on episode 164 of the 40-plus fitness podcast we will talk with Elle Russ on her book the paleo thyroid solution stop feeling fat foggy and fatigued at the hands of uninformed doctors reclaim your health the show notes for this episode can be found at 40-plus fitness podcast.com forward slash 164 have you decided you're ready to make a change to reclaim your health and fitness the 40-plus fitness podcast is here for you I'm your host Alan Weisman I'm an MS AM certified personal trainer with a specialization in corrective exercise and fitness nutrition let me be your coach as you find your way on your health and fitness journey alright let's go on this podcast we get into veganism ketosis and today paleo I've been asked which one is the right one the short answer is the one that works for you one of the advantages of forever fitness personal training is that we customize the food and the training to work for you if you're tired of not making progress of the confusing information out there it's time to join me don't miss out on your opportunity to lock in the best annual rate I'm closing the door soon and when I reopen it will be more go to 40-plus fitness podcast com forward slash ready and you can get started right now l Russ is a writer actor health and life coach and the host of the primal blueprint podcast I'm excited to have this talk with Elle because she's an alumna of second city the famous sketch comedy and improv in Chicago she currently lives in Malibu California so let's go talk with L so L welcome to 40-plus fitness hi thanks for having me glad to be here I was really excited to get somebody from the blueprint family on the show because I have kind of been predominantly primal for the last four years and in and sometimes going as far as ketogenic I haven't really had a whole lot of conversations on the podcast with someone that's really knowledgeable about that and then a lot of my clients that I've dealt with have told me that they have thyroid issues so this is kind of an opportunity for me to really marry to topics that are really close to heart and I was really I really am appreciative to have this opportunity to have this conversation with you oh that's great one I'm appreciative to that I'm even able to combine these two in a book and get that the information out your listeners and to anyone who you know once they just feel and feel better yeah and and the fact that she worked at second city I was like wow that's that's pretty cool because I really I didn't work there I performed there yeah even better well I say I say work there but I mean I that's what I mean is to be to be an actor and be a part of that that's a lot of talent now yeah again I when I've been up there I've enjoyed the times that I've gone to the improv there and just enjoyed the just the quality of the talent and the show yeah it is it just really is it is great it's honestly what it's what kind of made me a writer too you know when you write sketch comedy like that you're doing hundreds and hundreds of shows and you're not only running your own sketches and performing but then your noon shows with other people and that's really what really made me a writer many years ago was the years and years of that but I too used to go see the shows and be like ah I want to do that and you know then I did so for me one of my dream comes true but my dream comes you know true was being a main stage member to a comedy theater and when I came out to Los Angeles and did sketch comedy and improv out here I did I did achieve that goal and honestly even though those gigs are not paid you know you're doing sketch comedy live in front of 100 people those aren't usually you know no one's making money at that really but it didn't matter because the joy and the show it's just such fun it's so much fun all you do is laugh all the time your face hurts so great yeah and again it's just I was I was just really kind of thrown away with just the talent of oh it's like wow I mean you know they go away for a second and they're playing off of each other and I know they've done this you know for a while but it just the creativity and just the sheer talent and the guts to stand up and do that I just again I've very I can't compliment you enough for for what you did because again I understand and I mean I I've never done it but I just just imagine I just I could spend hours preparing for a speech a public address and I and I enjoy doing that but I can tell you the preparation I go into and you guys walk off for three minutes and come back out and perform just as awesome sketch is just is just amazing well what actually just to throughout the audience if anyone out there is interested in the arts or acting or like speaking and you're fearful of it the best thing to do to get rid of any kind of fear of public performing is to do improv because when you take an improv class even if you don't want to be an improviser it's the most frightening thing it is so frightening it's awkward you fail you're weird sometimes you're trying to be funny it's not and it's such a safe wonderful environment to do that that I could go into an auditorium for with 25,000 people right now would not even be nervous in the slightest because nothing is more nerve-wracking than improv so it's great for anybody who wants to just get out of their shell a little bit or fight some fears if you've got to do some you know speeches at the office or public speaking or we're just weird in a crowd at company events I mean those kind of things know improv can really help yeah because I may not you know with improv you're actually trying to get a reaction out of them with other public speaking I think you almost just want them to not respond it's got to be a lot different again it was just really awesome to have this conversation with you and and your book comprehensive complete and and and I just think spot-on I really did appreciate your approach to this because you know and I've had this conversation on here before that yes your your doctors there to help you but your doctor is following particular sets of protocols that were drilled into their heads when they went to medical school and they don't want to slip up because there's just too much at risk with their career if they don't just follow and toe the line of what you know they were taught and what the professions going to do and in reading the book I mean there are things that I went through and I thought you know I I really kind of thought I knew a lot of stuff but I I can tell you I didn't really know a lot about the reverse t3 I had never really heard of that before so that was like a new concept and I'm like you know you did your research that's that's for sure with this book and I just appreciate that was the worst research probably part of the research that I was a part I wish I could have skipped but huh well yeah I get that but I think that that again just kind of shows the passion of what you brought to this project and that's that's what made it real and and again you put your all into the book and it's obvious from the quality of what we've got here as a resource so I'm very proud of it and I honestly kind of say this which I think it's true it's some Toni Morrison quote but it's one of those things where it's like if there's a book you're looking for and you can't find it then you need to write that book and I did and I added things in here that no other thyroids book has that I was looking for at the time and it is comprehensive and detailed and I wanted it to be that way and I wanted some I knew the subject already I just thought well I wish I had this enough in a book so I mean it's just so great to finally have it now and be able to help people on a broader scale than just running into people with thyroid problems and helping them in person you
