Using Keto for Thyroid Health : What Works & What Doesn’t

Introduction and Guest Background 0:00

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Reversing Hashimoto's and Thyroid Disorder Summit. I am your host, Dr. Anshul Gupta, world's Hashimoto's expert. And now I have with me a very special guest over here because she has done an experience dealing with a lot of different clients, specifically thyroid Hashimos struggling with weight issues. and then help them navigate through the journey, specifically focusing on a ketogenic lifestyle. So this is where we're going to talk about how ketogenetic lifestyle could be useful.

What is the best way of using it? What are the mistakes people make it and how simple it is to follow. And that's the deal that we are going to give to you today. But let me introduce her first before we delve into all of this discussion. So Dr. Kelly Rutley is a seasoned entrepreneur and business strategist who has been building and scaling businesses for over 25 years. from launching a mobile fitness business in the Bay Area in 90s to running multiple chiropractic practices to pioneering online health coaching before it was mainstream.

Kelly has consistently stayed ahead of the curve. In 2016, she built a weight loss coaching business from zero to six figures in under four months and scaled it to over one million in services. Today she helps holistic health practitioners create and sell high-decade virtual coaching offers so they can grow thriving businesses and design the lives they dream of. Dr. Kelly Rutley, welcome over here. Thank you, Dr Gupta. I'm so honored to be with you today and I am really looking forward to our conversation.

Absolutely. It is really a pleasure. And the work that you're doing is so amazing. You know, we were discussing before like, you know how people like me, who have been seeing patients or like running regular practices, how we can reach many more people and how can help so many people to improve their health. But unfortunately we do not know to do it. So people, like you are doing amazing job to helping out. Thank you so much for doing that. Thank you. Thank You. Yes, it is. It's absolutely my, my passion and my pleasure and purpose to be able to show practitioners how to create freedom in their lives.

If the brick and mortar lifestyle is, is wearing them down. So I love to teach people how. Hybrid practices, which is brick-and-mortar and online, or just virtual and. And you and I were just talking about how much more access people have to us and to our information than they ever had before Zoom and online practices. So I think it's an exciting time and it is just getting more exciting. Absolutely. Why don't we first start with discussion about the ketogenic lifestyle.

How Ketogenic Lifestyle Supports Hashimoto's 3:04

Ketogenic diet came out, became so popular, specifically used as a modality to help people to lose weight. But then we started realizing it is just not about weight loss. It was helpful in so many other things, including immunity as well as autoimmunity. So why don't we start with how Hashimoto's patients can benefit from this ketogenic lifestyle? Yeah, absolutely. And I know that you've been around a little while, just like I have. long before the ketogenic diet or the keto diet became popular.

I mean, we were using a ketogenic approach inside of our brick and mortar practices quietly. right, to address all types of conditions that were coming into our practices, most of them associated with autoimmunity, right? So we weren't using the ketogenic lifestyle inside of our practises for weight loss. Weight loss was a welcome side effect that everybody got, you know, was very happy about. And that's how, really how I built a brick and mortar is word of mouth, because who doesn't want weight-loss, everybody wants weightl loss, but it wasn't the intention.

And so what we've always known inside of our practices is when applied properly, a adequate protein, adequate fat and low carbohydrate, not very low-carbohydrate, right? Like not no carbohydrate but a very-low- carbohydrate lifestyle with the addition of regular movement and exercise and plenty of sunshine and all of the things that we have all been promoting for so long. had incredible positive impacts on autoimmune disorders, especially Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Now, remember we were never treating these conditions, right?

And so, and as a chiropractor that just, it was not inside scope to treat Hashimoto's especially back then. A lot has changed with functional medicine now, but this was before functional And so we saw dramatic improvements, not just in labs, but how patients felt. And I think, Dr. Gupta, that that is as important if not more important because what we were seeing with many people who were coming in with thyroid issues and autoimmune issues, their lab results might be looking better on paper as a result of adding synthetic thyroid or other synthetic hormones.

