[00:00:00] Carl Lanore: [00:00:00] hey, Hey, welcome back to another episode of super human radio. Today is July 9th, 2020. We're going to be talking about an interesting company. If you're somebody who is a fan of the low carb, especially low sugar lifestyle, which you should be because there's so much good evidence that shows that eliminating sugar from your diet.

[00:00:19] Dropping carbs can reverse brain age. It can change your gut. It can reduce entire whole body inflammation. Uh, it can reset insulin sensitivity, which is a big problem today. So it becomes increasingly harder and harder to pick foods that fit into that, that wheelhouse. And we're going to be talking about a company that actually has a one stop shop for just about everything that you could think of.

[00:00:46] Uh, you want, before we do that, we have to, of course, lead off with thanking our title sponsor legendary foods, by the way, I'm getting messages from people now on Instagram, they're tagging me where they're following my advice. [00:01:00] I will have a spoonful of legendary foods, nut butters, which have no sugar, no sugar added.

[00:01:08] I think peanuts, some nuts have a little sugar in them and. As my dessert some nights and it just satisfies me. And now I'm getting messages from people that they're doing the same thing. Legendary foods is our title sponsor. Please go to eat legendary.com. Use the code SHR to save 10% off your entire order and let them know that you learned about them here on superhuman radio.

[00:01:33] My guest today is Chris Irvin. He is with the company who's aptly named perfect keto. How you doing

[00:01:39] Chris Irvin: [00:01:39] Chris? I'm great. How are you doing today? Carl?

[00:01:42] Carl Lanore: [00:01:42] Wonderful. Wonderful. Uh, before we talk about this, um, talk about yourself a little bit. Um, how did you find your way into the world of, uh, low carb, uh, lower, no sugar, Quito lifestyle.

[00:01:57] Do you have a story that drove you to it?

[00:02:00] [00:02:00] Chris Irvin: [00:02:00] Yeah, absolutely. So, um, it was 2015 when I first heard about the diet. I was, uh, I was about six months out of my undergrad. I graduated undergrad with a biology and exercise science. Um, I was starting to get a little bit more into nutrition, so I was deciding to go back to graduate school, to get my master's in nutrition science.

[00:02:20] Um, and so I went to the university of Tampa for that. And about four or five months before the school year started, I went down to Tampa for a. A conference down there. And at that conference, I was introduced to keto by dr. D'Agostino Augustino and dr. Jeff Bullock, who, you know, at the time being a new grad to the industry, he didn't know that these two guys were like, you know, now they're on like the Mount Rushmore of Quito sciences, you know?

[00:02:42] And, and at the time, I didn't know, you guys were, um, so I got introduced to the diet by the best of them. Uh, and then a couple months later I started school and my first class was a sports nutrition class. And, you know, I had played sports in my, my undergrad. I played basketball and baseball and was always under this assumption that [00:03:00] carbohydrates were really important for performance.

[00:03:02] And they were like the only really way that you could go about fueling your body when it came to athletic performance. Uh, and building muscle and everything like that. And in this first class, I had a lot of that debunked and, you know, most of it was around like endurance performance and things like that.

[00:03:16] But, you know, I had this thought debunk that you had to have carbohydrates. And I had, you know, low carb dieting for performance and keto dieting for performance really introduced to me. So after that class, I jumped right into starting the diet myself. I figured, you know, this was something that I needed to give a try.

[00:03:31] Uh, so I started doing it and, you know, back in 2015, there really wasn't a whole lot of great resources out there for, for Quito yet. Um, but I, so I'm, you know, made a ton of mistakes along the way while, while I was doing it. Uh, but then, you know, shortly after that, I started researching in the lab, the ketogenic diet for human performance.

[00:03:48] So it was studying the diet in college athletes. Um, you know, baseball players, basketball players, um, and then just general college kids as well, looking at like body composition, uh, strength and power [00:04:00] measures, um, dietary adherence, all kinds of things like that. Uh, and then about midway through my graduate studies, um, I.

[00:04:07] Started really getting into, I picked up the book tripping over the truth by Travis Christofferson. And if nobody's ever read that book highly recommended it's, uh, one of the, it's just a really eye opening book on, you know, just things that are going on in the therapeutic world and things that aren't going on in the therapeutic world that should be.

[00:04:24] And that book really introduced to me the therapeutic side of low carb dieting and how, you know, keto could be a viable option for diabetes and cancer and, and maybe even some of these neurodegenerative diseases. Uh, so that really. Set me on this different path towards studying more of the therapeutic side of things.

[00:04:40] And, you know, at that time being that I was in Tampa, Florida, I was really fortunate enough to get a little, uh, intern spot over at, uh, dr. D'Agostinos lab at USF. And I got to spend some time with, with that great group of researchers there just, you know, learning from the best. Uh, so, you know, study that for a few months with them, just great [00:05:00] opportunity.

[00:05:00] And, and, you know, after that, I kind of had this realization that. You know, there's so much great work being done, you know, over the last year, my, my graduate studies took about a year. And when I graduated, I realized how much research I had come across that showed the benefits of low carb dieting, but how little that information was accessible by the general population.

[00:05:20] So I kind of, that was where I kind of found my calling was to get out there into the world, more, get into the industry more, get into education more and just start trying to take some of those really great studies and dispel them and, and. Know, break them down so people can understand how to apply them to their lives and, you know, kind of go through and debunk some of the things.

[00:05:38] And, uh, and that's what led me to, you know, eventually working for perfect keto today. So

[00:05:43] Carl Lanore: [00:05:43] we're going to throw about perfect keto in a second, but w what you said, there's a certain nuance to what you said that it always strikes me that I forget it. And that is that we live in this bubble of likeminded people, right?

[00:05:55] Where we talk about stuff. And we don't have to explain words, the common, you know, [00:06:00] lexicon, we share it all. And then when you get outside this bubble, which is actually really small, when you look at it on, on a societal basis, and then you find out people don't understand or know any of these things, like there's people out there who still don't know that a study was published end of last year, that showed that by reducing sugar intake.

[00:06:21] All the markers of brain aging were reversed in humans. It's like, wait a minute. What? Like, so in other words, that the healthy plate, my plate or the food pyramid is like actually aging me faster. And they, and they find it hard to believe when they first they're like, no, this can't be because the government wouldn't do that.

[00:06:43] Wait a minute. This has nothing to do with the government conspiracies, nothing like that. You have to remember. The government has a big investment in wheat and corn, and you need to eat it for them to get their investment back. So they are biased about what you should eat because they invest in agriculture.

[00:06:59] They don't want to [00:07:00] invest in agriculture and then promote an idea that, Hey, all these are. Refined flours and carbohydrates are really causing a lot of problem in society. So stop eating them by the way, how are we going to get that 7 billion back from the corn guys? Again, I forget. Well, since we just crapped on their business, how are we going to get it back?

[00:07:17] Chris Irvin: [00:07:17] Yeah. You know, and that's one of the most disheartening things I was thinking about that today, actually before this podcast was how, you know, you have some people out there who just don't care about their health. Right. And those are the people that they're a little bit harder to help. But then you have the people out there who actively do care.

[00:07:31] And they're trying to figure out what to do about their health. They're trying to look at these recommendations that are given to them by governing bodies because they trust them. And they think that they're the best to follow. But when you look at these recommendations that are coming out and see how ridiculous they are, and that in this case actually counterproductive for helping, you know, people are.

[00:07:48] Coming to these things, hoping that they are slowing aging or that they're, you know, help fighting off chronic disease or improving their current health state. And that's not the case at all. In most cases what's being [00:08:00] recommended to us is doing the exact opposite. So I think that's one of the most frustrating things is when people actually want to improve themselves, but they can't get to the bottom of what they should actually do to, to get to that point.

[00:08:09] Carl Lanore: [00:08:09] Talk about the Genesis of perfect Quito. How does this company come about? Obviously,

[00:08:15] Chris Irvin: [00:08:15] Yeah. So we have two wonderful founders at perfect keto, which is dr. Anthony Gustin and Justin Maris. And, um, these two guys started the company back in 2016. I believe was, was when they started, um, first product that they came out with was an exoticness ketone supplement.

[00:08:31] Uh, dr. Gustin was, uh, somebody who he's a chiropractor. He worked, had his own clinics, um, was on kind of the cutting edge of nutrition. Uh, Justin was more on the business building side of things. He had already built a couple of successful companies. Uh, Anthony had seen this opportunity and saw that, you know, exotic ketones were something that he thought was going to be very beneficial for people.

