, internal conversation
with your body and saying, hey,I'm going to take my hand and
grab this right now and you'regoing to really like it and

(58:55):
you're going to feel good.
You know and it's not a shortum heroin like high, it is
something that is going to giveyour body the nutrition it needs
.
I bought a giant, giant steaktoday and it was not a ribeye,
it was not the highest gradesteak.
I bought it at the butcher shop.
I have two days worth of meal.

(59:15):
I stared at my wife after Itried to eat two-thirds of it
and cried I'm not going to makeit.
And we got her to throw thelast suit to save the drowning
man because I was so satiatedfrom it I wanted nothing else.
Normally I'd have my yogurtafter that with my flax seeds.
I didn't have any room and so Ihad.
I had what did I have?
A little bit of fermented um,uh, uh sauerkraut.

(59:40):
I had fermented sauerkraut withit to to get my stomach ready
for for what I was consuming andand making sure I had the uh,
you know, the bioavailability ofmy system be able to process it
as healthy as possible.
Those are the things I thinkabout.
That has nothing to do with oh,I'm at the steakhouse and I did
this, or I'm I'm I'm at at afriend's house having a great

(01:00:01):
time.
I'm focused, literally on thatself-love of making sure what
I'm consuming is good for me,and I don't think there's enough
focus that's put on state ofmind when you're consuming.
When you're in a state ofinflammation already.
Your body's in a state ofinflammation and your body
doesn't know real bullets fromfake bullets and you're under

(01:00:22):
the stress and you're trying toconsume something that your
body's saying, hey, I thinkwe're getting chased by a
dinosaur.
That sounds way more seriousthan me focusing on steak right
now.
How about we just let that goand you're not going to digest
it properly?
So that's another importantfactor when you take the time to
prepare your meal.
I cook this giant steak.
It took me eight minutes to getit to medium rare.

(01:00:44):
It would take me when I wasdoing pasta.
You know I would have tomoonlight for my regular job
because sometimes some of these,the meal preparations would
take longer.
It seemed like it was a day'sworth of work.
And that's another thing too, Ifind is people are attracted to
what looks pretty and whatappears to be trendy.
So they go on H HDTV and theysee all of these.

(01:01:05):
Yeah, they see all these cookingshows and everything.
Let's be realistic.
None of us most of us don'thave the time to prepare those.
But if what you're preparing isrelatively quick and you know
when you're purchasing it,you're already in an alliance
with your body to say I'mpicking this, I know it's
healthy.
Yeah, I saw that other stuffthat's in that lady's cart.

(01:01:26):
I'm so sorry that she doesn'trealize that she's going to end
up like I was.
If she asked me a questionabout why I'm only purchasing
this, I will share it.
But I'm really focused rightnow on what's going to be good
for me, and that mindset playswell through the pre-meal,
through to the meal and us eventalking about it, like tonight.
That's all part of the processof taking care of yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
Yeah, and I'm so glad you brought up the total dollar
amount of all 17 or 23 of thosesnacks and meals and equate

(01:02:10):
that to what my diet is, whichis eating maximum twice a day,
sometimes once a day, butmaximum twice a day very high
protein, high fat, low carbmeals, and so that might look
like four to six eggs in themorning with some kind of
protein, high fat, low carbmeals, and so that might look
like four to six eggs in themorning with some kind of
protein ground beef, or even hotdogs I'll throw in, or

(01:02:31):
hamburger patties the old 100%grass fed hamburger patties that
I try and find and I am totallyfull.
I actually really enjoy it.
You know, I might throw somehot sauce one day, I might cook
the eggs differently one day, sothere's a bit of variety, but
not much.
I super enjoy it, you know.

