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This week on the podcast Mikki speaks to Ketogenic Girl (and Optimal Protein podcast host) Vanessa Spina. They discuss how Vanessa the evolution of Vanessa’s dietary recommendations from the ketogenic diet to focusing on protein, what she has learned from 100s of episodes interviewing experts in the diet space, how becoming a mother has changed her own habits, and how she balances all aspects of her life and business.
Vanessa Spina a Sport Nutrition Specialist (SNS) and the Best Selling author of Keto Essentials. She is an international speaker and the host of the popular Optimal Protein Podcast, which has over 400,000 downloads/month and has been nominated twice as a top 3 Best Podcast at the Metabolic Health Summit. Vanessa recently completed a two year Biomedical Science program at the University of Toronto to deepen her comprehension of biochemistry and physiology.
Vanessa founded Ketogenic Girl in 2015 with online social media following of over half a million and several thousand people have done her popular KetogenicGirl Challenge program which serves to optimize metabolic health with nutrient dense real food nutrition. She has been featured as a nutrition expert in articles published in the Orlando Sentinel, Eat This, Parade, Reader’s Digest and more.
Vanessa has recently created two innovative products, the Tone device which measures breath acetone, the ketone detected on the breath. She most recently the brand new Tone LUX red light therapy line and Tone protein powder.
Can find Vanessa and her products here: https://ketogenicgirl.com/pages/about-us
Creators & Guests
What is Mikkipedia?
Mikkipedia is an exploration in all things health, well being, fitness, food and nutrition. I sit down with scientists, doctors, professors, practitioners and people who have a wealth of experience and have a conversation that takes a deep dive into their area of expertise. I love translating science into a language that people understand, so while some of the conversations will be pretty in-depth, you will come away with some practical tips that can be instigated into your everyday life. I hope you enjoy the show!
Transcribed using AI transcription, errors may occur. Contact mikki for clarification
00:00
Hey everyone, it's Mikki here, you're listening to Mikkipedia and this week on the podcast I speak to KeliGenic girl and Optimal Protein podcast host Vanessa Spina.
00:14
Vanessa and I talk all about the evolution of her dietary recommendations, how she discovered keto, how she transitioned to a more optimal protein approach, and what she's learned from the hundreds of episodes interviewing experts in the diet space on her extremely popular Optimal Protein podcast. We also talk about how becoming a mother
00:42
has changed her own habits and how she balances all aspects of her life and business. And we dive a little bit into the science here, we talk about real life and of course about Vanessa's experiences. This is such a great conversation and I think that people listening in will get real value from it because it does cover a whole range of aspects related to Vanessa and her work, but also her experiences and just her interpretation of things. And she's super smart and she's...
01:11
clearly knows her stuff, so it was such a great conversation and I was so pleased to have the opportunity to have it. For those of you unfamiliar with Vanessa, she is a sports nutrition specialist and the best-selling author of Keto Essentials. She's also an international speaker and the host of the popular Optimal Protein podcast, which has over 400,000 downloads a month and has been nominated twice as a top three best podcast at the Metabolic Health Summit. Which
01:41
if you're unfamiliar, is one of the best metabolic health symposiums that are on offer. Vanessa recently completed a two-year biomedical science program at the University of Toronto to deepen her comprehension of biochemistry and physiology. Vanessa founded Ketogenic Girl in 2015 with online social media following of over half a million and several thousand people have done her popular Ketogenic Girl Challenge
02:10
with nutrient dense real food nutrition. She's also been featured as a nutrition expert in articles published in the Orlando Sentinel, Eat This, Parade, Read This Digest and more. Vanessa has recently created two innovative products, the Tone device, which measures breath acetone, the ketone detected on the breath, which correlates to beta hydroxybutyrate production in the body, which is the ketone found in the bloodstream. And she most recently launched
02:40
the Tone Luxe Red Light Therapy line and Tone Protein Powder. So she's super innovative, a real entrepreneur and I honestly do not know how she finds the time. I will put links to where you can find Vanessa on both Instagram at Ketogenic Girl and over on her website, ketogenicgirl.com, where you can find a whole archive of her podcast episodes plus of course links to her books and.
03:08
her products and I've certainly learned a lot from what Vanessa has bought to her podcast audiences with regards to the guests that she has and the information that she shares. Just before we crack on though, the best way to support this podcast is to hit the subscribe button on your favourite podcast listening platform that increases the visibility of Micopedia and amongst literally thousands of other podcasts that are out there. Here's my conversation with Vanessa Spina.
03:38
Vanessa, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me this afternoon. I followed you for a number of years and have really enjoyed seeing your evolution, I guess, in this space. You're such a really prominent voice in both keto and protein. And I think I just saw that your podcast is in like top 10 US podcasts for health and fitness, which is amazing.
04:05
Thank you, thank you so much. I love hearing that, it's really nice. Yeah, and what I've really enjoyed is, I think your transparency with your evolution of your approach, you know, and alongside it, you've got a number of resources that people have access to to help them in their journey, and the tone device, your protein, your book, The Keto Essentials, your infrared light therapy mask, like you've just done so much, so.
