How To Master The Keto Diet with Ben Azadi of KetoKamp.com

SPEAKER_01 0:04

This is the Beyond the Story Podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. And now the Basti Hey, what's happening, everybody? Welcome to the show. I really appreciate you taking some time out of your day to listen to me. Chat about things that I find interesting that I hope you'll find interesting. This show is brought to you by my friends at Self Publishing School.com. I'm currently writing my second book with Self Publishing School. They've got an incredible program. They put over 2,000 people a year through their program. That means 2,000 people a year are writing a book with their proven system and program. You too can write a book just like I am. Find out more information. Schedule a free consultation call with a book launch specialist just like I did. And uh you too could be making your book dreams come true. More information at self publishing school.com forward slash beyond the story. Let's bring Ben on, ladies and gentlemen. Ben, what happened, ladies and gentlemen? Ben good it's good to see you, man. What happened? I it's good to see you too. I you know, I I said uh would it be Miami if you weren't late?

SPEAKER_00 1:32

I was on a call and it's still going, and I said I gotta go. So I apologize. I'm usually on time, but the call went long. So I'm here with you, Sebastian. It's good to see you, brother.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

But good, good. And I I don't know if I did I say your last name correctly in the beginning. You weren't here, so you wouldn't know. Is it Azadi? Yeah, you got it. I nailed it. I mean, I'm I'm an MC by trade. I should be, I should be able to pronounce names here. Okay, cool. Well, everything continued to uh I had a few people uh I was starting to like, I don't know, I was starting to write some like real-time dialogue, you know. I was like, where's Ben? He's probably making an extended keto lunch and maybe got stuck in the kitchen or out for a keto workout while eating his keto lunch and drinking a keto shake, maybe. Uh, I had no idea what what was going on there, but uh, you know how it is. You got you you create content. You're like, where's the guest?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Totally, yeah. Uh good guesses, by the way. Good guesses, but it wasn't any of that. I was just late from another meeting. So I'm here with you, brother, and I apologize for being late.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

No, you're all good, man. You're you're all good. I'm glad I'm glad that you're here. Uh, in fact, we'll just start, I'll start things. I'll know that it's seven minutes in for my editors because it's what we're doing. Is I just decided after lunch I was gonna record this live because I my uh I use StreamYard, so Facebook and LinkedIn, and you know the whole drill, YouTube. We're live on the podcast launch lab YouTube channel. So um uh Ben Azati, welcome to the show, dude. Hey, I'm grateful to be here with you, Sebastian. Thanks for the invite. It's good to have you here. You know, I I thought about you uh about a month ago when my when my 19-year-old daughter was adamant about uh getting on the keto diet, and I said I fully support the keto diet. I've I've I've dabbled in it in the past, and you know, I really I really chalk up the the keto, the whole keto world into very comparable to like the personal like the personal fitness world, right? The training world, because I've never in my life met a personal trainer that agrees with another personal trainer. And just like that, I've never met a keto expert that will agree with another keto expert. So I was like, I gotta get Ben on the show. You're here in Miami. This all came together, I think, through Shay. We just launched Shay's show last week. Did you hear it yet?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yes, phenomenal. I love Shay Robotam. So shout out to her new podcast. She's crushing it.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

She is absolutely crushing. And I met Shay through Dominic. Uh, and I met Dominic through my friend Gina, who who's my breath work coach. So Miami gets smaller and smaller. And uh, you know my best friend and longtime almost childhood brother, Owen Hemstad. Owen video.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Oh, wow, yeah. So look at that full circle right there.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Crazy. We got Miami, we got we got the West Side, we got the East Side coming in here. So uh it was great that I know it took a couple weeks to get you on the calendar because you're a busy guy here, so I sure do appreciate. You know, if this, you know, if it wasn't, you know, the Rona, we would uh we we I'd have you here at the podcast launch lab studio here in uh in Coral Gables. So we're gonna have to have you come back to the show when we're allowed to like go out again and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Deals, I'll be there. Coral Gables is about 30 minutes from me, so I'd love to go there. Where are you at? North Miami Beach? I'm in Miami Beach, Bay Harbor Islands area.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Oh, well, I made we need to do a remote broadcast at the beach next time. Uh Ben at the beach. Well, thanks again for for making some time today. Today I want to talk about, I really want to ask some burning questions that I have about the keto world. I want to get some questions asked in case anybody starts to chime in. We're live on Facebook and on LinkedIn and on YouTube. For all of you tuning in right now, JP, what's up? My sister tuned in. Nothing like the family support, you know. My good friend Rodney Beretto's in the house, chairman of the Super Bowl. Mr. Rodney Berretto himself. Thanks for tuning in, Rodney. Uh, all of you tuning in on YouTube and on LinkedIn, I appreciate your time. I'm gonna try and give you as much valuable information about the keto. I want to call it lifestyle. Ben can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's not a diet, I don't think. I think it's more of a lifestyle. And I'm learning that vicariously through my sister. And I also kind of eat keto-ish outside of my pizza habit. Um, I am kind of I'm like a part-time ketoer. Is that a word? It is now. And then I want to talk about you know how you got started in this when you woke up one day and you said, you know what? I want to find out more about this keto world and I want to figure it all out. And then I want to find out how you amassed over a hundred thousand followers uh on your YouTube channel. Uh there speak of the Speak of the Devil. My daughter's ears must have been ringing because she just chimed in on Facebook and said hello. So shout out to my uh my mini me, Kayla Rusk here. All right, here we go. We're gonna get all these burning keto questions uh answered, at least to the best of my ability, and I'm sure you're gonna be able to speak into the conversation from a completely different angle that I didn't even see coming. So let's start with uh my journey drinking these little drink packets about two years ago because a buddy joined yet another MLM and said if you drink this every day, you're gonna be put in instant ketosis or you know something that pertains to that. And I I did that and I tried to sell the packets and give them away and get everybody all keto'd out and uh it failed miserably. I sent out all the samples, nobody wanted to drink the stuff, and I ended up telling myself, I just don't think it's just this easy. I think it requires a healthy diet, I think it requires a uh a lifestyle and and some sort of fitness on here. So that's been my only experience in the keto world is spending about eight months drinking this little drink and trying to convince people to do so, and then realizing it's not that easy and then just giving up on it. I really haven't even thought about it until my daughter decided to go all out keto uh about a month ago. So, based on my lack of knowledge, where does one even start when when I guess we can back up and talk about how you got into this and then we can get into how one starts?

