Keto vs. Carnivore, Hormonal Chaos from High Protein, the *Surprising* Truth About Cold Exposure, and Why Carbs Are CRUCIAL with Jay Feldman

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast, in a long-term low-carb diet, we still have elevated levels of these stress hormones. It's mostly in the form of glucagon. And then with cortisol, the levels aren't elevated at baseline, but the, in terms of a response to stress or response to exercise, let's say there's a greater increase in cortisol on a low-carb diet versus a moderate or high-carb diet. Long-term, these hormones act as a signal for our bodies to turn down their metabolic rate. Because they recognize that this is not sustainable. We have to continue to pull these resources from our stores. That's what the stress hormones do. And we're producing a lot of oxidative stress in the process. Even though the engine isn't working as well, the fuel isn't optimal, we're kind of forcing it anyway. And this has effects on the larger umbrella of our hormonal state, namely at our thyroid. We see a reduction in things like testosterone, reduction in, in the female reproductive hormones as well.

Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality, spirituality, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life Show. Are you ready to hack your life? Let's do this.

Alright, folks. I have a podcast guest today who has some very interesting theories, often controversial on things like hormesis and carbohydrates and energy. And, I think he probably kind of has an opinion on a lot of these things that differs from what you hear in mainstream health and biohacking. His name is Jay Feldman. He's a health coach. He's an independent health researcher. He's the host of a podcast called the Energy Balance Podcast. He has degrees in neuroscience and exercise physiology. From the University of Miami. And, kind of like me, he was really going to go to medical school but decided to forego that after realizing that conventional medical approach might not be the best solution to the health problems that many of us face. And now, he's helping people with his podcast and through different types of coaching and research that he does. And so, He uses what is called the bioenergetic approach, the bioenergetic approach. So, I'm going to let Jay explain all of that to you as we jump in here. So, Jay, welcome to the show, man.

Thanks for having me on again, Ben.

Yeah, yeah. I forget, how many years ago was it that we got on and talked a little bit about bioenergetics?

Yeah, it must have been 2 years ago or so.

Yeah, yeah. And, a lot has happened since then. Obviously, I think the carnivore diet has probably blown up. Since the last time that we talked because we didn't really get a chance to dive too much into that. I know it's probably something that's come across your radar, I would imagine, even though you're living under a rock down there in Ecuador. And, I've also just been thinking a lot about some of the things that you talk about when it comes to hormesis and energy. And, I think a good jumping-off point here would be for you to describe what the bioenergetic model actually is, which I realize could be a 1-hour response, but I might interrupt you here and there.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah. And, I think it's a great starting place to kind of provide a contrast between this and most other views out there. And, I've been there, we're talking carnivore, I've done low carb, I've done keto, I've done intermittent fasting. And, throughout my time doing that, didn't see the results I was expecting and was always continuing to research and came across what's called the bioenergetic view of health, which is the idea that the energy that we produce inside of every cell, inside of the mitochondria, we normally consider that to be ATP, that that drives our health. And when we see degenerative states, chronic health conditions, symptoms, anything from insomnia to fatigue to fatty liver disease and on from there, you know, autoimmune issues, the whole spectrum, what happens is there's a breakdown in energy production., and we're left with basically a lack of energy, lack of ATP that causes degeneration and prevents us from effectively repairing every cell and tissue in our body and also prevents us from feeling our best. And so that, that's the approach with which I view health and, you know, and digging into a whole, you know, the whole spectrum of, of health issues from neurodegenerative conditions to, as I said, fatty liver disease, autoimmune conditions, hormonal imbalances, you see basically breakdowns in mitochondrial respiration, breakdowns in energy production. And so, my focus is on how we fix that and how we maximize the cellular energy production so that we can maximize our health.

Ben Greenfield: Okay. So, let's jump into some illustrative examples here. Let's take this idea, and I think this would be a good way for you to explain how you view this whole idea of energy. Let's take something like hormesis, the whole "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" concept that a lot of people, especially in the longevity sector, are pursuing these days, exposing yourself to mild amounts of oxidative stress, fasting, energy depletion, cold therapy, heat stress, exercise stress, et cetera. Tell me about how hormesis kind of fits into the whole bioenergetics model. That you just described?

Yeah. So, as you said, hormesis is built on the idea that at least originally it was something that was very toxic, mercury, cadmium, ionizing radiation would cause damage and our bodies would respond to that damage and basically become stronger as long as it wasn't too much, as long as the dose was small enough. And then, as a result, we would see an improvement in health. That's really where the idea started. And since then, it's expanded to encapsulate a lot of different things that we do in our day-to-day lives that might cause stress, whether it's exercise or low-carb diet or fasting or cold exposure. And we see similar pathways just like with mercury. You see inhibition of mitochondrial respiration, you see an increase in oxidative stress, and you see the activation of defensive pathways. When our bodies experience these things, they try to upregulate their antioxidant systems to prevent oxidative stress, and they release a number of different hormones to deal with the stress that we're dealing with. And so the idea is that those things are beneficial because they cause a small amount of stress that our bodies are able to adapt to, and then we become healthier in the process.

Right. Sounds fantastic.

It does. It does. The issue comes about when we start to get into the specifics. So as I was saying, there's actually no difference in terms of the stress and oxidative stress pathways between something like mercury, like a heavy metal that we know will kill you in relatively small dose. Same thing with cigarette smoke, same thing with very toxic byproducts from bacteria like lipopolysaccharide. Those share the same stress pathways with exercise or with fasting or with a low-carb diet and cold thermogenesis as well. And so, what we might say is that, you know, I guess as a starting place, that might want to lead us to have some caution about doing these things, right, if they're activating the exact same pathways.

But when you say that they're activating the same pathways, for people who might not fully understand what that means, what those pathways are, what do you mean when you say a cigarette would activate the same pathways as say fasting?

Yeah. So you basically see upregulation of various kind of defensive pathways. You see increased activity of AMP kinase. AMP kinase is produced when there's a lack of ATP, basically as ATP gets depleted., there's an increase in AMP, and that increases AMP kinase. We see increases in a pathway called the NRF2 pathway, which is an antioxidant pathway as well. There's a whole kind of plethora of different pathways here that are all activated in the same, you know, from these different stressors. And they all converge in that they're causing oxidative stress, they're causing some amount of damage, and then our bodies are responding to those. And so, for example, AMP kinase is something that will then, as a result of there not being enough energy, will then upregulate our energy production or will upregulate antioxidant systems. Another pathway that gets activated is called the NAMPT pathway. And this gets activated when we have a lack of NAD+, which is one of the main molecules in, you know, inside of our cells that helps us produce energy. And when that's low, we increase the activity of NAMPT, which is an enzyme that increases the production of of NAD+. So it's these universal pathways that happen anytime we're stressed, anytime we encounter something that's harmful, anytime that we are seeing basically damage to the cells. These are the kinds of pathways that we're talking about.

