There Is A Method to the Madness
This is a podcast where I will be discussing all aspects of physical fitness. I am an exercise physiologist and personal trainer and owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs for the last 25 years. My passion is health and fitness and I am excited to share my views, some stories, interviews and much more with you.
There Is A Method to the Madness
Debunking “Carbs Make You Fat” With Science
Welcome to the Fit, Healthy and Happy Podcast hosted by Josh and Kyle from Colossus...
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Welcome to There is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell and I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I am the owner of Maxwell's fitness programs and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really works and most importantly why things work. Hence the name, There is a Method to the Madness. Before I get to today's show, I want to thank Jonathan and Lynn Gilden of the Gilden Group at Realty Pros. They are committed to providing the highest level of customer service in home sales. Why don't you give them a shout and figure out what your home is worth? 386-451-2412. Let's jump into today's podcast. One of my uh favorite areas to talk about, love talking about food and nutrition because it absolutely matters so much. I mean, I cannot state how important a healthy diet is. And um got inspiration to do this based on the uh inverted food pyramid podcast I did a few days ago talking about the uh the new food pyramid and kind of how off base it is, and then more and more has just been coming up about the uh you know the changes, and once again now we have a war on carbohydrates. So I'm gonna pick that back up and really do the best I can to explain to everybody out there, like just all about carbs and all the myths, and you know, gosh, you know, since I've been working in this industry for 31 years now, it's this has been one of the biggest areas that I've gone over and over and over. In fact, as I worked on my introduction today, I was thinking of what are the biggest areas that I've kind of had to handle, like the myths that continue to come up. And this is definitely one of them. The low carb myth is one of them. Carbs make you fat. That's one of the myths. The other one would be spot reduction, trying to get people to understand that they can't do all the crunches or sit-ups in the world and flatten their stomach. A flat stomach has everything to do with losing weight, getting rid of the subcutaneous body fat or the adipose tissue, which happens metabolically through burning more energy than we consume and losing weight. And probably the third one would be that uh certain way of strength training bulks you up. So, like uh we don't have it as much as we used to, but was pretty common mostly with women that would say, you know, I don't want to lift heavier weights because I don't want to get bulky. So those had to explain how how bulky we get or how bulky we don't get has everything or mostly to do with genetics and eating, not a lot to do with your style of weight training. That would be the third. All right. So those are like the biggies. I probably should cover all of them again this week. But today I'm gonna pick up on the carbs make you fat thing because it is ramping up again after, you know, some of these people who don't know what they're talking about get out there and start acting like they're the spokespeople for how to eat, and uh they're not. All right, so let's start talking about these things. First, what are carbohydrates? All right, so carbohydrates are the body's preferred fuel system. We use calories for energy. Okay, that's that's what calories are, they're the body's energy. So carbohydrates are the body's preferred fuel source. In fact, the brain can only use glucose for fuel. All right, so their main function is to provide energy for the body. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't necessarily want to go around with low energy, but that's what we're going to do if we excessively limit carbs. All right. So carbs are once again defining them as the body's preferred energy system. By the way, this isn't like like myth. This isn't like, oh, this is just one person's opinion. No, that's what carbohydrates are, all right? Especially for the brain and nervous system. As I already said, brain can't use another fuel source. So if you've ever known anybody on a low-carb diet or depleting carbs for a certain reason, they're gonna have brain fog, they're gonna be a little spacey, and uh, you know, they're gonna walk around basically with their head in the clouds. You know, I can attest to that. I can remember the first bodybuilding show I did when I was in my 20s. I mean, we really didn't know better back then. I mean, we did the whole carbo deplete and then carbo load thing, thinking it was gonna make our muscles more bloated on on competition day. I mean, whether it did or didn't, you know, it doesn't matter, may have helped. Definitely didn't hurt long term, but we did the carbo deplete thing at first. That was the idea. So for like three days, you essentially ate almost a no-carb diet. Man, I can remember just feeling awful, just being moody, irritable, didn't want to really do anything. I mean, you can feel the effects in the brain when you're on a low carb diet, and it is not good. All right. So, carbs, other main purposes for muscle activity during exercise. So, if you're on a low carb diet, don't expect to have any exercise worth of crap. I mean, not gonna happen. You're not gonna have any energy. Your muscles don't have any glycogen, which is the stored amount of carbohydrates in the muscles in the liver. It's not gonna have any to provide the energy. So its main function, again, is for activity during exercise. And then another preferred fuel source for high-intensity endurance work. So, you know, recently a friend of mine was joking that a friend of hers was talking about how like they were gonna go on a low carb diet because they thought some of the other elite racers were doing that. And I'm like, God, that is so ridiculous. Like, that's probably the worst of all. Like, how on earth do you think you're going to compete aerobically in endurance event on a low carb diet when it literally is the carbohydrates that fuel the muscles? I mean, so after you're like above 50 or 60 percent of your VO2 max, um, like 50 to 60 percent of your VO2 max, not like 50 milliliters per kilogram of body weight, but literally when you're just at 50%, which isn't very high, that's only halfway, your body automatically shifts to anaerobic metabolism, and you start using hardly any fat for fuel. And once you become completely anaerobic, it is only carbs for fuel. So, how on earth are you going to fuel a 5K on a low carb diet? Physiologically speaking, you can't. It's impossible. So that's just outright ridiculous. All right. So those are the main functions of carbohydrate. All right. Now, what happens when you're on a low carb diet? First short term and then long term. So obviously, because I already said it, low energy levels, brain goes in the fog, you become irritable, you start noticing a poor performance, naturally, you're hungry, typically because your blood sugar is low, so your body is sending signals to the brain saying, eat, so you're experiencing that. You could potentially have the important electrolyte loss. You're definitely going to go into muscle loss, so some atrophy. Um, that's not good because the only thing that raises our metabolism is adding muscle mass. So the last thing we want to do is lose muscle mass because we're not eating enough carbs. I mean, we don't want to lose it anyway, but when we can basically prevent it by making good choices, that's the last thing we want to do. Now, when it was more in vogue to be on a low-carb diet, and I hope we don't get there again trying to kind of stop it here, but I would notice when people were, they'd lose weight, and then they would gain so much weight afterwards, and people would be like, Well, why, why, why? And I'd say, Well, it's pretty much it's it's science. I mean, it's pretty simple. So when they lost a lot of weight, they lost a lot of muscle. Muscle's metabolic, so as soon as they like got off the diet because nobody can stay on it forever, they start gaining even more weight than they had before because they lost muscle, so they lowered their metabolism. So that's just stupid when you get down to it. Another thing that happens when you are on a low-carb diet for a sustained amount of time, you start seeing hormonal shifts. Your thyroid starts takes taking a beating and your metabolism lowers not only because of muscle mass, but because of thyroid disruption. You start experiencing some sleep loss because you have some serotonin level dips. Women can have menstrual disruption that could become really problematic later in life. If they uh you know miss too many pyramids, I shouldn't say you know, maybe you don't know, but such a thing called the female athlete triad, where basically they uh they, as in women, are not eating enough, so then they start. That's the first part. Then the next part is they start having menstrual disruption, that's the second part. And then the third part is later in life could lead to osteopenia or osteoporosis. So that can also happen with too low carb of a diet. You will have a suppressed immune system. These are just from like moderate, like low-carb diets, meaning a month or more. The female athlete triad's gonna take more time, but we're gonna start seeing all these things within a short period of time. And then mood changes and anxiety levels are going to lift if we are on a low-carb diet for too long. So I presented its case. The good, it's the body's preferred fuel source, the bad. I listed like 10 things. Now let's talk a little bit about another factor. So I've heard bodybuilders even say, oh, you know, I can gain muscle just eating high protein, low carb. Now, why they think this, I don't know. I mean, part of it I think is just broscience stuff, like they hear other people talking about it on the internet. But I also think it's just some people like to eat a lot of meat and they just want to be able to, you know, be that steak and potato guy that walk around, oh, I just like to eat this way. It's like, okay, I mean, there's things we all like, but that doesn't mean it's right. So I think it's a combination of things for people that are thinking that particular way, like the bodybuilders that are thinking that way. I just think they like to eat that way. When I say they, I'm talking about the people who are really defending the super high protein, low-carb diets as a way of gaining muscle. I mean, scientifically, it is not that. In fact, what the science says is, yeah, it's still possible to gain muscle on a low-carb diet as long as your calorie levels are high, so you still have to have a caloric surplus, but you will have to still modify your workout because anything of high intensity or high volume, you're not gonna have the carbohydrates to support that. So most likely you will not gain muscle. So the research states, yeah, you can maybe gain muscle on a low-carb diet, short term, by the way, short term. But you're gonna have to make some huge considerations to do so, meaning you're not gonna be able to go to failure in your sets, which may be good news for some people, but most people I know know, not the bodybuilders. Because again, it during anaerobic metabolism, the only fuel source your body can use is carbs. So you're gonna be breaking down muscle to gain muscle. It makes no sense. Essentially, you can't do it. I mean, it it's really silly to do so. All right. So here's where we run into a bit of an issue. Okay, I think I know I made the case, if you and there's nothing else I can do but present the case for that, the factual cases. Now let's talk about where some people I think mess up a little bit. The the true meaning people that get it, but they still struggle because of terminology. One of the things you'll hear people say is there's good carbs and there's bad carbs. And look, people, that is true. So when they come out in these new inverted pyramids or any pyramids, and they start talking about, you know, we think people should eat leaner proteins and whole foods. Look, you're 100% correct on that. If you're gonna eat higher protein levels, you better make sure it's a leaner source because if you're eating high saturated fat, you're still going to potentially clog your arteries. And if you're eating real foods, nobody's going to disagree with that. The problem is when people lump everything together and say, oh, so that means whole foods don't eat carbs, don't eat sugar. All right, so let me clear all that up. Because yes, there is such a thing as good carbs and bad carbs. Does that mean they're always good and they're always bad? Nope. Because you can have good carbs, and I'm going to go over them here in a second, and you can eat way more than you need, and you're going to get fat. I mean, plain and simple. Or you can take, quote, bad carbs like sugary, well, I shouldn't even say sugar, um, carbs without any nutritional value or fiber. And for a diabetic that's slipping into a very uh hypo, low blood sugar attack, hypoglycemic attack, then that sugar is going to save their life, that basically high glycemic index sugar. So that doesn't make it bad for them at that time. So it's not like it's their o is good and their o is bad, but there are differences. All right. So good carbs are high in nutrition, they're high in fiber, they're going to help you grow muscle, they're going to help you exercise, they're going to get all of the energy to the brain so you can think clearly. So I don't want you to think in terms of sugar anymore because that can be very misleading. Basically, glucose is sugar, and glucose is what flows through your blood. And when your primary care physician does your glucose levels and all that on your blood work, that's what they're showing. All right. So let's stop that terminology because sugar can look bad if you are tracking your food in MyFitnessPal, because it might say, Oh, you've got a hundred grams of sugar per day, or even in a couple meals. That's bad. It's like, yeah, but they're getting that from an apple, they're getting that from a pear. That's called fructose, fruit sugar. It comes with high fiber. So that in itself is not bad. But then you could eat a bag of pretzels, which is white flour, zero fiber. The label is going to show no sugar. You're gonna think it's a good food, a good carb, but it's really not because it's a very highly processed carb with low fiber. So it's going to spike your blood sugar, spike your insulin, and you think you're getting a good carb, but you're not. So don't use sugar as your terminology anymore. Okay? So your good carbs are going to be your fruit. Almost every fruit, except for fruit that's almost non-existent fiber, such as pineapple, things like that. Okay. But don't even wrap yourself up in that. Fruit, vegetables, beans, and lentils, oats, rice, potatoes, whole grains. Those are good carbs. Don't overly limit them. If you're an active person and you're limiting them, you're not going to be an active person for long. Okay? Now, good carbs digest slowly, so they have a lower or low glycemic index. They have high fiber, high vitamins, high minerals. They keep your blood sugar steady. Alright? Those are the good carbs. Don't limit them. Your bad carbohydrates, not sugar. I already explained that. Bad carbohydrates, they digest quickly, so they have a very high glycemic index once it reaches your bloodstream. They spike your blood sugar, spike your insulin. Too much of that, you become you could become type 2 diabetic, insulin resistant. Too much because you're constantly turning on and off those hormones. They're very calorically dense, meaning you don't have the vitamins, you don't have the minerals, you don't have the fiber. You just have a lot of calories per capita, and that's not good. Examples of bad carbs, don't say sugar, because remember, fructose in a green apple, that's fruit sugar, is not unhealthy. Bad carbs, soda, candy, pastries, cake, white bread products, crackers and chips, sugary cereals, for example, cereals with a low density of fiber, and highly processed carbs. Okay? So those are the sugars, the carbs we want to try to avoid. What I want you to think about are what are carbohydrates that are supportive and what are carbohydrates that are disruptive? Because context is everything here, all right? It there's a big depends factor in all this, okay? So context is everything. What are your supportive carbohydrates? So if you eat, say, a baked potato, which is 50 grams of carbs, something like that, something really, really high. So if you eat a baked potato following a very intense strength training workout, that's a supportive carbohydrate. That's going to help you grow, that's going to help you get better. What you don't use will be stored as glycogen, which is what your body uses as its preferred preferred fuel source. All right. But what if you eat a sleeve of cookies before bedtime because you're bored? Okay, so context is everything. That would be a disruptive carbohydrate. Not only are you eating highly processed carbohydrates, but you're eating them for the wrong reason, if there is a wrong or right, you know, because you're eating it because you're bored or you're lonely or you're, you know, you're emotional eating. So context does mean something here. You're you're both in these instances eating around 50 or so grams of carbohydrates, but one's supportive and you're doing it for your health, the other you're doing for your emotional state. That's not going to be healthy. If you do too much of that, I always recommend that you talk to somebody and get some psychological counseling, because a lot of times we can't fix food and diet issues if there's a huge emotional imbalance there. So I want you to think about that. Context is everything when it comes to this. All right, so here's a rule of thumb for you. If you're considered or consider yourself an active person, like I'm an active person, I exercise every day, plus I try to stay really active. I would state that probably all my clients are active people. They come to the gym, they hopefully do their homework, some of them do a lot of cardio, some do the right amount of cardio, and some don't do enough, but they're trying. I would call all of you active people. You need to get enough good carbohydrates in your system every day. To give you some guidelines for that, you should consume between three and six grams per kilogram of body weight. Three to six grams per kilogram of body weight. So the less you weigh and the less active you are, you would go towards the lower end of that. So three grams. The more active you are, the more you weigh, you would go towards the higher end of that, six grams. Okay, so to give you an example, I weigh 168 pounds. All right, get out your pencil if you need to know how to do this. Take your body weight and divide it by point by 2.2. Take your body weight, so I'm 168 divided by 2.2. That gives me 76. Okay, so it's kilogram of body weight. So divide it by 2.2, then multiply it by 3, 2, 6. If you're multiplying again by 3, that means that you you're active, but you don't think you're overly active. Again, there is a nuance here, there's a fine line, only you can figure it out. The point I'm really trying to make is that there's a range we want to be in. We don't want to be less than that three per kilogram of body weight. So for me, if I'm eating less than 228 good cramp good grams of carbohydrates per day, I'm not going to be able to support my lifestyle. The most I should go up to, based on this body weight, based on my kilograms, is 456 grams. Now, the funny thing is, I do track my food and I'm always in there. I think I'm usually in the 300 range, somewhere, high 300, something like that. So I'm always in there and I'm always trying to make the right choices because I know how my body feels when I don't. Now, not always. If I go to say a football game or something like that, I'm gonna have some soft pretzels or a soft pretzel, or I might have soft pretzels. So I'm gonna have some of those highly processed carbohydrates, but again, it's not what you do all the time. It's what you do once in a while. I can tell you I always have a moderately high carbohydrate intake. And by the way, you can tell I'm not fat. Okay, I'm not fatter, right? So I mean, the proof is in the pudding. It drives me crazy when people say it's the carbs making them fat. Eating too much is making anybody fat or fatter. I'm not trying to be offensive here. I'm trying to use real language, real conversation here. Now, another thing you can do if you really don't want to try to figure out. I mean, number one, you could always reach out to me and I'll tell you how many, but just trying to teach you here is you can figure out your AMDR, which stands for American Macronutrient Distribution. And um still science says between 45 and 65 percent of your diet should be in the form of carbohydrates. I work with a guy now, he just got on my fitness pal. I've been helping him out, and he's blown away at how low his carbs are often, and he thought he wasn't or he thought he was eating too many, and we did it, and he's he's typically under 50%. And I'm like, you know, if you want to grow muscle, you're not gonna be able to do that with that. So the whole point of this is understanding that there is a minimum amount of carbohydrates that you're going to need to consume. Not you're not trying to beat you down here with um math and numbers and things like that. I'm just trying to help you to understand that there does need to be a minimum amount of carbohydrates that you are going to consume. And they're not gonna make you fatter unless you overeat, which is true for anything, any type of food. All right. So, one little quote I like that I want to kind of leave you with that says sugar on the label doesn't tell you how a carb is going to behave in your body. The only thing that will is the amount of fiber and processing. So rethink how you talk about sugar. Let's simply go with good carbs or supportive carbs and bad carbs, disruptive carbs. All right. And because I think it's very important to always end on the high point, I'm gonna give you those supportive carbs again. They are fruit and vegetables, beans and lentils, oats, rice and potatoes, and whole grains. Consume those. Consume three to six grams per kilogram of body weight per day. The more active you are, the higher you're gonna have to go up to that. Probably don't need to go beyond the six, or you know what? You're probably just you know, overdoing it, right? You're just eating because you like to, which hey, we're human, we're gonna do that. All right, your disruptive or bad carbs are gonna be your sodas, your candies, your pretzels, your white breads, your crackers, your chips, your uh live fiber cereals, and your highly processed anything. All right, so think about that. I really hope this helps you and let's at least do the best we can to put one of these of the big three myths aside. So until next time, try to be max fit and try to be max well. All right, thank you everybody for listening to today's show. I really appreciate it. I want to remind you to please hit automatic download. It really helps me and it helps the show. And now I'd like to thank Overhead Door of Daytona Beach, the area's Premier Garage Door Company. They have the best product and the best service. I personally vouch for Jeff and Zach Hawk, the owners. They are great. They're going to get you exactly what you need. So if you have any garage door needs, give them a shout at 386-222-3165. And now I'm very excited to add another sponsor. 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