Valerie Moses:

Erica. Hello.

Carole Freeman:

Valerie. You want to give us a quick little intro, who are you?

Valerie Moses:

I’m happy to. So, I’m the quintessential working mom of three, who has recently started really having some major success with keto. And so, I’ve been talking about it with friends and family. And I’m glad to be here today to talk to you about it.

Carole Freeman:

Excellent, excellent. Well, the official cohost role is the person who reads our medical disclaimer for the show. So, you want to give that a stab?

Valerie Moses:

Oh, this is a big privilege. I’m ready. Okay. This show is meant for educational and entertainment purposes only. It’s not medical advice. It’s not intended to diagnose, treat, cure any conditions. And if you have any medical condition, illness, disease, or are taking any medications, please still enjoy this podcast. But make sure you have donned your cautious galoshes. Is there a rainboot emoji? Can someone drop that below if there’s one?

Carole Freeman:

There’s got to be. I bet there is. A little [crosstalk 00:02:09].

Valerie Moses:

And seriously, yeah, if you have any questions or concerns related to your medical conditions, make sure those go to a medical professional.

Carole Freeman:

Yay, great. You get a raise. You did great with that. I love the cautious galoshes. I’m going to add that. We’ve got all these catchphrases that have come up on the show and I’m going to write that one. I love it, cautious, galoshes.

Valerie Moses:

It’s the same thing. It’s like wearing your adult pants or all those other things. Cautious, galoshes. It’s raining out there.

Carole Freeman:

Yeah. I love that. Oh my gosh. You’re a perfect cohost. I love it. All right. All right, so question for the viewers, how long have you been following low carb keto diet? This is an interactive show. If you’re new here, Literally Erica, I think you might be new. I don’t remember seeing you before. So, welcome, welcome. But we like to make this an interactive show. So, let us know how long you’ve been following low carb keto. Or if you’re just a keto curious person, but welcome, welcome, welcome.

Carole Freeman:

Well, up next, we’re going to do a little personal check-in. I had to have Valerie come on here because she’s so funny in the comments watching this, but also she’s had some really big success and she’s been doing some really cool experimentation with our blood glucose. So, I wanted her to come on and share.

Carole Freeman:

So, will you tell a little bit more about … Well, before we do that, because that’s going to be a little bit longer one. I just want to brag that Keto Chat LIVE, we’re rising, we’re moving up the charts, and we’re up to number 57 in nutrition podcast in Greece still. I still love that. That’s such a parallel that keto is known for being a higher fat diet. And in Greece is where we’re trending.

Carole Freeman:

But Literally Erica is literally keto curious person. I’ve seen it work for so many people. Well, awesome. Welcome, glad you’re here. I’m going to keep calling her Literally Erica. Excellent. Susan has been keto since May 1, 2020. Nice job. Excellent. All right. Greece, what’s up Greece? I haven’t had a live in Greece. I don’t know what the time difference is, but one of these days hopefully, we get a live person there that’s been making us go up the charts.

Valerie Moses:

Yeah. Maybe 3:00 in the morning there, something like that.

Carole Freeman:

Yeah. I don’t know. I have to look it up.

Valerie Moses:

There’s some really wonderful keto foods that are Greek foods.

Carole Freeman:

Have you ever been to Greece, Valerie?

Valerie Moses:

I have not. I would love to go. I’ve only seen pictures. So, I visit in my dreams.

Carole Freeman:

Couple of friends that I went to nutrition school with, one of the summers they took a trip over there for culinary adventure. And one of the girls met her husband, her now husband. I think they’ve been married almost nine or 10 years now. But what an adventure.

Carole Freeman:

Oh, here we go Literally Erica says it’s 2:09 AM in Greece. Okay. Well, maybe there’s some late night owls that may be up still listening, but I’m guessing they’re probably mostly listening in the audio only podcast version of that. So, welcome future Greece listeners. We’re so glad. But we or all the other people around the world listeners as well, too.

Carole Freeman:

So, all right, before I so rudely interrupted Valerie’s sharing of her success, so, tell us about your keto journey, your success that you’ve had, how long you’ve been doing keto yourself.

Valerie Moses:

Sure. And I think you very kindly interrupted. So, thank you for that. I’ll take a sip of water here. Well, it’s water as far as you know.

Carole Freeman:

Oh, this show is all about kindly funnily interrupting each other so [crosstalk 00:05:58].

Valerie Moses:

Yes. So, around the April timeframe was when I really started paying some pretty close attention to it. But I’ll tell you, these last four weeks or so is where I’ve been uber focused on it and really having some big successes and learning some super cool stuff that may be very specific to only a certain subsection of people, but I think some people probably are finding some of the same things that I do.

Valerie Moses:

So, I’m pretty excited to share some of the experimentation that I’ve been doing in the keto space to sort of optimize it for what Val’s body needs. But I think it’ll spark some good ideas. And thank you for allowing me the platform to spew all of my just kind of experience with it and this is going to be super fun.

Carole Freeman:

No better place to spew keto knowledge.

Valerie Moses:

If you’re going to spew, spew into this.

Carole Freeman:

Yeah, yeah.

Valerie Moses:

Name that movie, if anybody knows what movie that came from. It’s a movie quote. It’s a comedy.

Carole Freeman:

Hallmarks of the show is we always have some at least one movie reference and one musical reference. So, we’re checking the box for movie reference right now. So, that trivia right now is going to be what movie did Valerie just quote. Let’s see who can get.

Valerie Moses:

Yeah, it’s a Dixie cup. If you’re going to spew, spew into this. See who gets it? You’re remembering it.

