Kathleen (0s):
Some people, they like this kind of more step-by-step approach where it's like we add a gram of carb every day and then like a gram of protein here and there, then a gram of fat here and there. So you're basically adding like four calories to nine calories like every single day again, but staying in maintenance. So you basically want to see that your average weight is staying the same. And that can be hard for people because if you track your weight, you'll notice that it swings all over the place. And it, it always, like specifically for a woman, because of our menstrual cycle, you can have parts of your cycle where it goes up and it just comes right back down again. And so if, if you're kind of one that you're like really weight focused and you kind of really freak out, like right when that's happening, this process can be really difficult, right?
Kathleen (42s):
But it's really important to kind of track how things change for you. So you can see like, okay, this is my pattern. Men experience this too, just in a slightly different way. But women, we all have this like psychoemotional thing that happens around our, during different parts of our cycle. And for some women it happens right before or during ovulation. Some it happens like right before during their period. Some, it happens for both times. But it's basically where we like hate ourselves and we think we look disgusting. Mm. And we notice that like our partners respond to us differently. People are responding to us differently. And so like, we're not like doing this on purpose, like partners are not doing this on purpose, but it's still happening, right? And maybe it's hormones, like who knows what it potentially is, but it's happening. And so in those moments, we're like, we gotta a crash diet.
Kathleen (1m 24s):
Like what we're doing isn't working like all that stuff. And it's important, you know, I say this like, don't make an emotional decision during one phase of your cycle. So like, just wait a week, you know, wait till you enter a different phase of your cycle and see how you're feeling. This
Brian (1m 38s):
Week I interviewed Kathleen Stewart. Kathleen has adopted the pro metabolic life and has a background in physics and chemical engineering. We discussed Kathleen's journey through low carb carnivore, the snake diet and more. We also chatted about problems with the low energy availability state, the Importance of Carbohydrates, Consequences of Prolonged Calorie Restriction, her slow and gradual approach to eating more. And her one tip to get your body back to what it once was. Really enjoyed my interview with Kathleen. I know you will too. Thanks so much for listening and have a great day. All right. Welcome to the Get Lean, Eat Clean podcast. My name's Brian Gryn and I have Kathleen Stewart on welcome to the show. Thank you Brian. Thanks for coming on.
Brian (2m 18s):
I've, I've been following your content for a while now and seeing you on the strong Sissy podcast, so I figured I, I, I figured I'd love to get you on and it worked out well. So thank you for coming on.
Kathleen (2m 28s):
You're welcome. Thank you for having me.
Brian (2m 31s):
And you're in California, is that right?
Kathleen (2m 33s):
Yes, in northern California. Closer to Sacramento area.
Brian (2m 37s):
Okay.
Kathleen (2m 38s):
Yeah, we had, we had some really nice weather yesterday and then we're back in the rain again, but we always need the rain in California, so I'll take it. Yeah,
Brian (2m 44s):
That's true. Yeah, I'm in Chicago and it's starting to get nicer here, but I was in Florida for like a week and it was like 80 and sunny every day. I'm like, why aren't I here more?
Kathleen (2m 56s):
Yeah. I don't know how people in Midwest do it, that that's really, we, we went and saw Ash and Sarah at their farm and even then in the fall it was starting to get cool and I was like, I, I really like the sun And you know, the weather of California for sure.
Brian (3m 8s):
I'll tell ya, I know you talk, I don't know if you talk about red light a bit, but like I have a red light in my basement that I use, especially in the winter months. Yeah. And it, it really helps. And I mean just, it's amazing how much better I felt going to Florida for a week. I actually wrote on it like just, I don't know if it's the vitamin D or the fact that I was walking outside probably grounding a bit with, with no shoes on. It was probably a combination of everything.
Kathleen (3m 34s):
Do you use UV bulbs in the wintertime too, or no?
Brian (3m 37s):
No. Should, should I? Yeah,
Kathleen (3m 39s):
It might be a consideration, especially if, you know, basically you have the hypothesis that potentially vitamin D or potentially even just the UV rays, because obviously we make more than just, you know, 25 OHD and 1 25 oh HD in the body from vitamin D. You basically have this hypothesis that, okay, this is what's making me feel good. So then you basically like recreate it. So you know, try to get like a UVA bulb and see if it's more the UVA spectrum versus the UVB spectrum. And so same thing, get a UVB bulb and see, you know, does it seem like it's coming from one coming from that? Or then does it seem like it's coming more from, like you said the, the earthing, the grounding and then obviously it's pretty freaking cold in Chicago, but you could still do that, you know, like, like you could, I don't know, boil some water, put it on the grounds, like make that one spot of the ground, like kind of warm and then like go outside and like just stay on that one spot.
Kathleen (4m 28s):
Yeah,
Brian (4m 28s):
No, I'm all for that. I could hug a tree, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. UVA bulbs, those are, and those are obviously easily accessible, right? And you just replace 'em with your, with the bulbs that you're currently using.
Kathleen (4m 40s):
Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. They're like a big thing when it comes to like reptiles and stuff because they need that light. So you can typically find it in like a pet store for example, or like on Amazon if you know. But yeah, I'm a huge fan of experimentation, so it's like, okay, if in one area if you notice these like positive effects, it's like, can we try to recreate that as fast as possible? You know? Right. And then see like, okay, does it actually seem like it was from that or does it seem like it was just the fact that we got out of our environment, we're in a new en, you know, I mean there's just so many different things. Right.
Brian (5m 12s):
Yeah. And it could be the fact that I was golfing, which I love golf, probably, like I said, it was probably a combination of everything. But yeah, gotta break up those winners. So yeah. Well maybe give a little just a, you know, short backstory of like, you know, who people haven't heard about you or haven't heard you on from other podcasts. How did you sort of get into the house fair And what led you down this road?
Kathleen (5m 34s):
Yeah, for sure. My health history is like a very long kind of interconnected one, So we would spend the entire time discussing that. If anyone wants to hear a little bit more about it, I would for sure direct them to the first episode I did with Ashton, Sarah. 'cause that's where I discover, like, discuss a lot of it. But I was very much, I had numerous, numerous symptoms. Doctors basically had no idea what to do with me because I had sim, I had diagnoses like all over the place. And you know, when it comes to allopathic medicine, like there's still, you know, I think they're doing a better job of starting to realize that all of these things are interconnected and so they're starting to work more as a team, But it, it's still very fragmented, especially when I was kind of going through the height of this, which would've been, you know, kind of the like 20 15, 20 16 timeframe or so.
Kathleen (6m 19s):
And yeah, I, I, like I said, you know, I had everything from C-F-S-M-E, ketotic, hypoglycemia pots, MCA type issues, MCS type issues. I have HCDS. Yeah. Like the list literally goes on. Right. And, you know, I had sleep issues, GI issues, like all of that stuff. And so, you know, I basically had found out answers in the allopathic approach started going down all of the alternative rabbit holes, like I know a lot of people do. And I basically found some things like Dr. Repeat, Dr. And then through Dr. Ap, Dr. Gilbert Ling, and, and then the Minnesota starvation experiment. And then kind of just started putting more and more pieces together of, okay, yes, the body is not discreet compartments.
Kathleen (7m 3s):
We are definitely more interconnected and continuous than, you know, kind of the approach has been, which really is like really an, you probably know this and most people probably know this, but it's really a, a new kind of paradigm to look at the body as like this discreet thing. 'cause like, you know, even Florence Nightingale looked at the body as more this like, you know, I think holistic is overused, but like this very holistic, like continuous thing versus discreet thing. And it kind of seems like we kind of got away from that. And again, we, we seem to be moving back in the direction of that. But, and even so, so yeah, I, I got really sick before that. I went to the US Naval Academy, got a BS in physics. I was a surface warfare officer in the Navy, and then obviously left the Navy because of health issues, specifically my shoulder, but the other things as well.
