Kitty (0s):
A lot of women, they don't track and measure properly and they're eating too much fat and when you actually increase it by carbs. So I think it just depends on the person. But yeah, I think you can't have a non-specific approach and just go, fuck, I've been eating 200 calories, I'm not gonna track anything and I'm just gonna start eating ice cream and sourdough. Like, you gonna gain weight. When
Craig (17s):
Anyone comes into a fitness journey, they're always like, I wanna lose weight. And you said, well, how much weight do you wanna lose? And they're like, I wanna lose 10 kilos. I'm like, cool of 10 kilos. Do you want it to be fat or muscle? Now that's not a question that gets to ask very often, but people always go, well, I wanna lose 10 kilos of fat. And I go, cool. So we need to train on, based off your current composition, we actually need to train on probably about four to five kilos of lean body mass. And if we can actually do that, if we lose 10 kilos of body weight, the net fat loss will actually be 15 kilos. It'll actually be leaner as a result of you actually putting on lean body mass. So we think about total body weight. There's only two things that's made it up is it's lean body mass or it's fat. So if you are the same body weight, but you put on two kilos of lean body mass, but your body weight doesn't change, that means two kilos of fat comes off your body.
Craig (59s):
It's very simple. It's math. At the end of the day, I think this is where a lot of people just go wrong. It's just
Brian (1m 4s):
This week I interviewed Kitty and Craig, the co-founders of New Strength and the Win at Life program designed to help women build muscle, lose body fat, restore their metabolism, and balance their hormones. We discussed the importance of tracking your macronutrients along with the problems with restricted dieting, the Value of having a roadmap to reach your health goals, the importance of gaining muscle, using carbs for fuel and kitties. One tip to get your body back to what it once was. Really enjoyed my interview with Kitty and Craig. I know you will too. Thanks so much for listening and enjoy the show. All right. Welcome to the Get Lean, Eat Clean podcast. My name is Brian Gryn and I have the duo of Kitty and Craig, welcome to the show.
Brian (1m 44s):
Thanks.
Kitty (1m 45s):
Hello. Thanks for
Brian (1m 45s):
Having us. This was a surprise. I was actually just expecting Kitty and, and I got both of you. So I, I, I like this dynamic. We have, I
Craig (1m 52s):
Was chop up some potatoes before and she's like, come and do this podcast with me. Put the, put the potatoes on the air fryer and here we are.
Brian (1m 58s):
Yeah. Well I'm glad to have both Jan. I've heard Kitty on a, on a few podcasts already and then obviously you have your own. When did you guys start your podcast? Gosh,
Kitty (2m 7s):
In a few years now. Hey.
Craig (2m 9s):
Yeah. Was it, I think it was before Covid hit, I think. Yeah. We're up to,
Kitty (2m 14s):
No, I think it was after Covid. I think we really sort of did, it started when we moved to Surface Paradise a couple of years maybe.
Brian (2m 20s):
Okay.
Craig (2m 22s):
Feels longer that, I dunno, is it, we've got over 350 episodes now, so there's a few, yeah.
Brian (2m 26s):
Yeah. That then for a while. Yeah. 'cause they started mining in around, I gotta say around 99 or 2000 and I do twice a week. Oh wow. Almost. Wow. Yeah. So
Craig (2m 36s):
You've been doing this a long time. You're proper season vet now. Wow.
Brian (2m 41s):
Getting there. Yeah, getting there. Yeah. I've had a, a few different backgrounds a change moved houses, so yeah, it's been going for a little bit. What would you say in one sentence, what, what, what sort of your mission is of your, of your business? That's
Kitty (2m 52s):
A good one. I think we're, I think we like, we just want to empower and educate women to take control back of their nutrition and their health and their bodies. Get strong, eat real food. 'cause we love food. Eat carbs and just win at life. Actually, the, the reason that we called our program the Win at Life program is because we, when we very first started this whole journey, we opened a gym and we did that for three years and that's where we really developed our methodology. And there was a, a lady in there, she was beautiful, she was an ex ballerina and she had really disordered eating, as you can imagine, from being a ballerina. And she'd done all the diets and had all the hormonal issues and she went through our system and she messaged me one day saying, kitty, I've never had a framework that allowed me to just win at life so much.
Kitty (3m 39s):
Oh. I was like, that is brilliant. Yeah, that's, we called the Win at Life program.
Brian (3m 43s):
Oh, that's, we had. Great. Yeah. So she gave you, she gave, she came up with a tagline.
Kitty (3m 48s):
Yeah, yeah. Win at life because it really does, you know, like it, it's, we were just talking about this today. Like we get so many messages from women doing our challenge, doing our programs, just saying how life changing the program is. Because I think once, like, I mean, you guys aren't women, but you might have done, well Craig's never done restrictive diets, but Brian, maybe you've got a restrictive dieting background, But it just consumes you your whole life and you're just exhausted. And once you're actually free from that, it just flows on into all areas of your life. You know, like, I mean, it, I changed my whole trajectory of my life. I left my job in mining, Craig and I opened this gym, we developed our program, saturating now the program company.
Kitty (4m 27s):
If I'd not found this and found Craig, I would've still been killing myself eating, you know, nuts and seeds and green vegetables and just hating my body and my life.
Brian (4m 39s):
You know, I was thinking about this before we came on. I do feel like the health and fitness realm is sort of shifting back into getting out of this restrictive eating phase. I think for a while, you know, and I was, you know, from my background, I, I have done, I did do fasting for a while and I wouldn't call, I was like, I was doing it more just to see how I would feel and how it would affect me. And it was actually a good experience. I didn't have like a horrible experience with it. But since probably the last, gosh, probably three, four years I've started consuming more. I realized once I started tracking, I realized that I really wasn't eating enough for just where I was at. Which I think a lot of people, if they start tracking, will figure out that they're probably restricting quite a bit.
Brian (5m 24s):
I'm sure you see that. Yeah.
