LowCarbUSA Podcast

Recently Pam and I were approached by Casey Means, MD who is the co-founder and Chief medical officer of a company called Levels which is creating an App to integrate with a CGM and provide a whole lot of added value to basic scan data available in the CGM dashboard. We go over all the features, like Metabolic Score, that they have implemented in the App to help people understand the implications of what they eat, as well as other lifestyle factors like sleep and stress, on their blood glucose levels and ultimately their metabolic health.

Levels was kind enough to let both of us trial the App for a month and we scheduled this interview half way through that trial so that we would have something to talk about. Wearing a CGM is a fascinating experience and I feel everyone should have to wear one for at least a month to see how their lifestyle and diet affects their blood glucose levels so profoundly. Once we had the CGM sensors in place we did regular finger prick comparisons using our trusty Keto-Mojo blood ketone and glucose meter to see if there was a difference. There was a small difference of about 10 mg/dL but it was consistent and so it was easy to know with some accuracy what our actual blood glucose readings were. The most important thing you get from the CGM is not the actual values themselves but the trends seen when we ate or drank something and exercised and experienced stress or lack of sleep.

To learn more about Levels and how you might take part in the pilot, visit the Levels website here.

Jackie Fletcher and Louise Reynolds were both morbidly obese at one point but both follow a ketogenic lifestyle now and both have reversed that situation although they followed very different paths to get there. Louise is a university professor from Australia although currently she is resident in Bangkok. After trying everything to beat it she finally made the decision to have weight loss surgery. Determined to use the surgery as a tool, she went through ongoing therapy to help her refrain from the emotional eating she felt had got her there and over the next 3 years she had lost about 90 lbs and was keeping it off but it was hard work. Then she had a massive motorbike accident which left her with many injuries and incredible chronic pain. Her mother was that one who suggested to her that she try the ketogenic diet to help with the pain. She found that one of the side effects was to lose another 40 lbs and, not only that, but she found it was now so easy to stay on track and keep the weight off.

Jackie had also tried everything and besides the weight gain she was a suffering from debilitating migraines (12 or so a month), ulcers and a score of other issues. She had given up on life and was convinced that any sort of diet does not work until she heard about the book called 'Why We Get Fat' by Gary Taubes and the light bulb went on. Like most of us she had to find her way with this lifestyle but she started seeing results right away and that inspired her to learn more to do it better.

They are both thriving now and together they produce the Fabulously Keto Podcast where they strive to help others turn their lives around Jackie manages the Fabulously Keto Website where she provides online coaching as well.

Dubbed the "Sherlock Holmes of Health," Mary Ruddick is an internationally acclaimed nutritionist currently based in Africa, where she is studying traditional tribal diets and their impact on health. She is the Director of Nutrition for CaptainSoup.com, Enable Your Healing, The REIGNS Method, and the Back to Joy Program. She has been featured with the book, "Beat Autoimmune" and she can be found on several productions from GundryMD, the Food Lies, MeatRx, and the LowCarbUSA Podcasts.

Mary specializes in rebalancing the microbiome by addressing nutritional and epigenetic aspects that underlie various physical and mental health disorders. She is a specialist in the field of autoimmunity, histamine intolerance (MCAD), mental disorders, and nervous system disorders to include dysautonomia, and seizure disorders.

Having used both lifestyle and dietary changes on her own miraculous healing journey, she emphasizes the balance of both. Meditation, cold therapy, light therapy, and limbic system exercises are used extensively in her programs.

Mary will be speaking in August,2021 at the LowCarbUSA - San Diego, 2021 event which will BE IN PERSON AGAIN!!

If you want to get hold of her or join one of her therapy groups, you can do that on her website.

