Adapted from episode 120 of The Perfect Stool podcast with Jenn Trepeck, Optimal Health Coach and host of the podcast Salad with a Side of Fries, and Lindsey Parsons, EdD, and edited for readability.
Lindsey:
So let’s start by talking about how stress can be at the root of gut health conditions and how that works.
Jenn Trepeck:
Yeah! So I feel like taking a step back; we have to understand stress in the body. Not all stress is the problem. There’s eustress or quality stress, good stress. That’s what helps us get out of bed in the morning. That’s important. And then there’s the distress or the stress that really does impact our health in a variety of ways, and we could talk about that in a second. Because the other piece of stress, as a foundation to understand, is the difference between acute and chronic. Acute, like other times when we use acute and chronic with different conditions, right? Acute is short length, chronic is all the time. Now the body’s stress response, which many of us remember from growing up, is fight or flight; the fight or flight response of stress is designed to be 20 minutes.
So that age old story of being chased by a saber tooth tiger, right? I don’t know why that’s always the animal. But we’re being chased by the saber tooth tiger, cortisol rises, right? We have this increase in stress and fight or flight. So we run, maybe we hide somewhere, we watch the tiger run past us, our breathing comes back to normal. And now we move on with our lives. So that whole rise and fall of that stress response for survival is supposed to be 20 minutes. Our biology is still that primitive biology. The challenge now is that what causes us stress is not a saber tooth tiger, what causes us stress is our phone buzzing and the alarm clock going on. And an email coming in, or a conversation that we’re anticipating or a conversation that happened already that we’re replaying in our mind. And the challenge is that our biochemistry doesn’t identify the difference between an email and a saber tooth tiger.
And so this stress response that was designed to be 20 minutes, right, acute, is now chronic. Okay, so let’s also take a second to think about what happens in that stress response. Because in that caveman, primitive biology of the rise and fall of the cortisol for survival, because survival is the primary concern, any body function that does not contribute to survival in that moment essentially turns off. So what are those things? Well, our hair and our nails don’t grow, because who cares if you have hair or nails if you’re not going to live the next 10 minutes. Our reproductive system turns off, our metabolism turns off, and our digestive system turns off, which gets to the heart of what you talk about all the time, in terms of gut health. So while there are other systems and functions that turn off, the primary piece to understand here is that when we’re in that stress response, these other body systems turn off because they’re not critical to survival, which is fine if it’s 20 minutes. It’s not fine when it’s all the time.
Therein lies a lot of the things that people are probably experiencing related to stress. We have bloating, we have gastric upset, we have weight gain, we have all of these elements that can be really frustrating. We get that brain fog, because all of these things that would support those proper functions, even our immune system turns off, so maybe you’re getting sick all the time. Or you’re easily susceptible to that common cold or the flu going around. So a lot of these challenges that we don’t necessarily connect to stress really are connected to stress.
Lindsey:
Yeah it got me thinking about a lot of things like, well so I schedule in my day, a time to check email each day. Well, on a Monday I schedule I think like an hour, on every other day I schedule in half an hour, and I try and make a point, unless I have to send an email, of not checking email in between. I imagine there’s a number of other tricks to keep yourself from getting stressed out about those sorts of things. Although, I have to say there is this panic when I look and I see 50 emails, of course, 45 of them are complete junk. And I can just delete, delete, delete, but I see the 50 emails and I don’t know what’s in there. And there’s this anxiety that immediately comes right.
Jenn Trepeck:
And the truth is, if only it was just email, yeah, we could probably figure that out. Right? I mean, it’s every text message, every time the phone buzzes and there’s an alert. We don’t know what it is, that unknown in the brain creating possibilities of what it could be triggers the stress response, our alarm clock going off. For most of us the way an alarm clock goes off creates a stress response, versus the caveman biology of the increase in cortisol waking us up for the morning due to the natural increase in cortisol. The trick to all of it is to do some of the things. We can go through a bunch, similar to what you did, right, you created a structure to minimize those hits.
The other thing that we want to do is to create structure and systems that send signals to the body that the stressor has passed. We’ll go through those in a second. The other thing that I want to say on this is also to recognize that even when you don’t feel stressed, the body is having a physiological stress response, whether we realize it or not. And when we don’t do the things that actually complete the stress response, that bring us back down the mountain of that cortisol rise and fall, it’s almost like the body gets stuck at this peak. And then we’re building and building and building and every time something happens, it’s adding to this iceberg. I want you to remember that old motivational poster that had the iceberg and the water level. And it was like most of the iceberg is under the water level. Think of that water level as our perception of stress. Most of what’s happening in the body doesn’t even register to us as stress, yet by creating daily habits that help complete the stress response, that help minimize the body’s response, send signals to the body that the stressor has passed. If we can chip away at that iceberg and then bring the water level down. Does that make sense?
