Balanced Bites Podcast: Episode #24, Listener Questions, Sugar & Wheat, Figure Competitions, Goat Milk & Toddlers

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DIANE SANFILIPPO: Hey everyone this is Diane Sanfilippo, and with me as usual is Liz Wolfe of Cave Girl Eats…

LIZ WOLFE: Hey!

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And welcome to this week's podcast.

LIZ WOLFE: Hey.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I was doing the intro because this technical snafu today was fun.

LIZ WOLFE: A little scary.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah…

LIZ WOLFE: It's a little scary how bad I am at technology.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: No, I was like trying to get you looped in, and it kept like spinning and spinning, so…well, we're here.

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs] We're here, so do I need to do everybody's favorite part of the whole podcast?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, you do.

LIZ WOLFE: Okay, yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I'd say it for you.

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs] Thank you. All right, so it's just a little reminder for everybody that the materials and content contained in this podcast are for general health information only, and are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. So what's up with you? D-Sizzle. That's what I've been calling you lately. I don't know if you noticed how awesome…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Oh…right. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: you are.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Okay. I'm good with that. I'm good. I'm good. I'm just finishing up another of these little trips down to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I think like many of these podcasts I've recorded here in Pittsburgh.

LIZ WOLFE: Yup.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Just been working…working on the book and pretty much done with the recipes portion. There's probably a few little loose ends to tie up. But got that part done, I think, and the other half to two thirds of this baby I'll be giving birth to called a book, that will get done up in the next..uh, couple of months here. So yeah, I'm like kind of the brink of within the next, I'd say couple of weeks, having something announced that will be on Amazon for pre-order, which I'm kind of psyched about that 'cause people can kind of just get in on whatever the best price guarantee will be, and just be in line for as soon as it's ready to ship, so that will be cool. So hopefully that will be happening in the next couple of weeks. And yeah, taught a seminar last weekend down here in Pittsburgh, which was really fun. It was really cool because it was in their public library; the CrossFit gym we were scheduled to be at was experiencing some issues with flooding. The weather's been kind of like on and off lately.

Yeah. So it was cool though because they had a plan B. They were like head over to the library, so we did that. And not only did I have some awesome technology…there was like a whole screen, the room was heated, there were chairs and tables. I mean, it was like [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: Wow. Like we're real people who aren't CrossFit. Cool.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I was like, I feel like a real teacher today.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, I'm a real boy.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I know. And I didn't even have to hook up my own projector. They had a projector. I mean, this was like really swanky, and it was cool. It was actually just supposed to be a 3 hour seminar. We ended up going a little over because people had a lot of questions, and I think it's just, you know, 3 hours is just not enough time to teach this information. I mean, there's so much that people want to talk about and I was joking that they were kind of like the…what was it? They were like the beer crowd, but they just had a lot of questions about beer and alcohol, and I'm like…I get so many who don't even ask about alcohol, too, which is funny because I expect but a lot of groups never say anything. And this group was really quiet, and then all of a sudden, the beer questions started, and it was like [laughs] like 15 minutes of beer questions. But that was…it was really fun.

LIZ WOLFE: You were in Pittsburgh.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Totally. I know. It's grey, I get it, you know, whatever. But it was cool. As we were leaving, one of the librarians was like, we're closing up now, so you know, we have to have you guys head out, and she was like, how did you get so many people in here? [laughs] It was like…

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs] You're like, I didn't have to have anyone read anything.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: She was like, I've never had this many people. I know! Well, it was like, she was like, I never see this many people in here, and she goes, I'm sure this wasn't even free. What we do is for free, and we can't get this many people in the door. I was like, it definitely wasn't free, but you know, they want to come learn and she was just really impressed. It was really cute because I don't know…I guess they made some really good use of the library space.

LIZ WOLFE: So I think we just figured out like a new way for libraries to like brand and market themselves. It's kind of like the partnership between McDonald's and RedBox. It's like wow, people are renting movies again because they can go get chicken nuggets made out of like ammonia paste while they rent their movies, so I think that's brilliant. I think we bring CrossFit to our public libraries, and we've got a whole new…a whole new thing going.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: There's books in there. We can learn things!

LIZ WOLFE: Wow!

DIANE SANFILIPPO: So cool. Actually it would be really cool. I mean, I love teaching in gyms, like obviously I know what that's like. It's fun to be in that casual setting, but it was really nice to have, you know, a much more structured setting. Everybody had a table, could take their notes, and that was really cool, so definitely enjoyed that. And then, this weekend, so this podcast will air on Wednesday, February 8th, so this weekend, February 11th, I'll be in Naples, Florida. I'm kind of stoked about that because I've been in Pittsburgh for a couple of weeks, so it's going to be like 80 degrees in Florida. Yes! And then the weekend after that, Wilmington, Delaware, and hopefully, you and I will cross paths for maybe a little bit of time before that seminar at some point. Yeah, that's the next couple of weeks. So that's what I've been up to. How about you, my friend? What's going on with you?

LIZ WOLFE: Well, you know, I've just been doing like same old. I'm working on a couple of fun projects. I do some work with Steve's Original, the PaleoKits people, and you know, a lot of people hear me talk about them a lot, and Diane, I know you're a fan of the jerky Paleo goodness, so I've been pretty busy with that. Working with an organization that's trying to kind of to elevate the wellness standard, or at least articulate kind of a functional wellness standard for firefighters, so I'm super excited about that. And the number one best thing that's going on is that the-My Cave Husband's coming home from deployment here in a couple of days.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Woohoo!

LIZ WOLFE: So excited about that. I'm just over it. He just needs to be home. I'm sick of cleaning up the dog stuff in the backyard and you know, also I love him and really I'm excited to hang out with him again.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And also..

