[00:00:38] Vesna: Welcome to the Peak Revival Podcast. My name is Vesta. Today I'm gonna talk about nutrition for successful women who are feeling stressed. So if you have asked yourself, is it keto, is it low carb, is it carnivore, is it fasting? Is it, uh, detox? Is it low calorie? Like, what is the best nutrition plan for me to be following? Because there's so much information out [00:01:00] there, it's one of the questions that I get asked. All the time from women where they email me and I get it right?
Even I look at stuff online, I think, oh my gosh, this is so overwhelming, and it really isn't that overwhelming. Okay. Because if you look at. Diets or dietary regimes or protocols throughout history, they work, right? Ketogenic works just not for everybody. Same with carnivore. Low carb is good for some, not for others.
Fasting can be really a way to get to peak performance, but for some it's exhausting. So where do you start and what do you need to know? And that's what I wanna cover. So you have to look at where you are right now because food is medicine. It's not a one size fits all, so you have to look at. Where you are right now and determine what you really need. So if you are exhausted, you're not gonna do keto carnivore, it's just gonna push you further into fatigue. Same with low carb, right? Or fasting. It's going to be an absolute no-no.
[00:02:00] So you have to look at, well, I want more energy, I wanna sleep better, but I also wanna lose weight. So what do I do? If you are stressed, if you are been feeling the effects of stress, like poor sleep and exhaustion and overwhelm, anxiety, this is where you should start because any other. Protocol is going to generate more stress in the body. The Keto fasting carnivore is gonna create more stress for you right now, and I'm gonna explain why and when we are in periods of chronic stress, it disrupts systems in the body that need to be repaired and we need nutrients and a certain number of nutrients in order to fix that.
And thirdly, the other reason why it's so important is because your nervous system needs to be regulated and you need to be out of fight or flight mode to get your best kind of health, wellbeing, mental health, and metabolic health, right? So if you are stressed and exhausted and you are trying to do keto, your body's in fight or flight mode, it's really gonna struggle in that place. Or maybe you don't struggle, but you just don't see the results, and this is why.
[00:03:00] So the first thing I look at is carbohydrates. Because carbohydrates are really important to switch off the stress response. It helps to regulate the nervous system, and this is why we crave sugar or carbs when we're stressed. Carbs will activate your thyroid hormone as well, particularly T three, which helps to create energy, mental energy, and burns body fat. Carbs also regulate cortisol, so having a nice natural cortisol curve in the morning, which is essential. We want high cortisol in the morning, tapers down, and it's lowest in the evening.
Stress women, what we often see is that it's high in the morning, it can dip and it comes up again at nighttime creating poor sleep. carbs will also help to improve nighttime sleep. Make sure that your body's doing all the repair work overnight and needs carbohydrates for that. And it'll balance glucose levels. When we have periods of chronic stress, our body finds it very hard to maintain our glucose levels and carbohydrates will help with that. And I'm gonna talk more about, 'cause it's not just a case of eat whatever carbohydrates you want.
[00:04:00] So normally when I talk about this, people are like, oh, I'm diabetic, or I'm insulin resistant, or carbohydrates are bad, right? I am not saying eat sugar and go out and eat pasta, right? I'm talking about cycling carbohydrates in a very strategic way. Small amounts, the right dose at the right time and the right type of carbohydrate will switch off that stress response. And what that means is that you are gonna have energy, high energy all day long. There's no 3:00 PM slump where you hit a wall and you just. Having coffee and more sugar, it's going to regulate that cortisol curve, so it's gonna reduce anxiety and overwhelm, and it's going to balance glucose and insulin. And prevent cravings and give you energy for the brain, give you a lot of focus and concentration.
