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Weight LossIt’s Time for a (Slight) Change
May 14, 2024 By
Leanne Vogel
May 20, 2024
In today’s episode of the Healthful Pursuit Podcast, you’ll also hear about my approach to macronutrient intake, my distinct phases of mini bulking and cutting, and my current goal of a lean bulk to build more muscle. We’ll cover the ins and outs of her current 2500-calorie diet, rich in carbs and protein, as well as insights into maintaining muscle as we age.
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I'm ready!Transcript
Leanne Vogel
I’m just laying it all out for you. Like we’re friends and we’re chatting. Hey, my name is Leann and I’m fascinated with helping women navigate how to eat, move and care for their bodies. This has taken me on a journey from vegan Keto high protein to everything in between. I’m a small town holistic nutritionist turned three time international bestselling author turned functional medicine practitioner, offering telemedicine services around the globe to women looking to better their health and stop second guest themselves. I’m here to teach you how to wade through the wellness noise to get to the good stuff that’ll help you achieve your goals. Whether you’re seeking relief from chronic ailments, striving for peak performance, or simply eager to live a more vibrant life, this podcast is your go to resource for actionable advice and inspiration. Together, we’ll uncover the interconnectedness of nutrition, movement, sleep, stress management and mindset empowering you to make informed choices that support your unique health journey.
Leanne Vogel
Think of it as quality time with your bestie mixed with a little med school so you’re empowered at your next doctor visit. Get ready to be challenged and encouraged while you learn about your body and how to care for it healthfully. Join me as we embrace vitality, reclaim our innate potential, and discover what it truly means to pursue healthfulness. Hello. Welcome to the Healthful Pursuit podcast. You’re in the right place. Don’t go anywhere. We just renamed the show today.
Leanne Vogel
I am so excited to just have an episode, just you and me. We’re going to sit down, we’re going to talk about, well, maybe you’re walking, maybe you’re swimming. Whatever you’re doing, we’re going to be talking about just life in general where I’m at. Just a personal episode about the changes to the show, body composition, my intentions moving forward. Just like everything, I just want to spend some time with you, going through what you can expect from me, my vision behind these changes. And just like an update. It has been a really long time. In fact, I was looking through the schedule, trying to figure out the last time that you and I just like sat down and had a chat, a little chitty chat.
Leanne Vogel
And I wish, I wish we could sit down together and then you could talk and then I could respond and then you could talk again. But here we are. This is the next best thing. Okay, so you opened up your podcast player, you saw a healthful pursuit podcast, and you’re like, what is going on? Hopefully that wasn’t the case because I let you know that this was happening. It’s been a long time coming, truly. When I was diagnosed with Entamoeba histolytica in 2019, my world kind of flipped upside down when it came to, like, if I eat perfectly, everything will be fine. And there was this thing in my body that no matter how well I ate, it would still be there. And that really started me on this functional medicine route.
Leanne Vogel
It wasn’t too long after that that I went back to school to learn about GI map testing, dutch testing, blood work, functional blood work, and really started delving deep into how to support detox and drainage pathways and how to kill parasites, eradicate mold, metals. This whole new world opened up. And so around that time, the Keto diet podcast started being a little different. Like, you’ve noticed, the episodes aren’t always about keto. And this got progressively and progressively different as time went on. And though I love, I love doesn’t even begin to describe how my feelings toward the ketogenic diet, it completely transformed my life. I remember the day that I discovered what a ketogenic diet was. It was 2014.
Leanne Vogel
I was on my phone really late in bed, and a friend had posted a picture of, like, slim jims in a Diet Coke, and she used the hashtag keto on her. I think it was Instagram, or maybe it was Twitter at the time. I can’t remember, but I was like, what is this keto thing? And so I looked through my nutrition books, and all I really saw was, keto equals dangerous don’t do. And I was like, hey, I like danger. Let’s do it. At the time, I was dealing with amenorrhea, which is a lack of period. And at that point, it had been seven years since I’d had a cycle. And all the doctors said I would never menstruate and ovulate again.
Leanne Vogel
And I had kind of come to terms with that. But, like, it was really starting to bother me because I didn’t know what was wrong, and I felt like there was something that I could do. And so a bunch of research later, I decided to, like, just give it a try. And within nine months, I got my period back. I started educating on the ketogenic diet. I got off my add medications. My relationship to my body completely changed. I’ve seen countless women use this diet to change their lives.
Leanne Vogel
I coach on the ketogenic diet. I have a ton of macro coaching clients that I work with on a weekly basis, helping them with keto macros. I stand behind this diet 1 billion% I love it. I just don’t need to eat that way anymore. And that is such a celebratory thing that we can just use tools and strategies and actually uplevel our lives to the point where we no longer need those tools and strategies. Because I don’t know about you, but I do not have a lot of time in the day. Like, I been planning to sit down with you and record this episode for two weeks, and I did not have an hour anywhere to record this. And so it was really challenging to find a time to just sit down and chat with you.
Leanne Vogel
That’s unfortunate. And so, with everything going on, I do not have the capacity to continue to just add to the things that I’m doing and never take away the things that up leveled my life. And that’s really how I look at everything of like, what can I do at the current time with the resources that I have to make things work, knowing that in a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now, it’s probably not going to work and I’m going to need something different. And so as I started learning more about toxin load and parasites and stress and nutrient needs and mast cell activation and all these pieces, the Keto diet podcast slowly started shifting. And so probably about six months ago, I really started praying around what I was going to do with the show. I love podcasting. I love it so much. I love connecting with you.
