4 Weeks of Accountability, Diet Bet and Events

Hey everyone, I'm just getting this title pinned while I'm waiting for you guys to get on. So welcome. Hello everyone. So I just wanted to get on for a couple minutes because I am working on something right now. I just sent out a newsletter about it, and it's something that I am struggling with personally, and so I'm hoping that it might help you in some way too. Hello everybody, thanks for popping on. So I'm just getting ready to talk about like a— I don't really call it a challenge, it's not a challenge. It could be a challenge if that's what you want it to be, but it's just something that I really— Stacy, hey! It's something that I really need personally, and so I'm just sharing it with anybody that wants to come along for the ride. It's a tool that I have found very helpful over the years, and I, I just decided to do it today because I woke up this morning and, um, for whatever reason— and I just want to preface this by saying that the scale is not the end-all be-all, that it doesn't need to be a scary thing, it doesn't need to be something that you're super focused on all the time, but What I do find it useful for, and I've literally— I have something like, I don't know, 12 years of weight data, which is crazy to me. And so it does show you that day to day, week to week, weight fluctuates. And especially week to week, if you look at your average weight on the scale— wait, so this is not taking into account any muscle that you may be gaining or water that you're retaining, which is especially very typical for women, right? So when you look at the scale numbers though, what it does show you is trends over time. And unfortunately, what my trend has been happening over the last— well, if I really look back at a big trend, it's really been over the last 6 to 8 months. And I can, I can tag this to 2 things that I've done differently and that are affecting me, I feel. And one is that I started bioidentical hormone replacement back in October, and so that might be having some kind of effect. Generally, the effect theoretically would be more in the positive weight direction of like gaining muscle, losing fat. That's hard to tell on the scale because when you gain muscle, the scale doesn't tell you that. The scale only tells you that your weight is going up, doesn't tell you what your body composition is doing. So that's one frustration with the scale, but again, it is a good tool if you can not attach it to feeling good on a daily basis just based on what the scale says, right? So anyway, the trend has been over the last 6 to 8 months is I've been creeping up like very, very slowly. And so this is why it's kind of gotten like a little bit out of hand all of a sudden. And this is how I've always used this tool in the past, is when I see my weight creeping especially if I'm not doing any weight training or things that would have me gaining a serious amount of muscle. I think we love to say, oh, well, I'm gaining muscle because I'm working out. Well, I, I was still working out. I was still taking my, you know, daily walks and hikes and, and being active and all that like I usually do, but I was not lifting weights. And really, at my age, almost 50, if you're going to try to put on muscle mass, it is a concerted effort, and it is an effort between Number 1, eating more protein. And that is a revelation if you have not come to that revelation yet, uh, whether you're older or younger, prioritizing protein, that in and of itself can help you gain muscle mass. And the reason you want to gain or maintain muscle mass as you get older, as we all get older, is because it's more metabolically active, right? So if you have more muscle mass at rest, you will be burning more calories because muscle takes more calories to maintain than fat does. And so you always want to have that in the back of your mind when you're on your diet, no matter if you're, if you're low carb, if you're keto, whatever you are. Prioritizing protein is one of the main ways that you can continue to maintain or gain muscle mass. In fact, one of the podcasts that I listen to a lot— I listen to all of them that are in this space, right? And it's like kind of an excessive thing. Hey, Kay! Um, but if you do that, if you prioritize protein, even if you're not super low carb or if you're not keto, any of those things, you want to be getting the proper amount of protein every day to maintain or even gain muscle mass. So what is that number? Well, from all the people that I've listened to and studied and read and heard talk, it varies. And so some are thinking that the USDA— the USDA recommendations for a lot of things are just not very good, and they're not really based on people that are very healthy or that are trying to obtain optimal health. They're based on a very sick population, is generally what all of the kind of benchmarks and things are based on. So if you want to try to be an optimally healthy person or find ultimate wellness and ultimate health, that's a very different thing than just like what the lab norms are, right? So anyway, that being said, what they found is that the USDA recommendation for protein is very low. It's like a maintenance— not a maintenance level even, it's like just a surviving level kind of protein, right? So if you're trying to optimize protein, optimize muscle mass, you're