Are carbs GOOD or BAD!?!?

Hey, Athletes! Are carbs GOOD or BAD!?!? - Episode 182 of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!

Are carbs GOOD or BAD!?!?

• Subscribe on any device HERE 

IN THIS 38-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• Jerred and Joe discuss a study on Low Carb Vs Low Calories
• A meta-analysis of 29 studies and 617 participants
• Compared lower and higher carb diets
• Using inverse variance weighted analysis the researches measured total energy expenditure
• Overall the study showed that a lower carb diet could lead to weight loss in an extended period of time.
• They give their own takeaways and thoughts on carbs and how they approach them
• And A LOT MORE!!

Diving Deeper… 

If you want to go a little bit deeper on this episode, here are some links for you: 

Study of the Week  

Do Lower-Carbohydrate Diets Increase Total Energy Expenditure?

Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week 

Don't forget to listen to this week's episode!

• Are carbs GOOD or BAD!?!?

— 

Thanks for listening to the podcast, and if you have any questions be sure to add it to the comments below!

To becoming better!

Jerred

Podcast Transcript

Jerred: [00:00:00] Hey, real quick, before we start the podcast, if you have listened to more than one episode. Can you do me a favor and rate and review the show now? I'm not big on asking for favors But we really want to get this podcast listed in the top of all health and fitness podcasts Not just the fitness category this will take you less than a minute and if you could do that would make us friends forever and since we refuse all Sponsors on the show this will be my only ask rather than telling you to go check out some supplement or product We don't actually believe in every other podcast out there.

So please rate and review. Okay, that's it to the podcast. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast. Jared Moon here with Joe Courtney. What's up, Joe? Not a lot, man. How's it going? It's going pretty well. We'll get right into it today. So the study that we're covering is called Do Lower Carbohydrate diets increase total energy expenditure, an updated [00:01:00] and reanalyzed meta analysis of 29 controlled feeding studies.

So Ludwig is the big low carbohydrate diet researcher, it was done by him, and it was done in 2021. So very we're covering it here in 2023 mainly just to go over this big debate because I see a lot of stuff happening in the industry right now. That I want to talk about. So I'm going to open with that.

And I'm gonna have to tell a story. You ready for story time, Joe? Oh, I'm always. Yeah, I got my coffee, here. Yeah, these are the stories I tell my kids when they're ready for bedtime at night. So we've been in the industry a long time. We've seen these things, all these kind of things come up and the popularity of diets.

We, we've seen them... Go from non existent to super popular, to not effective like keto. And I'm not saying keto is not effective, but it's just it was like, Oh, didn't exist. It was all the [00:02:00] rage. And then it dissipated. Because some people are like, I don't think it works or it didn't work for me or.

And it definitely works, but it doesn't mean it's like the king of all diets and anyway according to

Joe: one YouTube listener if you even listen to the episode I'm not even sure if we're not talking about carnivore then we are way behind the times

Jerred: So yeah, and I actually think we're ahead of our times.

Yeah, I think I did my first interview on carnivore When what was that like? Sixteen or seventeen. I was gonna say at least five years ago. Yeah and so very familiar with it, and I've tried it myself. I've tried all these diets. I've even, I've done vegan. I've done keto. I actually have not done carnivore.

I stand corrected. I've done keto, not carnivore. I can't bring myself to eat just meat. Anyway, we see all these things come. And it's, I don't want to call it bro science. It's more there'll be like a sliver of science and people will run away with it. There are people who are hardcore, low carb.

There are hardcore keto, hardcore vegan, vegetarian. But now the new thing, and I would say it's gaining a lot of popularity [00:03:00] over the last one to two years is it doesn't matter. And they have the most science to back them up, and it's. They're really, what they're saying is, it doesn't matter so long as calorie and specifically protein are controlled, then it does not matter which type of diet you follow.

And they just want to drop the mic with that and walk away. And be done and be like, no, this is it, like nothing else matters. It does not, there's no sense, like you could eat a high carb diet. As long as calories are equated and proteins equated, you can eat a low carb diet, low fat diet does not matter.

