S6:E5 - Busting the Biggest Myths in Fitness and Nutrition: Get the Real Facts

Are you confused about what to eat, how to train, what to do? Is it all getting a bit too much? Your fitness routine is looking like a shopping list of things you try every time you go into the gym. You're trying a new routine and a diet each and every single week. In this episode of The Wolf's Den by Enterprise Fitness, we are going to be smashing and debunking many of the fitness myths that need to die. I am joined by James Kelly, the Kelly of the James, Enterprise Manager and Tyron Filonino. Filonio. Yeah, yeah, let's practice again.

I give up, I'm done, I'm out of here. Folino, for all those listening at home and in their car and wherever you're doing.

Yes, he's been here for 5 years and I haven't been able to say his name. It's almost as good as Aldred or Aldred.

Yeah, but that one's— yeah, but that was weird. Like, your background's actually Italian.

That's the worst part. Yeah, anyway, let's get into fitness myths, not about my pronunciations of names and dyslexia. So you can only eat 30 grams of protein at any one time. Now that myth has been persisting for some time. It came from, I believe, a study that was done on an external— what they built was an external kind of digestive tract, and they tested 30 grams of protein, and that was it.

Are we talking food 30 grams or macros? Macros, 30 grams.

Have you heard that myth?

There goes my double meals. Yeah, this is an old one, a very old one. Is this still around?

Yeah, that's still perceived. People go, I can only eat 30 grams of protein per meal, it's all the body can absorb. No, that's what the study— they tested with 30 grams of protein. That's what they say, you can only absorb 30 grams. Takes more than just 50 grams serve.

Yeah, it's not much at all. Yeah, if that was the thing, let's say for me, for example, I weigh 90 kilos and you're getting nearly 200 grams of protein at only 30 grams serves, I would be eating all day non-stop.

Yeah, so eat your protein, folks.

Yeah, but yeah, that's just a thing anymore.

The next one: cardio is the best form of exercise.

Agreed, coming from a soccer player. What?

Why?

Hang on, you deadlift 200 kilos.

Yeah, no, 200 kilos.

Yeah, you've done more and you bench 140.

Yeah, that's probably pretty—

yeah, yeah, but look, nah, I think— I don't think— what was the myth?

Cardio is the best form of exercise for body composition.

No, definitely not, right? I think it has its place. I probably think it's more important than what you two do.

No, no, I'm a convert.

I'm a convert. 7 days a week.

I'm a convert. Since I've been having to do cardio for the last 12 weeks— no, like 14 weeks straight.

Why are you a convert?

There is a lot of research and study coming out that it does improve—

improves recovery.

Higher VO2 max improves recovery. Then also allows for more work to be done, yeah, within your strength training. And you know what, I think you look at the proof, there's a bit of proof in the pudding. And if I look around just here, you look at James, plays soccer, he's got a soccer background. You look at Matty, has a soccer background. Cristiano has a soccer background. Have incredible physiques but also recover really well and get really fucking strong. I get really strong, but I'm just, you know, I don't have a physique that looks as good then. And I've been doing cardio for, you know, whether it's been 5 days, 3 days, it's only 3 days at the moment, for the last, you know, 12 months. And My HRV's gone up in a good way, so it's gone up to— it sits around 50 now. Yes, it's not as good as yours, we know that, but my recovery is better, my sleep's better. I'd probably say my mood's a bit better. Yeah, my mood's a bit better. I don't have to listen—

that could be the medication though too.

But even little things, like I noticed, like even the music I listen to. Like, I trained with a podcast the other day. I could never train with podcasts. I deadlift—

I actually did this.

I was actually deadlifting this morning with podcasts on. I was like, this is weird. Whereas normally I'd need like huge amounts of heavy metal.

So in saying that though, it's important up until a point. Like, if you like the way you were with your conditioning, then it's obviously a lot more important than compared to, say, James. So I think when we look at cardio, it's— I always go back to for purpose, context. It's the classic context versus content. Cardio is important, yes, but for body composition, you need to have muscle mass. And what's going to build muscle mass is your weight training. But what's the constraint? Is your constraint, say, for you, which you've been training for a long time your constraint is your ability to recover, so therefore cardio does take a higher precedent. Whereas for me, I don't feel like my ability is to recover, it's my joints at this point in time.

