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Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.
Good morning, Scott here back again with another podcast hoping that you do live one day at a time because it's the only way it's the only way to live that means you really act now because that's the only time you can actually do something about where you want to be. You know, if you want to be healthy, be healthy today. If you want to be strong, be strong today. And you know, you chain these together. But if we think one day at a time in day tight compartments also helps with our anxiety and stuff like that as well, like, oh, what did I do yesterday?
Speaker 1:Oh, what should I do now? Let's focus on today. But today's topic is an important one, and I want to cover it because it is seen online so much that I would think that many of you have seen this argument. The argument goes, guess, protein is essential to eat, to consume for the body, fat is essential to consume for the body, carbohydrates are not essential for the body because we can get glucose through other mechanisms in the body. That's the argument.
Speaker 1:Okay? Sounds like we don't need carbs. Right? That's what it says. We don't need carbs because it's not as we don't need to eat them, but the body still uses glucose.
Speaker 1:Just remember that now. So the body's primary fuel source is carbohydrates, right? Glucose. So if we give the body carbs, well, great. It has the energy it needs.
Speaker 1:If we don't give it the carbs and it's the primary source of energy, it goes, oh, shit. We're not getting our primary energy source, we need a backup system. So there's a backup system called ketosis. Really the body then breaks down fat and uses that to convert into glucose, right? And then you get the glucose.
Speaker 1:Now, people run away with this and say, well, see that proof that you don't need carbs. Well, to me, that's proof that we really do want to have carbs. Everybody's preferable state is to consume carbs as an evolutionary mechanism, and it has a backup system for when we don't have it, it's quite important, this glucose thing. We need it, obviously. So instead of forcing our body into like a backup system, which is an optimal for performance, why not just provide it with what it wants from the start?
Speaker 1:Why not find the carbohydrate sources that really work for us? Some of you might say, well, eat bread, this doesn't agree with me. That's fine. Try oats. Right?
Speaker 1:Try rice. Try pastas. Try things with carbs. You know, if you're eating carbs, are more likely to be eating a decent fiber diet as well, which is important. So that's the first thing is just because it's not essential doesn't mean we should ignore it.
Speaker 1:It's a logical fallacy. The second thing is the performance element. So there's a lot of research on this, keto adapted is called, and the theory is this. If we've got more carbohydrates, if we've got more fat in our body as energy, there's more untapped energy there, why don't we tap into that for energy instead of carbs, which we have to consume on a timely manner every day to everything? So if we can tap into a bigger energy source, surely that's better.
Speaker 1:Well, no, the bigger energy source is there, but the turnover is slower. So for us to get the energy from fat, it takes more time, so it's not readily available. So when you're talking about, working out, know, trying to build muscle, trying to build strength, we need to have the energy available there now. We don't want to rely on the system which is three to four times slower than just consuming carbs. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:And I want to talk about a few studies now. And the way I look at this kind of ketosis model is like, it's like you're in a country and say say you're in The UK and your currency is pounds, right? And someone gives you dollars, which isn't really useful to you, but you can make it useful, right? It's not useful, you've got, you know, you're like, oh, I got dollars, okay. And you have to go away, you have to convert, go to the bank, convert it, get into pounds, right?
Speaker 1:You've got this like system where you can go and convert things and it's slower, it's not ideal, you would prefer just to be handed the pounds or vice versa. You're in America, someone gives you pounds, you're like, I don't really want to accept this, but okay. That's kind of how I see ketosis. It's like the body doesn't really want to be in ketosis, but then it's like, well, this is what we have to do. We'll have to do this, which is fine, but it's not optimal for performance.
Speaker 1:Right? So that's one thing. I'm going to share studies now. When this question comes up and people say to you, carbs are not essential, you shouldn't need a moo woo, just tell them to come listen to this podcast. Anyway, in several recent studies, ketogenic diet and conditions in resistance trainees, so people that do body weight exercises, resistance band training, caused either lean mass reduction, bad, or compromised gains in lean mass, bad.
Speaker 1:Lean mass, muscle is included in that, right? And remember, muscle is very important. And I don't mean you need to be bodybuilder, I mean, you need to maintain your muscle mass as you age, one of the most important metrics that you need to focus on. Furthermore, a recent massive review by Ashtari Larki and colleagues examined the ketogenic literature spanning from 1921 to the present day. Among the conclusions was that in resistance trained individuals lean mass loss tends to be greater with keto diets versus higher carb, lower fat diets.
