#90 Krishna Kaliannan – Healed Type 1 Diabetes and Epilepsy with a Ketogenic Diet

Meet Krishna:

Krishna Kaliannan is the Founder and CEO of Catalina Crunch, a Keto-Friendly Cereal in Delicious Dark Chocolate and Cinnamon Toast.

Krishna started Catalina Crunch because he believed it shouldn’t be so darn hard to eat Keto and have fun doing it! As a Type-1 Diabetic and Epileptic, Keto has helped Krishna both manage his diabetes and eliminate seizures.

So Krishna is trying to spread Keto as far and wide as possible so folks all over can experience the benefits.

Show Notes:

ABOUT KRISHNA

• I am the founder of Catalina Crunch
• We are a keto-friendly cereal in 2 flavors: dark chocolate and cinnamon toast
• My keto story and how I got interested in keto started about 10 years ago
• I was 17 at that time, a senior in high school and getting ready for my freshman in college, and I got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes
• I did not realize it until I got to college
• I was walking around the campus with my parents who are actually both doctors and I almost passed out. I had been having issues for a couple months where I had to drink a lot of water and I kind of kept reasoning it away
• So, I collapsed there while walking around and I went to the emergency room
• The nurse said after taking my blood sugar that is was about 1200 and I was a type 1 diabetic
• It was a bit of a shocking news, and truth be told, I did not take it lightly at the time
• I was very frustrated, angry and I was not happy about it
• Immediately when you get diagnosed, a nutritionist comes in
• The nutritionist will teach you how to count carbs because you need to inject yourself with insulin in proportion to the number of carbs you eat
• It immediately transformed how I thought about food and nutrition because up until to that point, I was not really interested in the subject
• To be completely honest, I did not start on keto or a low-carb diet at that time
• I was told by doctors and a nutritionist that I had to eat a certain way because I am now a diabetic
• And me being a freshman in college, I wanted to eat what I wanted to eat and I did not pay much attention to it
• Obviously, I started gaining weight, my blood sugar would have a lot of highs, lows and swings
• But, I kind of came to my senses and realized that it was really in my best interest to pay more attention to this
• Funny enough, at the same time that I was diagnosed with diabetes, I was had my first seizure and was also diagnosed with epilepsy
• Epilepsy, probably as much as diabetes, is what got me interested in keto
• I found out about keto through my doctor for epilepsy
• I gave it a try and I found quickly that it was very helpful for diabetes as well
• And so, for both diabetes and epilepsy, keto is a great idea
• I quickly found keto to be a God send
• After I graduated from college, I continued eating this way as I kind of went through life
• It was a about 2 years ago, that I first started thinking about, what we now call Catalina Crunch, a keto-friendly cereal
• My biggest problem with regards to nutrition and eating was how difficult it was to find options for keto
• Especially for breakfast, I had just been eating eggs everyday and I just was totally sick of them and fed up
• It was difficult for me, at that time, because my girlfriend in New York loved to eat delicious, fun and exciting things for breakfast, on weekends especially
• On a typical weekend, I would be sitting there angrily peeling the shell off a hard-boiled egg, while she would be eating an acai bowl or a smoothie or a bagel sandwich
• And so, I had just been thinking that there’s got to be something more fun and exciting to eat for breakfast besides eggs
• At that time, I had gotten into low-carb baking and I was using things like almond flour and coconut flour to make low-carb cookies or crackers
• I was doing that because I also got sick of eating nuts everyday as a snack and I was trying to mix it up in some way
• So, I was unhappy and tired of not eating fun and exciting breakfast foods
• One day, I was walking in this cereal aisle and that’s not somewhere I would usually go
• I used to eat coco puffs, cinnamon toast crunch, waffle crisp, frosted flakes or honey grams growing up. I ate all of these things as a kid
• I kind of got a wave of nostalgia as I walked through that aisle just remembering how good those things used to taste
• I was just thinking that I wished I could buy those boxes of cereal because I hadn’t had one of those in such a long time
• Later that day, I realized that if I changed up the way that I was baking the crackers and add a little bit of cacao then maybe I could make cocoa puff balls
• I got on that train and started experimenting
• The first few times I made it, they did not come out good at all, but having eating hard-boiled eggs for 10 years, anything was good compared to what I was eating
• So, I was welcoming the change and I was eating it with almond milk at that time
• It did not taste like cocoa puffs, but I gradually made them taste better
• After a couple months of just baking it and eating it myself, one of my buddies started keto and he got sick of eating eggs, bacons and avocados everyday for breakfast and was looking for something else
• I told him that I was making this cereal and would let him try it and so, I gave him this little plastic bag filled with the cereal
• And that was the first sale that I made
• After that, I thought that I could make this for more people and not just for myself
• From there, one thing led from another and now, we have Catalina Crunch

