Can a carb-rich, high-calorie diet boost our metabolism? What are the real effects of fasting on our energy levels? How can lifestyle choices impact our mood and overall health?

In today’s episode, Philip (@witsandweights) is joined by Jay Feldman. Jay is a health coach and host of The Energy Balance Podcast, which focuses on bioenergetic health.

Jay discusses the impact of maximizing cellular energy on mental health, metabolism, longevity, and more. He will address modern diet culture, stress, and lifestyle in the context of your health and offer practical solutions for adopting a sustainable, energy-boosting diet without relying on restriction or willpower. They even get into thyroid function and how to manage thyroid issues.

Jay is a health coach and independent health researcher with a rich neuroscience and exercise physiology background. Instead of traditional medical school, Jay chose a different path to explore health. He believes that our health’s true foundation lies in maximizing cellular energy.

As the host of The Energy Balance Podcast, Jay champions this bioenergetic view, focusing on maximizing cellular energy as the cornerstone of vitality. His mission is to empower men and women worldwide to achieve freedom from low-energy symptoms and chronic health issues to maximize their cellular energy and optimize their health using a personalized bioenergetic approach.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:17 Explaining the bioenergetic diet and its differences from traditional diets
6:31 Pillars of the bioenergetic approach
9:01 Energy expenditure and metabolic rate
10:33 Low-carb diet for diabetics, and during fat loss
14:39 Digestive health and energy production
18:29 The role of bioenergetics in body composition
22:46 Understanding endotoxins
29:15 Linking bioenergetics to mental health and cognitive improvement
39:22 Differentiating between hormesis and chronic stress effects on health
43:11 Mitigating negative impacts of modern lifestyle and diet culture
49:44 The significance of lifestyle/diet on thyroid function and management insights
55:15 One question Jay wished Philip had asked
57:31 Where you can learn more about Jay and his work
58:30 Outro

Episode resources:

• The Energy Balance Podcast 

• The Energy Balance Food Guide (1-page infographic) - jayfeldmanwellness.com/guide 

Episode summary:

When we talk about vitality and well-being, we often focus on diet and exercise as our primary tools. However, health coach Jay Feldman brings a different perspective to the table—one that emphasizes the significance of cellular energy and bioenergetics for achieving optimal health. In a recent podcast episode, Jay delves deep into the connection between bioenergetics, thyroid health, and our overall energy balance.

Understanding the relationship between our daily nutrition and how our bodies convert food into energy is critical. Jay points out that modern diet culture has led us to misunderstand the role of carbohydrates. Rather than being the enemy, carbs are essential for efficient energy production. By embracing a diet rich in energy-rich carbs, we support our metabolism and avoid the energy crashes associated with restrictive diets.

Jay also shares his journey from studying neuroscience and exercise physiology to becoming an independent health researcher and coach. He emphasizes that every aspect of our physiology, from brain function to hormonal balance, is dependent on having sufficient energy. This paradigm shift suggests that by focusing on maximizing cellular energy, we can influence everything from our mental clarity to our ability to gain muscle.

In exploring the bioenergetic approach, Jay pays homage to the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Albert St. Georgi and the late Dr. Ray Peet. Their work sheds light on the importance of maintaining a balanced diet and consistent eating patterns to stabilize blood sugar and optimize metabolism. The interplay between stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline and the balance of macronutrients in our meals can have profound effects on our metabolic rate and muscle mass.

Jay also tackles the topic of digestive health, linking it to weight loss and overall well-being. He highlights the importance of digestive enzymes, stomach acid, and bile flow in breaking down food. A balanced gut microbiome plays a protective role in maintaining intestinal permeability and protecting our mitochondria. He discusses the potential benefits of fasting but also emphasizes the need for a balanced approach to avoid disrupting our metabolism.

Addressing the complexities of body fat storage and energy conversion, Jay challenges the "eat less, exercise more" mantra. He suggests that inefficiencies in energy conversion can lead to fat accumulation even in the absence of excess calories. This revelation underscores the importance of improving digestion and reducing endotoxin production for effective body fat management.

Moreover, Jay explores the relationship between brain health and energy metabolism. Deficits in energy production can impair cognitive function and mood. Lifestyle choices, such as diet and sunlight exposure, can have a significant impact on our mental well-being. He encourages easily digestible whole foods and consistent physical movement as key components of maintaining a healthy brain.

Finally, Jay discusses the critical role of thyroid function in our health. He offers practical tips for improving thyroid health through diet and lifestyle choices. Reducing exposure to blue light, engaging in calming activities before bedtime, and choosing healthier fat options can all support thyroid health. Jay stresses the importance of understanding how environmental factors, nutrient deficiencies, and the balance of macronutrients can influence thyroid function and, consequently, our overall well-being.

This podcast episode serves as a reminder that our body's subtle workings hold the key to unlocking our energy and vitality. With Jay Feldman's guidance, listeners can take away actionable insights to fuel their passions and live a balanced, energetic life.

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Transcript

Jay Feldman  00:00

Most people don't feel too good when they're doing cod especially if you're talking like, you know, before a bodybuilding competition if you talk to people in that state like they're barely hanging on and and it's just like everything is just focused on that, because you really don't feel good. And so we kind of want to do the opposite of that and provide that our brain with the fuel on a consistent basis so that it can function optimally.

 

Philip Pape  00:23

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Whitson weights community Welcome to another episode of the weights and weights podcast. I am energized to have Jay Feldman on the show today, Jay is a health coach and host of the energy balanced podcast focused on bio Energetic Health. Now I invited you on the show so you can learn about this concept. Jay is going to discuss the impact of maximizing cellular energy on things like mental health, metabolism, longevity, and more. He's going to address modern diet, culture, stress and lifestyle in the context of your health, and offer practical solutions for adopting the sustainable energy boosting diet without relying on restriction or willpower. We'll even get into thyroid function and how to manage thyroid issues. Jay is a health coach, but he's also an independent health researcher, something I can definitely relate to that. I mean, he has a rich background in neuroscience and Exercise Physiology, opting out of the traditional medical school route, Jay went on a journey to uncover the true essence of health beyond conventional approaches to embrace the idea that cellular energy is the foundation of our health. As the host of the energy balance podcast, Jay champion's this bio energetic view, focusing on maximizing cellular energy as a cornerstone of vitality. His mission is to empower men and women worldwide to achieve freedom from low energy symptoms and chronic health issues, to maximize their cellular energy and optimize their health using a personalized bio energetic approach. Jay, welcome to the show.

 

Jay Feldman  02:14

Yeah, Phil, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate the introduction.

 

Philip Pape  02:17

So I think the listener if they're not familiar with the concept of bio energetic health and nutrition, focusing on, you know, cellular energy for health, we just want to understand what exactly is it what is a diet that supports that kind of health, and then we can get into some of the subtopics related to that?

