Jay Feldman  0:00  
The idea that you just need to be burning more and more fat and releasing more and more fat in order to lose body fat is an entirely inaccurate premise.

Mike Fave  0:06  
Because it's not that some of these things don't provide results. Zenpick will give you result. Carnivore give you result. Intermittent fasting will give you result. It's that the impacts of these things long term are not great.

Jay Feldman  0:16  
A lot of times the stress symptoms really start to come through, so we start to see anxiety, we start to see trouble sleeping, start to see fatigue, worse recovery, brain fog, sometimes low libido, sometimes hair loss, low body temperature, and sometimes, well, really often slow motility, constipation.

Mike Fave  0:34  
The baseline elevated level of insulin is not because people are consuming carbs. That's not what's driving the high hyperinsulinemia and metabolic dysfunction. And even the fasting experts, the people who were the like much larger proponents of fasting, much larger platforms earlier to the game than her, Thomas Delauer, Peter Attia, Rhonda Patrick, have all walked back to some extent their fasting recommendations in different capacities as well.

Theresa Piela  1:02  
Welcome to the Bioenergetic View. I'm your host Teresa Piella, joined as always by Jay Feldman and Mike Fave. Today we'll be talking about whether it's true that you need to clear your body of glucose before it can lose fat, whether more fat burning is the solution for fat loss, whether intermittent fasting is the best way to lose body fat, and if we have time, closing out the show with some Q and A's and a success story. Let's get started with the fiber teacher. I hadn't heard of her until Jay. You brought this clip to our attention, and I think she's a self-proclaimed Science educator, and might be spreading some misinformation, but we'll get into that. And let's let's kick this off. Have you ever wondered why someone who clearly has excess stored energy as fat can still feel tired and hungry all the time? I mean,

Speaker 1  2:00  
even a lean person can have hundreds of 1000s of calories worth of stored fat. So imagine someone with more. Where is all that energy going, and why can't your body access it? I'm a human biology teacher on a quest to teach you what's going on inside your flesh suit. So let's jump in. These represent your body's three favorite energy sources: glucose, glycogen, and fat. Glucose is your fastest fuel. It's sugar that floats around in your blood. Glycogen is like chains of sugar that's stored in your muscles and in your liver. And fat is the slowest, hardest fuel to access. Your body's really going to resist using this one. Your body always uses the energy in this order: glucose first, then glycogen, then fat. Your body will never burn this if this is still in your blood. After a meal, pretty much regardless of what you've eaten, blood sugar goes up. So insulin unlocks the door to your cells to let sugar in. Once all the glucose is gone and used by your cells, then your body can tap into the glycogen that's stored in your muscles and in your liver. Your body turns that glycogen back into sugar, and once again, insulin helps put it back into your cells. Only after all of that glycogen is gone from your muscles and your liver can you finally use your stored fat.

Theresa Piela  3:08  
Okay, Jay, is she saying anything correct here?

Jay Feldman  3:15  
Um, I mean a little bit, which is that I mean, at least in that, you're not going to start pulling from your liver glycogen until you've run out of carbs that are immediately available to use. So when you eat carbohydrates, or well, just in general, your body's going to be using the fuel that's in the blood first, like the glucose that's in the blood first, and then when you eat carbs, that's going to be making its way into the blood, and that'll be taken up by the tissues and used for fuel, and during that time, you're not going to be using the fuel that's stored in the liver glycogen. That's actually a time when you're going to be storing those carbohydrates as glycogen in the liver and using them as fuel in the liver and using them as fuel in the brain and the muscles and everywhere else. So that that part is true as far as like the blood glucose. The immediately available glucose will be used before the glycogen, and then if that runs out, then you'll start to release glycogen from the liver to maintain adequate blood sugar. So that's the part that's accurate, but then there's a huge part that's inaccurate, which is that the idea that your body can't use fat until all of the other glucose is depleted, which I mean, I understand the value of trying to oversimplify something so that it's understandable, and I think that's what she's trying to do, right? And she mentions like she's a high school biology teacher, and so I understand like trying to simplify these concepts, and sometimes when you simplify, there's going to be errors or mistakes or things that don't exactly translate, but this is a step beyond that. Like this is saying things that are really blatantly incorrect to the point where it is like misinforming people and totally deranging people's perspectives as far as fat loss goes and fat burn. And so I do think it's really problematic. But so just to be clear, you don't need to burn through or deplete all of your glucose and glycogen stores to be using fat. In fact, your body is always using some combination of fat and carbohydrates. Even if you're constantly eating carbs, even if you're just eating jelly beans 24/7, you're still going to be using some amount of fat in your body, but especially if you're not doing that, like if you're eating any sort of mixed meal that has carbs and fats, or if you're just in between meals for several hours, you're going to be using a combination of carbohydrates and fats. Even if your glycogen stores are full, even if you're taking in carbs, even if you have adequate blood sugar, you're still going to be using fat. And generally, the proportion that we're using is dependent on a couple of things. One is the proportion of fuels coming in. So if you're taking in 50% fat, 50% carbs, you're generally going to be using about 50% fat and 50% carbs. Again, regardless of glycogen stores. And then the other side is the demands. So this is all pretty well established, you know, based on exercise, whether you're walking or sprinting, like on kind of two ends of the spectrum. On the sprinting side, you're using a lot of carbohydrates through anaerobic metabolism. You're converting the glucose to lactate, and that's very heavily carb dependent. On the flip side, when you're walking, you're using much greater proportion of fat as a fuel. But it's always a combination of both, whether you're walking or running or doing something in between. As long as it's not like fully anaerobic sprinting, you're generally the muscles are using a combination of fat and glucose, and it's like a sliding scale based on the intensity.

Typically, so the entire premise here, I think, is, I mean, is clearly totally off base, and I also don't think is productive when it comes to helping people lose body fat, and we'll talk about you know she talks about well what's the solution if this is the problem like what's the solution for it but yeah I think we're we're really steering people in the wrong direction I do think that the starting premise which isn't really something she addresses but the kind of initial premise of somebody who's overweight has a lot of stored fuel, which is like stored potential energy. Why are they not using it? Especially if there's also fatigue associated with it. And I think it's a really important question. And there's research papers that dig into this, and ones that I've talked about numerous times because I think the answer is the key. I just don't think it's the answer that she's providing. But it's basically a situation where our body is not using fuel efficiently, so there's a lot of spillover that then gets up ends up being stored as as body fat. And fixing that inefficiency, especially fixing mitochondrial function, of course, is what we focus on. And when you do that, then there's not this extra spillover going to fat, and there's not this excess hunger because that hunger is ATP dependent. So for converting fuel to ATP really efficiently, hunger goes down like it should, and excess fuel isn't there to be stored as as fat. So I think those are some of like the most important or or like biggest things that she mentions in this earlier part, and and then of course we'll build from from there.

Theresa Piela  8:03  
And I think it adds the confusion, right? Because if she is saying some, she's saying certain things that are accurate, and then adding in this confusion, people don't really know what to think, and that's you know it's just adding to the chaos in the health space. So it is nice to maybe honor that sometimes we shouldn't try to oversimplify and keep things clear. Mike, what was your reaction?

