Skin Care with Kevin Gianni – Podcast #23    

In this episode Dr. Baris interviewed the founder of Renegade Health, Kevin Gianni author and blogger on diet, fitness and natural health.  He has done extensive research and interviews with health experts and has studied different diets and protocols like vegan, raw food, fasting and more. 

In this podcast learn more about what type of diet is good for you and why we need to run blood tests to see if our diet is working for us.  Know the different sources of fermented foods and how it provides natural healthy bacteria for good health.   This episode also talked about a good skin care line that is all-natural, all-organic that really works best for our skin without the toxic chemicals.

In this episode we cover:

09:39   Blood Testings

14:02   Supplements for vegans

28:21   Fermented Foods and Probiotics

32:22   Detoxification and Skin Care

36:25   “Kale and Coffee”

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Baris Harvey:  Thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Beyond Wellness Radio.  And today’s podcast I have an awesome interview with Kevin Gianni.  For today’s episode we do not have Dr. Justin.  He is actually at the Bulletproof Conference giving a presentation down in L.A.  So he will be a little mixed up by the time he got to his hotel or over his Skype connection.  But we are surely going to have an awesome interview for you.  Make sure that you guys go to beyondwellnessradio.com and make sure that you subscribe and get the latest because we do offer up a lot of bonuses and specials and you get the access to all of the interviews a lot earlier than just being tuned in to ITunes.  So make sure that you go ahead and do that.  Also go to justinhealth.com.  You can also find that clickable at beyondwellnessradio.com and that is where you can find all of Dr. Justin’s links.  He does functional medicine and it will be awesome if you guys have any questions for him as well.  You guys can go ahead and leave him questions and also get a free 15-minute consultation.  Again you guys can also work with me.  You guys can go to reallyhealthynow.com and leave me a contact if you have any nutritional concerns and wanted to discuss that.  So on with today’s radio show, Kevin Gianni how is it going today?

Kevin Gianni:  Great, Baris.  How are you doing?

Baris Harvey:  I am doing very well.  The first thing that I always want to ask our guest is, “What is your story?”  Kind of give the background of what got you into wanting to become healthier and then kind of try to change the world, right?  And send a healthy message.  What brought you into the health space?

Kevin Gianni:  Well for me, when I was younger I played sports in high school and then I played football, basketball and tennis.  And I was always really into fitness.  So I was always working out.  I was running.  You know just really focusing on that side of it.  But my idea of a healthy energy-boosting snack before a tennis match was a pack of Twinkies and a Mountain Dew.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hum.

Kevin Gianni:  So you know the nutrition side, you can probably say was a little bit lacking.  And add to that, I used to drive my mom’s Caravan with my tennis partner, my doubles partner right after school.  After our snack and we would smoke a cigarette and then we play tennis.  (Laughs)

Baris Harvey:  (Laughs) Yes.

Kevin Gianni:  Somehow we made it to the stage but you know I do not know. I am sure I could have been a lot better if I actually did focus on both parts of fitness and in nutrition.  And so that kind of spurred my interest.  I met my wife after I had run a marathon and I have hurt my leg.  And I was working a job but I did not really like it.  And I said, “You know, we can be personal trainers.”  Because I am the one in the gym that everyone’s always asking questions about.  She is an athletic trainer.  The two of us together we thought could make a pretty good team and we did.  We were in Southern Connecticut and we were personal trainers for a bunch of years and then we just got a little bit tired working one to one with people about health.  So we started to go online and started blogging about all our experiences.  Whatever we were doing.  Whatever diets we were into, whether it is raw foods or vegan or exercise, body weight exercises.  Everything that we are learning about we are blogging about.   That is kind of how all this came into be.

Baris Harvey:  Yes.  Awesome.  It is funny how you have a similar story with me.  I was all about athletics when I was younger.  I still kind of am but that is what kind of drove me to be like, “Hmmm maybe the big box of pizza is not the best workout food.”  So you guys were trying to get your message out to the masses versus just doing a one-on-one thing.  When did you start to notice that the nutrition side was needed to be changed for you?  Because for me, I know I did not really changed my nutrition until I started gaining a lot of weight.  When I was younger I was like super lean and was able to do whatever I want because of my sports.  But after a while, my metabolism unfortunately did not hold up.  When did you notice that, “Hmm, maybe I should change my nutrition as well?”