know I mean yeah and just the number of people that will in our lifetime win in their lifetime struggle with thyroid issues it's just great to have a resource like this yeah I mean it's an epidemic really it's really insane and it's on the rise so you know it's even more of something to look out for and even if people are listening and they don't have a thyroid problem you still have a thyroid gland if it's working right and if it's not you know but even if it's working correctly and you're still interested in fitness and overall health and optimizing and treating all of the underlying factors involved in its success would behoove every human being because we all have a thyroid gland and if you don't you're dead or if you know now that thyroid gland you've replaced it with the thyroid hormones that the Glenn doesn't have anymore but the bottom line is that it's essential to life and quality of life no matter who you are whether you're suffering now or haven't suffered yet hopefully you won't but this is also how to prevent that two really important to draw the attention this master gland to everybody out there it's all a part of it yeah so in in the book you you kind of start out or you get into kind of these problem-solving principles which I really enjoy I'm a very principles based person I like kind of having these for a lack of a better well I know that you can't have black and white rules all the time so you set principles that kind of give you a guideline for how to move forward and so I want to kind of go through those principles for problem-solving your thyroid because you know I do think that's extremely empowering and and something that everybody should take to note when they're dealing with not just a thyroid issue but I think that you could have just called this problem solving for any medical condition because it really is it really is doctors but they really is I mean you know and again it's not the doctors fault I think they're following their protocols but you you have to empower yourself so the first thing your first principle is is do your own research I'll expand on that so yes your research on one of the biggest problems or things that I see was a my failing at it back in the day when a doctor just said your thyroid is fine just keep working out which is what a lot of people get and I should have done some research done because I trusted him and he actually hurt me and furthered my progress and I went undiagnosed and had a lot of horrible health problems as a result and had it been nipped in the bud then so I wish I would have done my research but also I will say this I ever almost knew gosh in fact 99.9 percent of every person that I've met was on thyroid hormone has no idea what it is how it works how it affects the body zero and that's just going to be a losing pass do you know what I mean so you have to take responsibility if you've been diagnosed with something get into it learn about it if you're just looking for a doctor to help you that is the first mistake you and I mean and often times you can teach your doctor something or you might know more about that about an issue than they do but you've got to start to learn it yourself now the only reason I had to is because I was left in the dust by doctors so I had no choice but to be my own doctor dose myself do my own blood work scary place to be not fun but the thing is is that what the reason I was successful twice in ten years one with regular hypothyroidism the second bout was a reverse t3 problem the reason I was successful because I did do the research I wish I had a doctor to help me that's great but in doing that I also learned and was able to help others too so that's another reason to because it's such an epidemic who anyone who's out there learn about it to not only help yourself but then you can pay it forward and help other people on the right path because you're gonna run into people with thyroid problems they're everywhere so yeah so if I so definitely do your own research and then um you know there's just too many people with you know in this country with diseases and health problems someone says well you have type 2 diabetes take this pill and then that's it you know where's the research you know there's a lot of people who can prevent going on and so on if they do it the natural way they don't even know that because they just again putting all their faith in a doctor and that again is I think just a very bad call and then the next one was follow your gut that's right so and I'm going to contradict what I first just said too about dr. B even if you find a good doctor you mean if you find someone that's great has helped you you still have to follow your gut on everything even if they suggest a supplement and something doesn't feel right to you you know or whatever it is even if you trust them and they've done great with some other areas for health always follow your gut something's not right it's not right particularly when you're dealing with an uninformed doctor because a lot of patients get patronized by their doctors or I should say allow themselves to be patronized and we we put such faith and such like all bow down to the MD from Harvard and and then if a doctor says that's ridiculous you don't need to get your b12 tested that's stupid a patient can cower as if they're the king of the kingdom and you're the lowly subject and what is that about you're paying them for your health so it's a little bit of a level of empowerment to stand up and go just because someone has an MD doesn't mean they know what they're talking about it if you're patronized by a doctor or made you feel stupid in any way or they're not listening to you yeah that doesn't feel good get out you run and go find another doctor you gotta follow your gut there I had a lot of those scenarios a lot and it felt bad and wrong and I got I even cried one of them you know you're already emotional and weak when you have no siren hormones and you're screwed so it's not you're already overly sensitive and then to have a doctor laugh in your face at a suggestion of a blood work can bring a patient to tears and it certainly did it for me well it was kind of funny you said Harvard because I was I was actually reading an article in Harvard today one of their one of their papers and the author of the paper said that yes this diet would be very very effective but it's very very hard so we just need to find a pill to solve this problem and I was like oh my god they're not gonna stop eating crap so let's just find a pill to make this go away but your third principle was take copious notes oh yeah that's really important along the process especially if you are feeling ill because also brain function is compromised when you're having thyroid issues sometimes retaining memory of things can be poor so taking copious notes on your on your symptoms what you're feeling you know if you wake up your day all of a sudden you have some weird symptom like one of the weird symptoms out of the 30 that I had that's in my book is really insane any inner itching of the ears anything that feels off are weird you got a track or if you're tracking vitals taking notes they're like tracking blood pressure attempts which I talked about in my book and people should do along the way because it does help with knowing where you are with optimization if you're going to go on thyroid hormone and so taking copious notes is important because had I not done that I was doing it for the I was doing it myself for me because I was my own doctor but I was also doing it in the hopes that one day I would find a doctor and I would be able to finally have a doctor maybe prescribed me t3 only at the time and I was hoping that I could prove to them that I was smart enough of a patient and if I took all these notes I'm showing you know