[00:08:52] Uh, so he was a little bit ahead of. You know, there weren't a lot of products out on the market yet at that point,

[00:08:57] Carl Lanore: [00:08:57] it was still based on small cult, following [00:09:00] small niche followings at that

[00:09:01] Chris Irvin: [00:09:01] time. Yeah. Yeah. It definitely was not a mainstream thing at all. And so that was the first product that they came out with.

[00:09:08] You wanted to get something that was actually, you know, efficacious out there, but then also tasted good, which was a big thing because the chocolate

[00:09:15] Carl Lanore: [00:09:15] is delicious. By the way, I got to say that I take your chocolate collagen powder. And the chocolate key tones. And I mix them together and then train. Cause I got the, I want the college in, in my, in the interested, uh, fluids.

[00:09:32] So it can be absorbed by soft tissue and I don't want to eat anything before I train. So it's, it's great.

[00:09:37] Chris Irvin: [00:09:37] Yeah. Yeah. Great. I like that one too. And when you say with the taste, I mean, when I was in grad school, we were. I was actually doing some research and this was long before perfect Quito, but I was doing some research with exogenous ketone salts.

[00:09:49] And what we would do is we'd have to mix like these salt, these raw powders into water and put MEO in them to flavor them. And they tasted horrible. I'm trying to get the, you know, trying [00:10:00] to get that down was pretty hard, especially getting test subjects to drink these things. I was not easy. So. You know, having a product that actually, and that was how I was introduced to perfect Quito was I was drinking these salts.

[00:10:10] I saw this product out on the market. They sent some for me to try and I was like, Hey, this stuff actually tastes pretty good. I didn't even think it would be possible to make this taste good. Um, so that was the first product. And, um, you know, they, they really hit at a good time when Keita was really starting to blow up and they put a lot of great complimentary products around that MCT oil powder, collagen.

[00:10:29] Uh, came out with, you know, electrolyte supplements. And then from there, they we've started to really get into food products. And the, the emo with the company has always been quality of ingredients. Uh, Anthony is somebody who, you know, our bars. For instance, we talked about those a little bit before how you really liked the bars.

[00:10:45] We went through, I think, 12 or 13 different iterations of that bar because Anthony would not put out anything that compromised ingredient quality, or this spiked his blood sugar. Uh, he just kept going through testing, testing, testing. And I always tell that story as kind of a, [00:11:00] so people understand where his product development comes from.

[00:11:03] He's just somebody that's so passionate about putting clean things out there and actually. Putting stuff out there that people can understand. You know, you go to a store and you pick up like a health food now, or you pick up something labeled KIDO and the ingredient list is 50 ingredients along. You can't pronounce half of them.

[00:11:17] You know, maybe the net carbs is low, but you know, you eat some of these products and they, they throw, send your blood sugar through the roof, and then you get people wondering why they're not seeing, you know, the results that they're looking for when they go to these various diets. I think that that was something that really drove his initiative and made perfect Kita what it is today.

[00:11:34] Carl Lanore: [00:11:34] You know, it's funny you say that because this summer was the first time that I saw pretty much every single, uh, mainstream diet food, ready to eat product, whether it was Jenny Craig, or everybody was like kedo, keto, kettle, kettle. And it's like, come on, it's not keto. You know, it's not, it's got pasta in it.

[00:11:57] Right. Like I get it. So you think just [00:12:00] because it's under a certain number of carbs, but, but it's it, you can't just assume that if you add it to everybody's dietary template, it's going to remain Quito because it could be contributing, you know? So it's funny how the word keto has really caught on and really do you know when this whole keto movement started?

[00:12:19] Dr. Oz started her.

[00:12:21] Chris Irvin: [00:12:21] Well, now I know when it started getting mainstream because that was during my time, but I know, I mean, Kito has been around since the twenties.

[00:12:28] Carl Lanore: [00:12:28] No, no, I understand. But from a, from a product standpoint, it was raspberry ketones. Oz did a show about raspberry ketones and every housewife in the world ran out and bought raspberry ketone capsules.

[00:12:43] Chris Irvin: [00:12:43] Yeah, promote loss supplement

[00:12:46] Carl Lanore: [00:12:46] as a weight loss and it didn't work and we know why it didn't work because it didn't have near, okay. Raspberry skin actually has some ketones in it, but you would have to, you would have to like, uh, [00:13:00] Take a million pounds of raspberries and reduce it down and sieve out just the ketones to end up with one bottle of like the effective amounts of ketones you would need for it to raise blood ketone levels.

[00:13:13] And it was such a hoax. It was so sad because so many people put now today you couldn't find the raspberry ketone product. If I bet your money to find one because they didn't work and they're all gone now.

[00:13:26] Chris Irvin: [00:13:26] Yeah. So, yeah. And that's, that's the sad thing about the supplement space too, is you see that so often where these people come in and they, you know, there's some product that has some ingredient in it that they think is great.

[00:13:36] And every year they use that as a marketing ploy and then they can get a product out on the shelf, use just like fairy dusting in an amount that isn't going to cause any sort of beneficial effects. You see that so often nowadays, That's such a frustrating thing to see, especially when people are spending their hard earned money on these things expecting to get some sort of results out of them and they're just not getting

[00:13:54] Carl Lanore: [00:13:54] them.

[00:13:55] So can you, can you bulk on keto? This is, this is something that has been studied and [00:14:00] scientists have looked at it and there are varying opinions of whether you can, or whether you can't in my mind, that seems logical that you could, because bulking requires a caloric surplus. It doesn't have to be a caloric surplus of carbs, but then there are others who say no, the carbs have a special magic.

[00:14:17] It's called insulin. What do you think? Can you bulk on ketone?

[00:14:21] Chris Irvin: [00:14:21] Yeah. So my response to this is always that if you, if you're following the tradition or not, I shouldn't say the traditional, but what's become mainstream keto today. I think that bulking is very difficult. Uh, you, you hear so many people that are.

[00:14:34] You know, doing this very low protein version of keto that is more closely mimicking the KIDO that was developed for epilepsy back in the twenties. Right. And that's not going to be really, I mean, study came out. I think it was at the end of 2018 that showed, you know, healthy men and women that were doing resistance training, following a ketogenic diet at 20% protein, they were losing muscle at 20% of protein.

[00:14:56] Uh, and so I think that the way that we recommend the [00:15:00] ketogenic diet and the fear that we have around protein and being in a state of ketosis, prevents people from optimizing the diet for muscle building. So what I always tell people is that, you know, keto can intake ill. A lot of things, you know, KIDO is really it's, it's when your body's in the metabolic state of ketosis, and that can occur in through a lot of different variations of a keto diet.

[00:15:19] Carl Lanore: [00:15:19] You could actually eat sugar, right? And being a key, a key, a ketogenic state, if you just ate two packets of sugar a day, right. And like lots of diets produce ketones. It's not just, Oh, the only way you could do it is this way here.

[00:15:35] Chris Irvin: [00:15:35] Right? Yeah. And I think so often we get hung up on what this, this method would, the original method of this ketogenic diet that it had to be done a certain way.

[00:15:44] And I think we just have to realize that, you know, different people are coming to this diet with different goals. And that's and you're going to have to tailor this dive specifically for that. So the biggest things that I there's four things that I always point out that are really big things to consider.

[00:15:56] If you want to gain muscle on KIDO, I think the, before you even get [00:16:00] into nutrition, I think the biggest thing that people need to think about is their training stimulus. You know, if you're not training for hypertrophy and you're not training in a way or an intensity, that's going to elicit muscle growth.

[00:16:09] You're not going to see muscle growth, you know, you can't, you can't just think that you're going to eat a perfect diet and then go run outside, you know, and that's going to be what helps you gain muscle. So I think first and foremost, you have to make sure that you have the right training protocol in place, but then when it comes down to your actual nutrition, I think the three things that you have to think about is one calories, which you've you had already brought up.

[00:16:29] You know, on a ketogenic diet, we tend to be very full. Uh, it's hard for people to eat in a calorie surplus. So, you know, if you're, if you're eating now, I talk to people all the time who they think that they're eating in a calorie surplus, and it turns out they're eating, you know, 15, 1700 calories. You're not going to gain muscle, doing that well.

[00:16:43] Carl Lanore: [00:16:43] And, and, and, and isn't that really the promoted benefit of Quito people are like, Oh, you, you you're, you're, you're full all the time. So you just don't eat. So, you know, like, like from an evolutionary perspective, um, the keto diet. Uh, would have been great [00:17:00] if we had no food, like we were only going to eat once a day, but if you are trying to reach a caloric target every day, let's say you're, you're a Hunter gatherer and you're going through 5,000, 6,000 calories a day, simply just by walking through the woods all day long.

[00:17:16] Slow digesting food is not your friend. Like you have to eat, you have to be hungry again, real fast and hungry, getting real fast. And so, and so, you know, when I look at the keto diet, I think you can bulk on it. But I think exactly what you just said is the problem. People like I can't eat another frigging meal of butter.

