557: Justin Nault on How to Lose Weight by Eating More and Exercising Less

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Katie: Hello and welcome to the “Wellness Mama Podcast.” I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and wellnesse.com, that’s wellness with an E on the end, and in this episode, I’m here with my friend, Justin Nault, on how to lose weight by eating more and exercising less. And I know that might sound like a crazy idea, but he has done this with thousands of people, and I really wanted to have him on to dispel some of the common myths that I think are actually doing a lot of damage, especially for women, and especially after my own experience with now eating almost twice as much as I used to, and being in much better shape. And we talk a lot about this in a lot of different areas, but he shares his story of how he got into health while having a very successful music career, and the shocking things he discovered in his biochemical research.

Why sugar doesn’t cause obesity and diabetes and what’s actually going on. Why vegetable oils are chemical waste and can actually break your metabolism, and lead to these problems. How to unbreak your metabolism if you’ve consumed a lot of these foods. How the liver turns over every eight weeks and how to use this to your advantage. Why eating less food is not the way to lose weight and get healthy as I’ve learned myself, and why you are likely not eating anywhere near enough food. But there are some important caveats that we talk about and why you’re not likely getting anywhere enough protein.

What the thermic effect of food is and why it’s so important. What the protein to energy ratio is and how to use it to improve your metabolism. Why it’s impossible to get healthy from a place of self-hate including some really specific strategies he uses to help people shift that mindset, and why there’s actually no evidence anywhere that red meat causes cancer, but why this misconception exists. The difference between caloric restriction and caloric abstinence and so how fasting can then be a helpful tool. His super clear explanations of fasting and dry fasting.

Guidelines for protein, protein powder, and nutrient density in food. Why all food cravings come from micronutrient deficiencies and how to fix this. And then his beautiful parting words of advice that I think apply to all of us. Very, very informative episode, I really enjoyed recording this one, and I can’t wait to share it with you. So let’s join Justin. Justin, welcome. Thanks for being here today.

Justin: Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited.

Katie: Well, I’m excited to get to talk with you about a lot of different topics. But before we jump into the nutrition and health side, I know from knowing you and also from reading your bio right now that you were a professional musician for 15 years, and to have kind of played all over, your music is still available. I would love to just hear a little bit about that because that’s an uncommon thing to have a podcast guest who’s also an accomplished musician.

Justin: Yeah. Yeah. It’s an interesting experience because there are so many people now that know me, even just friends that I’ve met through entrepreneurship, like you with health and wellness, and they don’t know about the music side. But that was really my life for…you know, I started playing when I was 8 years old, started doing it for a living when I was 17. And music was my whole life from there. I had about a 15-year professional career doing 300 shows a year. It was really, really crazy. And for that reason, I was always into fitness my whole life. I played sports growing up, and I got into Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, and all, like, the super-macho stuff. So I started lifting weights when I was like 15.

But mostly, all of that fitness journey over the next decade till I was about 25 or 26 was honestly mostly vanity. I think it is for most people. You know, I was on stage all the time. I did a reality TV show, I had a YouTube channel, all of this stuff. So it’s kind of just…you know, you just feel pressure and scrutiny for the way that you look, and your appearance plays a huge role in the music career. So I was really into fitness, but it was probably, you know, 20%, maybe health and wellness, and the rest was more just like vanity and athletic performance and that kind of thing. But like a lot of people, as I got a little bit older, you know, not old, but 25, 26 years old, just storing a little more body fat, and it wasn’t really, you know, eating whatever I want and just training my way through it wasn’t really working anymore.

So that’s when I learned about the paleo diet, and I actually met CJ Hunt. I got introduced to Robb Wolf, which was really cool. And I started studying nutrition, and paleo was my first foray into that. And then right around that time, as the universe would have it, as I say, I had become a nutritional therapist just out of kind of curiosity. I wanted to learn more about nutrition rather than just doing fitness all the time. And my brother and his wife at the time gave birth to my niece, Savannah. And Savannah was born having, like, 300-plus seizures a day. These were like grand mal seizures. And this was within her first week of life. So, basically, she was given less than a three-year life expectancy. We went straight to the pediatric ICU, and they hooked her up to all these machines and did all this testing.

And through that, just being in the pediatric ICU in Nashville and Vanderbilt, I met a lot of neurologists, and we worked with the Charlie Foundation who specializes in epileptic seizures in children and infants. And that was when I learned…my first understanding of keto came from that. Like, this keto diet is actually stopping seizures in children. And that was fascinating to me. So I never learned about keto as a diet. I learned about it more of like this for neurological conditions. And they take these little babies, and they put them on G-tubes. So they’re being fed through these tubes in their stomach because they can’t swallow or anything like that. And across the country, this is true I believe still in every single hospital, they give these babies something called KetoCal.

So in the mainstream medical community and studies and all these things, they don’t really think about food quality. They’re like, “This needs to be really high fat and really low carb.” So I looked at one of these canisters, and it’s basically like the first four ingredients were all hydrogenated vegetable oils. It’s like canola oil, soybean oil. And they’re like high oleic acid, and it’s still like sunflower oil. And then there’s like six artificial sweeteners where this isn’t even touching a child’s taste buds, it’s going in a tube, you know? So they’re like, “Let’s pack as much poison into this thing as possible because it’s high-fat, low-carb.” And where Clovis came from really is one conversation where I showed that canister to a world-class neurologist and I said, “Hey man, this is not good. Like, look at these ingredients.” And he looked at the ingredients and word for word just goes, “Huh? I never thought to check that.”

And it was like the most red pill Matrix moment wake up that I had ever had. And I had this…it just popped in my head of like, “Oh, nobody is looking out for us here. That’s not how this works.” You know, we’ve been taught to believe that this is how this works, and we have experts and doctors and all these people, but… And then over the years I went down this rabbit hole of just, you know, they’re being taught by textbooks that were paid for by somebody. And the information was chosen carefully of what it’s gonna go in there. And they think that they’re doing good. They don’t know that they’re doing bad in the world. They’re trying to do good. But just seeing, you know, a little baby that’s just weeks old at this time being poisoned by a system that just doesn’t seem to know any better, or doesn’t seem to care enough.

And from there I went home, I bought food dehydrators and food processors, and I used my oven and I started blending paleo superfoods. And I actually made a homemade formula, and cleared it with the neurologist to give it to Savannah through her feeding tube. That later became the first product I ever created on the internet, which was called the Perfect Paleo Powder at the time. It was back in 2015.

And yeah, Clovis just went from there. It was really because of my niece and the help of Robb Wolf. Again, I talked to Robb about this and he gave me a bunch of biochemistry textbooks. He’s like, “Hey, if you really wanna understand this deeply, stop reading people’s books about nutrition, and start learning how your own body works.” And then, you know, I was doing well in my music career at that time so I had free time during the days, and I just became an absolute biochemistry nerd. And then one day I went live on Facebook and started telling people what I was discovering. And here we are. And Clovis is a thing.