Kevin Gianni:  Well, it happened twice.  First it happened when a friend of mine gave me a collection of MP3s and I popped them on to my IPod.  I was running still after college.  I was a personal trainer and I started running.  And I just went running again and he gave me these MP3s.  And every once in a while I will bring the IPod with me to run and so one day instead of listening to some music that I have I said, “Oh, maybe I should listen to some of these MP3s”.  And the information that was on some of these audio were just so mind blowing to me.  It was so simple but so mind blowing in the same kind of space that I just totally, my mind just totally switched about nutrition.  I just was not thinking about nutrition in that way.  And the audios were by David Wolfe.  They may be part of David Wolfe’s, known some of his work.  And so that kind of put me into a really interesting space because I was already healthy.  I mean had very little body fat.  I have a friend, you know, like doing the calipers on me.  And he was just like, “Wait a minute.”  He was a personal trainer, too.  “Wait a minute.”  I have never seen anyone at this reading.  I think it was like one percent or some five percent.  Almost maybe too low depending on what your opinion is.  And so I just said, “Well, maybe I will just try this broccoli thing that he is talking about.”  Because if I am healthy now and it feels good I want to be even more healthy.

Baris Harvey:  Yes.

Kevin Gianni:  And so I went on this long experiment of vegan and raw food and that was not fully raw for 6 years but I was definitely vegan for that long.  And it was an interesting experience.  My wife and I, we traveled around the country interviewing different health experts trying to kind of get to the heart of what the best diet for any human being is.  And along the way my health actually started to decline.  So I started to get some adrenal fatigue which I did not recognize what it was at that time.  I just knew that I was tired.  I was not able to get out of bed.  I was grumpy.  I was just feeling strange.  Just you know, kind of, I would fly off the handle quickly and I get angry at things very fast.  I just did not know what was happening.  And eventually it got so bad that I needed to go to a doctor.  And luckily, we have traveled around and we have seen so many fantastic health practitioners.  I had a Rolodex.  Well, not a Rolodex, that is an old term.  (Laughs)

Baris Harvey:  (Laughs)

Kevin Gianni:  I did not really have a Rolodex.  I had a hypothetical or imaginary Rolodex of all these people that I could call.

Baris Harvey:  Yes.

Kevin Gianni:  And so I called Dr. James Williams, J. E. Williams who is a not only a colleague but a friend.  And he ran some of my blood.  He did some blood testings for me.  And this was kind of my first foray into functional medicine.  I have known about Dr. Mark Hyman for a long time and Ultra Wellness was the book.  But what really influenced me as well was the one before that with Dr. Mark Liponis.  I knew about it but I have never really fully bought into it.  And so Dr. Williams did ran a whole bunch of blood test on me.  When I got them back, you know, the proof was kind of right there on the paper.   All the blood markers he pulled maybe, I do not know, 30 or 40.  The evidence was right there that what my diet was not healthy for me.  And my Pregnenolone was in a 6 which is like the equivalent of an 85 year old man.  And I am at that time was 31.  (Laughs)  Like even serious things happening and I do not really know what would happen if I continued any longer.  So, that kind of spurred me on what do I do next.  It is really tough to be in a situation where you were eating a diet for so long and just get indoctrinated by the philosophy behind it and then you look at the numbers on the paper and just say, “Wow! I do not know I am doing it wrong?  Or it is just not working for me.”

Baris Harvey:  Yes, definitely.  Yes, so I kind of have two questions on that but one I kind of go into a question that I wanted to prepare for and I noticed that even on your side at the renegadehealth.com that you supply testing as well.  And this is probably one of those reasons why you found it important because it is important to you for your transformation in your journey going along.  But just to explain to the listeners, why is testing so important?

Kevin Gianni:  It is important for two reasons.  One is more like a scientific kind of reason.  The other is just almost like a mind, just a chilling out kind of like mind relaxing reason.  I tell you it is a mind relaxing reason to begin with.  So anyone who is listening to this or anyone who listens to health podcasts or watches videos or reads blogs, health blogs online, health books or whatever, there is always this argument about diet.  You know, what diet is right?  And there are so many camps.  I mean there is low carb.  There is high carb.  There is vegan. There is Mediterranean.  There is Atkins.  Paleo.  There are all these diets that people are trying.  And for me, the blood test I kind of describe as the ultimate proof that your diet is working and it gives you permission to try any diet that you want and if it works for you, you can run with it.

Baris Harvey:  Yes.

