EPISODE SUMMARY
Guest: Dr. Kerry Thuett
Dr. Kerry Thuett applied her own knowledge of science to improve her own health and permanently lose a lot of weight. She moved from San Fransisco to Lubbock to open her training and nutrition coaching practice, called Fully Fueled Fitness.
Dr. Thuett has an undergrad in Math and Biology from Texas Tech, a master's in Environmental Toxicology from Texas Tech, and a Ph.D. in Neurotoxicology from Texas A&M. In graduate school, she studied the effect of perchlorate on the thyroid gland and the hypothalamic-pituitary gonadal axis, and then for her Ph.D., the effect of methylmercury on the developing fetal brain. So, as a toxicologist, this was really interesting as you learn all about Anatomy and Physiology. You've got to know Biology, you have to know Chemistry, you have to know Pharmacology. You've got to know Immunology. You have to know every medical and scientific discipline other than Psychology,
In this episode, we discuss:
The mindset needed to have success in lifestyle change, not dieting
Why nutritional research is challenging to perform and publish.
Eating real food.
The three aspects of moving like a human.
High rep vs. low rep weight training.
How and why to conquer fear.
How to contact Dr. Kerry Thuett:
https://fullyfueledfitness.com/contact/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kerry.thuett
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerry_thuett_phd
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaRuTGb1t8aR8oMWLGDw-WA
To contact Ruth, go to https://www.blairclinic.com
ruth@blairclinic.com
https://www.facebook.com/rutelin
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome, welcome, welcome to What Pain in the Neck. I am Ruth Elder, your host. And in this podcast episode, I am so pleased to have one of the smartest people I know on the show, Dr. Kerry Thuett, welcome.
Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. I love doing podcasts and I am excited to talk to your audience today.
I know that we could probably record 10 episodes and we would not run out of stuff to talk about.
Yeah, that's probably true.
But why don't you start by introducing yourself, your business, and how are you helping people with their suffering?
Alright, sounds good. My name is Kerry Thuett and I own and operate Fully Fueled Fitness. And there I am a practicing PhD Toxicologist, Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, and Strength and Conditioning Coach.
Yeah, isn't that the most interesting combination you have ever heard?
Yeah, it's kind of weird, isn't it? Well, my background is I have an I studied t undergrad in Math and Biology from Texas Tech. And a master's in Environmental Toxicology from Texas Tech and a PhD in Neurotoxicology from Texas A&M. And in my graduate school I studied the effect of perchlorate on the thyroid gland and the hypothalamic pituitary gonadal axis and then for my PhD,he effect of methylmercury on the developing fetal brain. So, as a toxicologist, this is really interesting, I loved that discipline because it makes you learn all about Anatomy and Physiology. You've got to know Biology, you have to know Chemistry, you have to know Pharmacology. You've got to know Immunology. You have to know everything. Every medical and scientific discipline, other than Psychology, I would say. And I'm such a geek and love to know all the things about all the things. So toxicology was a perfect thing for me. Also, I like to look at the big picture. I don't want to be in a silo and only work and look at one little thing. I problem solve big picture.
Yeah. And that's actually why I have you on the show, because I talk about you all the time and recommend you and when people ask for recommendation for nutrition advice here in Lubbock, hands down, nobody has more education than you do.
It's true. It's true. Now, just because someone is educated doesn't mean they're smart and can think and actually can problem solve.
No, but you can.
But I do think I can and I also think I can teach.
And you have personal experience here.
Yes, I do. I have my own personal health journey. I weighed 300 pounds and I maintained that 300 pounds for a good 13 or so years.
But looking at you now, that's -, it’s - , you can't -, I can't fathom it.
Yeah. I tried all the diets that there were out there. While I was working on my master's degree, which was about a four year time span, I lost about 30 pounds in that four years.
So out of 300..?
I'm down 30 pounds. Well, then I started working on my PhD. And during that eight years, I lost another 50 pounds. So let me tell you something that I was doing during all of that time. I was dieting, truly dieting, all the diets, this diet, that diet, all the exercise plans, kickbox, yoga, pilates, personal trainer, more workout, the better, less food, the better, you know, zone diet, weight watchers, high carb, low carb, you kno.
All the things.
Yeah. Um, slim fast.
