The Eating Disorder Doctors Couldn't Fix, Cured With Eggs and Butter - Kelsey Buchalter

For twenty years, Kelsey Buchalter cycled through hospitals, medications, and every conventional treatment psychiatry could offer for anorexia, bulimia, and anxiety. None of it touched the underlying problem. What finally did was a single instruction from a nutritionist: eat only red meat and eggs for ten days.

Now a health coach at Ovadia Heart Health, Kelsey sits down with Dr. Philip Ovadia and Jack Heald to trace the biological mechanism behind that shift, and to challenge a premise most mental health treatment never questions: that the mind can be repaired while the body remains inflamed and malnourished. She draws a sharp distinction between disordered eating and dietary intervention, one that has nothing to do with what's on the plate and everything to do with why it's there.

The conversation moves through decision fatigue, the vagus nerve's surprising link to the human voice, and the difference between healing from fear versus healing from self-respect. It is a story about what happens when biology gets treated before anyone tries to talk the mind into changing.

BIG IDEA

Before psychology can do its work, biology has to be stabilized first, and for Kelsey Buchalter, that meant confronting the idea that her mental illness was never a character flaw but a body in crisis.

kelsey buchalter
instagram: kelseybuchalter
Podcast: The Human Theater

WEBSITE: Stay Off My Kitchen Table

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Theme Song : Rage Against
Written & Performed by Logan Gritton & Colin Gailey
(c) 2016 Mercury Retro Recordings

Any use of this intellectual property for text and data mining or computational analysis including as training material for artificial intelligence systems is strictly prohibited without express written consent from Dr. Philip Ovadia.

Transcript

0:59

Welcome, folks. It is Stay Off My Operating Table with Dr. Philip Ovadia. We're glad you're here. Phil, when I did my research on our guest, I was stoked because she and I share a common love that has absolutely nothing to do with metabolic health, which we may or may not get into. But we had fun chatting before you joined the recording. With that, I'm gonna throw it over to you and let you introduce our guest today. Very good. And I would say that your shared interest in music and theater does have to do with metabolic health. I think we put that under the stress reduction and enjoyment of life category. And having good hobbies and creative outlets I think certainly do relate to metabolic health. But I am really excited to introduce our guest today. Kelsey Buchalter is the newest health coach that has joined our practice at Ovadia Heart Health. She has an amazing background around metabolic health that we're gonna get into. And as I've said many times on this program she and the other health coaches that are part of my medical practice are really integral in helping people get the results that they get. And so we're gonna talk about the importance of health coaching. We're of course gonna get into Kelsey's story, which is a very interesting one as well. And I'm just excited to be able to introduce her to our audience. Kelsey, with that, why don't you talk a little bit about how you evolved into health coaching and how it came to be then that you are joining my practice? Thank you so much for having me here today. Yeah, so as our mutual friend Ben Azadi puts it I think most of us who find ourself in this space who are, genuinely passionate about helping people and spreading the good word we all have a pain to purpose story, and mine was I st- struggle. I have a lifelong history of severe anorexia, bulimia, and anxiety, and I was in the standard of care for 20-plus years. And eight years ago now is when I found the carnivore diet, and that was the first intervention after pretty much every intervention under the sun that the standard of conventional care could offer someone going through what I went through. That was the first treatment that actually I would say brought me back to life, although in hindsight I feel like I never really was alive until I found carnivore eight years ago. So that's just a very brief summary of how I got into this space. My, lived experience led me here and made me passionately outspoken about all things lifestyle lifestyle interventions in the treatment and prevention of chronic disease. And yeah, before I started studying nutrition and becoming a metabolic health coach, I was studying musical theater which is where Jack and I have a mutual interest. And yeah, I totally agree with you, Dr. Ovadia, in that I think, passion, purpose creativity they're all parts of the metabolic health and just health. They're all tenants of health, I think, and yeah, so thank you for mentioning that. I think that they are related for sure. Sorry, Jack. Let's just get into the details of your story. So anorexia- … bulimia these are considered to be eating disorders, right? And they're considered to be let's say issues with people's relationship with food in general. But the mainstream doesn't necessarily recognize that the f- the types of food that you're eating may impact, the sort of presentation of the disease. And you mentioned that you had a longstanding history within the mainstream system before you found carnivore as an approach to dealing with these issues. Talk a little bit about that, and talk about what your experience was going carnivore and how it changed your relationship to food in general. Yeah. Just on that, regarding relationship with food, I think one of the biggest things that I'm pretty outspoken about is just the, even the term mental health. I think that it should very much be termed just brain health or just health in general, because in my opinion, mental health is physical health, and I think that's the biggest not wrong, but just the biggest criticism that I have regarding just treatment in the