Brian (1s):
Coming up on the GET, LEAN Eat, Clean Podcast.
Kate (3s):
The product of you being able to turn your food into energy, heat is created right And. what a lot of people don't understand is, look, we don't run on food. We run on how well we can convert the food into energy and we run on a TP. And if we don't convert food into energy, well then there's gonna be a problem here. So we can eat the greatest food, but if we can't digest it, absorb it, and then utilize it on the cell level, have enough oxygen and thyroid and nutrients, then we won't have enough energy to support our systems. And you're going to have adaptations one of those be you'll produce less energy, which will mean less heat and your body temperature will be cooler.
Brian (44s):
Hello and welcome to the Get Lean Eat Clean podcast. I'm Brian Gryn and I'm here to give you actionable tips to get your body back to what it once was, five, 10, even 15 years ago. Each week I'll give you an in depth interview with a health expert from around the world to cut through the fluff and get you long term sustainable results. This week I interviewed pro metabolic health coach and author of How to Heal Your Metabolism Kate Deering For. over 30 years, Kate has been involved in the health and fitness industry helping men and women of all ages achieve optimal health by healing their metabolism. We discussed Signs of a Healthy Metabolism advantage of eating carbohydrates How to heal the gut, the Importance of monitoring your body temperature, Kate's thoughts around vitamin A toxicity and her one tip to get your body back to what it once was.
Brian (1m 34s):
Really enjoyed my interview with Kate. I know you will too. Thanks so much for listening and enjoy the show. Alright, Welcome to the Get Lean Eat Clean podcast. My name is Brian Gryn and I have Kate Daring on welcome to the show. Thanks
Kate (1m 46s):
Brian. Really excited to be here today.
Brian (1m 48s):
Excited to have you on. I've heard you on a bunch of different podcasts most recently Dr. Mercola's and author, nutrition coach. Maybe give people a little backstory about how you sort of got into this space. I know you have a, the book How to Heal Your Metabolism, correct? Yep.
Kate (2m 2s):
Correct. Yes. I probably got into the kind of pro metabolic bioenergetic space 13, 14 years ago. Actually a friend of mine at the time, Josh Rubin from Real Food Gangsters, he was a check practitioner and I was a check practitioner and I was taking a course and he was teaching a course and he started talking about a lot of things like temp and pulse, And, you know, bizarre things that I was like, what, what is this guy talking about? Eating lots of carbs. And at that time I'd probably been fairly low carb and I've always been into the health space in some realm, but at the time I was highly competing in a lot of different long distance events, long distance biking. I was doing hikes Mount Whitney and I was starting to see some health issues that I hadn't experienced.
Kate (2m 45s):
And because I was getting close to 40, I kind of just attributed to that. And then when I started to learn about Ray Pete's approach and really dug into it, my head started to spin around and started using some of his, I guess beliefs around carbohydrates, And, what health truly was, And, you know? And I looked at my own and I started using metrics like the temp poles. I started to realize that maybe I wasn't as healthy as I thought. And so that kind of shifted everything for me. And I started incorporating tum more carbohydrates, specifically at lots of fruits, kind of started changing my proteins around, introduced dairy. And lo and behold things started to improve for me and kind of the whole, I thought I'd gotten myself into, I came out of and my health started to improve and get better.
Kate (3m 28s):
And probably at the time I was starting to get into perimenopause unknowingly and all of a sudden that shifted as well. So I certainly in today speak to a lot of women that are starting to go into that space and are a little bit confused about which direction to go in. And so, you know, having your body produce energy better is a very viable and good approach.
Brian (3m 47s):
Yeah, and I mean this is a newer space for myself. I mean if you listen to the podcast I've had, like we talked about before, Jay Felman on and Georgie on as well and a few others in this pro metabolic space. And I have to say, I mean I was into, you know, fasting for a while. Still think it can be a tool perhaps for individuals, but like we talked about before, it's the, it's the context of you know, where that person has, what they've done and where their, you know, what are their goals and where they've come from. What's the biggest changes that you saw once you started going into sort of this pro metabolic type of eating and from where you came from?
Kate (4m 22s):
Yeah, so good question. So as I was saying, I was probably around 38 and for a lot of women, they will start to experience perimenopausal symptoms about 10 years before menopause. And again, I couldn't tell you if it was just a matter of my body was hitting some walls 'cause I was training so hard and I of course was trying to eat super clean during that period of time. But I was starting to have energy issues, I was just very tired. My sleep started to go, my cycle started becoming a little bit of ireg. I just felt off, if that makes any sense. I was having a harder time with maintaining my weight. I would put on an extra five or 10 pounds and despite my clean eating and despite my exercise that wasn't moving and again, I kind of just chalked it up to, I guess I'm turning 40 and this is what happens.
Kate (5m 7s):
So when I end, when addition to that, my body temperature was probably around 96 degrees and which I never even considered who takes your body temperature unless you're sick. And my pulse was extremely low, probably about 50 55, which is really normal for an athlete. And so when I kind of took all those metrics into consideration and realize, wow, when you, you know, when you're producing a lot of heat and you're producing a lot of energy, your body temperature's gonna be a lot warmer. And mine was not. And when I look at my history, I've always been cold. you know, I remember through college and I write about this in my book, how I was literally walked around my college dorm area with a space heater because I've always been dieting per se. And when I started incorporate eating probably a little bit more going more carbohydrate base, going more simple carbohydrate base, changing the amount of severe protein I was eating and changing my fats around and allowing my body some time, I also started to train a lot less.