Craig (5m 25s):
I think it's probably one of the biggest eye openers when we work with people. You know, they, they'll say things, it's like, oh, you know, I'm, I'm eating anywhere between 1800 to 2100 calories. And I'm like, what are you basing that on? They're like, oh, you know, I kind of have a bit of an idea of I eat this and whatever. And like straight away for me, I'm just like, well that's a pretty decent calorie differential, you know? And then once we start going deeper with some of the subjective measures, you know, with their energy and their digestion, their mood And you know, especially women with their menstrual cycles, I'm just like, look, you can't fill me with any real confidence here of what you're doing is with any certainty. So let's start tracking and let's actually see what you're saying is actually happening as opposed to what you believe is happening.
Craig (6m 6s):
Because I feel that's the downfall certainly within the industry, is what people say they do. And what they actually do are generally pretty different things, you know, and that's just not from a calorie and macro standpoint, but also the types of foods they're eating and the amounts to understand some of the more micronutrients that they're getting or they're not getting in, in a lot of these cases. And you know, I I, I think with, you know, especially with a lot of the women that we work with, a lot of the hormonal issues, I mean, it all comes back to, you know, energy. You know, they, they're autoimmune issues, thyroid issues that, you know, it's, it's all an energy deficiency issue to start with. And then we get down into the micronutrients and it and it's just, you're never really gonna get on top of that or really move the needle with that stuff unless you have that awareness of what you're actually consuming on a consistent daily basis.
Craig (6m 50s):
So, you know, I know for some, certainly a lot of women we do get in that tracking can be quite triggering for them depending on their background, their eating history and that sort of thing. Right. You know, so there's, there's always a bit of a, a little bit of a compromise there at times for sure. But I think if they can just get in and do it, I said, look, let's just do it for two weeks. We can just do it for two weeks and then you and I can both see what's actually happening here. It nine times outta 10, it's kinda like deer in the headlights moments. Like, oh wow, wow. I was, I really thought I was doing better at this or I wasn't under eating this. And it's just like, yeah, now we can start to empower you because you have this awareness. I think that's really important. And kitty,
Brian (7m 25s):
What, what was your sort of story going from restricted dieting and then getting into, I know you've, you studied Ray Pete for a bit and learned about like, sort the pro metabolic way of eating.
Kitty (7m 35s):
So I basically just did all of the crazy diets for like 17 years of my life. Fasting sold, sold isogenics for 12 months, paid for my fake boobs, which I then got out, spent about 40 grand and getting my boobs back to their normal boobs that they were Okay. Just all shit that you do, you know, with when you're trying to fix how you feel and you focus on the outside. But yeah. Oh God, I did some stupid shit. AI Craig always laughs at this on ate tuna and apples once for 12 weeks. Una apples I took, yeah, that's the best dura mine I took. There's this drug in Australia you could take and you poo out any fat you eat. It was disgusting. And yeah, so basically I just cycled through all that. I competed a few times as well 'cause I thought, oh, that's a great way to be lean. And they look so good And you know, I didn't know how to train probably then and just died the fuck outta myself.
Kitty (8m 18s):
So just totally destroyed my hormones, lost my period. And yeah, then I, I got divorced and I was seeing this, oh, what was she, she was like a psychotherapist and we would always talk about nutrition. 'cause I was always looking for the next, you know, diet. And she just asked me had I ever read any of Ray Pete's work. And so I went off and read her, her his work, found Emmaus, my business partner and friend in saturate. And I did her 12 week, worked with her for 12 weeks, learned all about rain. I was just like, oh man, this is life changing. Like I, 'cause I'm the sort of person who just goes all in because when I read all of the articles on her website, I was thinking, oh man, this is exactly why, excuse my French.
Kitty (8m 60s):
But I swear sometimes
Brian (9m 3s):
Why,
Kitty (9m 4s):
Why I am the way I am. Because I'm just basically doing the opposite of what she's talking about. Like, I didn't eat fruit, you know, I cut dairy outta my diet. I thought that dairy was inflammatory. You know, I, I made my own almond milk because normal milk was too high in sugar. And yeah, I just went all in at the same time. I met Craig and Craig taught me how to strength train and focus on body recomposition and track macros and energy balance. And so it just completely transformed my body and health. I got into power lifting and then, you know, I just hated my job in mining. So Craig and I thought it'd be a good idea to open a gym. Yeah. And just, you know, 'cause we were so passionate about what we ha were learning, you know, Craig, I introduced Craig to this way of eating as well.
Kitty (9m 47s):
And yeah. And then Emma and I opened saturate and we created our online program, built the app. Now Craig's got the pro metabolic company, which is another supplement. Company's first product is creatine
Brian (9m 58s):
Plus. I
Kitty (9m 58s):
Saw that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's awesome. We've had so many incredible reviews from it so far, which is great. So yeah. And I just love food. I just love eating. I love ice cream. I think that's probably the best thing about this for me, is just being able to eat real food and sleep and have energy and be able to train and have, be strong.
Brian (10m 19s):
What would you say, I mean, I'm just thinking of like the women that you're seeing. Would you say the biggest, what would you say the biggest issue that you see that continually comes up with with these women that you're coaching?
Kitty (10m 31s):
Well, they, they, one is they're not getting specific. So this is one thing that Craig really helped me with, was actually looking at my body composition. And one thing that we do in our program, so when women come into our program, we actually assess their current body composition, metabolic health, and then help them set realistic goals. So I think a lot of women, they're just focusing on weight loss one. So they're not actually looking at how much muscle that they have. And then two, they think that they need to like eat 1200 calories and cut sugar and carbs and fruit to lose weight. And when they actually realize that you can actually eat more, and if you train and get strong and build muscle, you're gonna build this. Like something that Craig said to me, he's like, you gotta stop destroying the body you have with restrictive diets and endless hours of cardio.
Kitty (11m 15s):
Build the body that you want with strength training and real nutrient dense food and measure things and get specific. And that's what's really formed the foundation of our method in our app. And I think why we get such great results, because women actually have a roadmap to reach their goals. They're no, no longer just, you know, 'cause so many women like, oh, I'm, I'm eating healthy, I'm training, my body's not changing. I'm like, what does that even mean? You know? And they're so confused and they're following all this and they follow their, you know, there's this one fitness influence, won't say who she's, but she looks incredible. But she's short and she's obviously naturally, genetically like yeah, you know, genetically she's got this great physique, but you look at what she eats and she eats fuck all and and women
Brian (12m 0s):
And what? And she, what up her?