So Cy cycling carbohydrates, even if you are diabetic or you're insulin resistant. I have a lot of women that come into my programs exactly the same, and what they find is that because they're able to relax that stress response, get their system outta that fight or flight or overactive nervous system, it allows their metabolic system to do [00:05:00] what it's meant to do. Right. You know, a lot of the, the shaming of carbohydrates you know, isn't directed in the right way. Because when you are in a stressed state, we need to shut that down, right, in order for your metabolism to do what it knows how to do. So people come through my programs, they type two diabetic or insulin resistant. They lose weight, they glucose levels improve. Some people have come off their diabetes med medication as prescribed by their doctor because their metabolic health has improved.
So the first thing. Carbohydrates switch off the stress response. Stress response is very important to switch off before you do anything else. Okay. I really try to kind of hone that in and, and drum that into people in my work is because when that nervous system is overactive, things get shut down, digestion is shut down, hormone production is shut down. Prefrontal cortex is shut down for, you know, deep focus work. Like our body is in a state of trying to survive, not thrive.
[00:06:00] And so if you are wanting then your body to do all these other things like lose weight and, and do fasting or whatever, you're asking too much because your body is in shutdown mode. Okay? It's, it's in low battery mode and it's only doing this. Central functions to keep you going. And so what we wanna do is get it out of low battery mode or low power mode so you have full function. And then we can start to do, do the repair work and get your metabolism elevated. And so once we look at, you know, reducing that stress response, getting the system regulated, the cortisol regulated, then you can look at things like detoxes. And that's what I do in my work because. Gut and liver. When we go through chronic stress, our digestion is shut down so we don't digest our food properly.
It impacts our microbiome and it creates fermentation. We start to create bacterial overgrowth, so there's a bit of a, a mess in the gut, but then it also creates a lot more toxicity and it breaks down liver detox pathway, so they need to be repaired, We must relax the nervous system first before we can do that,
[00:07:00] because as I said, cortisol is having this huge impact or stress is having this huge impact on our gut. It doesn't make sense to try and repair the gut while there's all these stress hormones flooding towards the gut. Okay. I hope that makes sense. So it's very strategic in order and so. When you do that initial reset of the nervous system, you can start to do the repair work, the gut, and the liver. So these things are important for elevating your mood because a lot of our happy hormones are produced in our gut. You know, reducing brain fog, having mental clarity and concentration, and deep work and focus, and the liver detox. Our liver repair is important to remove toxins and inflammation from the body. It helps to activate our metabolism as well. So really. Key features of these systems, and these are the ones that have really affected during stress. Now. Next I wanna talk about fasting because it's definitely a hot topic. I think it's kind of had its peak and now it's on the way down. And particularly when we look at women and fasting, it's all very different because our hormones look for different things.
[00:08:00] But fasting is a great tool to get yourself into peak physical and mental wellbeing. I use it in my programs at a later stage. Right? But it's definitely a great tool. ‘ cause there's so much goodness that comes from fasting, right? There's stem cells being released, there's, um, cellular cleanup. Like there's all these things that are happening that, you know, we used to do fasting. A century ago, do I wanna say, I don't know, probably, probably less. Where there was religious fastings, there was less access to food. Now we have 24 7 access, and so there was more periods of prolonged fasting, which there isn't now. And so I'm definitely a fan of fasting because of all the health benefits that come with it. And I really see fasting as one of those tools that not only for peak performance, but as your health insurance. Right. Um, but I won't go into that here. But fasting cannot be done if you are overtaxed, right?
[00:09:00] If you are stressed, if you've been in a chronic, if even pushing yourself really hard, even though you're probably still pushing yourself, but you are not sleeping that well, you are feeling tired and you are stressed, right? You're getting set off. And in that case, we still need to relax the nervous system. And so women come into my programs, they've been fasting, they feel terrible, they feel irritable. They're not losing weight. They're like, what am I doing wrong? Right? Other people are getting results. Why am I not getting results? And that is why the nervous system is already stressed, already overreacting, and now you're taking away nutrients that are important to repair the nervous system and the gut and the liver. You're taking a certain number of calories, not that I count calories, but a, a certain number of calories needed with the nutrition to do the repair work.
