023 – What You Eat Can Set You Up for Success with Karl Pilz of Nutrition to the Edge

Gift biz unwrapped episode 23.

What you put in your mouth has a direct causation on

how you feel in 20 minutes.

Hi, this is John Lee,

Dumas of entrepreneur on fire,

and you're listening to the gift of biz unwrapped,

and now it's time to light it up.

Welcome To gift biz,

unwrapped your source for industry specific insights and advice to develop

and grow your business.

And now here's your host,

Sue Monheit Hi there and welcome to the gift biz unwrapped

podcast. Whether you own a brick and mortar shop sell online

or are just getting started,

you'll discover new insight to gain traction and to grow your

business. And today I am so pleased to have Carl Pils

join us today.

Carl is a former member of the corporate world who allowed

work and business to take over his life so much so

that he ballooned to 224 pounds with absolutely no energy left.

He decided to dive into the nutrition world and committed himself

to learning the truth.

And I emphasize truth about how our body works after losing

53 pounds.

Carl now helps others take a similar journey.

He does this through his website,

nutrition to the edge.com

and the I'm too busy for nutrition podcast.

Welcome to the show,

Carl, Thanks so much for having me looking forward to it.

Is there anything you'd like to add to your intro before

we get started?

Yeah. You know,

just my background,

where I came from,

you know,

I was an engineer by traditional schooling.

I was an electrical engineer and got into technical sales and

just that corporate traveling that lifestyle where you're taking customers out

to dinner and out for drinks and trying to catch all

the meals on the road.

It was fun at first,

but after a while,

you know,

I blew it up actually to 227 pounds and I'm a

five, eight foot guy and for a five,

eight guy,

227 is a hefty fella looking back.

It's really incredible how much I weighed and how badly my

health got out of control.

It's amazing when I just started looking at this and took

off down this road,

it's really incredible how your life changes and how big,

a difference,

little changes make.

Just when you get started,

understanding how your body kind of as a system works.

So we'll get into all that today.

We will get Into all that today.

And I think a lot of our listeners can really relate

to this situation because especially if you come out of a

corporate world and you are entertaining all the time,

it's that delicate balance.

Because if you have a client who wants to go out

for nice dinners and have some wine,

or you're taking them to a ball game and you know,

along with that comes,

drink and food,

how do you decline or make smart choices?

It's so easy just to walk down the road that you

went Down,

you know,

it's almost rude to decline if somebody offers you and you

have a business relationship on it.

So a lot of times you take more than you want

just because it's the right thing to do.

Yep. So I think a lot of us have been there

with you,

Carl. Yeah.

Well, as our listeners know,

we align the conversation around the life of a motivational candle.

The light shines on you while you share your stories and

experiences. So Carl shall we light it up when you share,

so guess what?

You just walked into a gift store.

You see a whole shelf of really colorful candles.

What color candle are you going to pick?

Is blue.

Blue is very soothing to me and that's very important.

What shade of blue is it not so dark?

It's a light blue kind of reminds me this guy.

And I find that very calming.

Okay. And what kind of a quote is on your candle?

I actually like to give you two,

if you don't mind.

Sure. They're both blue.

Just because,

like I said,

I like that calming feeling.

Oh, so You're taking two candles,

not just two quotes.

You're also taking two candles.

Two candles.

Yes. Okay.

You got it.

The first one says learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

If we're always sitting in our comfort zone,

we are not growing.

And whenever we are pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone,

which is what we have to do to be successful entrepreneurs,

it's going to be uncomfortable.

And it's always going to be like that.

If you keep pushing yourself to grow,

so that's never going to go away.

So the best thing that we can learn to do is

to learn,

to be comfortable,

being uncomfortable.

Makes sense.

I like it.

It's second quote.

I heard a long time ago because entrepreneurship is living briefly.

Like no one else will so that you can live the

rest of your life.

Like no one else can,

that really sums up what we have to do and where

we're going.

It Justifies the time in when you're an entrepreneur and you're

building a business.