Katie: I love Robb as well. He’s such a great resource. And I have similarities in my own journey of for a long time thinking if something’s available for sale, it must be approved. Surely someone is making sure these things are healthy. And then realizing that is blatantly not true. And I think a lot of us get into the health and wellness world either because of our own health or someone we care deeply about. And it starts that research pathway and looking back, I’m so grateful for my own health struggles that led to this research.

I also agree with you that most doctors truly have a huge heart and they really do care, and they just aren’t taught this information, which is why it’s awesome that we now have people who can be informed patients working with amazing practitioners to get better results like in your niece’s case. I too became a kind of amateur researcher and went down a path of science. I’m curious, what are some of the things that early on shocked you the most when you started actually researching biochemistry and understanding things on that level a lot more?

Justin: Yeah. The biggest thing, I think this is true of a lot of people because I’ve talked to a lot of people about it, and guys like Robb, you know, who’s just instrumental in giving me amazing information. But the health and wellness journey kind of starts and everyone… There was years of this really, kind of Gary Taube’s movement of just like, it’s all sugar all the time. It’s like, insulin is bad and glucose is bad.

And I remember in the beginning just taking on this really…you know, I almost got a little dogmatic about it where I just really thought everything was insulin and glucose. And this was a matter of manipulating the biochemistry using foods, right? But it was really after years and years of going down that rabbit hole and studying, and same with you, I know with the new products you’ve launched and everything, we’re always learning new things that cause us to create new things in the world usually when we have our minds changed about something.

And that was what happened for me as I realized that sugar doesn’t cause diabetes and obesity at all. If you want obesity and diabetes, you have to actually break cellular function in some way. So you need to cause metabolic dysfunction before you can have these really serious chronic conditions like diabetes, and sugar doesn’t do that by itself. So that was when I learned about seed oils like hydrogenated vegetable oils, sunflower oil, canola oil, all that. And one of the biggest discoveries for me, that was an aha moment that changed the future of my work in Clovis was that you could take rodents in studies, feed them a zero sugar diet, pump them full of canola oil, and give them insulin resistance and diabetes in the absence of sugar. And I was like, “Okay.” Like my entire life changed. And what I realized and what I started digging into more in the biochemistry is that the fundamental shift that happened in Western society that broke everything and led to this kind of hockey stick growth in chronic disease, and the obesity epidemic, and all that, is that there’s no differentiation between food and poison.

And I was like, “Okay.” This becomes pretty simple and makes a lot of sense. But it’s that food, actual food, which is nourishing to the body is really good for us. And we should eat a lot of it, and we should eat a lot more of it than we’re told we should eat because we get in this calories thing. But the problem is food is really good for us. And poison is really bad for us and destroys our metabolism. But for the last, you know, over 70 years now, we’ve allowed poison and food to be put into the same category. And again, where this hockey stick growth comes from is that food has nothing to do with it. It’s crazy.

Everyone is like, “What foods do I eat? What’s being villainized? What’s being called the superfood?” Food has nothing to do with it because biochemistry, it’s useful to study because it shows you exactly how everything should work in a body, in a perfect world. But it’s only when you inject non-food substances, these toxic poisonous things that you break the metabolism and the metabolism begins to malfunction. So that was my biggest aha moment, was just like, “Whoa.” Actually our bodies work perfectly. They know how to handle sugar. They know how to handle fat. They know how to handle protein. They don’t know how to handle the toxic sludge that was once industrial waste. They don’t know how to do that, you know?

Katie: Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit more about the science of why vegetable oils are so bad. Because I’ve been saying this for years as well, and I still get pushback from people of like, “Oh, they’re not that bad. And they’re actually healthier.” And the whole myth of them, “Oh, they’re actually heart-healthy, that’s why we have these oils.” And I don’t think people maybe understand the process by which they’re created. And then also what biochemically is happening in your body when you consume them. Because I think you’re so right. It’s not just about calories. I have a friend who says, “Your body isn’t a bank account, it’s a chemistry lab.” And we’re sending all these biochemical signals by what we eat. It’s not just the amount of calories. But kind of walk us through maybe the production of vegetable oils and what makes them so problematic in the body.

Justin: Yeah. The biggest thing I would say is I always tell people to get a visual for this, right? So you can go on YouTube or you can Google this and just literally… There was an old TV show called “How It’s Made.” And “How It’s Made” did one on canola oil. And they walk you through. I mean, it’s literally industrial waste. It is like oil that comes from processing plants, and then it is heated, it is oxygenated, it is bleached, it is deodorized. I mean, it smells so horrible during the production, you can never sell it to anybody. So they have to bleach it and deodorize it. And so there’s the chemical way in which this works. And then there’s what it’s going to do to your body.

So, ultimately, the simplest way to break this down, without me being like a chemistry degree to figure this thing out, is these trans fats, these are man-made fats that don’t exist anywhere in nature. They’re not real. They’re just completely made up. You’re taking something and turning it into something else. But in your body, all of your cells are made up of fats, mostly saturated animal fats, some mono and saturated fats, but it’s mostly saturated animal fats. We are animals. We eat animal fats.

Our bodies break down those fats into fatty acids. They enter the bloodstream, and then we use those fatty acids to build new healthy cells. So if you take something that looks like fat, a trans fat, but doesn’t actually exist anywhere in nature, and the body has never experienced it and doesn’t know what to do with it, it’s gonna say, “This kind of looks like fatty acids.” And the membranes of all your cells are made of these phospholipids, these fats. So it creates cells out of this man-made toxic, essentially plastic. It’s basically making your cells out of plastic.

Now, if you remember, like in…you know, people that were in eighth-grade biology or whatever, you learned what a cell is and the nucleus, and the outer membrane, the job of that is to let nutrients in and out. So it has to be porous. If you use trans fats to create those cells, you’re basically wrapping your cells in cellophane. They’re not letting anything in or out. You have cells that are made of plastic. And then if that cell is hungry and needs fuel, and it tells your brain, “Hey, I’m really hungry over here, send me some fuel.” And then you have insulin and glucose that spike, and the insulin sends the glucose to the cell, but the glucose can’t get into the cell.

So, the cell just keeps telling the body, “I’m still hungry send me more. I’m still hungry send me more.” Insulin spikes, glucose gets pushed to the cell. The cell can’t take in this energy. It’s a malfunctioning cell that literally doesn’t work. This is the reason why you can take something like canola oil and cause insulin resistance, because the cells are just, again, malfunctioning. You’ve caused metabolic dysfunction. And I think of all the things in the universe today that these vegetables oils and seed oils are the number one driver of metabolic dysfunction, especially in the West.

Katie: I agree with you. I know there was that movement away from thinking it was just carb-based, movement away from even like fruit or any natural forms of sugar. And I think what you’re saying is such an important distinction is that those things are not the actual cause. They now show up as symptoms when this thing is already broken. And so it definitely brings the question, how do we unbreak the metabolism when someone has consumed these for a long time, and they may be exhibiting these symptoms? I know the body’s natural state is health, how do we unbreak the metabolism and get back to that healthy functioning state?

