Welcome to Episode 316 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Vanessa Spina, author of Keto Essentials: 150 Ketogenic Recipes to Revitalize, Heal, and Shed Weight.
Today's episode of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast is brought to you by:
BUTCHERBOX: Grass-Fed Beef, Organic Chicken, Heritage Pork, Wild-Caught Seafood: Nutrient-Rich, Raised Sustainably The Way Nature Intended, And Shipped Straight To Your Door! For A Limited Time Go To butcherbox.com/ifpodcast And Get Free ground beef For LIFE plus $20 off your first box!!
INSIDETRACKER: Get The Blood And DNA Tests You Need To Be Testing, Personalized Dietary Recommendations, An Online Portal To Analyze Your Bloodwork, Find Out Your True "Inner Age," And More! Listen To My Interview With The Founder Gil Blander At melanieavalon.com/insidetracker! Go To insidetracker.com/ifpodcast For 20% Off All Tests Sitewide!
JOOVV: Like intermittent fasting, red light therapy can benefit the body on so many levels! It literally works on the mitochondrial level to help your cells generate more energy! Red light can help you burn fat (including targeted fat burning and stubborn fat!), contour your body, reduce fine lines and wrinkles, produce collagen for epic skin, support muscle recovery, reduce joint pain and inflammation, combat fatigue, help you sleep better, improve mood, and so much more!! These devices are literally LIFE CHANGING!! For A Limited Time Go To Joovv.com/ifpodcast And Use The Code IFPODCAST For An Exclusive Discount!
To submit your own questions, email questions@IFpodcast.com, or submit your questions here!!
SHOW NOTES
1:10 - BUTCHERBOX: For A Limited Time Go To butcherbox.com/ifpodcast And Get Free Ground Beef For LIFE Plus $20 Off Your First Box!!
4:10 - BEAUTYCOUNTER: Keep Your Fast Clean Inside And Out With Safe Skincare! Shop With Us At melanieavalon.com/beautycounter Use The Code CLEANFORALL20 For 20% Off PLUS Something Magical Might Happen After Your First Order! Find Your Perfect Beautycounter Products With Melanie's Quiz: Melanieavalon.Com/Beautycounterquiz
Join Melanie's Facebook Group Clean Beauty And Safe Skincare With Melanie Avalon To Discuss And Learn About All The Things Clean Beauty, Beautycounter And Safe Skincare!
13:00 - vanessa's background
14:00 - podcast nomination
20:30 - young motherhood
22:10 - INSIDETRACKER: Go To Insidetracker.Com/ifpodcast For 20% Off All Tests Sitewide!
27:00 - vanessa's expertise
30:00 - education and growing up internationally
35:20 - biochemistry
Keto Essentials: 150 Ketogenic Recipes to Revitalize, Heal, and Shed Weight
41:00 - food Photography
44:00 - the online program
44:25 - 5:2 &Warrior diet
52:15 - peter attia
54:10 - JOOVV: For A Limited Time Go To Joovv.com/ifpodcast And Use The Code IFPODCAST For An Exclusive Discount!
57:00 - Entrepreneurship
58:30 - measuring ketones
Our content does not constitute an attempt to practice medicine and does not establish a doctor-patient relationship. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider for medical advice and answers to personal health questions.
TRANSCRIPT
Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 316 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat not what you eat, with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, author of What When Wine, and creator of the supplement line AvalonX. And I'm here with my cohost, Vanessa Spina, sports nutrition specialist, author of Keto Essentials, and creator of the Tone breath ketone analyzer and Tone Lux red light therapy panels. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ketogenicgirl.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. To be featured on the show, email us your questions to questions@ifpodcast.com. We would love to hear from you. Pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.
Hi friends, I'm about to tell you how you can get free grass-fed grass-finished beef for life plus $20 off. Yes, free grass-fed, grass-finished ground beef for life plus $20 off. We are so, so honored to be sponsored by ButcherBox. They make it so, so easy to get high-quality, humanely raised meat that you can trust. They deliver 100% grass-fed grass-finished beef, free-range organic chicken, heritage-breed pork that's really hard to find, by the way and wild caught, sustainable, and responsible seafood shipped directly to your door. When you become a member, you're joining a community focused on doing what's better for everyone. That includes caring about the lives of animals, the livelihoods of farmers, treating our planet with respect and enjoying deliciously better meals together. There is a lot of confusion out there when it comes to transparency regarding raising practices, what is actually in our food, how animals are being treated.
I did so much research on ButcherBox, you can actually check out my blog post all about it melanieavalon.com/butcherbox. But I am so grateful for all of the information that I learned about their company. All of their beef is 100% grass fed and grass finished that's really hard to find. They work personally with all of the farmers to truly support the regenerative agriculture system. I also did an interview with Robb Wolf on my show, the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast, all about the massive importance of supporting regenerative agriculture for the sustainability of not only ourselves but the planet. This is so important to me. I'll put a link to that in the show notes. If you recently saw a documentary on Netflix called Seaspiracy, you might be a little bit nervous about eating seafood. Now I understand why ButcherBox makes it so, so clear and important about how they work with the seafood industry.
Everything is checked for transparency, for quality, and for sustainable raising practices. You want their seafood. The value is incredible. The average cost is actually less than $6 per meal and it's so easy. Everything ships directly to your door. I am a huge steak lover. Every time I go to a restaurant, I usually order the steak. Oh, my goodness, the ButcherBox steaks are amazing. I remember the first time I had one and I just thought, this is honestly one of the best steaks I have ever had in my entire life. On top of that, did you know that the fatty acid profile of grass-fed, grass-finished steaks is much healthier for you than conventional steaks?
Their bacon, for example, is from pastured pork and sugar and nitrate free. How hard is that to find? ButcherBox has an incredible deal for our audience. For a limited time, you can get free grass-fed, grass-finished ground beef for life in every box of your subscription, plus $20 off. Yes, new members can get free grass-fed, grass-finished ground beef for life plus $20 off when you go to butcherbox.com/ifpodcast that's butcherbox.com/ifpodcast for free grass-fed, grass-finished ground beef for life plus $20 off. We'll put all this information in the show notes.
One more thing before we jump in, are you fasting clean inside and out? So, when it comes to weight loss, we focus a lot on what and when we eat. It makes sense because these foods affect our hormones and how our bodies store and burn fat. But do you what is possibly one of the most influential factors in weight gain? It’s not your food and it’s not fasting. It’s actually our skincare and makeup. So, as it turns out, Europe has banned over a thousand compounds found in conventional skincare and makeup in the US due to their toxicity. These include endocrine disruptors, which mess with your hormones, carcinogens linked to cancer, and obesogens, which literally can cause your body to store and gain weight. Basically, when we’re using conventional skincare and makeup, we are giving these obesogenic compounds direct access to our bloodstream.
And then in our bodies, studies have shown they do things like reduce our satiety hormones, increase our hunger hormones, make fat cells more likely to store fat, and more resistant to burning fat, and so much more. If you have stubborn fat, friends, your skincare and makeup may be playing a role in that. Beyond weight gain and weight loss, these compounds have very detrimental effects on our health and they affect the health of our future generations. That’s because ladies, when we have babies, a huge percent of those toxic compounds go through the placenta into the newborn. It is so, so shocking. And the effects last for years.
