[buzzsprout episode=’12391681′ player=’true’]
In this episode of The Hart of Health podcast, we interviewed Dr. Sarah Zaldivar, a Nutrition Professor at Miami Dade College with a Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology & Nutrition.
We talk about various topics, including the carnivore diet, clearing acne, aging, bodybuilding, and more.
See the transcript below!
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:17 Clearing acne with a carnivore diet
3:47 Sugar addiction and binge eating
13:39 The fat acceptance movement
19:09 What accelarates aging and how to slow ageing
36:36 Pursuing your dreams
39:16 Topical skin treatments
41:56 Fasting
50:28 Obstacle course racing
54:55 Bodybuilding
58:37 The ideal body fat percentage
1:04:23 Marilyn Monroe’s diet
1:07:08 Feeding babies
1:14:21 Learning and being multipassionate
1:22:22 The obesity epidemic
1:27:54 Traveling
Joané and Jonathan 0:00
Hey everyone, on today’s episode, we’re interviewing Dr. Sarah Zaldivar. She has quite a long list of academic credentials that we list in the description below. Yeah. And on today’s episode, we’re going to be asking her about aging skin health and the carnivore diet. Hope you enjoy it.
Joané 0:17
I think I’ve told you, but I struggled for like 19 years to clear my skin. And it only recently cleared up which is so exciting. Like, I would have been devastated if I went 20 years and I didn’t see results. And I would go through phases where it got really bad and it would get better. And I’ve tried so many things, you know, hormonal birth control, I was on Accutane twice, and nothing worked. I tried so many dietary changes. And then finally, what worked is going strict carnivore, like zero carb, no dairy. And because at first, I went carnivore because I was breastfeeding, and my baby would get cramps when I ate fruit. Uh-huh. So I cut out the fruit that are still having dairy because I was nervous that going zero carb would reduce my milk supply. But then I spoke to Dr. Anthony Chafee and he said, Nah, if you eat enough, your milk won’t go away. So I gave it a chance. I ate a lot of extra meat. And yeah, then my skin cleared up, which was the most exciting thing. And yeah, so I’m very curious about your journey with your skin because I know you’ve had similar problems. Oh, what finally worked for you?
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:32
Same, basically. But yeah, it took me way, way longer, unfortunately. Well, I guess you and I had we’ve struggled for a pretty long time. And yeah, same thing. You know, I did Accutane twice. Birth control pills for human Spironolactone for two years. Every single drug the antibiotic that was like probably the dumbest thing. I don’t know which one is the dumbest. They’re all pretty dumb decisions that I made. But you know, antibiotics for three months. All the topicals there’s literally no drug prescribed for acne that I haven’t been on. And I saw all the dermatologist when I was in Lebanon. That’s where I grew up, right. And I saw the dermatologist there. And then when I came to Miami to do my doctorate, same thing, saw the dermatologist at the University of Miami, and they have no clue what they’re there. They’re just clueless. It’s like, oh, you have acne? What have you tried before? Oh, it didn’t work. Let me give you Accutane again. Or let me give you Spironolactone or whatever, you know, is just so frickin clueless. It just drives me mad. Can they can’t it mean? Okay, let’s not go off on a rant. So you know how it is. It didn’t work. And then I had to do my research and discovered the acne cure by Dr. Loren Cordain. And it was the first time that I ever was introduced to anything outside of what I was being taught in nutrition school. That, you know, there’s something called a paleo diet, and that our hunter-gatherer ancestors, even though we can
argue about whether we really were gatherers, I think we were mainly hunters, but you know, in his book, he’s talking about our hunter-gatherer ancestors not having any acne, not even their children or teens, I mean, they’re teenagers that didn’t even have acne. And so it was all about, he never even mentioned paleo as a word, I think maybe at the end, but it was all about eating basically a Paleolithic diet. I tried it, it cleared up my skin, not as much as eventually I figured out that carnivore clears way, way better. Because I was still doing a lot of fruits. I was doing meats and fruits. But I mean, it was dramatic. Like, I don’t know, maybe 80% reduction, and then like what took me to the finish line would be carnivore. So yeah, it’s been a very, very long road and I didn’t even do carnivore for my skin. I just realized that okay, Paleo helps me get off the drugs. And then over time, I started looking into diet for anxiety and sugar addiction and binge eating. And so that was a process to go from paleo to realizing that keto helps with those issues. And then from there, realizing well, keto is great, but it doesn’t completely eliminate the addiction because you’re still doing keto treats. You’re still very casual about how addictive sweet taste is. And so from there is where I discovered that carnivore is the cure for the binge eating and the sugar and the carbohydrate addiction. And that’s how eventually I became a carnivore. Yes, that’s very interesting.
Joané 4:26
Well, I found a similar benefit because I’ve been binge eating since I was five or six years old. And then when I went carnivore, no urge to binge at all, like none of that, like isn’t that amazing?
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 4:39
Yeah. It’s also upsetting to think all of these years that in a way you were, you know, wasting or you know, just suffering for no good reason when you could have made great memories better health. I felt great throughout this whole period of time, and it’s only because nobody told us just how addictive sugars and carbohydrates are, you know, in the end, I guess back then I would the studies weren’t coming out. I mean, the first major study that showed how sugar is more addictive than cocaine and rats was in 2012, I believe, or I think it was 2012 and came out of France. Yeah. So yeah. So I guess I also understand that we didn’t have as much data to support that. And but now we do. So now we don’t really have an excuse for being casual towards sugars. Now even more data supporting those findings and showing that sugar is actually way, way more addictive than heroin, not just okay. But heroin as well. And why aren’t we teaching this to our children? Why are we still offering our children in the midst of the worst obesity epidemic of humanity has ever seen? Why are we still giving them orange juice? Why are we still giving them the carbs and the sugars 24/7? It’s an addictive food, they’re never going to choose a healthier food, even if it’s right next to it at school. And this is something I deal with, with my clients, you know, and their children all the time is like, the client is great. They understand but then their children, how are we going to help the children? Yeah, right. When you when you take when they go off to school, then what? You know. So it’s, it’s criminal, what’s happening in our schools, and it’s criminal, the kinds of infiltration of the food companies that they have, you know, with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
It’s, it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s something that we have to take control of. And at the same time, the deck is stacked against us, stacked against us, especially here in the United States. I’m not exactly sure how it is, but I’m sure it’s very similar probably in South Africa as well. Right.
Jonathan 6:52
Yeah, we basically, we tried to put a tax on sugar in South Africa. And that fell through very quickly, because people were like, No, you can’t do that.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 7:03
The whole economy. Sugar goes, they put a tax on the sugar, people get healthier, the doctors are out of business, the insurance companies in the hospitals, the surgeries are out of business. Yeah, good luck. They try to do that similar things. Like just just trying to regulate the size of the sodas that you can sell in New York. The you know, in New York City, mayor, Bloomberg, I believe, a few years ago, and of course, that’s not that did not go through remember, the food companies. They’re like drug dealers, they have so much money at their disposal, because they’re literally dealing with drugs. And now it’s legal drugs. Nobody can say anything, but they’re they know they have so a substance that’s far more addictive than heroin, nobody’s batting an eye, and they can deal with it and make, you know, millions and trillions, trillions of dollars.
And so, they have all this money that they can use to influence the politics, they contribute to the campaigns of the politicians, you know, how much money does the politician make? So easily influenced, right? And so then when they get into office, well, do you really think they’re gonna go against the hand that feeds them? They do want to get reelected?
Jonathan 8:15
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can’t believe that people haven’t drawn this correlation, because everyone will be like, Oh, cocaine’s a drag and no one should ever do cocaine and everyone can kind of agree is like, oh, yeah, cocaine is bad. But sugar is so similar to cocaine. It’s they’re both white, they’re both powders, they’re both stimulants. But both, you know, affect a lot of your brain. They both, yeah, everyone will.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 8:37
And sugar, that’s crazy. You know, it’s way worse. 94% of rats went for the sweetness. By the way, sucrose is the sugar, it’s the sweet taste. They’ve used actual children, if you substitute saccharin or artificial sweetener and get the same results. 94% of the rats went for the sweet taste, whether it came from sugar or the artificially sweetened solution. Didn’t matter and ever-increasing doses of cocaine. Because when the researchers were getting those results, they were like, we’re doing something wrong. How can this be? Maybe the concentration of cocaine isn’t high enough. So let’s bump up the concentration to see then if we see a preference for cocaine over the sugar. And that never happened. The rats consistently preferred the sweet taste over ever-increasing concentrations of cocaine. You see similar things with heroin. Those are more recent studies, not that recent. I mean, it’s been like, I guess five years now. And then so many people don’t acknowledge that they have food addiction or sugar addiction. So it’s like often, I just don’t have enough willpower. And that, for me, it’s sad because it’s almost like they blame their mental states. Right? Yeah, I did that. Yeah, yeah. I think I still struggle with taking this as seriously as I should, no matter how many interviews I give. And I tell people we can’t be casual about sugar addiction. It’s just we’ve been brainwashed for decades to think that that’s food, that that’s normal, have balance of.