04:34
It's almost like I'm not quite sure whether how they're tapped on all of it, but I thought going back to the beginning would be a great place for us to start. Yes, absolutely. I mean, I first came to become fascinated by the ketogenic diet because it's the only diet out there where there's a third party or an objective biomarker that you can actually use to measure whether or not what you're doing is right. Because up until then, I felt like
05:04
all my approaches to health and fitness, especially nutrition wise, I was sort of, you know, in a dark room, you know, feeling around for things that I never really knew. And then when keto came along, it was like someone turned a light switch. It's like, I can actually measure my blood sugar and I can measure my level of ketosis and I can get this biofeedback, which is to me unlike any other biofeedback out there because you're literally testing your, you're seeing inside your body. You're seeing...
05:32
your physiology's response to things. You know, so I'm fascinated by anything that you can test at home with regards to your blood, like CGM devices now I use, you know, all these tools that can give us insight. And then you start really learning more about your body. And then when I learned that we are actually as humans, we are dual fuel, you know, we're sort of hybrid in the sense that we can be fueled from either sugar or fat. That fascinated me that you could, the concept that you could be a...
06:01
fat burner, you could be fat fuel. I didn't know up until then. But also that you could be locked into just being a glucose or sugar burner if you don't stretch that metabolic flexibility. So the concepts of metabolic flexibility really fascinated me and testing. And so I really got very into it myself personally, and then started sharing things about keto just as a hobby. And I was working in finance.
06:30
I had my securities license in Canada. I was actually interviewing people for a media show on finance and I loved it. I absolutely loved it. But the keto sort of side hustle, it was just a hobby at the time. It wasn't even a hustle. The side business just grew so much that I eventually took over everything else and I just shifted into doing that. And then a few years ago,
06:59
I went back to school, study biomedical science because I wanted to deepen my understanding of all these concepts and be able to communicate them in a better way and also, you know, help me interview people and guests on the podcast. So it's been a fascinating journey. It feels endless. There's just so much that we still don't know that we're still learning. And it feels like a very exciting place to be because of where we are in terms of research and we're seeing more and more science and research coming out.
07:29
And you want to be equipped to be able to understand and read studies and understand what's going on there because we have access to it. And you can take information from that and it can directly impact your life. You don't have to wait 10, 20 years for that to filter and trickle down through other third parties who are interpreting it for you anymore. Yeah, for sure. And Vanessa, was it a personal sort of body composition transformation for you and your interests?
07:57
What does that side of things look like for you? Yeah, definitely. So for me, the interest was first sparked from, I just wasn't feeling great overall. I had been doing a plant-based diet for a long time and I just didn't feel good in my body, didn't have energy, had a lot of pain, like chronic pain in my body. Every day I woke up and I was like, what's gonna hurt today? Literally would hear myself say that and I would anticipate something would, whether it was a headache.
08:25
or I was having digestive issues, uploading just so many things that just whatever it was didn't feel like what I was doing was aligning well with my body and working well for me. So I was really curious as to what I could do to change not only my health and improve my overall health, but also my body composition, which I then used to think was fat loss, which I now understand so differently through a different framework, which is,
08:53
what is your body actually composed of in terms of the ratio of lean mass to fat mass and how that then in turn affects your health and how good you feel in your body. So when I discovered keto, I started cutting out sugar, cutting out gluten. I was feeling better and better. I was having less and less pain, having more energy. And I was like, this is amazing that just changing my diet could have this much of an impact on how I feel.
09:22
full throttle then in terms of wanting to know everything that I could about fasting, keto, just anything that could nutritionally have a big impact on how I felt. So it was definitely a personal interest at first. Yeah. And I find it super interesting how your... And many people are like this in this space, right? I've talked about it a lot, how you sort of, you start in one place and then as you're
09:52
evolves and your understanding of nutrition and also just personally how you feel, your thinking evolves as well. And it's always really nice to see people change their mind about things where required, you know, and they don't sort of like, like, I don't know, die on the hill that they initially sort of started on, like, because obviously you've evolved your thinking in the keto space as well. Yes. And I would say that personally.
10:19
I want to be someone who follows the science. And so if what that truly means to me is being adaptable and flexible and being open to changing your mind, like reserving the right to change your mind, reserving the right to change your opinion, even if you form an opinion, being able to still have an open mind at the same time as, you know, having certain understandings about things that, you know, having some kind of framework.
10:49
understand science and biochemistry and all these things that I was really more actively following the latest research and what's coming up, but then also being able to draw my own conclusions and not always go with whatever the study authors conclude. So I think that a lot of people who interview me say, you've really evolved from all these years when you were first doing like strict keto.