this compliance he actually those notes who are used for that they were used for something in the book that I never expected that I'd be used for but I think when you step up and you take notes like that and not only do you have a record of where you were so that if you know you ever have a moment work gratitude is flipping you can always look back for that but also because you have a gauge of what's going away what feels good what doesn't if you're starting hormone and you have an issue or get a headache it's just important to write these things down and keep notes it could be even something like you've noticed you're really sensitive to sound and you can't listen music anymore that's going to happens when we have adrenal fatigue you know not even noticeable until later so it's not that you may be able to catch everything but you should take his detailed notes as possible and that also will help a doctor help you to and I and I share people you know in the book details on how to take tents and things like that which you definitely need notes for and yeah tracking progress so I think just keeping a detailed account of what's happening to you and its new symptoms show up or what's going on or what the doctor said or didn't say ER or just getting copies of your bloodwork you know that that could be included in maybe even taking copious notes is having that nearby so yeah that's a really important important one okay and and the thyroid because it is such an important part of our lives that you know we can't live without it you are you are going to need to find the right doctor so seeking doctors help is still going to be a critical aspect of getting what you need right and seeking you know the right kind of doctors which I'll share with everyone went out usually the most knowledgeable doctors about the subject are functional medicine doctors who are also integrative or anti-aging doctors usually functional medicine doctors have training in anti-aging orthomolecular medicine and new integrative medicine truly integrative those are the doctors that spend hour with you they go above and beyond that are worth every penny and will go above and beyond and do some in-depth testing and see all the different variables involved which are absolutely applicable if you go those are usually the best doctors the worst doctors are endocrinologist classically they are the most indoctrinated they're the most eco based and they are all so entrenched in the old paradigm just as if back in the day these safe fats bad for you don't eat coconut don't eat you know saturated fat you know give you a heart attack and heart disease when we know that's not true now because we now know from the finds and Arsenal instead in the false studies but but you know it's the same thing like endocrinologists are so entrenched in old paradigms and really haven't gotten above and beyond what they learn 3040 years ago so seeking a doctor's help yes but be careful and be diligent about who it is that you're seeking out and if you can't spend money on such a doctor then you know you do something like you read my book you become educated and hopefully you can work with a doctor that's willing to work you even if they are one of those sort of just regular MDS who might you know you might find one that's open also do as a Doctor of Osteopathy er the ostrich I pick medicine they often also really know what's up with the latest I read stuff so right away that's just a tip-off to people if anyone's curious just the doctor on my book has great credentials and his website middle path medicine calm and you can always look at his bio and see what is teaching and credentials you know and all of this stuff is and try to match that look for someone similar I'll go to the functional medicine you know website and search for functional medicine doctors so those are really the best but yeah CQ doctors help I mean I would I would have loved that I did speak out dr. salt I couldn't find one so I had to do it myself so it's funny for me to say that because then as the next principle kind of funny says don't rely solely on your doctor so it's like a license contradictory no I mean it's part about taking responsibility for your health looking into what they're suggesting or not suggesting I mean I really nearly took things that doctors told me to take that I wish I did one doctor at one point I went ahead a reverse t3 problem that's it everything I was just not she was like I don't know tell you about this weight gain and the spoken mental focus and your brain I don't know and she gave me phentermine which is a mess and feta mean based weight loss drug which blew my adrenals out even further but I didn't even like think about it I just trusted her again like I even been through this one so you know you can still drop the ball even once you're not as well I'll never do that again but even if a doctor says hey take the supplement we're looking through it a little bit first or self you see where your guts right maybe you feel more comfortable taking a thousand milligrams instead of 5,000 at first or whatever so that's also part of follow your gut don't solely rely on them you want to combine your research and what you feel is right and you definitely want to get no second and third opinion so if you're not feeling good about stuff and even if you are it could be of you to get a few opinions if you have the money in the world with all teed-up well and this is important enough you make the investment your health you've got enough money to do this because you don't have enough money to not do this it's going to be more expensive to get cancer and polycystic ovarian syndrome and all sorts of other things and I really would love for these old doctors that hurt me to pay for my sorry bill that had to happen as a result of being in a hypothyroid state that they kept me in but did they I didn't do my part either and so again we've got this false paradigm of you go to the doctor I'm sure you've heard this I've had this kind of laugh when this happens like someone will go and meet a new doctor for the first time even if they don't have a problem just you know normal checkup and it's like oh how was it and I've heard this like oh they're great they're wonderful I'm so excited about them and all that doctor did was like look in their ears and look in their throat how do they know they're a great doctor because they had a good personality because they had a nice office because they had a degree on the wall how do you know they're good they spent 3 more minutes with them than the last doctor did which is 50% more like we don't judge competence in other areas either you know I don't let someone fly the plane just because they've got a great person you know I didn't want to see how many hours they spent in the air what's there you know so until a doctor's treated you or helped you or not helped you with something you can't know whether or not this is another one I've heard I've heard people do like my doctor tested me for everything I'm fine oh really what they touch you for do you know have you looked yes Colin BS on that that's unacceptable to me now from this patient perspective and in general the fact that anyone would just say that that that's a losing game - I have a doctor right now if I walked in his office and told him I was still alive I think he would just be surprised because you know back 20 years ago I had high cholesterol and he was like you're not gonna live to 40 and I was like ok yeah Wow and I was like ok and then you know there was a period of time when I got on a statin because again it was the third or fourth doctor that had told me this and then I'm laying on the side of the road my legs my muscles on my legs are just completely given out and I'm like ok you know the doctors mean well and and t