Kathleen (7m 47s):
And then I ended up going to uc, Davis and getting an MS in physics and a MA Master's of Engineering and Chemical Engineering. And so what I was gonna say about those things is that at the university and like research level, it does seem like there's a lot more of a push to kind of, you know, interconnect a bunch of these like scientific disciplines together. So, you know, my research in physics was on astatine and using it for micro metastasis cancers. So we were no longer just looking at it from like the physics standpoint of actually producing astatine with the cyclotron. But then now that we've produced it, how do we actually remove it from the bismuth target, which goes into chemistry?
Kathleen (8m 28s):
And then once we have the acetone separated or as separated as as possible, how do we then, you know, deliver it to a patient, right? And so then this goes into, you know, like engineering and, and microbiology and all of that stuff too. So I, I am happy at least from the research front to see kind of more of a joining of the different communities, But it still seems like it's more focused on, you know, like what can we give from, from a pharmaceutical pers perspective versus these kind of more foundational things when in my my view, it's kind of frustrating 'cause people don't, a lot of people don't wanna believe it's these foundational things. But really time and time again, it is for the vast majority of people.
Kathleen (9m 10s):
And yes, there is always the exception, you know, if you look at a normal curve, there's always the tails of the normal curve. And if you stack them up enough of those tails, like yes, there's going to be specific nuances for you, but the vast majority of people are not doing these basic things. And
Brian (9m 25s):
What, what would you say those foundational things are to you? Yeah, yeah. Or for most people. Yeah.
Kathleen (9m 30s):
Yeah. This is like a huge emphasis in the transform program that Tyler and I and, and also Ash and Sarah have. But you know, I would say it's a mixture of biophysics, biochemistry, biomechanics, so movement and then the psychoemotional, right? And so I kind of look at those four things as like the, the big quarters of a pie. And there's obviously a lot of like nuance that goes into that, but like, so biochemistry includes like your diet, a big one being are you eating enough? And you know, a lot of people are not eating enough. The low energy availability threshold is set at 35 calories per kilogram of body weight. And, and yes, there is some argument about is that lean body mass?
Kathleen (10m 11s):
Is that total body mass? But I have found in papers that show either way, basically the, the higher body fat percentage you go, the more it becomes about lean body mass. The lower body fat percentage you go, the more it becomes about just total body weight. But that's a fair amount of calories. So
Brian (10m 25s):
You said th what'd you say 35 per kilogram?
Kathleen (10m 29s):
Yeah, per kilogram.
Brian (10m 30s):
Okay. So if you weigh 200 pounds that's divided, is that divided by 2.2?
Kathleen (10m 36s):
2.2, yeah. So 200 divided by 2.2 is about 91 kilograms. So 91 times 35. Again, assuming that's all lean body mass, right? And you're not like a really high body fat percentage, that's 3,185 calories. And that's for the three
Brian (10m 52s):
3000
Kathleen (10m 53s):
185 85.
Brian (10m 56s):
Okay.
Kathleen (10m 56s):
And that's for the low low energy state, right? So we, we like that is like the, the minimum the floor basically, so to
Brian (11m 3s):
Speak, or a 200 pound, let's just say male or female, let's just say.
Kathleen (11m 7s):
Right? And you know, optimally we wanna see closer to like 43 to 48 calories per kilogram. Again, nuance about lean body mass, et cetera, or, or even higher, right? And, you know, many people are not eating anywhere close to that. And you know, if you look at even some of the, the like USDA research, you know, and even if you go back and look at like the journal vitamins and hormones, they, their first edition, I think it was in like the 1950s, they basically looked at across the country and they looked at, you know, men and women children and like what was their caloric needs? And for like a sedentary woman, she was eating over 2000 calories a day. And we, and we're talking about like a sedentary woman.
Kathleen (11m 49s):
And a lot of people, you know, there's been this like trope of, oh, you, you have to earn your calories, you have to earn your carbohydrates, all of this stuff. And a lot of people in this kind of old health space that, that we're frequently frequenting, they think, oh, I'm sedentary. I haven't earned my calories, I haven't earned my carbohydrates. But it's like, no, are you, are you walking like 8,000 plus steps a day? A lot of people in this space are, and it's like, okay, like you're earning them. Are you lifting twice a week? Like you more than earned them. Like a hundred percent have earned them. So it, it's a very interesting thing. And, and also the dietary guidelines used to be based off of 3000 calories, but somewhere along the line that got shifted to this 2000 calorie marks where like if you look at the nutrition label, it'll say like, based off of a 2000 calorie diet or whatever.
Kathleen (12m 34s):
And I, I believe Ash and Sarah have like kind of honed in on when this whole switch happened. But I think that we've been still trying to figure out like, why did it happen? Why did we go from 3000 being the standard to 2000 not being the standard?
Brian (12m 48s):
Yeah. W like what led you down this road to to to sort of in investigate into, like, I know you talk a lot with Ash and Sarah with the Minnesota starvation experiment and you've dove into that through many episodes, but what made you sort of go down this road of this, you know, low energy availability state that probably most people are in? Yeah,
Kathleen (13m 6s):
For sure. So, you know, I would say Dr. Pete was like the first kind of person that clued me into like, you know, energy drives structure, DR structure drives energy, and then just this like feed forward process. And yes, there becomes a point where you're, you're hitting like your max maintenance calories say, you know, it's kind of like a horizontal asymptote. You like, come up here and if you go over that, you will for sure be in a surplus. Also, I just wanna give a caveat. I'm not saying if you're eating like 1200 calories right now to jump to that 35 at 43 whatever, because you will gain weight because of this. You see this in the MSC, but you have a negative metabolic adaptation. But just like we have a negative metabolic adaptation, and that doesn't mean damage because we, you can overcome this, but yeah, so just like you have a negative metabolic adaptation, you can have a positive metabolic adaptation, but the crucial thing is to not just jump to a place because your entire system is just not prepared for that yet.
Kathleen (13m 59s):
You have to slowly, slowly build yourself up through it. Again, this is kind of like a focus of our transform group, but there's a lot of people that, you know, have discussed and are talking about reverse diets. Like a lot of people are starting to see this Now. I think, you know, for a lot of the reverse diets that are common, I think a lot of people just go too fast. And to be honest, I think, I think this is a difficult thing to accept. And I do think that there are things that you could potentially use to help speed things up a little bit, like potentially peptides and stuff. But that's not my area of expertise at all. So I really can't talk about that or talk on it. But, you know, with cell turnover lifetimes and stuff, we're looking at kind of like a seven to 10 year process and that that's what it took me.
Kathleen (14m 40s):
And that that doesn't, that doesn't mean it's a light switch, right? Like it's not just, we hit seven years and all of a sudden like, things are great, it's, we're slowly increasing over time. So like, you know, over time there's more good days than the bad days. You know, you, it's, it's like a oscillating sine wave that's increasing. So there's always gonna be slight regressions. We just don't want to see like things plummet, right? But,
Brian (15m 0s):
But were you, were you undereating for a while and eating like low car? Like were you like low carb undereating, is that, or how long were you doing that? Yeah,
Kathleen (15m 9s):
Yeah, so I, I definitely tried, you know, at the beginning it was always in the, the, like the goal of better body composition, all of that stuff. And I just wanna say like, I have found way better results on body composition by not undereating, not fasting, not trying low carb carnivore, all that stuff than I ever did then. 'cause I was always like, we talked about this in the MSC, but the amount of like edema issues that people experienced in the s low energy availability state is just like crazy, especially as you're coming out of it. And so that, that really like concerns people because as they're coming out of the LEA, you can put on a significant amount of water and so you think, oh my goodness, I'm gaining all of this weight.
