BV #24: Nick Norwitz Says Calories Don’t Cause Obesity. Is He Wrong?

Welcome to The Bioenergetic View. I'm your host, Theresa Piala, joined as always by Jay Feldman and Mike Fave. Today we'll be talking about the calories in, calories out model for obesity, and then sharing a follower success story, closing out the show with a listener's question. Hopefully we will actually do that, but if not, you'll have to stick around for another episode where we finally catch up on all the questions. So I hadn't heard about Nick Norwitz until recently, until you guys shared these clips with me, but he has a pretty impressive background. It seems like I, I do appreciate his mission to educate on metabolism and, you know, keep people thinking critically about some of the information or studies that are, are circulating and going around. So this first clip from around the internet, let's start here.

I would go a step further and say, oh, calories don't cause obesity.

I agree with you.

And, and I want to unpack that a little bit because I know where people's minds go and they have a visceral reaction. But I'm not saying calories don't matter. I'm not saying that. When you take the energy balance equation, calories in minus calories out equals weight change, what is that? That is a post-hoc description of what happened. It is not in any way, shape, or form a biological explanation for obesity. So I'm not saying calories in, calories out is a wrong model for obesity. I'm saying it's not a model at all. It doesn't give you a physiologic explanation.

So, Jay, I know we don't necessarily agree with his nutritional frameworks, especially with like a low-carb keto approach, but when you picked this clip, you seemed to be excited that someone was processing and explaining this model or questioning this whole model. Can you talk more about that?

Yeah, I, I appreciated what he was sharing. And as you know, you were mentioning, definitely have some disagreements with Nick about different aspects of ketogenic diets and fructose and things like that. And, you know, at some point I'm sure we'll discuss those things, at least on, on this podcast. But I really appreciate what he's saying here because he's echoing things that, you know, we've talked about quite a bit on this podcast and on the Energy Balance podcast. And I think pointing out in a relatively concise way, some of the really blatant issues with calories in, calories out as it's typically applied or described. And it doesn't take, like, it's just, it just takes a little bit of thought, like just getting below the surface to recognize how much it falls flat as a model of obesity, because as he said, it's not a model at all.. And I think there's just some helpful jumping off points here that, and you know, we'll, we'll get into another short of his where he talks about it as well. He talks about, you know, calories basically just being a measure and, you know, you can't like, kind of like the odometer on a car. And again, that being, I think a helpful framework here where the people who are like kind of starkly or staunchly favoring the calories in, calories out model, are not thinking that much about what calories actually are and what the model's actually even saying. And so, as he mentioned here, when he is saying that calories don't cause obesity, again, it's, it's obvious because calories are a measurement of, of energy. It's a measure. I mean, another way of saying it, you know, if we're talking, I'll bring up a couple of analogies here. One of them, coming back to the car analogy, you know, it's, it's like we measure a car's efficiency based on miles per gallon. But that doesn't mean that gallons make a car go miles. Like, a gallon is a measurement and it can measure a number of different things. And normally when it comes to cars, we're using it to measure gasoline, but there's different levels of gasoline and obviously a ton of other things that can happen to determine the efficiency with which a car is going to use gasoline. And so to say that like a gallon makes a car go just doesn't make any sense. Like there's no model there. And, you know, a more accurate or kind of more relevant analogy. You know, if we were to look at this in terms of human physiology, what most people are when, when they use calories in, calories out, what they're really saying in, in a more accurate sense is something more along the lines of body fat in minus body fat out equals change in body fat. And it's, it's like, yes, that's true, but that isn't explaining What causes increases in body fat or what causes decreases in body fat? And so we have kind of a parallel thing here with calories where you can say calories in minus calories out equals net change in calories. You can't say anything other than that. If you wanna say something that's accurate, you can't say calories in minus calories out equals change in weight or change in body fat. And we can get into why, but those things are kind of very clearly and obviously inaccurate statements. But if you wanted to say calories in minus calories out equals net change in calories, it's like, yeah, that, that is a true statement, but it's a relatively meaningless one. Like it doesn't tell us what is affecting these different variables. It doesn't tell— there's no application to that. And it doesn't tell us what happens in terms of the net calories out. There's a lot of things that can go into that. So, you know, I'm sure we'll break down all of those things, but I think it's just a helpful jumping off point of just allowing us to break open this idea that is really not saying what most people think it's saying.

So for someone that maybe is sighing a big relief right now and they're thinking, okay, thank goodness, it's not necessarily a calorie problem. Mike, let's, let's, let's start expanding on this. What, what's going on? What would be a better way of thinking about obesity? And I think, you know, we've framed it here in certain ways in terms of like an energy sometimes an energy deficit or sometimes there's an excess of energy, but it's not being used correctly. So it's, you know, it's building up in places and not actually being turned into like life force energy. So yeah, how, how might we explain this with a, with a better model?

