The Kick Sugar Coach Podcast
The Kick Sugar Coach Podcast
Maria Emmerich: How to Overcome Weight Loss Stalls on Low Carb
What happens when eating "clean keto" or carnivore still isn't working for your metabolism? Why are some people gaining weight despite following popular low-carb advice? Nutritionist Maria Emmerich breaks down the science behind these frustrating scenarios and offers practical solutions that work even when everything else has failed.
Maria introduces us to the Protein Sparing Modified Fast method – a strategic approach that preserves precious muscle while creating the caloric deficit needed to burn stubborn body fat. Rather than a daily practice, this method serves as a powerful tool to deploy strategically when weight loss stalls or during periods of higher indulgence like holidays. With approximately 800 calories of primarily lean protein, this approach allows your body to tap into stored fat while maintaining metabolic health.
The conversation tackles a controversial truth in the low-carb world: calories still matter. Maria shares stories of clients who came to her after gaining significant weight on unlimited ribeye-and-butter approaches, explaining the science of why fat cells become "overstuffed" leading to worsening insulin resistance even on clean foods. She dismantles the myth that you can eat unlimited amounts of any food – even healthy animal products – without metabolic consequences.
Perhaps most encouraging is Maria's insight about taste adaptation: your taste buds completely regenerate every 15 days. This biological reality means that transitioning away from hyperpalatable processed foods becomes significantly easier after just two weeks of consistent clean eating. For those battling intense sugar cravings, this perspective offers hope that the struggle has a definitive endpoint if you can maintain consistency through the adaptation phase.
From sleep optimization strategies to the truth about protein needs (hint: you probably need more than you think), Maria's practical advice cuts through nutrition confusion with evidence-based clarity. Whether you're struggling with autoimmune issues, weight loss plateaus, or simply want to optimize your low-carb approach, this episode delivers actionable insights to transform your relationship with food and reclaim metabolic health.
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Hello everybody and welcome to an interview today with Maria Emmerich, who is a nutritionist who specializes in the ketogenic diet and exercise physiology. She struggled with her own health and weight throughout childhood, which led her to become passionate about nutrition and, in particular, her expertise is in carnivore and keto meal plans. Her goal is to help transform people's lives and start living again. She specializes in brain neurotransmitters and how food can increase mental wellness. Her expertise has sent her around the world speaking about ketogenic diets, including she got to cook with Halle Berry and writes for Halle's website. You can find her at ketomariacom. Welcome, welcome, maria.
MARIA:Well, thank you. Yeah, hallie wrote my last book with me too the sugar-free kids.
FLORENCE:Did she? Yeah, I think that's the only book of yours. I actually don't have.
MARIA:Oh really, it's funny because a lot of people say I don't even have kids. That's my favorite book, really, why? Yeah, um, I don't know. I feel like I eat like a kid. Um, you know who doesn't want to eat. You know kid like foods, right. So it's just, they're easy too, because I wanted to make it so young kids could make some of the recipes on their own. So I have like a little like meter. If it's super easy, they can do it by themselves, or they need parent guidance, or the parents should probably do it. There's only like two that the parents are probably doing. I think people want easy?
FLORENCE:Totally, they do, yes, and actually one of the really great things about the keto sort of carnivore doesn't get easier, it's just so simple.
MARIA:Yeah, I think I can take constructive criticism very well, and when I wrote my first book, the bad reviews on Amazon were that they were too technical. But guess what? Then I had kids and so I was like, oh yeah, I get it. No, I get it. Those were harder, and so for the past 15 years it's been much easier, mm-hmm you know, 15 years, it's been much easier.
FLORENCE:So one of the things I thought we could explore today is one of your books is called the protein sparing modified fast method, and it's very interesting. Um, first of all, some of the complexities. I mean, it's full of amazing recipes, but there's all kinds of complexities about how to use this and and it's quite precise Like at first I thought, well, how hard is that? You just kind of eat meat, but no, there's complexities to this. Do you want to tell us a bit about what is the protein sparing modified diet?
MARIA:Well, we like to call it a tool. Just like you wouldn't water fast every day, you don't do a protein sparing modified fast every day. But I have men and women that are stuck. They are like I can't lose weight no matter what I do. It doesn't work anymore. I'm working out, I'm eating like so little food and this and that, and those are the people that I'd like to attempt a protein-sparing modified fast. If you're like 10 pounds away from your goal, it's probably not for you because you're going to be really hungry. But if you have a lot of fuel on your body, it works perfectly. And actually, like some people say, I'm more satiated on that, because when you add in fats to a lot of protein, then the desire I don't know if it's hitting your dopamine receptors or what but it's easier to overeat and go beyond fullness. But people say they're so satiated that they want to do it every day. But I suggest only maybe do it three days a week. Maybe some people just do it one.
MARIA:We're doing a challenge right now, a weight loss challenge for September, and we have meal plans and they can choose carnivore meal plans or keto meal plans and then within both of them we have a protein sparing modified fast day once a week so they can kind of learn about that. But it's where you lower calories a lot, so it's about 800 calories and you lower carbs. You lower the fats really low and enough to get your fats label vitamins, your gallbladder still going to work, but we kind of ramp up that protein Um. So whatever your protein goal is, we have a macro, a free macro calculator. If everybody wants to find out what their protein sparing macros would be, if they want to try it, it's just on my website If you want to do that, totally free.
