Jay Feldman (00:00)
Andrew was doing everything right. For years, he did low carb diets, fasting, heavy workouts, and tons of other interventions, all in the name of health. But in the end, these things actually crashed his health. We'll be talking about his health journey in this two part series. And with that, I'm excited to introduce all of you to Andrew Wallen. Andrew is our other J. Feldman Wellness Health Coach, and he has over 20 years of experience coaching in the health and fitness industry. And he's been coaching with us for a couple of years now, and he's helped people who are dealing with everything from insomnia,

to cancer, to complex gut issues. So in today's video, we're going to be talking through Andrew's health journey and more specifically how years of low carb dieting and fasting led to high blood pressure, high blood sugar, gut issues, brain fog, poor sleep and fatigue. We'll also be talking about how Andrew was lean and ripped, looking like the epitome of health with a low heart rate and high ketone levels, even though he was crashing. And we'll also talk about Andrew's breaking point that led him to question everything he thought he knew.

about health and with that, let's get started. So yeah, let's start by talking about your background. What's your background in terms of health, fitness, and we'll go from there.

Yeah, thank you, Jay. Yeah, my background really is over 20 years I've been a personal trainer, a health coach and a sports performance coach and just worked with a lot of different populations over the last couple decades and just tried, you know, tried my best to be able to help people and, you know, just serve my community at where I'm located. And I just became, you know, a passion early on that ended up turning into, you know, a way for me to be able to, you know, help people and provide for my family and all of that. So it's just been a cool thing.

Yeah, for sure. And, I think that's often the case, right? Starting with a passion for health and our own health journeys. And then that branching into wanting to help share that with other people and help other people along their health journeys, which was, I think a good segue to talking about what your health journey has been like, because it's been, it's been a, I want to say unique one because I think a lot of the experiences you've had are going to be shared with a lot of listeners, but it certainly had its

Jay Feldman (02:07)
ups and downs and hasn't been a boring health journey. guess I can say that. yeah, yeah. Walk me through that.

Yeah, definitely not a boring journey at all. I guess from my standpoint, starting out, I started out, you know, like a lot of young guys do where you're lifting weights for sports and trying to get stronger and just gain muscle and be a better athlete. And then overall that transitioned into just a love for exercising and working out and trying to be healthy. And so I took that passion from high school and college sports into

doing a little bit of bodybuilding in my young age and then moved into doing some powerlifting in the off season from bodybuilding. And early on, I really gathered that this was something from a passion standpoint, just something I really enjoyed. so I feel like from a standpoint of just the average person wanting to work out and be healthy, early on it became really just apparent that.

you know, like every time I was looking forward, you know, to a gym session or going to lift weights or anything, it was just, you know, pretty awesome. And it was hard not to understand that, you know, like from a standpoint, the benefits you get from exercising and trying to be healthy, whether it was from athletic standpoint, or even from, you know, early on doing bodybuilding, you know, and winning some competitions and powerlifting and doing that. And just, it really just catapulted me into, you know, from a professional standpoint, I knew for sure what I wanted to do.

Yeah. And what were the, what were the sports that you played when you were younger? there, were there any other, sports that you competed in and, and one, like, was the, what happened bodybuilding wise? And then also when did BJJ, like, when did you start with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?

Andrew Wallen (03:47)
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, from early on, it was just the classic football, you basketball, baseball. And then, you know, I dropped off from basketball because that was a great chance to lift weights more, you know, at that that winter season. And so it's competing football and baseball and then moved on to play a little bit of college football. And then, you know, from there, you know, had a like class like everybody had a really bad hamstring injury that really kind of turned my focused, you know,

up when it came to strength training and rehab and things like that. And so, you know, from there I was not playing football anymore. And I realized that I still love this and I still had a passion for it. And so all the work I'd put in, I had decided to move into doing bodybuilding. And so I started competing, you know, and when I was 19 years old, I won Mr. Teen Indiana from a bodybuilding perspective. And so for the next few years, I thought that was my, my goal and vision was going to be, you know, doing bodybuilding and then

By default, a lot of times when you do bodybuilding, the off season is powerlifting because you're just trying to get strong and build muscle. And so it just became natural to do that. So had some good opportunities and fun times, definitely doing that. then, yeah, and then transitioned into more of just, I knew the bodybuilding was fun at the time, but for long-term health, just knew I wanted to transition more into just health and fitness and plus.

