Dr. Andy Galpin: Why You’re Not Losing Fat & How Metabolism Really Works

29:27And one thing that's a massive topic of debate when we get to nutrition, food and fat loss is seed oils. Oh my God. Okay. I can't not have this conversation. Go ahead. What's your thought and take on seed oils? Because honestly, it's probably one of the most trending, polarizing topics in the health space right now. All right. I love the deep breath that you just took. I'll try to avoid banging my head off the microphone here. You can probably tell by the context in which I'm approaching this question, my overarching feeling on this one. Much to say, like anything, nuance and context is the most appropriate and fair answer here.

30:11To say that, though, good grief are people wasting time with seed oil. the research of potential negative effects of seed oil are so weak that doesn't mean there's nothing there if you go okay and you give six caveats to that you can find some examples of seed oils being concerning okay so if it was left outside for seven days in the sun and it's gone rancid and someone's in a hypercaloric state and they over consume these things in the presence of alcohol okay yeah like all right the other only semblance of an argument here that makes sense there's two they're bad they're mental gymnastics and for the record i have many many people who i deeply respect and friends friends who are as far into like the sea doyles or the devil camps as possible i would name them by names but it doesn't matter.

31:13That's one argument that they can make. The second argument is, it's not that the CEDOs are that bad, but they are so commonly consumed in the presence of other really bad behaviors and actions that they're, it's the old gateway, gateway drug sort of thing. Again, in my opinion, that is enormous mental gymnastics. Like, then say that. If that's the true case, say CEDOs aren't bad, say that this is the problem, you're consuming too much bar food and so on and so forth. Don't bait and switch, though. Don't be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, seed oil, seed oil, seed oil, seed oil, seed oil, seed oil, seed oil, seed oil is a problem.

31:55Oh, but they're not really the problem. They're just putting people in a bad position to eat other things that are the problem. Okay, that is not at all what you're saying, right? So that's my pushback on there. And then number three, the other ones in the States, at least, because of what's happening with the movement the the third argument that they'll generally make is it's not necessarily about the cedos per se is showing how though when the people speak we can make changes to massive food conglomerates again then just don't lie about the fact that the cedos are so detrimental and okay um so there's a lot of nuance and complexity to that thing but overwhelmingly i i just don't I think that's a good approach.

32:38I think there's so many other things you could do to demonstrate that when the people speak and that people are interested and there is financial rewards for companies who make healthier products, those are good things. But to ban an oil like that and to then come out and say things like, oh, yeah, beef tallow is perfectly healthy. So as long as you fry your burgers and beef tallow, I mean you have to have a special level of like nuts. Yeah but there is a lot of nuts online. But like you how can you cogently say that and be like yeah that makes sense. It just like does not. So it's unfortunately one of those things where I understand marketing enough and I understand public health messaging.

33:24You can't speak in nuance in those positions or at least people traditionally don't. And this is, one of the problems this introduces is when you have the speaking heads, the same person as a scientist, you force the scientist into a marketer. And that leads to problems because then that person has to say, like, you have to say one clear message. The message to the public, seed oils are dangerous, seed oils are dangerous. If you have any nuance, two stories mean no stories. And I hope we made it through COVID with the realization of like, okay, enough of that. Like, enough of that. We have to treat adults like adults.

33:58And this is one thing I will say what the Maha people are doing is that is one of their principles that I fully endorse and support and thank them for. Yes, give the public more credit for intelligence. I don't care that if you feel like you're going to lose them, we should know as close to the truth as there and don't whitewash it over because you think everyone is a low intellect person. So tell people the truth and with as much reason as possible as you can and as close as you can tell us the truth. So I appreciate the fact that they're like trying to do that. But yes, the seed oil push. And so to my dear friends on that side of the aisle, your arguments are terrible, as plainly as possible.

34:40How do you have this conversation off air with your friends that are like very against seed oils? I don't. You don't? It's like politics. You just don't do it. I generally. This is the most political thing I've ever done in public probably in my life. So you're welcome that you pulled that one out. Yeah, thank you. Because I generally hate to do it because I'm just going to get an onslaught of commons. And I don't think any of them will beat those four general positions that I just said, but we're still going to get it. And it's just not helpful. Like, this is the thing we're talking about. Of all the other interesting ways and things and tools and stuff we can do for improving humankind, like what we're spending billions on is fucking seed oils.

35:20That was our shot. Like, you had one shot to change how healthcare works in America, and the bullet you've towed to fire was seed oils? Do you know where it's actually like this mental hype? Because I've just seen it. I see it everywhere. Of course. Where did it start from? Well, I'm not gonna answer that question. I know the answer, but I'm not gonna. Because it would involve name-calling and, like, putting it on people, and I don't like to do that, positive or negative. That's something I never do, and I won't start that here today. day. I'll answer it this way. My assumption when I hear and see people do these things, I actually assume it's good intention.

36:02But my issue has been, if you look at the breadth of things that people are doing, the terrible sleep, mental health, the environmental stuff we got going on, water and seed oils where you're shot, like, oh my gosh, it's just like the food quality and kids like so they are doing some really awesome things but for whatever reason they chose seed oils as that big flag to fly to people's attention and i'm like oh man like so many other cooler ways you could have approached it so last thing i'll say is i'm not in those rooms so maybe my tune would be different if i was in those rooms and i understand like public messaging is a very difficult thing.

36:48But yeah, I just wish they would, like, find a more interesting thing to hang their hat on and to gain attention with, so. I'm interrupting for one moment to ask one small favor. Please subscribe to the show. This helps it grow more than you know. And I'm so bad at asking this from you. I'm so bad at thinking about this. But you know my goal is 100 ,000 to get to on YouTube. And I really want to bring you more content and better guests and bigger episodes. And we can only do that with your help together. So please do hit subscribe. Thank you. I think the big thing about public messaging that I feel in the health space is now it's become very marketable.

