Transcription
Okay, this might be a little bit of a longer video, but I know this is some nitty-gritty, nitty-gritty details about maybe how to eat in a winter-friendly fashion. Okay, so a couple of things that I need to go into detail about before I discuss the what to eat: number one, I, I, I encourage you, if you haven't already, to listen to yesterday's video. Because that video kind of talked about what I call the window of when we eat. That window is an early fueling window; it is a breakfast to maybe six hours to eight hours later window. Right, we're eating in an earlier fashion, and it's a style of intermittent fasting that's very, very supportive, especially in the winter when we're mimicking scarcity.
Now, I want to talk a little bit about what the body can do in the winter, um, and we need to discuss in terms of what to eat and how to fuel it. But this discussion has to start with talk of a hormone called leptin. So leptin—have you ever heard of it? Le—I, I hadn't. Right, took me—I hadn't heard about leptin until about 10 years ago. And so what is leptin? Leptin is a hormone that gets released from our body fat, and it, it, it basically gets released into the bloodstream and goes to the hypothalamus where it basically downloads the energetic status of my body. And it does this between meals, but also it really does this strongly at night, when I'm sleeping, sometime between midnight and 2 a.m. Why is this important? Well, let's say—so le—and let's say I—let's say, you know, I ate, you know, X, Y, and Z during the day, um, leptin needs to signal to my brain a couple of key things to dictate my hunger and my cravings that next morning.
So first and foremost, in the middle of the night, leptin leaves body fat and it docks in that hypothalamus and it says, "Carrie's got this much body fat on her body. This Carrie has this much energy stored away as glycogen and, um, in her liver and in her muscle tissue. Um, this is the nutrient status of Carrie's body." With that information, my brain can then dictate if I have body fat that I can then, um, let go of; if there's a period of scarcity. If leptin cannot dock and make that connection, and it can't download that information, guess what? I could have body fat to burn, but my body is going to hoard it and hold on to it because it doesn't get the signal that it does have fat to burn. Right, leptin signaling dictates whether or not my body will start to lose body fat, and that's really the design of the body in the winter. What we see happening with a lot of, you know, mammals that, you know, go throughout the winter—squirrels are a very interesting example; it's very on the forefront of my mind right now as I'm recording these videos and watching the squirrels in my yard. They get really, really active. Right, they're digging up all of the little nuts and acorns that they had buried, and they're very, very much in this frenzied gathering and eating, and they're eating and eating and eating, and you see them start to plump up, plump up, plump up because they're preparing for a period of food scarcity. Believe it or not, believe it or not, even our human bodies actually can go through that as well.
I don't know about you, but I've worked with many a client who, uh, is on thyroid medication, and they need an adjustment in medication towards fall—right, towards exactly around October. Their thyroid hormone starts to go haywire, and they say, "Wait a second, what's going on?" Also, if you've ever tested your vitamin D levels in a chunk of time near October—maybe you'd been sunning yourself all summer long—and all of a sudden you test them in the, in, uh, the start, like, you know, let's say middle of October, and they're low, you're like, "What gives?" There's a couple of really interesting things that occur all at the same time in these seasonal environments where we experience winter. Number one, prior to this point, there would have been a, a, um, you know, a cornucopia of food available. Right, there would be plentiful food available, a harvest, a really, really rich harvest of things that I could have, could have found or gathered or grown myself. So in my particular environment, I would have had all basically August and September to consume things like berries and peaches and apples and squash and, um, and, uh, tomatoes and peppers. Right, like it would have—it's such a rich time in terms of produce availability in my environment. What does that produce contain? It contains fructose. Yes, it's a beautiful natural version of fructose—ose; it's not high-fructose corn syrup by any means—but that fructose elevation and the elevation in fructose availability with my eyes perceiving that the days are getting shorter actually can signal a very transient insulin resistance, and not the kind that would show up as diabetes. Right, it's actually just my body saying, "Okay, let's start to store all of this fructose-rich energy before it gets too cold and we won't, won't be able to find anything." So that's why, you know, mammals are smart; we know when we need to start storing away for winter, maybe in the form of extra body fat—a little bit of extra body fat before the scarcity hits. If my body, or the body of those little squirrels, and the brain of those little squirrels would have waited until the first snowfall to say, "Uh oh, we've got to start, you know, socking away for the winter," we would have died. Right, we wouldn't have been anywhere near able to survive those winter months of scarcity. And so that—there's that—there's this transient dip in vitamin D, there's this little bit of rise in, um, the fructose availability in my environment, and that makes me a little less insulin sensitive and able to store a little bit of body fat. That all is happening in the fall, and then the winter is the time for me to start using the body fat I do have because my brain says, "Oh, there is scarcity, so we want to be able to burn Carrie's fat stores in order to, to stay healthy and heal all winter long." If I cannot signal with leptin, that will not happen. Right, leptin has to download and dock in my brain all of the energetic information that it's supposed to do every single night.