I think when you're talking about the calories in, calories out model, I think a lot of people forget that calories are just like an abstract unit. That we're using to quantify food and some fungible metric, right? So it's how do you compare watermelons and steak is like a common thing that I'll talk about. And it's like, they're not really comparable across all metrics unless you use something like calories. So then when you're starting to try to understand what's going on in the body, as far as why are people putting on large volumes of body fat and having issues with metabolism, calories can't explain that. Calories don't just explain that by itself. 'Cause again, like it's just an abstract gauge of how much food that you're having. In terms of energy. That's all that it's helping us for. So I think the calories in, calories out model that gets talked about and the perspective that gets pushed there is getting obsessed with this, like this, this calories in, calories out, and not understanding what that actually is as a tool. And it's literally just a tool to gauge energy or compare energy amongst different foods. So when I'm thinking about what's going on in terms of obesity, What I'm, what I'm thinking about is what is impacting from a physiologic standpoint, the body's ability to store fuel and use fuel effectively, right? 'Cause your body fat is basically a storage supply of fuel from largely carbs and fats. Proteins can be converted as well, but mainly gonna be carbs and fats and under most circumstances. And then, so, and then also like how are those carbs and fats being turned to fuel inside the mitochondria? So that's, the question around obesity is what's going on in the mitochondria? What's going on in the hormonal systems? What are these factors that are impacting the ability to use these different fuel sources that are putting a person in a circumstance where they're storing very large amounts of fat from their diet? And so the calories come into that perspective only because you're trying to gauging your food with calories, but it doesn't ever explain those processes or what's happening inside the body. And if it, in the way that you can kind of create the relationship is just through this abstract perspective, like, well, the higher calories you have, the more body fat you can store. And it's like, fine, because you're eating more total fuel food overall, but it doesn't tell you why you're necessarily storing fuel, particularly in an obesity state. Because in an obesity state, you have actual pathology, whereas in a normal, like in a normal state, if somebody eats a larger volume of fuel, more than what their body is going to require for their energetic needs, you're going to have storage occur. This is true. Like, this actually happens. That's fine. That's normal. No one's refuting that. It's just when you have somebody who's obese, it's like, is it just the calories that drove them to this state that pathological levels of fat tissue and high levels of inflammatory mediators and then metabolic dysfunction that's well established? Is it calories? Or is there more to the picture? Is total food volume a potential component? Sure. But then what differentiates this? Like, where's the differentiating mark there between just gaining excess body fat and having a satiety cue, or, or gaining body fat, not even necessarily excess, but gaining body fat, having a satiety cue versus like moving into like an obese state. And I think what Nick's getting at here is like, we actually need to get to physiologic understanding and mechanisms of obesity. That explain what's going on inside the body that allows this process to drive and to occur instead of just saying calories in, calories out. Because calories in, calories out doesn't, as, as you said, doesn't explain it. It doesn't break, it doesn't break it down. It doesn't give us pathways. It doesn't let us know what's going on, what the inner workings of the system that push towards this pathological state. 'Cause this is a pathological state. So that's, and for me, when I tend to think about this, there's multiple things that I think occur, but I think a large part of it is centered around issues from a metabolic standpoint in ter— in, in the mitochondria, from the hormonal standpoint, and then potentially things going on with the gut. And these are driven by factors in the diet, right? A, a port— a large portion of this stuff is driven by factors coming from the diet, whether that's micronutrient status. So being, having micronutrient deficiencies, whether there's a high amount of over overarching fuel coming into the system in the form of carbohydrates and fats, in the face of micronutrient deficiencies. There's certain types of carbohydrates and fats that are being incorporated into the body that are changing the metabolic processes. They're changing what's going on in the microbiome, which is inducing endotoxin production, which is then shifting metabolism and driving an inflammatory response. So it's, it's all of these things are wrapped in together and food is a component that's important, but trying to understand food through the lens of cal calories in this pathologic state is not helpful. It's not like the primary factor. There's much more that goes into it. Calories is just like a very blunt tool that you use at the beginning to quantify food. That's it. That's the only thing that it's used for. So it's like, you don't, the analogy that I always talk about is you don't hammer screws into the wall, so you don't use a hammer to put a screw into the wall and you don't use calories to try to understand what exactly is going on in entirely with metabolic dysfunction. Calories, just how much total food do I have? Then you have macronutrient breakdown, then you have micronutrient components underneath that. And then you have what's going on in this person's context, what's their history with diets, what's going on in their hormonal profile, et cetera. You need to look at all of these things together to understand why this person has accumulated large amounts of body fat, and then you can make adjustments. And then you can say, okay, like based on this circumstance, we need to quantify your volume of food and calories. To then see if we can adjust your, like, take body fat down over time. We also have to fix these other things in the meantime, cuz again, it's not just calories come in or food comes in and energy comes out. There's multiple steps in the process in between that adjust that conversion, right? That you take your actual fats, your carbs, your proteins, and you convert them into ATP. It doesn't just come in and it's on the conveyor belt and it goes out the other side as ATP. There's a lot of other steps that occur in there. And that's where things get messed up. And that's where the model just like truncates it, calories in, calories out. And none of this middle stuff is talked about, not to any large extent, at least in the sphere. Especially you see people like Layne Norton where it's like calories in, calories out. It's just calories in, calories out. That's it. And it's like, okay man, I think there's more to the picture. There's more going on.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. To add in another analogy, it's almost like, you know, maybe a car isn't running well and, and they think like, oh, okay. Just like more fuel, more fuel, or less fuel, less fuel. Just focusing on, yeah, a measurement of a substrate without thinking like, well, maybe there's a squirrel that crawled into the car and died and, you know, is rotting and it chewed some wires in the process. And that's actually where that would be the core area to start to work on and to fix. It's not like a fuel or a mount issue at that point.