Mike Fave  8:30  
I think there's value in using analogies and metaphors. I think that it helps people to understand the processes and have it tied to something tangible to them. So I think her trying to like use the cups and the jars and the the stick of butter and whatnot. I think that stuff is fine. The problem is, is that the if the underlying principles behind the analogy are fundamentally incorrect, then you create you're painting a picture in somebody's mind that's not really what happens, and then you can then you start to get to a solution that maybe doesn't actually explain why that solution works, or is that the correct solution? So I think the the problem for me here is her underlying principles are off, and there's a couple things that she specifically mentions that your body always uses glucose, then glycogen, then fat, which that's that's not true. Then she says your body will never burn fat if glucose is still in your blood. Also completely false. Then glycogen has to be fully depleted to access stored fat. Again, these are false. If these underlying premises of her analogy are incorrect, then the idea that she's going to promote here in a second to lose weight, and and why she promotes it is also incorrect. So this is the this is the issue for me is that the I don't have the analogy is great. You know, she took a lot of time to probably make this video, and because you see all the cuts, and then like making sure that everything's timed appropriately, which is great. But the actual underlying principles are incorrect. So if she you're gonna make an analogy, you want to make sure that. It's not going to be perfect, right? No analogy is necessarily perfect. That's not the point. But you're trying to get the general picture and gross principles across. But if your gross principles are fundamentally incorrect, then then the analogy is not helpful and potentially harmful because now somebody walks away with a vision of something not necessarily how it works, and then the extensions from that could be problematic in terms of what you do. So for me, you know, I this is that's like the the fundamental issue here is this. She has she's making points that that aren't aren't really how things work physiologically.

Theresa Piela  10:34  
Amazing visuals, not great information.

Jay Feldman  10:38  
And the unfortunate part was that too. I mean, this video is like went pretty viral. Like it has over 100,000 likes on the video. I'm sure there's I don't know over a million views. I would I would guess. I don't know if there's a way to see that, but I mean the the simplified messaging obviously gets like like people like it and appreciate it. And then for it to be so wrong. And again, I'm all for simplifying, but some of the things that she says, I could never say that, knowing it's not true. Like, not even what we're talking about with you know being able to use fat at the same time as glucose. Like, I think that something that she might just literally not know. Like, she might just not understand how that works. But she says, you know, that blood glucose needs to be fully depleted for you to use fat, and I don't think she actually believes that because if your blood glucose was zero, you'd be dead. Like that's there's no like arguing that. Like that's very obvious, and so I don't giving her the benefit of the doubt. I would assume she knows that, and she's just talking about like the blood glucose above your basal amount when that comes down. Like that's when you can start to dip into the these other fuels. So I get you know I'm fine with giving a little bit of latitude there. That's not something I would be still comfortable saying myself, but I'm understanding like I can understand that. Same with you know there was another again just a relatively small detail. You know she talked about going through all of the glycogen in the liver and muscle that that's going to be going into the blood and then being used, but that doesn't actually happen with muscle glycogen. So, of the 500 ish grams of glycogen that you store, 100 grams are in the liver, and that can be used by the entire body. It goes out from the liver into the bloodstream. The muscle glycogen doesn't; it stays in the muscles and is just used by the muscles. That does become a little bit important. Like if you're actually getting into the details here, again, I think we can give her a little latitude with those kinds of things. But when it comes to saying like you're not going to be burning any amount of fat until you're depleting your glycogen and glucose, like that's pretty egregious.

Theresa Piela  12:34  
And she she edits it in the caption. Actually, she says your body can pull from multiple fuel sources at once, but high constant insulin makes it harder to tap into fat stores. So I maybe she walked back a little bit. Yeah, I didn't see the caption until this morning, so I don't know when she added that. But she doesn't say that in the video. So,

Mike Fave  12:55  
but even then, that's still fundamentally incorrect in the caption. Yep.

Jay Feldman  13:00  
Yeah, that is. You could still lose

Mike Fave  13:02  
weight if you're in. If you're, you have to define what's high insulin. But in general, even if your insulin is higher than optimal, which I've seen this with hundreds of clients. Right, I have a client come in, insulin's 15, insulin's 12, insulin's 20. They'll still lose weight even with carbohydrates present in the diet, irrespective of like, irrespective of that, they will still lose weight, and insulin values will progressively come down as the weight is lost, as as body composition shifts, as dietary adjustments are made. So, like even that correction in the caption is still fundamentally incorrect. In conjunction with what she's saying in the video, so that that's the underlying problem is that you have a simplified analogy, and then you have a bunch of premises that you're putting into that analogy, and then the fun the premises are incorrect. Then the whole analogy just you know again it's like it's like making a a story. It's just it it's a nice story. It's very simplified. It kind of has things line up. Like if first it's this, then it's that, then it's this, as if it's linear, and then but that's not really how things work. And then the the insulin piece as well, again because it the this is set up for oh the solution here. What's the solution? What are we? How do you solve this then? And you know that's her setup for it. Which when we get to that solution, we'll also talk about it. Like you don't need to use that strategy to to lose weight if that's the ultimate goal.

Jay Feldman  14:25  
Well, and just to piggyback on that, like not just can you? It's not only can you lose body fat while having high insulin, but also in that state of insulin resistance and type two diabetes, where there is elevated insulin, that's often a state where you have far elevated lipolysis. You have more fat coming out of the fat stores, and you tend to be relying a lot on fatty acid oxidation, not necessarily efficiently, but it is going on considerably. That's not a state where you're not fat burning. It's not a state where you're not pulling fat from the fat stores. It's actually the opposite. So I'm glad that you brought that up, Teresa. Maybe after we go through the clips, we can go through her caption. Afterward,

Theresa Piela  15:01  
okay.

Jay Feldman  15:02  
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Theresa Piela  15:45  
Yeah, let's let's see what she says next. And I like her actually. I thought her her display was so creative. So I don't I don't want to totally knock her down because I I think it takes a lot to put yourself out there and and try to teach. But yeah, hopefully we can do a little bit better. The

Speaker 1  16:03  
problem occurs when you're constantly snacking or eating small meals throughout the day. This keeps your blood sugar high. And newsflash: sugar isn't the only carb that will give your blood sugar a spike. But that's for another video. When your blood and your working cells have all the sugar that they can hold, then your body starts dumping that sugar as glycogen into your muscles and into your liver, and that makes it so that your body never gets past this glycogen and sugar. Fat continues to sit, you're stuck in storage mode, and your blood sugar is probably on a roller coaster while your fat continues to sit and store. The best fix that I found is to intermittent fast to use that glycogen gradually, which, by the way, is where those fasted blood sugar spikes come from. If you're wearing a CGM and working out while fasted.

Theresa Piela  16:46  
Okay, so she's taking it a little too far now. I still like her, but she's taking it a little too far. Mike, where is she really going sideways?

Mike Fave  16:58  
I mean, she's just doubling down on the same premise, right? Essentially, that you need to deplete glycogen and blood glucose in order to access fat, which is not again fundamentally incorrect. You can have fatty acid oxidation going on, free fatty acids building in the bloodstream while you have glucose moving in the bloodstream. You also be oxidizing both those fuels at the same time, just in different tissues, different cells, and then on top of that, you don't need to fully deplete your muscle glycogen to lose body fat. As Jay said, the glycogen present in muscle, the carbs stored in your muscle tissue, are reserved for muscle use during certain types of activities. And then you have liver glycogen, which the liver glycogen itself will. You don't even have to fully deplete liver glycogen to see fat loss as well, so these are just it's it it's nice to have this you know it fits nicely in this perspective like oh once I minimize the carbohydrate and I deplete liver glycogen that's when fat loss starts to come off and so it's like it's this nice if then perspective very easy to understand but it's just not true. It's just not how things actually work. That that's the biggest problem here. And I, the other thing is, this is not nothing personal to her. Her video is creative. It's great. Like I don't. Her personality seems awesome. There's nothing about that. It's specifically about the message and the information being incorrect. So if she had done the same exact video, the same bowls, the same whatever, and the she adjusted how she delivered the analogy so that it was more aligned to what actually goes on, no problem. Like we wouldn't even make a video. There's no point. There's nothing to say. But the the problem is is that it's these statements that you need. You know, you have to deplete. You have to use fasting to deplete your liver glycogen and your your blood sugar, so that you could then tap into your fat stores. Which again, even that that's not what happens when you fast. Depending on how long you fast, that will be the important factor here. You may not really fully deplete your liver glycogen. You and then if you are consuming carbohydrates during your eating window, you're just never going to be a point where you fully deplete your liver glycogen, even in this context. And also, you're definitively, which Jay mentioned before, is the assumption here is that she's not talking about fully lowering blood glucose. But you will never fully lower blood glucose unless you are dead, or you go into a coma, something, something, something along here. Essentially, that's not going to happen. So you're never going to deplete those two stores to a large extent, unless you're like really fasting for extended periods of time with exercise, whatever else. Maybe at that point you can exhaust liver glycogen, but I doubt that. That's what I doubt that you're really going to see that in most of these circumstances. So then, in this premise, like you can never actually access fat if if you take those perspectives. But the thing is, unluckily, that's not how things actually work. You will be able to access fat even with liver glycogen present, even when you have blood glucose circulating, even if your muscles are completely full with glycogen. You will still oxidize fatty acids. It'll change based on your total. Energy intake across the day. Even if you had 100% carbohydrate diet, and you're constantly jumping carbohydrates in, if your total energy intake is lower than than what you need, you will still be oxidizing fatty acids, and you will still be losing body fat, irrespective of whether the whole diet was the diet was 100% carbohydrates. And then the activity level, as Jay mentioned, will change it too. If you are completely replete on liver glycogen and muscle glycogen, but you went for like say you go for a walk for an extended period of time, or you engage in certain types of exercise, like a zone two cardio, you will still oxidize fatty acids. You'll still push on fatty acids. So the the premise is just again like the how many times I say the premise is off here. I think that's the fundamental issue.

