Jay Feldman 0:12
Welcome to episode 22 of the energy balance Podcast. I'm Jay Feldman, and joining me again today is my good friend, Mike. Fave for those of you who don't know, I am a health coach and independent health researcher, and Mike and I have been studying health and nutrition together now for quite a while, and he also draws on his experiences from working within the healthcare field. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about the relationship between body fat and health and different health conditions and chronic health diseases like heart disease and diabetes, and why increases in body fat don't always mean reductions in health or increases in risk for these diseases. We'll also be talking about certain factors affecting fat loss, including sugar and salt and the relationship with the stress hormones. And then we'll also be talking about chronic pain and joint pain, and what the possible causes are here, and then how you can resolve these issues. And then also, we'll be going through a lot of the issues with many of the common recommendations for these, these symptoms, and why, a lot of the supplements and medications that are often suggested might not be the best idea, and what you can do instead. And today's episode was a Q and A episode. So if you have any questions that you'd like us to answer on the podcast, you can send those questions in to Jay at Jay Feldman wellness.com, and that's Jay a Y, all spelled out to check out the show notes for today's episode, you can head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where I'll be linking to any of the relevant studies or articles or anything else that we talked about throughout today's episode. And if you are dealing with any of the chronic health conditions or symptoms that we talk about today, including joint pain or chronic pain or weight gain or heart disease or diabetes or any of those chronic health conditions, or if you're dealing with other symptoms like cravings and hunger or fatigue or hormonal imbalances, a lack of libido or sleep issues or gut dysfunction, then you can head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, to sign up for a free energy balance mini course while walk you through the main things that you want to do to optimize your cellular energy balance, and this is going to be the key to resolving all of these different health symptoms and conditions. So again, to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, you can head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, let's get started.

Okay, so Tara basically asks if weight gain happens after coming off of low carb or chronic dieting. Doesn't this cause issues, even if there are other benefits, will the increase in weight gain increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, etc, due to having that extra weight. So the short answer is not really, but it all depends on on what's leading to that weight gain and where somebody's going coming from some sort of chronic dieting background or a low carb background, because, I mean, for the earlier assumption in this question, is that somebody is going to lose weight when coming from that place and or, sorry, is going to gain weight. And that definitely is a likelihood, depending on what they do after that point. It's not a necessity. A lot of people can come from chronic dieting or from a low carb diet, and not gain weight or gain very little weight, but it is definitely possible that due to a variety of factors, somebody does gain some weight during that time, but that doesn't I would say that that still is not necessarily a sign of worse health, and that's kind of what she's getting at. The question is, does that mean that your health is deteriorating also? Does that mean that you're also at risk of all these things? And I would say for the most part, no, but it all depends on what's leading to it. So if you are eating good quality foods and getting a lot more nutrients, and you're addressing your gut health, and you know, and if you were to look at that deeper level, your hormones are in a better place, which is just representative of having more energy and having a better functioning system, if that's the case, and then you happen to gain a little bit of extra weight, there's a little bit of spillover where your metabolism hasn't caught up yet, then I would say you're probably at a much lower risk for all those other things. But of course, there if those if that's not the case, if somebody is not eating foods that help to support them metabolically, and they aren't adjusting their gut health, and they've got a lot of toxin production from their gut, and they're just kind of eating whatever, and they gain weight, then, yeah, it would probably increase the risk of those things, but that's because the underlying issues are just being exaggerated. They aren't being addressed.

Mike 4:55
Yeah. I mean, I agree. I think it really depends on where the weight is coming, why the weight is being put on. Yeah. Is your metabolism really low because you just dieted, or your thyroid function is an optimal because you just went really low carb, and then you started eating again, and now your body's catching up and putting on weight. In that case, now I don't think it's going to increase your risk of heart attack, stroke or high blood pressure from the extra weight. I think it's important also to stipulate that extra weight in and of itself, obviously, within a certain confines of how much weight we're talking doesn't necessarily cause heart attack, high blood pressure or stroke. Heart attack, high blood pressure or stroke can be caused by numerous other things. Weight Gain is often associated with those but I think that the weight, the process of weight gain in and of itself, is in those circumstances also also a product of that pathology. So it's going hand in hand with the heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure. But at the same time, it doesn't necessarily mean that, if you're putting on weight, that you're increasing the risk of those they can have different causes. So you can just have you're eating more calories then you're metabolically burning. You can be those source and fat, um, or you're basically, yeah, that's that those. That's the main one that that would say you're putting on. And it also depends on what the food is coming from. If you're eating a lot of dairy and or saturated fat sources and good carb sources, like fruits and tubers and things like that, and you're in a surplus and you're gaining weight. I don't think that that's unhealthy. I mean, you're just putting on weight because you have a surplus of energy, or you're in a really low bed metabolic state in these certain circumstances, such as low carb or dieting, whereas the other cases where you're putting on weight that leads to things like heart attack or stroke or high blood pressure. You're talking about things like taking taking in a bunch of polyunsaturated fatty acids from five fried foods and things like that, and damaging metabolism and that and that aspect, or having gut issues and taking in a bunch of metabolic toxins or things like that. Those will increase your risks of heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure. So the where is the weight coming from is important, like, what's causing the weight gain? And then the other thing is, I think it's normal to gain weight after coming off low carb, that weight can literally just be water weight, because, because of the loss of water with little carb, it could be glycogen storage, which goes with the water weight. And then basically, if you're coming off low carb or you're coming off low calorie diets, in general, there might be a period of time where you gain weight before you go back to normal. That's and in any especially if you're extremely lean, and you've gotten yourself down to an extremely lean point. So I don't think that is necessarily pathological. I think that pathology comes from what foods you're eating. And I know a lot of people in the peat community, they come from low carb, and then they start peat, and they start slamming tons of sodas and refined sugars and and ice cream and things like that. I mean, you're just asking to gain weight. It just for having a low metabolic state and then taking in a bunch of refined calories is a good way to gain weight, especially without all the minerals, nutrients and vital chemicals and stuff like that in the food. So I don't think that it means that the paradigm necessarily is incorrect, but maybe the interpretation in those cases. So I think, as a general statement, when you come from low carb or low calorie, can you expect to gain some weight if you're especially if you're very lean? Yes, is it always pathological? Well, that depends on what you're eating, and if you what other underlying issues you have going on, yeah.

