How to follow a Raw Vegan Diet with Dr. Areli (Raw Vegan Doctor)

Raw Vegan Diet with Dr. Areli

Today’s episode is all about a raw vegan diet! We are speaking with Dr Areli who has been following a raw vegan diet, low in fat for a number of years and thriving. We discuss her journey and provide tips on following a raw vegan diet.

Free consultation with High Carb Health: https://www.highcarbhealth.com/healthsurvey/

About Dr Areli:

Dr. Areli K. Cuevas-Ocampo is a Medical Doctor who follows a raw-vegan lifestyle. She is Board-certified by the American Board of Pathology in Anatomic-Clinical Pathology and Neuropathology, and she recently was granted a “Plant-Based Nutrition" certificate by the University of Winchester and Plant-Based Health Professionals of UK. Dr. Cuevas-Ocampo is interested in raising public awareness on how to modify epigenetic risk factors like diet, in particular with a fruit-based raw-vegan approach; we can prevent, improve, or even reverse most of the modern diseases of Western societies. Besides looking at diseases under the microscope, examining brains, and doing autopsies, Dr Areli is an educator and coach, with expertise in raw-food nutrition. She combines her medical background, plant-based knowledge, and her own experience as a raw-foodist to teach people about the incredible benefits of incorporating more raw fruits and vegetables into our diets.

Follow her on social media @RawVeganDoctor on Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Transcript :

Hello, everyone.

Welcome to another episode of the podcast I’m joined here

by Areli Dr.

Areli who’s a raw vegan doctor.

Welcomes.

Thank you.

Nice to be in your podcast.

Wonderful.

Yes.

It’s really exciting to have you on.

And so, first of all, just to start off with, I would like

you to talk to the audience a little bit about your journey

to a plant based diet and any other things you want to discuss

around. Obviously you’re medically trained.

And so how does that influence your decision around what

you do from a nutrition perspective?

Yeah.

Let’s hear a little bit about your journey.

Sure.

Well, I’m a medical doctor.

I train medicine in my home country, which is Mexico.

I guess my decision to go into medical school has to do with

my kind of inner or innate way of looking at things, trying

to help people.

I remember trying to cure cancer when I was growing up or

helping my grandmothers with their illnesses and all that.

So I guess that innate feeling of I want to cure help people

was inside of me.

And that prompted me to choose medical school.

So as a naive medical student, you go into the system that

do you think it’s going to teach you the ways to help people?

So that’s what I did.

And then in my career, I can definitely tell you that I was

a conventional eater.

In Mexico, we have a similar diet to the Western diet, probably

a little bit healthier because it’s more like a homemade,

but still, I was ten and I was eating anything that I can

buy in the cafeteria.

I gain a lot of weight during medical school in Mexico, we

have internship, which is a fifth year of the career where

you do night shifts and it’s very heavy, like 48 hours non

sleep and then you sleep and take breaks.

So I gain lots of weight.

And by the end of my internship, I realized that I gain lots

of weight and I wanted to lose it.

So I asked one of my colleagues in the social service because

that’s a 6th year of career.

You serve to the community for free for a year because Mexico

co has still free education, some universities.

So mine was one of those public schools.

So I went to the social service.

One of my colleagues said, Why don’t you try the Atkins to

weight? And I did for a year for a year.

I definitely lost weight.

But some of my kind of things that bother me, like cellulite

vehicles, vain tendency, retention, puffiness.

All those things never disappear.

I love the way.

But I was like a skinny, skinny fat.

I think that’s how it’s cool.

So that way or that prompted me to kind of investigate more

like what is the optimal way of eating?

Because obviously this is not working.

I was always depending on coffee, didn’t have energy.

The acting scientists protein three times a day.

So that led me to investigate vegetarianism.

And I was vegetarian from 2008 to 2013.

So I to think, okay, I’m eating all this meat.

Heavy protein, heavy fat, heavy food.

Okay.

First of all, you probaly didn’t feel great.

But also the weight loss wasn’t happening the way you wanted

it to.

So what made you think?

Okay, well, I’ve invested a whole year in my life and this

why should I change to eating a more plant based type of

diet? Well, at the beginning, probably the first three or

four months.

It was wonderful because the way it started dropping.

But then the problem that I still carried within me that

was not nice to have it was still there.

And then the dependency on coffee just to feel alert, because

obviously you’re deprived of carbohydrates.

So I was following a YouTuber, I guess, like a Yogini who

was vegetarian.

