In this episode, Coach Jo and Coach Kim discuss the importance of macros (aka macronutrients) and how they affect our overall health. They start by giving listeners a basic overview of the three types of macros: protein, carbs, and fat and the vital role each plays in our body, including breaking down popular myths and misunderstandings about each macro. Then, Coach Jo and Kim get into the exciting facts about how macros communicate with our bodies, brains, and hormones—everything you didn’t know about macros but will be so happy you learned! 

Coaches Jo and Kim go beyond the simple facts of how macros affect the body and dig into the science of how each macro affects our body, how we process the energy and how we overcompensate for an imbalance of each of the three. This episode is a must-listen for anyone curious about their food choices to achieve optimal body and brain health while avoiding extreme diets and false information about food. 

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Transcript:

Coach Jo 00:09

Welcome to Perfectly Unfinished Conversations, the Iron Lab podcast with Coach Jo…

 

Coach Kim 00:14

…and Coach Kim…

 

Coach Jo 00:15

Where you ride shotgun with us as we have raw, real, unfiltered, and unfinished conversations about trying to eat, sleep, train, and live with some integrity in a messy, imperfect life.

 

Coach Kim 00:27

We're all about creating a strong support system, taking radical personal responsibility, having fun, and being authentic. And one of the most common themes you're going to find in this podcast is the idea that we create positive momentum in our life, by doing what we call b-minus work.

 

Coach Jo 00:45

We’re making gains and getting ahead and loving life without self-sabotaging our goals by striving for perfection. We get it done by moving ahead…

 

Coach Kim 00:55

…before we're ready…

 

Coach Jo 00:56

…when we aren't feeling like it…

 

 Coach Kim 00:58

…and without hesitation.

 

Coach Jo 01:00

Be sure to subscribe now on Apple or Spotify, so you don't miss a single episode. It’s good enough. Let's go.

Coach Jo 01:11 

Welcome back. This is episode seven, and we are talking about everything you didn't know about macros, what food is telling your body what to do, or food as a set of instructions to your body. All macronutrients, there's three of them, they are protein, fats and carbohydrates. There are micronutrients as well, available in your food. You know, examples such as iron, zinc or copper, but we're going to focus on those three today. 

Coach Kim 01:46

Right, so everything that we eat is made up of protein, fats and carbs, either there is like straight up protein, which isn't available in a lot of foods, things like shrimp, tuna, a lean cut of beef is up, venison, moose, really high in protein, very little to no fat, definitely no carbs, unless you're mixing your meat with something, you know, like a sauce or something like that. So that's straight up protein. Some things are straight up fats, like olive oil or coconut oil or butter. And then some things are straight up carbohydrates, like oats, instant oatmeal, blueberries, oranges or gummy candies, honey, pop. But in order to, you know, obtain good body composition, you got to have all three in your diet. Skipping one macro might work for a short period of time, but it's really not ideal for the long term.

 

Coach Jo 02:48

Yeah, for sure. Let's talk about how to decipher what's in each macronutrient. So for every gram of carbohydrate that you consume, there are four calories energy sources per that one gram. So if you're having, say, a banana, you know, 30 grams, you would multiply that by four, and that would give you your caloric intake of just that carbohydrate. Now when we break down protein, it's the exact same as carbohydrates. It is four calories per that single one gram that you get. Now, the difference, and they're very dense when it comes to energy dense, is fats. Fats are higher. They're almost one like and a half times higher, nine calories you get per one gram of fat. Also something to consider is alcohol. And this is on the same scale when it comes to energy, because when we grab an alcoholic beverage and it says, Oh, hey, it's 100 calories only, well that might be just what it is made of, but it's not the alcohol content. I don't know why they don't put this on the label. It would be really important to, but you get seven calories per one gram of alcohol. Like I said, it's not included on your label. This is extra. So everything between these four that we just talked about, they're broke down into different categories of energy that you get from each gram.

