Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 987: The Ketogenic Diet is Making You Fat

Episode Date: March 14, 2019

Now that the ketogenic diet has gone mainstream, an entire industry of supplements, processed foods and gurus has sprung up around it. It has even made sardines popular again! But is the keto diet the best diet for you or are there pitfalls you need to watch out for? In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin discuss the keto diet, their experience with it, why it may not be for everyone and why it may, in fact, be making a lot of people fat. What is Mind Pump’s “go-to” work out music? (2:08) Why do we crave sweets when we’re stressed? Study. (11:47) Why is Keto making everyone fat?! The backlash of the 2018 fad diet of the year. (14:40) Why the Keto diet is one of the oldest in existence. (16:48)  The reasons the Keto diet became so popular and why it is NOT for everyone. (26:54) Why the Ketogenic diet is making you FAT + the science of the ‘binge effect’. (36:20) Why context and awareness trump everything. (46:50) People Mentioned: Enzo Coglitore (@enzocog)  Instagram Dominic D'Agostino (@DominicDAgosti2)  Twitter Dr. Joseph Mercola (@drmercola)  Instagram Zach Bitter (@zachbitter)  Instagram Products Mentioned: March Promotion: MAPS Aesthetic is ½ off!! **Code “BLACK50” at checkout** Mind Pump Episode 912: How to Change Your Mental State with Music with CEO of Brain.fm, Daniel Clark Hitmakers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction - Book by Derek Thompson Why Do We Crave Sweets When We're Stressed? - Scientific American News: ONR-Supported Research Fights Oxygen Toxicity in Navy Divers Fat for Fuel: A Revolutionary Diet to Combat Cancer, Boost Brain Power, and Increase Your Energy - Book by Joseph Mercola Mind Pump Episode 482: Robb Wolf Mind Pump 367: Zach Bitter- Ketogenic 100 Mile Record Holder Fasting Mimicking Diet | ProLon FMD Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, 12-minute fun conversation. So if you wanna hear all about the ketogenic diet, you can fast forward that first 12 minutes. But in that 12 minutes, we talk about music and workouts. Then I talk about a study and that talks about why we crave sweets when we are stressed out. And then the rest of the episode is all about all about that ketogenic diet. The ketogenic diet, but really it's about

why we think the ketogenic diet, but really it's about why we think the ketogenic diet is probably making people fatter rather than helping people lose weight in a long term, permanent fashion, you know. It's now it's been popular now for at least a few years. We've been witnessing some interesting trends. And of course, we talk about our experiences with the ketogenic diet and our clients experiences with the ketogenic diet and our client's experiences

with the ketogenic diet and why we think the vast majority of you listening right now should not be on a long term ketogenic diet. So I know this episode will be a little controversial for some people, but again, we have a lot of experience working with people and I think we made a pretty good case. So listen in and enjoy. But before we get started, I want to remind everybody, Maps aesthetic, our bodybuilding, physique competitor, bikini competitor program. The program that is designed for people

who want to change how they look to become more aesthetic. They want to sculpt their body the way they see fit that program right there, very popular, 50% off off all you got to do is go to maps fitness products.com use the code black 50 BLA CK 50 and you will get 50% off on that site we have other maps programs as well. So if you want to find one that suits your personal fitness experience fitness needs and goals again go on go on that site, mapsfitinusproducts.com. We got you. You know what was a good workout band

that nobody ever brings up anymore today because they kind of fell out of favor? Disturred. No. No, they were great. Yeah. No. The sickness.

Limp biscuit. Oh yeah. Yeah. But you laugh because now it's kind of, yeah. But they don't legit workout music. They're expensive. But yeah laugh because now it's kinda like, yeah, but they don't legit work out music like that. But yeah, no, I mean, the energy they had, I watched them, I actually went to one of their concerts.

I went to, I watched the Rudolph stage. It was explosive. Like everybody went crazy and was like, like fighting each other. So you went when they were cool. Yeah, when they were cool. And then you went when they were just like, ride after it. What was it that he did? Fred Durst did. Cause, when they were cool. And then he went when they were just like, right after. What was it that he did?

Fred Durst is so nice. So he decided to write it at this revised Woodstock where they had Woodstock with corn and limp biscuit and a Regions machine and like all these like metal wrap bands. Like what? And alcohol. That's not Woodstock. It turned into a blood bath.

So somebody had tore something down. And so what he did was he like started, he grabbed, I guess like, he got them to like grab one of these pieces of wood and he got on it and was surfing on it. And so now, and that, everybody started like tearing stuff down because they saw him like surfing on this piece of wood. And then that just, it just exploded.

Everybody started like riding and like, like raping people and crazy shit. Oh my god. Yeah. Oh, that's right. I read about that. It was horrific. I don't see.

I couldn't remember why we all said and went from liking him to hating him, but that was why. I remember I had tickets to go see. So this was, they were in San Francisco. I watched Mudvane, uh, Limbiscuit, Metallica, and Lincoln Park. We're all at a concert. So they were on a tour together. Great, great concert. Um, but when Limbiscuit came out, shit, he didn't even finish his set because people were throwing shit on the stage and booing him off. I think he's saying two songs.

That's rough. So now, I don't, are you sure that's why he got a lot of hate? Cause I thought it was cause he was dating every pop star. No, that's, I mean, that, I'm sure that contributed to part of it, but that, that was the nail in the coffin for him. Really? Yeah. Cause at one point, uh, Durst was the man.

He was dating every hot pop star actress. Like he was the guy. And then he went from cool to not cool at all to drool. Yeah, like you didn't want to say you were a limbo. Yeah, I couldn't, yeah, no, I couldn't remember. No, I still like their music though. Hell yeah, hell yeah. No, it's great workout music.

