LowCarbUSA Podcast

Recently Pam and I were approached by Casey Means, MD who is the co-founder and Chief medical officer of a company called Levels which is creating an App to integrate with a CGM and provide a whole lot of added value to basic scan data available in the CGM dashboard. We go over all the features, like Metabolic Score, that they have implemented in the App to help people understand the implications of what they eat, as well as other lifestyle factors like sleep and stress, on their blood glucose levels and ultimately their metabolic health. Levels was kind enough to let both of us trial the App for a month and we scheduled this interview half way through that trial so that we would have something to talk about. Wearing a CGM is a fascinating experience and I feel everyone should have to wear one for at least a month to see how their lifestyle and diet affects their blood glucose levels so profoundly. Once we had the CGM sensors in place we did regular finger prick comparisons using our trusty Keto-Mojo blood ketone and glucose meter to see if there was a difference. There was a small difference of about 10 mg/dL but it was consistent and so it was easy to know with some accuracy what our actual blood glucose readings were. The most important thing you get from the CGM is not the actual values themselves but the trends seen when we ate or drank something and exercised and experienced stress or lack of sleep. To learn more about Levels and how you might take part in the pilot, visit the Levels website here.

Jackie Fletcher and Louise Reynolds were both morbidly obese at one point but both follow a ketogenic lifestyle now and both have reversed that situation although they followed very different paths to get there. Louise is a university professor from Australia although currently she is resident in Bangkok. After trying everything to beat it she finally made the decision to have weight loss surgery. Determined to use the surgery as a tool, she went through ongoing therapy to help her refrain from the emotional eating she felt had got her there and over the next 3 years she had lost about 90 lbs and was keeping it off but it was hard work. Then she had a massive motorbike accident which left her with many injuries and incredible chronic pain. Her mother was that one who suggested to her that she try the ketogenic diet to help with the pain. She found that one of the side effects was to lose another 40 lbs and, not only that, but she found it was now so easy to stay on track and keep the weight off. Jackie had also tried everything and besides the weight gain she was a suffering from debilitating migraines (12 or so a month), ulcers and a score of other issues. She had given up on life and was convinced that any sort of diet does not work until she heard about the book called 'Why We Get Fat' by Gary Taubes and the light bulb went on. Like most of us she had to find her way with this lifestyle but she started seeing results right away and that inspired her to learn more to do it better. They are both thriving now and together they produce the Fabulously Keto Podcast where they strive to help others turn their lives around Jackie manages the Fabulously Keto Website where she provides online coaching as well.

Dubbed the "Sherlock Holmes of Health," Mary Ruddick is an internationally acclaimed nutritionist currently based in Africa, where she is studying traditional tribal diets and their impact on health. She is the Director of Nutrition for CaptainSoup.com, Enable Your Healing, The REIGNS Method, and the Back to Joy Program. She has been featured with the book, "Beat Autoimmune" and she can be found on several productions from GundryMD, the Food Lies, MeatRx, and the LowCarbUSA Podcasts. Mary specializes in rebalancing the microbiome by addressing nutritional and epigenetic aspects that underlie various physical and mental health disorders. She is a specialist in the field of autoimmunity, histamine intolerance (MCAD), mental disorders, and nervous system disorders to include dysautonomia, and seizure disorders. Having used both lifestyle and dietary changes on her own miraculous healing journey, she emphasizes the balance of both. Meditation, cold therapy, light therapy, and limbic system exercises are used extensively in her programs. Mary will be speaking in August,2021 at the LowCarbUSA - San Diego, 2021 event which will BE IN PERSON AGAIN!! If you want to get hold of her or join one of her therapy groups, you can do that on her website.

Arthur Agatston, MD, attended New York University School of Medicine. He did his internal medicine training at Montefiore Medical Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and his cardiology fellowship at NYU. He spent a year on staff at NYU while training to best combine both academic medicine with clinical practice. He then moved to the Mt. Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, associated with the University of Miami School of Medicine, and later became the director of the Mt. Sinai Non-Invasive Cardiac Lab. He continued to pursue his practice and research in the field of noninvasive cardiac diagnostics, specifically in the areas of echocardiography and transesophageal echo and began lecturing regularly and published articles in academic journals on topics such as aortic stenosis, pericarditis, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Arthur and his colleague Warren Janowitz, MD, a radiologist, did early work on quantifying calcium in the coronary arteries as a measure of arteriosclerosis (as a predictor of heart attack and stroke). He is one of the developers of the electron beam tomography scan, or EBT, a screening method used to detect coronary artery disease and other diseases. EBT scans for this purpose are given a score on the "Agatston Scale," to gauge the severity of the disease. He talks here about the early days and how the Agatston Score came about and we look forward to seeing him in August,2021 at the LowCarbUSA - San Diego, 2021 event which will BE IN PERSON AGAIN!!

William Schumacher Found when he adopted a keto diet he was like me and did not miss bread at all but what he did miss was really good crunchy chips (or crisps as they are called in various other regions). Uprising Foods is on a mission to rebuild and reformulate the staple categories of food that are so fundamental to many, if not most, people's perception of core foods. They set out to develop something that was made from quality clean ingredients and vey low in carbs that had a high nutritional value and did not compromise on taste. Turns out they actually started with bread because they wanted to address the product that most people found psychologically hardest to give up. They call it their "Sour Dough" cube. It's inspired by the sour dough concept but made predominantly from nuts and seeds. Now you can make French Toast and grilled cheese and all the things you were used to pre-low carb lifestyle. More importantly the rest of the family who are maybe not low carb with you (yet) can enjoy it just as much. Then came the chips (crisps) which was nearest and dearest to his heart. He really missed that crunch! This sensation of crunch that so many people really desire. It took them a year to come up with something that delivered the crunch they were looking for. You can find out everything you need to know about getting these super foods in your home by visiting their website here.