Lindsey:
Yeah. So what kinds of practices are those?
Jenn Trepeck:
I love your email example. It’s creating a set time so that even if we see something come in, we know when we’re going back to that, there’s a plan. It allows us to not ruminate. Regular relaxation exercises, that might be yoga. For me, yoga was never my thing. But you know what else works? Laughing right, laughing sends a signal to the body that it’s safe that the stressor has passed. Deep breathing sends a physiological signal to the body that the stressor has passed. So think about if we go back to that saber tooth tiger thing, when we’re running for the saber tooth tiger, our breath is in the chest, right? It’s pretty shallow; think about that panting when you’re running. And then when the tiger has passed, what happens, our breathing slows down, our heart rate slows down, the exhale becomes longer than the inhale. So if we can breathe in such a way that it slows down our heart rate, that it slows down our breath, where the exhale is longer than the inhale, it’s a chemical signal to the body that the stressor has passed, that we are safe, and that we’re good.
Similar to that, actually, gratitude. Complimenting someone else sends signals to the body that we’re safe. Because if we’re able to think about someone else and not focus on ourselves, that only happens when our lives are not in danger. If our life was in danger, we’d only be thinking about our own survival. So little things that we can do. Regular activity helps complete that stress cycle, we have that rise and then the fall. My old Pilates instructor, and old in every way, former and because she was an original student of Joseph Pilates, so she’s like, older than God, one of the things she told me and I don’t know if this is true, but she said it so I believe her, is that the phrase working out came from the idea that we were working the stress out of the body. Again, I don’t know if it’s true, but I like it. So I’m going with it. So any kind of activity that we can do to help the body physically move through that stress response is critically important. Building that into our day. Even if it’s a 10-minute walk. It’s helpful.
Lindsey:
Yeah, I feel it. Like if I’m sitting, especially if I’m just sitting still all day, which I often am at the computer, like yesterday, and it’s cold out, right? Now I mean, it’s Tucson cold, so it’s not like really cold, like 40 to 50 degrees kind of cold.
Jenn Trepeck:
Wait, but didn’t you guys have to like cover your plants recently? Like cover the trees?
Lindsey:
Yeah, we did. I fortunately only have one plant like that in my yard at this point that needs covering. But anyway, yesterday, I just was like, I just got to get out and take a 10 minute walk. Like I knew I wasn’t going to go workout. So I was like, I’ve just got to move my body. And yeah, I felt much better afterwards.
Jenn Trepeck:
Yea, and the trick is to do those things all the time, even if we don’t feel like it. Because again, remember, we have that iceberg. So the more these things are just built into the day, and we do them even when we don’t realize we’re stressed, we can chip away at that iceberg, because also our metabolism turns off because our immune system turns off, all very gut related. There’s a few things that we want to do. One is, I’m going to talk about the vagus nerve in a second, but the other is choosing carefully those snacks that we have. Because the high cortisol, the stress response is going to create cravings for sugar and caffeine and chocolate and all the things that actually are going to exacerbate all the symptoms. So the more that we could even make sure that we have edamame a some almonds, or a bag of carrots around, some quality snacks with nutrition, protein, fiber, quality fat, having those things around and making those things super easy, making those things easier than the sugar, chips, chocolate, candy. Shift what’s easy. And then again, we’re giving our body some of the things that help it handle this whole process. I mentioned the vagus nerve.
Lindsey:
Yeah, let’s talk about that and how it relates to gut health and stress and all that.
Jenn Trepeck:
Yeah. Okay. So vagus nerve is cranial nerve X. And it is the literal nerve that connects the gut and the brain. So what’s really interesting to me about the vagus nerve, so think about it like a five lane highway, three of the lanes go gut to brain, two lanes go brain to gut. So what that means is that we will never out think the chemistry of what we are feeding ourselves. Does that make sense? The more we can fuel with nutrition, the more we can manage the mental side of our mood and our emotions, the more we actually have balanced blood sugar, the more we can use the prefrontal cortex of the brain and not end up in the back of the brain that is all fight or flight. It’s also why it can feel nearly impossible to out think the cravings that we’re having. Vagus nerve, over time, loses its tone. So what we want to do is help stimulate or tone the vagus nerve to strengthen it. And then we’re strengthening that connection and that communication.