 

Jay Feldman  02:34

Definitely. So big picture, what we're talking about, as you kind of alluded to is the energy that we're producing inside the cells inside the mitochondria, that being the driver of our health. So when we're producing a lot of energy, we tend to function well, when we're not, we tend not to function well. And that's because every single aspect of our physiology depends on having enough energy. So that's the overarching concept. But we're really just looking at physiology, we're looking at how our liver functions, how our brain functions, we're looking at how our different you know, hormones relate to what we eat. And then we're using that to create a diet a lifestyle, create a really supportive environment, that is going to put us in the state where our bodies are maximizing the efficiency with which they produce energy, and how much energy they're producing. So we can maximize our health. So that's the overarching framework. And on one hand, there can be a lot of overlaps with other approaches, but there's certain things that end up being a little bit unique, in terms of the idea that we want to again, when it comes to maximizing energy, we want to be able to eat as many calories as possible, while let's say maintaining our weight, right, that's a good sign that our metabolisms high. And a lot of times, we think that we're kind of stuck with, you know, not being able to eat very much if we've done a lot of dieting over time. But we can totally reverse that. So that's an important goal. We also want to make sure we're not avoiding carbohydrates, which are essential for efficient energy production. And if we're avoiding those, that's going to be a way that we actually decrease our metabolism. So there's a number of factors like that, that we focus on, in an effort to maximize how much energy we produce and then maximize our health, which goes beyond, you know, I mean, it's everything from brain fog and energy that we feel throughout the day to how well we sleep, how deeply we sleep, how easily we put on muscle, those kinds of things. Cool.

 

Philip Pape  04:23

And I'm curious about the term itself, like where it came from, if this is if this is your term, or if it's a kind of accepted term in the industry. But to me, it sounds like the antidote of low energy or low energy availability and kind of the opposite side of that spectrum, as well as, like you said, supporting a proper balance of things like carbs, which we can get into, you know, the myths there, but people who listen to the show should know by now that I'm a huge fan of carbs. So is that effectively what we're talking about? I don't mean to minimize you know, the approach you take, but is that what we're talking about?

 

Jay Feldman  04:52

Carbs are a big part of it. What so I have not this is not a term that I coined bioenergetic researcher by the name of Albertson Georgie, who is a Nobel Prize winner, he had a book called bioenergetics. And he and a number of other researchers around that time, were talking about things in these terms. There is a PhD scientist, Ray Pete, who recently died, I guess, just over a year ago. And he was also a more modern pioneer talking about these sorts of topics, and really applying them to health and physiology, talking about concerns with polyunsaturated fats, things like that. So, yeah, I mean, it's a it's not a framework that I have come up with, per se, but one that I certainly, I mean, that's something that I've integrated in for sure to, to my approach and, and my research and everything like that. But yeah, it goes, I mean, we can talk about any intervention, whether we're talking about weightlifting, or sleep, or blue light, or whatever it is, in terms of how it affects us on the bioenergetic level on in terms of our biological energy that we produce. So it expands beyond Of course, as you're saying, getting enough carbohydrates. It's a huge part. And I think one of the ones that's most important to talk about these days, because the vast majority of the fitness health world, or at least a huge portion is pretty anti carbohydrates right now, but definitely goes beyond that as well. I mean, another big one is fasting. And we can talk about why that's not really a great approach if we're trying to maximize our energy. So yeah,

 

Philip Pape  06:17

for sure. So we have a prevalence of chronic dieters right out there, I see it all the time clients coming in. And also sort of misapplication or misunderstanding of, you know how food works to provide that energy, how energy balance works, all of that. So let's talk about sort of the pillars of this bio energetic approach, because I like the holistic nature of it, in that we're not just talking about energy balance, right? That is very, very important. In terms of energy balance, energy flux, I don't know if you use that term as well, with, you know, moving more and eating more, not eating less. But you mentioned cellular health, and you mentioned some of the kind of 1% things as well, if somebody's getting started with this for the first time, what are what are the five pillars, right, three, five, whatever, of vital energetic upright, I have trouble with that word, for some reason. Probably rolls off the tongue for you by now. You know what I'm trying to say? Yeah,

 

Jay Feldman  07:07

definitely. So yeah, let's talk about some pillars, one would be making sure that we have good, stable balanced blood sugar throughout the day, the most important thing there is that we're eating consistently. So we're not skipping breakfast, we're not going, you know, from breakfast, until the late afternoon, we're eating, you know, anywhere from every three to six hours. You know, that's kind of a big range, there might depend on how active we are and how big of meals we're eating, though, we want to be eating relatively consistently, because when we don't, and our blood sugar drops, that's our main sensor that our body uses as far as its fuel gauge, right? Especially in terms of carbohydrates. So when our blood sugar drops, because we haven't eaten in a while, our body looks at that as a situation that is sub optimal, right, and it decides to release stress hormones to provide some extra carbohydrates while we're not eating them. But over time, that's something that decreases our metabolic rate. And understandably, so because if that happens consistently, everybody has recognized that we're not in an ideal environment. And they don't want to be using all this energy, they want to kind of go into a low battery mode state and conserve energy, which is the exact opposite of what we want to happen. So balancing blood sugars are really important one, eating consistently and with that, making sure we're getting carbs with each meal. And I think for most people, a good balance of protein, carbs and fat with each meal is a great way to do it. But at the very least, we want to make sure there's carbs in there, you know, even if we're having a snack or something, we don't want it to be protein only. And the fat again, our needs might vary, but I think oftentimes it helps out some fat to help us satiety and hormones and digestion and all of that.

 

Philip Pape  08:41

Yeah, cool. No, no, I don't know. Yeah, no, there's more pillars. I do have some side tangents on that we can go on. Sure. Sure. Right. Yeah. Cool. So first, the funny thing is that came to my mind, he said, Eat three to six meals, I'm sure people are gonna think like the old bro science of like, you have to eat a bunch to ramp up your metabolism, you're kind of saying that right? In a way. And there's some legitimacy there. Are you saying that it energy, you know, on an isocaloric diet, right and or between two groups with the energy being the same, and the macros being the same that that that's going to change the metabolic rate significantly by if you only had one feeding, and you're essentially fasting versus the distribution?

 

Jay Feldman  09:15

Yeah, and that's what we see in these sorts of studies where they're doing intermittent fasting, in the short period of time, you're not going to see a change in energy expenditure, what you see is that we're relying more on stress to make up for that lack of energy. So let's say we do skip to breakfast and we get larger releases of cortisol, adrenaline and and glucagon, those will proper metabolic rate up so we still have the energy there, but it's doing it through the stress mechanisms that over time will lower our metabolic rate, but in the short term will have other effects too. So we'll see decreases in testosterone increases in reverse T three that inactive thyroid hormone, and thyroid is our main regulator of our metabolic rate. And in some of the studies where they do compare ISIL calorically we start to see increased loss of muscle mass relative to body fat If you know each side is in a deficit, and that's because of the shift in hormones, so you're not going to see it short term in terms of the actual energy expenditure values, but it's because we're relying more on stress. And we do see that in terms of outcomes. And if we looked over time, then we would start to see those shifts as well. And energy expenditure wise, no,

 

Philip Pape  10:17

that makes a lot of sense, bringing the hormones into it, and, you know, probably explains a lot of symptoms people have when they go through that, and they talk about a lack of energy, you know, everybody raves about fasting, maybe in the short term, and maybe there's some benefits to like a random fast here or there. But like you said, long term could be could be negative. What about a special case here? Because I've been talking a lot in my community about recently, some folks have diabetes, right? type one and type two, but especially type one where you're insulin dependent, maybe not necessarily. And there's this very strong push against carbs at all. And yet, I know plenty of diabetics who are successful incorporating carbs in a balanced way, and they walk after meals, and they do you know, the strength train and things like that to increase their sensitivity. What are your thoughts on that? Is there a case where somebody just has to for like a medical reason, keep the carbs low? Or is that a like a false statement.

