Thinking Health Podcast

Natalia Staniszewska has an MS in neuroscience, she’s a nutritionist, a health coach, and a podcast host who has personally overcome her struggles with food by tapping into neuroplasticity. So she combines neuroscience with her nutrition background to create a personalized approach for herself and her clients.   In this episode, Natalia sits down with The Ketologist Chris Irvin to discuss more about eating disorders and binge eating, how to tell cravings versus hunger cues, planning for cheat meals, the types of overeaters, how to develop a healthy relationship with food, especially if you have a pre-existing health condition, and so much more.    Here’s a lineup of everything Natalia and Chris chat about: 00:00 Introduction to The Keto Answers Podcast 1:52 Natalia’s background and focus 2:48 Natalia’s backstory and how she found herself focused on helping people who struggle with binge eating 5:19 What Natalia discovered in her lab research on rats that correlated to human health 8:12 How disordered eating is classified 10:05 The criteria to be considered a binge eater 12:20 Are eating disorders a mental health issue? 14:48 Do cravings start out as psychological or physiological? 16:00 How to tell the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger 19:36 Eating when you’re bored and why this is so common now 21:35 What are the different hunger cues and what role do they play in binge eating? 27:33 How to be more present when you’re eating 30:25 The hunger cues scale 31:58 What happens to hunger signals after you lose weight and how to combat this 38:19 Is there a higher number of people who are obese and suffering from binge eating? 39:14 Natalia’s thoughts on the Intuitive Eating movement 42:15 The different types of overeaters 45:43 What about for someone who is fasting and only eats one meal per day? How do you ensure that their one meal doesn’t trigger a binge eating episode? 49:14 Developing a healthy relationship with food instead of villainizing certain categories of food 55:10 Cheat meals and binge eating 59:37 What to do if you have to be restrictive because of a health condition like diabetes or celiac disease 1:04:26 The health tool Natalia’s a huge fan of using and why 1:06:34 Planning for urges instead of reacting to them   Resources mentioned in this episode: Natalia Staniszewska’s website Natalia’s Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube channel Natalia’s podcast Brain Over Binge, one of the books mentioned in the episode Intuitive Eating, the second book mentioned in this episode   Be sure to come back every Tuesday for a brand new episode each week!

Brian Sanders is the filmmaker behind Food Lies, a top five nutrition podcast host of Peak Human, a health coach, and an international speaker who is on a mission to spread awareness on regenerative agriculture and increase accessibility to well-raised animal products.  In this episode, Brian discusses what happened during a 40-year period that changed our food industry to this day, the problem with nutrition epidemiological studies, why a plant-based diet bias exists and how that’s negatively affecting us, why counting calories is ineffective and what to focus on instead, satiety signals, and so much more. You’ll also hear more about Brian’s documentary Food Lies and how this differs from other nutritional documentaries out there. Here’s a breakdown of the episode with The Ketologist Chris Irvin: 00:00 Chris’ introduction to the episode and Brian’s background 3:15 Where Brian likes to eat in Austin, TX 4:44 How Brian came up with his tagline for Food Lies 5:44 Brian’s approach in Food Lies 6:32 The science on ancestral nutrition principles and how it applies today 8:31 What happened during a 40-year period in our history that’s still impacting us today 12:20 Gary Taubes’ thoughts on what went wrong 13:28 Vitamin K activating vitamin D 13:55 The inherent problems with epidemiological studies 15:33 An interesting nutrition study on kids and obesity rates 17:00 The plant-based diet bias and why this exists and how it’s still being perpetuated today 18:57 Why are people continuing to use epidemiological studies if they have problems? 20:35 The impact of Big Food getting involved in our food system 23:15 How bad hospital food is nutritionally and why it’s like this 26:13 Why we’re in this mess 28:09 What can we do to fix this problem? 36:02 What’s the story with calories? 40:22 The satiety levels in food and why this should be more of a focus 44:39 Is it true that obese people have poor appetite signaling hormones? 48:51 The problem with counting calories 50:18 Protein satiety signaling 52:38 The difference between carbs and fats for satiety 55:11 Does the glycemic response and blood sugar play a role in satiety? 1:01:47 Why high omega-6 consumption and seed oils are two of the biggest problems 1:07:10 The problems with seed oils 1:08:00 Metabolic status and taking daily habits into consideration 1:12:39 More about Brian’s documentary Food Lies, including why he started this project, what he hopes to achieve with it, and more 1:15:05 What would success look like for his documentary? 1:20:26 Brian also shares whether he’s been censored on social media for his work on his documentary  1:25:12 How you can support Brian’s work and his documentary Food Lies Resources mentioned in this episode: Brian Sander’s Food Lies website Brian’s Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook Brian’s Nose to Tail company The book Brian mentioned in the episode, Nutritional & Physical Degeneration, by Weston Price The article Chris mentioned in the episode: Game Changers Movie Review: Fact vs. Fiction

