March 20, 2025 • 23 mins
Over 50% of Americans are, at any one time, trying to lose weight. So it’s understandable that the GLP-1 agonist drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro have become so popular, given their spectacular upfront results. Others have used reduced calorie diets in their various forms: counting points, assigning foods red, yellow, or green lights, meal replacement products, etc. Or bariatric procedures like lap-band, jejunoileal bypass, or gastric bypass. But there is a lot that people are not told about these methods. The near-term prospect of losing weight is so enticing to people and so profitable to doctors, the healthcare system, and the pharmaceutical industry that is simply no incentive to tell you the full story.
So let me fill you in on the real story, the full details about why cutting calories, regardless of the form it takes, can be so dangerous.
_________________________________________________________________________________
For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.
A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
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Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*
For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.
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MyReuteri and Gut to Glow can be found here: oxiceutics.com
Books:
Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Over 50% of Americans are, at any one time, trying to
lose weight, so it'sunderstandable that the GLP-1
agonist drugs like Ozempic,monjaro, zepbound, have become
so popular given theirspectacular upfront results.
Given their spectacular upfrontresults, others have used
(00:28):
reduced calorie diets in variousforms, like counting points,
assigning foods red, yellow orgreen lights, meal replacement
products and many other methodsor bariatric procedures like lap
band, jejuno-ileal bypass orgastric bypass, but there's a
lot that people are not toldabout these methods.
The near-term prospect oflosing weight is so enticing to
(00:50):
so many people and so profitableto doctors, the healthcare
system and the pharmaceuticalindustry that there's simply no
incentive to tell you the fullstory.
So let me fill you in on thereal story, the full details
about why cutting calories,regardless of the form it takes,
can be so dangerous.
I'll also tell you about DefineHealth's sponsors Paleo Valley,
(01:14):
our preferred provider for manyexcellent organic and grass-fed
food products, and BioDequest,my number one choice for
probiotics that arescientifically formulated,
unlike most other commercialprobiotic products available
today.
I'd like to make you aware of anew source for our favorite
microbe, lactobacillus roteri,and a skin formulation I
(01:40):
designed that improves skin fromthe inside out.
Here's a fact that surprisesmany people, including many
doctors, even though theevidence is quite clear.
It has been well worked outthat nearly all not all, but
nearly all popular weight lossmethods that involve a reduction
in calories ensure yourlong-term failure and even an
(02:01):
acceleration of death, as wellas disability, in the last years
of your life.
So it doesn't matter.
It could be a calorie reduceddiet.
You could have all kinds oflabels put on it, various
branded products.
It could be an app thatpurports to identify your stress
triggers or your calorie intake, or identify your weaknesses
and try to block those behaviors.
(02:22):
It could be a GLP-1 agonistthat reduces appetite, reduces
your intake of food, makes youfeel fuller with less food, may
make you even indifferent tofood.
Or it could be a bariatricprocedure, all of which reduce
the absorption of nutrients andlimit stomach volume, thereby
resulting in reduced calorieintake.
(02:44):
You can see they're allvariations of the same theme
cutting calories by some methodor other.
Now, weight loss is amulti-billion dollar per year
industry, and so there's a hugeamount of money being made by
doctors, by clinics that purportto help you lose weight, by
programs, smartphone apps and,of course, pharmaceuticals and
(03:05):
procedures.
So a lot of money is at stakehere in not telling you, not
fully informing you on all theproblems that result.
That is, there's upfrontsuccess and long-term failure.
Now, long-term failure can takethe form of regain of weight,
but it can also take the form ofmarked deterioration in health
(03:26):
and even earlier death, andwe'll talk about why that is.
One of the problems with allmethods of losing weight by
cutting calories is that there'san obligatory and inevitable
loss of muscle.
Typically, 25% of the weightlost is muscle.
So if you lose 40 pounds, 10pounds will be muscle, 30 pounds
(03:48):
is fat.
Well, that loss of musclecompounds the age-related loss
of muscle that is about 30% orso of all muscle mass you had in
your 20s is lost by age 70 orso and more so onwards.
So the loss of muscle thatoccurs with weight loss by
cutting calories compounds lossof muscle that occurs just by
(04:12):
aging.
Now, that's important becauseloss of muscle has numerous
implications.
It sets you up for futurefrailty, falls, fracture, loss
of independence all the thingswe don't want acceleration of
aging, related phenomena.
But it also has another aspectof adverse effects and that is
(04:33):
the reduction in your basalmetabolic rate, or bmr.
All that means is your bmr isthe rate at which your body
burns calories to conduct thework of living.
This is the energy required tobreathe, to digest foods, to
manufacture proteins, replacebody parts.
All the things that go onbeneath your subconscious that
(04:56):
you don't have to think about.
You don't have to ask yourstomach to produce stomach acid,
right.