Kevin Gianni:  There is just one thing.  You know one thing that I cannot stand is like sitting at the dinner table around the holidays and listening to Uncle Tom, you know, who has read like half of a health book in his life talking about the benefits of protein, you know.  (Laughs)

Baris Harvey:  Yes.

Kevin Gianni:  It is like, you know, suddenly you are a vegan and you are in front of your family members and they are suddenly telling you what you should be doing in your diet.  And you have been around the country for two and a half years and interviewed hundreds of health experts.  And their reference is like CNN or Fox News for health.

Baris Harvey:  Yes, definitely.

Kevin Gianni:  And within that, when someone is challenging you about your diet there is always this thing where you just like, “Uh-hmm.  Are they right?”

Baris Harvey:  Yes.

Kevin Gianni:  You know there is always this kind of like, “Wait a minute.”

Baris Harvey:  Yes, where you are second guessing.  Yes.

Kevin Gianni:  Exactly.  And so the blood test really gives you a piece of mind.  I think it allows you to continue doing what you are doing or it gives you a pre-warning sign.  You know, so not when it is too late.  But if you know how to read them correctly as a good functional medicine doctor would or even a health practitioner.  These days everyone’s getting in this which is just great.   You can adjust your course before it gets too bad.  And that is where it gets into the, you know, the second reason, the more scientific reasons that our audience are trying to maintain a homeostasis.  And if they are not maintaining that you will see it on the blood test, and then you can make minor or large adjustments in the diet and tweak just enough so you can stay healthy.  Because I mean the ultimate goal is to live long, happy and healthy, right?  So by doing a protocol blood testing on a yearly or twice a year, or for some people who are sick maybe they need to do it even more frequently.  What that does is it kind of narrows your course.  So you just do not shoot off too far in one direction and then shoot back across the other way.  You kind of can stay within these parameters of optimal wellness or beyond wellness, I guess that is right?

Baris Harvey:  Yes.  Definitely.  And for listeners out there the previous episode if you did not listen, we talked about Functional Lab Testing 101.  Yes.  Definitely.  That is a really good one.   I did not even think about the peace of mind thing where we can think, “Oh, do I have or are my markers right?”  I can kind of assume I feel good but I do not know.   But if you get the blood work done, and you get the salivary test and all the different metabolic markers tested then you can actually see like, “Okay, I am on track or okay there is something messed up that I did not know about.  And I can feel even better than I do now.”

Kevin Gianni:  Well, you can save money, too.  I mean that is another big thing.  If your vitamin D levels are fine you can pause your vitamin D supplements.  Or if your B12 is good, folate, I mean like if your B vitamins are fine you do not need to take your multivitamin or super green grass herb, you know, that kind of whatever.  And then you can look at that as a decision that you make to like so and I am not knocking super green herbs supplements.  I take them.  Believe me.  Then you can make that decision based on not like a fear-based kind of thing like, “Oh my gosh, do I have enough?”  It is like, “Oh, I just want to add this in.”  And that is coming from a much better a place.

Baris Harvey:  Yes, definitely.  And speaking of supplements and you talked about being vegan and raw vegan in the past.  What are some supplements that you noticed might be important for someone who is out there who is a vegan listening to the show or maybe a raw food vegan?  What might be important for them to take?  Because there are going to be some vitamins that we know like vitamin B12 they might be low in iron.  Some of these nutrients that are hard to get from plant-based foods.  What are some supplements that you think might be beneficial for vegans?

Kevin Gianni:  The first thing, of course, before the supplements is when anyone is doing an extreme diet like vegan or raw food, and look, I think just any healthy diet can be considered extreme just because not too many other people are doing it, right?  A Paleo can be extreme as well.  You know, so I am not just calling out like eating raw food is extreme.  Because I think you know in the outskirts of diet there are actually some really good places that are extremes.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmmm.