(01:02:53):
I know that I've just donesomething good for my body.
I don't need that to be myentertainment, as you so
eloquently put it.
And then I'm going to go for awalk, and my entertainment is
going for a walk, going to seethe lake, listening to a podcast
, learning something that Ididn't know yesterday, and so

(01:03:14):
just switching my entertainment,from snacks and meals to.
That's just a chore that I needto get through, and I don't
mean that in a bad way.
You know, cleaning your houseis a chore the results can be
fantastic.
Exercising is a chore theresults can be fantastic.
Chores the outcome of chorescan be very, very, very

(01:03:35):
satisfying, and certainly in ourcase, the, the food portion of
it.
You switch it away from the.
This is my entertainment to.
I'm going to do the minimumrequired in order to get the
nutrients that I need for mybody to be in optimal health.

(01:03:55):
It turns out that I need veryfew foods and very, you know,
relatively small amounts offoods compared to what I used to
eat multiple, multiple,multiple times a day, right up
until kind of 1030 at night,before I went to bed I'd grab a
peanut butter sandwich, neverstop eating.
And then I'm up in the morningbecause of course, I have

(01:04:18):
hypoglycemic at that point, andnow I need to shovel something
in my face like a bagel orwhatever, to try and get that
sugar back up to where it needsto be.
I don't miss that life at all,and I think you so eloquently
put it there that those twothings are very, very connected
it's.
You know the nutrientdeficiencies as well as the

(01:04:40):
carnivore ketogenic diet is tooexpensive.
Those for the people that areon those healthy lifestyles.
They'll all tell you thatthat's just a myth and something
that you'll find out yourselfwhen you realize how
significantly less often you'reeating throughout the day.

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
Yeah, I think one of the things that I noted prior to
going vegan and then movingback to carnivore is to look at
episodic parts of my lifestyle.
So on a weekend, as my wife andI both trained in the same gym,
we would always go see ourfavorite person at our breakfast

(01:05:23):
place and I would have a coffee, maybe two.
I would have eggs with what Ithought was healthy, which was
brown toast, and half the platewas potatoes.
And I never understood why Icould barely make it to the
seven-minute drive down to thelocal gym without having to use

(01:05:46):
the washroom.
And I used to say to my wifethis feels more like renting
than it is nourishing my body.
And what's crazy is you canlook at it and go well, hang on
you.
You just talked about havingsix eggs.
I have three to four on thedays that that I choose to have
eggs as opposed to a carnivorelunch and skip eggs and bacon
entirely.

(01:06:06):
But on the days that I have it,what's missing?
Potatoes?
What's missing Tomatoes?
What's missing?
All I'm eating is the eggs andthe sausage.
You know I'm not having a fruitcup.
So, because the reality was theother stuff that I was having
completely destroyed the goodthings that I was eating,

(01:06:29):
because the inflammatory thingsthat were in my diet
overshadowed it and my body waslike OK, this is one big giant
mess in your stomach right now.
We don't want any of it.
So now I'm actuallymalnourished, I'm undernourished
, we don't want any of it.
So now I'm actuallymalnourished, I'm undernourished
, I'm not getting the foodabsorption because my system is
reacting to stuff that I shouldnot be eating.

(01:06:50):
Especially as an undiagnoseddiabetic and I've said this
before, most of us type twoswere probably pre-diabetic you
already were in a significantinsulin rise, which means your
body's already in a state ofinflammation and you're already
going to start reacting to food.
I started reacting to food inmy 30s, you know, and as a
military person who had to standon parade for a couple of hours

(01:07:11):
.
You can't have IBS and stand onparade.
So I didn't have those problemsin my youth with the stress of
respective lifestyle, poorquality diet, looking at meals
as something that I had to getout of the way, that was in the
way of the other things takingthe kids to their activities, et

(01:07:31):
cetera.
So you and I were always afootnote when it came to our own
self-care, and I'm saying byreprioritizing that.
I'm not interested in the bread,I don't need it.
I'm fully satiated from theeggs and the bacon and the
sausage.
And yeah, I might have fourgiant pieces of bacon that are,
you know, almost as long as myarm.
That's how big my butcher cutsit and yeah, it shrinks and

