I am delighted to welcome the notorious Jimmy Moore as my guest for today’s show! Jimmy is a bestselling author, a writer, and the host of the Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb (LLVLC) Show.
Jimmy has had an impact on the trajectory of my learning journey. I initially connected with him around intermittent fasting when I read a book he co-authored with Dr. Jason Fung called The Complete Guide to Fasting. I later read his books, Keto Clarity and Cholesterol Clarity, both of which I highly recommend!
Jimmy has been around for quite some time. He was very productive with creating podcasts at a time when there were very few people doing that in the keto space. In this episode, Jimmy and I have a frank and transparent conversation about childhood influences, how he pivoted from being an English Poly/Psy major to learning about the ketogenic lifestyle and the Atkins Diet, and later becoming an author. Stay tuned to hear our thought-provoking discussion!
IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:
How trauma molded Jimmy into who he is today.
Jimmy shares his education and career journey.
What prompted Jimmy to start learning about nutrition?
How Jimmy got to the point of writing books and how he got onto the publisher’s radar after writing them.
Finding a balance between sharing ‘nerdy’ information and making things easy for everyone to understand.
The truth about LDL and some of the more common misconceptions about cholesterol.
Some of the common keto mistakes people tend to make.
Why some of the narratives on social media are changing.
The benefits of using a CGM (continuous glucose monitor).
“Every great person that’s done extraordinary things had some sh*t happen to them in their past.”
-Jimmy Moore
Connect with Cynthia Thurlow
Follow on Twitter
Check out Cynthia’s website
Submit your questions to support@cynthiathurlow.com
Connect with Jimmy Moore
Transcript:
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. And now, here's your host, Nurse Practitioner Cynthia Thurlow.
Cynthia: Today, I am delighted to have the infamous Jimmy Moore joining us for the podcast. He is a bestselling author, he is a prolific writer, and host of The Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Show. It is truly my pleasure. This is someone who has influenced the trajectory of my own learning through intermittent fasting which is where I first connected with his writing with a book, he coauthored with Dr. Jason Fung, The Complete Guide to Fasting, and then later dove into his Keto Clarity and Cholesterol Clarity, which I highly recommend. Here's my conversation with Jimmy. We talked all about childhood influences, how we navigated going from being an English/Poli Sci major into finding the ketogenic lifestyle, and Atkins, ultimately becoming an author, and was really prolific at creating podcasting when there weren't a lot of people in the space doing it. So, he's been around for a long time, and it provides a very transparent, honest, thoughtful discussion that we had a few weeks ago. Enjoy. Well, today, I'm really excited to interview the Jimmy Moore. Jimmy, how are you today other than hot?
Jimmy: I'm actually really well. Yeah, this time a year in the South, you just expect hot and muggy, and I just mowed my grass too. [crosstalk] So, the old thermogenesis works really good when it's hot outside. [laughs]
Cynthia: Well, it's such a pleasure to connect with you. It's really an honor, and a privilege, and obviously, I followed you for years to be able to connect, and pick your brain, and hear more about you. I have spent a lot of time getting to know the man behind the man, I guess, is what I would say. It seems to me that one of the things that really impressed me it was you had, seems like very close to your siblings and your mom growing up. What do you think was your biggest childhood influence? When you look back, what were the things that really helped mold you into the man that you are today?
Jimmy: Honestly, it wasn't anybody, if I'm being honest. It was experiences. It was understanding things that weren't quite right, and I talk very openly about my childhood trauma. I got beat and mentally berated by my dad all throughout my teenage years, and it affected me for a long time afterwards. We're only talking like two years ago that I'm really coming to terms with my childhood trauma. So, I have to say, it's those experiences because I often go down this rabbit trail, Cynthia, where I go, “What would my life have been like, had I had two loving parents that fully embraced, what I obviously have created talents and skills, or did those creative talents and skills get born in me out of the trauma?” I don't know the answer to that question to be honest with you. Although, having done some research on this, every great person that's done extraordinary things had some shit happen to them in their past. Look it up, literally, your favorite, anybody. Look it up, they all went through some stuff. I think there's just something that gets triggered in your brain. So, for that reason, I'm glad, and I would say that probably had the most profound impact on me more than anything was, ironically, the worst part of my life.
Cynthia: Well, and it's interesting, because as I was doing my research for our interview, those traumas stood out to me as something that I can really relate to. I had a physically and verbally abusive father, and I remind myself that I did not perpetuate what I grew up in with my own children, and certainly not with my own marriage. But one of the things that really struck me a few years ago is, I realize that resiliency is born out of a necessity to be able to right the wrongs that you-- As a child, you have no control over those things.
Jimmy: Right.
Cynthia: As an adult, we do. Our perception, and it was interesting when I was reflecting on the conversation that we would have, I really do believe that whether they're macro or micro traumas that we grew up with and even as a healthcare provider, I think I was conditioned to believe that traumas have to be something like huge. You have to been raped or been in a terrible car accident, and what I've come to find out is that, in many ways in our internal discourse, we downplay what we grew up in, because that's what we grew up around.
Jimmy: Or, you think that's what normal is into the world thinking, “Oh, everybody had a father that yelled at them. Everybody had a dad that said, you're never going to amount to anything, and you're a gay, and no woman will ever want to be with you.” Everybody, because that's your norm. That's the grounding of like, “Who you are, when you learn, what's what in the world?” It's you're bringing up. So, when you get out in the real world and you realize, “Whoa, it's such a mindfuck," excuse the language,” but it is when you realize all the things you thought were normal or not normal.
Cynthia: Right. It's interesting to me, because one of my best friends growing up, actually, most of them had these very Beaver Cleaver existences, my husband the same way. On many levels, it has been, as I've watched my children get older that I say to them, you really-- and I don't say it in a way that they don't appreciate what they have. It's just, you don't realize like I sometimes don't realize the trauma I grew up in until I recognize how different my children's experiences are, how grateful I am that they don't have those experiences. But I think that internal resiliency really translates into a skill set of mindset that you can get through just about anything irrespective of what comes down the pike. It's like, “What? I went through that. If I can get through that and turn out pretty good, [laughs] doing really well.”
Jimmy: And that's the bright side, and I totally agree, because I'm a resilient badass, I promise you. But I think it also turns on a lot of coping mechanisms that you don't immediately recognize as such, and then you take them into adulthood, and there's some-- I still deal with that I go, “Why do I keep doing that?” I’m well beyond, I'm decades beyond the traumatic or the initial traumatic because that's something else. Trauma begets, trauma begets, trauma begets, trauma, and it wasn't until about two years ago that the last trauma ended for me, and I've been pretty cool, and done a lot of internal work myself the last two years that's made me lightyears ahead of what I was.
Like I said, just literally two years ago, and it's such a journey to try to unfold these. But you can't see them, too. You take the scales away from your eyes, and you start really looking at yourself and identify, “Who am I, what do I believe?” Okay, I believe. Why do I believe that? There's somebody telling me to believe that or is that something Jimmy actually believes? A lot of this stuff, Cynthia, I found out I believe a lot of stuff. I didn't believe only because I had been told that's what I'm supposed to believe, and I never changed it.
Cynthia: Yep. That narrative. Are you familiar with Byron Katie's work?
Jimmy: Yep
Cynthia: Yeah. I would just say that sounds very Byron Katieish.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Cynthia: For those of you that are listening or saying, I don't know who Byron Katie is, a lot of our memories, our own perceptions of what's happened, and I have all of her books, and eventually, one of these days, I will go to one of her events, if we get back to a point where we're doing a lot of normal things again. But especially as it pertains to traumas, and reflecting on what we've been through, and the tales that we weave some of its compensatory, I know for myself that I say all the time, I'm so grateful that my parents were the way they are, because some people have the example of wonderful parents that demonstrate love and demonstrate healthier boundaries and relationships, and then sometimes you get the opposite, and I tell people all the time like, I so appreciate what I have, because of what I grew up in. Those boundaries become even more important, the older and wiser I become. I'm curious. So, you went from home to college, and then it's my understanding you became a teacher somewhere along the way?
