Real Life Runners with Angie and Kevin Brown

375: Eat Less, Move More is Horrible Advice

• Angie Brown

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'Eat Less, Move More' - you've heard this right? It seems like it's just the accepted advice if you want to lose weight - but is this good advice for runners? We explore the negative impacts of calorie restriction on active individuals, discussing how it can lead to decreased performance, muscle loss, and hormonal imbalances. Emphasizing the importance of properly fueling the body, especially for female runners and those in perimenopause or menopause, we highlight why runners need to rethink conventional dieting wisdom and focus on balanced energy intake to support their activity levels and overall health.


00:46 The Misconception of 'Eat Less, Move More'

07:21 Understanding Metabolism and Energy Needs

08:14 The Impact of Diet Culture on Active Individuals

17:54 The Importance of Matching Energy Intake with Energy Output

20:49 Nutrient Timing and Fueling Strategies for Runners

27:02 Banana Burps and Energy Metabolism

27:27 Understanding Low Energy Availability (LEA) and RED-S

31:28 Fueling for Performance: Avoiding Common Pitfalls

34:03 Intermittent Fasting: Pros and Cons

40:27 Keto Diet: Is It Right for You?

41:30 The Dangers of Calorie Restriction

46:25 Fueling Your Body for Performance




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Angie:

Welcome to the Real Life Runners Podcast, episode number 375. Eat Less, Move More is Horrible Advice for Runners. What's up everybody? Welcome to the show today. If you read the title and are a little bit confused, I'm glad because that's why we're here today. We are here to talk about why Eat Less, Move More is Horrible Advice for Runners. For runners and why you need to fuel your body more and stop dieting. It

Kevin:

sounds such a logical thing that we can improve our health by eating fewer things and by moving our body more.

Angie:

But does it? Like, this is the thing. It's It's become something that a lot of people just accept as a truth.

Kevin:

Right, and I think that's why it seems so nice and logical because you've heard it so many times that a lot of people have now just accepted this as an absolute fact because the advice was simply eat less and move your body a little bit more. To some people, for some people, which is what we're going to get into, is reasonable advice. But for runners, it is an awful statement.

Angie:

Yeah, and that's really where we're coming from here, is to help you understand that you are not like the general population. So, eat less, move more is generally good advice for runners. The American population because the majority of the American population, so by majority, I mean over 50%. I think we're up to 60%. I can double check those statistics. I think it's about 60 percent of Americans are now overweight or obese. So eat less and move more does tend to be pretty decent advice for someone who is overweight, obese and sedentary because if if you are sedentary, which I think it's about 60 percent of Americans are now overweight. So I think it's I'm guessing that you listening to a running podcast are not a sedentary human. You are very likely an active human being for sedentary individuals that are overweight or obese eat less and move more is pretty simple And probably positive advice for them,

Kevin:

right? So if you're looking on a whole population level that is That is a very simple, easy to follow directions. Simply move more. That's where the whole, like, 10, 000 steps came from. It's an easy to go with number that people can shoot for. Not that it's based in anything. Like, the science behind 10, 000 steps is terrible science, but it's a reasonable number to put out for people who are generally a sedentary population. That's not who we're talking to. That's not who you're listening as right now.

Angie:

Yeah. And so we really want to help you understand that as a runner, you are probably not the same as the general population and therefore anything that you see in social media or in mainstream media, I want you to start questioning those things. Like, is that good advice? Period or question mark and then second step is that good advice for me, right? Like putting that in and understanding what is good advice for you as a runner as an active human being Especially if you are a woman in perimenopause or menopause Some of the generalized advice that is floating around out there or that is popular right now Let's is really terrible advice for us because it's not based in science, um, very much because there's not a lot of good research out there for women in perimenopause and menopause. They're starting to become more, which is good, but even in the older population, just in general, um, especially in the older active population, a lot of research that has been conducted with athletes have been on younger males, like. Specifically in their twenties, for the most part,

Kevin:

almo, almost every bit of exercise physiology is a cluster of high performing like national caliber athletes in their twenties. And it's like, well, that's and male, like national male athletes in their twenties. And then people try and take this and expand it to general population. Which is just, it's a silly piece of, of advice,

Angie:

right? Or they take rat studies and try to expand it to the human population.