So I think that looks me to investigate more about that because

obviously, medical school, you don’t learn about nutrition

at all.

You don’t make the connection about what you eat matters.

Okay.

That’s a very interesting point, because I wanted to bring

that up with you around, talking to your doctor about that,

because you see a lot of things, even on, like in medical,

I guess not advertise government pages and things.

You know, if you have any questions about your diet, talk

to your doctor or talk to your doctor about this nutrient

or that nutrient.

But, you know, from my understanding, is there’s very little

nutrition training in medical school.

So why should we listen to our doctor in terms of diet advice?

Yeah.

I mean, I guess when they say ask your doctor is because

they’re advertising a pharmaceutical.

So doctors know a lot about pharmaceutical interactions.

You know that you shouldn’t prescribe vitamin K rich food

to patients taking warfarin, for example, because they believe

we know about interactions.

We know about how Folic asset rich food, what they can do

all these things, but not necessarily.

What is the best nutrition strategy for a patient with a

it’s actually understanding how a change in diet could affect

the pharmaceutical medication you’re currently on.

Is that the whole idea behind it?

Okay.

That’s interesting all the time.

Okay.

And talk about the nutrition training that doctors do get.

And what do you think about that?

Oh, yeah.

Well, unless the curriculum of medical students has changed,

which I don’t think so.

Like a couple of years ago, I checked and was still the same

nutrition, at least in my medical school.

I receive nutrition education for three months, but it was

1 hour per week.

So if you compile, it was like 16 hours within three months

of nutrition during six years of medical education.

And it wasn’t even like a sweet potatoes are great carbohydrate

sources. It was more like, like biochemistry.

Carbohydrates are made of carbon and things like that.

What is the healthiest oil?

Things like that you know?

Okay.

Fascinating.

So carry on them.

So you made a shift a vegetarianism and vegetarianism after

my internship because sorry after the Atkins diet.

And I think I feel better, slightly better because I was

not depending on coffee anymore.

Then I discovered this Feet for Life book that talk about

eating fruit in the morning and then you can eat whatever.

So I liked it a lot because fruit gave me the energy in the

morning, and then I could those and whatever.

I was still vegetarian at the time.

Probably my dinner was about cheese and all that.

So my ACL never went away.

My tendency to have very cool vein and fluid retention never

went away because the chief is so salty.

And that was my biggest thing to quit the cheese.

But I transitioned to veganism after four years in vegetarianism

because I was getting more into the holistic way of looking

at things.

And I watched a documentary called Earth Links in 2013, and

I remember the day because it’s my vegan anniversaries November

30. So overnight decide, you know, what, no longer going

to participate in this cruelty.

And I didn’t know what to do.

I mean, probably I had cheap cravings for a month or so,

but I made it.

Yeah, I used to it put cheese on everything as well.

One of the interesting facts I learned about cheese is that

the bacteria and cheese that gives that kind of pungent smell

is the same bacteria that exists in athlete’s foot.

And obviously that’s for me, is like, I’m not going any any

entries ever again.

But the other things about cheese that make it really horrible

heavily process high in saturated fat, protein, cholesterol,

all those things that do nothing for us.

And there’s no fiber to feed the good gut bugs that look

after us as well.

Yes.

Obviously a really positive decision for you to go in that

direction. And did you go obviously, you’re raw vegan now.

Was that the first step do you make or did you actually were

you eating?

No, I wasn’t a vegan.

Yeah.

Plantbased Cooked Vegan 2013.

I knew about raw veganism, but it was mostly like watching

YouTube videos from people doing it from the perspective

of a medical point of view.

It was more like, oh, that’s interesting, you know, and all

these testimonials of people dropping weight and healing

their face.

I was still having acne after going into vegetarianism, but

once I stopped at all the inflammation, the puffiness in

my face and the acne started to dissipate.

So that was a big change for me.

And, you know, I was super busy during those years during

my residence in Mexico, trying to prepare to move to the

stage, doing all the examinations, studying, fulfilling my

duties as a resident in Mexico, so I couldn’t really focus

on my health.

So I was always, like in the touching the other weight line

in Gems of Body Mass Index I wasn’t unhealthy.

I still run.

I always have run since I was a medical school.

But it wasn’t my priorities, I guess, until I moved to the

States and I said, you know what I want to you always want

to improve, right?

Once you achieve a certain goal, you are with one more.