LIZ WOLFE: And also these Christmas lights need to come down. So yeah, I'm really excited about that. I wanted to throw something out there, though. It sounds like totally random, out of context, but I was doing a little reading this morning…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Oy.

LIZ WOLFE: And I just wanted to…yeah. I'm just like, out of context, no, that never happens. But I've been getting more and more communications from people like clients contacting me. Women who are just…they're pretty Paleo'd out. They'll do the CrossFit, they're into all that stuff. But these women…they want to be leaner. They want to be lean, lean, lean all the time, you know. They want to get rid of the, you know, the thighs and the butt, and they want to, you know, look like Lauren Plumey or something like that, you know, who's uber hot, like not even saying nothing about Lauren Plumey's physique. But I just wanted to throw out there, having read something this morning over at HuntGatherLove.com, Melissa's blog.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I read that, too!

LIZ WOLFE: Did you read that? I thought it was…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah. I was like, perfect timing because yeah, I read her post, too. Yup.

LIZ WOLFE: Well, I thought it was amazing. It was something I've been thinking about a lot lately because, you know, we're in this kind of evolutionary community that we eat according to kind of like these…this evolutionary framework. And I just want to put out there like, evolutionarily, women are supposed to carry some fat. I just want women to not accept…we're out of this modern food framework, like we've taken ourselves out of this whole ridiculous modern food paradigm, like let's stop thinking that we're not allowed to have any fat on us. Like I'm not saying I want everybody to be, you know, large and in charge. I'm saying like, women are meant to have some fat, and it's beautiful and it's awesome, and it supports growing babies and in my opinion, it is attractive. I've got plenty of it, you know. My husband likes it, so I just want to throw out there like, there is an evolutionary framework to why our bodies hang on to some of that fat tissue.

And it's not a bad thing. You know. I'm not comfortable in teeny tiny eensy weensy Lululemon shorts. I probably never will be, but that's okay. You know, I eat well, I get plenty of good healthy food, I know that. I'm not doubting anything about my dietary choices or how much or how little I work out. I feel like I'm a healthy person. Let's all just kind of back off ourselves and you know, it's okay. You know what I'm saying? I know it's out of context, but…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I absolutely do. Well, I think…it seems out of context a little, but then I think the reality is this whole like collision of how a lot of us found like a Paleo or Weston A. Price framework for thinking about food and health. A lot of people who even listen to this podcast, some people who read our blogs, they found us and this whole way of eating through CrossFit. You know? And I think that's great. You know, I think a lot of people who come into the gym are, you know, have that mindset of looking for something better, looking to improve themselves. And I think that's fantastic, but I see this all the time, too. I see it at the seminars. I see it just…even, you know, in myself and some of our peers, just other, you know, health coaches or nutritionists who have body compositions that's perfectly healthy. And it's like we're constantly feeling pressured, and I think it happens to us as practitioners a lot. I mean, I stand in front of, you know, 30 plus people every time I give a seminar, and there's always that pressure of like you know, what will people think of how my body composition is right now. I mean, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't somewhat, you know, conscious of it. And usually once I start teaching, like I don't care. It's a little bit of a honey badger, like I just don't care what people think because I know what's healthy, and I know that, you know, a person…and I usually teach this in the seminar, too. Like I'd rather a woman be 10 pounds overweight from whatever she thinks she should be, eating good healthy foods and not malnourished and not like starving herself because your body needs nutrition.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: It needs food and calories. We talked about this with the Caltons on…you know, they talked about Naked Calories, and I think about that so much when we deprive ourselves of food. You know, even if somebody cuts 500 calories a day. If they're cutting 500 calories a day of good, nutrient dense food, that's nutrition you're cutting.

LIZ WOLFE: Right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: It's not, you know, it's not unhealthy weight from your body you're cutting, it's actual substrate to build, you know, healthy tissues and cells and so. You know, we all struggle with this in some ways or others and I agree with you, I don't want people walking around with like 40, 50 extra pounds on them. Then that becomes unhealthy, but I think there is this cushion, so to speak, you know. Like no pun intended. But there's that cushion of like, what's leanness that's an athlete who's performing athlete, and I think people get really confused about, you know, gains athletes and what their bodies can and should look like, compared to what the average person, working out well, eating well, can and should look like. And there's plenty of women who are naturally very, very thin, right? And then they put on muscle and so now they appear super lean and shredded. But like they were the skinny ones to begin, and then there are those of us who were never the skinny ones, and you know, we put on some muscle. Maybe we lose some fat, but we still have body fat, that I agree with you, it's healthy and we need it. I am totally like over women who come to me and I see pictures…their before pictures…and they say they want to lose weight. I'm like, I'm looking at your picture. Like I don't see what you're seeing. You know, it's like this whole picture that we have of ourselves is like a little out there and I don't know if it's just, you know, the media's doing it, but it's also even within our own community maybe, having some kind of ideals that are…I don't know. It's just priorities that are maybe a little bit shifted. Right?

LIZ WOLFE: Well, I mean…no, I think you're right. I think that CrossFit…I was just talking to…I work in the same office with a chiropractor, and we were just talking about how CrossFit is wonderful because it is empowering. It's amazing, and we're very close to, you know, we rub elbows with very elite athletes, people that have very high level goals, you know. Like a lot of us know people from our gym that are competing in Regionals or going to the Games or were college athletes who are now doing CrossFit. You have to think of those people…those are the Olympians of exercise, which sounds really nerdy and silly, but not everybody are-is those people and that's okay. You know? Like I'm not Michael Phelps. I'm okay with that. I'll go swimming now and then, but it's like, cool.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: It's okay, and we have to separate ourselves from that. You know, we can have these role models, and I think it's great, but the goal, I think, for everybody should be, to be, to live within your own physiology, to take care of yourself and allow, you know, everything to fall into place as it should. And yeah, like we can tweak some there. Like I'm working with like a figure competitor, and I told her, you know, we can get you where you want to be, but we're going to be manipulating your physiology, you know.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Mm-hmm.