One of the best ways to do that is going back to that breathing thing. Any kind of conscious, slow breathing stimulates the vagus nerve. Humming, even talking, but humming even more than talking because it’s more constant than talking. But when you hum, that vibration of the vocal cords stimulates the vagus nerve, as it passes right by there. It’s called the valsalva maneuver, but nobody ever knows the name of it. But it’s the thing that you do when you travel on an aeroplane and your ears are plugged, where you sort of plug your nose, close your mouth, and breathe out gently. We want to do that valsalva maneuver, that’s what it’s called, stimulates the vagus nerve. So you could do that a couple times. Exercise stimulates the vagus nerve, again, going back to why we want to build these things into our every day. The diving reflex. So this is when you would put your face in ice water for a few seconds. And then come up and take a breath. But you could do that a couple times . . .
Lindsey:
. . . which is also a good way to boost your dopamine.
Jenn Trepeck:
Exactly. Yes. And then the other one, and this might be my favorite, is human connection. Human connection lowers stress, right, human connection. Relationships is one of the things that all the blue zones have in common; the parts of the world where people live the longest, and why? Because human connection creates purpose and helps us manage stress. It’s why we like to vent to someone. You know that phrase, misery loves company? It’s actually human nature, we want to share it, sharing it can help us get rid of it. So maybe you’re sharing it with a journal just to get it out of your head. But for that vagus nerve activation, hugging someone really helpful. Having a conversation. Again, it almost goes back to what we were talking about as far as complimenting someone, if we can get out of ourselves, it helps us too. So there are all these tools that we can use. The trick is to have enough of them in your tool belts, and then have systems or things in place so that you actually do them.
Lindsey:
As you talk about all these things. I just feel like maybe we need to jump back, to why is the vagus nerve relevant to gut health? Like what would be signs that our vagus nerve had lost its tone?
Jenn Trepeck:
Yeah, it’s all of the same symptoms. It’s indigestion, inflammation, nervousness, sensitivities, digestive challenges and head discomfort or low energy. Maybe you feel like you’re sort of constantly worrying or you have that brain fog. There’s a combination of things, sometimes hard to decipher what’s stress and what’s vagus nerve, but if we’re always trying to mentally push our way through. And we recognize that the vagus nerve communication is primarily starting in the gut, it means that the gut discomfort is creating the mental stress, or contributing to or exacerbating that mental stress. And all the fatigue and the mental slowness or the poor judgment or the mood challenges that we often feel, that emotional eating sometimes, the beauty of all of this is that the solution for one thing is the same solution as the others. And that makes it a lot easier. We don’t have to say, oh, well, I have to do this thing for the vagus nerve, I have to do this thing for stress, it’s all going to be the same thing. Even the foods that we’re choosing to keep our blood sugar balanced, to keep our gut functioning, well, having fiber rich foods, right, your pre-, pro-, and peribiotics, all of that is contributing to the overall health.
And when we can turn on rest and digest rather than fight or flight, everything improves. So one of the key ways to build this into the day is figure out when we’re going to do it. So I love to do that deep breathing exercise. So breathing from the diaphragm, so your lungs expand like an accordion side to side with the inhale and the exhale. Breathing into the diaphragm is that the lungs expand like an accordion, slowing down the breath, having that exhale longer than the inhale. If we can do that before we eat anything, three deep breaths before we eat, turns off fight or flight, turns on rest and digest. Yeah, it allows us to build it into our day, and what better time than before we eat something to turn on rest and digest. And then we’re going to have that improved gut function. And if the fuel that we’re giving ourselves has nutrition, then we’re going to have improved blood sugar and improved immune health and improved vagus nerve function, improved cognitive function, because remember that communication is going to go to brain.
Lindsey:
That’s one of my favorite tricks too, like sometimes you’re just running, running, running, and then you sit down the table and you’re just like, “Ah”, and then I’m like, “Okay, it’s time to do a couple of those.”
