A short podcast clip (Ben Greenfield hosting Dan Pompa) discussing diet variation and the "feast/famine" cycle. Pompa argues that intermittent higher-carbohydrate 'feast' days can help people—particularly those with adrenal, thyroid, or perimenopausal hormone issues—by increasing insulin enough to convert inactive thyroid hormone (T4) to active T3, enabling better tolerance of low-carb/ketogenic and fasting protocols.
Hey, this is Ben Greenfield. I thought you'd like this little clip of my latest podcast. Yeah, people feel guilty and they read all this information about blood sugar swings and glycemic variability. And the trick is if you're really good on the ketogenic days and on the lower carb days, then the carbohydrates actually your body serves as almost like this sink, like a sponge for the carbohydrates. And you also get the avoidance of the thyroid downregulation, everything that goes along with long term caloric restriction in ketogenic dieting.
And by the way, here's another big point. It's said that people with adrenal and thyroid issues and perimenopausal women hormone issues, struggle in low carb diets, ketosis and fasting, diet variation, feast famine cycles is the answer for you. Here's another principle of why it works. You need insulin for certain hormone conversions to make from T4, which is a stored inactive hormone, to go to T3, which is the active thyroid hormone that you need to feel good and burn fat. Well, you need insulin to make that conversion. The lower insulin goes on a long term low carbohydrate diet, especially if you're already struggling in that area as a perimenopausal woman or person, then you are now not making that conversion. So the moment you fire up the fuel with some carbohydrates, all of a sudden now you're making that thyroid conversion. So we're able to get these low adrenal hormone people, thyroid people, to do low carb diets and fasting as long as we utilize this fee, spam and cycle. Otherwise it doesn't work for them.
If you enjoyed this clip, you should check out the whole episode and a host of other topics over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing day.
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