Carole Freeman:

I am. I’m like, oh, I think that’s ringing a bell. I’m getting something from the ’80s, I think. So, okay, she’ll review some review later. So, put your guesses in the comments about that. What movie did Valerie just quote? Well, so you’re doing some blood sugar testing. So, you shared with me originally that you started to notice that stress had a really big impact on your blood sugar. So, tell us a little bit more about how you figure that out.

Valerie Moses:

Well, I want to say that I figured it out by accident, but maybe kinda not because I very purposely decided to monitor my blood glucose. I was just kind of reading some literature that talked about how different foods even in the keto space can affect different people.

Valerie Moses:

And I thought I had an inkling that maybe some of the keto friendly sweeteners were sabotaging me a little bit. I’m like, huh, I’m putting this special stuff into my iced coffee to sweeten it up a little scotch stevia and monk brewed should be fine. But I found that all of a sudden, I stopped making progress when I started doing that. So, I thought, let me take a look at this blood sugar. So, I’ve been wearing a continuous blood glucose monitor. And so, Erica says Bill and Ted. Close, so close.

Carole Freeman:

Okay. We got a close guess for the movie trivia here.

Valerie Moses:

I love that she’s not looking it up, though. She’s not cheating. She’s going for it. So, continuous glucose monitoring, it’s like this cool little thing that I wear on the back of my arm that looks like a button. And for a couple of weeks at a time, it gives you an every six minutes or so blood glucose reading. And I’m thinking, “All right, I think I can use this data for the powers of good.” And I decided to go ahead and have some of that coffee, that iced coffee with the keto friendly syrup in it.

Carole Freeman:

Glen mentioned what it is specifically now. We’re not going to say that this is a bad product or anything. This is Valerie’s experience. And so, part of this is to show that how individual everyone is. And even though something is technically sugar-free, zero carbs that may not mean that it’s actually keto friendly. So, that’s why this testing is so valuable because [crosstalk 00:09:40].

Valerie Moses:

Well, that’s a good point. Okay. I’m not trashing Torani Puremade Syrup, but that was the one I used.

Carole Freeman:

Yeah, because ingredient wise, it looks like it should be perfectly fine.

Valerie Moses:

It looks clean.

Carole Freeman:

Yeah.

Valerie Moses:

Totally. Stevia and Monk Fruit in that particular type. And so, I put half a serving. I didn’t even use the whole serving. I tested my blood glucose about 30 minutes after having that drink. And it had already spiked my blood glucose more than my meals do. And by the time one hour passed, it had gone up 20 points, which if you don’t know whether that’s a big spike or not, it’s a big spike. That’s a really big difference. My meals don’t even do that.

Carole Freeman:

Well, and just to clarify also, she didn’t have any food with it. So, she just comparing it to when she did eat. So, just coffee, just the syrup. That’s it.

Valerie Moses:

Yeah. And so, that’s what happened to me. And then I thought, aha, I’m literally on to something here. And Carole can tell you more about this, but you know what your blood glucose spikes, you have an insulin response. And if you’re constantly having an insulin response, you’re going to sabotage what it is that you’re doing. So, I figured out one thing.

Valerie Moses:

The next day, I figured out something else. And it all stemmed from a bad meeting at work. I will not tell you where I work, though. We’ll talk about Torani syrup. But I work a job that maybe there are some meetings that put a little pressure on me and I feel like I have a stressful moment. And I found that my blood glucose spiked quite a bit just as much as if I ate a meal, just because of a contentious sort of a little bit stressy, depressing kind of work meeting.

Valerie Moses:

And I thought, okay, I figured a really important second thing out. And that’s that, even with, I was not intaking any food or drinking anything besides water, I had a stressful meeting, my blood glucose spiked more than 10 points, and took a little while to kind of calm down. And maybe we can mention at some point what some things you can do to calm yourself down. But the point is that stress can sort of sabotage the goals that you’re trying to meet as well. And you have to put in some risk mitigating factors in there that will help you when those things happen, if you happen to know that about yourself.

Valerie Moses:

And I love how self-aware this glucose monitor is helping me be. I’m really enjoying kind of the data. I’m able to pull off of it, and how I’m able to change some things in my daily routine to meet my goals.

Carole Freeman:

Oh, that’s great. And that’s something that I have in my teachings for my clients as a section, I call it ketosis killers and talk about how stress, just physiologically, stress raises our blood glucose. And it’s all hypothetical and theoretical until somebody actually can see that change for themselves. So, I love that you’re doing this experiment. And you’ll have the real data to be able to see that that’s true. And do you want to share them the next thing you discovered about how you could actually, through some relaxation techniques, stress management techniques that you were able to quickly get it to come back down to a normal level?

Valerie Moses:

Yeah, absolutely. Now one thing, now that you’ve talked about Greece, I feel like I should download a couple of really beautiful pictures of Greece. So, I could do like this vacation ideation and use that for relaxation technique.

Valerie Moses:

But just some of the things that work for me, the Navy SEALs do this thing called box breathing. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. Breathing techniques are really effective across the board. I like that particular one because it’s on a four count. So, it makes you feel like you’re doing some kind of cadence, and it really did bring my blood glucose down. And it’s just where you take in a four count breath and fill up your lungs, and then you hold it for four seconds. And then you let it out for four seconds and then you hold it out for four seconds.

Valerie Moses:

And so, you see how that sort of forms that box and it just calms you right down. Three cycles of it. Takes you a minute, minute and 20 seconds or so to do a few cycles and that will help you just kind of focus. You get out of that fight or flight mode like there’s no sabre-toothed tigers in the room and we don’t have to run. You can go down blood glucose please. I don’t need you right now. Go away. I have goals.

Valerie Moses:

So, that’s kind of one thing. And just sometimes you can just kind of close your eyes and just imagine yourself on a beach for a few minutes. I love getting away from my desk while I’m working, box breathing is Erica’s jam, she says. Hashtag box breathing is my jam.

