Mike Fave  0:00  
They start out keto. They start out low carb. They do well, right? They lose weight, stuff like this, and then over time, the eating windows get smaller and smaller. The food intake gets smaller and smaller.

Jay Feldman  0:10  
And you know, before she was doing her four shots of espresso with cream, and then the cream wasn't working for her. Like even the I don't know what a couple tablespoons of heavy cream was either preventing her from losing weight or causing her to gain weight. I don't know.

Mike Fave  0:22  
And when I came out of low carb and like when I was doing carnivore stuff, there was zero shot that I could tolerate when I'm eating now. Like I could only I couldn't even tolerate juice

Theresa Piela  0:32  
because I think a lot of people would see this and think, "Wow, if I ate that much, I'd blow up. Or you know, that's a that's a fear I hear a lot with clients that they're just terrified to eat.

Jay Feldman  0:43  
Not everything you eat necessarily has to be health food, and there's room for like eating at a restaurant, and there's room for eating with your family, or celebrating a birthday, and eating things that you don't eat all the time.

Theresa Piela  0:53  
Welcome to the Bioenergetic View. I'm your host Teresa Piella, joined as always by Jay Feldman and Mike Fave, we're doing Mike's most exciting episode today, talking about what we eat in a day, comparing what we eat to one of the most prominent carnivore influencers who has one of the most insane diets I've ever seen, and then closing out the show with a success story and a Q and A. Okay, Doctor Boz, known for her sardine fasting, and I think popularity among moms. Let's see what she eats.

Dr Boz  1:35  
My eating day is boring, but my metabolism is strong. My day starts early, and it starts with coffee. Tampa traffic mandates that we leave by 6 a.m. We grab coffee on the go. Four shots in my americano and add some Redmond salt. I said goodbye to breakfast a couple of years ago when I stalled and had to level up. I took out the heavy whipping cream when again I stalled and I had to level up. I drop off my son and arrive at the clinic with my best brain forward. It's a rare day that I get hungry during the day, but if I do, I start with bubble water. It's my favorite. If hunger continues, I reach for sardines right out of the can. Sometimes with a carnivore crisp. For a snack, I don't snack. Supper happens after I pick up my son from sports practice. If it's Jimmy John's, I get a number 10 unwich. If he picks cudoba, it's a burrito bowl. Hold the beans, hold the rice, brisket, queso, grilled vegetables. If he picks something less optimal, I eat the sardines, and that's what I eat in a day.

Theresa Piela  2:36  
Holy moly! Okay, so Mike, we're gonna start with your diet today, and I'm imagining it's similar to hers.

Mike Fave  2:45  
Before he gets my diet, I just want to just put this in the context. Her diet specifically, there's a couple things in there. We have a she's a health influencer, I think, is keto, keto low carb, but she's basically eats like a standard American diet plus a can of sardines, and she doesn't eat the rest of the day. So it's it's a it's weird that this is like that's like I'm not gonna eat all day long except for one can of sardines and plow coffee, and I'm gonna come and I'm gonna have like basically fast food cadoba or Jimmy John's, so it's like a very weird setup that that is that was promoted. This is being promoted as a healthy diet, and also she frames it as her metabolism is strong, but she had to stop having breakfast and like extend her fast or whatever because she plateaued or she stalled, which would indicate that metabolism is not necessarily strong. The fact that she's she is eating so little overall, because even on the Jimmy John's or the Kadoba, she's not. There's no carbs at all. It's basically just meat and vegetables, and that she's able to subsist on that. I think would, for me, at least, would indicate that metabolic function is not strong. She's getting by on such a low intake, and then also she's driving through the fasting. And then on top of having just like four shots of coffee on top, or four shots of espresso there, she's driving up some of the stress pathways. And then the other thing is her appetite's nuked. So I think this is a classic profile of somebody who's done long term dieting, long term fasting, or long-term low-carb, where the eating gets less and less and less, and this is something I see with with many clients, where they start out keto, they start out low carb, they do well, right? They lose weight, stuff like this, and then over time, the eating windows get smaller and smaller, the food intake gets smaller and smaller, or the diet gets more and more restrictive, where you basically get down to like going to full carnivore, or here doing basically like just sardines. There's a lot of reasons for this. We talked about this in multiple other videos, but I think this is actually not really the optimal metabolic state. I think this is like a like the long term rabbit hole of like. Dieting, low carb dieting, and fasting.

Theresa Piela  5:02  
Yeah, Jay, what was your reaction seeing her at the one of the most recognized health influencers sharing what she eats?

Jay Feldman  5:11  
Yeah, I mean, it's really surprising to hear that. I mean, obviously, like what Mike is getting at is this is the ultimate iteration, like this, is the natural progression when whatever you were eating before doesn't work. So then you go low carb, and then low carbs stops working, so you low carb harder, right? You cut out the carbs, you know, from 50 grams to 20 grams, and then 20 grams to five grams, and you have to start intermittent fasting, and then that doesn't work, so you start doing multiple day fasts, or you have to extend the fast. And you know, before she was doing her four shots of espresso with cream, and then the cream wasn't working for her. Like even the I don't know what a couple tablespoons of heavy cream was either preventing her from losing weight or causing her to gain weight. I don't know, you know. Obviously, she's pretty vague when she says like she stalled, but to get to that point where you're basically eating-I mean, she said if she's hungry, she drinks water, which is so ridiculous. But if she's still hungry, yeah, yeah. I mean, we've we've been there. Like, you know, I I fell into that advice as well quite a bit. I used to walk

Mike Fave  6:19  
around with a bottle of water. Yeah, we did. Like, oh, you're not hungry; you're just thirsty.

Jay Feldman  6:23  
Totally, and we would drink tons and tons of water. And when we were low carb, of course, because we were starving. And then she says, if she's still hungry, then she'll have sardines or like a carnivore crisp. So what that means is, some days she's not doing that. Some days she's not eating anything. She's just having four shots of espresso. So on top of not eating, driving cortisol and other stress hormones from that, you're then adding caffeine because you don't have any fuel, you don't have any energy, and you have to run on something. So you're driving those stress hormones further and digging this hole deeper. And then, so sometimes she's just eating meat from Jimmy John's or Qdoba, which for one, I mean, it's not like we're talking high quality meat here. I'm sure it's cooked in garbage oils. I'm sure there's a ton of additives, but also, I mean, what is that? 600 calories, 700 calories, maybe. And if she does have extra, yeah. And then if she does have a, you know, a can of sardines, because the bubble water didn't do a good enough job of of suppressing her hunger, then she's getting what an extra like 150 calories. I mean, it's extreme restriction, severely under eating, and it's you can't go too much farther than this. Like this has to be pretty close to the end because how much more are you going to reduce? Like you're barely eating, like you're barely not fasting daily, like full fast. So, I mean, how much lower can you go before you crash severely, or you start regaining weight? You start to have like major regression of tons of symptoms because this is the natural progression, right? It's you keep going harder and harder until either you crash or you literally can't continue it because your everything in your body is fighting against you, and then things go sideways. So, yeah, pretty. This is pretty extreme. Pretty extreme.

Theresa Piela  8:07  
I mean, I wonder. Even just following in line with all the other influencers, they go to the point of extreme, and then eventually they're saying, "I was wrong. I'm adding in blueberries. I'm adding in carbs. So maybe she'll get there when she starts to realize that she can't level up anymore. I mean, I hope for her body's sake, and I guess we'll find out.

Jay Feldman  8:29  
Well, we know that there's been a bit of that, right? We commented on the time when she tried some grapes, and you know, I'm sure that there's some inclination. I'm sure everything, and you know, I'm sure there's strong cravings and hunger and desire to to eat carbs, to eat more food. So, yeah, I agree, Teresa.

Theresa Piela  8:45  
Mike, do you have any more comments here? Do you want to jump into a typical day in your world?

Mike Fave  8:51  
Yeah, I like. I think it's good to show. We'll jump. Let's talk. Let's jump in, and I'll show my diet. And I, I think it's good to show like a comparison point from, you know, like not really eating anything, and one thing that I would want to caveat here is that Dr. Boz and my size and activity levels are different, so my caloric intake is going to be different. But even then, like with a woman roughly around her size, if I was programming the diet, it would not be that. It would there would be three meals a day. If you want to have coffee, that's that's. I don't have a problem with coffee or anything like this. And even for some people, it's not that you can't eat out. You can you can eat out. You can make good choices eating out. It's more that it's if you're like a top level health influencer. You're somebody who's trying to show people you know what's this optimal way? Like that's kind of the message: is optimal low carb fasting way. Then the I would assume like you see most like a lot of the carnivores will go for like top like grass fed grass finished beef, right? That's like a focus, and it's like a weird dynamic that that is not the focus in this dynamic or in this in this example, but. For my, let me pull up my dad. Well, just one thing

Jay Feldman  10:02  
to mention too before Mike, you get into the details of your diet. If we looked at different carnivores, different keto influencers, they're going to have very different diets. Not everybody's looks like Dr. Baz's, of course, and the same is going to be true for us. I'm sure all three of us, and we haven't looked at each other's days of you know example days of eating here, but I'm sure they're going to be very different, and that's okay. Like, there's not only one way to do it, and that's kind of the point of showcasing each of our different diets. Here is that it's going to be very different styles, I'm sure, different types of foods, and each, you know, I'm sure you can pull things from each of the different ways that we do things that could work for you in your lifestyle. And if you're on the go and you have kids, and you know, and you've you've worked long hours and something similar to Doctor Boz. Then, you know, a like elaborate homemade meal probably isn't going to be the case for dinner. Of course, you could make something quick and easy and bring that with, or maybe you do have to just make a better choice when eating out. But yeah, there's a lot of different ways to implement the principles that we talk about all the time. So that's what we wanted to showcase with our diets here. When it comes to creating a diet for optimal health, there's a lot of conflicting information out there, and that's why I've created the Energy Balance Food Guide to help you determine exactly what to eat to optimally support your metabolism and help you lose weight, improve your digestion, get amazing sleep, boost your energy, and so much more. The Energy Balance Food Guide is a one-page infographic that organizes foods on a spectrum based on how effectively they support your metabolism, and it also has a separate spectrum that adjusts the scale for you in the case that you're dealing with various digestive symptoms. The food guide makes it extremely easy to get started with a bioenergetic approach to optimizing your health. So head over to jfeldmanwellness.com/guide to download your free energy balance food guide.

Mike Fave  11:46  
Yeah, and as an example, when I was working in ICU, I was doing four whey protein shakes a day on the days in the hospital,

Jay Feldman  11:53  
just because

Mike Fave  11:53  
that was what I could. I didn't have time to eat, basically. It's like it's it's not a case for not doing that. It's just a weird setup that the everyday diet is Qdoba or Jimmy John's. Like I wouldn't classify that as like optimally healthy, especially if you're like thinking about my Alzheimer's risk, my diabetes risk, my whatever the deal is. It's like, well, you're eating like prepared food every single day, and then like probably not dial down micro stuff like this. So it's a weird dynamic, but either way, well,

Jay Feldman  12:23  
and and just to touch on that too, Mike. Like when you had that diet, you were talking about the four way shakes a day. You weren't saying like this is the optimal diet. Look at what I'm doing. But she is like she is basically saying like like using hers as like an example of this is a way to do it that's actually good and healthy and optimal. She's not touching on like this not being good for any reason. So I think that's a an important difference, an important distinction. Well,

Mike Fave  12:46  
even with my whey shakes, the way they were set up was to hit my calorie, my macro targets on top of my micros, and then also having like good food sources. So it was like whole fruits, juice, whey protein, and then I would have like mac nuts, of course, on the side and dried fruit, and and so like it wasn't a bad diet. It just I wouldn't say it was necessarily optimal that my major protein source was whey. I would have wanted to have other protein source in there from a nutrient density standpoint. But overall, like was it? It like got the job done, and I still like I was only sacrificing a small percentage overall. I was still hitting everything else. So this this is and this is a representation of my just like what I ate yesterday, right? So essentially, I have my supplementation up here. I won't necessarily go through that. It's just covering micronutrient gaps in the diet because I don't do well with dairy. So there's calcium stuff like this, but I tend most recently, which this is a slight variation from what I've done in in previous videos, but I adjust things here here and there periodically. So what I've done here is I ran out of whey protein, so I haven't been doing whey protein shakes, and I usually do one or two a day because it helps with my schedule. So logistics is really important with the diet, and what I've instead done is I've had three main meals, which is some protein source and vegetables and a fruit shake, and then I have one meal that's just kind of a a snack meal. So these three meals are pretty much the same because I'll prep them in the morning and then I portion them out and then I'm ready to go. So it's beef. I've been doing a little bit of black beans, so I've been liking it with the ground beef, and I put seasoning in the beef, so kind of like a like a taco type of thing. Then I have some cooked veg on the side, so peas, broccoli, and there's also carrots and carrots here as well. And then I'll do some. The my fat source has been macadamia nuts lately, primarily because the beef has some fat. So I pulled out the chocolate that you guys always hear me talk about. And then I have some dried fruit and I have a shake, so the shake is just OJ passion fruit. This is not juice; it's whole passion fruit, and then blueberries. So this this meal is three times a day, and then I have my snack meal, which is just some dry fruit, some juice, and or basically another shake, and then some macadamia nuts. So there's no protein in this meal. So for me, this I'm. This hits my targets. It hits my protein target, so I'm about 160 grams a day. My carb should be is around 400, and my fat's around 100. I'm slightly over because the goji berries are counted higher here, and that's the seeds. So I hit my macro targets with this dietary setup, and then I've hit my. For me, I I have a higher fiber intake because of my personal circumstance, which is that I don't have a gallbladder, so that I'll get if I don't eat enough fiber at times, the I'll have problems with some of the bile stuff, and the fiber is helpful for me. So I actually keep it a bit higher. So you'll see it, you'll see it higher here overall. You also see that I don't really do that much starch because I don't tolerate starch very well, and it's interesting. This is like an idiosyncratic thing for me, but I do quite well with like legumes, like peas and black beans and and pinto beans and stuff like this. I don't really get gas or bloating or anything like this, but I don't do super well with other starches. So it's kind of weird that I don't do well with breads, pastas, rice, or even tubers for that sake. I but I do do well with the with the legumes, and then even cooked vegetables. I have no problems with, and then in my fatty acid profile, I kind of balance the shifted bit towards monos.

Again, this helps me because of the bile acid stuff because they took because of them pulling my gallbladder when I was younger. So I'm a little bit shifted more towards monos. My total polyunsaturated fat intake. I keep pretty low overall. Most that's just coming from the the fat and the beef, and in my saturated fat intake, most that's also coming from the fat and the beef. So this is the fatty acid profile is low PUFA, higher mono than saturated, but still some saturated present. And then most of my micros here are topped off, but I do have to supplement some things. Like most people that I find don't really have adequate DE and K in their diet, and that's in the form of k2. k1 you'll hit. Like I hit that with the the greens that I eat, but I won't hit k2 because I don't have any dairy. And then also calcium, since I really don't tolerate dairy very well. The calcium is something that I supplement to hit the targets. And then the rest of this stuff is dialed, and even the ratios for these things are are pretty dialed, like calcium and magnesium, calcium to phosphorus. Well, actually, I don't have it at one to one calcium to phosphorus, but I have my ice cube for calcium over one gram, and then sodium to potassium and whatnot. So that's basically this is a typical setup, and I will, as an example for people, I will switch these out. So this could be chicken, this could be fish, it could be shrimp, it could be scallops. I'll switch these out. Sometimes I'll do different vegetable sources or different different bean options or different fruit options. So the general structure is there. Macadamia nuts always stay though, but otherwise the pieces will be rotated in and out. It's

Theresa Piela  17:45  
fun to see this. Oh, Jay, what were you going to say?

Jay Feldman  17:48  
Well, so I just wanted to get a concept of the meals. So the meals, Mike, it's basically protein, vegetables, some of the goji berries, like the dried goji berries, and a smoothie. Right, that's how each of the main meals is structured. And so, what's the timing of these? Because I know you had the three main meals, and then there's the meal above, or that kind of snack above. Is that in the morning that snack, or what's the timing? No.

Mike Fave  18:08  
So basically, this snack is I get like in my client. So the reason I have this here instead of dividing the meat and vegetables into another meal is I have a like very short break between my client calls. So I have the snack between my client calls, and then I divided the other across the three meals. So it just depends on whether I do my client calls in the morning or the night. I'll put the snack there because I'll have a I'll do calls for like six hours straight. So I have like a pretty wide gap. So I like to have something to break that up. And then the the other meals are usually the eating times usually like nine one. Sometimes like around four or five, or and then like nine. So when I finish calls at night, so I eat my last meal. I would say it's it's pretty late at the 9p.m. Sometimes it's a little bit later. Unfortunately, I can't really change that because of my logistics. So like, there's you're not gonna get the perfect setup. So that's why for Doctor Boz's stuff, I do understand like the convenience of the of things, but also so I have some of that for myself. Logistics change what happens, but in general, I I will eat four meals a day split across that, and I I personally don't eat in between. These meals will last me because I have about 100 grams of carbs per meal, and my fat intake, with the exception of the snack is about 30 grams of fat. I will last. I can last up to like six, seven hours if I need to. Eight hours with this meal. If I after after eight hours, so I will start to feel it. And I've had times where, like you know, when we were driving between countries or flying or something like that, where I won't like I'll have a longer time frame, and after the eight-hour mark, I'll start to start to feel my body switching over a bit. So this will hold me, and and that's something I think that's super important for people to know is that how you structure your meal, how much carbs, how much fat you put in a meal, protein will dictate how long you're going to last. If this meal was skim milk and whey protein and orange juice, I probably. I wouldn't last the gap. Like I'll be hungry very fast.

Jay Feldman  20:03  
Yeah, and so it's so it's three meals and one snack, right? And those are spread out pretty much.

Mike Fave  20:08  
Yeah,

Jay Feldman  20:09  
and is the so the snacks all at once? It's not spread out like in between the calls. You like will just not just one

Mike Fave  20:14  
snack, just like that's it,

Theresa Piela  20:17  
just straight in.

Mike Fave  20:19  
Well, I actually interestingly I do eat my meals in a particular order because I so I've tried to get my carb sources without juice, and the problem is my fiber intake goes up to like 100 grams a day, and so I so the juice is helpful for me because my car my carb intake is high because my activity level is high. If I wasn't lifting weights and like you know, I'd go for a walk every day. If I wasn't doing that, then I probably wouldn't eat as much carbohydrate. My intake would probably drop down to maybe 300 or 350 if I was like very very sedentary. Probably I actually haven't hit 300 in many many years. So the lowest I've really been is about 350, and then in that case, I would drop. I would just cut the juices back and keep more of the whole food carb sources. The but otherwise, basically, what I'll do is I'll have the fruit shake first because there's so much juice. If I have the fruit shake after on top of the beef, the beans, the and the the vegetables, it sits like a like it doesn't feel good having 16 ounces of juice dumped on top of that meal. So I have the juice first. I kind of sip the juice over a course of like 15, 15, 20 minutes, and then I give myself like 10 minutes to kind of let it go down, and then I'll eat the rest of the meal. So that's also another important thing: is that I dedicate a window for myself to eat, so I don't eat super fast because I find that I feel heavier if I do that, I don't feel as good, and I feel much better if I have like a you know at least like a 30 to 45 minute window to eat my meal. It goes down much better, and then I'll structure it where I have the juice stuff first, and then I'll have the other portion second. I also found that it helped my teeth. If I had a bunch of juice after I ate the protein sources and the veg, the vegetable sources, especially when Jay and I were early peating and we were adding a bunch of sugar, it was really tough on my teeth. And then now people ask me all the time, like, "Do you have teeth issues with this? No, I don't. Especially if I have the juice and fruit first, and they're all blended together, and then I have the meat, the the whatever the protein source and the vegetables after I don't have any issues with my oral health.

Theresa Piela  22:24  
Well done, and it's good. It's good to hear that you've paid attention because I think a lot of people they'll experience bloating or just they don't feel great. And you're a perfect example of tweaking things and kind of noticing that beautiful biofeedback loop. Okay, have the juice first. Let it, let it digest. Let it move through. Eat slow enough for things to move through. You know, it's not just what we eat. The manner in which we eat also has a huge impact.

Mike Fave  22:54  
And leaving the gaps. Leaving the gaps. If you, if I ate these meals close together, so say one meal's at like, like 1o'clock, and the next one's at three. It wouldn't like it wouldn't go very well because I would have so much volume of food so close. So the spacing's important, the structure of the meal, and the other thing that I think is super important we'll see with your guys' diets is that it's very individual. Like a lot of clients I work with are not going to tolerate a this number of volume and these particular food sources. And when I came out of low carb and like when I was doing carnivore stuff, there was zero shot that I could tolerate what I'm eating now. Like I could only, I couldn't even tolerate juice. I was living on cane sugar soda. So this is like a progression over time of rebuilding my tolerance after running that diet. And I actually these foods are specific to me, so like I can't, I wouldn't eat sweet potatoes because they they give me gas, but I can eat black beans, broccoli, peas, carrots, cauliflower, and that type of stuff, no issue. And then even the dried fruit and even berries, like I can eat basically an unlimited amount of the berries and dried fruit and not really have a problem. So it's I think it is person specific, and I wouldn't tell somebody to copy exactly what I'm doing because a lot of it has you have to figure out which foods work for you and then build up from there.

Theresa Piela  24:09  
Yeah, Mike, it's also refreshing to see that you have included more cruciferous and bean legume based items because I think a lot of people they find you know the Ray Pete inspired diets, and they get really pigeonholed and feel like they're being naughty if they want to try other foods. But Ray said himself that it's you know there's more than one way to keep the metabolic rate up, and part of the fun of that is exploring and finding what works. And it's yeah, it's really nice to see that you've done exactly that, and finding the foods you and both. And it seems like you've got an amazing balance of foods you really enjoy that you look forward to eating. There's diversity in texture and color, and you're not following any anyone else's cookie cutter meal plan.

Mike Fave  24:58  
No, it has to be personalized. And the one thing too is, for me, the beans and the the peas were actually therapeutic, and the mac nuts are actually therapeutic. Because when they took my gallbladder when I was when I was in high school, I started getting issues with bile dumping. So I would just like my small intestine would be overflow with bile acids. It'd go into the colon, and bile acids are super irritating to the colon, so what happens is the peas, the mac nuts, and the black beans kind of they act as a sponge essentially that binds up and dilutes the bile acids and inhibits them from irritating my colon, and it also helps protect the microbiome because the the bile acids nuke certain bacteria in the microbiome like fecal bacterium, so those things it's like kind of an offset for that, and I notice I feel significantly better incorporating them, and this goes in with some of the peat stuff. The idea of the sterile gut, people say, well, your gut's not going to be sterile with all the fibers and stuff like this, and it's like the goal was not the sterile. The goal is not a sterile colon. It's not achievable. The goal was to keep the small intestine clear, and for me, I don't have. That's not my problem. SIBO was not my problem. Bile bio bile acid absorption was my problem, and I'd argue be worse if I continually had bile acid irritation to the colon, and that would drive endotoxin leak directly, as well as serotoninergic response from the bile acids hitting the colon. So in this case, like in my context, that stuff is super helpful for me to minimize that that level of irritation. So that's where, like, you need to get into the details of a person's case, and you need to see how they specifically respond to different foods, and then adjust it from there. So that's why I'm saying, like, my stuff is very specific to me. I've tested it. I know I tolerate it well. I've, like, you know seen the impact on my digestion. I've seen the impact on my blood sugar. So like that diet is very specific to me, and I followed it with blood work consistently to see like how am I responding to it in terms of the key health markers, and then I structured it and run from there, and also subjective. Like how do I function? If I have bile acid malabsorption, my brain I'm gonna have brain fog. Like I'm gonna, I'm not, I'm gonna feel bad. I'm gonna have brain fog. I'm not gonna function well, and so this allows me to not have to deal with that without you know. There's medication you could take for it, but there's a bunch of problems with those like inhibition, fat soluble vitamin absorption, etc. So yeah, for me it's specific, and I think for everybody else it's also specific.

Jay Feldman  27:22  
Yeah, and one other question or last question, at least on my end. Well, I actually have two. One is, do you do anything specific to prepare the black beans? And the other is, do you allow your diet to fluctuate? Like, I know you work out what four or five days a week. On the days that you don't work out, does it change versus the days that you do?

Mike Fave  27:40  
So the first question, I actually don't do any special preparation. There's they have these refried black beans here, so they're not like actually fried. But what they do is they cook the black beans and then they kind of mash them up and cook them again. And when you mix that in with the ground beef, like the the texture and taste, because I use like the taco seasoning with the ground beef, and then I have the black beans. is really good, so I use that. So they're kind of so they're pre-made.

Jay Feldman  28:06  
You're getting

Mike Fave  28:06  
that somewhere. Yeah, I'm buying them pre-made, and the ingredients on them are organic black beans, water, and then one brand that we get has spices, and the other brand that we have doesn't have any spices, just salt. So they're just pretty basic. The packaging is an ideal ones in a can and ones in like a bag, but cooking black beans is just like takes forever. So getting them pre-made is much easier for me.

Theresa Piela  28:31  
If you have an instant pot, I've I've had a few clients that are really sensitive to everything, but soaking them overnight and then pressure cooking them with a little bit of kombu seems to be what allows them to eat them freely. But I know you know you pick and choose what you want to be spending your time on, and

Mike Fave  28:49  
I mean I don't have a problem. That's the if I had a problem, I probably do that.

Theresa Piela  28:53  
Yeah, but for people that

Mike Fave  28:54  
polyethylene cook

Theresa Piela  28:55  
don't even want to do that. I know Eden cooks them that way. They soak them and then cook them with kombu, and then Jovial Foods also has these cannellini beans sold in glass, which is pretty great, and those tend to be really well tolerated too. So,

Mike Fave  29:11  
yeah, yeah. I mean, if I I don't have any issues with them, don't have any bloating, not really much gas or anything from them at all. Which I know sounds weird, but so I haven't like prepped prepped them in any special way. As far as the training stuff, if I have a really busy work time where like I know I'm not really going to work out that week that much, instead of going like four or five times, I'll go. I'm only going to get like one or two times because like a trip to the city or whatever the deal is. In that case, what I'll do is I'll usually just adjust how much juice I'm doing, and then so instead of doing like 16 ounces four four times a day, maybe I'll do 12, just because I'm not hitting the same level of activity. But otherwise, if I'm doing like a normal four or five day a week workout, I don't change my intake on the other three days. It's only. I feel like I'm not, or I know I'm not really gonna like let me completely sedentary because I'm driving back and forth to the city. I'm just sitting in the car for hours, and I'm doing that multiple days. And it's like I'm not gonna plow that much food. I'm not even hungry for it. At the end of the day, like I don't I don't even want to have the extra juice. So what I'll just take it across, take it off because I make everything in the morning, and I know I'm going to do in the day. I guess I want to add one thing: is people will complain about food prep for this. The food prep for this in the morning for me is about an hour max, and that's I blend all the shakes up at one time. The black beans come out of the container already, and I'll usually batch cook the meat and vegetables, so I only have to cook that once every couple days, and then in the morning, I just portion it out. So I wake up, and the first thing I do is I get something to drink, and then like I'll start eating some of the dried fruit, and I start prepping all the food, and I'll do it in like you know depends if the meat's already cooked 30 minutes, if the meat's not cooked an hour

Theresa Piela  30:56  
after your fasted hit workout, right?

