#134 Tracee Talks – Q&A: health, food and lifestyle

Today we’re doing something fun. It’s just a little Q&A from our listeners and Facebook followers and things like that. 

So, the big question I’m getting like crazy is; what is in my green smoothie?

What I do is, I take four cups of coconut milk, I like this so delicious brand and I throw it in my blender with add two teaspoons of turmeric, a teaspoon of cinnamon, a teaspoon of cardamom, about a half a quarter teaspoon of black pepper, about 10 drops of stevia. If you like things sweet you might want to do a little bit more. I do it less because I don’t love it sweet. Then, I add a teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1/2 a teaspoon of ground cloves, and a half a teaspoon of ground ginger. 

You make that as your base and then the protein I use is a really clean protein. It’s called build and it has three ingredients. it has grass-fed beef protein, cocoa powder, and stevia and that is it.

I used 12 ounces of the coconut milk, golden milk mixture in the blender and a scoop of my protein powder, and then a big huge handful of spinach or some other sort of mixed greens and I just wore it up like crazy. 

it is so good for you. It is anti-inflammatory because you have turmeric and ginger. It is immune-boosting and it’s fat-burning. It’s an amazing way to break your fast. 

I usually have it at around noon time for lunch and it is delicious.

Another question was about blood pressure. 

Well, I’m gonna honestly say that I am not a doctor so I’m not going to give medical advice but one of my clients brought her blood pressure down to normal after working with me and dropping about 30 pounds and so I told her to go to your doctor and have him release you off the blood pressure medication because that is not something to mess with. 

But I will tell you that stress is a huge player in blood pressure so find ways to decrease stress such as exercising, walking outside, doing deep breathing, meditation, yoga – all those softening type activities so that you can decrease your stress and therefore decrease your blood pressure. 

Another question came in about the Reboot Pack.

So, I ordered something called a reboot. It is a 60-hour modified fast where you drink pure ketones in the form of a delicious treat-type beverage, also in bone broth and it comes with supplements and it’s a supported 60-hour little modified fast. 

Another listener said, how do you overcome a stall when the scale refuses to move? 

I do have something called the Plateau Busters guide. There are different things you can do.

Number one is an egg fast. Number two is this Protein Sparing Modified Fast. Number three is a Fat Fast or you can just do a water fast. 

You can join us in the 60-hour reboot. All of those will work differently and everybody’s body’s different, it just depends on what you prefer. 

Another question that came in is how to be motivated. 

This is an easy one. Go to Walmart! 

Go and sit and look at all of the people walking around. Do they move with energy? Do they appear healthy? Do you want to age in sickness like so many people that you see walking around? 

So many people are popping pills for symptoms instead of addressing the root cause and healing a healthy body or creating a healthy body. 

You have a choice and it’s never too late to do a complete 180 and change the trajectory of your health. It is a lifestyle change, it is not some quick fix that’s going to produce a miracle. You have to do the work, but if you don’t, you’re gonna go down that other path – you’re going to end up popping pills for decades, having no energy, having aches and pains, and being miserable. Is that the way you want to spend the two or three decades of your life? I hope the answer is no. 

If you want to age healthier and stronger, you can! If you want to age sicker and weaker, you can but you need to decide and you just draw a line on the sand and step right over it then come to me and I’ll help you change this trajectory.

How to stay consistent? 

Create a routine. You can use your Google Calendar and map it out every day. 

Essentially, what I do most days is, I get up at a quarter to six, I go and drink a 16-ounce glass of water, make my coffee, sit down and read my ten pages of my little inspirational reading. 

Then, I go and I work out for an hour from 7 am to 8 am then I do meditation at 8 am and then I shower and get ready for the day so that I’m ready to hit it by 9 am.

So, schedule your priorities every day. That is how you stay consistent. 

Create an appointment for yourself just like you would to a doctor’s appointment or a dentist appointment or how about a hair appointment. 

How to exercise that the gym is closed?

hopefully, your gym is opening but there are some things you can do.

Number one you can get a TRX. Those are really awesome. They are really good for strength training. They are a strap that you can hang in a doorway and you can modify them for a beginner all the way up to an advanced. 

You can get dumbbells too. It can be a power block or they can be the Nordic ones, I think that are adjustable dumbbells. 