So, uh, yeah. Or the oil's low or the spark plugs are shot or the drive belt is broken. Like these are the things that you need to understand if your car's not work— first you check your fuel, but then after that you start, you gotta see what else is going on in the engine.

Yeah. So maybe I'm, I'm mixing some metaphors here, but absolutely.

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Jay, back to this idea of, it seems like it started off with the intention of, okay, we're trying to just simplify and make sense of, of an issue. If, you know, if we think of obesity as purely a fuel or energy problem, now that we, so many people are understanding, okay, there's the trauma component, there's the mitochondrial component, there's, there are so many different pathways that are maybe acting abnormally or deranged, shifting our focus towards that. How can we, how can we understand this in a way that isn't just coming back to the calories?

Well, so there's a couple ways to think about it, but if we want to think about it in a really simplified sense, and Mike was kind of alluding to this with the idea of fuel being converted to energy and the importance there, you could think of it as, you know, we have this fuel that comes in and we could ignore the details of like absorption and excretion and all of that, but we have certain amount of fuel that comes in and then there's a couple places it can go. It can either be converted to energy, which is ATP, or it can be converted into, we'll call it storage, but that would include like building any tissue, right? So it could be adding to glycogen stores, it could be adding to body fat, or it could be adding to muscle mass or brain tissue or skin tissue. Like, you know, it, it's used as some sort of structural or storage component. And so the, amount of food that's coming in is not the sole thing that impacts what happens with the fuel, whether it gets converted to energy or will be put into different forms of storage or will be used to construct something. Everything in our environment affects those processes, including, of course, in the initial part of digestion, right? Because that on one hand affects how much fuel is coming in, but also the impact of our digestion and let's say endotoxin will have a huge impact on what happens with the fuel once it's absorbed, whether it's able to be effectively converted to energy, or when that's not happening effectively, the likelihood of it being stored as something like body fat, which by the way is why you see elevated endotoxin levels and obesity. You know, it's because it's interfering with the efficiency of energy production and causing fuel to be stored as body fat as a result. And the same thing goes for a number of the other kind of areas that Mike was touching on, you know, polyunsaturated fats, nutrient deficiencies, Number of different things will interfere with how effectively we convert fuel to energy, and that tends to cause it to be directed toward the body fat. So if we wanna think of it in this really simplified way, the solution is fix the energy production problem, fix the conversion of fuel to energy, and you have less that gets stored as body fat. And there's a number of kind of, uh, secondary mechanisms that then come into play there where this helps to properly turn down our hunger signals so our hunger stays regulated effectively. Instead of having a situation where the fuel is not being converted to energy effectively, so you have chronic hunger leading to, leading to quote unquote overeating or binging while storing body fat. You also have the situation of when you have adequate energy, you feel more energetic and you're more likely to, you know, move and, you know, exercise and do more, you know, health supportive things as a result. So there's a whole confluence of factors that come that are secondary to this, but the really central one being how effectively are we converting fuel to energy? And then if that's not happening effectively, you know, that's going to encourage the storage of body fat. And, you know, that of course is something that's not at all, it can be encompassed by calories in, calories out. If you complexify the equation enough, if you consider all of the things that affect calories out, which includes how efficiently we produce energy, it includes all of the potential structure and storage that fuel can go to, it includes all of the impacts of our environment on energy production, on fuel utilization. If we consider all of the possible things that affect calories in, which again includes things like absorption and, you know, on the calories outside, we have to consider excretion through the stool, excretion through the urine. I mean, there's so many things that happen to calories, which again, they're just another way of saying fuel or potential energy, which especially becomes complicated in the human body because it's not just a matter of producing energy like in a car, it's stored, it's converted to other things. Like we have a lot of complex metabolic processes, which just makes the, a true calories in, calories out equation incredibly complex, like mind-numbingly complex to the point where it could absolutely never be effectively measured without a lot of equipment and a lot of attention to detail. And not to mention, we don't have a good way of measuring calories in anyway, because the, not only do we have to measure the amount that doesn't get absorbed, but we also have to consider that our measurements for calories in food are not accurate. There's a huge range of, of error, and there's a number of studies showing that, you know, the assumed value of calories for something when they go ahead and actually measure it through more detailed methods, they can find that it's, you know, 30% off. And so you think that you're getting 100 calories and you're getting 130 calories or you're getting 70 calories. So it ends up complexifying so much that it's not helpful at all. Not to mention coming back to Nick's main point here, which is that you can only have that as a post hoc analysis, meaning that calories in and calories out is a way to at the end of the day or a week, kind of have a ledger. If you were, again, if you were able to measure everything, which you can't, but it's a way to have a ledger of saying, okay, well, let's say I could measure the fact that I gained, you know, 0.5 pounds of muscle this week, as well as 0.3 pounds of fat. And my bone density increased, you know, my bone mass increased by this amount. Let's call it an extra 0.3 pounds. And I somehow have all those things known, and then I can go back and say, all right, well then at some point there had to be some amount of calorie excess that allowed for those things, you know, or if we're talking fat loss, like we could even have a net, no change in calories. And we would have to have that breakdown in that ledger of the fact, well, there was a net positive or there was some amount of excess calories being stored here, but some amount being taken here. So it's a way to have a ledger after, but the important point being that the way that it's used normally is, is so irresponsible. To say that you gained weight because you overate calories is not an explanation for weight gain because not because of the idea of like eating more food isn't related to body fat gain. Of course, those two things are, can be related. But the problem is that overeating in this context, like overeating calories is circularly defined. It's defined by what happens at the end. You could never say going in that someone overate calories until you saw what happened at the end, because you can't know all of the ways that that's going to impact the quote unquote calories outside. So that's what, when Nick is saying it's not a model, that's what he means. He means that you can't pull a lever and see what's going to happen because, because every lever affects the other levers. And so you can only do it as this post hoc analysis where you're looking afterward at all the things that happened. It's not predictive. You can't say that you can take in, you know, this amount less calories and know what's going to happen because there's, you know, it could lead to a loss of muscle mass, could lead to a loss of body fat, could lead to a loss of bone mass, but more than that could lead to a decreased metabolic rate. So that's going to affect the calories out. Maybe while you, yes, ate less calories, you ate calories that were, you know, from more processed food, which they actually find that Those calories are potentially more highly absorbed. So maybe you had higher absorbed calories despite having less calories going into your mouth. There's just so many factors that are not accounted for that, that explanation is entirely null. So, so that's really what he's getting at. And that's where you run into issues, not in terms of the idea that there are these laws of thermodynamics and you can have a calories in, calories out equation that accounts for all the variables hypothetically. Yes, you can. But the way that people are applying it and suggesting it as an explanation for obesity is, is not only irresponsible, but just inaccurate.

