Hello, and welcome to this week’s edition of the Green Wisdom Health Show. I’m Janet Lewis.
And, I’m Dr. Lewis.
And we are here bringing you another exciting show this week about keto. Apparently y’all didn’t get enough of it last week. So, we’re going to do it again and it’s called Keto Reloaded. And Dr. Lewis is going to tell us more about who needs it, what is it, why do it, and what are the health benefits. So, Dr. Lewis, it’s all yours.
Well, that’s scary. She gave me the look and that smile like yeah, you really have it now.
I do want to redo it. I don’t think we quite got into as much as we should. So, the question is: How do you know if you need to do keto? If you need to lose weight, that’d be one thing. If you have metabolic syndrome, high insulin, high A1C, or high glucose. If you have liver issues, and that doesn’t mean within parameters, that means anything above a 25, or so, with AST and ALT. If your triglycerides are high.
But, here’s a list of I think generally it would help people if they go on keto: I think keto for the large majority of people, that’s the way to go. But if you have abdominal pain, if you think you’re aging too rapidly – and that’s going to be brought back up by a question Debbie asked us – allergies, anxiety, arthritis. If you have bloating, belching, or gas – then you’ll have a sweet, darling wife like mine that gives me digestive enzymes to protect herself. If you have brain fog. We hear brain fog quite a bit. I’m surprised how many people have brain fog, and folks if it’s that, it’s all in your GI tract, and I think the best way to get your GI tracts healthy is, really and truly, do keto.
If you have a depressed mood. If you have diarrhea or constipation, difficulty focusing, difficulty keeping your thoughts in order – which is always me – dry skin and eczema, which is a question we got from Eddie up around Chicago. We’re gonna get into that, too. Fatigue. If you feel too full whether you eat a lot or not, and just like your stomach has something in it but it’s not digesting. Hair loss, dull lifeless hair. I hear that a lot. People say, well, I’m losing my hair or hair is getting thin.
Headaches can be a sign that you need to do keto because once you go into the fat-burning mode you begin to detoxify much more quickly. Joint pain, low energy. God, I can’t remember. Memory problems, muscle pain and nausea, poor skin color, rashes and skin problems.
Sexual dysfunction, lowered sex drive. I hear that a lot. And, unfortunately, I tell people, I say, “Well, you know you could take this and it could help this and your body can … It does this, this, this, this and increased libido.” And so many people say yeah, but my husband or wife doesn’t care or cannot. Well, put them on it, too, because a healthy sex life is actually good for a lot of things other than just feeling good. It helps you emotionally and spiritually, too. But, that’s a lot of symptoms. And they can be symptoms of a thyroid disorder or adrenal disorder, but I think if you have these the quickest, easiest way to do this is go keto.
I think the biggest, best guru about ketogenesis is Drew Manning, Fit2Fat2Fit. I think he is probably the best coach to help you go through it, and I really think people should buy into his program and get that guidance. Just like I tell people I would love to do your lab and let me be the guide because I can help you. The lab I like the most is a comprehensive plus the hormones, male or female, depending on who you are.
Explain that a little bit, when you say you like that lab the most. Why do you like that lab?
Because it covers so bloomin’ much. It goes on and on and on. It goes way beyond what your average doctor will order. And, I love our medical profession. They do a lot of really good things. It’d be a much sadder, less healthy world without them. But, they have their constraints with the insurance companies. And we do beyond the CBC and CMP. We do the cholesterol panel. We don’t just do the TSH. We do five parts of the thyroid. We do insulin. We do ferritin. We do A1C. We do c-reactive protein, cardiac specific. Vitamin D, and urinalysis, and cortisol, and then the hormones. And it just goes on and on and on. I probably left out one or two because I have memory problems, too, trying to keep all this straight in my head which is way beyond anything I could ever do.