Jenn Trepeck:
Exactly, like three of those. Exactly. If you can do the 10 minutes of walking after you eat. So we can use the habit stacking piece of attaching some of these things to an activity that already happens like eating. The other thing, I know, you we’re going ask a question, but the other thing I want to give everybody, to help make sure this happens, is I’m a big fan of a post it note. Okay, you might need a few copies of this post it note, okay? So on your post it note, maybe you’re writing down some of these vagus nerve exercises, maybe you’re writing down some of the things that you really enjoy doing that you feel like you never have time to do, maybe it’s read a book or listen to a certain song. Maybe there’s a song that when you hear it, you’re just you’re going to dance it out to that song. On your post it, write that song. So then we put a copy of the post it where we’re going to run into it in those moments of stress. So maybe there’s one on your computer screen at work, I used to have one in my coat pocket, I used to work in hedge funds. And when I left the office every day and I put my hands in my coat pockets, the post it would be there. And it would remind me of something I could do to get rid of the stress of the day. So even if I was just humming while I walk, it was helpful.
So we can have the post it remind us of the options of things that we can try to do when we’re feeling stressed. And even when we’re not necessarily noticing that we feel stressed. But then we run into the post it and it reminds us, because I think one of the challenges is to even remember these things in the moment. I have a client who actually put a post it on top of the pint of ice cream so that when she went to go reach for it, the post it could remind her of other things to do. I used to put one also on my coffee table so that when I would be tempted to maybe do something, the post it’s there, it’s going to remind me of options other than watching TV, which might stimulate the stress rather than deactivate it. I’m sorry, you were going to ask a question before.
Lindsey:
Yeah, yeah, no problem. I’ve heard about studies where if your perception of stress is like “Oh, I’m so stressed out all the time. Everything stresses me out.” versus “These are stressors that help me work well and efficiently and I perform well under stress and I get a lot done,” that that whole perception completely changes whether that stress has a negative impact on you. Have you heard about those studies?
Jenn Trepeck:
Yeah, for sure. And it’s true. It’s often about how we talk to ourselves in those moments. So if we say. “I got this,” it helps us physiologically handle that stress, which is very different than thinking, “Oh my god, this is terrible. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened,” right? How many people are like, “Oh, it’s a disaster.” Like, is it really a disaster? Actually calling it that creates more of a response in the body because the body says, “Oh disaster, life in danger,” versus “I got this, I can handle this.” You’re exactly right, we can actually change that physiological response because our perception creates the reality in the body.
Lindsey:
I literally had a moment just like that today. I was I was trying to get something notarized, went to the bank, they said, their notary was too busy (dragging somebody else with me too). Then we go to a second bank (and they’d called ahead), they say they don’t have a notary there, even though we’d called ahead. And then I’m just like, “This is ridiculous.” Like, I’m starting to just get totally pissed off. And I’m like, “Okay, let’s see, this is maybe a delay of 20 minutes. It’s just 20 minutes, like, what are you worried about? You’ve got the time.” And I totally changed that narrative and how I felt about it, because I decided to stop right there.
Jenn Trepeck:
Right, and notice, I would bet when that happened, and you talked yourself through, your heart rate came down.
Lindsey:
I assume so.
Jenn Trepeck:
Yeah. And instead of being so frustrated, and anxious, and sort of rushing, your whole being slowed down, you recognized that 20 minutes isn’t going to make or break my day, and I’m going to be fine. Yeah, that’s like that rise and fall the cortisol, of “Oh, my God, my life is in danger. Wait a minute. No, it’s not. I’m actually fine.” Yeah, I love that. Good point.
Lindsey:
So moving on to another topic, weight loss. I know that lots of people struggling with weight loss turn to a ketogenic diet. And they also sometimes even go so far as carnivore, often because of gut health issues as well, or food sensitivities. So why do you think keto isn’t the answer, at least in the weight loss scenario?
Jenn Trepeck:
Yeah, so I’m a big fan of doing things that will allow us to live that way forever. Keto is incredibly unforgiving. So the objective of keto is to put your body in a state of ketosis, where it is burning ketones, burning fat as fuel rather than carbohydrates. It’s not the kind of thing that’s easy to create in the body. So in order to create a state of ketosis, in the body, we absolutely have to be perfect. And I don’t know about you or anybody else, but I have lived enough of my life striving for perfection. And that didn’t work out so well for me. That created a whole lot of other stress. So it’s not something that allows for birthdays, doesn’t allow for enjoying some bread, because the way to put your body into a state of ketosis is to eliminate all these carbohydrates, essentially deprive your body of carbohydrates, its preferred fuel, and force your body to use fat. It is difficult to get into that state.
