Written by Christopher Kelly
April 16, 2015
[0:00:00]
Christopher: Hello and welcome to the Nourish Balance Thrive podcast. My name is Christopher Kelly and today I'm joined by Megan.
Hi, Megan!
Megan: Hi, Chris! Thanks for having me.
Christopher: Megan is a mountain biker and she's someone I've been working with for the last six or so months. She's been having some pretty good results I think, we're about to find out with some of the testing and some of the changes she's made to her diet and lifestyle.
So Megan, you're super active aren't you? Why don't you tell us a bit about yourself?
Megan: I definitely am very active and very full of energy as many people will tell you. My main sport is mountain biking though I got really into biking because I had a knee injury playing soccer which is my other favorite sport. So since I can't run anymore and I'm very competitive, I started bike racing five-and-half years ago and I'm very addicted to it now as many bike racers often become. But right now I'm really focused on Enduro racing because it's awesome because you only get timed on the downhill part which is really the best.
Christopher: I would beg to differ actually. I only like the… yeah.
But yeah, from what I saw last I rode with a bunch of those guys, they all do the… I guess one of them does the World Enduro Series and he seemed pretty fast going both up and down the hill so yeah, I think it's maybe a bit misleading to think that these guys only go fast down. It's just not true.
Megan: Oh, yeah. You have to be very in shape all around because if you burn yourself out just on the climb then you're going to suffer going down because you're still putting a massive effort up.
Christopher: Yeah, absolutely. So you really got into bike racing in a big way so what was your life like before we met, what was going on for you?
Megan: Well, I guess I was feeling fine for a while which was why I was suddenly surprised and I quickly wanted to find something to fix it. I've always kind of had like underlying gut issues for a few years. But I've always had good energy, never really had any problems recovering between workouts, never ever had issues with my period or PMS.
But there was a very, very sudden shift I would say November 2013 and it was weird. I went from feeling great to suddenly like oh, my gosh, I feel like I can't schedule any kind of bike race or anything because I don't know if I'm going to feel good and I'm just exhausted all of a sudden for no reason and really emotional and having just terrible cramps. Like "I can't get out of bed today because my cramps hurt so much" which was very foreign to me. And my gut issues were obviously still very present and annoying and I would get lots of bloating. And as a girl that's really annoying because you just can't wear some of your favorite shirts anymore worried you're going to get too bloated later in the day.
So I think I must have run into Jamie or something and she's like "Well, you should talk to us" so we all got connected.
Christopher: So Jamie is Dr. Busch. She's the Medical Director at Nourish Balance Thrive. It's kind of cool that we have this community like in Santa Cruz, everybody knows everyone pretty much. If you ride a mountain bike you're going to run to them at some point. The trails are not that vast.
Megan: Yeah, it's really great. I love that we have this great community here. Pretty much, maybe the #1 or #2 reason I even live in Santa Cruz.
So after getting some tests done with you, I had -- I forget the names of all of them -- the comprehensive urinary analysis?
Christopher: Yeah. So before we get to that, I'm just wondering was there anything in particular that you thought brought it on? Was it like an increased training load or was it something else going on in your life like some sort of emotional or work stress or something? Was there anything obvious that made this change or did it just kind of creep up on you gradually?
Megan: Well, it could have been a number of things. At that time, a couple months before it hit me, I had changed my job. I had moved back to Santa Cruz, fell in love with my now boyfriend, moved in with him, had appendicitis, and I think I did start riding a lot. I started a lot more mountain biking a lot when I moved back to Santa Cruz.
We briefly talked about this as maybe a possibility too but I also had a concussion and I know that head injuries can alter how your pituitary or hypothalamus gland function. Who knows but there were a lot of factors that could have very easily accounted for the sudden change.
[0:05:18]
Christopher: Yeah. It's really interesting to me because it seems that everybody I talk to ahs been through this period of increased stress and maybe this is just so common I'm not just picking up on anything at all. But there always seems to be this like, it wasn't like someone knows there was this moment where things started taking a turn for worse.