Okay, got it. Keep going. Go ahead.

Well, so what people in the research, people will see that when we activate these kinds of pathways in different organisms, rodent models and things like that, we see longevity. And so, we assume that these pathways must be beneficial, they must be having long-term benefit in terms of longevity and health. But what's happened is that we've missed a huge part of the hormesis picture, which is everything that's happening outside of these pathways. So, this is something that was delineated by Hans Selye quite a while back. And what he basically identified was that it's true that all of these different harmful aspects of our environment do share similar pathways,. And this is called their stressor effects, basically the way that they deplete energy and cause oxidative stress and damage and inflammation. But they also have other effects that he called specific effects. And this is what differentiates something like exercise from something like arsenic, right? Arsenic doesn't really have any beneficial specific effects. The main things that it does are basically impair mitochondrial function, block our ability to produce energy, you know, and cause some, some major damage. Whereas exercise, while it does cause similar effects to a small extent, it also has a number of other benefits. We're increasing lymphatic flow and circulation and we have stimulation on the muscle fibers that will stimulate hypertrophy and there's neurological interactions there that will improve strength as well. So, there's a number of other things that happen that we call the specific effects. And what Hans Selye identified was that if the specific effects outweigh the stressor effects, we have a net benefit. So, in the case of exercise, we can most of the time have a net benefit if we're doing a moderate amount of exercise. If we're excessively exercising and we see this in the most extreme examples of marathoners as a clear one, you tend to see some negative health effects when we're doing too much exercise, we're incurring too much stress relative to the benefit of whatever it is that we're doing.

Right, the so-called Goldilocks effect.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But, it's not just a matter of the dose makes the poison. Because when we start to get into that conversation, and this has happened in hormesis, people will start to say, well, the dose makes the poison for anything, right? With water, the right amount is good, too little is bad, and too much is bad as well. And then they attribute that to stress. So they say, well, if it follows this dose-response curve where a little bit is bad and too much is bad, but right in the Goldilocks zone is okay, it must be due to stress, and the water must be having a stressful effect It must be hormetic, and that's where we're getting our benefits from. So it's true, there is a Goldilocks zone for all these things. There is a dose-response curve, but in the research that has been taken to mean it's supportive of hormesis when I think we need to be really careful about that.

Okay, so something like exercise, I can do that. It causes stress, but there's side benefits. I get stronger, I might have improved VO2 max, bone density, less frailty, better mobility, better mental health. Improve sleep, et cetera. In the case of a cigarette, there's oxidative stress, but the benefits might be, I don't know, a little bit of weight loss from the nicotine, some alertness, but the amount of toxic side effects outweigh the pros of that type of hormetic stressor. Now, what about when you get into something like, say, fasting or carb restriction, two things that you also mentioned as potential hormetic stressors.

Yeah. And those, I would say, fit in the exact same way. So there are benefits, of course, to low-carb and ketogenic diets and fasting. There's also inherent negatives due to the stress that they cause. And it's not a small amount of stress either. One thing that people will discuss when it comes to low-carb diets is that over time you don't see a long-term increase in cortisol. What you do see, and we can get into this in more detail because you do still see long-term elevated stress. But even in the short term, what they call short term, you see elevated cortisol. That short term is normally about 4 weeks, 4 to 6 weeks even. There's very few things that we can do that cause so much stress that you'll have elevated cortisol for 4 to 6 weeks. So it's definitely not a small level of stress that we're talking about here.

Wait, when you say elevated cortisol for 4 to 6 weeks, that's from what?

That's coming from a, quote, normal diet or a non-ketogenic diet, and then you go into a ketogenic diet.

Okay. So, we're saying the day that you start a ketogenic diet, cortisol would go up and stay up for 4 to 6 weeks like the day that you start, say, restricting carbohydrates.

Right, right, exactly.

And, is the cortisol going up because cortisol is one of the mechanisms via which your liver and your muscle might dump extra glucose into the bloodstream, the same thing that people notice if they're wearing a continuous blood glucose monitor and wake up in the morning, get that morning cortisol awakening response and see the surge in blood sugar? Is it similar but just going on for a longer period of time?

Ben Greenfield: Yeah, that's exactly what it is. The cortisol is responding to the lack of energy because there's the lack of carbohydrates and our bodies are shifting over fuel to what I would say is a suboptimal fuel in fat. And, that lack of energy leads to basically all of our tissues saying, you know, alarm bells, like they're giving off alarm bells saying we need more energy. And that's where cortisol comes in to liberate glucose, increase gluconeogenesis, and also help to further shift us into fat burning so that we can conserve that glucose since we're not getting very much. So that's exactly why it increases. And that happens anytime we're under stress, right? Whether it's exercise or a psychological stressor, you know, an argument with somebody or something like that, or a ketogenic diet, or mercury exposure, whatever it is. Cortisol is a pretty universal response there to a stressor.

Ben Greenfield: Now, you just said that fat is a subpar fuel and you don't hear that very often. A lot of people will say that fat is a slow-burn fuel. You have more of it in your body than carbohydrates. Byproduct of fat metabolism might be the production of ketones, which could be used as a preferred fuel for the brain or the liver or the heart or the diaphragm. I mean, I could go on and on, but a lot of people say that fat, particularly in people who have followed a low-carb diet for long enough to have become more adapted at burning fat, is a superior, not a subpar fuel. But you called it a subpar fuel.

Yeah. And so, the first thing I want to make sure that I clarify is that I'm not saying there's no place for consuming fat. I'm not saying there's no place for burning fat. As you said, it is kind of more of a low-octane, slow-burn fuel., and that's perfect for tissues that don't need a lot of energy. So for example, at rest, our muscles do really well burning fat, right? And there's, I would say there's not really a negative effect to that. That's totally fine. But we see the issues with fat burning when we look at a place that has really high energy needs and is very sensitive to oxidative stress. And the brain is, is our best example of that. And so as you said, when we're in a low carb state, we can be producing ketones and our brain will use those, but our brain can't use fatty acids for fuel except for maybe less than half a percent of its total energy needs. For the most part, it really does not use any fat as a fuel, but it can use glucose or ketones. And the reason for that is exactly what I'm discussing is that it is an inherently suboptimal fuel in terms of the amount of reactive oxygen species that get produced per ATP. So, you have more oxidative stress per ATP produced.