There's so much time in the front and so much,

as you said,

areas being uncomfortable,

being fearful,

not sure exactly where this is all going to lead,

but if you can have that vision of where you're going

to be in the end,

that really helps.

And you might catch a lot of flack from family and

friends about why,

you know,

why are you putting so much time into it?

You know,

you're not enjoying your life.

And you know,

you only live once you tend to hear a lot,

but once you get to the point of the jump and

now your life is yours,

totally. And you can just take off for a month,

go rent a house down by the beach and work from

the beach for a month.

If you want,

like no one else can,

then it was all worth It.

Absolutely you are right.

And that leads into why I wanted to have you on

the show today because building a business,

you tend to get so entwined in everything that's going on.

Things continue to build issues happen from time to time,

it gets very stressful.

And you know,

we start neglecting our health.

You know,

maybe you don't start going to the club as much as

you used to because you're so focused on the next task

that has to happen.

Possibly you don't have employees or anybody to help you yet

less support than maybe you did in a corporate environment or

working for somebody else.

And our health starts to fail because we're ignoring our bodies

and ourselves.

That's what I wanted to talk with you about today is

how do we make sure we stay the most fit we

can possibly be to set ourselves up for the most success

we can have in our business.

But let's jump back for just a minute.

And can you explain to us what happens?

How does eating affect our productivity and our ability To focus?

Yes. One of the biggest things that people don't realize is

that when we eat,

when we're told that we should eat healthy,

usually we're giving a lot of effort by the right foods

and cook the right meals and all that stuff.

We're investing a lot of effort upfront.

And the result that we're supposed to get,

you know,

the reward that we're supposed to get in return is only,

you know,

later in life you'll be disease free.

Well, I don't know anybody that gets excited about putting all

this investment upfront only to get a reward,

you know,

far off in the distance.

That's what people tend to think.

What I show people is that what you put in your

mouth has a direct causation on how you feel in 20

minutes, we're going to talk about brain chemistry today,

all these brain chemicals that control how we feel and what

most people don't realize is there are brain chemicals and hormones

that are controlling our levels of energy and focus.

And most people are doing things in their life that are

destroying these brain chemicals.

And they're doing it three to five times a day.

That is really why our energy and focus levels are so

inconsistent. Sometimes we'll do something that doesn't sabotage this,

but most of the time we are,

it's very short in terms of cause and effect.

You know,

that timeframe it's very short.

Seriously. You're saying that after someone listens to our conversation today,

if they start employing some of the things that you're going

to talk about,

that they could feel differently in less than Half an hour.

No doubt,

20 minutes,

no doubt.

Wow, Carry on.

Now. I'm curious.

Here's how it all works.

The way that we feel.

And you know,

we're talking to entrepreneurs and as entrepreneurs,

we have a lot of balls in the air.

We have so much going on with building a business.

You know,

especially if you have a day job right now,

and you're trying to build a business on the side.

Now you're committing 40 to 50 to 60 hours a week

at a company then coming home and devoting another 10 to

20 hours to a side project.

At the same time,

you probably have a family and a house to keep up

and a yard that needs maintained all this stuff that we

have to get done.

We don't have time to be tired and foggy.

You know,

we just don't have the time we have too much to

do. And a lot of people are fighting feeling like they

need naps.

A lot of brain fog,

you know,

just can't concentrate.

Their levels of energy are just shut all the time.

A lot of people I think get really frustrated because when

this is going on for so long and there's seems to

be nothing that we can do about it,

we seem to associate this with,

you know,

this is just who I am.

I'm just type of person.

And that's when it gets really discouraging Either that,

or it's like,

I'm working so hard on the business.

I just have to keep humbling along.

I have to keep doing it.

I have to keep doing it.

And this is the sacrifice I'm making.

But what you're saying is that fogginess and that tiredness can

be affected or is being caused by what we're eating.

Yes, definitely.

And here's how,

okay. So if we want to have the highest levels of

energy and focus and productivity,

and also we're going to see confidence,

optimism and creativity are all controlled by the same thing.