hey're in there but you have to be a partner and this is not a this is not a coach player thing this is this is a business where you guys are going in to manage your health together and and you actually have seniority over that doctor you can fire that doctor if you don't feel like that doctor really has your best interest so you have to make that doctor work for the amount of money because they're making the money with that bill so give them the research give them what you've learned because you've done your research you've taken notes and hand it to them and say look look at this look at my data look at my labs look at what I've done and and look at this work look at these reports look at these these research studies and that action right there might be enough even just saying that to a doctor might be enough for them to be open might be open for them to go hey this is a smart patient and I'm going to be more open about what they might want to try because they see how involved and invested and on it you are so that in and of itself could lead a doctor to be open minded and try more things with you versus another patient website and so that's one way yeah now I walk into the doctor and they're like oh look at your cholesterol I say it's big and fluffy my HDL is higher than Mike's triglycerides so go away we're not talking about cholesterol right now but you know actually no I'm glad you mentioned a joke with a lot of hype of people are put on statins when you're hypothyroid you're with the panel is all screwed up and when you get optimize on thyroid hormones or fix the problem naturally it gets back to normal so a lot of people again this is the other thing about putting band-aids not getting to the root of the problem which we haven't talked about yet but that's part of functional medicine right you go to an MD you're looking to get a prescription or surgery they are not there to talk nutrition most of them don't even know about it they are not that most of them definitely don't know how to treat or know that you even can affect autoimmunity with food or anything else in lifestyle so you know it's like most of the time we're going to go to a doctor regular doctors they're going to put a bandaid on something they're not really interested in getting the root the problem they're interested in making you feel better for the moment so my first symptom was bleeding all the time and having my period every couple of weeks and the doctors cancer that was to put me on the birth control pill to control that versus saying why is a 30 year old having these problems it was all related to my thyroid so that's another reason why you got to get involved because you need to also try to get to and research the bottom of what could be causing or behind your problem and then that'll help you find the right doctor of the right solution so the last principle you had here on the you know basically solving your principles or solving your problems is to adopt a paleo primal lifestyle and effectively that's that's the approach I took to fix my health I eventually ended up because I wanted well it didn't from a numbers perspective but I did move I did move the needle in what like I said moving to the big fluffy moving the HDL number up moving the triglycerides down I did those things so now I have almost a two-to-one ratio between high HDL HDL and triglycerides which when I walk to my doctor and he's like well but your your you know your numbers 280 and I'm like I don't care because my HDL is almost a hundred and my triglycerides are almost below 50 so you know as long as I ain't worried because he's in a different paradigm right he's still in the old paradigm I was looking at lipid panel in a different way you know as I said so let's let's go ahead and this to a particle count we do the particle count and the big portion of my LDL is is big fluffy and I'm like okay we're good you know there's no more reason for us to have the cholesterol conversation as long as my HDL triglyceride number is the way it is all your other risk factors show that I don't have that risk so let's move on to a different conversation of what are the other things that I can optimize in my health because these things I'm comfortable with and and that's just a conversation it took me a long time to educate myself and get ready to have that and it was really truly a paleo a clean eating lifestyle that that really kind of gave me that place that footing where I was healthy enough and understood things well enough to know that I was doing what was what I was responsible for my body to do the things I could control and that's what I really like about the paleo primal lifestyle is that's what this is all about everything here is not about being prescribed a medication that you know is controlled you can't get to unless you have a prescription this is literally everything here is something that you can do today to be a healthier human and so do you mind kind of going through some of the principles you have related to the Paleo / primal lifestyle yeah just in general right well here's the thing there's a big misconception I like to start out with misconceptions because this happens all the time so people think that paleo primal or ancestral evolutionary they all mean the same thing by the way they think that it's just a list of foods you do and don't eat and that could be further from the truth that is part of it but it is about aligning ourselves with how what a DNA and what our genetic makeup expects of us and that is to be fueled by fat and on fat not on sugar most people in this world most of us country are sugar burners versus fat burners now it's not to say a sugar burner isn't actually burning fat but let me define that if you how do you know your sugar burner anyone listening or no you know anyone who has to eat every two three hours if you can't go eight to 24 hours without food and not have a mental drop or a drop in energy most people can't say that they can but if your fat adapted meaning you've switched over the metabolic machinery to what it expects usually takes 21 days to a month to kind of turn that around there's a little bit of suffering in that first couple of weeks when you're coming off being a glucose dependent meaning your brain in your body is functioning dependent on glucose now if you're in that paradigm you better eat