In this week's episode of The Best Guest podcast we welcome The Brain Energy Reboot Expert, Moira Newiss.

We talk about:

Ketogenic & Metabolic Mental Health
Mitochondria, Brain Energy & Fatigue
Autoimmune Conditions & the Carnivore Diet

About Moira Newiss

Moira Newiss is a BANT registered nutritional therapist, health coach and accredited ketogenic metabolic therapy expert who specialises in brain energy, one of the recently discovered root causes of many mental health problems.

Moira’s passion for metabolic mental health was sparked after a 20-year career as a senior NHS manager, managing hundreds of staff and multi-million-pound budgets. Following burnout, chronic fatigue and mental illness, she retrained at the Institute for Optimum Nutrition and became fascinated by the link between energy, mood, mental health and metabolic health.

Moira works with individuals who have conditions including depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, who have often not found a resolution with medication or psychological support alone. Her personalised approach has helped hundreds to improve their symptoms, with some achieving full remission, that means reversal, of their condition.

A regular conference speaker, Moira co-authored the first mental health guidelines for nutritional therapists and published the case report ‘Remission of Schizophrenia Using a Carnivore Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy with Nutritional Therapy Practitioner Support’.

Moira is lucky to live on the beautiful west coast of Scotland where she has a large garden, grows her own fruit and vegetables and has a lovely flock of hens. She also loves adventure, regularly climbing mountains, bike packing and hiking in remote spots on short expeditions.

Key Takeaways

For some people, shifting from glucose to ketone fuel can rapidly improve brain fog, mood, and energy.

Common keto pitfalls include undereating fat and overeating protein

Sleep, morning light, reduced evening blue light, and gentle movement support brain energy and mood.

Short-term carnivore diet can be a powerful elimination protocol to calm inflammation, heal the gut and identify food triggers.

Dairy-free keto is doable - use coconut fats, olive oil, tallow/lard, fatty fish; check labels on “milks” for hidden carbs.

Quote

I had planned to do a hundred kilometre bike ride, and I remember crossing the finishing line thinking—and I was crying ’cause it was just an emotional thing—I just knew I cracked it. I just knew the energy was there. I’d cycled a hundred kilometres with no carbohydrates.

Connect with Moira Newiss

Website: https://www.moiranewiss.co.uk/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moiranewiss

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/moira-newiss/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@moiranewiss

Connect with Victoria Bennion

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Transcript

Victoria Bennion: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome. I'm your host, Victoria

Bennion, and the founder of the best podcast guest booking agency. And you're

listening to the best guest, the podcast for business owners, creatives, and

entrepreneurs who want to harness the power of podcasts to grow their platforms

and increase their visibility.

We're here to support you on your journey, bringing you

actionable tips with each episode. Now let's begin.

Today I am joined by Moira Newiss, who is a BANT registered

nutritional therapist, health coach, and accredited ketogenic metabolic therapy

expert who specializes in brain energy, one of the recently discovered root

causes of many mental health problems. Good morning Moira. Welcome to the show.

Moira Newiss:

Morning, Victoria. Thank you for having me.

Victoria Bennion: How

are you today?

Moira Newiss: I'm

good. The sun's shining here, so Yeah, I'm happy and well

Victoria Bennion:

you're very lucky. We have solid rain.

Moira Newiss: I'm

quite lucky it's not always like this on the west coast of Scotland, but [00:01:00] it's lovely today.

Victoria Bennion: Oh,

that's very nice. What a lovely part the world to live in as well.

Moira Newiss: Yeah,

absolutely.

Victoria Bennion:

When did your passion for metabolic mental health begin?

Moira Newiss: It's

been a bit of a journey for me. So this was partly going back through my own

personal health journey when I struggled with mental health and chronic

fatigue. Having been through a period of burnout when I was an NHS senior

manager. And then along the way, I kind of, I didn't know anything about

metabolic mental health to begin with, but I had to find my own way to wellness

again.

I tried various things to start with including things like deep

breathing eating better, spending time in nature, lots of different things. And

I did get a bit better, but it wasn't really until I trialed a ketogenic diet,

when I was actually starting to retrain in nutritional therapy.

That it was just like a light bulb moment. Something just

seemed to work much better. My brain fog cleared and my brain fog had been

really severe. So, you know, and I was really [00:02:00]

struggling with my, mental health. You know, I thought my family would be

better off without me. It was quite a dark place at times.

And when I tried a ketogenic diet, I discovered the power of

ketones, really, which is what happens when you begin to eat a very high fat,

low carbohydrate diet? Your body makes ketone bodies as a fuel and they can

fuel your brain just as effectively as your body. That was really when I first

discovered what I would call metabolic medicine for mental health, and then

I've gone on to specialize, and train more and learn more about it.

I became fascinated really about, about metabolic health.

Victoria Bennion:

Wow, was it hard to switch over to a ketogenic diet?

Moira Newiss: It was

a little bit of a challenge to start with. You've got to to start with, I

wasn't testing my blood, so I was doing it just by calculating what I was

eating, like looking at the macro content of the diet. So how much

carbohydrates, how much fat I was eating. Originally it was a little bit of a

challenge, finding my way through that on my own.

And then afterwards I discovered that, you could do other

things. You could, [00:03:00] you had to take

more account of protein, which I hadn't really understood to begin with. So

really a ketogenic diet is the ratio of fat to carbohydrates and protein

combined. And there are different levels of ketogenic diet, so different

ratios.

So you could be looking. A one-to-one ratio, which would be one

gram of fat for every combined one gram of fat and protein. Or you could be

looking at higher ratio, like a two to one, which is often what we're using in

metabolic mental health. And you can test your blood ketones to get an idea of

where you are actually sitting, which is something I now regularly do with all

my clients.

So I've learned as I went, what would work, what wouldn't work?

And often one of the mistakes people do make is that either they're just not

eating enough fat, because a lot of us are brought up thinking fat's bad for

you. You are worried about things like, is it gonna cause cardiovascular

disease?

So that's a concern. So people often unre the fat when they

drop the carbs, and you don't really have enough energy if you do that because

carbs don't factor your fuels. But also sometimes people overeat protein and

that actually can [00:04:00] end up just

breaking down into glucose. So you're not really using fat as a fuel again.

So there's a few things that I've learned along the way as part

of that process.

Victoria Bennion: