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After getting forced out of the Army National Guard due to his weight and seeing his former squad mates be deployed, Kent Altena lost 211 pounds in 2004 and rejoined the Army National Guard in 2005. He always had a passion for cooking and subsequently started one of the largest low carb, ketogenic cooking channels on YouTube. He has been featured in multiple National Magazines for his weight loss and was Atkins Diet Grand Slam champion in 2012 for his community support and weight loss story. However after starting a new stressful job, he saw regain happen and added over 100 pounds back on. Since rededicating himself to get back to goal September 2017, he has lost the weight and back at goal.

•YT Channel: http://youtube.com/bowulf

•IG: http://instagram.com/kentaltena

•Website: http://atkinsdietgeek.com.com

Transcript:

Welcome, welcome everyone to the next episode of Keto Chat. I am your host Carole Freeman, certified nutritionist and some other stuff. I am here today with Kent … Oh, man, your last name. Altena?

Altena.

Kent Altena, all the way from Des Moines, Iowa, back where they know how to pronounce those terms correctly. Thank you so much for coming on. I reached out to you because both of us were interviewed on the Keto Hacking MD Podcast for a recent high-protein experiment that we did. And I have never heard of you or met you before so I was like, “I got to get this guy on so we can figure him out some more.” Well, let me just read your bio here so that people have … Well, actually welcome.

Appreciate you having me.

Let me read your bio so people know who you are and then we’ll just dive in and have some fun here. So after getting forced out of the Army National Guard due to his weight and seeing his former squad be deployed, Kent Altena lost 211 lbs in 2004 and rejoin the Army National Guard in 2005. He always had a passion for cooking and subsequently started one of the largest low-carb ketogenic cooking channels on YouTube. He has been featured in multiple national magazines for his weight loss and was Atkins Diet Grand Slam Champion in 2012 for his community support and weight loss story.

However, after starting a new stressful job, he saw a regain happened and added over a 100 lbs back since rededicating himself to get back to goal September 2017, he has lost the weight and back at goal. Congratulations Kent and welcome, welcome.

Thank you Carole.

All right. So that’s some of your story, but how did you even find low carb Atkins? Originally, you lost the weight when it was still called Atkins, right?

Yes.

So how did you find that? What was your story figuring that out?

Yeah. So both my brother and I were well over 400 lbs. And at that point, he had started Atkins at the beginning of the year. I said, “[Tim 00:02:35], you’re not going to lose the weight. You’re going to just regain it all back. It’s not sustainable.” Well, it took me back to March to seeing him lose about 60 lbs to say, “Hey, well if he can do it, maybe I can too.” So after that April 5th, I think I started Atkins and really never looked back after that point. So within the next 15 months, I lost that 211 lbs and rejoin the guard shortly thereafter.

Nice, nice. During that time, what were the biggest challenges for you? You made it sound like it was just so easy, but …

The biggest challenge was really back then there really wasn’t any great low carb cooking channels. There is a little card website, which is a godsend for anybody starting out a low carb lifestyle, but there really wasn’t a good way to figure out how to cook a lot of those past favorites. So that was the biggest challenge. So kind of figuring out what to make, what sounded interesting, how to stay enthused about the diet, not making it a routine or a grind. That was the hardest part. And then of course, getting motivated to add the exercise in because of course, my ultimate goal was to reenlist and I needed to be back in shape to do that. And at the age of 34 at that time, it was harder to get motivated to go out and run to go do the push-ups and the sit-ups and all that stuff. Those two things are probably the most difficult things.

Okay. Yeah. What a change, right? And that was back when Atkins still was trying to be mindful that, well saturated fat might be bad so you should have soybean oil and don’t have too much red meat and butter and have margarine instead, right?

Yeah. So that was … I started actually the year after he had passed away. So that was when the whole Atkins nutritional approach, they really kind of backed away from really, really low carb and going for Atkins for Life because they themselves didn’t think it might have been sustainable and the science was up there at that point. So yeah, quality of food, quality of nutrients really got thrown out the window to try to be more “heart-healthy.” So that, yes definitely.

