Tapping Innate Intelligence: Wisdom of the Body

Introduction and Guest Background 0:00

Hi, ladies. Welcome back to another interview in Mastering the Menopause Transition Summit. I am your host, doctor Sharon Stills, and I know I'm always excited, but I'm like really excited because we have got a very special guest who I know well, and I am really excited to talk about the topic of keto and diet. And for those of us that would like to lose some weight and have metabolic flexibility and how we can do that and what we shouldn't be doing, and you know how we can reach our goals for our metabolism, the way we look.

So it's such an important topic. I know this is one of the topics that the majority of you, including myself, are like, oh, we're going to learn. We're going to learn and see how we can feel better and look better. And then anxiety is is the king of keto. Look at ketosis on his shirt. He's got his Keto Flex book in the back, which the last time I interviewed him for my podcast, I ran out and got that book. So that's a great book to have. And so let me tell you a little bit about him before we start chatting.

In 2008, he went through a personal health transformation of shedding 80 pounds of pure fat. Ever since Wednesday, he has been on a mission to help 1 billion and not 1 million. 1 billion. I love it. People live a healthier lifestyle. He's the author of four bestselling books Keto Flex. As I've mentioned, the Perfect Health booklet, the Intermittent Fasting Cheat Sheet, and The Power of Sleep. He's been the go to source for intermittent fasting and the ketogenic diet. He's known as a health detective because he investigates dysfunction and he educates, not medicaid's, to bring the body back to normal function.

He is the founder of Keto Camp, a global brand bringing awareness to ancient healing strategies such as the keto diet and fasting. He's the host of a top 15 podcast, The Keto Camp Podcast, and the fast growing Keto Camp YouTube channel. With over 130,000 subscribers and TikTok channel with over 200,000 subscribers. And I'll add in his Instagram channel because that's where I'm always following him. He does such great, interesting, informative videos, so be sure to check him out on the channel of your choice for all the channels, and help me welcome him to the summit.

Hi van, it's so good to have you here. Hey Sharon, thank you for that amazing introduction. Thank you for having me. And hello to all you beautiful ladies. Yeah. It's easy to give you an amazing introduction because you have just done so many amazing things and are such a force in helping spread health and wellness to the masses. So I definitely want to start, you know, when you when you introduce someone and you say they've shed 80 pounds of pure fat, that story needs to be told. So I'd love if you would just share your journey.

Absolutely. So like many others out there, I followed a standard American diet growing up, and we know that it's a very toxic, highly processed diet, which is very inflammatory. So that's all I knew growing up. That was my awareness. And as a matter of fact, my mom worked at a Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is a fast food restaurant for those who don't know. And she was the manager at Kentucky Fried Chicken. So she would bring me home Kentucky Fried Chicken. And as a kid, you better believe I ate that Kentucky Fried Chicken.

And that was, you know, just my lifestyle growing up. I hung out with the wrong crowd, developed really bad behaviors and habits, addiction to drugs and alcohol and a toxic environment. Addictions to video games. So I was always this kid growing up that was obese, I was bullied, I was picked on low self-confidence, low self-esteem, depressed. And this was my life growing up. And as an adult now, this transferred into my adulthood where I found myself back in 2008. I was a 24 year old obese man weighing 250 pounds, going through a really difficult time in my life.

Rock bottom, bad breakup, working at a job that was not inspiring to me. And, you know, I wanted to give up on life. I was exploring ways to do so, and I kept thinking about my mom

Ben Azadi's Weight Loss Journey 4:17

and the devastation my mom would have to deal with if I took my life in it. And it stopped me, and I knew I had to figure things out. And, it was a very challenging time in my life. It lasted for months where I was looking for ways to end my life, thinking about my mom, stopping myself back and forth. And thank God a friend of mine gave me a book and said, I think this book will help you out on your situation. And I ended up reading the book. And one book led to five books. Five books led to 20 books.

And I really became obsessed with incredible authors like Doctor Wayne Dyer and Bob Proctor and Earl Nightingale and Tony Robbins and Jim Rohn and all these incredible authors out there. What the books did for me, Sharon, was a lot. It opened up a whole new world that I never even knew existed. But the most important thing the books did for me, it helped me take ownership and responsibility for my results in life. And I love that word responsibility. And everybody on this summit is choosing that responsibility.

The definition of responsibility is your ability to respond to life. My ability to respond to life up until that point was very poor. I was blaming my genetics. I was blaming my enabling family members of my mom who brought home Kentucky Fried Chicken. I was blaming my slow metabolism, whatever it was. But when you take responsibility, all that goes away. And in that second of taking responsibility, I became the victor of my destiny, and I stopped being the victim of my history. And that's the beginning of my journey.

I started to move my body. I started to eat whole foods, and I started to change my environment. My friends, all the people I was hanging out with. And nine months later I lost 80 pounds. As you mentioned, I went from 250 pounds down to 170 pounds, 34% body fat, 6% body fat. You know, I finally carved out a physical six pack, but the most important thing that I achieved was a mental six pack. And what it did for my mental health, and how important it is to understand those thoughts that go through our head that determine our health and our longevity.