 

Coach Kim 04:22

So let's start with protein, because, you know, Jo and I, we love to talk about the importance of protein. It is so important for our health, and it has several benefits that you might not know about or think about. First of all, protein has a higher thermic effect, which means that it can boost your metabolism and help you burn more calories. In regards to instructions for the body, its job is to build and repair tissues, make enzymes and hormones, and it supports our immune system. We tend to hope that you know that. Good sources of protein include animal proteins like chicken and beef, fish eggs, whey protein supplements, or even plain Greek yogurt or cottage cheese. Out of the 21 amino acids that our body requires and uses for optimal health, nine amino acids are essential, meaning we have to get them from our food, because our bodies cannot make them. Simply put, if you're not eating enough protein, you're not getting these essential amino acids, which are crucial for repair and growth. And when I'm talking about repair and growth, we're always talking about not just muscles, we're talking about bones, tendon, skin, hair, eyelashes, taste buds, like all of it. Everything that makes up you is made up of protein. So let's clear up a common myth. Some people believe that eating too much protein can damage your kidneys. And I think this myth started because people with kidney disease are advised to limit their protein as their kidneys struggle to filter out protein waste. But if you're healthy and active, your kidneys are fully capable of handling protein intake. Your blood pumps properly. If you're active and moving and your kidneys will as well. They're part of your detoxification. Detoxification pathway, studies show that there's really no link significantly between high protein consumption and kidney damage in people with healthy kidneys. So remember, protein is not just essential from your metabolism and muscle repair, but overall health. Please don't be afraid to include adequate protein in your diet.

 

Coach Jo 06:43

Please. Now we're going to talk about some carbs. Carbohydrates are essential as they provide the fuel for our body. So when we eat carbs, they are converted into glucose, which travels through our blood to supply energy to our cells, but also to our brain. You got to think of carbs as the gasoline for your car. If you overeat carbs, it's like driving with that gas nozzle still stuck in the tank of your car, constantly filling up, even when you're already full. And when you're already full, your body stores this extra fuel in your liver and your muscles as a reserve. Your brain, your brain also loves carbs a lot, not just for the quick dopamine hit that makes you feel really good, but also to stay clear and to stay focused. If you've ever tried a low carb diet, you might have experienced that amazing brain fog, not, which shows how important carbs are for brain function. You don't want to go without carbs for the rest of your life. Including balanced carbs in your diet is crucial for maintaining that energy and mental clarity, that healthy carb source that we're trying to preach and have people look for include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, legumes? I always say that wrong, but unhealthy would be something like ice cream or cookies in the pantry or chips or white breads or white pastas. So while protein is the building block that's going to help you repair and grow your tissues. Carbs are the fuel, the rocket fuel that keeps our body and brain running smoothly.

 

Coach Kim 08:28

Perfect. So let's talk about fat. Fat plays a crucial role in our health by providing energy and supporting vital functions. When we consume fat, our body breaks them down into smaller parts to be used as fuel for our cells. This process provides more energy than carbohydrates, because fat is double the calories. Now this is important to recognize, because fats aren't bad, but fats are very energy dense we often refer to carbohydrates as like quick fuel gas in the tank. Fats would be more like throwing a log on the fire, but they also add up really quickly. They're a more concentrated source of energy. If we consume more fat than our body needs, it stores the excess fat as body fat for future use. And there are some caveats we're going to talk about later in this when we talk about what you didn't know about macros.

 

Coach Jo 09:29

Our brain is largely made up of fat, so maintaining enough fat in our diet is so necessary for our brain health, and, more importantly, kids health, because as their brains leap and expand, it's the one nutrient that's going to help them grow and leap and expand. A healthy brain is crucial because it regulates the endocrine system, which manages hormone balance. Fats, especially cholesterol, are essential for producing steroid hormones. Such as estrogen, testosterone, progesterone and cortisol, those hormones they help control important bodily functions inside your body, including the metabolism, immune function and your reproductive health, including all of those healthy fats in your diet, they can support these critical functions and some excellent sources of healthy fats. They include avocados, salmon, nuts, seeds, olive oil, avocado oil. By incorporating these fats, you can help ensure that your body and your brain are going to function properly, supporting your overall health. So remember, fats are not just energy sources. They are vital for your brain health, and they're vital for your hormone production, which affect nearly every aspect of our lives. We do not want to avoid them.