Jay Feldman 8:40
Yeah. Yeah, it's an important distinction to make between body weight or body fat and disease states, because they're almost talked about as the same thing, like the risk of obesity and diabetes and and heart disease. And there is a reason for it. They do often go hand in hand, because the same things that contribute to heart disease and diabetes will also contribute to weight gain, which really comes down to that the issue on that energetic level that's going to lead to all sorts of disruptions and degeneration that causes health problems. So oftentimes that's what's underlying the increase in obesity, or that's what's underlying obesity and all these other disease states, you know, the heart disease and diabetes. But that's not always the case with weight gain. So there are circumstances, which is kind of what we're talking about, where you can be gaining weight yet you can be improving drastically your ability to produce energy by reducing things like PUFA and lowering the metabolic toxins produced from the gut, and getting a lot more nutrient density from the food that you're eating, and eating a lot more carbohydrates from these same good sources, that's going to improve our health drastically. And if you're eating a lot of those things after coming from chronic dieting, right for coming from. Low carb, you might be gaining some weight, but this is a different process that led to the weight gain than is normally considered. So, yeah, I think that that, for the most part, answers the question. I also wanted to add a couple of clarifications, as far as, like, water weight from increasing carbs. I mean, definitely a few pounds there is normal as far as glycogen goes and water weight goes, you know, maybe up to five pounds. It depends on somebody's size to start, but yeah, so that is a normal thing when you start to bring carbs back in. So a lot of times people will see that when they are on a low carb diet, when they add in any amount of carbs, they kind of balloon up. And normally, that is just a water weight thing. And it's important to consider too, that when you're gaining like, pounds in days or weeks, that's not, well, weeks maybe, but like, within a week, you're not gaining like, five pounds of body fat. We don't gain body fat anywhere near that quickly. And so if you are putting on weight, it's important to consider that a lot of it is probably food weight, just the weight of having more food, and then also weight from glycogen and water. And it can be water weight in a bad way too. It can be water weight that's come that's coming from inflammation in the intestines that's causing swelling and bloating. And that's still not necessarily a good thing, but it's still important to differentiate that from actual body fat. Yeah.

Mike 11:18
And you could have a drastic change in appearance just in one day from different things that you eat, where you can go from having straight six or eight pack abs to having a bloated, distended stomach with no muscle definition. And that's not necessarily fat gain. That is just a water weight, and that water weight can be from inflammation, especially in that case, yeah, you can see bodybuilders. You can see bodybuilders when they pre or post show and things like that when they go. And if some of them decide to binge all that definition and everything that they work for the previous day or the previous few hours can go away very quickly just by a change in water weight and things like that.

Jay Feldman 11:57
Yeah, and that's a good example for bodybuilders or MMA fighters, where before a fighter, before a show, they Well, I guess it's slightly different. But at least on the MMA side, the fighters will lose a huge amount of water weight between 1020 between 10 and 20 pounds, sometimes more, in the week leading up to that fight. And they look super lean when by the time they're weighing in, but it's not because they lost 10 to 20 pounds of body fat during that time. That's that's water weight, and that's just a good example of how much water weight you could lose or gain in a period of time. Of course, they're in a really extreme example and doing pretty extreme things to lose that water weight. But yeah.

Mike 12:39
Even bodybuilders, even bodybuilders play with diuretics at higher levels, or can play with diuretics at higher levels to get the water out and that. So the point here is that a water weight can account for a lot of changes in appearance, and some like actual amount of weight in rapid time and rapid succession, or rapid time periods. So we're, like, a few days or a week changing in weight from changing diets and things like that.

Jay Feldman 13:04
Yeah, yeah. And they are manipulating it, for sure, and bodybuilding competitions, it's just different. They aren't trying to be as deflated as an MMA fighter looks when they're stepping on the scale. So they need that water weight, but just in the muscles. One other thing that you mentioned too, just talking about the types of foods here, when we were, you know, in the intuitive eating podcast, we were talking quite a bit about Whole Foods and coming off of a chronic dieting, coming from chronic dieting, and how sticking more to whole foods can be helpful. And that's definitely true. But I also think it's important to mention that there's the I mean, the distinction between whole foods and processed foods is just nowhere near that clear cut. And I think it almost goes along lines of of having everything in moderation, where, just like Whole Foods are better. And I definitely don't think that's the case. And you can eat a lot of very healthy processed foods. It also depends on what you consider processed. You know, is coconut oil processed. Obviously, there's, there's a lot that goes from the actual coconut itself to coconut oil, and that obviously doesn't make it unhealthy, just because it is an extraction that is processed from the original coconut. So, you know, even talking ice cream, for example, which is ideally milk, eggs, salt and sugar. I mean, there's, you know, some flavorings, and there's often some other ingredients in there, but like, that is not and that is not unhealthy just because it's processed. I think that ice cream can be perfectly fine in a decent amount for a lot of people. It all depends on context. And yeah, so I just wanted to make that clarification too. I know you were you kind of mentioned like ice cream and soda being an issue, and..

