Mercy: Okay, great. So I've recently been
diagnosed as beginning on insulin resistance. And my doctor's an integrative doctor and she's given
me a couple of options and I just wondered your best input on sustainable long-term ways to change
my relationship to carbs because I love carbs. And she talked about carb cycling. 35, 85 or
something back and forth like that. And different supplements. I've been taking cinnamon, chromium,
vanadium, selenium and senna chroma that I take. I've tried some goat's rue and I just got some
berberine. So in terms of supplementation and just overall retooling of the way I eat, what would be
your best recommendations for me to head this off at the past, and not go further in that direction?
Chris: You said you're sort of on the beginning
of the way there, right? So we're not talking about an imminent emergency. We're talking about
if you could do a slower, better way, you'd rather that than the need to fix everything right now.
Mercy: Right. I'm just, my fast... yeah.
Chris: In that case, I would hold off
on the supplements and try the food approaches first. Because I think generally speaking,
the supplements are not the ideal way to go. And actually I think the mineral supplements are fine.
And I think cinnamon is... Obviously, it's a spice that has a huge track record of normal use.
So used as a food spice more often, I think that's fine. But berberine in particular--and I'm not
sure if this is true of cinnamon--but berberine is basically an herbal version of metformin.
And they both interact by interfering with energy metabolism to trick your body into
thinking that you're fasting. And if you look at the clinical utility of these drugs, as far as
I know this is still the case, that they've only been shown to have clinical utility in diabetics.
Chris: And why is that?
It's because most diabetics are not attempting to solve their relationship with their food. They're
going to their doctor and getting a drug for their condition. And so I think what we're generally
doing is taking people who are not accustomed to going through a normal fasting-feeding cycle who
are not entirely but largely overweight and otherwise constantly snacking,
like most people are. And using a drug to basically substitute getting into that natural
fasting-feeding cycle. And so I think the clinical utility is there. It's clearly demonstrated for
Metformin and presumably anything that applies to Metformin transfers over to berberine. But I
think the results are, just based on what they do biochemically, you're going to get a much clearer
experience of the fasting state in the fasting state than you are in a fed state with berberine.
Chris: So I would try the carb cycling approaches
and various other forms of intermittent fasting or immersion into the fasting-feeding cycle
prior to stacking in any of the insulin lowering herbal supplements.
That would be my opinion. In terms of how to sustainably get into any of those,
I think that's something that you really need to decide from experience through trial and error.
And I guess you may or may not have--What is your experience so far with trying to
carb cycle or do intermittent fasting or any of those other types of dietary approaches?
Mercy: I've had mixed success. I have had
stomach issues for a long time and issues with my relationship with food for a long time. So anytime
I tried to really tweak that it's hard. It's hard for me to do the intermittent fasting, especially
at one site. Because once I get in a cycle where I'm not eating for more than I'm used to,
I'm not talking every hour, but until maybe 10 or 11 in the morning, as opposed to when I wake up.
Then I run into trouble and I often sabotage myself and stop it. So I've tried to go like
from say, six at night to 10 in the morning or something like that. Watever it is, 18,
16 hours or something like that. Mercy:
And I can do that. And I know I need to be better at being able to count.
And as far as the cycling carbs, is it every other day? Counting carbs. There's an app
I know I have on my phone, Carb Manager. Which I just need to plug into more and get
a better picture in my head of how many carbs are in each thing. When you do the
carb cycling though--cause I didn't get a whole lot of detail from her,
it was just on the phone--is it every other day? One day she said you would do a certain number of
carbs and the next day you could up it a little and then you go back or how often do you...?
Chris: I think that you could do
any number of permutations of that and you'd have to pick the one that works. Because it's not like
carb cycling has a bunch of RCTs, clinical trials, testing, different permutations of carb cycling.
So one approach that I think would work both physiologically and, in my personal
experience seems to be sustainable for me and some other people, would be to set up some kind of rule
that matches your carb intake to your physical activity. So I think it was Charles Poliquin,
a strength conditioning guy who, I'm not sure if it was him, who came up with the
phrase "deserve your carbs", which basically means... And
some people would dispute the sort of scientific veracity of that statement because you don't have
to follow a carb cycling approach. Chris:
But if you set up the idea where when I get a certain type or amount of physical activity
on those days, which necessarily should be something that you can only do a few times a week,
then on those days for my evening meal, I'll eat freely of carbs or I will allow myself X
number of carbs or I'll allow myself X portion of my plate to be starch or something like that.
So as an example of how I implemented that towards the end of last year to lose about 10-15 pounds,
I just basically was eating lean protein for most of the day or lean protein plus veggies at night
on any days except days where I did my weight training routine. And so when I went to the gym
and fulfilled full body weight training routine three times a week, I would allow myself one third
of my plate in the evening meal to be rice. You don't have to do it that way, but that would be
an example of a "If this, then that" approach to your carbs. But you could also do something like
I'm allowed carbs on the weekend. There's no rule about how it has to be. So generally speaking,
another way to do that would be a number of steps. So if you have a Fitbit or Oura Ring or an Apple
Watch or something that's tracking your steps, you can say, "Okay, on days where I get 15,000 steps,
I'm going to allow myself carbs." And so that's a way to, on the one hand, implement carb cycling,
but it's also a good way to incentivize physical activity because physical activity and fat loss
are by far and away the two most important things to normalize glucose metabolism.
Chris: And actually I would say muscle gain and fat loss.
So actually not even just muscle gain, but even just increasing strength and power of your muscles
will increase their metabolic demand for glucose. I really think that the combination of fat loss,
total physical activity, but especially high intensity. So anything that builds muscle
or muscle strength and power, and then especially exercise that's in the glycolytic range. So
exercise that really focuses on burning glucose would be anything that is very high intensity,
but is at least 15 or 20 seconds long per bout of high intensity. And so the maximal glucose
utilization would be when you're doing one or two minute bouts of high intensity exercise that you
couldn't have done for three minutes. And for weightlifting, if you're doing something that's
one, something you can only lift for one or two or three reps, you're not going to burn glucose,
but if you're doing 10 to 15 rep ranges, you will. Chris:
And then a lot of people in team sports also burn an enormous amount of glucose.
Like basketball or soccer or something like that because it's so stop and go. So they're just
all into it for one minute. And then the coach's whistle blows and they rest
and they recover and then they're all into it for a minute again. And so you can mimic that
by running on a treadmill for one minute where you could not have done two minutes,
taking a 30-second rest, doing that again 10-15 times. And that will burn a lot of glucose. My
preference would be to use an approach like that to carb cycling, because then you can integrate
your incentives to pursue body composition, physical activity, and glucose burning goals that
cover one side of optimizing your glucose metabolism and tie that to your carb cycling.
Chris: I think counting is great, but it's also nice
to have a rule that you don't have to count. You know? So if your rule is "I'm going to eat
whatever carbs I want in one meal on the days where I meet these physical activity goals",
then that's also a way to simplify it if you prefer the simplified way.
Mercy: I do. I like simple.
Chris: I've done a lot
of counting but sometimes there are periods in your life where you don't want to count.
Mercy: I know. Thank you.
Chris: All right. Take care.