Well, so compare what you were eating back then. I mean I’m just going to say like, I can only imagine that trying to do Atkins that way, like a heart-healthy, low-saturated fat version of that is not as tasty and delicious as the current foods that you’re eating, right?

Yeah. So I never really took that approach. I went back to 1972 what was he actually trying to say back then. And I figured what the science back then was appropriate. So at that point, I needed to lose the weight and so much maybe the science ended up proving me right as time went on, as opposed to be more heart-healthy. What the American Heart Association would approve. Because I figured they were wrong because Dr. Atkins was was telling me right.

Yeah. Okay. All right. So how did you start your cooking channel?

So yes. So after I had seen all that success. I was part of this low-carb forum site on the internet because Facebook still wasn’t hot back then. And really the question was how do you tell somebody new how to start the diet. And of course just like it was in my case, food is a big stumbling block. So I got the idea, “Hey, how do I make this easier for friends and family to start the diet?” Well one, must show people how to cook what I was making. So that was really the impetus around the channel.

So my first video ever was, My Atkins Diet Success Story. And that got like 200,000 views within the first year and I thought, “Hey, if there’s actually people out here looking for that sort of information. They might also be looking for how do that.” So I had done boot camps in the past, through the forum site in which I would guide people one-by-one through how to do the diet and be successful. So I thought YouTube was a great leading new platform that I could do that similarly. So that was kind of how I did the cooking channel.

I’ve always been the cook in the house because that’s just who my family was. My parents owned a restroom back then. My grandparents taught me how to cook et cetera. So I’ve always liked to cook. It was a matter of, up until now, cooking the right things were as not high on the menu. So Atkins gave me a chance to express some creativity in the kitchen and make some of those old, former high carb favorites, now in low carb convenience or comfort foods.

Okay. And then when you started, you talked about how your brother got on board first and then you came along after seeing his success. Other people in your household then, as you started cooking differently, how did that impact them?

Sorry. My computer went to sleep. So my wife has also lost about a hundred or so pounds on the low carb diet as well.

Well, not so shabby.

So sorry, I missed that.

I said, not so shabby.

No, exactly. So I’m very, very proud of her. And she’s running her own weight loss journey and becoming a strongman competitor or strong woman competitor too. So all good things. And then my kids seen my sort of success and have been featured in my videos from time to time. And at one point, my son had lost well over a hundred pounds as well.

Oh, wow. So you didn’t have to fight anybody to get them to start eating this way.

You know I never forced anybody to have to eat the way that I wanted to, but being the cook in the kitchen, I was making the supper, I was making the meals. If they could choose to eat the delicious food, great. If they wanted to go some place else or make their own food, that’s their choice. So that’s beauty about being the chef in the family is that, “Hey, you can either eat the deliciousness or make yourself a PB&J, if you felt so desired.

Okay. Now, I want to actually acknowledge and commend you for the fact that you’re coming out and being honest about weight regain. Because it’s something that’s kind of swept under the rug. Like a lot of the Keto community now likes to pretend like, “Well, you just go low carb Keto, you lose the weight and then just wipe your hands of that and then we just keep looking forward.” And a lot of people are in denial that it’s either you slip back into old eating habits pretty easily, or even if you’re eating low carb keto food, you can still overeat those and gain weight.

Yup.

So I think this is a really important topic that need to come out now. Especially as keto’s becoming more popular. I appreciate that you’re being really honest about your struggle and how you’ve jumped back into it to get back to where you were.

Yeah. It was a hard pill to swallow. After I joined Microsoft. So I joined Microsoft five years ago and I went from being nearly at goal for 10 years to it’s only having to deal with a bunch of stress and having to travel for sales, et cetera. It became a lot more difficult to be keto on the road than on the past.

Well, I never kind of left low carb. Dealing with all that sort of mess, gave me a feeling of entitlement that, “Well, I’m on the road so I can eat 20 wings instead of 10 wings.” Or, “I can have the Old 96 because it’s in the corporate dollar as opposed to my having to pay for it.” And of course, exercise went out the window because I was always traveling and how do you work out in the terrible hotel gym.

