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On today’s podcast, I’m going to share something with you that I saw on Facebook last night on a Facebook Live that blew my mind, and not necessarily in a good way. So if you’re interested in intermittent fasting, the ketogenic diet and thyroid health stick around, because I’m going to share with you something that you should absolutely not do, and probably some of the biggest mistakes that I’ve seen out there. So I consider today’s podcast episode more of a public service announcement, because I’ll give you the backstory, right.
So the backstory was, I sat watching this Facebook Live by a very prominent doctor. I’m not going to mention any names here. But this is a person who has about 650,000 people following them on Facebook. When they do Facebook Lives, you’ve got over 1000 people tuning in, and so I listened to he’s a he’s a huge advocate, first of all for intermittent fasting and keto. Okay, and obviously a lot of people tuning in and we’re pretty dominantly woman, a lot of them had thyroid issues. Okay, so that’s sort of the background here of what’s going on. Anyway, so he launches this Facebook Live. And one of his big things that he talks about is doing one meal a day. Okay, so doing either keto or doing high fat, low carb, one meal a day. And so I start tuning into this Facebook Live and I look down through the comments section. And I’m not even gonna lie to you that almost every single comment I would say rough estimate 80% of comments. People were getting worse.
All right, so they were telling, they were saying things like my thyroid numbers are completely out of whack. I’ve noticed that I’m more tired. I’ve noticed that I’ve started putting on more weight. I’ve noticed that I’m having trouble sleeping and these are all people that are all of a sudden transitioning from potentially a standard American diets or at least a normal diet. Let’s just say you know, maybe three meals and two snacks are three meals and three snacks a day. So they’re moving off this type of diet and they’re trying to go onto an intermittent fasting with a keto, or at least high fat, low carb approach.
So first of all, what is intermittent fasting? So if you don’t know what intermittent fasting is, it’s a pretty big deal these days. There’s a lot of research, but there’s also a lot of podcasts and blog posts and you know, people looking into this and I’m absolutely a huge fan of intermittent fasting. I think it’s a great thing. I personally do it. And there’s a number of ways to do it. So typically, people the more popular things are doing something like five to where you would eat normally for five days and then you would take two days off. Personally not a huge fan of that. But again, no inherent problems with that, but the way that people usually do it, is they’re going to skip breakfast. Okay, so when we skip breakfast and the word intermittent fasting means that we fasting for X amount of hours in the day. So typically what we would do is let’s, for example, say I ate dinner at six o’clock broadman sake, and I then ate my next meal at 10 o’clock the next morning, that is a window of 16 hours. Okay, so that’s a window of 16 hours. And so, essentially what we’re doing is we’re not eating for 16 hours, some people might stretch that to 18. Some people might take that down to 14. Alright, so there’s no hard and fast rules, but I’m just going to use my example of a 16 hour window where we’re not eating. So most people the way that they do it is they’re going to simply skip breakfast, right? So I have dinner at six o’clock, I go to bed at 10 o’clock, and then I wake up in the morning and I don’t eat breakfast and I break my fast at 10 o’clock, potentially even 12 o’clock the next day with lunch, okay, and then that lunch would in this case anyway, especially what this doctor is advocating for is it’s going to be low. no carbs for lunch, and then lower no carbs for dinner again at six o’clock, and then the cycle repeats. So here’s why all of these people are experiencing such problems. And I’m going to just say this right out the gate. All right? You know, when I look at common threads like that, and I see people having such negative reactions, It baffles my mind as to why people still just blindly follow this. Because all of these people in the comments, were just still just carrying on with it, right? And they’re like, Well, you know, it makes sense, theoretically. And the you’re a good presenter, and you got a big following. So I’m just going to keep on pushing ahead, even though I feel absolutely terrible. And so that’s a cautionary note right there. All right, if something’s not working for you, plain and simple, you got to start, like looking into it and going, why is it not working? And maybe it’s not for you. But let’s bring us back on point here. So we’re talking about intimate and fasting. We’re talking about keto. And we’re talking about how this ties in with thyroid health. Okay, so
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first of all, what we need to understand is thyroid health. One on one. Okay, so the way that your thyroid gland works is that you have two glands in your head. One is called the hypothalamus. The other one is called the pituitary gland. And this is the HPA axis, right? So we have hypothalamus, pituitary, and the pituitary signals the thyroid gland. Alright, so tells the thyroid gland make thyroid hormone, which is actually t four. And then your tissues in your body or your cells in your body have to convert t four, two, t three, and T three now is the active hormone. And this is what increases our metabolism. It provides energy in the form of ATP and essentially sets what’s called our metabolic rate. Okay, so if that’s not working properly, and for whatever reason, if my pituitary is not signaling my thyroid, or if I’m having problems converting thyroid hormone into the active form, what’s going to happen is my metabolism is going to slow down. Okay, this is going to be reflected oftentimes in lab testing. But oftentimes lab tests will be within range and you’re still going to be experiencing all of the signs and symptoms of a sluggish metabolism. Alright, so, here’s, let’s bring some things into the fold. Now. Let’s talk a little bit about what’s required to convert my T 43. Okay, so remember t four is the inactive hormone t three is the active hormone. I need minerals First of all, which is a complete sidebar. So you need selenium, you need zinc. And to a certain degree, you need copper as well.