Jimmy: No, I was a substitute teacher circa, 15 years ago, but that was like one [audio cut] my life. I was never a teacher. Although, I do feel like what I do now, I'm really good at it. I feel like it's a talent I have it. If I had another life, I probably would have become a teacher of some kind. Like I said, I play on the internet a teacher all the time, and counselor, and [crosstalk]
Cynthia: Coach?
Jimmy: No, I went to college, my major, I did a double major. English and Poli Sci. I thought I wanted to work on Capitol Hill, and then politics got crazy in the 1990s. I'm like, “Nope, I don't want to do that in my life.”
Cynthia: [crosstalk] [laughs]
Jimmy: Yeah, but I always was really good at writing. Wasn't that great as speaking that had to develop later, but the writing has always been there. I took one professor in college eight different times. Walt, he made his column, Walt. He looked just like Santa Claus. He was big beard, always broking in hu, hu, hu. What would let you rewrite your paper over, and over, and over again until you got the grades you wanted. So, I held the record for a little while. Jimmy Moore wrote a paper 32 times and going, “Can I please have an A--" and I was like giving up till I got an A. Finally, he said, “Stop, you're not going to get hired.” I'm like, “Just give me an A minus, I'll stop. I promise. Tell me what I did wrong?” Just not good enough this time. So, I learned how to be a really good refined writer from Walt, and so I'm grateful for him. Because now, Keto Clarity, I rewrote hundred times.
Cynthia: Did you, really?
Jimmy: Right. Even then, I didn't feel like it was perfect, and I'm not one of those people that has that perfection mindset, no. But I do want things to be professional and good. I feel like the success of that book proves it was just that. Now, I went into a lot of retail types of jobs, marketing, which I love too, because it let me learn how to interact with people. I have a natural rapport with people that I still have today, and in fact, I think those skills transferred to what I do today. So, when I meet people in person, I know interpersonal relationships and how to talk to people.
Cynthia: Huge.
Jimmy: People also feel like, they know me because they've heard my voice for years on The Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Show and everything else that I do. So, I tell people, everything I did up until what I do now prepared me for what I do now. I did a little bit of Christian radio in the 1990s. 88.5 FM, WODC, you're the lighthouse in Virginia Beach. It's sad. I still know that all these years later.
Cynthia: [laughs]
Jimmy: Then, I actually worked at another Christian radio station that was like one of those more traditional ones with the [imitates music] music. You had to change the tone. They wouldn't like the shipper, Jimmy. I had to go, “WPMH AM Tin Tin.” I'm like, “Oh, that's not me.” [laughs]
Cynthia: Well, but it's interesting, you and Abel James share that theatrical voice. You both have very distinctive voices, and I enjoyed listening to your podcast together for many different reasons. But listening to both of you, I was like, there's absolutely somewhere in Jimmy's past. What's interesting is, so, I do a lot of research before I bring a podcast guest on because I actually enjoy that. There wasn't a lot-- The blip from college like, all I got was Poli Sci major, I didn't even get the English major. So, in my mind, I was thinking, how did we get from there to becoming an author? Like, how did the book writing process even start?
Jimmy: Well, and here's the thing. A lot of people, they'll say, “Well, what did you do right before you started low carb?” I tell them, I worked in a customer service type job. They never go before that. So, it's like, yeah, there was this big gap between college and then starting low carb. I got a master's degree as well. So, I went back and got my master's in public policy. I already had Poli Sci under my belt, why not go and add public policy, and I am trying to impact public policy when it comes to nutrition and health. So, let's not kid ourselves. I can't use that someday. But right now, it's just the English I used. But no, you said something about the writing. I didn't have anything formal with the writing. I knew when I was in the fourth grade. Fourth grade, I had Mrs. Grolement was my fourth-grade English teacher, and she read from the Judy Blume novels about budge, and she just made it so fun, and I'm like, “I'm going to be a writer someday.”
[crosstalk] In the eighth grade, the teacher that was about 10 years older than God, when she was teaching, she's old way. [crosstalk] Yes, she was this old curmudgeon, and oh, I guess, she didn't like me. Maybe I reminded her of somebody in her life that she didn't like, but I won the poetry contest and the whole school writing a poem that I was so bored in her class. In five minutes, I wrote this poem called The Cheetah, and I won the big poetry contest, and she put me in remedial English in high school.
Cynthia: No.
Jimmy: Yeah. I went to that English class in ninth grade. I remember the first few days, I was running circles around everybody because she's like, “All right, class, tell us what a noun is.”
Cynthia: [laughs]
Jimmy: Nobody else knew, because I had always been in advanced English in middle school, and I won the spelling bee with Erica, we were co-champions, because we kept going into like, “Please give them co-champions. They won't miss a word.” So, I was always good at English. The teacher in the ninth grade’s like, "Why are you in this class? We're going to send you to advanced English.” Then I ended up majoring in English in college, and now, I'm a three-time international bestselling author, which I wish that old curmudgeon couldn't live long enough. I would have sent her autographed copies.
Cynthia: I love it. The best revenge is living well, right?
Jimmy: Yes. Well, I don't think a teacher should ever squelch someone that they know has talent, and it was obvious I won that poetry contest. I made all A's in our class, why are you sending me to remedial English?
Cynthia: Now, that sounds passive aggressive.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Cynthia: Unfortunate that there are educators that are out there. It's like I was always told that, when I was a nurse and a Nurse Practitioner that, when you stopped caring, it was time to retire. There was this crotchety cardiologist when I was in Baltimore, and if I were to say his name, he would then have no anonymity. But this individual is probably, I'm guessing north of 65, and just really, it's just grumpy and pissed off, and never took this time with his patients [crosstalk] more. Perfect example. it's like it's time to retire when you stop caring, certainly time to retire, and it certainly sounds like she was in that position.
Cynthia: Uh-oh. I was in the eighth grade, so, we skew our brains about ages at that. I thought 50 was old and now, 50 is very young now.
Cynthia: It’s correct.
Jimmy: She's probably in her 70s, early 70s. She was up there.
Cynthia: That's unfortunate. I know that your brother played a huge influence in your life. I dove down that rabbit hole, and I'm sure that had a huge influence on the trajectory of and the direction that your life went to. Now, was it his own experiences with his heart failure issues? Based on my reading, it sounds like, it was a protracted illness of, how to, sounds like an infarct and then had [crosstalk] dysfunction and then developed heart failure. So, was it through his health journey that that started to push you into considering looking at nutrition differently, or it is [crosstalk]?
Jimmy: Yes, to your question. Sorry, yes and no. Towards the end, no, because he knew what I was doing. I'd already been successful at Atkins, but it was 1999, my only full-blooded brother, his name was Kevin. At the age of 32, had three heart attacks in one week. Literally, he had a heart attack, and then he got to the hospital, he had another heart attack. We're getting ready to discharge him and he had another heart attack. They said, he should have died. Morbidly obese, Type 2 diabetes, the whole gamut, everything related to insulin resistance, which we now know. But yeah, myocardial infarction, it just got him good, and it brought his function of his heart down to about 15% of-- [crosstalk]
Cynthia: Yeah, he blew out his pump.
Jimmy: Eventually, he had to have a pacemaker put in. So, anyway, so I come along in 2004 on the Atkins diet, lose the bunch awake, healthy, and he hears about it. He's like, “Hey, little bro, what you do?” I tell, it’s this low carb thing is. He tells, “Well, I'll try that.” So, he did. He went on it, and he lost weight, but the problem here, Cynthia, and I see this all the time, and people that write to me. They start feeling good, and then they're like, “Oh, I'm all better now. I can go back to eating the way I want to again,” which is why making the way you eat, to change it, and making it desirable should be the goal. I know, you're a big proponent of fasting like me. You're not going to tell people, “Hey, fast for 30 days, and then come back to--“No, no, you work them up. So, it feels sustainable,” so, then they'll go back to it again. If you give them miserable mis in what they're doing, guess what, nobody's going to sustain that. Human brain doesn't want to do things that make them miserable.
I tried to help him as much as I could, but he also had a very bad marriage. The woman was physically and emotionally parading and he's no Jimmy Moore. Jimmy’s strong willed. He's a pushover. So, he like, let's do all that. In fact, it was a year after he got married to this woman that he had the heart attack, and she held it against him the rest of their marriage.
