The Kick Sugar Coach Podcast
The Kick Sugar Coach Podcast
Michael Kummer: Discover the Best Diet for Your Body
Are you tired of navigating the confusing world of diet advice? If you've ever wondered which diet is truly best for you, this episode is going to be a game-changer.
In our latest podcast, I sit down with Michael Kummer—a wellness expert who transformed his health by cutting out sugar, ditching processed foods, and exploring diets like paleo, keto, and carnivore. After facing migraines, prediabetes, and IBS, Michael's quest for optimal health led him to some powerful discoveries that might just be the solution you're looking for.
Episode Highlights:
- Michael’s life-changing moment after discovering the hidden dangers of added sugars.
- How switching from a standard American diet to paleo, then keto, and finally carnivore, helped him heal his body.
- The connection between gut health and processed foods—and how the right diet can turn it around.
- His insights on how to identify the best diet for your unique body and avoid one-size-fits-all advice.
- Why whole foods and nutrient density should be at the core of every meal.
Ready to take control of your health and discover what really works for you?
Listen to the full interview with Michael Kummer and start your journey toward better health today!
This episode is packed with practical tips and inspiring lessons that could help you transform your own life—just like it did for Michael and his family.
Enjoyed this episode? We'd love to hear your thoughts—share your feedback with us here!
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Hello everybody and welcome to an interview today with Michael Kummer. So I'm going to try and capture a few highlights about Michael. He was born in Austria and has made his way over to America, and he's currently living on a homestead outside of Atlanta with his wife and two children. And in 2012, michael decided to start a blog and it was really about photography and technology.
Florence Christophers:But over in that window, just shortly after, him and his wife started to say you know, we should probably take better care of our health, and they started slowly on this journey of figuring out how do we optimize our health, how can we feel as fit and as healthy and happy as we can be? And so slowly, as he was unpacking you know, we all know what it's like to go to the internet there are people who will say you know, do this. And then someone says the exact opposite, and it can be very confusing. So he was working his way through all the information, all of the contradictory information, and started to share what he was learning, and started to share what was working for him, what was creating transformation, and so that kind of started to build steam and momentum. And then, almost at the tail end of many years well, probably about eight years or so, eight or nine years he decided to start a supplement company that's actually very geared to its freeze-dried organ meats right from pasture-raised animals.
Florence Christophers:Yeah, so a very niche product for those that are doing the more lower carb keto carnivore path and um. So amazing that those products are on the market. And now just recently he added to his his um, upgrading his lifestyle. He, him and his wife have launched on on a homestead so they live with animals and chicken and geese and rabbits and I'm not even sure what all. So Michael's here to share what he's learned, what's worked for him. He totally gets the pull of carbs and sugar and how they were making him. I don't know about his wife, I don't know too much about her story, but I imagine that both of you realized together that for sure those processed refined foods have to go.
Florence Christophers:So is there anything more you would like to add to your story, Michael?
Michael Kummer:Yeah, I mean, it really started for both of us with the realization we had watched a Netflix documentary I don't even know what it was called, but it was something about how much added sugar the average American consumes on an annual basis. And we are like those are like pounds and not bags and bags of pounds. Bags and bags of sugar. I mean it's ridiculous. And so we said, you know what, we're going to cut out all added sugars. And that was really our first conscious decision on how we could improve our health, because my wife had suffered from headaches and migraines. She was actually diagnosed pre-diabetic or was pre-diabetic at the time, and that was really a shock to her system because she was only in her early 20s, right. And so we said, you know what, let's go through the pantry and let's look at, let's start reading labels which we had never done up until that point and remove everything that had added sugars, in whatever form. I mean there are like a million names for sugar or processed carbohydrates, right. And so we looked at everything and threw everything out and realized, wow, our pantry is empty now and we have to, you know, start or make changes. You know, buy shop differently for our groceries. And we actually started with choosing, something we no longer do. But we did a lot of choosing and realized this is just a pain and not sustainable and besides, most of it doesn't really taste great.
Michael Kummer:And so we had friends at a time and one of the he was on a paleo diet. She was on the standard American diet and could not care less about what she would eating, but he was on a paleo diet and he was never making a big fuss about it. He was just eating differently. And from time to time I would ask him so why are you not eating X, y, z? And he would explain well, based on our ancestry, humans wouldn't have had access to I don't know a donut or you know grains or whatever. Whatever the paleo diet does not allow, right? And and I remember distinctively, there was one occasion we were at whole foods and and I'm like so can you eat corn? And he's like corn, that's the kryptonite of paleo. I'm like, okay, you know, take it easy, I'm just asking. And it's because I still had no understanding of you know foods and nutrition and what it does to us, et cetera. And but I've kind of was intrigued and I did my own research and one morning I woke up and I'm like paleo, we gotta do paleo. We have to eat how humans have been eating for a very long time, you know, in a modern way, of course, but still there are certain food groups that I don't think we should be eating.
