Metabolic Flexibility - Get Real

(Mike Glasbrener) #28

Indeed! Insulin resistance is when cells don’t “want” to store more fat. The pancreases then ramps up more insulin production to force the cells to uptake the poisonous high levels of blood sugar. The damaging cycle continues until the pancreas can not keep up and one is now T2 “diabetic”. To make matters worse the chronic high levels of insulin have made the regrow the of beta cells in the pancreas impossible. Calling morning effect insulin resistance is just confusing things for most people. It’s good to understand it as one meters blood sugar though.

(Justin Jordan) #29

I am 100% in for metabolic flexibility to eat carbs. Keto is a tool, not a religion.

Or rather, it should be.

(Todd Allen) #30

Dose makes the poison. In rats the LD50 for water is 90 g/kg and for glucose is less than 26 g/kg. Chronic poisoning symptoms typically develop at lower doses than those needed to produce acute toxicity.

(mole person) #31

There are two separate things happening. Most people aren’t getting new intolerances. Rather, they are discovering, once they begin restricting what they eat, that illnesses and conditions that they have suffered from for years or even decades just go away.

I went keto for weight loss, but serious medical conditions that had been quality of life destroying for the previous decade subsided significantly when I was ketogenic. When I went fully carnivore my conditions went into such a deep remission that I am now off all three medications that I was taking for the pain control and I’m back to having the life I lost. I again am able to take multi-week deep bush camping trips. Something I gave up a decade ago because everything always hurt. I thought that I was just past it age-wise. But I feel again as good as I ever did.

Anyhow, a lot of people here have similar stories. They aren’t getting new intolerances, they are figuring out really old ones that they had no idea were related to diet. My pain was all neurological, ffs. Nobody thought diet could be a factor. Nevermind plants in general.

I think that this is also a thing. But not as big a deal. When I hang with family I often end up eating wrong things as my pain conditions will not flair immediately. However some things that I eat will give me bad stomach aches that I wouldn’t have gotten from eating those things before keto. However, it’s pretty dose dependant and it’s self correcting. If I pig out on a bag of nuts after 3 months of eating nothing but steak, liver, and fat I will feel horrible in a way that would not have been prior to going keto/carnivore. But if I eat a 1/4 cup a day to start and increase slowly I’m fine. Same with everything. My gut flora does need some time to adjust but there are no new permanent intolerances.

#32

The first problem is thinking that eating some carbs when wanted needs to be “justified”. We’re not vegans, this isn’t religion, it’s our WOE. When a HCLF eater wants to eat some fatty delicious dinner they just eat it, and make it a once in a while thing, no different for us. When we are full blown carbivore’s if we were to eat the amount of fat we eat normally (typically) we’d feel like crap, possibly sick, and most likely have some nice time looking at the inside of our bathrooms. When people who eat strict keto for a prolonged time eat even ignoreable amounts of carbs, we’ll say the “good” ones. It typically ends with them feeling like crap, waking up the next day feeling like they got backed over by a truck. To pretend that eating something possibly as simply as a slice of pizza or maybe a “normal” desert doing that causing that effect being ok is nuts. Being so inflexible that simply eating something different than normal making you feel sick is crazy. I can eat keto for as long as I want and be fine, if I want to eat 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 “normal” meals in a row… nothing happens. I’ll burn off the carbs and go back into ketosis. Compared to me of a couple years ago that would have carb hangover for 2-3 days, feel like crap, sleep like crap, have brain fog, spend the better part of the week and sometimes longer getting back into ketosis. That’s not the case anymore. I can’t think of an argument of NOT wanting to have that flexibility. I feel better, my A1C averages 4.8-5.2, and no more crazy blood sugar spikes from eating things that used to do just that. It’ll rise, but since I’m not hyper sensitive anymore I go up, and come back down, not a spike and crash.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #33

@lfod14 Here’s what I think currently. And as I pointed out in the OP, I am open to changing my mind if presented with convincing evidence to the contrary. I think folks have got ‘metabolic flexibility’ backwards. I posted a link in my OP that I think correctly defines metabolic flexibility.