LIZ WOLFE: Your body's not going to like it. You're not going to like it. It's going to take some restrictive tactics, and it's not natural. I can't pretend it is, you know?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Mm-hmm. Yep.

LIZ WOLFE: And it's not…which is why a lot of these uber uber lean chicks, you know, they stop menstruating, they have issues with, just, you know, just various issues down the line, so you know, there's definitely that turning point where a little bit of extra weight becomes a lot of extra weight becomes sedentary becomes bad food. Like I'm not saying that these are all the same thing. I'm saying like…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: Chicks should have some booty. It's cool. It's cool.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, I think…I think we're talking about like, you know, the girls that probably most of us, and I'm sure, as you said about like your husband, and I know, you know, in talking to guy friends, like they do not see our bodies the way we see them. Like when we're like, oh, I could lose 5 pounds or whatever, they're like, no. You need something there to…you know [laughs] have some shape. Have some shape. Yeah, I'm with you.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Totally with you on that.

LIZ WOLFE: Well, everybody go read the post, Melissa's post over at HuntGatherLove.com. It's a review about this new book, Why Women Need Fat, and she talks a little bit about the book, but she also throws out some really, really…some really cool ideas that I think, you know, maybe we need to be talking about in this community. So everybody…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: hop over to HuntGatherLove.com and read what she's got going on over there.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Cool, we'll link up to it.

LIZ WOLFE: Sounds good. All right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Cool.

LIZ WOLFE: Let's jump in here?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, sure, let's do some questions.

LIZ WOLFE: Why not? Why not? We're on the phone, let's do it. Question one: ““I recently started listening to your podcasts– I love them!” Thank you. “Unfortunately I listen to them while baking cookies or bread which feels like an oxymoron.” Not going to argue. “So, here’s my info: I have been vegetarian (eat fish sometimes) for about 9 years. I eat lots of wheat, sugar (hence the bread and cookies!), grains/pasta, and dairy. Yes I eat lots of fruit and veggies too but the first items make up the bulk of my diet. I don’t exercise formally but my 2 small children keep me pretty active. I’m 5’4″ and 120 pounds and don’t want to lose any weight. I have no obvious health issues or obvious food allergies. I’m 43 years old. I have no trouble going to the bathroom, no issues with gas or bloating, no skin issues. I eat organic food, avoid processed food, use natural hygiene products (baking soda/Apple Cider Vinegar/coconut oil, etc).” My kind of gal. Not the food part, but the organic body care part.

“So here’s my issue: I have really bad “environmental” allergies that manifest in the form of congestion. At least I think they are environmental. Sometimes I feel fine, other times (especially at bedtime) I can’t breathe and have to blow my nose A LOT. It wakes me up at night – I have been known to stuff tissues in my nose so I don’t drip onto my pillow (gross).” She said gross. I didn't say gross. “It’s not just at night, it happens during the day too and in different places – at work, at the store, outside. But mostly at night – maybe it just feels worse because I’m lying down? These “allergies” happen year-round but seem to be worse in the fall and winter. I am thinking of trying an elimination diet to see if it’s possible that a food could be causing my congestion but I have no other gastrointestinal symptoms, actually no other symptoms at all. Could a food sensitivity cause my histamines to go haywire like that? I should also mention that I get colds pretty easily and they often turn into sinus infections. Okay, so maybe I’m not the pillar of health I painted myself to be in the first paragraph.” [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And a winky face. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: And a little winky, winky emoticon. What did we do before emoticons? I don't even remember. So do you want me to jump in here?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, yeah, why don't you tell her what you think here? I don't know what her name is, but tell her what you think and I've got some notes, too.

LIZ WOLFE: All right, so I'm going to start by being, you know, I'm going to stay in the positive here. So I love this question because it shows two things to me. First, the progression of thought and the way writing helps kind of elucidate things for people. [laughs] So I'm fairly sure by the end of the question, and you know, judging by the winky face that this person actually realized that their answer was kind of right there in front of them. Like, I have absolutely no health problems. I'm really healthy. I eat wheat, sugar, I bake, etc. And I have really bad allergies all year round. So it's kind of like, okay, then yes. Allergies are present, so the course of action is an elimination diet. And you know, what I think people don't understand is that bad food doesn't necessarily make your stomach feel bad. Bad food will absolutely manifest in things like seasonal allergies. Anything immune-related, you would just be leaving money on the table to not try and figure out if it's related to food. It's just..food intolerances are intimately tied with immunity, and the downstream effects of this stuff is exactly what she's talking about, allergic issues, you know. You got to learn these things. So you know, I was laughing during the progression of this question. I think she kind of figured it out, but went ahead and clicked submit anyways.

But you know, there are some supplements that I like for gut healing and optimizing digestion, and kind of quelling allergic reactions, but there is no way in hell I'd even start talking about those things until, you know, wheat, sugar, like any offending substances were removed completely for like 6 to 10 weeks, you know. We do…we talk about like your 21 Day Sugar Detox, which I think is perfect for getting off the sugar, you know, people like to do their 30 day challenges and stuff like that. But when you're talking about, you know, something like this, I say as a baseline, 6 to 10 weeks.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Mm-hmm.

