Lessons from the Ketoverse

Part 2: 20 Biggest Roadblocks Someone Might Face in Adopting a Keto Carnivore Eating Lifestyle

• Graham

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Dive into the world of ketogenic and carnivore diets with this essential episode, where hosts Stephen and Graham reveal proven strategies to conquer the toughest obstacles in your low-carb journey. Whether you're battling hidden carbs, food boredom, or social skepticism, this follow-up guide equips you with actionable tips for sustained ketosis, weight loss, and optimal health.

Uncover the secrets to maintaining ketosis on a keto or carnivore diet, even when "keto-friendly" products hide sneaky carbs that derail your fat-burning mode. We expose common marketing pitfalls and share no-tracking methods to stay in ketosis effortlessly. Say goodbye to meal monotony with creative carnivore and ketogenic recipes that keep your diet exciting while fueling your body with nutrient-dense foods.

Explore overlooked hurdles like keto-induced sleep issues, exercise performance dips, and temporary skin changes during adaptation. Drawing from Stephen's 8 years of keto expertise and Graham's transformative carnivore success—featuring dramatic weight loss and improved blood markers—this episode delivers real-world solutions for long-term adherence.

Learn how to handle keto skepticism and misinformation from friends, family, and critics, plus navigate social eating with confidence. We emphasize viewing ketogenic and carnivore lifestyles not as short-term diets, but as a lifelong shift for better health, energy, and vitality.

Perfect for beginners or seasoned keto and carnivore enthusiasts seeking to optimize their routine and smash health goals. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to unlock more episodes on ketogenic diets, carnivore eating plans, low-carb living, and transformative wellness!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Lessons from the Keto-Verse. Join Stephen and Graham as they explore the keto lifestyle with tips, science and stories to boost your health. This podcast isn't medical advice. Consult your healthcare advisor for any health-related issues. Get ready to fuel your primal power.

Graham:

Welcome everybody to another episode of Lessons from the Keto-Verse, where we discuss ketogenic and carnivore eating lifestyle. Today we are doing part two of the 20 biggest roadblocks someone might face in adopting a keto carnivore eating lifestyle. If you haven't listened to part one, we highly recommend doing that first. Although you can listen to them the part two first and part one second if you prefer, you won't miss out on anything. Please take the time to subscribe to our podcast, as it doesn't cost you anything and it helps get our message out to a larger audience, and we also want to thank those that have already subscribed. We really appreciate it, stephen. Say hi to everybody.

Stephen:

Good evening everyone. Good to have you back. Thank you for your continued interest in what we're presenting. We certainly appreciate it. We want to make sure that what we are sharing is of value, and your feedback is certainly welcome. Thank you, absolutely.

Graham:

Okay, so we are continuing with our list and, stephen, why don't we start off with one of the ones on your list first?

Stephen:

Sure. So my first one for this evening is maintaining ketosis. The accidental carb intake or hidden sugars can knock someone out of fat burning mode, requiring constant vigilance. So this is a common issue. Now I want to drill in a little bit to the I guess, tone of what we just described. And constant vigilance, I would say, is a sign that maybe you're obsessing a little too much about going in and out of ketosis. For one I mean for me, for instance, with the CGM I'll note a combination of factors in the morning and I'll explain a little bit about what I do because it's called the morning phenomena and it's when your sugar naturally rises which reflects the shift from melatonin to serotonin, and essentially the DOM phenomena is describing how the body gets ready for the day. It's a natural process. So those who are CGM shouldn't be overly alarmed that even if they are fasting and they're continuing to fast and they could continue to be in a state of ketosis, the rise of their sugar is not an indication that they're out of ketosis in the morning. However, one of the things that you can do that'll help actually keep it sort of somewhat level is before you have your coffee. In the morning is one of the great things, particularly for those that do want to manage their sugar, whether you're a type 2 diabetic or otherwise is to soak chia seeds for about 10 minutes and then add some basically it's a tablespoon or two gram until your digestion gets used to it. Say, take two tablespoons of chia and eight ounces of water and you float it and it swells up and it actually creates a layering in the stomach. And then you add in silene cinnamon, which is the healthy one, and about a tablespoon or two, stir it up and consume that. One, it really helps with sugar regulation. And two, it creates, um, a layer in there that won't kick you out of ketosis. So that when you do go to your coffee and perhaps you're having, uh, butter with your coffee or or heavy cream with high fat content, it doesn't really have that much of an effect, as I note in my CGM, and really the uplift that I see in terms of my sugar is more reflective of my work, stress or getting ready for work or something like that, than it is actually the coffee.

Stephen:

Now, if you're really, really concerned and want to be strict, strict, strict with respect to staying in ketosis, then don't put anything in your coffee, and obviously we're already assuming that you're not putting anything in your coffee that is sugar-laden. So no almond milks that are full of estrogens. You're actually having a high-fat milk if you're putting something in there, not the lean stuff, because, again, we've talked about this If you look at milk, for instance, and if it's low fat, look at the sugar content. A great example is you'll see a serving of yogurt, for instance, and it'll be if it's natural yogurt with nothing added it'll be five or six grams. The second you put strawberries or anything else in there, which you should be adding as a whole food instead of something that's processed, you'll see that it'll rise to 16, 25, 39 grams of sugar.

Stephen:

It's an insane amount of sugar to expose your body. It's basically like eating a piece of cake first thing in the morning. Of course that will kick you out of ketosis. So generally what I do and I follow Dr 18-6, 16-8 methodology to keep myself in ketosis I try not to eat anything after 8 pm at night and sooner if I can, and that way my body has a longer period to go into ketosis and I can stay in it longer. But one of the strategies you can use for that is if you see that you're bumping up a little bit. What I do in the morning is I go for a walk immediately after I've had the coffee and I'll see the bump, but it immediately normalizes. I like to call it taking the head off the snake and basically the snake being your trend line for your sugar, and it works very well for me.

Graham:

Yeah, excellent. And what Stephen's talking about with 16-8 is you're eating all of your meals within an eight-hour period with, say, 10 am to 6 pm, for example, and then from 6 pm to 10 am the next day you're fasting. So 16 hours fasting, eight hours eating, gives your body a chance to autophagize, which is recycling old, bad cells that's something that's really important and getting rid of the cells that are no longer providing any benefit to the body and replacing those with cells that are new and improved, and that definitely helps with keeping us healthy and lean. The one thing I'll add to Stephen's commentary is you'll see things called keto-friendly snacks in grocery store. Highly recommend picking that.

Graham:

Whatever that is, turning it around and reading the labels. They can contain carbs and other ingredients that are not helpful to your health, such as seed oils like canola oil that's very common Emulsifiers that can drive carb cravings. Most of the time when I see keto-friendly snacks on the label, when I turn it around, it contains things that I don't want to eat. That is probably going to knock me out of ketosis. So they aren't helping you, but obviously the marketers want to trick you into thinking that they will. So generally, whole foods are the way to go, and you know, trying to stay away from those keto friendly snacks which can not only kick you out of ketosis, it can also drive cravings for more carbs down the road, because you get hungry hours later. You want to eat and oftentimes most of us are grabbing something quick, which could be a bagel or a sandwich or something or chips, cookies, whatever it is, and that definitely can contribute to not only weight gain but knocking you out of ketosis and likely making you hungry very shortly afterwards.