Kevin Gianni:  But first off, get your blood tested. Do not mess around.  So you are doing something that needs to be monitored.  You need some because it is like you are moved from just like surviving to now you need to be and then you put yourself in a scientific experiment.  So you need to monitor yourself.  So that is like the first thing to do.  With supplement, yes I mean a lot of people talk about B12.  People who eat meat as well can be deficient in B12.  I have seen studies.  I mean, you never know some of these studies but I have seen everything from like 15% to like 80% deficient.  (Laughs)  So I do not know the numbers there but I mean the blood test will be able to tell you.  You know, if you yourself are deficient and forget about whether half of the population is or not.  You know, vitamin D could be one that a lot of people need to.  You know for some people a plant-based protein is really good because you metabolize fast.  You are a fast metabolizer if you are hot.  If you are more like in the Ayurvedic space like a Pitta type body type, warmer, sweatier, more fiery.  Those types of people definitely need some extra protein.  We can get it from plant-based foods, too.  I mean it is not like you just need to go straight to supplements, or to a protein supplement but those type of people definitely function better with higher protein in their diet.  Omega 3 is always a big one.  You can get some plant-based omega 3 as well.  Or if you are just not vegan enough to be able to accept like krill oil or something like that then that can be something that you can take as well.   But there are also some plant-based essential fatty acids that are good as well from algae.  So those are like the main ones.  But that is not always the main ones for everyone, right?

Baris Harvey:  Yes.

Kevin Gianni:  Those are things, like the first that you would tick off the dial if you need to get healthy, right?

Baris Harvey:  Yes, definitely.  And like you said that usually does not mean something everybody takes.  Like I take, you know the fish oil capsule and my buddy who is a vegan he is going to take an algae thing to get some extra omega 3.  So, definitely, definitely important things to take.  I am going to go back real quick.  You were talking about your traveling across the country interviewing different experts, interviewing different ideas.  So two things.  One, you are recording all of these interviews on your camera, right?

Kevin Gianni:  Yes.

Baris Harvey:  So you have this massive, massive content on YouTube that people can find.  They just search Kevin Gianni or Renegade Health or they can find your YouTube page.  The second thing, how were you selecting your experts and was it like just recommendations off the same thing or are you getting a lot of varied ideas?  And how would that change like on a week to week or day to day basis on how you ate?  Like if you just went to one doctor and said, “Oh, now like kale is the most awesome food in the world.”   And the next guy says, “Well, it has all these things that mess with your thyroid.”

Kevin Gianni:  (Laughs)

Baris Harvey:  Like how do you go?  Would you just buy a bunch of kale one week and the next say like, “Oh, I made a mistake!”  And then the next week say, “Oh I need more.” How was this kind of journey going on?

Kevin Gianni:  (Laughs) I have this kind of a duality kind of principle about all these.  It is like you trust very deeply but disbelieve at the same time.  It is kind of like this thing where I kind of define the edges.  I think it helps because believing, you know, we could go into one doctor’s office and set up the camera and listen to something and I would be just totally into it.  I would be totally convinced this is exactly what I need for my health.  And I would go out and I make it a point to do my best.  And let us say I do about 80% of the time.  When I do an interview with someone I do one of the things that they mention.  It is just ingrained in me now like that is what I could do.  I do it every time I read a book, too.  When you read a book that could be like a thousand things you can do.  I just pick one and I do it.

Baris Harvey:  Yes.

Kevin Gianni:  And if a want to revisit it I can.  If not it is fine, too.  But that is really kind of what I focus on.  It is just like one thing.  So you go to one doctor and they say just like you said, “Eat a lot of kale.  Raw kale.  Eat it with your smoothies.  Drink it with your green juice.”  And then you go to the next doctor two days later in Cleveland or if you are driving up through Ohio or something from Columbus to Cleveland and then the next doctor said, “Well, you should not be eating it raw because now it is going to damage your thyroid and you are going to be sluggish.”  And you are just like, “Whoa!  Wait a minute!”  And so for me, I always take the baseline of kind of longevity studies.  And that is where this new book that will be out in July 2015.  I wanted to separate myself from like the minutiae, like the little details and then take a larger look at kind of everything.  That is all our diets and what it kind of comes down with.  But the thing that we want, again, what most of us really want is longevity.  So it is that long, healthy, happy life.  And so for me, what is the best way to figure out what that is?  Well, it is just fine cultures of actually live long, healthy, happy, right? (Laughs)  And then see when they do it almost try to be constructive a little bit.  Unfortunately, when you go to the studies of some of these cultures what you realize is they do not give a crap about nutrition.  (Laughs)  They are going to eat what is there.

Baris Harvey:  Exactly it is just like, “Oh, this is what is food on the mountain.”