Michael Kummer:And so I told my wife and said I'm going to do paleo starting today. And she's like you do realize I'm the one cooking, right? So if you're doing paleo, that means I have to work more to prepare a different meal for you. I'm not going to do that. And so we got into a huge argument. And then you know I'm like okay, whatever, you know we'll all just die in 20 years. And you know it's not going to be. You know I told you, but you know I'll suck it up, I'll die with you. And uh, because I'm a very black and white kind of guy, you know, if I do something, I go all in and I bulldoze over everything that's in my way. But I realized this might be, you know, put us, you know, beyond our breaking point if I just bulldoze over that. And so I let it be for a while.
Michael Kummer:And then she was intrigued, started doing her own research, and then she came back and said you know what? I think you're right. We got to do paleo. Didn't take long, and I'm like you know what? Paleo is okay, but keto keto is really what we have to do because sugar and carbs are just evil and also we cannot have that anymore. And she's like dude. You know we just started paleo.
Michael Kummer:I just got accustomed to cooking differently. You know, she's from Costa Rica, so she's used to rice and beans, you know, and and a lot of starchy foods and fruits, obviously, and suddenly I'm like no more fruits, no more starches. You know we are doing low carb. You know 15 grams a day max. You know. And again, a huge argument because I could not understand, you know, knowing what I knew, but she didn't that you would not be on board. You know, it just made no sense whatsoever. And again, you know it took a while. And she's like you know what? I think you're right. You know there is carbs can be problematic. Let's do keto and we did this for a while. Actually, I think we were on keto, you know.
Michael Kummer:Well, she a little bit less so than me, but I was on a fairly strict, like five to 15 grams a day of carbs, keto diet for maybe three years and then I discovered carnivore. I'm like, ooh, you know, keto is good, but carnivore that's where it's at. You know so, but at this, you know, I was smarter at this point. So I went back to my wife and said look, you know, I discovered something new. I think you know how we've been doing keto with all the nuts and seeds. You know, not butters especially.
Michael Kummer:Um, you know, I don't really feel great in my stomach and maybe at this point I should also add that before we started paleo, I had IBS irritable bowel syndrome for most of my life and I just, at some point, I accepted this is just how it feels. You know, there's nothing I can do, because my dad has had it. My grandfather died of colon cancer. I'm like this is just running in the family. But when we started paleo and for us paleo in the beginning meant a piece of meat and maybe grilled zucchini on the side that was our paleo and all my stomach issues disappeared. And I'm like, ooh, so apparently this is not genetic, this is lifestyle that has been causing me those issues.
Michael Kummer:But with keto, some of that returned because of, again, everything can be made keto-friendly. You can make everything with nut butters and with almond flour and you know all of the things that might not be so great for you, even if they're low carb, right. And so then I'm like, woo, you know, it's carnivore. That's probably the reason why I felt so good on paleo is because I ate mostly meat and nothing else. So I'm like, but don't you worry, I'm not proposing we should be doing all carnivore, but let me try it for a month and see how it feels Right. And so I did and I felt good.
Michael Kummer:But I also noticed, because I was doing a lot of CrossFit at the time, that I was kind of having a hard time with zero carb, simply because, you know, I was burning through so much glucose or glycogen, both, every day that I kind of had a hard time, you know, replenishing those through gluconeogenesis, like you know, making glucose out of protein or fatty acids or whatever. And and so I'm like, well, you know, maybe a few carbs, you know, aren't that bad after all. And right around the time I ran into Paul Saladino in Costa Rica and he said well, you know, he proposed an animal-based framework where you can have certain plants, especially seasonal sweet fruits and you know the least toxic plants, et cetera, and you know, but make it, you know, around animal foods, you know, and so that's what I did and that's really the framework we've been on for the past three years or so, you know, kind of playing with our carb intake depending on our needs, but very much focused on animal foods. And very often I mean most of the days when I wake up in the morning I have residual ketones in my blood. So I'm still on a fairly low carb diet but I get enough carbs to kind of sustain my workouts. And so that's kind of our past 10 or so years evolved nutritionally and we are still playing around.
Michael Kummer:We are now, you know, introducing more plants. We've realized, after talking to Bill Schindler, that you can actually process certain plants in a way to make them more compatible or at least less problematic if you are, you know, not highly sensitive, if you're metabolically healthy. So we've been, like my wife started doing sourdough, like once every so often we have a sourdough bread or a sourdough pizza. We ferment potatoes, you know. We peel and ferment them. So reduce the glycemic index, you know. Get rid of some of the starches that it converts to carcinogens when you fry them, you know, et cetera. So we've learned certain ways that we can make it, I guess, more socially acceptable the way we eat, but it's obviously still far from, you know, the standard American diet that we, that we used to follow.
Florence Christophers:And what kind of health transformation did your wife experience?