So this is all one big cornucopia of the feelings that

we want,

that we're going to talk about.

So there's a place where all these feelings come from,

all these attributes,

energy and focus,

productivity, all that.

They come from our brain,

all these feelings.

They come from our brain more specifically,

they come from a mixture of brain chemicals and we've all

heard of a good bit of these.

One of them is serotonin.

Serotonin. We know is our natural antidepressant,

dopamine and adrenaline and our endorphins.

You know,

we've all heard of some of these brain chemicals.

These are the brain chemicals that control how we feel.

Serotonin is our natural antidepressant.

When serotonin is high,

we feel confident,

optimistic. We feel really ready to take on anything.

Dopamine and adrenaline are our action and focus brain chemicals.

We have all the energy and focus that we need to

get everything that we need to done.

And then endorphins.

Those are,

you know,

we've all heard of endorphins,

you know,

sex and chocolate raise endorphins,

but endorphins allow us to enjoy our lives.

They allow us to enjoy the benefits of what we've been

doing. A good way to describe the feeling of high endorphins

is we can feel the rush of life.

And these brain chemicals are really what control,

how we feel.

We cannot underestimate these pharmaceutical companies,

know this pharmaceutical companies who make antidepressant drugs,

those drugs work by manipulating these brain chemicals because those companies

know how a small tweak in them could cause a massive

effect in how we feel now,

what most people don't realize is these brain chemicals come from

food, the right foods build them and the wrong foods destroy

them. And that's why it's so inconsistent when we can get

ourselves into this insanely productive place where we have high levels

of energy focus productivity.

Because for most of us,

we are doing things at every meal that are destroying these

brain chemicals.

And so when these brain chemicals are low,

that's when we fight being tired,

being foggy,

being not confident,

you know,

being overly self critical.

That's where all these feelings come from when these brain chemicals

are low.

So for the vast majority of people,

we're doing things at every meal that are destroying and sabotaging

these brain chemicals.

That's really the big concept.

So here's a question for you,

you know how people will say,

oh, I'm in such good mood today.

Everything's going right.

You might not say this,

but you know,

I have a lot of confidence and you know,

I'm just,

I'm on top of the world.

Are you suggesting that it's some unknown thing that they've done

it, the combination of foods that they've eaten or something that

might've put them in that state.

It's not just this random,

oh, I woke up today and I'm having a good Day.

You know,

it's, it's combination of both.

It's not totally controlled by a nutrition,

but nutrition is a large,

large part of it.

We all know people who have lots of success and a

lot of things that should be making us happy,

but they're miserable.

And a lot of the problem is that their diet is

terrible. And what they ate for lunch is really sabotaging how

they feel right now,

you know,

an hour later.

Oh my gosh.

And then they're going to the doctor to get antidepressants or

something. Now,

first off,

if you're taking antidepressants,

do not stop taking them without medical supervision because the withdrawal

effects can be really severe,

like up to and including suicide.

Okay? So don't stop taking them without supervision.

But that also shows how powerful these brain chemicals are.

Let's talk about how,

if we want to have the highest levels of energy and

focus and productivity,

our goal should be to build these brain chemicals up high

and not destroy them.

Okay. Right.

So how do we do that?

Let's talk about how these brain chemicals are made.

These brain chemicals come from protein,

beef, chicken,

fish, dairy beans,

whatever, wherever you get your protein.

That is the building block.

More specifically,

the brain chemicals are made from amino acids,

which are the building blocks of protein.

So when we eat proteins,

so let's say we eat a steak,

it goes into our stomach and it gets digested and it

gets broken down into individual amino acids.

Some of them are tryptofan tyrasine lysine,

phenol, alanine.

These are all amino acids.

And don't worry about remembering names.

We're just going to go through this.

But these amino acids,

after they're digested and broken down from the protein,

the amino acids hop into our bloodstream and they circulate around

our body and they do a lot of different things.