Kitty (12m 1s):
She, she eats fuck all. So like, you know, like almond milk smoothies for breakfast full of spinach and kale and like makes all these like low carb like pizza based things and she's super lean, right? And like women aspire to be like these women and think that that's what you need to do to look like that.
Brian (12m 21s):
Yeah. You're like, I got married five years ago and my wife was actually really into cardio and I got, I similar to your story a little bit. Like I got her into strength training and she looks great and I'm still working on the diet part. And I feel like that that part, the, it's, she's been restrictive for so long and it, and we're working on getting, but I feel like it's tough because you know, when you're not used to eating that much, you don't know. And then you wanna start adding on like one thing Kathleen Stewart scared. What's that? Yeah, they're scared. Scared. They're
Kitty (12m 51s):
Scared to eat more. 'cause you think you're gonna weight, we gain weight. Yeah,
Brian (12m 54s):
Yeah, yeah. She's like, well, and she almost feels like she's actually almost putting on weight from being restricted for so long. Have you seen that? You know, where maybe they just sort of, I
Kitty (13m 4s):
Think when they're truly, truly, like I interviewed this woman, this is an example of this. You know the ones that she's small though too, like 53 kilos. But eat, she actually is eating 1200 calories. Well that's my wife, but she was in foot really inflamed. Like super inflamed. She's been in our program now for 18 months. She's actually dropped 7% body fat, 52 centimeters, healed her endometriosis. So she had endometriosis and she's eating like 2100 calories a day. Now. Brian, send us your wife, we can help.
Brian (13m 32s):
Don't worry. What do you think? I'm interviewing you guys. Yeah.
Kitty (13m 34s):
Do you know what it is though? This is why the measuring and like why we're so passionate about this is because when they come in and they use our system, we assess their body composition, they set body composition goals, we set calories and macros, they build the meal plan and every week they check in so she can physically like this. This woman, she was like me, Marc, myself. So I came from that. I was 54 kilos at my lowest weight. I'm five foot eight. Can you imagine me at 54 kilos? So when I actually came in and I followed the system, I was like, okay, cool. When it's measured and I eat this food and I strength trying to get stronger, I can see that yes, I'm gaining weight, but what I'm gaining is muscle,
Brian (14m 11s):
Right?
Kitty (14m 12s):
I'm gaining muscle, I'm looking better and I'm feeling better. So you're actually measuring. 'cause I think what happens is they gain weight and they go, fuck, I'm gaining body fat, I'm gaining body fat. But when you, what we find is when you measure it and you increase their strength at the same time as you increase the carbohydrates, that energy goes to building muscle. But they can actually see, okay, cool kitty, I'm not gaining a ton of body fat when I'm actually gaining this muscle. And that re reassures you. So for me, I was like, oh, okay, sweet. I eat this food, I go into the gym and get really strong, look at my body change like I'm looking athletic and mu I'm feeling better, I'm sleeping better. And then it was just a mental game of me getting over the weight on the actual scale because for so long I'd been so conditioned to being, I have to be under 60 kilos.
Kitty (14m 56s):
I'm like 69 kilos now. Yeah. Amazing. My book heaps better. Yeah. And I feel heaps better too. Yeah.
Brian (15m 3s):
Yeah. And, and, and Kathleen talked a little bit about like, you know, starting out you gotta sort of go slow. I mean, you know, if you, you've been restricted for so long, it's like you just start like consuming everything. It's like, you know, that's when things could get maybe a little bit outta whack. You wanna sort of slowly implement these changes.
Kitty (15m 21s):
Well I think, look, this woman, when she first came in, she went from eating 1200, we jacked her up to 1800. Wow. That's a decent increase. Yeah. However, we got a training appropriately as well and tracked and measured everything. So I think sometimes it's like, and we increased it from carbs as well, I think, I don't know if Craig agrees with this, but like a lot of women, they don't track and measure properly and they're eating too much fat and when you actually increase it by carbs. So I think it just depends on the person. But yeah, I think you can't have a non-specific approach and just go, fuck, I've been eating 200 calories, I'm not gonna track anything and I'm just gonna start eating ice cream and sourdough. Like, you're gonna gain weight. Yeah. But if you get specific with it, like we've just seen this time and time again, especially with these women like me and Marcel, there's another lady actually, she, she was again the same thing.
Kitty (16m 7s):
She had really bone density issues. No cycle. Took us 11 months to get her cycle back, got her up to 2100 calories, improved her bone density, and she just did the same thing. We increased her food, increased her strength, you know, got her eating more of these nutrient dense foods. Like she took like vitamin D and vitamin K and magnesium to help with a bone density. But would you agree, Craig, that I think it when it's measured and like it's the person too looking at the person and where they're at.
Craig (16m 33s):
Yeah. Well I I think that's, you know, you touched on that like you've gotta do a body composition test to the start. So when anyone comes into a fitness journey, they're always like, I wanna lose weight. And you said on, well how much weight do you wanna lose? And they're like, oh, well I wanna lose 10 kilos. I'm like, cool of 10 kilos. Do you want it to be fat or muscle? Now that's not a question that gets to ask very often, but people always go, well, I wanna lose 10 kilos of fat. And I go, cool. So we need to train on, based off your current composition, we actually need to train on probably about four to five kilos of lean body mass. And if we can actually do that, if we lose 10 kilos of body weight, the the the, the net fat loss will actually be 15 kilos. So it'll actually be leaner as a result of you actually putting on lean body mass. The lean body mass is a direct reflection of your strength capability in the gym.