Kevin Gianni:  Right.  Which is why I think it kind of gets us into trouble because I have seen it in Peru when I have spent some time with the Caral. The Carals was long lived as some of the people from the blue zones, you know like Dan Buettner’s book with the people like the Okinawans, the Nicoyans, Sardinians or Loma Linda, the Seventh Day Adventist in Loma Linda, California.  But the Caral, they were longer lived before they started coming down from the mountains up in the Andes into the cities.  And I have been around some of my Caral friends who, they will be up in the mountains and they will be eating just like Apopka and potatoes and like 80 to 90% of their diet is of potatoes.  And then they will come down into the city and they will just walk into like a little corner shop and just buy junk foods.  You know what I mean?  I do not think it is just a thing like it is just food. (Laughs)

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Kevin Gianni:  And they just eat it.  Whatever it is that is just available they will eat.  And obviously there is this sensory kind of explosion that comes with high salt or high sugar or high fat kind of foods.  So I always go back to these very basic kind of friends like, “Well, alright what would the Okinawan do?  Or what would someone from Sardinia doing?”   And they just would eat like real food.  You know, what I mean.  Like you know my friend Sean Croxton said you just need real food.  So with that baseline it is real easy to kind of explore but also just always know that is the bottom line.  Lots of plants, you can eat some meat it is great.  Do not eat too much oil; you do not need too much.  And salt is okay.  But you do not need like totally blowout, you know.  Just neutral with salt.  And just enjoy your life.  (Laughs)

Baris Harvey:  Right.

Kevin Gianni:  Really comes as a simple equation.

Baris Harvey:  Yes.  So that really kind of guides you to just eat raw food from like becoming orthorexic and getting crazy into these things.  I could guess if we go to different experts and then like, “Yes, I am going to take this tactic and implement it now.”  And then you have a lot of people switching what you are thinking.   There might have been a period in time where there might have been a little orthorexia in there, right?  Maybe, I do not know.

Kevin Gianni:  For me, yes.  I mean I remember I would be sitting in the RV, at this time I was a full raw food vegan.  So I have this big bowl of salad.  And I mean this thing was, I probably could have fed a horse, right?

Baris Harvey:  (Laughs)

Kevin Gianni:  And I would sit there and I would chew this salad for an hour.  Take an hour, an hour and a half.  But I would literally look at the clock and then I would just eat and I am going to be thinking about things and then I would just maybe read something and still eating and still eating.  And I just get up and, “My gosh, I just spent an hour of this day eating, one twenty fourth of this day eating this nacho salad.”  And what was crazy about it is that about 30 minutes since eating that salad I was wondering what the heck I was going to eat for dinner.

Baris Harvey: (Laughs)

Kevin Gianni: Because I was just so consumed about my food, right?

Baris Harvey:  Yes.

Kevin Gianni:  And that is orthorexia.  You know what I mean.  So, I was so concerned about it.  So what happened was after all these stuff kind of happened and I have adrenal fatigue and then I started to go off with vegan diet kind of just was a little bit disheartened by everything.  And I am like, “Well, this extreme diet did not work the way it would everyone.”  Well, not everyone but the people that I was talking to would tell me to do this super powerful longevity diet.  I might as well eat literally like I want as long as it is organic.   That is just like eat real foods maybe like squared or something like that so make it double.  And that does not work either.  You know, there is definitely a sort of conscious moderation that needs to be put into play when you are consuming real food, too.  Because again you know based on some of our genetic response, a little bit, our bodies respond to factors like taking the genetics too far.  Let us say, well, you know we are all just so super individuals.  I do not know how super individuals we are.  There definitely is a collection of types.  You know, whether five or ten, or twenty or forty even a hundred.  You know, there are definitely collection types of people.  So you cannot just follow a whatever-goes-diet if it is organic.  I will not.  And there are some rules that you cannot pass by for your health.

Baris Harvey:  Yes.  It is funny.  Something that I would like to say when I would compare myself to Harvey’s it is like, “Oh, well, like a polar bear is going to eat a bunch of meat and a panda bear is going to eat a bunch of bamboo.”  So that one is like vegan and one is carnivorous.  But neither of them is eating McDonald’s.  You know what I mean?

Kevin Gianni:  True.

Baris Harvey:  So there is kind of like the individuality part.  But then we know out of baseline kind of thing where it is okay but we know generally most people should eat this type of way.  But there is still your kind of genetic individual kind of spectrum as well.

Kevin Gianni:  I think the most solid piece of dietary evidence that I found through all of the research I have done, all of the interviews that I have done is that the diet is not what is getting you to be healthy per se.  It is what you need out of your diet, right?