Kevin:

Well, that's a whole different conversation, a whole different

Angie:

conversation, but this is my point is that if you are not a scientist, if you are not a researcher and you just see a headline in a popular magazine or on a popular website. It's really important for you to understand where that information is coming from. And if that information even applies to you. So a great example of this was last week time magazine, they published an article and the original headline for that article is why ultra processed foods may not be as bad as you think. And then there was a lot of backlash over that title because that title can be very misleading, right? If you read that title. Like the first thing that comes to my mind is, Oh, ultra processed foods aren't are bad for me, right? Cause that's the way that that's phrased

Kevin:

sweet. I'm going to go buy me some cookies

Angie:

or some candy.

Kevin:

I mean, that, that seems like a wind to me. I'm like, huh? So apparently ultra training fuel is the way to go for my general diet, which didn't seem logical, but the headlines suggest it might not be that bad.

Angie:

Right. And so there was a lot of like outcry and backlash against it, which I'm glad that there were a lot of people that were kind of pushing back against that. And then they switched the headline, I'm pretty sure like the next day, it might have been two days later, but I'm pretty sure it was the following day to why one dietician is speaking out against the diet. are speaking out in favor of ultra processed foods or something to that effect. But they made the headline to be why one dietitian instead of why ultra processed foods may not be as bad as you think.

Kevin:

In either case, the headline, both of them, even the, I would say rectified headline, that's a little bit more to the point. Both of them are just clickbait. Like both of them are just like, wait, ultra processed foods might not be that bad. I wonder why. Like, that's what it is. Ooh, I can

Angie:

eat all the crap and be okay.

Kevin:

But it's, it's pure clickbait. Like, I'm surprised they didn't phrase it as 10 reasons why ultra processed foods might not be that bad.

Angie:

Yeah, and so, you know, My goal, our goal for this podcast is really to help you start to be more, um, discerning when it comes to the information that you read, that you take in and that you apply to you and your training. So let's get started. You know, we're, Because the headline or, you know, the clickbait quote unquote for this episode is eat less, move more is horrible advice for runners. And I truly believe that because I think that you as a runner, especially if you are a runner over 40, even over 30, you're going to be Eat less, move more. If you are already an active human being is probably not good advice because, and again, this depends on you. This depends on what you're doing, what you're already eating, what you're training for. There's a lot of different variables. So even us saying this is horrible advice is also kind of a blanket statement that we are kind of going against in this episode. So like I realized the paradox there and I realized, you know, that that's kind of what's going on. But. It's for good reason. So what I want you to start with, let's, let's start off by understanding energy metabolism, because I think that this is a really important thing. And I'm going to do my best not to get too sciencey here. So Kevin, if, if I feel like, if you feel like I'm getting too in the weeds, I should just

Kevin:

make an awkward joke.

Angie:

Yeah. And pull me back out. Okay. So. So the biggest mistake that I often see that we often see runners making when they want to lose weight. So I'm going to speak a lot with, um, you know, I've been working a lot more with women in perimenopause and menopause, and this is a very common symptom. Weight gain, especially in the belly area is a very common symptom for women in this phase of life. And so oftentimes when we're gaining weight as women, one of the first things that we do is. To start restricting what we're eating, just to go on a diet. You know, we, we grew up in the eighties and nineties in the peak of diet culture. And so this is what we know. You know, we know Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and, um, you know, uh, all these other diets out there that have us fat free diets and, you know, restricting what we're going to eat.

Kevin:

God bless margarine. Like that's, that's what I grew up with. I don't, I don't think butter was ever in the fridge for like a decade of my life. There was just always margarine.

Angie:

Right. And the problem with this if you are already an active woman or an active man and you go on a diet You're probably going to experience even lower levels of energy and you might even experience some weight gain and this can be super frustrating because you're already putting on weight. And now you're restricting calories. So you're not eating enough or you're not eating as much. And you think, well, that means that I should be gaining weight. You know, a lot of times people will start by, um, even double teaming it by restricting calories and exercising more. And then you don't see your weight go down. And some women even see their weight go up, which can be a very frustrating place to be.

Kevin:

Right. Which then often leads people to double down and just diet harder. So. Like take more things out of the picture and it's not leading to a good direction because there's a reason why your body is putting on more weight during this time.