Kate (6m 4s):
Then my body a started to warm up my, my my te my temperature and pulse started to warm up or excuse me, pulse started to increase, started sleeping better, my cycle corrected and I felt like my skin looked better, my energy was better. And I found that I now didn't have to train copious amounts of hours to maintain my body weight. And just kind of my view around food change, I think I've always been slightly obsessive about what I was eating, which is probably very common in our space and the health and fitness space. And I really started to think maybe this isn't the healthiest approach to how we should be eating and maybe it shouldn't be so obsessive about everything.
Kate (6m 43s):
Maybe that isn't actually a good approach. And so today I literally, you know, I don't worry about any of those things. It's, it's not something I think about. It's, it's, I know what I know, I know what I, I know what to eat that makes me feel good and that's kind of my main concern.
Brian (6m 56s):
Yeah, and I think obviously low carb has been this, I dunno, popular trend in the health and wellness space. And now you're seeing it come back a little bit. I think you, you you've seen like people who have gone carnivore now they're starting to add in like fruit and honey and things like this. And, what do you think some of the reasonings behind that And, what are some of the advantages of car of these, you know, adding in these carbohydrates?
Kate (7m 19s):
Well I, I would assume that the reason they started to do it was 'cause something was off. They probably didn't feel as well. And I certainly work with a lot of people that have done carnivore or super low carb approaches, high protein. And I think they can be super beneficial initially depending on what that person's coming from. Obviously if you remove all carbohydrates, certainly your, your blood sugars are gonna flat line that's gonna look good. You also generally eat less when you move an entire macronutrient. So people will lose weight if they have a lot of GI just distress. Sometimes these fibers tend to irritate the gut lining and so now their GI improves, maybe they've reduced bacterial toxins so this endotoxins are reduced and that's gonna help with weight loss and fatty liver and blood sugar.
Kate (8m 4s):
So it definitely makes sense why I would, someone would go into that approach and definitely it makes sense why they might stay in that approach. They, they have gotten health benefits. The problem is that breaking down proteins and using 'em as fuel isn't an ideal way to produce energy. It's super inefficient. You have certain byproducts from that breakdown that aren't essentially beneficial to your system, high amounts of ammonia. And it is, it, it occurs more in a stress state than your body just utilizing carbohydrates. you know, when we eat a ton of protein and you're not specifically on a ketogenic diet, then your body has to go through some level of glec gluconeogenesis to produce carbohydrates 'cause you still need carbs. And so all that protein breakdown is just gonna be broken down, utilizes carbohydrates.
Kate (8m 48s):
And again it can work but I think over time what we start to see is people become hypothyroid, they start to become cooler, they start to have energy issues, their sleep starts to go. And so by adding these carbohydrates in your, the most efficient source of fuel, that doesn't take a massive amount of energy to break down, they start to feel better.
Brian (9m 9s):
And when you talk about carbohydrates, obviously talking about whole food carbohydrates for the most part, what are, like if someone is, let's say someone's been low carb for a while, how do you go about implementing adding back in carbs and sort of how do you scale that?
Kate (9m 23s):
Yeah, that's a good question. So you're, you're right, right. I probably should be more specific when we talk about carbohydrates 'cause people, people start to, to group 'em. And when I reference carbs, certainly whole foods and primarily things like fruits and then roots and white rice and maybe well prepared grains like sourdough bread or masina, well-cooked vegetables, those are all the carbohydrates that I would kind of use in my box. Doesn't mean I won't use also white sugar or honey. Those are also viable sources of what as well. But I'm not referencing things like cookies and cakes and even highly processed pastas and so forth. And again, it doesn't mean there's not a space for those things here and there, but it's certainly not something that I would recommend to eat a large part of your diet from.
Kate (10m 7s):
We want whole foods that have nutrition in 'em that your body can tolerate well and that you can digest and utilize to, to produce energy. When somebody does come to this approach, it kind of depends on what their symptoms are. Some people do not tolerate carbohydrates at all. I mean it, they introduce 'em in all things go haywire. So it would be trying to figure out like the easiest to digest ones and maybe it would be something like orange juice about there's no fibers in there so that could be a tolerable food for them. And then we would add it in slowly and kind of assess how their body responds to these foods. White sugar can be a viable source as well because these sugars, they digest very early up in the intestinal area.
Kate (10m 51s):
So there's not a lot of, not a lot left at the end for the bacteria or to irritate the digestive system. Again, it's a tool to get you to a place. It's not like we're gonna do this forever kind of thing. It's basically assessing how can we get your body to start tolerating sugars again. And certainly if you haven't been consuming them for long periods of time, yeah you're probably gonna get some higher blood sugar levels at least initially. And I think today people are so freaked out about that they're so afraid of a blood sugar spike that it keeps them in a box that might not necessarily be beneficial to them.
Brian (11m 24s):
Yeah and I'm sure there's people thinking, wow, is she promoting sugar? And they're like, what's going on here? Everything's coming full circle. Like not, not really, although I get su I guess sugar's been demonized for so long. What would you say to someone that they're like, oh well I was sugar beneficial.
Kate (11m 41s):
I would say when you just look at what sugar is independently and not attached to a cookie or a piece of cake or whatever it is literally just 50% glucose, 50% fructose. It is a very easy to digest energy source now it does not have any nutrition. And so for those reasons you wouldn't want to eat copious amounts of it because if you eat a ton of sugar and no nutrition then you can actually create a nutritional deficiency and then you're gonna have a whole nother set of problems. But as a fuel source and times, and if we're looking in the context of how do we get fuel into this individual and have them start tolerating carbohydrates better when they are not, it can be used to do that.
