On today’s episode, I’m talking with reverse interviewer Casie about navigating conflicting information in the confusing sea of nutrition advice!
We’re back with our 114th episode of the Fed+Fit Podcast! Remember to check back every Monday for a new episode and be sure to subscribe on iTunes!
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Episode 114 Transcription
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Cassy Joy: Welcome back to another episode of the Fed and Fit podcast! My name is Cassy Joy Garcia, I am your host of the Fed and Fit podcast. I blog over at www.FedandFit.com, have a book, Fed and Fit. Man, it’s the same name everywhere. I feel so redundant when I say this {laughs}. Oh goodness. I’m a certified nutrition consultant that has a passion for, not only mindset coaching in general, but covering the full gamut of what it takes to really live a confident, healthy lifestyle. So, thank you so much for joining us today.
I am joined by a new listener; well I don’t know actually if you’re a new listener. You’re new to the show! {laughs}
Casie: Correct.
Cassy Joy: Her name is Casie. And I mistakenly called her Cassy when we first got on the line, and I was so embarrassed, because you would think that a Cassy and a Casie are the ones that should probably be able to tell when to say the right name. So, Casie is joining us today for a reverse interview. And if you’re a new listener here, a reverse interview, just to quickly give you a description, is when a Fed and Fit listener or reader writes in with a really excellent question. And so I, instead of answering their question via e-mail, I like to invite them to come onto the podcast, to ask their question over a recorded call. Because, I have a hunch that Casie’s questions, and maybe the conversation we’re going to have, is a really relatable one that I think is going to resonate with a bunch of folks. So, she’s coming on the show. She’s going to be interviewing me, in some regard. And we’re going to have some good discussions.
So to give you a little bit of background info on Casie. She lives in New Jersey. She’s a Jersey girl. She’s a high school counselor, and she’s getting married this coming October. Welcome to the show, Casie!
Casie: Thank you for having me. I’m very excited.
Cassy Joy: Oh good, I’m very excited to have you here, as well. That was just a very short introduction. But feel free to share a little bit more about yourself, and maybe what’s the theme of your question for today.
Casie: Well, I guess my theme for today. I’m looking back at the e-mail I sent you a couple of weeks ago, is basically about information overload, what is right, what is not correct, what’s in between. Kind of finding a middle ground, and getting some advice about the different approaches to eating that are out there. I had done a paleo template type thing several years ago, for a little bit of time, and I felt pretty good. I wasn’t really trying to lose weight, but I lost weight. I was the closest I was to being my freshman year in college, so that was pretty awesome. And I was feeling good. I wasn’t really working out at the time. But then, I went to get my annual blood work done, and my cholesterol was really high. It was higher than it normally was. I got pretty scared. I wasn’t sure what to do. I kind of stepped away from that paleo temple. And this was relatively recently that I stopped doing that.
And at work, friends were talking about more plant-based lifestyle, and things like that. So I gave it a try only for a few months, and I just felt awful. But everybody says, plant-based diet, it’s anti-inflammatory. We’ve read the China study. I’ve seen Forks Over Knives. It turns off cancer, and meat and dairy turn on cancer. That’s a scary thing. But I was eating that way, and not feeling good at all. Really not good. Bloated, miserable. I had gone to a GI, because I was just getting so bloated. And the blood tests came negative for celiac, but there was some other protein in there that I was sensitive to, so the doctor recommended that I not have gluten. Limited gluten. So then I start thinking, what am I supposed to do here? What is right? What is not right? I know I’m a grown up, and I should be able to make my own decisions, because there is so much conflicting information. China study, paleo, everything in between.
Cassy Joy: Yeah.
Casie: What should I do? What is the deal here?
Cassy Joy: Oh man. Casie, I feel your pain. I don’t know how familiar you are with my story, but my last stop on the diet train before I hopped onto the paleo way of thinking was veganism. I was vegan for almost a year. And I was just like you. It was my last; well, I guess I went there before paleo. But, I had to give it a go. Because there was, what I thought, so much compelling information out there.
Casie: Yes.
Cassy Joy: I had read the China study, and I read how to prevent and reduce heart disease by Dr. Esselstyn. And I started following Rip Esselstyn, who is a firefighter in Austin, Texas, and he runs the engine two diet. Where it’s that huge firefighting house. They do a lot of cooking there. And he got all the firefighters to go vegan. And some of their health markers turned around. And so it was this huge, very compelling argument. And I jumped in, as well. And just like you, I felt worse. I don’t know if maybe I’m putting words into your mouth a little bit.