It's good for my joints too. I just get in elliptical.

Yeah, I can just imagine Mark on that elliptical.

That'll be a sight to see, man. When I was prepping for shows, like when I did comps like 20 years ago now, I did a lot of cardio, a lot of cardio. I've done my hours of cardio.

Yeah, but there's no Netflix back then. It's different now.

It was different because all you had was your brain and you just, you know, you had a Walkman that would go flat at a certain point.

A what?

I know, I know what it is, but I'm just trying to reiterate on how old you are.

I think Amy and Marty and stuff will listen to this and be like, what's a Walkman?

Yeah, yeah, you had that. And then, yeah, but I look great for my age. I mean, 105, it's pretty good. Diet works. Wow, I'm not even gonna touch that. Actually, I am older than you.

You are older.

You look older than me.

I feel like I'm starting to look younger now that I've been doing cardio. But on your point, I think with cardio it goes alongside strength training a lot more now, and I'm for that, to put along strength training much more now than I used to be, whereas just do strength training, just do strength training.

That old—

I remember when I like— you remember treadmills used to have like zone 1, zone 2, zone 3?

Yes.

That's coming back again.

Yes.

And the zone 2 is like really shown to increase recovery and obviously VO2 max, and that does help with I think with the oxidation of fat cells and whatever else, but it is, I have found it to be a lot more important to put alongside.

Complements it nicely.

Yeah, complements, but not only that, I think as well, like, I've got a client who's an emergency doctor and he enjoys running. So I've actually found that putting that in actually helps reduce his stress levels. And then he actually, he's actually had better body composition from that. And then we'd be able to give him more food as well. Because he's training more. So he enjoys that runner's high, so it's like, why take it off? You enjoy it, but you— and you're training 4 days a week here, so go for it.

I think even aside from body comp, if we look at just the physiological things it can improve— so if we look at things like blood pressure, chances of heart disease, these types of things, just improving overall mortality rate— it has a pretty big place as well, I think. And then Tyrone said it complements strength training, I find, in terms of that recovery time, being able to get rid of byproducts a lot faster during your sessions, those types of things.

Certainly not completely bad. No, if someone had 4 hours a week in their training and they need to build muscle, we're not including it, fair to say?

Maybe 3 in 1, I would include a little bit for sure, right? Yeah, I just tell people buy a treadmill now.

Buy what?

But just buy a treadmill.

Yeah, yeah, why don't you just go for a run outside? Well, in the elements.

Yeah, it could be raining here in Melbourne. Yeah, but we're— but okay, but if you look at someone who's busy, like for me last night, I was on my treadmill downstairs. Yeah, last night I was actually, because I was busy all day and I had the kids and I really didn't want to go outside because it was cold, so I went downstairs.

Convenience in the winter.

I feel like you—

and I still got my heart rate—

that aerobike thing though, rather than the treadmill.

Yeah, I got an air bike and a rower at home.

I've got the basics. James has got the next level. You would go aero bike over treadmill?

It depends how I'm feeling. I think air bike's just convenient because it's in my garage, right? And if I've got to run, I've got to go outside, which—

well, if you're feeling good, you go for a run. If you're feeling bad, you go for aero bike.

Oh, not necessarily if I'm feeling bad, just weather is a—

I like the air bike though, isn't it?

It's because it's harder.

No, it's just, it's nice. But for intervals, I find it really good.

I think, look, the benefit with an air bike is you remove a lot of, a lot of impact on the joints, right? Which for some people, if they're doing heavy strength training, can be very beneficial. So things like the rower and the air bike can be useful to minimize more load through.

How often do you row?

How often do I row? Not super regularly at the minute because I'm running 3-4 days.

Get the fan effect from the air bike too, cools you down.

