Ep. 147 Women, Keto & Weight Loss Plateaus: From Fertility through Menopause with Maria Emmerich

Today, I am delighted to have Maria Emmerich joining me. Maria is a nutritionist who specializes in the ketogenic diet and exercise physiology. She struggled with her health and weight throughout childhood. That led her to become such a passionate nutrition expert. “My goal is to help transform people’s lives and start living again!” Maria specializes in brain neurotransmitters and how food can increase mental wellness. Her expertise has sent her around the world speaking about ketogenic diets. She has also cooked with Halle Berry and writes for Halle’s website.

Twenty-three years ago, Maria was twice her size, and she had some serious issues going on. The doctor told her she had PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome), which is type-2 diabetes that affects female fertility. She also had acid reflux, depression, and IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). The doctor told her she was doing nothing wrong. Those were just the cards she was dealt. 

She took her dog to the vet the same week because it was losing its hair, and the first question he asked her was what she was feeding it. When she changed the dog’s diet, its hair grew back. That got her thinking, so she started doing some research. She discovered that PCOS was caused by too much caffeine, sugar, and carbohydrates, which was what she was living on. She was only sixteen at the time, but she started making some dietary changes.

Be sure to join us today to hear Maria’s inspiring story and find what she has to say about healing yourself with the food you eat.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

• Maria shares her background story.

• The journey towards health and wellness does not happen overnight. Some aspects evolve and shift over a lifetime.

• Maria discusses how she discovered the benefits of the ketogenic diet and what motivated her to stick to it.

• Why you should avoid processed foods even if they claim to be ketogenic.

• What makes women different.

• Some of the mistakes Maria sees women making when they come to keto that cause them to assume that keto is not working.

• Maria has a free macro calculator on her website.

• Maria talks about what alcohol does to our bodies and sleep patterns.

• Maria shares her thoughts on bioidenticals versus supplementation, as women make the transition from being fertile to perimenopause to menopause.

• Maria talks about the protein-sparing fast and shares some strategies for fasting successfully.

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“When I started cutting out the grains, and the sugars, and the gluten, and the caffeine, my depression went away.”

-   Maria Emmerich

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Connect with Cynthia Thurlow  

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• Submit your questions to support@cynthiathurlow.com

Connect with Maria Emmerich

• On her ketomaria.com

• On her Keto-adapted website

• On Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter

• Maria’s free e-book

Transcript:

[intro]

Presenter: This is Everyday Wellness, a podcast dedicated to helping you achieve your health and wellness goals and provide practical strategies that you can use in your real life. Now, here's your host, nurse practitioner, Cynthia Thurlow.

[music]

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Today I'm delighted to have Maria Emmerich. She is a nutritionist who specializes in the ketogenic diet and exercise physiology. She struggled with her health and weight throughout childhood, which led her to become such a passionate nutrition expert. My goal is to help transform people's lives and start living again. Maria specializes in brain neurotransmitters and how food can increase mental wellness. Her expertise has sent her around the world speaking about ketogenic diets, and she's also cooked with Halle Berry and writes for Halle’s website. Welcome, it's so nice to have you today. I know you're many hours behind where I am on the East Coast. You were so gracious to-- I know you have a lot going on right now.

Maria Emmerich: 

I'm grateful for people like you that reach out and want to give information to people for free to help them. Yeah, my family's down at the beach right now, but I'll join them in a little bit, I know. 

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Oh, good. Well, I think one of the good starting point for our discussion today is really hearing a little bit about your story, which I think is really motivational. I love that there's this connection, you've always been connected to food in many ways and how you're starting to put these-- recognizing how important nutrition is, in terms of our health or disease, and how your own health journey spurned this change in your life's journey.

Maria Emmerich: 

Yeah. I believe it was all serendipity. When I was 16 years old, I wasn't feeling well. I was twice my size. I went to my family doctor, and I didn't even tell my parents I was going, I just made the appointment and went because I had some serious issues going on. At that appointment, I was told I had PCOS, which is polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is basically a type 2 diabetes that affects female fertility. I was given an acid blocker because I had pretty severe acid reflux. I was given an antidepressant because I was depressed. I was given something for IBS, which is irritable bowel syndrome. So, I was a complete mess. The doctor at the time told me, it was nothing I was doing wrong, it was just the cards I was dealt. Let me tell you, I worked at a coffee shop where before I went to school, I would make the scones and the cinnamon rolls and the muffins and these amazing cookies. Then after school, I would go back and sell and work behind the counter. Then about 5, we would close. Whatever it didn't sell that day, I got to take it home.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Oh, no. [laughs] 

Maria Emmerich: 

[crosstalk] I would make extra cinnamon rolls, just to make sure I would have some of those because I loved them so much. But that very same week, I took my beautiful golden retriever to the vet because she was losing patches of her hair. The first question the vet asked me was, “What are you feeding her?” It was like, “Boom.” That's huge. 

