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Summary
On episode 433 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Dr. Anna Cabeca, a triple board certified physician and fellow in OBGYN, integrative medicine, and anti-aging and regenerative medicine, with special certifications in functional medicine, sexual health, and bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, and author of the USA Today bestseller The Hormone Fix. They discuss her book Keto Green 16.
Anna explains that keto isn't a bacon diet, and that women need a different version of it than men because of how differently hormones like cortisol, insulin, and oxytocin respond. She walks through 13 hormones tied to weight and describes the personal crisis, sudden weight gain in her late 40s despite no change in habits, that led her to build a keto approach paired with alkalizing greens.
The conversation covers the science behind her 16 core foods, why she tracks urine pH and ketones, and how planned “feasting” fits alongside fasting for metabolic flexibility.
Links
- https://dranna.com
- Episode 381 – The hormone fix with Dr. Anna Cabeca
- Episode 533 – How to use food to manage your menopause symptoms with Dr. Anna Cabeca
Key Takeaways
- Keto isn't a bacon diet, and women need a different version of it than men. Because men have roughly ten times the testosterone women do, Dr. Cabeca built her approach around balancing healthy fats with high quality protein and fiber from low-carb greens, not just cutting carbs and adding fat.
- Cortisol is the hormone that drives weight gain. Chronic stress raises cortisol, which spikes blood glucose, suppresses thyroid function and progesterone, and over time can crash both cortisol and oxytocin together, a state she calls the physiology of burnout.
- Oxytocin and cortisol work like a seesaw. Oxytocin, released through connection, laughter, and pleasure, helps regenerate muscle cells as we age, and it drops as cortisol rises, which is part of why chronic stress erodes willpower and drives cravings.
- Insulin sensitivity is the real lever for weight and immune health. In her clinical experience, a nutrient-dense keto-green approach dropped one 50-year-old client's hemoglobin A1C from 6.0 to 5.4 in a single month, moving her out of prediabetes.
- The 16 core foods are chosen to help the body detoxify hormones, not just cut carbs. Protein sources, healthy fats like olive oil and avocado, specific nuts, cruciferous vegetables, dark leafy greens, citrus, and alliums were selected around the body's methylation, sulfation, and glucuronidation detox pathways.
- Going strict keto without addressing alkalinity made her feel worse, not better. She describes going “keto crazy,” irritable and on edge, until she tested her urine pH, found it highly acidic, and added in alkalizing greens, which corrected both her mood and her mental clarity.
- Feasting is a deliberate part of the plan, not a cheat. Alongside restriction, she cycles in carb-loading and feasting periods to build metabolic flexibility, the same principle bodybuilders use around competitions.
- A continuous glucose monitor revealed an unexpected trigger: coffee. Wearing one for months, she found her morning coffee alone raised her blood sugar 20 to 30 points, which stalled her fat loss even though coffee has no calories of its own.
- Dr. Cabeca's three strategies to get and stay well: test, don't guess, using simple tools like urine pH strips to know what's actually happening in your body; direct your mental atmosphere deliberately, since where your thoughts go is where you go physiologically, to manage cortisol and support oxytocin; and prioritize regular movement and flexibility, working out, dancing, or simply walking, especially when normal routines get disrupted.
“Exactly what gets measured, gets managed.”
Dr. Anna Cabeca
Another Episode You May Enjoy
Episode 448 – Is the carnivore diet good for you? – Dr. Paul Saladino