So yeah. So I gained about a 110 lbs back, from 2012 to 2017. And it took finally to getting kicked off the Harry Potter ride at Universal Studios to finally decide, “Enough is enough Kent. You can’t continue this ride anymore because I know it will bring you back to 400 lbs. You need to make a change.” So September 7th was a coming to Jesus moment in which I say, “Hey, enough is enough. I’m getting back to strict keto, tracking my macros and getting back in the gym.”

Good job. Now, can we just go back a little bit. Like, you know my degrees are nutrition and psychology. And I think the psychology piece is so underappreciated in long-term behavior change. So what was going on in your mind? I got to think it’s just denial, as you start to regain the weight. I’ve only been come out and be honest as well. So I lost over 60 lbs in the first six months of Keto, kept it off and it’s been more than three years now for me. But things kind of crept up a little bit and maybe … And it would come up and down or maybe about 15 pounds is where I’d gone up to. And it’s a state of denial. You’re like, “Well, I’m still pretty close. I feel really good. This food is delicious.” And I wasn’t cheating that I gained the weight, I was just over eating kind of like you.

Exactly. Yup.

And so share with us what was going on your mind at that point, where you’re just kind of like, yeah.

Yeah. So going from 225 to 260 to 270, you could, exactly like you did, rationalize it away, you know, “I’m bulking up. I’m lifting weights and all of this.” And that’s self-rationalization you know, “I can lose the weight anytime. You know, I’m just waiting for X date and all that stress that I’m doing will go away.” And you know that date came and passed and you feel more and more like a failure. And maybe just staying still and running that treadmill in which, “I’m not going to gain any more weight. I’ll just stay at 270 because that’s healthy.”

And vacations came and went, and 270 became 280, 280 became 300. And I would consistently think I was motivated and tried to have a good run at it, but I don’t think it took getting kicked off that ride, which was one of things that initially spurred the original weight loss was, hating to get on plane flight and having to ask for extender belts and all these sorts of negative connotations that you have in your mind on why you think you need to lose the weight, start re-happening. And that was really when I said, “Enough is enough. I can’t do this anymore.” And then my wife started saying, “Hey, I think your sleep apnea might be coming back and you might need to get a BiPAP machine.” Which I had given away the one that I had. And that sounded like, “You know what? I’m moving towards that place where death is the next step.” So not to be too overly dramatic, but when you have sleep apnea as bad as I did, it didn’t seem like I was that far away from it the first time.

So you had like a very specific, the getting kicked off the ride, that was like your turning point, right?

Yeah. Pretty much. It had to change. It felt like I was exactly in the same place. I couldn’t rationalize what I was seeing in the mirror away anymore. Like, “Oh, if I put my camera up here, my photos aren’t too bad.” Or you know, “Maybe I just need to wear a slimming shirt or something … ” I’m sure you had a patients tell you all these sorts of ways to minimize sort of the pain or minimize the impact of that stuff. And I came to a point where I was done with all that and I was going to get it off. And it’s stuck in my head that I didn’t want to be one of those statistics on recidivism. And I didn’t want to be the reason someone else failed on their low carb diet or keto diet because, “Well, if Kent failed. If this success story failed, what hope do I have in keeping it off.” And so I didn’t want to be one of those anchors to somebody else’s success ultimately.

Did you have anybody commenting, either in person or social media that was like, “Kent, you look like you’re gaining the weight back.” Like, how did you deal with that?

Oh yeah. So I ended up not doing YouTube videos for quite a while just because of that fact. It was because you know in 2014, they saw a 280-pound Kent and they knew that something had happened that you didn’t … “Why am I watching this guy for a low carb videos. I don’t want to be like him. If that’s the way a low carb looks, that’s not what success looks like to me.” So yeah. Anytime you’re online or whatever, you’re going to hear that sort of thing. By and large, most people are awesome and very kind and gracious and more concerned than poking fun. But yes, obviously I heard people’s concerned about, “Hey, you’re not doing as well as you used to. What’s up?”