You don't have to ask yourcolon to absorb moisture or
water.
You don't have to ask the smallintestine to absorb nutrients.
You don't have to ask yourlungs to breathe.
These things are all occurringbeneath the level of
consciousness but do requireenergy, and that level of energy
(05:17):
burn, energy consumption iscalled basal metabolic rate or
BMR is called basal metabolicrate or BMR.
Well, when you lose weight andthereby lose muscle, your BMR
drops about 27% to 29%.
We have very good evidence now,mostly conducted at our own
National Institutes of Health,the NIH, that shows when people
(05:38):
lose weight, they lose muscle.
That in turn leads to areduction in basal metabolic
rate, and the best evidencetells us that, for all practical
purposes, that reduction ispermanent or at least very
long-lived, persisting for manyyears after you lost that weight
, and so you don't get it back.
Loss of muscle, thereby thereduction in basal metabolic
(06:00):
rate ensures virtuallyguarantees that you regain the
weight.
Now here's the problem.
The weight you regain is fat,and it's mostly abdominal fat,
the most problematic form of fat, because that's the form of fat
that is inflamed and exportsinflammation to other parts of
the body and also drives theprocess of insulin resistance,
(06:24):
the process that causes you togain abdominal fat and get you
closer to type 2 diabetes,cognitive decline and dementia,
heart disease, breast cancer andother common conditions.
You'll regain maybe a couple ofpounds of muscle, but that's
about it.
Well, people ask well, what ifI combine resistance training?
A lot of my colleagues will sayoh, don't worry, I have all my
(06:45):
patients on GLP-1 agonists, butI urge them to conduct
resistance training.
Does it work?
No, it does not.
So if you engage in a vigorousresistance training program
let's say an hour a day, fivedays a week rather than losing,
let's say, 10 pounds of muscle,maybe you lose eight pounds of
muscle.
It does blunt the loss ofmuscle, but it does not
(07:08):
eliminate entirely.
Most people can't stand, hatethe idea of going to the gym
several times a week to useresistance machines or weights.
So especially females hategoing to the gym to do that.
So in all practicality.
You experience reduction BMR,you regain the weight, regain
very little muscle, even if youengage in a strength resistance
(07:31):
training program.
So once you lose weight andlose muscle, you are destined to
regain the weight as fat.
You're going to be more likelyto be type 2 diabetic, have
heart disease, dementia allthose conditions at the end of
this process than you were atthe start.
You may have paid a lot ofmoney for the privilege of being
(07:51):
on one of those drugs or thatsmartphone app or program or
meal replacement program or abariatric procedure we're
talking about typically tens ofthousands of dollars, and yet
you're less healthy than youwere.
And, of course, you regain allthe weight Even more
concerningly so.
Regaining all that weight as fatis a big problem and the loss
of independence, false fracture,frailty also major issues,
(08:15):
especially as aging proceeds.
But it gets even worse.
We now have large databases inwhich people who followed these
programs were followed overseveral years like a decade or
so and the people who lost themost weight died the youngest.
In other words, people who losethe weight the wrong way and do
not manage such things asmuscle and BMR will die younger,
(08:38):
several years younger.
We have the benefit now of verylarge databases that track
people in their weight lossefforts, like the NHANES that's
the NIH-sponsored datacollection of average Americans.
We have Epic Norfolk of 20,000people and several others in
total about 50,000 people andthey die younger when you lose
(08:59):
weight the wrong way.
So we're not talking about justa cosmetic issue.
We're not talking just aboutfitting into a smaller dress
size or trouser size.
We're talking aboutconsequences that have major
implications for your health,like type 2 diabetes and
coronary disease and dementiaand an earlier mortality
shortening your life.
Are there ways to block thiseffect?
(09:23):
Yes, there are.
So when we come back from aword from our sponsors, let's
talk about ways to get around orcircumvent all these weaknesses
, all these problems that areassociated with conventional
methods of weight loss, problemsthat are associated with
conventional methods of weightloss.
(09:43):
The Defiant Health Podcast issponsored by Paleo Valley,
makers of delicious grass-fedbeef sticks, healthy snack bars
and other products.
We're very picky around hereand insist that any product we
consider contains no junkingredients like carrageenan,
carboxymethyl cellulose,sucralose or added sugars and,
of course, no gluten nor grains.
One of the habits I urgeeveryone to get into is to
include several servings offermented foods every day in
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I've had numerous conversationswith BiotiQuest founders Martha
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(12:14):
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addition to L-Roteri, has addedmarine source collagen, peptides
, hyaluronic acid and thecarotenoid astaxanthin, all
combined to stack the odds infavor of beneficial skin effects
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Of course, you can take theseproducts as is, or you you can
(12:35):
use either as a starter to makeEl Rotaray yogurt to generate
even higher counts of microbesfor bigger effects.