Craig (17m 15s):
I mean, calories you consume is the direct reflection of what happens with your body weight. So your body fat is the difference between those two. So we think about total body weight, there's only two things that's made it up is it's lean body mass or it's fat. So if you are the same body weight, but you put on two kilos of lean body mass, but your body weight doesn't change, that means two kilos of fat comes off your body. It's a very simple, it's mass at the end of the day. Yeah. So if we, if we stop looking at it from this, this thing of like, weight is weight, it's muscle, it's fat, it's glycogen, it's water, it's all just weight, let's get rid of it and let's go, no, no, no, let's control the two variables that we can control, which is get really strong, which will control our lean body mass and the amount of calories we consistently will control our body weight.
Craig (17m 57s):
Then it's very easy to measure. You can, you can get to pretty quickly over the spend of like 14 days understanding exactly what's happening with the person in terms of where the calories need to be to start moving the needle. And obviously we'll use like things like temp and pulse to kind of gauge, you know, what's going under the hood metabolically. But the, the reality is if a person can just stick to a certain amount of calories, protein cups and fats, get in the, the gym in three days a week and actually start progressing their training specifically, you, you're gonna have all of the answers pretty much at the end of that 14 days of exactly how your body's responding. Now I I in terms of, you kind of mentioned before Brian, about sometimes you get people who don't really respond.
Craig (18m 37s):
That that certainly does happen. You certainly get people that have been in this restrictive mindset for so long that the body's not changing. And I, I would say in eight out of 10 cases, if they just go through something like a 14 day where they actually just work out the body composition, gold body composition, we set the plan, they, they execute it properly, things will start to improve pretty quickly. If we go further down the road and, and, and that's not happening. Even if they are doing everything from what we can see on the surface, then that's where we need to get a little bit more specific and kind of go, okay, it's likely you're running more off a stress system. We'll be able to see that with the temps and pulses stress system is cortisol and adrenaline. You know, the, the thyroid system is gonna be more regarding T three.
Craig (19m 20s):
We know that 60% of T four and T three conversion happens in the liver. The other 20% happens in the gut. Gut always comes first, let's fix the gut, let's support the liver. That conversion always starts to happen and that works in conjunction with what we're doing from a food and training perspective. Now all of this can be measured. It's, it's very, very simple. It's all very, very straightforward. But if we're very specific in what we're doing, you know, you can generally see progression happen very, very quickly. So I'm a big proponent, obviously in order to get T three to happen, you need a lot of co-enzymes, sorry, cofactors to be making sure that happens. Carbohydrates are generally gonna be your best friend. So as Katie sort of mentioned before, if we can keep fat at around 20% of total calories, you know, set protein where it needs to be relative to lean body mass, then you just, you ramp up carbohydrates as much as possible and try and do 'em from the easiest, digestible and absorbable forms.
Craig (20m 15s):
You know, some people can't handle rice so you know, other people can do what, you know, whatever it is. You find those foods that really work for you that, that feel good and don't cause you any stress. You just stick with those, you bump up the quantities every week. You look at your hunger signaling, you look at your performance in the gym as Jim and I've, I've done this with clients before. I'm like, okay, we've set this foundation after four weeks. Cool. Follow the program, get really, really strong. Let me know when you start to get hungry, A couple weeks go by, Hey I'm going, I'm starting to get hungry. Cool. What's happening with your body weight? Okay, it's, you know, they've got a lot of weight tools, it's coming down, but the measurements, the girth measurements are coming down So we know that it's body fat's being lost. We can see from the training logs that those are going up.
Craig (20m 56s):
So muscle must be going on. So they're going through this hybrid fat loss body recomposition phase, but all of a sudden they're starting to get really hungry. Cool. How's your performance in the gym going? Yes, it's still going up. Cool. Let's put some more food in. Because if body weight stops but performance still goes up, then we know as I can, as I made that point before, your body weight is only made up of muscle and fat. If strength still goes up, then what goes up has to be lean body mass, which from, if you put on lean body mass, your girth measurements go down so fat comes off it. But the thing is, lean body mass still weighs something. So I think, you know, from that perspective, sometimes people have a very specific body weight goal in mind.
Craig (21m 36s):
Like Kitty had, she's a, you know, five foot eight and wanted to be 53 kilos. I'm like, there's just no way you're going to be that you're, you're just far too tall if you're gonna be five foot one. Sure, that would make sense. But sometimes people have this specific goal body weight in mind and it's just like, yeah, but your composition is going to massively change if we get as strong as possible. So sometimes a person will go, Hey, I've set this goal of 65 kilos, but all of a sudden they're at 60, 70. You know, they've come down from say like 75 kilos, you know, we've gone through this process, they get to 68 and they're like, I'm fitting into this skirt now better than I did when I was at 65 kilos. And I'm like, yeah, because you've got more muscle. The person who has more muscle will always be wearing this, the smaller dress size because they have more muscle.
Craig (22m 20s):
So if, I hope everyone's sort of staying with me. I know I trying to get on a bit of a tangent about this, but I'm just trying to highlight the point that if we can actually measure what is affecting muscle And what is actually affecting fat, all of those things that are conducive to getting those results are very easily measurable. So yeah, I I just, I think this is where a lot of people just go wrong is it's, it's just they're not measuring the things that need to be measured in order to get the objective result that they've set for themselves. Yeah.
Brian (22m 46s):
But that makes sense. Yeah, well put, I mean I think it's important to, to look at body, like you said, measuring and getting specific is so important. And a lot of people, like you said, come in and say just they just wanna lose weight. Well they, you know, you have fat and you have muscle and you have, obviously you have bone mass as well, but like you have to get really specific and, and it more importantly it's, it's a, I think body composition is a good place to, to look at as opposed to just total weight. I do DEXA scans. I don't know if you have ever done like a DEXA scan, but I'll do a DEXA scan with, with clients and that's like, not every, you can't get that everywhere. I don't know. We have one like in the area. So it's nice. So I'll do it for myself and for clients and, and that can really get specific, which is nice.
Craig (23m 28s):
Yeah. 'cause you wanna be able to separate that. I mean, when, when I talk about lean body mass, I mean that's, as you said, it's, it's, it's bones, it's organs, it's, you know, water, it's glycogen, it's connective tissue, but it's also skeletal muscle tissue. Now skeletal muscle tissue is the one that we wanna affect the most because that's obviously a thing that's going to change your physique and obviously increase your resting metabolic rate over time. But it's very hard to, well it's impossible unless you get a carcass analysis to, to measure exactly how that's going on. So we have to look at lean body mass, but you know, ultimately at the end of the day, yeah, a DEXA is excellent. You know, growth measurements are
Brian (24m 7s):
Excellent. Yeah. Let's get a little bit into sugar and carbs. So I, I do feel like, and I was saying this before, it's starting to shift a little bit And you know, not to say that I, you know, I think people have had, you know, there's plenty of people out there who have thrived under low carb for a while. But a lot, a lot of, especially, let's just say health influencers are sort of shifting a little bit. Who did I just see, Mark Bell is, is starting, I don't know if you guys saw that. You know who Mark Bell is? Yeah,
Craig (24m 32s):
Yeah. He's been a big keto guy for a long time. Yeah, no,
Brian (24m 34s):
He's, I think he wrote
Craig (24m 35s):
A book, didn't he? He wrote a book on he war on carbs or something like that in front.
Brian (24m 39s):
Yeah. 'cause he did lose, he did help him lose a bunch of weight and I think now he's been doing it for so long. And I think that's where the issue lies. You know, I think people can do a low carb, let's just say diet and get results. Right. Especially if they're coming from eating the, you know, standard American diet. Right. And they, and they start eating whole foods and, and and, and going low carb. But I, but I think the problem lies and, And you know, you guys can talk on this is like the long-term approach of it. 'cause you're starting to see that especially, you know, Mark Bell now is he had, I don't know if you know Cole Robinson who is now promoting just like a, a sugar diet and he had him on, and I don't know if that was what shifted him, but he's been just like pounding carbohydrates Now.
Brian (25m 23s):
I think there's such like a misnomer around it. I did a short video on that. Perhaps maybe let's touch on the advantages of implementing, you know, carbs into our diet And what that can do to help our metabolic rate.
Kitty (25m 35s):
Number one, I'll let Craig talk about the tea. They just fucking taste good and they bring joy into your life of like, right. Do you really need any other bloody re
Brian (25m 44s):
Yeah, I mean
Craig (25m 45s):
That's a very good reason,
Kitty (25m 46s):
Really. Like,
Craig (25m 48s):
Yeah,
Kitty (25m 48s):
Because sourdough bread, potatoes we're just, we put the air fryer on with the coconut oil. We're having air fried chips, you know, ice cream every night. Choc I minted a choc min ice cream and making the ninja creamy rice. You know, like obviously
Craig (26m 3s):
Living in Thailand coconuts everywhere. Yeah.
Kitty (26m 6s):
Oh my god.
Craig (26m 6s):
Coconut water.
Kitty (26m 8s):
It is just joy. That's it. No, no need to add anymore. Go ahead Craig. Well I, you can talk about technically why we need, we should have carbs from a metabolic health perspective.
Craig (26m 16s):
Look, I, I just, I think I, I just, I find it a bit weird when, you know, like the keto people, for example, would just say your body doesn't need carbohydrates. It can live off off
Brian (26m 25s):
Protein. It's like non, it's like non-essential.
Craig (26m 28s):
It's non-essential. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead, go
Brian (26m 31s):
Ahead. No, I just, 'cause Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.
Craig (26m 33s):
And that they said it's non-essential and it's just like, well yes, technically that's right because your body can go through those metabolic ations in order to, you know, give your body what it needs. But at the end of of the day, your, your body cells rung of glucose, like it's biology 1 0 1. Like it's, it's, you can't dispute this. This is exactly how it goes. And the thing is, your body is very, very smart. It wants what it wants when it wants it. So if you just decide to pull carbohydrates outta your diet, that's fine. It will just, the, the, the, the hypothalamus will just tell the, the, the adrenals to release cortisol and adrenaline cortisol will go out, you know, start leaching amino acids from your lean tissue, convert it to pseudo carbohydrates if you want, and just give your body what it needs and your brain and liver and all that sort of stuff.
Craig (27m 16s):
Or you could just fucking eat it. So I'm like, why don't you just stop with the, that that extra step and the, the stress that comes from constantly releasing cortisol and adrenaline to, to give your body what it needs. So I, I just, at a fundamental level, it just, I can't ever grasp their argument with this because your body is literally doing the same, whether you give it carbs or not, it's literally going to do the same thing. Right. So when they just go, oh, you don't need to live off it. And I'm like, it's, it's just, but I, I would also argue that the people that are making these arguments are also not assessing body composition. They're not Right. They're, they're looking at, you know, classic, you know, weight loss or they're looking at certain inflammatory markers come down and I'm like, man, we've seen a lot of metabolic markers just come down 'cause people lose fat.
Craig (28m 7s):
Right. That there's nothing magical to that process. It's just you were in a calorie deficit and you, you things come down and the informational load was just lower. Great, fantastic, cool. But you can still do the same with carbs and still assist thyroid and actually get a better outcome from it. Plus also your lean body mass will be higher because, you know, the lifting of weights is glycolytic in nature. So using carbohydrates for fuel also makes sense. Like it's just, I just fucking battles me to be honest. I, I just, I can't get on board with it. I dunno how they e everyone I feel that has done the low carb thing. You know, I watched Paul Saladino for a long time crap on about the carnival diet. They all fucking come round to it at the end of the day because you are literally trying to defy your body's natural process.
Craig (28m 52s):
And it's just, you know, I, I know under the theand there's a lot of studies in keto research now and, and things that have helped people with Alzheimer. But I, I, again, I i I feel like there's arguments to that as well. Yeah.
Brian (29m 3s):
So Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that sums it up well. I think people hear that they can, I oxidize fat and run on fat for fuel and, and like I remember when I first started doing low carb and fasting, that was like, I was like, wow, that makes, I remember Dr. Jason Fung, who's been a proponent of fasting for a long, long time. And I read his book and, and then, and then, you know, read salads, Dino's book book, you know, carnivore code back in the day. And it just, you know, when you get in it, you know, it's like when you get in the wheat, when you get in there and you don't know anything else. Yeah. You just, yeah. I mean you're like, this makes sense.