 

Jay Feldman  11:05

So it can certainly be more convenient, we can see, you know, if we're looking at a CGM will see it be flatter. If we're dealing with someone who's insulin dependent, it's a lot easier to dose insulin or not those insulin Mummert on low carb, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's optimal, right? And we need insulin, insulin is incredibly important. I know you've talked about this, but it's in direct opposition with something like cortisol, right, on one hand, we have this kind of more anabolic, but pro metabolic side, where we're getting the carbs in, we're getting the protein in and our body recognizes that it's in the state to increase its activity. And insulin does that right? It will stimulate glucose oxidation, the burning of glucose as a fuel, it'll increase the uptake of these different nutrients to protein, amino acids, that glucose so that our bodies can use them. And at the same time, it turns off the stress hormones, it's the quickest way to do that is to have a bit of carbohydrates, increase the insulin and decrease something like cortisol. So I think it's really important that we get the insulin in, and then somebody who has, let's say, who has type one diabetes, and I have to rely on exogenous insulin, it's certainly less convenient. But I think worth it as opposed to trying to minimize insulin use. So that's the way I would look at it. Even if it is easier to manage, I don't think it's optimal. And nowadays it is getting, like the technology around the the use of insulin is getting a little better. You know, it's I think it's slower acting type things. So I would, I would favor that approach with the carbohydrates, if we can do it effectively. And that can just take some time, you know, and balancing other meals with other macronutrients will help as opposed to maybe having juice on its own, where it's really hard to mitigate a spike like that, if we're not able to do it indigenously. But yeah, so those are some considerations.

 

Philip Pape  12:53

Alright, so segwaying into the related topic, you already mentioned, before we get to the next pillar was, like, maybe not just having protein, with a meal in a hypercaloric, I should say, like, when you're either at maintenance or surplus, and you've got a lot of calories to play with, it makes total sense to keep things balanced. And I like to tell clients, like just balance the three bars as you go through the day, you know, and it's kind of the easiest way to just from a practical standpoint, you know, quote, unquote, hit your macros. But what about during fat loss when somebody's calories are limited, and the carbs are quite a bit lower? Because you keep the protein high? And you just, you know, you're trying to slam those carbs around your training, maybe and then you don't have much for the rest of the day? Is that just a trade off? You make? Or what are your thoughts?

 

Jay Feldman  13:34

I would prefer not to go too low on the carbs. So if we're going to lower one of the fuel base macronutrients between carbs and fats, I typically prefer to lower fat. And that's for this reason. And, yeah, I mean, obviously can be situations where maybe we're a bit limited and how many carbs we're having in the day. I don't normally like that approach. But if we were I'd still probably rather spread them out a bit, as opposed to just concentrating them around training. But I think we're talking about, in this case, maybe an approach that is looking for some sort of outcome, maybe at a cost, in which case, that might be just kind of par for the course, like, there might be a cost involved.

 

Philip Pape  14:13

Okay, but in general, it makes sense. And yeah, I mean, it's you're talking probably a petite female or somebody with a very low metabolic rate to begin with, who's dieting on on those tight calories where you just you're maybe 100 grams or less almost keto territory versus a guy like me who has 200 or more even in a diet, you know, it's no problem. Okay, so that's kind of the first pillar is stable, balanced blood sugar, eating every three to six hours. It helps with stress hormones, your metabolic rate. Love that. Okay, what else? What are a couple other big pillars here of the bioenergetic approach?

 

Jay Feldman  14:43

Yeah, the next one, I would say which relates with the fasting is digestive health. So one of the main things that will inhibit our energy production, the ability to convert that fuel into energy in the mitochondria is going to be certain products from gut, especially very irritated, stressed gut, and an imbalanced microbiome. So when we're in that sort of state, there are certain compounds produced by bacteria in the gut, one of the primary ones that's talked about is called endotoxin, which is a more colloquial name for what's called lipopolysaccharide, or LPS is a component of bacteria. And it really effectively inhibits our capacity for energy production at what's called the electron transport chain in the mitochondria, basically, the main site of where we produce ATP. And this is pretty universal, pretty well known. This is the main thing responsible for sepsis. And the, the often, you know, intense state of what happens there oftentimes death as a result of really intense infection and someone who's immunocompromised. And we're, of course, not talking about something that severe, but this compound, the LPS is what's responsible for that. And so, what's found is that low levels of endotoxin, or moderate levels, I should say, are still associated with diabetes, insulin resistance, pretty much I mean, cardiovascular disease, pretty much any kind of degenerative chronic state. And that's because we can be dealing with this on an ongoing basis, and just constantly being at an inefficient state of mitochondrial respiration. So what that brings us to is this massively important feature of health, which is our digestive health. And so I would say, as a second pillar here we have trying to optimize our digestive health. And that can look different for different people, depending on what our issues might be. But I would be thinking about things like making sure that our stomach acid, bile flow, and digestive enzymes are all in a really good place. So we're breaking down the food that's coming in, and then making sure that we have a good healthy microbiome that's well balanced. We don't want to have overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine, which should be relatively sterile. That's where we break down and absorb most of our food. And then the indigestible food goes down to the large intestine. And there, it's normal to have bacteria. But we want to make sure there's not too much, and especially not too much of the wrong types. And if there is we can have excessive amounts of this endotoxin that then enters into the bloodstream, it causes intestinal permeability, just by being in the large intestine, enters into the bloodstream and is essentially poisonous for us. And, again, we see that in these conditions, it's used pretty reliably in studies as a way to test you know, something's able to protect the mitochondria against something like LPs. So I would say this is our second pillar, there's a lot to go into there. But we're talking about fasting before. And I think there are some benefits of fasting, one of them is this relief from these gut issues. If we're producing a lot of endotoxin on a regular basis, and then we fast, we're going to feel a lot better. And understandably so. And it can lead to a lot of great benefits, people might notice this, not only in terms of body composition, but maybe energy or mood, maybe certain autoimmune issues or skin issues, there can be a lot of relief here. And my preference would be for us to try to have that same outcome without the fasting without the inherent stress this that's involved. And just by improving the state of the gut. I

 

