PODCAST. ADHD Food & Diet, and a 6,000-Mile Bike Ride with Julie Saad.
We are sponsored by Focused.Space. Co-work virtually. Get more done, faster. Use coupon code DAVE to get your first month free — and then 25% off every month after. Start your day with positivity and a plan.
*DISCLAIMER:
This episode shares one person’s personal experiences and opinions on ADHD, health, and nutrition. It is not medical advice. Please consult a qualified professional before making changes to your treatment or diet.
In this episode, Dave interviews Julie Saad, an ADHD and nutrition coach and certified functional therapeutic diets specialist at JulieSaad.com.
Episode Highlights:
Julie Saad’s ADHD Journey:
Julie discusses her personal experience with ADHD and nutrition, which led her to become a specialist in this field.
She emphasizes the importance of treating the whole person, integrating both mental health and diet.
Discovering ADHD:
Julie shares her struggle with undiagnosed ADHD and various misdiagnoses, including depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder.
She recounts how a friend's suggestion and a chance encounter with an ADHD book led to her diagnosis at age 35.
Overcoming Procrastination:
Julie details her lifelong battle with procrastination, a common ADHD symptom, and how it affected her education and career.
She explains how understanding her ADHD helped her address these issues more effectively.
The Importance of Proper Diagnosis:
The discussion highlights the challenges many face in getting an ADHD diagnosis and the impact of misdiagnosis.
Julie encourages listeners to persist if they suspect they have ADHD and to seek strategies that work, even without a formal diagnosis.
Effective Strategies for ADHD:
Julie emphasizes the need for personalized strategies and shares her experience with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
She found that giving herself rewards before or during tasks rather than after helped combat procrastination.
Self-Acceptance and Positive Self-Talk:
Julie discusses the importance of recognizing and replacing negative self-talk with positive affirmations.
She shares her experience of keeping a list of things of negative self-talk and how impactful this exercise was.
Transformative Travel:
Julie recounts her transformative tandem bike trip from Alabama to Medellin, Colombia, with her ex-husband and how this led her to reside in Colombia.
Client Work and Nutritional Therapy:
Most of Julie's clients are women looking for non-medication solutions to ADHD symptoms.
She combines traditional ADHD coaching with nutritional therapy, often recommending* ketogenic, carnivore, or Paleo diets.
Note from Dave:
I shared this episode because Julie’s story — from late diagnosis to finding new ways to manage ADHD — is deeply relatable. While some of her views on diet may be controversial, I believe her experience adds to the broader conversation. This isn’t medical advice (none of Wise Squirrels is) — always talk to your doctor. But I hope you find the conversation thoughtful and encouraging.
-
0:00
I got into it from my own experience with nutrition and ADHD. And I realized that there was kind of a gap.
0:09
Because you know, you can, you can work with a dietician, but they don't always know about mental health, and you can work with a mental health practitioner, but they don't always take the diet part into account. And the to really go hand in hand, you know, you really can't treat people like portions of people, you know, we're whole people. So that's kind of my philosophy and how I got into it, through my own experience. And so
0:35
I've been working, you know, with, with people with ADHD, who are mainly interested in fixing their overall health as a way of as a way of helping their ADHD symptoms, you know, go away a little bit. Mm hmm. And you were diagnosed at 35 by your friends. Is that right? Yeah, tell, tell me that story. Okay, so it's a, it's a long and wild story, basically, how this all started. So I struggled with a lot of ADHD symptoms my whole life, mainly procrastination. Procrastination was my biggest struggle, this idea of you want to do the thing, you need to do the thing, you have to do the thing, but you just can't sit down and do the thing. That was my life story. This caused problems in school, obviously, because I would do everything at the last minute. This cause problems with, you know, applying for jobs, I wouldn't fill out the applications on time and things like that, you know, everything was always down to the wire at the last minute, I was exhausted. That was just my constant life. You know, it was just one, one chaos and a situation to another kid, I lived in a constant state of chaos. And my inability to really do anything that I wanted to do without making it into this big drama really took a toll on my self esteem.
1:59
Specifically, I wanted to go to a good college and I had had good grades, I could have gotten into a great school. But I didn't do the application.
2:08
And so you need to do the application to go to school. So I went to a school that turned out to be okay, but it wasn't, you know, my dream college. So things like that, you know, I just kind of walked around with this kind of feeling of wow, I'm smart. But I can't get anything done. So it really just made me feel horrible. And I didn't know what was going on. I had been diagnosed with everything else. I've been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, bipolar with rapid cycling, I don't feel that I have any of those. I was even diagnosed with anorexia because I didn't like the food at school.
2:43
Like the food. So I was missed. I was handed all these, what I would say are incorrect diagnoses. And then when I was in my mid 30s, one of my best friends was studying psychology. And she kept saying like, you know, I think you have ADHD, and she has it. And I said, I don't have it. And a couple other people mentioned it to him, I don't have it. I don't have a problem concentrating, I can concentrate on anything, just maybe not the thing I want to concentrate on.
3:11
So I thought now, you guys are you guys are wrong. I don't have that.
3:16
But then in the most ADHD, turn of events, I was walking down the street one day, and I found a book on the sidewalk in a box that somebody was just giving away books for free. I love free books. And I just grabbed a bunch of them. And one of them happened to be a book about ADHD. I don't remember which one it was, but I think it was driven to distraction. So I got that. And I started reading it. And I said, Oh, okay, that's me.
