Eating A Plant-Based Keto Diet
By Dr. Justin Marchegiani
Eating a ketogenic diet has reached mainstream popularity, often referred to as a diet full of meat and cheese. If you are interested in the fat-burning health effects of the keto diet, but turned off by the consumption of animal products, you may be curious if it’s possible to be both plant-based (vegan vegetarian, pescatarian) and stay in ketosis. Good news for all you meat-free folk: ketosis is most definitely achievable while sticking to plant-based foods!
Refresher: What’s the Keto Diet?
In a traditional Keto Diet, you eat high fat and low carb, and your body enters a state called ketosis. Ketosis is when your body begins burning primarily fat, rather than glucose, for energy.
The Standard American Diet is composed largely of carbohydrate-heavy foods. With a high-carb diet, your body runs off of glucose (sugar) as fuel. When you lower your carbohydrate intake and reach the metabolic state of ketosis, there is not much glucose available, so your body begins to use fat for fuel–including stored body fat. This is one reason why the keto diet is so popular for weight loss.
In addition to the weight loss benefits, the keto diet has shown amazing results for lowering inflammation, regulating insulin response, and protecting against cancer and neurological disease. It’s no wonder this diet has taken over the health world!
How to do the Keto Diet and Eat Plant-Based
Mainstream chatter about the keto diet leaves our plant-based friends in the dust; many vegans and vegetarians don’t realize that they too can partake in the keto-hype!
No matter your diet, it’s important to choose high-quality food sources. If you are eating a conventional keto diet, a fast food hamburger patty with cheese technically meets the “keto requirement” of high fat/low carb, but it is not going to provide much nutritional value (and if anything, will have negative effects on your health). Similar scenario with a plant-based diet: Eating chips and soy veggie dogs is within the bounds of a vegan diet, but is not going to do you many favors in the health department.
Applying this to a plant-based keto diet–let’s look at how we can reach ketosis with high quality sources of fat and protein.
Questions about plant-based keto? Click here to talk to the doctor!
Plant-Based Foods for Ketosis
For plant-based ketosis, here are some of the foods that should make up a large part of your diet!
Plant-based keto foods (vegan-friendly):
- Avocados: Avocados, and avocado oil, are a great source of healthy fats as well as a whole host of micronutrients.
- Coconut: Coconuts, coconut oil, and coconut yogurt are great sources of healthy fat. Add coconut oil to your coffee for a satiating keto coffee to help extend your morning fast.
- Olives: Olives are a delicious snack and make a great addition to many meals! Load your salad up with olives and drizzle with olive oil.
- Nuts and seeds: These are an excellent keto-friendly snack, and can also be added to many meals for an extra dose of fat and protein!
- If you are vegetarian (no meat, but other animal products are okay): Pastured eggs, goat cheese, goat yogurt, grass-fed butter and ghee are great sources of healthy keto-friendly fat and protein.
- If you are pescatarian (eat fish), wild-caught fish is an excellent source of healthy fats and protein.
Keto Foods to Avoid
Let’s have a look at a few common “bad” plant-based foods and why we want to avoid them.
- Highly processed seed oils: canola “rapeseed”, vegetable, and soybean oil are all highly inflammatory oils prone to oxidation.
- Soy: Soy is high in antinutrients, which inhibit nutrient absorption. This means that any meal containing soy is going to automatically have lower nutritional value. Soy is also high in lectins, which are linked to leaky gut, inflammation and autoimmune reactions.
- Seitan: Seitan is a soy-free meat replacement, however, it is made from wheat gluten which is inflammatory and can lead to leaky gut and other health issues over time.
Good sources of protein on a plant-based diet, keto or not, include nuts, seeds, spirulina, natto, and tempeh.
Takeaway
Plant-based ketogenesis is totally possible! Just like any other diet, be sure to choose your foods with care: organic nuts and product, high quality fats and oils, and if you are vegetarian or pescatarian, pastured eggs, grass-fed dairy, and wild-caught fish. Choosing organic whole foods provides you with the most nutrition, while avoiding pesticides and inflammatory compounds.
Curious if the keto diet is right for you? Click here to work with a functional medicine doctor!
References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23801097/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19664276
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3826507/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1503071
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1868922
Ketosis and Safe Natural Sweeteners | Podcast #210
If you’ve exceeded the pleasure that you’re getting out of pizza, cake, wine and everything else, diets may not just be suitable, as they are temporary. In order to get that lasting change, you really need to engage in a lifestyle shift.
In today’s podcast, Dr. J. invites Thom King to share his experience and insights that led to his writing of the book “Guy Gone Keto”. Watch as they tackle about the effects of sugar to our body, safe and natural sweeteners, how meat have more nutrition than vegetables and all other good things. Sharing is caring!
In this episode, we cover:
00:41 The Springboard of Discipline: Engaging in a Lifestyle Shift
08:23 Healthy Sweeteners
10:56 Effects of Sugar Intake Frequency to Insulin or Blood Sugar
16:57 Allulose, Stevia and Monk Fruit
21:17 Sugar Alcohols
23:04 Benefits of Ketogenic Diet on Thyroid
48:15 Metformin
33:46 Importance of Journaling
Thom King: Dr. J., such pleasure being on here. Thank you for having me and uh– this is truly an honor.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well thank you so much. So, let’s just dive in a little bit and just talk about your book. What inspired you to write this book, “Guy Gone Keto” and– and what are the top 2 or 3 things that you’re hoping for the readers to– to pull out of it?
Thom King: Uhm– well the book was a– the book kind of draw organically so, I had, you know, I– I own a– a food manufacturing business and a– ingredients supply company. And we supply sweeteners to sports nutrition companies, I love those companies, uhm– actually supply and manufacture ketogenic-friendly foods. So, I was in Vegas for trade show and went out with uh– with a customer. And they bought dinner and I way overdid it as usual. Uhm– went back to my room with a– beautiful luxer, and– could not stand to look at myself in the mirror. I was 35 lbs. overweight, I– my blood pressure was like 190/99 and I– I felt like a tremendously huge fraud because I’m catering to the– to that particular industry and not following at all so, at that point, sort of the pai– the pain of my, I guess dishonesty, the pain of my, you know carrying extra weight and being sluggish, and not following any type of discipline, I’ve exceeded the pleasure that I was getting out eating the pizzas and the cake and the wine and everything else, so at that point, I’m like, “Look, I need to make a lifestyle change”, so I really started doing a lot of journaling. And I was doing data collection on my weight, my blood pressure, temperature, I mean, all of the data points that I could find. And– err– and also like, use it as a springboard for discipline, so after about a 6 to 8 months period, I basically had a book on my hand. So, I just took it to it to an editor and, we added a day and it’s really– it’s more about my journey–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –on making a lifestyle change than it is keto. And, so the take home, I would say for your listeners on this, uhm– the points that I wanted to– I– I guess bring up in the book are– it– you can’t actually have a diet like, diets are really temporary–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –solutions.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: In order to get lasting change, you really need to engage in a– in a lifestyle shift.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Thom King: Uhm that’s one thing, and then the second thing is, why does it take to– to make a lifestyle shift and what are those– what are the components of the discipline uhm, you know, that’s required.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very good points. Yeah, I mean, when I work with patients personally, we’re always talking about what’s the template, right? The template kind of gives us the flex– flexibility with our macronutrients, uh– some people may not need a– a keto template. I think most, tend to go better with a– you know a lower carb kind of paleo template so to speak. And typically, when your carbs get low enough your start spitting ketone as an alternative fuel source. And then, there you go, you have the keto diet is kind of off of that so we can adjust macronutrients in– in a bunch of different ways. But I think the commonality that needs to be present in all diet or lifestyle shift is where you need high amount of nu– nutritional density. Lot of nutrients per bite, we need an anti-inflammatory diet, right? Not with the junky omega-6 uhm– fats and the trans fats, and a high sugar stuff, and then we also need low-toxicity organic, you know, low hormones, all those good things. Any thoughts in that?
Thom King: Yeah, a lot– a lot is the definitely coming up for me. Uhm– and so, when you know, when you’re working with your patients, and– you know, you’re [clears throat]– when you say dense micronutrients, I mean, are you referring to– like more– like I would say, uh– like carbohydrates or vegetables, leafy greens, preciferous vegetables, you know, that– you know that have like those micronutrients, and then also you know, the– the fiber. Is that the– is that what you’re talking about in–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: –this nutrition?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, so, of course like, uhm– vegetables, bone broth, uh– organ meats are incredibly nutrient-dense. If we really look at a lot of the nutrient-density– you know scales that are– that are more out there today, they kind of favor a lot more of the vegetables. But when you’re really lo– and– and they also hinder. They have a negative impact for salts and saturated fat which isn’t really fair because that kind of negates the nutrients that are actually found in an animal products. But once you kind of control for the sodium and for the saturated fat, and you just look at the nutrient, you’d be surprised at how much nutrition’s in like, bacon, or high quality uhm– meat, especially organ meats. It’s pretty insane. Uhm– if you look at the amount of– let’s just say, uhm– nutrition that’s in like, 8 ounces of grass fed meat, you’d had to have 15 cups of kale to equal it. So yeah. So–
Thom King: Wow.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –we’re looking at the vegetables, we’re looking at the high quality uh– meats, and even organ meats to a possible, ’cause those are super nutrient-dense.
Thom King: Right. And so, you also mentioned like, anti-inflammatory, like properties of particular food? And, so, I found in uh– you know, in– in a ketogenic lifestyle, particularly uhm– you know, with me, it’s that I’ve been giving a lot of my– I guess fats– some of my fats, put a lot of my proteins from dairy. [Clears throat] you know, whey protein, KCN, and– and stuff like that. What– what are your thoughts on– on dairy and inflammation?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well I think, whey proteins are one of these proteins that tends to be– it’s lowering KC in about 99% KC free and also 99% lactose-free. So most of the negative effects that you’re gonna see in dairy are gonna be in KC and they’re gonna be in lactose, right? You hear lactose intolerance, people can’t break it down. They get bloaty or gassy.
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then KC tends to be the more inflammatory component. So, when you do whey protein, you don’t like get that. Whey proteins are great– are great precursor to glutathione which is just like awesome master antioxidant because the amino acids are so– uhm sulfur-rich. And uhm– you know, I think there’s a lot of like, what’s tonight price talked about, you know, activator X, which is just Vitamin-K2, it’s commonly found in ghee or grass fed butter. So, I think if you’re doing like, those good he– healthy, higher quality dairy thing is better. I think some people tolerate, you know, the milk and the cheese, better is well, especially if it’s raw, unpasteurized, those kind of things. I don’t even do well with that, I get bloaty and gassy. So, I think it’s really individual but if you’re gonna do the dairy, it– you know, you wanna make sure it’s raw, unpasteurized. But I think the– the butter and the ghee tend to be awesome, really good.
Thom King: Interesting. And do you find– do you find that fermented dairy is easier to tolerate?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well I think fermented dairy is gonna be better. But just because you want, you’re gonna have more B-Vitamins and– and more vitamin-K2 and such. I– it just tends to be have more enzymes. Those enzymes are gonna help with the processing of lactose, processing of the KCN. So just kinda like, predigest it a lot for you. So, they– and that’s kind of a benefit, but when I’m dealing with patients like, I’m cutting dairy out initially, but then that’s one of the first things we’ll have back in are gonna be like ghee and then butter. And ghee is just like a more clarified, filtered-out butter. It’s just les K– less KCN, less lactose.
Thom King: Interesting. And then so, don’t you need– you need Vitamin-K2 in order to– to be able to absorb Vitamin– uh– Vitamin-D3, right? Is that right?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah but, connect the D3 and then A and then– uhm– Vitamin-K2 is really important. It kind of help escort the calcium into the bone. So, we wanna have healthy, strong bones as well. And then on that note I wanted to highlight uhm– ’cause you’re in– in the– in the sweetener industry, and I know that, you’re kind of like, you’re looking at things like stevia–
Thom King: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And you– yeah monk fruit which are really interesting, and I’ve seen a lot of uhm– different videos where people are testing their blood sugar and I’ve seen it not actually go up, I’ve seen it actually drop a bit. What’s been your experience with kind of a healthier sweeteners that are out there?
Thom King: Well, so, I’m like huge on that a collection. And so, part of that data collection is I pull blood continually so–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: I’m trying to see where my blood sugar levels are, I’m trying to see where my ketone levels are. So, and– and plus, since I provide ingredients, you know, to food manufacturers, I always make sure that I’m testing you know some of our sweetening systems and even the compounds we carry on myself. So, like I feel confident when I go in the lab but, you know, that what I’m– what’s going out to the consumer is, you know, is– uh– you know, is healthy or at least they’ve he– healthier options. So–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Thom King: –I’ve– what I’ve done is I’ve– I’ve pull blood sugar, you know, after consuming Aspartame and–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –I’ve pull blood sugar after consuming uh– Sucralose. Uhm– I blood– pull blood sugar levels with stevia and monk fruit. And I’ve found that stevia and monk fruit don’t affect my blood sugar levels whatsoever–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: However, like Aspartame and Sucralose does. And I’m not sure if it’s because of the uh– like dextrose or maltodextrin that they use to, you know–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: –to– you know to– to cut it. Or uhm– another theory that I had and I think that this might not be too far off is that, your body– you know, your body recognizes things that are– exist in nature. And you have the ability to metabolize those particular things are recognizes it. And I think when you put something that’s been chemically manufactured like sucralose which is a– chlorinated sugar molecule, uhm– you know, or– or Aspartame which is a modified phenylalanine. You know–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: –your body doesn’t recognize those. You know, it’s like, “Hey, this is super sweet, why do I do with this? I don’t know what it is”. So, you do get the– you do get the benefit of calorie abatement. Uhm– but the downside is that your body doesn’t really recognize it and you– it– what’s it say– uh– insulin response. Uh– what the– what are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I think I’ve seen some of the same date. I’ve known some of the functional medicine docs that have done like, you know, they– on their YouTube page. They said, “Hey, you know, let’s– everyone, let’s a study and let’s test your blood sugar, you know, fasting 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours. Let’s compare regular meal then let’s add a little bit of stevia to your coffee or to whatever that drink is, mo– and then monk fruit”. And I’ve seen, you know, it’s not a scientific study, but you know, these studies cost millions of dollar to do–
Thom King: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –in a formal setting, so I think this is– this is even better because it is instantaneous.
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And I’ve seen people test their blood sugar and then they post their data really showing it didn’t go up, if not, dropped.
Thom King: Hmm…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And my– my big concern is I think it’s– I think it’s a viable alternative, and it’s something that I use sparingly.
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The question is, is there like a dose-dependency where you frequently added so much, or maybe there starts to becoming a problem because you are telling your brain sweet. Now in punctuated periods, you know, 20% of the time, 10% of the time, it’s probably okay– do you find if it’s– if it’s frequent all the time that you’re starting to increase insulin or your blood sugar may go up over a longer period of time?
Thom King: Uhm I have not found that to be the case with myself. So–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.
Thom King: I actually use bo– uh– we have a proprietary sweetener called KetoseSweet– uh KetoseSweet+. And it’s actually a blend of allulose, uhm– stevia and monk fruit.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Allulose is that new sugar alcohol I’m seeing? Couple places do. I wanna hear on that later on. I’ll– I’ll plant the seed now, we’ll– we’ll come back to that. That’s great.
