24 Hour 1st 30: Rich and Stephen Answer Carnivore and Health Questions

This is the first 30-minute section of our 24 hour livestream. To recap: The Ketogenic diet (of which carnivore is a subset) is normally described as a high-fat, moderate-protein, and low-carbohydrate diet that typically results in weight loss due to the body entering a state of ketosis, where it burns fat for energy instead of glucose. However, weight gain can occur if you are consuming too much fat, overeating, or not following the diet properly. Each person's body has different needs and some may need a higher intake of certain macros, such as protein, to achieve their desired results. Richard addresses a question about struggling with sleep on the carnivore diet, suggesting that it could be due to adaptation processes, hypoglycemia, or electrolyte imbalances. He also mentions that tryptophan is activated when consuming sugar or carbohydrates, and that potential solutions could include having a small insulin response before bed or looking into zinc and choline supplements. Host Stephen agrees, adding that testosterone levels may vary for individuals and it's important to consider symptoms and not just “normal” blood ranges. Removing coffee from their diets has helped both hosts see a decrease in aches and pains in their joints. 

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Transcript

24 Hour 1st 30 Minutes Podcast

Summary

This is the first 30-minute section of our 24 hour livestream. To recap: The Ketogenic diet (of which carnivore is a subset) is normally described as a high-fat, moderate-protein, and low-carbohydrate diet that typically results in weight loss due to the body entering a state of ketosis, where it burns fat for energy instead of glucose. However, weight gain can occur if you are consuming too much fat, overeating, or not following the diet properly. Each person's body has different needs and some may need a higher intake of certain macros, such as protein, to achieve their desired results. Richard addresses a question about struggling with sleep on the carnivore diet, suggesting that it could be due to adaptation processes, hypoglycemia, or electrolyte imbalances. He also mentions that tryptophan is activated when consuming sugar or carbohydrates, and that potential solutions could include having a small insulin response before bed or looking into zinc and choline supplements. Host Stephen agrees, adding that testosterone levels may vary for individuals and it's important to consider symptoms and not just “normal” blood ranges. Removing coffee from their diets has helped both hosts see a decrease in aches and pains in their joints. 

 Transcription

 Right. I've got a question that we're going to put up because I think it's pertinent. Deborah, put this post this at 730 in the morning. So half an hour ago in the UK, uh, Deborah is asking, why am I struggling to sleep on Carnival? Yeah, there could be a number of reasons like this. There's a lot of adaptive adaptation processes going on when we gravitate into a carnival based lifestyle. And I think sometimes we see these success stories of people who have had these miraculous changes. Um, and they're not miraculous. It's it's biology. And, you know, it's all explained when we look into the, into the information. But these some, some people seem to achieve these things incredibly quickly. But the reality is these adaptations take a long time. We're coming from a lifetime of abuse. Um, what a better term. And suddenly we expect everything just to fall into place with, you know, a click of the fingers. But it does take time. So that's the first thing, and it can take a long time. Um, but the, the biggest reason of the two biggest reasons, in my experience, why someone would struggle with sleep on a carnivore lifestyle is hypoglycemia. Um, try eating something small before bed. Uh, it doesn't have to be sugar. It isn't. So what people will often report is if they eat carb before they. before they go to bed, they'll sleep. It's not the fact that it's carbohydrate, it's the fact that you just need something in there to elicit a small insulin response, and a small bolus of protein will will elicit that response. Uh, it doesn't have to be a big meal just enough. And it doesn't have to be directly before you go to bed either, just close enough to elicit that response to allow you to to sleep. The other could be an electrolyte imbalance. When we gravitate into the lifestyle, there's a big shift in change in regards to a lack of balance. Sodium in particular is lost in the early stages, and then we were told to add things like pink, Kimberley and Celtic Sea salt and Celtic sea salt is by far better than Pink Himalayan, by the way, and we can get into into that. I'm sure over the 24 hours we've got plenty of time for my, uh, my, um, my wobbling, um, but there's, um, an electrolyte imbalance, so we overcompensate or not overcompensate, but we compensate by adding in sodium. Uh, excess sodium then depletes potassium. Uh, so now we have an electrolyte imbalance. We quite often take, um, other supplements, maybe calcium or consume products that are high in calcium. And this offsets magnesium. So it could be an electrolyte imbalance also. Yeah, it's good answer. I mean, there's so many variables to this as well, because one of the things, uh, when I, when I did my bloods and when we were doing the private blood test for over ten years, one of the things you can do is you can, um, look at the levels, a cellular level of tryptophan and, uh, tryptophan and all the other amino acids compete with each other. And you can deplete you can deplete tryptophan in cells by, uh, in introducing more amino acids. So the more amino acids, especially leucine, which is what we talk about in other factors, will deplete tryptophan into the cells. So I'm not saying tryptophan is the thing that makes you sleepy, but it's a precursor for things like melatonin and serotonin. And it does have an effect. And this is why I personally think one of the reasons rich eating late at night helps him sleep is because, um, he's got a perfect balance of amino acids. That's one of the things. And you, you need to not overconsume or under consume. And it's just getting the fine balance. So that's going back to the adaptation. And you can look this up. You can look at uh tryptophan depletion in cells. And the method they use is actually by introducing more amino acids in different quantities, especially leucine. And if you have a huge quantity of leucine for instance, then it will reduce the troops found in the cells. The other reason why Carb tends to work before. Going to sleep. It isn't the carbohydrates, it's that little boost of insulin. So which is again, you know what Richard was saying there. If you eat anything, you will boost a little bit of insulin. So there's many different factors. It could be stress, it could be environment. I mean obviously I went to bed last night and I was thinking, wow, you know, I've got 24 hours to, um, to do tomorrow and I've got to listen to Richard for 24 hours. So, you know, wow, big stress. And we've got all these questions which we don't, I don't know, going to come up. So, you know, we've got to be on our toes for 24 hours. So did I sleep all right? I slept okay, but I had two dreams where, you know, Jane said I was tossing and turning, and both of those were to do with, um, being a bit stressed about something that I've got to do for a period of time. Uh, so if anyone's out there and into dream analysis, I dreamt that I was a taxi driver in the middle of Europe and had to start at 4 p.m. in the afternoon when it was really, really busy, which is totally nothing to do with my past whatsoever. And the second one was I was trying to get a plane, and it was really critical that I got my tickets to get home. I got out there. The whole dream was it was fine at the beginning, but by the end I really had to get home and I couldn't get the tickets because the two people that were serving, they decided they had to go off and check something. 20 minutes. I was at the desk all frantic, and then some blokes came back and said, oh, they're in the cafeteria. They're having their coffee, right? I'm in the middle of getting my tickets. So I woke up quite stressed, and even just talking about it is quite funny, I don't have that sort of dream very often, so I'm assuming that's something to do with the 24 hours. So, um, yeah, I didn't sleep much. Yeah, it's not as many factors. I had a nightmare myself that I was late for this, and I had woken up to 1030 and you were stressing and I was rushing in. But, yeah, that's a strange dream. But coming back, I am sorry. I dreamt you got here in 30 as well. Sounds about right. It's funny that you mention tryptophan there also because, um, tryptophan, which is a neurotransmitter and a precursor for serotonin and melatonin, um, tryptophan is activated when we consume sugar or carbohydrate. So when we consume sugar because of insulin, insulin is elevated. And insulin drives or pulls all of the amino acids out of the blood except for tryptophan, leaving tryptophan available for synthesis. Um, so just another factor there in regards to why the effect of insulin or carb may, um, seem to elicit that response, but this, um, consistency is key, you know, just stick with it. There's a few little hints and tips there. Uh, I'm sure that, um, that everything will come to fruition. Just stick with it. Okay. Just a little bit of, uh, again, housekeeping, which is really nice. Uh, Dale has become a new YouTube member, so that's that's great. Uh, let's do reply. Rob is, uh. Good morning, Steven. Let's get this party started. Of course I know rib eye. Rob knows you as well, Rich. Uh, we have Keith slurp uh, given us $5, which is, which is fantastic. And the super chats can also get your question bumped up to the top. Um, we will remind you that we're not doctors or all of our information is exactly that information. So you can go and do further research. We can't prescribe or prescribe any medications. It's always good to work with your doctor if you can, because they know your medical history left, right and center. In saying that, we can also tell you things that may be your doctors don't know. So you can then go back armed with a bit more information. So, um, here we go. Stop. Uh, 51 year old male stopped TRT two years ago. Carnivore diet since January. Recent labs. Total. Uh, testosterone 896 uh three t. Uh 5.26. Hormone binding globulin 84. How can I increase free t free testosterone while maintaining a meat only diet? Uh, supplements. Question mark. So this is quite common on a carnivore lifestyle. I had a similar conversation with a client of mine recently. Um, Yari, whose testosterone is incredibly high. SPG, sex hormone binding globin. Also very high. Um, look, it comes back to, uh, this is very much an individual thing. And Steven being the expert on Bloods can really go into this, but the the ranges that we're given are for, you know, an average person and we're not average. You know, we're, uh, we're extraordinary. If you like, our range is going to be differently. And when I look at my ranges in the beginning, the early days, my testosterone in particular increased, um, for a number of years that it sort of tanked. Um, and now it's starting to increase again, but not one still, in that time did I notice an inability to build muscle, or did I have a loss of energy? And I think the reason for this is the body becomes more efficient in the same way as it does with, with insulin. Um, you know, as we gravitate into a ketogenic carnivore like style, we don't become insulin resistant, we become more insulin sensitive, but there's less insulin required to carry out said work, for example. Um, so even though this the free T is low, um, is it a factor in your mood? Is it affecting your energy? Is it affecting your ability to to grow muscle? And we know, uh, one of our guests who was coming on today, uh, the incredible Sean Baker, has low testosterone, yet he clearly doesn't have a problem building muscle. Um, so this is very much an individual thing there. Um, zinc is very important. Zinc and choline very important. Um, all of which we can get from an animal based diet in particular. Um, but, Steve, have you got any other thoughts? Well, yeah. I mean, you hit the nail on the head. The first thing is, you know, you've got to look at symptoms. Because the big thing about Bloods is it's not about the numbers. It's not. It's not about that at all. It's about the person, as you rightly said as well. Don't forget all the ranges are based on people eating like 60% carbohydrate diet, which we're not doing. Uh, thirdly, when you when you're doing these measurements and I touched on it briefly there with the tryptophan, what gets into your cells and what's in your blood. Two different things. And sometimes it's what's in the cells that are important. So this way of eating, if you've got less inflammation, then most of the things that are going around in your serum are going to have entry into the cells a lot easier. So you don't need too much. And that's that's true of a lot of things. Like for instance, you know, vitamin C, we need less because it doesn't compete with glucose. Uh, we need less T3, for instance, because there's there's no need to move or pyruvate across the mitochondrial membrane to produce energy because we're getting energy from fats. So when you talk about low free T3, I mean firstly, what is it? I mean it's the active form of testosterone. It's not bound to proteins. It's not bound to the sex hormone binding globulin, which is why I've read that full thing out. Or albumin in the blood. It's only 2%. Uh, of your total testosterone. So, you know, it's not such a big marker. It's 98% is bound to proteins, and they're bound to proteins for a reason, for transport and, uh, and other things. So I'm not overly bothered when somebody says to me that they feel great. Uh, certainly. We've been kind of off since January, which is still early days. I mean, I was very lucky because I was low carb for, uh, for three years, two years keto. And then I went carnivore. And my keto time actually was very close to carnivore. The more I got to the end of it. So age 55, which is over five years ago, I decided to do a 30 day challenge and become carnivore. All my testosterone because I was, you know, doing the bloods as well. I was lucky enough to be able to get the bloods done. Um, within three months, it had gone up 30%. My testosterone on carnivore. So I was very lucky. But was it what was happening before? Obviously there's there's loads of ways to look at increasing it if you really need to, but you know, are you obese? Are you, are you having those symptoms that Rich mentioned there. Are you fatigued? Is there an actual problem. Do you have low libido? Do you have a sexual, uh, you know, erectile dysfunction? Are you depressed all the time? If none of those things apply, then I wouldn't actually worry about the number. And I think this is going to be echoed throughout the whole 24 hours when people took a blitz. I know, I know, you know, I did over a decade of private blood tests and I'm qualified for lobotomies. So I get a lot of questions and I'm totally fine with that. But I do feel I repeat myself a little bit that you've got to look at the presentation, the symptoms, the clinical presentation much more important than the numbers, because the numbers in the optimal ranges don't reflect this way of eating in many, many instances. But obviously, yeah, to um, if you if you have low free testosterone, it's normally associated with excess body fat. You're not doing resistance training. So, uh, obviously do the flipper that do some resistance training if you want to increase it. Make sure you get enough sleep, manage your stress and make sure you eat enough. And of course, which is, as always, with the macronutrients and the micronutrients. You know, zinc is really important. And vitamins. So oh, fabulous information. I hope that was good. If you still want more information, you can book either myself or Richard for a private consultation. So, uh, did you want to add any further on that, Richard? Well, I think the next question I think we've covered that. But as you say, zinc and vitamin D, super important. Super important. Yeah. So, um, I've got one, two week man telling me that he's doing some stretching in preparation for this event I want. Uh, so let's have a look. Have you seen any questions that you thought were particularly good? I haven't looked at the comments yet. Let's have a look. Let's have a quick look. Well, here's a long winded rant here, apparently. Uh oh. Yes. Because they said I've been stripped. This is before this this apology. I've been strict carnivore for about four weeks, but I started in April. Been a little yoyo, down about five K and five centimetres off the gut I have PTSD and depression, although improving. Well, I don't think that's a rant. Uh, I'm missing my gallbladder. They say will high fat impact their sleep is still a little bit, uh, still as little as weaning off some Mets. So missing the gallbladder. That's a common question. Will high fat impact that? Yeah. So, look, it doesn't mean that we can't live a ketogenic or carnivore based lifestyle. Um, the liver will upregulate its ability to create the bile anyway, um, but what I would recommend is less fat in the meals, and more frequent meals. Gravitate over time. Don't go consuming too much fat. And that goes for anybody gravitating to the lifestyle also, because what happens is we consume, um, a high bolus of fat that we're not used to, and bile is produced to emulsify the proteins and the fats, but the the small intestine isn't used to, to reabsorb in and that's what the small intestine does to the bile. And it ends up in the colon which leads to to toilet problems. Um, so so that's across the board you know, gravitate slowly with the fats, but particularly if you have a missing gallbladder. So reduce the fats in your meal and try to eat smaller meals more frequently. Oh, cool. Yes. And I think that that comes up all the time, doesn't it? The thing about the gallbladder, and definitely you can adapt. It isn't things that are going to stop you. Small frequency. Uh, more frequency of meals and smaller meals. So, uh, the next question. Let's have a look. Um. Uh, they'll come in. Carlson here. Rich and Stevens, show what's possible on carnivore with this 24 hours. Impressive. Thank you very much. We haven't done it yet. Well, yeah, I. Do you know the first one last year, Steve? We did the first one. And, um, you know, sometimes when you do something for the first time, you don't realize, you know, how difficult it's going to be. And I think we did very well. But the last couple of hours, we started to flail ever so slightly. Uh, especially, you know, you were standing up for, for almost the full 24 hours, I believe, wasn't it? Um, yeah. Which I can see you started again. Um, but this time remembering everything that we went through. This one seems a little bit more scary. So lots to say. Yeah. Required. It does. Yeah it does for some reason. But um, I'll tell you why. Also, um, I was a big coffee drinker back last year. Um, so I had a crutch. Caffeine, as you know, blocks the adenosine receptor blocks or our body's ability to tell us that we're tired. Um, so this helped me massively last year, and I'm now coffee free. So what I'm drinking here now is my electrolytes. Um, so no coffee. So, yeah, this is new territory for me. Support. Support required. Uh, I think one of the things people like about us is we were honest, and we don't pretend that we have something, but we're not. If we, uh, go off track, then we'll mention it. And if we, uh, artificially stimulate ourselves for coffee, I mean, both of us have actually said we've been wrong. Actually, uh, about coffee, because I was quite blasé about it because there were people that I've coached and myself, I'm not having any issues with coffee. And then once I ramped up my five, I said, soccer. Yes. At age 60, I was all playing football, and I added in a couple of extra sessions. Which was coaching because I'm a consumer as well as a coach. So I did some vocal coaching. I noticed that I was getting pain in my knees and in my feet, actually, and I thought my thought wore boots were too small. Now, the reason I mention that is because as soon as I took even the Swiss watered decaf coffee out of my diet, my boots were not too small. So that shows there were some inflammation in my feet I didn't even know I was aware of. I think taking out the coffee, even Swiss water decaf, so it's even decaffeinated has made a difference to me. I have less aches and pains after training. I do think you're right, uh, Richard, that it's an accumulation and a cumulative effect of the sides. I absolutely agree with that, because I had no caffeine and I had the best, best thing you can have. The Swiss water process is the best way of getting the caffeine out. And I still had a problem. And I have experimented with, uh, it re incorporating it. The pains come back taking it out, pains go away. So it's pretty nailed on that it isn't any other thing. It's it's definitely the fact that I've taken the coffee out. Yeah. And for the. Yeah. Not not the caffeine. Now I want to make that clear. It was sort of decaf. Carry on. Sorry. And I think your coffee was mycotoxins free also. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The same Effects from acrylamide can be seen through mycotoxins. And so it can't be the mycotoxins with you. So it must therefore be the acrylamide. And we can get into to what acrylamide is. Uh, a little bit later if you like, you know. Or we can do it now is up to you. But it's. Yeah, it's it's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. No. Uh, just so people can know that. 830 we've got the Kent carnival coming on. I was born in Kent, uh, Sicily. Corpus. And if you don't know him, he's fantastic. And we'll be talking about why he went carnivore and all of his things. Uh, so I'm going through the chat here, just making sure we haven't missed too much. Now, this is one of the big changes as well, because last year we were struggling for comments. And this year we have well actually have hundreds. So uh stick. All right. Here's an interesting one, because Diane is saying, how on earth have I put weight on the scales have gone up and stripped carnivore. Now I've tidied my room so I haven't got my props close to hand, but I'll get my props. Because, because but the amount of that weighs the same as that amount of muscle. So if you're confused about putting on weight, uh, on the scales, it could be because actually, you know, you you've gained some muscle, but you won't look all blobby. In fact, like when you're on high carb, you might look actually better with a little bit of extra weight. Um, you could be doing the wrong things. You could be over consuming water. You could have an electrolyte imbalance. You could be having too much fat for you. You could be eating too much. You could be eating at the wrong frequency. Uh, too late at night for you. This is one of the things we all have these haplotypes, which is about, you know, where we were born or where our ancestors were born. We do have different physiology. Some of us really thrive on skipping breakfast. Some of us really need to have breakfast in the morning. So if there's an influence out there saying this is the thing to do, right? It's the thing to do for them. And most of the people they coach, it doesn't mean it's the thing to do for everybody. So if if Richie and I decided we wanted to make we wanted to be minted, all right, we would stop. We would stop talking about carnivore, and we would do a very broad brush approach, and and we would do something that we're probably okay with 100% with. But, uh, what am I talking about? So we we would go totally low carb. Or we would go the other way, go high carb. And we would. We would sell stuff that would make us a lot of money but not get you very fit. Whereas we try to be very nuanced, spend the time with you and actually talk about what's interesting for you as a person. So, Diane, um, I would if you it's really worrying you. I would do coaching, but if it isn't, you could become part of our school community. For instance, would there be a link in the chat for that is $4 a month. So over the year that works out less than the dollar a week and you can join 400 plus people members, all with questions like this. And we can give you lots of advice. There's loads of free courses, there's loads of information and loads of answers already online to these sort of questions. We've got free ebooks and everything like that, so there'll be a link in the chat for that. But if the weight goes up, all of those things are possible. Overeating is possible on this. Um, it's unlikely and it is difficult, but it can be that that particular problem, it can be the macros are not quite right. Definitely you could if you're eating high fat, reduce the fat and go to 1 to 1 by weight. Um, you could even go higher protein and lower fat and just see if that works. But give everything a chance like six weeks. So hopefully dying that as, um, helped you there, right? Uh, let's have a look at the next one. I am going through all these questions. Right. So somebody is asking, why is everyone doing a 24 hour stream right now? King carnivore is doing one, two. I'm confused. Right. Okay. How it works is we are not protective. We are very much, you know, if people are going to be our guests, then we can give them the, the, the keys to the kingdom. They can they can do it to their own channel. So although I set this streamyard link up for me, Richard has his own one and he has his own one. And, uh, Jonathan's got his own one, and he's got his own one. But it all originates from here. But the good thing is, you see, because many, many more people have subscribed to Anthony Schaefer's YouTube than ours, he will do it directly to his channel, because he's got all these people that haven't bothered to subscribe to Rich himself because, you know, we're in the UK and, uh, they're quite happy to subscribe into Anthony. So that's how that's working. For those that are confused, Lee should be popping into the studio any moment at 830. Uh, I thought he might be in a little bit early, but there you go. He hasn't come. So last year, to my eternal shame, when I look at the playbacks, I was I was a bit disconnected, as I am now because there's so much going on, so many comments, so many guests we've got to get in. So if I miss, if I miss one of your, um, questions or comments, I do apologise. And as if by magic, an early as you like is sitting there looking wonderful in the full glow of the wonderful Kent sunshine. Here is the. Oh, hey, Don, how are you doing, man? Yeah. I'm good. I'm just lucky that I get the freshest, uh, Richard and Stephen.