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In the last interview, Lyle touched on just a couple areas pertaining to topic of fat loss. This time around he's going all out on this topic again. So, dim the lights get comfortable because he's going to get intimate with several important issues surrounding fat loss.

There's also the issue of length (sorry, guys, length does matter). My carb loads were too long, especially considering what they were comprised of. There' s definite relationship between how long you're going to/can carbload and how much you're going to/can eat. On the old lowcarb-l list (mailing list for keto diets), I remember folks putting down ridiculous amounts of calories (talking 7000+) but limiting their refeeds to 24 hours or less. It's only when the refeeds were lengthened into the second day that problems started to occur. Basically, Dan's refeed recommendations (a full 48 hours) were ONLY valid if you exactly followed his guidelines for carb and fat amounts, which I didn't.

 

 

Maki R: So why exactly is there a spill over after a certain amount of time during the refeed period?

Lyle M: Well, it's that, in the short-term, the body can really ramp up carb burning (oxidation) to compensate for increased intake. So, when you're depleted of glycogen, as you should be going into the refeed, you can really get away with a huge carb intake before you get into trouble with fat gain. If you figure glycogen storage at nearly 10 g/kg over 24 hours (so that 650+ grams for a little guy like me) plus daily caloric requirements (say 2000 cal/day, which is another 500 grams of carbs), that's a ridiculous amount of carbs before you get into real problems with fat storage.

In contrast, the body's ability to increase fat burning (oxidation) in response to increased fat intake is not only small, but it's delayed, takes at least a few days under the best conditions. So a high fat intake over the short-term *can* lead to significant fat gain. That's what was happening to me: too long of a carb-up coupled with too high of a fat intake coupled with the mistakes during the week.

The way that we (again, we = Elzi Volk and I) recommend refeeds is to keep them high carb, fairly low fat. While that does make them less 'fun', it's worth it in the long run. You can still go nuts with lots of high-sugar, junk food crap, you deal with some of the psychology of deprivation, you fix some metabolic problems, and you don't get the fat regain.

Maki R: What about flax oil, omega blends and fish oils, what importance do they play in fat loss?

Lyle M: I know what you're asking but since you're paying me by the word (wait, you are paying me by the word, right),

Maki R: Ya and it's costing us a small fortune.

Lyle M: I'm going to talk about the role of fats on fat loss from two different perspectives. The first is a rather simple one, having to do with adherence to the diet. I haven't really gotten into it in this interview but, fundamentally speaking, losing weight/fat is not difficult. Eat less, exercise, you lose weight. The bigger issue is one of long-term adherence: keeping the weight off. Now, this is a really complex issue involving psychology, behavior, and physiology. I don't want to get into that here.

Maki R: It's probably for the best; most bodybuilders get bored easily if the topic is not strictly bodybuilding related.

Lyle M: All I really want to focus on is hunger regulation and what researchers refer to as orosensory characteristics (techie word meaning how stuff tastes and feels in our mouth). Now, hunger in humans is another brutally complex topic involving any number of interacting variables. However, there are a few major controllers of overall hunger. One of these is gastric emptying, how quickly or slowly food moves out of the stomach. The physical presence of food in the stomach (and the stretching that occurs) sends a fullness signal to the brain but it takes some time. Gastric emptying also influences hormonal response, blood glucose and insulin for example. In short, fast digesting foods not only leave the gut faster (meaning less of a fullness signal from that end) but also tend to spike blood glucose and insulin, which further promotes hunger. In contrast, slowly digesting foods work the opposite. I bring this up because dietary fat, in moderate amounts, slows gastric emptying; meaning food sits in the stomach longer. It also helps to control blood glucose and insulin responses, a fact that's been known since at least the late 60's.

My point being that extremely low-fat diets (talking 15% of total calories or less which are sometimes recommended) tend to leave people chronically hungry, even if they choose slow digesting carbs and proteins. Even moderate amounts of fat (I personally think 20-25% total calories as fat should be minimum for any fat loss diet) correct this. That's on top of simply making food taste better. Let's face it; super low fat foods tend to taste like cardboard (and most companies just put in tons of sugar to make up for the lack of fat, which counters any benefit of removing the fat).

Maki R: To be more specific, what role do w-3 and w-6 fatty acids play in terms of fat loss and metabolism?

Lyle M: Although you didn’t' really hear about it that much (well, until recently), the body has two essential fatty acids (EFA's), that is fatty acids that we can't make ourselves and that are required for life and health. That is, usually you always hear about essential amino acids, or essential vitamins and minerals, but rarely about fatty acids (note, there is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate, just for the record).

