Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / Are Low-Carb Diets Wrecking Your Metabolism and Fat Loss? | Ep 311

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Are Low-Carb Diets Wrecking Your Metabolism and Fat Loss? | Ep 311 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: We've talked about the benefits of carbs for muscle, for energy, for performance but what about the detriments of a low-carb diet in and of itself?
• 0:07
  Philip Pape: Many times, people who are on a low-carb diet will experience energy crashes, stalls in their weight loss, stalls in their performance in the gym, and there's a reason for this that we don't often talk about.
• 0:17
  Philip Pape: That has to do with cortisol and your metabolic rate.
• 0:20
  Philip Pape: So today we are talking about how your quote-unquote healthy low-carb diet might be working against you, and then how to have a more flexible approach that you're probably going to enjoy more anyway and will help you get the results you want.
• 0:32
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency.
• 0:49
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're talking about carbs again, but from a different angle.
• 0:55
  Philip Pape: There is a connection between lower-carb diets and both cortisol and your metabolic rate.
• 1:02
  Philip Pape: That I think is really, really important and causes things like stalled fat loss, like crashing energy, feeling unusually stressed, and many people experience these symptoms, but they don't connect them to their carbohydrate intake.
• 1:18
  Philip Pape: The research now suggests that there is a physiological reason for this.
• 1:23
  Philip Pape: There is a hormonal chain reaction that can slow your metabolism and potentially make fat loss harder, not easier.
• 1:30
  Philip Pape: Obviously, anything that reduces your expenditure, your metabolism, the amount of calories you burn every day, is going to make this harder, because you're going to have to eat less, potentially to maintain the deficit, or you're going to have slower fat loss at the same intake.
• 1:43
  Philip Pape: And, of course, the less you eat, the less energy you have, the hungrier you are.
• 1:47
  Philip Pape: There's a cascade of things that are just not good.
• 1:50
  Philip Pape: We always want a higher level of energy, a higher level of energy flux, even when we're trying to go for a fat loss.
• 1:56
  Philip Pape: And while the keto community, the low carb communities, everyone who's just low carb, maybe even carnivore they often dismiss these concerns or they say that there are other reasons.
• 2:06
  Philip Pape: The evidence is becoming harder and harder to ignore, not to mention the outcomes.
• 2:11
  Philip Pape: Right, when we see something like people on higher carb diets can build a lot more muscle, there's a reason they have more energy coming in, more recovery ability.
• 2:18
  Philip Pape: But there are also negatives in the other direction when you have low carbs that prevent the fat loss you're trying to achieve.
• 2:25
  Philip Pape: And I'm not here to demonize low carb approaches.
• 2:26
  Philip Pape: I never do.
• 2:27
  Philip Pape: I never demonize low carb in and of itself.
• 2:29
  Philip Pape: What I say is that you want to eat in a way that supports what you need and what you want, and many people.
• 2:36
  Philip Pape: What they need is more energy, more performance, more recovery.
• 2:38
  Philip Pape: They want to build muscle.
• 2:39
  Philip Pape: What you want is foods that you enjoy, a lifestyle right To be able to go out to eat, to be able to not say no all the time.
• 2:47
  Philip Pape: So when you combine these together for most people that generally means moderate to higher carbs and you can absolutely get all the amazing body composition results you want.
• 2:57
  Philip Pape: Doing that.
• 2:57
  Philip Pape: We talk about it all the time.
• 3:00
  Philip Pape: So I'm not here to demonize low carb.
• 3:01
  Philip Pape: I want to look at it through the lens of evidence and engineering to find a balanced, sustainable approach for you.
• 3:07
  Philip Pape: So you understand what you're getting into.
• 3:09
  Philip Pape: And before we get into all of that, if you just want the guide to learn exactly how to set up your macros and your calories and everything else, I do have a guide that is super popular.
• 3:20
  Philip Pape: It's on flexible dieting and you can use the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash free, I think.
• 3:26
  Philip Pape: On that page.
• 3:26
  Philip Pape: It's called Nutrition 101 for Body Composition, but it's the same idea.
• 3:29
  Philip Pape: It will help you implement the principles we discussed today in a very practical, step-by-step way for you and just go download that using the link in the show notes.