Kathleen (15m 50s):
And it's like, yes, but it's, it's water and you basically have to just let the body go through this experience for it to come out again. And you know, I, I think that the big thing is, 'cause you don't, you don't wanna put on fat mass. I definitely do not believe in like the quote unquote healing pounds unless you absolutely need to put on fat, right? There's a lot of people that truly are underweight and they do need to put on some fat, but for a lot of people, you know, they, they might already be obese in the OB category, So we don't wanna put on more fat because now you just have to take that off in the future. So, so again, it's a very slow process of getting there. But yeah, so I, you know, did everything from, I tried low carb, tried carnivore, tried veganism, tried the warrior diet, like every, you know, tried the, the snake diet, like
Brian (16m 35s):
What's the, oh, the snake diet? What's that? Yeah, yeah,
Kathleen (16m 38s):
Cole Robinson, he used to like just YouTube, but, and he would, he would basically, it's basically like I, I think he's changed things up now, now he basically has people like spam white sugar and water, but you basically would just like dry faster water fast Oh, with like electrolytes and stuff? Yeah. And that just made me, I would just get worse and worse and worse. And then, you know, we, we obviously know this now, but lean body mass would decrease. And then when you stop doing that, because it's just not sustainable, you increase weight, but it's not like you're regaining that lean body mass. If anything, it seems like the body is trying to regain the lean body mass lost, but that is such a slow process comparatively that you end up putting on more fat mass in the process of doing it.
Kathleen (17m 22s):
And so that's why people end up with an even higher body fat percentage and weight, you know, as, as they continue to yoyo diet basically. So their lean body mass continues to decrease, but their body fat percentage continues to increase because of this yoyo dieting issue. So yeah, and, and I just kept going more and more into an LEA got more and more and more and more symptoms. So many people in the al alternative health sphere were like, oh, but you know, you, you gotta go carnivore, you gotta go keto, you gotta fast and to like deal with these symptoms. And I'm like, yeah, but every single time I try to do this, like I end up worse than with more symptoms. Like what, you know, this isn't squaring with like my lived experience and stuff. So,
Brian (17m 60s):
You know, I was just gonna say, so you were, you were restricting for so long and to get back to where you wanted to go to, to sort of get out of this, you slowly, did you just slowly like titrate your calories over time? Yeah. Yeah.
Kathleen (18m 13s):
So, so this, so Dr. Pete's work led me to Dr. Ling and I read, you know, so I have obviously the science background, so it wasn't that big of a deal for me to read in search of a physical basis of life that Dr. Ling wrote, which I, and I've been trying, I haven't finished the Substack series, but I have a substack series on it, like trying to distill, you know, the like important points of it to kind of more the the non-scientific audience. I, I understand. I, I still haven't done the best at that, but I'm trying to make it a little bit more approachable, you know? But basically I realized that like, okay, I, I am clearly experiencing, you know, this low energy state of feelings and, and it wasn't also like, like I wasn't very low weight.
Kathleen (18m 57s):
If anything, my weight was higher then than it is now. That's
Brian (19m 1s):
Interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
Kathleen (19m 2s):
And, and I think this is a hard thing for a lot of people to, to like understand is that you can be in an LEA and still and have a lot of fat to lose. If anything, the fat on your body is almost an indicator of you were not able to get those macronutrients through your metabolic processes in order to make energy with it. So eventually the body's just like, well I'm just gonna store this because what else can I do with it right now? And you just kind of maintain this like baseline ability of producing energy. And so basically reading in search of physical, of a physical basis of life, I was like, okay, well it's not only about the macros, it's also about the micros I need to get to make sure I'm getting sufficient micronutrients to get the macros through in order to produce a TP.
Kathleen (19m 45s):
And then, you know, he ling goes into way more about what potentially is actually happening in the cell. And I think all of that stuff is very fascinating. But from a practical standpoint, the, the thing that I took away from that for my health was I need to get these macros through T-C-A-E-T-C, beta oxidation, glycolysis, all of that stuff in order to actually produce a TP in order to actually then have more energy to pro, produce more structure. So again, back to, you know, Ray's ideas and then to come out of this low energy state and basically because before this I had tried everything. I had tried, you know, all of the supplement protocols, like all of these things too in addition to the diet protocols. And I just could never really get anywhere with that because I would end up way worse, I would take a supplement and it would make me way worse.
Kathleen (20m 31s):
And like all of the, you know, even naturopaths and stuff that I would try to work with are like, well this is like, that shouldn't happen. Like you, you shouldn't. And 'cause I got to the point where I could barely take like anything and I would have a really bad response to it, even like B vitamins, I would have really bad response to it. And So they were just basically, we don't know what to do with you. And I was like, okay, well I guess the only thing I can do is, you know, at that time I was down to three foods. I was like, the only thing I can do is just slowly try to build up these three foods and then basically take the, the allergy protocol when you're like introducing new foods that you have like an allergy to. You basically start with a tiny, tiny, tiny little bit of it, like a very, very, very small amount.
Kathleen (21m 13s):
And you very slowly build that up over time. And I basically just did that to the point where Now I can pretty much eat whatever I want to eat. And then I just, again, doing that process just slowly built up my overall calories by building up your overall calories. It's much easier to get micronutrients in because you know, if you have like 2,500 calories to get micros in, it's very, it's way easier to get 'em that way. Versus if you only have like 1500, it, it is possible in 1500, but it's also a lot more difficult. I did use some B vitamins topically and by drop dosing, a lot of people, some people they'll, they'll like reference me talking about drop dosing. And I found that very, very helpful. If anything, I think people way over supplement themselves and then that causes like follow on issues and then, yeah, so I just like very slowly over time pulled myself out.
Kathleen (22m 0s):
And so that's like the biochemistry side and then the biophysics slice of the pie, that's the sunlight, you know, getting outside three times a day before the UV rise in the morning sometime around solar noon and then after the UV has fallen off at the end of the day. And some people, you know, you live in Chicago, it's freezing. Like some people, it's even good to just go outside, look in the direction of the sun and then like walk right back inside, you know? Yeah.
Brian (22m 27s):
I mean I'm, I'm lucky, well lucky in the sense that I have two dogs and I walk them like morning, noon and night. So IIII get out and I see the sun weather, it's zero degrees or 80 degrees here, so Yeah. But not, not everyone does that unless they're like forced to do it.
Kathleen (22m 44s):
Yeah, yeah. And, and not everyone lives in a, you know, safe area, a walkable area, like all that stuff. So yeah, it, it's difficult, but like anything that you can do to like, just get, you know, I, I do believe that it is important to get sunlight on your skin, especially once UVB is back, you know, for where you live. But even just getting the kind of circadian matching of where this, like what's going on with the sun basically, and like having that input to your body and then also, you know, eating during similar times of the day. So you get that like circadian input as well. I, I'm a huge believer in a bedtime and a wake up time. I don't think that's only for children, you know, so stuff like that I think is consistent.
Brian (23m 20s):
Consistent time to go to sleep and consistent wake up time. Right, exactly.
Kathleen (23m 24s):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, so that's kind of more the biophysics. Well
Brian (23m 29s):
I was just gonna say, you, you've talked a lot about the Minnesota starvation experiments, So we won't go into all of that, but what was like high level, the like few things that you took from it? I know you're even still diving into it because people hear starvation, but these, they weren't, they were still consuming a decent amount of calories,
Kathleen (23m 46s):
Right? Yeah. So they were still consuming 1600 calories a day and people will say, oh, that's men, okay, fine. If you assume that women consume, you know, maybe a half to aqua two, three quarters of a man that's still, you know, 800 to like 1200 calories right there, right? And so many women are continually trying to do these yo-yo diets on like 800 to 1200 calories. Yeah. And we, yeah, so, so really we've kind of affectionately started to call it like pseudo starvation because it's not a true, it is not like they were just completely fasting. They were eating still about 1600 calories and people will say, oh, they were doing crazy like workouts and stuff, but they, they weren't, they were basically walking approximately, it depends on the, like, the like height of the man, but like approximately like 1.6 to three miles a day, which like when I get 8,000 steps a day, I definitely hit that with no problem.