They do things like make muscle,

make bone,

make blood,

but a lot of them hit up to our brain to

make these brain chemicals.

And now the brain chemicals are made from different amino acids

like serotonin is made from tryptofan the amino acid for all

these brain chemicals.

The process is amino acid plus vitamins equals brain chemical.

So that's why we need the vitamins.

That's why we need to eat things like vegetables and fruits.

But so tryptofan will go up to our brain,

combined with vitamins and make serotonin tyrasine is another amino acid,

which will combine with vitamins,

go into our brain.

And that will make adrenaline and dopamine and fennel.

Alanine is another immuno acid,

which are combined with vitamins to produce our endorphins.

That's where our endorphins come from.

So that's where these brain chemicals are made.

When you just hear that slice of this process,

what do you think?

The number one way that people are sabotaging their energy and

focus? Well,

they're not eating protein and fruits and vegetables.

Exactly. The first thing is you're not giving your body,

the building blocks to build these brain chemicals.

A lot of people are not getting protein at every meal

for breakfast,

we're having coffee or we're going to Starbucks and you know,

even worse going and getting a coffee and a piece of

banana bread at Starbucks.

Oh, Carl,

Do not tell me I have to give up Starbucks,

Please. No,

you can go to Starbucks,

get your coffee or tea or whatever,

try to drink it black or with cream.

But some of those drinks look at the nutritional information.

One of their caramel macchiatos and a piece of banana bread.

You may as well eat 13 slices of white bread.

That's how many carbs are in that food.

Okay. So luckily I'm not doing that,

but now I'm not that bad,

but what you're saying,

and you've just put in a new word here,

which is carbs.

So you're saying to stay away from carbs.

Well, let's get to that in a second.

We'll get the way we'll go.

For the most part,

most people are not,

you know,

they're doing just coffee or something for breakfast,

or they're doing pizza for dinner or just spaghetti,

or they're doing cereal.

All these meals that contain very little protein.

And so they are not giving their body.

The building blocks the raw materials to make these brain chemicals.

And the more that you do it,

then the lower and the lower your brain chemicals get the

longer you go without providing your body with raw materials,

the lower your brain chemical levels will get and your energy

and your focus deteriorate over time.

So that's the first problem is that we're not giving our

bodies, the raw materials to build the brain chemicals.

Now here's the second and it has to do with carbs.

And let's shift a little bit and talk about how carbohydrates

are digested and what happens when we carbs.

This means any carbs,

fruits, vegetables,

beans, white bread,

white rice,

sugar, candy soda,

whatever, any carbs that we eat goes into our stomach and

it gets digested and turned into sugar.

And then that sugar jumps into our bloodstream.

And that's what we call our blood sugar.

Okay. So blood sugar is what we're going to be talking

about. It's very important,

but so that happens to all carbs.

Now the difference between the different carbs is how long that

takes. And it has to do with fiber.

Fiber is what slows the digestion of carbs down because what

our body likes is a nice,

slow delivery of carbs into our bloodstream.

So when we eat carbs that have a lot of fiber

and therefore digest nice and slowly,

here's the process.

We eat high fiber carbs.

They go into our stomach and they're digested slowly and therefore

little bits of carbs get put into our bloodstream at a

time. It's kind of like an IB drip of carbs into

our bloodstream.

And therefore our blood sugar rises nice and slow over the

period of three,

four or five hours,

depending on the person.

But our body likes to maintain our blood sugar in a

healthy range,

not too high and not too low.

And if we eat those high fiber carbs that are entering

our bloodstream very slowly,

our blood sugar stays well within that healthy range.

And when that happens,

everything is happy.

Our body is happy.

Everything is getting their fuel.

Like they like it.

Okay. Now the problem comes when we eat what I call

quick digesting carbohydrates.

And these are carbs with little to no fiber in them.

And we're talking about basically sugar and white carbs is what

I say.

And by sugar,

we're talking about soda or candy or cookies or whatever.

And then by white carbs,

we're talking about white bread,

white rice,

white pasta,

cookies, crackers,

all that type of stuff.

