Kiefer recently launched a series of podcasts focused on women hosted by Andrea Jengle (AJ) and Alex Navarro, both of whom were former clients of Kiefer’s and are now coaches in his Body IO Coaching program.

Alex along with Mary Gines, authored a series of cookbooks published under Body IO:

• Transforming Recipes: Ultra Low-Carb Edition
• Transforming Recipes: Ultra Low-Carb Desserts
• Transforming Recipes: Done in One

AJ can be found on her website at HERfitnesssolutions.com

Since people seemed to find my prior notes helpful, I thought that it’d be a good idea to put my notes from all of these shows together in one place.  I wanted to make it easier for all the women trying Carb Nite and Carb Back-Loading to find more information.

Here are the rest of my notes for reference:

Her Body io #1 – Introduction to Women’s Diet and Fitness

• AJ and Alex Navarro are the hosts
• AJ had been using Carb Nite and Carb Back-Loading prior to meeting Alex and Kiefer
• Alex has been doing CNS since 2010
• She was a body builder, and did a lot of cardio, eating chicken and broccoli, eating lean, very little fat, eating lots of whole grains
• She was in the gym more than she was at home.  It was like a part time job.
• Shows were getting harder and harder and her body was getting more and more fatigued.
• When starting CNS, she was afraid of all the fat at first and felt some good from it.
• She’s been experimenting a lot with CNS and CBL to achieve what she wants whenever she wants
• AJ now feels very in control with these diets, whereas before she felt like things were spiraling out of control
• At one point she was getting stressed and was losing weight without trying to, so she applied these techniques and was able to put on muscle
• Now she has confidence in how she can control things
• AJ was a competitive snow boarder, but couldn’t continue it because her health spiraled out of control because she didn’t have enough information at the time.
• AJ did the low fat thing before and that really didn’t work for her.  Then she fell into the paleo way of eating.
• It did her some good, in respect of eating less processed foods, but she was still having a hard time manipulating her body composition, and thought it was just too hard, with the cycle of bulking and leaning.
• Alex agrees, and says that she had to have two sets of clothes, one for bulking, and one for leaning.
• AJ can’t remember how she found CNS.  But she says she was doing the anabolic diet and remember feeling really good when doing low carb… and started googling stuff and came across CNS and CBL.
• AJ and Alex had to just trust the diet and be consistent with it.
• Alex has only had carbs for breakfast four times in the past four years after starting this
• AJ’s mom lifted weights
• AJ said at one point in her early 20s, she had put on 45 lbs of fat, and when her mom came to visit one day, her mom was super ripped.
• AJ says for women, it’s important to look at your moms for clues as to what works and doesn’t work and frequently asks her clients what their moms are like
• Alex’s sisters were all over weight and had a family history of diabetes and high cholesterol
• AJ and Alex’s first clients were their family members
• AJ can pack on fat very easily of she doesn’t eat and train properly, and uses this to show that she’s not one of those folks that are just genetically gifted.
• AJ said her goal with this podcast is to help women help them understand their bodies and by in tune with it.  What are the red flags?  Are you in tune with them?  Are you experiencing them?  How do you adjust to them and overcome them?

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Her Body io #2 – Common Diet Mistakes with Carb Nite and Carb Back-Loading