MARIA:Um, but people have great success, like super success and like what's nice about it is you know, the holidays happen, they're coming up and a lot of people put on 15 pounds that's the average by the time they're over, and you could just add the protein sparing modified fast approach into your holidays and you might end up with a net zero. You know you didn't gain, right. So that can be very helpful during the holidays too. But it's I don't like water fasting because you are found to lose muscle mass, right, and so this is in place of a water fast. So instead of eating nothing that day, you're going to get enough protein so you don't lose muscle mass. Because, especially as we age, like, muscle mass is precious and it gets harder and harder to build, so you don't want to lose it. So that's what the whole idea behind that is, and so how much would you eat Like?
FLORENCE:I don't even know exactly what 800 calories of meat would look like. What would it look like?
MARIA:I mean people are like, oh, I can't eat. You know, 100 grams of protein, it's like two large chicken breasts. It's not that much. Oh, I see, but for me I wouldn't eat just chicken breast because it's boring, it's gross, whatever. So I try to make it fun and interesting and delicious. Like there's this tomato, basil chicken breast and people really, really like it. And I don't know if you've ever tried my hard-boiled egg pudding. I made that with Halle Berry. She loves it. But I made it into a protein sparing version. So instead of the whole egg we're using egg whites and instead of full fat coconut milk we're using like a low fat, you know light thing. So but people are like I love it because I can eat that whole thing and I just got a lot of protein, not a lot of calories. You know volume.
MARIA:They love it okay, so um you can eat any meat, as long as it's lower fat yeah, and you have charts in there to show you, like there is, what are the lower fat versions. Like you know, ribs would be higher fat. Um, heart is lower fat. Uh, tenderloin, you know, it kind of goes through everything, including the organs Right, so you eat lower fat.
FLORENCE:and then you actually have to track it. And which to which tracker do you recommend? Or do you Mine?
MARIA:Okay, I didn't even know you had one, sorry. Well, I do for my clients Because it's the most accurate. I mean, chronometer has some issues and they all have like if you, if you eat like clams, it puts in like Kalamata juice and that's like all sugar. So you just have to like kind of double check everything if you use something else. But what I love about our website is if you use this recipe, you just pull it in and it automatically calculates it. So you can kind of like pull it in and then you can print your meal plan for the day and it also calculates it into a grocery list for you too. So it's like fun. I mean, I'm really proud of how we work on it all the time, because we just want it to be the best, and people really seem to love it too, so they keep coming back for more.
MARIA:But you might need to do like more electrolytes on PSMF days just because of you know you're not eating much fat either. So, but when people have a lot of body fat on their body, they don't understand they can use that for fuel. You don't have to eat a lot of dietary fat to be in this ketosis state. It's the absence of carbohydrates and then you fuel your body with enough protein to have beautiful hair, skin and nails, and then you know the fat you're going to dial that way down, so your body fat can be that fuel.
FLORENCE:So they have to track it so that they can keep their calories down. And what does the calorie deficit piece do like? Why is that important?
MARIA:to say that calories don't matter is ignorance, but to say that it's everything is also ignorance too. Like a calorie of protein is not the same a calorie of fat. It's totally not. It's almost like a free food, if you want to call it that, because it's the building blocks of your whole body. You know your bones are mineralized protein. You know. So when I work with people with osteopenia or osteoporosis, you know there's multiple things I look at, but one is like you have to eat protein. That's super important. But you know we get into this area where there's some carnivore experts that say you can eat as much as you want until you're full.
MARIA:And first of all, some people have leptin resistance. They don't know a right signal when they feel full. They're not sleeping, so they don't get that signal to feel full. You ever have a sleepless night the next day, even though you're eating. You know your carnivore foods. You could eat like twice as much, right, there's definitely like a leptin connection to how much sleep you're getting. So I see these people. They're basically drinking heavy cream and they're like, oh, it's all the carbs in the cream. No, it's not. It is that you just drank 5,000 calories of pure fat. Fat, just doesn't shoot through your butt, you don't just poop that out. Excuse my language, but you just don't. If that did happen, do you remember? Wow, chips.
FLORENCE:Oh, gosh vaguely the Olestra disaster, yep.
MARIA:So you really, when you test stools, you only have about 8% that goes through you. If any more goes through you, you have liquid stools and you need a bathroom very quickly, so you don't want more than that going out you. So where does the rest go? It either goes to storage or you could use it for energy, but most people are not running marathons, so that's where it's just really important to realize that calories do matter, right? I wish I could eat like ribeye and drink heavy cream and you know, but you can't right.
FLORENCE:So yeah, right, because that that is the prevailing advice around people who want to experiment with keto and carnivore Just eat to satiety. Eat as much as you want.
MARIA:I get thousands of people that are doing that coming to me, gaining 50 pounds or upset. Their blood sugars are getting worse. Their insulin resistance is getting worse because it's like putting too much gas in a gas tank and so like. Insulin is like a net. It's holding everything in and when you stretch that net out too much, where I can't hold it anymore, your blood sugars get worse. Your insulin resistance gets worse. You can't just fill your body with carnivore foods and think that it's a miraculous thing. They call it priming. But I see I'm doing the blood work. I see how terrible it gets.
FLORENCE:Wow, maria, and they call it what. I missed that word.
MARIA:Priming. It's like getting your body like you were under eating for so long and this and that, but no, when I see their labs, they're in a dangerous spot and it's getting worse.