Kate (12m 23s):
I wouldn't do it indefinitely. But, it certainly can be used. And again, it's not sugar itself, it's creating the problem. It's usually a copious amount of calories that might also have sugar in them. But usually when people are over consuming and they're eating sweet foods, it's primarily things that have sugar plus fat plus flour plus all these other things in it like cake or cookies or candy bars or highly processed ultra food that has tons of sugar added to it. I'm not inherently saying that those are good for you, right? Any and anything in excess can also produce a negative result, right? There's a spectrum to all foods. I could literally go into Google right now and find you five, 10 articles that are say negative things about any food and then I could find five, 10 articles say something positive about that same exact food and I probably could do it to almost every food on the planet And, you know, for some people that that does get really confusing.
Kate (13m 21s):
But at the same time, look, everything is different depending on the environment you're sticking it in and you are the environment and so you can get different responses If you don't respond well to a food on here that I've said that is a great food and you're like, oh my god, I eat that food and all hell breaks loose, well then that's not the right food for you right now. Maybe not forever, but maybe in your current circumstances or health or environment, it isn't suiting you. But that can change. And so, and I think that's the beauty of this bioenergetic space. It is, it is you're trying to move the individual from a low energy state of whatever they're, wherever they are, to a more high energy state and help them produce energy better.
Kate (14m 2s):
There's not a specific path to do that. The past can be quite different. There are some general guidelines for someone to go on, yet it is all about experimentation and then using tools like your temperature, your pulse, how your digestion is doing, how your sleep is doing and getting some awareness about what does my health should it, what should it look like if I'm healthy. And using those markers to guide you to a healthier space.
Brian (14m 27s):
Yeah, well said. Well said for sure. And it's interesting because we've gotten to the point where people think if like people think more is better, like more restriction is necessarily better and like if you think of just like calories in, calories out and you're like, oh I wanna lose more weight. Well I should just cut more calories and yeah maybe in the short term that might work, but long term it could cause like a lot of detrimental issues with that individual like thyroid and things like that. Do you run into that with, I I know you work with, you work with women and men or mainly predominantly women? Yeah. So like with both the women and men, do you find that like people come to you and they're actually not eating enough, there
Kate (15m 8s):
Is some degree of that or they're not eating enough foods that have enough nutrition in 'em? It's hard to always say if people, I mean I, yes. And if you say I look at their logs and I'm like, holy cow, it doesn't look like you're eating anything. And I'll go back, is this actually true because of, of course there's, you know, there's a level that people might not be giving you all the information or they're not correctly calibrating things, right? But yeah, there are people that are severely undereating at the same time those individuals might also be over consuming in other points of time. So there could be times when they're just not eating enough all week and then they binge on the weekends. There's a, there's a lot of variables as far as you know, what people are eating and how much they're eating.
Kate (15m 49s):
But what I do see and and I should say not eating enough yes, is that people are eating a certain amount of calories that is maintaining their current state of health. And so because over time there has probably been some metabolic adaptations or their body has just learned to not utilize energy appropriately, meaning whether it can't get into the cell or there's some other either nutrients or minerals or as I call 'em energy blocks or inhibiting that production from happening and that's created a certain amount of energy that gets through and keeps them at their current weight. And so it's not a matter that sometimes they need to eat more, some do it is figuring out why they can't turn their current food into energy and maybe why they're storing it instead of making energy.
Kate (16m 39s):
Because these same individuals are also like, I'm tired, I have all these symptoms, I can eat 1200 calories if I eat anymore, you know, or whatever it is, you know, I'm gonna gain weight. And to some degree that's, that's true. I mean I can eat more now than I could in my late twenties and do less because I feel like I just am able to turn my food into energy better and so I have more energy, I can sleep better, I can eat a certain amount of food, I certainly can eat a high amount of carbohydrates without any weight gain and I'm 52.
Brian (17m 17s):
Yeah. And it's like carbs have just been deep, you know, talk about sugar being demonized but carbs have been demonized for the last whatever, 20 years or however many years, whatever. Yeah. And it's interesting 'cause when I've had Jay on and he talks about like, well you know, this whole ancestral movement and there's, there's some great, like, I don't know, I don't know great points or that people could follow from our ancestors, but was that optimal? And, and so like the, what I like about the pro metabolic space is it's geared towards like trying to optimize the human being right now in this time and day. Not, you know, when we didn't have much back, you know, hunter gatherers style so you know, becoming optimal and one of the ways of becoming optimal is be being able to oxidize glucose, right?
Brian (18m 4s):
And, and most people when they're, and correct me if I'm wrong, but most people, if they are low carb or fasting for such a long period of time, their bodies become inefficient at oxidizing glucose.
Kate (18m 14s):
Yeah, 100%. Your body's always gonna adapt to the stressors you put upon it. So if you change something and you move carbohydrates, it'll figure out and it does and it will start, if you're keto, if you're eating super high fat, it'll just start producing ketones and you will utilize that or your, your nervous system will be able to run on ketones or primarily it still needs glucose. Sure. But yeah, your body will adapt but every time you go through these kind of adaptations, that doesn't mean that's an ideal state for you. It just means that your body can figure it out and get to that place and still keep you alive. Excuse me. But it's not ideal. And I always see people look, this person ran three marathons and didn't eat any carbohydrates and he just did it on fat alone.
Kate (18m 56s):
And I'm like, great. I'm like, your body is can do a lot of amazing things. Certainly on times that stress it can do these things But, it doesn't mean it's ideal and So we have to look at, well what, how do we produce the most amount of energy over time probably with the, the least amount of waste that can produce this high energy state. And when we look at that carbohydrates when every single time and for numerous reasons they do now everyone will say, but I don't tolerate carbohydrates well and I don't use them well and if I have 'em I gain weight and right my blood sugar goes all wonky. And I'm like well that could be true because there are certain factors within your biology that might inhibit that process from happening effectively.