Maki R: What? You mean those Krispy Kremes aren't essential to keeping us sane?

Lyle M: Not unless you want to become a fat mess. Now, it's usually been assumed that the high fat nature of the typical modern diet provided enough EFA's to at least avoid frank health problems. This may or may not be true. Modern diets are high fat, that's true; but they are really the wrong kinds of fat. The typical American diet is super high in saturated fats and trans-fatty acids, without a lot of essential fatty acids in the mix. Actually, that's not even true, we get many w-6 fatty acids in the diet. It's the w-3 that is the problem.

Actually, I should probably back up a little bit and define some terms. Dietary fatty acids come in two general categories: saturated (mainly in animal foods) and unsaturated (mainly in vegetable source foods).

Unsaturated fats are further divided into monounsaturated fats (such as olive oil) and polyunsaturated fats. It's the polyunsaturated fats that we're interested. Of the various kinds, two very important fats are alpha linolenic acid (w-3) and linoleic acid (w-6); these are the two essential fatty acids. By essential, I mean that they are required for health and life and cannot be made in the body. These two fatty acids are degraded (by various enzymes called desaturases) into other components. w-3 fatty acids eventually end up as eicosapentanoic acid (EPA) and docosahexanoic acid (DHA), which are the primary fatty acids, found in fish (and are usually called fish oils).

Now, most people think of fats as just something that gives energy, and ends up covering our abs but this is far from the case. Rather, fatty acids are incorporated into our cell membranes and even turn out to have a controlling hand in gene expression. This is where the real interest in w-3 and w-6 fatty acids comes in. With regards to fat loss, the main tissues we're interested in are muscle and liver. w-3 fatty acids (and especially fish oils) have been shown to have important effects in both tissues that are all conducive to fat loss. These include decreased fat storage in the fat cell (involving changes in enzyme levels as well as insulin receptor number) as well as increased fat burning in the muscle. This is where flax oil (which is high in w-3) and fish oils come into play, by providing sufficient w-3 during a diet; you improve the overall rate of fat loss (which also spare muscle). High dose w-3 also helps to control inflammation and some of the depression that occurs during dieting may be related to a w-3 deficiency; the list of benefits really goes on and on.

Ok, but what about w-6. It actually turns out that w-6 have effects in the body that aren't ideal in terms of fat loss, inflammation or any of the rest. To be more accurate, it looks like the ratio of w-6 to w-3 fatty acids is really the key player. The current modern diet has a super high ratio of w-6: w-3, something like 25:1. It's been estimated that our ancestral diet and what may be ideal is more like 4:1 to 1:1. Basically, we get excessively much w-6 and not nearly enough w-3.

Maki R: So what would you recommend for a bodybuilder?

Lyle M: Well, flax, (which is a mix of w-3 and w-6 but mainly w-6), straight fish oils (pure EPA/DHA) or something else. To a degree, it depends on the composition of the rest of the diet. Since, on average, most people get too much saturated fat and w-6, flax oil isn't a bad choice, it should help balance out the w-6: w-3 ratio. But, there is some concern about limited conversion of w-3 to the fish oils (which appear to really be the key players) and there is some enzyme competition between w-6 and w-3.

If I had to make the most general recommendation in terms of fatty acids for fat loss, it'd be a mix of olive oil (oleic acid, an w-9 with a neutral effect on fat cell metabolism) along with preformed fish oils (6-10X1 gram capsules per day). Actually, since I can't personally stand the taste of olive oil, I use high oleic safflower oil, which is mostly safflower. To that I add Now Brand Omega 3, 6X1 gram capsules per day (since I'm a little guy, a bigger person would use a higher dose).

Obviously some saturated fats are pretty much inevitable in any but the most restrictive diets but that'd be ideal in my mind. We actually have a significant storehouse of w-6 in our fat cells already (enough to last about a year or so) so there should be no real problem with deficiencies of w-6 over the length of the diet.

Maki R: Could you give us an example of how a blend of these fatty acids could be incorporated into a bodybuilders nutritional program?

Lyle M:To put that in real terms, for something like a 2000 cal/day diet, assuming 25% total fat, you've got 500 calories from fat, about 55 grams. 6-10 grams of that are fish oils, leaving about 45 grams, which would be three tablespoons of olive oil (goes well in blender drinks, on tuna, and on salad as dressing). You wouldn't want to follow that type of approach forever, but I think it'd be ideal for fat loss and the length of the average diet.