Conventional lipstick, for example, often tests high in lead and the half-life of lead is up to 30 years. That means when you put on some conventional lipstick, 30 years later maybe half of that lead has left your bones. On top of that, there is essentially no regulation of these products on the shelves. That’s why it’s up to us to choose brands that are changing this. The brand that is working the hardest to do this is Beautycounter. They were founded on a mission to change this. Every single ingredient is extensively tested to be safe for your skin, so you can truly feel good about what you put on. And friends, these products really, really work. They are incredible. They have counter time for anti-aging, counter match for normal skin, counter control for acne and oily prone, and counter start for sensitive. I use their Overnight Resurfacing Peel and vitamin C serum every single night of my life. And their makeup is amazing. Check out my Instagram to see what it looks like. Tina Fey, even wore all Beautycounter makeup when she hosted The Golden Globes. So, yes, it is high-definition camera ready. They have so many other products, deodorant, shampoo and conditioner that I love, products for babies and so much more.
You can shop with us at beautycounter.com/melanieavalon and use the coupon code CLEANFORALL20 to get 20% off your first order. Also, make sure to get on my Clean Beauty email list. That’s at melanieavalon.com/cleanbeauty. I give away a lot of free things on that list, so definitely check it out. You can join me in my Facebook group Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare with Melanie Avalon. People share their experiences, ask questions, give product reviews, and I do a giveaway every single week in that group as well. And lastly, if you’re thinking of making Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare a part of your future like we have, we definitely recommend becoming a Band of Beauty member. It’s sort of like Amazon Prime for Clean Beauty. You get 10% back in product credit, free shipping on qualifying orders, and a welcome gift that is worth way more than the price of the yearlong membership. It is totally, completely worth it.
So, again, to shop with us, go to beautycounter.com/melanieavalon and use the coupon code CLEANFORALL20 to get 20% off your first order. And we’ll put all this information in the show notes. All right, now back to the show.
Hi, everybody and welcome. This is Episode number 316 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I am here with Vanessa Spina. I don't even know where to start. I'm just so excited. But Vanessa, welcome to The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.
Vanessa Spina: Wow. I don't even know where to start either. All I know is that I'm buzzing with excitement. Like my chair could be buzzing. I have so much enthusiasm and excitement about starting this new journey with you. I can't wait. I'm so happy to be here.
Melanie Avalon: Yeah, for listeners. Vanessa and I have been looking forward to this for quite a few weeks now. We've just been, like giggly like little girls, so excited, been looking forward to this like first day of school. Yeah. I'm just really, really happy right now. This is a moment. I'm taking it in.
Vanessa Spina: I hope everyone can feel our joy because it's just literally pure joy. [laughs]
Melanie Avalon: I know it's pure joy and lots of emojis. [laughs] Vanessa and I use a lot of emojis. [laughs] Okay. Sorry. Okay. Staying present, but in any case. For listeners, the backstory leading up to today's episode, well, first of all, I just want to get, like, teary-eyed. I want to thank the listeners for being here so long in this journey with this show because it's so, so, real to me because so much of my life now is podcasting. I have the other show, The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. It all started with this show though. Now it's been over six years, I guess. For listeners who have been here on the journey the whole way, I was co-hosting with Gin Stephens for about five years, which is fantastic. She's just such a character and really brought a nice approachable perspective to intermittent fasting and provided the perspective of, like, a mom with older children. We had great banter and that really created a whole vibe on the show. And then her life was shifting around. She was changing where she was focusing her energy and her priorities.
Next came Cynthia Thurlow who was the host right before this. And Cynthia, so amazing, so fantastic. She brought so much to the show in that she is a nurse practitioner. She has a medical background. I think what I really liked about having Cynthia was I had this backlog of questions about menopause and women's hormones and all this stuff. When Gin and I were cohosting, were like we don't know if we can answer these. So, we got those all covered with Cynthia. And so, Cynthia was amazing. Similar to Gin, she just with her shifting priorities with her job and her career and her kids, it was time for her to step down from this show.
So, then it was time to find another co-host and I was like, “What do I do? Where do I go?” So, honestly, Vanessa, I'm trying to think you were probably the first person I thought of. I think you were because we'd been talking anyways. I had been talking about how if Cynthia ever wasn't doing the show, how I would love for you to do the show. Do you remember that?
Vanessa Spina: We were just talking about it as, like, fantasy life. You were like, if things change, wouldn't it be so much fun or something for us to podcast together? When you said it, my first reaction was like “Oh, my God that would be so amazing.” But of course, it's not real or it was just something that were talking about as like, “Wouldn't that be so incredible?” But I didn't think it was something even in the realm of possibility because of where I live and where you live and how whenever we want to do other podcast episodes or chat, it's not impossible, but it takes some scheduling so it was just like, “Oh, wouldn't that be amazing? There's no way it could ever happen.” Was my first reaction or thought and then we kept talking about it and it was like wait, no, we could make this happen because we both care about this pretty much. We both care about this same amount which is a huge amount and so we're willing to make it happen, make it work no matter what. It was just, like, so incredibly exciting that we had to make it become a reality. [laughs]
Melanie Avalon: I know. Yeah, so for listeners who are not familiar and I will tell you about Vanessa, but she lives in Prague, which is very far away. So, yeah, with the timing thing, I'm, like, not a morning person. Vanessa has an adorable son, Luca. Of course, she's very busy as well, so her evenings are with the time difference. It's her evening right now. We had historically, even just like, me going on her show, had issues with scheduling for that. The scheduling issue was a little bit of a hurdle to get over. But I think we found a time that's going to work for us and hopefully a schedule that will be sustainable. Yeah, once we nailed that down and I think yeah, so were talking about it, like, fantasy life, like you said. Very soon after that, Cynthia and I had a conversation about Cynthia leaving the show. So, I was like, Vanessa, [laughs] but I'll tell listeners a little bit about you. You are a legend in this sphere. I was very familiar with your work, your handle, your name that you made for yourself, “Ketogenic Girl.” People might know you by that, but you are the host. Before the Optimal Protein Podcast, it was the Ketogenic Girl podcast, right? That what it used to be called?
Vanessa Spina: Yeah, it was called Fast Keto when it first started and was that for about four years?
Melanie Avalon: Okay, never mind, lies, Fast Keto, but now it's called the Optimal Protein Podcast. Vanessa, I'm having to stop myself from going on so many tangents because now I want to have a whole conversation with you about podcast naming and podcast name changing, but I'm going to stop myself. [laugh] I will table that. In any case, so your show has been nominated twice as a top three best podcasts at the Metabolic Health Summit. Okay, now I am going on a tangent. When that happened, did they just email you like you're nominated?
