Coach's Corner With Justin and Ethan

How Hormones Shape Your Weight Loss Success

• Justin Schollard • Season 1 • Episode 20

Share episode

Send us a text

Have you ever wondered how hormones can make or break your weight loss journey? In this illuminating episode of Coach's Corner, we promise to unravel the complexities of hormones like testosterone, growth hormone, insulin, cortisol, adrenaline, ghrelin, and leptin, offering insights that can help you achieve your health and fitness goals. Join Justin and Ethan as they delve into the intricate ways these hormones influence not just weight loss, but overall health and stress responses. This knowledge could be the key to maintaining weight loss and understanding the challenges that come with increased hunger signals.

We take a deep dive into the regulatory role of hormones and their relationship with your lifestyle choices. Discover how simple yet effective changes in sleep, nutrition, hydration, and physical activity can significantly impact your hormonal health. While acknowledging that hormonal imbalances can sometimes be medical, we emphasize the power you have in optimizing your lifestyle habits to better regulate your body's homeostasis. By adopting these practices, you can take charge of your well-being and achieve a balanced hormonal environment.

In the final segments, we explore practical and sustainable weight loss strategies with a focus on their hormonal implications. Learn about the benefits of a gradual approach to weight loss, the dangers of extreme dieting, and the importance of consistent healthy habits. We also discuss a fascinating study on long-distance cyclists, shedding light on how the timing of carbohydrate intake can influence muscle growth and hormonal balance. We wrap up with key takeaways and actionable advice, equipping you with the tools to harness the power of hormones for a healthier and more fulfilling life. Tune in for an educational and empowering experience with Justin and Ethan on Coach's Corner!

Speaker 1:

All right, welcome to episode 20 of Coach's Corner. We got our main man, Ethan Wolfe, over here doing his double bicep pose getting ready for the Arnold Classics. Gotta flex it. We are doing this episode virtually today because Coach Ethan came down with the Rona. He's on the Rona coaster right now.

Speaker 2:

I know it was such a hot phase a long time ago, but I'm trying to keep the trend alive yeah, covet, who gets covet anymore?

Speaker 1:

that's 2022 anyway. So this is episode 20 of coach's corner with justin ethan and, uh, we've been doing this for about 20 years, uh, working with people one-on-one in group settings virtually with weight loss, health and fitness, nutrition coaching, which tends to be like life coaching a lot of ways, because I think it's hard to unpack one's diet in pursuit of weight loss and health without really understanding their life and their habits and patterns and triggers so we can unpack what's keeping them stuck. And so, anyways, on today's episode, we'll're going to be talking about hormones. And listen, neither Ethan and I are doctors in this study, so we're going to keep it a little bit more big picture with this stuff. We're not going to dive deep into all the minutiae of hormones, but we're going to talk about the big ones like growth hormone, testosterone, estrogen, insulin, ghrelin, things, that adrenaline things that we all are affected by on a daily basis. Dr Justin Marchegiani Leptin. Dr Justin.

Speaker 2:

Marchegiani. What is it?

Speaker 1:

Dr Tim Jackson Leptin that's the other one involved Dr Justin Marchegiani, and how they, how our bodies, respond and react to stimulus, and how far one would need to investigate their own hormones if they're stalling out on progress. Because thing is, guys, is, we tend to just default thinking it's a hormone issue and really it might not be so anyway. So all right, ethan, how much trt are you doing these days?

Speaker 2:

well, I was on a weekly dose not that long ago.

Speaker 1:

Oh, no, that down down, stepping from a daily dose, so that's good.

Speaker 2:

Downstepping from a daily dose. Now, I've currently never done TRT. Hold me to it. Yeah me neither. Maybe if the day ever comes where all of my actions that I'm willing to take at the time not saying I will be willing to take every action but that all of my actions that I'm willing to take at the time, as well as my performance, goes down. But right now there is no external hormone interaction happening on my end I can say slippery slope, man we talked about, you know it's tricky.

Speaker 2:

I do take two supplements that are supposedly supposedly going to help boost or maintain my testosterone. I feel good on them. I haven't at this point done a direct side-by-side blood test. I am curious.

Speaker 1:

But it's not like I'm not dancing the dance to participate, but I'm just not taking any type of hard steroid hard androgen at this point is what I'd say so I think we should just go through one at a time here, um, and describe and explain what we know to be true around these hormones, and I think the big one, the big few, would be testosterone, growth hormone, insulin we all are familiar with that one, I think cortisol, adrenaline, and there's more, I'm sure ghrelin some interesting leptin, so I'll kick it off with this.