We went home and I changed Eva's diet and her hair grew back. I was like, “Well, dang.” This was 23 years ago. There wasn't Google. I couldn't google “What causes PCOS? When a doctor tells you, “Maria, you're not going to have your own children.” Wow, it's pretty mind blowing. I just started doing some research what was causing that, and it's clear. PCOS is excess androgens in a female body, and what causes excess androgens, too much caffeine, sugar, and carbohydrates. That's what I lived off of. I drank mochas, and caffeine was hard for me to give up, but it was huge when it came to healing my hormonal health.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Were you 16 years old when you made all those transitions? That's impressive. That's incredibly impressive. [chuckles] 

Maria Emmerich: 

I was 16, and I made some of those changes. It wasn't an overnight process. In college, when I would look at a syllabus, I would get real anxious about all of these things I had to accomplish in a semester. So, I would always pick one thing at a time, accomplish that, and move on to the next, and that's how it calmed me. That's how I ran marathons. It was one mile at a time. If I looked at 26.2 miles, I would freak out and not even try. With my health journey, it was every week I would make a new goal, accomplish that, and pick a new goal that felt accomplishable because I wanted to be successful. No, it wasn't an overnight process, but it was a healing process. People you work with, people I work with, their diet today is going to look so much different a year from now, five years from now it's going to look much better. It evolves. It's like peeling an onion.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Oh, I love that analogy. Everyone that listens to this podcast knows that I use that analogy quite a bit. I do agree with you that for all of us, I mean, everyone that's listening, myself included, I went gluten free, and then my autoimmune disorder went away. Then, I went dairy free, and the pesky pounds I couldn't get rid of them, perimenopause went away. Then, two years ago, I had a lengthy hospitalization came out and I had to do carnivore. I love that you're saying that these things will evolve, shift, and change throughout our lifetime. Just being open minded, I never in a million years would have guessed I would have gone low carb, but that became a natural extension of so much of what I was already doing. I probably have been more ketogenic than I probably realized. As I was trying to track macros after my hospitalization because my digestion was such a mess and trying to-- I was like, “All I can tolerate is steak and burgers,” and that's what I dream about and drink water and eat things like tangerines. I was obsessed with vitamin C, and I was obsessed with red meat. Those are absolutely some of the things that helped heal my gut. 

One of the things that I was curious about was this natural evolution for you, did it morph into keto, or did it start as low carb? Because what you're really known for, is this incredibly delicious, keto-compliant, non-junkified recipes, and this movement that you've really helped solidify and evolve. It's interesting when I was listening to you on Low Carb MD Podcast, and obviously, I know Tro, Brian well, and they speak so highly of you as well. They were both bowing at your temple and just saying, “Thank you for making keto-compliant fun foods. Thank you for not junkifying them because there's junk food in every nutritional dogma or area of nutrition that we can think of.

That's where I think we go off the rails, we as a society go off the rails is that we're so focused on processed foods, we've been convinced we don't have time to cook that it's easier to buy this processed junk. The processed food industry, they try to stay a couple steps behind us, but they're always coming out with bars and cookies and crackers and things that are “compliant.” But, at the end of the day, that's just guised as more processed crap in our diet.

Maria Emmerich: 

You're so right. Was it called keto 23 years ago? No, but I was, because I couldn't-- What happened was when I started cutting out the grains, and the sugars and the gluten, and the caffeine, my depression went away. I didn't even lose weight right away. The fact that my moods, like people that know me now, they're like, “Who are you?” 

Cynthia Thurlow: 

[laughs] 

Maria Emmerich: 

My attitude towards life, everything is so much different. Not like I was an angry person, but I was definitely a more melancholy person, woe is me, kind of a depressed, always sad. Now, it's like I'm a totally different person. That's what kept me on the diet. That's why I love this, and that's why I got so passionate about it. So, why did that happen? The brain neurotransmitters and where they come from? How foods turn them on? What foods turn them off? You're right, what happened was with any diet, with the popularity of keto, all of these stupid products are getting on the market. If it comes from a package, you have to think twice. They're compromising it in some way. It's just sad and it's frustrating that this bar is only two net carbohydrates. If you can't net carbohydrates, you're going to fail. If it looks like a KitKat and it tastes like a KitKat, it's a candy bar. Let’s not say that it's a keto bar. If it tastes like a candy bar, just treat it like one. Don't say that this is a part of your diet or replace it with real food.

That's the thing people say, like you mentioned, “I'm too busy,” they tell themselves this. “Hey, you know what? I'm a busy working mom. I have a keto college. I have clients all day. I'm writing four books at the moment, working with Halle Berry. We homeschool our children. Don't give me that excuse. I know that I'm giving you some tough love, but don't say that you're too busy. I'm too busy, but it's a priority.” I'm very open and I teach everybody my tips and tricks on how I do make this a successful lifestyle. You know what, if you open my fridge and my freezer, there's so much food prepared where all my kids have to do is take one of my protein waffles out of the freezer and toast it like it was an Eggo waffle that you bought at the store. It gets to be like a habit, and that's why you mentioned, “Were you keto way back then?” I'm so glad that I became that way 23 years ago, because now my friends are 40, and they're like, “Help. It's hard to change your habits after 40 years.” After 16, it was much more manageable. 

I was always a great athlete, but I was just literally one of the biggest athletes. When my friends would go to Tasty Treat, which is the ice cream shop after our swim practice, or whatever sport I was in at the time, I didn't go with them, because I just couldn't. I just started making different healthier habits. It made me such a better person. Now, those people that went to the Tasty Treat for that long, they're coming to me, they're like, “Oh, man, I can't do the ice cream anymore.” I'm like, “I know. I have some recipes if you want to switch to those.”

