The complex relationship between calories and metabolism challenges the traditional "calories in, calories out" approach. Different macronutrients proteins, fats, and sugars affect the body’s hormonal responses, including insulin and glucagon. Insight is shared on why certain diets, like keto, work for some individuals and how these principles can aid in fat loss and even diabetes management.
The role of body types, such as ectomorphs, mesomorphs, and endomorphs, explains how food is processed and weight is gained. Daily movements and non-exercise thermogenesis are examined, shedding light on how habits like fidgeting can influence energy expenditure and weight regulation.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:04 - Kosher Salt and Unique Salt Types
01:00 - Calories vs. Chemistry in Metabolism
02:23 - Calories and Hormonal Responses
05:31 - Body Types and Metabolism
07:54 - Motion and Non-Exercise Thermogenesis
Host - Man [00:00:04] I'm not going to super deep into the salt, but kosher salt for me is what I personally use just because it's easy to access. And I what I personally like.
Host - Woman [00:00:13] I think.
Host - Man [00:00:13] So.
Host - Woman [00:00:13] But yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well I was just there some black.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:18] We found some black salt in Montana. That was amazing. But they didn't have enough to like bring back to the office. And so I had to just eat it myself.
Host - Woman [00:00:25] I've had some great salt, too. My mom is super into salt and sometimes she'll semi like these salt blends. My my mom's very well and I love her for it and she'll like me like these these salt plans and they're delicious. And I know whatever my mom's sending me is like top tier, high quality. She's the one who got me methylated B vitamins, you know, because I didn't even. I didn't know about that. Thanks, Mom. Again, there's.
Host - Man [00:00:47] Actually, I think right across your office in Walla Walla, There's that. You know that.
Host - Woman [00:00:52] Yeah.
Host - Man [00:00:52] Food place. Yeah. They have black salt there.
Host - Woman [00:00:55] You know. So I guess any.
Host - Man [00:00:57] Next time I may have a chance again, you can walk over that way.
Host - Woman [00:01:00] You know, there was something earlier though I was going to say because I when you were talking earlier and you said quite a few things, you said one thing that I wanted to ask you about. We were talking about diet and what people are eating. You said because it's not about calories. It's about chemistry. Yeah. I want you to say more about that because that that perked up my ears when you were going on the long thing because we were just having conversations last week about calories. Yeah, it's hot button topic, right?
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:25] We're fighting words to some people, right?
Host - Woman [00:01:27] Yeah. Hey, I hope you're enjoying today's podcast. I just wanted to take a quick break because if you're listening, you probably know what we do here and figure medical podcast, but maybe not what we do at a bigger medical.com. So let me introduce us at In Vigor. We provide prescription strength treatments and peptides for weight loss, sexual health and lifestyle optimization. Every treatment plan is carefully prescribed by licensed doctors and sourced from legitimate pharmacies. You don't ever need to buy questionable research chemicals again. And Bonus. As a podcast listener, you get a 10% discount on your first treatment plan with Code Podcast ten at Invigorate medical.com. Now let's get back to today's episode. It does. It's good because we do love a good rumble. I think that it's it's easy to get in conversations where it's just kind of like, yeah, we all agree or we're going to pretend we agree because it's a podcast and we think we should. But yeah, I love like whenever a guests like butts up against something that we say and is like, No. And we're like, we disagree or whatever I think is healthy.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:23] If you say the wrong things about calories, then Lay Norton is going to attack.
Host - Man [00:02:26] my gosh, he's going to come after us. It Yeah. So let's get ready to rumble.
Host - Woman [00:02:31] Do it. Okay. Tell us. Calories, not chemistry or whatever you were saying.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:34] So so what you have to understand is that the body doesn't run on calories. It runs on actual what's called ATP or instant triphosphate. So when you start looking to the metabolic chemistry, you can't find chemistry calories anywhere. So when I was first started doing this, I was I was I was a fat guy. I was doing all the calorie stuff. I was doing the calorie restriction and I wasn't losing any weight. I wasn't losing fat, but I would my workouts were crap. I was exhausted. I was a grouchy guy. And so I finally figured out, like glycemic function and how your body actually takes food that comes in and turns into sugar and that easy metabolic pathway that takes sugar into fat storage via insulin start kind of figuring out where we were going with it and the problems that I had and this what I talked about with calories with people, I'm like, okay, so you're going to tell me the calories in, calories out. The thing you have to tell me that you believe that protein, fat and sugar all work exactly the same way in the body because they're all worth for calories. And so the problem is, is that protein.
Host - Man [00:03:35] Isn't is in fact worth.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:36] 99994. I'm sorry. I'm saying protein, protein, protein, carbohydrates of protein, sugar and fiber. There's those three. Okay. Sorry. Those are those are the three because there's a direct path for sugar into fat, but there's no path for for fiber to fat because it just it doesn't it doesn't get absorbed. You eat it and it just gets pooped out. So and then when we have protein, protein actually activates a completely different hormone path, which is glucagon, which burns fat. And so if you're going to tell me that the thing that raises insulin levels that stores things as fat and the thing that raises glucagon, which burns fat, they're the same level, I that's that's crazy to begin with. And then you start looking at it like don't we all know somebody who can eat whatever they want and they never gain any weight? Those are called active morphs is a very has that person. They know that you eat five times what I do and you never get an ounce those people. So when you start figuring out what it is, what you're eating activates hormones. And so your storage hormone insulin is activated by sugars or carbohydrates, and glucagon can be activated more by proteins than amino acids. And so when you start looking at the people who are like the big fat guys who can never lose weight and they go keto, all of a sudden they lose all this weight, it's because you radically restricted all the insulin function and all the body has is glucagon to burn fat and they're eating all this protein so it doesn't damage the muscle tissues. And so that's actually what's going on is that when you restrict the insulin function. All of a sudden now the body can shift over and of burning sugar for fuel, it burns fat for fuel. And that's how that whole thing works. This is also how you fix diabetes. But that's that's I think, the reason why people don't know about it, because as long as you remove yourself from exhaustion, sugar, when you're eating the sugar to endogenous sugary rice, making the sugar for you. Yeah, you know, reset your insulin receptor sites and you can then calm down that insulin body produces regain control of that. And every time we've done it with type two diabetes, we fix it.