Justin: Yeah. Well, the good news is we have cellular turnover. One way I try to explain things to people is we have this concept of aging. Aging being really normal. Like we get old, and we get wrinkles, and we have low libido, and our hair falls out, and all these things happen, but ultimately, what is happening… Or another thing, I’ll have clients that come to me that are like, “When I was 20, I used to drink these protein shakes and lift weights. And I could go out and drink with my friends and party. And I was never hungover and I felt great.” It’s like, “Yeah, you have little baby cells. These cells haven’t turned over that much.” So the best example I give people who used to drink or things like that is the liver you have today, that organ didn’t exist eight weeks ago. Your body creates a whole new liver every eight weeks by turning over cells. All of your organs and tissues are made of cells.

So, the body’s constantly replacing its own tissue. That’s why, if you get a cut, you heal, and then your skin looks the same if it wasn’t too deep of a cut and didn’t need stitches. Like a little scratch can bleed and a few days later, you have normal healthy skin. That’s because these cells are turning over. So what ends up happening is you have an opportunity every seven years, you’re a whole new human. All your cells are brand new. So if we can remove the poison that’s breaking down the cellular function, that’s causing the metabolic dysfunction, if we can remove that poison. So again, food versus poison, let’s remove the poison, then we need to focus on the food or what I call the raw materials to create new healthy cells.

And the longer you keep the poison away and nourish your body… And again, the biggest thing I wanna talk about on this podcast, because I think it’s a big deal, is a lot of food. I mean a lot of food, way more food than you think you need to eat. Tons and tons of nourishing, vitamins, and mineral-rich foods to give your body the raw materials to create new healthy cells that will do the things you want them to do. That’s how you go from a place of old metabolic dysfunction into a place of a functioning metabolism. And, of course, there’s the food aspect. And then if you’re really broken or dealing with severe obesity, or chronic disease, or anything like that, you have to get into some pretty specific things and possibly some supplementation to give your body those raw materials and allow it to get back to being a functional metabolism.

Katie: Yeah, I think I’ve seen your video about this, and I think it shocks a lot of people. I’ve had personal experience with this though in that I now eat probably double the volume of food I used to eat. And I’ve made the mental shift of not thinking about calories, looking somewhat at macronutrients to make sure I’m getting enough protein, for instance. But really focusing on what I call nutrient density per calorie, not just calories, but like how nutrient density can I cram into this volume of food that I’m gonna eat in a given day. And I think if you step back, this is actually a logical concept that you talk about that, you know, if you want your metabolism to be faster, you have to actually give it fuel. It seems very logical. You know, if you want a fire to be bigger, you have to put fuel on it.

But I think years and years of diet culture have kind of undone this idea in society. And especially, I think for women, I hear a lot from women who are afraid of many types of food, or afraid of even consuming enough calories to just support their body at baseline, much less if they’re exercising or putting any kind of muscle demand on it. So walk us through this because I think the idea that we can eat a whole lot more and actually move to a state of health and lose weight is potentially a new concept for a lot of people.

Justin: Yeah, it really is. And it’s pretty simple, right? There’s a couple of analogies I use. It’s like one, if you were walking through…you could hike through a forest for the next 20 years of your life nonstop, all day, every day. You will never stumble upon a bagel tree. It’s just not gonna happen, right? This is not something that was meant to be put in your body. So when you break down calories, again, diet culture has been all calories, but this was really sold to us by the food pyramid, and nutrition experts, and again, doctors and all this, because the food pyramid was like 11 servings of whole grains a day and all that. So we taught people about calories, but we didn’t teach people to differentiate calories.

And it’s really funny because people seem very confused about nutrition, but I can sit down with anyone, any base level, starting point of nutrition. And say, if I feed you 4,000 calories…if I feed one person 4,000 calories a day of grass-fed filet mignon for the next 30 days. And I take another person and I feed them 4,000 calories, strawberry Poptarts, and nothing else for the next 30 days. Who’s gonna do better at the end of 30 days? Every single human, 100% of them will say, “Well, of course, the person eating the steak.” They know this logically, but diet culture has broken our brains. It has become this thing of like, you just need to eat less calories, eat less calories, eat less calories.

But the big question I ask people is like, “Have you tried a diet and exercise to lose weight? And if so, has it worked for you?” Are you able to lose weight and body fat by dieting and exercise? And if the answer is no, you’re suffering from metabolic dysfunction. That’s it. The biochemistry works perfectly if you’re giving the body what it needs.

So, it’s just trying to help people understand that there are certain types of foods that I can feed you even if you are…let’s say you’re a woman burning 1,800 to 2,000 calories a day. I can feed you 3,000 calories a day of very specific types of food. And you’ll never get obese. Obesity won’t happen because metabolic dysfunction won’t happen.

But then there are other foods that you could be burning 1,800 to 2,000 calories a day. I could give you only 2,400 calories of these poisonous foods, and you’re gonna get metabolic dysfunction and you’re going to break some things. So the hardest part about this is the period of what I call reverse dieting. What you talked about is so real. I suffered with this tremendously for almost a year of a strict carnivore experiment that I did. I think what we’ve done here, even in the health and wellness communities of paleo, whole 30, keto, pescatarian, vegan, all that, is we’ve made people orthorexic. Like, you’re right. People are very afraid of food. And if people know what that term is, orthorexia is basically like if I’m a carnivore, I might think that eating a bite of broccoli is killing me. I can’t do it. I’m literally afraid of certain foods.

So that’s the trickiest part, is helping people get through the phase that I call reverse dieting, which is where we’re gonna slowly start to have you eat more and more food. And the fear is that you’re gonna gain a ton of weight really quickly. The other problem is the scale there. It’s like, so I might increase somebody’s food by, you know, 400 calories. Then a few weeks later, increase it by another 200, a few weeks later, another 200. Someone might gain two to three pounds doing that, and they freak out. They’re like, totally…they’re like, “Oh my God, I gained two to three pounds. What is happening?” And they can’t see the bigger picture. Because what we’re really trying to do is turn on… The biggest thing that happens with these vitamins and mineral deficiencies, and not eating enough energy and calories overall, is I couldn’t even tell you because we can’t test for it properly with blood work.

But the number of people that are suffering from hypothyroid right now is massive. So there is a period of time where we do have to turn the organs back on and get them functioning in a way where there convinced, “Hey, there’s plenty of nutrients coming in and it doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.” Because previously you’ve told your body that there’s food scarcity, and it’s been starving for years as you chronically diet. So it’s really the reversal period. Ultimately it’s just a matter of removing the poison and eating more food and sticking with it.