LIZ WOLFE: In my opinion. I really think that it is a good sweet spot for drawing some conclusions about your own health. So the second thing I wanted to say…the second thing I really liked about this. I just want to encourage everybody in the entire whole wide world to use writing as a tool for figuring things like this out. Like, I don't care what you're doing: write a blog, write a journal, like something that, you know, stick it out in your brain. Like write it out because that exercise is so valuable, and just by writing or just by typing, you start like opening these little portals, or, you know, you have these little realizations that will lead you to the right conclusion yourself without having to listen to a podcast where people like me ramble about this stuff, on and on and on, and never stop talking, so that's kind of where I come down on this thing. [laughs] What do you think?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Well, what I think? Well, absolutely what you said as far as she made the realization. What she may not realize is that the reason why food is related to her otherwise, seemingly unrelated immune issues is that, what you said, our digestive health is…it's our first line of immunity, period. Like about 70, now I've heard 80% of our immune system lies in our gut, so what's happening at the border of our gut linings, our small intestine lining essentially any time food is passing from our small intestine to our bloodstream, it's passing through an entire layer of immune defense. And so if we're eating things that are irritating that immune layer, between our small intestine and our bloodstream, our body is concentrating on fighting that problem, and so when something comes up as irritating your sinuses, for example, but your body's immune response is sitting, you know, putting out fires in your gut, you may not even really feel what's happening in your gut, but whatever's happening in your sinuses can't get fought off properly because your body is dealing with this other inflammation. So yeah, people think that you know, what you said, if you don't feel gas, bloating, diarrhea, any other digestive discomfort, that means you don't have a problem with a food intolerance, but that's absolutely not the case. And the reality is if you feel anything digestively, you simply having an acute response as opposed to a chronic response of inflammation in reaction to the foods you're eating.

So, you know, she's saying environmental allergies, yeah. There's stuff in our environment that's constantly irritating us, but whether or not, and the same thing happens with colds and flus. You know, there are people who constantly get sick, and there are people who never get sick. We're all surrounded by germs; it doesn't mean that the people who don't get sick aren't encountering those germs or that the people don't experience environmental allergies aren't encountering those same allergens. It's just whether or not your body can handle it, and you know, effectively fight it off. So that's really what's happening, and you know, for someone to say they don't eat a lot of processed foods, well, if you're eating wheat and sugar and baking grains and pasta and dairy, that's all processed food.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: So anything that's been, you know…

LIZ WOLFE: Even if it's organic…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Even if it's organic. If it comes from a box, if you're pouring it out of a bag, you know, any of that stuff. That's all processed. So of course, we need to put animals through a small process to get them from alive to edible, you know, on our plate, but what I'm talking about is stuff that, you know, we've been doing for thousands of years by our own hands and some simple tools, as opposed to something that goes literally through a factory and gets refined to a point that it's not recognizable, you know, as it appeared in nature. That's a processed food even if you're making it yourself at that point. So, I think, you know, I'm totally with you. 6 to 10 weeks like people want these shotgun responses to symptoms and issues they've been dealing with for years and years, and it's like, yeah, 30 days, 3 weeks, that's going to be great. You'll probably experience alleviation of symptoms within a few days to a couple of weeks, but to really heal your system, you know, you need to give it some time, and I think that healing your body and also creating new habits is what does take that full…

LIZ WOLFE: Right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: you know, longer amount of time because yeah, getting her to a point where, you know, so that's okay. Cook while you listen to our podcast. Cool. I cook while I listen to podcasts all the time or wash dishes or other things that are not, you know, that I'm a little bit mindless what I'm doing. So put something else, you know. You don't have to bake foods out of, you know, refined flours and sugar that…you know, that's stuff's not good for anybody. Regardless of whether or not you have symptoms, like, you may just not have symptoms today. But I think, you know, I don't think we have to tell people too often anymore that eating processed refined flours and sugars, like that's not human food. So it's not going to promote health even if you don't feel it today, you know, that's the kind of food that over chronic amounts, long periods of time, that's what really is affecting our health more than anything else, so yeah, I mean, hopefully that helps her to understand when I talked about leaky gut. We talked about digestive health in the Paleo 101 podcast. I've talked about leaky gut a bunch in other podcasts, too, and just understanding that anytime you're dealing with irritation of the gut lining, literally any symptoms can manifest from that. It's just a matter of, you know, just like when people talk about disease being like a genetic predisposition. Like whatever you may be predisposed to, if you compromise your gut integrity, and you're eating things that you don't digest well, then your symptoms will be any number of symptoms that might just be yours. My sister had intense, intense seasonal allergies for a really long time. I never had that. I had a lot of digestive problems, you know. We're dealing with probably the exact same issue, just manifesting in different ways, so…

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah. Good question, though, and you know, it's a common one, and it's why I talk about digestive health for like over an hour of an 8 hour seminar because it's a critical piece of, you know, why this whole thing about why we're not eating certain foods. Like it's…foods are the biggest things that we're giving ourselves every single day that affects our digestive integrity. It's not the only thing by any stretch, but it's the one that we can exact the most control over on a daily basis.

So cool. I don't know…yeah, that's it for that one.

LIZ WOLFE: The only other thing I would say is if this person is going to be cutting out the wheat, the sugar, the grains, the pasta, the dairy, like I strongly, and I think we both strongly suggest that she do, as..I don't know if this person is an ethical vegetarian, but go over…go check out EatWild.com and find like a farm near you where you can get some eggs, you can get some grass-fed beef. You can get some pastured bacon. There's a lot of chatter about bacon still in the Paleosphere. I think you and I both absolutely positively advocate finding a source of pastured, non0factory farmed bacon. I think that kind of goes without saying. So, you know, there are many sources, you know, you just have to go out there and find them. Check out EatWild.com. Find some good humanely raised meat. Go to grasslandbeef.com if you don't have a farm near you. You can order from them. You can order from Tropical Traditions. Those are great starting points. If you…if this person simply like lost their taste for meat over time, and just stopped eating it, like in con=junction with changing the food, I don't know how you feel about this, if maybe they want to start taking some betaine hydrochloride…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Mm-hmm.