Anything in moderation. It’s crazy when you look at how Coca Cola, for example, funded the Global Energy Balance Network, funded a scientific institution millions of dollars to set it up to bring researchers that are sympathetic to this message, basically, as a front, as a scientific organization that is a front to push the message that you can have everything in balance, everything in moderation, you’re not going to gain weight as long as you exercise. And that’s the whole idea, right? The idea behind those poor companies is like, let’s focus on getting people to move more, so that they can eat more, which means that we can continue to make a profit. And this is happening, this was just, you know, exposed by the New York Times, but this has been happening. And this still continues to happen every single day, you know, and the researchers that get the most amount of money are the ones that are going to be sympathetic to what those companies’ agenda is. And that’s where the money is, right? You’re creating research, just like a mountain of trash research. Just let’s do a study on how, you know, creating an energy balance model is going to help us with obesity, how focusing on balance, moderation is going to help us with obesity. Yeah, those researchers are gonna get a ton of money, of course, right? From the source that has the most amount of money, which are those drug dealing companies. That’s what they are. So, now you have your pushing out the science that is completely useless. It’s not really targeting the root cause, it’s not targeting addiction. And then now you have science that you can use to influence the Dietary Guidelines for Americans because, look, we’ve got published research. It’s like a mountain of trash is still trash, right?”
And, and then you’ve got the people that are gullible enough to believe in that. And the influencers that are gullible enough to believe in that and and so now, you can also pay those influencers for blog posts and four content pieces. And so those are the people that are making the most amount of money aligned with this message. Do you have any idea how much money I leave on the table? How many companies reach out to me? Even keto products, that I just, you know, it’s sugary stuff? I mean, I guess I, you know, I could say, well, some people maybe don’t, don’t get addicted, maybe I should just, you know, do a content piece on that for those people who don’t get addicted, but it’s just as it doesn’t sit well with me, you know. And so, and those are, those are like, very closely aligned with carnivore and I’m still not taking those, those jobs. So just imagine how many more companies have an interest in sending me all kinds of nutrition stuff, you know, and all the supplements, all the greens and whatever, and I just never respond to any of this stuff. So yeah, it’s it’s kind of hard to make money.
When you’re doing what we’re doing as carnivores, unfortunately, maybe 5% of your audience is a moderator.
Jonathan 13:08
So someone who can have a bit of sweet and not get addicted, but the majority of your audience abstains, is the people that have to avoid it, otherwise, they won’t get… So someone who can have a bit of sweet and not get addicted, but the majority of your audience abstains, is the people that have to avoid it, otherwise, they won’t get…
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 13:18
Exactly. I would say the vast majority of us are abstainers. I do agree with that. It’s a drug. It literally is.
Jonathan 13:26
And that’s why like people in the fat-acceptance movement will say like, oh, 95 to 95% of people fail diets. And it’s like, oh, yeah, because you don’t look at it as an addiction. You look at it as I’ve just not able to control my calories.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 13:39
Right? Exactly. Yeah, there’s so many things wrong with the fat acceptance movement. I think just the name fat acceptance. Why would we want to accept disease? Why would we want to accept anything that is lesser a version of a human being everything that a human being can be? Why we want to accept it? Do you want to love her love ourselves? Yes, not bully one another 100%? Absolutely. But to now kind of attach this message with the with the idea that you’re hopeless, you can’t lose weight and and it’s, you know, there are researchers are trying to create research that shows that you’re healthy at any weight, like, there, there was a woman, she was morbidly obese and she died, I think in her 30s, late 30s, maybe even early 30s. And she was a researcher, putting out research showing kind of how there is no relationship, no real data to support the correlation or a cause and effect situation between obesity and health. Like that was actually what she that she was literally writing papers on that and then she drops that I think of a heart attack. So, yeah, I think the good thing that came out of the fat acceptance movement is women tend to be targeted relentlessly for the way that theyRight? Exactly. Yeah, there’s so many things wrong with the fat acceptance movement. I think just the name fat acceptance. Why would we want to accept disease? Why would we want to accept anything that is lesser a version of a human being everything that a human being can be? Why we want to accept it? Do you want to love her love ourselves? Yes, not bully one another 100%? Absolutely. But to now kind of attach this message with the with the idea that you’re hopeless, you can’t lose weight and and it’s, you know, there are researchers are trying to create research that shows that you’re healthy at any weight, like, there, there was a woman, she was morbidly obese and she died, I think in her 30s, late 30s, maybe even early 30s. And she was a researcher, putting out research showing kind of how there is no relationship, no real data to support the correlation or a cause and effect situation between obesity and health. Like that was actually what she that she was literally writing papers on that and then she drops that I think of a heart attack. So, yeah, I think the good thing that came out of the fat acceptance movement is women tend to be targeted relentlessly for the way that they look.
And we’re judged a lot on that. And if you gain a pound, that’s the end of the world. And so when, in a way, it’s helpful to make it taboo to go after somebody based on their looks, especially women, you know, based on their looks. That’s great. I think we can all agree that that’s a good thing, right? But now I think it’s being distorted, the message is being distorted. And literally completely ignoring the science that shows that obesity is the root cause of pretty much everything you can think of, you know, including a two-year pandemic, where that should have been the whole world’s wake-up call. But no, no, you know, that it was like, it was taboo to even mention that, you know, every single doctor that I know that it was like a thought like me, like a functional medicine doctor or carnivore doctor’s not your mainstream, typical doctor who’s like, “Okay, yeah, get it.” And that’s it. Anything outside of that, we were being censored. I received a warning on my YouTube channel based off of that because I created a YouTube video posted about how to support your immune system with diet. And it’s just because the name was the sea diet. They didn’t like that. There was nothing controversial about it, everything was reference, all the studies were there, everything is, and they took it down and they gave me YouTube should make a warning. And that means then if something like that happens again, I get a strike, and then another strike, and then another strike, you get three strikes within, I don’t know, maybe six months or three months, I’m not sure you’re on YouTube. Even if you want to try and create a different channel in the future, they will let you so it’s like a very serious thing. Yeah. On my Instagram, on my Instagram, I shared about how you know, the Tufts University put out a food compass, which is the food compass is a food rating system that basically ranked that Lucky Charms were healthier than steak and eggs. And that’s all factually true. I posted that and they flagged it as misinformation. And now it says my account is at risk of being demonetised. Every time I log into my Instagram and all that, so you know, the same thing happens, you know, it all started with the pandemic. And now to this day, this whole misinformation thing, you basically get a group of people, we don’t even know who they are, a political fact that they get to decide what is considered information or misinformation. Even though I’m a health expert with a PhD in the field and decades of experience in nutrition, and fitness and health, and working on research, and yeah, no, they know better. That’s ridiculous. Yeah, you know, what competition, so that, again, what gets labeled as misinformation keeps changing? Or is the same things that were labeled as misinformation about the pandemic then later turned out to be accurate? And they would, you know, you could say that nothing happened. So, you know, I should be more on Twitter, I guess, now that Elon took over, and it’s a lot more a friendlier environment with regards to the freedom of speech. I definitely need to do that. But it’s kind of hard when you’ve already gotten like posted like 22,000 on Instagram, and I have, you know, 300 on Twitter. It’s like, oh, I need to get the ball rolling there. But you know what, this is going to be the downfall of all of those companies that are not adapting and being flexible enough, because people have had it with censorship. Everybody’s getting it. You know, people are hungry for a new company that’s not going to do that. And it’s coming. I mean, with technology, things happen so fast. You know, we thought Facebook was the best, biggest, greatest thing. No one’s on Facebook. And I don’t know, no one’s on page. Right. So things happen so quickly. And I think they probably have a few more years in front of them unless they wizened up and they change course very quickly and dramatically. Yes, yeah.
Joané 19:09
We wanted to talk about aging. What do you think were the main contributing factors to aging, both externally and internally?
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 19:18
So many things, but mainly sugars and seed oils. Industrial seed oils like soy, canola oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, corn oil, soybean oil, grapeseed oil, probably the worst of them all. All those things are going to cause so much damage internally and raise inflammation, and that’s going to affect every area of your life, including the collagen matrix, the graying of your hair, the deterioration of your mitochondria, which is one of the root causes of aging. Sugar, when you eat sugar, and when I say sugar, I mean even that bowl of oatmeal that turns into sugar like that, right? So sugars, carbs. They all convert to sugars so quickly, and that leads to the formation of advanced glycation end products or AGEs. And I do think the pun is intended.
And so when you’re eating sugar, you have glycation, meaning the attachment of a sugar molecule or a glucose molecule to your tissues, whether it’s a blood vessel or a plasma membrane surrounding your cells, or the collagen matrix that’s keeping your skin tight. Everything gets damaged by those advanced glycation end products. And so one of the leading dermatologists of Hollywood who sees people like JLo and Kim Kardashian and all the biggest stars, his name is Dr. Harold Lancer, in Beverly Hills, I believe. And the number one thing he does is cut out the carbs. If you want to slow down aging, I mean, people start seeing him like actresses started going to him when they were like nine years of age. They start seeing him, and it’s like the number one, yeah, they want to start creating a protocol to extend the career of that actress as much as possible, because you know, there is a huge emphasis on youth and vitality in Hollywood. And so that’s one of his central tenets, right, low carb, low carb, low carb as much as possible. I would go further than that, because he’s still recommending veggies. I would say it’s not enough to just go low carb, we also want to remove plants and their self-defense chemicals like their lectins and phytates and the oxalates because oxalates, which is a form of a plant self-defense chemical in plants like sweet potatoes, almonds, spinach, you’re getting oxalates from those plants that you think are healthy for you. Oxalates, I’ve done videos on that, YouTube videos on that where you literally see the crystals that they form and what they actually look like.