Katie: Yeah. Several important things related to what you just said. I know that there are some studies happening right now in modern research about what we think about our food actually affects the biochemistry of how our food affects our body, which is fascinating to me. Like people who thought a milkshake they drank had more calories than it did, made more ghrelin than people…like the satiety hormone. So there is an element of mindset is very key. If we think food is bad for us, even if the food is actually good for our body, we might have a different biochemical response to that food.

But I love that you brought up the idea of reverse dieting because this was a thing and I’m happy to use myself as the example in this. I realized when I tracked it, I was only eating a lot of days 1,000 to 1,200 calories. And it’s because I had broken my metabolism, I wasn’t hungry. It’s not that I was not eating when I was hungry, it’s that my metabolism was so confused from years of trying to lose weight that I didn’t know how to actually…my body’s hunger signals were all messed up. And that concept of reverse dieting was so new to me. And it was scary at first because that was my thought, it was like, “Isn’t this gonna make things worse?” And people may be wondering how long does that take? What kind of foods…what are those foods? How do you re-nourishe the body in that way to send the right signal? And how long does it take?

Justin: Yeah, absolutely. And you said it best because you talked about the term nutrient density. So a lot of times it’s like…especially with influencers, they like to use big fancy words and terminology. Like, “How much can I mention insulin and glucagon and lipolysis?” Ultimately, we need to focus on nutrient density and what that means is vitamins and minerals. So you have your macros fat, protein, and carbohydrates, but the only reason we even eat those macros is to get the micros, the smaller nutrients, amino acids, fatty acids, glucose, and then all the vitamins and minerals and trace minerals that come along with that. So what we’re trying to do and what I do with Clovis is focusing on nutrient density per bite. And so ultimately the number one thing I’m trying to get across with all of my work could be summed up in one sentence, eating less food is not the way to lose weight and get healthy. Period. That’s it.

So after…I was at the point where I had worked with hundreds of people at this point over the years. And I could sit here and talk about this for three hours of the nutrition studies and blah, blah, blah, blah. But ultimately what it comes down to is these people had been trying to lose weight by cutting calories, eating less food, and exercising more their entire lives, and it just didn’t work. That’s it. So the problem is with the information. And what diet culture does is it teaches you to do low-fat foods, low-calorie foods, and then this really nasty myth that I hate is eat high fiber foods, so you feel more full and you eat less calories. But if we’re focusing on nutrient density, we have to shift that completely. You’re gonna end up eating higher fat foods, higher protein foods.

It’s gonna be an animal…basically an animal product-rich diet. We’re talking about grass-fed beef, wild-caught fish, oysters, clams, salmon, whole eggs, grass-fed butter, all these kinds of things. These foods that are just loaded with these vitamins and minerals. And micronutrients are so important because no matter what you’re eating, like for instance, there’s 22 different micronutrients that you need for your body to be able to even extract energy from the food that you eat. So if you don’t have these micronutrients, you literary can’t digest your food properly anyway. So it doesn’t really matter what you’re eating. And you end up in a situation like you were talking about where people come to me eating 1,100, 1,200 calories a day. I have them go get a resting metabolic rate test, which is the amount of calories they burn laying on a couch doing nothing for 24 hours, and it’ll come back at 1,400.

I’m like, “So you’re eating so few calories that your body’s only choice to survive is to shut down organ function.” And this is where infertility happens. Your hormones go crazy. You end up hypothyroid, and all of that. So it’s really just a matter of the people that I’ve worked with that have lost 60 pounds, 100 pounds, 120 pounds over time from day one of their journey to the day that they reach their ideal body weight, they’re eating easily double the calories. They may have been eating 1,100 like you were, and now they’re eating 2,600 calories and they’re a fat-burning machine because we’ve turned on that fire that you talked about. We’ve lit the embers, big logs are on there. It’s just a blazing inferno where they’re actually using energy the way it’s designed to be used. But ultimately it’s choosing the most nutrient-dense foods, the foods with the most vitamins and minerals.

Katie: And I will say from a personal experience, in that process of retraining your body’s hunger cues and your metabolism, there was a time when I was like, it is actually difficult to eat this much food. Like I’m not actually hungry for this much food. So if someone’s sitting there thinking like, “No, I’m probably eating enough food.” But you’re having some of these metabolic issues, you realistically probably are not actually eating anywhere near enough food. Because when I started doing this, I was shocked, especially at the protein requirements. And I’d love to talk a little bit about protein specifically because in women especially, this is an area, it seems like can be a fall down point. And I assumed I was eating plenty of protein. And then when I actually tracked it, I was like, “Oh, yeah, 50 grams of protein is absolutely not sustainable.” Even if you’re doing no activity whatsoever, that’s not sustainable for my six-year-old, much less for me.

But let’s talk about protein requirements. Because I think there’s a myth and a lot of women are afraid of too much protein because they don’t wanna get bulky or look too muscular, which I laugh at now because I’m actually trying to put on strength, and I’m working really hard to lift weights and not getting bulky. So it’s funny to me that I used to think I could pick up tiny weights, and would accidentally look like a bodybuilder. It’s not gonna happen. But let’s talk about protein.

Justin: Yeah. So the biggest thing is… And we can actually use, you know, what I call mainstream nutrition science, which is just bottom of the barrel trash science. It’s terrible. But we can use their own calorie, you know, hypothesis against them because ultimately what happens with protein…and there are different biochemists that will tell you different calculations for this. But there’s a term called the thermic effect of food. And that is the amount of calories your body has to burn to digest the foods that you’re eating. And protein has the highest thermic effect of food. And it’s also incredibly satiating. Again, you wanna activate that leptin, that hormone that tells you that you’re full, right? So eating protein makes you feel more full and it also is actually metabolically expensive for your body to digest that protein. So if we say, 1 gram of protein has 4 calories per gram, once you factor in a thermic effect of food, it’s either 50% of that or 100% of that.

Literally it might be that one gram of protein equals zero calories in the body because you’re burning four calories to digest that gram of protein. So what ends up happening is overfeeding protein. And I don’t necessarily suggest you do this long term, but if you are obese, let’s say, and all of a sudden you make 50% of your daily calories coming from pure protein from, like, a boneless, skinless chicken breast, you are going to light your metabolism on fire. You’ll become a calorie-burning machine. And you’re gonna burn more calories just at rest from eating more protein, which is why there’s a term called the protein to energy ratio. If you eat more protein and less fat and/or carbohydrates, you’re really gonna light your metabolism on fire.

So, ultimately, it’s really a hack, like a high protein diet is a hack for getting more protein, less energy, because protein isn’t really burned for energy, and it’s not really stored in the body as energy, but it still needs to be digested. So what ends up happening is you have plenty of amino acids to keep your muscle mass, but you’re burning more calories through digestion so your body has to tap into its own body fat stores. So protein is a really quick hack for burning body fat and keeping your muscle.