Unless one is diabetic and/or severely insulin resistant or otherwise metabolically deranged, we already have the capability to metabolize carbohydrates and utilize glucose. We don’t need to practice. Gluconeogenesis (unless deranged) synthesizes all the glucose we need for the cells and organs that require it and it gets used fairly efficiently. Therefore, we have zero need to eat carbohydrates, since they are simply exogenous sugar of various molecular structures. Eating carbohydrates just forces our metabolism to deal with excessive amounts of sugar. Some of us manage to do so successfully some not so much. And the ability to deal with the excessive sugar load successfully declines with age for most of us.

Metabolic flexibility is actually the ability to metabolize fatty acids and ketones efficiently. People who fuel their metabolism primarily by eating carbohydrates and burning glucose, can not do so. These are the people who are not ‘metabolically flexible’. Upthread, @fabia mentions that virtually everyone goes into ketosis overnight, which might or might not be the case. Depends on how much, what kinds and what time the last high carb meal was consumed before going to sleep for the night. The sugar-burner may or may not be in ketosis by morning. But even if a sugar-burner is in ketosis by morning, he/she is not utilizing ketones and fatty acids efficiently. Quite the contrary. The cells and organs of a sugar-burner are habituated to burn glucose not fatty acids and ketones. Everyone of us who has been eating ketogenically for more than a few months knows that fat adaptation - the efficient utilization of fatty acids and ketones - takes time. Dipping in and out of ketosis in the morning won’t cut it.

Metabolic flexibility is not the ability to eat a high carb meal and not want to puke afterwards. That’s total nonsense. Yet that’s what I see being advocated. Or such stuff as “I can eat 100+ grams of carbs per day and stay in ketosis because of metabolic flexibility”.

It’s not religion to accept the scientific fact that we have zero need to consume carbohydrates and eat accordingly. Nor to say so.

Mike's Excellent Glucose Monitor Adventure
(Windmill Tilter) #34

I think much of this is a misunderstanding over terms. What you have defined above is fat adaptation.

As previously noted, metabolic flexibilty is defined in medical literature as the capacity for an organism to adapt fuel oxidation to fuel availability. Whether or not carbs are biologically necessary is interesting but not particularly relevant to the discussion.

Using the actual definition of the term “metabollically flexible”, if one person is capable of eating every possible food known to existence in a state of perfect health, they are metabolically flexible. If another is only capable of eating the thigh meat of a single species of artic mole or face fatal consequences, they are not metabolically flexible.

Provided you accept the medical definition of the term under discussion, do think it more rational to aspire to be the perfect omnivore, or the mole person? Provided you had the godlike metabolism of the perfect omnivore, are there particular foods that you would exclude given that all foods leave you in the same state of perfect health? If so, why?

(charlie3) #35

What most diet research rarely accounts for is activity, how many more calories are burned above RMR. Perhaps the majority of Dr. Westman’s patients are sedentary so 20 grams of total carbs max is a must. If you are burning double the RMR and consuming it with activity perhaps double or triple 20 total grams doesn’t have a significant effect because it’s all burned for fuel.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #36

@Don_Q Maybe I’m not being clear, but isn’t that what I just said? Edible food for humans consists of carbohydrates, proteins and fats, along with assorted micronutrients. All humans who are not metabolically compromised in one way or another have the capability to metabolize carbohydrates efficiently. Those who become fat adapted by keeping glucose and insulin at or near baseline concentrations by avoiding unnecessary carbohydrate consumption are also capable of utilizing fatty acids and ketones efficiently. That makes them more metabolically flexible. People whose primary metabolic fuel is carbs/glucose can not and consequently are less so. I’m not saying people whose primary fuel is carbs/glucose don’t burn fatty acids, they don’t do it efficiently simply because they’re in a perpetual state of ‘sugar saturation’ and glucose habituation.