When you burn fat, you create more oxidative stress per the amount of ATP that you produce.

Yeah. And again, this is fine if we're talking in the muscles at rest because those reactive oxygen species kind of slow the speed of the engine a little bit. They act as an inherent brake on the system to make sure we're not producing energy too quickly.

Right. We're under excess oxidative stress, so don't produce too much energy. Kind of very similar to how a lot of lactic acid accumulated during exercise would put the brakes on muscle contraction due to the pH of the muscle tissue.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so that's, that's fine if we don't need a lot of energy, but in the brain that can't fly because it's very sensitive to oxidative stress and it needs to produce a lot of energy. And so the, the reason for this boils down to some biochemistry that I'm happy to dig into as deep as you'd like, but essentially there's a ratio of FADH2 and NADH that gets produced when we're burning different substrates. When we produce carbohydrates, that ratio is much lower, meaning that there's much more NADH produced and much less FADH2.

You said when we produce carbohydrates, you mean when we consume carbohydrates?

Yeah, when we burn.

Okay. When we burn carbs, we do what now?

There is a higher amount of NADH and a lower amount of FADH2 that gets produced. When we burn fat, the opposite is the case. There's about 250% difference in terms of how much FADH2 gets produced relative to NADH. So, we have opposite an opposite effect. And the result of that is that when we go down to the electron transport chain where we produce ATP, basically things get slowed down when we're burning fat and there's a lot more reactive oxygen species that get produced. And so, this is just the biochemical mechanism that is responsible for the difference in reactive oxygen species production per ATP in either case.

Ben Greenfield: Okay. And why would that not be okay when you look at fats producing more oxidative stress? And the reason I ask is I would hypothesize that there might be some sort of a mechanism that would allow for reduction of that oxidative stress or that fat still might produce some more slow-burning fuel or that the ketones that you are getting from the fats would be enough to go around since the brain needs kind of trace amounts of glucose relative to say all the skeletal muscle in the body anyway. So, explain to me why it would actually be bad that fat would cause this issue.

So, in the brain, it's not so much of an issue. The brain will mostly be using ketones. It'll still be using 30 to 40% glucose. But, for the rest of the body, most of it will be using fat. We don't produce that many ketones just in general when we're on a ketogenic diet. We really only produce enough mostly for the brain. The rest of the body is almost running entirely on fat.. And so when we're then faced with any increased energy demands, we're more prone to having lack of ATP, which as you said, you know, if there's lack of ATP and an increase in oxidative stress, won't the body respond in some way? And it does. And this is where those hormetic mechanisms come in. We activate these backup pathways, we produce stress hormones like glucagon, adrenaline, and cortisol, and those stimulate the tissues to make more energy despite oxidative stress. They basically say this is necessary, this is top priority, make the energy anyway. And, in the short term, that's not a big deal, but what we're concerned with is the long-term effects there because what we see is in a long-term low-carb diet, we still have elevated levels of these stress hormones. It's mostly in the form of glucagon. And then, with cortisol, the levels aren't elevated at baseline, but in terms of a response to stress or response to exercise, let's say, there's a greater increase in cortisol on a low-carb diet versus a moderate or high-carb diet. And so as a result of that, again, in the moment, no big deal. We produce energy either way and, and we're fine. There's a little bit of damage as a byproduct, but long-term, these hormones act as a signal for our bodies to turn down their metabolic rate because they recognize that this is not sustainable. We have to continue to pull these resources from our stores. That's what the stress hormones do. And we're producing a lot of oxidative stress in the process. So we're, even though the engine isn't working as well, the fuel isn't optimal, we're kind of forcing it anyway. And this has effects on kind of the, the larger umbrella of our hormonal state, namely at our thyroid and also in terms of the reproductive hormones. So what we see as a result here, let's just say of elevated glucagon, is you're going to see a reduction in the conversion from the inactive thyroid hormone T4 to the active thyroid hormone T3. And what that does is it slows our metabolic rate down since T3 and our thyroid hormones in general are the main ones that keep our metabolic rate up. We see a reduction in T3, which lowers metabolic rate.

Right. So, so absence of adequate glucose is putting the brakes on T4 to active T3 conversion.

Exactly. Yeah. And as a downstream effect of that, we then see lower production of the reproductive hormones as well, which depend on T3 and are directly impaired by hormones like cortisol.. So we see a reduction in things like testosterone, reduction in the female reproductive hormones as well. And this is something that's seen in epilepsy patients who have to be on a ketogenic diet long term. And the women have incredibly high rates of amenorrhea and kind of reproductive issues on a ketogenic diet due to the disruption in those hormones.

Right. And do you think the hormonal disruption is due to so much cortisol being produced that there's fewer building blocks for hormones like estrogen or testosterone, or is there a direct impact on things like follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone, FSH and LH? Meaning, do they require some type of glucose similar to the T4 to T3 conversion to adequately produce something like testosterone, or is it more just that too much of the building blocks is going towards cortisol?

Ben Greenfield: It's not even the building blocks or even a need for glucose, it's more of the hormones. So, cortisol on its own, will inhibit GnRH, which is gonadotropin-releasing hormone, which then will reduce FSH and LH. So then you're going to get a downstream reduction. So it's upstream negative feedback brought on by cortisol and at the, at the actual locations as well. So at the testes, for example, if you introduce cortisol, it'll lower testosterone production. And if you take away T3, it'll impair testosterone production since T3 is necessary for the the activity of the star protein, which allows for the uptake of cholesterol into the mitochondria and then produces steroid hormones like testosterone or progesterone.

Right. And just so I understand, when we're talking about this, how low-carb a scenario are we talking? Because there's different definitions as you know. For some people, low-carb, I mean, some people define me as low-carb and I have anywhere from about 250 to 350 grams of carbs per day. Other people would define low carb as 40 grams or more of a strict keto approach. But how much are we talking here as far as the body's needs and how low an amount of carbohydrate intake would cause some of the issues you're talking about?