Angie:

Exactly. And so if we kind of just go back to the science of metabolism, what is metabolism? Metabolism is. Simply your daily energy expenditure. It's how much energy you use in any given day, and there's three parts of your metabolism. Number one is your BMR, which is your basal metabolic rate. This is simply the energy that you need to keep you alive. So this is the energy that your body requires to, for your B, your brain to function, for your heart, your lungs, your like, all of your just bodily systems, your liver, your kidneys, your intestines, all of the things that are just. There your organs to keep you alive. That's your basal metabolic rate. Okay, part of your the part two of your metabolism is your thermic effect of food or T. E. F. This is the energy that is required for you to process the food that you eat. So when you eat food, your body has to then break that food down into different molecules that it can then use. And so it takes energy for your body to actually break that food down. That's the thermic effect of food. And then part number three of your metabolism is activity. So that's everything else. This includes your exercise, your workouts, your runs, your lifting, your walking, just movement, like when you're sitting at your desk and you're just kind of fidgeting, if you're like kind of bouncing your foot back and forth, if you're washing dishes, like all of the energy that is required just for you to move around and be active in your life, that kind of falls into category three.

Kevin:

Right. So your basal metabolic rate and thermal effect of food is what you would process if you just stayed in bed all day long, but, but kept eating. Yes. So any sort of movement falls into the category of activity. It doesn't even have to be exercise. Uh, yesterday at church with our kid, she would not stop bouncing her legs all mass long. It was, it was driving me nuts. But at the same time, I'm like, yeah, that's what I used to do when I was her age, just nonstop movement and fidgeting.

Angie:

Exactly. And that's like. You know, you can break down activity into various other categories because like, that is a separate category with its own category within activity. Yes. Right. I've just that like little daily movements like that, because some people are just a lot more active in those little tiny movements, like bouncing their legs or kind of fidgeting with their hands than other people. And they just break down. burn more calories. They require more energy because they're just more generally active. Just

Kevin:

the people that can't sit still and are always moving. You can see it in like in small kids. You're like, why is that kid just bouncing off the wall? I bet that kid is also real thin because they're moving nonstop.

Angie:

Exactly. So when we don't take in enough energy to meet our energy needs, right? Cause so our metabolism is our. Daily energy expenditure, right? We burn or we expend a certain amount of energy every day, every day based on our BMR, our T E F and our activity level. So when we don't take in enough energy to meet our energy needs, there's too little left for those other important functions. Those that basal metabolic rate, the functions of like, you know, our heart, our lungs, our intestines, all those different things. And so your body is getting the message that it doesn't have enough. And what it does is our body is wired for survival. First and foremost, it doesn't care. Our body doesn't care how skinny we are, right? And so when you're restricting calories and you're not giving your body enough Energy to like to perform the activity levels that you want it to perform, especially if you're increasing your exercise and you're decreasing your calorie consumption, your body compensates because your body is there and it learns how to conserve energy. Your thyroid activity drops and so does your resting metabolic rate. So the energy that is required for those normal daily Bodily functions it your body becomes more efficient So all of a sudden you're not burning as much Calories or you're not using as much energy to stay alive because the body has to be able to Protect itself and in order to survive

Kevin:

right the body will do whatever possible to maintain a baseline of BMR So if it's like I can do these activities a little bit more efficiently there are certain activities that it will not shut down and if if you Don't give it enough calories. It's going to find calories somewhere to keep your brain functioning and to keep your heart functioning and to keep your lung functioning. Like there are certain things it's like, all right, I'm shutting down this system so that these guys can continue to stay online.

Angie:

Right. But this puts the body into a very stressed out state, right? Because all of a sudden your body's thinking to itself, I don't have what I need to survive. Like if you just, I mean, just think about that for a second, right? Like if you consciously said to yourself, I don't have what I need to survive, You're going to be stressed, right? Like if you've ever felt strapped financially, right. And you're like, I don't have enough money to pay the rent this, this, um, week or this month, um, or you've, you've ever felt like you couldn't afford something, like all of a sudden you're in a very stressed out state. Now that's, what's really happening subconsciously inside of our body without us even realizing it because our body doesn't feel like it has enough energy to survive. So just like if you're in a strapped financial state, you're going to have Like budget and really figure out like where every single dollar is going and how you can squeeze certain things so that you can You know Maybe you're not going to be able to Spend money on in this one area so that you can spend more money on your groceries this month or whatever it might be You kind of start moving things around and budgeting differently. Your body does the same thing with its energy levels Okay, your body starts budgeting its energy levels differently and it decreases what it needs for that basal Just resting metabolic rate that, um, I need to stay alive. This is the amount of energy that I need to stay alive. It starts to decrease that. And what also happens because it's in this stressed out state is that cortisol levels become elevated. Okay. Cortisol is our stress hormone. And so cortisol levels become elevated. So do some of our other hormones. Our other hormones start to get affected when we don't feed our body, when we're, when our energy intake with the food that we're putting into our body does not match our energy output. So like the activity level that we're doing on a daily basis. Um, Cortisol becomes elevated, ghrelin elevates. Okay, ghrelin is our hunger hormones. So that means we are hungrier because our body is trying to give us a message like, Hey guys, I need more food. So you feel hungrier. Um, leptin decreases. That's our satiety hormone. So that's the hormone that when your body gets enough food, It's it releases leptin to let you know. Okay, I'm full. We're good. You can stop eating now. So leptin decreases and then human growth hormone also decreases. And HGH is really important for us to build muscle, build bone and to have other functions for our bodies to get stronger. So basically your hormones get All thrown out of whack just because you're not putting enough energy into your body through the food.

Kevin:

Right, so now because you're, you're simply trying to lose weight, so you've taken in less food, you've put yourself on a diet, and your body is freaking out and has gone into this complete survival mode. This is a squirrel getting ready for winter. It's like, alright, I know that I'm running low on food, and I'm going to hit a point where the food sources are even more scarce. Your body doesn't have the ability to look ahead and be like, No, no, no, don't worry, food is coming in the future. It knows there's not enough now, and it assumes this is a long term issue. And so it's going to start holding on to whatever it can. Like, the squirrel is packing away nuts for winter so that it's going to be able to make it through the frost, your body's like, I have no idea the next time I'm getting food, but I know I don't have enough for a long term. So whatever I have, I'm going to hold on to real hard,

Angie:

right? And this all happens subconsciously, unconsciously. You don't realize that this has all happened. And you think that you're doing the right thing by restricting calories because you've heard eat less, move more, right? Inside your body, what's actually happening, the messages that your hormones and your neurotransmitters are sending throughout the body is, Oh no, we don't have enough. And so, your body then tries to store, so the food that you are eating now is more likely to be stored as fat, because your body is not, uh, 100 percent sure if it's going to have enough for tomorrow for the next day for next month down the road,

Kevin:

right? So it picks the best way to store energy long term and the best way for long term storage is fat That is gonna be its safest process. So it says alright, whatever is coming in I'm gonna store it as fats in case this person decides that they're going to fast again

Angie:

Right. And so the goal really for us as active human beings, our goal needs to be energy intake equals energy demand. Okay. We want to be able to really balance out whatever activity we're doing. We want to make sure that we are taking in enough energy to fuel that activity. Now that doesn't mean we need excess energy. Again, the goal is equals. We want to try our best for energy intake to equal energy output. And that's where it gets a little tricky, right? Because that's where people are like, well, how do I know if I'm eating enough? How do I know if I'm eating too much? How do I really know? Because calorie tracking really isn't that accurate, like calories in calories out. Also, not that accurate because just because you're eating a certain number of calories does not mean that your body is absorbing all of those calories. Also the calorie counts that we have are often very inaccurate, especially if you're using any sort of like packaged food products, like, you know, one scoop, like a serving is like one scoop. But like, if you're not measuring that on a scale and even if you are, there even is still some inaccuracies in that, like you're, you don't even know if. That's really what your body is even absorbing, because a lot of that has to do with your gut health and other factors as well.

Kevin:

There's so much on this one, but On highly processed foods where, like, they have to actually put the nutritional information on the back of a package, they can be up to 20 percent off and still be legal.

Angie:

Yeah, 20 percent is a lot.

Kevin:

Yeah, so all the, like, 100 calorie packages could have 120 calories. They could also be down to 80 calories. So, you could be way over or under, and it's still legally allowed to call itself 100 calories. And it doesn't mean they're purposely trying to go over or under. It just, they, they can't. The government gives them a wiggle room to work with. But then you get to something like an apple. And, you know, many, many years ago, people somehow tried to standardize calories in, calories out, and decided that a medium sized apple is 100 calories. But you go to the grocery store, I mean, ours has, I don't know, 85 different varieties of apples. Our kids will only eat two of them, of course, but there's a million different varieties. They're not all 100 calories because the sugar contents are crazy different from one apple to the next to the next. And that is one of the biggest determinants of how many calories are actually in that, let alone what the heck a medium sized apple is. Don't even get me started on that.