It's on my playlist. Is it still? Yeah, yeah, it's on my playlist. I just have to break stuff. Yeah, it's so good. I mean, raging against the machine is always my my go to but I I can abuse that too much. So the point where it loses its effect. So I try to fast from it for like a while. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And then I know you know what I'm asked with it with Pantera. Yes, dude. So here's what I go Here's what I notice with music. It's like caffeine for me Yeah, like if I use caffeine too frequently I need more and more of it to give me the same way totally so I'll start off with

Like Lincoln Park and then it'll get to like disturbed and then raging in some machine But before I know it. I'm like Sepultera lamb of God and then it's just just, dude, 100%. 100% I mean, we talk about this. Our bodies are adaptation machines. And that's funny. For sure works the same way. This is why I'm actually very methodical about my music as when I'm kind of getting into my rhythm, I'm not listening to my heavy metal right now.

I'm like hip hop. If I'm listening to, when you guys hear hip hop out here, you're like, you know, like, he's not that serious right now. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, I'm not getting after it yet. Cause I'm not there. I'm not scaling after it yet. Because I'm not there. I'm not scaling the workouts there.

But once I start scaling the workouts up and the volume starts increasing and the intensity starts increasing, so does my music. Is that where you start hip-hop? Is that your first? Yeah, because hip-hop, hip-hop. I'm in a groove or whatever.

Yeah, exactly. It's more like it is. It's more of a groove. It's always my party music. If I've had people over, it's always hip-hop. Well, you do dance really well to it. Yeah, man. I've seen you do a couple moves. It's not bad. It's what my party music. If I've had people over, it's always hip-hop. Well, you do dance really well to it. Yeah, man. I've seen you do a couple moves.

It's not bad. It's what it's for. I start out with house, high-energy electronic music, which is good cardio music, but not really for weights, but I start out with that as well, I work out too. But at the end, man, I end up with... That's very lane-esque. What?

No. He listens to dramatic movie music. He's a pinnacle as in ya. Oh my god. Was there ever a song that was like, was there ever a group or a song that was for sure? Like if you listen to it, you're gonna either hurt yourself or you're gonna hit new PRs. Was there anything that falls in that category for you?

Rage, yes. Yeah, Rage is like that. Which song? Ooh, killing in the name of. Oh, that one. Yeah. I like freedom. But, yeah, freedom with,

yeah, I'm like, I, I, I, I, I was like, you don't do what you tell me. That one too. Yeah. Yeah. I like to wake up because of the build up. And then it's like, you know, wake, it's the song to the Matrix.

Yeah. I've read the end of the Matrix. Yeah. But that's not my, that wasn't my ultimate. My ultimate ultimate ever. It's rocky. The soundtrack to rock you for. That dude, that's so funny.

I'm gonna tell you something right now. I will never play that music unless it's a special occasion. You're just gonna hurt yourself. It's just, it has to be a special occasion because when I put it on, through your back out, dude, it's something else. So I was showing my son and we were listening to the music in the car and he's like, yeah, it's pretty cool, you know, it sounds pretty cool. But I was showing my son and we were listening to the music in the car and he's like,

yeah, it's pretty cool. You know, it sounds pretty cool. But he wasn't getting it. And I'm like, oh, I know why. You haven't seen the scenes that this movie goes to. So then I'm showing on the scenes of an Iraqi training in the drama that's tied into it. Yeah.

He was getting all like, pump. Do you know what it cracked me up? Crack me up. Enzo. I was talking about this with Enzo about music that pumps us up. Enzo's like do you check out this song? It's freaking rad He sends me this remix song with Dragon Ball in it Yeah, like Dragon Ball Z Dragon Ball Z and the dude is as he's powering up Kim you're getting my power and then it turns into a song. I'm like of course, dude

You grew up with that shit. It's totally totally different thing That's his rocky for you know he watched Dragon Ball see nah you know It's fine. I told you guys this story a while long time ago like where I I crashed my Jeep Because I was like head banging too hard to the song It's band called soul embraced and I think it's all this asshole. You are, you're hard. How hard were your head pains? It's a band called Soul Embraced. And I think it was called The Hero or something like that. But it had this like, it had the sickest breakdown. And it was just this head snapping beat. And I had, everybody in my band was in the Jeep with me at the time.

We're like, ah, and I'm in the parking lot of the dorms. And I wasn't looking at it. I just slammed right into the embankment of all the dorms and like I wasn't looking at it. I just like slammed right to like the embankment of all this snow and like I went off track and like almost rolled it. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You get me until that story. Yeah. Yeah. I was I was getting into it. What was that song, that group that I told you guys and my son showed me and I was like made me cry because it was so it was heavy and I was like this is my song like this kind of music. Do you guys remember?

It was a new band, right? Dragon something. Something. It was the last song on Guitar Hero. Yeah, what is that? Dragon something. Dragon force. Dragon force?

Dragon force. So I'm in the car and, you know, when you hook up, my phone's Bluetooth hooks up to the car, it automatically plays what I was listening to last. Like it's got this, I don't know if it's a glitch or whatever. And I had just worked out that morning and I was listening to, I don't know, something crazy like Sepul Turr or something like that. And so it goes, and it gets on real fat.

And so my, my, my daughter's like, oh my god, this is crazy. And my son's listening to it and he's like, whoa, and I'm like, yeah, do this is what I work out to. And he's kind of like, do you want to hear what I like? And I'm like, sure. And I'm expecting some like, you know, pop me something popular, whatever. Dude, he puts on some speed guitar shit. And I'm like, yeah, it's, it's gnarly.

Like that's the ultimate speed guitar. I was so happy. I'm like, you like, yeah, this little proud moment. It's my special boy. It'd be cool to like hook you up and see what's going on neurologically and stuff. Like when you, when music changes in your workout, and when that be a cool thing to study.