Yeah. Well, and most in the health world these days would say that you're having a very high carbohydrate diet.

I know, even though for me that's less than 30% of my total calorie intake.

Right, right.

Yeah.

Normally I would say, so I recommend 40% on the low end of carbs for most people. When we're looking in the literature, 200 grams tends to be a good low end. Typically, when you're going below 200, you really start to see these effects. Above 200, it's a lot more muddy, but of course, that's going to depend also on our individual needs. How active are we? How much muscle mass do we have? Where's our metabolic rate? Have we dealt with the effects of aging over a long time and we're dealing with a low thyroid activity, then those needs would be a little— then I think 200 would maybe be a good minimum at that point. But I think for you or me, our needs are going to be considerably higher. Ben Greenfield: Yeah.

And how much of this, because you mentioned research, how much of this has been looked at in research? Like, have they taken low carb versus high carb and looked at that cortisol, looked at thyroid, looked at hormones, or looked at What was the other one? Oxidation. Have any of those studies actually been done?

Yeah, so there's a lot less research than we'd hope, and a lot of the research is not particularly long-term. You know, they'll do a diet for a lot of times it'd be a week, but there's enough studies that they'll do at least, you know, 4 weeks or so, which some people would argue is still not enough. And so the, the number of studies that go into this longer term are few and far between, but they are there and they are notable. So In the research, what we clearly see is low T3, and this is even on people who are averaging, you know, 4 years on a ketogenic diet. There's a, a great study that was looked at in support of the lipid energy model, the lean mass hyper-responder phenotype, that whole area of research. And they were looking at women who were on a ketogenic diet for around 4 years and found that they had particularly low T3 and also elevated reverse T3, not by the kind of mainstream ranges, but I, I mean, I think most people would agree that, that those values were definitely not ideal. The free T3 was like 2.5. They put them on a carbohydrate-containing diet for 3 weeks and their T3 came up to, I want to say, 3.5, which is a pretty significant increase. They went back on the ketogenic diet and the T3 went right back down to, I believe, right around the same, 2.5, maybe 2.6 or something. So we do have— and these aren't people who are already on a ketogenic diet for, for the long term. There are others looking at Epilepsy patients showing a general trend toward lower T3 and elevated TSH. As I was mentioning, the, the studies on epilepsy patients showing issues with the female reproductive hormones. So those are some of the clear ones. As far as the stress hormones go, elevated glucagon is seen pretty universally on low-carb and ketogenic diets, uh, at least at the 4-week mark and typically beyond that as well.

And remind people who aren't familiar with what glucagon is doing.

So glucagon is kind of our first stress hormone. We've got a few primary ones. I mean, there's, there's a bunch, but the main ones I would focus on are glucagon, adrenaline, and cortisol, and they kind of increase sequentially. So in the most minor stress, you'll see elevated glucagon. In a little bit more intense stress, you'll see epinephrine, which is adrenaline, and a little bit more intense, and you'll see cortisol. And so In the studies looking at the stress hormones in— on people on a very low-carb or ketogenic diet, elevated cortisol is seen at least through the first month, sometimes beyond that as well. Elevated glucagon is seen past that point. And then the other thing that's— that's seen as well is that even though the cortisol levels aren't always elevated past that point, in people who are on a low-carb diet for that long or for longer, what they see is that there can be normal cortisol levels But inside the tissues, there's actually a reduced clearance of cortisol and an increased regeneration of cortisol. These are based on effects that enzymes like 11-beta-HSD and 5-alpha-reductase, 5-beta-reductase. And so, effects on these enzymes actually can cause high cortisol in the tissues even if your blood cortisol looks normal, which a lot of people say, you know, initially I saw high cortisol and low carb and then over time it went back to normal. But you still could have high tissue cortisol.

It's a blood cortisol measurement and blood does not necessarily reflect tissue cortisol.

Right, right. You can look at the urinary metabolites of how much cortisol is getting cleared as an indirect—

Like a Dutch test. Yeah, that's a really good point. I do recommend the Dutch test quite a bit because a lot of times blood cortisol values can be normal, but that doesn't mean the metabolites aren't either building up or being cleared very quickly, which is what urine tests can tell you.

Yeah. And salivary as well. I've seen people with normal blood cortisol but very elevated salivary cortisol, especially because blood is normally done once a day and our cortisol is a natural rhythm and that rhythm can be interfered with. And so you might have normal cortisol in the morning, but it's really elevated later in the day and you don't see that if you only get a blood test in the morning.

Now, what would you say to people who would say that constant access to carbohydrates and a relative stabilization of cortisol is almost a little bit of an ancestral mismatch because human beings for thousands of years have had periods of time where they might have experienced famine, fasting, hunger, needed to push through without a lot of fuel on board while say hunting or gathering. And that by simply saying, well, let's just give ourselves ad libitum carb access throughout the day so that our cortisol stays low and we're just kind of fat and happy, so to speak, really is not the way that human beings have operated from an ancestral standpoint. And, this would be a relatively new phenomenon to propose just eating carbs 365 days a year, 24/7 without having periods of say carb depletion or fasting.

Ben Greenfield: So, it's true that we're always going to be encountering stress, and that stress can come in different forms, whether it is fasting or a lack of carbs or the stress that a lot of us are facing modern day. So, I don't think it's something where even if we're eating a high-carb diet, we're free of stress, which is just one thing to consider. But another is we can guess as to what exactly we were eating, what exactly we were doing. However, There is— so, you know, if we look at, A, certain native cultures currently that are eating very high-carb diets, and B, we look at some different evidence in terms of what was going on ancestrally, it might not be so far-fetched to have a very high-carb diet even in a, quote, natural environment. So for one thing to consider, humans for most of our evolution and pre-evolution, you know, the evolution of primates prior to us and other hominids and everything, we were in pretty tropical climates. We only really left the tropics about 40,000 years ago or so. And of course, in the tropics, there's year-round fruit, different fruits that are available all the time. And so, the idea that fruit would have only been seasonal would only really be true for kind of a small blip in terms of our evolutionary lineage. And we can look now at our other ape counterparts that are currently living in those areas and they eat a diet that's 60-plus percent fruit most of the time, chimpanzees.

Wouldn't some people say that their guts are developed in such a way that they can transform a lot of the fruits that they're eating, a lot of those fibers into fatty acids due to different gut composition and butyric?