Speaker 1:

So we brought this up in a previous episode where we were talking about why weight loss is so hard and, statistically, why 90 percent of people tend to regain their weight. And so what I will say as far as hormones having a role in our ability to maintain weight loss, there is absolutely science around our bodies releasing hunger hormones leptin, ghrelin as we tend to lose weight, right? So it's like we all. When a person has gained a bunch of weight and their homeostasis is now obese and then they lose weight, it's like our bodies are doing what they're designed to do and it's releasing all these hormones to try to get us back up to the previous homeostasis. Right, and I think statistically, we found that I read that for every kilo 2.2 pounds every kilo we lose increases our hunger signals via hormones by 100 calories, and so for every kilo we lose, our hunger signals increase by 100 calories. Right Along those lines.

Speaker 2:

That's definitely, and again, it just goes back to that.

Speaker 2:

Your body doesn't like the idea of losing those calories, and so it's just putting into place the natural processes that it has in order to make sure that you are making food acquisition a priority, so to speak.

Speaker 2:

It's just, and those, it is the regulatory system of our hormones.

Speaker 2:

Our hormones are these global thing that floods the system right?

Speaker 2:

So, unlike, maybe, an inflammation process, which might only go to your ankle if you were to twist an ankle, the endocrine system is released globally through the bloodstream, and so it's one of these things that it is like a full body regulatory system.

Speaker 2:

It is something that goes global, through all of your tissues and isn't necessarily a localized situation, and so, in that way, it's one of the reasons I think that it can have such a profound effect on our bodies is that a hormone can be released and have an effect here in one part of the body that might not be intended in another. It might be a signal for your brain, or it might be to just simply remove calories from your blood, but have some type of interaction over here. So it's just an interesting thing, because I think that's one of the reasons why the endocrine system is so powerful is because there is no differentiation and that once a hormone is released, it's released into your bloodstream globally and therefore has this ability to affect all of your tissues and all of your, your body systems, all the five major systems, or whatever.

Speaker 1:

It is that you have right, so it was like what you're saying before, like you release not like.

Speaker 2:

You release cortisol and adrenaline and it only goes to your legs and so your legs, blood vessels dilate, the sugar is released out of the bloodstream or out of the storage system into the bloodstream only in your legs, so that your legs have a better ability to run and sprint and perform and not like the rest of your body.

Speaker 2:

That norepinephrine, which mobilizes blood sugar and dilates your blood vessels, goes into your brain. Your heart rate increases, your brain thinks differently, and so it's like when a hormone gets released into the body, it goes into all of the tissues and it affects all things. Back in the day there was this anecdote I'll call it an anecdote, but basically that old-time strongman and current-time people that were interested in grip training would specifically do extremely heavy squats to heal their hands as a modality, because the extremely heavy squats would cause a spike in testosterone and growth hormone in the body. It would affect all tissues, including the recovery of their hands and forearms, which they were training so diligently and looking to do some type of actual performance with. So it's just an interesting thing to note in that way.

Speaker 1:

I don't think it's anecdotal. I think there's some pretty clinical evidence around that. There is a study a famous one that I would always talk about, back when people were poo-pooing squats with free weights and they they were like biopsying people's leg muscle pre and post squat and what they found is that when you train heavy with squatting and free weights and it releases testosterone, cortisol and testosterone specifically for men, but I think there, I'm sure it's true for women as well, but when it's a lot heavy and you get past that sort of 80% threshold of, like you know, rate of perceived exertion.

Speaker 1:

I don't know the exact study, exact off the top of my head, but we can link in the show notes but it because of this sort of global flooding of of testosterone, which is a steroid type androgen hormone anabolic. It improved growth, muscle growth. In both study groups the participants that were only training upper body and then the participants that were training lower body and upper body, the the participants that were training training lower body and upper body, the the participants that were training training lower body and upper body, had more overall upper body development than the participants in the study that just trained only upper body, and so there is an absolute corollary effect to. Just by flooding your system globally with hormones, it's going to affect other parts of your body too, right, and so I think testosterone is probably like the most famous one. Obviously it's like the one that everyone wants more of.

Speaker 1:

But another interesting angle on this is that you can have relatively normal levels of testosterone, but then your androgen receptors are are super high and therefore, even though your testosterone levels are low, you might actually be absorbing and utilizing testosterone much better than someone who might have super high levels of testosterone but maybe their androgen receptors aren't quite as high, right, so there's a lot that goes into how your body handles these hormones, but one thing that I think people misinterpret is insulin. I think that insulin is this hormone that we tend to demonize a lot, and essentially insulin is what we call a storage hormone. Actually, insulin is an anabolic hormone because when we're anabolic, we're storing weight period right, muscle and fat, and so when we release insulin and take proteins and put in the muscle, it can take carbohydrates and put in the muscle or the fat.