So you have to be consistent in that elimination of carbohydrates long enough to enter a state of ketosis. And by the way, once you have some carbohydrates, it’s going to knock you out. A lot of times, what happens is that people then start adding massive amounts of fat in an effort to enjoy some carbohydrates without knocking them out of ketosis. And a lot of those sources of fat are not our most helpful sources of fat, they’re also in quantities that then aren’t necessarily so helpful. For other systems, I also think keto and burning ketones creates a byproduct in the body that has to be detoxified. And so long term, we actually do see some challenges for people, like unless we’re using it to manage a disease state, which is what it was originally designed for, right? We don’t want to stay in a state of ketosis long term. It creates other challenges for the body. So I’m a big fan of removing the fat in a way that we can sustain and maintain. So if somebody was doing keto, and your plan is to be on keto forever, recognize that it’s incredibly unforgiving, and you’ll probably, at least in my experience, feel like you’re always starting over and you’re always flunking, rather than creating a plan that allows for burning fat as fuel without having to be in a state of ketosis. And that allows for birthdays and celebrations and holidays and all the things that we enjoy in life to help us find a little bit more of that balance.
Lindsey:
I’ve been keto for all of I think a month once and I think for that month, I was able to mostly stick to it. You know, sometimes my carbs went up a little higher, but I think I still stayed in the ketogenic state because I’m someone who needs a lot of carbs to fuel me in general, but . . .
Jenn Trepeck:
. . . I think for some people a couple weeks, a couple times a year, okay maybe. But there’s a lot of people, I think this is one where you have to know yourself to, to say, am I going to come out of something that’s super restrictive in that way, and maybe boomerang the other direction? And if that’s our tendency, then I would say that’s maybe not our best choice, at least in this moment.
Lindsey:
Yeah, well, then then you end up with sort of the worst possible diet, which is a diet that’s super high in saturated fats also has sugar and carbs. Like all that, together, adds up to something not dissimilar to the standard American diet, perhaps more heavily weighted towards saturated fat.
Jenn Trepeck:
Exactly.
Lindsey:
And there is certainly research showing that saturated fat promotes pathogenic gut bacteria. And so if you’re not in ketosis, where you’re getting these ketones that include short chain fatty acids, like I think beta-hydroxybutyrate is one of those that’s created through ketosis, as soon as you go out, then you’re just eating a lot of fat and not getting the short chain fatty acids.
Jenn Trepeck:
Exactly, yeah.
Lindsey:
And you’re not getting the fiber, which would feed the gut bacteria to create those short chain fatty acids.
Jenn Trepeck:
And that’s where I always come back to, is there are certain pieces that are human, right? Protein, fiber, quality fat are human nutrient needs. If something is telling you to eliminate any one of those, let’s pause. Let’s think about it for a second. Because, you know, listen, like I always say the fundamentals are human, the specifics can be very individual. And so with those things being fundamentally human, when we remove those things, something else happens. And so just thinking, it can be sort of like shiny object syndrome, where we’re always trying that next thing, and we’re looking for that answer. I just caution everybody to say, don’t lose your common sense, right, you’re listening to this podcast, because you know the importance of gut health. And you know the importance from listening to Lindsey, you know the importance of fiber and gut health. So something that’s eliminating that, I don’t know, let’s pause, right.
Lindsey:
And I know that a lot of people do end up on those types of diets, like keto and carnivore, because they’re having more and more food sensitivities, and just making a plug for the fact that eventually you want to get back off, and you want to open up to a wider diversity of foods. And if you are doing that, like especially carnivore, the real carnivore diet is not the diet of steak and chicken breast. It’s organ meat. Right? It’s heart, liver and kidneys, and all these things so that you’re getting all these other nutrients that are not in steak and chicken breast.
Jenn Trepeck:
Right, exactly. And I want to highlight something that you just said, because I think it’s really important, is that a lot of these elimination diets that we can use to minimize symptoms and then repair the gut are not designed for forever, ether.
Lindsey:
No. And they’re not treatment. They’re just minimizing symptoms.
Jenn Trepeck:
Yes, exactly. And so the objective would be that while we minimize symptoms, we can repair and then strategically add things back in, which I think is really important, right? We don’t necessarily want to live our lives until infinity with three foods.
Lindsey:
No, no. And then eventually, you will develop nutritional deficiencies, or you’ll have to take a ton of supplements, which is not exactly an ideal way to live. Exactly. So another topic I wanted to touch on was what you recommend to people regarding diet who have high cholesterol levels, in particular, high LDL-C, which is what we commonly measure here, even though there are better measurements like Apo B.