conventional mental health paradigm in that they espouse that… or they view someone struggling with mental health through the lens that it's a character flaw or it's their inability to be stoic in the world. And from my experience, and again, this is just my experience a large cause, for the lack of a better word, of most of my mental health issues was actually just gut and neural inflammation. That's just something that I wanted to say regarding mental health in that I just think that it's, mental health is physical health 'cause we cannot take the brain. The mind and the brain, that's one thing. The body is one thing. But yeah, my my experience with carnivore was, pretty much my first meal my brain came back to life. My first meal was boiled eggs and some butter. And literally it was a very quick turnover. From that day it was just… I actually have not been able to look back since that day. And I think it, concurrently, of course, there is the lived experience part of struggling with an eating disorder and, having a dysfunctional relationship with food for sure that didn't ha- like change overnight. But I think what helped in underplaying all of this was the biological repair that was undoubt- undeniably happening just by changing my diet alone in that, like- My cells were less inflamed, they were getting less inflamed, and as a result, pretty much overnight, the quality of my thoughts changed. And so I've reduced it down to just, getting rid of mitochondrial dysfunction, getting rid of cellular inflammation, and lo and behold, my brain was working better and my quality of thoughts were just much more strong. And I was able… I don't have to see a psychotherapist anymore. So yeah I… it's, I think a theme that I've come to speak about with my clients, and then also just understand in self-reflection about my own journey, is that there's a dance between the mindset and the psychological work, as well as the biological repair. And I think that's my biggest criticism of mental health treatment, is that I think before you can ever get to the mind, you have to stabilize the biology, and that's just not part of the conversation in mental health, in that especially with eating disorders, there should be no fear food. You have to eat all food in moderation. But it's I use this analogy a lot, but Dr. Daniel Amen has an amazing phrase that I'm gonna paraphrase. But he speaks about the body being the hardware of a computer, and then likening the psychology to the software of a computer, and how can you expect the software to be functioning optimally if the hardware is beaten and battered? So concurrently with all of my mental health issues, from the get-go, I had, like IBS as a kid, I had like chronic headaches. I had all of these like disparate physiological symptoms. Had hypothyroid but then I also had a lot of mental health issues, and like for me, the root the root of my eating disorders were, was definitely just anxiety. Like to me, it was all along, I've just only known anxiety. I feel like I was born into anxiety. And in that regard, like everyone has their own big T and little T traumas in their life. No one comes out of this world unscathed. But like for me, there was no like ra- like rational, objective, like logical reason that I would be so distressed and anxious my whole life. And in that regard I g- I again go back to just cellular inflammation. Like for me in my bio individual context, like there was clearly like inflammation in my body, and in my bio individual like manifestation of that inflammation was just with my mental health. Whereas for someone else, that inflammation can manifest to type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, PCOS, et cetera. So yeah, I went to the- Sounds like you had most of it, though. I had a lot, yeah. I had a lot. Yeah. Wow. So you, you said your first meal Where you made the change to carnivore, I guess You had a fairly quick- Very… react, positive reaction. Could you kinda expand on that? I'm, don't get me wrong, it's not a matter of disbelieving, it's just I've never heard anybody say they had such immediate real results. Yeah. First and foremost, I was, like, in a dire state. I was, like, severely underweight. My lowest weight was 24 kilograms, which is 50-something pounds, I think. How tall are you? So I, I'm not tall. I'm 5'1"-ish. Okay. So- Okay … yeah, I'm short. But I, so I think any- You're about half of what someone that size should weigh probably. Yeah, it's not great, not a great weight for that height, for sure. Yeah, pretty scary. But I, so I think any nutrition would've probably helped me. But yeah, I think it's… I can liken it to what I've seen vegans eating meat for the first time k- kind of experience. Your brain just switch, switches on, 'cause of course you've got the beautiful nutrients and the fats and, yeah, my brain… i'm definitely someone, I I, my brain needs fats. I'm actually 'cause I've obviously tweaked and tinkered and tried different macros, throughout eight years of doing this I, my mental health takes a big toll if I'm too lean protein What time I'm done with that Yeah, so talk a little bit about what led you to carnivore. And I don't wanna make assumptions, right? But I am gonna sort of assume that this isn't something that one of the professionals that was helping you deal with the anorexia really would have stor- steered you towards. Maybe talk a little bit about, under the t- kind of treatment paradigm that you were under before what they were telling you in terms of what you should be eating, and then, how you just came across carnivore, why you thought it might help. Talk a little bit about that journey. Sure. So I was understandably in and out of hospital and clinics, and I had to eat six times a day. I had to eat a breakfast, a lunch, a dinner, and then three snacks. And of course, there should be no fear food. They were… In one of my treatment centers, they were allowing me to be gluten-free,'cause I had actually, with