Katie: Yeah. And I think language is very important and I often hear women say, “I want to lose weight.” And I try to think like, you don’t actually want to lose weight because you could do that by cutting off your arm. That wouldn’t be a great idea. And also the brain is resistant to losing anything. So if we start trying to lose something, our psychology is going to. I think men typically have better language around this. Like guys talk about getting lean or cutting. But what you actually wanna do is get rid of excess body fat. And you don’t wanna lose muscle, certainly, because muscles is what makes sure your body look the way you want it to, and also is correlated with longevity. But just as a general guideline, obviously, there’s so much individuality that comes into play here. But for instance, for me as a 150-pound female who lifts weights 3 times a week, what would be some good target guidelines to understand what does enough protein actually look like?

Justin: Yeah. What I tell people to do is there’s an old bodybuilding, you know, rule for this that is one gram per pound of body weight. I actually like to do it. You don’t need quite that much. Again, if you’re really trying to shed body fat, you can ramp up the protein just so you’re actually increasing your overall caloric intake, but you are burning more body fat. You can use that as a hack short term. But for me, I like to have people choose their ideal body weight. So, let’s say you are a 150-pound woman and you’re trying to be a 135-pound woman, and you’re lifting weights and stuff, I would say 135 grams protein. So one gram per pound of ideal body weight is kind of a sweet spot that I found for body composition changes. And, you know, the thing is a lot of times on podcasts and all these things, I end up sharing a lot of information and talking about biochemistry, but ultimately this is an emotional journey. That’s really what’s happening here.

And I always tell people, I’m like, “Listen, you need another nutrition book like you need a hole on the head. You don’t need more information here.” Like, there are some hard and fast rules we can give. I like that protein rule. And I like the rule of removing vegetable oils. And I like the rule of focusing on micronutrient density. But we didn’t talk about fat versus protein, carbs, macronutrients, about your caloric intake and all that. The biggest thing I’ve found now is through being a one-on-one coach, and I don’t even know how many people I’ve coached since 2015, it is a staggering amount. And the number one thing I will tell you, because, again, we have so many people that are like…they literally wanna be a smaller human in the world. They’re like, “I just wanna lose weight.” And they don’t really know what that means.

“I wanna weigh less. I want smaller clothes.” They don’t really know what they’re getting at there so people end up skinny with extra body fat because they’re damaging their body and their metabolism. But the one thing I’ve learned, this has nothing to do with biochemistry, nothing else. The one thing I have learned for everyone listening is it is impossible to get healthy from a place of hating your own body. It’s impossible. You can’t get healthy from a place of self-hate. So when I walk people through reverse dieting and eating more calories and eating more food, I’m trying to help people see their entire experience, their health, and wellness journey through a new lens. Because we know, most people know in the West that getting healthy is pain, sacrifice, hours in the gym, feeling starving, being hangry, and moody all the time. This is like constant self-punishment.

And when it doesn’t work, we hate ourselves more. We look in the mirror, you’re still fat. “I don’t like how I look. I hate this body.” Shame, guilt, shame, guilt. Diet culture tells you it’s your willpower, it’s your discipline, you’re weak, whatever. So I try to flip the script and help people see that when all of your attempts to get healthy come from a place of self-love and nourishment rather than from a place of self-hate, pain, and sacrifice, everything changes. It’s no longer, “Oh, this sucks. I need to give up my Diet Dr. Pepper. This is terrible.” It becomes, “I love myself so much that I’m not gonna put poison in my body. And I’m only gonna choose things that I know are gonna nourish me.” And that’s the core message I’m trying to share here is that removing poison from your life and getting healthy is the ultimate act of self-love. It has to come from a place of self-love. If you hate yourself, it’s never gonna happen.

Katie: Yeah. I’ve said something similar before that you can’t punish yourself healthy, and you can’t shame yourself thin. And going back to that idea that what we believe about something, including ourselves, including our food, influences the actual biochemistry of that happening. I think this is an often overlooked, but really important, I would say potentially the most important part of this journey. And when you make that mental shift into self-love, like you’re saying, you actually want to choose those healthier foods. It doesn’t become a battle at that point.

And also from that milkshake study, pulling the idea that if we come from a place of thinking not like healthy food is deprivation and doesn’t taste good, but if you make that shift into being grateful for these amazing foods that get to nourish your body, and feel like it’s decadent, your body actually responds differently. But I also know from past experience that making that mental shift can be a difficult thing. Especially if you have years and years of diet culture or shame around food, or whatever it may be. Are there any resources or things that you say to people that seem to help them be able to start that mindset shift?

Justin: Yeah. A lot of times I talk about…there’s a term I use called, “Get quiet, go inward.” And there are little tools that I’ll use there in terms of meditation of really sitting with yourself and trying to work out the emotions that you have connected to food. Just sitting and like, what do you feel around food? When you want something like a Pepsi or something that’s kind of a vice for you, what are you feeling in that moment? But I would say hands down, the most important thing that I do with my one-on-one clients, is I do a lot of private coaching. And with private coaching, I have these tools like one is called 40 Slides. And I have someone just sit in meditation and I think of…they say the words, “I love myself.” And they have to come up with 40 different images in their mind, eyes closed, bringing to mind a time where they were really, really proud of themselves.

So it could be their wedding day. It could be graduating high school. It could be giving birth to a child. It could be getting a promotion at work. It could be a game-winning slam dunk when they were back in college. And they just sit and say, “I love myself,” 40 times. And every single time they say, I love myself. They are thinking of a different scenario in which they felt very proud of themselves and felt a lot of love for themselves. And if you can do this every day… In the beginning, my clients always tell me, “There’s no chance I’m coming up with 40. That’s not gonna happen. I graduated high school and I got married. I got two things. About what you’re talking…”

But as they start to realize that when you say like, “Oh, I graduated high school or I got married,” well, now let’s go back to your first date with your spouse. And now let’s go back to the flight you canceled to Detroit, and instead, you went to Rhode Island, and then you met that guy there. All these little moments. And before you know it, after a couple of weeks of this practice, I mean, I sit and do 40 Slides every morning. I love myself with 40 different images that I bring to mind. And one of them might be this podcast. I can come up with 40 things I’m proud of from the last 7 days of my life. And your entire mentality shifts.

So if you can really focus on how amazing you are and all the incredible things you’ve done, and if you’re listening to this podcast, you are doing something that is an act of self-love, you’re trying to get healthy. You’re trying to become a better version of yourself. If you can focus on that, not that the six-pack influencer told you that you don’t work out enough, and you don’t drink enough of his milk whey protein or whatever the hell, right? Ignore that guy and focus on yourself. It’s not always about new books or new technologies or whatever, it’s ultimately spending time with yourself. 40 Slides is a very powerful one. And then self-love mirror work. Get in the mirror, look yourselves in the eyes and say, “I love you,” 10 times and mean it. It’s that simple, you know?

Katie: That’s a beautiful exercise. I’m gonna make sure I write that in the show notes so everybody can remember it. And I haven’t had it put that clearly before. I love that.