Yeah. And then probably most people thinks like, “Well, you just must have gotten back to eating carbs again. You must have been cheating on your diet all the time.”

“You fell off the wagon, didn’t you Kent?” And the answer was, “No. I’m still eating a little carb.” There’s probably not more than 10 days in those five years that I really just decided you know, “Screw the diet. I’m going to eat how I want to eat and eat high carb food.” And the answer was no, I kept trying to do the right things. I kept trying to turn a knob, but that knob … What I didn’t realize was I just turn it to five, I really need to turn it to 10. And that ultimately what helped.

Yeah. So did you do anything different this time? Because you’re following keto. So you got macros now, whereas Atkins isn’t that way. So maybe let’s do that first. Like people often want to know what’s the difference between Atkins and Keto?

Yeah. One of the things that I would say about keto, especially as I got into it was one, there’s a lot more tracking in keto than there is in Atkins. Atkins, as long as you eat three cups of vegetables or less, have your carbs underneath 20, you’re pretty well golden. And there wasn’t really a hard sort of tracking or foods matter in Atkins because a lot of the things are just eat liberally. With keto, obviously, you’re trying to hit a specific macros each and every day. And what those macros are depends upon who’s following keto.

I was always more in the low-carb, high-fat side of the keto than high-fat, low-carb side of the keto, if you understand what I mean. There’s people that, 80% fat on a day to day basis, have milk with coffee et cetera and all that stuff. That was less about what I was doing, it was more about real food, but still very much keto focused. Very much high-fat as well as low-carb. So if that rant meant anything, what I’m ultimately saying is I think Atkins is a ketogenic diet, but I think the combination of the two makes it for a better combination than you just eating random generic keto without any sort of rules or any guidelines for what you should do.

So maybe we could say that Atkins is kind of what people calls “lazy keto” these days, right? Where you’re not actually tracking what you’re doing, you’re just kind of following certain foods.

Exactly. Yeah. Turn up Atkins strict or strict keto, would be the better form of of what I was actually doing. So yeah.

All right. So how did you get inspired to do the high protein experiment?

Like I mentioned, my wife has been training with this personal trainer, who is a strongman competitor. So you see world’s strongest man, lift atlas stones and cars and pull trucks and all of that. Well, he’s one of those guys. And my wife has been training with him for a year and a half up until last November. And I always saw that, that was one thing that I missed out in the first time I lost all the weight because the first time, it was cardio, cardio, cardio. It was run a marathon and keep training and it was always a constant grind and never … So when I stopped that grind, there is nothing to sort of fall back on that to build upon some place else. If you got bored with running, there is nothing else I could do.

So starting November, I started lifting weights pretty heavily with this strongman competitor. And as I was building up those weights, I was seeing more and more muscle soreness for long, throughout the week. So I would be sore from literally Monday to Saturday with delayed on muscle soreness, just because my muscles didn’t have enough protein to recover from.

Okay.

So when Jimmy suggested this high protein thing and I said, “You know what? That sounds like something I could do.” Because I’ve always been one who could one, love to eat meat. So that gave you sort of the freedom of new macro that I could eat towards. And two, hopefully it would help with this muscle soreness that I kept dealing with. And the short answer is, that week after … Or that week during and the week after that, I had no muscle soreness at all that week and I also hit PRs in the in the gym. So I was lifting every bit as hard, running every bit as hard, and not feeling the same soreness and I said, “Oh, I think I hit something that I should have been doing from the start.”

Interesting. Yeah. So just for people that haven’t listened to the podcast, what was the protocol? What were your macros that you set up for yourself?