And the other thing I want to say is I've seen clients it have carbohydrates in their diet not run fast. In fact, all the clients I've worked with incorporate carbohydrates and are not fasting. And I've seen people lose significant amounts of weight, even type two diabetics. I've had a client lose up to 100 pounds as a type two diabetic, insulin dependent, while eating carbohydrates and not fasting, and like four meals across the day, not like just three meals, like or or two meals, like four full meals across the day set up appropriately. Still see body fat come down despite the insulin resistance state. So I think this is, you know, you don't have to fast, you don't have to eliminate carbohydrates. This very creative video, but the premise is fundamentally incorrect, and therefore the the number one solution that she positions is not the one that is necessarily needed to get the outcome.

Theresa Piela  21:37  
And it makes it seem like in if people are desperate to lose fat, they have to go to these extremes of torturing their bodies. Like I can't imagine the stress this would put on people when they enter such a stress state of being underfed, overexercising with the hope of getting into that fat burning state, torturing themselves unnecessarily, and thinking of the psychological harm, and then likely the fat gain from the rise in stress hormones. So it's actually setting people up for the opposite of success. So that was kind of my take. Even when she was talking about the danger to eating small meals, some people, if they're really metabolically compromised, they need those smaller meals to get back to a better baseline, and you know, shaming someone for temporarily needing to eat more frequently, or making it seem like they're doing harm to their body when actually that could be the best thing they're doing for their body. Any thoughts to add, Jay?

Jay Feldman  22:39  
No, I agree with both of you guys, and I mean, even just on the surface, the idea that in order to lose fat, you have to be eating less often and you have to be doing intermittent fasting. I mean, have have all people who have lost body fat been intermittent fasting or only eaten like two meals a day? Like, obviously not. It's it's just ridiculous to act as though that is. This is the clear problem, and so this is the obvious solution. Like if that's, we know that that's not the case. We know you can lose body fat without intermittent fasting. So this must not actually be the problem that she's making it out to be.

Mike Fave  23:14  
And also, even if you lost body fat with intermittent fasting, it doesn't then mean that this model is correct. Of course,

Jay Feldman  23:19  
yeah, of course, and you know, just touching on what you were saying, Mike. You know, she's saying, well, you have to go, you have to go longer without eating, so that then all of the glucose gets depleted, all of the glycogen gets depleted, then you can dip into the fat. And you were saying, Mike, well, liver glycogen doesn't get depleted fully that quickly, and it doesn't. There was a study I was looking at, and after a 15-hour fast, it depleted about 37%. So, and you know, if you're fasting for multiple days, then that's when it can get much more depleted. But to act as though that's the only way to lose body fat is obviously ridiculous. And again, we're getting at this idea. Like, I think speaking of the entire premise, not only is the premise wrong that you need to clear through all of your glucose to get to the fat, but also the idea that you just need to be burning more and more fat and releasing more and more fat in order to lose body fat is an entirely inaccurate premise. And we see this very clearly. Like there's a lot of research. Obviously, we see it with our clients as well, where it's not like you need to avoid carbohydrates to lose body fat, whether someone's insulin resistant or not, you can absolutely lose body fat while including carbohydrates in your diet. But we see this very clearly in studies where they'll compare a high carb diet versus a low carb diet, and they'll normally weight loss is very similar between the two. Sometimes there's an edge to one or the other, but there are, for example, studies where on the high carb diet there's much lower fat metabolism, like much lower fat oxidation, much less fat release from the fat stores, and yet they lose more body fat, and that's because it's not just about what's leaving the fat stores; it's about what's coming in. And when you're using carbohydrates, your glycogen stores are your. Immediate store of fuel, and that's where you're dipping in and out of. When it comes to consuming a higher fat, lower carb diet, you're using your fat stores as that kind of short term depot as well for your your fuel. So yes, you're pulling more from the fat stores when you're not eating because you're generally shifting toward more fat metabolism. But then when you do eat, you replete the fat stores in the same way that when you eat carbohydrates, you replete the glycogen stores that get depleted. So it's just the entire premise that we need to keep burning and more and more fat and releasing more and more fat is not at all the case. And there's really interesting studies on this where you can see, like artificially increasing lipolysis doesn't lead to increased fat loss, like they see this in rodent models and things like that. We know also, even without doing anything, like without you know doing any activity, without fasting, without being on a low carb, high fat diet, without taking a increasing like fat burning supplement, there's a good amount of fat that gets released from the fat stores just at rest. Basically, in some of the studies, they show that for an average 150-pound person, there's about one-third of a pound of body fat that gets released just just from like baseline lipolysis. And again, a good portion of that is going to get restored, depending on what all is going on, depending on the signals that are driving fat storage versus the signals that are increasing the utilization of fuel, and again, I think that's the biggest underlying problem here is not just the the clear inaccuracies when it comes to you have to burn through all of your carbs to get to your fat. So carbs are bad, and and you know going longer between eating is the way to go, and if you're eating frequently, you can't lose body fat. Like that's all, I think, definitely off base. But on top of that, the idea that you need to do everything you can to increase fat burning and and fat release to lose body fat is not at all the case.

And again, it shifts the focus away from where we should actually be focusing, which is all of the things that improve our utilization of the fuel that's coming in, so that it's not stored as fat. Everything that affects our mitochondrial functions to our macronutrient composition to our sleep and our stress and our movement and exposure to various environmental stressors, gut health, like so many things like that. And that's the like those are what we want to be focusing on when it comes to fat loss. Obviously, that's that sort of nuance and intricacy doesn't translate as well to this sort of analogy, which again I think is part of the problem with this kind of oversimplification. I think it's obviously you can do it in a in a very careful way, but at the very least, that's not being done here.

Theresa Piela  27:43  
Let's see what the solution is from her perspective, Mike. Unless you want to jump in and add anything.

Mike Fave  27:50  
No, no, we can go to the solution.

Theresa Piela  27:51  
Okay.

Speaker 1  27:52  
And once all that glycogen's gone from your muscles to your liver, then you can start working on the sugar that's in your blood. Day by day, bit by bit, you'll be able to use up all the sugar. And once this happens, then you can finally tap into this stuff. Which is why it can feel like you're working out for weeks and not see any difference in your fat. Your body's still purging all the sugar and glycogen that you have stored up, and continuing to use any of the sugar that you're continuing to put into your body. Well, that's it. Stop feeding your glucose all day. Let your body move through this energy hierarchy and give your fat a chance to be burned. So let me know in the comments if you learned something today, and if you're interested in getting out of glucose burning mode, make sure you hit that follow button.

