Bioenergetics for Beginners with Helen (@Anomalie_Blue on X)
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Well, we're back with a returning guest, and she goes by Helen or Blue on X. So how you doing? I'm great, David. Thank you for having me back. It's great to have you. We're going to have to come up with a proper spinoff sub-series for all of our various bioenergetic shows that we do because it's kind of taken on a life of its own. It started off just within my

regular program we do a neighbor's choice, but it's really blossomed into a feature that people are looking forward to, to see different independent researchers like yourself taking some of the, the groundbreaking insights that Ray Pete was, um, developing and also carrying forward from other thinkers before him and trying to make sense of it for the next generation. So, um, the last time we talked about a population that, uh,

that had demonstrated some of the principles of a stress-free lifestyle and some of the amazing results that they encountered with the way they dealt with child rearing and nutrition. But today you've launched, not today, but I guess this week you've launched a sub-stack. Yeah, yesterday, March 2nd, as of today.

called Nutrition and Resistance to Disease, your first post. So tell us a little about it. You start off with this quote from Sir Albert Howard, artificial chemical fertilizers lead to artificial nutrition, artificial animals, and finally to artificial men and women. Yeah, it's a pretty powerful quote. Um,

I actually got my start. So before I got interested in Ray, I worked for a Lockhart influencer and she was someone who had done a lot of work with Swell Health. That was like her big thing. So I got really passionate about that.

learning about soil health okay just how ruminant you know ruminant animals are super important for the soil um how manure and things like that can help to improve the soil biodiversity and the water holding capacity and things like that so very familiar with like rotational grazing like joel saladin just yeah he's been on our show many times so that that's something that our audience enjoys learning about too yeah he's amazing he's very detailed i always love listening to him

So yeah, so the Substack is mostly about Sir Albert Howard, who was a botanist in the early 1900s. And one of his most amazing discoveries, at least in my opinion, was he found that when cattle that were unvaccinated were fed specifically like very nutrient-dense crops raised in soil that used organic fertilizers versus artificial ones, that they didn't end up getting the infectious illnesses that the other cows were getting, despite rubbing noses directly with them. So

Normally, the way we think of infectious disease transmission is having it be, you know, through fluids, direct contact, through aerosols, through things like that, just based on like the viral load being high enough to cause an infection. But there is a pretty big, in my opinion, disregard for the role that nutrition plays in preventing some of those things. And I think that Sir Albert's work is just a really good example.

segue into some of those topics because it happened so long ago and it was still, you know, it was something that was pretty well proven even back then. And we're still like trying to figure it out. So that's fascinating. So that was, um, now you have a picture of the mode of sowing seed in India. Why did you include this picture here?

on your substance. That was where, so that was one of the, that was probably, I think it was one of the first places that Sir Albert visited. He did like a whole world tour for agriculture, but he spent, I think about 19 years in India. And initially he went there, he was like tasked with teaching them about Western techniques and he ended up learning a lot more from them. So. Looks like he's got little zebus there that they're, they're young. I think they're like the, the oxen. The zebus, the, uh, from what I understand is,

the original cattle that came from India. So that is interesting to see. So I'm unfamiliar with his name. Anything more that, you know, kind of, I'm looking through your article here, but kind of pulling out some of the highlights that people can check out for fuller measure when they read your article.

Yeah, I think I tried to tie it into the subject we had discussed in the beginning of the previous podcast that we did, which was the lifespan and healthspan of the Hunza and Abkhazian people. Because Sir Albert, he noticed also that they have very good soil practices and that the richness of the soil was very... It contributed significantly to the nutrient density that the crops were able to absorb. So...