11:15
What I've learned is that there's all these different tools, you know, keto, sort of high protein, carnivore, there's all these different tools, fasting, intermittent fasting. It all depends on what you're optimizing for in terms of your personal goals. And then, you know, I love just having all of these different tools in my tool belt at my disposal so that I can work with the ones that will give me the best results and then sort of share my experience personally so that, you know, other people also understand these tools are out there.
11:45
you know, things that they're optimizing for in the moment. Yeah, I love that Vanessa. And also, you know, you're a female in this space and we get a lot of pushback from a lot of people regarding low carb keto fasting as a tool that women can use. And I find it super interesting that you hear people talk about the fact that there's no research which...
12:10
I don't believe it's correct. I'm really interested to hear your thoughts on this. There's no research in women for this. It's dangerous for women to do fasting, to do keto. And as you've said, these are tools that we can use. And I sort of feel like a lot of prominent voices that push back on it almost dismiss it as options for people. And then there's a lot of people that could really benefit that might not even sort of go down that road. I'm not sure what your thoughts are on that.
12:41
Yeah, it
13:08
translate over to women, just like rodent studies can give us insights. They don't always directly translate over to humans once they do human trials. But there is more and more research that is being done with women. So on my podcast, I tend to share as much as possible the latest research done in the space, but also done on women. And there is more and more out there. There are certain researchers and scientists who are amazing in the space
13:37
really take the time to focus on women's health, you know, do the research with women's issues. And it's, I think we're seeing more and more of it. So it does provide a little bit of, you know, insight into how things actually could be applied to women's health. It's not as much as I would like to see, but I think it is growing. So I try to highlight as much as possible when we do see research on women, you know, and I think with women's health in general.
14:07
going back to the delicate flower piece. So there, I think women can be more sensitive to stressful things and certain tools that we talked about can be stressful. So if someone is already dealing with a lot of stress, perhaps they might not want to add another stressor. But when you look at what these stressors are, we're looking at them also through the context of hormesis, which is, you know, hermetic stressors, as you all know, they can actually help.
14:35
in certain situations people deal with their stress. So I think it all comes down to the individual to look at all the information out there, all the tools, look at some of the research, listen to people who you respect in this space and try things out for yourself because only you will truly know at the end of the day, does intermittent fasting make me feel better? Does it help me focus more during the day, get more done?
15:03
and think about food less if that's something that a certain person experiences. Or another person could say, I'm white-knuckling it the whole time that I'm intermittent fasting. I'm thinking about food. I'm preoccupied. I don't feel energized. Well, then that's when you check back with yourself and say, well, this is not a modality that is optimal for me. So it's all about testing. I'm a really big fan of people experimenting because we all are unique. Just because something works for someone.
15:33
else does it mean it's going to necessarily work for you? So it's sort of a journey, self-discovery and understanding what things align well with you and what doesn't. Yeah, no, I 100% agree. And I feel like that space where people actually listen to their bodies and take cues, that is almost the missing piece here. You know, like often, and not just women, but we rely on these external factors to sort of give us insights into how
16:02
may or may not work, like the person next door who's doing the diet or what someone else has said about the approach as opposed to sort of listening to your own body. So I 100% agree that's exactly on point. Yeah, and I think, you know, intermittent fasting has been a really interesting one, because there is actually a lot of research out there that has been done on women and women's hormones. And yet the main critique of intermittent fasting is always that it's going to have some kind of
16:31
negative effect on women's hormones. But it depends which one. So if someone is in a situation where they're potentially morbidly obese, they're having a lot of metabolic issues related to that, and that's negatively affecting their hormones like insulin, you know, they're getting, you know, some kind of insulin resistance that's affecting other hormones, sort of they're getting a lot of androgens, high levels of androgens. You know, those are situations where intermittent fasting
17:01
hormones in those situations. So there's also the individual sort of situations and where you're at. A lot of the information I try to provide sort of focus on people who are in that situation because so many people in our Western society are dealing with insulin resistance, rising levels of obesity, morbid obesity, and all the complications that come with that, all the chronic non-infectious disease that is associated with having insulin resistance, which is sort of the root.
17:31
it actually can be really beneficial on hormones for certain people. Obviously not for everyone in every situation. Yeah. And sometimes I think it's just, you know, what audience are you talking to? Like if your audience is lean, athletic already running some sort of low energy availability issue, you know, like as their chronic default, then yeah, fasting is not going to work for them, but it doesn't mean that it's not useful for, as you say.
17:58
probably the majority of the population, which we know to be metabolically challenged. Exactly. Exactly. Very well said. Vanessa, so talk to me about your transition to a higher protein approach. Like what was the genesis or the, yeah, the sort of journey for you there? Yeah. So I had been doing keto for about four years and I was feeling great. I loved being fat fueled, being in ketosis really worked for me
18:28
really fueling my brain. I was getting so many benefits from it. But one thing that I really also wanted to heal was my sort of addiction to food. I had dealt with some food addiction throughout my life. And I think that was caused by doing a plant-based diet and just the availability of highly processed carbohydrates and following this like high carb model. It did not work for me. It made me feel constantly hungry and unsatisfied and preoccupied with food.