But at that point, I'd started working as a trainer and then started my own business. And the time constraint just was, you know, was really low when it came to concentrate on that. so between that and having a family, it was just, you know, extremely hard to focus on it. But I knew, you know, at that point I was already in my professional career, you know, as a personal trainer and a local business owner, you know, working with people in my community. And so from there, I just, you know, transitioned into a thought process of, you know, I'm just going to, you know, try to be healthy.

try to work out, try to maintain what I was doing, but in the process also just learn as much as I could to help people. And yeah, then that brought me into, as I got older, in my early thirties, I found Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and started training that. it sort of reinvigorated my thought process of that athletic reason to train and eat and just be a healthy version of myself. And that's what I still do to this day that I just absolutely love.

Andrew Wallen (06:10)
It's an amazing journey so far.

All right. So a lot of athletic endeavors, living basically in the health space, you know, personally and professionally tell us about the different dietary philosophies you fell into and beyond diet. mean, diet, fitness, kind of like health perspectives and what that journey looked like for yourself, like personally, and of course, working with people too.

Yeah, awesome. Yeah, so early on, as a lot of us do, know, especially, you know, for me, the early 2000s, it was the ancestral movement hadn't quite taken off yet mainstream. So the only route we had, especially when it was in bodybuilding or working with people at embodied composition was geared around the whole calories in calories out model. And so everything we did, you know, in coaching people was designed around trying to get them to cut their calories or eat less, move more.

We'll talk later as we know that's very mythical now, but in general, that was the only model that we had had. so I had followed that for a good amount of time with ups and downs, where you would get serious, you'd cut your calories, you'd get a little leaner, and then something would happen, you would end up cheating on your diet or doing something that was... Because in general, those models are not sustainable. And so I would just...

keep going back and forth between the calories and calories that model and then came across the paleosphere. And I heard a doctor speak one time about paleo and the concept of food being medicine and all of that. And it really resonated with me because I knew how long I had been doing this helping clients that the calories and calories that model was continually failing people. It brought short term results, but long term failure.

Andrew Wallen (08:01)
And so when I started to hear about the concept of food being medicine and this kind of thought process of like the food that we're eating is not what we were designed to eat as a species. It's, you know, sparked my interest into what we should be doing from a dietary and a food standpoint. So I transitioned into paleo. once again, that was a pretty enlightening journey. You know, first of all, it was a beautiful thing not to have to count calories anymore and not have to worry about

you know, am I eating enough? And just focusing on eliminating certain food groups and demonizing them to an extent and just leaning into these foods that were approved based on what I would have eaten thousands of years ago if I would have lived, which obviously is a very interesting thought process as well on the evolution of humans. from that standpoint, the Paleo route just made a lot of sense because I just knew the calories and calzat model continued to fail me and fail my clients.

And so from there, and I've discovered this now working with you and working with clients is that we have this distorted view of health. We have a fat centric health lens that we see, you know, the world through. And so in the calories and calories that model or in, you know, even the paleo model, and we'll talk obviously about some of other stuff I did, but what's become apparent is that what I was doing was all in this model of

fat-centric, all about how your body image looked, all about body fat being the end-all, be-all for disease. And so what it did was it brought me into a thought process where as I look back and realize from paleo where I went into doing low carb, went into carnivore, went into fasting, checking ketones, checking blood glucose and all of those things, it became apparent that

None of those things were set up for me to be healthy. They were set up for me to be lean, but you know, through this fat centric view of health, which now we are working with you and working with the people that we get to work with on a daily basis. You know, the mindset shift is into a health centric view and that way, you know, we're looking and not looking into inducing diet strategies just for the sake of weight loss or fat loss. It's focused on health first. And so

Andrew Wallen (10:24)
When I look back at my journey, can look at, paleo was great and I got some results and I felt better, but my results were, they were false. They were basically distorted results because it was all geared around my body fat. It was all geared around, could I lose weight? Could I get lean doing this? And then, what happens is paleo stops getting you lean. So then you say, really my ancestors wouldn't have eaten carbohydrates that much. So then you...

you know, dive into the low carb movement and you start doing that and then you get a little leaner and then you realize, okay, I get, I, you know, I get stagnant, I get stuck at this. So then the only next reasonable thing is to think, well, my ancestors also would have gone hours or days without eating. So fasting is just the inevitable next thing to do, you know, which I did that. So now I'm fasting, low carbing and, doing workouts in a fasted state, you know, really focused on once again.