That would be cool. To study. If for sure in Vokes, emotion, music will make people cry. It makes people pumped up. Music is used in movies. It's used in speeches, political rallies. If it's good music, it has to be the right kind, right? And that's usually my gauges like,

did I feel something? You know, and then you can kind of assess, but yeah, like that's a lost art, man. It's hard to find these days. It's, I wonder at one point, AI will be able to figure out the right combination of sounds and stuff to elicit the maximum ocean out of people. Because at some point, you know it'll figure it out.

It's a little. Well, they kind of already do, right? I mean, a lot of the music that's made today is from the unpacking of music before. I mean, that's what the book hip-makers is all about is, you know, that's why, and I think a lot of musicians and people like Justin who, ah, scoff at the music today,

is that it's a lot of its manufactured. Yeah. A lot of that has been, they have hacked into into like, oh wow, when you do something that has a crescendo, you know, after about a minute and a half into the song, you get this emotional rush. And so they don't, they don't even, it's super predictable. Right. So they, they write the song around these parameters versus what happened in the past.

But that's humans doing it at some point. And AI is nowhere near having this ability because creativity requires a computing power that is we have yet to calculate. And this is a... Remember when we were talking with the founder of Brain FM? You know, and like how he's engineering and crafting all these different songs

and like how it emotes or stimulates certain parts of the brain, like they're definitely gonna be able to figure it out. Like I'm pretty confident. Dude certain parts of the brain. Like they're definitely gonna be able to figure it out. Like I'm pretty confident. Dude, speaking of the brain, very awesome article that I had posted this on my Insta story the other day. And it got like 80 or 90 shares,

which is not common for an article that you have to read. My memes get shared like crazy. People love sharing stupid jokes, but articles almost never get shared at that rate. But this one did, and I wanted to bring it up because it's a pretty damn good article. So the title of it, since Scientific American, was actually published recently.

I think it was February 27th, so it's recent. And the title of it is, why do we crave sweets when we're stressed? So this is a real thing. like when people get really stressed out, there's a definite craving for things that taste very sweet. Yeah, it's a bit of a coping mechanism. Well, the old explanation, or, and I think this is still part of the explanation,

is eating foods that taste good, give us a nice, you know, a good feeling. And so if you're stressed out, it's almost like a break from your stress because you're eating something that's really palatable. But they're finding that there's more to it than just that. And so what they found in the study, well, here's a statistic that's interesting.

Under acute stress, the brain requires about 12% more energy. That's a big amount. I mean, you know the brain pound for pound uses more energy than anything else in your body. It's like this, it just sucks up. Now, if you calculate the computing power of your brain, it's actually remarkably little amount of energy for that,

but nonetheless, it's this energy sucker, especially of glucose and glycogen. And so they're finding that, that is probably what's contributing to the craving of sweets. So they did this study where they took 40 people over two sessions, and in one group, they asked the study participants to give a 10 minute speech

in front of strangers. In the other session, they were not required to do that. And at the end of the session, they measured the concentration of stressed hormone cortisol and adrenaline in their blood and they provided them with a food buffet for an hour. When they gave a speech before the buffet and they were more stressed, they on average consumed an additional 34 grams of carbohydrates than when they did not do the speech. And they think it has to do with this, the brain literally being like, I need more. Give me all the resources. Yes, I want more sugar.

I need more of this energy. And in nature, sugar means, excuse me, sweet means two different things. Because we evolved from those part without processed foods or all these clean foods around us. Sweet meant two things at meant. You're gonna get easy energy. So sweet and nature is either fruit or honey or something like that.

You're going to eat it and you're going to get immediate glucose. The second thing it meant was it's probably not poisonous. If you eat something nature and it tastes sweet, it's probably not going to kill you, whereas bitter many times means poison. Well, what a great study to segue into what I wanted to ask you about is you just finished up and maybe it'll be live by this episode. But I know that I just read it on teamwork. It's the latest blog that you just wrote. And I think it's such a great topic, which is that, you know, why is Keto making everybody fat? And I think that we are seeing bold statements.

It is. It is. It's a very bold statement, but there's some truth to that. And I think we're starting to see the backlash of the 2018 diet of the year, right, that everybody's been talking about, like it's revolutionary. And I think we're now starting to see some of the repercussions from that. I agree. It's, you know, it's really irritating about, it's funny. We called this out three, maybe three or four years ago in the early days of Mind Pump. We talked about how keto was becoming the new kind of fat diet, just like all other diet

trends have started coming gone. And we called out how we're going to start seeing people saying they're doing keto and they're not supplements, supplements around keto. It has become a huge market. If you go to the supplements store, you'll find protein powders, keto protein powder, which I don't know what the fuck that means because protein technically can be keto

unless too much of it. Or keto bars, I had a company recently send me some bar samples. Keto cookies. And the bars were, you know, keto bars, like they're designed for keto. Keto water, I saw. You did not.

