Welcome to Episode 362 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.
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SHOW NOTES
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Luis' diet beginnings
High protein diets
Listener Q&A: Kathryn - I’ve heard that keto diets can actually raise cholesterol
Keto Macro Calculator for Free
Listener Q&A: Valory - Best way to incorporate when you have no gall bladder and are sensitive to high fat.
Intentionally breaking your ketosis
Listener Q&A: Aimee - Is it useful to our bodies if we aren't eating keto 7 days a week?
Recalibrating your palate
Listener Q&A: Emily - Can you truly lose fat and build muscle at the same time? And if so, what’s the most effective way to do both simultaneously?
Listener Q&A: Melanie - What is the best time to take Tone Protein surrounding exercise to support muscle recovery? Immediately after or can it be several hours later?
Fasted training
Listener Q&A: Valory - I go to the gym faithfully. I’ve completed 2 weight loss challenges where I lost weight but also muscle...
Listener Q&A: Nicole - Are they actually necessary if you don’t sweat and only fast from 12-19 hours
Listener Q&A: Stephanie - Are electrolytes just salt mostly? If I have high blood pressure is something like element safe? More salt related- is pink salt ok? Is Celtic the only “good salt”?
Potassium, calcium and insulin
Listener Q&A: Nydia - How many in a day can you drink??
Flavor development
Listener Q&A: Teresa - Anytime I go low carb my sleep suffers...
Listener Q&A: Nydia - Same here, if I go low carb my energy suffers, can’t sleep much. What kind of supplements should take?
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
(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)
Melanie Avalon:
Welcome to Episode 362 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 co-host, Vanessa Spina, sports nutrition specialist, author of "Keto Essentials" and creator of the Tone Breath Ketone Analyzer and Tone Lux Red Light Therapy Bannals. 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. So 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.
Melanie Avalon:
I'm Melanie Avalon, and I am here with a very, very special guest today, friends. I'm just so excited about this conversation. I have been following this man for years, like years and years and years. Ever since I really first started experimenting with ketogenic diet, a low -carb diet, and became really obsessed with the, quote, science of diet, I found the whole world of Ketogains, which is a massive, massive online community centered around, well, a lot of topics. But you can tell from the title, they talk a lot about the role of low -carbon ketogenic diets with bodybuilding, muscle preservation, building muscle. It's a really cool community. And so I had been in the groups for it, and I'd been listening to a lot of podcasts with the founder, Luis Villaseñor. I've heard a lot of shows that Luis has been on, and he has such a wealth of knowledge when it comes to all the topics that I just mentioned, as well as I know, friends, so many of you guys are mega, mega fans of Element that we talk about all the time on this show. Luis is also a founder of that company as well, as well as other companies. So I personally have so many questions for Luis, and then I asked in my Facebook group for questions for him, and got just a ton of questions. So we have a lot of different topics that we can definitely go in today's conversation. But Luis, thank you so much for being here.
Luis Villaseñor:
Thank you so much Melanie for having me.
Melanie Avalon:
So, and I was telling you before, but, um, I feel like we've met, but we really haven't met. This is our first time actually talking. So this is a really nice moment for me. Okay. So to start things off, your personal story, when did you first find the whole world of low carb and keto and what made you interested in that? And what was your experience pairing that with bodybuilding and weightlifting?
Luis Villaseñor:
training. It's actually a long story, but to make it the shortest abridged version is that when I was a kid, I was overweight, very much like the classic fat kid from school. I just tried to find a way to make myself healthier. My mother took me once to a dietitian and she was overweight and it didn't really resonate for me. How is this lady going to teach me or explain me how to lose weight when she hasn't managed herself? I've always been in that scenario where I try to learn by myself. If something doesn't make sense, I try to understand the whys. Let's say that just by myself lost weight in high school and then when I got into college, I wasn't really feeling myself in the sense that I actually changed a career, I changed from college, a little bit of a disappointment with a girlfriend. What happened was that I found myself not eating and I ended up anorexic and bulimic. I had lost the weight since I was a kid. From fat to chubby, then skinny, but I had started weightlifting. Then when I got into college and this happened to me, I basically lost all my muscle. I wasn't really energized. I recall I was counting calories, about 400 per day, just like a small salad.
Melanie Avalon:
400 calories.
Luis Villaseñor:
Yeah, and basically what made me realize that I was doing this wrong was one time where I put a pair of jeans, and they were super short. They were up to my jeans, and I said, what happened with these jeans? Did they shrink? I realized that I was putting on my little brother's jeans, which he was eight years old at the time. They fit. For me, it was like, whatever I'm doing, this is wrong, and I'm going to kill myself. I was aware that I was eating very little, but it was just in the idea of I want to get thin, and I want to have a visible abs. I was chasing that idea of not eating and doing lots of cardio. At that moment, I remember that I started researching and saying, what do actual body builders do to get strong but stay lean? I started researching the internet. Just to give you a little bit of context, we're talking about 1999, 2000. There wasn't really the internet as we know it today. I actually had to go to the library in college and sit on a computer and do some research. I started to go to nutrition classes. I wasn't really studying nutrition. I studied business administration and then marketing, but I had some girlfriends that studied nutrition. I started to go to their classes and try to understand. Eventually, I found out in between some bulletin boards and bodybuilding bulletin boards about the body opus diet and the danducane diet and very similar approaches to keto, which led me to Lyle McDonald. I don't know if you're familiar with him.
Melanie Avalon:
Oh, yes.
Luis Villaseñor:
So imagine that we're talking that, again, the 2000s, I was in these building boards with many fitness authorities or trainers speaking and engaging and learning from them. And then eventually, Lyle wrote his book, The Ketogenic Diet, which I bought and basically became my Bible. So I sort of started doing what he preached on his book and what I had read on the internet at that time, which was basically not the classical ketogenic diet that a lot of people understand and follow, which is a high fat, low protein, very low carbohydrate diet. Their approach was very much how can you build the most amount of muscle and stay lean without necessarily adding a huge amount of carbs. I wasn't really in the idea of the health benefits of keto and treat certain illnesses and inflammation and everything else. More so, more interested in the idea of being able to gain muscle while staying low carb and not gaining fat, of course, right? So I just started following the advice, following the diet. It resonated with me a lot because I love to eat very much that kind of stuff over others. And I started to realize slowly that whenever I ate carbs, cake, a donut, those kinds of things, they actually triggered me. And those were the things that triggered overeating. And then, of course, the bulimia and purging. And as long as I stayed eating whole foods, mostly protein, with the fat that comes along with it, I was very much stable and stable in all aspects of my life, like thinking, working, training, everything resonated and worked very well, right? And I can tell you that I stayed like that and did whatever I did at that time. And because I started to be a little bit vocal about the diet, but every time that I started speaking about it and asking questions, people were very weird about it. I have doctors in my family and they were like, what you're doing doesn't sound sane, or you're going to kill yourself. It's too much protein or too much cholesterol, take care of your heart, et cetera. So I started to sort of worry in the sense that, okay, maybe this is just for a short term or what's going to happen, et cetera. So I started to do even more research on the side. Let's say that I started to be like a closet nutritionist in a way just for me, right? And whatever happened during the time is just, okay, it's my responsibility. I'm going to learn it for me so that I can stay healthy. And at the time, not to worry in anyone else. So I just told everybody else that I was just doing like a very much low sugar diet because I was eating lots of salads and vegetables. So people don't really, didn't really judge me, but they also didn't understand why I ate like this. So I just started stopping telling them what I was doing, but still, you know, the doctors were always bugging me every time that we had Christmas parties and so on. If they asked me, it was like, oh, you're going to die. And it sort of became my joke where every year I took my blood tests to my aunt, which was a, which is a doctor is like, I'm not dead yet. Am I going to die next year? And she was like, I don't know, maybe, you know, and yeah. And then just to make the story short, what eventually happened is that I started publishing sort of what I had learned and helping people in the internet, especially on mainly on Reddit, Reddit, then on Facebook. And eventually that just led me to actually change careers, get a bachelor's in nutrition, get more certifications, do a little bit of research on my own. And I don't know how this actually ended up happening, but I sort of became good friends with very, like my heroes in a way, like Rob Wolf, Marxist, and a lot of people that are in the same space that also had shared experiences and knowledge. And that helped me go into the next level, get more clients, create more so a coaching company, which is what we have on Ketogains, help many people get much better. And then also, that's very much the basis for element, which was the classic recipe that I gave my clients whenever they started the transition to the diet. Right. And that's basically it. That's a short story.