(01:07:55):
stuff.
Sometimes I can't even eat fourpieces because I'm already full
from my four eggs.
And my dogs love those days,right right, because they get
fresh farmer's bacon it'sinteresting, um, talking about
the price of eating a keto orcarnivore diet.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
Um, I was having a chat with somebody who falls
into that camp of uh, wants tolearn about this lifestyle, has
tried quite a number of steps toimproving what they eat and has
noticed health outcomes improveas a result.
So he's really interested inkind of learning and whenever he

(01:08:40):
asks a question I'm alwaysthere with an answer and I try
and sort of let him lead theconversation.
And so one of the things he didtalk about was you know, how
expensive is it to eat?
And I think what he was lookingat is we go to the grocery
store and our grocery bill isalready very high $400, whatever

(01:09:00):
per visit, $300 per visit,whatever it is.
And one day he turned aroundand he said you know one of the
things that I hadn't reallythought about.
He said how often do you eatout?
Like how often do you stop atyour local fast food joint and
grab some food?
And I said I might go toWendy's and get you know their

(01:09:23):
Baconator with no bun and notoppings, so just the beef and
the bacon once or twice a month,but that's about it and it's.
You know, it's a pretty cheapvisit and you know it can be
very convenient, but that'sbasically it.
I never go to any fast foodplace other than that because I

(01:09:44):
know when I need to eat.
The rest of the time I don'tneed to.
And he said it dawned on me thatboth my wife and I he had said
both my wife and I always ate atleast one fast food thing every
day.
And he said when I added thatto my grocery bill and I think
this is where people don'tnecessarily take into account

(01:10:07):
the fact that eating at a fastfood restaurant or any
restaurant needs to be added toyour total food bill in order to
figure out which is moreexpensive, you know we're each
dropping $20 per visit per day Isaid that's $40.
You know 21, call it 21, butcall it 20 business days for

(01:10:30):
easy math.
That's a significant amount ofmoney $800 a month should be
added to the grocery bill.
And so he said, now that I'mcomparing it to you, you're
telling me you basically nevereat any fast food, you're only
eating at home.
Now I understand why it'sactually significantly cheaper

(01:10:51):
to eat the way you're eatingthan the way I'm eating.
And so and I thought that was areally good revelation for him.
I remember when my wife and Iwere, you know, really getting
into the keto carnivore mindsetand we just went through the um,
our kitchen, and we realizedhalf of this kitchen has stuff
that never goes bad.

(01:11:12):
Number one and that's not agood sign If food doesn't go bad
, you really got to questionwhether it's food.
And number two uh, we are.
If we're going to continue thisand we said we're going to, we
love eating this way, we lovethe way we feel, we love our
body composition, our energy,our mental health improvements,

(01:11:33):
all the rest it's just notsomething.
We're ever going to go back toeating ultra-processed foods.
We threw away half the stuff inour kitchen, not threw away.
We donated whatever we could.
But we got rid of half thestuff in our kitchen, not threw
it away.
We donated whatever we could,but we got rid of half the stuff
in our kitchen and have neverreplaced it.
And so the fact is we havestepped up with more expensive
versions of things.

(01:11:53):
So I now buy the best sourcream that I can find, unless I
can get it at the Amish farm.
I buy eggs that are from theAmish farm that are actually the
same price as the cheapest eggsat the grocery store, but they
are significantly more nutrientdense and therefore I have
enough money to be able tosplurge on.
You know, seven to 10 ribeyes amonth and the best grass fed

(01:12:18):
ribeyes I can find, and when Iadd up my total grocery bill at
the end it's about the same asit was before, but everything
else is better, and so I thinkthat's such a an important topic
and one that maybe dominatespeople's thinking when it comes
to, okay, this keto carnivorething.
You know it used to be calledAtkins and that was a very

(01:12:39):
popular diet for a number ofdecades, and now it's called a
ketogenic diet.
But it's a very similar diet ifyou look at both.
The fact is that that could beone of the biggest barriers to
entry, until people realizethey're eating a whole lot less.
They're eating a whole lot lessoften and now they can be picky
and choosy about tasting orbuying the best quality, most

(01:13:04):
tasty versions of what theyactually would like to eat at
the end of the day.
I wanted to end off with thislast one, stephen, and get your
thoughts on it.
I've heard this a number oftimes in different variants, but
essentially it's.
Essentially it's well.
I read this dietician's articlein mainstream media and they

(01:13:27):
said there's never been anyrandomized control studies that
say the carnivore diet ishealthy.
And my answer to that is pleaseshow.
First of all, let me point outthat the person who wrote that
article is a vegetarian nothingagainst vegetarians.