going to want to go over those recommendations. So what are the recommendations? So people in the space that I've been listening to and that I've studied, the recommendations for protein are somewhere between 0.6 and 1 gram of protein per lean muscle mass pound. Some people go on, on total weight or your, you know, kind of goal weight. So if you took your goal weight, whatever that is, whether you're there now or whether it's something that you want to strive towards— so let's say you weigh 200 pounds now but your goal weight is 150— you might go up to 150 grams of protein per day. And I'm here to tell you that since I have started prioritizing protein and how I've tried to incorporate that more into my life to— in the effort to maintain the muscle mass that I have, number one, and build it, um, that getting even 100— and I'm obviously not 100 pounds— but getting even 100 grams of protein every single day has been a challenge for me. It's especially a challenge to get that much protein if you're eating anything else in in your diet. If you were to only eat protein, like for example go on carnivore, that might be a lot more attainable to get because it, um, if you're not eating anything else, obviously if you're hungry you're going to eat that protein and you're gonna, you're gonna be there. If you're eating other things, it's going to be more challenging. And I was actually just speaking to somebody on my account today where they've been prioritizing protein as well, and she's been getting 150 grams of protein a day. I don't know, there have been very few days where I've ever gotten that much protein. And if I could get to that number, that would be pretty amazing, at least for a short-term experiment. But it's just, it's very difficult. It's, uh, you get full really fast when you eat that much protein, and it gets boring. And so it's just harder to do. Things that are more palatable are easier. So even vegetables at some point, especially when they're covered in salt and butter, are easier to get down than a massive amount of protein. Um, so anyway, all that being said, the reason that I wanted to chat with you guys today is to tell you about the DietBet that I just started. And so this is a tool that I've used in the past, and as I said, the scale is not the end-all be-all, but there's certainly been this, um, trend for my weight to be going up. And when I say going up, I mean since October when I started the bioidentical hormone replacement Uh, I think I'm up like 5 pounds. And if I really look at, you know, again, it fluctuates on a day-to-day basis. It's been fluctuating a lot more recently for some reason on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis. And so I've had some fluctuations multiple times where I'm up 3 pounds, down 3 pounds. Um, this morning I got on the scale. So to tell you, the last 2 days, so somehow I'm just retaining water like crazy. Because when you gain, gain weight— and I hate it when people say, oh, I gained 2 pounds, or I lost 2 pounds— unless you do that over time, it's not real. It's generally water weight and normal fluctuations, right? So if I tell you that I gained 5 pounds since Wednesday, which is literally what happened on the scale— so, and today's Saturday, Wednesday, so that's like not that much time, right? But from my scale weight Wednesday morning on the scale to my scale weight this morning I quote unquote, I put this in air quotes because it's not real weight. I gained 5 pounds. I didn't gain 5 pounds in 3 days, right? I gained water. And I've just definitely been having issues with, like everyone has over the pandemic, right? Like street sleep, stress. My dad passed away last July. I also learned in December that another very close member of my family has a very serious cancer and has been going through all the kinds of treatments for that. So, um, and then just personally, the whole pandemic wearing on of how you feel and how I don't feel like I'm substantially eating. I haven't, I haven't like tracked, um, calories or macros or anything like that for probably— well, I just had my 3-year wedding anniversary, and I can tell you the last time I was tracking and, and doing all that stuff was for the wedding because I was trying to get off some vanity weight for photos before the wedding, which, you know, that's whatever it is. I'm fine with it. Like, you need to look a certain way in photos— or you need, quote unquote, right? You can choose to look a certain way in photos, and it's best for like a bikini competitor. It's for a short amount of time. You're doing a cut, you're restricting, um, calories, you're certainly restricting carbs, and you do that for a short amount of time to produce a specific result. It's not something that you want to do with your body all the time. It's very, very difficult and a very— to me would not be a very fun life if I was restricting enough to stay super lean all the time. That just would not be fun to me. Hey Molly! Um, so that wouldn't be fun to me at all. And if you know, but there are people that live like that and I can't even imagine. But hey, if it works for you and that's your priority, go for it. My priority is to have fun with my friends and family, especially going into summer, to be able to, you know, eat great smoked meats, to have drinks by the pool, to do all that. So for me, in order to do all