Contrarilly, I think whether or not carbs are biologically necessary is very relevant. I doubt that you would claim that having the ability to down a fifth of bourbon every day demonstrates ‘metabolic flexibility’. For a very large number of people, downing 300+ grams of carbs per day is no different except the specific damage inflicted. If someone wants to die with a healthy liver I don’t think them irrational to minimize liquor consumption. And if someone wants to die in a state of metabolic good health I don’t think them irrational to minimize carb consumption.

Unless someone finally proves beyond all doubt that Ancel Keys was right after all and the last 40+ years and the world-wide epidemic of obesity, T2D and CVD didn’t happen. We just imagined it.

(Windmill Tilter) #37

That’s much clearer to me, and I think we agree. If a person is incapable of metabolizing carbohydrates efficiently, they are metabolically deranged.

My point is that strict adherence to sub 20 carbs per day for years at a time leaves people unable to metabolize carbohydrates efficiently. I actually did a bit of a self-experiment on this last night. I added half a can of kidney beans to my nightly supper of hamburger, which is about 33 grams of net carbs. I’m a former vegan who lived on the stuff prior to reading Dr. Fung and starting keto so I figured that was a safe bet.

Guess what happened? I wound up on the can for a good portion of the evening. I can’t digest them anymore apparently. I hadn’t eaten them for a long time. I’m metabolically deranged! Ironically that was the same reaction my body had to meat back when I was a metabollically deranged vegan.

Put in the terms of the present discussion, I’m as metabolically inflexible now, as I was when I was a carb burning, sugar eating vegan. You may judge that as progress, but you’ll forgive me if I attribute that to an article of faith rather than reason.

On the bright side, this whole discussion has got me thinking more seriously about the importance of metabollic flexibity. I just made a 5lb batch of hamburger and this time I added in 15g of beans and 15g of rice to each 1lb portion. I plan on adding in other foods that I’ve not eaten in a while so that I can start to repopulate my digestive track with all the wee beasties whose populations I’ve allowed to decline.

Heresy or not, it’s better than being stuck in the john… :yum:

(Windmill Tilter) #38

As I mentioned in my post above, having been convinced by my newfound inability to digest kidney beans that metabolic flexibility is a more pressing issue than I had realized, I’ve started adding in small quantities of basic carb foods that I want to retain the ability to digest in the future.

I typically have 1lb of hamburger for dinner on days that I’m not doing extended fasting, so that seemed like an easy medium. It’s 73/27 hamburger, so the massive fat load should insulate me a bit from the carbs I hope. This is what it looks like. It’s actually still pretty close to the keto guidelines. Maintaining metabolic flexibility needn’t be drastic I don’t think.

I’m trying to think of other foods to start adding in. I guess 10g of wheat flour is a natural choice, but ironically, for all my prattling about metabolic flexibility, I’m loath to do it. I think I’ll leave that one for last. :smile:

Does anyone else do this sort of thing? I’m curious what other folks have done to keep the pumps primed for eating non-keto fare every now and then.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #39

I’m all in favour of self-experimentation. I don’t interpret your beans experiment an indication that you are metabolically inflexible. As you say, this is semantics. Sure, it might mean you’ve lost the ability to digest kidney beans, or not. Further experiments required. But my response is “if so, then so what?” You have not lost anything because the kidney beans have nothing you need. As I said to @lfod14 I don’t think metabolic flexibility means you can eat a high carb meal and not puke afterwards.

This is why I keep coming back to the biological irrelevance of consuming carbs. If you adhere to the official medical definition, then consuming bourbon also indicates metabolic flexibility. If you counter by saying ethanol is toxic, I counter by saying so is glucose. In sufficient quantity over sufficient time they are equally toxic. Glucose maybe moreso.

As long as gluconeogenesis functions normally, there is neither need nor benefit to consuming exogenous sugar in the form of carbs. Whether or not you can do so or bother to do so is irrelevant. What is not irrelevant is that the exogenous sugar causes a cascade of events that blocks your ability to metabolize fats efficiently, thus making you less metabolically flexible.