Mike Fave  30:59  
Yeah, and my cold plunge and my sauna and like my my journaling and all other stuff. Okay,

Theresa Piela  31:03  
good, good. Just making sure. Got to go.

Mike Fave  31:07  
Wake up, eat. Wake up, eat prep food, and then just start work. Like, there's no special, super special routine. And like, I'll get a walk in in a day, and I get workout. I'm a normal person.

Theresa Piela  31:20  
That seems pretty special to me, actually. I mean, it's very balanced, and your body seems like it's well fueled and happy.

Mike Fave  31:28  
Yeah, I don't know who wants to who's gonna share their diet next.

Jay Feldman  31:33  
I'll go. I kind of want to see

Theresa Piela  31:34  
Jay's. Yeah.

Jay Feldman  31:36  
All right. It's interesting because Mike and I used to eat the same thing, and now we very much don't. Not that that lasted for that long, honestly. It was maybe just like super early days, and then our different like physiologies, digestion, everything just pushed us in different directions. And obviously, you know, as Mike was saying, what he's eaten has changed over time. Definitely the same for me, just based on where I'm located, and yeah, just what's available, and and going with what feels good. So,

Mike Fave  32:07  
yeah, availability is a big thing for sure.

Speaker 1  32:09  
Yeah,

Mike Fave  32:11  
my diet's changed drastically based on country I'm in.

Jay Feldman  32:14  
Yeah, and when we were traveling, my diet was different as well, just because it wasn't like we could have like this super well stocked freezer with tons of meat or whatever we wanted. You know, it was much more like what we get that was kind of easy. You know, we didn't have all the cooking equipment. You know, Teresa mentioned an instant instant pot. You know, we were traveling for a few years, so we didn't have a lot of that. But now we have everything. So, yeah, all that all that plays a role. All right, so this day breakfast started off with some orange juice, and then it was a plantain or half a plantain. This was split between my wife and I. The plantain was and eggs and butter. Plantains were cooked in butter. It was four eggs, and then coffee with sheep milk and a little bit of sugar and panela. I do like half and half just for taste. And what is there to mention here? This will vary a lot. So in contrast with your diet, Mike, all all of my meals will vary quite a bit. So breakfast normally is always eggs, but then sometimes it'll be a plantain. Sometimes it'll be a smoothie, maybe with like a gluten-free toast. Sometimes I'll do gluten-free toast. We have this like pineapple ginger jam that we get from the farmers market, so sometimes I'll include that, and then like more fresh fruit. So this will vary just based on what we have for the day, and sometimes also like a rice porridge with milk, we would do that, and then normally I would do eggs with that. So, yep. So it's breakfast. Lunch was a little lighter this day because this was a day where I was I had MMA training in the afternoon. So normally I try to eat a little bit lighter before that, otherwise I'm just kind of weighed down. So for this day, it was it was actually like a Moroccan sirloin strip like meal with rice. And so my wife makes our lunches. She'll like batch cook them, and she normally do. I mean, I don't know how often she makes them, but then she'll batch cook them. She'll throw a bunch in the fridge, throw a bunch in the freezer, and so then we kind of mix up what lunches are. So this is like one of I don't know 10 to 20 different meals that it could be. And I should mention too, like the amounts here are estimated to the best of my ability, but because they're made in such big batches, I'm not measuring like how much meat or how much rice or how much butter was used for the cooking or things like that. So there's some kind of rougher estimates here. So that was lunch, and and then this snack was after MMA training. So it was a slightly heavier snack than I would normally have because. Lunch was a little lighter, and I was very hungry. So we had some rambutans. I did a smoothie with the mango guanabana or soursop, a little bit of sugar in there, and then had some of the Tony's Chocolate Lonely milk chocolate, the caramel sea salt one, which you know, when I like post training, I was basically starving, so I just wanted like the smoothie and fruit wasn't enough. So then I had some of the chips and chocolate, and just like felt like I wanted some some dense food. And this is all just totally intuitive. Like I'm not planning this ahead of time. I'm looking at what's around and just grabbing like what feels right. So yeah, the potato where it says potatoes roasted, fried in olive oil and palm oil. That was potato chips that are available here that are cooked in palm oil, and they didn't have that brand here, so all the nutrition like information wasn't there. So I just converted it based on the carbon fat amount into these two, so that way I still had like the micronutrient info there. So that was afternoon snack, like after training, and then dinner was lamb shank.

Again, the amount estimated here it was like three quarters of a lamb shank, so six ounces might be a little bit of a underestimate, And potatoes and onions roasted with ghee, and some Brussels sprouts, like some maple Brussels sprouts, is what my wife happened to make as the side. This could be, and this is like pretty typical. Normally, we'll have some version of a meat, and then potatoes or yuca, sometimes rice, and then some vegetable, Brussels sprouts, zucchini. We don't do broccoli too much. We do asparagus a lot, so that'll just kind of vary. And again, the amount's kind of estimated here. Might have been more or less maple syrup. Might have been a little bit more or less butter that it was cooked in. My wife tends to have a heavy hand with the butter, so it's more like underestimated there than over. And so that was dinner, and then normally after dinner, before going to bed, you know, a couple hours later, I'll have something. This night we had ginger tea and honey, just like after dinner, and then I had warm milk with maple syrup, and that's normally I won't do both. Normally it's like one or the other, and then I'll have fruit or dried fruit with it. Which now that I think about it, oh no, that was a different day for lunch. Sometimes you know, with with the lunch, I'll have like dried fruit on the side. I'll have more the chips on the side. I'll do macadamia nuts. I thought I I thought I was sharing the day where I had dark chocolate and macadamia nuts and dried fruit along with my lunch, and the dried fruit was dried mango. So I thought you would have liked all of that, Mike. But that was a different day.

Mike Fave  37:53  
Disappointing. Disappointing.

Jay Feldman  37:55  
I know. And then so with the the milk and maple syrup, I was still pretty hungry before, but at this point, again, just from training, and so I had some of these chocolate O's. They're basically like gluten-free Oreos from this German brand, and so I had five of those along with the milk and maple syrup, which is maybe like a couple times a week I'll have something like that. But this was again on an MMA training day, which is normally once or twice a week for me. I'm normally more hungry. I normally naturally eat more. So if we look at the total macros, we see I hit 4000 calories today or that day. Another day that I tracked because I don't normally track this. I only tracked a couple of days just for just for this episode, and the other day, attract was 3500 calories, and that was on a non workout, non MMA training day. So seems to be like you know in that 3500 to 4000 range, depending on the day. And yeah, I wanted to. Well, I guess I'll leave it there. You can see the macros. So and these are these targets are not based on anything. It's just whatever was already in my chronometer, maybe from years ago. But in terms of macro balance, we're at 17% protein, 44% carbs, 39% fat, and you can see the macros here: 171 grams of protein, 456 grams of carbs and 174 grams of fat, and normally the carbs and fat are going to be higher, but maybe all three are a little higher on training days. But again, it's all kind of intuitive micro wise. I don't think there's anything too interesting to see here, and again, this varies. Like I'm not paying too much attention. I didn't track my salt, so that's not accurate. But you know, starch-wise, Mike, you were talking about how you don't do all the starch. It looks like at 116 grams of carbs coming from starch, the rest from sugars. Although looking at that now, something's not adding up here because that looks like just over 300 grams of carbs. And then with the fiber, it's like 330, but net carbs were 430. So these numbers don't seem fully accurate.

Mike Fave  40:06  
Some of the foods won't show all the breakdown of the data,

Jay Feldman  40:09  
right? Right. So missing some data there, but yeah, there's not like too many other things I'm particularly paying attention to here. This was a A day,

Mike Fave  40:22  
yeah. Your intake is high. I mean, for me, my I'm holding steady because I, I'd say the difference is I do actually track regularly, so every day I I see what I'm doing. But I think it's more just because I like to do that type of stuff. I like to know the details, but like I'll maintain my weight around 32 to 34, and I will. I usually will gain if I push up to 4000.

Jay Feldman  40:47  
Yeah, I. I'm not. I like maybe on a day like today. Like I would naturally eat a little less the next day. Like maybe the next day ends up being 3300, or you know as I said the other day, attract was 35. So yeah, I don't know how typical or atypical this was. It wasn't like a super hard MMA training day. Like sometimes they're like particularly hard days, and I'm I know I'm eating more that night, and I know I'm even eating more the next day. Other days are lighter. So yeah,

Theresa Piela  41:18  
how intense are the training sessions? Are they like several hours long, like full on.