• They want to talk about the most common mistakes when people adapt to the CNS and CBL protocols
• These diets are more effective if you understand why they work and understand what exactly is happening
• They recommend reading CNS completely, even the stuff in the back!
• While CBL may be overwhelming, CNS is an easy read
• First thing they address: What if my Carb Night falls on a Tuesday?
  • Get the calendar out, then start the orientation 10 days before Saturday.  All it requires is just planning ahead.  Carb Nites can be whatever day you want, as long as you plan ahead.
  • There’s a chart in the back that explains, if you want your carb night on this day, then you should do xyz starting on this prior day
  • so READ THE BOOK
• With proper planning you can still go out and eat
• AJ and Alex have adopted CNS and CBL as a lifestyle
• The most common goal they get approached about with these protocols is for fat loss, so this is what the remaining of the podcast will be addressed towards.
• It’s going to take time.  It’s going to take an adjustment period and some playing with.  It’s going to be a great opportunity to learn about your body.
• So pay attention to your body to take advantage of this learning period.
• How do you feel between meals?  How do you feel when you train?
• A lot of women expect amazing linear fat loss, which is not realistic.
• They both hate the myfitnesspal calculator that automatically pops up when creating a profile that asks, how much you weigh, and then spits  out the amount of calories you need to eat to achieve x amount of weight loss in certain amount of weeks.
• Food tracking is extremely useful, but it’s also extremely inaccurate, so the most important thing to keep track of are ranges
• For some reason, nuts are something they see a lot of women eating like popcorn while complaining about not losing weight… and these women don’t realize how calorically dense those nuts are.
• When people transition to a low carb diet, people don’t realize that because of all the fat, the food that they’re eating is way more calorically dense.  The volume of what they eat goes down but the calories don’t!
• This is why AJ likes green leafy vegetables because it can add in the food volume
• AJ says she gets a lot of messages from women who understand things and have read the books but they haven’t done any tracking.  No food tracking or body circumference tracking.  At most they have a pair of pants that fit differently
• You should be seeing a downward trend in girth measurements and downward trend in the scale.  You don’t want to be one of those people who are doing CNS but aren’t tracking, and then when you weigh yourself 6 months later actually see realize that the scale has moved up or your girth has moved up!
• Tracking can be a big time commitment in the beginning, but it’s completely worth it because you can save your common meals etc.  This will save you exponential amounts of time in the future.
• Progress pictures are important.
• People can be blind to their own progress pictures and be overly critical because they automatically hone in on their problem spots… so it’s good to have a coach look at it so they can be completely objective.
• Girth measurements are extremely telling.
• Alex has a client that takes progress pics but never looks at them, and just sends them to Alex.
• A lot of women are very hesitant about sharing pictures, so they point out that there are ways to help with this, like excluding their face, or just wearing a sports bra and short shorts instead of a bikini.
• AJ likes slower progress because it’s more sustainable.
• AJ has clients that do the same thing with the scale, where they just send her the measurement, without actually looking at it themselves.
• Now they talk about the scale and women
• You should be seeing a downward trend if your goal is fat loss
• Women retain water at certain times of the month.
• When AJ was 20 lbs overweight, her water retention weight fluctuation would go up or down 20lbs!  Now for it’s about 3 lbs.
• Both Alex and AJ use period trackers to help them better understand what’s going on with their bodies
• AJ learned that she retains more water during ovulation and first few days of her cycle.  So now she knows not to pay too much attention to the scale during those times of the month.
• For most women, the best time to track progress is 1-2 days after their period has ended.
• A lot of women they see get cravings for nuts and nut butters… much more than chocolate.
• If you fall of the wagon don’t beat yourself up too much over it
• AJ wants to clarify a misunderstanding that people had.  In a prior podcast with Kiefer, she said that now she’s training less and eating more.
• She clarifies that this is relative to when she was on a higher carb diet and doing a lot of cardio and weight training 5-6 days a week.
• Now she strength trains max 4 times a week, and doesn’t do any cardio.
• She’s eating more than she could have and training less than she would have compared to before, to achieve her goals
• This doesn’t mean that she’s eating an unlimited amount of calories.
• AJ’s three favorite things Compliance, Consistency, and Patience…. and Have some fun.

 