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But there are factors that are going to block the absorption of tea for two t three. One of those is cortisol. Okay, so the stress hormone cortisol, which is produced by the adrenal glands, will block the conversion of T 43. k. So how does that tie in with what we’re talking about today?
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Well think about it like this right?
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cortisol, which is a stress hormone produced by the adrenal glands is highest in the morning and it drops off slow. as the day goes on, so that it’s low at night, all right, so cortisol gives us some get up and go. And
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obviously, it has numerous and very far reaching functions or signals, or, you know, it does a lot of things in the body. But here’s the thing. So I wake up in the morning and my cortisol is naturally high. And what happens when I’m fasting is that it’s actually a stress on the body. Okay? So it’s not necessarily a bad stress. But can you imagine in the beginning right, here, I am on fasting, and potentially my cortisol levels are too high. So this happens with a lot of people, right? If you’re waking up too early in the morning, or if you’ve been diagnosed with adrenal fatigue, whatever stage of adrenal fatigue, you might very well have high cortisol. So look at what happens I wake up in the morning, I don’t eat, right, maybe I’m gonna have coffee, right? Maybe I’m gonna have bulletproof coffee with some butter in it. And what happens now is my cortisol gets jacked right up. Okay, so my cortisol goes Hi. remember what it’s called is all due in relative to thyroid is a blocks the conversion of thyroid hormone from t 43. But here’s the other thing.
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hypothalamus to pituitary, pituitary to thyroid, right, that’s the HP t axis. Well, we also have h p as a axis. So that’s hypothalamus, pituitary adrenal axis. And I also have an HP axis. So my hypothalamus, pituitary, ovary axis. So 90% of cases of hypothyroidism so underactive thyroid, are actually rooted in the adrenal glands. Because if you think about it, logically, we are under constant stress. There might be external stressors, whether it be relationships, whether it be work, whether it be finances a busy day, and then we have internal stresses, which might be emotional stress, could be allergies could be infections. So stress is a constant factor. In our day to day life, so the HPA axis is constantly getting stressed out. And if you think of it like stools of a table, I’ve got three legs of a table right HPA HPT and hp. Oh, if HPA is weak all the time, it’s going to stress out HPT. And it’s going to stress out hp. Oh, this is why a lot of people with thyroid problems have menstrual issues. People with menstrual issues usually have adrenal fatigue to some degree.
Okay, so it’s a symphony. It’s a concert, if you will.
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So the idea of coming right out the gates and just doing fasting, right poses a problem right out the gate one, it’s going to stress my HPA axis out, okay? Which now stresses HPT and therefore impedes thyroid function. Point two is it’s going to increase my cortisol which is going to block the conversion of T 43. My active hormone, okay. This is why a lot of those people on the comment threads were We’re starting to feel more tired. This is why they were starting to put on more weight because their metabolic rate was slowing down. Right? Let’s bring in another layer into the conversation here. And this is something about blood sugar. Right? So when we fast, and obviously we have to make blood sugar from somewhere, okay? And once you become fat adapted, this could take anywhere from two weeks to six weeks, your body is naturally going to be able to burn fat. All right, perhaps I should start here. Your body is designed to burn carbohydrates and fat. And the whole intention of the ketogenic diet is to switch your body from burning carbs to burning fat, okay with the intention then of being able to burn the stored up fat that you have accumulated on your body. That is the whole point of doing keto. That’s why people are doing it for weight loss. But here’s the thing, that fat adaptation right the time that it takes you to move from burning carbs or to Able to burn carbs and fats, if equally efficiently, is going to take anywhere from two to six weeks. So look at what happens now, right? I come right out the gate, and I’m doing intermittent fasting. A lot of these people were doing one meal a day, you are not adequately equipped, yet from a biological standpoint to burn fat. So your blood sugar is going to go right out of whack. Okay, you might start robbing protein from the body. And using amino acids, such as leucine to make glucose. You’re going to try and get glucose from anywhere. But one of the things that happens, right when we’re fasting like that is your body secretes cortisol. And one of those functions is to make sugar or make glucose. Right? So think about this. Nine, I’ve jumped off this three meals and three snacks a day, and I’m going on to one meal a day. I’m going on to two meals a day and I’ve got this long fasting period, and I’m not bringing in any carbohydrates right? My body’s going to secrete massive amounts of cortisol to try and stimulate the production of glucose