Pre-exercise feeding, nutrients protein, and particular causes a greater thermic effect of the exercise bout compared to fast and training and and you know when you think about comparing the exact same dietary intakes, with one of them training before breakfast and one of them training after breakfast. So the folks who trained before breakfast will oxidize more fat during the training session that's just a few
Availability thing and it's just it's easy to kind of imagine why that would work out that way. Now, the people who train in a Fed State, well, they're basically oxidizing what they ate. Right? And so therefore fat oxidation is lower in the FED conditions, but if you're comparing the two exact same dietary intakes, build calorie wise, and macronutrient breakdown wise, then there's going to be greater fat oxidation going on during exercise in the fasted exercise conditions.
But in the later part of the day in the remainder of the day, there's going to be greater fat oxidation in the FED conditions and so it all comes out the same after 24 hours. It all just comes out in the wash.
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Using the code podcast at checkup, so hopefully you enjoy the show with Alan. Argon, I will link in the description links to his books, flexible dieting, and he has several other books as well. He's an amazing resource. I really hope you enjoyed this conversation. We both left after this thinking. Gosh, we're in a flow State and this went really well. So I really hope you enjoy and also check out the show notes if you want to learn more about that. So let's cut back to it with Alan Alan, it's great to be with you. My friend Jeff with Colvin had recommended that we get together, many, many years ago. And we found each other online. So here we are in LA.
And I have a lot of notes in my phone, would love to dive into protein creatine, the various controversies over calories in calories out, and the insulin carbohydrate model of obesity so much. But I guess, just for folks that maybe haven't read your broker, followed you online. I know you've been in producing great content since the early 90s, you know, I assume you had to Fitness because you like to work out and then it sort of just what's the high level overview of how you got into this.
It started with my dad, bought my brother and I Joe Weider weight set when I was like 11 or 12. And so, he, you know, he was into using to training. He was an amateur boxer, he had a job as a sparring partner for the pros. And so I had that influence from very early and then I think like most young boys, you're interested in the comic book superheroes and then eventually, you see the bodybuilders on the cover?
Flex magazine and you're like wow that's incredible, that's fascinating. And so and then of course, he has you move through adolescence, you want to be attractive to women in the world, you know, so that you just start training and you start trying to look better. I was bitten by that bug and ironically, I started off as an art major and I stayed in that major for a year and a half before I realized, what the heck am I doing? I love Fitness and I got advice by some wise counsel to
Hey, switch Majors. You know, it's not too late, you're not old yet. And so so yeah, I got my nutrition degree with the thought. In mind that, okay, I'll be the one personal trainer with a nutrition degree that will give me an edge great. And so at the end of my undergraduate degree, my classmates started filing off to dietetics internships and I sort of felt like I was maybe missing out on something and so as an afterthought I got my master's degree in nutrition and so on up until this point,
I had been mostly personal training and then I got into nutritional counseling towards the end of my bachelor's degree in through my Master's Degree and over the last 10 years, I've been involved with research and education and you know, arguing on social media. Sure. So yeah, it's like, are you on Twitter? Much were mostly Instagram. I am on Twitter, but I disciplined myself man to, like,
Just use Twitter for announcements and just posts that are not really conducive to just big knock-down drag-out arguments because I can't stand the format of Twitter that nested thing. Then you're cut off at, like what is it? However, many characters. It's like two sentences at a time and then you can't. I don't know how people do it man. Yeah, I don't know how people are you on Twitter? It's rough on Twitter. It seems like because it's pretty anonymized you know and
You can be whoever, I mean I'm metabolic Mike to I'm somewhat anonymized on Instagram but yeah it's it gets really contentious and you talk about in your book the problems with dichotomous thinking and I think that's maybe a good place to start when it comes to nutrition because we really and we've seen this throughout covid humans are sort of wired to be tribalistic. And so if something works for you, whether it's fasting, whether it's counting, your calories diet, whatever. Then you think this is the thing. And everything else is a bunch of crap, right. In this.
I was thinking maybe if people don't know what that is we can Define it and talk about the problems with that as it relates to nutrition and body composition. Hmm. Yeah, so what if four people, I don't like I've heard it, that's like a big multi syllabic word, what is dichotomous thinking, The Economist thinking is just a worldview if you will of foods in this context, that they're either absolutely good or absolutely bad. So Angelic or evil foods, and the dichotomous thinking. Also,
So can apply to dieting in general, not just foods, but dieting. So dieting is either an all-or-nothing Endeavor. So that in essence, that's what dichotomous thinking is. So under the dichotomous thinking model, if you have just, if you fall off the wagon, just a little bit or your Veer off the side of the road, you might as well drive off the cliff because you've you blew it. All right, so non dichotomous thinking says, okay just stare back on and we're good. So yeah, you can be flexible.
So that's kind of like the beginning of the essence of flexible restraint versus rigid restraint or dichotomous thinking based restraint. I love that. And with that in mind, are you a fan of cheat days? If you've been sort of rigid or do you think? Because I'm just, this is anecdotal. I don't like to weave in all my personal stuff, but sometimes I fall into that words, like, okay, this is the cheat day and they had, well, I've already kind of had this much crap, what's one more whatever for
Ends fry or this, or that? How do you? And I need to talk in much greater detail in the book about this. But how do you generally have structure conceptualize cheat days as it relates to people that want to maintain a decent physique and all that? Sure sure. Okay, in the beginning, there are obviously higher quality foods, less junky Foods. If you less ultra-processed highly refined junk Foods than others. You know if you were to compare like the archetypical comparison, when you get into argument on line 12
Calorie is a calorie than, you know, like what if I eat like 500 calories worth of salmon versus 500 calories worth of a donut, huh? Well it's a calorie is a calorie what's up with that and it's like okay let's back up a little bit so fitting I guess junk through cheat days or cheat meals or whatever, that just has to be individualized. So a big theme of my book and my Approach and what the research shows is that everything's got to be individualized, you have.
Whoo-hoo, just love and permanently exist on a completely Spartan diet with no desserts, no ultra-processed Foods, none of that. And, and that's fine for them. Because it's just got to go individual by individual. And just as that works, that way. So you can individualize the approach to What's called the hedonic allotment or your allotment of indulgence Foods or junk Foods.
Do the day or through the week so you can individualize it like this. Some people they prefer having a little bit of indulgence each day and other folks would rather go Spartan six days a week and then let their hair down on Saturday or Sunday, individualize it towards whatever the person prefers and then you have better adherence. So that's kind of that's one of the basic idea. Yeah, it allows you to to Custom Tailor the approach towards someone's.
Personality. You know, which ultimately like you said, this isn't a Sprint. This is a marathon, right? It's okay to look good for the wedding, but you want to look good for the rest of your life or keep the body body, fat low and things like that. But if we could drill down just a little bit, I love talking about, this metabolic adaptation and so forth and that kind of dovetails into what we were just talking about because the sort of reverse dieting or you know 52, you know, eating good Monday through Friday taking the weekends off. If someone is
Actively trying to lose weight. You know, they're obese overweight, and they find for themselves like us having that planned. There's another word you used with regards to hedonistic deviation. Was it planned? Hedonic deviation. That's that's what researchers call, you know, going off the wagon. Yeah, I love that. So what is happening to the physique when it comes to dieting? And then how does this reverse dieting and and so-called cheetahs? How does that help? Sort of prevent these out?
