#89 Rachel Gregory – Keto and Athletes

Meet Rachel:

Rachel Gregory is a Board-Certified Nutrition Specialist, Athletic Trainer, Strength and Conditioning Specialist, and Author of the best-selling book, 21-Day Ketogenic Diet Weight Loss Challenge. She received her Master’s Degree in Nutrition & Exercise Physiology from James Madison University and Bachelor’s Degree in Sports Medicine from the University of Miami.

Rachel has a vast knowledge on the science and application of the Ketogenic Diet for weight loss, performance, and overall health. She completed the first ever human clinical trial looking at the effects of the Ketogenic Diet in CrossFit athletes, which is published in the International Journal of Sports and Exercise Medicine.

Rachel is a former Collegiate Triathlete with a background in Functional Strength Training and CrossFit. She has worked with a variety of individuals throughout her career that include Division I collegiate athletes, WNBA stars, and some of the top bodybuilders in the world. She has a passion for educating those interested in optimizing their physical and mental well-being while improving long-term health and fitness goals.

Show Notes:

ABOUT RACHEL

• I am originally from New York, I grew up in Manhattan
• I went to undergrad at the University of Miami where I got my degree to Sports Medicine
• Then, I went to grad school and got my master’s degree in Nutrition and Exercise Physiology and that’s where I found the ketogenic diet and became pretty obsessed with it
• I ended up doing my Master’s thesis on the ketogenic diet
• We did a 6-week human clinical trial, looking at the effects of implementing a ketogenic diet in a non-elite CrossFit population
• The study was very successful and ended up being published
• After I graduated, I went on and presented the results to a few different conferences and got more into the keto space
• I have been growing my own business as a nutritionist and a strength conditioning coach
• Now, I live in San Diego
• When I graduated from grad school, I was looking for different jobs and I ended up working as a nutrition scientist for a supplement company in Florida
• And after working there for about a year, I realized that it really wasn’t something that’s exciting to me
• My roommate had a job where she could just move wherever she likes, and she told me that she wanted to move to the west coast and experience it
• At that point, I knew that I was probably going to step away from that job anyway, so we packed up our bags and drove across country
• I came out here thinking that I was going to find another full-time job as a nutritionist
• And, I did not end up finding anything that I was really interested in
• So, I decided to just continue to pursue my own nutrition consultant business
• I ended up writing a book and it has been amazing 

HOW DID YOU FIND KETO

• In my master’s, we have to come up with the subject that we are going to do our thesis study on
• A lot of my classmates were doing survey-based studies or more related to different aspects of nutrition in general and I knew that, that was something that’s not going to excite me because it was a 2-year sproject
• So, I decided to pursue doing a human clinical trial
• Basically, I had to find a subject that included both nutrition and exercise
• At that time, I joined CrossFit gym just for fun and to workout
• When it came to think about the study, I knew that I had a population of people that would be interested, and CrossFit was my population for the exercise portion of it
• The next part was to look for nutritional interventions that I could implement into this exercise population with the goal being decrease body fat and weight while maintaining lean mass at the same time, without compromising performance to a degree
• At first, I thought that I would do Paleo because it was really popular at that time, especially to the CrossFit community
• I already had done a ton of research about Paleo and I thought that it wasn’t something that I could use that was different or intriguing
• So, I just kept on researching for other nutritional interventions and came across the ketogenic diet
• I came across Jimmy Moore’s book, Keto Clarity, and read it in a day and I was just so intrigued with everything
• I actually tested the diet out myself before even implementing the study
• Studies like this have a free study period where we have to do the research and see what has been done
• During that period, I started experimenting with the diet on myself
• I did not drop my calories on purpose, I just think that I am one of those people that have an appetite suppressant effect from the ketones
• During those few weeks, I was not tracking macros
• The only thing that I was tracking was making sure that my carbs were under 50 grams of total carbs
• And that’s actually what I implemented in the study
• So, the only main thing that they had to track and pay attention to is keeping their carbs under 50 grams
• As I got further into researching, I started implementing different protocols to experiment with myself

HEALTH BENEFITS

• The main reason why I probably stuck with keto and adapted it as a lifestyle is because the mental benefits of it
• The mental clarity I have, the focus and the amount of productivity I have with my work during the day
• Also, recovery wise in terms of inflammation and stuff
• Because when I was in college, when I was doing triathlons, I had something called, exertional compartment syndrome in my legs
• They do not know what exactly causes it, but it’s a combination of genetics and over training and other things that go into it
• So, I over trained and ended up having exertional compartment syndrome in my legs
• When I was doing CrossFit there was a lot of jumping activity and jumping would really aggravate my legs 
• When I went keto, I did notice that I had a little bit better recovery
• I was doing CrossFit, but about 6 or 7 months ago, I took a break because I had a back injury and it was not really healing and I knew that I needed to give myself a break

RESULTS OF YOUR STUDY

• It was a 6-week study and we did pre and post measurements
• For 6 weeks, we were looking for the effects of implementing a low-carb ketogenic diet on non-elite CrossFit athletes
• On the pre and post testing period, we did a dexa scan
• We had 32 participants and we divided them randomly into 2 groups
• One group was following the standard American diet and the other half of the group was told to do a ketogenic diet
• I gave them all the guidelines and with studies like this, we are not supposed to coach them so, all the participants got the same guide
• Over 6 weeks, the ketogenic diet group was able to decrease their body fat percentage and weight compared to the non-ketogenic group, while at the same time, increasing their performance to the same degree as the non-ketogenic group and maintaining the lean and muscle mass
• The study is published in the International Journal of Sports and Medicine 

A DAY IN YOUR DIET

• Right now, what I am currently doing is under 50 grams of total carbs usually or a little bit more
• It is mostly just whole foods
• I will drink a bulletproof coffee because I feel better with that especially in the morning
• And I will workout
• Afterwards, it’s mostly just proteins
• On weekends, I implement more carbs and I do some other things that are specific to the program that I am building
• I always advocate a whole foods approach
• We went through a time of fat-phobia which I think has finally gone away
• Fat is not bad for you and it’s not what causes heart disease
• A lot of people that I have worked with, and even myself, have irregular cycles for a long time
• And they did keto and regulated them and they become regular again
• I thought I wanted to be an athletic trainer for the rest of my life
• But during that time, I realized that I am more interested in the nutritional side of things and also in exercise and strengthening side of things
• That’s why I pursued nutrition more
• I started putting programs for people and helping them implement nutrition as well as different exercise protocols

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU

• My book has been out for almost a year and it has been really successful
• I am now focusing on my online business
• I just relaunched my online business to include more video courses and program

WHERE CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU

• Instagram: killinitketo
• Website: killinitketo
• Facebook: Killin It Keto
• Our body is always changing and adjusting. Things are changing and you are adapting to different things
• Everybody is their own individual
• Something that works for one person, may not work for the other

Read Rachel’s study HERE

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