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A couple of follow-up questions related a little bit more to the biochemical side. One response I hear from people sometimes when you suggest eating more food or eating more protein is, “Well, won’t that stimulate mTOR? And isn’t that dangerous?” So I’m curious to hear your take on that, because I feel like this is another myth, but I wanna make sure we call it out.

Justin: Yeah, sure. I mean, mTOR is…you know, we could get into mammalian target of rapamycin, and talk about the biochemistry again, right? But ultimately, these were correlative studies in cancer saying like, “Oh, well, you know, high levels of mTOR were found to stimulate cell growth. And we know that cancer and tumors is out of control cell growth, etc., etc.” But that actually doesn’t have much to do with the protein itself. And basically, insulin is what’s turning on and off mTOR, right? So sugar can cause it, protein can cause it. But honestly, it’s like if you have really high insulin levels all the time, you’re probably dealing more with carbohydrate problems than you are dealing with a protein problem, processed sugars. And again too, like I’m a big fan of whole fruit. I love fruit, but there’s a lot of fructose. Like if you’re drinking apple juice every day and drinking Coca-Cola and getting high fructose points, you are constantly spiking those insulin levels.

We also know that cancer cells have an energy-burning problem. They become anaerobic cells. They can no longer burn fat. They just need sugar. They’re living on sugar. So things like fasting, dry fasting, lowering your insulin, those kinds of things can actually kill off those malfunctioning cells through a process called autophagy. But again, what we’re dealing with here is the cell metabolism is being broken down, and metabolic dysfunction is happening from poison. And then we’re looking at the cell when it’s already malfunctioning and saying, “There’s mTOR, there’s insulin. This cell is fueled by glucose. Wait a second. Food is the problem.” No. Food didn’t cause it. And then people talk about this with cholesterol too, right? Like, cholesterol gets blamed for cardiovascular events because cholesterol is found at the scene of the crime.

That’s like saying a house burned down and there were firefighters there. So firefighters caused houses to burn down. Like, no, of course, like it’s important to think about things like insulin, and maybe think about mTOR to some degree, but mTOR is not causing cancer or causing tumor growth. There is zero evidence for that anywhere. There’s actually no causal studies anywhere in the world linking protein and red meat to cancer. It doesn’t exist anywhere. So it’s not something I think people should worry about. And again, this is why I use terms like, “You need another book about nutrition like you need a hole in the head.” Because every book is gonna tell you some new biochemistry term, like a mammalian target of rapamycin.

Excuse me, person who has a 9:00 to 5:00 job and 6 kids, and you’re busy all the time, let me inject an idea about mTOR and protein in your head that scares the crap out of you. And now you think you’re gonna get cancer when you eat a chicken breast because you don’t have the time in your life to go dig into the studies and see what they’re actually talking about. It’s the problematic headlines that we get instead of actually talking about studies. There’s no evidence to show that red meat, protein of any kind is leading to cancer and tumor growth, which is where the mTOR argument is coming from.

Katie: That’s an awesome way to break it down. Thank you for explaining that. I’m also really glad you mentioned fasting and dry fasting because I think this is another area where there are a lot of misconceptions and a lot of misinformation that probably can be distilled here as well. And it does seem a little bit contrary to the idea of reverse dieting and eating enough. And I personally know fasting can be an incredibly effective tool. But let’s talk about in a broad sense fasting as a tool for helping repair these problems in the body. And also how to balance that with making sure your body’s getting enough nutrients.

Justin: For sure. Okay. This is so… I love fasting because it’s so tricky because we have to differentiate between caloric restriction and caloric abstinence, no calories. No calories and a little bit calories is very different, right? So let’s say you were eating 1,100 calories a day for a long time. And let’s say your resting metabolic rate for you to function properly, and your heart to beat, and your brain to work, and your lungs to breathe, right? Let’s say you needed 1,400 calories for that, but you chronically gave yourself 1,100 calories. So that’s caloric deprivation and the body’s saying, “Well, we have a little bit of food, so let’s shut down organ functions.” The first ones to go are reproductive organs always, where amenorrhea and things like that come in from people not eating enough.

So it’s just basically saying, “Let’s shut down these organ functions, and we have enough food, but there seems to be scarcity in the environment. Let’s store some body fat just in case. We don’t know when this food’s gonna go away, so let’s store some body fat.” Fasting is a completely different thing. And recently, I have come across a way to explain fasting to people and especially dry fasting. That makes a lot of sense. And I wish someone would’ve told me this 10 years ago, when I started researching fasting.

What we’re doing is everyone knows we have to sleep once a day. We turn the lights off. We’re basically paralyzed. And all these things happen. Our lymphatic system, our glymphatic system cleans the brain, we release toxins. We rebuild and repair muscles from our workouts. We get rid of all this toxic sewage, we’re flushing out the body. And what we’re doing with especially dry fasting, we are extending the cellular mechanisms that happen when we’re asleep into our waking state.

We’re basically walking around repairing cellular function like we’re sleeping. So that’s a really amazing thing. We’re not getting any calories in so the digestive system slows itself down, and it goes through the body with a little scanner system. And it says, “Where are the senescence cells? These nasty malfunctioning cells that can become…” These are precancerous cells, there’s also dead water inside your fat cells. All this nasty stuff. Our toxins that are stored in our fat cells. So if you do something like fasting or dry fasting, you ramp up cellular turnover. Again, we talked about every eight weeks, you have a new liver, right? So that’s all you’re doing. You’re giving the body the ability to not focus on digestion and to scan the body and start cleaning things out. Like it’s housekeeping, right? We’re going through and getting rid of these old dead cells and things like that.

Now dry fasting is an interesting one. And I’m like, careful, if you don’t have any experience fasting with water, or multi-day fast with water, you probably don’t wanna toy with dry fasting right away beyond like 24 hours. This is shocking to people. And I know that because everyone freaked out on Instagram. But just last week I went five days with no food, no water. I’ll do this again in the fall probably for seven days, no food, no water. And ultimately what’s happening there is our fat cells are 20% water. So the body is searching for what’s called endogenous water. We need water to survive. And we’re all taught as kids that three days without water, you die, right? I’ve proven this wrong. There are doctors in the world doing 21-day dry fast. I certainly am not saying I recommend that for anybody, but you can research it and look up these things for yourself.

Dry fasting is really powerful because it’s specifically targeting those fat cells. So it’s burning those fat cells to get to the water, which is then also releasing the stored…your toxins are stored in fat cells. So the toxins are being released into the lymphatic system, which is why even with no food, no water up until day five of the fast, I was still going to the bathroom, number one and number two, right? So I’m just releasing these things. It’s amazing. People kind of have a hard time wrapping their heads around it. And then what you’re doing is you’re activating new stem cells. So you’re killing off these old dead cells. So now the thing about fasting and dry fasting to use these synergistically is you have to understand if you’re gonna go through the process of killing off these old malfunctioning cells, when you get back to re-feeding, which happens slowly after a dry fast, you need what I called in the beginning of this episode, the raw materials. You need to give your body the raw materials to build new, healthy functioning cells.

