“Fasting turns on stress hormones,” was the quote that slapped me in the face as I listened to Jay Feldman and Mike Fave discuss their Energy Balance approach during an interview on the Ben Greenfield Life podcast.

This insight is so simple and obvious, but I failed to appreciate it in the broad context of all the other stress factors in my life—especially the pairing of intense exercise with fasting, low-carb, or other cutting-edge dietary strategies. It’s clear that the devoted health and fitness enthusiast can often get out of balance and into the category of overstressed. Who wants to be that person?! Alas, much of the messaging in the mainstream diet and fitness industries is pushing us toward the struggle and suffer approach instead of respecting the importance of stress-rest balance and energy balance in the body.  

Intrigued by the Energy Balance message, I’ve been on a five-week experiment to start with my day with a big bowl of fruit and a super-nutrition smoothie (with frozen liver, whey protein, nutritious fats and carbs, and assorted performance ingredients like creatine) instead of perhaps fasting for a few (or several hours) before eating my first meal. The idea is that I will minimize the need for stress hormones to release energy from storage and instead have more energy available for peak performance, energy, cognitive function, and stable mood and appetite. 

Jay will discuss this idea and many others on this hard hitting and provocative podcast. We’ll learn how ridiculously narrow and short-sighted the conventional perspective is about calories in-calories out, and how the true secret to health and vitality is our ability to generate cellular energy with healthy metabolic and hormonal function. 

This is the first of two lengthy interviews with Jay as he describes the Energy Balance premise, in the process calling into question some of the foundational principles of the ancestral/progressive health movement, so stuff gets real right away, and you better listen carefully with your seat belt fastened as we strive to sort things out and hint at strategies we can experiment with to optimize cellular energy production, performance, recovery, and vitality. 

Jay Feldman is a health coach, independent health researcher, and host of the Energy Balance podcast. He has degrees in neuroscience and exercise physiology and is devoted to using his knowledge and experience to help people heal from all manner of disease, dysfunction, and difficulty losing excess body fat. Take control of your health with Jay by visiting JayFeldmanWellness.com.

TIMESTAMPS:

Energy balance challenges some of the foundational principles of the progressive health and ancestral health movement. [01:20]

A lot of us come to health awakenings through pain and struggle.  [05:55]

Fasting, low carb, keto….these restrictive diets turn on stress hormones. [09:20]

What is the premise of energy balance? [12:50]

It’s not just this problem of eating too much or exercising too little, but rather why is the food that we’re using not being efficiently used to produce energy or efficiently used for other reasons? [17:34]

If you just focus on the label that mentions calories, you are missing the point of what type of food it is.  The industrial seed oils and other toxins are there.  It’s not just calories. [19:15]

The first step for anyone wishing to improve their body composition, get more energy, protect against disease, is to eliminate the processed foods that are inhibiting energy production. [26:03]

As far as fasting goes, the main benefits are relief from gut toxin production and improvement in intestinal permeability and leaky gut. [30:02]

Some of the success of these niche diets is caused by the lack of processed foods rather than what the person is actually eating on their special magical diet. [32:47]

The out-of-control hunger, the daily battle with willpower, the desire to consume more food is largely driven by something dysfunctional in our ability to produce energy internally to, to burn the logs. [36:50]

Reproduction, repair, growth, and locomotion are a zero-sum game. [40:35]

The calories in, calories out mentality is destructive for most people. Using carb intake sensibly is a must. [42:30]

What about the fat-adapted folks say they thrive on low carb intake? [46:51]

Remove the polyunsaturated fats from your diet and eat whole foods. Remember that all carbs are not equal. [53:59]

We want to be consuming a lot of fuel to be able to produce a lot of energy, assuming it’s going efficiently, that’ll involve a lot of carbohydrates. [01:02:23]

LINKS:

• Brad Kearns.com
• Brad’s Shopping page
• Jay Feldman Wellness.com
• Energy Balance Podcast
• Jay Feldman article part 1: Does Stress Make You Stronger?
• Jay Feldman article part 2: Flawed Research And Harmful Misapplications (Including Ketogenic Diets, Intermittent Fasting, Calorie Restriction, And More)
• Acute Nutritional Ketosis: Implications For Exercise Performance And Metabolism  
• Carbohydrate Restriction Regulates The Adaptive Response To Fasting  
• Starvation Physiology: Reviewing The Different Strategies Animals Use To Survive A Common Challenge
• Jay Feldman article: Carbs Vs. Fats: Hormonal Effects
• The Psychology of Hunger (Minnesota Starvation Experiment)
• Ikigai (3 Okinawan Secrets to a Long Life)
• 100-year-old sprinter Lester Wright

LISTEN: 

Download episode audio by clicking the arrow in the top right corner of the player above

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B.Rad Podcast

Brad (00:01:20):
Hey listeners, I’m very excited about this very important show with Jay Feldman, the host of the Energy Balance Podcast. It is a fantastic show that I only recently discovered when I heard him and his trustee sidekick, Mike Fave appear on the Ben Greenfield life podcast. And it was a very compelling discussion about these theories that he calls energy balance. The show is gonna rock your world. We had so much to talk about that I’m gonna present two different shows with Jay, but this first show, I think you’re going to get the essence of this compelling premise relating to energy balance, particularly how it challenges some of the foundational principles of the progressive health and the ancestral health movement, particularly when it comes to the restrictive dietary strategies that are in Vogue. I’m talking about fasting and low carb and keto and the purported benefits, the widely touted benefits of such dietary practices are inherently stressors to the body and therefore, and it is easy to overdo them, especially for the highly motivated, high energy, health, and fitness enthusiast, always looking to optimize and push the edges of human performance.

Brad (00:02:52):
Also in this category would be the so-called hormetic stressors like jumping in the cold plunge, taking a hot sauna, doing high intensity workouts, things that stress the organism for the intended benefit of adaptation. But, oh my gosh, is it important to zoom out a bit and look at the bigger picture perspective? And this is where I basically felt slapped in the face by Jay during his show with Ben Greenfield, where he says fasting turns on stress hormones, and it’s such an obvious insight, but I haven’t really fully appreciated it in the context that I should, as I’m seeking to balance all the various forms of stress in my life. And I talk a lot on the show about my quest for athletic peak performance throughout life and doing challenging workouts and trying to of course optimize my diet my recovery patterns, my stress management, my sleep, but when you start stacking stressors, it can cause compensatory reactions where you slow down a critical metabolic immune cognitive functions.

Brad (00:03:59):
I’ve talked about this with the series of shows with Dr. Herman Pontzer and the constrained model of energy expenditure. So we are going to learn how to function at our highest, how to process energy at our most efficient, and that misunderstanding between thinking food is inherently an energy source when it is not, it is a potential energy source and that’s where Jay’s area expertise comes in. I’m gonna let him hit this thing hard. We’re gonna dabble into some scientific insights because Jay is quite astute and has a good scientific background for his explanations, but we’re gonna continue to zoom out and try to give you this introduction to some new concepts that yes, indeed are going to challenge some of the foundation of what we’re doing here in the progressive health scene. It kind of reminds me of my exposure to Dr.