Kathleen (24m 36s):
So these guys were walking like maybe 6,000 steps or so a day. They did have tests like on the treadmill and they did have to do like kind of some menial like office work and stuff. And then every so often they would do like some strength work and stuff for the test, but they weren't doing anything like crazy. Especially again, if we consider the people in this kind of sphere that, that are aware of the benefits of zone two sprinting every so often, lifting every so often. Again, nothing that they were doing is out of the realm of what most people are doing nowadays. But, so what did I take away? I mean, pretty much like, I would say 90 plus percent of the, the symptoms, diagnoses, et cetera, that people experience nowadays, they experience during the starvation phase.
Kathleen (25m 22s):
The other things. And so we're talking about pots, we're talking about, you know, scoliosis, but really more so like scoliosis, not side to side, but leaning over. Like everyone's just like crouched over like this the, I am so tired I can't climb the stairs leaning on everything 'cause I'm just so tired I can't do anything. Food focus, sleep issues, like I said, orthostatic issues, you know, PEM so post exercise malaise type issues that is characteristic of C-F-S-M-E. And again, I, I don't wanna say that this is the only thing that can contribute to those things. However, I look at it as like the most important foundation where it's like, until you kind of get these foundations, you know Right.
Kathleen (26m 8s):
Quote unquote, how do you know it's not that, that, that's my big question. And also this is the foundation I think for just general health in, in general. And so even if you need to do something on top of this, it sets you up in a good spot, in a good state in order to then go do those things on top of it. Then you have the psycho, you know, the psych psychology side, anxiety, depression, I mean like everything there when
Brian (26m 33s):
This is, when was it done in the, the
Kathleen (26m 35s):
Minnesota? It was done during World War ii.
Brian (26m 37s):
Okay.
Kathleen (26m 38s):
There was basically a group of conscientious objectors that instead of going to World War War ii, they decided that they would sign up for this, this program. Oh, okay. Basically see, like you had to see like, you know, how how do we refeed pe that, that was the big question. Like how do we refe people after starvation incidents? And, and then so, so the symptoms side was a huge, like eye-opener for me. The other side was how do you come out of this? This was a big eyeopener for me too, because they basically found that the faster you go, the worse the men did, especially at the beginning. So this is another reason to not go quickly and to kind of do this in a little bit more of like, you know, a method like, like specific step-by-step method versus just like throwing caution to the wind, going all in all of that stuff.
Brian (27m 27s):
So you would say like, let's just use an example. A woman's probably eating a thousand calories a day, let's say averaging. 'cause I know women that do that plenty. You would say starting slowly like what, 10 calories a day or
Kathleen (27m 42s):
Not? Not even. Not so, not even. Yeah. So I, I find it depends on the person. Some people they like this kind of more step-by-step approach where it's like we add a gram of carb every day and then like a gram of protein here and there, then a gram of fat here and there. So you're basically adding like four calories to nine calories like every single day again. But staying in maintenance. So you basically want to see that your average weight is staying the same. And that can be hard for people because if you, if you track your weight, you'll notice that it swings all over the place and it, it always like, you know, specifically for a woman, because of our menstrual cycle, you can have parts of your cycle where it goes up and then it just comes right back down again.
Kathleen (28m 24s):
And so if you, like, if you're kind of one that you're like really weight focused and you kind of really freak out like right when that's happening, this, this process can be really difficult. Right? But it's really important to kind of track how things change for you. So you can see like, okay, this, this is my pattern. And like also women specifically men, men experience this too, just in a slightly different way. But women, we all have this like psycho-emotional thing that happens around our, during different parts of our cycle. And for some women it happens right before or during ovulation. Some it happens like right before during their period. Some, it happens for both times, but it's basically where we like hate ourselves and we think we look disgusting. Mm. And, and we notice that like our partners respond to us differently.
Kathleen (29m 7s):
People are responding to us differently. And so like everything, and we don't, we're not like doing this on purpose. Like partners are not doing this on purpose, but it's still happening. Right. And maybe it's hormones, like who knows what it potentially is, but it's happening. And so in those moments we're like, we gotta a crash diet. Like what we're doing isn't working like all that stuff. And it's, it's important, you know, I say this like, don't make an emotional decision during one phase of your cycle. So like, just wait a week, you know, wait till you enter a different phase of your cycle and see how you're feeling. But yeah, so, so some people do better with the kind of like day-to-day increase. Some people really don't like that because, well, when it comes to tracking there's already so much error and at the beginning like there's so much error with that.
Kathleen (29m 48s):
But like a hundred days later, you know, if you're adding four calories or so a day, that's not 400 calories, right? So it does become very meaningful And you know, assuming you're eating very similar things in similar manners, et cetera, like the error does wash out, but at the beginning it can become, it's a little bit too much error for some people. So they don't like it. Other people we do, you know, a like every Monday increase and it really depends upon the person, it depends on like their body fat percentage. It obviously depends on, you know, is their average weight staying the same, but you know, somewhere around like 16 to 24 ish calories can be a good mark for that.
Kathleen (30m 28s):
Again, depending upon where you're starting from. And then also, you know, as you're entering that like horizontal asin tote range of like your top end of your maintenance, you'll have to start to, to slow down, right? 'cause your ability to, you know, basically you're maxing out your positive metabolic adaptations and so your body just like takes a little bit longer to catch to like catch up basically. So, you know, maybe you're only adding like eight calories. So say you're at like 2,800 calories and say you're only adding like eight calories like every other week or something like that at that point. So, you know, I, I think for a lot of people, kind of this like 24 calorie point every Monday can be, you know, a really good kind of initial experiment, but always go off of how is your average weight act and then also your hunger cues, your satiety cues, like how are they actually responding to the increases?
Brian (31m 18s):
And what I find with people is, and this was including myself 'cause I was doing like a, a meal or two a day at one point, a lot of people are just doing one or two meals a day. So getting all those cal for me, I was like around two meals a day. I wasn't getting enough calories in. I noticed once I started tracking not enough protein, at least for myself, so I added in a third meal and, and that's been good just like a breakfast. But, and I've, and I've I've put on some muscle but also put on a little bit of weight. But I'm, I was except, you know, I'm, I'm all for that. I, I, and so I guess for people who are just having like they're, they're sort of picking around the grazing throughout the day and then eating maybe one big meal, like it's gotta be sort of difficult.
Brian (31m 60s):
Like do you recommend having like three whole meals and, and and sort of increasing that way as well?
Kathleen (32m 7s):
Yeah, I definitely recommend having set meals versus grazing just because again, even from like a circadian timing standpoint, our bodies seem to kind of peg like where we are throughout the day based off of when we're eating. And also like even from a satiety and hunger standpoint too, like, you know, it can, your body starts to say like, oh, it's getting to be this time. And so then it's just start to sign signal you to like, oh, it's time to eat, basically. And if that's not happening, that that can really throw off those cues. I also find that a lot of people, they don't eat breakfast and then they find that they're kind of not hungry the rest of the day and it's really difficult for them to get in those calories the rest of the day. Yeah. And again, I don't wanna just say calories because the micros are crucially important to all of us as well.
Kathleen (32m 51s):
So I'm a huge, huge proponent of, you know, go on c chronometer use the N-C-C-D-B listing and c like, are you hitting a hundred plus percent of the theoretical RDAs? 'cause I, I acknowledge they're theoretical. I acknowledge that there could be potential issues with it, but it's like PE people will make all of these arguments about topsoil and RDAs and governments and all that stuff. But it's like, but have you given it three months? Like can you, can you do it every single day for three months hit you know, basically a hundred percent of the RDAs and tell me how you're feeling, you know, at the end of the three months? Like, tell me how you're feeling. But yeah, so the food, the circadian timing be timing because of those, especially those hunger cues and then getting in enough food throughout the day.