Host - Woman [00:05:31] Right. That's the crazy part. Can you I was going to say, you said ecto morph. And I've I've heard this before. I don't know very much about it. And I'd be curious if you could just do a brief description. You're talking about different body types, and it's the way they process food, calories, the chemistry of it. So could you take a minute to explain what that is?
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:48] Yeah. So the summary type chart is broken down into and it's hard because it's not three places. It's a spectrum where you're like way over here and then in the middle and then way over here. So the actual morphs guys are the ones who have a really hard time gaining any time away. Like they can eat whatever they want to. They never gain an ounce. And people are like, That sounds amazing. It's not for the guys because they can't regain muscle mass. And so this little scrawny guys all the time, they're like, I eat everything. I can't gain weight. And so you've got those guys and you guys, the guys in the middle. Now the mesmo morphs, the guys in the middle. These are the ones where the calories in calories out thing works really well for because they're balanced in how their body handles insulin and glucagon. So if you restrict fuel sources at all, they will burn the sugar until they're out of sugar. Then they'll immediately switch over and start burning fat to get a balance. This is why it was difficult because nobody in the diet industry ever looked at the estimates because they didn't come out, so they didn't have any failures with those guys. The actor morphs. They cut their calories back or just their fuel source in general, and all of a sudden they lost weight. The No More, which is the category that I am in over on the other side, that store really well. I get big easy like I, I my body loves insulin but not as sensitive to glucagon. And so we have a really hard time losing weight. If you go by calories, you're never going to get it. You start understanding the chemistry. You're like, I'll eat a lot of protein and a little bit of fat and no sugars, and my body will then melt the fat that's on me and I'll be where I'm supposed to be. So that's where that's how you have to figure out where you are in the spider type chart. Because for instance, like some of the guys who can't gain weight, we use natural sugars, but we give them giant amounts of sugar, high, high glycemic function, and they actually start putting mass on well, the exact opposite for the guys who can't lose weight. We strip all the insulin out of their diet and they start losing weight like crazy. So that's how those two systems work.
Host - Woman [00:07:37] That's wild. And I think I think you could also give a little bit of hope for people that feel like they, you know, then nothing's working. And I think that it's easy to kind of get in the mindset of like, there's one right path for you, you know, to achieve the health and wellness that you want, which is not true because everybody's different, right?
Host - Man [00:07:54] Yeah. Well, and kind of as you were going through that, one of the there's a influencer that I really like his name is Jeff Nippert. He he did a whole video that was specifically dedicated to the question, is obesity a choice? And I think that that's it. It's definitely very controversial. But one of the big things that he brought up is that different people they took they took, I don't know, a thousand people. He pulls up the actual study and I don't know the actual study right off the bat, but essentially the gist of it, they took a thousand people and they gave them each a set amount of calories every day. So something like either 200 extra calories every day. And some people gained weight and some people lost weight. And so, you know, it's kind of like, well, how is that possible if they're all in the same caloric deficit or, you know, in the same number eating, consuming the same number of calories. And a big part of that is non exercise thermogenesis, right. Of the jittering in the moving. Yeah. I was going to ask like, how much does that play into how much someone gains weight or loses weight? Because I know me if I'm not thinking about it, my knee is always wiggling up and down and, you know, and and it can like when I was a kid, I was the type of kid that could eat whatever they wanted and not hardly gain any weight. So I'd be curious to hear what your thoughts are on that.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:17] So motion is obviously going to increase fueled need. And so the higher the fuel need, the higher the fuel we create. So like one of the things I tell people is that, you know, if you're trying to lose the fat in your in the, you know, you're you're stripped everything out if you're decrease the amount of fat that you consume it's high protein and lower fat you'll lose fat faster because your body has to run on fat throughout the day. So if you're if you're active for like having to go run in the morning, you know, lifted the afternoon, you're going to lose a lot more because your body's requiring more fuel to function. So if you're sitting there, you're jittery or your legs always moving or you're just always kind of like ready to go, like those things while they have their negative side, they also will require more fuel to function. Now, here's the thing about that. Yes, they require more ATP, but they're also going to require more. I thought it'd be violence more Koku ten because that's the way your body produces the energy. And so remember, it's not just proteins, fats and carbohydrates. It's also all the other micronutrients. So yeah, you can eat a lot more, but you need to fuel that thing with with better vitamin mineral nutrition.
Host - Woman [00:10:19] I love it. And we are coming close.
As always if you have any questions, please send them to Questions@ChalmersWellness.com
Check out Chalmers Pillarsofwellness.com for Wellness updates! And ask me any questions you have at questions@chalmerswellness.com. I answer all of them and look forward to hearing from you.
The Chalmers Wellness Stubstack just launched. Comment, Like, and Interact with other people on their wellness journey. Communities can make a difference. DrChalmers.substack.com
Dr. Matt Chalmers
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only. Before taking any action based on this information you should first consult with your physician or health care provider. This information is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health providers with any questions regarding a medical condition, your health, or wellness