Everybody's unique, everybody has their own situation but it always amounts to this period of increased stress. It could be training stress, it could be the kids are driving me nuts, it could be anything but then that period of stress, I know that one of the things that stress does is it lowers immunity and it puts long-term building projects on hold and then you see that person start to fall apart.
So how much were you riding when it got to its worst?
Megan: I think I was only working part-time so I had a lot of time to ride when I moved back over here. So I think I was averaging like 13 to 18 hours a week on my bike. And then after that, when it hit it was like "Oh, maybe I'll ride three hours this week."
But I have in the past done -- like when I was a road racer obviously you'd have to do a lot of long hours on the saddle so I was used to that. I think it was just the accumulation of all those other factors as well.
Christopher: So what's life like now? So this was… we first met and you started doing lab tests with me back in September, I have on this piece of paper here. So now is March, it's not that long ago, so what's changed, how's your life now?
Megan: I can train on my bike again.
Christopher: That's kind of a big one right there, isn't it?
Megan: Well, I realized when I couldn't like regularly ride my bike, I felt like a little depressed. And it's like now I'm biking and in general is just so ingrained in my identity that it was like a part of me just can't be me anymore. So now that I have that back I just feel like the full person that I am and it's really wonderful.
Yeah, and obviously like you saw this weekend, I can go out and ride my bike for five hours in one stint and not be totally dead at the end of it. So I would say overall like my energy is a lot more balanced, my PMS -- especially like the emotional aspect is way better. I still do get a little more lethargic feeling coming into it but it's kind of hard to avoid that sometimes. And I noticed immensely how much of a difference my gut feels if I am eating strictly Paleo versus like "Oh, I'm going to have pizza tonight" and the next day I'm like I feel terrible and like the whole rest of the day after I ate something bad, my stomach hurts and I'm bloated and I'm like "Okay." I just learn from that.
Christopher: Right. Because that's pretty addictive, that's why. So how did you diet change? I'm quite interested in this. We try and get people on to a Paleo-type diet and each person is unique. Julie, my wife, is the food scientist and she usually spends a lot of time with each person trying to dial in their own version of the Paleo diet. But did you change what you're eating at all?
Megan: I actually was mostly vegetarian for a while and it was mostly when I moved back with my boyfriend, he's a big meat-eater, so I started to eat a lot more meat then. Besides mostly eating vegetarian or one of the other Paleo things, I always ate lots of vegetables and nuts. I don't eat yogurt though which some people are so okay. I haven't been big on eating bread or like highly-sugary things for the past couple of years. Though in the past, I definitely ate a lot of that stuff. It's like in high school I remember like "Oh, what should I get as snack today? I'd get a bagel, cream cheese, and a cookie." I would like never consider that now.
Christopher: Yeah, it's a history of carbohydrate abuse. I have the same.
Megan: Yeah. I definitely was not fearful of that then because you're younger and your body is more resilient and then it catches up to you later.
So yes, I included a lot more high-quality meats now. I'm really excited, finally get on the bone broth train. I've been meaning to do it but it hadn't happened. Now this weekend, I'm going to get some.
[0:10:16]
In the past, these were much more fruit-based and now they're much more fat-based with very little fruit and its wonderful how sustaining those are.
Christopher: Yeah, so I was going to ask you about that. Tell me about your relationship with sugar and how that's changed. Am I touching on anything there or is that kind of changed for you?
Megan: Yeah. I've never been someone that's like guzzling like ten-shot bloks gel down on a bike ride but I certainly had them in my back pocket at times in case I need them. But now I often just make my own ride food or I do extensive searches online to find something that is not full of sugar. Even dates because I eat a lot of dates but now like those are just sugar even though it's a natural form and much better than a gel. It's still sugar.
And my smoothies, while in the past they were… according to some people it would probably be great for you like full of different types of fruit but very high-carbohydrate because of that. And now they are just blueberries and just greens or are avocado, coconut-oil based, so much fattier and so much more satiating in the long term. Like I can have one of those for breakfast, do like a moderate-paced two-and-a-half hour ride and not need to eat anything while I'm out riding and not feeling remotely close to bonking when I come home because my body has figured out that fat is a really great resource. I don't need sugar.
Christopher: Yeah, I'm definitely on board with that message.
