Tag Archives: pro metabolic diet

Migrating Motor Complex & a Pro Metabolic Diet

Interesting side effect of meal spacing! Have you heard of the Migrating Motor Complex?

In our private FB group a while ago, I mentioned teeth & the Dr Ellie mouthcare system. I have been implementing a few things from her regime and made a surprise discovery.

One of the actions to help your teeth heal themselves is to NOT eat & drink all day but to limit your intake of food or liquid, including water to only certain blocks of time. End your meal with a tooth protective food like milk, cheese, celery then rinse with water & ideally chew Xylitol gum for 10 minutes. Spit it out & then not eat anything else for at least 1-3 hours.

This then helps your teeth threefold: –

a) Limits the time your mouth is acidic & eroding your teeth

b) Xylitol brings your mouth immediately back to neutral PH within 5 minutes (to do this naturally takes your body about an hour.)

c) Gives time for your mineral rich saliva to heal & repair teeth

So, I’ve been doing this timing:

7:30am – 1 cup juice, ½ cup lemon coffee, 1 cup milk

10:30am – second Breakfast

1:30pm – Lunch

5:30pm – Dinner

During the second breakfast & lunch, I have my juice & coffee, all at the same time. With Dinner is only the juice. Rinse the teeth, xylitol gum. Then stop.

The side effect of all of this – besides teeth being less sensitive already in a short time of doing this – is vastly improved elimination. Like needing to go first thing in the morning – which never used to happen.

Normally my body is slow to start in the mornings. But not now. After the first juice, I have to go – and sorry about TMI – but the elimination is full and complete, no straining.

Is it the xylitol?

(A few days I forgot to take the xylitol gum with me, but the effects were the same from the meal spacing)

Is it better digestion?

(because energy is not continually being directed to intake of food/drink?)

Or liquids continually washing away digestive juices?

I’m not sure.

Then I came across something called the Migrating Motor Complex. This is a series of muscle contractions which happen when we are not eating. Its function is to move particles & debris through the gut like a cleaning mechanism. The whole process can take 2-4 hours but if we eat again, it stops the process. Which means everything gets backed up. The villi in our gut are clogged up & can’t absorb nutrients properly. And the complete elimination cycle gets stalled as well.

When we sleep overnight, the body has a chance to complete this process at least once in the 24-hour cycle but obviously my body needed to do it more often. When I’ve spaced meals properly at least a second time in the day, the elimination is improved. Ideally, I try to keep the meal timing to the example above, so it happens a few times in the day, but sometimes circumstances don’t allow it.

This is why sometimes people claim that fasting is beneficial. However, most of us know of the stress inducing, thyroid destroying effects of prolonged fasting. Even skipping breakfast & not eating until late in the afternoon will have negative effects. However, we don’t need to be so extreme to attain the benefits. It’s just in the correct spacing of meals.

Transitioning from Keto, Low Carb or Carnivore

Now while I plan to continue to do this for the health of my teeth as well as gut, I just wanted to mention those who are in the early stages of transitioning from a Keto, Low Carb or Carnivore Diet.

When you first start pro metabolic, those who have impaired their carbohydrate processing system will not initially be able to space their meals out like this. Your body will not be able to utilise carbohydrates as fuel initially, and the body will think its starving. At the beginning I always felt like I would nearly pass out if I didn’t have something to eat every 2 hours. I give an example of my eating day when I first started here.

So, your Migrating Motor Complex and meal spacing may have to take a back seat to getting your carbohydrate processing system to work first. The quickest way to do this, is to eat moderate protein, high carbs and low fat and force your body to adapt back again. Once you can drink OJ alone and feel energised instead of dizzy, then you will know you are well on the way to healing.

I’m amazed in all my health reading I’ve never come across this before. Thanks, Dr Ellie, for the accidental discovery via your excellent teeth care system.

Kristy x

Losing Weight with a Pro Metabolic Diet

Recently in our private FB group, I asked the question:

“What are people struggling with most when it comes to a pro metabolic diet? “

The largest item at 42% was Losing Weight.

I asked the same question on my IG stories and 85% was Losing Weight.