The greatest part was I never had to do calorie counting still because all of this was just stressful within itself causing weight loss or fat loss. But I just knew over time I wouldn't feel my best. I think for a lot of people that's where the inevitable cheat meal or cheat day or the time that you stop doing your diet. I always talk to clients that they'll say like I had a cheat meal or I cheated on my diet.

I always let them know that I didn't know they were in a relationship with their diet. And so with that standpoint, a diet is just a way of life. And I see that now when we see it through this health-centric lens.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. know, when it comes to the paleo low carb keto fasting movements, perspectives, as you said, there's certainly a lot of focus on body composition. And then they are also sold as there's a couple of different selling points within there, but they are sold as like health modalities as well. Right. Right. They're, sold as this is the way to fix autoimmune conditions. This is the way to improve your energy and your sleep.

Jay Feldman (12:30)
and your skin health and your digestion and the lower your blood sugar and support immune function. And we'll talk about a number of those different aspects of health and where these modalities got you, which of course is not unique to you. It's something that a lot of people experience, but they are sold through, I think, two different lenses. One is the idea that our ancestors did this so it was beneficial. That's one perspective that we'll hear pretty often.

That the other one is this idea that we have to fight against our bodies because our bodies are inherently trying to make us fat. And that kind of goes hand in hand with this evolutionary mindset, which is our physiology is oriented towards survival and gaining body fat is something that would have helped us survive. you know, our bodies want us to be fat. want us to be gluttonous. They want us to eat all the carbohydrates that are really bad for us and make us gain weight. That would have been.

advantageous to our survival before, but now it's not. you know, obviously this is something I've talked about quite a few times as far as the issues here. One on the, just to touch really briefly on the kind of evolutionary perspective. For one, just because something happened in our evolutionary past doesn't mean it was something that allowed us to improve our function, right? It was something that we would have adapted to maybe in a way that would have been compromising our function. Maybe we would have functioned better or had better

you know, brain function or reproductive capacity or digestion or whatever it is, if we had had more consistent food available, let's say instead of famines or instead of starvation. And then there's also the standpoint, which is that just because we did something at one point in our past doesn't mean that that is optimal for us, especially moving forward. And that has to do with a conversation that has more to do with genetic determinism and much longer conversation that we I've touched on at point, you know, the energy balance podcast and all.

link back to those episodes. But I think this really central piece that was kind of a through line, whether it was in the calories in calories out model or in a lot of the low carb models, which is this idea that we need to fight against our bodies. We need to fight against our natural cravings and hunger cues. need to force ourselves to work out even if we don't want to. We need to force ourselves to abstain from food by fasting, even if our bodies want food. We need to do

Jay Feldman (14:56)
you know, the cold plunges and on from there, right? That's a really, I think that that's a pretty overarching umbrella across a lot of different health perspectives and certainly across these ones. And I know in many ways you embodied that. So let's dig into that a little bit. as far as I know you said, you know, you went through the journey of calories in calories out and then paleo and recognizing like the food quality matters.

And food is more than just calories and that's awesome. And then that kind of naturally transitions that naturally evolves into low carb and keto and fasting. And some people do those, you know, halfway, right? They're keto during the week and they're not on the weekends or, know, they're low carb. think they're ketogenic, but they never checked their ketone levels. or they do it for a month and that's it. That wasn't you. So let's talk a little bit about that. Like what, what did life look like for you during these times?

We'll be continuing to talk about the benefits that Andrew experienced in terms of energy, sleep, digestion, and weight loss, as well as freedom from chronic restriction. But in the meantime, if you want to experience those same benefits, the best place to start is with the Energy Balance Food Guide. The Energy Balance Food Guide will 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 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 issues. The food guide makes it extremely easy to get started with a bio-energetic approach to optimizing your health. So head over to jfeldmanwellness.com slash guide to download your free energy balance food guide.