Carole Freeman:

Like hashtag [crosstalk 00:14:49] I am J. Yeah. I love it.

Valerie Moses:

But I love even just walking away from what’s stressing me out. So, you have to finish the meeting. But when it’s over, go somewhere else in a different room. Don’t be in your office. And even 5, 10-minute walk can calm things down.

Valerie Moses:

And if you can’t handle that stuff, look up some good dad jokes. You just read the simple little things that make you laugh because laughter is pretty much an immediate, I don’t want to say cure, but it can calm you down. It breaks you kind of out of that cycle of that stressed out feeling. So, you just tell yourself, hey, I just bought myself a new blindfold, but I can’t see myself wearing it. And then, you’re like, wah-wah and you laugh. That’s a little something for you.

Valerie Moses:

And so, you have to immediately find something that’s calming or joyful. And it’ll start reversing that because when I did go breathe, kind of stretch and just read a little something funny, within 10 minutes, the blood glucose had gone down 12 points when I retested. And I mean I can’t ignore that kind of data that’s why I wanted to share it.

Carole Freeman:

Susan’s saying that a lack of sleep and stress spikes her blood glucose, too. I noticed this when I tested it after Zoom call. As convenient as Zoom is, it can be very stressful for a lot of us too. Yeah. So, in stressful. I mean, it’s not the primary topic of this episode. I’ll cover it in more detail on another episode, but it’s one of the most underrated things of being bad for health.

Carole Freeman:

A lot of us are here because we know that eating lower carb, ketoish for us, it confers some health benefits for us. But not managing our stress as a whole other level of something that’s really damaging to our health if we don’t get that. If we spend too much time in the stress state versus mediating that by stress relaxation techniques, not stressor like relaxation techniques, like some of the ones like Valerie was mentioning there, too.

Carole Freeman:

And Erica says, “Yeah, hashtag box breathing is my jam.” Love that. And she also says, “You mentioned images of Greece. Is there a relaxation technique tied to the pictures?” Yeah, I’ll go ahead and share that one. I’ll teach this to my clients. I call it taking an imaginary vacation like what do I call it? You’re taking a virtual vacation. So, I have a clinical certification in hypnotherapy. So, basically trained to use it therapeutically and clinically with people too. But if you don’t like the word hypnosis, or hypnotherapy, just think of it as guided imagery and relaxation technique.

Carole Freeman:

It’s all the same thing. It’s basically getting your brainwaves into a much different, I don’t know, beta theta, delta gamma, I don’t remember the exact ones, but it’s basically putting it into that relaxed state, which also your body goes into that the opposite of stress mode as well. So, the cool thing is, is your body cannot tell the difference between what you vividly imagine and what’s actually happening in the moment.

Carole Freeman:

And so, picture your favorite place to go on vacation and it works really well, too, if you’ve got an image. So, maybe your screensaver on your computer, maybe you’ve got a printed out photo, whatever way that you can remember that. And just take a few moments to close your eyes and vividly imagine that you’re there. And the trick to this is you want to think about your all five senses in that location as if you’re really there.

Carole Freeman:

So, you walk through like, okay, so what do you see? What are the colors, the shapes, the images all around you when you’re there? We’ll just keep saying Greece. We love Greece. What are the smells? What does it smell like? The ocean air, the trees, the flowers, the foliage, whatever? What does it smell like there? What does it feel like? What does it feel like on your skin?

Carole Freeman:

Maybe you’re sitting someplace, maybe you’re standing. Do they have beaches there? What the sand feels like in your feet? What the air feels like on your skin? What do you hear? What do you hear there? Are there birds? Are there wrestling leaves? What else would be there? Are there animals, maybe you’re in a village where there’s cars driving by mopeds or something like that.

Carole Freeman:

The last one is taste sensory. I often recommend you don’t need to go there with this one too, because especially if we’re not trying to imagine food to cope with stress. So, I would just say use your four senses that are non-taste ones, and just enjoy how that feels. And you literally can walk through all of this in a minute or two. And you’re going to turn right off your stress. Just like it’s a light switch. You’ve turned off the stress motor in your body. All right. So, tell me in the comments. Where did you go in your virtual vacation right then? This is something that anybody can do anytime and no equipment necessary.

Valerie Moses:

I’m now in Greece. We’re doing the rest of the podcast from Greece. I can feel there.

Carole Freeman:

Yeah. So, Hasty Wolf. Welcome to the show. Would you consider that for meditation? I feel like I go through the same journey when I attempt meditation. Yeah, yeah. So, there’s all these different terms and phrases for it but it’s basically about getting your brainwaves into a relaxed state. That’s the commonality, so that can be called meditation. It can be the breathing techniques that Valerie was talking about. It can be imagining you’re going on a vacation somewhere that you are on vacation, which I would just put a caveat here of going on a vacation may be stressful.

Carole Freeman:

So, just imagine you’re in the vacation spot on the relaxation thing. Yeah. And it can be you’re watching or listening to guided imagery as well. It’s all in that same category of effective relaxation techniques and has lots of overlap with meditation. So, excellent.

Valerie Moses:

Yeah. Definitely don’t imagine yourself packing your bag and making the drive to the airport.

Carole Freeman:

Yeah, yeah. Skip that part.

Valerie Moses:

The TSA checks. Don’t do any of that.

Carole Freeman:

All the good parts of the vacation, none of the stress of it. All right, all right. Well, yeah, let me know where you all went on vacation there. Valerie just went to Greece. Yeah. I keep imagining Greece now as well too. So, all right.

Carole Freeman:

So, hey, let’s get into the topic of today’s teaching. So, today’s topic, a lot of the ideas I have for topics come from my clients. So, somebody asked this last week on one of my coaching calls that, I was out some family gathering or some friends I don’t remember the exact situation, but somebody was worried about her saying, is it really safe to be on keto long term? Can you really do that long term?

