THE 5 STRATEGIES OF HOW TO DO KETO WITHOUT A GALLBLADDER!

Hello and welcome to Total Health with Dr. Nick where if you're new to my show, my purpose is to inspire, empower, and motivate you to live longer, healthier, more abundant lives. And guys, today we've got a great show because it's a question I probably get every single day and that is, what if I don't have a gallbladder? Can I actually still do the ketogenic diet? Because you know what? My body, I'm told that gallbladder is important. If I don't have a gallbladder, I can't do this kind of diet. Well guys, relax. I'm here to tell you, you can do it. You can get all the benefits of the ketogenic diet even if you don't have a gallbladder or if your gallbladder is not working at its best efficiency. And guys, by the way, if you like what we're going to talk about today, make sure you like, you share, you comment, and more importantly, you subscribe and make sure you hit that bell notification so that way you get all the notifications every time we post a video. So getting into this guys, what I want to start off with is a little bit of anatomy so you understand exactly how the body works with this. So basically the way this works is when you take in food, of course you take it in through your mouth, it goes down your esophagus, and of course it ends up right here in your stomach. Once it's in your stomach, your digestive enzymes start to go ahead and start digesting it, but a large part of the digestion really doesn't occur until you hit the small intestine, what we call a duodenum. Now once the food goes through the stomach, it goes down a little further right into this curve right here, and this is actually called the duodenum, and that is the upper part of the small intestine. When the food reaches this area, your body actually starts to secrete bile, bile goes into the common bile duct, and it goes into the duodenum and it helps you digest fats. Now, most people think if you don't have a gallbladder, your body cannot make bile, well that's not the truth. Turns out your gallbladder doesn't make bile, right, you didn't realize that did you? Your gallbladder does not make bile, what it does is stores and concentrates it for further use. What actually makes the bile is your liver. Your liver makes bile, it comes down the bile duct, and it goes into the gallbladder once again so that it can be stored and concentrated so that way the body's already got bile on demand and it's very strong, it's not a weaker state. That way as soon as you take in fats, your liver doesn't have to go to work, it could be doing other things like processing the fats and detoxifying the body, but the gallbladder is the one that actually, like a little pump, squirts out the bile. Now what it does, the way it helps the body digest the fats is it's called emulsification. And emulsification basically means, just like when you put clothes in your washing machine, the detergent breaks up all the dirt and grime into tiny, tiny little particles, and that's the same thing the bile does. So when your body takes in chunks of fat that you've chewed, the gallbladder goes in and emulsifies it, which means it breaks it up into tiny, tiny little particles so that way you get more surface area and your body can digest it and absorb it a whole lot more efficiently. So even if you don't have a gallbladder, once again your body can still make bile, of course, because it's made by the liver, and you can still get all the benefits from the ketogenic diet. But here's the key, you have to do it in a certain way. I like to say you have to go low and you go slow. Alright, so the first thing we're going to do is we're going to reduce your fat intake. Now by reducing your fat intake, what I mean is this, typically on a ketogenic diet, you know that you're supposed to eat 60, 65, 70, sometimes as high as 75% fat in your diet. We're going to reduce that. Now, you're going to reduce it to where you feel good with it. I can't tell you the exact number, you're going to go by how you feel, and I'm going to show you at the end. So watch until the very end where I show you the clues that your body is going to give you to know if you're doing this properly. But what you're going to do is reduce your fat intake. You're also going to decrease your overall fat for the day. By doing that, what happens is this, you don't need the concentrated bile so much. So that means your liver can go to work and do this. But you want to give your liver a little bit of time to ramp up, so you start off very slow and very low. Much less fat so that way your body and your liver can get used to sending bile right into that bile duct, emulsifying the fats, but it's done at a much slower pace because you don't have the concentrated form. Number two, you want to eat multiple small meals a day. Now, that goes contraindicated typically what you're thinking as far as with a ketogenic diet. Most people on a ketogenic diet will have two, maybe three meals a day, and some people even eat one meal a day. But with a ketogenic diet without a gallbladder or decreased function of your gallbladder, you want to eat smaller meals. So what I mean by that is this, you want to eat four, five, six meals a day. Once again, a lot different than what we're used to teaching you guys, but you have to do it slowly. So you're going to go low and slow in the beginning, smaller meals, not so much fat in each meal. Once again, maybe it's 50% of the meal, maybe it's 40% of the meal. You're still going low carb, remember that. You're always going low carb with the keto diet, but you're going a little lower with fat from the first slide, but you're also now going to be doing it in smaller meals, four, five, or six meals a day. Now, another