So I said, Well, I always wanted to have, like, a athletic

body and even do I exercise a lot?

I don’t seem to achieve that.

I’m always depending on coffee, high one clean energy for

my body and all those things.

So watching lots of raw vegan testimonies and probably understanding

now more about the nutrition, the science of nutrition I

used. I am doing it because, like everyone we have our doubts

is Ro veganism the fission?

Is it extreme and also the ego because we think, no, I can

still sustain like, a Hiro because so after Cook vegan, I

went, Hiro.

I was like, I can still sustain this.

But it’s an ego thing.

Like you think that you’re special.

So with the little effort that you’re making, we’re not 100%

effort, you should get the results of over Regan diet.

And I was back and forth 2016 to 2018.

It took me two years to understand that row is the way to

1. I was Hirah fully row for three days, then going back

to Cook for two weeks and alternating Unitatis enough.

I know what I need to do.

And I did, like a transitional juice fast for a week just

to, you know, eliminate all the cravings.

And since January 1, 2018, I’ve been raw.

I’m gonna be fully raw, I guess, until I mean, at the end

of this year, it’s gonna be four years.

And I mean, I’m always honest and transparent when I have

cooked food.

Probably like if I go to Whole Foods, which is a store here

in the States, and if they have cooked green chickpeas, and

if I spoke to, like, one tablespoon or two, obviously, that’s

not wrong.

But understanding the midst of raw veganism as well along

the way made me realize that having that as a topping is

not going to hurt me.

Right?

So I allow myself doing those things once in a while.

If I abuse it, I know how I feel.

So that’s the balance.

You are not abusing the cooked food, and you’re very selective

in your Cook food if you decide to have it.

But in my case, I know how I feel.

So I choose to stay wrong.

Yeah.

That’s amazing.

Yeah.

I mean, we are very Chemmy.

And I were both very high raw and people that have been following

us for a while to know that we love our fruit and fruit until

dinner and some days we do raw days as well.

So we’re kind of probably in that situation where you were

a couple of years, four or five years ago before you made

that full shift where you decided.

Okay.

And I’ve been fully raw for a few months, and it feels amazing.

So anyone who’s watching this and feels like they want to

give it a go, you really got nothing to lose.

You will feel amazing.

Yeah.

So that’s very interesting.

So let’s go into some of that information that you learned

as you decided to make that decision into raw veganism.

And obviously, I made a very conscious decision about what

she wants to do.

And people have to understand where they’re at physically

and mentally before making that leap.

And I think the way you did it was really good where you

kind of went vegetarian, then vegan, then whole food, plump

based. I’m assuming that’s the kind of timeline that it took

and then into raw vegan.

As for me, I went from Meditator, a vegan and almost like

a couple of months.

Wow.

So that’s why I probably know where I find myself in this

situation where I have to kind of progress my way along into

a more raw diet as time goes on.

But let’s go into some of the things that you found about

the raw vegan diet, what really attracted you from a scientific

perspective about being a Robin.

Yeah.

So the purpose of eating should be to get most of the nourishment

of the food and leaving the least residue, because that residue

is what taxes our body.

So rather than just getting clean energy, we also have to

deal with things that may intoxicate us or make us sick.

So when you’re eating processed food, obviously, there is

a little bit of nutrition in there, but the body spends most

of its energy trying to detoxify and to eliminate as fast

as possible.

And when we saturate the body with processed food, I mean,

what is processed food?

Okay.

Let’s call it like piece of bread bread.

I mean, we’re talking about croissant or pitch or whatever.

So many ingredients that are not needed.

We call them edible food, like substances.

Yes.

Not actually food.

One of my colleagues actually put it in that way to me, edible.

It’s not food.

It’s an edible food like substance, you know?

Yeah.

Because you don’t want to give it that terminology, right.

Like calling something food that’s not actually food gives

it a different meaning than what it actually has.

And if you actually think about it as a food, you look at

it in a different way.

Yeah.

That’s a good concept.

It’s edible.

You can eat it if nothing had killed you immediately.

Like if you’re eating inedible poisonous mushroom.

Right.

But because I killed you at that moment, that doesn’t mean

that it’s not going to kill you in the long run.

So that’s exactly the science behind Raegan ism when you

eat processed suit of food, which is a bunch of chemicals

and stimulants that make you crave that set of food you are

intoxicating your body slowly and inflaming your body.

