Metabolic Flexibility with Dr. Mike T. Nelson – Ep. 213

In this episode of Next Level Human Podcast, Dr. Jade welcomes Dr. Mike T. Nelson to discuss all the details of human performance and how metabolism works during weight loss. Dr. Mike is a Human Performance Specialist and Fitness and Nutrition Educator, and understanding these nuances has been one of his projects throughout his 18-year career.

In order to look better and perform better, it’s crucial to understand the role that calories and macronutrients (protein, carbohydrate, and fats) play in our bodies. Balancing the three is the key to achieving a weight loss goal. Although the equation “calories in vs. calories out” is the foundation for changing body composition, there is more to it.

A fast metabolism is ideal for someone looking to lose weight, while a slow metabolism helps with muscle gain and strength. A flexible metabolism, however, is a proven way to master body composition. Dr. Jade and Dr. Mike also discuss training, different diets, and the most recent research on this topic.

Check out the Next Level Human sponsors!

• Visit https://paleovalley.com/nextlevel to learn more about the gut-friendly 100% grass-fed beef sticks and save 15%!
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Connect with Dr. Mark

Website: www.miketnelson.com

Website: www.flexdiet.com

Instagram: @drmiketnelson

Connect with Dr. Jade Teta

Website: www.jadeteta.com

Instagram: @jadeteta

TRANSCRIPTION:

Next Level Human

Episode 213- Metabolic Flexibility

Host: Dr. Jade Teta

Guest: Dr. Mike T. Nelson   

Podcast Intro: [00:14] welcome to the Next Level Human Podcast. As a human, you have a job to do. In fact, you have four jobs; to earn and manage money, to attain and maintain health and fitness, to build and sustain personal relationships, to find meaning and make a difference. None of these jobs are taught in school and that is what this podcast is designed to do. To educate us all on living our most fulfilled lives through the mastery of these four jobs. I'm your host, Dr. Jade Teta and I believe we are here living this life for three reasons and three reasons only; to learn, to teach and to love. In this podcast, I will be learning, teaching, and loving right along with you. I'm grateful to have your company; here is to our next level.

Jade 1:18 

Welcome to the show, everyone. I am very excited to have Dr. Mike T. Nelson on the show today. And let me tell you a little bit about Mike and me and sort of how I heard of him. He's someone that I've been aware of for awhile, because when I first started writing for tea nation, actually, him and I were writing very similar type articles with some differences. So we were writing a lot on metabolic flexibility. And it'll be interesting to get your take on this, Mike. But from my perspective, he was the only other person other than myself that I was really aware of that was having this conversation. And he's been having it for quite some time, he's been quite the resource for a lot of people to understand metabolism in a very different way. And so for those of us who love this work, who really want to understand the physiology and metabolism, all the details behind it, Dr. Nelson is the man for this. And so it's really exciting for me to have you on Mike and you and I have conversation. And so why don't we just start out just so you know, this the first time you've been on my show, but a lot of people here are practitioners, a lot of them are functional medicine, doctors, a lot of them are personal trainers, a lot of them are in the field. And so one of the reasons I wanted to have you on as well as I know, you have certifications in this field. And so I want them to get a chance to hear about that at the end. So let's make sure we cover that. And the other side of things is I have an awful lot of people who are, you know, fitness enthusiast, biohacker type community. And then of course, I have a very large population of the people I normally work with that is perhaps maybe a different population for you, but is women in the rage age ranges of 35 to 65, who are going through, you know, first babies perimenopause, menopause, and all of this. So that's kind of the audience that you're talking to now, that last audience, I really think could really use your expertise and understand a little something for you. And so I know that maybe you don't normally speak to that audience. But hopefully I'll be able to translate some things there as well. But why don't we just get started with a little bit of your background, a little bit of your story, wherever you want to start, just get us caught up in terms of who you are, what you do, and then your overarching view of physiology and metabolism and the things that you feel like, you know, perhaps we're missing the industry is missing that we all need to be aware of.

Dr. Mike T Nelson 3:44 

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Thank you so much for being on the program was awesome to finally meet you at the real coach's Summit. Like why isn't written yourself for a long time. And I mean, I probably got started like most guys, I was a six foot three shaped heel rake looking dude, when I entered college that 156 pounds, and that was after the growth spurt and puberty and all that stuff. And I'm like, Hmm, maybe I should actually like lift some weights, this might be a good idea. So I took a class via that about weightlifting, the guy took attendance and never showed up again after that. And the only thing he said during the first day was alright, this class is about weight training. Some of you may need to lose weight, and then he looks and literally points at me and he goes, holy crap, some of you need to gain weight. I was like, oh, okay, no, you left. And so I didn't learn anything from that. And of course, like most guys did everything wrong for decades on end. But the good part about it I did undergrad at St. Scholastica. They had anatomy and physiology department. And you can just sign up and take the class. And they worked on actual cadavers. They got new cadavers like every quarter, but for an undergrad college that had that class was pretty rare back in the 90s. And so I took that for fun and just I started taking physiology classes for fun. I finished my bachelor of arts and natural science there, that minor chemistry, I went on to do engineering, the post grad work there eventually did a master's in mechanical engineering. And along the ways, I always liked biology, but I didn't know what to do with exercise physiology. I took a 400 level class. And just for fun when I was doing my masters in exercise physiology, I had to get an override from the professor who basically said, you're maxed out in classes, you have zero of the prerequisites. I'm like, I don't want any of the credits, I couldn't care less about the credit, I just wanted to show up in your class, and I want to learn the material. And he's like, nobody wants to do that. He's like, I can't officially let you in. But if you show up Monday, Tuesday, Friday at 10am, I'm not gonna kick you out either. I was like, Oh, perfect. Just started learning more about it. You graduated, actually, and I'm working for a medical device company for 10 years in more of the cardiac side. And along the way, I just, I literally would pester people and go to fitness conferences for fun. I would sit in the back and I would ask trainers, I'm like, Hey, do you see just one research study? And they're like, No, I'm like, Well, you guys read research studies, don't you? And they're like, No, that's why we come to these conferences. And really, you don't read research, like what's going on? We're going to gyms for a while, got kicked out of the gym because they felt bankruptcy. So that had me just start doing stuff in my garage, did a five years and a PhD program in Biomedical Engineering, that eventually I transferred over to the Ph. D. program in exercise physiology, just because I was trying to do in math that couldn't see the endpoint. And at that point, my backup plan was, hey, you know, if exercise is and this whole fitness thing doesn't work, you know, I can still work in the medical device area, and that would be fine. So I finished my PhD, which was actually on metabolic flexibility and heart rate variability, started training people got my CSCs in 2006, I think so then around for a while. And then I moved everything online about eight years ago. So right now I do training online, which you mentioned about a female audience, which is kind of hilarious, because I write a newsletter that sounds like I'm writing to like dude bros, and like their 30s. And literally, for probably the last 12 years, like 7080, sort of my clients are actually women, which is very interesting, you might have some more insights on that. And then I'm associate professor at the Kellogg Institute, I teach for Rocky Mountain University, I helped do some assessments with rabbit health. So Dan Garner, Andy Galpin, those guys, and yeah, working on a couple of books, a bunch of stuff.