Theresa Piela  28:28  
Okay. So she also adds into the caption intermittent fasting, fiber, fats, and protein. That's the solution, keeping sugar, carbs down. Mike, what do you wanna? What do you wanna add here? I

Mike Fave  28:43  
mean, people can lose weight doing that, but it's not necessarily because there's something magical about cutting carbs or intermittent fasting. They're going into a total energy deficit, and the research is pretty clear. Whether you intermittent fast, just do regular calorie restriction; whether you're low carb, whether you're low fat, all of those circumstances lead to to fat loss, lead to weight loss. So this is like this being the primary solution. Will it work for people? Sure. Is how she's describing it works correct? No. So it's you know the takeaway here is just for me when I look at this; it's like nice analogy, but I don't really see the physiology lining up across the board in multiple places. I also don't think the strategy that she recommends is is required. Will it work for people to lose weight? Yes. Are there other ways for people to lose weight? Yes. Is this way the best way to lose weight? And all things considered, when you're looking at hormonal profile, when you're looking at the impact of stress, when you're looking at fuel utilization inside the mitochondria. No, this is not the best way to do it. It's better to keep carbohydrates on board on a consistent basis for weight loss in general. It's better to have adequate protein, of course, which she does mention, to maintain lean muscle tissue. So. All of these things, these things are going to be important, and for me at least, I would say the most important thing for people to to lose body fat is obviously making sure that metabolic function is working well, but then also looking at their total total energy intake. Those are going to be the major drivers of body fat loss. So, you know, when you look through the mechanisms and you look at the different pathways, and you look at all the different strategies that get marketed. Like this is a marketing, marketing intermittent fasting, whatever. At the end of the day, those things, like whichever strategy you choose, can lead to fat loss. But some of them are going to come with some some pros and and and some cons. The cons here: going very low carb and intermittent fasting talked about these at length, but impacts on thyroid function, impacts on stress hormones, impacts on gut microbiome, depending on how the diet set up. Now she recommends fiber here. I don't know exactly what that looks like. Impacts on antioxidant status. So you're going to lose weight at the cost of these other things. The goal is to lose body fat. If if that is your goal the goal will be to lose body fat while maintaining your lean muscle tissue, minimizing damage to the hormonal processes, and making sure that when you come out on the other side, that metabolic function is actually significantly improved in your ability to take your fuel sources, whether carbs or fats, and convert them effectively into ATP. Make sure gut is functioning well, not so much endotoxin exposure, micronutrients are topped off, and the hormonal systems are working effectively. That's the ultimate goal. If it's just fat loss in general, then yeah, all the the strategies will work. You just may pay for it on the other end with some of these other strategies, whether it was intermittent fasting or extended fasting, or whether it's Ozempic or whether it's low carb, etc.

Theresa Piela  31:39  
Well, and it might work at first, right? And maybe actually they'll they'll lose a lot of lean tissue and then end up putting the weight back on. Like I think a lot of people experience that they feel awesome on low carb or keto or carnivore at first, and then there's that rebound effect when the stress starts to accumulate and then work against someone. So yeah, it's another another reason not to just go for the quick simplified fix when we need to be looking at the system.

Mike Fave  32:06  
Exactly, the goal is overall health, right? So you want there's esthetics are important, right? There's a lot of people have an esthetic goal. I think that's completely fine, but at the same time, something you brought up, Teresa, is maintenance. So being able to actually achieve the goal that you're shooting for, and then maintain it over the long term. And then in this context as well is also being healthy, having overall health when you do this, improving your health throughout the process. So I think all of those things should go together. And there's a way to do things the right way to achieve that. And then there's ways to just get an outcome in potentially not the greatest greatest fashion, and then deal with side effects in the back end. And a lot of people are shooting are implementing these strategies that provide a result because it's not that some of these things don't provide results. Ozempic will give you result, carnivore give you result, intermittent fasting will give you result. It's that the impacts of these things long term are not great. These the impacts of these things on overall health are not great. They come at a cost, and that's what needs to be understood here. And the problem with messages like this is, you know, creative. She's a nice lady, all great, but the message, the fundamental principles, are incorrect. Which then, if you have this initial premise, this initial story in your mind. Then you say, "Oh, then I have to do this. This has to be the solution based on the story I was just provided." But if the story is a fiction, if the story is incorrect, then the solution that follows from there is also likely to be incorrect, and you're not getting told what the costs and what the concerns are of doing something like this. Or even when some if somebody goes protein fiber no carbohydrate and fasting and then loses you know 10 pounds in the first month it's like oh I lost 10 pounds of water weight you lost water and then as soon as you start to carbohydrates that comes back on you could eventually will lose both body fat potentially lean tissue depending on how that's set up have the hormonal implications, you know, and that's a lot of what we're dealing with as well. We have a lot of clients. I know I have a lot of clients coming out of these different dietary backgrounds. They'll tell me, yeah, the first couple months it was fine. I had the results. I kept extending it. I went deeper in the rabbit hole because the first results I got, you know, I started with low carb. Then it worked up to a point. Then it went to keto. Worked up to a point. Then I started fasting. Worked up to a point. Then I went carnivore, and then now I'm like my hormones are crashed. My energy's crashed. Get regaining the weight, even though I'm eating less than I, you know, I started with. And then it's like now we're picking up all the pieces of yeah. I still want my body composition to be a certain way, but my thyroid hormones crashed. But my guts in a in a mess. But my energy is completely tanked, and it's like now we have to fix all of these things because this initial strategy and this initial premise that we started with wasn't really a good premise. You weren't really told what the side effects were and the long term consequences were, and you know you keep going down the rabbit hole. You keep doubling down on the approach. So video.

Like this are kind of like the gateway into this perspective because you you get this narrative in your mind around oh like I need to make sure my blood sugar and my glycogen is completely low so and I want to lose weight so I just need to keep my carbs as low as possible and I need to you know eat even less and eat less times a day it's like okay that you're gonna it'll work you'll see the scale move, but you will long term, depending on how long you stay with it and how much you deal with it, you will have some. You will likely have some consequences that you'll have to recover from, and that's what for me. A lot of times, what I'm helping people recover from is this type of stuff, this type of messaging, trying to narrow, get the nuance down, get the story right in people's minds, so they understand the solutions to move from there, and also to recover effectively.

Theresa Piela  35:46  
Yeah, Jay, have you noticed when you get clients similarly coming from this background, and maybe they have entered a state of starting to cause harm? Have you noticed any commonalities with with restoring their function and their overall metabolic health.