Their lab values might look better, but they didn't look. In other words, they were still overweight. They still had dry skin, they were still losing their hair, and they are still exhausted and confused. Now they're really confused because on paper, their medical doctor said, you're better. Your Hashimoto's is getting better, your autoimmunity is better based on what's on this paper. But they weren't feeling better and that is what I think was driving them into see chiropractors. because we were always the last house on the block, right?

Well, if nothing else is making me feel better, I might as well try the chiropractor. And it was phenomenal to see the results, and we just kind of kept it under our hats. that this was working so well. When the ketogenic approach became mainstream, and now, I mean, it's gangbusters, right? I think about some of the work that's being done and some the research that is being doing now. I particularly think what's been done. A book written by Dr. Palmer called Brain Energy, the Ketogenic Approach to Mental Health, is just so exciting to see it mainstream.

It just wasn't always that way. Absolutely and that's what like most people are unaware of that the ketogenic diet has so many research studies you know which has been shown improvement in several chronic diseases several autoimmune diseases whether it's Hashimoto's disease rheumatoid arthritis or like brain related diseases people who have dementia or brain fog or seizures whole bunch of diseases you have shown improvements And as you were sharing that how ketogenic diet, the main goal was working on the immune process.

The body's immunity was the goal of it. While the weight loss was kind of the side effect that we all experienced, which obviously was a welcome side-effect. So talk a little bit about how the ketogenetic diet worked for immunity, because we know that in Hashimoto's, it's the autoimmune process which is destroying the thyroid gland. How that affected with the Ketogenic Diet. Yeah. Well, there's a few things that, you know, again, when we looked back at the results we were getting, we asked ourselves, what is it about this ketogenic protocol that we're giving our patients with autoimmunity?

What is about it that made it so effective? And of course we are looking at that more now because we have the research that didn't have back then. So one of the things was the ketogenetic lifestyle, the Ketogenic diet pretty much removes gluten. Right. And with the removal of gluten, what do we know about the thyroid gland and gluten? They're molecularly similar, if not the same. So autoimmunity, the immune system attack, you know, with leaky gut caused by gluten. The immune systems attacks the gluten and also the thyroid.

So again, we did not know that back then, but we were just naturally taking gluten out in order to lower the carbohydrates, increasing things like selenium, vitamin D and supplementing with zinc and magnesium, right? So because we are taking out other foods that were increasing or causing insulin resistance with these things that we I think what was going on back then to Dr. Gupta, and I don't know if you remember this period of time when the rhetoric in medicine was that a low carbohydrate diet was actually harmful to people with thyroid disease.

You remember that? So that was based on a study from the 70s and the 80s.

Ketosis, Inflammation, and Immune Benefits 9:35

I believe it was called the Vermont study, but what we know now is it's a flawed study. And what we did learn in that study is that people did not do well on an extremely low carbohydrate or no carbohydrate diet, which is not what were doing. So we are making sure that our patients had about 50 to 100 grams of carbohydrate per day, you know, 15 or 12 or nine grams of carbohydrate per day or none, right? Like the carnivore diet is very low carbohydrate, but what the American Western diet naturally is high carbohydrate.

What we considered normal amounts of carbohydrates is actually double what we really need to be taking in every day. So in contrast, it feels like it's very low carbohydrate, but it is really not. So that worked really well. The addition of healthy fats. Again, back in the 70s and 80s, what was the demon? Right? Fat. And what do we know now? fat is our friend and especially with autoimmunity, you know, we need that, that lubrication and we to be able to produce those ketones, which cross the brain, blood brain barrier, by the way, Which is why we feel so much more clarity.

Um, and with Hashimoto's, the, brain fog and the fatigue, In my experience, that was the number one complaint and why people would come in for weight loss because they did know that being obese or overweight was creating fatigue. Patients didn't really need to understand how it all works. But what we knew is that when we increase the healthy fats by adding nuts and avocados and olive oil, and I know your favorite and my favorite, coconut oil. People felt better and they had more energy and the peeled off body fat faster.