So that was about 14 years ago, and I've been in this space ever since learning and applying and teaching and etc. that's fantastic. I mean, 14 years isn't that long ago. And to see all that, your list is just phenomenal. I'm just I'm just blown away. And, you know, for anyone who's listening, because we are a tribe of ladies here and thinking, well, here's a guy, don't you worry. Because he understands women, he understands what we need to know about how we can do keto and how we can lose weight.

So so don't be deterred, because most of us here probably don't need to lose 80 pounds of fat. We might just need to lose that final ten or the 15. Or maybe it's 25 or 50 or whatever it be. So we're we're going to talk about those things that are going to be applicable to you for sure. So let's just do it. I mean, what what talk about the keto diet. Talk about what, you know, for someone who's like, I've heard about it. I've heard it works. I've heard that it can mess up my hormones. Like what? What do we need to know?

Yeah, great way to start. Because you're you're right. You share a lot. There's a lot of information on keto. And let's face it, the problem we have these days is not lack of information. The problem we have is too much information. I would say we're drowning in information, but starving for the truth. And it's not really the information that's going to change somebody's life. It's it's the application of the right information. And that's my goal for your audience to give you the right information so you can apply and notice a different result right away.

So keto, let's unpack that real quick. If you go in Doctor Google and type in what is the keto diet, you'll get over 100 million results. And each article and each video and whatever that you see will will be very confusing because it'll be conflicting to each other. So the way that we teach keto with my company, Keto Camp, is to understand that keto is not a diet, it is a metabolic process and it has been around. Keto has been around for as long as humans have existed. There's nothing new about keto. It's just nuanced.

It is a natural metabolic process that all of our ancestors went through. And how do I know that? Well, our ancestors did not have food readily available to them, so by default they had to burn body fat, which is something y'all want to do and produce ketone. So how it works is you drop your carbohydrates low enough so you could drop insulin, which is your fat storage hormone, and when you do that, then your body starts utilizing your fat stores your body fat, love handles, hips, etc. as an energy source.

What Keto Is and How It Works 8:55

And those fatty acids are then sent to your liver. Your liver starts burning those fatty acids and then your liver produces ketones. It is a natural process that were designed to go through. And what we see here in America and in the world is actually a keto deficiency. Not enough people are experiencing this. And the benefits of ketosis are numerous because number one, it will help reduce inflammation. And if you want to optimize your hormones, if you want to create sensitive hormones, which is the goal here, then reducing inflammation is the name of the game.

So when ketones are produced, ketones actually communicate with the mitochondria that are within your cells. And for those who are not aware, the mitochondria are these energy factories that are producing energy called ATP in your cells. And the more energy you produce, the more energy you experience. You feel better. And ketones actually create 400% more mitochondria than if you were burning sugar. So it produces more energy. Number one. Number two, it actually lowers inflammation. And these free radicals produce from creating energy from a process called mitochondria uncoupling.

So just to, you know, recap of what I shared here. And then I'll leave it back to you. Ketones help reduce inflammation. So it helps lower free radicals, at the same time helping your body produce more energy. So it is a win win, a total win win. So so how does how does one get there? What what do we need to do. Because that sounds like I want a cup of that. Yeah well you're right. We all want a cup of coffee. So the average American is consuming about 300 to 400g of carbs per day. So it's a lot of carbohydrates and it's very hard to get into.

Actually, it's impossible to get to ketosis with that many carbs each day. And there was a study that came out. You might have seen this in 2018 from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and they looked at over 8000 people in this study. And it was a ten year study. And they were looking at different metrics blood pressure, BMI, glucose, on medication, off medication. And they have they found in this study that 88% of American adults are unhealthy, metabolically unhealthy. So we have a problem.

So what do we do? What can we do. We could get them endocytosis and get their metabolism fixed. So how do you get there. Simply reduce your carbohydrates gradually until eventually you have an upper limit of 50g of carbs or less per day. Now, I don't recommend you do this on day one. If you're one of the people who are eating 300g of carbs per day, don't drop it to under 50 tomorrow because you might experience symptoms and you might not feel that great, so gradually decrease it each day. Maybe a seven day approach.

We're day seven now. You're under 50g and you want your carbs to come from non-starchy, carbohydrates like green leafy vegetables, etc. so at the same time, you want to increase your healthy fat so your body becomes familiar with burning fat, fatty acids. So healthy fats would include and it's not this is not an exhaustive list, but a few healthy fats would be like grass fed beef, grass fed butter, grass fed ghee, coconut oil, olives, olive oil, beef tallow. These are healthy fats that actually support your cells, support your hormones.

And that would be the protocol in seven days from right now, if you take action on this, you'll be in the great land of ketosis. You'll be feeling good. You'll get rid of your brain fog. You reduce inflammation, you start, dropping some excess weight as well. So a couple of practical questions and I want to add avocados to healthy fats. Yeah, definitely. So yummy. And some women might be thinking what is beef tallow. So for someone listening what's the like? How do you know how many carbs you're having and what's the best way practically, for someone to actually count and figure that out?