Yeah, that's it. Sometimes I use the air bike as like a recovery method after I push play as well, just to turn the legs. Um, but yeah, I think, look, I think to maybe close this subject off and move on to the next one, I think it has its place. Um, I don't think it's inherently bad, or it's not bad at all in, in my opinion. I think there's lots of things that it does improve if you have the ability to incorporate it alongside your strength training. I think it will improve your gains in the gym, whether it's strength or hypertrophy. And yeah, that's what I've seen from using it myself and incorporating it with those.

The only other thing I would add to that is your cardio routine should complement what you're doing in terms of your strength routine. What I mean by that is if you're training for maximal strength, then your cardio really should be sprints rather than long distance in that phase. You're like, I don't know about that. Whereas if you're trying for bodybuilding and you want that hypertrophy benefit, then complementing the energy system that you're working with your hypertrophy. So for example, instead of being alactic, you move to lactic if it's bodybuilding. That's one of the adjustments I made in terms of strength. And I did find that that complemented my strength training a lot. Like I got a real increase in gains when I brought, when I was like training for max load, 1RMs, et cetera, doing more of my cardio based in sprinting versus if it's a hypertrophy body composition, well that alactic, so it's 40, 60 seconds work. So it's versus say 100 meters versus 400 meters. Essentially, so complementing, or even 800 meters in some cases.

I don't necessarily— jump in— I don't necessarily disagree, but I think you would then have to manage, because if we look at sprinting, right, it's, it's a percentage of 1RM like you do a sprint. It's supposed to be max effort, no different to lifting heavy. So then you would have to manage the nervous system fatigue if you were doing a couple of sprint sessions a week alongside heavy lifting as well. That would be my only kind of thing to note on the side.

If you're not sprinting like I am, it doesn't really matter because you're not getting near your 1RM max. It wasn't really a sprint, was it?

It's cardio, is all it is. 20 seconds later.

So we all agree it's beneficial?

It's beneficial. It's been good. Yeah, yeah, not a soul—

just do both. Just do both.

Just do both.

Yeah, just do both.

A little bit of each.

Yeah, a bit more weight training.

Sprinkle this, sprinkle that.

Yeah. Yeah, but not as important as weights. James, as important?

No, I think, yeah, I think—

and this is why you miss Steve, because it's not black and white. No, it's not, it's not.

And I'm really on the fence. Even my, one of my last programs, I was doing— I was on sled. I know a lot of the guys are going to listen to this that work here don't believe that I'm on the sled, but I was on the sled before I was doing deadlifts. I can't remember the exact reason for it.

No, forward sled?

Yeah, sprints. Oh, but as an A series, and then I was doing B series 3 to 5 deadlifts. I can't remember the reason, Juicy. Stefan told me, but I can't remember.

Because your heart needed to beat again.

Yeah, but then it was— but then I was doing steady— I was doing low intensity steady state on my other days. So just do both.

Do both.

On myths being black and white, what do you think about carbs being bad in a fat loss phase?

In a fat loss phase, I think calories matter. In a fat loss phase. And I think— but you know what, there's a lot that goes into this. And I think going along with even my experience with my last two coaches is it depends on the person as well. And I know you and I have touched on a lot of the team with this a lot lately, where just because studies have shown, well, yeah, the body can handle about 500— store about 500 grams of carbs, um, plus 100 grams in the liver, it doesn't mean that you you can bump everybody up to nearly 500 grams of carbs and then keep the rest of their calories down. I, for myself, for instance, do much better, pretty much a 30-30 split. So once my protein's accounted for, I then do well with reasonable— well, one, it's about 1 gram per kilo of body fat.

The WOG ratio.

The WOG ratio, yeah.

I found the same thing.

Yeah, like, I'm pretty much in split. The only time I did really well high carb was actually was when I was training with Liam. That was because I was just doing brutal workouts. And it was literally like, I could feel the carbs just being depleted. But I think it's important, you know, it's not the carbs that make you fat, carbs don't make you lean. Although if you're doing a photo shoot, you do need to introduce carbs towards the end, or if you're coming up to comp, right? Really important, right? Yeah, if you are gonna pull those carbs away, I just rode a peak week yesterday, I could tell you straight off, straight off the bat, you do need to bring those carbs in towards the end. And also try to sprinkle a little bit of sodium in there because that helps shuttle the carbohydrates into the muscle, right? But also make sure you've got a good potassium balance.