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, how I got into the health space was being obese for most of my life. I weighed uh 250 pounds. So I was one of those kids growing up here in Miami, Miami Beach, Florida, where I was obese growing up. I was bullied, I was picked on, I had low self-confidence, low self-esteem, and I had bad dietary and lifestyle decisions that I made. And I essentially transferred that from my teenage years to being addicted to drugs and video games to my adulthood. And I found myself, Sebastian, uh in 2008, being 250 pounds, both physically and mentally obese. And uh I was rock bottom. I was depressed, I was I was suicidal looking on the internet to for ways to kill myself. And anytime I did that, I would think about my mother, and it would just stop me because I love my mother, she is my superhero, and I never wanted to do that to her and have her deal with the loss of me taking my life. So it stopped me from pursuing that. And this is the point of life of my life where uh books entered my life. I started to read books from Wayne Dyer and Bob Proctor and Jim Rohn and Tony Robbins, and it just really just lit me up and yeah, the greats. It opened up this whole new world to me that I never knew existed. And you know what? It helped me take responsibility for the first time in my life. I became the victor of my future, and I stopped being the victim of my past. And I said, okay, I am responsible. So I started to focus on my health, and nine months later, I went from 250 pounds down to 170. I went from 34% body fat down to 6% body fat. So I finally carved out this physical six-pack that I always dreamed of. But most importantly, I carved out a mental six-pack. And that's what started my journey in the health space. And I was, you know, an experimenter with the vegan diet and paleo. And then I came across this crazy concept called the ketogenic diet back in 2013. And I dabbled with it. I went all in with it, not just dabbling. And I was testing my ketones, and it was just it reset my health in a way that uh nothing I tried before did the same thing that keto did to me. It turned my brain on. I started to do fasting, and that's where it all started for me. I've been teaching it and following a ketogenic lifestyle, like you said, since 2013. And I've learned a lot of mistakes, and I've kind of taken the things that work for me, and I apply it to now people on my YouTube channel, the keto campers, and and I'm gonna apply it on today's episode as well.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

That's fantastic. So you've really been able to take your pain and turn it into something, do something with it, like our good friend Shay Robottom did. She took a traumatic childhood and transformed it and into something that's now going to help other people. So I first of all commend you on that work and being able to, hey, heck of a job turning it around. It's not always that easy to do it. But then again, what is easy, right? Uh, my my good friend Rich Barber always says, you know, being overweight is is hard. Uh, and uh going to the gym is hard. So so choose your hard. And I, you know, I couldn't agree with that more. So if someone's interested in saying, you know what, I want to explore this ketogenic world, where does someone start day one?

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Well, it's it's starting with understanding what we already said, which is keto is not a diet, keto is a metabolic process, and it's been around since humans have existed, right? So the next time you know somebody says to you, if you're doing keto, like your daughter Kayla, hello, Kayla, somebody tells you, oh, keto is a fat, it's gonna go away in a few years. Well, it's been around for 2.5 million years, so I don't think it's going away anywhere soon. So understand that we are designed, all 70 trillion cells in the body could only burn either sugar in the form of glucose or fat and produce ketones. That's it. Those are our only options. And we are designed, we are hardwired to burn fat as our primary fuel source. It is our primal birthright. And I'll give you several examples. Number one, every single one of our ancestors, 100% of them, they did keto. Okay, they were forced into ketosis because of their environment. They didn't have the luxury, they didn't have the blessing that we have to go on our phone and hit the Uber Eats button and have a millennial knocking on our door in 30 minutes with food. They didn't have that luxury. So it is our primal birthright. So we are mimicking our ancestors, the way that we're hardwired to be when we follow this ketogenic lifestyle. So the comparison is this when you're stuck as a sugar burner, which I was when I was obese, it's a very poor way to live because not only do you need to have a snack or a protein bar or some sort of food every few hours just to keep your brain running. It's also a dirty fuel source. So I compare burning sugar, and whenever I say sugar, it's glucose, same thing, interchangeable. When you're burning sugar, I compare that to a Mac truck that is speeding through the highway with all this smoke coming out of its exhaust pipe. Not healthy for the environment, right? Well, this is not healthy for your cellular environment. It creates a lot of cellular smoke. Now, when we teach the body to bring your carbohydrates low enough for you to actually start burning your own body fat and producing ketones, that's like an Elon Musk Tesla cruising through the highway, much healthier for its environment, much healthier for your cellular environment. So keto is not a diet, it's a metabolic state. And it's not about eating a whole bunch of bacon and fat and cheese and drinking those exogenous ketones that you were talking about. It's about bringing your carbohydrates low enough, increasing some fat, increasing some protein, and letting your body burn its own body fat. And then your liver produces ketones and it will turn your brain right on. And the final example here is this any baby that is breastfed goes in and out of ketosis because guess what? Breast milk is made up of saturated fat, cholesterol, and protein, and it helps the development of that baby's brain, which is mostly fat. So keto is not a diet, it is our primal birthright.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Wow, I love that. And where did so you you so when you've started to study all this and better understand you you really understood all of this stuff from the get like back in 2013 from the beginning, you understood how this was going to work and how you were gonna go about doing it?

