0 (1s):
Coming up on the get lean, eat clean podcast.
1 (4s):
So our bodies are really, really smart. They have, you know, they have amino acid, protein needs, they have micronutrient vitamin and mineral needs. If I'm, I don't care how many calories I eat, if I'm not hitting what my body naturally needs, it's going to tell me to eat more. Right. So, you know, it doesn't matter what the, you know, carb load is or calorie count or whatever on those box keto foods. We overeat them because they're not naturally satiating, but a massive bowl of kale and steak and avocados and olives and olive oil instead of cheese. And it's massive, you know, salad, beautiful concoction. That'll keep me full for hours.
1 (44s):
I'm not going to over eat that.
0 (47s):
Hello and welcome to the get clean, eat clean podcast. I'm Brian grin. 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 registered dietician and author Molly divine. Molly has years of experience specializing in adult weight management, integrative and functional nutrition, diabetes management, food allergies, and sensitivities wellness education and customized meal planning. We discussed Molly's journey into keto.
0 (1m 27s):
What a clean way of eating keto is some of her favorite foods, keto and gut health camp, some common keto mistakes and her one tip to get your body back to what it once was. So I really enjoyed meeting and interviewing Molly divine. I know you will too. Thanks so much for listening and enjoy the interview. All right. Welcome to the get lean eat clean podcast. My name is Brian grin, and I have a great guest today. Molly divine. She's a registered dietician and author. Welcome to the show.
1 (2m 4s):
Thanks for having me, Brian.
0 (2m 5s):
Yeah, thanks for coming on. And I was noticing you have published seven books, is that right?
1 (2m 11s):
I have a, the seventh will be coming out next month and all nutrition-related, many of them do have a ketogenic dietary approach, a topic, but for a multitude of different conditions and reasons.
0 (2m 27s):
Okay. Yeah. And my thought going into this was to talk a lot about keto because it's something I touch on my, on my show quite a bit, but we never really had, we never really go deep into it. So I figured you'd be a good guest to do that with. And maybe before we get into that, explain how you got into keto and, and then how you got working with clients out of your dietician and things like that. So,
1 (2m 52s):
Yeah, so interesting kind of story. I came to nutrition and dietetics a little bit second career life. I actually hold a bachelor's of science in language and linguistics from Georgetown university, which is very unrelated to nutrition. I about a decade ago was kind of at a crossroads in life and trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up and started actually a catering business out of my home. I was a single mom with two young kids at the time, and really wanted to find something that I could work from home, kind of do on my own.
1 (3m 33s):
I always loved food and cooking, and I really believe strongly in sustainable ingredients, locally sourcing these things. And through that whole process, I had a lot of clients that were asking me about specific dietary needs. You know, they need to be gluten free or they were looking for low carb. I had no idea what gluten was at the time, to be honest. And so as I started kind of researching some of these things, I was like, wow, there's a whole profession out there that focuses on good, healthy food, nutrition, you know, addressing healthy lifestyle through what we eat. So went back to school, became a registered dietician, which is a little bit of a process, but, and then always knowing that when I went into this field, I wanted to have my own private practice and I wanted to have the focus be on food.
1 (4m 22s):
So I kind of, you know, say I'm a food forward dietician. You know, a lot of people think, oh, I'm going to go to a dietician. They're gonna tell me I can eat nothing, but you know, let us then, you know, rice cakes for the rest of my life, but I believe food should taste good. I believe that food is the best medicine that we have. So I really like to empower my clients to be able to yes, live a healthy lifestyle, but focus on the food part. So that's how I became a dietician and I, I swim regularly. I was a competitive swimmer growing up and swim every day out at, at our club pool and ran into a friend of mine who was working for a, this was about six years ago, a ketogenic supplement startup company.
1 (5m 8s):
And he asked me to write some recipes for their website, ketogenic recipes. And of course, as a dietician, I knew what the ketogenic diet was. It was not as mainstream as it is today. I had never experienced it personally or promoted it with any of my patients at the time. And so, you know, like anything I believe in hands-on, if I'm going to write, see the genic recipes, I need to start eating organic food. So I, I experimented with, you know, recipe development. I lived Quito for probably a solid four weeks before I really kind of wrote some of the recipes.
1 (5m 50s):
And in that time I D I suffer from an auto-immune condition. I have autoimmune thyroid disease. I've had that since I was a child. And along with that, I have a lot of other auto-immune side effects or symptoms. Many of, one of the, my biggest symptom at the time was just poor gut health bloating, just uncomfortable after eating. And it didn't matter what dietary intervention I had tried. I just never really found relief. And in this period of time, my little self experiment, trying to figure out what ketogenic diet meant. I had complete relief of symptoms.