So you can’t just fast and then go back to your standard American diet eating Chick-fil-A and everything you eat is slathered in canola oil and these vegetable oils, and you’re drinking Coca-Colas. Like, you could lose some weight. Dr. Jason Fung does this a lot with obese patients who just refuse to change their lifestyle. He’ll have them fast, you know, 24 hours once a week from months and months and months and they will lose weight over time. But they’re not actually improving their cellular function, which is quite scary. So you wanna use them synergistically. If you’re gonna kill off the bad cells, you need to give your body the nourishing foods and vitamins and minerals to allow it to create new healthy cells and make a new version of you.

Katie: And it seems like because of all those things you just explained the time after fasting is an amazing optimal time to refeed with nutrient-dense food. Because you’ve just killed off a lot of these bad cells, your body’s in a place of now rebuilding. And so, it’s a beautiful opportunity to increase that cellular health right after fasting. And I personally have done up to a 10-day water fast, but I’ve only so far gone 24 hours in a dry fast, and it’s something I’ve been researching and considering as well. But I echo your recommendation. Don’t start there. If you have never fasted, don’t play with dry fast until you work on some of these cellular processes, and maybe do shorter water fast and build up. But I think that’s a really important explanation because at least for women, there’s a lot of information about fasting being harmful to hormones. And like everything, it’s how it’s done, how you refeed and being aware of your body and everything you just explained.

I also wanna talk a little bit about supplements and especially things like protein powder, because I think when people start trying to increase their protein or make sure they’re getting enough of these foods, protein powder is often a solution they turn to. And I know there’s a lot of different options out there and a lot that goes into this, but are you a fan at all of protein powders? And if so, kind of what are the stipulations there? And what would be some of the other supplements that often help people to repair those cellular problems?

Justin: Sure. Yeah. I definitely wanna talk about protein powder. So, I’m gonna bookmark that. But one thing I wanna say that’s really important is in my private practice with clients, I don’t even have women do intermittent fasting beyond 13 hours a day. I never see it go well. They fall off the rails, everything goes poorly for women. So, there’s a great book. I don’t know if you’re familiar with this, but there’s a great book called “Invisible Women.” And “Invisible Women” is about the fact that virtually 100% of all the science we have on pharmaceuticals, on nutrition, on everything, on exercise, is done on men. We don’t have menstrual cycles. Our hormones do not shift as drastically from week to week.

You can’t take nutrition science and broadly apply it to women. So I see women trying to do intermittent fasting, like a 16-8, they’re fasting, 16 hours a day, and their hormones go crazy out of whack. But why is that? Because they’re still stuck in diet culture. So if you are going to intermittent fast as a woman, you better be eating 2,000-plus calories a day of super nutrient-dense whole foods and getting all your protein and plenty of saturated fat to rebuild cells.

The problem is you have…everyone is so obsessed with losing weight that they’re like, “I’m gonna fast 16 hours a day, and I’m gonna eat 1,100 calories a day when I do eat.” Now, all of a sudden you are chronically starved and you’re breaking your metabolism. And then God forbid those 1,100 calories you eat are oatmeal and vegetable oils, you’re screwed. You’re really gonna do a lot of damage. You’re gonna become hypothyroid. You’re probably gonna become infertile. You might get amenorrhea. So that’s really the problem. It’s not necessarily the fasting that’s the problem, it’s stacking the fasting on top of this also low calorie, low nutrient-dense diet. So I just wanted to touch on that, but…

And in terms of protein powders, I’m a fan of them because I invented one, right? It’s the one that initially started as a baby formula for my niece was called the Perfect Paleo Powder, which is now called Clovis Daily Superfood. It’s gone through multiple iterations. I think of protein powders as supplemental, which is why my protein powder is a collagen protein. But I threw the kitchen sink at this thing. It’s like if you took Athletic Greens and collagen protein, and they had a baby, that’s my superfood. It’s 11 grams of collagen, there’s organic cacao, MCT oil, kale powder, glutathione, glutamine, 6 billion CFU probiotics, 400% of your daily vitamin B12, all of your vitamin C, it’s all in one powder.

So, this is the way that I think of sneaking in micronutrients. Everything I just listed is in my daily superfood powder in just 70 calories. So, I’m trying to stack the maximum amount of micronutrients per calorie for people. And they do this first thing in the morning. A lot of people mix it with their coffee. That’s what I do. And it makes them feel full and nourished. What I don’t like, unless you are a bodybuilder or something and you need 300 grams of protein a day, is when we talk about your protein bowl…so let’s say someone’s 150 and they wanna weigh 135. So, I say, eat 135 grams of protein a day. Well, you can’t just find like a whey protein powder and get up 100 grams of protein that way, because you don’t have to digest that. This is predigested amino acids into these protein isolates.

So when you look at a whey protein isolate or a collagen peptide isolate or something like that, you’re breaking down those amino acids, they enter your bloodstream almost immediately. They require very, very little digestion. So now what you’ve done is you are just loading the body with extra protein, which your body’s just gonna pee out anyway, and you’re not getting the thermic effect of food. So, it’s gonna cause a lot more metabolic changes in the body for you to digest 30 grams of protein from a chicken breast than it is for you to get 30 grams of protein from a whey protein shake that you just slammed down. And then you have the whey protein problems. A lot of people are lactose intolerant. Most of us can’t digest lactose properly. They come from sick animals and it’s just really not great.

There’s a couple of brands I like, like Naked does a pretty good job with their whey protein. They have a goat whey for people that are, you know, sensitive to A1 dairy from cows, and things like that. But ultimately, protein powder should always, always be supplemental. And in my practice, I like to see people get about 10 grams of collagen per 100 grams of protein in their diet. So if you are gonna eat 135 grams of protein, you probably want, you know, somewhere between 10 grams to 20 grams of collagen. And it’s easiest to just supplement that if you’re not gonna eat bone broth, or eat organ meats, or the ligaments of whole animals, things like that. It’s easier to supplement something like collagen. And the same goes for all of the supplements that I take. Any supplement I take is going to be a raw material for building new, healthy cells. That’s it. So I focus on folic acid, mineral complex, 85-plus trace minerals. That’s what folic acid is. It comes from the soil.

And also that’d be a whole another rabbit hole to talk about how our soil is dead and not nutrient-dense, so our foods don’t have as much micronutrients. And then I make a hydration drink mix, which is an electrolyte powder that I sell through Clovis. I sell vitamin D3. I sell probiotics. I sell digestive enzymes. So, all the things that I think people are missing for all this cellular activity, digesting foods, and rebuilding new healthy cells, all of your supplements should serve a purpose. A lot of times I’ll look at a brand-new client, I’ll take them on and we go through their supplement cabinet, and I’m like, “Why do you take this?” And they’re like, “Well, someone told me it was good for me.” “Okay.” You know, so you need to have…there’s gotta be a goal associated with everything you’re taking.

