Episode 9 of Fast Keto: Optimize Your Keto Lifestyle With Biohacking Doctor John Limansky

May 03, 2018

Episode 9 of Fast Keto: Optimize Your Keto Lifestyle With Biohacking Doctor John Limansky

Click below to listen to episode 9 of Fast Keto!

This episode is one of the best to date content wise! Join Vanessa and Dr. John Limansky, the bio-hacking doctor, to talk about the following hot topics in keto from a physician's perspective: protein thresholds, how to maximize fat loss, how to get excellent sleep, and other aspects of creating a well rounded keto lifestyle to maximize your health - the best forms of exercise for keto, managing light exposure, and stress reduction techniques that he recommends to his patients. It is a must listen episode, power packed with cutting edge information from a passionate physician bio-hacker!

Click Here to listen on iTunes or the embedded link below:

Click Here to listen on Stitcher

Show Notes

Timestamps

Getting to know the Biohacking Doctor, Dr. John Limansky. [00:06:27]
Limansky's take on personal health advocacy. [00:07:41]
What does bio hacking mean to you? [00:08:29]
How did you find keto initially yourself? [00:09:42]
Do you also do biohacking with patients that you work with? [00:11:00]
What are some of your maybe top five favorite biohacks in terms of their overall impact? [00:12:09]
Limansky talks about an app he uses to measure sleep quality. [00:14:44]
Do you try to avoid some of the blue light effects from screens? Does that play a role into the sleep quality? [00:15:25]
Do sun blocks creams, etcetera really help? [00:17:51]
Supplement recommendation of Dr. Limansky. [00:19:55]
What is optimal ketosis for you? [00:22:08]
What are some of the benefits that you've gained from following a ketogenic lifestyle? [00:23:16]
What is this concept of gluconeogenesis? [00:25:45]
Do you ever change your diet, or have you found one that you are sticking to? [00:31:33]
How do you compare fasting and high protein? [00:33:24]
Ketones as the fourth macronutrient. [00:35:39]
Is fat loss guaranteed for someone when they're in keto? How does someone optimize for that? [00:38:11]
Limansky's recommendations to bring insulin levels down in order to start burning fat. [00:40:10]
What are some of the sort of exercises that you do in a day to day in order to optimize for body composition? [00:43:28]
Do you believe that someone has to have a caloric deficit if they're in keto in order to have fat loss? [00:45:26]
What are some of the tips that you give people in order to make sure for example they keep their electrolytes up? Is there an ideal sodium to potassium ratio on keto? [00:48:17]
What are some top tips you have for people who want to get into keto? [00:50:54]
What's the best purchase you've ever made for your ketogenic lifestyle? [00:53:02]
What would you put on a billboard for people to say about keto and biohacking? [00:53:59]

People Mentioned

John Limansky https://johnlimanskymd.com
Marci Shimoff http://happyfornoreason.com
Shawn Baker
Satchin Panda https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/satchin-round-2

Selected Links from the Episode

Keto Essentials: 150 Ketogenic Recipes to Revitalize, Heal, and Shed Weight by Vanessa Spina. https://www.amazon.com/Keto-Essentials-Ketogenic-Recipes-Revitalize/dp/1628602643
Subscribe on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/ph/podcast/fast-keto-with-ketogenic-girl/id1344681226?mt=2 or your favorite podcast app.
Fast Keto with Ketogenic Girl website http://fastketo.libsyn.com/website
Ketogenic Girl website https://www.ketogenicgirl.com
Ketogenic Girl on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRbb6xK4GpWtUIc9wxknKTw
Ketogenic Girl on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Theketogenicgirl/
Ketogenic Girl on Twitter https://twitter.com/search?q=ketogenic%20girl&src=typd&lang=en
Ketogenic Girl on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ketogenicgirl/?hl=en
The Keto Hacking MD Podcast http://www.ketohackingmd.com
Oura Ring Sleep Tracker and Smart Ring with a Heart Rate Monitor https://ouraring.com
28-day Ketogenic Girl Challengeketogenicgirl.com
John Limansky on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JohnLimansky1MD/
John Limansky on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/johnlimanskymd/?hl=en
John Limansky on Twitter https://twitter.com/johnlimanskymd?lang=en

Transcript

Vanessa: [00:00:00] Hey guys! Welcome to Fast Keto. I'm your host, Ketogenic Girl.

[00:00:20] Hey Guys! Welcome to Fast Keto. This episode is brought to you by Ketogenic Girl. If you haven't picked up a copy of my brand-new cookbook, Keto Essentials, head to Amazon today it actually is 31% off! It's on sale right now. It is everything that you need to know from a beginner to being advanced keto, about getting the optimal results out of your ketogenic lifestyle. It explains everything about why keto works, how to test, how to interpret results, and lots and lots of keto hacks to get you results quicker. It also has 150 of my most favorite decadent, rich, delicious keto recipes that are so nourishing and are so much fun to cook. Some of my favorite recipes like my keto Pad Thai, Fettuccine Alfredo. Some of my favorite desserts like keto cookie dough. There are so many delicious treats and ways that you can make keto work for you. A lot of easy to find ingredients. I don't put a lot of hard to find ingredients in the recipes and everything. You can find at most supermarkets. I do a lot of traveling and I'm able to make these recipes just with basic ingredients from the store. So, lots of delicious tasty recipes. It's on sale, 31% off. Head to Amazon and look up Keto Essentials and get the cookbook. Leave me a review. I would love love love to hear what you think. And also, tag me if you post any photos of the recipes. It's my favorite thing to see - your creations based on my recipes. So, that's Keto Essentials on Amazon.

[00:02:00] Hey guys, welcome to this latest episode of Fast Keto. I am so pumped about today's guest who is Dr. John Limansky. He is a keto doctor. He is one of the most passionate biohackers that I've gotten to meet over the years of being involved in keto. He is a board-certified physician of internal medicine and worked as a hospitalist and clinician for over five years treating an average of 30 patients per day.

[00:02:29] A lot of the diseases that he was encountering on a daily basis were in his opinion a direct result of the standard American diet. He saw that a lot of these diseases were and are in fact preventable and reversible through proper nutrition and diet. He began to share more and more about a method that he developed with his family. He started to share that method with his extended family and friends and then with his patients which is using a ketogenic lifestyle and optimizing sleep, exercise, lead exposure, stress reduction, and good feeling activities like yoga and meditation.

[00:03:06] We get to talk about all of this on the show today, so it's a really well-rounded interview. We've got to talk about all these different aspects. If any of you have also been following Jimmy Moore and Dr. John Limansky's recent experiment with the high protein diet, we talked a lot about protein and gluconeogenesis and what happens in the body and some of the findings that John had from doing this experiment. All of the results Jimmy Moore and John are going to be sharing on their episode of The Keto Hacking MD Podcast which is going to be out this week. So, we don't spoil any of the results, but we do get to talk a little bit about being on a high protein diet versus being in keto.

