How to Drop Belly Fat with Kellyann Petrucci

Trevor:                         Hi there. Dr. Trevor Cates here. Welcome to the Spa Doctor podcast.

Today we’re talking about how to drop belly fat, that dreaded belly fat, and with the side benefit of what we discuss today, it’s actually good for your skin. So it helps to have glowing, naturally youthful skin from the inside out. My guest is Dr. Kellyann Petrucci. She’s been on the podcast before. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Dr. Kellyann’s Bone Broth Diet, and Dr. Kellyann’s Bone Broth Cookbook, and she has a new book coming out that she’s going to mention. She, also, is the host of the highly successful PBS special, 21 Days to a Slimmer, Younger You.

She is a concierge doctor for celebrities in New York City and Los Angeles, and she did post-graduate work in Europe studying naturopathic medicine in England and Switzerland. She is, also, a contributor on Dr. Oz and appears regularly on Good Morning America and other national news programs.

She’s really busy, so I’m excited that she was able to squeeze in some time to talk with us today, and in today’s interview we discuss why belly fat is actually dangerous for your health, and what you can do to finally get rid of it. So please enjoy this interview with Dr. Kellyann Petrucci.

Kellyann, it’s so great to have you back on my podcast.

Dr. Kellyann:                Hi. I love being here. It’s great to be here.

Trevor:                         So today we’re talking about belly fat, how to drop the belly fat, and it’s something that people talk about a lot. It’s that dreaded belly fat. So let’s talk about, first of all, it’s not just unattractive. It’s unhealthy, right?

Dr. Kellyann:                Right.

Trevor:                         There’s a reason why we want to get rid of it, besides just fitting better into our clothes or the obvious cosmetic reasons.

Dr. Kellyann:                Yeah. That’s why people usually target belly fat, because they hate having that belly hang right over those pants. Nobody likes that. We call it BOB, belly over belt. Nobody likes that. But there’s actually a clinical reason. So if you pinch your belly fat, if you pinch that inch, that’s your subcutaneous fat. Nobody likes it. But here’s what’s going on inside. It’s like a cauldron brewing of toxins, and hormones, and things that don’t serve us in any way.

But here’s what’s even worse. Belly fat actually wraps around your visceral or your organs, and so this is really dangerous for people, and this is the precursor to so many of the modern day diseases that we see today, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, all of it. It has so much to do with that, and you can really, as you know as a doctor, can really zero in on someone’s health by their belly fat. We see this all the time, that people that, “Hey, I have tried to lose weight, but I can’t seem to get rid of the belly,” and studies are showing us that even if you’re thin everywhere else, when you have that belly fat, you’ve got higher risks of all of those diseases that I just talked about. So it’s not only unattractive. It’s really important to cleave that stuff off.

Trevor:                         Yeah. It’s so true, and I know that I used to do a lot of body composition tests when I would do weight lose programs in the spas, and that was one thing that we noticed. Not the pinch test, but the other types of body fat analysis tests. People were sometimes really surprised at how high their fat percentage was in their body, and a lot of that was because it’s hidden in that area. You may not see it in the arms and the legs. If you look at someone, they may hide it really well, but around that area right there, you can hide a lot of fat in that area.

Dr. Kellyann:                You can, and it’s just like with eating, we call it portion distortion when people aren’t realizing that they’re getting piles and piles more food than their body actually needs. Well, the same holds true, exactly what you said with belly fat, and because we’re in a day and age where you can throw on a pair of yoga pants. You can totally rock yoga pants and look great. It’s when you go to put your jeans back on and you realize, “Oh, my gosh, there’s a whole new really happening here. I’m really getting thicker around the waist,” and so it can be easily hidden, but it’s something that we have to pay attention to. You have to think of it as a barometer to your health. It’s really important.

Trevor:                         Yeah. I’m so glad we’re talking about this, because, again, it’s not just about the way it looks, but the fact that it is the most dangerous type of fat. When you collect it in that area, it does predispose to these diseases.