Kate (19m 44s):
And it's usually because there's been some level of stress that's induced on the system that's created these shifts that now the body doesn't tolerate them. It doesn't mean you can't learn to tolerate them again, but certainly you have to kind of weave the path to get there. And that could take some time and it does take some changes and some behavior changes And, you know, understanding your environment a little bit better so that your body can flip back to trying to utilize carbohydrates more effectively. And I would say, 'cause I know we kind of talked, you said you've, you've, you've talked with vegetarians before. I would say that would be the one argument for doing a vegetarian maybe low fat diet is because it is predominantly carbohydrate.
Kate (20m 25s):
Now there might be a lot of roughage in there, it could be irritating the gut and it could be some nutrient deficiencies because there's no animal-based foods in there But, it can absolutely help a lot of people become better carbohydrate users and that's why you've seen it like literally fix diabetes, eating all of these carbohydrates and heart disease and it has so many additional benefits but at the same time like yeah there's nutrients that you're gonna be missing and there could be other viable sources of animal proteins that might be better But. It can be used as a tool to get people places so that they can tolerate carbohydrates better. Again, not telling people to go vegetarian or vegan but in the context of that diet there is benefit to
Brian (21m 5s):
It. Yeah. And a few different questions come to mind. I guess one is when it comes to healing the gut, is that like the first step you like say you get a new client and they're sluggish, tired, you know, you talk about how to heal your metabolism, is that one of the first steps that you would take with most individuals? That
Kate (21m 23s):
Is for many yes because I would say 95% of people have gut issues and some level of gut issues. And because your gut is basically the protection between the outside world to the inside world, you know, it's kind of you either eat things or you breathe them in. That's how the outside world gets into you. And the gut is obviously a big one and that's why the majority of your immune system is located in your digestive tract because it's there to protect you from all the outside things that you might be ingesting. And if that is inflamed or you have gut permeability, leaky gut or you have IBS or whatever, yeah, then all the sudden your gut's not gonna be as good as protecting you and it's also not gonna be as good as breaking your food down rac or extracting the nutrients from it.
Kate (22m 9s):
The microbiome and the bacterial load in there can start creeping up into the intestinal area, the small intestine areas, creating something like SIBO and that these bacteria can create their own toxins called endotoxins and throw some gut permeability into there and those are gonna leak into the blood system and they can inhibit cellular re respiration, they can also create fatty liver, they can do have issues when, and anything that inhibits cellular respiration can also create some blood sugar issues. So yes, that would be a really great place to start for most individuals. 'cause for many it can correct a lot of different things. And again, that's why I think people that have gone carnivore or super low carb and removed a lot of these irritants and all of a sudden their gut can kind of heal because it's not being constantly irritated, see these massive improvements.
Kate (22m 60s):
So it's completely understandable why somebody would do that and and for some people it might be a good approach initially it will make you not tolerate carbohydrates though, right? I mean so and I always tell people, look, if you broke your leg and you need to heal it, you would not need to stay off that leg for eight weeks or six or however long it would take to break to heal the bone. So while your bone is healing, your muscles are gonna atrophy. That's just how it's gonna be. So when you start walking in, you're gonna have a smaller leg And, now you have to build that leg up and sometimes that's what you have to do with your diet. You gotta heal one thing. Other things could get a little wonky in that time period, but we can't get you better until we heal that one thing.
Brian (23m 42s):
Good analogy. Good analogy. So what would you say, like I, I noticed on your Instagram like how to heal your metabolism, your top 10, like maybe we can run down some of those for individuals who maybe, you know, I don't know, I guess maybe before we go that like what would be some signs of a sluggish metabolism and then we can sort of base off that, you know, maybe give some ideas on how to heal that.
Kate (24m 5s):
Yeah, So, we do use metrics if you're, if you're thinking like is my metabolism not working optimally? One is body temperature because a product of energy production, you know the product of you being able to turn your food into energy, heat is created right? And, what a lot of people don't understand is, look, we don't run on food, we run on how well we can convert the food into energy and we run on a TP and if we don't convert food into energy, well then there's gonna be a problem here. So we can eat the greatest food but if we can't digest it, absorb it and then utilize it on the cell level, have enough oxygen and thyroid and nutrients, then we won't have enough energy to support our systems.
Kate (24m 53s):
And you're going to have adaptations one of those be you'll produce less energy, which will mean less heat and your body temperature will be cooler. Something that's happened recently in today's space on body temperature. And Dr. Oz, I remember do did a show about it years ago and it was on maybe our body temperature isn't 98.6 anymore because what we're seeing is nobody is 98.6 anymore. And so their, their hypothesis was that the, the normal body temperature now is like 97.8 and that it's because there's less inflammation and that's why our body temperature is cold. That was the hypothesis and I was like how is there less inflammation?
Kate (25m 34s):
We have the highest rates of obesity and diabetes and all of these things which are all based on some level of inflammation in the system. So that hypothesis was just thrown out the window in my thought process at the same time, you know, and the other belief is maybe when they calculated it years ago that everybody was sick and that's why everybody, which that wasn't true either, that that's why there was a higher body temperature And, you know my thoughts are, look we are not becoming very good energy producers any longer. We're producing less energy for our systems of function. That's why we don't feel as well, that's why we have all these symptoms and it's nothing to do with the fact that we are less inflamed. I don't, I think if anything we're more inflamed.
Kate (26m 15s):
And so when people do start incorporating these changes, you will see an increase in temperature unless there's some other biological issue going on. Like you are severely hypothyroid, you actually need to be put on thyroid medication but you will get warmer. And so that is a sign that things are improving. The other thing is pulse. And these are easy metrics like you don't need to go to a lab, you don't need to do some funky tests, you don't need to spend all this money, you need to go get a $10 digital thermometer off of Amazon and then use it, that same one, right? And just put it in your mouth, let it wait a minute, turn it on and there's your metric right there and just use that. And then other one is take your pulse if your pulse is really, really low and it can get like that if you're an athlete.