Vanessa Spina: Yes. Well, it happened twice as you said and the first time that it happened, I think I was notified on social media, but ketogenic.com was also running it at the time and they actually sent me an award. So, I have this beautiful award for being nominated. I didn't even win. I was nominated. I have this amazing award from them and how they do it essentially, I think they just started tagging me in the post saying, like, these are the nominees, and then now the most recent one, they took a pause, I think, during COVID from doing the Keto Awards and then they restarted again with the Metabolic Health Summit and that was this past year. Each time it's like a crowdsource nomination thing. I didn't even know about it until I was nominated both times, which was like the biggest honor because that means it was all driven by my listeners and community.
And then once you're nominated, you're like, okay, now you kind of are aware that there's going to be voting, and so you get a little bit more involved in rallying the troops to go and vote and stuff like that. But both nominations were total surprise, and I just was, like, in just such odd amazement because even just being nominated for me is probably the biggest honors that I've had so far in my podcasting career.
Melanie Avalon: That's amazing. So, it's a crowdsource nomination?
Vanessa Spina: Yeah, as in, like, they put it out there for people and then people vote on the nominations and then the nominations become the nominees who then get voted on again. If that makes sense in terms of, like, crowdsourcing, I mean, people are voting for the nominees.
Melanie Avalon: When they vote on the nominations does the Metabolic Health Summit put out a list of podcasts and then the people vote on the nominations?
Vanessa Spina: I don't think so. I think it's just, like, open to anything. Open to anything and they take the ones that get the most nominations and then it goes to the voting. So, anyone can be nominated for the awards. So, yeah, it's just been in a huge, huge honor like I said.
Melanie Avalon: That's so cool. Did you go to anything for it?
Vanessa Spina: I really, really wanted to go to the Metabolic Health Summit this past year. I've actually scaled back a lot. I was telling you this when were just talking, the two of us in previous conversations, I've been scaling back on speaking because having Luca, he's my main priority in terms of what I spend my time doing, is being with him, educating him, nurturing him. Everything revolves around him now. For me to go and speak at an event, it's either like, leaving him, which is really hard to think of or bringing him with me with my husband. It's just a lot more of logistical planning and everything than ever before. So, I just become a lot more selective with what I go and speak to. And The Metabolic Health Summit is something that I would be incredibly honored to attend and Dr. Dom D’Agostino told me that-- we're talking about my nomination and he was like, “I voted for you.”
And I was like just to get to be there in that room with all the people who are attendees and speakers and presenters and I actually watched what happened? They videotaped it, but they put the Optimal Protein Podcast up on the big screens and shared that. There were top three podcasts and it was one of the top three. So, that was just like the most incredibly thrilling thing.
Melanie Avalon: That's amazing. Who are the other two? Do you remember?
Vanessa Spina: For this past one, it was Dr Paul Saladino and it was Ben Azadi.
Melanie Avalon: Oh, I'm airing my episode with Ben Azadi next week on my biohacking show.
Vanessa Spina: That's amazing. He actually won his podcast, one of the three. Yeah, it was just an honor also to be among the two of them because they're both amazing. So, I was really excited for that.
Melanie Avalon: I love that. Do you know my Paul Saladino story?
Vanessa Spina: Yes, I've heard you over the years and I think what you're referring to is when you interviewed him on your podcast, and because I heard you talking about it to Gin years ago.
[laughter]
Melanie Avalon: Oh, gosh, [laughs] on this show?
Vanessa Spina: Yes, on this show. I remember I was, like, walking by the riverbanks in Prague and you were talking about how you did the interview with him, and it got, like, a little spicy, a little contentious, and I was like, I got to listen to that one and I still haven't, but I have to at some point listen to it I thought about it the other day. It’s like I need to listen to it.
Melanie Avalon: I think that was the second time I had him on the show. The first time I had him on-- he was one of my first guests-- I think he was my second or third guest on the biohacking podcast, which is crazy. And he was, like, going on a lot of shows. He had just started his show, but he wasn't huge like he is now. I literally have in the transcript-- I love Paul and I literally have in the transcript, like, us debating about meat versus meat and fruit. Did you hear that story?
Vanessa Spina: I think that's what you were debating about, right?
Melanie Avalon: Okay. Things got I think it's a little feisty in our second interview, which was, like, a little bit later, but in the first one, yeah, I was telling him, “Wouldn't meat and fruit be, like, ideal?” And he was like, “No, fruit is nature's porn. Don't have the fruit don't have-- and I was like, what about meat, fruit, and honey? [laugh] Now he's like, all about the meat, fruit, and honey. Told you, Paul. [laugh]
Vanessa Spina: That's amazing you got in writing.
Melanie Avalon: Yeah. But what's also funny, speaking of podcasting at the time, because like I said he had just started his show and so he wanted all this advice on podcasting and we would do, like, calls, and he'd be like, “Tell me how to podcast.”
Vanessa Spina: That's amazing. He went to the best in the biz.
Melanie Avalon: It was crazy. That was a rabbit hole. That's so cool. Oh, my goodness, that's so cool. We'll see friends, Vanessa is very, very legit. And also, speaking of, you mentioned your son. She's also an inspiration when it comes to childbearing and child raising. I just can't wait to see how your son manifests in the world because especially after interviewing Gabor Maté recently and like the role of childhood development, I just feel so good about your child.
Vanessa Spina: Thank you. Thank you. That means so much to me. Pete and I both prioritize him above everything else and in the sense that we just devote all of our free time to nurturing him, I think, as any parents do. But we're really wanting to prioritize him above a lot of other things. I think it just comes naturally to you as a parent, you just want to do that naturally. I think we're both at really good places in our careers, both he and I, where we also feel like we can do that and we can prioritize it. So, I think it's also a little bit of a privilege that we can take that time to be with him, but he just lights up our entire lives. He's just so incredible and amazing and being with him every day is such a joy.
So, I feel privileged also to get to just spend time with him because he's just the most amazing special human I've ever met. And I'm not saying that to brag about us as parents, but just children are just so incredibly pure and beautiful and the way that they manifest in the world and the way that they learn things, and it's just such an incredible thing to witness and be a part of. It's the best thing that's ever happened to Pete and I, outside of meeting each other. It's just the coolest most amazing thing I've ever experienced in my life until now is being his mom. So, yeah, thank you so much for saying that.
Melanie Avalon: So incredible. You like give me hope for romance and for having children.
Vanessa Spina: I love that, I love that. [laugh]
Melanie Avalon: Hi, friends. I'm about to tell you how to get 20% off one of my favorite things for truly taking charge of your health. To live your healthiest and longest life possible, you need to understand what's going on inside. InsideTracker takes a personalized approach to health and longevity from the most trusted and relevant source that would be your body. By using data from your blood, DNA, and fitness trackers, InsideTracker gives you personalized and science-backed recommendations on things that you can take control of to optimize your health.
So, this is things like food, supplements, workouts, and lifestyle choices including ways to optimize sleep and stress. What I love about InsideTracker is that InsideTracker tests provide optimal ranges, not conventional ranges, for over 40 biomarkers including magnesium, vitamin D, testosterone, cortisol, ferritin, which is the storage form of iron that is rare for doctors to test and the newly released ApoB, which I am so excited about.