Carole Freeman:

And so, that’s a topic we got to talk about on the podcast. Machu Picchu, oh, how beautiful. Now, not walking up the stairs, that would be the stressful part of it, but just the view that you get there, and the peace and tranquility. I’ve heard that’s a very magical place.

Valerie Moses:

Yeah. You can sort of meditate while you’re walking up the stairs. Just kind of keep a little cadence like Machu Picchu, Machu Picchu. I feel like that’s meditative a little or maybe I’m wanting to dance.

Carole Freeman:

Oh, that’s good. I wonder if that’s how people make it up those stairs. I don’t even know how many stairs there are. But I’ve seen photos, I’ve heard it’s a very magical mystical just a serene place to be. So, there’s something about there that’s healing. I’ve heard, I’ve never been.

Carole Freeman:

Yeah. So, today’s topic really I want to cover like, it’s kind of a myth actually. There’s a spoiler alert is that the real goal of a keto diet is not to be in ketosis forever. Okay? So, here’s a few myths about what a keto diet is. So, number one myth is that the goal of a keto diet is to get into ketosis and stay in ketosis forever. Number two myth about a keto diet is if you’re in ketosis, that means you’re losing weight. And if you stay in ketosis, that’s going to keep you losing weight and keep the weight off. Not true, not true.

Carole Freeman:

And also, number three myth is that trying to stay in ketosis forever is the healthiest thing for everyone to do, and you should stay in that state forever. I’m pausing for a questionnaire. So, Literally Erica says, “Can we get a three second on what keto is? I just like to hear an expert’s synopsis.” Yeah. I’ll plug that in here really quickly.

Carole Freeman:

So, basically keto is eating in a way that does promote ketones in the blood. The primary way that you’re going to achieve that is by keeping carbohydrates very low, the carbohydrates that you eat. And then that turns on and our alternate fuel source in the body where you’re actually burning your body’s fat or the fat that you’re eating, and you’re also making ketones as an alternate fuel source. So, that’s kind of the short of what a keto diet is.

Carole Freeman:

And it’s found to be a very effective weight loss strategy for people that are metabolically unhealthy, which very much fits into the topic of today. And most of the people that are following it, when they do it correctly, they find that compared to other weight loss diets where they’re counting calories or trying to do low fat, they find that their appetite goes away, their cravings go away, they have more energy than they’ve ever had, and they’re just no longer obsessed with food.

Carole Freeman:

And then when they do a keto meal, it’s more satiating. A different level of satiety comes about rather than anybody here done a low fat diet where you’ve no matter how much you eat, you still feel as gnawing and your stomach and your soul food obsessed. And yes, Erica is saying, “I only knew one of those things.” Excellent. Yeah. Well, glad I could help you out.

Carole Freeman:

So, all right, so that covered the myths about the keto diet. Okay? So, busting myths. That’s what I love to do. And so, the truth of the keto diet, at least, this is what my goal is for my clients. And again, I’m medically certified. I’m a board certified keto nutrition specialist. I’ve got all the degrees and all that. And so, I’ve been studying this and working with clients for over six years now.

Carole Freeman:

And so, when done correctly, and this is my goal with my clients is, the goal is actually to get them metabolically healthy. And it’s not to be in ketosis and stay in ketosis every moment. So, Valerie can attest that for most people, I don’t even have them testing ketones, because that’s not the primary goal of what we’re doing.

Carole Freeman:

Now, the goal is to follow low carb, keto for some people if they need that low of carbohydrate intake. And just for Erica, anyone else is wondering too, the difference between low carb and keto is that typically for keto, we’re having people do 20 total grams of carbs a day or less, whereas low carb can be anywhere, like there’s no standard definition of that. So, low carb could be 200, 100 grams of carbs a day, 60, 80, 40. Low carb is just reduced carb basically is what low carb would be called.

Carole Freeman:

So, the goal, my goal with working with my clients is to get them to be metabolically healthy. And I’ll talk about here in a moment, like okay, so what does that mean? What is metabolically healthy? Being as healthy as possible.

Carole Freeman:

So, basically, your metabolism, your metabolic function is how your body makes energy from the food you eat and from the storage sources in your body. That’s kind of the short version of what is our metabolism. What is metabolic health? If your body can very easily take whatever you eat, whatever is stored in your body, and make the energy and have red energy readily available for you to use. And also you don’t have elevations of blood glucose, your lab markers are in the healthy range as well, that’s a sign of a healthy metabolism.

Carole Freeman:

So, here are some signs that your metabolism is healthy is that if you skip a meal, if you could go a whole day you’re not going to crash and burn, your don’t get hangry. So, one sign of poor metabolic health is that if you skip a meal, you get ravenously hungry and you get what we call hangry, which is the hungry-angry together.

Carole Freeman:

And another sign is that if you eat something high carb, you crash and burn soon afterwards. Your body can’t tolerate high carb foods. Meaning you get a high energy and then within 30 to 60 minutes, you’re ready to take a nap. That’s a sign that your body can’t tolerate that. It’s not able to intake any type of food and process it and go back to burning the stored fat that you’ve got on your body too.

Carole Freeman:

So, the way that our bodies are designed to work, if we were all metabolically healthy, if we could go back probably 2 to 400 years, what would happen is that while we’re sleeping, our body is burning stored fat. And that when we wake up in the morning, we’re actually most people would be in a mild state of ketosis, meaning that we’re burning fat, and we’re also making these ketone bodies as another energy source.