It’s so funny, like, if you get a kiwi fruits, it’s got a bunch of oxalates and you look at it under a microscope, you will see those crystals those needle like effects. Scientifically speaking, they talk about the quote the needle effect, which is when you eat oxalates it forms those crystals that look like needles, and then you start having issues like gout or joint pain aches and pains and then you also have a destruction again of the collagen matrix. And that leads to wrinkles and speeds up the aging process it like mechanically because of the the spin the the needle affects mechanically, it can damage the structures of your body. So yeah, that those in terms of diet, sugars and carbs, plant foods, especially things that are well all plant foods, I would say they all have plants have different chemicals, but I would say oxalate is probably the easiest to kind of describe the damage it does. And then you know seed oils, those are all things that you want to eliminate. Obviously, you don’t want to drink alcohol or caffeine or smoke you know, there’s the I guess those are the no brainers. And then exercise is crucial. Working out and being physically active. I have a desk like I normally like when I have an interview, I will move it, it’s literally right outside my door. And so it’s something that I use all the time. Like in the morning, I had a client, right. As I’m seeing my clients, I’m on my desktop, I have overall a low level of physical activity. And then I also have bursts of intense activity where right now after the podcast, I’m going to the gym, and I’m gonna lift weights, you know, so I’m lifting weights three to four days a week, and then I am sprinting and running through the other four days a week. So and then on top of all that there’s a low level of background physical activity constantly moving, you want to do that. That’s actually, if you look, I’m not taking a breath this morning. I’m sorry that I’m writing to it just telling me. I’ll answer all your other questions. Okay.
Jonathan 23:50
I mean, you probably also want to get a lot of carnosine in your diet, right? The side effects of too much carnosine and creatine…
Yeah, speaking of carnosine, it’s a major anti-aging molecule, right? And you get that from red meats. Yeah, I mean, I think you’ve got the message.Yeah, I can just tell from my own personal life that when I was younger, I was probably the sugar addict of my friend group. So, like, out of everyone in my friend group, I probably ate the most sugar, more than anyone I knew. And I’d have like four tablespoons of sugar on my WeetBix in the morning, you know, it was like, it was crazy. And I was like the first person that was getting wrinkles on my forehead, like even in high school. And I was sort of thinking like, ‘Geez, I’m gonna look so old when I get a bit older.’ But then, sort of when I met you, I decided, hey, I’m going to try this low sugar thing. And so I already started on that path of going like low carb, which eventually ended up paleo, then carnivore, and now if I look at my friend group, I’m the one that looks the youngest, and they all look old. Wow, all the people my age that I meet nowadays, I’m just like, ‘Wow, you’re really going bald, you really look old and wrinkly,’ and just like… managed to turn things around.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 25:14
It’s crazy. I was doing research on hair loss. Well, I was doing research on FMT, which is a fecal microbiota transplant, where literally, you take poop from one person and you put it in somebody else, right? And, yeah, and you put it from down there, literally. I don’t know if you can say that. I don’t want to have bad words in your podcast. So basically, what you’re doing is transferring all the bacteria, the microbiome, from one person and putting it in another one. And they usually do that because it’s legally accepted or legal to do so in the United States. Only for cases of C. difficile, which is an antibiotic-resistant bacteria that people could literally die from, that’s where they get diarrhea and all kinds of sudden they could die. So in those cases, you can do that. And so what they found is that there was this guy who had alopecia, you know, like patches of hair that was falling, because it’s an autoimmune disease where your own immune system destroys the hair follicles, and his hair grew back, like a full head of hair. I mean, it was published as a paper, like this is a side effect that we weren’t expecting, but there you have it. In other cases, there was a guy who was completely 86 years old, about to die with a case of C. difficile. I’m not sure if it was the same guy. Oh, yeah. So this guy, the 86-year-old guy, had great hair that returned black, and his gray hair returned to its natural hair color. And of course, the C. difficile was cured, and his depression was cured.
Joané 26:58
Do you think like gray hair is then linked to gut health a lot?
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 27:04
Obviously it is. Now we know that if you transfer a microbe, if you transfer poop from a younger, healthier person, you put it in somebody who’s–I don’t care how 80, 90, whatever the age–maybe you can reverse gray hair. So it’s crazy, it’s wild to think how many of the things that we just think are normal parts of aging are actually just poor health accumulating over decades. And we can actually reverse that, you know, so and that’s–that’s something like a crusade that I’ll always be on. I want people to understand that we have so much control over the aging process. The only thing that’s slowing us down from curing aging is the belief that aging is natural and you can’t cure it. Yeah, that’s it. Because people still think like aging is normal, right? It’s natural. We’re all gonna die. We shouldn’t even try to stop it, then we’re not going at full force to try and stop it. Because the amount of money that is being pumped into this thing is mainly coming from very rich people who are realizing, wait a second, I can actually reverse aging or at least I can, you know, slow it down dramatically with those treatments. So let me pump more money into this so that I can speed up the research. So from the research that’s coming out, it’s shocking how much control we have over the aging process.
You know, now in rats and animal models, it’s not even like, yeah, we’re reversing aging a gazillion times in rats. We’ve reversed blindness, you know, and that’s the easy part. So now we want to have this happening in humans, but because of this societal perception that aging is natural, they’re gonna, you know, so the government in the United States, the NIH, the FDA, they don’t classify aging as a disease. And because they don’t classify it as a disease, you don’t allocate governmental money and funds to deploy to anti-aging research, and that is slowing us down. So the way that I think about it, if I were Warren Buffett, worth billions of dollars, I would right now give away 95% of that money to cure aging within the next five to 10 years. Yeah. Because imagine all that kind of money. I mean, we’re working at a fraction of this amount, and we’re already gaining so much headway in reversing, slowing down and then reversing aging. Imagine if Warren Buffett, you know, gave let’s say, I don’t know, $100 billion. You could literally probably cure aging in the next five years, and then you’ll get to have another life, and he knows how to make money. He’ll make the money back. There. It’s just like, you know, what’s the point of having all the money, you’re gonna die, you know, extend your life. All the rich people I know would trade all their wealth just to be young again. And you could, you should, and you could trade your wealth, leave a couple billion, I’m sure it’s no, you know, you’re not gonna live any less of a life with just $2 billion, and put all the other money in reverse and cure aging, and that will give you an extra, at the very least, 20 years. In the worst-case scenario, we come across some research bottlenecks that we still need more time to figure out, at least we’ll give you an extra 20 years. Imagine you already know how to make money. You’re gonna make it back.
Jonathan 30:40
Yeah, so are they measuring the age of the rats based on their telomeres?
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 30:46
So the age of the rats, how do they measure them? I’m not sure if they use AI? I think they do. Not 100% sure. I know we used to lose a lot in humans. But yeah, I think they do the same thing in rats. Yeah, yeah, because it’s just that, you know, different studies have different biomarkers, you know, so Sinclair’s lab, Dr. David Sinclair, and Harvard, like he’ll, he has so many experiments running, you know, to reverse aging. And so different experiences are probably going to use different biomarkers. There’s another thing that just came out in the news, like, you know, probably a few months ago, I think, where I think it was also David Sinclair’s, I don’t remember, the thing is I just anything on anti-aging, any of this, I’ll read, and then I’ll start mixing up from which lab it came out. But they discovered that you can reverse aging just by clearing the clutter that gets stuck onto our DNA. So it’s kind of like you have your DNA right in your DNA, it’s like a recipe that is going to give you the instructions to create the proteins that it codes for. It’s like having a recipe that gives you the instructions on how to cook a recipe. As time goes on, you start having environmental toxins, whether it’s mercury, lead, or sugar, industrial seed oil, smoking, all those things, all those toxins, they start to attach to the areas in the DNA, and kind of make it harder for your body to have a clean read. So now that recipe paper has got spots and dirt on it. So what they figured out is that if you clear the dirt and you clean it up, the DNA goes back to being brand new. You literally reverse aging by doing that. So that’s another new way that we’ve discovered that causes aging, which is why I think it’s a great idea to do detox and chelation treatments and at least read up on that every once in a while because, you know, like the deodorant that I put on this morning has aluminum in it. And it’s awful. And I know I should use better things. But, you know, I’ve already done that for years. I already have a load of heavy metals. If I’ve eaten tuna or sushi in my life, it’s gonna have mercury in it. And so the half-life of mercury is 20 years, that means it takes 20 years for half the mercury to exit your body be detoxed in a natural way. So you need to expedite that process. And so chelation treatment is one way that functional medicine, restore removes the accumulation of toxins. So that’s a crucial way to slow down and reverse aging, right? To remove all this stuff that you’ve exposed to in your body. And there are ways to do so.