of that— you can do that anytime, right? But can you do that without consistently gaining weight over time? You can't go on like that for an extended amount of time and expect things to be the same. And so in that vein, again though, I have, you know, had this really stressful time in the last 8 months, most like most of us have, but additional stresses, like I said, due to things in my family. And so for me, I feel like whenever— and this has happened to me in the past, the past when I had a big gain was mainly from stress and sleep problems. And so I— and the more I've researched this, the more that I thought about this over time, the more that I've talked to other people about it— it is very real that if you have an extended amount of time with poor sleep and, um, poor stress management, that the hormones that that creates in your body, cortisol being a big one, is going to just create some excess weight and inflammation over time. And I think that that's what's been happening to me the last week when I said, you know, quote unquote, weight on the scale, is that I'm just having some excess bloat and inflammation. And, um, from stress and sleep problems, certainly over the last week has suddenly skyrocketed for some reason, but also just over the last 8 months. And 6 months and 5 months and, you know, as long as this thing has gone on basically, right? So the longer that you let your body stay in that kind of state without addressing the issues, the more of a problem it is. And you think that you're dealing with stress and sleep on a day-to-day basis in a very healthy way, or maybe not a healthy way. It's, that's the way it goes sometimes, right? So like, certainly I can say for myself, I'm drinking more during this whole pandemic thing. And that can be an issue. It just creates more inflammation in your body. It's not healthy for your body long-term because alcohol is a neurotoxin. So there's multiple things happening, right? And one of the ways, one of the ways that I deal with that on a month-to-month, week-to-week basis is I supplement with some various things. I use melatonin, or not melatonin, but magnesium. Every night is great for sleep, but it's also something that gets depleted very easily when you're eating a ketogenic diet all the time. Um, there are also, uh, other supplements that you may choose to use, such as electrolytes. For sure, if you are keto or very low carb, electrolytes are a non-negotiable. You need to have those on a daily basis to balance things out, to make sure that your mitochondria, which are the little energy producers in each cell of our body— so your mitochondria is running smoothly. There's just like so many things that can get mucked up, right? Especially when you're stressed or you're not sleeping well. So that is the focus of— this is a very long-winded discussion, but the reason I decided to do another DietBet— and I haven't done a DietBet in a very long time, um, but DietBet is this really cool app that I discovered a few years ago. And there's also, um, they have like multiple challenges, right? So you can do StepBet, you can do DietBet. Now they have a whole Way Better app, which is like a bunch of different things that you can try. Um, the one that I signed up for today was a push-up challenge, basically. So for the next 4 weeks, 6 days a week, I'm gonna do 3 sets of push-ups. You have to submit a video to like prove that you did it, basically. But, um, and it's based on your own personal goals, so it's not saying you have to do 10 sets of 3. It's like however many you can do you're going to your personal max effort, so you're only challenging yourself, you're only competing against yourself. So that's pretty cool. So I started that one, and then I decided to host my own DietBet, which is the whole reason I got on here to chat with you guys about this. Because if you've never done DietBet before, you're probably like, what the heck is this? I don't understand it. So I'm going to tell you about it. So basically, you sign up for the app, you go into a diet, and I would love for you to join mine, but there's tons of them. You can do it for 3 months, 6 months. This one's a 4-week, kind of calling it a kickstart is what they call it. Um, but so for 4 weeks you commit to that you're gonna try to lose 4% of your body weight, right? And so 4% in a month for most people is very, very doable. Um, for somebody that's around 150 pounds, that amount— I should have done the math before I got on here, but anyway, you can do the math yourself. Take your weight, multiply it times 0.04, and that will give you 4% of your body weight. It's a reasonable amount. I've done it many times. It is pretty easy to reach that amount, but it just gives you some extra accountability, um, for the month that you're doing it. And there's some extra support in the group. Of course, I'm going to be posting. And because, like I was saying, I think a lot of this is focused around stress and sleep, I'm going to be posting some of my best stress-busting and sleep tips in the app. Um, like I said, you know, if you've been around this account before, you know that that's what I'm all about, that I've done this for years and years and years. Uh, very focused on health and wellness. Uh, yoga instructor, psychology major, addictions minor, like all these things that basically relate to your everyday