LIZ WOLFE: to kind of support that stomach acid that is probably inadequate at this point, which may account for the loss for taste for meat, but definitely needs to move forward with that, I think.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: That was the last thing I was going to say, too. Digestive enzymes or some sort of HCL because that's the biggest things with vegetarians who feel like they can't digest meat. It's like they've suppressed their own stomach acid production for so long and she can definitely…I think it's a woman…she can definitely start with broth to get her system like more used to some of those amino acids that are coming in certain forms from animal proteins and just get more used to that. Soups and stews. Yup.

LIZ WOLFE: Nice.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Cool.

LIZ WOLFE: I made some thick broth the other day, finally. Like my beef broth had really been underwhelming, like smell-wise and gelatinous-wise 'cause when you know, when you make a good broth, it's like you put it in the fridge overnight, and it comes out real gelatinous.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, it's like beef jello.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, it's like jello, basically. Yeah, exactly. It's like beef jello.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yup.

LIZ WOLFE: And here's what I did. I took advice from you and from our buddy Laura and from something that Chris Masterjohn had said on Facebook. And he said, use a whole oxtail. Use marrow bones. And you know, boil the heck out of it overnight. I did that. I let it reduce a little bit, and literally, it's like jello. I was jumping, jumping up and down in my kitchen, I was so excited.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs] Woohoo!

LIZ WOLFE: Which I actually jumped a lot more than I should at my age, but whatever, you get excited. You want to high- five. You want to jump. It's cool.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I think kitchen success is important.

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: That's why I have in my recipes, that's why I have that thing cook overnight, like at least 24 hours in a Crockpot, and then the garlic for me, like if people, you know, like garlic, you can tolerate just fine. It makes the taste of it so much better. Like I know a lot of people are like, I can't really stand the taste, but just using the beef bones and the garlic actually gives it a flavor that's much more savory, and like you're sipping on a soup, rather than just like kind of the remains of boiled bones, if that's like something you enjoy the taste of, totally fine with me, no like judge of that, but I really like it. Just the garlic, like to me, like…boom.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah. I agree.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Perfect.

LIZ WOLFE: I agree with you on that for sure. All right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: All right.

LIZ WOLFE: Next question.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yup.

LIZ WOLFE: “ Hi Diane. Thanks for your amazing podcast!” Yeah, Diane, thank you.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs] Thanks, Liz.

LIZ WOLFE: “I love listening to the show [laughs] as I walk to work here in Madrid. I know you get TONS of questions, so I really tried to do my research before submitting this. I can’t seem to find any good information out there so I came to you!

I have been Paleo for about 1 year now and have drastically improved my health and fitness. I am interested in training for a fitness competition in the future. I can’t seem to find any good information out there about how to take a Paleo approach to competition prep.” And this is kind of, you know, I honestly forgot about this questions when I started talking about all that stuff at the beginning.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, me too.

LIZ WOLFE: So this is timely. “Most of the information I have found about diet for competitions involves things like whey protein, wheat bread, dairy, other non-Paleo items, and the 6-meal-a-day-low-fat-not-fun approach. I was wondering if you have any diet advice for someone looking to get into this kind of sport. Specifically, I would love to know more about the timing of macronutrients (what to eat before/after workouts).

I am 24 years old and I currently have a good level of fitness (3-4 days a week in the gym, 2-3 days running). I don’t supplement currently and receive all my nutrients from whole foods. I don’t know my percentage of body fat, weight, or any other scientific stuff because frankly, I feel good and look good so I am not worried about it right now! I have been implementing mainly a ketogenic approach to my diet, limiting carbs from sources other than vegetables. I want to incorporate more carbohydrates like sweet potatoes but I don’t want to lose any of my leanness.” What do you think, D?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I think a couple of things. I love when people write long questions. It's like that first one where it's kind of like, the stream of consciousness…

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And you really get to know a person, you know, by this long question. So like my very first reaction to this question is, God, just don't do this competition because you sound like you have a really healthy relationship with food right now…

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah. Totally.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And doing this competition is really going to screw that up. So like, first and foremost, I would really question it. Like I get it, you know. I have those like back and forth of like trying different things for myself, and it's fun and it's interesting, and I've had periods of time where like I'm training for a half marathon and was super shredded and followed that up with adrenal fatigue and depression, and it's kind of like, you know, you have to learn your lessons for yourself. Right? Like I can tell you what will probably happen and you may or may not want to hear it. you may just want to do your own thing and experience it and just go through it. That's totally cool. So like, for me as somebody's who's a handful of years older than you…I'm going to say a handful and be kind to myself. But my first instinct is just don't do it. Like it's just not productive. It's probably more detrimental to your health, your physiology, your hormones, like what Liz was talking about before, you know, and if we do want to work with a practitioner who can help you do this, it's basically taking you to a place that we know is unhealthy for a period of time, and then you have to stop it and come back. And I'll tell you, I've worked with people who've done it, who are trying to just be healthy and normal again, and it's hard because you've basically sent signals to your body that are almost starvation signals at different points. You know, you send signals to your body that are deficiencies, you're leaving micronutrients out. You're just changing what's normal and status quo and working well for your body for no good reason other than just, you know, I feel like doing this. And it almost, you know, it's similar to like how some people think that avoiding animal foods might be healthier and so for a period of time, it's fine and it works great, and then at some point, the body starts rejecting that approach. And I think the same thing happens in a much shorter scale or shorter time frame when people do things like a cutting diet for body building or for leaning out.

So all of that stuff aside because you know, I can get on the same soapbox about like endurance athletics, but this person is asking for some help, so she is going to do it anyway. What should she do? I think what she's doing sounds fine. I actually think a ketogenic approach is fine, which she's probably eating 30 grams of carbs a day. I don't like for people to eat less than the 30 because you know, you should get some vegetable matter in, and get some, you know, vitamins and minerals through the food that you are eating that has carbohydrate content, I would definitely recommend if you're doing a ketogenic diet to really focus on dense sources of nutrition otherwise. Grass-fed butter, you know, grass-fed meats and wild caught fish, so that the animal products you're eating are super nutrient dense. And you know, she says that she's limiting carb sources except that she wants to introduce some more, so if you do want to introduce more carbs, than keep a more ketogenic, super low carb approach, you can try a couple of different things. One, you can try a cyclic approach, where you may be three days on your ketogenic, super low carb plan and one day off, where you refeed your carbohydrates. So maybe you're eating 100 to 200 grams of good, you know, starchy carbs from sweet potatoes, yams, yucca root, those kinds of things. Three days on, one day off. Or you know, I've done it before myself where during the week for five days, that's easy enough for me to maintain that level, and then on the weekends, I just don't want to deal with not being able to eat, you know, some fruit or sweet potato. So then I would do like 5 days on, 2 days off. I've done that myself.

And I think it's pretty effective, but depending on what your training looks like, like you really can't be doing too much metabolic conditioning or too much cardio exercise that is intense or long in duration if you don't have enough glycogen, which is the storage form of carbohydrate in your body. So if you're not eating a lot of carbs and your glycogen stores are low, you really just need to be strength training, you know. If you're doing a figure competition and you're doing, you know, just body building type workouts, it should be okay. But if you're doing running, I think a lot of figure competitors probably run several miles here and there just to get that cardio burn, you really can't do that without the carbs in your system, so you can either plan those workouts for the day after you've done a carb refeed to where you can actually use those carbohydrates. Or your training needs to shift so that your metabolic type conditioning is like 5 minutes or less. If you look at a CrossFit type of workout, something like Diane, which is kind of funny that I like that workout…

LIZ WOLFE: Awww.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I can't do full handstand pushups. I'm still working on it, but you know, it's about a 5 minute workout for me. So I know if I'm eating lower carbs, that I can do that workout, and I'm not going to be crushed. So that's my take on that. You know, I don't think it's unhealthy to do a ketogenic diet. I think it's fine, but I do think that you might want to look into some good forms of like, I don't know, some kind of micronutrient supplement and just getting in a good amount of vitamin C, especially if you're training or making you're using a good amount of like lemon juice on a salad because you are probably eating a bunch of leafy greens. I'm trying to think what else I want to tell her here. I don't know. That's pretty much it.

LIZ WOLFE: I have a question for you.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, sure. And she says 2 to 3 days of running here, so…

LIZ WOLFE: Because I'm not real…yeah, I mean, I guess what I'm just kind of wondering is…and when I think of fitness competition, you know, I'm thinking like it's kind of like that body building like super lean, spray tan physique competition.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Mm-hmm.

LIZ WOLFE: Is a ketogenic diet…does that provide sufficient protein to make this a reasonable goal as far…you know, because I just…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: I wonder.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, a ketogenic diet…what it would probably break down to, what I see it break down to most when I do it, or you know, if I have someone was working with me that wants to try it. It's usually around 30% protein, 30 to 35% protein. Protein's not really like a key player in the whole ketosis thing. Like you need to be eating a lot of fat, but what happens is when you're eating whole foods, you know, especially like in the Paleo approach. We're not trimming fat, we're eating, you know, coconut oil, grass-fed butter, that kind of thing. Fat percentage in the diet is usually around 60 to 65, sometimes 70% on a ketogenic approach. Maybe 70%, protein is 25, and then carbohydrates are usually around 5% in a ketogenic diet.

LIZ WOLFE: But guess what I see with people doing the ketogenic stuff, and you know, I've played with this with some clients before. But I just don't see that gauntness, you know what I'm saying? Like I feel like…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Oh yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: in these figure competitions, people are so gaunt and even though…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: I feel like people get very lean on like a ketogenic protocol, it's not that same kind of like, my skin is stretched really really tight right now type of leanness.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah. Well, I think it depends, too, like I'm sure in the last couple of weeks, they're probably also severely dropping sodium intake, so the thing about a ketogenic diet, and I'm not an expert on it, I just know what I know from practical application, right? And I've read up on it, and you know, I've heard also some stuff, you know, just in listening to Mat LaLonde talk about a ketogenic diet and you know, why it didn't work for him because he ended up doing CrossFit main site programming while he was doing it, and those workouts are not really planned for this type of diet. But when you're not eating carbohydrates, carbohydrate is carbon and hydrogen combined in such a way that when you're not eating them, you actually lose a lot of water weight. Like it's carbon and water, basically, so if you're not eating a lot of carbohydrates, you end, you know, you may be able to burn more fat because your body is so efficient at burning fat for fuel when you stop giving it so much sugar. But you're also losing water weight. So like I remember too, I had asked Robb Wolf about this for myself, because I said hey, you know, when I came off my ketogenic diet. I have issues with sugar personally, like I use that approach because for me, it really helps me to just put the kibosh on how much sugar and carb intake I have on a regular basis. Like, for me, I need some kind of limitation at times. Otherwise, like I'll just free eat whatever is around, you know? So his response is like, really, after you come off of that, if you gain weight back in the first week or two, it's probably just water weight.