Okay. So let’s talk about how to get rid of belly fat.

Dr. Kellyann:                So there’s a couple of ways. Yeah. There’s a couple of things that you can do for belly fat. But here’s what I find to be the most important, because there’s three things that have to happen, and I talk about this often. In order for any program to ever work, and we know from being in clinic and actually seeing patients what works and what doesn’t, and if you were to take all my patients and put them in a football field and say from all these patients, what actually worked, what actually turned their health around, it was when they were able to reduce inflammation they were able to become a natural fat burner, and that really means getting your sugar in balance, and they were able to heal their gut.

These three things are really prime. They’re the most important thing that you can do for your health, and so what I’ve done is develop a plan to actually conquer these three things, and the best way, and all the research, Dr. Cates, is showing us, all the research, that when you put mini fasting in place, that’s what I like to call it, mini fasting in place, this is not only good for longevity, it’s not only good for your metabolism and all these things that we used to think it was dangerous for. Gosh, what does it do to my metabolism, all these things. It actually helps all of these things. So when you do what I call smart fasting or mini fasting, you will achieve results with burning fat like you can’t believe.

So let me take a moment to explain the difference between regular fasting and mini fasting, and mini fasting is what we do. It’s when we have bone broth or some kind of liquids that are involved that keep you from going crazy, because this comfortable fasting. A lot of people, they get afraid even when they hear the word. When they hear the word fasting, they’re thinking, “This is going to be a white knuckle situation, and I don’t want to walk into this situation. It’s not going to be comfortable. I can’t do it. I won’t enjoy this,” but we use bone broth as a part of the fasting plan, and it really works beautifully, because you’re able to enjoy bone broth, never get hungry, never feel that crazy feeling, and the wonderful thing is the results are still the same. You get the same results, and that’s a beautiful thing. It’s a really beautiful thing.

So we do that, and the second fold of all of this is we do something called your slim window. The biggest research out there right now is showing us that when you actually condense the time that you eat, it makes a big difference in burning fat, and here’s what’s great. It burns stored fat, and that’s what we want. That fat under the chin, behind the arms, and your belly, it burns that first. It burns belly fat first when you do this.

So that’s really a big motivation and why the program is so successful.

Trevor:                         Okay. Great. And then the timing on these, when you talk about a mini fast, how long are we talking?

Dr. Kellyann:                So here is a typical program. Here’s what works really well for people. If during the day, up until about noon, and, again, this can be shifted depending on your schedule and your lifestyle, but about till noon, if you have broth, if you drink broth, lemon water, and we give you a number of things that you have choices to drink. You do that until noon, and then about 12 to six or seven … 12 to seven is when I typically eat. That’s your go time. That’s what we call your slim window, and that’s when you eat these foods and add the collagen that we’ll talk about, and you add the broth in there, and it really is a burning powerful time to condense your food, and you’re not going to believe the results.

They just did a big study, and they showed that they gave mice, they did animal studies, and they showed that mice that they let them eat whatever they wanted for this short period of time, they could not believe how they actually were able to burn fat, as opposed to when they had the same type of food available to them all day. It was a big difference.

So it’s really something for us to pay attention to, because it makes all of this so much easier. It really does. And you get into the swing, and you get used to it, and you energize a lot, and the longevity studies on this type of fasting is really telling, and it’s really showing us a lot. It’s really directing us to where the future of food really is. It’s not only what you eat, but it’s when you eat. That’s the big piece here.

Trevor:                         Interesting, because we oftentimes talk about what to eat and what not to eat, but we don’t necessarily talk very much about the timing and the importance of fasting, and so you’re not talking about fasting the entire day. It’s just part of the day, right? Yeah.

Dr. Kellyann:                Yeah. That’s the difference. You fast part of the day, and during the rest of the time, your body turns into this fat burning, metabolism revving machine, and that’s what we want, because when I talk about those three things, becoming a natural fat burner, I talked about really making sure you heal your gut, all of these things. That all happens in that time frame. Well, when you give your body that kind of rest, your body goes through a system of cleansing, and it goes through a system of cleaning up the debris and really revving the system up in a way that we really have not done as a culture, and we really should be doing as a culture this constant cleansing.