Cynthia Thurlow: 

[laughs] Well, it's interesting how being an outlier at a certain stage in your life, all of a sudden, it seems not so weird anymore. I'm in the latter part of my 40s. I went to my 30th high school reunion two years ago, and I just recall how surprised I was. I was like, “Wow.” Some people looked great, most people look very inflamed and didn't look healthy. They kept saying, “What are you doing?” I said, “I love the way I eat, because I feel very nourished, I sleep well, I don't get hot flashes. I'm able to maintain the way my body composition in a way that makes me very happy. I have plenty of energy.” Every person listening has the potential for that as well. That's what I love that we're both coming from the same place. 

A lot of where I've plugged myself into this niche of women and hormones and midlife and how to get through midlife and thrive and not just survive, a lot of women come to keto because they want to lose weight, like, that's the mentality. Same thing with intermittent fasting. It's been my experience that there are unique needs to women that are different from men. I would really love for you to touch on what makes women different? We're not mini-men, that's always my standard mantra. What are some of the mistakes you see women making when they come to not just intermittent fasting, but when they come into keto with the intention of changing their body composition or trying to lose weight, and they get stuck, and they get frustrated, and then they're like, “Well, keto doesn't work”? I'm like, “No, no, there's usually specific reasons why that happens.”

Maria Emmerich: 

That's the thing, like, people assume the keto diet is automatically for weight loss. That's not true. It’s originally a diet for epilepsy or seizures, and I work with those families all the time. My kids are 10 and 11. They eat exactly what I make. They're totally keto. They eat maybe 20 total carbs a day, that's how they live. It's not for weight loss. They actually were not even on the growth charts when we first adopted them, and now they're at the 85th percentile. 

Cynthia Thurlow: 

That’s awesome.

Maria Emmerich: 

Right. It just depends on how you do it. For women, especially in a hormonal disruption state, I will say the biggest mistakes I see, they do fat bombs, fat fast, egg fast. They don't hit their protein goal, and they have their fat dial way too high. They're living off of cheese and nuts. It's so funny because some of my first books, they were dairy-free, nut-free, protein forward. I used to write about a pure protein day. One of my first books that I wrote, I talk about a pure protein day where you turn the fat dial down, you turn the carbohydrates to almost zero, and you focus on lean proteins. Then, this whole keto lifestyle, some of these keto influencers would tell me, “Too much protein turns into sugar,” and I was like, “Oh, really? Okay.” I was so influential back then, that I would just, whatever it was like, “Oh, okay, so you have to eat a lot of fat.” Diving into it, I tried this, guess what? I gained a lot of weight back. My husband's like, “Go back to your beliefs.” He's Mr. Scientist, his background is being a scientist. He's like, “Okay, looking into everything, yeah, if you eat too much fat-- if your body's already overweight, and you want to use body fat for fuel, you need to turn the fat dial down.”

We have a free calculator on my website. If you go to ketomaria.com, you'll find a free calculator. For women, what you want to do is find out what your lean mass is, and everybody's lean mass is different, and this is why your macros will be different, especially from a man. You will get your protein goal. That's a goal. You have to hit your protein macro. The fat is a lever, you don't have to hit it, but you wouldn't want to go over it. Okay, the lower you dial the fat down, the more you'll use your body fat. You do want to hit certain percent grams, 30 grams of fat, that's going to help with gallbladder health. It will help with hormones. 

Then, when it comes to carbohydrates, you don't have to eat any, like you don't. You could be a total carnivore. I wrote a carnivore cookbook because of my husband's Lyme disease. You don't have to eat fiber to go number two, that's a big-- [crosstalk] 

Cynthia Thurlow: 

[laughs] 

Maria Emmerich: 

A lot of people I work with, they're like, “Oh, Maria, I'm constipated now because I'm not eating enough fiber.” Think about newborn babies. They poo all the time, they don't eat any fiber. But the colon does need salt and hydration. What happens on the keto diet, when you eliminate all these carbohydrates, along goes a lot of water loss, and this is that 5, 10 pounds you lose in a week. Then, you're like, “Yay, look at all the weight I lost.” Well, a lot of it is water retention going out, but that's good. You're getting rid of that water retention, that inflamed look that you're talking about. But with all that water loss goes a lot of electrolytes, like potassium, magnesium, zinc, salt. You can't just drink more water because there's no carbohydrates to retain the water, you're just going to pee all the time. 

You need to be very cognizant about how much salt you're getting in a day because if you're just eating eggs and steak, and all of these foods that don't have sodium in it, you're not eating the packaged keto bars, you're not eating the rice, you're not eating the pasta, you're not eating the bread. Even like a McDonald's milkshake has more sodium in it than their French fry does. Sodium is everywhere. It's in every packaged food that you buy. When you start eating real food like eggs, there's no sodium in it. If you are listening to that dogma to be afraid of salt, then you're going to be dehydrated, you're going to have heavy legs walking upstairs, you're going to have constipation, you're going to have low moods. That's not the keto diet that caused it. It's because you're not getting enough salt. I don't even know what your original question was, but I'm going off on a tangent.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

No, it's beautiful, because you're touching on things I was hoping that you would. We were evolving, what do women when they come to keto? What are they doing right and what are they doing wrong? You touched on a couple of the things, and I think electrolytes are just so underappreciated. My whole background as a nurse practitioner was in cardiology, so I got ridiculously savvy with magnesium in particular, but potassium and sodium, and I laugh about the dogma that I used to tell my patients. When I was a newbie nurse practitioner around 2000-2001, we were low fat, non-fat, no butter, [crosstalk] no steak, no eggs. I can just imagine patients probably thought I was advocating that they eat a cardboard diet because that's probably what their food tasted like. It was probably just as nutritious as eating cardboard.