That sounds like science, not bro science.

I try.

Yeah, I have— I've got a good example of carbs being super beneficial for body comp with Ari at the moment. So I've had Ari on a pretty aggressive deficit for the last 4 weeks.

We can tell.

So yeah, man, I like him on a deficit.

He's very quiet.

He's very quiet.

But no, back to the point. So he's been on a relatively aggressive deficit for the last 4 weeks, getting him ready for a photo shoot. Now he got to the point where I could see his energy was starting to really taper off. So like, I could see his mood was changing, his energy was dropping, his training intensity wasn't as high. And what I opted for was giving him a 2-day refeed over the weekend. And when I say 2-day refeed, I just bumped his carbs up on both days. And lo and behold, extra carbs, he He dropped about a kilo of body weight and about 0.7% body fat by just introducing more carbs. And he was still in a deficit, but we just increased his carbs.

So, you know what I'm gonna do right now? Now I'm gonna bust that whole magic thing as well, because we all know it's not magic, right? And everyone's gonna go, oh, you know, it didn't work. I tried, it didn't work. Okay, what's happening there is a couple of things. Is one, increasing the carbs, and then he's gonna train harder, right? So he has— would have had some great sessions, right? Also, by increasing the carbohydrates, his cortisol levels will come down. So his body would have been under an immense amount of stress for the last 4 weeks, right? So a lot of that inflammation's come down, right? Therefore, he's dropped a lot more body fat, and in turn, he would have upped his NEAT as well. So he would have become just a lot more fidgety, he would have come to life, as we actually all did see him come to life. So that's where, you know, although there's a lot more dismissive now going, oh, but refeeds don't work. But yes, they do. Well, there's no science behind it.

I mean, it's always that bell curve, right? You want to eat enough so you can bump up and get out of that homeostasis. The— well, it is homeostasis, it's a hormetic adaption. You want to bump that out of that hormetic adaption, but you don't want to go so far that you spill over. So it's kind of a game of what you can get away with. And the other thing I would say about carbs is that— and the reason why it's so integral for fat loss and for performance is because one molecule of glucose equals 32 to 36 units of ATP energy. And what do you use when you're strength training? ATP energy is the first 0 to 20 seconds of fuel source that you're going to have when you do anything. So if you take away glucose, so that's going to energize essentially what you're— the main energy substrate of what you're going to use when you train, then of course your workouts are going to suck. And what do you need to change body composition? You need to have great workouts. Otherwise, so I always find with carbs, and even the thing is like if you go and look at athletes who are super pro, um, like keto for example, and then they talk about cyclical keto, which is basically just timing your carbohydrates around your workout. Why did they figure out, oh, actually I should probably time my carbohydrates around my workout? Because of the exact physiological reason I just said.

Energy.

You need energy, 100%. And the preferred fuel source is— and don't get me wrong, for those who are keto advocates, the main function of the keto diet and where it really applies is if you have epilepsy, keto diet's the way to go. And there is a lot of research that shows that if you have epilepsy Keto diet will help manage your seizures. Now, for everyone who doesn't have epilepsy and outside of that and who wants to perform, then carbohydrates are absolutely going to be beneficial to your performance because of fundamental physiology of fueling that ATP energy system, and you're not going to get out of that. The other thing in terms of what we're talking about, I've had the same thing where I've had competitors who they weren't making any pro— one example always comes to mind is Karim. He wasn't— 3 weeks in a row he was at 7% body fat. And I'm like, and then for 3 weeks in a row I brought his calories lower and to the point where he was having like barely any carbs. And then I said, all right, we're not— this approach, we're not getting where we want to go. This— I can't take any more out. Let's give you that refeed. He earned the refeed. In a week he ate— like, I increased his fat, increased his carbs. That next week he went to 5% body fat. He didn't just lose 1% or 2% and broke through that plateau. And again, it's that busting that hermetic adaptation. But again, the key thing is you don't want to be introducing— when we say carbs, it doesn't mean go eat a bag of lollies or pizza or a pizza. It means let's increase a manageable source of carbohydrates under a measured, controlled environment. But it is more than you'd normally eat, but it's not, it's not a buffet, it's not a free-for-all.