Maki R: Straying from nutrition for a moment and its effects on fat loss let’s look at the physical aspect of fat loss. What's your take on doing any type of morning 'cardio' on an empty stomach or performing some sort of resistance training? I believe it was Bill Phillips who revolutionized this method and it's always been a topic that's sure to spark up a good debate.

Lyle M: Oh, this should be fun, piss some readers off. For the most part (with one or two exceptions), I don't think it matters. What Phillips (and everyone else) is getting at is this: in the morning, there is a high concentration of free fatty acids in your bloodstream, because of the overnight fast, low insulin, blah, blah, blah.

Now, we've known for years that, in general, the body will burn whatever fuel is most available. Studies reliably show that when you ramp up fatty acid availability to the muscle, the muscle burns more fat.

So the logic goes: do cardio in the morning, when there are lots of fatty acids available and you will burn more fat and thus lose more fat.

Maki R: Seems like a reasonable concept.

Lyle M: And the logic is 100% sound right up until the last part of it "...thus lose more fat." A fundamental mistake that's been held by researchers, physiologists, trainers and coaches for decades is that 'burning fat during activity = fat loss'. You find the same argument in the 'do low intensity activity because you burn a greater percentage of fat' folks; they logic that burning more fat during activity = more fat loss.

The problem (well, there are many problems) is that they are focusing only on what's happening during the exercise bout. That is, they are worried only about what's being burned during the 30 minutes of activity. That's problem #1: what about the other 23.5 hours of the day? Most (but not all) studies have shown that, when you look at total fat use over 24 hours in response to activity, the body will figure it out. For example, if you burn more fat during exercise, you tend to burn less fat the rest of the day; if you burn more glycogen during exercise, you burn more fat the rest of the day. Over 24 hours, it balances. At least two studies have shown (and note that this wasn't in bodybuilders or lean folks) that as long as the calorie burn during activity is the same, fat loss is the same. They had folks exercise at either a low or high intensity for something like 70 or 35 minutes (calorie burn was identical in either case). Fat loss was the same over the course of the study.

Maki R: But what about the other side to this?

Lyle M: Now hold on, some studies actually support the opposite. Studies on interval training have shown greater fat loss with the intervals, even though fewer calories (and far less fat) are being burned. What's the reason? There are a few reasons actually. The first is that there is a period after exercise where your body continued to burn calories. Researchers usually call this excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (or EPOC). The EPOC after low-intensity fat burning activity is tiny. You may burn a few calories afterwards and that's it. So what you burn during the activity is pretty much it. After high intensity exercise (even though you're burning mainly glycogen and very little fat), you get a much larger EPOC. In addition, most of those calories come from fat stores. Bill's brother Shawn had been on the intervals for fat loss crusade for a few years now.

Empirically, you can also ask yourself who are the leanest athletes. Usually, it's sprinters (bodybuilders come in a close second). These guys rarely run more than 20-30 seconds, they are never in their fat burning zone. By the logic that you must 'burn fat to lose fat', these guys should be fat. They're not because what really matters is how many calories you're burning during the day (and if there is a deficit). And that's just problem #1.

Another problem is that, you actually end up releasing far more fatty acids in the morning than your body can burn in the first place. That is, beyond a certain point, having more fatty acids in the bloodstream doesn't increase fatty acid burning, because the limitation is now in how fast the muscle can actually burn them up. Fatty acid availability isn't the problem under most circumstances.

If I wanted to be a real jackass, I could even make an argument against morning cardio on the following argument: intensity. As above, fat loss is related to calorie burn; calorie burn is going to be related to intensity (or duration). First thing in the morning, with lowered blood glucose and no food, it's hard for most people to do their cardio at a very high intensity. So their calorie burn is going to be low. I mean go into any gym, the morning cardio folks are usually plodding along, they may be burning a whopping five cal/minute.

Maki R: That's an understatement.

Lyle M: So over 30 minutes that's a whole 150 calories. Yippee. Intervals first thing in the morning on an empty stomach (what Shawn Phillips recommends) are even harder. You're going in with lowered blood glucose and you're going to try to do a max workout? Good luck.

Now, before I move on to one of the exceptions to all of the above, lemme say this: except for my slightly weird anti-morning cardio argument, I don't think it's going to *hurt* anything to do cardio first thing in the morning. I'm not convinced it's going to *help* or enhance fat loss, but it's not going to hurt. I suspect that much of the reason that morning cardio 'works', is the same reason other things work: it develops a psychological pattern. Again, as much as most people don't want to believe it, most things work for psychological as much as physiological reasons. That's certainly the case for much of CKD/Bodyopus types of diets. I believed in it, it controlled my carb cravings (by allowing them at only certain times) and I stuck to it better. Psychology.

Maki R: Ahha, the magic word, "Psychology." It seems that Phillips successfully revolutionized this concept via psychology methods.

Lyle M: Yes! Phillips is a master of psychology when it comes to getting people off of their asses; he's very motivational and a good salesman (something I'm not, I'm too honest and tell people when I'm psychologically manipulating them, which defeats the purpose). If convincing someone to do cardio in the morning makes them do it more consistently, of course it's going to work. But we might ask why it worked. Did it work because of some underlying physiology involved? Based on what I wrote above, I would say no: what you burn during activity rarely matters in the big scheme. I would argue that it 'works' because of psychological reasons (people tend to continue doing what they believe in). Is the end-result different? No, of course not. A placebo effect is just as real as a real effect: believe in it and it may become true. I'm just a nitpicky bastard who likes to shoot down people's beliefs. Wink.

Ok, so the exception to what I wrote above: getting rid of stubborn fat. I mentioned above that, for most people, fatty acid availability (a controller of fat use by the muscle) really isn't the problem. There is an exception to that: folks who are very lean. Basically, as you go from super fat to normal to very lean, you see a continuum of fatty acid release into the bloodstream.

IN the super fat, there is actually too large of a fatty acid release; which is part of the problems. Because of their insulin resistance (and other factors), along with a general inability to burn fatty acids very well, obese folks have too many fatty acids floating around in their bloodstream. The defect they show is in the muscle and liver, they don't burn fatty acids well: there are tons around, but they aren't burning them effectively.

One you get to a medium leanness level, this corrects itself. Now your body is releasing fatty acids pretty much in relation to need. Exercise, diet, the fat comes off. I mean, seriously, getting a male to say 15% body fat (about average) isn't that difficult fundamentally. It requires a little willpower, regular activity, non-retarded diet, etc. In general, this is the audience that Phillips is addressing Body for Life; not the super fat, but the average male or female.

Maki R: Ok, but we're talking about bodybuilders who make up the minority of people.

Lyle M: Right, now, once you get below a certain body fat level, the picture changes again. It's becoming harder and harder to mobilize fatty acids for burning. So you may see a decreased use (meaning increased use of glucose and protein, which partly explains the increased muscle loss), just like in the super fat, but for a different reason: the body isn't giving up free fatty acids as readily. Stubborn fat (thigh fat in women, ab fat in men typically) is very difficult to mobilize for a bunch of reasons. A few of those include that they are very sensitive to insulin; even small amounts will shut down release almost completely. Another is a decreased sensitivity to the catecholamines (adrenaline/noradrenaline). Under these conditions (which generally apply to a vanishingly small part of the population anyhow), you have to do everything to optimize mobilization, blood flow, and burning. Doing cardio first thing in the morning after an overnight fast is going to be one of the ways to do that (one of my current projects is figuring out every factor, and it's more than just adrenoreceptor ratios, involved in stubborn fat, to fix the problem).

So, summing up. For the majority of people, no, I don't think it matters much when you do cardio. As long as it gets done, that's the more important thing. It's unlikely to hurt by doing it that way (unless you're intensity/duration are really impaired by doing it that way) but I doubt it will make a big difference. If doing it in the morning makes it more likely to get done, great, do it in the morning. The exception is fairly lean folks, where fatty acid mobilization is becoming harder and harder. Doing it in the morning may have a benefit there. Whew.

 

 

Maki R: Ok, back on topic again. Lets look at insulin and its effect on fat loss. Does spiking insulin inhibit fat loss to an appreciable degree post workout? Furthermore, is it better to skip the carbs and just take in some protein? In other words, if someone were trying to lose as much body fat as possible it would make sense to keep the amount of insulin that is released to a minimum. This would mean that protein and/or fats could be taken post workout.

Lyle M: Oh, not this question. I put it that way because the issue of post-workout nutrition during fat loss is one that I:

a. get asked about all the time
b. go back and forth in my head all the time

To understand why, lemme give a little background into the problem.

Insulin is one of those double-edged hormones which is why people are so confused about it. Half the time you read that insulin is the most anabolic hormone in the body, and half the time you read that it makes you fat. Well, both happen to be true. The problem with insulin, fundamentally, is that it's not tissue specific. Both muscle and fat cells have insulin receptors and insulin drives calories into both quite effectively. And while it's true that there are slightly different insulin thresholds for muscle vs. fat cells, the difference in quite small and I'm not convinced that you can manipulate insulin tightly enough to really take advantage of it. Even the small increase in insulin from protein intake tends to lower blood fatty acid levels. Of course, carbs raise insulin much much more.

Now, insulin shuts down lipolysis pretty effectively at even low concentrations. It's actually depressingly low. Of course, you have to keep in mind that folks have been getting ripped (i.e. losing body fat) on carb-based diets for decades. So I have to wonder if the focus on lowering insulin and keeping it low is that big of a deal. It looks good on paper but if insulin completely prevented fat loss, nobody would EVER get cut on carb-based diets and we simply know that isn't true. So theory has to give way to real world results in this case.

Even Duchaine, prior to his death, mentioned that lowering insulin didn't seem to have a truly significant impact, especially not in men (note: for women trying to lose hip/thigh fat and *maybe* for men and ab fat, lowering insulin does seem to help for a bunch of complicated reasons). That is, on a calorie-reduced diet, you lose fat, even if insulin stays elevated. Of course, you can counter that you may lose more fat if you lower insulin (because you allow better fatty acid mobilization). Which works on paper but not really in the real world. Not to as great a degree as you'd expect anyhow. The differences between fat and LBM loss in cyclical keto diets compared to say, a Zone/Isocaloric type of diet (roughly 30% of calories from each macronutrient) were never huge at the same calorie level: a few pounds either way over 12 weeks. Even that wasn't consistent across the board: some folks lost more fat and less muscle on the higher carb diets. Measurement error? Individual biochemical differences? AT this point I don't know.

Now, on top of all of that, let's go back to something I talked about in the above: contrary to popularly held belief, what you burn during the workout really doesn't appear to make that huge of a difference in terms of fat loss. Ultimately, it really does come down to calorie balance (calories in vs. out). Or more, accurately nutrient balances.

Maki R: "Nutrient balance?"

Lyle M: By nutrient balance I mean this. Fat loss on a diet ultimately comes down to the following equation

Fat balance = fat intake - fat oxidation, so if you eat more fat than you're burning, you gain fat; if you burn more fat than you're eating, you lose it.

This partly explains why low carb/higher fat diets didn't make a huge difference in terms of fat loss. Yes, lowering carbs (and glycogen depletion) ramps up fat oxidation to very high rates. But you're eating more fat too so the balance still comes down to the caloric deficit.

Maki R: Ok, so what about carb based diets?

Lyle M: A higher carb diet does lead to less fat oxidation, but you're eating less fat. The difference between the two is usually pretty negligible.

When you run the numbers, the difference usually comes out to be about the same. That is, depending on genetics and stuff outside of our control (mainly leptin), calorie balance will equal fat balance. That is, most of the deficit will be made up by the body using fat for fuel no matter how you cut it. People won't be thrilled to hear that but that's the conclusion that the data supports.

Basically, it's 24-hour nutrient balance that seems to be the bigger issue. But, again, I'm digressing.

Let's assume that it matters where you keep insulin on a diet. That is, let's assume that fat loss really is better if you keep insulin lower (ignoring research and real-world data to the absolute contrary) over the long haul.

Recall from above that insulin is a schizy hormone: yeah, it promotes fat storage, but it also promotes anabolism (more technically, insulin is anti-catabolic in muscle, it takes VERY high concentrations for it to be directly anabolic; that is insulin helps to prevent muscle breakdown). By corollary, low insulin does allow better fat mobilization, but it also makes you more catabolic. I've said it before but it bears repeating: your body hates you.

Maki R: I guess we got a love hate relationship with our bodies.

Lyle M: Anyhow, the conundrum we're faced with is this: Which is more important, improving muscular recovery/avoiding muscle loss by spiking insulin OR keeping fat burning going by not spiking insulin?

Maki R: That's the million-dollar question isn't it?

Lyle M: Well, this is the question I go around and around and around on in my head. Right now, I have to think (especially based on the fact that insulin levels just don't seem to be that big of a deal overall) that recovery/slowing catabolism is the more important facet. That is, fat loss is going to be mainly caused by the caloric deficit. And muscle loss is enough of a problem to begin with. I think a post-workout carb/protein drink is the better choice. Of course, you still have to count those calories towards the daily total but I think that's the better way to go.

Maki R: Wow, there you have it folks, another installment and some more information to hold you over until Lyle and I sit down again.

Until then if any of you want to get a hold of Lyle's ketogenic book you can purchase it here at Dynamic Conditioning. Just click on the link and follow the instructions.