Michael Kummer:No more headaches, no more migraines, stable energy levels. You know that whole. You know up and down that you you know very many people experience throughout the day where you suddenly you know you're all hyped and then you're like you know that whole. You know up and down that you you know very many people experience throughout the day where you suddenly you know you're all hyped and then you're like you need to take a nap. And then you're hyping and take a nap. All of that is gone.
Michael Kummer:Exercise performance, body composition you know there's insulin levels. You know we make it a point to check our blood levels or blood markers every three months or so and we've noticed a significant first of all, obviously here here, glucose um has has gone down to, to optimal levels, fasting glucose, as well as the, you know, hemoglobin A1C, uh, fasting insulin dropped, inflammatory markers have dropped. So all of that really showing that you know we are now metabolically healthy um and we function better. You know, physically as well as, I think, mentally. For me the mental perform I mean obviously physical performance is important to me because I'm still a fitness enthusiast, but also because of my work. You know my brain needs to work, I need to be sharp and fast and I've noticed that has dramatically improved by just removing most of the processed carbs, really, and junk foods, and you know, have stable energy, stable glucose and stable insulin levels.
Florence Christophers:It's interesting how you went from the standard American diet paleo, keto, carnivore and then back a bit more back to the center, a little bit more of a rounded meal again, and it sounds like what you're saying is that when we had to do these sort of more extreme nutritional interventions to restore our metabolic health, and now that we're healthy, we're figuring out how do we stay healthy while having a more expanded meal plan without, you know, going backwards. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Michael Kummer:And that's obviously. You know that's very difficult because I like to do things cold turkey, you know, and I like to think I have the mental strength to pull through. But I've also realized that most people don't, you know. So there's got to be for many people there's probably got to be a more measured approach to making those changes, to introducing those changes. But I think the most effective way is, you know, you just do cold turkey. You know, if you cut out those carbs, you know it's, you're going to suffer for a few days, maybe two weeks, and then very often you're in a much better place to make better decisions and to, like you know, dial it back a bit to. You know, meet your individual health goals.
Michael Kummer:But, as we, you know, talked about before before you hit record, um, it's not just about. You know your microbiome composition. You know what, what, um, what cravings do you have from a microbial perspective? Because the microbes in your gut are very much, can be very powerful in terms of requesting certain types of foods, right that they need to survive, and if they don't get it, they secrete chemicals to make you eat that stuff. Same goes with your brain if you don't have fuel, they secrete chemicals to make you eat that stuff.
Michael Kummer:Same goes with your brain. If you don't have fuel for your brain, your brain releases chemicals that are stronger than your willpower, you know, to make you, to make the brain get the fuel it needs. And if you're not capable of burning, you know ketones and fats, fatty acids, for energy. Because you're not metabolically flexible, then glucose is your only choice, right, and so you. It's very difficult to figure those two out, but then, of course, you know, as you said, you know everything that leads up to that first bite. That's likely got nothing to do with you know your gut or something else. It's, you know, trauma, it's emotions, you know bad emotions, stuff that happened in the past that make you kind of compensate, and you know, try to get out of whatever it is, you know, by eating something that you shouldn't be, or you know scrolling on Instagram or, I don't know, binge watching Netflix or whatever the case might be.
Florence Christophers:Right, right, it's not in the past, it's right here, in this moment. There's some sort of activation in the system. There's discomfort, there's distress, and your body knows. Oh, I know exactly what levers I can pull, I can scroll, I can eat food, I can binge eat, right Like, and we learn what things bring immediate relief. Unfortunately, most of them are also bringing long-term pain and suffering. One thing I've found, michael, over my many decades of being and working in this space as well, is that I actually genuinely believe that there is something to the blood type diet. Now, I'm not saying it's a be all and end all, and I'm not even saying his science is completely right, because I think there's many ways that it has been nuanced. But do you like red meat? Do you like beef?
Michael Kummer:Yes, yeah.
Florence Christophers:And if you gravitated towards vegetables, would you tend to gravitate more towards, like zucchini, cucumbers, maybe bell peppers?
Michael Kummer:Rather than.
Florence Christophers:Leafy greens.
Michael Kummer:Leafy greens definitely a no-no.
Florence Christophers:Okay.
Michael Kummer:And I'm not sure if this is because what I know about leafy greens you know oxalate.
Florence Christophers:No, no, no, I mean like natural instinct.
Michael Kummer:But just from a. I think I've never gravitated towards green vegetables period, so like if my mom would put broccoli on the plate. I'm like. You know that is not for me, but something colorful, you know, tomato peppers.
Florence Christophers:Tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, zucchinis. Yes, so I'm going to stake my life that you're a blood typo you know what?
Michael Kummer:Funny enough that you said it, because I was just preparing laminated like emergency contact cards that we each could carry when we're out and about, and I wanted to write the blood type on each one. Right, yeah, and the only blood type we know is my wife is A plus or A positive. You know, I have to look up mine. I don't know what the kids are, but maybe I don't know.