[00:03:48] I talk a little bit about myself, my own experience with higher protein diets as well. And we just got to talk about so many incredibly interesting aspects of the ketogenic diet and how to optimize your health with using all these different bio hacks and keto being the most powerful of all of them. So, it was such a fun podcast to talk about all these different areas related back to overall healthy living, feeling good in your body, and what being an optimal ketosis means for an individual person. I hope that you enjoyed the interview with Dr. John Limansky.

Disclaimer:

[00:04:24] A few disclaimers. By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice as I am not a qualified healthcare provider. The information presented on this podcast is for educational purposes only. Ketogenic Girl is not qualified to provide medical advice. Consult your own physician for any medical issues that you may be having. This entire disclaimer also applies to any guest or contributors to this podcast.

[00:04:44] Prior to beginning a ketogenic diet, you should undergo a full health screening with your physician to confirm that a keto diet is suitable for you and to rule out any conditions or contraindications that may pose risks or that are incompatible with a ketogenic diet. A keto diet may or may not be appropriate for you if you have any kind of health condition whether known to you or unknown, so you must consult your physician to find this out. Anyone under the age of 18 should consult with their physician and their parents or legal guardian.

Vanessa: [00:05:17] Hey, John! It's great to have you joining us here today. How are you this morning?

John: [00:05:22] I'm doing great. Thanks Vanessa for having me on. I'm super excited to be on and talk to you.

Vanessa: [00:05:27] Wicked! Yeah, you've been doing some traveling, but you've also been doing a lot of really interesting self-experimenting that I've been closely following online. A lot of people have been too. So, I was going to say now, how does it feel to be back in San Francisco? But you've also just been doing a lot of different experiments. I think you're fasting again this week, right?

John: [00:05:47] Yeah. I'm actually starting this morning with a fast, so constant experimentation. Jimmy and I just finished a seven-day high protein kind of experiment which we're going to talk about pretty soon. So, always experimenting. But it feels good to be home and we'll see. Today is day one of the fast so you got me at a good time.

Vanessa: [00:06:05] Yeah. I mean you're going to be more sharp and clear and hungry, right?

John: [00:06:11] Yeah. Well, at least it wasn't like on day two or three where I would be a zombie.

Vanessa: [00:06:17] So, this is day three?

John: [00:06:19] No. This is day -- like I just started. Last night was my last meal so. Yeah, so I haven't hit the day two, three kind of difficult stages yet.

Vanessa: [00:06:27] Yeah. You still have a little bit of glucose to power you through, especially your brain. For anyone who might not be familiar with you or your work, it would be great if you can tell us a little bit about your background.

John: [00:06:37] Yeah. I am physician in internal medicine. I have been doing keto for quite a long time for myself and for patients. I worked in a hospital setting as a hospitalist for about a decade. I was able to see kind of the end results of everything that you and I are trying to combat in people and realized that I could actually serve people a lot better by trying to do more of preventative health and really focus on nutrition and lifestyle changes. And so, I changed directions and started really working with people to try to prevent them from seeing me in the hospital setting. And found that I made much more of a difference in people's lives and was inspired by people who are really trying to change their life and get healthier. So, for the last five years or so I've been really just focusing mostly on that preventative health. And so now I have kind of a virtual office. I see people all over the country, all over the world, and really try to become an advocate on social media kind of side of things for people who are trying to take control over their life and get healthier.

Vanessa: [00:07:41] What do you think of personal health advocacy when it comes to health?

John: [00:07:47] I think it's essential. I think it's a difficult situation because there's so much misinformation or wrong information online. They have to be very careful and get a really good resource like yourself. Obviously, I'm pretty biased so myself. But there's very good resources out there. So, if you have a good resource and if you're listening to this podcast obviously you probably do.

[00:08:10] I think taking control of your health is essential. It's probably the most important thing that you can do because we are all very very different individually. We have different backgrounds, genetic makeup, different life experiences. And so, to make a blanket statement for everybody to do one thing, I think is wrong. So yeah, I think it's essential.

Vanessa: [00:08:29] Right. So, what does bio hacking mean to you? That's something that you do for yourself personally, right?

John: [00:08:35] Yeah, and I probably should've mentioned that. So, I combine ketogenic lifestyle with biohacking with myself and my clients and friends and family to really kind of optimize people's health. Biohacking is getting to be a little bit trendier. It's been around for thousands of years. The yogis used it in their meditation and their yoga practice to really kind of centralize their health. The way I kind of look at biohacking is, in a nutshell, I would say it's making the environment work for you instead of against you.

[00:09:06] Modern living is great. We have so much technology. We have ability to create food products. Everything is at our fingertips. If you live in a big city you can order whatever food, you want at any time. But the question is: what is the negative consequences of having all that? So, things like being in front of your computer, being on the iPhone, being on tablets, all those things have some negative consequences and biohacking is figuring out how do you incorporate a healthy lifestyle within our kind of modern way of living. And so, that's really kind of what I focus on. Keto is in my mind, essentially the ultimate bio hack.

Vanessa: [00:09:42] I fully agree with you there. I love that - the ultimate bio hack. How did you find keto initially yourself?

John: [00:09:49] When I was in medical school we had to do an experiment. I'm dating myself because this was a long time ago. Basically, I had to do lab work to see kind of what our metabolic status was. At the time, I was in my mid-twenties. I was working out six days a week. I had a six pack. I was really into triathlons. And so, I was exercising like crazy. I thought I'm healthy. When I got my lab results back, I realized that I was pre-diabetic and I had started getting insulin resistance. I was like floored by that.

[00:10:19] At the time, I was eating mostly kind of more of a vegetarian diet with a little bit of protein. I figured this has got to be healthy. It turns out that it wasn't specifically for me. At the time, this is 13 years ago, there wasn't much information out there about keto. I started reading. There was stuff about Atkins. I started reading about Atkins. I started kind of tinkering with different types of eating. I started incorporating some healthy fats into my diet which I wasn't doing before. Now, with kind of the burst of keto in social media and online, it's become you know obviously very popular. But it's been kind of an evolution of sorts where I've kind of tinkered with it and started incorporating into my lifestyle.

Vanessa: [00:11:00] That's great. You mentioned that you do biohacking mostly for yourself but also with some friends and family. Do you also do it with your patients that you work with?

John: [00:11:08] Yeah, absolutely. Like I mentioned before, I think keto is really kind of the ultimate biohack so I start with nutrition. I start with the ketogenic lifestyle converting people over to it, getting them healthy, resetting their metabolism. But my view is that you cannot just do one thing in a bubble. So, you cannot just do nutrition in a bubble and expect that things are going to be as healthy as possible.