Melanie Avalon:
So many things you touched on. Okay. Well, first of all, thank you for talking about your history with the disordered eating and everything. I think, you know, we talk about it so much in the female sphere, but I feel like men don't talk about it as much. So it's nice to shine a spotlight on that and to, you know, provide a way out of it really, which ended up benefiting so many people. So okay.
Luis Villaseñor:
Okay, so many things. In that scenario, I think I was very lucky because now that I look at it from another perspective, I didn't know it at the time, but I'm very thankful that I started eating this way because I don't know if you've seen, there's some research and studies that actually support the idea that I low carb diet without eating processed foods actually help people stop the urges that come along with eating disorders, right? Because for example, nobody has, well, as far as I know when I've studied, there are no eating disorders related to people eating latuses, for example, right? It's always a super palatable food, processed foods related to either sweet stuffs or crunchy, tasteless, things like this. Nobody, I never got the urge just to overeat in meat, for example, but every time there was a donut or a cake or things like that, they were the things that triggered. And then when I realized and I started reading on these reports and studies of certain treatments that work like this, it's like, wow, this is why I probably was very lucky.
Melanie Avalon:
Actually, to that point, it's something you touched on earlier when you were talking about people being concerned about your diet and the high protein and everything, because I'm just thinking now you're talking about people not overeating certain foods. So I personally eat a really high protein diet. I just love it. We talk about it a lot in the show because I do intermittent fasting, and we're always talking about the importance of protein, and I do manage to eat a massive amount of protein in a relatively short window, like a four -hour, five -hour window or so. Do you have any concerns about really high protein intakes?
Luis Villaseñor:
none whatsoever. Basically, I joke that most of my female clients end up eating more protein than the average man. And we are actually like we have our tribe and we are very aware of that. And it's like, like, like, how do you say this, like our motto, you know, a quote. So it's became sort of a joke for real, because just to give you a perspective, or like my average female client starts at 125. And I have women that end up at about 150 160 ish, depending on their, of course, their size and muscle, right. And now, a lot of people think that I cater mostly to, you know, bodybuilders and athletes. It's funny, but like, 70% of my client, if not more, are basically normal females, around 35 to 60 year old. So they are not really at let athletes per se, right, I do cater to them as well. But the biggest chunk of my clientele are traditional housewives. And they end up eating that much protein.
Melanie Avalon:
Wow. That's perfect because that's a large demographic of our audience. So you're speaking straight to them. I can eat so much protein. Like last night, I just ate pounds and pounds of chicken and pork. Okay. And actually while we're talking about the concerns, since you were talking about the concerns people had, because we did have questions about that. Katherine, for example, she said, I've heard that keto diets can actually raise cholesterol levels, but that that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. I need more information. So I know that's a massive question, but what are your thoughts on the cholesterol raising potential of keto?
Luis Villaseñor:
So it really depends on exactly how do you do the diet right there there's like every diet out there there's a like that good way to do it when you're managing health and the easy way and. That the incorrect way i'd say right i was a classic beauty kiddo where you eat whatever as long as it's just below thirty grams of carbohydrates pretty right. I do believe that there are certain things that you can eat that can improve your health and others that probably without knowing can worsen or not make it not make you better and so. For the actual Ketogains protocol is very much a combination of paleo with a whole food keto I don't really advocate or am a fan of eating processed foods in any fashion, especially with the goal of. Changing your palate and basically recovering your first the food taste and then cravings and all of that unnecessary that comes along with food nowadays. So what I suggest normally is protein is a goal basically help people how to estimate your ideal amount of protein then cars are a limit that you set between different brackets most people end up. Around 30 grams of net carbohydrates a day, some can increase up to 100 depending on their metabolic flexibility how much muscle they have. Age, but these cars aren't really just free cars basically what I suggest these. If you are below 30 grams per days basically green vegetables that grow up ground with certain variations and if you're over you can add some starches potato sweet potato carrots tomatoes and so on and maybe some fruit right and then fat. Is the one that comes along with your protein you need to have or being a super high fat diet just to maintain this so called ketogenic ratios I'm really not in favor of that because, especially when you come. With a little bit of extra body fat, the point of doing desired first is to harness that body fat, so if you are adding lots of body fat sorry of a dietary fat. You're going to be burning fat all right, but mostly the fact that you're eating. There comes a point when you are losing weight or you can increase dietary fat but not at the expense of burning your own fat and I'm not a fan of also. Making people focusing on doing exercise to burn body fat rather it's easier to burn the fat by managing what you're eating rather than just spending countless amounts of time in the gym or doing cardio.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, we can put a link in the show notes to the Ketogains calculator that you have because I think people will find that really helpful. It's so interesting. So I love hearing you talk about the getting the fat from what's just already in the whole foods versus adding it. I was also interviewing Gary Topps this week who, you know, really popularized the, well, a lot with low carb and the insulin theories and everything. And I think there's this massive potential misconception in the keto and low carb world, which is people think because fat doesn't stimulate a quote insulin response. That means that fat's unlimited when really it's the way I see it is that fat doesn't stimulate insulin because it doesn't need insulin. Like it just gets stored. You know, like it, it's not like you're not storing that fat because there's no insulin. I mean, I'm not, I'm not trying to make people afraid of fat. I just think that there's like this basic idea that kind of got twisted and.
Luis Villaseñor:
It's a very complex concept that got overly simplified to the point that people understand it incorrectly because actually fat does stimulate insulin but have very small amounts. Tiny amounts. And for example, if you eat carbohydrates per se alone, you're going to see a big spike, but that spike is going to go down faster. If you combine fat with carbohydrates, you can sort of mitigate a spike or you can also have it depending on what you eat, but the spike stays high longer because it's also related to the amount of energy. So it's a big chunk of energy, even though you may not have carbs, it increases the length of the insulin spike. And that's something that also people don't realize.
Melanie Avalon:
you see it all the time. It's like, add fat to your meals to mitigate the spike. And I'm always like, I don't know if that's the best thing. So if a person's eating a ton of carbs, I'm not sure I want them to just add a lot of fat to that as well. I don't know that that's the best situation.
Luis Villaseñor:
to be in. Explaining it like that, what makes people do in the end, is not eat less to a point. Rather, try to mitigate all the carbs that they ate, especially with extra fat. Ends up making the situation worse, right?
Melanie Avalon:
Exactly oh my goodness i love talking about this because we see it all the time that recommendation.
Luis Villaseñor:
I didn't answer the thing on cholesterol, but just to finish my line of thought, what I see with 99 of my patients is they don't get the so -called super high cholesterol that some people report. More, so what happens is if you eat like I suggest following our protocol, your triglycerides start to go down as you lose weight. Most of my clients end up below 70 or 50, depending, especially when they are linear. Your HDL is in between 50, 60, and yeah, your LDL is going to be a little bit higher than on a traditional, let's say low -fat diet or vegan diet, but it's still going to be manageable. You're going to be around 110, maybe 90, 120 at most. But what is most important for me is your ratios. I do check HDL with our trigs and everything else. I mean, most people, those ratios are in the perfect or very good category. For example, in my case, I'm very much like that. And of course, what I also suggest if you are worried about this is to also get a calcium score test. If you have zero calcification, which is something that I see with a lot of my clients or very low calcification, it means that this is perfect. The risk should be very low. Of course, again, I'm not a cardiologist. This is just my conjectures. And this is what I do, especially in my case. I have zero calc score, even though I've been doing this diet for basically 24 years. But again, I'm not someone that overly abuses fat. Most of my fat comes from egg yolks, the fat that comes along with ground beef or beef, a little bit of avocado oil here or coconut oil there, olive oil. Mostly that's what I eat as fat.