Yes, I did. You did not. I swore to God. It's too liquid. No, no, no. The reason why they said it was keto was because it had exogenous ketones in it. And I've seen a lot of exogenous ketones supplements

where people are taking these thinking, and they're not in keto, they're eating carbohydrates. Well, they're eating, so the problem is they're eating and then they're adding these exogenous ketones, thinking that it's gonna kick them over into ketosis. No, no, your body won't go into ketosis. But that's such a misconception. I see people like touting that all the time,

and they're fresh, right? And a lot of people don't know kind of the work keto started. It's funny, I'll get questions on keto on Instagram. And the way people are asking the questions, it's almost like they think it's a new breakthrough diet. Like, keto, it's this new diet I've never heard about before. Not realizing that keto, a keto genetic diet

is one of the oldest diets in existence. We were probably in ketosis all the more often than we weren't. I would argue that, I would argue thousands of years ago, we were probably more keto most of the time than we were not. Being well fit is a good thing. Right, not by choice though. This is keto by survival. Yeah, so I mean, what happens in the body when you,

well, so let's talk a little bit about the roots first of what the keto diet, as we know it, kind of how it started. Originally, a long time ago, I think 500 BC is the first records that we have of people, philosophers, noticing benefits when they would fast or when they would have people fast that came to them for help. So back in those days, if you had seizure disorders or neurological disorders, they thought you were possessed, they thought you were cursed, they didn't know. And fasting at the time was a spiritual practice. So they noticed that when they fasted that the gods took away their ailments and it became

this like thing. And so fasting became, now we all know the benefits of fasting, it was a lot of different benefits. But these people who would have these seizures and neurological disorders would have this, many of them would have this great recovery, their symptoms would go away. And this was observed for a long time. And the problem with fasting is, of course, you're limited, like at some point you have to eat again,

and you can't treat everybody that way, especially kids. Like if you have a kid who has neurological disorders, you know, doctors were, they weren't super keen on telling a kid, you know, we're not gonna feed you for a week. Oh, cause you need calories. You need calories for developing, you know, we're not gonna feed you for a week. Oh, cause you need calories. You need calories for developing, you know, everything in the body and the brain. And so yeah, you need to keep feeding kids,

but like, how do we keep and maintain this state of ketosis? Yeah, and here's the way a ketogenic diet works before I continue. How it works is when you eat a diet that is largely devoid of carbohydrates and has a high fat intake or you fast for long enough period of time, your body starts to produce what are called ketone bodies that it uses to provide the body with energy. So because you don't have carbohydrates to produce glycogen, which is your preferred source of energy. Your body then starts to produce ketones off of fats or off of body fat, which you use

for energy. And those ketones are burned and used a little bit different than glycogen. And if you're somebody who has certain neurological disorders, for some reason, and we're really learning now kind of how it works, for some reason, it seems to be a cure for some people. And so in the 1920s, that's when doctors developed, they're like, okay, fasting works for seizures for some people and some kids, but it's just not realistic. We need to figure out a way to get those same, you know, same results. And so what they did is they came up with a ketogenic diet, which here's the, here's the thing, the real ketogenic diet came up with a ketogenic diet, which here's the thing.

The real ketogenic diet is not like the ketogenic diet that people do nowadays. Back in the 1920s and what's still used today is a medical ketogenic diet for neurological issues. It's like super restricted. It's like 80% fat. You know, it's 70 to 80% fat. It's low to moderate protein. You're not eating high protein.

Barely any protein. And're not eating high protein. Barely any protein, really. And you're eating no carbs. And when I say no carbs, I mean, the kids on these diets, especially back then, had to avoid toothpaste, you know, for the sugar that may be in it, or almost anything. It was funny about that, was I remember when we were going through the process personally of trying it out, and I was just presenting the fact that we were talking about the ketogenic diet to my wife was a nurse. And so her only understanding of the ketogenic diet was from the clinical sense where they

would prescribe it to these kids. And it was so restrictive. And she's like, I don't see that working for any regular person. She was just questioning me the whole time. Well the diets that they would give these kids were lots of full fat creams and butters and to get their fat and take up high enough for their ketone bodies to get high enough

for them to get these whatever benefits. And so that's where keto was around. Now this isn't the 1920s. Now is this the research that was done then and what we knew about the benefits of it? Is this what really drove what we saw in the late 80s, early 90s, which was the Atkins diet when it started to, when Dr. Atkins came on the scene

and started to promote a really high fat type of a diet, but just a lower carb. Is that where the research originally generated from was from here? Yeah, so you know what's, adkins would have never been as successful as they were because it was kind of a resurgence of old diets because there was keto, low carb.

That stuff existed a long time. It was some of the first diets that people did. Then we went through the 70s and 80s where we were just inundated with information telling us that fat was bad. And everything was low fat. Everything was low fat. I mean, in the 80s fat was evil.

If you wanted to be healthy, if you wanted to lose weight. Where did your end was everywhere. It was all about low fat. Everything, every food in the market had low fat on it because people didn't want to eat fat because we thought that's what made us fat. And so that happened for a long time

and it kind of set the stage for atkins. For a counter message. Yeah, because then comes out atkins and he's like, hey, you know, all the fat you want, all the protein you want, just eat no carbohydrates and you'll lose weight. And so you had all these people who were like, what, I've been not eating fat for the last 10 years. Now I can eat all this fat.

And so they started doing it. And of course, low on behold, people were getting results because they were also restricting calories. And adkins exploded. But adkins was much higher protein than the original ketogenic diet. And that's how people do keto now.

It's a lot higher protein. Well, and now it wasn't that the backlash that happened from adkins was, I remember they had the original Adkins that exploded, it was like the diet everybody was doing, a couple of years later, we started to get people that had some heart conditions and so that because of the high protein, is that right?

It was more, so going on a high fat diet, there are certain types of people whose lipids will go crazy with a high fat diet and they have to be careful with saturated fat intake. And it's not a big portion of the population, but if you take 10 people and you put them on a high fat, low carb diet, and it's also higher in saturated fats or animal fats, maybe one out of one, one out of 10

or something like that will notice skyrocketing cholesterol and bad lipids. And really the answer to that, if they want to remain low carb, is to change their fatty acid profile, eat more of the avocados, more of the nuts, get off the animal fats or whatever. But that's kind of what was happening. But I think the reason why I can fail out a favor

is the same reason why I think keto's fucking gonna do the same thing. It's super restrictive. Yeah. There's no way, it doesn't last. The retention just isn't there. You know, and it- Well, it also got, you know, so the Atkins thing happens,

that kind of falls out of here. This is the 90s, then we go a little bit further. And what I feel like really, the resurgence of it in the last, you know, five years for us, is been like, I would say, accredited to some of the research that people like Dom Diagostino, Dr. Mercola has been doing, who else, Walter Longo. These guys, the research that they were doing.