FLORENCE:You're just I'm so sorry I missed that word again.
MARIA:They're just putting too much fuel into their gas tank, you know got it, Wow, Okay.
FLORENCE:So yes, cause I'm seeing that too, Maria, and I've actually asked a couple. I asked Dr Boz this year about this very question Cause I'm seeing it. I'm seeing people say, my goodness, I reversed diabetes and now there's this creep back up with my numbers. What's happening? I'm doing everything the same, I'm doing everything right. So it's the. It's the case that you're making the case that they're over consuming calories, too much fat way too much fat.
MARIA:too much fat is not a good thing, Okay.
FLORENCE:Totally, totally.
MARIA:There's only one place for it to go. So what is her explanation?
FLORENCE:Sorry, that's a good question. So she was quoting Ben Bickman and she was saying that something to do with the test, and I hope I'm not going to do her injustice here. As I recall, she was saying that Ben Bickman was addressing this and he saw a bit of the numbers creep up because of the glycation. There's something changes. Anyways, he thought the test wasn't quite. I don't. I'm not sorry.
MARIA:We should probably move on, because we don't agree.
FLORENCE:Oh no, no, it's okay. I think that it's all good pieces of the puzzle and people can kind of put whatever they want together. But yeah, so people come. They've stalled on their weight. They're doing the keto carnivore, everything right. They're not in junk food, they've. You know they're doing. They're doing what they're told to do or what others have done and have been successful. And you look at their blood work and you're what are you seeing in their blood work that tells you they're in trouble? Well, their A1C is creeping up.
MARIA:Well, A1C is a complicated one because it's kind of how long your blood cells live. So if it's, like you know, 5.4, I'm not too concerned because it could be that their blood. So we don't really know. If you are carnivore, do your blood cells live longer?
FLORENCE:So that's what I was talking about. That's what she was talking about, that exact thing right there. She's like that.
MARIA:the A1C number might not be quite the same as your insulin resistance getting worse and your blood sugars getting higher either. That's totally different, you know. So yeah, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
FLORENCE:Oh no, I'm not doing her justice is what's happening is? My guess is that that's what she was talking about. So what other? What other things do you see in the blood, blood labs that tell you there's a problem?
MARIA:Well, it's usually people with like type two trying to get off medication and they are going on more medication when they do it.
FLORENCE:And.
MARIA:I say calories matter. Try these meal plans. First of all, they love the food way better because it's more interesting, and second of all, they get off medication 100% and they start to lose weight. Here's the thing about insulin resistance You're stuffing the fat cells too much and to reverse that you have to shrink the fat cells and gain, or at least maintain, your muscle as you shrink the fat cells. The only way you can do that is to move more than you're consuming. I know nobody wants to hear that, but it's true. So we can't just sit around with a ribeye with some butter on top of it. And sure, some of these people that are in that influencer space, they're like 25. They don't have a weight problem. They never did. I don't know. People are already in a state of disease. They're stressed out from work, from family, from whatever that's going to put them in another, like the whole cortisol issue. So yeah, it's just. I don't know it's not what people want to hear, but it's the truth.
FLORENCE:So what happens? Let's say you're obese, so you're still significantly overweight and your knees are sore and it's a struggle to work out. How would you help someone in that situation?
MARIA:Well, if they they can't work out at the moment, well, it's tough. It's tough, yeah, they're sore and there's um, I would give them some meal plans to do that are super easy for them. Um, and then, before you know it, like I'm, it's not on, like I will post testimonies on my Instagram and stuff of people losing 40 pounds in a month. Boom, like it's just easy. I had a Tyler who was over 600 pounds Wow, looking at his labs. Who was over 600 pounds Wow, looking at his labs. He had no issues.
MARIA:Getting fat is like a protective mechanism. He was able to grow new fat cells where most people don't after like an infancy stage, right. So someone who's lean, like I've had a girl who was 105 pounds. She had type 2 diabetes, so bad she was getting strokes and she said we're such a vain society. I wish I would gain weight when I cheated, but we don't, she doesn't. And where Tyler? For him, he just followed the meal plans and he lost a hundred pounds in two months. What? So he felt really great to start moving his body, right?
MARIA:So you work on what you can first, and I don't think a lot of people realize how important sleep is when it comes to blood sugar and weight loss and cravings and your moods, your energy. So I kind of work on sleep too, and if it's that you can't fall asleep or you can't stay asleep, there's two. There's different reasons on why you might have sleep issues, and especially women that are postmenopausal, and just helping address that with certain supplements, cause you know you could eat all the you know healthy carnivore food you want to, but menopause will happen. Some say that it won't, but it does, and when it does, you just have to be aware and that there's certain supplements that can help you to sleep, because when you don't sleep and you know you have to get up to pee all the time, it's frustrating right.
FLORENCE:So tell us a bit more about that. I think that's a really common thing that I see in my own sort of world that people talk about oh, I'm doing this, but I my sleep isn't as good when I go keto, and oh well, because I go keto. Well, I've heard both. I've heard menopause has affected my sleep. I'm not between two and four, or one and three, or something like that. Or they'll say ah, when I go keto, it's like I'm a bit wired and I can't seem to sleep as well.
