Maria Emmerich | Keto, Weight Loss & Breaking Diet Myths | September 18, 2025 Ep. 26 - The Low Carb Consultant

Episode Transcript
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(00:10):
All right guys, welcome back to the Low Carb Consultant podcast.
I'm excited to welcome Maria Emmerich on.
Maria is a keto nutritionist andexercise Physiology expert who's
been helping people around the world transform their health for
over 20 years. After battling PCOS, weight
gain, inflammation and energy struggles herself, she embraced

(00:34):
a low carb keto carnivore approach, became a best selling
author of more than 20 books, and now coaches clients globally
to get off meds, heal autoimmuneand metabolic issues, and
reclaim their health. Maria with her husband Craig and
she creates delicious sustainable keto and carnivore
recipe programs and education that make real transformation

(00:57):
possible. So Maria, it's again a pleasure
to meet you and excited to get into everything.
Thanks for taking the time. Thanks, Max.
It's an honor. Thanks for asking me.
Yeah, absolutely. And I typically say this in most
of my openings before we get into all the fun stuff.
And I know we were chatting offline before we started
recording about some fun stuff. Maybe for some of the listeners

(01:18):
who are not familiar with who you are quite yet, would you
mind giving us just a real briefbackground on yourself and how
you got into this space? I was 16 years old and I was
twice my size and as a very short human I was very round.
I was always an athlete. I was one of the, I was a really

(01:39):
great athlete, but I was just, Iwas trying to out eat or you
know out exercise, a bad diet. And I went to my family doctor
and at that visit she told me I had something called PCOS.
She also gave me 3 prescriptionswhich I never filled.
Something for depression, something for IBS, and something

(02:01):
for acid reflux, because I had pretty severe acid reflux and I
didn't want to fill them. And then that same week, I took
my beautiful golden retriever who was losing patches of her
hair to the vet. And the first question the vet
asked me was, what are you feeding her?
It was a question the doctor never asked me.

(02:22):
Now if a doctor asked me, I'm like, none of your business.
We're good. Don't worry about it.
I need nothing from a package. But at that visit I was really
scared because they basically told me I couldn't have my own
children. And there wasn't the Internet
back then. But looking into what causes
PCOS, it's excess caffeine, sugar and carbohydrates.

(02:44):
And at the time I worked at thiscoffee shop that before I'd go
to school, I'd go to this coffeeshop about 4:00 AM and I'd make
the scones and the muffins and the cinnamon rolls and whatever
we didn't sell that day. So I went to school and then
afterwards I went back to close it up and whatever didn't sell
that day, I got to go home with.So, you know, Seinfeld, the
muffin tops. I had like all the muffin tops.

(03:05):
And that literally was my dinner.
You think I'm kidding, but I'm not.
And I wouldn't know what days wewould like.
Fridays, Saturdays, I would makeextra cinnamon rolls just to
make sure I had some for dinner.And so knowing I had to change
my diet, I did not want to eat chicken breasts or broccoli.
And if you would have told me I could only eat meat as a

(03:26):
carnivore, I wouldn't even have tried.
So that's why I like to meet people where they're at.
But I just started making my favorite things like cinnamon
rolls into these exotic protein,low carb, sugar free, exotic
delicious things that I kept those recipes a secret for a
very long time. But we started adopting.

(03:46):
I was married before I could legally drink alcohol, and we
started adopting right away. And Craig lost his job and we
end up, the bank took our house,we sold our cars, we literally
had nothing. And a friend said, why don't you
write a cookbook to raise money for your adoption?
So I literally had to ride my bicycle to the library to write,

(04:11):
but it gave me a reason to wake up.
I started to log then too. And that's kind of how I went to
college for nutrition and exercise Physiology.
And that's kind of how it all blossomed into like these
hardships that I went through, I'm very grateful for because I
know how to live without any money and I am grateful for

(04:34):
every day. So I've heard you on a lot of
podcasts and to be honest with you, I did not know that that
portion. And how does the saying go hard
times create strong men. And then but yeah, that, that,
that's, that's amazing. So going back when you were
initially getting into this and,and you started writing, you
started the blog, you started writing like the first, first

(04:56):
cookbook. What?
What year was that again? I'm trying to think of how long
I've been blogging. I think it's been 15-16 years
and the first book I haven't. I should show you it's in the
kitchen. It looks like an old like church
cookbook. You know, it's, it's, it's old
school and I've learned a lot since then, but it's nice to

(05:17):
just see the progress. And I will say I can take
constructive criticism very well.
I can, I can handle nice constructive criticism.
And the first few books I wrote was before children and it was
that my recipes were too hard. And then I had kids and I
understood. And now when I cook it's 5

(05:39):
minutes. Boom, I'm done.
Yeah, that's awesome. And I was telling you offline
I've, I've made a lot of your recipes and for anyone listening
that has not seen your Instagramyet or your YouTube, I highly
suggest going there and we can kind of drop some of those at
the end for the show notes. But yeah, your Instagram, your
Pinterest, your YouTube channel is fantastic for all the recipes

(06:01):
that you do. And of course, like I was saying
earlier, you're cooking with your kids.
It's really it's it very entertaining, all that stuff.
I wanted to go back real quick to some of the PCOS and and
metabolic issues. Do you remember at all if there
was one single thing that you ended up changing that that you
feel like turned everything around?

(06:22):
Because I know when you're eating a bunch of carbs and
muffins and breakfast pastries, obviously when you make probably
any sort of a change, you're going to see some sort of a
result. But in terms of for you
specifically and what you were dealing with, PCOS metabolic
issues, do you remember one specific thing that you ended up
doing that completely made a 180for you?

(06:44):
Well, people who know me know I'm an all or nothing person.
I'm very determined. I am stubborn.
When I say I do something, I do it.
And I went all in and I went 100% gluten free and I lied to

(07:04):
my family and said I have a gluten allergy.
That's what the doctor told me. And they started making all this
rice and stuff and I didn't realize, I didn't know rice
didn't have gluten. And I was like, I can't have
that either. But I should have just said I am
sick and the food is causing me to be sick so I need to cut out
some of the carbohydrates and sugar and stuff.

(07:25):
But I think cutting out gluten and sugar, that was my main
focus right away. And that very first week, the
biggest change I felt was my depression went away.
And I'm not telling anybody to go off their antidepressants.
This is my story. I felt like a happy new human

(07:49):
and that's what kept me on the diet.
I was like, I'm never going backto that person ever.
And I have, it's been 28 1/2 years and I haven't gone back to
that. Well, I, I, I would say a lot of
people just ditching sugar in general that are being

(08:10):
prescribed antidepressants or that are struggling with mental
health, whatever the case is just cutting out sugar and
carbs. Like I noticed that in, in, in
my own life, like how much better I felt, how much clearer
my mind was, how much happier I was, mood lifted, elevated
everything. And it's crazy to me how

(08:31):
something as simple as sugar canactually impact us that much.
And I know we were talking aboutyour husband Craig, who had come
on the podcast previously. Great guy.
I think he's Craig is fantastic.And I know you all at this point
have I think consulted with and helped maybe hundreds if not
thousands of people at this point.