Speaker 1:

People tend to think high insulin levels are just bad, when really it's not. It's just a natural response to eating, and I think what you said in the pre-show, when we're getting ready, is that our hormone hormones are in response to lifestyle and behavior. Right, so it's not like the problem isn't the hormones. Hormones are just a lagging indicator of the, the leading indicator, which is your fucking lifestyle absolutely, I think.

Speaker 2:

So what I was saying is that, like the endocrine system in a lot of ways is a regulatory system. Now, obviously, that that's really dumbing down a very complex system into a simple statement, because we have obviously hormones that participate with our circadian rhythm, like melatonin, and processes in the body that have nothing necessarily to do with outside stimulus but also do have to do with outside stimulus, meaning that we're always going to release melatonin. Melatonin release is having to do with your circadian rhythm and sleep and all that kind of stuff. That is just going to happen anyway, but at the same time as the degree of sunlight that you get directly into the eyes, how soon you get the sunlight into your eyes in the beginning of the day, and things like that are going to affect when and how much melatonin you produce. And so what I was saying is that when I was researching this, I kind of saw this bird's eye view of that.

Speaker 2:

The endocrine or the hormonal system is kind of like a regulatory system. There are obviously required and ongoing processes within it that are just needed for our everyday function and to live, but the way that that all plays out tends to be in response to external stimulus as a way to regulate that external stimulus. So if you eat a lot of carbohydrate and your blood sugar is high, you release insulin to regulate that blood sugar Right. If you get a lot of sun early in the day, that signals your brain to start producing melatonin at an earlier point and when it gets dark, so that you have natural sleep cycles versus if you don't get any type of blue light into your eyes in the day, your melatonin production as it gets late at night isn't going to be as stark, as sharp and as high.

Speaker 2:

Right, if you don't do heavy, intense exercise, then you're not going to produce as much testosterone and growth hormone as if you did, meaning that if you gave it a stimulus it would have a response. And so, in a lot of ways, if you don't experience a high stress moment, you're not going to release norepinephrine and or adrenaline, right. And that stimulus can be an interview, it can be having to run a race, it can be getting into a fight, but without the extreme moment of threat that fight or flight experience happening to you, you're not going to inherently just release adrenaline and cortisol, right, it's not going to just happen for no reason. And again, this is a nuanced look of of course. We're going to have an ebb and flow of a whole system that is required for our physiology but that a lot of times you can look at. The response of our hormones is to regulate and bring homeostasis to an outside circumstance or stimulus.

Speaker 1:

And I think, specifically when people start thinking that they have a hormone issue, I think to your point. Well, the hormones are a regulatory system, so you don't have a regulatory system issue. We have more of a lifestyle issue. That's creating an adaptational response in your endocrine system. Right, and it's just one of those things that we've had this conversation before. But whenever I see somebody who immediately wants to just go, oh well, it's my hormones, that there's a reason why I can't lose weight, my answer is always the same well, maybe, right, maybe it is, but is there room for improvement? Is there any room for improvement in your sleep, in your hydration, with your nutrition, with your protein levels, with your exercise? Are you checking? Are you above 80? On every single one of those answers? Always no, no, not at all. Of course there's room for improvement. Well then, is there truly a dysfunction in your hormones? Or should we just maybe go after and clean up these lifestyle areas first, so that your hormones can be a little bit more balanced?

Speaker 2:

right, because they are a lagging indicator of your, of your lifestyle choices 100 and no doubt there are diseases and conditions, thyroid conditions and things that can affect people 100 right, there might be people that have substantially low testosterone and might actually need testosterone replacement therapy. Whatever it might be, there are conditions. So it's not to say that anybody who feels they might have a hormone condition is invalid, but that most of the time the lifestyle circumstances can be the first place to start and the thing that's actually affecting the hormone. It's just the age old story. If you have the low T, just like everything you said are you paying attention to your sleep, exercise, food and stress levels? You said, are you paying attention to your sleep, exercise, food and stress levels? And if you still have low t after that, then that's something to consider and potentially talk to a medical professional about.