And then of course, you know, what does that do for the skin for someone with Hashimoto's in your experience? I'd love to ask you because I'll just keep talking and talking talking. But you what do you see with your patients when they're experiencing loss of hair and dry skin and brittle nails when you increase those healthy fats? Absolutely. I mean, this skin starts glowing. You know the dryskin goes away. The hair starts regrowing. The hair fall stops, absolutely. Fats are so much important. Not only they are anti-inflammatory, but they actually lubricate each and every cell of your body and we need them.

So absolutely good fats are an essential part. Right. So inflammation, and you just said the word, the key really was at the end of the day, reducing inflammation. I almost want to say solves all problems. It may not solve all problem alone, but it is absolutely the number one first step to healing. In the presence of inflammation we simply cannot heal. We just simply cannot. And so lowering the carbohydrates, increasing the healthy fats, and then getting that adequate amount of protein. Again, the 70s and the 80s, remember the vegetarian phase.

Actually, it's like the junk food vegetarian craze of the seventies and eighties wreaked havoc. And on men and women, but particularly women. I heard this statistic and I hope it's correct, I'm not 100% sure. But I just heard that 20% of all women in America have thyroid dysfunction and 10% percent of men have that dysfunction. Would you say that that's accurate? Yeah, definitely for women, you know, like in the middle ages, absolutely that is correct and it is on a rise. And then interestingly, in like the last 10 years, the decade, what I'm noticing is that more and more men are being diagnosed with it.

Before, it was exclusively like middle-aged women would be the one who will be affected, but somehow we are seeing the shift that, more than more, men also being affected with Hashimoto's and thyroid disorders. Yeah. And so in a new development in functional medicine and you're the expert in Functional Medicine here is in genomics. and stem cells and things that, you know, I've been out of my brick and mortar practice for a long time now. It feels like a lot time since 2016. So that was not part of of, my approach, and my diagnostics.

But now, we just have so much more information and so many more ability to really help people. Absolutely. But you know, like before that, you were saying that you had this patient, Catherine, that he was able to heal Hashimoto's. Why don't you share that case study so that people are aware of how this approach can be so powerful? Yeah, this was my accidental Hashimoto's story because, and just a beautiful couple, Katherine and her husband Patrick came into my chiropractic and weight loss practice.

And I know why they came in. They came because the sign on the door said chirapratic and wait loss. It didn't say chirapractic in functional medicine or chirepractic and whatever processes, right? It said chiropractic and weight loss. And Katherine and Patrick walked in and I knew immediately when I looked at Katherine that she was not feeling good at all. She had the very classic appearance of a woman with Hashimoto's. Her skin was red and dry and her hair was thin and brittle. She looked probably 10 years older than she actually was at the time, Dr.

Gupta. And her lovely husband Patrick was a lot taller than her. They walked in together. He had his arm over her shoulder and she The look on her face was that look of like almost desperation, like wide-eyed and like, dear God, I hope something here is gonna help me. So she came in for weight loss, sat down, did her intake on health history form. Of course it says Hashimoto's, so noted, right? Just noted. I applied the same ketogenic protocol and lifestyle for Katherine, that I have many, many other patients like her and unlike her.

So it was the protocol that would apply to one of the yoga instructors across the way at the shopping center I was in. I apply the very same protocol to soccer moms who came in, so we started with the the same approach, which I'll be sharing with you guys in a free gift I'm offering for you today. So you can actually have exactly what Catherine did. And we just started there. We did body composition analysis because I wanted to monitor how much body fat she was losing and how muscle she keeping, but I did no labs back then.

I left that to her medical doctor or her functional medicine practitioner. So Katherine lost 20 to 30 pounds right away and did that pretty easily. Thankfully, she had great support with her husband and then lost another 10 pounds. And when she would come into the office, it was so satisfying to just see her feeling better, looking better more energy, laughing, smiling. She was sleeping better. So we knew everything was improving, but I asked her to go in and get labs just to see, you know, what's going on and surprise,

Case Study: Katherine's Hashimoto's Improvement 17:28

surprise not such a surprise. Her TSH was in normal range. so it was around three, which was extremely shocking and surprising for her. And we just kind of, like I said, we don't treat Hashimoto's, right? But we just noted, wow, look at that. What a massive improvement in your thyroid health. So it was probably one of the most satisfying moments and validating moments in my career as a doctor was to just be able to see, and this was 2015, Dr. Gupta. So if you were to go to an A4M conference back then, you'd probably not learn the ketogenic protocol, right?