Well, yeah, and as we've talked over the years, trying to reverse out of this metabolic hole that I was in, and I always say in the name of health. We were attempting to do it for health purposes, even if there was that fat-centric kind of behind the scenes driving some of this stuff. a lot of times, yeah, I was in the name of health. when it came to doing all the different ancestral strategies, whether it was low carb, keto, carnivore, fasting,

Andrew Wallen (17:10)
All of that was geared around the fact that here I am as someone trying to help other people. And for me, I wanted to be the poster child for it. So whatever there was from a low-carb perspective and keto, I was testing my ketones. I was testing constantly after every meal throughout the day before meals to see where I was at. I would test my blood glucose as well after meals, before meals to see different responses that I would get. And that was a...

very, you know, a time monotonous journey, but at the same time in the name of health, I wanted to be that representative for other people. So I would, you know, drill down and do a lot of that, you know, from a fasting perspective, you know, I would, you know, I remember getting up on the weekends and I would be fasting into one of my hardest jujitsu training sessions in the morning and then being absolutely wiped out from that. I would come home and see how long I could go the rest of the day without eating any food. And it

You know, what we know now and coaching with you and coaching our clients has, you know, obviously shined a major spotlight into the, you know, unhealth, you know, that that eventually brings people and, you know, and I know in, the beginning, a lot of times for us, when we work with people, they will shift away or shift onto these strategies and they will feel benefit because like you said earlier that, you know, some of the quality of foods or maybe underlying gut issues or just, you know,

you know, disrupted glucose metabolism is that when they do these things, they'll, they'll feel better. They get the relief, but they also, as we know, get that stress response. They get, they're running on that cortisol, you know, for, for a period of time. And so it can definitely feel good. And a lot of times too, when, know, I'm guilty of once again, trying to learn all this. So you get on YouTube, you know, you read and listen to a lot of, you know, different people's articles and thoughts and, know, you start to, you know,

You believe it, you learn it, you live it, you think absolutely to your core that it makes complete sense until it doesn't anymore. And you have to have that metabolic bio-energetic awakening when your health breaks. And for me, at 12 years of drilling down into very high stress-induced pathways of living led to multiple breaks in my physiology.

Andrew Wallen (19:32)
I ignored it even because I thought there's no way, you know, this could be, you know, true. I remember shifting away a little bit from low carb and keto to the thought process that as long as I ate carbohydrates that didn't spike my blood glucose, that that was the main, you know, goal of all of this. And so I would eat all the cold resistant starch white rice I could with every meal. You know, I would, you know, try to find the lowest, you know, I was eating

you know, very unripe bananas as nasty as they are, but in the hopes of making sure that my blood glucose never went above 100. And the only thing it brought about was basically insulin resistance or my A1C has started to creep up where, you know, I know we talk about, you know, different types insulin resistance, whether it's pathological or physiological and insulin resistance. And so for me, you know, I was doing this once again, because I thought glucose spikes were the end all be all.

when it came to what was health.

Right, but we know that your A1C was just high because your red blood cells were living super long because every other aspect of your health was improving, right?

Right. And just to drill down deeper, you know, I was, you know, because I really, and I didn't know it until learning, you know, of the bioenergetic view of health and the way that you coach your system is, you know, this rate of living theory. And, you know, for me, when I would look at my aura ring or I would look at my, know, HRV and I would do it every morning and I would basically dictate my whole day off a lot of times and I would see resting heart rates that would be

Andrew Wallen (21:11)
41, 42. I remember celebrating one time when I get 39. And it would be, one of these things where like every morning I would, I had an extensive HRV and testing kit where I would lay down and let it analyze me. And I was just trying to get the lowest heart rate, trying to get the best HRV. And I would get the low heart rate, but for some reason, recovery wise, HRV, there was just.

it continued to mount up to where it just wasn't working anymore.

Yeah, yeah. And did you ever use a CGM at that point?

I had never done a CGM. I'd always had one, but with Jiu Jitsu, was, you know, I never wanted to put one on and have it get ripped off in training. So I was very much a pro at pricking my fingers and doing those. yeah, was always a goal, but never got to.