Brad (00:04:51):
Paul Saladino in 2019, where he’s coming out saying, Hey, I’m a carnivore guy. And I wanna tell you that plants not only aren’t necessary, but they might even be harming you, including the lauded super foods of the plant, seen the leafy greens, the stir fries, the salads, and that exposure after a lot of reflection and interview time formed a, a fork in the road on my, uh, lifelong health quest with no turning back. And so I think this is up there in the same category of intense reflection. And since I heard Jay and Mike Fave talk to Ben Greenfield, this is probably five weeks ago now I’ve embarked on upon an experiment inspired by their suggestion that fasting turns on stress hormones. And so if you want to kind of tamp that down and allocate more stress hormones to your ambitious workouts, have a nice bowl of fruit in the morning, some easy to digest carbohydrate sources that give you the energy it needs so you don’t have to manufacture glucose through stress fight or fight processes.

Brad (00:05:55):
Okay. A little tip of the iceberg, and I want you to meet Jay Feldman. He is a health coach, an independent health researcher and host of the Energy Balance Podcast. He was a good student at University of Miami with degrees in neuroscience and exercise physiology. And then he was headed to medical school, but decided to stop in his tracks. He was becoming disillusioned with the mainstream medical approach and his own fitness and health dead ends. And that’s when he started exploring and came to this idea that cellular energy is the foundation of our health. So now he’s a coach. He has some great content at Jay Feldman, wellness.com, helping people heal from all manner of disease, dysfunction, difficulty losing excess body fat. Let’s listen, see what you think. Jay Feldman the energy balance guy. I am so glad to get you on and very excited about this important show. First things first. I wanna plug the Energy Balance podcast that I discovered recently and have been binging like crazy on. You’re doing a great job. You’re sidekick, Mike Fave. You guys are the one, two punch, and you put out some incredible content. So maybe just introduce yourself and tell us how you got that podcast going and some more of that background that you bring to the show.

Jay (00:07:22):
Thanks, Brad. Yeah, thanks for having me. And, uh, thanks for the plug and, uh, yeah, so I’ve been studying health and nutrition for a while since I was pretty young, you know, I was an athlete growing up and wanted to optimize first fitness and, uh, then kind of nutrition and health came second. And so, you know, I was like a lot of us do, you know, fell into first, what was just kind of considered to be mainstream health, what was taught in my health classes and, you know, the first articles you find when you’re searching and then kind of dug deeper and learned about the potential issues there, and continued to shift and adjust on that journey toward optimizing fitness and health. And, uh, yeah, so I was then, you know, fast forward several years decided I wanted to become a medical doctor. And at the same time had found paleo and was a big fan of a lot of people who I know that you’ve worked with including Mark Sisson and, you know, following that, that approach for, you know, to a tee more or less and dug deeper and ended up doing ketogenic diets and cyclical, ketogenic diets, and intermittent fasting, and, you know, working hard at the gym at the same time. And, uh,

Brad (00:08:32):
Hmm. Interesting. You can go guess where this is going ,people?

Jay (00:08:36):
Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, continued down that path until I was finding that it wasn’t really bringing me the results that I was hoping for and was dealing with a bunch of symptoms along with it, trouble concentrating and focusing in my classes, not having the energy for the real intense workouts I was trying to accomplish and libido started to go and, you know, just dealing with some infections and things like that. And so along the way, too, dealing with a lot of feelings of restriction, a lot of cravings for especially carbohydrates, but just general hunger and really not feeling satisfied with the high fat approach that I was on. And so I was ready and kind of open to some new information at that point, which led to a bit of a shift.

Brad (00:09:20):
Yeah, I guess, a lot of us come to health awakenings through pain and struggle and suffering, including the, the people who are very prominent in the, in the progressive health space that have had serious disease and, and had lifesaving transition to the meat only carnivore diet or, you know, lifelong indigestion and, and gut problems. And then, switching diets. And now they’re a huge proponent of whatever it is. And, that’s nice that, um, you know, it develops a sincere interest and a passion for those of us who have struggled to get to whatever point. But I think what really hit me with, uh, your message early on, it was kind of a slap in the face, a, a single one liner, when you said fasting, low carb, keto, these restrictive diets turn on stress hormones, and that’s in fact how they work.

Brad (00:10:09):
And so I would love to start there because it sounds like, you know, you mentioned you’re going in, you’re doing these big fitness ambitions and you are dialing in these unique and restrictive diets thinking that is the path to results. And we’ve been told very strongly by, you know, all kinds of resources that if you can, if you can tighten up your diet, uh, to this incredible extreme extent, you’re gonna unlock all these powers and weapons. But it’s important to understand that it’s part of the stress response that gives us a lot of these quote unquote, health benefits.

Jay (00:10:47):
Yeah. These, those approaches are working through stress. And the question ends up coming down to a, are you aware of it? And then, is that a good thing or not because the people who are advocating for these things, you know, and are very aware of the, the in depth physiology are saying that these things are stressful and they’re just arguing that that’s why they’re beneficial, but as you’re pointing out, a lot of people miss that, a lot of people aren’t aware that these things are supposed to be working through stress. And so once we kind of come to that awareness, it might lead to a bit more of a questioning of whether that is the approach that we want to take, whether that is I ideal for our physiology. And that was something that turned everything on its head for me. You know, I, I felt like I feel like the alopathic approach from medicine, but also a lot of the alternative health approaches build on this idea that our bodies themselves are not on our, they’re not on our team, right.

Jay (00:11:39):
Where we have to fight against them. If we leave them to their own devices will just eat everything bad. We’ll just become gluttonous. And we’ll just lay on the couch all day and we’ll become overweight and obese. And that’s of course how people get that way, right? They’re just let, they’re fighting their bodies enough. They’re not restricting hard enough. They don’t care enough. So, you know, they just let their bodies run amok, and that’s what our bodies do. They just tend toward disease. And you see the same thing from the alopathic approach, right? Where our body has an adaptive response. Let’s say that leads to an increase in cholesterol levels. And we just need to stop that response. You know, our bodies are dumb, they aren’t intelligent, they aren’t, you know, properly responding and adapting to whatever’s going on. Instead, they’re making a mistake and we need to correct that mistake.

Jay (00:12:18):
And that’s what a lot of these approaches, I think what they boil down to, and, you know, as being very much kind of facetious here where, where I don’t think we should be blaming ourselves or our bodies for these things, I think that they’re properly responding to the environment. And instead we want to consider whether we’re actually creating a supportive environment that allows for our bodies to thrive and whether we should actually need to fight them like that. And so that was when I started to come across those kinds of ideas. It really flipped everything on its head and led to a lot of new discoveries and completely shifted my approach to health.

Brad (00:12:50):
So maybe you could just describe this this premise of energy balance and why you named your podcast that way. And, um, I think we’re, we’re tiptoeing there. So let’s, let’s get the listener really focused in, on kind of the difference between that flawed and distorted view that we’re on the couch and, and too undisciplined to, to stop eating ice cream.

Jay (00:13:15):
Yeah. So the, the biggest shift and, and biggest kind of idea that I had come across that changed everything is what’s called a bioenergetic view of health, which essentially means that energy is the fundamental driver of our health. It’s the main thing that allows our cells to function. You know, every, every little compartment, every little organal of our cells and on from there, and that if there’s more energy available, our bodies will function better. They’ll age less, they’ll live longer, they can repair, they can regenerate. And so that is the, the kind of essence of the view. And that’s where I kind of, whether it’s where the energy balance idea comes from. And, the idea that we want to be considering both our energy demands, the things that we’re doing that are stressors, whether it’s exercise or heavy metals that we’re exposed to are chemical exposure, whatever it is.

