Dr. Matt Chalmers shares his personal journey of weight loss and challenges conventional wisdom about calories and nutrition. Through a scientific lens, he questions the simplistic notion of "calories in, calories out," delving into the chemical processes of metabolism, the role of macros, and hormonal control. Drawing from extensive research, Dr. Chalmers explores topics like gluconeogenesis, glycemic index, and fat oxidation, shedding light on how the body truly functions. He emphasizes the importance of understanding nutrition from a chemical standpoint and offers insights into optimizing fat loss and overall wellness.
Highlights of the Podcast
01:12 - About Calories
01:31 - The definition of a calorie
02:56 - Carbohydrates and protein
03:27 - The amino acids
04:02 - The actual energy function of the body
04:53 - The macros
05:27 - About burning calories
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:07] All right. I think I figured out how to get it on all the systems. So I've got my phone on Instagram. I've got the rest of the stuff on stream. So, so like I said, this is this is kind of I just want to walk you guys through the journey that I went through, getting to where I am. Hopefully you guys can send me some research on the stuff that, I'm lacking in. And today is one of those things where I am. I've got a lot. A lot of. Misunderstanding. Maybe you guys can send me some research. Maybe I should help me out with some of this. So.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:39] When I was going through this and I was really fat and other pictures. And since I figured out how to get the slides to work, I'll show you pictures of me. I was over 300 pounds for a while, and I was doing the calories in, calories out thing, and I was eating just like I was told, and I was within my calorie margins and I was super fat. And so I started looking at everything I was doing and questioning everything I was doing, but I was questioning it at the at the scientific level. I was actually reading the research, and I was looking for math, and I was trying to figure out where everything was going sideways.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:11] And so the questions I had about calories, because everybody seems everybody tells me calorie deficits, calories, calories in, calories out. If you're worried about fat, calories in, calories out. And there's no question. And if you don't believe it's calories in, calories out, you're stupid and you just don't know what's going on. All right. Fair. I have no idea what's going on with calories. The definition of a calorie is the amount of energy required to move one kilogram of water one degree Celsius. All right. So basically what a calorie is, is it's a measurement of potential, thermal energy. So if you have ten calories, what we know is that that will move one kilogram of water. Ten degrees Celsius. Fantastic. That's awesome. I'm doing thermal.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:53] Thermal chemistry or I. Thermal physics. I don't know how that works in the body, though. How do how does too many of those, I mean, too many calories make me fat because fat is a chemical. Fat. Fat is, you know, depending on how you look at it, it's a lipoprotein. It's, you know, it's a it's a triglyceride. It's a glycerol, like there's actual chemical function. So how does a calorie, which is a measurement of basically energy, kind of like horsepower is to power, to force. How does that become fat? And so that's always that's always the question I've had is how does it become fat. Which is an actual chemical. And then people who tell me that's calories in, calories out, calories is all about calories. Just look at the calories, focus on calories, write your calories down.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:43] Then they tell you that you should eat more protein. Well, hold on now, because now you're talking on two sides of your mouth. Because if it calories are what matter, it doesn't matter if you eat all of protein or all carbohydrates. Because carbohydrates and protein are equal in the calorie equation. There's four calories per gram of carbohydrate. There's four calories per gram of protein. So if you're talking about calories in, calories out, calories and proteins and characters are dead, even there is no difference. And so that was one of my major issues because I can I can walk you through how a protein would become fat. It's almost impossible. So for instance, you have to eat the protein. You have to digest it into it's amino acids absorb those amino acids.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:27] The amino acids that are then absorbed have to go to the liver, create what's called gluconeogenesis, where you make new sugar out of them. And then that sugar has to be able enough to feed the blood. And then if you made even more, which never happens, it would feed your feed the brain at. Well, you can feed the brain. I, I feed the brain, the source tells us. But then we have to feed all the muscles. Once it feeds all the muscles, then you have to create enough excess in the blood. This the body would recognize that create a hormonal insulin response and then push that back to the liver to turn that glucose it made into fat.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:59] That process would require so much ATP, which is the actual energy function of the body. It's not a calorie is ATP. It would require so much ATP. This body would never do it. It's just absurd because the amount like if you take if you take a gram of fat versus a gram of protein, the you can get about a 100. It's about 100, 100. The whole math ends up being it's about 100. ATP from fat 40 form the same measurement of, protein. So I don't find it very possible that you're going to eat a protein is going to go through all those steps and spend all that energy to turn it to fat. So that's the reason people say, you know, calories in comes out but eat high protein. They're they're wrong in the calories. Well, they're close on the calories.