[00:17:34] I can't have another stick of butter today. You know, I can't eat another fatty, fatty food. That's why it lends itself to diet because it naturally reduces caloric intake without even thinking about it.

[00:17:45] Chris Irvin: [00:17:45] Yeah, definitely. And I mean, that's something that I faced myself when I started, you know, when I was starting, I was following that traditional approach and, you know, I was doing intermittent fasting at the same time.

[00:17:55] So I was, you know, not eating, I was eating two meals a day, not eating until like one or two in the afternoon [00:18:00] and not really doing a lot of tracking because I've never really been a big fan of that. I try to do a little bit more of intuitive eating. And I'm somebody. So I'm about six, three, six, four. I weigh, you know, somewhere between one 90 and 200, depending on the time of the year.

[00:18:12] And I realized after like six months that I had been like chronically eating 1500 calories

[00:18:18] Carl Lanore: [00:18:18] a day

[00:18:18] Chris Irvin: [00:18:18] and it's like, well, no wonder I can't, no, that's not nearly sufficient enough for me to, uh, to really fuel my body and the demands of my body, you know, so that, I think that's something that it takes a lot of personal personalization.

[00:18:29] You have to really tailor it to yourself. Uh, and then the other two things, I think that are. Big issues. Why people don't gain muscle is the pro protein is one of them. And, you know, we fear, yeah. Too low of protein. We fear this process of gluconeogenesis, which is the, you know, protein being converted to glucose.

[00:18:47] This is a process that does happen, but it doesn't happen the way that people think it happens. Right. You don't, you know, you don't just eat a bunch of steak and have it convert over to directly to sugar. Uh,

[00:18:57] Carl Lanore: [00:18:57] in fact, in fact, I want to stop there for a second. I want you to [00:19:00] validate something I've been saying on this show for a long time.

[00:19:03] Gluconeogenesis is a very metabolically expensive process. It's like, it's like grinding up wheat to make a powder to eat. Because you just want to stay alive, like go like that desperate to just put anything in the body, right. You're actually burning more calories, making the powder, then you get from eating it.

[00:19:26] And so gluconeogenesis is a very metabolically expensive process that the body does in a very limited. Fashion only when blood sugar is dropping so low that the brain goes, look, man, I'm going to run out of juice here. We're going to fall down, do something about it. And the body goes, okay, well, we take these low glycine.

[00:19:43] We take these highly Glucogenix amino acids. We'll we'll force them through the liver. We'll make some magic and we'll have sugar come out the other end, but that's a very expensive process for the body.

[00:19:53] Chris Irvin: [00:19:53] Yeah. And you know, it's a very expensive process. It's not an efficient thing. And we know that the body loves to take the path of [00:20:00] least resistance.

[00:20:00] So it's not going to take this path when it is so metabolically demanding for it to do so. And I think the other thing for people to remember too, is that this is actually an incredibly beneficial process because it's one of the reasons why. You don't have to eat carbohydrates despite the fact that your body does need to have glucose.

[00:20:17] Uh, you know, we do have certain cells in our bodies that can not use fatty acids and ketones for energy, which are those cells, red blood cells,

[00:20:25] Carl Lanore: [00:20:25] red blood

[00:20:25] Chris Irvin: [00:20:25] cells, red blood cells is a big one. And then there's certain portions of the brain that don't really have a great, or that aren't very efficient at using ketones for energy.

[00:20:33] Um, so it's important to have

[00:20:35] Carl Lanore: [00:20:35] areas of the brain, which areas of the brain. I don't remember off

[00:20:39] Chris Irvin: [00:20:39] the top of my head. I would have to follow up on that for sure. But I know that there were some portions that, yeah, it's just not much that the other fuel sources aren't metabolized as, as readily. Uh, so I think that, you know, this is a great thing though, because it's a process that exists.

[00:20:52] It allows us to get there without having to over consume carbohydrates. And it's the same reason why, if you don't eat carbs for a month, your blood sugar doesn't [00:21:00] go to zero, right? Like your blood sugar, it's still like, you know, 70, 80, depending on, you know, your, your level of insulin sensitivity. And this is all a good thing, but to think that just having a ton of excess protein, I mean, when you look at studies on this, even when we look at the most metabolically damaged individuals, which tends to be those who are diabetic prediabetic, insulin resistant, even these studies and these individuals where they're consuming, you know, 50 to a hundred grams of protein in a single setting, we still only see a very, very modest increase in blood sugar with those people.

[00:21:31] So when you start talking about healthy people who are trying to put on muscle. You don't really have to fear that protein is going to be taking a lot of ketosis. And I think another thing that needs to be pointed out there too, is that, you know, if, even if it did, let's say that even protein, for some reason, it does kick you out of ketosis.

[00:21:48] If your primary goal is building muscle, then there's no harm in you being kicked out of ketosis. This isn't, you know, ketosis for you. Isn't a life or death thing. You're probably not doing it for a therapeutic reason or, you know,

[00:21:59] Carl Lanore: [00:21:59] and [00:22:00] you're not doing

[00:22:02] Chris Irvin: [00:22:02] exactly. Yeah. You're, you're, you know, we know that when you're in a state of ketosis, you are in an optimal space for burning fat.

[00:22:07] But if you're trying to build muscle, you have a different goal during this time. That's something that need people need to really consider too, is that, you know, what, how deep of state of ketosis that you are in is going to be dependent on really what your primary goals are. So I really think that that protein one is something that people need to think about eating more of it's important.

[00:22:26] We know that we were talking about a little bit before the show. We know how important maintaining muscle mass is to, uh, our, our aging process and keeping us healthy as we age and slowing down aging. Once you lose that muscle with age, it becomes a lot harder to put it back on. So anything you can do to combat that is going to be great.

[00:22:45] Uh, and then the final thing I think with a keto diet, that is one of the most under talked about things. When it comes to muscle building is the role that potassium plays. And, you know, we know that when you work, when you're on a low carb diet, your insulin levels lower, and this causes you to [00:23:00] excrete more electrolytes.

[00:23:01] This causes you to have some more electrolyte, deficiencies, and potassium tends to be one of those electrolytes that is deficient. And potassium plays a role in so many processes in the body, but one of the biggest roles that it plays in is then the muscle protein synthesis process. So, you know, if, if you're talking about being in a cork deficit, In a protein deficit and then missing out on some essential nutrients that are playing a key role in regulating protein building or muscle building, then you're going to find it very difficult for you to gain more muscle.

[00:23:30] So I think that that's one of the reasons why, when we look at a lot of the research, you know, you're not going to find many studies that show muscle gain on a ketogenic diet. But I think it's because a lot of these studies are not set up to actually produce muscle gain. So I think that that's, that's a really big one.

[00:23:45] And then, you know, on that topic, I always like to mention too, if you're somebody who's really into the literature and you like reading, you really have to look at the length of these studies. So when you look at a study, that's looking at, say, lean body mass or muscle mass on a ketogenic diet, they're using a DEXA [00:24:00] scan.

[00:24:00] And when you use a DEXA scan, you know, water levels and glycogen levels can really manipulate your readings. So when you start a ketogenic diet and your first couple of weeks, you're going to have, you know, your water levels are going to be a little bit lower and your glycogen levels are going to be lower.

[00:24:13] And on a DEXA scan, that's going to be registered as a loss in lean body mass. So when you look at these studies and you see, you know, a two week ketogenic diet study in which people lost lean body mass, and usually it's like pretty high amounts, you have to understand that there's no way they lost that much muscle in two weeks.

[00:24:28] First of all. And second off, it's kind of a false reading and not really a great descriptor of what's happened.

[00:24:33] Carl Lanore: [00:24:33] Yeah, it's our, sarcoplasmic a fluid that fills up the muscle fibers. And then that's re that, that actually you can rebuild that, that comes back very quickly,

[00:24:42] Chris Irvin: [00:24:42] um, in bullet.

[00:24:44] Carl Lanore: [00:24:44] Yup. I want to take a quick commercial break.

[00:24:48] And when we come back, we're going to coin a new term that we hope catches on and becomes part of the common vernacular as well. The website is perfect. quito.com/super human. You'll get 20% off your entire [00:25:00] order. They have. If you're a fan of low carb, Uh, keto, low sugar. They have so many supplements and that's the thing I like about it.

[00:25:08] You know, I just found out recently we had a guy who wanted to become a sponsor and it has, uh, the, the, the type of sugar alcohol that he uses is not a fan of the keto community. And I didn't know that I figured a sugar alcohol what's the big deal. And. On top of that, it gave me diarrhea. And we said, no, you can't come on until you fix the sugar in this product really bad.