So, I just think, make a decision. Get on the train and stay with it. That’s the key, is sticking with it. And you will always be challenged, whether you want to call that a mental or spiritual challenge, you will always be tempted to walk in disbelief or unbelief. Yes, I did this good thing, but I had this symptom so, therefore, it must be this good thing. Well, something just destroyed your courage, your faith, and your trust – the very thing that could get you well. So, you kind of have to dig deep sometimes to get well.
People that have gluten intolerances, well, I think the keto diet would be really good because they, for the most part, get you off, they encourage you to get off all the grains. I’ve always been a fan of Atkins, Paleo, Primal, Beyond Primal, and now the keto. I really prefer keto a little bit better just because I prefer the higher fat and the lower but moderate protein.
It is very important that you understand that there are a few people that should not do that. And that’d be the people that have kidney problems because of the extra protein. People that have digestive problems could almost always do it, but they have to have probiotics and digestive enzymes, and they have to be the correct ones. And, Lord knows, there’s a lot of incorrect ones. If you’re pregnant or nursing I wouldn’t suggest it. But, in my opinion, the fastest, easiest, and healthiest way to burn fat is keto.
When you are talking about keto, some of the various benefits of the ketogenic diet are obviously weight loss, which they’re looking for.
Yeah.
It’s a huge antiinflammatory.
Big time.
It increases your muscle mass.
Woohoo!
And, actually reduces your appetite. I’m assuming because you’re killing off all the little yeast people in there that aren’t getting anything to eat. So, you’re not giving them any bad stuff. It can actually lower your insulin levels and some people have backed out of being a diabetic.
That’s real common, by the way. It’s not a death sentence.
And it may help lower your risk of cancer. So, again, you’re not feeding all the things with sugar that the cancer loves to live on.
See, that’s why I hang around Janet ’cause she brings up things I forgot about.
Yeah, that’s it. That’s why he hangs around me.
Yeah, it’s that beautiful smile.
Johns Hopkins University. Read that about how sugar causes cancer. Just go to Johns Hopkins and Google it.
Yeah, also when you’re getting ready to do the keto diet you want to make sure that you remove the sugars from your diet, obviously.
Artificial sweeteners.
Diet things.
If it says no sugar, low sugar, low fat stay away from it.
Remove starches. What kind of starches?
I don’t know. The only starch I know about I have in my jeans.
I think that’s like potatoes and that sort of thing.
Pasta, rice. Some of the other things that you might not think that’s associated with ketogenesis, once you get into it, ADD, ADHD is normally improved. Of course, the metabolic function. Blood pressure is normally lowered like crazy.
I talked to a guy older than me yesterday. He said he’s cut his lisinopril in half. I said I hope that’s with the knowledge and permission of your MD. And he lost 21 pounds. And he’s an old guy ’cause he’s older than me.
Irritable bowel syndrome almost always improves.
And we also had a lady that should not have been doing keto that came in here.
Yeah, kidney issues.
Yeah, she had a kidney issue. And what are you doing whenever you’re doing keto? You’re having high amounts of protein, correct?
Depends on, there’s different types of keto. And I like it ’cause it’s high fat but, yes, it’s usually increased protein and she doesn’t digest it real well and has the kidney issues.
And she came in and her legs were really swollen down at the bottom. She goes, “Look what’s happened to my legs. They look like elephant trunks.” And I told her, “Well, I don’t believe this diet is for you.” So, there are people that don’t need it also, even though it is great, but it is a lot of protein and a lot of fats and if you have digestive problems then it’s really hard to break down sometimes. And, obviously, if you have a kidney problem you really need to watch that.
Migraines usually get better. And, you know, there’s been neurologists for many, many, many years that if you have any kind of neurodegenerative brain problems like Parkinson, et cetera, they’ll put you on a ketogenic diet and you usually get better. It can get very much improved, if not totally cleared up, in some cases. Dementia, if it’s mild to moderate, generally gets completely cleared up. Mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, usually get improved. But I want to throw in a little thing about that.
By doing the keto diet?