Yeah. So at that time of the experiment, I was about 258 lbs at 18% or 19% body fat. So that roughly made my lean body mass at 201 – 203. So the protocol was one and a half grams per pound of lean body mass, which gain my daily protein target roughly 310 grams. And then it was a three to one grams of protein to fat. So that meant I could eat up roughly to about a 110 grams of fat per day. So ultimately, that worked out in terms of calories, 2100 calories per day that I could eat, when you tossed in the other 20 grams and vegetables. So I get intend to eat the same. It was very much sort of like I’d say a very high-protein Atkins induction meal plan, in which you had fibrous vegetables, broccoli et cetera and meat on top of that.

And because I focused upon very lean cuts of meat. Like turkey breast and chicken breast, I had to add actually fat into my diet. Like sour cream, cheese et cetera to bump up to even get to a 110. I didn’t hit over a 100 grams of fat, five of the seven days, just because the leanness of the meat that I was eating.

Yeah. That’s what I found as well. I focused on … I didn’t do as much poultry, I did more seafood because I knew it was even leaner. And then I had the fat to spend on putting butter on my vegetables or salad dressings or going avocado. A couple strips of bacon or something like that.

Absolutely. Yeah, that was really kind of the godsend and the fact that because I was also doing intermittent fasting at that time, it was 300 grams of proteins over two meals. So one meal was typically over 200 and then the other one, I really had the freedom of what did I want to do, how much fat could I add. So was it bacon, was it fattier cut of steak et cetera. I really had the freedom to pick the protein for second meal and make it delicious.

Okay. And did you have a goal of trying to hit your protein macro?

Just because during Jimmy’s week, it was such a … He didn’t think he could. I want to prove it could be hit. So yes, I know Dr. Naiman said you didn’t have to hit 300 or in my case, I didn’t have to hit more than 300. I wanted to prove that it could be done. Now since then, I’ve since back down my protein to roughly 255 grams. And doing 255 has been more natural. 300 seemed a little more forced than I would have liked.

So how long did you keep up … You know how many days or how many weeks did you stay on that goal, the one that you’ve just gone first?

I am still doing it as of today.

Okay.

But instead of a three to one ratio, I’m more closer to a two to one ratio, protein to fat. So I backed it down a little bit in terms of both the amount of protein as well as allowed a little bit more fat back into the diet,

Okay.

And again, I really have not seen maybe one or two weeks in the last 12 have I actually seen any delayed onset muscle soreness at all.

That’s cool.

I’m really happy about that.

Did you do any qualitative? Did you check ketones blood sugar?

Not during the test, which is something that came out obviously during the interview, but since then, I have been testing my blood glucose and as well as my ketone levels. And I’ve done that with a high … So my fasting glucose is always awesome. It’s always about 80 to 84. So I did a huge bullets of protein. 120 grams of protein powder, took it in and then test it for the next three hours afterwards and in that side of the three hours, I only went up 15 total millimoles of glucose over that time.

Oh, okay.

And then it came back down to 84. So blood glucose wise, the protein has had minimal effect. I’ve never gone over a hundred on any test I’ve ever done. And then in terms of ketone levels, I’ve test my ketones both morning and evening and I’m never been below points at this often. And the highest I’ve seen is 1.7.

Okay. And just because people might be curious too, what my results in. I’ll throw mine in as well here because people are probably going to be like, “What did you do?” So my protocol … So my three to one was about a hundred a 180 grams of protein a day. My lean body mass is about 120. And so I had about 60 grams of fat that I could have. And I’ve followed … I’ve talked to Dr. Naiman in person and in various forums and he always said you know, “You don’t need to force the protein, just eat this entire day.” So I did I think the first few days I was trying to hit that and I backed down to probably some more around 120 to 150 was kind of a more doable amount for me.

And yeah, I was checking, for the first four days or so, the first week that I did it, my blood glucose went from, it started up in the … The early 90s, the low 90s, it actually crept down each day down to about 75 by the end of the week. And my ketones went up. That was the part that was surprising to me because what I’d learned and even the ketogenic conferences that I’ve been to for therapeutic ketosis for epilepsy, things like that, they’re very mindful of protein suppressing ketosis. And if you look at the biochemistry of it, it’s supposed to. But what I’ve since come to understand is that ketones are also made … If you’re in a calorie deficit and your body is just burning fat, you’re also going to have more higher ketones from that.