Not yet. As a matter of fact, again, the rhetoric at that time was low carbohydrate diets are dangerous for people with thyroid dysfunction, but we learned what we learn and we did what did and I never looked back. Absolutely. So why don't we kind of talk about, like, you know, obviously a lot of people know what ketogenic diets. I want to kind share some mistakes, common mistakes that you have seen people are making when doing a ketogenetic diet. And then, what might, derail their health instead of help them out.

Yeah. Well, I think the biggest mistake people make, and I'd love to hear your experience with this too, one of the big mistakes that people makes, when people would come in and they would say, oh, i've done the keto diet and that didn't work for me, or I was on the Keto diet, my cholesterol was through the roof, that's dangerous. The first mistake that we see people making is they underestimate how much saturated fat they're having. So I would just tell my patients, I'm like, this is not the steak and bacon bro diet, right?

This is no bro keto. Not all the butter, no bacon, not thick fatty ribeye steaks, so I think that's the first mistake that people make. And I think the second mistake, I have three. I'll just give you the top three I can think of off the tip of my head. So the first one is they go on the steak and bacon diet, the bro keto diet. Number one mistake. number two, they tend to get very excited about how good they feel when they into ketosis. Because when you go into Ketosis, now you're getting all of that fat, all those fat calories right to your brain, right?

So yes, of course, energy soars. And people want to start working out, right? They want start running or they want started lifting heavy weights. And the amount, the energy expenditure is just is way too high. What we know in obesity medicine now is that exercise does not accelerate fat loss. And so I would ask my patients to just dial back the exercise and think of it as movement and to stop using exercise to burn calories, because we don't want to burned all those calories with exercise. We want use them for our brain, right?

And to heal our bodies. And then, let's see, oh, the third mistake is not tracking what you're eating. Because if you are really not mindful and tracking how many grams of carbohydrate you have, how much fat you've had, and how may grams protein you had in the beginning, until it becomes your lifestyle, because it's very counterintuitive, What will happen is people will be in ketosis and then out of it, and in it and out it. And so then energy is going up and down. Hunger signaling is up going and we're not healing anything.

We're actually creating more inflammation that way. So anything that you can do to reduce inflammation when you're first adopting a ketogenic lifestyle is gonna benefit you. Absolutely. I think those are so important key things that you have mentioned over here. And then another thing that he mentioned before was that going on very extreme low carbohydrate diets, right, because you need a little bit of carbohydrates. And people think that the more ketosis I go into, the better it will be for me.

So let me eliminate complete carbohydrates, which sometimes backfire for some of the people. That was also another important point that you already shared before. I think those are great mistakes that people, I'm sure a lot of people when they start typing ketogenic diet or what certain videos or information on Google, that they should be aware of them. Right. Yes. Watch out for AI right now. Don't AI your Hashimoto's Protocol. Absolutely. So now let's switch gears because we do have a lot of practitioners, you know, like health practitioners also watching over here, whether those are coaches, nutritionists, or providers like me.

And they're wondering how to kind of incorporate ketogenic diet or other things into an online practice. With obviously your experience doing these things for such a long time, what would you say about that? Yeah. Well, and I mentioned this to you before we started recording this interview that, you know, people can rip a page out of your success playbook, Dr. Gupta, because one of the things that you're doing is a key to client attraction and that is address the symptom that people are actually going to be looking for to solve.

So as you and I were talking, you're a functional medicine master. And when I was in my chiropractic practice, I like so excited about the physiology of fat loss that sometimes we can't see the forest from the trees. Out there in our marketing, we talk to our potential clients like they're doctors. Right, so I love that this is the very obvious, reversing Hashimoto's summit. It's not the functional medicine with Dr. Gupta summit, it's reverses Hashimoto. So your ideal client is looking to reverse their Hashimatos.

Right? So when I had my chiropractic practice, said Rutley chiropractic and weight loss.

Common Keto Mistakes to Avoid 23:58

It didn't say lower inflammation. It was weight loss because that's what people want. And when I transitioned online, I needed to decide, okay, what's going to be my front door that will attract my ideal client? We'll also not be practicing medicine without a license online because we go global when we're online, right? We're working with people all over the world. And so weight loss was the front door. It was actually, my first summit was called the mindful eating conscious living virtual summit.

Yeah. By getting out there and speaking and what I say to my practitioners, Dr. Gupta is in your, Here's another page out of your success playbook. People need to see you and hear you in order to hire you. And as practitioners, we want to hide over here getting another certification, right? And learning and learning, and getting better and better, thinking that if we just keep getting at our skills, that will grow the practice. Would you like to share something about that? Because we had a quick little chat about philosophy and that approach right before the interview.

Well, absolutely. I was working in the Cleveland Clinic. We saw one of the most complicated cases and things. But that doesn't prepare me for opening up a practice. That doesn' prepare to me to help more people out. Because I have to be in front of people. Only then I can help people with a YouTube channel. Again, the goal is to share by size information with them, which people can implement. And that has been always my goal. because that is what people want and that's what, you know, like, can do also.

Not everybody can, do like you, know a very intense protocol, but at least if they can a few things that will make them empowered. You know feeling okay they, they make a change and they feel better. So I think that what you I have learned and what I am trying to do. with our channel and everywhere I'm sharing information is that giving that that you know a bite of that success where they can do it give them something easy that they Can do so that at least they I noticed that and that's the third piece of you know success that I saw in you even this morning as I looked at your podcast and you had an eight minute training on reversing Hashimoto's and You gave us a morning protocol, including a drink.

and an evening protocol, including a drink, and you did it in eight minutes. I listened to it while I was curling my hair, Dr. Gupta, And I thought to myself, I'm going to go out and get some turmeric today. Like, i can go to the store and I can get those ingredients. They're very simple. they're not hard. i don't have to Go to five stores. Don't Have to order anything online and i could start doing that tonight. And so again, that's that is really important that we don' overwhelm our patients with too much teaching.

The age of the expert is over. I don't know if you've heard this before. Maybe people need to hear this. We're in a trust economy. People are already going to assume you're an expert if they see you speaking, and if the see on YouTube, they have the right to expect that you are an already an So we need to spend less time trying to prove how much we know and spend more time serving them and meeting them where they're at. And I think you're doing a fabulous job and I really like your podcast by the way.

Thank you so much. You know, like just sharing information, just doing a few things here and there. The goal is to like reach as many people because, you know like if, if we have the information but we are not sharing with people, If we're not making an impact, then I feel sometimes that, we do a little bit of service. So that's very important that the more people we can help out, that is the best use of our talent as well as our knowledge. Yes, yes. And we talked about the democratization of functional medicine and health and wellness information.

What you're doing by sharing everything that you are sharing on your podcast and on these summits is you removing the gatekeeping that used to exist and still exists in Western medicine. That is just not a philosophy that we hold in the natural health in wellness space.

Building an Online Practice and Sharing Expertise 28:38

Absolutely. And I think you are also sharing that you have this great training which is coming up for people, you know, like practitioners like me or anybody else who want to kind of understand this whole process because absolutely it is very overwhelming. When I started it, the first year was one of the toughest years in my practice or in career. So you're making it easier. Tell us more about the event that is going up and what are you going to do with it? Yes. Yes, thank you for asking. And I'm very excited about it because just like health and wellness, building online businesses is more confusing and overwhelming than ever because we have just so much available to us out there.

So our practitioners are experiencing the same thing their patients are experience thing, which is overwhelm. overspending and needing to spend too much time getting better and getting well or creating that business that they desire. So I also told your audience that I would give you the same protocol that Catherine had that reversed her Hashimoto's on paper and allowed her to feel so much better. And lose about 40 pounds of body fat. So, my free gift to you is the Eat Your Way Happy video series.