Mike 14:36
For weight gain when coming out on because, I mean, I think that's what a lot of people experience, particularly when they find peat like, oh, I can eat ice cream and soda, and they go on ice cream and soda, or they start eating a lot of dairy, and then they start to put on a lot of weight. And I think that that does definitely cause weight for those people, not necessarily well for soda processing is. Point to it and then, but it again, it's that's a semantic issue. And then for dare, for ice cream and things like that. I mean, it is just a good weight gainer. It's known weight gainer, yeah.

Jay Feldman 15:13
And it definitely can be. I also know people who are very lean, even by adding in a ton of ice cream, like an extra 500 to 1000 calories a day in ice cream, and they're still just as lean. So it's and I guess a good way to put it is, if you are are gaining weight and you are eating things like that, or you're you are drinking soda, that would be something to consider. I don't, I don't see ice cream as as much of an issue, but soda definitely can be, and we've talked about why having the refined processed sugar can be more of an issue compared to getting that sugar from whole fruits or even fruit juices, which many people just equate those things in that having fruit juice is the same as having refined sugar, and it's not. There are a lot of factors to consider there, as far as vitamins and minerals go, and the polyphenols that prevent that sugar from being consumed by bacteria that produce metabolic toxins that can end up leading to weight gain. So, yeah, so, so I guess the way I would sum it up is that it's not as much about Whole Foods versus processed foods, but it doesn't. It's definitely worth considering that some of those foods might not be ideal. Just because sugar isn't the issue, per se, doesn't mean that drinking a ton of soda is always a good a good choice. So yeah, and I think that's kind of what you're getting at, is that those are things to definitely consider if you to definitely consider, if you are gaining weight or if you're not feeling as good, that might be contributing to some issues, but it's not because they're processed. It's because of certain qualities that are a result of them being processed. But it's not just it's processed. It's bad. It's, in this case, refined table sugar does have potential issues that need to be considered. Yeah, so Tara's next kind of follow up question also sue with waking she says, If belly fat is caused by high stress hormones, particularly cortisol and salt and sugar are good at reducing the stress hormones, then why in certain cases, do stress and or do sugar and salt not reduce body fat? So it's a good question, because we have talked about how, how much this, these different hormones affect our body weight and where body fat is stored. And it's definitely, it has definitely been shown that elevated levels of stress hormones lead to the storage of body fat. So of course, things that reduce stress hormones should lower body fat, but I don't. I think the the issue here is that it's not quite as clear cut as sugar and salt reduce stress hormones. And it's important to consider why. And it's not that they don't. It just depends on, again, the context, and in certain contexts, they definitely do. And so it's important to consider what is actually leading to the t actually leading to the decrease in stress hormones. And I think that'll kind of answer that question in a roundabout way. So stress stress hormones are increased when, essentially when we're lacking energy. And so we know exercise is always a good example of this, where when you're going from rest to exercise, we're putting large energy demands on ourselves, and because of that, because our body does not have the immediate energy available to supply to our muscles, for for for exercise, they especially, especially at higher intensities, then this will increase stress hormones like adrenaline, which will kick in these backup energy production processes. And the same thing happens if we're mentally stressed, or the same thing happens if we don't eat. Where these are all scenarios where our energy supply is low or energy demands are increased. And so this leads to stress a stress response which leads to the increase in stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. And yes, over time, these these stress hormones will end up decreasing energy production, they decrease our thyroid hormone activity, they decrease the activity of the reproductive hormones, and lead to body fat gain and so. So the reason why that's important to consider is that this does come back to this energy issue, this energy supply versus energy demand, which is energy balance. And so sugar and salt can help with that, with that energy balance problem, but they don't necessarily. So sugar, for example, and I guess I kind of already mentioned this, but sugar is really important fuel, and especially for our brains, it's the ideal fuel. And we talked about all this in previous episodes, but it's extremely important for producing energy as being a substrate for energy production. But that doesn't mean that table sugar is the best place to be getting that sugar from, because there are two potential issues there. One is that table sugar doesn't have vitamins and minerals that allow us to produce energy from it, and two is that it doesn't have any polyphenols or anything else with it to prevent it from being consumed by gut microbes. And for many people, that might not be an issue, because table sugar should be digested and absorbed very high up in our intestine, so it shouldn't reach any microbes. But for people who have gut issues, it can be a problem and can lead to gut toxin production. But then the other. Side of it too is that you need to make sure that you have the vitamins and minerals available to be able to produce energy from the sugar, so that it can lower the stress hormones. So and then the last part of it also is that if other factors aren't addressed, if, even if you are eating sugar and you have enough of these vitamins and minerals, and you don't have and the sugar is not being consumed by gut bacteria, it can still lead to body fat gain if there are other things blocking the production of energy, let's say polyunsaturated fats, or let's say endotoxin, just not being produced from the sugar being consumed by bacteria, but some other food. So in that case, that sugar is still not going to be able to be used to produce energy, and it won't actually help to reduce the stress hormones all that much or enough, and will be instead stored as body fat. So, yeah, I'll let you jump in and go from there.