(01:13:47):
But I'm not sure that I'm goingto trust that there's no bias as
it relates to that article,because all she's pushing is a
vegetarian diet.
But why don't we ask her?
Or if you can send me therandomized control study that
proves that standard Americandiet, which a number of
countries in the West follow,including Canada and the US,

(01:14:08):
show me the randomized controlstudy that shows that the
standard American diet isactually the best for you.
There is no randomized controlstudy that shows that.
It's all based on who spendsthe money on the research, as
opposed to the randomizedcontrol studies, which are near
impossible to do but certainlyvery expensive to do and

(01:14:31):
nobody's willing to foot the$100 million to compare the
standard American diet to, say,the carnivore or ketogenic diet.
I know what I think the outcomewould be and there certainly
have been some studies to showhealthy outcomes of the
ketogenic diet.
I know what I think the outcomewould be.
And there certainly have beensome studies to show healthy
outcomes of the ketogenic diet.
So what say you?
When it comes to this diet as afad, there's no scientific

(01:14:52):
backing to it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:53):
Yeah.
So my first response is I don'treally care in terms of those
studies, because I am my ownchemistry lab.
I've done, I've done my ownwork.
I've read those, thosedocuments.
Um, I, I know how to docritical analysis.
I have a master's degree.
Candidly, I think the only thingwriting a thesis taught me was

(01:15:14):
how to debunk, um, crappyresearch.
So, um, so, really, you know my, my, uh, my study is really
focused on what's my body doing,what is my blood work, say Hard
to argue.
Unless they switch, you know,my, my blood with a pregnant
woman, I'm suspecting I won't besurprised because I'm managing

(01:15:35):
the outcomes of my, of my diet,and I'm being consistently.
I'm showing similar or betternumbers each time I have a check
.
So I don't really care aboutany of that stuff.
If anything, it just irritatesme because I see the
contradictions coming from onearticle to another, saying this
and that, and they're often notciting.

(01:15:55):
They'll cite a doctor and theremight be a hypertext to say who
they are, but then when, likeyou said, you go in and dig in
further and go well, how manypeople did they study?
They studied 16 people for 20minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:16:10):
It's not a proper study and again, or the study
will be an epidemiological study, which is, you know, the, the,
the, the nurse's study, forexample, where they're tracking
what people eat over like a 20year period.
Well, I, when you ask whatthey're, what they're doing is
they're sending out a surveyonce a year that says what did

(01:16:31):
you eat in the last year?
No one can remember what theyate last week, much less last
year, and one of the issues withthat is there's a, a, a healthy
bias.
Yes, that's built into that.
So you're not going to tell meyou had 16 slices of cake last
week.
You're going to tell me thatyou had 15, uh, garden salads

(01:16:52):
that you, you grew yourselfbecause of that healthy bias.

Speaker 3 (01:16:56):
Go on and that's also very subjective.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
These studies are absolutely worthless when it
comes to basing any nutritionalevidence on the outcomes.

Speaker 3 (01:17:08):
Yeah, and if you write 16 studies under a high
degree of comparison bias andthen use that as part of a meta
analysis, it's, you know, metaanalysis equates to a mass
amount of garbage.
It's now underlining the sameconclusions through
corroborative studies thatreally actually are not rooted
in fact, and this is a challengethat we run into in society

(01:17:30):
across the whole spectrum,whether it's politics, whether
it's food, whether it's betweencountries, you name it it's a
huge challenge.
So all I'm saying is the power.
You have the power in your ownhands.
If you can get to a doctor, getyour baseline.
You tell them what you want tohave tested in terms of your

(01:17:52):
blood analysis, and then if theysay, hey, listen, we're not
going to pay for this, we're notgoing to pay for that, then
just pay for it.
Get a baseline.
You're that important.
Consider it your Christmas giftto yourself.
If that's, uh, something thatyou practice and um, and then
just do it.
And then, if you're still alittle skeptical, or if they say
, oh, you're pre-diabetic, wethink we might have to put you
on metformin.