MARIA:Well, it could be a variety of things. This is why some people do like carb ups before bedtime. You don't need the carbs before bed, but you need water retention and so being aware of that and how you can retain water other ways before bed. But if it's menopause, then it's definitely progesterone, estrogen issue, and whether you'd want to do natural supplements or HRT, I kind of just lead them to the science and that it doesn't cause breast cancer and stuff, and I mean UTIs and all that. I don't think women talk about it enough. Like these chronic UTIs, it's a low estrogen. You put some like vaginal estrogen on, they go away completely, a hundred percent. So I think just knowledge is power.
FLORENCE:Interesting. So how can people determine? So you have a calculator about how much protein is good for your body.
MARIA:It determines off of your lean mass, because we're different, right, I need more than somebody else, and they need more than me, and so it's all individualized.
FLORENCE:Okay, and is that something we have to work with you to calculate, or is that something we can do on your website? That's for free.
MARIA:I mean, I do it for my clients. But if you want to do it on your own for free, it's just at ketomariacom. There's a macro calculator somewhere, link.
FLORENCE:Okay. Okay, because, yeah, I think that there's probably a lot of people overdoing it and it isn't just weight related. I'm one of those people that you know was relative. I was overweight as a teenager and then in my early twenties I read the sugar blues. I started to reduce my consumption of sugar and processed junk food and I took up running. I've never really had a weight issue since, but I had the medical file like this and all my other friends that were complaining about their weight no issues. I kept thinking there's something about the fact that you're able to gain weight. Sure, you gain weight when you eat this. I get a migraine and UTIs and I don't know whatever, like acne and depression. And I kept thinking there's something about protective Like. I felt like, oh, they're probably taking those toxins and sticking them in fat cells or something that my body can't do.
MARIA:Yeah, kind of it's a protective mechanism, you know. So they're going to live longer during a famine too, right?
MARIA:So it is a protective mechanism, so they're going to live longer during a famine too right, so it is a protective mechanism, but at the same time they still might have sore knees and stuff carrying all that weight and things like that. Most people can't grow new fat cells, so the ones that they have get stuffed full. And when they get they get stuffed full. Even like the girl that's 105 pounds when they're stuffed full. You need to shrink that if you want to not have another stroke or, you know, not have type two diabetes and that type of stuff. Some people they ignore it for so long they blow out their beta cells and basically become type one and type two.
FLORENCE:Oh, yeah, and how did they blow them out? They blow them out by overstuffing fat cells.
MARIA:What's that For so long? For so long, your insulin receptors just aren't going to work anymore, and so yeah.
FLORENCE:Got it, got it.
MARIA:Okay. So everything people don't want to hear like. First of all, I have really delicious ways to make you know and I'm not saying like you have to eat 800 calories forever or like all week I actually, if you do three protein sparing days a week, I want you to do one over feeding day, which is not a pizza hut day, but it's like ribs and chicken wings and you know it's higher fat that way to kind of like just mess with your metabolism, cause over time if you're doing, you know, these extended fasts and water fasts, like your basal metabolic rate will go down Right. And most people are like Marie, I lost my hair, I lost my menstrual cycle doing that, so that's why I like to mess with it. But also it's delicious. People are loving the challenge that I have going on right now because the meal plans are yummy.
FLORENCE:And I do see a lot of veggies. There's almost always some veggies in your meal plans. Can people eat as many veggies as they want, or is that something?
MARIA:no, say more only vegetables I have in my meal plans, don't have oxalates no, it's low oxalate.
FLORENCE:You can eat as many low oxalate vegetables as you want um, no, I wouldn't say that either.
MARIA:Okay, say more. Well, I don't know. I think that you know if you follow the meal plan. There's a certain amount in there. You know what I'm saying but yeah, there's not going to be spinach. There's saying but yeah, there's not going to be spinach, there's not going to be kale, there's not going to be broccoli or Brussels sprouts or cauliflower, like this cauliflower rice and all that. No, it's not that. It's more like mushrooms, iceberg lettuce, you know, onions and garlic for flavor, a small amount, but there's like a certain. There's like four. No, there's six of them that I allow with my clients, so sticking to those. And no, I wouldn't say just like eat all the onions, because those are anything underneath the ground is a starch and I starchier things are going to have higher carbs and what about if someone who's a normal way but is sort of like, you know, if they're not concerned about the weight weight is not the issue.
FLORENCE:Is there any concerns with them having large salads with meals or something like that?
MARIA:Well, again, I would stay away from the oxalate ones Like, um, if you do a salad stick with like Romaine or iceberg, you know, don't do like raw spinach or kale or things like that If your digestion is fine and stuff I mean. But here's, you have to make sure you get your protein in. So, on that salad I want to see whether it be hard boiled eggs or chicken or a hamburger patty or you know something on like a lot of protein, at least like 30 grams on there, cause that's gonna do a lot for your body more than just eating, especially if you're just doing that salad plane, um, where you don't have any protein, that's just a bunch of carbohydrates. That's gonna you want fat and protein to help like keep your body in check.
FLORENCE:So, as people come to you, how often do you see people say oh, I'm struggling because I have cravings or sugar cravings or that sort of carb addiction piece play into you, and what do you do? What do you do when that happens?
MARIA:Well, there's different types of people. I had someone in London who was on Ozempic, the GLP-1, and she's still binge ate. She's like I'm not even hungry. Wow, that was not even like a physical craving, that was a mental craving. So that is going to go way deeper than someone who is.