Mike 20:53
I mean, just because it there's a there's more to the picture, just lowering the stress hormone, you mean, you can lower stress hormone, but at the at the end of the day, it comes down to an energy the energy at the cell, at the cellular level, so you can lower the stress hormone. Okay, we have salt now, but it doesn't necessarily fix any issue that's going on at the cellular level in terms of energy production. So you have something that's blocking energy production. Yeah, you've lowered your cortisol, or you've lowered your aldosterone, minutely with sugar or salt or things like that. But it's not necessarily like that. There's more to the picture to go with that. Are you having adequate protein? Are you taking you have adequate vitamin minerals as you, as you mentioned, there are you? Do you have a gut issue going on? Like, there's a much larger picture than just, oh, I'm eating sugar and salt, so I should be good. So it's are you eating, are you eating enough protein? Are you eating enough fat? Are you eating enough carbs with your sugar? Are you having enough salt? But are you also having enough potassium? Do you have enough magnesium? Do you have basically? Do you have the whole picture going on? And this is why, this is where the issue with things like pure sugar become a problem, and why you can't, why it doesn't just make sense to just straight eat sugar. Your diet is just sugar and salt or like these. It's not such a mechanistic picture. There's multiple aspects that go hand in hand together to have everything work. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to production of energy on the cellular level. So you need to stop things that are blocking that, and then you need to provide the necessary things so that it can occur in an optimized fashion. So sugar and salt are important, but there's other factors as well, and just acutely lowering those forms, because the other thing is, aldosterone is affected by different minerals as well. It's not just salt, it's not just sodium. And then the same thing with cortisol and adrenaline multiple So say, for example, you have a gut infection. No matter how much sugar you're going to eat, you're going to have an elevated cortisol. An elevated cortisol level. Because if you have an infection in the gut, or you have a dysbiosis in the gut, cortisol is automatically elevated. So for the same thing, if you have, I don't know, some type of injury somewhere in the body, or whatever it is, you can still have an elevated cortisol level. You can still have elevated adrenaline. You can eat as much sugar all as you want, all all the day long, but you don't have enough fat on board, and you're going to find yourself with elevated adrenaline. So there's multiple more to the story than just those two things, so and so, when it comes down to it, as far as reducing belly fat or reducing fat in general, it's about getting cellular energy production back on track the right way. And so this could, this is, yes, do you have enough minerals? Do you have enough carbs? Do you have enough whatever? Are you avoiding things that are inhibiting that? That's another important question. So it's, it's, it's a more complex picture than just, I'm going to dump a bunch of salt and I'm going to dump a bunch of sugar on it, and then it's going to fix the problem. And in most cases, it doesn't. It's maybe you're doing something, you're eating something that doesn't agree with you long term, and then no matter how much supplements and things that you put on board, it's just not going to solve the problem. So in my case, that was, that was dairy. I couldn't handle dairy. Kept eating dairy, kept eating dairy, kept eating dairy. Oh, maybe it'll if I put enough sugar on board or take enough thyroid or whatever, then I'll be able to handle it. And that just wasn't the case. And once I took it off, those issues went away. So there's, there's a there's a very nuanced and larger picture. And the thing is, is then people will think, Oh, well, now how am I going to figure all this out? A lot of it really comes down to, you know, paying attention to yourself and how you deal with different things, if you're doing something that's bothering you, or say you're eating a ton of sugar and then down, you're having all these adrenaline rushes, and maybe you're not eating enough fat, or you're having cravings for certain fatty foods or things like that. So you can get a sense of especially foods that irritate you. You can get a sense of them and eliminate those. So say, every time you eat potatoes, you get a runny nose or stuffy nose, like four hours later, and it's repeatable with potatoes, then you can start removing some of the things that are inhibiting your energy production. So it really depends. And then obviously, if you're just allergic or you're having intolerances to everything, then maybe you have a gut issue going on. So.

Jay Feldman 24:59
Right, right? Yeah, yeah. If you're not digesting the potato as well, or, or they're feeding something like, why is that happening and addressing that.

Mike 25:08
Or, or you just, you have a lot of stress going on externally in your life, and there's nothing that your body's going to do. I mean, you're going to go work in the hospital six days a week. You can, you can maintain your weight and things like that, but you're still probably going to have issues. No matter how much accessory supplementation and whatever else you do, you're still not going to be an optimized state. You're still going to so there's a large picture at hand, and it's more than just eating sugar and salt. I mean, another aspect to consider is, say you have a really toxic relationship that's just wearing you down, that's going to impact you as well. So there's, there's multiple things that's there's multiple things to address on in your life in general, to get to a more optimized state. And part of that is it's also not, and this is a little bit tangential, with a lot of people like, oh, just avoid stress. Just avoid stress. Just avoid stress. You avoid it as much as you can, but at the same time, you have to be able to deal with what you have to and that doesn't mean to take on more stress, because you can deal with it all. But it also doesn't mean to shy away from certain stressful situations that may have some sort of benefit down the road or or can help you out in some degree, in general. I mean, there's always going to be stress. It's just part of it is how you deal with it. And the other thing is, is eliminating certain things that can be eliminated that are very problematic, like toxic relationships, or, if you can jobs that are too, too intense, and things like that. So there's, there's multiple pictures at play that can affect your hormones and things like that. Besides just salt and sugar, it's very it's a little bit reductionistic. Just the thing, I'm going to take these two things and then solve my problem, yeah.

Jay Feldman 26:46
And, yeah. And, I don't know, I don't think she was actually asking that specifically, but it was, yeah, it was more just the idea of the question. And I think so one thing that you brought up that was, I mean, there's a lot of good points there. And I do want to mention also that we did a few episodes talking about weight loss, going in depth on it. So I'll refer to those in the show notes. One thing that's important that you mentioned was basically that there's a separation between the stress hormones and body fat. In other words, a better way to say it is that stress hormones are just a symptom. So yes, stress hormones are associated with increased body fat, but it's only because most people who are gaining body fat are doing it within a stress state where they are not producing enough energy. It's being blocked, so the food is being spilled over into and being stored as body fat, and then they have an increase in stress hormones. But there are circumstances where you could have low stress hormones and still be gaining weight, which would be a situation where, let's say you're eating again, you have this really inefficient engine that's partially blocked, so you're not producing enough energy. Then you take in a ton of fuel, you eat a ton of food, and you end up producing more energy the same 50% of whatever you're eating. Let's say so you end up with enough energy to supply your needs. And your stress hormones are down, but there's still a big spillover, and so you still have body fat gain, so there are so again, it's important to recognize that separation there, where we can get caught up in the hormones a lot, and you and I talk about hormones a lot because they can be representative of an underlying state, but it's just a piece of the picture, and it's and we have to consider what exactly it is representing. And in this point, it is an important distinction to make. Distinction to make that is not, you know, stress hormones and weight gain are not equivalent, even though they do often go together.