Florence Christophers:Okay, I'm going to stick. I'm going to stake it that you're a blood type O and my blood type Os. They actually don't like vegetables. They can tolerate some. They like the fruits, they like the fruit vegetables, they gravitate towards the fruit vegetables. And yet the blood type A's, your wife, will gravitate more to more vegetables. She will need, likely, higher carb to feel good than you will. So what happens is sometimes we get these couples one's an O, one's an A and you know there's a lot of overlap, but there's there's going to be differences in terms of the macros that work and the kinds of vegetables that work. You guys have probably already discovered that. Did you already discover that?
Michael Kummer:Yeah, no, for sure. I think that you know, and that's one of the things that makes it so challenging to give someone you know dietary advice and say this is what you need to do, because, even though it works for me, it might not work for you, might not work for your spouse, might not work for your kids, you know. So we all have discovered that there are individual differences in terms of what foods we can tolerate and gravitate towards. You know, and you got to take this into account, and you know and learn, if there are certain foods that you really like and really want to have, and if they happen to be on the list of you know well, they have a fair amount of toxins, you know then you need to learn how to mitigate those as best as you can.
Florence Christophers:You know to make them or they're not toxic to that blood type.
Florence Christophers:So a vegetable that's toxic to a blood type O is not necessarily to a blood type a right. And so there's this whole sort of idea that vegetables are bad. They're all bad. The less, the less veggies, the better. And then there's other people on the other extreme that are like, oh, meat will kill you, like no meat, right. And it's just like whoa time out. Is it a whole food? Okay? Then you get to figure out does it work for your body, right? And yeah, and almost everybody. Some people would argue this, but in my experience almost everybody benefits from a low carb period where they could become more metabolically healed and flexible, right, like I think for sure right, like I think that's universal.
Michael Kummer:But and and I, you know, I just always go back to you know, universal but, and and I, you know, I just always go back to you know. If you believe that, you know, humans were on this planet, you know, a while ago, you know, uh, which is also debated, you know, I've I've been told that I'm an idiot by thinking that there were, there was something resembling a human, you know, 200 000 years ago on earth. But assume we agree that that happened. Actually, you know, there were times, depending on where those you know, our ancestors, lived. You know, if it was cold, well, guess what? There was not a whole lot of plant material growing, there was no, you know, sweet fruits, etc. So all they could eat, you know, was probably animals and whatever you know roots, and I don't know what they could find, you know, but it was hunting and gathering, that concept I'm convinced of. So that means you know, you eat animals and you eat what you can find. And if it's seasonally, if it's good quality meaning the soil is, you know, is reasonable, if it hasn't been sprayed and, you know, treated with chemicals, et cetera, you know, then in certain amounts, it's probably good for you, you know.
Michael Kummer:But here is the thing. You know. It's very easy to say well, you know, spinach is terrible because it's a lot of oxalates. Well, if spinach only grows one time in a year and you have access to it for one week, eating that during that week is probably not going to hurt you. You know, if you're metabolically healthy, but eating it 365 days a year probably a terrible idea, you know. So that whole nuance is very often, I think, missing in the conversation. Then, of course, you know, if you add in you know individual preferences and and, and you know differences in our body composition, blood type, whatever the case might be, then it really becomes complex. You know, everyone has to figure it out, but I think there are certain like guidelines and and and not not necessarily rules, but really guidelines that if you follow them and figure out within those guidelines what works for you, you're probably on a good path, you know right.
Florence Christophers:The safe lane is no processed foods, no refined. Is it a whole food? Is it a single ingredient? Has anything been added? Has anything been taken away?
Florence Christophers:right answers yes, we'll be very cautious. Ideally you just put it down right, you make all your meals from from real foods, and then you're safe. You know you're in the safe zone. If it's a whole food, it's safe. If it's a whole food, it's safe, and that's I mean. If you can't trust a whole food, then I think you can wind up crazy around food. It doesn't mean that because it's a whole food it's good for your body. Because I think we were hunter-gatherers in the winter months and we were gatherer-hunters in the summer. Like I think there was so much gathering that took place for five, six, seven months of the year. You know, tons and tons of different produce and fruits and vegetables and stuff that we probably, you know, took advantage of in Northern European I mean, obviously in Costa Rica they have them all year round but even then those vegetables and fruits and animals they had access to and fish and stuff would be more seasonal, anyways.
Michael Kummer:Right yeah.
Florence Christophers:So, beyond the fact that the core message that anybody needs to sort of start with is don't drive yourself crazy around whole foods yet Get the junk out and then figure out. You know what, hopefully, maybe you start with paleo, like michael did, and then you move all the way to carnivore and then you come back. Who knows? Maybe you start keto and maybe you're more whole food, plant-based, and if it works for you, great, and if it doesn't, then you know, open your mind.
Florence Christophers:If it's a whole food, it's safe yeah um, so talk to us a little bit more about how, on your journey, you realize that, wow, food's a piece of the puzzle how to live a good, healthy lifestyle but it's just one of many. So you have this really amazing list of eight. Do you want to share those?