Okay. And I want to, so I want to come back to what you, like the kind of end point there and what you were actually feeling. Cause I know being pre-diabetic as far as the A1C levels was one of the things, but it was one of a handful, but, two things I want to get to first. well, the first one, was when you were doing the, when you were doing like the blood sugar pricks, was that reflecting a high A1C? Was your blood sugar frequently elevated?

Andrew Wallen (22:33)
It would not be elevated a lot except for fasting in the morning would be elevated. That would definitely be elevated. But, you know, after meals it would come down even, you know, and it would stay. you I would also, you know, test different foods because I want to see what, you know, what was the goal to just keep the, you know, the blood glucose at 100 and never, you know, try to bump above that. I know, you know, we talk about, you know, maybe 140 being that, you know, certain mark. And, you know, when you look into physiology and knowing, you know, what

minor spikes can do positively for your health. at the time, it was just all geared around that, you know, that, you know, obviously the ancestral low carb keto route, I wasn't finding the performance. I felt like my energy was starting to go down. And so that it only was inevitable that it was all just geared around glucose metabolism. And, you know, the data was telling me some interesting stuff that did not make sense per how intense that I was doing these, you know, different protocols. Because once again,

If I'm helping someone, you know, like I'm very much against hypocrisy. So I'm going to do, you know, I'm going to drill, drill down myself. I'm going to be the walking example for people. And so, yeah, I was implementing all the strategies I could to try to be healthy.

Yeah. And I know we've joked about it, that you were the poster child of hormesis, right? Which is this idea that, you know, introducing stress makes you stronger, right? And, you know, no pain, no gain. We have to put ourselves through the wringer and then we come out stronger on the other side. we're at this point kind of right before this crash that we'll talk about in a moment. What was like, just kind of summarize what the history was. How many years have we been doing low carb? How many years have we been doing fasting? What else, you know, tell me about like just broad

broad picture like what was all the exercise so what what led us up to this point what was when we were the poster child of hormesis what did that look like yeah

Andrew Wallen (24:24)
So from a, yeah, laying out timetable for people, obviously paleo was for a couple of years, then moved into more of a low carb mindset, didn't really know how low carb was, and then started to learn that, this is under 50 grams of carbs a day. And then it's like, well, you don't know if you're low carb unless you're testing ketones. So then that was probably about five to six years of low carb.

Um, you know, and, you know, implementing some cheat meals here and there, but trying to be, you know, as much low carb as possible while, you know, all the while trying to exercise, trying to do jujitsu, trying to, you know, uh, you know, just live everyday life and, know, have brain power and motivation and train. And I know one of the things also I want to throw out there for people that was the biggest turning point was I was a, um, uh, you know, I had a lot of problems with binging at night as well. So you would fast all day and

Obviously, you know with what we know now, we know, you know the mechanisms but you know, I would be you know, I'd come every night or after dinner, you know, here I am once again trying to be the poster child trying to be the example for people and you know, I would be binging with you know certain foods that I could not stop eating at night, you know at different times and you know, I had you know, tried to even potential different, you know psychotherapy routes to figure out what was going on binging wise why I you know, why I couldn't stop

you know, just eating at night and, you know, inevitably what sets in is that, you know, your journey of health becomes very emotional at that point because you blame the lack of willpower. You blame your inability, you know, because like you said, you know, the body somehow is inherently trying to kill you or trying to make you fat. And, know, and all you need to do is just have willpower enough to push through. And it wasn't till, you know, I had adopted, you know, an energy balance

you know, mindset and a bioenergetics view of health that I was able to fully, you eliminate. And we'll talk, you know, like obviously DSL with that, but, you know, the, the Benjean was another thing that was very much apparent based on this cycle of guilt based on what I ate, getting up thinking, okay, I'm going to punish myself through fasted workouts. I'm going to, you know, not, you know, eat, uh, you know, for as long as I could the next day. And the cycle would just continue. And so what that led me down to was a point where

Andrew Wallen (26:46)
I know we talked about insulin resistance, but that was a minor-ish thought of where my energy levels were, going to the doctor's office and registering a hypertensive blood pressure, having lowered immune system function where I was getting infections from Jiu-Jitsu, just having an inability to have good brain power for my clients all day long. With the amount of people I work with on a daily basis,

I want to make sure that each client gets the best version of myself. doing those previous diet strategies, would be certain clients would get a good version of other clients. It would be hard to just maintain the brain power with living a stress-induced life like I was from that standpoint. So I don't know if you want to talk about exactly what broke or that moment, but we can definitely dive into it.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. think it's, that's, you know, let's definitely dig into that. Just real quick. So you mentioned like five or six years low carb and did that include keto as well?