Yeah. And it's, it's interesting because a lot of people come, you know, there's a guy who wrote a book on the water of Hunza and he thinks that that's the reason they live long. And there's more of the repeat ideas, which are, you know, it's high carbohydrate diet, high mountain. And then there's the Sir Albert angle, which is like high nutrient density. I think all the things kind of converge together. Like it's not really one or the other. I think Ray's version is probably closest because he addresses all those pieces for the most part. Yeah. It's pretty amazing how,

There's a book actually, I think it's called Healthy at 100 by John Robbins, I believe. And he goes into depth on why and how it's not genetic that these people are living so long in all these different places. Because peoples, for example, who lived closely and were very closely genetically related weren't living as long. So yeah, there's a lot of good evidence that it's definitely related to the lifestyle of the people. And that's such an affront to the foundations of

our modern biology and medical worlds because it's so fixated on genetic for everything, you know, and Ray was good to push back against that. And, um, you know, it's, it's, it's, I think the make America healthy again thing is really getting people to start thinking about the environment and making it cool and trendy for people to get into that. Right. But within that, there's so much, there's so many rabbit trails and it's very stressful, ironically. Yeah.

And so it's a really hard paradox to figure out, you know, how to joyfully decouple from all the different stressors without being so stressed out about it, because it's just endless things to do. You know, some people say, you know, you're not supposed to have any lights on that are fake or something past seven. It's like, man, I don't know how people are able to have a family. I mean, you know, it's kind of little house on the prairie or something. If you built your own home and stuff and yeah, you could do it that way and have some candlelight too, if you want, but.

For a lot of folks, they can't just transition to some idyllic perfection. And, you know, that whole saying of don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, I think is important here.

Yeah. And that's why I think Ray's work is so important because he provides so many like very actionable and fairly affordable ways to really just start improving your metabolic rate, which will take care of, in my opinion, a lot of the toxic burdens just by being able to increase your rate of excretion of some of those things and increase kind of the integrity of your intestinal area as well. Let's get into some of the foundations that Ray recommends for lifestyle and improving people.

But I want to set up this first with the question that a lot of folks have that are in the alternative health space. Sugar is still very much demonized by most folks. And even to the extent that to those who are not demonizing it, they certainly downplay it as a major thing. Like, yeah, you can have some fruit, but don't you dare drink a cup of orange juice. Orange juice is so vilified. And I think it probably has to do partially with...

I actually worked in the industry in the citrus world, but I know that Coca-Cola and Pepsi own the major orange juice brands, but they also want to make sure that they protect their other artificial drink beverage categories. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some marketing propaganda that has really made an effect on the average person's mind because orange juice is such a vilified drink, even more so than, I mean, not quite as soda would be.

But, you know, for the average person, when they're thinking about health conscious stuff, right? Most people in the masses like Coke and most people in the masses don't drink orange juice. But those in the healthy world or healthy interested world, orange juice is vilified almost universally. And it may be a product of mass marketing against, you know, the product. I don't know. Yeah, I agree. And I think that one of the most interesting things to see is how people

you know researchers or people will just latch on to like it's the specific components of the orange juice like it's the flavanols or it's the this and we should isolate those things and give those to people and it's not that that's a bad thing to do necessarily it's just that the idea that the food itself as the whole thing is bad just because of the sugar is i think it's indicative of a broader

problem of just people not being able to oxidize carbohydrates and so you tend to kind of stop at where you think the problem is which is sugar which that can seem like a very reasonable conclusion to come to because whenever you drink sugar you get sugar you don't feel good so yeah i think a lot of people stop there because they're just like like hey i gain weight when i eat sugar and that's good enough for me like i'll stop there because i know it doesn't work yeah and do are you of the approach because there's a lot of people that have different spinoffs on what ray's

foundations are, but are you of the approach that people should ease into sugar if they've been generally eating either a lower carb diet or a general standard American diet? Should those folks in general ease into increasing their carbohydrate intake in your personal opinion or should they go kind of

uh, you know, kind of dramatically up until their body can learn to adapt to it and dramatically drop their fat or something to help their body learn, relearn because, because most people would, I guess we would say are burning a lot more fat, whether they're doing a low carb or a standard American diet because of the nature of the amount of PUFA that most people are consuming and other, other factors there.

Yeah, in my opinion, yes, in general, you should take it slow. And one really good example of this is actually, this is an extreme example, but during World War II, after the prisoners in the concentration camps died,

like prisoners of war and the survivors, I guess, when they were trying to refeed them, they realized that they couldn't give them any big meals, especially meals that were made of starches because they would die of electrolyte imbalance. So people who are under a lot of stress tend to be a lot more sensitive. So you do have to take things like that slow because the, all the enzymes and like the transporters related to glucose metabolism, do you need time to re-upregulate and they need to sense that slowly. So.

