Drew Canole: Fat-Storing Fruit, The Ketogenic Diet & Eating to Boost Energy

Today we’re here with Drew Canole, founder of FitLife.TV. On this show, you’re going to learn why eating fruit in the morning might backfire, what happened when Drew tried a ketogenic diet, and why people who eat green vegetables look so dang good.

Speaking of green veggies, this week, my awesome contestant, Kurt, blends up green smoothies and makes home-churned Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream and cheesecake while shedding fat like crazy! Don’t forget to tune in to My Diet Is Better Than Yours (I know, it’s a cheeky title) at 9pm / 8pm Central Thursdays this month on ABC to see The Wild Diet in action on National TV!

Plus, some good news—The Wild Diet is back in stock on Amazon! It sold out last week when American saw Kurt drop 16 pounds in one week while eating delicious foods like bacon cheeseburgers! Now it’s back in stock in hardcover, and the paperback version will be released on January 19th.

Now, on to the show with Drew Canole (pronounced like the pastry, but much healthier)! Drew has committed his life and career to sharing educational, inspirational and entertaining videos and articles about health, fitness, healing and longevity.

On today’s show, you’ll learn:

• The #1 mistake people make with fruit
• Why people who eat greens look so good
• What a tomato does to a ketogenic diet
• The surprising relationship between your brain and your gut
• And much more….

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DREW CANOLE: WHY YOU SHOULD GET YOUR GREENS

Abel: When you had me on your podcast, you said something that caught me off guard. You accused me of eating lots of vegetables (in a good way). You noticed the whites of my eyes and said my skin color looked good. What happens to someone when they eat their veggies?

We are going down the rabbit hole with this podcast. People don’t realize that phytochemicals have so much influence on the way we look and carry ourselves.

You (Abel) have a lot of white around your eye, so I can tell your liver is healthy. Iridology is an ancient art of eye-reading. Iridologists look at the eye and measure it like a clock. It can indicate troubles, sickness and injury. I had an iridologist read my and, and they told me I hurt my shoulder about 4 1/2 years back. They can read the eye like rings in a tree.

Abel, from your eyes I can tell you have a lot of minerals in your diet, fermented cod liver oil, bone broth, a ton of vegetables. The blue starts popping!

In iridology, they believe there is no green eye. It’s either blue or brown. People with green can lighten up their eyes by how much they’re detoxing. Abel, you have that glow that only someone who eats a ton of veggies has.

Charlotte Gerson is the founder of The Gerson Institute, which helps people heal from cancer and other diseases by juicing vegetables and using other holistic methods. When I met Charlotte Gerson, her eyes were unlike any I’ve ever seen. This 92 year old woman’s eyes were so blue that you felt like she was not only looking at you, but into your soul. She was that healthy, that vibrant.

Abel: Isn’t it inspiring to see people advance in life with epic health? Young guys like us have a lot of things to our advantage, but one of the coolest things about doing what we do is that we get to meet people who have lived so long and are doing it so right. They’re just as vibrant (or more) as we are.

There’s so much passion around the work that you do, and that’s rare. What are you up to and what are you proud of?

I love what you do, too. My story is similar to yours. Four years ago, I was running a business as the financial director of a company, and doing really well. I was making a ton of money right out of college, I but I was sabotaging my health. I was the guy who would drink on the weekends to escape the job, because I liked the money but not the job.

I didn’t have a passion or purpose to my work that pulled me out of bed in the morning. But I had a mentor, an 81 year old sage. He was the kind of person that walked into the room and he had this pull, like you wanted to learn something from him. Kind of like Lao Tsu.

He said this to me: “If you want to do anything in this life, make sure you’re doing something that impacts people.”

I took this to heart. I had to do something I loved that impacted people.

I loved studying all these ancient ayurvedic technologies and hypocrisies. All these people were totally into health, but at the time I was 40 pounds overweight with 20% body fat.

I decided to get healthy, and it took me about 6 months to go from that to sub 7% body fat. I documented it, put out videos, stuff on Facebook, and people were like, “I want to do this, what are you doing? Your energy is different, something’s going on.”

When you make those changes in your health, people want to do what you’re doing. So, my passion became my business of helping people.

I get to wake up in the morning and read hundreds of emails from people who healed this or recovered from this injury because they’re putting the correct nutrients in their bodies. Now they’re having conversations they couldn’t have before because of the dopamine triggers and neurochemicals from processed foods they were eating.