1 (6m 31s):
So I was like, wow. You know, not only did I have improved energy and felt great, was able to continue with my swimming, my performance improved, my gut health completely turn did a 180. I felt so much better. So with that, I became a convert of the positive effects of the ketogenic diet and started promoting that with a lot of my client base. I do practice nutrition counseling. I do most of it via telehealth with clients nationwide. Not all of my clients are on a ketogenic diet. I don't believe it's a great step for everyone.
1 (7m 11s):
It's not sustainable for everybody in the long-term, but I think it's a wonderful solution to a lot of health concerns and medical problems. And it can be, you know, the saving grace for a lot of people. So that's kind of how I got into it. The more that I started working with clients and helping guide them through a well-formed ketogenic diet, I became, I became very focused on the difference between cause at the same time key that was becoming mainstream. There's a lot of key though, on the internet. There's a lot of resources out there. There's Facebook pages and there's a lot of, well, I'm sorry, misinformation out there.
1 (7m 56s):
So I became very, very, a big advocate for a heart-healthy like real food based ketogenic approach that doesn't just mean going by the Donald's drive through and taking the bun off your hamburger and not eating the French fries, but really looking at quality of nutrition because I do believe that that makes a real big difference. So that's when I started writing some of these books and just kind of sharing my, my journey and my beliefs and my approach, which has, which has had great success.
0 (8m 29s):
Yeah. And maybe for the listeners, what's your explanation of a, a keto diet.
1 (8m 36s):
Yeah. Good question. So I, I like to think of it as like more of a way of eating versus diet and really looking at lower carbohydrates. So very low carbohydrate, high heart, healthy, good heart, healthy fats and protein. So what that means is majority of what you're eating are, you know, carbohydrates coming from vegetables, mainly those non starchy vegetables, some low sugar fruits like berries, tomatoes, avocados, excuse me, but really having that focus on those non starchy vegetables as your main source of carb high in those heart, healthy fats.
1 (9m 21s):
So things like olive oil, avocados, nuts, and seeds, fatty fish, even good quality Manet's those which are a nice unsaturated fats and then moderate quality protein sources. So, you know, including all the proteins, animals, you know, seafood, dairy eggs, but, but really looking at quality is so much more important than focusing just on your percentages and grams and numbers all of the time.
0 (9m 52s):
Okay. Yeah. That's a great way to explain it. What would you say? I know you talked about gut health and how you got relief when you went into the keto diet. I know that some people have got issues for a lot of different reasons. Right? What do, can you pinpoint exactly what gave you relief? I know you mentioned the keto diet, but anything specifically that you eliminated or added.
1 (10m 15s):
Yeah. Good question. So without kind of diving too deep into that, because that could be an entire nother hour that we, we could talk about gut health. So, so when people experience, you know, typical core gut symptoms, right? So bloating, whether it's constipation or diarrhea, sometimes it's more GERD or indigestion higher up usually happens because of a dysbiosis of the gut. So an MBA imbalance of gut bacteria. So in our gut, we have good and bad bacteria. They both have to exist. That's fine. But, but proper balance is about 20% bad guys and like 80% good guys.
1 (11m 0s):
So these good guys are the army that they keep the bad guys at bay. And when the bad guys get bigger, they start to take over the good guys army. And that can happen for a multitude of reasons. So that can be environmental. It can be because of antibiotics that kill off good bacteria, it can be, you know, lifelong core nutrition. It's more common in women than men, especially as we age. So, you know, my personal journey didn't really have problems until, you know, mid thirties into my forties. Birth control is a big one. That's the one reason that it affects women moral, so it can disrupt your gut health.
1 (11m 42s):
But so, so what happens when we have more of these bad bacteria than good bacteria? Now we have all these symptoms, bad bacteria eat sugar. So I like to use the analogy. So out of this bad bacteria or yeast flakes growth, when you bake bread and you have dry yeast, how do you activate it? You put it in warm, wet environment and you give it food like in this form of, you know, sugar or honey or whatever. And it bubbles, it gurgles, it grows, it multiplies. It gets bigger. Same thing happens in your gut. So when we are constantly having these sugars processed carbs, even good, healthy carbohydrates, like whole grains or starchy vegetables, like potatoes, that is food for the bad bacteria.
1 (12m 32s):
So the more that we eat of those things, the more that we feed it, a bubble Googles and growth, is it continuing to kill off the good guys? So the reason the ketogenic diet helps for gut health, it starts off as bad guys. You're not giving it any of that glucose or carbohydrate food. They have no fuel source, they die off. And it allows you to reinoculate your system with the good bacteria.
0 (12m 57s):
Yeah. Okay. That's a good way of putting it because I know like with gut health, you know, sometimes seeds and nuts can cause issues for people. Even sometimes plant foods can cause issues. Do you ever find yourself with some clients maybe having to cut those out, even dairy right. Can, can cause issues.
1 (13m 13s):
Yeah, absolutely. And so there's a difference between a food intolerance. So actually having an intolerance to a food, which has nothing to do with my gut bacteria or a food allergy and, or, you know, saying, oh, like, you know, kind of, maybe it's a nods. Maybe it's a dairy, maybe it's that. So I w I have a lot of clients that come to me. So frustrated they've been diagnosed with, you know, blanket IBS, right. Which is basically a medical term. We have no idea what your problem is. And they're frustrated because it's hard to pinpoint the one thing. And it feels like, you know, everything I eat is causing me discomfort, or is it this?
1 (13m 56s):
Or is it that? And my belief is that when we have as dysbiosis, that everything causes a problem. So eat like the nuts, which, which wouldn't normally cause a problem are causing a problem because I have this, you know, it's a core it's broken. So my, my goal with when I work with people on gut health is healing their gut, looking at that root cause and getting to the place where I can tolerate anything, because my core is fit and healthy. And so now, now again, different than a true food intolerance. So if somebody truly has an intolerance to theory, that's something that we can, we can eliminate.
1 (14m 40s):
But my goal with everybody is to eliminate as few things as possible, because I think it can be this mind game of now I'm a free to eat anything. Cause I have no idea it is that's causing you my pain.
0 (14m 54s):
Right. And you know, we talk about like elimination diets. And obviously with, with carnivores eating, that's become like the ultimate elimination diet. Would that maybe be a place to start and then con and then maybe add in some foods after that and, and, and figuring out, well, what was causing that or letting the gut heal for what let's just say, I don't know how long it could take a gut to heal. Probably probably depends on how long that person has been eating. Let's just say a standard American diet as to how long it's going to take them to heal, but would starting with something where like the, almost like the ultimate elimination diet, like the carnivore, and then sort of slowly adding back foods on top of that.
1 (15m 38s):
Yeah. So good, good question. I, I think that I would start rather than a true carnivore diet, which does, which does eliminate a lot of those plant-based foods. So those, you know, mainly it's non-starchy vegetables and that those are so micro, nutrient dense or vitamins and minerals. I like to try to keep those in as much as possible. So I would start the place I would start would be more of a, like, pulling out all carbs, all sugars, again, not, not in the non-starchy vegetable carbs, but yeah.
1 (16m 21s):
So greens, so leafy greens, you know, my favorite one is a rugala. So a rugala is one of the most micro, nutrient dense foods out there. It has a nutrition profile. That's almost on par with organ meat, which is, you know, the big, the big benefit of eating organ meats is it has all those vitamins and minerals or GLA has a close profile to those. And it's, you know, K all those types of things. I love any, any time that there's more colors. So things like eggplant or bell peppers that have nice color to them, you know, even tomatoes that on a ketogenic diet, in smaller amounts, asparagus and broccoli and cauliflower.
1 (17m 2s):
So the main starchy vegetables are going to be like your tubers, right? So the tomatoes, sweet potatoes, even winter squash, things like, you know, acorn butter, nuts, pumpkin, those are a little bit higher in the carbs. Beans and legumes are, are a starchy vegetable and corn, so NPS. So those are kind of like, I avoid those. And then everything else is in is in the category of things to enjoy. But I do think, yeah, I mean, with the gut health, like eliminating those triggers of, of kind of feeding the bad bacteria and seeing if that, you know, usually my protocol is about two weeks to see if there's an improvement in symptoms.
1 (17m 44s):
If everything's going great, I'm feeling better. I don't feel the need to, to remove anything. If there's still sensitivity to maybe something like dairy or, you know, yeah. You can kind of, you can, you can become more restrictive as necessary, but I don't know.
0 (17m 60s):
Okay. Yeah. So you start with more like meats, fishes, things like that. Quality meat, wild fish, and then non starchy vegetables. And if those things, cause, you know, spinach and Cal can cause issues for people, especially if you're not cooking and you're eating it raw, then if, if, if that's still not helping, then you might maybe eliminate some of those as well and get more restrictive, but you start sort of less restrictive and then maybe curtail if need be
1 (18m 29s):
Correct. And, and kind of the main focus is on those good heart, healthy fats. So including like, you know, the olive oil, then that's the seas avocados, those types of things as well.
0 (18m 38s):
Gotcha. So what are your favorite things to cook in or, oh, like what do you use to cooking? Because I know that like you want to use certain oils. Well, obviously not vegetable oils, right? So you're, you're cooking your most of your food and in what type of oils
1 (18m 55s):
Olive oil is my go to for everything. So we go through a, that of olive oil in our house. So all of those I go to avocado oil is also an amazing cooking oil has a very high smoke point. It's great. It's just more expensive. So I tend to use that more for finishing, you know, for the flavor or if I'm making dressings, but my go-to is all well, you're correct. Avoiding the vegetable oils, canola soybean oil, corn oil, those types. They're more, pro-inflammatory, they're higher tomato sixes versus threes. I do use coconut oil or butter on occasion, more for flavor. And so the reason being is coconut and butter, both saturated fat, not that that's a bad thing at all, but you always want to have higher unsaturated fat intake versus saturated for just positive with a panel.
1 (19m 52s):
What I kind of, because I have a lot of clients that will come to me with discipline dyslipidemia, which means, you know, basically it's high cholesterol or an imbalance in their lipids. And we have total cholesterol. We have LDL, which is our bad cholesterol and HDL, which is our good cholesterol. We want our HDL to be through the roof. That's heart protective. And our LDL to be lower LDL gets elevated because of saturated fat. So somebody that has been consuming, you know, a Mecca of coconut oil and, you know, butter and dairy, their LDL is going to be higher.
1 (20m 32s):
That does not mean that that isn't healthy. That does not mean that that's a problem. And then that's mainly, I mean, we can kind of go into that, but there's a lot of just general practitioners that will say, Oop, LDL is high. You need to go into stat. Right. And so for my which, which I'm very anti unless absolutely medically necessary. And so for the clients that come to me to try to improve their lipid panel through nutrition, I am like, we need to have more on saturated fats and saturated fat in your diet. So your go-to needs to be those olive oils use coconut when you want Indian flavor or Thai flavor for the coconut flavors, not just as a go-to.
0 (21m 10s):
Gotcha. Yeah. There's a lot of talk about that, you know, with LDL, I think it's all context related. If the person is healthy and metabolically flexible and you know, it doesn't that insulin resistance and things like that, then having a higher LDL is not necessarily a bad thing. Right?
1 (21m 26s):
Well, and particle size is the biggest thing there. And, and so when you look at your, your standard lipid panel, it has total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and triglycerides. Those are the, the, the main things. Now, some, some people will have kind of more of a breakdown. You look at, you know, ratios on there. Sometimes particle size will be on there, but triglycerides truly are one of the highest risk factors for cardiovascular disease. So an elevated triglyceride is, is a bigger risk factor than a higher LDL. Why are triglycerides elevated sugars and carbs? So, you know, I see uncontrolled diabetics with their triglycerides are through the roof, but calming down the carbohydrate and sugar in their diet brings that back down to a normal range.
1 (22m 15s):
And so when we look at yeah, LVO and in of itself animals, that just is not a problem. It was saturated. Fat is combined with those refined carbs to create these very small, dense LDL particles that can stick together and cause blockage. Right. So, yeah, I mean, that's, again another topic for another conversation, but, but unfortunately, a lot of traditional medical providers don't dig that deep and they just say, LDLs, in the bad range, you need a drug because it's easier for them to prescribe that then to talk about lifestyle change. Right.
0 (22m 52s):
Yeah. Totally agree. And what, what are your, what, what are your like top favorite keto foods that you like to use with your clients? I know you mentioned a few already, but
1 (23m 1s):
Yeah. Avocados and yeah. So that's like one thing when I, when I work with people, like, so how do you feel about avocados? And
0 (23m 9s):
If they don't like avocado, cause I love avocado, but some people don't even, yeah,
1 (23m 14s):
I get that. I don't a lot. Yeah. So again, I love, I say like nuts and seeds that kind of put them in the same category. Pumpkin seeds are one of my favorite go Jews. Not only for flavor, they're great sprinkled on salads or yogurt or whatever, but they're very anti-inflammatory so that's one of my favorite ways to get good heart healthy fat in there. All of oil again. I mean, you can't, you can't use too much of that.
0 (23m 39s):
Sorry to interrupt. My, my one question on olive oil is, cause I've heard some different things on that is that the, the smoke point, it isn't as high and you should almost use it as a dressing as opposed to cooking in. I've heard that. W what are your thoughts on that?
1 (23m 57s):
Yeah, so I don't, I don't buy super fancy, you know, extroversion cold press, you know, that $50 a bottle of olive oil and cook with that. Cause you are correct. You lose a lot of that amazing flavor when you cook it off with a, with a, you know, higher heat, but there's no negative health implication to using olive oil to higher heat. And so I tend to just buy your regular, you know, regular olive oil, my favorite go-to three, either Spanish, olive oil or Greek olive oil. So I, I, I tend to kind of default to those. And then I use the fancy ones for the flavor for finishing.
1 (24m 39s):
I also don't cook it super high heat. I'm not necessarily trying to fry food with that. So kind of sticking to that medium. You also just have to be careful too, when, when that, when the oils in the pan by itself at a really high heat, you're going to get all that smoke. So I don't let that oil sit for too long in the pan by itself. Make sure that you're getting your food in there earlier.
0 (25m 2s):
Yeah. Okay. That's a good point. But going back to your favorite keto foods,
2 (25m 8s):
Avocado,
0 (25m 9s):
What about olives
1 (25m 11s):
Love all of, you know, that those are great, like Kalamata olives are my favorite just for that nice salty. I add those in to actually have those in my salad today. I love fish, obviously. So, you know, a big fan of salmon, we that at least once a week usually, but really all the fish, I, I don't exclude anything they're aiming for, you know, avoiding farm-raised seafood, just for kind of that health profile also. And inflammatory markers, we eat all the, you know, all different types of meat as well. So, you know, beef, pork, chicken, I don't exclude anything there either, but vegetables are a huge, huge, huge part of, of our diet and, you know, my diet specifically and kind of whiskeys auto, you know, there's a, a fear of vegetables sometimes because it is a carb.
1 (26m 5s):
And so if I'm putting all of my calculations into a, you know, card manager or some sort of app, and I'm looking at my grams of carbohydrate, people freak out about those vegetable carbs. However, like I said, they are full with the micronutrients, right. They're volumizing good, healthy, natural fiber. So I really advocate for getting all of your carbs from like natural foods. Right? So what I mean by that is yes, non-starchy vegetables have carbohydrates, which is mostly all fiber nuts have carbohydrates, which is mostly all fiber. You know, some dairy has carbohydrates, lactose, but looking at carb carbs from those sources versus, you know, Tito ice cream Quito.
0 (26m 55s):
Yeah. It's a big marketing thing.
1 (26m 57s):
It's a massive marketing thing. And so I work more with total carbs versus net for that very reason because someone said, oh, you only had 10 net carbs, but you ate, you know, 80 total carbs from filler junk food from the grocery store. Right. Right. And so I kind of take that card phobia away. If you're focusing on real foods, your body is processing through kale so much better than it is low carb tortillas. I promise.
0 (27m 24s):
Right. So we hear it all the time, whole foods, whole foods, foods that, that, you know, aren't in a box or don't have an expiration date per se, or actually do have an expiration date.
2 (27m 38s):
Right. Exactly.
0 (27m 40s):
If you don't eat them within a few days, they go bad pretty much. Yeah. Right. Right. Not like a Twinkie, like
1 (27m 47s):
Well, and, and, you know, I think there's a, I'm going to probably butcher it cause it off the top of my head here, but there's a great Michael pollen quote that I think he it's something, it goes something like if it's made, if it's made in a factory, it's something about like, if it's, if it's made in a factory, don't eat it. If it comes from the ground, you know? But like, that's that yeah. That concept of like, if it, if it comes out of a box, it did not start like that. There's so many, you know, iterations of what that other way that food has gotten to, you know, to be where it is now. But if it grew as a ground, you know, for the Mo that's the whole food, it that's the way that it, it came out.
1 (28m 33s):
The other thing about those, you know, even keto friendly because of the net carbs on the front of the package, they're not naturally satiating. So our bodies are really, really smart. They have, you know, they have amino acid, protein needs, they have micronutrient vitamin and mineral needs. If I'm, I don't care how many calories I eat, if I'm not hitting what my body naturally needs, it's going to tell me to eat more. Right. So, you know, it doesn't matter what the, you know, carb load is or calorie count or whatever on those box keto foods, we overeat them because they're not naturally satiating, but a massive bowl of kale and steak and avocados and olives and olive oil instead of cheese.
1 (29m 17s):
And it's massive, you know, salad, beautiful concoction. That'll keep me full for hours. I'm not going to overeat that.
0 (29m 24s):
Right. Yeah. I talk about it all the time is like, if you eat based off of nutrient density, it's going to just fill you up and you won't be able to eat anymore. And if you, I think the key is doing it for like a longer period of time. Maybe if you, if you've been eating a standard for awhile, you know, go for a month without cheating. And almost like we talk about like healing, the gut, you need to sort of heal the gut. So you can sort of know what true, you know, when you're truly full and then listening to that. Cause I do quite a bit of fasting. And of course, if you're going to have a meal or two meals a day and that's it, or even, you know, you're going to want to eat things that are nutrient dense because then you're waiting another however many hours before you eat again.
1 (30m 11s):
Absolutely. I mean, and that's one of the things, you know, again, kind of going back to, you know, who's Quito, right? For, I have dealt in my, in my career with a lot of people that struggle from either binge eating or, you know, chronic obesity and Quito is the first time that they've felt naturally satiated, right? And you know, historic diet culture is eat less, count your calories, go low fat. All of these things make us crave more foods. But when you're eating things that naturally satisfy your body and you can listen to those hunger cues, it is such a beautiful aha moment for so many people that have struggled with poor relationships, with food and eating behavior for years.