Kate (26m 59s):
And it seems to do that as a lot of women, a lot of people age it starts to drop and yeah because your metabolic rate starts to slow down, most children have a much higher pulse. And so it's actually better for you to have a pulse metabolically speaking between about 70 and 90 beats per minute, not 50. So those are two really good metrics you can use that are cheap and free and take 'em daily and you can use 'em in the morning, take 'em after your meals. And the reason you might wanna take 'em after your meals is because your food should increase your body temperature because you are now producing heat after your food. And if you're not, that says something to you.
Kate (27m 41s):
So there are individuals that will actually wake up with a really warm temperature and it might be driven from stress hormones kind of vibing to get 'em up. And also just because their body doesn't have enough fuel and so their body's becoming stressed, they have a warm temperature, that individual eat a meal with carbohydrates and their temperature will normally drop. And normally it's because those carbohydrates are now suppressing the stress hormones, creating the true state of what your, your body temperature is. So those are kind of little tools. You can also monitor things like your digestion. Do you have bloating, right? How you get constipated diarrhea, anything that you think like that you're noticing within your gi that's a good metrics to kind of follow and see.
Kate (28m 23s):
Is that improving for, for a woman? The cycle is great to monitor irregular cycles, missed cycles, heavy bleeding, cramping, constipation, diarrhea during the cycle. Those metrics are good to follow because when the body is healthier, those don't happen. Although it's, I don't, I think it's like 80% of women have PMS symptoms. It's some crazy number. So, we all presume it's normal and it's not normal. Like you shouldn't have those symptoms, they just do. And so if your body starts becoming healthier, those will reduce. So that's a good metric. And then of course just your overall energy level and then also sleep. Sleep is a great metric of your health. If you are unable to get to sleep or you wake up all night long, then something isn't right.
Kate (29m 6s):
Sleep is a very high energy state. You need a good amount of energy production to sleep well and deep. So that would be something else that we monitor. So these are all free metrics. You don't have to get 8,000 labs to go figure out if your health is improving. we can use these very subjective and objective measures to find out if you are getting better.
Brian (29m 26s):
Do you go to labs sometimes if necessary or do you stick with those Melanie?
Kate (29m 31s):
Sure there are always certain labs that are gonna be helpful. I wouldn't like if someone has labs, I certainly would look at 'em but I think it, it helps to see things like CBCs, a complete blood clot, a metabolic panel, their cholesterol numbers, their thyroid numbers 'cause and vitamin DI like to see that one too because that can give us, you know, outside of and it just gives us more information at once because if they do have elevated cholesterol and their thyroid is off and maybe they have a suppressed or low vitamin D, then that can be a sign of, oh they're either vitamin D deficient or they actually need thyroid hormone or they're having some level of thyroid con urgent issue. It probably wouldn't change my initial path in the beginning 'cause I really like to focus on just their food because I think we can get far just by doing that But it would be things that you can take into consideration down the road if things aren't moving as fast as we would like.
Brian (30m 22s):
Yeah. Anything along the lines of like a GI map or some type of gut test.
Kate (30m 29s):
I personally don't use those. I have never found that any of 'em have good evidence behind them to let us know that that is what they're telling us. It's one thing I always admired about Dr. Pete was he was always looking for the meaning of the test. Like if the test doesn't have good meaning, it doesn't have good evidence behind it that like, do we know that this is what a healthy GI should be? Do we actually know that these are the numbers? And I'm not saying all of them are bad by any stretch, but even people that I know who've taken a lot of GI tests, the the prescription to get better didn't change because of their symptoms. Right. So it it would people have 'em and if that's how you work and that works for you, look, I'm not gonna tell you any differently, me personally, I don't tell people to go get those done unless you just get into some sort of roadblock that there's nowhere to go.
Brian (31m 21s):
Yeah.
Kate (31m 22s):
And then personally I try to avoid as many labs as possible just 'cause I know people have just been hit by so many prior to this. Yeah.
Brian (31m 30s):
And they're expensive.
Kate (31m 32s):
They are very expensive. Yeah.
Brian (31m 33s):
Yeah. So, we, okay, so sluggish metabolism, let's say, you know how to heal it. What, what, what would you say the top 10 are? Yeah,
Kate (31m 40s):
Like I can't even remember what that list said, but I'll just give you,
Brian (31m 42s):
I I have it in front of me. Yeah, I have it in front of me so I can quiz you and it
Kate (31m 46s):
And it could change, right? And maybe there, there are what and if tho those are the foods I'm sure that are on there.
Brian (31m 53s):
So
Kate (31m 53s):
For the most part
Brian (31m 54s):
I, we can go through it and I, it's stuff that you've already pretty much mentioned like for the most part, like eating nutrient dense, easy to digest carbohydrates.
Kate (32m 3s):
Yeah. So when someone, and there is food right there, there, there's that aspect of it. And I think that's what that list has. But there's also the level of do we need to change your environment because your cells are in your environment, all your cells are in your systems, but then you are also in an environment of your life. And if that isn't conducive to fixing yourself, then we have to adjust that as well. And lemme give you an example. If somebody is in a really bad relationship living in a house that has a ton of mold in it, in a, in a bad environment and they're working 90 hours a week and they're like, and I'm like, just eat carbohydrates. Well we're probably not gonna get very far with that scenario.