Speaker 2:

But until you wrap up those loose ends, I think it goes back to wanting to scapegoat and again, I don't say this as a mean way to every person who's thought maybe they've had a hormone issue or finds the journey of being at a body fat percentage they want or a fitness level they want hard, because it is, it's a pain in the ass. I'm not saying it's not, but that the mentality of skirting responsibility, right kind of skirting that they're in the driver's seat making the decisions that are having the outcome, putting an external blame or an external reason that X, y, z isn't happening in my life, or why I just can't stop eating sugar or whatever it might be, and putting the impetus on this thing that's outside of themselves, instead of taking that perspective shift, putting themselves in the steering wheel, behind the steering wheel, and taking full responsibility of everything that they can and then going from there.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's just easy. It's the difference between habit and ritual, right? So a habit can be a bad thing. Habit can mean you're eating junk food, you're sleeping in, you're staying up too late, late, you're too much screen time, watching porn, drinking, all the things that I've tried to talk you out of doing. Those were all habits that we want to defend and protect. And the other side of that coin is more of a ritual and I think when you ritualize, it implies a short-term sacrifice for a long-term trade-off.

Speaker 1:

Getting up early as a ritual, it's not habit forming, it's tough. Case in point I got up when we used to own the gym and we were trainers in the floor. We were younger For a decade. I got up at 4.30 or 5 o'clock in the morning because I had to. I had to be at the gym at 6 or 5.30. As soon as I didn't have to anymore, immediately got used to sleeping till 6. It was just like immediate. So there was no habit around that. It was absolute, just sacrifice period.

Speaker 1:

But point is is that I think that when somebody who could be struggling with health or weight or just performance isn't great or they're sluggish or whatever, it's hard to be transparent about our bad habits. It really is. I have people where we'll be on a phone call, a consultation, and we'll be 30 or 40 minutes into a consultation where the third or fourth time I've had to rephrase what's going on with you, what are some areas for improvement? If you had to think about it's going on with you, what are some areas for improvement? How can? If you had to think about it, what? And then finally I'll get them to admit what's going on because people want to protect that and so right.

Speaker 1:

I can imagine that in more of a clinical setting where you're in front of your doctor, you don't want to tell your doctor that you're on your phone all night or drinking too much alcohol or eating processed foods and that you're gonna probably make I I can imagine a lot of people would probably.

Speaker 1:

It's hard and then therefore get prescribed something and it's almost like it's just easier. I don't mean I don't mean to say that to sound like an asshole, but like it's just easier to take a pill or to take a shot in the in the stomach once a week than it is to like front the habits that are keeping you fundamentally stuck and then when you take a blood test, it shows up as hormone imbalance, but it's not because your body. In most cases, it's not because this person's body is not functioning properly. It's because of the inputs that are happening that are messing up the functions in the body. Now, like you said, some people absolutely have some medical issues and we're not here to say that that's not valid. But I would imagine most people, if we were really to take a hard look at everything, could fix most of their hormone problems with making a ritual out of the things that we got to do to improve that homeostasis.

Speaker 2:

And it's interesting because I think it's one of those things where I was doing research into this and some of the things I've found are that, again, so these hormones have, the endocrine system is one of the most complex systems, right, and so I'll admit humility here in that we're not endocrinologists and we're kind of just really skimming on the iceberg of the complexities of the system because of the global response and it's kind of like this infinite network and we tend to look at things like ghrelin and leptin, right. So ghrelin is the primary hunger hormone. When your stomach is empty and your blood sugar is low, it is the primary hormone that makes you feel hungry. And then you have leptin, which is on the other end of that, which is the satiatory hormone, so that once your stomach has physical volume in it, as well as your blood sugars have regulated, you start to release leptin, which makes you feel less hungry.

Speaker 2:

And this is one of the reasons why they talk about chewing your food slowly and eating intentionally when on a calorie deficit and or looking to change your body composition to less fat is because that satiation, the actual feeling of not being hungry anymore, is a chemical process that's not inherently just related to the volume of your stomach, and that that chemical process takes some time, and so you might have filled your stomach with enough calories and enough volume, even meaning your stomach is stretched enough, but you quite haven't gotten to that end of the 20-minute process of feeling satiated on a chemical level, and that's by taking your time chewing, because if you watch some people chew, they don't chew, and we can get into a whole conversation about chewing and its quality and digestive health and satiation.

Speaker 2:

But it takes time. And so if you were to eat the same amount of food and at the end of eating it you might not feel satiated, but if you were to just wait 10 more minutes you might feel satiated. But that 10 minute window is where a lot of people, I think, go wrong, in the sense that they will eat three more slices of pizza, stack on an extra bunch of calories, and then the satiation kicks in and they're like I'm good there is for sure.

Speaker 1:

There is this just detachment from self, just this lack of awareness, just this unconsciousness that happens around eating and food, where and I've felt it, but I know that a lot of clients that I've worked to struggle with that where it's like just the lack of self-awareness of just I, just once I start, I can't stop. And it's like you said, we were awake for 16 17 hours a day. We are only eating for all in maybe 30 minutes of that 16 hours. That gives our body all the food it needs to to survive for that day. And I mean, I think there's got to be a instinctual aspect to that where it's like we just our hunger signals don't kick in for a while so that we can just pack it in as fast as possible so that we can live another few days before our next meal. If we think about the timeline of how long humans have had an abundance of food around them, it's not very long. So there's got to be, there's got to be an aspect to that where we just shut down the signals that tell us we're full so that we can pack it in. But it really comes down to treating your food slowly, as basic as this shit sounds, and I understand that this sounds so basic to people at least. Maybe not. Maybe you're hearing this for the first time, maybe you've heard thousands of people say this already, but if if you haven't applied it yet, then then maybe it's time.

Speaker 1:

What I'll say is food choice is super important too. Speaking specifically with, like ghrelin and and the hunger, the safe, the hormones that make us feel satiated when you especially if you're on a fat loss diet, I can't tell you how much different your life will be if your plate of food is this big but it's two cups of broccoli or just mixed veg. You got a couple hundred grams of lentils, you've got brown rice in there, you've got a chicken breast grilled and chopped up in there. It's a bowl of food like. Your life will be so much better for so many reasons. One, because you're eating. You're going to eat slower, so you're finally going to be able to just like feel satiated. Two, you're going to feel fuller longer because it's going to take so long to digest. And then, three, you're getting all those greens in there, which, which will then help your bacterial flora in your stomach produce.

Speaker 2:

You say I already got all your micronutrients. The actual nutritional value of those foods? They're going to be substantially higher.

Speaker 1:

Let's say a huge 24-hour noodle Dude, I was just reading this thing. They're saying for every 10 grams of fiber that you add to your day, you increase the likelihood of of healthy aging by 10. So for every 10, so if you just add 10 grams of soluble fiber in your diet every day, you're increasing your, your, your, your likelihood of healthy aging by 10. Avoiding cardiovascular disease, avoiding cancers, premature mortality, all the things right. This is wild.

Speaker 1:

And so listen, how does this relate to hormones? Because if we're struggling with intense hunger signals, maybe our food choice isn't great, which is a hormone. If we're struggling with lethargia and lack of muscle tissue, maybe our exercise or our sleep isn't where it needs to be. Therefore, your testosterone is low. If you're struggling with hyperinsulinemia, it means you're probably again just like not be. Our exercise or our sleep isn't where it needs to be. Therefore, your testosterone is low. If you're struggling with hyperinsulinemia, it means you're probably again just like not moving and eating too much refined carbohydrates, since your body's just cranking on insulin. Maybe there is a biological issue that you need to see a doctor about, but all these things are in reaction to lifestyle choices and, as hard as it is to adopt rituals that are not necessarily fun. Otherwise, there's just too many examples of people who are humpty dumpties patched up with semaglutide hormone replacement therapy, all the sleep, and now it's like sleep dude, I got. Oh man, it's just crazy, I got a guy right now.

Speaker 2:

I won't mention any names to protect the innocent, but like testosterone replacement therapy, semaglutide sleep medication, and there's another one every day, it's just like man it's just crazy, it's a lot well, and it's interesting because it's also like there's two things I kind of talk about more and giving an understanding of this is that one, again, that the, the endocrine system, is a cohesive web of interactions, so each hormone affects other hormones, which affects other hormones, which affects other hormones.

Speaker 2:

Right, and so one of the examples that I found was a really interesting study that they did was that when at night is when your growth hormone is primarily released, it's not to say that there's no other release, but that when you're sleeping, let's say, you have a good sleep cycle, that's the primary spike of growth hormone that's going to happen in the body. Now insulin, if present in the blood, has some type of process that blocks growth hormone from doing its thing in the bloodstream, and so they did this experiment where they had long distance cyclers and they split them into two groups and I think each of them ate 400 grams of carbs a day.

Speaker 2:

So they both ate the same amount of carbohydrates each day, a very high amount. 400 grams is no small amount of carbohydrate. They're long distance cyclers. Per our previous episodes. They have every need and use for them.

Speaker 2:

But they had one group basically eat them in the first half of the day, eat all 400 grams, get them all in, so that there was no insulin present because of elevated blood sugar levels from carbohydrate consumption in the evening.

Speaker 2:

And then they had other people eat them well, throughout the day, including until 10 pm, and they basically found that, even though they were both eating the same calories and the same amount of carbohydrate that the cyclists that did not eat the carbohydrates at night had substantial increases in lean muscle mass and all types of beneficial outcomes, because the hypothesis was that the lack of insulin in the blood in the evening and during their sleep allowed the growth hormone to be secreted and do its thing Right now what I would say to that is that on a grand, on a long scale, like, I think, over many years, um, if the calories were appropriate, the carbohydrate level was appropriate and the sleep was appropriate, that even those that ate the carbohydrates late into night and did not optimize their hormonal circumstance would still be fine and wouldn't necessarily set themselves up for any metabolic disease or anything like that.

Speaker 2:

So I still think that over the big picture, the consistency of eating appropriate calories, moving their body and exercising and getting proper sleep is still going to just win. But that's exactly right. But that at the same time, if you wanted to take it a level deeper, you could really optimize your performance and optimize lean muscle mass and have a substantial, scientifically proven effect. That pre because I know it's very common to preload protein so that you can have more enjoyable.

Speaker 2:

Generally in weight loss communities I know dr kashi does this you preload your protein because it's a requirement carbohydrates not necessarily a requirement, but protein is a requirement. So you preload your protein in the day to guarantee you get to that level and then you can have a bowl of pasta or some ice cream or a sweet treat or something at the end of the day and it's psychologically more satisfying, which will tend to lead to more consistency. But if somebody were to preload carbohydrate, especially some type of athlete, they might have better performance, right, and they would. There's science to this, and so it's just interesting because it's a part, a part of me well, there's health and there's fitness we talked about on other episodes.

Speaker 1:

There's health and there's fitness.

Speaker 2:

I think that sometimes I think even what I'm saying would be both, wouldn't it? Because it's like eating your carb, not eating your carbohydrates late at night would lead to me to more lean muscle mass, which would be healthy as well as would be a fitness component, would be more performance as well so I just think that sometimes the mistake is, when people try to find hacks like that and get too tinkery with things, whether, while the big domino, the big issue is probably just a lack of consistency.

Speaker 1:

So agreed.

Speaker 2:

So I there is, but I think it's like you don't want to throw the baby out at the bath water. I don't want to look at these things too obtusely, because the nuance and the truth of our physiology is that so often the the outcome of the podcast that we talk about, which is truth, is consistency, calories, steps, but the echo of complexity that is our physiology cannot be denied and the fundamental pillars that we always speak to are 100% the fundamental pillars, but I still can't overlook the serious amount of layers to the cake that is our human physiology, right. So the another example that I came across with this is like fasting. Right, fasting is really big right now. It's the be all, end all, cure all of of so many things.

Speaker 2:

And what so I found interesting is I found this study on the physiology and obesity and neurohormones and that basically I'll read a little excerpt here was that ghrelin and leptin exist as key hormones with regulatory effects and clinical significance in treating various disorders is present. It has shown promise as a therapeutic option for its anti-inflammatory action on cancer cells as well as anti-apoptic mechanism, which basically has to do with when you're in a catabolic state. It reduces the adverse effects of chemotherapy and that basically, ghrelin has this anti-inflammatory, global effect on the body, including the body's metabolism and cardiac performance and stress modulation, and so that basically, when ghrelin is present, we're talking about global anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer effects, increased cardiac effects and metabolic effects, and that leptin, the hunger satiating hormone, actually has metabolic effects and that leptin, the hunger satiating hormone, actually has the opposite, and that people that have high accounts of rheumatoid arthritis have high leptin levels and that basically there's this, there's this idea that leptin has inflammatory characteristics. Now, I'm not saying that leptin and its inflammatory processes are bad because it's there for a reason.

Speaker 2:

Our whole body is an ebb and flow. It's like a sine wave. Inflammation is not inherently a bad thing, but it was interesting because fasting has all this gunpowder behind it right now as being so powerful and you wouldn't have ghrelin in your bloodstream if you weren't hungry, and ghrelin does seem to have all these extreme anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, cardiac-aiding effects. And so it's just interesting because maybe eating a satiating diet all the time that your blood sugar is constantly constant and your ghrelin is perfectly level isn't optimal for health. So it's just there's complexities out, there's complexities out there for sure, for sure.

Speaker 1:

Macro meta study people who tend to be in a slight, slight deficit the majority of their life tend to live longer it's the one thing they can name to actually increase.

Speaker 2:

That's the one thing that if you tend to eat.

Speaker 1:

It's a slight deficit. You don't have to go crazy where you're starving yourself, but, just like in general, you tend to eat a little bit less than you burn. You're not just going to wither away, you can still keep a good frame on you even though you're eating a little bit less. But they just tend to live longer, I think.

Speaker 1:

For all those reasons I always use the analogy of any ecosystem like a stream or a pond.

Speaker 1:

There needs to be a channel where things are flowing and inside that little creek or that little pond there's a million little organisms that are all kind of in harmony with each other and the fresh flow of water is coming in and then there's some sort of seepage or drainage that goes out and it keeps like the water fresh and pure and clean and the ecosystem intact.