because I’m not fat adapted yet. Okay, so and what what does that mean? Right? How you gonna feel? You probably going to feel like you’re riding a roller coaster, you’re going to feel tired, you’re going to have crashes. Right? You are also going to have, again, we’ve spoken about cortisol and what it does to the thyroid gland. But here’s the other thing, you’re going to have problems with sleep. Okay, you’re going to have problems with sleep. And here’s why. At night, what happens is our body normally is going to start slowing down the production or the release of serotonin, which is our daytime hormone that helps to keep us awake or helps to wake us up and slowly increase the production of melatonin, which is the hormone that helps us to go to sleep. Now for a lot of people, and this is well known in fact that carbohydrates in particular Clearly insulin will increase the uptake of the building blocks to make serotonin and to make melatonin. So the way that that works is tryptophane, which is an amino acid gets converted into serotonin and ultimately gets made into melatonin, right? melatonin then helps us to go to sleep. Well guess what if I’m not eating any carbohydrates, and there’s no insulin production, if there’s no insulin production, and there’s not insulin production, the uptake of tryptophane is slow down. Therefore, serotonin goes down. Therefore, melatonin goes down and I can’t sleep. This is also why a lot of people on that common thread were complaining about their mood, because we know that serotonin is involved with mood regulation. Okay, it’s our happy hormone. So here’s my suggestion for you, right? And I would encourage you to go back and listen to this. Unfortunately, because this is in an audio format. It’s a little bit more challenging and if I had a whiteboard and diagrams, you’d Be able to perhaps get this a little bit more. But I would encourage you to go back and listen to this and hear if some of this resonates with you. And here’s what I’m going to encourage you to do. Okay, first of all, I would not encourage you to go and do intermittent fasting right out the gate.
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Okay? In fact,
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what I would do is get you to eat three meals a day, I would focus a lot on consuming a lot of protein for breakfast, right fats, and instead of perhaps going no carb, just think about going low carb, right? So just cutting the carbohydrates back. Okay, especially for a lot of women. When we cut the carbs right out, our mood goes out the window, it actually aggravates a menstrual cycle. So there’s a lot of potential problems there. For for women, particularly, so three meals a day with an emphasis on proteins and fats, and keeping the carbohydrates to a minimum, that is going to be a much easier transition for you. If you’re coming off a standard American diet if you’re coming off three meals and two Next day, whatever your situation is, it’s going to be an easier transition. Now, once you stay on that, right, and I would encourage you to have regular eating times, I would encourage you to avoid snacking altogether. And once you start getting used to that, after about two weeks or so, then you can experiment with dropping breakfast out. Okay, ideally, you actually want to drop dinner out, but I know that from a scheduling standpoint, it’s a little bit more challenging for people, because, you know, we want to eat with the family and kids and stuff like that. So if you’re going to drop that meal out and drop, you know, ideally drop dinner, but if you can’t, when you drop breakfast out, you get a notice that you’re going to slowly become a little bit more adapted, that you can become more resilient, and that’s when the benefits of intermittent fasting are really going to kick in. Okay. I would encourage you to also just be open minded and think to yourself, like maybe I don’t need to go full keto. Right, maybe I can afford to go Low Carb, right? And just emphasize fats and proteins, okay? Because protein is going to also regulate our appetite. Okay, so once you will eat in terms of satiety, you will eat until your body has enough protein. So if you emphasize proteins and fats, you’re actually gonna find that,
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from the actual amount of food that you eat, you’re not going to eat as much food, but from a nutrient density and from a macro perspective, you can be very satisfied. We know that proteins are the building blocks for our hormones, particularly thyroid hormone gave it all of our hormones have amino acids and proteins is a building block. So I think that this is a much smarter way of doing it, you’re actually going to find that if you consistent with the timing of things, your metabolism is going to reset itself. And as you keep the carbs lower, your fasting insulin levels are going to be lower as well, which means that you start moving out of fat storage mode and you move more into fat burning mode. Okay. So I think that’s about it from my side, and Again, this is really in response to watching this Facebook Live video last night and just seeing so many people, literally hundreds of people having such a terrible time with dropping right on to intimate and fasting and keto and just seeing their thyroid health, just go right out the window. Okay, so hopefully this helps you today, and I’ll be back for more episodes. Thanks for tuning in.