You’re putting your body in a chronic inflammation and chronic

inflammation is the root cause of all the chronic conditions

that we are dealing in Western societies, starting with overweight

busy diabetes to hyperlipidemia, hypertension, Alzheimer’s,

all IBD, everything.

Yeah.

Autoimmune diseases.

And there are a couple of doctors that heal their remain

conditions with raw and Hiro diet.

One hell morose.

I don’t know if you’ve heard of sure Stans.

Yes, I’ve heard of her.

Yeah.

And Doctor Brue older, she had lupus.

Now she’s in remission with a tirade.

Absolutely.

And obviously there’s a lot of other ones as well.

And we worked with doctors who’ve come to us and wanted to

heal IBD.

So we had a gastroenterologist heal on our program.

We had a gynecologist heal in our program.

It’s been amazing to see so many people get better as they

go on this journey and eat more fruit and Royal foods.

And it’s not 100% of our program.

But if you want to, you can.

It’s not like we would discourage someone from being raw

if they chose to do that as well.

Yeah, because a big big proponents of raw food.

Alright.

So let’s go through some of the myths, obviously, when you’re

eating the raw food.

Okay.

So some people say when you Cook certain food, they become

more available, like the nutrition becomes more available.

But you’re saying the opposite.

Just saying deviate advocate for a second here.

What would you say about that situation?

Well, I mean, I guess it depends what you want to eat.

If people choose to eat beans, you definitely have to Cook

them because otherwise they will be super toxic.

So one way to eliminate the toxins of the beans is to Cook

them and Super Cook them.

Not really.

Just like you have to.

Soak them many hours and then Cook them very well.

So the argument of raw vegans that beans are not food for

it has to do with that principle.

You have to process them in order to eat.

And because otherwise we couldn’t eat that same for rice

and serials in the natural state, we are not inclined to

eat those.

Right.

So the myth, I guess, has to do with the toxins that are

released. Like some people say it induces leukocytosis the

forest a toxin.

I think that there are certain foods that were studied when

they did those experiments.

I’m not very familiar with those types of studies.

I know the Lucas, I told this guy I think it was a Russian

guy, I think.

But there are some studies that have demonstrated that even

with any food that you eat, there is some sort of Loco cytosis

because your body has to kind of get into the heat to process

the food.

And it’s not.

It doesn’t have to do with the selection of food.

Probably there is more Loco cytosis when you eat processed

food. But Loco cytosis happen regardless of the food.

We go back to the same principle the least inflammation you

can have when you eat your food, the better.

I don’t think there is any damage on eating sweet potato,

which is baked or boiled.

I don’t think that stock sick at all.

Definitely the nutritional value could be reduced compared

if you use the sweet potato, but at the same time you’re

making the starches more digestible.

It’s a matter of preference.

Really.

Like some people live in Norway, for example, they don’t

have 100% of the time ripe tropical papayas.

So why would you expect someone that is in Norway be wrong

when in reality sticking to Ro organism and increasing the

fat content will be more detrimental because it can be high

raw. Sorry, you can be logging in, but fat based.

And for some people it works.

But for the people that work, they end up doing one meal

a day.

That’s the only way that I can see high fat Rabbi and work.

They only eat once a day so the body can process the excess

of fat for us that try to be more fruit based.

I think that’s the component and think I’m not digressing.

But in a nutshell, cooking a healthy food like, for example,

cards, you can part raw, you can use them.

And I think if you shred them or use them, you’re going to

get a lot of nutrition compared as if you steam them.

But steaming a card is not going to kill you.

Probably the crease is the nutritional value by 30%, but

you still get all the benefits that’s.

Yeah, with the type of food that you’re going to Cook and

not justifying your Cook veganism with.

Now I can Cook anything, right?

Yeah.

That’s a fair point.

Okay.

What are some of the other myths of being a raw vegan that

you may have come across over the years?

And can you maybe talk through like you hear about people

saying that you’re going to be deficient that you’re not

going to get all of the nutrient profile from the food you

need to eat some Cook food.

Otherwise you’re not going to get everything that you need.

Where does that come from?

And talk through some of how whether that’s actually true

or not true, right.

I think some of the myths would be.

And I’m sorry for two of the influencers that really you

put me in this kind of way of eating, which are Australian,

by the way.

But I’m not going to say any, you know, car up.

It will eat a lot of carbs, no matter.

You don’t have to come.

I think that’s a myth.

If you really want this healthy lean, you have to track yourself.

If you’re spending more calories that you are eating.