[00:11:32] In my experience in life working late nights as a physician, I can tell you that if your sleep is not very good your health is not going to be very good, your adaption to a keto way of living is not going to be very good. So, you have to really start with good nutrition but then also look at all the other factors in your life to figure out - Okay, how's this improving or negatively affecting my life? Biohacking really plays into that where we address things like sleep, stress reduction, exercise, things like that. I use biohacking almost exclusively with my clients to make sure that we are really maximizing the benefits of ketogenic lifestyle.

Vanessa: [00:12:09] What are some of your maybe top five favorite biohacks in terms of their overall impact?

John: [00:12:16] Like I mentioned, obviously nutrition. I still think is… If you look at it as a pyramid, I think nutrition, keto specifically is at the base. If you don't do nutrition, all the other biohacks are essentially not really going to work as effectively as you want them to. Once you have that kind of dialed in, I focus on sleep. Sleep is essential not only from like a hormonal perspective increasing cortisol, norepinephrine, but also just in terms of recovery. Your body is essentially recovering, producing growth hormone at night to really try to repair the body. Dialing down sleep, figuring out how to improve sleep.

[00:12:53] Exercise is another very important one. The type of exercise you do, when you do it, can either you know negatively impact your ability to lose weight, improve your health or improve it. And then things like light exposure. So, depending on where you live, your access to sunlight is either very good or very bad. There's ways to kind of hack that and incorporate artificial light to really improve your cellular metabolism. Probably the last one I would say is meditation, yoga, relaxation. If you're like me and I think you probably are, we're always going, we're always on the go. And so, sometimes taking 10 minutes to just kind of settle down, give thanks to whatever it is you're thankful for that day. Doing 10 minutes of meditation, can go a long way towards really improving your health. It's pretty impressive some of the studies that are coming out at how impactful those things can be. Especially in our modern way of living, it's hard to do that. I don't know if you're like me, but my brain is always going so it's hard for me to just like slow down, not think, not talk. But it's very important as far as improving your health.

Vanessa: [00:13:57] That's really interesting. I love these five different pillars because I agree with you. For me, I really believe that nutrition and diet are the most powerful lever in terms of the impact on your health, but then these other things really compliment and build it. So, going to bed for me before 10 pm at night, I call it catching the happy train. I think I read that in a book by Marci Shimoff. It really makes such a huge impact. And it wasn't until I started looking at the cycles of repair like you're saying that growth hormone spikes happen right after you go to bed. So, if you stay up too late, you're going to miss some of the biggest repair hormone effects that you get if you are going to bed too late every night. And you use an app, right, to measure your sleep quality?

John: [00:14:44] I do. Yeah, I use the Oura ring. I'm excited to see what the new version comes out with, but I use it to basically track not only deep sleep, REM sleep, quality of sleep, temperature, and I use it for a few other things. I also use HRV measurement quite a bit with myself and my clients to kind of track how well the bodies recovered. My wife actually makes fun of me because I usually go to bed by like 9 - 9:30 which makes me pretty old. But specifically, because of all the benefits of sleep. I've worked really hard in the last couple years to dial down my sleep and try to figure out how I can effectively get the best sleep possible for repair and recovery.

Vanessa: [00:15:25] So, when it comes to light exposure, you're talking about vitamin D. But do you also try to avoid some of the blue light effects from screens? Does that, I guess plays into the sleep quality?

John: [00:15:37] Yeah, correct. When we talk about light, there's so many different spectrums of light. The research that's coming out is pretty impressive that if you go back historically before we had all this technology, you wake up when the sun comes up and you go to bed when the sun goes down and that's your normal circadian rhythm. Because we are indoors most of the day, a lot of us with work with and we have halogen lights. And you know some people will get up before the sun rises so your body has no idea where it's supposed to be in terms of its circadian rhythm. And those circadian rhythms are being shown to affect not only your ability to lose weight but also your ability to really tap into those deep levels of sleep that you need. So, things like you mentioned blue light. So, I will not be on technology for about two to three hours before I go to bed. So, I'll avoid iPhones, iPads, computers, TVs. I used to read a lot on my iPad and now what I did is I start buying hard books again which I actually like. And so, at night I only read books like that. I use blue light blocking glasses. But even things like in the morning when I wake up. So, I wake up before the sun rises. I wake up pretty early 4 - 4:30. So, in order to reset my circadian clock, I use artificial light in my ears and also exposure to my body. That kind of sets my body up for the day. That's another biohack in terms of light exposure. I try to go outside as much as possible. I live in California so I'm pretty lucky in that regards to get actual sun exposure, to get UVA, UVB light.

[00:17:09] We think of sun exposure as it's the cause of cancer. And yeah, if you sit out for three hours and get roasted, yeah, you're going to probably get some form of skin cancer down the road but getting 10 to 15 minutes of actual natural sunlight is one of the best things you can do, not only for vitamin D but also just health reasons. How you feel, mitochondrial function, things like that. So, that's kind of what I mean when I'm talking about light.

Vanessa: [00:17:35] Yeah, that's really cool. We were talking a bit about the Biohacking Summit last year. Someone who was there I was speaking to have this light that goes in his earphones that was helping him adjust so he didn't get jetlag. I had never seen that before.

John: [00:17:50] Was that Ben Greenfield?

Vanessa: [00:17:51] He was definitely there. I think it was Bob… Conefied Bob. He was showing us this earphones that he had which is really neat. I have a question for you on sunscreen just while we're there because there's been so much talk about avoiding the sun for so long and then that put a lot of people in a state of having really low vitamin D. And then, you know using all these sunscreens and things to block the UVB or UVA rays. But then, if you're using these creams, you're blocking it but you're also potentially getting harmful effects from toxins in the cream. What's your opinion on protecting your skin, being in the sun and enjoying the sun but then do you use any kind of like skin creams or anything like that?

John: [00:18:34] Yeah. Great question. In general, I don't use sunscreen. I don't recommend using sunscreen. There is a caveat to that. If you are predisposed to having skin cancer, you have a family history of skin cancer, obviously that's something you want to talk with your doctor about and get probably a sunscreen that doesn't have a lot of the HECS screen-based products in it. A lot of those sunscreens are oil based and that's the toxins that you're talking about.

[00:18:58] Generally, what I recommend is start off slow. Do 10 minutes in the sun. Build up to it every day 10 to 15 minutes. Eventually, you can build up where you have your own natural sun protection in the form of melanocytes. When you get tan, there are cells in your body called melanocytes that start making more melanin which is the color that you see on people's skin.