 

Coach Kim 10:52

Super. So here's the thing that was all the boring blah, blah blah shit that probably most of you know now we're going to talk about what you didn't know about macros. So back again, starting with protein, I want to talk specifically, we're gonna address each of the macros, and we're gonna talk about what the message is to the body, or what the instructions are to the body. And so I want to start with something called the protein leverage hypothesis. Now this is, you know, the protein leverage hypothesis suggests that if you are chronically under consuming protein, your body will drive you on a very primal physiological level to eat until you get enough protein, regardless of how many calories you have to take in to accomplish this, protein is so critical to our body that if our diet is chronically low in protein but high in carbs and fats, we will keep eating more and more and more food to try to make up our protein needs. So this, in itself, can lead to overeating and weight gain. Basically, if you don't get enough protein straight out the gate, you might be overall eating more to compensate for that.

 

Coach Jo 12:15

And the hormonal response protein stimulates an insulin response to process and handle in the blood carbs and protein, they're also digested the same way, which is why too much protein can also keep insulin high in people who are insulin resistant. Too much protein can work against us as an insulin resistant person. So if you are struggling to move the scale or body fat at all, no matter how little you eat or how much protein you eat, you should talk to an experienced coach about this, in particular. Adequate protein with complex or simple carbs and very little to no fat equals PMS, which is Protein Muscle Synthesis, not the other way around, what we're used to.

 

Coach Kim 13:05

Not the PMS - premenstrual syndrome. 

 

Coach Jo 13:08

You got it. Insulin response is required to drive energy into the cells and stimulate that muscle building. And don't forget, because sleep is super important in that same equation, too. Protein with fat and very to little, no carbs or fibrous, sulfurous carbs, that is so great for insulin management. If you need to bring insulin down, you could be strategic with this, you know, like it's not about low carb or keto, it's really about strategy and generating the hormonal response that we want. Because, remember, hormones, they drive the car. Food is fuel and it's information to the body. 

 

Coach Kim 13:52

Yeah, it's both those things. So let's talk about carbohydrates, because I think that in this day and age, we're so divided when it comes to opinions about food, we forget the truth of food. There is a truth to food, no matter how we feel about it or what we think about our food, there are facts to hormonal and physiological responses in our body. What we eat is becoming us, and it is telling our body what to do. So let's talk about carbohydrates as a messenger or instructions to the body. Now, too many highly processed carbohydrates over time can make our cells deaf to the signal of insulin. Every cell in the body can use glucose to function. Jo covered this, and she also talked a little bit about insulin resistance and what we have to remember is insulin as the energy storage hormone, it has to be secreted when we eat. Not only eating every meal, but when we eat carbohydrates specifically, and when your diet is too high, chronically in carbohydrates, and in particular, we're talking flour, sugar, highly processed, high on the glucose index, insulin is secreted consistently to help you manage this. This is because blood sugar is toxic when it is unmitigated, unmanaged, right? So when the cells get overloaded by the amount of sugar, and therefore insulin floating around in the body, our cells become deaf to the instructions that insulin is saying. And so insulin tries to get louder. It dumps out more and more, and this is why some people struggle with weight gain, no matter what they eat, quote, unquote. And that's what generates that insulin resistance. This is the precursor to metabolic dysfunction. So we remind you that in episode four, Bitch Gotta Move, we talked quite a bit about metabolic dysfunction. 