I was introduced to Emily Fletcher by Robb Wolf after I was talking with him about my issues with traumatic brain injury and he said the Ziva meditation method that Emily has developed totally changed his life. He describes it now as Life Before Ziva and Life After Ziva. Before actually talking to her, I got her book, Stress Less, Accomplish More and immediately became aware of the fact that although we are always talking these days about the fact that it is not just a diet, but rather a lifestyle change, that we need to embrace. And a big part of that is to develop effective strategies to deal with stress so that we limit the deleterious effects of excessive cortisol and other stress related hormones in our bodies. So even though I was still a little skeptical of the efficacy of meditation, I thought it was worth investigating further and so I set up this talk with Emily. She has done great things by learning about meditation in detail (including a 3 year period in India) and then developing a whole new practice which she calls the Ziva technique. The important thing that sets the Ziva technique apart from others is the fact that it teaches us to be self sufficient and enables us to be able to do it anywhere, in an airport, on the train, anywhere (just not while we're driving). There no reliance on funky positions or meditation apps that have become so popular these days. After talking with her I agreed to enroll in her online course which teaches the technique (very effectively, I might add) over a period of 2 weeks. I have to say that I have not seen or noticed any big changes (as some people have experienced) but I do find that I look forward to the meditations so that must mean something? I literally go to bed at night looking forward to the fact that I get to meditate as soon as I wake up. I have always slept well so it is hard to judge if it has helped me in that respect and the LowCarb Lifestyle already results in massive improvements in cognitive function and mental health so it is hard to say now whether there is an even greater improvement since I started with Ziva. If I look at it, I have noticed small things like a couple of times I have remembered things that I wouldn't normally expect myself to remember (because of the TBI). The other day I was in Costco and came around the corner into a massive checkout queue and I just stood there patiently and waited my turn. Normally I would have imploded (Pam will attest to that) and I didn't even become aware of it until I got back to the car and thought, "Wow, that didn't even stress me out, maybe this Ziva thing does work!" I believe that we are the sum of all things in our life so adding in a practice that seems to make me happy and is probably drastically reducing my stress levels is a good thing to keep in place. You can learn more about Emily's online course here.

This was such a good chat!! Michelle Hurn was a Registered Dietitian working in a hospital setting and trying to get ready to qualify for the Olympic Marathon team. As she started to increase her training everything started to shut down. She was breaking out in cold sweats and developing severe muscle pains and it got to a point where she couldn't even run 2 or 3 miles. Eventually she came to the conclusion that she just couldn't run anymore which was devastating for her. Then she came across the ketogenic diet and as she started researching it she learned how much evidence there was showing the efficacy of reducing carbohydrate intake in treating diabetes and, even more surprising to her, in improving mental health. She read more and more anecdotes of people feeing infinitely better after adopting the diet. After further research she actually decided to try out a pure carnivore diet for a month to see what happened. Not only did she start to feel better almost immediately, she noticed that the chronic anxiety she had faced her whole life disappeared. This made her really angry at the healthcare system that had not taught her any of this as a dietitian. She decided to spend any time she had writing about it and trying to teach people about it. She was so frustrated that she was not able to tell people in her work setting about it and so eventually she decided she needed to get out of that environment and establish herself in a position where she could help people. Her book is called The Dietitian's Dilemma and is a great read.

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

Dr. James Muecke is an ophthalmologist who was nominated as Australian of the Year in 2020 for his ongoing humanitarian work in helping to prevent blindness in impoverished communities in many places around the world. About a year ago, however, he became aware of the potential of reversing type 2 diabetes by restricting carbohydrates in the diet. Suddenly there was a way to prevent people going blind from diabetes complications instead of having to do surgery to try to save the sight afterwards. He is using his platform as Australian of the Year to help spread this message and hopefully help reduce the number of people losing their sight due to complications from Diabetes. He has released a few videos on the subject, including one called 'Blinded By Sugar'. In that video he recounts the story of one of his patients who goes to bed one evening after saying good night to his wife and in the morning he wakes up blind in both eyes. Since then this man has undergone nine amputations due to gangrenous toes and feet as a result of his diabetes. He has finally seen the light and is an advocate now for the low carb diet and he hopes to save many people from going through what he has had to go through. You can catch 'Blinded by Sugar' here.

Diana Rodgers is a Registered Dietitian, a farmer, an author, a filmmaker and a mom! We talk to her about her new book, and movie, Sacred Cow. The book goes into great detail about the science behind her rigorous defense of the beef industry with respect to the animal cruelty argument, the fear mongering around red meat causing cancer, cow farts (well belches, actually) destroying the environment and also the sustainability aspect. The movie could never cover most of what is covered in the book and so focuses mainly on the sustainability component. She was actually just working on writing the book with Robb Wolf, but the vegan community came out with yet another propaganda movie and she decided that we badly needed a rebuttal movie and so she put the book project on hold and started raising funds and working on a movie project. In this interview we talk about how the movie, and especially the book, tackle environment, nutrition and ethics as those are the three main reason why people are anti-meat. She says "Not only are you harming your health, but you are killing these beautiful animals and caw farts are destroying the environment, right?! So it's the trifecta of evil that cows represents." That is why she is so passionate about correcting all the misinformation out there and fighting back against those who would disseminate said misinformation (extremely effectively, I might add). If you want to learn more about Diana's amazing work or even contribute in some way you can find her at the links below: Movie Website: https://www.sacredcow.info/ Instagram: @sustainabledish Her Website: https://sustainabledish.com/