Applications that are body now that happened that happened when we chronically suppress our calorie intake, okay? Okay, so taking a couple steps back and talking about metabolic adaptations. So if we talk about metabolism, the technical definition, as you know, would be this, the sum total of physiological processes that keep the body alive, okay? That just keep the organism functioning and alive, that's metabolism. But when you and I are talking about,
Tab ilysm now. And and metabolic adaptation were really defining metabolism as 24-hour, energy expenditure. And so, with 24 hour energy expenditure, we've got basically two parts to that we've got resting energy expenditure, and active energy expenditure. And for most people, the vast majority of the world, the resting energy expenditure or resting metabolic rate is the largest part of total, daily energy expenditure and active energy expenditure is the
Minority part. And so, with active energy expenditure, we can further divide that into two parts. So, we've got exercise activity and non-exercise activity. And here's the thing that a lot of people don't realize like over time when people claim to become metabolically adapted or claim that the, you know, metabolic adaptation or adaptive thermogenesis is happening either over shorter periods or just over the life cycle, as you get older as you reach middle age, and
Onward. It's actually the only way that resting energy expenditure would significantly, decrease is if you substantially and just progressively reduce your lean body mass over time. So if you hang on to your lean body mass for the most part resting energy expenditure is going to stay pretty much the same until, you know, heaven forbid, you become frail or Sark communiqué. But until that point resting energy expenditure is
Pretty damn stable, the component of energy expenditure that goes down and that really kind of puzzles people who maintain their exercise. Regimen just indefinitely, is the non-exercise activity component. So, the so-called slowing of metabolism is in most cases for most exercising individuals. It's not the resting energy expenditure side. It's that component of active energy expenditure that is non-exercise activity.
Thermogenesis over that, we know as neat that tends to reduce insidiously and subconsciously. And so during a prolonged dieting process, the body perceives a an imminent threat to survival so you're forcing it to exercise and can't do much about that. You're hanging onto your lean body, mass can't do much about that but what it can do behind your back is make you fidget less, make you move, less making moves 10% slower throughout your day so that you
Or spending less calories, you subconsciously just park as close as you can and you subconsciously just use the remote more. You subconsciously just, you know, have your kid handy, the room, and do this and that. And so that is really what underlies, the metabolic adaptation phenomenon that people are feeling is happening to them, tying the junk food and the hedonic plan. He died deviations thing into that.
The main function of a cheat meal or a cheat day is to alleviate the psychological fatigue of dieting. Yes, there is a certain rise in energy expenditure from increases and leptin and so forth that happened with like, you know, good old junk meal or cheat meal or cheat day. But it's not high enough to offset the extra calories that are coming in.
And yes, there is a refilling of glycogen that happens to a degree that may support or fuel, your training a little bit better, as a result of this cheat meal or cheat day. But the largest effects as far as dieters are concerned as far as weight loss and fat loss is concerned, is the bolstering of adherence to a program long-term because you have these periodic breaks that give you the alleviation of that psychological fatigue of dieting. So it's mainly a psychological benefit rather.
Other than a actual physiological. Yes, I love that. There is some physiological there, but the bigger part is the psychological I really in like hearing put you putting language to that. And, and with that in mind, with regards to the dietary strategies, when it comes to losing weight, you know, you have dieting, right, cutting calories, you have increasing exercise, and then you have fasting. I guess we get, if we can put little buckets there, when it comes to the literature which strategy, which dietary strategy leads,
The least impact on the neat, you know the movement, right? Because if assuming we're not rapidly losing lean mass. So our overall energy expenditure probably would say the same were maintaining exercise. But yeah, like when I, for example, like when you fast sometimes for two or three days, a lot of people are doing this as a modality to lose weight. You are tired, and I don't know if I could go to the gym or work out as much or I might part the car closer, I might not go on the walk with the dog, right? So. So what what does the literature say?
Say with regards to this energy expenditure. Yeah, that the largest impacts on neat. That's a really good question because I don't think there have been any comparative studies on this. So we can only speculate that aggressive linear, hypo caloric conditions with not a break from it. I would venture to speculate that that would have the largest impact on just these Insidious decreases in need
And we see that in the general public will see that in some of the physique contest folks and yeah, I would just speculate it. It's a prolonged diet and grind that just you don't take any maintenance breaks, you don't take any rest stops and then the body goes, okay, well if you're not going to give us break their, then we're going to slow down our non-exercise activity in other ways. Yeah, yeah yeah. So I really like learning
About extra kinds and all these signaling molecules that are stemming from muscle and how they communicate with the fat tissue in the liver like that. To me is kind of geeking exciting, do you think these periodic breaks he's walking throughout the day, taking the dog on The Walk? Would have been shown to improve blood sugar control. Maybe cause better to be cause people to be more intentional about the food choices and preferentially consume less processed foods, you know, when they're when they're moving more and all that. Do you think that the neat is more linked with that?
The Mayo kinds that are released or is it the energy expenditure that leads to the changes in body composition? Like I know, we probably don't have research, we can verify and but but what do you think that is because there is something unique like on days where you're super busy, you're working like you're sending signals to your muscles like Hey we're moving. We're moving oxidized fat more. All of that, right. What do you think that? What do you think that is the energy? The energy expenditure or the signaling component, if you could just guess it
I would lean a little bit more towards the behavioral component influencing movement and thus energy expenditure, I would lean a little bit more towards the psychological side of it. And that's because like, in the research, these so-called plan hedonic deviations when the diet or knows from the outset that every few weeks we're going to take a week off from the dieting grind, then.
Behaviourally. They stick to the plan, or there's less uncontrolled binges. There's less bytes, and nibbles in between the meals. There's less eating to alleviate boredom and stress. And there's less ritual, eating ritual Beverages and so forth. And so, I think it's more of a behavioral thing rather than an influence of movement on cytokines Maya kinds
Kappa. Kinds that sort of thing. I think it's a little bit more behavioral and psychological. Sure. Okay. I was just curious what your perspective was on that. With regards to that there's been some interesting studies about comparing isochoric meals, in feeding lab studies, but labeling them, different one being a diet, you know, there was this, I think University of Michigan, did that famous study or whatever? But it was a, it was an indulgent chocolate milkshake, I think, and then a diet and people jet can over consume foods that are that have the perception that there.
Low carb low, calorie low sugar. How do you advise people to navigate that? Because I mean, I find myself doing this, like if it's a gluten-free sugar-free cookie, I'm going to be like, oh yeah, it's like it, it's a nothing Burger but it still is calories. Its energy. How do you help people sort of understand that I lump them all in the same boat. Honestly, I lump all foods that aren't whole and minimally refined into the same boat of, okay? You have to be a bit more Vigilant of these kind of foods, including the
So-called diet foods, an exception, might be diet sodas, but then again, there's some treachery there because people think that diet sodas are free thing that you can have ten a day. Next thing, you know, they're adding a gram of caffeine to their day and there is some research that that points to potentially adverse effects on gut microbiome. If you go Hog Wild on certain artificial sweeteners but that, you know, that can be a little bit.
Farfetch'd because the research data mostly points to saccharine being the bad guy and it's hard to find Sakura and commercially because of the Public's demand to get it, the hell off the market in the same thing as kind of happening with aspartame as well. So there's more and more stuff with sucralose and Stevia or Stevia as people like to correct me. As far as a bit more innocuous effect for artificial sweeteners. But yeah, I tend to just
lump all of the processed Ultra process and highly refined Foods whether they're low-calorie diet, variety or not, just lump them in the same boat, where, you know, if you can keep these junk foods to a low Roar in the diet at best, like I throw out the 10 to 20% guideline with the eighty, to ninety percent of your diet, being, you know, wholesome and clean. Then it's it's tough to fail on that. And most people.