Thom King: Perfect. That’s– that’s ___[12:00] sweeteners, so, you know, and I– wha– I’d noticed this over the past few years, you know when I really, you know, became a– committed to leading a ketogenic lifestyle, that my– uhm– my desire for sweets actually went down quite a bit, and foods that I would normally have eaten before, uh– you know, before I– I started keto, uhm– just don’t– they taste way too sweet to me. Like some of the bars that I used to eat, super sweet. So, I think that your palette shifts uhm– you know when you engage a– uh– a keto diet and you don’t–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –have the desire to– to have the– you know–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –have stevia or monk fruit. As far as like dosage levels go, uhm– I mean, we’ve got scientific papers that we use in conjunction with you know, with a formulation, and we– err– generally suggest that people stay under 5 to 10 grams of– of stevia or monk fruit, uhm on a daily basis. Uhm– and that is a lot– that’s a lot of stevia and a lot of monk fruit. But–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Thom King: But– you know, at that point ’cause I’ve dosed myself to that level and I’ve dosed myself to a hundred grams of erythritol, I’ve dosed myself to a hundred grams of uh– uh– allulose and so, I mean, I’ve tested blood sugar levels and– you know, also, you know jotted down notes on– uh– you know, like GI effect, because if you have too many like alcohol sugars, it can definitely cause bloating cramping, diarrhea, uhm– which you know, nobody wants.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No, that totally make sense. And I’m just curious, so, I like to also see– I’ve seen that as wll with the blood sugars not going up. I really like to see what fasting insulin’s doing. Is insulin for– potentially compensating at any level at all? Is insulin rising even though blood sugar’s dropping? Maybe insulin’s rising to compensate for that? I just precarious, you have any data on that?
Thom King: I don’t have any data on that. I mean, I would certainly collect data on that. Is there– is there a way to test for– for T4 and T3 uhm– like a home kit or something like that without having to go in and pull blood?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: With T4 and T3, yeah there’s a couple of lab CRT and already in Valley lab’s definitely have them. And insulin I think you— I think you probably just have to just get like a– a ___[14:21] to have that done.
Thom King: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Go everything in there with– I be curious, but I– I do know that those are gonna be things that typically don’t increase the blood sugar as much. Now one thing I– I do notice though is that some people that may have a negative experience, and I’m seeing just a lot of maltodextrin and corn sugar–
Thom King: Hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And some of these sweeteners. What’s the deal with that?
Thom King: Uhm it’s cheap. [Laughs] So, any time you–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Does that defeat the purpose though? I mean, people are– are consuming these products to avoid sugar and then you have sugar in it. Which is like, “What?”.
Thom King: Well, I mean, it– it’s that– I think that that’s typical and, you know, in food manufacturing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: That– you know, [clears throat] there’s– it– it’s tough ’cause it’s the– you know, people are trying to keep an eye on their cost of good sold, right? They’re trying keep high margins and– and the food that they’re selling. And– and maltodextrin and dextrose are so cheap that it’s easy, you know, it’s easy to use that as a– as a uh– as a filler or a bulking agent. So, uhm– you know, when you– when you look at typically like a high-grade sucralose, it’s gonna be 700 times sweeter than sugar. So you can’t really put something 700 times sweeter than sugar into little pocket, uhm– because– it there be a minute such a small amount you wouldn’t be able to actually detect it. So, you do have to use in those particular situations bulking agents. And so for larger, you know– uh manufacturers that don’t have, you know a contingency of consumers, uhm– you know that lean into natural uhm– they’re not even gonna question, you know, maltodextrin. But–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Thom King: ___[16:02] getting to your– to the point of– yeah, it’s completely counter– counter productive and counterintuitive to add back sugar into something [laughs] you’re trying to cut the sugar out. Well, so, yeah, it’s ab– absolutely 100%.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It seems like on a liquid, you’re probably have more ability to– to manipulate that because it’s a liquid, right? You can use a glycerin or some kind of liquid carrier that– you know, you don’t need a certain– a– a bulking if you’re using liquid drops. So, I’m just curious, uhm– what’s the alternative if you are trying to– to get it in a powder. Which are company using what have they found to be better.
Thom King: Uhm– we use lots of different, you know, uh– uh different sweeteners and different sweetening systems depending on what uh– you know, depending on the– the functionality in the outcome that the customers looking for like–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Can’t we rate down the ingredients in your keto-sweet product?
Thom King: Sure. So, uh– we have a product called a KetoSweet+ and it is– it’s allulose, stevia and monk fruit. And we have it both in a powder form, and we have it also in a liquid.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Is there a bulking agent with though with that at all?
Thom King: That’s the allulose. So, we usually–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh.
Thom King: The allulose is the bulking agent ’cause allulose is only about 70% of sweetened sugar. So–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I see.
Thom King: — in order to get to parity with sugar, we add stevia and then we add monk fruit as well. And so what we found is that, the combination of stevia and monk fruit actually mask each other’s off notes. Uhm– which is–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Aaahh.
Thom King: –super interesting. And then, you know, adding those two high intensity sweeteners to allulose which is 70% is sweetened sugar brings it to parity. So, our liquid– our liquid– KetoSweet+, I’d say you can compare it to like DE-42 high fructose corn syrup, or like–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: –any of like kerol or syrup that you would like, you know at the store. Uhm– and then, the– the powders just– very-very similar to sugar. Uhm– it’s not a sugar alcohol, it’s actually considered– still considered a saccharide, uhm–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.
Thom King: So, think fermentation. So basically–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: Uh– allulose exist in nature in small amounts.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: It’s been considered a rare sugar.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: And so, basically, take a– uh– fructose molecule and you treat it with an enzyme. So think fermentation.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Thom King: And then, metabolite after that is a rare sugar called allulose. So– in allulose, your– you know, your– your body recognize it, recognizes it because it exist in nature. But your– because it’s been– you know, because it’s been enzymatically treated, your body is unable to metabolize it. So, it just basically goes through urine and feces and doesn’t affect blood sugar levels or uh– ketones. And what I have found is it actually drops your blood sugar levels slightly. Uhm– and I think it’s because of the enzymes that are used to– to manufacture that. Uhm– the beauty of the allulose, is its functionality. So, it participates in mallard which is the interaction of proteins and sugar that causes uhm– or creates a ___[19:13]–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: So you’re using it in the baking process when you are making cookies or a cake, you’re not gonna get something that’s like brick, you are actually gonna get something–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Thom King: –that’s you know, crispy on the outside, fluffy and moist, you know, in the middle. So, it has that functionality and, I mean, to me, this is gonna be most definitely a– a game changer.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, this– this allulose– and I have a couple of dark chocolates too that I– I do consume that are very low sugar that have allulose as this kind of sugar substitute. So I am seeing that catch on. And allulose is not in the same family, it’s like a paleo like– like xylitol or erythritol–
Thom King: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –this is a– a polysaccharide you’re saying?
Thom King: It is. So, it’s actually a– [crosstalk]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah?
Thom King: It– well, it’s actually a monosaccharide.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Monosaccharide is in the sugar?
Thom King: Yeah, but it’s not– but it– yeah, it’s definitely not at all like– like an alcohol sugar like xylitol, or maltitol or any of those–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And you don’t get any bloating if you consume too much?
Thom King: Uhm– I’ve dosed myself to a hundred grams, which is like err– like, 4 times which you, you know, you should be taking in, probably even more than that. And what I noticed is that, I had– it created some gas but it didn’t create like cramping or laxation. Uhm, I think that whether was happening is a level of fermentation. So, there’s probably some, you know, some bacteria in my gut that’s metabolizing it and–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: –off-gassing, but it wasn’t anything serious. And a hundred grams of that is a lot, like you have to force yourself to get it at your body.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, that’s like 3 and a half ounces, that’s– that’s a decent depth for sure.
Thom King: It is. And so, at that point, I would say don’t exceed that. I would say if you’re going to use allulose or something like that, uhm– you know, not to exceed maybe 15 or 20 grams.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay. Let– it makes a lot of sense. Uhm– anything else you wanted to highlight regarding other sweeteners? Is this the only major sweetener you have, or do you have any others like, what’s your opinion on like the birch bark xylitol? Any other opinions on the sugar alcohols, anything else you carry similar to that?