Kathleen (33m 31s):
I find that, you know, especially adding in breakfast is crucial and then having those defined meals can, can be really, really helpful. And then, you know, I, I am more of a proponent, especially for just like the general population of having split macros through those meals. So I say, so basically having fat protein and carbs at each meal versus separating them. I know there's a lot of people right now that are finding, you know, great success on their weight loss diets with, you know, only having carbohydrates, you know, until like the early evening and then kind of having fat and protein at night. And then other people they FlipFlop that And you know, I think that's great because sometimes we just have to self-select into what we are able to stick with in order to lose weight.
Kathleen (34m 15s):
But I I would also just say too, that eventually you need to come out of this, right? We shouldn't be living our lives in this like yo-yo diet or like constantly cutting mode. Our lives should mostly be at maintenance And you know, if we choose to purposely go into a cut, because you are like literally from the MSC when you choose to go into a cut, you are choosing to put yourself in a starvation state, right? And like there's going, eventually there's going to come ramifications from that. And so I'm a big fan of getting get out cuts and then, you know, getting back up to maintenance and living your life at maintenance and only cutting if you absolutely need to cut.
Brian (34m 50s):
And that's another thing is like how do you, if you've been restricting for so long, you have nowhere to go, you can't go down, you have nowhere to go. Like how do you cut? And so like the goal is to titrate up to a point where like, I don't know, Kathleen, how many calories are you eating a day? And, and, And you know, what's your weight? You're, you're small, right? You're, what's your weight and height, if you don't mind?
Kathleen (35m 10s):
Yeah, so I'm, I'm 60 inches, I'm just five feet tall. I weigh about 111 pounds or so. Obviously there's the fluctuations. I have a lot of muscle to regain because I used to have recurring rhabdo. So if I use like an FFMI calculator, like it, it wants to see me closer to like the one twenties for my height and also for like my dimensions and stuff like wrist size and everything. So I have a lot of muscle to regain. So take that for what that is. I'm, I'm working on it, it's just muscle gain is such a slow process. But I eat, so right now I'm in a slow build, but basically this slow build has been like 0.6 pounds over about five months. So we're talking about a really, really slow build and I'm eating 3000 calories a day and before I did this I was eating about 2,800 calories a day.
Kathleen (35m 54s):
And again, there there's like nothing special about me. Like yes, I'm a mom to two sons. Yes. I walk my like 8,000 steps a day. I, I lift, you know, approximately three times per week, but I'm not like crushing myself in the gym. I do way better with like lower volume especially because I, I have the history of C-F-S-M-E, so if I push the volume too high, I I I'll get like sick, like recurring colds and stuff like that and I just do not do well with higher volume. So yeah, I'm not like pushing, like crushing myself in the gym. Yes, I use my brain a fair amount and obviously the brain does use, you know, a, a fair amount of calories, but other than that, like there's nothing that I'm doing.
Kathleen (36m 34s):
Like I'm not out like running a marathon every week. Like there, you know, there's nothing that I'm doing that's crazy, but that is my, my maintenance and, and yes, it took time to get there, right? I didn't just jump to 2,800, 3000 calories et cetera overnight. So, you know, but, But it is very possible to get the positive metabolic adaptations to get to that point.
Brian (36m 54s):
How did you find, 'cause if I, you know, I'm just using my wife as an example, find ways to, to have the her eat more but doesn't like to eat a lot. Like doesn't, the variety of food isn't there. Like you're going from a thousand and titrating up, like did you have trouble finding different types of foods to eat to get all those calories in? Or how did you sort of work that?
Kathleen (37m 19s):
So I didn't, at first it, I I was very much one of those like, oh I don't wanna eat. Like I don't feel like I feel full all the time. I feel bloated. And, and some people they do need some digestive support, right? Like some people they, they, you know, either from a kind of more weaker end water with lemon squeezed into it or apple cider vinegar or kind of getting to the more stronger end like creatine HCL or even batan HCL. The only big caution with batan each seals batan is a methyl donor and if you don't necessarily do that great with methyl donors like you, it might not make you feel that good if that is you having some vitamin B three powder on hand and putting just a little bit like, like a finger dab underneath your tongue every 15 minutes or so until you feel better, that can be really helpful because excess B three has to be kind of rapidly methylated.
Kathleen (38m 9s):
So it basically will stop up those methyl donors right there. So you know, something to consider. But I wouldn't go to battan HCL first, right? Like that would be like the last step in in trying these things. Some people they need, you know, kind of gastroparesis support 'cause you see gastroparesis in, you know, people that are undereating. So the anorexia literature, the MSC literature, you, you actually saw in the MSC, like their stomachs actually physically moved, like the, the contents of their torso physically moved and that changes pressure dynamics and how, you know, your desire to eat. A lot of people talk about like hiatal hernias and stuff nowadays And you know, I, I always wonder 'cause like they, they see similar things in Ty so I always wonder about stuff like that.
Kathleen (38m 51s):
But yeah, so back to gastroparesis, like ginger can be really helpful for that if you're having, you know, MMMC. So migrating motor complex issues and the small intestine, having those defined meals can be really, really helpful for that. But also artichoke can be helpful for that too if you're finding it's more of a colon issue, peppermint can be helpful for the colon. So, you know, and then there's, there's obviously the digestive enzymes that can be helpful as well. You know, making sure that you're really, really chewing your food. A lot of people, they're in a rush, they're not chewing their food, they're not smelling their food, you know, like your food should be like pretty liquidy before you actually swallow it. And a lot of people are swallowing it, you know, before that a lot of people like so, so fat and protein, they slow gastric emptying.
Kathleen (39m 35s):
And so that is a consideration. Like some people, they have a threshold where say, you know, four ounces of protein makes them feel like not so great, but they do fine with two ounces of protein. So it's like, okay well instead of having like, you know, four ounces of protein once, let's, let's break that up and have two ounces at breakfast, two ounces at lunch and then, you know, and that, that's just an example. Like obviously a lot of people like 10 ounces is their threshold, but they're fine with five ounces. So they have five ounces and five ounces, right? So, you know, it kind of just depends on your current beginning state, right? So, so there's a lot that you can do to like get to that point. But I also think a lot of it just comes down to like people's hunger signals are kind of all kinds of jacked up and we have to just restore them
Brian (40m 18s):
And carbohydrates always, you know, the dreaded carbohydrates, you know, it's like people are scared of them. I feel like, especially people who've been on just like these high protein diets and low carb diets And you know, that was meat as well. I've implemented a lot of, I eat a decent amount of fruit I've implemented but some starches as well and white rice. How did you go about adding in carbohydrates and which ones?
Kathleen (40m 43s):
So okay, I have to like preface this with, I do not do well with fats at all. So I would try keto epically fail. I had ketotic hypoglycemia, you know, I was working, I I I've been working with specialists like they were trying to figure out like why, why don't I do well with fats? Is it some kind of inborn error of metabolism? But I didn't have it when I was young so it would've been an adult onset thing. So let me just preface that I find typically that people do really well at, at the beginning because these things change as your calories increase, right? Because then it becomes alpha percentages, but at the beginning setting protein to 1.6 grams per kilogram and, and again there's nuance based off of body fat percentage, but 1.6 grams per kilogram and then setting fats to 0.8 grams per kilogram.
Kathleen (41m 32s):
Again, nuance based off a body fat percentage. And again, I don't want you to jump to these numbers because you will feel epically horrible if you jump to these numbers 'cause of everything has to change over enzymes, microbiome, like literally everything is changing over. So, and then from there you feel the rest of carbohydrates. So that has been across the board something that I, I have found that people do really well with that, those numbers right there. And so
Brian (41m 58s):
That was, that was 1.6.
Kathleen (41m 60s):
Yeah, one point and 0.8 grams for fat. And so, you know, I think given the fact that you are slowly making changes, 'cause again 24 calories, you know, a week is only six grams of carbs, right? We're not talking about very much here. So I think the fact that you're slowly making changes, that helps a lot. The other thing too is, I mean I guess it depends on like what is some, where, where's the fear coming from? Like what, where's the, the argument coming from? Is the argument coming from insulin? Is the argument coming from Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah.