Oh no.
The Dallas diet. I did that. It wasn't non productive. I was losing a little bit of weight over time, but for the amount that I was working out, and at some times, the little food that I would eat. Why was I not making better progress?
Yeah, right. Good question.
Exactly. So then I moved to San Francisco to become a private toxicologist where I did expert witness work. It was a private toxicology firm, but places like Ford, GM, Chrysler, the semiconductor industry, USDA, FDA would hire us to be outside private toxicologists for whatever was going on in their business or their system. And it ended up, my first two years of that, I lost another 20 pounds.
Okay, good.
Right? And then, people almost think about it as overnight, but it didn't happen overnight. But yes, overnight, once I got to, at about that time, I was about, what, 210 or so, 210 pounds. There are a lot of things that came together and coalesced in my brain that I understood and then I ended up losing the next 65 pounds in five months.
Wow. And then you've kept it?
Yes. So what I was learning over the years of dieting is what seemed to work better than something else. And then I would have these random times where, oh, I'm so busy working on this PhD project that I maybe wouldn't be able to work out for two weeks. But then I'd get back in the gym and I would have actually made strength progress. Well, how do you make strength progress when you weren't working out? Or, same thing, I would go off my diet plan. So there's this one example when I was actually in San Francisco. I had to - actually basically stayed in the office for five days because I was so busy I just didn't have time to go home. So I just sleep for a couple hours under my desk and then continue to work. Well it was a weird experiment because what I did is, I just grabbed the food that I had in the house and took it with me. So I basically for five days I ate a lot of food, I wasn't hungry, but I was eating shrimp and bacon and broccoli, pretty much, for that whole time, but I was eating a lot of it. And I got home and I'd lost five pounds. And I’m like what just happened here? This is very bizarre. So, another thing about being an expert witness is that what you do is you take all the literature and you put it together and you look and see what you think that the science is telling you. And then you have to get on the stand and take an oath and swear that this is the truth. Well, there's somebody on the other side of the courtroom. that they looked at that literature too, but they are siding with the other side. Well, why is that? It's one, how we interpret the science, because we were all looking at the same literature. And yes, sometimes people get paid off, but you don't really want to do that.
Is why there's so much conflicting diet advice out there?
That's partly why it is. The other thing though is when you start doing academic research, you start realizing what studies you can use to create your own hypotheses and which studies you cannot. And you start being able to figure out which studies are poorly done.
Yeah, we actually had another guest that talked about that and research on this show.
I started realizing that most of the nutrition literature out there was- you couldn't follow it as a general population. It was done, One: 50 years ago, in 25 year old male athletes. That doesn't translate to a 45 year old female. And the fitness industry and the nutrition industry are just applying it across the board to everyone. It's the wrong application.
Or the food pyramid is the same for everyone.
Food pyramid, same for everyone. And the food pyramidal will kill somebody with an autoimmune disorder. But it doesn't matter. That's the science that's out there, right? So once I started to figure that out, once I started to realize that fat was not all that bad, protein was not all that bad, that one had to eat the right amount of carbs for their body and that we had to eat whole real food, not processed food.It's like I just started to eat the right things.
So how did you know what the right things were for your body? Is that because you essentially did a science experiment on yourself?
Yes, I always experiment on myself. And so I had already, over time, begun to discover that the more meat I ate, the better I felt and the less likely I was to binge. I also started discovering that I had more energy and I started to discover that the more often I ate carbohydrates, and I'm not talking about candy bars and ice cream. I mean even potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, fruit. The more I ate that, the more I wanted the snicker bars and the ice cream. So, I just started making little tweaks. But then, - yay for podcasts. This is 15 years ago that this was going on and podcasts were kind of a new thing to start out. But there were already some researchers that had blazed this trail for me. So, it wasn't all just, oh, my own discoveries. It was. But what my own discoveries did is gave me the vocabulary to search for other researchers that have looked into this to a greater degree. And I started listening to them and what their anecdotal evidence was. And I call it anecdotal evidence because there are no double blind placebo controlled trials.
Yeah, it's probably too costly that your average nutrition coach is not able to do it, right?
Well, yes, and then also there's no money to be made at the end goal. Because the answer is, guess what? You get to eat whole real food.