Kate (32m 44s):
So, we have to adjust you and you have to be in an environment that's going to help you heal. And because part of the bioenergetic space is about getting your body out of stress, right? We have essentially two systems to produce energy. One is healthfully, right? Where we use carbs, we can use fat, nutrients, oxygen, thyroid, sun exposure. and we, and we produce a good amount of energy. And then we have another way to produce energy, which is more of a stressed way. And that is when we use you So, we would use your muscle, your glycogen stores, your tissue as the energy source. We would always also need nutrients, but if there's not enough fuel coming in, then we would also use you, you would use bone or whatever stored nutrients you have, we would use some level oxygen, but could certainly do it sometimes without it.
Kate (33m 34s):
And then we would drive that system by things like adrenaline, cortisol and glucagon, more stress hormones. But that would also produce energy. And so what we want to do is switch you out of that system of producing energy and put you more into a healthy metabolic state where you're producing it healthfully. It's not to say you'll never use that backup system and we refer to it as a backup system, but we don't want to live in that system. And when you're constantly trying to produce energy in a stress state, you can do it. And a lot of people have done it for quite some times, but it's going to take a toll on you. And because a, one of the reasons is it's using you and so it becomes very catabolic to your tissue. And so that there's a lot of breakdown and when you're in that space of producing energy, I lost my thought here, that your body, your body just can't withstand it, you know?
Kate (34m 22s):
So over time you're gonna get sicker and it's going to leave to some level of illness, And. so again, trying to pull ourselves out of that space and into the healthier space is the one of the top things. And so however we can do that. And so it could be assessing, you know, therapy or minimizing your job load, trying to get sleep, getting out and get some sun, all the while putting things into your body that are going to help you produce energy better. But we can't do it if the body's under constant stress. If the demands are so high on you that it, it's not gonna just, the diet isn't just gonna magically fix you.
Brian (34m 57s):
Right? No, that's a good point. And you do mention get reducing toxic load, which there you go could mean a lot of things, right? Toxic relationships, a toxic job. And these are all stressors like Jay would talk about, like the stress bucket, right? Like whether someone cuts you off when you're driving or, or a workout, right? That those are all stressors that go into this bucket and we have to sort of monitor that. And I think some people are probably better at handling those things than others. Probably people who are consuming the things that you mentioned, like in it's easy to digest carbohydrates and consuming animal proteins and things like that. Not restricting, not restricting either one macronutrient or restricting too much as far as caloric intake is concerned are probably better off handling stress than people who are
Kate (35m 45s):
One. Yeah, 100%. If you are a better energy producer, you are gonna have the resilience and the fuel to be able to manage these things when they come in. If you don't produce energy, well anything is gonna set you off. These are the people that like literally they, there's a loud noise or they have, you know, someone comes into their life and upsets 'em and they are, they, they can't even manage and handle it. Their level of resilience is so low they can't, they and So, they have to live in this really sacred space and nothing can get in there or they just fall apart, right? And sadly I think we're seeing that in today's youth. I think our, today's youth and younger people, because of the food, because of social media, blue light is, you know, they, they stay inside more.
Kate (36m 29s):
They don't go outside. All of these things are compounding to them not being very good energy producers, which is not allowing them to be very resilient in life. And so the expectation is that all of us should adapt to them to be able to manage this space that they're in and create all these safe spaces and all of this stuff because they literally can't manage it any longer. And it's really kind of sad. But instead of trying to kind of address that and go, look, we aren't feeding people appropriately anymore. People aren't going outside anymore. We're not doing the things that the human body needs to a good energy producer.
Kate (37m 10s):
And so of course we're gonna start to see this kind of stuff and you, you know, and so what is the central answer? you know, bottom line is yes, it's using a lot of the foods in there and you're right, it's easy to digest carbohydrates. It's primarily using animal proteins because the nutrients in there are more bioavailable and the protein in there is more bioavailable, right? So that can be anywhere from seafood. I'm a big proponent of beef, liver, eggs, dairy grass-fed meats, bone broth, gelatin, all those would be viable sources of protein. And then it's using the saturated fats over the poof of fats. I'm sure Jay has probably gone into that on extensive levels.
Kate (37m 50s):
But the poly, the polyunsaturated fats are one of the foods that when you eat can be considered an energy block, it can inhibit energy or cellular respiration. And for that reason, that's why it's minimized or is told to remove. And so anything that's going to inhibit the energy system, that's what we say, take that out, right? Anything that's going to support the energy system, add that in. So that's food's like high in minerals, easy to digest, carbohydrates, those are gonna be your primary things. We wanna be able to produce and have an, and have oxygen get into the tissue because without oxygen you die.
Kate (38m 32s):
And so, and that's the main reason, right? We're like, well you won't breathe. I'm like, well the whole reason you breathe is to pull in oxygen and have an exchange so that oxygen can be the final electron trans carrier in the whole electron transfer chain so that you can produce energy. If there's no oxygen, that entire system backs up, you cannot produce energy and you will eventually die. And so that's the reason and why it's so important. But the other part of that whole other argument with carbohydrates is for you to get oxygen into the tissue, you require carbohydrate, or excuse me, carbon, carbon dioxide to be there. Your cells, in addition to heat and energy also produce carbon dioxide and water.
Kate (39m 16s):
And that carbon dioxide is needed to help get basically oxygen into the tissue. And the food that produce the, the most car carbon dioxide is carbohydrates, right? It produces about 50% more in oxidation over fat. So that is just another reason that those foods are promoted because all of these systems are working together for you to produce energy optimally and having additional carbon dioxide is going to be helpful. Yeah.
Brian (39m 45s):
And you also mentioned getting adequate sleep and rest, which is obviously could be probably number one, right? I had a client ask me about intermittent fasting and I said, well, I said it might be a tool. He go, he goes, yeah. He goes, you think I should do it? He goes, I get up at like three in the morning. I go, well maybe we should focus on your sleep before anything else. Like one thing, you know, that's the most important thing. Obviously getting adequate sleep. I think that can be an issue for a lot of people, no matter even their diet, right? Like that's a whole nother topic that do, do you have any sleep tips? I mean we talk about it a lot on this show, but is there anything off the top of your mind that, that have helped people?