Cynthia: Oh, terrible.
Jimmy: I think she was angry that, “How dare you have a heart attack?” Never mind, she probably helped instigated along with his bad choices. But yeah, it's one of those things that when he died in 2008, he was 41. It was devastating to the family. I started regaining weight about that time. I had lost 180 pounds in 2004, pretty much capped it off, and since 2008, when that happened, and I'm not saying it's the only thing, but that was a big trigger for me. I get a lot of flak that, “Oh, you're not a perfect size now.” I'm like, “Okay, but I've had some shit happen in my life.” There's some things I don't talk about publicly because I'm not allowed to talk about them publicly, that if you heard about them, they would make the hairs on your neck stand up about what I'm going through, and this is a lesson here that we don't know what people are going through.
It's like, be kind, be supportive, be compassionate. If people are pursuing something about health, even if it's something you don't agree with, if they're pursuing health, they're 9,000% on the right track of whatever they're doing. Support them. If somebody wanted to be on a vegan diet right now, Cynthia, and they felt like they're going to do well, and they're trying to be healthy, I'm going to be supportive, even though, I think it's a horrible diet for people to go on carte blanche without a reason. So, you got my hot button topics like
[laughter]
Jimmy: I just [audio cut] this judgmentalness of other people's choices in food. Come on, there's more things to worry about in this world.
Cynthia: Well, I think on so many levels, even if I reflect back on where I trained at a big research institution, well respected research institution, the information that I received during my medical education was useless to be able to counsel my patients, all of whom were sick. In cardiology, you generally don't get the word well. Very rarely, you generally get people who have existing blockages, existing heart issues, vascular path, that was our fancy way of saying. You've got head to toe vessel disease, diabetic, etc. Here I am telling them to eat a heart healthy carbohydrate focused diet, avoid animal protein, don't eat that buttery, eat the better balanced or whatever garbage, brummel and brown, all those faux vegetable oil things, and I so agree with you that it's meeting people where they are [crosstalk] patient.
Jimmy: Country Crock, I think was the best food [crosstalk]. Yeah, it's a crock all right, don't put that shit in your mouth.
Cynthia: [laughs] But I think about the fact that there's missed opportunities, because what I was suggesting based on what I was taught was not sustainable. People were hungry all the time. They over ate the food they were given, and it raised their insulin. So, irrespective of how healthcare providers come on this journey, I started questioning everything when I had a child with severe life-threatening food allergies. That's what got me down the rabbit hole of thinking everything starts with food. My peers thought I was nuts. They would placate me. They're like, “Oh, the Nurse Practitioner, she's really into nutrition, and they would send people to me.” 99.9% of the time, people are like, “I don't want to change my diet. I like my diet. I feel good when I eat my diet.” I'm like, “Okay.” You have to not feel good, or you have to have a reason to want to make a change to make it sustainable, and much to your point, nothing is sustainable if it isn't satiating, if you don't feel good with where you do it, or if you feel deprived, because irrespective if it's--
Someone says, I want to be able to fast for the next six months, I want to be able to do go lower carb, I want to be able to eat more vegetables that could be as simple as, I just want to eat more green things on my plate that aren't created in a lab, and I'm all for it. But I would probably imagine that when I started this journey as a health care provider, I was probably a little judgy not on purpose. I'm a very nice compassionate person. So, what we were told was, “Oh, that patient lost control. That patient isn't trying hard enough.” It couldn't be farther from the truth.
Jimmy: By the way, as a word nerd, I love that you said irrespective instead of irregardless because -
Cynthia: [laughs]
Jimmy: -[audio cut] irregardless is not a word. Irrespective is the word. Either regardless, or irrespective, but not irregardless.
Cynthia: Yes. No, I have a father who is a bit of an intellectual snob and diction was important, and the utilization of proper words like, one day, I was my 13-year-old drop the word loquacious and someone was like, “What did he just say?” I was like, “He knows how to use it properly, too.” Because he hears me use it, but I'm like, the $10 word not on purpose, but yes, I think that's highly important. Language and subtleties are not appreciated enough.
Jimmy: I taught one friend, Jen Seder. She's 23. She's like Jimmy, “I learned four or five new words every time I talk to you.” I'm like, “[audio cut] up.” She does. She writes them down and then doesn't know how to spell them. So, she looks that up, and then she looks up the definition. “Oh, that's what he meant, like five minutes in our conversation.” It's funny.
Cynthia: But you have to appreciate the fact that she wants to understand and learn it as opposed to-- I have teenagers. I can say this, they're growing up in a culture where they don't know. I'm going to date myself by saying this, but when I was writing papers, and I was a Poli Sci major the first time around, and pre-law, I would pull out my synonym book or my antonym book to try it. Because there was no internet searching. [crosstalk] write a paper with my word processor, by the way, because my parents had three kids in college and there's no way that in the early 1990s, they could afford three computers, and I would sit with all these resources on my lap and my kids were like, “You had to do what?” I was like, “Yes, back in the olden days, this is how we were [crosstalk].”
Jimmy: [unintelligible 00:24:49] mom. [crosstalk]
[laughter]
Cynthia: There’s [crosstalk]
Jimmy: If I had all the tools that kids have now, I'd have run circles around everybody.
Cynthia: There's a lot of resources. There's definitely a lot of resources. So, I find everyone's journeys fascinating. You're, this incredible writer, you get from point A to point B, and it's always retrospective that we can look back and say all these dots align now. But at the time, I'm like, I'm haphazardly going through my life. So, you started with changing your diet, and doing Atkins, and what got you to the point where you must have been on someone's radar to write a book, obviously. Keto Clarity is a book. I know you wrote Cholesterol Clarity first, but Keto Clarity is my recommendation when people are looking for literally clarity. You send them to your book. But what got you on the radar. There must have been a publishing house or somebody [crosstalk] connected to that said, “Okay, you've got something worth sharing.”
Jimmy: I had already self-published a couple of books before Victory Bell publishing came along. It was right after I lost the weight in 2004. It was when I lost the weight. 2005, I'm just going to write a book about my experience. It was a little Bobo book. I don't even talk about that one, because it's bad. It was a cheap little self-publishing imprint, and I was like, “Ah.”
Cynthia: Part of the attorney.
Jimmy: Part of the attorney. I'm glad I got it out of the way. Get the worst one out first, and all the rest will be great. But no, for me, my philosophy changed because that first book was about, “Oh, look at my weight loss journey, which was great.” 180 pounds is pretty bad. So, I wasn't ashamed of it. But what I quickly learned was, okay, the weight was just bonus. What happened for me was, I came off of three prescription medications. What happened for me was, I was able to live better, feel better. All these subjective things. I can sleep better, handle stress better, the resiliency we're talking about earlier. My brain just went on fire. I was always intelligent, but it felt like it took it to a whole new level, and I now notice the ketones that were contributing to that. So, I did that book in 2005. I did a follow up book in 2009. The one in 2009, I do claim 21 life lessons from Livin’ La Vida Low‑Carb is what I called it, and it was just all of these things I had learned in my journey of blogging at that time, a little bit of podcasting.
You sold over 10,000 copies. So, when you sell 10,000 as a self-published author that gets their attention. But I also simultaneously was still doing the podcast, I had one of the very first health podcasts out there. When I started the Livin' La Vida Low‑Carb show in 2006, the iPhone didn't exist yet. I'm dating myself now. [laughs] By the time, I heard from a publisher in 2012, I had about 600 something episodes already. I'm now at 1800 episodes now of that show, and a million other shows I do now. But yeah, that was what got their attention was, we love your platform and looks like your self-published book, your second one did really well. Want to write books for us well.
I'm going to tell a quick story about a publisher that I pitched to. About a year before Victor Bell came to me, it was Rodale. Rodale books was the big health publisher at the time, and they still are a little bit, but they were putting out all these books. So, they were coming to me as a podcaster. Hey, we got a brand-new book about health, can you have on your show? Sure. They did that over and over and over again, Cynthia, and you get pitched all these books all the time, too. Finally, I was just like after about 12, 13 of these authors on my show, they must think I have a good platform. Maybe they would like to have me write for them. So, I put in a pitch for a book about ketosis. This is 2011, I had just written to them, put the proposal together. They wrote me back right away and like, “Why would we make you an author?”