Jenn Trepeck:
It’s interesting, a lot of times in the weight management space, a lot of people come to me after their doctor wants to put them on a statin drug, or they have a diabetes scare, things like that. And one of the most interesting things is that one of the big contributors to cholesterol challenges is blood sugar. And so when we can eat to keep our blood sugar balanced, so low glycemic impact foods, protein, fiber, quality fat, all of those things happening in combination, we actually see a dramatic improvement in cholesterol numbers. I want to preface, although I’ll just add, I guess it’s not a preface anymore, but like we are not diagnosing, treating, curing or preventing any disease. Always talk to your healthcare provider. And always talk to your pharmacist and I want you to start asking questions. So when it comes to medications, especially for some of these quote unquote conditions, for some of this blood work that comes back, especially when it comes to cholesterol, ask your doctor, “Does this medication decrease the likelihood of a cardiovascular event?” Because I will tell you that is not the question that was asked of the statin drugs. The statin drugs were passed asking the question of “Does that make the cholesterol numbers go down?” And while it does, there isn’t research to show that in a statistically significant way it’s decreasing the incidence of a cardiovascular event. The way that we can then use food and nutrition to manage cholesterol is in fiber, protein and quality fat. So fiber, in particular, soluble fiber can help carry some of that LDL out of the body.
Lindsey:
And best sources of soluble fiber?
Jenn Trepeck:
Just eat your vegetables, eat a variety of vegetables, I’m also a big fan of chia seeds, they can be great. Even avocado has some fiber in there, too. That’s super helpful. But as long as you’re eating a variety of vegetables, and I caution going into specific lists of foods, because I see people go all in and overdo it. We want to have the variety; the body responds really well to variety. So if you think about eating a variety of fruits and vegetables, you’ll be fine. But load up on those vegetables to give your body the fiber to help carry the cholesterol out of the body. Recognize too for every body, the body produces cholesterol on its own, and the body tries to maintain about 50 grams of cholesterol at all times. So when we’ve been told, Oh, don’t eat that thing, it has a lot of cholesterol in it. It doesn’t really work that way. For some people, right? Some people are genetically better transporters of cholesterol, some people are better producers of cholesterol. But if we’re not eating, the body’s production of cholesterol is going to balance what we’re consuming. It’s not like our bodies are producing 50 grams of cholesterol at all times, no matter what. We don’t necessarily have to be afraid of egg yolks, what I would say is that a runny egg yolk is better for us than a solid egg yolk.
Lindsey:
I’d never heard that.
Jenn Trepeck:
Unsaturated fats are a liquid at room temperature. Saturated fats are solid at room temperature. When we cook that egg yolk, we turn it from a liquid into a solid. And then our body has to process it. So I’m big fan of runny egg yolks, you could certainly do egg whites, I grew up on egg whites because my dad was always on some sort of die, so now I don’t even have a taste for whole eggs . . .
Lindsey:
. . . but so many nutrients in the yolk . . .
Jenn Trepeck:
Right there are, but again, like to your point, we want to balance that out and make sure that we’re getting other nutrients through a variety of food options. But so point being, I don’t know that people need to necessarily completely eliminate foods. And in fact, getting quality fat, like omega 3’s from avocado, from walnuts, from olive oil, we can then help the body improve the good cholesterol as well, which shifts that ratio, which is also sometimes a better indicator of what’s happening. Rather than just looking at any number in isolation.
The one thing I will caution some people with is a lot of the coconut products. So a lot of the coconut products, which again are in a lot of the keto things, they’re in a lot of the – especially if we’re looking at some of the plant based things, right – so coconut products have taken over by storm. And while coconut can be quality fat, it is a saturated fat. And the saturated fat can actually sit in the insulin receptor sites and create an increase in blood sugar, which for anybody who is looking at managing blood sugar, and for people looking at managing cholesterol, we want to keep an eye on that blood sugar because a lot of times it’s not so much the lipid that’s a challenge. It’s basically the sugar coated lipids in the blood. Because that sugar scuffs the lining of our arteries, and then that’s where the lipids can get stuck. And then we have the shrinking of the artery in terms of the area that blood can pass through. So if we can look at inflammation in the lining of our arteries, if we can look at managing blood sugar, if we can make sure that the lipids aren’t coated in sugar, right, which are some of those other blood tests that we can look at, then we’re in a better place to truly understand whether or not some of these other numbers are really cause for concern. Or, sometimes getting more granular and asking for more testing can be really helpful.
