Episode 17 – A Keto Bodybuilder’s Guide to Tracking Health and Performance: Interview with Robert Sikes of Keto Savage

Episode 17 – A Keto Bodybuilder’s Guide to Tracking Health and Performance: Interview with Robert Sikes of Keto Savage

Most people know the ketogenic diet can help with weight loss, but did you know you can actually build muscle too?  Is keto bodybuilding legit? Let us introduce you to Robert Sikes, AKA Keto Savage, a lifetime natural competitive keto bodybuilder. Using the ketogenic diet, he has seen consistent gains in building lean muscle mass, finding it to be much less stressful on the body than bulking and cutting the traditional way with carbs.

Robert Sikes went from a 115-pound kid in high school to 230 pounds in college and started competing in 2010.  A few years ago he began transitioning to a keto bodybuilding approach and found that his body recovered faster after competitions and that the ketogenic diet provided a much more sustainable and healthier way to building lean muscle.

When not training, you can find Robert providing online coaching through his company Keto Savage. He and the love of his life, also a phenomenal keto competitive bodybuilder, Crystal Love (and also a keto coach), founded Keto Brick, a 1,000-calorie meal replacement bar that meets all the keto macros for anyone actively training, running, hunting, mountain biking, backpacking, and more. (Be sure to sign up on their list as these keto bars sell out like hot cakes!) Robert believes that anyone can achieve the same physical success that he has if they are willing to invest the time, effort, and dedication in their diet and fitness.  

Take the next step and learn more about his new 90-day comprehensive program with KetoConnect’s Matt and Megha: Deeper State Keto. You can also catch the awesome Keto Savage podcasts here

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This podcast is brought to you by Heads Up Health, a web app designed to help you centrally track all of your vital health data. Instantly synchronize your medical records, connect your favorite health devices like MyFitnessPal, the Oura Ring  and other apps and use your data to optimize your health!

Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial. Or, read on for more information about our latest podcast episode!

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In this podcast you’ll learn:

  • Robert Sikes’ (AKA Keto Savage) history of keto bodybuilding [3:40]
  • Why there is not one perfect approach to the ketogenic diet, and how tracking can help you decide what is working for you based on trackable measurements [4:45]
  • How you can apply keto with bodybuilding for mass building [5:45]
  • About the bulking/cutting phase, and how that affects body composition with carbs vs. fat [6:50]
  • Why keto is more sustainable for putting on mass at a steady pace without taxing the body during “cutting” [8:15]
  • How you can increase calories without gaining a lot of fat [9:00]
  • How keto can be used for endurance performance like long-distance running or adapted for building muscle [10:20]
  • Why you can you put on the same amount of lean mass with the ketogenic diet  [11:20]
  • How building muscle with keto is more sustainable because you don’t lose as much in the cutting season [11:35]
  • Why building with keto is more enjoyable than cutting on carbs [12:00]
  • How to do the cutting phase with the ketogenic diet [12:20]
  • How Robert gets down to 65g of protein in cutting and doesn’t lose muscle because he’s using a ketogenic diet [13:30]
  • How to set up macros for someone wanting to lose fat vs. someone wanting to put on muscle [14:15]
  • Why the one area you have 100% control over is your macros and how to work with them for muscle building vs. fat loss [14:40]
  • Why women usually have to increase their calories when building muscle [16:15]
  • How adjusting inputs (macros, training, HRV, etc.) can be like a game and tracking is the only way to see how what you’re doing is affecting your goals [16:55]
  • Which biomarkers Keto Savage tracks for optimal performance [19:20]
  • How his performance was better on higher fat than higher protein [21:50]
  • More about Robert Sike’s Deeper State 90-day comprehensive program with Matt and Megha of Keto Connect and how Matt lost 20lbs and Megha lost fat and gained muscle tracking metrics for meeting their goals [23:20]
  • About the details of the Deeper State Program and its practical application to anyone who wants to build muscle [26:25]

References

The Art and Science of Low Carb Performance by Jeff S. Volek, and Stephen D. Phinney

Deeper States Program with Robert Sikes, Matt, and Megha

InBody Test Body composition test analyzer

Skulpt to measure body fat percentage and measure muscle quality

Our Partners:

Learn more about LEVL, a clinical-grade ketone breath meter, which measures your level of fat-burning and ketosis through a simple breath. Find out more at HeadsUpHealth.com/LEVL.

You can learn more about the Oura ring, a state of the art ring that can track sleep cycle analysis, activity, and recovery at HeadsUpHealth.com/Oura.

Learn more about Keto-Mojo, a highly accurate and affordable device for testing blood sugar and blood ketones. Check it out at HeadsUpHealth.com/Ketomojo.

All of these amazing products are integrated with Heads Up Health.