Megan: Feel really good at that, I know. I'm not quite at your level yet.
Christopher: Yeah, I eat nothing but fat almost. But yes, so tell me about your blood sugar then? Did I ever successfully get you to check your blood glucose?
Megan: Yeah. My blood glucose, it was always really stable and where it should be and never spiked. So that was something I think both of us were surprised at.
Christopher: Yeah, so I was worried. You did an adrenal stress profile which is a saliva test and it looks at hormones and we saw really low cortisol and quite high, like elevated, DHEA which is quite unusual. But the thing that I was concerned about was you had high levels of testosterone so your testosterone was 87 and normal or optimal for a woman is about 50.
And so what this means is this makes you kind of androgen-dominant. That's great for rocking your mission, being an amazing mountain biker, doing deadlifts and crushing the competition. But my concern was that I think it's one of the leading causes of PCOS and PCOS is the leading cause of infertility I think so it's definitely something to look out for. I'm pretty sure that in the US the main reason women become testosterone-dominant is because of insulin resistance. And so that's why especially when I see a result like this, I'm really pushing for that person to be checking their blood glucose.
I mean it's pretty insidious, the bike food thing for example, you think you've got this free pass to eat as much sugar as you want because you're doing endurance exercise. Like the ride I did on Sunday, although it was super hard when it was on, for most of the time we just sat around chatting and stuff and that's kind of how mountain biking is to a certain extent and so yeah.
Megan: [0:13:52] [Indiscernible].
Christopher: Yeah. not only are you stopped and not moving, it's also a really good time to like push down some more of those sugary snacks and --
Megan: Yeah. Let's eat some crappy sugar while we're waiting.
Christopher: Yeah, exactly. And then you did a urine test and the urine test, it looks pretty much everything. It looks all… well, a good part of cellular metabolism.
And one of the sections on the urine test, it looks for a metabolite D-arabitol which is from a pathogenic species of yeast called candida. This was very high on your test and that kind of got me wondering why is this yeast growing, like what's eating? So that was kind of another red flag there. I'm thinking how is this person eating a ton of sugar which turn out not to be the case.
But I think what really was going on here then if you weren't abusing sugar too much was you may be just eating some foods that you are sensitive to and that was causing damage and inflammation and then the yeast is just kind of growing on the damage and inflammation that might be going on in your gut. So you don't have any bloating now then? It's all resolved?
[0:15:04]
Megan: I still get it. I find that I am still sensitive to lots of things, like I can't have a lot of garlic or a lot of onions. And if I just eat a little too much of some things too, like it's okay if I have some almond butter then if I have two [0:15:25] [Indiscernible] almond butter then I feel really bloated.
So there's kind of like a fine line I have to be conscious of because I'm not 100% healed on my gut. While I'm certainly still working on it, I think I do need to be even more vigilant in what I'm consuming and not. Not go out some nights and eat things that I know are going to make me feel bad because then I'm like taking a couple steps backwards.
Christopher: Yeah. I think it's a really important lesson and it's something that we try and get people to understand is that it's not like you're going to find all the answers right away. It's up to you really to do your own experimentation and become really attuned to the way that you feel and understand the effects that food and sleep and stress levels have on the way that you feel and your athletic performance. And really no one can conduct that experiment in quite the way that you have. Yeah, I think that's really cool.
And it's obvious, I mean when you look at what almond butter is, it's a highly-concentrated food, and the nuts they contain various different anti-nutrients that are designed to protect that plant from being digested. And so it kind of makes sense that when you grind them up into a paste and consume then en masse, you've seen how many almonds it takes to make even a tablespoon of almond butter so you get these problems.
But yeah, I mean it's fine but having in moderation I guess is the answer apart from maybe gluten in which case just don't go anywhere near that.
Megan: Don't eat that.
Christopher: No, just don't go and eat that. If you're finding the need to talk to me, then don't eat that, right? I mean some people can get away with it but the ones that come to me, I'm pretty sure they can't.