So yeah, I mean, I think what happens on a ketogenic approach is that your body doesn't really waste away that much, but you do kind of..you shrink up that water, excess water, bloating that you might have, just around you know, the subcutaneous level, just like right under your skin. But you don't…you really don't waste away muscle because that low amount of carbohydrate that you're eating, around that 30 grams should be sparing muscle from gluconeogenesis, so you shouldn't be, you know, tapping into muscle to create new sugar for your brain to use for fuel. You should be eating that, you know, roughly 30 grams, so that you've got something on the substrate, but again, I don't…that's what I know. It's not the end all be all, but it seems to be effective. It seems to be doable. You know, 30 grams is really low. 50 would be like low, but more comfortable, 50 to 75 is probably like normal Paleo person who doesn't eat much fruit, but eats a good amount of veggies. That's probably where people fall, you know, on that front. So just to kind of put some perspective in there. Yeah, I don't know. That's kind of everything I have, but like I kind of just don't want her to do this. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: Well maybe she'll decide to do something different…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Wait, no!

LIZ WOLFE: Not a figure competition, but like maybe get into some athletic…jujitsu or something like that.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: Some kind of physical, where there's a clearly defined goal, fitness oriented, you know?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yup.

LIZ WOLFE: She doesn't have to go do CrossFit, but there, you know…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, I don't like these figure goals…

LIZ WOLFE: If you want to show it off, wear tiny shorts. [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah. And like the figure goals, you know it's like, unless you're getting pictures taken of you for something where you just really feel like whatever, I want this to look a certain way, you know, where you're a star in Hollywood who just like needs a picture to look a certain way, which by the way, everybody in Hollywood has like retouchers that retouch every single photo of them before they get released anywhere, except for the ones that are like, you know, you finally see that they're real and have cellulite. Okay, that's like all of them. They're normal.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: But I totally am like, you know, don't do something that's just for the point of an aesthetic goal. Do something that's got, you know, maybe in the meantime, you'll get more fit and more in shape, but compete as an athlete, you know? Don't keep it as like this total focus on just aesthetic. I mean, I've just seen it backfire pretty much on every person who's done it. Like everyone I've seen who's done it. It messes with your head severely, so…

LIZ WOLFE: And this chick has a very balanced attitude towards food, so…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: It sounds like she does. I'm like, don't ruin it! No, it's almost like someone with beautiful hair color, and you're like, please don't color your hair. It's beautiful. Trust me. You'll regret it. No, don't do it! Anyway.

LIZ WOLFE: Oh my God. All right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: All right.

LIZ WOLFE: Another question. Okay. “You discussed the good and bad versions of dairy on the Paleo 101 podcast. However, where (if anywhere) would goat dairy fit in?” Goat dairy. “Would it be in the good category or is it as bad as cow dairy in the same ways. Explaining this would be great!”
You want to go? Me? You? You? Me?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: No, go for it. Here you go. You can tackle this one.

LIZ WOLFE: So I'm a little, you know…I'm of the more dairy-friendly Paleo persuasion, but there are a lot of kind of, you know, caveats in that whole thing. So I generally think that pasteurized milk, whether that be cow's milk or goat's milk is pretty much garbage. I think it's a pretty perverted food. And I've been doing a little bit of reading kind of hearing about how actually the homogenization can create some kind of dangerous by-products as well, so you know, I'm kind of into the whole unpasteurized, unhomogenized, pastured dairy thing. Cream and butter are probably okay. They kind of dwell in that grey area, but unhomogenized cream, I think is definitely best. And you know, I kind of think that raw goat milk is pretty neat. I personally don't drink it but if I, going back to my time on the farm, if I had to figure out how to feed myself without the help of Whole Foods, or even without the help of like the local markets or farms or whatever, I would probably A. grow root vegetables, and then I'd get myself some chickens and a goat. So that's kind of…I respect the goat. But you know, most of what I know about goat milk is thanks to the Weston A. Price Foundation.

It's funny, I was just tweeting with somebody that was talking about…real excited to go to a meeting, a Weston A. Price chapter meeting in his locality, and he goes, yeah, I was real excited about it, but then the guy just ended up talking to me about how cell phones are bad for you. Like, [laughs] tin foil hat type of stuff, which is funny. Like I love the Weston A. Price Foundation. They're so…they're just really on the cutting edge with a lot of the science about food and nutrient dense stuff, but then they, you know, get into some of these other territories that kind of [laughs] You know, I hope he goes back, but I would totally understand if he didn't.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: But anyway, so don't get turned off of Weston A. Price because of the tin foil hats, like they really do know what they're talking about when it comes to nutrient dense food. The biggest differences I guess…cow butter fat has butyric acid, which is like a 4 carbon short chain fatty acid vs. goat's milk, which I believe has a 6 carbon fatty acid, I think it's capric acid. I don't know how to say it. So both of those fatty acids are like anti-microbial, they're anti-viral. They bypass bile emulsification, so you know, they're similar in some ways. If we're talking raw milk because you know it's from animals that have been an appropriate diet, so yeah, I mean, I guess that's pretty much it. If you're inquiring about baby formula, we can provide a link in the show notes to what the Weston A. Price Foundation has said about homemade baby formula, what kind of milk to incorporate, if you incorporate milk at all. They have a liver-based formula as well, so…

Yeah, I mean, it's just one of those things. You do what you want to do. I think it's good to like an elimination type thing, add it back in if it…It just depends on like who you are and what you're doing. For people that are…when I was out at the farm a couple weeks ago, we drank raw milk at breakfast. It's really calorie, nutrient, fat dense stuff, and it, you know, for some people, it makes sense to have that whack of nutrition if you know, they're going to go out and I don't know, not do what I do. You know, if you're not go and sit on the couch watching reality TV all day, you know, they might not need that many calories all in one shot, but it just depends on who you are, what you're doing. Thoughts?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, I'm cool. No, I'm pretty like whatever. Whatever works for you. I think sourcing it…really, no I think sourcing it is the biggest thing, you know. If you find a great source and you tolerate it, it feels good for you and your family…whoever's drinking it, rock on. More power to you. I don't really…I don't really have a problem with it.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah. That's it. I really do not tolerate dairy even apparently some Kerrygold raw milk Dubliner cheese that Hayley and I decided to try to see how we would do with it this weekend. Yeah. Nope.