Dr. Mercola has been talking about keto forever too. Yeah, I mean, this is what's really the combination of all these guys, and then the, I remember the study that Dom talked about with the Navy SEALs, and that actually started to show like the neurological benefits. So not only is this good potential for some people for fat loss and overall health or maybe even potential autoimmune stuff, but now we're starting to see the benefits on the neurological

side. Yeah, I mean, with his studies showed, he was trying to figure out a problem with SEALs where they would use these rebreather, so prevents bubbles from coming up when you're under water. But the oxygen content gets so high that these guys would get seizures. And so knowing how ketogenic diet was used to control seizures, you said maybe this will help.

The seals, and sure enough, it did. It reduced, dramatically reduced the seizures that they would get in the amount of time they could stand underwater with a rebreather. And so kind of blew it up a little bit. And Dom himself, brilliant guy, also built as fuck and he did this whole experiment where he fasted for a long time and then went and deadlifted

at 500 pounds, something like 10 times. And so then the fitness community was like, huh, let's take it out in the air. Yeah, but I think it's important to say something real quick here. There's only one way your body loses body fat and that's largely one way. And that's, you have to take in less energy

than you're burning. That's it. I mean, at the end of the day, it didn't matter what you eat. You say that very simple, but there's many things that factor into that, right? Like so, and I always like to say, you know, I caution people with that statement

because the average person goes, okay, well, of course, law of thermodynamics, calories in, calories out, I need to eat less or I need to move more. The unfortunate part is there's a large part of the population that just their metabolism isn't in a very good place

that that doesn't set them up for success. For example, like the text I read the other day on the podcast where a client wanting to get ready for a show and she's not even consuming 2,000 calories, and I know that her body fat is probably north of 20% body fat. I know that where she needs to go and where she currently is at, simply just restricting calories

or by creating more movement is not a great strategy. This person needs to do some more. But it's still energy balance, right? Whether you boost one, you're burning through fast-ermat faster metabolism, through activity, or you reduce the consumption, you can't get around that fact, and the reason why keto became so popular,

in my personal opinion, I think there's two reasons. One, I think people with gut issues, oftentimes will benefit from dramatically reducing the carbohydrates, because the carbohydrates feed gut bacteria, or tend benefit from dramatically reducing the carbohydrates, because the carbohydrates feed gut bacteria or tend to feed gut bacteria in people who have gut issues. So people going keto are like, oh my god, my digestion feels a lot better. Not everybody though, by the way, some people get constipated as hell and it doesn't work

for them. But some people, E.K. don't, and they feel better. The other thing is eating a lot of fat and protein can make you not wanna eat a lot. And so some people find that it kind of suppresses their appetite a little bit, and they don't, they end up, it's easier for them to cut calories by eating a ketogenic diet.

Right, you feel full and satisfied, so you're not really motivated as much. Well, I also think it's important that people that are considering doing that is they really understand who they are and what types of goals they have before even exploring options like this. Right? You know, what always happens, and this is what I think this stuff that irritates me with

diets like this is, you know, all we need to do is you throw some decent science out it, you know, a couple of Kardashians talk about it or somebody fucking famous, and then now everybody's doing it It's like the bottom line is it's not for everybody and a lot of times It's probably definitely not for you and so how do you know that like you know if you're if you're somebody who's Training like a crossfit or you're in disswimming or you're somebody that's a long distance runner or you're just somebody who wants to be healthy and lose body fat And just have a normal life or you're just somebody who wants to be healthy and lose body fat and just have a normal life or you're somebody who loves certain parts of life like going out and having a glass of wine every once in a while with your friends like who is this diet for and who is it not?

Keto diet all the time is almost not for anybody okay there's very small percentage of people who should be on a ketogenic diet most of the time. Now I think everybody should play with this, you know, going low carbohydrate every once in a while, but I don't know very many people that should be keto. Do you get, I mean, we did this a while ago. All of us went on the keto genit diet ourselves to kind of test it out and talk about the benefits and the drawbacks.

Now I notice I'm always lower carb, not keto, but lower carb, I just feel better that way. But when I went full keto at the time, I noticed some benefits in terms of my gut health. I noticed kind of like, I felt like I was more sharp with my thinking, but I also noticed this. My food selection became very narrow. I started eating the same shit every day.

It was like bacon, butter, avocado, macadamia nuts, meat, rotate. I mean, certain greens. And it became, even me who's super palate fatigue after a while, do the same thing. Well, not even just palate fatigue. It just, it becomes less likely that you can add here to it all. That's right. I mean, and also, potentially, I don't care if you're following the diet or not, and if you are still in a calorie restriction, you're not going to convince me, I don't care who you are, that eating butter, bacon, avocado for 80% of the food that you're consuming is an ideal source of nutrients.

It just isn't. There's so many things that you're potentially lacking in all these other foods. And so, and this is similar to the opposite diet that we talk the same about, which is the vegetarian, right? Very similar. It's like, it's not that there's not all these great health benefits from potentially eating this way. It's at the ability to stick to that. And then also, in that little narrow options that you have, also make sure you rotate through all of them because it's important that you get to each one of those because they're giving you nutrients that you just couldn't find anywhere else. Those benefits from diversity.