Angie:

Yeah, like there's so many different sizes. I mean even within one bag, like if you buy a bag of apples, oftentimes they're pretty uniform, but like one bag to the next like they're Oftentimes when we'll buy like a two or three pound bag of apples one time, you know, it's like one bag might have like six apples because they're smaller and another bag might have four apples because they're larger, but they're both two pound bags of apples.

Kevin:

Those are big apples. If you have four apples in a two pound bag, you

Angie:

know, we've had that before.

Kevin:

I know. There's like the apples that my dad likes to eat. They're like the size of a softball. They're enormous. I

Angie:

know. So the goal here is really matching your energy intake with your energy output. And another piece that we're not going to really get into today is your nutrient timing also is very important. This is why it becomes very important for you to eat before, during and after exercise, because not only is it, is it important that you're getting enough energy, energy throughout your day. But it's also important that you get energy when your body needs it. Okay. Because even if you end up eating enough calories or enough energy throughout the course of your day, if during or right after that exercise, your activity, your body is still thinking, I don't have enough. It still goes into that stress cycle. state, right? And this is what people don't understand. This is one of the reasons that I have become, uh, very against fasted training, you know, like I used to do this. Like I used to train fasted. And this is one of those examples of when you know better, you do better. I realized that especially as a woman, especially as a woman in my forties, that was putting me into a more stressed out state. And that was really working against me that. Fueled training is much better than fasted training because of all of the hormones that are being released and what else is going on in my body. The timing of your, in your energy intake really matters as well.

Kevin:

I got to make a point on this one. Cause you are all about making sure that you fuel after a workout and you always like to add in, especially as a female athlete, but. This is super important as male athletes also, except for people that are like genetic anomalies that have the ability to train in a faceted state and still adapt from it. Overwhelming majority, like way over 90 percent of the population, because basically all women and almost all men should not be training in a fasted state in order to achieve results. People used to think if you, if you train low, if you train with like a lower amount of calories in your body, your body will be able to learn how to use the calories in a more efficient manner. And it's just not how it works. And there's so much more recent research on this and people there, there are genetic outliers on the male side, but they are. Outliers. Most people just need to fuel after they do a workout.

Angie:

Yeah. And I'm so glad that you point that out because I, most of my research lately has been on females specifically in, you know, perimenopause and postmenopause. Mine

Kevin:

has not.

Angie:

Yeah. Which is good. And that's why we have both of us on this podcast. Right? So based on what your knowledge is then for specifically for males, you, cause you just said after a workout, what about during?

Kevin:

Well, okay, this is like before or before. Yeah, so Under a certain thing and you might agree with me on this one We'll see on this one under a certain like volume of workout in the morning If if the workout is relatively short, you can kind of get away with not Fueling beforehand, if it's a short, low intensity workout, but if you're really pushing yourself at all in the morning, you need to get calories on board because you're going to have a better workout, you're going to adapt to it better and you're going to recover from it better if you get calories in beforehand.

Angie:

Yeah, I mean, I do agree with that. The intensity and duration definitely matter. Um, I think that. For males, another part of like some of the research that I've been doing is that males burn carbohydrates more effectively than females. Females are more effective at using fat for, um, energy during exercise, but. We as females still need carbohydrates to kickstart that fat burning process. And I think that that's really important for us to understand too, is like, even if you're cause like, that's really the goal that a lot of people are trying to accomplish with fasted training. They go out cause they say that, Oh, well, if I don't eat anything before my workout, then my body will burn more fat. And that turns out that that's not really that true because your body does need some carbohydrates to help kickstart that fat burning process. So that's why it's good. Yeah. Even if it's a small snack, it doesn't have to be, you know, a couple hundred calories. Ideally, you're taking in like 150 to 300 calories before your runs or before your workouts again, depending on duration and intensity. So that's ideal. But like, Something is better than nothing, right? Like this is always the, um, real life mantra that I like to go by is something is better than nothing. And that's even what we were telling our cross country kids this morning. Like these are our high school teenagers and we had a morning workout because it's Labor Day today. And S and so they didn't have school. And yes, we were those coaches that made them show up at school at 8 AM anyway, on a non school day. But. We and we did a workout, you know, we did a speed workout on the track with them and some of them realized that they did a Decent job fueling and a lot of them realized that they did not do a decent job fueling And so, you know I did have a little talk with them about like make sure you're taking in something if you're someone that Doesn't want to eat a lot of food or you want to try to sleep sleep to the last minute and you don't give, give your body enough time to digest. Okay. But at least take in some Gatorade or some sort of sugar on your way, you know, like before a workout, because something is going to be better than nothing.