Joané 33:36
Yeah, I mean, there’s just so many things we can do. It’s so exciting. What do you know about NAD? I know a lot of people when they talk about aging, talk about NAD and like, yeah, and supplements and stuff like that.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 33:50
Yeah. NAD, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. It is a word for a version of a B vitamin. Specifically, we call it NAD plus, and Dr. David Sinclair is like the pioneer in his research on that molecule. And as you age, the concentration of NAD plus in your cells drops dramatically. And that’s actually how he was able to reverse the aging in a twin set. I think it was mice or rats? I’m not sure if it was mice or rats, rodents, let’s just say rodents. And yeah, just by giving them that molecule, literally reversed their age. Well, one of them was reversed, the other one on the twin aged normally, and it’s just shocking to see two rodents born on the same day. One of them looks, you know, super young and the other one’s wrinkly and gray-haired and old and also physically tired and can’t keep up on the treadmill on the road and the treadmill as the other one. So you can actually go to YouTube right now, Super Bowl, I make sure I show it to my students every semester, I show them that video of those two had the twins. One of them’s running and running and running and the other one can barely keep up. And it looks so, so, so old, you know? And yeah, so NAD plus is one way you can reverse aging. So people take it as supplements, but, you know, it’s found in the highest amount in animal foods, especially red meat.
And so the more again, the more meat you eat, the more NAD plus you’re gonna consume. And you can take it as a supplement, you gotta be very careful. There was this company that, you know, reached out and just sent me a bunch of this, though I’ve never heard of them. I was like, I know it needs to be chilled. I know it’s not more shelf-stable than two months, like. So, thankfully, thankfully, I took my time and researched them and I never shared anything about them. And then even the head of that company was supposed to do an interview with me, never showed up. Never even, like, let me know, “Hey, I can’t make it today.” Like, something’s very shady happening through a mall. And yeah, it’s very hard to get a hold of high-quality NAD plus. George Church is a researcher in anti-aging that’s well known, as is Dr. David Sinclair. You gotta see where they’re sourcing it from. Those would be the sources to get, and it’s pretty expensive, too, from what I understand. So again, the whole reason everything is hard and expensive is because we’re still so wishy-washy about our approach to aging. I think it’s a fear.
I think a lot of people are afraid to actually live longer because if you’re miserable in your life, you hate your life. Why would you want to extend the misery? But the moment you’re happy, the moment you’re excited and full of life and accomplishing everything, why would you ever want that to stop? I mean, when you know what euphoria and feeling great actually is, why would you ever want that to stop? So, you know, there’s this quote.
I think it was Henry David Thoreau that said, “The masses, the vast majority of the population…” I’m just so butchering it. Like I’m so not eloquent on my part, but the gist of it is that the masses live in quiet desperation. Like the vast majority of people are just… Oh, “The masses lead lives of quiet desperation.” I still think I’m butchering it. But that’s the gist of it, right? That the vast majority of the people just are numb because they’re depressed, not happy, not really getting after their dreams, that they’re thinking small, being afraid, having limiting beliefs. And for that reason, they’re depressed, and they’re leading lives of quiet desperation. Like you talk to them. “Yeah, it’s all good,” you know, another day. And they’re not really bursting with joy or happiness. And so when you are in that state of mind, why would you want to extend that misery? Yeah, and I get, you know, that’s another roadblock that we have to tackle.
Joané 38:04
Yeah, that’s quite sad. Like you want to make the most of your life, not just wait for retirement and go through the motions.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 38:14
Yeah. Yeah, sorry, go ahead.
Jonathan 38:17
Sounds like people don’t realize, like, you have only only have one shot at this. And, you know, if you just waste your time, sort of, like being quietly desperate. Yeah.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 38:29
You can say that, and they know it. They know, like, you know, it’s ticking. At the same time, they don’t know how to pull themselves out of it, you know, it’s, they just don’t have the tools, or they haven’t searched for the tools. Or it’s just learned helplessness. So, you know, if you stretch yourself to reach for a goal often enough and you fall short all the time, at some point, you’ll learn like, Okay, I’m never really going to accomplish my goals. And it’s a very dark and scary place to be. And unfortunately, I’d say most people are there, yeah.
Joané 39:12
That is pretty devastating. If you keep trying and you don’t reach your goals. Like personally, for me, the biggest struggle was always my skin, and to try so many things. It’s just to keep failing for like I said, 19 years, you start to think will I ever get there, and it really makes you feel depressed. And then, you know, you just keep going and eventually you find something that works? Like the carnivore diet? Do you do any topical treatments for your skin?
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 39:40
Oh, no. I should though. I feel like I’m intrigued by all kinds of stuff like, you know, lasers and things because I feel like I don’t know if I ever want to do Botox, but at the same time, if I’m like 50 I don’t know how I would feel if I, you know, So I’m never going to say never. At the same time, I feel like there are better ways to treat it from a root cause because I’m already doing everything I’m supposed to be doing, right? I can always do more, obviously. Red light therapy, saunas, detox, all those things are going to slow down aging. But yeah, I feel like there are lasers and things that can really reverse the wrinkles and things like that. So I don’t know, maybe poop transfers
Joané 40:36
For that, yeah. Botox freaks me out, as intriguing as it is, and, like, you see people get these great results. It’s still like a toxin. And it’s true. I’m very skeptical about that. TXNIP people say it’s perfectly safe, but I don’t know.
Jonathan 40:51
Yeah, obviously it’s not safe, right? I mean, it is a neurotoxin. It’s, uh, you know, it’s botulinum toxin. You have a little tiny piece of that, and you’re dead, right? So it’s very, you gotta be so careful with that. But then again, I think, “Okay, well, you know what? I dye my hair, and that’s toxic, you know? And I’m not going to stop dyeing it because I don’t want to see any silver hair.” If I think about it, but you know what, I feel like by the time it’ll be time for me to do it, there’ll probably be other things on the market that are more like not as invasive or toxic, you know? So I’m just hoping for that.
Joané 41:31
You can always do, like, microneedling treatments and stuff like that as well, yes. Except there’s so many things, so many things. I mean, they’re expensive.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 41:39
But you know, that’s why we work hard, yes. Hopefully, one day we can do this kind of thing. Yeah, that’s the goal. That’s the goal. I don’t know how I’m gonna achieve that with a carnivore diet, and I’m not working with all those food companies, but we’re hoping, we’re hoping, yeah.
Jonathan 41:56
So I know David Sinclair, he’s quite a big promoter of fasting, because obviously in all the different experiments he’s run, he often finds that the animals that fast the most tend to live a bit longer. Yeah. Is that important, or do you think…?
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 42:12
Yeah, every single animal species that has been tested with fasting, if you restrict their calories by 30%, they live 30% longer. This has been proven in every single species, except humans, just because, obviously, we’re not going to wait for someone to die. And we don’t know how. Yeah, so I think fasting, that’s another thing, I guess I should have mentioned that, right? When we’re talking about all the things you can do, fasting is huge, right? And it triggers a toughie G, which means when you don’t give your body nutrients for an extended period of time, it starts trying to look around for any way that it can get access to raw material to build its proteins and to build everything that the cell needs to build. And so when you restrict external sources of raw material, the cells turn inward or internal sources of material, and that’s called the process is called autophagy. And it starts to look at any old proteins laying around that can’t be functional anymore, any kind of waste products, and try to clean it up. It’s like an internal leaning that happens. And by doing that, you rejuvenate the cell. And that is another major way, obviously, that you can give yourself way longer and slow down the aging process. So I’m a huge believer in fasting, and it’s just so easy to do. So when you are on a carnivore diet, right, because your body’s already running on fat and can do so for an extended period of time, so you’re already not having the cravings, you’re already not having the hunger, and so you can do that for a longer period of time.
Joané 43:50
So yeah, a lot of people say that fasting, well, and especially longer fasts, aren’t good for women and their hormones. So I’m a bit careful that I don’t, I’d love to do fasts more than I used to in the past, and I’d love to do it again. But I thought, “Okay, I’ll do it when I’m done having kids and breastfeeding.” Yeah, what happened? More is, yeah, I have PCOS, and I have like, I had a lot of like period issues. So at first, and it was quite interesting, I had my period for a year and a half without stopping. So I was bleeding for a year. And then we tried the carnivore diet for a month, and it stopped, which was very interesting. It stopped for a long time. Yeah, this is like, we started the day after our wedding, we were like, “Okay, nothing’s stopping the bleeding, let me try the carnivore diet.” And it finally stopped. But then I started doing quite a bit of fasting, and then it went away for a year and a half. And then I stopped that, and it came back. So yeah, I have to do fasting for the aging purposes in the future, but I thought I would just be careful.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 44:56
Yeah, I think your body’s still, how often, I mean, how many years have you been doing the carnivore diet?
Joané 45:04
Oh, no, no, strictly only for four months now. But so we did it for a month, and then we reintroduced foods like every second day to see what reacted badly. And I learned a lot in that time. But then eventually, I ended up, you know, with the Paul Saladino way of eating like meat and fruit.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 45:23
Tempting, isn’t it?