Some of the primates, yes. But so, when we look at what's called the expensive tissue hypothesis, which looks at the relationship between the gut, the size of the large intestine, small intestine, and brain size in primates, and then also diet. What they find is a couple of things. One is as fruit increases in the diet, you see an increase in intelligence and you also see a decrease in the size of the colon, of the large intestine. And on the flip side, as more fibrous foods are consumed, you see a decrease in terms of intelligence and a larger large intestine, which is where we're converting those fibers to the short-chain fatty acids.. So if you take a gorilla, for example, they ferment a lot of food. They eat very fibrous food and they produce a lot of fatty acids. So even though their diet is coming from a decent amount of carbohydrate, they are still using a lot of fat that's coming from their gut. But with chimps and bonobos, that happens much less. The large intestines are much smaller, much more similar to ours, and they're absorbing the fruits up in the small intestine and actually getting the carbohydrates right.

They're actually eating more glucose than fatty acids compared to a gorilla.

Yes. Yeah, glucose and fructose too.

Ben Greenfield: Okay. Yeah, glucose and fructose. So, what about these people like, I forget her name, Mary somebody who used coconut oil and the ketogenic diet to help out with Alzheimer's and dementia? And, you see this repeat a lot. I think Dale Bredesen talks about it sometimes as well, this idea of a high-fat diet being almost very healing for the nervous system and stabilizing for those with brain issues, Alzheimer's, other forms of dementia, concussion, TBI, et cetera. It seems as though limiting carbohydrates assists those type of cases.

Yeah, it does. And I think there's really good reason for it. And I think we can get those same benefits without the negatives, which is the same thing I would say whether we're talking obesity or diabetes and low-carb diets. And they're very similar because a lot of people will identify that insulin resistance in the brain is a primary driver of these issues like Alzheimer's, and they'll call it type 3 diabetes. And so what's happening in that state is our bodies are having trouble using the carbohydrates, the glucose, effectively. They're getting to the mitochondria and the mitochondria are blocked by other things, and so they're not effectively using the glucose. When the brain— that's a huge problem because if they're not using the glucose well and we're on a high-carb diet, so there's not really any ketones, you're left without any good fuel. And so you might still use the glucose, but you just convert it to lactate, which is really inefficient. You're not getting very much ATP. You end up with a lot of oxidative stress, a lot of issues. So one way that these, that a low carb or ketogenic diet provides relief in the state of, of something like Alzheimer's is providing an alternate fuel that we can still use even if we're having trouble using glucose. So if we're dealing with insulin resistance, let's say just in the brain and it's not using the glucose well, it can still take up those ketones and use those well. And now you have adequate energy production. The second reason which has been shown in, in different models as well, is carbohydrates can cause problems in the gut when we have an imbalanced microbiome, right?

Something like small intestine bacterial overgrowth or something like that.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And when that happens, instead of us digesting and breaking down those carbohydrates, a large portion goes to the bacteria, and especially the ones that are higher up and overgrown. They're not just producing short-chain fatty acids, but they're producing different things that are relatively toxic to us. One of the most well-known is called lipopolysaccharide or endotoxin. And that alone is, can be, or is considered to be responsible or a primary driver for insulin resistance. And you see what's called metabolic endotoxemia, which is just generally elevated levels of endotoxin in everything from heart disease to diabetes. And so that's the second main area that we would get benefit when it comes to a low-carb diet is we're not feeding these bacteria, we're not producing the endotoxin. Things are a lot calmer in the gut. And endotoxin also is able to get into the brain, cross the blood-brain barrier, and cause insulin resistance and oxidative stress there. So, by alleviating this massive, massive kind of toxic stressor from our bodies, we can also have major benefits.

Ben Greenfield: Right. So, it's kind of back to Hans Selye's idea that you have to step back and look at is the amount of stress caused by restriction or addition of a certain hormetic stressor paired with enough pros to be able to justify it even if it's short-term. You have something like Alzheimer's, dementia, SIBO, et cetera. So, you're not painting with a broad brush and saying just eat as many carbohydrates as you want no matter what. You're saying generally try to get about 40% of your diet from carbohydrates if you don't want the cortisol stress, potential impact on the endocrine system, thyroid, et cetera. That could come with excessive carbohydrate restriction.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm also not saying all carbs are equal either and that we should all be, you know, eating bread and Coca-Cola as our carb sources.

So you're not a keto guy, you're not on the— I suppose I guess would be something more like— what's the guy? Layne Norton, who's just, you know, I think that's kind of his take on this, right? That macros are most important, but the composition of them is not as important.

Only in so much as they cause you to eat more.

Right, right. So what does your diet look like? I'm just curious, like, how you apply this, like, in the streets, like how you actually diet and how you exercise on an average day.

Yeah, I can walk through that and also how I apply it to people who I work with and also people who are dealing with things like insulin resistance because there's a lot of great information on that. But essentially, I would say that 40% is kind of the low end when it comes to carbohydrates of what I recommend.

And is there a high end, by the way?

Normally, like 65 or so would probably be the high end.

And is it because of the nutrient density of fruits or their digestibility or the fiber content or the satiating effect that you'd recommend fruits as the primary source?

So, I would say the primary reasons are digestibility, polyphenols, and nutrient content. And that nutrient content includes the carbohydrates, which I think are very beneficial. So, yeah, all of those things. And we can talk about you know, in the research issue that you see issues with pure fructose feeding, which is really irrelevant because we never get anything with pure fructose and that causes a lot of endotoxin production. We can talk about issues with sugar-sweetened beverages and pure table sugar, but if you look at research on fruit, it's pretty universally all beneficial, even in people who are dealing with diabetes and fatty liver disease. And really the same applies for fruit juice as well.

I saw that study a few weeks ago, by the way. No difference between, right, whole fruit and fruit juice when it comes to the glycemic index. And in fact, I reported this on a podcast, blending fruit lowers the glycemic index of the fruit paradoxically because apparently you're blending all the seeds and skins and making them more bioavailable. And so, it made me feel pretty good about the blueberry huckleberry in my smoothie kick I've been on lately.

Ben Greenfield: Nice, nice. Yeah, I think fruit juice has definitely gotten a bad rap, but I don't think it's deserved.

Okay. So, back to your diet or the diet that you're using with your clients, a lot of fruit and around 40 to 60% carbohydrate intake.