my IBS, I had been gl- low FODMAP and gluten-free I think since I was, like, 16. So they did allow that, and they put me on soya milk, not real milk. But yeah, just anything and everything, so pretty much standard American diet type of food. And of course I also, a part of the treatment team was to see a psychologist and then a psychiatrist and then a dietician, And so my dad is an optometrist, so he deals with a lot of d- di- diabetic patients. And he actually turned me on to low carb and ketogenic diets. We call it in South Africa the Banting Diet, popularized by Prof Tim Noakes. So I was… I'd always been aware, and I was also, I was a very health conscious person, so I was aware of low carb. And in the midst of an- another relapse, I was being threatened with another admission in hospital. I was like, "I have to find someone or something." So I knew that a friend of mine had fibromyalgia, and she had quite… And she was actually following a low carbohydrate diet with improvements. And sh- I'd asked her, "Who are you seeing?" And so long story short, I went to a nutritionist in Cape Town who my friend had gone to, and I… It was a green flag that she already knew low carb ketogenic diet, 'cause that, that for some reason it always also intuitively made sense to me just from an ancestral lens. So I went to her, and I had a f- nearly a three-hour consultation with her. We didn't speak anything about diets. We just dived into my life story, and then right at the end she said, "Okay, Kelsey, for the next 10 days you're just gonna eat red meat and eggs, and that's it." And something- Literally. But it made sense. It something in… I don't know if it was, like, my primitive instincts or my primal instincts, but it, something just intuitively made sense, and I was like, "This is amazing." It was almost like she gave me permission to go and eat the foods. And I gr- She gave you permission. Yeah. Yeah. She gave me permission. And I, growing up in South Africa, we have a lot of good meat, so I'd always loved… my, my plate as a kid- was the graveyard plate. Everyone knew to put their skin and bones and that was just what I loved naturally. So it was like permission to go and consume the foods that I naturally loved. And I think the biggest thing that why carnivore I think has worked for me is that it eliminated decision fatigue. For many years I was just following, the green list of foods, but even that, like with too many options of the different vegetables to choose, I was like, it was overwhelming for my brain. And so to l- to eliminate it just to animal foods was a game changer. But yeah, it wasn't easy in the beginning. That's really interesting'cause I never thought of that side of it, the decision fatigue, So i- if I understand what you're saying, here you are in a compromised mental state, not mental health, but literally because of the nutritional deficiency your thinking was at best slowed and possibly deeply compromised. And then on top of this compromised thinking is a whole host of decisions you have to make about something as fundamental as eating, and it overwhelmed you. Too much. I was feeling like- Am I getting that right? Yeah. It was- I'll bet that's pretty common, actually… my brain thinking- If folks are nutritionally compromised and dealing with, "Can I eat this? Can I not eat that? Which one of these? How much of this?" I never thought of that side of it. It makes sense. I'm talking to you, listeners. Do you see yourself? Anyway I didn't mean to interrupt but I thought that was… That's important. That's, that's big. Yeah. It's totally big, and I think it, I had this discussion when I spoke with Anthony Chafee on his podcast, and it's like, where does one draw the line? Does choosing to eat healthy become an eating disorder? But there's a fine line between these things because one could argue, and again, I was gonna say I was… Everyone around me thought that this was just another eating disorder. I had to go- Yeah … and meet up. I met up with Prof for Prof Noakes for tea, and I asked him, "Is it okay if I, in my state do a carnivore diet and basically just eat a whole chicken in a day?" And he's "Yes, that's the best thing for you to do." So I got his per- like, I got his approval essentially. But yeah, a lot of people thought that it was just another eating disorder. But I would say that right now n- just not even being able not even having to worry about food and, I don't know, it's just, I feel like this is food freedom, where the food doesn't my… I'm not controlled by food. And I will say, of course, I'm not perfect there. I still struggle some days, and I've been through periods of ups and downs, as we all do, and I know that if I have not had adequate fats and adequate calories the intrusive thoughts are back. So it's- Intrusive thoughts … it's, yeah. I've heard- Yeah … I've heard folks use that phrase But I don't think I've ever drilled down deeper to find out- … what that really means. What, w- how do intrusive thoughts manifest for you? For me, like the exact thoughts or just the- Oh whatever you're comfortable with sharing. Yeah. I've heard people use the phrase intrusive thoughts. But I've never actually drilled down to figure out what that really means. Yeah. I think just in general it's, I actually think that there is a an overlay of OCD, addiction, and eating disorders. I actually think that neurochemically they're pretty similar, and I think separating them into different silos is been like a dis- OCD, addiction, and eating disorders and eating disorders. Okay. It may not be exactly correct, but my… This is just a loose hypothesis in that, for example, exposure therapy, which is what usually is, synonymous with OCD, is very much what can be really helpful and is helpful for addiction and eating disorders as well. And I just think that similar parts of the brain are overactive in all three of those. I, again, this is a very loose hypothesis, but in, on, in that regard, intrusive