Melanie Avalon:
That'll probably help because we got a few different questions about people who said they have no gallbladder and they're sensitive to fat, like Valerie was asking about that. So that'll probably help.
Luis Villaseñor:
In the case of people with no gallbladders, you can perfectly do a ketogenic diet, again, by not overdoing fat and relying mostly on coconut oil and MCT oils, because those really don't require bile for you to absorb them. And the other thing that I've done is, or to suggest to people that don't have a gallbladder, is don't eat big amounts of fatty food at once. You're rather going to have to distribute those foods, like instead of having one big meal or two big meals, maybe three smaller meals would be better. And of course, not abusing dietary fat.
Melanie Avalon:
Awesome. So just to like wrap that all up and as a subtle nuance, Deanna, for example, she said, is a high fat diet beneficial for our overall long term health? So people who are on like a super high fat version of low carbon keto, do they need to take a little bit more caution with everything like the cholesterol and all of that?
Luis Villaseñor:
If your numbers are, well, especially, again, in the, let's say, the cholesterol ratios, and you have a zero or very low calcium score, which means the calcification of the arteries, I wouldn't worry that much because the narrative is that cholesterol is bad. I think that it's not bad, per se. It's natural. That's why we make it to a point. And then recent studies, probably you've seen them, also show that people that are the most longevity also have a natural high, or, well, not natural, but they tend to have higher levels of cholesterol more than what are traditionally known as beneficial, right? And if we look at the story of cholesterol recommendations, you will find that year after year they are lowering the number. And I don't want to be an advocate of conspiration theories, but, well, if they make the threshold lower, it's easier for doctors to recommend statins, right? And I'm not a fan of statins. I can tell you that. I see, like, a lot of the reports of all the side effects, and I think it's better to just mitigate that with diet instead of just trying to use a medication that really is not going to help you, but it's more like a band -aid.
Melanie Avalon:
I'm haunted by statins because I was always the way you were thinking. And then I listened to a lot of Peter Atea and he's very like pro statins. And so I'm like haunted by the statin question.
Luis Villaseñor:
No, I know. And again, I'm not advocating foreign, I guess. I do think there's a special case. For example, I have a patient that has very high cholesterol, do a combination of autoimmune disorders, and of course, high family hypercholestemia. And with the statin, in her actual case, it can lower her cholesterol by 100 points. That's a very specific case. But taking statins, just because your total cholesterol, let's say, or your LDL is about 150, which is what I see a lot of doctors pushing, I think that probably you should better just review your diet, do a little bit of exercise, review other stuff before just taking a pill and also understanding and informing yourself of all the other risks that this medication can also give you, and then take an informed decision.
Melanie Avalon:
Has it been an uninterrupted streak for you personally with keto and low carb or have you had any moments off of it?
Luis Villaseñor:
I'd say that my latest being out of keto is probably one or two days in between every few months.
Melanie Avalon:
You take one or two days every few months where you don't do keto.
Luis Villaseñor:
And it's not like I take them, oh, it's time to go out of keto. It's basically if it happens because I'm at a party and I want to have some cake or, you know, I have a very laid back approach where, and I'm thankful again, because I changed my stance over the years as a mature, right? If you ask the Luis 20 years ago, probably he would say a different thing. Whereas right now it's like, it really depends on the situation. It's a lifestyle. It's not a religion. It's not like the keto God's going to come and exterminate me, right? And nothing's going to happen also physically or nothing happens. Like it's not, if I lower my ketones, I'm going to gain 20 pounds of fat immediately or nothing like that happens. It's just, if the situation arises and it's worth it, let's say I'm on a vacation and it's the best cake and you know, the chef came to the table and it's covered in gold, okay, I might as well try it. But I'm never in the, in the idea of, Oh, I need a donut. There's a seven 11 there. I'm going to just stop and eat it because usually when I've done that and these are a story that I share with my clients and it's happened to many of them. It wasn't worth it. Just not eating for the sake of eating something has to be a special occasion and as, and something special by itself. But yeah, like I normally, I do have this personal rule is if I'm going to eat something out of my allowed food. So it's not really allowed again, because it's not like it's bad or good food. It's like something that I don't normally eat. It has to be really worth it. And if I'm never in the, into the idea of, okay, I already broke the diet. I'm going to eat whatever for the rest of the weekend, for example, because that never works out and you always, especially myself, I end up feeling unwell so that, you know, you get bloated, you feel awful, you look awful. Everything, you know, it's a train wreck. So it's, for me, my rule is I never order myself something unless it's really worth it. I may try it and taste it, but it's one meal and that's it. I usually, I go back to eating like I always do immediately after. That's if nothing happened.
Melanie Avalon:
I think that's a really really healthy mindset and approach. It kind of reminds me of an advice phrase I heard which was something to the effect of not that it's a mistake to you know have that meal but it's basically like you can do anything once just don't do it two times in a row. It's basically like the idea of what you just said like you're gonna have the meal you're not just going to keep on keeping on with it after.
Luis Villaseñor:
Yeah, because that creates that unnecessary, well, that unhealthy behavior pattern that a lot of dieters tend to have, which I used to have, which is you broke the diet, might as well eat whatever, because you're going to start on Monday, and then you basically destroy all the hard -earned work, but then you have remorse, and then you punish yourself in the gym, not eating anything, et cetera, and that creates a vicious cycle, right, where you cannot sustain the punishment that you are putting yourself, because you, you know, didn't follow the diet, and then you end up, again, in the same place, and you became like the groundhog day of diets. You're always on a diet, and this is why diets don't work, because people think they have to punish themselves, not eat anything, don't enjoy the food that they're eating, then they break the diet on the weekends, and they start again on Monday. The moment that I realize, eh, it's just a meal, whatever, I'm not going to punish myself, I'm just going to continue as if nothing, that's when you break the cycle, and yeah, you still manage to lose weight, not as fast as you probably imagined, but it's a continuous process, and when you turn back and you realize that it's been a year, and on the span of the year, you maybe lost 10 pounds and not gained them back, that's a big win, because then the next year is 20 pounds, and then it's 40 pounds that you're not going to regain forever in your life, because you did it in a healthy way with a healthy mindset, and now it's become your new normal.
Melanie Avalon:
The hack I was doing for a while, and I think this is one of the popularized diets, I don't remember if I actually found it through the diet or if I just kind of came to it on my own with my obsessive research, but when I was low carb, because I actually don't do it, now I do really high protein, high carbs from fruit. I say low fat, but I eat the fat that's naturally with the meat and everything, and I'll eat salmon and stuff, so it's not really that low fat. But back when I was keto and everything, if I had days where I was doing carb ups or taking the day off, I would make sure that I would eat high carb, low fat on those days, because the way I envisioned it in my head was I was like, if I'm just eating all the things on this day for whatever reason, and if I'm eating the fat, that's just going straight into the fat cells. But if I'm eating high protein, high carb on those days, there's the thermogenic effect of food, and then the conversion of carbs to fat is like a complicated process, and I was like, I feel like this is minimum damage control, and I'm trying to remember which diet it is that does that approach.
Luis Villaseñor:
There are a lot of variations, but what you are explaining is the correct way to do a carb load, for example, for the cyclical ketogenic diet or a carb load either for bodybuilders or any athlete. You basically go, you maintain protein to a point, you increase carbohydrates depending on how high and whatever, but you keep fats to a minimum precisely because of what you stated, especially when you are transitioning from diets, if your glycogen stores are full and you keep eating carbohydrates, they turn via process, the noble lipogenesis into fats, and all the fat that you're eating basically just gets stored directly as fat.