Speaker 1:A 13 study systematic review and meta analysis led by the same authors reinforces the findings that restricting carbohydrates to ketogenic levels (which is less than 10% of total energy or less than 50 grams a day) is counterproductive to the goal of maximising rates of building muscle or retaining muscle. Keto diets are not a deal breaker for muscle growth, but the collective evidence shows that they can antagonize or at least sub optimize the process. Another meta analysis by Huntress and colleagues found that t two d, very low carbohydrate diets, okay, less than 50 grams a day were difficult to stick to, whereas a more moderately low carbohydrate diets, so about a 130 grams a day, was more sustainable. In a more recent meta analysis, Goldenberg and colleagues reported that keto diets, so low carb diets less than 130 grams per day actually outperformed very low carbohydrate diets, which is less than 50 grams for weight loss at six months. However, the difference was negated in subjects who were highly adherent to ketogenic diets.
Speaker 1:So, basically, no really matter. You can go super low, medium, high. There's no difference. So why would you go through the pain of going too low on carbs? Because it's horrendous.
Speaker 1:However, keto adaption has been shown to impair high intensity exercise performance. This is a big problem since endurance events are typically a mix of intensities, not a constant linear pace. Doctor Jose Atetta, Faculty of Sport and Exercise Scientist, Liverpool's John Mores University, has astutely illuminated the importance of carbs availability for ECOL's race winning moves sprints, climbs, lead outs and breakaways. The ability to best execute these moves separates the winners from other competitors. All race winning moves occur at high intensities and are dependent upon carbohydrates.
Speaker 1:Perhaps the biggest knock against keto adaption are the three recent, well controlled studies by Burke and colleagues. They stand out because unlike studies showing a lack of viability when using surrogate measures such as time to exhaustion, Burke and colleagues went the extra mile and measured the time to complete an actual race. Impaired performance was consistently seen in the keto adapted athletes compared to the high carb control conditions when testing mostly closely reflected real world competition. Given that these effects were observed in elite level race walkers, it's apparent that keto adaption can decrease exercise performance at a wide range of intensities, not just high intensities. But remember now, this is at the upper top the up upper echelons, right, where it is, like, on a microscopic level.
Speaker 1:You can see there that it impacts them, and these are elite athletes. So we're thinking now, okay, but what, Scott, what about me? I'm not sprinting. I'm not trying to win a race every day. But you'd have to think of it this way.
Speaker 1:I want my body. I want to be prepared each day. I want to give my body the best core, the best kind of base to go from. And if I do need to sprint away from danger, or if I do need to utilise my brain as much, I need to be kind of alert, or I do need to maybe feel like I can go and do exercise or go for a walk and have that kind of strong core of motivation because I feel ready, that tells me that carbs are there, carbs need to be there. Know?
Speaker 1:I'm not saying you need to over indulge on carbs, but you need them there. Right? And carbs are very time sensitive. So like it's not so much total carbs really, you can focus on performance if you want to have a good gym session, If you're training at 2PM, you really want to make sure that in the morning you have like a small meal maybe, say 8AM, say ten or 10:30, you're kind of topping up with more carbs, bananas, some oats maybe, and then just before you do a big workout, can have some glucose through a Lucazade drink or whatever. And then you're ready, you're primed for a good workout, you know?
Speaker 1:The difference, guys, I can't tell you, the difference is so big that it's quite shocking actually that, you know, when you're trying to lose weight, which most of you listening probably are, the chances of you being optimised carb wise is probably slim. You still get carbs and you're still decent, but when you actually optimise for a big workout, so say once a week you want to go big, you want to go all out, and you do this thing where say you train at one or 2PM and you do what I mentioned, you have two meals, decent carbs in both, and then you have like glucosid before the workout, you notice your strength gains will go up, notice you feel much stronger. Right? So there was one research that said the combination of carbs and fluid has been called the largest single determinant of ensuring optimal performance during endurance events, aside from genetic capacity and training. Okay?