Joané 45:24
Yeah. So I did that for quite a while. But now, it’s only been four months that I said, “Okay, I’m really gonna commit to zero-carb carnivore for a longer period of time.”
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 45:36
Yeah, I think your body is still kind of taking all those nutrients and all the fat, especially to regulate itself. And I think, yeah, I think getting a regular cycle is a measure of health and vitality. And that’s a good marker that we can have. And so keep doing what you’re doing. I don’t think that’s the cool thing about a carnivore diet is that it has so many ways that it can target the aging process and slow it down that you don’t have to add also the fasting on top of that. Yeah, but maybe in the future, after your body is completely nourished, and it feels good, then you can start to push the envelope again and see how you react. Yes, and when I’m not breastfeeding. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you definitely don’t want to be fasting if you’re breastfeeding. Not a good strategy. Yeah.
Jonathan 46:24
Yeah. So generally, I don’t fast like every day, so I don’t really do sort of a timer. I’ll restrict my time window for like about 12 hours, so I won’t eat before eight in the morning. I won’t really eat after eight in the evening, except for an exception here and there. And then every now and then, I’ll do a 24-hour fast. I don’t know if it’s better to do it like maybe a two-day fast once a month or one day fast twice a week.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 46:58
Yeah. So Dr. Thomas Seyfried, he’s a leading researcher in cancer and ketogenic diets and hypothyroidism. And basically, he originated the, I don’t think I mean he, he wrote a few, I could say that he originated it, he followed up on that work, but you know, he set forth the metabolic theory of cancer. Anyway, he recommends that everybody should do seven days of fasting a year, just as a cleanup to clean up all precancerous cells. It’s like a good kind of maintenance thing to do. So I definitely would take that advice and put it, you know, apply it. Another major benefit for fasting is it really is a challenge, and it helps mental health a lot and discipline, building discipline, the ability to just not eat for a day, two days, three days, maybe five days. So it can be very helpful. I used to do full-day fasts in the past. I’ll do a full-day fast and then all-mad one meal a day, and then all-day fast. You know, I did that for a while. And then because I train hard, and I want to put on muscle and stuff, I stopped doing that. But I do want to go back to doing the fasting just for discipline, just to strengthen, you know, because discipline is something you have to constantly be working on. Right? It’s something you always have to kind of keep fresh. And I feel like that’s something I’m excited to reincorporate now, you know? So yeah, I think what you’re doing is fantastic. And do you feel more energetic? What are some of the benefits you’re experiencing with your fasts?
Jonathan 48:39
So yeah, you get like a real stable energy, this sort of level while you’re fasting, and then your mental clarity just goes through the roof. Yeah. And then sort of like afterwards, after you’ve eaten, it almost feels like you’re a little bit revitalized. Again, it’s like you really appreciate your food again. It’s, I don’t know, it feels like it’s good to do here and there. And I’m not really a big fan, especially because I’m also trying to, like, you know, build strength. And so I’m trying to make sure that I’m not really restricting my calories too much. And I don’t want to, you know, often to try and get enough protein and everything in. It’s so much harder when you only can have one meal a day or–
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 49:18
Yes, so true. And protein is already so satiating, so if you don’t force yourself to make sure you’re meeting the protein and fat requirements needed to build muscle, it’s harder to do so with fasting. Yeah, so it’s a balancing act, right? I mean, it’s a balance of what is it that you want more of, but here’s the good thing: the more muscle on your frame, the longer you’re going to live, right? There is a very strong direct correlation between grip strength, which is a test you do for overall it’s reflective of overall muscle mass and strength. So the stronger your grip strength, the longer you’re going to live, and that’s a very, very accurate test to see, you know, how long someone’s going to live. Which is why when people get very close to that, that they’re very frail, they’re losing a lot of muscle. And if you can target that, and you do, you’re already building a good body of a good base from a young age, you’re going to be able to maintain that even through adult age and you’re going to be able to maintain muscle more easily the older you get, and that’s going to be just amazing in terms of your longevity.
Joané 50:28
Yeah, his grip strength is pretty great. Like he runs this obstacle course race in South Africa called the warrior race. It’s kind of like the Spartan Race. And he’s the guy that comes up with the obstacles and designs them and like, so he has to test them out and stuff. Those are hard.
Jonathan 50:49
Yeah, I did a Spartan Race, a Spartan sprint race in New York in 2017. And then that’s where I could see that. Obviously, the Americans are not as obstacle-focused as we are because they had this one really challenging obstacle at the end that if you failed, you had to do this long sandbag carry, and I managed to get the third fastest time just because I had the grip strength to get through to the last obstacle and skipped a whole long loop of carrying a sandbag. And just Yeah, being able to hold on with your hands is definitely something I’m good at.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 51:23
Yeah, that’s fantastic. Yeah, those things are really, really hard. I remember my hubby wanted to get into one of those things, and it was like, it was not easy. That’s just like that. It’s like, “Yeah, I don’t know if I want to keep doing those things,” because you got to train for those things. You know, it’s not the same as just being a bodybuilder. Gotta have agility, you got to, you know, it feels like 25 to 30 pounds, you know, so it’s a lot of weight to carry around. And to be able to, like, go up a wall like that with speed, it’s just, it’s not easy.
Jonathan 52:05
Yeah, but if you’re a heavier contestant, you have the advantage when you have to carry a heavy weight because it’s a small percentage of your weight. And so that’s what’s cool about obstacle course racing, is it kind of levels itself out. Like the small agile people can get over the wall easier. But then when you have to drag a big tire, then the heavier guy has an advantage.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 52:25
That is true. That’s true. Yeah, the one that we went to, he did everything. And then at the end, you had a wall that you had to climb. You had to, like, really run to be able to get off the wall. And that was like the last quarter pipe, yeah, the ramp. But it was like, so he went, he tried it several times. And then at one point, he landed on his neck in a way that I saw it, and I was like, “You can literally get paralyzed from that thing.” And you’re in the midst of a competition, you’re just going for it. It can be very dangerous. And so the one that actually won was a young guy. I mean, I remember my husband, you know, he’s going to be 60 this year. So it was like, I say, I think five years ago that we did that boot camp thing. So he was must have been 55 then. And the guy who actually won was a young kid, very, very agile, very thin, very lean. He had some muscles, but they were very, very lean. And the guy was like going up those walls like nothing, you know, and, you know, he won. So yeah, but, you know, my hubby, Patrick, I was actually pretty scared because I saw the way he landed on that, because he was trying to get off of that wall. And it’s, yeah, it was it scared me. And I was like, “Hey, sure you got it. You want to do those things? I mean, we can try and go and try to be eaten by gators in Florida. They’re kayaks everywhere. They’ll probably be less risky than those boot camps.” And that was, that was the end of that.
But I remember being like, watching the whole thing. And yeah, it’s definitely not easy. So the fact that you can actually win those things is just amazing. Yeah, it’s fascinating. One day, maybe I’ll do it. But I don’t know. I’ve done a few. But we go as a group of friends and you help each other over the obstacles. And if it’s a team-building exercise, it’s much easier and not as stressful. But when you’re competitive and you’re on your own, that’s definitely when the risk increases. Because now you’re not doing things slowly and with someone’s help, you’re doing it on your own. And you’re, you know, you’re pushing the time, how quickly you can do it. And as soon as you do that, the chances of mistakes increase, and you get carried away, right? And it’s competitive and you want to win, and you’re, you know, the thing is, if you’re doing great, great, great at the end, it’s always the hardest obstacle at the end, you know. But you already have all that energy and momentum, and you want to do it, you know. And that’s, that’s where you gotta be careful.
Joané 54:55
Yes, yeah. I heard you say a few times that you might want to do like competition like, say like a bikini competition,
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 55:03
I was, yes, training for that. I’m always training for that. At the same time, I feel like, I don’t know, if I want to do it anymore. I feel like I don’t know if I want to build my shoulders to look like that, overpowering anymore. Especially that my biggest thing is that I want to be a singer/slash rapper. So I do rap. I mean, I’ve been doing vocal training and piano lessons and dance lessons all my life, but like, I finally have started actually recording and mixing and putting out some songs. And that’s what I’ve always wanted to do. And I feel like, I don’t know if I want to have a bodybuilder body for what I really want to do. So I kind of had to re-evaluate. Yeah, I feel like that’s probably why I never actually ended up signing up to any show because that’s not really like, what motivates me or like, you know, I will always be working towards having the best body, the best muscle, all that kind of stuff. Like that’ll never stop. I’m going to the gym every other day, sometimes every day. And the goal is always progressive overload. But I don’t know anymore if I want to have your typical shredded bodybuilder. I don’t think I want that.
I don’t think I ever wanted it. I feel like I just did it because I feel like I thought I wanted it because I work in this field a lot. Everybody wants to lose weight. And it’s just I learned so much from techniques and tactics and things like that from bikini models and how to lose weight to get over a plateau. And I use that a lot, you know, for me to help my clients. And sometimes you think like, okay, because you know so much, you’re immersed in it so much like that’s what I want to do. And I don’t think I ever wanted that specific thing, right?