Carole Freeman:

And we could go as long as we needed until food was available and we still would be able to be burning our own body fat. Even if we’re relatively lean person, we would have an effect on our body to get by. And then whenever we ate, our body would digest that, process that, use the carbohydrates immediately for fuels, store the other stuff for fat for later. And as soon as that carbohydrate intake ran out as we burn that off, that our body would just easily transition right back into burning or stored fat. That’s the way we’re designed to work.

Carole Freeman:

But the problem is, is that we’ve eaten so many refined carbohydrates for so long that our body is like, okay, you’re going to feed me every two hours, I don’t even need to worry about remembering how to burn my own fat. So, it shuts off all the mechanisms, not completely. This is just metaphorically but it shuts down all those enzymes and systems and everything. Basically is like I don’t even need to remember how to burn fat.

Carole Freeman:

And we’re overeating and we’re storing more fat than we are burning because it’s shutting off that system. And so, we get stuck in carb burning mode and we’re constantly hungry. We have no energy. Our body is storing fat more than it’s burning. And that’s a recipe for feeling like crud.

Carole Freeman:

And so, there’s a bunch of different factors that go into that. It can be your lifetime of eating. It can also be genetic stuff that you’ve inherited. It can be epigenetics, what the environment was when you were in utero. So, for example, if your mother had gestational diabetes or if she had elevated blood sugar, you’re actually unfortunately, starting out life with a harder time with getting metabolic health than you would if somebody would have been healthy the whole time. So, metabolic flexibility. Does that make sense, Valerie?

Valerie Moses:

I think it makes sense. I mean, you talked about being metabolically healthy. So, I mean, can we talk about how we get there?

Carole Freeman:

Yeah, yeah.

Valerie Moses:

How do we get it? I want some of that.

Carole Freeman:

What’s the shortcut? Is there a pill I can take to get there? So, the couple of ways the symptoms that I mentioned are one way you can know, whether you are metabolically healthy. But for my clients, I’m looking at those objective things, but I’m also looking at some lab markers. There’s some biometal. So, measurements of your body physically that you can take. And then the final step of this is going to be some carb testing you can do.

Carole Freeman:

Now, I’ll say right now that not everybody’s going to get there. It takes time. It can take 18 to 24 months for people depending on where they’re at in their poor metabolic health. They can take 18 to 24 months of being extremely low carb within that keto diet range for things to heal enough that you may be able to get some metabolic flexibility back.

Carole Freeman:

And for some people, you may never get to the point where you can eat a much higher carb diet. You may do best in a very, very low carb. So, I know that I’m one of those people that probably indefinitely 40 grams of carbs a day is probably going to be the most helpful for me. And I know this because of experimentations. I’ve done and just continuing to monitor my own labs. I come from a family where diabetes is pretty prevalent and Alzheimer’s.

Carole Freeman:

And so, I’m okay with that. I’m happy to know, I feel empowered knowing I have a way of knowing how to keep myself as healthy as possible. I don’t feel like poor me, I’m missing out that I can’t eat sugar every day. No, I figured out what helps me feel better.

Carole Freeman:

So, Valerie’s question, how do we get there? So, recommendations for my clients? Yeah, is first thing starting out at the beginning of your keto journey or wherever you’re at right now is to get some starter metabolic labs. So, those are going to be things like a lipid panel, fasting blood glucose, your A1c, fasting insulin, that’s one that is you’re not going to be able to get from your doctor as well. So, that’s when you’ll have to order on your own.

Carole Freeman:

And I also like to see CRP, which is a measure of inflammation. And the standard CBC and CMP as well are just kind of standard labs that you get every time you get your labs done as well. But those are, what I have my clients start with to get.

Carole Freeman:

And also, you’re going to take those body measurements. So, in the nutrition world, we call these biometrics, basically body measurements, what that means. So, I want to see your blood pressure. Your BMI was just a comparison of your height to your weight. I also would like to see, I’m going to add this in my notes here, so, I would also like to see body fat percentage if you’re able to get that.

Carole Freeman:

So, commonly, that’s going to be something that you’ll get through a DEXA body analysis scan. That’s a good one that’s going to be very accurate measure of body fat percentage, as well as looking at your bone density and muscle mass. Your waist measurement is another one as well that will really correlate to your metabolic health. So, the poorer metabolic health you have, the bigger your waist is in comparison to your hips.

Carole Freeman:

And so, we can see this on men that get the beer belly, okay? So, that’s actually a sign of poor metabolic health when you get that beer belly is because your body’s actually putting fat inside your body next to your organs and that’s actually the least healthy place for the fat to be stored.

Carole Freeman:

So, if you’ve ever wondered, if you’ve seen somebody that looks lean everywhere else, but they’ve got that basketball belly, it actually means that their body can’t store fat in the normal places very easily. And it just ends up storing it inside the body in the internal cavity as well.

Carole Freeman:

So, waist measurement is a way of kind of monitoring like what that fat is that’s in the middle of the body there too. And Susan say, blood glucose and ketones daily have a higher carb tolerance. I eat 40 to 45, 50 net carbs a day and still in ketosis. You had a question, Valerie?

Valerie Moses:

Yeah. I did have a couple of questions because you’d mentioned getting some labs and a DEXA scan, how do we get access to those things? You got any advice in that space? Because I would like to take some notes, too.

Carole Freeman:

Great question. Yeah. Well, so this is available to people. So, there’s three states that you can’t get this. So, ownyourlabs.com, you actually do a little banner for that so that I’ll plug. So, Dave Feldman’s website, ownyourlabs.com. Okay, you can go here. And literally, you get to order your own labs and go into a lab core facility and get your blood drawn and you get the lab set right back to you. So, you get to own your own labs.

Carole Freeman:

And so, it’s not available in New York, New Jersey and one other two letters state that’s not about, maybe Rhode Island, I can’t remember. But unfortunately, three states that this service is not available. But everywhere else in the United States, I got to cover that because sometimes we’ve got people in the UK that are watching.