(08:53):
When you guys get someone new coming in, in regards to the
debate around keto or carnivore protein sparing, how do you
decide which path to recommend for someone struggling with
whether it be weight loss, autoimmune disease, or hormonal

(09:15):
imbalance? How do you how do you approach
that initial concept, a consultation with them and then
pick a pathway? Well, I'm going to to my own
horn and it's hundreds a month, so it's a lot more than you
think. Oh wow, I was off.
So I will say that again, if somebody would have told me I
had to be carnivore when I was first starting out, I wouldn't

(09:38):
have even tried. So I think that's a big piece of
where I like to approach things is meeting people where they're
at. Because this is going to be a
long term thing. This is not a, OK, I'm losing
pounds and then I'm going to go back because your body's just
going to go back to what it was.This is not a short term thing.

(09:58):
I wanted to see it as a lifestyle.
So carnivore I usually use for autoimmune issues.
It is the ultimate autoimmune protocol.
It's very helpful for chronic pain, Lyme disease.
However, I'm going to do it differently than most people.

(10:19):
So we're not going to be puttingbutter on steak.
We're not going to do any dairy for autoimmune issues.
Dairy is very, that's a more common allergen than gluten is.
But we we don't want to say thatin the carnivore and keto
community because oh, you're taking away my precious butter
and cheese and cream. How dare you.

(10:40):
So with autoimmune issues, yeah,definitely a dairy free
carnivore approach. When someone is, you know,
obese, I'm going to suggest a few protein sparing modified
fasting days. They don't have to do that, but
when they see very fast results,they want in, right?

(11:00):
They're more, they're more addicted to keep going.
So we had someone named Tyler. I don't know if Craig ever
talked about him on your podcast, but Tyler was 650 lbs
and we got him to lose 100 lbs in two months and.
If I remember, was he the guy that was that was overweight

(11:22):
like you just said but his bloodmarkers showed like he wasn't
insulin resistant correct if I remember.
He had perfect blood. His blood was perfect, but he
was an anomaly that was able to gain more fat cells.
Yes, I remember. And yeah, so his his fat cells
weren't stuffed. He was able to make more of
them. He would outlive all of us.

(11:46):
So how do you approach a situation like that, putting on
like a more moderate fat carnivore approach and include
some high protein sparing days? Is that basically what you guys
did? So he can get away with doing
protein sparing days more often than someone who is trying to
lose 100 lbs, right? Because he had a lot of energy

(12:07):
on his body. So what I suggested with him was
we did three protein sparing days a week.
And then if you do three of them, I do like to do one over
feeding day, which is not like aPizza Hut day, but it is that's
your rib eye day, that's your ribs day, that is your fattier
cuts of meat day. I do still suggest people go

(12:29):
dairy free if they want fast results.
But with Tyler it was going to be a long haul.
And so I told him I said, if youwant pizza, this is the recipe
you're going to do. Because he didn't mind cooking,
but the problem was his neighbors would bring him crap
all the time. And so he was mentally ready to
do it. But he was surrounded by food

(12:49):
pushers, right? They would bring him, you know,
the to go take out pizza and stuff like that.
But yeah, with him, I wasn't so strict with dairy because he
didn't have any autoimmune issues.
And this had to be a long haul. I didn't want him to quit
because he couldn't have pizza anymore.
Interesting. So so how long ago was this?

(13:10):
Where is Tyler at right now? This must have been four years
ago, and yeah, it's not a great story.
He's not on the diet. He's back to his old ways.
Let's talk about that because I think a lot of people have that
issue that you were referring toa little bit earlier.

(13:31):
And it's like maybe the societalcommunity pressure, friends,
family, you know, he was sounds like with his living situation,
he had people coming over bringing him food.
And that's hard to turn down. You don't want to be mean or
say, oh, no, I'm not going to eat that.
I'm on a diet. Like some for some people,
that's hard to do. Like how did you consult with

(13:52):
him when he was bringing that up?
Like it's all my neighbor's bringing me a pizza.
Well, it's like Tyler, just don't eat it.
Like I was curious to see how you approach those types of
situations with people. It's very difficult, especially
when you're dealing with an obvious food addiction.
Yeah. And he was in a culture, and I
can say this because it was. It's the same town I grew up in
and we went to high school together.

(14:13):
OK. And in North Central Wisconsin,
you live to eat. You don't eat to live.
Does that make sense? Yes, yeah, food's a big deal up
there. I mean, there's, it's cold,
it's, you know, you hunker down.And when you do eat differently
than everybody else, they get triggered, you know, and that's

(14:34):
what I tell in my presentation. What happens when you, when
you're trying to cut out alcoholor drugs or cigarettes?
Everybody's very supportive, right?
They don't even want to have a beer around you.
But if you cut out sugar or carbohydrates, what happens?
Your mom, your favorite pie, right?
That's what happened to me. My family was triggered, but I'm

(14:57):
such a stubborn girl that I was like, you think I can't do this?
Watch out, right? So I try to encourage them to be
different. And I think I do a very good job
at it because look at my children.
We live in a white community andthey are super comfortable with

(15:18):
being different the way they don't eat the way same way that
their kids, their their friends eat.
They look way different than their friends.
They would, they dress different, like they're totally
OK with being different. So I think that's the big thing.
Like nobody who wants to be the same as everybody else.
Those people don't. They don't.
They don't become successful people if you are a sheep.

(15:40):
Yeah, I would agree. Going back to what you were
saying about your children and was funny.
So we live. I'm in Austin, TX, OK.
We took my kids a few weeks ago down to it's like a like a it's
like a natural spring swimming hole.
Art and springs. Art and springs.
I know that very. Well, yeah, so we took him down

(16:02):
there, and it's obviously very touristy.
There's a lot of, like, locals that go down there and swim and
do their thing, but it's also very touristy.
People from all over the place. And obviously everyone's
swimming. You know, bodies are revealed,
shirts are off. And we were walking back to the
car and my son said something very interesting to me.

(16:24):
He's like, dad, everyone I saw today was fat.
And I was like, and I'm an in shape guy.
My kids watch me work out. They know what dad is into.
Our kids eat a certain way similar to your kids.
They're they're in shape and andlean.
Same thing with my wife. And so my wife and I looked at

(16:46):
each other and I knew that this was one of those moments, you
know what I mean? One of the moments where we're
going to have like, a talk in the car on the way home, like,
OK, you know, we don't eat like everybody else.
We don't want to be like everybody else.
We work out. We take care of ourselves
because we want you guys to do the same thing.
So you are not, you know, overweight kids.