MARIA:I've had people who just eat frosting. That's how addicted to sugar they are. They just want to eat the frosting, and so we just find things that they are going to enjoy food. Wise Cause, if you told that person to just go carnivore, it might be very difficult. But I also tell them, your taste buds turn over every 15 days. So if you give your body 15 days of not having that frosting, your palate is going to change. And that's short of time, like that is good news, because you think that it would take a lot longer, right. But if you give yourself 15 days, I think it's really 14, but just, we'll do 15, just because, um, you know, because I was that sugar fiend, that's what I lived off of, and now it doesn't even look like food to me, right? I did the same thing with alcohol and coffee and that's just yeah, can't even go there anymore.
FLORENCE:What percentage of people, would you say, struggle with this sugar addiction issue? That?
MARIA:admit it. I would say like 90 of people in the world do really oh, I took my kids to the state fair.
MARIA:You don't think that those people are addicted to like, but they're not going to say that they are. And this is the same reason why you won't see food addiction in the dictionary, because the same people writing it are addicted, even though they won't say that, because it's normalized. It's totally normalized. I have teenage boys that are in sports. They will be homeschooled, but when they go to sports, everything the kids are eating is sugar and they're very interested in what my kids have so like. You know, if it's gummy bears, okay, make my gummy bears. You can have as many of those as you want. You know, don't even start with a. You know a macro count for them. Just get them off the sugar at that point. And I think that's where the idea of priming comes in, you know, just to get off the sugar. But I also know people are so sick and they want to see results that they want to get off medication and feel better. So just, you know, just drink heavy cream. It's just not a good idea.
FLORENCE:Right, right, right, right. Yeah, I have a daughter who tried this and followed the steak and butter advice and acne felt tired, felt awful, like her periods were like it just wasn't, and she kept saying but it's working for everybody. I don't know what to say.
MARIA:I don't know what to say Maybe it's not, maybe it's just what we hear. Same with, like veganism. You know, I have a lot of people that have come to me and they were vegan and they said gosh forbid. I would say something bad about that diet I would get eaten alive by the people you know. But I just spoke in Florida a month ago and a couple young girls said I went completely carnivore, I lost my cycle, I did all you know, like all of these things, and so just guiding them to how to get it back, to say that it's an end, all be all of like it's this miracle. I think it's great for autoimmune issues. I like it. Call it the ultimate autoimmune protocol. Do you still have migraines? Me very rarely, but I still get them were they monthly or random?
FLORENCE:I got them with my cycle yeah a little progesterone, oh yeah there's usually evening primrose oil.
MARIA:That's really good for that okay capsule and then like a like, like a progest cream. You can get that on Amazon, do you like? Tend to fall asleep. You can't stay asleep.
FLORENCE:Yes, if, if, if I have sleep issues, it's. It tends to be that, yeah, that's low progesterone.
MARIA:Yeah, okay. So, those two things together really help with migraines going away. Pain in general evening per roll of soil is really good for Okay, amazing, amazing.
MARIA:What other supplements do you suggest for people who struggle with sleep? With sleep, I usually recommend magnesium glycinate. That's a really good one. Don't go to Target and buy magnesium because you're going to just have diarrhea. That's what milk and magnesia is, is magnesium oxide. But if you get a good quality magnesium that's has it's tied to an amino acid, that's really absorbable and it's very calming. So if you have kids with anxiety or you have anxiety, but it's very calming. So like an hour before bed, you know, do a pretty, I do a pretty high dose. It's very calming.
MARIA:Um to help with sleep. And then it kind of just depends on what they're dealing with. There's L-theanine, there's um gosh, there's so many. There's GABA Some people say it doesn't cross the blood brain barrier, but I have seen the difference in people and how it helps. But that Progest cream is really good before bad Um and then like some sort of you know electrolyte to help retain that water. It's very helpful. Blue blocking glasses I know it's not a supplement, but I have to put them on at about 5 pm, otherwise I notice when I travel I'm like, oh, I can just feel it. I can just feel it. And the reason why it's so important is. The blue light will block melatonin from being produced and it will raise cortisol, so that's that cortisol that nobody likes. So the cortisol stays high and melatonin stays low. No-transcript, right? Yeah?
FLORENCE:so I'm imagining people are a bit curious about your meal plan then, and I know it sounds like you have to sort of individualize it. But generally speaking, do you have people eat like three meals, or do they eat when they're hungry? Do you put them on a schedule like what would they? What would a typical meal plan look like, like, maybe during your challenge right now?
MARIA:um, again, like if you want to spread these out, I don't mind if it's three meals, but it's two meals a day and most of the time when you keep your blood sugar nice and stable, you don't have the hunger like you do when you're eating a bunch of fruit or whatever it is that's making it go up and down, because how hunger happens is a falling blood sugar. So you could go to like a Chinese buffet and eat all the sugar, chicken and white rice and an hour later you're like oh yeah, I go for ice cream, let's go Right, it's not because your belly's not so full, it's because that blood sugar went sky high and now it's starting to come down, and that's when hunger happens to you. It's really helpful to keep it nice and even You'll see a lot of benefits that way. So that's, I forgot what you're saying. And again, like I work with them too. So with the meal plan, the challenge, yeah, I made them Right, but with my one on one clients where we are on the phone and stuff, I show them how to go to my website and they can pick egg-free, dairy-free, nut-free, like all the free nightshade-free you name it right Pescatarian, vegetarian, whatever filter you want and it's going to filter thousands of recipes and only give you that are good for you. Filter you want, and it's going to filter thousands of recipes and only give you that are good for you, and then within that you can click how much grams of fat you want, how many grams of protein you want, and it will filter those too. It'll filter cooking time and all of that. So it's really like and again, I have like millions of recipes, so it filters everything and then they can just drag ones that they like into their meal planner. And then I'll look at it and be like well, I would switch X and Y. You can still have that, but I want that to be on this day. So I just kind of like rearrange it that way so it's more personalized, 100%.
