Defiant Health Radio with Dr. William Davis
Defiant Health Radio with Dr. William Davis
Why Cutting Calories is Dangerous
Over 50% of Americans are, at any one time, trying to lose weight. So it’s understandable that the GLP-1 agonist drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro have become so popular, given their spectacular upfront results. Others have used reduced calorie diets in their various forms: counting points, assigning foods red, yellow, or green lights, meal replacement products, etc. Or bariatric procedures like lap-band, jejunoileal bypass, or gastric bypass. But there is a lot that people are not told about these methods. The near-term prospect of losing weight is so enticing to people and so profitable to doctors, the healthcare system, and the pharmaceutical industry that is simply no incentive to tell you the full story.
So let me fill you in on the real story, the full details about why cutting calories, regardless of the form it takes, can be so dangerous.
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Over 50% of Americans are, at any one time, trying to lose weight, so it's understandable that the GLP-1 agonist drugs like Ozempic, monjaro, zepbound, have become so popular given their spectacular upfront results. Given their spectacular upfront results, others have used reduced calorie diets in various forms, like counting points, assigning foods red, yellow or green lights, meal replacement products and many other methods or bariatric procedures like lap band, jejuno-ileal bypass or gastric bypass, but there's a lot that people are not told about these methods. The near-term prospect of losing weight is so enticing to so many people and so profitable to doctors, the healthcare system and the pharmaceutical industry that there's simply no incentive to tell you the full story. So let me fill you in on the real story, the full details about why cutting calories, regardless of the form it takes, can be so dangerous. I'll also tell you about Define Health's sponsors Paleo Valley, our preferred provider for many excellent organic and grass-fed food products, and BioDequest, my number one choice for probiotics that are scientifically formulated, unlike most other commercial probiotic products available today. I'd like to make you aware of a new source for our favorite microbe, lactobacillus roteri, and a skin formulation I designed that improves skin from the inside out. Here's a fact that surprises many people, including many doctors, even though the evidence is quite clear. It has been well worked out that nearly all not all, but nearly all popular weight loss methods that involve a reduction in calories ensure your long-term failure and even an acceleration of death, as well as disability, in the last years of your life.
Speaker 1:So it doesn't matter. It could be a calorie reduced diet. You could have all kinds of labels put on it, various branded products. It could be an app that purports to identify your stress triggers or your calorie intake, or identify your weaknesses and try to block those behaviors. It could be a GLP-1 agonist that reduces appetite, reduces your intake of food, makes you feel fuller with less food, may make you even indifferent to food. Or it could be a bariatric procedure, all of which reduce the absorption of nutrients and limit stomach volume, thereby resulting in reduced calorie intake. You can see they're all variations of the same theme cutting calories by some method or other. Now, weight loss is a multi-billion dollar per year industry, and so there's a huge amount of money being made by doctors, by clinics that purport to help you lose weight, by programs, smartphone apps and, of course, pharmaceuticals and procedures. So a lot of money is at stake here in not telling you, not fully informing you on all the problems that result. That is, there's upfront success and long-term failure. Now, long-term failure can take the form of regain of weight, but it can also take the form of marked deterioration in health and even earlier death, and we'll talk about why that is.
Speaker 1:One of the problems with all methods of losing weight by cutting calories is that there's an obligatory and inevitable loss of muscle. Typically, 25% of the weight lost is muscle. So if you lose 40 pounds, 10 pounds will be muscle, 30 pounds is fat. Well, that loss of muscle compounds the age-related loss of muscle that is about 30% or so of all muscle mass you had in your 20s is lost by age 70 or so and more so onwards. So the loss of muscle that occurs with weight loss by cutting calories compounds loss of muscle that occurs just by aging. Now, that's important because loss of muscle has numerous implications. It sets you up for future frailty, falls, fracture, loss of independence all the things we don't want acceleration of aging, related phenomena.