Stephen:

Yeah, I just want to add one thing there, graham too. Is that just to clarify? Coffee is one thing. Taking on carbohydrates in any form, even protein, will knock you out of ketosis, just to be clear. So if you decide to have like in my case, if I decide that I'm going to have a satiating breakfast, for instance, would be bacon, eggs, coffee, it would be Greek yogurt with in my case, cause I'm more keto, especially in the morning Um then I want to get my bioflavonoids. So I'll pick either strawberries or uh, and I'm not taking it as a smoothie, I'm taking it as a whole food again, and because we're getting into the season where it's harder to get this stuff, I'm starting to freeze it, put it in the freezer so I can throw, you know, a handful of blueberries, wild blueberries, in with my actual yogurt and consume it.

Stephen:

So I think it's important that we just stress that we're not talking about situations where, as soon as you start initiating meals whether it's two meals a day, one meal a day then you're going to be out of ketosis. That's the bottom line. But when it's something like black coffee, or if you're having green tea, for instance, you shouldn't see a change at all. If you're having water with lemon and apple cider vinegar, that'll help stabilize. The ACV is particularly potent when you are having a meal, so it'll take some of the spikes out. But let's be clear You're no longer in ketosis. You've introduced fats, proteins, carbohydrates to a lesser extent Now you're in digestion mode.

Graham:

Yeah, 100%. Thank you for clarifying that. On my list, the first one is food boredom and monotony. So what does this mean? Limited varieties in meals If you're mostly eating meat, eggs, let's say, dairy maybe this can potentially lead to dissatisfaction or burnout over time.

Graham:

I think this is a real thing. I've certainly experienced changes in what I want to eat over time. My process for getting to, you know, keto, mostly carnivore eating lifestyle was slowly but surely eliminating things over time and I backed into it. It wasn't something that I expected I was going to get to backed into this carnivore type lifestyle, eventually eliminating everything that wasn't those things, because I felt better when I was just eating eggs, meat, that kind of thing, and so it is a good idea to do as much research as you can on different ways to cook things.

Graham:

If beef is your go-to, there are different ways to get that beef into your app, into your diet.

Graham:

You can rotate from beef meatballs to beef patties, hamburger patties which is something that I'm regularly trying different kinds, and I'm also checking the labels because it's pretty easy to find, you know, hamburger patties that have sugar in them, and so I don't mind a tiny little bit of sugar.

Graham:

If it's the last thing on the ingredient list, I care a little less than if it's the second thing on the ingredient list. So over time, yes, your food choices are likely going to change and it is a good idea to continue to be creative in meal preparation. So recently, my wife had this brilliant idea to make these keto bowls or carnivore bowls, and basically it's hard boiled eggs, it's beef, it's bacon, some fish, and we try different things and when you put them together, maybe you have some hot sauce, maybe you have spices, if that's your thing, to change the flavor up a little bit, and we find that we can have those a couple of times a week. We can make slight modifications to those and it keeps things interesting. Some people can eat a steak every single day, and good on them If that works for them. Other people are going to look for different alternatives to try, and you know, maintain their ketogenic lifestyle but keep their meals as interesting as possible. Steven, any recommendations on how to avoid the boredom and monotony of the keto or carnivore lifestyle?

Stephen:

Candidly, I find that I don't have a lot of restrictions with keto. There are plenty of options and I know we touched on keto snacks earlier. Like you know, candidly, I think, you take snacks right out of your vocabulary. You shouldn't be eating snacks. If you do your, if you do your meals properly, you should be fasting in between meals, because eating within an eight hour window, as I said, but the 16, eight doesn't mean you're eating for eight hours solid. You know you're not nibbling away, nibbling away. So that's part of just self-management and getting to the point where you're managing your intake. And what I find is that if you're cognizant of that and you're involved in activities whether it's weight training, like me, or because I'm on large acreage, there's always something to do around the property I noticed that I have far more energy but, to be clear, far more energy when I'm using non-glucose sources. So when I'm in a ketogenic state and I'm consuming, I'm basically releasing ketones and my body's processing ketones. One, I have less brain fog. Two, I have a lot more energy. Just, the key is to make sure that you're getting the appropriate amount of sodium and that you're getting a good sodium source and your water intake is where it needs to be, because I find generally that where people talk about boredom, or you know the food is monotonous and you know they have a bit of burnout or they feel tired, it could be just the timing of their meals. I mean, I've been doing this now for eight years and I know it's just a few days ago with the combination of work factors and other things, graham that I just really was tired. I didn't even know if I wanted to eat. I was just going to go have a nap because I'm just tapped out. But as soon as I ate my body was like okay, this energy is great, but it was good stuff. It wasn't a Cadbury chocolate bar. It was a proper protein-based, centrally protein-based meal with the added items for me that would allow for a minimum glucose rise and so that my body was continuing to process it and wasn't just switching gears to stacking it into the fat category and packing on fat that I didn't want to pack on.

Stephen:

I don't really find that. I think it's a means to an end for me. I don't find it's necessarily boring. I think, if anything, you know, people have to maybe take a step back from their traditional lifestyle. I know I had to make this correction and look at food as a process. You're putting your effort into taking care of yourself, and part of that is to prepare your food properly and take the time to enjoy it. And you and I have said this before if you're so pressed for time that you have little that you can turn to and there are a lot of carbs in nuts, but there are healthier nuts macadamia nuts and others that you can consume in quotes as a snack. But I would strongly recommend, because I've made these mistakes myself.

Stephen:

These keto snacks are full of erythritol and we just saw recently some studies that are suggesting that it can actually increase upwards to 50% the likelihood for a TIA. A TIA is a stroke. It's a pharma stroke. It's usually a warning saying hey, you're on the precipice here to a full-on stroke. So I've started to cut those things out.

Stephen:

I also noticed, too, that my snacks like what I thought were healthy snacks. I'm still doing flaxseed, I'm still doing chia, but I've cut my intake of cashews significantly because I love them. But there is an enormous amount of fat and sure it is healthier fat, but 70, 80, 90 grams of that a day. I was starting to pack on weight again and it wasn't healthy weight and I want to avoid this real fast. So it's this fine tuning. We are our own continuous improvement process.

Stephen:

So if you're cognizant, you're self aware and you're watching what it is you're doing and you're doing it with a degree of mindfulness that is positive, not negative, not like, oh well, you know, this food is boring or oh no, I'm not really enjoying this, because this is the same. You know rips I had a week ago. Well, mix it up a little bit. Don't mix it up with stuff that's processed, don't put barbecue sauces on it that are full of sugar and all the rest of it, because you're going to harm yourself, you're not going to feel very good because the more and more you move away from a sugar dependent diet, the more it impacts you and makes you feel awful when you consume it. So people who say, oh well, you know I snuck in an ice cream and the idea of doing that would be for me it would be like drinking Varsol Please don't do that. It's just, it doesn't make any sense to me now there's no point, you know I just I'm not going to feel better.