every two three hours you better because you're going to have mental breakdowns going to get cranky you going to get hangry and you're also going to become catabolic and you're in your muscular situation so if you're in that paradigm that's what you have to do but we are not designed that way that's why that paradigm is very stressful and it's a struggle because you have to eat over to 3 hours not only that you're hungry to 3 hours these energy drops it makes no sense in the natural world of living beings we are the only human the only living things that have like food addictions and food issues and you know I mean animals don't have to eat more than once twice a day and we're actually the same way we were meant to literally burn and be fueled by fat so that's a transition that has to be made you can still be a sugar burner and eat from a paleo primal food list you can eat a lot of fruit you can leading high carb low fat not enough protein so it's it's paleo primal of a high fat moderate protein low carb eating paradigm that is aligned with our genetics and as human beings and people don't understand that and so if you've gone paleo primal and you lost weight you did well but but it was a struggle mentally like with real power in terms of food then you didn't do it right and that's the freedom of going paleo primal if you do it right you get fat adapted food is the last thing on your mind anymore which is a shocker for most people that were food ob
sessed like me most of my life now you can still achieve a good body by being a sugar burner and eating that zone diet eating every two three hours of grazing but it's going to involve suffering and the restriction of calories and the satiate no satiety ratio is going to be broan bad so when you become fat adapted I mean literally if from right now I mean it's 6:15 where I am p.m. if it were if I had no food from right now until tomorrow at the same time I would probably have no issues at all I might be like okay get a little maybe a little hungry but I literally would still be functioning at pretty full capacity not so if your sugar burner you passed out cranky tired have to sleep dying of hunger emotionally exhausted so people don't know that component which is it's about getting fat adapted and moving from being a sugar burn or a fat burner that's achieved really in four weeks but that is what people don't know so that's kind of I'd like to start off there because I think that's just a big misconception and I think I think one of the core concepts behind that and the reason you know I think people get concerned they say well you're not gonna eat for 24 hours that's that's that's not good well the reality of it is when you're a fat burner you're actually using leptin to determine when you're hungry and that's on a basis of when your body truly just needs a little bit of extra energy to come into the system versus what you were talking about with the sugar burner is that's that's literally just blood sugar insulin response that's just basically going through a cycle of pulling all the sugar out of your blood to a point where now you are hypoglycemic you you need sugar or your yeah you're going to pass out or get dizzy because your body doesn't have another fuel source that it's really comfortable because there's too much insulin it can't pull on the fat so you know it's it's not a function of leptin say I have another fuel source in the event that I would have to I'm not going to choose to eat for the next 24 hours but yes I have another fuel source I have ketones and fat off of my body that will feel me for days weeks which is how we were meant and designed and created whatever you believe aliens around the universe revolution doesn't matter if you look at our DNA it doesn't really matter your beliefs if you look at the nice and the components of us as humans it's like we don't feed horses steak we don't they're not designed that way and same goes for us and grains and some and being glucose sugar burgers now I'm glad you brought up hypoglycemia because of lots of other objections people like well I'm hypoglycemic so I can't do this intermittent fasting or or be fat adapted no actually if you're hypoglycemic you got there because you were unbeknownst you became a sugar burner the only way to become non hypoglycemic is to become paleo primal fat adaptive and it's gonna hurt for a little while it's gonna hurt it's gonna hurt for a couple first couple weeks better hurt but once you get past it then you start teaching your body how to use that alternate fuel source and it's an you know for many of us it's an infinite almost infinite fuel source versus the what the glucose you have in your muscles and and your liver and and in your blood is just so small it's only gonna last you less than a day you're gonna have to eat and you can't fast for 24 hours without struggle versus someone who's fat adapted we'll just pull on their body fat to a point up to somewhere around seventy eight days and then at that point they will start actually torching muscle but there's a little bit more to the primal lifestyle that I do want to get into because it is about yeah and you know because you know the way I kind of put out there with the food is just basically say okay my ancestors I look at my DNA I went to you know 23andme all of my ancestors are from Northern Europe every single one of them I don't have anything else maybe 2.6 percent Neanderthal or something like that whatever they want to call it but all of its from north Europe and so from that perspective if I think about what six months to nine months out of the year is like in northern Europe they don't have fruit and they definitely don't have sugary tropical fruits so the fruits they would find would be berries cranberries maybe an apple or pear every once in a while but they wouldn't have a lot of those sweet sugary fruits they would need a lot of leafy greens they might eat some tubulars and then of course it's it's all at that point can be Fish and Game and so 90% of what we're gonna eat for 75% of the year is not going to be that much plant-based material anymore and it's gonna be predominantly meat in fact and our ancestors would go for the organs first because that was where most of the nutrients and vitamins and all that stuff was that oh people don't want to eat those things now they'd rather pop a vitamin pill and so the the primal paleo lifestyle from a food perspective is really just kind of about thinking about what your ancestors would have eaten and then trying those foods again and trying to find a way that you can comfortably eat those foods again and then over time your body will feed itself and it will fill that nutrition and I tell people this if you eat good food you end up eating less of it so it sounds like it's very expensive to buy higher quality better food but the reality is you eat somewhere yeah when you eat less of it because I walk into a store if I'd buy a really good steak three ounces is good that's all I need words I used to sit down I could eat a 24 ounce steak and not feel really full and I'd be hungry two three hours later now a good quality steak three ounces so I look back and say I had eight meals sitting in front of me I just didn't buy the right quality of food and now I buy the right quality of food and I eat less of it and so again it's not really costing me anymore but now yeah let's shift over into the activity if you don't mind I definitely