Just like you have your system for cleansing the skin, like nobody’s business, well, guess what? That’s got to go on with food, too. We have to figure out ways in which we give our body, which we give our viscera, which we give all of our whole system ways to break and rev up.

Just like resetting, just like anything else, when you relax, or you meditate, or you do all of these things that we’re finding that really make a big difference, you do that with your body with food, but you do it in a way that’s comfortable.

And here’s the thing. When you really get into this pattern of doing this, you don’t feel like you’re suffering at all. You just don’t feel like you’re suffering. I mean it’s a way of going into mild autophagy. So autophagy meaning really going through and getting the old cells out. We want to make sure that our cells … Everyone has these dormant, so to speak, even like cancer cells, and your immune system acts like a BB gun shooting these things and really getting your body revved up and healthy.

So really everything rises and falls on our immune system. Longevity and all of these things we talk about, about being more beautiful and about being more healthy, so much of it relies on that, and having this eating window in place not only accomplishes all that, but, again, it’s the first place that you start to lose weight, is in your belly, and because we know belly fat, again is dangerous, we need to really focus on that and get those inches off.

Trevor:                         Yeah. Absolutely. And if you think about it, if we look back at our ancestors, at the progression of modern living, and how now we have all this food, we have everything available at our fingertips, so we can eat all day long all the time, and we can get anything. We can drive, get to go through the drive through. We can stop at the store. It’s ridiculous. I think it’s so great, this idea. This is not how we were naturally made to work. We’re not supposed to have food at our fingertips. We’re supposed to go and work for it.

Dr. Kellyann:                I love that you said it. I love that you said that.

Trevor:                         We have these times where we don’t have food.

Dr. Kellyann:                I love that you said that. It’s so true. So for those of you that don’t know anything about my background, I started out very much in the paleo world and studying paleolithic science, paleolithic nutrition. I’ve written five paleo based books before I started the iteration with the bone broth and so forth, and I am telling you, I truly understand our genetic wiring. I really do, that lineage wise, and the thing that’s crazy is that there are foods that we are actually designed to eat. There are foods that we actually can digest better and metabolize better, and when you put them into a right system, a system in which your body really evolved and really is working at its best self, the things that can happen, as you know, because you and I have broke bread together many, many times, and we both know, we both know, we both come from really I would say the same paradigm, that we get how food really can make such a difference.

And so part of the program, this 10 day belly slim down program, part of this program has something called SLIM-gestion foods, and this is an important part of the program. So if we walk through the program, if everybody wants to get a little bit of a mind’s eye, one of the components of the program is what we just talked about. It’s this slim window, or this eating window, when you should eat, this autophagy, so to speak, of cleansing of the body.

The other components of this is SLIM-gestion foods, meaning that your digestion actually has a whole lot to do with how thin or how heavy you are. Bottom line, it does, and so another thing that was really compelling to me, this is actually backed by research as well. There is research that actually shows us this beyond a reasonable doubt. So we really have to take care of gut health. So all the foods in my programs and in my protocols, they actually stand by that. They are always going to be foods that are gut healing, and it becomes so easy to think about how you really build a plate, and understanding that once I know how to build a plate, it becomes really powerful. I can do it anytime, anywhere.

I know that I look at a plate, and I know that I need protein. I know I don’t need a whole lot of protein, but I do need protein, and then I have to think about how I get my fuel. Well then, that’s carbohydrates. How do I get those? Well, there’s two lanes. One is the green fibrous vegetables that we want to get, and the second is energy vegetables. We talk about sweet potatoes, and squash, and even things like jicama. If you don’t about jicama, it’s a great root vegetable. It’s crunchy. It’s sweet. It’s delicious. I hope everyone can try that. Dip that in some guacamole. It’s great. Even carrots are considered an energy vegetable, onions, these type of things.