Craig (29m 38s):
A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I can see why, especially on the carnival diet, I see why a lot of people do well on it. Because if, if they're coming from a diet, they've got a lot of, you know, allergies or autoimmune issues or whatever, a lot of the time it's, it's the structure of their diet And what they're eating consistently that's just triggering. So you pull all of that out, right? And if you are eating like grass fed steak, which is, I mean the most, some of the most nutrient dense food you can eat on the planet, you know, they're getting a lot more sodium and they dying. They're removing all this stuff. They automatically just feel better. Better. Which is, which is fantastic. It's fantastic. And I think there is certainly a time and place where I, I have done something sort of like that with clients because they're just been, you know, so fucked that we just gotta pull everything out like an intervention diet and just, they just like, 'cause I just want them to feel better like right now.
Craig (30m 22s):
Right. You know, so I'm just like, let's just do this right now. Let's just do it for a couple of weeks. Let's just try and support gut health a little bit more liver, you know, start getting in bone broths and, and things like this really. And they just, they feel better. They start sleeping like, cool, now let's start to bring some of those things back in and start supporting the liver a bit better and start trying to really support the thyroid a little bit better. So I totally get the reasoning for it. But as you mentioned earlier, there's always a long term trade off because at the end of the day, any sort of diet like that that's restrictive of carbohydrates is by definition a stress diet because you are running off cortisol and adrenaline. Yeah.
Brian (30m 58s):
And also long term like adherence and just like living your life. I just think, you know, I mean nowadays, you know, you can, you, there's plenty of people who just eat meat all the time. But like, if you go out and you travel, I mean it can, it can be done. But I just think like when you look at like long-term sustainability of something like realistically, if, if you could eat the, you know, eat a balanced diet, I think that that is the most attainable and long-term, easily achievable thing to do.
Craig (31m 30s):
Yes. I completely agree. But it is also like why do people go towards, you know, I, I remember hearing that, that, you know, they talk about Eskimos and they're like, oh, look at Eskimos, they're,
Brian (31m 40s):
Oh right, yeah.
Craig (31m 41s):
They, they live off off whale blubber And you know, fish, whatever, and they've survived. I'm like, that is a terrible example. They, they live in the harshest conditions. They've all got missing teeth. Like they, they're Yeah, right. That's not a good example. But if you move them to the equator, they'd all start eating fruit and whatever because it would be delicious. You know, and, and I think, you know, going by taste of something, if if tastes really, really good, then you are generally gonna be wanting to do this more. And then if you start looking at some of your subjective measures and looking at things like attempts and pulses and then it's just like, oh, my energy's more stable and my mood's better. You know, it's just, IIII think it's very hard to sort of then be at a point where you could say that that's a bad thing.
Craig (32m 22s):
Because if a person's quality of life is improving by implementing these things and that quality of life also comes to you, as you said, if you're traveling And you know, you want to have, have, be able to have that flexibility where you could eat certain things. Like when we first moved to Thailand here, you know, we were living in Dubai previously moved to Toland. It's, you know, the, I mean it's two different universes really. And we are enjoying some of this amazing Thai food here. And certainly some of the conditions aren't the most UR at times. So you got that to deal with. But the thing is, it's like all of a sudden we had all these coconuts available, we had this, you know, these this amazing, you know, fish with the, you know, the pad ties and all this. Like, it was just amazing. So, you know, you wanna be able to enjoy that and not have to worry that it's causing all of these issues.
Craig (33m 7s):
So I think everyone can get to that point if they do the work.
Brian (33m 9s):
Yeah. And Katie, to your point, like I, I remember Jay Feldman saying this on the podcast. He's like, 'cause you know, the whole ancestral theme has been just like hammered into us what we ate as ancestry. He goes, you know, there's something to Jay's like, well yeah. You know, eating, what did he say now? Eating ancestrally back then was like, might not be optimal now. Like, is this, you know, like hun hunter gatherer society. Like they were, you know, that times going of periods of food without periods of time without eating and, and because they didn't have a choice. But he's like, that doesn't mean that today, now that's like optimal for living, right? Like that was just, that was just the conditions that were set.
Brian (33m 50s):
That's just
Kitty (33m 50s):
What it was. Yeah. Right. I also think too, like we live differently now. Like they didn't like live indoors with not getting enough bloody sunlight, stress the fuck out because they're striving so hard to like build their business or get ahead in work. They hate their bloody wife. They've got, you know, just gonna say they hate that. But you know, they're in this toxic relationship, you know, they're stressed out by social media And you know what I mean? Like, it's just a different environment. I feel like there's more stress stresses. So I think you have to be more diligent and specific with your nutrition because you need the fuel, you need the carbohydrates, you know, we are doing more as well, I think. Yeah.
Brian (34m 28s):
And to, and to that point, like, I remember Jay saying like the stress bucket, right? Like whether you get cut off at work, driving to work Yeah. Or you're, or you're, you're or you're fasting. Right. Those are all go into the stress bucket. Right? Yeah. And like you said, nowadays modern life is more stressful. Yeah. Perhaps than, you know, maybe back in the day and where it was, you know, a little bit different. So you have to keep that in mind. Like, should you be doing all this restrictive dieting and also be stressed out at work? Like now you're just topping on stressors one after the other. Yes.
Craig (34m 59s):
Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Stress on top of stress equals more stress. A hundred percent agree. It's, it's, you know, we, we, we are just, we, especially now in the first world, like it's just, it's a thing where you just can take on more stuff because you've also got more efficiency now. Like your phone can do anything. It delivers your food. It tells you, you know, like there's so many things that you can just do within your life. And, you know, it's funny, Willie, I was having a conversation was, feels like time's just flying by so much. I'm just like, yeah. Just 'cause we can take on more stuff more efficiently. Mm. But I, I don't think it's always a net positive. Like it adds massively to our stress. So, you know, I, I think just from that alone, you know, it's, it's always gonna make sense that our, our food consumption and, and the choices need to be more specific if we wanna stay on top and not crash and burn.