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #40

Yes, each week I usually buy something I rarely get and habituate my body to it. Sometimes there’s more bathroom time afterward, sometimes not. Some examples are peanuts, edamame, onions, chocolate, olive oil instead of butter, salad, fried chicken, yogurt. Some days I have mostly meat but I like the flexibility and variety doing this. Plus, I feel I’m casting a wide nutrient net because I don’t supplement.

#41

You should be asking… Why are people addicted to carbs in the first place? That they have to go as far as make up words so they can consume their crack.

Carbs raise serotonin. They are just as essential as caffeine and other serotonin stimulants in those who aren’t producing any serotonin themselves.

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #42

I think there can be gut flora problems that are different from metabolic derangement or carb intolerance. Most days I’m very low carb but more importantly I’m meat and fish heavy. I can no longer eat my wifes thai curry chicken or thai basil chicken. It may be the carbs but it is likely the fish sauce or thai peppers. 1 hr later I’m on the can. This is not the inability to digest or process the carbs. Because I can have refried beans or meat chilli with tomatoes and red bell peppers and not have to be on the can.

I do like this discussion and I do think that many of us are deranged in carb processing. I am, but I’m not super sensitive. Just can’t over do it.

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #43

I’m considering carnivore in late February after my next set of blood work but I’m very nervous about losing the ability to eat certain plant foods. I don’t track but I do eat these foods almost weekly in small doses and hope to retain the ability to process them:

  • coffee (daily)
  • onions
  • garlic
  • avocado
  • olives
  • pickles and sauerkraut (actively fermented)
  • refried beans
  • a selection of hot pepper sauces (almost daily)

I have given up all nuts except macadamia, no peanut butter and sadly no chocolate.

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #44

I think many people miss the differences in gut flora issues versus carb intolerance or auto-immune issues.

The more I lean towards carnivore (carnivore adjacent?) the more I find old foods have me running to the can. Pune intended. Thai basil or curry chicken is one that my wife is great at cooking that I can no longer tolerate. I’m assuming this is not a permanent intolerance but is very annoying if I want to eat those dishes I have to work towards building up the flora.

I have a non-keto daughter that is back form 4 months overseas and she is on the can a lot. She was asking my opinion and I told here I think mostly it is the gut. Some may be bad oils as well.

#45

Why is it nonsense? We SHOULD be able to eat something without a horrible punishment, regardless of whether that meal is “healthy” for us on paper. You really don’t think your body completely over-reacting to something is a little much?

Many can do it! I’ve done just that on many occasions. I can’t pull that off on a sedentary Sunday, but as we speak I’m getting coffee’d up and heading to the gym for my 5x5 of heavy Squats, Deadlifts and Rows, I’ll follow that up with about 20min HIIT and then some cardio while I watch whatever movie they got going for a while, then zone out in the sauna for a while. I can absolutely eat 100g on a day like today without an issue, burn it all off, flip back and keep the ketones rolling before I burn off everything already in my blood. No headaches, sick feeling, toilet time…nothing. How’s that a bad thing?

I’ll agree that some people, mainly people newer to this WOE still mentally highjacked by sugar in most cases use either (what they call) a CKD protocol or they just binge on garbage at random and claim “flexibility” when in reality they never got over the sugar in the first place and that’s why they can pull it off. But that’s not what most of us that use that term do.

When I eat say a burger w/fries now my blood sugar doesn’t spike and crash anymore, I’m able to handle that meal like a normal person without the downsides, that’s a GOOD thing. My A1C is sitting pretty even with 2-3 meals that are “normal” a week. My ketone levels when I check them are always good. I can’t think of a situation where turning your metabolism into a functional hybrid is a bad thing. I think the biggest problem is that the argument constantly gets changed, it’s like the political left and right. One side says that metabolic flexibility is a good thing, the argument back is that we don’t need carbs. That’s TRUE, but that’s not the discussion. We’re saying we want a metabolism that can seamlessly flip-flop between fuel sources without repercussions. Then the response would be something like we said we want to go from steak to cupcakes and back… and again, not what we’re advocating for. I think it’s also assumed that when people like us eat carbs that means a bag of chips, some candy and half a loaf of bread, again, simply not true. Most of my carbs are from lower glycemic healthier carbs like oatmeal, some fruits, sweet potato etc. Basically my carbs (when I eat them) are more what a normal low carb eater would eat. The burger and fries type meals are pretty minimal.

I’d say I eat Keto 90% of the time, LCHF 10%. Also a reason I don’t like to refer to Keto as LCHF. It is of course, but Keto is always LCHF but LCHF isn’t always keto.

(Windmill Tilter) #46

Wow. That’s fairly stunning. Actually it’s a little alarming.

The topic of discussion is: “metabolic flexibility is simply an excuse to eat carbs; change my mind!”. We’ve agreed that the definition of metabolic flexibility is the ability of an organism to adapt fuel oxidation to food availability. We both agree (you proposed!) that the inability to metabolize carbohydrates efficiently is a metabolic derangement and therefore metabolic inflexibility. From the following, it logically follows that “metabolic flexibility” is not merely an “excuse to eat carbs”, but rather a legitimate and prudent effort to correct a metabolic derangement. I’m starting to get the impression that no living person could any more change your mind on this question than one could persuade a hard-core vegan that steaks are good for you.

When I was a vegan, I often felt a little uncomfortable with some of my fellow travelers. They seemed utterly convinced that the way they ate was the one true way. It ceased to be a rational thing. Veganism has a reputation for this. The thing I liked least about being vegan wasn’t the food, it was the stigma of being vegan!

I see more and more stuff like that around the forums with keto and carnivore. It makes me a little uncomfortable frankly. I think keto is great, and I love extended fasting, but it’s just food.

Chopsticks are a “way of eating”. Keto is a metabolic tool, not a religion…

(Bob M) #47

Interesting. Hot sauces cause me immediate allergy symptoms (my eyes water, I get congested, etc.). I still eat them on occasion, but have mainly given them up. In fact, we bought Sriracha for a recipe over the holidays, and I was using that. Got allergy symptoms each time, so I tossed it. That’s too bad, because I was once the guy who could eat “wings of DEATH!” with no problems.

Raw sauerkraut affects me poorly, though cooked sauerkraut does not. On the other hand, fermented pickles (Bubbies) do not affect me.

Onions I think affect me poorly, though I still eat them periodically, like last night.

I don’t like avocado, never have, never will. Guacamole is OK, but I eat this rarely. I also saw a comparison between the fatty acids in avocado (a “healthy” fat) and lard (an “unhealthy” fat), and they were remarkably similar. I’d rather eat something fried in lard.

I’m conflicted about chocolate. If I eat it with too high of a percentage and too late at night, I sleep poorly… So, I have low doses or try to eat it earlier in the day. I also eat it with calcium/fat to limit the effects of oxalates.

I personally will eat beans, like if I order chili from a menu and it has beans in it. But I think they are filled with so many anti-nutrients (lectins, etc.), that I try to avoid them. Refried will lesson the amount of anti-nutrients, though, but you have to watch what they are fried in. Lard would not be bad.

So, I guess we each have to figure out what affects us.

As for gut flora, if there was ever research that was all over the map, this is it. It’s terrible. While there is some truth to the gut issues, the microbiome in my opinion is completely overblown. Say you want to find out what your microbiome looks like. Sample from two different poop locations, get two different results. Send same sample to two different labs, get two different results. Give someone probiotics, then give them a pill to swallow that measures actual biome in their actual digestive track, and it’s completely different from what a poop test shows.

And don’t get me started on resistant starch and probiotics. Talk about scientific garbage.

On the other hand, I’m sure there are biome issues for some people, maybe even me. But trying to figure out what they are is impossible. As a scientist, I like to test things. But there are no tests you can take to see if you have a microbiome issue that actually work.

Anyway, I’m off to go jogging (HIIT on a dreadmill), then do some abs, then do cold therapy by walking outside in the cold with reduced amounts of clothing.