Leanne Vogel
I love the connection that we have together, even though we’ve never met when we chat on Instagram, which is where I’m most active in my DM’s, I feel like I know you and you feel like you know me. And it is such a sweet connection. I love connecting with new guests though, man. There are some guests that I interview and spend like a good solid hour interviewing. And at the end I’m like, this is not going go live. Nope, nopey nopes. And so that’s always a little bit awkward. But generally speaking, 99% of the time it’s.
Leanne Vogel
It always challenges me. I always walk away, like thinking through things and I hope that you experience the same. And so with the name change, it has nothing to do with my lack of support on the ketogenic diet and more about trying to have a more holistic view of healthy and helpful pursuit. The naming behind this has been with me since 2010. I remember sitting around the fire with my dad. I was in my early twenties ish at that point, or somewhere around there. I always think I’m just 20. A friend asked me the other day how old I was, and I literally said 27.
Leanne Vogel
And I’m like, okay. And then add twelve years. So we’re sitting around the fire, and I’m thinking at this point, I’m eating vegan, and I want to name my blog something to do with vegan. And my dad was like, do not do that. There’s anything I know about you. You always challenge yourself. You are not going to be vegan in a couple of years. And I was like, how dare you? Dad was so right about that.
Leanne Vogel
And so we named our business and blog and all the things that we did at that point. Helpful pursuit. And I remember when I started a podcast back in 2016, the Keto Diet podcast. I really wanted to name it healthful pursuit, but at that point, all of the content, all the things that I was talking about were keto related. So it only made sense to call it the Keto diet podcast. And so all of those episodes, everything is coming with me to this new name. Okay? We’re not making those go away. We’re not starting from scratch.
Leanne Vogel
Like, all of those episodes will still exist. You will see them. We are on episode 473 today. That is not changing. We’re just shifting the name. Everything else will remain the same. Same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same. Okay? So when it comes to my intention, and it has been for quite some time, what I really want to do is teach you how to care for yourself better.
Leanne Vogel
That’s really to give you new information that you haven’t heard before. With knowing that, my responsibility is to weed out the things that I don’t think are real or helpful. And so oftentimes when I’m chatting with a guest, if they’re preparing something or like, I know they’re leading us up to something, and I know that it’s going to lead to a whole rigmarole of situations. Oftentimes, I won’t go there because we strictly do not have enough time to go back and forth. And other times, I’ll lean into it and say, I don’t agree, or, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this one. And to just give you context of the conversation. I am constantly thinking about you when I am asking questions. And what really helps me is getting to know you.
Leanne Vogel
So if you haven’t already introduced yourself and you use Instagram, head on over to the app. Find me Leann Vogel. Hit me up on the DM and just tell me about yourself in a couple of sentences. I would love to just get to know you a little bit more so that when I’m preparing episodes, I know what you’re struggling with and what you need and where the hangups are. It’s such a beautiful gift that I get, and I take it very, very, very seriously. The responsibility that I have to explore the principles of functional wellness, understanding that you’re on the other side of things and the information that I share is going to shift the way that you view your body, your goals. And so my intention with this is to just challenge the status quo, what you’re hearing out there. And I have a feeling you’re more functionally minded because you’ve been listening to the last six plus months of episodes.
Leanne Vogel
But when it comes to the healthful pursuit piece, I want to be really intentional with the information that we deliver, all so that you can feel empowered, that you can go into a doctor’s office and know that it’s okay to say, no, I don’t agree, or can we chat in three weeks after I’ve had time to think about it? I want to empower you to go to the Google machine and understand what’s going on when it comes to studies and the latest research and how that relates to your body. And to think outside of everything that I’m experiencing has to do with hormone dysregulation, because I think that that has become such a cop out of just put me on hormone replacement therapy and everything will get better. And I got wrapped up into that many, many years ago. It didn’t help me. And the root causes really at play for me was the parasite piece for sure, and my experience with mold. And so I want to bring nutrition pieces, I want to bring body composition conversations. I want to talk about minerals and vitamin imbalances. I want to talk about thyroid dysregulation, fat loss, muscle gain.
Leanne Vogel
There are so many aspects of the pursuit of healthfulness that I want to delve into. We’re going to have spiritual conversations because I, oh my goodness, do I see this playing a role in my clients pursuit for health. So I am very excited about this change. I was also really nervous. It took me quite some time to make this decision only because it’s a big change. A name of a show dictates who’s going to find it. And I fully understand that healthful pursuit is not really SEO optimized. Don’t fully understand how SEO works.
Leanne Vogel
Still to this day, it’s not a common word. Pursuit is not common. Healthful is not common. But you know what? I’ve had this brand and this name since 2010 that’s a long time. She and I are besties. She going nowhere. And I think it just encapsulates so well the pursuit that I’ve been on since deciding that I didn’t want to have an eating disorder anymore, and I didn’t want to be sick anymore, and I didn’t want to trust everything that the doctors were saying to me anymore. And I wanted to challenge, and I wanted to ask questions, and I wanted to walk away and think about things and challenge myself, too, and just how I view things.