SPEAKER_00 12:58

I understood how ketosis works in the body and how it's different than something called keto acidosis. However, uh I made a lot of mistakes. I would have, and I could share them later on if you want, but I would I would have these inflammatory fats. I would have these foods that were keto friendly, but they actually increased inflammation in my body and they didn't get me the results I want. So I had to kind of really investigate which are these inflammatory fats, remove them and replace them with what I call clean keto. So I did a variation of dirty keto. Now I do clean keto.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Okay, let's talk about that. That was on my list to discuss. Let's talk about dirty keto versus clean keto, because I think that you know, I'll never forget I I went to breakfast with a friend one time and he had an omelet uh with cream cheese, rox, and I think some more cheese, and said, I'm on the keto diet. I gotta do it. And I was nauseous just watching him eat it. Um so yeah, let's talk about the whole because uh the only terminology that I've started to understand, because I haven't started to study it yet, but my daughter said there's a formula with establishing net carbs, and she's been trying to follow that as much as possible and keeping as clean to the diet as possible on what she can do. She got really excited, and we'll ask about that in a second. But yeah, I'll I'll let you clarify here clean keto, dirty keto, keto done right, keto done wrong, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Absolutely. Yeah, so there's not one way to do keto, like you said earlier. Personal trainers usually disagree, keto educators, educators usually disagree as well. So when you go on Dr. Google and you type in what is the keto diet, you'll get over 100 million results. And every link would be contradictive to the previous link. And then it'll just paralyze you because you're not going to know who to trust here. So when I teach health, keto, fasting, whatever I'm doing, I'm teaching it from the point of a lens coming looking at cellular health, right? Inflammation, hormones. I'm looking at it from that lens. So I'm looking at it with increasing energy, burning fat as a side effect, and extending your life, not just quick results to get you in ketosis and chase ketones. Because I hear at keto camp, we don't chase ketones, we chase results. So that right there will separate what I teach from a lot of people who are just teaching you to get your ketones up, but we don't necessarily want that. So it turns out there are these eight specific keto-friendly foods that are the most toxic foods in our environment. They're actually even worse than sugar. And before I even list all eight of them for you, because I want your audience to understand this, and I hope your audience is, you know, grabbing a pen and paper and writing this down, because this right here, even if you're not doing keto, if you have any of these eight fats in your kitchen for your kids, we got to remove it. Because here's the deal I was interviewing a MIT professor, a brilliant man named Professor Brian Peskin. And Brian Peskin uh was talking about these fats, these vegetable oils, and I'm gonna list all of them for you. And I said, Hey Brian, what's worse? Smoking cigarettes every single day or consuming these inflammatory fats? And this guy, he he always looks at the science, he looks at the research, and he says, Well, let's look at what the data shows. And he threw the question back to me, Sebastian, and he's like, Ben, what do you think the stats are for somebody who smokes two packs of cigarettes every single day for up to 28 years? What are their chances of developing lung cancer within those 28 years? And the answer is 16%, one sixth. So it's less than what people would guess. Then he said, What do you think the stats are for somebody who ate these inflammatory facts, these cooked vegetable oils, every single day for up to 28 years? What are their chances of developing uh cancer andor heart disease? 86%. Wow. They're all keto-friendly. They're going to get you in ketosis, but they're gonna age you faster and you're going to develop disease much faster than you'd like. So here's the list. I'm gonna name it all for your audience here: canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, cotton seed oil, sunflower oil, um, safflower oil, peanut oil, and grapeseed oil. Those are the toxic eight. And guess what, Sebastian? They're found in a lot of keto products. They're found in Whole Foods, hot food bar. Most restaurants cook with it. So uh we want to switch over from that to healthier fats, and I'll I'll share the healthier ones, but I want to make one more point on how toxic these are. Uh, Brian Peskin, the same gentleman I was just speaking about, has a book called The PEO Solution. And they did a study called the Iowa Study, and it showed when you have these unstable fats, like the ones I just mentioned, and fish oil, by the way. Beyond burgers. Oh, yeah. Beyond burgers have these inflammatory fats, and it increases estrogen and creates man boobs in men and can actually increase your risk of uh breast cancer in women.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

There you go. I just had two great Beyond Burgers this past weekend, and here we are. Yeah, no more, buddy. You hear that out there? Stop with the Beyond Burgers. Joe Rogan was right, okay? That stuff's filled with all kinds of garbage you don't need, and Ben's gonna tell us a great replacement.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Yeah, yeah. Before I do, so um the Iowa study that I was talking about showed that when you have these inflammatory fats, it creates 132 days at the least of cell membrane inflammation. Okay, so you make one bad decision and you have five months of inflammation around your cell, so your hormones can't communicate and disease starts to develop. So we want to stay away from that. And I'm not trying to scare you. It's almost impossible to avoid these oils, but we want to mitigate it and reduce it as much as possible. Now, what are the healthier options out there? I hope you're writing this down. This is what I want you to go to your grocery store with. This is what I want you to when you order online your groceries. You want these oils. So olive oil is fantastic. Real, extra virgin, cold processed olive oil. Are you using that, Sebastian? Yeah, I'm using olive oil. I'm an olive oil guy. Yeah. So I'm a part of this olive oil club. It's the hands down, the best olive oil I've ever had. It's loaded with polyphenols. It's first harvest, cold processed. They support local farmers. Um, ketocampollive oil.com is where you could get it for uh one dollar for a $39 bottle for a buck if you want to try them out. They're amazing, dude. KetoCampollive oil.com.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