Casie: No, I did feel worse. Yes.
Cassy Joy: Yeah, I personally felt worse than ever. And it was a disconnect, because I was so convinced that I was doing the right thing, that it took me even longer to kind of have a wakeup call that it wasn’t working for my body. Does that make sense? When you’re so convinced that you’re doing the right thing, that you’re kind of blind to what’s actually presenting itself?
Casie: Yeah. I mean, how could you be doing something harmful? You’re eating plants.
Cassy Joy: Right!
Casie: You’re eating a bunch of vegetables. And everyone’s talking about “I have so much energy. I feel so awesome.” And I just didn’t. I was getting; I mean I bruise easily anyway. But I was bruising. I was exhausted. I was bloated. Someone at work was totally switched. Cold turkey, was on it. She feels awesome and great. And I guess that’s her. But, it wasn’t working for me. It was Forks Over Knives, the documentary that I watched, when they talk about the China study, and turning on and off cancer. And no one wants to think that they’re doing something to their body that would cause it harm, potentially, in the future. So that was kind of the thing that stuck with me for the whole thing.
Well, I should just keep going. Maybe I’ll start to feel better. I’m eating vegetables, I’m eating grains. I’m not eating; dairy was sparing for me. But I just, that was what was in the back of my mind. Is it true, is it not true? And then you start looking to try to find different research. Because like you said, it’s very compelling information that’s in the China study. There was another book that I was reading, called, How Not to Die. And so it goes over the 15 top ways people die. And it’s by a medical doctor. I’m at a loss for his name at this point, but it was all so very compelling. And the whole idea of, you can prevent these things from happening. You can reverse damage you’ve already done was particularly appealing to me. And I was just feeling, like you were saying, totally disconnected. Because I’m supposed to feel awesome and great, and I’m making myself healthy, but I feel miserable.
Cassy Joy: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. So, there’s a lot. Man, let’s unpack this because there’s a lot. There’s a lot we can talk about. So, first and foremost, let’s first address the fact that; I’m just going to say veganism to be on the extreme, but even vegetarianism. And I was assuming most folks are familiar with the difference. But if you’re vegan, then you eat no animal products whatsoever. Whereas a vegetarian, some of them will eat dairy. Some of them will eat eggs, depending. And then, for example, a pescatarian will eat just fish. But a vegan will not eat anything that has to do with an animal. So there’s no dairy, there’s no egg, there’s no honey, for example, because that’s made by an animal. So it’s just plant-based products.
So, I first want to address the fact that, is it vegan or vegetarian that your friend, that you guys are following?
Casie: Well, I’m not doing that anymore.
Cassy Joy: Oh ok, you were.
Casie: Yeah, I had to stop. I gave it time. I just wasn’t feeling the benefits of what all these other people were feeling. But I actually have two friends that were very influential. My friend at work is mostly doing vegetarian. Some dairy here and there. Another friend of mine and her husband, her baby. She’s also a doctor; they’re vegan. So they don’t do any animal products at all.
Cassy Joy: Ok. Got it. So, the reason why that might work for one person, but not for the next is very much to do with your genetic predisposition. Which, it sounds like you have a really good idea of, already. And it just goes down to that; it’s that individualistic, that bioindividuality. That term that you may have come across, rattled around recently. What your constitution, in terms of how you were made. Your ancestry has a lot to go into this. It has a lot also to do with, I’m across some more recent research, the things that your mother ate when you were in the womb. Can actually express certain genes and make you, for example, more or less carb tolerant. It has something to do with your ancestry and the genes in general, but they can also be turned on and off depending on lifestyle factors. So there’s a ton of variables out there. And it is an impossible thing to just succinctly nail down.
So what it comes down to is, what answers and what to listen to? There’s so much compelling information out there on, not just two sides of the equation, but 47 sides. There’s so many different answers out there. At the end of the day, how do you know what to follow? You have to look within. And I don’t mean to sound too woo-woo or cheesy, but you really hold the compass to your ideal nutrition. And what we have to do is get really good at listening to our bodies, and trying to extract nuggets of information. Nuggets of nutrition science. Nuggets of what we think makes sense, and resonates in our mind, for our bodies. Give it a go, and test it out, and pay attention to what does and does not work.