Do succeed on a long-term. Yeah, I love that another controversial topic is fasted versus fed exercise and the differences in fat oxidation in this and that and you know, we've seen in gyms for like 40 years, you know, if you want to lose fat, do fasted cardio in the morning or something like that. And I believe you were part of a study that actually looked at this. And I think it's important to for so people understand you know what the city is? There any significant significant differences with fasted versus fed exercise?
And should this be another thing that people personalized? You know, you're exactly right with that. So my colleagues and I we ran an experiment on. It was in college age women with fed vs. Fasted cardio. And it was a well, well done, study people criticized it for being four weeks long. But I mean, come on, you have, you know, you've got things going on in the semester and
And we didn't find any significant differences in Fat Loss both groups, retained muscle, retain lean mass, similarly no significant differences there. No significant, they lost a significant amount of fat but there was no significant between group differences in Fat Loss. Whether they had an immediate Meal which was a controlled like an MRP one of those like Mi Plex type type such situations from
You'll remember from the early 2000s Mi Plex metrics, I think they close Lola, brada rtds type of thing either had that immediately before the morning cardio or after the morning cardio and there was a weight training regimen in there. I designed the diet's I made sure that the protein was at a nice one point, eight grams per kilogram body weight and so they had great results, just no between group differences in
The the fat loss. And so that was the first and I believe still the only study that is a controlled hypo caloric comparison of fed vs. Fasted cardio in healthy subjects and in women this time. So what we can draw from this study is that okay we didn't see any differences however it's not like they were competing for some sort of trophy or some sort of bodybuilding.
And placing and stuff. So we still try to keep an open mind. That maybe there is a point where fast cardio will work better than fed cardio. But as far as the general population goes, it's not likely to be a factor big significant difference. There was one study recently came out. It was I'll send it to you and it actually was not designed to look at that oxidation per se, but they were looking at post exercise changes in glucose and it was either exercise then feeding
Fasted state, or feeding, than exercise, the same amount of exercise. And I don't what don't remember the diet but what I thought was interesting is that was better post-exercise glucose regulation in the people who fed ate food then exercise. And I think this is a part that people are missing is like, okay, during the actual seems like people are so focused on what are we doing during the actual exercise session? Ignoring the post exercise window where if an oxidation can increase or preference for Cal all of that? So does that is that surprising to you? No.
Not really. There is some interesting studies studies. I think there's a couple of them were a little tiny body of data and Guillermo Escalante actually, he he summarized this in a review that was published recently and pre-exercise feeding nutrients protein in particular causes a greater thermic effect of the exercise bout compared to fast at training. And and you know, when you think about comparing the exact same dietary intakes,
With one of them training before breakfast and one of them training after breakfast. So the folks who trained before breakfast will oxidize more fat during the training session that's just a fuel availability thing and it's just, it's easy to kind of imagine why that would work out that way. Now, the people who train in a Fed State while they're basically oxidizing what they ate, right? And so therefore fat oxidation is lower in the Fed.
Conditions. But if you're looking at, if you're comparing the two exact same dietary intakes, build calorie wise, and macronutrient breakdown wise, then there's going to be greater fat oxidation going on during exercise in the fasted exercise conditions. But in the later part of the day in the remainder of the day, there's going to be greater fat oxidation in the FED conditions and so it all comes out the same after 24 hours, it all just
Comes out in the wash. So like you mentioned the best thing you can do is individualize it to the person schedule to what they prefer because usually what people prefer is what they're going to stick to not for just, you know, a few weeks of a study or a few months of a study, it's what they can stick to As a matter of Lifestyle. So you you know you we both know a lot of folks who love training fasted, love doing fasted cardio. They love getting up and just going
And they feel best that way, they wouldn't be able to do that if they had a breakfast bouncing around in their stomachs and that's that's cool and that's fine and that should be individualized. I think that's a great perspective because we hear about oh and that this was old research fasted exercise increases growth hormone or something. There's all these theories that have emerged. So people think they have to do that and if they have coffee with like teeny amount of cream, that's going to somehow negate all the benefits of that. But like you just said,
You know, if you look over this, instead of looking at it during natural exercise session, extrapolate out a little bit throughout the day. I think it's refreshing for people because the comments that I see and get well, if I have Stevia in my coffee that's going to block fat burning right? Probably not. So anyway, it's good for you to put language to this to, it's great that you bring up the concept of looking at a small snapshot in time. You know, sometimes as thin of a slice as the exercise bout versus the 24-hour overview and certainly versus the, you know,
No, the long the week and then the month. But yeah, looking at fat oxidation during exercise and judging the value of what's going on based on what's going on during exercise. It doesn't make sense. It's not a logical way to approach programming because if you think about it during resistance training, you're breaking muscle your tear muscle down. And so if you just look at what's going on at the muscle level during resistance training, you're going, holy crap, we're breaking down muscle, but
Not, it's not about what's going on during the training ballot. It's about what happens over the 24-hour, period, and Beyond, that's a great perspective. I think for people to consider and with that in mind, there was one study looking at the total amount of calorie expenditure during the actual exercise session camp and there was gender differences in post-meal, refeeding. And it seems that for some reason, it's been a while. I'd have to dig up his paper to send to you, but I figured you might know about it that women are a little bit more. So
Acceptable to overeating after exercise. If the exercise session involves over like 500 calories or something. Yeah, it was something have you looked at some of this stuff? Yeah. They're that area of research, man. I have looked at it and it's so mixed and so equivocal that you just kind of back off and go. All right, let's stick with the kind of the basics here because it's there's going to be a lot of inter individual difference in these sort of things, and it is in
Thing though, like like differences in substrate, use between men and women. Women actually oxidized more fat during training but they actually store more fat after training. And so those differences on the acute or short-term basis, those all kind of tend to come out in the wash and even out anyway and so yeah we look at appetite differences and one part of the day between the Sexes and think, okay, we need to program it
This way from him and that way for men. When we look at studies that look at longer periods of time, it kind of washes out. So as it stands right now, I don't think there's any necessarily any practical applications of those acute findings that we can draw and you know put to practice in the field makes sense, you mentioned protein and we've talked a lot up to now about personalization and your book, you talk about how the the dietary guidelines haven't been.
Wise to it's, you know, it's point eight grams per kilo body weight, right? So if you're a 220-pound college athlete, if you're only eating that much protein is probably not going to help with recovery. So why do you think the guidelines haven't been updated and personalized? And then how does one go about personalizing? Because you mentioned, those dieting college-age women. You know in that study they mentioned they were at one point eight grams particular. Yeah, which is quite high. So why do you think when it comes to nutrition from the
Highest level there is not so much personalization baked into the recommendations. Now there's a lot of in fighting and arguing to yeah as even amongst academics and it's funny because a few years back I got into an argument with Stu Phillips and this was in I want to say 2014 or 2015. So we argued our heads off on Facebook and you know I guess he conceded a little bit because he cited some
Some article I wrote in 20 2009. So was like seven years old 6 years, old study and I'm like dude it's do. Why are you harping on that article man? I wrote that in 2009. I would say it differently now and it was an article about how much protein you can consume in a single sitting, you know, and that's another cool conversation to. So I argued with Stuart and then we ended up publishing together because the the argument, the bickering
On Facebook went well and so we ended up doing it this meta-analysis together with, with Rob Morton on how much protein is required to maximize muscle and strength, gains in non dieting conditions, amongst healthy adults. And so that magic number appears to be 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight. And in
Imperial terms, that's point seven grams per pound. And then the question is start coming. Well, you know, are you getting Mass versus lean mass versus total body weight? And so the default solution to that is base. It on either ideal body weight or Target body weight. So gold body weight based on that and if you're at where you want to be, then base it on your current total body weight. So that's the solution to that and so that figure of double the RDA.