The other thing which I thought was interesting on your organics profile was it showed enzyme CoQ10 as being deficient. And enzyme CoQ10 is mostly produced endogenously so inside your body and it's the mobile carrier that moves electrons along the electron transport chain which sounds kind of complicated and it is rather. But basically this is the final step by which you convert the food that you eat and the air that you breathe into energy. So for someone that's feeling tired or for an athlete that's looking to increase their performance, not having enough enzyme CoQ10 is really bad news and although it's expensive, you can take it as a supplement.
So it's kind of cool that you can run these tests and like figure this stuff out and be really, really confident about your supplementation and get great results that way.
Megan: Yeah. Like after I did the tests and ordered all my supplements, I felt like a kid on Christmas getting all these things. I was like "Oh, finally! The path to health in a box plus more."
Christopher: I'm glad you responded so well. Some well it can go any different way. It's really interesting to see how this unfolds. Some people like you and I was the same, I was like "Yes! I finally know what the hell I'm doing, I can stop guessing" and the supplement graveyard can go in the bin and I can finally be confident about supplements and got really great results.
But other people, they look at the test results and they're like "Oh, my God, I've got yeast overgrowth. Am I going to die?" and the answer's no, you're not going to die. It's a chronic smoldering infection that probably didn't kill anyone but at the same time, it can make you feel really yucky or it can mess with your hormones or it can interfere with your sleep or you might gain weight or do something kind of insidious like that. I don't think there's anything to be scared of honestly.
Megan: No, it feels good to be enlightened and to know finally what to do about it.
Christopher: Excellent. Cool. Is there anything else that you think that was like really important that you needed to do? I'm just wondering if there's any change we've not touched on yet that you needed to make in order to get better. Do you think there's anything else that was really important?
Megan: Oh, boy, there probably is. I'm not thinking of it. Maybe, maybe not.
Christopher: What about finding balance, I almost wonder about that. I get everybody to check their heart rate variability and it's kind of like experienced coaches would accuse of being some dumb computer thing that you don't need an app to tell you whether or not you're tired which to some extent I agree with.
But for people like yourself that are full of energy and hard charging, it can be a really useful guide to whether or not you should really listen to the way that you feel and go out and train that though. Has that changed at all? Do you notice that you make better decisions about when you can go out and train or not?
[0:20:17]
Megan: Yes. Actually I'm so glad you brought that up because like just the other day, because this week I've been tired is because I have a lot or work stuff going on and I had an event I put on and I was noticing I was more tired. And so I was like "Okay. Well, today then I'm just not going to go for a bike ride" and it's; okay. Because in the past, I'm like "Oh, my gosh. I'm not going to get the workout I need" and I get like anxiety around it for not doing what I normally do.
So now it's like okay, I was going to pump track for like 30 minutes or go for a little walk. I don't have to go do intervals today and it's okay. I can just do it tomorrow once I feel good again. And in a few days' time, I feel a lot better than had I just gone out and really given it.
Christopher: Yeah, it's such an important lesson. I think people that are not doing too well, they're particularly vulnerable to this trap. Especially now it's March here in California, the racing season has already began and we'll kind of step up if anything through the summer and people are going to get out and going to get race results. Some people will be disappointed and some of those people will be disappointed because they have health concerns that they don't really know about and of course the temptation is to go out and train harder. "Maybe if I could sneak in another set of intervals on Wednesday, I'll do better for my bike race on Saturday." Almost certainly the answer is no, you won't.
Yeah. It's just the nature of people especially the people that race, by definition you are competitive or else you wouldn't be in the race. People try and tell you otherwise but they're lying. "I don't care" -- it's nonsense, like if you're in a race, you care about the results or you wouldn't be doing the race.
Megan: Yes, like you're not going to pay money if you didn't care.
Christopher: No.
Well, this has been really enlightening and I'm so pleased for you. That's why I do this, I didn't give up my job as a computer programmer where I had no stress and didn't have to worry about whether or not our business was going to succeed or not to just for nothing is to hear these types of stories that keeps me going and makes me want to keep going this. So yeah, thank you so much for sharing this. I really appreciate your time.
Megan: It's priceless how you helped me so thank you and I look forward to hearing more stories from other people too.
Christopher: Brilliant. Thank you, Megan. Bye-bye.
Megan: Bye.
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