[00:19:20] People have fear of things like melanoma. Melanoma actually happens usually for children who are very young because the melanocytes are actually on the surface of the skin when you're a baby and then they go down into a deeper level of the dermis. So, if you get a lot of light exposure as a little baby, down the road your chance of getting melanoma goes up. But like I mentioned before, you don't want to go out and get fried and do four hours of sun exposure without any sunscreen if you haven't been out in the sun all day. So, generally I say build up to it and your chance of getting skin cancer is minimal at that point.

Vanessa: [00:19:55] That's great! So, you mostly recommend getting a vitamin D when you can. Do you need to do anything else to compliment that in terms of supplements? There's a lot of talk about needing vitamin K in order to synthesize a vitamin D.

John: [00:20:08] Yeah. One of the things about nutrition is that we try to figure out the active kind of component and we try to remove that and then take it as a pill. In certain areas where you don't get exposure to sun, right? I mean… So, take for instance anything that you think about, that's what we do. We just try to get the active ingredient and take it. It usually doesn't work that way. In terms of getting Vitamin K, Vitamin D, the best thing you can do is get a very very good base nutrition or you'll get all the vitamin K you need. And then get sun exposure and you'll get all the vitamin D you need. That's usually my basis is trying to do less and get more out of it.

Vanessa: [00:20:46] Hey guys, just taking a really quick break to talk about the 28-day Ketogenic Girl Challenge. If you're interested in doing a ketogenic diet for yourself, it's a great place to start. I teach you everything about how to follow a keto diet to get yourself into nutritional ketosis. It includes 28 days of meal plans. It comes with weekly shopping lists, how to interpret results, how to test yourself, a complete guide to getting started on keto.

[00:21:15] If you've been keto for a while and you're just not getting the results that you want to in terms of your health or fat loss or you are brand new to keto, the 28 day challenge is a great option because it also comes with my free coaching and support in our members Facebook group and you can post any questions that you have about the meal plans, about keto, and I am there supporting you. We have an amazing community in our group. I like to call it the happiest place on Earth because everybody in there is so excited about following keto, about having found something that really works well for them. Everyone in there is just so kind, caring, generous, and supportive. It's a really fun place to be and hang out. If you like more info on it, you can find it at ketogenicgirl.com. It's the 28-day Ketogenic Girl Challenge. Now, back to our interview.

Vanessa: [00:22:08] Going back to your personal lifestyle, I'd love to talk a little bit more about that. You mentioned that you were a vegetarian for a long time. You did some protein. You ate more vegetarian diet. Then, when you saw some of the health markers, you started to make the changes and you got into keto. What is optimal ketosis for you?

John: [00:22:27] Yeah, great question. I'm glad you asked this. Again, we get fixated on numbers instead of really focusing on how we feel. If I had to sum it up I would say optimal ketosis is being in a state of mind where your mind is really sharp, you feel great energy, and you're not fixated on what I'm going to eat or what I'm going to eat. That's very liberating. It's almost like a state of nirvana, right. I used to be either eating, thinking about what I'm going to eat, or beating myself up about what I just ate. Now, I go days where I'm just like "Okay. Oh, I need to eat something." Because I'm not always in the sense, my brain is not always sending signals saying "Hey, you're starving. You need to eat something." And so, everybody has to figure out what that state is for them. That's really what I think optimal ketosis is.

Vanessa: [00:23:16] That's a great definition. A lot of people ask me all the time about numbers. When I was in Majorca I was saying "Well, this is how you test for ketosis on a blood level, but you want to be journaling like what do those numbers actually mean for me? Where do I feel my best and then test yourself." I feel awesome today. Okay. So, what does that mean for you in terms of Ketones and your blood glucose for you personally because you feel great, you want to be able to repeat that so that optimal ketosis can mean different things for different people. What are some of the benefits that you've gained from following a ketogenic lifestyle?

John: [00:23:52] Oh there are numerous. Where do I start? Obviously, energy level is through the roof. I'm nearing 40. I'm going to have my midlife crisis pretty soon, but I feel energetic. Weight is never an issue. My lab markers are fantastic. I'm happy. I sleep well. I feel connected to my friends and family. My days are very packed, and I have enough energy to accomplish quite a bit. And then for me because I've seen the outcomes of a Western way of living in the hospital setting and obviously I'm kind of jaded because I've seen the worst-case scenario, I know that for me I'm never going to have to see that. I'm never going to have to be that person in the hospital. My goal is I hid 110 and I drop dead and I'm happy. And so, for me getting ketosis and biohacking is all about being as healthy as possible, being as productive as possible, and being a good person. And that's really what it's afforded me.

Vanessa: [00:24:54] Now, I love that you're always changing things up. I'm the same. And Jimmy were doing your high protein experiment. Right after I was in Majorca, I decided just to test higher protein. A lot of it's been because there's been so much debate about protein levels and thresholds. People are always asking about gluconeogenesis and if it's a real thing or what exactly is happening in the body. I found it really interesting with your recent experiment. I was telling you that I had the same thing when I overdo protein I control carbs for what they are usually. I get kicked out of ketosis. I wake up with really high fasting blood glucose. I have zero to no ketones which is the opposite for me when I'm in ketosis which is I have really really high ketone numbers and very low stable blood glucose. What I really want to get to is: What is this concept of gluconeogenesis? Is it really happening or is it just that the body becomes overwhelmed by the amount of protein that's being eaten, in your opinion?

John: [00:25:54] So we're going to get into the details of our results in an upcoming podcast but what I would say is that it depends. One of the reasons that we did the high protein experiment is because it's out there and people are becoming convinced that it's a very healthy way of eating. We wanted to show whether or not it was. Our results are going to be fascinating.

[00:26:18] It depends on metabolically where you begin from. A lot of people who obviously get into the ketogenic lifestyle have done tremendous amount of damage to the body. They're insulin resistant. They're frank diabetic. Those people are going to have a dramatically different response to high protein intake versus somebody like you or me who I'm assuming that you're not insulin resistant. I'm not insulin resistant. My metabolic markers are very good.

[00:26:42] So, in general what happens is let's say you just take proteins. Protein, you break it down with acid in your stomach into amino acids. Those amino acids get absorbed into the portal system which is the blood system to the intestinal track and it goes to the liver. In the liver, your body actually uses insulin to convert those into glucose via gluconeogenesis. Then you have to do something with that. So, your body is obviously using proteins all day long to repair itself. If you're building muscle, it's using proteins in order to do that. The excess protein then becomes something where your body has to utilize it. That either becomes glucose or it becomes fat. You can't store it in any other way.

[00:27:24] And so, for you if you have high levels of protein and you're utilizing the ones you need, the excess is going to have to be either glucose or then eventually get converted back into fat stores. And that's really… I mean in a nutshell what's happening. And so, that's why you get kicked out of ketosis, your glucose goes up. Same thing happens with me. Now, there's a flip side response which is something called glucagon. That can obviously impact things in a different way. I don't want to get too much into it because we have a lot to talk about and I want people to hear our results but that's kind of in a nutshell what's happening.