Yeah. And then beef tallow was just fat from a cow and they sell it in a jar. You want to make sure it's like grass fed. They have it everywhere. So good question. Yeah. You could do it. You could do it a couple ways. So you could always just download like a free, macro tracker, a free app. There's a few out there. Chronometer, My Fitness Pal, carb manager. Any of those will do. So download a free app on your phone and start inputting your food. Now, this is not something you do forever, right? It's just to get familiar with what you're eating and then it'll give you a breakdown of how many carbs, proteins, and fats you have.

And in the beginning, you just want to focus on your carbs and you want to focus on reducing that to under 50g. Or you could just go on Google and type in what you're eating and kind of add it up yourself. But I have found the apps are a lot easier, so that would be my my recommendation. Use a free app out there. Okay. And then for someone who so you mentioned some of those foods like are there resources for figuring, you know, one of the biggest questions I get as a physician, as I'm changing someone's diet, is, what am I supposed to eat them because we're so used to eating that, like you said, that standard American diet.

And I was chuckling to myself. I was like, we had a very similar, childhood, except I just substituted in, McDonald's because we lived right down there.

How to Start Keto and What to Eat 14:04

It was a nice ten minute walk to McDonald's, and that was a a staple. So what are some are there resources or some advice you can give, like how do you as you're not no longer eating rice or pasta or having a sandwich or the having a cookie for a snack? What what are some tips or where can you go to learn how to how to have what to eat and not starve? Yeah. Good question. I would say let's talk about what we should avoid in terms of like keto fats. Even if you're not doing Q two, I recommend avoiding these.

And then I'll give a list of, where they could find a healthy list of keto food. So there's a whole set of, keto fats that are all keto friendly, but they're not health friendly, and they actually could be more inflammatory than sugar, processed sugar. And some experts say even smoking, they're called polyunsaturated fatty acids poofs for short. They're also known as vegetable oils and seed oils. And I'll give your audience a list of eight of them. But let me just, share real quick why they're so detrimental.

If you look at the chemical structure of them, they contain a lot of double bonds. So it just simply means it attracts a lot of oxygen, which oxidizes that fat. So oxidizes means oxidation, inflammation. So if you bit into an apple and left that apple on the counter and came back five hours later, it turns brown. That's oxidation. That's kind of what's happening to your cells when you consume these. And when I interviewed, Doctor Kate Shanahan, who's who was the nutritionist for the Los Angeles Lakers when Kobe Bryant used to play, she wrote the book Deep Nutrition fat, perfect.

She's awesome. She believes that these are maybe even more inflammatory than smoking cigarets. And they increase your risk of disease, by a lot. You know, I gave out a number saying, you know, what are the chances of developing disease if you consume these every day within 28 years? And she said close to 100%. Right. They're highly inflammatory. So there is eight of them. And Doctor Shanahan calls them The Hateful Eight. So for your audience, I hope you have a pen and paper. Write this down, ladies.

You have three C's, three S's and two others. So the three C's are canola oil, corn oil and cottonseed oil. The three S's are soybean oil, sunflower oil, and safflower oil. And the two others are rice bran oil and grapeseed oil. Those are The Hateful Eight, so make sure you're not consuming them. And they're all keto friendly. They're not health friendly. They're not healthy for you. So what do you eat? Well, we mentioned a few items earlier. The beef, the avocados, you know, pastured eggs are terrific.

I do have a list. If your audience wants, like a keto grocery shopping list, they can download a free, free, list. This is a free gift for your audience. It's called the keto Camp blueprint. So you can get that, over at Keto Camp blueprint.com. And what it does, it gives you an entire list of healthy fats, healthy proteins, healthy carbs, and then a list of unhealthy fats, unhealthy carbs, unhealthy protein. Just eat the ones that are approved, and you're going to be in the right direction on that list.

And when you're eating out, do you do you bring your own oil? Do you, buddy? How do you handle that? Because I think a lot of restaurants are unfortunately using The Hateful Eight for their cooking. They are even the most fancy is most expensive restaurants are using them, unfortunately. So the way that I handle it, it's a great practical question. And the way that I handle it is when I go to restaurants. The first question I ask the waiter, the waitress is, hey, which oils do you use to cook your food? It.

And to your point, 99% of the time it's going to be one of those Hateful Eight, usually soybean oil. Or if they say olive oil, which is a good fat, a good oil. I ask them, is it cut with something else? And it usually is cut with soybean oil and we don't want that. So what I tell the waiter or the waitress is I'm allergic to those oils. Do you have just real olive oil? Do you have butter? Most of the time they do. Or they could find some substitutes or kind of get creative for your meal. So I know it's not comfortable to do that, especially when you're in a large group.

But I'm telling you, your future self and your hormones and your health will thank you for it. So you'll get used to asking that. But that's what I do. I request not to have those oils in my food, and I requested substitutes. Yeah, that that's perfect. My kids have teased me for for years that whenever we go out to eat, I can never just order anything off the menu. I have to change, rearrange everything. And I've been doing that for a long time. But the truth is, has been mentioned. Everyone's doing it now.