• 3:39
  Philip Pape: So let's talk about this.
• 3:40
  Philip Pape: I'll call it hidden connection between your carb intake, your stress and your metabolism.
• 3:45
  Philip Pape: And it helps to understand what happens in your body when you significantly restrict carbohydrates, because at its core, your body receives or perceives severe carb restriction as a form of stress.
• 3:59
  Philip Pape: The fact that you don't quote unquote need carbs to survive is a red herring, right, because we're not trying to just survive, we're trying to thrive.
• 4:08
  Philip Pape: We're trying to have all the things that we want to achieve our goals and live a great life.
• 4:13
  Philip Pape: And research has consistently shown that low carbohydrate diets increase cortisol.
• 4:18
  Philip Pape: What is cortisol?
• 4:19
  Philip Pape: It's effectively the stress hormone, and a study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found that, when compared to a moderate carb diet, low-carb approaches led to significantly higher cortisol concentrations over an eight-week intervention period.
• 4:34
  Philip Pape: And cortisol is what allows you to respond to threats.
• 4:38
  Philip Pape: So when your carbohydrate intake drops too low, or it's intentionally low, your body faces a few challenges.
• 4:44
  Philip Pape: First of all, glucose availability for your brain and muscles goes down.
• 4:48
  Philip Pape: Secondly, your body has to find alternative fuel.
• 4:51
  Philip Pape: And thirdly, this then requires substantial adaptation in your metabolism, and all of these trigger a stress response.
• 4:59
  Philip Pape: There is research that shows cortisol levels consistently increase on a keto diet, and keto is essentially an extreme form of carb restriction, and the reason this matters is because chronically elevated cortisol is linked to a ton of negative effects.
• 5:15
  Philip Pape: I know we've talked about stress often on this podcast, but it can't be understated how impactful stress is to your metabolism and, conversely, to metabolic dysfunction.
• 5:27
  Philip Pape: When it's high and low-carb, folks are going to say that, hey, you know, this is going to be temporary.
• 5:33
  Philip Pape: Right, this cortisol increase is temporary.
• 5:35
  Philip Pape: It's part of adaptation and there's always some truth to that when there's ever any change to your lifestyle.
• 5:41
  Philip Pape: But for many people, especially when you have other forms of stress, which is pretty much everybody, every human being who has work, family, even your training, is stress.
• 5:50
  Philip Pape: This is just additional hormonal strain on top of that stack of stress.
• 5:55
  Philip Pape: That is going to become problematic when you sustain it right, when you sustain it, and this is regardless of weight loss.
• 6:04
  Philip Pape: Okay, so we're not even talking about just when you're in a calorie deficit.
• 6:07
  Philip Pape: We're talking about when you're not in a calorie deficit and you're restricting carbs.
• 6:10
  Philip Pape: It is going to increase your cortisol levels compared to a moderate fat or moderate carb diet, right?
• 6:15
  Philip Pape: So, in other words, the cortisol response is not about the weight loss.
• 6:19
  Philip Pape: It's specifically related to the carb restriction.
• 6:22
  Philip Pape: And that's what brings me to an important point.
• 6:24
  Philip Pape: It's specifically related to the carb restriction, and that's what brings me to an important point.
• 6:26
  Philip Pape: Your body does not distinguish between different types of stress.
• 6:29
  Philip Pape: Yes, there's all the chronic perceived stress in our life, like your deadline at work.
• 6:33
  Philip Pape: There's the hormetic or acute stressor, like your intense training session.
• 6:37
  Philip Pape: There's stress from doing too much cardio some of us have right and then there's stress when you're dieting.
• 6:44
  Philip Pape: But when you're not dieting, there's also stress from severe carb restriction, regardless.
• 6:48
  Philip Pape: And guess what?
• 6:49
  Philip Pape: It all triggers the same hormonal cascade your cortisol levels remain chronically elevated, and then this affects your metabolic rate, which is the next piece of the puzzle, okay, so that's why this is important.
• 7:04
  Philip Pape: We've established that low-carb diets increase cortisol.
• 7:05
  Philip Pape: Okay, even is the next piece of the puzzle.
• 7:05
  Philip Pape: Okay, so why?