Jay Feldman  36:02  
Yeah, I mean, what we're talking about is, and I'll I can go back through the like how this is happening a little bit, but we're talking about a deep stress state that lowers that then as a consequence tends to lower thyroid function, tends to lower reproductive hormone production, tends to cause some major compromises in terms of the metabolic state, and so I mean when it comes to recovering, there well as far as symptoms, and you guys have touched on a couple, but a lot of times the stress symptoms really start to come through. So we start to see anxiety, we start to see trouble sleeping, start to see fatigue, worse recovery, brain fog, sometimes low libido, sometimes hair loss, low body temperature, sometimes well, really often slow motility, constipation, and those things start to accumulate. And again, a lot of the benefits that people have earlier on, which I'll come back to because I think it's worth giving them some lip service, but a lot of those benefits start to really become diminished relative to the to the negatives, and of course, in that recovery process, it's digging out of the metabolic hole that we've created, right? And that include that involves getting enough really efficiently used fuel so that our body gets out of this state of of chronic stress and upregulates its metabolic state and metabolic rate, so that you know, in the process of recognizing that actually this is a really good supportive environment that also supports reproduction, it also supports expending a lot of energy toward activity and for brain function and immune function, and yeah, I mean it's a it's a bit of a process, or it can be some sometimes a bit of a process because of the metabolic hole that so many of us dig ourselves in, and of course I'm speaking from experience because all all of us have been there. We've all done the intermittent fasting and various low carb iterations and keto and and all of that, and have also helped a lot of other people recover from those things. But with that, as far as explaining the need for the recovery and also the need, like some of the benefits too. I think it's worth shedding light on those because again, it's not because you're depleting the glycogen and finally getting into the fat stores that now you're losing body fat and you're feeling so good. There are a number of other things that go on with low carb diets and intermittent fasting that are legitimately beneficial. For one, and one of the biggest ones is removing a lot of harmful foods, right? If we're whether it's because we're cutting out carbs, which when you're looking at a lot of the harmful foods, normally it's a combination of carbs and fats. If you lower either of them, you're going to be reducing those foods. So that's one thing. Another one, and that applies for intermittent fasting too, right? If you're feeling better eating less of what you normally eat, it's probably a sign that what you're normally eating isn't helping you. Probably a sign that it's not actually supporting you. Along with that, a huge one is gut health, right? So many people have major issues with gut health, and they're constantly bloated, constantly dealing with with gas, and maybe loose stools or or swinging with constipation, and also having a lot of downstream effects of that: joint pain, brain fog, low energy, autoimmune issues, weight gain, which all are consequences of excess endotoxin from the gut. So both of these strategies, whether we're talking low carb or fasting or intermittent fasting, provide benefit here because they don't feed the currently disrupted microbiome, the currently imbalanced microbiome, and the amount of benefit that that can lead to is is really notable. And and it's worth mentioning because I think if somebody's feeling really good on a low carb diet, and you tell them that oh that's just because you know you're you're eating less now, and so you feel better, or that's just because the you're getting into your fat stores now, and so you're feeling better, or it's because you're finally turning your brain on with ketones, as opposed to actually identifying what's really going on. It, I think, will cause people to be disillusioned to think that what they're doing is actually fixing the problem, as opposed to more so avoiding it.

And the reason why. That's worth touching on is because while there are those potential benefits, there's the inherent negatives, right? The some huge things that are missing from this video is that when you deplete your glucose and glycogen, that causes stress on the body. The like there are certain parts of our body that require glucose, and a lot of parts of our body that like to use glucose if they have it available. And in terms of our environmental, like our relationship with our environment, our bodies are constantly sensing what's available. Are we in an abundant state? Are we in a state of scarcity? Is this a supportive environment? Is this a really harsh environment? You know, is it really cold out? Are we not getting a lot of sleep? Are we needing to exert ourselves excessively? Like those are signs of probably not a very comfortable environment versus do we have abundant food available again in compared to we're fasting for extended periods of time like those are providing opposite signals and the carbohydrates and the glucose and glycogen are integral there because those are highly associated with good supportive environments and so when our bodies are sensing that those are not available it acts as stress, and that's not inherently. It's not bad that we have this stress. It's an important signal that allows us to adapt, but there are consequences to that that involve lowering our thyroid function and reproductive function and immune function and digestion, among other things. Because our body is saying this isn't a really good environment. I'm going to tone down my function so I can survive, and those sorts of things need to be included in this video if we're going to be talking about this as a beneficial thing, because there are real consequences here that people tend to feel over time that tend to accumulate when they've done the intermittent fasting and low carb diets for a while. And so, yeah, our goal is to shift out of that and get the benefits, get the benefits for our gut, get the benefits for body composition. Get the benefits for the autoimmune state, or our blood pressure, or our inflammatory symptoms without the inherent stress that comes with these modalities. And that's totally doable. That's what we help people do all the time. This is not the solution, and the premise here is not pointing people toward a good solution.

Theresa Piela  42:02  
Yeah,

Jay Feldman  42:02  
yeah.

Theresa Piela  42:04  
Key takeaway: it can be a lot easier and less damaging. In fact, restoring.

Jay Feldman  42:11  
Exactly. Yeah. Teresa, do you want to go ahead and read the caption in full? Just yeah, it sounds like maybe there's some revision to what she said in the caption, or maybe some expansion.

Theresa Piela  42:24  
Ever feel like your body is stuck in storage mode, tired, hungry, and holding on to fat no matter what you do? Here's the thing: your body isn't broken. It's following the rules of insulin and energy use. First glucose, then glycogen, and only last fat. If insulin is high all the time, your fat stores stay locked away, even though you're carrying 1000s of calories of energy. And then this is what she added in. And here's a nuance I didn't mention in the video. It's not that every bit of sugar or glycogen has to be gone before fat burning can start. Your body can overlap and pull from multiple fuel sources at once, but high constant insulin makes it way harder to tap into fat stores. This is why eat less, move more doesn't always work, which we agree with. The real fix: lower insulin day by day with intermittent fasting, fiber, healthy fats, protein. When you do that, your body finally shifts out of storage mode and starts burning fat for fuel. And then she wants us to follow her for more hands-on biology lessons. Understand what's happening inside your flesh suit, but maybe don't follow her if you actually really understand. Want to understand what's happening inside your flesh suit? Yeah. So, I mean, she's walking back a little bit, but it's still like both of you were saying she's still ending up somewhere that is not accurate or helpful.

Jay Feldman  43:49  
Yeah, and it's walking back a lot less than I thought. You know, still saying that your body can pull from multiple fuel stores, but high constant insulin makes it harder, and if insulin is high all the time, your fat stores stay locked away. Like these are still not true. She's shifting it into this demonization of insulin. But as we were talking about, yes, mechanistically insulin reduces fat release from the fat stores, but that isn't happening in isolation. And in the states where you see high insulin, you also have competing signals. You tend to see high glucagon, at the very least, if not in other stress hormones, that are the things that drive lipolysis. And lipolysis being, for people aren't aware, the pulling of fat from the fat stores, the fat release from the fat stores, which has increased in the states of high insulin. It's increased in insulin resistance. It's increased in type two diabetes. It's increased in obesity. And you can look at free fatty acid levels in the blood, which are coming from the fat stores, and those are elevated as well. You know, it's not. There's nothing more biologically accurate about what's happening in your flesh shoot in that caption, and it's not. It's still like not helpful. And the solution is really no. Different. It's. I'm surprised to see that there's nothing about lowering carbs in the solution. She's just providing intermittent fasting is the solution for like depleting the glucose instead of reducing carbs. Which reducing carbs would be the the assume like another assumed solution for her here because it does lower insulin and it does lower glucose availability. So I don't know why that's not there.

Theresa Piela  45:22  
Maybe she means no carbs, just fiber, healthy fats, and protein. No carbs, or as little as possible.

Jay Feldman  45:28  
Maybe I don't know.

Theresa Piela  45:29  
That's kind of what I was gleaning from her description or from her video.