Everyone's allergic to something or getting rid of gluten, or there's no so to be embarrassed. No, the waiters are used to it. The restaurants are used to it. And I love what you said and your future self. Your cells are thanking you. So it's actually a gift of health you're giving to yourself. And don't feel like you're, you know, you're out to a restaurant. They're there to serve. Let them let them serve you and let them make you healthier while enjoying a night out and not setting your health backwards.

That's right. And give them a good tip. You know, I always give them a great tip if they're accommodating right? Exactly, exactly. So we hear about I just want to get this topic out of the way, because there's a lot out there about keto is different for men. And women. And it can mess up your hormones. And should women do keto or do they have to do it cyclical? So I just tell us, tell us the truth. What do we need to know? Yeah, absolutely. Women should do keto differently than men. That is a fact.

Chapter 12 of my book, Keto Flex, it's all about that. It's all about how women should do ketone, intermittent fasting and how to do it differently. So we'll talk real quick about the women who still have a monthly cycle. And then I'll talk about you, beautiful postmenopausal ladies out there. So if you still have a monthly cycle the week before, your period is actually the week. You do not want to be in ketosis and you do not want to practice much fasting. And that's because that's the week for building progesterone.

Progesterone is that hormone, as you know, and that helps you feel calm. It also is required for a healthy monthly cycle. And when you fast and do keto that week before your period, you don't build progesterone. You actually deplete it. That's why, by the way, so many women who do keto experience such intense cravings for sugar and chocolate and carbohydrates. The week before their period. It is the innate intelligence telling their body we need insulin from healthy carbs to make these hormonal conversions, including progestin, so that week before your period is an important week not to be in ketosis.

Not to practice much fasting. You want to eat healthy carbohydrates. Now, that's not to say you eat pizza and donuts and all that. You just increase your healthy carbs and don't practice much fasting. Once your period starts that week, you can be as aggressive as you want. You don't need to build progesterone that week. You could do keto, you could do fasting, etc. so that's a consideration. And then one more thing on the menstruating women the second week, which is around day six to day 13, after your cycle, have started, that's when you have the most, estrogen and testosterone.

Women, Hormones, and Keto Timing 21:08

That is the best week for strength training. That's the best week for you're going to have more confidence. So asking for race, speaking on stage, being bold with your actions. That's your power week right there. So you get to eat more protein that week. And yeah, you can do keto intermittent fasting that week too. But that's a good week for strength training and protein. So those are the considerations. And there's more details to it. But those are like the general rules for the menstruating women.

Now post menopause let's talk about you now. We as you all know and Sharon has taught you when you are postmenopausal, the ovary is this amazing organ that has done so much work for you, has said, I'm retiring. I've put in my work. Come down. Yeah. Peace out. 45 years of work. I'm done. So the question is, are I? If the ovaries are quitting, who picks up the slack for the ovaries? Well, the adrenal glands do. And your body fat. So we want to support your adrenal glands at this time and find ways to produce oxytocin.

The adrenal glands produce cortisol. Cortisol is not bad unless you're producing cortisol all the time. But oxytocin helps to combat cortisone. The cortisol oxytocin is that feel good chemical hormone that puts cortisol at bay. So how do you produce oxytocin in. Well, several ways. You could, hug your dog, hug your cat, watch funny movies. Having sex is another way to produce oxytocin hugging people for 10s or more meditation, grounding, gratitude journaling like so many ways, but you want to develop some practice on a daily basis to get more oxytocin.

But the cool thing about most menopausal women, you could actually be more aggressive with keto and intermittent fasting than cycling women. So I compare, postmenopausal women's hormones to like, men's hormones, right? Men's hormones kind of regenerate every 24 hours, and they can be more aggressive with keto and with fasting. Postmenopausal women could also be more aggressive, with keto and intermittent fasting. That's not to say you should do keto forever for anybody, but you could do more keto and more in red and fasting.

So what I wrote about in my book for postmenopausal women, great strategy I'm going to share for your audience right now is something called the 511 rule. Now, I didn't come up with this. I want to give credit where credit is due. My mentor, Doctor Daniel Pompa, came up with this amazing protocol, and it's perfect for men and for postmenopausal women, which is your audience. So it's a seven day protocol. The five in the 511 is five days of intermittent fasting and keto. So let's say 16, eight, 16 hours fasted, eight hour eating window, eating keto in your eight hours for five days.

The first one is a 24 hour fast where you just go dinner to dinner or lunch to lunch, but 24 hours just water electrolytes. The final one is what I call a keto flex day, aka a feast day. No fasting, high healthy carbs. Get yourself out of ketosis. Make some hormonal conversions. That is a solid strategy for postmenopausal women. You combine that with the oxytocin practices and you're going to feel incredible. So I have a couple a couple of questions. I want to actually just go back to when you were talking about like reducing your carbs.

So for some women, humans, it's very difficult to do that because the cravings are so strong. So do you have any strategies or tips? I mean, sugar is more addictive than cocaine. So what? What can someone do where they're like, yeah, I want to do this and I am good for four hours. And then the cravings just take over and before I know it, I be in a chocolate bar. Yeah, yeah. It's so true. You're right, there was that study that showed, rats. I think it was rats or mice. Preferred sugar over cocaine.