overall wellness, how you live as a person, how you cope with things. That's, that's what I do. That's my jam. And also, of course, low-carb nutrition, which I believe to be the way that humans should actually eat. Um, and it's evolutionarily— evolutionarily, that's a hard word to say, right? Evolutionarily consistent. Um, it's sustainable. I've proven that. I've done this for years now. It's way more sustainable than any of the other things that I was doing before, which I was vegetarian for 7 years, which is crazy for me to think about now with, um, the amount of protein that I eat from animal sources compared to before. But so DietBet, basically you bet, you pay like $35, which, hey, it's an investment for your health for a month. If you can't commit to that, I don't know, I don't even know what to tell you. But, um, that's not that much of an investment in your health. And the beauty of it is if you invest that and you do what you say you're gonna do for a month, you get all that back and more. So it's not a huge amount of money that you're winning, but I find I don't like to lose $20 or $30 or $35 or whatever the number is. I don't like to lose any amount of money for any reason. So it just gives me that extra motivation to be more strict or be on plan or be whatever it is for you. Maybe it's to move a little more. Maybe it's like hone in on your diet. Maybe it's drink a little less, whatever it is. This bet helps you focus in on that because if you're like me and you're a person that doesn't like to lose $35 for any reason, then you'll make that bet and you'll do the thing for a month and you'll lose 4% of your body weight. And then when you check back in, you win. And so when you win, you get your whole investment back. You get $30. $35 or whichever bet you join, you get all that back and then you win whatever is left in the pool. So the other people in the bet, whoever does not reach their goal, it kind of contributes to the winners getting a little bit more. So, you know, I've had times before, like say I bet $35, I might win back $40, but I didn't lose the $35 that I put in, and I, and I got $5 for doing what I should be doing anyway. So for me, I don't know, it's just, it's, it's silly, it's small, but I find it very motivating, and I'm gonna do it for this next month. And so that's why I'm inviting you guys to do it with me. Um, what else do I want to say? So I said on the title was like accountability, what's the diet bet? The account— the diet bet makes you accountable. So that's about that. Um, and finally, events. So the events part is just to tell you that number one, I am speaking at KetoPalooza in August, assuming that all this crazy, you know, world travel situations are under control, but things are looking good. And so in August, I will be traveling to San Diego to talk to you all about fasting. You know, it's one of my passions. I've done it for years. I've done a ton of research and and I'm just excited to share with you everything that I've learned about that over the years. I've been doing it for so many years now. It's a huge tool in my toolkit, and I just want to be able to share with that as much as possible, which is why, you know, I come on here and I do these lives. I tell you about the fasting. I'm starting tomorrow night my 25th, uh, reboot fast, 60-hour assisted fast. I've done it every month for— it's not 25 because I've done a couple of extra ones, but, um, every month since August of 2019, at least one. Some of the months I've done two because we've had like various, um, promotions or events where I'm supporting people that, that wanted to do an extra one or whatever it is. But I'll be doing my 25th one starting tomorrow night. So that is something that I do every single month. It's kind of— it's non-negotiable based on my previous health problems. And like I was telling you at the beginning of this video, uh, my family has a lot of cancer. And, uh, when you have the ability to fast and do it for an extended amount of time, you create this process in your body. It's happening a little bit all the time. It's kind of on a continuum. But when you fast, you are really promoting strong autophagy in your body. And autophagy is basically your cellular cleaning mechanism that allows your body to go around And if there's been any cells mutating into something that might resemble cancer, it goes around and eats those up. And I'm not saying it can 100% prevent cancer or anything like that. Obviously, um, if this is concern for you, if this is something you're interested in, dive into the research like I did. But basically there is plenty of research out there. There's enough, um, evidence for me to believe that doing this every single month is a huge tool, not only for longevity but disease prevention. And so that's why I continue to do it every month.. It's also a great tool for weight loss or weight maintenance if that's a goal. You might do it slightly differently if those are your goals than just autophagy. Um, but based on whatever it is, I'm going to talk all about that, all of those paradigms in— at the event in San Diego. Um, so that is August 21st and 22nd, I believe. Tickets are on sale now, ketopalooza.com. Um, so you can learn all about that there. And then the other event that is coming is another, uh, live cook-along. So, you know, for a while I was doing a