And that's again why you generally find that competitors, for instance, will tend to lose more body fat and more weight when it comes to peak week because they have been depleting. And then you start to bring those carbohydrates in and they just start to lose a bit more and you kind of chase it, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I've got that with mine at the moment. Was that too late to go for a refeed? Because obviously peak week starts tomorrow or Monday, but at the same time, this is probably what's going to happen anyway. It's going to bring those carbs in come the start of the week and you're just going to start to drop as we go through.

Before we move to the next myth, I need to say my most carbs consumed before a comp I've ever seen was by Janet Kane before the ANB. I think it was 2008. She had an ice cream container full of Crunchola. I don't know if they even make Crunchola anymore. I think it was 2, 2 boxes, and she ate the whole thing. I think it was start— she started eating at about 6 PM and ate it, and then the rest of it that morning.

So 2 boxes of cereal, and she was I think I'm gonna top you out.

Yeah, I can top you out.

I'll go first.

Yeah, go.

And it was actually one of your clients. He might not have ever told you. I thought he might have though.

Yeah.

So when you're training Chris for his comp—

Yeah.

—in the Gold Coast— Yeah. —the night before, he had a 12 box of Krispy— a 12 box of Krispy Kremes and a full bottle of red wine and got up on stage the next day and won.

No, he didn't tell me. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Trust Chris.

Oh, is it mine? Mine's my unicorn. One of ours, Cristiano. 800 grams. Wow. Of programs. And I think we even added more in. 800 grams. That's a lot of carbs.

That's a lot of carbs. How did you break that down? What's that?

That's 10 grams per kilo.

Yeah, how do I break it down?

You eat 800 grams of carbs.

Okay, okay. So his photo shoot, like, his photo shoot prep contained a hell of a lot of chocolate sorbet. It was like honey chocolate sorbet because it's easy to eat, easy to eat, easy to get down. And it was basically, even on the peak week, I was like, I can afford the peak week because he was consuming so many carbohydrates. I was like, tell me what you feel best on, tell me what you train for.

I want to do prep with you.

Tell me, tell me what gives you the best— I think he had chocolate sorbet in the morning of his photo shoot.

You know why? Cardio. It's that soccer background.

All right, we'll probably move to the next. Can I just—

I'll just wrap this up. The way I like to explain this to clients is we obviously have our baseline calories, which is our BMR plus our activity, and then we have our BMR, which is essentially the cost to keep the lights on. If we want to look at it that way. That is good.

I like that. Yeah, I like that.

Now, if we sit below that BMR for too long, that's what our— the amount of energy our body needs to just run the daily functions, right? So if we sit below that for too long, then the body has to start to downregulate certain things. So probably one of the first things you'll see for comp clients that goes when they're in a pretty aggressive deficit is their sex drive, right? Because that's no longer an essential function of the body, so it doesn't need to take energy and use it for that thing. It's trying to focus on the essentials of survival.

Just for those who are just listening to us in podcast, Tyrone's getting his little pinky and moving it up and down. Yes, it's his little wiener.

So the way I like to look at that is if someone's been below BMR for quite a long time, these things are going to start to downregulate. So once we add in, let's say, a refeed and we give their body more fuel, then it's going to have more energy to start to upregulate these things again. And essentially, when we start to upregulate things, the body can start to make changes at a lot faster rate, right? Which is generally where we see weight can drop quite significantly.

We just have lovely clients driving by the time.

And in most cases, body fat comes down as well, right? Because Tyrone said you, you bring carbs up— if we look at cortisol and insulin, so they have an inverse relationship. So if cortisol is high, insulin is low, vice versa. So you have a big influx of carbs, we drive insulin up, we bring cortisol down, that stress response comes down, and generally it makes it a little bit easier to get leaner. And just on that, to add another thing, this is why we're super stressed out people, or as we discussed in one of our other podcasts, like very busy professionals, business people, it's not always a good thing to have them on low carb because again, if we have a good amount of carbohydrates, it can help actually bring that stress response down. And lower that cortisol that they've probably got pumping around their system.

I feel like we're a little bit passionate about this topic.

Yeah, you know what, I do think with carbs for the win, we are the best system for carbohydrates. I think is the signature, like the upper back fat of an indicator of how hard you can go with carbs, because I have found that quite accurate over the years where if someone is below that 8 on the upper back fat, you can give them a hell of a lot of carbs.

You don't need to deserve a lick of a prune.

Yeah, that I don't agree with. That, that, it's, yeah, look, that's probably way too aggressive. And probably took way too literal, I think. But I think that there is, besides that part, there is the— if they are below 8, they definitely can have a lot more carbs. And that intermediate, like you and I, for example, where we're not like super low but we're not super high, it's kind of like 33, 33, 33 split is perfect.

People always have a tolerance, right? Like, mine's pretty high. We know I can eat a lot of carbs.

Yeah, you're an asshole. I know, stay shredded. Yeah, you say fats make you fat, but they don't. We've pretty much covered that. Let's unpack fat though. Let's unpack—

well, why do people think fat makes us fat?

Because it starts with the same letter. Yeah, exactly, because it's fat.

Yeah, let's unpack the difference between fat we consume in our diet and body fat as stored energy.

Well, it comes down to the same thing as carbohydrates. Like, at the end of the day, it's energy balance, right? You consume too much, too many calories from carbs, from fats or carbs, or protein probably increases energy. But anyways, that's another one. You increase so much, eat too much fats, calories from fats, too many calories from carbs, you're gonna get fat. It doesn't matter really which one it is. It's just at the end of the day, calories matter. But yes, obviously then there's a whole caveat of things that go underneath it. But I think, yeah, I think because it starts with the same thing is people really—

Well, I think where people go wrong with it is obviously 1 gram of carb equals 4 calories and 1 gram of protein equals 4 calories.

What is happening with you?

My chair is constantly begging me. That was funny.

Well, this is where people, yeah, well, it creeps up. It creeps up.

One, like my chair, one, one calorie of fat. So one gram of fat equals 9 calories, which is, I think, where some people go, if I eat 60 grams versus I'm going to eat a lot more, obviously you're going to eat, you need double the amount of fat than you can carb— sorry, half the amount of fat than you can carbohydrates, right? So I think that's maybe where sometimes people's perception of fat, maybe that fat makes them fat, comes from. But I actually don't think that. I think it really is just as simple as if I eat fat, therefore if I eat animal fat then that's going to store the same fat on me, which just doesn't make sense.

Is that like the people that think if they eat walnuts it's going to improve brain health? Yeah, correct.

I think it's the same thing. Maybe, I don't know, I'm speculating here. Where does this come from?

Because you just wrote, you just did the Enterprise Diet book. There's a shameless plug for you.

Yeah, thank you. Right, where's your shameless plug, James?

Nice guy. Where does it come from? You would have done, I know you've done a whole lot of research because obviously we've been here with you over the last few years watching you do this book, and you've done research upon research. Yep. Did you find where this myth comes from?

Where the, where fat makes you fat come from? Yeah. No, but I did find out where 3 square meals a day comes from. 3 square meals that people say you eat 3 square meals a day. That's generally the recommendation. People eat 3 meals a day. Okay. Right. Yeah. You've heard that.

I've never heard it called 3 square meals. Yeah, I have.

