SPEAKER 1: Thank you all for coming.

I'm thrilled to be welcoming Kelly LeVeque to Google

today to talk about her wellness approach and her new book "Body

Love."

So Kelly, if you don't know, is a wellness expert,

nutritionist.

You have from many certifications--

KELLY LEVEQUE: Too many.

SPEAKER 1: --under your belt. But I really

connected when I learned about Kelly

with her scientific approach to health and wellness

and nutrition, and just found it really fascinating.

And kind of for me-- cut through a lot

of the clutter that's out there and just confusion

around what advice to listen to-- so super excited

to have her here.

And just to kick off, Kelly, you have a really unique approach.

And you love using scientific studies,

evidence-based nutrition.

So can you tell us a bit about how you developed that strategy

and what led you to your overall nutrition philosophy?

KELLY LEVEQUE: Sure, so I'd have to take you guys all back

to the beginning of my career.

I had an eight year career in cancer and genetics

where my job everyday was to read studies and determine

if they were biased or unbiased, if they had

significant p-values like how many people were involved

in this study.

Who was funding it?

What was the goal?

And was it correlation versus causation?

Which you find a lot in nutrition studies,

because if you think about it, it's

really hard to determine if an apple a day is good for you

if one person's eating cheeseburger,

another person's eating fries, and another person's

having a Fab Four smoothie instead.

But what it was for me was always a passion, always

something that I've loved.

So I've loved health and nutrition

since I was probably 13 or 14 years old.

I was that girl who read diet books in high school when--

I mean we joked about this when I got here--

when I was not allowed to watch "The Simpsons" or "90210."

But I was allowed to read those books.

And it was something that obviously was a hobby

and then became more.

Because what I was able to do once

I learned how to read those studies and go into--

you guys have Google Scholar, which I love.

It's a great place to find studies.

I can look up what I'm--

something that I'm searching for whether it's the benefits

of curcumin, which is the active ingredient in turmeric.

Or what's better, two meals a day or six?

There's a lot you can get from the research.

And understanding how to read the research

allowed me to just mine that nutrition knowledge and figure

out what I thought was the most important.

And what I kept finding was that there

were a lot of things that overlapped.

Whether you're eating a Mediterranean

diet, or an Atkins diet, or a paleo diet, or a Keto diet,

or your blood sugar balance, or you were Weight Watchers,

I kind of just didn't want the eat and do not eat list.

I just wanted to understand the science

and say, how am I going to feel my best.

How am I going to stay fueled?

How am I going to stop snacking on junk

when I wanted to reach for Goldfish?

I grew up on Goldfish.

Those are great.

But for me it was really trying to decipher what was

the most important thing here.

And that came down to what do your--

what do your cells need to proliferate?

Because your body is constantly breaking itself

down and rebuilding itself.

You rebuild your body about nine times over your life.

So I wanted to know what did my cells need.

And then what's going to make me feel my best

and perform and function my best?

And so that's kind of what led me to my philosophy, which

is a light structure around eating that isn't an eat

and do not eat list.

Because I think for a lot of people who decide,

oh, I'm never going to eat rice again, well, what

happens when you go on a trip with your husband

to Japan, like I just went.

Am I not going to have sushi?

Of course I'm going to have sushi.

But it's understanding well, what

do these macronutrients do?

How do they break down in my body?

How do they make me feel?

And making choices around food based on that knowledge--

so that's also kind of how it all happened.

SPEAKER 1: So coming out of learning all that research,

what are some of the biggest biological takeaways that you

want to communicate to men and women?

KELLY LEVEQUE: Sure, well a lot of you guys

got a copy of my book.

And I talk about something called the Fab Four,

which are, I think, the four categories that I think

are important for you to be aware of,

the first being protein, the second being fat,

the third being fiber, and the fourth being greens.

And by greens I mean vegetables like leafy greens, things

deep in color.

And the reason for that is that you

have essential amino acids, which are from protein,

that your body needs.

You have protein stores in your body

that are used to rebuild these cells that we break down.

The programmed cell death is apoptosis.

So if your body says, oh, this cell is not functioning right,

you'll kill it off.

You'll rebuild it.

And that's what I was talking about when

I said your body breaks itself down and rebuilds itself.

So you need protein to do that.

I don't by any means think that you need 200 grams a day.

If you're on a bodybuilding website,

that might be the recommendation,

but something around 20 to 30 grams at each meal.

And there are going to be meals where there are less.