Lindsey:
And you know what, back to the original point related to cholesterol and blood sugar, one of the first clients I had, who was seeing me for weight loss and also for autoimmune disease, for Hashimoto’s, she had high cholesterol and was quite worried about it. And you know, we were going to start by just dealing with diet and making changes related to that and maybe there was a supplement or two perhaps, but in any case, as soon as her sugar went down and sugar consumption went down, her cholesterol came right down. And it became sort of a non-issue. So that was a strong demo to me for the future.
Jenn Trepeck:
Absolutely. And I see it all the time with my clients, right? We actually just did this with my dad, that we were able to bring both his cholesterol and his blood sugar numbers into, quote, unquote, normal ranges strictly through nutrition and activity.
Lindsey:
I’m totally impressed that you managed to get your own father to change his diet, because I have had no success getting my parents to change their diet.
Jenn Trepeck:
It’s been a process, right? We originally worked together in 2011, focused on weight management ahead of my sister’s wedding. And then over the years, it’s sort of been up and down. And then, because of conversations that we’ve had over the years, he was really resistant to the doctor wanting to put him on a statin. And then when his blood sugar ended up in that diabetic range, he was like, “I know, I know,” that’s when he really took it seriously. It was like, “Okay, I’m going to do something about this.”
Lindsey:
Yeah, yeah, no, I think the problem is my parents are still pre-diabetic.
Jenn Trepeck:
Yeah, there you go. Exactly. It hasn’t been enough of a scare yet. But the exercise piece of all of that, too, not just to help the body handle the food that we eat and the blood sugar, but I cannot recommend exercise, but specifically building muscle to improve metabolism and blood sugar balance, enough. It is critically important across the board.
Lindsey:
I don’t know that people know that much about that. So talk a little bit more about how muscle and blood sugar interact.
Jenn Trepeck:
Yeah, so muscle dictates metabolism. Muscle is metabolically active, muscle burns fuel, even when it’s not being used in the moment. So having more lean muscle mass on the body increases what we call the basal metabolic rate, the amount of fuel the body uses all the time, even at rest, laying on the couch all day, sleeping, great, your body is going to need more than if you had less muscle. The more muscle we have, the more fuel we’re burning, which is what’s going around through our blood vessels as blood sugar, essentially, for a basic way of thinking about it. So our body is going to use that fuel. And when our body uses all the carbohydrates as fuel, our body can then turn protein into fuel and can turn fat into fuel. So the more muscle mass we have, the better our overall health, and it sort of snowballs into all these other things that, we’ve talked about already. And now I will say there is such a thing as morbidly fit, where we have so much muscle and so little body fat, but most of us are fine, most of us aren’t going to get to that place. And most of us would be served by increasing our own lean muscle mass, which means pick up heavy things and put them back down, right? You can use your own body weight to build muscle. But muscle dictates metabolism. And the more muscle we have, the more fuel we’re burning. The more we’re using all of that fuel that we’re giving our body.
Lindsey:
Yeah, I just want to put a pitch in for weightlifting. Because maybe earlier in my life, I did it for a little bit, but I wasn’t a member of a gym for many years. And then all the other avenues for exercise were depleted. Like it was winter. I couldn’t use my pool. I had sciatica, I could barely walk. So it was just like, the only thing I could do was go to the gym and swim. So I joined the gym, then I decided to start weightlifting because somebody offered me a free trainer for a month, a virtual trainer. And they were going to advertise on the podcast and never followed up with that. So anyway, I got the free routine started from this trainer. So it wouldn’t have been expensive if I’d hired a trainer to write a routine for me and I have been doing it ever since. And sure enough, after getting that weight routine going, I lost like five pounds that’s just stayed off. And it just feels so good to be stronger. Like I just feel great about, like now I’m going to pick up a bag, I’m like, “I’m strong, I can pick that up.” And it just feels really good. And you know, I’m 54 years old, and I’m stronger than I’ve ever been.
Jenn Trepeck:
Exactly more energy. And I think it’s one of the things that especially when it comes to weight management is really confusing when we look at the scale. When we cut out whole food groups, dramatically cut calories, right, a lot of the things that we’ve typically been taught for how to quote unquote lose weight, it makes the number on the scale go down for a finite period of time, and then the scale stops moving and we get frustrated. And we go back to old eating habits and the pounds start to come back on, the scale starts to go back up.