Arthur Agatston, MD, attended New York University School of Medicine. He did his internal medicine training at Montefiore Medical Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and his cardiology fellowship at NYU. He spent a year on staff at NYU while training to best combine both academic medicine with clinical practice. He then moved to the Mt. Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, associated with the University of Miami School of Medicine, and later became the director of the Mt. Sinai Non-Invasive Cardiac Lab. He continued to pursue his practice and research in the field of noninvasive cardiac diagnostics, specifically in the areas of echocardiography and transesophageal echo and began lecturing regularly and published articles in academic journals on topics such as aortic stenosis, pericarditis, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Arthur and his colleague Warren Janowitz, MD, a radiologist, did early work on quantifying calcium in the coronary arteries as a measure of arteriosclerosis (as a predictor of heart attack and stroke). He is one of the developers of the electron beam tomography scan, or EBT, a screening method used to detect coronary artery disease and other diseases. EBT scans for this purpose are given a score on the "Agatston Scale," to gauge the severity of the disease.

He talks here about the early days and how the Agatston Score came about and we look forward to seeing him in August,2021 at the LowCarbUSA - San Diego, 2021 event which will BE IN PERSON AGAIN!!

William Schumacher Found when he adopted a keto diet he was like me and did not miss bread at all but what he did miss was really good crunchy chips (or crisps as they are called in various other regions). Uprising Foods is on a mission to rebuild and reformulate the staple categories of food that are so fundamental to many, if not most, people's perception of core foods. They set out to develop something that was made from quality clean ingredients and vey low in carbs that had a high nutritional value and did not compromise on taste. Turns out they actually started with bread because they wanted to address the product that most people found psychologically hardest to give up. They call it their "Sour Dough" cube. It's inspired by the sour dough concept but made predominantly from nuts and seeds. Now you can make French Toast and grilled cheese and all the things you were used to pre-low carb lifestyle. More importantly the rest of the family who are maybe not low carb with you (yet) can enjoy it just as much.

Then came the chips (crisps) which was nearest and dearest to his heart. He really missed that crunch! This sensation of crunch that so many people really desire. It took them a year to come up with something that delivered the crunch they were looking for.

You can find out everything you need to know about getting these super foods in your home by visiting their website here.

I was introduced to Emily Fletcher by Robb Wolf after I was talking with him about my issues with traumatic brain injury and he said the Ziva meditation method that Emily has developed totally changed his life. He describes it now as Life Before Ziva and Life After Ziva. Before actually talking to her, I got her book, Stress Less, Accomplish More and immediately became aware of the fact that although we are always talking these days about the fact that it is not just a diet, but rather a lifestyle change, that we need to embrace. And a big part of that is to develop effective strategies to deal with stress so that we limit the deleterious effects of excessive cortisol and other stress related hormones in our bodies. So even though I was still a little skeptical of the efficacy of meditation, I thought it was worth investigating further and so I set up this talk with Emily.

She has done great things by learning about meditation in detail (including a 3 year period in India) and then developing a whole new practice which she calls the Ziva technique. The important thing that sets the Ziva technique apart from others is the fact that it teaches us to be self sufficient and enables us to be able to do it anywhere, in an airport, on the train, anywhere (just not while we're driving). There no reliance on funky positions or meditation apps that have become so popular these days. After talking with her I agreed to enroll in her online course which teaches the technique (very effectively, I might add) over a period of 2 weeks.

I have to say that I have not seen or noticed any big changes (as some people have experienced) but I do find that I look forward to the meditations so that must mean something? I literally go to bed at night looking forward to the fact that I get to meditate as soon as I wake up. I have always slept well so it is hard to judge if it has helped me in that respect and the LowCarb Lifestyle already results in massive improvements in cognitive function and mental health so it is hard to say now whether there is an even greater improvement since I started with Ziva. If I look at it, I have noticed small things like a couple of times I have remembered things that I wouldn't normally expect myself to remember (because of the TBI). The other day I was in Costco and came around the corner into a massive checkout queue and I just stood there patiently and waited my turn. Normally I would have imploded (Pam will attest to that) and I didn't even become aware of it until I got back to the car and thought, "Wow, that didn't even stress me out, maybe this Ziva thing does work!" I believe that we are the sum of all things in our life so adding in a practice that seems to make me happy and is probably drastically reducing my stress levels is a good thing to keep in place.

You can learn more about Emily's online course here.