Anything made with white flour or white grains.

These carbs have either no fiber in them naturally like in

sugar and soda,

or they have the fiber stripped out during manufacturing,

like in the case of white flour and white bread,

white rice,

since these carbs have little to no fiber in them,

they go into our stomach and they get digested very,

very quickly.

Actually, if you want to see an example of how quick

take a piece of wonder bread and just put it in

your mouth,

don't do anything it'll disintegrate in under a minute.

It's pretty crazy.

So since these carbs go into our stomach and digest quickly,

that means a lot of sugar is dumped into our bloodstream

at once.

And that causes our blood sugar to rise really high really

quickly. And that's what we call a blood sugar spike.

Now we talked about how our body likes to maintain our

blood sugar in a certain healthy range.

Well, when our blood sugar spikes,

then our body has to take evasive action.

It has to do something about it.

And what our body does is it releases insulin insulin's job

is to take all that extra sugar and get it out

of our bloodstream in order to drive our blood sugar back

down into that healthy range.

And the way it does it is insulin removes that extra

sugar and it dumps it into ourselves and it dumps it

into our fat cells.

And that is the number one reason why the world is

getting obese because every meal that we have,

that's filled with sugar and white carbohydrates,

it causes a blood sugar spike and insulin comes and removes

all that sugar and dumps it into our fat cells.

And that creates more fat cells just talking about weight.

That is the number one reason why people are gaining weight

like crazy and they can't lose weight.

You know,

that is such a fabulous explanation.

Cause everyone knows,

you know,

if you have a bunch of candy bars or you have

your regular Coke or something,

you know,

everyone knows that those aren't healthy for you because of all

the sugar,

but in terms of what actually happens in your body,

that was such a good explanation.

Thank you.

Yeah, it makes So much sense.

And I think just by listening to what actually happens in

the mechanics behind it helps have an image,

at least for me,

of why you wouldn't want to do it in the first

place, it tastes really great in the beginning.

But then,

you know,

what happens when that satisfaction of tasting it is gone.

We tend to think that,

oh, we're just having one cookie.

You know,

won't do that much.

But if the cookie is big and then it's causing that

blood sugar spike.

And so a good portion of that cookie is going to

fat storage so that can either hide your dreams or it

can empower you depending on what you're going to do with

it. Okay.

So, but a little bit of pushback here because I don't

see anybody going through life without a bit of cake on

their birthday or some of this low fiber carb foods from

time to time,

how do you manage that?

I mean,

how do you fit it into a lifestyle that you can

do over time?

Okay. Gift biz listeners,

you know how,

when you're watching TV and there's a cliffhanger and you're going

to find out what happens next and they break to a

commercial, that is what I'm doing to you.

Now. I decided that Carl had so much good information to

give us and let's face it.

This first part was very heavily based on scientific information,

a lot for us to capture.

So I'm dividing,

Carl's interview into two episodes.

Part two,

when we come back next week,

Carl is going to tell us exactly the three steps we

need to take to get our mind in gear our body

revved, to bring our businesses to a level like no other.

I look forward to having you join me again next week

on gift biz,

unwrapped, Learn how to work smarter while developing and growing your

business. Download our guide called 25 free tools to enhance your

business and life.

It's our gift to you and available at gift biz,

unwrap.com/tools. Thanks for listening and be sure to join us for

the next episode.

Would you like to be on the show or do you

know someone who can provide valuable insight From their experiences?

If so,

we'd love to hear from you.

All You need to do is submit a form for consideration.

You can access the form that gift biz on wrapped.com

forward slash yes,

that's gift biz on wrapped.com

forward slash G U E S T today's show is sponsored

by the ribbon print company.

Looking for a new income source for your gift business.

Customization is more popular now than ever grant your product from

your logo or print a happy birthday,

Jessica Griffin,

to add to a gift,

right at checkout,

it's all done right in your shop or cross studio in

seconds. Check out the ribbon print company.com