[00:25:28] But anyway, uh, and the product tasted amazing. I was like, Oh my God, everybody's going to love this until that night. And I went home and Alyssa made me sleep in the yard, but anyway, so, uh, you know, it, you got to know what really works and what's going to. Work and keep you in your lane, so to speak of your keto lifestyle and you just have to go to perfect quito.com/superhuman to not only see all the great things that they have there, but save 20% off.

[00:25:55] We're going to take a quick commercial break. And when we come back, be prepared for a new word, [00:26:00] stay tuned. You are listening to this superhuman channel we're ripped and we're ready.

[00:26:09] Welcome back. We're talking with Chris Irvin. We're talking kedo. And we think we came up with a new word. So you've heard of intimate and fast thing, which doesn't mean starve yourself all the time. It means just stop yourself a little periods of the day. Really. That's what it comes down to. And this probably mimics a more evolutionary style meal, a frequency pattern, because we had to go out and find food.

[00:26:33] Wasn't in the fridge. What about intermittent kedo? Did I spell that right? Yes, I did intermittent Kettering. Okay. Um, what about intermittent Caddo so that when you look at a lot of the kedo Facebook pages and the kedo groups and all this sort of stuff, um, you see this, um, This common wisdom, that more is better.

[00:26:56] Deeper is better. Like I see women on a particular [00:27:00] guy's Facebook page a long time ago. He's kind of stopped doing keto now, but, and they would be like, you know, I've been doing keto for four months now. Uh, I'm not losing weight. I'm Lou, my hair's falling out. I had anxiety and the answer is. You're not eating enough fat, you know, you're, you're not fat adapted.

[00:27:18] You, you haven't gone deep enough down into this rabbit hole. Uh, maybe some people would respond to Quito if they did it cyclical. What do you think?

[00:27:27] Chris Irvin: [00:27:27] Yeah, definitely. I think, um, yeah, the cyclical approach to Quito, which I think calling it intermittent Quito is probably the better way to go because cyclic Quito, I think comes with a lot of connotations now because you know, that's been something that people tried to bring, bring up when Quito is in its most popular heyday.

[00:27:43] And then, you know, people really dispelled it. And now we, we don't like that term. So I think intermittent Tito's a much better way to go about it, but I do think intermittent ketosis. Pretty great it's approach that I actually take myself. Um, but I always, before we dive into it, I think the biggest thing to point out with this approach is that [00:28:00] this isn't necessarily an approach for everybody.

[00:28:02] And I think that you really need to consider what your primary goals are to see if this is a good fit for you. You know, if you're somebody who, if your primary goal is weight loss and weight loss is something that you, you know, you're not really close to where you want to be in that you have a long way to go.

[00:28:17] I think that you're probably better off just sticking with a ketogenic diet and trying to stay in a low carb state of ketosis for as often as possible. Uh, and then the other thing I think that's important to point out is that if you are. Somebody who is experiencing some negative side effects of Quito.

[00:28:34] I would be hesitant to say that your best approach is going to be to just start incorporating carbohydrates back into your diet. What's likely going on. Is that there's something not right. Quite right with your diet. So you brought up, you know, that case where, you know, women are losing their hair and their hormones are out of whack.

[00:28:50] You know, this could be a reason, a reason for them to start incorporating some carbohydrates. But another thing to consider is that it might also be that you've been chronically under eating calories. You know, [00:29:00] you're, you've been on the stair stepper for an hour, a day, eating a thousand calories and eating no protein.

[00:29:05] That's probably more of the reason why you're losing your hair then than it actually being

[00:29:09] Carl Lanore: [00:29:09] real. There's a really good point. Cause it comes back full circle to what we said before that most people on keto are really eating enough to begin with.

[00:29:15] Chris Irvin: [00:29:15] Yeah.

[00:29:16] Carl Lanore: [00:29:16] Yeah. And they don't care. As long as the scale keeps changing.

[00:29:18] You know, somebody, this is something I say often to friends of mine. They want to lose weight. Oh, I want to, I got to lose weight fast. I say, get cancer. Well, you know, and they look at me and they go, well, that's a crappy thing to no, no, you want to lose weight fastest way to lose, lose weight is get canceled, but you don't want to lose that kind of weight.

[00:29:40] Right? So what you want to do when you want to lose body fat while maintaining your adding muscle. And until we start speaking about weight loss specifically, this way, the scale means nothing. It doesn't mean anything, but, but the problem is. People who jump on the keto bandwagon today, want to lose weight at [00:30:00] any cost at all costs, they don't care.

[00:30:02] They just want to be able to say, Oh, I'm 114 pounds. Again. I haven't been 114 pounds. I was 22 years old. But when you were 22, 114 pounds, you had more muscle, you looked healthier and now you look like a skeleton in a bag. Like, what did you do? What did you, did you do something really good?

[00:30:20] Chris Irvin: [00:30:20] Yeah. And I think what I always say within my, my kind of go to response with it's always is that sweet with a ketogenic diet, low carb diet, or really any diet that we call anything, you know, any diet that has a name.

[00:30:33] What always happens is we fight. Focus so much on what we're, we're removing from the diet that we forget to replace that with the right things. Or we forget to replace it at all, you know, on a ketogenic diet, we have to remember we're removing a whole macronutrient group, essentially. So simply removing that group.

[00:30:49] Yeah. That's going to help and cause a lot of benefits, you know, if you're somebody, I think what happens is the reason why everybody wants this rapid weight loss is because. You see this success story on the internet where, so, and [00:31:00] so was 450 pounds and they lost 200 pounds in the first six months, you know, some crazy transformation story.

[00:31:06] And we think that those types of results are attainable for everyone. And I think one of the things we have to remember is that in some of these cases, we're talking about people who are at the extreme end of metabolic dysfunction and at the extreme end of not being very healthy. And for these people, you know, having.

[00:31:24] Carbohydrates really is one of the biggest problems. If you, if you are somebody who is very overweight, if you're somebody who's, you know, prediabetic, you're somebody who's facing a lot of health issues have chronic inflammation. Chances are, you probably have some insulin resistance going on, which means that your body doesn't handle carbohydrates very well.

[00:31:40] So removing those carbohydrates, you're going to see a ton of health improvements, but that doesn't mean that you've necessarily optimized the diet. Right. That doesn't mean that that's the only change that you should make, you know, ideally we're removing.

[00:31:54] Oh, Not replacing it with a ton of packaged, uh, you know, processed foods, replacing it with [00:32:00] nutrient dense protein sources, you know, we're have high quality meat, things like that. And I think that that's a big thing that we need to, that needs to be a part of this conversation is that keto is not just removing carbohydrates.

[00:32:09] It's a, it's replacing those carbohydrates with foods that your body can actually put to good use and help repair and restore, you know, things that you may have damaged during your life. So now to get into the actual conversation of intermittent KIDO, Um, I do think the intermittent keto is a really great approach and I actually have a pretty good case study of somebody who, uh, this worked really well for recently, that kind of helped to have a good friend, uh, back in the Midwest here who runs a gym.

[00:32:34] And he's, uh, he's a bodybuilder himself carries a lot of muscle mass, uh, and he. He came to me because he not somebody who was looking to lose weight. Wasn't really looking to drop body fat that much. But he started testing his morning, blood sugar, and he saw that his morning blood sugar was a lot higher than he wanted it to be.

[00:32:51] Uh, it was, you know, he's testing and like the one twenties, he would find his board figure would raise and crash after he was even having what he would consider to be a little bit [00:33:00] better. Carbohydrate sources like, you know, sweet potatoes or like lower glycemia

[00:33:04] Carl Lanore: [00:33:04] sleep was jacked up to right asleep having Jack.

[00:33:07] Right, right.

[00:33:09] Chris Irvin: [00:33:09] Sleep was jacked up and energy levels, horrible in the afternoon, you know, getting like an afternoon crash and things like that. So he really wants to know what the best approach was. And he wasn't, he wasn't somebody that I felt like needed to go full Quito. So what I told him is I said, there's a couple of things that you can do here.

[00:33:23] You can go full Quito. Which it might be a little bit more challenging for you at the time he was eating 300 to 400 grams carbs, so consuming a very high carb diet. And, you know, I said, that's going to be a bit of a adjustment for you to go all the way to Quito. But if you want to knock this out quicker and you want to improve these blood glucose levels, That would be probably the fat as this approach to diet right now, if we want to look at the approach that might be most optimal for, you might take a little bit longer, but might be a little bit more sustainable and help kind of energize and power your workouts.

[00:33:53] Then why don't we look at something like an intermittent keto approach? So we, we kind of did this approach where we had car bumps [00:34:00] on the weekends. Um, and we, you know, one of the biggest things with this intermittent keto approach is that. When you take it, when you, when we talk about carb ups or we talk about replenishing carbohydrates, that's, shouldn't be really used as an excuse to go crush donuts and, and, you know, pop darts, and then all these different things.

[00:34:16] You know, I think that's, if you, if you're, you can really destroy a lot of progress by just having a ton of pizza beer. And, and, you know, ice cream on the weekends. So if you're going to do it, I think it's really good to keep in mind, you know, quality carbohydrates if you're going to do that. But we did this with him and, you know, after a few weeks of that, plus a little bit of intermittent fasting during the week, we really found that he was able to improve his insulin sensitivity, get his blood sugar levels in check.

[00:34:39] And I think that that was a really good case study showing that, you know, not everybody, the way that I like to look at. You know, Quito and, and how we should approach diet is that we have like an insulin sensitivity. I look at it like a pressure gauge, right. And, you know, we have a pressure gauge that when we consume a lot of carbohydrates and if we consume a lot of carbohydrates for a long period of time, that [00:35:00] pressure gauge increases, and that's kind of means that we're becoming more insulin resistant.

[00:35:04] And we have to find ways to relieve that pressure so that we can, can maintain a level of insulin sensitivity, which will mean that we can still utilize carbohydrates well, and there's a few different strategies you can use to relieve that pressure. One of those strategies can be, uh, exercise, right? So if you, if you exercise more, that's going to increase your insulin sensitivity.

[00:35:24] If you restrict carbohydrates, that's going to increase your. Uh, insulin sensitivity, if you restrict your feeding window, right? So intermittent fasting, that's gonna relieve that. So there's a lot of different things that you can do to relieve that, but it doesn't, it's not going to be the, it's not going to require the same level of relief for everybody.

[00:35:41] So for somebody who is pre-diabetic, um, who or overweight or dealing with chronic inflammation, Somebody like that might need to go a full keto approach to really relieve enough of that pressure, to allow them to become more insulin sensitive and their body better utilize the nutrients that they're eating.

[00:35:58] But for other people, they might not [00:36:00] require that same degree of carbohydrate restriction or that same degree of, you know, having to do it for as long, right. This intermittent keto approach can be a way that you can. You know, get some carbs in you on the weekends that you can maybe help, that can help fuel your training sessions, uh, and, you know, allow you to, to enjoy some more food so that you don't feel quite as restricted as you may feel on a ketogenic diet.

[00:36:20] And, you know, and there could be a whole slew of other benefits that could come with it such as, you know, upregulating different hormones, um, you know, adjusting all kinds of things. So I think that it's something that we haven't really looked into. There's not. You know, there's only been a handful of studies looking at like this intermittent KIDO, cyclical, keto approach.

[00:36:37] Those studies haven't really shown the best results yet, but I think a lot of them weren't really set up for success. And I think a lot of them were probably more looking to show that it wasn't a superior method, a taquito versus, you know, what those studies should have been looking at. And that was that it was a good tool to accommodate a ketogenic diet and research.

[00:36:55] We don't always do it.

[00:36:56] Carl Lanore: [00:36:56] Yeah. I know when that, when you, when you go out hunting for the end result, do you usually find [00:37:00] that, uh, you know, intimate and Quito is really what dr. MALDI Pasquale proposed 35 years ago in his anabolic diet where you had carb free feeds on the weekend, but he was like, you, like, you don't go out and eat pizza and beer.

[00:37:13] You make them good carbs because you want, do you want to keep insulin? Sensitivity, fairly stable. You'd like built this wonderful insulin sensitivity template over the week, and you don't want to just destroy it on the weekend where you have to come back and start from scratch, uh, during the week. But the other thing that I want to make, I want to touch on in the restrict carbs discussion is.

[00:37:39] You could restrict carved by just changing the carbohydrates you eat. So if you're eating yams and white potatoes and red potatoes and rice, and, and you're starting to become a little insulin sensitive, well, cut out one or two of the servings of, of potatoes or rice and add in cauliflower or broccoli or even green beans.

[00:37:57] You don't. When you talk about restricting carbs, [00:38:00] people think right away. How am I going to get through this? Like, I eat so much carbs, try eating 300 grams of Brock of, of, of, of carbohydrates in broccoli every day. Like you, you won't be able to eat all that broccoli, but it's still carbs and it's a slow digesting carb and it will replenish glycogen and it will spike insulin a little bit.

[00:38:22] No. So what about that? What about like, why, why, why do we have this all or nothing attitude about everything to do with diet? Why can't you go keto and, and, and, and increase some very low glycemic load levy, very low carbohydrate impact load type carbohydrates, like green leafy vegetables.

[00:38:40] Chris Irvin: [00:38:40] Yeah. And I think that's a huge thing to point out that is, so that, that conversation is lost in the shuffle of this dogma that is around diets, you know, and I think it's.

[00:38:50] As it is with most things, the answer tends to be moderation, right? Like the answer's not way over here and it's not way over. We're here. It's usually somewhere in the middle and you know, it's like what the [00:39:00] carbohydrate consumption conversation is that, you know, because of the keto movement and stuff, we have people that think that carbohydrates are just inherently bad, which then causes these arguments on the other side that no, they're not bad.

[00:39:11] And the answer is that it's right in the middle, right? If you, if you can handle carbohydrates and your body can metabolize them and put them to good use, then carbs aren't necessarily bad for you. Uh, when it comes to restricting carbohydrates. Not everybody needs to be restricting all of their carbohydrates, but you do need to be thinking about the types that you're restricting.

[00:39:28] You know, I have a hard time believing that anybody has gotten obese off of eating just sweet potatoes, right. Or eating even just, you know, rice or something like that. I think most times we're looking at processed carbohydrates. Right. And I think that that's probably the biggest thing that people can do.

[00:39:42] You know, if you're somebody who's not, you know, that you need to have a health change, you know, that you're overeating carbohydrates. Let's look at the type of carbohydrates, like you say, and let's see which ones we can remove. You know, if you're having a ton of bread, if you're having a ton of processed foods and packaged carbohydrates, those are the things that are actually.

[00:39:58] Going to be damaging your health. And [00:40:00] those are the things that are causing this insulin resistance that we're talking about a lot more than some of these more, whole food versions of carbs, like tubers and things like that, or, you know, carbs that you might be getting from vegetables and whatnot. So I think that that always needs to be an important part of the conversation is that.

[00:40:15] No, we're not, you know, nobody is, is, well, I guess I shouldn't say nobody, some people are saying the carbs just are bad, but that's never the case. Nothing is ever good or bad. It's always the context of it. And I think that that's something that we need to think about with this KIDO movement.

[00:40:28] Carl Lanore: [00:40:28] Yeah. Joel, Joel green.

[00:40:29] Who's a good friend of mine and a friend of the show. Uh, who's written a couple of really good books about. About nutrition and metabolism and biology. And, and he likes to call that baby talk, you know, in the world of nutrition, you know, carbs, bad proteins, good. It's like, no that's baby talks. I Gugu Gaga.

[00:40:47] Like no let's form full sentences, revolving around full thoughts and let's stop all this. This is good. And this is bad nonsense.

[00:40:55] Chris Irvin: [00:40:55] And that's something that, you know, being like you being labeled as like a keto guy in the space, that's something [00:41:00] that I've had to fight a little bit. Okay. You know, I have, like when I first got into keto and I wanted to get more education information out there, I came up with like a brand in a social media channel that was branded as like Quito.

[00:41:12] And I think this, this kind of led because of the direction that keto is going, this led many people to think that I fell into this category of people that thinks that all carbohydrates are bad ketos, the only approach to go, you know, and so on and so forth. And really I'm somebody that thinks that sees keto as a tool.

[00:41:27] Right. I think that when you look at our population, you see that. Uh, around a third of our population in the U S is insulin resistant. And that means that a third of our population has probably been overeating carbohydrates for an extended period of time. And that has led to, to damaging of their health.

[00:41:43] Those people need to really consider low carb ketogenic diet. I think that that needs to be one of their primary. Methods of next, the most effective lever. I think that they can pull to improve their health. Now that's only, that's one third of the population. So the other two thirds, there's probably a different approach that could be beneficial for them or a [00:42:00] different degree of macronutrient manipulation or whatever that could help them.

[00:42:04] That, but for that a third, that third of the population that's who I think this conversation of Quito is most for. And then to go off of that, you have to remember that just because you are starting a ketogenic diet, that never means that you have to stick to it forever. Right? That doesn't Keno is not an all or nothing thing.