Hands to be effective, for most populations, whether you're an athlete, whether you're dieting and want to preserve lean body mass or whether you're you're an elderly person who's trying to fight off father, time and sarcopenia and sarcopenia obesity. And the complications there of so that 1.6 grams per kilogram body weight happens to be sort of the magic, the magic number. And what we
In the research Community are arguing over now is whether amounts above? 1.6, are appropriate, and I'm saying, well yeah, they are because observational e there are populations who consistently and who are operating at the highest levels of competition there, right in the 2.0, do
If you're talking physique at least 3.0 3.3 grams per kilogram of body weight, which on the 3.3 and is all the way up to a gram and a half per pound of body weight. So we've got this research-based guideline of 1.6, but we have these observations in the field and in the trenches consistently of somewhere between one point, six, two, two point two and and up in the fringes, with the general population,
Who is not necessarily lean, not necessarily athletic, then a reasonable range, 1.2 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight. But I honestly would rather default people towards that 1.6, because it works, so great, for dieting and muscle retention, and satiety and Athletics. And I think that everybody should strive to become like a competitive athlete, but strive to become
More functional from a, you know, a survival sense from a, just just a functional sense because that is going to come in handy, as you get older and it comes more and more handy as you get older. I'm glad you hit on that because I think the perception amongst the old elderly people people over 60 is, they need to consume less protein. So, it seems on a population level, the the folks that actually need the protein, the most are consuming it, the least. I mean, that's just been my anecdotal experience.
Because we hear that red meat is bad or protein causes kidney issues and I want to get into the bone health and things of that that in a minute. But why do you think that person? But how can we influence the older people amongst us, who might be facing Circle being a capacity or antibiotic resistance? At maybe we can define an all that. That they shouldn't be actually consuming more protein to sort of offset some of the age-related consequences that happen with specifically targeting muscle. Well, we have to first kind of influence the the
The Establishment I just got into a very quick bickering match on Instagram with a nursing student who still being taught that point eight grams per kilogram or the RDA for protein, which was established in 1980.
Goodness gracious man. That they're still being taught that that's the appropriate amount to, you know, provide the patients and advise the patients and oh man there's been 40 plus years of research showing that at minimum you want to go 50 percent beyond that minimum. So I think it there has to be a systemic level of Education that goes on at.
At the, at the institution level, in order to impact the elderly population and in order to impact professionals to prescribe appropriate amounts of protein for elderly, populations to Stave off, age-related, muscle antibiotic resistance. And I don't know how that's going to happen because the RDA has been point eight grams per kilogram of body weight since 1980 and you know what for decades passing?
And the the higher-ups in charge of dishing out the guidelines, they haven't changed it. I mean, gosh, even the pyramid has been changed, you know, since 2011, but protein, they're a little bit afraid to say, hey, let's move this up. I don't know why. That's, that's the million dollar questions. Is it? The perception that high protein diets? Cause kidney failure, there's bone loss. There's all these myths around protein that you dispel in the book, which I think is great. Yeah, I mean maybe let's tackle.
A few of those because again people think, oh, if I have all these protein, nitrogen is going to damage my kidneys and my bones are going to rot but the data actually doesn't show that, right? Yeah. The it and in fact, there was a meta-analysis done by Stuart Phillips and his colleagues that looked at intakes that span from, you know, from the low end RDA levels to nearly like, like double well, nearly tripled that. So, two and a half times the RDA and there was
No significant effects on kidney on Kidney Health on markers of Kidney Health. And so that was their their meta-analysis on protein intake and kidney function. No significant effects. There has been a lot of great research by Jose Antonio's group on the effects of high protein intakes on bone. And this was a study that was done in women and it's got a really cool title. Something to the effect of high protein diets
Bad to the Bone. It's like, yes, they're putting some art and those titles of the academic papers and lo and behold, I'm there is just a slew of evidence showing that the the kidney and Bone scare of high protein intakes, and I'm talking double and even close to Triple the RDA. Yeah, we might not know if somebody, if somebody decides to consume five times, six times the RDA for a lifetime and then that's all
They consume what we don't necessarily know that. Although there are, there are some classic research on a couple of Arctic explorers who, all they ate was meat, like, an in fatty meat for a year and had no ill effects on kidney and kidney function. I don't know if they tested bone health markers, but there's observational evidence showing that that fear is
is unfounded. And so a paper that looks at all of the all of those data, except for the stew Phillips meta-analysis, which I'm not sure is in that publication, but a Ralph J ger wrote the, the issn position stand on protein and that was in 2017. So, if you just Google up issn position, stand protein, and then, you'll come up with this 2017, just
Monster of a paper that just Cole eights, all of the evidence showing a lack of effect, on high protein diets on kidney bone liver function. All of the things that are traditionally feared by folks, who fear higher protein intake sand. And so, you know, the evidence is what it is. That's that's actually a good thing. Totally, no, I love that. And the age of this onset of like, reduce muscle protein synthesis and
Increased resistance to that. Do we know like where that starts me? People talk about hormones are into decline, like testosterone, DHA in your 30s. When do we start to need? When should people start to be concerned of like, hey, I might need to like start to increase my protein intake. Is it 45? 50, 60 does will be searched? Yeah, that all we have are this these these messy observations on, when muscle mass starts to decline. And there are some lines of evidence that showed
That it can start as early as people's 30s. And that's not too surprising considering the sedentary shift from college Years to the Working World. So when you go from college to corporate, then you really got to start paying attention because you're sitting at a cubicle for 12 hours a day. And then you're going home and you're watching Netflix for another four hours and then you can sleep a few hours and you do the whole thing over again and that's when the problems start
EXO age-related antibiotic resistance can happen much earlier than the typical. You usually think that it starts happening at 60 and 65. But hmm, Miss what the sedentary shifted really kind of begins there. And so I really would start paying attention to those things. Once you go from college to cubicle. Yeah, we're having kids or whatever it is like start to focus on that and it seems that we can really, with our lifestyle, it mitigate this, you know, I know people in there
50s and 60s who are muscular strong. They may not be as strong as they were when they're 18, but no one expects that. But it seems, It's like if we strategize and sort of customize, our lifestyle, we can age a lot more gracefully than people. Generally perceive aging to be so maintain the protein stress to the muscle, you know, with exercise resistant training. Do you think there's some pretty good data to show that like, we can offset many of these changes. Oh, man. Absolutely. There's some really heartening data showing that
Even in the oldest old populations that have 80, 85 Beyond, you can get them in a lab, get them resistance training and they just grow muscle just like younger, folks, would who have been deconditioned and sitting on the couch for you know, 10 or 20 years building a business than a family. Same thing happens with with 80 year olds who have just been flat-out. Just deconditioned for decades and decades muscle wakes up grows and so it's never too late to get that going and
To, you know, Mary those habits with good nutrition as well, because there are components to eating wrong, gaining body fat that contribute to the phenomenon of age-related antibiotic resistance. So as as people become overweight or obese, they compromised their ability actually to elicit muscle protein synthesis. So, the theory is that these inflammatory
I put kinds kind of inhibit the muscle protein synthesis process and so there's micro process is going on at the muscle level and at the adipose level that are engaged in this vicious cycle, that makes it tough to hang onto and grow muscle. So if people can keep body fat under control as you age, then that actually helps the maintenance of muscle mass. I love this and what's interesting and you've talked a lot about this.