They all allow you to quantify your health in novel and powerful ways.

Thank you to our partners!

About Heads Up Health

Heads Up Health is a website designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use your data to optimize your health.

Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial now!

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Episode 16 – The Terrain Ten Approach with Cancer Survivor and Thriver: Dr. Nasha Winters

Episode 16 – The Terrain Ten Approach with Cancer Survivor and Thriver: Dr. Nasha Winters

Listen to Dr. Nasha Winters, a cancer survivor — and thriver! —  talk about her work with cancer treatment and her program: The Terrain Ten. Dr. Nasha Winters’ holistic approach emphasizes that a person is more than the sum of their diagnosis. It honors that how we find ourselves with a cancer (or other chronic illness) diagnosis does not happen in a vacuum. All of our life experiences, as well as our childhood traumas, affect how our genes are expressed, and in fact, can make a more significant impact than any one-specific dietary, supplemental or prescription treatment! To be a cancer thriver, Dr. Nasha Winters believes we must take a whole body, mind, spirit approach.

Dave Korsunsky, founder of Heads Up Health, talks with Dr. Winters about psychoneuroimmunology and how the whole body, mind, and spirit are interlinked, and how optimal health cannot be achieved without addressing them all. Dr. Winters also talks about the top five labs that she monitors monthly in all of her patients with active disease processes, and why you should be checking these at least a couple of times a year to maintain your own health.

Nasha Winters, ND, FABNO, L.Ac, Dipl.OM, has over 25 years experience with direct patient care. She is a best selling co-author, a speaker, and an educator. She is the Founder of Optimal Terrain Consulting, offering integrative oncology, philosophy, and methodologies.

You can follow Dr. Nasha Winters and her work on Facebook, LinkedIn, and her website Optimal Terrain Consulting.

Listen in iTunes!

This podcast is brought to you by Heads Up Health, a web app designed to help you centrally track all of your vital health data. Instantly synchronize your medical records, connect your favorite health devices like the Oura Ring and apps and use your data to optimize your health!

Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial. Or, read on for more information about our latest podcast episode!

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In this podcast you’ll learn:

  • Dr. Nasha Winters’ own experience with a terminal cancer diagnosis — 27 years ago! — and how it fueled her to make this her life’s work. [05:20]
  • How our ability to access any information at any time of day can cloud our connection with what our bodies need as individuals to heal. [10:30]
  • Why a large part of your survivability of cancer has nothing to do with your treatment team. [11:20]
  • Learn about The Terrain Ten, Dr. Winters’s cancer program for achieving optimal health, and how it’s an adaptable framework based on the individual and not a particular protocol. [15:55]
  • The difference between carcinogenic emotions vs. carcinogenic environmental toxins and how they both affect cancer. [19:15]
  • Why your immune system gets suppressed for a minimum of 7 hours after getting into a fight with a loved one. [22:45]
  • How trauma locks people into a rut so they can’t see other options or possibilities, thus driving physiological changes. [23:15]
  • About The ACE score for adverse childhood events, and how it can affect disease development. [27:00]
  • A discussion of Michael Pollan’s new book and how microdosing psychedelics can help to heal traumas. [30:25]
  • Learn which quantifiable measurements Dr. Winters recommends and what they mean. [33:10]
  • What the LDH test is and why you should be watching it. [46:00]
  • How you don’t have to be a medical expert to track your health and make significant changes. [57:00]
  • How genetic SNPs can affect the ability to get into ketosis, and why being in ketosis is not the same as metabolic flexibility. [59:00]
  • About glucose-ketone index tracking and reasons why it can be difficult to achieve this in a real-life scenario, but you can still have amazing results with a ketogenic diet. [1:01:35]
  • Why tracking your sleep with the Oura Ring is super useful. [1:03:45]
  • Learn more about her book and her husband’s work with CBD oil. [1:04:45]

References

The Metabolic Approach to Cancer, by Dr. Nasha Winters, ND, L.Ac., FABNO and Jess Higgins Kelley, MNT

Radical Remission, by Dr. Kelly Turner

The Healing Platform, by Annie Brandt

Molecules of Emotion, by Candace Pert, Ph.D.

The Biology of Belief, by Bruce Lipton, Ph.D.

The ACE Score

How to Change Your Mind; What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, by Michael Pollan

KETO for CANCER by Miriam Kalamian

Best Answer for Cancer Conference

Our Partners:

Learn more about LEVL, a clinical-grade ketone breath meter, which measures your level of fat-burning and ketosis through a simple breath. Find out more at HeadsUpHealth.com/LEVL.

You can learn more about the Oura ring, a state of the art ring that can track sleep cycle analysis, activity, and recovery at HeadsUpHealth.com/Oura.