So you have your fibrous vegetables. You have your energy vegetables, and this is all depending on what you need, what fuel you need. This is where personal play comes in, and then, of course, healthy fats. Very important, imperative. You and I talk about this all the time, and we know that our cells, they need to bounce. Our cells have to be fluid. They can’t be like a swamp. They have to be like a river, flowing, and these cell membranes are so important, and these healthy fats will do that for us. So, again, this is imperative.

So thinking about all this when you’re building plate, and then to top it off, I love berries. A serving size is about a handful, a handful of berries. Beautiful way to add some sweetness to your diet. But that’s the perfect plate, and when you start building this plate, it really becomes second nature, and this is good for your digestion. Therefore, it’s good for your weight. Therefore, it’s good to heal the gut, and there you go. This is all good belly blasting foods.

So you’ve got your mini fasting. You’ve got your timed eating. So say I’m going to eat 12 to seven. I’m going to sip on broth. I’m going to sip on tea. I’m going to have some coffee. I’m going to have that until noon. About noon, okay, this is my go time. This is my slim window. From about 12 to seven, I’m going to incorporate some of these SLIM-gestion foods.

Then what we do is our third tier of this, is I love collagen, as you know. Love collagen. I love collagen shakes. How about making a collagen shake, which most people … I have not tested anyone on collagen, that has been a protein that they’ve been adverse to. The reason why I love collagen so much is because when you’re in practice so long, and you see different kinds of proteins come and go, you know so many people, “Well, this makes me break out. Well, this gives me digestive problems,” and the list goes on and on. But the beautiful thing about collagen and collagen protein, it seems to agree with everyone. So how about a collagen shake, and all of those things we talked about. So put some leafy greens in there. Put a little bit of berries in there. Put some healthy fat in there. Bam, you are ready to go. Your mind and your body is in sync. You’re ready to fly.

And a little trick. You can take vegetables, vegetables you like, say kale, or spinach, or whatever it is. Put them in the freezer. They’re frozen. They’re there all the time. It makes it so easy. Take some berries. Throw them in a bag. Throw them in the freezer. You just throw those suckers in whatever you’re using, your Bullet, or whatever you’re mixing your shake with. Bam, blend that up, and that is a great meal, and I love to add those in, because it makes a big difference in burning fat.

And, again, when we’re talking about burning fat, we have to talk about stored fat, because that’s belly fat.

Trevor:                         Yeah. Absolutely. And everything that you just described, all the foods that you mentioned, are, also, great foods for the skin. So, here you are, you can drop the belly fat, and then, also … And you know this. It’s just I have to bring it up.

Dr. Kellyann:                Of course.

Trevor:                         [crosstalk 00:18:21] those skin loving foods.

Dr. Kellyann:                Well, that’s what I am saying. So for those of you that don’t know, that we pal around all the time. We pal around, and we get along so well, because it would be you and I looking around for, “Is this organic? Is this not organic? Oh, do they have the kind of food we like.” Even if we decide that we’re going to drink, “Do they have the kind of alcohol that we like,” because we are all about gut health, because you cannot have beautiful skin, and you cannot have a belly that does not have belly fat unless you just employ these couple of simple ways of life. The thing is, for people who feel like, “Oh, my gosh, I have a piano on my back. This is really daunting to me,” and it really isn’t.

And the thing about when you start really getting the inflammation down, you start healing the gut, and you become this natural fat burner, and you can start to naturally control these hormones and these things like leptin, your hunger trigger. When you naturally start to control these things, you have something in life which I call time reallocation. All of a sudden, that you’re finding that you have more time for things. You really do. You have more time, and you have more passion about your food.

I’ve had patients who have come in, and there’s no way they were ever going to get in the kitchen. They couldn’t care less. They didn’t want anything to do with it, until they started becoming passionate about what was happening to them. Passionate about all the changes that they’re seeing, better sex life, more energy, and all these things that people dream of that really can happen.

We’re seeing it over and over again, right? We see it so many times, and for us, it’s typical, because, again, let’s talk about this again. Hunter gatherer times, we’re talking we are primal beings. We are, and we are by genetic design. We have a DNA that runs through us, and it’s a blueprint. Make no mistake about it. Therefore, it makes no sense … There’s certain animals in the zoo, or certain species, that eat the same foods. Why? It works best for them. And I know that everybody has different backgrounds, everybody has different situations and all of that, and you have to do personal play, and you have to tweak some things, and I understand that.

But we have to remember that there are foods that undoubtedly reduce inflammation, heal the gut, and help us become a natural fat burner, and as you say, they make your skin better, and they get rid of belly fat and all these great things, and so people need to learn about them and they need to implement them.

Trevor:                         Yeah. Absolutely. Just for clarification, you’re talking about the foods on the plate, and you mentioned protein. What types of protein do you recommend to people?

Dr. Kellyann:                So I know that there’s people that may be listening that have a more vegetarian based diet, and for me, what I have found in looking at empirical data and looking at tests of so many people over the years, animal fats seem to work really well with people, animal fats and fish. Here’s where the discrepancy comes in. When people think of a more paleolithic lifestyle, or they think about getting protein, they think about the big hunk of protein, and that’s not actually true. Actually you need very little protein. But you do need protein with your meals.

So here’s what I say. We’re all trying to figure out where do we spend our money? What is the best place to spend our money? So if you are going to look at your food situation, say I’m going in the grocery store. Where can I cleave off some of the expenses, and where do I actually need to spend, and I always advocate by getting a high quality protein source is a really smart way to spend your money. It’s just a really smart way to spend your money, because then you’ve got those healthy fats in there. You’ve got CLA, conjugated linoleic acid. All of these are very protective, and, again, since we’re cellular beings and things really do come down to the deepest level, which is your cells, all of these things are really good for really enhancing your cellular matrix.

That’s where all of this becomes important. So what I say is where do you spend your money? I would say spend it on getting those healthy proteins in there. So I love fish, healthy fish, healthfully raised fish and healthfully raised animal proteins, healthfully raised animal proteins and eggs, and I know that’s one of the red flags for people with some intolerances, but I find that most people typically do really well on eggs, and it’s got the biotin in there and all of these really good things for our skin, our hair, our nails, and to cleave off belly fat, because choline, which is, also, in eggs, transports fat. So all of these things are important, so just make sure that you do have some good source of protein, and it doesn’t have to be a lot.

I actually agree, really, we need to focus more on … Because this is where people are lacking, how do we get those vegetables, and it should always be a trigger in your mind, how do I get more vegetables? How do I get more vegetables, because there’s no surprise that it’s going thwart a lot of diseases that we see.

Trevor:                         Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks for clarifying that, and then for people who are intolerant to eggs, which I do find with a lot of skin issues, once you get your skin issues under control, sometimes people can go back to eating eggs. It can be one of those big trigger foods initially, and you can always modify and find other forms of protein if eggs don’t work for you. But, yeah, for some people they’re great.

Great. And then I just want to bring up fasting. Go back to fasting for a minute, because I know that it’s one of those words that, for some people, it’s really a tough thing for them to hear about, “Oh, you’re going to expect me to starve myself.” But I love that you’re using bone broth, because we’re talking about something that’s still going to nourish the body, and let’s compare that to a water fast. So I know that water fast, sometimes people are talking about that. How do you compare like a water fast to something like what you’re doing?

Dr. Kellyann:                So I’m all for a water fast, because there is research that is showing there are benefits, and there’s even crazy research and studies out there that are showing that for people with cancer, it’s a really good way to jump start and really … Because, again, you go into that autophagy, and that’s such an important word. We’re going into autophagy, which means you’re really cleaning out systems that need a break, and cells start to slow down instead of speed up. So that’s a really important concept.