KetoCamp Olive Oil.com. Keto with a camp with a K, right? Camp with the K. That's right. Yeah. I love it. I know my daughter's, she's probably busting out her debit card.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yeah, get it, Kayla. Here's how you know if you have a good olive oil or not. And I've tested a whole bunch. You would take a shot of it, right? Whatever olive oil you have right now. So maybe you could do this later, Sebastian. Take a shot of it or like a tease, a tablespoon. And if it burns your throat, makes your tongue fuzzy, maybe makes you cough, that's a good sign. It means it's loaded in these polyphenols and antioxidants. But if it goes down smooth, it's not one of the good ones. Sometimes they even cut olive oils and they put some of these inflammatory oils with it to kind of help with their profit. So this company, the fresh press olive oil, I get three bottles delivered to me every quarter. It'll make you cough. It's it'll make your throat burn a little bit. They are they do it the right way. I I totally respect them. So yeah, uh, thank you for typing that in the chat box. I see it there. So go ahead. I said absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

What about uh coconut oil?

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Yeah, yeah. So coconut oil is great. Um, grass-fed butter, grass-fed ghee is fantastic. Avocado oil is fantastic, lard is is great, duck fat is great. These are much stable fats that can withstand heat. They're they're they're uh loaded with like healthy saturated fats, which your cells thrive on because uh half of your about 45% of your cell membrane is made up of fat. So we love saturated fat. Your hormones you said lard, lard, yeah, if it comes from like a healthy source, yep. So not like Crisco, not Crisco, no, that's not what I'm talking about, like real pastured pig lard. Uh, I don't I don't personally have that, but it's not, it's one of the good ones. Okay, cool. Yes, so all those are are much better, right? That right there, if if your audience is just gonna do one change here, it's just swabbing out these fats. Oh my gosh, you're going to reduce inflammation. And by the way, if you have extra weight that you're carrying right now, which let's face it, a lot of people are, you do not have a weight problem. When I was obese, I didn't have a weight problem. It is a weight symptom. Okay. We do not lose weight to get healthy. We get healthy to lose weight. So just making this simple swap, you're going to reduce inflammation, getting healthier. Now your fat-burning hormones could do their job and you're going to lose weight as a side effect. So, this is what I teach that's very different than what a lot of nutritionists and dietitian and personal trainers are teaching because they teach you lose weight to get healthy. I teach you get healthy to lose weight.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

All right. So I'm a carnivore and I absolutely love red meat. I don't need a lot of it because I know too much isn't as, you know, but the spot. You're you're in Miami here too. There's a spot here in Coral Gables called Grazianos. They have amazing olive oil too, from what I'm told. But they have Argentinian meat from every and they're it's awesome and it's affordable and it's just unbelievable, right? So I I love red meat, but I also love alternatives because I'm not going to eat a steak, you know, for lunch on a on a Wednesday. Uh so I like alternatives. So we we've covered the bad oils, right? And the ones that we can work with. And I'm sure everyone's familiar with you've heard of coconut oil, you've heard of avocado oil, you've heard of um the other ones that you've listed on here. What can what what are some great Beyond Burger uh T-bone steak uh sirloin burger alternatives um that will contribute to this process too? Because obviously, if you're cooking a Beyond Burger in coconut oil, well, you're kind of in the same boat, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Yeah, it isn't it doesn't work that way. I mean, canola uh uh if you just look at the ingredients of the Beyond Burger, it's gonna have those inflammatory oils that I mentioned. So it wouldn't make sense to do that. You're right. Um speaking of you know, carnivore, speaking of red meat, I believe meat heals if it's a quality source. I actually just did, and I could share if you want. I just did 40 days of carnivore of the carnivore diet, okay? Where I had nothing but animal fat and protein for 40 days. And you know what? I did a whole bunch of lab work on day one, a $3,500 panel on day one, and I did it on day 40. And I just got back my results. If you want me to share some nuggets with you, please do, yes, absolutely. So this is you know, I haven't even shared this on my podcast or you. I'm working on a video, so this is the first time I'm sharing it in public. So I'm gonna share it right now. So one of the markers I tested for was C reactive protein. Now, C reactive protein, it assesses your risk of a cardiovascular event, meaning the higher your C reactive protein, the higher your chances of getting a heart attack or a stroke or some sort of cardiovascular event. So when I did day one, my C reactive protein was pretty good. It was like, I think it was 1.2, 1.3, somewhere around there, which is in a good range. I did 40 days of carnivore where I had nothing but red meat, eggs, fish, bison, turkey, chicken, shrimp, just animal fat and protein for 40 days, nothing else. And I cut my C reactive protein in half. My I I cut my risk of heart disease in half by eating nothing but animal fat and protein for 40 days.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Wow. So um you you named a bunch of animal fat there. I mean, excuse me, uh yeah, animal protein there. Um, is this stuff you can pick up at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's or are there your your you know, your basic and also the second quite the second part of that question is what kind of proteins did you eat along with that? Because this sounds awesome.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Am I inspiring you to do some carnivore, Sebastian?

SPEAKER_01 24:46

It's like, you know what, let's just go throw everything out that's not an animal protein. Or um so yeah, what what did you eat along with that?

SPEAKER_00 24:54

You can get it at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Publix. I I got it from there. I also got it from a company called US Wellness Meats. Um, I have a coupon code with them. Uh it's KetoCamp if you want to use them. It's USwellnessmeats.com, KetoCamp at checkout. I got there, they deliver it to me. They have grass-fed, grass finished, they have wild-caught fish. So let me answer a question. Yeah, so grass-fed and grass finished beef. You want to make sure it has both both those terms, grass-fed and grass finished. Okay. Um, also for lamb, same thing. Grass-fed, grass finished, okay, eggs, uh, chicken, turkey, uh, fish, wild-caught fish is better than farm, scallops, shrimp. Uh, organ meats are are important to have on carnivore, uh, like liver and kidneys and all that. I I personally don't like the taste of it, so I supplemented it with organ meat complex, like capsules, because I didn't want to have to taste it. Uh, but it's important to get the organ meats when you're doing carnivore.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

What's the name? What what is the uh what's the URL you just had? USwellnessmeats.com. I'm trying to put it in Facebook while I'm while I'm uh USWellnessmeats.com. And the promo code is KetoCamp with a K, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Yeah, yeah. No space in between. KetoCamp, it'll get you uh 15% off your order.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Awesome. KetoCamp. Okay, and then what what uh so are we talking? So like essentially the animals' organs was what you take a supplement for, but don't people some people eat those?

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Yeah, I mean the best thing to do is to eat them, uh, but uh I I just can't really stomach the taste of it. It's um tastes a little funky, but yeah, you could eat it or you could supplement with it. I supplement it with it just because I don't like to taste it.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

I was tortured with liver and onions as a kid. I'll never eat the inyards of a of an animal. Okay, so what did what what were your sides? You know, I'm a big sides guy, I'm a big dipper too. A big, big I like sides, I like to dip. So what's some keto-friendly, you know, sides and and dipperoonies you can do?

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Just just salt. It's very basic. Sea salt, yeah. Because the dips are gonna have uh it's it's not gonna be carnivore friendly, it's gonna have these anti-nutrients that actually could be a problem. So, but here's the deal. I I know it's a little weird when you're just having meat and and you're not having like a side with it. You could have some eggs, you could have some cheese, but that's about it. So no vegetables? No vegetables, no. Why why no vegetables? Because vegetables have anti-nutrients, they have plant toxins. There's things called lectins and oxalates and other anti-nutrients. And typically, um, plants don't want to be eaten. They devent they develop these defense mechanisms because they don't want to be eaten. So they're plant toxins and they're okay. I love plants. Look, I'm not saying not to eat plants, but when you have plants throughout your whole life over and over and over, it actually pokes holes in your gut, leading to leaky gut, leading to autoimmune disease, leading to inflammation. So when you just have animal fat, animal protein, you're eliminating all of these foods that can be contributing to an inflammatory sensitivity type of allergic response. So it's an elimination diet. So your gut heals, your gut repairs, it helps with autoimmune. I have autoimmune, and I and I typically would get a flare-up with my autoimmune just about every single day before I started carnivore. I did 40 days of carnivore, I only had two small flare-ups, right? So it helped with my autoimmune symptom symptoms. So that's why we don't want plants for a short period of time so your digestive system can kind of heal itself.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Wow. So hold on a second. So so vegans are wrong. I mean, I'm trying to understand like because you know, I eat a salad and I feel great. You know, I eat a salad with like a piece of fish. I'm like, take over the world. Um, but the carnivore, number one, I'm my concern would be getting bored after 40 days of just meat. I'm like, give me a French fry. Um, or or something. It's just, but it's just meat. So you are you like doubling the amount of meat you would normally eat in order to fill yourself up? And are you hungry faster?

SPEAKER_00 28:55

You know, I I uh I it was more psychological than it was physiological when it came to you know hunger. Uh it was weird just having the meat and nothing else. I'm I'm a sides guy, I'm a vegetable, I love my vegetables. So it was weird for the first week or so, but I found myself feel being less hungry. Uh, protein satiates you, so does fat. So if you aim to get 30 to 50 grams, 50 grams of um protein at each meal, maybe two meals a day on carnivore with a kind of like a two to one fat to protein ratio, that's a sweet spot right there. And then you're gonna find yourself actually feeling satiated and and you're not gonna have those cravings for anything else. And when it comes to the vegan diet, look, I think the vegan diet is great short term. I think the carnivore is great short term. I think keto is great for periods of time, but it's when the issue is when we stick with the same diet for too long, then our genetics will determine how long it'll take before we get sick again. So it is the change that is more valuable than what we're changing to, if that makes if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

Yeah, yeah, absolutely does. So, would it be safe to say that you could try keto for a few months and then be vegan for a few months and then like carnivore for a few months, and like those cycles would would contribute to a more of a healthy process?

SPEAKER_00 30:10

You nailed it. That's exactly what I do. I call it keto flexing. That's what our ancestors did for millions of years. I mean, they did it according to their environment. So think about a tribe back in Africa, let's say a hundred thousand years ago, when they came across, you know, a honey tree or uh um a fruit tree. They didn't look back to their tribe and say, we're keto, dude. We don't eat that, right? They would eat that and then they would go into ketosis and they would just have nothing but fat and they would have eat nothing but plants, but yet it's the change. So exactly you nailed it. It is going a period of time in carnivore and then keto and then uh veganism and then kind of mixing that around. So my mentor calls it di variation, I call it keto flexing.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

I love that. I absolutely love that. Okay, so somebody's watching this right now. I know my daughter's taking copious notes and readjusting her whole you know, game plan. Then she like I told her she needs to start a YouTube channel because you know she's had quite the journey and she's like, I'm still easy, I'm still getting comfortable and figuring out what works, what doesn't work, you know, etc. So um, you know, stuff like this helps contribute to that process. So if someone's like, you know what, this sounds great. I really want to, I really want to take on the keto lifestyle for a little while. Um, and then I want to explore, you know, maybe the carnivore diet and the vegan diet. But first things first, let's look at this whole keto lifestyle because keto is gonna have a lot more options than well, vegans or um just being, you know, a carnivore. So what where's a good place to start like today? Or let's just say you want to kick it into a maybe you want to have keto dinner, you know, where's a good place to kick to kick things off? And then also, you know, fasting is a is it plays a big role in this, from what I understand too. So, you know, what's a healthy way to begin the keto lifestyle, including fasting, et cetera?