Craig (35m 46s):
Right?
Brian (35m 47s):
Yeah. And, and, and carbs help bring down cortisol. Yeah. Right. I mean, yeah.
Craig (35m 52s):
Quicker than anything else. You know, this is someone stressed out, it's, you know, like Ray would always talk about, he was like, you know, if someone's having a bad day, it's like, put some aspirin and give him a coke. Do you know?
Brian (36m 3s):
Yeah.
Craig (36m 3s):
If you think it proves pretty quickly and it, it just,
Brian (36m 6s):
You know, have a, have a glass of orange juice.
Kitty (36m 9s):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and even I notice this if I don't, you know, be quite mindful and purposeful and intentional with my eating, if I'm under fueled, I massively notice that like, sleepy shit, don't sleep through the night. I'm tired, I'm moody. And then as soon as you just actually eat a well balanced meal with carbohydrates and protein and fat, you know, you instantly feel better.
Craig (36m 32s):
Yeah.
Brian (36m 32s):
What are your favorite carbohydrates to, to use for yourself and for your clients? Because you know, we, it it's, it's such a broad term, right? Sometimes I think people label carbohydrates as like a donut. And yes,
Craig (36m 44s):
We're not quite, bar should
Brian (36m 46s):
Clarify this. Dirty,
Kitty (36m 48s):
Dirty, what do you call it? What's the donut? The glazed donuts. What do they called? Oh,
Craig (36m 52s):
Krispy creams. Krispy
Brian (36m 53s):
Kreme is pretty
Kitty (36m 55s):
Dirty, but good. I think like everyone should be including some root vegetables and fruits in their diet because they're really nutrient dense, easy to digest. And then on top of that, what do you enjoy? You know, like I eat quite a lot of rice. Craig doesn't do so well with rice. I eat like sourdough every day. 'cause I love sourdough. I love orange juice. Oh my God. I love orange juice jam. You know, but like
Craig (37m 20s):
Alade Yeah.
Brian (37m 21s):
If someone's coming from a restrictive diet, I, I, I don't know. You know Dr. Cola, he's also another guy who switched. Yeah,
Kitty (37m 28s):
Yeah.
Brian (37m 29s):
Just read his book. I've been trying to get him on the podcast and hasn't quite worked out. But he talks about, especially if someone's coming from a really restrictive diet and maybe even a compromised gut to start with like sugar water and just sip on that. Any thoughts? 'cause it's just so easy to digest. Do you have an approach when, when it comes to that? Yeah,
Craig (37m 49s):
Yeah, I totally get that. Because obviously sugar is just energy, right? Right. It's avoidable nutrients but is just energy and your body can kind of digest it very, very quickly. I I think it depends. Yeah. I mean this is very much a person specific type thing. I mean I, I've never personally done the sugar water thing with someone because I think if they're in that such a state that you have to get to that I would just take carbs out completely and then just do a gut protocol where, you know, we're really focusing on trying to just get them back to being able to eat some foods. Like I would rather someone eat honey because that, you know, has a lot of any bacterial properties and, and it's generally gonna be a little bit better from a nutrient perspective. But it absolutely makes sense. I mean it, it, it's again, coming back to that carnival argument before, if they're that stage, it's just like, just remove them all together.
Craig (38m 33s):
Fix the issue that they've got to fix and then slowly bring the things back that they enjoy. Because I feel if people are eating things that they like and they can get back into a decent structure because I'm not a big fan of people just sipping on sugar water, you know, when they've, when they feel like they need it. I think that's, that's probably a bit short shortsighted. But yeah, having a balanced meal, like a protein and carbs together, you know, and then trying to have things that they could just, and that might, that might be on, it might only be a couple of things. It might only be for some people it might only be rice or it might only be, you know, white potatoes and they've gotta cook it really well and they might have to have it with some, you know, some saturated fat to help sort of bring the starch content down a little bit lower and allow 'em to digest it, you know? But you know, there's, there's certainly a few ways to do that, but,
Brian (39m 14s):
So yeah. No, I get, I told, I I, I, yeah, I get that. And so as far as carbohydrates, just so people know whole food, carbohydrates for obviously we're talking rice. Yes. And in particular probably white rice. Yes,
Craig (39m 27s):
Correct. Yeah. Brown rice is too, it's got too many nutrients in it and generally is quite tough on people's digestion. So white rice is awesome. White potatoes awesome. If your liver is okay, sweet potatoes fine. Just the bitty carotene, if your liver's not working and their hands can turn a bit orange, which are signs, we pull that back. So those are good, you know, and then like honey maple syrup, obviously fruits I love honey.
Brian (39m 51s):
Yeah, yeah.
Craig (39m 52s):
Oranges, watermelon, absolutely. Look again, fruits is always gonna be, you know, like some people can't do apples 'cause of the pectin and the apple skins, So they might have to take the, the skin off. And so again, that's kind of where it's just finding which ones are gonna work for you and don't cause you any digestive issues and just run with those. But yeah, I mean carbohydrates, it, it's, you know, it's not, we're not talking about Mars bars and, and that sort of thing we're talking about whole.
Brian (40m 15s):
I know. I just, I figured I'd clarify that. 'cause I think that is like sort of a misnomer of people hear carbs and they just think bad, but Yeah.
Craig (40m 24s):
Yeah. Or they say, oh, it's the sugar, you know, the, it's the sugar that's killing it. I'm like, well what sugar are you talking about? Right. Because it's not really so much the sugar that's in the Mars bars, it's all of the other crap and the polyunsaturated fats and the, that's causing the issues. You know, like the sugar that you would get in an orange, for example. It's, it's not the same thing. So
Brian (40m 43s):
It's not, and I was, I just, I was at a market yesterday and I saw like the Mexican coke, which is, if you're gonna have coke, that's the one, right? Yeah. Because that's just right cane sugar and they're, they're not putting all the artificial ingredients, which, you know Yes. And the coloring, the food colorings and things like that, that we wanna, yeah. We wanna avoid for the most part. Yeah,
Craig (41m 2s):
Exactly.