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:46] The amount you ingest obviously matters. Hey, guys. But the thing that we have to focus on is it's not the calories, it's the macros. Because we have to start doing this chemically. Your body is a chemical engine. It's not a heat engine. If it was, we'd have smokestacks where we'd have expel that gas. Because if you're going to combust a gas, I'm sorry. You're going to combust something. Burn it for heat energy. It's going to produce waste gases, not chemically. So like like, well, oxidation is burning. No it's not iron oxide is rust. If you can take a piece of iron, set it outside, it will rust. It will go oxidized, but it won't burst into flames.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:23] So oxidation and burning are not the same thing. So when we talk about burning calories, that's not how the body works. You oxidize things. So if you start looking at from a chemical standpoint, that's when I started understanding how it worked. So like I said, proteins are never going to come from carbohydrates. Depend upon, the couple themselves. So that's what we sort of my glycemic function. How quickly it turns to sugar. How how much of an insulin response in your body makes to it, and then how susceptible you are to turning things in the fat. There's some genetic pieces in there. So there's a lot of chemistry in there. It's much, much easier to just explain it from a similar type function and a glycemic index function.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:59] People understand that a lot better. So that was always my problem. Was that one we had this thing that we were hinging everything on that didn't have a chemical function. And our bodies are chemical machines. So that was my first problem. The second problem was, is that, you know, proteins and carbohydrates are wildly different. One is, like I said, almost never going to be able to make you fat chemically. The other one is either going to be good, sustainable energy or it's gonna make you really fat and depend. That depends upon one the glycemic index of that, that particular food. And then how well your body deals with that. Like I said, that's a smart type thing. We'll talk about smarter typing tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have some slide function to figure it out. So but that's how it works. The other thing about calories is that they say if you eat too many calories, you will get fat. Well, the problem I had with that is we all know people who can eat anything they want as much as they want and never gaining out.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:56] The. My problem is that your system of measurement, your system of function either works or it doesn't. If it works for everybody, it's a good system. If it doesn't work for everybody, it's a bad system. And if you're trying to tell me that proteins and carbohydrates are identical and their function, you're you're wrong. So they just don't do that. So I got a question. Where do I get all this information? Lots and lots and lots of research. I like Ncbi. I like the national state of health stuff. Harvard. So that's pretty good. It just depends on where it comes from and who financed it. And I'll get into some of that later. Like I said, I'll post some of this stuff. I will post on Pillars of Wellness. So if you guys go to Pillars of Wellness in a day or two, I'll have this video and I'll have the research links up. But I'll kind of go through some of that stuff as we go. So that's, that's where that's where a lot of my, my issues come from is it doesn't make chemical sense. And we're chemical engines. And if you want to have a chemistry conversation, awesome. But if it's not a chemistry conversation, it's not a body conversation.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:57] That's that's where it is. But that's kind of that's kind of my issues with it. And then when I started figuring out some magnetizing hormonal control, hormonal functionality, glycemic index, things like that, that's where that's where we started figuring out, okay, now I can understand how these things work. Now I can manipulate them, now I can burn fat at an unbelievable rate and figure out how to think, how to work things through it. This is where we start talking about a glucose fat state versus a, fat oxidizing state, or even ketosis, which are not the same thing, but they're close. And so that's where a lot of this stuff comes from. So as we go through this, I'll explain it. You guys can take a look at it, judge it however you want to. I like I said, the the information will be on Wellness.com here in a couple days. and I'll just I'll just post that that some links, not all the links. I'll post some links to some research that, kind of led me to this direction.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:51] I'll post the research on how a protein would become fat or gluconeogenesis, and how that carbohydrates and fat become fat as they go through. But fats really easy. I didn't go through that one. That's really easy, that highly dependent upon the carbon chain. So less than 12 carbon chain. You're a small short medium chain fatty acids. Those get absorbed instantly and they're utilized like that for fuel. They can be stored. There's a lot of things in the internet. Since they can't be stored, the chances are going to be stored also where they can be stored. The and then the higher ones are attached to kind of a micron can absorb through the, through the industrial lemon and then taking throughout the body. So that's, you know, that's one of those things I'll touch on this for a quick, but I'm not gonna go into very deep, cholesterol is one of those large carbon chains extremely important. That's one of the big lies. We've been told that cholesterol is bad for us. We'll get into that when you get the cholesterol. If you guys have any questions, questions at Chalmers Wellness, drop them in the comments. And we'll be able to kind of walk through and get all those answered. Thank you guys.
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Dr. Matt Chalmers
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