Maria Emmerich: 

Yeah. There's so many things that women are doing wrong. Like you said, they're being told that saturated fat is bad. But as women, you know what a big deal bone health is going through menopause. The sheath of your bones are made up with saturated fat. If you are like a vegetarian, or you're staying away from saturated fat, you use only olive oil and things that are devoid of that, when you break a bone, it's not just going to break, it's going to shatter. Then, if you go into the route of using Boniva, like fake bone prescription drugs, that puts fake bone on top of unhealthy bone and that's when they shatter, and that's when you have a big problem when you break a bone. 

I’ve got to tell you, my great grandma, her name is Minnie. She was 93 years old, and we were at Christmas. She opened the door which she thought was to the bathroom, but it was to the basement and she fell all the way down the steps on to a concrete floor. She didn't break one bone because I would go over to her house, I was 10 years old or so, and I would help clean her fridge and clean her house. I remember in the fridge she always had a coffee cup with this stuff in it. I was like, “Can I throw this away?” She's like, “That's liquid gold.” I was like, “It's not liquid.” 

Cynthia Thurlow: 

[laughs] 

Maria Emmerich: 

It was lard. 

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Yep. 

Maria Emmerich: 

That's what she cooked in. That's why she didn't break a bone because she was always eating saturated fats. Now, we're told to eat margarine and this and that. That's just a big problem too. If you're using-- you can do the keto diet, but I see a lot of keto influencers on Instagram, promoting like Kraft Mayo. They'll do promotions with-- even Paul Newman. Paul Newman’s salad dressings and they're paid to do these promotions. If you look at what oils they’re using, it's-- 

Cynthia Thurlow: 

They're seed oils.

Maria Emmerich: 

- hydrogenated oils that are changing the structure of yourself. If you want to have memory loss, if you want to have weight gain, if you want to have MS or whatever these diseases are, that's when your cells start to look like plastic, and they don't talk well. That's when weight gain is very easy, and you use Kraft Mayo, Hellmann's Mayo, Paul Newman’s salad. Any salad dressing at the grocery store, those are hydrogenated oils. I actually think that's worse than sugar.

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It's interesting that you say that because I've gotten really outspoken about seed oils. I think the statistic that Ben Bikman said probably two weeks ago, was that the number one consumed fat in the United States right now is soybean oil. When you're talking about prepackaged dressings, and most of the prepackaged mayos as well as soybean oil proliferates in everything, you're getting a healthy dose of seed oils. Much to your credit, it damages your mitochondria. When you talk about your cells, you get this mitochondrial dysfunction. We know that that's more common as we get older, but it doesn't have to be what happens. Really critical that if you do nothing else read food labels so you can educate yourself about what to avoid.

Maria Emmerich: 

The mitochondria is where you oxidize fat, that's where you get energy from. Like you said, most women want to lose weight, have good energy. I don't drink any caffeine, and this energy is just like-- it's just from food. Food should be your fuel. It shouldn't be-- I think there's a fine balance. I had this great opportunity to do some TV show things in New Orleans. They took me to Muriel's, which is the famous restaurant in New Orleans. I'm saying around [with a Southern accent] New Orleans or whatever. They were upstairs in the special room and they're telling me, “Here in the South, we live to eat, we don't eat to live.” It was really eye-opening to me because I think there's a fine balance. I think it's okay to enjoy food, but when it takes over your life, that's a problem.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

It shouldn't be hedonism.

Maria Emmerich: 

Right. I want to eat good food, I don't want to eat cardboard, like you said. I don’t want to eat chicken breast and broccoli, but I also love that I can go out on my paddleboard with whales for an hour and not worry about, “Ooh, I need to be back for lunch,” because I remember those days, it wasn't hunger, it was hangry where I want to be back for mealtime. When I was having breakfast, I was thinking about lunch. I love that it doesn't plague my life anymore, but I also enjoy food. I think that there's a really great balance at the moment.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

I think our lives are meant to be enjoyed., I love that you have a strong connection to nature. I think the gift of COVID for me personally is that I've gotten into this practice of-- I was always walking my dogs, let me preface this, but my husband and I have gotten in this practice of, we walk the dogs outside in the sunshine without sunglasses in the morning, and we do it in the afternoon, and that helps my sleep. As a middle-aged female, that sometimes can be a little bit more challenging. It's definitely a pain point. Weight gain is a pain point for many women, sleep quality, which can be problematic. 

Now, I've come to find there are specific things, foods, that can impact, not just weight gain, but can also impact sleep quality. There's very much what I refer to as a wine culture for women that have kids, that it's very normal for a mom to put the kids to bed and then she has a couple glasses of wine and goes to bed herself. Maybe that works for some people when they're younger, but I know in her 40s and 50s and beyond, it just regulates her blood sugar and impacts cortisol, and it suppresses melatonin. I always say, like, that's the perfect storm for not getting a good night's sleep, which is a bummer because every once in a while, I'd love to have a martini or a glass of wine. But more often than not lately, I just don't. I just abstain entirely, which-- for listeners, I promise I'm a fun person, but I've just gotten to a point where my sleep quality is far more important to me than me having an alcoholic beverage, and I do find that is problematic for a lot of middle-aged women as well.