So inside of the free gifts, when you click on it, you're going to get a series of videos and I'm going show you from my own kitchen exactly what Catherine ate and what I would suggest you have. How many grams of protein, how many of carbohydrates, and how much of fat. The entire protocol is in the eat your way happy free give. And then for those of you who are practitioners and health and wellness professionals, when you get the Eat Your Way Happy Free gift, you also get an opportunity to get a $1 ticket to Practitioners Palooza.

And Practioners Paluza is January 29th, 30th and 31st. It's all online, right? So if you have a Zoom account and you signal, you can come, right? So block your schedule off. It's Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And it's just my philosophy. Dr. Gupta, I think that you and I are very much the same in this. I'm giving my practitioners and all of you that come to Practitioners Palooza, everything that has worked for me, works for the doctors that I coach, it is only the needle movers. I only want you to learn and get and understand and be able to implement right away the things that are going to have the biggest impact and to get you the furthest, the fastest.

Because honestly, we don't have any more time to waste. We don' have anymore time waste when we're reversing Hashimoto's and getting well. And we dont have time anymore to wastes when it comes to building our practices so we can serve more people and serve ourselves by having financial freedom and time freedom because practitioners deserve to be happy too. I agree with that, you know, and that this is great. We have all of these links into the description. So if you missed by any chance, like, what Dr.

Kelly was saying, so all these free gifts will be listed in the descriptions. Please go and check it out. Obviously that amazing resource or video series that she's talking about where she exactly shows you what Catherine ate and Like how you can plan your day according to that, that is always very, very empowering. And then obviously you're a practitioner, you know, like, or if you are thinking about like you may be helping more people out and becoming a coach, maybe helping your family around it.

And if you want to practice around it, then I think that event is going to be awesome because, you know, like she's going share exact blueprint, which is amazing. You know she has been very generous of sharing so much information. So I really like about you that you're still sharing, so many clinical information, helping people out as well as, practitioners, with having them financial freedom. That's amazing and thank you so for doing that. Well, thank you so much. And again, yes, Practitioner Palooza is for beginners and seasoned professionals.

So everybody's welcome. Absolutely. We can go on this discussion for a very, very long time and things, but I think, you know, with the time constraints and stuff, what do you think that, if there are some parting words for people who are joining us over here? parting words for you is if you're building an online business, don't get a puppy. This is Sir Elton.

Free Resources, Practitioner Palooza, and Closing Advice 33:08

He's eight months old and I've been literally playing with him and feeding him, and doing all kinds of things over here because, you know, of course, I think here's what I would say. No matter what you are facing right now, if it's, struggles with autoimmunity and Hashimoto's and thyroid dysfunction, Make it a priority, make it the priority this year to address it completely and commit yourself to it. Don't halfway do it, that's one of the things I've learned about healing, is halfway healing is zero healing.

And the same thing with building your health and wellness business. Don't halfway do it. Make a decision to go all in and make it happen. And you have a lot of support. You have had Dr. Gupta's support, and you've had all of these speakers on the Reversing Hashimoto's Summit. Reach out for help and support and coaching and invest in yourself because you are your only real asset. Absolutely. Those are so many wise words over here. So thank you for sharing that. And again, I will recommend people to go check out the resources that she has over year for you.

They're amazing, will be so much helpful. Uh, and again totally agree that go full in into and commit yourself, you know, with this, as you say, this is a new year we are entering into. This is the time to committing yourself completely to whatever cause you are kind of trying to achieve. and you will get success. So thank you again for sharing these wise words, giving the hope to people that they can improve their disease process as well as also achieve the financial freedom for a lot of practitioners who are looking for it.

Thank you, again, for doing that. Absolutely. So again, thank you guys joining us. Please listen to this interview a couple of times. You will learn the mistakes that you might be doing and then plus a message of hope that can get better and how to do it exactly. Thank you again. We will see you later in the next episode. Bye bye, take care.