Learn more about Keto-Mojo, a highly accurate and affordable device for testing blood sugar and blood ketones. Check it out at HeadsUpHealth.com/Ketomojo.

All of these amazing products are integrated with Heads Up Health.

They all allow you to quantify your health in novel and powerful ways.

Thank you to our partners!

About Heads Up Health

Heads Up Health is a website designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use your data to optimize your health.

Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial now!

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Episode 15 – How to Control Your Appetite: Understanding the Psychology of Eating with Keto Carole

Episode 15 – How to Control Your Appetite: Understanding the Psychology of Eating with Keto Carole

In this podcast, Dave Korsunsky, founder of Heads Up Health talks with Carole Freeman (also known in the ketogenic world as “Keto Carole”) about understanding how to control your appetite better. Carole is a Certified Nutritionist with a dual Masters of Science in Nutrition and Clinical Health Psychology, as well as a licensed Hypnotherapist. Understanding the psychology of eating gives Carole a unique perspective on creating a personalized keto diet while bringing in a whole body approach to her work with clients.

Carole’s journey into the ketogenic diet world began after suffering a traumatic brain injury in 2014 where she was in debilitating chronic pain from a motor vehicle accident. She used her educational background to dig deeper into the research on ketogenic diets and how they can support brain health, and began modifying her own diet. As she began this therapeutic ketogenic diet to heal her brain, she also began to see a whole body transformation and knew she had to help others with this lifestyle.

Now, Carole runs a nine-week online coaching course to help individuals with metabolic issues to be successful in lowering their blood sugar, insulin, and other inflammatory markers through dietary changes.

What makes Carole’s program so successful — she has a weeks-long waiting list — is that she understands the psychology of what can sabotage a healing diet. She can anticipate the areas where clients may struggle and help to prevent them from having to go through the frustration that can sometimes occur.

Helping clients understand “their WHY” for staying motivated, as well as understanding why they feel like they can’t avoid some of the most sabotaging foods, empowers them to have the success that they haven’t been able to achieve on their own.

You can find Keto Carole on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and her website www.ketocarole.com

Listen in iTunes!

This podcast is brought to you by Heads Up Health. a web app designed to help you centrally track all of your vital health data. Instantly synchronize your medical records, connect your favorite health devices and apps and use your data to optimize your health!

Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial. Or, read on for more information about our latest podcast episode!

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In this podcast you’ll learn:

  • How you must address the psychology of eating and addiction to be able to be successful with any diet
  • About reward circuitry in the brain and the biology of cravings
  • Why Carole is passionate about wanting people to feel really great about themselves
  • How Carole sticks with keto
  • How dopamine is like a “Scooby snack”, rewarding us for doing something that keeps us alive like eating, sex, etc
  • How dopamine can increase just by being in a familiar place, or with a particular person whom you’ve done certain things with, like eating sweets 
  • How habits that are deeply ingrained have moved into the part of the brain that is reflexive and becomes automatic, which is why situations can trigger cravings
  • Why awareness of the dopamine response can keep you from sabotaging your diet, and how in the moment it’s almost impossible to resist it
  • How changing behaviors may be necessary (e.g., taking a different way home to avoid seeing fast food triggers)
  • Why avoiding things that affect all of the five senses is important in retraining your brain and habits
  • Why connecting how people are feeling to what they are eating is important
  • How food addiction is like any other addiction, and that situations as much as exposure to certain foods can sabotage even the most strong-willed person
  • That stress is the biggest catalyst to fall back into old habits
  • How she uses stress relief techniques to keep people on track with the keto diet
  • How food manufacturers employ scientist to create the most addictive foods and influence consumers’ diets and health
  • About the Dorito challenge that Carole used to use in her private practice
  • Why it’s important to remember “your WHY” and to keep it front and center in your mind to stay on track
  • Why you should make your keto lifestyle public and let it become part of your identity
  • How community — being around others doing the same thing — keeps you on track
  • About Carole’s intake process for new clients, and how she works with clients
  • How you can use Heads Up Health to track your own journey and metrics to take your health into your own hands

References

Our Partners:

Learn more about LEVL, a clinical-grade ketone breath meter, which measures your level of fat-burning and ketosis through a simple breath. Find out more at HeadsUpHealth.com/LEVL.

You can learn more about the Oura ring, a state of the art ring that can track sleep cycle analysis, activity, and recovery at HeadsUpHealth.com/Oura.

Learn more about Keto-Mojo, a highly accurate and affordable device for testing blood sugar and blood ketones. Check it out at HeadsUpHealth.com/Ketomojo.

All of these amazing products are integrated with Heads Up Health.

They all allow you to quantify your health in novel and powerful ways.

Thank you to our partners!

About Heads Up Health

Heads Up Health is a website designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use your data to optimize your health.

Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial now!

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