Kevin:

Yeah. I mean, at that point, I hate to go back to your, your article you're referencing, but something processed that your body is going to be able to quickly and easily absorb is going to be your option. If you're like, well, I only have. Fifteen minutes before I'm out the door. What is it that I'm going to take that? I don't feel like I'm full You need something that is quick absorbing which is going to be something that is fairly processed carbs.

Angie:

Yeah ultra processed like well And again, this is why Some of that advice out there like in general I believe that ultra processed foods are problematic and are causing a lot of health problems in our communities Culture and with our society. I am not a big fan of ultra processed foods. However, on the same, on the other hand, we are runners and ultra processed. Carbohydrates are really helpful for us, especially if you're training for like a half marathon, a marathon, an ultra marathon, those can be helpful sources of energy. And there's a lot of times where, um, It's better to have that energy, even if it's in an ultra processed form versus not having that energy on board.

Kevin:

True story. But with that in mind, I also have been eating a banana before I head out the door on a long run. Like banana, other

Angie:

options within

Kevin:

five minutes of foot to pavement, which I did not use to be able to pull that off. I can take

Angie:

it.

Kevin:

I know you have banana issues. I can take down a whole. I've upped it to an entire banana and can still hit up and get rolling.

Angie:

Yeah, that's impressive. My, I still have banana burps and like, I mean, I haven't tried because I just, I dislike them so much.

Kevin:

No, I, I persevered and pushed through and I can take in a whole banana now. It's great.

Angie:

So good. All right. So getting back to energy metabolism here and why this is so important for us. There are two conditions. One condition is called LEA or Low Energy Availability. So like, if you are exercising more than, and you're not fueling your body enough, like if your energy intake is not matching your energy output, you can get into a state called Low Energy Availability or LEA. And LEA, when that happens, becomes even more serious, you can get into what's called red s or relative energy deficiency in sport, and both of these conditions are very problematic, and they mess with your hormones, and they do all sorts of things to your body. Now, as a woman in perimenopause and menopause, you might already be having irregular periods, and one of the hallmark signs for red s, which used to be called, um, the female triad, is was loss of period, right? So it can be very confusing and hard to diagnose this in our later years because we, we lose that hallmark sign, right? Because our periods either are gone already if you've already been through menopause or they're already irregular because you're, you're getting closer to menopause.

Kevin:

So then you jump into the same issue that, that men have had who are, One, they were dealing with a battle of, it was called the female triad. Like, uh, Loss of Menzies, if I remember correctly, was one of the corners of the triad. And guys are like, uh, yeah, well I checked that box, what else am I supposed to do? And the other ones aren't as quick and obvious. And no one wanted to suggest the, the, like, clear sign on the male side is, are you waking up with an erection? Because that's the sign on the men's side that is the equivalent is, Is it regular

Angie:

like you're not doing like you lose that you

Kevin:

lose that ability. Are you, are you constantly waking up without one? Because that is the equivalent sign on the male side. And it just, it sounds more awkward to talk about for some reason, but it's not. And it's a, it's a pretty easy indicator.

Angie:

Yeah. And I think that both are awkward for people to talk about, right? Because whenever we're talking about like that, you know, that area, things in that area, like people tend to like, start to get shy and like, a little like squirmish for, for no good reason. We're all humans. We all have that area.

Kevin:

I know, but if you get squirmish, it increases your activity calories, which you can add to your BMR. Fantastic. Thank you.

Angie:

Wonderful. Not, not to your BMR, but to your overall metabolism. To

Kevin:

your overall metabolism. You add in your, your bimmer and your teff squirming.

