Esther Blum Cave Women Do Not Get Fat

Esther Blum Read the Transcript

JONATHAN: Hey, everybody, Jonathan Bailor back. I’m especially excited about today’s show because I have a delightful woman with us who has been a friend of mine, a collaborator of mine and just an inspiration to me for years now – it’s been a long time and I’m so – it’s awesome because our paths are crossing in a brand new way. We both have new books coming out on the exact same day and I couldn’t be more excited to have seen an advance review copy of her book is fabulous, it is extremely SANE and it is called “Cave Women Don’t Get Fat” and she is the – Esther Blum – Esther welcome to the show —

ESTHER: Thank you – thank you – whoo –

JONATHAN: I love it. You’re on that book launch adrenalin high.

ESTHER: I am.How can you not be? I mean you were right there with me – it’s so exciting.

JONATHAN: Oh, I think it’s amazing to see too, every year in the new year, all of the – there’s always this push for books, but it’s amazing to see this year of the books that are coming out, how many are really dialed into more of this quality push rather than the starvation mantra that we’ve been hearing for the past 15 years and your book is no exception of that. Can you tell us a bit about it?

Esther Blum & Starvation Mantra

ESTHER: The book is about helping women find their own unique individual carbohydrate tolerance. Most women are not losing the weight they want to lose because they’re eating either too many carbohydrates or not enough carbohydrates at the right time and too many at the wrong time, so what I like to do is de-clutter a woman’s metabolism. I call it clearing out your metabolic clutter and what I’d like to do is pare the diet down and give your metabolism a rest from insulin searches and cortisol searches and put in simple English that just means putting a woman on a clean diet of protein and fat and vegetables and fruit for two weeks and just letting her inflammation kind of calm down and starting to re-sensitize yourself to insulin and then I have her add in a half a cup of a cooked starch that is grain free, one per week until she finds her unique tolerance. So, that would look like – an average day of eating would be steak, meat, fish, eggs, lamb, some whey protein if you tolerate it, lots of vegetables, fresh fruits, and then lots of quality fat like avocado, nuts and seeds, coconut oil, dry coconut and then eventually I would have her add in something like a sweet potato or a winter squash or a plantain that she’s prepared herself, not fried plantains, Jerusalem artichokes or terra root and what happens is these are still whole food carbohydrates so the women on the plan tolerate the carbohydrates with very low sensitivity or allergens, but yet they still balance their blood sugar and they feel great and start melting those stubborn pounds away.

JONATHAN: Esther I love – that Jerusalem artichoke recommendation specifically –

ESTHER: Uh-huh.

JONATHAN: Because that provides a massive amount of a unique type of fiber which is actually been shown to help heal – it is therapeutic for our gut bacteria, which is just amazing.

ESTHER: Well, and really this is the first time, this is the first time in human history that humans have had to actually supplement with probiotics. We normally get our probiotics from fermented food as sauerkraut, kimchi, calbuta cheese, things like that and now, if you buy a bottle of pickles, they’re just soaked in vinegar, they’re not properly or traditionally fermented, so our gut health is kind of mess. We’re exposed to kind of a lot GMOs these days, even though just regular wheat bread is all GMO and even just sugar is GMO so, our gut is kind of in a critical juncture and I kind of say, okay, let’s return to our roots, let’s just clean out the riff-raff and go back to basics and restart our metabolisms that way.

JONATHAN: Esther, you are uniquely qualified to tell the story because from my understanding you have ridden the carbohydrate roller coaster in basically every up and down that that trend has had. Can you tell us a bit about your story?

ESTHER: My personal story? My personal story?

JONATHAN: Yes, absolutely.

ESTHER: Yeah, well, certainly in my college days I was vegetarian. I ate tons and tons of carbs and growing up I was not the poster child for nutrition. I mean I remember in junior high school having chocolate chip cookies and chocolate milk for lunch or baloney sandwiches on white bread and cereal, constant cereal, and dinner was about our only balanced meal in our house and we had margarine because we were kosher and I had tons of acne, I had terrible PMS, and wicked, wicked cramps, and it really wasn’t until I did my training under Robert Kranz’(sp ?? 5:40) (Inaudible 00:05:40) that I really understood and applied a whole foods diet to myself and my skin never looked better. I ran the marathon in 2000. I never touched a lick of pasta, it was all whole foods. It was all sweet potatoes, I did have (Inaudible 00:5:50) I did have brown rice, and fresh fruit and it was all a whole foods diet and it really served me very well. I do not think I would have finished without that eating plan.

JONATHAN: Esther you’re also uniquely qualified in the sense that there’s a lot of – I’m just going to call a spade a spade. There’s a lot of 20 year old males, talking about how awesome it is to “Paleo” and do crossfit –

ESTHER: Yeah.

JONATHAN: And you are not a 20 year old male. You’re a little bit more in touch with a different demographic let’s say. Can you talk a little bit about your unique life situation?