So what makes leptin work better? Well, number one, getting good quality sleep. Right, being asleep by 10 p.m., if, if at all possible, because I need to do a couple of things before leptin can be released and docked in—dock in my brain and give that download of how much energy, how much body fat I have available to burn if needed. So that's number one. Number two, if I want to—if, if my cortisol is disregulated, meaning I am—I've stressed it out because of all of the intermittent fasting I've done where I'm always only eating at dinner—it's like I'm going all day long and only eating at dinner, all day long, only eating at dinner—and that—there's those cortisol surges that happen, especially if I'm also consuming coffee, um, on an empty stomach in conjunction with it, that can really disregulate leptin. So cortisol is also not—not great, uh, if it's—if it's being surged at the wrong time in terms of leptin being able to do its job. Another thing that's really important for leptin is space between meals. I used to graze all day long, if not eat every two hours or so, because I thought I was quote-unquote fueling my metabolism. I really disregulated my leptin that way because it takes about four hours for me to digest my food and for then leptin to be released from body fat, dock in my brain and signal, "Here was Carrie's meal; this is the nutrients she has; she has this much body fat; she has—she has the ability to need to eat again at this time." Right, and so if I can—if I can allow leptin to dock and signal by eating distinct meals that are at least four hours apart—let's say four to six hours apart—again, I can allow leptin to signal and say, "Oh yeah, Carrie's got some body fat; that's fine; we can burn some fat for fuel; she doesn't have to stress out; we don't have to put her in a very stressful state for her to find and hunt and gather food right now because we'll just burn the fuel—the body fat that we have in reserve." And so the—another thing that can really improve leptin sensitivity is cold exposure and cold adapting, which I know you want to hear about that, so that's coming up soon, um, in a future video series of three videos, so stay tuned for that. But cold can also promote what we call leptin sensitivity or leptin signaling—lep—leptin docking in the brain. All of these things work very, very well together just to allow my body to regulate my appetite, allow my body to experience scarcity in the winter and to burn body fat during the winter when there is scarcity and I'm not fueling my body with the food that I eat.
Another thing that can be very supportive for leptin is eating a protein-rich, fat-rich breakfast; that can really also support leptin signaling. And so leptin, uh, you know, with that meal, leptin can dock and say, "Carrie just had a really satiating meal, and guess what? Yes, we don't have to worry about her going seeking quick carbohydrates for energy—craving carbohydrates and simple sugars and things like that—and instead, sure, we'll pull fat from storage and we'll burn it in the interim, um, we don't have to risk her safety going out in the cold and hunting some food; we've got our own internal fuel to burn." Really, really important stuff. And so I, uh, eat in a way that I think supports both leptin but also cycles in some ketosis in the winter, meaning that meal that I eat is very much a ketogenic or carnivore-style meal. I eat, probably for myself, about 30 grams of protein; I don't measure my fat; I just use fat to satiety. So, for example, when I cook my eggs, I use butter or ghee, um, when I cook my like a ground beef-style breakfast, I eat the beef fat—right, the beef tallow—with it. Sometimes I'll put a—I use a butter-style sauce on top of it, maybe with some mushrooms or onions, um, you know, something that I, you know, dehydrated mushrooms that I can add in and throw them in. Now, if you want to eat fresh mushrooms, is that gonna—is that going to completely ruin your circadian signaling in the winter? No, it's not, so let's not stress about that too much. But, but that really fat and protein-rich breakfast that is very low-carb is super important for my leptin signaling, and it maintains this ketogenic state that my body naturally would have gotten in from after it burned off all of the fuel from my final meal of the day—for me, typically around 3 p.m., maybe between 3 and 4 p.m. So then I would have all of that additional time when I'm sleeping all night long to be in ketosis, and then I can maintain ketosis through those morning hours as well with a ketogenic or carnivore-style meal, and then I'm going to stay in ketosis for an additional four to five to six hours, depending on when I'm eating that next meal again. And so, um, that is how I utilize ketosis in the winter, and I utilize ketosis and leptin together to both allow my body to burn fat and allow my body to use the fat that it does burn to make water inside of my mitochondria. For those of you who have been following me for any amount of time, you know I love to talk about water, and the water that our mitochondria make is key to the hydration in our bodies; we turn that—that mitochondria make metabolic water that is deuterium-depleted; it's a whole different topic that I'm not going to go into in this series, but that's important. And that water then, when it encounters another surface—a biological surface—in my cell structures itself into—into an exclusion zone, which actually is energy; it's a battery of energy inside of my body. So my ability to both take the fat that