And there are going to be meals where there are more--

but just to keep those stores up.

Fat-- I think fat is really important.

And I think there was a big period of time where

people ditched fat, because it's higher in calories per gram.

And if you're a calorie counter, that's

a really easy way to cut calories, right.

But when it comes to satiety and feeling full and calm,

which is so much about my philosophy--

I'm just all about eating food that turn off--

turns off hunger hormones so you don't have to think about food.

Fat is really good at doing that.

When you eat fat, your body releases

a hormone called cholecystokinin,

which is a really strong satiety hormone.

I mean think about it.

If you're going to have chicken and steamed

broccoli versus chicken, broccoli, and a pesto sauce,

I mean obviously you're going to feel a lot more satisfied when

you're adding fat to that.

And that's also going to slow the digestion of that meal

and elongate your blood sugar curve,

so we aren't reaching for snacks,

which is another thing that I like people to do--

is add to their plate instead of depriving themselves.

And things to make something last longer in your body.

And fat does a really good job of helping you absorb all

of your fat soluble vitamins.

There was a study that came out on avocados.

And by adding avocados to a salad,

you're actually increasing phytochemical absorption

by over 300%.

So when you think about those nutrients

that you're trying to get, those anti-oxidants

that are fighting the oxidative stress of day-to-day life,

you're not going to get there without the fat.

So I love fat.

And then fiber and greens comes down to your microbiome.

It comes down to detoxification.

It comes down to feeling full.

So the physical stretching of your stomach does something.

It helps your body with the hormone called ghrelin.

And ghrelin I like to think of the gorilla hormone.

If you don't have that physical stretch of your stomach,

you're going to be starving.

You just want to eat all day long just grabbing for another

leaf, but-- or hopefully a leaf--

sometimes not-- but the real stretching of your stomach.

So when we grab a green juice--

I know juicing became really popular.

Grabbing a green juice, you're not really turning off

that hunger hormone.

So you're going to be hungry later.

And then the greens, specifically leafy greens,

great source of fiber, great source of phytochemicals.

But also the source of a sugar, a sulfur-based sugar that

feeds your probiotic bacteria.

So when you think about all of the gut

bacteria in your body, 10 cells of bacteria

to every human cell on your body,

you want to make sure that that's proliferating

and that you're just really a walking around ecosystem

of bacteria that's giving off gases, free fatty

acids, and things that tell your genes what to do.

So for longevity purposes, detoxification purposes,

whenever you can say, I'll just add a cup of spinach

to that smoothie, or I'll get a side salad to start my meal,

I mean it's a great way to stay full.

It's a great way to get really good nutrients, too.

So those four things, I think, is my way

of helping people turn off hunger hormones

and elongate their blood sugar curve

and eat an anti-inflammatory diet.

So instead of just saying, oh, I can't have this anymore.

And I can't have that anymore.

And I'm not having gluten, or I'm not having dairy,

or I'm not--

it's a lot of "I'm not," which creates a lot of food drama.

I like to say, OK, look at my plate.

Do I have a good source of healthy fat?

Can I add olive oil or avocado to this?

Can I add slivered nuts to this so

that it will make me feel a little more full.

So that 3 o'clock doesn't roll around and I don't go, oh,

is it time for a brownie?

Because we're all going to get that depressed feeling around 3

or 4 o'clock where a coffee, a brownie,

a cookie sounds awesome, and that's a hormonal thing

that's happening inside of you.

It's also due to the fact that whatever you had at lunch,

your blood sugar can go up and come down on average

about three hours.

So depending on when you eat lunch between 12:00 and 1:00,

that crash is going to happen.

And if we can elongate that window,

you don't have that crash.

And we can be aware of the way that we're hormonally

going to react at that time.

We can have strategies to deal with it, move through it,

and hopefully continue to eat clean.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah, so what are your top tips then

for elongating that blood sugar curve.

You touched on your Fab Four items.

But how does that actually play out in our bodies?

KELLY LEVEQUE: Right, so if any one of you guys have heard--

for example, if you had a sweet potato, or you

had a sweet potato with coconut oil, or almond butter,

or grass-fed butter on it.

The actual adding of fat slows down

the digestion and breakdown of your food.

And when you add greens and fiber, the breaking-- your body

has to physically digest those things.

And your digestion happens with two chemical byproducts,

hydrochloric acid.

Which if you have acid reflux, that's that feeling, right.

That's the acid.