I'll provide a link for theseproducts below in the show notes
.
Let's now talk about how you cando better than these disastrous
conventional methods of losingweight.
(12:56):
And is this possible?
Yes, it is, but you have totake some effort.
You have to add some piecesthat are not typically told to
you.
When you get a GLP agonist orhave a bariatric procedure, one
of the things we do is we nevercut calories for an extended
period.
You could skip a meal.
Nothing bad will happen.
You could fast for a day, twodays, maybe three days, nothing
(13:18):
bad will happen.
If you go much longer, though,now you're risking both loss of
muscle it may only be a coupleof pounds, but that's enough to
have some very significantdamage.
And when you lose even thatmodest quantity of muscle, you
will reduce your basal metabolicrate essentially forever muscle
you will reduce your basalmetabolic rate essentially
(13:39):
forever.
So don't do that.
Don't cut calories for morethan a brief period.
People say things like well, Ido time-restricted eating or
intermittent fasting.
That's okay, except recognizethat the longer you go beyond
about 48, 72 hours or longer youstart to risk a downturn in
basal metabolic rate, and thatsets a trap for you long-term in
health and weight regain.
Now, in my programs we nevercut calories, of course, we
(14:02):
never limit fats, even saturatedfats, because fats are good.
I never accepted the idea thatsaturated fats were a risk
factor for cardiovasculardisease.
There never was evidence forthat.
It was a misinterpretation andan exaggeration of very old
findings from decades ago thatshould have been discarded many,
a long time ago.
We do limit carbohydratesbecause carbohydrates have
(14:24):
proliferated out of control inprocessed and ultra-processed
foods, and foods like fruit havebeen cultivated or hybridized
for low fiber, high sugarcontent.
So, because of a lot of thepeculiarities of the modern diet
, we do limit carbohydrates.
So that's a version of a lowcarb diet.
But you have to know, justfollowing a low carb diet can
(14:47):
also cause loss of muscle.
So it's not as if the low carbdiet prevents all the problems
associated with other diets.
They still are associated withloss of muscle.
So we've got to take steps toblock that loss of muscle, maybe
even restore youthfulmusculature.
One of the things we do is weadd back nutrients that are
(15:09):
largely lacking in modern life.
This is not from the diet, it'sfrom the lifestyle we lead.
So, for instance, you mustsupplement magnesium, because
magnesium is supposed to beobtained through your drinking
water, but we have to, bynecessity, filter our drinking
water.
That removes all magnesium.
We should get magnesium fromwild plants rich in magnesium,
(15:30):
but we don't eat wild plants.
We eat cultivated plants,sometimes even grown in a
hydroponic garden or soildepleted of nutrients by modern
farming methods, and the contentof magnesium is dramatically
lower as much as 70% to 90%lower than wild plants.
So we have to replace magnesium.
Likewise, iodine, omega-3 fattyacids and vitamin D.
(15:51):
These are things lacking inmodern life because of the way
we conduct our lives.
Replace them.
The great thing about this thosefour simple things synergize to
minimize insulin resistance,the process that causes
abdominal fat and loss of muscle.
By themselves, each individualis not that powerful.
Put four of them together incombination with the dietary
(16:13):
changes of not limiting calories, not limiting fat, but cutting
carbohydrates that's a powerfulcombination and you minimize
insulin resistance.
Recognize that insulinresistance is a driving factor
in weight gain or preventingweight loss from the abdomen.
We're going to correct it Now.
We next take steps to restoreyouthful musculature, the
(16:35):
keystone, the fundamentalprocess.
Here.
The thing we do is restoremicrobes lost from the modern
gastrointestinal microbiome,microbes that were largely
determinants of your shape andbody composition and where your
abdominal fat occurs and howmuch muscle you have.
So we replace lactobacillusroteri and lactobacillus gasseri
(16:56):
.
Replace lactobacillus roteriand lactobacillus gasseri.
Now this is all new to you.
I invite you to see my otherpodcasts, my blog, my
williamdavismdcom blog or mySuper Gut book, and I show you
how to obtain those microbescommercially and then not just
take the probiotic, becauseprobiotics are plagued by
problems, including very lowcounts of microbes.
We're going to cultivate it asyogurt.
Now, you can take it as aprobiotic and that's why I
(17:19):
provided a product where we dothat, I'll list that in the show
notes, but I would encourageyou to make yogurt, especially
in the beginning.
Now, this is not yogurt in theconventional sense.
This is not the stuff you buyin the grocery store.
This is dairy fermented withthose two microbes.
You can do them individually,you can do them individually,
(17:42):
you can do them together.
We use my method of extendedfermentation prolonged
fermentation, 36 hours.