(01:18:12):
Um, then you have to make achoice.
I made it.
I felt every day like I hadchewed glass when I was on that
stuff.
It made my ibs um to to a pointwhere I I candidly didn't even
want to be on the planet anymore.
It was that severe the sideeffects for me, which was
exacerbated by all the otherthings.
But often we don't talk aboutthe side effects.

(01:18:33):
We just say, oh, this iscovered, just take this, you'll
be better.
It's not solving the problem.
I didn't reverse my diabetes formetformin.
Metformin does not get creditfor it.
I stopped taking it.
My blood results showed betteroutcomes and they said, yeah,
we're going to just up the dosea little bit.
I said, yeah, because so zerotimes, what is what they said?
Pardon me, zero times, what iswhat?
Because I'm not takingmetformin and haven't for six

(01:18:55):
months.
I was immediately deemed asbeing medically defiant.
So you know, the reality is wehave the power because they're
using what they're using metaanalysis that's coming from
pharmaceutical companies who arealso in bed with this, with the
same food purveyors that areoften the same companies.
And so, yeah, we got a pill forthat.
This food yeah, it's great, ittastes wonderful, which is full

(01:19:19):
of sugar, as opposed to raw ribslike I brought today from the
butcher, where you add your owndry seasoning to it.
There's no sugar in it becauseyou're controlling it.
So take control of your owndestiny.
Treat yourself the same way asyou would your firstborn and
make sure you're doing the verybest for yourself and you'll see

(01:19:40):
the results.
And it won't matter what NIHsays or someone else comes out
with a study.
If anything, you'll be sohealthy and so focused, with no
brain fog, you'll be able todrill through the nonsense of
those.
Some of those, those studiesthat are not studies are not
scientifically based, and at theend of the day, you just have
to look at yourself and go okay,I used to go to this breakfast

(01:20:01):
place once a week.
15 minutes after I left, I usedto be sick.
I had to get to a washroom, andthat's not usually what gyms
are for.
They're usually for working out, not for using the washroom.
Now I go, I have more musclemass, my sugar is under control.
What is it I'm doing?
Exactly everything that wedescribed tonight is a keto
carnivore.
Sometimes I'm strictlycarnivore for a meal, other

(01:20:22):
times I'm mixing them.
Yes, I do have concerns aboutoxalates, as you do.
I try to mitigate that otherways I'm you know.
I'm having great outcomes.
I'm not getting kidney stones.
So there's enough informationthat you know Graham and I are
giving you where you can look atdifferent options and you could
be a hybrid of the both of us.

(01:20:44):
But focus, reverse engineerfrom the result, nevermind the
nonsense that's in the cloudwith what people are saying.
Look at how you are today, usethat as a baseline.
Look at how you're going to bein two weeks, two months, and
give yourself time in your body,time to heal.
You'll be shocked at howquickly your body will begin to
heal and it'll start rewardingyou with measurable results.

(01:21:04):
Like you don't have to use awashroom, you don't feel
nauseous after you eat, you'renot hungry 45 minutes after you
just consumed breakfast becauseyou're not eating.

Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
Um, you know sugar floating in a cereal bowl yeah,
I'll just I I couldn't have saidit better myself.
And I'll just sort of end itwith.
People will say have you hadyour blood work checked?
Because this is a reallystrange way of eating and as
well.
I've told the story before, butI'll tell it quickly.

(01:21:39):
I had my blood work done anumber of years ago.
It was going in the wrongdirection.
The doctor said if everythingkeeps going the way it's going,
you're going to end up on drugs.
And I knew those drugs weregoing to be permanent drugs
unless I did something about it.
And so I got the resultstriglycerides A1C, hba1c, hdl,
ldl and a number of othermarkers.