So therapeutic ketosis for children, you’re not aiming for weight loss. So their calories’ stable. So then protein becomes a lot more important there, but when somebody’s losing weight, their ketones can be higher. It almost infinite protein. Probably not infinite, but we can’t eat that much.

Yeah. So that was a surprise, but it’s a learning process for me. And drew up. I’m trying to remember now. I ended up doing it a cyclic high-protein. So maybe that’s kind of where the controversy was that I didn’t follow the protocol. Well, that’s what Dr. Naiman had said too, in forums I’ve seen him on is that, don’t stick with this to infinitely. You know, you can cycle in and out. And so I was doing maybe four days on, a couple of days of and cycling with that as it felt natural for me.

And so over about three weeks, I lost about seven and a half pounds. And over the course of cycling in and out over this over a couple of months period, I was back down to a weight lower than I’d ever achieved on keto. So not only had I …

Oh, fantastic.

… taken off all those pounds off that I had slowly crept up on, I was at a weight lower than I’d ever achieved the first six months that I was on keto. So it worked really well for me.

That’s awesome Carole. And through the weight loss in that week, I lost I think seven and a half pounds. And then I get an InBody test built before and after. And InBody is a medically derived body impotence test in which they’re electricity through your body, simulant that the NFL uses. And I end up losing 1% body fat in that week. So the majority of that seven and a half pounds was all fat tissues. So I had kind of thought of going in, I’d lose mainly, mostly water. And the answer was, actually I lost four pounds of fat and three pounds of water. So it was a good test and I was happy with the results.

Yeah right. One of the things I liked about … I mean I said on the podcast that it wasn’t something I would have people start out with because it just feels like every other diet people have done, but after people have a solid foundation of being in ketosis, their body’s really good at burning fat, fat adapted, that I think it adds variety to have different techniques that you can do to get either a break through your plateau or stall or just to get your mind back right and course correct some some mistakes. Right?

Exactly. It’s a hack and jam in Dr John Limansky’s terms in which it gives you a chance to say, “I’m doing something different.” And to rejuvenate that same motivation. “So if I can do this with my eating, what else can I do better.” Or we look at it and it gives you a chance to reset some of those maybe bad behaviors that you might have brought back into your diet. So like if I was eating too many desserts and desserts is the last thing that I would do, or earing too many wings. It got me to look at the protein to fat content of wings and therefore, how many wings could one actually eat in a day and still hit your protein target. So yes, all good things.

Yeah. The other thing that I felt … Something like this too I think it instills or brings in a spirit of of discipline and empowerment, whereas … My training back in my psychology nutrition degree like if I would have brought up the topic of discipline with diet, I would have been like booted out of school because there’s nothing … “You need to let people be happy and healthy and not worry about food and diet and losing weight. Like let go of all that.” Okay so that whole thing just made me really fat and sick and everyone else too.

So it’s an interesting to be, where feeling disciplined with the diet and lifestyle and focusing on health is not a mental illness. And it’s not because I hate myself. And it’s not because I’m not good enough. It’s because I feel awesome and great and I have this common piece and I am able to dial things in and yeah.

I want to do great things and therefore here’s one more great thing that I can do. Just like going to the gym and working out. Working with your diet is exactly the same as that. And to me, it seemed a lot more palatable to do that level of change then say the previous experiment of fasting. You know fasting for seven days. I would imagine that, that would give you the same level of empowerment, “Hey, I could stop eating voluntarily for seven days and not kill myself.” Perfect. I’m just not sure that level of empowerment is for me. This gave me that capability to say, “Hey, I had a target. I ate that same way and look at all of these good things that came out of that.”

Yeah. And you didn’t hate yourself in the process or get a low self-esteem or anything, right?

No.

That was part of my training was that we put people in restricted diets, they’re just going to hate themselves and have poor self-esteem. So just eat whatever you want and don’t worry about it.