Michael Kummer:Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that sleep is obviously it's debatable, what's, you know, the most important factor, but I think sleep is a fairly important one. You know, if you don't sleep well, then a lot of things during the day can go wrong. I don't think you can out-exercise poor sleep. I don't think you can necessarily out-eat poor sleep. You know, it doesn't matter how healthy your diet is if you are sleep deprived and if you have poor quality sleep, so sleep is obviously an important one and if you have poor quality sleep, so sleep is obviously an important one. Nutrition, you know, also very important, you know, it's really, it's not only, you know, energy for our body, it's instructions for ourselves, right. All the stuff that the amino acids, the fatty acids, you know they make hormones that build cell membranes. There are so many functions beyond just providing energy that you've got to get that right. You know, as we discussed already, and you know, as we discussed already, um, and you know from there then you know exercise, you know, and by that necessarily, I mean you have to have a gym membership. But moving, you know, sitting around all day is not, is not, uh, conducive to health. It's not consistent with what and how humans have behaved over a very long time. You know we've been walking a lot, you know, in search for food and shelter we sprinted, you know, either away from for food and shelter we sprinted, you know, either away from a threat or after an animal we wanted to catch. You know we lifted heavy stuff. You know building shelters, lifting. You know animal carcasses and you know what have you. So all of that should really be part of your daily routine and not just have an hour a day and then you sit the rest. Funny enough, I've seen studies that show that even if you go to the gym and then you sit the rest of the day, your risk for cardiovascular disease is exactly the same as if you didn't do that. So you know it's really the being less sedentary than going to the gym more often is, I guess, is the. So that's why I'm a huge fan of walking. You know I walk a lot. You know I get up and I walk the dog and I walk to the backyard and I, you know, take the stairs instead of the elevator, et cetera, and so that's, I think, a really important one. And then then there are a couple that are.
Michael Kummer:I think that would all be, you wouldn't have to worry about them so much if you were in a society that is conducive to you know how humans have been living and so, for example, stress to you know how humans have been living and so, for example, stress management. You know, now we need to employ gadgets and take time out of our day to meditate and to you know, breathe and to do mindfulness, all of those things, just because we are so stressed that we have to actively, you know, push against that and mitigate all of that. But if you were to live in the woods, and the only concern would be to put food on the table, all of that, but if you were to live in the woods and the only concern would be to put food on the table, you know your chronic stress would be significantly lower, um, and you know, and you'd be healthy overall. So stress management super important, and obviously you know stress, then, you know, can impact your sleep and if you're super stressed, you might sleep in a might not sleep as well. If you're stressed, you might make poor food choices, you know, because your brain screams for energy to fight that saber-toothed tiger that never comes, you know, and you know talking about stress.
Michael Kummer:You know hormetic stressors, you know stuff that is meant to make us stronger and more resilient, like cold plant or cold exposure, heat exposure. You know fasting, abstaining from food, is a stressor. Exercise, I guess, is a stressor as well. And using those smart, because a lot of people I've realized, especially over the last couple of years where cold plunging et cetera got super popular Everyone has a cold plunge now and people are super stressed. Then they go to the gym and redline, then they jump into the cold plunge and they don't eat, you know, because all of that is good. But well, I mean, if you're already redlining with your stress, adding those extra stresses on top maybe not such a good idea, you know, but if used responsibly and smartly, I think those remedial stressors can really help you become more resilient to stress and be able to better handle stress. So you know, if you know that, how you can? You know how you can calm down in 33 degree cold water. You probably can calm down when the kids are, you know being annoying or whatever you know. So that I think, is an important and.
Michael Kummer:And then community, you know tribalism being together. You know there's a lot of like oh, I'm going to do it by myself kind of thing, because everyone else is an idiot. And I used to think like that for for a long time, I mean, and I really got it from my dad, because one of my dad's favorite saying was everyone is an idiot, you know. So I kind of grew up with that. You know, oh, wow, and and while it is, you know, I want to don't want to say it is true, but it's cert, it is.
Michael Kummer:Certainly if you look around and you see what idiotic things people do, you might come to the conclusion that everyone is an idiot, right, but you know, still, a community, I think you know we thrive in a community. You know we can't do it alone. We are not happy, we are not emotionally healthy and mentally healthy if we are alone, you know. So we need groups, we need like minded people, we need people who we disagree with, you know, and can have a conversation about that right, and so that's super important.
Michael Kummer:And being out in nature, I think that's, I mean, it might be the basis of everything to a degree, but if you go outside, if you expose yourself to sunlight, if you, you know, ground yourself, if you walk around barefoot in your backyard, you know all of the things that happen from a you know on a cellular level. You know your stress levels suddenly change, your HRV goes up, all of those things that are, at the end of the day, so simple. All of that weaves together kind of into, I guess, into a framework that if you pay attention to those things and there are probably more that you can pick out or maybe subgroups of that but if you pay attention to those, I think you're on a better path at least.