Yes. But, you folks that have followed us for a long time, how many have you heard me quote out of that research article that says wheat can cause schizophrenia. So, on the keto diet they tell you to stay away from wheat. And you need to stay away from corn. Now, we’re here in East Texas and we have a pretty heavy Hispanic influence, some Western, some Southern, a lot of Hispanic, a little Cajun thrown in. I would prefer corn. But, now corn, you know what they use corn for? To make cows and chickens fat. So, just because you’re staying away from wheat doesn’t mean – you know, it’s still high glycemic. So, stay away from those things. But that’s one of the reason ketogenic diet works for mental illnesses is because you’re staying away from the wheat that can cause that. I’ve seen a lot of people get off wheat and their depression goes away completely, even if they’ve had it several decades.
Fibromyalgia. Those people are pitiful. They hurt so bad and I just want to reach around and hug them even though they always tell us you’re not supposed to hug your patients. It’s like, I’ll hug you – male, female, doesn’t matter to me. Acne usually will clear up, but again you’ve got to watch the digestive system and we’re really, really good at that. Autoimmune diseases generally improve. And we’re seeing more and more autoimmune diseases and there’s a lot of that linked to the grains. Maybe not the grains, maybe it’s the lectins or maybe it’s the glyphosate or Roundup.
For example, people say but I’m not toxic, I’m not in any toxin. We were driving to work and there was the Texas Highway Department, it said just on the side of the truck “herbicides.” What do you think they were spraying? And they were spraying the holy, oh my God out of it. So, we got a big dose of whatever they’re spraying this morning because you could smell it when we passed them.
Heartburn, the GERD, the things that can contribute to Barrett esophagus can be very much improved. Especially if you get it early before it gets there. Enlarged prostate. Wow, I don’t know about that.
And I sure don’t know about that.
Sometimes liver issues and gallstones are improved, or sometimes completely cleared up, but you’ve gotta watch it because on keto when you start mobilizing all these fats your cholesterol can go way up and your liver has to process that. And that’s why we’re going to talk about one product today that covers a lot of these sins.
And that product is? Drum roll …
I was just waiting to see if Janet would give me permission. You know, she kind of has to control me ’cause I’m pretty much uncontrollable. And I was looking for her permission to talk about it.
It’s called bergamot or bergamot – B E R G A M O T. And the best one comes out of Italy and this company, we sell their products, has about 95% of the entire good crop in Italy wrapped up. And what it does, it’s used a lot for cardiovascular health, but it also does a lot of things that lowers insulin, lowers glucose, lowers A1C, helps mobilize cholesterol. I advise my patients to take two at night because it’s nighttime when most of the cholesterol and the conversions are taking place in the liver, so take it then. It’s very, very incredibly clinically tested and it dampens those mechanisms of cholesterol production. So it helps to support heart function, blood flow, healthy arteries, circulatory health, as well as other things. And men that have lost that lovin’ feeling, it’s usually circulatory health to certain areas.
And you’re mentioning that because on the lab with people on keto …
The cholesterol usually goes up for a while and then after your body gets used to it, people that are on keto generally have much, much lower cholesterol, but more importantly, lower triglycerides, higher HDL, lower LDL and VLDL. It gets healthier than most people that are vegan.
So why does it go up if they’re doing something healthy? Why does the cholesterol go higher?
Well, because the body switches from burning sugar or glucose to burning fats.
Okay.
But once it acclimates it does a really good job.
Yeah, because I know we’ve seen their liver enzymes also start going up, which that’s gotta be broke down through the liver, correct?
Exactly, because there’s so many different ways to detox in the liver and we know what to do to help detox it.
And that bergamot is a big-
Big time, big time.
Liver cleanser.
Oh my God, it’s sitting on my nightstand so I can take it at night when I’m supposed to.
So you can’t take it at night?
I can.
You can take it at night.
I’m supp-
He just looks at it at night, folks.
Well.