Yeah, so keto was probably about two years after that where, once again, you low-carb for so long until it's not working anymore. And for me, it was mainly going to be working from a body composition standpoint and then just in overall how I felt trying to just have energy throughout the day. so that's when I had learned that, oh, wow, low-carb and keto were two different routes. then, so I probably did

you know, like hardcore keto with a keto mojo and testing, you know, my ketones for a couple years. And then I did about a six month span of like just pure carnivore because once again, that brought results till it didn't anymore. And so, and all the while I'm intermittent fasting this entire time. And so I'm playing with, you know, doing different protocols, whether it's the classic 16 eight, you know, or, you know, you know, getting the different apps to

Andrew Wallen (28:46)
let me know when it was time to eat in my day, and setting them up and following other experts that were doing different fasting protocols, whether it was 24 hour fast, 36 hour, 48 hour. It was just about me, because that was healthy, that was what we should be doing. so, yeah, so that, the fasting continued with the carnivore and keto.

until I came across the concept of that maybe blood glucose and not in eliminating blood glucose spikes were the main source. And so I had done that then for about another three years, another two years until that just didn't work anymore either.

Okay. Okay. And that was the kind of low carb, but a lot of resistance start trying to bring in some level of carbohydrates, but keeping the glucose still under a hundred, as you said, which you can't bring in very many carbohydrates and, do that.

A lot of resistance starts you up.

Andrew Wallen (29:41)
Yeah, I went from basically eating 50, like under 50 grams of carbs a day to, you know, being under 125. That's what I would consider. You know, at that time, if I could eat a hundred and twenty under 125 carbs and keep my blood glucose under a hundred, you know, and everything I ate with all the resistant starch, all the while my gut got worse with the resistant starch that we'll talk about.

Right, right. it's, yeah, I mean, can't help but laugh. It's also very parallel to my own experience and Mike's too. And we've, we've talked about these on our podcast before, but a lot of years of, well, I mean, the years of calories in calories out, paleo transitioning into low carb transitioning into keto fasting, you know, throughout those, those later years and, and then not seeing the results, seeing things, continue to degenerate and then coming across some idea of, okay,

maybe I can bring some carbs in, but it's never just jumping into that, right? There's so much fear at that point around carbohydrates, around glucose spikes, around the inflammatory effects. mean, throughout all those years of low carb work, chronically, constantly inundated with how toxic sugar and carbohydrates are. And it's so dogmatic. And so it's very rare that we just are able to throw all that away. Normally it's a tip toe in. So for you it was...

really closely monitoring your blood sugar and avoiding the glucose spikes. For us, it was kind of like a cyclical keto where we would do some days with carbs, some days without, but the biggest thing was still fearing fructose. So it was only glucose, only starches and still keeping them pretty low. And then it kind of slowly expanded from there, but yeah, very, very parallel experience.

Yeah. And for me as well, one of the things I knew as I was starting to introduce some of these carbohydrates and trying to not have these bumps, I would, I was still doing fasting. So when I would bring these carbohydrates in, you know, besides looking at my blood work, which I was getting every six months at the time, cause I just always wanted to see the data. And so as my blood glucose markers were increasing, you know, more towards, you know, the, the, that whole insulin resistance, pre-diabetic realm, I would, when I would introduce carbohydrates in at that, you know,

Andrew Wallen (31:50)
one o'clock, two o'clock window for a long period of time, it almost would have this feeling of haze that would come upon me. know, and I would, once again, I would fear if I had something, you know, in that afternoon time that really demanded my body, I almost didn't want to eat those carbohydrates then. So, you know, that was part of also just something in my head where I'm watching the glucose numbers on my blood work. I'm testing my glucose and then I'm feeling every day how I felt when I'd eat those carbs. And so all of this just wasn't adding up.

to what they tell you should be happening.