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Yeah, great question, Sebastian. So the best way is to start increasing your proteins and fat. I gave you a whole list of which ones are the good ones, the clean keto foods. So increase your protein and fat. Aim to get 30 to 50 grams of protein at each meal. Have your breakfast, your lunch, and your dinner. So you're not doing fasting yet, but you're not snacking in between your meals. Having more protein and fat will prevent you from snacking in between meals. So you do that first and then you start decreasing your carbohydrates. If you're eating 300, 400 grams of carbohydrates right now, I do not recommend you drop it below 50 grams starting tomorrow. You want to gradually decrease it so your body could adapt and you're increasing the fat and the protein at the same time. Eventually, once you drop your your net grams of carbohydrates uh per day below 50, then you should be in ketosis. So net grams are your total carbs minus the fiber. Um, you could use something like MyFitnessPal or any kind of free tracker to test what how many carbs you're having. But once you do that, you should be in what I call the great land of ketosis. My shirt says ketosis on, off. I'm in ketosis uh right now. So that's the first step. You do that, and then you can start pairing intermittent fasting uh once you get keto adapted. That's the one-two punch right there. And then how you start fasting is simply just skip breakfast, right? Um, just go until 12 p.m., go until lunchtime. At this point, your body now has this metabolic flexibility where it'll shift to burning your body fat, and you don't have to rely on a breakfast because you could get your calories from the plate of food in front of you, or you could get it from your butt, your hips, and your thumbs.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

I got plenty of food available here without going to any restaurants. Yeah, totally, yeah. Or refrigerators, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

So that's how you do it. That's how you start keto. And I mean, there's much, there's a little you know, a lot of intricacies to it. And if you want, uh, watch my YouTube channel, youtube.com slash keto camp. I have a free keto guide over at keto kickstart guide.com where I kind of give you the general rules to follow, some example meal plans, but that's the basis of it.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

This is awesome. All of these links that Ben's mess um uh mentioning right now, if you're listening to the podcast at a later date, maybe you're driving, by all means, don't try to write something down. All of these links are included in the show notes. The show notes are the description on wherever you're consuming this podcast episode. Maybe you're watching it over on the Podcast Launch Lab YouTube channel. All the links will be available in that updated description um as well, too. So don't worry about trying to write these down and scurry to them. If you're watching the live, thanks for tuning in. You're gonna be able to see all of the links. I've tried to stay focused and drop in the in the chat room on Facebook and on LinkedIn and on YouTube uh as well. Um, all right, we're we're almost out of time, Ben, and I know you gotta run too. Um uh two more questions. Um I love pizza. Like I just like when I think keto and like vegan cheese, like I just think, you know what? My life sucks if that's what I have to resort to. So, you know, how can how can my daughter found Quest pizzas and raves about them? But again, I don't know if those are on the bad list. So, how do we solve this whole pizza, you know, pizza addiction while still trying to venture into keto waters?

SPEAKER_00 35:10

I don't know, but I've never heard about Quest, but I would just look at the ingredients and make sure it doesn't have those vegetable oils. Sometimes, a lot of the times, these keto pizzas do. Uh but there, but there's um uh Capellos, Capello's pizza is an almond flour crust that has no vegetable oils. Uh, you can find it at Whole Foods. That's the one I go for. There's also Blaze Pizza, that's a restaurant that actually makes good keto-friendly pizza. So that there you go. You could have your keto cake and eat it too that way.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

What about the cauliflower crust if you make it at home?

SPEAKER_00 35:39

Yeah, totally. Cauliflower crust is great.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Yeah, I got a killer recipe. You do the cauliflower rice. It's a it's a pain in the ass to cook, but you do the cauliflower rice, you throw it in a bowl with some goat cheese, a little Italian seasoning, and an egg, and then you bake it off. Some would say you you cut it into several different ones, and that way you can freeze them. But man, it's so good. It just the only thing keeps me from it is a lot of logistics involved with it because you gotta put it together, then you gotta bake it for it to set up, then you make your pizza and the whole naim. So cauliflower pizza made with just good stuff, like good oils. Totally, you're you're good to go. So if if I wanted to ease in and I said tomorrow, I'm I'm not I I fast until noon. Um, and then have and then I have a sensible lunch, usually a salad. Um, it are sad so salads, vegetables, those aren't really keto friendly or uh make like mixed greens. I'm a big mixed greens guy with like lemon juice.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

Is that okay? Totally, yeah. I love I love it. I I was just saying in reference to carnivore, you don't have it, but when you're doing keto, yeah, you want plenty of these green leafy vegetables. And if you put I love that you put the uh you said you put some lemon on it.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Yeah, lemon juice. I got my daughter hooked on that. Granite salad, this was before keto. She's like, we're not a salad dressing. And I'm like, let me tell you something about salad juice. She's like, I already know, dad. I'm like, here, I dare you to try lemon. And I swear I put lemon, you know, I drink lemon water every morning and I was out of lemons within two days because, well, I came home from college and found a new salad dressing on here. But yeah, a lot of mixtures. My entire freezer's full of, you know, organic free-range chicken. And yeah, that seems to be all that I've uh but she's at she's on vacation right now in in Texas. But when she is here and school's been delayed a little bit, it's you know, full, it's really full on. She turned, we we she turned on flanagans the other night. For those of you not local to Miami, there's a local bar here that serves the best ribs on the planet. And I have definitely not keto and definitely not anything friendly, but they are amazing. And she passed on it the other night for mixed greens, uh, a chicken breast, and some what's it called? And there's also, how about those? As long as again, we're I guess we're back to the oils again, like ice cream. Is there any safe ice cream that's keto friendly?