Obviously, you need to carve up more.

But if you’re a sedentary person, it’s not going to be the

same as somebody who eats 50 bananas a day, but they are

running marathons every day.

So you have irrational have to be honest with yourself.

And that’s one of the big myths that calories don’t matter

in this lifestyle.

It matters.

It definitely matters.

Yeah.

Maybe not.

To the same extent that someone is eating a very calorically

dense at.

For example, if someone was eating 3000 calories, a McDonalds,

for example, 3000 calories of fruit, they would still have

a different, I guess, profile because you have more thermogenesis

than the person who’s getting the fruit and you burn more

calories. Just phenomenal day to day body activity.

But I get exactly what you say.

You can’t just just do whatever, because even though it’s

a healthy food.

But I guess the other thing with that is some people take

that to the other extreme and the under eat significantly.

And that’s where you see a lot of these so called vegans

as well.

Isn’t it like who’ve gone into this higher or diet or the

all diet and they’re still trying to keep their portion controlled

the same as what someone like only one small plate off or

food or like two or three bananas as a meal or something

like that.

It’s really understanding.

I guess, how much energy you need, how much fuel you need

for the day and then meeting that without excessively over

consuming as well.

Yeah.

And I understand the posture of all these influencers that

are really strong in their opinions.

Like, you have to eat more because we most of the problems

in the vegan community is under eating.

Right.

So I understand the push for more calories.

But at the same time, once you are into this lifestyle, you

have to focus in a variety of fruits and vegetables, and

rather than just carving up, that would be one of them.

I agree.

I definitely great nutrition and calories, but you have to

have this Dr Furman approach where okay, I’m going to eat

my calories, but I’m still eating my nutrients as well because,

yeah, another great dates are great.

But are you getting your Greens?

Are you getting your yeah, different.

And we know that for the gut as well.

The gut needs to ferment lots of different types of fibers,

and part of that is having variety in your diet.

I guess where you’re coming from is that the people who tried

their a vegan diet and they’ve only had a select number of

foods because people have told them these are the type of

foods that we’re going to get most to calories from the ones

that may struggle with deficiencies and things like that.

Or if you’re eating lots of Greens and salads and vegetables

as well, because you can eat a lot of vegetables raw and

then lots of different fruits, different colors, colors are

very important.

So that’s absolutely right.

I hear you on that.

I think maybe some advice I may give in terms of when you

first start this diet track how much you’re eating.

So that way, if you have some kind of calorie counter, especially

for the first two or three months.

This is what I did anyway, to see how many calories do I

use, what’s my base on my metabolic rate, and then you can

build a diet that suits that.

Right.

So if you don’t understand how many calories you need, then

it’s very easy to under or over eat without really knowing

what you’re doing.

So I think there’s both sides of that isn’t that way.

There’s some people who go to one extreme where they’ll just

overeat and get on this carb heavy diet and just keep eating

and eating it because I guess an influencer told them that

or on the other side, you know, undereating because they’re

too scared of weight gain.

And they’ve come from this restriction background and things

like that.

So absolutely.

I think there’s both sides to that sort of story.

And if you focus on nutrition and I think initially I think

initially definitely monitoring what foods are giving you,

what nutrition, how many calories are you getting?

And then once you’ve learned and understood that you can

take it from there, you don’t have to keep my managing everything

that you do, right.

All right.

Yes.

You learn as to the more you get into this path of eating.

You just learn and hopefully don’t repeat the same mistakes,

because sometimes I mean, when I was in England, sometimes

I did online consultations from long term Regan and they

ask me, I think I feel stuck.

And some of the main issues were they neglected their fats

because even though this lifestyle is low fat, some went

to the extreme and then they neglected the facts.

Or they neglect the Greens.

And they neglected rotating Greens and incorporating the

rainbow in their salads.

Things like that.

Yeah.

Let’s talk about pets, because there is that inside of a

sad on very high fat, raw vegan.

We probably won’t go.

We know that’s not necessarily.

Some people can do it, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily

the healthiest way to be.

But where do you primarily source your pets and how much

fat would you eat?

I guess, as a total percentage of calories, nuts and seeds,

for example, how way do you see those kind of foods?

Yeah.

So for me, I think my main source of fat is seats.

And I focus on the Omega three rich seats, which is Chia

flax seats, hem seats.

And then I switched to Omega six rich fats, like avocado,

pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, things like that wellness

I have once in a while pistachios, but and almonds.