[00:42:20] It is not a, if you started today that you can, you know, this is another one of those baby talk, I think is a, is a great way to describe that where. You get these people who, um, it's funny story. I was at best. A breakdown of this that I've heard is that was that low carb, Houston two years ago. And, uh, the diet doctor, dr.

[00:42:37] Andres Seinfeld, he was giving a talk about how people always say that, you know, they start a ketogenic diet and when they stop it, they gain all the weight back. So that means that the ketogenic diet must not work. And he gave an example of that. He kind of was funny. It'd be like, it'd be like saying, you go to the gym.

[00:42:51] You gain a bunch of muscle and then you stopped going to the gym and you lose the muscle and you say, well, I tried going to the gym when I stopped going, hasn't worked. [00:43:00] And then he takes it a step further and he goes, you know, that'd be like showering and then not showering anymore. And then you start smelling and saying, well, I tried that shower.

[00:43:06] Orange thing. But when I stopped showering, I started smelling. So it must not work, you know? And the point with that conversation is that you hear these stories of people gain gaining weight back when they started, when they come off of the ketogenic diet. And that makes people think that this is like an all or nothing thing that once you commit to it, you'll never get

[00:43:22] Carl Lanore: [00:43:22] out.

[00:43:22] You're not having a gastric bypass surgery where it's like, once they do it, it's there forever. It's you have to continue to eat the right

[00:43:29] Chris Irvin: [00:43:29] way. Exactly. And that's never what's happening, you know, people because of, of the way that our world is now and how restricted people feel when they cut those carbohydrates off.

[00:43:38] When they come out of the ketogenic diet, they're not coming out and reintroducing carbohydrates from whole food sources, they're having pizza and

[00:43:45] Carl Lanore: [00:43:45] going back and eating the exact way that got them into the crappy shape they were in before they started keto. That's what they're doing. Now. I can go back and eat crap again, like I used to right.

[00:43:56] Yeah.

[00:43:57] Chris Irvin: [00:43:57] And it's like, you know, and the thing is, is that, you know, [00:44:00] to be completely truthful, chances are, if, once you come off the ketogenic diet and have that short window afterwards, you probably can handle those foods a little bit better, but just like what got you in that position? I mean, think about when we're young, right.

[00:44:12] When we're young, you know, when I was in high school, I was just trying to gain weight. So I just, I was eating loads of carbohydrates. I was just doing whatever I could, and it would never affected me in any sort of negative way. My body could handle that. But then over years and years of doing that, Then my body started not handling those carbohydrates as well.

[00:44:28] And that's the same thing. It's going to happen to you when you, if you restore your metabolism and you get back to a healthy baseline, you might be better able to handle those carbohydrates in the short term afterwards.

[00:44:37] Carl Lanore: [00:44:37] And for short bursts, like in other words, you could go, go, go, go off the reservation for a weekend.

[00:44:42] You go to Mexico, you're drinking, eaten crap. But when you come home Monday, you get back on the program.

[00:44:48] Chris Irvin: [00:44:48] Exactly. Yeah. And I think that's even why, you know, that conversation, we just finished up about intermittent keto. That's even why I think that's so effective is because you come off of the keto diet, you have that short burst of carbohydrate intake that your [00:45:00] body's probably actually able to put to good use and ends up being beneficial.

[00:45:03] But when you start talking about, you know, the chronic over consumption, kind of just, you, you start getting way away from those principles that got you healthy again. You're going to go. Back to the way you were before. And I think that it's one of those things where I think most people know that I don't think that anybody's being really honest with themselves when they come off the diet and they're eating pizza and drinking beer all the time, thinking that, you know, that it's Quito that was, you know, coming off of keto is a reason why that, that, that happened.

[00:45:28] I think most people know that. But a lot of times, you know, we, we don't want to take ownership for our actions and we know how to take ownership over the outcomes. And I think it's one of those things. We have to be honest with ourselves and understand that. Look, if you were eating the way you were before, common sense says you're going to return to that state of health.

[00:45:42] That doesn't, that shouldn't come as a surprise.

[00:45:44] Carl Lanore: [00:45:44] Absolutely. We're going to take a quick commercial break. When we come back, I'm going to do a lightning round. We're going to use the word KIDO and a bunch of other words and see what we can learn from Chris Irvin. In the meantime, you can go to the website.

[00:45:54] Perfect KIDO. Dot com slash superhuman and save 20% off. Anything that you see there. And [00:46:00] there is a lot. To get lost in a, if you are a low carb keto person, you will find lots of great things there. Show them some love. There are new sponsors, stay tuned. We'll be right back. You were listening to the superhuman channel.

[00:46:12] Don't hate us because we feel good.

[00:46:19] Welcome back. We're talking with Chris Arvin. He is with company called perfect kedo. Well, perfect Quito. I say kettle all the time and it's not the right way to say it because it just gets confused with other words I can do you have to say Quito, it's the ketogenic diet keto, but anyway, I digress. So I'm going to throw some words at you and see what you think.

[00:46:38] Okay. Keto and autoimmunity.

[00:46:41] Chris Irvin: [00:46:41] Um, yeah, I think, uh, the, I think that's the area where we need the most research right now. That is potential for the most compelling, uh, I think the most compelling, not novel therapeutic advantage of Quito could be in this area, but we do not have enough research for it yet.

[00:46:58] Carl Lanore: [00:46:58] Uh, we do see people having [00:47:00] some, uh, results from going on the keto diet in areas of autoimmunity. But you seem to think that you, you mentioned when we kind of talked about this briefly, you, you were like, well, we should talk about the carnivore diet in that aspect as well. Right?

[00:47:13] Chris Irvin: [00:47:13] Yeah. So, and the only reason why I say that, I think that keto can be just as effective.

[00:47:17] But I think one of the problems is where I think diet plays. The biggest role with autoimmunity is that you're removing a lot of foods that are causing gut flareups and that are causing, you know, some, some systemic inflammation. And I think that, like we talked about the beginning of this conversation, people go Quito, but there's so many keto products out there now that maybe don't have some of these ingredients removed, that when you go carnivore, you don't really have a choice.

[00:47:42] You know, you're just eating meat. So you just, all of that stuff is going to be removed. And I think that. When we look at auto-immunity and we look at diets for autoimmunity, the ones that tend to work the best are the ones that are producing some sort of an elimination diet effect, right? You're eliminating the foods that are causing the flare ups and are causing the [00:48:00] problems.

[00:48:00] Now I know that like there's research showing that, um, you know, and you, you have keto and gut on there. Now I think that autoimmunity and got really good. They're the same thing.

[00:48:08] Carl Lanore: [00:48:08] I say it all the time on the show. I say, when we talk about, so everybody loves to say inflammation is at the root of every disease.

[00:48:14] And then we think about autoimmunity and we failed to realize that the immune system resides in the gut and the pharmacy zone is the, is the army of the gut of the immune system. So you can't talk about autoimmunity. You can't talk about chronic inflammation and you can't talk about the gut unless you're talking about all three of them in unison.

[00:48:35] Chris Irvin: [00:48:35] Yeah. And I love that, that, that that's something that people are starting to realize, because when you realize that how big of a role that gut plays in this, then you realize how big of a role diet can play in this. Right. It just makes sense if, if it all resides in your gut and what we eat is going to play a very big role in our ability to combat these things and maybe improve our outcomes.

[00:48:54] So, you know, we do have some evidence out there that is showing that, you know, the ketogenic diet can also. [00:49:00] Of the gut microbiome in some ways that may be favorable towards improving gut health, autoimmunity, systemic inflammation, things like that. Um, one of the problems that we faced with this, like we always face is that there's not a ton of research going on with this because there's no money to be made on a ketogenic diet.

[00:49:14] So because there's no money to be made on keto, you're not going to see a lot. Of disease research. You know, that's something that requires a lot of private funding. Um, so it's something that we need to have more people doing that, but the anecdotal evidence that we're seeing behind the carnivore diet and the keto diet, I think is showing that this is something that we need to really think about.

[00:49:33] We need to look at more and I think it makes sense. I think it's actually far simpler than what people think, right? If we, if we look at how big of a role the gut plays in autoimmunity, and we look at, you know, the role, how inflammation occurs in the body, Then we can pretty easily understand that removing processed carbohydrates and removing excess amounts of carbohydrates, that kind of damage a lot of these things.

[00:49:53] It makes sense that we're going to see some improvements in these areas. Right. So I don't think that it's something that's so, uh, it's not maybe [00:50:00] mechanistically as crazy as what people think. I think if it's really that you're removing some of these common triggers, and if you can do that the right way, you know, if you can follow KIDO, a whole food version of a ketogenic diet where you're eating more gut promoting.