3:45
And so that's how I realized, Okay, that's pretty clear. What's going on is ADHD. So let's, let's do the next step and go to therapy. So then it gets even more ADHD. I, I signed up to go to a therapist, I wound up meeting with a with a therapist who specialized in CBT therapy. And I don't know how, but somehow I managed to not tell her that I suspected that I had ADHD when I got there. So so I just showed up and we went through six months of CBT therapy. And then right when we were about to finish, I said, Oh, by the way, I think I have ADHD and she goes no, I don't think you do you make really good eye contact. And yeah, and I said, Yeah, but I really do think that I do and I'm forcing myself to make eye contact with you. Like I really want to look at all the books behind you, but that would be rude. Um, so, um, so she said, Well, you can fill out this questionnaire, and then we'll talk about it. So I filled it out and I got an almost perfect score.
4:49
You know, I think I only said no to one of the questions. So I took it into her and she said, Okay, you can talk to the psychiatrists that we have here. So talk to her and that's when I was handed out
5:00
A formal diagnosis. So that's how I got my my lovely little diagnosis. Well, that's a really good lesson there too, for folks. Because if you feel that you might have ADHD, or haven't received a proper diagnosis not to just give up, you know, because I hear also hear horror stories of some doctors who don't recognize it still. And so that comes up from time to time as well. So, yeah, it's important to, to, you know, fight for it, if you feel like you might have ADHD. Yeah, that's an excellent point, actually. So I've heard you know, first of all, a lot of people just don't get diagnosed, like it's not recognized, recommended to them, or it's not suggested never comes up, so they never realize it. So that's one group of people. There's another group of people who go to their doctors or their therapists, or what have you. And they say, I think I have this and they're told no, you got good grades or no, you know, you you're holding down a job or No, whatever. And they're just kind of gaslit, let's say until it like, No, you're, you don't have it, which can cause a lot of, let's say, like, a lot of damage for people because they they feel like, well, what's going on with me, then? What is it if it's not that? So that's another thing that can happen? And then people can also be told no, you don't have it.
6:25
But they have symptoms that are similar. And so in that case, I would say, Well, if you don't have the formal diagnosis, okay, you probably won't be able to be prescribed medication, if that's the route that you want to go down. But you can still look into the strategies that somebody with an ADHD diagnosis has, you know, the strategies will probably work for you. Even if you don't have the, you know, the stamp on your proverbial forehead that says ADHD, like you can still use those strategies. It's not like an exclusive brain club that
6:55
requires like a membership fee.
6:57
Are there what were some of those strategies that that you've found work well, so for example,
7:05
oh, let's Wait one sec.
7:10
Sorry, I live in Latin America.
7:13
Yeah. I don't know if the Echo is really bad in this room. I am in the room with with the router because I thought, yeah, yeah. That's okay. That's okay. Okay.
7:24
So, yeah, I was asking you about some of those strategies that you found work for you? Well.
7:30
So here's a strategy that didn't work for me when I was in therapy. Before getting my diagnosis. The therapist said, Well, why don't you give yourself a reward after you finish your, your work, because at the time I was struggling with horrible procrastination, like, what would happen was, would, would be that I would go to my office, I had a photography studio. So I would go to my office slash photography studio and sit in the chair outside of the studio, and play on my phone for hours before actually going in, and I couldn't even get into the frickin studio. I don't know. Now, I mean, now I know what was going on. But at the time, I didn't know. And so she said, Well, why don't you give yourself a reward afterwards. And so I tried that strategy, and it didn't work at all. And it just made me feel worse, because a professional brain person had told me to dry this strategy. And
8:22
wow, I really must be a mess if I can't even do that. But what I found out now is that I work pretty well when I give myself the reward before or during the thing.
8:33
And you know, you would think, well, that's not gonna work, you know, you have to kind of dangle this reward in front of yourself. Actually, no, it requires a little bit of self love and a little bit of trust, because it's like, yeah, in theory, you could take the reward and run and not do your thing. So it does require you to trust yourself that you know what, I am going to do this. And so it doesn't have to be, you know, a huge reward to it could be, you know, if you really like coffee, you could make your favorite cup of coffee, when you sit down to do your work, instead of saying that you'll do it afterwards. Or you can, you know, you can go outside and, and get some sunshine as a reward before you sit down and start.
9:11
And so, I found that, that helps me a lot like giving myself the reward first, it kind of, you know, boosts your dopamine if you want to look at it that way. And I think it's also
9:22
from an emotional standpoint, really good for us. Because, you know, growing up with ADHD, how much time do we spend beating ourselves up or being you know, beaten up? by others? You know, you're late, you were disorganized. You didn't do the thing. What's wrong? Why did you say that? You know, we have this kind of inner monologue. Sometimes that can be really negative. And so, you know, kind of doing these acts of like, I can do it like and thinking about the positives instead of just always berating ourselves of saying, like, I have to do you know, that kind of angry, stressful energy sometimes can work in something
10:00
Um, can motivate us, but that's not sustainable. You know, if you're doing that every single day, every hour to get yourself going, you're gonna crash and burn eventually. So
10:09
I prefer rewarding myself beforehand. No, and I love that. Are there strategies or things that you've seen work well, to help those with ADHD learn to accept themselves? You know, because you were diagnosed at 35, I was diagnosed at 50. So, how are what are some strategies or some ideas about how to better accept ourselves?