Ours goes from five pounds all the way up to eighty-five pounds or something and you just use this pin and you can adjust them accordingly.

Another thing is, just go outside. I recently started mountain biking again I’m super stoked! I’m going tonight with my husband and I can’t wait. I love mountain biking, it’s super fun and super challenging. 

Or you can go hiking or walking. Getting outside and getting fresh air is the best.

Somebody else wrote and said she was still struggling with how things like bacon can be good for me as I have heard it is high in carcinogens. 

I want to address that my version of healthy keto is, I use bacon sparingly. I don’t sit and eat a whole tray of it but there’s a lot of people that do and if you get healthier bacon then it’s better. Just like a burger, right? I always like the grass-fed burgers that are just

what I prefer because I know it’s healthier for my body and I don’t mind eating at least one burger a week if not – I adore them actually. 

And because grass-fed meat eats grass, it’s healthier beef but the bacon you can get I think the brand is Applegate but you can get like healthier bacon uncured nitrate-free –  you know the pasture-raised so then that would not be high in carcinogens. 

I’m actually interviewing a doctor tomorrow who is a carnivore and that’s a big movement and so he’s the actual MD and he’s eating carnivore so I’m sure he checks his blood work regularly and it’s got to be really really good. 

One of my clients just got her blood work back after working with me for four months and her cholesterol went down by 50 points. She was able to get off her thyroid medication and her all her bioidentical hormones. She had to go through a little bit of withdrawal

periods for I’m gonna guess, maybe a month but now she has more energy than she did when she was on all of those supplements or the bioidenticals and the thyroid stuff. 

Somebody said that they have a hard time eating until lunch because they played two hours of tennis in the morning.

I know somebody who runs marathons without any food in her stomach because when you are burning ketones for energy. Even a lean athlete has like 40,000 calories of stored fuel so you don’t need food in your tummy to produce energy because you have to metabolize that anyhow, but if you have the ketones there, they burn cleaner anyway so you can do it. 

Tour de France winner two years ago, he was a ketogenic athlete and it actually gives you better performance because you’re not gonna have the high highs and the low lows of the glucose, you can only store about a thousand to 1,200 (I think) calories of glucose on your body before you hit the wall.

Then, you need to refuel. When you have the ketones, you don’t need to do that because it stays the same. You have all the stores and just says, “oh I need some fuel so I’m gonna take this little fat here and this little fat there.” And next thing you know you’re fine, you’ve done your tennis and you’ve been fat-burning the whole time.

Fresh fruit.

This is a really cool story.

So, the other day we harvested apricots. I live on a farm with 80 fruit trees and so I allow myself some fresh fruit when we harvest and not a lot but just like, I’ll take a day and I’ll say today is my apricot day. We just picked them and I’m gonna eat them. 

So, the other day, I ate five apricots that I thought I’m gonna be out of ketosis. When I checked my ketone levels in the morning, it was 1.0. I never got out and that is called metabolic flexibility. So, what happened to my body since it’s keto-adapted, it prefers burning ketones. 

When I have a shot of glucose in my body, it will burn really quickly, and then it goes right back into fat-burning mode. And, so it did not affect anything. 

The goal is to develop metabolic flexibility so that if you want fresh fruit once a week or whatever, your body can go straight back in. However, if you do it in the beginning, you’re just gonna create confusion and your body’s gonna be like, “What the heck are you trying to do to me, woman?” 

So you want to actually get adapted and then you can weave fruit into your daily or

weekly life. But as long as you don’t go way over your macros.

My favorite is blackberries. But since we grow stone fruit like peaches and nectarines and apricots and plums, I do have those at least once a year each fruit so you can do it too. 

How to stop snacking? 

This is how: You have enough food at your meal times that your body’s satisfied. Snacking is oftentimes from boredom, loneliness, stress other reasons other than true hunger because if you eat a quality meal, you will not be hungry in between.

And if you keep your eating window short like 6 hours then, if you eat your lunch you can definitely go to dinner without it. So if you’re doing 12 to 6 make sure that your meals are hearty enough with enough fat.

The reason oftentimes people are hungry is because they don’t have enough fat in their meals. 