do that I want to I want to just highlight something you said there because as a former total sugar addict when food obsessor who all I did was think about every meal all day every day think about food all the time if there's people that are listening that are you know trying to break that obsession or trying to get help which a lot of people were listening to all this kind of podcasts are when you hear people in the paleo community say things like we just said which is why you end up eating so much less food it's true you become very calorically efficient you're able to run on less that is like a nightmare right for a food because when your food is specialized but I don't want to eat less food I want to eat more food than the meeting now I don't want to and I know it sounds terrible to that person but I'm here to say once you cross the line it's like a level of freedom you you can't even imagine and it becomes natural that you cannot eat that 24 I would totally be able to put down a 32 rounds no question about it and on top of that a probation it's like everything but I can't do that now that would just be like over stuff and inflammation for me that would just not work but when I was in the old paradigm or no you were - I used to do that as well so it's scary to someone who's already food obsessed because they're like I know what do you love food that hits ER prep because when you start saying and once you start cooking your own food because I say this is a trainer I'm like you know you're gonna spend you know you're out of each week you're gonna spend maybe three to five hours with me which means you're gonna sit spin hundred and seventy-one to 173 hours somewhere else doing other stuff that can either make this really matter or make this not matter at all and I said so a lot
of this is going to happen your your kitchen so you need to cook all of your meals and they're like I don't have time for that I'm like no you literally go and cook your meals and now like you said when you have that freedom to not feel like you have to eat every three hours now it's not this big deal of having to prepare all this food it's like literally I can I can buy a 16-ounce steak I can cut it into four pieces I can cook it and I can package it up and I have four meals now all I have to do is maybe have a salad with one of them maybe steam some vegetables with another and saw tastes and vegetables for the next literally I'm gonna spend five ten minutes making a vegetable dish to complement the steak that I cooked the night before and maybe two nights before but I literally now have four meals that would have been one meal so yeah it would be problematic if I had to cook you know for 16-ounce steaks but taking the time to prepare good-quality food and making sure that you're enjoying it again it is freedom and it is one of those things that kind of makes this all matter yeah it is it is like I had a real problem so I do I want to tell everyone there was a nightmare for me I was the worst sugar addict I make deals with myself or in the grocery store like if there's a parking spot out in front that means I can get the package donuts I know that world so anyone listening than that I'm telling you the only way together get over the food obsession and the food addiction in the sugar addiction is by getting fat adapted and again like I said be painful first of all there's a transition but the level of freedom is beyond it's amazing I never I always thought something was wrong with me nothing is wrong with you if you're that person out there what happens is unbeknownst to you you have by virtue of conventional wisdom or standard American diet or just got off track and went on a sugar train you made yourself into a sugar burner therefore that's why you are in this hell but once you get out of that oh and that's why every success story on Marx theory Apple Mark Sisson who wrote the primal blueprint and he published my book every success story says the same thing goes like I never thought I'd ever be able to beat these food obsessions and that level of freedom is so amazing that you have to go down you have to try it don't be afraid just because we're sitting here talking about how little food we can get away with you right but but but one day you'll realize this for yourself and it's an amazing process too because it makes you so much more intuitive with the digestion and the way things are going in your body and what you need and what you don't and it's kind of so much fun in that in that sense but the freedom is unbelievable but anyway sorry go ahead we can get into life yeah let's let's get into the exercise a little bit not exercise so much but it's just a it's just a physical lifestyle that I think is a little bit different paradigm because it does kind of go back to saying you know what what were we designed to do and how would we have lived our lives before automobiles and Netflix yeah well we're talking about you know three to six hours of activity a day you know our ancestors but the thing is what it was slow and steady there was no reason for them to Hall asked the top of the mountain you know they had all day and they wouldn't have done that otherwise because then they're burning glucose and exhausting themselves if they get too exhausted that way then they are now prey so this goes back to we say in the paleo primal world or definitely primal blueprint is it's you don't chronic cardio which we consider regular consistent cardio above 75% of your max heart rate usually the general calculation for that is like you know 180 - Rage or 30 to 20 - rage max aerobic heart rate might be 180 minus your age and then you do the percentages you can also look online and search on the different calculations and studies out there and do some averages but at the end of the day what I was doing and this can also promote being a sugar burner when you go over 75% of your max consistently you are burning most of glucose at that point and we can only store so much in our bodies so every time you burn the glucose and what happens after exercise you're sore and you're hungry because you need to replace the glucose is just burned when you're a fat burner and in general in order to train yourself in this way you want to be at between 55 and 75 percent your max because then you're burning mostly fat and what you'll find is that then you're actually not hungry after a workout and you are not sore and again you kind of have to be on the train of excessive excessive cardio when you're a sugar burner cause like here comes the glucose in the carbs now I got to go burn it off now I just turn it off now I got an eye on a hamster wheel of carbon sugar addiction and it never ends well and it usually ends up in type 2 diabetes so so once you get fat adapted that's all that's all point two is the slow and steady obviously it's also more enjoyable it's more enjoyable and the cortisol adrenal connection so when you are blasting your body or let's say you're running 40 miles a week and you're over that heart rate you're burning from eater and a slate you can do it at a certain heart rate because you're conditioned but most people are going to the gym pounding it out taking that no pain no gain the harder I go the faster I sweat the more hot yoga I do that's gotta zap calories that's a sweaty thing actually that's only going to increase fat around your middle mess with your adrenals and keep you on a sugar burning train so