Is this body, positivity movement, and it sort of is normalizing being overweight, or obese and saying, well, that's totally healthy. As long as you're happy and you're overweight or obese, then you are healthy. But physiologically mean, you just characterize some of the processes that are occurring like the fat tissue is releasing these, a Diplo, cytokines, and so on. How do we sort of bring that what seems like a good idea inclusive idea to reality without pissing people off? I mean what I know you've talked about this
This. How do you conceptualize? That sure they're the different degrees of obesity have escalating degrees of risk. So like early obesity or class, one obesity you can build a case like and it's all wonky lie based on BMI, right? So, so people in the first class of obesity. So like 30 to 35 BMI,
You can build a case that you know what, you're not at a whole lot of tangible risk if you're physically active and you happen to carry a lot of lean mass that would skew your BMI upwards. So you think of the heavyweight division in various sports, right? I mean, a lot of those guys would classify as obesity on the scale, but in the general public gets a little bit dicey. And so now class to obesity 30
BMI of 35 and up, then you start seeing the risk, become a lot larger and more tangible. And so more severe obesity is when you really got a zero when I go. Okay, now we recording measurable physiological detriments here and and we're looking at significant risk and so now you have to make a choice of whether you're going to accept that risk and just know, okay, this is this is how I'm living and this is how I want to live or
Whether you want to, you know, enact countermeasures against that and change habits and shift down a category or two. And so, I think that, yeah, we have to make a distinction between that class one in that class 2, and up class 2, and up, is really the statements that okay? That's fine for health or that's healthy pretty much flat out false, it's important and you said it quickly but I just want to underscore this. You said people.
People who are physically active and might carry a little extra fat, that is different way, different than being extra fat and physically on active. I think that's the thing that is not really talked so much about is, you know, some people, are they get hung up on why I'm still a little overweight but it's like, yeah, but you train like you exercise like, you know, you're metabolically healthy, right? So yeah, of course, maybe you should strive to lose that extra body fat, but but it's important that we stay metabolically healthy by way of regular physical activity.
Activity. And I think that is sort of lost from this body positivity movement, you know, sort of narrative, being metabolically, healthy obese, so that MHO phenotype, right? That really only applies, so risk really does go up after BMI 35 and up so BMI 30 to 35 the metabolically healthy obese population in that category.
They're okay. I mean statistically. Anyway. You know, you don't have to be lean and athletic like, like metabolic Mike to live a ripe, long healthy life, you can be, you know, a little on the heavier side and live just as long, as long as you're physically active in your keeping, an eye on, on your, you know, certain Health indexes. But, you know, once you start getting severely obese,
Even if your metabolically healthy as far as Bloods go then, statistically that tenure Outlook trajectory matters, so metabolically, healthy obese, individuals in the literature, tend to have a higher risk of becoming metabolically, unhealthy over the long term. So that is the tendency, because a lot of those folks who are metabolically healthy obese, they're on a bad trajectory. So,
so the the assessments are taking during during a snapshot of time, but they can still be at risk because there could still be in our creep over years and decades in terms of body fat, so they have to be careful as well. It's interesting and it I just wanted to talk. I've talked with Gabrielle line about this a couple of times and it's something that I am very curious about is we have all these metrics and proxies with, we're going to body fat BMI for example, body fat percentage,
We were just before we got off to that tangent, we're talking about the importance of muscle. How can we quantify or characterize muscle in a clinical type setting? That would help people understand? Is there any benchmarks that you look for with regards to strength or power output or something? And, you know, and, you know, this grip strength is widely used because it's readily available, right? And and that's kind of fun to do, but not everyone has access to that. So is there any tools in the pipeline that will help us better?
Sighs muscle. Quality were appropriate strength, measures? Given someone's age and risk factors? What there are skeletal muscle rankings as far as what is adequate and there are strength rankings as well but they mainly apply to clinical populations who are trying to escape immobility and so it's hard to apply those standards to the general healthy.
Nation
and even harder to apply them to the athletic population. And so, I think it's a little bit simpler to perhaps look at body fat percent, or rough ballparks of body fat percent ability to execute activities of daily living and ability to execute a basic exercise training program, that involves all of the movements of the body, all the core.
Movements of the body. If you can do that, then you don't have to get hung up on functional rankings, skeletal muscle rankings. And if you want to get hung up on stuff, then, you know, you can ballpark body fat %. Okay? I like that. So it's a way to sort of triangulate. If you will, that's great. Another area that I know you're very of a deep breath of knowledge in is different ergogenic AIDS and since we're talking about meat and protein I would love to sort of tackle creatine Carnage
In Branch chain amino acids because these are controversial. You know, people think like if I take creatine that's going to wrap my kidneys. If I take Beast, I have to take BCAAs even though I'm eating 300 grams of protein, right? Maybe let's tackle, you know, creatine and BCAAs and what you think they are and then with regards to timing and all that around exercise, sure. Starting with creatine, I call it King creatine because it's the only non drug compound that, that works.
X4, increasing muscle, size and strength. And there are other things that work a little bit but creatine is pretty much it. And the good thing the win-win about creatine is that it is a naturally occurring substance in the food supply and our body biosynthesize is it you and I manufacture like 122 grams of creatine per day just from our mixed diets.
And so, creatine does work for high-intensity output. So it works for sprinting, as well as, you know, any manner of lifting Sports and any manner of sports that involve bursts of high-intensity output. So the dosage of creatine supplementally. So it's tough to get an ergogenic dose of creatine from the diet, unless you consume a minimum of 22.
Two and a half pounds of meat and when I say mate, I'm talking about all animal flesh, you know, meat fish poultry. So you can get that ergogenic effect and just avoid the magic of creatine supplementation. If you're eating, I don't know like, Sean Baker's. So but folks who are more, omnivorous have a more mixed diet. Maybe might eat. Like, I don't know eight to 16 ounces of any manner of animal flesh on a given day.
And the effective dose is 325 grams of supplemental, creatine that will put about well, depending on how you train. You know, you can get some pretty significant gains in size and strength. It's not going to be like, steroid like gains, especially if you're already an omnivorous person or a carnivorous person, but it does tent during the loading phase. Once your tissue stores are saturated with creatine by the end of that rainbow.
Which can take a week if you do a loading phase or it can take a month if you just maintain that 325 grams a day, then reports of 326 pounds of lean mass gain have are pretty common. That's amazing. Yeah, and there's perceptions again, that kidney issues, it's bad for women. All this stuff was the kidney issues stuff, is that because it was often paired in late 90s. Early 2000 supplemental creatine. Had a lot of dextrose in it as well or something, or how did that theory?
Of
emerge. Yeah, what happens when you supplement with creatine, then there is there shows up a lot more of the breakdown product, creatinine in the blood and then that freaks doctors out and stuff, it's like, oh my God, what just happened. And, but usually these readings happen during the loading phase. When people are taking down 10, 20 to 25 grams of creatine a day for that, initial week to get the the muscles loaded the phosphocreatine levels the muscles loaded.
And so, but that's a false alarm. There have been studies on Creatine supplementation, and kidney function, with doses, as high as 10 grams a day, or more, if I'm not mistaken and no ill effects. So to that end, if you have a pre-existing concern for Kidney Health, if you have some sort of chronic kidney disease, then maybe you should stay away from it, but normal healthy.