The rationale being, if thesemicrobes double around every two
or three hours at human bodytemperature, we're going to
allow them to double 12 times ormore.
Now, when we counted the numberof microbes by using this
extended fermentation, we getaround 300 billion counts of
microbes per half cup serving,per 120 milliliters serving.
In other words, it's our way ofincreasing bacterial counts
(18:05):
dramatically and you therebyhave larger effects on such
things as restoration ofyouthful muscle, reduction of
abdominal visceral fat and allthe other benefits that occur
for these microbes, likesmoother skin and amplification
of your immune response andbeing happier from the boost in
oxytocin generated by therhodori.
You're closer to other people,you're more empathetic, you're
(18:27):
more generous, you're moreaccepting of other people's
opinions.
So, in effect, you're a betterhuman being by restoring these
microbes.
But they also play a role inshape and body composition.
I call these play a role inshape and body composition, call
these microbes the microbes ofshape and body composition.
We go even further.
We restore dietary factors thatare lacking in modern life.
So I should mention thatrhodori and gasteri especially
(18:50):
rhodori has disappeared from thevast majority of modern humans
because of its susceptibility tocommon antibiotics.
So we're restoring things thatyou should have had all along.
All wild mammals, allhunter-gatherer, indigenous
populations, they all have thesemicrobes.
We've lost it because of theirsusceptibility to common
antibiotics.
Likewise, let's restore otherfactors lacking in modern life
(19:14):
Because we've been told tominimize our exposure to fat and
saturated fat.
This caused most modern peopleto abandon the consumption of
collagen and hyaluronic acid,two factors rich in organ meats
largely, and so people don't eatbrain anymore, or heart, or
tongue or stomach, and therebylead a lifestyle depleted in
(19:36):
collagen and hyaluronic acid.
Those two factors are majorplayers in the distribution of
muscle and fat in your body.
So those two things, even bythemselves, tend to lead to a
loss of abdominal fat and anincrease in muscle mass, thereby
helping counteract the drop inbasal metabolic rate that could
(19:57):
otherwise result with a weightloss program.
Now, I know ladies aresometimes familiar with these
things, often taken topicallythis is, orally.
The real power of thosenutrients is when taken orally,
as you would have by includingit in your diet.
Now don't fall into the trap ofmaking bone broth that is,
(20:17):
prolonged boiling, with theaddition of vinegar, because
that has been shown to mobilizelead, the heavy metal lead, to
toxic levels.
So if you're going to rely onbroths or soups to get some of
your collagen and hyaluronicacid, it's okay to do that, but
do not use prolonged boiling, donot add vinegar.
Boil no more than four hoursand you'll get some of the
(20:42):
collagen, the hyaluronic acid,other nutrients, by boiling.
I call that carcass broth.
It doesn't sound veryappetizing, but if you bake the
chicken, for instance, take theremains and use that to boil,
but don't use prolonged boiling,don't add vinegar and you get
some collagen that way.
Also, the dose of collagen thatworks if you're using bovine,
chicken or porcine sources, pigsources is 20 grams per day.
The standard dose of hyaluronicacid is 120 milligrams per day.
I have suspicions that we couldprobably get better results
(21:04):
with higher doses, but we havenot yet formally examined that.
Then we go a step further.
The modern diet is miserablydeficient in carotenoids.
Carotenoids are the bright,yellow, orange, red color of
fruits and vegetables.
Well, modern people have becomeover-reliant on processed,
ultra-processed food, fast foodsand modern produce.
(21:25):
Modern farming does not resultin high carotenoid intake, so we
are all, in effect, carotenoiddeficient and we don't
manufacture carotenoids.
We don't have the enzymes tocreate carotenoids.
We have to get it from diet,and only from diet.
I've chose to work withastaxanthin.
That's the pink or orangecoloring from shellfish, like
shrimp and lobster, as well asin salmon and trout.
(21:48):
Very big effects on alsocontributing to a reduction in
abdominal fat and an increase inperformance and exercise and
work performance, and it's alsovery good with its
anti-inflammatory effect.
That adds further to these whatI call shape and body
(22:10):
composition modifying effects.
How about the role of resistanceexercise?
Well, my experience has been,if you do all the above I talked
about restore keystone microbes, don't limit fats, don't limit
calories, and restore collagen,hyaluronic acid and carotenoids
that resistance exercise doeshelp, but it's not the most
important thing.
(22:30):
So if you do go to the gym,maybe once a week, twice a week,
for 15 minutes, or do heavywork like shoveling in your
backyard garden or somethinglike that.
That's all it takes, you don'thave to do.
In these studies, some of thesepeople went to the gym two
hours a day, six days a week anincredible effort, yet they
still lost huge amounts ofmuscle.
(22:51):
So resistance exercise does playa role.
It does help flexibility andhave some other benefits, but it
is not the most important thing.