I saw somebody post a photo who’s in one of my challenges and it seriously looked like a shredded boneless skinless chicken breast and like plain steamed vegetables, I’m like, that’s not going to last with you, you need fat to be satiated.

Somebody asked how to stop cravings. 

Well, I’ll tell ya! It does happen naturally. The more you stay away from it, the more you want it. I believe as a country, we need to change our palette that people have too much of a sweet craving palette and oftentimes it’s also because they want pleasure. 

You can transition that slowly by making healthy fat bombs and having just a little bit of it.

Some of my clients will do Lily’s dark chocolate and they will have a third of a bar in between like, after dinner or something with a cup of caramel yogi hot tea and collagen powder that is really good because then that’s like an evening beverage that actually prepares you for sleep and it’s a good ritual and it will not spike your blood sugar. 

How can I do Keto if I am on medication?

I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know of any medication that is contraindicated to the ketogenic lifestyle, that would be a question for your doctor. 

When is the best time to do OMAD? 

My favorite time to do OMAD is when I’m traveling and when I go to New York to visit my son. It is so fun because he loves to take me to all these amazing restaurants, so what I do is, I’ll have my coffees in the morning and then I just don’t eat all day so I can really really really enjoy the dining out experience. 

But you can also do OMAD. Just skip breakfast and lunch and just eat a healthy dinner and that would be a good OMAD to do BUT PLEASE don’t do it all the time. Oftentimes, if you do OMAD all the time you’re not getting enough protein and I think it’s good to mix it up that way, you’re tricking your metabolism. 

When to take your vitamins and supplements? 

With your meals. That way, your body thinks it’s actually food and it will metabolize it better. 

How often should you do intermittent fasting? 

Here’s the thing, you want to listen to your body and be mindful. Nobody ever got fat because they were mindfully eating it’s because they mindlessly eat. 

So, retrain your body and listen to when it’s telling you. It needs fuel and that’s like physical fuel, not mental fuel. Pick it actually according to your lifestyle.

The trick here is to listen to your body because it is smarter than we are and will tell you when it needs fuel.

Can I lose weight without going to the gym? 

YES! One of my clients barely worked out because she had such a bad back at first but she lost over 30 pounds in 90 days just with diet alone and then she was able to fix her back by going to a chiropractor and I think she’s now down about 50 pounds which is pretty awesome. 

Is menopause making me fat? 

Here’s the thing, it changes your body because now it becomes a whole thing about hormones and when I do my Lean Lady Challenges, I talk about hormones because there’s so many. 

There’s, of course, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone but then there’s also leptin and ghrelin, insulin, cortisol, oxytocin, glucagon…but it’s all about hormone balancing and you know you can eat ten thousand calories of spinach or ten thousand calories of candy. do you think that that’s gonna have a different metabolic effect on your body? Absolutely!

We’re also talking about inflammation and food sensitivities because as we age we become more sensitive to foods. It’s just the way it is and we want to work on healing our gut so we can make that little problem disappear.

I really like VIOME because they have a great test. You can go viome.com/heg 

I have my clients do that all the time because it will identify your superfoods, your avoid

foods, your limit foods and then your enjoy foods. 

It also recommends supplements based on your own gut microbiome. 

How do I have a healthy lifestyle my work takes all of my time? 

I always say that we live in busy land and you still could do it because whether your work takes your time or not, you still got to eat. So, you can either choose to eat something healthy or something not healthy. 

You can also move. All you need is 20 minutes a day in the morning to kick-start that metabolism and you don’t need to kill yourself in the gym. There’s the law of diminishing returns and if you just do a little bit, you will actually have really good results.

Also, if you’re that busy at work, please incorporate some stress management techniques like deep breathing, tapping, meditation, just schedule in some quiet time for yourself. 

Can I do Keto if I am diabetic? 

Yes! you can do it if you’re diabetic. One of my clients went from 6.8 to 5.4 A1C ninety days. She was type two diabetic, obviously and she did keto and intermittent fasting. 

If you’re type one diabetic, please consult with your doctor. 

How to do a meal plan? 

I do meal planning for my clients with certain software that I get them programmed but

you could do like calculate your macros, focus on getting your protein in, keep it simple, have a big salad for lunch and roasted vegetables, and protein for dinner. 

I always skip breakfast. So that is how I do a meal plan.