This was such a good chat!! Michelle Hurn was a Registered Dietitian working in a hospital setting and trying to get ready to qualify for the Olympic Marathon team. As she started to increase her training everything started to shut down. She was breaking out in cold sweats and developing severe muscle pains and it got to a point where she couldn't even run 2 or 3 miles. Eventually she came to the conclusion that she just couldn't run anymore which was devastating for her. Then she came across the ketogenic diet and as she started researching it she learned how much evidence there was showing the efficacy of reducing carbohydrate intake in treating diabetes and, even more surprising to her, in improving mental health. She read more and more anecdotes of people feeing infinitely better after adopting the diet. After further research she actually decided to try out a pure carnivore diet for a month to see what happened. Not only did she start to feel better almost immediately, she noticed that the chronic anxiety she had faced her whole life disappeared.

This made her really angry at the healthcare system that had not taught her any of this as a dietitian. She decided to spend any time she had writing about it and trying to teach people about it. She was so frustrated that she was not able to tell people in her work setting about it and so eventually she decided she needed to get out of that environment and establish herself in a position where she could help people. Her book is called The Dietitian's Dilemma and is a great read.

It's always such a pleasure to catch up with Robb Wolf. He's such a humble, wise man. This time we got to speak about the latest project he finished up working on recently, 'Sacred Cow', the book and movie project he helped on enormously. We spoke to Diana Rodgers in a podcast a couple of episodes back and the project was her brain child but Robb got very involved right from the start as he is so passionate about it. They went to great pains and have done such a magnificent job at representing the science so accurately that none of the would be haters in the vegan community have dared to try to discredit the book since they would get egg on their faces if they tried. So much so, in fact that they don't even mention the book. It's like any publicity is good publicity and they don't want anyone even knowing the book exists.

It's an awesome read and, as we say towards the end of the podcast, watch the movie and then get the book. You won't regret it!

Dr. James Muecke is an ophthalmologist who was nominated as Australian of the Year in 2020 for his ongoing humanitarian work in helping to prevent blindness in impoverished communities in many places around the world. About a year ago, however, he became aware of the potential of reversing type 2 diabetes by restricting carbohydrates in the diet. Suddenly there was a way to prevent people going blind from diabetes complications instead of having to do surgery to try to save the sight afterwards. He is using his platform as Australian of the Year to help spread this message and hopefully help reduce the number of people losing their sight due to complications from Diabetes.

He has released a few videos on the subject, including one called 'Blinded By Sugar'. In that video he recounts the story of one of his patients who goes to bed one evening after saying good night to his wife and in the morning he wakes up blind in both eyes. Since then this man has undergone nine amputations due to gangrenous toes and feet as a result of his diabetes. He has finally seen the light and is an advocate now for the low carb diet and he hopes to save many people from going through what he has had to go through.

You can catch 'Blinded by Sugar' here.

Diana Rodgers is a Registered Dietitian, a farmer, an author, a filmmaker and a mom! We talk to her about her new book, and movie, Sacred Cow. The book goes into great detail about the science behind her rigorous defense of the beef industry with respect to the animal cruelty argument, the fear mongering around red meat causing cancer, cow farts (well belches, actually) destroying the environment and also the sustainability aspect. The movie could never cover most of what is covered in the book and so focuses mainly on the sustainability component.

She was actually just working on writing the book with Robb Wolf, but the vegan community came out with yet another propaganda movie and she decided that we badly needed a rebuttal movie and so she put the book project on hold and started raising funds and working on a movie project. In this interview we talk about how the movie, and especially the book, tackle environment, nutrition and ethics as those are the three main reason why people are anti-meat. She says "Not only are you harming your health, but you are killing these beautiful animals and caw farts are destroying the environment, right?! So it's the trifecta of evil that cows represents." That is why she is so passionate about correcting all the misinformation out there and fighting back against those who would disseminate said misinformation (extremely effectively, I might add).

If you want to learn more about Diana's amazing work or even contribute in some way you can find her at the links below:

Movie Website: https://www.sacredcow.info/ Instagram: @sustainabledish Her Website: https://sustainabledish.com/