Leanne Vogel
And so I’m so pumped that we get to go on this journey together. Like I said, really, nothing is changing because the strategy has shifted over time. I would say over the last six months, you’re still going to be able to access all of the episodes. It’s just a different name. And at some point, I will have to ask my husband to take new photos of me. Because though I think I look exactly the same as the images that I use for promotion material for the podcast, so many people tell me I look nothing like that anymore. So I really need to make that a priority. It’s just a lot of work.
Leanne Vogel
And I was sharing on instagram a couple of weeks ago now just how different life is. If I look back to before knowing the Lord and now knowing him and him putting this heart in me of, like, actually wanting to help help people. And what that looks like now is meeting with people and helping them with their health on an ongoing basis. And it takes up a lot of time. Like, I’m working a whole bunch. And so to, you know, work on extra things, I am actually so incredibly thankful that the podcast is in a place where I can spend an hour a week on it and just keep it going, because there are other things, like blog posts, for example, and research articles, that I just do not have time to do. And so one of those items is taking new pictures of myself and redoing some of the branding for the podcast and the blog and things. At some point, I’ll get to that.
Leanne Vogel
Maybe this summer. That would be really, really great. So that’s another change that you might see on the podcast in future episodes, that the picture of me is actually updated with my super long hair down to my butt and not my super short hair that I had eons ago. Okay, so you’re still listening. Hey. Hi. Let’s do a giveaway, because I like celebrating, and there’s no other way for me to celebrate with you other than to provide something in the form of a giveaway. So let’s do this.
Leanne Vogel
Leave a review for the show on your favorite podcast player, take a screenshot of your review and send it over to my email info at healthful pursuit.com. And then one lucky winner will win $150 Amazon gift card and I’ll announce the winner on Tuesday, June 4 in that episode. So again, favorite podcast player, leave a review. An honest one. Super honest. Be honest. If you are randomly selected and you gave me a two star review, I will give you the gift card because you were randomly selected. And let’s go like, just be honest what you like, what you don’t, just be honest and take a screenshot of that review.
Leanne Vogel
Email info at healthful pursuit.com with that screenshot. And then I’ll randomly select a winner before our June 4 episode and announce it. And then also shoot you back an email and say you won. Yay. $150 Amazon gift card. Okay, so I have a lot of things that I kind of just want to lay on the table as it relates to me, my health, what I’m doing. Because we haven’t had one of these episodes in quite some time, I recently started sharing more about body recomposition in episode 453, which launched on January 2 of 2024. We also had a body composition q and a episode 457 that released on January 23.
Leanne Vogel
And we’ve had just more macro conversations recently. And you’re probably wondering, Leanne, how are you eating? If you are no longer hosting the Keto Diet podcast? Like, what’s your deal? How are you eating? If you don’t already follow me on Instagram, Vogel highly suggest you do. A bulk of what I’m doing now on the app is what I eat in a day to give you guys ideas of what a whole food based diet looks like that’s more high in protein. So I’m going to kind of take you through what I’ve done up until this point. When it comes to diet, what my goals are, because I think that that will also kind of be at the, you know, it will kind of be in the underground belly of the healthful pursuit. Because helpful pursuit has always been about my personal pursuit of health. I find having a topic like what I’m going through to be super helpful to ground us in the application process of things. As a practitioner, it’s always challenging if your show or YouTube or, you know, Instagram is just willy nilly about any client.
Leanne Vogel
And so I’ve always enjoyed sharing more of the personal aspect of myself, what I’m struggling with, what my goals are currently, because it helps steer the ship, I guess you could say. And so the ship has been steered to gaining muscle. We’ll kind of take you through some of my recomp details. And then I had some questions from listeners on the whole keto situation, why I stopped all the things. We’re going to get through all of that because we have so much time together. I’m so glad we get to do this. Electrolytes facilitate hundreds of functions in the body, including the conduction of nerve impulses, hormonal regulation, nutrient absorption, and fluid balance. Nearly every one of my clients that I work with, one on one, have an imbalance of electrolytes in some way from symptoms of headaches, muscle cramps, fatigue, sleeplessness, or seen right there in their blood work.
Leanne Vogel
Much of this is improved with proper electrolyte supplementation. Now, I personally consume one packet of electrolytes daily at least, and not just any electrolyte element, because it doesn’t have any sugar fillers, coloring, or artificial anything. And it has an effective electrolyte ratio that so many of the other brands just do not do. Right. That includes 1000 milligrams of sodium, 200 milligrams of potassium, and 60 milligrams of magnesium. Right now, element is offering my listeners a free sample pack with any drink mix order. That’s eight single serving packets free with any drink mix order. Get yours@drinkelement.com kdp and this deal is only available through this link.
Leanne Vogel
All orders made will come with a no questions asked refund policy. So you can try it totally risk free. And if you don’t like it, you can get your money back, no questions asked. That’s drinkelement.com dash lmnt.com Kdp for your free sample pack with any drink mix order. Okay, so 2022 September, I decided that I wasn’t moving my body enough. I was getting pretty squishy. I did not have any muscle definition. I was starting to develop pretty severe, like, pockets of, I don’t even want to say cellulite.
Leanne Vogel
Maybe it was. I don’t really know what was going on with my legs, but, like, it was very strange, just like these big pockets. That’s all I know how to describe them as. And so I started working out one day a week, then two days a week, then three days a week. By the time I got up to, like five or six, I started going to the gym. That was around January 2023. I started tracking my macros and slowly started increasing my carbohydrates, increasing my protein, and lowering my fats. So at that point, I was around 150 grams of fat or so.