Thom King: Yeah, we carry all of the sugar alcohols, we carry xylitol, we carry–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –uh erythritol, and I mean, right now, erythritol is probably our biggest seller like we have an erythritol stevia blend, and we are able to process it in a natural powder so it dissolves into solution better, uhm– you know, companies that manufacture bars that are sort of extruded process, are able to use that sweetener, you know, ’cause it– it does dissolve uh– easier, so, in my opinion, like– so I have worked quite a bit with paleo’s, uhm– paleo’s have a tendency to increase water activity in the lower intestine.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: Uhm– which is– which can lead to bloating, cramping, diarrhea, uhm– xylitol I find, I mean, when you start talking about the m– maltitols of the world.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: Maltitols of the world, the laxation effect that those had is pretty extreme.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Thom King: And I would say away from those unless you have really doped up the tolerance to sugar alcohols. Uhm– xylitol is a little less, but still pretty intense. If you over consume xylitol, you’ll definitely get a laxation effect. And I would say that the least, the– the sugar alcohol that has the least amount of– of uhm– of GI impact is gonna be erythritol.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.
Thom King: And I think I would still recommend that people stay under 15 grams of erythritol per day.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think the big issue with a lot of these a m– m– mo– most are gonna come from uh– GMO corn. So, you could potentially get that round up– or that– that– that glyphosate pesticide uhm– potential trace in there as well which is common with a lot of the corn processing.
Thom King: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like the birch park, tends to be a little bit more of uhm– let’s just say the unadulterated form.
Thom King: Right, yeah. And we– you know, we– we have very– every one of our raw ingredients that comes in, uh– third party tested. So, and I mean, if you guys are– like any of your audience are gonna do business with, you know, with a ingredient company, you should actually 100% demand third party testing and see evidence of a thrid party testing. And part of our third-party testing is to test for like a GMO protein indicator. So, we’re always looking at, you know, we don’t anything in-house that’s GMO at all.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting. I’m just curious, what are you finding in the– I mean, I’m not saying you guys did this but what have you found in the past when you started testing these things, did you find any of the round-up residue, did you find any lead or metals or mycotoxins that kinda– can you give us some of the bad stuff you found, in the past?
Thom King: [Laughs] Those are awesome questions. Uhm– and that is why we started doing third party testing. So, uhm– you know, I would say 10 years ago, when we just started getting into third party testing, we would find crazy, like shovel handle, uh– glove, like all sorts of adulteration in the products that we are getting.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hold on, I wanna make sure I heard that. So, like, meaning like, particulate of a shovel handle? Particulate?
Thom King: No, I mean a shovel handle.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like an actual piece of it in there?
Thom King: Yeah. And–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, okay– I think the whole handle, you mean?
Thom King: No, probably 68 inches of the shovel handle.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, my gosh! How does that happen? Like it’s crazy.
Thom King: I have no idea, or in the glove, like we found the glove, and–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, got it.
Thom King: –so, I mean, a lot of these things– you– I mean– we– we do visual testing, so every– you know, all the raw– and this is back in the day. And we– we you know, we would– obviously not use those particular ___[24:51] after that, but anything that we bring in now goes into QC’s cluster. And we– you know, and we send it out for third party testing which test for heavy metals. Uh– test for Coliform, you know, various like yeast–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, bacteria.
Thom King: Or– uh– pe– uh– petrochemicals, uh– GMO protein indicators. So– we– we tested all that way, and I would say that our current blenders that we have in place, we don’t generally run into issues with them, uhm– I like to also add that everything that comes in and goes out of here runs through a metal detector. Uhm– you know, so, we– you know, we’re able to– to pull anything out that maybe the smallest piece of uh– of metal that, you know, got into it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: But, uhm– when we– so when we start vetting new ingredient suppliers, I mean it’s a pretty– it’s a pretty rigorous uh– uh– task for them, you know, they have to give us all of their documents, their organic search, we send it off for third party testing, uhm– we will bring in, you know we could just bring a load from them, and then all of that gets tested. So, uhm– I wish more companies did that, because we’ve had products coming through our warehouse once we send ’em to third party, boom, they’re out of our warehouse and it’s like, no, this isn’t what we ordered. So, everything has to fall within a spec. And I would– it was really highly encourage, your– your listeners, to– I mean, and I know that they’re probably are getting a lot of their supplements through you and you’ve already vetted those companies, well I would say, oh, my God, like, I would say that, we’re just sweeteners. So, this is like, not a big deal but when you start looking at companies that are selling supplements and they’ve got a lot of compounds going in there, it– absolutely everything should be third party tested because I know in the supplement industry, 75% of the supplements out there don’t even contain any active compounds.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I agree. And this is a problem and that we test all of our– raw ingredients independently and I found increases in lead and some of these–
Thom King: Oh yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –raw material back, and that can happen, of course, you know, you just over time find out who the best ones are–
Thom King: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –where the qualities at. And then so you are also testing for like, round-up and or GMO type of contamination as well?
Thom King: Yeah, and I mean, in petrochemicals and heavy metals. So we test–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh.
Thom King: –for cadmium and lead, and, I mean, we’ve had products come in specifically from China which is kind of interesting, uhm– you know, that are showing up super high in cadmium and lead.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: So, we do– I do a ton of formulation for companies. So companies will send us their product then in order for us to push it through our queue– our-our RND, uhm– we’ve gotta have ___[27:35] and then we also get that third party tested. And I found that, there’s a lot of P-Protein, uhm that is out of China that is super high in lead. And–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh.
Thom King: –I think it’s just because of the amount of the petrochemicals that get better in the air and then settle out into the soils. So, uhm–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: Yeah, so we test– we test for– yeah, we test for all of those things–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally
Thom King: Uhm– you know, and– occasionally we find something but– at the more rigorous our– our testing has become, the more we are able to weed up the suppliers that are unscrupulous.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, very good. Now we talked a little bit earlier about in some of the benefits of being ketogenic earlier on the thyroid. I wanna just kinda peg you back to that because you are asking me some questions in the pre-interview like, you know, who’s gonna benefit from the ketogenic diet on– on the thyroid side? And this is a question I get a lot because you have some data– uhm, people saying, “Well, I– my thyroid gets worse or weaker on a ketogenic template and some gets better”, and I think a lot of it has to do with how insulin-resistant, how numb someone’s cells are to insulin. So the more numb you are to insulin, your body has to compensate by making more insulin to overcome that numbness. And I think that’s the big issue and kind of the physiological imbalance that’s driving a lot of issues with people’s heath and thyroid, and finding healthier sweeteners like you mentioned, getting the carbs down can really dese– uh– really increase the sensitivity, meaning it lowers the insulin–
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –and that allows thyroid conversion to happen better because insulin’s a big blocker of thyroid conversion if it’s too– too high. Just answer that question.
Thom King: Right, yeah. And I mean, I found that with my– with myself. So, I was carrying about 35 lbs of extra– uh– of extra weight. And I mean I was definitely insulin– uh– resistant. And so, I did show a depleted T4, uhm– you know, when I started, and then that T4 leveled out. Uhm– but I’m not sure like on a– real long-term basis, uhm– how the thyroid will be affected, I mean, I test– like I do a batch test and–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: –and like I do full blood panel batch test and then I also uhm– do stool sample once a month–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Thom King: –to track my microbiome.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.
Thom King: So, yeah, I’m like, really– so I’ve really found some interesting stuff in this data collection that I’ve– have done. But I found that the ketogenic diet really did help my insulin resistance so I became more– more sensitive but you know, another– I– I would have like a question I guess, have– have you do you have any experience with uh– berberine with your patients?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, I use berberine a couple different ways. Uhm– with some patients it’s typically used in my SIBO-clearing programs where we’ll try to knock down SIBO or bacterial overgrowth.