You take … well, he tells you that because you’re supposed to take two at bed. That’s when you do it. You do it right before you go to bed because that’s-
Well, Janet’s picking on me.
I am. It just seems to be when it works the best.
She told somebody yesterday, she said, “Well yeah, he takes four or five pills in the morning.” And it’s like, well she makes me a drink full of powders, and liquids, and God only knows, pretty much everything we have in the store. And, so after she said four or five – that’s our new cleaning lady that she told that to – I counted them and I put about 30 capsules I open up and put in my drink every morning and that’s why I feel about half of my age. It takes a little work and a little effort. Folks, you can’t get something for nothing. If you want to get good results you’ve got to plant healthy seeds and that’s what my friend Debbie said on Shoot’n Straight with Dr. Lewis – which I wish all of you would sign up for – Debbie’s complimented us.
Well, what is that exactly? The Shoot’n Straight with Dr. Lewis? How do they sign up for that?
You know, Janet’s trying to challenge me-
No.
Because, you know, I told her one time, I said, “Geez, I really appreciate you dragging me into the 20th Century with all this technology.” She said, “Stephen, it is the 21st Century.
It is called a closed Facebook group.
That is correct.
Or Spacebook, I’m not sure which.
He does great. It is closed Facebook group.
Yeah, I’m a parrot. I don’t know what those words means.
If you shoot him an email, if you’re not his friend already on Facebook, he can add you in and there he discusses all kind of health issues. He asks for all kinds of questions for the podcast. And you learn a whole bunch. And the people that are already patients of ours, it helps inspire them to keep going and not give up whenever they feel like they want to throw in the towel because they’re not getting instant results.
Yep.
It really helps being in a group of other people. But it is called Shoot’n, without a G on the end, because we are from East Texas and obviously-
‘Cause I shot the G off. Well, she was talking to a teacher, scheduling her appointment the other day, and she says something and used at the end of it. And I said you’re talking to an English teacher and you’re ending the sentence with a preposition, or proposition, or whatever those little things are.
It just wears off on you after a while.
Yeah, I stole her from the big city of Forth Worth where she was high class.
Well, we have a few questions here I want to make sure we get to and then we can get back to some of the foods maybe that’s on the keto diet if we get time for that.
Absolutely.
Okay. First off, we want to make sure we answer Eddie. You mentioned him earlier. Eddie S. He has a question about thoughts on supplements to help with colitis and IBS. And that’s a great question because it really does kind of go with keto, too, correct?
Yeah, usually your GI tract gets better. Well, first of all you’ve got to think about probiotics. And we have probiotics here that are actually 350 billion, although that’s not really true. They’re made at 650. I sell them all over the country. People absolutely love ’em. The first thing you have to do, Eddie, is get a good digestive enzyme. I love the Ortho Digestzyme. I think that’s the bomb for most people. I use something called Physicians Elemental Diet. I use that ProbioMax, which is the 350 billion that’s made at 650.
And SBI Protect is one of our really favorites right now.
That is so, so, so, oh my God important because it’s bovine derived immunoglobulins.
And we had a lady that was literally having diarrhea every day for the last 6 months that ever since we’ve got this product in, which was about three months ago, she started taking it immediately. She has not had any diarrhea since she’s been on it.
And, you know, she did all the medical care and she did everything I told her to. She was very cooperative. And I, of course, I told her to go to a GI doctor and she went and got the colonoscopy. And, again, I really do love the medical profession. I’m really proud that there’s so many of them around here locally that cooperate with us because the patient wins. And, this lady was a teacher and she says I can’t afford to have 17 bowel movements a day, unexpected and unexplainable. And now she is so, so happy. So, those products-
Well, I think that SBI Protect, people look at it and go, “Oh my gosh, it’s expensive.” Because it’s like 70-something dollars. And that product actually was a drug at one point and they were getting $400 for that drug.
Well, when another company had it.