live cook-along every single Monday. I've kind of taken a little pause off of that because quite honestly it's a lot of work. And so if people aren't going to show up or, um, be invested in it like I am, then it's not worth doing, which is fine. Like, if, if it's not a thing, like, maybe, maybe nobody wants to do that. It's kind of like people are starting to come out of the pandemic, we don't have all the at-home time or isolation that we did before. That's kind of why I started it, because just, you know, something to do during the pandemic that you could look forward to, or that's something that you can do at home easily without having to invest a bunch of money or go out anywhere or do that kind of stuff. So that's why I started it. And fortunately now we're starting to come out of that a little bit, so maybe it's not as important for me to continue it. I don't know if you're addicted to it let me know. I'll try to get more committed with it again. But, um, I'm doing a special one on the 24th, so 2 weeks from Monday, and it's with a partner that I have called Symposium. It's a platform that works with influencers and content producers basically to be able to offer stuff online in a format where you can get paid for it, or you can't— you can't get paid for it. I mean, I do all this stuff for free all the time, but for this particular one, I'm charging a very small fee, and that is because I'm going to donate all of the proceeds to the Nutrition Coalition. And what the Nutrition Coalition does— it was started by Nina Teicholz, who is the author of one of my favorite books, which is called The Big Fat Surprise. And basically, she did a whole exposé on how the US food industry got to be in this terrible place that we're in right now. So, and it illuminates so many things, how saturated fat got demonized wrongly, how we're blaming our health problems on the wrong thing. And so if you've been around like I have, like I said earlier, I'm almost 50. I grew up in the '80s and '90s when the low-fat craze was at its peak. I— there were times in my life where I had, you know, barely any fat in my diet, whether it was considered healthy or unhealthy. It was just like completely cut out of my diet for such a long time. I'm 100% convinced that that's why I've struggled with anxiety and depression for my whole adult life, um, until I started eating the way that I started eating over 5 years ago, more low carb, higher fat. Uh, it definitely makes my brain feel So much better. If you have issues with that, I'm not going to say it's 100% cure because like I said, right now what I'm struggling with during this whole pandemic stuff, I think a lot of that right now is a little bit of low-level depression. And it is what it is. Like, I do everything I can to combat it. I do a lot of really awesome things with my, with my diet, with supplements, with all the things that I do. Where you would think, oh well, you can just get rid of depression, but it doesn't work like that. Because I have a psychology degree and because I actually studied advanced clinical psychology for a year, um, there are just things about your brain function and brain chemicals that may not be 100% controllable through diet, through exercise, through whatever, but those all certainly hurt— help, and they're all things that you should be doing anyway to just have an overall healthier brain. And an overall healthier life. Um, but I will say that again, eating in this way has definitely improved my mental health significantly. And it's something that I think when people look at this diet or look at supplements that people use in this space— so I personally, as you know if you've been around this account for a while, I use exogenous ketones. I like them because they help my brain feel better. Um, there are people that promote it as a weight loss thing, and I think that that is doing a disservice to not only, um, the fact that you don't need anything. You can just 100% be healthy, lose weight, feel amazing just by changing your diet. It's when you go to optimize things or to go to another level, or you're addressing something besides weight loss, like I said, like I am with brain health. Then for me, supplementing with these things makes a lot of sense. If you can't afford them, or if you, I don't know, have something against it for whatever reason, I can't help you with that. All I can tell you is that when I've tried them and I've experienced them for myself, they help me. Um, is it going to make you lose a bunch of weight? Is it going to make you feel awesome? Is it going to get rid of your depression? I don't know any of that. I'm not a medical professional. All I can tell you is my experience. And I was very skeptical for a very long time about trying exogenous ketones specifically, because I'm in ketosis all the time. I'm very strict with my diet. My body makes ketones, no problem. And so do I need to spend money on a supplement that is something that my body already makes? I don't know what the answer is to that for you. All I can tell you is that if that's something you're struggling with, if you're struggling with your mental health, if you're struggling with not feeling good, if you're struggling with energy, if you're struggling with sleep, it is worth trying some of these extra things if you really want to optimize your experience. If you're okay