Melanie Avalon:
So the question I was actually going to with that initial question wondering about your history, Amy wanted to know, is it useful to our bodies if we aren't eating keto seven days a week? So how do you fill out people who are eating keto but not consistently?
Luis Villaseñor:
So I genuinely don't recommend the carb loads or the meals cheat days for various reasons. First is because what we just said, there's the correct way to do so and then the incorrect way. The thing is that people use cheat days basically as a cheat, as a way to undiating and then I'm going to eat whatever, right? What happens here is that you're not really getting the benefits of keto on one side, but all the negative things because by getting kicked out of keto, it takes two or three days to actually enter ketosis. So you're really adjusting keto one or two days, not enough to actually get the benefits of mental being, producing of ketos, etc. And of course, all the digestive and enzymatic changes that come along. And of course, you also don't get the changes in the cells, right? There are a lot of processes that when one is going to actually do a carb load, usually it's after three or four months of correctly doing the diet because otherwise you haven't really transitioned and gotten the adaptations. That's one thing. The other is how one should do the diet, again, eating a clean high carb diet with low fat versus what people want to do, which is eat a pizza, eat ice cream. It's a combination of high fat and high carbohydrates. That's basically just that recipe for disaster. And what happens is people end up loading, they gain and regain the same five pounds on and off or even more. And what I see usually is that people end up giving up because the diet didn't work. They just lose three pounds at the beginning because it's water weight, but then they gain five back because they're gaining in the water weight plus, depending on what they ate, probably some fat.
Melanie Avalon:
you mentioned Rob Wolf earlier, who is also my hero. But he talks about that a lot on his podcast, how everything that you just said, basically, that people think it'll work to like, do the keto a few days and then not and do the cycle thing. But really, they just kind of are shooting often or shooting themselves on the foot because they never never actually getting into the, you know, the metabolic state they need to be in. And then if they do, then they just get right out of it right away. And so like you said, not the benefit.
Luis Villaseñor:
The other aspect is a psychological aspect. And this is actually studied. When you are doing these kinds of cheat meals, you spend the whole week waiting for the cheat meal. So you're not really enjoying the food and you're actually suffering more than you should be. Like again, it creates this unhealthy behavior and relationship with food because you're just waiting for the cheat day. And taste -wise and hunger -wise, you destroy the adaptation process as well. Just not even talking about a cellular process. When you're exposed or waiting for cheat meals, foods that are super highly palatable, super delicious, then the other food tastes bland and you won't want it. Everything tastes horrible because you are just waiting for the pizza. Makes sense? So on the other hand, this is exactly what, when I get a new client and I'm going to be personally following the person, I do this like a clean, I wouldn't call it detox because it's not a detox, but I call it a palate reset. I teach them how to make natural foods more savory and how they can learn or relearn the natural tastes and flavors of food so that they can basically just go to any restaurant and just order a steak and they're super happy with it. And you are actually waiting for that steak or you can cook in your house and again, learn to cook the basics but very healthy, healthy meals, not just the idea that chicken and broccoli. No, that's not it. You have to eat a lot more than probably you're used to, but also you have to make those food enjoyable so that you really don't want the pizza and the doughnut and other stuff.
Melanie Avalon:
I agree so much and that's actually another reason I really love intermittent fasting is because I feel like it kind of does that a little bit and that it really amps up. When you go through the fasted period, then when you do sit down to your meal, especially if you're eating just natural whole foods, at least to me, they taste so much better.
Luis Villaseñor:
better. You arrested your palate and I call this the coffee test or the dark chocolate test. A lot of people are not used to liking dark chocolate. They just love the traditional brown, full skim milk, sugar, lard and chocolate, right? The moment they start to clean their palate and they start to find appreciation in the dark chocolate, that's when you know that you are doing it correctly. And the same happens with coffee drinkers that they are used to, you know, that coffee latte or the Starbucks mochaccino and all of that. They start to slowly revert to just drinking plain black coffee, maybe with a little bit of stevia, but that's it. You start to appreciate the smell and the notes of certain foods much better, including steak, including chicken and fish versus probably what you had eaten before.
Melanie Avalon:
My version of that test is, it's funny, when I go to restaurants, I get everything completely plain. If I get steak or chicken or whatever, I just want it completely plain, and it tastes amazing to me. I will get so much pushback, though, sometimes from waiters, they'll be like, are you sure? Like nothing? I'm like, it's fine. It tastes amazing. The other day I got, they had Wagyu carpaccio, but they were slathering it in olive oil, and I was like, why would, then I can't taste the actual meat, then it's just like olive oil that I'm tasting. So yeah, question about muscle building, though, Emily wanted to, I love this question. This is like the question, oftentimes with muscle building and weight loss, Emily wanted to know, can you truly lose fat and build muscle at the same time? And if so, what's the most effective way to do that?
Luis Villaseñor:
Yeah, that's the quintessential question. And basically, I have to answer this question almost every day on Reddit, on my board, because people come from traditional ideas that you need to be in a caloric surplus to build muscle, right? And that's actually incorrect. What you need to build muscle are four things. First, of course, strength training. You need a stimulus. And it has to be a correct amount and in a correct way. It's not just showing up to the gym. The second would be more than adequate protein with different contexts. Because when we are younger, we need less protein than when we are older. That's one thing, right? Because probably you've talked about this a lot, Laosine desensitivization, or you become Laosine -resistant. So it's not the same when you are young as when you are, let's say, over 40 or over 60. You need more protein and more high -quality protein. It's not just any protein. It has, optimally, to be animal -based protein. It would be the best, whole, full sources of protein. But of course, there comes a point where whey protein or shakes have a news. Then what you need is energy, right? Energy can come from protein, OK, from carbohydrates and from fats. But the fat can come from dietary fat or stored body fat. And then finally, you need rest and stress management. Now, going back to the question is, can you build muscle in a caloric deficit? Yes, as long as you have extra fat to lose. If you are, let's say, as a man under 15% body fat and as a female or a woman under 24% body fat, likely you're not going to be building much muscle in a deficit. But you are likely going to be building enough on maintenance. If you stay on a high -protein diet, around 30% of your calories come coming from protein. And the rest, a mix between fat and carbs. And this is not just me speaking. It's something that I've done myself. And basically, that's a protocol that I do with most of my clients. Unless you have a very low body fat percentage and are a heart gainer, would I put you in a surplus? And that's actually a very small surplus, because also people think you have to eat 500, 800 extra calories. That's only getting you to gain mass, which is not muscle. It's basically a combination of water, some muscle, but mostly fat. Just traditionally speaking, I was reading research the other day, which I love these kinds of studies. More than 50% of the weight you gain when you do a classic bulk, meaning eating on a surplus for the sake of gaining muscle, is fat. So basically, then you have to cut down. And when you cut, you're also going to lose some muscle. So the end result would be you're actually just gaining 30% up to 40% muscle. It's detrimental. A safer way to do so would be first, you get down to a sensible body fat percentage while still strength training. You always strength train. And then you either maintain. What I do, it's called gain -taining. Or you slightly increase calories, let's say 150 calories here or there, very slowly, and you review body composition. Then the idea when you're in the low end bracket is to gain as much weight as you can without actually gaining body fat. But again, it has to be very conservative.
Melanie Avalon:
Awesome. I think listeners are going to love hearing that, that answer.