Cause there's enough data for us to confidently. Say it's not an inherent kidney threat, that's a really good point. It's interesting to when you look at say markers like creatinine work and you and I, you know, if we go to the gym and then run, our Bloods are creating levels might look like we have kidney failure or something to that effect. So I think it's important again context because I've worked part to your right, it's wild. I had a client who did she's a runner, and then ran lift weights and then did some blood work.
Work. And if you did not know, you would think she's going to die. LDL cholesterol was up like over 400 and I've seen her blood Brooke fasted before and it was very normal, but the creatinine, the lab even called and was like, something's going on with this individual, you might want and it's like, well actually, they just did exercise before. It's like, oh, okay. Well, that makes sense. So it's interesting when you, when you look at these markers from taking creatine and whatever the context matters and I think because health professionals are used to seeing sedentary sick, overweight people
And their bodies are starting to fail as a consequence of that lifestyle. Comparing that you know to an athlete I think is different, but it's yeah, interesting conversation, okay? BCAAs. And muscle protein synthesis people are really married to BCAAs. They are really the oh yeah, they're the marketing of BCAA products was really big for a couple decades. So the, the through the late 90s and the early 2000s,
branched-chain amino acids were a big thing because there was a lot of research coming down the pike showing the muscle protein synthesis effects of leucine and their people start theorizing about branched-chain amino acid intake, like, mitigating Central fatigue and but and those are all sound theories. Okay. Of the essential amino acids, the anabolic drivers are the the essential amino acids.
All the amino acids, the anabolic drivers are the essential amino acids of the essential amino acids. The key anabolic drivers are the branched-chain amino acids and of the branched-chain amino acids. The key is leucine. And so, even just supplementing with Lucy and showed higher muscle protein synthesis responses and various acute studies, and so the theory was perfectly sound, okay? So yeah, take BCAAs, you'll increase muscle.
In synthesis great. But the issue becomes, when you pan back and you look at their contribution to net muscle and ab ilysm within the context of the whole diet, it washes out, and this is because the proteins you and I take in in our diet, 15 to 25 percent of it, is going to be branched chain, amino acids. So, on the high end, like if you, you know, you have some, a couple scoops of whey that 26% BCAA, right?
Even lower quality protein, like, soy and whatnot. You got 18% BCAA and soy. And I'm not going to rip on soy as a lower call. It is a high-quality protein, but if you were to put soy against way, no, no way. Way edges soy out in terms of anabolic response. So with the protein in the diet, being 15 ish to 25-ish percent BCAA when you're consuming adequate total daily protein at like 1.6 grams,
As per kilogram, there's at least two studies. Now, showing that the addition of supplemental Branch chain amino acids on top of a pre-existing sufficiency of protein, doesn't do anything for increasing muscle size and strength. And at a certain point we just have to step back and say, hey maybe, maybe adding branched chain amino acids to a diet adequate and protein is the equivalent of turning the sprinklers on during a rainstorm.
So yeah, if you want to waste money or something, where you have disposable income, and you like it or what it then, fine, but don't get. There's other ways that you could sort of allocate your resources in my perspective. You know, that's interesting. Now there's a dr. Wolf, I think he's from Baylor University doing something. Yeah, he's done a lot of research with people elderly people that have had injuries for example, their sedentary bedridden and shown benefits with with the BCAAs now. Do you think
That's because that's a specific population that may not be consuming protein. Anyway, yes. Yes. I collaborated on review paper with Daniel Plotkin and Brad schoenfeld on Branch chain amino acids and their effect on muscle muscle gains and there is a subset in the literature where BCAAs did benefit bedridden elderly.
And so, it's good that you bring that up because you know, it showed some positive effects on that. Now whether it would have been better to supplement the diets of these patients with a high quality, you know, full spectrum, essential amino acid supplement, or high-quality intact, protein is up for speculation. But the branched-chain amino acids, under low protein conditions did
Work
for that. So yeah. But practically speaking, what I think I heard you say is if you're going to spend money on a supplement get like a good way protein, not just BCA because you're getting everything. That's right. Yeah. You're getting all of the essential amino acids. You're getting some of the non-essential amino acids that arguably contribute to the overall growth process, you're getting a bunch of other constituents within the food Matrix that
That benefit immunity that can even benefit glycemic control in certain studies and can even have anti-cancer effects in certain studies. And so you're, you're not getting just the wheels of the car. You're getting the whole car. Yeah I like that. Yeah. I think a lot of people agree now. The whole food is going to be the way to but a much better way to go. Yes. Speaking of Whole Foods. I think carbs in the most controversial macro, I mean you can every every macro is controversial but carbs are sir.
A controversial with their perceptions around when they raise insulin or they do this. So that I've found benefits timing carbs around exercise. It's just been my personal approach, you know, I know everyone's a little bit different, but let's talk about carbs when it comes to comparing fat loss potentially where people talk about that and hypertrophy and as an ergogenic aid. And I'll just, I want to make this super long, but I'll just a quick note because there's a lot of people that say, you need to train low in a local like fast. It's a low energy state.
8, but that's not really optimal to getting the adaptations that you would get from the exercise session. So I steer people away from that generally and I get a lot of blowback from that. But yeah, I specially around actress like on days that I don't exercise, I don't have rice or pasta, you know. But on days that I left, I called potatoes, rice pasta, not pasta usually, but not yet fruit, all that. And people like, whoa, dude, like that's too many carbs, you're going to be a diabetic. So what, how do you when you look at the big picture of
Carbs. Yeah, yeah, that is the man that we need an hour for this man. Okay, so let's talk about the train low contact real quicker.
This is a very elegant thing and it's a new way to look at fueling for the work required and for athletic folks like yourself it is ideal to match the fueling with the demands of the training bout. So if you're going to literally take a freaking 30-minute walk that day and you want to economize on on your energy intake,
Because let's imagine, you're either wanting to stay lean, or you want to get leaner. Then it's actually ideal to match, the carb intake, with the nature of the demands of the of the exercise. So, on days, that you don't train on days, that you're going to take a freaking walk. Like, there's no reason to load up with 90s level carbohydrate and they're beginning to see this in competitive endurance athletes as well, that it is actually ideal to train.
When the training demands are low but trained high. In other words, train with high carbohydrate availability when the training demands are high. So train low when the demands are low train high in terms of carb availability, when the intensity and and or the volume is high. And so that's going to be different with each day with each training day of the week. Some days are going to be high volume or and or high intensity. Some days are just going to be low.
And slow. So, what you're doing is actually ideal, okay? So, like talking a little about more about the general population. People who just want to sort of chill and stay average. It doesn't matter as much. It doesn't matter as much. And and when I say that, I don't want to get nailed for saying that carbs amount doesn't matter.
It only matters as much as you are consuming what you can stick to so it does matter in terms of the amount you prefer and feel best on and respond best to. So some people will prefer a low carb amount. Some people will prefer a high carb diet and some people will be somewhere in the middle. Some people will love Quito
All of that works. Similarly, as long as it's what the individual feels best on response to best and can sustain and we see this just you know across the general population with different preferences and tolerances and so a caveat that I want to put in there though is that? Yeah even though you have to individualize carbon take all the way from Quito levels to like pritikin levels, you individualize that you have to pay attention to
The individual goal is. And one of the exceptions here is people who have the goal of maximizing muscle growth, like they, their main goal in life is taking up as much space as possible. Like they want to, you know, they want people to have to move out of the way, if you're walking down the same hallway, it's not optimized on ketogenic carbohydrate levels. So I'm talking 50 grams a day or less, there's enough research, there's enough
Data showing that it's a highly inefficient way to try to grow muscle with severe carb restriction and the mechanisms behind that are likely they fall on just rest and glycogen levels as well as what glycogen levels can do for Progressive increases in lifting volume. So so yeah, if somebody would try to go zero carb, I'm talking just boom, all you're eating is let's say all you're eating is just steaks.