Her Body io #3 – How Stress Makes You Fat and What You Can Do

• The topic is “How Stress Makes You Fat.”
• AJ clarifies that they’re talking more about chronic stress.
• For Alex, the first sign of stress showed up as eczema.  Would flare whenever finals and exams would come up.  This is the first sign for her to let her know that she’s stressed.
• Would come on for her in a day or two.
• Then it would go away a day or two after the test or event when she could relax
• If it was an ongoing event, then she found that exercise wasn’t the answer.  Something mellow, like yoga, helped her out a lot.
• For AJ, riding a dirt bike really helped her to clear her brain… despite putting her body under a lot of stress
• AJ says there are stressors that can be controlled and managed like going to the gym, and still get physical activity without creating a lot of excess stress like walking and doing yoga.  There are events that you can’t control, like tests or family falling ill, but you can somewhat control your response to it.
• AJ says for her it’s about setting limits for herself and knowing how busy she’s going to make her schedule.
• Alex gets that feeling where she feels guilty for not doing enough.
• If she sets aside time to relax, she was thinking about all the things she should be doing.
• AJ calls it the glorification of being busy, and a lot of it is self inflicted.
• At one point AJ was adding more things to help her destress, like a gratitude journal and MORE yoga classes, and found that this didn’t work
• She says the first approach should be what can you first take away from your schedule
• With Carb Nite, taking away carbs for 6 days of the week helps to save a lot of time
• Top 2 stressors in their clients are: time and body image
• Family is also one of the top stressors
• AJ went from being a ski bum with no family around her in Colorado.
• Now she moved back to Ontario and has all her family around, and got married, and has all her inlaws too.  So for her family is one of her biggest stressors.
• AJ helped her mom set boundaries and set boundaries for herself.  Now she convinced her mom to make it a pot luck event instead of cooking for all 24 people.
• So it’s important to set boundaries and have a plan.
• Aj says that she’s seen recently women who have gone through the coaching process and they put so much stress on themselves to follow all the guidelines and recommendations that they stall their own progress.  Alex agrees.
• AJ says that she’s seen cases where the only change her clients make is they stop food tracking as rigorously and don’t as much stress on themselves… and are able to resume their progress.
• AJ and Alex also say they’ve seen women lose weight all of a sudden when they ‘stop’ exercises
• AJ had a client who never took a break from Crossfit for 2 years straight.  AJ had her take 7 days off, and the thought of that put the woman in tears.  So she took a deload week, and finally felt like her foot wasn’t on the gas revving at a red light and not going anywhere
• They also make a point that if ‘time’ is one of their biggest stressors, they should examine how much they’re training
• You shouldn’t be training that much especially on something like Carb Nite
• AJ points out that even for people who are recreational athletes probably don’t need to train as often as they think.
• AJ uses Brainwave app for relaxation and to help with sleep
• Alex uses Relax Melodies app for sleep

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Her Body io #4 – The Social Aspects of Dieting

• Discussing the Social Aspects of Dieting
• It’s important to have social support
• AJ says that this is one of the things that was most overlooked.  She noticed that some clients hide things from their spouses and don’t have their support.
• Whenever AJ does a client assessment, she asks about their support system.
• She points out that it’s important to acknowledge that women are different biologically.  They both have clients where the husband and wife are awesome at supporting each other, but the wife gets frustrated that she isn’t getting the same results as her husband.
• So AJ says the first step is just to recognize that males and females are different.
• Women shouldn’t be comparing themselves with men.
• AJ also wants to know who their clients are supporting (any kids or elderly)?  So she has a better understanding of where they’re coming from.
• AJ always promotes communication between spouses
• Spouses should respect and support your goals
• You don’t need to sell your diet or way of eating to other people.  You can just say, ‘I’m ordering it like this because I like it like this.”
• AJ’s bloodwork looked amazing on Carb Nite, and she would use this when she encountered people who try to bring up the whole ‘saturated fat is bad for you’ thing.
• Alex says if you are eating out it’s good to be prepared, don’t be afraid to ask questions.  Or if you are not sure, you can always claim an allergy.
• AJ says if you’re going to a big social event and the food is going to be crazy, just move your Carb Night onto that day instead… it’s better to do this than to have two Carb Nites in a row
• Say your Carb Nite falls on a friday, and your event is saturday.  Just push your Carb Nite to the Saturday instead of rigidly sticking to your schedule and saying ‘I’ll have my carb nite on friday and I’ll try to be good on saturday…”
• Another question they get asked a lot is, if someone eats 60 gm of carbs in the middle of the week, do they need to redo the 10 days?  No!
• If you eat a few extra carbs on your non-Carb Nite, it’s fine.  Don’t stress out over it.  Just pick up where you left off.
• They now broach alcohol
• Alex drinks socially.  She drinks tequila and lime or vodka and soda, keeping it simple.  She doesn’t do well with wine.  Alcohol hasn’t affected her negatively regardless of when she drinks it, whether on an ultra low carb day or a carb nite.
• To deal with peer pressure, Alex would fake drink.  AJ has also done this before.  When they went to bars, they would pull the bartender aside and tell them to make a nonalcoholic drink for them all night long.
• Now AJ doesn’t drink at all because it makes her feel terrible
• She also says that if you’re constantly around people who care whether you drink or not or try to pressure you, you might want to think about finding a new group of friends