The thing I love most about InsideTracker is that they have a strict science-backed approach to everything they do. If your specific biomarker level is unoptimized, InsideTracker actually provides recommendations that are backed by dozens of peer-reviewed studies and personalized to you. This process was set in place by their founders that include experts in aging, genetics, and biometric data from Harvard, Tufts, and MIT. For a limited time, our audience can get 20% off the entire InsideTracker store when you sign up at insidetracker.com/ifpodcast.
So, if you're ready to get a crystal-clear picture of what's going on inside your body along with science-backed recommendations to optimize what's not working, then visit insidetracker.com/Ifpodcast. And one of the things I really love about InsideTracker is it helps you track all of your results, all of your tests over time so you can see patterns, see your history. It makes predictions of where you'll be if you continue on your current trajectory. It is a game changer for making sense of your labs. I am obsessed with InsideTracker. Again, you can get 20% off sitewide at insidetracker.com/ifpodcast and we will put all of this information in the show notes.
So, for listeners, fun fact, before I even had ever started this show, like way back when I was just daydreaming about having a podcast, the way I first saw it in my head was doing it with somebody similar to my age, similar vibe, like a real friend vibe. I'm friends with Gin, I'm friends with Cynthia, but this is the first time I feel like if you lived here, we'd just be like hanging out 24/7.
Vanessa Spina: It's bestie vibes. I mean, it's just bestie vibes. There's something about bestie vibes that's different from other friendships or connections that you have with people and it's just like a natural, just a kindred spirit kind of thing that anyone can relate to with their best friends like your kindred spirits and we definitely are, it's undeniable. [laughs]
Melanie Avalon: Exactly. So, I'm so excited about that. But what I'm also excited about is relating to what you just said. You bring a new perspective to all of this, which is the young mom with the young kids. We haven't had that before on the show. So, I'm really excited-- I'm really excited to see how that manifests with listener questions and how you can respond to that, it's very exciting.
Vanessa Spina: Me too. I love that you started out by talking about this community, this incredible community because it is so amazing. And like you said, it was going to make you tear up a little bit just how long listeners have been with this show. I consider myself a member of this community. I've been a long-time listener from the beginning and I absolutely loved your dynamic with Gin. It was amazing. Just the way that you guys bantered and that you brought such different perspectives I think is really so cool. It's almost like the show is sort of growing and evolving in its own way. And then having someone like Cynthia join with her medical background was just, like, mind-blowing for me as a listener. I was like this is amazing. We're going to have someone with this clinical aspect to bring to it. And she's so knowledgeable, so knowledgeable. Every episode I felt like I was learning so much from her because she's so incredibly knowledgeable.
I have huge shoes to fill, absolutely gigantic shoes to fill. I don't want anyone to have any misconceptions. I am not coming in to replace or fill those shoes or I'm not an expert on intermittent fasting. I have my own areas of expertise and as an author I have talked about and written about intermittent fasting. But both Gin and Cynthia are experts in intermittent fasting and authors specifically on the topic. They brought so much to this podcast and I hope to just bring, like you said, my own perspective to things. There are certain things that Cynthia and I personally aligned on like our protein focus. I think I can sort of carry the torch a little bit for that and bring new perspectives as well. Having a background with keto, having a different approach to intermittent fasting than like you do for example, and just bringing that other perspective to things as well.
Melanie Avalon: I think it's going to be absolutely perfect. Yeah. For listeners so you completed a two-year biomedical science program at the University of Toronto. You're from Canada, right?
Vanessa Spina: Yes. Originally from Canada. And my family is all Canadian and I have, like, French sort of British heritage. And I actually grew up overseas for most of my life because my parents worked overseas for the Canadian government. So, I spent most of my life in China, in Asia, and coming back and forth to Canada in between. And then we went back to China when I was in grade nine and we did another posting there. And then instead of coming back to Canada, we went to the Philippines to Manila and I finished high school there. And I was doing an International Baccalaureate program and then I moved to Vancouver in Canada to go to university. So, I came back to my roots, came back to Vancouver, and like I said, I am Canadian, but I consider myself like an international citizen, like a citizen of the world because we've lived in so many places.
Melanie Avalon: Whoa. That's amazing. My sister is actually right now in Tokyo.
Vanessa Spina: Oh, that's incredible. Yeah, Japan is just like another planet. That's so cool. It sounds like your family travels a lot.
Melanie Avalon: They do. This is how we're so different. I need your travel skills.
[laughter]
Vanessa Spina: Yeah.
Melanie Avalon: I'm so jealous of people with epic travel skills. It's like the one thing I want. Like, if I was before God and he was like, “What talent shall I give you?” I was like, “Give me travel skills.”
Vanessa Spina: You can get them. I know you love learning so much, and there is no more exciting, thrilling, like hands-on learning than travel. You have to go to all the places and see everything. Just the kind of person that you are, you would just love it so much.
Melanie Avalon: I agree. I'm grateful that my travel fear didn't start. It was late-onset travel fear. I did a lot of traveling growing up, mostly like Europe and stuff. Working on it, working on it. Was that your undergrad, the program?
Vanessa Spina: No. I did a full undergrad at UBC and I was doing political science at the time because my passion was nutrition. So, I took nutrition as my elective. But I thought that I had to have like a very serious career because my parents were diplomats and I wanted to do something very serious like they did and very impactful. I just didn't really know what I was going to ultimately end up doing. So, I did political science. I think it's because also my brother did political science. I was like, well, he did it, so I'm going to do what my big brother did. While I was there, I figured out that I really love business, I really love finance, and I really love nutrition. But I don't know why, I just didn't think that it was something that I could do because my parents didn't do, like, scientific degrees.
And biology was my favorite subject in school when I was in high school. Especially, like, looking at the mitochondria and looking at all the organelles. I don't know why it didn't occur to me I didn't put it together at the time. So, I went into finance right after school, and I worked in the stock market in Vancouver, and I learned a lot about business. I have my Canadian securities license to be like a securities broker, stockbroker and I loved it. It was very exciting. It's where I met my husband. We met in finance at a financial conference in Vancouver and it wasn't until about seven years ago I started doing Ketogenic Girl as, like a passion, hobby side project. And I had like an Instagram Ketogenic Girl and it just absolutely took off. And it got to the point where my passion or side hustle, it wasn't really a side hustle, it was just my passion.
Like, my hobby started taking so much of my time that I made the decision to switch careers. So, I totally switched careers when I was pretty well established. And one, I was also, like, a news anchor for this financial show. And I loved it. It gave me a lot of media training and helped me interview people, and I loved being on stage, like behind the anchor desk and interviewing financial experts. It was super thrilling. I just got to pick the brains of all the most brilliant financial people, like, people from Dragons Den and all these amazing people. But I never felt at the end of the day that I was personally aligned with my passion. For me, that was always nutrition. It was always like health and science.
So, I don't know what happened, but I suddenly got the confidence, maybe because everything took off and my social media following was growing a lot. And then I wrote Keto Essentials, my first book, and I suddenly got the confidence maybe from community people that I was helping or what it was to go back and pursue science. So, I applied at University of Toronto and got into their biomedical science program, which was mostly focused on biochemistry, which is for someone who doesn't have a science background, it's like speaking Russian. It's basically like learning a new language. It's so complex and amazing.