• 7:06
  Philip Pape: That's why this is important.
• 7:06
  Philip Pape: We've established that low carb diets increased cortisol.
• 7:07
  Philip Pape: Okay, even in the absence of a calorie deficit.
• 7:09
  Philip Pape: So where things get interesting here is that your metabolism, which is made up of multiple components, one of which is just your BMR, your basal metabolic rate, which is like two thirds of your daily calorie burn.
• 7:21
  Philip Pape: It's the foundation of your metabolism.
• 7:23
  Philip Pape: If your cortisol is sustained and it's high, right?
• 7:28
  Philip Pape: If, if, what am I trying to say?
• 7:29
  Philip Pape: If you have sustained high cortisol, it is going to suppress your thyroid stimulating hormone, that's your TSH, the production of your TSH, and that then impacts the thyroid hormones that regulate your metabolism.
• 7:41
  Philip Pape: So your thyroid gland right, which is in your neck it's like that butterfly shaped gland.
• 7:47
  Philip Pape: It produces hormones that control how quickly your body burns calories.
• 7:50
  Philip Pape: So it's like a thermoregulator, some people call it, and when cortisol interferes with that, then your metabolic rate is going to slow down.
• 7:56
  Philip Pape: It's all a cascade, right, and so we don't know the exact impact.
• 8:01
  Philip Pape: But for someone with, like, a resting rate of, let's say, 1200 to 1500 calories, if you had a 20% suppression, then that would be like up to 300 fewer calories a day and that's almost like 30 pounds of weight gain every year or lack of weight loss.
• 8:18
  Philip Pape: You know what I mean Like just to give you the numbers.
• 8:20
  Philip Pape: A few hundred calories a day can make a big difference to many of us, especially smaller people, women, petite women like, whose rates are fairly low.
• 8:28
  Philip Pape: Now it just makes it lower, it makes it even harder.
• 8:31
  Philip Pape: Also, this isn't just about cortisol, because when you cut carbs, a few other things happen to your metabolism.
• 8:37
  Philip Pape: The first thing is that your body becomes more efficient at conserving energy, and adaptation that's effectively designed to keep you alive during food scarcity and the lack of carbohydrates can give your body the feeling that it doesn't have enough nutrients or enough food or enough energy, even when you're not in a calorie deficit.
• 8:59
  Philip Pape: Again, I'm trying to hammer home the point that this is above and beyond and independent of dieting itself.
• 9:05
  Philip Pape: This is the low carb aspect of it in and of itself.
• 9:08
  Philip Pape: The second thing is that having low carbs means you're going to deplete your glycogen very quickly.
• 9:13
  Philip Pape: That could also result in water loss and, you know, give you the phantom appearance that you've lost weight because it's glycogen, it's water weight, and then it masks what's actually happening, creating the illusion of progress when your metabolism might actually be slowing.
• 9:28
  Philip Pape: And so this is a big problem when you go from higher carbs to lower carbs very quickly.
• 9:33
  Philip Pape: Sometimes that actually happens on purpose when you go into fat loss phase, but when you understand that that happens, it's fine.
• 9:39
  Philip Pape: The problem is that the glycogen depletion also affects your workouts, your performance, your energy, all of that.
• 9:44
  Philip Pape: That's a different issue, but it still adds to the stress.
• 9:48
  Philip Pape: So if you don't have to be on lower carbs even when you're dieting, it can be helpful.
• 9:53
  Philip Pape: This is why I sometimes ask people to trade off some protein and carbs, depending on the energy that they need.
• 9:58
  Philip Pape: The third thing here is that when you have long-term carb restriction, the research has shown that this can reduce your T3 thyroid hormone, and that is yet another, let's say, dampener on your metabolic rate, affecting everything.
• 10:14
  Philip Pape: It affects everything.
• 10:14
  Philip Pape: It affects your stress response, your mood, your digestion, your immune system, your libido, of course, your metabolism and then your energy levels.
• 10:23
  Philip Pape: It's all connected, right, and then we've talked about this on other podcasts, so it wasn't really part of today's episode.
• 10:30
  Philip Pape: But just remember that muscle breakdown, also called catabolism, right, when you have more cortisol, it's going to increase the breakdown.
• 10:40
  Philip Pape: It's like your body's way of trying to grab energy wherever it can.
• 10:44
  Philip Pape: And since muscle tissue is metabolically active, of course, and you lose it, it's not good.
• 10:50
  Philip Pape: It's not good when you lose muscle, which is going to just further reduce your calorie burn as well.
• 10:54
  Philip Pape: So when you combine all these changes from low carb, just losing weight, losing fat is going to be progressively harder over time, simply because you were on lower carbs, and that's why a lot of people get initial success with these diets and then they hit these huge plateaus.
• 11:08
  Philip Pape: I used to think it was just because, oh, you're losing water weight fast, so you think you're in the right deficit.
• 11:12
  Philip Pape: Then that slows down.
• 11:14
  Philip Pape: You're no longer in the deficit.
• 11:15
  Philip Pape: You feel like you're in a plateau.
• 11:16
  Philip Pape: Really, you just need to lower the calories.
• 11:25
  Philip Pape: No, it's actually a lot worse than that.
• 11:26
  Philip Pape: It's a lot worse than that.
• 11:26
  Philip Pape: There are actually compounding effects above and beyond that related to the cortisol-carbohydrate connection.
• 11:29
  Philip Pape: So you know, those are the issues.
• 11:30
  Philip Pape: When you have carb restriction and a lot of people listening to the show or maybe this is the first episode you've ever heard you're like well, what else do I do?
• 11:38
  Philip Pape: I've heard that cutting carbs.
• 11:40
  Philip Pape: You know carbs make you fat.
• 11:41
  Philip Pape: Right, that's a myth.
• 11:42
  Philip Pape: We know that's a myth.
• 11:43
  Philip Pape: At this point, energy balance is what caused you to get fat or lose weight.
• 11:46
  Philip Pape: It has nothing to do with carbs, just has to do with calories.
• 11:52
  Philip Pape: But we know people have been conditioned to think that carbs are bad in some way.
• 11:54
  Philip Pape: The answer is that there is no one size fits all answer that your individual and ideal carb intake is going to depend on a lot of factors.
• 12:01
  Philip Pape: If you are sedentary, you don't need nearly as many carbs as if you're active.
• 12:06
  Philip Pape: Of course, if you're listening to this show, strength training is non-negotiable, and strength training requires a lot of carbs to really make the most of it.
• 12:13
  Philip Pape: Walking is something you should be doing as well, and so you should be active.
• 12:17
  Philip Pape: Right, and you're trying to support your metabolic health.
• 12:20
  Philip Pape: You're trying to maintain your stress levels.
• 12:21
  Philip Pape: You're also trying to eat food you enjoy, so that it's sustainable Food that's satiating, like high-fiber foods.
• 12:27
  Philip Pape: Well, what are high-fiber foods?
• 12:29
  Philip Pape: Well, a lot of carbs.
• 12:30
  Philip Pape: Vegetables, fruits, grains contain fiber.
• 12:34
  Philip Pape: Right, also, just having a delicious, energy-promoting meal that's balanced between fats, carbs and protein.
• 12:42
  Philip Pape: You're still going to have carbs, so there really is little to no benefit in cutting carbs for the vast majority of people when you're not dieting.
• 12:49
  Philip Pape: Now, when you are dieting meaning you're in a calorie deficit the calories are going to come down.
• 12:52
  Philip Pape: You're going to keep the protein high, you're going to keep the fats moderate and you may end up with fairly low carbs.
• 12:58
  Philip Pape: This is why you don't want to diet at too fast of a rate If your metabolism is fairly low to begin with and you have unrealistic expectations, and so you go in an aggressive rate of loss.
• 13:10
  Philip Pape: Your carbs are going to come way down and you're going to start to see some of these independent low-carb or carb restriction-caused issues.
• 13:19
  Philip Pape: And that's the message of today's podcast.
• 13:21
  Philip Pape: That is why I wanted to make this, so that you understand that restricting your carbs has its own detriments, above and beyond detriments from other things, and it can exacerbate your metabolic decline.