37:27That's the problem. So it becomes very fear-mongering. Of course. And isolating to such specific things. Yeah. That's where it gets worrying. That's where there's no debate. And I think nutrition is one of the most debated topics of the moment. Yeah, you want to move a product, and not even that. You want to just gain following? Just terrify a group. That's all you have to do. It's really funny. Are you familiar with Malcolm Gladwell? Yeah. 20 over 20 years ago he wrote this unbelievable article i still have it i send it i used to send it every student in my class and he out in that article he outlined i think it's like six steps that every fad diet takes so you'd be stunned it's the same exact recipe tell me the six steps it's the same i don't remember all the hell but it's something like you start off with fear and death right and so you're like my mom died of cancer oh great sympathy attention and impact is made okay and then you move on from fear to hidden science right and the hidden science is like well yeah my team found a study buried in the archives um you know in south africa hidden in the bottom of a library was buried and kept away from you and now we're the only people that know about this thing.

38:48As if the scientific community like didn't read the paper and all these things. You can cherry pick any study you want to make any claim you want. Totally. And that's one of the biggest things that I feel like I have to say when any health documentary comes out. Oh, the worst. Even if I'm for or against whatever they're saying, I'm like, you can make any documentary on anything you want and scare people because you can cherry pick evidence. Like there's no tomorrow. If there's one health practice I would ask people to do that's never watch a health documentary ever again. Yeah, thank you. They're nothing but rubbish.

39:16Yeah. See that? Used your term there. The rest of the playbook is something like, then you put an anecdote behind it. Oh, so my mom died of cancer, then we found this study that showed that when you drink water out of the Live Well Be Well cup, that you'll never die, and so then I'm on this mission now. And you put all this emotion behind it, and then when you start actually listening to the content, you're like, there's no content there. Storytelling. This is storytelling and emotion, right? And then one of the key aspects is you have to pin it on one thing. It is the seed oils. It's the gluten.

39:53It's the dairy. It's the meat. It's the water quality. There has to be a villain so that people can go, ah. And the reason that's important is because that creates hope. I've tried A, B, C, D, E. I tried the basics. I tried the lifestyle stuff. I did all those things. And this didn't go away. My brain fog didn't go away. My stomach didn't feel any better. I didn't get the muscle growth I was hoping for. I'm still not happy oh maybe it's all the gluten oh my god could it be this oh yeah oh study it was in a study great um when this person's mom like died this really is into it emotions there I've never tried that far what if it's this what if it's what if it's this and the hope is encompassing you you can't walk away from that and then people try it and what happens the overwhelming majority of people feel nothing because it wasn't really the thing and then 10 people go holy hell my life just changed because it did it's part placebo it's part placebo but let's just say it's real yeah okay do you think certain amount of people who buy a special water filter actually get better yeah they could that did absolutely that's absolutely they let the throw placebo even out let's that is a real possible thing you might have a micronutrient deficiency.

41:11You actually could have problems with gluten. All those things are real. And so there's enough evidence and realness to that, that these people can support it and be like, see, here's another example. See, here's another example. And then people are going to go, holy shit. And then one of the final steps is you pin everything back against the establishment. But they're hiding this from you because they want to sell you supplements. They're hiding this from you because they want you sick. And now you have an enemy. you have something to attack and you have rationale to understand why this was kept from you and almost all of it is nonsense right and there's a sprinkling of truth and that occasionally a paper comes out or occasionally someone does it and you're like see it was real but you're like no no no like we're still there and then enough anecdotes and stories come out but what you don't see is the fact that those 20 stories or let's say 10 000 stories come out of success which you don't see is the fact that 6 million people tried it and 5.99 million it did nothing for but you see 10 ,000 stories and you're like oh my god there's so many stories this must be a and so it's not the exact way that Malcolm wrote it but it's pretty close to the playbook he had and so then people go in and they come back out and then in and come back out and so you watch go back and look at the playbook of C-Dolls go back and look at what gluten did go back and look at what CrossFit did.

42:37Go back and look at what you can name all these things that have come in. And I don't think like calling them fads is the right way because they're not all just totally wrong. I promise you with my life, if somebody were to right now full stop, the next person walking on the street, if the only thing we told them was stop eating seed oils and they looked and Googled where they're getting seed oils from and they stopped eating seed oils, there's a reasonable chance that person's life gets better. Probably didn't matter the seed oil, but it is true a lot of ultra processed foods basically bingo yeah bingo bingo bingo right they i think that's the one nutrition part that everyone agrees on it's ultra it is actually pretty complicated um because processing is like well technically dairy is processed yeah but you got ultra processed processed what is this specific definition of ultra processed versus processed i should know this because i actually spoke about this yesterday on a panel so this is the problem There's four stages to different processings of food.

43:36And there's not an official, like, 100 % internationally agreed upon definition. No, that's the problem. There's like a few different terms on how people kind of vary this. Yeah. And so like what Kevin has done, Kevin Hall at NIH, like he's done such insanely helpful work there, but it is a pretty complicated one. It is a little bit of common sense though, right? So if we like avoid that nitpicking and go, okay, if you just stick to mostly real whole foods, and if you want to call that process versus not, we're basically talking about the same thing. What we're generally saying is avoid most of that stuff a third grader would know is not good.

44:14I kind of say if you look at a back of a label and it's got like 20 ingredients you don't recognize. No, that's a bad way too. Really, why? You don't have a degree in chemistry, you do. I do. If I get someone to look at the back of a label and they don't understand most of the words in that ingredients, They don't have to understand it, but most of the words... No, I'm going to full disagree here. Why? Because they don't have chemistry backgrounds. So, clarify the example... But what if it's E number, E number, E number, E number, E number? You would be like, naturally, that's not a good food to eat.