Mike 28:28
You could be in a surplus and gaining weight. I mean, I know for me, I can be in a in an energetic surplus over an extended period of time from eating consistently in the amount of food, and I will gain some weight. It's not, it's not like you can just shove in endless amounts of energy and your body will just keep adapting upwards and burn it all off. I mean, there is a point where you you can gain, you can gain weight from and make when you're in a more optimized state. You know, it makes it much more difficult. I mean, I have to actually try to eat to gain weight at this point. But at the same time, could I gain weight if I wanted to by trying to eat? Yeah, I could, and I'm going to be in a surplus. And I may not necessarily, because I have an excess of of cortisol or adrenaline. I just haven't a surplus of food. Yeah, fuel, yeah.

Jay Feldman 29:16
Which, which, and we did talk about this extensively in those weight loss episodes, but it's an important distinction that the energy surplus is not body fat. The fuel surplus is because once the food is converted to energy, it does not get stored as fat. It's it's then used as energy and a structure. So the the excess is the amount that's not being used to produce energy and is not being used for other purposes as well, which also don't all involve energy production. And this is part of the whole issue with calories in, calories out. And this is, you know, we dove into this extensively so.

Mike 29:45
Well, that's specifically why I didn't use term calories, right, right? Yeah, yeah.

Jay Feldman 29:49
I just wanted to make clarifications as far as energy and fuel go. Did you have anything else to add for this question?

Mike 29:55
Oh, that's about it, perfect.

Jay Feldman 29:57
So Bernie asks. He's asking. About anything that will help with joint pain, increasing joint mobility and reducing overall pain. I could do this one if you want, sure you can start with it. I mean, just to provide context too. I mean this, well, yeah, go ahead and I'll see where you go with it, and we'll go from there.

Mike 30:14
Okay, where is your context going to be? That about both of us training and stuff like that, and having joint issues and all that?

Jay Feldman 30:20
No, I wasn't even going to go there. I was just going to talk about how talk about how many different things can be involved in joint pain, which, I guess that's part of it. Is like, is it rheumatoid arthritis? Is osteoarthritis? Is it an injury? Is it, you know? Is it facilitation?

Mike 30:33
Yeah, facili muscle, muscular tightness or postural issues?

Jay Feldman 30:38
Is it just inflammation.

Mike 30:40
Well, exactly right. I think the two biggest ones that people are going to find is inflammation, and then the next biggest one is postural, musculoskeletal type things, you know, sitting all day like this, you are going to develop adhesion, facial adhesions and tightness in certain muscle, muscles and certain postural patterns that are going to degrade on your joints over time.

Jay Feldman 31:02
And then, for those who aren't watching Micah in a hunched over position, yeah.

Mike 31:07
Exactly. And then, um, and on the other side of the coin, you can have optimal postural stability and things like that. But if you have some type of gut issue going on that manifests, or just an inflammatory issue. In general, it tends to be a gut issue, but infla or it could be some type of food irritating your joints, or something like that, then you'll, you're you could have a postural your posture could be exemplary, but you can still have joint issues. So in either case, number and as far as addressing it, there's the important point is number one, fix your posture, make sure that you're and part of fixing your posture isn't just making sure that you sit with a stick all the time, like straight as a board. It's number one, recognizing that the body wasn't meant to sit for hours at end. It wasn't meant to stand for hours at end. It's supposed to have movement. So recognizing that you need to get out. You need to get out, you need to have some movement. You can't just sit for eight hours a day, crunched over at a keyboard. Your postural muscles, your which are your iliopsoas, which are hip flexors, your lats, there's all your core muscles, yeah, transverse abdominis. They fatigue. They will fatigue. They are muscles if you keep curling the 10 pound dumbbell at some point, your biceps, depending on your strength level, are going to get tired. So it's the same thing with postural muscles, and we weren't meant to just sit for hours on end. And I know this for myself, working in the hospital 13 hour shifts, after eight hour eight, my core muscles are completely contracted because my body is tired, and I work out regularly, and I'm sure this happened. And the other thing is, is after a while, your body will adopt a compensation pattern that keeps you in that position. So say you're working constantly, constantly, constantly in a sitting position, your body will adopt a sitting posture. So the main thing is, number one, with posture, make sure you have good posture. Get help with somebody to work with your posture. Look up videos with posture and things like that. Some good sources are Thomas Hannah has a book called somatics. There's the what's it called Anatomy Trains by Thomas Myers. Nadie Aguilar, with functional patterns, have some interesting exercises to work on and things like that. Work with a personal trainer or or a chiropractor. Can be very helpful for certain things as well. I mean, make sure it's a good personal trainer. And then after that, there's like, general supplements and physiologic things you can do for your joint health to make sure that you're you're besides posture and things like that, to make sure that you're maintaining the joint tissue itself. And so things like collagen, hydrolysate protein, or different collagen or gelatin proteins, depending on what you tolerate, adequate vitamin C, which is a co factor in the formation of collagen, adequate mineral intake. And you want to have a broad mineral intake does? A lot of people are just take copper. Well, there's different interactions with different minerals. So my recommendation would be to eat something like mussels or eat something like oysters. Make sure you're eating enough animal foods with decent minerals, whether, if you tolerate dairy, a great source of calcium, different minerals there. So make sure you have enough minerals on board make sure you're eating enough collagen protein or gelatin protein, enough vitamins such as vitamin C. And then enough protein in general, is very important, and enough carbohydrate is very important so that you have enough energy on board to maintain that structure. And then another thing that I think that in this area, that people don't often realize, is that at rest, your muscles burn fatty acids. So something that really helped me get through my shifts was for a while I was on a low fat diet, and I was fatiguing much more quickly on the low fat diet, because once I ran out of sugar and I didn't have any any fat coming in from my. Diet, I was basically liberating adrenaline, or using adrenaline to liberate fatty acid. So I was getting, like a bunch of adrenaline rushes to provide fatty acids to my muscles, and they would fatigue much sooner. And so having enough fat on board was something that allowed my muscles to relax a little bit. And it was like a relaxing effect when I was working as well, and that was, that was extremely helpful for me. So you have those nutrition factors there, those two things can help in either an inflammatory condition and or the like a general musculoskeletal joint issue. But then in value, they can help both, and they can help either one. But specifically for the inflammatory issue, you have to eliminate. If you have some sort of food that you're eating that's causing damage, you have to eliminate it for a while. If you have a your gut is leaky. I know it's the buzzword now, but you have damage to the gut, you need to let that calm itself down, and it shouldn't take that long. And then maybe you might have a specific issue with that food. And then the other thing is, is if you have some type of gut infection going on. So for example, in things like rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, there's strong implications of having an overgrowth of Klebsiella in the in the gut microbiome, causing those joint issues by triggering the immune system in a particular way to cause inflammation at the joint tissue. So in those instances, it's important to stop eating foods that feed those bacteria and help to bring the bacterial populations down. And if you can rebalance the gut situation, and that there's, there's, there's a lot that goes within federal rebalancing process. I can say that I have the entire process perfect myself. There's definitely things that you can do. So, yeah, I mean, it's just those. Those are the three main things that I would say to focus on.