18:59
And I came across this incredible concept of protein leverage from two of my favorite scientists, Dr. Robinheimer and Simpson. And they were actually insect scientists who came up with this theory, which has now, I believe, been fully proven by their research, which is that humans as well, because they've done human studies on this, but animals, insects, humans are protein seekers. We seek out protein.
19:28
every day because we cannot synthesize all of the amino acids that we need in our bodies. And so we have this sort of protein stat. And if we are not getting an optimal amount of protein every day, the body will sort of encourage us to keep eating energy calories, fat and carbohydrate, because it's going to get a little protein when it's having that extra slice of cheese that maybe those cheese cut...
19:58
covered Doritos or whatever it is that people are eating, it's gonna get a little bit of protein, so it's going to make you feel hungry. On the flip side of that, once you do optimize your diet with protein by prioritizing it, you then get this cascade of satiety signals that are emitted once you consume protein. So if you're under eating protein, which I was doing a high carb plant-based diet and not doing it very well.
20:27
you are going to end up being fixated on food by default. And so once I understood that, I realized that if I prioritize protein and do a higher protein diet for me personally, I think being plant-based for so long, prioritizing protein even more to make up for all those years where I was under eating protein really helped. And I decided to do this high protein experiment, carnivore experiment for about a month.
20:54
And it was the first time that I experienced in my life, fully full satiety, feeling completely full and no longer thinking about food. It was like suddenly, you know, I was unchained from, you know, this burden of having to constantly think about food and worry about food. And so I just felt satisfied. And the only other time I ever felt that in my life was after Thanksgiving meal, because in...
21:23
especially in North America, at Thanksgiving, we eat a ton of turkey. It's like the only time that I would overeat protein or overeat what I thought was overeating protein. It was the only time that I was actually getting adequate protein. And then I was like, I don't need to eat for a day. I would just get so full from the turkey. So I started connecting the dots and realizing that I had been under eating protein for so long and I now needed to optimize it and make it really central. And I didn't want to give up.
21:51
the benefits of ketones. I still really like the, you know, the key sort of keto lifestyle. So I found a way to sort of make it work for myself where I do this modified ketogenic diet and it's based on the work of this doctor who was working with children and trying to help them and their families do keto in a way that was a little bit more approachable, sustainable. So
22:19
His name, I'm trying to remember now, is Eric, Dr. Eric Kosov. So he came up with the concept of the modified ketogenic diet, higher protein, and he found that he was able to sustain ketosis and that it was just much more sustainable for people. So I started doing, I also was influenced by Dr. Dominic D'Agostino, who also himself does a modified ketogenic diet. And so I started doing that approach myself.
22:48
is sort of keto, but it's also like low carb, high protein. And I get into ketosis every day by doing some form of intermittent fasting. So it's like, maybe sounds complicated to some people, but for me it works because I get to get, my protein is optimized, I never feel hungry, I'm never thinking about food, my body composition's optimized.
23:17
from the protein intake. And I also get some benefits of ketones which have incredible benefits for longevity, health span. They do so many things in our bodies in terms of epigenetics. So it's sort of this like weird balance that just works really well for me. Yeah, and now any conversations that you had with people on your podcast that sort of helped you get to sort of where you're at, like did you have any sort of like aha moments when you were speaking to people and you were like,
23:47
I'm going to try that. I think Dr. Dominic D'Agostino really influenced me because he's sort of a world renowned ketone expert and that's the approach that he personally does. I think conversations I had with Dr. Ted Naiman really influenced me because he is the one who made me aware of the research of Drs. Robin Heimann-Simpson, which I then connected with them. And I think those are probably the most, the two most influential.
24:17
you know, people in terms of my personal nutrition journey, and they've really inspired me in the way that they approach things. Ted used to do low carb keto, now he doesn't as much. Now he does more, I would say, like low carb kind of paleo approach, but with the optimized protein. And both of them are extremely fit, have great metabolic health. And I found that that's a key thing for me is
24:46
anyone whose advice I'm going to follow, they have to personally exhibit the qualities that I would want from whichever outcome that I'm seeking. So I definitely found that in them. Yeah. And were you apprehensive, Vanessa, like changing your approach? Or did you sort of have that confidence that really helps people like, hey, if after a month, if after two months this isn't working, I know I've got something else that I can sort of fall back to?
25:15
Yeah, I wasn't apprehensive. I think, you know, with nutrition, if something's not working for you, usually you can change it like in an instant, you know, you just like if you're doing keto one morning and it's not working for you the afternoon, you know, you could go out of it and go back to high carbs. It's very like something easily modifiable. And it's something that I felt was worth, you know, experimenting with trying out. What's
25:45
I'm using technologies now to help me relearn how to incorporate carbs because I was so strict on carbohydrate for so long. When you do higher protein, carbs, if you want ketosis, need to be pulled back even more. So you really have to prioritize the carbs that you want. But if I'm not seeking ketosis, I'm getting into ketosis through intermittent fasting, etc., then I can have a little bit more carbohydrates.