10:37
Yeah, that's a great question. So there are lots of different ways. You know, one, the first one that comes to mind, you know, could be working with a coach or therapist, to look at those negative thoughts. You know, in my case, when I, when I went to this CBT therapist, that therapy really didn't help my ADHD, maybe because I forgot to tell her that I have ADHD or thought I did. But it helped me so much with my negative thoughts. I remember that one of the kind of homework assignments that she gave me when we first started, which she said, I want you to write a list of all the bad things you say to yourself this week, I said, Okay. Oh, my God, David, like you wouldn't believe I remember, it was something like three or four pages full of just over and over again, like, you're lazy, you're this, you're that all and I realized, oh, my gosh, no wonder I feel like crap. I'm telling myself this constantly. Like, you're lazy, you're never gonna get this thing done, or you're, you're gonna, you're just so disorganized, over and over and over again.
11:38
So just the first step really is realizing like, Okay, if that if that's a problem that you have, that you're constantly beating yourself up, then, you know, that's something you need to first draw your awareness to, and then you can realize, okay, maybe this is not the best way to talk to myself, is one thing. Um, another thing is to think about, would you talk like this to another person? Like, would you say to your coworker, like, you're lazy, you're always late it, I can't believe it, what's wrong with you? I don't think you would, right.
12:09
So what gives you the license to talk to yourself like that, you know, you just be of all the people in the world, you should be the nicest to it should be yourself.
12:19
So that's another thing is just realizing, you know, the way you talk to yourself is important, it does affect you, and then thinking, what thoughts can you replace. So this can be a little bit of a leap sometimes, right? Because, you know, we see sometimes these affirmations and things like, where you're supposed to say I am a Founding of wealth and abundance, for example, if you're if you're having money problems, and that can be a bit of a shock to some people, if, let's say, for example, you are struggling with money and use Dart trying to tell yourself, I am a millionaire, that might feel disingenuous, let's say that might feel fake. So maybe that'll work. But if that feels like too much, then you can try kind of creating these little affirmations or these, let's say thought replacements that don't feel so extreme. So instead of saying, like, I'm a multimillionaire, you might say, I take steps every day to improve my financial situation. For example, if that's true, then you can repeat that, you know, without feeling like a fraud.
13:24
So those could be a couple of strategies for ways to accept yourself more. Also, another thing that I love doing is I have what I call this kind of self esteem booster. And it's a list of things that I love about myself. And this I got on the recommendation of of a coach that I was working with. And so it's a list of all the things that are cool about me, like, I'm an amazing cook. I'm funny, I'm a good dancer, more or less,
13:51
just all these little things, and also, that I help people take the pressure off themselves, is what I came up with. And so when I saw that, I said, Well, okay, I help people take the pressure off themselves, like the, you know, the toxic pressure. So I can do that too. I can also take that pressure off myself. So I look at those little cards, I put stickers all over them and everything cuz why not? Yeah, and I do stuff like that, just to help change the way that I think about myself because, you know, pretty cool at the end of the day.
14:25
So you know, just the way that we think about ourselves really, really is so important. It really affects everything that we do. And so just kind of drawing your attention and awareness to it and and making it a conscious practice to begin changing the way that you think about yourself. It really is a powerful exercise. And for listeners not familiar with Julie, she is super cool.
14:47
The can you just share just giving you a little more cool cred here. Tell me about a bicycle ride six years ago that started in Alabama and ended up where I
15:00
and ended up in Medellin Colombia in South America. Yeah.
15:06
Which is so cool.
15:09
So yeah, tell us tell us a little bit about that.
15:12
So how can I tell you about it? Well, it was very slow.
15:18
It took us a year and four months to go from Alabama to, to Columbia. We made it all the way to Papa John, which is in the south of Colombia. And it wasn't really my dream, it was actually
15:35
the person that did the bike ride with it was his dream. And it was an amazing experience. Because before I left on the trip, I was one of those people that was afraid to ask for help for anything, you know, you could say it's a self esteem thing of shyness thing, I don't know. But I just had this thing in my head of like, No, I have to be self sufficient. It's rude to ask for help. People don't want to help you leave people alone, I had that kind of attitude.
16:04
When you're on a bike trip, you're gonna get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, you're going to run out of water, you're not going to make it to you anywhere with a hotel sometimes. And you're going to need to ask people for help, whether you like it or not. So yeah. So during the course of the bike trip, I had to get over that, like I had to ask for, for water for help for instructions, you know, in a language that I was just barely learning.
16:31
And luckily, everybody that I met in Latin America was just the nicest, most helpful person. And everyone was so sweet to us. People let us sleep in their houses, people gave us food, little kids gave us mangoes, it was just an incredible experience. And so I came out of it very, very changed. I kind of got out, I got over myself, let's say, I've got over this idea of like, I have to do everything myself. And then you know, that we're also separate, I realized, no, we're actually all quite connected. And it's really about the same amount of energy to help somebody as it is to tell them no, so you might as well as help people out in your day to day life. Yeah, and how old? were you when you did that? That bike ride? Was that before or after the diagnosis? That was right after the diagnosis. So that was, yeah, that was kind of related because I was prescribed medication. And I asked the the prescriber if I could take the medication while I was on the bike ride, and you know, to cover her, but she said probably not a good idea. You know, because you're in the heat and you're subject to dehydration and things like that. So I didn't really take it I kept the bottle with me. Well, I still have that bottle, six years s and six year old Adderall in in my bathroom cabinet.
17:53
So I didn't really have a good chance to really try medication. I was on it for a brief period of time.