thing you want to do is you want to take in more fiber. Fiber helps slow your intestinal track down, so that way you have more time to digest the fats. So you want to eat a lot of leafy green vegetables, which by the way, if you've watched any of my previous videos, I speak a lot about making sure you're getting a lot of the green leafy vegetables. Because one thing I see a lot of times with the keto diet is people do what I call dirty keto rather than clean keto. It's just a lot of dairy, a lot of bacon, a lot of cheese, which by the way, just so you know before I get all the hate mail, it's okay to have that from time to time. It's just that I don't agree when people eat that constantly and it's really all they eat all day. And I have people all the time saying, Dr. Nick, I eat meat, I eat eggs, I eat cheese, I eat bacon, that's all I eat, and I'm losing weight. I understand that. But here's the thing, losing weight is not the same as being healthy. You want to make sure that you're taking in all the proper nutrients that are coming in from your leafy green vegetables, all your phytonutrients. So please make sure you're eating lots of healthy fiber. It will slow your track down so that way your body has time to digest the fats. Next, apple cider vinegar. Well what does apple cider vinegar do? Apple cider vinegar actually thins the bile. So that way the bile is better and easily more usable. So by taking in some apple cider vinegar, and I get questions all the time about this, how much do I take? As much as you like. It's really actually very good for you. It's also good for the digestion. Go back and watch one of the previous videos I did where I talk about all the benefits of apple cider vinegar. It's fantastic. So use as much as you want of it. You know, if you want to use a tablespoon and some water, about 20 ounces of water, I like to do that. Plus I also like to add some nice pink sea salt to it, or pink salt to it, or sea salt in general. And that's a great beverage. I love drinking that. It's very refreshing to me. Hopefully you'll like that too. But you know, start off with a teaspoon, tablespoon, and drink that. It'll help to thin the bile and it's much, much easier on your digestive tract. Now next, MCT oil. Well MCT oil is fantastic for the ketogenic diet in general. Once again, because it's a medium chain triglyceride. And on one of my previous videos I get into that. I talk about what that means. What's a medium chain triglyceride? What's a long chain triglyceride? What are fatty acids and so on? So you get a chance to watch that. But the importance of the MCT is that it's very easy on the digestive tract. It's very easy. It goes right through the liver. So it's utilized very quickly, very easily, and it's a great source of energy for your body. Now, it's not so much of a long term energy source, like your longer chain fatty acids that are in coconut oil, and maybe your beef tallow, and butter, and things like that. But it's still great because in the beginning when you're starting the ketogenic diet and you don't have a gallbladder or decreased function, it's a good easy way to ease on into it. So that way you can get all the benefits of the fats, but yet it's not so difficult on your body to digest. Now like I said, watch to the end because now I'm going to give you the different signs and symptoms that would let you know if you're doing this properly. So this is where we start. Once again, if you get gas, you get bloating, you get diarrhea, you get intestinal pain, you'll know if you're going too fast. You'll know if you're not getting proper digestion of the fats. Ease up a little bit. Cut the fats down. Maybe more meals. If you're having four, go to five or six like I said earlier. Have even less fat in your diet. Give your liver time to ramp up. Give it time to start making adequate amounts of bile. It will, but you've got to give it time. It might take a month or two or three, but you can do it. Nausea, vomiting, once again, clear signs. You want to reduce the fat. Add in more, once again, apple cider vinegar, the fiber, and so on. Skin conditions you might notice. Your hair is dry. Your skin is dry, flaky. You want to make sure, once again, ease on into the fats. And fatty, greasy stool, not to sound gross, but you'll notice that when you go to the bathroom, your stool will look more oily or greasy. It means you're not digesting the fats well enough. So guys, these are some of the common signs. There are more, but these are the most common signs that you see. So I hope this was beneficial for you. I hope I gave you some inspiration. And I hope those of you who thought you couldn't do the ketogenic diet because you didn't have a gallbladder, that you can go ahead and do it now. So please go ahead and, like I said, indulge. You'll do great on it. The ketogenic diet is a fantastic diet for so many different reasons, not just fat, weight loss, but also, too, because of the fact it reduces inflammation. It's great for your hormones. And overall, it's just a great, great way to eat. So guys, once again, I hope this information was great for you. If so, please make sure you subscribe right over here. And I've got some extra videos if you'd like to watch. Think of it like this. You like to watch Netflix. You like to binge watch. Think of this like Nickflix, okay? I told my wife I was going to say that. So anyway, just like Nickflix, binge watch some of these movies or videos you see right here. Anyway, guys, I hope this was beneficial for you. If so, please make sure you like, you share, you comment, and you subscribe. And thank you again so much for watching me today. I love and appreciate you. This is Dr. Nick. I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.