So in my experience, yes. What about like, just to put a variable in there, what about like Kempner's experiments where he had people on rice? That was a pretty, so the Kempner's is interesting. I think I read about that a few months ago. And yeah, it's a pretty, it's high rice, it's high carbohydrate, but it was actually a fairly calorie restricted diet as well.

So they were doing high carb, but it was also low calorie for the most part. I think there are some that got up to 2000, but it was, I think around like 15 or 1200, if I remember correctly. So it was also calorie restriction. So let's, so this is, this is all great entry points into the repeat world for folks who are most of my audience would probably not be doing repeat type stuff regularly intentionally at least. But yeah,

So would you typically say from your understanding that it's less stressful on the body if you're eating a standard American, which is now a standard global diet for a lot of folks and different variations, lots of grains, lots of PUFA, lots of protein that's not balanced with gelatin and collagen?

Would folks doing that that are kind of running their metabolism into a stress dependent state most of the time, would it be less stressful to reduce calories or reduce carbohydrate? Like to do a lower carb version of Ray or a lower calorie, higher carb? What do you think is more or less stressful for easing into that to reduce?

I think honestly the best thing for most people to do, because most people still, maybe, I don't know if it's most now, but I guess that most people probably still aren't aware of seed oils and food. That's probably the biggest one. Just start with that.

Start looking at your packaging, start changing up the cooking oils, you know, coconut, extra virgin olive oil, not cooking too much, but coconut and butter for cooking, extra virgin olive oil for dressing. Just avoiding the sunflower, safflower, canola, corn, all those. But that's something that we've been talking about for a long time on this show, the seed oil rejection in general.

But then within that, you get a lot of people who are saying, also, you have to get rid of the grains or the starches or the sugar. You have to get rid of that to start undoing the damage of the seed oils. And that's where the repeat community would say, not so fast. Don't do that. You might actually be shooting yourself in the foot even more. Yeah, I think for the thing that

I've noticed really works well for people is when they make a small change and they notice just a small difference and then they get more curious and then you can have a small change. And then over time, those things compound into big changes. For the most part, it has to be for most people, they're going to want to start with the smaller changes. Some people are like, yes, like just start me on.

fruit juice or whatever but um most people are kind of looking for to dip their toe in the water because they don't know like hearing it from you as is great that you have all the theory and you know how it works but someone who just wants to get better wants to feel better and that's their priority so yeah for them it's sometimes a lot harder to just dive right in really quickly i think even for a lot of people that do increase their simple sugar intake or

you know, you know, getting more juice and more milk and other things, they, they, they run into a lot of problems, you know, and it gets really confusing. And the, you know, the Ray Pete community is still going through some growing pains as it starts to try to figure out how to engage with the broader public, right? Because it does attract a lot of people who are, who are a little bit more eccentric and, you know, that's why any early adopters,

People who are kind of early to something that's kind of a misfit space that's contrarian are going to have a difficult time sometimes socially relating it back to their community. They're a little bit more mainstream oriented. But I think that's what needs to happen is there has to be, and this is a running theme of a lot of my conversations with folks in the repeat world, is just there needs to be a lot more simpler on ramps

I agree. And it's hard to do because you don't want to disregard the nuance of the topics either. What would you say to a popular refrain, which is, you know, I was talking to a friend the other day or a group of friends and one guy, he's been doing the Ray Pete way and he's eating 6,000 calories a day. He said,

And he's very, that's quite good. And he's very, he's very fit and good shape. And he doesn't do, in his opinion, a lot of exercise. And the other person was more Weston price adjacent, you know, and said, well, wait till he's not in his thirties, wait till he's older. And he catches up with him with that sugar drinking that much of orange juice without the fiber from the orange and whatever, doing all that kind of sugar.