It adds to the advantages ofregaining muscle, but it's not
the most essential thing.
There you have it.
You have a way to lose weight,specifically from abdominal
visceral fat, while preservingor even restoring or increasing
(23:13):
lean muscle mass and thereby notbeing exposed to increased or
accelerated falls, frailty,fractures, loss of independence,
and I believe we could arguethis is going to take some more
evidence over time that you donot.
You're no longer subjected toearly mortality.
Now, if you've learnedsomething from this episode of
the Defiant Health Podcast, Iinvite you to subscribe.
(23:35):
Post a review, post a comment,tell your friends.
Let's build this movement ofself-empowerment and health
outside of and free of thehealthcare system.
Thanks for listening.
Over 50% of Americans are, at any one time, trying to
lose weight, so it'sunderstandable that the GLP-1
agonist drugs like Ozempic,monjaro, zepbound, have become
so popular given theirspectacular upfront results.
Given their spectacular upfrontresults, others have used
(00:28):
reduced calorie diets in variousforms, like counting points,
assigning foods red, yellow orgreen lights, meal replacement
products and many other methodsor bariatric procedures like lap
band, jejuno-ileal bypass orgastric bypass, but there's a
lot that people are not toldabout these methods.
The near-term prospect oflosing weight is so enticing to
(00:50):
so many people and so profitableto doctors, the healthcare
system and the pharmaceuticalindustry that there's simply no
incentive to tell you the fullstory.
So let me fill you in on thereal story, the full details
about why cutting calories,regardless of the form it takes,
can be so dangerous.
I'll also tell you about DefineHealth's sponsors Paleo Valley,
(01:14):
our preferred provider for manyexcellent organic and grass-fed
food products, and BioDequest,my number one choice for
probiotics that arescientifically formulated,
unlike most other commercialprobiotic products available
today.
I'd like to make you aware of anew source for our favorite
microbe, lactobacillus roteri,and a skin formulation I
(01:40):
designed that improves skin fromthe inside out.
Here's a fact that surprisesmany people, including many
doctors, even though theevidence is quite clear.
It has been well worked outthat nearly all not all, but
nearly all popular weight lossmethods that involve a reduction
in calories ensure yourlong-term failure and even an
(02:01):
acceleration of death, as wellas disability, in the last years
of your life.
So it doesn't matter.
It could be a calorie reduceddiet.
You could have all kinds oflabels put on it, various
branded products.
It could be an app thatpurports to identify your stress
triggers or your calorie intake, or identify your weaknesses
and try to block those behaviors.
(02:22):
It could be a GLP-1 agonistthat reduces appetite, reduces
your intake of food, makes youfeel fuller with less food, may
make you even indifferent tofood.
Or it could be a bariatricprocedure, all of which reduce
the absorption of nutrients andlimit stomach volume, thereby
resulting in reduced calorieintake.
(02:44):
You can see they're allvariations of the same theme
cutting calories by some methodor other.
Now, weight loss is amulti-billion dollar per year
industry, and so there's a hugeamount of money being made by
doctors, by clinics that purportto help you lose weight, by
programs, smartphone apps and,of course, pharmaceuticals and
(03:05):
procedures.
So a lot of money is at stakehere in not telling you, not
fully informing you on all theproblems that result.
That is, there's upfrontsuccess and long-term failure.
Now, long-term failure can takethe form of regain of weight,
but it can also take the form ofmarked deterioration in health
(03:26):
and even earlier death, andwe'll talk about why that is.
One of the problems with allmethods of losing weight by
cutting calories is that there'san obligatory and inevitable
loss of muscle.
Typically, 25% of the weightlost is muscle.
So if you lose 40 pounds, 10pounds will be muscle, 30 pounds
(03:48):
is fat.
Well, that loss of musclecompounds the age-related loss
of muscle that is about 30% orso of all muscle mass you had in
your 20s is lost by age 70 orso and more so onwards.
So the loss of muscle thatoccurs with weight loss by
cutting calories compounds lossof muscle that occurs just by
(04:12):
aging.
Now, that's important becauseloss of muscle has numerous
implications.
It sets you up for futurefrailty, falls, fracture, loss
of independence all the thingswe don't want acceleration of
aging, related phenomena.
But it also has another aspectof adverse effects and that is
(04:33):
the reduction in your basalmetabolic rate, or bmr.
All that means is your bmr isthe rate at which your body
burns calories to conduct thework of living.
This is the energy required tobreathe, to digest foods, to
manufacture proteins, replacebody parts.
All the things that go onbeneath your subconscious that
(04:56):
you don't have to think about.
You don't have to ask yourstomach to produce stomach acid,
right.
You don't have to ask yourcolon to absorb moisture or
water.
You don't have to ask the smallintestine to absorb nutrients.
You don't have to ask yourlungs to breathe.
These things are all occurringbeneath the level of
consciousness but do requireenergy, and that level of energy
(05:17):
burn, energy consumption iscalled basal metabolic rate or
BMR is called basal metabolicrate or BMR.
Well, when you lose weight andthereby lose muscle, your BMR
drops about 27% to 29%.
We have very good evidence now,mostly conducted at our own
National Institutes of Health,the NIH, that shows when people
(05:38):
lose weight, they lose muscle.
That in turn leads to areduction in basal metabolic
rate, and the best evidencetells us that, for all practical
purposes, that reduction ispermanent or at least very
long-lived, persisting for manyyears after you lost that weight
, and so you don't get it back.
Loss of muscle, thereby thereduction in basal metabolic
(06:00):
rate ensures virtuallyguarantees that you regain the
weight.
Now here's the problem.
The weight you regain is fat,and it's mostly abdominal fat,
the most problematic form of fat, because that's the form of fat
that is inflamed and exportsinflammation to other parts of
the body and also drives theprocess of insulin resistance,
(06:24):
the process that causes you togain abdominal fat and get you
closer to type 2 diabetes,cognitive decline and dementia,
heart disease, breast cancer andother common conditions.
You'll regain maybe a couple ofpounds of muscle, but that's
about it.
Well, people ask well, what ifI combine resistance training?
A lot of my colleagues will sayoh, don't worry, I have all my
(06:45):
patients on GLP-1 agonists, butI urge them to conduct
resistance training.
Does it work?
No, it does not.
So if you engage in a vigorousresistance training program
let's say an hour a day, fivedays a week rather than losing,
let's say, 10 pounds of muscle,maybe you lose eight pounds of
muscle.
It does blunt the loss ofmuscle, but it does not
(07:08):
eliminate entirely.
Most people can't stand, hatethe idea of going to the gym
several times a week to useresistance machines or weights.
So especially females hategoing to the gym to do that.
So in all practicality.
You experience reduction BMR,you regain the weight, regain
very little muscle, even if youengage in a strength resistance
(07:31):
training program.
So once you lose weight andlose muscle, you are destined to
regain the weight as fat.
You're going to be more likelyto be type 2 diabetic, have
heart disease, dementia allthose conditions at the end of
this process than you were atthe start.
You may have paid a lot ofmoney for the privilege of being
(07:51):
on one of those drugs or thatsmartphone app or program or
meal replacement program or abariatric procedure we're
talking about typically tens ofthousands of dollars, and yet
you're less healthy than youwere.
And, of course, you regain allthe weight Even more
concerningly so.
Regaining all that weight as fatis a big problem and the loss
of independence, false fracture,frailty also major issues,
(08:15):
especially as aging proceeds.
But it gets even worse.
We now have large databases inwhich people who followed these
programs were followed overseveral years like a decade or
so and the people who lost themost weight died the youngest.
In other words, people who losethe weight the wrong way and do
not manage such things asmuscle and BMR will die younger,
(08:38):
several years younger.
We have the benefit now of verylarge databases that track
people in their weight lossefforts, like the NHANES that's
the NIH-sponsored datacollection of average Americans.
We have Epic Norfolk of 20,000people and several others in
total about 50,000 people andthey die younger when you lose
(08:59):
weight the wrong way.
So we're not talking about justa cosmetic issue.
We're not talking just aboutfitting into a smaller dress
size or trouser size.
We're talking aboutconsequences that have major
implications for your health,like type 2 diabetes and
coronary disease and dementiaand an earlier mortality
shortening your life.
Are there ways to block thiseffect?
(09:23):
Yes, there are.
So when we come back from aword from our sponsors, let's
talk about ways to get around orcircumvent all these weaknesses
, all these problems that areassociated with conventional
methods of weight loss, problemsthat are associated with
conventional methods of weightloss.
(09:43):
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For Defiant Health listenersand due to demand for reliable,
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(12:14):
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addition to L-Roteri, has addedmarine source collagen, peptides
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Of course, you can take theseproducts as is, or you you can
(12:35):
use either as a starter to makeEl Rotaray yogurt to generate
even higher counts of microbesfor bigger effects.
I'll provide a link for theseproducts below in the show notes
.
Let's now talk about how you cando better than these disastrous
conventional methods of losingweight.
(12:56):
And is this possible?
Yes, it is, but you have totake some effort.
You have to add some piecesthat are not typically told to
you.
When you get a GLP agonist orhave a bariatric procedure, one
of the things we do is we nevercut calories for an extended
period.
You could skip a meal.
Nothing bad will happen.
You could fast for a day, twodays, maybe three days, nothing
(13:18):
bad will happen.
If you go much longer, though,now you're risking both loss of
muscle it may only be a coupleof pounds, but that's enough to
have some very significantdamage.