Stephen:

So, yeah, I think essentially, you know that covers the whole boredom and monotony is just a degree of creativity and possibly, like I'll give you a perfect example If you have an Instapot, like I do right now, I'm cooking ribs in an Instapot. There are over 2 million recipes, folks, for Instapot users, and in my corporate life I had some experience with the organization and learned about that Facebook community. I think you would be hard pressed not to cook a different meal every single day, just based on that one single source. And I'm not here to promote Instapot. I'm here to say that, with a little bit of creativity and with the degree to which we can access information today, really, if it starts to get monotonous, then switch it up.

Graham:

Yeah, interesting. You mentioned cashews. I think it's probably my favorite snack that I have basically eliminated over the last couple of years. But I think we had a Costco bag somewhere in the kitchen. I thought what harm can it be to grab a handful every now and then? After about 10 days of doing that, I gained eight pounds. I didn't change anything else, gained almost 10 pounds. Eight pounds just having a handful of cashews every day, eliminated it, stopped eating them, dropped the weight back to where I think my normal weight is, and so there's a lot of oxalates in cashews.

Graham:

They are delicious, but they should be something that people should strongly consider eliminating altogether because the downside can be quite high. And I think your point earlier, stephen if you are finding that you're having cravings, especially as the evening comes along, you likely haven't eaten enough protein and fat earlier that day for dinner. So up your protein, up your fat, see if that can you know, hold you out until the next day. And if you're not hungry for the entire evening, if you feel satiated, if you get a good night's sleep, you wake up in the morning and you're still not really hungry. I often go for a walk before I even eat anything in the morning now, then you probably are getting just the right amount that your body needs and that's a good sign that, if there's no cravings for snacks, that you're doing exactly the right thing for your body and what your body needs. What's next on your list, stephen?

Stephen:

Well, actually this is very timely because we're currently in what we would describe in North America as a long weekend. I've had some friends over, there were minor indulgences that I wouldn't typically do during the week, and this is including cutting out of cut soda, or what we call in Canada, pop out of my diet, and that changed last night and that resulted in me having to get up four times to use the washroom, which might be a land speed record for me. I don't normally get up that often. You know, a man in his late 50s, it's pretty typical for you to get up once. Ideally not at all, but there was just no way around it. It was a form of sleep disturbance. I choose not to repeat from this day forward. So I think I'm part of that pattern.

Stephen:

I actually did take my magnesium glycate last night, but the key was that I wasn't avoiding caffeine, because there's an enormous amount of caffeine that's in pop, and pop is diuretic or soda, and so it causes you to to lose more water. And, interestingly, my friend that you, you too, know, uh, graham, he was here and he noticed that he wasn't consuming as much water and he was uh, you know, he's a bit of a scotch drinker and got dehydrated. Dehydrated as a result and had a headache come on pretty quick. It's's still in the summer here. It was warm enough to obviously lose some through the sweating process, to lose some water so effectively. His electrolytes were out of balance. He was obviously low in terms of hydration and as a consequence, in combination with the alcohol, had a headache. Now I did not stab him with the CGM to see what his sugar was, but it was pretty clear that he was physiologically on some form of roller coaster and of course that affected his sleep.

Stephen:

The same applied with his partner, his wife. She too, you know, indulged probably more than she would normally would, but in the form of wine, and she had a similar example where she, you know, we, collectively, the four of us did not achieve REM because there was a combination of wrong foods with all kinds of chemicals in them, and even though we all essentially turned in around the same time we normally would do so we were within our circadian rhythm. It was actually a great experiment to show combinations of caffeines and other things that you're consuming Just prior to going to bed. We ate late. We had dinner at like 8, 830, which is not typical. I normally would eat four or five hours before that. So these are all things that will disrupt your sleep pattern.

Stephen:

And if one thing I see repeatedly said, if you're going to do one thing well, one thing is get your sleep right first, because in the absence of doing that, your cortisol levels will be unnaturally elevated and cortisol elevations cause insulin resistance and insulin resistance causes an increase in your glucose. That's the cycle, that's the metabolic cycle. So taking care of that is very essential. Even I counseled our mutual friend. He is a guy that gets up at three or four in the morning. He usually gets ready for work at four, 55 in the morning, he's at the door, he's going to bed at 10 o'clock, so he's only getting five or six hours sleep.

Stephen:

And there are plenty of studies I can't quote the most recent one because I wasn't that precise in what it was.

Stephen:

I was reading and recording but I believe it was out of the UK and they were saying that seven is way better than six and it's important to try to aim for seven or eight. And even if you say, well, I always get up at that time and try to go to bed a little bit earlier so you can get that extra 60 minutes. It's so important because to have entophagy, and in conjunction with your intermittent fasting, there has to be a union, a marriage between what you ate, when you ate it, as well as how well you're sleeping, because if you can't go through the appropriate alpha, beta, gamma, delta brain waves, your body is not going to heal, and so then you'll be in a constant state of inflammation. So I encourage people to do their own reading on this. We've already talked about the gut-brain connection, and now I'm talking about the metabolic conditions that persist with inflammation, and one of the keystones to that, if not the keystone is to ensure that you're getting sufficient sleep.

Graham:

Yeah, getting a good night's sleep is definitely one of the top three ways to maintain and improve your health. Some things that I have found in this journey is if I have a lot of salmon for dinner, like a salmon steak, like a big chunk, or I take the cod liver oil as a supplement, maybe three or four times a week, If I take that too close to bedtime I actually find that I have a hard time falling asleep. There have been some situations where I've had a big salmon steak for dinner and I literally could not fall asleep for the entire night, Stayed awake the entire time, got up out of bed, you know, five in the morning went for a walk and missed my sleep. That's not a good thing. So you know, when you've got your diet or your eating lifestyle to a point where you're sort of maintaining a certain level of consistency, you start to be able to recognize patterns, and that was a pattern that I recognized. So one of the things that I do is, as Stephen talked about, I'll take magnesium glycinate about an hour before I want to go to bed. I find that helps. Another idea would be magnesium bath salts. Have a nice warm bath with magnesium bath salts. The magnesium is also going to be absorbed through the skin and that can certainly help with things like restless leg syndrome. I don't have that, but it certainly can impede sleep. And also, if you find that you're thirsty and you have to drink a lot of water before bed, one of the ways around that would be just because you're drinking water doesn't mean your cells are absorbing the water, and that's the most important thing is getting that water into the cells so that you feel satiated, and one of the ways to improve the absorption would be to look at electrolytes. So maybe in the afternoon, try some electrolytes. You'll likely feel more nourished when it comes to the water you drink. You may be able to avoid having a lot of water at night and avoid the possibility of waking up in the bathroom, which disrupts your REM sleep. All of those things are pretty critical to maintaining your health. So good one there On my list is exercise performance slumps.