Two years ago, Dr. Andrew Oswari, a family medicine doctor practicing integrative medicine, was experiencing what most doctors are currently experiencing, depression and disillusionment due to their lack of ability to help any of their patients with chronic illnesses get better. Ongoing progression of the conditions and escalating medications are the order of the day. In the January of 2019 he was tested and the results came back with an HgA1c of 7.4 and he says we was devastated. He felt there was no way he could be diabetic since he practiced what he preached about diabetes to medical students coming through his practice. He had happened to notice previously that one of his patients who came in regularly for a certain treatment was losing weight and he would ask her how she was doing it. When she replied that it was by adopting the keto diet, he just blew it off but this time, in the February of 2019, when she talked about keto he paid attention. He said he joined a Facebook group to learn about it since there was no other way to find out how it worked, especially not in medical circles. Within 2 weeks all sorts of things happened. He just felt great, his daily headaches which he used to attribute to the stress of the job had vanished. His irritable bowl syndrome which he thought he was stuck with for life disappeared. "I had gone low carb just to lose weight and hopefully cure my diabetes and all these things happened", he says. He learned about how this lifestyle could potentially address so many conditions and he immediately started contacting some of his patients with these chronic conditions, including one with cancer, and he says he has never looked back. He started looking up where he could get some training and came across LowCarbUSA®. He found all the training we had in our partnership with the Nutrition Network and proceeded to do every module they had to offer. That has stood him in good stead when the new non-profit, The Society of Metabolic Health Practitioners (The SMHP) launched in mid-December they had a number of pathways defined to achieve accreditation and one of those includes a number of the Nutrition Network Modules. So Andrew became one of the first practitioners to get accredited with the SMHP and he now has the right to display the SMHP Accredited badge and use the credentials MHP after his name. So he is now Andrew Oswari, MD, MHP. He wrote an essay as part of his submission for SMHP Accreditation and it was so inspiring that I have provided a link to it here.

Andrés Rosales and Mauricio Moel are two youngsters from Mexico, studying at Harvard, who decided that there was a huge gap in the meal replacement market for a very strict, clean, keto version. They wanted medical practitioners who were using therapeutic carbohydrate deduction as an intervention in their practice to feel comfortable recommending it to their patients to use as a convenient replacement to take to work, or to somewhere where they did not think a keto option would be available, or even just if they didn't feel like cooking. They formed a board of advisors from many of the high profile doctors and personalities in the low carb space to help make sure that this product delivered everything it promised. Anyone embracing the ketogenic lifestyle can, and surely will, use one of these shakes as a convenient meal replacement but it was important to Andrés and Mauricio that the medical community saw it as a tool. This product is now shipping for you to try today :) here.

Edit: an apology form Nick - "Apologies to everyone. At 34:30 I made a false statement when I said HMG-CoA reductase inhibition could inhibit ketone production directly. It is not the RLE in ketogenesis. There are indirect mechanisms potentially at play, but that enzyme is downstream of the divergence point in ketone and cholesterol metabolism. I was questioning the thought as it came to mind and regret the impulsive speculation. My sincerest apologies. That's embarrassing." What a treat to spend some time with Nick Norwitz PhD. He just graduated from Oxford with a PhD in neuro-metabolism and now he is about to embark on his MD at Harvard. But this is not about his academic achievements, impressive as they are, rather it is about his immense battles with numerous chronic conditions that led him down the path to discovering keto. When he was younger he never put on weight and was as carefree as most kids are until the end of high school when he started to develop osteoporosis, which was super weird for a male of his age. By the end of college he developed ulcerative colitis. He went to Oxford to pursue his PhD and had a huge flare up soon after arriving ending up in a hospital in a strange country where no one knew what was wrong with him. So he started doing a bunch of research and he voraciously consumed scientific papers about carb reduction and the ketogenic diet and, although still skeptical, he decided to go for it. Within a week his colitis disappeared. So he titrated off his meds over time and feels confident that his colitis is gone. He is totally excited about this to the point that he is worried about getting expelled from Harvard for calling out his professors on this stuff. We went on to talk about the new Society of Metabolic Practitioners (SMHP), a non-profit in which Nick is very active and even ended up in a pretty scientific discussion about cholesterol. We made mention of his new YouTube testimonial video he put out and he talked about his book and referred to a bunch of papers so I have put a few interesting links down below here. Nick's YouTube Video Nick's New Book Page Amazon Pre-order Note, pre-orders up-rank it on Amazon and help bump down calorie counting low-fat style books ;) YouTube Sample, Omega3s Three selected peer-reviewed papers: 1. Keto Diet & Lipid Panel 2. Keto Diet Mental Health 3. Alzheimer's and insulin resistance

I have wanted to sit down and chat with David and Jen Unwin for the longest time so this was a real treat. We start out by hearing briefly how he first came to learn about Low Carb, and that was through a patient who went off and reversed her diabetes on her own. When she saw him again she literally scolded him for not every telling her that starch was really just sugar in the body and she basically asked if he was even qualified! When I pointed out that he was never taught that stuff during his studies at university, I was amazed by his answer, "That is No Excuse!! As a doctor I should have know that. I was caught with my pants down". She apparently learned all everything from an online group of about 40,000 people who were all teaching each other about this and when he tried to join the group to learn more they would not let him in initially because they thought that if he was a doctor then he must be a troll. They literally investigated him in his practice before they allowed him in, but since then he and Jen have gone on to help them to develop an online program which has helped over 460,000 people so far. What a brilliant discussion with two genuinely caring and humble doctors who are helping to change the world! You can find that famous chart on the teaspoons of sugar under the Resources tab on this website. You can link to David's latest paper he was talking about here.

After bursting onto the scene with Good Calories Bad Calories in 2007, Gary Taubes has gone on to write many books that have managed to make it into the mainstream and not get pigeonholed in the Keto or Low Carb genre which, let's be honest, is still pretty small as communities go. It's because of this that I am particularly excited about this new book of his, 'The Case For Keto' (available on Amazon here). Our main focus at LowCarbUSA® has always been to not preach to the choir but rather to try to reach people who have not yet discovered the wonders of approaching metabolic health with lifestyle interventions instead of drugs. What's also interesting to me is that for the first time, Gary has strayed a bit from pure science. Pretty much the second half of the book is practical insights and advice on how to be successful on this diet (we hate to call it that but let's leave it at that for now). His comment to me was that once we convince people that they need to consider this change, we need to make sure they do it right! Another deviation from the norm for him is that he has made it personal. He describes himself as one of those people who 'fatten easily' and so, for the first time, he is making himself vulnerable and putting it out there that he is not just preaching from his ivory tower but providing you with tools to come down and fight side by side with him in the trenches. We discussed the purpose of his book at length and he says he is hoping to reach a bunch more physicians and hopefully persuade them to at least take a really hard look at this as an option. I really hope he achieves his dream!