But I loved it. So, from the first couple of exams I had where I was barely passing, I went to having 90% on everything towards the end of the program, on biochem especially, and I just took to it so much. As soon as I learned and understood the basics, I was like, flying through it. And it was also focused on physiology and also pharmacology, which was very interesting because that's when you learn all the first pass metabolism, aspects of metabolism, and everything. So, it was an incredible program. It was very hard and it took me two years, but I almost needed to level up to be able to keep up with some of the things that I was seeing, like social media debates about things like gluconeogenesis. I was like, I don't know who's right. I don't understand how to decipher what this means. I have to go back and learn biochem for myself so I can understand these pathways and then I can form my own opinion. So, I'm not a medical expert or anything like that, like I said I'm not an expert on intermittent fasting.
I do have my areas of expertise with regard to keto and protein and stuff. But, just going back and learning that stuff challenged me so much, and it was just a huge part of my education so that I could speak to some of the incredible guests that you and I have the honor of speaking to on a regular basis and at least be like somewhere on the same page with them and have also more advanced discussions I think is really important because sometimes you'll see these authors or experts and they'll be on a podcast sort of what's the word for it? Like a podcast circuit? [laughs] Like they're releasing a new book or whatever, and they go and do the same interview on every podcast because they submit questions, and I always want to get questions that nobody else asks. I know you're like that too. You have to go deeper and really understand the science behind things, I think, to have those deeper level conversations.
Melanie Avalon: Okay, see, that is huge. If I could download one degree or educational library into my head it would be biochemistry for sure. Does it really stick with you? So, for example, if you hear Krebs cycle, do you know all that?
Vanessa Spina: Yes, for the most part. But certain things, if you don't keep up with them, they will fade, so, you have to continuously-- I think that's why doctors have continuous medical training. You have to constantly brush up on the basics because you could be an expert on a certain topic one day or a certain pathway. You could know it in and out and then you could forget it because there're just so many things. There're so many things. It's not so much that you forget it, but it just kind of fades a little bit so sometimes you just have to like go back and refresh. But you know for the most part, a lot of it does stay with you because it is very foundational.
Melanie Avalon: That's incredible. I'm so jealous. That's amazing. Oh, you're going to bring so much to this show. Very excited about that. You've just kind of mentioned it in passing, but writing a book is no small feat. So, I have actually in front of me right now Keto Essentials: Your Complete Guide to the Ketogenic Diet. 150 Ketogenic Recipes to Revitalize, Heal, and Shed Weight by Vanessa Spina. And on the cover, it's your picture. And then we have-- I'm going to describe it. I'm curious for the pictures on the book, were you super involved in the design of the book creatively?
Vanessa Spina: Yeah, as much as you can be. I definitely, like, it had to be a reflection of me or like a projection. [laughs]
Melanie Avalon: So, there's like a, is it chocolate mousse?
Vanessa Spina: Yes. Chocolate mousse with whipped cream and then tenderloin béarnaise asparagus?
Vanessa Spina: Yes.
Melanie Avalon: And then what are those? Are those rolls?
Vanessa Spina: Yeah, those are goat cheese balls, [laughs] fried goat cheese balls.
Melanie Avalon: Fried goat cheese balls. And then coconut something?
Vanessa Spina: There's zucchini chips. Zucchini chips at the bottom.
Melanie Avalon: And then tuna avocado salad.
Vanessa Spina: There's like a slaw with avocado and salmon sashimi on it.
Melanie Avalon: Oh, then it continues on the back. Steak and like mushroom sauce?
Vanessa Spina: Yes.
Melanie Avalon: And then strawberry almond salad?
Vanessa Spina: Yes?
Melanie Avalon: Was that fish next to it with the broccoli or chicken?
Vanessa Spina: That's lemon chicken.
Melanie Avalon: Lemon chicken. Sweet cinnamon.
Vanessa Spina: Crepes? Yes.
Melanie Avalon: Okay. Yes. And then onion rings? No, no, no, calamari.
Vanessa Spina: Calamari? Yes. Good eye. That's amazing.
Melanie Avalon: And then wait, is that orange juice?
Vanessa Spina: That's actually lemon curd in shot glasses.
Melanie Avalon: Oh, okay, okay. So, friends, if you're looking for keto recipes, definitely get this book. It is absolutely gorgeous. Tons of pictures, tons of recipes. We get a lot of questions on this show with people, especially people on the keto diet and recipe recommendations, so definitely get this. And did you come up with all these recipes yourself?
Vanessa Spina: I did, yes.
Melanie Avalon: All of them?
Vanessa Spina: Yes. It was such a fun process because I love cooking, like, I've always been passionate about cooking. My mom really inspired me a lot in the kitchen and she also took me to a lot of cooking classes and really taught me how to cook well, I think. And she's just such a fantastic cook and hostess, so that's always been a big passion of mine. I really wanted to share all these amazing recipes that I have. And the reason I say amazing is because I was telling you, I've grown up all over the world, so I was really exposed to a lot of different culinary traditions, and a lot of my recipes are like Thai curries or like lemon chicken or inspired by the best dishes that I tasted in every country. So, I was like, I got to take the best recipes of every country that I've tried and then ketofy them.
And I was already doing that for myself. So, when it was time to write the book, I was like, I'll just share what we make on a regular basis. And in that sense, it was pretty easy to come up with the recipes and just go by inspiration because I already knew what we loved and I knew that people were going to really enjoy them because I don't like to put anything in my mouth that I don't absolutely love. So, yeah, it definitely was a fun process and creative process and it was a very satisfying inspirational process.
Melanie Avalon: I'm flipping through it right now, getting really hungry. What's your favorite recipe in it?
Vanessa Spina: Gosh, I have so many. Probably the spinach and artichoke dip. That was one of our favorite recipes that we always used to get at Milestones Restaurant, which is a really popular restaurant in Vancouver. It's super keto without the tortilla chips, right. So, it's one of my favorite things and it's also just like a fun dish that you can bring with you to parties and social events where you can enjoy it with some pork rinds or cucumbers or keto crackers. Like, there're so many options for that kind of stuff now, so that's probably one of my favorites. Goat cheese balls are definitely up there. [laugh] I love fried goat cheese or just like fried cheese. It's actually a huge thing in Prague is the fried cheese. It's like on every single menu.
Melanie Avalon: You have a dairy-free fettuccine Alfredo. Super cool.
Vanessa Spina: Yes. Vegan fettuccine alfredo. [laughs]
Melanie Avalon: That's awesome. And for listeners, on each page, there's a very easy-to-read, like, label system where it says if it's dairy-free, egg-free, or nut-free, and it gives the macronutrients, so the fat, protein, carbs, fiber, calories. So, super amazing, I'm assuming with the photos, were you actually there for any of the photos, or did they just plate it and take the photos themselves and show you the gallery?