(17:07):
I was just curious to get your thoughts on that and see if you
have maybe some of the same conversations with your two
boys. We have held classes at our
house where we can fit maybe 50 people in our living room area.
We haven't done one lately, but we would have all these
strangers come piling into the house and the boys would

(17:29):
basically hear us present. And we've been doing this for 15
years, even before they were in our our family, right.
And so it's interesting to see what they pick up on because we
set out all the chairs and the living room was all ready for
the people to come. But it was probably an hour
before the class started. And my son gets up there and we

(17:53):
have this on video. Craig and I are in the office
and we peek out there. Hey everybody, you know what
causes diabetes? And they just went on and on and
on about they were Kai was sitting in the audience where my
oldest one was doing like the presentation and it was so
funny. He's and Kai's in the audience.
He's like, can I have bread? No, can I have?

(18:16):
Can I have? They had, they had like a little
stick, they had a little stick going on.
And it's like, ah, and he was like, pretending to be
disappointed, like the people inthe audience, right?
But then he's like, oh, but you can have my mom's ice cream, you
know, like thinking positive. And it's just cool for them to
think about how if you're the type of person that's always

(18:38):
like doom and gloom, right? When I was told I couldn't have
my own kids, I could have gottenreally depressed like a lot of
women do. But I was like, no, I'm going to
change the life of other children and adopt them.
I was very positive about it. And if you were like that with
all parts of your life, even what your diet is like, oh,
Maria said. I can't have bread.

(18:58):
I can't have rice anymore. You know, I'm not, this sucks.
If you think about that, you're going to fail.
But if you're like, hey, Maria said.
I could have that the chicken wings and I could have the her
ice cream and I could have that chocolate tort thing that she
makes. And if you start thinking about
all the things you can have rather than the things that you

(19:20):
can't, first of all, more peopleare going to want to be around
you. Because who wants to be around
the doom and gloom people? No, buddy.
And the people that are successful look on the bright
side. So I just want that to sit with
people because I think there's too many doom and gloom.
Oh, man, I, I, I can't agree with you more.

(19:41):
So I'm 40 years old and I've got, you know, as I've gotten
older, you have all your friendsthat separate from high school
or college. Everyone goes in their different
directions. And then you have some friends
that you know, can't, I'm sure you have this too.
I feel like everybody has this where some friends are maybe
lagging behind a little bit and but they can't get things
together. They've got some bad habits.

(20:03):
I can't talk to those friends anymore.
Like as much as like some of them were like my brother's
growing up. My mom.
My mom will still take care of some of my friends like that
have bad living situations. And I, it, it, it almost pains
me to say this, but I can't, I can't have conversations with
those people anymore. I can't be on the phone with

(20:23):
them anymore because it starts to bring you down, right?
It starts to bring you down and what you're trying to do and
it's in 100%. I agree with you.
You can't surround yourself And even as good as that friend is,
you almost have to distance yourself from them or almost
remove the frequency in which you speak to them because that

(20:45):
will negatively impact your mindset and what you're trying
to do that that is absolutely a thing, 100%.
It is, and we have the power to change that.
So if you are that person, you have the power to change that,
and what you put in your mouth can help you change that.
Absolutely. And maybe getting back to you
because I feel like we went thisdirection because we were

(21:06):
talking about Tyler, the gentleman that you were helping.
For people that let's say for someone that's stuck, whether
it's keto, let's say they're on keto, low carb corner.
For someone that's stuck and they're maybe not seeing the
improvements, whether it's in their energy, their body weight,
or maybe some of their metabolicmarkers.
What is typically the protocol when you've been already working

(21:30):
with someone and then maybe theystart to hit that plateau?
Well, most people that come to me that are like, hey, I'm keto
or carnivore and I'm not losing any weight, I'm gaining it.
I was like, well most people do it wrong for weight loss. 99% of
people do it wrong for weight loss and the first thing I'm
going to do is I'll probably askthem about their sleep just

(21:53):
because it's something that nobody really asked them about
or touch touches on. Ask them if they're menopausal
and if they're on HRT and if they're not, ask them why not
because you become more insulin resistant without estrogen.
I'm going to ask them if they drink caffeine or coffee because
that's going to affect the results.

(22:14):
I'm going to politely ask them to cut out dairy and follow
these meal plans. I'm probably going to increase
their protein and lower the fat compared to what most carnivore
experts out there recommend. And it works every time so.

(22:35):
Yeah. OK, so this is this is kind of
what I, I, I, I wanted to get out here.
So that's why I said when peoplecome to me, because, yeah, I'm
working with somebody, they, they don't get stuck.
I'm just they don't. Yeah, Well, I appreciate that.
And I have a feeling because again, I was also talking with
your husband about this. I know you guys get a lot of

(22:58):
clients coming from the high fatcarnivore space and it's weird.
It's not weird. I would say it's more so
interesting because I I was talking with Robert.
I had Robert Sykes on this podcast.
He was the last guest. So this was maybe a handful of
days ago. And Robert Sykes isn't, in my
opinion, a little bit different,right?
Because he does he's, he's a ketogenic bodybuilder, right?

(23:20):
And he also changes his diet a lot because he'll go through
bulking for a bodybuilding show and then he'll go through a
cutting phase, a prep right to, to get stage ready.
His diet and his macro nutrientsare changing.
He's constantly changing his diet.
And when I was talking with him,he was also playing around with

(23:42):
alternate day eating. So he would eat like 3035
hundred, 4000 calories one day, not eat the next day and then
and then do that the next day. So he's constantly changing his
diet, playing around with different things.
And I think that's one of the reasons why he can sustain the
way that he eats because he's always kind of changing things
and that's just how he lives hislife because of what he's into

(24:03):
and what he does now from the people that come to you from the
high fat carnivore space, This is what I was talking with Craig
about that are gaining weight. And we were talking about Robert
Kiltz, Doctor Robert Kiltz a little bit earlier, who probably
would agree with this and say, oh, you got to go the higher fat
carnivore. But it's like the way I look at

(24:24):
it is high fat carnivore will work initially, especially if
you're overweight. If you're eating a standard
American diet and you're having the muffins and the breakfast
pastries and the carbs and the sugar, going high fat carnivore
you, if you're completely removing a macronutrient, which
is carbs, that is throwing an entire wrench into your
metabolic process. Like you're probably going to

(24:45):
lose some weight, but at some point the body will, it will
work very hard to adapt to what you're doing.
And if the amount of fat intake you're taking in, and I'm saying
this because I want to get your two cents on this, but if you're
eating like 200 and 5300 grams of fat in a day, you know, or
maybe more, depending on what you're consuming, your body is

(25:06):
going to sense that you're in a very abundant food environment.
And why would it want to tap in a stored body fat?
You might gain weight. What are your what are your
thoughts on that from from the perspective of people coming to
you guys from the high fat carnivore space?
I just kind of get frustrated that they put up with it for so

(25:27):
long because Maria, I gained 50 lbs doing high fat carb.
I was like, why didn't you stop after 10?
You know, why did you, why did you keep listening?
And they said because they said I was healing, nobody is healing
when they're gaining weight and they're already an overweight
body. And I'm sorry but you are wrong.
People can go from a standard American diet to carnivore and

