Even Long-Term Carnivores Are Eating Carbs Again (Here's Why)

So, why is everybody quitting a carnivore diet? And are they quitting a carnivore diet? And if so, what are the main reasons that are drawing them to this? And is this something that you need to be worried about? Hi everybody. I'm Dr. Anthony Chaffy, a medical doctor and longtime advocate for the carnivore diet and longtime user of the carnivore diet. So, in this video, I talk with my good friend Richard Smith about all the different people who are claiming to quit carnivore and what their reasons were and does this hold up in the evidence or in the observed facts. Or were they even carnivore in the first place? Some people say they are, maybe they are not. So, we'll discuss that here today. But also, I want to tell you about the July 4th meetup with Bella Steak and Butter Gang that will be going on the weekend of July 4th in Bosezeman, Montana. and I'll be flying over there from Australia and I really can't wait for it. So, this is going to be a lot of fun. They did this last year as well and unfortunately I wasn't able to make it, but this year I will be able to come by. The meat there will be supplied by Macafferty Ranch. From what I heard, it's an absolutely amazing beef and I'll be trying it for the first time as well, but it's something I've heard nothing but good things about. So, if that's something that you want to check out and attend, then go to sbg.events and get your tickets there. All right, everybody. See you there and enjoy the episode. So, are you going to get sick or die from not eating carbohydrates on a carnivore diet? With me today is Richard Smith, and we're going to discuss that topic. Richard, good to see you. >> And great to see you, man. >> Okay, so um you know, there there have been a lot of people in the last sort of year that and you've addressed this, I've addressed this, but you know, it keeps popping up that people have to have carbohydrates, long-term ketosis is harmful, or just being a long-term carnivore is harmful. even though we have obvious examples of yourself, myself, and many others who have and are long-term carnivores as well. So, what are what are some of the arguments that people are making of why you need carbs? >> Yeah, it's this past year, Anthony, have been I mean, absolutely ridiculous. We've seen the transition of many long-term keto and carnivore advocates uh putting back in high level of carbohydrate and claiming that it's um it's reversed things like leptin resistance uh and um and recovery from hypothyroidism which to me is completely unfounded and and in fact quite the opposite. And maybe we can get into into some of these issues that people are claiming uh and why you know they're not in fact issues at all. Um, you know, maybe we start with with hypothyroidism, for example. >> Yeah. Well, also, you know, it it is important to recognize that, you know, people have been long-term ketogenic, long-term carnivore, why are they only having problems now? Why didn't they have problems 5 10 years ago, 15 years ago for some of them? Why is it that if that everything is going fine and then sort of the wheels fall off? You know, a lot of times you find out that these people actually haven't been ketogenic or carnivore this whole time. Many of them have even admitted to that. Some people who are the proponents of uh getting rid of, you know, not being carnivore, not being ketogenic, were never ketogenic before by their own admission. They said explicitly that they've never done a ketogenic or a carnivore diet. They've never eaten less than 100 to 150 grams, you know, minimum per day. And yet now they're saying, "Oh, I went keto and this happened. Oh, I did carnivore and that happened." Whereas two weeks later they said explicitly they'd never done either. So, there's there's that sort of thing that we have to uh contend with as well is that people are just making things up. Um or they're drinking alcohol or they're using sweeteners or they're doing other things that have nothing to do with a carnivore diet and then they're blaming their other decisions and other bad choices on a carnivore diet. Some of these people even have bottles of alcohol in in multiple, you know, pictures and videos in frame or they have drinks in their hand and oh, I don't I never drink alcohol. then why is there alcohol in all of your your pictures and videos? Um, so, you know, that's something you have to you have to ask about as well is say, you know, look at the source. Is this is this even valid? Does that make sense? Does it pass the smell test? You've been carnivore and ketogenic for 16 years and yet all of a sudden after 15 years, you started having problems. Why weren't you having problems 10 years ago, 5 years ago? Why is it that, you know, Paul Saladino said he had problems after a year and a half, but you're not having problems for 16 years? That doesn't make sense. and those things don't wash. And so there's obviously other things happening to both to both parties. You know, to your your point about hypothyroidism, this is something that is very strange to me because as we've discussed on other other platforms, we had a whole thing about people really want to in-depth look at this. We had a whole thing called, you know, is ketosis harmful? We go into all the data um that that, you know, m Dr. Mcola and so on went into saying, oh, you shouldn't be ketogenic. And we we we looked at these the the best long-term studies on ketogenic diets going spanning two years. They show no deficit in thyroid uh thyroid function or cortisol or anything else. In fact, they find a lot of metabolic improvements and even hormonal improvements. So the data is not there. You have the shorter studies that only span a month and they have 17 diabetic overweight men and they see some little titch in their cortisol and you're like, "Okay, well that tells us everything we need to know about the entire population." Of course, it doesn't. It's not generalizable to the general population. It's not even generalizable to women and it only went on for a month. And so, if you look at the long-term data on in a generalizable population, we just don't see this stuff. Um, but then also specifically for the thyroid, that one's really confusing to me because I have hundreds of patients who have come to me with thyroid issues and it was actually a ketogenic carnivore diet that fixed their thyroid issues. First of all, the leading cause of autoimmune um uh sorry, the leading cause of hypothyroidism in the western world is Hashimotoyroiditis, an autoimmune condition. And as many people have come to discover, a carnivore diet, a plant-free, completely plant-free carnivore diet, ketogenic carnivore diet, um that can actually put autoimmune issues into remission because it removes these plant lectins which are actually known to precipitate and cause autoimmune diseases. And we've known this since the mid1 1970s. You know, top immunologists such as uh Dr. Frerieded in 1991 published a paper saying, "Hey, the body can't actually attack itself. That's false." Um, but what can cause all of these problems are lectins and we've known that they can cause these things since the 1970s and and that's so that's been in the literature in the peer-reviewed literature for decades now. Um, and so I see this in practice where you take people off all plants their Hashimoto's antibodies start coming down and their thyroid function starts going up. You also remove and uh plants obviously um and the important part of that is not only from autoimmune point of view but there's an entire category of plant toxin called grogens that cause a goer which is a which is a swollen irritated uh thyroid that's dysfunctional and so now you're getting thyroid dysfunction from that. Many of them will block out iodine uptake into the thyroid and iodine is required to make um thyroid hormone. So uh you know and the soil is pretty deficient in iodine anyway in Australia it's extremely deficient. So almost every single person that I test their blood work on unless they're eating a lot of fish and seafood they will be deficient in iodine and now you compound that with a blockade of iodine uh from almonds have cyanide. Cyanide will block iodine uptake and you have leafy green vegetables you know such as kale and and broccoli and Brussels sprouts etc. that whole cruciferous vegetable family, they're teeming with these things and those are the ones that people say, "Oh, these are the healthiest." The other ones are going to trash your thyroid uh pretty quickly. And so, you're getting rid of these things and then you're getting all the nutrients that you actually need in an unimpeded bioavailable form. So, you're getting iodine, you're not blocking it out with grogens. You're getting zinc and you're not blocking it out with fetic acid and other anti-nutrients. And you're getting uh selenium um and you're able to absorb that as well. So all of these nutrients and and many more are required for normal thyroid hormone production. And when you eat plants, you're blocking a lot of those out or you're just not getting them in bioavailable form. As you know, there's a study showing that black beans block out up to 75% of zinc absorption and that corn tortillas can block out 100% of zinc absorption. >> Exactly. So zinc is required for the conversion of T4 into T3. And people are saying, "Oh, my T3 is going down." Okay. Well, what about your zinc? People know about selenium, but they never they never think about zinc. And uh the other thing is we have studies showing that and also just physiology textbooks that if you're in a ketogenic state, you don't need as much T3 to produce the exact same amount of ATP energy in your cells because in order to to make ATP, the glucose molecule, you get about 30 to 32 ATP molecules per glucose molecule. And that takes the exact same amount of of T3 as if you were oxidizing fat, which can produce 140 or thereabouts ATP molecules. So you're getting over three times the amount of energy from just eating from from just being in ketosis. And there's so many other advantages as well to energy production such as only needing a quarter of the NAD plus etc. And um and so you are you simply don't need as much. And so studies have actually shown that people can have their T3 go down actually physiologically because they simply don't need as much, but