Yeah, when another company had it. Well, the patent ran out on it and so Ortho Molecular picked it up and made it into a natural product, so the 70-something dollars is a value, especially when you have gut problems like that.
Yeah, to reduce it six times less than what it was. And Eddie, I love talking to this guy. He puts some really good inspirational posts on Facebook, too. But he wanted to know about causes or deficiencies in the body that could cause dryness of skin on the face and/or psoriasis. Psoriasis or eczema, you always have to look to the gut. So you have to recede with the probiotics. But, one of the things I like to tell people is do the high levels of good fat, omega 3 are always the best place to start. Borage oil is really good. CLA, which actually the good bacteria can help make CLA, conjugated linoleic acid. Borage oil. Let’s see, flax oil, black currant oil, primrose oil. All of those are very, very good. And this Orthomega is a triglyceride ester, which I’ve seen the research on it. It’s 393% more absorbable.
So we like that because you only have to take two of those. They’re a fish oil.
Instead of four to six.
They’re the non-burpy fish oil.
Yep.
They have the good stuff in them and you only have to do two. Taking two of them is like taking four of a lesser fish oil.
At least.
Normal one.
Yeah, at least. Then there was Debbie.
Debbie P.
That wanted to know about supplements for help with saggy skin, nails, and hair. And me being the very serious guy I am, says, “Yes, ma’am, we sell them by the bucket load, but why is it mostly women buy them?” And she says, “Men don’t seem to mind getting wrinkly. LOL.” We sell a lot of something called CollaGEN, which is the type one, type two, highly researched and, God, even people with joint pain are buying that.
Which, is one of the types of collagen that’s in it. When you say type one or type two. One of them helps with more inflammatory and the other helps more with skin and-
Yeah, it fills out the gaps-
Hair.
And it’s hygroscopic, so it makes your wrinkles less deep. We sell a lot of product called Hair/Skin/Nails and Liposomal C, which is about 92-94% absorption versus any other vitamin C. And vitamin C is very incredibly important in making collagen, which not only holds your skin together and makes you less wrinkly for you beautiful women, but it also helps bad disks, bad joints because being hygroscopic it brings more moisture into those joints and lubricates it, or greases the ole ball joints, so to speak. If you guys understand a ball joint on a car. So, hopefully that will answer your questions.
Well, one thing we noticed about taking CollaGEN – I love the way they do it, they spell it with the GEN capitalized on the end – but, we notice that we can work out in our yard twice as long without actually hurting.
Took twice as much beer. I’m sorry. Just in my mind.
Just in his mind.
Oh, yeah.
We were-
She won’t let me take a break.
We were much more limber than what we would have been without it.
And I was not beat up the next day in my low back, which is my low back is kind of cratered and not degenerated, just from an old gunshot wound accident, but the collagen is working wonders on my old decrepit joints, but they’re not worn out. It’s just there was a lot of damage to them.
So that was really a big positive.
Yeah, big time.
So, you want to mention some of the foods that are ideal to eat on a ketogenic diet. For those of you that don’t really know what they’re supposed to be having on this and what the difference is. It’s about eat a lot of fats, correct?
Good fat.
Okay.
Uh, the … Go ahead.
I was gonna name off a few of them.
Okay, go right ahead.
The animal-based omega 3 fats – they especially say from Alaskan salmon, sardines, anchovies, and krill.
Yep.
So, you gotta like fish to be on this, huh. Well, that helps. Olives and olive oil.
You have to … I don’t know how to find a good olive oil. I think it’s supposed to be third-party certified so they don’t fake them.
Yeah, because a lot of them are diluted with vegetable oil.
And, you know, the vegetable oil that’s a good thing. That’s one of the things that is very highly inflammatory, the stuff like corn, soybeans, safflower, canola – no, don’t ever do canola.
And we always recommend just doing MCT oil.
Yeah.
Which is a medium-chain triglyceride oil. We have one here that is coconut tasting. We have one that you can actually cook with that-
It tastes like a pina colada.