18:02
And then I just took it very occasionally. I think the two times that I had to do my tax returns on the bike trip, I took it
18:10
and so this was a remind me was it was a tandem bike. Was it not? Yeah. Yeah. Which which is wild. So pedal a pedal bike or like an electric bike. That was a pedal bike. It was 100% man power. Yeah. So like, I think on the pre call when we when we spoke, I mentioned like my brother, we my dad moved into a house. My brother and I found a tandem bike in the garage. And you know, we wrote it around here and there but
18:43
yeah, wow. Like that's, that's quite how many miles do you know how many miles did you clock it? I want to say it was was it 6000 miles and 10,000 kilometers is what I want to say. Okay. And and and how long did that bike ride take you with the brakes that we took it took a year and four months.
19:04
And so and and the person that you you did it with was this like, like a partner or somebody or it was actually my ex husband. So
19:16
it was funny because when we started training on the tandem, we bumped into some other cyclists and they said, Oh, you know that in the biking community, they call it tandems, the divorce machine.
19:28
I was gonna allude to that. I was curious, actually.
19:33
I mean, gosh, by my wife and I, back in the day we we backpacked Italy for three months hitchhiking, and we had a tent so we would camp in the tent along the way. And we'd stay at like we do that. We would camp like five nights a week and then two nights a week we'd stay like a Penn Sione or a hostel or something.
19:56
But you know, most nights we would just, you know, cook our
20:00
own food at the campsite kind of deal. And wine was really cheap, thankfully. So that helped.
20:07
But yeah, so I remember actually we were in like the Amalfi Coast, which is, you know, just breathtakingly beautiful. And I was talking to my dad on a payphone doing the usual check in to let him know, I was still alive. At ease, like my dad says, and Heather, my wife was sitting on a park bench, like, not not too far from me. And he says, Dave, you have worked with her in Ireland in a restaurant, you live together, you are now camping together, like, for God's sake, marry her. And
20:45
I put my hand over the receiver and yell to Heather, hey, my dad thinks we should get married, like laughing. What did she say? Then afterwards? We're like, it was like, the most romantic location for our proposal. And the worst proposal ever? Because when I guess not ever, because she said, Yes, but we were like, wait a minute, I'm Canadian. You're American. You know, if we're gonna live together, you know, that would help if we got married. We thought about it that way. And, and we love each other. So there's that
21:24
side note? Yeah. Yeah, this is pretty good idea. And, and, you know, we've been married for like, I don't know, 2022 years now. But it's interesting, because my dad had failed three marriages. And he was giving me advice. And I was like, Oh, I don't know about this. But yeah, so. So it's, it's, it's interesting. Yeah. In the, the best of times, and the worst of times, I mean, when you put yourself in that kind of position, you know? Yeah. But so the divorce machine as your, as your heard, it's definitely a crucible. And the funny thing was, we stayed at a hostel in, in Antigua and Guatemala, and there was a couple there. And they were like, well, how cool is your bike? I'm really cool. You know, you can try it, take it for, you know, a little spin around the block. They did, they came back and they were fighting.
22:17
Like, they were screaming at each other. The girl wound up like saying, like, you go to the room, I'll stay down here. I don't want to talk to you. I was like, Wow, just one one block. You guys are already fighting like cats and dogs. So that is the magic of a tandem bicycle. I do not recommend it at all. Well, it is it is interesting. Yeah. Because I mean, you know, people are familiar with a tandem bike. I mean, it really does take to, to ride it. And, and, and keeping up pace with each other. And, you know, and also, like, I used to ride a bike in downtown Toronto, like everywhere, I would ride my bike everywhere. And, you know, you ride for a long time. I mean, you do get sore and tired and, and all these things. So, yeah, I could imagine, attend to being Yeah, a challenging vehicle. Yeah, it's your, it's your and so, um, so I got remarried in 2020. And so my current husband is also a cyclist. It's just like my destiny, I can't, I can't be with a person who's not a cyclist apparently, in so we have just, we don't have a tandem.
23:24
But we go on, like little trips around around town. And that tends to be okay, because it's only an hour or two. So we managed to, to not to not have so many arguments because we're not attached to each other like on that one, like on the tandem. Right. Right. So tell me about the types of clients you help and what that looks like. Yeah, um, so most of the clients that I work with at the moment are women and for various reasons, some of them don't wish to be on medication or can't be on medication, because of other conditions. And so what we tend to do is I do traditional ADHD coaching, you know, which, you know, there are various, let's say, theories and various schools of thought on it. But, um, the, the method that I use is very closely related to cognitive behavioral therapy. And it uses also something that's called the Insight model, which goes all the way back to Socrates. And so it's examining our thoughts and making sure that, you know, we don't have thoughts that are getting in the way. And we usually do. So it's doing that. So that's the truth, like the traditional ADHD coaching part of it, and, you know, finding the strategies that will work for my clients in terms of beating procrastination, for example, or dealing with emotional dysregulation and things like that. And so we do that through through coaching and working on goals. And then in addition to that, I'm also a nutritional therapist, and so I
25:00
can help my clients
25:02
look into nutrition as a way to kind of like they reset the brain.
25:08
And so there is a lot of research coming out, but it's still quite new in terms of mental health, and nutrition. And the diet, that's the gold standard right now is the ketogenic diet. And so this is something that I tell everybody I work with upfront that this is, you know, what I recommend? So many of my clients choose to try out this diet with me, not all, some of them do a little bit stricter version, which would be like a carnivore diet. And then some of them do a little bit more of a relaxed diet, which would be a Paleo Diet, which is just kind of cleaning up the crap in a nutshell. So we, a lot of times we'll use nutrition as the basis as like a springboard to get the brain kind of working closer to the way that it should.