their TSH is is um perfectly the same and T4 is the same as well. So they're still producing exact same amount. Their body's just modulating how much is active. But that's again in the textbooks, but when I see people on a day-to-day basis, I see not only their T4 go up, but also their T3 go up. And I I've see a lot of people that don't have good conversion of T4 into T3. and I correct their zinc and I correct their selenium and get rid of all the grogens and all of a sudden, you know, that comes up as well. So, the thyroid one is really strange because there are so many reasons why going carnivore and getting rid of plants and being ketogenic is actually beneficial. You know, if you are hypothyroid and you just go ketogenic instantly, even if you have the same amount of of T3, it's now much more effective. you're going to produce more energy with that. So, in fact, if you are hypothyroid, the best thing you can do is go ketogenic so that the the T3 that you have available is now more effective. >> Yeah, 100%. And um yeah, I mean, ju just to follow up on that, it's um the T3 production, we see lower T3. We're driven by by by blood test, by results, by numbers. >> Um and the body works very differently when we're ketogenic and carnivore. As you say, less T3 is required because the body essentially becomes more efficient. Um the body will use T3 effectively to um to process glucose through the mitochondrial pyrovvic complex. So when we when we remove carbohydrates, our requirement for T3 becomes less. It doesn't mean that we're now devoid. It just means that um we get more bang for the buck. Just like insulin, when we remove glucose, we have or our requirement for insulin becomes lower. Therefore, we produce less. And we see this with testosterone and things also. The body essentially just becomes more efficient. So driven by by numbers of blood tests can be incredibly deceiving. But as you say, the marker that we look at is TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone. we see that this isn't problematic and therefore the issue with the potentially low T3 being out of range is is no longer a problem because the body becomes more efficient. Um just to add further to to your argument there uh animal proteins very high in iron which is required for the conversion of iodide into iodine. So another part which is essential for the production of of thyroid hormone. um cruciferous vegetables as you say very high in isoththeocyinates which directly compete for the absorption of iodine at the thyroid and another interesting fact that very few people talk in fact I I've never heard anybody else talk about this but it's um high levels of betaarotene from plant compounds so we look at betaarotene as being retinol or vitamin A but it it isn't betaarotene is the plant version of vitamin A but it's not true retinol it's a precursor And in order to convert that the the process is it involves T4. So we need T4 uh to help with the conversion of betaarotene into retinol. Therefore reducing the amount of T4 and its availability to to convert further into T3. But the double kick in the teeth with this is any retinol that we have converted which has now been reduced by over 20 times. So say for example we have 21 units of betaarotene. We're left with one unit of retinol. We've used T4 in order to convert that. And now as a double kick in the teeth any retinol that we have made which is true vitamin A is now used in the conversion of the T4 in or remaining T4 into T3. So now we're not only dividing retinol but we're also dividing in T3. So plant compounds which are very very high in betaarotene along with the consumption of the isothiocyanates and all of these other grogens incredibly problematic. The best thing we can do is remove the plant compounds and eat a true ancestral appropriate lifestyle full of selenium full of iodine and full of iron. All three which help the conversion and production of of thyroid hormone. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you mentioned testosterone. This is one that I invariably see go up in men as well. In fact, hormones generally I see correct. Well, you know, it's it's it's well known in the literature and the medical literature that that men with diabetes or even just insulin resistance have suppressed levels of testosterone. Um, the thought is is that well, you know, a bit of insulin actually makes the LH receptors, luteinizing hormone receptors on your liic cells and your testes more sensitive to the LH and so you get a a boost in your testosterone. So people think, oo, more is better. Okay? No. Because when you get more signal in your body, it actually overwhelms the the the receptors and they say, "No, no, this is too much." You actually downregulate the receptors. It's like if someone were to do cocaine the first time they do cocaine, they feel euphoric and then the next time they need a little bit more and a little bit more to get that same state of euphoria. Um that's tolerance because your body is trying to protect you and say, "Oh, this is too much signal." It starts downregulating the receptors. So if you have half the receptors but the same amount of signal, you're going to get half the response. And so that's what's happening when you overwhelm your system with insulin. So you're just eating carbs all day, carbs all day, and and your insulin is up and it's up and it's up. And as a result of that, actually you're it actually downregulates your LH receptor. So now you're getting a lower expression of testosterone for the same amount of LH. And so reversing that and reversing that insulin resistance, you actually get the sensitivity back for your LH receptors and you actually get more of these LH receptors. So, so now the same same amount of luteinizing hormone will actually make a correspondingly greater amount of testosterone. I see this all the time and I see this happening within months in lock step with the reduction in insulin and um you know women women make testosterone first and that's converted into estrogen in the ovaries. insulin blocks that conversion. So they get elevated testosterone not and reduced uh estrogen levels that can precipitate PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome which is the leading cause of infertility worldwide for women. And it also will drive women into early menopause. And so this is why I see women going into pmenopause or menopause in their third 40s or sometimes even 30s. Just this quick dietary change and getting rid of all the plant toxins that that disrupt your hormones. I invariably see their hormones improve as well and some of them even coming out and and having normalized periods. Most of them actually do normalize their periods, especially with the PCOS or coming into pmenopause sort of state where they may have infrequent um periods but haven't lost them completely. I've even seen some people completely regain their periods even after years of not having them. It's less common, but it does happen. And so I I I just don't see that. And um you know I have I have men that have doubled or even tripled their testosterone. I've had you know couple dozen men that have even been able to get off TRT. They don't have to take testosterone replacement anymore >> because because they've they've just changed their diet. >> Do do you know what I've seen is um when people gravitate so men in particular in towards uh becoming carnivore there's an increase in testo. So, for all the reasons that you said there, >> what I've what I've seen is that long-term fully adapted keto carnivore may see the testosterone start to come back down a little bit, but that is also a perfectly normal response for a number of reasons. One, testosterone is used in the production of red blood cells and we know that when we've been carnivore and proper carnivore or ketogenic for a prolonged period of time, the red blood cells live longer. We know this through the reticular site test. So again, testosterone required to make red blood cells. If we make less because they live longer, then our requirement for the testosterone may be lower. Um, there's also another another argument. Well, testosterone is used in glycolysis. So if we're not eating sugar, potentially we require less. And it's also used in lipolysis or the breakdown of stored body fat. So you know, when we come into this, when I came into this way, Anthony, you know, I was clinically obese. I was releasing lots of this, you know, I was 50 56% body fat. My testosterone went through the roof. Now, my testosterone is still in a very good range, but it's come down from from where it it peaked. And again, I don't have trouble building muscle. I barely train. Same as yourself. You know, work takes over. I train on average in the last year. I've trained one and a half times each week in the last 12 months. And I'm still ripped and shredded and building muscle, you know, very easily. My sex drive is through the roof. I don't suffer with any ill effects of of what would be perceived as low testosterone. And it's again, it's just a natural physiological response. There's there's more bang for the buck, isn't it? The body becomes more efficient. So, we require less of said compound to perform and uh and elicit, you know, the equal response. So, they're all natural responses. But I think this is the problem. This is the danger when we're driven purely by number off a blood test. Same with cholesterol. and you know, insulin, glucose, and and HB1C and all of these things because we're looking at we're looking at a range of of a normal person. >> You and I are not normal, you know, we're not normal. So therefore, should we actually be in the normal person, the average person is a sick person? Is that a range really that we always want to be in? You know, so I think we always need to question um these ranges. And I think that um what I've seen is that the ranges for you and I and for people who have been long-term keto and carnivore may actually be slightly different. And we see it with cholesterol is the perfect example, isn't it? You know, we see um not an increase per se, but a a a um a a reverse back to a natural physiological level because of the reduction of the plant stenols and plant um you know, the seed oils which are effectively artificially lowering our cholesterol. all of these things, we just see this natural gravitation back to uh