#66 – Chris and Miriam Bair – Keto Chow and Electrolytes
Meet Chris and Miriam
Miriam and Chris Bair started Keto Chow in 2015 as a way to get great tasting, simple, and complete meals to make it easier to succeed with keto. They also have a line of concentrated electrolytes: “Fasting Drops” and “Mag Drops” that have no flavor, no sweetener, just pure electrolytes. Their most recent venture is introducing a keto/low carb conference in their own community: Keto Salt Lake. Miriam and Chris are married with several sets of twins, and some backyard chickens.
ABOUT CHRIS AND MIRIAM
Miriam:
We have a company that we made
It’s called Keto Chow
It is a meal replacement shake with all the nutrients, vitamins, minerals you need to replace one of your meal
You add your own fat to it
You can do it however you want for your body
Chris:
We have been around since 2015
We started to go big in 2016
And I quit my day job in 2018
It has been very interesting
Way back in 2014, I wanted to lose weight
And there was this movement for a nutritionally complete meal replacement shake and making your own recipes and I got into that, but it was high in carbohydrate
I did that for 9 months, lost 12 lbs., but gained it all back
I heard about this Keto thing and I found another recipe for a nutritionally meal replacement, mix it up, jump right in and got Keto flu really bad
Turns out, the guy who made that recipe did not know anything about Keto and just knew that it’s high fat and made this recipe and just threw it out there
So, I found a different recipe, made my own, started experimenting and came up with I thought was a really good tasting shake and people kept asking to try it
And so, we put it up for sale in our site and there were 3 or 4 orders a day
It started to get pretty nuts and Miriam was working for one of our neighbors doing craft stuff
I convinced her that it would probably be better if she’ll help me with Keto Chow instead
She quit that job and started helping me out
She was doing the shipping and I was doing the mixing. It just exploded from there
I am an engineer and I was looking for something to fill a need that I had which is, I am accessibly lazy and I wanted to do Keto and not have to worry Keto flu again
So, that first year, I lost about 60 lbs.
At that point, Miriam was doing Whole30, and she had pretty good success with that
Nowadays, we pretty much make Keto food in our house
We don’t force our kids to eat Keto, but we do have 2 daughters who have chosen to do Keto
They are really strict and they make their own lunch
Miriam:
I did think it was restricted when I started
I started with my 2 neighbors
We were swapping some dinners and it made it a little easier
I think when you have somebody on your team, you have accountability as well as encouragement
It was hard because there was no dairy, but because there was fruit, I felt like I was not going to die
I really think it was a natural way to get to Keto
If I did not do whole 30 first, I probably would have struggled more with Keto
We heard Keto through our son’s neurologist because he was having seizures at that time and every medicine he tried would not stop the seizures
And they gave us another medicine to try and told us that if it does not work, they will recommend the Ketogenic diet
We looked it up to know what it was and I was like, how can a child live like this
I did not understand how many things he could have
I was just overwhelmed
The more we learn about it, it just makes sense
There has been ups and downs
I think, when you first start you are super strict, and after a while, you kind of let thing slip in
Even if it’s not carbs, too many Keto treats will make you gain weight
Sometimes, when you lose weight, your metabolism changes
When you hit a stall, you kind of have to try something different to get your body restarted again
We got a couple new products
We have 2 different electrolyte supplements
One is called, Fasting Drops
Chris:
We are actually changing the name of that to Electrolyte Drops
People think it’s just for fasting, but it works great with fasting
It’s sodium, magnesium and potassium
It’s concentrated and you just put it in any kind of liquid even on your food
It just tastes kind of salty
It has no sweetener or flavor, just the minerals
It comes in a little bottle or big bottle and the reason for that is that, the lid of the little bottle is what you can use for measuring
If you fill up the entire lid, that’s half a teaspoon, which is a serving size
That has 125mg of Sodium, 44mg of Magnesium, 130mg of Potassium and 390mg of Chloride
It’s purified from the water of the Great Salt Lake
This product is a lot like using pink Himalayan salt, except it does not taste like dirt and it does not leave sand at the bottom of your glass
All of the magnesium and everything in it is highly bio available
If I am doing a long fast and if I am using diet soda or anything that has flavor in it, for me personally, that triggers hunger
When I do a fast, I just want the electrolytes without anything else
Most people I talk to have a similar reaction
I like not to raise my insulin
Most of the product that we have at Keto Chow are, “Christ wanted something so he made something”
The Magnesium that we have was, “Miriam told Chris I want this, you are going to get it”
When your magnesium is not as high as it should be, you tend to get cramps
And Miriam wanted that magnesium supplement and that’s what that’s what the Mag drops like
The Mag Drops, for the most part, it is just magnesium
I personally need more magnesium than most people, it runs in my family
Even though Keto Chow is designed nutritionally complete for most people, I still have to supplement with magnesium
If I don’t supplement magnesium, I would get really bad cramps in my quadriceps
And sometimes, I even get cramps in my abdominal muscles
The magnesium chloride is already dissolve in water, so it’s all going to be absorber
Some of the forms of magnesium like magnesium citrate, has some laxative effects
There is a warning on the Mag Drops not to take full days dose because you can have laxative effects
The very best one is magnesium chloride, then you have magnesium malate and glycinate and magnesium citrate
The worst one is magnesium oxide
Epsom salt which is magnesium sulfate, you don’t take it internally, but it makes a fantastic bath
We finally decided to bite the bullet and we are doing Keto conference locally
That’s coming up in April
Miriam wanted to do something for the New Year, and it was between working out on a treadmill or lifting weights
My preference is lifting weights, but the problem is the time that we have to do that is in the morning when we are trying to get the kids off the school
We finally ended up trying to do p90
It is just a 90-day program
We started it on the 31stand planning to do it for the next 90 days
Miriam:
Every time you eat anything even eggs or anything that is small, you’re still going to have a glucose respond
It’s not going to be a huge spike if it’s not a carb
If you keep eating and eating, you are going to have a glucose and insulin response
And so, if you keep your window shorter, you are going to be able to utilize your fat storage if you are losing weight
With ketones, you are going to be much more efficient because you are not having that glucose or insulin response
Your brain just has this cognitive function, because your brain is so clear when you are fasting
I just love the way I feel when I am fasting
I haven’t done a lot of 36-hour fast
It is interesting how people are sensitive with dairy
I never really have a problem with dairy, but when I did the Whole30 and cut dairy out, it was a lot easier to lose weight
It’s just so interesting how dairy affects different people
If you cut it out, it helps for weight loss for sure
Chris:
Personally, I am doing a 100 day of Keto Chow only
In the first part, I was just trying to lose weight to win a City contest for weight loss
When I get down to the 2ndportion, I am going to do with just Keto Chow with different fat on it
For about 4 weeks, I am going to be doing avocado oil with some MCT, with no dairy
The 36-hour fasting is because of Megan Ramos
She said it tend to give people best results
Even people that’s not on Keto can see a lot of positive benefits of the Ketogenic diet just because they are fasting for 46 hours. 2 or 3 times a week
Miriam:
We are really excited about the Keto conference we are having
We just contacted a bunch of people that we heard speak in other conferences
And I was just really impress that so many people want to do it
We are excited to have some Utah people over and some other people
And the people that are coming to speak are going to give us the real knowledge to help people to improve their lives
If they can come and listen to us, and give Keto a chance and it’s going to help them become healthier, then it’s totally worth the work to me
Chris:
We have been running a Keto meet-up here in Utah for about a year now
Just trying to grow the community
We have people who are signing up to attend the Keto conference
A bunch of speakers comes from different parts of United States
Locally, we have Dr. Ben Bikman, Dr. Peter Ballerstedt, who taught us that if you want to save the planet, we need to have more cows
Amy Berger from Tuit Nutrtion will be coming, and probably will talk about Alzheimer’s
We got Dr. Adam Nally, Ivor Cummins, Brian Williamson – The Ketovangelist, Dr. Ken Berry and we have some other people that says they might be coming