He says there's the gentleman that does 6,000 calories does two to three cups of sugar a day. Yeah. I don't, I think it's all forms of sugaring. I think it would include orange juice in that, but also white sugar when needed and he's doing fine. He's thriving and he's very healthy and he's, it does help that he's, his job is outdoors and it gets a lot of sunlight, but it's not a particularly strenuous intense exercise type of job. So he,

you know, there's that paradigm that people say, well, one, well, there's always those, some people say it's a certain body type that can handle sugar like that. Not everybody should be doing that. Some people need to be fat burners. And then there's the other argument, which is, yeah, you can run sugar when you're young, but don't try doing that the whole life because you're going to run into a wall and really cause health problems if you keep that kind of sorcery up into your 40s and 50s. So

Could you address those two kind of objections to someone who seems to be thriving in that way and what you think? Yeah, well, I think the first thing I would say is that from Ray's work and just from the bioenergetic perspective in general, it's pretty clear that one of the features of aging and disease in general is just an inability to oxidize specifically glucose, but just mitochondrial oxidation in general is impaired. But just knowing that, that that is at the root of most of the problems and not necessarily the sugar itself.

is probably the best starting point for people and to just point them towards the references that show that that's true. And then of course, there will be nuanced points of contention there, like how much sugar should someone eat? Like how many B vitamins does someone need? How much liver should someone eat? You know, that is the kind of stuff where it starts to get very individual because everyone has different specific needs. And there is truth to the fact that some people will have certain

genetic idiosyncrasies that will lend to problems with energy metabolism that may necessitate supplementation. But in general, I do think that just trying to incorporate the easy to digest carbs, the once or twice a week, a couple ounces of liver, getting enough protein and making sure the protein's balanced, all those things can really get someone, in my opinion, like 70 to 80% of the way there. And where is the there that they're supposed to go to in your opinion?

I think that there is when you start, so the basal body temperature test is a really good one. So making sure that when you wake up, you hold either like a digital or mercury thermometer under your armpit for at least five minutes. Some people like 10 and it should read around 97.8 to 98 degrees Fahrenheit. If it's below that,

you're most likely hypothyroid unless it's really humid outside. And then once you wake up and eat sort of around the afternoon, it should rise to around 98.6 to 99. And that should be something that you do like on a regular basis every day to just see whether you're improving, getting lower, higher. What should it be when you wake up? Do you move at all or do you supposed to stay? I think you're supposed to stay pretty still. In American minds, they think that five minutes sitting in bed is...

I mean, they like it if they have the privilege to, but they're usually just jumping up and whisking. There are other ones too, like if a person isn't willing to quite do the basal body temperature test yet, mood and digestion are really good ones as well. You know, if you're constantly anxious and depressed, it's probably a pretty good sign that your brain energy is low. So I'm making sure that you're going hopefully around between one and three, preferably two to three times a day, I think is a good sign for most people.

and making sure the stools are well formed and not like diarrhea. So, um, and then, so, so checking the temperature when you wake up at, what did you say is the threshold that you want to keep it around? I know there's been some variance in the discussion there, but I think around 98, so 97.8 to 98 degrees Fahrenheit is usually a good body temperature. And then you also want to check that with your pulse as well, which should be between 75 and 90 degrees per minute. So,

And then you check it again at what time for folks? Usually in the afternoon, so before dinner, but kind of after your last meal, a couple hours after your lunch meal. Now, what is your opinion? There's a discussion, variation in bioenergetic lifestyle folks that say, well, you know, you should do, I know like anabolic, I've had them on the show to talk about the honey diet.

a while back and you know he talks about if you want to get your metabolism soaring try not to eat any protein until later in the day like for your dinner so you do he's trying to mimic kind of just doing glucose through uh through fruit and honey and everything

all through the morning and then going into a fasting state in the afternoon and then having a big kind of rather keto type, almost low carb diet style meal, a big pound of meat or something or whatever your needs are to have a lot of protein and some vegetables or something in the night. What do you think of that kind of approach of having, for folks who are not used to eating healthy carbs in a general way?

larger amount should they try it that way or should they do a mixed macro because it seems like most people want a mixed macro they you know they kind of they'd like some eggs or whatever and a coffee with some honey and milk or they want all the little variations of things around that some people want fruit and all that and keep in mind another factor here that's confusing is that fruit is extremely expensive to get high quality fruit in america unfortunately we're still a big giant food desert for most people so that's a little bit of a problem