Cynthia: [laughs]
Jimmy: Apparently, in their mind, I had a big enough platform to promote their authors, but I was not talented enough to be an author. So, then when Victor Bell came along a year later and said, “We want you to be an author,” I couldn't wait to succeed, and Rodale space, and now three-time national bestselling author. [fart sound]
Cynthia: Yeah. Well, you realize that your book with Jason Fung is the book that definitely solidified my decision to really look seriously at intermittent fasting. I think that people assume that I fell into it on my own, and it was really very serendipitous, and I kept saying, if there are well respected people in a low carb space, the medical space that espouse and embrace this, then it's something I should think about not realizing what would then come a couple years later. But for me, the one thing that I really appreciate about you as an author is the clarity. It's not designed, let me backtrack, and say that, there are a lot of people that write books to show us how smart they are.
Jimmy: Yes.
Cynthia: There are a lot of people who take very complicated subtle nuances and present it in a way that people can read it and understand it. The latter is far more important than the former, because you can write in science text. The real important thing is, can you write in a way that the average person can pick the book out and they don't feel like they have to pull out. I'm dating myself at the source to figure out what it is that you're trying to explain or share with them.
Jimmy: When Victor Bell came to me, they're like, “Well, you seem to talk about sciences stuff.” They had this preconceived notion in their head of what that would be. I pitched them keto, by the way, first, I know I did Cholesterol Clarity first. But I pitched then to keto and they're like, “Hey, this is 2012 and niche of the niche, nobody cares.” Paleo was the big diet at that time. They were a big paleo publisher. I'm like, “You're wrong. Paleo won't last forever. Keto will be the next diet trend.” I told them that almost 10 years ago, and they're like, “Yeah, what else you got my--?"
Cynthia: [laughs]
Jimmy: [audio cut] cholesterol thing, because I've always had higher cholesterol, and there's reasons why, yeah, that's the one. That's the one. I told them, I said, I feel like my niche is not to write another nerdy book. I can go there, but my thrill as an author and as a communicator is, how do I make the nerdy palatable, so I can say it in a way that people will enjoy it, embrace it and go, “Oh, I wonder what gluconeogenesis is?” Then they go get nerdy, because they got inspired by me to be nerdy with the word to begin with. Otherwise, I remember, I was at one conference, I got to go to a lot of these obesity conferences with Dr. Westman, and Dr. Volek, and Dr. Finney, and all the big superstars in ketogenic research, and they'd be talking about all this PNK pathway, and I'm just going, “Dude, you got to explain what that means to me I’ll follow you conceptually leads just so far, but give me a little bit of explanation, and then I can regurgitate it." I just developed that over the years, and even now, people like, “Well, Jimmy Moore just doesn't understand the science,” and I'm going, “No, I understand it fully. I don't speak that language, because that's not my audience.” I appreciate that. I think that's why Keto Clarity eventually did so well which, by the way, Cholesterol Clarity, after a year, they say, “Okay, right, keto book,” and then Keto Clarity came out, and in one week sold just as many copies of Keto Clarity as Cholesterol Clarity did the whole first year. They're like, “Oh, we see now.” [laughs]
Cynthia: Well, I'm glad that you were able to persist. For anyone that's listening, when I worked in cardiology, and when I worked in the ER as a nurse, one of my roles was to take what a physician said to a patient and then explain it to the patient in a way that they understood it. I used to feel very strongly and I still feel very strongly that anyone can just regurgitate a bunch of medical ease. It takes someone with finesse, who can take complicated concepts, break them down. So, I'd always say, “Okay, well, doctor so and so just said this. What he's really saying is this, and people are like, “Oh, now, I get it.” So, I feel like in many ways, your books are written in such a way, and for listeners, I'm saying this genuinely from the heart. That's why I'm like trying not to geek out talking to Jimmy, but your books are written in a way that it makes information accessible.
If information is accessible, it's actionable. I think that's really critically important, because there are plenty of authors that are out there that try to show us how smart they are. I struggle when I'm doing podcasts, because I could get nerdy, like really nerdy, but I realize like what I really want. Like what is the intent of this podcast? It's so that, and it's predominantly a female based, but we do have male listeners, so that people can take actionable like, how do I distill the best about this person's work so that someone can be inspired to make changes, or go buy a book, or take some type of actionable intent as opposed to going what in the world did they just say? Every once in a while, I'll get a researcher on and they'll dive down a rabbit hole, and then I have to say, “Okay.” And what Dr. So and so was saying is because the listeners just gone, I don't know what they just said.
Jimmy: [audio cut] my interview style is such that I understand all that alphabet soup that comes out of a lot of all these people's mouths. If I hear it and then I go, my lowest common denominator listener, and it sounds horrible to say it that way. But I want any listener is the person listening to any podcast, and they hear some X, Y, Z, P, D, Q and they don't know what that means, I'll be like, “So, for those of you that don't know, that means da, da, da, da, da,” and then the guests will usually, “Oh, yeah, that's right.” So, its get so caught up especially a lot of these researchers, I had Dr. [audio cut] in on recently.
Cynthia: I love him.
Jimmy: I loved it. But he had some X, Y, Z, P, D, Q. That's I stop then.
Cynthia: [laughs]
Jimmy: But then so, I always do that on the spot interpretation, and I get feedback from that all the time.
Cynthia: I love that and I appreciate that.
Jimmy: Dave Asprey or they'll listen to Ben Greenfield, and those guys go way nerdy, and God bless him. I love listening to podcast, but even sometimes, my eyes glaze over trying to keep up with all the medical ease.
Cynthia: Well, and it's interesting. I was listening to one of Dave's podcasts, gosh, probably in the last four to six weeks, and he was talking about autophagy, and he had this autophagy researcher on, and I just took out a pad of paper and started writing. Because to me, it was like, I had to get it on paper, and then I could process it, and I was like, okay, and then I reached out to this researcher and said, I'd really love to have you on. Because I get more questions about autophagy, and I'm not an autophagy expert. I just happen to know a little bit about a topic a lot about. But I think that it's always in the context said and knowing your listener, like knowing what is going to appeal to them, what is their purpose for listening, and I think accessibility of information, given that I'm not standing on a platform of I'm doing my doctoral thesis in this area. I feel like as an NP, that's really the platform that we come from.
Jimmy: One of the best compliments I got for Keto Clarity for example is in the Amazon reviews. Because I had simultaneous reviews that were a paradox. I would one have people say, “This is the most simple dumbed down, you could Google any of this information, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and simultaneous to that, this is the hardest book I've ever read in my life.
Cynthia: [laughs]
Jimmy: I don't understand anything. He needed to make it a lot easier.” When you have the dichotomy like that, you struck the perfect chord.
Cynthia: Right, exactly. Here's the thing. I'm in the midst of my Brazilian editing rewrite for a book that will come out in early 2022, and I kept saying to my editor, who's been fantastic to this process. I just said, I, sometimes lean like I want to start talking really deeper into the science, and then I'm realizing like, “Who is the book for?” I just keep reminding myself who's the book for, because you want to strike that middle ground, so that someone can find the information to be accessible given enough of the science so that you can substantiate what you're saying. But inevitably, I'll have the same people same comments. So, we people saying it's too simplistic, and then someone's saying, it's too complicated. So, somewhere in between is where you're aiming for.
Jimmy: The balance of that is having boxes off to the side that get [audio cut] and nerdy or get real soft. So, my natural flow is softer, more explanatory whereas I had these things in the clarity books called moment of clarity quotes. I had some researchers, and doctors, and people, and I told them, don't worry about your language, go nerdy, because I'm explaining in my text. I think a nice mix of both is probably healthier than you appease both, although, some will go, “You should have been nerdy the whole time, or you should have explained it the whole time.” I still hold true to make it accessible. So, people want to learn more, and then they go to the nerdy stuff like I want them to read Keto Clarity, and then go read The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living from Volek and Phinney, because it gets a little more complicated, but then you'll understand it after you read my book.