Jay (00:14:04):
Uh, and then also how much energy is actually available to our bodies. Are we giving them the fuel that they need and how well are they converting that fuel to energy? And so, yeah, that’s where kind of the energy balance idea comes from. And that’s where the bio-energetic view is kind of said, and there’s of course details there. And I do wanna clarify as well, when we’re talking about energy, we’re not talking about, or at least only talking about some sort of spiritual energy, but actually physiological ATP levels, carbon dioxide levels, things that actually allow for, the contribution to our cells to be able to work for them, to actually be able to, yeah. to do work is really what it’s, you know, even on the kind of, um, in the scientific way, that’s what, that’s how they phrase it is. The ability to do work is, is what energy allows for.

Brad (00:14:49):
So I think the, the big piece to the puzzle, you just mentioned it in your, in your stream there, how well the body converts energy, and we’re sitting back here, the lay person , or even the, the health enthusiast is drawing this direct association between the calories that are consumed through the mouth, and then the calories that are burned on the treadmill or the bicycle. And therefore, if we just manage that appropriately, quote, eat less exercise more, we are into the, the golden path to the Wizard of Oz. And you guys have focus on that for so many shows. And I’m gonna, I’m gonna see if I could plug your show, like at least five times during our podcast, but, um, to go and listen in depth to that missing link in the middle. And I’d love you to just, uh, tee that up right now, because that is the essence of really health disease protection, vitality, longevity, and that’s where we’re really screwing things up, including screwing it up, willfully by, as you mentioned earlier, restricting your diet and trying to go out there and push yourself hard in the gym or with, with your athletic goals.

Jay (00:15:58):
Yeah, you’re totally right. So the, the general assumption is that the calories that come in equal energy, whatever comes in there is there’s kind of no even separation there just that is equal to energy. And it’s something that the phrasing, the terminology really bothers me is that we even call that energy intake or energy coming in because it’s not physiological energy, it’s potential energy, right? And you know, if you have a bunch of wood, it doesn’t do anything until you burn it and create a fire. And there’s even more steps to that in our bodies, because not only is the, is there the food that comes in, but then we have to break it down properly. We have to digest it, you know, in our guts, then we have to absorb it. And then we have to do things with it. , you know, there’s all sorts of areas in our body that it can go to and all sorts of things that it can do.

Jay (00:16:44):
And for one, it can become a fuel and be used to be oxidized in our mitochondria, those engines of our cells to produce energy. But there’s a lot of steps that have to go properly there in order for that to actually happen. And there’s a lot of opportunity for things to go wrong. There, a lot of things that can block that from happening efficiently. And that’s something that I focus on a lot and I think is generally not really considered all that much. We just consider, again, fuel comes in and it just becomes energy. And then the latter part of that assumption is that whatever excess there is, whatever spill over there is whenever our energy stores are topped off that extra fuel just gets stored as fat. And that’s not, it’s not actually accurate, luckily, right? and instead, what tends to happen is for all sorts of reasons, that fuel is not actually being converted to energy and instead is being diverted toward fat.

Jay (00:17:34):
And so when we’re looking at this situation of fat gain, it’s not just this problem of eating too much or exercising too little, but rather why is the food that we’re using not being efficiently used to produce energy or efficiently used for other reasons? Right? We know that that fuel also used to build muscle. It’s used to build bone and skin. I mean, every area of our body regenerates constantly. So there’s so many areas for fuel to go that is not fat and also even non energy. But normally when those other processes are blocked, we store it as fat. It’s a protective mechanism. We’ll talk about the situations, why that happens, but that’s really where we wanna focus is what’s causing that direction. What is inhibiting the conversion from that fuel to energy, as opposed to just considering how much fuel is coming in and how much are we exercising? There’s so much more to the equation,

Brad (00:18:19):
I guess the first and most obvious way to address the problem is the starting point of putting shitty food into your mouth that might have a label that says calories 238, or what have you. But we know that, um, this stuff is a disaster because not only is it not burned for energy well, but it inhibits our body’s ability to burn energy and you guys have properly put the focus on refined industrial seed oils, which hopefully our listeners are very familiar with as just you know, causing immediate destruction at the, at the cellular level. So, maybe you would start talking about the examples of the shitty food that are, that are tough to convert to energy and then transition into what’s going on, even in a supposedly healthy person where we could be interfering due to gut dysfunction and other reasons that you talk about.

Jay (00:19:15):
Yeah. So I think you, you brought up such a great point of just looking at the label and just, there’s only a focus on calories, and I think that’s intentional marketing as well. And, you know, I don’t wanna get too much into the maybe nefarious desires of the, you know, industrial food world. But, uh, when you’re just focused on calories and calories out, there’s no blame for the type of food, right? All food is equal. It’s just a matter of how much is going in. And all the blame is shifted to the people. It’s just a matter of you’re eating too much. It’s not our fault as the food manufacturers who are creating this terrible garbage that shouldn’t be considered food. It’s all, it’s all on you. And so I do think that there is some reason that is not just mistaken biology for which we’re given this view of fat loss.

Jay (00:20:01):
But yeah, so you mentioned the, the seed oils and those are, those are huge. And so those fall in the category of the very unsaturated fats, the poly unsaturated fats, these are the omega sixes and also the omega threes that are found in seed oils. They’re found in nuts and seeds, which is where they come from. They’re found as well in fatty fish. And these oils, for one, are very, very unstable. Generally. That’s why they’re liquid at room temperature. That’s why, if you try to get a really high quality fish oil or flax seeded oil, you need to keep it in a dark bottle and a cool place, cuz it’s very susceptible to damage. And that same thing will happen inside our bodies when we consume these oils, especially in considerable amounts, if they’re not already damaged, which a lot of the products on the shelf already are, they’re already oxidized.

Jay (00:20:47):
And so when we consume these, they’re very susceptible to that oxidation, which is certainly a problem and drives an inflammatory state that does block our ability to produce energy and is also something that’s found in virtually every disease process, every chronic disease, you can find these oxidized, these lipid peroxides, the oxidized polyunsaturated fats. So they’re, that is without a doubt part of the problem. But even when they’re not oxidized, even when they’re fully intact and taken up and used, let’s say structurally, they are also causing problems that basically they’re much less stable than those more saturated or mono-unsaturated fats. And they’re used as structure even inside our monochondria, inside those engines and essentially cause a leakage of the power that is used to create energy. So a nice example or analogy I like to give is that if we’re building a dam, a hydroelectric dam with a bunch of bricks, the poly unsaturated fats are bricks that have holes in them.

Jay (00:21:46):
And so the way that this dam works is you need to block all the water off and then you just need it to go right through the actual motor to produce energy. But if you have a bunch of holes in the wall and the water’s coming through elsewhere, you lose out on a lot of that. A lot of the power that’s used to drive the motor. And so that same thing happens in ourselves with these unsaturated fats, they leak protons and that proton gradient is what allows us to produce energy. So there’s a few, there’s a couple other steps as well, but several places where these unsaturated fats block, our ability to efficiently produce energy. And as you were saying, there’s a handful of other factors as well, whether it’s toxins that are produced in our guts and then are leaked into our bloodstream via, uh, intestinal permeability or leaky gut.