Philip Pape  17:58

love how you put that really I haven't heard it put so clearly that way, because there's a lot of anecdote about fasting and beautiful benefits. And I used to fast one day a week, you know, hated it, it was a forced thing. And I was like, oh, yeah, I feel this clarity, and it feels so great. And then I'm, I'm ravenous, and of course, ate all my calories back and stuff like that, as back in the day. And I hear people still swear by it. But like you said, you know, short term, it gives you this false sense of maybe not false, if there is actually some relief, but like you said, you can get that without the fastening or the stress of the fasting. I did want to ask about body composition and fat loss. Overall, when you talk about the ATP production from the electron transport chain, we don't have to get into like Krebs cycles and all that. But when energy is released on fat cells, right? The fatty acids are released via enzymes, and all that happens there. Does the inhibition of the electron transport chain from the endotoxins? Then, you know, simply reduce the amount of energy you're getting for performance, right? Because the lack of ATP? And then what's happening to the byproducts since they're not getting converted into energy source? Yes, I think this

 

Jay Feldman  19:05

is it's such a great question. Because this is crucial when we're talking about body composition and weight loss. The the general perspective is, if we want to lose body fat, we need to eat less and exercise more, we need to just burn more calories than we're expending. And we're missing a lot there. And I think we really want to shift our frame framework when we're talking about the storage of body fat away from this sort of simplistic equation, and toward something that captures the nuances a little bit more. And so the way that I would think of it is we have this fuel coming in, right? That's the food especially carbs and fats, because we know that protein is not used as much as a fuel right? It's more of a building block. And there's a number of areas that that fuel can go it can also be used as a building block, right? Fats are integral structural components in all of our cells. But then it can either be converted energy, or it can be stored with carbohydrates. We could store it as glycogen in our liver muscles. With that, we can also store some of it in our muscles. But mostly we'll store it in our adipose tissue, and our fat stores. And what we often think is we convert all of the food that we take in into energy until we don't need more ATP. And then it gets converted to body fat or it gets stored at that point. But we don't actually often recognizes if there are things partially inhibiting our energy production, partially inhibiting that conversion from fuel to energy. If that engine isn't working properly, we can get spillover into body fat, even when we don't have enough ATP, even when we don't have as much energy as we could. And that's often what's happening in people who are getting a lot of body fat, they've done the dieting over time, they're not ending up with a lot of energy, they aren't feeling energetic, they don't have ATP. Instead, they're dealing with oftentimes number, a number of symptoms, and they're storing body fat at the same time. So when we just say you're eating too much, you're not exercising enough, we're ignoring all these parts in the middle. And we're ignoring that there can be things blocking our capacity to produce energy. And if we resolve those, we can even eat more and converted more effectively to energy and still have less distorted body fat. So when we take that paradigm, it can really shift the way that we think about body composition, the way that we think about gaining or losing body fat,

 

Philip Pape  21:18

for sure, yeah, absolutely. And if I were to put it into a little picture for the listener, like, I'm thinking of a fork in the road, right, where you either have this energy production for ATP, or you have fat storage, and normally they're wide open. But now imagine like a clogged artery over here on the ATP side, where it's just like barely squeezing through, everything else has to go the other way. And the fat storage increases. So yeah, like you said, your, your body isn't efficient at that point. And that that could be causing the gain body fat. And I'm assuming it also looks like a reduction in expenditure, as well, when that happens. Typically,

 

Jay Feldman  21:52

yeah. And it also leads to then increased hunger and cravings. Because oats sensors are energy dependent in our liver and our hypothalamus of our brain, there's a number of things that are sensed, but the most important one most fundamental one is how much ATP is there. If there's not very much ATP, even if we're eating a lot, we're still going to be hungry. And that's where we can be in that state where we can eat, you know, we can binge, we can eat a, you know, whole batch of cookies or brownies or something and still feel like we can eat more, even though we're feeling really physically full. That's because we're not converting that food effectively to energy on a regular basis, we're storing a lot as body fat, and that hunger is constant. And that if we don't address something like that, it's it's just an uphill battle. And people move their whole lives like that. I know, I lived like that for a long time. And it's, it was night and day difference for me when I recognized that that didn't have to be my relationship with food or just my life.

 

Philip Pape  22:46

Right. So I know, this could be a complicated subject related to the endotoxins. What is a general prescription right or approach here that that combats that. So the first thing is, let's identify

 

Jay Feldman  22:57

any digestive symptoms that we noticed, because those are often tied with these different problems. So if we're noticing gas, bloating, in frequent stools, or leaning on a constipation side, or on the other side, due to frequent loose stools, any of those things often indicate some sort of microbiome imbalance. And so the first thing there is let's create a diet or let's shift our diet to a way that does not trigger those symptoms. So we're minimizing the gas and bloating, we're minimizing this fluctuation in terms of stool consistency, or just, you know, rebalancing it or or reorienting it toward a good spot, that would be the first thing. And that can look different for certain people. But there's a couple of universal principles. So the first is certain foods are going to be much more likely to feed bacteria. So if we have an overgrowth, we'll want to reduce those. And certain foods are much easier to digest, we break them down very easily we absorbed them, men have to worry about the endotoxin so much. So what I would do there is I would, I would take some of the harder to digest foods, try to reduce those, and that's typically going to be raw vegetables, as well as whole grains and nuts and seeds. Those are some of the main ones that have a lot more fibers are a lot harder for us to break down and are much more likely to feed the bacteria. And instead we can favor you know cooked roots and tubers, potatoes, parsnips, those kinds of things, carrots, and then you know, fruits, which can also be like dried fruit or fruit juice, making sure that those are really ripe. We can also do cooked vegetables. You know, on the grain side, there's still some that can fit in there. So I would actually favorite white rice over brown rice for this reason, this digestibility concern. And that's by the way, why things like white rice were eaten traditionally and have been for hundreds of years despite a huge amount of effort that goes into producing it or processing it from brown rice. It's you know, we're talking about individual grains here that each have to have their whole brand removed. So those are the types of shifts that would make just just as a start. in place, that can often lead to a lot of relief.

 

Philip Pape  25:02

So stop the presses, right? Because you're saying potentially less fiber. I mean, that's some people are getting here here. But and then people are always told, Well, maybe they're not eating enough fiber. And I'm sure it's highly individualized depending on if you're having these symptoms and what's working for you. But what are your general thoughts on that, like fiber recommendations of whatever it is today, 14 grams, or 1000 calories, like just as a pure number, and the benefits of fiber versus what you're suggesting here, which I totally understand. Yeah,

 

Jay Feldman  25:29

so for one, this isn't necessarily the permanent diet, what it might look like. But this is if we're dealing with these endotoxin issues, it's kind of like providing the relief that we get from fasting, but also providing all the nutrients we need, and not getting, you know, not getting this constant flood of endotoxin all the time. So short term, this can look like less fiber, for sure. And it will depend on the individual. So, you know, I did mention whole fruits and vegetables, which have fiber in them. Some people even need to reduce those or reduce the ones that have more fermentable carbohydrates, more fibers in there, because there's such imbalance in the microbiome. So first thing is let's provide relief, let's not feed the issue, then will work on rebalancing the microbiome. And sometimes even just not feeding issue will do enough. Sometimes we need to go in and provide some extra support to clean things up. And then we can start to bring those foods back in at least favoring the fibers from Whole Foods and cooked vegetables, I still would be I'm still not the biggest fan of the whole grains. Without processing, I think that we're much better off if we're talking oats, for example, doing sprouted oats, because there are what are called anti nutrients. There are these chemical defensive compounds in the grains, nuts and seeds that are developed by the plants to prevent mammals from eating them. And these are things that actually can encourage the growth of harmful bacteria that can inhibit protein and starch digestion, to create a number of issues and testimony. And so I still think if we are going to bring those things back in, we want to do it and prepare them Traditionally, when we look at any traditional cultures that were eating these foods, they were either fermenting, or soaking and sprouting. Because they knew that this would make them more digestible and more absorbable. So if we were to bring those things back in, I would still want to use those sorts of techniques, which you can find, you know, it's not like you have to do it yourself. There's a lot of products that that are already done for you. Yeah.

 

Philip Pape  27:27

Yeah, it's interesting. Because I know there's always been a debate, I used to be hardcore, like paleo, and I know, the, you know, ancestral approach and talking about vital toxins or anti toxins, whatever you just said to anti nutrients. And there was another one. And there's always been a little bit of debate on that. But I think there's a, what you're talking about is maybe more reasonable approach as to why they could be an irritant for the gut. And do this do some sort of elimination approach is always a good at least individual strategy, right to experiment and see if that helps. And I would say, anybody who's listening who's skeptical, like, just try it, right? Like, if you're having issues, that's all you can do. If it didn't work, it didn't work, right. Like then you can yell at Jay cinnamon, send them some hate mail, and, you know, but no, it's all good. Okay, was there another pillar we wanted to address before we get into some other side topics? I

 

Jay Feldman  28:16

mean, I bet we'll kind of come through them as we go. You know, I think there's a lot to talk about in terms of stress and, and finding that balance, making sure not overdoing it, overtraining over, you know, not getting enough sleep, all of those things, but I'm sure that'll kind of come up as we go. Okay,

 

28:31

my name is Lisa. And I'd like to Big shout out to my nutrition coach Phillip pate with his coaching, I have lost 17 pounds, he helped me identify the reason that I wanted to lose weight, and it's very simple longevity. I want to be healthy, active and independent until the day I die. He introduced me to this wonderful app called macro factor I got that part of my nutrition figured out along with that is the movement part of nutrition, there's a plan to it and really helped me with that. The other thing he helped me with was knowing that I need to get a lot of steps in so the more steps you have, the higher your expenditure is and the easier it is to lose weight when it's presented to you like he presents it it makes even more sense. And the other thing that he had was a hunter guide and that really helped me so thank you.

 

Philip Pape  29:15

Okay, yeah, because the next two big things I want to cover are the stress like you mentioned and also the energy side of it in terms of cognitive emotional behavioral health, right? Like you know, mood and stuff like that, how it affects mental health because I've I really big now into the you know, the link between the physical and mental and just the huge benefits for mental health when you can optimize all these things. So let's start there. Let's just start there, like how does it intersect with mental health whatever that means to you, whether it's anxiety, depression, and that side, or if it's just, you know, mood and energy.

 

Jay Feldman  29:46

I think you're you mentioned the most important thing here, which is that there is not this separation between our mental health, our mood and then includes things like depression, anxiety, OCD, like the whole spectrum there. That It's not separate from our physiology. Even if we're talking neurotransmitters in the brain, those are also directly affected by everything else going on. And that's also affected by movement and exercise, it's affected by sleep, it's affected by nutrients. So the first thing is recognizing that relationship. And the massive importance there that I don't think can be understated is that that gives us some agency back, right, we're not necessarily just stuck with these things, and forced to solely rely on medications, or to be at the will of some someone else's help, there are things that we can do to really improve our state. And so that I think is the first point that is that that is just really important to recognize that relationship. And we see that in a number of ways, right? So when we look at brain health, there's a couple of things to recognize, we're talking about metabolism, we're talking about energy production, our brain is by far our energy hungriest organ, right? It only weighs two to 3% of our total body weight, and it's using 20, or even more percent of all of our energy that we need. So it's like, that's huge, right. And so if we're having a problem with our capacity for energy production, it will typically affect our brain. And that can mean our cognitive function, how well we can think about something, it can also mean, you know, if we're feeling a little foggy, if our memories and great, but it also directly affects our mood. And that's not just because of the brain energy, but also because of the hormonal state that our bodies in so you kind of talked about this with the fasting. You know, I think we've all felt hangry. Right. And I think that's, that's like the the clearest one, right? We've gone too long without eating. That's this app play, right? We've increased the stress hormones, because we haven't eaten enough. And those don't feel good, they make us irritable, they make us angry, we typically don't have a lot of energy at that point, it's not like we're ready to go for a workout, or we want to sit down and crank out some some sort of really creative assignment or something, we're typically feeling the opposite, right? All we can think about is food, it doesn't feel good. And that's in more of the acute sense. But we can have this kind of thing over time as well, that really affects us on a day to day basis in terms of how we're feeling. And I think another place people feel it hormone wise, and this is, unfortunately less of the case for men, but women with their cycles can tell how much the physiology affects their mood. And the reason I say it's unfortunate for men is because it just makes it a little bit harder for us to maybe empathize, but also just see, like we it's harder for us to see how much our hormones can affect our mood. And maybe somebody who's had low testosterone and tries TRT will notice that kind of Stark, this difference, stark contrast, but it's hard to understate how much the hormones can affect mood. And, you know, I've known women who worked with women who were on birth control, and didn't realize how much those hormones were affecting them, and they got off, and we're like, wow, I was anxious, like, I was really, really anxious. And that wasn't just me, that was these hormones and their effect on on me mentally. So those are just some examples that kind of go to show how much our physiology can affect our brain. But we see this in terms of our brain metabolism as well, you know, increased lactate production, which is a sign of inefficient mitochondrial respiration, and a lower ATP levels, increased oxidative stress, those are all things that are seen in pretty much any degenerative or chronic brain issue, not only in the brain, but also elsewhere. And so this is part of why improving our lifestyle, even just the most basics, trying to get enough sleep, trying to eat consistently and get good nutrition and shift the types of foods that we're eating, getting consistent movement. They go a really long way, when it comes to brain health. And, and maybe we'll dig into some details too. But that's just kind of a starting place. I

 

Philip Pape  33:48

think it's a great starting point. Because the idea that it gives you agency, like you said, all these things have a physical, physiological chain, you know, a cascade that links together and you don't, you know, if you're listening to this, you don't have to understand all the biology underneath just kind of the beginning in the end, and know that your choices can help. But like the comment about the birth control, I've seen that firsthand with women in my lives. And it's been profound. I mean, and then in some cases, people will, you know, maybe not change their lifestyle, but they'll try something like ashwagandha, and they see this huge change in like what's going on with just some little herb. Right? And which I want to ask about that. But um, yeah, the brain being the hungriest organ of the body is a great way to put it right? Because when you lack energy, everything gets conserved. Like your body just goes into the state of okay, I only have so much budget, I'm gonna dole it out where it needs to be. And by the way, the brain is this massive, you know, selfish thing that's needs all that energy, so we're going to drop it. So then how do you get that agency and take advantage of it to improve the brain health?

 

Jay Feldman  34:49

Yeah, so I mean, one of the toughest things when we're talking especially about the more intense mood disturbances, you know, talking depression and and It's, you know, intense anxiety, things like that is it can make it really tough to implement, you know, any sort of intervention chicken and egg situation. Yeah, totally. But yeah, so as I was saying, we've got the foundations, right, let's, if we want to keep it super simple, let's start to eat whole foods and maybe based on digestion, which there is a pretty high relationship between gut health and brain health, recognizing that and most serotonin is produced in the gut, is something that, you know, I think just gets us to think about the impact of, of hormone xenons, and brain health. But also, I think, people maybe recognize, maybe not so much, how slow motility and then having bowel movements, how that can relate with our mood, I've had a number of people mentioned that were when they get their motility going, it actually has a direct impact on our mood. So lowering endotoxin, you know, I guess, I'm kind of going intentions of starting with whole foods, and I was gonna say was really easily digested ones that I was talking about earlier, and maybe keep it down in terms of the grains and, and harder to digest foods, the raw vegetables and everything. I think that can go a long way. Sunlight is a big one. So like moving getting outside for, I mean, you can put a target every day, do you think setting a very specific goal is always helpful. So maybe that's just getting 20 minutes of sunlight a day. And if we pair that with a movement, you know, just walking outside, I think that we can check two boxes there. And so I think those kinds of things make a big difference, we're gonna check

 

Philip Pape  36:29

three mindfulness walking, meditation, right? To do it off, let's keep going. And,

 

Jay Feldman  36:35

you know, we're talking about blood sugar earlier, and that directly relates here, because we can talk about in terms of feeling hangry. And we can kind of joke about that. But there is a direct relationship between where our blood sugar is at and how much carbohydrate we're getting in, and the stress hormones and then can't, you know, we can have that same relationship with mood. So people might think of it, I think we almost take it for granted, right? We'll talk about it as like a pick me up or something. But physiologically, we're making a difference. If we, you know, ate five hours ago, and we're trying to push it, you know, we're, maybe we're just not prioritizing that next meal. But we get a cut, you know, we eat an orange or something or a banana to bring that blood sugar up, we're decreasing the stress in our entire body, we're directly turning down that cortisol. And that can make a big difference when it comes to shifts in mood, and decrease anxiety as well. When we talk anxiety. There's a strong relationship with the stress hormones. And if we think adrenaline if we think we had too much coffee, we're jittery. We're we're feeling like there's there's like a moderate anxiety there. And that same thing can happen if we're under this chronic stress. And bringing in some carbohydrates is the best way to turn that down. So just paying attention to getting consistent nutrition in getting enough calories and can can make a really big difference. And, again, another place we're talking about, like cuts earlier, most people don't feel too good when they're doing a cut, especially if you're talking like you know, before a bodybuilding competition, if you talk to people in that state, like they're barely hanging on, and it's just like, everything is just focused on that, because you really don't feel good. And so we kind of want to do the opposite of that and provide that our brain with the fuel on a consistent basis so that it can function optimally.

 

Philip Pape  38:17

Ya know, it's always good to point out that bodybuilding and getting lean, even just a regular fat loss phase. It's a temporary kind of, quote unquote, extreme, not extreme, but I mean, it's pushing toward the edge of that normal curve of where you want to live your life. Normally, and you're making those trade offs, you can make them easier. Of course, we talked about that a lot. But so you mentioned increasing Whole Foods that are easily digestible, totally makes a lot of sense in the sunlight and combining that with multiple things like potentially walking, and that's great. Carbohydrates, the eating of fruit eating fruit is is amazing. I'm telling clients more and more, I'm like, fruits, great. Enjoy it. And also it's a great snack, but even during fat loss, right, like oranges on the top five, high satiety foods, like people are surprised by that oranges and bananas and apples. The, you know, man, I'm fumbling over my word, if you have a craving of sweet tooth, right? They say that. And like you said, maybe it also has this benefit on energy and just feeling good. It's you know, three in the afternoon, you get hangry This is the time when you habitually go to grab those chips, get some grapes, get get a banana, whatever, you know, is the best for you. That's just my side side comments. But you mentioned movement. Where does strength training come into this? Because we want to segue into acute versus chronic stress. And to me, you know, strength training is one of those wonderful, acute stressors that we do. But there may be others that you want to address, you know, hormesis I think we call it right, acute stress versus chronic stress and the impact on health.

 

Jay Feldman  39:43

Yeah, so when it comes to movement just as a starting place, there's kind of two categories here and they're kind of independent. So one is not being sedentary, and the other is about service, more intense movement. And surprisingly, they're kind of independent, meaning that if we get work out in four days a week or even on every day, for 30 minutes, an hour, hour and a half. But we're sitting the rest of the day, we're fully sedentary, there are still major negative effects to that being sedentary that are not made up for by the concentrated exercise. So on one hand, we want to make sure that we're not sedentary, that we're moving on a regular basis. And of course, so many people now have sedentary jobs. So I'm not saying we need to get a new job as a construction worker or something like that. But rather, let's just, you know, set a timer every hour. And let's get up, walk around for five minutes stretch a bit, let's you know if we can get a sit stand workstation, maybe even a treadmill desk, things like that, just to increase the amount of movement we have during the day. If we get a good lunch break, let's maybe take a 20 minute walk at that point outside and get some of the mindfulness meditation in which I think can go a long way during a workday especially. So that'd be the first thing is let's make sure that we're not sedentary. And again, that doesn't mean we need to literally be moving all the time. It just means we need to break up the times during which we're sitting. That's that's the main thing. Or even I guess standing to normally when we're standing, we can move a bit more. But just standing still, for a long time is not ideal, either. Yeah, yeah, I'm

 

Philip Pape  41:12

standing right now as we record this, but you can see me fidgeting, and after we're done, I'm gonna have to move around. I love that distinction, because I've seen very interesting cases, right, where you'll have a dude that's been lifting for 20 years, lots of muscle mass trains five days a week. And as a desk job, it's 3000 steps. And like, you know, they have a high resting heart rate and not such great cardiovascular health, you might have good blood markers, because of the strength training. But it's just this weird dichotomy of like, while you're training, but then you just don't do anything. And all of a sudden, you get the movie, and everything just starts to unlock, you know, in every area, like your metabolism, your how you feel, right, all the things we've been talking about. So I like that distinction, Jay,

 

Jay Feldman  41:57

that you made. Yeah, thanks. And so that's part one. And it's, it's saying one that's easy to overlook, when we're focusing on workouts and strength training, we often don't recognize that the other still being sedentary can be independently harmful and tied with every chronic health issue. Long term chronic health conditions. But then on top of that, I do think having some structured exercises greatest well, it can be lifting. And if we're trying to build muscle, that's one heavy, that's really going to be the best way. It can also be other forms of structured exercise, if we're interested in some sort of sport, you know that that works as well do yoga, you know, tennis, pickleball, swimming, I think the most important thing, there's our doing something, we enjoy it, we can do it consistently, we're creating a healthy habit out of it. And sometimes weightlifting is perfect for that. And we can set our goals and always try to try to, you know, improve every time we're in the gym. And we can get a lot of cognitive and physical benefit from that. For some people, it's just not for them, in which case, I think other forms of concentrated movement can still be really beneficial.