Cynthia: Yeah, it's like a primer. Getting back to Cholesterol Clarity, because obviously I wrote and addressed a lot of lipid disorders over nearly 20 years. What do you think are some of the more common misconceptions about cholesterol as it pertains to the allopathic Western medicine mindset about cholesterol, because I think the average person is still really fearful of cholesterol, whether it's their triglycerides, and HDL or the LDL?
Jimmy: No, I wish it was they were fearful of triglycerides. No, allopathic medicine doesn't even mention triglycerides. They don't give a crap about to triglycerides.
Cynthia: Oh, when I used to talk about them all the time, I was like, “You're eating too many doughnuts.” [laughs] I used to talk about triglycerides a lot, because I had the classic--
Jimmy: [crosstalk] you did--
Cynthia: Yeah, I know I'm weird. Yes.
Jimmy: They are so obsessed with LDLC and total. They're going to die on their deathbed with those two numbers mattering. I always counter that and I did in my book with LDLC is the only number on your entire panel that's calculated estimated. Friedewald equation, they don't directly measure that unless they do the advanced like NMR LipoProfile, or VAP test, or one of these other ones to break down the particles, but that's the only one they guesstimate, and then if you eat keto or low carb, and you fast, and you've got low triglycerides under 100, you've got HDL over 50, it's going to miscalculate that LDL.
Cynthia: Right.
Jimmy: Everything regarding pharmaceutical Lipitor, Crestor, and all the other statins in this new one, if the statins aren’t enough, try this one with the statins. It's like they keep that alive based solely on LDL cholesterol and total. I call LDL cholesterol and total cholesterol, the calories of lipids. Until that theory dies, people will still believe it. Calories, when it comes to your health, it doesn't really matter when it comes to nutrition. Yes, calories count. You start counting them, hormones [unintelligible 00:40:33] same with LDL and total. If we paid attention to the triglyceride to HDL ratio, we would catch most cardiovascular issues long before they happen.
Cynthia: Yeah. Well, and it's interesting for me, because I was always on the high triglycerides, and I would have-- Sometimes, I would have patients' triglycerides that were 600, 900 and like, “How they don't have pancreatitis yet?” That's a miracle. But typically, what you would see in metabolic syndrome is you would have elevated triglycerides, low HDL, and then I would have to have this conversation of triglycerides, it's really a reflection of what you're eating, and so, we would have that whole discussion. But I happen to be one of those people that even though I'm low carb bordering on ketogenic, most of the time and I fast obviously. My total cholesterol and my LDL are always high, and it's always the source of contention. My primary care provider shakes their finger, and we do the VAP which is this advanced lipid analysis, and what I think is really interesting, for anyone that's listening, when we're looking at particle size, they’re certain-- you may do a better job at this, then I'm going to.
When we're looking at particle size, there's light and fluffy, and then there's dense and smaller, and one is predictively more atherogenic, more disease provoking than the other. What's interesting is statins address the light fluffy, which I always think of light and fluffy like a floating cloud, it's happy, it's like a balloon as opposed to it really doesn't address the atherogenic option. So, that wasn't something I knew when I was practicing, and I'm almost mortified to admit this publicly, because the standard medical therapy was, if you have vascular disease, it's aspirin, it's a statin, it's this, it's this, and jokingly cardiology would say we need to put statins in the water, because we just felt like it was this magic drug was anti-inflammatory, great for plaque stabilization, and then later you find out it causes the slew of other health problems. So, anyway- [crosstalk]
Jimmy: It's even worse than that, because here let me back up and do my spiel. Yes, you have pattern A which is the large fluffy buoyant LDL cholesterol, and that's the healthy kind. It can't penetrate the arterial wall, the particles are too big. It's when they're small, dense, BB size, they're called pattern B for bad. That's how you can remember. Pattern A is awesome, pattern B is bad. Those B particles will penetrate the arterial wall. How do you get small, dense LDL particles? Refined carbohydrates is a big instigator in that. You're right. Statin drugs do attack the large fluffy kind, but something else does too that is promoted as healthy. I called them the twin villains in our health. I mentioned refined carbohydrates. The other one, seed oils, vegetable oils. [audio cut] lower the LDLC, but they do it sacrificing your large dense LDL, and here's the large fluffy LDL, and leaves you behind this small dense, but here's the extra. They oxidize the small dense LDL.
Oxidation is, when you leave your bike out in the rain, it rusts, you're basically making yourself a sitting target. Even though your cholesterol goes down, you're at higher risk for heart disease. That's what happened to Tim Russert from Meet the Press that told this story.
Cynthia: I know. That’s sad.
Jimmy: Died in 52, 53 years old, of his very first heart attack with a 105 total cholesterol. The man should have been the prime example of health if it was just about cholesterol. What they didn't, and they never do this, they never look at a CT heart scan the CAC score. If you don't know what that is, go get one now. I promise you, it's peace of mind. You want to know if you actually have heart disease developing CAC score cost me 100 bucks here in South Carolina. It's as high as 300 I think in Cali. But get your doctor to prescribe it. Not the one with the contrast. That one's hell expensive and you don't need that much radiation. But get this three-minute test, and it will tell you, you have atherosclerotic plaque. But the other thing, they don't always talk about inflammation like hs-CRP, IGF-1, homocysteine, all of those clearly show you, if you're at risk or not, and those are in the normal range, it doesn't make a hill of beans difference what your LDLC and total cholesterol is.
Cynthia: Well, that's a beautiful explanation. The irony is, I told my healthcare provider last week that I was like, “Maybe I need to go for a CAC score,” because that's what I would oftentimes refer. If we had young people that had crazy high LDL and their VAPS were abnormal, and I’m like, “I'm not putting this person on the stand,” and that's the last thing I want to do. Because I told her, I said, there's no way that's happening. So, let's just do the study, and then we'll check the box.
Jimmy: For me, I can't get life insurance because of my cholesterol. They're like [crosstalk] your is over 300, and so you're not eligible to even have life insurance. They wouldn't even give me a high price policy. They're just like, “We're not going to write you a policy because we put all of the eggs in the basket of what your total cholesterol is.” I'm like, “That's old science.” I was showing all these studies of a copy of my book, and they're just like, “Nope, we've got--" and it's like, I feel like there is a business opportunity for some company out there to become an insurance company and the underwriters understand the keto numbers, oh, if you have triglycerides under a hundred, oh, that's a bonus. So, you have HDL over 50, that's a bonus. You have inflammation under two, that's a bonus. How cool would that be? I wish I had the money to invest in that.
Cynthia: Are you familiar with Dave Feldman's, Lean Mass Hyper-Responders hypothesis?
Jimmy: Yes.
Cynthia: I had Dave on the podcast towards the end of last year and totally geeked out over what he was talking about and said, I wonder--
Jimmy: [crosstalk] That boy that there's nerdy. That boy came up to me at low carb bail. This is like six, seven years ago. Here's Jimmy Moore. [sound]
Cynthia: [laughs]
Jimmy: He’s like, “Brain dumped on me.” I'm just like, “Dude, I just got off the plane. Can I relax?”
Cynthia: [laughs]
Jimmy: But he's so good.
Cynthia: He's so good. No, I'm married to an engineer, and I said, I understand the way an engineer's brain works. They're problem solvers. I said, we had to have an engineer come along to turn the medical community on their head to think differently about how we think about cholesterol. I always think about Ted [unintelligible 00:47:15]. I think he was an engineer before he went to medical school. He's always flipping things around. From my perspective, I always say, I'm going to be a lifelong learner. For me to learn different things about cholesterol even at this point with a lot of medical training, and a lot of cardiology work says quite a bit. So, what are some of the common misconceptions?
So, let's flip to keto just for a minute. I find that people get keto wrong on many levels, because and a lot of women get this wrong, and I think women as a rule just sometimes don't tolerate as much healthy fat, like too much of any one thing is not beneficial. But I will see women that think they can eat like their husband, and they think they can have a pound of butter, and five avocados, and two cups of nuts every day, and I'm like, “It doesn't really work that way.” So, what I see people getting wrong with keto is oftentimes, they don't understand like there could be healthy fats in that piece of meat that they ate. If you have a salmon steak, you don't need to add five pounds of butter on top of that.