Jay (00:22:28):
And so some of these toxins one would be endotoxin or lipo polysaccharide or LPs. And, uh, there’s other kind of parallel toxins like LTA, which is lipo, Ty OIC acid, there’s all sorts of different toxic byproducts of, uh, like that are produced by bacteria and are very well known to drive an inflammatory state, very well known to block different parts of our ability to produce energy along the electron transport chain. These are again found in all sorts of disease processes. They’re also used in research to create inflammation when they’re trying to test things that might prevent that inflammation. So very well known to be a driver of many problems. And the main way that it’s doing that is by blocking our ability to produce energy. And this is why gut function is so important. One of the things that definitely, you know, paleon keto, I think explains a lot of their benefits and we’ll talk about that, but they lead to a lot of gut relief and so leads to a lot of benefits. There there’s a handful of other things that lead to an inefficient energy production, like lack of vitamins and minerals or excessive amounts of certain heavy metals, various, you know, chemicals in our environment can all block that efficient energy production. So it’s why we still need to consider all factors of our environment coming in when it comes to health and, you know, fat loss since certainly not a question of just how many calories are coming in,

Brad (00:23:46):
Right? So I think now we’re getting this picture of what’s happening is the average standard American diet consumer is eating a bunch of food every day. But the energy potential is very poor due to the, the nature of the, the calorie going in as well as due to how the machine’s working inside with inflammatory conditions going on and so forth. So what’s happening is, um, not only is that, uh, excess body fat accumulating over the course of a lifetime, but it’s not really the reason that we think. And so, the devoted person decides to, uh, embark on a calorie restriction and then head to the gym and burn more energy. But then we get into real problems because we don’t have enough energy to do our, to increase our activity. And so, um, we’re, we’re not out of this, this trap yet.

Jay (00:24:49):
Yeah, yeah. Instead of this idea where obesity or people who are overweight are just have the, all this excess energy, it’s actually largely the opposite as you’re getting at. And I think, you know, people experience that as well, the fatigue and, and all of the other, you know, the poor gut function, the poor mental function, things like that. And it’s because there’s a blockage from that food being converted to energy. It’s not because there’s too much energy there. And as you were getting at virtually all the foods in our modern world are inhibiting this efficient energy production, whether it’s the unsaturated fats, the foods that are really hard to digest the lack of vitamins and minerals, the presence of pollutants, or, you know, various other various other things that we consider food or that are allow, are allowed to be in our food, all sorts of things that, uh, on top of the poor dietary advice that we’re given lead to just the average person, or even someone who’s rather health conscious, having to rely on just eating less because the food that they’re eating is not going to be converted efficiently to energy.

Jay (00:25:48):
So at that point, you have to resort to that. But the good news is that if we’re aware of these things and we make certain adjustments, we don’t have to rely on just eating less and being hungry and using willpower and restriction to lose body fat, or just to feel better overall and optimize our health.

Brad (00:26:03):
So I guess the first step for anyone wishing to improve their body composition, get more energy, protect against disease is to eliminate the processed foods that are inhibiting energy, utilize energy production in the body, and also are energy deficient to begin with. And I think we often skip that first step and jump into the model of eating less and exercising more. So getting healthy out of the gate, um, starts with cleaning up the diet.

Jay (00:26:39):
Definitely. Yeah. And, and of course there’s more, more like steps after just removing the processed foods, but yeah, in general, the processed foods tend to be the most offensive in terms of these things. For sure.

Brad (00:26:51):
And then, if we, for example, like you mentioned briefly go on some restrictive diet, we tout the one risk benefits, but it’s probably, or you’d make a very compelling argument that it’s the indirect benefits that are kicking in and making us feel alert, energized for the first time losing weight. And, um, this, this might be, um, it seems like we’re touting the, the vegan, uh, meal plan for our benefits, but in fact, um, the, the stress response is a very significant part of that.

Jay (00:27:31):
There can certainly be part of it. And part of it, as you’re saying too, is whether you’re going vegan or carnivore, you’re avoiding a lot of foods that are likely highly processed, you know, huge amounts of seed oils that are likely to be causing some issues. And so you’ll tend to feel good at least for a period of time and that, and there’s re you know, very legitimate reasons for that, but it doesn’t mean it’s the best approach, short term, more long term, but there’s definitely a handful of reasons why someone might be seeing benefits. And as you said, stress, hormones can be part of that. A good example, which I’m sure will dig into is fasting. And I would basically, I think it’s kind of funny to think about, but what I would say is that if you feel better fasting from the food that you’re eating, then the food you’re eating, probably wasn’t supporting you all that much, you know, eating no food at all is better than the food you were eating, then maybe we wanna reconsider what kinds of foods we’re eating.

Jay (00:28:19):
Of course, as you mentioned, there’s also a big increase in stress hormones from fasting. And that’ll also contribute to us feeling really good, just like if we had a couple black coffee before eating or, you know, on a, on a fast or something, you know, you’ve got the jitters, you’ve got the energy coming from that stress response, which is not the ideal way that we want to be getting it because in the long term, that’s one of those main signals that leads to fat storage leads to the downregulation of cognitive function and digestive function and immune function and reproductive function. So, yeah, it’s, it’s one of those main signals that we’re trying to oppose.

Brad (00:28:51):
So just so, uh, we can make sense of benefits. We’ve heard widely touted in the past when you’re in a fasted state, the body is working very efficiently, right? We have all these, um, improved inflammatory response. We have the widely touted apoptosis, we’re cleaning up damaged cellular material, and we’re just a clean burning, uh, smooth operating machine, uh, for, for a snapshot there. And that, that can be widely acknowledged to be beneficial. But I think, uh, I’m trying to zoom out here and look at the big picture and understand, like you said, fasting is turning on stress hormones, it’s turning down digestive activity, which if you are used to eating a bunch of difficult to digest foods, you’re gonna feel better from that too. But now maybe we could layer in, um, the guy going to the gym, trying to get strong and combining things like intermittent fasting. And then on top of that, a restrictive diet such as keto, carnivore, low carb vegan or whatever.

Jay (00:30:02):
Yeah. So as far as the fasting goes, I would just say, I think the two main reasons for benefits, you touched on both of them. One is the relief from gut issues, the relief from gut toxin production and improvement in intestinal permeability and leaky gut. So I think, and, and there’s a lot of support for this being the main reason why we get benefits from the fasting. And then another piece, as you said, is the stress hormones. We end up relying on the stress hormones. It can feel pretty good. For example, if you look at something like cortisone, which is basically a para you know, very similar compound to cortisol or main stress hormone, it’s very strongly anti-inflammatory, you know, if you have a skin issue or if you’re in a lot of pain or something, they’ll give you an injection or use it as a cream.

Jay (00:30:44):
And it works really well, but there’s a reason why we don’t wanna do that long term. And that’s because of the effects of long term stress or of, of stress in the long term. And so I think that that kind of, you know, in zooming out when we consider a state, you know, I mentioned fighting against our bodies again, versus kind of working with them. Another kind of parallel way of thinking about it is putting our bodies in the state of abundance versus a state of stress or famine, or lack of energy. And any time that we’re putting our bodies into that former state, the one where there’s not a lot of food available, or we’re under a ton of stress, whether it’s because there’s excessive amounts of exercise. I know you’ve talked a lot about over training, or we’re in a situation where we’re not sleeping enough or, you know, any variety of things that put us into that stress state.