And you get to go off your drugs.
And you get to go off your drugs and yes, and you're not going to eat processed food anymore so who's going to make any money? Nobody. So then as I began to listen to these other people and their experiences and their research findings, I started just implementing.
So what were the things that you implemented?
So whole real food. You must eat whole real food.
What are some examples of that?
Let's think about this. The less things you can do to it and it still be good for you is a whole real food. So for example, you could be walking along and, ooh, There's a lettuce plant growing on the ground and you can pick it up and stick it in your mouth. That is zero thing that you had to do to that plant to eat it. So that's going to be a whole real food. An animal. You can kill an animal and you can eat the meat right off the carcass. Now, not that you should. I'm not telling you to eat raw vegetables and raw meat. I'm telling you, can you? Yes, you can. Therefore, that's a whole real food. The more you have to do to it before you eat it, and it's the less nutrition it has too. So let's take a potato, for example. You have to pick it, but you have to cook a potato.
It's poisonous, right?
Yes, it is poisonous unless you cook it. So it is actually not - it is still a whole real food. But it is once removed from those things that you could eat just as they are.
But a carrot you can take out of the ground and wash and just crunch on.
Done. Yeah. So that's kind of how you want to think about it. Now, nuts and seeds, right? Yes, you can pick them and eat them, but there is another step. You have to shell them, right? You cannot take a nut, I mean, we're not used to seeing nuts in their shells, naturally, except for the peanuts, legumes, but you cannot, - oh, pecans, perfect example. You have to shell the pecan. So that's actually a one step removed, right? But it's still a whole real food. Now, let's look at - let's talk about wheat. Wheat, you have to pick it, dry it, grind it. Okay, so that's three steps. But, that's actually not how we even eat wheat. We always eat wheat several steps removed from that. Chemically bleached, fake vitamins and minerals added. And then cooked. You have to cook it. So, see, we're looking at six steps removed for wheat. Right? So that, that right there is just a ding, ding, ding. That's getting too far away. So it's a whole ish real food.But anything in a package has got so much garbage added to it that's not whole real food. So that's kind of how you define whole real food. So One: you want to eat whole real food.
So that's what you did.
And then I figured out my carbohydrate level. How many carbs can I eat in a day and basically burn it all off. So it doesn't get stored.
So how do you figure that out?
That I actually had some guidance on. Somebody else had already done some research on it. Now, we tweaked it. So what this individual told me is, “Okay, I want you for six days of the week to eat only 30 grams of carbs a day.” And this is back long enough ago that we weren't talking about a keto diet. Unless we were talking about the 90 percent fat diet Where people with epilepsy go on. So there was no keto word at that time. So she said, “30 grams of carbs a day for six days. And then one day I want you to eat up to 150 and not junk.” But it's to refill glycogen stores in your muscle. Cause I was also lifting weights. And she said, “do this. And we will tweak it up or down if we need to. That was actually perfect for me. 30 grams of carbs a day, 6 days a week, 150 on the other day was brilliant. Now when I'm working with people I have to tweak up or down. And sometimes we don't even do the 6-1. Some people I go, “yeah, you're gonna need carbs every day. Let's go for 60 every day.” I watch how do they look, feel, and perform. How do they sleep? How do they move? How do their workouts feel? How focused are they at work? And I can adjust the carbs.
And so you were applying that process to yourself. And when you made a real change, were you working with a coach yourself or was it just all your science brain that figured it all out?
I started working with a coach after I figured it out.
Isn't that backwards?
Sort of. But this is another big weakness that I have is I need accountability. I don't do well just on my own out there. I can know exactly what to do but to actually get me to do it, I need somebody to kind of hold me to the fire. So once I kind of figured out what I needed to do, I found a coach that could assist me in doing it. That's always great though, not just accountability, but to have another eye on it. Because we're in our lives and we kind of get in our routine. And having somebody else look at it from an outside viewpoint could go, “do you notice that you're doing this?” And I go, “whoa, I didn't know. I didn't see that.” They're like, well, “why don't you change that a little bit?”
Okay, so is that what you do for people now? We left you in San Francisco making lifetime changes, but yet here you are in Lubbock and you are helping people with their health.