I feel like I’m living a dream life.

Abel: It is dreamlike. If I set foot in a health food store, someone comes up because they recognized my voice or somehow has come into contact with this information. The guy who delivered FedEx to my house way out in the middle of nowhere was like, “I follow you on Twitter!”

Especially in America, people don’t pay attention until they have to. One of the coolest things about what you do is that you turn around and teach ancient wisdom, but you’re also reconnecting that ancient wisdom with ways to implement it today. What are the nuggets of wisdom from thousands of years ago that we can bring back to the top?

Most people struggle with the motivation to do it.

At the start of every transformation program is the “Why-dentity” process—the mergence of your “why” with your identity.

• Why do I want to do it?
• What does my life look like 90 days from now? This has to present visually, as if you’re looking into a mirror of yourself in three months. Also, get audio cues in with it: What are your friends saying? What does it feel like? How are you being?

When you can close the gap and start living today as the person you want to be in 90 days, your entire DNA shifts and you become someone new.

The “why” is powerful. You need a “why” that makes you cry. @DrewCanole1 Click To Tweet

Abel: What changes are these people making in their lives?

Motivation and momentum are your friends, they’re like two big hands pushing you throughout the day. We have these things at FitLife that we do with our clients, and they’re as simple as having warm water with lemon in the morning. You’re alkalizing your body, plus add the green juice, and you change how you feel. The microbiome shifts. Your organ pH changes. You start having more alkalinity eating veggies, juice, bone broth, and you feel better.

Breathing is huge. Just box breathing—breathe in for five seconds, hold, breathe out.

Breathing causes more alkalinity than about anything else. Through respiration, you change your body’s pH.

Prayer is another one. Make daily prayer to God or the universe—whatever that means to you—make it a habit. Praying every day builds up that momentum. It makes you feel better.

I do something else as a single man that’s pretty cool—I date myself. It’s important to take time out of the week to give more self love to you. Maybe you go to a movie, the go cart track, read a book, whatever you like to do—give yourself that time.

I love to read, I’m a voracious reader. I’ll go through two books a week, and I have a hyperbaric chamber in my house. I love sitting in there reading, getting all that oxygen.

Abel: Nerdiest thing I’ve ever heard. I love it.

I want to get people to come to a consensus. I want to stop the fighting between clicks in the health world and get them to agree on things. One thing we can agree on is we should all be eating veggies. What are the top reasons people should eat veggies?

I was eating a lot of macronutrients—grass-fed meat, wild fish, but not eating the veggies like I should have, and not dropping the weight. Most Americans eat 4000 calories a day, but they’re nutritionally starving. When you start eating veggies, you get he micronutrients: phytochemicals, aminos, everything that’s not part of that macro world, which is why I love juicing vegetables. Kale, Swiss chard, lemon, ginger—you drink the juice and your body processes the micronutrients in about fifteen minutes. Those nutrients are going right to your mitochondria, giving you instant energy.

I know you’re into smoothies. That big green smoothie you drink is fueling you all day with all those micronutrients.

Abel: Just to play devil’s advocate… Can I just go to Orange Julius or grab a bottled juice from Whole Foods?

I don’t subscribe to that. You’re getting like 250 grams of sugar in that one drink—that might work for some people, but for me that has never worked. I might have 3 or 4 apples a week… I keep sugar below ten grams a day.

Abel: It’s tempting when first getting started to get the thing that looks like it would be healthy, even if you go to the juice place. But if you order almost anything on that menu, you’re having all those things that are so sweet. Our palates are abused by sugar and salt and so we expect it.

You don’t drink juice or smoothies to have it taste like soda. @DrewCanole1 Click To Tweet

It’s not a magical treat. It’s more of a ritual.

You know it’s good for you body because you feel it. If you need sweet, start with about a half an apple in there. Eventually you start to feel better when you don’t have it—No more highs and lows of the sugar rush.

Insulin is like your mom. She comes in the room and puts away whatever is in there. If it’s protein, great. Insulin will shuttle that off to build muscle. But if it’s sugar, you’re going to put more fat on your body.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH EATING FRUIT?

Abel: Fruit is such an interesting thing because we’re taught that more fruits are better. Eat more fruits and veggies. When I was in college, I stayed for the weekend at my girlfriend’s’ house. Every morning there would be this huge glass of fresh squeezed orange juice next to a huge bowl of fruit with no protein—no eggs or anything substantial. I remember how terrible I felt—empty, headachey, and I couldn’t figure out why I felt so awful.