26:01
Do you find like, yeah, I, I'm not well versed in this stuff I do.
26:09
I've, I've experimented with lots of different diets over the years, my wife and I would do different, you know, we did like, like whole 30, for example, kind of cutting out.
26:19
That's tough, like whole 30, you cut out sugar, and a lot of different foods, and then you go out you you stick with like the healthy stuff. And then you gradually reintroduce things in order to kind of get an idea of what is affecting you poorly.
26:37
And on that diet, the only thing I could have was or not the only thing of course, but like if I went to Starbucks, for example, I could have a black coffee. And I used to drink with cream and sugar and all that. And so I got a taste actually for coffee, like what coffee actually really tastes like, although I'm sure yours is better than mine, me being in the States and you being in Colombia.
27:02
So I'm sure your coffee is much better. But so now I drink coffee, black. But the other thing was, I remember like, the other thing at Starbucks would be the egg whites. You could get like these egg whites. But I would go to like, like a Whole Foods and buy the big chicken when I was traveling. Because I do a lot of public speaking and I do a lot of traveling. So I would get like the whole chicken, the one that had no sugar, because the others did. And take it back to my hotel room. And like if you saw me it would be to you would be like, Oh my God, what the like. It was like a crime scene just me devouring a chicken.
27:43
So tell me about like some of the stuff you've you've learned and some of the diet recommendations through like a Keto kind of diet. Yeah, for sure. Well, let me ask you, first of all, how did you feel on whole? 30? Did you notice any changes? I did feel I felt I certainly felt better. For sure. I felt I had more energy.
28:08
You know, yeah, I felt I felt quite good. It's it's interesting, like one of the, my wife and I would die it none of like, we're both not, we've never been really never obese. But you know, we always had a little bit of weight to lose. And so we try these different diets. The one one time that I had great success and losing some weight was actually going vegan for 30 days. And at the time, we also didn't drink for 30 days. And we started running together for 30 days during that same period. But instead of instead of using the measurement of our weight, we use the measurement of our cholesterol and our LDL and all that and we were we saw great results. I lost like 17 pounds during that.
28:58
Okay, great. So I have a lot to say on the subject. Okay.
29:02
So the interesting thing about let's see, let me see, I made some notes here. Okay, so. So, for something like hold 30, I have heard, I have heard anecdotal reports that people who have you know, for example, put things like depression into remission. And whole 30 is pretty similar to the Paleo diet and things like a, for example, children can often have a very profound
29:28
mental health response just by going on paleo. So paleo is basically cutting out anything that we didn't eat pre agricultural times, meaning no beans, no grains, and then none of the you know, sugars, breads, none of that stuff. That's a very, very, very basic explanation of it, but it's basically pre
29:49
pre agrarian, I think is the word pre agrarian or pre agriculture. That would be something like paleo, which is sounds pretty similar to whole 30 From what I understand. When I hear that you will have
30:00
and things like egg white egg whites and baked chicken, it makes me worry that you might not have been getting enough fat.
30:07
Because that's what it sounds like. It sounds like it was a lot of lean protein. So that would be something I would say if if you're having, you know, egg whites and big chicken. I don't know what else you're having. But it sounds like it might have been a very low fat diet, which is, which is tricky, because we need fat. It's not optional,
30:26
you know, so so that's why we think about that, in terms of going vegan. So I was a hard hardcore vegan for a long time. I started when I was in middle school, and I ended when I was in my mid 20s. And then it was a flexitarian after that, that when I first started veganism, I felt great. I remember feeling really great the first week. And the reasons because I cut out the sugars and all that stuff too. I got really sick I had a vitamin B 12 and a vitamin D deficiency. So I don't recommend veganism at all, to anybody. And but, but a lot of people will say I felt great. And yeah, you will feel great in the beginning, definitely give it several years. And you can have deficiencies. Everyone knows that you have to have be 12 When you're vegan when you're vegan. And there are other things like DHA, which are super important. And there are no plant sources of DHA. The only closest one would be algae, which is technically not a plant. So who's going around eating all this algae, Nobody that I know really. So veganism, I really really do not recommend it. It's possible to do a ketogenic diet that's vegetarian, but vegan, it's possible, but I just don't recommend it, there are a lot of nutrients that we really do need from, from animal products. My experience is just to not to cut you off there. But my experiences with people in my life who have actually been vegan.
31:58
Most of them were more chose that because of
32:03
the sort of ethics of of diet rather than the health aspects. So they would you know,
32:11
I mean, cows are really cute.
32:16
Any thoughts on that? Well, it's a whole it's a whole other animal and and pardon the pun. But um, yeah, you know, and that was my reason to, you know, I was a big animal lover. Unfortunately, what I read about it was information that was incorrect. When I was making the decision, the information that I came across was saying it's held, this is the healthy way this is better for you. And it's better for the environment. And a lot of that information is actually not really correct. No, we, we really, you know, depending on your talk to you, but there's a lot of evidence that we really have a long history, as you know, omnivores, if not carnivores. In fact, we even have the stomach acid level of a scavenger. So there's evidence to suggest that we kind of went through our evolutionary process of scavenging, eating brains eating bones, the insides of bones, you know, there's evidence of tools for that. So
33:13
it's, it's hard to make the case that veganism is a natural thing.