Eight times more, the sugar than the cocaine. So there's a couple things. There there is. You could supplement something called l glutamine. I would say l glutamine will help you when it does. It's a powder or something that you can take. That comes the part of your brain that lights up when you experience a sugar craving. Same part of the brain that lights up when somebody experiences a cocaine addiction. So 500mg of L glutamine 2 to 3 times a day could help. But also focusing on protein could be huge dietary protein, animal based protein.

Because protein activates hormones and chemicals in your body that help you feel full and satiated. These are hormones called leptin and closest to quinine and peptide Y, so getting at least 30g of protein at all of your meals can make a big difference. And if you want to find a general protocol for like daily protein intake, then find out what your ideal body weight is and then have one gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight. So I'll explain that just in case somebody doesn't understand that.

Let's say somebody watching this is 160 pounds and she wants to weigh her ideal body weight. Her goal weight is 130 pounds. So she has 30 pounds she wants to lose. So 130 is your goal body weight. So you want to consume 130g of animal based protein each day. That's going to help with the cravings. And then as you get more metabolically flexible and the ketones become produced, ketones are also safe as well because it activates closest to kidney. So those are a few things you can do, with the cravings perfect than that.

And that was one of my other questions, was for you to talk about protein. But you you handle that. And so and so the the keto flex, the 511. What if well is that something you could do for life? First of all I guess is my question. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't say for life I don't like anything for ever. You could do that for, you know, a few months and then change things up. You could add in an additional flex day, or it could be a little bit more aggressive with your fasting. But the 511 protocol is a good protocol for a few months until you, you know, your results are slow down and then you could mix things up okay.

And what if you're doing the 511 and you have a wedding to go to, or there's a barbecue, or you just have a day and you fall off the wagon, how does that affect do you have to start over or do you just keep going from where you were? Yeah. So what I would recommend is if you could structure it for, you know, that that one in the 511, which is the high healthy carb day, you could designate that day for the day that you have the barbecue or the wedding or whatever it is, because you know, your diet's not going to be that great.

So let that be your one flex day. And then right when you're done with that next day, go right back on track. What I've seen Sharon and you probably seen this too, is that a lot of people, let's say they mess up and I'm putting that in quotation marks and they go off course for a day or for me or for an event, and they think they're a failure. They're like, oh my God, I messed up and they beat themselves up and they take one bad meal and they turn that into one week of bad eating and then one month of bad way.

So what I always say is it's never about the setback. It's always about the get back setbacks or set up for something great. Just forget about get back on course. And if you could designate that day as your feast day with the event perfect, and then you just go right back to what you're doing the next day, that's what I recommend. That's great. I love your little setback. Get back. Great little, great little quote. So what's the best way could you speak to like using a CGM? And how do measuring your ketones.

Like, what should the women know about these tools? Yeah. So there's, three ways to measure ketones. There is breath meters looking at the ketone body. Acetone. There is urine strips looking at the ketone body, a pseudo acetate. And then there is, finger prick, blood finger prick looking at beta hydroxybutyrate. Out of those three ways to test ketones, I don't like the urine strips. I wouldn't recommend those. They're not going to be that accurate, because once your cells are actually really getting really good at using ketones, the ketones will not spill out in the urine and it'll give you some false readings.

Breath meters could be great if you find a really good company, but the gold standard is blood, which is beta hydroxybutyrate. So there are finger prick machines that will you prick your finger and it'll give you a ketone rating if it's 0.5 or higher, your urine ketosis.

Cravings, Protein, and the 5-1-1 Protocol 29:28

Congratulations. And the goal is not more ketones, by the way, we don't chase ketones. We chase results. The goal is just to get yourself into ketosis. A good sweet spot for for, ketones in the blood is 0.8 to 2.8. I like that that sweet spot. Now CGM is are also great. To your point, which is a continuous glucose monitor. The drawback is that the CGM is not giving you your ketones. There needs to be a continuous ketone monitor. That's going to be a multi-billion dollar industry, but, using a CGM and a finger prick for ketones could be fantastic.

I think a CGM, one of the best biohacking devices you can get to really optimize your protocol. For those who don't know what a CGM is, it's a little device, that you put on your arm. You, put it on there one time. It has a needle that goes in there. You don't really feel much, but it lasts for 14 days, and you pair it with an app on your phone and it gives you 24 seven. Look at your glucose, which is freaking amazing. You'd see what stress does to your glucose. You could do what exercise, what food does.

So I love that. And you could really understand what's happening now when we're looking at what's called postprandial glucose I like to look at that as well. Postprandial means after eating. So an hour after eating, your blood glucose should be under 120mg per deciliter, and your CGM will show that. Or even a finger prick glucose will show that 120 or less two hours after eating. It should be under 100. If you're hitting that and you're in that ketosis range, your protocol is working for you. If you're not hitting that, then you know you have some changes to make, right?