Leanne Vogel
So I just started reducing that fat, increasing the protein, increasing the carbs. I felt pretty darn great doing this, and I knew it was a decision that I made because I knew that I was a slow oxidizer, which basically means as a slow oxidizer, you have lower thyroid function, lower adrenal function, which means generally you need quick acting fuel, especially when you’re moving and grooving as much as I was. Like when I started going to the gym, I was doing 45 minutes sessions six days a week, and now I’m up to 90 minutes sessions five days a week. That’s a lot. That’s a lot of volume. And I knew that as a slow oxidizer, there was no way that I would be able to maintain thyroid and adrenal function eating the way that I was eating. There was nothing wrong with my macros. I felt healthy.
Leanne Vogel
Other than the pockets around my legs, I looked pretty healthy. I was in a larger body when I started working out. I was pushing, like, 170 ish, and there’s nothing wrong with that size. I’ve always been rather on the slim side of things. So that weight and just the puffiness that I was experiencing was not natural. Like, it wasn’t normal for my body. Now I’m sitting around 145, maintaining that pretty well. I’ve maintained that since about October of 2023.
Leanne Vogel
And so, yeah, I just decided, okay, we’re gonna shift the macros, and if it goes sideways, I don’t feel good. My add stuff comes back, we’ll shift it again. I found very quickly that as you’re increasing carbohydrates, I started using a product called Berberine to just help my body figure out how to use the carbohydrates. That was really helpful. I didn’t use it for too long. It is an antimicrobial agent, so if you have issues with antimicrobials, it’s not always the best. This is not advice to do Berberine. I’m just saying what I did.
Leanne Vogel
I don’t think that this is a supplement that would work for everyone, but it definitely helped me manage glucose. As I was learning how to time my carbohydrates and things, I did play around with timing my carbohydrates around my workouts. It was, to be honest, it was exhausting, and I found it triggered more appetite. So I’m just going to make the math super, super easy. Okay. This is not exactly what I did, but let’s say I was having breakfast before workout and then lunch after my workout. And my goal for carbohydrates for the day were 200 grams of carbs. I would put like 150 grams of carbs of that 200 grams goal around my workouts.
Leanne Vogel
So I would maybe do like 75 grams for breakfast and then 75 grams for lunch, and then I would go low carb the rest of the day. I didn’t really notice anything positive from that other than I was so hungry. And it just, my energy wasn’t right. I’d wake up in the middle of the night hungry. I would overeat the next day. It just, it wasn’t right. So I just went to balance macros at every meal around this time. When I started working out, I decided that I wanted to do like a little mini bulk, which basically means because I had been eating at maintenance calories for like years, like years, I was in a really good place to either cut down body fat or build muscle.
Leanne Vogel
And because I was new at working out, I decided to build muscle because that’s like the best time to build muscles when you’re new at building muscle. So I started eating in a surplus, which meant that when you’re in a surplus, you can gain muscle. And so I started eating more and more and more and more and more until I got to 3000 calories. In retrospect, what I probably should have done is just done a surplus of like 300 calories, parked it there for like a year, and I’d be in a much better place now. But I didn’t do that because I’m impatient. It’s funny, I’m not impatient with my clients, and I’m always encouraging, like, let’s just go a little bit further. Let’s just see how this goes. But with myself, I’m like, nope, nope, we’re doing it.
Leanne Vogel
So then I did a cut. And that’s when I went from the, at that point, just from working out. I think I was sitting around like 160 before my cut. So I just lost ten pounds just working out. I was eating in a massive surplus, like 700 calories over maintenance, and I was still losing weight. And so my body was just changing. It was just looking different, feeling different. And that’s when I did my cut.
Leanne Vogel
And when I cut, basically what that means is that you are eating in a deficit to burn fat, but while you’re doing that, you’re also going to burn through a little bit of the muscle you made. Okay, so you kind of want to get in, get out, get her done. And so I went from the mid, like, fifties or so to. I think I dropped down to, like, 142, and now I’m maintaining around, like, 145 because it’s just easier to do that than 142. I found that very hard to maintain. And so then I went up to maintenance calories around November of 2023, and I parked it there until April of 2024. And I am just now entering into a bulk phase, but I’m going to do more of a, like a leaner bulk phase. I’m not going to do a super crazy bulk where I add a ton, ton, ton of calories.
Leanne Vogel
I’m at a 300 calorie surplus. My goal, it’s a crazy goal. I want to gain 16 pounds before the end of December. And you’re thinking, like, Leanne, what? Even, like, you just literally lost 16 pounds and now you’re going to gain it back. With the way that my macros are balanced now, I’m pretty confident that that 16 pound weight gain could be, like, ten pounds muscle and six pounds fat. And I am so good with that plan. I really, really want to change the way that my body is composed because right now I’m quite thin and I just want to bulk out a little bit. And most women don’t want that goal.
Leanne Vogel
Most women, when I say, like, bulk up a little bit, are like, why would you want to look puffy? And I encourage you to look at some slim, toned, tight individuals. Chances are they bulked out a little bit. So that’s my personal journey. It’s not for everyone. I think it’s fun. I think it’s a challenge. It definitely keeps me distracted at this point. It’s kind of a hobby for me of just kind of like, staying out of my head a little bit and going to the gym and seeing what my body can do.