OTHER INDICATORS OF DIABETES

• Basically, your blood sugar starts going up because your white blood cells attack and destroy the insulin producing cells in your pancreas, so then, you can no longer produce insulin
• So, every time you eat something that contains sugar or carbs, they turn into glucose in the blood stream and you have no means of getting rid of that glucose through the use of insulin to turn that into energy
• Your body will think that the only thing that it can do to get rid of the glucose is to drink a lot of water and pee it out
• Over time, as your blood sugar rises, it just gets worse and worse and you will drink more and more water
• I went through a stage where I could not even drive from school and back home without having a gallon jug of water in the car to drink
• It got to a point where it was interrupting my sleep because I needed to drink water, and when you drink water, you need to go to the bathroom
• Once you start drinking a lot of water and your glucose starts going up, you will go through ketosis into ketoacidosis which is bad, so your pee will start having a smell
• You will also get tired, weak or lethargic because you have this large amount of glucose in your blood stream that is slowing you down and your body is working hard to get rid of it
• I think keto got a bad reputation initially from doctors because they were confusing ketosis and ketoacidosis
• Ketoacidosis is the extreme form of ketosis which is damaging to the body
• There is definitely that confusion, but me being a type 1 diabetic, it is very easy for me to be go into ketoacidosis because I am not producing any insulin at all
• If you are not a type 1 diabetic, I think you are going to be extremely hard-pressed to get yourself into ketoacidosis by restricting your carb intake
• There are different types of epilepsy and there are a whole bunch of different driving forces that cause epileptic seizures
• Stress induces seizures and also lack of sleep, food can play a role, and there are also medications that may induce it
• I have Generalized Myoclonic Epilepsy and this is different from the type of seizures that certain folks get when they see bright flashing lights
• In all these cases though, doctors do not fully understand the cause of epilepsy and what exactly they can do about the problem so, they prescribe medication
• I started taking medication for epilepsy and still do
• What I think keto allowed me to do which has been really helpful is that, it allowed me to reduce the amount of medication that I take for epilepsy

• When you are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, your nutritionist will tell you that for every gram of carbs you eat, you are going to have 1 gram of insulin
• And you need to figure out what your ratio is through testing
• And so, what you will do is, you will eat an apple and you’ll see how much your blood sugar will go up and down, and you will make some changes in your insulin dosing thereafter
• As far as the multiplier, that multiplier will change based on your levels of insulin resistance
• That’s where people who are in better shape tend to have a higher multiplier, in other words, less insulin will be enough for a certain number of carbs
• There are ups and downs and I always found that I was able to reduce the insulin I took pretty significantly when I was in good shape
• It wasn’t like a specific exercise or weightlifting routine that would drive down or up that multiplier, it was more just about cardio and not having excess fat on the body
• I was diagnosed in 2009, and it has been 10 years that I am keto

WHERE CAN PEOPLE FIND THIS DELICIOUS CEREAL

• It is available on catalinacrunch.com IF YOU WANT TO TRY CATALINA CRUNCH,
  USE THIS COUPON CODE BEKETO10 FOR 10% OFF ON YOUR FIRST PURCHASE.
• If you are a subscriber or a member, you will get 5 pouches for $39
• We have also larger variety packs, where you can buy 2 or 3 months of cereal at a time and save more money
• You can subscribe or you can do a one-time purchase
• We have thought about retail and we are definitely going to be in certain stores
• When you look back on the history of how nutrition has been marketed to people and what information is available versus what information is not available
• For example, from the 60’s to the 90’s, they were pushing the idea that fat was the cause of fat and there was nothing wrong with sugar
• Now, we have more information at our fingertips and people are learning more quickly than ever and so that’s changing
• Nutrition is going to go a long way, there’s no doubt
• My dad is a veterinarian
• My mom was a general practitioner
• My parents are totally opposite when it comes to nutrition or they used to be
• My dad is what you will consider a “health nut” and my mom actually was not interested in nutrition. She had a “let’s just enjoy life” type of mentality
• When I went keto, I would say that my parents were generally very supportive of it
• Also given that our epilepsy doctor was mentioning it
• Now, neither my parents are full keto, but what they have both done is that, they have taken the lessons from keto and applied that to their lives
• They are now realizing the benefits of healthy fats

WHERE CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU

• Instagram: catalinacrunch
• Facebook: Catalina Crunch
• Website: catalinacrunch.com

IF YOU WANT TO TRY CATALINA CRUNCH,
USE THIS COUPON CODE beketo10 FOR 10% OFF ON YOUR FIRST PURCHASE.

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