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Summary
On episode 328 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Thom King, founder and CEO of Steviva Brands, one of the largest importers, manufacturers, and distributors of natural sweeteners, and a self described biohacker who has spent his career trying to get people off sugar. They discuss his book, Guy Gone Keto.
Thom shares the story of hitting rock bottom in a Las Vegas hotel room: a blood pressure reading of 199 over 99, 35 extra pounds, and a nightly bottle of wine. That moment led him to adopt a ketogenic lifestyle and rebuild his health from the ground up.
The conversation also covers why data collection and journaling reveal blind spots in a diet, why fast weight loss usually backfires, and why diet soda can quietly work against a ketogenic lifestyle even though it has zero calories.
Links
- https://thomking.com
- https://steviva.com
- https://www.zevia.com
Key Takeaways
- Real change happens when the pain of a habit exceeds its pleasure. Thom traces his turning point to waking up in a Las Vegas hotel room after overeating and overdrinking, disgusted with himself and out of integrity with the ketogenic food company he ran. Once the pain of that state outweighed the pleasure he got from wine and sweets, he committed to a full lifestyle shift on the spot.
- Deliberately attaching pain to a habit is how you break it. Thom describes consciously walking through what a donut actually does (spikes blood sugar, feeds metabolic disease, lowers self esteem) instead of only registering the few minutes of enjoyment, so the true cost of the choice becomes visible before he eats it.
- Weight loss should be slow and treated as a lifestyle, not a diet. Thom lost his 35 pounds over roughly a year rather than crash dieting, arguing that fast weight loss tends to come back as yo-yo weight, strains the liver, and leaves loose, saggy skin.
- Journaling and data collection close the gap between what you think you are eating and what you actually eat. Thom tracks weight, ketones, and blood sugar daily, pointing out that something as small as being off by a handful of almonds (about 16 calories each) can add up to real weight gain over a year if it goes unnoticed.
- Diet soda with aspartame or sucralose can pull the body out of ketosis despite having zero calories. Through his own blood sugar and ketone testing, Thom found that artificially sweetened sodas raised his blood sugar and lowered his ketone levels overnight, because the body has no receptors for synthetic sweeteners and reacts as if it had consumed sugar, unlike naturally derived sweeteners such as stevia or monk fruit.
- A standard ketogenic macro split is roughly 70 percent fat, 20 percent protein, and 10 percent vegetables. Thom notes that vegetables which grow underground, like potatoes and carrots, tend to run higher glycemic than leafy greens or cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower, so they need to be limited to stay in ketosis.
- Hydration and electrolytes prevent the false hunger that derails many people on keto. Thom keeps electrolyte packets on hand and uses a phone reminder to drink water hourly, since dehydration on a ketogenic diet is easy to mistake for hunger and puts extra strain on the kidneys.
- Journaling works best when it goes beyond macros to mindset. Thom starts each entry by writing down what he is grateful for and what would make the day great, closing with a short affirmation, treating the practice as a daily reset rather than just a food log.
“Pain is the great teacher. I don't avoid pain. I probably seek it out more than I avoid it.”
Thom King