Leanne Vogel
It’s also really cool coming from a place where I was sick and doctors said, I mean, I remember one doctor saying, like, you’re not going to make it to New Year’s. Like, you’re going to die. So that’s super not fun to hear. At the time, I didn’t believe him only because I was really sick, mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. And so it’s always just so crazy to sit back and just see this body that has regenerated so much. And I am so incredibly thankful that I’m still here, that I get to do these things. And so I think in many ways, the body recomposition is just a fun project that I’m working on. I’m not super attached to the outcome.
Leanne Vogel
If I could go back and do it again, especially being new to working out, because it had been ten years since I’d lifted a dumbbell. I should have been more serious about it from the beginning. But I knew that if I went in and started at the gym immediately, I would crash and burn and I wouldn’t be consistent. I knew that if I tracked my macros and got started with that right away, again, I would crash and burn. I wouldn’t be consistent. And so I knew that if I wanted this to be a long game, which I think at this point it has been, I’m almost at my two year mark of working out consistently. It’s just a part of what I do now. And so, yeah, I don’t super enjoy it all the time.
Leanne Vogel
I don’t say, like, yeah, I get to go to the gym. This is so awesome. I can’t wait. But I do say, how cool is it that I get to go to the gym, that I get to move my body, and, like, I’m okay with that. I’m okay with not super loving it. And I think we live in a world where we’re told that if we don’t have absolute comfort in the thing that we’re doing, it’s not for us, and we need to find something that we love. I disagree. I know that moving my body in this way is good for me.
Leanne Vogel
I know that mobility work is good for me. I know that tracking my macros keeps me honest with where I’m at and in many, many ways. And most of my macro clients are the same way. These are the clients that I’m working with on a weekly basis. We’re working through macros. Most women don’t eat enough. Like, seriously, do not eat enough. There’s so much inconsistency with how we eat.
Leanne Vogel
When we eat what we’re eating, it’s all over the place. It’s not intentional at all. And so the tracking has become a way for me to be super honest with the fact that I am not always great at eating. It’s so bad sometimes that if I don’t sit down the night before and just figure out, okay, what am I eating tomorrow? To hit my macros and remotely be sort of good at what I’m about to do here, I will go the whole day without eating, or I’ll just mindlessly snack on stuff, or I’ll be like, yeah, yeah. Like, I had enough protein for lunch. I’ll just, like, have this, whatever, whatever, and then I go to track it later. I’m like, oh, my gosh. My macros are all over the place.
Leanne Vogel
So the tracking has helped me be consistent to the point where I can pretty much hit my macros just in my mind by choosing things when I’m being conscious about the decisions that I’m making. But it’s the conscious part of, like, planning it out and thinking, and it can be a real big shift. Like I said at the beginning, if you’re starting to move your body and you’re tracking and, and, and, and it’s just too much. And had I started that way, there’s no way I’d be still doing it now. I would have crashed and burned for sure. Also, too, there’s this mindset shift now, too, that when I went through my cut and I got to 142 pounds, and I’m just sharing these numbers to, like, help you understand my process. I’m not saying that 142 pounds is the best pounds. I’m not saying that that’s where you need to be or any of that.
Leanne Vogel
I’m just sharing, like, I went from, like, 172 ish, 171 to 142 ish ish. I maintain really well at 145 at my maintenance macros and feel pretty good at that level. And now I’m saying that I want to take that 142 well, like, let’s say 145, because that’s where I’m at now, really, and add 16 pounds to that, which is 161. So why would you do that? Why? Right. And so there’s this whole mental shift, too, when I’m getting on the scale and I’m tracking my muscle gains, that it’s okay. Like, this is just a fun activity that I’m taking my body through. I know that the increase in muscle is going to help me so much in the future. So much in the future.
Leanne Vogel
Watching my loved ones go through situations that could be momentously improved by having a good amount of muscle has been such a strong motivation to me to go on this journey to gain muscle. And so, yeah, my body is going to look different from where I’m at now to where I’ll be. Cross your fingers, kiss the sky at 160 pounds, hopefully by December. But that kind of gives you an idea of the journey that I’ve been on, just with the body recomposition and where I’m coming through on that. From a root cause, like, holistic health perspective, I’ll kind of share where I’ve been over the last couple of months with all of this working out has definitely been such a help for me mentally. I get to spend a good amount of time just like, not necessarily thinking, because I do a lot of thinking, and my job requires a ton of thinking, and so it’s nice to just take that break. My thyroid has been pretty good. I did add potassium quite some time ago, and that was quite helpful for my tsh.
Leanne Vogel
I’ve since added a little bit of selenium and iodine. My thyroid is pretty regulated at this point, and I’m feeling really good about it. I had a little thyroid pickup. My practitioner suggested that I increase my arm, or thyroid, by 15 milligrams. I thought it was a bad idea. I did it anyways, and turns out it was a terrible idea and had a little situation. I had a mold exposure a couple of months prior that kind of did a number on my thyroid, and instead of waiting it out, I was impatient, and so was my practitioner, and she said, well, let’s just give you a little bit more armor thyroid. And I was like, that’s a terrible idea.
Leanne Vogel
And I did it anyway, so we still make mistakes. I knew it wasn’t the right choice, and I did it anyway because somebody told me to do it. So here we are. But I feel pretty good now about where my thyroid is at. My adrenals have responded super well to the workouts. There was a period in November that would have been November 2023, where I started feeling a little bit adrenal high. I can usually tell pretty quickly when I’m feeling just a little bit off. When it comes to excess cortisol, specifically, just a little bit of anxiety or just.
Leanne Vogel
I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s like feeling not jittery, but just like, go, go. And I push myself to do more things. And so I did a dutch adrenal test. At that point, my metabolized and free cortisol was a touch higher than I would like, so I played around with a whole bunch of things. Now, my adrenals, and perhaps yours, also respond really, really, really poorly to traditional ways to support the adrenals. Like, I can’t do rhodiola or ashwagandha or holy basil or maca or any of that. Like, I can’t do cordyceps.
Leanne Vogel
I cannot do ginseng or cbd in high quantities. Or did I say cordyceps? Oh, man. Like, it’s challenging. There are a lot of things I can kava I can’t do. And so I think I found a pretty good mix, and all of it is amino based, which fascinates me even more and just tells me that the higher protein macros are just so good for me overall. And when I dialed that in, my adrenals were happy. So I think, too, when you are changing your diet and changing your movement, it’s really helpful to stay on top of your symptoms. And this came from a person that, like, when I started doing this, I was pretty good.
Leanne Vogel
There really wasn’t much going on with my health. My thyroid was pretty dialed in adrenals. I was getting my period. My sleep was good, and so I was coming from a pretty balanced place, and that was because of keto. Like, that was not like that before. The ketogenic diet. When it comes to just digestive function, which is where I struggle the most, because my liver is not absolutely ideal, probably never will be, like, absolutely ideal just because of my past. And also having entamoeba histolytica, which is a parasite that affects your liver, I will always likely have a propensity toward a digestive dysfunction issue.
Leanne Vogel
And how that displays is getting h pylori truly? My first h pylori infection, I believe, was around 2021. I got it in the Bahamas. I knew the moment that I got it, within a couple of minutes, I felt pain in my stomach, and I was like, oh, man, this is totally h pylori. And once you have h pylori, it is so hard to get rid of. And so I go in and out of this. It’s so hard to get rid of it. And once you get rid of it, it’s so hard to keep it away because it’s so easy to get. Again, h pylori is in so many things, so I’ve brought in different supplements to support this, and so far, so good, because when you are trying to eat more and you have a stomach infection, it is very challenging to eat more because you’re not hungry, and it sucks.
Leanne Vogel
So I feel pretty dialed in when it comes to the root cause pieces. I don’t use my sauna too much. I would say I probably use it once a week to just keep my drainage pathway open. I am definitely still the sweatiest girl at the gym. I do not understand how these girls wear sweatshirts in the gym, and it’s, like, 74 degrees in there, and I’m thinking, like, girl, you need to test your thyroid. You should be sweating. This is, like, crazy that you’re not sweating right now. You were working out so hard, and you’re not sweating.
Leanne Vogel
Like, can I please help you? That’s what’s going through my mind, because I, like, how are you not passing out right now? And so I’m also doing my castor oil packs, which I do every other day. I love, love, love them. I sleep so well when I have them on, and I do that every other night and love it so much. I check my blood work every, like, three to six ish months. My insulin has been incredible through this process. I think the highest of my insulin got was 8.7 when I was doing 200 grams of carbs. As I was increasing my carbohydrates, when I got to 200 grams of carbs, my insulin got to 8.7, which is still like, okay, I’m good with that number, but I wanted to try to get it down, so I played around with a whole bunch of stuff, and now that I’m eating about 250 grams of carbs, I got up to 300 grams of carbs, and my insulin went down to seven, which I was really happy with. But now eating around the 250 mark daily with my workouts and such, I’m around 2.4 insulin, and I am very, very, very happy with that.
Leanne Vogel
Kidney functions looking super good, and I just do my own blood work and check it out and use the same blood work pattern work that I do for my clients on myself. But it’s amazing how much more thorough I am with my clients and myself. I’m always like, yeah, yeah, it looks good. And I don’t really go into it as much as I do my clients. I really need to do that. I just don’t have a lot of time to do it. I’m looking over it now. I’m like, oh, yeah, I was supposed to do something on that and just totally forgot to get that done hormone wise.
Leanne Vogel
Looking pretty good. I actually, over the last couple of months, removed my progesterone cream. I just felt like intuitively I didn’t need it. And so far, so good. That’s awesome. Now I’m only on a little bit of dhea and thyroid support, which from a thyroid perspective, I will always be on that medication, and I am totally okay with that. So that’s from the root cause perspective. I do parasite full moon protocols every two to three months.
Leanne Vogel
I’m happy with that. When I feel like I might have h pylori again, I do a round of h pylori work for 30 to 45 days, and that’s happened maybe twice since I got the infection, and that’s pretty normal. Even when we’re doing antibiotic therapy for h pylori, it can come back just the same. But I know that because of my gut and the way that it is and my propensity toward autoimmune conditions related to the gut. I choose not to do the antibiotic therapy only because it can trigger an autoimmune condition in the gut, which I don’t want at all. So I’ve chosen not to. Now, there have been a couple questions, because I am sharing my experience, experience on Instagram about my macros and what I’m doing personally, how much protein I’m eating and all those things. And there are a bunch of questions around, like, hormonally, do you do more carbs at certain times of your cycle? I don’t because I’m eating.
Leanne Vogel
Like I said, like, let me just open up my fitness pal, because I bumped up my calories today, actually, because I’m constantly increasing them through this bulk. Let me look at my goals. Okay? So right now, I’m sitting at 2500 calories a day, 250 grams of carbs, 220 grams of protein, and 70 grams of fat. The percentage of that is 40% carbs, 35% protein, and 25% fat. That’s for me personally. Please do not use those macros. That is insane. Okay? This is, like, I don’t know of many individuals other than carnivore individuals that are at that high of a protein or higher.
Leanne Vogel
So, like, I’m just laying it all out for you. Like, we’re friends and we’re chatting. We know that we lose muscle as we age and that this loss massively affects our ability to function. Like, I’m talking basic tasks here, muscle is important for protecting our joints and also keeping our metabolism revving. Basically, you want muscle, and unfortunately, a lot of us just don’t prioritize muscle maintenance or see it as an importance. And you may also be cringing at the idea of going to the gym and being able to maintain that muscle consistently. Yes, active moving is super good, and there’s really nothing like it when it comes to the mood boost of pumping iron. So when I share about urolithin a, I am not saying just to do this.
Leanne Vogel
And you can maintain your muscle without movement. Well, like, I am saying that because urolithin a does do that. But I think pairing urolithin A with exercise is likely the best path forward. So I started taking a product called mito pure to boost my performance and improve muscular strength. And mitopur has 500 milligrams per serving of urolithin A, a postbiotic shown to have major benefits to significantly increasing muscle strength and endurance with no other change in lifestyle. Yes, you heard that right. I just said that it has major benefits to significantly increase muscle strength and endurance. With no other change to lifestyle, it gives your body the energy it needs to optimize its cellular power grid through boosted mitochondrial health without changes to lifestyle or diet.
Leanne Vogel
Now imagine what it could do with your low carb diet and a walking goal or a lifting goal a couple of times per week. It took me a long time, like a couple of months, to introduce mito pure to my day because it’s so strong. Every time I took it, I almost had too much energy. So I really had to titrate up. Mito Pure is the first product to offer a precise dose of urolithin A to upgrade mitochondrial function, increase cellular energy, and improve muscle strength and endurance. They’ve created three ways to get your daily dose of 500 milligrams of urolithin A in their product, mitopure. They’ve got a delicious vanilla protein powder that combines muscle building protein with the cellular energy of mito pure. Now, this product does contain whey protein, and then they have a berry powder that easily mixes into smoothies or just about any drink.
Leanne Vogel
This is dairy free. And finally, the soft gels, which is what I prefer because it’s just easier. This is also dairy free. I love the starter pack idea though. If you can handle the dairy, the three forms of mito pure to play around with, which one is your favorite? Top notch. So, timeline, the creators of Mito pure is putting together a sweet little offer for you. 10% off your first order. So if you go to timelinenutrition.com KDp and use the code KDp, you’ll get 10% off your order.
Leanne Vogel
Again, that’s timeline nutrition.com kdp. I recommend trying their starter pack with all three formats and picking out your best format. Again, that’s timelinenutrition.com kdp. So because I’m at that 250 grams of carb, mark, I do not cycle my carbs. I think there were a couple of days over the last month where my carbs got down to 175 just because I wasn’t hungry and those sorts of things, and I felt fine, but like, I wouldn’t do that because it would massively affect my training. And we need to understand too, when we are trying to build muscle, we need the glycogen. Therefore, the easiest way to do that for a slow oxidizer who needs quick fuel is carbs. So let’s get that glucose pumping so that we can pump the jam, aka dumbbells and barbells and heavy things so that we can build the muscle.
Leanne Vogel
And so once December rolls around, and I’ve hopefully gained at least ten pounds of muscle, this is a very crazy goal. I think think I can do it. I’m totally committed. Then we’ll figure out what to do about the rest. But that’s kind of where I’m at. So, no, I am not shifting carbs. At certain times in my cycle, if I was eating less than 100 grams of carbs, definitely I would. I’ve put together a program on that.
Leanne Vogel
It’s called six week keto weight loss. What is my diet like now? I feel like I’ve explained that pretty well. If you want to see kind of what that macro layout looks like on a day to day basis, I share many of my meals, usually at least two days a week, on Instagram. Sometimes I just, like, eat and then forget that I didn’t take a video. That’s my major issue, is, like, I just forget to record what I eat. But when I do remember, I put it together in a whole roundup of what I eat in a day, and I show you, and I share recipes. I try not to do protein powder. I find that it does not satiate me at all.
Leanne Vogel
It’s a nice treat when I’m feeling like something sweet and delicious, but I could eat, like, 50 grams of protein in a protein treat, and it will feel like I didn’t eat anything. So I try to keep it to animal based proteins, like steak, shrimp, eggs, egg whites, chicken, salmon, those sorts of things. When it comes to fats, I feel more satiated on whole food fats versus oils. And so what you’ll see on those roundups is a lot of, like, actual fats, like avocado and nuts and seeds, as opposed to coconut oil, avocado oil, those sorts of things. Like, I would rather put vinegar on my salad and then put walnuts and avocado in it as opposed to olive oil. And that’s just a personal preference. I just like the whole food sources more. Have you added in more whole food carbs? Yes, most definitely.
Leanne Vogel
I went from around 100 grams of carbs to upwards of 300 when I was doing the bulk. Not sure I would do that ever again. It was just too much. But it was fun. I enjoyed it. Like, sure, let’s give it a try. But I don’t know if I would do that again. Do I cycle into keto sometimes? No.