Another way we've oversimplified in our attempts to understand something, we've oversimplified it only to come up with a model that's, yeah, maybe more harmful than helpful, or, you know, leading people in the wrong direction, creating more shame around their food intake, or what they're, you know, what they should be doing, what they're not doing, more of the health and wellness confusion where then it is easy to be brainwashed into something. Oh, I just need to cut out all carbs, or oh, I just need to be long-term in a caloric deficit, which again, given what we've talked about in various ways, could actually be creating more of the issues that are contributing to obesity later in life because we keep messing with the system. Mike, as, as we expand on, on Nick's view here, what else is coming up for you?

One thing I would say is I, well, I don't think that the calories in, calories out model fully explains what's going on with obesity. I would say I still personally find calories to be useful to understand food quantity. So I still do use it as a tool personally. So that I can kind of get a sense to get some level of accounting of what somebody is doing with their diet. Just like I'll look at protein intake, I'll look at carb intake, I'll look at fat intake, I'll look at different micronutrients. So I have some set of tools to be able to understand like, what's, where's this person going? What's happening? So if I change this variable, what outcome can I see? And I see what the outcome is and then I go from there. So for me, I don't completely discount calories altogether, but I more just see it as like a very blunt metric of total energy intake. So I can understand where somebody's at and also get an idea of how much should they eat. And, uh, based on like an equation for basal metabolic rate, something like this, to just get a rough idea of where they need to be based on what their goals are. So for me, while I don't think the calories in, calories out model explains obesity, I do find it helpful. When I'm setting up diets or trying to understand where somebody should be in terms of their level of intake for different things. And that, that's with macronutrients, that's with this choosing certain types of foods, that's with looking at micronutrients. I consider that as one tool in the toolkit that I would use on a consistent basis. So the, I'm, for me, I'm not like completely anti-calories. I'm not saying you guys are either, but I don't wanna put the perspective that, that I'm completely against using it as a, as a very blunt tool. Because I do use it all the time in contact, in conjunction with the other tools that I just mentioned, which is looking at protein, carbs, fat, fiber intake, looking at your vitamin and mineral intake, and also looking at other metrics, for example, with hormones and stuff going on inside the blood. So I'm trying to take all the data points that I can and try to understand what's going on in a person's context. These are objective data points, but also from subjective data points, and then move certain variables to see if I can help somebody reach their particular goal with the best outcomes possible while minimizing downsides. And calories for me is useful in that context, even if I don't necessarily think that it can, that it is a good way to describe what's going on in, in obesity. So I do want to mention that, cause I do think it's a good blunt tool, a good blunt metric. And I think there's in the bioenergetics sphere to some extent, there's like a, people think there's like a complete rejection of trying to understand things or foods and stuff in terms of calories. And I think that it's not that there's a complete rejection, it's just that the mainstream model that is used for calories is not very helpful. It doesn't really describe what's going on. And the whole calories in, calories out dynamic and perspective is a huge obfuscation of all the other layers that need to be understood that sit underneath that. From, you know, all the metrics that I just discussed. And also it doesn't really describe fully what's causing issues in terms of the different metabolic processes, diabetes, obesity, fatty liver, et cetera. There's much more going on under the hood beyond just calories. And I think that that's, you know, these are important things to talk about. And there is like, there's distinctions in there and there's a little bit of nuance in there, at least for me.

Absolutely. I think we all agree on that. And it's, yeah, it is good to just be able to see where someone's at and then what are their symptoms, you know, whether it's they're over-consuming something or really, really restricting, you know, having 60 calories for breakfast would be really helpful to know if someone, you know, sends us their intake forms and they're, you know, they can't, they can't sit still, their hair is falling out, they don't have eyebrows anymore. Okay. You know, very, something very clear to focus on and, and start to tweak. Jay, anything else to add before we shift to the second clip of Nick?