MARIA:But the challenge again they could choose carnivore meal plans or the keto, and it still contains protein, sparing days on. Both still contains protein, sparing days on both. The calorie range was still around the same for both, carnivore versus keto, and the keto group always loses more. The keto group always loses more weight. Yep, we did multiple challenges. We did just carnivore challenges. We just did like keto and protein sparing, and there's always protein sparing in the carnivore challenges. We just did keto and protein sparing. There's always protein sparing in the carnivore too. Other keto protein sparing loses more.
FLORENCE:What if somebody comes to you and doesn't want to lose weight? What happens then?
MARIA:I work with those people all the time Kids, epilepsy, seizures, cancer, you name it. We work with different macros because, again, with cancer, I wouldn't go high on the protein, really.
FLORENCE:No, say more.
MARIA:Just like the amino acids and protein like L-glutamine. I would make sure that they're not taking L-glutamine or creatine or any of those protein powders, just because it is another fuel source and your body likes to use those easy fuels for energy. That's why it likes sugar. It's an easy fuel. So I would just moderate it a little bit and focus more on fat and say like we're not going to worry about muscle right now, we're going to get that beast out of you and say like we're not going to worry about muscle right now, we're going to get that beast out of you.
FLORENCE:You know, wow yeah, wow yeah, because there's always this risk if you don't actually know, because people it's like years and years in the making, there's people potentially making cancer and might not even know about it.
MARIA:Well, we all have cancer, Right? Just depends on if it stays dormant or not. Right, right, that's what you know. If we live long enough, everybody will die of it.
FLORENCE:Oh, some theories. Some theories, yeah, Cause I can imagine there's people that will die of old age but, like just you know, happy, healthy, just right right, right right.
MARIA:But if we, if that was the one disease that took all of us because we lived not long enough? There's been theories about that.
FLORENCE:I don't know, wow, okay, what else can I pick your brain about what?
MARIA:would you say, is too much protein at a meal for, let's say, a premenopausal woman? If you are chewing your protein and not doing protein powders, you can't do enough, you can't do too much.
FLORENCE:It's what about those people that are leptin resistant and just like literally won't stop.
MARIA:You need more than uh, well, if you're insulin resistant that's what I thought you said um, no, leptin. Well, protein is very satiating too, so it's hard to. It's hard to overeat, but I haven't had anybody go over the amount of protein. If they're not doing protein powders, that's where people easily do too much.
FLORENCE:Okay, because I do. I do know of people who will eat. You know, eat 10, 12 ounces at a meal. Does that sound like too much to you? 12 ounces of what? It could be beef, it could be chicken, it could be some sort of meat.
MARIA:Well, because I'll do like a pound of ground beef. I don't think that's too much.
FLORENCE:Oh, at a meal yeah.
MARIA:You can do 16 ounces at a meal. My kids do too, if they want to. I am very active. I lift weights, I run, I walk, you name it. I don't really sit down. We live on the beach and I don't even have a beach chair because mom's never going to sit at the beach. My kids know that. But too much protein. Some people think like, oh, I need to limit protein if I have type 2 diabetes. No, actually you need more because it's not getting to the cells like it needs to.
FLORENCE:What about if you have kidney issues?
MARIA:So if you are stage five, maybe, but I've worked with people all the way to stage one, two, three, four they actually do better with a good amount of protein, because it's like doing bicep curls. That protein is going to make your kidneys work and build, be stronger. So the idea of proteins hard on the kidneys no, it's sugar, it's the processed foods that are hard on the kidneys. My grandpa died of type 2 diabetes. He's like Maria. I love my popcorn. I love my beer. I'm not going to eat your way. I understand that. He was awesome. We would play guitar together and he died basically of kidney failure and it wasn't because he ate too much protein. He ate too much popcorn and sugar and candy. He always had candy right, totally amazing.
FLORENCE:Is there anything else you would like to share that you want our audience to to understand about the harms of ultra processed foods and the hope that we have to restore our metabolic health through keto and carnivore?
MARIA:Well, if you think like, oh, I can't do it, I didn't think I could do it either. And it just like I said, give yourself 15 days and you will get better. You know things will get better, you'll want to move more, you'll be happier. I asked my dear friend who she's now like the healthiest carnivore I know, but she was a raw vegan. When I met her and I said are your moods cause? She's such a happy person? I said were your moods different when you were a raw vegan? She goes I didn't want to get up. Oh, wow, yeah. And so even just like mental health, when I hear about that getting better, that's super powerful, you know. And food is pleasure. I get that. That's why I make gummy bears, that's why I make it was my birthday yesterday, you know. That's why I make stuff that I love the flourless chocolate torte. I've made that around the world, even in Russia. You can find all the ingredients, okay, you can find all the ingredients, okay. So just think positive.
MARIA:And there's two types of people. Well, there's more. But there's the person that's like oh, maria said I can't have any bread, I can't have any pizza, right. But then there's a type of person that's like oh, maria said I could have chicken wings and all these things I thought were bad. She said I could have a big steak every day if I wanted to. Right, and they start thinking positive, like, hey, maria has a recipe for that, let's do it. Let's make gummy bears Right, and I can tell who's going to be successful. The positive person Right.
MARIA:But like I was 16 and diagnosed with all of these issues and I was told I couldn't have my own children, and instead of being like super depressed about it, I was like, oh, I'm going to adopt children and change the lives of kids Right, but that's how you have to think about that. We're all going to have really crappy things happen. We all are. It depends on how you let it affect you, right. So the mind is a powerful thing, you know, whether you let yourself feel left out or be like, hey, I'm going to a barbecue and I'm going to bring deviled eggs, or you know Maria's cake recipes or whatever you want, but that's why I don't feel left out and food is pleasurable to all of us. Here, too, I even have a Pop-Tart recipe, what? Yeah? And the sugar-free cake book.
FLORENCE:Yeah, it sounds disgusting, but tell me about it.
MARIA:Oh no, it's. Just think about those Pop-Tarts. They sit on the shelf for years and they never go bad. Mine will go bad in, you know, five days in the fridge, right? So that one is the harder one. I told you there's only a few recipes that are like parent-assisted. That one is a harder one, but you ever watch Gilmore Girls my daughter did, so I've caught the odd odd bit of it.
MARIA:Yes, so my boys and I would love to watch Gilmore girls and they were just little and they're like mom, what's a pop tart? Cause Lorelei Gilmore loves a pop tart. And I was like let me show you. You know, so if they're ever like what's that, I was like let me show you, let's go.
FLORENCE:Right, I can't believe how much time you've spent in the kitchen, like creating and making things interesting and recreating favorites and healthier forms.
MARIA:I don't have much of a life otherwise. No, I mean, I'm not one to enjoy, you know, going out and partying. That's just never been my thing, even in college. I'd rather like be out. I'm a bow hunter. I like to be out in nature. I'd rather like be out. I'm a bow hunter, I like to be out in nature. So a lot of times I'll be out in nature, whether I'm out with a paddleboard, with the whales I don't know if you saw that paddleboard with the whales or something like that and I'll have these ideas like, oh, that's where I have my best ideas. And then when I'm done I go inside.
MARIA:Sometimes the kids want to help. It's usually easier if they don't. It's funny because my husband's like oh, you make twice as much of a mess when they help. But it's my happiest memories, literally, I have. There's a kids baking competition. So Valerie Bertinelli has my books and I was just floored and so my boys and I started watching that and they're like we should have a kids baking competition. So I got out cocoa powder and all the stuff and let them create their own cakes and we had a baking competition and it was. It was such a mess, but it was like one of my favorite memories.
FLORENCE:Incredible. Do you, do you have any sweeteners? I should probably know this answer, cause it's not like you don't have all your cookbooks, but right now I'm drawing a blank. Do you have any sweeteners in your recipes?
MARIA:Obviously not the carnivore ones, because I have the carnivore, which would be no. No, yeah, I mean even like allulose is kind of the new one, but I've seen it even in Korea and other places that I travel to that's been found to be really positive on insulin resistance blood sugar. It's a natural GLP-1. So what that means is you feel full faster, so you're going to eat less of it. So there's Dr Nadir Ali. He's a cardiac surgeon that we interviewed and he was saying like if they put two tablespoons in their coffee in the morning or tea or water whatever throughout the day, they eat significantly less because they just feel that signal better. But again, there's people that will eat through that, just like the woman on the Ozempic. But I use stevia glycerite most of the time. It's a non-bitter stevia that's thick like a honey Monk fruit drops. I usually like to blend sweeteners because it just creates a better flavor profile. Most people can't tell the difference.
FLORENCE:Have you found it triggering for people? Like I don't know that I could do those sweeteners. I don't have a desire to try it just because I've relapsed so many times. Thank you very much. I just probably should stay on this side of them, but I don't know. Like, have you found it problematic for some people?
MARIA:And 20 years ago, I've been keto for 26 years. We'd go to a wedding, right, and there'd be the wedding cake. I could mentally say, you can have your flourless chocolate torte when you get home. Do not touch that cake. But if I couldn't have anything, some people would be like, well, whatever, I'm just going to have something. So for a lot of people it keeps them on track and they go to a barbecue and they have my protein brownies, right. But I just see all types of people that are like I.
MARIA:if you would have told me at 16 that you're just gonna eat meat, I wouldn't even have tried right so I kind of like have like a mental game with people I'm working with to find out what kind of person they are to see what rail I'm going to go down to, because I don't mind if you have a dessert every day, but it's going to be one of mine and it's not going to have nuts in it.
MARIA:It's not going to have dairy in it. You know like. So there are guidelines. Do you do dairy? Why no nuts and dairy? Because they're the best way to put weight on, especially nuts.
MARIA:If you combine fat and carbs together, it's the best way to put weight on, and in nature there's really not a lot of things like that, except for nuts and milk. Nuts there's really no protein, it's just fat and carbs and they're very easy to overeat. And then, if you're eating the actual nut, there's this sensory specific satiety. It's not the crunch that you're feeling in their mouth, but the feeling in your ear. You want to keep going. But then you make nut flours and you make a cake with nut flours that's super caloric, dense, and then you put some cream cheese or whatever in there and dairy causes this dopamine response where you have a hard time stopping to eat that too. But dairy also.