Yeah, so I decided to stop my toxicology job and quit making money for lawyers and start helping people. But part of the reason I had the job that I had was because people were sick and dying and they were blaming their employers for some toxic exposure. Well, because I have such a great medical background, I was the one that was always asked to go through their medical files. So I was going through hundreds of thousands of pages of people's medical records and saying, “Oh my gosh, they're sick and they've been sick for a long time.” And it didn't have anything to do with the chemical exposure at work. It had to do with the fact that they were making bad choices all along. And I could see the de evolution of their health from early in their medical records. So I'm like, “I gotta fix that. I know the answer to this.”
So when you're saying they're having a deevolution or their health was slowly declining. And we tend to say, “okay, I'm just getting older or it's stress” but what you're saying is, you can actually make a conscious choice and then reverse that.
Yes, exactly, because I had done the same thing. I had gotten on the roller coaster of health and fitness and binging and junk, and I was getting more and more and more and more unhealthy. Well, once I realized that was not the right direction to go. Start eating whole real food, start moving like a human, and, moving like a human - movement is lift heavy objects regularly. Walk long and often and go fast occasionally. Most people are go fast all the time.They're cardio queens. They're on the treadmill all the time. And yes, some women are now, well, people in general, getting into heavy resistance training. But even then, they're not doing it the way they should. I have a 235 pound deadlift. And I work about 75 percent of that, which puts me doing most of my deadlifts - I do it three times a week. They're between 170 and 185 pounds. Three to five reps three to five times. That's what I mean by lift heavy objects and you do it regularly
So you mean it really heavy but not high rep, because it's too heavy to do that.
Because high rep stuff is cardio. So I do conditioning on other days and I don't do it on a treadmill or a machine, I either - Most of the time I'm doing kettlebell swings. So that teaches the body to create power and we'll lose fewer of our fast twitch muscle fibers as we age if we can do kettlebell swings, but I do my conditioning, with some pretty heavy weights and then walk long and often. And this just means get off your rear end. And you don't have to go walk for exercise per se. You can, but just don't be sitting all the time. Move, move, move.
And that's one of the things that the doctors here at the Blair Clinic do. They have standing desks and they walk from room to room, they bend over, taking care of patients. They walk into the next room and then they stand at their desk. One of the things that they say is what's the best position? Its the next position and you have to move to accomplish that.
You do. And chiropractic adjustments, whether they be upper cervical or standard spine chiropractic or AMIT, whatever, all will hold better if you go walk for 30 minutes after your adjustment. And a lot of chiropractors won't even tell the patient that because they know they're not going to do it. But, I do, because a chiropractor knows I will do what I'm told if it's good for me. And so anytime I get an adjustment, I go walk for 30 minutes afterwards. They will hold better. So, walk long and often. So, I quit my job making money for lawyers. Moved to Lubbock because I grew up around here and I wanted to open this business with a lower cost of living you can't open a brand new business by yourself in California. It's too expensive. And my goal is to help people look feel and perform their best get them out of pain. And interestingly sometimes pain is joint pain, muscle pain, but sometimes pain is in their mind and in their heart because they are so upset about how they look or how they feel we can get them changed in the inside also.
I think that is super important that we have this mindset of guilt and shame and then we're stuck there. Those are not our friends. So how do you work on that?
Well, first of all, I listen to people and give them a very space, a safe space to talk to me and no judgment. And they can tell really early on that I'm having no judgment about what they're telling me. But then what I do is I get them some results pretty quickly. with regards to movement and nutrition. And people can tell generally within one week that they feel different.
Wow, one week?
Yeah, that they feel different. Within a month they easily look different. And then the trust is there. Yeah, then that's when the talk starts the emotion talk. And I take through people through at least a 12 week program and over 12 weeks. You're gonna hit highs and lows and always when somebody comes in let's say they're just coming in to lift weights that day and their form is not perfect I start asking them immediately “Did you sleep? Are you happy? How's your job going?” That is not usually the first thing you ask somebody, other trainers, when a lift isn't good. I start asking, what is going on in your life? Amazing. And the next thing you know, we may not work out the rest of the hour. It is just information, information. They start telling me this is going on, that's going on. And then they start to learn how their internal environment and their head and what's going on in their lives affects how they look, feel, and perform.