Speaker 1:

But then as soon as it starts to get clogged up, as soon as like algae starts growing and all of a sudden things just get all out of whack, the water becomes more acidic, things start dying off, like our body in a lot of ways. I mean, we're just this like of water that has this constant flow of food and hydration in it and we got to keep that channel clear and and without having to even obsess over hormone levels for most people, I always want to preface this by saying for most people now listen, if you're truly believing there's something wrong with you, go get blood tests done. For the rest of us, though, who know? Back in my mind, our cons get a little clogged up. If you know what I'm saying, uh, then you know that channel clear. It's like how we balance out our hormones, essentially in our homeostasis, um, doesn't?

Speaker 1:

surprise me that hormones lead to like life expectancies yeah, that question.

Speaker 2:

And on the opposite end, I also also found some interesting little anecdotes and statistics. So we've talked about you even mentioned it today that, like, if you were obese and you cut an extreme amount of weight, that there's a calorie represented of hunger that's higher than lowering of your metabolism, meaning that there's a disproportionate amount of hunger that you feel compared to how much your metabolism is actually lowering, that you feel compared to how much your metabolism is actually lowering. Right, and I found this little anecdote that basically said that crash diets and improper fasting can disrupt the balance between ghrelin and leptin, which is important for regaining energy and storage demands. And in the one study it found that crash diets can suppress leptin, which is your society hormone, by 40%, which can then lead to increased levels of ghrelin. So now, even though I was just talking about fasting as a potential aid and having ghrelin in your bloodstream, we got this other study that's showing only the same thing that improper fasting and crash diets throw out the regulatory balance between the ghrelin and the leptin. Then you can suppress your leptin by 40, which means that the likelihood of you feeling satiated is going to be substantially less so.

Speaker 2:

As an example, if you're a hundred pounds overweight and you say I gotta lose a bunch of weight, and you go on a 800 calorie a day diet and you just starve yourself to nothing. Now you're creating this huge swing which is potentially going to disrupt the natural levels of ghrelin and leptin. So now your leptin can't even be released properly, so that even if you did eat food enough to satiate you, you're not going to be satiated and you're either going to be living through a living hell of being so hungry or you're going to cave and you're going to fucking eat a bunch of food, right? So it's just which is?

Speaker 1:

I feel like there's a lot of when people say, oh, I've crashed, dieted so many times, I've messed up my metabolism, I've messed up my hormones. It's like, well, what does that mean? It's that done it in such a aggressive way that it's like off your body's ability to self-regulate properly?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I mean, I did a thing.

Speaker 1:

I watched the show. Diet like that. You lose a lot of muscle too, and that lack of muscle is going to, you know, your testosterone and and all that I did.

Speaker 2:

I watched a show that followed like biggest losers contestants after like are they now kind of thing and it was terrifying.

Speaker 2:

I think, like of everybody they checked up on only one in any way, weighed less than when they started all of the other biggest contestants were like some crazy place, and the wildest thing was like one person they interviewed in detail I remember was like I, I can't like.

Speaker 2:

It was like crazy thing when they were saying that like eating like calories a day, and this person's massive at eating 800 calories a day, they were still like losing weight, they were just hungry all day. Now, again, I don't know I can't speak to how much fact was in their statement, but what I saw that as a reflection is that they jacked their system up so much You're over consuming food enough to be 500 pounds, and then you go on a show where you eat 800 calories a day and exercise for four hours a day, just lickety split for four months or however fucking long they did it, for it's the recipe to jack, it's, it's the streams, it's the most extreme swing that you can do, and so the fact that they might have actually disrupted their system that extremely wouldn't be a surprise to me. And it's like their curse.

Speaker 2:

It's like we talked about in our previous episode. It's like the best thing that you can do is to never become obese, because once you actually become obese, to walk back has become exponentially more complicated and difficult, no matter what 90%, unfortunately, regain all of their weight.

Speaker 1:

Um, and I think it's because there's a lot of really smart people out there that do a lot of dumb shit when it comes to nutrition. And I say it. You guys can hate me, you guys can tar and feather me if you want, but I've just seen too many very intelligent people who are like members of society that have raised great families and have done great things, that just step into the same pile of shit every fucking time. They try to lose weight. They crash diet, they do a detox, they do a cleanse, they do a 10-day juice fast, they go on an ultra low, 500 calorie diet, but just like and it's just like. This is why 90% regain, and always the exception that the person truly has some issue. But the exception doesn't defy the rules or doesn't break the rule that, like most of us, if we slow it down, a hundred calorie deficit.