Jay (00:31:32):
Our bodies lean into a conservation mode where they turn down all of our metabolic activity. We turn down our thyroid activity. Our reproductive hormones are things that drive our metabolism up and we try to conserve those things. We try to conserve as much food as possible as fat. We turn down the extra energy we’re using for really good immune function and digestive function. And again, short term, we can have some really great effects like fat loss, but long term, we see the cost coming through. These means coming through this, this turning down on that knob of our metabolism. And we see that on the physiological level, as far as the effects of the stress hormones. And we see it as far as what people experience as well. And so rather than those things, I would say that we wanna shift toward that other state, let’s say of abundance, where we’re using the Fu the fuel that we’re taking in really efficiently. We’re producing a lot of energy from it, and we’re able to turn up our metabolism, turn down those stress hormones, and we can lose fat that way as well. Although it tends to take, take a little longer, it’s a bit of a slower approach as opposed to the quick, you know, drop 10 pounds in a week approach. But it also tends to come with improved sleep and better blood sugar regulation and better digestion and, and, you know, resolution of skin issues and autoimmune issues. And, um, from there.

Brad (00:32:47):
So I guess, you know, we, we can’t discount the, the wonderful success stories of people who have transitioned away from a diet with processed foods, into a niche diet. They’re very popular. We have proponents there. The people are all in on these wonderful journeys. And I think that the important point that you’re making is a lot of those benefits are from what you’re not eating versus that you’re into this amazing, magical diet. But we will tell the benefits of, you know, some of the, some of the dietary strategies that emphasize more nutritious foods. Uh, but then secondly, um, something is going to we’re gonna, we’re gonna get to a point down the road where our six month journey in taquito, which has been so wonderful, it’s generated fat loss, more energy a lot of thumbs up, then we’re gonna, at some point be compelled to turn down those important dials because we’re, you know, tremendously restricting dietary carbohydrates, which, um, you know I’ve written this line in books before there was no biological requirement for carbohydrates and the human diet humans can live without carbohydrates for indefinitely, but it doesn’t mean that it’s optimal. It doesn’t mean that it pairs well with, uh, your attendance at CrossFit class.

Jay (00:34:20):
Yeah. And while there’s no dietary need for carbohydrate, there’s certainly a biological need for carbohydrate, right?

Brad (00:34:26):
So we’re breaking down our muscle tissue or we’re doing we’re desperately doing whatever whatever’s necessary from the fat we consume, or, uh, God forbid the protein, but I think, um, we get, we get swept away in, um, some of this fascination with, uh, restricting macronutrients. And I think, um, this is now coming to be widely understood that any restrictive diet is going to generate fat reduction because you’re no longer in this complete indulgent, nonstop opportunity for consumption of food with the push of a button.

Jay (00:35:04):
Definitely. And, and as you’re saying, that’s reliable, let’s, let’s easy, more or less. It might be tough to do it might require some willpower, but we can create fat loss in short period of time, by eating considerably less restricting a certain me nutrient, things like that. It’s certainly doable and happens. And, and it’s great for those short term effects. But again, long term, we start to see the cost there. We see that yoyo effect, and also it’s not fun to do. It’s not fun to it’s unenjoyable to, to have to deal with that hunger and try to fill up on salads and you know, a huge amount of protein to try to satiate yourself when you’re not eating as many calories and getting as much fuel on as your body actually needs. And just kind of fighting against those hunger signals, trying to be full, even though we’re still hungry.

Jay (00:35:48):
And again, it works for a period of time until it doesn’t, and it tends to come into cost along that way, and seen so often where either you see the rebound weight gain, or you start to see sleep taking, taking a hit, or the workouts taking a hit, or the libido taking a hit. And again, the good news here is that we don’t have to take that approach. And if we’re converting our food effectively to energy, it actually turns our hunger signals off, regardless of the actual amount that we’re eating or the amount that’s in our, our bellies at the time. Uh, if we’re, if we have enough ATP in those hunger sensing areas, which are liver and hypothalamus in our brain, that turns off our hunger signals. So as long as we’re focusing on efficiently producing energy, we don’t have to worry so much about eating the whole tub of ice cream or binging, or having a cheat meal or something like that can actually be, I don’t even wanna say satisfied, but we can actually be a full or I guess yeah. Satisfied yeah. Without needing to eat excessive amounts or needing to have a, like a big salad or something like that.

Brad (00:36:50):
So the, the outta control hunger, or, um, you know, daily battle with willpower or what have you, the desire to consume more food is largely driven by something, uh, dysfunctional in our ability to produce energy internally to, to burn the logs.

Jay (00:37:13):
Yeah. Yeah. And so, and there’s some really, really fascinating research looking at this and, you know, people will talk about a lot, talk a lot about leptin and leptin resistance. And I think we’re, we’re kind of misplacing a lot of the focus here where leptin is a signal that helps to turn off our hunger, but it won’t do so if there’s not enough ATP in the hypothalamus where it’s acting. That is, I would say the essence of leptin resistance is that there’s not, we’re not actually producing enough ATP. So we have the fat stores they’re saying, Hey, we’ve got enough fat here. But the real signal that our body is going to be directed by is how much energy there is. And if there’s not enough energy that they’re sensing internally, and in the environment, they’re gonna wanna keep storing body fat because that’s a sign that this is not a good environment. We need to prep for the future. We need to have these stores so that we can get through this period of poor food availability or famine or whatever it is. And so that’s really where we need to come back to. And I experienced that quite a bit. I mean, the desire to binge and the fighting against the hunger and, you know, for a little while would be the coconut flour cookies that , you know, they’re still really low calorie cuz they’re

Brad (00:38:18):
They’re yeah,

Jay (00:38:19):
Yeah, exactly. Uh, or, you know, bags of, of low fructose high fiber fruits like berries and, you know, it was, and this was because my body needed that, that glucose as a good source to produce that ATP. And, yeah, I, I feel no need for those binges anymore or something that I didn’t realize how much it had weighed down on me and how much that weighed on me, like physically and mentally mm-hmm , but to be free from that and to be free from this constant willpower sort of restriction was, it was incredible. It was night and day. I mean, I can’t even put into words how much of a difference that made for me. And that’s so far in the past that sometimes I forget about it, you know, I didn’t think about it until we just kind of brought it up now, but yeah, it was, it was life changing.

Brad (00:39:05):
So that leptin that you mentioned, it’s a prominent satiety fat storage, it governs, uh, reproductive fitness. So it’s very essential to, um, how the body’s going to treat calories where they’re gonna be stored and, and where you’re gonna be prompted to eat more. And when that, when that whole system is disrupted, um, essentially like you mentioned, the ATP and the hypothalamus, and if that’s escaping the less scientific, uh, astute listener, it’s, it’s a really important concept because, um, when we’re able to, you know, burn energy efficiently, that’s when we’re gonna feel satisfied and not have it outta control diet, but when we’re not, um, the brain’s really smart and it’s gonna say, Hey, hit that pint of ice cream because you’re tired and you’re, you’re drained right now. And we don’t like that. It’s a, it’s a, you know, it’s a survival mechanism that we need to have energy flowing through the bloodstream at all waking hours. Uh, so we can, uh, go and, and survive. But when that thing’s disrupted, um, and that’s taking a full circle back to some of the earlier statements that we had is, um, that person who’s sitting on the couch, tired and hungry is not, you know, Gary Taubs said, gluttony and sloth are not the causes of obesity. They’re the symptoms.