It's really fascinating because it really individualize it, because we are all biochemically individual and we we say, eat a sweet potato, not a white potato. But there are some people who actually the sweet potato will spike them and not the white potato. So it's so true. Good feedback to really know what food is the medicine for you. So true. Because to your point, I mean, somebody might have a sensitivity to the sweet potato, but processed the white potato fine. Or berries might be very, glycemic for somebody, but somebody else might not.

But the only way to know is to do these these testing. And it's your unique individual, biochemistry that's going to determine that when you get the. I don't know if you can hear it, but the garbage truck just came picked. I heard it, so I'm thinking, oh, and it's just so perfectly timed. And you get the garbage out of your life. You get the garbage foods that you shouldn't be eating right out of your life. So I want to shift to fasting. But before I go there, is there any is it safe for everyone listening to do ketosis?

Is there any contraindications? Are there any medical conditions that you should speak to your doctor if you have that or that it's just not for you? Yeah. Well, I mean, none of this is medical advice, of course. But you know, if you're pregnant, breastfeeding, probably not a good idea to do keto. If you're a child and you're still growing, you need more, you know, enter, which is the growth pathway is probably not a good idea to do. Other than that. I mean, most people really benefit from tapping into ketosis.

I think it's one of the best ways to tap into this innate intelligence. And like that study showed 88% of Americans really need this process, so most people could benefit from it. We're all going to go to keto camp, ladies. We'll welcome all of you. So fasting, do you always couple and marry intermittent fasting to ketosis? Yeah, I love fasting as well. It's another ancient healing strategy has been around forever, like ketosis. The way the way that I teach it, it's first get you into ketosis and then, like you said, couple it with, intermittent fasting strategies.

So yes. And yeah, we we pair it with intermittent fasting. And speaking of like the garbage truck that's fasting is one of the best ways to get out junk from your body. So talk about some of the different intermittent fasting strategies. Where is a good place to start, and what are some other options? The best way to start, is with 12 hours and it's simply this way. Let's say you're done eating at 7 p.m., you take your last bite of food at 7 p.m., you go to bed, wait until 7 a.m. until your first bite of food.

That's 12 hours of fasting. Very doable. Right? And then you could push that breakfast from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. the next day. That's 13 hours. And keep doing that until you get to, like, a 16 to 18 hour. That's the good sweet spot, 16, 18 hour daily fast. So if you could get your eating window somewhere between like 12 and 6 p.m. as you're eating window and then fast outside of that, that's a great protocol. If that doesn't work for your schedule, then you could rearrange that. Your eating window could be 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

or whatever you want to customize it with, but having a 6 to 8 hour eating window. And the rest of the time, fasting is a good long term strategy. So what can you be doing? I get this question all the time. What can you be doing in the mornings? Can you be having coffee? Can you have bulletproof coffee? What can you have that is considered not breaking your fast? You definitely have water and electrolytes and sea salt. Keep your minerals up. Definitely have that coffee and bulletproof coffee. Could be okay.

Here is the pros. Here's the cons. So the pros with having coffee with healthy fats is that those healthy fats help build your hormones. Your your sex hormones specifically, or your brain. And you feel good. It can be a good crutch to keep that fasting going. The drawback would be for some people, coffee or even bulletproof coffee raises glucose, so you might want to test your blood glucose or have a CGM and test before you drink it. And then 30 to 45 minutes after to see if there's a glucose response.

And then another drawback is if one of your goals is to lose some extra weight, you do need to burn the calories, the fat calories from your bulletproof coffee before your body goes back to burning body fat. So it could slow down your weight loss efforts. So those are just some things to consider. Consider. With that being said, I have coffee in the morning in my fast with some healthy fats. I do well with it. It is. I don't have a lot of weight to lose, so for me it works. But just keep that in mind.

Tracking Ketones and Using a CGM 35:48

If you find that it's slowing down your weight loss. Or maybe just have the black coffee if you find it's jacking up your glucose, maybe change the coffee brand to a different brand and keep testing. Or maybe just have some herbal tea that should be safer for you. Okay. And so then with the eating window of 12 to 6, is it a free for all or are you just having one meal or two meals? Talk a little bit about I'm sure women are wondering like what happens during that time if I'm not eating all day, like I'm used to, it's not a free for.

All right, you're not going to go to Kentucky Fried Chicken like I was doing, or McDonald's like Sharon was doing. You're ideally going to eat, food that's focused on protein and healthy fats, and you're going to eat, less carbs during those meals. So, 2 to 3 meals within that window is ideal. And you want to focus on protein and healthy fats and keep your carbs low. It's not a free for all. I really want to maximize the fast and your results. Make sure it's real food protein focused with healthy fats as a side and carbs should be, minimal.

What about condiments? Because there are some people who are condiment lovers. Condiment kind of sauces. I'm definitely one of those people. So what? What? You know, when you're eating your keto foods, what are safe condiments to use to add for flavor and to give you satisfaction? Yeah, I'm also a condiment. Connoisseur. I like that I'm on kitchen is a great brand that makes some great salad dressings and dips. So they're safe. They use avocado oil. So anything from Primal Kitchen is great. I also like nutritional yeast.