Speaker 1:It's very important on our level, very important on our level, right? So let's have a look at other research here. Two more to cover guys, just so you have full picture of this. It's plausible that the daily dose of maximising muscle growth would be similar to the amounts that would maximise strength performance. In perhaps the first paper to specifically address the macronutrient needs of a bodybuilder's, Lambert and colleagues recommended five to six gskg.
Speaker 1:A more recent review by Slaton and Phillips relayed survey data where competitive lifters and throwers reported carbohydrates intakes of three-five gskg of bodyweight. While bodybuilders reported four-seven per day, a systematic review reports that the average intake of competitive bodybuilders in the off season is 5.3 per kilogram. A recent position stands on the ISSN maintains its recommendation for five to eight grams per kg per day for moderate volumes of intense training and strength athletes. Okay? So three to eight grams of three so just to be clear, if you weigh sixty five kilograms and say that the range is three to eight, you can start on three.
Speaker 1:So 65 times 395 grams of carbs a day is what you kind of wanna be aiming for as a minimum if you want to be peak in performance. You don't have to necessarily worry about this if your goal is fat loss and you want to focus on that right now. And you just just want to be aware though that, like, the foods you eat and perhaps I might avoid in carbohydrates because I think they're bad and maybe that's what you need to remove. So you want to eat your fruits and you want to eat your veggies and you want to have like your pastas and your rice and your and your whole grains and your oats or whatever. You you know, you don't want eliminate those because you think, oh, they're bad for me.
Speaker 1:Hit your calories and protein and have a look at your food and see where you're going with that. But this is just to kind of tell you that there is so much research that shows just because carbs aren't essential, and this is the argument every carnivore and keto person uses, and it's their only argument, and it it falls short quite far. You know, it's like, okay, it's not it's not essential, but the body has a backup system for when it doesn't have it. In my way, in my mind, it kind of is really important, but the body has got a backup system for it can't do well. Like, it's it's still important.
Speaker 1:Still very important. So yeah, that's the argument. Reason I say is because you're going to hear a lot about this in your journey, you're going to read about paleo, you're going to read about carnivore, you're going read about all of these things, right? And it has to come back to this. If you want to be bullshit proof in this world of health and fitness, if you want to ignore the noise, first of all, look at what they're aiming at.
Speaker 1:Is it a goal of just general well-being and fat loss? And just ignore them. Just hit your calories and protein steps, eat the food you like. If it's medical purposes and you don't have that medical thing, then you can ignore it as well, because I can find a use case for any, well, you can't have that because some people have got this medical condition. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, you recommend higher protein, what about people with damaged livers? Well, obviously not aimed at people with damaged livers. They would have their doctor tell them, Hey, you've got liver damage, liver problems, moderate protein diet is probably best for you. High protein diets do not cause liver problems, but if you already have I'm sorry, kidneys not liver, liver and kidneys, kidneys.
Speaker 1:If you don't have kidney issues, then there's no problem. But if you it doesn't cause kidney problems, right? That's the important thing. So you can easily find a medical thing about everything, right? Like, But it can always come back to, you you focus on the goal first.
Speaker 1:What I'm giving you advice on is this general well-being, fat loss, weight maintenance, and like building a strong foundation. I'm not giving medical advice on if you need to do the Keith Diet for epilepsy. I'm not telling you to do this diet if have schizophrenia. Would have professional advice on that personally, and you don't need someone on Reddit to tell you what to do about that because you will have that advice. Right?
Speaker 1:So that's an important distinction. It's like, who are these people speaking to? And if it's a very, very unique small use case, you crack on with what you're saying, maybe you maybe you could they can help people in the right direction. Who knows? But usually, it's people who think it's better just for general well-being and and weight management, and they demonize, demonize, demonize.
Speaker 1:And, like, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, demonization of anything in this sphere of the world just causes bad relationships across the board. I have a bad relationship with carbs, have a bad relationship with fat, I have a bad relationship with eating out with my partner or family and friends, have a bad relationship with alcohol now, I have a bad relationship with chocolate bars. I am fighting every single direction. I feel like I'm in a constant battle in this world, and that's no good for any of us because it's gonna wear you out, you're gonna feel like what is the point? Everything is conflicting.