Absolutely. Well, I've read Anabology's honey diet protocol and the theory behind it. And I think it is, seems like it's a good weight loss diet and it could probably be a good way to kind of brute force the glucose oxidation to some extent. But I don't think it's a long-term solution in my opinion. I think a lot of people do better when they combine protein, fat and carbazinamide, even if it's just a small amount of protein and fat. Specifically people who are coming from low carb diets.

keto, any kind of restricted diet. In general, it's good to combine the protein with the fruit just so you don't get, especially if they're not handling glucose well, so you don't get too hypoglycemic. A lot of folks who don't like seed oils say skip breakfast and burn through it, get you some coffee or something and wait till lunch to eat, to get all that fasting going. What do you think of that? Yeah, I mean, that is a, you know, a lot of people, I think, find that attractive because

quick, pretty much quick weight loss is almost always going to be stressful, whether it's honey dieting or, which is probably slightly safer, at least in terms of muscle mass or, you know, restricting carbs altogether. For the most part, if you're under eating in any way, there's going to be stress involved in that. So, and I get that for some people it's worth it because you want to feel that weight loss, but I would caution against it. If you can achieve the results with

a slower more conservative approach of combining you know slowly adding if you haven't been having carbs slowly adding back through fruit fruit with maybe an egg or a piece of cheese sometimes it has to be just a small amount of protein because that can also get your blood sugar too low too much protein so it will depend on the person too much protein can make the blood sugar too low after the meal yeah especially like the the higher quality branch chain proteins can stimulate insulin so

So having a well macro balanced meal is probably not a bad idea. Usually not a bad idea. And I think especially for, again, people coming from restrictive diets, which will be most people who are looking to improve their energy, that

approach can be very useful, especially starting slow and combining your fruit food protein. Would you say most people should start with fruit rather than orange juice to protect them from, you know, handling the increase in sugar that they may not be

Yeah, soluble fiber does slow down the digestion a bit, which can reduce the glucose load. But some people struggle with fibers. So some people do better with fruit juice and then making sure they're getting the right amount of protein to prevent the blood sugar from going too low. And some people do better with whole fruits. So it really depends. You probably will have to experiment. Now, you know, there's a lot of poof in most people's eggs, even these organic free range eggs that people are trying to spend $50 a dozen.

That's a problem in the supermarket and even farmers. You get these backyard chickens and people think because it's written on a cardboard and marker that somehow it makes the poof go away, but it's still there if they're using a traditional feed.

Even if it's organic, it could be even higher in seed oil or PUFA-like fat. So what do you think is a safe amount of eggs for people to eat without going too much with PUFA right from the very beginning when they're trying to get rid of PUFA in a healthy way?

Yeah, I think eggs are like a really good source of B vitamins and some of the other important nutrients like choline. So I wouldn't fear them too much. If you're worried about PUFO, maybe stick with one to two and make sure you always have like any protein with carbs to avoid the low blood glucose. But yeah.

Yeah, I would say, and obviously for most people, it's probably not convenient. But if you can get a good source from a farmer that you know and trust, that's probably the ideal. And sometimes that's even cheaper if you can order in bulk from those kinds of people. So what do you think is a good ideal scenario for folks who have a little bit of time in the morning to do this right? You get up, should you go out and ground first and get sunlight before you eat? Or should you eat first and then get your... Because people's times are so precious.

They've got to deal with family. They've got to deal with emails and phone calls and they're rushing off to work or school or whatever. And they've got to, they haven't economized their time in the most efficient way possible because so many people are under so much stress and debt and mortgages and all that nonsense that people have surrendered so many of their lives, time on earth towards it's sad. But

For folks who are under the gun, what do you think is a good scenario? You get your 30 minutes of sunlight and ground your feet in some dirt and then eat or eat while you're doing that. I mean, people really, you know, it's funny. People all have this paradox where they don't tell me what to do, but they also, they also, when they're trying something new, they kind of like it to be a little bit like try this step one and step two and see if this helps you. If it doesn't do whatever you want, you know, do something else.

Yeah, that's a good point. And well, I think to answer your question about like when people should eat in the morning, I think it really depends. Like if you're healthy for the most part, within 30 minutes, you'll get pretty hungry. And if you're running on cortisol and adrenaline, you probably won't get hungry until later.