So, it’s time to create this:

Summary on Losing Weight with a Pro metabolic Diet

First of all, here is a summary of all articles I have written on Losing Weight with a Pro metabolic Diet before. Read through them slowly, as you may pick up new things that you didn’t notice previously. Sometimes people are just not ready to take in or act upon information at certain times:

At first I was losing weight, now it’s coming back!

Best diet for weight loss

Best way to lose weight long term

Body temperature affects weight loss

Dieting Weight Loss Health

Best exercise for weight loss

Discussion on exercise for weight loss

Discussion on fasting

Five weight loss mistakes

Free 7 Day email course – How to eat for Weight Loss

High cortisol causes belly fat

Why losing weight fast is bad advice

Metabolic rate and burning calories

Polyunsaturated fats and weight gain

Beginners Guide to a fast metabolism

Eleven factors for weight loss

What I eat in a day from 2019

What I eat in a day updated in 2021

Meal plan to get you started

Main points to understand about Losing Weight with a Pro Metabolic Diet

Losing weight the healthy way takes time

Sometimes 2-5 years may be required until you get to your goal. It takes patience, and to understand what you are doing. But the good part is, you won’t have to lose weight ever again!

Unless you are severely underweight though, you DON’T need to gain weight when starting a pro metabolic diet

If anything, you should just be able to stabilise where you are while you are learning about your calories, macros and food types to improve your metabolic rate.

At the beginning, large amounts of calories are NOT required to heal

This false information of needing lots of calories (like 2,400 to 2,800 calories for women) has created a lot of issues for many people and is downright dangerous to promote. There have been stories of people having dangerously high blood sugar, high cholesterol and triglycerides to heart attack levels, onset of diabetes/ prediabetes and large amounts of weight gain like 60 pounds (30kg) when trying to follow this advice. This would be accumulating fat around your organs too, making it more difficult for them to work properly. So DON’T do this.

Starting calories

In my books the ZEN Beach Diet, the 3 Day Summer RESTART & the Lemon Coffee + Pro Metabolic Diet Weight Loss Dynamite books, we start at the minimum level of calories recommended for a healthy adult woman. This is 1,800 calories. For those who have been trying to ‘diet’ on 1,000 to 1,200 calories, it is advised to increase to this amount slowly, to get your body used to it to avoid weight gain. Like over a few months.

Calories after 12 months or so

Depending how your body responds, there may be opportunity to increase calories beyond this and continue to lose weight, depending on how your metabolic rate is progressing. There are so many other factors involved in this too like your age, your lifestyle, your health, the stress in your life, exactly what you are eating etc. For some, their optimal long term calorie level may be the same, or it may be less, or it may be more. It is so individual, and NO-ONE can tell you what that is. It’s up to you to test and measure and experiment as you go.

Your health

The state of your health plays a big part in your ability to lose weight. Ray Peat often said that most issues will resolve themselves once a person increases their metabolism. So, all diseases he believed stemmed from this one problem. The way to increase your metabolism is all detailed in my ZEN Beach Diet book. So it’s highly recommended that you grab a copy. If you already have it, read it again to ensure you are doing everything outlined.

The additional liver function benefits and other benefits in the Lemon Coffee program actually assisted me to obtain the healthy liver I didn’t even know I needed and the result was a loss of another 5kg (10lbs.)

Bottom line is we approach losing weight with our health in mind first. We don’t go hungry, but we don’t over stuff ourselves either. It is really a balancing act of knowledge and consistency, that will get you there in the end.

High Calorie Bullies

I had a person recently in our private group argue adamantly that my approach to a pro metabolic diet was too low in calories and stressful for the body. She claimed that no-one could possibly increase their metabolism on 1,800 calories and they shouldn’t stay at that level long term. Fortunately, she removed herself from the group as the last thing we need is high calorie bullies!

Funnily enough most of what she was saying was in line with my philosophies however she hadn’t read my books and had no idea what my philosophies actually were. However, she was wrong on two counts. Some people CAN increase their metabolic rate on 1,800 calories – I did! And I’m 5ft 10 inches tall. Others in our private group have as well. And at NO POINT did I say that everyone MUST stay at 1,800 calories for the long term. So it seems she was just making up her own stories and arguing against herself! Can’t please everyone.