thoughts, similar to OCD where how people could maybe understand it, it might be easier to explain it this way, is that the thoughts lead to a compulsion to do something. Or the intensity of the f- of the emotions that are evoked as a result of the thoughts are just super intense, and it is why there is such a high risk of relapse for addiction and eating disorders. Yeah. Okay. So it's not the content of the thoughts, it's the intent- the emotional intensity and that goes along with whatever those thoughts happen to be Yeah. So of course- Okay … everyone's context will be different. Everyone will be thinking different thoughts. But essentially intrusive thoughts imply that the thoughts are so intrusive, they're so anxiety provoking or fear provoking that the intensity of emotions become super overwhelming, and for a lot of people it leads to a compulsion to a certain behavior in the context of OCD addiction or eating disorders. Okay. All right. I'm with you. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Along those lines, I've heard many dieticians and nutritionists refer to low carb diets and carnivore diets as a eating disorder. You sort of alluded to this a little bit earlier, but I wanted to drill down into it a little bit more. Because you've, eliminated food groups basically, right? And severely restricting a food group or, in the choice of carnivore you're restricting yourself to one particular type of food. I'd love to hear your perspective on that, right? As someone who has had an I guess we'll call it an actual eating disorder, right? Versus now being on a carnivore diet, which basically fixed your eating disorder. How you would respond to dieticians and nutritionists and other health professionals who feel that, a low carb diet is an eating disorder. There is definitely truth to that, and it lies in… the distinguishing factor between is this an eating disorder or is this a therapeutic intervention boils down to your intention of doing it. Because I definitely have gone through periods where my intention for being carnivore was more orthorexic, and in that regard, yes, stemming from a more eating disordered place. There is in fact a- What was that word? Orthorexia. So it's like- I never heard that before… it's a, it's another Oh, okay. It's where someone is obsessed about anything relating to health, so like what you're eating, your exercise. It's yeah for an anorexic who's not eating, it's much better for sure, but there were a few… There was a pe- a very long period and I have to s- often check myself, where I definitely, the anorexia turned into orthorexia in that, especially vulnerable, it- when someone's in a very vulnerable place es- at least when I was starting carnivore, which was eight years ago there was not much o- out there. There of c- there of course was, and I was like, desperate to try and find answers and to try and get myself better. So I was listening to all the content. But at that time specifically, they were mostly speaking about, type 2 diabetic insulin-resistant people. So often the advice was not necessarily applicable to me, and it took me quite a long time to be able to discern that. But yeah I think there's definitely truth to that, and I work with a lot of people who, who are like, I would consider orthorexic.… And it just boils down to their intention. Now where I'm at, my intention is purely for health. It's in f- I'm… This, I'm doing this out of love for my body, and because I know that if I don't do this, my life is basically hell. So this is for my health. This is quote-unquote, my medicine. And so my intention is pure and genuine, whereas there was a time in my life, not in the beginning, I would say there was a little bit of a relapse, and life happens and stuff, where my, I became a little bit too obsessed, and then I have to check myself. So there is truth in that it can totally become an eating disorder anyw- even any action can be considered- Disordered… disordered if- the intention behind it. Yeah. Okay, so let's back to Phil's question. What would you say to, Those healthcare professionals who unilaterally say carnivore is a disordered form of eating I would to- say exactly the same thing. I would be like it can be in the w- in the wrong context essentially, but it really boils down to someone's intention. And that can change. That's malleable to change and work with a coach or a practitioner. There is truth to that statement, but I don't o- I don't agree, and I would actually… I think this is where you were probably wanting to get- She's so kind, isn't she, Phil? I have to play Switzerland sometimes- … because we have to be neutral. I love it. But I I would consider that in the context of the conventional wis- like, mantra in the eating disorder space specifically about touting you should eat all foods in moderation, I wouldn't consider processed foods food anyway. Eat real, whole foods, and within that spectrum of your tolerance you do you. But yeah. Yeah, no, it really I think gets at our understanding of w- it really gets to the basic questions of, what food should humans be eating, right? And if you are looking at a carnivore or more broadly a low-carb, ketogenic diet as this is what m- I am healthiest on, right? This is what most people are healthiest on. This is what us as human beings really should be eating. I think it does reframe that discussion, right? And in a lot of ways we could start to say eating foods that are making you sick," right? That should be our definition of disordered eating. Yes … and the fact that, we now accept that as the default and the normal, right? And then anything that's now outside of that, even if you're approaching it from a health trying to optimize your health standpoint it just, that's the situation that we find ourselves in these days around what we as human beings should and shouldn't be eating. It's no one will, will look twice at someone who's I don't know, morbidly overweight joining a gym and trying to decrease the