Vanessa Spina: I took some of them. [laughs] I took some of them and the majority of them were by a photographer that I hired and that I was working with. I was already working with her on my meal plan. It was perfect because she was already used to doing a lot of this stuff. So, when I first started, I would spend all day making a recipe and then I would photograph it. But it was during the winter in Prague and so the light would start going down like around 3 in the afternoon. So, by the time I had made a recipe and prepared it because you also have to style it with like different colored backgrounds, like bright backgrounds and colorful backgrounds. You can't just put a plate. You have to have a presentation and then you have to have some of the twigs of parsley or rosemary in the background and then, like, a splash of powdered whatever.
It's an artistic shot and I think so much goes into it. So, by the time I would have that all setup, I would start taking photos, which I wasn't an expert in either taking, I wasn't a photographer, so I also had to learn how to take photos, but it was really fun to learn all those things. But by the time I started taking pictures, it would start getting dark. I was like, this is not working. At this rate, this book is going to take like 10 years. I was like, I should just work with my photographer and she can fill in the rest. I get excited when I flip through and I see like one on ones that I did, but the vast majority she definitely took and with lots of bright light because yeah, she was a professional at it, but she would send me the shots, and from working together for a while, she had idea of my aesthetic. And I put a lot of marble backgrounds, a lot of dark wood because that's kind of the aesthetic that I like. But it was really fun working with her too.
Melanie Avalon: Yeah, this is amazing. I love how in the glossary in the back is with pictures. That's super helpful.
Vanessa Spina: Yes, and there's like meal plans in the back with little photos there.
Melanie Avalon: This is so beautiful. Also, sidenote, it starts getting dark at 3 in Prague.
Vanessa Spina: In the winter, like in the, like the dead of winter, the light like the sun sets sometime around like four to 4 to 4:30. So, you start losing that full spectrum light already.
Melanie Avalon: I'm so jealous. I need to move to Prague.
Vanessa Spina: Yes, please. It's very cold and dark in the winter here. You would love it.
Melanie Avalon: Sign me up. I'm all about the darkness. [laugh]
Vanessa Spina: Yeah, it's hard to do like artistic projects or take photos, but yeah, it gets really dark.
Melanie Avalon: That's amazing. Okay, so listeners, again get the book Keto Essentials and then you mentioned your programs. So, what's your history doing online programs?
Vanessa Spina: I started the first one actually by request. People were messaging me on Instagram and asking me for meal plans because keto, especially around that time when I first started posting about keto was like 2015, 2016. And actually really interestingly, the thing that brought me to keto was intermittent fasting. I have to just mention this because I was at the hair salon, I was reading a magazine and there was an article on Michael Mosley and like 5:2. I'm like, “Oh my gosh, this intermittent fasting thing is amazing.” So, I started doing it and then somehow I found Ori Hofmekler's Warrior Diet book.
Melanie Avalon: That's how I started.
Vanessa Spina: No, really?
Melanie Avalon: Well, first I read this blog post, Rusty Moore, he had this blog post online called "eat one meal a day." Like, literally, that's what it was called.
Vanessa Spina: Okay.
Melanie Avalon: Does that ring a bell?
Vanessa Spina: Maybe that's how I found it. I wish I could remember how I found it.
Melanie Avalon: This was like old school internet. This was like the days of a blog post and hundreds of comments. So, no Facebook [laughs] like forums. So, I would check the blog posts to read the new comments every day. But it was like, “Eat one meal a day to lose weight.” I was like, what is this? And then I found Ori.
Vanessa Spina: I wish I could remember how I found him. Maybe it was like on a-- because around that time I started listening to podcasts as well. And maybe I heard him recommend it or something on a podcast. Like that's very possible but I loved his book and I was like--
Melanie Avalon: Ori’s book?
Vanessa Spina: Yes. And the one-meal-a-day concept. So, I started with the 5:2 and then I started doing the one meal a day, the OMAD approach. And it really worked well for me. At the time, I wanted to lose about 15 to 20 pounds and I lost 15 pounds doing that. And I really leaned up, but I hadn't fully changed my macros.
Melanie Avalon: What meal were you eating for the one meal?
Vanessa Spina: It was like a super high carb.
Melanie Avalon: Oh, sorry, when or both. Well, I guess yeah, both, like, when? Was it your dinner?
Vanessa Spina: Was doing dinner. I found that to be the easiest because you start each day with the most amount of willpower that you're going to have each day. So, it made sense to me to have that meal at the end of the day when you have the least amount of willpower left when you're done. So, using up all your willpower for decision making or whatever else. So, it just made the most sense to me. I was doing pretty high carb and I was vegetarian for most of my adult life. So, I was doing vegetarian super high carb like most vegetarians. You're eating really high carbs.
And so, I was doing that high carb and I was definitely getting results, but I wasn't really noticing some of the other benefits that I wanted, some of the other health benefits. And so, doing keto I started by going gluten free and then I started changing up my macros and trying out keto. I think I heard Dr. Dom D’Agostino and I heard Dr. Peter Attia on Tim Ferriss' podcast. And I was like, these guys are amazing. I have to try this keto thing that they're doing because they were like some of the first people who were doing it and talking about it. And they really sold me on it. It sounded amazing.
So, I started doing keto with the OMAD, but it was just interesting that sort of my coming to keto all just started with intermittent fasting. I had the social media going with the keto and for me it was always combined with intermittent fasting from the very beginning because they go so well together. Not that you have to do one or the other or like you can't do them separately, but when you do keto you have ketones from ketosis and you have the ability to go for long periods of time doing intermittent fasting. I think a lot of people find it more easy to do it when they're fat adapted, so they just go very well together.
So, I had people starting to ask me about the meal plans and asking me for recipes. There was one woman who wrote me and she said, “Can you just make me like a 14-day meal plan?” So, I was like, “Okay, I'll make you one.” And it was Christmas time. So, Pete was like, all by himself. He still brings this up to tease me, but he ended up spending all of Christmas by himself walking around the center of Prague, which is really beautiful and magical. He was by himself because I was at home writing this meal plan for this woman and I ended up turning it into the 28-day Ketogenic Girl challenge that really took off.
I started like a Facebook coaching group for it and it was so much fun, it was amazing. So many people were interested in it. And I really enjoyed working with people on the meal plans. At the time, it was a resource, I think, that was needed because there just wasn't a lot of information out there about how to do keto, which sounds crazy now because there's so much, like, it totally exploded. Yeah, so keto has completely exploded since then, but that was how it first started, and thousands of people took the program and it was a ton of fun to do it at the time.
Melanie Avalon: Mine as well was through Ori, but I did the opposite view. I went keto first and then adapted intermittent fasting with one meal a day. But I agree with you that when you're doing one or the other, the other one very easily falls in line because they both create this state of fat adaptation and running on ketones. I actually have follow-up questions about that, but I'm going to save it, I think, because our next episode, somebody actually asks about this. So, I think I'll ask you some more questions about this next episode. Teaser listeners. Also, a really funny story just really quickly. Have you interviewed Ori?
Vanessa Spina: No, but I know that I think I heard you have or you and Gin did.