What a fascinating discussion with Dr. Ben Bikman about what Insulin Resistance really means. He makes this statement towards the end but I would like to highlight it right here at the start, "We should be studiously avoiding dogmatic thinking and constantly be checking what we think we know, lest we become that which we have grown to despise in those who are very antagonistic towards a low carb diet." There has been quite lot of chatter around recently about what it means and whether or not Insulin Sensitivity is something we should be striving for or not. I agree with his take on it that it is extremely desirable for most of our cells and organs to be Insulin Sensitive and it is that insulin sensitivity and the absence of chronic hyperinsulinemia that leads to all the amazing benefits in metabolic health that we see with carbohydrate reduction. We discuss his thoughts on where insulin resistance starts and he is quick to point out that this is opinion of how it based based on his knowledge of the biochemistry and basic logic. It becomes really clear as the discussion continues about how important an enzyme insulin really is to our existence. It's only when we become chronically hyperinsulinemic that trouble starts to surface. At one point he talked about how in a type 1 diabetic where the beta cells in the pancreas are not producing insulin but the alpha cells are producing glucagon like crazy because there is no insulin to downregulate it. So the liver is making more and more glucose under the effect of the glucagon. He also explained that injecting insulin does not have the desired dampening effect since really high levels of insulin are required at the alpha cells to have the desired effect. Since the beta cells are right next to the alpha cells in the pancreas, the levels of insulin right there at the site of production are high enough, but injected insulin is never in high enough concentrations to be effective by the time it reaches the pancreas. So there is some research going into the idea that type 1 diabetes is just as much a disease of glucagon excess as it is of insulin deficiency. Dr. Roger Unger has shown that there are other therapies like somatostatin and even leptin which can be administered to turn off glucagon production and you can possibly solve the type 1 diabetes without insulin at all.

I sat down with Dr. Adele Hite to talk about the imminent launch of the nonprofit Society for Metabolic Health Practitioners (SMHP). She has been instrumental in helping us to get to this point. Back in 2018 she worked with the panel of advisors that we put together to oversee the development of the Clinical Guidelines for therapeutic carbohydrate restriction. We published them on our LowCarbUSA® site at our Seattle event in May, 2019 and they have been embraced by the community. However it was never really the ideal home for these guidelines and through numerous discussions with Dr. Tro Kalayjian, it became clear that what we really needed was a dedicated nonprofit entity for practitioners. So I went off and established a nonprofit called the SMHP and put a Board of Directors in place and built a website and by the time this podcast airs, we will be live at https://metabolicpractitioners.org/. You can help is to get this going by engaging on the website and an social media: Website: https://metabolicpractitioners.org/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSMHP Twitter: @TheSMHP YouTube: The SMHP Instagram: @TheSMHP

Pam talks to Dorian Greenow, Founder of Keto-Mojo which produces a meter to measure blood glucose and blood ketone levels. When they first launched, at our LowCarbUSA® San Diego Event in 2017, they had already managed to bring the cost of the test strips down to 25% of the cost of the other available strips at the time. But he has never been satisfied with that and is constantly striving to bring the cost down further and also to try to get it certified for use in many other countries around the world. In order to achieve this he has needed to change manufacturers which has bought with it many challenges. With this change he has managed to reduce the cost of the meter by about 30% and the cost of the strips down by 20%. More than that, the old strips came in batches of 50 which came in a vial. Once that vial was opened, the clock starts ticking and after 6 months those strips expire and you have to open a new vial. Now the strips are individually wrapped so there is no 6 month expiry problem. However it means that they will eventually run out of stock of the old strips for the old meters and so he has been offering people the chance to upgrade to the new meter just for the cost of the new strips. You can learn more about, and view all those videos Dorian was talking about on the Keto-Mojo Site.

I first came across André Obradovic while I was working my way through the Advisor Training Course from the Nutrition Network. What stood out immediately that it wasn't a doctor or scientist trying to teach me something about the benefits of carbohydrate restriction or the LCHF lifestyle but rather about coaching and teaching people and how to effectively help them to understand why they might need to make a change. André calls himself a performance coach so I guess performance, in this case, is about how effective a doctor might be in communicating with the patient. What I also found fascinating was that even though the talk was pitched at a practitioner with respect his or her patient or client, it applied equally well to anyone trying to get through to a friend or family member. For those of us struggling to get the message through to friends or family, there is so much here to help us. During the talk he mentions the Wheel of Life Tool. He also talks about his free app. You can find it in your app store under Andre Obradovic.

Adam Pike was one of the lawyers involved in the successful defence of the charge against Prof. Tim Noakes for replying to a lady on Twitter about the best way to wean a baby. Since then Adam has presented a talk on ethical behaviour of medical professionals on social media for the Nutrition Network, which is a spin-off from the Noakes Foundation. I had a fascinating chat with him about what constitutes ethical behaviour on social media and we discover how the behaviour of Prof. Noakes did not constitute unethical behaviour (which is why he was exonerated) whereas the behaviour of Claire Julsing-Strydom, who was instrumental in bringing the charge against him, and the ADSA did in fact behave unethically in a number of ways in the aftermath of that fateful tweet and yet no charge was ever brought against them. We then went on to talk about how protected a practitioner might be if they are to disseminate advice on therapeutic carbohydrate restriction and the LCHF lifestyle. We are working really hard to establish an alternative Standard of Care (SoC) for this. Part of that effort is to establish a non-profit called the Society of Metabolic Health Practitioners (The SMHP) which is due to launch shortly. You can learn more here. But until that happens, how protected is a doctor who advises their patient in this way. What Adam said was really interesting. If a doctor provides care that goes against the accepted SoC but they can show that they based their decision on solid evidence then they would still be able defend themselves in court if it ever came to it. Patient autonomy (or informed consent) is also critical here. As long as the patient is fully informed of all the options available with all the supporting evidence and they then make a decision on their course of treatment, no harm can be done and the doctor is protected. That is just critical knowledge that all doctors should have.