Maria Emmerich: 

Well, absolutely. I want to lead with this. I have a great opportunity, some travel agencies reached out to me to do trips around the world. 

Cynthia Thurlow: 

It's amazing, by the way.

Maria Emmerich: 

Thank you. You should come.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

I would love to.

Maria Emmerich: 

It's a VIP trip, where we stay in castles. It's amazing. We do wine tours. First night that we went to Italy, this is my first trip, we sat down to dinner and nobody sat by me. I was like, “Oh, geez.” I stood up and I said, “Okay, everybody. I was married to my husband for the first eight years of our life, he ate nothing keto, and I loved him just the same. As long as you don't judge me, I won't judge you. Let's get that clear. If you want Limoncello, if you want wine, if you want pasta, I really don't care. This is your trip. If you want to eat keto, I'm going to give you great delicious food that's keto, so let's get that over with because I am not a judgy person, but I do want to educate everybody.” With that said, I'm going to educate your listeners. This was interesting because it came up yesterday. I said, “Well, Craig, I've never personally bought alcohol at the store in my life ever.” Because I drank way too much before I turned 21. Once I turned 21, I was like, “Eh, not so fun.” I have PCOS, which alcohol, you talk about melatonin and cortisol all that, alcohol increases estrogen by 300%. When you see a male with a big beer belly, which you think is funny, it's not a funny beer belly. It's an estrogen belly.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Yeah, it’s just aromatization.

Maria Emmerich: 

Yeah. If your goal is to lose that last 10, 20, 50 pounds, for a month, I say, give it a month, cut the alcohol. What’s really scary is, with COVID, alcohol sales went up by 70%. If you are, like-- it's springtime, you're on this new health journey, I say just cut it out for a month, and you will notice that your sleep gets way better. Because what happens when the estrogen rises by that much, it shunts progesterone. When you can fall asleep-- because some people say, “Well, I fall asleep much easier when I do have a drink, but then I wake up at 2 AM, I think,” that's that low progesterone. An alcoholic beverage, you might pass out, but then you're waking up intermittently having frequent urination throughout the night, it causes anxiety, that's all low progesterone. Is it really worth it? To me, I like to wake up and run in the morning, feel like a million bucks. To me, it's not, and hey, like you said, I can be a lot of fun without alcohol, so I can go to a party and just be wild, dance, and crazy without that. But if you want it, just know what it does.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

I think it's an important distinction because I know for myself, I grew up with an alcoholic parent, went off to college and because I had grown up with someone that had been so emotionally abusive, and alcohol, for me, I had this strong association, I wasn't a big drinker, I was never a big drinker. As I've gotten older, I've gotten much more confident saying, “I don't feel any pressure when I--" well, not that we're doing a lot of parties, but when I go to social events, I don't feel the kind of pressure. What's been a blessing again about COVID, is I don't drink at all. I've had maybe one or two drinks the entire last 13 months. One night they put me to sleep, we were at a friend's house, and they were like, “What's wrong with Cynthia? She's asleep on the couch.” I'm like, “I had one drink and I was exhausted. I was like, “Oh, my gosh. I clearly don't need to be doing this.” If you're listening and you're curious, like Maria said, I think cutting something out for a month is completely reasonable.

I'm curious what your thoughts are on bioidenticals versus supplementation. I'm not just referring to menopausal women, I'm talking about women as they make that transition from when they're still very fertile, to when they're in perimenopause, and then they make the final transition, no more periods, they're no longer fertile. What are your thoughts on bioidenticals? Is that something that you're open to? Or is that something you feel is very much a bio-individual decision? The reason why I'm asking is-- and this is from traditional allopathic perspective. I'm trained allopathically, I'm trained functionally. The mindset was always, “Okay, well, you just replace the hormones that you're losing.” 

I've come to believe that the lifestyle piece is what's most important. How we choose to eat, how much sleep we get, what kind of physical activity we do, stress management, and once all those things are dialed in. If you then still need those things, I think that's completely reasonable. But to use it as a frontline strategy, for many women, oftentimes will exacerbate the weight gain, can exacerbate all the other issues, it becomes a band-aid. I've just seen far too many women at this point that they go on bioidenticals and then they gain 15 more pounds, and then they're completely depressed.

Maria Emmerich: 

Yes, I do want to touch on alcohol one more time. A lot of times we reach towards alcohol when we're depressed or anxious. What does that do? It just makes you more depressed and anxious. That's what food does too. Like I said, there's no judging. I just want to educate. I would go towards the pan of cinnamon rolls and wine, it never made me happier. It always made me sadder. I had to find things to replace that with that did make me happier in times of sadness. Everybody's going to go through those. Finding ways that actually lift your moods rather than make it worse is going to be huge. I just want to leave everybody with that when you think about the alcohol. Because with COVID, there's anxiety about what's going to go on, and a lot of depression about things we're craving and missing, doing [unintelligible [00:30:26]

With the bioidenticals, I wasn't sure how I felt in the beginning. However, doing a lot of research and helping people through natural supplementation. First of all, yes, women doing a proper keto diet have much less hot flashes, much less tissue dryness, much less weight gain. However, sometimes, it still happens, okay. Sometimes, that sleep issue, maybe you won't get hot flashes, but you wake up at 2 AM, because guess what? Your ovaries are no longer putting out estrogen and progesterone like they once would. It depends on what a toxic estrogenic environment you've been in. A lot of women will say, “Well, I went to the doctor and he said I have no estrogen.” There's three different types of estrogen, you know this. One's only when you're pregnant, I'm not talking about that. One's from your ovaries, I'm not talking about that either. I'm talking about the third toxic estrogen that causes thyroid cancer, breast cancer, uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, even prostate cancer in men is an estrogen-dominant cancer. 