26:14
you really have to get specific about the carbs that you want to have in your diet. And so you want to find the ones that are low glycemic for me personally align well with that tends to align well with me. So I've been using a CGM in the last six weeks to test foods. And it's been really remarkable and fascinating because a lot of things that I thought were happening weren't happening. And I think that has
26:42
really given me some big insights in terms of what correcting your insulin, making your body more insulin sensitive can do for you. And I mean, doing these sort of nutritional strategies like keto, etc., but also focusing on body composition, building more lean mass. Now you have all this glucose disposal, all this energy disposal because you're a leaner individual, you can actually eat things that in the past may have affected you negatively, but now maybe...
27:12
they don't. So it's really been, you know, fascinating to have that insight as well, going back, you know, to the beginning, being able to peek inside and see how's your body responding to different foods. So that's been really fascinating as well. Yeah, Vanessa, I did see you speak about that on social that you were doing a CGM experiment and you found some surprising results. Do you want to share in particular any particular like what
27:38
has been most surprising for you with those foods. And also, does it relate to your intermittent fasting window as well? So does that shift how your body responds? Because I think people will be super interesting with the interconnection between them. Yeah, so it's been really insightful. I think the number one takeaway I've had is that if you are active and you build more lean mass and make your body more insulin sensitive by building more lean mass, more muscle,
28:07
you can get away with a lot more than you could if you have a poor body composition. So that's something that I think has been instrumental in just all of these different strategies. Our core is just building more muscle, focusing on that. Because like I said, you then have an ability to dispose of things, dispose of extra carbs and also places to store both glucose and fatty acids which are then going to be turning over.
28:36
and can make you a better athlete. Like I'm not an athlete per se, but it makes me better at walking, hiking, resistance training, all these things, is that those adaptations that are happening. So exercise has been huge. As a mom, I am so active more than ever before. So I think that's been the most insightful thing is so, I was noticing that my blood sugar was even more stable than I thought it was. It's extremely stable. I have quite
29:06
a low in facet insulin around two. So I knew that I was insulin sensitive, but it was even more than I thought. And it's because I am so much more active than I was four or five years ago, not only prioritizing resistance training, but also just like I said, being a mother, being a businesswoman, being a podcaster, like there's so much going on all the time. I rarely am just sitting. I remember actually talking with Maria Emmerich years ago, you know, before I had kids and she's like, I don't sit down.
29:33
And I was like, that's so weird. Like that's all I do. You know, now I'm like, oh, I get it. You know, like I don't sit down very often. You know, when I do, it's very enjoyable, but most of the time I'm like, you know, I'll get, you know, 10,000 steps without even leaving my house. Cause there's so much to do with children and being also like quite an involved parent or full-time mom. So that's been the biggest takeaway. We had one day when we were driving back from a road trip. And because we were in the car,
30:03
I didn't, I wasn't, you know, really moving. And on those days, I had much poorer blood glucose control. I'm not saying that it's poor, but it was not as good as it's been on other days. And that's when I really saw the connection with activity. So that's fascinated me. And there's amazing research now showing, there was one study I've been talking about a lot recently that I first heard Dr. Rhonda Patrick talk about how, you know, they compared
30:30
doing body weight squats, just 10 body weight squats every hour compared with doing a 30 minute walk. And they found that this gives people better blood sugar control. So that connection with activity and lean mass, I think is really huge. I've tested a couple of fun things. So I was really curious about hummus that incorporate a little bit more fiber in my diet. So I'm going to make some homemade hummus and I eat that with protein bread.
30:57
So, and there was barely any reaction. I thought there would be a much stronger reaction or some kind of like spike or something seeing as I haven't eaten like beans in so many years. So, I brought that back in black beans like certain like, you know, some beans for a little bit more fiber. I tested half a banana. I had no response at all, which really surprised me. Most of the foods I eat really don't give me any kinds of spikes because it's very protein centric.
31:26
I would say any kind of takeaway for someone else, aside from the exercise thing, is that if you're constantly eating protein at your meals, like I'll have a bunch of, you know, a PB2, it's like, you know, the peanut butter mixed with water, I'll have that on protein bread. I don't have a spike, but I can imagine if I was just eating peanut butter itself, that there probably would be, you know, a much, much stronger, you know, reaction afterwards. So I think having protein at every meal
31:56
and the exercise components, you know, and just working on your health over time, you can really get to a point where like your CGM is very boring because it's just a flat line, you know, there's just not a lot happening. So that's, it's been very insightful and fun, very fun, you know, to try different foods and see like, how is this actually affecting me now? It might be different, you know, I'm breastfeeding right now. It might be different in a year when I'm, if I'm not breastfeeding anymore.