Coach Kim 16:05

Now, each of us have a personal carb tolerance or threshold. Some people can get away with eating more carbs than others, and this could be as generic as body typing, right? Ectomorph, endomorph, mesomorph and ectomorph, someone who is very naturally long and lean and thin and struggles to put on muscle mass and is pretty typically long limbed and quite naturally thin by nature. They tend to be more carb tolerant than someone like an endomorph, who is probably more predisposed to put on fat a little easier than others, a little softer, rounder around the edges. An endomorph may not have as high of a carb tolerance. And again, a mesomorph, which is kind of a naturally athletic, muscular build, and if you want to put it in today's terms, Simone Biles at the Olympics, talk about a mesomorph, true mesomorph. Those people with that degree of muscle mass and body composition and activity level are able to get away with a higher carb tolerance than somebody who is probably more sedentary, probably more you know, doesn't have as much muscle mass, isn't active at all. 

 

Coach Jo 17:27

There's not one prescription for all bodies. You know, carbohydrates, they're honestly not essential to the body to survive. This is because the body can make its own sugar or glucose for fuel through gluco…..

 

Coach Kim 17:43

Yeah, gluconeogenesis, it's a big one. It's kind of like me talking about insulin genic. 

 

Coach Kim 17:48

I was like, Hold on, let me get this one out. Yeah, but it actually means to make new glucose like your body has the ability to do this, even if you don't eat carbs. On the other hand, Protein is essential to live. Without it, you will die eventually, water too. Your body needs dietary fat for many biological processes, you wouldn't be able to live a healthy life without it. But this doesn't make us like carnivore or anti carb. This is just the truth of food. Carbs, especially highly processed, boxed, bagged, packaged carbs, like cereals, oats, spaghetti, candy, chocolate, etc, are not essential for survival. It's not food. They are a fuel. They taste delicious, but they are not required to live, and we can still have them and enjoy them, even though they can be a sticky trouble zone for some of us, mostly as it pertains to hormone status. And when we say hormone, we mean insulin, not lady hormones, personal carb tolerance, excess body fat already at storage, etc.

 

Coach Kim 19:02

So here's the thing, is that carbs also do help with sleep. And some people, again, this is individual, some people need a bit of carbs at supper to help sleep deeper and better. So if you're someone who's closing the kitchen early in the afternoon, eating an early supper, or even eating before sunset, and you're not eating between supper and bedtime. You might be working on your blood sugar balance or reducing your insulin, and you're generally trying to keep your carbs well under 120 grams a day, or even sometimes less than 70 grams a day. That Carb Depletion initially, as you start to develop that sensitivity to blood sugar and balancing it out, it might interfere with the ability to get into deep sleep. So complex carbs at supper time can help with sleep quality, or even sometimes, like a teaspoon of honey and tea at bedtime, something like that. But remember, all carbohydrates digest into sugar or glucose, same thing. Same word. Sugar is glucose, same thing. All carbs digest to sugar in the blood, and sugar in the blood is toxic. It will kill you without being managed by insulin. So insulin is not bad. We're not trying to demonize insulin. You need it to live, but insulin is always in play when you eat carbs, which is why it's often trouble for our modern day life, which has us eating way too many carbs for our activity level and our lifestyle. So what we need to understand is that when we eat our blood insulin level rises, and this puts the brakes on fat burning for fuel and encourages storage of energy. So you have to understand that when you eat carbs, your insulin is high, and as long as insulin is present in the blood, you are not able to tap into your body fat. It's super important to understand. That's why eating a diet that's high in carbs, if you're always doing that, your body never has a chance to tap into its own body fat, and that's what makes weight loss difficult. So again, all carbs digest to glucose or sugar, and that is a broad spectrum of food. Anything that is not protein or not fat is carbs, and that is on that spectrum of good, better, best choices. We love this concept by precision nutrition, which says there are good choices of carbs, which would be like granola, sweetened yogurt, toast, muffins, cookies, that's a good enough choice for a carb but it, you know, there are better choices to make, and the best quality choices may be something like broccoli, brussel sprouts, garden beets, Swiss chard, you know, baby potatoes, raspberries or an apple, that provide different information to the body and generate a different insulin response.

 

Coach Jo 22:04

Different instructions. 

Coach Kim 22:06

That's right.