Brian (42m 33s):
I i I feel like the fear probably for most people is they just think that they're just gonna put on weight by eating, by adding in carbohydrates. What maybe what would you tell to that individual And what are the advantages of using carbs, which I've talked about before, but I'd love to hear your,
Kathleen (42m 47s):
Yeah, okay, so I think there's a couple many ways of looking at this. Yeah. So the first thing is that if you are glycogen depleted, yes, when you start feeling glycogen stores though your scale weight will increase, but that's not fat mass and that is a true reflection of your actual like mass on your body. So even if you were low carb, just because you were relatively glycogen depleted, that doesn't mean that that's like a true reflection of your actual weight. When you become glycogen replete, that's now a true reflection of your actual weights. So yes, that's, that's gonna happen. But again, that's actually where you were. So if anything it's like, it's like a wake up call in a way. Like okay, you needed to see this And now, now you can, you know, come back, come off of that during, like I said, a, a very specific conscious cut.
Kathleen (43m 31s):
But the, so the other thing too, okay, so I am very much a proponent of this idea that fat burns in the flame of carbohydrates and where did this come from? It came from a German rosenfeld, George Rosenfeld. He basically said fats burn in the fire of carbohydrates. And basically what they did is they put people on a ketogenic diet or basically an all fat diet and then they, they also fasted them. And they saw back then that, okay, if I do the, if we do this, we see some ketones basically come out. And back then we didn't have as much information about ketones and So they thought that ketones was like incomplete fat burning essentially. And they, they didn't necessarily see it as like, okay, we can use these ketones obviously from George Cahill's work, et cetera, from like the 1960s or So.
Kathleen (44m 15s):
We know way more about ketones and we know that ketones can be used and they can be a positive, all that stuff. I'm not saying that's not true a hundred percent not saying that's not true. However, so, so where did this idea come from? So when they gave people carbohydrates, they realized that these ketones, they weren't producing them anymore. And so then they tried to figure out, okay, why is this the case? And it's most likely the case and this, this is their argument. If you look at like a standard textbook that pyruvate, so obviously we have one glucose go into glycolysis, it comes out with two pyruvate that per pyruvate can either enter, you know, through acetyl-CoA, which goes to the PDH enzyme, the pyruvate dehydrogenase enzyme, or it can enter as oxaloacetate through pyruvate carboxylase And what they say, and the argument is that the pyruvate from the glucose makes oxaloacetate that oxaloacetate can condense with acetyl-CoA that's coming from the fats.
Kathleen (45m 14s):
And then they can enter and become citrate in the citric acid cycle and then, you know, go through the citric acid cycle. Well, celo acetate can be made from like aspartate and other amino acids. It can technically be made through the glycerol backbone, you know, of a fatty acid where the, the glycerol becomes glucose and then goes in. So you can make oxaloacetate like it would be crazy if we had no other way of making oxaloacetate because like why would we be storing like literally a like a hundred thousand plus calories on our cells if we couldn't actually get to it. However, depending upon like the amino acid used and then also depending upon like the steps of that glycerol background, you get into this like issue of potential overall net negative a TP.
Kathleen (45m 56s):
Now it's very hard to like quantify all of this because you have so many things coming in together. It's very much akin to like the Cory cycle and lactate and like, you know, looking at the net a TP production from lactate in the quarry cycle. But it, similar thing here. So, but but just consuming carbohydrates allows this process to happen better. I don't wanna say better. 'cause that sounds like like
Brian (46m 20s):
More, more, more efficiently. It's like a Yeah, better fuel. Yeah,
Kathleen (46m 23s):
Better. Yeah. So, so there's that side, there's the, okay, the, the insulin side insulin. So if, if you have this view of insulin and carbohydrates, you should also have this view of insulin and amino acids because there are amino acids that are more insulinogenic than carbohydrates And what is insulin doing? Insulin is literally just there to help shuttle things into the cell. Not only cober heart, not only glucose, but the amino acids. You know, it, it is crucially importance like at the level of the kidney for making sure that you're not just wasting electrolytes, like literally goes on and on and on about the importance of insulin. The other thing too is that I don't think people realize that only glucose transporter four is the insulin mediated glucose transporter.
Kathleen (47m 7s):
We have 14 known glucose transporters in the body and then we also have these sgl ts so basically like sodium transporters in the body and, and glucose transporter four, it's only conditionally insulin required. So you can even use glec four without insulin, right? But all these other glucose transporters like glec one is a universal transporter, like red blood cells, they have no glec four. How do they get glucose into them through glute one, the blood brainin quote unquote blood brain barrier, glec one, like, that's how you're getting glucose into the brain. So, you know, h how does the beta cell even know how much insulin to produce? So, so the beta cell in the pancreas, that's what actually produces and releases the insulin.
Kathleen (47m 49s):
It's biphasic. And so what happens is when you first e carbohydrate and it's like starting to digest, you have things like the, the increase in hormones. So you have GLP ones, which is all the rage right now. Sorry, GLP one. Yeah, GIP Cho. C, CK. Like these all then signal to the pancreas. Okay, we have carbohydrate coming in, release the first phase of insulin. So you basically have this like first amount of insulin coming in and it's thought that like, that is basically going to the liver to tell the liver like, Hey, you have carbohydrate coming in to the portal vein, it's time to stop gluconeogenesis. It's time to switch over to actually starting to store and use, you know, glyco store glycogen and then use the incoming glucose.
Kathleen (48m 32s):
Well, once that happens, you then have the glute two transporter pick up the glucose in the body into the beta cell, and then basically how much a TP those beta cells make from that carb, from that glucose. That's then how the beta cell decides how much insulin to release. And so, so this is again, why micronutrients are crucially important because if you're not getting that glucose in the beta cell all the way through the citric acid cycle electron transporting, well, you're not gonna be, you're not gonna be producing enough insulin 'cause you're not gonna be getting that signal to produce enough insulin to handle the amount of load that you're coming in that's coming in. So, yeah.
Kathleen (49m 13s):
So, okay. And then everyone's taking, well not everyone, but many people are taking GLP ones nowadays. Okay, well how do they work? They signal they have a lot of things, right? They have the gastroparesis, the, the slowed gastric emptying side of them. They also have the brain side of them, but they also have this effect on causing more insulin release. So it's like, if we're losing weight on more insulin release, how is insulin the issue here? Right? So, right,
Brian (49m 38s):
Because everyone's scared of glec, you know, all these blood glucose monitors, the CGMs, they're scared of like, you know, raising glucose and insulin.
Kathleen (49m 48s):
Yeah. I, I don't, again, this is a physiologic response like your, when you consume glucose, your, your glucose is supposed to come up and then it's supposed to come back down again. The issue is if it comes up and it stays up or people will try to do things like, you know, consume a lot of fats or proteins with it, well that all that's doing is just slowing the rate at which glucose is entering. And so again, you're kind of just causing this like prolonged. So yes, it might be lower, but it's just this prolonged amount and then it comes back down again. You know, obviously we're having things like reactive hypoglycemia and stuff, that's a huge issue. And again, the, the area under the curve, this like prolonged glucose in serum, that's an issue as well. I'm not saying that, but it's not because of the carbohydrates.
Kathleen (50m 30s):
And if anything, glucose, like glucose should be coming up and then it should be coming back down again. That that's a normal physiologic response, not pathologic at all.
Brian (50m 39s):
What, what are, like if someone is gonna start implementing carbohydrates and they've been low carb and fasting for a while, are there certain carbs that you recommend? 'cause I know pro pro metabolic space, they talk about, you know, sort of those e easy to digest carbs, like white rice, maybe some starches, but what, what, what are your thoughts around that?