Brian (41m 2s):
Have you had a Mexican coke before?
Craig (41m 4s):
No, we, we tried to get it when we were in Australia, didn't we? We tried to import some, but we, we got stopped. Okay. So yeah. No, no, never, never had the pleasure, unfortunately.
Brian (41m 12s):
Okay. Well I'll ask a few more questions and we'll we will, we'll finish up. But what's, and, and you probably, I'm have a feeling what you're gonna say on this for both of you, but what's one thing you've changed your mind on let's say over the last 15 years? 15
Craig (41m 25s):
Years? Well that was before we, it
3 (41m 27s):
Completely flipped out now
Craig (41m 29s):
Everything, so it's very different. Yeah. Yeah. I mean obviously becoming really good friends with Danny Roddy earlier on when we sort of started all this, he, he was a big proponent and really getting us to understand more, the deeper stuff with Ray as well. So yeah, I mean, my perception of food, how I should be training, how I should be living, you know, you know, just foods that I would've considered health foods, quote unquote, you know, maybe not so much. Right. And, And you know, just, just having the awareness and the knowledge to ask better questions around this stuff now. So yeah, I mean it's
Brian (42m 0s):
Quite a bit probably
Craig (42m 2s):
Play 180, really. Yeah.
Brian (42m 3s):
Yeah. And Kit Kitty, I know you told your story, Craig, had you, did you ever come from a restrictive background or did you like
Craig (42m 11s):
No, I, well, not, not intentionally. Like I, like I'm six foot one and I graduated grade 12 at 65 kilos, which is what, like 160 pounds or something less than
Kitty (42m 21s):
Me. That's I
Craig (42m 22s):
Less than me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I was the real tool. That's crazy. I was a basketball player, I played rep basketball, so I always, I just run, run, run, run, run all the time. And you know, so I was massively underweight and it was only when I got into a bit of an altercation at a party one night, I was like, I think I need to get bigger. And, and, and, and that's kind of where it all started. So for me it was actually like eating enough food. Like I, I, I generally believed that I was one of those hard gainer types that, you know, oh man, I ate lots of food And, you know, I, I just can't put on weight and I, my, my, my first coach is still my mentor to this day, Damon, he was just like, mate, you don't need enough. Let's measure this. Let's do, like, he was the guy that really got me understanding about tracking and measuring specifically.
Craig (43m 2s):
And you know, once you actually start feeling, I was like, oh my god, I can't fit all this food in and whatever. And he was just like, well, you know, keep putting it in. Get your body used to it, you know, let's keep putting the words up. And I was like, this is actually pretty easy when you just measure the things and you stick to actually eating enough food each day and then getting stronger in the gym. And he was like, yeah, I dunno why I'm fucking over complicated this. And it was, that was kind of the, our moment for me. So yeah. No, I, mine was the opposite a little bit actually.
Brian (43m 27s):
And I like to ask this question, kitty may, I'll have you, you can answer it. What's one thing you, what's one tip you'd give someone if they were just getting started, you know, and they like wanted to get their bodies back to maybe what it once was 10, 15 years ago.
Kitty (43m 41s):
I reckon it can be better than it was 10, 15 years ago. Yeah. Like I think about how I was, what am I 44 now?
Brian (43m 49s):
What was the same age that
Kitty (43m 50s):
30? That it can be better. That it can be better. That's not really a tip, but you know, like I'm in better shape Now. I eat more food, I feel better. I look, I just think investing coaching because like you just like you because, and I only say what I would do and I've always invested in coaching. Like I invested in working with Emma, we've worked with lots of different people over the years. Find someone that you resonate with, find someone has the results that you want, that's not a quick fix that's sustainable, changes that make sense and then commit to it. You gotta give it 12 months. Like women, I think they're just so focused on the short term and I totally get it. Like I was the same.
Kitty (44m 31s):
But if you can just knuckle down and do all the things that we've talked about, like you will see incredible change in 12 months, folks on what you do in 12 months, not 12 weeks. And really like get strong, like so many women underestimate how much they can change their body if they fuel it appropriately and get strong. Like it is the key. It is honestly the key and it's fun getting strong is fun. Yeah. It's so much more fun than doing again. I agree.
Brian (44m 59s):
And Body Bon class, you know, have to, I always talk about resistance training so much and I got my wife into it, so Yeah. It's, it's, it's an underutilized thing for a lot of people. Yeah. And you walk into these gyms, there's a thousand ellipticals. It's like Exactly. Yeah. You know what's, where's the focus here? Yeah. But this was great. Yeah. Great interview, love, loved, loved meeting you guys. Where, where's the best place for people to find you?
Kitty (45m 22s):
Probably on Instagram. Just Kitty, K-I-T-T-Y-B-L-O-M-F-I-L-D. The Links there to our website, our podcast, you know, we have multiple ways you can work with us. We've got our 28 day challenge, which is an awesome kickstart, and if you're a bit afraid to go all in and just test the waters and see what it's all about, we have our group coaching program, and then we have our one-on-one coaching program too in our podcast, and obviously saturate. And the program, metabolic company
Brian (45m 46s):
New strength.com is the website
Kitty (45m 49s):
Au au comau au. Yeah.
Brian (45m 51s):
Okay. Yeah, I'll put Links in the show notes and if people want to connect with you. Yeah, well, I'm glad I finally got you guys on. We're 12 hours apart, but we made it work. Thanks
Kitty (45m 59s):
For getting up early, Brian. Yeah.
Brian (46m 1s):
No
Kitty (46m 2s):
Guys bloody, I am absolutely starving. Like, I'm not gonna lie, I'm gonna go out and destroy those air fried potato chip. We're having Mexican bowls tonight with air fried and then chocolate ice cream.
Brian (46m 11s):
Oh,
Kitty (46m 11s):
That sounds great. Bring it on. Yeah.
Brian (46m 13s):
Well enjoy. Thanks again, guys.
Kitty (46m 15s):
Thanks so much, Brian. Thanks
Brian (46m 17s):
For having us. 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.