consumption of Coca-Cola and cake, but it's no different. I would actually argue that people who are severely anorexic and underweight are so malnourished, they actually need the m- the more nutrient-dense foods more than, you know- Yeah. Yeah. No, exactly it, right? You look at, just from the medical standpoint the impact of your anorexia and other people's anorexia where you end up in a life-threatening nutritional deficiency, and you would say,"Okay the logical thing to do here is to try and get people to eat the most nutrient-dense most bioavailable food available to us as human beings, and it turns out, oh, lo and behold, those are animal products. And so it really, if we're thinking about this from that perspective the default should be, okay, eat as much of this stuff as you can. And of course it turns out, as you alluded to and as we know, that then has positive effects on brain chemistry, and that really does seem like a great solution to this problem. Now having done this for eight years, working with people on this and I do wanna get into, what took you from, just your self-improvement to then wanting others to i- wanting to be able to help improve others. But before we get to that what have you seen particularly in other people with disordered eating and how they respond to carnivore and low-carb diets? Yeah. So I, especially with eating disorders, like it is such a… I don't… I have to be very sensitive with how I speak about food. Especially in the beginning, like, when you're so vulnerable, not only physically, but also mentally, a- any little thing can trigger someone, and that's just a process in and of itself. So I never wanna evoke fear of food in anyone, just given empathy, from an empathe- like from empathy, because I've been there, and I don't want that on anyone. So I'm very wary of how I speak to certain people. I- everyone's gonna be different completely, but interestingly, a lot of people, a lot… well, not a lot of people, a lot of people especially who are struggling with anorexia, their fear food… Most people have a fear food, and a lot-- a common one is actually protein. Whereas for me it was the complete opposite. For me, my fear food was carbohydrates, which is also probably why carnivore worked so well. Again, that, that is essentially, one could argue that's an eating disorder lens. But yeah, it also worked well for that reason. So I-- it's a qui- a common thing that I have to work through people of reframing what they think, like, how they think about protein especially girls. So that's quite a common thing that I've seen. And of course fat is, a fear food for most as well, just because of the calories. So there's a lot of reframing that I have to do. And it's so interesting to…'Cause I bring in obviously the education, the nutrition, the sort of biology side. But then, as I mentioned earlier the passion and the purpose is a really big part of the practice when it comes to something like not only eating disorders, but addiction. I would say that the opposite of addiction or eating disorders is actually passion and purpose. Because when you're moving towards that, your authenticity, you're moving forward. You… Bitson Johnson, I use this a lot. I'm sure Bitson Johnson. She has-- she speaks a lot about the red dog and the blue dog, and the red dog is the disorder or the addiction, and the blue dog is your authentic self. And which dog is gonna be alive and strong and well? The one that you feed. And so whatever we can do to continuously feed the blue dog is really it's a game changer, and it's, that's why I-- what my TEDx talk is really about. So I use a lot of the passion and the purpose and the creative work to get people to connect to their authentic selves. And when they're there, it's also a route of calming down the nervous system entirely. And when your nervous system is calm, you're able to think straight too, and you're able to… you're able to connect to actually wanting to better yourself as opposed to being absolutely stressed and in a tizzy and, feeding the red dog. Yeah, and it's a I think a theme and a messaging that we see within the carnivore community. And, listen it, there-- I'm not gonna say that the carnivore community is perfect by any means, right? But in general, I think the messaging around carnivore does focus more on the positive, right? The people that, that choose to eat, carnivore diets generally are doing so because they recognize the positive impacts of animal-based foods on their life, on their health, right? And it's not necessarily about fearing or eliminating the other stuff, right? It's about recognizing that this is the food that best supports my health, so I want to eat as much of it as possible. And- Yeah … in the end, I have no need for the other stuff because it's not having those positive impacts on my health. And the messaging that I've certainly started to put forward, and a lot of others that meat is medicine. And we eat a lot of meat. We eat mostly meat or all meat because that's the most nutrient-dense bioavailable food to us as human beings, and it's really not about the the restricting the other stuff ultimately. It, And so that's one of the things that I've found unique about this, right? As opposed to most of our other messaging around, health-- nutrition as it relates to health, right? It restrict your calories, restrict your fat. The vegan messaging is largely around, the reasons you shouldn't eat meat, right? The evils of meat, whether we're talking about, from a perceived health standpoint or, from a a, Yeah… environmental, moral, right? All of those other standpoints. This is the reason you shouldn't eat that stuff. And generally, when you're around the carnivore community, it's just about the positivity of eating meat and lots of it, and that's what people then ultimately gravitate towards. I'd love to hear your perspective on that. And then maybe that will kinda lead us into that part of the discussion around why you chose