Joané 57:08
Yeah. I like bodybuilding, but without the show, like without that peak week where you dehydrate yourself, up super lean, like build up your body the way you want, right? Especially because I saw Dr. Jamie Seaman. She did a bodybuilding show and recently, yeah, posting videos where her hair has been falling out. And she says she really thinks training for that competition was part of one of the reasons why her hair started falling out, I think was it’s definitely not worth it.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 57:37
Yeah, yeah, it’s definitely stressful. Now, I think it went back to normal, right? It was a period of like, yeah, as we all know, right? It’s like peak week is not healthy. Right? You’re just doing it for the show. Yeah, I know. That’s, that’s something. I mean, again, if that’s what somebody wants to do and it’s like a small sacrifice, but then like they’re getting a big payoff because that’s really what they love to do. Obviously, that in that case, it’s worth it. But if you’re just doing it, I don’t even know like why a lot of people want. I think a lot of people just want to lose weight. And I think that that’s going to motivate them to lose weight. Yeah, you know, and so they think, okay, that’s what I want, I think. Yeah, I think that’s what the vast majority of people want. Because it’s definitely not the healthiest thing to be on, you know, all year long. Yeah, building muscle is great. But taking things that far with the fat loss is not. That’s the problem. Exactly. You gotta be very careful with that.
Jonathan 58:37
Well, what would the optimal fat percentage for a guy be like day to day?
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 58:42
I would say 11% to 12%. Yeah, you don’t have to be in the single digits for your day-to-day. Some people could. My husband, that depends, like he’ll clock in sometimes at 8%, sometimes 11%, depending on the day, because again, you have some inaccuracies in the bioelectrical impedance analysis machines. Those are like the InBody, and that’s a Tanita. Those are the scales with the electrodes where you stand on the electrodes, and then you hold them, and there are additional electrodes on your hands. So in those machines, there is – I mean, all machines, they have a wild, wild range of variability. It can be plus or minus five to 7% body fat. But, um, so for him, it’s sometimes he’ll clock in at 8%. Sometimes it’ll be nine, a lot of times it’s eight, nine or 10, sometimes 11%. So I would say, you know, most people at like 12%. And you’re shredded. And that’s comfortable to maintain. And it might not be as comfortable to maintain if you are not on a carnivore diet, though. But then this doesn’t mean that it’s not a maintainable physique. It just means that you’re having just too many carbs, and you’re thinking that that’s, you know, food or healthy for you. And I disagree with that.
Joané 1:00:00
And for women, I know you are aiming for 18% body fat, right?
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:00:05
It’s hard to tell. So, you know, for some women 20% and it’s like, whoa, they look fantastic. They look great. For others, you have to go down to 16% to look great. It’s so genetics influence if we’re just looking at looks, right? Because all of those are great ranges to shoot for, you know, whether it’s like 20, 18, 15. They’re all great ranges to shoot for. I think 15 is a little bit on the low end, like that’s it. Oh, I think I’m Are you losing me? Now? Okay. No, you didn’t lose me. Right. Okay. So 15, 16% is, I would say, 16% is definitely maintainable. But not everybody has to be down at 16%. You know, I think a lot of people can look just super fitted. Just 20% is, here’s the kicker. If you’re doing a carnivore diet or a ketogenic diet, you can be higher than that. You can be at 23% and still look super fit. Because those equations are built on people who are eating carbs generally all the time. And they’re looking at people who are on a carbohydrate-containing diet, and they’re taking their ranges. So when you eat carbs, it will artificially drop down the body fat percentage. So if you want to cheat on your body fat test, have carbs and then go get the measurement the next day. Wow, you see? Yeah. So this is something I think that a lot of people struggle with. They’re like, but I want to be that number. It’s like, no, look at your picture. That’s the goal, as the picture is that what you want your body to look like? Yes, fantastic. And that’s a perfect body fat percentage for you. Because when you’re again, in ketosis, when you are on a keto or carnivore diet, their numbers are going to be higher than somebody who’s eating carbs every day, because there are a bunch of reasons why. But it basically artificially drags your body composition, your body fat percentage down whenever you eat carbs. So that’s, I think that’s really important for people to know so that they’re not feeling like, Oh, my God, my numbers are so high, like, No, you’re good.
Jonathan 1:02:29
That’s very interesting. The scales and stuff, they use an algorithm, so you can influence it, you can drink a liter of water, and suddenly the measurements will change.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:02:40
How they’re using regression. Yeah, they’re using regression equations. And a lot of times, those equations are collected on Caucasian women or Caucasian men, and they haven’t done the same kind of equations on African Americans or Middle Eastern populations, or, you know, so there are so many inaccuracies with that. And you’ve got to keep that in mind, which is why the best thing is just to take progress pictures, and that’s what I tell all my clients to do, take progress pictures because that’s going to tell you the best, that’s going to give you the best data if we’re dropping weight or not. And of course, the extreme scale weight works a lot, especially in the beginning, you can measure inches, you can measure all your body measurements, you can also track 100%. Yes, that’s so what I’ve noticed is that with when people go on a carnivore diet, you just dropped so much weight on the scale that we can get by with that for a very long period of time. Now, as we get very close to an ideal body weight, this is when it’s like, okay, let’s because you might not see a weight drop every week the way you used to in the beginning when you’re like only 10/15 pounds away from your goal weight. So at that point, we know it’s going to take longer, and so to keep momentum and motivation high, we start taking measurements, we start, you know, doing the waist gluteal folds.
We can do well if somebody says they’re training for a bikini competition, and we’ll do like around the shoulders to see if the shoulders are getting bigger and things like that. So it depends on your goals, thigh, you know, and you want to make sure it’s the exact same place, so yeah, that’s very helpful.
Joané 1:04:23
Well, I always wonder what body fat percentage Marilyn Monroe was because she’s always been the ultimate for me, like I like the curvy look. But, you know, also one of our muscles, so whatever body fat percentage she was is the goal, I guess. She fluctuated a bit. Yeah, well, ideal.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:04:42
Yeah, yeah. Again, it’s hard to know she was actually a carnivore for the most part. She would just have ice cream. I remember I posted about that. Yeah. But yeah, for the most part, just ate meat. And she was like, yeah, if I didn’t only eat protein and meat. I don’t know if I could afford to have a fudge. After like acting classes on certain days of the week. Yeah, it’s like she had more. You had we had that intelligence and kind of lost it after the government.
Joané 1:05:10
And people used to eat a lot of liver back then and organ meats and because she ate that a lot too.
Yes. Now they weren’t on the menus. It was normal to continue. Is no. Yep, yes. I’ve heard people say, “I heard Yeah, I see. Right, right.” Yeah, that’s like when people refer to her like in modern blogs. Oh my God, it was so strange. It wasn’t that strange back then. That’s what most people ate. People had an intuitive sense of what made them gain weight and what didn’t, and they, you know, they weren’t as brainwashed as they are now. Because now the food companies have figured out how to perfect their marketing campaigns, how to tell you you need balance, how to tell you that, “Oh, your main energy source is sugar, really? Is my main energy source. How come babies run on fat? How come they’re in ketosis from the moment they’re born until they stop breastfeeding?” Right? It’s such cherry-picked science to support the bottom line, the profit, because where there is money, that’s what drives the narrative. That’s what funds the research. That’s what allows people to go and give a presentation because they’re getting paid for it. And there’s just so much incentive to follow one narrative. And unfortunately, that’s the problem with having profit off of a drug-like substance or, I shouldn’t say drug, it is a drug substance, right? So we just have to be smart. We have to understand how we’re being manipulated, and we have to stop being casual about how addictive sugars and hyper-palatable foods are, especially carbs. It’s really the carbs and the sugars that are a problem. It’s very hard to make something addictive when it’s just protein and fats, right? It’s almost impossible.
Joané 1:07:08
Well, we’ve been having this problem now with our baby starting to eat foods. And everyone says you have to give them porridge as the first food and fruits. And I told them no. But what was interesting, so my doctor, with our interview with Dr. Chafee, he said that his grandfather said that you give the babies the juices that are left in the pan when you roast meat, and it gives them a taste for meat and taste for blood. So we gave our baby a bit of that. But her first food was steak, like she was chewing on a piece of steak, and she loves meat. And I’ve given her egg yolks but also like take bone marrow, and you make whipped bone marrow, and she loves eating that. But a lot of people are having problems with it like no, you have to give the baby pureed fruits and porridge, and because that’s what everybody does, right and right. She’s thriving like she was born six weeks early. And I went carnivore when she was three weeks old. And she’s just thriving like her weight measures. What a no a baby would normally wear at this age. And she like caught up to everyone. She actually surprised them because she was early. But she weighs as much as a normal six-month-old baby. So she’s like our animal-based baby. But it’s just been so interesting like that hearing people give their babies so much sugar
Jonathan 1:08:30
Right? And then they start complaining about how their kid can’t stop eating carbs and sugars. And they’re, you know, there’s nothing I can do. It’s like, well, you started giving them a drug from a very young age, but when their brains are developing, do you really think that a kid is going to have the discipline to, you know, override the years of addiction that you’ve literally, you know, unwillingly really made them addicted to so this is why I love, you know, Kelly Hogan. Her children don’t know what sugar is like she’s, you know, three kids super healthy, and not addicted to the carbs because they don’t even know what that taste is. And that’s, you know, throughout history, we didn’t know what that sweetness was. It was never available to us. We evolved during an ice age. There were no plants or, you know, and if we ate any plants, it was bitter. It was seedy. It was fibrous. There was none of that sweetness that we now think as normal.