Valerie Moses:

And Greece. Remember, Greece.

Carole Freeman:

Sorry, Greece. You can go right on there. There’s a tab on there that says how it works and it just walks you through step by step how to do that. So, this is primarily where I have my clients run all the things that I just mentioned, not a DEXA scan, but your labs, your starter lab. So, on the website, they’ve got … Oh, I just realized I need to add another one on there. Vitamin D, okay. Vitamin D add that to the list as well.

Carole Freeman:

So, on ownyourlabs.com, there’s what’s called the basics bundle, and that actually covers most of the things that I just mentioned. You’ll also need to add vitamin D separately as well. So, vitamin D, forgot about that one. Very, very important for immune health, also, in metabolic health as well too. So, vitamin D turns out there’s receptors in every cell in the body. So, we need it for everything the body does. Okay. So, yeah. So ownyourlabs.com, basics bundle plus vitamin D is what I have my clients start with.

Carole Freeman:

And the place the DEXA scan though, basically you’re just going to Google, DEXA body analysis near me and find a place … I don’t have one centralized place that I recommend for people to go to that, DEXA, D-E-X-A. And sometimes there’s mobile vans that do it. Sometimes there’s clinics or gyms that may offer the service or something like that. Sometimes you can find a Groupon for it, two or three sessions for a low price or something like that.

Carole Freeman:

What I’ve seen is typically between 50 to $100 per scan, very noninvasive. You go in fully clothed. You lay down on the bed. It’s kind of like they do a human copy of you. There’s just a scanner that doesn’t even touch your body, takes five minutes to scan. It is radiation low dose x-ray, extremely low dose though. Less x-rays than you get actually flying in an airplane speaking about the stress of that.

Carole Freeman:

And they give you depending on who does it’s like a 10 or 14-page printout that they give you. It literally shows you the density of your bone mass. Your muscle mass, your fat. It shows the fat where it is whether it’s that visceral fat that I was mentioning that’s the inside the body, the bad fat or the subcutaneous fat which is the other fat on the outside of the body.

Carole Freeman:

So, the blood pressure you can probably go into your doctor, you can go into any, what is it, like a drugstore they’ve got those free, take your blood pressure. But also, if you’re somebody that’s biohacking your own health, you want to get the best health possible, just by your own blood pressure monitor. You can get one on Amazon, you can buy one at any drugstore.

Carole Freeman:

And blood pressure, that’s another one. Yeah, your waist measurement, going to need a measuring tape for that. And yeah, the body fat percentage the DEXA thing that I mentioned as well. There are some home scales that you can get that measure your body fat percentage. They’re not going to be as accurate as the DEXA.

Carole Freeman:

So, if you’re not able to do a DEXA that’s another option is the home version. Some gyms will do like the calipers where they pinch you, give you your fat percentage as well. And as far as your BMI, that’s just a comparison of your height your weight. And so, most people have a way of measuring those at home as well.

Carole Freeman:

So, those are my recommendations of things to measure to start with. And the look at those subjective measures as well like, will you kill somebody if you miss a meal? And does your blood sugar go up a lot after you eat a meal, the sensitivity. And does it stay elevated for a long time? So, those are the things that you’re going to measure first as a baseline.

Carole Freeman:

And from there, the next thing I recommend then is for people that have so any of those two sets of things. So, you’re labs, your biometric measures, any of those are out of range show that you have some metabolic dysfunction, you’re unhealthy metabolically. And basically, any of those things that I just mentioned are out of the normal range, you do have some healing that you could do metabolically.

Carole Freeman:

And again, see listen to the medical disclaimer. I’m not giving any medical advice. I’m sharing what some information education here. What I do specifically with my clients. So, after that, what I do for my clients is that I have them follow the 10 rules. And so, if you missed those, if you’re new to the show, go back and listen to episodes one through 10. Each episode and cover a different one of those 10 rules. And that’s exactly the 10 rules that I have my clients start with for maximum results.

Carole Freeman:

So, to get into ketosis as fast as possible, get rid of cravings, maximize body fat loss in as short period of time as possible. So, follow those for at least 60 days. And then we’re going to reassess. We’re going to get all the labs done again, take all the biometric measurements again, and see where you’re at.

Carole Freeman:

Basically, repeat until you get to the point where all of those are in the healthy ranges. And they don’t always correlate with how much fats on your body, okay? So, one of my clients, she’s been working with me about 11 months. She’s lost really close to 70 pounds. She’s still by BMI range. She’s still considered overweight, but all of her labs and everything else look perfect.

Carole Freeman:

And so, that’s a sign that we’re next step, which is carb testing is that that’s where I’m having her go next is, let’s see, let’s bump you up 10 grams of carbs a day and see if everything still stays the same. It gives more variety of food choices.

Carole Freeman:

So, again, let’s tie back to the original question is, is it safe and healthy to stay in ketosis forever? Well, the goal is not to stay at that low carb forever, if you don’t have to. There’s no benefit of staying there. And so, we’ll see from there. So, that’s my final then.

Carole Freeman:

So, basically, repeat rules one through 10 until your labs and your biometrics look good. And then that’s when you may want to consider doing some carb testing. And one of my clients, she’s been at her goal weight for a year. And all of her labs look really good. And so, she started doing some strategic blood glucose testing with certain foods.

Carole Freeman:

So, her first test was with blueberries. She measured out a portion of blueberries. And they were only the equivalent of 17 total grams of carbs, which sounds like oh, that should be keto friendly. But she found that she had a 20 to 30-point increase in her blood glucose from just that small of, I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s like half a cup to one cup of blueberries, not very much.