MARIA:I work with a lot of people autoimmune, and so dairy is something that needs to go in the beginning and sometimes people can add it back in. But even like Twyla, she lost 270 pounds and she was at my house and we were talking and she's like well, I do love dairy, but whenever I add it in, my weight starts to just creep up a little bit and since she was, you know, she lost two people. Right, she's very aware of what food will put some weight on and she's like it's just not worth it. Incredible, she couldn't even go to the store because she couldn't fit. If she had to go to the bathroom, she couldn't fit into a stall. Unbelievable, he's like the most amazing human ever.
FLORENCE:Love you, twyla wow, wow, wow, amazing. I know I was in flew. I was away for the long weekend and I was like I can barely fit into these bathrooms, like it's just unbelievable how tight they are and how hard that must be for people that are larger to travel and see the world and have adventures.
MARIA:Is there any final words you'd like to say? I just want people to know, like I was telling you earlier, I don't make money on this, but I love to do someone. A few companies asked me to do keto retreats and carnivore retreats and what I love about it is a lot of people will go just by themselves and we just make friends for life, and I still I messaged a few of them this morning see how they're doing and if you've ever been to summer camp, I mean you understand how close you can get in seven days. And what's awesome is if you are type one or somebody who has to eat keto or carnivore, I promise you the meals will be that Some people bring a friend who's not and they'll have pad Thai when we went to Thailand or whatever. I don't, I'm not judgy, I don't care at all, but we just it's a way to make friends with like common. You know things in common. I just I just love it. We're going to I'm going to Italy next week, so Okay.
FLORENCE:Tell us about some retreats coming up. So this is going to air in October, because I think there's people that'd be very interested in that option. So tell us a bit more about those retreats.
MARIA:I don't know what time the cutoff is, but I'm going to Costa Rica with a fabulous group of people in January and our hotel has hot springs at it and stuff, so they plan all the adventures to. This company is pretty awesome. And then Vietnam in March. People don't realize how beautiful Vietnam is and it's the most affordable place. Like you could have a lobster dinner with wine If you want to drink wine, I don't and it will be like $5. Oh, my goodness. And then go get a massage for two. It's super, super affordable and it's beautiful. Our hotel is right on the beach. And then Greece in May Wow, maria, wow, greece beach. And then greece in may. Wow, maria, wow, greece is going to be an awesome one. I did that one in the past and it was one of my favorites. That's why I redid it. Croatia in um late june. So if you are in school or a professor or something, if you want to do it in the summertime, and then sardinia in september my goodness, you're doing a ton of traveling next year.
FLORENCE:This sounds so exciting, yeah.
MARIA:So it's like my favorite thing because I think you know, as a busy working mom with homeschooling kids, I don't have the opportunity to make friends, and so when I go on these trips, I just like throw my arms up and what's awesome is somebody picks you up from the airport. You don't have to do anything, it's all planned for you, which I didn't think I would like that, but I love it because it's just like woo, and if you don't want to go to dinner with all of us one night, we don't care, you can go, do whatever you want. Nobody feels offended. Some of us got tickets to go to an elephant sanctuary and some wanted to relax at the pool, and it's just I don't know, it's just so awesome.
FLORENCE:Oh my gosh, it really does sound awesome. Is it the same company that's offering these?
MARIA:different. I work with three different ones, and the one that I'm going to Italy with next week. It's just like this one woman who is from Italy and she lives in California and her friend said, Juliana, I want to go to Italy, but your style? And she puts that that one is VIP, Like that one's like five star everything. When we were in Croatia last time, our farewell dinner they made a keto cake and I'm like I don't, I don't know what's in that. And they brought me the recipe and I was like, oh, I would eat all of that. I was so impressed, Right, so I had burrata for dinner or dessert instead.
FLORENCE:No, I don't even know what it is. What is it? Do you eat dairy? Very limited, typically goat, and very rarely.
MARIA:So in Europe I feel like dairy affects me differently too. I think the pasteurization over here is really high, but over there so brought is like mozzarella cheese on the outside with like cream on the inside, a creamy like. It's just delicious delicious I was like, can I have that for dessert? And they're like, absolutely so wow, wow, okay.
FLORENCE:So if we want to know more about these retreats, we can go to ketomariacom and they'll be there. Yep, okay, I hope you do. Oh, my god, it sounds so interesting, so so exciting, okay and then I teach you everything you want to know too.
MARIA:So if you have questions, personal questions, it's like a conference on steroids, you know it's like a conference on steroids.
FLORENCE:That sounds incredible and how many people typically go like 15, 16.
MARIA:We keep it pretty small. Oh my goodness, if you have too big of a group you can't you can't even get a dinner table together. You know it gets to be a lot, but then we can have one boat and we all go snorkeling together on a boat and it's fun yeah, oh, my god, that sounds so fun.
FLORENCE:Okay, awesome, thanks everybody. Thank you, maria, for your time. I keep asking you is there any final words? I'm not going to do it again because we could talk all day, but thank you. Thank you for your time, for all the work that you do, and thanks everyone for tuning in today. Bye, everybody.