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And this– a bunch of different berberines, Goldenseal, ___[30:29], Barberry, you know, those kind of things. Obviously, yeah, berberine HCL. Uhm– but berberine’s also a really good insulin-sensitizing compound. It can really help lower your blood sugar, and– and lower your insulin levels. So there’s some really good benefits there as well.
Thom King: Right, ’cause I added that as a supplement and I almost wonder if that was, you know, if that really helped me become more uh– you know, more sensili– sensitive to uh– to insulin. And another thing too, is I’d like to hear your thoughts on– on Metformin.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I think uhm– berberine kind of works similar, in a similar way it helps us uh– on the insulin sensitizing side. Metformin ‘s gonna work more by decreasing like the glucose absorption in the gut, and then it also kind of shuts down gluconeogenesis in the liver. Uhm– part of that decrease in the glucose absorption though, it can also decrease the absorption of B-12. So, if you’re on Metformin or Glucophage, you really wanna be on some supplemental B-12 on top of it. Uhm– and then, you know Metaformin’s relatively natural like the extract from Metaformin comes from the French Lilac flower, so it’s–
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –it’s kind of on the natural side, uhm– but I tend to like be more impartial for like the Berberines and the other more nutrient-based insulin-sensitizing compounds. But if people are on it, you know, you just gotta make sure the B-12’s dialed in there too.
Thom King: Interesting. And do you feel like getting a B– uh– B-12 supplement with it or just increasing the amount of like– of– of uh– like organ meat would– would suffice?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I would just be a– I just make sure you’re on at least a good Malt tea with some extra B-12 on top of a really good diet.
Thom King: Interesting.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A– a– and again you can monitor that with you functional medicine doc like, you know, I like methylmalonic acids are really good tests to look at to assess your B-12 levels. Whien methylmalonic acid goes high, that actually means lower B-12, right? Methylmalonic acid gets metabolized to succinic acid. And so you need B-12 to make this conversion happen. So if there’s not enough B-12, methylmalonic go– acid goes up, if you don’t have that B-12 that convert it. So, let’s ___[32:31] if people are gonna be on it, you wanna be careful because, you know, lo– low B-12 can cause, you know, alzheimer’s dementia-like symptoms.
Thom King: Interesting. And then so, do you find like with your patients, that– that taking– taking these vitamins and supplements orally and/or do you feel like there’s greater efficacy in IV’s?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well the– I mean, I think IV’s are good, the problem is they’re impractical for people to do daily, that’s the only issue.
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Just because uhm– you know, people got a work, they don’t have, you know, 30 or 40 minutes to get drip in there, and that can be more expensive but–
Thom King: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –uh– Iv’s here, they I think can be really good but, ideally you want good food and supplements are those easier take–
Thom King: Defenitely.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And that’s the big benefit. If I see patients that do a lot of gut issues then we will go on the– s– the sublingual B-12 side, and that can really help too because it can kind of get more of the absorption via the oral mucosal kind of buccal tissue versus the gut, and that can help too.
Thom King: Wow, awesome. [Laughs]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then I’m just curious–
Thom King: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What other– like what other key things, you know, you wrote the book, Gu– uh– uh– “Guy Gone Keto”, and you also–
Thom King: Great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –come up some of these great sweeteners. What other cool tools are out there that you found kinda as– in your transition to a healthier diet, and making a lot of these health thing you think really impacted you?
Thom King: I would have to save the th– the thing or modality that had the greatest impact or what I found was the– the– the– lent itself to the success that I had was probably journaling. So, you know, that is– w– you know– and being mindful. So, when– when I get up in the morning, one of the first things I do, grab a cup of coffee, sit down and I start to journal, and you know, I journal with real intentions of things I wanna manifest. Uhm– you know, I do some data collection like my weight and blood pressure. Uhm– so, I think journaling was really-really-really huge. And really taking time to do that first thing in the morning sets the– sets the stage for your day. And then within that, I incorporated what I called “My Arrow of Power”.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Thom King: Uhm– journaling, run, cycling, you know, I do try, and then you know, every other day, I do yoga and then I finish out my workout with a meditation. Uhm– and I think that those real things can actually helped me the most.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s really good to hear, that’s excellent. That sounds like something like a little Tony Robins kind of morning progress. That’s what it sound like.
Thom King: [Laughs] I’m totally influenced by Tony Robins.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s cool. And then I’m just curious too, just kind of piggyback on a couple things, where do you guys source your Allitol from the mean like– not like what company but like, wh– what’s the raw ingredient it comes from?
Thom King: You mean the allulose?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I’m sorry, Allulose. I said Allitol– Allulose. Great.
Thom King: I don’t know but that’s a weird interesting compound. That’s not like the– the mix of– [laughs] of– erythritol and allulose.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly, exactly, totally.
Thom King: Uhm– so, we– so I’ve been working woth allulose for the past five years and part of it was so new, uhm that the supply chain really wasn’t there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: And we weren’t really able to verify stuff, so we won’t add– we won’t add something as an ingredient unless we’re– unless we’re 100% confident that the supply chain is solid, and also reliable like everything is– that arrives is within spec. So, the– the allulose, you know, we’ve got 3 different suppliers, and all three of those suppliers uhm– are using non-GMO uhm– corn fructose uh– substrate to– to enzymatically create the allulose.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it. So it’s corn fructose but it’s GMO-free and– and ___[36:11].
Thom King: Great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Are they able to separate the– the sugar from the protein component pretty well?
Thom King: I think so, I mean– ’cause when we third party test, we’re not showing any proteins. Uhm–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh good.
Thom King: So, I mean I– I– I don’t have any reason to believe that there’s any problems with the– the– with them separating it. I know that they use like what’s called resin– resin column uh- filtration. So it pulls out like any of the pure– the– the impurities of– so– yeah, I mean we’ve been working with it for a while, and we third party test it and we haven’t found any– you know, any proteins in it to indicate that there’s, the– you know, the genetically modified uh– corn was used in that process.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So someone was gluten-sensitive and one of the ___[36:55] out, you’d feel like it would be filtered enough, it wouldn’t be a problem for them?
Thom King: Uhm- well, we’re also uh– allergen free– uh– facility, so we always test for– we test for gu– uh– you know, gluten? Uhm– and absolutely the allulose is gluten-free.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Good. And if they were sensitive to corn, like the corn protein like the zein protein, you feel like it’d be– it’d be filtered enough for there wouldn’t be an allerenic reaction to it?
Thom King: Yeah, I do, well, ’cause we test for proteins and there’s no proteins– there’s no proteins left in there, so I would– I would feel confident thst, uhm– yeah, that, that people, they are sensitive to that but not, you know, be affected by it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very cool. Well, we’re gonna have to put some links down below where people can find the KetoSweet+ formula–
Thom King: Oh.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Anything else Thom you wanted to highlight for the listeners here?
Thom King: Uhm– no, not really. You– we were the– the questions you asked worked totally through, and I appreciate that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I appreciate you comin’s on. Anything else you wanna leave to listeners with for just– how– how they can find more about you and more about your products too?
Thom King: Uhm– well if you want to get a copy of the book, and we also have uh– we released a line of ketogenic uh– condiments like ketchup, barbecue, sauce–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, cool.
Thom King: And– teriyaki sauce. And so, if you just go to guygoneketo, you can find all of that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Thom King: Uhm– you can reach me through that too. Uhmm– all of the social medias under this Thom King, T-H-O-M, K-I-N-G. Uhm– reach out to me if you ever got– if you ever have questions. If they want to buy the KetoSweet+, I think kwe– the KetosSweet+ is available on the guygoneketo site. It’s also available on steviva.com, that’s S-T-E-V-I-A “dot com” that’s we have all of our compounds on there available for retail. And if they wanna see what kind of madness we’re up to in the– in our lab, they can go to iconfoods.com and follow us on linkedIn and you can see some of the craziness that goes on in our lab, things we’re inventing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very cool. And is it possible the coke with the KetosSweet+?