Jay Feldman  41:23  
No, not several hours. That would be that would be a lot. It's normally like an hour and a half, and that includes warm up. And maybe I mean, the class is like yeah, hour and a half, hour 45. But yeah, some of the days are lighter. Sparring days tend to be like pretty like I'm pretty exhausted after to the point where like my initially like it takes me at maybe an hour before I can even eat like maybe I'll be able to have some juice or a smoothie but like I'm too exhausted to like for like even to have a normal appetite and that normally comes in pretty strong.

Mike Fave  41:58  
And you guys doing do you have a lot of activity outside of that, or no?

Jay Feldman  42:03  
Normally, I will walk the dogs daily. That's like 20 to 30 minutes. Other days, we're up at the property, so we're you know get walking quite a bit there. And and then I will lift. Like I'll I'll work out once a week.

Mike Fave  42:21  
Yeah. So you have three workouts a week, two MMA, one lifting session. Yeah. And then you're then you have like a 20 minute walk every day.

Jay Feldman  42:30  
Yeah, pretty much.

Theresa Piela  42:32  
And then all the mental activity. I mean, I think sometimes we forget that just having a well functioning brain and being able to focus takes a lot of energy. I know some people, you know, they think, "Oh, I'm just at my desk. But you know, even being sedentary, you still need a significant amount of fuel and micronutrients, and yeah. So just, I mean, I'm sure our listeners already know that, but if they're just finding us or coming out of low carb or coming out of like a Doctor Boz style diet, it might just be something to think about.

Mike Fave  43:04  
Well, if they, I think somebody coming out of both like that type of diet would look at the caloric intake here, and then even for mine, I'd be like, "That's insane to be able to like that level. Because I even have clients that I work with who are guys who are lifting, and they're maintaining on on like 2024, 2600 intake per day, and their size is semi similar to mine. Wow! But I the thing is like if I've tried like when I've accidentally a couple times when I've gone back and tracked what I did went under 3000 calories a day, and even under even under the 32, and I don't feel good. Like I really like my energy is not as good. My workouts aren't as good, and the thing is, like I'm holding my. I've been steady between 195, 200 pounds for years now at this at this this level of intake, and I'll only start to push up if I start going again. It's like when I go 38, they're around 3800 calories. I'll start to see the scale go up progressively, but I also do feel a little bit like I actually feel my workouts are better if I go higher than than the intake. But it's with the work schedule, sometimes it like it makes you very sedentary. So, but the difference I think it's nice is that like you're intuitive with it, Jay? And I'm like pretty, I like really know exactly what I'm doing and make adjustments and tweak it and get into the details and get into the the weeds with the diet and I like run experiments with it. That's why I track so much because I see and also because I'm gonna have other people do like I'm gonna make adjustments to other people's stuff. So like to play with a play with chronometer and things like this, but yeah, that's it's a pretty high intake for for activity level. So that's pretty, and you're maintaining right.

Jay Feldman  44:51  
Yeah, yeah. For a few years, my weight's mostly been the same. Yeah, yeah.

Theresa Piela  44:57  
So maybe to contrast Doctor Baz's diet. This is actually an example of a really fast metabolism. The fact that you can be maybe more sedentary some days and still eat this much, because I think a lot of people would see this and think, "Wow, if I ate that much, I'd blow up. Or you know, that's a that's a fear I hear a lot with clients that they're just terrified to eat because they're scared of putting on more weight, not realizing that being in a stressed starvation state is fueling more of the weight gain that they're you know they're so upset about. So it's just this is a great example of you know imagining that coming from like low carb keto, you couldn't have jumped directly into this without some severe repercussions and digestive upset, but over time, and it seems like you're in a really solid place now that your body really does thrive with with abundance.

Jay Feldman  45:54  
Yeah, well, so Mike and I both, when we were like low carb keto intermittent fasting, at least for me, so I was the same weight. Like I'm around 185 now, and I was around 185 then, and I was eating maybe in like the high 2000s of calories, and both of us, well, all these speak for me. I mean, we've talked about this before, but then when we started adding carbs in, we jumped up really quick, and we were pretty active at the time too, but you know, I definitely gained some weight at the time, And then, basically, like eventually, my weight came back down. I mean, eventually, eventually, it came back down to this level. At that point, we were working really hard trying to put on muscle, so I was maybe like 20 pounds heavier lean at that point. But in any case, what I'm trying to get at is, I was like comparing the same weight point and like relative activity level. I was eating far less on low carb, and I, you know, it's not like we could have just eaten more. It was like there was discomfort, and and also of course you're trying, like you don't want to eat the carbs that obviously your body wants, and how much are you going to eat when it comes to just like straight ground beef? And we were eating vegetables at the time, and and at some point

Mike Fave  47:07  
butter.

Jay Feldman  47:08  
Yeah, we were just eating butter. I started putting like avocado and olive oil on my food to try to get more fuel. And yeah,

Mike Fave  47:16  
yeah. For me, when coming off, so a when I was on low carb, I couldn't keep weight. So I remember I had gotten down to the in the height of low carb. I was like 175 pounds, and then we had gone and done a research study together, participated, and then did the body fat percent. And mom was like, it was around 6% across multiple things, and I felt terrible. I was like, I was super lean, but I was 175 pounds, and my normal weight now is around like I'm sit around 12 to 14 percent body fat, and my normal weight's between 195 to 200 pounds. I fluctuate, so and that on that intake, I still wasn't eating. I wasn't eating low by like I think what a normal person standard would be, but for my actual body size, I was eating quite low. I seen it was only in the mid, mid to high 2000s. And then when we added carbs back in, I remember it was like second puberty. Like I went, I went. I think I went up at the peak almost to 220 pounds, but that wasn't. We were powerlifting, so it wasn't necessarily that I we just got fat. Like I did gain body fat. I would definitely gain body fat. I probably was close to 16 to 18% body fat. But I like went up to and I got way stronger. Put on a bunch of muscle, and then eventually weight settled down and appetite settled down. Because we when we came off low carb, appetite was insane. But it wasn't just low carb. It was low carb, low calorie, and then periods of IF and stuff like this.

Speaker 2  48:43  
Yeah,

Mike Fave  48:43  
and I remember having a hard time because I would try to hit 3000 calories, so I was still tracking in chronometer at that point, and it was just like the amount of butter or olive oil I had to add to the meat that I was eating and the veggies that I was eating was just like it was getting out of control. So I was literally just spooning butter. I would take a. I remember I would sit there and I would take a slice of meat and I'd put a piece of butter on every slice of meat and I would eat the meat and butter together like that,

Theresa Piela  49:09  
like a sandwich. Eat

Mike Fave  49:10  
enough. Like no, like just like a little piece of butter on top.

Dr Boz  49:14  
Okay.

Mike Fave  49:14  
And so and while I was cooking, I would just eat salted Kerrygold. So I'd be sitting there, I'd be slicing off Kerrygold and eating it and throwing some of my food, so I could actually get to like reach the the intake and I just and then we I remember we would sit on the couch Jay and I when we were in college and we would just like wait for the weekend so Jay could make some keto treat type thing so that we could have something sweet or we could have fruit or whatever because that was our that was our refeed day. Those those days were rough because it was like constant obsession and thinking about food all the time. You know, that's where like the food noise was coming in. But I wouldn't say it was food noise. It's like we were just hungry and like it was hard to eat enough in the dietary setup. I remember too, we would have carbs and be like, we're gonna have plantains, but we're gonna put cinnamon. On them, we're only going to have them after we train, and then the training session would be like two-hour-long training sessions. I just don't have knowledge.

Theresa Piela  50:09  
I'm surprised you guys are alive and still have eyebrows.

Jay Feldman  50:13  
I mean, Teresa, you're with your story. I mean, we could definitely. I mean, I barely have

Theresa Piela  50:17  
eyebrows, but

Jay Feldman  50:18  
I'm glad you mentioned that, Mike. There's like two things I want to mention here, real quick, and then Teresa, I want to hear about your diet. But one is with my current diet. This isn't necessarily in the same way that you were saying like everything's highly personalized and all of that. Like this isn't the diet that I have my clients start with or anything, and this isn't what I was doing three years ago or five years ago or eight years ago. But but yeah, the other thing is while I don't track, I find it to be an incredibly valuable tool for clients, and I highly recommend that, especially when people are making changes, when they're dealing with symptoms, when they're trying, especially when they're transitioning in and they're trying to put things together. It's really helpful because often you find that that we really don't have a good concept of what we're eating unless you're accustomed to tracking a bit. And there's always things that we discover when we put some tracking in. Whether proteins lower than we thought, fats higher than we thought, carbs are lower than we thought. Like those are all pretty common ones. Missing micros. Like it's a really helpful tool. With time, though, for a lot of people, I would say the goal is to not have to continue to track, and some people like it, and they want to continue to track and isolate certain variables, or they just want to make sure they stay on top, and they need that as some version of accountability or some just in order to make sure that they're hitting their targets and feeling good doing it. But for a lot of people, I'd say the goal is to then get to a point where you don't have to, and of course you can if you want to. But the the other thing is, Mike, you mentioned the food obsession, and you know at that time 10 years ago, a little bit longer at this point, the idea of eating like milk chocolate or the idea of having these gluten free Oreos was like nowhere near on the radar, like absolutely not, and that's part of why I wanted to include it here. You know, there's days when I don't eat those things, but I think, for one, with with a day like this when I was, you know, I was more active, had the training, like I felt like I just really wanted something dense, and I didn't want to just eat fruit. I obviously had like a decent amount of potato chips, like didn't want more of that. I needed something dense, and you know I'm generally covered in terms of my micronutrient needs. Not like basing my diet around table sugar as the carb source or anything like that. But I think there's value in in I wouldn't even say it's like lack of perfection. It's like not everything you eat necessarily has to be health food, and there's room for like eating at a restaurant, and there's room for eating with your family, or celebrating a birthday, and eating things that you don't eat all the time. And so, you know, there's a lot of there's like a section, like a sector, a type of person who has that like really intense health obsession, and it's the people who have done the multi-day fasts, and the people who have done intense low carb, and then carnivore and raw primal, and you know that sort, you know, and they're doing extreme exercise along with it. And I, I think for those people, sometimes letting go of that rigidity ends up being like a really valuable tool. So yeah, wanted to make sure to include that.