Carole Freeman:

And so, that shows that that specific food for her is probably not going to be conducive to maintaining the good metabolic health that she’s got. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other carb tests or other carbs that may work for her at this point or that a total for the day of 30, 40, 60 grams of carbs may be fine for her.

Carole Freeman:

So, Robb Wolf in the back of his Wired to Eat book, he actually has a full, very strategic outline of how to do carb testing. And so, if you get to that point where all your labs have great, your biometrics are in line with metabolic health, I would suggest following the protocol that he’s gotten the back of his book, as a way of knowing more strategic about how to do that and trying different carbs, and know that not all carbs are going to affect everybody the same.

Carole Freeman:

So, he talks about in that book about how they did testing with one group, they gave them cookies and measure their blood sugar. And the other group, they gave him lentils and measure their blood sugar. And then what they found is that some people, the cookies, raise their blood sugar, and some of them didn’t, and some of them the lentils raise their blood sugar, and some didn’t. And then they swapped the groups and they had different effects.

Carole Freeman:

And so, whereas lentils are so much fiber, it seems like it shouldn’t raise your blood sugar, but for some people it does. So, a lot of different things affect that too. So, that’s why it’s important to test things for yourself and see what works for everybody or for yourself. It’s also why trying to get metabolically healthy and why there’s no one size fits all with the keto diet.

Carole Freeman:

This is why there’s so much conflicting info. Everybody that comes to me and always says, “Why am I overwhelmed? Why is there so much information? Why does that thing say this and why does it say this?” Because are you getting a sense of the step by step process that it takes to actually get there, it’s not as simple and easy as Everybody wants it to be.

Valerie Moses:

And what can be mind blowing Carole is that there’s such a fear around following keto protocol long term. But we’re totally comfortable with following a standard American diet. I mean, that’s not working out so great for me. It’s migraine central. And so, I think the misinformation you were talking about and just kind of the overwhelming amount of information that’s out there really, it keeps people from being able to demystify it for themselves and be comfortable with something that works for them and improves their own metabolic health. So, such cool stuff you brought up.

Carole Freeman:

Thanks. Yeah. And it’s part of why it’s not a quick fix, but also, it’s part of why my clients are getting better long-term results than other things they’ve tried because I do work so closely with them handhold through this whole process, so that we can make sure that they get all this figured out. So, because most of the people I’m working with, they don’t want to be a keto expert. They just want to do the other things in their life that they’re passionate about. And they’d rather go on and spend their time doing something else. All right. So, any other questions? Anything else I didn’t cover there or anything else you want to know about that topic? Anybody else watching listening?

Valerie Moses:

Anybody figure out the movie yet? I don’t know why I’m thinking about that. That’s not even-

Carole Freeman:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I forgot we promised to reveal the trivia. We have to. So, say the quote again, Valerie.

Valerie Moses:

So, he holds up a Dixie cup and he says, “If you’re going to spew, spew into this.” Anybody know the movie?

Carole Freeman:

So, Erica guessed Bill and Ted, which Valerie said was close.

Valerie Moses:

The genre is close. I mean, you’re in a similar area, but that’s not it.

Carole Freeman:

Does it have the word car in it? Is that the right one?

Valerie Moses:

No, but there’s a cool scene with a car that’s very quintessential to that movie. And one more hint is that there might be someone named Garth in it.

Carole Freeman:

Okay. Okay. Oh, yeah, Hasty got it.

Valerie Moses:

There we go.

Carole Freeman:

Yeah. Wayne’s World.

Valerie Moses:

Wayne’s World.

Carole Freeman:

Wer-wer-wer.

Valerie Moses:

Exactly.

Carole Freeman:

Nice. Oh, that’s fun. Was that after he met the girl? He was like in love with the girl. And so, he was going to throw up because he-

Valerie Moses:

The foxy lady. Yeah. It was in that scene. Yeah.

Carole Freeman:

Oh, Hasty even knows who said. It was Garth [crosstalk 00:47:37].

Valerie Moses:

Definitely Garth. Played by Dana Carvey.

Carole Freeman:

Yeah.

Valerie Moses:

Wayne’s World.

Carole Freeman:

Excellent.

Valerie Moses:

Party time. Excellent.

Carole Freeman:

Oh, I love that you brought that up because we would have like closed out the show and not even looped in the trivia one. So good job.

Valerie Moses:

I’m glad it popped back up in this noggin.

Carole Freeman:

We’ve got Brandy Bob. We’ve got a new viewer. Welcome Brandy.

Valerie Moses:

Hey, Brandy.

Carole Freeman:

Yeah. Erica was very close, very close.

Valerie Moses:

You were close.

Carole Freeman:

Nice job.

Valerie Moses:

Correct genre and even timeline. Can I ask one more question or are we almost out of time? What do you tell people, because you’d mentioned earlier, hey, it can take 18, 24 months even longer than that, what do you tell people who really kind of feel overwhelmed by that type of timeline? What’s the encouraging word or phrase you give to them to help them keep marching on?

Carole Freeman:

So, great, so great question, because our brain does not like to think about never ever or forever. And 18 to 24 months sounds like forever. And yes, yes. So, I recommend doing, I’ve started calling it like diet sprints. Okay. So, you follow the 10 rules for a set period of time. Your brain likes to commit to 30 days, six weeks, 60 days, pick out a small chunk of time where you’re going to just, “I’m going to commit to this for this period of time.”

Carole Freeman:

So, it’s kind of like you’re training for a 5k, you’re training for a marathon or you’ve got some event coming up where you’re just like I’m going to do this for this period of time. So, make that commitment for that period of time and then give yourself a break.

Carole Freeman:

Now, taking a break doesn’t mean like going off the rails or anything like that, but it just means kind of coasting. So, for my 10 rules that I have people following for maximizing fat loss and metabolic healing, we cut out nuts and seeds. We also cut out all sweeteners. We cut out recipes. Because those are things that help us eat less naturally.