[00:50:12] Um, foods, you know, maybe you can get some more of those, um, you know, fermented foods and stuff like that. That can promote a, a good diet. That's going to be a very advantageous way to go about treating these things, I think. Um, but we have to remember too, that just being on a diet that says it's Quito, but you know, eating a lot of these packaged foods that have ingredient lists that are a hundred.

[00:50:29] You know, a hundred ingredients long, those things probably aren't going to lead to those same improvements in gut health. So we have to be realistic with those claims. I think

[00:50:36] Carl Lanore: [00:50:36] I agree. Yeah. Okay. Quito and sleep, you know, people and no one sleeps well anymore in this country. Is there any evidence that when someone goes a Quito and it has become fat adapted?

[00:50:46] Cause obviously when we talk about keto, just starting the diet, doesn't make you where you need to be immediately. But if someone is fat adapted, do you see a lot of sleep disturbances go away?

[00:50:57] Chris Irvin: [00:50:57] Um, so typically we don't see them [00:51:00] go away and research, but I think just like the conversation with like the muscle building is that because the diets aren't set up to optimize for that.

[00:51:08] Right. So just like we were talking about with potassium and electrolytes before, um, electrolyte deficiencies for magnesium are also very common on the ketogenic diet and we know that that can really alter our sleep. So I think that. You know, with a ketogenic diet, if you're not supplementing with like a magnesium supplement and those electronic levels are getting out of whack, you may actually, that's one of the big reasons why you hear people say that they maybe don't get as much sleep.

[00:51:30] Um, another really compelling thing that I've heard that's interesting on this topic is that, you know, keto and sleep, you hear a lot of people report sleeping less, but waking up feeling better. And when you think about this, you know, when you think about the purpose of sleep, which is for us to kind of like, it's basically like an opportunity for us to cleanse our brain, right?

[00:51:49] We have a lot of toxins and neuroinflammation and stuff going on from metabolizing nutrients all day that we need to kind of reduce that and we need to clean it up at night. And when you talk about a [00:52:00] ketogenic diet where our brain is primarily running on a fuel sources that don't promote, or they don't produce isn't.

[00:52:05] Much oxidative stress and actually produce more molecules to help combat oxidative stress in the brain. You can see why we maybe meet, need less sleep. So that's something that I've noticed being on keto for about four or five years now is that I don't require as much sleep as I used to. But my, you know, when I track my sleep, all of my numbers look great.

[00:52:23] I wake up feeling energized. I don't have any problems going on. So, um, I think that. There's still a lot to be understood with sleep in general. And I think with keto and sleep as well. But one thing that I'll say is that I think with sleep, environmental factors probably play a much bigger role than nutritional factors.

[00:52:39] You know, being a nutrition guy. I'm always the one to say that, you know, it all starts with diet, but I think with sleep, a lot of it is our environment. You know, you get so many people who, you know, they're drinking a lot of alcohol before bed, or they are on their phones before bed or they're. Uh, you know, watching they fall asleep with the TV on, in front of them, or, you know, they, they kind of put [00:53:00] themselves in stressful situations before bed, and then they wonder why they're getting poor sleep.

[00:53:04] I think that those are probably the biggest things to think about before we even start talking about supplementation. And

[00:53:11] Carl Lanore: [00:53:11] there's one that we have, one that we have very little control of, but has been shown in good research. Most of it coming out of Scandinavia, uh, is the excitatory effects of. Uh, these radio frequencies above one gigahertz 1.2, 1.4, which is your cell phones, your tablets, your, you know, your, your iPad and your router and your cordless phone base station.

[00:53:39] And not just yours, then it's everybody around you. We know that these frequencies excite the brain that this has been, this has been shown conclusively. This is not like one study and. Have you considered the soup? Of RF and EMF we live in today.

[00:53:58] Chris Irvin: [00:53:58] Uh,

[00:53:58] Carl Lanore: [00:53:58] I think that, that, I [00:54:00] think no one is looking at that truthfully, like no really good scientific studies had done that you can look at and go, wow, this really is something, of course they did this to, to, to, to, to, uh, account for that.

[00:54:13] They did that to account for this and look, these people sleep sucked. And when we got the RF out of their environment, they, because, you know, I mean you're young enough. You probably like going camping once in a while, right? Everybody knows when you go camping, you get you sleep great. You're sleeping on the frigging floor.

[00:54:31] You sleeping on the framing, the ground in a little bag. That's you know, your sleeping bag, right. And it's cold as hell. And you wake up in the morning and you go, man, I slept so good. It's like, come on, you have a $10,000 mattress at home. You, you, I mean, you can't sleep good there, but you can sleep good on the ground.

[00:54:48] Wait a minute. You're off the grid. You're off the

[00:54:51] Chris Irvin: [00:54:51] grid. Definitely. And I love the, what you put, you said there, the soup, right? It's like, it's the combination of all of the things, because you start looking at those [00:55:00] frequencies, right. And you think about how those are excitatory and that's going to keep us awake, but then you look at even like the little, I mean, everybody knows blue light, right?

[00:55:08] That's like become like the common theme. We talk about blue light. Obviously, if you're watching a TV. For bed, have a cell phone in front of your face before bed. But one of the things, when I was in grad school, right before I started studying Quito, I studied circadian rhythms a little bit. And one of the most interesting things I found was that your eyes will actually pick up on blue light and things like that, even when they're closed and you're sleeping.

[00:55:29] So there's study, they've done studies where they show people sleeping. And so for people who aren't familiar with this process, you know, when your eyes recognize the lights. Um, that leads to a suppression of melatonin, which, you know, for, in a normal environment would mean that it's becoming daylight.

[00:55:43] You suppress melatonin, so you can wake up. And then at night, as your eyes recognize darkness and you start to creating more melatonin and then, you know, that's kind of counteracts cortisol, and then you're able to go to sleep. That's a much simplified version of it. But, um, but when you see these, these studies have shown that, you know, we see a [00:56:00] phase shift, which is basically being shifted to like the next part of your sleep cycle or to the next part of your day.

[00:56:05] When you are, when you even have a flash of light with your eyes closed. So think about if you're somebody who you're sleeping at home, you have your cell phone next to your bed facing up. You're maybe you're sleeping with the TV on with it flashing all night. And then you talk about the frequencies. You got the wifi going, you got all these different things going on around you, and then you said cocktail.

[00:56:26] Carl Lanore: [00:56:26] You said you just speak just because you're not talking on your cell phone every second of the day, your cell phone is pinging. The cell site I'm here. Now I'm here now. So people think that just because their phone isn't doing anything that it's it's off, unless it's an airplane mode, it is transmitting into your brain while you sleep.

[00:56:48] And I've had more. I there's a girl who listens to my show. She lives on an Island off of France. She's originally from Russia. I didn't ask that. I can mention her. So I'm just going to say her first name is [00:57:00] Maria. Okay. So she found my show sometime ago and she thinks it's the greatest show in the world.

[00:57:04] And I love her for that. I'm happy that she thinks that. But the first thing that I told her, what I was talking about this one day on a show, and I said, you know, when you turn your phone on airplane mode, you sleep better. And she messaged me and she said, I can't believe it. I sleep was, was wrecked. And now I don't sleep with my cell phone on and I sleep fantastic.

[00:57:23] Just that one little change. Just that one little change. That RF is zapping you while you, and you wonder why you're not going into deep sleep very long it's because your brain is getting excited and it doesn't know why it's like, Hey, what's stimulating me right now. Yup.

[00:57:39] Chris Irvin: [00:57:39] Yeah. And that's why I just think that it's.

[00:57:42] You know, that conversation is like, when you start thinking about supplementation and nutrition, as it relates to sleep. I think that though, like when you, when you start talking about a lot of other markers of health, I think, you know, nutrition, supplementation, biggest levers you can pull when it comes to sleep, those are going to be the things that might take you the extra 2%.

[00:57:59] But the [00:58:00] getting that first 98%, it's going to be these things that we're talking about, you know, it's going to be trying to get more unplugged, trying to get more into a natural state. And it's not really that hard. It's like, let's think about what. You know what would be like? I'm not somebody who's so hung up on us needing to do everything like our ancestors used to do, but we do have to understand that our sleep environment now no longer mimics what is natural for a human.

[00:58:23] And we have to just think about what are the things that we can do to get closer to that. Obviously, having signals not running through your body at night is going to be a really good way to do that. Obviously not being plugged in. Margie around bed is going to be a really good way to do that. So I think with sleep, those are probably the biggest things we can think about.

[00:58:38] Carl Lanore: [00:58:38] The website is perfect. quito.com. If you go to perfect kido.com/superhuman, you'll save 20% off your entire order of anything. They have so many fantastic products. It would be impossible to list them all during this interview. So you can go and check it out yourself. We've been talking today with the I'm sorry.