Jade  7:41 

Yeah. And first, let me just say, You're brilliant, dude. We're all incredibly grateful, I'm sorry, for the for the work that you do. And so I'm really thankful you're here. And one of the things I just want to point out to the listeners is interesting. You're watching this first time I heard your background, by the way, it's not surprising that I'm into your work and what you do, because one of the things I've noticed is that there are people who come a direct path, and they kind of, in a sense, they're in the box, you know, and you have to be in the box to know the thing, right? But I have this, this thing that I like to say is like, well, if you're just in the box, and you do have to know the box to know what's outside of the box, but then you can't, it's very difficult for you to think outside the box. But then you have someone that comes from outside the box knows all this stuff, and engineering background. Nonetheless, you're very different. And when they start to look in the box, and start learning all the things in the box, they see it differently than the people who never came from outside the box, you know, so it's this different perspective. And so it doesn't surprise me or it now it makes sense to me, sort of your perspective, and how you come at this. So where I want to start for the audience is why don't you give us I mean, from my perspective, we just misunderstand metabolism for a couple of reasons. By the way, one is, none of us really know what metabolism is, and all the things it does. Because it's so complex, we've just touched the tip of the iceberg. And the other thing is, of course, we are in an industry where it can get very noisy and very confusing. And so I would love for you to just break down from your perspective, how you see metabolism, what it is, and specifically how we should be looking at it if we're the typical person who's you know, wanting to look good and function better, which is sort of where you and I spend our wheelhouse. You know, normally we're talking to athletes, or CEOs or people who really want to function better. And we're talking to people who want to look good. And of course, then there's the live longer crowd as well. But why don't you just break now for us how you see it? I'm curious, where you see the strengths and weaknesses are what your perspective is just your general overview of metabolism in general and how we get it wrong or right in this industry.

Dr. Mike T Nelson  10:04 

Yeah, to me, metabolism is just a process of how to use your body creates cellular energy, right. So cellular energy, all roads kind of lead to ATP. And there's many different processes that lead to that. And one things I got from engineering, one of the jokes I've often made with physiology is that it has every sort of bad engineering word associated with it. It's not linear, it's an isotropic. It's chaotic. It's all these things like if you were trying to design a system, you may end up with a very high functioning system, but the complexity of it is just kind of mind boggling. I think in fitness, we kind of forget that because your body is very much survival based, it's going to do everything we possibly can to survive. So by definition, you're going to have backups to the backups to the backups. And some people depend on their, how their health is, they may be kind of running on some of those backup systems. And then fitness, we want the simple story to be true 100% of the time, and you just look no further than like macronutrients. Oh, yeah. It's all fat. Like, you know, keto for life. It's the only thing you ever need to do. And yeah, some people can do keto, it can be very good. And you've got the whole high carbohydrate, you know, area. No, it's only carbs, that doesn't matter. Just run on carbs. And to me, it's if you look at the two basic fuels, it's fats and carbohydrates. So metabolic flexibility, how well can you use carbohydrates on one end? How well can you use fat on the other end? And then how well can you switch back and forth between those two as needed, then yes, that is a little bit more than a simple story. But I don't think it's anything beyond the grasp of what most people can understand. It's just we've been told this whole thing that I mean, as you know, right? If you want to create a best selling diet book, you just glamorize one macronutrient, you demonize the other one, you give them their naughty versus their nice list of foods, and there you go. And it's just in sometimes I wish it was that simple, but, but it's not. Right. So you're dealing with a dynamic system. But one of the phrases I like is that the physiology is complicated or complex, but it doesn't mean your actions are right. So physiology is complex, but your actions are simple. So at the end of the day, if your Coach and Trainer Yeah, understanding some of those things is super useful. But you're a glorified translator, you're translating that into action steps, the client can actually do, Hey, eat more protein, or maybe have more carbohydrates, or these types of carbohydrates from new sources, or whatever. So you're translated into something that the client can actually do. But the more you can understand it, the better and more accurate action steps you can get to the client at the end. So they obviously, you know, perform better look better, all those things that they want to achieve.

Jade  12:45 

Yeah. So let me just repeat it back to you. And just make sure you correct me if I get this wrong. So if you the listener, listening to, Mike, essentially, what he is saying is there's two fuels that the body primarily uses is fat and carbohydrates. Now, you can use protein as well, which we'll get into in just a minute. But those are the two primary fuels that we use. And it's the ability to switch back and forth between them. That is important. And there is certain behaviors or certain ways that you can do this. So if we understand this, and I've oftentimes said, and Wilson, I want to ask whether you agree with this or not, a lot of people talk about the metabolism as fast or slow. I oftentimes say you don't necessarily want to fast metabolism, because that will speed up hunger and cravings as well and a substantial amount of people, but you do want a flexible metabolism. So then the idea here is is how do we because I'm assuming I'm just you know, don't let me put words in your mouth. And definitely correct me here. But I'm assuming if this is the case, and we've got these three major macronutrients, protein, carbohydrates, fat, and two of them are our primary sources of fuel, then I'm assuming everything that we need to do in metabolism wraps around the use of carbohydrates and or fat for fuel and preferably using protein as a structural functional aid or a flex fuel, so to speak. But where do calories fall into this as well? So I guess, unpack for us a little bit about, Okay, how about calories? And what do we do about protein? How does it fit in the mix between these other two?