Kate (40m 27s):
Well, a lot of things, but because sleep is a high energy state, when people start to produce energy better, they tend to sleep better. And one of it is like if they're waking up through the night, one of those is that they could have or glycogen stores in their liver. And so eating a carbohydrate rich meal before they go to bed seems to help a lot of people. Having enough minerals in their system before they go to bed has helps a lot of people. So salty milk can be really beneficial before bed. I've had clients recently that he had a big bowl of oatmeal, right? Maybe wouldn't be my first choice, but kept him asleep all night. So everyone is a little bit different.
Kate (41m 8s):
He didn't have any G GI distress with that. Sometimes I don't pick those really more challenging carbohydrates and not, but for him it was a slow release carbohydrate kept him to sleep all night long. I think a big one is just not being on your computer or phone before you go to bed. Stimulating yourself is not gonna be helpful. Getting enough sun through the day is going to be helpful. All of those things I think are easy fixes if people do them right, we can talk all day long to people about these easy things to do, but they still have to implement them. They still have to go out, they still have to do the things, you know, because look, a lot of this isn't brain surgery, it is just implementation and shifting your behaviors.
Kate (41m 49s):
Life has changed how we operate in the world. you know, how we all do things has changed where most, a lot of people are on a computer all day and they stay inside and we can have our food delivered and we don't have to do anything if we don't. We don't have to leave our house if we don't want to and people don't. And that has not been good for their health. And so people will go to the doctors and and have all these problems. I'm like, look, your life it, you go outside. I know it seems so simple, but quite honestly it could really help you and fix you and improve your sleep. So look to me it's, it all goes back to energy production. How if you improve that system and you'll, like I said, and that's basically looking at making sure you have enough of the resource to produce it, but also making sure that the demands on you aren't so high that your body can't produce the energy to meet those yet, right?
Kate (42m 42s):
Because if you have excessive demands on your system, a lot of stress and so forth, and your body isn't a good energy producer yet, then your body's going to struggle because it's going to go into that stress metabolism to try to keep up with those demands and that's gonna keep you from getting better.
Brian (42m 59s):
Yeah, this is something that has come up. Well I, I interviewed Garrett Smith, aren't you familiar with Garrett Smith? Oh, okay. We, we don't have to go down this whole rabbit hole. I mean yeah, I just, you know, people who listen to this podcast that, you know, they'll hear one week someone says a vitamin a toxicity, you gotta be, you gotta be aware of it, this and that And, you know, and then next week someone comes on and promotes liver. So just maybe, I know Mike Fave has done some videos on it and I'm just curious your thoughts around this little, you know, little,
Kate (43m 32s):
Little nuance. Yeah, yeah. I definitely have listened to Garrett and certainly I don't agree Vitamin A is needed for iron regulation. It's need for thyroid, it's need for cholesterol conversion to what degree you need. It is part of the conversation. I think the research has shown that you have to consume literally excessive amounts of vitamin A to be toxic. Mifa did. And, and they, and he actually went and broke down how much vitamin A you would actually need for, 'cause they were comparing like what a rat to a human So. we needed to kind of extrapolate it out to see how much a human would need to get to this toxicity level.
Kate (44m 15s):
And it was an obscene amount of vi eggs or liver or whatever it was so high. Like literally, I don't think anybody could consume that much. So with that said, usually from my understanding, it was like you would have to consume upwards like a hundred thousand IUs of vitamin a a day. To have these toxic levels of true toxic now doesn't mean that people aren't getting results by eliminating vitamin A entirely. 'cause they do. And you see it. So the context is what else could be happening here, right? If somebody is really hypothyroid, like eating a lot of beef, liver is gonna make them more hypothyroid because again, you, you need more vitamin A when your, your metabolism is higher. If it is lower, then that vitamin A can actually continue and create more hypothyroidism because vitamin A is moves around your body on the same transport protein as thyroid does.
Kate (45m 6s):
So if you consume an excessive amount, there's not gonna be enough for thyroid to move around. That person will become hypothyroid and then they'll start to feel horrible. So my thoughts is that could be one of the answers that these people are maybe missing in something else. I don't, A lot of these people may, if they're on an animal based diet eating tons of liver and they weren't eating carbohydrates, that could very well have happened to them And. now if they're moving from that and they're still not eating a ton of carbohydrates, but they're removing all the vitamin A, so at least now there's some level of transport protein that that thyroid can move around us So, they do feel better. That could be an answer. So yeah, you know, I, I just can't get around the fact that that is toxic.
Kate (45m 49s):
But again, any food can be toxic or any nutrient can be toxic in the wrong dose for that individual. And so you have to, there is all the, always those nuances of there is always too much of a good thing. And there when people are like, beef livers good, yes. And all of a sudden now people are eating copious amounts of it. And of course you could have some negative results from that,
Brian (46m 10s):
Right? I mean, you've seen all these supplement companies come out, you know, with with beef liver capsules and
Kate (46m 17s):
100%.
Brian (46m 18s):
And if you think about it sort of, if you want to think ancestry, like if, if there was a hunt, you know, a, a hunt, a big gain hunt and they were consuming the animal, it's such a small percentage of that animal, right? That like you just think, well you're, they weren't consuming it every day. you know, you could definitely over overdo it. They weren't getting liver every day.
Kate (46m 38s):
Exactly.