Yeah. And so, fruit, other sources would be honey and maple syrup, which are very high in polyphenols, and the maple syrup has some nutrients in there as well. And then, I do think that depending on digestibility, and this can vary based on the individual, we can bring in root vegetables and some easily digestible or well-processed grains like white rice. The root vegetable side, this can be, again, well-cooked and processed potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, things like that.

Okay, got it. And then what are you doing about the proteins and the fats? Where do those come in and what are the sources for something like that?

Yeah, so I think this is an area where, you know, very much aligned with the low-carb crowd in that I think, you know, our, our quote, animal-based protein sources are generally best when it comes to nutrient and fat composition. So red meat is, is a great source there. Low-fat seafood that's low in PUFA is, is great as well and very nutrient-dense. Dairy for people who do well on it, of course, some people don't digest it well. Eggs. And then, you know, some, I think some other non-ruminant meat can be okay if it's lean. I think we do have to be really careful when it comes to chicken and pork that they can be really high in omega-6s if they're fed foods that are really high in omega-6s.

Two, two perfect examples along with shellfish and fish higher up in the food chain of you are what you eat ate.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Okay. Now, if exercise is so stressful that it could cause this law of diminishing returns when it comes to the excess cortisol, potential increase in inflammation, oxidation, et cetera, how does your exercise protocol look or the exercise protocol you're using with your clients?

Yeah. So, the general capacity for dealing with the stressor is going to vary based on the individual. So, on one end, we could have someone who has chronic fatigue, or who's really dealing with severe metabolic syndrome, and they could go for a walk for a mile and have a lot of inflammation and feel pretty bad after. Maybe they don't sleep as well or their energy crashes, whereas someone else who is on the other side of the spectrum might not even notice any effect from doing that. So, I think exercise is also something we need to tailor to the individual. And generally, as long as we're moving away from being sedentary, that's, I would say, the most important thing that's going to make by far and away the biggest difference. And that's seen in the research as well. When we look at metabolic syndrome, weight loss, if we can just not be sedentary, that by far and away accounts for the most benefits. And then I think as we can improve our stress tolerance, bringing in some occasional medium or higher intensity exercise can be great. My suggestion in general is to find something that you enjoy, whether it's a sport. People are playing a lot of pickleball these days, but it could be swimming or tennis or basketball, pickup basketball, whatever it is. Weightlifting as well is an option. It can really be anything as long as we're getting some level of activity in and we're walking enough, we're not sedentary. That's kind of my baseline recommendation that I think we can get into minutiae and the minutiae definitely can matter at the ends when we want to go from 90% to 95% of in terms of improving athletics or body composition or muscle mass. But for most people, I would say that's— those are the most important things.

What about like heat stress, cold stress, things like that?

It kind of depends on what the outcome is that we're looking for. When we look at the— what kinds of things will stimulate muscle growth, for example, there's a lot of different— there's been a lot of different theories out there. And one of them is that if we just introduce enough stress to the muscle, that will cause the growth of, of the muscle fibers, and that'll increase strength and hypertrophy. And most of the research outside does not support that. And instead what it shows is that there is an increase in muscle synthesis, muscle protein synthesis in response to a stressor like some version of, let's say, heat stress or cold stress or introducing lactate or something like that. It will increase muscle protein synthesis, but it doesn't increase net muscle protein synthesis. So what that means is that there's muscle breakdown when we introduce these stressors, and then the muscle protein synthesis comes in to repair that muscle breakdown. When it comes to the things that actually increase net protein synthesis, that'll help with muscle building and strength. I would say what seems in the research to be the most, really the only thing that matters, I would say, is getting enough muscular tension, enough tension on the muscle fibers. And there's a lot of ways we can do that. And some of, some of these interventions that you're mentioning might help us do that, right? If we're doing occlusion training, for example, that might be something that helps us get to that level of muscle fiber recruitment and activity and tension, but it's not independently beneficial, I would say.

Ben Greenfield: What about heat stress and cold stress? Like, that's, that's what I was curious about. Like, people are doing sauna, cryotherapy, cold baths. Is that a part of your protocol, or are you recommending that to people at all?

Yeah. So when it comes to heat, like let's say sauna, I think there can be a lot of benefits. I think there's a lot of benefits to infrared light when it comes to mitochondrial function and red light when it comes to mitochondrial function. There's benefits to heat in that it increases circulation, helps with lymphatic flow, helps with, you know, sweating, which helps with detoxification processes. So there's a lot of benefits to it, but if we do it long enough, it will definitely induce more stress than those benefits. So, it's one of those things where several minutes, 10, maybe 15 minutes in a sauna that's moderately hot, I think is fine. I think when we're going beyond that, we're inducing more of the stress side and that's going to start outweighing the benefits. So, that's how I would think of the heat side of things. When it comes to cold, I don't think cold has, in my view, as far as the specific effects, I don't see that much in the way of cold other than improved tolerance to cold. So, when we get more and more exposed to cold, we get more tolerant of cold and it doesn't affect us as much. But, I don't see much in the way of, at least I would say, good support for cold doing anything other than causing a good amount of stress.

Ben Greenfield: What about blood glucose management and insulin sensitivity with cold?

I think that those are going to be mediated by the stress, right? So, when we're like there's a big increase in, in stress hormones and calorie expenditure when we're exposed to cold, which is the same as if we were exercising, right? We use a lot of fuel and both of those will help use the glucose that's available. You know, it'll kind of dispose of that glucose.

Yeah. I mean, it plummets my blood glucose for hours after I do it.

Yeah. Yeah. Which I'm, I don't know if you've measured like stress responses after, but I would assume that with that Glucose going as low as it is, we probably have elevated stress for a while too.

Well, short-term big stress response. And I mean, when I do my cortisol measurements, even though I've been doing a lot more blood these days, my cortisol levels are fine. But the longest I'll get in an ice bath unless there's some type of throw health out the window competition between me and my friends is about 2 minutes. Basically, I get up within 20 minutes of waking, I get in 35 degrees for a couple of minutes. And I can tell you that I Don't even think about a cup of coffee after doing that.

And a lot of people are using coffee in the same way, right? They're drinking coffee right when they wake up and they're getting the same stress effect. And so ideally, I would say we don't want to be getting all that stress. And it is worth mentioning with the cold, there are some benefits in terms of mood for sure. Again, I think a lot of them are stress-mediated.