Speaker 1:But it also has another aspect of adverse effects and that is the reduction in your basal metabolic rate, or bmr. All that means is your bmr is the rate at which your body burns calories to conduct the work of living. This is the energy required to breathe, to digest foods, to manufacture proteins, replace body parts. All the things that go on beneath your subconscious that you don't have to think about. You don't have to ask your stomach to produce stomach acid, right. You don't have to ask your colon to absorb moisture or water. You don't have to ask the small intestine to absorb nutrients. You don't have to ask your lungs to breathe. These things are all occurring beneath the level of consciousness but do require energy, and that level of energy burn, energy consumption is called basal metabolic rate or BMR is called basal metabolic rate or BMR.
Speaker 1:Well, when you lose weight and thereby lose muscle, your BMR drops about 27% to 29%. We have very good evidence now, mostly conducted at our own National Institutes of Health, the NIH, that shows when people lose weight, they lose muscle. That in turn leads to a reduction in basal metabolic rate, and the best evidence tells us that, for all practical purposes, that reduction is permanent or at least very long-lived, persisting for many years after you lost that weight, and so you don't get it back. Loss of muscle, thereby the reduction in basal metabolic rate ensures virtually guarantees that you regain the weight. Now here's the problem. The weight you regain is fat, and it's mostly abdominal fat, the most problematic form of fat, because that's the form of fat that is inflamed and exports inflammation to other parts of the body and also drives the process of insulin resistance, the process that causes you to gain abdominal fat and get you closer to type 2 diabetes, cognitive decline and dementia, heart disease, breast cancer and other common conditions.
Speaker 1:You'll regain maybe a couple of pounds of muscle, but that's about it. Well, people ask well, what if I combine resistance training? A lot of my colleagues will say oh, don't worry, I have all my patients on GLP-1 agonists, but I urge them to conduct resistance training. Does it work? No, it does not. So if you engage in a vigorous resistance training program let's say an hour a day, five days a week rather than losing, let's say, 10 pounds of muscle, maybe you lose eight pounds of muscle. It does blunt the loss of muscle, but it does not eliminate entirely. Most people can't stand, hate the idea of going to the gym several times a week to use resistance machines or weights. So especially females hate going to the gym to do that.
Speaker 1:So in all practicality. You experience reduction BMR, you regain the weight, regain very little muscle, even if you engage in a strength resistance training program. So once you lose weight and lose muscle, you are destined to regain the weight as fat. You're going to be more likely to be type 2 diabetic, have heart disease, dementia all those conditions at the end of this process than you were at the start. You may have paid a lot of money for the privilege of being on one of those drugs or that smartphone app or program or meal replacement program or a bariatric procedure we're talking about typically tens of thousands of dollars, and yet you're less healthy than you were. And, of course, you regain all the weight Even more concerningly so.
Speaker 1:Regaining all that weight as fat is a big problem and the loss of independence, false fracture, frailty also major issues, especially as aging proceeds. But it gets even worse. We now have large databases in which people who followed these programs were followed over several years like a decade or so and the people who lost the most weight died the youngest. In other words, people who lose the weight the wrong way and do not manage such things as muscle and BMR will die younger, several years younger. We have the benefit now of very large databases that track people in their weight loss efforts, like the NHANES that's the NIH-sponsored data collection of average Americans. We have Epic Norfolk of 20,000 people and several others in total about 50,000 people and they die younger when you lose weight the wrong way. So we're not talking about just a cosmetic issue. We're not talking just about fitting into a smaller dress size or trouser size. We're talking about consequences that have major implications for your health, like type 2 diabetes and coronary disease and dementia and an earlier mortality shortening your life. Are there ways to block this effect? Yes, there are. So when we come back from a word from our sponsors, let's talk about ways to get around or circumvent all these weaknesses, all these problems that are associated with conventional methods of weight loss, problems that are associated with conventional methods of weight loss.
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Speaker 1:Let's now talk about how you can do better than these disastrous conventional methods of losing weight. And is this possible? Yes, it is, but you have to take some effort. You have to add some pieces that are not typically told to you. When you get a GLP agonist or have a bariatric procedure, one of the things we do is we never cut calories for an extended period. You could skip a meal. Nothing bad will happen. You could fast for a day, two days, maybe three days, nothing bad will happen. If you go much longer, though, now you're risking both loss of muscle it may only be a couple of pounds, but that's enough to have some very significant damage. And when you lose even that modest quantity of muscle, you will reduce your basal metabolic rate essentially forever muscle you will reduce your basal metabolic rate essentially forever. So don't do that. Don't cut calories for more than a brief period.