1 (30m 60s):
And, you know, I love it when I'm working with somebody that is, you know, yo-yo dieted their entire life, really struggled with this, you know, felt shame what is wrong with me? Why can't I eat less? Why am I overeating? And to say like, yeah, wow. I ate that nutrient dense food like that perfect word. You know, I eat that industry intense food and I wasn't hungry for the next four hours or I didn't need to finish all of that. Cause I was full. I felt great. You know, who doesn't over eat a bag of Doritos. Like nobody opens up a pocket of Oreos needs one, you know? So like those foods are made to be addictive. Those foods are made for us to overeat them.
1 (31m 40s):
And, and so, yeah, so that, that's kind of like the lovely piece of when I eat nutritious satiating good foods, it, it totally flipped that that poor relationship that people have with eating, which is just, it's great to see.
0 (31m 56s):
Yeah. Oh no, for sure. And usually you run to the trouble when you're having foods that are high fat, high carb. Right, right. Yeah. And
1 (32m 5s):
That's yeah. People are like, well, you know, fat I've been told that terrible my entire life. Well, yeah. You know, I mean Donald's milkshake, that's high in fat, but loaded with sugar or a Twinkie, you know, that is different than an avocado that's high in fat.
0 (32m 20s):
Right. Exactly. And what would you say some of the biggest mistakes? I know you've touched on a little bit that people do when they, when they want to go keto. And I know we talked a little bit about that, but would you say some of the biggest mistakes are
1 (32m 35s):
One of the not getting enough fat? That's the biggest thing that I see, I think people mistake Quito with low carb and while Hito is low carb, it's really high in fat. And for a lot of people, especially, you know, women, you know, who have a yo-yo diet and a mental their entire life eat that free food. And that, that is going to make them fat, telling them to get majority of their calories from fat is, is it's a really hard concept for people to grasp. And so, oh, other people like, Hey, I'm doing keto. It's just not working for me. What are you eating? You know, like it's basically vegetables and meat and there's, you know, li it's chicken breast and steamed broccoli and I'm, and I'm, and I'm hungry and I'm not seeing any of these and now I'm hungry.
1 (33m 23s):
And so now I'm snacking all day and there's never any break of food I'm getting, you know, that is one response all day long. Cause I'm, I'm just eating nuts all day long. Cause somebody told me that those were Quito. So it's now. But, but if I had like taken that broccoli and chicken and made a chicken thighs and loaded it with pesto and I have oil, my broccoli, I'm not going to be hungry for nuts at 2:00 PM. You know? So not getting enough fats number one. And that is, it's a hard, it's a hard thing to wrap your head around. But you know, w w when, when I formulate a diet with people and a meal plan and help them understand how to get those facts, then they're like, whoa, I can't believe it works. I can't, I can't pull me like, you know, I feel better and lost weight, eating more fat.
1 (34m 6s):
Like, I can't believe that that happened. That's one, another one is trying to do it all. It's like two bags. So you talked about in our manufacturing, that's very common on a ketogenic diet. The main reason is because you're just not as hungry all the time. It becomes easy, but, but people try to dive like headfirst into doing everything at once. And I believe that, you know, kind of shrinking your eating window or whatever that looks like happens naturally over time and slowly, because you've already made the ketogenic transition and you're eating that way anyway.
0 (34m 44s):
Yeah, no, yeah. And I was just saying a lot of times it's just small changes to your diet. It could be just literally just implementing, like the things that you're talking about. It could be putting a full fat, you know, some type of full fat cheese into, into your salad or adding avocado or olives onto the salad or sprinkling olive oil, like these sort of small little simple things. And they can go a long way.
1 (35m 6s):
Yeah. And, and in that vein, you know, we were talking a lot around keto, but I kind of think everybody should segue into not necessarily Hito, we're not counting ratios, but most of what I eat are quality proteins, non-starchy vegetables and heart healthy fats. It doesn't have to be 75% of my diet from fat. But, but what you learn is that know, like you said, if I adding those things into my salad, by making sure I include those, I feel better and fuller longer. I don't snack on junk. And yeah. And then that, I would say the third thing that people, you know, struggle with or is a barrier for them is yeah, it's keto junk food because you know what, it's, it's a money-making business right now and yeah.
1 (35m 58s):
Keto treats and keto sweets, and here's my keto brownies. And, you know, and, and I think it's this idea of you in gluten kind of got this, like, you know, what a decade ago is, it said, gluten-free, it was automatically healthy, you know? And I'm like, you know, Candy's gluten free. Also. It doesn't make it a whole food, but you know, people say, oh, you don't want to keto friendly. And then all of a sudden they're having keto treats after every single meal. And I'm like, would you eat a regular brownie after lunch? You know, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and expect to be losing weight. Like, no, like that's still, it's still calories. It's still energy that your body does not need just because it says keto on it. It doesn't make it necessary.