Florence Christophers:Oh oh, life transformative path. Right, like it just seems almost impossible that if you have those pieces in play, that you won't genuinely feel like you're living a life you love. Right, yeah, it seems like you hit the highlights.
Michael Kummer:Spirituality for many is. Then, of course, you know another thing. You know, be it if you're religious or you know just spiritual, whatever the case might be, but that's also super important for many, and it really you know if you're religious or you know just spiritual, whatever the case might be, but that's also super important for many and it really, I think, goes also back to community. You know finding people who believe in the same things right and and and share the same values.
Florence Christophers:Yes, yes, yes, definitely Can you. I'm kind of going on a tangent here, but I haven't actually haven't had a chance to talk to too many people about HRV. So I wear an aura ring and I get you know like a, an HRV value, and I read somewhere that I'm, you know, ideally really high, high quality HRV is in a hundred or above. I'm like 36, 37. Like I just hover there, do you know anything about HRV and what have you noticed as you've made these lifestyle improvements? What's happened to yours?
Michael Kummer:Yeah, I've actually produced a lot of content about HRV and how to interpret it and what you can do to improve it, okay, and I think the most important aspect really is that it's a very individual metric. Okay, so comparing it to someone else is probably a poor idea. Okay, first of all, it stresses you out if your number is not the same as your friends right, or your gym buddies. But I think, with HRV, the most important aspect, and the other thing that most people don't even realize, is that the difference between an HRV of 30 and 60, it's not 100% better, it's 15% better. It's 15% better. It's a logarithmic scale.
Florence Christophers:So it does not. You know, it's Not like massively better.
Michael Kummer:No, no, it's not massively better, it's a fraction better, you know, you know what?
Florence Christophers:I should stop us right here and get you to define what HRV is. It just occurred to me people might be going what in the heck are they talking about now?
Michael Kummer:Yeah, good point. So HRV heart rate variability is the difference in timing between heartbeats, right? So if you have a heartbeat of 60 beats per minute, then your heart doesn't actually beat once exactly every second, but it might beat now and then in 980 milliseconds and then in 1022 milliseconds. So there's always a slight variability and the higher that variability is, the more engaged your parasympathetic branch of the nervous system is, which is the one responsible for resting and digesting. If you have a very low HRV compared to your baseline, then that means you're in sympathetic mode, meaning that you're in fight or flight response. And that's why, if you're stressed all the time, if you don't sleep well, if you consume alcohol, if you do a lot of things that stress your nervous system, you experience likely a very low HRV because you're in sympathetic mode and you really want to get out of that mode and be more in parasympathetic mode, meaning that, more variability and more resting, digesting, rather than, you know, running away from that imaginary saber-toothed tiger. And but again, it's an individual metric. What I've realized is that by doing certain things, my HIV has improved. And when I say it has improved by 50%, then it doesn't really mean it's 50% better, but it went from, I think, from 50 to 75 or so, you know, on average. But again, you know that's a 7.5% increase. So it's not like, ooh, now suddenly I'm Superman. No, and to be quite honest, I don't think anyone really understands what it truly means to have 30 versus 40 versus 100. You know, it seems like, based on the average population, that the younger you are, the higher your HRV is. If you're male, your HRV is a little bit higher than if you're a female, right, and so as you age, that HRV appears to be dropping, which might or might not be a bad thing. But the point really is, I think what you want to figure out is what can you do to make improvements based on your baseline? So if you're trending up, and even if it's only a little bit, then you're probably on the right path and you're beating inflation, so to say, right, you don't want to be on a downward trend, right, right, you don't want to be on a downward trend, right.
Michael Kummer:And there are certain things, like you know. I mean, if I consume a glass of wine, my HRV drops, you know it's. I mean as certain, as you know, I don't even have to look and know the next morning my HRV is going to be lower, right. But if I do, you know a lot of, if I don't have a lot of stress, duh you know.
Michael Kummer:If I'm in parasympathetic mode, if I, you know, sauna bath, if I, you know exercise without redlining, if I just take it easy, don't have nothing going on at work, my HRV on vacation, my HRV is always much higher than at home because I have, I've not, I've not exposed to stress. So I think stress is the main main thing. It can also mean you know certain medical issues, like even they've realized now that if you have a certain drop, if you're pregnant and you have a drop in HRV at a certain time, is it a drop or a spike, one of those two? But a significant change in HRV at a certain time of your pregnancy, that's a fairly good sign that you're going to deliver preterm.
Florence Christophers:So something is already in your body going on that can give you a cue that, oh, we're probably going to have a pre-term delivery.
Michael Kummer:Your body's stressed, there's signs. Yeah, exactly yeah, very interesting, but I would not. I mean, there are so many people who reach out to me, especially women, say hey, I'm in the 30s, you know what can I do? Something is wrong with me. I don't know that there is anything wrong with you.