(25:49):
gain weight. I've seen it all the time and
don't lose any weight, they justgain it.
Think about how caloric dense. I mean people don't want to
admit this but calories are calories.
So if you go from a standard American diet and then you go to
carnivore and you're drinking the heavy cream and you're
eating a stick of butter on top of a rib eye, you are putting

(26:10):
yourself in a lipotoxicity stateand it is not a healthy state to
be in. Yeah, well, and and to your
point, I know sometimes, you know, the calorie word can be a
touchy subject for people in thelow carb ketogenic space because
no one wants no one wants to track it.
I get it. Like everyone wants to eat
intuitively and not track and blah, blah, blah.
But to be honest with you, like,people do need to understand

(26:34):
that a gram of fat has what, 9 calories in it?
And it's like, if you're to yourpoint, if you're going from like
a standard American diet where you're eating sugar, carbs, and
then you're bumping up the fat, well, fat has more calories per
gram. Like, yeah, you're, you're,
you're going to gain weight. The calories matter.
The energy of the food does matter.
It's the same reason why the sugar diet works.

(26:54):
I'm not saying I think it's healthy, but it's the same
reason that, you know, people can lose weight eating nothing
but Twinkies. It's it's been proven, Yeah,
right. Eating nothing but McDonald's,
it's been proven. But it's a caloric deficit.
It's not a healthy diet. And I'm not encouraging anybody

(27:15):
to do that, but you can reverse insulin resistance eating
Twinkies. You can reverse insulin
resistance eating a vegan diet. Do I recommend it?
Absolutely not. But you can.
Yeah, That that, that's interesting that you said that
because I was talking with your husband about I I'm a big fan of
Mark Bell and I know the we've. Been on this podcast and yeah.

(27:39):
Yeah, yeah, Mark, Mark, Mark's great.
He puts out a lot of good content.
And the one thing I do appreciate about him is he's
always trying something and experimenting and talking about
it. And I feel like the sugar diet
had its run, you know, a little bit of a run there.
But in my opinion it it's absolutely not a healthy diet.
But the reason why I was intrigued by it is because you

(28:01):
were seeing all these anecdotal testimonials about people
talking about their experience. People were losing weight.
But it makes sense, right? Like if you're just eating high
sugar and you're pulling back 222 big macro nutrients, you're
pulling back protein and you're pulling back fat and you're
increasing that hormone FGF 21, right?

(28:23):
You're you're, you're basically completely throwing a huge
wrench into your entire you're basically hacking your
metabolism to go on a very hyperforward focused fat burning
mode. And people were losing weight.
The problem is it's like you can't live your life smashing
Twinkies and sour patch Kids. There's no way that that's

(28:43):
healthy. No, it's, it's not healthy and
that's why I still encourage people and even when it comes to
protein versus fat when we talk,you know the different keto
carnivore approaches. I did, I don't know if you
caught it, you mentioned my Instagram last week.
I posted about, OK, if I put a plate in front of you that has 0

(29:07):
nutrients, maybe a little vitamin A or a plate in front of
you that has all the vitamins and minerals your body needs for
that day, which one are you going to choose?
This one, right? And then I pull it back.
I said, OK, this is a plate of butter.
That's your right. That's your vitamin A.
That's all you get for the day. This is all your protein that

(29:28):
has iron and zinc and selenium and B12 and nine times the
amount of potassium. So and you get to eat all of
this food. It was my carnivore spaghetti
with some meatballs and my protein pudding and what else?
04 slices of garlic bread with my protein bread, I mean, and
you get a massive amount of food, right?

(29:49):
So that's what kind of my point was, is that, OK, this fat
versus protein thing, you can't deny the nutrients are in the
protein. They're not.
There's very little in butter orfat.
Well, we can talk about muscle building right now too, because
this is one of the things that Doctor Kiltz and I kind of got
into about, You know, he was saying nobody needs protein.
He was basically saying on my podcast that you build amino

(30:12):
acids and you can build protein from breaking down fat in the
body. And I was just like.
That. No, Yeah, no.
Just because you say something doesn't make it and make it
true. Just because you say something
with confidence so. True.
Yeah, I agree with you. Love, love him very much.
But we were at an event a few months ago or not not it was a
month ago, it was in August. And someone specifically stood

(30:35):
up and asked me a question aboutmy weight gain, muscle building
journey and he said can you tellus the strategies?
And he interrupted and said, you, she's going to eat a lot of
fat because you need fat, amino acids from fat.
And I was like, what for? How much was it 2000 calories of

(30:56):
fat? You get 1g of amino acid.
That's it. Yeah.
That is not what I'm focusing on.
Obviously I am adding fat to gain some weight, but I am full
like my my breakfast is about 85grams of protein, right?
So no, I'm not focusing on fat called muscle.
That is ridiculous. So just because you say stuff in

(31:19):
confidence, those types of people bug me.
Well, let, let, let's let's talkabout that real quick, because I
did want to ask you, because I know you posted about going on
your your muscle gain journey. I want to get into like your
day-to-day, how you're lifting, how you're eating, your protein,
your macros. I want to get into all that so
people can kind of good get a good sense of, you know, what
you're doing now. But how did you, how did you do

(31:41):
it? How did you respond to him?
Because I, I didn't know that I,I didn't know that he had
interrupted you because I heard you talking about this.
I believe you were talking aboutthe same situation when you were
chatting with Doctor Lisa Wiedemann.
How did you respond to him and that situation?
I just. Said that you're completely
wrong and I just went on to say the facts but we more got into

(32:02):
it when he said women should notgo on HRT and that's so
unnatural. I was like, we're living in a
world of microplastics and Emfs and our lives are totally
different than what our ancestors did and our ancestor
did. They did use herbs for a natural
HRT. So do not say that women and
you're a dude. You do not get to tell women

(32:22):
what to do. Go away.
And so I would say that's where I got more upset, sure, as women
do not deserve to live over halftheir lives, some of them over
half their lives, in a postmenopausal state where
they're losing muscle, they're losing bone, their brains are
deteriorating. They deserve better. 100% I mean
the, the time in which we're living right now, the amount of

(32:46):
toxins we're exposed to how to how our food is stored.
Even our meat comes in plastic depending on where you get it.
Like you know what I mean? Our meat comes in plastic.
We're storing things in plastic,Hairspray, chemicals, soap, you
name it, candles, air fresheners.
We are exposed even when we don't want to be, when we just
go out in public, we are exposedto more toxins than we ever have

(33:09):
in the past. So that is going to impact our
hormones more than we ever have.And This is why companies like
Merrick Health, in my opinion, are becoming very, very
successful is because men's testosterone, we can talk about
women and their hormones, but men's testosterone has been
moving in the wrong direction for the number of years.
But I think it's because 100% A,it has a lot to do with our food

(33:32):
habits, behaviors, but it's alsothe environment that we're
living in that's completely depleting everything.
And we're below, a lot of us arebelow industry norms for hormone
markers. And not just that, I mean, we
talk about like testosterone is male hormone and estrogen is a
female hormone. Do you know that women make more
testosterone than they do estrogen?