Luis Villaseñor:
And just to give you a little bit more advice on the nuances of this, when you are training like this and eating like this, you don't really just use weight as a way to measure success or if you're doing it right. More so what you focus is on measurements. You can take full body measurements. And also you measure strength gains in the gym. Just to give you an example, one of my favorite clients that has been training with us for 46 boot camps, that would be about five years, give or take. We were looking at compression pictures between her first training course with us and now. She gained almost 10 pounds. But her clothes and measurements are basically the same. She was like a, let's say skinny fat. So she gained basically 10 pounds. Let's round it. Basically it's just muscle because she sent me the picture with the same bikini. And you don't see like if she had gained weights, rolls of fat here and there, right? No, basically the same piece of swimming suit. She gained a buttock. She gained a back. She gained delts, basically 10 pounds all over her body of pure muscle. That's incredible. And she's not 15 years old. She's 40 with three children. She's a housewife. So again, it's not like she's not a bodybuilder. She's just a regular housewife with kids and course and she only trains three times per week. Also, she doesn't live in the gym. She just trains whenever she can and eat sensibly.
Melanie Avalon:
So in doing that, the timing of the protein, especially because a lot of our audience is doing intermittent fasting, this is Melanie, not me, this is another Melanie, wanted to know when was the best time to take, and she says, tone protein, which is Vanessa, my co -hosts. A brand. My co -hosts brand. She says, when is the best time to take tone protein surrounding exercise to support muscle recovery immediately after, or can it be several hours later?
Luis Villaseñor:
So, optimally, you want protein as close as possible to your training. Again, this is my, what I suggest to my clients, right? Because there are different ways to skin a cat. I try to get, or to, let's say, join or have together the anabolic process of building protein, uh, sorry, of muscle building, which is a strength, strength training exercise with the amino acids that come from the protein. Because when you train, there's what we call the anabolic window. Of course, it's understandable that this window isn't really a window. It's more like a door, like it stays elevated for longer periods of time. Right. But just for the sake of managing insulin spikes and so on, I usually recommend, especially my clients that are diabetic to have the protein before training, like 30 minutes before, and then train like normal. And then afterwards, because a lot, a lot of my clients also do intermittent fasting is okay, a few hours later, one hour, depending on your schedule, you have a big protein meal, let's say it's breakfast, and then two hours later you have your dinner or whatever, which is sort of like what I do. I'm not really a fan of faster training because from my research, there's really no benefit for extra fat burning as it's usually said, especially in the context of a ketogenic diet, because you're already burning fat, right? You're not going to increase the fat burning just because you do faster training, you're going to burn the same. Your main source of energy is basically fat already. There's no benefit. And it does. And there are some studies that do support that fasted strength training. We're talking specifically about strength training, fasted strength training without amino acids in your blood and without having the muscle full effect, which means that your muscles are full with amino acids can be detrimental to muscle growth, especially when we are talking to middle aged individuals, basically people over 30 or 40 years old.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, Vanessa and I actually on a recent episode, actually, I don't know if I don't know if it's aired yet, if it'll be before after this episode, but we actually talked at length about a study that was looking at fueling exercise, it was looking at like carb fueled a carb preload water preload or a protein preload. And it was similar amounts of fat burning in the protein in the water, which was
Luis Villaseñor:
really interesting. People tend to think that maybe protein negates fat burning, it doesn't. And I've seen this study and I recall that even protein increases a little bit of the fat burning. And another thing related is that also why I give protein to my clients is because the classic saying says that you cannot build muscle on a ketogenic diet because you don't have carbs, right? That's what a lot of people believe. Carbs by themselves are not what actually helps muscle building just because there are carbs. People think, okay, carbs are anabolic. So then related to muscle building, you're going to build more muscle with carbohydrates. In reality, what happens in carbs and insulin is that insulin is an anti -catabolic hormone. And the process of building muscle requires, or you can see it as this equation. Training per se creates both muscle protein synthesis, but also muscle protein breakdown. The end result, if muscle protein synthesis is bigger than muscle protein breakdown, it means that you're going to build muscle. Now, what aspects modify muscle protein building and muscle protein breakdown would be protein around training stimulates muscle protein synthesis, but it doesn't have any effect on muscle protein breakdown, whereas insulin doesn't have an effect on muscle protein building, but negates a little or diminishes muscle protein breakdown. So again, people will say, okay, then I do need carbohydrates to raise insulin to benefit from this diminishing effect of muscle protein breakdown. And basically, there's a study that I love to quote, which what they did is they fed bodybuilders a whey shake with maltodextrin, basically pure sugar. And then another group of bodybuilders basically just whey. And what they found is that basically, the muscle protein synthesis raised exactly the same and even better without the negative effects of the muscle protein breakdown. Basically, protein alone raised insulin sufficiently to get the benefit. You don't need the carbohydrates, you need the sugar. Just one whey shake around training is more than enough to get the best results. If you just add sugar, basically, it's just sugar that's going to be stored. So for the context of building muscle on a low carb diet, it's perfectly doable and carbohydrates are percent not necessary.
Melanie Avalon:
It's been a while now, but I saw a study a while ago that was looking at adding protein to diets and it was in people that were, I don't know if they were completely sedentary, but they weren't doing any concentrated muscle stimulus of any sort, and they actually, some of the protein in excess converted to muscle, which was really interesting, like without an exercise stimulus.
Luis Villaseñor:
Yes. It's funny because I think I know that particular study and what they found is it wasn't older people, right? I don't remember. I think so because if it's the same study that I'm referencing, as you know, all of us have this set point theory, right? Like our normal standard weight. But it's not just about related to fat, it's also related to our ideal muscle or the amount of muscle that we genetically are predisposed to have, which we can increase, of course, with the stimulus of exercise. So if it's a study that I'm thinking of, psychopenic populations, people that have naturally lost lean mass or muscle because of aging and not eating sufficient protein, the moment that you give them enough protein from good quality sources, they revert back to their ideal muscle size. Again, they're not going to get like bodybuilders, of course, but they're going to recover what would be their ideal muscle tone to a point, even without exercise.
Melanie Avalon:
Valerie wanted to know, she said she just turned 60, and that she's completed two weight loss challenges where she lost weight, but also muscle. How can one build muscle in their later years? Everyone tells me just to eat more protein. If that's truly the answer, how much is enough?
Luis Villaseñor:
Yeah, the thing here is that it requires a little bit more context because here are two things that happens. First, I would love to know how she determined that she lost muscle, because that can be a little bit of conflicting information, right? If what she did was get the classic in -body or, yeah, like the in -body that they have in most gyms, that kind of device has a lot of margin of error. Or in my experience so much that every time that a client tells me their body fat percentage or their lean mass based on those metrics, I just dismiss it outright. Just to give you an example, it tends to give men a much lower body fat percentage than they have, usually by six points. So they come at me and I have 14% body fat. I look at their pictures. No, you're like 22, but they tend to think like they are much lower. And so they tend to eat them much higher, right? Because they think that they deserve more food. And the same happens with females, right? And so this test confuses lean mass with water and glycogen to a very big degree. So every time that you do any diet whatsoever, you're going to lose some glycogen and some water. And that is accounted for as lean mass. So that can give very disheartening results to some people thinking they actually lost muscle. So what I normally do is we take measurements of the person and also on key parts like their arms and their thighs. And yeah, of course, if you were overweight, those are going to also get smaller, but not at the same extent of maybe your belly and your hips. Make sense? So that's one thing that I would review. And the second is if you are maintaining your strength in certain exercise, it's very unlikely that you're actually losing lean mass. And of course, if you're eating sufficient protein, which is a question, what is sufficient protein? When we talk about high protein, low protein, that's a very subjective number because people, especially when people use percentages. So I hate percentages to very much define the amount of protein that one needs to eat. Very easy rule to follow is from I don't know if you're familiar with Mike T. Nelson, Dr. Mike Nelson. He's one of my favorite researchers and doctors on the field of strength training and metabolic flexibility. And he suggests the 420 rule, which is especially for people that are having a hard time or that are over 40 gaining muscle or maintaining muscle is three to four meals per day with at least 40 grams of protein each, which leaves you in between what I suggested, 120 grams at least or maybe 140 for most females make sense.