1 (36m 38s):
You know? So, and, and, and that's, you know, that's the fault of marketing and all this stuff being available where people do get away from whole foods, they do get away from kind of sense of, yeah. I probably shouldn't be having dessert after every single meal.
0 (36m 54s):
Yeah. I've had some of those keto snacks before in general, and they're all, they're pretty. Yeah. They do a good job of making them wanting, making you, wanting to eat them more and more that's for sure. Yeah. Well, and, and
1 (37m 6s):
So that's, you know, so, you know, artificial sweeteners and whether we wanna call it artificial natural or whatever, you know, so sugar, alcohols and CVO and all those things that are naturally occurring, but they're still artificial in my mind. They still trigger you to crave sweets. So just because you're not eating sugar, it has that psychological addictive nature of now everything needs to be sweet. So now my beverage needs to be artificially sweetened, like this needs to be, and then all the sudden it excites some of that appetite for more and more and more so, you know, it doesn't have that necessarily, you know, physical addiction that sugar does, but it's still, yeah, this is doozy.
1 (37m 54s):
I want more, you know, and now I'm eating out of desire versus actual needs.
0 (37m 59s):
Yeah. I had Jen Stevens on here. I don't know if you're from Jen, Steven, she's a big, big fasting advocate, but we talked about having like, you know, clean, fast, a clean fast, and what's a clean, fast, and what's happened a lot of times is people will add things into while they're in their fasting times that have those sweeteners in that, oh yeah, there's no calories, but it, it, it triggers, it triggers your, you know, your, your hunger and it triggers you to actually want to consume food. So it makes fasting more difficult as if, you know, you're better off just not having those, those foods with, you know, earth, what does that I can
2 (38m 38s):
Pronounce, which is like, I
0 (38m 40s):
Think like in everything now, you know?
1 (38m 43s):
Yeah. And I mean, that's like, so like research tall, Amanda, tall store, but all this sugar alcohols are huge gut disruptors. Right. So I'm like, especially if we, you know, talking about dealing with like gut issues, like adding sugar, alcohols is like one of the worst things you can do, but, you know, yeah. It, and, and one of the beautiful things about pulling sugar out of your diet is that when you eat a strawberry or you, you know, you get like a ripe peach or something, it tastes so sweet and so amazing. And you have so much more, a better receptor for natural low sugar foods. But when you're constantly giving your palette steaks stuff, you lose that, you know?
1 (39m 28s):
And, and so it, it is you're right. It makes it, it's like, you know, I guess like you're quitting smoking and you're, you know, doing fake cigarettes, if you think about the cigarettes, the other cigarette. Right. So, yeah, I'm, I'm, I think, I think keto treats have a place. And then all the cookbooks I do, you know, offer up some ideas. One of my suggestions is, you know, make a batch of whatever your favorite, you know, whether it's a sweeter, like fat bomb or, you know, keto cookie or whatever, and keep it in your freezer. So that a lot of times I'm having a craving, you know, for whatever reason it's stress or is it hormonal, but I'm craving something sweet sometimes just knowing you have an option.
1 (40m 10s):
Like, okay. Yeah. I don't need to go out and get anything. I have something here I'm going to be okay. Or maybe I have like one of those and I'm fine. But, but viewing that as like a daily occurrence can definitely kind of get people in a, in a bad place with it.
0 (40m 26s):
Yeah, for sure. And I would say that, you know, you make a good point. It's like, if you eat really clean, like we're talking for a while and then you have something sweet. Oh, it's almost too sweet. I find that for myself, if I like try something, I think I tried on it, even though it was like a key lime pie, just like a little piece of it. I was like, wow. It's like that. It's just,
2 (40m 46s):
Whew. Yeah. I
1 (40m 47s):
Have like a, a bite of my tea, you know, like, you know, an ice cream cone at the beach or something. And I'm like, whoa, how are you? I'm so thirsty. All of a sudden it's like, how are you eating? You know? And, and another strategy too is, you know, just if you're making a keto recipe and it says, use a half a cup of, you know, swerve use less use of like, it's not in there because of any sort of chemical reason it's there for the sweetness. So ratchet it down. I always suggest my books to like, use more natural flavorings. So places like cinnamon or like almond extract, or I love citrus zest is a great addition to things that like bulk up the flavor without adding any sort of sweetener or anything like that in there.
1 (41m 30s):
So kind of like, yeah. You know, and, and test yourself as I kind of ratchet down the level of sweetness. Can I get away with significantly less and still feel like it's a sweet treat.