Joané: 1:09:25
Yeah. Oh, I love Kelly Hogan and I found her very inspirational, like, you know, hearing how she fed her kids, and that’s helped us a lot. But what was funny is our baby was in the NICU for three weeks. And so I would go to the hospital, stay with her all day. And then the one day I saw this little bottle, and they were giving her drops, and I asked them, “well, what is that that you’re giving her?” They say, “that’s sugar water.” So because the nurse couldn’t get her to stop crying, she started giving her sugar water, and I was very upset. Then a few hours later, As he came to the hospital, and I told him what happened. And he just took that and said to the nurse, “you’re not giving this to our baby,” and threw it in the dustbin. But they just give you a baby shower, what are they, and most parents thought it was fine, and couldn’t believe they’re giving a two-week-old baby sugar water just to calm her down when she was crying, and you could see her eyes lit up when they gave those drops. It was quite interesting to see that. She hasn’t had sugar. That’s good
Dr Sarah Zaldivar: 1:10:29
Yeah, hopefully she forgot about it.
I think one of the reasons that I also struggled with that is because when I was four months old, my mom had to leave me for a month. Because she had to go back to a different country where my dad’s business was, and so she left me with my grandma, my aunt, you know, in Lebanon, and I wouldn’t take the formula anymore. And so they’re like, “what, she’s not eating?” So they got condensed milk and started giving me condensed milk in a bottle, you know, a whole month until my mom found out about it. And she was like, “oh, Woody, are you nuts? You gotta stop that thing.” So imagine what that did to my brain. It’s like, no wonder you are addicted to sugar. Yeah. Yeah, you do that to a baby’s brain that’s developing rapidly. Yeah, of course, it’s gonna mess them up. And they’re gonna have a major sweet tooth later on? Yeah, so glad you caught it early. Yes.
Joané 1:11:29
Can you imagine if our parents were carnivore when we were kids? Because my parents did this typical standard American diet. And they were very big into low fat, high sugar, high carb way of eating. And like, I was never breastfed, it was straight formula. Yeah. And just imagine how different things could have been.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:11:50
Well, yeah, I think about that, too. Yeah. But you know what, it’s fine. Whenever we, you know, what’s the use of thinking of what could have been? It’s not gonna get us any closer to our goals. So I just think, “Okay, right now, what is the best course of action moving forward?” And the good thing is that a lot of things are reversible, you know, so it’s fine, we’re fine. Well, I like the idea of reversing stuff like reversing aging and reversing gut damage.
Joané 1:12:18
Well, I’m turning 30 in a year. So I’m not, I’m not, I’m still like, Yeah. But then lately, I’ve been thinking a lot, like, I’ve got a year until it’s 30, like round taking collagen, like twice a day, seeing what I can do by then. Like, I don’t care about turning 30, I just want to age well, but it was the first time in my brain and really let up like, “Okay, you’re not going to be in your 20s for much longer.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:12:43
Yeah, once you start developing that interest in anti-aging and you start looking at the articles and the research that’s coming out, and the cool thing is like the algorithms will know that we did like that. So it will just show you everything that’s coming out. It becomes so fantastic because it’s so exciting to know all the things that are coming up and all the options that you have at your disposal. So I think that’ll keep you excited and motivated to take all the actions that you can take and to plan for the things that maybe some things require more money than, you know, you can plan for that in the future as well to be able to have access to all the anti-aging treatments because, you know, why not? You know, why not? Even if it’s something that’s expensive, well, then maybe I can set a plan or have certain financial goals that would allow me to do that. Like whatever you want, you can achieve, you just have to want it bad enough, and then use your, you know, create a plan and then you’ll stick with it, you know, and save up for it. People say, “Oh, it’s too expensive.” Well, then that means you don’t really care for it, you don’t really want it. It’s not that expensive, it’s just that you don’t care to put in the effort and work required to generate the income that would allow you to purchase or have access to that service. And that’s, there’s no judgment there. But just be clear about what is really happening. You know, it’s not that you don’t care, it’s just that you don’t care enough to do the work.
Joané 1:14:06
Yes, it’s like when people say they don’t have money, but then I see them drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. And I think if you just cut out that stuff, alright, you could use the money for like the anti-aging limbs or whatever you wanted.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:14:21
You can invest in learning a new skill that will allow you to raise your income, that will allow you to have access to things that right now you don’t have access to. So yeah, you can literally do and be whatever you want, as long as you are willing to do the work it takes, right? How much effort and work are you planning to dedicate to something? And that it’s all about how much do you want it? And here’s the thing, sometimes you might want something vaguely. You actually have to do the work to raise the desire for that thing, because I think we all have certain inclinations, certain mini passions, but maybe not like a full-blown passion. And there’s this idea that you just have to wait for it to hit you, like, Oh, you’re supposed to wake up with like an insane passion. And that’s just not necessarily true most of the time, you have to actually grow that passion and the way you grow that passion and that desire is by going all in into something and surrounding yourself by it 24/7. So for me, I obviously have the fitness part that I dedicate time to. But then I also have an appreciable amount of hours a day that I dedicate to raising my desire and my passion by watching performances of other singers and rappers and learning about how to write better songs and how to perform better, how to mix better, how to record better. And so when you’re constantly exposed to that from so many different angles, day in and day out, you grow the desire. And when you have a strong enough desire, then it just makes it so much easier to be disciplined to reach your goal, right? Because you really want that thing, yeah.”
Joané 1:16:04
“What you said now made me think of this one woman. I don’t know if you know who Marie Forleo is? Of course, yes. And she talks about being a multi-passionate entrepreneur because everyone always says you have to go all-in on one thing. And that just made me think of you because you’re doing the health talks, and you want to rap, and you also want to dance, I know that you kind of like, and she’s just cool.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:16:27
Yeah, well, then you can do rapping, it’s I look at all as one thing. So the dancing, the writing, delivering service, it’s all wrapped or slash performance, I look at it as a performance, right? Slash entertainment, whatever you want to call it. So that I look at it as one thing. And everything that I do is in service of that thing, right. And I have that passion for it. And then like the health and longevity is also in a way in service of that thing. Because when I can figure out the best way to be healthy, have energy, and extend my life, that means I’m going to have a much bigger, better, stronger career in that area. So it’s all for me, it’s all one and the same, even, you know what I mean? So yeah, and you can totally have multiple passions. And sometimes we get so good at something like okay, nutrition, health fitness, like when I feel like I know so much, so positively, that it doesn’t challenge you the same way anymore, the way you were when you’re starting something, you know? So it’s, I think it’s always good to keep yourself stretched out very thin, always feeling like you’re at the edge of your comfort zone because that’s going to keep you excited, and that’s going to keep you fulfilled. But once you started getting bored a little bit with something because it’s like you’ve said it over and over again, you know this, you know, like the rate of progress in it isn’t as quick as the rate of progress. It’s something you’re just starting out. I think it’s always important to, you know, to pay attention to that because that can that can kind of slow down your momentum just overall in life. You know, when you get a little bit too complacent, too comfortable where you are.
Joané 1:18:02
Don’t you think that ties in with aging? Because if you keep challenging your brain, and that helps with brain aging, like if you don’t grow mentally and learn new things and do stuff like that, then that’s your brain and aging physically?
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:18:18
“So you can challenge yourself mentally and physically to stave off the aging 1000%. That’s a great point. I agree with that. Yeah, you have to, because otherwise, unbraided connections don’t have a reason to hang around, right?
Joané 1:18:34
Yeah, and his dad inspired us with that because he started learning how to play an instrument at the age of 60. And now he practices for an hour a day with his clarinet. And he’s very into, like, helping his brain develop. And I just thought that was very cool and inspiring because a lot of people think, ‘I’m too old for something,’ and his dad’s like, ‘No, I’m gonna keep challenging my brain.’ So he started playing the clarinet. His mom’s taking flute lessons now, and it’s just, wow.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:19:03
Yeah, there’s this very, very famous painter. She started painting at, I think, 84 or 85, maybe even 86. I don’t know when she became so well known. And she made, you know, she’d be she, she became really good at it, you know, and she picked it up at mid-80s. This is amazing. And then not only that, like took it seriously and got actually really great at it to the point where she became well known, and people would buy her stuff and, you know, getting good reviews for her work.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar: 1:18:18
“What, so you can challenge yourself mentally and physically to stave off aging 1000%? That’s a great point. I agree with that. Yeah, you have to, because otherwise, the brain’s connections don’t have a reason to hang around, right?”
Joané: 1:18:34
“Yeah, but his dad inspired us with that, because he started learning how to play an instrument at the age of 60. And now he practices for an hour a day with his clarinet. And he’s very into, like, helping his brain develop. And I just thought that was very cool and inspiring because a lot of people think, ‘I’m too old for something,’ and his dad’s like, ‘No, I’m going to keep challenging my brain.’ So he started playing the clarinet, his mom’s taking flute lessons now and it’s just, wow.”