33:19
The ethical thing, it's, it's a, it's a big topic. But yeah, I will say that there there is sustainable farming, there's something called regenerative farming. And when you really look at it,
33:31
these farms, which are mainly cattle, they can actually be beneficial to the planet. So a lot of people say that, Oh, this is ruining the planet. Actually, these farms can be quite beneficial. And a lot of the kind of vegetables and grains and everything that everyone thinks are so healthy are using a lot of chemicals in the process. And animals do die in this process, even though they don't end up on somebody's plate as a result. There are animals that are killed in vegetable farming and green farming and habitats are also destroyed for animals, in addition to creating a monoculture. So this idea that, you know, saving the planet by being vegetarian or vegan is the way to go is not necessarily true. And if we want to get a little conspiracy theory here, there are a lot of people touting this
34:21
as the only way to save the planet. And if you look at their, their financial ties, they have vested interests in fake meats and things like that. So that's my little thing there. Yeah. And then in terms of LDL is another thing, but did you want to say, Oh, no. I was gonna say in terms of LDL cholesterol. So the number one prescribed drug in the world is statins. Right? So, so many people are on statins.
34:49
If you really look at the research, the idea that
34:54
saturated fat is bad for you is the hypothesis that was never proven
35:00
You can look into this guy called Ancel. Keys, he kind of started the whole hysteria around this back in back in the times of Eisenhower. And there's a lot of research coming out showing that a high LDL is actually linked to lower all cause mortality. And if you think about it, the brain needs cholesterol, everything, pretty much every process in our body needs cholesterol, and 80% of the cholesterol in our bodies is something that our body makes itself. So our body makes most of our cholesterol. So cholesterol is so bad for us. Why are we making it? Yeah. So this idea that your LDL needs to be low is actually a myth. Hey, I wanted to jump in for a second. I hope you're enjoying this interview. I really liked Julie a lot. And I think she has very valuable, helpful advice in this episode. I'm not suggesting Julie is incorrect here. But what I would suggest is that you talk to your doctor to get his or her answer to the question of whether a high LDL level is good or bad, or none of the above. In the research that I've done. I've looked at John Hopkins website and and others, my understanding is that a high LDL is a bad thing. It's an unhealthy thing. And it needs to be addressed. And to Julie's question about, you know, why does our bodies produce it. And my understanding is that and again, I'm not a doctor either. But cholesterol is not inherently a bad thing necessarily. Because it's needed for specific things that our bodies do, like cell membrane structure, hormone production, vitamin D synthesis, and bile production. So again, you don't want to have high LDL, but, and your body does produce cholesterol, but not a high level of it. And so that's my understanding and looking into this. But I wanted to make sure to add that caveat here. So there are a few like, if you give that a little Google search, you'll find a million people that disagree with me.
37:13
But there the there are people coming out finally, with the research here, and it's going to be it's kind of a revolution, let's say that this stuff eventually will come to light and people will realize that a lot of the information we've been told was wrong. It's interesting, too, because we you know, I mean, a lot of this is around science and science changes over time when you know, a new hypothesis are proven or disproven. And, and so things evolve over time.
37:46
I recently watched a documentary or a brand new documentary on Netflix called poison the dirty truth about food. Have you seen this? No. What is it? Oh my gosh, man. It was I mean, it was heartbreaking because it was about melee salmonella poisoning. And stories, you know, that started in the 80s with a outbreak around hamburgers and how it killed a bunch of children in the US. But then it went on to talk about like some like chicken and different you know, manufacturers and mass produced production of chicken and, and how that's caused it. And then they talked about, there was a big spinach outbreak with salmonella a couple of years ago. And what had happened in the in the movie, they showed that
38:40
let's say it's, there's a farm that is or there's a farm that's growing spinach, let's say, but they also have cattle on one side of it or chickens or what have you. The water that's being circulated through the farm to water the produce like spinach, or broccoli or whatever, is recirculating feces from the animals that is leaking into the water, causing the fruits or vegetables to be contaminated.
39:08
And so by the end of it, I was like okay, mental note, stop eating.
39:15
Because I was left like, okay, don't eat chicken, don't eat. I mean, they did say like don't eat, like cantaloupes don't eat pre cut fruit at the grocery store.
39:28
Don't eat romaine lettuce, don't eat prepared salads and bags.
39:33
And I was just like,
39:36
this is really interesting. And I wasn't doubting what was depicted in the film. But I was like, Okay, what do I do with this information? Like, I only have so much time in a day I can't start a farm. Right, exactly. And I think that that's something that I hear from a lot of people is just that there's so much conflicting information about nutrition
40:00
And if you think about it, you know, if you grew up in the 80s, or 90s, we had the low fat craze, where we were all told not to eat fat, and we all got pretty fat. So that was that turned out to not be the best advice. So there's just conflicting information everywhere. And it can be very stressful, for sure. And I definitely felt that way. It felt like every week, there's a new thing I wasn't supposed to eat. What I will say is that if you look at something like an ancestrally, appropriate diet, you know, what did our ancestors eat? You know, I would say that that is really the place to start. If you're confused, you know. So if you think about something, and ask yourself, did this exist 10,000 20,000 years ago in a human diet? If the answer is no, then you might want to consider if that's necessary. And here's the fun fact. Did you know that broccoli is a man made food? No, I did not.