Vyvyane Loh is a board certified internal medicine nd obesity doctor who started out in obesity practice and found herself taking patients off medications which was very different from what she had been taught in her training. She feels she was very lucky to get exposed to it early. Down the road she measured her own A1c levels and found them to be high, around 6.4. Her doctor looked at her and seeing that she was not overweight, told her she could not explain it and told her not to worry about it. That really bugged her so she started digging into it more. Then her friend encouraged her to start the Atkins diet with her and she decided to try it. Literally 2 days after she started all her symptoms she had previously attributed to irritable bowl syndrome disappeared. She was flabbergasted and could not understand how she had not known about this and why she and her colleagues were not telling their patients about it. She has reversed her own diabetes trend and is now committed to taking this to her patients and also in helping to reach the more impoverished communities who aren't exposed to this information as easily.

We have partnered with Restore Health to launch a comprehensive mentoring Program for embracing a low carb lifestyle. This program is available to everyone, but we are finding that it has become a very powerful tool for practitioners. Once they are able to get their patients to understand that they need to change their lifestyle in order to address their metabolic health issues, this proves to be a very helpful tool to help those patients to actually implement the changes. The program addresses not only the concept of reducing carbs in their diet, but it shows them how to achieve huge metabolic benefits by doing Dr. Ben's SMaRT™ exercise program which only requires 15 minutes twice a week, literally. They also teach strategies to improve sleep and reduce stress. In the end, most people providing feedback on the program have told us that they found the access to a live coach was the best part of all. Having someone they can turn to with questions and to hold them accountable seems to be a huge plus! You can learn more here.

We caught up with our friend Andrew Berger again after almost a year. Andrew suffers with Type 1 Diabetes and found himself with terrible blood glucose control, the onset of diabetic retinopathy and was about 75 lbs overweight. We met him for the first time at the LowCarbUSA®- San Diego 2019 event. At that point he had been on a keto diet for about 7 months and was down about 40 lbs and his blood sugar control was way better. He met Dr. Ben Bocchicchio at the event and learned about the metabolic benefits of his '15 minutes - Twice a Week' workout philosophy. So he started with that the next day and around about the same time started dabbling with the carnivore diet. We saw him again about 6 weeks later and he had lost another 5 inches on his waist and he looked great. We did a podcast interview with him at that stage (go check out Episode 15) and talked about all his successes. Well, since then he has taken it to the next level. He as introduced intermittent fasting, and even some extended fasts and the results have been spectacular. He is looking amazing, his blood glucose control is the best it has ever been. His glucose runs in the 80s to 90s most of the time and his A1c has come down to and astounding 4.9. He is now off his insulin pump and is back to injecting himself with insulin. He is down from about 100 units a day to numbers in the teens (and even down to just 3 units during his extended fasts). He is experimenting with less powerful, slower acting (and cheaper) insulin options to try to get his life to a point where he is stable 24/7. We are so excited to follow him on this journey.

We caught up with Prof. Tim Noakes again recently and after asking him to describe briefly again how he got started with LCHF and a little about his successful defence against the malicious charges brought against him by the HPSCA, the conversation turned to the subject of Poly Unsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFAs). I had recently heard a fascinating talk at the the Low Carb Denver conference by Dr. Chris Knobbe about PUFAs. He presented a compelling case that PUFAs were at the root of all metabolic disease. While I agree that they definitely seem to have a profound effect on our metabolic health, I do not agree that it is all about PUFAs and that carbohydrates do not have an influence at all. So I put this question to Prof. and a very interesting discussion ensued. It's always such a pleasure and an enlightening experience to spend time in conversation with Prof. Noakes and we look forward with great anticipation to his presentation at our upcoming LowCarbUSA® - San Diego 2020 event at the end of August which is now going to be totally virtual.

We sat down to talk to Janae Cywes, wife of Dr, Robert Cywes, about her pregnancy and the fact that she has been, and plans to remain, on a strict ketogenic diet throughout. In fact Janae and Rob are basically carnivore now. They had been trying for the longest time to get pregnant and then about a year and a half ago they went carnivore and, out the blue she suddenly fell pregnant, totally unexpectedly. She says that for a short while in the early stages of the pregnancy, even the sight of red meat turned her stomach but she was still able to eat poultry and pork and fish so she ate a lot of that and did and the odd salad. She mentioned that they plan to raise a keto baby as well and our conversation went on to talk a lot about ADHD, Autism and Keto for Kids which is the title of a interview I did with her husband Dr. Cywes, which is on our YouTube channel as well. We discussed what our childhoods were like, what emotional management strategies our parents equipped us with and how we felt it affected who we are today. We plan to revisit with Janae after the baby is born to hear how raising it as a keto baby is going.

Nadia Pateguana is a Naturopathic Doctor focusing on PCOS at 'The Fasting Method' with Jason Fung and Megan Ramos. She has an amazing story of how she came to the realisation that diet and lifestyle could, and should, be the answer to PCOS and other metabolic conditions. Some of her more profound statements were: "Women with PCOS are not infertile, they are anovulatory, i.e. they are not ovulating. You can address this with drugs but if you don't address the underlying Insulin Resistance then they are at risk for all these other pregnancy complications like preeclamsia, eclamsia, pregnancy related hypertension, gestational diabetes, miscarriages, and more. And then the babies are susceptible much higher risk of neonatal morbidity and mortality." You can reach Nadia through the TheFastingMethod.com website and her book, 'The PCOS Plan' can be found on Kindle and Audible.

After being vegetarian for over eight years, Dr. Tony Hampton started doing some research and started to see more and more data showing that the Low Carb diet had better outcomes for diabetes, obesity and many other chronic diseases than the diet he had been following. He says he learned more on YouTube than he did during his medical training. He started trying it out himself and one of the first things he noticed was a distinct improvement in his mental clarity. What is nice about his message is that it is not just about the nutrition but all the other lifestyle factors like sleep and stress and relationship issues, that contribute greatly to overall health. What is exciting for me is that he is the first person of colour that I have come across in this space who passionate about getting this message out to his community. I see great things in our future as we collaborate to reach other communities who we have not currently been able to reach. I love his quote that he tries to tell everyone who will listen that there is an opportunity to heal, and it doesn't come from medicine, it comes from nutrition and lifestyle. Check out his book, 'Fix Your Diet, Fix Your Diabetes: Your Dietary Solution to Reversing Diabetes'. You can also reach him here.