So that's another, like I wouldn't force someone to like shovel food down when they don't feel hungry, but there are ways to lower stress that will result in being hungry in the morning. So like salt at night, for example, a couple of gelatin gummies, small bowl of ice cream, all that stuff can like lower your stress overnight, which will help you to wake up hungrier. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. So you're saying to, to not force yourself to eat if you're not hungry, right?

Yeah, because it's, I've done that before, actually. It was something I did back when I was like really stressed out and I just like threw it up. So let's not say that that will happen for everyone, but in general, not listening to what your body is telling you, get you in trouble. So yeah, I think it's a good strategy to, you know, take things slow and not to be too ashamed about where you are, because at the end of the day, it took you probably like for most people, it probably took them 10, 20, 30 years to get sick. So yeah.

Assuming that that's going to go away, some of it can go away overnight, but the stress and the mood can sometimes improve overnight. But bigger things like weight loss, some of the low energy symptoms and hypothyroid symptoms do take weeks to months, sometimes even years to improve.

And, um, do you, are you a fan of supplementation? Do you think people should take thyroid supplements if, if a doctor has thought that to be something they should do, or maybe if they don't want to go that extreme route, try a naturally desiccated form of thyroid that might help them give them the energy they need throughout the day. Yeah. I think, um,

Well, Daniel Roddy has a really good article. I think it's called demystifying thyroid supplementation. I would point people there first before just starting one, because that can lead to some problems, especially if you overdo it. But what I would also say about that is that starting with the diet, especially if you

have been eating, you know, like lots of processed foods, not much eggs and liver, not much fruit, the best thing you can do is probably just to start eating a little bit more of those things. Obviously not too much liver. Eating more of those things and getting your macros and micros all sorted out first.

before you take the thyroid supplement because there have been some good studies from like the earlier 1900s. I think their researchers were called Biskind. They both have the same last name, brothers probably. And they did some good research with thyroid supplementation. And one of the things they found was that when people didn't get enough, especially B vitamins, the thyroid did not work as well. And that makes sense because when you take thyroid, you're increasing your body's demand for resources. And if you don't have the resources,

It could potentially lead to stress, which is the response that you get when you don't have enough reason. And that's one of the things about the bioenergetic paradigm, folks, and that's why it's so important. This needs to be done at the young age when you're a kid and stuff because there's so many variables. And this is one of the hardest things about this as someone who looks at trying to help humans figure out things at mass scale that are kind of complicated.

I mean, I had the bright idea of trying to explain anthropology on talk radio for years, and it's hard to do that stuff. But, I mean, it takes time for anybody to truly master something. You've got to be able to teach it in an effective way. But one of the things that makes this so complicated for people, it can be, it's just how many variables there are. Like when you say, see, I could just ask questions endlessly about any of these things, like, well...

well, how much is enough B vitamin? If I get a B vitamin complex that's a good source, 100 milligrams, I mean, how many do I have to take to get the thyroid to do its job and all this? And it's like, you know, that's one of the things about low-carb that makes it so effective. For the longest time, when I was doing low-carb back before it was quite as popular, you know, back in like 2005 and 2006 when I first started it,

you know, 2004, even it was like, you had to, unfortunately people didn't even know what a carbohydrate was, you know? So you'd have to sit there and don't, that's, that's bread, that's potatoes. I say, can I eat that? Can I eat rice? So you had to explain what a carbohydrate was. But now, now that that learning curve has kind of been mastered by the masses, they're able to do low carb pretty intuitively. Like, okay,

that's a carb. Don't eat it as much, just a little bit, you know? And then people learn that, oh, vegetables have a little bit of carbs in them. So that's, I can have a little bit of broccoli, but I can't have a big thing of rice. But with this, it's like, you know, you have to have