Melanie Avalon: We did which was very surreal because that was forever ago. It was before my biohacking show. So, I was still very much like-- I'm still in awe of the guests that I have on, but it wasn't routine for me to be interviewing incredible people all the time. But I had a moment. Did I tell you what happened with my sister the other day with this? So, my sister, the one who's in Japan, she's like crazy in a good way. She's like one of my closest friends, but she does-- like we're polar opposites and envision like the movie Frozen. Like, I am Elsa, like cold, calm, blonde. I want to just stay in my ice castle and wear pretty dresses. She's like spunky and crazy and out there and changing her hair every day. So, she does taekwondo and she's like really high up in it. But she was talking about one of the guys-- This is in Atlanta. She was talking about one of the coaches, and his name was something like Hofmekler. And I was like, “Oh, Hofmekler?” I was like this guy Ori Hofmekler was like the reason I do intermittent fasting. And she asked the Hofmekler guy about Ori. It was his uncle. It's his uncle. [laugh] Like what are the odds? [laughs]
Vanessa Spina: That's insane. That's incredible.
Melanie Avalon: Isn't that crazy? So, needless to say, we should have him on this show me and you.
Vanessa Spina: I would love that. I just wrote in my notes that I need to interview him because I can't believe I have it yet. And so, yeah, that would be incredible.
Melanie Avalon: We should. Okay, I'm going to reach out to him, like, ASAP. We can have him on, him and Rick Johnson. Sorry, Vanessa and I love Rick Johnson. [laugh]
Vanessa Spina: We're like his number one fans like fan club over here fan club manager.
Melanie Avalon: I know and Peter Attia. Which sidenote, did you see Peter Attia on Joe Rogan this week?
Vanessa Spina: Oh, no, I missed that.
Melanie Avalon: He gives Joe a monologue about how incredible Taylor Swift is. I think you saw my video.
Vanessa Spina: I can't get that image out of my head. It's like burned in my head. Like the pants. It's, like, burned in my mind.
Melanie Avalon: Peter posted a video of going to the Taylor Swift concert with his daughter and dressing up like Harry Styles. And I was just thinking because that hadn't occurred to me while you were talking. I was thinking because Taylor Swift is like my ultimate, ultimate. If I was at the Taylor Swift concert and Peter Attia was there too.
[laughter]
Literally, I would die. [laughs] I'm crying. I would be crying. [laughs] Like wouldn't know where to look. Like, if Taylor's on stage and Peter's like [laughs] next to me and he's dressed up like Harry Styles, I mean, wow. Okay. Bringing it back anyways, [laughs] okay.
Vanessa Spina: This is going to be our biggest challenge you guys. Give us some grace. Our biggest challenge is going to be, like, staying on target with things on task because we could go on a tangent every second.
Melanie Avalon: No, I'm also thinking I got to talk to the editors because normally the editors, the style of the editing is they edit it. So, like, you talk, I talk, you talk, I talk. Like I don't like overlapping. But I'm going to tell them that they can lighten up a little bit because if we're both laughing, you can just [laughs].
Vanessa Spina: Imagine it's like just you laughing. [laughs]
Melanie Avalon: No, because that's the way they're going to do it if I don't tell them.
Vanessa Spina: I've had that happen on podcasts before, and I'm like, “Oh, man, I was laughing so hard during that and I feel bad because the guest is just, like, laughing by themselves.
Melanie Avalon: I know. [laughs] Okay, so making a note. Okay, Dan. Oh and for the editors, when they edit this, you can just leave all this in.
Vanessa Spina: Yeah.
Melanie Avalon: Hi, friends. I'm about to tell you how you can get an exclusive discount on one of my favorite health products of all time that I have been using for years. There are so many different health products out there today, it makes it really hard to know which ones actually work. Well, one of my daily health habits for years now has been using my JOOVV. You guys have definitely heard me talk about JOOVV before. Yes, that is J-O-O-V-V. I use my device daily to support healthy cellular function, which is the foundation of our health.
Honestly, having healthy cellular function gives me peace of mind that my body is working efficiently and has the energy it needs to get through the day. There are so many clinically proven benefits from red light therapy. I have personally experienced the incredible effect on my circadian rhythm, enhanced skin health, and reducing muscle pain. I did something to my knee. I'm not sure exactly what and my JOOVV red light therapy device has been a game changer in alleviating inflammation there and making it feel better.
Aside from the benefits, I really love JOOVV because the quality of their devices is simply the best. Their modular design allows for a variety of setup options that gives you flexibility. Plus, the treatments are so easy, they can be done in as little as 10 minutes although I tend to use my JOOVV a lot more than that. All I have to do is relax and shine the light on my body.
JOOVV offers several different size options including a wireless handheld device called the JOOVV Go. That's great for targeting specific areas around your body, like hurting joints or sore muscles. That's what I really love to use on my knee. And yes, I take it when I travel.
Friends, health doesn't have to be complicated and JOOVV makes it simple by helping support the foundation of health ourselves. Go check out the JOOVV today. And while you're there, JOOVV is offering all of our listeners an exclusive discount on their first order. Just go to joovv.com/ifpodcast and apply our code IFPODCAST to your qualifying order. Again, that's joovv.com/ifpodcast. Pick up a Joovv today, some exclusions apply.
Something else I really want to talk about before letting you go. Okay? So, recap for listeners. Not only is Vanessa the host of an incredible podcast, so many things we talk about that's been nominated, not only is she the author of a beautiful, gorgeous book with amazing keto recipes, not only does she have an incredible biomedical science degree in biochemistry, but she is also an entrepreneur, a fellow entrepreneur. I have been so inspired by Vanessa. She has created two products. For listeners who are not familiar yet with this, are you ready? She created a Tone Device, which measures breath acetone aka breath ketones. Yes, friends, the new cohost of the show created a breath ketone analyzer. I'm sure listeners are, like, buzzing with excitement right now because we get so many questions about this. So, having you here is just amazing.
And now we can just, like, people always want recommendations and so be like, get this now. And then you also created as well, wait for it, listeners. What is something I've been talking about since day one, almost that would be red light therapy. And Vanessa has created the Tone Lux red light therapy line as well. So, this is incredible and it is no small feat to do that. So, my big question for you is just, like, how? What was the process like? A, well, why and how? So, what made you decide to create these? And what was that process like manifesting your vision? Because I think so many people have dreams of doing something like that, but actually doing it, so, few people do it.
Vanessa Spina: Well, thank you. I consider my tires pumped. Thank you so much for pumping my tires so much. You're just so kind and generous with your words. It was the most satisfying creation process. I think as humans, we're all creators and it's so satisfying when you have a vision, you believe in it, you manifest it. So, I really wanted to create a noninvasive, more accessible tool for interpreting ketones because one of the things that I know from working with people over the years that testing your blood is painful and expensive and you don't really have context for what it means. When you get the results, you have to kind of go and interpret that and learn that.
So, that method is primarily focused on testing your beta-hydroxybutyrate or blood ketones. And then there's the urine method, which is just not the most pleasant experience anyone who's done that. It's not easy and efficient, you can't do it anywhere, it's not very portable. The other thing with acetoacetate, which is that third ketone you're measuring with urine, is after a while your body stops excreting it. So, it's just not very useful. It's useful at the beginning when you're going into ketosis, but it's not useful long term.