[00:28:00] The only thing I was going to say, so for people who are like you know a bodybuilders or endurance athletes or people who are really active using their muscles, don't stop. They can probably afford a higher protein load than somebody who's not as active or not as functional, I guess.

Vanessa: [00:28:18] Right. And I guess one of the things that causes a lot of confusion for people is this. There's this article done at the ketogains maybe website where they said eating excess protein, it doesn't turn to chocolate cake in your blood but… I understand what they're trying to say. It doesn't turn to chocolate cake in the blood but if you do eat more than you're utilizing in terms of your exercise level, activity level, or a new tissue formation like you are saying then the body does need to store it in some way in the tissues and it needs to be glycogen being stored in your muscle tissues or it will turn into fatty acids to be stored in that form in your in your fat cells, correct?

John: [00:28:58] Yeah, exactly. I think if you look at… and that's kind of why I mentioned if you're a bodybuilder, if you look at the guys who are really benefiting from a high protein diet, it's a group of ketogains, Shawn Baker, [Ted Nam 00:29:11], guys who are putting on much more muscle mass and so that's great but can you apply that to everybody else who is maybe not trying to put on a lot of muscle mass, doesn't do that much exercise? Well, no. Something has to happen with those excess amino acids.

[00:29:28] Plus, we haven't really talked about amino acids have variable ability to raise insulin. So, some amino acids are much more insulingenic. You can really dive into the weeds in this and it would be like a 10-hour series of podcast talking about just the impact of protein on metabolism. I think that's one of the issues that we get into is that we try to simplify things that are extremely complex just for one individual it's extremely complex now everybody has a dramatically different response but yeah, we're trying to say simply that protein is good. It's hard to say that without knowing exactly what's going on with that individual. And so, that's kind of the point they were trying to make.

Vanessa: [00:30:09] Right. That's what I love about biohacking. When I was speaking at that summit last year, the Biohacker Summit, I was saying - to me, you have this little device you can buy for $17 and you can use it to actually learn about how your body personally responds, individually responds to the things that you do, to what you eat, and to your activity levels, and all these things. That's what's so amazing about health tech, I think. There's even more exciting health techs that's on its way that is going to continue to be able to give us this amazing feedback but it's all about learning for yourself how different things work. At the same time, there are some generally repeated outcomes that do happen. Like it happen for… When I saw your results, I said that that's exactly what happened to me when I was in Spain. Two weeks, I went way over my protein threshold because I wanted to test the numbers and show people this is what happens to me when I do it. And I'm a fairly active person, relatively lean, and I follow very strict ketogenic diet most of the time. So, it is really fascinating. I can't wait to listen to yours and Jimmy's podcast because you're going to be sharing all the results. I definitely don't want to spoil any of those. It's going to be an awesome episode. And I know you're going to be doing a few of them just to cover all of this because it's so interesting to see how you both reacted so differently as well to the experiment which is really cool. But I guess at the end of this, my question for you is going to be, you know you tried different things, you've been doing keto, I think you mentioned for 13 years. Do you ever change it up in other ways or have you kind of found… zeroed it on what works for you and so that's kind of what you're sticking to?

John: [00:31:44] You name it, I've done it. I've tried everything out there. I'm pretty new to social media. I would say in the last year or two, but I've been doing this for a long time where I will try everything out there to see what it does to my body. I measure things in terms of subjective. Like how I feel, etcetera. And then objectively with lab markers but also different data points.

[00:32:07] I found out for me what works like you mentioned you know you're pretty strict keto most of the time, and I'm sure for you it's been a journey to figure out "Okay. This works for me. This doesn't work for me." Same thing with me. A lot of people who start off on a keto diet do things that are very heavy in dairy for instance. Depending on where in the world you live, me in the United States, the type of dairy that I get is very different than it would be for people in Europe, in Majorca, or Canada, or in Prague, you know things like that. So, it's figuring out what actually works for you. And the way that I do it is I test a lot to see "Okay. Look I'm wondering if this certain food item is going to affect me in a positive or negative way. And I'll actually measure ketones, glucose, you know high sensitivity CRP, lab markers to see does this actually impact me? And then if it does in a negative way, I tend to avoid it because I'm getting up there my age and I have children and I want to make sure that I'm healthy and energetic and don't have health problems so that I can really spend quality time with them. So, at this point though, I've figured out what works for me. I figured out in general if I'm not doing experiments, I know what works for me and so I stick to it pretty religiously.

Vanessa: [00:33:24] So, between the two, between fasting and high protein, I think I can guess which one you preferred but how do you compare the two?

John: [00:33:34] Fasting gets you to a point of… I've used the word before on your podcast but… Nirvana. It's like you're very clear, you're very sharp, you feel very calm. Obviously, it takes a little while to get there. Once you get there, it's an extremely liberating feeling. It's hard to describe but I think anybody who wants to try it has to try it to see kind of what it does for them. Granted it takes two to three days to really get there but once you get there… Plus, I know based on the studies that are out there, the benefits that I'm getting long term in terms of longevity, in terms of cancer prevention, in terms of like [unclear 00:34:07] so I know that there's actual benefits from it, and I feel great.

[00:34:12] I'm pretty skinny. My body fat percentage is low, so I don't do it for weight loss. I do it for health benefits. With high protein, I don't feel very good. I'll just be honest. I didn't feel very good. I felt the way I used to feel when I would eat kind of that vegetarian low protein diet where I would eat something, be ravenous within 30 minutes, feel almost hypoglycemic although I wasn't, feel low energy, cranky. Luckily, I did it while I was on vacation, so I didn't have a whole bunch of stressors, but I didn't feel good. For me, interestingly enough, some of the markers that I checked actually got better but the flip side is I didn't feel good. So, which one is better? Do you want to feel good and have better markers or do you want to feel horrible and have some worse markers but some better markers? For me, it's a no brainer. I'd rather feel good and know that I'm doing benefit for my body.

Vanessa: [00:35:06] Absolutely. That Nirvana state that you described, there's also all that incredible autophagy that happens that I know you guys have been getting the benefits of with your fasting experiment. But I experience so many of those same thing as being in nutritional ketosis because it's the same primarily fat filled state. I really believe that some of the incredible therapeutic effects that come from ketones engender a lot of that state because you're burning fat from your body or you're burning fat that you're eating as well.

[00:35:39] I did read that it's possible that ketones could eventually become reclassified as a fourth macronutrient. I love bringing this up because I really think that would be pretty revolutionary if it happens.