And the Fed and Fit book, I’m talking about how do you design this perfect, ideal nutrition program? Well, who do you work for? Who does that for you? And my line in there was, you’re hired. It’s got to be you. You’re the only person. Nobody knows you like you do. So because you’re such an individual in terms of your genetic constitution and in terms of your previous lifestyle, from even when you were just a tiny little baby fetus. When you were so little. There were things that happened that set you up to be a very unique individual. But nutritionally, you have very, very unique needs. So what works; if veganism and being a vegetarian may work for one person but not the other, that has a lot to do with it. So I just want to address that off the bat.
Secondly, I think this is. Gosh, I was listening to a podcast recently. And this was so well put. And this was one of those obvious, ah-ha moments. Medicine, for example. Nutrition science, for example. It is a practicing science. Which is very different from an actual science. Right? An actual science is, for example, physics. You’re able to look at something, and you’re able to actually test it and see it. You can very succinctly determine the laws of physics. Whereas a practicing science is just that. We’re practicing. We’re trying to figure it out. We’re throwing darts on a board, and sometimes we can’t even see the board. But we’re going to throw something out there and see what sticks.
So when it comes to the world of nutrition, Robb Wolf. I don’t know how familiar you are with his work. And I have quoted this presentation; I’ve probably quoted it a dozen and a half times on this podcast. Because I just think it’s such a good visual. I’m such a sucker for visuals. But he said; this was several years ago. But he was talking about; and I will directly address the China study and all those in a second. But he was talking about how when it comes to optimal nutrition; this idea of nutrition science being a practicing science means that while we’re doing our best to figure out, what is that optimal solution? How are we going to really thread that needle? What we’re doing is we’re throwing darts at a board. And 10, now probably 15 years ago, veganism was what the greatest minds in nutrition science thought, “Yep. This is it. The answer for optimal nutrition is a plant-based diet.” And then time goes on, and we see if that sticks. We practice it. We use this in large subsets of population. Lots of people follow it, like yourself. And it works for some, and then it doesn’t work for a bunch of other folks.
So what are they left to do? They’re left to kind of pick up the pieces that they’ve got and reassess. Go back to the drawing board. Go back to studying nutrition science. And going back to figuring things out. And that’s when ancestral health and ancestral nutrition came up. That idea of rewinding the clock. And let’s eat the way we’re really designed to eat. And that’s where the paleo movement originally came from. And what we’re doing, is even though, if optimal nutrition is at the center of a dartboard. We still have not hit a bullseye. But we’re getting closer.
Veganism, for the most part, is widely considered by the leading nutrition scientists today, not necessarily in the paleo/primal movement, but across the board as having moved a little bit on the outside. A little bit further in is going to be that paleo/primal mark. And a little bit closer to the center is going to be that concept of bioindividuality. So even though paleo/primal is maybe a more, I guess, it’s a solution that makes the most nutrition science sense, according to what we know today. Versus vegetarianism or veganism, it still may not be the bullseye.
So that’s the whole idea of a practicing science. And that’s why there’s so much dang information out there, when you sit down and you Google it. Now the internet has been around for a very long time. So we’re pulling up these very old articles. And it’s difficult. It’s compelling, when you’re listening to these medical doctors talking about how they believe scientifically that veganism is the way to go. So it’s hard to sort through that information. So what I say, going back to what I said before. You really have to make decisions based off of your personal experience. So I would go with that number one. Listen to your body.
And then something I want to touch on when it comes to the anti-inflammatory benefits of a plant-based diet. Ok. So, let’s talk about anti-nutrients for a hot minute. Because I think this is interesting. And this is something that’s kind of missed on the plant-based movement. I was recently traveling with my friend, Diane Sanfilippo. We were up in Vancouver. And she put this so well, that I’m going to borrow it from her. But she said, it was essentially the idea of every single food out there. Everything that could end up on our plate as food from nature has some sort of a defense mechanism. Right? And so when it comes to plants. Or you can think of a cactus.
Casie: Onions.