Jay (00:40:26):
Exactly. Yeah. And that’s, well, I don’t agree with everything that Gary Taubs has said. He

Brad (00:40:32):
Has a good quote you could throw in. Yeah. Yes.

Jay (00:40:34):
. Yeah. I definitely agree with that.

Brad (00:40:35):
I don’t know how we, how we voted in the last election. I don’t care, but I do like that quote, you know? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, uh, I’m also thinking of Dr. Herman Pontzer’s quote, he was on my show with this very compelling premise about the constrained model of energy expenditure. I’m sure we’ll get to that, but, uh, relevant to, um, the, the dials that we’ve mentioned a few times, he says reproduction repair, growth, and loco,motion are a zero sum game. And so if we’re not giving our body sufficient energy to locomote the way we desired, that would imply all exercise, calories are in that locomotion category. Then, we’re gonna turn down those other important dials. And that’s when we’re talking about whatever it is, six months in or 12 months in, after that stress response is worn off, then we’re gonna be eating quote unquote healthy, trying to exercise devotedly and not feeling that good about it in the other categories, libido, immune function and, uh, recovery.

Jay (00:41:41):
Yeah. If we’re in that state where there’s not enough energy, but we’re forcing our bodies to direct the energy that is available toward exercising, then yeah. There’s less available for all those other things. I know he’s also discussed how, I mean, looking at some of the research in animals, that if they’re put in a situation like that, they’ll even, uh, cannibalize their nursing young, you know, even though there’s, they even have enough food available, there’s some limitations there, but they’re when they’re forced to direct so much energy toward exercising. They, they thing that they, that completely, it completely overrides everything else, right. Not just that is about exercise, but it’s the lack of energy. And, and that’s, that is the main thing that our bodies are sensing when they’re trying to determine where our health is at, where our environment is at, and where they should, how they should be functioning.

Brad (00:42:30):
So back to your example, you’re young, healthy fit guy, you’re getting more interested in nutrition, wellness, of course, athletic training, what went down there when you were trying to restrict your diet and, uh, pursue ambitious fitness goals?

Jay (00:42:48):
Yeah. So initially, I mean, it kind of, it was always kind of, okay. I was never really eating enough, especially way early on, because I was just told calories and calories out and I wanted to have abs and, and if you want to have abs and I was already lean, but if you wanted abs you just had to eat less. So that was terrible destructive for me. I think it’s some of the worst advice that exists in terms of our health, uh, is just that, you know, we need to eat less and exercise more. I think it it’s really awful, but, uh, anyway, so it did end up eating a bit more after, after that period, but, you know, digging into low carb and, and the fasting and the ketogenic diets, it was not going well for my workouts. I was not gaining anywhere near as much muscle or strength as I could have, which I found out later on once I actually started bringing carbohydrates in, in considerable amounts.

Jay (00:43:35):
But it also was taking a hit mentally, emotionally, you know, cognitive function wise, libido wise and, and in other areas of my health that yeah. Was, was starting to take a toll. But again, that one of the biggest for me was the feeling of restriction and the desire for carbohydrates. And so once I was kind of exposed to this idea, this completely different way of looking at our health as our bodies, working with us, as opposed to against us and this idea that energy is really at the center. And then the kind of next piece here, which is how important carbohydrates and glucose are to that equation. That shifted things for me and was kind of a green light to start to eat carbohydrates again and in considerable amounts, which was what I really wanted to do. Even though we were having maybe a hundred, 150 grams of carbs on our workout days, even that was still, I’m still saying, you know, cyclical keto in a context like that.

Jay (00:44:26):
And that still was nowhere near enough. Uh, but once that green light came on and I found out that the carbs were not harming me and they weren’t against something I needed to fight against. It led to dramatic shifts in all of these areas, in terms of performance at the gym, being able to put on muscle, focus, mood, emotions, and, and really huge dramatic changes in moods. It sense of humor and just lightness, you know, all things that are to be expected when we’re essentially starving, you know, kind of that shift away and, uh, yeah. Changes in sleep and things like that. It was, it was a pretty monumental change.

Brad (00:45:01):
So you’re talking about nutritious carbs, cuz I think we, uh, conflate , you know, when we talk about the carbs available, when we get in our car and drive down the street and try to find the closest 50 sources of carbs, it’s a bunch of nasty. shit. So, um, when we’re talking about optimizing our diet or an athletic fitness minded person increasing daily carbohydrate intake, I’m assuming you’re talking about the carbs that are easier to digest more nutritious.

Jay (00:45:33):
Definitely. Yeah. And, and I certainly did that right when I was having my kind of cheat meals or cheat days, which were a few and far between, you know, the idea of having more carbs. It wasn’t even always carb heavy meals, you know, something you think of carbs in like pizza or cookies or donuts or something like that, which a lot of times, of course, they’re going to have carbs and more carbs than you would on a low carb diet, but they’re also filled with poly saturated fats in the form of those seed oils and, uh, you know, a lot of processed wheat or other grains and all the problems with those things that I think are largely driving us to feel pretty bad on those times as opposed to just the pure carbohydrate themselves. And so, yeah, I’m talking about bringing in carbohydrates from what I would consider healthy sources, largely fruit, and roots, and tubers. Maybe some very particular either, well prepared grains or grains like white rice that are kind of already prepared to remove a lot of the, the antinutrients that cause issues digestively. So yeah, carbohydrates, not from processed foods or pizza or things like that, but rather these sources that are, as you said, very nutrient dense and also are digested very easily, which is very important for minimizing the amount of, uh, gut toxin production and intestinal permeability and things like that.

Brad (00:46:51):
So, easy digest, easy to energize carbs worked for you. And I’m also wondering what you might, how you might comment on there’s a, you know, a devoted population of fitness folks who are describing themselves as fat adapted, and so they are apparently thriving with low carbohydrate intake of all forms and uh, into this, this, this keto machinery and touting the benefits and performing well in athletic events. You know, I’ve had guys on my show like Zach Bitter, who is identifying as a low carb intake guy and setting the world record in the a hundred mile run. And I wonder is there a, um, is there a possibility to adapt beautifully so that you’re not requiring a lot of carbs because your training is optimal and so forth?

Jay (00:47:57):
So I think running largely on fat is going to be necessary for a hundred mile run without a doubt, uh, both for feasibility like practicality purposes, but also we can’t store and use carbohydrates in that sort of context. It would just be incredibly inefficient and that’s what fat is for, for those times when, uh, we basically need to rely on, uh, I would say more of these backup pathways, when we need to really dip into our stores. And that’s, there’s a reason why we store fat over carbs. It’s because it’s quite denser doesn’t need to be stored with water and that’s great. We need it. If we need to run a hundred miles, I would say that doesn’t make it ideal. And I would say running a hundred miles, you know, is not necessarily ideal. And maybe we’ll kind of circle back to that, but in terms of being fat adapted and fat burning versus carb burning for one, I was definitely one of those people saying those things as well.