44:45No, again, because what you're actually talking about is a food labeling issue. So, depending on where you're at, there are different laws on what has to be on labels and what doesn't have to be on labels. So if you get to a place that has more restrictions and it says you have to label products more and somebody has to legally write dihydrogen monoxide, you're like, I don't recognize that word. That's bad. Oops. Like we're drinking water here. So just because you don't understand what chemicals are and then chemicals per se like aren't bad. Again, like conceptually, I'm totally with you. but in terms of actual practice it doesn't really matter that you understand what a chemical is or isn't it doesn't i don't if you have a a fifth grade level education it doesn't make a food more or less healthy because you do or don't know what that thing is in it some things come with really fancy chemical names that are completely inert or positive right so if you didn't know what magnesium was, and you're like, well, damn, this food has magnesium in it, you would have the same reaction as, you know, red dye, 6 ,000 - Or the different types of magnesium as well.

45:57Of course, right? That people also aren't aware of, but yeah. So I think the easier, probably safest approach is eat whole foods. We all agree with what a whole food is, a single ingredient, natural state food. If that is the bulk of your diet, you've probably avoided the labeling problem because you're just not buying things in containers. often as much. We've avoided the process versus ultra process that the average person does not know or care about. Science dorks and nutrition geeks like us are fighting over it. But the average person is like, what are you babbling about? I do not care. What should I eat?

46:35I'm just trying to get it figured out. So if you just, you're like, all right, eat foods in the closest to natural state. Okay, so here's what that means. If I'm going to eat some peaches, what's the best choice? If the only thing you're thinking about it is eat it in its most natural state, you're just going to eat the peach. Great. If, though, we're deciding between canned peaches and Pop-Tarts, the canned peaches are still the better option. It's closer to the more natural state than the peach-flavored Pop-Tart. So, personally, I think that's just a little bit more, it's still, I think, user-friendly, and it's a little bit more accurate than the other approaches.

47:18That said, if that heuristic allows people to just go, great, in my brain, the coach said don't eat things with a bunch of stuff on the label, that's going to translate to a lot of people as eat real food. But what about protein bars? There you go. I'm just going to keep caveating. That's my point, right? Processed foods with a load of ingredients with stuff you don't know how to pronounce. Okay, what do people think about protein bars? If you're asking me, what do I think is a better overall health practice, eating a whole food protein source or protein bar, my answer will always be the whole food protein source.

47:54No question. Eat it in its most natural state as often as you can. But now the question is, okay, that's not available or whatever. What is a secondary option? Then maybe a protein bar with the least amount of processing, the least amount of ingredients. But we're not getting as good as the natural source. But that's when we're going to the ingredients list. For sure. So how do people then figure that out? So if you want to get, we have to acknowledge we're on option two now, not on option one. Yeah, but that's what I mean. So if we're actually trying to like navigate a supermarket, because two thirds of our shopping baskets are full of ultra processed foods.

48:29That's just sadly where we are now. Yeah, for some folks. That's like, well, that's the stats as of today. Yeah, yeah. And I think people will, you know, naturally be pulled towards marketing. Yeah. And it's like high fiber, like 23 micronutrients. It's all over the bars. And so people are so confused. Like people that I know that are also highly intelligent, intellectual, high performers, are still tied towards these. The amount of DMs that I get about, what about this protein product? What about this liquid drink? And obviously you can't name them because I don't want to take them down. But like, there's so many brands out there that are marketed as extremely healthy and very smart people who know the difference between whole foods.

49:11That's why I try to get to the ingredients labels because people are like, well, look at all these claims. They can't say this if it's not healthy. And I'm like, ah. They can. Well, they can, easily. Okay. So I see you're, I don't recognize - See my point? I do. But here's what I'll say when people ask us that exact question. And I've been, my poor students across the globe are going to be like, oh my God, he's going to do the thing because I've been doing this for a very long time. I have the, what I call, stare at you in the face rule. I do not answer questions about which one of these two products is better.

49:47I do the, I blankly stare at you in the face. And if I stare at you uncomfortably in the face long enough, people will start squirming because that's the natural thing to do, right? When people stare at you, especially with a dismissive, non-happy look on their face, right? It's like, uh, why I do that is because most people will go, we're, we're, we're like splitting hairs between like a shitty product and a little bit less shitty product. Right. And I'm like, yeah, you're playing the game of least bad. I'm trying to play the game as max good. So the way I'd answer that is stare in the face and go, is that the single best choice you can make?

50:25if you're not making the best choice you know you can make and you're asking me to help you decide between option d and d minus i'm not going to do that i just don't think people think they know they're going to a d and d minus that's completely agree that's the scary part because i was on a podcast the other day and i'm not going to name names great guy really like him but he brings out i'm gonna timestamp this and go figure out who it was date stamp this thing He'll know if he's listening to this. And he's great. And we had this conversation, we also had it offline, where he will put two products that are similar to processed or processed and batch them against each other.

51:02And I'm like, I have a problem with that because we're mis-messaging. And he's like, yeah, but people don't have time. People are tired. People are, I'm trying to show that you can half your sugar by eating this product versus this product. Similar, right? I'm in the camp that you're in. But then I'm like, it's booming and people are obsessed with it and people are like oh okay well if i'm gonna make a choice i'm gonna make that one instead of that one it's it's really hard though because there's too many variables you have to optimize for there's too many for example okay generally when you talk about things that come at a lower caloric intake in terms of processed food you're usually exchanging that for something else and that person may not want that something else or that something else might be worse.

51:47This could be oftentimes, it's gotten better, but historically, things that were low sugar were higher fat. Not that fat is bad, but you've gone right back up. All you've done is switched them out. And so if it's just like general health, well, fat and carbohydrate intake is very variable. It's not one, it's better than the other one. Or low fat oftentimes meant - High sugar. Bingo. So there's an exchange you're making here, and you don't know what that client wants to optimize for. If the exchange is also minimal calories, fine. That probably then means you're getting way more processed ingredients because it has to taste and have a palate and a mouthfeel and a smell and a texture that are going to come with a whole bunch of other substitutes, which might be fine.