Kathleen (50m 58s):
Yeah, so there's the argument about like, there's, there's a lot of arguments about this. I, the, the first most important thing that is like center to my view is you need to eat the foods you objectively do well with. 'cause everyone, if you pay attention to yourself, you have a response to things. If you eat something and it alleviates your brain fog, you get more energy, you, you know, you're, you feel more upright. You're not having, like, you're not responding to chemicals in your environment, your vision looks better. Like that's probably a good food for you. If you eat something and all of your symptoms get worse, that's probably not a good food for you, at least right now. Right? Or again, this threshold idea, like maybe it's just too much for that one sitting.
Kathleen (51m 39s):
And so looking at that, And this is again, why I'm a big proponent of slowly changing things over And what does slow mean, you know, that means like once a week you basically subtract like, you know, about two grams of fat for approximately four and a half grams of carbohydrates. So again, just very slow transfer process over of not just like, okay, I'm eating a hundred grams of carbs. She's saying I need to go to 0.8, sorry a hundred grams of fat. She's saying I need to go to 0.8 grams of fat per kilogram, which for some people might be like 60 grams of fat, I'm just gonna jump to 60. And like, no, no, you're gonna feel horrible do that. Like go to 98 and go to 96 and then add those calories back in, in the form of either protein or carbohydrates, whatever you need.
Kathleen (52m 23s):
So again, it's this very slow switching over so you don't feel so bad. And if you do kind of have, you know, this like glycogen response or whatever you, it gives your body time to kind of deal with that ex excess water like, and everything that comes with it. So, so it's just, it's a very slow process. Again, I, I think people are just trying to go way fast, like way too fast and they don't realize like how slow they need to go. But your body's at a currently at an equilibrium point and like flinging yourself to another equilibrium point, you're not gonna be good. So yeah. So I think just slow. And in terms of the actual, you know, carb sources, it's always gonna come down to like, what do you objectively do well with, like for me, I do the best with bread.
Kathleen (53m 5s):
I've always done the best with bread and people will say that's impossible. That shouldn't be that way. But it has always given me the most energy, you know, when I have fruit, even if I'm having, like I, I eat a lot of carbohydrates, like over 500 grams of carbs, right? A lot of carbs. Even if I have like a hundred grams of carbs in one sitting, I just don't ever feel like, you know, satiated and I, and my energy is just not as good versus if I have an equivalent amount of, you know, bread, I do pretty well with those.
Brian (53m 34s):
I was gonna say, do you make your own bread or do you
Kathleen (53m 37s):
Yeah, but I, I don't, I don't do well with sourdough probably because of the lactate, so I make more like the long ferment Irish soda breads. So you, you basically use baking soda and then like an acidic source, like Greek yogurt for example, and then like a 48 hour like long ferment. So yeah, I do better with those versus sourdough. Some people do really,
Brian (53m 56s):
I was just gonna say you, 'cause when you said bread, I think people think of just like regular run in the mill bread, but I'm assuming you're eating like quality bread. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Kathleen (54m 7s):
Yeah. I try to make it, you know, sometimes I will have regular bread and, and I do fine with that, you know, but I do fine with that Now. I don't know how I would've felt like years ago, right? Or so again, it's like where, where's your like current state of health, right? And, but some people they do really well with higher fructose, so I do better with a higher glucose to fructose ratio. Some people they do better with a higher fructose to glucose ratio. So it's about like finding that out for yourself, just like when it comes to dairy, you know, a lot of people blame lactose, but I have found that for a lot of people, it's not even about the lactose, it's that some people do better with higher casing and some people do better with higher whey. So like I don't do really that great with whey and so I don't do well with cottage cheese, but I do really well with non-fat Greek yogurt and skier even 'cause ski is even higher casing than the non-fat Greek yogurt.
Kathleen (54m 54s):
So yeah. And yes, there is some whey in it. So, but again, we're talking about ratios here, just like in the body there's, you know, people like to look at the body as like either you're fat burning or your, you know, carbohydrate burning. It's like, no, there's all ratios that's going on. Like you might be predominantly fat burning right now, but you're still doing some amount of amino acid metabolism and carbohydrate metabolism. You know, typically people will say if you have GI issues and no liver issues that fructose, they, they tend to do a little bit better on fructose. If you have no GI issues, potentially liver issues, then you might do better on, on higher glucose. But again, it really depends on what do you objectively do well with not, you know, like even when it comes to coming outta the LEA, if you objectively do well with a higher grams of fat than that 0.8, like if you objectively do well with a higher fat diet and you're able to hit those RDAs and all of that stuff without using supplementation And you know, I, I do have concerns about like overeating liver and stuff like that, that a lot of people use to kind of fill in the gaps.
Kathleen (55m 59s):
I think that's great. Like if it, you know, keep doing that. But if you're not, if you find that you're not doing well with that, then consider slowly making changes And, you know, and, and try slightly higher carbohydrate, et cetera.
Brian (56m 12s):
Just a few more here. What, what would you say to someone that that's thinking, well why am I, why am I doing this? Like, I've been eating like this forever and I seem fine. Like what's the, you know, what's the, the benefit of maybe ramping up that metabolic rate and, and adding in all, you know, slowly adding in more food and, And you know, getting to your, at least your maintenance or you're getting your maintenance up.
Kathleen (56m 35s):
Yeah. So again, if, if you were truly doing well, I don't necessarily think you need to change anything. I think though a lot of people aren't honest with themselves, and I would also say like, if you're listening to this podcast, are you truly doing well? Like why, why are you listening to podcasts that talk about like health and stuff like that, if you are truly doing well, you know, like why are you not out? Because I find that when people, when they're energy improves, like all this stuff improves, they start going out and like living their life and they're no longer like concerned about these like day-to-day nuances of, you know, grams of fat, grams of carbs, you know, all of that stuff. They just go live that, that these are the people that people will say, oh, they can eat whatever they want and they never gain weight and all of that stuff.
Kathleen (57m 20s):
And do you, so I would really ask yourself like, are you actually doing well? And if you are, then great. Like, just continue on. I I I, I wouldn't say to change anything if you're doing great, but if you're not doing well, then I would and, and specifically if you're below this 35 calorie threshold, I would highly, highly, highly consider slowly getting above that threshold and see, see if you feel even better because sometimes people don't necessarily know that they're not feeling that great. Right, right. But like you have someone external to you that's like, Hey, you could use some improvement or whatever. I would, I would go off of that
Brian (57m 55s):
In, in the beginning. Do you have people, like, I know Ashley talks about like taping taking your temperature or seeing your, what was it, temperature and pulse as far as like, if you're in sort of a low energy state for a long time, like Yeah,
Kathleen (58m 9s):
I, I, yeah, I think, you know, temperature, pulse, I'm a huge fan of blood pressure too because a lot of people in this LEA, they have low blood pressure. Some can have like pretty low like in the, you know, nineties, eighties over like 50, 60, somewhere around there. But even in the LEA, like, you'll see people kind of closer to arounds like a hundred or so, and they're just kind of always like dragging a little bit. And sometimes they, they think they're having like hypoglycemia issues, but it's really, they're having more low blood pressure things. So I'm a, a big fan of, of blood, you know, taking blood pressure. But yeah, I, I think these can all be, you know, kind of great at home proxy measurements of h how are you doing? For sure. I I don't think you need it though, right?
Kathleen (58m 51s):
Like, I think that a lot of people, if they're being like true to themselves and like actually reflecting on the current state of themselves, they can say like, okay, yeah, probably my brain isn't working as optionally as I want it to, or, you know, I, I try to work out, but I just, I have no motivation in the gym and I can't, I'm not able to progressively overload all of that stuff. I'm not putting on muscle mass or, you know, I, I wanna play with my kids, but I just like don't have the energy to play with them or like, you know, I, I have no libido, right? I wanna be with my partner and, And you know, connect with my partner, but I just have no libido. Like, so I think that there are many signs that a lot of people just like
Brian (59m 28s):
Gloss over or they're used to being in right. For so long. Yeah.