Jimmy: Right.
Cynthia: But it's the added fats that are cumulative. I would say, you want to burn your fat as opposed to eat your fat. If you have to make the differentiation, but what are some of the more common mistakes that you see people making?
Jimmy: I think the biggest thing, the biggest mistake I hear is, this is not a keto food. Keto is not nutrition. Keto is a metabolic state, and like somebody is a hardcore athlete, their keto is going to have maybe 100, 150 grams of bananas, and sweet potatoes, and tapioca, and whatever else they want to have in there, and yet, they use those carbs strategically put themselves into the best athletic performance. But then they test for ketones and they're in great ketosis. Then you got people that are heavily metabolically resistant, and they're not able to handle even a little bit of carbohydrates and maybe they lean more towards carnivore and that's their keto. I just I feel like it became so tribal within keto.
Well, keto is, this food’s keto, this food’s not keto, and if you don't fall away, you're not doing keto. Just like that was stupid. Come on people, if somebody is getting the benefits of ketosis, why are we pooh-poohing the way they got there? Why do you care number one, and why do we think that you have to have higher, and higher, and higher levels on a meter. Well, you will early on, it always levels out and my goal, Cynthia, has always been I want to use the exact number of ketones that I produce? So, that really my ketone levels are as close to zero as they possibly can be, and I had somebody challenged me on that. “Well, there were zero, you'd be out of ketosis.” I’m like, “How do if you're making and using at the simultaneous rates. Shouldn't it be zero?”
Cynthia: Makes sense.
Jimmy: I know right now, if I tested ketosis, I tend to be on the lower level. I've done this a very long time, until I fast fasting for several days is when they start to jump. But in my day-to-day, I don't show real super high levels of ketones, and yet, you can see my energy, my brain is sharp. I've got all the benefits of ketosis even though some stupid meter that some man made told me, I'm in ketosis. I use this one here. It's a breath meter, FDA breath meter, and I love this thing. But it'll show like the equivalent of 0.4,0.6, and it's like super low on the ketones. Yeah, I know, just empirically, subjectively, what I see in myself, I've got ketones flowing.
Cynthia: Yeah, no, and it's interesting to me. I do technically have a ketone meter, but I don't like to stick myself. I'll be completely transparent. I wear a CGM. I don't mind having that on my arm. Yep. [laughs]
Jimmy: This is what called bio-sense[?].
Cynthia: Okay, I think Melanie Avalon talks about that.
Jimmy: The only FDA approved ketone meter that's out there, well, breadth meter. So, I'm saying that the keto coach one just got FDA approval for their blood meter, and I love that blood meter [unintelligible 00:51:26] this is the Biosense and don't bother with the pee strips, they’re gross, and they're highly inaccurate, anyway.
Cynthia: Yeah. Well, it's interesting. There was a book that a colleague of mine wrote, and I was part of like her launch thing, and so just for shits and giggles, I decided I'm going to pee on the ketone strips, and I was like, “Oh, I've been in ketosis for so many years that these urine strips are irrelevant, because people freaking out, they're like, “Oh, my God, what's wrong?” I'm like, “No, no, no. You've been doing this for such a long period of time.” [laughs]
Jimmy: Well, let me nerd out and get my spiel on that. The ketone that's in the urine is called acetoacetate. Once your body gets used to making ketones, that acetoacetate actually gets converted into the usable form in the blood called beta-hydroxybutyrate. So, acetoacetate goes down, thus, you don't see it on the thing, but what happens is beta-hydroxybutyrate goes way up, and this process happens very quickly within that first two to four weeks. So, if you're using the urine strips to pee to see if you're in ketosis, don't go beyond maybe a couple weeks, because once you're keto adapted, that shift from acetoacetate to beta-hydroxybutyrate happens. You disappear in the acetoacetate, which is why you need to be testing away to test for BHB. Now, this year, the bio-sense tests for the third one, acetone, and acetone runs parallel to BHB, the beta-hydroxybutyrate.
Cynthia: And the BHB is the one that crosses the blood brain barrier, and that's the one that Jimmy's talking about how amazing he feels and why I generally can power through my morning with so much mental clarity, because it's a preferred source of fuel for the brain. But yeah, I think the biggest things I see people wanting to buy ketone esters, because they think that will get them into ketosis faster, and I will say, it's expensive. Although, in the public speaking world, and I don't know if you've seen this, there are biohackers, who like to use them if they suspect they're going to be dealing with not the way I've been doing a lot of travel, but if they're going to be dealing with adjusting for time zones, and they have to get up on the stage and speak. and so, sometimes, they'll use them in that instance. But what are your thoughts on ketones as [crosstalk]?
Jimmy: I am a fan of both BHB [unintelligible 00:53:40] the exogenous ketones and ketone esters as strategically, if you had a bad night's sleep, it's a little more stressful day, if you have some exercise performance reason that you need a little extra energy, I think strategically using them, what I hate is these people, well, "I drank my ketones today." I'm like, “Why? What was the purpose?”
Cynthia: Expensive, yeah.
Jimmy: [unintelligible 00:54:02] enough, but I've done experiments with the BHB, ketone esters.
Cynthia: If a lot of energy?
Jimmy: It’s the ketone aid product, and the guy is really nice. Frank sends me a bunch of those things all the time, and he's like, “Tell me what you think?” They got these open and they taste like jet fuel. They're disgusting, but you shoot it down. I had like 0.7 to start and within about 20 minutes, it jumps up to three or four and the ketones. But the thing is, it goes up really faster and then crash. But when it goes up so fast, [sound] [unintelligible 00:54:45] is fire. Literally I feel flames coming out of me, and I'm very super aware of super sharp. One time I flipped my tire when I was in the midst of that, [sound].
Cynthia: [laughs]
Jimmy: It was cool because I was in a fasted state which made that [sound] happen faster. Yeah, it was this buzz the whole time, it's like I wanted to get that energy out of me and says, that thing is this very fast bleeding about 45 minutes to 75 minutes’ worth of this burst, and it's just high out, and that's it. Exogenous ketones, they usually last about 90 minutes for me. 90 to 120. It's this slow little rise, and then it's this slow little fall. So, my point is, okay, if you have a short-term need for something like that, sure. But don't think that well, I'll just drink this and they'll give me energy all day. No. It's gone very quick.
Cynthia: Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, the context of when they were recommended to me as I was supposed to speak in Asia at the beginning of 2020, preceding the pandemic, and so unfortunately, was not able to travel. I think I fell I randomly was cleaning out a box before we moved, and found them, and I was like, “God, I don't even know if they're any good anymore.” But it was what the purpose of you're going to be 12 or 13 hours ahead of where your body thinks you should be, and you may need this to be mentally clear etc., etc.
Jimmy: I have spoken in Australia three times. I've done three tours over the past 10 years. It's the same thing like you’re getting there. Literally, my travel tip is try to go a little bit early rest, and then you're ready to go, and that's what I do when I go to that part of the world. You can't always do that timewise and with your schedule and everything, and try to go in about two to three days early. Because it's a good day and a half two days to really just go. I have no idea what time it is. I remember the first time I went to Australia, 36 and a half hours straight from South cackalacky all the way to my final destination in Australia from layover in LA and the longest flight is like 15-hour flight to Australia. By the time I got there, it was already like a day and a half later in Australia. It was so weird, because I was like--
Cynthia: I lost the whole day.
Jimmy: It was like in the mornings, “Hey, mate, what about breakfast?” I'm like, “I want bed. I need it.”
Cynthia: [laughs]
Jimmy: He's like, “Oh, [unintelligible 00:57:14] I do it all the time." I'm like, "[tired sounds]." Meeting people, hey, I was going if you want me to be anything like the Jimmy people know, you better let me rest.