Eric Reynolds was a cop with the Boynton Beach Police Department near West Palm and he got shot in the foot by an armed bank robber they were chasing and he ended up killing the suspect in the process. The whole incident left him in a pretty bad way and he started to display many signs of PTSD. He discovered the keto diet and, not only did his health improve drastically and all the excess weight melt away, but he found peace and tranquillity begin to return to his life and his symptoms of PTSD start to fade. He has since retired from the force and now is committed to helping other police officers to get their health back and to help them to deal with similar problems to his. He has established an organisation called Keto-Five-0 and you can find the group on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ketofiveo/ and you can reach him via email at: [email protected] Here, also, is the dash cam video of his chase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vRpbnq1DKQ

Dr Kristin Baier is a family medicine physician who recently became board certified in obesity medicine as well. Back about ten years ago she was diagnosed with Lupus and was experiencing all the usual symptoms. She started focusing on a nutritional solution since she did not want to remain on medications and steroids for the rest of her life. The first book she read suggested going vegan to solve auto immune problems and she decided to give it a try. Needless to say, after five years her symptoms had not improved and she picked up more issues along the way, including anxiety, depression, an iron deficiency and a B12 deficiency. At that point she heard of Robb Wolf and ended up transitioning to the Paleo diet which helped a lot. Her symptoms of depression and anxiety etc. all improved but she still felt things could be better and she noticed her migraines seemed to be occurring more frequently. Finally she came across the ketogenic diet and after adopting a strict version of it (less than 20g of carbs per day) her migraines ceased and all her autoimmune issues disappeared. Now she is offering this nutritional intervention to her patients and is in the process of moving to San Diego to start a new direct primary care practice with Dr. Brian Lenzkes. The website is still under construction but people can go to lowcarbmdsandiego.com and submit a patient application. There will also be a way on the site shortly to schedule an online consultation. Kristin can be found at: @doctoringketo on Instagram and Twitter.

When Adrianna Stephenson's son was just nineteen months old he was diagnosed with a golf ball-sized brain tumour in and around the hypothalamus. He immediately underwent a subtotal resection but about 3 months post-op the tumour had grown back to almost it's original size already. Adrianna and her husband, as well as the surgeon, did not want him to undergo another operation and so chemo was their only course of action. At the age of two, he started on a trio of chemotherapy drugs for what was scheduled to be an eighteen month protocol. Doing a bunch of research, Adrianna learned about the possible benefits of a ketogenic diet in conjunction with the chemo. About 3 and a half months into the treatment she started him on a very strict ketogenic diet and the next MRI showed that the tumour had shrunk by 30%. and about 10 months after starting on the diet we was declared NED (No Evidence of Disease). He is now five years old and remains NED. Adrianna is now committed to paying it forward and works tirelessly with the Max Love Foundation and in other ways to teach parents how to do this with their children. I found it particularly interesting to hear how she teaches parents to get their kids to do this and I fully agree with her idea that all kids should be eating this way to prevent them from getting sick in the first place.

Dr. Richard Margolis is psychiatrist who, together with his nurse wife, Lisa, have embraced the ketogenic lifestyle with great success. We spoke to them about how and why they got started and they really wanted to talk about the power of doing it together and how it's so much easier to be successful if couple support each other. That was a great talk but the conversation eventually migrated to the situation where one partner did not have the other's support and was even being sabotaged by that partner in their efforts to get healthy. I think the real take-away gem from this was Richard's thoughts on that form a psychiatrist's point of view.

Dr. Lewis Cantley has made significant advances in cancer research stemming from his discovery of the signalling pathway phosphoinositide 3-kinase (Pi3K) in 1984. It is an enzyme that mediates pretty much everything that insulin does, in the liver, in the fat cells, and it mediates the lowering of serum glucose levels because it drives glucose into the muscle, AND into tumours. Since tumours thrive on glucose, they thought to develop a Pi3 Kinase inhibitor in order to try to treat tumours but the inhibitor resulted in startling rises in blood glucose levels. In order to manage this they tried using many different drugs, including the use of Metformin with very limited success. Most people had to drop out of the treatments as their glucose levels rose dangerously high. Also, for those who could stay on the treatment only got, on average a life extension of just short of one year. His team then tried advocating a very strict ketogenic diet for a small control group and had great success for those who did stay in the diet (which was most of them). Together with the results they have on combining the ketogenic diet with a Pi3K inhibitor in rat models which, in his words, produced miraculous results they now have formal human clinical trials underway which I am confident will produce miraculous results as well.

Dr Paul Mason presents a detailed explanation of how poor metabolic health is the major contributing factor with complications and fatalities as a result of Coronavirus. He goes on to show how, just by changing their diet and cutting carbs and increasing saturated fat could start reducing the risks for those people almost immediately. Dr. Mason is a Sports and Exercise Medicine Physician who also holds degrees in Physiotherapy and Occupational Health. He is a believer of the scientific process and is happy to challenge medical orthodoxy when it conflicts with the available evidence. He holds views on many topics including saturated fat and cholesterol, dietary fibre and sun exposure which contrast with those of conventional medical wisdom. He has also authored a chapter on nutrition in an internationally recognised Sports Medicine Textbook (Clinical Sports Medicine, 5th edition, volume 2) and is involved in curriculum development and teaching within the Australasian College of Sports and Exercise Medicine. He regularly lectures on nutrition and health both nationally and internationally. In his clinic, Dr Mason takes a holistic approach in managing complex medical conditions in patients ranging from the general public to Olympians. He was worked with several elite sporting teams previously and is currently a Doctor to the Australian Olympic rowing team.

LowCarbUSA® has partnered with Restore Health to provide a certified coaching program to support people adopting the Low Carb (or Ketogenic) Lifestyle. The program is brilliantly sequenced and rolled out in a manner that enables the client to make these behavioural changes in a methodical and sustainable fashion and you get paired with a real, live health coach and use Smart devices to make tracking a total breeze. Another unique feature of this program is that the exercise component incorporates Dr. Ben Bocchicchio's SMaRT™ exercise philosophy which advocates a 15 minute workout only twice a week for maximum muscle mass and strength benefits. Not only that but it activates the same metabolic pathways that the ketogenic diet does and so forms the perfect adjunct to the diet. No one believes that a 15 minute workout twice a week can do anything useful yet people are seeing visible results in as little as 4 or 5 workouts. It's quite astounding. You can learn more about it here.