SPEAKER_00 37:42

Yeah, yeah. There is uh there's there's some keto-friendly ice creams in Whole Foods. I forget the names. I know Halo Top is another one. Yeah, uh, and there's another one that I forget. But yeah, there's some keto-friendly ice creams. You just want to make sure you don't have those oils in the ingredients. Those are the ingredients.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

So if you have all those crappy oils down pat and you've got them like memorized, you're like, those are all no, and you stay focused on just that and find alternatives that have stuff that we can use that you can leverage, like the almond flour and the coconut oil and the ghee and all that stuff, we're we're good to go.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

Exactly. Yeah, so have it in your uh like a notes tab with your phone so you have a reference when you're shopping. So absolutely, exactly. It would it be safe to say if you can't pronounce it, chances are you probably should be putting it in your body. Yeah, yeah, that's a good rule of thumb. If you can't pronounce it, probably not a good idea. It's probably a good idea not to eat that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Right, right, right, right. Well, last question here before I let you go. You have um, I I've been uh diligently focused with Owen uh specifically for the past um 18 months on my YouTube channel. I jumped on board with Owen earlier this year and decided to get really serious with the podcast launch lab channel. We just hit 1,200 subscribers, uh, not even remotely close to where you're at with keto camp here. How in the world, uh, number one, how long did it take? And what was the process of doing that? Was it just constantly creating um your your brand and content on your brand? And then and also how long did it take to do that?

SPEAKER_00 38:59

Yeah, well, 12,000 is awesome. So congratulations. No, no, that's 1200. 1200. Okay, got it. Still awesome. Good job. You just keep building from there. So the first four first four months into my channel launching, I had 342 subscribers, okay? And then and then it started to take off. But it took me um, I have 106 or 105,000 subscribers right now in about 20 months, 20 months since the launch. Nice dude. Nice. Yeah. So I mean, it's a that's a loaded question to how I was able to do it. But yeah, consistency, uh, high quality content. You know, whenever somebody reads the title of my video, I make sure I deliver on that title, right? So I'm not just click baiting them, I actually deliver and keeping them engaged. YouTube rewards, watch time, the longer you can keep them on a video, so kind of hooking them in the beginning. What I mean by that, for example, is let's say I'm doing a video on um like five things, all five things all keto beginners must know. I'll say, Hey, are you interested in trying the keto diet? Well, in this video, I'm gonna give you five rules to follow when it comes to keto that will make all the difference and stick around because number five is my favorite item on this list, and it's gonna tie it all together, right? So I gave them an incentive to stay on that video throughout the whole time, and YouTube rewards that and now suggests your videos to other people. And the first 24 hours after you post a video is when you want to share it. Have your mom watch it, have your your husband watch it, send it to your email list. It's that first 24 hours that you want. A good book. My friend and and mentor, uh Sean Cannell, has a good book called YouTube Secrets. Uh, go listen to it or go read it. That could be a great start for you.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Wait a second, I'm like, I know I know Sean. Absolutely. Yeah, he had a total stud. Yeah, he's great. Yeah, is that who you worked with with your channel?

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Yeah, yeah. I'm in his uh I'm in his mastermind, I'm in his in his programs. He has great programs, and he uh he's a he's a good friend of mine now.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

Yeah, he's a good kid, dude. He really, really is. I've been following him. He started around the same time I did, maybe a year before I did. So yeah, really doing some awesome stuff. He's got like a million followers or subscribers.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Oh, yeah, over a million, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

He's crushing. Shout out to you, Sean. Keep doing what you're doing, brother. Oh, what one last question. How do you know you're in ketosis? Because people see you got a pee on these strips, and the strips are expensive and yada, yada, yada. Is there a simple, effective way to know you're in ketosis, or do you guess, or how's it work?

SPEAKER_00 41:07

You know, you I'm at a point where I know just by the way I feel. Um, the most accurate way to know is through your testing. So you could use a machine called Keto Mojo, which tests your blood. It's a finger prick. Uh, there's also a breath machine called Biosense that is a good one. Uh, how do you know? I mean, some some easy signs if you don't want to test is skip a meal. Here's a great test for you. Skip a meal and see how you feel. If you feel hangry, you can't focus, you're an a jerk to be around. I was about to say something else. If you're a jerk to be around, then uh you're probably not keto adapted and there's some work to do. But if you feel better by skipping a meal, you're probably in ketosis.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

That was what I was finding with my daughter constantly. I would get home and you know, uh from the office, or I come home early in the afternoon and it would be like two o'clock, and she's like, Yeah, I'm just now getting something to eat. I just have not been hungry. And I thought, wow, there's something to me. And I and I knew, and I said, I'm not definitely the furthest from a keto expert as possible, but I'll ask Ben, and and I'm but I'm pretty sure that once you start to get in your keto groove, like your body starts to tell you, I want that, not that, and which is pretty cool, right?