Jay (00:48:48):
So I, I, you know, have full sympathy for anybody who’s who’s in that mindset. But the it’s interesting when we look at the idea of being fat adapted, I would say that it’s more important to consider our ability to produce energy from carbohydrates where the type of oxidation, the type of energy production, that’s way more sensitive, I would say is glucose oxidation, where there’s a ton of things that are going to block our ability to use carbohydrates and to use them fully, right, talking about going from glucose all the way down through the, you know, glycolysis CREB cycle, electron transport chain, as opposed to just being converted to lactate. That one iis more of a stress pathway, but there’s a lot of things to block that when it come, when those things are blocked, when we’re under stress, anytime things aren’t working properly, we tend to favor fat oxidation.

Jay (00:49:40):
And so I would really argue that we don’t need to worry so much about, about being fat adapted, but rather that we need to worry that if we’re able to, we need to consider whether we’re efficiently able to produce energy from carbohydrates. And that’s the sensitive one, that’s the one that can be inhibited. And I do think that really matters from biological context and from a biochemical, uh, context, you know, in terms of our brain’s usage of glucose for fuel, uh, what the signals are of relying on fat for fuel, as opposed to carbohydrates and kind of why that happens.

Brad (00:50:13):
So you say that’s the sensitive pathway, but isn’t the stress response gonna take a big sledge hammer and make that happen? You know, converting get, getting, getting glucose into the bloodstream immediately through emergency fire department means,

Jay (00:50:33):
So usually the first step, you know, we’ve, we’ve got layers of stress responses and the first step does lead to the release of blood sugar, but as we dig deeper, so as we go from glucagon to adrenaline to cortisol, we just wanna consider those three is the main ones that are affecting, um, fuel usage and, and, uh, blood sugar is that the initial ones tend to rely more on the glucose based pathways, releasing glycogen and encouraging glucose oxidation. But as you get deeper and even on, in terms of glucagon, they tend to lead to more fat release and more fat oxidation with the recognition that there’s not enough carbohydrates available now. So we have to start shifting toward that fat burning. And so, these aren’t, you know, these are things that might not be discussed as much, but they’re not really controversial that, you know, cortisol is going to be driving excessive or very high amounts of fat oxidation and fat release as well as adrenaline. And they’ll do so pretty effectively. They’ll, they’ll drive very high rates of both glucose and fat fat oxidation, to an extent, again, that comes at a cost long term, but, you know, in the short term, short term,

Brad (00:51:37):
There’s your, there’s your crash diet people. You’re losing muscle mass and, uh, stored fat. And so you mentioned glucagon, that’s the counterregulatory hormone of insulin, and it’s responsible for releasing energy from storage. Um, and so now we’re you, you mentioned that those three important stress hormones, cortisol, adrenaline glucagon. And so that’s, um, where we’re turning to when we don’t have, uh, these regular meals and we still need to function optimally. And I think, uh, for an, an easy reference people can think of times when they’ve been involved in a prolonged personal crisis that you’re going to the hospital every day to, to, to check on your loved one, or you’re in a, a breakup or something that’s traumatizing day after day after day. Um, and you’re not hungry. However, you’re walking around wired on energy. Someone’s saying, sit down, you should eat. Take some time. No, no I’m heading off, uh, to the hospital again. And your hands are a little shaky, but you are truly alert, energized and having a stream of energy to function well. And of course, this is an emergency cost with great long term consequences. But now we could replace the hospital vigil with the person who’s working hard at their job, uh, showing up to their early morning workout and embarking upon, deliberately embarking upon a restrictive diet in the name of health.

Jay (00:53:00):
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, there, that is without a doubt, a case in that scenario and that’s, you know, an easy one to conceptualize because it’s full on driving stress, right? We’re fasting, we’re over exercising, we’re overworking, we’re not eating enough. And that’s a very clear example of it. But even in the person, who’s a little bit more balanced. I would say the average person, either eating foods that are less than optimal or someone who is still leaning into maybe a very low carbohydrate diet or still leaning into some amount of fasting, I would say that those are still going to lean in that direction.

Brad (00:53:36):
So I guess to avoid these, these drawbacks to just kind of pull things together here, first, we have to urgently eliminate anything that we’re consuming that’s not, doesn’t have great energy potential, and then take us through some, some other steps too.

Jay (00:53:59):
Yeah. So let’s assume we’ve removed the large amounts of the polyunsaturated fats, and we’re eating whole foods. There’s, you know, coming back to carbohydrates, those are one of the main signals of our environmental availability of energy and our, our, the capacity for, you know, that, that our bodies have available to, to be able to function. And so we see this very clearly with fasting, but whenever we go an extended period of time, without those carbohydrates, we have to rely on those stress hormones. And we talked about this earlier. There’s a biological need for carbohydrate. It’ll decrease over time if we avoid them. But even if we just think of it in the very short term, you know, our blood sugar cannot drop too lower else. We will’ll die. Our brain won’t have enough glucose, uh, and it will stop functioning. And again, those needs go down a little bit when we have keytones, but those needs are still there.

Jay (00:54:49):
And especially in the short term, if we think of it just from that first instance, as soon as our blood sugar starts to drop, because there’s not enough carbohydrate coming in, it’ll trigger the release of those stress hormones, first glucagon, and then a adrenaline, the cortisol. And so because of that, if we are trying to eat in a way to minimize those stress hormones and adequately supply, proper fuel, we wanna be eating carbohydrates on a regular basis on a pretty consistent basis throughout the day to prevent the reliance on those stress hormones. So I know that this is when we’re starting to, to really woo

Brad (00:55:22):
We’re taking some turns on the highway, people.

Jay (00:55:25):
Yeah,

Brad (00:55:25):
And I, I also love the insight that, um, the transition over to a carbohydrate, restrictive diet, um, many of those, uh, purported benefits, one is experiencing is due to reduce gut irritation. And, you know, we talked about not all carbs being equal. We also are, you know, captivated today by this, um, animal based, uh, movement that Paul Saladino and Shawn Baker are presenting with with compelling arguments that even those widely touted carbohydrate foods that are supposed to be the healthiest, have the highest levels of toxins and irritants that can cause real trouble. And we’re talking about the raw kale smoothie, and we’re talking about the stir fried, uh, vegetables and the salads and the things that are the centerpiece of a lot of health conscious eaters’ diets. And then, uh, they go and, and ditch all that stuff and, um, feel better. Um, but it’s, it’s the elimination rather than the amazing benefits of a, of a carb restrictive diet is your argument,

Jay (00:56:31):
Right? Yep. A lot of those benefits or the vast majority of those benefits coming from that reduction of, of issues going on in the intestines and, and those.

Brad (00:56:41):
So we talked about the first of all the shitty carbs, which we’ve already established that, um, you know, the, the, the stuff that’s packaged with, um, vegetable oil and, and white flour, whatever you’re cutting out pizza, you’re gonna feel better. And then you’re cutting out kale, smoothies and salads and stir fries, and you’re gonna feel better. Um, and you’re kind of taking us full circle back to say hit the fruit hard. And that’s been my, my, my biggest takeaway, as soon as I heard you guys, uh, talk to Ben Greenfield on the podcast, I said, you know, this makes in incredible sense. I’m gonna try it. And so I started hitting the fruit really hard early in the morning to quote, tamp down the stress hormone response, because I’m not eager to activate stress hormones for anything outside of my workouts and my busy stressful day at the office.