52:35They also might hurt people's stomachs more or have other things that, you know, down the line, short or long term we don't want so i struggle with those things i'm like again we're playing a game of like crummy versus a little bit less crummy and i don't know what you're trying to optimize for that's great but you have to acknowledge what he and i have no idea this person is what he is determining as better is a matter of perspective one of the best things my old professor ever told me is that a good scientist will always try and prove their own hypothesis wrong that that that is and it's the only way your argument gets stronger is that you're always trying to keep researching and seeing if, like, the research has changed, and that's the thing, I think.

53:16We're always trying to see what's coming up. And I think that's the frustration with the public, right? Because one minute they feel one thing is good, and then they're like, oh, actually, now it's bad. But that is science. The whole, like, little bit of insider baseball here. The entire way that the scientific field moves now is different than it was historically. It has definitely changed the quality of individual papers now is far lower than it used to be because of that. So getting published is different now than when it used to be. It used to be a huge deal. Getting tenure is different. Like all these markers have really substantially changed.

53:56And so that has changed how the public has to perceive the value. I can say it very bluntly. The value of an individual publication means less now than it ever has in the history of the world. And because there's so many out there, what you said earlier, you can cherry pick and find one that can prove just about anything you're trying to say. Absolutely. It's a difficult landscape for sure. So I had this question this week from a woman who stood up. She said, I'm in my 40s, like early 40s. And you haven't got an answer directly to her, but this is just a very general question. you know, premenopausal, and have kids.

54:38And I just really struggle to stay healthy. Like, what do you advise? Like, how can you help me? What a great question. I think if you're listening, there's a large chance you're like, that's me. I mean, what a common thing. And there's good reason for that. Raising kids is really hard. generally falls more on the responsibility of the woman than the man. And then also, if you're trying to have a career on top of that, you go to zero. It's just a really real thing that happens. It's also at the time where what worked in your 20s probably doesn't. You don't have the energy. You are way more fatigued.

55:23Your mental load is high. And you haven't transitioned into a life because your kids are probably younger at 40. Where you're still managing the whole house or large part. Like there's just a lot going on. And then you're supposed to be on top of your health too. Okay, super challenging. So the answer to that question would be like, what can you do? What I'd say is find one thing. One thing that you can control that is a positive lifestyle thing. And just like lock onto that thing with a grip. If this is protecting your time for sleep. if this is protecting self-care time, your personal time. A lot of the times I say that because even if you're an introvert, extrovert, one of the major challenges with moms in that age range is they get no space.

56:13Right? Because they get space, work, kids, spouse, family. Like, everyone always wants them. Whether that's true or not, many women feel that's the truth. Again, it's not always the same, but we're having broad generalizations of... I'm characterizing every female of 40 as the same person. But it's interesting because when I spoke to a happiness expert from UCL, he said people are... And it's very hard to define what happiness is, it's a very nuanced word, and a fleeting emotion. But he said you see this kind of bell-shaped curve where it goes, it dips in mid-age because your parents are getting older, you've got young kids, you're trying to be at the top of your career at work, you have so many responsibilities and basically no time for yourself.

56:55And then your basic happiness starts to increase again. Like, once your parents pass, and once your kids get to an older age of 18, you have a bit more freedom. The most traumatic event that women will ever go through in their life, on average, is childbirth. It is an insanely physically and emotionally difficult thing. And most people have no strategy with that. You just, like, get through it, right? And so what that does is one of the single, if not the single biggest creator of clinical sleep disorders in women is pregnancy. So you can create legitimate clinical sleep disorders through that.

57:34Postpartum depression is a very real thing. We could go on body weight, weight gain, right? So like the biggest contributors to all of these things, sleep disorders, body composition, mental health, like childbirth is the center of that for women if you have a child, right? So it's a huge thing, and we generally don't do anything about it. We give very little, like, just get through it. Okay, there's, like, your OB who's handling the birth and stuff, but the other things, we actually created a program at Absolute Rest where we have three months when we're trying to conceive, like, if people are intentionally trying to conceive, and then different strategies that happen during pregnancy different strategies specifically in the third trimester and then different strategies for like the nine months post-birth why the demands and this is specific to sleep and the solutions differ very very much so in those individual stages But there's no education, no information, there's no things like that.

58:37You're just like, as a mom, you just like, just get through it, right? You just try to survive, basically. You just try to survive, for sure. So my answer to that, again, specific question was like, find the thing, if it's the personal space you need, fine. If it is exercise, fine. If it is, you need to chat with your friends once a week for an hour, whatever it is you have to do, Just try to get that one thing and just hold that true and say, and you fail. Like, again, I have two young kids. My wife is 44. So I know this avatar, like, very clearly. And we fail miserably all the time and all the stuff that happens, right?

59:18And we're not perfect and we've done different things. But that would be the one resounding thing where I'm like, you have to have something that's yours, that's non-negotiable, that is your complete thing. and she still, regardless of that, will give up that thing for the kid when I'm like, don't, no, like, I'll do that, but okay, okay. So moms are just like going to do that. Fine. You're gonna fail a ton of times, but just have something that you try to come back to. So as not a mom... But what about nutrition? Because she said to me, she followed her question on with that, because she was like, protein's such a big thing.

59:54Should I be having more protein? She's like, I'm just so confused. Yeah, okay. So again, the most traumatic thing most women will go through is having a kid. Why that matters is your taste buds will change and other things like that. So the nutrition aspect of it is like, meat is a common one. Sometimes after pregnancy, women are just like, I cannot eat meat. The smell of it, the whatever, I'm out. So yeah, push protein, sure. But if you're like, oh my God, it makes me feel nauseous, then I would be like, don't, then maybe, maybe chill on it. Don't have to worry about that. my stomach my wife has this weird like stomach pain thing with eggs happened for years when she got pregnant went completely away craved a ton of eggs and then had the kids came right back it's like can't even get so do the best you can with what your body is telling you and if a food like fruit in this particular case that you know is really good for you and your body's just like nah fine don't let it get you down let it go you don't want it all good smoothies oh my god it's like never a smoothie again for natasha like okay fine so these things are now off the table she wants to eat them she she's just like i can't okay even though it's been seven years since her first kid she's just like not there so the protein right or the the recommendation specifically would be you know the numbers you know the guidelines a bit higher than the guidelines i believe these being a little bit more protein than what we're saying in the national guidelines right now i think it's i think it's like low and also it's based in sedentary old men in the UK anyway.