Theresa Piela  53:23  
So related to that, I was just thinking about certain certain clients that are approaching their diet pretty vigilantly. They're stressed. They are, you know, the the classic personality type that they have been maybe stressed their entire life. They would self identify as being type A, and their diet looks perfect when they come to me, like absolutely perfect. But they can't sleep. They don't have a menstrual cycle. They're bloated all the time, and it's always interesting for me to notice when we do a little bit more of the mindset work, and maybe even start to address some of that need for control and need to track and and and you know have things be a certain way. They let go of that and their menstrual cycles come back. Their digestion improves. They feel better. Their spouses even notice that they seem more relaxed to be around. So just bringing that up to honor the nuance, and there's so much to be said about tracking variables. Mike, I love that you you touched on that. You can kind of do experiments and see how certain variables and foods might be changing with time and impacting you, and then you know honoring that there might be certain seasons of life where not necessarily needing to be perfect, kind of like what you were saying, Jay, like having room for enjoyment, eating out, going to a friend's house where maybe they're cooking with less than ideal oils, and it wouldn't be your typical desired macro balance, but the connection and the. Joy and the conversation has its own type of stress relieving effect. So, lots to be said here. Because even as I'm about to show mine, I think something I've really learned over the years is that my stress and and whatever's going on in my life is going to change my my cravings and my diet big time. And having to kind of modulate and notice when I'm in a higher stress state, or I'm kind of running in more of a depleted state. Being mindful to be a little bit more intentional about diet, and not just following maybe more of the stress based cravings that I have, that would lead lead me down like a yeah less than ideal path for the day, but you know that's that's going to look different every day. And there might be times where I'm recognizing a certain level of stress and very wisely, or I would say not wisely, but intentionally, deliberately choosing to up my carbs, up my minerals, maybe have a little bit more fat, make sure I'm having even more time to eat more slowly, so I can digest a little bit better. So all these things to take into consideration.

Jay Feldman  56:09  
Definitely, yeah. And I think, I mean, something that I a lot of my clients or members of my programs will talk about is like being able to have a diet that includes a little bit of ice cream. Like the difference between that and Doctor Boz's diet is just night and day, you know, and it's and so many people find that that works for them, right? They're able to incorporate that into their diet. They still hit their targets. It helps them sleep, you know. And it's all like there's something we said for the joy and the lack of stress and some freedom there. And as you were saying, Teresa, so often the rigidity can get in the way of of the healing and recovery.

Theresa Piela  56:42  
Yeah, absolutely. One

Mike Fave  56:44  
one thing that things important is that with the dietary stuff, a lot of people focus on micros on things like this, like getting the most nutrient dense foods. But there is times where you're going to need to actually eat foods that allow you to get enough total energy. That was something that I struggled with for a long time coming out of that background, where I felt like I had to only eat my like nutrient dense foods, and then that limited the repertoire that I had. And then even now, like I'm seeing, like I I'm gonna have to incorporate something to hit my targets that has a decent energy. So that's where I do like quite a bit of juice, and I think that's that's an important piece that people have to consider. Is like you have your mac you have your micronutrient targets, you have your macronutrient targets, but you to hit those macronutrient targets, sometimes you're going to need foods that are going to be quite dense in order to do that. And then on the tracking piece specifically, I can't tell you how many people I've worked with where it was like, I wish I would have tracked, you know, before I spoke with you the first time, because he told me to just track. Because I usually just tell people track three days, just so you can see what you're doing. You know, the track every day, but just put three days in, so you can see where you're at, and then I can help you make specific adjustments and changes. Because once every dietary iteration that people run, they it they fall into those patterns. So most people eat roughly the same things on a consistent basis, so it's just a matter of tweaking those things that they're doing to get the particular outcomes that you're looking for, and then once you establish the new routine, the new structure for yourself, the the general idea, the heuristic that you're going to run with, then I think for a lot of people, you know, that's where your tracking becomes less important. But when you are going through those changes, or if you're having gut issues, or you're not sure what's going on with body comp, or you're not sure what's going on with metabolic function, you got to just you got to see what's going. You have to see what's going on under the hood. You have to look at what's going on with the diet and some of the factors, so that you can start to put the pictures together and know what exactly the change in that your individual case, right? So I'll look at the labs, look at the diet, look at the lifestyle, and it's like, where are the points that we're gonna press to make the adjustments that we want in the right direction? Change those things, establish it as a new like routine or lifestyle for yourself, and then run from there. So early on, I think it's helpful, and then after you know, once you stabilize, I think then then you know it's not as important anymore to track every single day. So yeah, that's that's more. I come at it more from that angle because I've so many people are just they didn't track and then I looked at the three days and like oh there's just some glaring stuff here that's super easy to fix. Like you just got to do this this this and then it's like yeah that's it you're good to go like you and then we follow up on the lab results, and it's like, oh yeah, they're moving. It's like, yeah, I just had to shift that.

Theresa Piela  59:24  
And that's such a good point for people that don't want to track. Just do it for three days, get the data, tweak things, and then move on, and maybe check back in like six months from then and just see.

Mike Fave  59:35  
Yeah, yeah, 100% So pre-let's see what you're doing? Yeah, let's see. Yeah, so

Theresa Piela  59:41  
I think it's actually kind of similar to Jay's and my diet. I mean, as you guys know, and maybe our listeners don't, it's changed drastically from you know my carnivore days to just the elemental physicians formula days. That was the easiest to track. Just needed to post it for that one, and then you know, even thinking back to more of like my fruitarian days and vegetarian days, and then finding Ray Pete, I found more of a bioenergetic approach to things, and was so excited because all the foods that I was craving while I was on Carnivore all of a sudden became allowed. I was in a tricky situation where still couldn't tolerate them. So from then to now, I mean, things have changed drastically in the last six years. And I, there was a time period, probably yeah, about two or three years, where I was tracking religiously, and then got kind of tired of it. And this was the first time tracking what I ate yesterday, kind of eyeballing things, and it felt like actually a really good check-in to see where I'm at. But I think when I used to track really closely, my intake would kind of range from 2200 to 2600 a day, and some of my friends that I would share that with. We're shocked because I'm a I'm a small human, but I think that's been something to celebrate over the years. That my body really does feel a lot better with a lot more food. Not as much as you you two, but a significant amount. And it's it's crazy to think about how little I used to eat as a cross country runner in college, and just you know, I had stress fractures and hair loss and sleep issues, and that's really when a lot of my symptoms intensified before I hit rock bottom. So just yeah, interesting to think about knowledge being power and what you know what I wish I knew back then. But anyways, to get into my diet, so it's going to be changing every day. It's 96 degrees today today, and it was pretty hot yesterday. So I've been craving a lot more fruit than normal in the winter. I'm eating a lot more starch, sweet potatoes, Japanese sweet potatoes, rice, potatoes, sourdough. So this is more of a recent weather change. Pretty typical, similar to Jay's. My breakfast will be, you know, eggs, sourdough, fruit. I I do. I really am liking a milky matcha with molasses right now. It feels like a nice mineral boost. I notice an amazing brain effect from that more so than coffee because I was drinking coffee for the longest time, but recently switched to matcha, and I love the effect. My sleep is better. I'm more stable throughout the day, I feel more clear-headed, so that's been kind of fun. Just notice something something small like that, and it just happened on a whim. Because a lot of these changes, yes, will be seasonal or based on what's available. But also, if I just start craving something or I just feel drawn to something, I like to listen to that and see where that will take me, and it's just been interesting to see to contrast how how much that's changed over time. Lunch pretty basic yesterday. Just started adding in this ancestral beef blend again because I've been noticing air hunger, like a very subtle air hunger feeling, and I just I haven't done any lab testing recently, but I wonder what's going on with my iron, or if there could be something. So this is my experiment just to see what might be shifting. The melons are amazing right now, so I've been kind of going a little bit wild with honeydew and watermelon. Threw in some cheddar, pretty basic, and maybe more similar to you, Mike. Like sometimes my meals will be more component based. Other times there'll be more similar to Jay. I'll cook, you know, something more in bulk, and then I won't know the exact macros. But I think for me, eating to eating to satiation and really checking in. What do I actually want to eat right now? What sounds good?