Jay Feldman 36:58
Yeah, yeah, there. There can be, there can be very different causes to this. And part of it also is, are you having joint pain due to an injury or due to the way that you're sitting? Or is this a chronic pain sort of issue, which is very common to people who are struggling metabolically and just maybe who have chronic fatigue as well. Chronic Pain comes with that pretty often, too. And those might be treated in very, very different ways. So again, as you mentioned, as far as, like, the more physical side of things, the, you know, due to injury or due to a movement type issue, movement dysfunction, or, you know, postural issue, you know, it's it. I mean, it's just as complex as as nutrition. It's not as simple as just, you know, just eat the, you know, the USDA recommended whatever the equivalent is still true. For posture, it's not as simple as just pulling your shoulders back. I mean, that can cause a lot of dysfunction as well.

Mike 37:50
Well. That can make another layer of dysfunction on top of the dysfunction you already had.

Jay Feldman 37:55
Exactly, yeah. So, so yeah, I You made some good recommendations there. I found Functional Patterns and Anatomy Trains as well to be very helpful. And I mentioned a couple others too that I didn't have experience with, but those would be good things to look at, as far as as far as postural issues, movement dysfunctions go. But there's, there is a a physiological side to that as well, as far as how pliable are our fascia is, and how like how inflamed our joints are, and how much like how tight our muscles are due to not being able to relax Those, those can be directly physiologically caused or influenced, like, right? Exactly. So, right. So rigor mortis is basically when, when you die, and all of your muscles are, like, tighten up. And, of course, when you die, there's no energy flowing. There's no energy being produced and used. And normally, when we think of muscle in a state where it where it's using energy. We think of it as being as contracting, and it is using energy at that point, but a point where a muscle actually has a lot of energy is in its relaxed state, and when it's fully contracted and tense, typically that happens when it when it's run out of energy, so And at that point you have trouble lengthening it, you have trouble relaxing it. And that it's not only true for muscles. It's also true for just all cells, virtually all tissues where relaxation comes along with having more energy. But anyway, so that connection there is important, and so doing all of the things, nutritionally and lifestyle wise, to support yourself on that energetic level will help a ton, as far as preventing, you know, overly tight muscles, and, for example, causing, you know, when people are struggling metabolically, they'll have wasting of magnesium, and so that can cause a lot of tightness there. And supplementing magnesium can help, but it's just kind of a band aid to trying to prevent that excess loss in the first place. So. So, yeah, all of the things that we would normally talk about, as far as improving energy, are important here, as far as the chronic pain, pain side goes, I mean, definitely the same thing where we're improving everything on that energetic level is going to directly, like lead to relief there, because that's typically being caused directly by inflammation in an area that's susceptible. And as you mentioned, gut issues are pretty often tightly tied with these sorts of like joint pain or like bone pain issues or inflammation type things. So it's definitely important to address. And also, as you said, in certain autoimmune conditions that contribute to this too. So, yeah, there are also some supplements that have shown to be helpful, particularly in those cases. I mean, the typical recommendations for these issues are typically just that band aid approach of use these natural anti inflammatories like turmeric and curcumin, or, you know, or the, I mean, you had mentioned collagen, which is one. There are a few others like conjoint glucosamine and glucose. Yeah, exactly. And at best, these are band aids. Not to say that something like collagen isn't beneficial, it is. But we don't want to just focus on using things that are anti inflammatory. We want to stop the inflammation from where it's being caused in the first place. And so gut health is normally a huge factor there, and then the metabolic side, as far as making sure that we're not blocking energy production with excessive amounts of polyunsaturated fats, which are something that are recommended as anti inflammatories, fish oil is one of the most common things recommended here to reduce inflammation and and joint pain, and it works in the short term, just like a corticosteroid does, which is also another thing that's commonly prescribed,

Mike 41:43
But injections are, are like standard practice for chronic joint issues.