Melanie Avalon:
Yes, it does. And it's funny, you're talking about how relative it is. Like for me, for example, I eat so much protein that if I were to only eat like 100 something grams, I mean, I would be starving. I eat so much. Yeah, so moving to the electrolytes. So Nicole wanted to know if electrolytes are actually necessary if you don't sweat and only fast from 12 to 19 hours. She says only for 19 hours. Oh my goodness. But my related question to that is we were talking earlier about this, our palette resetting and, you know, things tasting differently based on what we're eating. And I actually talked with Rob about this when I had him on either the show or my other show, which is that I found when it comes to salt, and we also have questions about that, like Stephanie wanted to know are electrolytes just salt mostly. But when it comes to salt, I found personally that like if I add more salt to my diet, it's like I have that similar effect that we were talking about with the food where I crave more salt. And then I feel like I'm excreting more salt. Whereas if I like cut back on the salt, I end up craving less salt, and it seems like I excrete less salt. So I've always been perplexed by that idea of like, do I need more electrolytes or am I just like when I take in more electrolytes, I'm just my body then craves more electrolytes. And again, when I say electrolytes, I know that's a spectrum, I'm just talking about salt right here. So there was a lot of questions in that. But what are your thoughts on salt and like how much do we intuitively need and an element, for example, what else is in there besides salt?
Luis Villaseñor:
So, just to give you an electrolyte 101, electrolytes are basically salt, potassium, are the two main ones, but then also magnesium and calcium, right? Generally speaking, we really don't have to really supplement calcium because most people do get more than enough from their food sources. And also, there's a little bit of an issue with using calcium as a supplement because most of it isn't really absorbed. And we talked at the beginning about a calcium score. You eat lots of supplements with calcium. There may be a degree where it gets just deposited in your artery, so we don't want that. It has to be naturally obtained. That's it, right? Now, people tend to think that sodium and potassium are just for hydration and if you sweat. And the issue is that it's a little bit more nuanced and complicated than that because basically, there's a thing called the sodium and potassium pump, which is called in biochemistry as an action potential. Basically, what I like to see or explain it is like the spark plug of a motor car. Most actions in our body begin with the action potential of the cells or the sodium potassium pump. If we don't have adequate sodium and potassium in our fluids in our body, we are going to feel lethargic and tired because we are working very slowly. We're not getting energy in and out of our cells in any given moment efficiently and we're not going to be able to produce ADP at an efficient rate. That's basically the most important thing to understand about sodium and potassium. It has not much to do with hydration as we know it. Now, sweat per se isn't really a good indicator of sodium losses. Of course, when you pee, of course, you excrete, but also respiration and depending where you live can change a little bit equation. People that live in high altitudes, even though they may not feel they are sweating, they're also losing their perspiration, of course, yet they're having losses of sodium and potassium. Now, how much do we actually need? It really depends first, again, like I was saying, on the weather, on the altitude, activity levels, some genetic variations, but mostly it also depends on your actual diet. If you are doing a high -carb diet, likely you're not going to need as much sodium and potassium as someone that's doing a low -carb diet. If you're eating a high -process food diet, also you're likely not going to be needing as much because most processed foods use sodium as a preservative or as a flavor enhancer. Then, if you're doing a low -carb diet or a ketogenic diet, there is a range that I personally suggest, which we have on the website on Element, or also I can share a leaflet that I have in my website, which is basically for people that are doing a high -carb diet or a traditional diet, sodium needs range between 1 to 3 grams per day. If you are doing keto or low -carb or whole food, you can increase by 2 grams, so let's say 5 to up to 7, depending with some personal modifications, of course. Then, for potassium, potassium has to be in a ratio or in relation to sodium because we're talking about the sodium potassium pump. The lowest that I would suggest for potassium is about 3 .5 grams, and you can increase at the same rate as sodium. If you go, let's say, 7 grams of sodium, you would be at least at 5 grams of potassium. Now, some people, when they say if they are in a low -carb diet that they are retaining water every time that they add sodium, two things usually happen. Maybe they are not getting adequate potassium. If your potassium is way too low, what happens is that you are going to retain sodium. Also, if your sodium is way too low, you also retain water. People tend to think that only high sodium retains water. Now, if your sodium is way too low, you can also retain water because your body is trying to maintain as much sodium as possible, and you're probably going to suffer from a little bit of edema. Related, for example, to high blood pressure, some people also tend to think that sodium persists the one that causes high blood pressure. That can happen on a high -carb diet, but it's very unlikely on a low -carb diet because insulin is the one that very much regulates high blood pressure. If you are in a low insulin state, which is probably something very common that people experience, especially at the beginning of a low -carb diet, you're going to be peeing all day long. When you are on low insulin or stable insulin, it basically has a diuretic effect. Basically, you're dumping sodium every time that you're going to the bedroom. Another way to lower blood pressure if you actually have it is also by increasing potassium, not really lowering sodium per se.
Melanie Avalon:
Awesome. Well, that was great because that was Eleni's question about the retaining water, so that was really helpful. And then Stephanie's second part of her question was about the high blood pressure. So that was great. And then just to clarify about the, you talked a lot about the lower limits, but on the upper limit side of things, because people, okay, people love element and I give it to so many friends and family members personally. So I can't tell you how many times I've been asked by friends, by family members and by people in my Facebook group and listeners, Nadia wants to know, for example, how many in a day can you drink?
Luis Villaseñor:
Yeah. So again, it really depends on the type of diet that you're having, how active you are, the weather, and just to give you a range. I personally get on average two per day. When I'm training quite heavy and I'm sweating, I may have even three or four. I know personally some clients that are very low carb and are athletes that they get five or six per day. It's not something that I would advocate because these are very outsiders. I think that for people that are managing a low carb diet or eating, and just for reference, when I say low carb, it means less than 100 grams of carbohydrates per day. For people that are into low carb territory or paleo, probably two is more than enough because I also don't advocate that you get all your electrolytes from element. Also get it from real food, right? Add some sodium to your meals, prepare with spices. Potassium is super important. I saw the question on your Facebook group with this lady and what she reported that she was eating. That's super low for potassium. Potassium is very difficult for a lot of people that are not eating fruits and certain vegetables to increase because a lot of potassium, for example, is found in meat. But if you're cooking the meat, it's lost in its juices and then it evaporates or you're not getting more than you need. Getting to three grams or five grams of potassium is going to be a little bit hard. Then also, for example, element has a big amount of potassium because especially in the United States, big amounts of potassium are seen as a medication if you go past certain amounts. I'm not sure if it's in the whole United States or in certain states where you may need a prescription to actually buy potassium pills. I'm not sure and correct me if I'm wrong, right? But the issue is also if you overdo potassium, it's not that good. It's better to just go slowly and in relation to sodium. What I normally suggest to increase your potassium amounts is you can probably have whole food bone broth, whether you make it yourself or you buy a pre -made. And also, you're very familiar with it, salt for diabetics or low sodium salt, which is basically lower than sodium but it's high in potassium chloride. So what I normally suggest is mix a little bit of sea salt with potassium chloride or this low salt and it's a very easy way to manage or increase your potassium levels in a more natural way without actually having to use pills. Because also, if you're using pills, potassium acts as a diuretic, right? And if you are very high in potassium, long water, etc., that can create heart palpitations or cramps and things like that, which again, we don't want to go into that territory, just let's manage sensible amounts. And you're going to notice very easily when you are out of work with sodium or potassium, right? If you feel your hands tingling or you have muscle cramps or you feel maybe your eye twitching, all of those are signs of electrolyte imbalances. Or if you feel lethargic, you suffer brain fog, a lot of the usual symptoms that are part of the keto flu, which people think are because of not eating carbohydrates, which is one of the reasons why I had the idea for element, is because when I was studying about the side effects of keto way back in 2000, I was reviewing the so -called keto flu. And basically, those are what we call chronic dehydration symptoms in nutrition, especially for athletes. Eye twitching, muscle cramps, brain fog, tiredness, lethargy, are very much the same. So basically, they are very much managed with a little bit of salt and potassium.