Cynthia: It's important that you know your body. We're going to be doing a big trip in September, and I'm already mentally I know what it's like to go to this continent, and so, we're flying through Europe enroute to where we're going to end up and I know I'm going to be upside down for a couple days. Because I know what to anticipate, it won't be nearly as tough as-- I think if you go like six, eight hours ahead, it's not nearly as bad like when you hit 12 plus--
Jimmy: Going that way is a little better than going the way-- [crosstalk]
Cynthia: Correct. East is always harder. Even when I go to the West Coast, I feel sick for a couple days. I just can't get it together.
Jimmy: Yeah, and I remember I spoke at the 2015 conference, Tim Noakes conference. There was a doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor. Jimmy Moore, doctor, doctor, doctor. It was cool. I was the only lay person there speaking but I remember. They're like, Jimmy, and this is the first time I was here. Jimmy, go introduced the next speaker because I had introduced a few of them. I knew most of them. But Dr. Robert Silas at the time, nobody knew CarbAddictionDoc at the time. He wasn't that big. I go introduce Robert. I'm like, “I have no idea who he is guys? I can't introduce somebody I don't know.” Well, go, go, go, go. I'm exhausted, tired. I get up there. This is no lie. Robert laughs about this now. I get up there and I go, “So, the next speaker is somebody I have no idea who this guy is? Anybody know who is this guy is?”
Cynthia: Ah. [laughs]
Jimmy: Hello. Everybody started laughing and I was like, “I don't know. Let's see what he's got to say. Dr. Robert Silas,” and he comes. [laughs] I immediately go off the stage and right to my bedroom in the hotel and go to sleep. I wake up hours later, And I go up to Robert, I'm like, “I am so sorry. I was so tired. I don't know who you are.” He's like, “Dude, that was the best. The best introduction [audio cut] on that stage.” He was probably one of the least known people. He's known now, but at that time nobody knew who he was. He said that was the perfect way to introduce me. Okay, Jimmy got lucky.
Cynthia: No, it’s not like it worked out really well. One of the things that I fervently believe you're known for is, pointing out misconceptions, identifying bias, being fully transparent, and so, when we're looking at social media as one example, what do you think is going on now without getting political--? What do you think is changing, why is the narrative changing? Is it fear based? Is it purely based on economics? What do you think is driving a lot of the issues that we're starting to say about being able to express opinions freely?
Jimmy: What's funny to me, Cynthia, is people think this is new. Those of us in the alternative health space, we have felt this for a long time. Go talk to Joe Mercola. [audio cut] some of these guys that have been around for the longest time, they will tell you. They have throttled us, they have shadow banned us, they have heavily, heavily censored us long before 2020. So, yes, it's been ramped up, and yes, it's more over now than it's ever been. But from a covert standpoint, they've been doing this, Google searches have been throttled, they change algorithm three years ago, so that all of us that had all these wonderful highly ranked posts in Google, it just went away. I remember Joe Mercola talked about losing 99% of his traffic, because that's what was so much to his articles. So, this ain't news. So, why? I suppose there's a myriad of reasons why. There's a lot of forces at play, trying to force us into veganism, and they've even said, their stated goal is by 2035, we want to eliminate meat consumption in the United States. Of course, everybody at the time was like when they saw that [unintelligible 01:01:27], how are you going to do that? Well, now we see, they're messing with the supply chains of the meat, they're pushing people towards these plant-based alternatives for meat, subtly they're doing that. I even went to my farmers market this last weekend trying to get my food, and he's like, “I only have one thing of something.” I used to buy a lot of it. I know what's going on. He's like, “Oh, the processors are all backed up. They can't get us in. There must be shut down.” So, this is going to affect us directly, and those of us and I'm a carnivore eater, keto carnivore. So, I rely on the animal-based foods. I got backyard chickens, so, I can go and eat my chickens. But eggs get old after a while. [crosstalk]
Cynthia: Yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah. Well, it's interesting to me, because I was having a conversation with a physician on Twitter, and probably about a week and a half ago, I was singled out in a thread on social media by a vegan cardiologist who was pretty awful.
Jimmy: Joel? [unintelligible 01:02:27]
Cynthia: No, it was a female.
Jimmy: Okay.
Cynthia: I think I was going to this individual, because I felt like it was a safe place to vent. I was like, and I haven't really dealt with this before. They didn't attack anyone else in the store. But it was me. So, I assume because I wasn't a physician, and because I was female, and this individual said, “Well, you have to understand there have been a lot of us low carb community that had been attacked about the CGM issue using it in non-diabetics or non-insulin resistant individuals,” and that was the context of this conversation that she wove herself into. So, it was really interesting to me. I was like, “Wow, I think I've largely been unaffected.”
Jimmy: Was she anti-CGM for non-diabetic [crosstalk]?
Cynthia: She basically said, I'm not practicing evidence-based medicine, and then I'm harming patients. That's the gist and my husband got completely twerk. My husband's very nice and down to earth, but read through all her comments and was just like, “Whoa.” So, I'm not even responding to her anymore. [laughs]
Jimmy: It's disappointing because I think having tools-- I wear an Oura Ring. I can see [audio cut] going, and heart rate variability, and how my readiness ability to go work out and all the things that I do. There's tools that are at our fingertips, unlike anything we've had in all of human history, use them. Why would you not want [audio cut] on a CGM? Even if it's the most boring 14 days you've ever seen in your life, you want to see-- Okay, let me try some things. Let me add back in some quinoa, how that does. Let me add back in sweet potatoes, see what happens? You don't know unless you're testing, and that's a convenient way to do it. It just seems odd that a vegan of all people and a medical professional at that wouldn't want to know the data. Data is information that counts for an informed patient.
Cynthia: Well, and I just said, why not educate, and inspire, and empower your patients. That to me is far more valuable when I have female patients that are working with me, and we can't figure out why they can't lose weight. We've done all the other things, and I'm like, “Slap a CGM on them,” and then all of a sudden, it's like, “Oh, your blood sugar really isn't all that low.” [laughs] There might be an issue that we need to look a little more deeply at. So, that was really my first foray into that experience, and it was really venomous, and I actually said to my husband, I need to be prepared, because when the book comes out, there's going to be you're a sellout, you're this, you're that, and I think it's unfortunate, there are people that have that limiting mindset, or living belief that what you're really trying to do is to positively impact more people, because if I were still in clinic or in the hospital, I might see 10 or 15 patients a day versus now, I have the ability to impact a far larger audience of individuals, and I still like I tell people, I'm like, I'm very supportive of my colleagues, and especially, the ones that started maybe in medicine when I did and have really evolved to question a lot of what we were taught.
Because I think that's the one thing like where I trained, we were-- Even and I hate saying this, but I do have to say this. Even though, I'm a nurse, because sometimes people assume because I have different credentials after my name that makes my opinion less valuable, which drives me bananas. That's a whole separate topic. It's important that people understand that, even though, you trained in the 1990s, early 2000s, we're expected to continue to learn throughout our lifetime. It shouldn't just stop. I'm sure you're going to be a lifelong learner, I'm going to be a lifelong learner. That is part of who I am.
Jimmy: Well, and on that topic, I have resisted the urge to put letters after my name. I have a master's degree in public policy, but I don't say Jimmy Moore, MA. I relish in the freedom of not being tied to letters, because a lot of times I'll talk to doctors. I'm talking to one tomorrow on my podcast, and she's like, “There's certain things I can't say.” I'm like, “That's okay. I can.”
Cynthia: Yeah.
Jimmy: No, it's not that what's being said is wrong. It's just you have certain entities that have power over you, that's the freedom I love of not having the power of letters dictate what I can say, and I think that's what makes me good at what I do is, I can freely say things. Now, I don't say things frivolously. There are people who find to have this autonomy like me, and they just say whatever, and it's [crosstalk]
Cynthia: [crosstalk] It's like, I'm just to say anything, right?
Jimmy: Yeah. People accuse me of that. I’m like, “Tell me where I'm wrong?” Because I can back up with the things I share with studies, with other links that will corroborate what I'm saying. So, I don't just say things willy-nilly. I think that gives me credibility, because every day people go, “Well, Jimmy's like us.” Because I've been offered honorary PhDs from different universities. I've turned them all down. I don't want to be called doctor. I don't. By design, because as soon as you have that, you have people discredit what you have to say. Yeah, they give you the appeal to authority credit, but then they're like, “Well, he says that because he's a doctor.” I'm going, “Okay, now, I don't want that. I want Jimmy Moore empowered patient and I like that.”