32:26
that would be a good time to check it again. There's different stages in life too, where you can get different kinds of insights. Yeah, I agree. And what's your sleep like with your young children? I would say, you know, when you had a question about children, how things have changed, like for me, I've really gotten into more biohacks and things to compensate for the fact that I haven't really slept fully for the past few years. Yeah.
32:56
Um, you know, every night is definitely interrupted or fragmented in some way, either because I'm breastfeeding during the night or, you know, my toddler is, you know, making some kind of, you know, commotion. Like there's just, there's always something happening at night. It's very rare that, you know, I have uninterrupted sleep. Like I really haven't at all for a few years. I know that has a huge impact, especially on my short term memory. The biggest...
33:24
area that I noticed it was affecting was my ability to podcast because I speak for a living, as you know, from being a podcast host yourself. And I found the first few podcasts that I started doing after I took three months off just after having Damien, who's six months old actually today. And I was really struggling with my cognition, with finding the words that I wanted to. I was stumbling over words. I just wasn't able to recall.
33:53
information as rapidly. And so I started going back to OMAD. Like I'm going to go back to OMAD and try fasting when I'm interviewing people during the day. And that started helping. So it's getting me more deeply into ketosis. I'm like, I can't do this every single day. So I started taking ketones. So this is something that I never, ever did in the past. I always felt like your body's a ketone making machine. You don't need to supplement with them. But I started
34:21
And now I take it every time I do a podcast. And so these are sort of hacks and things that I've had to add in to compensate for the fragmented sleep, because it has such a big impact on my ability to work really. Oh, I 100% understand that, and not due to having small children, but just life intervenes sometimes and you get that sleep deprivation. You recently spoke to Dr. Darren Kando, I think.
34:50
about the new creatine research. And he, I was super interested to hear him talk about the dosing for the brain and how it's different. Is that something that you're also playing around with at the moment, Vanessa? It definitely made me consider it. I think it's a great idea. Right now, I think I'm going to stick with the MCT oil just for now because I actually have been adding in so many things in the past few months to my routine that
35:19
I don't think I could add one more thing, but I also, after our conversation, the biggest question I had for him is if you're someone doing a carnivore-esque or high protein diet like I do, do you need to add it? And I think the answer was somewhere between you probably don't need it for most things, like you were just saying, but it could potentially be beneficial for the brain. So it definitely is a great idea, probably something worth trying. Maybe I'll try it out.
35:48
in the next six months or something like that. But yeah, I also walked away after our conversation feeling like probably get enough because I eat so much protein. I probably get enough from my diet. He's like, you're getting it from beef, you're getting it from seafood. I eat copious amounts out of every single day. So I wish you could sort of test your levels and see maybe how much you're getting from food to see if you need to supplement.
36:18
Again, that could be a fun experiment to try out, but the MCT oil is really boosting my ketones. Nice one. It's been a huge, huge help. Yeah. And what brand do you use, Vanessa? Yeah, I think for anyone who's looking, just a pure C8. The powder I like because it just blends better in coffee or latte.
36:43
I've been giving it to some friends recently whose parents are dealing with dementia. I would like to eventually have my whole family on it because I think just preventative, if there's something that can boost your cognition, I'm going to say it's probably by like 20, 30%. Sometimes I notice it even more. Who wouldn't want to take that or do that? And it's so much easier to add things into people's diets.
37:11
than it is to take things out. I've been finding more success with focusing on the protein message I think because in terms of people's adaptation of it, like in my family anyway, because it's way easier to add more protein into your diet than to take things out. And even then, if you first add the protein in, it can help you then cut out some processed
37:41
I think it really helps. Whereas when people are just trying to go keto straight from high carb, if you just switch out all the carbs for fats, depending on what your goal is, maybe if it's a therapeutic ketosis that you're trying to achieve, it might be more successful if you have more protein or your protein intake is optimized while you're making that transition. And then if people have different body composition goals, just going high fat might not be the best approach either.
38:11
I'm just finding that adding things in protein, maybe MCT, oil, those kinds of things can be really, really helpful. Yeah, nice one. And Vanessa, you mentioned that you think you get enough protein because, or creatine because you have so much protein. If you were to calculate it, how many grams per kg body weight would you be? So I go based off of the research by Dr. Stu Phillips and a few other of his colleagues,
38:40
in general, 1.2 grams per kilogram for sedentary individuals, closer to 1.6 grams per kg for active individuals who are not sitting all day basically, and then up to 2.2 grams for athletes. So that could be the definition of someone who's doing two workouts a day. That tends to be the difference between athletic and non-athletic.
39:10
I definitely like people... When people say 1 gram per pound, that's 2.2 grams per kg, right? I think that's a good target for people because a lot of people find it hard to eat more protein at the beginning. So I'd rather people overshoot it maybe by a little bit, even if they get a little bit more protein than 1.6 grams or whatever. That's a good target place. But especially at the beginning, it's better to just try to get as much as you can and then you'll know.