Graham:

So as you shift from sort of a carb fuel to a fat fueled energy, this can really affect the way you exercise. Stephen is an avid exerciser. I am generally walking about nine miles a day, 13 kilometers a day, pretty consistently. I don't miss a day, regardless of the weather and I do some elastic band exercises for upper body strength. It's just kind of fits in with. You know, we have a very small basement now and we used to have lots of space for exercise equipment. This stuff goes in a drawer and I can pull it out whenever I want to.

Graham:

What I have found and I really want to hear Stephen's perspective on this, because he is a much more avid athlete when it comes to taking care of his body what I've found is that when you go from a carb-fueled or glucose-fueled body to a fat-fueled body, your energy increases significantly. So at the beginning, you know I'd struggle to get off the couch to take the dog for a half-hour walk and I'd do that maybe three or four times a week. He was probably still getting more walks than the average dog does, it seems. But now he's getting. He tells me when he wants to come with me, generally anywhere from four to eight kilometers, whatever, that is, three to six miles. So he's getting a lot of exercise. I have so much energy that I need to go on those walks. Sometimes I'll wear a ruck backpack thing to increase the amount of energy expenditure, which I find helps as well. But, Steven, I wanted to hear your thoughts on exercise, over what you know when you go from a carb or glucose fueled body to a keto or fat fueled body.

Stephen:

Yeah, I mean I found that for years I plateaued also, and I blame being a vegetarian on it. It wasn't really so much that I was a vegetarian, it was the issue I wasn't getting enough, much that I was a vegetarian. That was the issue. I wasn't getting enough protein, like good protein, high quality protein. I was taking on way too many ultra processed starches that were affecting my sugar, so I really felt that I was starting to suffer from sarcopenia, which is something that is typical for all of us to hit past the age of 40. You can start, and by the age 60, you can have lost as much as 45% of your muscle mass unless you're doing strength exercising and there are some great outside of the scope of what we're talking about but exercise is so central to longevity and healthspan, particularly when it comes to your legs. They say and you can see it there's a great episode from Dr Berg I just caught the other day where it talks about how important it is to maintain leg strength because that's typically once you lose your leg strength, then usually your morbidity outcomes become far more severe. I mean, I'm sure we all know of people if not an immediate family that seems that when somebody breaks a hip. They don't tend to endure much longer on the planet, unfortunately, and these are the kinds of things that are typical. So I found that I had a lot more energy. I find continuously. I said to someone recently you know, at my current age I'm able to lift more weight than I could lift when I was 29. Now I'm not doing it because I'm chasing the dream of Schwarzenegger to be a bodybuilder. What I'm interested in is staying effectively mobile enough where I'm not getting injured when I'm doing things. Around my property I have trees that have fallen in the wind, that need to be cut up and dealt with, and I want to make sure I can do that in a healthy way without relying on others, and to make sure that I can maintain, you know, a body that is allowing me to do all the things that I still enjoy to do. So I think it's a very, very big part and I think most people will notice I noticed a couple of things. I noticed that I didn't sweat as much in the gym, which is kind of I am a sweater and I could get through a whole workout and I'm not suggesting I get three or four days out of a shirt, but I didn't find that I was walking out of there drenched and I wasn't as thirsty. And that's one of the characteristics of a diabetic is that we're always thirsty because your body is trying to get rid of the additional sugar. So, yeah, it's awesome.

Stephen:

And the other thing I would say to you, too, is listen to your body as you dial into your body. I don't care if it's your gut, if it's your physical strength, how many steps you've done that day. If you don't feel like doing more and you haven't eaten for a while, try eating, but eat well. It's really, really important because there's a great example of this the glucose goddess. You can look her up, but she talks about how a poor decision that's made on Monday for breakfast will have consequences all the way till Tuesday evening when it comes to your glucose, and I've seen that.

Stephen:

So, yeah, and candidly, that kind of leads right into the other thing I was going to talk about when it comes to travel and going to airports and stuff. I have yet to go to an airport. I'm sure there's one out there and someone I'm sure will send a text, but I've never been able to go to the airport and work out at a gym. I believe there might be one at Pearson International, but I think you need a membership. I think it's probably for staff. But I mean, what a cool thing to have instead of sitting in a lounge sipping on drinks you shouldn't be drinking, that are going to further dehydrate you.

Stephen:

You know, my recommendation when it comes to traveling, just because of my past experience with IBS and and other issues, is I just refrain from eating. I'll make sure I have water. I will bring my own water because I have structured water in my place, and I will drink the very last drop and shove that little igloo thermos back into my bag and have it shipped for so I can get good quality water when I get to the hotel. So I try to avoid the plastics and I just generally do not take anything to the airport.

Stephen:

I mean, we've talked about, you know, when you're not at an airport, having to go through security. Of course you bring jerky and hard boiled eggs and cheese and that sort of thing. That makes a lot of sense. But I find that I'm personally better off just not to eat. My body prefers that because the excitement and agitation and irritations that ultimately come with travel. I'm just better off to drink water and just not introduce another form of stress. You know it's the same, it's for the same reason. Going back to your comment about exercise no-transcript.

Graham:

The only time that I really broke my eating lifestyle was when I had a connecting flight. That was about half an hour after my plane landed. Every single restaurant had a lineup of 15 people in it. I was never going to be able to make it into the restaurant to eat. I was pretty hungry. I just hadn't planned my day well and I ended up eating the food that they gave me on the plane, and I didn't feel good for another couple of days as a result of that. But I, you know, I did what I had to do for another couple of days as a result of that. But I, you know, I did what I had to do. What I wish I had done is I wish I did have some you know, some jerky or hard boiled eggs or something that I'd brought. Now unfortunately, I was coming home. It was a little harder to do that.

Graham:

So when it comes to travel whether you're traveling in the car or whether you're traveling through an airport try and plan things out so that you have a nice big meal beforehand with lots of protein and lots of fat. You'll likely be able to make it to your destination without eating again. Airplane food, I wouldn't say is going to win any awards for its nutritional value. But, worst case scenario, you go to a fast food joint and just get some burgers, maybe with some bacon, and that can hold you over too. So definitely some planning involved in the travel and accessibility issues there. So one of the things that I know a lot of people potentially suffer from, and that is skin problems. So, whether that's acne or rashes or dryness from changes in gut health, you know, when you've reduced your inflammation as a result of going keto or carnivore, there is a detoxification process. That happens, and so some people even talk about, you know, their hair thinning or falling out. The body is going through a change. When the body goes through a change, if you're going down that keto, carnivore lifestyle, the body is going to go through that change. The body is going to go through that change. Change can be a stressor and those stresses can actually cause things like cancer. And you go through chemo. You know one of the side effects of that is your hair falling out. It's the stress that your body's going through. That's basically your body saying I'm not going to worry about my hair right now, I'm going to worry about cells and the other parts of the body that are more important.