I am eating and take fat from my body that's been stored away and send it to my mitochondria to, um, transform it into water, and that water then becomes a battery of energy, really fuels me all winter long—all summer long as well, but summer is a different story; it's a different—it's a different situation where I maybe have more carbohydrates; I use different strategies to facilitate that fueling. But if we can do this pathway and allow this pathway to be strong all winter long, guess what? That means it means that I'm not—I'm gonna be making that metabolic water; I'm going to have that cellular energy I need to run all the repair programs I'm trying to run in the winter that really run with the—with the maximum amount of melatonin I can make in these dark winter months as well. Well, and so do I consume any carbs in the winter? Absolutely, I do. Right, I—I found that I—this is through trial and error—I have found that staying in ketosis for too long of a period of time is a stressor to my body. I believe that's because I'm still fertile; right, I could still have a baby if I wanted to. And so I cycle my ketosis. So my meals in the winter look very much like I just described: right, protein and rich in fat, um, maybe having the colder vegetable—the colder-weather carbohydrates in my area. Those colder-weather carbohydrates are things like cabbage and broccoli and cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. I also eat onions and garlic all winter long; we can harvest those, and those have a very, very long shelf life, and I make my meals out of those sorts of things in the winter, especially my breakfast, and again my breakfast is very low in carbohydrates. Now, come when I want to cycle out or give myself carbohydrates, I go for root vegetables—basically cellar-stable produce—right, things like turnips and parsnips and sweet potatoes and, um, things like, um, just regular white potatoes as well. Those things, again, they can be in a cold environment and, and stay very fresh, and you can cook with them for a long period of time. And so that's how I would cycle in, or that's the type of carbohydrate I would cycle in, and I typically do that about once a week, um, or sometimes even every five to six days, right, where I'm going to have—I'm going to still maintain my beautiful leptin, um, sensitive or leptin-promoting, leptin-healing breakfast; I'm going to then space out my meals and have another meal maybe four to six hours later, and that meal will be the meal that contains carbohydrates; it'll contain as much—a decent amount—right, I'm not talking a small little bit amount; it'll contain the—the amount of carbohydrates I feel like my body would want to eat at that given time. So if I divide a plate into three parts—like make a pie sign—I'll have at least a third of my plate be those carbohydrates; it feels really, really good and really, really nourishing.
How else would I know if I wanted to carb cycle? If my sleep starts to tank. So I don't know if you've been like me, but I've been in ketosis for too long, and my sleep used to become garbagey if I stayed in it for too long; my bowel movements would get really—wouldn't be great if I stayed in it for too long; um, a low-level anxiety, or for me what I noticed is it's a startle response—right, all of a sudden it's like my kid says "boo," and it's—those sorts of things indicated to me that my body was in its low-level state of stress. And while we want to have those hormetic stressors, or beneficial stressors, for periods of time, we also want to remove ourselves from those stressors in order to be able to support the healing and the adaptation that happens from those stressors. And so that's how I cycle in ketosis; I cycle it in in a, um, time—a window of time—a fueling window that's very beneficial—that early fueling window that you learned about in the previous video. I cycle it in by making sure I'm supporting my leptin with some very key things, such as a leptin-supportive breakfast, spacing my meals out, I'm protecting my circadian signaling at night and getting to bed and allowing leptin to dock, and then using cold, which you're going to learn about, um, coming up. And then I personally don't stay in ketosis all winter long; I stay in it for chunks of time, and then I pull myself out, um, using things like root vegetables; uh, those have such a warming, nourishing quality; my body loves them in the winter. Interesting, too, for me, as I've been living this circadian-friendly lifestyle for quite some time, I don't crave fruit in the winter; I don't crave salads in the winter; I don't really crave raw vegetables at all in the winter; everything I crave in the winter is warm and nourishing and protein and fat-rich and cooked. Right, it's just really nourishing, but does feel like a maybe heavier style of eating. And then interestingly, come the end of March through April, I start to crave the raw vegetables again because that's when those sorts of things start to appear in my local environment. So those would be interesting things that you can observe as well, um, you know, don't beat yourself up; you don't have to be perfect with this, and these are just suggestions; this might not work for you, and that's okay, but it's how I have found to be a very circadian-friendly and leptin-friendly way to support eating in the winter, but also all the repair that can happen, um, and the added metabolic water that runs the energy of that repair all winter long. So hope you found that helpful, and I will see you next time.