[00:58:55] Hold on a second. I just did something wrong. We're talking today with Chris Ivan. [00:59:00] Uh, I'm sorry, I just Irvin. I'm sorry. I just, I shut, I shut my camera off. I couldn't see myself. I'm hoping everybody still live to see me. Uh, we're talking today with Chris Irvin from perfect keto Quito. Check them out. Show them some love.

[00:59:12] They're a new sponsor here on the show. We're going to take one last commercial break. When we come back, I'm going to tell you, so yesterday I made a big announcement. I'm going to try to regain my health and my strength. I had to send photos yesterday to, uh, bill taco, who is, uh, a nutritionist for a lot of pro bodybuilders and stuff.

[00:59:28] And I was so embarrassed to send them that I almost didn't send them. So I'm going to talk about the pain that I'm living with right now. In this journey, starting this journey. And I don't feel like it's going to be that easy for me. So stay tuned. You're watching and listening to super human radio.

[00:59:41] We'll be right back. This is the superhuman channel where we use oxygen for the power of doing

[00:59:53] welcome back. I just will be short and sweet. So yesterday I announced that I'm, uh, working with a [01:00:00] pro. Nutritionist who works with, uh, IFB pro bodybuilders, men and women I've enlisted his help because I don't like the way I look anymore, you know? My, uh, my greatest strength was in my lower back. Well, probably my back and my legs, my posterior chain and my legs and my butter gone so much so that when I wrap a towel around me, I get out of the shower.

[01:00:27] The towel has got nothing to hold onto anymore because my ass has gone. I mean, I used to do hip thrusts with 500 pounds. Like no big gang. I probably couldn't do hip thrusts with two 25 right now. Um, And it's scary to me because, you know, we keep, everybody keeps saying, well, you know, maintaining muscle as you age, but once you lose it, it's real hard to regain it.

[01:00:50] And I keep hearing that and thinking, man, you know, I am 62 years old, so let's see what this is going to look like coming back. But I understand the pain [01:01:00] that people feel when they set out on a journey. That seems impossible. Um, I really feel that way right now. I feel like, you know, I mean, so the caffeine thing is a big thing for me, right.

[01:01:15] So I, I have had, um, I've abused caffeine for, well over a decade, maybe longer, maybe 12, 15 years. I don't know. Um, And it's not addictive. You know, I like to say I have a caffeine addiction, but in the true scientific sense of the word, it's not an addiction. It isn't, it's a, uh, it's a, it, you develop a, a desire for caffeine because it does stimulate dopamine, but not like cocaine does.

[01:01:44] And it also doesn't rewire the brain the way alcohol or opioids do. Um, but it definitely causes a hunger for it. So my, for the next week, I'm going to have one [01:02:00] total war in the morning, which is about 400 milligrams of combined caffeine. I was drinking too. And so I had my one this morning and came to the studio and got to work at about an hour and a half.

[01:02:13] If be in here, I literally was trying to talk myself out of. Going next door to the convenience store and getting a bang energy drink for another 300 milligrams. Literally. Like I was like, well, maybe I'll, I'll start tomorrow with the whole caffeine thing. I'll start tapering tomorrow. And I'm thinking to myself, I can't believe that caffeine has such a strong hold on me that I am literally sitting here trying to convince myself not to go next door and get a bang energy drink.

[01:02:45] It's really, I've always thought of myself of having such strong willpower. And I have, I've done this once before I saved my own life once before, so I know I'll do it again. Okay. But the beginning of the journey is always so [01:03:00] scary. I don't know how long it's going to take for me to regain my health. I don't know how long it's going to take for me to stop looking like, uh, uh, um, Silverback gorilla.

[01:03:09] My that's what my physique looks like now. I have no V taper. Um, I look like a big barrel with arms now, granted, I've got a lot of muscle, so that's an edge over when I first started to save my own life, but I looked like a barrel. My, my legs got skinny. My gut got big and round. Thank God I've got broad shoulders.

[01:03:31] And, and, and, and that kind of carries me and keeps me from looking like a bowling pin. But. This is going to be harder than when I had my heart heart problem. And all I had to do was lose weight to save my own life. I've got to literally reverse a handful of conditions, overcome a handful of injuries and motivate myself through chronic pain to do what I need to do.

[01:04:00] [01:04:00] And the only thing I have to hook my, my hook to my, to my star, to hook my wagon, to. Is the hope that on the other end, I will feel better, have less pain, look better, be stronger and obviously be healthier. And I don't. And the hard part is seeing that from where I'm standing now is hard. I keep looking at myself and go, well, maybe I missed the boat.

[01:04:24] Maybe I missed the opportunity to reverse this stuff. Or maybe I'm just old. And, you know, Vince Gerard just started drinking when he got older. You know, he, he didn't train anymore. He didn't look like he used to, he started drinking a lot of wine. You know, that's a form of self medication. Maybe I'm, you know, once in a while I think twice.

[01:04:43] Well, maybe I just need to get used to the fact that I'm older and I'm just never going to be that guy again. I don't want to believe that a lot of people reached out to me from yesterday show. And they have more confidence in me than I have in me, by the way. That's really funny. Cause they're all like Carl [01:05:00] with all the things, you know, and you, you know, as strong as you are, you'll be back.

[01:05:03] You'll be better than ever. But I don't feel that way right now. I really don't. Um, today was my off day. I didn't do cardio. I didn't train. So tomorrow I go back, I train whole body the day after I train arms. And the day after I take off. I'm starting very slow and very easy machine movements. Only. I'm doing cardio.

[01:05:22] The two days I train at the gym, I'm doing cardio first thing in the morning, fasted having my first meal before I go to the gym. I'm not training fast that right now I'm changing it up. One of the things that bill said to me was, you know, sometimes just changing up what you've been doing will help you.

[01:05:39] And I believe that I think I fast too much. I fast too often. I fast too long. Uh, that has to do with not preparing food ahead of time, not bringing my hot logic with something in it. There's a lot of excuses I can make the time for excuses have ended. I can't make excuses anymore because if the pain in my lower body [01:06:00] continues to get worse, by the time I'm 70, I'm going to be in a wheelchair.

[01:06:04] I'm serious. Uh, the pain that I live with, most people wouldn't live with the pain that I live with. Most people would be on some sort of pain medication. And thank God that through all of my years of strength training, I developed the ability to suck it up, tough it out, ignore it. Whatever you want to call.

[01:06:26] My ability to manage my allostatic load is, is, is very, very high because I understand that sometimes discomfort needs to be ignored in order to achieve goals. And that's what I'm doing right now. I'm ignoring it. But this is going to be interesting. I'm going to document this journey. I've already started.

[01:06:46] I've done a couple of short videos where I just talked to the camera. Kind of like on big brother when they go in the room. No, one's supposed to be listening to them. And they're talking about all the other people, but I'm telling you right here openly. I'm afraid. I really am. [01:07:00] I'm afraid that I won't be able to be jacked.

[01:07:04] Ever again, and I really want to, but I do have a lot of tools in my arsenal. I just started , we'll be doing that for 28 days. That'll help with some of the nerve issues I have. I'm confident of that. And there's other things I have up my sleeve as well, but I want to thank those of you who reached out to me via message, email, Facebook, Instagram, um, who have so much more confidence in me than I do right now.

[01:07:33] Because I am using your confidence in me to make up for my lack of confidence in me right now. So thank you for reaching out to me and tomorrow we have a great show, by the way, we're going to flip the script tomorrow. There's a lot of talk about co two levels going up in people's blood because they're wearing masks, but this may [01:08:00] not be a bad thing.

[01:08:00] Believe it or not. You're going to think. I'm crazy. People said, Oh, it's suppresses the immune system. That may not be true. In fact, we're going to be joined by a guy tomorrow who has been discussing breeding techniques for a very long time. Top of the food chain guy, he understands blue taiko. He understands, uh, rapid breathing.

[01:08:20] He understands all of it. He's the guy who taught me that CO2 is not a waste gas. It actually has special functions, good functions. It actually makes red blood cells carry and deliver oxygen better. And he has promoted this idea that gently elevating shield, two levels in the blood have amazing benefits for anxiety, for health, for performance, for sleep, for everything.

[01:08:53] So I asked him to come on tomorrow. Andrews. Olson. And he's going to talk about [01:09:00] that. Wearing a mask may actually be a good thing, even if you don't, aren't worried about COVID-19. We're going to explore that tomorrow. These are the kinds of conversations you'll only ever hear here on superhuman radio.

[01:09:11] Please share the show and tune in tomorrow. And thank you for being here today and thanks to all of you for reaching out to me. Um, I believe in myself because you believe in me and I will do this. Okay. Talk to you tomorrow. Thank you. [01:10:00] .