Melanie Avalon:
To the potassium pill question, that's something I've been perplexed by for a long time. I mean, I don't think it's changed, but last time I checked, which was years and years ago when I was first exploring this world, I was buying potassium pills and I was always really shocked that you could do that because it can like so quickly be a problem, you know?
Luis Villaseñor:
Exactly. You tell, especially because a lot of people use them as diuretics, right? And so you take two grams of potassium plus maybe you had three or four, you can very much disrupt that sodium -potassium balance or increase a lot of diuresis, and you end up with hyponatremia, which is the opposite of being super hydrated, right? And I've seen athletes that basically just want to do that to lose water. And that's when you see people that get a heart attack. And it's not to, you know, get your listeners afraid of potassium. No, if you're eating mostly your potassium from foods, like an avocado is an excellent source of potassium, red meat plus their juices are amazing. And as well as probably get this sodium chloride, sorry, potassium chloride salt, that's super easy. And I myself never had an issue and I never take any potassium supplement, right? So it's not something to worry about, just eat whole foods. And you're likely going to be great.
Melanie Avalon:
Awesome. Again, we love element on this show and you're talking about the development of everything. And one thing I love about element, you have a lot of flavors, you have a raw and flavored version though with, you know, no, no flavors, no nothing. So that's what we always promote for people who don't want to quote, break their fast thoughts on people taking these while fasting and the flavors. Also, I'm super curious what your favorite flavor is and how involved are you in creating the flavors and is there a flavor you really want to make?
Luis Villaseñor:
Yeah. So, generally speaking, I can tell you that I'd say that for 99% of the population, I don't see a way that this can break a fast. We actually do have a few posts on our blog regarding where it has element breaks a fast. And from what I started, because there's not a consensus in this to this question is how many calories break a fast or if you get an insulin response. I've used a continuous blood glucose monitor. I've had it with my clients taking element with plain water and it doesn't move nil. So this is why we can say with very assuredness that it shouldn't affect fasting whatsoever. And okay, if it's a choice and you want to, like you said, just not partake with any flavors or any other ingredients, there's always a raw version, which basically is just the electrolytes very much raw by themselves. And that's also like a more assurance for people that just wanted to use it as a fasting aid because dry fasting is something that outside of religious recommendations, I myself wouldn't recommend because you do need, as I said, the potassium sodium pump for many of the processes that you actually want to improve with your fasting, right? You want to improve mitochondrial biogenesis, you want to improve autophagy, et cetera. And because all of these processes are related to the health of the cell, more to the point of having adequate electrolytes in your system to support that precise procedure.
Melanie Avalon:
Awesome. And the flavor development, how involved are you?
Luis Villaseñor:
So back when we started, we were basically in the team about 10%. So it was a proton team, which is the ones in operations. And then it was Rob and I as basically the main idea, right? So basically, all founders, which are, we are three parties, which Rob and Nicky, his wife, James, which is our CEO, and myself, we basically bought the flavors, it's like, hey, I would like this or that. Let's see if it tastes as well. We had a joke at the beginning that because we didn't know if element was going to be successful, and that all flavors had to be able to mix well with alcohol, you know, with margaritas, or with vodka. Because if we didn't, as an electrical drink, okay, we're going to make a mixer or for rins or something, you know, but then, like, I am involved in the decision making with all the founders, it's always like an equal boat. I can say that I've suggested some flavors like the mango chili and the chocolate, the main chocolate that we had, because I love chocolate. And one, it's funny, and I'm weird like that us my favorite flavor ever since a few years ago, when I learned or was starting more about sodium and salt, and especially their benefits, both for hydration and sports with, and more without without an emphasis on ketogenic or low carb diets. I stumbled upon on this article, where has it stated or the recommending adding sea salt to coffee, because it takes away the bitterness. So it's something that ancient Greeks and Turks used to do. And still, if you go probably to Greece, and in some parts of Spain, if you ask for coffee, you can ask for salt. And they also give you a little bit of a lime or orange, and you mix lime or the orange with sea salt on your coffee. I know it sounds weird, right? But it actually takes the bitterness away, you don't have to add, you know, sugar or anything else. And so I've always like more than 10 years, add a little bit of salt to my coffee. And then I suggest, you know, let's find a way to do make this, because I have in keto games, you know how I said you need the protein before training. What I have from probably what 15 years, 12 years suggested is the Ketogains coffee, which is coffee with a way shake, plus sodium and creatine. And that's where the idea for the chocolate flavor in a way came from. So it's coffee, the cocoa, plus the salt. And you can, the idea was to mix it with whey protein, but it's just took life on its own and just mix it with coffee. And that's basically how you will find most of the recipes for chocolate and its variations.
Melanie Avalon:
Oh wow, were you heavily involved in the chocolate medley then?
Luis Villaseñor:
In the actual, in the new one, not very much. But I do decide our boat very much in which flavors. Because for example, in this one, it was mint, chai, and raspberry. So what we do is we had also other flavors. And then based on what we bought, and then we involved all the team elements as well, we decide which flavor probably fits better for the launch. And then we look at the sales, and if it's worthy, we keep it. Or if not, we change it for another. For example, last year on the chocolate medley, we had chocolate, mint chocolate, and caramel. Caramel was so successful that now it's a standalone product.
Melanie Avalon:
Did that happen with watermelon too?
Luis Villaseñor:
No, it was great for it.
Melanie Avalon:
Oh, we got grapefruit comes and goes.
Luis Villaseñor:
Yeah, we only had that for summer and also was so successful that now it's a mainstay.
Melanie Avalon:
Okay, I think I was associating those two because watermelon came out I think in a summer. So I think I was thinking it was like a limited time thing because watermelon is my favorite.
Luis Villaseñor:
So, it's one of my favorites as well. One flavor that we sunsetted is habanero lime.
Melanie Avalon:
One that you what? That you did what for?
Luis Villaseñor:
we just took out, we sunset it, because it wasn't really as popular. It was popular when we had it on a mix, when we had the, we call it for a while, like the Spanish or Latin mix, it was our first seasonal mix, which was chocolate, mango chili, and vanilla lime. And it was like a festive or a fiesta pack, that's what we called it. And eventually, because it was very successful, we launched those three flavors on its own. But just for the whole US market, the habanero lime, because of the name itself, it made a lot of people afraid that it's gonna be super spicy. But now that we took it out, a lot of people are complaining that they loved it. So it's like, okay, maybe we'll relaunch it eventually as a special case or something.
Melanie Avalon:
Alumina time
Luis Villaseñor:
Exactly.
Melanie Avalon:
This is so fun because I have my own supplement line as well, and I just I love the whole product development process. And it's just it's exciting, especially when you're making something that's, you know, helping people so much as well. Yeah, well, thank you so much, Louise. This has been amazing. And I'm just thinking because this is like obviously the intermittent fasting podcast. I'd love to have you on my other show as well, the biohacking podcast.
Luis Villaseñor:
I love doing my super fan of biohacking as well.
Melanie Avalon:
Oh, awesome. Okay, so we'll have to schedule you for that.
Luis Villaseñor:
I do wanted to answer a question on electrolytes. There was this lady because I promised to her that I will answer on the show.
Melanie Avalon:
Oh yay, which one was it?
Luis Villaseñor:
So it was regarding sleep and low -carb diets.
Melanie Avalon:
Oh, okay. I can read it if you want because I have it. Teresa said, there's two, but Teresa, I'll read both of them. Teresa said, anytime I go low carb, my sleep suffers and I do all the sleep hacks. Blue blockers, sleep remedy, magnesium nightcap, blackout curtains, sleep masks, progesterone. I'm sure there are more. I seem to either fall asleep okay, but then I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep or I'm wide awake for one to two hours trying to fall back asleep. This is only when I'm eating low carb, any help. And then Nadia said, same here. If I go low carb, my energy suffers and I can't sleep much. What kind of supplement should I take?