Speaker 1:People say things like well, I do time-restricted eating or intermittent fasting. That's okay, except recognize that the longer you go beyond about 48, 72 hours or longer you start to risk a downturn in basal metabolic rate, and that sets a trap for you long-term in health and weight regain. Now, in my programs we never cut calories, of course, we never limit fats, even saturated fats, because fats are good. I never accepted the idea that saturated fats were a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. There never was evidence for that. It was a misinterpretation and an exaggeration of very old findings from decades ago that should have been discarded many, a long time ago.
Speaker 1:We do limit carbohydrates because carbohydrates have proliferated out of control in processed and ultra-processed foods, and foods like fruit have been cultivated or hybridized for low fiber, high sugar content. So, because of a lot of the peculiarities of the modern diet, we do limit carbohydrates. So that's a version of a low carb diet. But you have to know, just following a low carb diet can also cause loss of muscle. So it's not as if the low carb diet prevents all the problems associated with other diets. They still are associated with loss of muscle. So we've got to take steps to block that loss of muscle, maybe even restore youthful musculature.
Speaker 1:One of the things we do is we add back nutrients that are largely lacking in modern life. This is not from the diet, it's from the lifestyle we lead. So, for instance, you must supplement magnesium, because magnesium is supposed to be obtained through your drinking water, but we have to, by necessity, filter our drinking water. That removes all magnesium. We should get magnesium from wild plants rich in magnesium, but we don't eat wild plants. We eat cultivated plants, sometimes even grown in a hydroponic garden or soil depleted of nutrients by modern farming methods, and the content of magnesium is dramatically lower as much as 70% to 90% lower than wild plants. So we have to replace magnesium. Likewise, iodine, omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D. These are things lacking in modern life because of the way we conduct our lives. Replace them.
Speaker 1:The great thing about this those four simple things synergize to minimize insulin resistance, the process that causes abdominal fat and loss of muscle. By themselves, each individual is not that powerful. Put four of them together in combination with the dietary changes of not limiting calories, not limiting fat, but cutting carbohydrates that's a powerful combination and you minimize insulin resistance. Recognize that insulin resistance is a driving factor in weight gain or preventing weight loss from the abdomen. We're going to correct it Now. We next take steps to restore youthful musculature, the keystone, the fundamental process. Here. The thing we do is restore microbes lost from the modern gastrointestinal microbiome, microbes that were largely determinants of your shape and body composition and where your abdominal fat occurs and how much muscle you have. So we replace lactobacillus roteri and lactobacillus gasseri. Replace lactobacillus roteri and lactobacillus gasseri.
Speaker 1:Now this is all new to you. I invite you to see my other podcasts, my blog, my williamdavismdcom blog or my Super Gut book, and I show you how to obtain those microbes commercially and then not just take the probiotic, because probiotics are plagued by problems, including very low counts of microbes. We're going to cultivate it as yogurt. Now, you can take it as a probiotic and that's why I provided a product where we do that, I'll list that in the show notes, but I would encourage you to make yogurt, especially in the beginning. Now, this is not yogurt in the conventional sense. This is not the stuff you buy in the grocery store. This is dairy fermented with those two microbes. You can do them individually, you can do them individually, you can do them together.
Speaker 1:We use my method of extended fermentation prolonged fermentation, 36 hours. The rationale being, if these microbes double around every two or three hours at human body temperature, we're going to allow them to double 12 times or more. Now, when we counted the number of microbes by using this extended fermentation, we get around 300 billion counts of microbes per half cup serving, per 120 milliliters serving. In other words, it's our way of increasing bacterial counts dramatically and you thereby have larger effects on such things as restoration of youthful muscle, reduction of abdominal visceral fat and all the other benefits that occur for these microbes, like smoother skin and amplification of your immune response and being happier from the boost in oxytocin generated by the rhodori. You're closer to other people, you're more empathetic, you're more generous, you're more accepting of other people's opinions. So, in effect, you're a better human being by restoring these microbes.