Dr. Mike T Nelson  14:19 

Yeah, so I get lots of interesting emails, as I'm sure you do from all sorts of randoms from the internet. And some of them are like, Oh, but you didn't, you're saying it's all just about flexible metabolism. And you didn't mention calories and we all know it's calories in calories out and how dare you you're telling this information, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Well, yeah, it's calories in calories out that that definitely works. We stick people in, you know, fancy chambers that measure all the fuels they use, and we account for everything. Yeah, it definitely works. The caveat is when you put humans in a free living system, it still works but it becomes more complicated because obviously their decisions affect both hands. And people forget that the calories in and calories out. So once you expand on what you eat, they dynamically affect each other. And that's a part that people forget. So yes, at the end of the day, is it a simple equation of calories in calories out? Yes. However, they're both interacting with each other. So that makes it just a little bit more complicated. In terms of protein, I agree. It's primarily, structurally, although I have a model, which I call the forest model, which means that you can have multiple functions for everything. So for example, we know that there's a signaling effect with protein. It's also a signaling effect with that there's also a signaling effect with carbohydrates. But if you simplify proteins primarily use more as a structure. And you're correct that if you take in more protein, then you can quote unquote, use for the muscle building process, you will oxidize or burn some of it for fuel. It's not a very efficient fuel. You can do it. But in general, your body doesn't want to do that unless you have just a massive surplus of protein coming in. So for the main fuels are going to be primarily fats and carbohydrates. Again, this assumes you're in Healthy People, you're not in like crazy starvation conditions or ketogenic diets or some stuff like that. I'm sorry

Jade  16:17 

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Dr. Mike T Nelson  21:29 

Yeah, it definitely still works. And probably some of the better studies is redundant. This by Dr. Jose Antonio. So he did a study where he had I think, college aged people, and he just massively overfed them on protein. Right. I think he had some guys up to 350 plus grams of protein per day. Yeah, I

Jade  21:48 

think it was important point three kilograms. Yeah, yeah. grams per kilogram. Yeah. Yeah. Above them above a gram per pound.

Dr. Mike T Nelson  21:56 

Oh, way above. Yeah, way above. And the interesting part is, when he was recruiting people, he had all these guys who are like, yeah, man, I want to be in your study, you're gonna give me some protein supplements for freedom, a poor college student, I'll eat all the protein, yay. And he's like, some of those same guys came back like two weeks into study, and they're like, Oh, my God, Doc, I can't even order protein. This is so exhausting. And this is such a pain in the ass they look against. And so again, there may be some compliance issues with the study. But when you look at it, once you get up to, you know, around a gram per pound of body weight, some other literature would say about point seven grams per pound of body weight. So you're consuming. If you're 200 pound individual, if you're at point seven grams per pound, 200 times point seven, you're eating 140 grams of protein per day, you know, up to 200 grams per day, once you get up to that kind of limit pass there. The interesting part was, they did not get any more lean body mass, they didn't really lose any more substantial body weight. But again, they were trying to keep you know, the rest of their calories the same they weren't doing like you were doing where they're actually decreasing calories. The most interesting part to me was actually the compliance component. About if you've ever tried to eat, let's say, 300 grams of protein per day, every day, day in and day out. It's actually pretty damn hard. Not only is it from a compliance standpoint, your body just is like, chicken breast again. Oh, God. So does it work? Is there some advantages to it 100%. And again, it comes kind of back down to compliance. And then if you're looking at a performance aspect, if you're really trying to get significantly leaner, then yeah, cutting back down on fats and carbohydrates are probably the ones you're gonna cut down on. But, again, you're when people hear that the there's been like, pretty much like high protein diets throughout the years, you compliance of them over time tends to be amazing, I know. The only time you see this as physique, athletes can be pretty good with that for most of them, I think getting protein up to point seven to one gram per pound body weight, and then even with carbs, and you're probably going to be a little bit better and more manageable. Also. If you have most people and you go to the gym, and you see the performance just dropping really hard, right? So you just put them on zero carbohydrates, that's also not super motivating for their performance either and their long term adherence program. So all that to say, Yeah, does that definitely work? Yeah, it definitely can work. A lot of times the issue comes back to clients and people wanting to be able to do that day in and day out.

Jade  24:39 

Yeah, and one of the things about that, that, you know, anytime, you know, it's funny, I'm a pretty big eater, but anytime I start to go right above around 150 grams of protein, which is hard in itself, by the way, unless you're really paying close attention. Anyone who's done this, I can't eat any more just because I'm so full, you know, and so it's, it's hard in a lot of ways. It's hot. prep wise, it's hard and it's almost near impossible without having very quick protein sources available. Oftentimes protein shakes become, you know, a big part of this, but it kills your hunger. And actually, I do want to ask you, this my reading of the research and I just want to see what your reading of the research says is that when we look at these macronutrients, you know, for a lot of people who aren't, you know, trying to be bodybuilders, a lot of weight loss is about controlling hunger and cravings, and a lot of people in the Keto space will say, fat is the most satiating macronutrient. Now my reading of the research says protein is 100%, the king and then there's a, there's a sort of back and forth between whether carbs or fats are more satiating. Now, of course, if you add protein and fat together, that's incredibly satiating, and of course, a high fat diet that is getting you into keto Genesis ketones have some satiate hunger suppressing capabilities, as well. But just walk us through that really quickly. Because sometimes when I get experts who are also reading a lot of the research, I'd like to just clarify when people say, hey, you know, Mike, what is your, you know, reading of this? Do I have this right? Do we differ a little bit here? Because there's still a lot of argument about this out there in the internet space?

Dr. Mike T Nelson  26:15 

the easy one is ketones most likely to have some mild appetite suppressant effect. The best studies on that use either ketone salts or ketone Ester, where you can just give it as a supplement, you don't have to put them on a ketogenic type diet. And so it's easier to control for a bunch of other factors, they do tend to show kind of people aren't generally as hungry. I wouldn't say it's an amazing anorexic effect, but it's probably something that's real. And again, some people respond higher to it than other people. protein compared to fats and carbohydrates, I would still say is probably the most satiating. Yeah, and there's people who will kind of pick apart that research because it depends on what type of protein. I wrote a book chapter in a book on academic stuff on protein and exercise years ago. And so I went through all the literature, and surprising like some of the more incompletes proteins, such as gelatin and collagen, tend to have a little bit higher satiety effects. Some of the proteins like whey protein, it's kind of more mixed. So a lot of that probably depends on what type of protein but say, as a category, definitely higher fats or carbohydrates, I would kind of agree, depending on who you read what you believe, you could probably kind of go back and forth. My general take is that if you really, really force someone into extremely low fat, their craving for fat will definitely go up. Because we know that if you only need protein, you can have something called rabbit starvation, which some of the people back in the day who were only eating like squirrels and deer and stuff that was like super lean, would have issues because we need a small amount of dietary fat, it's essential. So I think if you really drive fat low, your cravings for fat are probably going to go higher up to a point, what that point is 3040 5060 grams a day, who knows? Actually, insulin itself does appear to have some appetite, blunting, effects. The caveat is that's generally in Healthy People, you start getting into people who have issues, their diabetics, etc, then it gets really, really lucky. And so I think a lot of people, when they look at that literature, they're not differentiating between healthy individuals versus people who have Frank pathologies.

Jade  28:29 

Yeah. Insulin resistance is going to be one of those things where you might have very high insulin levels, but your brain is reading it is low insulin correct. So there's no wonder why signal get screwed up? Absolutely. No wonder why these people are actually haven't hung. And I actually say this a lot, you know, to people, it's like insulin is, you know, people, people always talk about testosterone and other things. I go, Listen, insulin is what you know, gets your cells fed. You know, insulin is, arguably, in my opinion, the most anabolic hormone in the body. And it also is a hunger hormone. So super low insulin levels, is not necessarily a great thing. If you're after let's say, muscle building and hypertrophy and things like that. Obviously, it's one of the most important hormones in the body. It's just like, most things, in my opinion, and I'll see what your opinions but like with most things cortisol, Goldilocks effect insulin Goldilocks effect, but since you brought up insulin, and since I have someone who's very savvy in this space, let's talk a little bit about the insulin carbohydrate hypothesis. And for those of you who are listeners who are not practitioners, let me just break this down for you really quickly. So you know, the there's in our world that Mike and I live in, we generally have several different ways of looking at this there is the sort of calories camp it all comes back to calories in calories out. And then there's sort of the carbohydrate insulin camp which essentially saying fat gain is mainly driven by carbohydrate. Now, some of you who've read some of my earlier work would recognize that I was a little bit more on the carbohydrate insulin hypothesis camp early on in my career, and now I am decidedly not cuz I don't think that the research points to that. But I'm also interested, where Mike has come down on this because we both pay close attention to this. And I'm curious how you see this. So if you had to choose, you know, in terms of where you are in this camp, and of course, there's still perhaps work that needs to be done, and people are still arguing about this. But where do you feel like the totality of the research is on this? You know, is carbohydrate the major driver of fat gain in your opinion, or is it calories?

Dr. Mike T Nelson  30:30 

It's definitely calories. And Amanda, you can look at the best study on that from Dr. Kevin Hall, who ironically, was working for GNU C, the group that was funding the study that they were actually trying to prove the opposite hypothesis. And the people leading that sort of charge, were very unhappy with the results and tried to discourage it. But if you read the study, in and of itself, the study is extremely well done very well, double multiple follow up. So I can't find any real big flaws, you know, from the study itself. And there's a whole bunch of other work that supports it. To me how I view it is, insulin is a fuel selector switch, which I think I stole that from Dr. Jeff Bullock, where if insulin is higher, it's going to push your body to use more carbohydrates. When insulin is lower, it's going to push your body to use more fat. Now, again, the calories in calories out, people hear that and they lose their mind and go, Oh, my God, you're telling me just low insulin, you're gonna get shredded, and well, no calories still matter. But if we look at the acute sense of what fuel is being used in the body, to me, that makes a lot more sense. And if you view it through that lens, a lot of things just that just make more sense, right. So if you're a healthy individual, and you take in a large amount of carbohydrates, your body will switch and actually start oxidizing a huge portion of those carbohydrates. When we look at some of the old work, I think, was Atkinson, if I remember correctly, they did these massive carbohydrate refeed and healthy people who were very metabolically flexible, they can upregulate. And they could start burning carbohydrates for fuel, we know that if you fast someone so they don't consume any calories, insulin levels will go down. And as insulin goes down, it pushes their body to use more fat. Now, again, if you're fasting, you don't have any food coming in, then that fat is going to be from body fat. And yet, if you eat a high fat meal, and you're just let's say, you're in your kitchen in the morning, and you start doing shots of olive oil, or whatever, yeah, there's not much insulin response at all, your body will then oxidize more fat, it just happens to be a dietary fat point. That's where I think people get mixed up is that they, whenever they say use more fat, you know that you have to kind of then if you want body comp changes, you may then have to determine okay, what is your caloric balance? And then where is that fat actually coming from?

Jade  32:49 

Yeah, we oftentimes get confused with relative versus absolute sort of arguments in this regard. So hopefully, you guys were following mike on that, you know, so if you know, you're hearing it from two people now, I also 100% agree on this, whereas I may have been in the carbohydrate insulin camp 10 years ago, I am decidedly not, in fact, I think, from my perspective, that argument has largely been categorically proven, you know, of course, science does go back and forth. But if you had to, say, Jade, I want to pin you down and place your bets right now, I would say like that that ship is kind of sailed at this point. And we do have to kind of look and be, you know, following the evidence in this regard, because, again, metabolism is complicated. And this research does slowly, you know, move along. And when you're talking to different experts, you know, the consensus here does matter. And I think it's, it's really important to kind of begin looking at this. So where would you go next, then in this conversation, because we're talking about Okay, so you want a flexible metabolism, one of the things that you were talking about, and I just want the listener to sort of understand is, I oftentimes think of this as just, you know, just components and raw materials, if you're running a pathway, like if you have a factory, and it can make shoes and purses, right, and you need slightly different ingredients to make the shoes then you do the purses and slightly different personnel. And all of a sudden, you get all these, you know, orders for shoes over a period of years, what's going to happen is the machinery to make the purses is going to get a little bit rusty, the some of the personnel may even get fired, right? Things are going to slow down in the purse factory. And maybe when you start ramping that back up again, you may not necessarily be as efficient at that. And so from my perspective, when we're looking at this argument, this is to me what metabolic you know, sort of flexibility means so in other words, when you have someone who's eating large amounts of calories, primarily as carbohydrates, which really is the standard American diet, and actually I think it's even different than that, that I want to get your take on here in a minute. you're of course going to become very efficient at burning carbohydrates for a while and inefficient at burning fat. And you certainly might see some of the things that we see in the modern day age, however, it's really the amount of energy going into it. That is the biggest factor. And yes, this other thing may be plays a secondary impact. And maybe we'll find that in particularly susceptible individuals. It's a bigger deal than we actually know. That's what I'm still waiting to kind of see, are there particular people in the, you know, sort of population and you and I know, research is a tricky thing, because it's a tool for averages, not necessarily for individuals. So we're always trying to figure out, but it is averages, so it's most people. Now here's a hypothesis that I have Mike and I want to see what you see about this. One of the things we have not looked at yet is there is a particular you mentioned these two major fuel sources fat and carbohydrates. And if you look at the diet, we're always trying to, to sort of pick apart the standard American diet or the standard fattening diet. And part of the reason we do that is because we go if we can understand what the dietary components are that fatten us up, we might be able to understand and re engineer that and say, what are the components that, you know slimmest now. So what Mike and I are saying is, look, it's calories. But if you really are astute, and we're listening to what Mike is saying is like it's not in the real world, it's a little bit more complicated than that. Because if we're going to understand calories, we need to know what's driving us to eat in the first place. And we talked about the idea that if you eat a lot of protein, you may become very, very, you know, satiated and not want to eat anything else. But that's not maybe necessarily sustainable. Because dry chicken breasts, and whey protein shakes constantly, aren't necessarily something you're going to be able to do long term my hypothesis, Mike? Well, I don't know that it's my hypothesis, but one that I want them to begin to look at is the combination of the starch and high fat diet in combination. So there's this idea of that starch and fat together and add salt and sugar on top of that, maybe alcohol, these highly palatable components that are the major calorie, you know, fuel based calories that we eat, that this perhaps is what's going on here, because there is some indication, at least in population research, which we don't want to give a whole lot of credibility to, because it just it's correlation, not causation. But it's interesting when you have very low fat diets, vegans, vegetarians who are eating who are actually eating a vegan vegetarian diet, right, and eating very low fat, a lot, there's a high percentage, and that can get pretty lean. And when you have these keto diet, people that are eating lots and lots of fat, but no carb, a pretty high percentage of them seem to be able to get lean if they can sustain it. And so, to me, it begs the question that I don't think we've looked at adequately yet, which is this combination of starch, sugar, fat, add salt, these highly palatable components, lots of carbon sources for the mitochondria to have to deal with lots of calories, and it also pings the hedonistic centers in the brain, and causes us to eat more. And so I want to just, you know, ask you what your take is on this? And are you aware of any research that I'm not I'm specifically speaking to some of this stuff by DNA, and some others who have looked at, you know, some of this aspect of things, you know, the so called cafeteria diet, we know this in rats, this makes them fat, add stress on top of that, it makes them really fat really fast. But what's your take on that? Because I would say that for two people who talk about metabolic flexibility, you and I, this would be the worst thing to do for metabolic flexibility. But I want to hear from the experts. So what's your take on this aspect of things

Jade  38:50 

but I want to jump in real quick and tell you about one of my favorite new products. want to ask you a question. If you had to follow your friends around who are not the healthiest in the world, and see what they are doing what would be the number one thing you would probably tell them to do to start. For most people that's going to be drinking more water, right? This is something that we talk about all the time in health and fitness. It's almost as if we think of it as an afterthought now, because obviously water is so crucial. However, we oftentimes get this wrong. For example, did you know that when it comes to hydration, just drinking water can make things worse, most people don't know this. Why? Partly because most people are over drinking water. And under consuming the electrolytes that help water do its job. What we don't realize is that hydration is not just about water, it's about electrolytes, the minerals in there as well as getting that water in to the cells and so you do not want to be over consuming water if you're not getting your electrolytes, right, and this opens up a whole new discussion because most people are not getting their electrolytes, right. For example, did you know that low sodium to low sodium is an issue just as much, if not more so than high sodium. In other words, what we want if we're going to get the right electrolytes is to get the right amount of sodium and potassium, and magnesium in the Goldilocks zone. We don't want too much. We don't want too little. We want it just right. This opens up a whole other thing here too, because people who are exercising, doing sauna therapies doing low carb diets are disrupting and losing lots and lots of their electrolytes. For example, When insulin is not around and low carb diets, you will excrete lots of sodium. In other words, the under that state, exercising low carb diets, all these things, you actually need more sodium. And so if you're somebody who has been just drinking water, not paying attention to electrolytes, and also feeling fatigued, feeling like you're underperforming, not sleeping, right, getting cramps, twitches, headaches, any of these things, then you are probably dealing with an electrolyte issue. This is where the product element comes in. This product has been a game changer for me and many, many of my patients and clients. This is a rehydration electrolyte beverage. Basically it is a powder of electrolytes formulated with 1000 milligrams of sodium, 200 milligrams of potassium and 60 milligrams magnesium. Without the added sugar and other nonsense that comes in beverages like Gatorade. This stuff is basically a rehydration beverage on steroids. It is the thing that is going to replenish your electrolytes in the right ratios, decrease fatigue, really correct. Chronic dehydration. And by the way, many people are dehydrating themselves becoming hyponatremia low sodium, when they're consuming too much water, you need your electrolytes on board, especially if you are someone who is losing lots of sodium and other electrolytes through low carb diets. And lots and lots of exercise. This is where element comes in element is a new sponsor to the next level human podcast, I cannot recommend this product enough. I've been using this stuff for months now. And I have immediately seen changes in my energy levels. I feel like I'm operating on a whole other level. And I have seen this as being the primary thing that people who have been using element had been telling me that their fatigue is getting better, especially fatigue that comes after very intense workouts that involve lots of sweating and lots of intense output from the nervous system. Please check out element, use the code next level drink element.com That's d r i n k l m n t.com. Drinklmnt.com. And let's get back to this.

Dr. Mike T Nelson  43:25 

and to your comment too, about macronutrient use. If you don't use it, you'll definitely lose it. Right. So a ketogenic diet, you do see downregulation to some degree of carbohydrate views, etc. The one caveat, just as a side note is if you do a lot of exercise, you can kind of counteract a large amount of that. So there's some very interesting study on sumo wrestlers, very large individuals eat a lot of raising a lot of calories. They also exercise a ton. And even at those large sizes, they tend to be metabolically. Okay. The caveat is the second they stop that massive amount of exercise they're doing. They have a whole bunch of factors. Again, the standard ever average American is an exercise anywhere close to that. So they're just in this big caloric surplus.

Jade  44:18 

You see this a lot in NFL athletes too. Oh, yes. If they as they come into retirement lots especially the big line men's if they don't adjust their calorie intake downwards?

Dr. Mike T Nelson  44:26 

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's a good question. And I think it depends on how you set up the study. Right? So if I'm researcher A, and I'm like, Okay, we want to figure this out. We want to see is it really calories, we're gonna take metabolic chamber, we're gonna walk all these people up, we're gonna control all the food that comes in all the food that goes out. We're gonna measure the air that comes in and goes out to determine what fuel they're using. We're gonna monitor all their movements and everything. If you do that, you will see that adding more salt and sugar in that combination, if you clamp or you control calories, probably from a weight gain standpoint, not necessarily a metabolic health standpoint, won't really see any difference. Now the calories in calories out, people then would say, Okay, well that means that all that matters is calories. The caveat is that is not a free living study, that is a highly controlled study, to see if the mechanism as we understand it is true. My understanding as far as I know, yep, it is. Now, the caveat, when you let all these people out into the wild, you really think they're going to control their calories to that degree? Hell no, they're not even gonna get close, right? There's multiple studies showing that if you combine like Steven DNase, and a lot of this work to, he's got a book called The Hungry brain, which is awesome. You add fat, you add sugar, you add salt, people do tend to overeat on these things. But if you think about it, ancestrally like we are designed to be efficient. And if you think about that combination, that combination doesn't really exist in nature, right. So for example, as a coach, like one of the things for years, I used to get mad at clients, I'm like, Bob, you went through like the drive thru again, and got like, you know, the whatever meal for 317. And a large 711 Slurpee with no lights, like you're taking in all these massive amount of calories you didn't get out of your car, you know, now you just take your phone, you punch in, I'm do this, like punch in numbers and food shows up at your door. But we forget that ancestrally we're still wired to do that, because that is efficient. That is what used to keep us alive. And now it's just our environment is completely flipped. Where before, we used to walk around and pound the ground and get tubers or you take two days to hunt an animal like you couldn't get food by hitting buttons that have magical thing in your pocket and have it show up at your door. So I think, yeah, depends on what context again, you're looking at. And I think we have pretty good data showing that that combination, we will tend to overeat just because we needed fat back in the day we dissolved used to be traded for huge amounts of money. And because it was needed for multiple reasons, protein was extremely valuable, because it's hard to get and was very hard to preserve, especially if you didn't have say salt. And the other items.

Jade  47:16 

Yeah, you know, I really liked it. You're using this, you know, sort of approach. I think, if you look right, think about it, right? Think about killing a wild animal. And, you know, I don't know how I live in the south, I know a lot of hunters, so I've you know, eaten some of their meats. And very rarely do you get a wild animal that has a lot of fat on it, there's certain seasons, it's certain seasons, but most of the time, these are very lean animals. And also blood from animals is salty. So you might have saw in the in the, you know, wild, you might see, you know, protein showing up with salt. And every once in a while, certain seasons, you might see salt, and fat and protein showing up. But those seasons are interesting, because you don't normally see in most of things, including in tropical areas, you don't necessarily see lots of fruits around and lots of tubers around with, you know, lots of these other things with the exception maybe being in, you know, let's say, this area where I live in, you know, New York area, you know, North Carolina area, East Coast of the United States, four seasons, the fall period, you're going to have I know this from you're going to have bears that can get very fatty for a very short period of time, you're also going to have lots of tubers at this time. But this would make sense, right? Because from a metabolic flexibility standpoint, okay, so we're seeing some of these foods, by the way, you have to work really hard to get them which goes into Mike's you know, sort of a thing here, you got to hunt, you got to you got to work really hard to take down a bear and all these things. But it's an it's also a very narrow period of a few weeks, where you're gonna see lots of starches, lots of fat, lots of salt, if you could even get it and didn't have to work for it. And I think that when you start combining what you're saying is free living environment, with a continuous fall type of a, you know, thing like, you know, abundance of starch, sugar, you know, it's, it's not just start, it's fruits, too. It's, you know, it's and now they're like, these are high potency fruits, and you take something like a cookie, right, that's like a potato, plus the sweetest fruit you could possibly have. And then you add steak and all this fat on top of it. This is what we're essentially, you know, sort of talking about here. So we are kind of, you know, it is planting sort of this viral glitch into our metabolism that is causing us to want more of these foods. Now, one of the things I want to I often talk about the idea that if you are going to eat more, and you alluded to this with the sumo wrestlers and let's unpack this for the listener a little bit, if you're going to eat more to stay metabolically healthy, healthy, you're definitely going to want to exercise more and if you can create a calorie gap within that eat more exercise more approach, you definitely can lose weight. Now also if you create a cow calorie excess and that eat more exercise more state, you're more likely to gain some muscle. But one of the things that I have talked about with the metabolism is that it says stress sensing and responding apparatus. And so if you can match, eat less, exercise less, let's say with eat more, exercise more is a little less stressful than let's say, eat more, exercise less and eat less exercise more. So when I talked about metabolic flexibility, I've talked about this idea between the gap between calorie intake and calorie output. And the idea that this is a stress for the metabolism, the larger that gap gets, the more of these compensatory mechanisms you get. And so you're alluding to this idea of when you start to eat more exercise more, perhaps, maybe you won't lose weight, but you'll be more metabolically healthy. And perhaps you can even push to weight gain or fat loss. And so the question then is, is there anything to this and then we're starting to throw exercise into the mix. Now, with this discussion we're having, how does that work? Because we know speeding up metabolism through exercise can in a substantial amount of people also speed up hunger. And so perhaps that's why this eat less exercise more approach really hasn't worked in free living conditions, despite the fact that we know it works in metabolic chambers.

Dr. Mike T Nelson  51:17 

Yeah, so that's a good question. So I'm not I would say that. I always think of it as I want to be in a caloric deficit, but I want to sneak calories out of the system. So for example, like if you've ever had clients do like, like legitimate like high intensity interval training, like 30 seconds on a rower 62nd Break 30 seconds again, like really high output, even five rounds or whatever. What I've noticed is some clients afterwards, there'll be a period of the one or two hours where they're really not that hungry. And then, man, they get like, stupid hungry. I did an experiment, my buddy, Dr. Ben house to place in Costa Rica. Or we took a bunch of, you know, weightlifting meathead dudes and went down there. And we lifted doing squats, bench press, whole bunch of exercises for I think was an hour and 45 minutes per day on Monday. We did that again, Tuesday. We did that again, Wednesday. And we did that again Thursday. So the thought process was, you know, by Thursday, no one's gonna be making any progress. It's all gonna stagnate. Actually, on the accessory stuff, people actually got better. And it was a controlled environment. So we can eat as much food as we want. But we're in the jungles of Costa Rica. So it was just whatever food was kind of fed to us. And so I was helping with the study. And I was also one of the participants. And I realized on day three, like I was eating huge mounds of rice, protein, fruit, like whatever, three meals a day, had another protein shake in the afternoon. And I was so stupid hungry, I was like murdering Quest bars. And my night, I would get up in the morning, finally, they're dead rapper carcasses, like lining my bed. Because my appetite got ramped up so much from doing that type of exercise. Now, again, if you can, white knuckle, your way through it, and you're a physique competitor, and you know, it's a temporary thing, and you're kind of on the extreme end of the spectrum. Yeah, calories in calories out works. However, that's unrealistic, I think, for most people to do that, like I've tried that approach before myself. And, you know, four to six weeks is about all I can hack of that and I just given and I'm like, face first into a birthday cake, and that's done with it. However, if I can sneak calories out of the system, and still create that caloric deficit, without like you said, spiking a lot of these counter regulatory mechanisms, that's going to be a lot easier, right, compliance is going to be better, you're still in a caloric deficit, you're still going in the right direction. Um, that's one of the reasons I like fasted cardio, which people, that's a whole other topic, probably for another two hour podcast. But what I find is, it's easier to do, you don't have to warm up, people's hunger doesn't really get set off by it. And it's a way of just getting more calories out of the system. It's a way of getting exercise to get them to do a little bit more. A lot of people are sedentary, they're not moving around. So I'm gonna have a bigger fan of me tried to sneak calories out of the system without ratcheting up appetite and everything else is yes, you can kind of you know, do the gunmetal fortitude and get your way through it. But that's also unrealistic to expect someone to keep doing that weekend day in and day out. I think that's where a lot of coaches get into trouble because they're like, What, bro, I just read on the internet, it's all calories in calories out. And I don't know, they were in a caloric deficit. And then they went to a social event. Oh, how dare they like, you know, have a cookie. What are they doing? It's like, but yeah, they were like stupid, hungry all week. They weren't a caloric deficit. They're making progress. But you kind of stack the deck like purposely not in their favor. And then you're just telling them like, oh, you know, you just don't have enough willpower. You don't want it bad enough. Like your approach was kind of a guy. Yeah. You set them up to fail to start with.

Jade  54:55 

Yeah. And you know, then when we start talking about women, and I'm waiting for this study to come out because my clinical variants my guess is, it is a little bit more of an issue for women, I'm basing this off the alpha beta trials where they basically took women and had them be doing it was basically 30 to 60 minutes of essentially treadmill running five days per week. And they followed them for a year. This is from the alpha beta trial in Canada, on breast cancer. So this was women, you know, mainly in the peri menopausal range. And if I'm remembering this study correctly, at the end of the year, they told them make no conscious changes in your diet, right. So they basically just like you know, don't change your diet, just we're just doing all this cardio 26.6% of those women, based on that data actually gained weight as a result of that intervention, which is speaking to what Dr. Nelson is saying here, because, and then when they looked at it, they realized they unconsciously, you know, so they didn't try to but they unconsciously ate more. And so that's a full quarter of those women, only 10% of those women lost a substantial amount of weight. Actually, I think 10% lost more than would have been predicted. So there are people who respond well to this without increases in hunger. So there are some women a small percent, who lost quite amount, quite a bit of weight. But if my memory serves me, a full 75% of those women either did not lose weight, and or gained weight 26.6% gained weight. Now, to me, that's shocking when you consider the amount of cardio exercise that that is, I mean, 30 minutes to 60 minutes of treadmill running five days per week. Now, I may not have the numbers on that study. completely right. But clinically speaking, I had been seeing this for years. And I was Mike honestly one of these people who early in my career was like, I think this is why I started leaning a little bit more towards the carbohydrate insulin hypothesis when I was a little bit more young, because I was like some weird is going on here. I think what I was actually seeing though, is these compensatory mechanisms, including what Dr. Ponds are now talks about with constrained exercise metabolism, this idea of and we're budgeting, in many ways, and I know a lot of you are savvy about, you know, perhaps we're doing less need to NEPA, non exercise, physical activity, but ponds are in a discussion I had with him thinks that that is not nearly able to account for what we're seeing with constrain metabolism. And there's probably something going on with down regulation of immune function, and down regulation of reproductive hormones, which both will have a substantial amount of calorie burn. In fact, the immune system and the brain are the only two systems in the body, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong on this, Mike, they can, that can essentially become stingy in metabolic resources, and essentially say, Hey, we're taking the resources for ourselves. Now, guys, we're gonna leave the rest of you. And so that makes sense that it would be you know, hypothalamus directing this in, you know, making a difference to adrenal thyroid go natural function and immune function. If that's getting a little too technical for a lot of you on the line. I understand. It's just basically saying that not only are we having these hunger effects, but there's also this idea that the metabolism is adjusting energy downward in other areas, the more you exercise. And so what I really like that you and I, Mike, I didn't know, I knew we were pretty much in alignment on this. But it looks like we're very much in alignment on this, which is sometimes nice. And you know, sometimes it's not, sometimes it's nice to have some debate. But yeah, it's interesting that we're on this, I want to ask you one more thing, I want to be respectful of your time. But I want to get into one more thing with you, which is, let's talk a little bit about protein and the protein sparing sort of hypothesis and where you sort of sit on this, and I'll just frame it up for the listeners. So the idea here, if you've been followed in discussion between Mike and I, you know, Mike set it up for us that protein is just one of these fuel sources that the body seems to want to use for structure and function first, and then energy use a little bit later. And so one of the things that has come out of some animal studies primarily, and we're still trying to figure out how much it pertains to humans, is this idea that maybe we have a protein stat. Now I'm sure we have, we definitely know we have a fat stat leptin acts as the fat stat. And I'm sure we probably have a protein stat by some amino acids or combination amino acids. A lot of us think it's probably the branched chain amino acids that tell the body how much protein you know, stored as muscle is on the body. And we have a carbohydrates that probably just glucose and glycogen and signaling molecules coming from the liver and glycogen and things like that. But a lot of us think based on animal research, that perhaps it's protein in particular that the body is trying to recover. I'll tell you about one rat study, then we'll see what Mike has to say on this. So this basically came from mice where you give them Chow, you basically take these rats and you basically give them a low protein Chow or regular Chow, you know, a high fat child with low protein or high carbohydrate child with low protein. And what you find is that with all these channels, they essentially eat back to their protein needs. And so if you have a very low protein Chow, they just keep eating that Chow until they get back to their protein and so One of the things that this has made a lot of us think Is that okay, so protein, we have this protein stat that we are trying to eat back to. And I'm just wondering if you have anything to add on this, how much validity Do you think this has? And of course, you know, knowing your brain and kind of how you look at things. It's complicated. And there's other factors involved, but educate us a little bit on this and how you see this.

Dr. Mike T Nelson  1:00:23 

Yeah, I mean, my guess is that they probably do. I mean, if I were to bet a lot of money, I would say yes. Can I point to a really super solid human randomized control trial on it? Not really, you know, there's some interesting epidemiologic studies that have been done. But it makes sense. If you go all the way back to, you know, the three main things a body needs are some protein, some fats and some carbohydrates. It would make sense that we would have satiety and triggers that would say, okay, whoo, I guess that with the rabbit starvation, ooh, we're not getting enough fat. So we're definitely going to try to seek out more fats. Yes, there's no such thing as an essential carbohydrate. But even you know, societies that tend to be lower on carbohydrates, you know, 80 to 100 grams per day, they're not definitely going down to zero per se. You got societies like the Kitab ins who are very high in carbohydrates, a lot of that, if you look just depends on what they have around at their disposal, too. So I would imagine that there is some sensing mechanism for protein, we know that there is a molecular basis for that. We know that the only form of stroke protein in the body other than very limited amino acid pool is actually muscle tissue. And we know that you if your body's gonna prioritize survival, your body will we know this from starvation studies, they will try to prioritize protein structures muscle tissue as long as possible. Is there going to be some catabolism? And using muscle for fuel? At some point? Yes. But the thing I've used that is, it's almost like your, if you need to stay warm in the winter, and you've used all your other fuel sources, your last resort is to burn the walls in your house, right? You'll get some heat from it, but you're creating a whole host of other problems where you're going to be screwed and short term. But if your immediate need is heat, and that's the last thing that's left. Okay, here we go. Right. We don't have anything else left. The debate? I think that the the protein theory then is how it will how much protein is that? Is it the RDA is it higher? You know, a lot of the higher stats that we've said the point seven to one, that's mainly from looking at the amount of protein to build muscle tissue, which may or may not necessarily apply here. So my guess is that, yeah, it probably is, I would imagine, we probably want to have a really solid answer for the meantime. But in terms of action, ie, what's the upside? What's the downside, right, we've got tons of studies showing the protein in general is extremely safe and healthy people. We see some more markers or kidney work go up. But we don't see markers of actual kidney damage in healthy individuals who have eaten ridiculously high amounts of protein, I'm sure at some point, you will run into issues or if you have kidney issues already. So my bias in the meantime, is probably err a little bit on the higher side, and you're gonna be good. And last comment on that too, which is interesting, as we're talking about. If anyone's ever done this experiment, it's weird where you're eating like super high protein. But if someone put a plate of cupcakes in front of you, all of a sudden you want a cupcake. Right? It is this weird, weird thing where you're not hungry. But you're like, yes, cupcakes, right? So I think it's also kind of weirdly partitioned in the body where it's like, yeah, we need this amount. Ooh, but these other things, those really aren't around a whole lot. So even though I was quote unquote, full before. Yeah, I'll take two of those, please.

Jade  1:03:50 

Yeah, me and my friends joke about that, as we call it dessert full. We might be full. Yeah, we're not we're not desert full. So we're definitely Alright, Mike. So let me let's wrap up. But what I would love the listener to do I mean, you're just a wealth of knowledge. But why don't you? And I know, this is always a tough question. I hate to ask experts like yourself this question. So I'll, I'll give you the caveat that I know you're gonna give. What I'm going to ask Mike because I'm gonna ask him if you know if all else was equal, and he just had an off the shelf person? What would be his you know, sort of general recommendations for you all. Now the reason why couch this knew he probably might not like this question, because I wouldn't necessarily like to get this question either. Because the first thing I'm gonna say is, dude, it depends. So I know, he's probably gonna say, Dude, it depends. However, if I force him and hold a gun to his head and say, hey, well, let's just say for the average person, you don't know you got a minimal amount of time, you know, run us through sort of your general like sort of rules like okay, this is going to be a general thing that people can do. That gives us just a little bit about your background, and then anything you want to talk I mean, whether you want to talk about keto fasting and any other things that you might think are useful, I just want to know what you Your general approach would be to the average person knowing that you're probably gonna say it depends. And hopefully I set that up for you correctly.

Dr. Mike T Nelson  1:05:06 

Yeah, I would say, lift some moderately heavy objects, which again is relative to you, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, do some cardio stuff Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, the cardio I would make as a goal of increasing aerobic metabolism or function, right, which is measured by Vo two Max, which in simple terms just means don't do it just to burn calories, like you want a positive adaptation, you want a bigger aerobic engine, just like you want bigger, stronger muscles, same ideas apply to that. And on the diet side, a protein point seven to one gram per pound of bodyweight, I generally would go lower ish fat, but not stupid low, like I've gone down before, like 20 grams of fat per day. And that just sucks. Like, you can use two sprays of Pam and egg whites. And is it almost impossible is that best for Hormonal Health long term either. But I would go lower even in women 6080 grams, you know, fat per day, that's low, but it's not stupid low. And then I would try, you know, 100 to 200 grams of carbs per day. And then I would see how your weight loss is going and how your performance in the gym is I primarily play with carbohydrates. If your performance in the gym feels like it's horrible, and you can't get through your sessions and your sleep, your other matters of recovery, stress, those are all good, then I would up carbohydrates and prioritize performance. And if your weight loss is not where you want, performance is good. It would scale back on carbohydrates a little bit. So that gives them at least kind of one metric to play around with a little bit. And then you know, step walk, you know, probably 8000 steps per day as a minimum. Obviously, you can go higher pawns or would say there's a limited probably like 15,000 steps per day somewhere in there. Yeah, sleep and then go do something for fun once in awhile, too.

Jade  1:06:59 

Yeah, that's really an aspirin. Super, super helpful. And before I let you go, because I know there's a lot of professionals here that are probably going to want to hear Mike as one of the best certifications out there. He teaches people this stuff he lectures on all of the time. Obviously a lot of you professionals who are you know, naturopathic doctors, MDS DEOs DCS have a lot of them and a lot of personal trainers are going to want to, you know, sort of understand your certification. So any though those of you who have gotten my certifications, I think Mike's adding his certifications on to that is a really, really smart thing to do. So how do they get involved with getting certifications through you learning your approaches to metabolism?

Dr. Mike T Nelson  1:07:40 

Yeah, so that's the two best ways and thank you for the kind words really appreciate that. Most of the stuff I have goes out through the newsletter, so you can get on that just Mike T nelson.com will be different options there. And there's the main one on the page. And once you're on there, just hit reply. Tell me you heard me on this podcast, and we'll send you another free bonus gift. And then the certification is the flex diet certification. So we go over eight different interventions. We've talked about the big picture. So metabolic flexibility, flexible dieting, there's a in depth kind of one hour on each one, everything from protein to need to exercise to sleep. And then there's five specific action items within the framework. So you'll know the big picture the context, you'll know some of the details, and then you'll know exactly how to apply them. And you can get more information on that at Flex diet.com of the waitlist there. And then right now it opens June 5 Through June 12 2023. Yeah, those would be the best ways.

Jade  1:08:40 

So miketnelson.com. flexdiet.com. And it looks like it's good timing for you guys. Since we're right here into April. Yeah. Right now, and I follow Mike on my Instagram feed. I know he spent some time there as well. So what is your Instagram handle is?

Dr. Mike T Nelson  1:08:59 

Dr. Mike T. Nelson. So Dr. Mi1ke T n e l s o n?

Jade  1:09:04 

Thanks so much, brother. I mean, seriously,

Dr. Mike T Nelson  1:09:11 

thank you. I appreciate this was great. Always fun to talk.

Jade  1:09:14 

nice that you and I finally got to connect hang on the line real quick, because I just want to make sure this uploads and we don't get it. But for all of you listening. Thanks so much. And we'll see you at the next show. You've been listening to the next level human podcast with Dr. Jade Teta. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure you subscribe and consider leaving a review. You make the biggest difference when you pass on your lessons and inspire others. That's why reviews like this are so powerful. Your words may be the only ones that resonate for someone else. Please remember the information in this podcast is for educational purposes only. Always consult your personal Physician or Therapist before making any lifestyle changes. And finally, they Thank you for who you are in the world and the difference you make you make