Graham:

What I would recommend when it comes to these things is a couple of things. First of all, go slow. You know, some people say you know I'm eating carbs all day long. Tomorrow I'm going to start on a carnivore diet and I'm going to switch over completely. I don't sure I would recommend that. Obviously, everybody is different and everybody's going to handle these changes differently, but certainly it took me somewhere around six to seven months to gradually eliminate my carbs, gradually eliminate, you know, certain foods that I didn't want to eat, highly processed foods, for example. And so my body although there was some adaptation, it didn't necessarily go through these major issues that can possibly happen when you go through a major change like changing your diet.

Graham:

One of the other things I found is for skin. I don't generally put anything on my face, for example, but every now and then, when my skin's feeling dry, I will put beef tallow on my skin. It is the best, in my opinion, the best thing that you can possibly do for your face skin. And even my kids have asked me to reorder it because they love it so much. So you know, carnivore is not just for, you know, changing the eating lifestyle. It can also potentially be something that you use like a beef tallow to try and give your skin the nutrients that it needs Any things like rashes, that kind of thing. They hopefully will go away over time. It is your body dumping out things that it doesn't want or need anymore.

Graham:

You do have to get through that change. Come out on the other side and the benefit is if you're not eating those highly processed foods or the glucose, the microbes that feed off of those are either gonna go dormant or they're going to die. I learned a really interesting thing, um on a podcast that I listened to yesterday, um, that those microbes that feed off of carbs, they actually don't die right away. They they can go dormant or go to sleep. And one of the things that you can do to actually eliminate them is to take number one, vitamin C, which I thought was really interesting so things like apple cider vinegar, I think, would help there and iodine, which I thought was really interesting. Maybe two or three drops of Lugol's iodine just before bed can actually eliminate those carb eating microbes in the gut. You want those to disappear. You want the protein and fat eating microbes in your gut to remain and flourish, and those two remedies can potentially help as well. Stephen, any thoughts on skin problems?

Stephen:

Yeah, I actually use beef tallow every single day and it's the same beef tallow I use to lubricate my grill when I cook my steak. So I'm not buying some fancy beef tallow that's on you know Facebook marketplace because I can buy it in bulk and I know the source that I'm getting it from through my butcher is pure, because all it says and the ingredients is beef tallow. The title for it is longer than the ingredient list and that's the kind of stuff I want to use.

Graham:

Yeah, excellent. Making beef tallow is a lot of fun. It's pretty easy and most of the time when you go to your butcher and you ask them for beef fat, they're happy to give it to you because they have to throw it away, so you're saving them money. I got it for free and it's actually a fun exercise to do. Sometimes you mess it up, but eventually you get pretty good at it. You don't have to pay any on for it and your family will thank you with all of the amazing stuff that it can do for your skin. What's on your list next, steven?

Stephen:

Yeah, that's a very fair question, just looking at, probably, I think, what I'd like to talk a bit about, which is something that I think for me in particular was a concern, and that is around gut microbiome, because I had obviously four dysbiotic bacteria at one point, according to my naturopath's test results, and obviously having a type 2 diabetes is indicative of a metabolic and lifestyle disease that often, as they now know, is connected to the microbiome in the stomach. So, as we've continued since I was first diagnosed eight years ago, to learn more and more about this is becoming more important, and I've started initially because I was a vegetarian, taking an enormous amount of so many supplements, in fact, that I think I was starting to alarm even my naturopath, and the ones that we're taking were quite expensive and obviously of very high quality, but I'm trying to find natural sources, so that would include, like kefirs, I consume a fair bit of fermented foods and, what's remarkable, things that I didn't like as a kid, like coleslaw, sauerkraut. I didn't like those sorts of things. Now they don't bother me. I don't even find them sour because I don't have a sugar-based diet.

Stephen:

Bone broth is great, and if you can make your own there are a few high-quality providers.

Stephen:

It's not cheap but again, we're not trying to get through a meal to see how little we can spend. We're trying to get through a meal to improve our health outcomes and our health span. So these kinds of adjustments over weeks become quite noticeable and in fact, when you're in a situation as you and I both are, with work and travel, I find that if I am not able to have my yogurt, if I'm not able to have some of these fermented foods, I notice within I'd say, three or four days, I don't feel as well because my microbiome is now in a temporary state of inflammation and, of course, consequently, if you start getting signs of diarrhea or constipation, well then there's some form of disruption that's happening in the gut. Generally, what I do in those cases is I avoid foods and I will do like a water fast for half a day or a day and make sure that I'm getting the appropriate electrolytes and just give my, my bowel a rest. How about yourself, graham?

Graham:

Yeah, I mean this was a great example of what we talked about earlier, which is taking things slowly. You know, I started doing this, I would say, three-ish years ago and, like I said, it took probably six or seven months for me when I eliminated something. I was able to see how I felt the next day or two and if I felt better, I knew that going back to that food. As you so eloquently put it, you're either putting foods in your body that are helping you or hurting you. There's not a lot in between, and so if I'm eliminating foods that are hurting me and I'm feeling better the next couple of days, I know okay, I don't want to feel that way anymore. I'm going to eliminate them because even though they taste amazing, it's not worth it to feel bad in the future, and so taking things slowly I think did help with this. But certainly there's going to be a process where you are, you know, because you're shifting your bowels, you're going to have potentially, things like diarrhea that are uncomfortable. Again, it's when you have a plan and you know what foods you need to be putting into your body and you're comfortable with the keto or carnivore lifestyle. It does take some time for your body to adapt to that lifestyle. Once it does adapt to that lifestyle, you're going to have to be pretty consistent when it comes to bowel movements. And if your bowel movements are, if you're more on the diarrhea side, maybe reduce the amount of fat. If you're more on the constipated side, maybe increase the amount of fat. But over time you will start to see if I eat this food, I'm going to figure out the effect that has the next day and you become your own science experiment. You get to really know what foods you put in your body that are excellent, what foods you put in your body that aren't, and eventually you get to a point where your gut microbiome is perfectly happy with the foods that you're eating. And you just not only feel great physically, you also feel great mentally. I think taking things slowly but surely and having a plan in place and backing those things up with, like you said, things like bone broth, which you can very cheaply make yourself. If you ask your butcher for a bag of bones, they will likely give them to you again because they have to throw them away, and that's an amazing way to take some really important nutrients into the body. So take it slowly, eventually, hopefully, you'll get to the point where you have this equilibrium, where you feel great and you are. You know, those bathroom breaks become few and far between compared to the issues that you went through before.

Graham:

One of the things that we sort of touched on a little bit but I think we want to address here is the initial energy dips. So when you go from a high carb to a low carb or zero carb eating lifestyle, you may find that your energy levels change. Now what I found was, you know, as I was adapting to the keto carnivore lifestyle, my energy fluctuated up and down, but eventually it got to the point where I had significantly more energy than I did before. My brain fog was gone, I was thinking a lot clearer, I was able to solve problems and down, but eventually it got to the point where I had significantly more energy than I did before. My brain fog was gone, I was thinking a lot clearer, I was able to solve problems and just you know, challenges that I wasn't figuring out before. I went that route and so everything got better.