ESTHER: Well, I am in touch with those 20 year old men, but they’re not (Inaudible 00:06:30) there’s a lot of them are what I call Paleopanistas, they trained under Charles Poliquin, they still do, but they are definitely Paleo lovers and it’s really funny to me, I’m hanging out with these 20 something muscle guys with 6 percent body fat and I’m rocking my 40s right now and I love that – just feeds a great energy – it just gives me a really great perspective and it helps me keep my finger on the pulse of all generations so yes, I work with everyone from 20 year olds to menopausal mamas and even senior citizens and it really – as long as you can apply – that being said I don’t believe a Paleo diet is for everybody. Some people just have to tweak it, I have a girlfriend who calls herself a vegan Paleo, or a Paleo vegan and she eats meat some days and other days she’s all vegetables so I really think you have to listen to your inner voice and my goal in writing this book is to kind of give women the template and say, here you go, here’s the foundation of the diet, now custom tailor it to your own unique needs. Maybe you need a little less protein until you get your digestion in order again. Maybe you need more protein to support your adrenals and your thyroid glands because you’re in menopause and you need to pare down the carbohydrates, but I think it’s so hard to figure how many people is my book going to help? How much of the percentage is it going to help and if I can help 50 to 60 percent of people I am personally very happy with that because so many people are on such different ends of the spectrum. (Inaudible 00:08:00) (sp name??) did a great point on his last conference call where he said, some populations eat a diet of 90 percent sweet potatoes and other eat a diet that’s 90 percent meat, blood and fat, but both diets are Paleo and I do agree with that and I think he really – you can’t say there’s one diet for all – the only thing nutritionists agree on is that everyone needs to eat more vegetables.

JONATHAN: What it seems also and that everyone should eat – food – actually that’s not true –

ESTHER: Yes.

JONATHAN: There are some nutritionists that do not think that is true, but those are –

ESTHER: I agree –

JONATHAN: That are in the old school.

ESTHER: I agree. It’s astounding. It’s really astounding and I mean – yes, I won’t even get into the (Inaudible 00:08:50) but, yes, there are, there’s a lot of corporate sponsorships going on for dieticians and there are all companies that are built on GMOs so it really makes it any sense.

JONATHAN: Esther, you’re also a – in your spare time, you are also a wife and a mother – what do your husband and son think of this and how do they –

ESTHER: My son absolutely embraces all, but he is gluten and dairy free and we have a lot of fun doing – we do coconut flour pancakes on the weekend and we do zucchini pasta with meat sauce and he absolutely loves steak. He loves lamb, he’s all over it. My husband is a slower convert – I think if he had his druthers, he would eat bowls of pasta every day and just live on pasta and cheeseburgers so it’s a slow process, but for him I try and just lead by example and let him come to it when he feels ready.

JONATHAN: How’s that working?

ESTHER: We, we preach tolerance at our household. No, I cook my meals and I say, you take it or leave it, you enjoy it, have it, you don’t, go make something else yourself.

JONATHAN: I love it – that’s the key right there —

ESTHER: That’s the key —

JONATHAN: This is what I’m going to cook. If you want to eat what I want to cook that’s fine, but if you don’t, you know what, the stove is over there. I love that.

ESTHER: That’s right. Oh, yeah, ain’t nobody got time for that, A, but, B, you know what else is — pleasure comes even before nutrition, a person who is super, super happy and eats junk food can still have quite a long life and lead a long life, but if you have someone who’s miserable and bitter and taking all the vitamins in the world, and eating clean, you’re still going to have a shorter life span, potentially because happiness is the greatest thing, so I have become very philosophical about it. I really try to convert initially and after numerous failed attempts I kind of just let it go and I thought this is his journey, it’s not mine and he can come to it when he wants to.

JONATHAN: I love it. Well, speaking of philosophies and journeys and missions, obviously you have the epic book here. What is next for you on your mission to communicate that Cave Women Don’t Get Fat?

ESTHER: So, I’m going to be coming up as an appearance on the Today Show December 30th, and then I’m launching my online programs mid-January. And it’s going to be an eight week conversion to Paleo, “Gorgeous Girls Go Paleo” and it’s really educational and fun and it teaches you everything from mindset to how to convert your kitchen to Paleo to basic meal planning – it really gives you a great window and a lot of support. We’re going to have online forums, we’re going to have webinars, we’re going to have chat rooms, it’s going to be just a great supportive environment for somebody who is embracing this lifestyle and just wants to be part of an online community.

JONATHAN: I love it. Well, Esther, where can folks go online to stay in touch with you and to learn more about that?

ESTHER: So, people can live gorgeously on my website, livinggorgeous.com. You can find me on Facebook on my fan page at livinggorgeous, you can find me on Twitter@estherblum and you can find my YouTube channel is also estherblum, so if you just go to my website it will lead you to Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, all the good social media places and cavewomendontgetfat.com, paleopartygirl.com, it’s all there and –

JONATHAN: Basically just type any word into Google and you will find – just kidding.

ESTHER: Pretty much and I just made t-shirts that say Gorgeous Girls Eat Meat and those are in my online store too.

JONATHAN: I love it, well, Esther thank you so much for joining us today and for living this example, being the change we all want to see in the world and for this fabulous book, “Cave Women Don’t Get Fat,” which I recommend everyone grab a pre-order copy of or depending on when the show airs, just go online and grab it, it may be available and Esther, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s always a pleasure.

ESTHER: Thank you, best of luck.

JONATHAN: Thank you and listeners, I hope you enjoyed this wonderful conversation as much as I did. Again, our guest today is friend of the show, Esther Blum, her book is “Cave Women Don’t Get Fat,” and her website is livinggorgeous.com. Remember, this week and every week after, eat smarter, exercise smarter and live better. Chat with you soon.

Facebook Comments