an optimal an optimal level that you and I would uh would be in. >> Yeah, absolutely. And and you know, you mentioned leptin resistance, which is that one's that one's just crazy to me because, you know, I I treat this I' I've looked at hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people's blood work over the years. I do check leptin and if someone's having stubborn weight loss or they're metabolically ill, I I will check their leptin. And it's it's it's the exact opposite. You know, we see people with these massively elevated leptin levels that they have extreme leptin resistance, which will will suppress your metabolic state. If you have leptin resistance, basically it mean even though your leptin levels are high, it means your brain can't see the leptin. And if it can't and your leptin comes from your fat stores goes to your brain basically tells your brain how much energy you have. It's like a running gas gauge. And so if you have very little leptin or your brain can't see the leptin, it thinks you're emaciated and dying and says, "Okay, we need to slow down our metabolism so we can survive whatever famine that we're in and uh and increase appetite. So we need to eat more and whatever we get in, we need to store it." And so that's that's a hallmark of of a of slowing in metabolism. And so and that's what causes that slow metabolism. One of the factors that causes slowing of the metabolism also elevated insulin does exactly the same thing or slows metabolism I should say. And so you know when you when you have leptin available your brain sees that oh hey we have abundance of this we have abundance of energy. Great let's turn on the metabolism. that's open up these floodgates to start using this energy and build, heal, repair and run and play and mate and reproduce and all that sort of stuff. Um, you know, then it it opens things up. It raises your metabolism. It says, "Hey, we can actually dampen down our our hunger signals and and satiety signals uh change as well." When you block that, it means even though you have high leptin, your brain can't see that. And so your brain, even though you have high leptin, your brain thinks you have basically no or or low leptin. And so you actually suppress your metabolism. So there are six major things that that block leptin and cause leptin resistance. Insulin blocks leptin. Uh fructose, the sweet part of sugar directly blocks leptin, but also you know will raise usually comes with glucose which raises blood raises insulin and also fructose will eventually raise insulin as well. So it hits you twice. Alcohol again will will block it directly and disrupt insulin as well. And then lectins, the plant toxins um that can bind to insulin receptors five times as tightly as insulin. They can do all the things that insulin can do and then some like block leptin. Um and so then you have so right there off the bat, four of those things are addressed on a on a plant-b ketogenic carnivore diet. You've just knocked out four of the main factors in blocking leptin. So some of the the other two being cortisol. So high stress, poor sleep will raise your cortisol and that can disrupt your leptin cause leptin resistance and a slowing of the metabolism, central atyposity, those sorts of things, difficulty putting on muscle and lean body mass. And uh then funny enough, blue light. So all these stupid screens that we're on all the time, these awful things that we have on here. I try to use natural light all the time if I can. It's just getting dark now, so I can't. And so uh but in my office I I almost never have the lights on unless I have to um you know so that that natural light can come in the window and um uh because the blue light the high you know the certain spectrums of blue light actually get into your eyes and actually can block leptin at the level of the hypothalamus and cause leptin resistance and metabolic dysfunction. So it's very serious and um and and most people don't recognize that. But for my patients, when I say, "Hey, go on a carnivore diet, their leptin comes down invariably." You know, there's the there's the odd customer that has very high stress situation. Um, you know, or they've always been a bad sleeper. They only get a few or they have babies and kids and things like that. So, there's just, you know, a three-hour night is is good, you know, and so that's just something they have to contend with when they get out of that situation. Just comes right down. It takes months but it comes down and um and then the light you know I mean I before I even understood about how impactful you know natural light was and artificial light was to us um and and recommended people you know change their their approach to light hygiene. I still saw leptin come right down. I still saw all these improvements happen. And then you add that that in and that that can just help that even further. So, I I have I've never once seen any of these people with massively elevated leptins have that have just come right down to completely normal levels lose all this weight, completely reverse all their metabolic issues and then suddenly somehow just all that just start coming back again and going back the other direction. That doesn't really make sense. You know, if you can undo all these metabolic issues and harms and and reverse all these issues, how are people arguing that those exact same interventions are now just going to all of a sudden start causing the problems that they cured? That doesn't make any sense. >> Yeah, 100%. And it's um yeah, it's a com I it's interesting that you mentioned about the lectins binding to the insulin receptor causing you know more uh leptin resistance, but you're right, it's it's lifestyles factor. What about you know people mention about lack of of glucose for example and our argument is well we make all the glucose we need via glucanogenesis to which their response would be well glucanogenesis is a stress response >> that it's only a stress response if you're new to this way of living isn't it um should we get into that really briefly about the different pathways of how you and I produce glucose via gluconneogenesis through through different pathways Yeah. And you know, and the thing is is that it that you you know, just because cortisol can initiate glucanogenesis doesn't and and and and high stress situations can increase cortisol does not mean that glucanogenesis is a stress state. Those things do not follow. That's not that's not the same thing because you can have cortisol fluctuate for a number of different reasons that have nothing to do with the stress state and is is completely physiologically normal and healthy. Um and that could influence glucanogenesis one way or the other. But the fact of the matter is is that we are making uh we are going through glucanogenesis at all times day and night. Regardless of what we eat, we are making anywhere, you know, from 40 to 60 70 gram of glucose per day when eating carbs. That doesn't stop. We, you know, glucanogenesis is is is happening. And that's because normally our body is saying, "Hey, well, we need to do this to to support this baseline level of of glucose uh utilizing cells such as your red blood cells that don't have mitochondria, and they need glucose because you need mitochondria to to burn ketones. So whe when you stop eating carbohydrates, your body still makes that exact same amount of of glucose. It doesn't change. And so that's not a stress state. And there are multiple different pathways that have nothing to do with cortisol. There's like the glycerol pathway which is the main pathway. So people say well there's a stress state and and you know what you know what you were referring to is we do see in early phases of fasting and that adaptation we do see a marginal rise in cortisol that does not actually go outside of of the physiological bounds. It's still within the normal physiological range. It's just a little bit higher. And when people have metabolic resist metabolic disease and metabolic syndrome that's actually known to suppress cortisol actually have it be too low which is also not physiological. Uh if you have your uh cortisol is too low or gets extremely low it's called Addison's disease which can kill you. So you need cortisol you just need it in a certain range. And so having metabolic illness actually suppresses your cortisol below where you would uh you would want it. And then reversing that metabolic syndrome, it can actually go up normally healthfully because you're actually recovering and improving. And so when you're first going into a ketogenic state, you can have a little bit of a rise in that cortisol. And then after about 72 hours, it starts actually coming down. You go into more of a glycerol pathway. And that that happens when you're burning triglycerides. So you have a triglyceride. So there's a glycerol backbone and three fatty acids. That's your major fat storage uh form. And then you pop off those three fatty acids and you have glycerol. And that glycerol gets turned into uh glucose and glycogen at a set rate. So the harder you work, if you're exercising, you're pumping out uh a lot of a lot of exertion and you have a high energy demand. you're going to start burning a lot of fat. You're going to be popping off a lot of those triglycerides and and making glycerol available. So, you're for you're going to make a set amount of of glucose. You're going to have a set amount of glucose and glycogen available for whatever activity level you are. It just perfectly uh ramps up and matches your exertion level. Um and that costs no uh cortisol. You do not need cortisol for that. In fact, glucagon is the main hormonal driver of glucanogenesis that drives that glycerol pathway. And which is why in hospital settings when someone has taken too much insulin and they're hypoglycemic and they're in a coma because they're their blood sugar so low and they're not in ketosis so they don't have ketones, we don't give them a shot of cortisol, right? To to spark glucanogenesis, right? We give them a shot of glucagon and that bam, all of a sudden they'll wake up in a in a couple minutes. So, you know that that's what's going on. Well, then that then glucagon must be a stress state then. Why? Why? What are you talking about? You're you're saying that glucanogenesis is a stress state. Therefore, anything involved with it is also a stress state. It's just it's circular logic. You know, they say, you know, they they they you know, they're using aspects of the same argument to to prove the core thesis. Um but again you're making you're making blood sugar all the time uh in or out of ketosis you are producing glucose. And the other thing is is that when you know this is this is the misconception people have when they don't sort of look into bio biochemistry uh or just don't know about it. have sort of a you know a you know gym life sort of version of of biochemistry without ever actually opening a book. Um you know they um they think that well when you're when you're working out when you run out of carbohydrates if you're eating a whole bunch of carbohydrates you'll start catabolizing your muscles to try to to make energy and glucose and things like that. Um, if you're eating carbohydrates and your insulin is so high that you've blocked lipolysis and it's physically and chemically impossible to access your fat stores, what else is available? The only thing you can access is your is your protein stores and your muscle stores. When you are in ketosis, you're running on your fat and you actually will never oh, would you run out of carb? You don't you're not running on carbs, you're running on fat. So, you know, you're well fat and carbs, but you're you're producing both from your fat, from the triglycerides. And so, it you will not start uh catabolizing and breaking down your muscles for protein, for energy, um if you're in ketosis until and unless you completely run out of fat. And even a small person 140 150 lb individual with 6% body fat has can only store about 2 2400 kilo calories of energy in their muscles and liver with just eating pizza and pasta all week maximum. But that same 6 kilo six um 6% body fat individual at 150 lbs that 6% body fat has over 35,000 kilo calories of of energy available to it. So, it's over 15 times the amount of energy for a small, slender person. Okay. So, what if you're 240 lbs and 10% body fat like me? I've got over 100,000 calories available. I I don't need to eat this month really. And that's before my body will even touch my muscles 100%. I'm 6%ish and and I still don't eat carb. And the interesting thing there is that you you know, you mentioned about muscle glycogen with the lactate. We we recycle the lactate also >> at a higher rate and we basically we send that lactate. So when we feel the burn in the gym that people chase that that actually shows an inefficiency because it shows an inefficiency of our body to buffer the hydrogen ions. What you and I do is we never feel that burn because we send that lactate to the liver and again through gluconogenesis which is almost uh a reverse glycolysis pathway except for three enzymes I think isn't it? and then we send that glucose back to the muscle at higher rate that we can replenish through dietary carbohydrate. So it's our requirement for an exogenous form is is literally zero. And even if we look I remember um Dr. James D. Nickel Antonio did something recently about um something that I did um which Bart K did a rebuttal to also and it led to this whole thing anyway and I like James he's a nice guy but I just think he's um he's just misinformed with a few things but one of the things he mentioned is the brains requirement and the red blood cell requirement well 95% of the brains requirement of energy can be fueled by ketones given enough time to upregulate the transporters involved uh and the red blood cells if we look at the 25 trillion red blood cells based on the the molecular weight of glucose. You know, we can we can establish that the body's requirement actually for for glucose is is very very low and it's it's around eight teaspoons a day. So, we need one teaspoon in circulation at any one time, but it's around 8 8 to 13 depending on on the person. Um and our bodies in a natural state will produce 20 to 30 through gluconogenesis comfortably and then it it becomes demand driven. If we need more, we make more. So quite literally, our bodies make more glucose than we need anyway. We don't need any exogenous form of of glucose. Yeah. No. Yeah, we definitely don't. I mean, and that and that is obviously demonstrated and evidenced by the fact that there are populations that have never eaten carbohydrates, have never even really had access to carbohydrates, like the Inuit in the in the northern regions of of uh Canada. And you we spoke about this before we came on, but people people argue that, well, if there's fruit available, they're going to eat fruit. Okay? Well, fruit was only available a couple weeks out of the year. So, if you needed carbohydrates year round, that that would not work. We don't have grocery stores. We can't ship these things from Costa Rica year round or different parts of the world where they're in season all over the world. And then we store them and and keep them in um you know sort of you know high nitrogenous low oxygen environments where um you know they won't they won't go bad and spoil for a year 2 years and then you can sell these people so they can have five pieces of fruit every single day even in in in the winter in northern Scandinavia. I mean, that doesn't make any sense, you know, and if you if you needed that, no one would ever have been able to survive in those in those states. And people that are that are predisposed to eating fruit and like it and and you know, maybe it's an addiction, maybe it's whatever, but they're they are pro fruit. They like to make the argument, well, if there was fruit available, people would definitely been eating fruit. How how do you know that? I mean, did you ask them? Were you there 40,000 years ago? Um because when people actually were um involved with the Native Americans, I mean, I I I saw this when I was a kid that that there was a um a New England colonist in the 1500s who wrote this whole letter just marveling at the fact that the Native Americans in what is now southern Canada, and this is during the Little Ice Age, so it was very, very icy, snowy, you know, most of the year. They said that he was just marveling at the fact that they they exclusively ate meat year round. He said, "Look, I get it for 9 months out of the year when there's snow on the ground, ice on the ground, nothing's growing, nothing's fruing, but for 3 months out of the year, you can you can, you know, surely you can find different plants to eat and fruit and things like that." He said, "But they didn't do any of it. They didn't touch any of it. They only wanted meat all year, every year." And so, you know, that's just that's just not um that's just not the case. And so even like the you know the nationalmies of science and and and institute of medicine have even made you know very famous now public um public statement that apparently the amount of carbohydrates that people need is zero for their entire life. >> Yeah. >> Exactly. And so we have populations that have never had carbohydrates and that they see no delotterious effects to their health at all at at all. And so this idea well you know for a while but no no no I mean they they this is recognized by themies of science and institute of medicine that that you get no delletterious health issues if you eat no carbohydrates for the rest of your life providing you get enough protein and fat and the fat is probably the most important one there because there's a fad right now where people are saying you should do really lowfat carnivore. Yeah, carnivore is great, but it has to be low fat because, you know, bunnies are are skinny and all that sort of stuff. People that have never seen a whale or or know what a harp seal is. These are the people that think that animals in the wild are very lean. Um, they they aren't not healthy ones anyway and not the ones our ancestors went after. It's just that we strip off all the fat, all the subcutaneous fat. There's no intramuscular fat because they're healthy. Intramuscular fat is called myostitosis. That's a sign of metabolic disease. And so we feed, you know, grains and carbs to to cows and and sheep and they get myiotosis. They get sick. They get the same thing we get. We get myiotosis. We get sick. So why are we saying that's healthy? Of course it's not. Uh it's not making the animals healthy. It's not making us healthy. But because they see, well, these wild animals don't have all that marbling. They must be very lean. Well, no. They have just as much, if not more, subcutaneous fat. fat around the muscle bodies. It's just that's stripped away or in the abdomen. The um is an organ in the in the abdomen that's entirely made out of fat. The misenter is is the um the the blood supply to the to the intestines. It's entirely covered in fat. Things like that. There's fat around other organs like the kidneys as well. The the just the belly muscles, the the abdominal muscles, there's a lot of fat in in there as well. So that's why I think all these animals are going for the belly first. Oh, they're going for the organs. They're going for the fat around the organs and they're getting the organs as well. But so when you just say, okay, well, you know, I saw a rabbit once and it was super lean. Therefore, everybody in our anc meat and that's about as much evidence as they have. >> And um >> you look at the Inuit, they eat 50/50 lean to fat. I mean, it's like it's like 92% calories from fat, 8% from protein, which actually triggers FGF-21 and makes them burn an extra 400 kilo calories of of fat a day, which keeps them warm. And they even say, "Hey, we need the fattiest meat possible because that's what keeps us warm." So, they're eating a lot of fat. And that's what our ancestors did as well. Pemmkin was 2 grams of fat to 1 gram of protein, 80% calories from fat. And that's where they would take down a buffalo herd. They'd mix this lean with the fat and they get that and they eat that for the rest of the year. the rest of the lean meat they give to dogs, their dogs are leave out as sacrifices and things like that. So they were eating the fat, they prioritize the fat. Now people are not doing that. And so like that, you know, of science says, as long as you're getting enough protein and fat, so they're not getting enough fat. And now they're not getting the energy from the fat, they're not getting the nutrients from the fat, and they can actually start getting unwell from that. If you start using if you use protein for the predominant amount of energy that you're producing, you will have to break down those amino acids and and when you do that, you you break off a nitrogen group which get then gets turned into ammonia and further gets turned into ura. And if you have too much of that protein breakdown, then you can overwhelm your liver's ability to to convert the ammonia into ura and you get a buildup of ammonia. um you know I mean you see this in the hospital people their liver starts to shut down their ammonia levels start uh climbing up because their body their liver can't uh convert that over into ura and so that causes a lot of harm. You can lose your hair. You have very poor energy because this is this is very poor uh energy metabolism. You get very sick and so all of a sudden they say okay everyone was right this whole carnivore thing was awful and ketosis is is a is unsustainable. They add in carbs and now all of a sudden they don't have to they don't have to break down the protein and produce all this ammonia anymore because they're getting energy from another source and all of a sudden they feel better. And of course they feel better because now they don't have protein poisoning and ammonia poisoning. Um but that's because they they weren't eating a proper proportion of lean and fat. And you can do anything wrong. So people say, "Oh, you don't get to say they're doing it wrong." I'm saying you're doing it wrong. If you're doing that, you're doing it wrong. If your ammonia is going up, if your ura is going up, you are doing it wrong. If you're getting sick, you're doing it wrong because you can do anything wrong. Of course, you can do it wrong. If you're not getting if you're not, it's still a balanced diet. It's a balance of all the nutrients you need and and a lot of those nutrients are in the fat and the energy is in the fat as well. So, that's not a balanced diet. Um, so a lot of people can can see that as well. They may and they so they may cut out all the fat, feel horrible, their thyroid tanks, their testosterone tanks, all these other things start getting u uh you know getting um uh damaged and then all of a sudden they adding carbs and oh thank god, right? And um so that does that doesn't surprise me at all, but I don't see any of my patients ever do that when they're eating a highfat well-designed carnivore. Not I've not had one patient who has had any of these issues over you know the hundreds over a thousand people that I've seen directly as a patient as a doctor and checked their blood work and followed them and tracked them and and you know followed their progress. I've never once seen anybody have that issue. I've seen people not want to continue on a carnivore diet for personal reasons. Well, they all say I felt way better. I definitely felt my best, but uh the lifestyle I just don't think that's for me. So yeah, so that that's another important thing to mention. >> Yeah, 100%. And it's uh yeah, you know, we we need the fat protein and fat. It's nature provides us with this perfectly packaged present, isn't it? You know, and if we look at um at you know, what the body uses, what the body's made up of, that every cell in the body predominates minus water, protein, and fat. It it's it's essential, you know, and this is why some people on a high carb lifestyle can do seemingly well for a prolonged period of time because they go low fat, but you you need one or the other. And an ancestral approach is protein and fat without question. >> There's uh >> a number of influencers in the past year that we've seen come away from from carnivore and um you know, they've put carb back in and they feel fantastic. They've continued to do so. Uh >> or say they do >> and yeah, say they do >> because there's a lot of garbage too. I mean there there just just quick briefly interject there are a number of of influencers that clearly have just paid for profiles and um or or ones that they've you know had a marketing team get them up there and um and all their shows are about you know do this and eat this plan here's my cookie recipe and all that sort of stuff and then all of a sudden they're like I went carnivore and I went to the hospital with PCOS. No one goes to the hospital with PCOS. You know, I'm sorry, but this is not this is not reality. And the thing is is that I treat people with PCOS and and I treat them with the ketogenic carnivore diet and it reverses invariably. And I'm I'm not to, you know, downplay anybody's, you know, health health experience and and illness experience, but that bothers me when people are are lying and misleading people and they have pictures of them in the hospital on a on an IV drip because they said they got PCOS from a carnivore diet. You don't need to go on an IV drip if you have PCOS. It's it's a dysfunction of your testosterone and your estrogen in a woman making you uh not be able to ovulate properly. that you you don't need an IV drip in in an emergency room for that. That's not an emergency situation. um you are capable of consuming water and you never give someone an IV IV bag IV water if they can drink right and so u hyper specialized circumstances aside but the ma vast majority if you're able to you know take water orally you do right so I mean and then you look at the rest of their channel and they and they said oh it took me years to recover it took me months and years to recover and all and there isn't a single mention anywhere else in any of their um profile going back years of trying a carnivore diet, having problems with the carnivore diet, having any issues with PCOS, having any problems. Everything's just normal. And then here's a here's a video talking about how bad it was for them. >> But it's >> it's garbage. It's complete garbage. It it seems to be influencers who have healed and repaired the body in multiple ways through living a ketogenic carnival lifestyle over many years. And and and I think we we can look at a hundred things that have been improved, recovered or resolved. >> But then the one thing that still remains, oh well that's because I'm I'm on carnivore or this one issue is because I'm on carnivore. Then they they put the plant compounds back in, suffer with a whole host of issues, mass cell activation, histamine response, um you know, oxalate issues, so on and so forth, and then blame that on the previous 10 years that they've been the healthiest they've ever been and still continue to blame it on on their previous lifestyle, which doesn't make any sense. And and it's you know what what some of the the the influencers I've seen have said is that um you know they've come away from this and they've had this response that going carnivore on keto has made them um allergic to to to certain compounds and that's not the case and and we see this let's use grain as an example when we re when we remove grain become ketogenic and carnivore and put it back in we seem to become when we put the grain back in we become gluten intolerant. that gluten intolerance or that we germa gluten intolerance has always been there and it it works in the same way as alcohol. The first time you drink a bottle of beer or a glass of wine, you feel a little tipsy. The next time it takes more of that drink to make you feel the same state. Before long, you can drink a whole host of beers or bottles of wine before you feel intoxicated and affected in the same way. It doesn't mean that that alcohol isn't causing the damage. It's just your body's ability to recognize that damage has been diminished over the period of time that you've been drinking. And it's the same with the plant compounds. These issues were always there, but your body's ability to recognize the damage is diminished for survival purposes. And that's been an integral part of human survival. So, we've built this this mechanism for for coping with these plant toxins. When we remove them and then start to put them back in, the body goes, "Whoa, you've been feeding me the right stuff for this for this, you know, set period of time. Why are you now introducing these plant toxins again?" So now the early warning alarm systems which have been dis disabled up until now and now able and active. And they say, "Whoa, you know, here's a response, here's inflammation, here's the rash, whatever it may be. Don't put these compounds in. They're not made for me." So, this is this is an early warning alarm system that we have regained our ability to to notice when we put the plant compass back in. It doesn't mean that we've become immune um or allergic to to the plant compounds. That allergy or those those issues were always there, but our body's ability to recognize them has been diminished. And that's simply what's happening. We put the plant compounds back in. We see this mass cell activation exploded in spots, rashes, aches, and pains. This is the plant compounds. It's not the reintroduction uh of uh oh, it's not the the the the the animal lifestyle that has been building up to us that has caused this. It's the reintrodu uh reintroduction of the plant compounds and your early warning alarm systems. This isn't to do with the last decade or 20 years that you've been low carb, ketogenic, or carnivore. This is purely your body's early warning alarm system telling you that it doesn't want these compounds. >> Yeah. Well, and and that's the thing, and you have to look at the timing of it, of course, and and and the really sad thing is is that a lot of these people need help, and they're and they're hurting and they're suffering, and they're and they're going down the wrong path that's actually making them worse, which is really sad because, you know, some of these people are they they had problem X and then they said, "Okay, well, this must be because of, you know, being in ketosis and I need to I need to stop that." And so they stop that and and then they say, "Okay, I feel better for whatever reason." I mean, could even be placebo, but then all of a sudden then they start feeling worse. And then they start getting MCCAST. These planttoxins are are known to cause MCCAST. Oxalates, for example, are a known known factor for precipitating MCCAST, uh, mass cell activation syndrome. So when you haven't had any of that, haven't had any problems with that and then you reintroduce these things and then you get worse and say, "Okay, well well maybe it's that that situation. Well, I just haven't been used to this for a while, but you know, my body can get get used to it." Okay. Well, there's going to be that you start drinking again. You're going to get your tolerance back. >> Why would you keep getting worse? But why would you want to? Yeah. And but but what if you keep getting worse and you keep getting worse and you keep getting worse? And that's unfortunately what what we're seeing for a lot of these people is that they're saying that they're actually getting worse the further away they get from doing a ketogenic carnivore diet and getting away from these plants. Actually, the more plants they have, the worse that they're getting. But they're not actually seeing that it's likely because they're adding these plant compounds, these toxins back into their body that is actually going to make them worse. >> And you're right. Right. I mean the whole all now I'm sensitive to these things. Well, no, of course you're not. This is this is long established and discussed phenomenon that when you stop poisoning your cells and we know these are poisons because our bodies uh treat them as poisons. They try to detoxify them. So these these plant compounds come into our body, they cause damage and our body immediately tries to get them out. They they do not get used for any biochemical process. They do not get used to make any substrate or hormone. they immediately they get in your body and your body tries to get them out. So your body we know that there are toxins because our bodies treat them as toxins and we should really listen to our body about that. And so when you build up a tolerance for these toxins and your body's able to sort of weather that storm a bit or maybe be hypervigilant as soon as it comes in just was able to just scorch them then that's that's great. But now you your body's let down its defenses because it's it's efficient. And it's not going to just have this whole enu uh energy de high energy demand defensive system that's not being used and not needed. You have to be efficient in the wild or you die. And so your body is is hyper efficient. And so you stop eating these plant compounds, these plant toxins for a while. Then all of a sudden they come back in and they can hit you pretty hard and aggressively. And and people notice I' I've been talking about this for nearly a decade. Like this is this is what happens. Also now you're aware of that difference. You know, for all of our lives, we were just this is it. This is normal. And so on our day-to-day life, we had sort of ups and downs, but it was just basically, yeah, that's how we felt. This is normal. And you know, for for a lot of us, normal sucked and we just didn't realize it because that was just stuff. But you we're tired and back hurts and someone have diabetes or skin issues or or weight problems, all these sort of things, but that's just normal. And then all of a sudden, you get all this stuff out of there and all your inflammation's gone. Your back doesn't hurt anymore. The weight comes off, your skin clears up, your hormones improve, you feel like a million bucks, your energy levels through the roof, you just, you know, and your whole life improves, and then you add one thing back in, you're like, "No, thank you. I I I drink one cup of coffee, I'm sore for two days after the gym. I don't get sore at all if I don't do that." So that's why I don't drink coffee because I'm like, "Not a chance in hell." I spent my entire life being sore from playing sports and lifting weights. I was always sore. I was just constantly sore. And I and I gauged my effort level in athletics by how sore I was. I haven't been sore in a decade apart from a couple isolated incidents like I had a cup of coffee and I was sore for two damn days, right? Or we had some um chicken wings we were making at home and someone put like some soy sauce marinade on them before we cooked it and extra short barely taste. I'm like did someone put that on? Does it taste like it's like oh yeah it's a bit of like a little soy sauce teriyak sort of thing. like, "All right." And I I had two of them, but I'm like, "I don't really want more than that." Like, "Thank God I didn't have more than that because like I was sore as hell uh for the next few days after that." So, you know, things like that. And so, you know, I see that contrast of how much better I feel without this stuff. I want nothing to do with that. And so, now these people have that contrast and and they don't have the resistance to those toxins. And so, yeah, it can hit you pretty hard. eventually you'll get used to it again. You know, maybe that's what they're looking for. But some people have very serious issues like mass cell activation syndrome or or these other sorts of things. Um, and they can get very sick and and that's it's just I don't know. I I feel very bad uh for some of these people that get sucked into that because they're they're suffering and they're getting worse, you know, the further away they get into it. It's like it's like these horrible governmental policies and was like, "Well, we need to do this and and we need to spend all these billions of dollars to it." And all the people say like, "Actually, that's going to that's going to cause this problem." And sure enough, it causes that exact problem. They say, "Well, that's because we didn't we didn't fund it well enough. We didn't do it hard enough." And so, you know, they just do it even more. And of course, it has, you know, even even worse results. And then they just keep doing that. And and unfortunately, that's what people do with their their lives and their health sometimes. Um, the other thing I just wanted to mention quickly was, you know, sometimes people legitimately do feel better when they add carbs back in. And that could be for a number of reasons. One, like we talked about the protein poison, not even protein poisoning, but you're just your your fat levels are too low and you're not getting what you need. And you do feel better when you get energy from somewhere and you're not building up this ammonia in your body. The other thing is is that there are a lot of people like for instance these influencers who actually admit they've never done keto or carnivore. They've never eaten less than 150 grams of carbs in a day and then they're trying to say that ketogenic diet didn't work for me and a carnivore diet didn't work for me but they've never done that. Um that's a lot of these guys. Some of them some of them not the case but a lot of these people have absolutely never done either of these things. And the problem with that and why they I have no doubt that they feel like they have more energy is because you get in this no man's land with carbohydrates because if you eat low there's a big difference between low carb and no carb. You are going to be metabolically healthier with low carb versus high carb. but your energy might suffer and and certain things might suffer because if you're if you have low carb but not low enough to suppress insulin, you're going to be getting these insulin spikes and that's going to stay elevated because we don't actually make insulin for carbs. We make insulin for protein. So, it has this much longer insulin curve and so carbs just go up and boop and down. So, you get what's called reactive hypoglycemia. So, now your blood sugar is too low and you don't feel good. and your insulin's high enough that now you you've prevented your body from making ketones and from making further uh glucose molecules um so that your energy levels are are suppressed. You can't access your fat stores for energy, but you're not eating enough carbs to actually give you enough energy throughout the day. And so that's the thing that people can find there in this no man's land. They're not low carb enough to get into ketosis and provide their own energy. and they're not eating enough carbs to actually give them energy from the carbohydrates. And so that's another reason, but that doesn't mean that that's better for them long term. That doesn't mean that that would be better than if they just cut out carbs entirely. But this is also something I've been telling, you know, patients for a decade that if you actually remove the rest of those carbohydrates, you actually will will have much better energy than if you just had some carbs. >> 100%. And that's an important fact because um most people end up in that in that area, don't they? Where they don't go low enough to produce ketones. Um and even, you know, some of the the athletes who have uh dabbled with low carb within our community have never actually been zero carb for a prolonged period of time. And this does, you know, it's this this does make a huge difference because this allows the body to upregulate the monocox transporters. Um, so the body's ability to create BHB, transport it, and to utilize it in in the cell. And that does take a period of time of adaptation and typically, you know, we don't see this happening until we're on less than 20 grams of carb a day. And some of the guys that I work with, this never happens unless they go zero carb for a prolonged period of time. I know for me, you know, it took almost 12 months of being practically zero carb in order to upregulate enough that I was absolutely thriving. Um, even though I was thriving on very low carb, you know, and I'm talking 20 grams or less, full up regulation for me didn't occur until I went complete carnivore and and committed to complete zero carb. >> Yeah, absolutely. And it it does take time. And um you know the the other thing uh that people also have is you know if they have um you know they have a high you know so some people have also eaten just you know gone crazy with like um organs and things like that you can get hyper vitaminos especially hyper vitaminos a that is in the literature that that can actually suppress thyroid function and can cause other sorts of problems. So, not so high that you're going to die, but high enough it is starting to cause disregulation in your in your um system. Adding in carbohydrates actually raises your body's demand for vitamin A and other sorts of vitamins, vitamin C for example. And so if you are in a state of hypervitaminosis for whatever reason, um then adding in carbs can actually put you into a relatively normal state of those of vitamins and actually start like actually I'm okay now. you know, um you know, one person uh that was um that did this. I mean, I don't know him personally, and you know, no nothing um uh you know, not trying to say anything negative, but there was just a just a a story that's public is the gentleman Frank Tfano, who was one of these early carnivore sort of influencers. he, you know, was very much a proponent of eating a lot of a lot of liver and then um so he was doing that and he was promoting that and he had a you know he had a product for I think dried liver treats or something like that but then also he went on uh roacutane which is like an analog of vitamin A, right? And so now he might be in a fairly high state of of retinol in to begin with and now he's got this retinol analog that actually is going to increase that effect and all of a sudden he got very very sick and he blamed carnivore or ketogenic or or whatever. I think he's still, you know, proponent of meat and things like that, but um then he was just like, well, that that made me really sick. But like you started a medication that's known to make people very sick at that exact time when you got sick with the exact problems that you know come from this medication. So, you know, thinking about these things in that context and also understanding that again, you know, we have clear examples of modernday humans who have never eaten carbohydrates their entire life. They do not have thyroid dysfunction and if they did they would not make it very far because congenital hypothyroidism calls something causes something called cretinism which is why you call somebody oh you cretton that's a medical term all the best insults are always medical terms by the way like that's that's that's a medical term that's a designation for for someone who's um um mentally uh disabled to the point of having an specific IQ range of between zero and 30 goes all the way down to zero right you cannot call anybody you cannot insult anyone's intelligence more than calling them an idiot. You know people don't like the word you know [ __ ] being used as a pjorative for you know to to refer to someone's intelligence but that is what idiot means. It means someone is so mentally um [ __ ] that their IQ level is between zero and 30. That's what that means. Imbbecil is 30 to 50. [ __ ] is 50 to 70. That's where those words came from. So you know people think oh [ __ ] imbecile and that's sort of a an unused word. So people started using those sorts of things. The reason idiot was the word that everyone called somebody to insult their intelligence because it could not get lower than that. Like you are an idiot. You are you are all the way down there. And so [ __ ] so creinism is is congenital hypothyroidism. And so you get short stature, facial changes and uh uh and then developmental delays, intelligent intellectual delays, very severe ones. And so you get one generation if everybody's hypothyroid because they're not eating carbohydrates. All your kids have creatinism and that's it. You're dead. Your your whole population, your whole line is wiped out. So that's not going to work. That's not going to happen. And the other thing is to remember is that there are barely any animals, even insects on this earth as a proportion of all animal life that actually eat carbohydrates or sugar. Barely any of them. The majority of animals and insects on Earth are carnivores. 70% of animal life on Earth, including insects, are carnivores. And they eat, you know, fat and protein. That's what they're getting their their energy and their nutrition from by eating other animals that are made out of fat and protein in order to make more fat and protein. That's the endgame here is to be fat and protein have fat and protein in those nutrients. And then even though 30% of animals that are herbivorous, the majority of those are are herbivorous on on fiber richch plants. And they have the ability through their microbiome to break down that fiber not into glucose, which is what strings of fiber are made out of, >> but actually into uh fat and uh into saturated fat. And then the bacteria, the prozzoa, the microorganisms get, you know, when they die, they get broken down and and utilized as protein and nutrients. And so the herbivores that eat fibrous plants, what they're absorbing is fat and protein. about 70% calorie 70 to 80% calories from fat and 20 to 30% calories from protein. Almost nothing coming from carbohydrates. So nearly every animal on earth is running on fat and protein, not carbohydrates. So if if we were an exception to that, we would be an exception. We would be very very it's very uncommon. You have some birds that drink nectar uh like hummingbirds and you've got insects that get nectar as well. That's about it. Then you got some things that you know tubers and all that sort of stuff as well. It is very uncommon. Uh it's much more common to run on fat and protein. So why are we thinking that this is completely abnormal because it's not it's it's actually the normal state of nature in the animal kingdom. >> Yeah, 100% completely agree. We are fat and protein. You know, the whole body is made of fat and protein. It's um you know there was one other thing that um that I briefly wanted to touch on before before we we wrap the call and it's it's to play devil's advocate in in regards to why somebody may feel the requirement and we spoke about this before we came on the call and we believe there's a very small subset you know if if any at all but a a potential um argument for this and what I noticed in the UK particularly last year in 25 was um higher UV index uh and I think this can have an impact on on reactive oxygen species. Now you mentioned earlier cortisol you know being important in we look at these things as being problematic. We look at cortisol as being problematic. We look at glucose as being problematic. We look at insulin as being problematic. All of these things are essential. We just need them to operate in the right in the right range. You know we can't be without them. We don't want them to be overexpressed and we don't want them to be underexpressed. Um, and what I've what I believe is is a possible answer to this is in in a state of high UV index, maybe where people are not used to it, such as the UK, I see very little sun all year, high UV index increases melanin, which has a potent effect on reducing reactive oxygen species, which if you are a sick person, i.e. on on a high carb diet, this this confers benefits because it reduces reactive oxygen species, which is fantastic. But picture a a person living a low carb ketogenic or carnivore based lifestyle that is operating between the correct upper and lower limit. What happens when this reactive oxygen species is further lowered? You know, it can it can potentially push them into an area of reductive stress, which is just as as damaging as as being in in an oxidative stress state. So, I've I've had a theory this year that the the consumption potentially for some people. Uh, and I've noticed particularly for for women, um, it could potentially the cons the consumption of fruit, for example, which causes reactive oxygen species may be enough to pull this person back into this optimal limit of of reactive oxygen species. Reactive oxygen species is an important signaling molecule. We do need some. We don't want it to be too high. We don't want it to be too low. And I think potentially a season of very very high UV index to people who are not used to it could potentially drive them to to fe and again we we established this before we came on the call there is the the amount of exogenous carbohydrate or glucose required for survival is zero. these people wouldn't have died, you know, and they would have survived and continued and and that's fine. But is there a potential to to see a benefit that they may have felt which we would have seen through a dopamine and serotonin response without question? But I think it's possible through this this production of of advanced glycation end products leading to reactive oxygen species. The consumption of these these compounds may have been enough to pull them back into this optimal range, therefore making them feel like they were brand new. and functioning on on all cylinders. Now the issue is that I think maybe some of these people within the keto carnival space have continued to consume these compounds particularly through the winter period where if the argument were there that we would we would have consumed fruit which as you've rightly said you know who said we would have anyway if there were an argument for this then fruit isn't available in the winter months especially in the UK locally sourced seasonal fruit is not available so as an argument playing devil's advocate I think that potentially this could have been the reason why they felt so good with the consumption of that compound in a short period of time. But the issue is these people then have adopted this and continue to do that thinking it's the magic elixia when maybe it was just the medicine that they needed in the short term to to recover from a state of of reductive stress. But that's a theory that I've come up with. It's it seems to ring true with a couple of people that that I've worked with uh and been close to this year. Um but then these people are all back on strict carnivore, you know, very soon after. Um again, there's another argument that have they been adapted for a long period of time. Again, you and I have been ketogenic and carnivore for well over a decade. Uh and our requirement for, you know, said fruit is zero. And as you said, you know, you live in a high UV index all year round with no requirement. This is why I think maybe is it potentially something to do with the UK and not used to having this high UV index, but a potential argument. But either way, and that that's an argument that I can get behind potentially putting it in when it was available if you feel unwell because plant compounds are medicines, you know, and um and I've never I've never disagreed with that. We use plant compounds for medication, but medication shouldn't be used in the long term. should be used in the short term at best to treat an issue while we address the root cause not addressing the symptom. Um so from that respect could that fruit have potentially been used for medicinal purposes to recover from this reductive stress state and this is why they felt so good in that phase but then the danger is that they've continued to consume high levels of these compounds leading to all of these other issues which have persisted. Um, and I think that's where people have go are going wrong, you know, especially with um with influencers in the UK. >> Yeah. And and you know, like I said, I mean, I think there's a lot of reasons why someone may improve. You know, they may not have actually been doing keto or carnivore. They could could have just been making the whole thing up first of all, but the people who have weren't and actually were doing it, you know, maybe they're in this no man's land. Maybe they weren't actually fully ketogenic. Maybe it was that they weren't eating enough fat. Maybe they're having too many organs or supplements. Um, you know, all these other sorts of things. And I'm, you know, there very well could be a subset of people that it for transient um periods of time, you know, for for various influences, you know, like you're describing. Maybe it is that that sort of cons confers some benefit. Um I, you know, I suppose the thing to do is we'd have to study that, you know, because it's it's we don't know one way or the other, but you know, could there be a situation where someone for a short-term period of time may benefit from from throwing in some carbs? I, you know, I'm not I don't I don't I don't necessarily think it's going to be that common. If it would be, it' be a subset. Um, but you never know. I mean, the human body is complex, health is complex, our environments are complex. You know, the simple fact that you can have too many organs and actually benefit from having carbohydrates. You know, that just tells you that that there's a lot of weird things out there and you never know. And so I don't I don't think you need to um you know I I don't think you need to be so pedantic where it is it has to be exactly this. Do what works for you. See if that helps. See if it works better. But think about these things. Are you having too many organs? Are you taking a ton of supplements? Are you actually ketogenic? Did you actually get rid of all all plants and and are you did you actually do carnivore? >> How much fat are you getting? Are you are you eating more than one to two grams of fat for every one gram of protein? You know, if if the answer to those questions are like, oo, well, maybe I haven't been doing it tight enough, maybe try that first, you know, because a lot of people find that actually they do better when they actually do these things in the strict ways that we talk about. >> Yeah. >> The reason we're talking about is because that's what works best for people um for the entire population. And so, you know, like you said, I mean, I live in Perth. This has most sunny days of any major city in Australia. That's why I moved here because I wanted the sun and you know I do I do you know best in the summer. I I want the heat 100%. Yeah, me too. You know, I you know, I work with um you know, guys when I was working in neurosurgery and in Sir Charles Gardner Hospital in Perth. Um you know, I had I had guys on my team that were from Sri Lanka and they were just like they were just amazed at how dark I was getting was I was getting as dark legitimately as dark as they were or close to it. And you know, I love the sun and it and and I I you know, that just made me feel even better. >> Um but you know, who knows? I mean, maybe maybe there's some people that that wipes them out. My mom doesn't like that. She gets wiped out in the sun. It makes her really tired. You know, maybe a bit of a a carb boost would pick her up, you know, but who knows? But, um, you know, she actually does does really well without them. But um you know when I and when I do that I mean you know the other the other thing is to again to play devil's advocate you see these people arguing well if you only tried carbs then you would feel better >> and you you would see >> that's it. It was just like well what do you think we started? It's not it's like yeah the norm wasn't all ketogenic carnivore. That that's that's what people moved to because they said wow this this is so much better. And and you know, we as athletes found massive improvements by cutting out the carbohydrates. And so they say, "Well, but yeah, but cutting out the carbs is better, but now after you cut out the carbs, adding them back in is somehow better now. You're not going to go back to where you sense." >> No, it doesn't. And the fact of the matter is is I've I've done that. It's not like it's not like I've had zero carbs in the last decade, you know, but the carbs I would have would would have been from like things like milk or like some yogurt or something like that. I don't get supercharged, >> you know. I you know, our friend Zack Bidder, you know, who I did my first ever podcast with him and Dr. Sean Baker, you know, he sort of talks about that he's sort of mostly ketogenic, really low carb while he's training, but then he'll have, you know, certain amounts of carbs for his performance. And that sort of gives him like this this rocket fuel super boost. I I don't get that. That does not does not do that for me. You know, if I have a glass of milk, I'm I'm passed out on the couch an hour later. >> Invariably, like I cannot drink a glass of milk and then go like, "Yeah, let's go to the gym." Like, I will be I will I will just not feel good. Um I don't not not um sick or anything like that, >> but I just pass out. I just have I just have no energy, >> you know? It it raises your insulin enough, blocks off ketone production, blocks off blood sugar. I get that reactive hypoglycemia and all of a sudden I'm passing out on the couch at 6:00 in the afternoon. That happened to me the other day, you know, and um you know, and that was raw, you know, milk um you know, unhomogenated raw milk. So, you know, all the people saying, "Well, if only you just drank a drank milk, you'd see this is so much better." >> Yeah, I've done that. It's not. And I I can I can tell you that definitively. And physiologically, you know, we we we know why as well. So, it's um you know, I think that there are a lot of reasons why people may feel that they're doing better when they add back in carbs, but does that mean that that's actually a is that actually the case? Or uh B, is that actually what's going to be beneficial for them long term? And if you know, if it is, and that's just, oh no, this is just humans just have to have carbohydrates. Why does why is it just the vast minority of people that have problems when they're eating a highfat, completely plant-free, uh, ketogenic diet, zero carb, carnivore diet? Why is it that the the vast majority of people are finding miraculous healing and improvements in their body? So, there's a very small subset of people that are likely not eating enough fat, probably haven't given up carbs, and they're finding that, well, I actually didn't I didn't feel as good, therefore, everyone else needs carbs, too. That doesn't really follow. It >> It doesn't. And it's um one of the arguments that I always get thrown at me is um you know, well, we're all different, aren't we? And well, no, we're not. You know, biologically, we're all the same. Well, exactly. You you you know, and you've you know, you've said this before a number of times. You don't see that lion one day deciding to eat some berries off a tree. I don't fancy gazelle today. I'm gonna eat some berries off a tree. >> It doesn't happen. You know, we know through nitrogen isotop testing without question that we are not just carnivore but hyper carnivore. >> Um >> and ultimately, you know, this this is our natural metabolic state without question at least, you know, in in well yeah without question. It's my opinion and I know it's your opinion. You know, this is certainly the way to go. But I just think that people have been, you know, misled in regards to to coming away from from this ancestral way of living through um through other people within the community and through feeling, you know, maybe that they're they're missing out on something and addiction, you know, it's which is also a big driver, you know, but it's um you know, as you say, we are protein, we are fat. Even born is is predominantly protein. You know, the whole body is made of protein and fat. As a percentage, 1 to 2% of the cell is is polysaccharide, you So that should tell you everything that you need to know and we've established that we can comfortably make this without any exogenous and in fact we make it better and more efficiently but it's um yeah it's you know do you have anything else to add? I mean I think we've um >> I think we've we've certainly given some food for thought. No pun intended. >> Yeah. Yeah. No no I think that's perfect. I think that's a good perfect place to to end that there that we absolutely don't and um yeah and the body's made out of fat and protein. That's what we need nutritionally. And that's what all all animal life needs as well. Um so well that's just what we think. Uh but what about you? What do you think? What have your experiences been with this? Is it just us looking at this and seeing the people that we work with do better or is it actually this huge body of people that are having horrible problems? Let us know uh your experiences. Have you been 100% strict with super highfat, zero carbohydrates and had had all of these problems going longterm? Um or not? you know, if you've had improvements, you know, let us know that, too, uh, down in the comments. And thank you all very much, and we'll uh, see you next time. Please send this to anybody who uh, may benefit from it and thinks that we actually need carbs or needs some ammo, uh, to deal with all the the hyenas trying to say that we do need carbs. >> All right, thanks everyone. See you next time. >> Thanks everyone. Thanks, Anthony. Pleasure as always. >> Yeah, thank you. Good to see you. Hey guys, thank you very much for taking the time out to listen to what I had to say. If you like it, then please like and subscribe to my YouTube channel and podcast. And if you're on YouTube, then please hit that little bell and subscribe. And that'll let you know anytime I have a new video out, which should be every week, if not more. And if you could share this with your friends, that would help me get the word out and let me know that you like what I'm doing. Thanks again, guys.