Graham:

But there are going to be potential roller coasters when it comes to your energy. Again, this is your body adapting to becoming fat adapted from glucose adapted and eventually and I think it should be said that your body, when it can, prefers ketones. It prefers running off fat than it does off glucose. It can run off both and in fact your liver can make glucose if your body doesn't have enough of it. So you don't need to worry about that side of things.

Graham:

But I think it's really important to know that as you become fat adapted, you're going to potentially have an improvement in your mental health. You're gonna have an improvement in the amount of energy that you have and you're gonna wanna turn that energy, that buildup of energy, into something productive, like going for a nice long walk, doing a work, going for a bike ride, a nice long walk doing a work, going for a bike ride, doing something that is really going to help the body. High intensity interval training is fantastic for us. So when you go through this process, just be aware that you're going to see energy dips and increases over time. Eventually, hopefully, what you'll find is your energy levels go up significantly when you've eliminated those glucose intakes from carbs. Any thoughts on that one, stephen?

Stephen:

No, I couldn't really add much to that. I think everything you said, actually, graham, is spot on. I mean, obviously, the flexibility that's required in this lifestyle in terms of just dialing in on each respective day and what your body is doing and being self-aware and cognizant of both, that will allow you to make those micro adjustments. I think it's important, too, to say that you know this is a journey. You know it's not a destination.

Stephen:

There is no cure per se for the consequences of eating poor food. You eat poor food, you're going to have a relapse, but now it's an acute relapse, it's not a chronic one. When you get into a chronic situation, as you and I both did, persist persistently and then, perhaps unknowingly, abused our bodies for a long period, then the recovery takes longer. Don't just do just to be absolutely honest with you. We can't deny the fact that if suddenly me, as a type two diabetic, decides to go and eat a 16 ounce chocolate bar that's full of sugar and I chase that with coke or pepsi, I'm going to be really sick and my sugar is going to go through the roof and I could risk serious health outcomes as a consequence of that acute reaction, because that's generally what happens to people that end up losing their eyesight or have other serious things.

Stephen:

Yeah, there's a chronic dimension to it, but there is no insurance policy to say well, you know, I've been good for 300 days. That's why I'm not a fan of, well, everything in moderation, no, I think that's nonsense. If everything that you're eating in moderation is healthy, then sure you know, then you don't need the word moderation. You just eat well, whether it's carbs, whether it's protein, whatever it is that you're consuming, and not to sound overly militant about it. But you just have to decide. How do I want to feel tomorrow when I go to the gym as a consequence of the decisions I'm making today? How do I want to enjoy my grandchildren tomorrow as a consequence of looking cool or trying not to be disruptive because somebody wants to offer me a piece of cake and I don't really want to eat it?

Graham:

So, yeah, Excellent. Yes, let's jump to one of the roadblocks somebody is going to face I'm fairly certain of that and that is skepticism and misinformation. I even hate using that word, but there are all sorts of articles about how red meat is bad for you, or processed red meat is bad for you. I remember early on I was listening to people who are going carnivore and they were having incredible outcomes and thinking where does this red meat is bad for you thing come from? And we've talked a little bit about LNG White. We've talked a little bit about Ancel Keys. Both of those people are worth looking into to understand where the source of this.

Graham:

You know, I guess, in my opinion, fake news around red meat being bad for us, and so it is important to do your own research. Obviously, you want to get to the point where you feel, if red meat's something you want to go for, or even exclusively go for, it is pretty important to do some research into whether red meat is actually bad for you. So I remember Googling is red meat bad for you? And there was a study that Google had linked to, and, unlike most people, I actually clicked on the study and I read the entire thing and at the end of the study, the conclusion was that processed red meat was bad for you, not red meat. So even though the Google article had said, yeah, red meat's not good for you, when you read the actual article it said the opposite, and it was those kinds of eye-opening scenarios where I started to go, okay, what we've been told is not true. We did a good podcast topic on the biggest influencers that have sort of changed our life when it comes to keto carnivore. There are, you know, if you click on any of those influencers, they will actually go into a lot of detail about the mechanism by which we eat red meat and fat and the fact that it contains it may be the most nutritiously dense food on the planet. If you eat eggs and you eat meat and some fish, you are getting all the nutrients that your body needs. If you're not eating those things, it is going to be harder to get all of the bioavailable nutrients, and that's a critical part of that is bioavailable. It's not just about eating it. It's about whether your body can use it, convert it, or whether you're just creating expensive meat, as Stephen has talked about in the past. So you know, there are videos like Fat Action Mark. There are documentaries that are worth looking into, getting some sources of information that you feel are credible to help you understand why.

Graham:

Red meat is being vilified to the point where, if you look at the recommended so the standard American diet recommendations that the USDA puts out, I believe it was two years ago where they actually had fruit loops higher on the recommended list than red meat. Now, I don't care who you are, Most people are going to know that fruit loops are much worse for you than red meat. I just found that to be ridiculously funny. I think in the next six months we are going to see a new list of recommended foods from the standard American diet and I think what we're going to see is red meat is going to be back on the list of recommendations. So it'll be interesting to see how mainstream media treats that. I'm already a convert. I know that it's good for us. I know that it doesn't cause any ill will.

Graham:

I highly recommend looking into the Minnesota Heart Health Study, where I believe Ancel Keys was involved in this. They actually had an asylum so they could control what people were eating and they gave one group. So heavy seed oil, canola oil, standard American diet, highly processed foods, processed foods. They gave the other group saturated fat from beef and other sources and at the end of the study it turns out that the ones that were having the highly processed foods the seed oils because they thought the seed oils were better for people those people got obese, they got diabetes, they got cancer. So the outcomes were terrible. It was the opposite of what the study had set out to do, which was to prove that red meat was actually bad for it. This was a study done in the 60s. They buried that study. They never released it because it went against everything that they had hoped would be the outcome. What ended up happening is somebody went to the son of one of the people involved in the study and said I'd like to see the source material. Is there any chance that I can see it? And he happened to have all the source material and handed it over to this person. Well, this person released the information and it said exactly the opposite of what society has been saying all along, which is, the healthiest people in the study were the ones that were eating red meat. So it is pretty critical to go down that route.

Graham:

What convinced me was not only doing the research, but also when I went back to the doctor to get a second round of blood work. So the first round did not go well. I was basically told that I was going to be put on medications for diabetes eventually, and relatively quickly, if I didn't make some changes. The doctor recommended eating fruits and vegetables. I actually did the opposite and basically just ate meat and eggs. And when I went back to the doctor, the blood work was excellent and the doctor said whatever you're doing, keep doing it. And that's when I knew that I had found the solution that not only you know, gave me more energy. I had a much more positive outlook on life. My gut health was better. My arthritis, you know, different kinds of pain in the body were gone. I had, I felt better than I did, you know, in the previous 20 years, and part of that was entirely convincing myself that red meat was in fact a benefit, not a drawback as we've been told most of our lives. Stephen, any thoughts on that one?