From brands or any high quality brand. Put that on your eggs or avocados. It has great, amount of B vitamins. So nutritional yeast is great. Just be aware of ketchup that has high fructose corn sirup. You don't want that. And then a lot of condiments have those seed oil. So you got to read the ingredients. Even like organic high quality like high quality air quotes. Brands have those seed oils in them. So you got to read the ingredients. Primal kitchen is a safe brand there, ketchup there, mustard of dressing.

Those are great. And then nutritional yeast would be another go to perfect perfect. So mistakes. What are the biggest mistakes women make with keto? Is there anything we should be looking out for to to not get sucked up into to have the best experience? Yeah, absolutely. So a big mistake women make is, they don't really understand that the liver plays an important role with breaking down healthy fat and detoxification and so much more. That's that's why I always call the liver the soccer mom organ, because it the liver does everything for us. Like a soccer mom.

Probably somebody watching this is like, yeah, I'm a soccer mom. I do everything that's like the liver. That's so many things. So one of the things the liver does or two of the things is number one, it produces bio bio. Bio is a green substance. Liver produces to break down fats like a detergent to break down dietary fat. The second rule Bios for detoxification. And a lot of people, a lot of women have, beat up their liver over their lifetimes from medications to alcohol to toxins to processed carbs.

And now the liver is fatty and it produces this thick, sluggish bile, and you're eating more fat, but it's hard to break it down. That's why a lot of people don't feel that great on keto. So supporting the liver is important. Now, the next question that you're wondering is how do you support the liver? Okay, here's how we support the liver bitters. Bitter for the liver and bitter rich foods is what I mean. So a regular fantastic dandelion green greens dandelion tea, ginger ginger tea, Apple cider vinegar, artichokes.

Oregano, thyme. Rosemary these are all great to have on a daily basis. If you're really struggling even with these bitters, you might want to supplement with ox bile, digestive enzyme with ox bile. Additional things you can do for the liver or castor oil packs, coffee enemas, PC pushes. So, yeah, the liver is going to be important for you to really support because that liver is is doing so many things for us. PC is for us for title colon. In case you're wondering, you know, the, the keto lingo and yeah, I mean, supporting the bile is such an overlooked, activity.

And so I'm always starting with the bile opening the bile. So the liver has a place to, to dump to. And that that's a huge overlooked process. And I love all those bitters you mentioned. And also using drainage remedies for the gallbladder and the liver. There's so many things you can do to support. And that is going to be be a huge, huge help. So huge. Yeah, absolutely. I do love your liver. I you know,

Fasting Strategies and Eating Windows 40:48

I won't even put anyone on hormones unless we're we're doing liver work. Otherwise it's just not okay. You're going to do more harm than good I love it. So you mentioned vitamin G. What? What is vitamin G? Vitamin G okay, I love that we get to talk about this. So vitamin G is the most potent strongest vitamin in the entire world. There is not a vitamin that comes close to the healing powers of this vitamin. As a matter of fact, Doctor Joe Dispenza, he did brain scans on a ton of people and observed what happened in their body, in their brain when they were given vitamin G, and he noticed 1200 different chemical reactions went on instantaneously.

That put them in a healing, anti-inflammatory state when they took vitamin G. So what is vitamin G? Where can you get it? Vitamin G is vitamin gratitude. It is the practice of gratitude. It is a universal law. What you feed energy to expands and what you appreciate appreciates. And I'm telling you, ladies, if you could develop the practice of daily gratitude, you're going to put your body in an anti-inflammatory state. This is free. It's easy to do, but easy not to do. But I'm telling you, if you could write down right before bed what you're grateful for, and when you wake up in the morning, what you're grateful for ten things each time you're going to notice significant changes in your physiology, your psychology, and just overall well-being and health.

And it doesn't happen on the first take. But as you are consistent with this, it's one of the best vitamins you could give your body. And it's changed my life. I have notebooks stacked probably like to here of 20 notebooks just filled with gratitude and goals. I haven't missed a single day. I'll probably over six years, right? It's one of the best things I've done. And I promise you, if you could develop a discipline and a habit of practicing vitamin G each day and getting your vitamin G, it's going to make such a huge difference for you.

My favorite hashtag that I the favorite hashtag that I created is not all medicine comes in a bottle. And so vitamin G ladies in, we have talked about gratitude and I, I think it's really important to make sure you go back and read what you've written so you can really digest it and absorb your vitamin G. And I practice vitamin G throughout the day. There's so many things to be grateful for, whether it's, you know, having a home, having a desk, having a computer, having warm water to wash the dishes, having dishes, having a kitchen, standing up, being alive, having your breath.

There's so much. It's all the simple things that go into making up our life that when we we really turn on that gratitude. I, I agree 145% with you that it just, you know, takes down our inflammation and helps us be healthier. It helps us enjoy our journey more. So I love that you. I love that you named it vitamin G. Yeah. You understand mean I love that you love it yourself. With your vitamin G practices and you're so right. Sure. And there's always something to be grateful for. Always something to be grateful for.