John: [00:35:49] I think you need to trademark that before it happens because I agree a hundred percent. If you don’t do it, I'm going to do it after we get off this. Well you know I think ketones there's a question of which one is better, is it glucose or ketones? The body really will utilize whatever is there. If you have a whole bunch of glucose in your system, your body's going to use it. But if you generate ketones, your body's going to use that and at that time usually in order to have those ketones you're not going to have glucose in your system.

[00:36:22] And I agree. I think the information that we're getting especially in the scientific community from guys like [unclear 00:36:28], Siegfried, a lot of the research that's coming out on the benefits of ketones not just for weight loss but for health issues is unbelievable. As a medical doctor, I approach ketosis more from like a health perspective and you'll hear me talk about how the global focus is on weight loss. I understand why people are all obsessed with weight loss because that's our society, but I look at it more as this developed from a medical tool. Like this was for epilepsy, for cancer. This is something that is a medical tool that we should view it that way. And yeah, the side effect is you'll lose weight and you'll feel great but think about the benefits that you're actually doing for your health, your cellular health which now we can measure. So, that's kind of how I view it. But absolutely, I think it needs to be up there and classified probably as the best macronutrient.

Vanessa: [00:37:20] That's really incredible. All the benefits for the brain that are coming out and all the potential therapeutic applications. The fact that the body makes ketones for you, I don't… I'm not someone who uses [unclear 00:37:30], ketones, or anything. I do think that they might have a lot of potential in the future for someone who can't make them from their own diet, but it still is a very exciting frontier.

[00:37:40] A lot of people like you said focus on fat loss. It's something that will be a motivator for someone maybe trying a ketogenic diet who's maybe, you know we have very low future self-attunement in our society. We don't really think about who we're going to be or picture ourselves as elderly very often. We don't really think about ourselves in the future that much. So, sometimes having a motivator like an immediate health condition or just wanting to lose for someone, maybe lose 40-50 pounds or even less than that can really be a motivator. So, is fat loss guaranteed for someone when they're in keto? How does someone optimize for that?

John: [00:38:16] It depends is usually my answer for most questions because it's so variable depending on the person. But, it just does not guarantee. I'll put it out there. Let's say you eat 5,000 calories of fat and yeah you can get into ketosis doing that but you're not necessarily going to lose weight. The way I kind look at ketogenic diet is something that is very balanced. People will say it's an extreme diet. I would argue the opposite. I would say it's a very balanced diet if you do it right - you're thinking about a good source of protein, good source of fat, and a good source of carbohydrates.

[00:38:53] If you do it in the right way with the right macros, with the right amount of calories, then yeah absolutely you will lose a ton of fat and it's been shown over and over with multiple people but you have to get a good resource and that's why especially with Google trend of keto being the most searched word out there I'm concerned that a lot of people are just kind of putting out whatever they think is keto versus people like yourself that have a lot of experience that are actually showing "Look, this is the best way to do it." I usually tell people get a good resource and figure out what that resources is and follow that person or follow a few people if you really get the good information that will maximize your ability to be successful.

Vanessa: [00:39:38] Right. And some people, they can be in a state of nutritional ketosis but not burning fat because for example they're doing what I call nursing - drinking beverages all day long throughout their meal so the body never gets a break from insulin and never gets to actually burn fat. What I do find interesting is that sometimes someone can not be burning fat just because of that, because there's this constant insulin presence. And because of that, they need to do things to bring the insulin levels down. So, what are some of the things you recommend to people that do that?

John: [00:40:12] Probably the easiest thing and we've talked about it is fasting. People get quite concerned about doing a long term fast. I don't think you need to do that. You can do an intermittent fast, 24 hours fast, 36 hours fast. That's probably the most powerful, cheapest way of bringing your insulin levels down. Then, I usually focus on quality. In the keto world, I see a lot of people post pictures of going to a fast food, taking off the bun of a hamburger and saying this is keto. If you had to have one thing that drives me absolutely crazy, that would probably be it because that meat is grain fed antibiotic even if they say it's not. It's full of hormones. The cheese is not cheese. The oils that were used to cook it are very inflammatory. And so, the reason I kind of mention I look at keto more as improving your metabolic markers in your health is because you need to make sure that you focus on quality of ingredients. So, grass fed food you know, good oils, because that's going to be less inflammatory and so you're actually going to decrease your insulin because you decrease your cortisol. And so, you'll have more success. Also, the timing of when you eat. So, let's say you don't want to do fasting. Well, if you eat late at night, you could be on the best macronutrient kind of concentration. You eat at midnight, well you're probably not going to lose as much weight as you think you're going to.

[00:41:34] There's a PhD down in San Diego, his name is Dr. Panda who is looking at time restricted eating. One study which is fascinating is they looked at the same amount of food, same quality of food, but just they ate within an eight-hour window. Those people who did that lost more weight than people who just ate whenever they wanted to. Because there's that circadian rhythm that I talked about earlier and it applies to not only light, but it also applies to food, and insulin, and growth hormone production. If you were to do those three things: focus on quality, do some sort of fasting whether it's intermittent or long term fasting, and then restrict your eating late at night you'll have much more success.

Vanessa: [00:42:14] Yes. I did actually was quoting a study. I'm not sure if it was the same one where they did that people were eating the same amount of food, but they were closing their eating window earlier in the day and they lost a lot more weight than those who didn't. When you think about all that growth hormone and fat burning that happens while you sleep, you know eating late you can just throw that right off and you won't get any of those benefit.

John: [00:42:36] Not only that, but it actually will negatively impact your sleep. They also showed that if you eat late at night or just when you eat, you're actually suppressing melatonin production from your pancreas which is crazy. Nobody would've thought that. When you eat late at night you're going to suppress melatonin from the pancreas. And so, melatonin is needed to really activate deep sleep and REM sleep, and so you'll have less of it, so your sleep patterns will be off now. The next day your cortisol levels are higher, your insulin levels are higher, you're hungrier so your chance of eating something much worse goes up. Then you get into this vicious cycle where now you don't feel good so you don't sleep well and etcetera, etcetera. It's all these things come into play and that's why I love biohacking so much because all these things matter. So, for focusing on weight loss and how all these things actually really matter.

Vanessa: [00:43:28] Absolutely. I 100% agree. Now, just a touch a little bit on enhancing body composition, so you do a lot of training and exercise, what are some of the sort of exercises that you do in a day to day in order to optimize for body composition?