Thom King: Oh, absolutely, yeah. So, it does– it does actually participate in maillard at lower temperature, meaning that uhm– like with sucrose or table sugar, you– you’d probably about a hundred and forty-five–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –to a hundred and fifty-five as when it starts to caramelized, and you’re gonna noticed that you’re gonna get that a little sooner with the uh–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –with allulose, probably in the 130 to 135 range.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Thom King: So, probably wanna bake it and cook at little lower temperature for a little– e– extended period of time.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: But then, you know, other than that, yeah, you can– cook and bake just like you would for a sugar.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Awesome Thom, well, thanks for all the great information here today, appreciate it. And you have a phenomenal day.
Thom King: Thanks, you too Dr. J., thanks for having me on.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thank you. Bye now.
Thom King: You’re welcome.
References:
The Keto FX Summit – Get Your Keto Questions Answered – Podcast #172
References:
Dr. Justin Marchegiani welcomes back Keith Norris, co-founder of the Keto f(x) Summit in today’s podcast. Listen as they share great information about the Keto f(x) Summit and drop some knowledge bombs about ketosis and the ketogenic diet.
Know about the many benefits of having a Ketogenic Diet and find out how this type of diet can help in improving overall health and other conditions like cancer and seizure. Learn about some tweaks that you can make in this diet and explore how it affects thyroid and liver health.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
02:24 Ketogenic diet and Cancer
13:44 Tweaking the Ketogenic Diet
20:11 Ketogenic Diet and Thyroid Issues
22:15 Ketogenic Diet and Liver Health
25:30 Ketogenic Diet and Collagen
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey guys! It’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani here. We have a phenomenal guest back in the flesh. We are live here at YouTube. We got Keith Norris, cofounder of Paleo f(x), also cofounder of the Keto f(x) Summit, which is live now. So if you have not subscribed yet, click below in the description. There will be a link for you. If you’re listening on a podcast as well, just click that link and you’re good. Lots of good knowledge bombs that will be dropped over the next two weeks. The Summit just started yesterday and we got some videos going out daily. So make sure you grab it so you get that drip, drip, drip in the inbox every day. Love it. So, Keith Norris, welcome to the show, man. How are you doing?
Keith Norris: Justin, it’s great to be on, man.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it. Love it. Well, I was excited to be part of the Summit. I know we chatted uh—last month and my talk will be coming up on February 6. So my listeners, make sure you subscribe so you’re ready for my talk next week. And anyone listening to this show right now, give us a big thumbs up, give us a big share. Again, a lot of people don’t quite have their arms wrapped around ketosis and ketogenic diet. And this is the best summit that’s gonna bring in all of the experts all across the world to get you some bite-size information so you can start applying this and getting your help better.
Keith Norris: Yeah. There’s a lot of conflicting information out there, Justin. It is you know, I mean, we see this. We see a lot of the information
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I love it. And today, we’re gonna just chat about kinda your top 3 to 5 favorite things that you learned coz you were interviewing all these people. And again, this is not limited to all the other goodies but
Keith Norris: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Keith Norris: Yeah. Well, you know, Dom can get to it a hell a lot better than I can.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Keith Norris: I can give you the
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Keith Norris: Though, uhm–Dom and I were at NASA a couple years ago. Uhm— we were at a roundtable and that roundtable discussion was about how to keep astronauts safe and healthy on an extended uh—period in zero gravity conditions. We’re limiting gravity conditions and this is all about sending astronauts to Mars. Uhm— what we currently know right now as we can keep astronauts fairly safe for you know, about a year but they degrade rapidly and even after a year they degrade pretty far.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.
Keith Norris. And why do they degrade?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow.
Keith Norris: So how do we prevent that? Uhm, so I was at the uh—I was at that roundtable talking about eccentric exercise.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Dom was talking about using the ketogenic diet to keep us from___. And there’s a number of reasons why. Number one is muscle sparing, right? So that’s a big plus. But one of the—one of the biggest plus is the fact that it’s protected against the onslaught of radiation.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.
Keith Norris: And what a lot of people don’t realize are these astronauts
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Really?
Keith Norris: Yes. So uhm—because there is— because they are inundated with so much radiation. With the ketogenic diet, there is actually protective of healthy cells against the onslaught of radiation. And Don obviously goes into the science of all this. I’m not the science guy but he goes into the science of why that works. But the trickle-down effect of that is people who are undergoing radiation treatment for cancer, for instance. So there’s a twofold—there’s a twofold benefit with the ketogenic diet as__for cancer. Number one, if someone’s going to radiation treatment, radiation treatment is essentially a corporate bomb of all cells, right? And it just—so there’s colla—there’s a lot of collateral damage during that process of healthy cells. In ketogenic diet it’s very, very protective of these healthy cells.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting. Let’s talk about the—go ahead. Yeah. Go ahead.
Keith Norris: Yup. Also, I’m gonna say that just about every cancer out there feeds off of glucose, right? So if you starve the body of glucose utilizing the ketogenic diet, that’s the flipside of that. So that also aids in the treatment of cancers. So it—that was one very, very interesting topic that we discussed.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. And also, neurologically, you know, a lot of the brain cells uhm—you know, they run off of glucose to a certain degree, but as you get more insulin resistant, meaning yourself get more numb to that hormone insulin, then the brain, certain parts of the brain have a problem utilizing that glucose fuel. So getting some of those ketones up can help wake up some of those brain cells that have not been able to access glucose. And also the plaque that forms in the brain from inflammation, the enzyme insulin degrading enzyme is really important cleaner for cleaning up that plaque. And if you’re too busy making insulin, then your body is dealing with the metabolism of insulin versus the metabolism of the plaque in your brain. Can you chat— did you go in any of those neurological aspects with Dom, too?
Keith Norris: Yeah. Dom did as well. And uh—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Great.
Keith Norris: You know I would hate to try to butcher what he will—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Keith Norris: I’ll tell you one thing that’s super, super interesting about this. And this would—this comes back to what our plates actually look like when we eat.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Keith Norris: So NASA is very interested in this diet as well because you can’t imagine like to send my cell phone into space, that’s an astronomical cost.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Really?
Keith Norris: Yeah. It’s astronomical in the amount of fuel that it requires to send something in an orbit. So if you can cut essentially the amount of uh—food that you’re sending up into orbit, that’s a massive—a. it’s a space safe and b. it’s
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow!
Keith Norris: That’s a massive
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hundred percent. And then also the fact that ketones have a natural appetite suppression type of effects, so it really hits those satiation signals in the transverse lateral part of the hypothalamus that—that signal satiation, uh— which is great. And we know carbohydrates typically don’t have that signal specially refine ones. That’s why you know, everyone can go back to their college days with a— maybe ate a whole pizza to themselves or think back to the pringles commercials of the
Keith Norris: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Where it’s once you pop you can’t stop, right?
Keith Norris: That’s right. You know, Rob Wolf went into this to a great degree talking about how our food manufacturers manipulate our own wiring or dopamine.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-uhm.
Keith Norris: And you know, our dopamine response to food. Uhm—Evan gives a great example of a—an eating contest, right? So uh— for instance a guy that challenges to eat—I don’t know what it was—it was like—like 8 gallons of ice cream. It was ridiculous.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow.
Keith Norris: Well, how did he do that? Because after certain while even with the best tasting ice cream you can imagine, obviously, you’re going to get pushback from the body. You’re gonna quit, stop.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Keith Norris: So how did he power through that? He ordered a plate of extra crispy, extra salty fries so he would eat some ice cream, shell a few fries, reset the taster, so to speak. And now he was able to eat more ice cream, right? And food manufacturers know this and they are in business to sell you food and to get you to eat more. So this is how they manipulate the whole fat-sugar-salt to eat. Another example uhm—Doritos came out recently with a—I can’t remember what the exact uh—anyway there’s— there’s different levels of heat in these chips and every—I would bet it is a based on mathematical uh— probability that they have what they call like I don’t know, like an atomic heat.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup. Uh-hmm.