1:01:24Not true. Not necessarily fully true. There's more nuance to that. But if that is causing huge problems, what kind of point I was trying to get to is like if that's causing huge problems and you're just like hating your relationship with food and it's stressing you a ton, my answer is like, it's okay. Then it's like, let it go a little bit. You'll be fine. Right? So the numbers with protein specifically, there are databases of men and women, by the way. So we have reasonable information. on women. It's not all just based on men. That's another really common fallacy, actually. It's like, weird these things get said, and you're like, have you actually looked?

1:01:59People say these things when I'm like, have you ever looked? Because it's right there. It is very much available. But they're so, I think, do you think they're too low? It depends on what you're finding is too low. So remember, generally the recommendations are saying things like, what's the minimal amount we think the average person should have? They're not what is optimal for body composition. They're not what is best to help you keep your calories down. And that's not really what they're intended to be. So the, I mean, Stu Phillips has done a great job in this area is one of the most prolific protein guys in Canada, Luke Van Loon, actually over here in Europe.

1:02:34A lot of people have done this. And there's really not a compelling piece of evidence that suggests you have to be at 2.2 grams per pound to be healthy. I don't think you can actually make that argument. You can make the argument that that number is okay. It's not detrimental to your health. There is an argument, though, if you fall below like 1.6 to 1.4 grams per kilogram, that that might negatively impact your health. So if you ask me right now, Andy, what is your personal recommendation for protein intake? I personally recommend 2.2 grams per kilogram. Yeah, which is so much higher. That's not actually what I think if you said, Andy, what do the data show in terms of the minimal amount you need to be perfectly healthy?

1:03:25The data show you can go far lower. I like to go higher personally when I, for myself and when I coach people, because I think it has all those other advantages. It keeps your, it's easier to maintain calories. You can, I think you can train harder and recover faster and blah, blah, blah. but you don't have to eat higher to be healthy. And so when it comes to like the guidelines, I wish they would go up a little bit, but I don't think you can actually make a scientific argument that the guidelines for minimal amount of protein should be at 2.2 grams per kilogram. No, but that's like way over double what they are right now.

1:04:03Yeah. Like that needs to come up. Like we're lower than the US here. What is it? Do you know? I think we're zero. No, we're less. 0.8? Yeah, we're 0.8 for a woman. And I just think even just increasing it minimally to one point, you know, as like deficiency, I'm not saying we need to... I also don't believe in cramming in protein. I don't think we should be pushing, pushing, pushing, but I do think that's what we're saying is the minimum. And I do think that's too low. I think it needs to come up a little bit, especially as we age, and especially through things like pregnancy and things like that.

1:04:36I think we do need to just push it up slightly for people. I mean, you're never going to see me write a program. Of 0.8, right? No, never. So that was my original argument of I'm not pushing 2.2. If I got to vote on if I could move the guidelines up, I'd be voting yes. As fast as you possibly can. Yeah. But the reason I'm pulling out the distinction is because I do see a lot of people making this and saying, oh, you need to be at 2.2 to be healthy. Yeah, no, I'm not saying that. That's not true at all. No, that's also a lot for people to eat. It's really hard. some of our people just smash protein and they get to 2.6 three like no problem and then others are like okay so like like you need me at 95 like yeah yeah okay that's half like no i need you 150 50 you're a reasonable sized person if you're 85 kilos like all right we're standing on the barrel of 200 grams of protein a day.

1:05:37So it's a good chunk. Like that's a hard thing to get, especially if you don't like meat or especially if you're like, okay, I don't want to eat protein bars and protein shakes. How am I going to get to 165 grams when I don't have time to cook three meals of fresh meat every day? Yeah. And protein distribution. I mean, this is a whole conversation. It's super hard, right? So you can get there. I mean, we published just a few months ago, we published our intermittent fasting study. And one of the issues we had the most was, look, it's just hard to get all of the calories in, in the condensed window.

1:06:17In an eight-hour window or a six-hour window? Eight hours. Eight hours. Now, we were different because we were the first group to look at that form of that 16-8 intermittent fasting. Yeah, Satya Pandas work. Well, we're the first group to look at it in a hypercaloric state. It was not a fat loss study. Those have been done. Grant Tindsey's done a ton of those things. We were looking at what happens if men and women are trying to gain muscle. Can I still do 16-8? Does it provide an advantage if I do it? So again, we were looking at it. And so the challenge was like, we're supposed to be in a caloric surplus intentionally.

1:06:49We're definitely going to be at 2.2 or higher protein. And now you start being like, okay, now I got to get 150 grams in, and I got eight hours. You're like, this is tough. That's a lot. To do, so. How often were they eating? So in this particular study design, the fasted group trained fasted, and then they all waited at least an hour to start their eating window. So the men and women all did that. And so what typically that would look like is people would start their eating windows, like pretty traditionally, like 12 to 1, sometimes 2 p.m. because these were college kids, So they, that's up to a little bit later.

1:07:28And so they would eat, you know, in their eight hour window from that. So, so most of them would eat a meal right when it started. And then they would have three or so meals in that eight hour window. But sometimes it was like two and you're just having giant meals. Some tried to get in like three or four. So we allowed them to kind of have distribute whatever they could. The group in the other window would eat before training, would eat and have a liquid meal immediately after training, and then they could distribute the amount of meals they want and however they want, as long as their total window was over 13 hours.