No, I, I mean, I agree. I think the fact that we even have to say that is, is ridiculous. And I'm, I mean, Nick said it, I think it was in this first clip where he is like, I'm not saying calories don't matter. And it's like, first off, if anybody is saying that, like, what does that even mean? That's like such to say calories do or don't matter is like so Sloppy. And again, I think that's like getting at the problem with these discussions around calories. Like calorie is a unit of measurement. It's valuable without a doubt. Like it's, it can be incredibly valuable. I don't know what somebody, like if somebody's saying that is like, is accusing someone else of saying that calories don't matter, or someone is taking the stance that calories do matter. Like what does that mean? Like again, it's like saying like meters matter or gallons matter. It's like, what is, like, like there's not actually anything being said there. I think normally what somebody means by that is that the amount of food that you consume has an effect on your physiology or has an impact on your body composition. It's like, yeah, obviously, like nobody's, why would anybody say otherwise? Like that's the most—

I think you get that in the different spheres though, right? The different dietary spheres. Like, 'cause well, people will go low carb or they'll go, they'll do some of these diets and the calories just don't like calories don't matter. I ate all of, all of this. I ate all of that. It doesn't like, they don't matter at all. And it's like, again, that's sloppy.

What they really mean is like, I could eat more without counting my calories and I didn't gain weight, or I ate more calories or more food and didn't gain weight.

Like, I agree that that's, that's sloppy and that is what's being said. But I think that that distinction needs to be made for like, for people in the audience where it's like to try to quantify food, it's helpful to try to understand why you're dealing with obesity or metabolic dysfunction, it's just because you overate calories. It's like, that's not really a good explanation, right? There's much more that goes into, yeah, it's not an explanation that there's, it's not, it's just, it's like, yeah, you're just, it's like eat less, exercise more, right? Like it doesn't actually mean anything. It doesn't actually tell you that what exactly was going on that drove the process. It's like you're just giving this very generic solution or like, Be, eat balanced, eat in moderation. That's like, these are the same types of things that come out of these dynamics. It's like, no, no, no, we want to get clarity on, like, we have these tools for measurement, but we want to use them appropriately. It's important, even with, even it's the same thing, even with gallons of gas in a car. It, depending on if you're driving hills, you're driving flat, like 10 gallons in the tank doesn't mean that you get 50 miles all the time or 100 miles or whatever. The thing is, there's a lot of factors. It's like, look, we have this estimation here, but then we want to take in these other things into consideration, try to understand what's going on in your individual context. That's not just completely defined by calories. And so then people like, oh, reject calories altogether. And that's what you see in these, like some of these other perspectives where it gets a little bit sloppy around like, oh yeah, calories don't matter at all. Like food. And then it's like, no, no, no. Like there's your, your guess, you're eating more food and you're not necessarily gaining weight., but there's a couple things that could have changed in that in-between portion of your conversion of your food into energy that could explain why you're now able to eat more. This, and not, and, you know, and lose weight or, or, or not gain weight. And this is the, like, the things this comes up with, like even the sugar diet stuff, right? Where it's like you saw a bump in metabolism because of the FGF21 signaling from lack of amino acids at the liver. Like, oh, there's actually like a 19, what was it, like 19% bump in young men. Who are on these different diets and it's like, okay, so it's not that their energy intake, which again, calories is extrapolation of that. It's not that their energy intake and their energy output or their energy intake, energy output model doesn't matter. It's that like that changed their conversion of fuel into energy fundamentally changed, or their energy expenditure fundamentally changed in this different dynamic that can't be explained just by this basic, oh, calories in, calories out. So that's why I think there's like a level of nuance in there that I think is important so that people don't completely reject trying to understand and use a tool to quantify something. It's like, you wouldn't not want to know like how many miles there are between like driving here to there, but that number of miles doesn't really tell you what that terrain is in between. It's the same thing with calories.

Terrain is the perfect word because I'm thinking again, back to, I'm thinking about things more in terms of like, what's the stress? What's the trauma that a body is experiencing? Which is going to explain why maybe someone eating a low-calorie diet that is, is actually gaining weight, or, you know, they've, they've been eating at a deficit for months and they've, they've put on extra weight around their belly. You know, the classic like cortisol, high stress weight gain. And, you know, yeah, it takes the conversation away from just this simplified view and, and lets us look more at the inner workings of fuel storage, fuel inefficiency, all the, all the great adaptations our bodies make when they need to. Let's see what else he says. And Jay, unless you want to—

just to touch real quick, because what, like part of the problem with this conversation is it ends up becoming really semantic. It almost comes off as like pedantic because it's, it's like needing to pick apart what each of these things actually mean. And for example, explaining the difference between saying calories cause obesity and saying eating more and moving less causes obesity. Like those are two very different things. And the second one is actually something getting at a model for obesity. If you want to say that what's causing obesity with people is that they're eating more and moving less, that's fine. That is entirely different from saying that excess calories cause obesity or that overeating calories causes obesity because excess and overeating in the context of calories in, calories out equals net change in calories is circularly defined. You can only define those by knowing, by having the variables already plugged in for the rest of the equation. Whereas eating more, you can say that relative to a certain amount or moving less relative to a certain amount. And so it ends up getting kind of like weirdly technical, but there, there is an important reason for it, which is that when, if, if somebody has to say that eating more or moving less or what's causing it here, it invites that, it invites the other factors that affect this, right? That's what we're talking about throughout this conversation. It forces someone to also acknowledge, well, also sleep has an impact here. And also, you know, phytoestrogens can have an impact here. And also the fat, you know, the types of fats and nutrients have an impact here as opposed to saying, This is a thermodynamic equation where it's just about calories, which instead shifts the blame to the individual and basically shuts down arguments that exist, that exist within the calories in, calories out model, but just aren't actually acknowledged. So anyway, that's, I just wanna touch on that before we hear the rest of what Nick has to say.

Thank you. Thank you for filling in there. Okay, Nick, what's next?

Calories cause obesity like an odometer causes driving. Calories are a unit, a measuring stick. They can be an after-the-fact mathematical description of weight change as a best-case scenario. But calories in, calories out, it's not just a wrong model of weight change and obesity. It's not a model at all. And every time the calories pseudo-model breaks, and it does a lot, people conduct these mental gymnastics to justify it, almost as if they're going to fiddle with your feces in a bomb calorimeter to determine the exact number of excreted calories that make the equation work. That said, if any coach or nutritionist or otherwise is willing to go that far for a client, I'll eat my—

Okay, so yeah, he's just reiterated kind of what we We're summing up in our lovely, lovely way. Mike, anything you wanna add, add to his closing thoughts there?

I think it's pretty much, it is a summation of what we were just talking about. It's like what Jay was saying before. This is basically what he's saying there. And what we were talking about before is that it's not, not really an explanatory model using this calories in, calories out perspective. And I think it's as a, a similar point to the initial clip. Like it, it's, it's the same, same deal. So for me, I have not too much to add more than the perspective. I would agree that you can't look at like calories in, calories out without trying to understand all these factors in between. So it's not, you know, that's not really the model. And I'd still keep the piece that using it as a tool to gauge your food intake in some fungible unit to get a rough idea is helpful. But beyond that, I wouldn't say it's very helpful.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Especially if people are learning how their body, how their system works, just having your own data points, you know, being able to not track in the sense of, you know, know every calorie, but knowing where you are at certain points in life and, and being able to correlate, okay, this is how I was feeling, this is how I was sleeping, I was feeling, you know, what's the mental state like? How is digestion? How, how is their cognition working? All of these things that we can just start to have a reference point for, but not let that be the end-all be-all model that we're using. Jay, what about you?

There's a lot that I, that I, you know, a lot of routes that we could go down, but I think the, the main ideas come across and I do want to say one thing I do want to think is worth touching on is that not only do I think it's not a helpful model, but I think it ends up being a really harmful model because it detracts from the many other factors that do factor into body composition and health, you know, as well. So yeah, I don't think it's something that's serving people in a helpful way. I guess I'll leave it at that for now.

Okay.

So shifting to the Q&A and success story portion of the podcast, Vanessa C1965 shares, Hey, I'm back to say these guys know what they're talking about. After 4 years of rising TSH into subclinical hypothyroidism and creeping weight gain, my thyroid panel is finally looking excellent with no glandulars. I was vegan and hurt my gut health, hurt my gut with grains and legumes and nuts, then went high protein, low carb to try to recover. Just letting myself eat carbs with every meal and not trying to cram in so much protein balanced something out. The weight went down even without caloric deficit or exercise. I stopped fasting too. No more stressing myself. Thanks guys. Yeah, we don't need to say much about this one aside from the fact that the body will rebalance when we fuel it well and living proof, Vanessa.

Thank you.

Shifting to Drew's question. He was asking, well, first he said, thanks so much for the great content. You produce. I didn't see any content from you when I searched for your recommendations or cautions on organ meats, liver particularly, but would be great to hear your thoughts on heart, kidney, stomach, et cetera. If you have already produced an article or podcast on that, if you could send me the link, that would be great. If not, would you consider writing or recording something? Judy of Nutrition with Judy, Nutrition with Judy, just released a podcast Liver is not a superfood. That might be a good resource to interact with as well. Thanks again. Okay. Yeah, Mike, what, what are your thoughts on organ meats? I feel like one of my first perspectives in the early, as I stepped into the pro-metabolic world, I started hearing a ton about liver, liver, liver, eat your weekly liver. And then, you know, organ capsules became very popular. What is your take on on organs?

I'm actually a fan of liver. I think it could be quite helpful for people to meet a copper intake, molybdenum intake, and also retinol intake, which is an active vitamin A intake. Now I do think though that some people go overboard with liver cuz you saw, you saw that coming from some of the, um, Liver King stuff, maybe in portions of the, um, the carnivore community. People were like really eating a large volume of liver. I think it's important to know that you can overdose some of those micronutrients like vitamin A, and you can overdose things like copper. So I'm a fan of using organ meats, par— particularly liver to hit certain micronutrients like food-based micronutrients. But I, I'm using smaller portions. Maybe I'm using 4 ounces, 2 ounces a week, something like this. And I tend to spread the dosages out. And I'm also gauging based on somebody's micronutrient status and past history. As well when I'm looking at something like this. If somebody has a large volume of copper on board, they came outta carnivore and they were eating a large amount of liver, maybe I'm not gonna incorporate so much liver into the diet into that circumstance. So there's some contextual elements in there that's gonna allow, force me to adjust. As far as the other organ meats, heart is basically muscle meat. It's, if you like it, it can actually be quite delicious if it's cooked well. So, you know, heart, I would consider similar to muscle meat. It can be quite high in CoQ10. And I also think selenium as well, if I remember correctly. Kidney can be high in selenium. It's also a good source of iron and some of the B vitamins. All of them are good sources of some of the B vitamins. Then stomach and stomach and intestine, those are other options. They're actually not as high in some of the micronutrients and they're not as high in protein as like your heart, your kidney, your liver. So if somebody wanted to eat those things, I think it would be fine if they wanted to incorporate that into like a tripe soup or something like this. But I don't go outta my way specifically to have people seek out stomach or kidney or anything like this. The major organ meat that I'm typically relying on is liver, and it's not because you can't eat those things. It's more so most people don't necessarily go outta the way to eat them already. It's not something heavily in the US culture. Not something I grew up with, not something that many of my clients were doing. So just, it's, you know, it's even hard to find them sometimes depending on where you're at. You'd have to source them probably from a local farm. So yeah, and in, in most circumstances I'm not necessarily selecting for those. I don't know, or I haven't really seen them make a massive difference in somebody's health overall. Like it's like they added stomach and it solved all these problems. But I think that they, some of them, some other tissues, collagen, some of this type of stuff, they can provide different amino acid profiles that can be helpful as well. So I would say of all the organ meats, I would probably consider bone collagen, which usually comes from hides, and then liver as the major sources that I'm incorporating beside, and then obviously muscle meats, and then not really relying so much on some of the other organ meats overall. But it's not because people can't do that, it's just not something that's common or that I do very frequently. And at heart, I would kind of wrap in with some of the muscle meats. Yeah.