(33:52):
So why don't we address that? Because it's super important for
many, many reasons too. So I just get a little
frustrated when it's like, no, that wasn't what our ancestors
did. OK, let's talk about what our
ancestors did. You know what they didn't do?
They didn't have a butter Turnerto put butter on steak.
And they didn't have the opportunity to just cut the rib

(34:13):
eye out of the cow. And first of all, they didn't
have cows like we do today. We have learned how to fatten
them up way more. I'm a bull hunter.
I bow hunt. And when I've stood out in the
woods, I'm looking around and all of the animals are very
lean. The deer, the squirrel, the
Turkey, the the fish, like all the things that I do, it's all

(34:33):
very lean meat. Moose, elk, it's all very lean.
And so we have learned to changeour food to be more fattening
than what our ancestors ever ate.
So do not say that we have to dowhat our ancestors did, because
you're doing it either. I am so glad you brought that up

(34:53):
because you know when when when Doctor Kelton and I were
chatting, he was kind of giving the analogy of a bear
hibernating and fattening, fattening up.
And I was just like, yeah, but like, think about how our
ancestors ate, right? Like, think about the food that
was available. But to your point, we bred until

(35:15):
farming came around. We basically grew cows, right?
We corralled them, we fed them, we fattened them.
And that's why we have rib eyes and fatty cuts of meat.
All of the animals, we weren't hunting fat cows, we were
hunting deer. We were hunting wild game like

(35:35):
bison and things like that. These are naturally leaner cuts
of meat. It's it's, it's 100% ancestrally
appropriate to eat leaner cuts of meat because that's what we
had available until modern agriculture and farming came
around where we fattened up our animals.
And by the way, we fattened themup with not anything natural.

(35:57):
We found them up with grain and soy, not grass.
OK, so another point is when I was speaking in meat stock this
past May, I won't say who, but one of the speakers said, but
we, Maria, we gave all the protein to the dogs.
I was like, and what civilization did they have the
luxury to give the protein to the dogs?

(36:19):
Didn't they give the organs? Didn't they give the dogs the
organs? That's what that's what I knew.
The organs were the prized. We knew that that was the
nutrient. Like when if you look at the, I
had the opportunity to go to Africa a few times and they give
the new couple, the new married couple, the organs because it's
going to make them more fertile,right?

(36:41):
They knew that that was the prize piece.
So I don't know where this theory came from, but again,
just because you see it in confidence doesn't make it true.
Yeah, IIA, 100% agree with you. I, I wanted to switch real quick
because we had briefly chatted about your muscle building

(37:03):
journey. And to be honest with you, I've
been kind of following along on your Instagram.
It's really inspirational. And kudos to you because I can
see, I don't know if you Remember Me commenting, I can
see the change. I can 100% see the change in
your arms and your shoulders. I can tell you're, you're,
you're putting on some mass. If you don't mind me asking, now

(37:24):
that you've gotten back into this muscle building mode and
putting on muscle, what does like your day-to-day look like
for you now in terms of when youjust so for the listeners know
what Maria Emmerich's doing like, like what does, what does
the day-to-day look like? Like when do you first eat?
Do you eat before you work out, after you work out?
What are your protein and macronutrient goals?
All of it. Well, first of all, I want to

(37:46):
say thank you for saying that because I mean, I, my mom won't
be watching this, but I saw my parents recently in there.
She's like, doesn't look like you gained much.
And I was like, you don't realize how hard I'm trying.
I'm, I'm going to start crying and just thinking about it.
But thank you for your kindness.And it's, it's a struggle and

(38:08):
it's not, it's a struggle in many ways, but my, my day looks
like in the morning I'll do somered light.
The, the hard part is, is my hunger has gone down
tremendously. I'm up about 14 lbs for my
lowest weight. And I've said this many times,

(38:28):
nobody saw me at my lowest weight.
I was, I was in the ICU, I was super sick.
I did not look good. I wouldn't want to do videos.
And in the past year, my videos were my son's.
I didn't, I didn't want to be oncamera because I look terrible.
But I was really excited about that low number, which was so
twisted, right? So in the morning I kind of just

(38:51):
like wake up with red light. It's still dark out when I get
up and I love doing some red light stuff.
And if I am hungry, I will eat alittle something.
But then I, I don't like to liftwhen I have a full stomach.
And talking to Robert, I mean, he is the expert of building

(39:12):
muscle. He's like, as long as you get
your protein and your calories in the day, that day, you don't
need to worry about doing it right before your workout or
after. So I'll do a pretty good
strength training and I switch off again.
I wake up way before anybody else is up.
I'm up at like 4:00 AM working out, but I would rather do that

(39:34):
than watch TV at night. So I'll switch off.
Today was a leg day and then youknow, tomorrow will be like arms
and upper body type thing. And then after that I jump in
the sauna for anywhere from usually about 1/2 an hour.
If I, if I'm home, if I have time to do this again, I travel
a lot so I don't have opportunity to do this every

(39:55):
day. But then I'll eat, and I usually
eat like I told you, it's about 85 grams of protein.
I'm very, I hunt so I have a lotof meat.
I like filet and scallops. It's just my thing.
I love those together. If I have do you have that
again? I will mix it up and then
sometimes I'll have yogurt with that too.

(40:16):
It's a full fat organic yogurt, which I like and some
watermelon. I know you don't know that
carnivore and stuff. And here's Craig is a massive
scientist. He understands the body really
well. And he said you obviously want
to build muscle and gluconeogenesis is a real thing.
It's what enables ketosis and carnivore to you.

(40:39):
You live because your body partsof your body does need glucose.
And so he begged me to get at least 50 grams of carbs.
So I eat like 1/2 a watermelon after a workout because I don't
want to waste that precious protein or my precious muscles
to make the glucose I need for my brain, my thyroid to certain

(41:01):
parts of your body. Do whatever Kilt says.
Parts of your body do need glucose.
It's true. And you can't make it from fat.
You make it from, you can make it from protein.
And so I'll do that. And then then I usually get to
work podcasts while we're writing a book, I'm doing
recipes for companies. It's always something different.

(41:23):
I can't tell you what I actuallydo usually walk after I eat
because I just don't like to sit.
I don't really sit down very much anyway, but I like to go on
a walk and then in the afternoondo another meal.
And I don't really count the macros, but it's, I mean, it's a

(41:44):
lot of protein. Very, I'm very, I prefer that.
I feel much better eating that. And then I'll usually do.
I mean, I'm, I, I got into this Ninja creamy thing.
So I'll do a Ninja Creamy later for like a little dessert.
What's a What's a Ninja Creamy? Do you don't know what a Ninja
creamy is dude? No, I don't.