Mike Fave  45:34  
The other thing too that strikes me here is that it's well, carbohydrate consumption will acutely raise insulin values. The baseline elevated level of insulin is not because of people are consuming carbs. That's not what's driving the high hyperinsulinemia and metabolic dysfunction. The metabolic dysfunction hyperinsulia is driven by a couple things. One of them being the cells and tissues are not able to effectively respond to insulin and then clear insulin from the blood, so you have a decreased insulin clearance overall from a lack of response. And so, yes, you can get this is where the like this is where the conflation comes in in the low carb camp. Is if you eat carbohydrates, you see a bump in insulin. So the assumption is, well, you know, if you keep eating carbohydrates, the insulin eventually bumps in and stays high. When you actually look in the research, what you wind up finding is that the reason insulin is staying high is because of a lack of the clearance of insulin from the cells and tissues not responding to it effectively. So the problem is fundamentally a metabolic issue at the cells and at the tissues, which you talked about at length, not necessarily just because you have carbohydrates. And then even in these states, as you mentioned, Jay, you have both circulating free fatty acids and you have circulating glucose in the bloodstream in this state. And then even inside the cells, you have usually a preponderance or a shift towards fatty acid oxidation. But both fuels, both carbs and fats, are not being used very well in states with hyperinsulinemia, like metabolic dysfunction, essentially. And then what they part of what they show in the research is that the cells are actually overloaded with fatty acids, specifically certain fatty acid metabolites, the ceramides and diagonalscrewls being the main ones. And those are picked up because they are not effectively oxidizing the the fatty substrate wells. You get more of these. the The fats kind of shunt towards these other pathways and get produced into these other metabolites. So again, this is like a not understanding what's going on in the cells specifically in terms of metabolic dysfunction. Not understanding why insulin is elevated in the first place. Not understanding how the body is partitioning and using fatty acids and glucose in general, and then like what goes on with the different glycogen stores, and then providing a solution that you know it the fasting is going to lower insulin gas because you have to some extent because you have no you have no food coming in no amino acids no glucose etc. You will see insulin come down with that, and people will lose weight because they're in an energy deficit. But none of that is necessarily because of all the mechanisms that she described. So that's the the problem. And in the mechanism, the solutions that she's describing, again, there's no discussion on what is the long term cost of doing that. What is the risk? And you know, how much fasting are you talking about? Is it a 14-hour fast? You know, is it a 16-hour fast? Is it alternate day fasting? Is it a three-day fast every week or whatever? Some of these people recommend stuff like this. All of those will also drastically change. Number one, how much liver glycogen is depleted? How much insulin is lowered? How much weight is lost? And then also, what's the long-term negative ramifications? And even the fasting experts, the people who were the like much larger proponents of fasting, much larger platforms earlier to the game than her, Thomas Delauer, Peter Attia, Rhonda Patrick, have all walked back to some extent their fasting recommendations in different capacities as well because of the same concerns that we're talking about in terms of lean tissue loss, of impact on hormonal profile, etc. So it's you know the the whole thing here is just like I guess like a late take to the game on just you know fast e protein and half fiber, and and then here's all these mechanisms as to why you could do it, but none of them are necessarily correct. And again, it's I understand that this was trying to be a simplified analogy.

So it's it's not that I don't don't want to be that person where somebody gives you an analogy and says, "Oh, this is you know this is like that." It's like, well, specifically, it's like it's not that at all. I'm not saying that the specifics of this aren't incorrect. I'm saying the actual fundamental principles below the analogy that set up the analogy are incorrect. Not the little minor details. The actual key important pieces to understand are incorrect. So that's the yeah for me. Look at this. Like it's great. It's simple. I'm sure that's probably why it did really well because like you know you could follow. She's engaging, but also the messaging is is often, and the solutions are also you know just the typical solutions you hear with incorrect justification as to why you're going to use them. I

Theresa Piela  50:13  
think we've said enough about this, unless Jay, you had some one more thing to say.

Jay Feldman  50:16  
Okay, one done left to say. Okay, only one. Just one. Just one, and it's relatively short. I just wanted to mention that you know I touched on these studies earlier, looking at low carb versus high carb diets, and seeing that even when you have lower fat oxidation, lower fat release, you can still have more fat loss. And the same is true with insulin. And those same studies they show on the high carb, low fat diet, you have kind of throughout the day higher insulin levels, like total amount of insulin release, is higher, and yet they still have more fat loss in those particular studies compared to the low carb, high fat diet with lower insulin, which again just directly contradicts the idea that insulin prevents you from losing body fat. That's the suggestion that we're getting here from the caption. So,

Theresa Piela  50:58  
yeah, and one I will add one thing: the simplicity that tends to be trendy and viral-worthy and clickbaity. We are offering that that can be simple, enjoyable, stress-reducing, and still kind of straightforward. But it's just a totally different lens. So, an

Jay Feldman  51:18  
accurate? You mean? You mean yes?

Theresa Piela  51:20  
An accurate lens that is still simple. If you, yeah, and simple and should feel good in the process, and doesn't have to require so much intensity and rigidity and restriction, which I don't think is going to help anyone, you know, in the long term. Even if it did give them the short term goals they were looking for, that's going to bite you. So, okay, do we have time for the Q and A today, or should we just?

Jay Feldman  51:46  
You know, I'm thinking it's so relevant to what we're talking about here because he's talking specifically about weight loss, trying to understand like kind of some of the things that are being put forth here,

Theresa Piela  51:56  
yeah,

Jay Feldman  51:56  
and also mentioned an experience with fasting and weight loss, and then some of the consequences. So I think it'd be great to read it, and maybe we can give like a quick two, three minute, just like keep it really brief as far as our comments in terms of the answer. But I just think it's a nice complement to what we're talking about.

Theresa Piela  52:14  
I agree. Okay. So Sam emailed, and he said, "Hi Jay, really appreciate your insights and detailed explanations, and I'd love to hear your response to my thoughts and experiences. The brief soundbite version of my question is: I understand how body weight can remain stable on a bioenergetic diet, but how can it be possible to lose weight when a constant supply of quick energy is readily available from glycogen and carbs together with significant dietary fat intake. I lost a significant amount of weight with fasting and by following the principles of carb insulin model of obesity. I never eliminated carbs, but I did generally restrict them and went to great lengths to reduce blood sugar spikes. And I consume lots of mono and saturated fats together with natural whole foods containing PUFAs. But my weight eventually plateaued and then went up slightly. Right now, I think I'm about 15 pounds north of my ideal weight. Additionally, I have significant anxiety and complex PTSD symptoms from past present situations that are unfortunately not within my control. So everything you mention about reducing cortisol and not adding additional stressors to my system via diet hacks does make a lot of sense. I've always had very good energy and digestion, and my sleep is pretty good now by following your principles. On most days, I have very low PUFA intake, and I cook all my own food from scratch with the cleanest ingredients I can obtain. I'm enjoying the additional variety and flexibility that comes from not restricting carbs or worrying excessively about blood sugar spikes, and I'm impressed that my weight isn't spiraling out of Control, but the thing is that I would still like to lose a bit more weight, and yet after about five months, my weight and waist circumference have not budged. I literally could not be more stable if I tried. It makes total sense that a human can maintain a stable, healthy weight by following your principles. But if additional fat, especially visceral fat, has already been deposited, I see no biological reason why the body would ever choose to get rid of that. As long as I, as long as a supply of quick energy is readily available from glycogen and dietary carbs, especially in the presence of significant dietary fat intake too. I've been. I've even tried drastically reducing dietary fat, and while I feel fine, no negative hormonal or other issues. It makes. It makes absolute new difference in my weight. It feels like my body is just running off my daily food intake and glycogen stores. And outside of fasting, again, I don't. See what will ever make it start oxidizing stored fat. So I'm not convinced that the carb insulin model of obesity should be disregarded, or maybe I'm stuck with this moderate amount of stubborn visceral fat due to the excessive cortisol I have to deal with from my unavoidable life stressors. Sorry for the long email, but I would be interested in hearing your insights. Thanks again. Best regards, Sam. Wow. So there's a lot to comment on, Mike. Where do you want to start? I mean, I guess we can go back to the kind of how he broke it down with the significant dietary fat intake. I do think that's an important piece. Do you want to touch on that?