If I had a predetermined lunch and then I get to lunch and I want something absolutely different, I will listen to that because I I am a firm believer that the body is infinitely wise and honoring some of those cues, at least for me, works better because I've noticed in times in the past where I eat what's convenient or what I have leftovers of, but it's really not what I want. It doesn't digest as well, and especially now that it's 96 degrees, you know, I'm wanting a lot more fruit, like today, for example, I didn't show this here, but just have have gone through quite a bit of orange juice with breakfast, which is not something I would crave in the winter when it's cold and I want something denser and more more grounding. Dinner, sweet potato. Potatoes, actually the Japanese sweet potatoes, but they weren't showing up in Cronometer. Some shrimp, more butter, zucchini, more melon, and I guess earlier in the day, I tend to have my carrot salad kind of when it's convenient or when I crave it, and sometimes I'll do the mushrooms instead. Mike, you're smiling. Tell me why you're smiling.

Mike Fave  1:05:22  
Because out of all three of us, you're the only one who paid homage to the carrot salad.

Theresa Piela  1:05:26  
Oh, Mike, I I kind of owe my life to the carrot salad because when I was doing carnivore and then starting to lose my mind on carnivore, I added in a carrot, and I remember it felt like I had this like wave come over me. Where all of a sudden I felt euphoric. It was like the crunch, the texture, the juiciness, the color, and I stuck with it religiously for years, and it's helped me. I do notice if I do the the mushroom salad or even beans, actually. Sometimes I notice an even better bowel-promoting effect, but with the weather right now, something about a carrot just, or like yeah, a vinegary carrot salad just works for me, and and and soothes that that part of my soul. That for I I do owe my life to Rapeet, and I think every time I eat my carrot salad or have something that it was, you know, is very Rape Pete inspired. It's kind of a nice moment of appreciation for where I used to be and how I can function now. And then, yeah, I guess throughout the day, sometimes I'll need a snack, kind of mid afternoonish, maybe around like four or so, and this will change. Like sometimes I'll have kefir with molasses and fruit. Sometimes I'll make a smoothie. Sometimes I'll have a little bit of leftovers or you know some whatever I had from dinner the night before, and then similarly at night, if I finish dinner and I'm getting ready for bed, and I can tell I need a little bit more, I've had a lot more commotion or activity during the day. I'll have some milk and maple, maybe some fruit. I love doing the gelatin gummies at night. I notice that really helps my sleep, especially when I pair it with some fat, just to have it, you know, doesn't sit too heavy, but it's a little bit more stabilizing. And yeah, I haven't looked at my my targets in a while, but looks like about 30% fat, about 50% carbs, 20% protein, and that changes. Like sometimes I'll randomly track, and my protein will be a lot higher. My fat will be a lot higher. Just really depends. Yeah. So I'm I'm glad that you guys asked me to track because I I hadn't checked in in a while, and just even noticing kind of just baseline where things are at, and a lot of this intuitively I could kind of guess. It felt like just eyeballing my meals. I was imagining kind of around like the 25 to 35 grams of fiber, and I don't get bile dumping issues like Mike was describing. But I do notice if I don't have enough fiber, my bowel movements get thrown off. My blood sugar stability gets. It just I feel more imbalanced throughout the day. I don't feel like my meals, like I'll I'll finish a meal and still feel kind of snacky versus when I have enough fat and fiber. I mean, really enough fat, fiber, protein, carbohydrates. I feel a lot more balanced mentally, a lot calmer, and ready to shift into what are whatever I'm focusing on next. Let's see. I didn't even I didn't even track the sodium. That's interesting that it seems like it's really high. I'm not sure where that's coming. You can

Mike Fave  1:08:57  
hover over it and it'll tell you which.

Theresa Piela  1:08:59  
Oh, okay. Let's see,

Jay Feldman  1:09:01  
over the yeah.

Theresa Piela  1:09:02  
Let's see, yeah, shrimp, shrimp, shrimp. That's pretty common. And I'm I crave salt. I I mean I crave mineraly things. So I am adding tamari and mustard and miso to my meals, I'm I love chopping up a bunch of fresh cilantro and whatever's fresh in the garden. We've got mint and rosemary and oregano and chives, and I'll take like handfuls of that and add that to my meals. So they're not they're not so broey as they might seem from what I shared on my screen, nothing against bros, but I think after carnivore, kind of returning to my foodie roots, I really like having meals that are colorful and bright and have texture and that tastes really good to me because I see it. Yes, in terms of its function, but. Also, I really want to enjoy it, and something I want to, you know, something I'd feel comfortable cooking for a friend if they were coming over for dinner. So, yeah, does anything surprise you guys? No, nothing surprises. Looks

Mike Fave  1:10:16  
pretty decent.

Jay Feldman  1:10:17  
Yeah,

Theresa Piela  1:10:17  
I might need some more calcium. At least yesterday, target

Jay Feldman  1:10:21  
looks like it's high because it looks like yeah, almost 1500 milligrams. That's pretty good. I think your target's just at 2000, which is a high target.

Theresa Piela  1:10:28  
I think normally I actually get more because if I'm thinking of adding in another cup of milk before bed, or even another cup of like kefir or yogurt. So you're already

Mike Fave  1:10:38  
over the the one to one ratio.

Theresa Piela  1:10:40  
Okay, well, well. For me,

Mike Fave  1:10:42  
I would say I would just try to get people at least to one gram of calcium. Sometimes getting one to one to phosphorus gets out of control if you like have a lot of protein in your diet, especially for guys who are eating a bit of protein. You know, you're heading 151, 71, 8200, grams of protein, depending on your size. Trying to meet that with calcium. You're gonna have to take a lot of calcium, so one gram at least. And then if you get you know close from there, so you're already over your 1.4 to 1.2. Wow!

Jay Feldman  1:11:11  
Research actually like I've seen research showing that a one to two ratio of calcium to phosphorus won't increase PTH. Like it's still fine as long as you're getting enough calcium, right? As you said, Mike, like minimum 1000 milligrams,

Mike Fave  1:11:22  
and also depends on your source of phosphorus. If the phosphorus is coming from meat and stuff like this, is not as big of a deal as if it's coming from grains versus if it's coming from like the inorganic phosphate additives. So that more like I'm more concerned about those. But most pro metabolic diets don't aren't like super grain heavy diets in general, and then even the so the another big one for all of us is that it's sodium in this diet unless you have seafood on that day, is most times going to be low. Like almost every diet I build is low in sodium, not because I want it to be, but if you actually are using like whole food setups, then typically there's not that much salt, so you typically will have to add salt to the diet, and then most people, unless you're doing dairy, are gonna probably need to use some calcium. You both you guys do dairy, which I think allowed you to hit your calcium target, but the other sources of calcium, like you can't. Like I've tried a million different ways to try to do it with other things, you could use molasses. Like molasses will will do it, but there's only so much molasses you're going to eat. To so the area is really the best source, and people typically have to add. And then you know d3 k2 and E because there's no no seed oils or not not so much nuts and seeds in in a pro metabolic setup. Most people are not going to hit a vitamin E target, and that's that's okay because you'd still be net negative in vitamin E if you were to have seed oils. But if you've been on like if it's only been like a year or so or not that long since you came out of a standard American diet, then adding in vitamin E for like two to four year time frame would probably be worthwhile. But for yeah, your diet-the diet looks good, Teresa. I mean, you're at almost 36 grams of fiber coming out of carnivore, probably from like zero fiber and struggling to tolerate any for a while. That's the hardest part post carnivore is trying to get foods that your colon's going to tolerate.

Theresa Piela  1:13:17  
Yeah, it. I mean, it took a long time. So for people listening, be patient and you know give your body time to adapt because yeah even the carrots at first were not ideal but I was determined enough and I do trust that with time the microbiome can rebalance and it did like I used to even just one bite of a raw apple, my belly would swell to the point of pregnancy, you know. And that's not fun having to change your pants or having to just feel so uncomfortable and the brain fog that would come with the bloating.

Speaker 3  1:13:54  
But

Theresa Piela  1:13:55  
yeah, it's been it's been really nice to be able to feel like I can finally eat the foods that I like, so I hope that that delivers a little bit of hope for some people that maybe feel like their bodies are not adjusting well. Give it time, give it time, and and yeah.