A lot of people think, “Oh don't eat sugar, you won't get cancer.” It's not that simple. A lot of them are hormone-dominant cancers, such as those. In that case, you want to look at your environment. What type of chemicals are you putting on your skin? What kind of makeup are you using? What kind of shampoo? Are you living in a golf course with a lot of the toxic sprays? Do you have scented candles at your house? I know I sound like I'm crazy to some people, but I'm trying to plant a seed. All of those things give estrogen dominance to a body, female or male or children, and that would be that belly fat that's hard to get rid, the sleep issues.

Back to bioidenticals, yeah, I find that it's very hard to lose weight on them, whether it be for birth control, or whatever you're using it for, I was put on them. It was terrible. I couldn't lose weight with them. Really, diving into natural supplements, because that's what I needed to heal. Before you get on the Zoom with me, I was working on a supplement plan for somebody, and that's what I do all the time. I'd like to get women off of these drugs and onto natural supplements that you can find in nature. I worked with a pharmacist a couple years ago, and I remember, I always asked my clients, “Are you on any medication, supplements, multivitamins?” She said, “You know what, Maria? I know that every prescription I write, there's a little bit of poison.” I was like, “At least you said it, not me.” [chuckles] Getting people off of these drugs, I think, is a huge part of healing.

I wanted to make sure I mentioned that I have recently partnered with Green Chef, which is the first USDA-certified organic meal kit company. You can enjoy clean ingredients, you can trust that is seasonally sourced for peak freshness. What I love is that all of the ingredients come pre-measured, perfectly portioned, and mostly prepped. My boys and I, and my husband can spend less time stressing and more time enjoying delicious home-cooked meals. Now I'll be honest, I was a little hesitant initially, but I've been so pleased as have my super uber hungry teenage boys, with all of the options that we have received thus far. I would say our absolute favorites are the beef fajita taco salad and the pork chops with southwest crema. These satisfy both adults and teenage boys do eat a voluminous amount of food. 

When you're thinking about opportunities to connect with options online for organic food delivery, I cannot tell you how pleased I have been with Green Chef. Go to greenchef.com/90ewp and use code, 90EWP, to get $90 off including free shipping. Again, you want to go to greenchef.com/90ewp and use code, 90EWP, to get $90 off and free shipping. You definitely want to check this opportunity out. We've really been pleased with that and it saves so much time on busy weekdays. This is the number one meal kit for eating well. 

Cynthia Thurlow: 

I think it's so challenging because, again, it goes to this dogma that this is the way things are. I always say there's a lot of emphasis on young women when they start getting their periods and birth control, and pregnancy and the postpartum period. Then, maybe a little bit with women that are after they've had kids, and then it's like women kind of fall off a cliff. There's a lot of ageism that I acknowledge. In my mind, I feel like I'm like, 20, but I know I'm chronologically not 20, although I look much younger than my stated age. The point of why I'm sharing this is, I think we have to start this dialogue of talking about the fact that women spend 40% of their lifetime in menopause and beyond, and why wouldn't we want to feel good? 

Like you mentioned, the nutrition piece, and finding what strategies work best for us and not buying into this dogma of you're going out to pasture and this is going to be dry, and you're not going to be able to sleep and you're just going to be puffy and bloated, and just go buy-- I can't remember, which purse-- which clothing manufacturer it is, but everything is just loose because no one wants to wear anything tied around their abdomen because they're feeling like they've got all this accumulation of adipose tissue, which is incredibly sad.

Maria Emmerich: 

I feel sexier now than I ever have.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Mm-hmm.

Maria Emmerich: 

You don't have to have the tissue dryness, you don't have to have the sexless marriage. This is all things that not only nutrition, but natural supplements would help.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Absolutely. Let's talk about some strategies. I know that you're an intermittent fasting fan as well. When women are dealing with stalls, so maybe they've changed their diet, what are some of the strategies you'd like to use? I know I would love for you to talk a little bit about the protein-sparing modified fast because I think that in and of itself, when I stumbled upon that, I was like, “Hmm, that is something that not only am I going to try, but I'm definitely going to be recommending to my clients as well.”

Maria Emmerich: 

Well, I will definitely gift to you the book, The Art of Fat Loss, so just remember to email me. I will give that to you for you to try. I hope that you like it. Because that's the thing, like, I mentioned earlier, I don't like chicken breasts, but if you make it differently and delicious, it's a whole new thing. Yeah, intermittent fasting, it was not easy for me. I grew up on eating every two to three hours. I always had a midnight snack. I swear, my mom thought we were going to--

Cynthia Thurlow: 

At night. [laughs] 

Maria Emmerich: 

Yes, we always had a midnight snack. We weren't even hungry. My brother and I would be playing, she's like, “Oh, midnight snack time.” It was always toast with honey and peanut butter or ice cream. It wasn't a healthy snack. It was like we were going to fade away at night if we didn't. For me, that was my hardest habit to break, was even though I'm not hungry, your mind tells you that it's time to eat. Even now, I look at the clock, and even if it's a normal eating time, I'll be like, “Oh, I wasn't hungry, but now, okay, maybe I am.” Training yourself to follow real hunger rather than the clock. That's just touching on intermittent fasting. It sounds extreme, but it's just shortening the window, so your body can heal other parts of itself. If it's always digesting food, it can't heal other parts. When it comes to protein-sparing-- are you into extended fasting?