Great way to lose fat really fast. But mmm, inefficient and difficult way to gain muscle, right? Not at, maybe not ideal for those individuals, speaking of that. So is there, we talked about protein 1.6 1.8 or at least doubling the RDA for people that are like, yeah, I want college kids, how, you know, like that, I want to get big where I want to put on some muscle and stuff. Is there a sweet spot with regards to carbs? Overall, like
Targeting the observational e and this is the the thing that I have to preface this answer with certain questions. We've answered through controlled intervention trials. And we can say, hey, we controlled this condition with a control group and we saw that the experimental group had this effect. So, with your question right now, all we have is observational data to go on. And so I have to say observational, e and speculative.
Tively that lower threshold for being able to cover needs of muscle growth and physical performance. Like where those two goals kind of intersect, the lower end appears to be right around 3 grams per kilogram of body weight with respect to carbohydrate intake. So that's like, like pound and half fish or so grams of carbs per pound of body weight, interesting, and would that be on training days?
Non-trained days, or does it matter in general generally a on average? Yeah. If you're trying to maximize muscle hypertrophy, that would kind of be the lower end that you would look at now, that is not to say that somebody consuming, you know, a gram of carbohydrate per pound of body weight, or less. Let's say that is not to say that this person can't gain muscle, it's just that they're not going to maximize the rate of muscle gain at
That intake. I see. Okay. So they could do it but it may not be considered optimal, correct? Correct. Yeah, you can go like zero, you can gain muscle on zero carb. But what happens is, when you really try to cut carbs out of the diet, your appetite goes down, which is great for fat loss. Not awesome for muscle, gain your, you're lifting capacity, your work output capacity, just goes down and that once again is not great for optimizing muscle.
/ Trophy and you're resting glycogen levels are significantly lower. And yeah, there's some interesting research from bollocks group showing the same glycogen levels in Elite endurance, cyclists on keto, as well as the conventional diet once. And that's a little bit of a mystery and interesting thing, but that hasn't necessarily been seen in lifters and general pop. Yeah, that's a specific subset of the population, right? Yeah, at least cyclists, most people are not doing that. They're lifting weights to a little CrossFit.
Whatever. Yeah it's interesting. So one thing that I wanted to talk about is the controversy in the literature with you know Kevin Hall and then David Ludwig and there's it seems like there's some academic sort of debate back and forth. How did that start? I'm just like where it seems like those two. They're always. You can read them. We disguise. Like it's at what. How what's up with that with Kevin Hall and David Ludwig? It.
Has almost reached a point where? Okay, guys, it's time for a pose down, you know, it's a boxing gloves on. It's supposed out or it's a cage fight. It's like, let's see what who in the real world is the real animal here, you know? So okay, I'm I'm on team. Kevin Hall only because when you look at the carbohydrate insulin, hypothesis of obesity, it's relatively easy to test. If you're going to
Focus on insulin and you're going to die on the insulin Hill. You're going to lose because okay. So looking at short-term studies, we can test the carbohydrate insulin, hypothesis of e which basically let me back up a couple steps. It says that carbohydrates are insulin agentic? Insulin is the fat storage hormone there for carbohydrates are fattening. So that's the essence of the car.
Insulin hypothesis obesity, and this is why Gary tabs, you know, he's hung his hat on that as well. And he's done very well with his with his books and Gary is an interesting guy I think he's a charming and interesting guy. So, okay, so we can test the carbohydrate insulin, hypothesis of obesity with short-term over feeding studies. Okay, so we take two groups, we feed them exact same diets. Exact same maintenance, condition diets, and
One group we can stack 50% above and beyond maintenance with carbohydrate and on the other group, we can stack 50% above maintenance with fat and this has been done multiple times and then we just watch and see who gains more fat, okay? So according to the carbohydrate insulin model of obesity, it should be the carbohydrate overfeeding group but it never is it's either. No significant difference or the fat overfeeding group gained slightly more fat.
And these are in experiments that last like 24 or 48, you know, three days at most. Okay. So we've got that short term data. So let's drag it out longitudinally and see, you know, see where the rubber meets the road here and so there have been multiple studies like a couple. Dozen that have equated calories and importantly, equated protein intake, as well, and compared highly disparate proportions of carbohydrate and fat lo and behold.
Every single time in controlled feeding studies, there is no difference in Fat Loss between those conditions compared. When you match calories match protein, put them in hypochlorite conditions, run the experiment for several weeks. And the criticism is that these experiments have been run long enough. We never see in control wedding sighs, never see the lower carb group losing more body fat and it really kind of the nails really start.
Getting pounded in the coffin. When they've been a couple studies now headed by Jeff Bolick where you match, protein you match calories run one keto run one high-carb, low-fat run it for a number of weeks, no differences in body fat loss between those two. So, the carbohydrate insulin model of obesity would say not only is carbohydrate more fattening and overfeeding conditions, but it's less fat, reductive or fat oxidative in hypochlorite or dieting.
Not the case in either scenario. So you have to take a step back and go and maybe it's not insulin that people are equating carbs and fatness with. And so the next question becomes well what is it? And it's kind of an answer that's kind of right in front of our nose. It's the combination of refined carbs and fats in hyper palatable energy dense food. Like things on the shelves that are just commercially cranked out and are highly available and inexpensive.
Pensive. And that's what people are getting body fat on. Yeah, that's very interesting. And I wish I hope people listen to that and listen to it again because it is, you know, it's it's a tribalistic scenario at this point, you know, with regards to, you know, carbohydrates and so forth. And what I think is not understood is how protein raises insulin as well. So if you're going to go on a very low carb diet, you're consuming avocados and coconut oil all the time or you're having steaks.
Eggs, bacon, whatever you like, well, those foods do impact insulin as well. And so again, if that's the driver, we would see some changes. So yeah. Yeah. I think it's, I like to read both, but, you know, Kevin Hall and, you know, David Ludwig and follow their work. And yeah, I see the back and forth. I just wanted someone to sort of clarify those conversations, but again, I think it's something that people get overly concerned about. And like we've talked a lot about the importance of movement and exercise to me, I think that should be
Your priority, not quibbling over. Oh my gosh. I went over 21 grams of carbs per day. I'm gonna gain fat, it's like focus on movement first and prioritizing protein, then, you know, sprinkling the carbs around the exercise, or whatever, you just to match that. So, I love that, that you talked about that in your work, and your book and so forth and, and not to interrupt your train of thought, but there is a massive difference between let's say, fruit fresh fruit. And
You know,
tubers and let's say, well I'm not even get the grain category is, it's a mess. But there's a, there's a big difference between certain carb sources with respect to satiating capacity and the ability to control hunger to the point that we have to look at carbs as a highly diverse group of foods, not like would not necessarily like with protein. I mean, they all function pretty much the same if you're staying in the high-quality realm and then there's an
Interesting argument there about plant proteins versus animal proteins, right? But with carbs, I mean, you can fail. If you choose consistently, choose refined carbohydrates for the most part, and they just have pretty massively different effects on the dieting process depending on what road, you go down with carbs. So there's a carbohydrate quality aspect to the conversation as well as a net amount of carb. So and that kind of gets obfuscated, right? Where people
Just look at it. Oh, it has a carb. So, therefore, it must be bad. But they're not thinking about, like you said, the whole food arrived at the fruits, the tubers that have fiber and satiating elements to them that refined sugar doesn't. Yes, yeah. All these conversations nuance and context like really in critical thinking needs to be applied and we grabbed what stands out to us and sort of forget all that, you know, that's a sound. It's not going to get through in these ten seconds. Sound bites, even in one minute, sound bites.
