If you could choose any 2 people to have on a podcast to discuss metabolic health, which 2 people would you choose?
Right now, I would love to hear Bart Kay and Dr Robert Lustig compare notes. Now that would be rather fun!
Who would you like to hear together?
Amber O’Hearn (higher animal fat, lower protein, is better) and Ted Naiman (higher protein is better, though mucks it up with “energy”, which includes both carbs and fat). This is more of an argument. I’d love to know why some do better on one while others do better on the other.
Two of the mental health gurus might be good: Georgia Ede and Chris Palmer. This is more of two people who think alike.
I’d like to see Dr. Stephen Phinney and Dr. Robert Lustig in a discussion. They are both researchers, but with different perspectives, and I’d love to hear them discuss the evidence as they see it. The discsussion might get somewhat heated, but if anyone could keep it cordial and collegial, I’d be willing to bet those two could. If a third participant were allowed, I’d like to see Prof. Benjamin Bikman as the third.
Of course, I’d put Richard up against anyone you care to name. I once watched him cite data to Dr. Phinney and win. 
I was thinking of those two as well.
And I love all the podcasts with Richard. I can listen to him all day.
I think I would pick Dr. Ted Naiman and Dr. Anthony Chaffee. I recently listened to a podcast with Ted Naiman and while he wasn’t anti-keto, he certainly wasn’t pro high fat. Anthony Chaffee is carnivore. I would love to hear them debate.
One problem I have with Ted Naiman is that his P:E ratio has both fat and carbs as the “E”. Further, this idea that if you eat “too much” fat, you’ll instantly gain weight is, well, wrong. Another problem I have is that he was never fat. He was and always has been thin. He’s the epitome of the “because X works for me, everyone should do X!” idea. I think higher protein works for him because he’s muscular and exercises quite a bit. I’m not sure that means high protein works for everyone, and that higher fat (particularly animal fat) doesn’t work well for some, even many, people.
When I started keto, I ate tons of fat, and lost the most weight back then. I also started fasting too, and I achieved my lowest weight then. I started lowering the fat content. Now, I weigh more while eating higher protein, but I’m also a lot stronger. And I’ve tested eating higher animal fat sometimes, with fairly good results. It’s a really tough call between what’s better and what is not.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, Bob. And your point that body composition is highly relevant to the discussion is well-taken.
Gary Taubes makes a similar point: people who are naturally thin have no idea what the rest of us are coping with. He cites a researcher talking about his obese rats, saying that they don’t get fat from eating too much, they get fat if they eat–period–even if fed a starvation diet. Some people are like that, tool. Taubes is also fond of saying that if you starve a basset hound, what you get is not a greyhound, but an emaciated basset hound.
I’ve often thought this was true. In the book Burn, there’s a figure where there are some who burn many fewer calories per day than others at the same weight (or height?). (I’ll have to look at my book.) He never comments on the differences in people though.
While I think it’s possible there’s a basal metabolic rate difference, I think it’s likely more complex than that. I was watching “America’s Test Kitchen”, and they were creating updated chocolate cookie ice cream sandwiches. The woman who presented the recipe and told why you’re doing stuff (everything had to be changed to be softer while frozen) was thin. The lead woman discussing everything was not. The thin woman probably has one ice cream sandwich and stops, whereas I’d eat two or three and want another. I chalk this up to some kind of hormonal imbalance – whatever hormones that should be kicking in to tell me to stop, aren’t – but I don’t know.
I think this is why keto works for me – I can eat “a lot”, to where I’m full, and yet I don’t gain weight. In fact, I’ve been losing weight very slowly, as evidenced by the fact that I’m able to get into all my size 34 pants, even the really “thin” ones again. But I’m still far away from the weight I was in my teens.
I think this may also be why some keto/carnivore/low carb folk easily get back to their lowest weights, while other don’t – the former were just heavier/insulin resistant, but didn’t “break” something (hormone-wise probably); the latter, which includes me, did “break” something.
And I’ve definitely seen those thin folks who don’t know why everyone is heavy. “I’ll just have one tortilla chip and put the bag back!” Whereas others are “That one tortilla chip was good, I’ll have some more; oops, I ate the whole bag.” 
Having said that, I think we all look at things through our own rose-colored glasses. Ted Naiman thinks everyone should eat high protein because he can and gets good results when he does; but Amber O’Hearn thinks everyone should eat higher fat because it works well for her and others she knows. (Though I think Amber is a bit more open-minded than Ted, from what I’ve seen.)
While I agree with many of Bart Kay’s views and those of Dr. Lustig I doubt I could make it through a podcast with them. I find Bart Kay’s mannerisms annoying. He tries to impress as sounding knowledgeable with rapid fire assertions, but I think he commonly speaks with unwarranted certainty lacking in nuance. Rarely any mention of evidence conflicting with his views or discussion of the limitations of evidence supporting his views. I don’t think I have ever made it all the way through anything with Bart Kay. I have made it all the way through stuff by Dr. Lustig and while he has interesting things to say and I have learned things from him he also has mannerisms I find tiresome. By contrast someone I always enjoy hearing despite a lack of credentials and a comparatively narrow range of experience and knowledge with respect to metabolic health is Dave Feldman. I find Dave’s style of questioning, hypothesizing and learning more engaging and inspiring than listening to experts pound us with their knowledge.
Lots of sympathy with this view. But both these gents are strong in their views, they both think they have the science backing them up, and they disagree on quite a few meaningful areas eg eating fruit, insulin resistance, fructose, microbiome, and there are others.
Style wise, I have also struggled with Kay’s style on quite a few videos and I have to experience him in small doses. And Lustig is the same… I binge watched a lot of him, but became tired of certain style things, and he became the same… needed in small doses.
But both of these guys are very credible to me, despite their style issues, and I would love to hear how they deal with each others positions and objections. Alas, I have a feeling that they would both ultimately agree that we really don’t know that much about all this, and we are all somewhat guessing… hard science in this area is very very limited.
Yes, that could be the highlight of such a pairing for me. If a bit of humility and reasonableness won the day…