But I don’t do much peanuts anymore because I’ve noticed

that I developed Dandra.

For some reason, peanuts do not make my body happy.

Yeah.

But I focus on the Omega three rich seats, basically.

And I soak them and I blend them for my dressings, right

at them as a topping for my salads.

Okay.

And in terms of a total percentage of calories.

Where would you sit in terms of fat content on average?

Yeah.

I think during the summertime I go low, probably ten to 15%,

and then during winter, probably 20% or less.

And the reason why is because if I go lower than that, I

think that there is a difference between men and women, especially

women in reproductive ages.

I feel like when it’s a little bit more fat than the recommended

popular eight and ten.

I really appreciate Dog Grams principles and David Klein,

and I think they have a point.

But as a woman on myself and I’ve seen other women as well,

they tend to do a little bit higher, in fact.

Okay.

Probably above 10%.

And women do hold more body fat in general than men anyway.

Yeah.

So that kind of does make sense, and I haven’t actually considered

it from that perspective either, because yes, you’re right.

Most of the texts that we do read are in by men, and we do

have slightly different physiology.

And so we should consider that.

So that’s a really interesting point that you make.

And also I want to touch base on some of the things that

probably not many people consider when addressing the low

fat issue.

I think the low fat has to do with not mixing the last meal

of the day with the first breakfast of the day, because if

you eat a fatty dinner, there’s going to be some conflict

when you eat in the morning or midday.

So one of the things to avoid that or one of the tricks is

to do intermittent fasting.

And again, we go into this dangerous area where people recommend

car car up, eat more calories.

But along the way, you learn that your body is more efficient

when you leave a large window of not eating.

So I learned.

And it works really well for me to start eating around six

or 07:00 p.m.

And not eating until ten or eleven next day.

So that really gives a window for the fact that I eat in

the night to not mixed with it.

Fruity meal of the day.

Yeah.

Because once you mix fat and sugar, then the sugar is going

to start to ferment in your bowl, and that’s not going to

be good for, you know.

Interesting.

You say that because the longer I eat in tune with my body,

the more I don’t feel hungry first thing in the morning.

So most of the time I do exactly the same, or I’ll finish

eating between 530 and 630, and then I won’t eat till sometimes

nine or eleven, even if sometimes they get really busy with

meetings and I won’t eat to midday.

One of the things and I do agree intermittent fasting is

exceptional and can provide a lot of good benefits.

But people do need to make sure that they can meet their

Keller requirements within their particular window that they

choose. I think that’s the biggest mistake people make when

they do intermittent fast and they leave too short a window

for eating, they don’t actually meet their requirements.

And the other thing with interment fasting is I don’t believe

in necessarily having a window that’s rigid.

So say, for example, you wake up one day and you are actually

hungry at 830 in the morning, for example, and the body is

telling you once, nourishment, and you say no, I cannot eat

till eleven because this is my intermittent fasting.

I don’t think that’s necessarily a very productive way of

being either.

No, because it was a lease to overeating in the afternoon.

And that’s what you want.

You want to avoid that?

In my case, for example, I exercise first thing in the morning.

I don’t have any pre workout, meal or snack anything.

So I go on an empty stomach.

That’s the best workout I can do.

And then when I do an intense like, I usually do 3 miles

per day.

But if I go 4 miles of run, I start to have hunger earlier,

so I’m not going to and to listen to my body.

Rather than having the intermittent fasting rule, I eat 1

hour as my body asks for.

Yeah, I think also the longer you do this, the more you can

understand that and don’t try and go and do advanced techniques

like intermittent fasting and those kind of things.

When you’re first starting on your journey, because that’s

where you’re most likely to fail, you need to learn and experiment

and understand what you need.

And as I said, tracking what you do in the initial stages

just to make sure, because it’s a big change.

You’re eating foods that are low in calorie density and very

high in volume, so it’s easy to feel full on lower amount

of calories.

But again, if you do the opposite, lots of smoothies and

things and it’s very easy to over consume on calories as

well. So it’s really understanding how much to eat and what

to do with the body.

I think that’s a very good advice that you’ve given exercise.

That’s the interesting thing.

Okay.

Talk about exercise and how you incorporate that into your

life and how your body is self, because there’s something

I teach by people who work with me or athletes and how to

recover from exercise because anyone can get to a very high

level of fitness.

What I found is that a certain eating patterns impact recovery

and how your muscles feel and things like that.

So maybe discuss let’s talk about that a little bit.

I guess exercise is age dependent as well.

When I was in my twenties, I run a lot.

I train for iphones and all that.

Now in my 30s, reaching my body, I feel like I have to slow.

So apologies.

We lost connection for a bit, but Dr.

Orally was talking about how now that she’s a bit older,

that her exercise regime has changed.

So let’s continue talking about that.

Yeah.

I think many people when they approach this lifestyle most

of the time is because they want to lose weight.

Rare people come in this lifetime to gain weight.

But I feel like there is a time and place for recovery, and

that’s some of the things that many people neglect.

I think for athletes and for anybody in general, if you don’t

sleep enough, no matter how much you exercise, actually,

that’s kind of like a signal for your body that you are over

straight, and that stress is going to generate more cortisol,

which is going to enhance fat deposits in the belly area,

which is what we don’t want.

So I think along with exercise, which has to be a combination

of cardio and resist resistance and weight training, you

have to consider rest as a priority as well.

So having your I don’t know how many hours of sleep you need,

but minimum seven.

That’s great.

And then if you are exercising a lot on the weekend, just

try to rest more.

But yeah, along with cardio for women in particular, for

men as well, I think men are more interested in building

muscle for women.

Sometimes it’s more like sweating and melting the fat.

But women need to consider that resistance training is super

important because we need to build a little bit of muscle

because who wants you have more muscle.

You burn fat easily and also prevents osteoporosis, and it

makes your bones strong.

So yeah, try to alternate cardio and resistance training

and a little bit of weight lifting and flexibility as well.

So it’s a combination we should be fully functional when

we age.

So yeah, for me, I mean, I’m a runner, so I had to slow down

a little bit in my runs.

So rather than running 5 miles per day, I just run three

and the rest of the time is stretching and kind of some calisthenics

or resistance training.

That’s great.

That’s that’s good.

And I think a lot of people neglect sleep, and I find that

with our clients as well is that sleep is one of the things

that I discussed.

A lot of people I have to just keep talking about sleep and

the importance of sleep, because that’s when a lot of the

healing happens and a lot of the recovery happens in those

early morning hours.

And if we’re not resting and giving our body enough time

to recuperate and definitely, I think, makes it more difficult.

And some of the things you talked about the cortisol levels

increasing and that affects stresses and all sorts of different

things as well.

Really important to make sure that you’re taking the time

to rest your body after exercise, especially.

I suppose the more you exercise, you may even need more than

7 hours of sleep.

Eight 9 hours of sleep sometimes.

And getting to sleep earlier is very important, too.

Not staying up late and burning the midnight oil is also

very important for your body to function.

And as you would know, we work around the circadian rhythm.

So making sure that is as close to sleeping during times

where the Sun’s down and not sleeping on the Sun’s up is

important as well.

Yeah.

Totally.

The cadium reason is very important.

And actually, some people think that if they go to bed at

midnight and then they sleep until 10:00 a.m.

It doesn’t compensate the earlier hours, like rather go to

it at ten and wake up at seven.

Yeah.

I mean, we’ve all experienced it in the past when we’ve had

late nights out.

And even if you get 8 hours of sleep, if you come home at

02:00 or 03:00 in the morning, even if you have 8 hours of

sleep, you do not feel the same the next day compared to

if you’d gone to sleep at 930 or 1030 and had the eight hour

sleep from there.

It’s a very different feeling.

And you probably felt that.

I mean, just when we on sleep, you’ve done a night shift

a lot.

I’ve never had that experience.

You know, how did that affect your health?

I gained lots of weight, even though I was eating cautious

on what I ate.

Obviously, I was eating an omnivore diet, but I focus on

well, for the because when you’re doing night shifts, the

cafeteria for the health care workers, they open at midnight

to give you something to keep going during the night.

So I ate at midnight, and sometimes I just focus on the pieces

of cheese that they gave you, no matter how restrictive I

tried to be.

Those cortisol bags definitely made me gain weight.

Yeah.

And the stress, of course, if you’re an intern.

So a lot of stress.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And because a lot of removal of toxins happens in the early

hours of the morning.

If you’re having to be awake and working during those times,

you’re setting yourself up for your body, having to work

a lot harder in other moments, aren’t you?

Oh, yeah.

Definitely.

I don’t think an intern can last for a couple of years.

I think one is enough.

And you are young, so you don’t do it that much.

But yeah, for some people that are more sensitive, like me,

like, definitely put some weight.