Mike Fave  55:38  
Yeah. So I for when I hear this, this is the I actually hear this very common from people that I work with this this particular perspective, and it's one of the first things that I typically address. So this the first idea is that I lost weight when I was incorporating things from, and people don't always say carb insulin model; they say low carb or mid fasting, whatever the thing is, and a lot of them will develop symptoms with that, right? So sleep could go bad, electrolyte symptoms, so muscle cramping, stuff like this. You could see impacts on mood. You could see impacts on energy. People get thyroid issues. They get concerns around their A 1c creeping up, or fasting glucose creeping up, or their their hormonal profile with with their their free t3 reverse t3 cycle going off all of this type of stuff right so there's they go into low carb they go into keto they under they incorporate this carb insulin model of obesity and they see weight loss but then over time they start to develop these symptoms so then they drift in towards a pro metabolic perspective and then when they come to prometabolic perspective, a lot of things get better. These symptoms get better. Sleep improves, energy improves, hormonal profile recovers, lipids and whatnot start to drop and look and get into much better range. A 1c can shift down, insulin, etc. So things get into much much better spot overall. But then they get stuck with this stubborn weight loss. We're essentially well, depending on how people do it, some people gain weight. Some people can gain quite a bit of weight depending on how they set up their initial pro metabolic diet, or some people just won't lose weight. And there's also a portion of people that come in, add carbs, and the weight just starts to fall off again. So there's three different camps: the stubborn, like there's stuck. Then you have people who gain, and you have people who will actually start to drastically lose weight. And it really depends, and comes down to how things are being structured. So what you pointed out, Teresa's, is Sam says in this line, "How can you possibly lose weight when a constant supply of quick energy is readily available from glycogen and carbs together with significant dietary fat intake, and this is the key piece here. The key piece here is that if you come into this dietary background and you start to add carbohydrates in, but you also still have a significant fat intake, and you start to go into a large energy surplus, you won't lose weight, and/or you will potentially gain weight. It's normal for that to happen if you have an energy surplus, so you have more energy coming in than your body is going to utilize at a particular point in time. You will store it as body fat. That's how things work. Also, a lot of people are coming from backgrounds where their overall metabolic rate has been downregulated. Now, not necessarily that their mitochondrial function has lowered as overall burn, but their daily activity has been dropped. Hormonal profile has been squashed. The non-exercise activity throughout the day has been dropped. All of these things can be impacted by the diet, and then you can also see losses of lean lean tissue. That could be muscle tissue. That could also be liver, kidney, heart tissue as well. All of these things will affect the underlying metabolic rate, and then you start to just throw in more food, and you can start to see body fat gain, or potentially you just won't see more weight loss. So, from my perspective, at least I won't argue for your guys' perspectives, but from my perspective, what has to be done in this context is the energy intake has to be adjust has to be adjusted and looked at. What is the total energy intake? So, what is roughly where your maintenance targets are going to be, and then where do you need to actually lose? What's how much do you need to actually lose, and how are you going to structure things from there? That's the question that needs to be looked at.

And the thing is, people say, "Oh," or at least in Sam's case here, he's saying, "Well, I lost weight in the carb in the carb insulin model of obesity, and it's like yes, you likely lost weight because you went into an energy deficit when this diet was structured, when you initially structured this diet, and then right now you are not in an energy deficit. This is not, for me at least, indication that that model is true just because you saw the result. It's the you the you need to see like what is actually driving the result or not. And right now, it's you have a significant dietary fat intake on top of potentially drastically increasing carb intake where it was before. You need to look at that, look at those values, look at your total energy intake, and then just make adjustments. It's not about the insulin, and it's not necessarily about the carbohydrate. In this context, I again I've had hundreds of clients that I've worked with, type two diabetics. Some of them insulin dependent type two diabetics. Many of them on diabetic medication. Incorporate carbohydrates in, increase their carbohydrates significantly from where they were with low carb carnivore, etc., and lose significant amounts of body fat: 20 pounds, 30 pounds, up to 100 pounds of body fat loss just from adjusting the diet and increasing overall carbohydrate intake. So for me, I look at total energy intake and I make adjustments there, and then I make sure weight is coming down at a reasonable pace, and I'm setting things up to minimize the the stressful impact of this impact on hormones and loss of lean muscle tissue, etc. So for me, I don't think this is again a function of the carb insulin model is correct. I think the more fundamental pieces you incorporated principles from the carb insulin model, which likely led to just a general decrease in total energy intake, that led to weight loss. Then when you came into a pro metabolic approach, you went back up to some degree of maintenance intake or potentially surplus. You either stabilized or gained weight, and if you want to lose weight, you're going to have to adjust that. That would be the my take here, and what would be required to adjust to see the outcome. Not necessarily that you need to drop carbs or that you need to fast. In either one of those circumstances, you would also be likely adjusting your total energy intake, and again, if you look in the research, you see this across research. Whether you do low carb, low fat, which would be higher carb, caloric restriction, or intermittent fasting, any of those diets lead to weight loss. Some of them have side effects that will come with them in either direction. So the goal is setting up a dietary structure, lifestyle structure that allows you to achieve your particular goal while drastically minimizing the impact, the the negative impact that the side effects, the stress of doing that particular thing. And some of these diets are worse than others, as we talked about at length, in driving up the stress, even if they do get the outcome on paper, seeing scale weight come down, etc.

Theresa Piela  1:02:00  
And it seems like they they had the same thought in terms of lowering the dietary fat intake, which makes me think they said it themselves that they have past and present stressors and complex PTSD, which could be driving the metabolic state maybe more than they realize, and maybe there that needs to be more of the focus than the esthetic goal of losing weight. What do you think, Jay?

Jay Feldman  1:02:26  
Potentially, I mean, I think we want to look at all those aspects, right? I mean, diet as much as stress, as much as sleep, as much as the hormonal state. I mean, all of those things are going to impact what we do with the fuel that's coming in, and whether we're going to be more likely to direct it toward fat storage or use it for energy, and that's obviously going to have a direct impact on our body composition. So, yeah, well, I'll circle back to that because I do think that that could be a huge factor here. But just just to touch back on an aspect of the question here, I think there's some conflation going on between this person's individual experience and what they're talking about in terms of the physiology, and so I think we I want to touch a little bit on both of those. First, on the physiological side, the question is basically how like he's having trouble conceptualizing how you can lose weight with carbs and fat available, like with both carbs and fat available, and trying to think of a way to translate that conceptually because there shouldn't be anything about that that makes your body not be able to lose body fat. Like there's nothing inherently about having both carbs and fats available. Like it comes down to there's an amount of fuel coming in, carbs, fats, a mixture of either whatever it is, and then that's being converted to energy. And if there's, and obviously there's some amount coming from the fat stores, and then it's a question of is that total fuel availability, whether it's coming from the diet or from the fat stores, and glycogen and everything, is more of that being used versus is more of that being stored compared to what left the stores, you know, and it it's like it's much easier to to maybe show with some sort of a diagram or something. Understand that verbally can maybe be like it's not necessarily translating, but there's nothing about having both fuels available that makes you not able to lose body fat. I mean, we keep coming back to you know, Mike. You're talking about clients. We talk about research where it shows that because it's the flip side of that is people pointing to some mechanism like, oh, well, insulin stops fat release, so you can't lose fat if there's insulin there. But it's just not true. Like, it's just not the reality. It's like you're looking at the sky and someone's telling you it's green, and it's like, well, it's blue. And I guess I have to point to a study that says that it's blue in order to show that. But it's kind of like where else do you where else do you go? But but yeah, the amount of different fuels coming in has a lot of impacts on our health. It impacts our metabolic state and our hormonal status and our digestion and so many things. Our bile flow, like like it. It has a lot of impacts, but and all of those need to be accounted for. But if you're just trying to conceptualize the fat loss, it's you have this total pool of fuel availability. Some of it coming from the fat stores, some of it coming from your diet. The question is: Is more of that getting used to produce energy to build structure, to repair whatever's going on in your body, or is there more of that that's getting stored than left? And and I don't, yeah, I mean I I don't know of another way to necessarily phrase it, but basically if there's more leaving your body fat stores than is getting restored, then there's going to be fat loss. Now, and I I have done a couple of episodes, kind of going through that in more detail. There's one on hypolysis and fat loss that I mentioned earlier, and then there's also episode 124 of Energy Balance Podcast, where I go through that with like some diagrams and everything that maybe would make that a little bit more understandable. But in terms of the other side, which is his experience, which I think is a very important piece to consider as well. I think there's a number of of possibilities, but all of which are things that are important to answer in order for us to get a solution.