Anyway, the point is, don’t let any high calorie bullies get into your head, as it is not the best way forward for most people.

We take a slow and steady approach and make tweaks in our own lives to suit our own bodies best.

See you in the groups!

Cheers

Kristy

Chocolate Mousse – High Protein Low Fat

This recipe for Chocolate Mousse High Protein is so easy to make and eat for breakfast!

One of the issues I commonly see is people drinking coffee first thing in the morning without food. Coffee is great and thyroid healthy ONLY when we drink it properly and that is WITH food. Or at least before or after food. The food part must happen close to the coffee drinking to supply the necessary carbohydrates to support the increase in metabolic rate caused by the coffee. Otherwise, we cause stress to the body, raising cortisol. This is why some people get the jitters and feel terrible. Read more about Coffee Drinking here.

Often, we don’t have time to stop and make something to eat, so this is why pre-prepared, easy-to-grab little bits of nourishing food is so important.

This Chocolate Mousse High Protein recipe is high in the RIGHT protein, low in fat, features enough carbohydrates to support the coffee drinking AND has fruit as well. And to make it even more perfect, it tastes AMAZING too!

Let’s get cooking!

Print Recipe

Chocolate Mousse High Protein

Chocolate High Protein Snack

Prep Time10

Course: Snack

Cuisine: Healthy

Keyword: 5 ingredients

Servings: 8

Equipment

1 Large Bowl
1 Mixing Spoon

Ingredients

1 500g Cottage Cheese 17.64oz
1 410g Sweetened Condensed Milk - 1 can 14.46oz
1/4 cup Cocoa Powder
1/2 cup Peanut Butter Powder
1 670g Jar of sour cherries 23.63oz

Instructions

Drain the liquid from the cherries and set the liquid & cherries aside separately.
Add all ingredients into a bowl except the cherries & mix with a spoon until well combined.
Add the cherries & stir through.
From here I portion out the mix into 4 x 1 cup sized plastic containers and store in the freezer until needed.
Place one container in the fridge to thaw out, if you are planning to eat it the next day.

Notes:

You may eat this recipe as ice cream too!
If you are planning to eat it every day, you can store it in the fridge for about 7 days. I just prefer the freezer as it keeps longer, and I’m not forced to have it before it goes off.
My cottage cheese is the smooth type that doesn’t have curds – it’s more like a Skyr or European cottage cheese. I can just mix it with a spoon and it’s smooth and fluffy. If your cottage cheese is different, you may need to use a food processor or stick blender to get it smooth.
The sour cherries go perfectly with all the sweet, however it still tastes amazing without them too. Add any fruit you have that you think would work with chocolate!
The peanut butter powder is optional but makes it taste awesome. As nearly all the PUFA fats are removed, it’s an ok food to have once in a while.

Calories/Macros

Whole recipe

1989 Calories

114 g Protein

322g Carbs

28g Fat

Per half cup serve

249 Calories

14.25g Protein

40g Carbs

3.5g Fat

I find myself making this recipe at least once every 2 weeks to stock up the freezer. It just takes a few minutes and is the perfect quick breakfast option, with all the necessary macros to go with coffee. I love pro metabolic food!

Happy cooking!

PS: If you love this recipe, there are more of them in my Sweet Treats Pro Metabolic Desserts recipe book. Click the image below to find out more…

Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk – no cook

Sweetened Condensed milk was one of my all-time favourite foods as a kid. When the ‘all sugar is bad‘ craze hit, my favourite food went out the window for at least 30 years.

How exciting to now understand that it can be included in your Pro Metabolic diet and still be healthy! Yay!

After continually buying tins of Sweetened Condensed Milk for a while, and not quite being sure of the source of the milk, I wondered if it was possible to make it at home. So I found the cooking it on the stove top recipe.

I tried this once. After 30 minutes of continual stirring, wasting so much time and still burning the mixture on the bottom of the pot – I thought surely there must be a better way? A non-cook way.

Pleased to report there is and it’s quick, easy and awesome!

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