0 (41m 42s):
Yeah. Yeah. And just a change of topic I wanted to ask you, I saw on your website, keto diet and libido, I was like, oh, this will be a good one to talk about. Yeah. Well,
1 (41m 55s):
That is interesting. That was a, I want to pop sugar, maybe article that they had had asked me kind of, you know, what we've heard, what's the connection, right. Admittedly, that was not my choice topic, but, you know yeah. Absolutely energy like, so I think some of the topics I talked about in there increased energy, mental clarity, another one too, like Quito naturally, you know, improved body composition when done the right way over time with an active lifestyle. So when I, you know, have lost some of my belly weight and I feel better about myself naked, I feel much more compelled to be naked with my partner.
1 (42m 36s):
You know? So feeling better about yourself having that energy. There's also a big connection to, to, to hormonal balance. Like mainly with women, that's where I work mostly, but in men as well. So, you know, we talk about carbohydrates, they invoke this insulin response constantly. We're being bombarded with insulin all the time. We develop insulin resistance, that's topic, another topic, but this was a hormone. So when I'm, I kind of used the analogy of like constantly pressing that gas pedal, it burns out, but it also has an effect on my other hormones. So a lot of times with women, we can balance out a lot of those sex hormones with just not having this inundation of carbohydrates in Flint all the time.
1 (43m 24s):
So for a lot of women that can kind of help balance some of those hormones out, which, you know, gives, gives me better sex drive as well.
0 (43m 31s):
Yeah. It's all tied together.
1 (43m 33s):
Right. It's all tied together. And I mean, you know, that is why I love nutrition so much. And why I believe food is medicine, you know, before I became a dietician, I believe healthy food was, was lifestyle and medicine. And being able to share that with people and, and, you know, understanding like, yeah, I don't need a litany of medications to band-aid my problems. I need a fix, fix my problems from the inside out.
0 (44m 2s):
Yeah. So true. And one of the questions I like to ask towards the end is all my guests, pretty much all my guests, I asked what would be one tip, you'd give an individual. They wanted to get their body back to what it once was 10, 15, even 20 years ago. It'd be like one tip. You'd give that individual
1 (44m 23s):
Number one focused on nutrition. So oftentimes I should have joined the gym. I need to move my body more. You know, body composition, change, weight loss, all of those things as like 80% nutrition and 20% physical activity, you cannot run a bad diet, especially when I'm like, I don't want to look like I did when I was 20. And I'm 50. Well guess what? I can't, I can't abuse myself and get away with it anymore. So really focusing on what goes in is imperative. I also think kind of looking at it again from a holistic nutrition is very important, but a holistic approach to, I also need to, like, I need to figure out what does my movement look like?
1 (45m 7s):
What does my stress look like? What does my sleep look like? All of these things have huge impacts. And again, when, when I was in my twenties stress, I mean, what, what was I stressed about things I wouldn't blink an eye about now. Right. So, you know, kind of looking at these other lifestyle factors, but you know, and then, and then being kind to yourself. So Rome was not built in a day. You're not going to like lose 25 pounds in a week. It's not going to happen. And if you do, it will disrupt your metabolism. It's going to be a slower process. But being committed to that lifestyle and behavior change, especially when it's relating to nutrition, that's where you get to that place you want to be, and you sustain that.
1 (45m 49s):
You don't look back.
0 (45m 52s):
That's great. Yep. A lot of good tips there. Lot of good tips. Yeah. For sure. And Molly, where's the best place for people to learn more about you and your services and things like that?
1 (46m 4s):
Yes, probably. You can look at my website. So that's MSD M S D nutrition.com. You can also shoot me an email@helloatmscnutrition.com. I do work with clients, like I said, nationwide on nutrition counseling. Most insurance plans do cover nutrition counseling at a hundred percent. So most of the clients that I work with, there's no out-of-pocket expense for them. And you know, that's kind of one of the silver linings of the past couple of years of everything being virtual is that telehealth is normal. Now everybody's used to it.
1 (46m 44s):
They're comfortable with it. And insurance companies are reimbursing for it. And yeah. So shooting me an email with any sort of interest. I also, you know, quick questions, I can always answer over email as well, but yeah, if you're interested in something like a deeper dive, like where you have some semblance of coverage for that.
0 (47m 3s):
Awesome. Well, Molly, this was a great interview. I appreciate you coming on. So
1 (47m 9s):
Absolutely, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Brian,
0 (47m 13s):
Hey, get lean equally nation. Are you a man between the ages of 40 and 60 years old looking to lose inches around your waist have significantly more energy throughout the day and gain muscle all while minimizing the risk of injuries? Well, I'm looking for three to five to work one-on-one with in my fat burner blueprint signature program, which I've developed by utilizing my 15 years experience in the health and fitness space. This program is designed specifically for those committed, to making serious progress towards our health goals. Over the next six months, we will focus on sleep stress, nutrition, meal, timing, and building lean muscle.
0 (47m 54s):
If this sounds like a fit for you, email me@brianatbriangrin.com with the subject line blueprint. That's brian@briangrin.com with the subject line blueprint. 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, feel 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.