It feels different than a cup of coffee. It's more alertness than jitteriness or anxiety. Especially with too much coffee intake. But, I'm curious with all of this though, you start to describe what you do with your clients, but I want to know about Jay. What's Jay do when he wakes up? What do you have for breakfast? When do you do exercise? Do you have lunch? What's going on the rest of the day? How are you weaving in this non-exercise activity? Walk me through a day with Jay.

I wake up and have breakfast maybe 30 to 45 minutes after, you know, wake up. Take the dogs out and then prepare breakfast. And so, it's always some balance of carbs, fat, and protein. My macronutrient breakdown is about 20% protein and then 40 carbs and 40 fat.

Yeah, not a whole lot of protein. So, you're probably— when people say you should be getting close to a gram a pound, you'd be a little bit under that most likely.

Yeah. My recommendation is 0.6 to 0.8 grams per pound.

Okay. Yeah. Somewhat low.

Yeah, it's coming from research. Menno Henselmans has some great studies on this looking at resistance training athletes and people who are, you know, actually, you know, it's not just sedentary average individuals. And basically beyond about 0.7 grams per pound, there was no benefit in terms of protein synthesis, you know, muscle protein synthesis.

I think some of that has to be couched in the actual population study because I think with very active weight training individuals, it has been shown to be a little bit higher as far as the net gains where protein intake kind of tapers off.

Ben Greenfield: We'll have to take a look at that study because from what I remember, it was looking at people who are in that category of individuals that are training quite a bit.

Okay. So, trained individuals, 0.6 to 0.8 grams per pound, and you're starting off the day with protein, fats, carbs.

Yeah. So, I might have plantains or fruit smoothie and then I might have eggs or some pastured bacon or beef bacon with that. Sometimes I'll do a chicken hash with eggs on it and the hash will have some potatoes. And, I will have coffee at that point, but I make sure the coffee is not fasted on an empty stomach to help avoid the stress because as long as the coffee is with fuel, you don't get that same stress effect. So, that's breakfast. And, most of the time after that, I'm up in the office until lunch. And, lunch is similar in terms of breakdown. So, it's going to be some protein source, could be beef, lamb, lean chicken. It could just be fruit, dried fruit on the side, maybe juice. Sometimes it'll be potatoes or rice.

Ben Greenfield: And, are you active at all in between breakfast and lunch? You stop in moving, standing workstation, things like that?

I've got a sit-stand workstation. I wish that my work didn't keep me glued to a computer as much as it does, but for the mornings, normally, I'm pretty glued here, but I will have to get a walking setup like you have.

Yeah, yeah, it's nice. It saves my butt on many a days where I'm not able to do much except walk on the treadmill and talking with people like you. Okay. So, you got lunch and then what happens after lunch?

Ben Greenfield: Yeah. So again, I would say most days between— so I would call that first lunch. I normally have 4 meals. And so, between first and second lunch, I'm normally back in the office for a couple more hours and then I'll have a second meal or second lunch that's basically the same as the first. And again, same thing, sit-stand desk but not much beyond that. And then, normally after that second lunch is when I'll either take— I mean, I might do a bit more work and then I'll either take the dogs for a walk or play with them out in the yard. I do go to the gym for weightlifting once a week. And then, once or twice a week, I do MMA training or Muay Thai kickboxing, those kinds of things.

So, if you only go to the gym once a week to lift weights, how long are you there?

About an hour.

Okay. Yeah. So, it's not too much. I'm assuming you're going pretty heavy though and going with a lot of that time under tension that you mentioned.

Yeah, yeah. I'm definitely trying to get that stimulus for sure. And, it's a full-body workout. I would say it's not optimized for building as much muscle or strength as possible. My goals are kind of maintenance on that front and maybe a little bit of growth, but more so my athletic ventures, I enjoy mixed martial arts and Muay Thai kickboxing, those kinds of things a lot more. And so, that's more my focus. And honestly, in the past, there was a point where I was about 205 pounds and really lean. I had a lot more muscle mass than I do now. And I felt like it really slowed me down when it came to those other athletic goals.

Yeah. Do you take any supplements?

Nothing daily, but as needed, I'll use maybe some B vitamins just if I feel like I need a bit of a boost or— yeah, I mean, it's really pretty rare that I'm using too much.

Yeah, yeah. And for you being a guy who's as immersed in the science of this as you are, are you also doing tests? Have you done blood testing? Do you find things that you want to tweak and adjust or are your levels pretty good across the board from the protocol you just described?

There's always small things I'm adjusting. I'm looking at vitamin D and just make a point to get outside a bit more. I try to eat my meals outside, the lunches outside. Yeah, there's always small things I'm tweaking, but they're generally pretty small.

Yeah. Okay, got it. What do you think about the carnivore diet? Because a lot of people will say, well, you could use that meat and break it down and produce adequate glucose through gluconeogenesis. You don't have to have a bunch of carbs with that diet, but what's your take on carnivore?

Between carnivore and keto, I would actually say I think keto is better in terms of macro breakdown.

But when you say better, you mean healthier?

Yeah, yeah, healthier. I think that it's better to rely more on fat than it is to rely more on protein's conversion to glucose. And the main reason for that is basically twofold. When we've shifted fully into ketosis, we're running a lot more on fat and everything's kind of running on kind of like a lower steady state. When it comes to a really high protein diet or a higher protein diet, if it's carnivore and it's not high enough fat, if it's not carnivore keto, if it's just kind of carnivore, you tend to see much higher increases in stress hormones because of that constant conversion from glucose to— or sorry, from protein or amino acids to glucose since you're running more on glucose but you don't have that glucose available.. And that tends to increase things like glucagon and cortisol more. And I would say, you know, then has a, a worse effect when we're looking at the thyroid, when we're looking at reproductive function. I think the benefit of carnivore is some people are super sensitive to different plant foods.

Autoimmune issues, you mean the reason that people like Jordan and Mikhaila Peterson would've used a carnivore diet?