Cassy Joy: Onions, exactly! It makes your eyes water. Nuts, right? They’re difficult to digest, because we have those phytonutrients. We have those of antinutrients, just to call it blanket across the board. So we’ve got these things that disrupt digestion. They cause gas. They cause some kind of discomfort. When it comes to grains, we have those same kinds of antinutrients available. And white rice, for example, is really just a hack at trying to get as many of those antinutrients out as possible so we’re left with something that’s not going to bother our system as much.
But every single plant matter has some sort of a defense mechanism. And some of them are easy to pull apart. So when you think about cactus, for example. Right? The prickly pears out there. Their defense mechanism, a lot of that is tied up in the actual structure of the; oh my gosh. {laughs} I was going to call them the pokey things. But that’s really going to make me sound smart. In the, gosh. The pokey things. I’m just going to leave it.
Casie: I’m a loss at this point. {laughs}
Cassy Joy: Needles.
Casie: The spikes. The needles.
Cassy Joy: Oh, that’s probably what they’re called. The needles. Ok. So their defense mechanism, most of that in terms of the actual food itself. I don’t know if y’all are familiar with this, but we eat cactus down here, in Texas at least. It’s in the needles. So the actual food itself usually has less antinutrients in it, because the defense mechanism was physical. So for plants that don’t have as much of a physical defense mechanism, they’re going to have a chemical one.
Now, animals have a defense mechanism as well. Right? And what is there defense mechanism?
Casie: For animals?
Cassy Joy: Yeah. It’s the fact that they can get away from you.
Casie: Yeah! They can run. They can…
Cassy Joy: Exactly.
Casie: A number of things.
Cassy Joy: Exactly. Exactly all the different variations across all the different animals. But for the most part, they can move away from you. So the fact that they’re mobile; they have a physical way of defending themselves from being eaten. So what happens is, a lot of the times these, what I would largely consider to be an inflammatory food is one that, just based on my nutrition science research, is one that has a higher concentration of antinutrients in the actual food itself.
So, where do those show up in? Those show up in a lot of plants. Plants are very difficult to digest. They can be very difficult to digest. There are some folks out there that are champions at it, and those are also probably the people who do well on vegan-type lifestyle. But I argue that those folks are the minority. Definitely not the majority. So that’s kind of how I want to talk about antinutrients.
Now, the China study itself, to directly address that. I recommend anybody who has been curious about the China study, or maybe you’ve read it or you’ve heard a bunch of folks talk about it. I would sit down, if you want to jump down an interesting Google rabbit hole, that would be a good one. But essentially the data, to give you a nutshell representation of what happened, is the data set that composed the China study, and all the health claims that came from it, were severely interpreted with a bias.
Casie: OK.
Cassy Joy: So, I think it started. It was kind of like a sweater that just slowly became unraveled. But things started to come apart when there was this data junkie minor, and she just. I’m blanking on her name. But you know, I’ll try to link to the article in the show notes so other folks can find it too. Let me make a note of that; study, debunk. But anyways, what she did, she had no affiliation with being pro or against China study. She just really enjoyed data. So what she did, the China study data is all available to the public. So she jumped in, and she did her own analytics on it. And the correlations that she drew were very different than the ones that were reported in the book.
Casie: Ok.
Cassy Joy: So, it just was really interesting. You kind of have to then think, what is the agenda of some of these studies? Just kind of like there was the recent article that came out about how, I don’t know if you saw it.
Casie: About coconut oil?
Cassy Joy: Yes! About coconut oil
Casie: Yes. {laughs}
Cassy Joy: And for folks who may not be super familiar with that, what was it, USA Today I think is the one who published it. And what they used for credibility was the American Heart Association is giving the recommendation. But what they said is that, “The leading scientists have now said that coconut oil is bad for you.” Because it’s got so much saturated; I’m paraphrasing. But because it’s got so much saturated fat in it, like animal fats, that folks recommend that maybe a better alternative would be vegetable oil.
Casie: Oh, no.
Cassy Joy: And, that was the final claim. And goodness, I had family members texting me this article, so that they could educate me on the latest breaking science. And it was interesting, because I think that what we found very quickly, because folks dug into it, is I would really like to see who funded those studies. And guess who funded them?
Casie: Something having to do with vegetable oil. {laughs}
Cassy Joy: Yep. It was the canola oil industry. And that’s probably because they are directly threatened by the health claims of coconut oil, and they’re trying to let those marketing dollars and those R&D dollars, the lines between the two got a little fuzzy. So, what it does is it causes you to stop and think. What is the agenda behind this claim? Right? Because everybody’s got something out there that they are trying to push. So who is sponsoring it? Who is behind this? And the China study has really turned out to be this big conspiracy. And I don’t know that I ever really found a distinct answer on it. But what it does, it gives you a healthy cause to pause and question where these claims actually coming from.