Leanne Vogel
No. Nope. Nopey nopes. So when I was first starting to train, like, from the September 2022 to around January, February 2023, I was still eating a ketogenic diet, and I was fine. But when I got to the level that I knew I was going to stay at around the 90 minutes, five or six days a week, I just knew that I couldn’t do that. Keto. And that’s nothing against people who do. I have friends that do this.
Leanne Vogel
They gain muscle. It’s great. Congratulations. That’s awesome. You’re probably a fast oxidizer. You probably need slow fuel. And your workouts, you probably thrive on that, I can tell you. I will not.
Leanne Vogel
I will just not. And if I were to stop training, I would definitely go back to Keto for sure. But I’m just not at that phase right now. And so that’s what I’m personally doing. But again, it has nothing to do with thinking Keto is stupid. Like, it’s great. It changed my life. And if I were to not work out and not walk and all the things that I’m doing, yeah, you bet I would start doing it again.
Leanne Vogel
Okay, so we’ve talked about the changes of the podcast. We’ve talked about the body recomp stuff and macros and all of the details there. We’ve talked about root causes and kind of where my health is at right now. Overall. I mean, I feel pretty great at the recording of this. I am currently in Italy. Like, I’m recording this before I go to Italy. But as you’re hearing this, I am in Italy.
Leanne Vogel
I decided to work from Italy for a little while. My husband, Kevin became a pilot a couple of years ago, and that’s kind of kept us more situated in one location for a little while. And so I’ve been home by myself a lot. And so I just figured, hey, there was a seat sale, and I was like, it’s my birthday, so let’s go to Italy. So I can’t wait to share kind of how that trip has been. And I did share. Well, I will share it on instagram. It’s always challenging because, like, I’m recording this so far, and it, well, not so far in advance, like, two weeks in advance.
Leanne Vogel
And by the time this episode goes live, I think I will have just returned from Italy. So I hope to have eaten all the things and seen all the stuff. I have zero plans other than to eat gluten free pasta and pizza, a lot of it. So, yeah, that’s kind of like life stuff. And then from a business perspective, helpful pursuit is still going strong. Like I said, I don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to writing articles, which is so unfortunate, because I really, really love that. I just the flow of my day is wake up, spend time with the lord, clean for like 30 to 45 minutes. I have a little cleaning schedule that I do because it’s hard to keep a house clean.
Leanne Vogel
Leanne Vogel
I take it so seriously. It’s a different format than how a lot of practitioners work, and it just allows me to be more intentional with my questions, with our interactions. And so I really enjoy it. It does take up the bulk of my time, but I enjoy the time that I spend on it and the time that I get to research. And it’s just, it’s lovely. And I love that my schedule still allows for me to work on the podcast because I do truly enjoy this time that we get to spend together. Though. It would be so cool if you like, talked back and then said all the things that was happening in your life because I feel sometimes this is so one sided.
Leanne Vogel
So please go to Instagram. If you use it, introduce yourself, send me a DM. It really helps because oftentimes as I am chatting with a guest, I’ll envision listeners in my mind and ask questions as it relates to the things that they’ve told me. So it so helps for me to know kind of what you’re experiencing so that I can make sure that the content that I’m creating is helpful for you. So, oh my goodness, I need a glass of water. I have a client call in ten minutes. I’m going to go bathe in the sun for a couple moments to boost my energy and get going with the rest of my day. I hope that you enjoyed this episode, getting to chat and kind of see where I’m at.
Leanne Vogel
And little life update here. Again, nothing is really changing with the podcast other than the name. If I’m being truthful, this transition has been quite a natural one and kind of unplanned like most of my business decisions are. They kind of just like happen and I’m like, oh yeah, look at this. Thanks God, you kind of just like sorted that out over time. Thanks for, thanks for just making that happen. So helpful Pursuit podcast is very much that way, and it just feels like a natural thing that we’re doing. And I’m glad you’re along the ride with me.
Leanne Vogel
So if you want to win $150 Amazon gift card, go ahead and review the show. Leave your honest review. Send that screenshot of the review to infoealthfulpursuit.com, and I will select one lucky winner randomly on June 4 for that episode. Okay, we will see you back here next week. Take care. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Healthful Pursuit podcast. Join us next Tuesday for another episode of the show.
Leanne Vogel
If you’re looking for free resources, there are a couple of places you can go. The first to my blog, healthfulpursuit.com, where you’re going to find loads of recipes. The second is a free parasite protocol that I’ve put together for you that outlines symptoms, testing, and resources to determine whether or not you have a parasite, plus a full protocol to follow to eradicate them from your life if you need to, that’s available@healthfulpursuit.com. Parasites and last but certainly not least, a full list of blood work markers to ask your doctor for so that you can get a full picture of your health. You can grab that free resource by going to healthfulpursuit.com labs. The Helpful Pursuit podcast, including show notes and links, provides information in respect to healthy living recipes, nutrition, and diet, and is intended for informational purposes only. The information information provided is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, nor is it to be construed as such. We cannot guarantee that the information provided on the health will Pursuit podcast reflects the most up to date medical research.
Leanne Vogel
Information is provided without any representation or warranties of any kind. Please consult a qualified health practitioner with any questions you may have regarding your health and nutrition program.
Hi! I'm Leanne (RHN FBCS)
a Functional Medicine Practitioner, host of the Healthful Pursuit Podcast, and best-selling author of The Keto Diet & Keto for Women. I want to live in a world where every woman has access to knowledge to better her health.