What happens when we dramatically cut calories, when we abide by that eat less, move more, right? When we focus a lot on frankly, cardio exercise as our primary source of activity, and cut out all those food groups and do all those food things that aren’t sustainable, a lot of what the body is losing is water, muscle and bone. So the number on the scale goes down, but we’re losing that metabolically active muscle, we think we’re doing great because the number on the scale is moving in the direction that we want it to. But then it stops moving because our body starts to go “oop survival,” right, hold on a minute, then the food plan that we had wasn’t designed to be sustainable. And we’re frustrated because the scale stopped moving.
So we go back to old eating habits. Now we’re eating more and likely less nutritious food, and we have less muscle on the body to be burning that extra fuel, and we gain the weight back, but we gain it back as fat. So what can happen over time as we yoyo, anybody else in the diet world? We yoyo, we lose it as water, muscle and bone, gain it back as fat, lose it as water, muscle, bone, gain it back as fat. So over time, even if we end up at the same number on the scale as we’ve been before, by body composition, we can be fatter at that same number. If you walk away from this with nothing else, get a scale that measures body fat percentage, that’s the number that we want to improve. That’s the number that we want to decrease and the more muscle we have, the more that body fat percent will come down. Because that muscle is metabolically active, we want to increase the muscle mass and decrease the fat mass in the body.
Lindsey:
We’re running out of time, but I just want to quickly ask, is there a division of macros that you recommend?
Jenn Trepeck:
This is really very personal. I once did a diet a million years ago that was a 40 30 30, 40% carbs, 30% protein 30% fat. Personally, I am better with more protein, it’s really individual. The guidelines that I say to everybody is, instead of counting macros, because also my old diet days of counting anything makes me a little nutty. I’m not a big measuring person, I’ll use my hands. Every time where we eat, we’re having protein. And fiber, protein is clean, lean protein, whatever you want that to be, fiber is vegetables. And sometimes fruit. A serving of protein for a woman at a meal is like four to six ounces, a man is six to eight ounces, more than many of you have been eating. That’s your whole hand at a meal. And then a snack is like two to three ounces, so a little less than a palm of your hand. Serving of vegetables, it’s like a handful, and if it’s greens, I would do like two handfuls and we want eight to 12 of those a day. Quality fat, two to three a day. That’s the objective. And then within that range, right? It’s going to be a little bit different for people where those actual macro breakdowns are. But that formula is what I found for myself and for all of my clients to be most successful.
Lindsey:
And where do carb foods fit into that, just from the vegetables?
Jenn Trepeck:
Well, vegetables and fruit are a primary source of carbohydrates, so . .
Lindsey:
. . . no grains?
Jenn Trepeck:
So I recommend for people to go like six weeks without grains, because the average American eats more grain than an Olympic athlete is recommended to eat on race day. So by eliminating it for a period of time, we’re then able to add it back in in a proper proportion. So I like grains and starches more like a condiment. So things that are adding texture and interest rather than as a food group. To me, they’re kind of inefficient. In terms of sources of nutrition, other than some vitamins and minerals. If we’re looking for grains to be our source of macronutrients, they end up being inefficient. So we want to have them in balance. So they’re certainly in there. Sometimes it depends how much, depending on what phase of the process somebody is in, and what their health goals are and what their health challenges are.
Lindsey:
Okay, so we better wrap it up now. But why don’t you tell me where people can find you?
Jenn Trepeck:
Yes. First of all, thank you for having me. I love this conversation. I am on all social media at JennTrepeck. My podcast is Salad with a Side of Fries. So join us over there, wherever you’re listening now, my website is ASaladwithaSideoffries.com. And I’d love nothing more than hearing from you guys. So we’ll also make sure that you have a link for everybody who wants it to have a complimentary discovery call.
If you are struggling with bloating, gas, burping, nausea, constipation, diarrhea, soft stool, acid reflux, IBS, IBD, SIBO, candida overgrowth, fatigue or migraines and want to get to the bottom of it, that’s what I help my clients with. You’re welcome to set up a free, 30-minute breakthrough session with me. We’ll talk about what you’ve been going through and I’ll tell you about my 3- and 5- appointment health coaching programs in which I recommend lab tests, educate you on what the results mean and the protocols used by doctors to fix the problems revealed. Or if you’re ready to jump in right away or can just afford one appointment at a time, you can set up an 1-hour consultation with me.
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