You have to pay attention to the orchestra of your body. And the average person, not even just the average, any person, it's a complicated thing. That's why you've got to do this. And I wonder sometimes, just to think of the contrarian side, if maybe a lot of people can't really do the bioenergetic paradigm if they've gone too long

doing the wrong thing, you know, that maybe they like, maybe they can't have some benefits. Like you said, getting rid of seed oils, those are all nice things, but they may not ever be able to do a lot of this stuff because it's just the, this, the amount of things you have to keep in mind are almost endless variables. Yeah. I think that's, you know, part of the reason why some people really do benefit from having someone at least there to answer questions to guide them in a certain direction. Yeah. Not that you want to rely on that person forever, but,

But having someone who's been through at least what you've been through in some way and has an idea of the things that could be contributing to your problems and has some ideas of where to start, how to do things, that can be really reassuring for people just to know that there's like a thousand ways to end the cat, really. You can take it as slow or as quickly as you would like to go. So it's overwhelming, but it definitely feels that way. Yeah.

One of the things that has inspired me to be intrigued as I learned the paradigm through the years is actually some of the more bizarre, outlandish, esoteric things that you learn about within the repeat sphere. You were posting a lot of those things about the CO2 therapy, and people think about how in the world these guys measured in clinics that they had patients being cured of their atheism

and degeneracies and so forth from CO2 maxing, 30% CO2 and stuff. And when you hear that, right, it's almost like these big in-breaking, like it's almost like I would call that an apocalyptic in-breaking of the truth. And you're like, whoa, what is that? I want to go forward towards that. So it gives you a down payment on something extraordinary that might be worth investigating in your life, right? And those things, ironically, a lot of people want to shelve those things because they think that's too crazy for the public.

Just teach them to drink some milk and orange juice and sleep. But sometimes it takes those radical little, you know, things to kind of be like lodestars to kind of guide you through this journey. Be like, I really want to know what that's all about. How could that be? And does that give me information to think about eating and doing things in a way that maximizes CO2? If it has this ability to help people be cured of atheism, what is that? You know, very intriguing. It's like mysteries you want to figure out.

Yeah, that's kind of the same way that I felt about it when I came across it. And obviously you do have to be a little bit careful because like most things, like anything extreme has its downsides. So yeah, making sure that you're doing the best you can to deliver the information in a way that doesn't draw from the importance of like context is really important because what works for one person almost invariably disappears.

Doesn't always work for everyone else. Richard Dawkins might require 35% CO2. In other words, I think what you're saying makes perfect sense. I thought we could just give him one 30% session if he desired it. And that would make his next book, the sequel to the purpose driven life. But maybe not. So any other things that you'd like to leave people off in a basic kind of introductory, anything else, little, little helpful things,

um practical advice you talked about temperature check you talked about you know trying to do macros going slow and increasing your carbohydrate i mean you know you talked about keeping protein and and everything there on the plate don't go too extreme probably and being being cautious and introducing things like thyroid supplementation because you don't want to you know overdo something before it's time or it's appropriateness

How about some more, a couple more things and we'll, we'll land the plane there. Yeah, there's a, there's so many offshoots that you could go on because most of the time, like anytime you increase the amount of one nutrient, you're going to increase the amount of like all the cofactors involved with it, which is why I think Ray was so keen on recommending foods specifically because they tend to come with all the things that help you to digest. Yeah.

You said fruit or food? Foods. He would talk a lot about whole foods like fruit and milk and liver once or twice a week and oysters once or twice a week. Instead of like, zinc does this and iron does that. He did talk about that, but he was very food-centric. I think he knew that there's a tendency in the culture to just kind of latch on to things in isolation and pretend that they can exist context-free. Yeah. And he was very thorough in that way. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you, do you incorporate a lot of vegetables or do you stay away from them generally in your life? So I tolerate like the well-cooked greens pretty well. I also like tubers like potatoes. They're pretty good.

Some people really can't do those things at first, but then find that they can later. There was a researcher, Francis Pottinger, who when he gave some of his patients with digestive troubles more gelatin, he found they were able to tolerate a lot of the fibers better. So there are things like that that can help you to reintroduce those foods. Like they don't have to necessarily be gone forever.

But eliminating them because of the irritation can definitely help you to get your thyroid function back up in the beginning. So if you want to get an upward spiral, once your thyroid improves and you can tolerate more stress and then things get good. How essential is, say, the raw carrot a day or raw carrot salad for maximizing your bioenergetic, you know, simple practices to get going, you know?