with just existing, then that's cool. Just, you don't need anything else. All these supplements are just tools. They're just something that might make you feel that much better. You won't know until you try them for yourself. Um, so the event, if you're looking to join that, I'll have a link, um, or you can message me. Um, but it's on that platform Symposium. It's going to be a live cook-along like I've done in the past, and you'll get the ingredients ahead of time, and then we'll cook along together. And then I'll tell you all the things about, you know, getting started with keto, answer all your questions, how to optimize your experience. Um, you know, it's very different for people that have never tried it before, or you've been on it for a long time, you're looking for ways to take it to the next level. So no matter where you are on that spectrum, I think the event would be useful for you. Um, so if you have questions about that, just message me. But again, it— I am doing it as a paid event this time because, because of a couple reasons. Every time I have free events, people sign up and then they don't show up, or they might show up but they don't participate. It's like when you have no skin in the game, it's very easy to just blow things off or, or not, not do it right. If you pay even a small amount of money— and this is why the diet bet works, right— if you pay a small amount of money, you're much more likely to show up, you're much more likely to participate, you're much more likely to ask questions, you're much more likely to get something out of it. When it's free, I don't know about you, I sign up for free stuff all the time and then I literally never even look at the confirmation email for it, which is sad because we're all so busy. Right? But if— so if you say, hey, no, this is something I want to do, it'll be fun, I'll get to cook along live, I'll get a good dinner out of it, and then I'll get all my questions answered and I'll get some new knowledge on keto or low carb or whatever it is, to me that's a win-win. And so the whole thing, I think the price is like maybe it's $6, $7, but what that gets you, you get entrance into the event, you get the education, and then you'll get entered into a drawing to win $130, potentially win $130 worth of product that I am just giving away as an extra incentive for you to participate and have fun with this and learn some things. So if you pay for the event, you're in the event, that's it. You get a chance at that prize. It's one person that comes to the event or that just registers for the event. Hey, Roger. It's not even if you participate in the event, if you just register for the event, you'll be entered into that drawing. And so again, meanwhile, you'll get a great dinner out of it. You'll get some education on why low carb is the prop— I'm gonna say proper human diet, to steal that phrase from Dr. Ken Berry. But if you think about evolution, how we evolved, how, you know, how it is for a human to eat, what we have in our United States right now of food, of processed things is not the way that humans should be eating. And it's not something that's evolutionarily, evolutionarily, I always have trouble saying that word, evolutionarily consistent. Just tried to say it again really fast. But when it's not evolutionarily consistent, that's gonna create issues in your body, right? Because our bodies can't like change at the drop of a hat. They've evolved in a certain way. They've evolved eating primarily meat. They've evolved eating primarily very low sugar carbs whenever we've had them, because in nature you don't produce an apple tree that is genetically modified to be like 80 grams of sugar in one apple. We don't have that in nature. That's, that's all we've created that because of our desire for sugar, our desire to stimulate dopamine all the time. That's all from, you know, mass-produced stuff. When you go into nature, like true nature, not the way that we've genetically modified fruits over the years, if you went into nature and you had a strawberry that was naturally in the wild 30 years ago, or not 30, well, 30 years ago for sure, but more like 300 years ago, it looks nothing like what we have today as fruit, as an apple, as a strawberry, as whatever. So keep that in mind. When you're the, "Oh, but fruit's so good for you." It's nothing like what we were meant to eat. If you eat more natural, low-sugar fruits, strawberries, even now, as much as they've been genetically modified, they're still relatively low sugar, same with blueberries. But there are very few fruits that we can buy in a grocery store that are in the way that they would've been found in the wild. So just keep that in mind, even if you're still a fruit-is-a-good-thing person. Um, which is debatable, and it's not to say it's wrong, it's just another way of thinking about it, right? So I think that pretty much covers everything that I wanted to share with you guys today. I hope that you'll consider joining me for the DietBet, that you'll consider joining me for the cook-along that is gonna happen 2 weeks from Monday. Um, so if you have questions about any of that, or if you have questions about anything else, health more wellness-related, as usual, you can message me and I am happy to help if I can. So hope you have a great rest, rest of your weekend, and I will talk to you soon.