However, in order for me to tell you that you can go on a water fast, I have to see you. I have to know you. I have to know your history. I have to know the beats of your life. I have to know more about you. Maybe it’s good for one day for one person. Maybe it’s three days for another. Maybe a five day water fast would be advantageous for some. But I have to know a lot about you.

This is a system of fasting that you’re going to get really similar results, really similar results, and you get to be comfortable, and I can safely recommend this to you, because here’s what I know. You’re still getting all of the nutrients that your body needs, and we know that so many of us are so nutrient deficient. So what I try to do is pull people towards sufficiency.

It’s super important that you do two things, and so people ask me all the time, “Give me the lowdown. How do you really get healthy? How do things really work,” and you can simplify everything that I do in a nutshell by saying that my philosophy and my paradigm is that we do everything to push nutrients into the cells and push toxins out. That’s the game. That’s how you get healthy. That’s how you get well. That’s how you burn belly fat and body fat, and get beautiful skin, and all of these things, which is why your skin care products are pristine and have nothing in them but healthy ingredients, because I’m sure you feel the same.

So this is a really important core philosophy that makes a big difference, and why fasting really works with bone broth. Think about bone broth. It’s one of the healthiest things you can put in your body. You’ve got that really healthy protein. You’ve got minerals. You’ve got amino acids, things like glycine, which actually help people sleep. One of the things I hear the most is, “Oh, my gosh, I’m actually sleeping now,” which is something that people are so lacking in. It helps calm your nerves, all of these wonderful things, and then, of course, there’s gelatin, and if you think about gelatin, gelatin is what gives us those really strong matrix in your gut. We talk about healing your gut. So if you get a sunburn and it’s bothersome, you put a little aloe on there, right? That’s the first thing that we do when we have a sunburn. Oh, I’ve got to grab some aloe. Well, you can think about gelatin like this to your gut. It soothes. It heals. It nourishes, and it gets it back on track.

You know how I feel. I’ve got a real bone broth love. I mean I could talk about it for days. But that’s why I love it, because it offers so much nutrition with very little calories. I mean who could ask for more? I am offering something that has so much nutrition and hardly any calories. It’s a win-win.

Trevor:                         Yeah. Absolutely. All right. And if you all want to know more about bone broth, you can watch Kellyann’s interview from when she was on that podcast before, because we talked all about bone broth.

Kellyann, thank you so much for coming on. I know you’re so busy right now. So tell everybody where they can find you.

Dr. Kellyann:                Sure. It’s DrKellyann.com, D-R-K-E-L-L-Y-A-N-N, DrKellyann.com, and I sure hope everyone picks up a copy of the 10 Day Belly Slim Down. Can I show it to everyone?

Trevor:                         Yeah. Let’s see it, and we’ll have a link for everybody to get the book and all the great stuff you’re offering. Bring it back a little bit so we can see it.

Dr. Kellyann:                Can you see it now?

Trevor:                         Yes. It looks very great.

Dr. Kellyann:                Hot off the press. I just received it yesterday. So hot off the press.

Trevor:                         Excellent. Very exciting. Kellyann, it’s always so great to see you. Thank you so much.

Dr. Kellyann:                You, too. Thank you.

Trevor:                         Okay. Bye bye.

Dr. Kellyann:                Bye.

Trevor:                         I hope you enjoyed this interview today with Dr. Kellyann Petrucci. To find out more about Dr. Kellyann and her upcoming book, her new book, just go to TheSpaDoctor.com. Go to the podcast page with our interview, and you’ll find all the information and links there.

And while you’re there, I invite you to join the Spa Doctor community. You can, also, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, so you don’t miss our upcoming shows. And if you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend you get your customized skin report at TheSkinQuiz.com. It is a free online quiz, and we’ll give you information about what your skin is trying to tell you about your health, what is your skin type, and it’s going to give you some tips on what to do to address the root causes. Just go to TheSkinQuiz.com.

Also, I invite you to join me on social media, on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and join the conversation. And I’ll see you next time on the Spa Doctor podcast.