And that's the thing, like you're going to now narrow down your macronutrients and eliminate a lot of diversity that you would have been able to incorporate if you're just more flexible and you're able to be on top of it. But there are, so what appealed to me about the ketogenic diet was when I actually, when I fasted the first time, I had a very similar experience to where, like, South St. The Sharpness, the Mental Clarity, I experienced a lot less of the indigestion

and got issues I've had as far as heartburn and things like that. So there's benefits to that I experienced, but I was also thinking about it, it is a great diet for overall just brain health and just being able to step away from just always getting that same source of fuel all the time. It is, but even Dr. Mccola talked about this. He pointed to studies to show that going keto

all the time, all the time, but actually cause some insulin resistance through that process. And even now he recommends like an intermittent version of that. He does, he recommends that people inject some carbs every once in a while to kind of maintain that. Yeah, his fat for fuel book talks about that.

He goes at the fasting mimicking diet, right? Is that what he calls it? No, no, no, no, that's Dr. Vatolongo. But no, his fat for fuel book does talk about doing something like that. And then here's the other thing too, in the fitness world, it really irritates me because there's no science to support this is how keto is better for strength and athletic performance. Now, there's definitely individuals who might benefit from it. Like if you have terrible gut issues and keto fixes it,

or you have neurological issues or autoimmune issues, and it helps with that, yeah, you're gonna improve your performance. But healthy people, no, studies show pretty clearly that if you're gonna be, do anything that revolves lots of power strength, glycolytic type of energy. Carbohydrates are gonna make you perform better. And I noticed this personally myself.

I mean, I went keto, I still worked out, I still performed relatively well. When I later on started reintroducing carbohydrates, my strength went up through the roof. I was able to lift more weight and lift harder for longer. Yeah, I've noticed the same thing, especially power lifting or dead lifting. Like it's just, for me, it didn't have that same access

to that type of like force output. I just didn't, I needed that like real immediate energy source and I get that from carbs. Well, this is some of the pushback. I remember when we first interviewed Rob Wolf and we kind of dove into a little bit about the Paleo diet with CrossFit. And paleo is not even as restrictive as keto is.

Paleo, you can still have sweet potatoes and things like that. You can't have that on a keto genic diet and part of the problem with the even recommending the paleo diet for Crossfitters is the demand for fast energy. And it's just the benefits of eating high fat type of diets is the fact that it's slower processing,

slower digesting, satiate you. Well, the downfall of that is it doesn't get there fast enough when you need it for those people that are athletes and they have that demand. It was interesting though, talking to Zach Bitter and like a fat adapted athlete that used it for more endurance-based types of athletic pursuits. Now, that, yes, that I could see

an athletic performance potential benefit. If you're gonna do a long duration steady state, not extreme exertion, but something that requires a long amount of energy, then being keto and fat-adapted, it's probably a good thing because even a lean athlete is gonna store, I don't know, 10 to 20 times more energy

in the form of ketones on their body than they will glycogen that they can store in their liver and in their muscles. And so if you're gonna go do a 12 hour hike, you're probably, and you're not doing these extreme exertions of energy, you're probably gonna perform better and you're not gonna feed yourself right during the hike. You're gonna perform better if you're fat adapted.

I noticed this, so when I first went keto, Jessica and I did this road trip, and part of our road trip was we were gonna kayak across Lake Tahoe to find this camping site. We ended up getting lost as usual on Lake Tahoe, and so we fucking kayak for seven hours Fasted and I was blown away that I was able to now we were and kill each other now. We weren't sprinting No, it was early on in our relationship

But I'm confused yeah, yeah, you just don't fight right, but we were we were just constantly going going truck and truck and for like seven hours And I was shocked that I didn't peter out in needy food. So in that case, I could see there being a performance benefit. But if you're trying to build strength or explosiveness, if you're a basketball player, a football player, you know, soccer player, you're going to want carbohydrates. Building muscle is much easier with carbohydrates than not. But really, this overlooks the big problem that we don't really talk about in fitness. We tend to look at diets and we're like,

oh cool, the studies show that eating this way is gonna give you the most protein synthesis. It's gonna give you the best insulin response, lowers cortisol, it's gonna burn body fat the best, completely forgetting the psychology behind nutrition. Like completely negating that, because my big issue with keto, 100%, is that my experience, and you guys,

I'm sure you guys will back me up, the more extreme and dramatic a client makes changes right away to their diet, the more extreme and dramatic the rebound is. Of course. Every single time. Of course. It's just a massive rebound.

And so I think what's happening now and I can say this with full confidence, I personally think the keto-genic diet today at large is probably cause more people to gain weight than it has to help people lose weight in a permanent fact. Well, I've seen it with clients, I've seen it with clients, I've seen it with peers, you know, there's what's happening is, and this is the part that I think happens almost everybody that

has now been in either the health and fitness space or or pays attention to the fitness industry at all has heard of the ketogenic diet. And it's now ranked as the number one diet of the year. So it's the most as the number one diet of the year. So it's the most popular that everyone's the buzzer. I go get my hair cut at the hair salon and I hear the ladies talking about, oh, I'm on the ketogenic.

We can expect like 10% more downloads because ketal will be in the title of the subject. Right, right. It's definitely the most popular thing going around right now. But nobody starts to think like, okay, how many other diets have I tried that I didn't stick to long term? And what potentially happens when I don't stick to this diet? And that's why this one I agree with you, Sal, is causing more harm than good because

here's what happens is you become fat adaptive, you get used to the training or eating this way for a long enough period time. So maybe you stick to it for three weeks or six weeks or however long your discipline is. And then finally, you have this wedding or whatever reason that makes you break it. And then you drink and eat and you just say, fuck it, I didn't, I fell off keto. And what happens is your body is not used to intaking that much carbohydrates like it used to be. and you can no longer get away with the same amount of carbs and intake and calorie intake that you were able to get away with six months before you ever did this keto diet.

So that's the real danger is, and this is something I remember noticing when I went through this. So the positive things I noticed was, before I ever went, did the keto-jink diet, I was able to eat 600 grams of carbs a day. And I remember telling you guys in the podcast three years ago, why would I ever fucking go ketogenic

if I get to eat all these carbs and enjoy all these foods and I can stay in great shape? And instead went ahead and did the diet to see how I went through and so I could talk about it. And you know, one of the things, or some of the things that I found really fascinating, like you, I had definitely had mental clarity. I know I said, the biggest thing,

out of all the things that I could say that were positive for me was how satiated I was. I went from being the guy that had to carry his meals around everywhere, not because I felt like that, I needed to do that for any other reason, then I wanted to eat every two to three hours because I was always hungry because I had a very high carb diet

and it promoted me being hungry. And then here I would all send eat this, you know, whole egg, bacon, type of a breakfast. And man, I would feel good all the way till two o'clock in the afternoon before I'd even feel like I was hungry. So there was definitely some benefits that I got from it. Now the problem was after months of doing it, I found myself in the same place as you sell,

only I was trying to consume 4,000 calories. Like, try and get 4,000 calories on the ketogenic diet. Like, show me somebody that can do that with balance, with like being able to spread that out over foods and rotate that. Even your vegetables are limited on ketos. Yes, it's so hard, It was so hard to do that. And then once you finally do it,

so because I'm trying to fit this macro profile, like my targets. And I figured out, it's like, I don't want to deviate from that because I found out that, okay, four handfuls of macadamia nuts, six pieces of bacon, eight eggs in the day, one try tips take. Like, I figured out the formula, okay, I'm perfectly in keto,

I'm at where my calories need to be, I'm at where my protein is, and it's so hard to get back to that target without eating those exact same foods that I found this cycle. And then eventually I come out of it, and when I came out of it, the thing that blew my mind, and thank God that I had stuck with it long enough,

and I think I'm aware enough and paying attention to signals in my body. I mean, I would get sick if I ate more than 300 grams. Did you find that once you started eating carbs, it was like you couldn't stop. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I was watching the Jersey Shore, the newer season of Jersey Shore. And then what's his name is on there? They call him the keto guido. Viny.

Viny. Rightiny. Viny. Right, love Viny, right? But he's ketogenic. So throughout the whole series, you know, they'll order pizza at night after they've gone out drinking and he'll take his slice and he'll peel the cheese off and just eat the cheese.

And you watch him do this and they tease him about it, right? They call him the keto guido, because he will not eat carbohydrates. Well, one episode, one episode, he said, fuck it, I'm gonna have some carbs. And then he went nuts.

He went nuts and ate, I don't know, how many bags of french fries and cheeseburgers and pizza slices and whatever, and made himself sick. And it's that binge effect that you get from restricting too much. And this is a psychological effect. Now, there may be some physiological reasons for this, like Adam had described,

but I think it's much more psychological where, when you're on a keto diet, you are literally conscious of the fact that you cannot eat a single, like you cannot eat carbs, which eliminates an entire segment of food. And by the way, carbohydrates are not evil. There are some very healthy forms of carbohydrates, humans are eating carbohydrates as long as we've been on Earth,

and we've been eating grains for at least 10,000 years and sure this people make the arguments against grains. But the reality is, there are societies that eat rice and certain, you know, heirloom types of wheat or whatever, and they live a long time, long in other societies. So you can eat carbohydrates and be very, very healthy. And so now here you are, you're conscious of the fact that you can't eat any carbs, you go out with your friends, you're throughout the whole day, but you're super strict. I'm going to do this and I'm losing weight and it's helping me and I'm losing weight. You're six months into it,

seven months, eight months into it. I've known people to stick to keto for a year or two years. And then at some point, at some point, you cannot restrict yourself anymore. At some point, the game that you play where you're the prison warden, and you are also the prisoner, where you're telling yourself, nah, you can't do this, don't do this, and then you're like, ah, but I want to, no, don't do it. At some point, the prisoner escapes the prison, always.

Every single time, the prisoner escapes, and when ends up happening, is not a normal approach to carbohydrates. It is a binge effect, which is literally a swinging back of the pendulum of all the time that you restrict yourself. It's almost as if that restriction built up a bunch of energy in your body.

And when you go back, it's like you're going through all that shit. It reminds me of those kids that had super strict households growing up, their parents don't let them go out, let them do anything, they couldn't drink, they couldn't, they go off to college, and they fucking lose their mind. Those are the kids that binge drink,

do drugs, have sex with everybody. Yeah, they go nuts. Oh, that's tough. Because they just, they rebound. And this is true for anything, by the way. I don't care what it is. If I have a client who's coming to me and saying, hey, I need to lose 30 pounds and they take this fucking,

I'm gonna go crazy approach and cut out an entire macro nutrient, for example, like you do with keto. I can predict with almost 100% certainty the rebound is gonna be extreme. It's gonna be just as extreme as a restriction. And so what I see that's happening now is people go keto, they lose weight

for partially because they may be choosing better foods, partially because it may be killing their appetite, so they're not eating as much, partially because maybe they're not finally counting, but they think it's the keto, whatever counting, you know, calories and macros, but and they lose weight, but I see it's the keto, whatever counting, calories and macros, and they lose weight. But I see every single one will gain the way back.

If you don't have to do it for medical purposes, I really believe you shouldn't be doing it. If you shouldn't be, if you don't need to do it for medical purposes, I don't think you should be doing it. Because if you're somebody who's doing it because you think for all the health reasons, there's a lot, you can get that through fasting

and you can get that through intermittently doing this stuff. You can get that through doing a fasting mimicking diet. Like I was talking about where that's like a really low calorie diet for like seven days. You can take the principles and the thing that they use, they attach all the science to to support the diet and to get everybody to get behind it and follow this structure thing.