(42:06):
Oh my gosh, so a Ninja Creamy isthis machine?
I ordered one. I know what a ninja is, but I'm,
I'm assuming you're, you've got,you're going to lay out like a
very specific type of dessert that you make.
Sure. OK, so I ordered this, this
machine, it's called a Ninja Creamy.
It makes creamy ice cream. I've seen it all over TikTok.
I was like, oh, I got to do this.
It came. It's huge, it's expensive.

(42:27):
I was like, I'm never going to use this.
I returned it the next day. OK.
So then I had my girlfriends come.
I meant my best friends are frommy retreats.
I do retreats around the world and we just got to be very
close. They come on all of my retreats
and I invited them to come stay at this cabin in Wisconsin.
Some of them drove from Canada and one of them brought a Ninja

(42:48):
Creamy with her. She came from Canada, which is
awesome, and they made this ice cream.
It's with water. I make mine differently.
So it's higher calorie, but it'swater, protein powder, sometimes
an egg and that's like it. And I was like, this should be
icy, gross. No, but this is not going to be
good. And then they made it and I was

(43:10):
like, what? This is crazy.
And so it's it's like magic ice cream.
So I obviously I don't like telling everybody exactly what I
do because my goal is going to be different than everybody
else's. But I definitely do a higher
calorie, higher fat version. But it's still a lot of protein.
And I think it's really important to get, you know,
protein towards the morning for that leucine shift.

(43:32):
And then before you, you know, go to bed.
And I'm not saying right before bed, but to close out the day
with a good protein bolus so youcan go through the evening with
a nice muscle building. I'm on a protein.
Yeah. Well, I'm just going to guess
here. I'm, I would assume the way that
you're making it, if you're wanting it to be a little bit

(43:53):
more robust, have more calories in it and you might be using
some full fat cream maybe. Yogurt.
And yogurt. Oh my gosh, I got to try this.
Ricotta cheese too, yeah. I saw your ricotta cheese
cheesecake. I saw that.
I saw that post the other day and I was like.
I wonder how that it's better than cream cheese.

(44:16):
Yeah. Because and you.
Very tangy taste to it. This is smooth.
It's great. And you and what was what kind
of blew me away, honestly, was you use element to flavor it the
the the electrolyte pack. Well, what happened was when my
girlfriends from around the the world came to stay at this
cabin, I, I bought all this ricotta cheese on accident.

(44:39):
It's a long story, but so I'm making this cheesecake and I was
like, where we're stayed at a rental cabin, there's no lemon
juice. And my friend said, well,
instead of always add salt to your desserts, salt is a flavor
enhancer. So even for sweet things, always
add salt. People don't realize that a
McDonald's French fry or a McDonald's milkshake has more
sodium than their French fry has.

(44:59):
But that's how that's how important sodium is to dessert.
So she said, why don't you use the element, the lemon 1 instead
of lemon juice and salt? I was like, that's brilliant.
And it was. It's really good.
Yeah, well, I, I had a question around tricks because obviously
like one of the things that I think you're, you're, you're
definitely very well known for is all your cookbooks, your

(45:21):
recipes. You mentioned salt.
Is there like 1 creative trick or ingredient you use when
you're making your your? Whether it's your desserts or
your keto foods, low carb foods,Whatever the case is, is there
one little ingredient or trick that can typically make

(45:41):
something taste way better or make it easier to make?
Fish sauce. Fish sauce.
Yeah, and again, you have to be careful because you want to get
just pure fish sauce, which is anchovies do not smell it.
But that has something called Have you ever heard of umami?
Yes. Umami is that flavor on your

(46:02):
tongue that's indescribable. You know, you have sweet,
savory, salty, all these different flavors profiles on
your tongue. And then there's umami, which is
this indescribable flavor that makes things taste great.
This could be an MSG, fish sauce, Parmesan cheese, tomatoes
have it. So different things have it, but
adding a little fish sauce to deviled eggs, to your meatloaf,

(46:26):
to whatever you're making reallyadds a flavor bomb.
And most people, they are like, why does my food at home never
taste as good as a restaurant? It's because you don't use
enough salt, is it? And then I also would say if you
want to make the perfect steak, if you don't have a histamine
issue and you can leave it in the fridge, salt your steak the

(46:48):
night before because it's going to infuse that steak with that
salt flavor inside the steak andit's going to make it way more
tender. It's a it's a game changer.
So salt and and and that one, would you say that that would
maybe go for like all meat? Because a lot of the times when

(47:08):
I cook and especially if it's like maybe like a flap steak or
like. Chicken or whatever.
Carne asada, yeah, Or like a flank sometimes.
Marinade, Marinade is the same theory.
It's going to really and and just get all into the steak, the

(47:30):
chicken, whatever you're using. I wouldn't do it on fish, but.
Yeah, that's good to know. I mean, because I still marinate
a lot of like those those like the flank steaks or whatever.
But a lot of times the the problem is my kids find them to
be a little bit more chewy than they want them to be.
So I'm wondering if maybe if I were to put in a little bit more

(47:52):
salt, because there's salt in the marinade that I use and and
the different spices all put together.
And even when I do merited over marinated overnight, it still
comes out a little bit chewy andrough.
What? What would I be maybe doing
wrong? Marinating ain't too long.
Marinating ain't too long. Yeah.
So same with chicken, if you marinate it too long, there

(48:12):
comes a point where it's going to ruin the texture.
OK. Yeah, good to know.
I know we're starting to come uphere on time, Maria and I want
to be respectful of what you gotgoing on in your day.
So I typically have a portion ofthe podcast where I go through

(48:33):
like a rapid fire type of Q&A thing.
So I've got some rapid fire questions.
But what I was going to say was don't necessarily feel like you
need to give like a rapid fire short answer.
Feel free to elaborate, elaborate here a little bit.
What's the biggest lie people believe about keto that's
keeping them sick and overweight?

(48:55):
That as long as it says keto it's good for you.
Like I'm thinking the package bread.
I would say if it comes out of apackage I wouldn't eat it.
I think I would agree with you 100% and because a lot of those
keto treats too if I'm remembering correctly.
Like they have those sugar alcohols in them that can

(49:17):
completely mess up the digestion.
Those are no, those are no good at all.
No, I made the mistake early on in my sugar free lifestyle, I
would buy the sugar free candies.
So I was, I was like a teenager at this point, but I like to
boat hunt like I told you. And I would eat these the sugar
free, you know, candy type thing, right?

(49:37):
The hard candies. And man, I would have the worst
gas. I was like, no deer is ever
going to come by me because I think terribly do not use that
stuff. Oh my gosh, that's funny.
Good to know. OK, if someone hit a weight loss
plateau today, what will What are the top three things they
could do right now to breakthrough it?