John: [00:43:44] It could be as simple as taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Have a stand-up desk at work. Try to walk to a store instead of driving. Simple things like that can go a long way to really improving your ability to fat burn. If you're more into exercise, things like weightlifting, even for women there's a big fear especially for women that you're going to become huge and have all this muscle. Chance of that happening are pretty slim. Just doing resistance training is one of the best things you can do because what happens? Well, you do build some muscle and that muscle actually utilizes more energy throughout the day so your BMR, your basal metabolic rate goes up so you're burning more. Things like HIIT, so high intensity interval training is one of the best things you can do because what happens? You actually increase not only the density of your mitochondria but their function. The mitochondria is really… I look at it as kind of the battery of every cell. Most of our cells have thousands of these mitochondria. If they're not functioning properly, then you're not burning energy effectively. When you do something like HIIT, you're actually making them more effective and you're making more of them. So, not only are you making more muscle but you're also making more batteries that are using more energy, so you'll burn through your fat stores much faster that way.

[00:44:59] You can also do things like timing of the exercise. What I tend to do is I'll exercise very hard, and then I'll eat my meal in about an hour afterwards. And so, the muscles are really ready for that glucose, whatever glucose I'm going to absorb. Your muscles are ready for the protein that you consume. Your muscles need it so you can do a lot of things to kind of hack your timing of food intake and the types of exercise you do to really improve not only fat loss but muscle building.

Vanessa: [00:45:26] Awesome. And for fat loss, do you believe that someone has to have a caloric deficit if they're in keto in order to have that fat loss?

John: [00:45:35] No. This is one of those kinds of controversial topics. I think when you say caloric restriction or caloric deficit, I always get kind of concerned because a lot of times most of the diets that are out there are essentially all the same in the sense that they're all calorie deficit diets of some sort. You either restrict something or else. But the basic premise is that you're restricting calories. When you do that, even if you do a ketogenic with calorie strict a diet you can actually lower your resting metabolism. I tend to advise people not to do a calorie restricted or calorie deficit even if it's keto. You could figure out what your basic metabolic rate is, and you can do that very easily. Go to a DEXA place. There's a test that you can do to figure that out. Once you know kind of what your basic metabolic rate is then you know how many calories you really should consume. If you stay like isocaloric or even a little bit hyper caloric and you're ketogenic adapted, then you're still going to burn fat. It might not be as quick if you had a calorie deficit but you're not going to affect your metabolism which is really what we want. We want to maintain that metabolic rate.

Vanessa: [00:46:47] Yes. And that's one of the things I love the most about keto is it robs your metabolism. It gets us mitochondrial energy factor spinning because you're not in this starvation mode or restriction mode where your body has to shut down your thyroid production in order to keep you alive. But I think there is still a lot of questions out there for people who are not maybe losing weight or burning fat, men and women on keto, and wondering do I have to still have like you said some kind of deficit or hyper caloric level at the end of the day in order for my body to be burning more fat. For me, I think the time restricted eating really comes back down to that and also lowering insulin so that your body will be using fat for energy throughout the day and you'll be primarily fat burner even if you don't have a huge caloric deficit.

John: [00:47:36] Yeah. One thing that I think is very important to people to know is that once you become fat adapted you can do temperature to eating, intermittent fasting. And when you're doing that, all you're doing is burning whatever glycogen you have left but mostly your fat. And then when you go and eat something your body obviously uses that energy and processes whatever you ate but then you go right back into kind of a fat burning mode. That's really the power of time restricted eating or intermittent fasting or whatever you want to call it is that you're using the energy you get when you eat but then when you're not eating, all that time your body is actually burning through the fat that you eat or that you have on your body as energy. That's really the power of it.

Vanessa: [00:48:17] Absolutely. Now, what are some of the tips that you give people in order to make sure for example they keep their electrolytes up? And I was going to say, is there in your opinion an ideal sodium to potassium ratio on keto?

John: [00:48:29] You can get really into the weeds of this. And so, it's hard to make a general statement for everybody in terms of ratios. What I would say is if you are taking salt supplements, there's a lot of them out there. You can do something as simple as just doing Himalayan salt under your tongue when you kind of feel symptoms of low sodium intake. So, if you feel a little dizzy, a little tired, I generally overdo it in terms of the amount of electrolytes. But I would say a caveat is - I don't have any liver dysfunction. I don't have a new kidney dysfunction. I don't have any heart problems. So, if you have any of those things, you have to be very careful of your sodium, potassium, magnesium intake. And you should really see a doctor and follow with a doctor for that. But in general, the kidneys are very good at adapting to electrolyte balance and they're going to regulate the sodium potassium very effectively.

[00:49:20] What happens is initially, and most people I think who are listening will know this, that when you're on a Western diet you have high levels of insulin, so your kidneys hold on to sodium and with that water. When you go on a ketogenic diet for the first time, you drop your insulin, your kidneys start losing sodium and so you lose water and that's why you feel dizzy in the keto flu. So, initially it's very important to get high levels of electrolytes to combat that. As your body kind of gets into an equilibrium where it understands where you're at and you maintain a ketogenic lifestyle, those electrolytes are going to be balanced much better by your kidneys. At that point, I take salt supplements just because it makes me feel better. But if I were to check my labs, I could tell you that my potassium, my sodium, is going to be highly regulated and in normal range. So, I don't know if that's really a great answer to your question but that's kind of how I view it.

Vanessa: [00:50:09] That's a great point. You need to have that sodium potassium balance for your energy for your cells. Like your mentioning, the cell battery. I always say for people to include a lot of potassium rich foods in their diet. There are so many of the keto ones are some of the best ones. Avocados and salmon and leafy greens. If you make sure that like you said you're optimizing for quality in your diet, then you won't need to worry too much about adding in external sources like you're saying of magnesium, potassium, and all these things and just supplementing with sea salt as needed. Like you said, if you have any liver, kidney conditions, or heart conditions, or anything else then you need to be regulating that with your doctor. Specifically, to you. What are some top tips you have for people who want to get into keto?

John: [00:50:59] Yeah. I look at keto just the way you do where this is long term. My biggest pet peeve with the word keto diet is that I don't view this as a diet. I view it as a lifestyle. I always tell people to make a long-term plan. A lot of people will contact me and say "Look, I want to lose 50 pounds in three weeks because I have a wedding." I say "Well, that's great but that's not realistic." Make a long-term plan. Say okay. In one month this is my goal. In three months, six months, 12 months so that you have an idea that this is going to be long term way of doing things.

[00:51:31] The second thing I tell people is to get your family, friends, coworkers, get people on board with what you're doing and do it as a group. Find a community like yours or there's a lot of very good communities out there so that you have a support system. Then that's going to give you the ability to be successful over the long term. I tell people like we've mentioned to focus on quality not quantity. So again, I look at it as anti-inflammatory. How to find quality products that are actually going to be anti-inflammatory and keto at the same same time? There's a very big difference between fast food keto and healthy real food keto. And so, I always tell people to really focus on the quality of the ingredients. And then, get educated. So, find a source that you respect, and you understand and learn all you can. Get as much information as you can so that you are in control of this process. Right?