Do you notice a, I mean, I know you mentioned that you don't really see it being like the thing that moves the needle, but do you notice a difference between fresh versus the very popular capsules and even like the defatted liver, which you wouldn't really be getting the retinol, you'd mostly be getting like B vitamins and iron, right?

So the, the forms that I typically recommend are either freeze-dried capsules, not desiccated, or people will do actual like liver, so they cook up some liver. I know there's concern in the bioenergetic community around like there being problems with the freeze-dried capsules, right? Where you're basically, or not necessarily freeze-dried, but the capsules, cuz when they're desiccated, you can oxidize some of the amino acids. But I, or destroy some of the nutrients. But I think of the freeze-drying process, maybe if they're sitting on the shelf for a period of time, you will see some degradation. But I also think you would see degradation if you're pan frying it as well. Cuz you're gonna be heating it up to very high temperatures and you would see oxidation in this standpoint as well. So I usually go with either one of those two options. Now with liver for freshness, I typically, if I was gonna get liver, I usually would like to buy it like flash frozen right away cuz the purple, the deep purple liver tastes significantly better. I think it's, it's fresher overall when you see the liver and it's like brown at the store, that like kind of clay looking brown color. Usually it's not, not good anymore, at least from My taste perspective, so I won't, if I see that, I won't eat that. So I'm looking for like a deep purple color on the liver, and usually that comes from liver that's been like frozen pretty quickly after the animal has been slaughtered and the organs are kind of packaged pretty fast, or it goes out to, goes out and gets like sold very quickly. So though I, for me personally, I usually am doing now since I've been traveling liver capsules and freeze-dried liver capsules from grass-fed beef, cuz it's just easier to, to get and to use on a consistent basis and to do smaller dosages over time instead of having a whole meal of liver, which I'm not a fan of necessarily doing. 'Cause you get quite a large bolus of retinol and quite a large bolus of copper in one sitting. And I've seen quite a few people not feel well doing stuff like that. It's the same thing if you're eating a whole can of oysters in one sitting. I tend not to find that to be a good idea because you get a massive dose of zinc all in one shot. I try to spread the micronutrients out. Over meals over the week so that you're doing a couple oysters a day, or you're having a small portion of liver with your breakfast or something like this so that you get better absorption. You don't get a massive dose at one time. As far as the stuff with Judy here, I think that there's like this shift in the carnivore sphere where the reason that people aren't doing well with carnivore is just 'cause they're eating too much organ meats. This was a thing and I think it was, they were saying, oh, you're getting vitamin A, like it was like emerging of vitamin A toxicity to some extent. With carnivores, like, oh, you're getting like vitamin A or maybe copper toxic when you're eating too much liver on carnivore diet, and that's why you're not doing well with the carnivore diet. And Max German had talked about this type of stuff as well. I think in the video that I responded to you saying, oh, you know, the vitamin A causes these electrolyte problems and these people are just getting vitamin A toxic and that's why they're having electrolyte issues. And I think it is possible that some people are overdosing vitamin A and copper from eating large volumes of liver on carnivore and also becoming iron toxic from carnivore, especially if they have, they're heterozygous or homozygous for hemochromatosis. So they store iron very well genetically. I've seen quite a few clients who've had issues with copper status, iron status, calcium to phosphorus ratio, and potentially I've had some clients where they're really overdoing liver and getting quite high vitamin A for a while. But I also don't think that that's the major reason people aren't tolerating carnivore. I think they aren't tolerating carnivore cuz they're eating massive amounts of meat. They don't have carbohydrates. There's, you know, issues with the microbiome, issues with electrolytes, issues with the hormones, issues with mitochondrial function, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that the, the, oh, it's just the organs type of perspective is a little bit of a cope for why people aren't, aren't tolerating carnivore. So I think that's a, a separate conversation, but I wanted to mention that here cuz that was something I saw when I was going through the Max German video. And it is something that you see online. It's like, oh, you're not doing well with carnivore cuz you're eating organs, you're eating too much liver. So it's possible, but I don't think that's the primary reason.

Absolutely. Jay, what about you? Are you a fan of liver organ meats? Are you, are you more on the side with Judy? Where are you at these days?

No, I'm definitely a fan of organ meats. As Mike touched on when it comes to something like liver, on one hand, it's a powerhouse, right? Really highly concentrated in a lot of important nutrients. With that, there is more risk for excess. And so that is something to be aware of. You could definitely overdo it. You can definitely end up with excess vitamin A if you're having quite a bit. You can also end up with excess copper if you're having quite a bit. We did do a couple of episodes on vitamin A toxicity and why you don't need to be as concerned about it as the people who like, like Judy, who, you know, are describing it as a toxin, but rather something that, you know, it is a vitamin, an important nutrient that yes, you can get too much of, You're also going to be more prone to that if you're in a hypothyroid state. So in these people who are on low-carb and carnivore diets, they'll be even more prone to this, you know, excess vitamin A issue. And so there is some truth to it in that way, but obviously you'd be much better off if you improve the thyroid state and didn't overeat liver. But that doesn't mean that liver itself is a problem or that it should be avoided. As Mike mentioned, you know, somewhere in the 2 to 4, 2 to 6 ounces a week, kind of depending on the individual, depending on their history, depending on their needs. And yeah, I think kidney is, is a relatively close second to liver in terms of nutrient density, ton of benefits, ton of nutrients there. So if that's one that you can mix in as well, I do recommend it. And yeah, I mean, heart also, you know, a lot of benefits. And as Mike said, with some of those other ones, you know, like tripe and things like that, it, I haven't seen it move the needle much, but I definitely don't think it would be a bad thing. So yeah, I'm generally a fan of all those. You know, I, I will say I haven't really seen it to be common where somebody has an issue if they eat a meal of liver once every week or two, like, you know, they're getting 4 to 8 ounces even in a meal or, you know, I haven't, I've found it to be pretty rare that that causes a problem. Same with a can of oysters or 6 to 12 oysters in a meal. Like even though it is a lot of copper and zinc, you know, these are nutrients that are generally longer, like stored longer term. And so unless there's already an issue with excess or deficiencies or imbalances, with those nutrients, I don't really see, you know, significant portions causing an issue, but sometimes that can actually be a good diagnostic. If someone is unsure if liver's working well for them and they have a bigger meal of it, it might be easier to tell if either the vitamin A or the copper is actually causing an issue. But yeah, no, in general, I think that they're really beneficial. We want to keep in mind that relationship between thyroid status and vitamin A. And yeah, as far as other ways to get it in, Uh, desiccated or freeze-dried. I mean, I think both are fine. Um, just like with cooking or any other processing of food, like, yes, there's gonna be some amount of degradation of the nutrients and it will be a little bit more desiccated, but I've seen, um, both of them, you know, in a capsule or powdered form still provide benefits for people. But I prefer to, you know, have people get it from food if they can. And, you know, in the States there's, uh, some brands of, you know, meat where they mix the organ meats in.. So that can be a good option for someone who doesn't wanna do that themselves. But alternatively, you can do that yourself. You can get ground beef, get liver, grind a little bit of the liver and put it in. And that can be an easy way to do it. And you have a lot more control over the amount as well, because in a lot of those mixes, the amount of liver's like really small. So you have to eat quite a bit of it to get enough. But you know, it's, it's really easy to just grind up a bit of liver, either in a grinder or like a food processor as well. And you know, you can get a few ounces mixed in with ground beef and that can be an easy way to get enough then.

Yeah. The No Affiliation, but the Force of Nature does a great blend. The ancestral blend, you can taste it. You know, the first time I had it, it, wow. It would definitely, uh, I was aware of the liver, but, um, if someone likes the taste of liver, that might also be another indication, right? That their body might be trying to direct them towards it versus like a repulsion. You know, I feel like sometimes Sometimes the body will be very clear in, in what could be supportive or whatnot based on what tastes good. Or, I mean, there are some people that just don't like the taste of liver, but they probably will benefit from it and vice versa. Maybe they, they really, really like the taste, but they've overdone it in their carnivore days. So things to pay attention to.

Yeah. And that Force of Nature blend is great, but I think it's only 4% liver. So that means in a whole pound you're only getting like just over half an ounce. So personally what I would prefer to do is just mix, I mean, like again, maybe it's something you get used to with time, but I would do like a 25 to 50% liver mix depending on what I'm in the mood for. And then it's like 1 or 2 meals, you get a few ounces and you're good to go.

So hidden underneath copious amounts of garlic and onions and thyme and oregano and hot sauce, cheese.

Those are always good options too if you really don't like the taste.

Sugar. Whatever, whatever you guys need to make it palatable. All right. Let's close out this show here. Mike Werb, can people find you?

They can find me here on the Bioenergetic View as well as my own YouTube channel, Mike Fave, and my website, mikefave.com.

All right, Jay.

Yeah, listeners can find me at jayfeldmanwellness.com. There's tons of free resources there. And then outside of that, here on this YouTube channel, Jay Feldman Wellness, and then also on other social media channels as well. Uh, JF Wellness or Jay Feldman Wellness.

Awesome. And you can find me at livingrootwellness.com, Living Root Wellness on Instagram, or my app Tapping with T. All right, everybody. Thank you for tuning in today. And we will, we should absolutely get to some more questions next time around, but in the meantime, be well and we will see you for the next show.