to go into health coaching, right? Beyond just improving your own health. Yeah, the, I think many people who find carnivore are people who have been in the standard of care, and they've been failed or let down, and they've felt hopeless and absolutely desperate. And I think why people become so passionate about it is because just the m- the mental clarity, and I think the complete 180 that happens when you eat a species-appropriate diet. I know Ken Berry has his PhD. I call it my SAD, my species-appropriate diet- … the true SAD. You can't unsee it. You can't un-feel what it actually feels like to be alive and well. And that definitely leads me to, to why I wanted to do this because, I'm sure many of your listeners know, or maybe they don't, but anorexia specifically has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness. And so most of the people that I met in treatment centers are either still in treatment centers or they're no longer with us. And that's why I… And not only eating disorders oh, it's hard not to get emotional about this, but mental health in general. The… Even just with suicide, like I, I have friends, I've had a relative who have unfortunately passed away from suicide alone, and it's if I if I could have told them about carnivore, like if they tried, or even just a low carb, even just a species-appropriate diet, yeah, I think I, I- Yeah… went to every specialist physician under the sun. I even had MRI scans done of my brain to see if there was something structurally wrong with it. And I've tried the medications. Those were horrific. I tried it all. Not… I went to the, quote-unquote, "top doctors" in Cape Town, South Africa, and like not one of them ever asked me, "What are you eating?" Or, "What are you not eating?" Yeah. And it it baffles my mind in hindsight because you take your sick dog or cat or pet to a vet, and one of the first questions they ask you is, "What has it… What has your animal eaten?" What are you feeding it? Yeah. And of course, nutrition is just one piece, but of course it's like a foundational piece to all of this. So that's why I am, so outspoken about this to try and help people, because I've been in the trenches of struggling and suffering, and it's like I can't unsee it now. And yeah, I just wanna spread the good word essentially. Phil do you see… i'm kinda having these little sparkles of insight that I, that you'd think I'd have had by now, but you… whatever. It never occurred to me that- That just eating a species inappropriate diet, as most of us have for most of our lives, could screw with your brain. All of us. I know we've, we've talked to Dr. Chris Palmer, we've talked to Dr. Georgia Eade, Bitten Johnson about addiction, folks who specialize in the mental side of it, and they've talked about how going to a high fat, protein, low carb diet has helped their patients with their mental state. But I never thought about the mental state for everybody who's eating crap all the time. I'm convinced that- Or yeah, I… Go ahead, Kelsey… I was gonna say, I'm convinced world are… Like, I don't I'm just like, the Nazis were vegan, vegetarian. I think Hitler was, like, the biggest sugar addict ever. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that is historical fact. Yeah. So like- Yeah, and we- … I'm convinced. Yeah… we see it over and over It's not necessarily a primary reason that people come to us and go on low carb carnivore diets, right? But it's one of the things they are consistently surprised by when they do it, and they're like, "Oh, I didn't realize," like just the clarity of thought, right? The brain fog a lot of people refer to. But just the stability of their mental health, right? Their brain energy like we've been talking about, gets better, and it's not something they were necessarily expecting or a reason that they were doing it. But it becomes one of the most consistent things that people report back to us when they do this. And you're right, I think I think in general society suffers from let's call it a low level mental health problem because of the food that we're eating I've always always for decades I've thought as a culture we eat bad and it's affected us physically, but it's just never occurred to me that it's affected all of us All of our, all of us mentally and therefore emotionally. I don't know why I didn't think about that, but Yeah, we tend not to make that connection, like Kelsey referred to earlier, right? This concept that, the brain is sort of separate from the rest of the body, right? And what's affecting- Yeah… the rest of the body is somehow not affecting the brain, right? It's it makes no sense to think that way. And in practice, again, we see it. Awesome. So yeah, let's get into then, Kelsey talk about that decision to pursue a different career path, right? Switch from musical theater to health and health coaching, and what your motivation was and maybe just talk about, a little bit about the logistic, right? What is health coaching? Why is it so important? How does it fit into our overall kind of framework around health? Yeah. Again, I go back to just my lived experience. It was a complete 180 that I made. The fact that I'm even here from 24 kilograms is just crazy. And, like I, even now, like thinking back I actually can't fathom that I ever was there because my life is so different now and I'm just like so grateful. I just live in so much gratitude each and every day, and I don't know. I'm just so happy. Yeah, I think that in and of itself, and then just knowing against the backdrop of basically the first 20-plus years of my life and the hell that I was in and out of hospitals, and I just I couldn't not speak about this. It almost was, like, cruel. It it felt like… I initially I was, like, shy about it. I was like, I didn't wanna tell anyone. Although I remember my first day of musical theater my, one of my directors walked past me eating a can of sardines, and he's Everyone just looked at me 'cause, of course especially