And challenges that somebody might be going through are really opportunities to grow. And you could be grateful for your challenges and find the blessings in them. There's always a blessing. So yes, it's so important. The thing is that it's not sexy. You can't buy it like you said, you can't put it in a bottle, but it's one of the best medicines that is out there. Okay, I guess we could make bottles that say vitamin G, and then we could put little gratitude journals in them. That's cool. Or have a mantra of gratitude.

That's a good idea. And be like, here it is. Wow. You you are just so, effective and efficient and really explaining things. I feel like you've given the ladies a lot and really not made it overwhelming, made it very palatable. Is there anything else that I didn't ask you that you want to share that's important? Or do you think we got it all? Yeah. I mean, I'll share one more. Thank you for sharing. I mean, it's easy to communicate with your audience because you're such a great host. And I love your energy. And your audience is amazing.

So it's easy. Last thing I would say is, don't don't underestimate the power of your your mind. And when I say your mind, I mean your subconscious mind. I really believe this. 95% of your results in life, health, relationships, everything. 95% is mindset. Only 5% is strategy. So we think about your mind. You have your conscious mind, you're aware of your thoughts, but then you have your subconscious mind, the conscious mind. You could accept or reject thoughts or ideas. The subconscious mind could only accept.

And out of those, thoughts that we have each day, psychologists have determined that the average person has 60,000 thoughts per day.

Liver Support, Gratitude, and Mindset 45:58

Okay, that's a lot of thoughts. And out of those 60,000 thoughts, they have determined that 90%, 90 0% of those thoughts are negative thoughts. Okay. Excuse me, I said it wrong. 90% are the same thoughts, 85% are negative thoughts. And I always say or Zig Ziglar said this actually, if your thinking is thinking, your dreams are shrinking, right? So if you think about your thoughts, Doctor Bruce Lipton has shown with his work that thoughts are a frequency, sound waves that have the ability to penetrate your cells, your cell membranes, and communicate with your DNA.

If it's a stinking thinking thought, a negative thought, a hateful thought, an angry thought, or resentful thought, that frequency tells your DNA to produce inflammatory proteins. If it's a healthy thought, a grateful thought, an abundant, loving thought. That frequency tells your DNA to produce anti-inflammatory proteins. This is amazing because if there's 60,000 thoughts per day, that means you have 60,000 opportunities to put your body in a healing, anti-inflammatory state every single day. And what controls your thoughts is your environment.

It's the news, the TV, the social media, your friends, your, colleagues, etc. so if your environment is not serving your subconscious mind, then it's time to change your environment. As you change your environment, your change your subconscious mind, you'll change your health and you'll change your life. So please don't underestimate the power of thought. Something that I'm going to share that might freak out your audience is this I was studying my mentor, Bob Proctor, who's actually this gentleman right here.

He passed away this year, but he he changed my life. He saved my life. And he was sharing a story about being in a car, 1970s on a on a road trip, looking at clouds and using his thoughts to make clouds disappear. Right. Crazy. I thought, this is insane. I'm like, Bob, I love you, but you're losing me here with this craziness. So I said, all right, I'll we give this a shot. So I went on my balcony here. I live in Miami, Florida, and I'm on my balcony and I'm like, staring at a cloud. I pick the cloud.

I'm, like, staring intently at it. And I'm just imagining with my thoughts the cloud just dissipating before my eyes. Right. I'm just picturing it. Imagining it in about 60s the cloud disappeared before my eyes. Okay, before we think I'm crazy. I ran into the bedroom and I told my fiance, hey, hey, I just made a cloud disappear with my thoughts. And she's like, what are you talking about? And I took her outside and I said, pick a cloud, any cloud. And then I made it disappear. And then I did it again and again and again.

And I encourage you today to go outside, take a cloud, stare at it, and watch how powerful your thoughts are. So don't underestimate the power of your thoughts. But honestly may be the best advice. We have heard the whole summit, so I, I yeah, our thoughts are everything. And, you just gave us a great activity. I'm going to go disappear some clouds. We got to do it. Let me know how it goes here in Arizona. But I can see a few out my window. So I'm going to go put my mind to work. So. Oh my goodness.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your contributions and for all your education and just all that you offer up. It's it's just so fantastic. Where can we learn more about you? Yeah. Thank you. Sharon, I appreciate you grateful for you, honored to be on this amazing summit. And, I'm looking forward to having you on my Poquito Camp podcast very soon. So that's one place your audience could check me out. Quito can podcast, campus. But with the K, my website is probably the best resource. It's, Ben azadi.com.

It has all of my social media. There's a contact form, my books there. So Benny's article was the best place to find me. Perfect. Well, it's it's been a pleasure, as always. I do look forward to coming and joining you in your community and this is a good one. Ladies. This is a really good one. From from practical things we can do with our bodies to using gratitude in our thoughts. I mean, this is the this episode, this interview has really been the epitome of the mind body connection. So, so grateful we got to share it with you all.

I know you enjoyed it as much as I did, and we'll be back with another interview soon, so be well till then.