Yeah. That does not seem like a recipe for success.

Yeah.

That was kind of how I had the regain happen. So yes. [inaudible 00:34:32] that’s probably not the right way.

Yeah. All right. Well, okay so was there anything else you were hoping I would ask about or you wanted to talk about, you want to share?

I don’t know your story as well. So forgive me. I don’t know how big of a role exercise plays in your weight loss. I mean do you go to the gym and … For me, that’s a piece that I always find that’s missing in a lot of ketogenic talks, is that I’ve had people that say, “The exercise plan that I follow is unsustainable and therefore it’s only going to lead to more failure in the future and that’s really never been my case. I’ve actually use that as motivation for keeping going. “Oh, you doubt that I can do this. I’m going to go do this. And I’m going to do it everyday this week and we’ll see what the result is.”

So that’s been one of the things I like to talk about and just simply the benefits of exercise. And seeing the changes that has happened with my wife in terms of going from you know the standard everyday housewife, in terms of growth and strength and all this and to seeing her progress with the strongman training, really has … You know the same level of empowerment that we saw with the high-protein, she’s have seen with the her weight training. So if I have a hot button issue, it’s why you’re eating this way, awesome. One that uses your body the way and see all the new benefits and gifts that the new body will give you.

Yeah. Nice. Yeah. That’s great. In my first part of my keto journey, I just was walking so I have been you know disabled after car accident.

Yeah. I saw that.

Brain injury issues that made it so I was just laid out in bed with no energy at all. And so for me, just being able to get out of bed because I had so much energy and started walking just because oh my gosh, I can’t stop. That’s was my first-

Yes.

That was the only exercise I did. And I wouldn’t even say that’s exercise, it was just walking for 45 minutes. It wasn’t for exercise so much. And then I’ve always really like weight training. I agree, it feels really empowering to do that kind of stuff. I’m on some medical restriction unfortunately for something that related to the car accident issue with the artery in my brain right now. I can’t do any weightlifting right now. So the exercise plays a very negligible in my life right now, but only, not because I don’t want to, but-

I get it. I feel fortunate that I can. And I see my dad who is dealing with the second knee surgery in a few weeks and I had to buy a lift chair for him. That I want to live a life that leaves me not to that path, in which I’m essentially laid up and due to inactivity and having my muscles waste away and if I’m given this great chance to do great things, why would I not? And it just leads into why joined the National Guard, why I became a firefighter and all that. This is my way to get back to. So I have to be in a place that I can.

Sweet. Nice. Well, excellent. Kent, I so appreciate you being on here. I have one closing question for you.

Sure.

The meteors coming at the planet today. We’re all going to die. It’s a guaranteed. What’s your final meal going to be?

It would have to be wings. It would be buffalo wings with ranch sauce. That was the thing that brought me, that convinced me that keto was the right way to go. And that would be the thing that would … I’d eat with my wings sauce as the meteors’ coming.

That’s awesome. You see that fiery ball in the sky while you’re eating your fiery wings.

Absolutely. That would be better.

I love it. All right. Thank you so much for sharing your story. Again, I just appreciate your open and honesty. I think this is the topic really needs to get out there. I mean for one that we don’t have to fear protein as much as people have been thinking we do, but then also just this whole topic of weight regain even though you’re sticking with low carbs foods-

[inaudible 00:39:02].

Yeah.

And that was my fear was have I lost … You hear this Golden Shot theory and this is a way that you know, you have one shot at the brass ring and you had it and now you lost it. Can you do it again? And I’m happy to say that you absolutely can.

Yeah. Well, high fives. Way to be the example. And thank you so much for being here. If you guys have enjoyed this, give us a thumbs up. Well, you can only do one thumbs up. Subscribe, if you want to see more. We’ve got more interviews coming up for you. And we’ve got links down below to Kent’s YouTube channel and other stuff too to get a hold of him. And we’ll put the podcast interview as well, that we were both on and hey, have a great rest of your day everyone. Thanks again.

Thanks Carole.