Yeah. 3 square meals a day is what— and the reason why it's 3 square meals a day is because in the Navy— so before that, in the Navy, in the Navy, and it's like 1850s, right around this time, it was around that era. The Navy gave their naval officers 3 meals on square plates, and that's where it came from. But before that, and then in prints it was referred to as in the Navy they give 3 square meals a day, and then people want to sign up to Navy to get the 3 square meals a day. But if you were really poor, then you weren't eating 3 square meals a day. You were finding scraps basically and eating here and there, and it was like finding something. That's what it was referred to as. And obviously the more wealthy you were, the more food you could afford, and the more we could eat. But the idea of eating 3 meals a day or having a breakfast or having these kind of constructs of when we're supposed to eat are real actually modern ways of eating. Because food prior to that, culturally, it was always about relational value. In actual fact, if we were part of a tribe, or you're in your tribe and I've got my tribe, or families in the same tribe, for me to connect with you, we would exchange food. And food was currency a lot of the time. And if I wanted you to be part of or take part in something that was of value to me, and that we would connect and have relationships over food. So food, the one of the big constructs with food is the social implications that it has. And I think now that food aspect has been transferred for drinking. So people drink a lot more and socialize with drinking rather than, hey, let's get together and make— so if you look at like wogs like you and I, Italians, we'd have like sugo day where we would make sauce and part make pasta and would eat.

You've married— I'm an Italian now.

Yeah, by marriage. Um, you'd make the sauce and make the pasta, and that would bring the family together, and you would, you would build the relationship. And it was a lot of those social interactions happened over food. And I think a lot of that in today's society— if you Uber Eats, tell me about your relationship with your Uber Eats driver. You don't have one, right? You know, it's already there. So a lot of the way we eat now is completely— it's social constructs. So to come back to the aspect of why do people think fat makes you fat. Honestly, my observation of all of it, because I don't think anyone could probably tell you where it comes from, but it's publications, it's media, it's marketing, because these are headlines that sell. And if you look at all of the trends that really are in fitness and nutrition, they started with newsprint articles like whether it was Muscle Mag, Oxygen, Insert Woman's Day, whatever it was that people were reading at the time. They pushed a headline that said fat makes you fat or fat doesn't make you fat. And you could get— I've got a collection of muscle mags over the years from the '80s, '90s, 2000s. If you look at the headlines, they're all more or less the same. But it's interesting when you look at those headlines in the '80s, what was being pushed and the agenda there and the agenda in the '90s. And it's all very similar, but it was all— I mean, who owns the supplement magazines? Who owns the muscle and fitness magazines? It's supplement companies. They're putting out things to get you interested in reading. And most supplement magazines— and I keep referring to them as supplement magazines because in my head that's what they are. Bodybuilding magazines and fitness magazines, they're brochures to sell supplements is essentially what those magazines are. Just ads, they're just paid. And now we don't really have that. We don't have supplement and fitness magazines because magazine for the most part is dead. What we have now is influencers replaced the fitness magazines, and influencers are paid by the same people, supplement companies. And instead of influencers putting up, instead of it being headlines, influencers are putting up these reels and the reels are based on the same shit that they're putting in the fitness magazines, right? It's the same headlines. It's 6 ways to get your abs. It's take these supplements to burn fat. It's the same shit. So fat makes you fat, I think, is a catchy headline that makes people go, oh well, if I, and people are pushing a high carb, high protein diet. People do push that. Right? And it is an easy sell. To answer the question, where does it come from? I think it really comes from— I think from my observation is the people's— companies need to just push an agenda and push something onto people as a way to grab onto and read and be interested and do another diet of the month. Because the next month, you know what the diet's going to be? Is carbs make you fat, right? And then they're going to be selling you things that block carbs.

Yeah, that's where it comes down to personal. Everybody's different at the same time. High carb, high protein, high fat, high protein, whatever else, whatever it's going to be. At the end of the day, one is going to work for some people, one's going to not work for the other. People go keto, oh my God, I lost so much weight. One, you cut out a whole food group, and two, you just probably lost a whole heap of water weight because you've got no glycogen left and you've just gone flat as a tack.

And you also reduced your calories.

And yeah, you reduce your calories until you started lathering cheese on your your bacon on your sausages, and then you're like, oh, I'm putting weight back on again. Yeah, 900-calorie breakfast.

I know we're running out of time on this episode, but I suppose to dispel the whole fat makes you fat myth, what are some reasons why fat is important for fat loss? Let's cover that so we can flip that myth around.