40:55
Bro, broccoli has only existed for 6000 years, it was created from selective breeding of a mustard plant. So I personally can't tolerate broccoli, it gives me a lot of digestive digestive issues. And it makes sense because it wasn't always around. So you know, evolution takes a minute. So for whatever reason, my ancestors didn't adapt to broccoli, and so I can't really handle it. So. So it's interesting, some of the things that we are told are super healthy, or not necessarily healthy. such as spinach. You know, everyone loves these like green smoothies. I think that's the healthiest thing. An excess of spinach can cause renal failure, if you're not careful. So things like that. Yeah. So so it's like, what, what can I eat? I would say that for most people, an animal product based diet, a meat based diet, is going to be the best bet, adding adding an extra things if you want to have some vegetables. Some people do great with them. And some people don't do well with vegetables at all, and they need to be on a carnivore diet. And I say that and some people say that's absolutely so extreme.
42:04
That's fine. You can think like that. But if you look at examples of people that are doing well on carnivore, you will see that there are tons of people that that do really well on it.
42:13
So I personally landed in between keto and carnivore, I landed in the Keto horse space. So I eat mostly animal products. But occasionally some salads and occasionally some nuts. And I still drink coffee, which is the strict carnivores will say you can't have coffee. But that's kind of where I land. It's most I'm like carnivore ish. And that's what's been the best result. For me. That's interesting. What about like, fruits and veggies? And you said, a little bit of veggies. But what about fruit, I don't really eat too much fruit at all, because I try to keep my car broke my carbohydrates under a certain number all the time. So I will sometimes have berries, like blueberries or blackberries. But I don't really have too many fruits to speak of, and vegetables only occasionally I treat them as a garnish.
43:02
And so when I say that to people, they say, Well, what about vitamin C. And here's something interesting about vitamin C, the receptors for vitamin C in the body,
43:12
also are there, they're very, very similar to the glucose receptors. So when you're having a lot of carbohydrates, you actually need more vitamin C, than when you're having a very low carbohydrate diet, you don't need as much vitamin C. And that's why in tribes like the Inuit who are more or less full on carnivores, they don't have anything like scurvy, because they're not ingesting carbohydrates to compete with the uptake of vitamin C. So that's the the main one people say is vitamin C, oh my God.
43:44
That's the only one that if you know, you kind of put it into your like nutrition app, it'll show usually, if you're doing a pretty strict carnivore diet, it'll, it'll show that you're not getting enough vitamin C.
43:54
But other than that, all the other nutrients are pretty easy to get. For the most part, I would say maybe iodine might be one, that's the one that I take. The only supplement I take is Iodine. What about like grains? You know, that kind of stuff. I don't recommend anyone eat grain
44:11
at all, at all. And, you know, that's one of the first things you see on this kind of standard, you know, standard of care or the standard recommended diet, eat whole grains eat is that, you know,
44:24
grains have only been in our diet for a few 1000 years, you know, so before farming, it wasn't a thing. It's not really a natural food for us.
44:37
Carbohydrates are unnecessary. There's no such thing as an essential carbohydrate, so we don't need them at all. In order to survive and a lot of people have a lot of trouble digesting things such as gluten. A lot of people have trouble with fiber. We're always told you need fiber fiber fiber fiber. But why isn't that when you
45:00
You are suffering with something like ulcerative colitis. When you're trying to heal from things like a surgery, they'll tell you not to eat any fiber. Well, then where's the logic there? So what we're actually seeing is that anybody with things like IBS, tends to respond much better to a low to no fiber diet. Hmm, interesting. Yeah. Did you ever read
45:25
Blue Zones? I haven't read it. But I've heard. You know, I've heard a lot about it. Yeah. I found it quite an interesting, interesting book, because the study was of, you know, the, of longevity in life, like where, geographically speaking in the world, where people are living the longest, and healthy, like coherent, and, you know, having a good long life, and, you know, studying the diets of those people. And yeah, it was a pretty fascinating read. And I also recently listened to a podcast. I enjoy Sam Harris is making sense podcast, and he was listening, he was interviewing Peter Atea, about health and longevity. And I mean, the podcasts have like three hour episodes. And by the end of it, honestly, my head was kind of spinning on what the hell am I supposed to do? Now? I was, you know, it's two doctors talking. So there was a lot of, you know,
46:24
a lot of specifics and about different quantities of, of things and all that.
46:31
So, now, this is really this has been, this has been really interesting. Is there anything I didn't ask you about or something you wanted to share? Because I'm being mindful of the time here? Oh, um, just something that I would mention, you know, is? Well,
46:47
something I would mention is that you know why this works, you know, why these therapeutic diets can help things like ADHD, depression, anxiety, and so on. Of course, this isn't medical advice, and you need to check with your doctor. But there, there are four main mechanisms right now that we know of, as that would explain why these diets can help.
47:08
One is glucose metabolism. So in the brain, the brain can either have glucose hypo metabolism, or glucose hyper metabolism, which is rare, but does exist. So basically, the brain is not getting enough glucose into it, it's not using it properly. And this has linked to so many mental health conditions. And so by, by adjusting the diet, so that we're not bombarding the brain with this constant, you know, influx of carbohydrates, this can help the brain stabilize and help the, you know, help solve the issue of the glucose metabolism. So that's one another is inflammation, the brain can actually become inflamed, you know, you don't always hear about it, we hear we tend to hear about it more in the rest of the body, but the brain can be inflamed as well. So brain inflammation can be linked to things like Alzheimer's, but also just general, other mental health issues. So a diet that is anti inflammatory, like a ketogenic diet,
48:05
or even a whole foods diet, in many cases can help with inflammation of the brain. Yeah, and so another one is the gut bacteria. And they've done studies on in children that went on to be diagnosed with ADHD, and they looked at their gut microbiomes, as early as you know, six months, and they found that even then they had different gut microbiome so.