Luis Villaseñor:
So, more than supplements, this is a common thing that happens to a subset of people. So there are two answers here. One would be to not go so low -carb that your sleep is impaired. That's one, like, the easy solution. But for people that actually enjoy low -carb or eating like this and do want to find a way to maintain this, this is transitory. And the most common response that I've seen, and this is after much doubling, I think you actually have an answer for this in our website, just to give you a little bit of reference. In Element, we have a whole area dedicated to answering a lot of these questions because we love the research and we love to be science -based and help people with all of the answers. So what I found related to this, and it's not just, again, theory, I've experimented it with lots of clients, and for some it works. Actually, I think Rob suffered from this, and this is the first iteration of this sort of experiment, is that when you are transitioning or sending you to keto for your body, especially if you are not managing your electrolytes very well, you're putting a flight or flight response. So you have increased adrenal response. And because you also have lots of energy from this fat burning and the increased number of ketones, you are in a state of heaper alertness, which keeps you awake. So the things that you can actually do is review your amount of sodium and make sure that you're getting about the recommended amounts, basically between five to seven grams per day, which, believe me or not, nine out of 10 questions that we get related to not feeling well on low carb are related to electrolytes. It's like I'm not selling you element. Go and use whatever you want. But it's because we are either so afraid of adding sodium or using sodium because there's a campaign or has been for the last 20 years against sodium that we take sodium for granted. That's a bad thing. So we don't actually use sodium as we should. So that's one thing. And the other is that people are very bad at managing and reviewing how much sodium they are taking. Every time that I ask someone, how much sodium you take? A lot. No, a lot is not a number. Let's review food intake, beverage intake, what else are you doing, et cetera. And usually what I found is people are rarely getting one or two grams of sodium per day, which, OK, maybe on a high carb diet, you're going to function. But when you transition to low carb, that's not adequate. And so what happens, again, in people that cannot sleep, it's like, again, they're in this state of fight or flight response because they increased adrenaline because probably you're aware of the aldosterone system, right? So it's part of your hormonal system that's pretty much peaked along with your HPA axis. And basically, that's why you cannot sleep. Plus, you're probably getting lots of energy from the fat. So, again, you're in a state of hyperawares. The other thing that I've seen that works if adding sodium doesn't work is have your last meal be the one that has the highest amount of carbs so that you get a little bit more sleepy. At tryptophan, tryptophan usually also acts as a way, some analyzer. You know, the classic when it's Thanksgiving and you eat turkey and you get sleepy, it's because of that tryptophan found in Turkey, which is an amino acid. And finally, also adding another amino acid, which is called glycine. So five grams of tryptophan, five grams of glycine, a little bit of carbs. And of course, reviewing that you have more than enough sodium throughout the day should be for a great sleep cocktail or take away that hyper -vigilance, hyper -energy issue.
Melanie Avalon:
That is awesome. And just anecdotally, I've definitely experienced that before where probably when I was doing low carb or keto and would have some sleep issues. And I remember a few different situations where I actually was with element, I had some element and I felt it was like that fight or flight response turned off. Like I just felt like, huh, so safe and was able to fall asleep. So I definitely, definitely have experienced that. I need to start because we get questions about sleep a lot. And talking about electrolytes has not been, I don't normally talk about it. So thank you.
Luis Villaseñor:
It's one of the most common issues that you see with people nowadays. Well, there are a lot of common issues, but related to health, what I try to help my patients with is managing diet. That's one pillar. The other would be exercise. And the third one is usually stress management. If you don't sleep well, if you're overly stressed, all the effort that you put in the gym is not really going to work 100 percent. You're going to grow less muscle and you're going to lose less body fat. If you're overstressed and not sleeping well, and if you're not sleeping well, you're going to be hungry all the time. So it's also going to be very difficult for you to sustain and maintain your diet. So mostly in many cases, it's just, you know, let's get you seven, eight hours of really restful sleep. Let's find a way to cope with stress or, you know, meditate, whatever. That's not related to eating because a lot of people just medicate themselves with food. And then, you know, you will have energy to train and you will do much better with the diet because you're not anxious all the time and just eating because of the anxiousness and all of that.
Melanie Avalon:
I could not agree more. I was really happy in the very beginning when you were talking about the three things and you ended with the sleep and stress. I was like, yes, so, so important. So I bet listeners, again, cannot recommend element enough and supporting your electrolyte needs, especially if you're fasting, especially if you're doing low -carbon keto, and you can actually get a free sample pack of all their flavors, yes, completely free. So you can go to drinklmnt .com slash ifpodcast and that's where you can grab that sample pack. It comes with any order. So again, cannot recommend that enough. And then the show notes will have links to everything that we talked about. Those will be at ifpodcast .com slash episode 362. So Louise, thank you so much. I've been, this is just, like I said, such a moment for me because I've been following your work for so long, like a decade now. And I'm just so grateful for everything that you're doing. It's just really truly life -changing. And I look forward to, hopefully we can meet in person someday. Do you ever go to the biohacking conferences, like Dave's conference?
Luis Villaseñor:
I actually want to go to the last one, it was just what, 15 days ago or something?
Melanie Avalon:
There's probably another one. There's there's one coming up and there's Dave's conference in May at the end of May, like the big one.
Luis Villaseñor:
Okay, so yeah, I'd love to go. It really depends on my schedule. But this year, I don't have big trips outside of some family things and work. So I'll try to make it happen. Actually, just when you said about the other biohacking podcast, I don't know if you're familiar with the Entrepreneurs' Organization. With the what organization? Entrepreneurs' Organization. I don't think so. Just to give you like the average format, it's a worldwide organization for entrepreneurs, which I've been a part for the last eight years. We actually have just a channel and a chat for biohacking, which I ended up for whatever reason as a moderator, right? And they would love to maybe have you as well, you know, for a conference or something. So I'll get in touch to see what we can do.
Melanie Avalon:
Oh, awesome. Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you. Yeah, so we'll have to meet sometime. You're just so awesome. And I also super appreciate maybe this was evident earlier. But like I said, Louise is in my Facebook group and you like jump in and answer people's questions. And I just I'm like, it's so nice. Like it's so kind. Even like random questions like back when I was prepping for Anthony Yoon for Botox, you had a lot of insight about Botox, for example, I was like, wow, that's amazing.
Luis Villaseñor:
love to answer and help you whenever I can. And it's, of course, sensible advice. Like it's like, it's basically what made me be the person that I am today just asking and getting good answers, right? Because sometimes there's a lot of misinformation, I try to be as plain as possible and as informative, I know, which is a little bit difficult in this day and age. But whenever I see a genuine question that I probably can answer, in some degree, I'd like to jump in.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, well, I super appreciate that. So, well, so my Facebook group is if biohackers, you can join that. But so how can people best follow, like join the keto games community, follow your work. I talked about element. Where can people go?
Luis Villaseñor:
So the starting point would be just type Ketogains on any browser, that's basically my company. And in most social media groups, you will find keto gain, you know, in Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or you can also look me up via my direct name. And whatever are those channels you send a PM to me, I usually I manage my own social channel. So I'm always, like you said, responding myself. And also, of course, you can go to drink element. And that's also one of my companies.
Melanie Avalon:
Awesome. Well, we'll put links to all that in the show notes. Again, thank you so much. Can't wait to talk more in the future. This was amazing. Thank you.
Luis Villaseñor:
For sure. Anytime. Thank you so much.
Melanie Avalon:
Have a good rest of your day. Bye. Thank you. Bye bye.
Melanie Avalon:
Thank you so much for listening to the Intimation 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 a 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, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders.
STUFF WE LIKE
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LINKS
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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
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