Speaker 1:

If you're burning 2000 calories a day, see 1500. If you're burning 3000, try 25, just slip it under the radar of your metabolic rate so that you can land that plane. You know you're landing like flying into the airport. You start initiating the landing procedures hundreds of miles out. You know, slowly land that plane. You don't just nose dive to the airport and then crash land it. You know you can do that. Then you feel better, you keep your muscle mass intact, you allow time for your body and your endocrine system to acclimate to the reduced calories and, you know, do finally land. You're going to feel and look amazing and it's just going to have enough time to become the new new you, without it being this like 180 degree pivot from what you've known, which you're probably going to ricochet back to as soon as you finish the 10 day thing or the 30 day, whatever the 75 day, you know.

Speaker 2:

And I think that that's one of the issues is because I do think that fasting is a good thing and I do think that, like a three day low calorie fast could be extremely beneficial. But the way I see it is that is a complexified master level practice that should be done by people that already have the groundwork, discipline and control of the things we're talking about, because I do believe that going on a 24 hour water fast or a three day 500 calorie fast has has benefit, but that it is a tool uns to itself for its proposed benefits that aren't necessarily for body composition gains, that kind of a thing, and that should be built upon yeah, but that should be built upon a foundation of somebody that's already counting calories, already choosing whether they're in a maintenance or deficit or that kind of a thing, and that when you exit it, you return back to that kind of steadfast tensionality with your food.

Speaker 2:

And I think what happens is that people look at these as these extremes, like you're saying, to hyper course correct, when, for me, the way I see it is that you should be so on point that this is like credit, this is like a bonus problem, or something more advanced that you only get to unlock that level once you've demonstrated foundational stuff and not jumping to those levels as like type of corrective mechanism because you haven't been participating with the foundational stuff. You know what I mean totally so, yeah, you gotta.

Speaker 1:

yeah, I think that, yeah, if you've gotten over the learning curve threshold where you're advanced enough to take your fitness to that next level and really experiment with some of these other deeper layers of you know science for lack of a better word great. But if we're at a place where we know that there's just all these issues that exist and we're just not addressing them first, then I think it would be a mistake to jump to some sort of a fast or cleanse or detox, thinking that that's going to help, because I think that, statistically, most people who do that they're habitual and they always try that and yet, like, tend to not be getting any closer to their goal. So, if you've already gotten your goal and you've kind of that, yeah exactly.

Speaker 2:

You're solid and that's the thing. I don't want to throw the baby out the bathwater. I don't want people to think that there's no benefit to fasting and that there's no benefit to deeper practices, and I understand that our audience might be a more general based audience, but it has to be like unlocking the next level. You have to get a certain amount of experience points to level up. You can't play in those high level games if you're not there and using it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, right, yeah and using it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, right, yeah, and a polarity swing of like well, I've been eating like chicken sandwiches and just doing whatever I want on one end of this polarity pendulum and so, therefore, I'm going to swing all the way to the other side.

Speaker 2:

I'm only going to eat broth and soups for five days as a remedy is kind of like no, you're the point.

Speaker 2:

The point is that you need to live that pendulum closer to a high level status so that you can unlock. Oh, maybe I'll eat 400 calories and do a semi-fasted state for the benefit of you know, the things we've talked about in the past as a purposeful intent to do these things, to fight cancer, to get rid of junk DNA, to do all that shit, but only because I know that I've already been in a calorie deficit, I've shown self-control with food choice and exercise patterns and that when I come off of this extreme thing, I have proven to myself that I will return to chosen intentionality with my movement, calorie and food choices and not, oh, I did this as a remedy to eating fried chicken sandwiches and now that I'm done with five days of eating soup, well, I'll just go back to eating fried chicken sandwiches. You know what I mean like it's like to prove yourself worthy to take the extreme because of the discipline it requires and yeah, and all that stuff.

Speaker 1:

So agreed and, uh, you know, tied us all back into hormones, is that, barring any sort of true diagnosis of a dysfunction which everyone has. Everyone can go get a blood test if they're suspicious of that. But even that might be misleading because it might show that you have your hormone levels are off. But really, you know, I would recommend go through a series of tests, but then, while you're getting your blood test, before you go on any sort of medication, also be improving your lifestyle choices as you're getting these series of blood tests to see if, just maybe your hormone levels improve after said lifestyle changes. And if so, that would be a pretty conclusive data to suggest maybe it isn't a dysfunction in your biology but more of a dysfunction in your psychology. And if you just cleaned up lifestyle, you probably would clean up your hormone levels too.

Speaker 1:

Into this, and I think that's probably good. For today, I think we've chewed everybody's ears off enough on this stuff. But, guys, that's episode 20 on our take on hormones and all that good stuff, and we'll see you guys next time. Coach's Corner, justin Ethan. Peace out.