Lily Nichols is a registered dietician and nutritionist, a certified diabetes educator, researcher, and best-selling author who has a passion for uncovering evidence-based prenatal nutrition.  She comes on the show to share the research behind why our pregnancy nutritional advice should be updated, how her approach differs from conventional policies, why she focuses on blood sugar management in pregnancy, the macro and micronutrients to focus on while pregnant, and so much more. Here’s a peek at what Lily and Chris Irvin get into: 00:00 Introduction 4:20 How Lily’s Real Food for Pregnancy book helped Chris and his wife 4:50 What led Lily to write this book and the problems she saw in current pregnancy nutritional advice 14:40 The role real foods have in pregnancy and why it’s so important 17:30 How Lily’s approach differs from conventional pregnancy nutritional advice 20:49 What Lily recommends from a macro standpoint 22:57 Protein and fat requirements in pregnant women 26:28 Why Lily’s approach differs in the carb amount compared to conventional advice, how carbs affect blood sugar, and the risks that come with high blood sugar in pregnancy 32:19 Using a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) and the traditional glucose drink for testing for gestational diabetes in pregnant women 34:30 What happens when you have food aversions in pregnancy and all you want or can handle are carbs? 41:38 What happens towards the end of pregnancy when you can’t eat large meals? Should you snack or eat smaller meals throughout the day? 44:28 Can overdoing it in calories lead to gestational diabetes? 48:20 Micronutrients to focus on during pregnancy 52:55 The role of organ meat in pregnancy and, can eating too much liver be toxic in pregnancy? 1:01:19 How to eat organ meat while pregnant 1:01:54 Foods to avoid while pregnant 1:05:32 Why the fats in your diet are really important 1:08:18 Why Lily recommends avoiding soy   Resources mentioned in this episode: Lily Nichol’s website (where you’ll find 250+ blog posts) Lily Nichol’s Instagram, Twitter, and  Facebook Download the first chapter of Lily’s book for free Lily’s books, Real Food for Pregnancy and Real Food for Gestational Diabetes

Dr. Austin Perlmutter is a Board-Certified Internal Medicine Physician, a New York Times best-selling author, educator, and consultant who focuses on helping people identify and resolve their biological basis for stuckness in the body and brain and around decision making. He comes on the show to dive into how the Covid-19 virus and pandemic affected our mental health, what it’s going to take to improve our brain and mental health starting today, and he shares strategies for how we can limit our exposure to stressful media in this episode. Here’s a list of the topics that Dr. Perlmutter and Chris Irvin cover: 00:00 Introduction to Dr. Austin Perlmutter and his background 2:58 Dr. Perlmutter’s latest paper on how the Covid-19 pandemic is impacting rates of depression 3:46 Cognitive and mental health complications with Covid-19 7:32 For those people who get Covid, what’s it doing to the brain to cause mental health issues? 12:00 The symptoms to watch out for that are related to brain function 20:12 Are there any proposed mechanisms for how inflammation and the immune system can cause things like depression and anxiety? 27:05 Are there any factors we know that will determine the fate of tryptophan going down that different pathway and turning into a harmful metabolite versus a potentially beneficial one? 30:02 Is targeting inflammation and the immune system a great way to get at the root cause? 30:24 What role do drugs like SSRIs have here? 39:49 Why we can’t just “get out in nature” and use natural remedies to fix mental health issues 41:49 Western medicine isn’t designed to address root cause problems 48:08 What about preventing mental health issues from happening? 48:25 Are health care providers responsible? 53:10 How Covid has accelerated problems that have already existed 57:32 The top strategies Dr. Perlmutter recommends starting with today to improve mental health 1:02:02 Tips for improving quantity and quality of sleep 1:11:21 What you can do to limit or reduce your exposure to unhealthy stimuli 1:12:02 Looking at other factors that affect your brain health 1:14:30 Changes in brain neuroplasticity and why this is happening 1:14:56 How high levels of stress affect the brain 1:15:30 Rewiring neurons 1:18:15 Is it repeated exposure or just one simple exposure to something stressful that changes our brain health? 1:19:00 The dopamine learning mechanism involved with social media, including gamification 1:20:13 We’re spending 11 hours a day on media and how this negatively affects us 1:21:12 Social media use in kids and the concerns this brings up 1:22:30 Pornography exposure in kids 1:24:18 Strategies to reduce your exposure to stressful media 1:24:37 How to structure your child’s day to avoid stressful media and internet addiction 1:25:25 Tool to use to check in with your social media usage   Episode Resources: Dr. Austin Perlmutter’s website Dr. Perlmutter’s Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook Dr. Perlmutter’s book, Brain Wash Dr. Perlmutter’s podcast Get the STUCK Out Dr. Perlmutter’s podcast episode on the Covid-19 pandemic and depression The podcast episode Dr. Perlmutter did with Dr. Wendy Wood on Good Habits, Bad Habits Dr. Perlmutter’s Medium article, The Coronavirus Took Advantage of Our Weaknesses The Role of Inflammation in Depression, Charles Raison The book, Noise, by Daniel Kahneman The book, Tiny Habits, by BJ Fogg