So, anyways. That’s kind of something to think about. China study, I would say at this point is outdated. In terms of nutrition science.
Casie: Ok. So you’re going to link to that article?
Cassy Joy: Yeah, I can.
Casie: So I can read it.
Cassy Joy: I’ll see if I can find it for sure.
Casie: And is there; you had mentioned Robb Wolf. Would I read his first book, the most recent book? Because I like to read about research and all kind of stuff like that. So, not like an anti-China Study. But which one of his books would be best that goes into the research kind of behind the nutrition benefits of the paleo template.
Cassy Joy: Yeah. I would say, I think his first book, The Paleo Solution, is a really great stop. But it’s, again, at this point, a little old. So I would go for Wired to Eat, his most recent publication. And he does a wonderful job. He actually came on the show, if you’re interested in pulling up that episode. And you can hear my conversation with him. But that would be a good stop. And I don’t know if they’ve announced it yet, but word on the street is that there’s a Paleo Solution second edition coming out at some point, where he may be updating some things. But Wired to Eat has got a lot of really good information in there. It’s a slightly different topic, but it’ll give you some research based presentation of the facts. And again, these are practicing facts, right. It’s a practicing science.
Casie: Practicing science.
Cassy Joy: Which is something that Robb, to his credit, has always done a really good job of. Is acknowledging that it’s a practice. And I respect that. And I think that if we’re going to get advice from anybody, if we’re looking for who to trust when it comes to nutrition advice, I think we need to trust people who don’t make declarative, dogmatic claims on nutrition facts.
Casie: Yeah. And I don’t want to live that way either. I don’t want to be like, I’m a vegan. Or, I’m paleo. I feel like there’s a whole spectrum of things in between, and I’m a living and breathing person that can live in that spectrum. And what I appreciate about both, because years ago when I had adopted the more paleo template, I read a lot of blogs and books and things like that. And then same thing when I was exploring the plant based. I did a lot of reading. I drive a little bit of distance to work, so I would listen to the audio books. And what I appreciated about; I know there’s a whole bunch of different people in between, but those two movement in particular, the message is, you really shouldn’t be trusting the American Heart Association, or a lot of traditional medicine is failing people. So I appreciate that both camps kind of come together in that one position, where they’re like, these are not the people to trust. But that’s kind of what led me to e-mail you, was, who do you trust?
Cassy Joy: I know. It’s tough. I would say, I think that; now, this is a little woo-woo. But you’re going to be drawn to things, when it comes to information. Just like we’re drawn to certain foods, there’s a certain level of intuition that specifically speaks to you and what you need. And so when you are drawn to something is of a curiosity to you when it comes nutrition science, if you have a natural curiosity towards maybe incorporating more plants, maybe the lesson here isn’t necessarily plant based is out, but something is telling me on a very deep level that I need to make a concentrated effort to have a bunch of plant matter on my plate show up. And to make that more digestion friendly. Maybe I just need to cook it. And that’s something I find a lot with folks. Is if we denature some of those proteins through cooking and things like that, they can be easier to digest.
But yeah, who to trust, it really comes; it’s a really tough question to answer. And it comes down to who you personally are drawn to, who speaks to you. I think that a good acid test is to see if they are humble in the sense that they admit that this is a practicing science, and they’re doing their best, and they’re constantly going to try to bring you relevant information as they come across it. I would look to people who have their own personal experiences. Because I think that’s important. If they’re not necessarily practicing what they’re talking about, and they’re just using it in theory, that a totally different game. So I would say, for who to trust; I mean obviously the names that I’ve uttered so far are folks who I personally trust. But I would look to the people who are actually practicing what they preach. I would look to people who are very humble in the fact that they may not have all the answers. And I would look for people who are not afraid to speak to the other side. I would look to people who would use the phrase of bioindividuality, because I think that you’re probably going to get a more well-rounded answer from those folks. You’re going to get the people who will say, it’s not to deny that being a vegan works for some people is asinine.
Casie: Yeah! Because people are living and their thriving and they’re running ultra-marathons.