I think it's, I think it works pretty well for most people. Some people actually can't tolerate the carrot fiber. It's rare, but some people do better with like the boiled mushrooms or the bamboo shoots.

So is it good to do all three and see what works or just eat them all at once? Like a salad. That's what we do. White button, boiled mushrooms, all carrot and bamboo shoots. Right. That'd be quite a salad. Throw it all three together and see, see if that helps your digestion, you know? Yeah. I should try that one day and report back, but yeah, I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think anyone should do that, but yeah, in general,

People will tolerate fibers differently. I do think the carrot is a good place to start. Just try it. You know, if you don't want to make the carrot salad, I do recommend doing that because it comes with other antimicrobial benefits. But if you're struggling with like a small intestinal bacteria overgrowth, I would suggest or you suspect that you're struggling with one. Starting just with one carrot a day can help.

you know, just seeing how you feel afterwards can definitely be a really good strategy to help get rid of that. And some people have overgrowth that are just too severe for a carrot to deal with. And sometimes they do need like either an oregano oil or some other antibiotic like a tetracycline. And that can really be like a powerful, more powerful intervention than the carrot.

But the carrot is good. The carrot does a lot more than just kill bacteria to it. Obviously, it's made of the insoluble fibers, which can bind to the bile acids and then help to prevent the reabsorption of estrogen. So all the Peters know all this stuff. But for the people who are maybe new to it, those are some of the benefits of the carrot. Yeah. And then you have the gelatin. How essential is gelatin in a daily context for thriving bioenergetically?

I think that most people that I come across that aren't on Twitter are probably not getting enough, for sure. Eating way too much muscle meat, not enough of the glycine, proline, hydroxyproline-rich cuts of meat, which are like the skin of your animals, the tendons, all the things that our ancestors probably would have eaten. Those things are largely discarded because they're regarded as chewy or tough or gross, and people don't get them. And the amino acids in

the muscle needs in isolation can impair thyroid function directly. So yeah, cysteine can inhibit the conversion of T4, T3, lots of other things can happen. Um, and you can also, you definitely can get too much gelatin and glycine for sure. Um, I think most people do well, 20 to 40 grams of collagen or gelatin per day tends to be tolerated. Well, assuming you're eating around like at least 70 to 80 grams of total protein tends to be good for most people. Um,

Is that something that should be eaten throughout the day, that amount, or should they just get it in at one time and that'll do benefit throughout the day? I think like with most foods, the absorption is improved when you separate it out because most things have feedback mechanisms where you, when you get enough of it, it'll inhibit the absorption of the thing. So in general, with any food, trying to get it separated like throughout the day and like three to four times,

Well-balanced meals. Yeah. And I do think, again, that's another area where it's a tricky thing for Americans in general to adjust to gelatin throughout the day. You know, I could see the average American saying, okay, I'll put that in my coffee and that gets me started and that's it. But doing it over and over and over again and having jello and, you know, gelatin, that type of thing.

It'd be hard for people to want to really keep going. So that those are things you have to think about. I think for sure. You, you know, if you just start with like whatever you can do, start with that and then see how you feel. And some people need, you know, quite a bit to notice an effect. And some people notice within like a day or two that they're like sleeping better from just from gelatin or like a little more salt. Cause the doctor said salt bad for my blood pressure. So not eating salt. Yeah. Yeah.

Things like that. Simple. Sometimes it's really like those simple little things that kept people thinking like, oh, I actually feel better when I do that. Like what else can I do to feel better? So. Well, very good. I really appreciate you coming on. Can you share again, your, the name of your sub stack and anything, you know, your ex or anything else you'd like to leave people with? Yeah. So it's all, I just have right now, I just have X and sub stack and it's all anomaly with an IE underscore. Okay. So what are you, what's the next stuff you've got going on for your sub stack for people to look for?

So my plan is to write a sort of overview of like bioenergetic principles, why you kind of want more energy, why that's a good thing, and how to do that in a broad sense, obviously taking into account the fact that everyone's different. All right. Well, I appreciate your time. Thanks again, Helen, for coming on. Thank you, David, for having me.

Bye.