(49:58):
Get good sleep. So whether it be putting your
blue blockers on at 5:00 PM so you get really good because when
you get that blue light, it's telling your brain that is still
daytime. And whether it be screens,
phones, a huge TV, whatever thatcan keep you from falling
asleep. Well, and then if you can't stay
asleep, get your progesterone tested women.

(50:21):
But getting good sleep is going to be huge for your blood sugar,
your moods, your cravings, your ability to stay on the diet and
just the amount of food you're going to eat that day.
If you didn't sleep well and your ability to build muscle, if
you only slept 4 hours versus 8 hours, a lot of studies are
showing that you have a almost impossible feet building muscle

(50:44):
with less sleep. And then I would say let's cut
out the dairy. Just do it for a week.
You know, people like short termgoals.
Just cut out the butter, the cream, all of it for one week.
See if you can do it, you know, kind of challenge them that way.
And then I would also probably bump up the protein and lower
the fat like we were talking earlier.

(51:05):
Yeah, I agree. What food do you believe is the
most overrated health food and why should people cut it out?
Spinach. Oxalates.
Oxalates, you know, people thinkthat it's this great salad,
delicious, and most people are eating it raw on a salad, which
means there's going to be more oxalates in it.

(51:27):
Have you ever had a kidney stone?
I, I have been lucky. I'm 40 years old right now.
I'm going to turn 41 in January.I have not had any.
But I to be honest with you, I cut spinach out of the diet a
long time ago. And I've I've also had Sally
Norton on. I almost wish she was like my
mom. She she, she's great, but she

(51:47):
kind of changed a lot of how I eat certain plants, so I've been
able to avoid them. OK, so when I cut all of that
type of stuff out, I did have a kidney stone.
It was the worst pain in my life.
So I won't, I think spinach and probably like almond milk or
nuts. You know, people think nuts are
so great healthy fat and it's just I think it could be a

(52:08):
disaster for oxalate dumping a. 100% agree with you.
If you had to pick one keto hackthat gives people the fastest
results, what would it be? I'm going to go back to one more
coffee. Coffee for the for the kidney
stones. Coffee is going to affect you in

(52:29):
many ways. It hasn't.
I mean, no matter who's making it, whether it be, I won't say
his name, but some people claim there's no mold in their coffee.
It's how it's. Yeah.
It's how it's made. It's going to have mold in it,
you know, so that increases blood pressure and makes your
teeth brown. It causes gastroparesis.

(52:50):
It actually can cause more anxiety with people, which is
obvious. It can hinder your sleep.
So there's a lot of, I have a whole blog post on why I don't
drink coffee anymore. And I had an IV of coffee in my
arm. I drank so much coffee before
and now I feel my energy is better without it but OK.
Biggest keto hack? Well, I will, I will say real

(53:10):
quick before you go and then we'll get back to that question.
So I was running into, if I'm being honest, I was drinking a
very unreasonable amount of coffee every single day.
Like sometimes it was like I wassipping on it all day long up
until noon. I would sometimes eat and then
have it in the afternoon. Like I could knock out a pot.

(53:30):
I could knock out a pot to myself and I was running into
never like kidney stone issues, but I was running into a whole
bunch of other issues in regardsto sleep, like very frequent
urination. Like I was waking up like 4 * a
night to take a piss. But like my I, I was losing a
lot of I was losing a lot of water and electrolytes.
Like I was basically flushing mysystem out and like my blood

(53:52):
markers when I was getting my blood tested through Merck, they
were completely out of whack. And so the guys like you have
got to stop drinking coffee. So I, I did, I have not stopped
all the way. I have dialed it back.
I will maybe have like a cup and1/2 in the morning, like ice.
It's more of like a morning. Yeah, like a morning thing.

(54:14):
And I know people tell me all the time I can switch to bro
broth. I can just have tea.
I can make some more water. I can drink some warm water and
still get that type of ritualistic effect.
Though there's something about the coffee taste that I'm still
attracted to in some way, I guess.
Yeah, but I've cut it down significantly.
But I I agree with you. Like it's not great, but I have

(54:35):
seen a bunch of improvements just cutting it way back.
Down. Yeah.
And even like blood sugar, it does increase your blood sugar
about 8%. So that's why your hunger goes
away when you drink it. Yeah, well, once you you have to
stop eventually drinking it and it's going to make your cravings
and hunger go through the roof. Yeah, yeah, 100%.
OK, going back to the keto question.

(54:56):
So if you had to pick one keto hack that gives people the
fastest results, what would it be?
Have me be your personal chef. I don't know, it's so hard.
The biggest keto hack. You know what kind of popped up

(55:19):
into my mind? The two things obviously,
because I know you are a big keto low carb cook and make your
own recipes. Here's what I would say 1 Go,
don't do The Dirty keto, do the clean keto, right?
And then make as much food as you possibly can yourself.
And that's why I think you are great and your YouTube is great

(55:41):
and your Instagram is great because I think what you do, but
you might not even realize this.You help people make their own
food, and when you make your ownfood at home and you're not
buying it from the store, that'sthe big thing.
The more crap you buy, whether it's DoorDash and the more
restaurants you go out to eat at, you are not.

(56:02):
You're not only consuming a whole bunch of shitty
ingredients, but there's the seed oils, all the preservatives
in the package, keto treats thatwe were talking about.
The more food you make at home, especially with your recipes,
absolutely the healthier you will be.
That's my that's my opinion. I like that one.
I will, I will choose that one. And that's what my Instagram the

(56:24):
the past few weeks I've been doing is making a recipe in less
than 5 minutes and showing you that, OK, you only have 5
minutes to cook. Let's go.
We you can do it. It's really, really easy.
And people often think, oh, it costs too much to eat keto or
healthy or and it takes too muchtime.
But what people don't realize isby the time you drive to

(56:46):
Chipotle and bring it home or even DoorDash, by the time it
comes, it's going to be way moreexpensive.
We did actually did a comparisonwhere my oldest stayed with me.
This is a long time ago and Craig went to Chipotle with my
youngest one. And this is probably 14 years
ago by the time they came home with the Chipotle, we were done

(57:09):
making it. We used all our organic
ingredients, we had leftovers, we were all cleaned up and it
cost about 1/4 of the cost as going Chipotle.
Interesting, interesting. It doesn't take more time, but
it takes some effort, a little. Yeah, but they.

(57:30):
Prioritize they prioritize saving money for a car.
They prioritize where their kidsgo to college and they
prioritize all this stuff in their life and when the
day-to-day things of what you eat, they don't prioritize that
is that is messed up I. I, I, I would also say I agree
with you there too. And when you think about it like

(57:51):
we were talking about sleep, howimportant sleep is like what you
ingest should should like how you eat, how you sleep, how you
move your exercise, what you drink, right?
What you're ingesting in your body should be looked at very,
very closely. If there is anything you anyone

(58:13):
listening to this should tinker around with the most, it's what
you are putting into your body and I would suggest get really
really good and comfortable withlearning how to cook and cooking
as much of your own food as you can.
Is there anything better? Is there anything better than
cooking your own food, having ittastes great, not having to
spend money, having someone elsedo it, and knowing that whatever

(58:36):
you're putting in your body is healthy there.
There really is. There isn't anything better than
that in in my opinion. There are, so I don't like to
clean, so I can't judge somebodywho doesn't like to cook.
But if you don't like to cook, Isay invest in an Instant Pot or
a slow cooker because it cooks it for you. 100% slow cookers
are and we're basically getting close to slow cooker season.