Cassy Joy: Exactly. Exactly.
Casie: Clearly, they’re doing something that works for them.
Cassy Joy: They’re doing something that works for them. Exactly. Now, we don’t know what their blood work looks like. We don’t know what the end of their; the longevity and all these things look like for them. But if it works for them, then it works for them, as far as we know. According to the data that we have, it works for them. And so I think that to deny that and to say that they’re wrong, or they have something, that they’re missing something or they have some sort of sneaky disease that’s going to creep up, I think shows some closed minded, dogmatic perspective. Just like the coconut oil article, right? To vilify a single nutrient like that was absurd. To vilify this national product. Granted, with all things, I think people who are eating coconut oil by the spoonful every day because they think that it’s a health boost. And there are folks I know who do that. That might have been a really good eye-opening article for them. If they’re only getting their science from major media. But for the most part, I think that people understand that they can kind of pave their own way.
Casie: You actually brought something up that was the last part of my email. I try to go every year to get my blood work done. Like a wellness visit every year. And mine is this week. So I didn’t know, aside from the regular panel that the doctor just runs if there was anything that should be including in my blood work so that if I were go back next year. Like I said, the doctor has always marked my cholesterol as being high, since I was in my early twenties. So I try to get it checked every year. Is there anything else that I should have; I don’t know if they’re checking for vitamin deficiencies. Anything that I should include in the blood work, since I’m going to be going this week. Because I like the idea that I can see my profile, and see if dieting, proper nutrition, sleep, hydration, exercise would have an impact on those numbers.
Cassy Joy: Yeah. Yeah. It’s really interesting. So there’s a couple different schools. I’m glad you reminded me, because I had forgotten about that. For the most part, I think that just a general blood panel is really good. They’ll probably run a CBC, and a CMP, a complete blood; oh gosh. You know, I used to work in a medical office, and I used to be able to rattle these names off all the time. Comprehensive metabolic panel I think is the CMP, and then complete blood comparison? Gosh. Someone who is an MA or a nurse is going to know. But those two are probably usually standard. I would definitely check vitamin D levels. I would check B12. They’re probably going to do, of course, a lipid panel on you. And all of that good stuff. Test your blood sugar. Those are usually probably standard in your annual exam.
So I would definitely ask for the vitamins. I think vitamin B12 and vitamin D are two that are usually add-ons. But for the most part, it brings up an interesting point. Now, if you’re interested in doing an allergen profile, that’s kind of a different conversation. And you might have to go to a different physician for that. But you can ask your doctor. Because there’s a bunch of different ones out there, and you can see if there’s one that they do typically like to order. And if there isn’t, if they can recommend you to an allergist or a naturopath or somebody in town that can order one for you. But that’s where they would then take your blood and they would see what kind of antigens you have floating around in your body right now that might be triggers for certain foods.
Now that’s an interesting deal in and of itself, because usually you will only have an antigen floating around in your body if you have consumed that food in the last two weeks. I think it’s a two- week window before you take the test. So, bananas might show up really high if you’re eating a banana every morning. And for me, for example, I don’t eat wheat gluten anymore because I know it doesn’t do well for me. So if I were to take that test, I would probably have zero antibodies right now for gluten. It would show me as nonreactive, because I haven’t consumed it. So those are just kind of things to be aware of when it comes to those tests.
Now, an interesting thing I want to talk about with cholesterol. And you may or may not know this, but genetically we can be predisposed to have high cholesterol. And there are people walking around with very high cholesterol, very high cholesterol, that are perfectly healthy. Now, this is a conversation between you and your doctor. And I’m not trying to impose on that relationship. I’m not a medical doctor. But it’s important to know that. For example, my mother is one of those people who has, she just has higher cholesterol. Higher. She’s not up to 450 walking around, like I know some people do. And there are people, obviously those are outliers on the spectrum, but there are people out there with 400 plus, I believe it’s 400-plus cholesterol that I’ve seen in that article I read, with zero buildup in their arteries.