• 13:32
  Philip Pape: So, if you're listening, even if you're a client, if you're in our physique university we've talked about this many times and you're in a fat loss phase, think about the rate of loss, like how many calories do you actually have to play with, because just being super low calories like 1,200, 1,100, 1,000, could be where the problem is and also think about how many carbs you have in there and when you're eating them.
• 13:52
  Philip Pape: Are you eating them around your workout?
• 13:54
  Philip Pape: Little fixes like adding 20 grams of carbs and taking it from protein, or even some from fat, could be exactly what you need to avoid some of these issues, and we also have studies showing, I'll say, the other side of the same coin, in other words, what happens when you increase your carbs.
• 14:12
  Philip Pape: Well, again as part of a healthy whole food diet, right Dietary pattern.
• 14:16
  Philip Pape: I don't mean processed carbs like pizza, donuts, muffins.
• 14:20
  Philip Pape: Those aren't carbs right.
• 14:21
  Philip Pape: Those are processed carbohydrates, fats and sugars.
• 14:24
  Philip Pape: That's not carbs right.
• 14:25
  Philip Pape: Carbs would be an apple or a whole grain piece of bread is a carb.
• 14:30
  Philip Pape: Studies show that increasing those carbs may reduce circulating cortisol and then dampen the associated psychological stress-related responsiveness.
• 14:40
  Philip Pape: Psychological stress-related responsiveness Do you know what I just said?
• 14:45
  Philip Pape: So your cortisol becomes more sensitive to your psychological stress when you have more of it circulating in your blood and that happens when you have less carbs.
• 14:54
  Philip Pape: But if you increase your carbs you actually reduce the cortisol and that can have a big impact on your fat loss and how you feel.
• 15:00
  Philip Pape: So for most active individuals, if you're training, if you're walking, moderate intake, which usually amounts to about I don't know 30 to 40% of your calories I don't think in terms of percent calories I like to anchor my protein, anchor my fats and then the rest is carbs, which usually provides a nice balanced approach, gives you plenty of glucose to support your thyroid function, to obviously support your training too.
• 15:22
  Philip Pape: It keeps cortisol in check and then allows for fat loss when in calorie deficit because you're keeping it moderate.
• 15:29
  Philip Pape: Now, carb timing can make a difference.
• 15:31
  Philip Pape: I mentioned this a couple of times.
• 15:32
  Philip Pape: But if you place most of your carbs around your workouts, also in the evening before bed not like right before bed, but in the evening, like with dinner those are two times that are going to help you with your performance, with your recovery and even your sleep quality.
• 15:44
  Philip Pape: You with your performance, with your recovery and even your sleep quality.
• 15:47
  Philip Pape: Right, there is research that adding some you know nutritious carbs at night can help you with your sleep quality and manage cortisol levels.
• 15:53
  Philip Pape: And I had a client who was like right on the verge of feeling kind of wiped out with their workouts and all we did is we just swapped a little protein for carbs.
• 16:02
  Philip Pape: We're talking like 10, 15 grams.
• 16:04
  Philip Pape: It was not much at all, but it was enough.
• 16:05
  Philip Pape: It was enough.
• 16:06
  Philip Pape: And you don't know until you experiment with it.
• 16:08
  Philip Pape: Track the data, compare the before and after, compare your biofeedback, like your energy, your workout performance, like how many reps did you get?
• 16:16
  Philip Pape: How did you feel?
• 16:17
  Philip Pape: Did you feel recovered?
• 16:18
  Philip Pape: Did you get sore?
• 16:19
  Philip Pape: Look at your sleep quality, your HRV, things like that, your just general feeling of like chronic stress, your food cravings yeah, we forgot to mention that, but food cravings and hunger signals are all impacted by this as well.
• 16:32
  Philip Pape: And then, of course, you know are you making progress?
• 16:33
  Philip Pape: Are you able to make the progress you want?
• 16:34
  Philip Pape: Right, and it doesn't mean, hey, you have to start cramming your mouth with tons of carbs and eat pasta and bread and eat like a bodybuilder diet with like 600 grams of carbs.
• 16:42
  Philip Pape: Right, you still care about, okay, the quality of it and the quality of it being reasonable.
• 16:48
  Philip Pape: Minimally processed foods are always a good start to add in, like fruits, potatoes, rice, oats.