You could take those tools and you can put that into a normal diet that you eat that's balanced, right? So you have a very balanced, normal way of eating and then you have occasional three or four days where you decide, hey, I'm going to reduce my carbohydrates significantly for three days and then I'm going to reintroduce them back in. That's how I coach people. Yeah. That's exact.

The way I coach people is they'll have days that are very low carbohydrate, higher fat, other days that are higher carb, lower fat, other days that are higher carb, lower fat, some days that are lower protein, some days that are lower calorie, because that's more, that more closely mimics everyday normal life, but it also prevents that binge effect that comes from. Now all diets, I mean, to be honest, all diets,

anytime you're trying to lose body fat, some restriction is involved. But if we push it too hard, and especially if we push it too hard too fast, I promise you, you will, at some point, go back. And now we have studies to show that, when you go restrict, restrict, restrict, low calorie, low calorie, low calorie,

and then you binge, your body attempts to increase its ability or improve its ability to capture energy and the way it does it, does it. Had fat cells. And actually adds the number of fat cells. And they don't go away every time you cut back. That's what people don't understand. No, this is why I think, this is why I think, and we've observed this now for decades. You look at bodybuilders who compete in the way they compete, as they get shredded and then they just get

hell of fat off season and they do this over and over again. You ever notice each time they compete how less sharky we come, how much more difficult it is? I think it's that effect that they restrict so much then they go to feed themselves. And what your body does when you eat excess of calories is your fat cells get bigger because it's capturing that energy. Well, if your body sees this all of a sudden dramatic reversal of calorie intake, it

tries to improve its ability to capture that energy for the future, especially if you do it over and over again, which a lot of people do with diets. And so you add fat cells and you're self-evolutionary advantage. Yep. I mean, in states of extreme famine, what do you think the body wants to do? It wants to store energy. So it's like you're fighting these natural mechanisms

that we have by going super extreme and then coming back. It's like, that's what your body's supposed to do. Yeah, I think, like again, I can say with full confidence, I think keto is contributing to the problem like all of the other guys. Of course, we're going to see a backlash. We 100% will see a backlash just like we did with adkins.

You're going to see the same thing happen again where eventually people will start to piece. Enough people will have done it and talked great things about it. Then came off it and then realized what happened to them on the rebound effect that there'll be more of those people than the people that are chanting and singing it's great. Because here by no means, and I think this is important, we've said it multiple times, is there's definitely an application for this

for certain people that need to. You're listening to this, and it's a health condition for you, and then you by doing this, it makes you healthier and a better person. That's the best diet for you. Yeah, absolutely it is, but that's not what we're seeing. We're seeing the masses are following this diet and really have most of the most part

have no business doing it. And even if you have business doing, do each their own that want to try it. Aren't aware of the potential shit that could come, the shit storm that could happen, you know, after they fall off of it. And that's what you got to be careful of. Yeah, and it's funny because it's funny because I kept getting these signs

as keto got more popular, is it got sold so hard by the fitness industry that I would get messages like this. No joke, I must have had, I still get them every once in a while, but before I used to get them all the time, people would be like, hey, I'm doing keto. I eat less than 20 grams of carbs a day. I'm eating high fat, but I feel terrible. How long is this keto flue gonna last?

And I'd be like, oh, well, how long have you been doing keto? Three months. Yeah, go off the fucking diet, dude. Like, you feel like shit after three months, it's not working for you. Or I have people tell me like, yeah, I do keto, but I get constipated and I only go to the bathroom once every four days.

Okay, time to go off keto. It's not working for, but they got sold so hard that this magic diet. Or they're just even simpler than that. People are, well, message me and they'll be asking like, I'm really struggling hitting this target. I'm really struggling doing this. It's like, you're struggling so hard to add here

to a diet when you're missing the whole purpose of this. It needs to be something that you can integrate into your life for the rest of your life. So if you're already having, if you're missing the whole purpose of this. It needs to be something that you can integrate into your life for the rest of your life. So if you're already having problems following it, then it probably is definitely not the diet for you. Let me put it this way in a different analogy. Let's imagine for a second that waking up at three o'clock in the morning and swimming in a cold lake,

okay, I'm gonna make it very specific, was by far the most effective way you could burn body fat and build muscle. It was just, it was 20% better than the next best program, okay? Now think about yourself, what is the likelihood that you're gonna do that program, zero percent? So that program for you becomes, not 20% better than the next best program,

it becomes the least effective program because you're not gonna wake up at 3am, you're not gonna go fucking swim in a cold lake. So what you need to consider for yourself when you're looking at diet is consider reality. Is this something that I'm gonna wanna do forever? Yes, it's sustainable. Is this gonna work with my lifestyle?

Is this gonna work with the context of my lifestyle, the people that I hang out with, what are the foods I enjoy eating? And if it's a no on all that stuff, I don't care how effective you think it is, it's just not gonna work for you. It's not the diet for you. That's just the bottom line at the end of the day.

So, and with that look, go to minepumpfree.com and download some of our guides for free. Actually, you can download all of them for free. We have a lot on there. Also, if you wanna find us on social media, we all have our own social media pages on Instagram. You can find Justin at Minepump Justin. You can find Sal at Mind Plum Sal and you can find Adam at Mind Plum At Him.

Thank you for listening to Mind Plum. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Plum Media dot com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal and Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having We've got a lot of fun to do. We've got a lot of fun to do. We've got a lot of fun to do. We've got a lot of fun to do. We've got a lot of fun to do. We've got a lot of fun to do. We've got a lot of fun to do.

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