Anyway. Just something to be aware of. There are some people; again, this comes down to your bioindividuality. You may just be predisposed to have high cholesterol, and it may be fine. You may be able to handle it. So I would just kind of keep that in mind. I would look to your other markers, see healthy you are in the other spectrum of things. Talk to your doctor, of course. And if you’re feeling good, that can be a pretty good indication. And if you’re interested, you’re really young, so I don’t know if they would ever even humor this idea, but some sort of a calcium coronary scan to see if there is any sort of plaque deposit. And that’s when, if there’s a plaque deposit and you have high cholesterol, you know, the two of those related shows that the high cholesterol is problematic. But the people who have no buildup, and have very, very high cholesterol, usually of advanced age. Because they’ve been around long enough for that to actually happen. That’s when they become that really neat success story of, they’re just made that way.
Casie: I mean, that’s why when I had gotten it before. When you get your blood work back, they email it to you know. {laughs} It’s like all the lab work you can just get. It used to be the doctor calls you, but now you get an e-mail, and you can log into your account, and you can look at it. And then the doctor calls you and tells you, whenever, but my cholesterol came up bolded on there high. And I have a family history on both sides of cardiac disease. My father had a triple bypass a year ago. His brother passed away from a massive heart attack. Both sides strokes. So it’s very sensitive to me. Like you said, I don’t know if there’s a correlation between the cholesterol and coronary plaque buildup, but it’s definitely something. It’s a sensitive sport for me, just because I’m trying to prevent a lot of the diseases that people in my family have in the later stages of their lives. From 60 on is when this stuff would start popping up. And though I’m many years away from that, I’m trying to do what’s in my best interest now to try to prevent that similar situations for myself.
Cassy Joy: That’s very smart. And this is something that I’m sure you’re well aware of, but for a very large part, cholesterol that we consume isn’t necessarily the cholesterol that our body makes that shows on those panels. And the closest correlation to that is inflammation. So I think you’re on the right track, Casie, when it comes to pursuing anti-inflammatory foods, making sure that you are feeling your best, because that’s going to be a really good indication of how your body is feeling overall. What’s your inflammation level overall? And constantly being aware of that, right? Getting quality sleep. Quality rest. Taking in lots of water. All those lifestyle markers. Eating really anti-inflammatory foods. Eating grass-fed animals, or pastured poultry. Things like that, that’s going to have a huge impact on overall inflammation. Avoiding foods that maybe are problematic to you. And maybe that is a good reason to get the allergy profile. But just to see kind of what foods aggravate you and try to avoid those. It really is about keeping inflammation down at the end of the day.
So, I think you’re on the right path. And then of course, some sort of a fitness regimen that works well for you that’s not too stressful on the body. But I think you’re so on the right track.
Casie: Ok. Well, that makes me feel good.
Cassy Joy: Good!
Casie: I’m just like everybody else. I’m just trying to do the best that I can with the information. And you had mentioned it a little bit earlier. But I had gone to Google the China study, something to refute it, and it was like, everything was years ago, and it might not seem like 2015 is long ago. But it’s 2017, and at this time, information moves so quickly. Science is moving quickly. And I just wanted something that was kind of more up to date that I could look at and make the best informed decision that I can for myself.
Cassy Joy: Yeah. I think that’s great. You’re a smart cookie, Casie. And I think that if you just stay vigilant to sniffing out who to trust, and sniffing out what resonates with you as a credible source, and credible information. And then you take that and you go and do a test run. And you remember that your body knows better than the books know you. You’re going to find the right mix.
Casie: Ok.
Cassy Joy: {laughs} Ok?
Casie: {laughs} Yes. I just got your book for the kindle. And I’m great; I’m really enjoying it. I like that you’re happy and you’re approachable, and it’s not like, “You have to do these things at this time. And if you don’t you’re a failure.” So I definitely appreciate that. So I’ll be recommending it to people who might be coming to me for information.
Cassy Joy: Aww.
Casie: I don’t know who would. But.
Cassy Joy: I bet they will. That’s so sweet of you. Thank you. I’m honored.
Casie: Alright.
Cassy Joy: Well, thank you so much, Casie, for coming on the show today. This has been a lot of fun. I hope it was of value to you. And like you said, I hope it offered you some good comfort. Take that and run with it. You’re on the right track.
Casie: Alright. Thank you so much!
Cassy Joy: Of course. And to all the listeners, thank you so much for dialing in again this week. As always, you can find a complete transcript of today’s show over at www.FedandFit.com. And if you enjoy the show, it means the world to me when you go too iTunes and you leave a review over there. It really helps get the show in front of other folks in the future. Thanks everybody for joining us. We’ll be back again next week.