LIZ WOLFE: Not good.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Definitely, definitely I do not tolerate that. Interestingly, though I think soft cheese don't do the same things to me. Goat cheese and I had like a bite of brie within the last day.

LIZ WOLFE: Probably [xxx 50:44]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: So it was interesting. Yep. Bad.

LIZ WOLFE: It was interesting but bad. I do think actually there's probably more people that tolerate like whey cheeses more so than the hard, like casein cheeses.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah. Mm-hmm. mm-hmm.

LIZ WOLFE: And which is often casein intolerance, yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, I was going to say, it's definitely not a lactose intolerance thing for me. It's definitely, you know, because supposedly the hard cheeses are lower in the lactose, so I'm not having that issue. I probably don't have that issue because I don't eat gluten. You know, a lot of people who are dealing with lactose intolerance, it's really a gluten intolerance and they just respond to the lactose because their gut is so compromised from a gluten intolerance, and when they stop eating gluten, they actually find that they are fine with cheese, which is interesting. I did not do fine with raw milk cheese. It was really sad. I was like, this is delicious! Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: So sad.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: It was really sad.

LIZ WOLFE: I'll eat my share for you.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Thank you. Do you think…should we wrap up here or should we do one more? Or what do you think?

LIZ WOLFE: How's about we skip down to Bill's question because it's short. And then we can be done after that.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Okay. Sounds good.

LIZ WOLFE: Okay, cool. All right, Bill's question: ““My daughter is adopting a child from Uganda. The adoptive child is a 2 year old female however developmentally she is more like a typical 8 to 9 month old. What are your thoughts, research, suggestion regarding the optimal diet for her “recovery” Can you point us in a direction for further investigation and/or recommendations?”

And I'm not sure if there is like a diagnosed type medical condition that he's talking about here when he refers to recovery or if he's just talking about kind of bringing her developmentally to a point of like an American two year old. So I'm not 100% sure, but really all I wanted to say is that nutrient dense foods are supportive of all aspects of development, especially for a little one this young. Just nutrient dense foods, I think the Weston A. Price Foundation has a lot of really good advice when it comes to children. If you're going to do things like egg yolk, liver, stuff like that, definitely source it appropriately. We talked about EatWild.com. RealMilk.com if you want to look for pastured dairy. It's pretty much all I have to say on it.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, I think probably with developmental issues, I would be really careful like, I mean, this stuff has to happen in synchrony and while getting in nutrient dense foods, really not putting in anything that's going to compromise the integrity of her gut lining, so it doesn't say if it's a boy or a girl that they're adopting, so…oh, yeah, it's a female.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, it's a girl.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: So it is a two year old female, she's probably, you know, able to eat food. You know, if she's coming from another country, I would just really do my best to like, you mentioned liver, Liz. And a lot of people are probably like, oh my God, feed the kid liver? No, yeah…feed a two year old liver. Like get them started now. Prepare it a few different ways. You know, even if it's in small amounts, even if it's ground up in some, you know, ground meat or meatballs, that kind of thing. Get that food…you know, get the kid used to eating it. I mean, I know, I grew up eating liverwurst and now when I taste liver, like there's certain ways I don't care for it, but the reality is I have positive associations with the taste of something that reminds me of liverwurst because I grew up eating it. So you know, maybe I didn't eat it as a teenager, but that's because I was being defiant like everyone else, but getting kids eating these foods early at two years old, keeping the foods, any grains or cereals keeping those out, if they're concerned about getting some starchy stuff in. Sweet potato is fine, if they want it to be, you know, something that can like be a vehicle to carry other things that you know, baked sweet potato's a really good idea, cutting it up. I'm trying to think what else.

Yeah, I would just really keep out any processed refined foods and just keep it super simple for digestion. Really really rich in fats because you know, the brain needs tons of fat. If they can feed the child any sort of wild fish, wild salmon. They might even want to look into doing a little bit of like child formulated DHA supplementation. I think Nordic Naturals might have one. Green Pastures has something where they can do really low dose on that. It might really help some brain development. I wouldn't super supplement. I would just get that in. And just yeah, just keeping the food cooked at home and not doing the whole standard, you know, formula from a package. None of that. Mostly food. I would say at this point, especially if she's 2, she's probably got some choppers on her, she can chew some things.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, best of luck with that. That's awesome. Very very cool.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, and I would say keep us posted, you know. If they need some further support, like if your daughter wants to kind of come on to the blog post we put up with the podcast notes in it, or if your daughter wants to you know, hop on to the Facebook page and kind of let us know what's happening and get some advice, too. I mean, we have tons of parents on both of our blogs and Facebook pages commenting. That might have some ideas or advice, too, so you really…you never know how many people are in literally the exact same situation you're in, until you kind of put it out there, so I'm glad that you asked that question. That was a good one.

LIZ WOLFE: Agreed.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Cool.

LIZ WOLFE: All right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Wrap it all up.

LIZ WOLFE: So yeah, we got a lot of cool stuff still on the docket for the next podcast, so yeah. Talk to you soon, I guess.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: All right, sounds good.

LIZ WOLFE: Peace out.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Peace.

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