Cynthia: I love that. Unfortunately, it is true, because I just renewed my Nurse Practitioner licensure, and I was actually trying to explain to my husband like, there are certain things my team knows this. There's certain things we just don't talk about on social media. It's not that I don't have an opinion. It's just that there are people out there who are waiting for healthcare professionals to go against the current narrative about X, Y, or Z, and then they'll report you to the board, and you can lose your license. So, I just always say to my team like, there are certain subjects we don't touch. Of course, have personal opinions, but I keep them close to me, and unfortunately, that's just the environment that so many of us exist and the people are apt to want to bury someone because they have an opinion about things.
Jimmy: You've seen with dieticians, especially. The dietetics society, they do not like when you go off script. There's low carb and high carb diet. They just don't like it. But even like Tim Noakes in South Africa, [audio cut] in Australia, we've seen some high-profile medical people, and nutritional health people and dietitians lose their licenses or have them challenged in court. Professor Noakes and that basically ruined him financially. It ruined him like as a man. It just tore his family down. Now, watch what happened. All at the holy altar of he put out a tweet that said babies should be weaned on low carb and use low carb foods to make sure they grow up healthy. That's what he wrote. Then two people, dieticians had their panties in a wad and went and told the medical board, and then he went through this two-year trial which at the very end, okay, you're vindicated. You didn't really give diet advice. You weren't trying to get medical advice, you just were sharing and they declared that his thoughts were his thoughts and not from his point of view as a physician at that point than a bestselling author and had other roles. So, anyway, the fact that they can do that and run their name through the mud has a silencing, a muzzling effect on others who would even try to skirt the edges. Because I don't think what Professor Noakes did was bad at all, and yet he was run through the coals for it.
Cynthia: Yeah. I think you have to have an ability to articulate an opinion in a respectful, proper way. It's interesting, I get more flack on Twitter than I do anywhere else.
Jimmy: Twitter is the total hellhole, Cynthia. Get off from there. [laughs]
Cynthia: You know what funny is, I actually enjoy because I can get in and get out. I can plan my tweets and come back, and I've actually connected with some really cool people that I brought on the podcast, obviously, through Instagram as well. But for me, it's really very telling that there are certain narratives you can't touch on Twitter unless you know for sure that you're going to have the fire underneath and it becomes a joke. It's like, “Okay, how many people am I going to block today?”
Jimmy: Yes. Did I tell you? That's where I met up with Dr John McDougall. He was on Twitter. He was sitting there talking smack about low carb or something, and I tweeted back, “Yeah, I bet you would never say that on my podcast.”
Cynthia: Oh, did he come on your podcast?
Jimmy: Then he came on my podcast. It's the most infamous episode of Livin' La Vida Low‑Carb Show Episode 686. It was the first episode back after I finished the manuscript for Cholesterol Clarity. I wanted to come back with a bang, and I'm like, “Okay, let's interview a vegan.” The first few minutes the niceties of the beginning of a conversation, and then he went full-bore personal attack against Jimmy Moore. Why are you so fat? Why is low carb so good? And I decided at that point, okay, I could be just as contentious back, but just having the conversation, but a little higher pitch than I like to be, or I can stay calm as a cucumber. I decided to do the latter. People listen to that, and they went, “Wow, he was an ass.”
Cynthia: [laughs]
Jimmy: He was cool. I even had a lot of vegans write me and go, “Tell me more about this low carb keto thing.”
Cynthia: Wow. That’s they were open minded.
Jimmy: By my character, by the way, I handled myself and he looked like a nutjob to them. You had some people say, “Oh, Jimmy Moore got railroaded by Dr. McDougall.” Okay, fine. If I got railroaded, I think I got my point across, and he was just so off the wall bizarre. I'm like, “I'll let him hang himself.” and he did.
Cynthia: Well--
Jimmy: [audio cut] if you ever have 30 minutes of your life, you want to-- [crosstalk]
Cynthia: I just wrote it down. I'm going to check that out. Because I went through a lot of your podcasts, like I mentioned, especially, when I'm interviewing another podcaster, it's like, I really want to get a sense of the personality, and so, that's why it was nice to hear you on Abel's podcast, because I got to see a little bit of another side. When you're the guest and not the host, you get to see oftentimes see another side of an individual, although, of course, you're very consistent. But it's nice to see when you're not in the driver's seat what angles do you take?
Jimmy: I like this end of things, because I get to be a little more Jimmy, whereas, [audio cut] no, I have to run the ship, and I have to keep it moving and Jimmy's in there. But this is like, I'm not running the show, I'm going to throw you a curveball as my interviewer just to keep it interesting for me, because I've done this so lot. I’ve done this over 15 years. I'm bored.
Cynthia: Yeah, well, it's just like I said to you, we were messaging, I said, I always get asked about certain things when I'm on a podcast, and everyone wants someone will ask me something different. So, I'm really wanting to not just talk to you about keto, not just wanting to talk about cholesterol, wanting to make sure we covered some substantive ground because there's a lot to the Jimmy Moore persona, that was for sure that what came out. Like as I was digesting and my 13-year-old and listened to your podcast, picking different episodes all the way to-- We moved on the 26th. So, coming down here trying to avoid 95 south which as you know during the summers, it’s horrible on lots of country roads. So, we got to get a couple-- it’s certainly different nuances to your personality. Well, I want to be super respectful because we've been chatting for a while, but let listeners know how to find you, what’s the easiest place to find. You're very active on Instagram, which is where I see you every day. But what's the easiest way to connect with you?
Jimmy: Yeah, I have a website that's super easy to remember. It stands for Livin' La Vida Low‑Carb llvlc.com. It's the big hub. I do four podcasts a week, I do a show called One Step Deeper with my best friend, Brittany. She's 20 years younger than me, Cynthia. So, I'm a Gen X, she's a millennial, and you would think we'd butt heads for the best of friends.
Cynthia: Oh, good.
Jimmy: But we always love each other at the end of the conversations even when we don't agree. So, we do a show like a mindset show, One Step Deeper on Mondays. Tuesday, Wednesdays my flagship show, Livin' La Vida Low‑Carb show. Thursday, I do a show called Real Talk because I talked about keto and low carb for 17 years. I need some other outlet. So, I get to talk about some of the pandemic stuff on there. I do all kinds of things on that show, but that's Thursday called Real Talk. All of that again, llvlc.com. Follow me on all the socials, @livinlowcarbman is my username there. I just created a TikTok. All these people doing these TikTok videos, and I was like, “What is my niche on TikTok?” Because nobody wants to see Jimmy Moore dancing. So, I find these videos of people that are against keto, and then, I'm just like giving them funny faces. I posted one today as of the recording of this and people have loved it. So, Jimmy Moore Keto is the username there, if you want to follow me on TikTok,
Cynthia: Well, I'll have to go follow you on TikTok. My team finally convinced me to do it, and what I've been doing lately are just little like short well things on three things about blah, blah, blah, blah.
Jimmy: The point one’s that's so stupid to me. I don't dance, I don't really do recipes. So, I was like, “What's my niche?” Actually, what inspired it was Ryan Lowery doing his. He's always responding to these weird ones. Then [audio cut] [unintelligible 01:15:53] Baker, showing all these vegans making these meat products.
Cynthia: Oh, it’s disgusting.
Jimmy: I’m like, “Jimmy could do his own version of that,” and so that's what I'm trying and yeah, we'll see how it goes.
Cynthia: No, I love it. I'll have to follow you on there. It's funny. My team's like, “You have two followers.” I'm like, “Yeah, it's going to be slim.” That is not where I'm spending my time. You guys can run it. [laughs] Anyway, Jimmy, it's been a pleasure. Obviously, I could talk to you for hours. We'll have to definitely have you back later in the year. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for your time.
Jimmy: I'm excited to interview you on my show when your book comes out.
Cynthia: Yes, for sure.
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. And if you want to connect with us online, visit the link in the show notes.
Comentarios