Cynthia Thurlow: 

I'm going to answer this from a personal perspective, no. I think because a great deal of what I've read, Ted Naiman really made a huge impression on me when we had a conversation saying, “It's the law of diminishing returns,” especially if you're already lean, and I'm already pretty lean. I think because two years ago, I had this 13-day hospitalization and I wasn't able to eat for-- I lost 15 pounds and wasn't able to eat for two weeks. For me, I feel like I've put in the bucket for longer fasts for a long period of time. I think I've done one in two years,. I think I've done one 30-hour fast. I don't know that I get as much out of it as I should if I'm going to be doing it. It's that law of diminishing returns, so that really sticks in the back of my head. I think there are definitely people who perhaps need a longer fasts for specific reasons, whether it's someone who is really-- maybe it's someone who's going through cancer treatment in conjunction with their oncology team, and they've got the sign-off that it's okay to do that. I think in most instances if you're already at a healthy weight, I'm not sure you're getting as much out of it beneficially as you might with just a 24 hour or less fast. 

Maria Emmerich: 

Okay, so here's the thing, I really don't like extended fasting because you do lose muscle mass, just like Ted Naiman was explaining. Study after study shows you will lose lean mass, so maybe the scale will go down. But that lean mass is precious, that's very metabolically active, that's going to keep you out of a wheelchair when you age. Especially women, there's something called sarcopenia, where you lose muscle mass and it really happens pretty fast. It's really hard to build muscle. People think that this protein-sparing modified fast is really extreme, but I'm saying instead of eating nothing every other day, which some people advocate, get at least your protein in so all you lose is fat instead of the muscle, and it works really, really well. 

I don't like people being like, “Oh, Maria Emmerich tells you to do a protein-sparing modified fast.” I'm like, “Yeah, one to two days a week, I'm not saying doing it for a lifetime.” I'm saying to do this instead of eating zero calories. I'm being less extreme than them in my mind. But to them, it sounds this extreme thing. Anyway, a protein-sparing modified fast is where you turn the fat dial down to 20 to 30 grams, you turn the carbohydrates down to as close to zero grams. The, protein you hit 0.8 to one times your lean mass, and that would change depending on how lean mass is, about 90 grams for a female. What does that look like? It looks about 800 calories of pure protein. It would be leaner cuts of protein. Have you tried the protein-sparing bread yet?

Cynthia Thurlow: 

I have not, but I do-- it's earmarked. I was laughing last night as I was going through the book.

Maria Emmerich: 

That's not a protein-sparing book, but that's a different one.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Yeah. No, but we were going through this last night. I said, “Everyone talks about Maria's bread.” My kids being boys and being very physically active, they're like, “Bread. I mean, you never make bread.” It's on my to-do list. Yes.

Maria Emmerich: 

Oh, awesome, because it's like Wonder Bread. It's super, super soft. 

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Oh, they'd be all over that. [laughs] 

Maria Emmerich: 

My kids, I make French toast with it and I make protein-sparing French toast with it. It's two ingredients to make this bread. Then, you can make sandwiches with it. Like a lean ham or turkey sandwich with some mustard. That's a great way to get your protein, and that's delicious. It's not eating like a dry chicken breast. Otherwise, I have a bourbon chicken, which tastes like sweet and sour chicken that's really, really delicious. Then, I do an egg fried rice. You take egg whites, and you make a fried rice with it, and you have little balls of rice. It tastes really good. I'm just this magician in the kitchen that tries to make delicious food, but I want to do it because I want people to see this as a lifestyle. 

This idea where you make yourself not eat anything for a day, I'm saying do this, so you don't lose your lean mass. People say that they sleep better, the weight is falling off, they're breaking a stall, that they haven't been able to lose weight on the keto diet for two years, and this is helping them break a stall. It's amazing. I will say though, that book you have, the Cleanse book, is dairy and nut free for a reason. Because a lot of people on the keto diet, they're living off of almonds and cheese, and that's going to just cause weight gain. It's going to cause constipation too. Constipation, dairy and nuts? They're really good for causing constipation. [unintelligible [00:42:55] a lot.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Well, I love that you talk quite openly about the fact that you think of nuts as carbs, because I think for so many of us, we’re like, “Oh, nuts and nut butters are fats.” Yes, there's a component of that, but when you say it that way, it's like, “Oh, so this explains.” I get the dairy thing, because I haven't eaten dairy in about four years. Dairy was always very hard to limit, and my kids to go through dairy like it's tomorrow. But the nut piece, I think, for so many women, they're like, “Oh, I've got--”, I love macadamia nuts, but I will portion out a quarter cup, and that's all I have.