[00:52:26] Getting control. You mentioned before like health advocacy. You are the biggest advocate of your health because nobody else cares about your body as much as you do. And then incorporate biohacking into your life so do simple things like do five minutes of meditation. Wake up. Don't think about anything for five minutes. Focus on improving your sleep. Do you time restricted eating or intermittent fasting. Do things like that with light exposure to really improve how you feel but overall your health. I think if you do those five things you will have success and you'll find it's going to be much easier to maintain this kind of way of eating.

Vanessa: [00:53:02] Those are excellent tips. What's the best purchase you've ever made for your ketogenic lifestyle?

John: [00:53:07] This is a hard question. This is a really hard question because I don't know how to dial it down to one thing. If I were to say one thing and this is kind of a toss-up, but I would say… I'm going to give you two things because I have to. So, first thing would be a ketone glucose meter. A lot of people will try to do a ketogenic lifestyle. Say you know "Things aren't working, I don’t know why." I'll ask them. "Okay. What are your ketones? What are your glucose?" They don't know. How do you know if something is going to work if you don't know what the values are?

[00:53:37] Number two. Get a really good book. The best purchase I can recommend is get a book on keto that you value the resource. If you do those two things, you have data to back up what you're doing and to kind of direct you. And then you have the information that you need to really be successful.

Vanessa: [00:53:59] Those are great. What would you put on a billboard for people to say about keto and biohacking?

John: [00:53:02] Yeah. Yeah. I think I need more than one billboard. I need like three billboards like that. I would say "Don't give up." A lot of people get frustrated. I'm sure you see this pretty typical. They start. They're excited. They're energized. They lose about 10 pounds. Most of that is water and glycogen. And then, they stall. "It's not working. It's my genes." It's something… "It's not going to work for me." Or "This is like every other fad diet out there. It doesn't work." Well, that's not true. So, I would say don't give up. Keep finding out what works for you. Keep testing and really push yourself because if you maintain this and if the find what works for you, the health will come, and the weight will come off.

Vanessa: [00:54:49] That's great. That's a very inspirational. You've shared so much knowledge with us today. I really really appreciate you taking the time. I know you're working on some exciting projects, so what can people look out for next from you?

John: [00:55:01] Yeah, thanks. This is going to be a busy year, I think, for the keto world and definitely for myself. I'm doing a podcast with Jimmy Moore called the Keto Hacking MD Podcast. We go into nutrition but also biohacks that you can do to improve your health. We're working on a book together that's going to come out either end of the year or early next year. I'll be out a few conferences talking - Keto Con, Low Carb Cruise. Then, I'm involved in some actual medical research studies that will come out probably late next year which will be exciting. And then, I'm pretty busy with just clients and looking forward to meeting and interacting with more people in the keto community.

Vanessa: [00:55:39] That's fantastic. That research sounds very very interesting. It will be great to look out for that. Where can people find you online? Where are you most active?

John: [00:55:50] I'm pretty original so my Instagram and Twitter is @johnlimanskyMD. Website is JohnLimanskyMD.com. Feel free to email me, text me on Instagram. I'm pretty accessible. So, that's probably the best way.

Vanessa: [00:56:07] That's fantastic. Well, thank you so much for being here today with us John. There was so much that we got to talk about. I really had to make a huge effort to cut it as short as possible because there's so much more I wanted to ask.

John: [00:56:18] Well, we have to do this again.

Vanessa: [00:56:20] Absolutely. We can take questions from listeners too because I know people have a ton of questions for you. So, thanks so much for being here with us today and sharing all of your knowledge.

John: [00:56:29] You're welcome. It's been a pleasure. Have a great day.

Vanessa: [00:56:31] Hey guys! That was today's episode. I hope that you had as much fun listening as I had talking to Dr. Laminsky about biohack in keto. We could have talked for hours more just talking about how powerful this lifestyle has been for both of us. It's an incredibly powerful protocol like Dr. Laminsky was saying that's been used for years with disease treatment. But it can also be… If it's really done well, an incredible way to prevent disease to live life in a fat fueled zone where you're primarily being fueled of.

[00:57:04] Therapeutic ketones have so many incredible benefits to keto. You all know that I believe in that quite a bit because I followed ketogenic lifestyle myself. But what I really loved about today's conversation is we got to talk about so many different aspects of a ketogenic lifestyle. And also, what is a ketogenic lifestyle and optimal keto like for you as a person, as an individual? What does it mean for you in terms of mental clarity or energy or mood stability or freedom from food fixation? There's so many different aspects to what being in ketosis means for an individual person. I really think that there are so many benefits that can be gleaned from following a ketogenic lifestyle.

[00:57:42] Even if you don't follow it all the way or be extreme about it, if you just are eating less sugar, less refined foods, less flour, and you're eating more whole real foods you're eating more meats that are organic, free of hormones ,that are grass fed, you're eating higher quality food using good oils, all these different things to optimize the diet that you're providing your body so that it can generate really healthy strong new tissue. You can also be fueled from ketones which are pretty incredible.

[00:58:14] So, keto is not necessarily for everyone but if it is a lifestyle that you have chosen, I think that John put it so well when he talked about what optimal ketosis was for him - and just feeling happy in his body, feeling good in his body, and having so much freedom to go and live life and do the things that you love doing. And so, I love that definition of optimal ketosis.

[00:58:35] If you'd like to learn more about John, you can find him on Instagram, on various social media, and his website. If you'd like to learn more about the 28-day Ketogenic Girl Challenge, I mentioned it about halfway through the interview, but if you want to learn more about doing keto with my help I have the challenge available at ketogenicgirl.com. You can find me, ask me any questions about it on Facebook @theketogenicgirl and @ketogenicgirl on Instagram.

[00:59:02] If you enjoyed today's podcast, please leave me a review and rating. I would absolutely love to read it and see it. It really helps with a new podcast to get feedback from listeners who have something to say. I would love to hear your review and see it for myself. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that you have a fat field week. I can't wait to join you guys on the next episode. Bye for now.

Disclaimer:

[00:59:36] A few disclaimers. By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice as I am not a qualified healthcare provider. The information presented on this podcast is for educational purposes only. Ketogenic Girl is not qualified to provide medical advice. Consult your own physician for any medical issues that you may be having. This entire disclaimer also applies to any guest or contributors to this podcast.

[00:59:56] Prior to beginning a ketogenic diet, you should undergo a full health screening with your physician to confirm that a keto diet is suitable for you and to rule out any conditions or contraindications that may pose risks or that are incompatible with a ketogenic diet. A keto diet may or may not be appropriate for you if you have any kind of health condition whether known to you or unknown, so you must consult your physician to find this out. Anyone under the age of 18 should consult with their physician and their parents or legal gu

← Older Post Newer Post →