Brian (46m 39s):
So yeah, like you said, with everything, I mean, you could drink so much water, you could kill yourself
Kate (46m 44s):
100%,
Brian (46m 45s):
Right? So, we could,
Kate (46m 46s):
We could anything you could put anything into that and you could die from it, right? So there's, there's a limit to everything. The dose makes the poison. And that's certainly true in nutrition and So, we have to consider that. And that's where Trition gets itself in trouble because we, we like to kind of click bait people and be like, this is good, this is bad, this is good, this is bad. And so people are like, oh, I'm gonna do a lot of that and I'm gonna, oh, I'm gonna do all of that. And then they're like, oh, well that, that was untrue. you know? And then you, you you listened to them and you're like, well yeah, you probably pushed yourself over. You just did too much or you didn't balance it appropriately, you know, so it's better, in my opinion, it's, this is why I think this approach has worked better. It, when you understand the body better and you understand what it needs in certain circumstances, then you become better at giving your body what it needs.
Kate (47m 32s):
And, and you and you learn to change and adapt and don't continue to try to do the exact same things when your life changes or your environment changes. It, it just doesn't work. And So, we have to learn to be kind of adaptable and think about things and, and on a different way when things change for us.
Brian (47m 49s):
Yeah. Well this was great Kate. And one more question I usually ask most of my guests, and we've probably answered it already, but you can come up with something else if you want. If you were talking to someone they wanted to maybe get their, their bodies back to what it once was 10, 15 years ago, what one tip would you give that individual?
Kate (48m 6s):
Wow, that is a one, one tip.
Brian (48m 9s):
Yeah, I know everyone's like, wants to give like five. Yeah, just,
Kate (48m 12s):
I mean, I'd be like, read my book. I, you know, I, I think it's always good to have a starting point for people. So it might be look, go food log, go see what you're actually doing, see how much protein you're eating, see how much carbs you're eating, you know, and then see how your, where your food is. Are you eating a little bit in the morning and a lot at night? And, and that would at least give you some level of start to your roadmap of where you need to go. I think it's hard to be specific with people unless you really know where they're at, where their food is, how much proteins that they're eating, what kind of carbs they're eating, how they're responding to those foods so that you can give them a more clear cut picture. But you know, when people always reach out to me and they're like, I did this and all this crazy stuff happened.
Kate (48m 57s):
I'm like, okay, well did you food log it? Do you actually know specifically what you did? Well, no. Oh, go. Okay. Well I can tell you that people's memories to what they ate the day before is not great. If you ask 'em a week or two weeks or three weeks, it's like they could, they can't tell you. So unless we have some level of data that says this is what you're actually doing and it's going to help you. As soon as you learn to interpret these food logs, you can actually see where you messed up or why you experienced the thing you experienced. But if you're not getting that information, you're just guessing constantly. And I'm not saying guessing can't work. It can, it just takes a lot longer for you to understand what your body needs and how to get out of that or get to a different destination. Right.
Brian (49m 37s):
You don't know where you're going unless you know where you're coming from. Right. That's right. So like, building a baseline and understanding where you're at, what you've been doing for the last 20 years is, is really important. 'cause like you said, most people don't log and they don't know what they don't, they think they know what they're eating, but they really don't.
Kate (49m 52s):
Yeah, yeah. And I, and I get that logging isn't for everybody. Log a lot of people, it creates so much internal stress and tension. It's probably not a good idea. And, and it could be 'cause they don't have the mental bandwidth to deal with it. And I get that some people don't. And to add that onto their plate, it's just too much, right? So those individuals will be like, okay, it would always be like, what can you manage right now? And I mean, and if they kind of tell me, I'm like, okay, so let's just build a better breakfast so at least your day starts off better, right? So let's add 25, 30 grams of protein to that, you know. And again, depending, depending on the individual with some carbohydrates, And you know, some, some mineral based carbohydrates in there. And then let's assess that. Does that make you feel better?
Kate (50m 33s):
Okay. And so I know if I can start making them feel better, then they're gonna be more able to handle something additional later on down the road. I usually can't give people, you know, 20 things to do. They might need 20 things to do. Yeah. But I learned that a long time ago. Like it's how, how many things? Four, five, maybe max. That's it. Right? That's all we're gonna focus on. We're gonna do that for three weeks. We're gonna reassess and then see what you kind of have the mental capacity to deal with and then we'll continue. And then if you go that path, then we can get you there. Right. But it's the same thing. If you train for a marathon, it's not, go run 26 miles tomorrow. It's go run a mile this week twice. Okay.
Kate (51m 13s):
Now next week we'll run two miles twice and we'll go that path. And then within the, you know, months we'll get you to where you wanna go. But if we try to go too fast or what you're not comfortable with, it's not gonna happen. Yeah.
Brian (51m 27s):
Love that. And what is, where's the best place for people to find it? Kate.
Kate (51m 31s):
They can find me at Kate Deering Fitness on Facebook or Instagram or Kate Deering dot com is my website. And they can get my book on Amazon. How to Heal Your Metabolism or at Barnes and Noble or wherever they wanna find it.
Brian (51m 46s):
Is Barnes and Noble still around?
Kate (51m 48s):
I think they have an online store.
Brian (51m 51s):
Yeah. Right. Yeah. But either way, I'll put a link in the show notes. People can find you there and, and get your book and learn about your services. So yeah, I'm, I was, I'm glad to have you on Kate and yeah, thanks so much.
Kate (52m 3s):
Yeah, thanks for having me, Brian. Appreciate it.
Brian (52m 5s):
Thanks for listening to the Get, Lean Eat Clean Podcast. I understand there are millions of other podcasts out there, and you've chosen to listen to mine and I appreciate that. Check out the show notes@briangrin.com for everything that was mentioned in this episode. If free to subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend or family member that's looking to get their body back to what it once was. Thanks again and have a great day.