1:08:03So they start to stop. And so most of them would do a pretty traditional three whole meals, plus my shake after, and then maybe a couple of other, you know, feedings throughout the day. So that's just, that was, again, we didn't specifically control the frequency of feeding, but that's what it ended up being and what it looked like. And what did the results say? Which group did the best? It's never an ant, it's never a straight answer. There's pros and cons, as you would expect. So everybody got better. The men got better. The women got better. They were all fasting. They were all waiting over an hour past their exercise.

1:08:41Nobody had any issue. They were strength training four days a week in the gym with us. And the way that the strength training program worked is every single day, they would do a rep to failure. So many repetitions as they can. And then the weights would increase that next session. And so they were training really, really hard. At the same point, we were also checking their weight every week. And if their weight wasn't going up, they got more calories. So we continued, like we were really making sure that they were in a caloric surplus, no matter what, as defined, not only by the estimates and the guessing on calories, but actually directly being defined as, are you gaining weight?

1:09:20So we forced them to gain weight. Everybody got better for the most part, but there were some subtle differences. The fasting group in general started to have less energy towards the end of the study. Anecdotally, really challenging to get. Actually, the carbohydrates was the harder problem to get in because they were in a pretty high carbohydrate load um gi distress was more associated with that like really high some of these people are on five six seven hundred grams of carbohydrate a day because we had some really big men right so you have 100 kilo guys in there surplus and you're at six to eight grams per kilogram body weight yeah can imagine gi distress coming along there yeah so i mean it was not that often but that happened everyone got stronger but the non-fasting group got more strong.

1:10:14So the group that Ed fed throughout the day got more strong, specifically in the legs. The total amount of volume, so the amount of exercise that they could perform, the amount of repetitions, was better in the group who fed. But that said, body fat was better in the fasting group. So, now our study was limited as all studies are. We were only eight weeks long. This was only in college kids. but you know, you can still draw some interesting information out of that. So I would say in general, what did we find? Either approach is fine. They both worked. You, if you want to, if you like training faster in the morning, male or female, and you don't want to eat afterwards, there's no issue there.

1:11:01Like you're going to be fine. And there's lots of other fasting studies that have done that. It's just, there's just not a problem with that. The caveat to that story is if you are training multiple times a day, then timing for carbohydrate does start to matter because you have a limited glycogen resynthesis window. But protein timing just like doesn't seem to matter at all, as long as the total number is there for the overall majority of people. Is that more if you're doing anaerobic or is it still the same as if you're doing It doesn't really seem to matter. The only exception would be if your total training volume is really, really high.

1:11:40and or if you're doing multiple sessions per day. So a lot of our combat sport athletes, well, all of them are training twice a day, every day. So in those cases, timing matters because we actually have like three hours to recover and then you're training again. And then we're going to do it again the next day. But for the average person who's exercising once per day, it just doesn't seem to matter that much. And protein specifically, like the timing, just doesn't seem to matter really at all. Not even if, because everyone says have protein within 30 minutes post-training. No, no, no, no. That's been long dispelled.

1:12:16That was the thing that we used to call the post-exercise anabolic window. And that was something that was kicked around for a long time. And now there is molecular data. There are randomized control trials. There's multiple year-long studies now. We've done this again, like in our lab a few times, and there's enough thing, this is actually one thing that we can say pretty definitively. protein timing from a body composition perspective it doesn't matter wow as long as you get the total number in we actually say in the day but the reality of it is it's actually like probably more realistically 24 hours no like the week oh really okay so if you for example had 120 grams of protein today and 160 tomorrow as long as your weekly average you're probably fine like now you want to be consistent as possible to make sure you hit that number and you don't end up with sunday and you're like shit i need 290 grams of protein today like you don't want to do that so consistent is important but being at it because your body doesn't necessarily work on a 24-hour clock like that yeah um the other i think major takeaway from our study was okay if you're training really hard and really pushing the pace in this case this was this was lifting there's no endurance component at all but energy did come down sleepiness started to increase in the fasting group and the legs just looked like they got tired i wish we had muscle glycogen data on this we didn't we biopsied them we ran all the biopsy stuff we use for other markers and once we ran all the stuff we're like oh man this is it we didn't think this was going to happen and so there's just no tissue left to to go do this so like if you were to do it again And I would say, okay, measure muscle glycogen.

1:13:58So this is just me guessing, to be really clear. But it just kind of looked like, all right, the closest conclusion we could draw here is fasting's probably not the best approach if you're trying to maximize strength. If you just kind of want to get a little bit stronger, but you like not eating in the morning, it's better for you, it's more convenient, your stomach gets upset, then I would say, okay, then it's fine to fast. I don't think you're going to see any issues there. But if you're like, no, no, no, I need to be at maximal muscle growth and maximal strength development, specifically strength development, then I'd say, okay, don't.

1:14:32If you can avoid fasting, then do that. For everyone or just for the trainer all the time? Three times a day? If you're just training once a day? Yeah, even once a day. Because our group is training once a day. Yeah, okay. And it matters. So to not fast. Yeah, eat. Like you probably want to have a bigger window than that. the other side of the equation would be if you're training to kind of get a little bit stronger or don't even care about strength but you're trying to just optimize body composition maybe intermittent fasting is better again our limited data suggested that the body composition benefits were better in the fasting group lots of limitations right we didn't weigh and measure every single meal this is not a metabolic ward study so there could have been under reporting or over reporting and things like that like i don't know so you have options yeah i guess the biggest thing right is to like understand your body yeah and to actually have the self-awareness to be like i feel knackered when i do this yeah or i don't completely because i think sometimes that we completely lose actually how we're feeling just by running from data yep you know fully agree and i think sometimes like we can get up and then we didn't have this conversation yesterday but you know with trackers and things like that, I think we can sometimes just be so pulled by data that we forget actually how we're feeling.

1:15:52Now, for instance, when I looked at my sleep last night, it said I slept great. Gave me like 10 out of 10. Great score. I feel tired today.