So, can you explain the difference between fruits and vegetables?

I’m friends with Kristina of Fully Raw. She’s almost borderline fruitarian. She’ll eat watermelon for a whole entire meal. That works for her well—she runs a lot of long distance races and looks vibrant. I tried it and I almost died. I didn’t even feel like I was a human being. I’m a fat-burner. My metabolism has changed so that I burn fat, which is why I’m able to maintain a low body fat percentage all year long.

When I have fruit, my body starts to change. I don’t feel good. Mentally, I have a dopamine hit and then crash. I get really tired.

With fruit juice, the liver doesn’t discriminate and stores it as fat. @DrewCanole1 Click To Tweet

I’ll get emails from people saying they did the five day juice cleanse and gained weight. I always ask if they followed the recipes in the book. “I made my own. I threw oranges and banana in there and gained weight. Why?” Because you’re not juicing vegetables.

BENEFITS OF KETOSIS AND INTERMITTENT FASTING

Abel: On your podcast we talked about ketosis—how you can hack it and make it work for you. What’s the deal, what’s your experience?

When I was intermittent fasting 16 – 18 hours, my brain was ignited. I got more done in my life than I’ve ever done, period. I wrote six books in like a month and a half.

I felt like I had the limitless pill and the limitless pill was intermittent fasting. @DrewCanole1 Click To Tweet

Plus, a high fat diet… I still do it now. Once a week, I fast for an entire day. I’ll have some juices throughout the fast, things like that. The brain undergoes a physical transformation. I didn’t do any blood tests, but I noticed an increase in HGH (Human Growth Hormone) naturally with intermittent fasting—more testosterone, better mental focus, my brain working quicker.

Plus, fasting is a lot easier. I didn’t have to think about eating all day long when I knew the big meal was coming at the end of the day.

We tested IF on all on the team members—about 8 total. Some of the girls on the team tried it, and it didn’t really work the same way for them because their hormones are different. It’s all about what works for you.

Abel: I was in Whole Foods and saw a guy in great shape eating a huge half a watermelon. I came in the next day and he was eating a huge half a watermelon again. I think a lot of people make the error of being too dogmatic.

I like to get people who are first starting to do smoothies rather than juice—what do you tell people so they don’t get tripped up?

Smoothies should be about 10% fruit and 90% veggies.

I used to put all my smoothie stuff in mason jars the night before. Oster (blender brand) will screw right into the mason jar and you can blend it up right in the jar. Developing a system around your smoothie is quintessential to success.

Green smoothies are amazing for your digestion. The fiber is scraping out digest track, balancing out the seratonin in your gut.

80% of your immune system is in your gut and 90% of serotonin is created there. Click To Tweet

The more you do smoothies, the better for you. Smoothies give you that long lasting energy you’re not gonna get from caffeine or what people are eating nowadays.

Abel: What about exercise? When people are first resetting their body, there can be a lot of brain fog. How do you recommend they move their body during that transition and then for maintenance?

Nutritionally speaking, if they’re getting brain fog then I recommend a magnesium supplement. Magnesium is responsible for like 400 biochemical transactions in our body.

If you’re getting headaches, put some Celtic sea salt on your hand and lick it to get the electrolytes to get rid of headaches. Get more fat in your smoothie—avocado, MCT oil, almond butter, cashew butter, chia seeds. You’ll have more energy.

Physically, if you’re doing a cleanse for 5 days and trying to reset your body, I don’t recommend doing a lot. It’s all individual. You can do some walking, qigong, yoga, not a lot of muscle recruitment.

Abel: During a cleanse, it forces you to get back in touch with your own body, your natural hunger cycles and knowing whether you want to move a lot or not. Mindful exercises can be really powerful. What do you do to stay in great shape?

I lift heavy weights. I love it. Lifting helps with bone density, longevity, and there are so many benefits to moving heavy weights. Women should be lifting… maybe lower reps. I’ll switch it up and do some German volume training every once in awhile, five sets of five. Then I’ll go back to high repetition or BFR (blood flow restriction). I do HIIT training three times a week.

Some people will say I’m overtraining, but I feel great—my recovery is great. I’m able to do more because I focus so much on taking care of my body when I’m not at the gym.

I’m juicing every day, eating organic, grass-fed, wild caught, and doing green smoothies.