Katie: Yeah. And hopefully, we can do a round two one day because there’s so many more directions we could go and get a lot more granular on some of those topics, especially. And we didn’t even get to really touch on intuitive eating and some other areas that I was gonna ask you about. But I think this was a great primer. And you mentioned electrolytes, this is another area Robb Wolf talks about a lot as well, is that most of us are actually not getting enough of those basic electrolytes that we need, nor are we actually hydrated enough. And that’s another fall down point for a lot of people. And hydration is huge. If you aren’t getting enough water in your normal life, you’re going to end up with some issues as well. But in the essence of respecting your time and our listeners’ time today, I’ll just stick with a few kind of quick wrap-up questions. The first being, if there’s a book or number of books that have had a profound influence on your life? And if so, what they are and why?

Justin: Oh, yeah. Okay. What direction do I wanna go? I feel like I have been somehow…not really pigeon-holed, I did this to myself, but I have become a nutrition guy, right? So I will say that to touch on your comment about protein, I think one of the most meaningful books that is not actually a dogmatic, “Follow this diet, here’s a step-by-step.” There’s a book that’s about science, it’s called “Eat Like the Animals.” And it’s basically explaining that all animals in the animal kingdom, from fruit flies up to apex predators like a tiger or a lion, they are all eating to satiate their protein needs. Protein is the number one driver of food cravings. And that’s because animal protein has the highest amount of micronutrients. So, if they’re eating a lot of protein and a lot of micronutrients, this settles down their cravings.

So all food cravings come from micronutrient deficiencies. If you feel like you can’t stop eating salty chips or something like that, it’s because you’re suffering from micronutrient deficiencies. And if you just ate more protein, those cravings would go away. So, “Eat Like the Animals” is basically the least dogmatic. There’s no really opinion in there. It’s just a detailed overview of the science of why we need more protein in our diets. And when we don’t get a specific amount of protein, everything goes off the rails. Catastrophic metabolic dysfunction begins if we’re undereating protein. So that’s a big one. And then, you know, sometimes I’m like, “Do I go here?” Because I’m a very woo-woo person. I have been all around the world, and I have been in all the jungles, and I have worked with all the shamans, and I have done all the things, right?

But ultimately, the most life-changing book that I have ever experienced, hands down, bar none above everything else is a book called “Reality Transurfing.” And fair warning, that’s gonna be way out there for a lot of people, but it’s just ultimately the concept that…it’s like you talked about the milkshake study, which is fascinating, right? Ultimately, manifestation on a quantum mechanics and quantum physics level is happening all the time. You are creating the reality in which you live. Even the things in your life that you don’t like, that you’re unhappy with, relationships, body, anything, is usually a form of living out of integrity. And you saying yes to a lot of things you didn’t necessarily wanna say yes to. And now you found yourself in a sticky life situation. So, it’s ultimately coming up with the realization that we are manifesting at all times, 24/7, which is why things like 40 Slides, the meditation I told you about, and self-love mirror work is so important.

Because the more we believe that we love ourselves, the more self-love we’re gonna get. And it is my opinion that everything in your life, your level of income, your personal relationships, your relationship with your children, familial relationships, everything in your life, your personal development, your spirituality, it is all capped at your own acceptance of self-love, respect, value. If you do not love yourself, you’re not gonna get love from anybody else. All these people in the world that we live in are just mirrors. They’re giving us a reflection of how we see ourself. If you’re really mean to yourself in the mirror every morning, a lot of people in your life are gonna be really mean to you. And the sooner you can realize that, that you are creating the way that others treat you, your entire life changes, which is why that “Reality Transurfing” is the most impactful book I’ve ever come across.

Katie: I love that. Those are both new recommendations. I’ll make sure they’re linked in the show notes. That’s wellnessmama.fm, for any of you guys listening while you’re on the go. If someone was gonna make one change only, because we’ve talked about so many different things today, where would you suggest is the starting point?

Justin Yeah. Number one, hands down, above all else, remove seed oils and vegetable oils. So this is like…we have to be very careful here because some of them like high oleic sunflower oil is now being pegged as a health food, which is mental. It’s not true. It’s the same process to make this. So it’s basically canola oil, which is also called rapeseed oil, soybean oil. Those are the two most prevalent ones. Safflower oil, sunflower oil, I believe I said that already. Peanut oil. And anything that’s hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated, remove all these vegetable oils from your diet.

And for most people, if you were to go through the house after this podcast and go through your cabinet, go through your salad dressings in the fridge, everything, you are going to have trash bags full of food to throw away. I always joke about this because whole foods is basically a big’, giant vat of hydrogenated vegetable and seed oils. All these organic, healthy snacks, no sugar, no gluten, they still have sunflower oil, soybean oil. It’s crazy. If you remove that from your life, it will be one of the biggest single things you ever do for your health and wellness because you are stopping the input that is causing metabolic dysfunction on the cellular level. That’s the number one thing, hands down.

Katie: I fully echo that recommendation. And lastly, any parting advice, there’s a couple of football stadiums full of people listening to this today, any parting advice? That could be related to what we’ve talked about or entirely unrelated.

Justin: Yeah. The biggest thing I would say is because I feel like a lot of people listening to a podcast like this one, or my podcast, or health and wellness, again, I just really wanna echo, I know I’ve already said it, but I really wanna echo that if you wanna change your body because you hate it, you are really in for an uphill climb. If you can find a way to respect your body and love it exactly as it is. If you are 300 pounds overweight, look yourself in the mirror every day, find something that you love about yourself. Thank your body for where it’s gotten you. Maybe you’ve had six children. Maybe you have been in the military or were injured or something happened to you. Your body has done incredible things. It’s gotten you here, from the day you were born till now.

Everything that you have is because of this vessel that you travel in. If you can find a way to love and appreciate your body right now, it’s gonna thank you. It’s gonna start to see the changes that you wanna see. It’s gonna help you out instead of… It’s basically a rebellious teenager. If you tell it you hate it every day, that kid’s not gonna like you very much, right? So just really, really whatever you can do to find a way to truly love yourself and your body right now is gonna be critical for your personal development.

Katie: That’s beautiful. And I hope we do get to do another round one day, and go deeper on some of these topics. But very grateful for you being here today, and sharing so clearly and wonderful explanations. Thank you.

Justin: Yeah. Thank you so much. I’m honored to be here. And I think we’ve talked about this in person, but I mean, I really started my journey of this in 2012, maybe 2014. And I have been reading your blogs and your articles, and checking out your stuff for a very long time. And you led me to additional other people, influencers that have been really meaningful for me. So you’ve been doing great work in the world for years, and I super appreciate it. And I think you are an amazing human being. I just wanna say thank you for bringing me here.

Katie: Oh, thank you. And thanks, as always, to all of you for listening and sharing your most valuable resources, your time, your energy, and your attention with us today. We’re both so grateful that you did. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the “Wellness Mama Podcast.”

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.