48:30
So ADHD does seem to have some link to the gut microbiome, believe it or not, so and no therapeutic diet can help you have, you know, kind of like a better, let's say, a better gut situation, a better gut microbiome. And then also just avoiding these kind of constant up and down swings, like we would get with,
48:54
you know, with a sugar burner kind of diet can help us have more stable moods. And so there's a couple of different mechanisms by which these kinds of diets can work.
49:03
There's just a lot of resistance to it right now. In, in the general literature, and it's interesting to think about, why is it because it's hard to get people to change their diet, is it because
49:15
because it's easier to, to, to just try medication, you know, if you take stimulant medication for ADHD, you will get a result in an hour and a half. Whereas you know, your diet, it's gonna take at least a couple of weeks for you to start to see results. And you have to be pretty strict about it in the beginning.
49:33
And then also, I think this just kind of general mistrust of recommendations from us being overloaded with nutrition information. And, lastly, that our doctors, in general, aren't given nutrition training, or are given a small amount of nutrition training. That's not necessarily correct. So there's this whole landscape now.
49:55
Of, of obstacles, let's say, in terms of getting people to adopt
50:00
This kind of more, let's say therapeutic or more nutrient dense diet. So it's, I'm, I consider myself, you know, one of the fighters out there, I'm going to fight to try to change this, this is, you know, my passion, I'm going to, you know, die talking about this, they're gonna have to pry the bacon out of my cold dead hands, you know.
50:18
But, but um, this is something that I definitely recommend that if it's something that's, you know, that you're interested in, you know, you or whoever's listening, that you know, give it a give it a little bit of a Google and look into ketogenic diets as a way to help with with mental health to improve mental health, you know, is it going to take you to where you're 100%? You know, never having any problem again, maybe not, but I feel like everyone gets at least some benefit from it. So it's definitely worth a shot. And as far as like picking healthier meat products, are you talking about seafood too, by the way? Seafood? So,
50:59
you know, because of factory farming, and you know, all the crap they use to grow animals. Any recommendations there? Especially? I don't know, I mean, I can only assume things are better in Colombia, but I have no idea. But I know, in the US.
51:19
It's, you know, there are a lot of
51:22
a lot of things at work. Any, any tips there for picking healthier products? Yeah, don't worry about it.
51:31
Don't worry about it for real. And this is. This is information I heard from a lecture from Dr. Shaun Baker. He's one of the biggest voices in the carnivore space, and he looked at the actual data, and there, there's no difference. He looked at kind of, you know, organic versus non organic meats on, and he didn't see any differences in the people, you know, in the actual effects on people. So, you know, this is something I hear commonly people say, Oh, well, I want to start to diet, but I can't cook this. And then that, well, I would say that in general, even what we would call quote, unquote, unhealthy meat is healthier than healthy, like carbs stuff. But what I mean by that is one of the most bioavailable sources, in fact, the most viable bioavailable source of protein is baloney. Believe it or not,
52:20
and nutrients, it's just our bodies use use these, these products very easily. And something like bologna is going to have all kinds of different parts of a of the animal in it. And so as long as it doesn't have any, you know, you have to check the label and make sure there's nothing that's really wacky in there. And if you don't know what it is, you know, look it up online. But for the most part, that your body is going to respond so much better to pretty much any animal product than it is to something like a big hunk of honkin piece of bread or something like that. So I eat processed meat all the time I eat bacon every day. I eat salami, and things like that, and I feel better than I ever have in my life. So, you know, you always hear that, like the health gurus saying you have to get grass fed panda massage, whatever. No, you don't, you really don't you can, you can do this, this way of eating on a budget. And you don't have to stress about it, because the data is showing that it really doesn't make a big difference. Now, if you have an unlimited budget, and you want to get this organic,
53:30
organic meats, and you don't want to have processed meat, fine, that's fine. If you have time to do it. Great. If you don't, don't see that as an obstacle.
53:39
Do you think?
53:41
Yeah, there's a lot to think about there. I mean, I would think like bologna, for example, you know, certainly hasn't been around
53:50
that long in the grand scheme of things, but I see what you're saying. And yeah, I suppose it's. Yeah, it's certainly it's certainly interesting.
54:03
Yeah, so certainly something worth worth investigating for, for folks. And
54:09
yeah, Bologna itself has is not like an ancestral food, right? The components of it, yeah, are there. And so we have to think about the difference when we think about a processed meat versus a processed carbohydrate product, what's going on. And with the processed meat product, it's really more of a mechanical thing. And it's, you know, the body's still able to understand exactly what that is. Whereas if you have a highly processed carbohydrate product, like, you know, highly refined flowers or something like that, that processing the body, it's already something that the body doesn't really need. And now it's just even more kind of bad, let's say, you know, so comparing processed carbs to processed meat, I don't think is a really fair comparison. Are there are there concerns with sodium in meat, like I know bacon is really high in sodium.
54:58
So that's a whole other
55:00
thing is that sodium, we need a lot of sodium, especially if you're on a low carbohydrate diet. And if you look at if you really look at studies about sodium, it does not affect blood pressure in the long term, it will affect your blood pressure short term, like on that day, you know, but long term it really really does not affect it and it can actually cause a lot of problems having low sodium so this is another one of those recommendations that turned out to be completely completely wrong. Hmm, interesting. All right. Well, this has been awesome where can people get a hold of you learn more about the work that you're doing Julie? So I'm on YouTube at Julie sad wellness sad is with two A's. And you can also find me online My website is Julie sad again, sad with two A's dot com and I'm on there