 

Philip Pape  43:02

Give me anybody J, and I'll convince them that it's for them. No, I know, I know, we don't want to do that. But I hear exactly what you're saying. And you got to enjoy it. Whatever it is, you got to enjoy it. That's good for your mental health, too. So don't be sedentary and incorporate intense movement makes a lot of sense. So the opposite of that is like Western culture. And then we want to segue and talk about Western lifestyle culture, including the diet culture and social media, unhealth I know, it's a big thing you talk about, it's obvious to a lot of people, but there might be some subtle things that you want to highlight that are not so obvious. So just tell us about that. What are your thoughts on that?

 

Jay Feldman  43:38

Yeah. I mean, as we talked about sedentary jobs and lifestyles are we talked about the shift in the food system, and what an average diet looks out looks like now versus 50 years ago versus 50 years prior to that. It's, it's funny, we don't recognize how much it changes because we're in it day to day, right? We're in the culture day to day and so we we, you know, we're looking and we're just a snapshot every year, a couple years, you can really see a difference. But nowadays, I don't think like I think we started to lose sight of the fact that it's not normal to be looking down at your phone all day. Or it's not normal, I should say maybe healthier, it wasn't normal to constantly be having some sort of stimulation, right, some sort of input. You know, people have their TV's on all the time. They have Netflix playing all the time. They have podcasts playing all the time. And of course, I'm not saying you know, we shouldn't, either, but guys, do you have podcasts, of course, Podcasts can be great. But you know, we can't be talking about walking or doing the dishes doing anything. We don't have any time or we give our minds a moment to process things. We're constantly giving them inputs and constantly giving ourselves stimulation. Not only is that reduced our attention span and increase distraction made us a lot less effective at being creative and doing really great productive things to help the world out. Yeah, so and even be thinking about that. Like we've we've totally kind of put that aside. And now we numb and distract ourselves all the time. And so I think that's huge. And talking about mental health, talking about mood, I think we are only making those sorts of things worse with the sort of chronic stimulation. So what I think we can all do is try to carve out time, where there's no inputs, no stimulation. And oftentimes, again, we can pair this with something else it can be with the walk, it can be with, doing the dishes, you know, it can be with sitting outside and getting some sun can be with, you know, some sort of like, household chores are a drive, right? If you have to drive somewhere for a little while, and just, you know, be in silence for a little bit, and it's really uncomfortable at first, if you're not used to this, you're going to want to go to your phone, you're gonna want to meet, you're gonna want to play something. But if you can break through that, you know, typically, it's like just the first five to 10 minutes, you'll actually find that you start to daydream, you start to think about new ideas, you start to, you know, review things that have happened over the last week, and actually start to process things. What one area that I think that this shows up a lot, if we aren't doing this is at night, when we go to go to sleep, if we put our head on the pillow, and our mind starts racing, and we're just thinking about what happened that day or what has to happen the next day. There can be different factors. But one of the main ones typically is that we haven't given our mind time to just process the day process its thoughts prior. So that's, I think, the first thing that comes to mind something that can really make a difference, and help to recenter us refocus on us on the things that matter instead of the things that were being given from whatever we're stimulating ourselves and distracting ourselves with. Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  46:44

this is really good advice. A few things come to mind first, as a father, I have two daughters. And one of the things we decided when they were young was they wouldn't even look at a TV till they were at least three or four years old. And it was from you know, some child rearing book we read. And you know, my wife's a stay at home mom, so they don't go, they weren't going out of the house. And it was amazing to see all these years later what that did for them, because to this day, they don't want to watch TV, they watch a movie occasionally with us, but it's like a special thing. And they can just their imagination, their attention span their patients, their you know, ability to just sit and do work for long stretches like on paper. You know, even reading in cursive, believe it or not, is impressive. And I'm like as adults, we can learn from that. And you kind of mentioned that. The second thing is when I go for walks, a lot of times I listen to podcasts, but sometimes I don't. And when you don't, you start to come up with ideas, right? And for me, like I can't help but do something. So I started talking out loud, but I think it's still you still kind of processing right? The third thing comes to mind is a lot of people like to journal, I'm not a huge journaler. But I know when I've sat down and just written on it in a notebook with a pen. There's something visceral about that experience that calms you down and gets rid of distraction. So for those listening who are like, yeah, maybe I should try that. And that would help me. And then the last thing is, is going to sleep thing you mentioned, what would you say is there like a pre bed ritual that you like, that's kind of simple for people to do. So if we're,

 

Jay Feldman  48:10

if we're facing the issues describing like the racing thoughts kind of thing. I do like everything you mentioned there, so we can have fully uncarved time like time just to let the mind wander. But sometimes it's helpful to have structure there and do something like journaling, or some people it is like a conversation with themselves out loud, as opposed to actually journaling. So I think having time to wind down in the evening is crucial. And maybe that starts an hour before bed, I would say at least where we're starting to turn the lights down in the house. If we aren't using devices, we try to put the red filters on there, which most devices have those now to reduce the blue light, which tells our eyes that it's daytime, ideally, unplug from pretty much any device at that point. Anyway, I think watching TV until we go to bed is typically not not ideal, you know, at least give yourself a window between when you watch TV and when you go to sleep. And during that time. I think intentionally winding down with something like journaling can be really good. I think that can help a lot. I think meditation I think reading can be a good one for some people that can fit in that category of still like kind of stimulation. So that can kind of vary, but I think all of those would be generally good practices.

 

Philip Pape  49:20

Yeah, no, I love to read to I have a Kindle, but it's the E Ink type Kindle with like the red light on it. What you just alluded to those if we're reading like a crime thriller or something in some, you know, psychopaths was murdered. It could wire you up before you go to bed versus some more calm. So like try to find a good spot to stop when you go to sleep is my thought. Cool, man. So I think with the time left, let's just talk about one more topic today because I we mentioned it before a lot of my clients and listeners, especially women are interested in thyroid function and around that. So we're kind of just jumping to that in a jarring way here to try to understand a little bit more the effect of lifestyle I'll diet on thyroid because it seems so prevalent that their thyroid issues people on thyroid medication, we know it's directly affects metabolic rate. And you get the like, well, I'm getting older, it's the hormones, I just can't lose weight kind of conversations. How do we turn that around and get some agency like we talked about before? Totally.