Florence Christophers:Um, yeah, you know it's high 30s and it spikes to. You know, I have some decent 56 spikes, but it averages out, I'm gonna say, between 36 and 38. Pretty good, I'm pretty consistent, right? And the other different devices give you different measurements as well, or should they?
Michael Kummer:be, uniform yes, now every, now every. I mean I have the O-ring, I have the whip strap, I have eight sleep and all of those measure HRV. And all of them measure HRV at a certain time because HRV is highly volatile. You know, if you wear a chest strap and monitor your HRV life, if you get up from your chair, significant drop, any movement, significant drop right, only if you're really relaxed, you get higher numbers. And what that means is certain devices measure like an average throughout the entire night, which I'm not sure how good that is. Other devices, like Whoop, I know they measure only during deep sleep, because that's when you're completely like disconnected from everything and as calm as you can be. But that obviously assumes they had to figure out and correctly identify deep sleep, which is not 100% either, you know. So I would not go too crazy on any wearable numbers. I mean the trends are usually good enough. So if you can establish a trend line and see where it's going, that's good. But individual numbers or absolute numbers I would not be too worried about.
Florence Christophers:Got it, got it. So I've noticed with my numbers that they will be. I will tank into the twenties. If I eat too close to bed, if I overeat, if I'm dehydrated, if I have slacked off on walks in nature, you know those types of things, what have you noticed about how you can help your body? So the beautiful. The reason this topic is so, so helpful is because the sympathetic is the stress, the stress response. The parasympathetic is the peaceful.
Florence Christophers:It helps you to be present, and so this is called the break. The parasympathetic puts the break on the sympathetic. We have two different breaks. We have the vagal break, the co-regulation, self-regulation break, and then we have the dorsal break. The dorsal break is that everything shuts down. You've crashed, you're heavy, you're exhausted, you're overwhelmed, you feel helpless and hopeless. It's a pretty dark, despairing, depressed. That's the vagal break. It's like it's shutting you right down. So when the sympathetic rises, the parasympathetic, if it's working well, just comes in and just puts a little break.
Florence Christophers:And it rises again and it puts a little break and there's this little dance, right, and you want nice variability, a nice, yeah, nice variability. It just implies a healthier nervous system. So yeah, all that said, let's check in with Michael here to see what things have you found that helps you regulate your nerve, have a more regulated nervous system things have you found that helps you regulate your nerve, have a more regulated nervous system?
Michael Kummer:Yeah, it's very often the things that I don't do that help, rather than things that I do.
Michael Kummer:So, like I said, you know, no alcohol consumption huge help Not having a late meal, same as you, you know, if I eat late and I'm full and my body is busy, even though you know the parasympathetic is supposed to be responsible for resting and digesting, but it's a stress, you know the parasympathetic is supposed to be responsible for resting and digesting, but it's a stress.
Michael Kummer:You know, it appears to be a stress if I and I only eat twice a day, so my meals are fairly large. So if I eat four pounds of meat, you know, before going to bed, not a good idea, you know. You know reading before bed helps and is better than watching TV, you know. Or being on my phone, you know exposing myself, being out in nature, you know, as you said. You know if I'm out during certain days where I spend most of my time outside, you know, no shirt, no socks, no shoes, that seems to help a lot, simply because I'm less stressed. Right, meditation and cold plunging, sauna, bathing you know all of those things, if done appropriately, have helped me to have a better average HRV and also then see spikes when I do those things.
Florence Christophers:So interesting, all right. Well, thanks for going on that detour with me, everybody.
Florence Christophers:And if you don't have an, Oura Ring they're actually on Amazon now and they're an investment. They're like 300 bucks, but you actually on Amazon now and they're an investment. They're like 300 bucks but you have it for life and it gives you so much interesting information. If you are a woman, it can even help you. If you're younger and you're still having a cycle. It can help you predict when your cycle is coming. It can help some women if they're really motivated to stay off things like birth control pills or artificial hormones. They're now using it to sort of help figure out you know safer times to um not get pregnant. So they can all hrv, uh sleep quality, how much time you spend in deep sleep. So am I sure I do not. I'm not an affiliate. I have nothing to do with the company. I make absolutely zero money. I just have one and I like it. So I'll leave you with that, with that thought yeah, they don't have an affiliate program, unfortunately.
Florence Christophers:Oh yeah, I would be a good spokesperson. I'm quite like my aura ring. So, michael, bringing it back to the topic of the power of you know, taking control of our own lifestyle and the hope you want to give people that you know you can go from migraines and irritable bowel syndrome and you know prediabetes to vibrantly healthy and having transformed your whole life. So is there anything more you would like to say to our audience today on that topic?
Michael Kummer:I think do something better today than you did yesterday. You know it's. If you're 1% better every day, then in 100 days you have. You know you're 100% better day, then in 100 days you're 100% better.