Mike Fave  1:14:14  
I was good just with the carnivore stuff. Like coming out of that, like there's not there's not a point where if you're having gut issues, where you add foods in from carnivore, where when you first add those foods, that it's gonna go very well. Typically, the first couple days to weeks, it does not go super well. Like you'll get some symptoms from the foods. The body does adjust. It definitely does adjust. But the first, like the first time you add it in, it sucks. Like it's not a it's not a good experience, especially if you were deep in carnivore or low carb or keto, and you were like really low in fiber and you had gut issues. Like once the gut turns there, it can be hard to get back, and it is not like a smooth. Oh yeah, I just added carbs back in and everything went really well. Like if you don't have gut gut issues, then that's the case. I think for a lot of people, is it's if you don't have a serious gut issue, you add carbs in, it's not as big of a deal. Maybe there's blood glucose and like the fatigue stuff that some people get from running high stress hormone and dropping it. But the fight, the hardest is the gut transition. That is by far the hardest that I've seen. Yeah, and it's because every food you add in, like it goes okay up top, but that doesn't go okay in the bottom in the colon and things because depletion of the microbiome and the mucus lining. So and and then like everything's open, like typically the guts open. I've had quite a few carnivore GI maps and stool tests, like the tiny health stool tests and and microbiomics tests, and they don't look good. They really don't look good, and it takes a little bit of time to shift the microbiome back because you basically have like pathogens fermenting the fibers.

Theresa Piela  1:15:48  
Yeah, and I mean that's what it felt like. My the reactions I would get would I I felt like I would have the flu. My vision would get blurry. I like even just walking, I would feel like I was dying. So I mean, I I I know how quick I know how easy it is to lose hope when you're in that state. But really, I want people to know that it like just hang in there, be patient with the process, and you will not be there forever. And you know, it does. The body wants to recover and will do so with the right amount of time and the right inputs and humor. Humor helped me when my belly was so swollen and I couldn't function. Just learning to laugh at the process, you know, it's it could be might feel easier to get mad and and be frustrated and feel jealous of other people that don't have gut issues, but if you can laugh at yourself in the process, it will speed up the healing. I think.

Jay Feldman  1:16:50  
Yeah, yeah, yeah. One one other thing in your diet, Teresa, I wanted to highlight is the ancestral blend of the force of nature meat, which I think is a great option for a lot of people. There's the venison and bison ones, which are a little leaner. If someone's trying to keep the fat lower, or there's the beef, and it's a good way to get a little bit of the organs in and add some nutrients there. It's not particularly high; it's like a pretty small amount. So if you really don't like the taste of liver or kidney, then it's a good option. But also, you can kind of do that yourself. That's something that we'll do as well for some of our meals. We'll do like ground meat and then add in a little bit of of liver and kidney. Sometimes we'll do like 1/3 organs and then two thirds meat, and then we'll do that in a recipe that typically has a good amount of flavor, like something taco based, you know, a taco seasoning, and we'll add some cheese on and hot sauce, or we'll do like stuffed peppers or something like that. So those can be some good options too that I think are worth including on a relatively consistent basis.

Theresa Piela  1:17:50  
Yeah, the ancestral chicken blends are also amazing. They're so gelatinous. I think they put the gizzards in it. It's like liver, chicken meat, gizzards. Those are awesome. A lot leaner, and they don't taste as bad. Mike, you keep laughing at me. Tell me what you're laughing about.

Mike Fave  1:18:07  
Oh, just for me, I'm I'm like the laziest of all of you guys. Like I just get liver capsules. I get the heart and soil liver capsules. That's not a plug. I'm not affiliated with them or anything like this. They're just the ones that I've noticed taste the best, so I think the quality is pretty decent, and I have people use that because I couldn't. I remember trying to cut up liver to put in my ground beef, and it's like that is not happening. So the liver capsules just you know take three or six of those. Yeah, covers the copper and vitamin A, and then and then I call it a day, and I'll do that for a client. Unless unless somebody wants to eat liver, cut it up, then that's fine. Or if they wanted to do this, that's fine. But I, I like to do the do the capsules, and I can also control the dose. So you can help somebody replete copper or vitamin A by controlling the dose of those capsules, or even the the life blood, which is the blood and spleen, can be helpful. Somebody's like very low in iron, that can be helpful to replete the iron because the iron intake in those is high, but yeah, I the forest nature stuff is good. Doing your own thing is good, but if you're lazy like me, liver casts all the way.

Theresa Piela  1:19:10  
No such thing as lazy. You just do what works, and yeah, find what works. I I personally like being able to taste what I'm eating, and I didn't list my supplements here, but for the most part, you know, I like to like I like the minerally taste of liver, especially recently. So, not not plain liver, but I like when it's grounded.

Jay Feldman  1:19:31  
Yeah, and that is speaking of which I definitely don't like it as much if it's chopped up, especially if it's not chopped up really like into really small pieces, or even better is grinding it, like throwing it in a food processor when the liver's like just barely defrosted, defrosted, like still mostly frozen, and then it mixes in pretty well with the ground meat. So you're not getting that like texture difference, and you're not biting into like large pieces of liver.

Theresa Piela  1:19:54  
Yeah, done are the days of. Oh yeah,

Mike Fave  1:19:57  
go ahead, Teresa. You got. I was

Theresa Piela  1:19:58  
gonna say done are the days of the. Frozen liver shots. It's like they-you could feel yourself burping it up, and it just-I don't-I don't think it would digest very well. I

Jay Feldman  1:20:09  
mean, I know some people who who like doing it that way, and I don't have an issue with it. But yeah,

Theresa Piela  1:20:15  
I haven't did it for myself. I

Mike Fave  1:20:18  
think the selection of the liver is important too, though. Yeah, because the if you get like a nice deep purple liver, like when it's just like if it's was just frozen right when it was taken out, when it was processed, and it's purple, like it actually tastes good, like it's semi sweet. But if you get those brown liver, like if you go to the grocery store and it's like in the in the styrofoam and it's like brown. It's it's terrible. Tastes like a burnt fire. I think it's because like it's bad. Like it's been the glycogen's been depleted. The enzymes have like broken down the liver a little bit. So yeah, the the there's like um that's another thing is it's hard to get like really good liver here. Like the the type we get in the U.S. When I was doing it, it was like deep, deep purple, and then that actually like I would just eat that by itself because I actually really like the taste because it come out sweet. So I'd do like a little liver, a little onions, a little garlic, and I would just like you know put put the garlic and onions in the pan, and drop like have the oil there, kind of cook them up a bit, and then throw the chopped liver in there, and it was it was really good, like it tasted quite good. But if I had like a brown piece, even coming out of the packaging and some of the smell of it was terrible. So, yeah, that's another like hack when you're looking for liver. Make sure it's like a deep purple, and ideally, you want it you want it frozen. A lot of times, that was what preserves

Theresa Piela  1:21:42  
it. And I mean, just knowing that we'll we'll digest our food better if we actually enjoy it. So get the good stuff, make it into a pate, hide it with some other beef or meat. You know, make it delicious.

Jay Feldman  1:21:54  
Yeah, yeah,

Mike Fave  1:21:55  
100%

Theresa Piela  1:21:57  
All right, guys, should we close it out

Jay Feldman  1:22:00  
here? Yeah, with the success story.

Theresa Piela  1:22:02  
Oh, of course. Thank you. Okay. LF 7065 said, "So agree. Back on whole food carbs after 18 months carnivore. My thyroid and adrenals are a lot happier now. Plus, I sleep so much better, and my daytime energy levels are normal again. Thank you, smiley face. So awesome to see. I mean, just to think about that type of improvement because that's that can be the difference between just getting through life, kind of forcing, feeling miserable, not really, yeah, not really enjoying much of anything. To actually seems like she's thriving, and I love hearing this.

Mike Fave  1:22:47  
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, it's a great result, and sounds like her her transition after carnivore went pretty smoothly. That's great because, as we said, the gut transition sometimes, or even sometimes, people have like another weird one I've seen is an inverted kind of circadian pattern where people are up all night and then when they eat carbs during the day it knocks them out like they get very sleepy. These things are like for some people it's like they add carbs in from carnivores like wow like different different worlds and then other people there's a little bit of a rocky road before they get to that point, so this sounds like a really good transition. So, because 18 months is also semi long for for carnivore, quite a few people don't make a one year mark on that diet.

Jay Feldman  1:23:30  
Yeah, yeah, definitely

Theresa Piela  1:23:31  
a some mental toughness there.

Jay Feldman  1:23:35  
Yeah, yeah, but glad to hear that. You know, at this point, better sleep, better energy, happier thyroid and adrenals-all good things for sure.

Theresa Piela  1:23:41  
Yeah,

Mike Fave  1:23:43  
awesome.

Theresa Piela  1:23:43  
All right, Jay, where can people find you?

Jay Feldman  1:23:47  
My website is jfeldmanwellness.com. Tons of free resources there, and on YouTube, Jay Feldman Wellness, and other social media at JF Wellness.

Theresa Piela  1:23:57  
Awesome. What about you, Mike?

Mike Fave  1:23:59  
They can find me at my YouTube channel, Mike Fave, as well as my website, Mikefave.com, and you, Teresa,

Theresa Piela  1:24:05  
LivingRootsWellness.com, and also LivingRootsWellness on Instagram. And for those of you that were interested in the Tapping with Tea app, that's going to be temporarily paused, but all of the videos are up on Living Roots Wellness, so everything's still there. Okay, thanks for tuning in. See you in the next one.