1:16:06Two totally different opposing views. I don't feel tired. I do feel tired. I feel knackered. that's a very english word i'm now realizing every time i say that every american's like it's my favorite english word yeah i feel really tired so basically it's interesting a lot of people say if you look at sleep trackers or whatever and they tell you that you sleep bad but you feel good then you'll psychologically start to feel bad yeah but yesterday was different for me yeah i got 10 out of 10 had great REM sleep i had great deep sleep my hrv is still off the last conversation we had yesterday but maybe not off just the same um that's one of my learnings i took from yesterday if my hrv is consistent even if it's low but i still i don't feel great so i find it really interesting that we sometimes aren't just listening to our bodies yes so there's a lot to say about that i think your bigger point i i could not give more stamps on like really paying attention to what is effective for you and not effective without then falling too far where you now become hypersensitive and you're overly concerned about every little darn thing, right?

1:17:14So we want to walk a balance between what we call sensitive and resilient. So like actually at absolute rest, we do this a lot, but people are like, oh, you're a sleep optimization program. We're like, no, no, no, no. Sleep optimization is okay. Two and a half hour routine. Your life is blocked out. like we're going to get the maximal amount of sleep. Brian Johnson. Totally Brian, right? Great. That is not what we do at Absolute Rest. We maximize sleep resilience, which is I want you to be able to have a crummy night of sleep and still get the most effective sleep possible within a constraint.

1:17:51Your kid woke up. Yep. You were just up too late with work or you went out and had a bottle of champagne with your friend. Fine. How can we get the most effective sleep within constraints that real humans experience. Like that's what we really truly do. And so when we have variables we can control, fine. We can extend hours and all that. But really we're trying to have developed maximum resilience so that you can have a great night of sleep without having to do 50 ,000 different things and lose all of your sense of life there. Like that's what we're pushing for. So that's comment number one. Comment number two is sleep and energy are related but they are not the same thing.

1:18:31The same thing with exhaustion and downregulation. Those are not the same thing. You can be exhausted and highly sympathetically driven. This is wired and tired. I think we talked about this yesterday, right? We did talk about this yesterday, yeah. These are not the same thing. So the inverse is true then too. You can be perfectly well-rested and fatigued. You can be not sleepy at all, but drained. they are highly related so much so that most people just think they are the same thing but they are necessarily not so that's like my mental load is why i feel my favorite word knackered totally but you could be shot right but i'm shot that's the american word but maybe i'll get you to say knackered by the end of this podcast but i'm really well rested i gave you the rubbish i threw that one for you the other one it's not going to happen so that's interesting yes so then my take home would be that I need to download and because I felt like I rested last night I stayed in so you again you probably did but there are more things that go into your energy than just your sleep right this could be maybe you had lower calories the last few days than you realize maybe your energy expenditure was higher than you realize this may be simply a calories in calories out menstrual cycle so we are actually running a study right now in my lab where we are doing the first ever detailed analysis of sleep across the menstrual cycle oh my god i can't wait to see that it's open for enrollment so people want to they have to be in the states i was gonna say can i come yeah you come to states you can do it if you want but we are doing that and the reason is we're running, we're actually using the technology that we've pioneered at Absent Rest.

1:20:20So we can run a full medical grade clinical sleep study on people in their homes with no wires. We can do this, all this stuff. We actually have the only, we're the first ones to have FDA approval, our governing body in America, to run a clinical sleep study on people in a wearable. no other wearables there's some that can do that now we were the first to get that done so we we can run this high fidelity stuff and we're doing that and we built this up because like we need real answers for sleep trackers and wearables are great because they're cost efficient they're affordable for a lot of people they can do a lot of awesome things with basic awareness and calibration but they're not medical research grade devices that's what we're using and the other thing that's unique about our study, we're directly measuring hormones every day.

1:21:12So we're not going to estimate ovulation at day 14. We're not going to estimate your cycle length and just be like, well, every woman is at 28 and ovulation is day 14. And every male listening to this is like, what? And then everybody knows like, thank you. Like it doesn't happen that way. You're not all the textbook. No, not many people are textbook. And also depends where you are in your Life cycle. A thousand things, right? Yeah. Even a woman who is pretty regular, maybe even they are super regular for cycle length, they're not necessarily going to ovulate on the same day, every month. No, not if you're flying.

1:21:49Not at all, right? Jet lag screws your menstrual cycle up. 100%, and a million other things, stress load, allostatic, energy expenditure, exercise, like all these things can go out there, right? You might not ovulate, or you might not really, at least an egg. And you have no idea, right? So we are doing all these things so we can look at, number one, what actually happens with sleep across that cycle? And number two, is that actually related to a phase of the cycle? And so it's like a really popular thing now to, I'll save you for maybe part three, we'll do this, but it's like really popular to put all of these protocols behind menstrual cycle phases.

1:22:27And for the most part, it's nonsense. It's not based in human research, and it's definitely not based in any research that is verified cycle. It's just does these like, oh, you're on day 14, therefore X, Y, Z. So we're like, we don't want to do that at all. And so we're directly confirming sleep at the highest fidelity accuracy possible. And then we are confirming exactly where women are. So every single day we're taking biomarkers of them to do that. Subjective markers on top of all that as well. And here's the question we're going to answer, Hopefully. There is a very clear change in perception of fatigue and real fatigue across the menstrual cycle in many women, if not most.

1:23:09Not all, but a large part. Okay. I don't think I'm going to see much disagreement. No, you're going to get every hand raised, and I'm very much in this camp. Great. Now, here's a question. Why? And we've already been talking. It may not be your sleep. You teed me up perfectly for this. So here's our question. Is it sleep? But it's something going on in your sleep that is not picked up on a tracker. Because trackers are really ineffective, inefficient, and then they're like, they don't give you much information. So is it something like stability? Fragmentation. Sleep stages on trackers are anywhere between 60 % to 80 % accurate.