Stephen:

I sure do so. Four days ago, new York Post put out a study called Eating Meat Not Linked to Higher Risk of Death and May Even Protect Against Cancer-Related Mortality. Just as early as January 15, 2025, a shared MIT-Harvard study said that in fact, it increased the likelihood of bowel cancer when consuming ultra-processed meat. So there's a couple of things I want to point out. Is, it seems to me that we should be skeptical of any new source that says the polar opposite. So everybody's going left, so it's left. And then everybody agrees they're going right, so it's now right. So the bottom line is do your own research and use your own blood results to determine how you're doing, and do research on cholesterol specifically, because cholesterol it's out of scope for tonight's discussion the LDL, hdl, it's the triglycerides you'll find is the issue, and cortisol plays a big role, and along, obviously, the liver, with the overproduction of triglycerides, which usually means that you're metabolically out of balance. But do some research on that yourself, because a lot of what we've been told is not accurate, and I just want to underline this strongly, and you gave an awesome example. It's you can't you know when we, when we look about someone who's committed a crime and there's four people in the vehicle and the other three don't know anything about it. There is a degree of accomplished association with the other three parties and once it's determined that they're not part of it, then it's the person who, for instance, committed the crime. Well, it's the same with food, in a way, to use that analogy Because sure, you could take a Big Mac or a Whopper I don't care what fast food you choose vilify and demonize the meat that's in there, when in reality it's not the meat that you're eating in isolation, it's all those ultra-processed condiments and the bread and the lettuce that's of poor quality and everything else it's just a bad food product, if you can even use the word food. So I think it's important that that you you have context along with content. There's tons of content out there, but make sure you do your due diligence on context.

Stephen:

If you talk to dr or watch one of dr berg's episodes again, he'll speak to grass-fed grain finish or grass-fed free-range sources. I mean, those are the optimum sources for someone who has agreed to and is pursuing a keto carnivore diet. I mean, if you're going to focus on highly industrialized, highly processed, poor quality feed that's going into the animals, well, of course the end product is not going to be good. Then couple it with an overly processed bun and the condiments, as I highlighted earlier. Well, at that point it doesn't matter if the meat was okay, and clearly in this case it's not, because it's the quality of meat. We understand the grades of quality. When we look at automobiles, houses, travel, destinations, we know what a one-star hotel is versus a five-star. While the same rating could be applied to what we consume.

Stephen:

If you're getting it organic from a good source, and you know that it's coming from a good source, from your local butcher, the likelihood that something is going to go awry is very low. If you're consuming something that's packaged, where you've got 23 days worth of supply that's in this giant package and you can't source where it came from, it's probably not as good quality as what I'm able to get from my butcher or you're able to get from your butcher. So, as we've talked about before, it's a matter of degree. But if you start recognizing first and informing yourself, you'll realize well, that's not really a fair study. If they're testing to see what the Whopper and the Big Macs is going to do, it's not because of the meat, it's because of everything else that's around it. The meat quality may not be as great, but it's misleading. So, again, I think that's what we want to stress and at the end of the day, it's hard to argue with your own body's chemistry.

Stephen:

If you do as Graham did, and he cut out everything and he stuck strictly to meat, you can't fake blood results unless you took someone else's blood sample in. So it's hard to argue with that. But that would be the one thing I would advise people is do your own research for sure and then let your results, your personal results, speak for you as a person. Take responsibility for your health yourself, as opposed to relying others that we think are educated. They may be smart people I'm not just excluding that possibility and they may know a lot about a particular topic, but we don't go to a dentist to get advice on plumbing.

Stephen:

We go to somebody who actually really knows a lot about nutrition and traditional doctors don't. That's not what they do. They're not nutritionists, they're family doctors or emerged doctors, and they're very smart people, but it's not what they've learned. I wouldn't ask a doctor to do my plumbing. I wouldn't ask my doctor to do my plumbing. I wouldn't ask my doctor to do my electrical, so this kind of stuff is hard to argue with. When you go back to first principles, like you said before, which was a great example eat whole foods, watch what you eat when you eat, monitor your stress, look at the sources of foods that you're consuming and see what your body does with it, and then adjust and adjust and you become a master of your own continuous improvement process.

Graham:

Yeah, really well said, and the only thing I would add to that is even the nutritionists are potentially going to send you down a road that isn't going to help, and I'll give this example A good friend of mine who is a diabetic. He's been a diabetic for, I think, close to a decade, and obviously, whenever he wants information, I'm sharing information with him and sent him a couple of things that I thought would be helpful to him. One of the things that the nutritionist recommended from a diet point of view is to keep things quote simple and so she recommended he, you know focus on things like potatoes and rice, and I could not understand why a nutritionist would recommend something as carb loaded as potatoes and rice. Now, certainly that's better than you know, a box full of flour or cookies or whatever else, but there are foods that are significantly better for somebody who's living with diabetes than these foods that generally turn into sugar, which is exactly what you want to avoid when you are a diabetic, and so even the nutritionists often are not necessarily going to have the information that is going to help you. I do believe it is critical that everybody becomes their primary health care provider and that the second opinions are secondary, so what your doctor says should always be listened to, but we do have to take ownership of the way we eat in order to because nobody is coming to save us. It's essentially up to us to do that.

Graham:

And the only other thing I'll add and I found this from a psychological perspective really fascinating is there are two kinds of people when it comes to switching over to carnivore. The first group are maybe a little surprised. They're interested in why you're going down this path. They might have heard it from other people. They see a significant change in you. I lost 55 pounds. It's pretty hard to hide that from people. They're interested in how that all happened. They may or may not go down that road or they may make you know some changes as a result, but they're genuinely interested. The second group are going to go out of their way to tell you what you're doing is wrong.

Graham:

And I was fascinated by these people, because why is it that they would get visceral? There would be a visceral response to me saying you know, I'm low carb, I'm carnivore, modified Mediterranean diet, whatever you want to say, why were these people getting viscerally upset with the fact that I was eating this way? And it's a small group, but they were noticeable and what I realized is that they understand that their eating lifestyle isn't helping, it's not healthy, and when you're doing something that they're that their eating lifestyle isn't helping, it's not healthy, and when you're doing something that they're not doing, it's a reflection on them. They are the ones that are upset about the way they eat and they are turning that level of frustration on you. Obviously, it's best to avoid these people. You know You'll know who your real friends are, because they will not only be impressed with the results, but they'll also be interested in kind of doing some things, maybe to modify their diets slightly in order to have improved outcomes. And some of them have amazing results.

Graham:

Obviously, I don't mind whether people eat 100% carbs or no carbs. It doesn't matter to me. I'm only looking after myself and my family. So, for those people who want to change your mind, maybe mute them a little bit, because they are going to be a source of frustration. Now, obviously, if that person's living in your house, it's going to be a different story. I'm lucky enough to have a very supportive family. They know the direction I'm going and they're quite supportive of it. They've seen all the benefits. So that's.