Captain Brian Gaudette was born to be a soldier. He joined the army at 18 and served initially as an infantryman and later trained for and became an Apache Pilot. However he started putting on a lot of weight and developing spatial disorientation in the cockpit. The doctors couldn't tell him what was wrong with him and immediately grounded him. After many months of desperate searching he finally discovered on his own that he had Hashimoto's Disease and he had also read that people were reversing it with whole food, low carbohydrate diets. He finally conceded to try it and was astounded to find that within about 6 weeks he lost 30 lbs, got his brain back and was able to be reinstated as a pilot. His problem was how to be able to sustain this way of eating when deployed. He solved the problem by making soups from organic produce and grass fed beef and canning them in his garage. Then he sent cases of these soups ahead and ate them exclusively while overseas. As a result he became known as Captain Soup. His story was highlighted in the epic, recently released, documentary called Fat Fiction which you can find on Amazon. This is the link for the US but if you are elsewhere in the world, just search for 'Fat Fiction' on Amazon. Brian is still flying Apaches but he now also has a business called Captain Soup where me makes and ships cases of frozen soup all around the US. Make sure you check it out.

Jayne Bullen is the leader of The Noakes Foundation and works closely with Prof Noakes and a team of visionary scientists in Cape Town, addressing the escalating obesity and diabetes crisis in South Africa and the world through research and community education interventions. She talks here about how she found the Low Carb Lifestyle to solve her own metabolic issues and then walked away from her corporate job to join the Noakes Foundation and help them to find ways to fund their research and help train practitioners at the same time. You can learn more about The Noakes Foundation at: https://thenoakesfoundation.org/ You can learn more about The Nutrition Network at: https://courses.nutrition-network.org/courses/?affcode=173323_7bl_2brm

The movie "Fat Fiction" was supposed to be coming out in a number of Movie Houses around the world but due to the COVID-19 crisis, the producers have opted for a number of online premiers instead. I discuss when and how this will work with producer Jennifer Isenhart. If you are up to a small donation for one of the Foundations mentioned: https://thenoakesfoundation.org/donate https://www.nutritioncoalition.us/donate Ketogenic Foundation is very new and doesn't have a a donate page yet. We will provide a link as soon as they do. Fat Fiction US West Coast Premiere - April 2, 2020 Fat Fiction US East Coast Premiere - April 4, 2020 Fat Fiction Australian East Coast Premiere - April 3, 2020 Fat Fiction UK Premiere - April 9, 2020 Fat Fiction Australian West Coast Premiere - April 10, 2020 Fat Fiction South African Premiere - April 11, 2020

It's here at last!! 'Fat Fiction' premiers in Los Angeles on March 13 and after that it will show in numerous theatres around the world. How do you get to see it?? Go to the 'Fat Fiction' movie page on FanForce (https://fan-force.com/films/fat-fiction/) Don't see a screening in your town or city?? Register to host a viewing in your area. It's so easy!! Select the movie house you want to have it in and choose a date and time and they do the rest. Once it is approved you get a bunch of promotional materials to help you sell the minimum threshold of seats for it to go ahead. As you get to the end of the registration process, we highly encourage you to select one of the three foundations to benefit from a portion of the box office takings. The Noakes Foundation - Founded by the iconic Prof. Tim Noakes to raise money to spread the low carb lifestyle to poorer communities and fund research. Ketogenic Foundation - Created by Keto- Mojo founders Dorian Greenow and Gemma Kochis to fund research into the Ketogenic Diet. The Nutrition Coalition - An advocacy group established by Nina Teicholz to campaign for the USDA dietary guidelines to be based on rigorous science.

Dr Jodi Nishida is a Pharm D, based in Honolulu, Hawaii. She has a great personal keto story and has gone on to establish a sustainable keto lifestyle practice in partnership with a physician which is proving to be extremely successful. What's incredible is that Blue Shield Blue Cross is watching how they are doing very closely to see how they can help all their employer groups get healthier and save themselves a ton of money. This initiative is also creating jobs for pharmacists outside of the pharmacy environment. Part of the Blue Shield Blue Cross mandate is that she ensures this is sustainable so she takes a day out each week to go out into the community and what she is achieving is amazing. She has been contracted by 7-Eleven Hawaii to vet all the keto products in a new keto section they are planning in all their stores. This is incredibly exciting for it's potential to expand world wide when she makes a success of it. Some ways to get in touch with Jodi and some helpful sites below: Website: Nutrition Network: Instagram: @theketoprescription.com Facebook; Jodi Nishida

Rarely will you come across a kinder and more empathetic physician. Dr. Hassina Kajee was running a High Care Emergency Unit in Cape Town, South Africa. After seeing so many people die she started looking at the stats and worked out that most deaths were from chronic diseases. So she opened a Low Carb Clinic and saw results really quickly and decided this is what she wanted to do. "This is Actually Real Medicine", she says. She reached out to Professor Noakes to ask what the Noakes Foundation was doing to take this to the poorer communities and at the same time started talking with Noakes Foundation General Manager. Jayne Bullen and local actress Euodia Samson. Through the discussions among the three of them, the Eat Better South Africa program was born. They have run a number of interventional programs in the rural communities now with great success. Hassina was invited onto the Noakes Foundation as a director and she is also the medical director for the Eat Better South Africa Foundation. Learn More about the Nutrition Network Courses

What an amazing couple. Dorian Greenow and Gemma Kochis, the founders of Keto-Mojo, talk about the establishment of a non-profit called the Ketogenic Foundation to fund further research into the keto diet and it's many health benefits. They are utilizing Keto-Mojo profits as well as all affiliate link monies raised by Keto-Mojo to fund the foundation. Not only that but they have huge plans to encourage other businesses in the keto space to contribute to the effort as well.