in the theater world you know- Yeah… yeah, salads only. So I a lot of the girls I could see were like, "She's eating 500 grams of ground beef and eggs." And six eggs. And I'm like, "Yeah, I am," and it's so cool. Anyway yeah. So just, I just, because of my 180, I just had to become certified and qualified to help people. So I was playing with the idea of going in to study dietetics, but I was like, I don't, I actually just didn't know if I could do it to myself after I graduated from musical theater. I was like I also don't wanna support the system. So I decided to go with Nutrition Network. And I did all of their trainings, and I've also done a peer recovery coach training for addiction and yeah, I think- I, one of the biggest reasons for Nutrition Network starting their coaching certification was to bridge the gap between, the medical doctor and just the conventional wisdom. Doctors only have X amount of time with a patient, and there's… it's impossible. We are multifaceted beings. It is impossible to walk through sleep and movement and nutrition and all of the tenets in health, of health in 15 minutes when there's acute, physiological things that the doctor really is there to address. So this is where health coaches in the metabolic health space are gold because it's all… In fact, most people actually know exactly what they're meant to be doing, but they don't necessarily do it or they just struggle to do it, and that's also where health coaches are, and especially in the metabolic health space are gold because essentially we're just, facilitating, we're promoting, we're supporting essentially behavioral change, and that's a long process. And, the biggest asset for anyone who's wanting to become a health coach the biggest investment you could ever give yourself, and this is the same investment that you can give yourself to become a better actor, for example, is life experience because there's nothing quite like lived experience. And again, going back to Ben Azadi's, pain to purpose story, that's… I just feel like one of my purposes is definitely to help people because I've had to connect the dots myself. I've lived it myself. I've thought those… if I haven't heard the intrusive thoughts myself regarding eating disorders, I've definitely thought them. Yeah, hopefully that answered your question. This has given me a lot to think about Have you had folks who have not had success? Have you had clients who've just simply not had success who were doing all the right things? Yes. And the biggest missing piece for that is the nervous system piece. Because it's, o- again, and it goes back to your intention. Are you doing all of the quote unquote protocols and all of the right diets with, out of fear, or are you doing it because of genuine love for your body? And that makes all the difference. In that a stressed body cannot heal. You can be eating the most clean diet, you can be sleeping well, but if it's coming from, through a lens of stress, or perceived stress, because the brain the body responds to whatever our perception is. The brain cannot decipher between literally running away from a tiger or getting a triggering email. It's the same response. The body's super simple. So the nervous system piece, which is what I've had to work on a lot with a lot of clients recently, especially in the world of booming social media where there's just so much noise. Yeah i- is there anything that… it seems like from what you said that the thing that you have to do at that point is identify the the stressor. What is it that's making you feel like you're being chased by a tiger even though you're not? Is there something that hel- consistently helps? Yeah. I think… I am gonna use again Button's Blue Dog and Red Dog, 'cause we have it all inside of us. We all have, the parts of ourselves that are maybe not the greatest parts of ourselves, and maybe the things that we do that, don't necessarily move us towards our goals of true health, et cetera. But we all have that blue dog. We all have that innate authentic essence, and we all have things that fulfill us, and we can feel it. You know when something really lights your fire or gets you energized. And I think just becoming aware of those things, and again, choosing time and time again, of course no one's ever gonna be perfect all the time, but just, being honest with yourself and are you feeding the blue dog right now or are you feeding the r- feeding the red dog? And yeah, that's simply put how I would say- So, so if… I just wanna clarify. I wanna make sure I heard you right. Sometimes we f- even by, by making the externally right choices about diet, we're doing it out of fear, out of anxiety. And although w- we might nutritionally get the benefit we can kinda- I don't know, subvert our own progress From a lack of, I don't know, trust? I don't know. I'm Maybe a lack of gentleness and compassion for yourself. But it's not necessarily that black and white. It's not either/or. Yeah, that's the problem I think in general- It's not black and white, is it? We want it to be. We really want it to be black and white, but it's both/and. And I think it's really… it's on a spectrum. It's like you can totally be stressed and eating clean and actually be healthy because of course just by doing all the healthy things, of course biologically speaking, like that's great. But sometimes depending on where you are in your life, maybe things are just compounding, and that's the straw that breaks the camel's back, and then, okay, let me bring myself back in check. It's a really… It's this beautiful dance between the biology and the psychology, and we just have to move with that So i- it's a dance between the nutritional, the psychological. It seems to me like th- that's precisely when you'd want a coach. Exactly. I'm doing everything right and it's not working. 