Those of you who have followed me or the Primal Potential podcast for a long time know that “I can do hard things” is one of my mantras. Lately, it’s practically an unending chant.
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I spent too much of my life talking myself out of things – talking myself out of living fully. I spent more time focused on what I couldn’t do, wouldn’t do or didn’t think I was capable of than on what I could achieve.
I basically talked myself into weakness & fear.
Workouts were too hard. Self-discipline was too taxing. Consistency was out of reach. I was self-prescribed as too shy, too tired, too stressed, too fat…you get the picture.
Now, when I find myself wrestling with fear or inadequacy I remind myself: I can do hard things.
I ask myself, “what’s the worst that can happen?”
Usually, the worst that can happen is embarrassment or discomfort.
It’s never anything permanent or dangerous.
If a workout scares me, the worst that will happen is that I’ll be really tired & have to stop. So what? What’s bad about finding those limits? In fact, that might be something I should strive for rather than avoid!
Most recently, I’ve been reminding myself that I can do hard things as I prepare for my daily hormone injections. (If you missed it, I’m freezing my eggs.)
I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? It stings? It hurts? I cry?
Okay. None of those things are fatal, just temporarily uncomfortable. I can do hard things.
You can, too.
….
The last thing I wanted to do this morning was go to the gym. I thought through about 14 different valid reasons to skip before I asked myself, “fast forward 3 hours – what will make you feel better? Having completed the workout or having skipped it?”
No brainer. I’ll feel better with the workout done. Decision made. To the gym I went.
Because I need to avoid high impact stuff while administering these injections, I swapped out box jumps for step ups. The workout looked like this:
Around noon I had my cabbage salad bowl with raw cabbage, bacon, eggs, walnuts and Primal Kitchen Chipotle Lime Mayo.
I sipped on more coffee while driving down to Cape Cod (quick trip just for the night – I have to be back in the morning for a doctor appointment) and while out to dinner I had 1 shot of tequila & shrimp cocktail.
Today we are talking about the insulin index. We talk a lot about the way carbohydrates drive insulin and how our control over insulin really determines our energy, hunger, cravings and ability to burn fat.
However, there are many more factors at play than just carbohydrate when we’re talking about insulin.
In fact, there are some foods that don’t have much of an impact on blood sugar but do drive an insulin response.
Today is part 1 of a 2 part series where we’ll look at all the factors that influence insulin, including some of the tricky ones you wouldn’t expect!
In October 2019, our relationship with Thrive Market changed. They decided to put their marketing dollars in avenues outside of podcasting but we still think they’re a good choice if you’re looking to save money on health & personal care products.
Here are some of my favorite Primal Kitchen Products:
One of the most destructive ways to hold yourself back & stay stuck in fear and excuses is to believe every thought you think.
Do not believe everything you think.
In today’s impromptu episode, I’m sharing a particularly challenging experience I had this past weekend & how it showed me a huge opportunity to stop believing my thoughts.
My thoughts were creating fear and making a tough situation nearly impossible.
In October 2019, our relationship with Thrive Market changed. They decided to put their marketing dollars in avenues outside of podcasting but we still think they’re a good choice if you’re looking to save money on health & personal care products.
What’s the difference between primal and keto? How do I know if I’m in ketosis? Do I have to be in ketosis to burn fat?
We’re tackling these questions and a whole lot more in today’s episode.
In episode 387 I laid the foundation for our week of discussion around ketogenic diets. I defined ketosis, ketones and talked a little bit about “clean keto” versus all those keto plans touting ketogenic treats & desserts.
Today we’re doing a bit of a debrief on those episodes to answer some questions and dive deeper into some of the powerful points we rushed through in episode 388.
If you’ve got questions about fat burning, ketosis or anything we talked about in episodes 387 or 388, don’t miss this episode!
Reminder: next week I’m hosting a free mindset & motivation masterclass. The more we talk about nutrition & consistency, the more I feel the need to tackle mindset and the ability to create motivation because we can know a lot about nutrition strategy but not have the mental muscle to consistently implement it.
The mindset side of change cannot be overlooked. If you struggle with the consistency we talk about in today’s episode, make sure you sign up for the free mindset masterclass next week!
Ketosis is a state of metabolic efficiency where you are able to burn stored energy in the form of body fat and ketones & not be dependent on regular high carbohydrate meals to sustain your energy, mood and cognitive focus.
Ketones are an energy source just like carbs, fat & protein are energy sources. Ketones can be used by your brain, your heart, and your muscles. Ketones are produced by the liver as a byproduct of fat metabolism.
Ketones produced under certain conditions:
blood sugar is low
insulin is low
muscle & liver glycogen stores are low
To understand more about this, listen to the following episodes of the Primal Potential podcast:
In October 2019, our relationship with Thrive Market changed. They decided to put their marketing dollars in avenues outside of podcasting but we still think they’re a good choice if you’re looking to save money on health & personal care products.
Here are some of my favorite Primal Kitchen Products:
Today we have best selling author Mark Sisson on the show! Mark’s book The Primal Blueprint was a game changer for me when I was initially adopting a primal way of eating. On today’s episode we’re talking about his newest book, The Keto Reset Diet and how he thinks phases of what I’ll call “clean keto” are the next level of primal in terms of anti-aging, fat loss, performance, satiety & energy.
For an introduction to ketogenic diets, ketones and other general concepts, check out episode 387 of the podcast where I talk about this stuff from a high level to lay the foundation for today’s episode.
For today, we’re talking about why Mark considers keto phases the next level of primal and what kind of carb & protein intake he suggest for great results.
Mark said a few super powerful things in the episode that I want to highlight:
Building a fast metabolism as a health goal is completely flawed. Accelerated metabolic function accelerates again.
Guys, it’s not that we need faster metabolisms. It’s quite the opposite. We need more efficient metabolisms that are optimized for fat burning. We can create that with our food choices and today Mark will tell us how.
He also said, “When I’m keto, I’m barely keto & when I’m not, I’m barely not”.
Do you know what that is? It’s consistency. It’s getting to a place where there aren’t wild fluctuations in the quality & quantity of your diet. That’s what we need to focus on more than an inconsistent extreme approach.
I strongly recommend you check out his new book, The Keto Reset Diet & definitely take a listen to today’s episode!
The mindset side of change cannot be overlooked. If you struggle with the consistency we talk about in today’s episode, make sure you sign up for the free mindset masterclass next week!
Ketosis is a state of metabolic efficiency where you are able to burn stored energy in the form of body fat and ketones & not be dependent on regular high carbohydrate meals to sustain your energy, mood and cognitive focus.
Ketones are an energy source just like carbs, fat & protein are energy sources. Ketones can be used by your brain, your heart, and your muscles. Ketones are produced by the liver as a byproduct of fat metabolism.
Ketones produced under certain conditions:
blood sugar is low
insulin is low
muscle & liver glycogen stores are low
To understand more about this, listen to the following episodes of the Primal Potential podcast:
In October 2019, our relationship with Thrive Market changed. They decided to put their marketing dollars in avenues outside of podcasting but we still think they’re a good choice if you’re looking to save money on health & personal care products.
Here are some of my favorite Primal Kitchen Products:
