8/1/18 E49 The Pros and Cons of Weight Loss on Keto

Can you lose too much weight on keto? What about losing it too quickly? That was the question that started this wide-ranging discussion. Pretty soon the guys we're talking about all the mechanics behind both weight gain and loss and the role ketogenics plays. If you are looking to shed a few pounds, this episode is definitely for you!

First off, Eric's running shoes and Chad's adventures...

Do you know what your therapeutic set point is?

What is the quickest way to drop body fat?

Overcoming the fear of losing muscle mass.

Keeping insulin down = losing body fat.

Some dangers with dropping your metabolic rate.

How a higher beta number is NOT always a good thing...

Eric's recent experiments with HIGH fat, NO fat, and...HIGH carbs?!?

And finally, can you lose too much weight on keto?

If you want to understand how to lose weight in a HEALTHY manner, then this episode has you covered!

Hey, want some cool gifts? Eric and Chad spend a lot of time on this podcast trying to provide valuable content to listeners like you. If you have found value in the podcast, would you consider becoming a patron?

Check out our link at www.patreon.com/lifeinketosis

We also have some really awesome exclusive gifts there for listeners that pledge! 

If you have any questions on this episode (or any questions in general) don’t hesitate to reach out to us at bioteam@biofitcoaching.com, or submit a question on www.lifeinketosispodcast.com

And if you’re interested in starting your own journey, you can find out more information at biofitcoaching.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/becomebiofit.


Chad: 00:00 They say a journey begins in a single step, or in my case, one less piece of bread.

Chad: 00:10 My name is Chad and I'm your test subject. I have sought out an expert in the field of nutrition and fitness who I hoped it helped me feel better. They call him the biohacker, but I call them Eric. I hope you'll join me on a path of leads, you and I to optimal fitness as we live our lives in ketosis. This is the life in Ketosis podcast, a biohackers guide to optimal body performance.

Chad: 00:43 Hello everyone. My name is Chad and this is my quest to achieving optimal body performance with a man that can get me there. The biohacker himself. Mr Eric Bischof every episode. Eric gives us his crazy intense site sciencey knowledge and I break it down with my regular non crazy guy take as we explained the principles of Kenogenics and KPR performance training. Whether you're just looking for a way to feel better or if you're an elite athlete looking for that edge. We're here to help and today we're talking about weight loss and specifically, let me do a little bit of explanation here because I was in, it was in the middle of a conversation with somebody a couple days ago. We were talking about the ketogenic diet or Ketogenic nutrition and they were explaining to me how they had a couple of friends who were, who had gone keto and had lost weight so fast, like incredibly fast and um, and they had asked me, Hey Chad, do you think that that rapid of weight loss is healthy?

Chad: 01:47 You know, can this be healthy? Losing weight this fast? And I didn't have an answer for them. I told them I know who does. So I wanted to, I wanted to just take an episode and an opportunity to kind of talk about weight loss. What's healthy, what's unhealthy, why are we losing weight? So why are people losing weight so rapid? I didn't have a ton of weight to lose when I started to keto. So I didn't have this experience, but there is a lot who have, um, there's a lot of people who are losing weight rapidly. And uh, and so I thought it was very interesting question. I wanted to discuss it on the podcast. So I brought it up to you, eric, and you said. Sure. We can talk about that. There's a lot to talk about, so you bet. How are you doing? Good, how about you? I'm doing fantastic.

Eric: 02:35 Yeah. I get to talk to you a few times during the week and you made me really jealous. Um, this week, uh, uh, somebody, you know, that I am. I spent 13 years living in Oregon and with my family and kids and I love Oregon. I love everything about it. Yeah. Except for the rain. And you're, you're right there, you all those pictures. You're putting your on your travels

Eric: 03:00 a really make me homesick for, for the Oregon Mountains. There's nothing prettier than the Oregon likes. The Oregon Mountains. Mt. Hood, uh, the coast. Uh, so you brought back a lot of memories for me seeing your pictures. So you do like it,

Chad: 03:17 like it there and we love it. Yeah, it is, it has stolen our hearts. It's pretty amazing place.

Eric: 03:23 And you're on a journey if you know you better, we recap that. If you just, you're just on our journey, but you just go ahead and recap it first. Kevin heard,

Chad: 03:33 trying to find myself. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, we haven't been listening. If this is maybe your first episode or missed it and past episodes. My family and I are on a full time travel adventure currently built out and renovated a school bus. Turned it into a little tiny home. And so we're just kind of traveling. So right now we're posted up in bend, Oregon and uh, it's an incredible place.

Chad: 03:58 And you know, what's amazing about Bend Eric because you talked about the rain. Uh, it's, it's been complete blue skies here. I mean, if they don't get near as much rain. So it's on the, it's on the high desert side. So you still get the beautiful pine Ponderosa Pine Mountains and forests and lakes, but it's bluebird skies all the time.

Eric: 04:20 Yeah, you're right. That's right. You're up by bend. Yeah, I lived in, I used to live in the Portland, Vancouver area out of battleground in a couple of, you know, out that way and I live in Salem too, but we traveled up that way. I think it's gorgeous. You're going to end up end up there and now

Chad: 04:39 it's way too soon to be talking about really.

Eric: 04:43 It's really pretty there in trail runs. Awesome. Have you been on any trail runs yet?

Chad: 04:48 Lots of. Lots of trail runs.

Chad: 04:50 Yes. Yes. Yep. There's um, there's actually a place here called the river trail and um, it's, it's a big old loop that you run on each side of the Bank of the river. This, there's a giant, the giant, the shoots river that runs right through town here and uh, there's a river trail on it and it's on both sides of the river, so you can run up one side, there's a footbridge and then you can run back the other side ends up being about a five mile loop, so it's really cool.

Eric: 05:20 Oh Wow. Yeah, that's, yeah. In fact, in Portland, Oregon was my first marathon. Oh, Yay. First Marathon I ran and it was the most torturous, untrained, didn't know what I was doing. I, in fact my kids tease me today because that's when Nike first came out with all their fluorescent shoes and I had fluorescent shoes on fluorescent hat and they still knock my, my running tights and everything.

Eric: 05:48 That was in 86, 87, 88. I can't remember who it was and not much.

Chad: 05:57 Not much has changed. You're still supporting that stuff? No, I'm just kidding.

Eric: 06:02 No, I. I'm assuming guy and I was always. I was actually. The first two were the fluorescent orange socks sock and Asia when they came out and everybody laughed because I always chased those kinds of shoes. I don't know. I, I, I know I'm a, I'm a, I'm a running shoe guy. You're an early adopter? Yeah. My wife used to post pictures of my closet and I had like 15, 20 shoes all lined up on top and you can turn them over. She'd actually take a picture and I would write all my mileage down on each pair of shoes, so I knew exactly how many miles I ran on each shoe, so I'd rotate them. Not Obsessive at all. No, no, but the funny part was there 10 pairs of the same shoe.

Eric: 06:51 She just couldn't figure out what my deal was and and I'm still trying to figure it out.

Chad: 06:56 You're dropping a thousand dollars on shoes in one in one go so that you could the right.

Eric: 07:02 In fact, my kids are older now and my sons are in their thirties, right? They still walk in my closet to this day, hey, I need a pair of running shoes, and they just grab a pair. I'm like, Hey, wait. And they're like, are you kidding, dad? Serious? Don't even ask. They just go apply that with my running shoes.

Chad: 07:24 Well, let's jump in really quick, but before we do that, I do want to mention really quick. I know that you and I have been really intentional about trying to give back to the Keto community support people who are in the same space. So I did. I did want to mention really quick, uh, nourish bakehouse who sent us some cookies.

Chad: 07:44 We found them and just were really loving what they were doing, their message, they want to help out the keto community with cookies. Who doesn't love some cookies? Right? So they said to some cookies, just some really great people. So we just wanted to give them a shout out, really quick nourish bakehouse. It's, they're not a sponsor. There's not, there's nothing there. We just, we just wanted to shout out because we love people who are trying to create resources and solutions for the keto community. So you can check them out. nourishbakehouse.com.

Eric: 08:18 Yeah. And I just mentioned that in the last podcast, there's so much of this key to, you know, more of the treats. Okay. Obviously they're coming out just exploding here in Utah. They're coming out of people's trunks. They're coming in at the farmer's market coming everywhere. And I had a concern and I did say that part of the problem is I'm not sure of the sweeteners and the ingredients, you know, people say and what they may do you you don't know.

Eric: 08:45 And I am, I've had some issues with getting knocked out of Ketosis and I have to go back to say, hey, it's got to be those cookies I had. But one thing I like about this nourish Bakehouse, what they do, they give you a complete nutrition facts label. They get it down to all the ingredients and the fact that they're throwing some type three Collagen, you know, in, in, in their dough. And I thought, well that's what impressed me about it. They're actually getting some, even at a apple cider vinegar in there, so, and, and, and, and other sweeteners, you know, you're with a towel and you extract which is safe. Um, so anyway, I just impressed they really gave some great nutrition facts, labels, and that always makes me feel better.

Chad: 09:27 Yeah. Yeah. That's great. We talked a little bit about that a couple episodes ago on our sweeteners, right? Because a lot of these snacks and treats and all that kind of stuff or not being completely transparent with the ingredients in their treats. So, so it's great to come across a company who cares enough to do that, um, and, and put the time and the effort into making something that's clean. Right?

Eric: 09:54 Yeah. And they're good. I had the, uh, I think it's called the chocolate, the crackle Brownie. And then I tasted and I had some of the chocolate chip cookie and yeah.

Eric: 10:03 Yeah, they're good. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Chad: 10:05 So nourishbakehouse.com. Anyway, we're going to leave that alone and we're going to jump into weight loss. So exciting. So talk to me. It is actually really fascinating. I'm excited to find out so I can go back to my friends and let them know what the answer is, but let's talk about. So maybe the best place to start, Eric, is to just get some good, a good foundation of what's happening within our bodies that triggers this rapid weight loss for a lot of people when they decide to go ketogenic

Eric: 10:36 you bet. And, and this is a broad subject, know we can get into calories in, calories out, okay? We can get into all the macros and it just, it's really a broad subject. But See, part of the issue is right, dropping body fat is what? And the only thing that it comes down to ensure if you drop it really, really fast or you drop it really, really slow, okay? And everybody's different. Everybody's. Everybody has a different set point, you know, I call it the therapeutic set point. Alright? So in all you're doing the same, is it safe to drop all this stored energy that I have on my body? Okay. It's fat is just stored energy. Okay. And the only reason why it's stored is because obviously you didn't expend that energy. You had something going on in your body that was causing that energy to store and not be utilized.

Eric: 11:38 Okay? So it's there. And does it really matter how fast it comes off or how slow it comes off? Bottom line is you want it off. Okay? So the only way I can contribute that it's safe in. I have no fear of knocking that body fat off as fast as you can is because the only time you can really do that is in a complete fasted state. Okay? Because remember what keeps our body fat in storage, and we've talked about insulin and so on and so. Okay. And ketosis. Insulin. Insulin is all about the incidents, all hormonal, okay? And so the quickest way to drop body fat obviously, is not to bring in any more energy whatsoever to where your body has no choice to rely on stored body fat. And the only way to do that, drop the insulin. Remember instant like storage. It stores fat.

Eric: 12:48 It said it locks it in there prevents why policies? It says no, I'm in here now because you got carbs in you. You got, you know, Blood Glucose and you, I'm sorry, fat energy. You stay where you are because I have to get rid of this, uh, lusher. Okay? And you're using that as an energy, right? So if you're eating 12, you know, 1200. I don't like talking about calories, but just say 1500 or 2000 calories a day. That's your dietary coming in, right, and you have carbs mixed in there. You're obviously keeping your insulin at a level that says stored energy. Stay there, we're going to burn this energy that you're eating at your that your dietary energy, so you're going to expend that and just keep everything else in storage.

Chad: 13:37 Yes. The path of least resistance for your body. Correct.

Eric: 13:40 Exactly. Yeah, and that's why I'm a big fasting advocate because I say, you know, let's drop this stored energy as quickly as possible and the biggest drawback is what fear do people have it saying, I don't want to lose muscle.

Eric: 14:00 That's, and I think that's where this, you know, like your, your friends was coming to is you're dropping body weight. They didn't say body fat. So they're saying I'm scared because I hear over and over that when I dropped that much body weight, how much muscle tissue am I losing? Well, if you do it incorrectly, okay, you're starving yourself and you're still eating carbs and still keeping some insulin in there. Then yes, like the biggest loser, you will drop muscle mass. You will. Okay. But if you just take that person and fast for seven days, just like what I did, all right, you're not gonna lose any muscle mass, you're going to drop body fat. And, and granted I dropped. What was my test? I think I dropped a for something pounds. Okay. Uh, seven days.

Chad: 14:52 And as long as long as you're fat adapted right in the, in this fasting state. So I just want to make sure that that's very clear. You can't just stop eating right now for seven days and have healthy weight loss. If you're not Ketogenic.

Eric: 15:07 Your brain will force you into ketosis right away. Okay? So let's say you take a nonfat a non keto person and say, all right, I'm not eating for seven days. Well, all right. The body says, okay, fine. I've got some glycogen stored in the liver. I'm going to pump that out for 20, 30 hours. And we talked about this before because the body says, Hey, I'm not fat adapted. So I'm used to glucose. So the brain says, hey, a cortisol fired up, let's, let's release some of that glycogen out the liver. So the brain stays alive, so the brain says, Hey, I'm happy for right now. The brains happy, but then all of a sudden after 20, 30 hours, that glycogen out of your liver.

Eric: 15:45 Sure, yeah. Most muscle glycogen, but it says, Hey, I'm keeping in the muscles right where I'm at. Okay. For Movement or whatever. But so what happens to brain? Obviously the body's adapted to kick into ketosis. It's just that you're going to suffer the first two or three days because your body isn't fat adapted and that's it. Yeah, you're going to suffer. You can get the Keto flu and some people suffer with the headaches and the brain foggy and all of a sudden the brain says, Whoa, whoa. I'm getting this big abundance of ketones here. Beta hydroxybuturate Molecule says, Whoa, Whoa, whoa. The brain says, well, I'm not quite there yet. Adapted to use that as my fuel because you've been feeding me glucose every few hours. So that's, that's the, the, the, the slow period. You have getting adjusted and your muscles are saying, Whoa, now I got his fatty acids to use as a fuel.

Eric: 16:38 I have a little bit of glycogen here and stored. Okay. The ones you know, if you're moving around like I did and worked out really, really hard. Of course, fatty acids, a great fuel. Now, the only one that's happy. I mean happyorgans. There's your heart because your heart always takes fatty acids first, always up to 80 percent of the energy that your heart loves. It comes from your fatty acid, straight, straight from your dietary fat. If you're eating it straight, chylomicrons straight to the heart. And then liver likes it to. Liver loves fatty acids as a fuel source because it needs that to make gluconeogenesis. Okay? It has to have a, an ATP supply. So take glycerol from the triglyceride or it'll take a. it'll go through gluconeogenesis to, to, to fatty acids to help but not use its own glycogen, but take the fatty acid to make gluconeogenesis.

Eric: 17:28 Okay, so that's. Sorry I went a little long there, but. But that's, that's why I'm not afraid of people. If you're fasting, I feel safe. Are you fasting? Dropping that body weight, body fat? Because when you're in a fasted state, you get back to that autophagy. Remember your growth hormone can increase up to 500 percent and you're like, what? You know, you have adrenaline, you have nor adrenaline, you've got cortisol, you have energy. I mean, and your metabolic rate does not change, okay? Cause you, you're, you have all the stored energy your brain needs in your body needs. Okay? And so that's, that's, that's a good fear to, to overcome. It's when you're dealing with macros. So that's why fast and so easy because you don't have to think about it, you don't have to just make sure your insulin's, you're eating the right carb to protein to fat ratio to keep your insulin down, right?

Eric: 18:28 It's so simple because you're not, you're automatically dropped your insulin and then all of a sudden you're a. If you have that HSL, that hormone sensitive lipase in Glucagon kicking in and said, hey, release the fatty acids and stored energy. That's, that's all it is, is stored energy

Chad: 18:48 potential, right? That stored potential. So you mentioned a biggest loser and some of these other programs where people drop weight fast, but they're still ingesting carbs and you know, they're obviously obviously not keto. So what's, what's happening there, just give us like a case scenario, uh, uh, a case scenario for what the body's doing in that, in that specific. So is it just that they're, they're burning through their glycogen glycogen and starting to tap into some of the fat storage or, or talk a little bit. And is that obviously more effort? Probably not that we're trying to avoid effort, but it's worth talking about.

Eric: 19:30 You Bet you can lose weight so many different ways. All right. The main thing to lose weight is obviously you've gotta have your insulin down because the fatty acids will not be released from adipose tissue. Okay.

Chad: 19:43 So just, just cutting most sources of sugar, right? There's your carbs are gonna are gonna bring it. Perfect that, but not. Yeah, but not as much as just sugar.

Eric: 19:56 They are exercising and burning your calories, but they are burning as energy because they are working out for five, six hours nonstop. Okay. So what they're doing, they're actually maintaining and, and it's just sad how, how did we ever get to this Po, this point are live and nutritional counseling by dieticians that say, hey, eat every two hours, every three hours. Who, who? That that's what the food industry dreams of. Okay? Because remember, you're keeping your, a constant level of insulin up every.

Eric: 20:34 If you're eating some carbs, so it doesn't matter, good carbs, bad carbs, you sure you want healthy carbs, but if it's enough to bring your insulin up, then obviously you're, you're maintaining your fat storage. Okay? So what they do, they dropped calorie consumption. Now we're talking about calories now. All right? So all of a sudden their body goes in this metabolic. Yeah, because we all have that real quick, that met, I call it the therapeutics. That point, that metabolic rate that your body wants to stay at. All right? So what it does, it says, Hey, I'm happy with this many nutrients are calories to keep this weight right here. Okay? And I've done a lot of experience experiments with this and this is what I call the therapeutic set point. So you have a homeostasis where your body says, Hey, this is where I want you at.

Eric: 21:21 I got enough fat in case of an emergency. Okay, all right. I keep a little bit there and if it drops a little bit it'll bring it back. And, and, and I, and I'm personally have experimented this. My Body set point wants to be at 150 pounds and it's. And when I do races I have to literally fast myself really work out hard. I mean, and really cut out all, all, you know, I really dropped my carbs to get down to 140 pounds. And like I've said before, I look like crap, you know, shall on my, my, my, my, you know, in my face and everything looks, looks terrible. But for, to me to have the speed, I need to drop that 10 pounds and but my body, every time I dropped to 16 percent body fat, 15 percent body fat, every time I just know I get off that training, that training and I go back to normal.

Eric: 22:20 Good. You know, keto, my body goes right back to a hundred and 50 pounds every time and I know and I've, I've tested it, been back and forth. My body says, Hey, this is homeostasis status for you. This is your set point. This is where you need to be, and I can, I can fight it, okay, and I can beat it, but it always wants to go back and even when I'm good, keto, I'll always keto strong. It just finds a way back and then that's. And that's really your, your body has a set point and says, Hey, I want you at this metabolic rate. I want you here and concert. We're trying, you know, and I, and trust me, I'm working with and I coach, I coach people and they're in these stalls and I know I know what's causing it. I'm doing a lot of self experimenting right now to try to figure a way to break that set point and reset it.

Eric: 23:14 Okay, which can be done, but seeing the biggest loser, they dropped their metabolic rate because they're not eating. So their, their body goes in and conservation survival and says, oh, oh my gosh, this guy is down to 1500 calories. He's used to 25 or 30,000, let's drop his energy needs. You know, his tissues, you know, his, his functioning, organs everything. So we're gonna go in survival mode to keep him where he can live on this 1500 calories. All right? So now his metabolic rates dropped and he, you know, you can, you don't feel good, you really don't. And that's a problem with biggest loser. Why they don't have, you know, we said before, they don't come back for reunions because you dropped your metabolic rate. Okay? What happens as soon as you start eating an extra hundred calories or 200 calories back, you want to move it up, guess what?

Eric: 24:02 That's all going to storage you have. You have a new metabolic rate that's so low. And that's what so neat about keto is even when you're fasting, you don't drop your metabolic rate because you have all the fats, fat stores, the energy stores to even boost your metabolic rate a little bit. Okay? And that's why

Chad: 24:22 your body's still getting fed.

Eric: 24:24 It's always being fed. If you keep the insulin down, it just, it's so. It's just common sense. It's so basic, you know, we're just dealing with hormonal issues when it comes to obesity and in, you know, and the way we eat, you know, they've got us on these calories. You know, if you get 100 calories of this or 100 calories of that, it's the same thing. Well no, it's not. If you're going to eat a, my bar 100 calories of that versus 100 calories of, of spinach, are you serious?

Eric: 25:00 Once it goes in the mouth, it's a whole new ballgame. Hormones and chemicals and even the way our saliva breaks it down and blah, blah, blah. I mean, from the very beginning, it's, it's a very different scenario. A calorie for calorie comparison doesn't do anybody any good in it. And it's, it's, it's just what the food industry loves. This is, hey, you know, they come out those 100 calorie packets. She said, hey, I'm good. I just got 100 calories of sugar, but it's only 100 calories. I can eat 2000 calories a day, but do you realize as soon as you put that in your mouth, your insulin just took off and all of a sudden fats, all your energy is going to come from that. Hopefully you'll hot burn some of that because that's dietary coming in, but if not, anything else on storage is going to stay put and you know, it, it just, so probably going to be deposited.

Eric: 25:50 Yep. Oh yeah, exactly. You know, and, and so I'm doing some self experiments now and trying to say where is that set point? And all of you out there, you've been on diet, you've been on Kito, you've been on Paleo, you've been on, you know, like the biggest loser type, the calorie reduction and you're all, everybody's been through that metabolic set point to where your body says, Hey, I want you here. And a lot of us statically want to go say no, I want to go down to here. And I do that in my racing. It's not aesthetic because my wife says I look like crap. All right. But I'm more for the motivation of being fast because wait to wait to speed is that ratio is very important and especially if you're obsessed with it, like what I'm doing better now. But anyway, so that's.

Eric: 26:41 And as a coach, I have people who really want to drop the body fat at below what their body is communicating to him. Remember, when you put on fat, I'm 62 years old. I have had a lot of years to keep this fat. It doesn't just drop that easy. Okay? Uh, you, you could put on five pounds and take it right back off that. No. If you, if you've been eating and you're, you're obese, it's taken a lot of years for you to get that. And when I have clients that are 55 to 65 years old, it doesn't come off that fast. Okay? And that's why we do a lot of fascinating. It's fascinating. It's a very safe way to, to lose body fat and you know, I, I, and you're not affecting your metabolic rate. You're doing a tough GIG and you're actually cleaning out, regenerating those of those unfolded proteins in those organelles like we've talked before and you're increasing all your, your, um, uh, a regeneration of, of new cellular components, new Mitochondria.

Eric: 27:48 It list just goes on. I mean, what it can do for you and I, and I won't go into that, but I mean, when I did my seven day fast, remember I came out with four pounds of muscle gain and I got a lot of feed, a little bit of feedback on that. Like, that's impossible. That's impossible. So what I did chat to say, Hey, you don't lose muscle mass when you fast. I went back and had my test redone and the gentleman there at the Dexa wanted to say, because he couldn't believe I gained that much muscle mass, a fasting for seven days. But remember that growth hormones 500 percent. I got new protein synthesis because I cleaned out all the old, uh, garbage proteins and I came back and I still have like almost a three point something, uh, uh, a lean tissue gain still. So it's, it's still there. I didn't lose any, any, any muscle mass at all.

Chad: 28:38 Hey friends. Chad here. I wanted to quickly tell you about a way that you can support the podcast. Producing this podcast takes a lot of time and a little bit of money. So we're looking to you to help us to continue to publish this podcast. We've set up a patreon page, patreon.com/lifeinketosis where you can go and pledge a small amount of money for every episode that we've produced in addition to feeling just fantastic for being a podcast supporter. There's also really cool rewards like t shirts and stickers. So if this podcast has helped you at all, encouraged you or supported you or entertained you and encourage you to go to our patreon page and make a pledge per episode, we really appreciate it. Now back to the show. You and I have talked a lot a lot about this before is using weight as a metric and that's not particularly what we're talking about, right?

Chad: 29:24 We're not really talking about gauging our, um, our success right now. We've done an episode on that, but I do want to talk just briefly about, um, using weight as a metric for success in some of the, some of the downfalls to that. It's not a great metric. Um, there's a lot to consider. So what are some of the things that we should consider when we're experiencing weight loss or con or even thinking about what would look like success for us? Right? So, um, we're, we're talking about rapid weight loss in this episode, but there's also some people who don't experience as rapid weight loss or, or any, but they're really transferring that weight from fat to muscle mass, lean muscle mass. And so just talk a little bit about, um, using weight as a metric and, and some of the dangers around that.

Eric: 30:16 You Bet. Yeah. And, and in coaching, if that's an issue all the time, you know, you always see the scale that I want to break to 208, Elena, you know, 200 pounds, 150, 120, whatever it is. It's like, all right, let's get the Dexa done and let's, let's drop into percentages now because we're safe when we're dealing with percentage and for some reason, you know, and people know me and you know, me and those I coach, I am real serious about, you know, always testing, testing, testing him my body. It goes to 16 percent body fat and you look at me and you wouldn't think I have that, you know, I vascularity and everything and it's like, Whoa, do I have a lot of intramuscular fat, but it wants to go back up to 20 percent every time. And so I, I look at that and say, oh well, you know, I have friends that are 14 percent, 12 percent body fat and I'm like, why?

Eric: 31:10 You know, you get caught up on that because you're comparing yourself to others. Okay. And so I have to, as a coach and you have to work with people to say, Hey, let's just not get caught. You know, I'm a numbers guy and and I hate to say don't get caught up in these numbers, but just how you feel and if you have some healthy, not all bad body fats unhealthy. If you're not metabolic syndrome and you're in and your markers, you're all good. Then your body said, hey, you know, I want a little bit of fat around your organs. I want a little bit of storage there. This is your body saying, Hey, this is what you should be at. Okay, this is your, your base, your therapeutic set point on your, your survival point. Alright, but it's us, our society or culture or whatever you want to say that keeps you wanting to change.

Eric: 32:01 And we get caught up on that. My wife, she's, she's been on a mission to hit this certain body weights and, and I and I have and I have others and I do a lot of self experimenting with those that are close to me in keto and my mission is to figure out, and I'm on these special protocols right now is try to figure out why we stall. Where's that metabolic set point I called the therapeutic set point for everybody and you know what, the more more I study in the more research, you know, we all have a therapeutic sep plan and it's, everybody's going to hit that, that stall, I call it the stall and sometimes maybe we have to think like, hey, maybe this is my homeostasis and maybe this is my, my healthy spot, this is my sweet spot.

Chad: 32:49 And how do people figure that out or how do they recognize that? I think that's a pretty valuable thing for people to understand about their bodies.

Eric: 32:56 Yes. And I have to accept in teaching and what I'm learning, this 1:50 a I have to accept that, you know, and I get a couple of little obliques, you know, because my wife was, you know, we showed you grab it, you know, I'm like, wow, where'd that come back from? You know, what the heck? I got a little muffin on the side and I have to say, oh, I don't want that. I got to get rid of that. And I have to say, well, my body and I'm eating, if I eat the same thing every day, I mean I'm, I'm keto, I have all my macros lined up and how it creeps back. I am trying to figure it out. And so I think you get to a point where everybody has to figure out where you feel good and, and, and I, and I checked my bio markers in my blood markers and everything. And that's how you really know if you're, if you're really, you're like your c reactive protein, you're your a one C and, and all your blood lipids and everything's good. Then your body's basically telling you and you feel good. Your body is saying, hey, we're good just because you have a few pounds of fat. Just as, hey, you know, I'm going to be alive. If all sudden food becomes scarce, you know the skinny, the thin ones are going to die and I'm going to be here. I'm going to live for a while.

Eric: 34:19 So I'm trying to convince myself to think that way. Like, oh, those old leaks will keep me alive for a couple of, a couple of months. But yeah, good luck with that one. But you know, when I fasted that seven days, my wife's like, Oh wow, I lost 10 pounds and all of a sudden the, everything was gone. The, the abs came, poking out the obliques. We're gone. But you know what she said and she said, you know what, you, that's a healthy looking 1:40 because of my, I didn't lose it in my face and get all, you know, muscle tissue loss. She, she said that she, she was shocked. She was just like, wow. It's really surprising that you know, my body lost no muscle tissue I actually gained. And so it's interesting, but, but you know, I think that's the thing is, is if you're going to lose an extreme amount of body fat and you're just cutting out calories, then obviously if you're not cutting down the insulin, then you're going to lose some muscle tissue or you're going to lose anything because your body goes into starvation mode.

Eric: 35:19 You know? And you're going to kick in Gluconeogenesis for sure. So you've got a really balanced it out, right? And so we're always, you know, your body's always wanting to store it, you know, and that's why I type two diabetics and everyone else, you keep that insulin up, it has nothing, it's all it's going to do is store, it's never going to release your fatty acids as a fuel source. And it's so simple. And there's people eat carbs that don't gain any, their insulins, you know, pretty steady. It comes up and down, but they dump it so quickly. They have a lot of muscle tissue or they're just very insulin sensitive and those they're healthy. It's just long as that insulin does its job. Okay. And the carbs aren't going back to de Novo, genesis into storage and you're not making triglycerides out of it. And so that's, that's the whole key right there.

Chad: 36:12 So do you ever run into, so back to this original question that we started with is can you lose weight too fast? Maybe. Maybe let's take the speed out of the equation and say can you just lose too much on Ketogenic? Right. And I know you've, you've mentioned to me you have a few clients where you've had to, like from time to time pull them out of keto because the weight loss did not stop. Um, and can you talk a little bit about what you're evaluating their and how you make that decision? And, and, uh, just some of the dangers.

Eric: 36:47 Well, those people I pulled out of Keto because I wasn't, you know, I was testing because they were running such high Beta hydroxybutyrate numbers. Okay. So they're really high. And so I said, well obviously if your ketones are really high because everyone says, oh, let's, let's get high, high, high on, on Beta. And you know, you feel like, Hey, I hit three point five. Well you, that's not important because you want to make sure your body is utilizing those ketones and they're just not being excreted, going around the blood and you've got too much of it. And why isn't your brain utilizing the ketones, your muscle tissues, you know, are you utilizing more fatty acids? You know, because remember you have fatty acids being because your low insulin, you're in ketosis, you have fatty acids being dropped from the adipose tissue, and then you have our buman that says, Hey, let me carry that to the muscle tissues. Let me use that. And that's a good thing, but a lot of times it's going to bypass the liver and not be made into ketones. Or sometimes you're just going to make so many ketones. The muscles are saying, Hey, I'm not using it. The brain's not using it. So I've got to figure out why you're running so high on your ketosis. Okay? And so I back people off and that's what.

Chad: 38:01 So that wasn't necessarily a weight loss issue.

Eric: 38:03 Oh, I want to know what should I start playing with their fatty acids and, and their macros to say, hey, let's lower these. Let's raise these, let's force the liver and you know, as far as in Ketosis, let's make your muscles and your brain use those ketones that's utilized. So. So let's bring down the incoming dietary fatty acids. So what I did real quick to make an example of that, I, I just did a, uh, I went three or four days, zero fat. I was keto, but no in, no dietary, incoming fat at all. So I had to rely on my adipose tissue tissue, which is the Vldl is coming from the liver being produced to export triglycerides for my energy needs and, and Ketones Beta. Okay. So obviously says I wasn't competing with anything coming in the body. I had to utilize all my fatty acids from adipose tissue.

Eric: 38:58 Okay. And so my ketones were great and I felt really good. I had no fat coming in. I just realized my insulin had to, you know, of course it was down even at eight, 5 million so it doesn't affect fat, but everything was working pretty good. And, but I mean I was hungry constantly because there was nothing satiating what I was eating. Okay. And so, but, but I test my blood markers, my blood lipids, and I won't go into all the details, but I was trying to figure out what's going on with, with, with, with ketone production versus fatty acid being used as energy. Okay. From your adipose tissue. So then I went on I four days, then I went on for days of 400 grams of fat a day every day. Still low carb, medium protein, still ketosis. I took so much dietary fat. Uh, it was rough.

Eric: 39:52 It was really hard. But, but it was weird. My stomach started to adapt to it. I was eating and it was just strange. I was eating every two hours, like what we preach against. I'm like, how do people but to eat that much, I had to and I'm like, how do people eat? And you know, of course, Leptin, I, I, I was so satiated, my hunger, you know, there's no grilling at all. I'm, I do not want to eat anymore. And it was such an. But what happened to my key towns, I elo point three, point two. I'm like, what is going on here? I had so much dietary fat coming in that my album and everything else was just carrying it too, you know, my muscle tissues, my organs and everything else, you know, the heart loves it and for some reason I, I got to figure out where the ketones.

Eric: 40:47 The Beta was low. I got a little brain foggy, I got a headache. I got a pretty good one and so I'm working on that right now. I won't go into detail otherwise you wait another 20 minutes, but I had my ideas, I had to have my theories and now I'm a. I finished that, got my blood work done and now I'm on low fat, high carb for four days and I'm on my second day and I don't feel really good. So. And I'm like I told you the beginning of the podcast. I'm not doing too good, but I'm using fruit as my carb because I'm going to work the fruit toast in and we'll check my triglycerides and everything else after my bloodwork. So sorry I got off on that. But anyway, I am on. I'm, I'm really trying to figure this out.

Chad: 41:30 Well, it helps, it helps with any of these conversations that we're having when it comes to weight loss and how our bodies interact with keto. Right. So you have that experience in that self testing. That's what's so big.

Eric: 41:39 Deal in the same school, same workout and keeping everything, you know, my homeostasis as far as that area. I'm not trying to increase my workout because I just ate 5,000 calories each day. I kept everything the same, but you know, I didn't gain any weight. I weigh myself every day over this stuff and I watch, you know, my waistline, everything and, and that fat got used as energy. I didn't store any of it at all.

Chad: 42:04 Interesting. So let's, let's answer this question very, very simply.

Eric: 42:09 Simply, I'm sorry that was good.

Chad: 42:09

Eric: 42:17 One sentence or less. I know. Hey, believe me, Chad's always like Eric. Okay. Don't go keep it simple. And I try. I really try. I really feel. I apologize if I get a little long winded.

Chad: 42:33 No, it's no problem at all. In fact, I think that's the whole point of this conversation, this podcast, so we can get into the weeds with some of this stuff, but I do want to make sure there's a very clear as we leave this conversation is very clear, Is there. Is there such thing as unhealthy weight loss in a true ketogenic nutrition lifestyle

Eric: 42:53 in a true keto with low insulin. No, I, I just don't see it. And I've coached and I'm talking from experience I can get, you know, I looked for medical and research on this. Okay. And I'm in. I can't find anything, you know, bariatric surgery that, you know, boom.

Eric: 43:14 What happens, they take away most of your stomach and next thing you know, he, you went from severe obesity, six, 700 pounds and now all of a sudden you're, you're in a fasting state. You have minimal calories you can consume. So you go from this to this the next day, and guess what? Your, your type two diabetes that you've been on insulin for all those years is gone in two weeks. It's gone. Alright, your insulin is so low, you start crash. I'm you that body, that body fat energy, it's stored energy starts coming off and so no bariatric surgery it, it's, I mean, there's fantastic results. People just can't believe just cutting out food, know carbs basically that their insulin issue is corrected in two weeks. They're, they're off insulin and it. So it goes to show, I want to say no. If you're in a true key keto, um, nutrition program, there's no muscle loss going to happen. Nope. Great, great. Well that's good information plea. That was simply right. Okay,

Chad: 44:28 cool. Well thanks so much for biohacking with us today.

Eric: 44:31 You Bet. I appreciate. Just remember it's all about hormones. It's not calorie in, calorie out. If anybody tells you different, just, just a Sam to our podcast, we'd love to talk to them and then I'll post those results on like experiments and we will have a podcast on it so hopefully it will help a lot of you out there because we have a lot of blood lipid issues coming at me all the time and I said, all right, I'm going to put that to rest by doing these tests. So I think it will help. Yup. Awesome. And I want to thank the rest of you for joining us on this quest for optimal fitness. If you're ready to begin your own journey and live your life in Ketosis, be sure to check out biofitcoaching.com or biofit coaching on facebook. Also, if this podcast has helped you entertain you, any of those sorts of things, we encourage you to go to itunes and leave us a five star rating and a glowing review. This helps us reach more people and build the community here. Finally, the greatest compliment that you can give us is sharing the podcast with your friends, your family, those who you know and love that could use this information. And until next time,

Chad: 45:35 Stay Keto