Speaker 1:Yes, everything conflicts out there because there's certain angles people want to sell you on. You know, the angle of it's about calorie deficit, you need to eat your protein and steps. You know, I can't there's nothing really to sell on that. It's just a tool to help you to look at it. There's no like special diet book to sell.
Speaker 1:There's no special workout to sell there. There's no like, oh, this made up, like worker programming or this, like, specific protein supplement you're missing actually or this collagen super mix you're missing or these whatever. There's nothing. It is not a sexy thing to sell. It is extremely hard to sell the basic truth because people don't hear it.
Speaker 1:People don't hear it well. If you track this thing, this is the main thing. You know, there's doctor Ijs did a a post yesterday in his interest in monobolic. This study headliner said, found in Cheerios, this chemical or whatever. And doctor had looked at the research and it's like, it's like four eighty times lower than what we can consume daily.
Speaker 1:And it's not a bad thing. He says they found this thing with a weird name and they're going, that's in cereals, but actually we we consume 480 times the amount in cereal daily and we'll be safe. It's like people taking headlines and making a mess of it. And again, someone might sell a diet then diet low on that. This is the reason why you're not healthy, and this is why you're sick.
Speaker 1:It's this one thing. It's never one thing. We've stopped thinking about these things properly. Don't be married to one idea. Don't be stuck in one position.
Speaker 1:Don't turn to stone. Don't, you know, don't be one of those people. Be in the middle. But being in the middle is hard. Moderates are hard because when you're not part of any side, you're not backed up by any side.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean? You're really attacked by all sides. You know, you'll you'll find a lot of people attack this stance of always sort of well, calorie deficit is obviously it's just not good because it doesn't take into effect nutrients. No. It doesn't take into factors nutrients.
Speaker 1:Completely different thing. You've got energy intake, and then you've take us energy from certain macronutrients, protein, carbs, fat. Right? And then you've got micronutrients from certain foods. So we've got our energy and we've got our macros and our macros give us the calories because that's how we work out calories from the macros.
Speaker 1:But the macros, depending on the foods you eat, will give you different nutrient qualities, Different nutrients numbers. We know what foods are high in nutrients. We know I've swagged like it's fruits and veggies and certain meats and rice and all these things we know, okay, they're high in fibre, high in this, great. We know that. But energy is still important and so is food quality.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't have to be like a 100% diet of unprocessed foods. That's not realistic. It's not how it's not it's not what we need to do either. There's there's even in the research, it doesn't say you need to do this. There was a one study I I read that used a computer program with, like, 95 of someone like out of the generic foods you can buy from supermarkets.
Speaker 1:Like, loads maybe more than hundreds of generic foods. And they they wanted to see if you could get all your micronutrient needs from 2,000 calories of only unprocessed foods from the generic library of foods. And they found that they couldn't. So if they want a 2,000 calorie diet to hit all micronutrient levels with only unprocessed foods, it wasn't possible. The only combination that Kabuto found, which obviously uses like machine learning and stuff, was that it was a combination of unprocessed and processed foods that allowed that 2,000 calorie diet to hit all the micronutrient needs.
Speaker 1:You'll thinking, how's Alan Scott? Well, you have to remember that a lot of processed foods aren't bad. So like yogurts and stuff, they've got loads of added vitamins and minerals. They are, you know, high in these things. Cereal even has added vitamins and minerals and iron, a lot of these stuff.
Speaker 1:Know? Like, when you mix unprocessed and processed, you bet get the best of both worlds. And you then the computer program showed mathematically that was the only way of eating that hit all the micronutrient needs of a person on a 2,000 calorie diet. So that tells me, let's go for the mix. Let's enjoy the mix, if anything.
Speaker 1:I'm keen for it. I'll have a chocolate barley at the happy days. Crack on. Tomorrow, I won't have a chocolate barley. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Maybe I an Oreo ice cream sandwich. Maybe tomorrow, I'm gonna just hit three meals and I'm gonna enjoy chicken and stir fry and maybe some risotto. Like, what you know you know, up to me. I'll have a mix, and I'll enjoy the mix, and that's what you should enjoy too. Anyway, that's me rambling on enough for today, guys.
Speaker 1:But, hopefully, this shared some information and context about this argument you'll find online a lot. If you have any questions, let me know. But have a good day. Get your one big thing done or write it down, get that done and build momentum, and I'll see you back here tomorrow.