First one, hormone production.

Really? Yeah, anti-inflammatory, pro-inflammatory. Yeah, cholesterol.

Cholesterol, which cholesterol then turns into our sex hormones, DHEA, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin K.

Yeah. Yeah, they're all fat-soluble vitamins. Fat-soluble vitamins A, D, K, E. If you're not eating enough fat, you're not getting those vitamins essentially. It's a macronutrient for a reason.

And to be fair, it's— they're essential fatty acids. As much as carbohydrates is— it's primary fuel source, it's not essential. We can survive without them. Protein and fats are essential. And that's why, again, we have essential fatty acids. Omega-3s, brain health.

Joint inflammation.

Joint inflammation. But even pro-inflammatory omega-6. Eye health, immune system. You have a response in your system. And there's actually some studies that show omega-3s can actually improve— I think it was mobility. Oh really? Yeah. So having an adequate amount of—

just improving joint health, or— can't remember.

Oh, actually, I will add this in because I did write about this in my book as well. But if you look at— yeah, I wrote a book, it's The Enterprise Diet. There's the shameless plug. Yeah, high five! Awesome. If you look at the research on fat from omega-3 perspective, so they've said, and it's been hypothesized, that the Paleolithic diet had a 1:1 ratio of omega-3 to omega-6. 1:1, right? If you look at the research, they've pointed out that omega— the optimal dose of omega-3 to omega-6 is anywhere from basically 1:4. So you can have basically 4 times omega-6 of omega-3, right? The average diet in Western culture is 1:17, right? So 1:17 is, is humongous. Like, it's a humongous amount of— and that's why people are walking around very, very, very inflamed. So to bring down that inflammation, people obviously do need to decrease the amount of fat that they're having, but more so the vegetable oils and pro-inflammatory fats, not the anti-inflammatory fats. And a lot of the fats, say for example in your vegetable oils, they're not going to contain the fat-soluble vitamins, the inflammation-sequestering needed amino acids, fatty acids that are needed. So this is where you're looking at animal fats primarily that are going to be much richer in your omega-3s and your omega-6s, although some animal fats do have omega-6 as well.

And if you don't know what the fats are, buy the book.

I go through a whole chapter explaining— there's two chapters actually. I talk a lot about vegetables, whole chapter.

Yeah, for sure. I think as well, like, helping people understand the premise of fat loss, right? We know that the key thing is generally a calorie deficit in most instances because body fat is essentially stored energy. So we want to be in an energy deficit to put our body in a position to have to burn that energy, which is where fat loss comes from.

Do you know how you burn fat? Go on.

Through your breath. Is that the only way?

Just breathe. Just breathe more. Look, Mom, I'm burning fat! I hope you've enjoyed this episode. If you want to find out where the antics of Tyrone Heavy Breather is, it's when he's doing his cardio, is when it is.

Yeah, actually, not too much Cardio doesn't burn fat, guys. Yeah, you can find me Facebook, Instagram, Coach Felino, Coach_Felino, and then you can find me down here at Enterprise Fitness on Swan Street, Richmond.

Mr.

J-Mo, same here, James Kelly PT on Instagram, and I'll always be around Enterprise Fitness also.

And I'm Mark Ottobre, owner and founder of Enterprise Fitness. You can find me @MarkOttobre both on Instagram and on the talk, the tick of the talk.

You I've actually got a new outro for you. Oh yeah, my name is Mark Ottobre, owner and founder of Enterprise Fitness and the author of the Enterprise Diet.

Oh wow, what a promo! This guy, that's why he's the manager. That's it. Yeah, awesome. So we do have a new book out, it's called The Enterprise Diet. Check it out, it's at enterprisediet.com. It details our methods, our systems, our processes, everything that we do here at Enterprise Fitness to get the amazing results we have for thousands of clients. If you've enjoyed this podcast, make sure you subscribe. And if you're watching this on YouTube, subscribe and hit like and leave a review. Until the next show, train hard, eat well, and supplement smart. I think we've been here for a while. Awesome.