Abel: In order to eat that way, what do you do if you’re eating out?

First and foremost, any restaurant you go into (generally speaking) has what you need to eat at that given time. I go for high protein, high fat, less carbs, unless I just had a workout and need some more carbs for energy.

At Chipotle I can get local fresh food fast. I’d do like a steak or chicken bowl with a ton of veggies and tons of guacamole and maybe some salsa. I realize tomato is not recommended for ketosis, but that’s like next level ketosis, which is really tough.

Abel: A lot of people are attracted by the idea but don’t know that eating tomato will put you over the edge and kick you out of straight keto. A lot of people are experienced at it, but I personally don’t like to go too low for too long. You like refeeding. What is the source of those carbs?

I took a 23 and Me test and it turns out my heritage is Northern European and Irish. Not sure if this is coincidence, but my body does really well on potatoes—sweet or white. I’ll steam with a little rosemary and grass-fed butter. That works really well for me.

If it’s a smoothie and I want to spike my insulin, I add half a banana or handful of berries. I love figs—so I’ll eat 6 or 7 fresh figs after an intense day. They’re full of selenium, a precursor to testosterone. But figs shouldn’t be something we are eating every meal. The sugar content is crazy.

HOW EATING GREENS IMPROVES GUT HEALTH

Abel: Let’s talk a little more about gut health. It can’t be overemphasized. Got any quick tips?

Eliminate things that can cause leaky gut—sugar, dairy, wheat, processed foods. Your immune systems start to attack it. Juicing is so beneficial because a juice is straight micronutrients. A smoothie takes about 3 hours to digest, whereas a juice goes in your mouth, through your digestive track, out the liver, into blood stream in about fifteen minutes. It gives your gut time to heal, take a break, and alkalize.

At the time of my transformation, I had leaky gut. My body wasn’t absorbing the protein needed to put on muscle, and the more muscle you have the more calories you burn on autopilot.

As soon as I started to heal my gut from juice, veggies, and cutting out processed food, I started losing weight.

The gut microbiome of the gut changes every twenty minutes. The more attention we pay to it, the better. I eat a whole bunch of celery every day. I’ll eat two or three stalks before every meal- it’s a great prebiotic. Then you can also take probiotics.

Abel: When you’re eating vegetables, you’re feeding your gut bacteria more than you’re feeding yourself. In the hours that are following that celery, you’re eating for the way you feel. When you start focusing on veggies, that’s what you’re doing. You’re eating for the way you feel.

I can tell you’re a really happy guy. 90% of your serotonin is in your gut. If you had to wear glasses that restricted your happiness, then you eat all veggies and you’re drinking green juice, it’s like you take the glasses off and have access to all that happiness. It would change the whole entire world.

Instead, we are suppressed with toxins and xenoestrogens and these chemicals from all the processed food that restricts people from totally being alive and happy… and that all starts in your gut.

WHERE TO FIND DREW CANOLE

On FitLife.Tv you’ll find our blog, recipes for smoothies and juices, articles, and things like that.

You can also check out: Fitlife Coaching Certification Program and The Drew Canole Show.

BEFORE YOU GO…

If you’ve already started on your paleo, Wild, keto, or low-carb lifestyle… or if you just feel like something has to change so you can finally shed fat and be healthy, join us in our Fat-Burning Tribe! We have a private Facebook group where you can get the support you need from a like-minded community of folks on the same journey.

Plus, Alyson and I jump on there all the time to answer questions, share recipes, post articles and tips on training, weight loss, and general health. You’ll get a cooking video library along with tons of delicious Wild recipes and all of our new products before anyone else!

JOIN TODAY for just $1 and get in on our Tribe Challenges, and access our monthly Wild Meal Plans! Click here to join us now!

After the challenge ends, email us your before and after picture (we’ll let you know how in the member’s area), along with a blurb describing any health improvements you’ve experienced. We’ll randomly be selecting 3 winners to send a signed limited-edition first proof of The Wild Diet — international members qualify!

As an official Fat-Burning Tribe member, you’ll not only gain access to our library of videos, recipes, articles, downloads, and a supportive group of community members—you’ll also be able to grab the 30-Day Meal Plan (a $97 value) for just $1.

After your first month, you can continue your membership for just $27 a month.

Just go to FatBurningTribe.com to sign up for a $1 for first month.

Have you noticed a change in you appearance since you started eating more veggies? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.