Dr Sarah Zaldivar: 1:19:03
“Yeah, that’s like, there’s this very, very famous painter. She started painting at, I think 84/85, maybe even 86, I don’t know when she became so well known. And she made, you know, she became really good at it, you know, and she picked it up at, like, mid-80s. This is that amazing. And then not only that, like took it seriously and got actually really great at it to the point where she became well known and people like would buy her stuff and, you know, getting good reviews for her work.”
Joané: 1:19:38
“Yeah, that’s very interesting. Well, I always felt like that about dancing because, like, I danced my whole life. And I was more into hip hop, and then later I did belly dancing, but hip hop was like my main style of dance. Those are that’s me too. I do belly dancing. But yeah, but I would say more like hip hop. Now given that I’m focused on that. Yeah. Now hip hop is the best. I have my kids want to do hip hop second. practice was there. But I always thought like, you know, when you reach this age, then you’re too old because there’s kind of that mentality in the dance community. And then recently, like, I started just like dancing around in my living room again, and it just felt so cool. And I was like, you know, I’m getting closer to 30. And it feels like I’m like, starting again with the dancing. And so cool and fun.”
Dr Sarah Zaldivar: 1:20:21
“And JLo is about to be what, 54? I mean, come on. Yeah, there’s no excuse. These are all things, limiting beliefs, that we grow up kind of absorbing from our community and our society. It’s not like we put it upon ourselves, but we should be responsible for detecting that limiting belief and just destroying it.”
Joané: 1:20:41
“Definitely. Yeah. But yeah, dancing always comes to mind with that because people put an age cap on that.”
Jonathan: 1:20:47
“Yeah, how many people tend to say, ‘Oh, it’s all downhill after 30?’ You know, basically, it’s all downhill, you gotta just go get worse.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:20:56
Right? It’s an excuse for people who just don’t want to keep, you know, going through the challenge of actually fulfilling your goals, right? I mean, there are some people that at 40 they’re like, “Oh, I’m in my 40s. You know, like, don’t tell me what I need to do. I’m already, it’s too late or whatever.” Yeah, that’s just an excuse. That’s all it is. And because it is, it’s very young. I know, but in Lebanon, I heard that a lot. You know, like, you’re in your 40s. It’s like, “Oh, now at this age, I’m gonna go do that.” It’s like, “Yeah, now we hear that here a lot too, me.” Really? Yeah, in many countries. You know, like, I feel like in the United States, that’s a good thing, the mindset overall, like, there are a lot more people that I’ve noticed, when I, after I moved to the States, I’ve noticed, like, the general idea is like, “You can do it, we believe in you,” you know, like that’s in general. And that’s probably why the United States is so creative and so kind of like a leader in so many things, especially like creative things, right? So I think it has to do with that collective societal mindset.
Joané 1:22:04
Yeah, that makes sense. Except when I went to Florida, so we went to Disney World, and it was so great that we saw so many people riding those like scooter things, and that’s my buddy scooters, and then like, 50, and it kind of felt like, oh, at a certain age, you didn’t have to walk anymore.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:22:22
Yeah, we know. The obesity epidemic is just bringing us alive. They are so bad, and it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. And it scares me, it honestly scares me. I don’t see a sliver of hope anytime soon in reversing our obesity, diabetes and tsunami of health problems that are gonna hit us all, they are hitting us but it’s gonna get worse. Yeah, I wish I could. I’m generally the most optimistic person in a crazy unrealistic kind of way. But with this thing, it scares me. It really does.
Joané 1:23:07
“When our country is big, it’s celebrated in a lot of cultures. Like we have, like, how many official languages? Eleven. You have eleven official languages in South Africa, and so many different cultures. But in most of them, being big is, like, a celebration. Because if you have, like, a fat wife, it means you’re rich enough to get her. Right. Right. Yeah. And so here, it’s gonna take long to get people to realize that being smaller is better. Yeah, yeah.”
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:23:37
“Because, again, in the old days, famine was a very real problem. Like in Lebanon, my grandma survived a certain period of famine. And so every time she sees me, she’s like, ‘Are you losing too much weight? Did you eat more? Have you eaten sugar? Sugar gives you energy. Have you spent on your two feet?’ My grandmother literally drank syrup. She’ll make syrup and drink it as medicine. Like, they actually believe that. Yay. I remember how you’re saying that, like, for science to move forward, people have to die. I feel like, almost, like science advances as soon as, like, if we want people to get healthier, we need these companies to fail. It’s true. It’s true. And the problem is that we’re putting up one hell of a fight, right? Because they are, they—it’s like Pablo Escobar. He’s just too wealthy, too powerful, and to bring him down is gonna take a lot out of you. And that’s exactly how they are, you know? Look at the tobacco. I mean, this problem is way bigger than the tobacco industry’s downfall. And even they put up a fight, right? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. You know, we’re getting censored. The social media companies rely on the ad revenue from those companies, and so now they’re willing to listen to the misinformation. You know, things that they decide is misinformation, I don’t know. Yeah, maybe sometimes it’s okay not to be optimistic because we need to take action on this issue, we need to be aware and how it has to come with us, you know? Because when we all decide that this misinformation slap that they’re putting on our posts is something we as a society are not going to stand up for anymore than, you know, those companies that are—they’re taking the money from the wrong places and doing this kind of stuff, and undermining our First Amendment—then they’re going to go out of business. And you know, at the end of the day, with our actions and our wallets, this is how we vote every single day. So it has to start with us. And you know, this is, I guess, the best that I can do: just educate and share, share, share information. And over a long enough timeframe, hopefully, everybody will be on board.”
Joané: 1:25:55
Yes. And at least you have a much wider reach with social media.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar: 1:25:58
And yeah, for now, what we don’t know what carries, what, you know, every time they log in like this, this just happened just because of that Lucky Charms meme that, you know, which was completely accurate. That’s exactly what the compass is. It ranks it as Lucky Charms as a healthier food than red meat. But yet now I have now my model, monetization is at risk with Instagram because I’ve shared that, and they decided it was misinformation. And then I took a snapshot of that. And I shared that. And the original post is like, “No, it’s not misinformation, I stand by my post.” And that’s what triggered them to, you know, to do that. So, yeah.
Joané: 1:26:35
See, you can just share your Instagram post directly to Twitter every time you post a link. Oh, I shouldn’t do that. Because then you don’t have to post it separately and spend time like when you post on Instagram, you can literally say share on Twitter, or like, I use a scheduling app. And like, later com, and you can literally schedule on Instagram and Twitter at the same time. You can say post this on both platforms at the same time. So you don’t even have to then share it through.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar: 1:27:05
I’m gonna say, you know what, now that you mentioned it, like it’s been staring me in the face all the time, because I share to Facebook anyway, automatically. I don’t really neglect Facebook, but it does get shared automatically. So I should do the same with Twitter. And by the, you know, in a few months, I’ll grow my following there.
Joané 1:27:21
And then that’s, yeah, thank you. You could go back on your Instagram posts that perform the best and just go and share them. Like, you can literally go back and just share them and then have that catch up. So if I go back to my older Instagram posts, does it allow me then to share on Twitter? Or should I like just copy-paste? Or like, are you, are you like click the dots and then can say share and then share it to Twitter? There’s a way I can’t remember. Right? You’re right. You’re right. Yeah, that’s probably easier.
Yeah, so absolutely. Have you ever considered like coming to South Africa on holiday one day?
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:28:01
Oh, yeah. I mean, I definitely considered traveling a lot. I think it’s, you know, especially my hubby loves to travel and go see new places a lot. Yeah, I think I think the next though on like the to-do list is to rent a rental truck. Well, what do you call those like trailers? Like and yeah, yeah, so not like an outdoorsy person? Or like what are they called about? Mobile homes. That’s right. So my hubby has been wanting to do that for so long. It’s like we’re gonna do it this year. I don’t know if this is going to happen this year. I maybe and wants to go all over the United States, all the parks and stuff like and go and drive all the states and you know, just check out all the parks, all the fun major landmarks in every single state and try to do that for like a month. Or maybe because of our work, maybe like doing a two-week trunk and then another two weeks, you know, I feel like that might be better, because we’re just too much type A, and I feel vacation for a whole month will die, and maybe like two weeks is better.
Jonathan 1:29:05
Right? Yeah, that sounds like fun. Do a West Coast tour and then an East Coast tour.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:29:10
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the East Coast tour would have to happen, I guess, sometime in the spring or fall. Because then you know, you don’t want to get come across the snow everywhere. Yeah.
Joané 1:29:25
We always tell people South Africa is a great place for carnivores. Well, obviously anybody coming from the US it’s quite cheap to come here because of the exchange rate. But like here we like we had a lot of meat. Sorry.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:29:39
Good. What is the exchange rate?
Jonathan 1:29:42
It’s 18 ran to $1 Yeah. Every okay.
Dr Sarah Zaldivar 1:29:46
Oh, that’s pretty darn good.
Joané 1:29:48
Yeah, so you can like have quite an affordable holiday. Yeah. And like we eat a lot of meat. Yeah, like, like biltong. I don’t know if you know what that is, but it’s like a better version of beef jerky.