(58:56):
Oh, I think summer is slow cooker season.
Because really. Yeah.
Because you put it in in the morning, it doesn't heat up your
house, and you could go on a bike ride, you could do more
things, and it cooks it for you,I think.
I think summer is slow cooker season.
I yeah, I, I So I would say thisbecause again, I, I'm in Texas

(59:17):
now. We're in two different climates.
I know you're up in Wisconsin, but so in, in my opinion,
summer's BBQ season, summer's BBQ grilling season.
And then once like you're not going outside as much, it
probably gets way colder up there than it does down here.
You know, I feel like then it's like, then it's like to bring

(59:38):
out the slow cooker, like have it cooking on the counter for
like 8 hours and making the meat, but whatever.
Trick When I had a real job and I had to leave the house, I
would prepare. So while Craig is awesome,
husband Craig, I would clean up our dinner and then I would
prepare dinner for the next night.
So I would often fill the slow cooker and I had three of them

(59:58):
because I was writing books for it too.
But I would fill the slow cooker, put the shell into the
fridge, and then in the morning I just had to take them out,
turn it on, make sure you plug it in because I've come home
without plugging it in. But come home from a long day of
work and everything is cooked for you.
It's like the best feeling ever.Oh yeah, that, that is the best

(01:00:19):
part 100% because it's like you feel like you didn't even have
to watch it either. It was just sitting on the
counter ready to go. Last question here.
And then we'll, we'll, we'll wrap up.
And you might have answered thisa little bit earlier when you
were talking about the gentlemanTyler that you and Craig were
working with. But what's the most shocking
transformation story you've seenon your end from someone going

(01:00:41):
keto or carnivore and working with you guys?
It's not Tyler, OK? I would say it's probably Kiki.
So I used to do body pump at the, the YMCA.
It's a class. I loved it.
And this woman would come duringthe summer and she was very
small frame like me, but she always wore a bandana and she
didn't have any eyebrows. And one day she came up to me

(01:01:03):
and she said, Maria, I heard, I heard you could help me.
I have alopecia. I don't have any hair, but I, I
heard you could help. And I said, yes, I can help you.
And so that's is when I had an office in the house.
And so she came to my office andI told her what to do.
And she was a professor so I only saw her in the summertime
and this was the fall. So she wasn't at the gym and we

(01:01:26):
would just communicate via online texting, that type of
stuff calls. And I didn't see her.
And then May came and she came back to the Y and she had her
stupid bandana on and she rippedit off and she started crying
and she said I had my first haircut in 10 years.
She had a full head of hair. No way.

(01:01:49):
What what specifically was the protocol?
Was it like a standard ketogenicdiet or or what did she end up
going on? There's different types of
alopecia, so I want anybody withsuffering with that to know
that. But her type of alopecia was
autoimmune. And so I cut out gluten and
dairy and sugar was obviously a inflammation for her too.

(01:02:12):
But cutting, cutting those autoimmune triggers were huge.
That is awesome. Wow, that's a good story.
That's a really, really cool onebecause usually usually the when
I ask a question like that, it'susually more weight loss focused
or body transformation. I love it when people get off
antidepressants. There is a teenager that came up

(01:02:32):
to me. I did.
I used to do book signings all over the place.
I love to meet people and do those.
And it was in Colorado and this teenager came up to me and she
was crying and she said, Maria, if it weren't for you, I'd be
institutionalized because I havesuch bad anxiety, I would never
would have been able to talk to you.
But she was just talking to all the people.
And it's just crazy how food canaffect your mental Wellness.

(01:02:55):
And I think that's what I love the most or especially with kids
with whether it be autism or ADHD, getting, you know,
messages from parents saying, you know, my kids are now
focused or I got a hug for the first time in my life from a
child with autism. That type of stuff.
Way better than weight loss. Sorry.

(01:03:15):
I I would have to agree with you.
And that's what's crazy about the power of food.
Going back to what we were discussing earlier about the one
thing, you know, that you we want to be essentially
monitoring the most, whether ourexercise or sleep.
It's like what we're ingesting in our body because it doesn't
just necessarily impact our weight or what the scale says or

(01:03:36):
our body composition it and it impacts our brain and so many
other factors as well. That's why it's just so crazy.
So yeah, great, great story and a perfect place I would say to
wrap up too, before we wrap up, anything new coming up for you?
Anything new that you're workingon, Maria?
Well, if you don't know, I do retreats around the world.

(01:03:56):
And this is not something I get paid for doing.
It's just something I love to do.
We get to see different parts ofthe world.
I'm doing a India retreat. That one is full.
So you can't sign up for that. But I just opened, I didn't even
announce this to, you know, my followers yet, but we're
planning one for Croatia in September, September 5th through

(01:04:16):
the 12th. And if you love water, we've
done this before. If you are a water person, if
you love just being on a boat onthe water or snorkeling or any
of that, Croatia is the place tobe.
It was my favorite trip. I've never eaten so well.
The best food I've ever eaten, it was in Croatia.
And if you're a Game of Thrones fan, you should go.

(01:04:37):
And then we're going to do Iskia, Italy, which is an island
in Italy that nobody knows aboutright afterwards.
So some people like to do both trips.
And then you're just, you know, it's a little boat ride over to
a lot of Iskia. And we've done, we did Iskia
last year and it was, it was magical, so.
Very cool. That's awesome.
That sounds like that would be areally, really cool retreat to

(01:04:59):
go on. Well, Maria, I mean, this was
fantastic. You are.
You're awesome. Where can people find you
online? Get in contact with you, work
with you, find out about the retreats.
If you go to ketomaria.com, that's all the information about
the retreats. If you go all the way to the
bottom, you'll find my free Facebook groups.

(01:05:20):
You do not have to pay me a dollar like Twila lost 270 lbs
just from being on our free Facebook.
Facebook groups. Those are at the bottom, My
YouTube's at the bottom, my Instagram, and all those are
there. But you can find
my.blog@ketomaria.com. There's a lot of free
information. There's a free macro calculator
there. If you don't know your macros,

(01:05:42):
get those done. Yeah, absolutely.
Perfect. Well, this is that.
Yeah, no, this was awesome. And thanks guys for listening to
the Low Carb Consultant podcast.We'll catch you all on the next
one.

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Maria Emmerich | Keto, Weight Loss & Breaking Diet Myths | September 18, 2025 Ep. 26

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Maria Emmerich | Keto, Weight Loss & Breaking Diet Myths | September 18, 2025 Ep. 26