1:23:47Which means if your variation was 20%, it missed it. A sleep tracker is going to take a measurement once every five minutes. We do 150 measures per second. So is something happening in those other four minutes that is just totally missed? So it could be as simple as that. It's just that the accuracy of the trackers is not good enough for that question. It's good enough for tons of other awesome stuff, but it's not good for that question. Could be possible. This could simply be, yes, there is an architectural change in sleep at these phases of the cycle on average, and so thus your energy changes, or it could have nothing to do with your sleep.

1:24:25we might find i have no idea i don't have a dog in the fight either way if we find no changes at all in sleep fragmentation seek architecture stability wakefulness sleep quality like we actually have a again we have an fda approved sleep quality measure we're the only ones that have actually that that's how good that measure is not a random like score generated thing it is plausible that the real changes in energy throughout the cycle are driven by nothing related to sleep and are entirely explained by energy expenditure. We know during different phases of your cycle, energy changes. Yeah, I can something, I could not stop eating yesterday.

1:25:08Of course, right? I was ravenous. And there, well, we don't have to spend the time, but this is very easy to explain what five phases It's a cycle where various hormones are at and why that generates bloating, why that generates ravenous hunger. GI distress, the whole thing. All of the things, right? And it makes total sense. Yeah. If you're trying to - Mood swings, right? Yeah. All of it. If you're trying to create a situation in which you could grow an embryo, you should have a different metabolic need than when you're the opposite. Yeah. You're losing a ton of iron for multiple days in a row.

1:25:50You're going to have changes in oxygen carrying capacity. You're going to like feel lower energy, right? What we don't know though is, again, is this entirely explained by energetic demands? Is it entirely explained by sleep? Is it a combination? Or is it a third factor or potentially a fourth factor? I'll say the fourth being something we haven't thought about or aren't thinking about. Or the third one being, is it none of those energy intake out that is changing clearly but it's it's manageable and we simply have the hormonal changes that are occurring are simply giving you a perceived fatigue which is psychosomatic it's not psychosomatic per se because hormones make you feel a certain way yeah because it is actually happening it is actually happening it's not psychosomatic yeah but it is not like you're actually your energy balance is the same your intake and output, blah, blah, blah.

1:26:43So what would you call, I guess I said psychosomatic because it's like you're perceived. It is a hormonal driven feeling. Right, yeah. That is not just simply based on energy intake. So what do you want to leave the lister with? I have two things for you. As much as I think you and Natasha are going to be best friends, I have two favors to ask you. One, I have two favors. If you're listening to this at home, you can't see, but those of you watching, you'll see you are currently wearing black, black, and can I call those brown shoes? Yeah. So can you please let her know, as a former elite level model, you can wear black and brown together?

1:27:30Because according to her, this is an illegal offense that one cannot do. No, it's a good thing. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Great. So you're willing to say she is dead wrong, and I clearly have a better fashion sense. Yeah. Do you know what I would look like if I ever left the house wearing the things I would choose to wear?

1:27:50It's bad. It's all how you wear it, though. Yeah. Well, that's probably worse, actually. Aesthetics and fashion, I could not be worse at. That's one. Two. Any of you watching might be thinking, wait a minute, I watched part one, and he's wearing the same shirt that he wore in part one, but he changed pants. So what happened? Did they film this in the same day and then he went in the bathroom and changed pants? Did he spill on himself? Did he do something else on himself? Like, why did he change pants? One would think you can wear pants multiple days, but you're not going to wear the same shirt.

1:28:23Trousers for anyone who's English listening to this. Trousers, correct. Andy is not sat here in boxer shorts, I can assure you. Oh, fair. Fair. This is the English-American. So here's my thing. Should I reveal to people what happened or should I leave them in suspense? I'll tell them. Tell them. I have two of these shirts. Mm. Two of the exact same shirt. So you did wash? I did not. The other one is currently still sitting at my house, or at the hotel, dirty. And so this is the second one, the clean one. So I put on all clean clothes today, but I wore the exact same shirt style, but I have two of these.

1:29:05So clean pants, clean trousers, clean socks, and a clean shirt today. I love that that's your, like, leaving thought for the listeners. I just know there's people on the YouTube this whole time being like, did anybody see these wearing the same shirt? This is how YouTube works. This is how YouTube works. Like, this is the stuff, like, none of the comments, seed oils, whatever, it's just like... I just think you're like Steve Jobs. He just wears the same thing every day, or Stephen Farley, he just wears the same thing. Andrew does that. And Andrew, exactly. He has a good reason for it, which I'll keep to myself, but I don't do that.

1:29:37Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's continuity. It's easier just to wear the same thing the whole time. There's lots of reasons for it. Yeah. But you know, someone who loves fashion, I can't do that. No, no, no. And someone who's horrible at it, I can't do it either. Third thing to come to London, we can take you shopping. Rob makes me wear the same shirt every show. I'm just like, Rob, can I wear your shirt? And he's like, no. Because he doesn't trust in my choices, for sure, number one. And then all the other reasons. Don't worry, I've had a guest on four times, they've always wore the same shirt. Really?

1:30:06But it wasn't back-to-back days. We were like, literally, there's no chance No, it was every three year period. I have to say, do you not have another shirt? Is that worse? Yes. I think that is worse. That's worse. I probably average like a 12 to 15 year life on all my articles. I guarantee these jeans are over 10 years old. Sustainable fashion. Yeah. Champing that right there. I just hate clothes. I'm just like, I'm not switching. another thing you can complain with Natasha about is my fashion the only time she's tried to hire professional people and be like I'll hire somebody they're going to do your horror wardrobe you don't have to think about it I'm like free sweats and a free shirt or I'm out like no chance I'm not doing it and she's just like I beat her down though she gave up many years ago I love that that's the best leave in common I've ever had in 500 episodes.

1:30:58Perfect. So thank you, Andy. That was amazing. Ready for part three. There you go. Let's do it.