At the super successful Boca 2020 event we had a moment where Dr. Robert Cywes was at the Q&A mic and made a blanket comment that protein just turns to sugar. Dr Goldkamp voiced his disagreement with that but the Q&A session did not allow the time for either to elaborate further on the issue. I decided to take a chance and get the two of them on at the same time and discuss the issue further. Both of them were extremely respectful and a brilliant discussion ensued. This is one of the best episodes we've done so far. Sorry it ran so long, but I couldn't cut it short, The discussion had to play out. You Can find more on Dr Cywes here. If you want to get hold of DR Goldkamp you can look him up in our list of providers. Use the zipcode 28560 to search for him.

Pam talks today with Karen Parrott. She has been an awesome supporter of ours and has volunteered at almost all our San Diego events. We learned about her amazing personal story and have been meaning to get her on the podcast for a long time. So glad we have finally managed to do so. Karen has struggled with her weight and binge eating since she can remember and was morbidly obese for much of her life. She had turned to every conceivable diet, without success. When she finally discovered the ketogenic diet she did have some success but kept slipping until she learned about the concept of carb addiction and learned how dealing with that addiction could helpher so much. She is now 8+ years into what she cals 'Food Sober Living' and has kept the wieght off for that 8 years! You can reach Karen @karenspaleolife on Instagram and @gardengirl_kp on twitter.

When we were in the foyer of the Marriott hotel the night before our Boca 2020 event, we bumped into Gaby Ondrasek and Loly Trujillo and they were bouncing around like crazy things. They were just so excited and when we sat down to speak with them they told us of how they had attended our event in West Palm Beach the previous year and how they had been inspired so much that they both went back and started finding ways to reach more people. Gaby's following has grown from 6,000 to 36,000 in this last year. It was truly humbling for us to hear this and so we sat down with them after the event and recorded this for a podcast. I know we normally try to keep our interviews to under 20 minutes but this conversation was so much fun that we just let it run. Hopefully some more of you out there will get inspired too. If you want to catch up with Gaby or Loly you can search for 'GabyOndrasek' and 'Loly_Fit' on Instagram and other social media channels.

Dr Gurpreet Padda is an interventional pain physician who treats with patients with profound, chronic, severe pain that is unrelenting. Over time he worked out that there was more to these people's pain than just the physical source of it and that it was also a systemic or metabolic inflammatory issue and that hyperinsulinemia was at the root of it. He found that the majority of his patients were obese and either pre-diabetic or diabetic. He found that the majority of them also had leaky gut as well. This was all caused by the standard American diet (SAD) i.e. vegetable oils, processed carbs and excessive sugar. He talks about how the junk food companies manipulate the fructose concentration higher than regular fructose corn syrup in order increase the addiction factor. What he is doing in the community is astounding. They have over 65,000 active patients in their online program which is totally free and he even contributes more than a million dollars of his own money every year to the program. You can find out more about this program at: https://reversingdiabetesmd.com/

Ashley Carter Youngblood resolved her debilitating reactive hypoglycemia by simply changing her lifestyle and adopting a ketogenic diet. She describes how she was scarcely able to function at all. She got to a point where if she didn't eat a large meal every couple of hours she would be so sick she could barely stand up. Once she got introduced to the idea of going ketogenic it sounded like something worth trying so she pulled the trigger. She says that within a month her condition was completely reversed and she was even able to fast for 72 hours with no issues at all. She says she was also suffering from endometriosis which cleared up completely within a year. We also ran a bit long as we stayed on with her for a fascinating discussion while she tested her blood glucose since it was now 4 hours after she had gone for a run and she has been documenting a ton of data on how her body is affected by different sweeteners and activities. If you want to reach out to Ashley you can find her on: lotuslifestylecoaching.com

Interventional Cardiologist, Christian Assad, MD talks about how he discovered the benefits of the Keto / Low Carb way of life and how he now preaches the gospel to his patients and anyone else who will listen. As with most practitioners who have discovered the truth, it took a personal experience to open his eyes and make him realise that he should be teaching his patients about this. His has gone far beyond this now and is very active on social media and on the speaker circuit trying to teach more people, and especially doctors, that they need to know about it. He is particularly vociferous about the fact that doctors are not taught this stuff in med school. We can only concur with him on this and plan to work actively with him to help try to get this important nutrition information added to the curricula for med schools. Find Christian at: https://medhacker.com/ and @ChristianAssad on Twitter

Carolina Cartier talks to Pam about her incredible personal success in curing her PCOS and losing 200 lbs entirely through adopting an LCHF lifestyle. She had endocrine issues by the age of 28 she had never ovulated and was morbidly obese. It was at this point that a naturopathic doctor tested her insulin level and found that it was through the roof. She suggested Carolina start cutting carbs and adopting the ketogenic diet. She totally ran with this and lost 200 lbs and all of a sudden started ovulating. She is at pains to point out that at the time she started ovulating she was still morbidly obese. The weight came off later but it is important to note that it was not her weight that was causing the PCOS and losing the weight was an awesome added bonus. Now she has 2-year old twins and she is starting to formulate a study to show scientifically that a dietary intervention is very effective in preventing and addressing PCOS and fertility issues. If you would like to participate in the surveys to help with her research then you find them at @ketobabies on Instagram and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/KetoBabiesFertility/).

Amber O'Hearn's discovery of the carnivore diet to address her weight loss stall on the keto diet. Not only did her weight normalise again, but she also noticed her depression and other psychiatric problems not only improved, but cleared up completely. So instead of reverting to the ketogenic diet after her weight came back down, she has remained on the carnivore diet for about the last 10 years now and is absolutely thriving! Best way to get hold of Amber is through Twitter: @KetoCarnivore

I talk here with Peter Ballerstedt about the real differences between grass-fed and grain-finished beef and whether or not a good carbohydrate reduction lifestyle is possible if the meat is not from a grass-fed source. Dr. Peter Ballerstedt (aka The Sodfather) received his Bachelor of Science in Agriculture in 1981 and Master of Science in 1983, both from the University of Georgia. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky in 1986, specializing in forage management and utilization, minoring in ruminant nutrition. He was the forage extension specialist at Oregon State University from 1986 to 1992. Website: http://grassbasedhealth.blogspot.com/ Twitter: @GrassBased