 

Jay Feldman  50:18

Yeah. So as I think I mentioned earlier, the thyroid is a gland, but it acts as our metabolic dial. So when we're in a sub optimal environment, if we're just not, you know, for eating low calories over time, if we're eating low carbs, if we're doing fasting, if we're overtraining, excessively exercising, we're really low in certain nutrients. Our thyroid is one of the main sensors there, and it decreases how much thyroid hormone it produces, which does decrease our metabolic rate. There's also regulation at the conversion of thyroid hormones. So we have an inactive thyroid hormone called T for an active one called T three. And the conversion between those two is also dependent on all these factors for when we're under stress, we get less thyroid hormone production, and less conversion, so less active thyroid hormone. And this is all really helpful, very adaptive, right? If we're in a famine situation, and we think about this, evolutionarily, I just think it's helpful thought exercise. If we're in a famine situation, we don't want to use as much energy as we were prior, because we won't make it through that famine, we want to conserve energy, we want to turn down our metabolic rate, so we can make it through. That's great for survival, it's not great for feeling really good. It's not great for having great digestion and great brain function, and being able to do the things that we do in our modern day. So what we want to make sure we're doing is signaling the opposite, right signaling or of the abundance in terms of being able to activate the thyroid hormones and produce them. And so, as you were saying, this is becoming incredibly common at with ages by hypothyroidism, meaning low thyroid production, low thyroid conversion, although that's not often even looked for is becoming incredibly common. And what that tells us is that our modern lifestyle, diet stress, and all those things like asleep, is telling our bodies to turn down their metabolic rate. The good news, as you said is we can reverse that it just requires some intervention requires some intentionality. And pretty much everything we've been talking about today is going to apply. For example, eating consistently, getting getting enough carbohydrates, getting enough calories, improving that efficiency of converting food to energy, minimizing endotoxin production from the gut. Another one we didn't talk about as much is the different types of fats. So the polyunsaturated fats, and oftentimes, we'll hear people talking about the seed oils now that are very high in Omega sixes. These fats are pretty effective at blocking certain aspects of thyroid hormone production and conversion, as well as on the more fundamental level interfering with our energy production. And maybe that's a topic for another time to explain how that's happening. But just like that can make a big difference as well, trying to minimize the polyunsaturated fat consumption from the vegetable and seed oils, you know, choosing things like olive oil and coconut oil and butter to cook with instead, if we're using a fat to cook, avoiding fried foods, avoiding most processed foods that have those oils, and that could go a really long way. So it'd be a few things that again, when we're looking at thyroid hormones, it's going to be affected by everything in our environment. So we perceive low calories as stressful, we also perceive a lack of sleep as stressful, right? If we're only getting four to six hours of sleep, or let's say even just six hours of sleep on a regular basis, that's something that our body interprets as something is not ideal. Something's interfering with us being able to get get enough sleep or get the sleep that we need. So that is also going to act as as that kind of same signal. And not only does that affect the thyroid, but then we see the effects on insulin sensitivity, we see the effects on reproductive hormones, we see the effects on body composition. So we can look at this anywhere in our environment. There's pesticide relationships with thyroid and interference with iodine uptake in thyroid hormone production, at the thyroid gland. nutrient deficiencies can be a factor here as well. So you know, if we're talking to Whole Foods, normally we'll have those things covered. But if we're not getting enough selenium and zinc and vitamin A, those are going to be prerequisites here. And so we have this confluence of factors kind of acting against us in our modern world. It's like No wonder we're seeing a hypothyroidism is, I guess, an epidemic. But there are a lot of things that we can do if we're just again, for the most people just focusing on the basic fundamentals gets us so far. Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  54:31

the ad the ad 20 that we talked about earlier, enough energy, enough carbs, very important because there is a message of like, low carb is going to solve all your hormone issues in perimenopause kind of theme out there, which doesn't seem to apply. I mean, I've seen it firsthand with so many female clients who are just like dragging and a little bit of carbs and all of a sudden everything you know, feels great, so I have nothing against it whatsoever. Okay, so yeah, a lot of things to think about with the Yeah, the oils and the sleep. Keep in all the other things that cause stress. And then there's the one percenters. Like you said, maybe if you've done everything, and you're still wondering if there's more you can do. And of course, I'm sure you can reach out to Jay and watch and read his stuff to get more detail on this. So I like to ask this of all guests. Jay, before we sign off, what one question Did you wish I had asked? And what is your answer?

 

Jay Feldman  55:18

Oh, man. I mean, I think we covered a lot of, of different things here, I guess. So there's one thing that we breezed over, which was the kind of stress hormesis conversation. So maybe one thing I would point out there, but have a have a nugget, something that we could maybe reconsider their, the way that I view it is that there's a lot of things that can be stressful, that are beneficial. That doesn't mean they're beneficial because of the stress they cause. So when we're talking about exercise, I think there's a ton of benefits to it, in terms of the muscular stimulation. And you know, McKenna transduction that goes on, or the act of mechanical tension, that tends to drive the muscle growth, there's benefits to circulation and lymphatic flow, and of course, the mental side. But I would say that the actual stress that's caused the energy depletion and the cortisol, those aren't actually responsible for the benefits. And so they can kind of shift the way that we think about certain interventions. And what it really means is not that we don't want to exercise. But in general, we don't want to be favoring stress, we don't want to do something just because it's stressful. And instead, distress is something that we want to make sure we recover effectively from and try to mitigate. Whereas the other aspects are, are really great ones. And so what that means, I guess, in some practical terms would be the things that like the fasting, and periods of calorie restriction, and things like that aren't actually beneficial because of the stress they cause. But rather, you know, we talked about the intestinal relationship there and endotoxin relief as a major factor. Again, when it comes to exercise, what this means is, our goal is not to just burn as many calories as possible in an hour, through some, you know, high intensity training or just running on the treadmill, not to say that there's not a place for those things. But the goal is not just burning calories. Rather, the goal is the effects on our musculature and our fascial system. The goal is the effects on our circulation on our metabolic rate, those kinds of things. And I think that can help. You know, there's intricacies there, but maybe that's just a bit of a tease in terms of some ideas there.

 

Philip Pape  57:15

Yeah, I hear I understand. You're saying what the nuances are right? We don't do the stressful thing. Because of the stress, even though they cause stress. We do it for many other things. And it's good to have those, those things to pursue and drive us to, including that they're fun, like we said before, so where man can listeners look you up that where can they find out more about you and your work?

 

Jay Feldman  57:33

Yeah, so I know, we touched on a ton of different topics. When it comes to putting a diet together. You know, and recognizing, you know, I mentioned some foods that we might want to reduce some ones that we want to increase or include. Sometimes it can be hard to put that together. So I've created an energy balanced food guide to help listeners determine exactly which foods are going to be optimal to help increase their metabolism, help with body composition, digestion, sleep, energy, all the things we talked about thyroid activity or help with hypothyroidism. So it's a one page infographic. And there's a spectrum on there based on how effectively these foods support your metabolism. And then there's a separate spectrum as well, in the case that we are dealing with those endotoxin issues, certain foods that we might want to be a bit more careful with are going to be noted on there as well. So that energy balanced food guide can be found at Jay Feldman wellness.com/guide and is a free guide. So listeners can go ahead and sign up there and and download the guide.

 

Philip Pape  58:26

Awesome. So I'll include that in the show notes. For sure. It's G Feldman wellness.com/guide. The energy balanced food guide one page infographic, and of course, check out Jays podcast as well, the energy balance. I get that right. Yeah, the energy balance podcast. Since you're listening to a podcast right now you can find it and follow it. And it's been a pleasure, man. This is we got into a lot of topics I know. But some good nuances that we probably haven't talked about as much on the show. And listener. I'm sure to learn a lot today. So thank you. Yeah, thanks

 

Jay Feldman  58:52

for having me. Appreciate it.

 

Philip Pape  58:55

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