Exactly. And so that's, I think, a place where carnivore could benefit over keto, but I'd still prefer if you're doing carnivore It's keto carnivore, it's still high fat and, and more moderate protein, but otherwise it's still— so you still have the same benefits, right? You still have the same provision of alternate fuel instead of glucose, at least a lot more fat. You still have the benefit of relief from the gut. In most cases, you're still going to have way less endotoxin. However, another issue with very high protein is there is in many people limitations in protein digestion, and that same protein can then travel down the intestines and feed bacteria and create some really toxic products as well. And so that would— and that has been shown to happen, you know, someone's consuming more protein that they can adequately digest. So that is, you know, an issue there. But again, has the same benefits for the most part in terms of the gut and providing an alternate fuel, but the same long-term issues. And, you know, most of the people I'm working with are very much, you know, very into their health. And they've been— they've done keto, they've done carnivore, and Initially, they normally experience those benefits and those benefits have really outweighed the negatives and the drawbacks. But over time, they start to notice their sleep deteriorate, they start to notice testosterone decrease or libido decrease, or on the female side, cycles getting irregular. They tend to notice the energy start to slump. So, I really see that play out where we're having these short-term benefits and then start to see those costs catch up with us.

Ben Greenfield: What about these guys like Dr. Shawn Baker who just seemed like an absolute beast. I realize I say that kind of like the Liver King, you don't know what kind of things are also going into the system to help him keep up, but it seems like some people are thriving on a carnivore diet or at least staying pretty strong and seem to have a decent amount of energy.

Ben Greenfield: It's great that they're doing well. It's so hard to know what's going on under the surface for for somebody. And I'm not trying to say anyone's lying if they say that they are doing well and they're not. I know for me, I probably would have said I felt really great when I was on low carb, and I think I didn't know what— I would say that I definitely didn't looking back. Yeah, it's hard to say what someone else might be experiencing. I think also some people are really resilient and some people are able to— we were talking earlier about excess exercise and marathoners and negative cardiovascular and gut effects, but some people are able to do incredible amounts of exercise and still remain very healthy. So, I think some people are naturally more resilient. It's hard to say. It's all kind of conjecture at this point.

Ben Greenfield: It is interesting. I think the highest-consuming population that I know of energy drinks and stimulants is the low-carb keto crowd. And, I suspect that part of it could be because they have that long-term cortisol exposure and eventual energy depletion and a lowering of ATP production via some of the pathways that you've described. So, you see a lot of those people sucking down a lot of energy drinks, a lot of stimulants, a lot of nootropics. And in many cases, it's because they're afraid to have an apple and some blueberries in the morning.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of times too kind of making up for some stress effects with high-dose sodium, the electrolyte packets, things like that as well. Yeah.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah, you see that too. Well, my approach is, like I said, I eat 250, 350 grams of carbs per day. I don't like to eat a lot of carbs typically until the evening mostly because it's my most socially flexible meal and the meal where there probably is going to be the things like bread, pasta, higher carb intake, desserts, et cetera. I usually have, like I said also, especially in the summertime, berries with my morning smoothie, sometimes a little bit of fruit with lunch. But, I think my main takeaway from a lot of what we've been talking about is that as you implied, Jay, early on, stress is stress is stress. And while I don't necessarily think that people need to forego things like heat stress, cold thermogenesis, paying attention to how many carbs that they eat, exercise, et cetera, I think they do need to take into consideration how much stress they're piling on their bodies by doing yet the next thing that is supposedly the beneficial hormetic stressor. And once you pile up 10 hormetic stressors in a day, then you can run into some pretty significant biochemical issues. And I also think that when it comes to to the idea of how many carbs you're going to take in. I think you also made a really good point that sometimes if you do have gut issues or you do have autoimmune issues or you do have something like Alzheimer's, you may need to be careful with the type and extent of the carbohydrates that you're consuming. But, that doesn't necessarily mean that carbs are the villain that many in the keto, low-carb, carnivore community have painted them to be.

Yeah. And we don't have to be stuck in that state either. We can improve our ability to utilize the carbs coming in by addressing possible nutrient deficiencies, fixing the gut health.

It would be like short-term healing stints, you mean?

Yeah. And there, you know, I think a lot of this kind of has gotten swept under the rug in the low-carb crowds, but there's quite a few studies, I mean, on hundreds and hundreds of people using very low-fat diets, you know, in insulin resistance and diabetes and getting people off of insulin. I mean, it's not this idea that the only solution is cutting carbs, I think is missing some of the larger picture of what's really going on. And hopefully someone listening to this takes this as an opportunity to, you know, if you are in the low-carb sphere, consider, are you healthy? Like, are you fully healthy? Are you optimally healthy? How's your sleep? How's your libido? How's your stress, how's your mood, how's your energy, and maybe this could be an opportunity to test something else out.

Ben Greenfield: Right. Understand that carbs aren't going to kill you. And then, man, I wish they could do a CGM-like device that would also do glucagon, cortisol, and stress hormones, adrenaline, norepinephrine, et cetera. That would be very useful because then you could just know, hey— and I realize HRV could be a corollary for that. And maybe that is a good idea. If you're tracking HRV and you're listening in, maybe try adding a little bit more carbohydrates, see what happens to HRV, and that could be a pretty good indicator right there. What do you think, Jay?

Yeah. I wonder how, like, if it's going to change by the hour enough.

Yeah. It'd be a long-term improvement with a chronic increase in carbohydrate intake, I think.

Yeah, yeah. I think so. Yeah. And, I've seen that for sure.

Well, for those of you listening, I'm going to put all the shownotes at BenGreenfieldLife.com. /jay.feldman2, Feldman the number 2 because it's the second time Jay has been on the podcast. I'll link to the first discussion that we had on the science of his bioenergetic hypothesis also in the show notes. And, if you have questions, comments, feedback, I realize some of this stuff can be confusing for so many people who might think keto, low-carb carnivore is the way to go and now they hear fruits are okay or carbs are okay. So, I think that The main thing to understand is another friend of mine who's a nutritionist named Joel Greene says, "Just be careful of baby talk in nutrition." It's not all good, all bad, black and white. There's a lot of subtle nuances. And, I think that as you've done a really good job outlining here, Jay, stress is a major component of those subtle nuances. So again, it's going to be bengreenfieldlife.com/feldman2, Feldman, the number 2. Jay, thanks so much for coming on, man.

Yeah, thanks for having me. And if listeners want a good starting place, I have a free energy balance food guide they can download if they head to jayfeldmanwellness.com/guide. And that might be a good starting place for figuring out what kind of carbs might be good ones to begin with and go from there.

jayfeldmanwellness.com/guide. Cool. I'll put that in the show notes too. Jay, thanks so much, man. I always learn a lot when I'm talking with you.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Ben. It was great chatting.

All right, folks. I'm Ben Greenfield along with Jay Feldman from Jay Feldman Wellness signing out. Have an incredible week.

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