How to stop binge eating? 

What we need to do is find the reason for your binge eating. What is the feeling you are trying to either avoid, a feeling that you’re seeking? Maybe you’re stressed, maybe you’re bored, maybe you’re lonely, maybe you’re angry, maybe you’re tired. 

Figure out what it is that’s triggering the binge and then do something else instead that has nothing to do with food.

If you’re tired go to bed, get some rest, take a nap. If you’re lonely, call a friend, go for a walk, go meet friends for coffee, go on a hike a or socialize. 

Find a way to get social because that is so important. I see people that are older that are really social and they age so much healthier than the people who are not social. 

What is the best exercise if you have arthritis?

One, you want to change your diet so you can decrease inflammation in your body, but for the best exercise for arthritis would be walking. It is super good for you. You want to move so your joints will stiffen up the more you sit than if you keep on moving. 

TRX is really great for arthritis because you’re just doing really nice smooth movements and engaging your core the whole time and you can gradually change the resistance to make it easier.

Can I eat chocolate on keto? 

Yes! Eat Lily’s dark chocolate – that is delicious. 

How to drink alcohol and still lose weight? is it possible?

Yes! Drink SmartVine Wines, because their wine is super clean and it’s lower sugar lower

alcohol it actually has turmeric, chicory, resveratrol, all good stuff in it and it won’t spike your blood sugar and it’s really delicious. 

Cortisol and fix your sleep. 

The best way to fix your sleep is you want a cold dark room and you do not want your eyes exposed to blue light a couple of hours before bed because it shuts off your melatonin production. 

I have a chili pad that I love and it is a game-changer. 

Is saturated fat bad for you? 

Absolutely not. If you want to hear more about it, listen to next week’s podcast with Dr. Ken Berry.

How much protein do we need? 

It depends on how much you’re exercising. If you’re lifting weights a lot you need a little bit more and if you’re not in ketosis, you want a little less. If you’re keto-adapted, then you want a little more.

What is the better measure of progress? 

My favorite measures of progress are the way your clothes fit, the way you look in pictures, taking measurements because the scale only tells such a small part of the story.

Also, do the pinch test. If you can grab a handful of belly fat then you need to start.

Your goal is not about the number on the scale and that’s why I wrote my book No Fricken Weigh because it’s not about the number on the scale.

What is the best exercise for fat burning? 

“You cannot outrun your fork.” 

So the best exercise for fat burning is 10 SETS OF STOP EATING SO MUCH JUNK and after that, it’s strength training because the more muscle you have on your, body the more 

The whole old school low-intensity steady-state fat-burning state is not actually the best, it’s more of a HIIT.

When I was teaching at the gym, I would say, “Even if you just did ten minutes of like a Tabata, that is better than doing an hour of “fat-burning”

How to control blood sugar?

Don’t spike it to begin with. 

If you eat an apple or a cupcake or a potato or some rice, your blood sugar spikes.

The best way to control is to eat more fat and keep your blood sugar steady or stable. 

How to gain muscle? 

The first thing you need to do is lift heavy stuff. You want to break down the muscle fibers, you want to stress. So, little fibers will break down and then what happens, you eat protein and the amino acids come back through and they repair that muscle and then it gets stronger and it gets bigger. 

I want to say I don’t think I’m super big and I have plenty of muscle in my body because I’m strong. So you don’t have to be beefy like a bodybuilder to have quality muscle.

There’s a whole science behind getting bodybuilder fit alright and it’s called hypertrophy. I have a training for that, but that’s not my goal because I want my blouses to fit me so I don’t want to be super like buffed and big. I just want to be strong and fit  but you can do

it however you want but the best way is to lift heavy stuff and eat high-quality protein and eat enough of it so that you actually can repair your muscle.

LINKS:

Download the Plateau Blusters HERE.

Listen to Christine Fitzgerald of SmartVine Wine interview and check out their website here: SmartVine Wine

I also interviewed Tara Youngblood of ChiliTechnology and use these promo codes to get discounts:

FOR CHILIPAD, USE → TRACEE25 to save 25% off
FOR OOLER, USE → TRACEE15 to save 15%off

Do you want to join my Free 5-Day Lean Lady Challenge? GO HERE

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