Yeah, and then you have one that you can mix with your shakes, which tastes really good. So it’s MCT colada for the one that tastes really good you take just by itself. And then straight MCT oil is a great one to cook with.
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Raw, grass-fed butter is excellent for this particular diet.
Or grass fed the cow that they got the butter from, one way or the other. But it really matters if the cows out in the pasture they actually create more CLA that I talked about before, and that’s the one that burns the fat around the viscera, or the middle. Very important.
Raw nuts like macadamia, almonds, and pecans.
I do walnuts when I get home almost every day.
And then various seeds such as pumpkin, sesame, and hemp.
That’s controversial, but I think that’s very, very true.
Avocados are a big one.
Love ’em, love ’em.
The grass-fed meats, not the ones filled with all the antibiotics that you’re probably going to the local grocery store to look at. ‘Cause then you’ve got a whole other set of problems trying to digest out the antibiotics from the bad meat.
And don’t think this is bad ’cause fat’s got kind of a bad rap and they said it’s saturated fats are bad. Saturated fats are not bad. It’s the trans hydrogenated or hydrogenated fats that you need to avoid like the plague.
And organic pastured eggs.
Yep.
The big thing to do is water. But you can also, with this diet, add in organic black coffee without sweeteners or milk.
Whoops. Our heavy whipping cream is organic that we do put in it.
But you can use can use coconut milk and you can put coconut milk in your coffee.
Or the butter. You know, the Bulletproof Coffee, that’s good.
And ghee is actually something you can put in there, too.
Yeah.
Which is the clarified butter.
So there’s actually no correlation between the intake of saturated fat and heart disease. Just because they told that lie loud and long, don’t believe everything you hear or read. It is not unusual for people to lose 50 or 100 pounds in six months to a year on this keto. So, I’d say get started. Talk to Drew Manning at Fit2Fat2Fit. And then it’s very incredibly important that you do the lab that we do with it so that you will have success with it. Whether you have a kidney issue, a liver issue, a cholesterol issue, a detoxification issue, low vitamin D, and your insulin and all that. So, we can kind of help you have a much more successful ketogenic diet and get better results from that.
And the good news is about that lab, the one that Dr. Lewis is recommending, is the GWH3 is the comprehensive one. Of course, if you want to add hormones to it, it would either be GWH1 or 2.
One is for the women because they’re always number one and right.
And two is for the males because they’re coming in behind us. But, anyway, the reason he recommends that is because you actually get to speak to Dr. Lewis about your lab results. It’s not like we go, hey we ran some labs, which is minimum of 12 panels here, and here you go, I hope you figure it out. Dr. Lewis actually is involved in this lab panel. You get to discuss all the lab findings with him and the recommendations that he has for you. So, if you’re trying to do the keto diet and you’re coming into issue like, I know constipation is a big one. You just kind of quit going to the bathroom because all the fat, or you’ve had your gallbladder removed, you might want to consider doing the lab. But you actually get to talk to him.
You get a functional medicine report that goes with it to help show you where the numbers are optimal. Because just because your doctor told you you were fine and it was all great, you might not be optimal, which is what we find many times on the lab. And then we also give you a list of recommended supplements and that can help you process doing the diet in a better, faster, efficient way. So, that’s our recommendations on keto. I think we’re pretty reloaded unless Dr. Lewis has anything he’d like to add in.
No, but sometimes – not that I want to write another book, it’s take a lot of time – sometimes I want to write a book that says if your doctor says you’re fine but you don’t feel fine … I think that’d be a really good smart aleck way to start. The only thing I’d like to say is that we always hope that God gives you joy in your eyes, love in your heart, and laughter on your lips. Find some reason to feel good and stick with it long enough to be healthy so that it’s easier to feel good and give joy to other people.
Amen. And with that, you guys have a blessed week and we’ll be here next time on the Green Wisdom Health Show.