39:40
your body will tell you when it's had enough protein. That's what I love about protein is it has such a strong feedback in terms of GLP-1, for example, which is so popular right now in people taking these weight loss peptides. Protein is a natural form of ozambique or GLP-1 agonist because it secretes GLP-1. It's definitely not the same amounts, but it does secrete that along with many other peptides.
40:10
and enzymes that tell the body that you're full. So once the body has its protein met, it can carry on with other things instead of making you think about food or being hungry. Yeah, no, for sure. And I'm certainly well above actually 2.2 grams per kg. It was interesting chatting to Dr. Jose Antonio, who I think he gives it. I love him. Yeah, he's great.
40:39
three grams per kg body weight. Obviously it's all relative. Like if you weigh 90 kilos, then that's a significant amount of protein. But if you are more 50 to 60, then it's actually, it's more, depending on your activity level, it's actually not that hard to hit if you're protein focused. I find that now I'm getting so much protein that I'm sort of in the mindset of
41:06
maybe I need to pull back a bit because I eat so much protein. And I've actually, a new topic area that I want to focus on on my podcast is protein restriction. And that sounds like counterintuitive, but I think that protein restriction can be used in a strategic way once in a while. I'm thinking, I'm talking about like say one day a week, you have a lower protein day, a higher carb, maybe higher fiber day. And I think
41:35
there could be some benefits to doing that. But I tend to also be closer to 2.2 grams per kg. And I do resistance training four to five times a week. I don't consider myself an athlete, but I am somewhere between active and athletic. That I think definitely has had a huge impact on
42:02
building more muscle and lean mass in my body. And it's amazing when you become more lean, it just everything gets easier. Being satisfied gets easier. Doing things physically with your body gets easier. You have less pain in your body and you're able to, like we were talking about earlier, just dispose of fuel more easily. And I think that's really the big problem that we're seeing in Western society now is people are so under-muscled.
42:31
they can't dispose of fuel very well. And because of sedentary lifestyles, they also can't dispose of fuel. And yet there's so much fuel available in the most convenient delivery forms and more than ever. And so it's like overabundance of access to fuel as humans. We've made it so easy for us to consume fuel and be energized all the time, but there's not enough disposal on the other side.
42:58
And it's that capacity for disposal, I think, that's causing a lot of metabolic issues. So, protein resistance training together can have such a huge impact. And I personally have been really becoming more and more interested in exercise and exercise science, especially some of the research that we're seeing on the benefits of muscle contractile activity and cognition. I think that's...
43:27
a really exciting area of research because we used to believe that bigger waist size, smaller brain kind of thing. And now it's turning out to be, well, it doesn't matter how much lean mass you have. What matters is are you using it? Are you contracting the muscles? And that's then having those effects on the brain and cognition. So, you know, people can really also prevent cognitive decline, dementia, not just through these nutritional
43:56
in that field is really, really exciting. Yeah, I completely agree. And Dr. Tommy Woods, have you spoken to him? Yes. Yeah, he's... About to have one of his colleagues on in a couple of weeks is Christy, Dr. Christy Stoddart. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. I know Christy. She's, I know, no, I've met her a couple of times at some of the metabolic health summit conferences. Yeah, she's great.
44:25
I'm really excited to talk to her because I know they kind of work together, research similar fields, but I'm finding that area really, really interesting. And just in general, the exercise science coming out, I think, is really exciting as well because it's something that people can really, anyone can do, you know, to improve their metabolic health and cognition.
44:45
I agree. And Vanessa, you've said a couple of times, I'm not an athlete, but, and I always, my argument is if you're a human, you're an athlete, you know, like this is, it's just how we would be. Your bodybuilder. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and just to pick up a little bit on your point on protein restriction, I recall Dr. Eric Helms sharing research about, you know, protein is very satisfying to a point. But then over and above that, if you
45:13
habitually have a high protein diet, then actually restricting down the amount of protein you have, not ridiculously, but from your very high levels, just down to more moderate, low to moderate can be good from a sensitizing perspective. And I believe that Rob Wolf has talked also about protein restriction in the same sort of realm that you talk about, Vanessa.
45:40
from an evolutionary perspective, we wouldn't have always had sufficient and huge amounts of protein available. So there may be some evolutionary sort of advantage to having cycling, I guess. Yes. I think it's, you hit the nail on the head with that word. It's more the cycling less sort of restriction. I don't like that saying protein and restriction in the same sentence, but cycling makes so much sense. I think it can help on a lot of different
46:10
be really interested to look at Dr. Helm's work. I've definitely heard of him. Yeah, you would have a great conversation with him. And he's, you know, he's brilliant. And Vanessa, you are like, you're a biohacker in the best sense of the word, you know, because you're curious, you ask questions, you're always, you know, you're trialing things on yourself. Yet, what I find really interesting, I'm just curious to hear your opinion on this. There are many prominent people
46:40
who again push back at the idea that metabolically healthy people should be able to measure their blood glucose, use CGMs. There's a pushback against healthy people going into the weeds on some of these things. I'm a fan of understanding better before you need things like this as to how you respond. Obviously you are too.