I remember the guys didn’t.

Maybe they lost some weight, but most of the women after

internship taking wait.

Okay.

So I mean, look, I think, you know, everything we’ve talked

about here has been really interesting and insightful.

I really appreciate you sharing your time and taking the

time out of your busy schedule to have a chat and join on

the podcast here just in closing.

Is there any kind of piece of advice you’d give to someone

who’s either considering, let’s say, plant based or even

raw vegan?

What would you say to them about taking those first few steps

into the lifestyle?

Yeah.

I would say that you have to educate yourself in this lifestyle.

Take baby steps at the beginning.

I mean, some people go vegan overnight and they fail and

they think is the diet when in reality is like lack of education.

So I would say, educate yourself, take baby steps and don’t

fall into the development of if you break the rules or if

you have cheap days when you eat cooked vegan food, it’s

just a learning experience.

As I said at the beginning, I choose to stay raw because

that’s the way I feel like my best when you have cheap days

and you feel terrible the next day, it’s just your body telling

you, you know what?

I no longer have the microbiome to digest cooked food.

So whenever you bombard me with something heavy, obviously,

I’m going to overreact, but it’s nothing of especially if

you focus on healthy Cook.

Truth, it’s nothing that is toxic.

If you want to stay high raw, you know there are ways to

do it.

And I’m sure that you are recommending your clients and people

doing the right way.

So yeah, just be super honest, because when you allow yourself

to have Cook cheat days, that gives yourself permission subconsciously

like, oh, no.

If I eat a little bit of this and a little bit of that and

it’s like a sleeper slope.

Many people talk about this once they’re Rovia and they allow

themselves to have cooked food.

Here is a sleeper slope, and I understand that because it’s

good food is so addictive.

I don’t know.

Sometimes people are under eating.

That’s why they have cravings for Cook foods if they want

to stay row.

So that will be my piece of advice.

Don’t be dogmatic.

It’s a learning process.

If you follow the wagon, Reganism, or even plan based, just

tuck it off and keep going and the other advice will be okay.

Educating yourself.

And I don’t try to be perfect.

I think that’s something like this perfectionism mindset

can really be detrimental to achieving long term success,

because if you’re trying to be perfect all the time, it won’t

slip up.

You can really start beating yourself up and then you’re

like, oh, I did it once and I won’t just keep on going from

there. And you don’t come back to what’s healthy for you.

So we talk about progress of perfection, and it doesn’t matter

if you weren’t hurt.

I think really what matters is what you do 95% of the time.

And if you stay consistent over a period of time, you’re

going to see those long term results.

It’s probably the same as training physically for whether

you’re a runner or an athlete or something like that.

If you’re not consistently doing it over a period of time,

you can’t expect to not run for a few months and then go

and run a marathon the next day.

You have to build that up.

And health is the same.

You need to build it up, and it takes time and persistence

to do that.

Yeah.

And also, I would say once you go plant based because everything

else has supplements, like when you go vegan, if you eat

cereal or everything is fortified with big twelve and other

vitamins, do not neglect your twelve, you have to test yourself

if you don’t want to feel like over doing the twelve.

But I see the opposite.

And I’m telling you from first hand experience again, when

I was doing consultations when I was in England, some people

improve dramatically after supplementing would be twelve.

And that’s something that some circles of veganism thing

that is not important just because they haven’t experienced

the deficiency symptoms, but they’re there.

So the best thing to do is test yourself.

But if you feel fatigue, the press low memory tingling numbing.

Definitely equal deficiency.

So don’t neglect it.

Yeah.

Great advice.

B twelve is very important, and it’s important not only for

plant based eaters.

I mean, the majority of people who take twelve supplements

are eating animals.

So even if you’re not a vegan or a plant based eater important

to get your levels checked and just make sure that you’re

not deficient to be twelve.

So great advice.

All right.

Again, thank you so much for joining me.

I really appreciate your time.

Yeah.

I think some really, really amazing advice there for people

who are interested in following Dr early.

I’ll be posting her details down there below.

So all of her social media links, and if you want to follow

her, I’d highly recommend that she got some really good advice

on her Instagram channel as well.

And for people who’ve made it this far, thank you so much

for joining us.

If you are watching on YouTube, make sure you give the video

a like and hit the subscribe button so that you can be aware

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And once again, thank you so much for joining us here.

Make sure that you eat plants and lots of them.

Take care and we’ll see y