Yeah. Okay. So this is incredible stuff. So what you're saying is you make a decision that you want to set yourself first and then you eat real food.
Move like a human. I'm going to say move like a human.
Okay, so those are the three steps.
Those are the three steps.
Okay, so say that again.
Okay, Make the Decision. Own It. Eat whole world food. Move Like a Human. And then let me add one, and this will finish us off here. Do Not Fear.
Oh, I love it.
So, something that would have happened to me, and matter of fact, it even happened to me today. All of a sudden I'll feel like, “okay, I want to make this little change.” And then it's just this overwhelming, “Oh my gosh, but what if I can't? And what if this, this doesn't work? And what if that doesn't work?” And it's this constant fear. And actually, the term do not fear or do not be afraid is mentioned 70 times in the Bible. Fear itself is talked about 365 times in the Bible.
Wow.
There is no other subject matter talked about in that book as much as fear, as a direct subject. So, it is clearly something that is inherent in us and that we are told, “do not let it get you.”
Yeah, it holds us back.
Yeah. And the fear will well up. At the beginning of your journey, it'll well up two weeks into your journey. It'll well up two years into your journey. And for me, I'm well into my journey, but let's say the journey just from maintaining my weight for the last twelve years, welled up today.
That's amazing.
And so you must learn to identify it and go, “no, do not fear. Make a choice, act appropriately.”
Okay, so is that literally how your process goes? You talk to yourself or is there more to it than that?
Oh, no, I talk to myself all the time. Out loud. Now, not in judgment. Because if you start telling yourself “you're stupid for being afraid.” That's negative. No, no, you're like, “I'm better. I know what to do. So don't be afraid. I look great. So don't be afraid.”
You do look great.
There's no reason to be afraid. You've got the tools. You've got the resources. Act and make it happen.
So you're literally saying that out loud. You're coaching yourself.
Yes. Yes. Mm hmm.
That is amazing! So this conversation you have just really struck on really some key things.
Yeah, and they'll help in all aspects of your life. It does not have to be fat loss that we're talking about. That behavior well send you forward in your job, in your relationships. That's another thing is we get to practice these principles in all areas of our lives.
Yeah, yeah, I can't agree more. That's the reason why it's useful to focus on health, because it makes all aspects of your life better. And that's whether it's tackling pain or handling habits or - All of it transfers over into making life better and more free.
Yes, free.
Yeah, you become more who you are instead of being controlled by fear, or controlled by pain, or controlled by I don't know, being too heavy or whatever it might be.
Yeah, or controlled by food.
Yeah, so health is about being less limited. Or I guess the goal would be to not be limited at all or just be free to be ourselves.
Yes, I like it.
So we've talked, we've touched on kind of like a bird's eye view and a lot of things. Is there one more thing that you really wish that I had asked you? And then what is the answer to that?
Another principle to live by. You didn't necessarily not ask it, but I didn't say it. We practice life. We don't work out, we practice lifting. We don't diet, we practice good nutrition. Everything is a practice.
I love it. So, Dr. Thuett, this has been really great. We started by saying we could probably talk for 10 hours and I'm not going to nail you down for 10 hours, but I really sometime in the somewhat near future would love it if you would be willing to be a guest again and we can deep dive, - maybe, maybe we'll do three episodes and talk a lot about mindset and emotion and on all of that, and then another one where we do a deep dive into nutrition, and then finally, movement.
Yep. That sounds great. It's a good series.
Okay. All right. So if you're listening out there, give me a call. I will link. Okay. Super important. How do people get ahold of you? People who want to learn from you. We need to put that in there.
So my business is called Fully Fueled Fitness. So the email addresses are just that. Kerry, my name, kerry@fullyfuledfitness.com. If you wanted to give me a call or a text, that's actually on my website. But that is (510) 909-5461.
And I will link to that in the show notes as well.
Yeah, and if you just look up my name or Fully Fueled Fitness, you'll find my website easily. And you can easily contact me through there.
I love it. And I know that you do 15 minute phone consultations.
Yeah, 15 minute free phone calls to kind of vet each other. See if we're a good fit, then we can go to a health assessment consultation after that, and then figure out the plan going forward.
Yes, and I can't think of a better person to work with on lifestyle.
Thank you.