Chris Irvin, The Ketologist and Perfect Keto’s Education Manager, sits down to answer questions from listeners in this episode. But, unlike previous Q&A episodes, this one isn’t just about answering questions solely related to keto. So you’ll learn about off topic things like - should you wear sunscreen, what Chris’ exercise routine looks like, pregnancy nutrition, and so much more when you tune in. You’ll also hear about combating diarrhea on keto, the importance of electrolytes, blood sugar monitoring, and weight loss plateaus on keto.   On top of being The Ketologist and Perfect Keto’s Education Manager, Chris Irvin is a nutrition science researcher and writer with a strong focus in ketogenic dieting. He also holds a Master’s degree in exercise and nutrition science and spent his time in graduate school studying the ketogenic diet for performance and therapeutic applications.   Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll find in this episode: 0:00 Introduction to the Q&A style episode 1:23 Tribute to Perfect Keto’s former Head of Partnerships Alex Cunningham 6:05 What strategies do you recommend for avoiding sunburns as someone who is fair skinned? 6:25 Studies on sunscreen and the research on whether it offers real protection 11:04 My doctor won’t approve a GSM since I have normal fasting blood sugar. What can I do instead? 12:50 When to test your blood sugar 16:40 What does your exercise routine look like? 18:17 Internal Levels study measuring blood sugar after drinking a Coke 18:52 What is the best way to prevent cramps after playing basketball? 23:00 Should I cycle off of keto every six to eight months? And, if so, for how long? 27:57 Why does it get harder to lose weight on keto, especially the second time around after a break? 32:13 Why is diarrhea so common on keto? 34:17 MCTs causing stomach upsets and what to do to prevent it from happening 35:58 Is your wife keto during pregnancy? 38:33 What to focus on nutritionally speaking during pregnancy 39:12 Insulin resistance in pregnancy 40:30 The nutrients Chris and his wife focused on during her pregnancy 42:44 Dairy on keto. Can you stay in ketosis while eating dairy? 44:30 Store bought dairy options that may be better for you 45:22 I’m struggling with eliminating fruits on keto. What can I do?   Loved the episode? Be sure to leave us a review here so that we know what content helps you the most and we can create more of it. You can also share the episode on Instagram while tagging @PerfectKeto and @TheKetologist for a special shout out.   Here are the resources mentioned in this episode: The Keto Answers Podcast Episode 003: Dr. Ben Bikman Justin Mares The Next Brand Newsletter

Looking at Logan Delgado, a well-known keto coach and influencer, you’d never guess that he was once 70 pounds overweight. Instead, you’d think he was a professional bodybuilder who’s been doing that for most, if not all, of his life. That’s because Logan Delgado didn’t just lose the weight and call it quits. He kept going and continued to improve his life and he comes on the show to share his exact journey. You’ll discover the techniques he uses, how he uses keto as a lifestyle, and how he remains so positive throughout his journey. You’ll also learn how to use keto whether you’re a bodybuilder or busy parent, how to not fear carbs, how to celebrate holidays and family gatherings while on keto, cyclical versus targeted keto and who each one is right for, and so much more. Logan also dives into his incredible ketone meter, which he’s a co-owner of, what makes this device so different, and whether or not you need to be tracking your ketone levels. Logan Delgado goes by the name Goody Beats on his social media channels, where he’s amassed a whopping 270,000 followers on all of his channels combined. He’s also the creator of Goody Fit, a monthly fitness subscription program that teaches people how to use keto to reach their health goals, and he’s a husband and father of two girls. Logan is an incredible motivator and he’ll show you what it takes to reach your goals, stay consistent, foster a positive mindset, and keep your health in check when you tune into the episode. Learn more now!