SPEAKER_00 42:15

That's super cool. Yeah, it's it's this intuition that you start to develop with the body. And you know, it's as an entrepreneur, like which you are, uh anybody else watching, if you if you're somebody who wants to be super productive, if you want your brain to be firing on all cylinders, if you don't want to have to rely on coffee, uh, energy drink, um, a snack to get your energy, that false energy, and you want your body to just be a smooth operator and perform at a high level, then keto and fasting are two of the best tools that you can utilize. People ask me all the time, Sebastian, how are you so consistent on social media? How are you so productive? How do you, there's like a hundred of you, I feel like. How do you get so much done? Do you have more hours in the day than I do? Well, the answer is that I take care of my health, I prioritize my health, I'm in keto and fasting, and I'm utilizing the tools that I teach. And it feels like a superpower. It'll take you and separate you from those who are not doing this. So uh it's a great hack for entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

It totally is. And one just when I say last question, this really is do those drinks work, those little packets? What do those do?

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Yeah, I mean, there are some companies that make quality exogenous ketones. I I don't typically I don't really use them, I don't really promote them, but there is a time and place for it. Like, for example, if you want a cognitive benefit and you want to use it before like a podcast interview, you could have right before it should give you a cognitive benefit before a workout, should help with the workout. Um, I like it for traveling on an airplane, it helps with the inflammation and radiation from the airplane before getting X rays and getting the radiation from X rays, it could help with that. But I don't use it as something to rely on, meaning we don't use it every single day. They're called exogenous, meaning they're outside of the body to give you uh an effect. But we want to teach the body. Endogenously teach your liver to produce the ketones. So I like them as a hack from time to time, but not as something we use as a consistent basis.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Yeah, I found one on Amazon not too long ago. Well, it was probably about a year and a half ago when I stopped taking this ongoing. I tried to prove it once for quite some time.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

Yeah, I like them. So they make a good one.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

Yeah, I did too. I I I really did like that. I didn't like the experience of not being able to get anybody enrolled into like liking them too. Um, but uh but buddy of mine started the company, they'd have a massive success over the past three or four years. Um but when I was no longer consuming that product, I was like, well, I wonder if they're gonna test a few others out here. And I found one that tasted like those um popsicles we used to eat as a kid, the red, white, and blue ones. And uh it it it it it I guess it's something comparable. It's a white powder that you drink with, you know, some sort of cold water or or what have you, but it said it was also like a meal replacement. Is that accurate at all?

SPEAKER_00 44:51

Yeah, there's some meal, there's some meal replacement shakes that uh have some ketones in it. So yeah, again, I'm not a big fan of relying on meal replacement shakes. No, there's some good ones out there, but it it's a tool. It's a tool, it's not something that we want to have every single day.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Right. Well, Ben, dude, you are the man, bro. You uh you practice what you preach, you have one heck of a story and you've implemented it into giving back to this world, right? I believe everybody that watches your video, has you on a podcast, sees you on a podcast, consumes your content um and is interested in adapting to this lifestyle. I believe that you're you're helping to change people's lives. So I commend you for that. And I commend you for doing work that truly, really matters. You're living a leaving a lasting of effect and you're building a legacy at the same time. So we're here in the same backyard we in our like our circle is the same circle. We just haven't met yet. Maybe we'll meet at Shay's birthday party or something, right? Um but uh but we'll have to get together here. I'm in, like I said, Coral Gables not too far from you. Oh, my camera shut off right here at the end. Good old auto shutoffs. I gotta figure that. I got a new camera.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

I just got it, I just got a new one because I used to have the same issue. I got the new Sony A6600, and it's all day streaming. You don't have to worry about that.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

Really, I just bought the today, I just bought based on Owen's recommendation, um, the Panasonic uh HCV 870. It's a 4K, one of those little handheld numbers. Um, but it's normally an $800 camera because I got sick of the auto shutoff and I'm told it's because of it's a camera and whatever. Um, so I looked on there today and I'm like, oh, I wonder what's out there for three to five hundred bucks. Well, this one was 800 bucks, but today it's on sale for 599. So I was like, fire that way up and it's owing owing video approved. So my days of auto shutoff are limited. You hear me, Canon?

SPEAKER_00 46:34

It's so frustrating. Yeah, I had a Canon too, right? So I had the same issue, but now it's just continuously screaming.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

I have mine connected right now. Yeah, you got a great setup there, a great uh a great backdrop, the whole nine here. Well, listen, everybody, we've talked about everything we've talked about on the show today, is gonna be available in the show notes. If you're watching this right now, you probably have found out where to find Ben. You can follow him on Instagram and on LinkedIn, of course, on his YouTube channel. Your website's ketocamp.com with a K, correct? Yeah, that's right. So it's KetoCamp.com. He gave you all kinds of tips with olive oil and all kinds of, he's got all kinds of freebies and giveaways. So make sure you're following Ben. You're staying in touch with the content that he's got going on. If you're serious about adapting to this keto lifestyle, I mean, why not? He's giving you a little sounds like this interview. He's given you the the the the car, the keys. Ben's even started it for you. All you have to do is jump in the car, the keto car and drive. Car with a cave. So Ben, thanks again, brother. You rock, dude. Keep rocking with what you're doing here. Come back to the show sometime soon. Hopefully, we're gonna meet in person here in uh in the in the 305 sooner rather than later.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

Yeah, you're a great interviewer, and I love your setup and your energy. So thank you. I'm grateful that Shea connected us, and we'll do it in person next time. So I appreciate the offer.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

Thanks again, Ben. I appreciate you, bro. Thank you. See you, dude. See ya. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story Podcast. Be sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We sure do appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, launchlab.com studios. We'll talk to you next time.