And when you lose even thatmodest quantity of muscle, you
will reduce your basal metabolicrate essentially forever muscle
you will reduce your basalmetabolic rate essentially
(13:39):
forever.
So don't do that.
Don't cut calories for morethan a brief period.
People say things like well, Ido time-restricted eating or
intermittent fasting.
That's okay, except recognizethat the longer you go beyond
about 48, 72 hours or longer youstart to risk a downturn in
basal metabolic rate, and thatsets a trap for you long-term in
health and weight regain.
Now, in my programs we nevercut calories, of course, we
(14:02):
never limit fats, even saturatedfats, because fats are good.
I never accepted the idea thatsaturated fats were a risk
factor for cardiovasculardisease.
There never was evidence forthat.
It was a misinterpretation andan exaggeration of very old
findings from decades ago thatshould have been discarded many,
a long time ago.
We do limit carbohydratesbecause carbohydrates have
(14:24):
proliferated out of control inprocessed and ultra-processed
foods, and foods like fruit havebeen cultivated or hybridized
for low fiber, high sugarcontent.
So, because of a lot of thepeculiarities of the modern diet
, we do limit carbohydrates.
So that's a version of a lowcarb diet.
But you have to know, justfollowing a low carb diet can
(14:47):
also cause loss of muscle.
So it's not as if the low carbdiet prevents all the problems
associated with other diets.
They still are associated withloss of muscle.
So we've got to take steps toblock that loss of muscle, maybe
even restore youthfulmusculature.
One of the things we do is weadd back nutrients that are
(15:09):
largely lacking in modern life.
This is not from the diet, it'sfrom the lifestyle we lead.
So, for instance, you mustsupplement magnesium, because
magnesium is supposed to beobtained through your drinking
water, but we have to, bynecessity, filter our drinking
water.
That removes all magnesium.
We should get magnesium fromwild plants rich in magnesium,
(15:30):
but we don't eat wild plants.
We eat cultivated plants,sometimes even grown in a
hydroponic garden or soildepleted of nutrients by modern
farming methods, and the contentof magnesium is dramatically
lower as much as 70% to 90%lower than wild plants.
So we have to replace magnesium.
Likewise, iodine, omega-3 fattyacids and vitamin D.
(15:51):
These are things lacking inmodern life because of the way
we conduct our lives.
Replace them.
The great thing about this thosefour simple things synergize to
minimize insulin resistance,the process that causes
abdominal fat and loss of muscle.
By themselves, each individualis not that powerful.
Put four of them together incombination with the dietary
(16:13):
changes of not limiting calories, not limiting fat, but cutting
carbohydrates that's a powerfulcombination and you minimize
insulin resistance.
Recognize that insulinresistance is a driving factor
in weight gain or preventingweight loss from the abdomen.
We're going to correct it Now.
We next take steps to restoreyouthful musculature, the
(16:35):
keystone, the fundamentalprocess.
Here.
The thing we do is restoremicrobes lost from the modern
gastrointestinal microbiome,microbes that were largely
determinants of your shape andbody composition and where your
abdominal fat occurs and howmuch muscle you have.
So we replace lactobacillusroteri and lactobacillus gasseri
(16:56):
.
Replace lactobacillus roteriand lactobacillus gasseri.
Now this is all new to you.
I invite you to see my otherpodcasts, my blog, my
williamdavismdcom blog or mySuper Gut book, and I show you
how to obtain those microbescommercially and then not just
take the probiotic, becauseprobiotics are plagued by
problems, including very lowcounts of microbes.
We're going to cultivate it asyogurt.
Now, you can take it as aprobiotic and that's why I
(17:19):
provided a product where we dothat, I'll list that in the show
notes, but I would encourageyou to make yogurt, especially
in the beginning.
Now, this is not yogurt in theconventional sense.
This is not the stuff you buyin the grocery store.
This is dairy fermented withthose two microbes.
You can do them individually,you can do them individually,
(17:42):
you can do them together.
We use my method of extendedfermentation prolonged
fermentation, 36 hours.
The rationale being, if thesemicrobes double around every two
or three hours at human bodytemperature, we're going to
allow them to double 12 times ormore.
Now, when we counted the numberof microbes by using this
extended fermentation, we getaround 300 billion counts of
microbes per half cup serving,per 120 milliliters serving.
In other words, it's our way ofincreasing bacterial counts
(18:05):
dramatically and you therebyhave larger effects on such
things as restoration ofyouthful muscle, reduction of
abdominal visceral fat and allthe other benefits that occur
for these microbes, likesmoother skin and amplification
of your immune response andbeing happier from the boost in
oxytocin generated by therhodori.
You're closer to other people,you're more empathetic, you're
(18:27):
more generous, you're moreaccepting of other people's
opinions.