It's just not there. And so therefore, the system is struggling. and so fasting is a great tool, but it could take months before you can do fasting, right? It could even take years. It took me years to get my body into a place where I could do fasting, right? And it's not even something that you have to worry about because if you are feeling amazing, which, you know, women come through my programs and they're doing the, the nervous system reset, the gut and liver repair, they feel amazing, right?
[00:10:00] They're not concerned whether they can do fasting right away, but it's definitely a tool long term for peak performance. And like I said, your health insurance. So just to rehash, you gotta look at where you are right now. If you're stressed, and this is what this podcast episode is about, you're a successful woman, you're stressed, you're still pushing yourself. I know, but you're really starting to feel the effects of that stress, right? You're not feeling like yourself anymore.
Then you wanna start with carbohydrate cycling. You do not wanna go low carb. Then you wanna repair key systems that are involved during stress, the gut and the liver, looking at repair work there. Then you can bring in fasting or then if you wanna bring in weight loss programs, right? So I run a weight loss program, which is focused more on hormonal, um, nourishing the key hormones that control our metabolic burn rate.
So again, I'm not cutting out carbs, I'm not cutting out major food groups, I'm not counting calories, right? Really nourishing the hormones that control the metabolic burn rate. things are a bit more strategic than just, you know, eat less and exercise more, or anything like that. The one thing I would say though is if you're looking at weight loss, again, stress, you wanna address that. You wanna do it in that kind of order as I'm explaining it.
[00:11:00] But if you do something low calorie, your metabolism's not really gonna forgive you for it, right? Because studies have shown that as you reduce calories, your, your body becomes accustomed to living. On a certain number of calories, right? So it's 800, a thousand, 1500, whatever it is a day. And then when you go back to eating normal amounts of food, your metabolism doesn't just go back to where it was, right? It stays, it's, it's lowered itself to survive on low calories, it stays there, right? And so this is why women gain weight when they quit these low calorie things. So don't mess with the hormones, right? The body is quite, very, very intelligent. Um, but. At this point, all I wanted to say was you could bring in either fasting or a weight loss program after you've done that initial stress reset and repair work. And let's talk about keto and carnivore because I definitely use these as well. And it really is a case by case basis.
[00:12:00] I've used it with women who, keto and carnivore in particular. If I see someone with a lot of immune reactions like food sensitivities, allergies, as I look in their pathology results, I can see that there's just way too much inflammation in there and it's very hard to pinpoint where it's coming from. Something like carnivore is really just stripping back, right? Taking out a lot of all foods that are gonna create a reaction and then we can start adding from there. So keto and carnivore is something you can do intermittently. ketos better. Carnivore is so, you know, I think the carnivore police will come after me with this, but, um, I've done the carnivore and it's definitely a great, almost like a detox because it's getting rid of a lot of those. you know, since foods that can create allergens and sensitivities and gut issues and whatever, so I've used them in chronic conditions where people have chronic gut issues. They have very high insulin resistance. Okay? So the fasting insulin's very, very high. But again, I still do the pre-work of the nerve system, reset the repair work, and then that, okay? So often I will have women come into my program. You are like, I'm doing carnivore.
[00:13:00] No, I'm doing keto and I'm fasting and I feel terrible and I'm not losing weight. I just feel cranky all the time. Right. And that's why it's important to do in that order as what I've said. Okay. So hopefully this podcast is kind of cleared up a few things 'cause it's one of the things that I get questions on all the time and I completely understand how overwhelming it is with all the little tidbits of information that you get online. But nothing is comprehensive. Nothing's a system. Nothing's looking at your pathology, nothing's understanding where you're at right now, and nothing's a full system. Okay? It's just tidbits of information. And if you, if you follow that, it can create more harm than good, right? I can, I've definitely seen it for myself in my clients.
So I hope this has been helpful. If you are, like I said, if you're stressed, if you're feeling tired, you're not sleeping that well, and your anxiety or overwhelm is rising, even if you have weight to lose, you still wanna start with the carbohydrate cycling. I'd love for you to leave me a comment below.
Was this helpful? Was this clearer? Do you know where to start now? Um, let me know in the comments.
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