Right. Right. And, and that's such an important point too, where when people are on low carb and then they, they fall off on the weekend when they binge or they start to eat some carbs and they feel bad, right? You feel bloated after you're, you're hazy, your energy dips. that re, it confirms your, these assumptions, you know, these, all of the dogma that you're hearing about the dangers of carbohydrates, you know, you're reaffirming that every time.

So that I think adds to it, right? It makes it a lot harder to transition out. And unfortunately for a lot of people, they don't start to question it until they do really crash and until their health really becomes compromised. And I know that was a big driver for you. So let's talk about that. So we were doing everything we could write and you are.

a very highly committed person. wasn't a matter of not doing it hard enough. were testing your levels. were, know, you were really doing it and things just kind of slowly degrading in the process. You got to a point where you were as lean as ever, right? Like incredible body composition looked great. you know, someone would look at you and think, okay, he's the epitome of health, but what was actually going on at that point?

Andrew Wallen (33:37)
Yeah, so I guess, as we've talked about numerous times, for me, it's almost a vivid moment where I'm, once again, I love exercise, I love just moving things, strength, just doing grunt, different things. And so I'd take on a landscaping job at my house, just doing rock and doing plants and trees and stuff. And I would haul a wheelbarrow of rock, which for me, leading up to these moments was a fun.

you know, ex form of exercise. I enjoy doing, you know, the manual labor and different stuff. But, know, this summer when I was having my full, you know, just metabolic breaking point, I would, you know, haul one load of, of rock. And I remember having to, you know, take it to where I was going to take it to. And I would have to stop, take a knee and gather myself until I can have an energy to then dump it and repeat this. And so

I had had a job that probably normally old me would have taken about maybe a weekend or two to finish and I milked it over a six week period of time because every time that I pushed my body along with everything else I was doing with workouts, work itself and jujitsu, I just had no energy left to do it. what was crazy about it is that obviously it's the middle of summer and I have my shirt off and I am feeling as lean and ripped as you possibly can.

And if the average person's walking by, they're thinking, wow, look at, you know, this guy looks like he's healthy. But internally, I was the farthest thing from health, especially on how I felt. And so that's what really caused, you know, the breaking moment for me that, you know, as these other markers of, you know, increased glucose, you know, impaired metabolism and hypertension, you know, when I would check my blood pressure or just, you know, disturbance in the sleep and, you know, poor digestion that I just

was chalking up to maybe this is genetically how I'm supposed to be. I had that moment doing the yard work that just broke me. knew that I said I just, I can't be eating or doing what I'm doing and this doesn't make any sense.

Jay Feldman (35:44)
Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. you know how it comes to a head, right? And how, you know, our bodies are able to tolerate a lot, right? You put your body through a lot over that decade plus, but, you know, it, there is a point where it does actually crash and that's tough for people to realize too, before that point, because you're feeling great for a while. And you think the idea that stress from fasting could be bad is it's like, that's crazy. Right? Like,

That's how you get stronger. That's how you get better. And sometimes it doesn't show until you really crash. Obviously we help teach people how to see those signs early on that a lot of people aren't recognizing. But so, okay, so at this point, we were in the pre-diabetic range for both fasting blood sugar and A1C, right? We had this fatigue, right? This like exercise intolerance fatigue that was new. This was something that you would have been able to do easily in the past and you were like crashing.

You mentioned hypertension, high blood pressure. Tell me a little bit more. You mentioned digestion, sleep. I know we were talking cognition, immune function. So in terms of those things, what were you feeling?

Yeah, I mean, in general, you know, like from a standpoint of gut health, you know, I, you know, been thinking a long time, you know, I always lived on the slow motility side, you know, of life. And so, you know, I, I knew that from that standpoint that it couldn't be healthy. And so I remember trying, you know, different protocols of fibers and, know, and different, uh, know, products with, you know, probiotics and eating lots of probiotic foods, because what's great about them as well as you wouldn't get a glucose spike. So I could.

you know, feed my gut as well as not get a glucose spike with the amount of raw sauerkraut, you know, or, you know, different, uh, you know, high probiotic foods that I was eating. So, yeah, so I just had reserved myself and I, you know, once again, as a person in this realm who, you know, tends to, you know, enjoy learning and reading about this stuff, read a lot of different protocols and, know, from a digestive standpoint, I had just reserved myself to this is just how I'm going to be in this, how I'm going to live. so, you know, I, you know,

Jay Feldman (37:51)
What did that look like? Like one ball movement every day, every other day?