So, if there's not fat being lost now, and let's say there is body fat to be lost, and there was on intermittent fasting at least at first, well, that would tell me a couple of things. Like, there's a couple of clues there. One is when we think about the benefits of intermittent fasting, I do think there's very legitimate benefits for the gut. So that's one thing that I think I would be thinking about. How is our gut health? Is there a possibility of microbial overgrowth? Could we be dealing with excess endotoxin, which is something that interferes with our ability to use the fuel and can cause it to be diverted toward storing fat, and we see elevated endotoxin levels in obesity and type two diabetes. Like this is very well established. So possibility of a gut issue like that could be a factor here. On top of that, obviously the only change wasn't just his eating window, but it sounds like also in shifting toward bioenergetic. I'm sure he's brought in tons of different foods, and with that, there can be foods that we react or respond really well to, some that we don't, and a lot of that can also be mediated by digestion. So an example that we've talked about numerous times is dairy and milk, which I think on one hand is one of the healthiest foods, super nutrient dense, but at the same time, a not a small portion of people, like a decent portion of people, don't digest it well, don't use it well, and get a lot of bloating, gas, intestinal irritation, and inflammation, and also weight gain. And so I've seen people who brought dairy in, and some people are doing great, of course. But I've seen some who were like, "Yeah, my weight either went up or it's kind of stalled." And what do you think it is? And they talk through their diet, and they they talk through their experiences. And you know, I mentioned. I know you're not saying you have any clear gut symptoms, but let's just test the milk. Like, just try taking that out for a little bit, and then they come back two weeks later, and they're like, "Well, actually, I have a lot less bloating now. I didn't realize I had it before, and my weight's going down like relatively consistently. And I didn't change anything else. My calories are the same." And so I think that we need to, you know, we don't know everything going on with this individual, but we need to break those things down to understand what could be contributing to the maintenance of body fat or an increase in body fat. The other piece as well being the cortisol, right? So you're talking about that Teresa in terms of the external stress here, and we know if we take somebody who's eating the exact same diet and we were to just add cortisone or some sort of a glucocorticoid, and we don't change anything else. They're going to gain body fat most of the time. So that tells us the impact of cortisol on these things, independent of the types of foods we're eating, independent of the amount we're eating, independent of whether it's all in the beginning of the day or end of the day or for fasting or whatever it is. And so, if that's the cause, and I'm not saying it is for him, but let's say there's a lot of external stress that's causing chronically high cortisol. My perspective would be: for one, of course, what can we do to manage that? Whether it's not necessarily diet interventions, although it could be, but it could also be supplements, it could also be mindfulness strategies, all of that. And so, can we lower the cortisol that way? And what kind of impact could that have? But then also, if we're climbing an uphill battle, like let's say there's this major external stressor, stressors that are causing a lot of stress, causing a lot of cortisol, and we're not sleeping as well, and we're not able to exercise because all of our time and energy is going toward whatever's going on right now, and then we're like, well, I want to be 10 pounds lighter. It's like, well, the environment that your body is in right now doesn't want that. Like, that's not those two things aren't compatible.

Yes, we could say, well, just keep eating less until you lose the body fat, and you will without a doubt. But what are the consequences there? Like, is are when we're already in the stress state, are we going to be increasing further stress and then be increasing the likelihood of weight gain, and are we depleting ourselves of energy in a situation where that's like our we're requiring more? So those are all factors that I would be thinking about here when it comes to what could be going on with this individual, and we don't have all that information. So I wouldn't say like here are the exact strategies, but. That's the way I'd be thinking about it, and obviously, I know we all have slightly different perspectives here. I wouldn't take the perspective that total calorie intake needs to be lowered. Like that is not my assumption here based on the information we have. That doesn't mean that that never is a strategy. No, but it's not the thing I would be thinking here. It's not my next step from the current information, but maybe it would be like maybe that would be a factor. But there's a lot of things that I would be thinking about first, and sometimes it's even opposite. Sometimes it's like, look, we're in a high stress state, we're really struggling for all these reasons, and we're hungry, and we have signs of like this this low metabolic state. Maybe we need to increase our calories right now. And there's always those those situations where then the scale actually starts to budge, or maybe this weight is maintained, but we're feeling a lot better, and we're able to get through this period, and then get to a point where fat loss can be like we can create an environment that's more conducive to fat loss. So that's the way that I would approach it.

Theresa Piela  1:10:56  
Yeah, I had the exact same thought. I mean, and just hearing that they're stressed, we want to focus on feeling good, and then the side effect of feeling better is normally a body that reflects that esthetically. Let's close out the show with the success story and the win. Christy Anderson, 1330, said, "I gained weight on keto and was on it for years. It was good in the beginning. Then carnivore went way downhill. I gained weight. I never had cellulite until now. Low libido, no energy. I brought sugar, fruit, and vegetable back and feel amazing. Being 51 years old in perimenopause, I blamed that not so. Celebrating Christy Anderson, Jay. Any comments?

Jay Feldman  1:11:42  
No, I mean obviously gaining weight on keto isn't particularly common, but a lot of people do have all sorts of negative experiences, and sometimes the gaining weight comes on later. But you know, it's like loss first and then gain. But glad to hear that she's doing better. Now, I wanted to comment also on the, you know, this kind of like blaming, assuming that the issue was perimenopause. You know, she said she blamed that, and I think that's such a common experience. I know all of us work with women in perimenopause and postmenopause, and there's so much like this huge narrative now where it's like women are so different physiologically, and especially once perimenopause hits, everything's different. And obviously, there are physiological differences, and you know we do want to acknowledge what those are, but so much of what gets blamed on that is really just underlying metabolic issues. And so I'm glad to hear that Christy is, you know, feeling amazing now and and realizing or or having the experience that it wasn't the perimenopause holding her back, and she wasn't just stuck in this place that she was because of it.

Theresa Piela  1:12:44  
Yeah, Mike. Any comments?

Mike Fave  1:12:48  
Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me. Well, first of all, congratulations to Christy. I'm glad that she's doing much better overall. That's great. I I think I hear this pretty frequently. People saying, "Oh, you know, it just because I'm getting older. It's just because of perimenopause, and I, well, while it's true that as you get older, you can see impacts on your health, on your energy, on body comp, etc. It's not a destiny, and it really it and it can be more difficult as you get older. But at the same time, you can gain muscle as you get older. You can lose body fat as you get older. You can improve your hormonal profile. I have guys ask me all the time, like, you know, in my 50s, can my testosterone really increase? It's like, yes. I've had clients who are in their 70s with testosterone's over 800. So it's it it's definitely possible. Um, and it really comes down to what are the strategies and things that you implement to achieve those things. Are you using the right strategies? Are you putting the right things in place to get the outcome? Age can impact things. It can make it more difficult. I think a lot of times the age is just an associative factor, or the state is an associative factor of having had more time doing things to the body that create create bad states or make it more difficult to recover from, it's not always that it's just age, because there's also people if they've had the correct strategies put in place over the course of their life, like they don't even reach these points where it's like, man, I really feel my age. So I think you know it's important to recognize that the the age, the hormonal status for women in menopause can be a huge thing that can impact body comp, energy, sleep, etc. But I don't think it has to be a destiny. And there's if the right strategies are put in place, you can really manage these things effectively and minimize the negative downsides and still maintain like a pretty healthy, youthful state overall. Really comes down how it's structured. So this is great. I'm glad that Christy was able to make the transition. That she's feeling a lot better. A lot. I know it's hard for people to get out of the carnivore and low carb camp because it's so you know there's so much fear ingrained in that perspective around carbs.

Theresa Piela  1:14:52  
Yeah, follow the energy. If you're at if you reach a point where things are going downhill. Good to good to go the other direction for a bit. All right, let's close it out here. Mike, where can people find you?

Mike Fave  1:15:07  
They can find me at my YouTube channel, Mike Fabe, as well as my website, Mikevave.com.

Theresa Piela  1:15:13  
Awesome, Jay.

Jay Feldman  1:15:15  
My website is JayfeldmanWellness.com. Tons of free resources there to go check out, and otherwise YouTube J Feldman Wellness, and also Instagram as well J Feldman Wellness. So make sure to check out all those channels.

Theresa Piela  1:15:29  
Awesome! You can find me@teresapiela.com, Teresa Piela on Instagram, and also on my membership, all linked on my on my sites. Okay, really good work. Thanks for tuning in, everyone, and see you on the next episode. Tata for now.