Baris Harvey:  Yes.

Kevin Gianni:  So, if you look at all the different peoples who are eating and living long.  So, the Okinawans, you know, at one point they were eating 85% of their diet of sweet potato.  Then you look at the Nicoyans who tend to eat rice, beans just typical life in Central and South American kind of cuisine.  And then when you look at the Greek and Sardinian people who are eating, you know, just again a lot of fresh vegetables and some meat.  I mean the medium is different, the food is different.

Baris Harvey:  Yes.

Kevin Gianni:  So it is not like you can just pin all your health on one food.  It is not just like goji berries are the most important berry in the world.  It is no, they are not.  I mean there are blueberries which are amazing and they grow in New Jersey and they grow in all these places that are local to Americans but we go to goji berry from China.

Baris Harvey:  Yes.  It is funny that you said that because my girlfriend, she is a Nicaraguan and you mentioned that a lot that is in the American cultures.  You may be eating like rice and beans and it is totally different than if I was just preaching like, “Hey, well, you are supposed to be Paleo.”  And we eat meat and we do not eat beans or legumes or rice and it is like, “Whoa, maybe that is what her family’s generation after generation after generation has eaten.”  And so sometimes it might be hard to change something like that and maybe it is okay for her to eat a little bit more of that than I would be able to handle.

Kevin Gianni:  Yes.

Baris Harvey:  Definitely.  So I want to talk about probiotics real quick.  I know that this is something that continually grows in the market.  I never really watch so much TV but when I do I will see even a commercial on probiotics or even like your plain yoghurt would probably say something about like they have probiotics in their yoghurt or what not.  Can we talk about probiotics real quick and then talk about where can we find rich probiotic sources in our food?  And whether it is more important to make sure that we are getting that in our food first.

Kevin Gianni:  Yes.  I definitely subscribe to that sort of belief system and there are probiotics out there that can be kind of like therapeutic probiotic.  But for me, getting my healthy bacteria from fermented foods is absolutely the first place to go.  And I have heard so many stories.  I have known Donna Gates for a long time.  And I have interviewed Sandor Katz a few times and I have just heard so many stories about people healing from eating just a regular dose of healthy bacteria every day.  But for me, again it is one of those things that if you were to put the top 10 list of things that are good for your health.  I mean again, I have talked about what you need out of your diet is more important but probiotics is probably up in there.  Maybe in the mid, between 7 and 5.

Baris Harvey:  Yes, definitely.  Can you name some…

Kevin Gianni:  You want me to name some foods?

Baris Harvey:  Yes.

Kevin Gianni:  For me just cultured vegetables.  I mean just eating some sauerkraut; homemade sauerkraut, raw sauerkraut and not the sauerkraut that you will find in a plastic a bag at the grocery store.  It is probably by far the best.  And you can put this on anything.  You can put it on a salad.  You can put it on whatever you are eating.  It literally just goes with absolutely everything.  And that is the first one.  Sometimes I have some kefirs.  I do not drink a lot of dairy or eat a lot of dairy anymore.  To me it just does not settle that well.  I am not saying that people should or should not eat it.  So kefirs can be really good. And it is always best if you made them.  Here in the Bay Area there are always someone who does it better than you, right?  (Laughs)

Baris Harvey:  Right.

Kevin Gianni:  You can find it somewhere.  But that is not the same for everywhere.  So, if you are not in the area where you can access this then you are going to have to make it yourself because it is better.  Because you know that the bacteria are thriving.  But that is really important.  And that is why I get skeptical about some of the probiotic supplements just because you know a lot of the ones that you are just going to find at maybe in your local health food store.  But definitely you know some of the other places if someone is walking into Trader Joe’s or something like that I would be really concerned buying your supplements there.  But you know, I question the effectiveness of these bacteria in the actual strength of the strain if you are buying them off the shelf at a grocery store.  And that is not to say that you should not do that, I am just saying it is really good to add in.  It is almost like an insurance policy to add in the fermented foods as well.   So you can actually be pretty darn sure that you are getting what you need.

Baris Harvey:  Yes.  And like in diverse kind of foods and also I know a lot of people sometimes if they are on a more strict kind of diet sometimes they feel like they are limited.  Well, try some probiotic foods out and it really enhances the flavor of your food as well.  So it is really a good idea.  I wanted to go into skin care and detoxification real quick.  I know that nowadays there are so many new toxic ingredients put into just everything that are introduced to earth because of man-made toxic chemicals that we created.  And sometimes we start to fix all of the things wrong with our diet but then we are still smearing like horrible stuff on our skin.  You with your wife actually came out with an all‑organic and all-natural skin care line.  Can you tell me a little bit about it and why you guys came up with it as well?

Kevin Gianni:  Well, we are eating a healthy diet.  Well, at least a healthy diet we thought was healthy.  But we are definitely purists at that time and to some degree I still am.  And we were getting a lot of questions.  That is right; we are getting a lot of questions as we are doing our videos people would ask me and Marie, “What are you putting on your skin?”  And I never would have thought of skin care.  As a guy it just never really came out across my radar.  I was focused on food now and I was focused on some fitness before so like skin care I just did not get it.  I mean, like we just use soap in the shower, right?  And you wash your hair with shampoo, you know.  (Laughs)  So that is my extent of body care.  And so we started to look around for a product that we can just recommend.  And once we started doing that we realized that there was a lot of shady stuff going on in the skin care industry including when we decided finally not to actually just represent a line.  We decided that we wanted to create our own.  We went to formulators and we would get a list of ingredients that we would look at them like, “This is not what we want.”  And they said, “Well, you do not have to put a couple of these on the labels.  It is fine.”   And we said, “Whoa!  Wait a minute.” (Laughs)  What on earth is happening?  This is like a bizarre world.  This is not how I do business or this is not even how I am as a person.  You know what I mean?

Baris Harvey:  Yes.

Kevin Gianni:  This is crazy, totally for me.  It is like under reporting your taxes or something, you know.  It is just stuff that you do not do.  So we ended up finally running into an organic spa in Arizona and Annmarie found a line which was used, “Oh, my gosh!  They just absolutely made them.  And so we contacted the owner of the company and we said, “Can we sell it?  Can we have it on our online stores?”  And she said, “No, we only sell to spas.”  So we were really disappointed and hung up the phone and the next day I was like, “Wait a minute!  Why don’t we ask her if she can help us formulate a line?”   And so we called her back and she said, “Sure!”  So it was kind of like, “What did we ask her the first time?  Why did not she recommend she could do that for us?  Maybe she did not think we would.  So we did that with her and since then it has been five years now.  We have been providing this super natural organic but beyond organic kind of products.  But a lot of people are really enjoying it which makes us very happy.  Nontoxic, none of that garbage in there and everything is on the label, you know.

Baris Harvey:  Yes, definitely.  The way it is supposed to be, right?

Kevin Gianni:  Uh-hmm.

Baris Harvey:  Yes, definitely.  That makes a big difference.  And you guys can find that at Annmarie Gianni or just annmariegianni.com kind of like Marchegiani, has the same Italian last name.  So, yes definitely.

Kevin Gianni:  Uh-hmm.

Baris Harvey:  So you also have a book coming out in the future like you mentioned called “Kale and Coffee”.  Can you tell us just a little bit about that and what would we be looking out for?

Kevin Gianni:  Yes.  This book is kind of the synthesis of my extreme diet, getting it healthy and then turning around and saying it is good.  I am just going to eat whatever I want as long as it is organic and then gaining 30-35 pounds and even more depending on where you started.  Like when I was eating raw food I was like 160 pounds and then I got up to 223.  So I mean, I am not going to count like good 20 pounds from like 160 to 180 because that was like underweight, right?  But I have totally flipped the switch and went off on the other side just because I was tired of it.  I really was just done.  And then of course when you are 30 to 100 pounds over your ideal body weight you do not feel comfortable or do not feel good either.  And it was very strange to me because I have never felt that way.  And I have worked with people who, you know, were even 120, 130, 140 pounds overweight and I just did not really feel, at that time I did not feel the way I think I can feel a little bit more for them.  I almost wanted to go back and call my personal training clients and apologize a little bit and just say I did not even understand, you know.  And so when I kind of put that sort of hat on, I wanted to see how I could get back to being healthy in where I could have the healthy things that I really like for my healthy lifestyle or my extreme diet lifestyle.  But also kind of have a little bit of, “Hey, you know what?  I can do this.”  So just to give up some of the real strict kind of diet and have some of the things that I really just did not want to live without.  And for someone, for anyone listening that could mean anything.  For someone that could be a little bit of carbohydrates, to be able to have sugar, to be able to have coffee, can be a little wine, beer or whatever.  You know, whatever your thing is.  And so I went back and I re-analyzed everything.  I looked back at almost all my interviews and I did new research and I came up with this book that essentially just picks out the most important things that you can do to live that long, healthy and happy life.  And that kind of puts aside all the other stuff.  There were a lot of research about different foods and particularly categories of foods like sugar and carbs, gluten, coffee, alcohol.  And I just analyzed them and really kind of come down to the conclusion about whether these are healthy or not.