Jay Feldman 41:49
Yeah, exactly. And anybody who's used steroids like that for an extended period of time knows that they become less and less effective. That same dose becomes less and less effective over time because your body adjusts to it, and because it's not actually solving the issue, it's just a, at best, a band aid, but it's a band aid that comes with significant costs.

Mike 42:06
Well, the other problem with that is you, you actually cannot get too many. You cannot get after a certain number of cortisone injections. You have to stop, because what you wind up doing is degrading all the collagen and and bone and muscle tissue in the joint, because that's literally what the cortisol does, especially with cortisone injections. So they actually have to stop doing that. And the real thing is figure out why exactly you have that inflammation going on. The other thing I want to point out here is that collagen and Glucosamine and Chondroitin aren't necessarily any inflammatories. Those are just building blocks of certain joint structures, and so that's why they're recommended, recommended the other stuff, like fish oil or turmeric, or, I don't know, whatever else they use, resveratrol. I don't know what the specific the alter. All the alternative health modalities are off the top of my head. But a lot of those they they do inhibit the inflammatory process. But the question is, really, where is, where's that inflammatory process coming from? And that's, that's what you want to stem to stop it. And then from there, you can add in building blocks back into the joint. The other thing is, once you know what the specific inflammatory process is, you can get to the root of that inflammatory process while inhibiting the inflammation with with safe anti inflammatory compounds, and then rebuild the joint as well. So it's not just okay, my joint hurts. Take collagen the there's multiple etiologies of the of what's called what could be causing the joint issue, or the musculoskeletal issue, and you have to figure out what the causes are, and then you there's multiple pieces to put in place to fix it. So if you have an energetic deficit that's causing extreme muscular tightness, okay, address you need to address that. If you have postural issues because you're sitting all day at work for eight hours, typing away on the keyboard, then that needs to be addressed. Things like that. And you have a gut issue or or any type of reaction to certain foods causing joint issues, and that needs to be addressed. And then you can put on anti inflammatories help deal with the issue, and add some building blocks back in to help heal some of the joint structures, whether that's collagen with vitamin C and certain minerals, whatever that is. So those are really important. This is all within the context. Because the thing is, is this is all within the context of addressing the your diet and lifestyle in general. So the diet and lifestyle strategies that you've been discussing for episodes upon episodes are paramount to having as the baseline to this stuff. So once you address that baseline, most of these things that we're talking about might fall off, and then you might fall, say, when you have an extremely stressful event, your predisposition could be the musculoskeletal issue, and then you have certain things that you can use during that period of time. And for example, for me, that's something my issue is. My issues are mostly musculoskeletal. So I have things. In place when I work multiple 13 hour shifts in a row and I'm crushed things that I can do to bring myself back to baseline within that day, that I have all things like that. So you want to have the baseline foundation down, and then you can start getting into more specific things once that baseline foundation is addressed, and that baseline foundation gets rid of a lot of the possible problematic compounds, without having to necessarily work your way all the way down through multiple things to figure out what it is. It gives you that strong baseline. Okay, we have a baseline for we know you are you're still having this issue. Okay, we can add these things. What's the cause of this issue? Okay, this is the cause. This is how we're going to address it. And then these are the specific things we can do to mitigate the damage while it's going on, and rebuild the process while we're fixing the cause. So the multi step processes, there's not a one there's not a single bullet to solve the problem. There's never going to be a silver bullet for any of these processes, whatever disease you have, unless it's some type of infection, um, there's never going to be a silver bullet. And even with an infection, why did you get the infection in the first place? Should always be the question, oh, I just got infection. Okay, and take antibiotics. The question is, why do you have the infection? What led to it? How do we address that problem, and then we can address the infection as well. So there's always multiple steps. There's always a broad picture at hand to figure out what's going on. And I know it's annoying, but it's never just a simple silver bullet, and that's a myth. I don't think it'll ever happen. It's just that things don't necessarily work like that, at least in my experience.

Jay Feldman 46:32
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree for sure. Let's Why don't we talk through some of the more specifics that people can as far as things that people can do in these certain instances. So as far as someone who is stuck at a desk job for eight hours a day and they're having some postural issues, some helpful things would be to try to get a stand up desk where you can stand and sit throughout the day, so you have you can move your body into different positions. It can also be helpful to get different like floor mats or steps and things that for both when you're sitting and standing, so that you're still moving around in different ways. It can be helpful to walk throughout the day. So if you know, it depends on how your work is and what you're doing, but maybe it means getting up every 20 to 30 minutes, or maybe every hour or two, and doing some stretching..

Mike 47:16
Just for five minutes. It doesn't even have to be for it doesn't have to be a 20 minute, 30 minute, I need to get my 20,000 steps in in the day either just go do a little walk around and come back, maybe go walk out into the sun and come back.

Jay Feldman 47:28
But it can be a spending 20 minutes outside for, you know, every couple hours. I mean, that's great too. We're just kind of but I agree, yeah, even if it's still makes a big difference

Mike 47:38
I don't think most people in the office can get that, although now, with everybody working at home, it's probably more feasible to do something like that, or even if you're at home, maybe having like a little like routine or something that you do after you work for an extended period of time. And on this note, there is an interesting area of study around all trading rhythms, which are to basically just there you have your circadian rhythm, which is over the course of 24 hours. All trading rhythms are the smaller rhythms within that 24 hour period that can be anywhere from an hour an hour and 30 minutes, whatever. And basically you can work for there's different methods too, where you work for a certain period of time, non stop, say, 30 minutes, and then you take a 10 minute break, so you can build things in like that, where you, where you're giving yourself small chunks. Say, I'm going to work on this assignment, or work on this, this project I have to do for 45 minutes straight, and then that next 15 minutes I'm going to take off, and that will that's also really helpful. And you can set a timer for that and things like that. And then they found, some people found that it makes them more more efficient with their work and things like that. And then it's also better, because, you know, you have a break coming up, and you can just focus on that goal. And then on that break, you can go for a little walk. You can go outside for the 15 minutes, whatever it is. And those things really helpful. And as you said, the stand up desk and like a floor mat or maybe an adjustable desk, you can squat and do what you're doing, or sit or stand. All those types of things are really helpful. So main point with that is movement. You need to have different types of movement be moving through different ranges of motion, and that'll help mitigate a lot of the negative effects of just being in one place for eight hours straight, or however many hours straight, just typing away whatever it is.