part of this and being fat adapted is also adopting this lifestyle where once a week you might do a sprint session our bodies expect that of us we're supposed to run every now and then stuff but not on a chronic consistent basis and that's that's another problem and then life becomes even more enjoyable because you can workout less in a more enjoyable pace money hikes with my friends now are lovely we go really slow and it's such an enjoyable thing whereas before we'd be hauling it up there because you have this ingrained in you that like harder I go the more I sweat the harder my heart pounds then that means the healthier I'm going to be and that's again another false paradigm to be in it's the same thing and this is part of lifestyle of going back to the food with mealtimes you know we're so used to structured mealtimes so we feel like up breakfast is the most important part of your day no it's not not if you're not hungry don't eat that's how it works in the primal you know paleo world and once you get fat adapted usually people find that they're not very hungry in the morning like they used to wake up ravenous and now they're not so you know all of these things go hand in hand so there's usually one of these pieces that someone's missing so if someone comes to me and they're like doing this I'm doing that but they're still not doing this it's like that one component is off either they are over working out still at a different at a level that's not good or they're not fat adapted yet they're not figuring that out or there's a carb situation that they haven't addressed like maybe they still didn't get the ratios right like they're either eating too many fats you know too many carbs for them or there's some element of the food but the lifestyle is about that of course getting proper sleep I mean you know gosh that's a big thing in our country right now but that is so important to prioritize sleep and prioritize fun and play and relaxation I mean people don't think they're stressed because they're like I'm not stressed but there are things in our lives that people don't consider stress that are still stressful so just
really the big message I think and all of it is slow down you know I mean with with all of it and that's hard for a lot of people because we're kind of ingrained oh go go go work out harder faster do do do and you know what that just is there are you're constantly tapping the adrenals you know when you when you're today yeah it's it's so funny to have a conversation with someone who's kind of bought into the old I'm not gonna call myths but I guess it's just it's it's the wisdom you know the wisdom of calories in calories out and I you know and you're like I was like okay look I said you know if I go to church when I go to train when I was training for marathons I would I would set up about three months out and start training and I would gain ten pounds while I was training for a marathon and everybody's like how do you gain ten pounds training for a marathon and I'm like well I would work out really hard for four hours and then I would eat for four hours and I could eat more calories in four hours then I burned in four hours and then the next day I would do it again and I would do it again and it was like I couldn't eat enough to fuel myself for the next workout I just kept eating him and yes I was burning a tremendous amount of calories at that point in time but I wasn't burning enough to offset what I was eating and you know I tried to tell people's like just realize that if you if the workout is that hard and it's then making you ravenous and now you're eating all the food that you have well then the math isn't working for you you're not gonna balance that that calorie equation that way because that's just not working that way whereas if you took those workouts a little bit easier and maybe even when when you were done you weren't really that hungry and it's it's hard to tell someone who hasn't gone through it but I'll get up in the morning and I'll go for a long slow walk and I may walk as many as seven eight miles and and not think about it be gone for two hours just just casually walking around you know seeing the sights you know climbing the bridge whatever looking out over over the bay just enjoying myself and when I come back and I'm you know I'm a little sweaty a little warm got some sunshine so I got my vitamin D on and I'm feeling really good and I'm not really hungry so it's like I'll go take a shower and then maybe I'll go get a book and sit down and read for a little while and and just those kind of casual moving around feeling like I've got me you know I've got a little bit of blood pump I got a little bit of sweat it's not like I've been just sitting still for all this time and then I think some of the other lifestyle things that you think about is our ancestors didn't have chairs so it would be very common for them to sit on the floor for them to roll around to sleep on the floor and all those different aspects that now we've got the cushy cushions and the beds and the chairs and all those things and just you know making sure that you're making a point of making movement a regular part of your day because you know yes we would sit still for periods of time but we wouldn't sit still in a way that we were so comfortable that we weren't moving and so there's there's a difference that's a good point and the standing thing is really important because here's the thing even if you first of all 80% of your body composition is what you eat so even if there's someone out there that's like can't motivate to exercise don't want to change 500 things about your life all you need to really do is get the real power down and get fat adapted and the one thing you can do is start to stand more and if that means that you have a phone conversation at home with your buddy after work then stand in your apartment and pace and just kind of tinker around while you're on the phone I mean I had a friend who like accidentally logged 1.2 miles in her very small house by just having a competition for someone you know so even if you can't don't have the time or whatever excuses you want to built into why you're not prioritizing exercise that's ok you can still achieve weight loss and that adaptation and health but it can also start with even like you said just standing more my grandmother was probably one of the most beautiful older women she died at like 98 she was hot up until you know like nine days your little amazing and she never sat down at like a party in her house or anything she stood as much as she could throughout the day she never had to have so she never had those old lady swollen ankles with the big shoes or any that stuff she was rocking high heels until finally a doctor in 95 said ok you have to take off the heels now because you just screwed up your whole entire bones and butt but at the end of the day I mean that she stood as much as she could so if you can't go work out or you're resistant to that right now that's fine eventually you will get the motivation because you'll have that natural energy when you get better that's good that adapted but like just standing more and then even if you're really weak you know maybe you stand for the first five minutes of your favorite TV show and then sit down and then the next day try to stand for seven minutes it builds even with me I'm very active I'm active every day but there are times when I still sit to much