So it's like it's not going to get through. Yeah, yeah. Okay let's finish off. You quit alcohol for years ago. I don't think we're recording and to me I think that we're seeing a lot more people that are getting off alcohol and finding like clear thinking and one of the things that struck me and I think it's important to make sure that we talk about this. Is that instead of masking life's challenges, we all have problems in ever. Go away. They just change you now deal with them, you know? How has that experience been for you?
It's been not easy but it's been extremely beneficial. So prior to me quitting drinking. I was like 5 years straight of rarely a day would go by where I wouldn't polish off like a full bottle of wine for five years straight. You know my liver must have been, like, where's Herb Dean, you know. So I'm blaming you know, my drinking on her Dean but such a inside MMA joke, like some people will be laughing right now.
People who like when I think I've heard that name. I got a Google. Is who the hell is Herb? Dean Herb, Dean Fault. By the way, guys. So so what quitting alcohol taught me to do was properly cope with the stresses of Life? The psychological stresses of Life, anxiety. Just, you know, the feelings of uncertainty times of Crisis, there's a really cool saying that,
Buddy knows who said it but it goes like this. When you stop drinking, you start thinking and there that hasn't been any more true, you know, than what I've experienced over the last four years. So typically it's been if I'm feeling anxious, if I've taken on too many work projects, if I'm about to, you know, do this or that appearance or whatever.
Put the Band-Aid on. It works as a great anxiety Band-Aid, but it really, it really impaired. My ability to think through things and strategize my way through overcoming life challenges and that is a super important thing to be able to do but drinking just kind of prevented me from developing that that side and alcohol. As you know, it's
Promoted, so, heavily through the media, it's heavily glamorized anybody who's a James Bond fan, like, like, I mean who's cooler than James Bond? You know, he, you know, he's so freaking cool, but he's got a drinking problem. 20. That's pretty cool. So, but yeah, just seeing the destructive potential of drinking in the hands of people with addictive personalities like myself. I like to do the same thing over and over every day.
If I like it, I'll eat it everyday. If I, you know, just very routine oriented which can be a double-edged sword, it can be great for fitness and health but it can also be bad for substances of abuse. And so with drinking, you know, there's a blackout point and that blackout Point stays put where it's at, but the dose required to get the same kind of buzz keeps escalating. And so it got to a point where
The dose required for me to get that. Same buzz from alcohol, start getting closer and closer and then right up at the blackout point every time.
Disaster. So yeah, I have not drank since August 25th of 2018 and you know, by the grace of God, I've been able to be 100% abstinent and I Don't Preach that because I'm not normal. You know, normal people are like my wife who can take it take or leave a glass of wine or two, doesn't matter a damn thing to her. She'll you know people who can drink in moderation and not care about it with me. It was like what's the point of drinking listed?
Get tanked up. There's also nothing. Yeah. And so with some people taking them a moderate approach cutting back is appropriate with others like myself.
Cold turkey, cold turkey, man. Yeah, but it's been great for training. It's been great for my personal development. It's been great for my personal and professional relationships. So I would highly recommend it for anybody who's thinking about it or afraid that they're going to be an awkward social situations where they got to turn down drinks and stuff. Are they think that their ability to be fun and happy is going to be compromised, not the case. And that's, that's a common thing that's common fear with people and they find out that that's
The
case I usually have more fun when I don't drink, you know, I mean, yeah, there's times when it's great to be whatever, but you're thinking is more clear. You're able to carry on a conversation and hear people better and not constantly be concerned about, oh, I need to refill this drink or I'm not a wine, you know, it's like you're more engaged with people. So, it's interesting and I weave that into this conversation because I feel like some people self medicate with food, you know, you see throughout covid. I was just everyone is seemingly so cared about the scared and care so much about their health. You have to
drive-through lines were just insane. Do you think a lot of people are self medicating dealing with those same emotions that you might wear? I might deal with try to self-medicate with alcohol. Maybe for them. It's the Big Mac in the french fries. The Russia, they get from that, or something. Have you. What do you think? Oh, yes. Absolutely, similar reward. Pathways highly different magnitudes of effect, and withdrawal and dependency. But similar reward Pathways and similar
Socio-cultural patterning, so, people use food for entertainment, they eat food ritualistically, they use food to Stave off boredom and then once in a while, they'll use, they'll eat food because they're hungry. So yeah, that that is a similar parallel there. And do you think people are dealing with that? When like, I guess the question is like, it's
Thing to fix your diet, right? But this whole psychology aspect of it, you know, with that. Where do you is there? Anyone talking about blending? The two, I mean, you know, I don't know. Is that, is that an important? Do you think that's an important piece to missing from for fat loss for some people? That's a great question man because I'm a part of me.
Knows that that food and including beverage to have the highest possible quality of life. You don't just eat food to fuel vital processes. You eat it to enjoy and there are many, there's evidence across the world's longest living populations. You know, the majority of them are moderate Drinkers and the majority of the five Blues, I like three of the five blue zones are
Alcohol Drinkers and, you know, observational you can't really deny the evidence that it's not necessarily the threat that we might imagine it to be. But when the other components are not in place, like the physical activity components, the strong family, and social ties components the, the good stretch Stress Management components and certainly maintaining a healthy body composition through physical activity in. And so,
Earth and a good rest of the diet when that's not in play, and you have the perfect storm of a pandemic of financial stress of relationship, stress of just physical and metaphysical stress, all over the place, then food can become just like that net medication, like the bottle. Yeah, sure. It's interesting food and drink together, totally, for sure. And there's a bit of a fair bit of research, showing a Synergy between
Thinking and appetite. So after a certain point of like moderate drinking, tend to spike appetite, it takes a whole lot of drinking to be able to displace the the appetite Spike, the food appetites by, but then when you're coming down after the massive drinking, then it's 2 a.m. and you're at you know you're reaching for the hot wings and the pizza you've been there. Yeah so absolutely yes yeah that's interesting stuff. Alan really enjoyed this conversation.
In talking with you, your book flexible dieting is available. Pretty much anywhere where books are sold. Target Walmart, you name it and it's awesome. It's there. And if folks want to connect with you, what's the best way to your website or Instagram? Where should they check you out? You can go to my website, Alan Aragon.com, that's where all my stuff is main things. I do as a monthly research review, which I've been doing since 2008 till the first one in the fitness space. Now, everyone is doing it but at least they're doing it. Good. And at least that impacted the industry in a positive way that way.
So and that my book flexible dieting available at all major outlets and you can go to hell and Aragon.com for that. And my biggest audience is actually on Instagram and so my Instagram handle is the Alan Aragon. Not because I'm an arrogant SOB all the time but somebody took Alan Aragon. So yeah, that's awesome. Appreciate you coming on. This is great, dude. I'm so stoked to have finally met you after having
No new online for like what six seven years and we met through, you know, of minor bickering match. But then we kind of came to some common ground. It was just really cool to finally meet you man. Okay, I agree as well. Alright guys, thanks so much for tuning in and if you enjoyed that content, please hit the like button in the description below will be a link to Allen's book and we'll catch you on a future episode down the road.