Speaker 1:But they also play a role in shape and body composition. I call these play a role in shape and body composition, call these microbes the microbes of shape and body composition. We go even further. We restore dietary factors that are lacking in modern life. So I should mention that rhodori and gasteri especially rhodori has disappeared from the vast majority of modern humans because of its susceptibility to common antibiotics. So we're restoring things that you should have had all along. All wild mammals, all hunter-gatherer, indigenous populations, they all have these microbes. We've lost it because of their susceptibility to common antibiotics. Likewise, let's restore other factors lacking in modern life Because we've been told to minimize our exposure to fat and saturated fat.
Speaker 1:This caused most modern people to abandon the consumption of collagen and hyaluronic acid, two factors rich in organ meats largely, and so people don't eat brain anymore, or heart, or tongue or stomach, and thereby lead a lifestyle depleted in collagen and hyaluronic acid. Those two factors are major players in the distribution of muscle and fat in your body. So those two things, even by themselves, tend to lead to a loss of abdominal fat and an increase in muscle mass, thereby helping counteract the drop in basal metabolic rate that could otherwise result with a weight loss program. Now, I know ladies are sometimes familiar with these things, often taken topically this is, orally. The real power of those nutrients is when taken orally, as you would have by including it in your diet.
Speaker 1:Now don't fall into the trap of making bone broth that is, prolonged boiling, with the addition of vinegar, because that has been shown to mobilize lead, the heavy metal lead, to toxic levels. So if you're going to rely on broths or soups to get some of your collagen and hyaluronic acid, it's okay to do that, but do not use prolonged boiling, do not add vinegar. Boil no more than four hours and you'll get some of the collagen, the hyaluronic acid, other nutrients, by boiling. I call that carcass broth. It doesn't sound very appetizing, but if you bake the chicken, for instance, take the remains and use that to boil, but don't use prolonged boiling, don't add vinegar and you get some collagen that way. Also, the dose of collagen that works if you're using bovine, chicken or porcine sources, pig sources is 20 grams per day. The standard dose of hyaluronic acid is 120 milligrams per day. I have suspicions that we could probably get better results with higher doses, but we have not yet formally examined that. Then we go a step further.
Speaker 1:The modern diet is miserably deficient in carotenoids. Carotenoids are the bright, yellow, orange, red color of fruits and vegetables. Well, modern people have become over-reliant on processed, ultra-processed food, fast foods and modern produce. Modern farming does not result in high carotenoid intake, so we are all, in effect, carotenoid deficient and we don't manufacture carotenoids. We don't have the enzymes to create carotenoids. We have to get it from diet, and only from diet. I've chose to work with astaxanthin. That's the pink or orange coloring from shellfish, like shrimp and lobster, as well as in salmon and trout. Very big effects on also contributing to a reduction in abdominal fat and an increase in performance and exercise and work performance, and it's also very good with its anti-inflammatory effect. That adds further to these what I call shape and body composition modifying effects.
Speaker 1:How about the role of resistance exercise? Well, my experience has been, if you do all the above I talked about restore keystone microbes, don't limit fats, don't limit calories, and restore collagen, hyaluronic acid and carotenoids that resistance exercise does help, but it's not the most important thing. So if you do go to the gym, maybe once a week, twice a week, for 15 minutes, or do heavy work like shoveling in your backyard garden or something like that. That's all it takes, you don't have to do. In these studies, some of these people went to the gym two hours a day, six days a week an incredible effort, yet they still lost huge amounts of muscle.
Speaker 1:So resistance exercise does play a role. It does help flexibility and have some other benefits, but it is not the most important thing. It adds to the advantages of regaining muscle, but it's not the most essential thing. There you have it. You have a way to lose weight, specifically from abdominal visceral fat, while preserving or even restoring or increasing lean muscle mass and thereby not being exposed to increased or accelerated falls, frailty, fractures, loss of independence, and I believe we could argue this is going to take some more evidence over time that you do not. You're no longer subjected to early mortality. Now, if you've learned something from this episode of the Defiant Health Podcast, I invite you to subscribe. Post a review, post a comment, tell your friends. Let's build this movement of self-empowerment and health outside of and free of the healthcare system. Thanks for listening.