(01:22:01):
And you know where I was withthings like vitamin D and all
the rest.
Pretty standard blood testresults.
But I got the actual resultsthis time.
Dug into them, used, you know,my knowledge of research to
figure out what is the actualmetabolic function of each of
these.
What causes, you know, bloodsugar to rise.
That kind of thing causes bloodsugar to rise, that kind of

(01:22:22):
thing.
Learned all about insulinresistance and metabolic disease
and how that's actually causingheart disease.
And certainly when I startedout I did not know I was going
to end up in this carnivore,keto way of eating.
In fact, if you told me thatthat's where I was going to end
up, I would have called youcrazy, and so I certainly wasn't
guilty of confirmation bias,because I didn't even know

(01:22:45):
that's where I was going to endup.
I was a sponge.
I was an open book when it cameto learning, and I had to tell
myself Graham, you don't knowwhat you're talking about, so
now you need to learn.
And yet I understand mostpeople aren't going to be able
to do that.
I go down a rabbit hole and Ispend a year down there learning
as much as I can, and when Icome up I feel pretty confident

(01:23:07):
that I've got the answer for me,and that was the case here.
I went back to the doctor 14months later after making some
significant changes to the way Ieat A lot of what we talked
about today and in this podcastand over time I had increased my
walking, but that was that, hadreally come near the end of

(01:23:27):
that.
So I the walking wasn'tnecessarily going to contribute
to improve blood results,because I hadn't done it as much
as I do today.
And so you know when they say,well, there's no, I read here
that this way of eating.
There's no actual studies toshow that it's healthy.
I'll say, well, there's nostudies to show that the
standard American diet ishealthy.
But, as we learned in aprevious episode, two out of 40%

(01:23:52):
of adults have prediabetes.
So it can't possibly mean thatthe standard American
recommended diet is healthy if40% of the people following that
diet are considered unhealthyto the point where this is going
to have a significant impact onthe future of their health.

(01:24:15):
But when I went back to thedoctor and I got the blood work
done again, he called me up andhe said Graham, whatever you're
doing, keep doing it.
I've got no concerns whatsoever.
Everything is marked asexcellent and we don't need to
put you on any medicationwhatsoever.
And I asked him if he wanted meto come in and explain what I'd

(01:24:38):
done because I hadn't followedthe advice he'd given me, which
is eat more plants and fruitsand vegetables.
And he sort of said oh, thanksfor the offer, I'll take it
under advisement.
Which made me sad he's a greatdoctor.
Made me sad because I washoping he would say no, come on,
I want to learn what you'vedone because maybe I can get

(01:25:00):
other people to get on a healthylifestyle track, and so when
people tell me there's noscientific way of saying, of
showing that this diet ishealthy, and I say well, the
standard American diet alsodoesn't have any of these trials
.
But N equals one trial of mehas solved almost all of my

(01:25:24):
problems.
Mentally I'm better.
Physically I'm better.
I have more energy than I everhave.
Mental health is better than Ican ever remember.
My joint pain is gone.
Even my rotator cuff that'sbeen bothering me for 20 years
is 90% better than it was, andso I don't need any randomized

(01:25:44):
control study to tell me thatwhat I've learned is appropriate
for me, and if anybody else canbenefit from learning what
we've gone through or what we'veheard from people, to me that
is a great gift to give back topeople with no expectations in
return.
Stephen, thank you for anotherwonderful episode.

(01:26:04):
Really appreciate you joiningand lending your expertise to
the conversation.
Thank you, graham.
I appreciate it, you as well.
All right, thanks everybody.
Thanks for listening to anotherepisode of Lessons from the
Keto-Verse, and we will talk toyou next time.

Speaker 1 (01:26:21):
Thanks for tuning into Lessons from the Keto-Verse
.
Join Stephen and Graham nexttime for more keto tips and
stories to fuel your health.
Subscribe, share and let's keepthe keto vibes going.

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