Michael Kummer:Don't have realistic goals, unless you're someone who is really determined and like oh, today we're going to not only change our diet but throw out all plastic and change our personal care products and do everything else to get on a better path. Most people can't do that. They get frustrated. It's expensive, obviously. But do something better. Take a, you know, I don't know. Just put your phone away before you go to bed. You know, two hours before. Put your phone in another room and don't look at it first thing in the morning. That could be one thing you can do. You know, start taking cold showers, you know. Find a new piece every day. Put it, put it there and at some point you'll see a complete picture. You know, looking in the mirror and and and just looking inside of you also how you feel and you'll see that it's totally worth it.
Florence Christophers:That's beautiful, that idea of a puzzle, and you know what. You can. Have a vision of the puzzle that you're creating, too right. Use the whole law of attraction idea like have a vision of what you want your life to look like and slowly just put those pieces in play and then look up one day, do an interview on a podcast. Michael, 10 years ago, did you have any idea that you'd be working in this space doing what you do?
Michael Kummer:No, no, absolutely not. If you would have told me hey, you're going to have a chickens on your property in 10 years, I'd be like yeah, get out of here.
Florence Christophers:Get out of here, give me my donut and leave me alone.
Michael Kummer:Yeah, exactly.
Florence Christophers:Thank you for your time today and for your work, michael. Michael, tell us where people can find you and how they can find your products, because what an amazing superfood you know in a supplement form.
Michael Kummer:So, yeah, tell us about that. Yeah, absolutely so. Michaelkummercom is my blog, where I put out most of my content. Really, the Primal Shift podcast is where I talk about things that are more difficult to put in writing or, I guess, are easier to convey talking, and shopmichaelkummercom is where you can find the supplements, and then also, if you search for my name on Instagram or YouTube, you'll find content there as well. Kummer Homestead if you're interested in some of the stuff that we do with the animals and the garden, so that's also a resource. That's not quite as daunting, I guess, as changing your life and changing your diet and everything. It's just fun to see what you can do by growing stuff yourself. You might actually be able to fix your diet if you just grow your own food. Totally, absolutely.
Florence Christophers:And there might actually be nutrients in the soil and there might be non-toxic sprays left, right and center. That's right. I have one curiosity about your supplements. So it's just organ meats from? Is it just cows? Is it chickens? Tell us a bit more about your supplements.
Michael Kummer:Yeah, no, so it's all from a grass fed grass, finished, regeneratively raised New Zealand cattle. So all cows, reason being that, you know, ruminants are typically more nutritious than than monogastric animals, so poultry and pork or pigs. They're more difficult to raise in a healthy way because they are what they eat, much like humans, whereas ruminants are very good at converting whatever they eat into what they need to thrive. And so it's all from cows. We are looking at bison as well, just to have some, you know, american, like traditional animal in the lineup, but it's just a freeze-dried organ. There's nothing added, it's a gelatin capsule, you know. So you basically get like a piece of liver or heart or spleen or you know, a mix of organs with every serving and that's it. It's just a multivitamin. It's a multivitamin. It's nothing fancy, it's just, you know, a piece of very nutritious food that hopefully bridges the gaps that you might have.
Florence Christophers:Recently I was on Maria Amarich's website. I had occasion to be there and I didn't spend that much time there. I was actually looking specifically for a piece of information about protein sparing. Anyways, she had this graph. That is what persuaded them around their path and it showed all the nutrients and kale and blueberries and and different kinds of meats and all these other super foods like that we know are really high in high quality nutrition.
Florence Christophers:And then on the very far right was like I think it was a beef liver and it was like 12 000, you know, iu of vitamin a versus 88 and like the next highest right, like it was off the charts amounts of high quality.
Michael Kummer:And plus it's retinol, you know, not beta carotene. That has to be converted and you lose a lot in the process. So there are a lot of the micronutrients. The vitamin A is a good example, iron is a good example and some of the others that are, you know, much more bioavailable in those organs than they are from. You know kale might have. You know much more bioavailable in those organs than they are from you know kale might have. You know, a lot of iron, but it's non-heme iron.
Michael Kummer:So the amount that you actually get, and especially if then you have anti-nutrients in the plant that can block the absorption of certain minerals, you know you might not getting a lot at all unless you eat, like you know, three pounds of spinach but then you probably have kidney stones from all the deoxylates. So, yes, the point is you know to get something that's very nutrient, dense and highly bioavailable and absorbable in a way that you know doesn't taste bad, because a lot of people, unfortunately, don't like liver anymore. I think it's something, a taste we have unlearned over the years. But, regardless, you know the capsule doesn't taste like anything, doesn't smell like much, and you know you just pop it, the kids take it, so we know that they get their organs every day and we don't have to worry about sourcing and you know preparing.
Florence Christophers:Amazing. What an amazing product you've brought to the world. Thank you again for your time, Michael.
Michael Kummer:Thanks, I appreciate it.
Florence Christophers:Bye buddy Bye.