1,000%. That is essentially… Yeah, in essence that is why certified coaches are like gold, absolute gold for people in this journey. Yeah. Yeah, and just from a practitioner perspective, like Kelsey mentioned this is not something that I think doctors, nurse practitioners, medical professionals are necessarily trained for. And as we look at the best way to approach this as a team this is where we really get that, right? Because having Kelsey, having the other health coaches that we have within our practice gives me the opportunity as a physician to focus on my strong points with the patients and talk about the medical stuff, we'll call it, right? And the implementation, the mindset the all of these aspects that Kelsey's been talking about that are essential can be done, between her and the other health coaches and the clients. And it really maximizes the impact of what, I can then do as a physician. And I think the healthcare team of the future as we think about, what are the problems with our healthcare system and the way that we deliver healthcare the way that we succeed moving forward is pulling in these components, health coaches and others as a team so that ultimately the patient the person in front of us gets everything that they need and we can really maximize all of our impacts that way. Can I go down a path that we would not ordinarily go down, but which fascinated me? Certainly Yeah. The, and the reason I'm going down this is because I just recently got over a cold, which was driving me out of my mind, and one of the, one of the things that I was told I need to do is hum. Hum to stimulate your vagus nerve. And my nose was totally stopped up, and if you've ever tried to hum with a completely stopped up nose, it's almost impossible. In your, at TEDx Talk, you talked about the vagus nerve, the parasympathetic nervous system, the voice, and I realize that's not directly related to, to metabolic health but it's certainly gonna be something that, that folks who work with you will probably hear about. Could you give us a quick I don't know, brief overview about the voice, the parasetic- para- You know what I'm talking about. I think it is indirectly related to metabolic health, for sure. But it's all one. It's all… There are many moving parts all the time. But yeah, I essentially, the… the vagus nerve is quite a buzzword in the health and wellness space at the moment, and rightly because it can help, your body, it can help, stabilize the autonomic nervous system. So especially in the context of stress management anything that we can do to optimize vagal nerve tone can help the body get into a de-stressed or an anti-stress or a parasympathetic state. Think para, paradise. And interestingly, in my research I came to realize, and it all clicked for me once I realized this, that the main nerve responsible for voice production is the vagus nerve And so for me, in my story, everyone knew me as a kid, like music was my thing. Like I was… I'm a singer-songwriter. Like Kelsey the synonym with Kelsey, the connotation of Kelsey is music. And when I was my most sick, in fact, the first warning sign that I wasn't in a great space was when I couldn't sing. I didn't even wanna listen to music anymore. And so drawing on my life experience, it was just super fascinating to me that there's a direct relationship between the psyche and the vagus nerve, and essentially the body.'Cause the vagus nerve is the, the longest nerve. It connects our gut our lungs, our heart, like everything. It's all, via the vagus nerve. And so yeah anything we can do that is free, humming and singing and chanting and gargling, like those are all free things we can do, and they can actually really help de-stress the body, which is, essential. As I said, a stressed body cannot heal. And I think concurrently with this is this beautiful, I use this a lot, this beautiful metaphysical journey. Once you start using your voice, there's a metaphysical component of actually reconnecting back to your truth and speaking your truth, and that is a beautiful journey in and of itself to like witness people beginning to actually find their voices. And that's, yeah, science can't necessarily explain all of these metaphysical, sort of the spiritual component of healing and health and just life, but there's definitely something there. And it's remarkable to feel and experience, and it's also beautiful to witness in other people That was cool. That was seriously cool Amazing. Awesome. It's certainly insights like that have us excited to have you joining our team. And of course you'll be able to people will be able to find Kelsey at iFixHearts. But you also have some great social media and personal content, so why don't you let people know where they can find some of that? Sure. So I'm definitely my most active on Instagram, and that's just @ my name and surname, so@kelseybuchalter, so K-E-L-S-E-Y and then B-U-C-H-A-L-T-E-R. And then I do have a podcast called The Human Theater. And yeah, but I'm my most active on Instagram, so you can definitely find me there. All right. Very good. Kelsey, thanks for being with us. This has been for me, particularly fun. I would love to have lots more time just to pick your brain and hear about your experience particularly as it relates to music, because that matters to me as well. But I'll probably have to pay you to do that, and I'm not gonna do that while everybody else is listening. This has been Stay Off My Operating Table with Dr. Philip Ovadia. If you'd like to know more if you've heard something with… that's made you think hey, maybe I need to look at getting a coach to help me get healthy," Ovadia Heart Health is where you wanna go. All the links will be in the show notes. You can get there just by clicking on it, and I guess we're good for the day. Phil, any last words? No. I think this people are gonna get a lot of insights from this. Again, I think Kelsey brings a pretty unique perspective to our team, to coaching and really looking forward to be working with her. As am I. All right, folks. Thanks for joining us. We're good for the day, and we will talk to you next time.