Is it possible to produce a higher quality of meat while reducing the impact farming and the meat industry have on the environment? And, taking it a step further, what if it was possible to sequester enough carbon to reverse climate change? While it sounds almost too good to be true, it’s exactly what happens with regenerative agriculture. If you don’t know the term or this method of farming, this podcast episode with Belcampo’s co-founder and CEO Anya Fernald will help you understand all about this growing model of farming. In the episode, Anya dives into what regenerative farming is, what makes it so special, and how it produces a higher quality of meat while reversing and reducing its environmental impact. Anya also chats about why meat gets a bad rap and where this initially came from, how Belcampo, a 30,000+ acre regenerative agriculture farm, is transforming the industry, and what it’s going to take to make regenerative ag more accessible and available. Anya and Chris Irvin, The Ketologist and Education Manager at Perfect Keto, also jump into other topics like their experience with the carnivore diet, the best ways to prepare meat, the difference between conventional meat and regenerative agriculture meat, and so much more. Whether you’re new to regenerative agriculture or you already have an understanding of it, this episode will shed some light on why this farming method is so beneficial to people, the planet, and the environment. On top of being Belcampo’s CEO and a co-founder, Anya Fernald is also an entrepreneur, chef, agriculture expert, and she’s appeared as a judge on Iron Chef America, Iron Chef Gauntlet, and The Next Iron Chef. Tune in now to learn all about regenerative agriculture and so much more!

Ben Azadi, a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner, speaker, and best-selling author, has become the go-to source for intermittent fasting and the ketogenic diet. He’s also known as ‘The Health Detective’ because he’s focused on investigating health dysfunction and educating, not medicating, people to bring the body back to its normal function. Ben comes on the show to share more about how to do just that and more. He does this by diving into how to become metabolically flexible, why this matters, and why staying in ketosis long-term isn’t the right strategy and he shows you what to do instead. Ben also chats about who should flex in and out of ketosis, how to do this properly, what to do if you have thyroid or hormone issues on keto, and whether too much protein will kick you out of ketosis. You’ll also learn more about leptin resistance and why this matters, the problem with the calories in versus calories out strategy, why veggie oils should be avoided at all costs, and how to optimize the methionine and glycine ratio when you tune in. Lastly, Ben also shows you how your oral health can impact your overall health and how this may be the missing piece of the puzzle for many people. If you don’t know Ben, he’s the best-selling author of The Perfect Health Booklet, The Intermittent Fasting Cheat Sheet, and The Power of Sleep. He recently published his fourth book, Keto Flex, and he shares all about this approach to keto in this episode. In addition to being a best-selling author, Ben also hosts a top-rated podcast, known as Keto Kamp, and he created Keto Kamp Academy to help people solve their biggest health problems and restore their optimal balance. Tune in now to learn more!

As a professor of pathophysiology and biomedical scientist at Brigham Young University, Dr. Benjamin Bikman set out to understand chronic diseases better. He specifically wanted to know how they can eventually lead to negative health outcomes like obesity and diabetes. And what he found was a common driver in many of these health issues is insulin resistance. But, as you’ll hear in this episode, you can have high insulin levels for decades before you even realize it’s happening and your glucose may not spike until it’s far too late. To help prevent this from happening, and to help reduce insulin levels in people who are already sick, Dr. Ben Bikman has made it his mission to help educate people on this exact topic. And he comes on the show to share his top tips for doing just that. So you’ll discover the problems associated with high insulin levels, what causes this, what you can do to bring down insulin, and how it becomes a problem in the first place. Dr. Bikman also dives into why pumping diabetics with insulin makes things worse, insulin resistance in pregnancy, and how insulin acts in people on keto or low carb diets. He also chats about the biggest mistake people make when fasting, how to avoid this, the role linoleic acid plays in insulin resistance, why calorie counting doesn’t work (and what will instead), and his three pillars to lower insulin levels starting today. Dr. Benjamin Bikman earned his Ph.D. in Bioenergetics and was a postdoctoral fellow with the Duke-National University in Singapore in metabolic disorders. He’s also the author of the best-selling book, Why We Get Sick: The Hidden Epidemic at the Root of Most Chronic Disease—and How to Fight It. Tune into the episode now to learn more! P.S. Ben has also been kind enough to give us a discount for his meal replacement shake that we talk about in the episode. Visit getHLTH.com and use the code ANSWERS for 10% off.   

Leading Functional Medicine expert and New York Times best-selling author Dr. Will Cole comes on the show to discuss his experience with investigating underlying factors that cause chronic diseases to help people restore their health and he shares exactly how he does this in his practice on this episode. When you tune into this episode, you’ll hear about the in-depth labs he uses, how this differs from conventional doctors, and why his work isn’t intended to replace traditional doctors but instead complements their efforts. Dr. Cole also shares more about intuitive fasting, what it means to be metabolically flexible, how you can tell if you are metabolically flexible, and more. You’ll also learn about some key drivers of autoimmune issues, the connection with gut health and overall health, how this affects our mental health, and what Dr. Cole thinks our current healthcare system could use to improve things. Dr. Will Cole is one of the top 50 integrated doctors in the nation and a leading Functional Medicine expert who consults people around the world and locally in his practice in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He’s also a New York Times best-selling author of his latest book, Intuitive Fasting, along with his other books, Ketotarian and The Inflammation Spectrum, and host of the new podcast The Art of Wellbeing. Check out the episode now and enjoy!