Jay Feldman 49:26
Yeah, yeah. Those are great suggestions. And yeah, the as far as the those rhythms go, and the different timing techniques that has been shown to improve productivity, a lot of times, especially in the States, there's this culture that we don't want to be taking any breaks, and you just need to push through it. And more often than not, having that set period of time where you work, and then set period of time where you don't, whether it's five minutes or 15 or whatever, makes a big difference. And you can use you can just tune into yourself and try to test out different things. And maybe with the way the type of work that you have, you work better with two hour chunks where you work. For two hours and you take 30 minutes off, whereas somebody else, it might just be a 20 minutes on and five minutes off. You know, it just, it might depend on the nature of your work, or just you and how you function well. So try those things out and see how it works. But I think a timer is really helpful to or just having it scheduled where there are particular times where you for sure, don't work, and particular times where you do, assuming that your job allows for something like that?

Mike 50:22
Yeah, especially if you're at home now, you can build in your own daily schedule. And the thing is, is sometimes sacrificing 15 minutes out of the hour makes that next 45 minutes significantly more productive. You actually gain. And I that's what that's what you're saying. That's your point before, but yeah, I think that it's important to realize that if you're more productive in 45 minutes than you are working 60 minutes straight, and it may just be better to work the 45 and take the 15 off. Yeah.

Jay Feldman 50:50
Yeah. More is not always better in that way, if you Yeah, we don't need.

yeah. Some other specifics I wanted to talk through were some of those safe anti inflammatories for people who are in a place where they're dealing with chronic pain, they're working on addressing their gut and taking hard to digest foods out of their diet, and supporting themselves with nutrient density and eating enough carbs and fats and all those things. There are supplements that can be helpful in the interim, a couple that I think are noteworthy. One is kind of in contrast to corticosteroids, where pregnant alone used to be used for people with arthritis, specifically rheumatoid arthritis, in pretty high doses before corticosteroids and so that would be a good option, pregnenolone or other protective steroids like progesterone and niacinamide, which is vitamin b3 was also used. Other B vitamins could be helpful as well, like b1, or b1, b2, b5, b6, b7, so those would all be worth trying as well, and on the again, kind of on the band aid, anti inflammatory side, aspirin, I would say, would be a better option compared to a lot of the others out there.

Mike 52:05
I've also found glycine, glycine, collagen, and of itself, to actually be helpful with joint stuff. I know, for me, with working out and stuff like that, actually taking collagen has a an effect on the amount of, I guess, crepidus in my joints for certain things that do like a way to dip or something like that.

Jay Feldman 52:21
Yeah, yeah. Do you have any does anything else come to mind as far as, like, specific supplements or other particular things there?

Mike 52:29
For me, it was more of avoidance than than things like that. But those are the main things that I've used, collagen, vitamin C, this, and then some of the steroids, depending on how bad the joint pain is, and then be an aspirin. Aspirin has been helpful, too for pain, yeah.

Jay Feldman 52:46
Avoiding hard to digest. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. I was just going to say that avoiding hard to digest foods, I think, is majorly important. And this would include nuts and seeds, legumes, whole grains. A lot of things that we're told are healthy, that are that are not so healthy, a lot of Robb, fibrous vegetables, those things can all feed a lot of like feed whatever bacterial issues are going on, or anything else, and lead to a lot of toxin production that leads to joint inflammation. So we've had episodes talking about gut health and all that. So I'll reference those. But I would say those are some of the more important things for short term results while addressing kind of the bigger picture things.

Mike 53:25
Yeah, for sure that for me specifically, foods are what set off my issues more than anything else. And so, for example, eat something that irritates like a hard to digest starch, it irritates my intestines a little bit, and then I will be more likely to get hurt in a workout after eating that than I would be if I didn't need it at all, even even doing lighter things. If it's a light day, it's not a strength day or a heavy day, I can get injured just basically by having that inflammation going on in and of itself, so or that will actually cause joint pain without me having done anything at all?

Jay Feldman 54:01
Yeah, yeah, definitely. All right, that's going to conclude today's episode. If you have any questions that you'd like us to answer on a future Q and A episode, you can send those in to Jay at Jay Feldman wellness.com and that's Jay a y at Jay ay Feldman wellness.com if you did enjoy today's episode, please leave a review or a like or comment or a five star rating on iTunes. I really appreciate it. It really does a lot to help support the podcast. To check out the show notes for today's episode, you can head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where I'll link to any of the articles or studies or anything else that we talked about throughout today's episode, and if you are dealing with any of the symptoms or conditions that we discussed throughout today's episode, whether that's chronic pain or joint pain or weight gain issues, or all sorts of gut dysfunction, or maybe you've got other low energy type symptoms like fatigue and tiredness or insomnia or cravings and. Hunger or hormonal imbalance, then head over to Jay Feldman wellness comm slash energy to sign up for a free energy balance mini course where I'll walk you through the main things that you want to do as far as lifestyle and nutrition are concerned, in order to optimize it your cellular energy balance. And this includes doing the things to support the production of energy and also avoiding the things that lead to the wasting of energy. And I'll also be explaining why this is so integral to resolving any of these symptoms or chronic health conditions. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and I will see you in the next episode.