So, with acetone, it's really interesting because it's not a fuel in the way that beta-hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate are. It's a by-product of producing and utilizing those fuels. So, it's sort of an off gas of making and using those ketones. So, it's always an issue for me when I'm measuring my blood ketones, I was like, well, this tells me a snapshot of what my ketone level is right now in my blood. But I have no idea how much my body made. I have no idea how much my tissues took, how much they used. You're getting sort of a picture of what's left over, what's circulating.
So with breath acetone, I always thought it would be a great additional measure to have or sometimes maybe a replacement as sort of a proxy for what's happening in terms of the production and the utilization side. And just like adding in that other metric that could say, well, it could quantify it a little bit more for you. So, when you are in ketosis, you are in ketogenesis you're at the highest rate of fat burning. So, if your body is producing these blood ketones and acetoacetate and beta-hydroxybutyrate, some of that is spontaneously being degraded to acetone, and it's this tiny, tiny particle that diffuses through your lungs. So, you can get a measure or a picture of how much acetone is my body diffusing through my lungs. So, how much of this byproduct am I diffusing at any time?
So, the other great thing about it is you don't have to prick your finger, which is not the most pleasant thing to be doing or the most practical thing to do. You don't have to buy expensive test strips. You just invest in one device. You breathe into it for 5 to 6 seconds and it'll give you a reading, but it'll also give you little bit of context. So, I also added in like light fat burning or fat burning zone so people know a little bit of context in terms of what's going on. And you can do it an unlimited amount of time. So, you don't have to keep buying those test strips, which for anyone who wants to test their blood ketones, like once a day for a year, it can be anywhere from like $360 to $700 to do that. So, what's super interesting is Dr. Dom D’Agostino also found that breath acetone is very highly correlated with things like latency to seizure and a lot of the things that are associated with the benefits of ketone. So, there're a lot of benefits to measuring it, to knowing it.
In some cases, it can be a replacement for other testing devices, but for the most part it can give you maybe some additional feedback, some additional insight into what your rate of fat burning is, what your body is doing with those ketones. So, for me, it was just such an amazing, satisfying experience because I pictured it in my head. I knew I wanted it to involve breath. I knew I wanted it to be feminine and girly because there're so many biohacking products on the market that I think are designed and created for men because there're a lot of biohacking men out there. So, I wanted to create something girly, feminine, something that's like lipstick, it's compact, you can take it with you in your purse easily. You can take it out when you're on the go and you don't have to go into another room to prick your finger.
It just makes it easy and it's aesthetically pleasing. It's pretty, it's girly, it's feminine. I also have more masculine versions of it, the black and gold, but the black and rose gold and the white and gold and pink are very feminine, and I think they're beautiful. So, for me to have that vision of what it would look like and then take it through to designing a prototype, creating that, hiring various people to do that with me, and then finding a factory to make it, testing at different factories in terms of what they could do. And it's a really exciting space to be in because there's a lot of research that has been done on, like, blood ketones, acetoacetate. There's a lot of research that's ongoing and forthcoming about acetone. And I think it's a great sort of way to quantify what's going on with you when you're doing different types of intermittent fasting.
And that's something I'm really excited to talk to you about on the podcast, in general, is just like what are tools and ways that you can use to see what should my ideal fasting window and eating window be? Because there're different approaches that you can use and different strategies. And if there're ways that you can quantify which one is working the best for you, then that's a cool way to put that experimentation into context and get some parameters or some feedback on that.
Melanie Avalon: So, I was just thinking, Vanessa, because I know we're running out of time on today's episode, I was thinking about how I have so many more questions about this and then I just got hit with this wave of gratitude because we have so many episodes upcoming to talk about all of this.
Vanessa Spina: Oh, my gosh, you're right.
Melanie Avalon: And it's literally like the content of this show. Like, it's what listeners want to hear about. I'm just so grateful. So, my point is, I have a lot of follow-up questions to what you just said and I'm going to save all of them for a future episode. But in the meantime, how can listeners get your Tone Device?
Vanessa Spina: Yeah, if you go to ketogenicgirl.com, you can check out there's like I mentioned the three different color variations. And I also have all the Tone Lux red light therapy panels there as well. And also links in my profile if you're on Instagram @ketogenicgirl, if you're on any of the accounts for that like Tone Device or the Tone Lux or the Optimal Protein Podcast, you can find the link in the profile there.
Melanie Avalon: Awesome. So, for listeners, we will put links to that in the show notes and these show notes will be at ifpodcast.com/episode316. The show notes will have a full transcript, so definitely check that out. And yeah, first one in the books. I'm just so happy.
Vanessa Spina: I'm so happy too. I had so much fun this last hour with you. It felt like five minutes and I'm so excited for what's to come. I can't wait to be with listeners every week.
Melanie Avalon: Me too. I'm just so excited. So, resources for listeners, links I gave the show notes. If listeners would like to submit their questions to the show because most listeners have probably been with us, but if you're new welcome today. Normally this is a listener Q&A format, so we answer listener questions. So, to submit your questions, you can go to ifpodcast.com and submit questions there or you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com.
Oh, oh, important announcement, to welcome Vanessa because we really want to welcome her to the show, we're doing an incentive for that. So, if you go to Apple Podcasts and write a review of the show or if you already have a review of the show up, no worries, you can update that review. Just include in the review, especially after hearing this episode, what you're excited to experience or learn with Vanessa and then send a screenshot of that to questions@ifpodcast.com and you will be entered to win over $500 worth of beauty counter products, which is incredible.
You guys know that I'm obsessed with beauty counter and last night I was literally-- I'm sending Vanessa like all these beauty counter products. I'm going to get her obsessed as well. So, definitely enter that. And I think that's all the things. Oh yeah, Instagram, you can follow us @ifpodcast. I am @melanieavalon. What is your handle on Instagram?
Vanessa Spina: It is @ketogenicgirl.
Melanie Avalon: Perfect, @ketogenicgirl. So, okay, anything from you before we go?
Vanessa Spina: I just want to thank all the listeners for being here. This is such a massive honor to be joining you all and I'm just so excited to chat geek out about all of these favorite topics of ours.
Melanie Avalon: Me too. I'm really excited about the first listener question episode next week.
Vanessa Spina: Yay, me too.
Melanie Avalon: It's going to be so fun. Okay, well, I will talk to you next week.
Vanessa Spina: Talk to you next week, Melanie.
Melanie Avalon: Bye.
Thank you so much for listening to The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice and no patient-doctor relationship is formed. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing your review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, transcripts by SpeechDocs, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders. See you next week.
[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]
STUFF WE LIKE
Check out the Stuff We Like page for links to any of the books/supplements/products etc. mentioned on the podcast that we like!
LINKS
BUY:
Melanie's What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine
Vanessa's Keto Essentials: 150 Ketogenic Recipes to Revitalize, Heal, and Shed Weight
The Tone Device Breath Ketone Analyzer
The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast
More on Melanie: melanieavalon.com
More on Vanessa: ketogenicgirl.com
Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review in Apple Podcasts - it helps more than you know!