and I get in one of those ruts and then I'm like good and then the first time I'm standing I kind of get tired needs me at first but then the more you do it next thing you know you've like stood the whole day and you're like holy crap I was standing the whole day so you even build up tolerance like you do to exercise for standing and standing burns calories and it's better for a positioning and you're bound to move more so I'm totally with that whole thing I love to highlight the standing something simple everyone can do and I think just kind of wanting to close out points here is to realize that when you're when you're going through the thyroid issues you're going to have some energy any energy problems and so you know they're just gonna be times when you don't feel like doing things but but you're still kind of need to be somewhat mobile and I think as we're talking here that the low intensity just slightly moving around doing something is going to still benefit your body and so it is medicine and it's funny I was listening to something today and they said you know Hippocrates may have said food is medicine but they couldn't figure if that was actually true but he did say movement is medicine and so you know it is very it is very important for us to make sure movement is a part of our day part of our lives and so don't let the little lethargy and all the things that are going to happen because of your thyroid keep you from just doing a little bit of movement now the chronic stuff is just gonna push your adrenals way past what they're supposed to be but the the like casual stuff that enjoyable stuff the parts that you said about really kind of just having fun that needs to be a part of your life because you need to still enjoy yourself as you kind of recover from all of this you need to have those things to look forward to so making that a part of your life and so with this book again I just really enjoy how kind of structured this you had the plan you've got all the information in one place so when when L says do your research this book is because that was the advice that she gave you but you know so go do other research but it's gonna lead you back here I've done an enough reading of this on my own to tell you that you know this is this is authentic this is this is the real deal and other than the reverse t3 which is not something I was very familiar with that was really kind of the first time I've been introduced to this that concept bu
t it makes it makes perfect sense and you've done a really good job of presenting that information here so I really do appreciate that L you know again this is this is this is it I mean and this is this is the start of your research if you're having some thyroid issues get this book kind of go through it it's a lot of information so it's gonna take you some time to absorb it take copious notes and then you just just compare and contrast what's going on in your life what's going on with your numbers get your thermometer and figure this stuff out because you can be your hero for your health and fitness journey and we love that comment that's so true I feel that I am the own success story in my own and everyone can become theirs and the other thing too is you know there's a queue in the in the queue a with the doctor in the back is very compelling right so it's like if you know you're gonna hear it from me but you know you're going to hear from a very highly decorated doctor and if you have a doctor that's open maybe they only read the Q&A with the doctor if you want to introduce it to someone else medically so it might be better for them to hear from a doctor and I understand that that's why I have that energy so there's that available too and I don't want anyone to pass that up it's one of the greatest closers I think to the book and as well it was meant to be a manual for you to help yourself and you know know don't let any doctor or anyone tell you that you're going to suffer from X just because you're hypothyroid well because you have a hot fiery problem that is a myth this is completely fixable in every way so don't give up you know do not give up if you're out there just just get on it you know hey and my books like the cheapest I read book out there so I mean there's no reason to get it and even if you can't even afford the book there's free podcast on the primal podcast or Marx daily Apple has a few success stories directly out of my book so if you want to suss it out more and see if it's right for you there's a lot of free information that I've already given from my book on the primal blueprint podcast and in general and Marx daily Apple so you know there's a lot of avenues for people to kind of suss it out first and see if it's right for them but um I yeah it's it's a it's a good one so so L you know obviously marks daily Apple is a great resource your pot the podcast primal the plant primal blueprint podcast I'll link to those are there any other places you would want me to send them besides those too sure well I mean you can find my book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble and just search for the Paleo thyroid solution and find it but if you want to know more about me you can go to L Russ comm and other than that I think those resources are great for people our scaly apple is just a great site in general for health related things and there's some of the top actually interviewed a couple of the success stories from the book on the podcast so if you want to literally hear their stories a lot of people resonate with that because then they hear someone saying something that they're feeling and they go oh my gosh I'm not crazy you know what I mean and so that's really helpful and I want it off and you saw that in the book too I wanted to offer that so that people understood and the one person emailed me and they said are you surveilling me I feel like you had a camera in my apartment here and it's just like because hi people who go through this we all experience a lot of the same symptoms there's a lot of the same tragedies and atrocities that happen health-wise and in relationships so you know any way that I could relate to other people I've been through it and I'm here to tell you oh it's so achievable so this is gonna be episode 164 so you can go to 40-plus number but you can go to 40-plus fitness podcast comm forge slash 164 and I'll have all of those links there and what I'll do is L if you'll take a moment when you get a chance and send me the links to those podcasts with the P that are from the book I will often you the direct links to those awesome I'll make sure those links are included as well so again go to 40-plus fitness podcast comm forward slash 164 and you can get all of those great links and and figure this out for yourself as well so l thank you so much for your time this has been completely awesome we really owe you a lot of thanks for this thank you oh thank you and just keep it safe ever keep persevering awesome something valuable from this podcast would you please share it thank you next time on the 40 plus it is podcast I'll share 11 of my best tips for getting started on fitness until then have a happy and healthy day you .
Video Description:
In this episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we meet Elle Russ and discuss her book, The Paleo Thyroid Solution. The full show notes for this episode can be found at 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/164.