47:10
push back on any of your experiments or even the changes you've made? When I saw your question about this, I was like, yeah, I really haven't. I feel really lucky. Maybe there are people who've had thoughts of wanting to push back on me on these things, but they haven't expressed them. I think maybe because I'm just sort of sharing my journey like as I go.
47:36
I'm sharing the wins and the mistakes and sort of everything in between and I'm not afraid to change my opinion. I'm just following the science as much as I can. But I haven't, I see pushback sometimes in general at some of these concepts. And sometimes I do think that it can come from people who are looking to get attention. Because when you create controversy,
48:01
you generate attention. And so I do see that sometimes. I don't really give it a ton of weight because personally, the only way that I can function, let alone thrive, is to sort of put blinders on a lot of the time and just focus on my work and what I'm doing and focus on speaking to fascinating, knowledgeable people, reading research. And I can't let myself like...
48:28
look at what everyone is doing and saying. I get messages from other people who say, like, look at this person pushing back on this. And I'm like, you know, I do think a lot of it comes down to, you know, we live sort of in somewhat of an attention economy. That's how people, you know, tend to make money for themselves is by getting attention in this space. And so, like, it's stirring up controversy, stirring up drama, sometimes is a way to do that really
48:58
just focus on what I'm doing and not really pay attention too much to what other people are saying and doing. I probably miss out on things, but it's the only way with two kids and doing all this that I can work. But I've always been like that even before children. I just focus on what I'm doing, put my head down, keep my head down, focus on that, and not worry too much about what other people are saying.
49:25
who are actively doing research, like I know like Dr. Sechen Panda, like he gets so much pushback. He's like contributed so much great work on time restricted eating, you know, and all of these studies, he gets pushback all the time. I think maybe because he's like more prominent out there as like a scientist on the leading edge doing that stuff. I'm not really so much like in that position. So yeah, I don't experience a ton of it thankfully, but I think...
49:55
that most people, if they didn't agree with what I was doing, maybe they just stopped following the journey or the podcast. But I think most people who have listened to my podcast or followed my journey tend to also be interested in these things and also evolving and are also open-minded and wanting to... At the end of the day, like you said, you don't want to down some hill. It's like, let's find what really is optimal and let's all learn together for the better of everyone.
50:24
So luckily I haven't found that I've experienced too much pushback on that. Yeah, that's awesome, Vanessa. I would say just to finish up like your real testament to being able to stay in your lane, be curious, share your journey and story and still have the success if you like. And when I say success, obviously from a...
50:49
business and personal perspective, but just that you're so well known in this space in terms of the way that you've contributed. And so I really love that. And it's quite clear. You're so genuine about what you do as well, which is amazing. Thank you so much. That really means a lot to me. Vanessa, so can you just share where people can find more about you? Obviously, we'll put links in the show notes, but just so people can hear it as well when they're...
51:17
listen to this? Absolutely. Yes. So I have my weekly podcast. I have two episodes a week on the optimal protein podcast and interview mostly scientists, researchers, physicians on the topic of protein, longevity, healthspend, optimization, and all these different things. And then I personally myself have developed some products, some innovative products, including the tone device, which I use.
51:45
measure my breath ketones because they provide a different picture than just the blood. I also have tone protein, which you mentioned. I'm about to launch tone collagen because I am really excited about the research on taking a collagen supplement, doing supplementation and the effects they can have on skin health.
52:13
And I have a line of red light therapy panels as well. And all of that is at ketogenicgirl.com if anyone is interested. If you're interested in the collagen, I do have a sign up list for that, which is at toneprotein.com. So anyone who wants to get on the wait list will be doing a big discount for tone collagen when it comes up. I'm very, very excited. I was talking about all the supplements I've been taking now. So there's like so many things with the collagen I'm really excited about because I have...
52:40
making a collagen that has randomized controlled trials behind it. And it's really exciting. That is exciting. And I love collagen myself. So I'm super interested to see when that comes up. So I'll be putting my name on that list, Vanessa. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. And we will pop all of those links in the show notes. And I don't doubt that if anyone listening hasn't heard of you, they'll just be super excited because they'll go to your podcast. There'll be this entire back catalog.
53:09
of all of these experts that you've been influenced by. So, you know, my listeners are as interested in that as well. So thank you so much, Vanessa. My pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me on.
53:34
Friday.
53:35
really enjoyed that as much as I did and if you have not managed to catch an episode of her podcast well you are in luck because there are literally hundreds of them and she asks such wonderful questions she really gets a lot from the people that she brings onto her show and it really is like a little treasure trove of information. Next week on the podcast super stoked to bring to you the conversation I had with Melissa Urban who created the Whole30 diet. Until then though you
54:05
on threads, Twitter and Instagram @mikkiwilliden, Facebook @mikkiwillidenNutrition or head to my website mikkiwilliden.com, book a one-on-one call with me. Alright team, you have the best week. See you later.