Keith Norris:.. in the chips. So that—so now it’s is so now it’s gamification of eating. So people are eating all these chips, right? And you know, “Hey, I got
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know Rob has also talked about—yeah, that’s phenomenal. I know Rob’s also talked about the—the inflammatory component, too, where you know, you may eat foods that have a higher degree of inflammation whether it’s with their fatty acid profile or because of food uh—allergy components in there. And that can actually increase your sugar levels via cortisol, via stress hormone that could also prevent you from burning fat for fuel
Keith Norris: Yeah. He did. And many people went through the discussion of—so the question being if the ketogenic diet goes off the tracks, where does it go off the tracks? And it’s— when it does go off the tracks, it’s not with the diet itself, it’s with the application. So generally what happens is a type A personality who’s already hard drive in you know, just probably not sleeping well, working too hard yada yada yada too much stress on the body now adapts the ketogenic diet and they’re not gonna ease into it. They’re gonna go full force into it. And what is at result? That’s another stress from the body. It’s more cortisol. It’s more disruption in the body and uh—yes, so, you know, people— if it does go off the rails, that’s a big portion or a big probability of why it went off the rails.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. And that’s the big this is the application component. Coz a lot of people listen to this and you know like, “Well, I don’t think that’s for me.” Well, here’s the thing that I noticed with a lot of people that I work with is number one, if someone’s on a higher carb type of you know kick, metabolically their bodies are more of a sugar burner. So as we shift back to being more of a fat burner, they may get a little bit a kickback as it takes a few weeks to kind of Keto- adapt. But what I tell people, even if you feel— even if you feel little bit better with more carbohydrates, think of ketogenic diet as like a spectrum. You’re probably going to feel better being 80 to 70, you know, 70-80 90% more in that direction on the ketogenic side. You may not be 100% but just pushing it more in that direction, you can still see benefits. It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing thing, is that true?
Keith Norris: Yeah. Oh, totally. And you see this across the board from the experts talking about it. And I think one of the things, too, that I that I picked up is that nobody has to rush into this, right? Unless you have a condition like epilepsy or—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Keith Norris: We need to shift quickly. But just for body comp, for overall health, we have time to ease into this. It doesn’t have to be a punch in the face and you don’t have to go through that you know, the severe carb flu and anything like that. You can ease into this. And the other thing is you’re not gonna get it
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.
Keith Norris: We just want to take progressive steps, progressive steps, progressive steps. Give yourself some leniency because one of the— one of the things also when you talk to these experts and I’ve noticed this myself and the people that I’ve trained is whenever you start shipping somebody into the ketogenic diet, they want to subconsciously just because of how we’ve been smacked with the fear of fat.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting. I’ve heard—I’ve heard Dom talk about it and maybe he talked about it in your interview with him, but the ketogenic diet kinda started off 90 to 92%, fat 6-8% protein, 1 to 2% carbohydrate and this is primarily with kids that had epilepsy.
Keith Norris: Uh-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now one of the things they found is there was an Igf-1deficiency going that low protein for that long period of time. So these kids were like having stunted height things like that. I know Dom I think did posit some research over I want to say Duke where they up the protein to about 20 to 25%. They increase the Igf, which is beneficial to someone that’s growing or wants to maintain muscle mass, but they were still able to keep all of those ketogenic benefits. So there’s like that 20 to 25% threshold of protein that seems to be that upper level where you can still keep the benefits. So some people
Keith Norris: And I would say also that uh—you know, so the question came up quite a bit of uhm—ca you do vegan keto?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhm. Great question.
Keith Norris: Can you? Obviously, you can. Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Keith Norris: You can do that, but uhm—to rope back into the low protein side of things, there is a danger there, right? So, I mean you know if you’re if –if you’re gonna absolutely have no animal products whatsoever, you can pull it off. You can pull
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It sounds familiar.
Keith Norris: Yeah. So, now this is a bodybuilding community, a heavy-duty bodybuilding community that uses the ketogenic diet. And uhm— if you— when you look at their protein intakes, it’s not very high it’s about .8 per .8 g per pound of lean body mass, right? So they’re not even taking the full—full body weight. They are looking at lean body mass. And when you— when you run through the calculation, that’s not a whole lot of protein, right? And that’s how—that’s how they set their macros. They set it with protein first using the uh—the amount of lean body mass you carry. But still, you know the uh—the old idea that uh bodybuilders need just massive amounts of protein, they’ve proven that wrong and they’ve proven that wrong for many, many years. He’s been in the game for quite a while.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So that’s 8.8g
Keith Norris: Yup. Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So let’s say you’re 200 lbs and let’s say maybe that’s 10-15% let’s say 15 to 20% fat. So you’re sitting around maybe 160-165 lean and then you do the math on that, that’s what? A 130 g of protein or so a day?
Keith Norris: Yeah. That’s—that’s not a lot compared to traditional bodybuilding requirements.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Keith Norris: They’d probably double that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes. So that’s about 4 to 6 ounces of protein three times a day.
Keith Norris: Yup. It’s not a whole lot.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay. Interesting.
Keith Norris: By body building standards, anyway.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And yourself, how—what are your macros like and how much protein you get in a day? Maybe around 200g, 160?
Keith Norris: Yeah. You know, it fluctuates day-to-day because you know, I’m really—I don’t ever measure macros really at this point now.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Keith Norris: I’ve gone through that period. I’ve done my measurements. I kind of know how it how it feels to be in. Yeah. So, uh– I don’t know. I know it varies and it varies every day but I can tell you the thumb rules that I use. I always opt for the fattiest cuts possible in my meats.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Keith Norris: So that’s—that’s number one. I’m gonna have meat, but it’s gonna be the fattiest cut I can, given the option, right? So I find—so just this weekend, I was out. Uhm in a very nice restaurant in San Antonio and uhm—I’m looking through the menu, I’m going, “Okay, how am I gonna navigate this?” I saw a rib eye.
Justin: Oh, love it!
Keith Norris: So I tell the waiter, “I want the fattiest rib eye that the chef can find in the back.” Of course he looks at me like, “Are you crazy?” I’m like, “ I want the fattiest rib eye that you can bring out.” So it’s just uh little tricks like that that you learn along the way. You know, how can I add fat into my intake and uhm where can I do that, where can it taste better. And uh—that’s how I roll. So I’m beyond the uh—beyond the actual measuring. But there is a—there is a place for that. For people just coming into this diet, right? Because I’ve done this work for years. I mean, it’s just part of who I am. But somebody just coming into this diet is gonna have to do some weighing and measuring and tracking to get—you know, to get a feel for this.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. And the way I kinda do it is very similar. I typically tell my patients uhm—a palm to a fist to a full hand of protein per meal. That’s gonna be dependent upon how active you are, how stressed you are lifting weights, etc. Two
Keith Norris: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, you know, uhm—just you know, create a high level of anxiety every time you eat doing it that way. You always get your hands right there, right? So it’s easy to see. Keith Norris: That’s what we wanna do. We wanna move as quickly as we can to this being just a very, very, natural diet where you don’t have to think about it. It just—it just is. We want you to be able to end up to the point where you’re—you kinda know. You already go into a restaurant, you kinda know I’m probably gonna have to order à la carte, which I do quite often, right?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Keith Norris: I’ll just order—order stuff à la carte and you just know the questions to ask.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very cool.
Keith Norris: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we got some questions coming in. So, listeners if you’re checking this out, leave us a chat here. We’ll try to answer your question. Just keep it uhm— relevant to ketosis. Uh— someone talks about here, “How do you prevent ketosis from blowing your thyroid?” I’ll grab that one first, then I’ll get your opinion. Number one, some of the early research on ketogenic diets and low thyroid used a lot of polyunsaturated fats. So we gotta be careful with those because polyunsaturated fats, if heated, can usually oxidize and rancidify. Uhm—fish oils, those kind of things. So if we’re eating whole fish, that’s fine. But if we’re adding in good high-quality saturated fats, uhm—they’re much more heat stable, less chance of oxidation. And a lot of people I find have thyroid issues because of insulin resistance. So if you have a thyroid conversion issue or excess inflammation because of insulin resistance, a ketogenic diet can significantly help that. There are small percent of the population that may have lower thyroid symptoms as they go more ketogenic. We typically can see them coz they are already leaner, but that for me, that’s my default starting point is a lower carb in that ketogenic spectrum. And then if we have issues, we can—we can progress the carbs, operate it and dial it in. Your thoughts, Keith Norris?