Maria Emmerich: 

You're not trying to lose weight either. Maintaining weight is so much easier than trying to lose it. That's why I would like people to just hit it hard, lose the weight, get to your maintenance, and then you can have macadamia-- then you can have some things again, and if you don't have an autoimmune issue, you can maybe have some dairy again.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

No. I think it's really interesting to take that mindset shift, because that's so important, but getting back to the protein-sparing modified fast. I always say monogamy is good, but as it pertains to fasting, and food, we want variety. I think it's really critically important that people are varying what they do. I love the idea of this because people are still eating, you're not suffering through a day or two days of fasting, which I never loved. I was always one of those people, I could hydrate, I could drink green tea, I could do all the things. But in the back of my mind, I was like, “I really want to eat some food.” I agree with you that sarcopenia, this muscle loss with aging, really accelerates after 40 and you lose quite a bit. Some of that can be maintained if you're lifting, if you're doing strength training, and you're getting enough protein and amino acids in your diet. I look at some of the genetics piece and obviously, we can't change our genetics. Both my grandmothers had osteopenia, and probably osteoporosis. I'm already osteopenic at this point. So, for me, it is going to be an uphill battle and it's a constant discussion with my nurse midwife, she's like, “You need to go on bioidenticals, and you need to do this, and we should think about.” I was like, “I'm not going on any of the Bonivas or any of those drugs. That's not going to happen.” 

Maria Emmerich: 

Do you do vitamin K2?

Cynthia Thurlow: 

I do. My vitamin D levels are good as well. I do everything as proactively. It's been this waxing and waning issue over the last-- since I've been come apparent, it's I breastfed, and then I was osteopenic, and then I did more strength training and then built my bone mass backup, and I was fine for a while. Then, at the tail end of perimenopause, I suspect that's probably why that's becoming an issue again, because I'm doing all the right things. It's just recognizing-- 

Maria Emmerich: 

[crosstalk] -yeah. 

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Yeah.

Maria Emmerich: 

[crosstalk] to do that.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Yeah, absolutely. I think the other pieces, we can do a lot proactively, but the genetics piece is undeniable. Some of those things are beyond our control, if you will. What's next? I know you were mentioning that you're going to be doing these incredible trips. I think I saw Croatia and Italy and--

Maria Emmerich: 

Portugal.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Portugal, thank you. I was like, “Oh, all of some of my favorite parts of--” [crosstalk] 

Maria Emmerich: 

I grew up in North Central Wisconsin where we didn't have any money. The trip was to North Dakota. So, being able to travel like this-- I don't know if everybody knows my story, but we had an extreme-- How we got into my job, my husband lost his job, and I was a rock-climbing guide at the time. We couldn't even pay our house payments, and we were adopting children at that time. When you lose a job and you lose insurance, all the headway we put into our adoption, like $20,000, poof. It was like we threw into a fire. We couldn't pay our house payments, we sold our cars. I would ride my bike to the library so I could write, because I had no other reason to wake up in the morning because my life was in the toilet. 

I am grateful for that time because it made me struggle. It makes me grateful for today. I still don't have a car. I don't have a car here, but that didn't make me happy anyway. I just want to be like I'm a very grounded person. I am very grateful to be able to travel because I never thought in a million worlds, I would be able to travel like this. It's a really fun trip where I teach you all my keto tips and tricks. If you want to be carnivore even, we'll have food cater to whatever dietary restriction you have. But more than anything, we just explore the world and make new friends, talk about recipes, and it's really, really amazing. 

I'm also writing a sugar-free kids’ book, because I think that it starts with our children. Halle Berry has written the foreword for that. I do have some other books in the work, one with-- I shouldn't say who it is, but you can probably all guess who it is, writing a book with a beautiful actress. I spend most of the time coaching my coaches, so I have a keto coaching certification. So, that's basically a keto college that I help with. Yeah, so that's what I do most of the time. 

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Well, I think it's wonderful. I love what you bring to the space and the inspiration and your own journey is just so incredible. It's nice to have other women in this space. I was saying to someone the other day, someone was talking about the podcast, like, “I love the podcast, but you need to interview more women,” and so I've been really making an effort to reach out to more women in the space to bring them on because men can get a sense of maybe what a woman experiences but we're not min-men and I think it's helpful to have the insights from someone who has looked at life, there a similar lens. Certainly, I would say the tough times in our lives are the ones that prepare us for all the good that is to come. Certainly, I love seeing all your success and look forward to continuing to follow you. What's the easiest way to connect with you on social media, your website? You have a wealth of information on YouTube as well, you're all over the place. 

Maria Emmerich: 

You're so sweet. Well, my husband made the website, ketomaria.com, because when I first started making a blog, and this was before blogging was cool, and I picked the longest URL, mariamindbodyhealth.com. 

Cynthia Thurlow: 

[laughs] 

Maria Emmerich: 

I could’ve picked keto.com back then, but if you go to ketomaria.com, you'll find me everywhere. I'm on Instagram @MariaEmmerich. I have a bunch of private Facebook groups for support. If you even just search the word ‘keto,’ that's my group and we just try to help people as much as we can. I even have a free eBook if everybody wants that. If you go to mariamindbodyhealth.com and search “free eBook,” there's a free eBook with meal plans and everything in there because I know times are tough for everybody right now.

Cynthia Thurlow: 

Well, it's so nice to connect with you. I know that your family is waiting for you outside in paradise. For everyone that can't see Maria, she has this beautiful hibiscus flower tucked behind her ear that I've been able to admire this entire conversation.

Maria Emmerich: 

Thank you so much for reaching out. I'm very grateful.

Presenter: Thanks for listening to Everyday Wellness. If you loved this episode, please leave us a rating, and review, subscribe, and remember, tell a friend. If you want to connect with us online, visit the link in the show notes.

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