So long as calories are equated proteins equated then you can lose or gain weight, whether you're in a caloric surplus you would gain weight, caloric deficit, you would lose weight. And if you haven't been keeping up with things, I really just feel like that's where we're at in the industry right now.

And it's, it sounds like common sense and it's like I said, there's a lot of science that backs that up. But I also have some [00:04:00] problems with it, but would you agree, Joe, that's like what you're seeing as well.

Joe: That it's all about the calories, not the specifics.

Jerred: Yeah. It's just it's calories in calories out.

Everyone else shut up. There's nothing else. I just feel like that's from multiple sources now. That's what I'm hearing in the industry.

Joe: Yeah, pretty much. And I guess even the ones that don't specifically say that, that might even have their specific view. Once you dig deeper to whatever science they're pointing to, it's it's actually because of the calories or because of this, that and the other, like the people that either changed one of these diets, like a vegan diet or something where it's and they go all plant based.

And it's you're volume wise, you're probably getting full, but you're actually eating less than you were before. It's not because you're eating vegetables, it's because you're eating less than you were

Jerred: before. Yeah, and that's what that's the same argument against fasting, right?

They're like, there's no magic to fasting, you're just not fitting in as many calories in the day. Congratulations. But, and I'm not saying I disagree with it. Whatever, however anyone feels based off of my tone or anything else. I just, like I said, I've been around the block. I see them all come and go, but I don't think the [00:05:00] validity of all these other ideas gets smashed.

Because of some sort of study that says it's calories in calories out. And that's all that matters. And so my take. And the take of garage gym athlete, which has been the same for a decade is that it's individualized there's, which is that's my Trump card on all of you. It's whatever you can, you could say it's calories.

You can say it's low carb. You it's individualized. And here's my quick story on that. I perform better in every capacity of my life as a father, as a husband, as a business owner, and as an athlete. I perform better on a low to moderate carbohydrate diet. That's just it. That's for me. I've done so much experimentation.

That's what I've found. Too low carb, no good. Too high carb, actually really bad. So I actually did this not that long ago. I was [00:06:00] like, you know what? Maybe it doesn't matter. I'll just eat whatever the hell I want. I just won't eat too many calories to where I'm gaining weight. And so I did, I was like, I'm not going to try and be low carb anymore.

This was probably over the last one to two years, somewhere in that time frame. And I would track, I always, when I change my diet, I track initially, just to see, to make sure I'm not going to be overeating. And then I stop tracking and I just try and eat similarly every single day. And so I didn't gain any weight so that means I wasn't eating too many calories.

And I just, I went to from a low carb diet to more, I would say beyond moderate carb. I would say higher carb. So I started taking in a lot more carbohydrates than normal, but less fat. And I probably equated my protein cause I always try to get a lot of protein and I didn't, my weight didn't change, muscle mass didn't change, it did change was my blood work.

My fasting glucose got worse. And my hemoglobin A1c, which is like a 90 day indicator of what your blood sugar has been in the previous 90 days, also got worse, increased. This increased over two [00:07:00] sets of different labs over the course of a year. And that was the only thing I had changed was that one thing.

Moving me in the direction, if I went any further, I would be pre diabetic, and that's crazy, right? Because I'm very fit, I'm very active, I do not eat crazy stuff. When I say eating higher carbohydrate, I'm like having the occasional bagel and like throwing in a banana. And I'm not, I didn't go crazy, I'm like, yeah, pizza every day, let's go, who cares?

That's not what I mean. Like I said, the calories are basically equated. But no one talks about that. I was like, okay, for Jared moon, it seems like throwing in a shit ton of carbohydrates, even when we equate protein and calories, it's screwing them up somewhere when we look at blood panels and maybe that's due to family history, I don't know, but it goes back to what I'm saying is it's individualized, right?

Because. And so this is why I hate when people are trying to say no, it's actually really simple. All you need to [00:08:00] do is eat fewer calories, be in a caloric deficit, you'll be fine. When I do think that there is some truth to the people who are arguing for low carb due to insulin. Again, I know what the science says.

But I'm just saying on an individual basis, there could be some truth to that. Like all the stuff we talked to and I've interviewed Ben Bickman about, he thinks it's all insulin based and that they're trying to debunk that and just say, no, everything's calories. Again, maybe in some of these studies that is the truth, but I want to urge everyone listening, you have to go find out what works for yourself and you have to know what you're tracking to see what it's, what's working.

Because the second I got my second set of blood labs back, And I noticed those two things were creeping up. They weren't into danger levels yet, but they were creeping up way beyond where a healthy dude who works out six times a week, like way beyond where it should be, immediately back down. So I immediately went back down to low carbohydrate staying away from anything high carb.

And I still wouldn't say I'm [00:09:00] low carb, like in the low carb diet camp. I just mean lower carbohydrate. If I had to break it down in the percentage, it would be. Probably less than 20 less than 30% of my calories, probably like 20 to 25% of my calories come from carbs. I eat a much higher fat diet and I eat as much protein as I possibly can, which normally comes out to being less than one, one gram per pound.

So maybe like 160 grams, 170 grams of protein a day. And so that's where I went immediately. Energy was better. I feel better. I haven't redone my labs, so I can't tell the true end to this story. I will redo my labs in July. I have a frequency in which I do the labs. And I'll see if those things have come down.

Because you have to give it after you make a change, you have to give it three to six months, in my opinion, to make it worth getting your blood work done again. So anyway, I've said all this before we even got to the study because don't take anything I just said as, Oh, Jared's super pro, low carb, and [00:10:00] I should be low carb.

That's not even close to what I said. I said, low carb works for me. I had to spend a lot of money on labs and eat a lot of different ways to figure it out. And I'm, I found out that seems to work for me because I find like I have to bleed off my carbohydrates and, through training, like I have to get rid of them.

That's the only, that's the only way my body's okay with ingesting carbohydrates and subjectively how I know that if I were to have. Let's just pick something awful like a Gatorade right now like just sitting here doing nothing I haven't trained today, and I drink a Gatorade just chug it I'm gonna feel like trash as my blood sugar shoots up over the next one to two hours And I'm gonna want to go to sleep.

I'm gonna be I'm gonna this is me personally. This is not everyone listening I'm gonna seriously want to go to sleep. It's gonna be hard for me to function after I have that And again, this is like probably like genetic based off of me, but if I have, [00:11:00] if I train for an hour and I chug that same Gatorade, zero effect.

And that's because that all of that glucose is going back into my muscles to restore all the glycogen that's been burned off. And these things have to be known. Like you have to talk about things like that before we just say it's calories in calories out and Oh, meal timing doesn't matter. Eat as many carbs whenever you want.

So long as the calorie is I don't believe that. I don't believe it for me now for the listener. Everyone out there. You have to go figure out which what works for you So what we're going to talk about today is do Carbohydrate diets actually increase total energy expenditure and through what mechanism is that even possible?

So anyway, that's what we're talking about today. So I'll talk briefly about the study I already said the title but the purpose of the study was to test the hypothesis that the effects of carbohydrate intake Expresses a percentage of energy intake on total energy expenditure vary with time. The researchers aim to understand how the duration of the study could influence the [00:12:00] relationship between carbohydrate intake and TEE, which is total energy expenditure, which has been a controversial topic with divergent findings among studies.

The study analyzed 29 trials involving a total of 617 participants. The participants were from various trials that compared lower and higher carbohydrate diets while controlling for energy intake. Or body weight. All right, the researchers conducted this the study because the effect of macronutrient composition specifically carbohydrate intake on TEE remains Controversial with very varying findings across studies one potential source of this inconsistency could be the duration of the studies And so i'm going to skip the scientific stuff If you've ever gone low carb or you've talked to someone who's super low carb or keto they always talk about this like This washout period that you have to go through for your body to adjust.

If you're only, if you only ever did low carb or keto for one week or two weeks, [00:13:00] then they're going to, they are going to say Hey, you did it wrong. You didn't even, you didn't try hard enough basically. And that's from every low carb person I've ever interviewed or talked to. That's what they're going to say.

Like it takes three to six weeks for your body to adjust, especially if you're trying to go into ketosis for your body to be able to utilize that as energy. Now, again, I don't think that ketosis is. Beneficial. I think it's okay if you're doing a lot of lower aerobic lower intensity aerobic stuff and training, but anytime you get higher intensity, your body wants glucose.

It wants to pull it faster, and it's going to do that through carbohydrates and stored carbohydrates. Gluconeogenesis won't save you. So anyway, that's basically what they're trying to say is hey, most studies are short, And we're saying that's a problem. And so the study analyzed a sample of trials that included those from previous meta analysis.

So the researchers just looked at everything and basically the takeaway was if it was less than 2. 5 weeks then it was in favor of moderate to higher carb diet moderate to higher carbohydrate [00:14:00] diets for increasing total energy expenditure, but after 2. 5 weeks lower carbohydrate diets seemed to increase Total energy expenditure was at the ultimate, like takeaway that you got was less than 2.

5 weeks, it doesn't matter greater than 2. 5, 2. 5 weeks. It seems that lower carbohydrate does increase total energy expenditure.

Joe: Yeah, it's like a noticeable shift to, especially if you call it the forest plot for how much it does.

Jerred: Yeah, and I find it. I find it really interesting.

I've also never

Joe: seen that in a lot of these studies that we've done, whether it like they do break it down for how the shifts have. Usually it's just they compare the two and see what happens over that. Or they do maybe they'll make their parameters of, okay, the study must be, eight weeks long or six weeks long.

And then they see what the end result is. But I like that there was a progression to, okay, this one, I don't know why they do weight loss studies less than 17 days. I don't know what you.[00:15:00]

Jerred: And I think that's a big problem with all these studies is the, and I don't blame the researchers. It's just, you can't have the perfect study, right? You can't have the perfect study. Like you might only be able to get participants for two weeks or whatever. So they have to make all the claims that they can and that amount of time.

But yeah, there, if you do look at the forest plot, it's very noticeable that great studies greater than 17 days, very heavily favor the lower carbohydrate diet. And. But what they don't talk about and that's why I gave a little bit of a little bit of background was that that's what low carbohydrate people are saying is that, hey, there's a recalibration period that your body has to go through.

I think that's the underlying point, like what they're not saying, what Ludwig is not saying in his study is I'm trying to prove to you that over time, it works. You just have to get through the initial phase.

Joe: Every single diet has that two week honeymoon phase. Of you, you notice those changes, whatever it is, [00:16:00] because I guess your body's adjusting, whatever's

Jerred: happening.

Yeah, I like, I know if I get really strict and I'm like, okay, I need to be eating, let's say 3, 200 calories or whatever. The first two days, three days I do it, I'm, I might be eating larger portions or something. And then I feel very full. I'm like, man, I'm eating too much. This is crazy. That lasts very short lived.

It might last a week. And then I'm like, okay, now I'm hungry. And I'm out of calories. What do I do? So yeah, there's definitely adjustment period, your body. Your body will adjust pretty quickly. But I dove further into what is the possible mechanism? Because they didn't talk about that either.

And so one possible mechanism is that lower carbohydrate diets may lead to increased energy expenditure through increased fat oxidation due to the reduced availability of carbohydrates for energy production. So why don't we just go ahead and pause right there and say, you're going to have to go back to my fat loss episodes.

Was it just one episode I did? Yeah, I think so.[00:17:00] Yeah. Yeah. So on fat loss, so go back and check that out. I know it's on YouTube as well. Shared my screen and went over that. And so there's a difference between fat loss and fat burn. But ultimately that's what is a possible mechanism.

I'm not saying I agree with it, but I'm just saying that is, because I'm just blown away that they didn't mention that. They're like, we burn more calories with low carb after two and a half weeks. Like why do I burn more calories on lower carbohydrate? They didn't talk about that as much.

And I think they're basically just trying to say, yeah you're switching there's metabolic flexibility and you're burning more fat again. I don't know if I agree with the science here, but I the mechanism, but they didn't say that was the mechanism, but I do think it's really interesting that if you straight look at the study, it seems to favor lower carbohydrate for just burning more.

More calories. And I think it said they equated calories. I don't know if they equated protein. But it seems like they try to equate as much as they could here. So pretty interesting. I got more to say, but what do you think, Joe, your takeaways from reading [00:18:00] some through some of this information as well?

Joe: There's just so much to go over when it comes to weight loss and you alluded to it, that there's not just going to be one point that. Is the key to this is the key to that and even like saying calories and calories out, then people get hung up on okay, how many calories am I putting out and then they track, they look at their activity trackers and those are wildly inaccurate.

You can't really go off of that. And if you burn and then. I know people are going to get into, okay if you have a super hard workout, then that means you can eat more. No, that doesn't really mean you can eat more. You just chalk it up as like a good workout. And then there's whatever activity you're doing, do during the day.

And maybe you do go into a big calorie deficit and then you're, but then you're. Not act as active through the day, so you're not burning as many calories. So then that is a whole other thing. So it's weight loss is definitely, I think it's always going to be, I don't even know what's the controversial, there's always going to be so many nuances to[00:19:00] how you're doing it, who's doing it, what you're doing.

Then you get into fat free mask because the more fat free mass you have, the more, the more calories you're burning, the increase in your metabolism and therefore you can have a little bit more so you should have more fat free mass and yeah, it's, it'll probably be something we cover a lot just because it's always good to stay up with it.

I know it's always going to be stuff that people want to hear about.

Jerred: This is a battle. I look forward to watching this over the next couple of years because I don't. Again I've found through a lot of experimentation over a very long time period and have my own personal biomarkers to back it up.

I've, I am finding what works for me and it does seem to be lower carbohydrate. I feel better energy wise. Like I said, blood labs are going to dictate whether or not that's the truth, but I do feel a lot better. And I know my labs pre going higher carbohydrate were great. So like that was my only change.

So we'll see. But ultimately, I'm just looking forward to watching this. Play out over time [00:20:00] because I do think that there's more I'm not gonna say there's more there's not any I don't feel like there's magic to a low carbohydrate diet. I just feel like I feel like there's a lot more that people aren't talking about when it comes to fueling and using the carbohydrates that I think may actually be the most important part of the equation that seriously, no one wants to discuss because they want to put nutrition in a bubble of yes, eat fewer calories, you'll lose weight, but let's not talk about anything else, how you can train specifically to bleed off carbohydrates or how you can drain to specifically Oxidized fat, this these conversations aren't happening.

And if your training program maybe doesn't use as much glucose, so you never do any strength training or you don't go high intensity and you primarily oxidized fat. With some glucose, like what does that do to your glycogen stores? And is it problematic over time if they don't get emptied frequently?

And it's, I know we're [00:21:00] not like actual gas tanks, but I think that they're, this is all my hypothesis is I think there's a little bit more to this and it has a lot to do with the fitness side of how your body is taking in carbohydrates, the timing of those carbohydrates and the utilization of those carbohydrates.

I think that honestly might be the most important factor with your diet, because if you want to have a higher carbohydrate diet, you better be training like, I don't care, like equate calories. That's fine equate protein, but you still better be training. Cause what else are you going to be using those?

Carbohydrates for I really feel like carbohydrates power a lot of high intensity activity. They also power your brain, but I don't know if your brain's using that much, you know what I'm saying? And it's no offense to anyone listening. I'm just saying it's not in comparison to like sprinting at max speed.

Intervals for an hour or something like that. It is not comparable. So anyway, yeah I look forward to seeing how this plays out over time again. I'm not in the low carb camp for people I'm gonna look low to moderate carb camp for myself and [00:22:00] everyone else needs to figure out what they What works for them because I know a lot of people who can just crush carbs and they're fine Their blood works fine and doesn't even matter, but for some people you might need to pay attention to it more than Then you realize, yeah,

Joe: I think the last time I've only got my blood work done once back in San Diego.

And I think I was pretty low carb at the time. And I remember it being really, my blood work being really good, but I haven't had anything to compare on comparing it to this last year or two, I've been much higher on carbs. And I think, I had a strength goal for a while and then just, shifting in general, I was I just had.

Shifted to more higher carbs. I think I need to experiment now and see how low carb is going to do. I've been thinking about doing my county macros recent anyway, just for a couple of weeks, just cause I like to check in every once in a while. So I might give that an experiment to see how it feels.

And I'm on hard to kill track now, so I'm not on strength. Strength isn't really quite a goal. I'd rather, have more of a body composition and conditioning working on that anyway. So I think that'd be. That'd be somewhat

Jerred: better. [00:23:00] Yeah. I do recommend people test as frequently as you can.

I know insurance will cover some of these things. Sometimes it won't. And depends on how much you want to test, how expensive the tests are and stuff too. But I think some of these basic ones like blood glucose they are fairly inexpensive. But one thing I started to pay attention to a lot after my second set of blood work.

And this is, I used to be like crazy about these things was not spiking my blood sugar. And so I've moved back to that and I have, I've been trying to think of how long it's been since I got my blood work back. It's been a few months since I made the switch back to lower carbohydrate. But it just, I would, this, I would have, I would go on these roller coasters.

I would eat carbs. And I would just. Honestly, like I would want to go to sleep afterwards, there's something metabolically wrong with me. And the only time that wouldn't, maybe wouldn't happen is if it was immediately after training, but if it was immediately after a zone to run, I'd feel the exact same way.

I'd feel really crappy if I had a bunch of carbs, but once I started to stabilize my energy and what's [00:24:00] getting really popular and I'm not necessarily into it. Our CGM, so continuous glucose monitors, like you can like. Staple one of those onto the back of your arm and it can plug into an app on your phone.

If you, if that might be worth doing for some people I don't think that you need to go to that level. I think you have to know how you operate with technology. And what I mean by that is like. I wear a sleep tracker at night. It's my Garmin watch. And I don't care what that number says at all.

And I don't care that it's tracking me. You know what I mean? I wake up the next day, I might forget to look at it. And I'll like, remember at 3 p. m. And I'll be like, oh yeah, okay, let's see how I slept. And then I'll take a look. I could care less if it says 14 or 98. It's cool to track, but I really, I honestly don't care.

And I think it's because I've been tracking for so long, but some people care a lot and it's becoming a huge problem, like to where they feel like they're being watched at night and they can't fall asleep and [00:25:00] they feel they get stressed out if they can't fall asleep in 15 minutes. And when, then when they get a bad score, they freak out.

You have to know where you're at. And I say all that because if you want to go down the CGM route and you're going to start measuring your glucose in real time with an app on your phone and a sensor on the back of your arm, you just better know yourself really well. I think I could handle that cause I'd be like, ah, whatever.

But I think some people, they take it a little too far. They get a little too stressed out, but I feel like I've been able to do that without having to. Get a CGM because I can just feel it. I know I can, I just can tell when I've done something that's spiking my blood sugar. So I've really gone back to a lot of I've been trying to eat pretty good amounts of fiber, but I never have a carbohydrate.

I will not ingest a carbohydrate right now if it's not with a lot of protein and also includes fiber. Like I won't do it because of. Just because of my blood work, I'm like, I'm not going to sit here and I would not touch a banana if there's not like something else involved with it. You know what I mean?

Like I had [00:26:00] a banana today, but I also had 50 grams of protein, that banana, and probably like 10 grams of fiber. So I know that my, I felt fine after cause it's going to balance itself out.

Joe: Yeah, I guess that'd be the question to you. What do you, what are the carbs that you aim for? And then the fiber that you have either with it or aim to get in.

Like what are my

Jerred: go to carbs when I'm trying not to spike my blood sugar? For fruits, it's primarily. Like any kind of berry. So blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, like all of those are pretty proven to not spike your blood sugar. So most of the berries are fine. The fruits that are higher sugar, and still I'm not, I will never say a fruit's bad for you, like period.

I think that was on. Yeah, eating the whole fruit. But what was really funny was I watched the comedy special Nate Bargatze. He's got a few comedy specials on Netflix and he had one. He goes, I was eating a lot of candy. . And so he's I decided that's probably not a healthy thing to do.

So I switched to [00:27:00] fruit and then he's one of my friends was like, Hey, you gotta watch out now. Fruit can be dangerous. . And he was like, show me your fat fruit friends . Show me your fat fruit friends. And I was just like, started laughing cuz it's so true. It's like people wanted like point out like, oh, this could be bad, but like you're switching from candy to apples.

Come on dude, let's eat some apples. That's better. So I'm never gonna say a fruit is bad and I'll never demonize any fruits. Like I had a banana today, but like I said, I ate that with a ton of protein and I ate that with fiber. So I just try and balance any carbohydrate I do have that could spike my blood sugar with something else.

So it's more balanced out. And to be honest, this is a big thing that Emily is teaching our kids. Cause Emily in our house is like the big on nutrition, but I feel like that's the biggest takeaway they're going to end up having because we don't harp on A carb or a fat or anything else. We just really harp on having balanced meals.

And so she makes sure that if they're having a good amount of carbs, she's going to balance that out with protein and fiber, whatever. So on the fiber side a lot of the fruits going to have fiber any [00:28:00] vegetables, most of my fiber things like chia seeds have a ton of fiber. So those are my go tos, fruits, vegetables, and.

seeds for fiber. So I'm just trying to throw those in with anything I have. And I did like my shake, I switched, I took a lot of, I just have like berries and protein and that's about it. I don't put much else in there in seeds. I switched to now this is going to be a direct plug for a company, again, not sponsored UCAN.

So you can is a carbohydrate supplement, but, and I used to use, you can all the time when I was cycling a bunch because I use it during all my cycling races. I used it for pre workout and all this stuff, but it was, when they first came out when I used it, it was only a carbohydrate supplement.

Now they have a pea protein plus carbohydrate supplement. So that's what I've switched my protein to. And what this is, it's like a cornstarch, but it's slow digesting. It won't spike your blood sugar. So it's a good, like [00:29:00] it's the perfect pre or post workout in my opinion, because it's like. Let's get some carbs.

It's not spike our blood sugar in the process and it has protein because I'm dairy free for the most part. And so yeah, it has pea protein in there. So that's what I've switched. My approach

Joe: is surprising. There's corn starch, especially for you to take

Jerred: it. Yeah. It's, you'd have to dive into the science.

I talked to the founder of that company. Of course you did. Yeah. A long time ago. I'm talking like they were just getting started. Or maybe they were just, I don't know, they were just starting, or they were like trying to scale, and I talked to him at an event and the story behind it was actually pretty cool, it was like, his son when he was a baby was, had some sort of disorder to where, And I can't even remember what it was.

It was something like had to do with blood sugar or something like that. Like it was some big problem. I wish I could remember what the disorder was. But ultimately he had to find some sort of slow digesting carb to keep his son from waking up at night, hungry over and over again.[00:30:00]

And so he, through his own research developed. This like cornstarch carbohydrate that won't spike your blood sugar and it just lasts. It's like sustained energy over a very long period of time. So he originally developed it for his son when he was an infant and then he turned into a sports supplement.

And now, it's pretty massive company at this point as supplement companies. Do I still don't like supplement companies, but ultimately that is I'm always taking a protein supplement and that's just the one that I've switched to. Yeah. It's

Joe: interesting. If we didn't have a crap ton of protein in our pantry right now, I'd probably try it out.

Jerred: Yeah. I feel like you gotta be careful with that stuff, especially in the vegan realm. I feel like a lot of the vegan type proteins I know you're not vegan. I'm just saying like a lot of the vegan proteins can like. Spike your blood sugar, like depending on the source, it's like a heavily bean based

Joe: protein.

like

Jerred: 14 different seeds and beans [00:31:00] and all this crap to try and get enough protein to match like whey. It's whatever. Way is ultimately the best. If you can take way and you're cool with dairy, just take way. That's what we do. Yeah. Just take away. It's worth it. That's it. I was like a rant slash my personal story, but I'm really just getting sick of this stuff, man.

Everyone has to go find out what works for themselves, look at the science, but don't try and shove the science in people's face and say that this is the only way, do what works for you. And, but you have to experiment in this process. So if you feel like low carb is working for you, and then like now people are starting to hate on low carb or fasting works for you and people are hating on fasting, don't stop it.

If it was effective, don't stop it if it's effective because it was effective, it might just not be for effective for the same reasons or mechanisms you thought. But either way, it was effective and it might work better with your genetics, your predispositions, like whatever. So in this case, it seemed low carb diets across a lot of studies burn more calories after two and a half weeks [00:32:00] within doing it.

People who want to hate on the study would point to the fact that the double e label labeled water, which is a way of Measuring someone's metabolism. They would say that method has not been tested and verified for low carbohydrate diets Therefore we should throw out all the results of this study But I don't that's not my game.

I'm just a coach. I don't go to that level I don't go into hey, did you calibrate your? Whatever, before you started, you're like, as your Bunsen burner operating at the right temperature in the beaker, like a lot of like PhD scientists, they'll go to that level. I don't go to that level.

We don't go to that level in the garage gym athlete podcast. We're just trying to look at research and give some takeaways for athletes. We're not trying to argue what the best is or what the worst is. We're just trying to entertain, open some ideas, open some conversation. And ultimately our take, I honestly feel is the ultimate trump card is just.

You got to find out what works for you. We can present you a lot of different options. There's a lot of [00:33:00] science behind saying cat once calories are science, calories and proteins are equated, then it doesn't really matter. You just need to be either in a calorie deficit or a caloric surplus, whether you want to gain muscle mass or whether you want to lose weight.

A lot of science backing that up. This is a pretty big study saying, Hey, low carb might have a little magic to it. That's really my takeaway here. It's there's a magic to low carb. We're not going to talk about why. But I don't, I honestly don't know if I fully believe that, but Hey, low carb looks like it might work for some people.

Works for me individually. So you go low carb, you could do low fat, high carb, whatever you find out works for you. But I feel like they're all going to work. But I do think just saying it's calories and calories out without any further, like timing of calories or utilization of fuels. I think that's a misstep and I'm hoping that's what proves out over the next couple of years when we see research come out and more books written and ultimately some people probably end up getting proven wrong.

[00:34:00] And since I don't have a real stance, I can't get proven wrong. I just, yeah, whatever works for you. So nutrition is always fun. Oh yeah.

Joe: Always.

Jerred: You got anything else?

Joe: No, I don't think so. Yeah, this was, this is a long one,

Jerred: but yeah, it's good. All right. Then we will get out of here for all of our garage gym athletes.

Thank you so much for sticking around. Go find a diet that works for you and keep on. This is being published right at the beginning of May. And we are doing a challenge, the Killing Comfort Planner Challenge. If you have not yet got you're not really signed up, but if you're in the Garage Gym Athlete community, meaning that you have the app, you are subscribed to our programming.

Join us for the month of May. We are doing a challenge on the, with the Killing Comfort Planner. It's going to be a lot of fun. It will challenge you. It is one of the most difficult planners to do for 30 full days. So I want to see how many people can finish it out. It will be a lot of fun for anyone who's looking to get involved in something like that for the [00:35:00] month of May, go to garagegymathlete.

com, sign up for a free trial, and we'd love to have you. We can get you wrapped into that challenge right away. If you want to sign up today or this week or whatever. But that's it for this one. Remember if you don't kill comfort will kill you.