Graham:

Another roadblock to the success is if you're surrounding yourself with people who are telling you constantly that this is a bad idea. Well, I turn around and I say, if it's a bad idea, how come my blood work is all excellent now Can you explain that? They have no explanation. They have no. They have no explanation for why I went down this path of seemingly harming myself and all of my blood work outcomes are significantly better. That usually stops people in their tracks. So something to keep in mind as you're going down this. I think we've got one each left, stephen. Why don't we jump over to what's on your list?

Stephen:

Actually, I think I'm going to skip the last one and just make a comment on yours and then you can close with yours, Because you raised some really important issues around how people react and in essence, you're attacking their belief system, which is the core of their identity, and you're saying that you've learned in doing what they do, that you are getting sick and you found a way to resolve that and you have the medical evidence to support it so effectively.

Stephen:

You're forcing their ego to face a lie because they know, and the ego will protect that lie by attacking you and saying that, well, you know, this is nonsense and it's not sustainable and it's not all these other things, when in reality that's really none of their business.

Stephen:

The other thing I would say is to your point and I'm just being a little bit more direct about it is my response to people in these circumstances is I've learned that prevention is far cheaper and easier than my recovery was. My recovery took years and it took a lot of effort to get my body to a healthy place. I had setbacks, not from consumption, but just to give my body the time to properly heal, where my sugar normalized to a point where I was pre-diabetic and then, finally, not diabetic. It's far easier for me to maintain that it's far cheaper because my grocery bill doesn't include all the stuff you shouldn't be eating anyway. So I think it's really important to stress that again. It is a journey and you're on yours and in the famous words of Sir Anthony Hopkins, you have to have a mindset of saying you know, what you think of me is none of my business.

Graham:

Yeah, yeah, it's a great quote, yeah. Last one on my list is somewhat related to what we just talked about, and that is long-term sustainability concerns. No-transcript. Maintain your grocery bill. I don't think I'm spending any more money than I was before. I'm just buying better foods and I'm eating two meals instead of three or four or five or 10. And so it's for me. This is probably the easiest change that I've gone through in my lifetime. That has had the biggest impact, and it's it's.

Graham:

It's hard to get around those two things because at the end of the day, um, I see a lot of people who are trying different diets and one of the interesting things and I had a good friend mention this the other day they were talking about food and they have a lot of questions about food and I'm always happy to provide my perspective, sometimes too much and one of the things that she said was she had this certain diet that she was doing and she stopped doing it and she said but I know that works because I dropped 12 pounds and I thought it doesn't work because you stopped doing it, and if you stop doing something, that is the definition of it not working right, you know, if you stick with that way of eating, you're going to lose weight, but you couldn't stick with that way of eating, so it isn't clearly isn't a solution that is going to be effective in the long term. And I think one of the sort of eye opening things for me in going down this journey and it really is a journey everybody has a different route that they're going to take and hopefully the outcome on the other side is a beneficial one. If your diet is difficult or tough on you and your lifestyle and it's stressful and there's overthinking involved, eventually it's going to go out the window, because eventually you're going to go back to what is ingrained in you, which is how you've been eating your entire life, and how you've been eating your entire life is how you got sick, and how you've been eating your entire life is how you got sick. And so if you can find a lifestyle where you are really happy eating the foods that you're eating and it's not a chore and it's sustainable, like I said, I've never changed my way of eating for three years and in the past and stuck with it. I've always just defaulted back to whatever I knew, which was eating high carb foods this time and I remember somebody the other day asking me about, you know, losing weight and maintaining that weight, and I said you know, I'm. I'm sort of at a point where I know what my, my weight should be. I'm plus or minus, you know, three or four pounds within that weight, but it's been extraordinarily consistent for the past three years, after losing that initial 55 pounds. And what I realized is I can do this for the rest of my life and not break a sweat.

Graham:

I, you know I will continue to look for different sources of beef, for example. So I love going to you know, as a giant butcher here. I believe it's owned by a Dutch family. They have some Amish roots. They have some really creative ways of making different kinds of beef, so I'm always on that journey.

Graham:

But at the end of the day, you know, things like beef and eggs are staples for me. They're not difficult. I love eating them and I love the way I feel. And that's the most important thing is, if you feel fantastic because of your eating lifestyle, then it is a winner and it's going to be something that you can sustain for a very long time or permanently. And so this idea that this is going to be difficult, it's too much stress, it's too much change. I'm not comfortable with it.

Graham:

I think this is a little different. You see people who go vegan and then they stop. You see people who go with temporary diet fixes and then they go back and they default because, even though it was working, it wasn't working for them long term. It wasn't something sustainable. And so to me, this is the one eating lifestyle where not only is it successful in the health outcomes, but it's also very easy to maintain and stay on, because at the end of the day, it's very simple right, you eat beef and you eat eggs and you want some bacon? Fine, you want some butter, whatever. You want some fish there's lots of sources of protein and fat but at the end of the day, you can be consistent and the outcomes are so good that you don't want to come off this lifestyle. Stephen, I'm interested in your thoughts on long-term sustainability concerns.

Stephen:

I think for me it's an entire shift of mindset, because I don't look at food as a form of sacrifice from the way I was to what I am. I view it as a change in consequence from the way I was to the way I am. So my relationship with food has shifted from something that I must do in conjunction with other things that are a higher priority. This is now my central priority and when life gets in the way, I prioritize my health and my well-being. I would rather fast and go without, because I proved time and time again and you had a great example tonight as well where you're like, yeah, you know what I probably should have just skipped completely, because you know that bag of chips or whatever you had, those French fries, made you feel awful for two days, like it's not worth having the in quotes flu for two days because you thought you were going to starve. You will not starve, you are not going to die. Stay hydrated, that's important. Make sure that you have sufficient electrolytes, that's important.

Stephen:

I mean, there are many examples that Dr Fung pointed out where he's had people on extended fast. We're not even talking about that. We didn't even use the word extended until now, which is essentially 48 hours or more. You'll be just fine going four or five hours without a good, high-quality meal over and I've tested this time and time again with myself than to going to Arby's or NW or McDonald's or Burger King, because you will feel awful. That's the bottom line. So it's not worth it. Your body would much rather say thank you for giving me more time to go into antophagy tonight, because we only had one meal today.

Graham:

Yeah, that's such a good way to end off the podcast. At the end of the day, if you're hungry and you need snacks, it's probably it's your body saying you haven't given me the right amount of food and or the right amount of satiating food. It's near impossible to eat as much steak as you want to eat and then be hungry a couple of hours later. I recommend trying it. Basically near impossible and if you are hungry it's probably because you didn't have enough steak. But anyway, great way to end off the podcast. Stephen, thank you very much and we hope everybody enjoyed the topic. We will see you next time, thanks, for tuning into Lessons from the Keto-Verse.

Speaker 1:

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