So, in effect, you're a betterhuman being by restoring these
microbes.
But they also play a role inshape and body composition.
I call these play a role inshape and body composition, call
these microbes the microbes ofshape and body composition.
We go even further.
We restore dietary factors thatare lacking in modern life.
So I should mention thatrhodori and gasteri especially
(18:50):
rhodori has disappeared from thevast majority of modern humans
because of its susceptibility tocommon antibiotics.
So we're restoring things thatyou should have had all along.
All wild mammals, allhunter-gatherer, indigenous
populations, they all have thesemicrobes.
We've lost it because of theirsusceptibility to common
antibiotics.
Likewise, let's restore otherfactors lacking in modern life
(19:14):
Because we've been told tominimize our exposure to fat and
saturated fat.
This caused most modern peopleto abandon the consumption of
collagen and hyaluronic acid,two factors rich in organ meats
largely, and so people don't eatbrain anymore, or heart, or
tongue or stomach, and therebylead a lifestyle depleted in
(19:36):
collagen and hyaluronic acid.
Those two factors are majorplayers in the distribution of
muscle and fat in your body.
So those two things, even bythemselves, tend to lead to a
loss of abdominal fat and anincrease in muscle mass, thereby
helping counteract the drop inbasal metabolic rate that could
(19:57):
otherwise result with a weightloss program.
Now, I know ladies aresometimes familiar with these
things, often taken topicallythis is, orally.
The real power of thosenutrients is when taken orally,
as you would have by includingit in your diet.
Now don't fall into the trap ofmaking bone broth that is,
(20:17):
prolonged boiling, with theaddition of vinegar, because
that has been shown to mobilizelead, the heavy metal lead, to
toxic levels.
So if you're going to rely onbroths or soups to get some of
your collagen and hyaluronicacid, it's okay to do that, but
do not use prolonged boiling, donot add vinegar.
Boil no more than four hoursand you'll get some of the
(20:42):
collagen, the hyaluronic acid,other nutrients, by boiling.
I call that carcass broth.
It doesn't sound veryappetizing, but if you bake the
chicken, for instance, take theremains and use that to boil,
but don't use prolonged boiling,don't add vinegar and you get
some collagen that way.
Also, the dose of collagen thatworks if you're using bovine,
chicken or porcine sources, pigsources is 20 grams per day.
The standard dose of hyaluronicacid is 120 milligrams per day.
I have suspicions that we couldprobably get better results
(21:04):
with higher doses, but we havenot yet formally examined that.
Then we go a step further.
The modern diet is miserablydeficient in carotenoids.
Carotenoids are the bright,yellow, orange, red color of
fruits and vegetables.
Well, modern people have becomeover-reliant on processed,
ultra-processed food, fast foodsand modern produce.
(21:25):
Modern farming does not resultin high carotenoid intake, so we
are all, in effect, carotenoiddeficient and we don't
manufacture carotenoids.
We don't have the enzymes tocreate carotenoids.
We have to get it from diet,and only from diet.
I've chose to work withastaxanthin.
That's the pink or orangecoloring from shellfish, like
shrimp and lobster, as well asin salmon and trout.
(21:48):
Very big effects on alsocontributing to a reduction in
abdominal fat and an increase inperformance and exercise and
work performance, and it's alsovery good with its
anti-inflammatory effect.
That adds further to these whatI call shape and body
(22:10):
composition modifying effects.
How about the role of resistanceexercise?
Well, my experience has been,if you do all the above I talked
about restore keystone microbes, don't limit fats, don't limit
calories, and restore collagen,hyaluronic acid and carotenoids
that resistance exercise doeshelp, but it's not the most
important thing.
(22:30):
So if you do go to the gym,maybe once a week, twice a week,
for 15 minutes, or do heavywork like shoveling in your
backyard garden or somethinglike that.
That's all it takes, you don'thave to do.
In these studies, some of thesepeople went to the gym two
hours a day, six days a week anincredible effort, yet they
still lost huge amounts ofmuscle.
(22:51):
So resistance exercise does playa role.
It does help flexibility andhave some other benefits, but it
is not the most important thing.
It adds to the advantages ofregaining muscle, but it's not
the most essential thing.
There you have it.
You have a way to lose weight,specifically from abdominal
visceral fat, while preservingor even restoring or increasing
(23:13):
lean muscle mass and thereby notbeing exposed to increased or
accelerated falls, frailty,fractures, loss of independence,
and I believe we could arguethis is going to take some more
evidence over time that you donot.
You're no longer subjected toearly mortality.
Now, if you've learnedsomething from this episode of
the Defiant Health Podcast, Iinvite you to subscribe.
(23:35):
Post a review, post a comment,tell your friends.
Let's build this movement ofself-empowerment and health
outside of and free of thehealthcare system.
Thanks for listening.
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