Jay (00:57:28):
Exactly. Yeah. And so we don’t, you know, much like has been discussed in terms of first kind of paleo. Then, as you said, now, carnivore those raw veggies, the, the UN you know, not well processed legumes and grains, you know, not traditionally prepared, they’re not fermented, they’re not soak and sprouted. Those are some of the major culprits for these gut issues. And so we’re moving them as massively beneficial, and I think accounts for a large reason or large proportion of, of the benefits that people are getting. And there’s evidence for this, again, digging into the physiology of, of the production of certain gut toxins. But, uh, yeah, so that is important. And as you’re saying something that I definitely agree with, and instead wanting to focus on carbohydrates from really easily digestible sources like fruits, or like, well cooked, well cooked roots and tubers, uh, honey, you know, maple syrup, things like that.

Brad (00:58:19):
Yeah. It’s the, the opposite of the earliest, um, primal paleo message where we’re saying, um, these, these choices are more sugary and more insulinogenic. So we want to go for the more complex stuff, which, you know, at the time unknowingly was pointing it toward the ones with the highest levels of potential irritants. And again, um, you guys on Energy Balanced podcasts, oh, that’s my third plug. I think you do a great job of, of pointing to that, uh, that individuality aspect of, of all, um, eating patterns. And so if someone’s walking around feeling great and they have a whole bunch of what is it, root, stems, seeds, and leaves are the four most offensive categories of plant foods. Um, and that’s from Saladino’s work and he’s got graphics that show you, uh, what’s all in those categories, but of course seeds would be nuts and seeds, grains, legumes, uh, a big category. And then the, the leafy greens and the, the widely touted plant superstars are also in this category of having the most offense. So, um, it’s important to test and, and retest and refine, and that’s where we can start to dream of, uh, rising up to a higher level.

Jay (00:59:37):
Yeah. And I do, you know, as far as the roots go, I’m, I’m more of a fan of those, you know, there’s, most of the problematic compounds are in the skins. You know, if you think potatoes are yams and so you can remove those skins. And, uh, I think that would relieve a lot of the potential toxicity, of course, cooking them well, the other factor is, well in this, you know, I don’t wanna get too deep into this discussion, but we do wanna consider the biological context of these foods. And so, of course, leaves and, you know, seeds and, and nuts, they need to have their chemical protections against animals, especially, but also microbes. And the roots that are on the ground tend to need to protect themselves more from the microbes from fungus or bacteria and a moist dirt as opposed to mammals.

Jay (01:00:19):
And so I would say that more of their protection works in that regard, which is actually pretty beneficial for our gut and keeping a healthy microbiome. Uh, but I don’t view them as quite as much of an issue compared to those, those other categories of the leaves, nuts and seeds and, and roots. But I would definitely agree that the fruits are the best, obviously they’re made for animal consumption, which I think kind of tells you all that you need is that they’re, they need to have healthy animals continuing to eat them. Otherwise they will not be able to spread their seeds. So they have to be made in a way that supports the health of the animals that, uh, that are eating them. And there’s only two other kind of products that can, or like animal, sorry, two other foods I can think of that are really made for animal consumption and that’s dairy, which is made for the consumption of a baby animal, you know, specifically a calf or, you know, baby goat or something like that. But, uh, and then also honey, which, yeah, so, so those are kind of the only three food groups I put meat in that category, even, of foods that are made for like specifically designed to be consumed by animals.

Brad (01:01:23):
So, right. So we should have minimal objections there just from a biology perspective.

Jay (01:01:30):
Yeah. Yeah.

Brad (01:01:31):
I think we’re gonna have to jump into, um, some of the most compelling comments you’ve had on, on the podcast about hormesis. And I want to get in with a needle and do some specific questions, and we should probably package that as a different show. Cuz I think today what we’ve done is opened up the listener’s mind to the idea that, you know, not, not so much worrying about the, the calorie counting and in fact, um, going to the trouble to perhaps consume additional nutritious calories in the name of turning up those important dials, reproduction, repair, growth, and locomotion. Um, does that sound like a, am I, am I capturing that, uh, is, is what you guys are saying?

Jay (01:02:23):
Yeah. Wanting to really focus on producing energy efficiently. And then with that in mind, we wanna be consuming a lot of fuel to be able to produce a lot of energy, assuming it’s going efficiently, that’ll involve a lot of carbohydrates. I know that again, we’re probably pushing some buttons there and some people are not too excited to hear that or maybe they are, but of course we’ll dig into some more details in, in that regard and, and the details of fat versus carb burning and, and all of that. But yeah, essentially we wanna be producing as much energy as possible to create the best state of health. And in order to do that, we need to be, one making sure that we’re converting that fuel to energy and then, two making sure we’re getting a lot of that fuel and the right type of fuel to, to do so.

Brad (01:03:04):
That’s a pretty good close there, Jay. I appreciate that. And um, we’re gonna have to whet our appetites for part two, where we’re gonna go a little more deep and specific and, and get some real clarity here, but a very, very compelling premise. Please go listen to the Energy Balance podcast people. I think you’re directing people to the first,, binge of shows like the first seven shows is where you really set the foundation. Is that what you would recommend?

Jay (01:03:32):
Yeah. Yeah. I would say that’s a great place to start. And then along with that, you know maybe for people who would wanna get some extra info a little, well, I don’t know about quicker, but some extra info. I also have a free, uh, seven day energy balance minicourse that people can sign up for. And again, kind of give some of those foundations, some places to start. And so they can sign up for that at jfeldmanwellness.com slash energy.

Brad (01:03:54):
So it’s a, it’s a mini course, learning some of these concepts and seeing how they apply to your what, whatever things you’re doing now as a, as an individual.

Jay (01:04:05):
Exactly.

Brad (01:04:05):
Yeah. And then you have coaching packages further direct support, including one on one opportunities, right.

Jay (01:04:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So people can head to the services tab on my website, which is Jay Feldmanwellness.com, uh, to check those things out. But yeah, as you said, as far as getting some really solid information to start those first several episodes of the podcast and then the, the free mini course would be great places.

Brad (01:04:29):
Love it much more to come from Jay Feldman Energy Balance podcast, Jay Feldmanwellness.com. Thank you listeners. Thank you for listening to the show. I love sharing the experience with you and greatly appreciate your support please. Email podcast@bradventures.com with feedback, suggestions and questions for the Q and A shows. Subscribe to our email list@bradkearns.com for a weekly blast about the published episodes and a wonderful bimonthly newsletter edition with informative articles and practical tips for all aspects of healthy living. You can also download several awesome free eBooks when you subscribe to the email list. And if you could go to the trouble to leave a five or five star review with apple podcasts or wherever else, you listen to the shows that would be super, incredibly awesome. It helps raise the profile of the B.rad podcast and attract new listeners. And did you know that you can share a show with a friend or loved one by just hitting a few buttons in your player and firing off a text message? My awesome podcast player called Overcast allows you to actually record a sound bite excerpt from the episode you’re listening to and fire it off with a quick text message. Thank you so much for spreading the word and remember B.rad.

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