You have one, one bowel movement every, every two days, three days. You know, I remember, you know, thinking that, you know, cause one of reasons why the carnivore sounded enticing was, you know, people talked about when they would do carnivore that they would all of sudden, you know, at certain times have better bowel habits or have, you know, better, uh, know, digestion. And for me, I got, you know, what we see with a lot of clients where, you know, just slowing down because you're not obviously eating any fibers or having anything that would be feeding the microbiome besides.

fatty acids and amino acids and so.

and dramatically decreasing your metabolism and increasing stress hormones, which we know that was the case for you because you tried all the fibers, you tried the prebiotics. that wasn't a problem because that's normally the first thing people think is it's just a deficiency of those things. And obviously those things are important for maintaining healthy microbiome. when you're you're living in this, you know, restriction fighting against your body, depleting yourself of energy all the time, that slows down all of your functions and digestion is is one of them for sure.

Yeah, and that's you know, that was apparent as I started to learn about, know, the energy balance view of digestive health and just how you know how it should function when you see it from a you know, understanding how metabolism has an influence. But, you know, at the time it just I was reserved to just this is how I am and you know, I have to adjust to it. And yeah, once again, throwing all these things at myself with no positive outcome, but trying to believe that this was the right, you know, right thing to do and

Andrew Wallen (39:25)
you know, until once again, just all this came to a head where I said, this just, this makes no sense on how I feel, you know, compared to what I should be feeling like, you know, for the dogma that we, you know, believe in, you know, these realms.

Yeah, totally. And so just to highlight a couple other things you mentioned earlier, cognitively, you felt like you weren't able to show up for your clients. Like you just weren't there. Immune function wise, you were dealing with chronic infections. We talked about the kind of the binge cycles, right? So chronic restriction and then the binging. And then you mentioned sleep. What was going on with your sleep at the time?

Yeah, just I had moments of different, you know, almost insomnia based moments, but basically just a lot of waking up in the middle of the night. And, know, another one was once again, when I hit 40, I just thought, you know, when you're 40 plus, you just get up to go bathroom in the middle of the night. And that's just, you know, part of being healthy and it's just part of aging and, you know, and, you know, so these constant wakeups and, and, you know, and then having, you know, to wake up to go bathroom, I just had reserved to, you know,

because if you look at the general landscape, even in the stress dieting realm, this is just what they do. so I had a lot of just times of just constant wake ups in the middle of the night, not understanding why the interplay between liver health and glucose metabolism and stress and cortisol. so I just chalked it up to that's just what it was. so, yeah, it's, yeah, we just add it to the list of things that I had to work on.

Yeah, totally. Totally. All right. So we looked very healthy from the outside. We had absolutely crashed internally. Nothing was functioning properly. it wasn't looking good on paper with the labs, blood pressure readings, and then also in terms of how you were feeling. So obviously we're feeling a lot better now. What's happened since then? So obviously you came across the bioenergetic approach. All right. We're going to pause there and pick back up in part two.

Jay Feldman (41:23)
where we'll dig into Andrew's experience implementing the energy balance approach, Andrew's fear around his blood sugar values when adding carbs in and what the actual results were, the difference between weight loss as a result of health versus weight loss at the cost of health, how Andrew lost body fat without restriction or cutting calories, and also how Andrew resolved his nighttime binging, high blood pressure, gut issues, and poor sleep while also improving thyroid and testosterone levels with the energy balance approach.

And with that, if you did enjoy today's episode, please leave a like or comment. If you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening elsewhere, please leave a review and five star rating. All of those things really do a lot to help the channel and are very much appreciated. And if Andrew's journey sounds a lot like your own, if it resonated in any way and you're looking to get back to optimal health, then head over to jfeldmanwellness.com slash call, where you can sign up for a free call with a member of the J Feldman wellness team who can provide you with insights and next steps to take on your health journey.

So again, head over to jfeldmanwellness.com slash call to sign up for a free call. And with that, I'll see you in part two.