Keith Norris: Well, I was just gonna say that Justin, you went into that very discussion.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Keith Norris: And during—during your interview. So I was uh—you know, for the ___, I question, be sure to watch what your interview. Also, be sure to watch uhm—Ross’ interview as well. So L Ross’s with the uh—with the uh—she’s with Mark Sison’s group. Uhm—and uhm—she—I believe she still has__podcast.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, very cool.
Keith Norris: In
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And that’s the question we get a lot about ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting and female hormones and thyroid.
Keith Norris: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’m gonna refer everyone. Make sure you subscribe down below and get access to that. Coz that talk is gonna be next week. So make sure you sign up so you can get access to it. And then also, another the person writes in, “How important is liver health when doing ketosis? Uhm— my take on it is number one, carbohydrate is gonna be the most you know, excess carbohydrates is gonna be the most damaging thing to the liver primarily fructose. It up regulates these enzymes and the liver called the JMKY enzymes uh—jump for short, very inflammatory. And that’s where we kinda have that non-alcoholics the steato hepatitis. That’s the fatty liver from excess carbs.
Keith Norris: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I find ketogenic diet incredibly liver protective as long as we’re trying to eat grass-fed organic, pasteur fed things. The fat can accumulate a lot of toxins so more organic. And then the other question I get all the time I wanted you to take on it is, “Oh,
Keith Norris: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Because when your kidneys are already weak, your protein, it’s not gonna cause the issue, but it’s gonna be a stressor on the liver—on the kidneys to begin with. So, doing super, super low-protein, super high-fat can help with icy liver and kidney function. Your take?
Keith Norris: Yeah. I was just gonna second everything you said. Very protective for those organs and in something that uh— that just hit me when we’re talking about liver, this is completely tangential to that particular question. But, I guess Chris Kresser. Chris Kresser is another speaker in the summit. And I asked him about organ meats and especially liver.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Keith Norris: And his take on that is you know, even with the __raised animals, even in that situation, the liver does not necessarily hold toxins.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Keith Norris: It’s the job of body fat to hold toxins.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Keith Norris: Uhm so, I guess my point is whenever we’re talking about eating especially animal fats, let’s try to move. And I know—I know it’s not doable for everybody in their situation right now but as soon as you can, start migrating over to humanely raised paster raised animals and try to get out of the whole capital of the confined animal uhm—what the hell is it—something operation— feeding operation—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup. Feeding operation. Yup. Yup.
Keith Norris: So conventionally raised meats. So, let’s try to move towards grass-fed, grass- finished
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% And this question I get a lot. Sam writes in here, but I actually get this intel from someone that spoke at your Paleo f(x) conference last year. So we’ll put a little plug for Paleo f(x) that’s coming up the end of April down in Austin. But Jordan Rubin spoke and he talked about the amino acid profile in collagen as having less effective of increasing gluconeogenesis. And that some of the things we worry about when we eat excess protein is some of that convert into sugar and pulling us out of a ketogenic state. What’s your take on maybe you know smaller amounts of collagen
Keith Norris: Yup. For that very reason, uh—Michelle generally keeps a
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Keith Norris: And uh—what I do, so that’s already pretty collagen heavy because we use a lot of chicken or she does.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Keith Norris: She uses a lot of chicken feet and that but I also add collagen powder to that mix and blend it up. So, yes, uh— for that very reason, I will add extra collagen into my—and so that does account for a good portion of my protein intake.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Great. Yeah. Well, people are thinking about protein in their head kinda draw a line between like muscle meat protein, organ meat protein—
Keith Norris: Uh-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:– and connective tissue ligament tendons high you know in cartilage. So kinda draw that line. So the big thing is that we want very careful of the excess muscle meat.
Keith Norris: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s why you are doing the rib eye where
Keith Norris: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, by the way, quick question for me. This is kind of a selfish question. Who has the best
Keith Norris: Austin—I don’t know. I was in San Antonio at the Dominion in San Antonio’s where is where I was. Uhm—you know when I’m in Austin, I’m a barbecue guy. And if we’re talking barbecue, I will give you this tip, Justin.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Keith Norris: Go to Freedmen’s.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Freedmen’s— awesome.
Keith Norris: Yeah. The bar downtown uh—at some 24th and St. Gabriel I think. Somewhere in that area. It’s a bar but they have an expert uh— grill master there. And the barbecue is just insanely off the chain. So—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, love it.
Keith Norris: So when I’m in Austin, I’m a barbecue guy.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I love it. Here are my top three for Austin: Perry’s downtown on Seventh Street.
Keith Norris: Yes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The
Keith Norris: Uh-huh.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: __Chavez. And I’d say the Roaring Fork for number three. The Roaring Fork used to have grass-fed steak three years ago. They pulled it off the menu but those are my top three. And if you go to Three Forks, get the Kings Butter. Uh—it is just absolutely—
Keith Norris: Ahh. Nice. Yeah. And if Perry’s had pork chop, whoo—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, Friday that pork chop, man. And too bad, they got a little bit of barley malt glaze in it.
Keith Norris: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. It’s like 0.01% gluten. I’m like, “Dude, you got to figure out a way!”
Keith Norris: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But I just go there with some activated charcoal and some enzyme DPP 4 enzyme uh to knock it out.
Keith Norris: Right. Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Totally.
Keith Norris: That’s great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Any other last questions, comments, anything else you want to mention here, Keith Norris, about the summit or anything else?
Keith Norris: Man, I would just really, really encourage people to dive into this deal. I mean 20 experts all whose interviews are between an hour an hour and a half. It’s just so much knowledge and so much information. And each one of these interviewees is offering
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it.
Keith Norris: After the night, it’s going to go up. It’s only gonna go up a little bit. It’s gonna go up to 99. But
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah. He went, “Yeah, you indeed.” It was a normal Dom d’Agostino conversation.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely love it. And I subscribed as well. So I’m getting the videos email to myself personally and at my lunch break, I’m firing them up and I’m going through it on because it’s a lot of clinical knowledge. So if you’re a practitioner listening—
Keith Norris: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: There’s still phenomenal information for you to be able to apply and as a— as a patient or someone coming that’s __on this, there’s gonna be so much information. It’s gonna be like tricking out of a firehouse but
Keith Norris: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know Rob Wolf does an amazing job and I know uh—Dom does as well. So lots of information, great teachers. And also, I want to plug Paleo (f)x again a lot of these people in this summit are going to be speaking at Paleo (f)x So if you feel a connection with any of the people here, the next best step is to sign up for Paleo(f)x and make a trip down to Austin before it gets hot and see some of these people in person.
Keith Norris: Yeah. Coz it will
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’m glad you put the seminar a month earlier this year with Paleo. That’s great.
Keith Norris: Yeah. Because even in May, it’s starting to get a little steamy here. Yeah. We had to fight the__ to get that April day. But I think we got them –we got them locked in. We’re a big enough event now where we have some __, some muscle behind this. Uh—but yeah, the good thing about
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hundred percent.
Keith Norris: that you get from—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: We’re gonna put the links below for Paleo(f)x and Keto (f)x. So, if you guys are interested, that’s the next logical step. It’s a no-brainer. Just subscribe and just get the information first and at least kick tires. And then you’re wanna go the whole 9 yards. Keith Norris, it was awesome having you on the show, man. Uh—
Keith Norris: Absolutely. Take care, Justin.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Take care, Keith Norris.
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