• 16:52
  Philip Pape: They provide energy, fiber, micronutrients, sometimes hydration.
• 16:56
  Philip Pape: So all these just support your health in so many ways.
• 16:59
  Philip Pape: Right, we're not trying to swing into eating all processed foods that some people call quote unquote carbs that are not, but really a nice, balanced, whole foods based, nutritious approach.
• 17:09
  Philip Pape: I don't see how anybody can find that unreasonable, but you'd be amazed, or maybe you wouldn't.
• 17:15
  Philip Pape: You see it on the Instagram all the time People demonizing fruits and carbs of any kind, talk about how carbs make you fat All the myths that still persist today.
• 17:23
  Philip Pape: Now, if you want to put this into practice, I'm going to give you some strategies.
• 17:31
  Philip Pape: Okay, first, if you've been on a very low carb diet for a long time.
• 17:33
  Philip Pape: We're talking about like 50 grams a day or less then I want you to honestly assess your biofeedback right your fatigue, your mood, your sleep, all of that and then gradually titrate up your carbs and see how it changes.
• 17:43
  Philip Pape: Don't do anything else and keep your calories the same too.
• 17:46
  Philip Pape: So that's the key here is like keep the calories the same, but increase your carbs.
• 17:49
  Philip Pape: Take it away from fats first and then protein.
• 17:52
  Philip Pape: I mean it's kind of weird.
• 17:54
  Philip Pape: Like a lot of people with a low carb diet also don't even have great protein, they end up having a lot of fat, right.
• 17:59
  Philip Pape: That's what I see.
• 18:00
  Philip Pape: That's like the keto diet.
• 18:01
  Philip Pape: So you may have a lot of room to bring the fat down.
• 18:03
  Philip Pape: Replace it with carbs.
• 18:04
  Philip Pape: And the key word here is gradual, because here's the other thing I get right.
• 18:10
  Philip Pape: People are like oh, I added in carbs and I had bloat and I had like digestive issues and I had this and that.
• 18:15
  Philip Pape: Well, yeah, because you're massively changing not only your patterns and your habits from your body's perspective, but you're introducing like you're flooding it with things that it's just not used to.
• 18:26
  Philip Pape: Same thing with your gut right and the gut bacteria, the gut health, all of that.
• 18:30
  Philip Pape: So don't blame the carbs, blame the method to reintroduction.
• 18:34
  Philip Pape: Your body needs time to readapt.
• 18:37
  Philip Pape: So I would add like 25 grams of carbs tomorrow, right, for the next week, and just leave it there and then add another 25 grams a day the next day, like however many grams, to get you to your your goal, because this is also going to prevent, like blood sugar spikes that you're not used to, especially if you're not eating balanced meals.
• 18:54
  Philip Pape: If you are, it's not as much of a concern.
• 18:56
  Philip Pape: It gives you a metabolism some time to adjust.
• 18:58
  Philip Pape: It lets you see what's really working.
• 19:00
  Philip Pape: So that's the first strategy is just like this gradual reintroduction.
• 19:04
  Philip Pape: The second thing is pay attention to the timing.
• 19:06
  Philip Pape: We mentioned it before, but I just want to be very specific, right?
• 19:09
  Philip Pape: Having some carbs in the evening can help reduce cortisol, and eating carbs around your workout is going to match your activity level, your training days or your training, especially for those intense sessions.
• 19:22
  Philip Pape: You're going to notice a difference.
• 19:24
  Philip Pape: Most likely.
• 19:24
  Philip Pape: I don't recommend anybody train fasted unless you know for a fact that you perform more optimally, which is very, very rare, right, and it's going to help with your stress as well.
• 19:33
  Philip Pape: Um, on rest days, yeah, you, could you reduce carbs, lie and do some slightly and do carb cycling.
• 19:38
  Philip Pape: Maybe.
• 19:39
  Philip Pape: I generally recommend most people just keep it consistent day to day and then um see if it to change, to deviate from that, but just start there, all right.
• 19:47
  Philip Pape: The fourth strategy here is really, um, I'll call it periodic carb cycling.
• 19:53
  Philip Pape: I'm not talking, this is so.