Coach Jo 22:07

Fats, they are the messenger, or, you know, they are instruction. So when we talk about them as instruction for our bodies, we can go back to the 90s. They were so demonized. They've been demonized even more than sugar. I still hear that diet dogma from some of my clients who, well, that's too high in fat, or I just buy the low fat. I just buy the low fat, right? And that is, that's three decades ago. We've been told that fats clog your arteries and they cause heart disease, and it's not true. So much of what we think we understand about metabolic health is just wrong. The low fat diet craze of the 80s, 90s, it really did nothing for our weight or for our health. Heart disease, vascular disease, arterial blocks and are more prevalent really, now than ever, and we have been high carb, low fat, low protein for about 30 to 40 years. Yeah, fat is dangerous when it's in combination with carbs, which converts to glucose or sugar in the body, as we have said in the past. Episode number two, fats and carbs together like donuts, pizza, ice cream, chocolate bars, poutine, all drive-through choices.

 

Coach Kim 23:26

Here's the thing about best quality fats, like butter, bacon fat, fatty meats, olive oil, raw nuts. It is really, really good for your brain and your nerves and your hormone regulation, it is also the one macronutrient that doesn't spike insulin. So this is why, when you have a really dangerous metabolic health situation and you're working with a physician or a nephrologist or a lipidologist or a specialist or even a health coach who wants to help you to lower your insulin, and maybe even your fasting, a 1c quickly, they will ask you to eat a lower to no carb, moderate protein, higher fat, lots of greens, lots of fiber diet, because fat doesn't spike insulin, it will force your body to drive down, not only your blood sugar and balance it out, but also that insulin. And so remember, protein and carbs are broken down in the same way in the body, but fat is not. Fat's different, and you burn what you eat. So if you're eating high sugar, you're burning sugar. Your body has to use that up fat first. And if you're eating a higher fat, protein, less carbs, more greens, you're going to have to burn the fat first so but again, be forewarned, because if you eat high fat, moderate protein, low carb, and then you decide that you're going to have wine and popcorn and chocolate at night, you're going to store all of that as fat. As soon as you raise insulin, all fat is stored as fat period, end of story. So that's just the truth of food. High carb plus high fat equals high insulin and fat storage.

 

Coach Jo 25:15

All of it is so important. Life is messy. It's complicated, and that includes our relationship with food. Food is cultural, it's emotional, it's societal, and there is a truth to food that we can't ignore. 

 

Coach Kim 25:33

Yeah, what I'm always after personally is education and being conscious in my choices, being, staying aware to what I'm picking. When I know better, I do better. You know, when I understand something, I'm free to make another choice, and I don't want to live on autopilot anymore. I want to tune in and listen to my body and do better for it. And this kind of education personally helps me to do that. 

 

Coach Jo 26:01

Thanks for tuning in, friends. We're loving this process of putting together the podcast for you. Remember when you hit follow on Spotify or subscribe to the Perfectly Unfinished Conversations podcast, you'll never miss another episode, and that includes Apple as well. And if you're really digging on us, maybe you would consider leaving a review or a five star rating. Thanks. Love you long time.

 

Coach Kim 26:20

Bye.

 

Coach Jo 26:23

You probably got a sense of who we are by now and what our personal approach is to developing a lifestyle that creates really great health and strength. Using a relational common sense coaching approach that is backed by knowledge and personal experience

Coach Kim 26:39

There are a couple of ways that you can work with Jo or I, one on one, remote or you can actually train here at Iron Lab. 

 Coach Jo 26:47

The first is the Metabolic Blueprint, personalized coaching program, which is customized for your life and your body. 

Coach Kim 26:54

We work together very closely either in person or remotely to help you conquer old diet drama and to get lasting results.

 

Coach Jo 27:02

Ideally, we'd love to teach you how to never buy a quick-fix diet program or app again. 

 

Coach Kim 27:10

Next, there is the accelerator academy, which is up to 12 months of self-paced weekly bite-sized lessons and journaling exercises, that we’ve created to help you create the lifestyle habits that generate a true transformation. 

 

Coach Jo 27:25

Find out more on our website: ironlablacombe.com/metabolic-blueprint