Baris Harvey:  Yes.  Definitely.  So you mentioned that thing in your book because I know that it is unique and different for everybody.  And you had adrenal fatigue in the past.  You mentioned coffee.  For you, how does that kind of plan, how does that work for you?  Or if it does not work for you what are some alternatives?

Kevin Gianni:  I want coffee to work for me so badly. (Laughs)

Baris Harvey:  (Laughs)

Kevin Gianni:  I want it to work.  And I have tried so many ways for it to work.  But for me because I do tend to have adrenal type, whether I just am an adrenal type, I tend to get adrenal fatigue very fast.  Caffeine, it is just not good for me.  And even green tea.  When I was writing the book like I was not even drinking coffee anymore because I knew that would just make me a total monster.  But I was drinking green tea and I got to the point where I was starting to feel how I feel if I drink coffee on an extended period of time.  And so I just kind of stepped back from that.  You know, when I drink caffeine I get heart palpitations.  It could be a genetic thing actually.  So for me, it is just you know that side of my life is almost over.  I still would have green tea every once in a while but for me I just know I cannot do coffee.  But with that said, for the book I did interview Dave Asprey and we did talk about mycotoxins in coffees.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Kevin Gianni:  And I told him the grains and beans that we eat they do tend to sit in place for a while sometimes before we even get them into our pots and pans at home. And so you do know your better options.  I think Dave’s coffee is a better option.  David Wolfe has a longevity coffee which I think is a better option.   So there are better options.  But for me it is just one of those things, it is just not on that list of things that I can still have. (Laughs)  You know what I mean?

Baris Harvey:  Yes. Definitely.

Kevin Gianni:  It is disappointing.  Every once in a while I will have a cup of coffee but I have come to a point now where I just know that I need to stay away or else it is just going to make me feel miserable.

Baris Harvey:  Yes. Definitely.  So, for you out there, you guys can get genetic testings.  I know there is 23andMe and there are some other companies.  But sometimes you can just tell.  Like I have not done that test yet but I can tell I am probably a fast metabolizer of caffeine just because I can drink coffee and go to sleep.

Kevin Gianni:  Yes.

Baris Harvey:   I have like the exact opposite results.  I know there are some people that are like, “Yes, I can drink green tea and sometimes get jittery.”  And it is like, “Okay, yes.”  So if you are in tuned with your body sometimes you just know.

Kevin Gianni:  You just know.  And I am a slow metabolizer of caffeine.  So I have that mutation in my, oh, actually I do not know if that one is a mutation or it is just normal.  I do not know which one is but I have it. (Laughs)  I have this slow metabolism with coffee.

Baris Harvey:  Yes, definitely.  So for the listeners out there, you guys can find Kevin at the Renegade.  Is it Renegade Health show on your YouTube, right?

Kevin Gianni:  It is Renegade Health show on YouTube and it is renegadehealth.com on the web.

Baris Harvey:  Definitely.  Go there and then also Annmarie Gianni for the skin care line.  Do you have any other sites that we can point you at or are those all?

Kevin Gianni:  No, man.  That is it.

Baris Harvey:  Yes, you got a lot of stuff online and a lot of content.  And like I said you have a thousand videos on YouTube.  It is great.

Kevin Gianni:  It is 937 I think.

Baris Harvey:  Oh, there you go, yes.  It will be where your podcasts so get there soon.  Yes. Definitely.  And then also, yes you have a podcast.  Is that also called the Renegade Health Show?

Kevin Gianni: It is Renegade Health Radio that is on ITunes.

Baris Harvey:  Definitely.  You guys subscribe there as well.  Kevin, thank you so much for coming on the show today.  And for the listeners out there make sure you go to Beyond Wellness Radio, subscribe and go to ITunes and give us a rating.  It really helps to get the show out and boost our visibility to other people so we can get this message out.  So thank you guys so much.