Kathleen (59m 32s):
Yeah.
Brian (59m 33s):
And it becomes the norm. They don't realize that they could do certain things to, to get them out of that.
Kathleen (59m 40s):
Exactly. Yeah. And, and so a lot of people go the supplementation route and it's like most of the things that people supplement nowadays are in your food. So like, like in nol in your food IP six in your food, all the B vitamins in your food. And, and I say this like I, I used very low dose B vitamins to help myself because I was having absorption issues and stuff. So I do recognize that there can be a place for these things, and I still use Pantheon like once a month or so now. But you know, I, I find that like if you are having to supplement more and more and more, things really question what you're supplementing because over time your ability to recycle et cetera should be improving. So you should be finding that you're able to decrease the dose and or frequency of whatever you're taking.
Kathleen (1h 0m 23s):
And if you can't do that, I would really question like, you know, what do you, what are these supplements doing? Why are you not getting these things from your food? You know, it's exactly like with pharmaceuticals, right? Like they were never meant to be taken for the rest of your life. They were meant to be taken as like a bridge to, you know, correct something acutely while you then address the other things. And we have people who's taking these things every single day for forever. So Yeah.
Brian (1h 0m 49s):
Yeah, like, like birth control, right? But that's a whole other, yeah. Yeah.
Kathleen (1h 0m 55s):
With birth control, like we very much know it causes all kinds of micronutrient deficiencies and so it is like, you know, plus what it's, it seems to be doing to the hormones or something else that like how you're attracting your partner and stuff. And then you have women that come off of birth control and then they're like, oh, I really did not like my partner.
Brian (1h 1m 13s):
Oh, maybe I shouldn't get my wife off it then is she? But yeah, she's, yeah, yeah.
Kathleen (1h 1m 19s):
Which form?
Brian (1h 1m 21s):
I don't know. I'll have to, I'll I can find that out. Yeah, yeah,
Kathleen (1h 1m 24s):
Yeah. I mean, for sure if she's on birth control, then I would for sure be making sure that she's at least hitting a hundred percent of the RDAs from food.
Brian (1h 1m 31s):
Mm, interesting. Okay. Yeah.
Kathleen (1h 1m 33s):
Yeah. So, but yeah, you know, a lot of these, a lot of people are taking like PPIs, proton pump inhibitors for like the rest of their life. And a lot of people, if you, before putting them on a PPI, if you have them do like a baking soda test and yes, it's just a proxy, it's not any kind of like actual test, but they find that they don't burp at all. And it's like, okay, well do you really have insufficient stomach acid response issue? Are you having more of an autonomic nervous system issue? So the low esophageal sphincter is not closing correctly or sufficiently, you know, what, what else is going on? Basically. But instead of we just give them a PPI and then like so many x months to years later, they end up deficient in iron B12, like all of these things.
Kathleen (1h 2m 15s):
And it's like, well, you just kept someone like, what do we think think stomach acid does? It's there to break, you know, especially because a lot of people are using protein to get their micronutrients in. Well, if you can't break down those amino acids to get to those micronutrients, you're not absorbing those things. And then now your microbiome is basically dealing with them, you know? And, and yes, we do seem to be able to absorb some things in the colon, but most of the absorption is supposed to be happening in the small intestine and really in the, you know, kind of jejunum basically. So because the, you know, duodenum is so pretty acidic from everything coming in from the stomach and then also it's like now starting to throw like baking soda at, its basically from the pancreas and like bile and other stuff.
Kathleen (1h 2m 59s):
And then, so we're like absorbing most of these things in the juju and then like you have the spillover of absorption in the ileum. And then from there, like yes, the microbiome is supposed to deal with some things, but not a ton of things. That's why I don't always understand why people focus on the microbiome so much because it's like, yes, this is important. Like of course it's important, but like we should be focused more upstream on like actually absorbing what we're eating, you know? Yeah.
Brian (1h 3m 24s):
Oh, maybe that'll be a part two. That'll be a part two. Well, Kathleen, I, I appreciate you coming on. Maybe we'll do, do a, do another topic the next time and maybe not as many as you've done with Strong Sisters. I think you have 10 and counting, right? Yeah. Half your half your life is on there. But yeah, I appreciate you coming on and sharing the knowledge and best place for people. I know you have a Substack Instagram, right? Yeah.
Kathleen (1h 3m 47s):
Substack is, I, I'm trying to post more on there. I every so often post on my Instagram stories, I just share things that like, come to mind for whatever reason. I do not, Instagram does not send me messages. I don't know why that's happening, but I cannot get message on Instagram, so like, don't try to message me on Instagram 'cause I'm not going to get it. And, but yeah, Substack is a good one. But you know, I I, I wish I could work more one-on-one with people, but I just don't have the time. I, I, like I said, I'm a mom to two young sons and so that's why Tyler Ash, Sarah and I like started this transform group because then we could work with, you know, about a hundred ladies at once and we do plan to, to open up a men's group eventually, and then also a build group, a slow build group eventually, But it gives us the ability to kind of work with more people at once.
Brian (1h 4m 33s):
And someone, if someone wants to do the transform, where do they go for that?
Kathleen (1h 4m 37s):
I, I will get you a link for, okay, we have like a wait list, so I'll give, I'll get you a link to that. But, you know, all, all of these things like you can do by yourself, like just be patient with yourself. Like a lot of people, they like to work with us because it is helpful to have someone that you're checking in with and to kind of bounce questions off of and all that stuff, but you can very much do all these things by yourself And you know, I, I very much agree with Ray's view on learned helplessness and like you pulling yourself out and like you really getting to know yourself. Like for example, everything that I went through, I know, okay, if I'm starting to have this symptom pop up, I know this B vitamin addresses this symptom because I spent the time like getting to know that about myself and like, you know, how I'm responding to things and stuff.
Kathleen (1h 5m 23s):
So obviously it can be really helpful to have a guide and someone to kind of show you an area to consider and stuff, but I, I really recommend like try to do as much as possible by yourself so you really get to know yourself. But yeah, so transform, it's, it's more focused. So it's a three month slow reverse, basically trying to get people as far outta the LEA as possible and then a six week cut, get in, get out cut if they choose to do that, they can just continue building if they want or like increasing calories. So they want, and then a six week reverse, so it's a total six month program and then the, the build will probably be six to nine months or so just because it just takes a lot longer to put on muscle mass.
Kathleen (1h 6m 3s):
But it's, it'll basically be like a slow build and then like a two week get an out, get in, get out cut because basically the build would be like put on about three or four pounds purposefully over about like four months or so. So like, you know, three quarters to one pound over about four months. And then you basically only have to then take off about four pounds so that, that only takes like two weeks and then a reverse out of that. So, yeah.
Brian (1h 6m 30s):
Okay. Yeah, I'll put, yeah, we'll put a link for all this in the show notes. And, and when's that starting in the summer?
Kathleen (1h 6m 37s):
Yeah, so our next, our next transform group will be in the summertime I think, I think in June. If I recall correctly. We are definitely going to have one, if we might potentially have two groups we'll see. 'cause we, we still as much as possible still try to have as much one-to-one interaction, even though it is a group. So, you know, 'cause I think that is very important, especially because I think there's, you know, with the rise of AI and stuff, like people are like, oh, everyone's gonna be put outta business and stuff, but I really don't think so because at the end of the day, like I find that people just wanna be listened to, you know, even if you're just answering the same question over and over again, like it's always in, you know, like, how does this apply to my life? Even if it's a very similar life to everyone else, it's still like, people still want that conversation.
Kathleen (1h 7m 21s):
So we, we try to allow for that as much as possible and transform.
Brian (1h 7m 26s):
Okay. All right Kathleen, well thank you so much and yeah, have a great rest of the day. I appreciate you coming on. Thank
Kathleen (1h 7m 32s):
You Brian.
Brian (1h 7m 32s):
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.