Carole Freeman:

And so, during the rest periods, when you’re not actively trying to heal, you’re not actively trying to lose more body fat, take a break and experiment with some recipes. Maybe experiment with some sweeteners and see how those keto friendly sweeteners. Maybe you try to see if nuts and seeds have a place in your life. And just I kind of think of it as like whitewater river or sometimes it’s really intense and crazy. And occasionally, there’s some times where you just coasting and enjoying the scenery. And it’s smooth sailing and it’s beautiful.

Carole Freeman:

And so, take those conscientious breaks, rest periods. And that can be two weeks, four weeks, six weeks or whatever feels good to you. Because the good news is, is that in those rest periods, you’re still healing. You’re not healing as fast as you were. You’re probably not going to see any weight loss on the scale. But you’re still maintaining changes that are going to have a really big impact on it. So, you can still keep healing in the coasting periods. And it also gives you a psychological reset, as well, but physiologically, as well, too.

Carole Freeman:

So, if you’re constantly eating, trying to minimize calorie intake, you’re actually going to slow down your metabolism as well. So, it’s important to take those breaks so that you maintain a robust metabolic rate of being able to burn enough calories, so that then when you go back into that concentrated dieting sprint time that you’re going to be able to see more fat loss come off, so yeah. So, set chunks of time. That’s the way your brain is going to be most on board, but it’s also better for your body, too.

Valerie Moses:

I love that. I’m going to use that. Nobody wants rapids 24/7 for two years anyway. We need some of the gentle waters here and there, too.

Carole Freeman:

Yes, yeah.

Valerie Moses:

Yeah, yeah. I love this. I wish you had taught some of my classes in high school and college, because I feel like I’m learning a lot and I’m entertained at the same time. So, I know everybody’s loving this information for me, Carole.

Carole Freeman:

Oh, good. I love that. Hopefully everybody here agrees as well. Well, I don’t know if they’ll have me in high schools or anything like that.

Valerie Moses:

Yeah, maybe not high school, maybe not high school.

Carole Freeman:

Maybe. Yeah, but you’re right. But also, because we’re still stuck in what we’ve been told the last 50 years about nutrition and health. And so, even though this is documented, I’ve got a board certification in this, and we’ve got people that have been doing this work for decades that are healing people’s bodies, it’s still considered controversial just because we’ve been told that like, oh, you need grains and healthy whole grains and fats bad and salts bad and all this stuff. And so, it’s hard for people to actually embrace that this can be true when they believe the other stuff to be true for so long.

Carole Freeman:

So, they probably wouldn’t let me into the schools. But yeah, anybody who’s a parent that’s out there listening, cutting out sugar isn’t going to hurt anyone. Cutting out refined carbohydrate junk food products that never heard anyone either. So, you can make changes early on and it will make people’s life a lot easier as they go into adulthood. Because as children, actually we’re growing our adult body. That’s what childhood is, is growing in our adult body.

Carole Freeman:

And so, setting the foundation of the house you got to live in the rest of your life. So, why not feed it healthfully? And I’ve seen that over and over again, is the children that have a very healthy whole food nutrition most of their lives, they don’t have as much metabolic struggles, overweight problems, chronic disease problems as other people that have had more of a lax childhood where all these foods are fine, eat as much as you want.

Carole Freeman:

So, let’s see. Erica is sharing that Val nailed it. You really provide a ton of ration and conversational way that makes it easy to digest. Haha, she made a joke too. That’s great. Bite-sized pieces. Thanks, Erica. I’m so glad you found your way here. So, thanks, YouTube, for telling Erica about us today. So, well.

Valerie Moses:

Yeah. Now, I’m really excited about what might be coming up next. Do you do sneak peeks? Can you tell us what you’re talking about next week?

Carole Freeman:

Kind of a little bit. So, we go intention every week, the same time Thursday. We’re going live YouTube and my Facebook page. I think today just because I had a hiccup with my internet, we’re not actually live on Facebook right now. Maybe? I don’t know. Oh, no, we’ve got somebody in the Facebook group that’s watching us live right now. So, we did make it there. So, yeah, we’ve got Facebook group. My Facebook page, and also on YouTube, we’re live. But also, we take the episodes in turn them into audio only on podcast as well.

Carole Freeman:

So, some of you might be listening there. And I think that’s where our Greek people are listening is the audio0only version. So, you can find that on any platform that you listen to podcasts. We’re out on all of them. And so, you can go back. This is episode number 21. So, we’ve got 20 other episodes you can go back and listen to as well. So, please feel free to do that. Yeah. So, listen live, recorded. Either way, the picture life is great.

Carole Freeman:

Next week, I’m going to be starting a three-part series. And so, over the next three weeks, I’ll be doing this three-part series on how to make keto sustainable. And so, part one is next week. I’m going to be giving you all of the things you need to know in order because that’s one of the biggest things people struggle with is, how do I stay low carb in a carb world where there’s everywhere. So, yeah, stay tuned next week. That’s what we’re going to be starting next week.

Carole Freeman:

As a reminder, today we talked about the real goal of keto, AKA is it safe to stay in keto forever? So, Valerie, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

Valerie Moses:

Yeah. Thanks for having me. This was fun.

Carole Freeman:

I love the trivia, that was so great, too. Thanks for sharing your experiment you’ve been doing. Thank you to everyone for watching, listening. Sharing is caring. So, share this podcast with your friends. Share the livestream. Tell everyone else you know. Because remember, help us grow and we’ll help you shrink. That’s it. Bye everyone. Come back again next time.

Valerie Moses:

Bye-bye.

Carole Freeman:

We’ll see you soon.