• 19:54
  Philip Pape: This is different than daily carb cycling.
• 19:55
  Philip Pape: This is, uh, over time, right, so like over as little as like a week, um, but it could be multiple weeks where you follow, like, a higher carb approach and then a lower carb approach and see if you notice a difference.
• 20:11
  Philip Pape: And I only like that so that you can both play around with what refeeds feel like, like how, when you flood your system with carbs, what it does for you, but then also see the difference when you do restrict carbs and build that sensitivity.
• 20:27
  Philip Pape: This is more of an experimental thing to see, like prove to yourself that there's a certain optimal level of carbs for you.
• 20:35
  Philip Pape: The fifth strategy here is to be aware of all the other things stressing you out, because if you're under lots of, like perceived or psychological stress, if you're not sleeping well, if you're over-training, over-exercising, this is going to sound weird.
• 20:50
  Philip Pape: But rather than me tell you to eliminate all that, because I know it's difficult.
• 20:54
  Philip Pape: It's a process, right, you might just need more carbs to offset it, to mitigate your stress load.
• 20:59
  Philip Pape: Sounds strange, I know, but all of this stress is cumulative when it comes to your cortisol.
• 21:05
  Philip Pape: So, at the very very least, not restricting carbs when you have all those stressors is a good start.
• 21:09
  Philip Pape: But even Flooding your body with more may be the way to go.
• 21:12
  Philip Pape: And the reason I included this in here is a lot of my clients come to me like they're just stressed, they're under eating, they're not training right, and we want to get them doing all these things.
• 21:22
  Philip Pape: But one of the first things I have them do is start tracking their food and try to eat more carbs that's usually what happens or more protein as well.
• 21:28
  Philip Pape: You know cause I'll have, I'll have female clients.
• 21:31
  Philip Pape: I can't eat that many carbs.
• 21:32
  Philip Pape: I can't eat a hundred grams of carbs, or I can't eat 200, whatever it is.
• 21:34
  Philip Pape: And I'm like it's okay, we're going to titrate up right?
• 21:37
  Philip Pape: Here's some ideas, here's some lists let's start incorporating.
• 21:40
  Philip Pape: And a lot of times they're like oh my gosh, like I feel so energized.
• 21:46
  Philip Pape: I feel like I can do so much.
• 21:47
  Philip Pape: I feel like I've got a new lease on life.
• 21:49
  Philip Pape: You know I'm not.
• 21:50
  Philip Pape: I'm not gaining weight, but I'm feeling better, I'm able to push more in the gym.
• 21:54
  Philip Pape: It starts to Like offload some of the stress for them and and that's why we know that there's this hormonal connection with carbs, right?
• 22:04
  Philip Pape: The last thing is you want to track all the things you care about when comparing lower to higher carbs.
• 22:10
  Philip Pape: So energy levels, sleep quality, workout performance, well-being, mental health, it doesn't matter, you pick it, pick what those are.
• 22:17
  Philip Pape: I have a set of markers that I use with clients, but you may want to track whatever makes sense for you Hunger signals, et cetera.
• 22:22
  Philip Pape: The goal is to find that sweet spot, right?
• 22:24
  Philip Pape: You don't have to eat lots and lots of carbs, but generally a low or very low carb approach is not going to work for most people.
• 22:31
  Philip Pape: Whether you're a man, a woman over 40, under 40, it doesn't matter.
• 22:34
  Philip Pape: Don't tell me hey, I'm a woman over 40 and peri-postmenopause, so I've been told I need to eat low carbs.
• 22:38
  Philip Pape: No, usually it's the opposite.
• 22:54
  Philip Pape: Usually you're not eating enough carbs to support optimal hormone function, metabolism.
• 22:56
  Philip Pape: You're impeding your fat loss progress.
• 22:57
  Philip Pape: Eat those carbs, all right.
• 22:58
  Philip Pape: So the neat thing about all of this is the body is complex, so these relationships tend to be bi-directional.
• 23:00
  Philip Pape: You know like the cortisol levels reflect how your metabolism is varying, right, independent of psychological stress.
• 23:05
  Philip Pape: And we know that baseline concentrations of plasma cortisol actually vary with your metabolic rate based on your mass, like based on your body mass.
• 23:18
  Philip Pape: So what this means is that cortisol is not just influencing your metabolism, it is a component of your metabolic process.
• 23:24
  Philip Pape: It actually regulates the energy production and utilization in your body, very much like thyroid.
• 23:30
  Philip Pape: Right, it's bidirectional and that means it suggests that optimizing metabolic health is not about your macros or calories.
• 23:39
  Philip Pape: It's about creating the best lower stress hormonal environment to support efficient energy flux, energy production using the energy, using the nutrients.
• 23:50
  Philip Pape: And so when you maintain the right carb intake, you are you're not just doing all the superficial things, you know, fueling your workout, satisfying your cravings, blah, blah, blah You're supporting the hormonal cascade that keeps your metabolism humming.
• 24:02
  Philip Pape: And then you know acute stress.
• 24:05
  Philip Pape: Yeah, that can suppress appetite in the short term, but chronic stress can increase your consumption of highly palatable foods, especially carb-rich palatable foods.
• 24:15
  Philip Pape: Interestingly, you know, carb-rich, fat-rich, sugar-rich, and that can increase your visceral adiposity, which is your belly fat, cause weight gain, all the things.
• 24:23
  Philip Pape: And that also explains why extremely restrictive diets usually lead to rebound, overeating and then weight regain Another reason we don't want to restrict carbs.
• 24:34
  Philip Pape: So if you can find that sweet spot of your carbs, then you're kind of optimizing this whole ecosystem in your body that determines your body composition and your energy, your longevity, your health, all of it.
• 24:46
  Philip Pape: So carbs are not good or bad.
• 24:48
  Philip Pape: They have a role in your body's hormones.
• 24:52
  Philip Pape: It's hormonal milieu symphony, whatever you want to call it, and it's a really different way of thinking about them.
• 24:57
  Philip Pape: They're a tool, and learn to use the tool.
• 25:00
  Philip Pape: For you.
• 25:01
  Philip Pape: The goal is not to swing from one extreme to another here.
• 25:04
  Philip Pape: I don't want to demonize carbs and I don't want to consume them indiscriminately.
• 25:07
  Philip Pape: I'm definitely not going to demonize them, if you know me right, but I also don't want to think well, just, you have to eat like all these carbs.
• 25:14
  Philip Pape: There's a thoughtful, individualized approach.
• 25:17
  Philip Pape: I know a few folks who've been lifting a long time and they know the value of carbs and they also can't take a lot of carbs.
• 25:23
  Philip Pape: And and they know the value of carbs and they also can't take a lot of carbs, and they've tracked it and they've compared it and they've done all the things we've talked about and they've arrived at the fact that, yeah, you know what?
• 25:31
  Philip Pape: I'm actually better on higher protein and moderate carbs.
• 25:33
  Philip Pape: Somebody else is better on normal protein and super high carbs.
• 25:37
  Philip Pape: The fitness industry loves to sell simple, black and white solutions.
• 25:40
  Philip Pape: Carbs are evil, fat makes you fat.
• 25:44
  Philip Pape: All that, Just throw it away.
• 25:44
  Philip Pape: Unfollow.
• 25:45
  Philip Pape: Listen to this show.
• 25:47
  Philip Pape: Reach out and understand that there is nuance to all of this your diet, your hormones, metabolism and that helps you make the informed choices that get you the results you want.
• 25:55
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 25:56
  Philip Pape: So again, if you found value in today's episode, if you want to learn how to settle this up just very simply your macros, your calories, your timing, your carbs download my free flexible dieting guide.
• 26:05
  Philip Pape: Use the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom.
• 26:08
  Philip Pape: Slash free Again.
• 26:10
  Philip Pape: It might be called Nutrition 101 on that page, but the flexible dieting guide is gonna help you implement the principles we discussed today Very step-by-step, simple, personalized to you, to support your metabolism, help you achieve your physique goals without all of this restriction or all of this stress.
• 26:25
  Philip Pape: All right, until next time.
• 26:27
  Philip Pape: Keep using your wits, lifting those weights and remember that strategic carb intake can help keep your stress in check and your metabolism firing on all cylinders.
• 26:36
  Philip Pape: I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.