Angie:

Yes. Okay. So some signs of low energy availability or red ass is that your performance will start to decrease or plateau. You usually, you'll start to notice that you have less strength and power like on your runs. Um, if you're strength training, which I hope to goodness you are, um, you'll notice more less strength and power. You know, like, uh, trying to lift those same weights is going to be much harder. You might notice that you have to decrease the weights that you're lifting or decrease the repetitions that you're doing. You'll notice an increased heart rate with your activities. Um, when it starts to get even more serious, you might start to notice stress reactions or stress fractures in your bone. There will be decreased immune function. So you'll be getting sick more easily. Um, you might start to experience GI issues, um, constant hangriness. Right, like if you're like hungry all the time and moody on top of that, that could be a sign that you are in low energy availability. Um, and another one that people don't, uh, always recognize is insomnia because when you're not taking in enough energy, oftentimes you can drop into hypoglycemia at night and that can wake you up. So increased waking up, um, during the night and like having trouble both falling and staying asleep, um, can also be a sign of low energy availability.

Kevin:

Um, so in order to hit low energy availability, you got to start knocking off several of these things because there's a lot of good causes for them that might not be low energy availability. But if you're like, Oh, well, I, I've been trying, I've been putting on weight. So I've been trying to not eat as much and you start checking these boxes, you might want to consider, you know, well, the next part of our podcast, actually.

Angie:

Or if you have started training for a new race distance, or you start increasing your training and you're eating the same, right? Like maybe that's what's happening. You know, like if you are increasing your training load, if, if say you've never run a marathon before and you've decided you're going to run your first marathon this year, fantastic. But if you're eating looks the same, people always complain. They're like, I don't understand it. I gained, I've gained 10 pounds during marathon training. It's because you're not fueling your body well enough. Like your body is going into. Storage mode because you're not giving it enough energy. Like you cannot, if you are training for a marathon and running a lot of more, a lot more miles, you cannot eat the same as you did before you were training for the marathon. You have to start fueling your body more. Before, during, and after your runs, and then also just throughout your day, because it's hard to get in that amount of calories, the amount of calories that you need right around the workout, so it does, you know, you have to feel yourself throughout the day, and if not, you are probably going to gain weight, and people think it's the opposite, and then they start seeing the weight gain, and then restricting more, and it just, you know, makes everything worse.

Kevin:

It's a terrible spiral and it's not gonna get you in a happy place or successful place to the starting line. Take, have a snack. I know, have a snack before you run, fuel the run, have a snack afterwards, and then continue your normal eating because those little extra snacks that you weren't putting in before might be enough calories. It's probably not on the day of your long run and the day after, which is another one that people like to restrict is, well I did a long run yesterday and So I'm not doing a run today. Today's an off day to recover from that. So I don't need to take in enough calories, as many calories. And it's like, no, no, no. You were probably in a hole from yesterday. Like if, if you're used to having a long run of like six to eight miles, and now suddenly your long run is 18 to 20 miles, you probably didn't get enough fuel on that day. And you need an entire extra day to make sure that you're still getting back to baseline.

Angie:

Yeah, exactly. And so like the, again, you're, you need to fuel your body for your activity level. Like if you are training, like if you are training for any sort of race, you are an athlete period. Okay. You need to start thinking like an athlete and fueling your body like an athlete. This is really, really important. So I want to take a couple of minutes now. I mean, we'll see how, how we're doing here, but like, I want to quickly address some of the popular diets that are out there because. I want you guys to understand what these could be doing for your body or to your body now again. Are there outliers? Always right there are always sometimes or some people that these things might be Work for but for the majority of us. These are probably not a good idea All right. So the first one I want to talk about is intermittent fasting. What is intermittent fasting? It's simply restricting your food intake for a certain window of time now. There are actually that's a And that is one form of intermittent fasting. There's actually lots of different ways that you can do this. So some people just restrict their food intake to a certain window of time, like, um, 16, eight is a popular one, so that means you only eat for eight hours and then you don't eat for 16 hours. Some people make it even more drastic and only do like a four hour eating window and then a 20 hour fasting window. Some people fast for like a, a full day, like 24 hour fast. every week or every couple of weeks. Some people do a three day fast, like once a month, like, so there's lots of different versions of this, but for the most part, um, time restricted eating is, is really the most popular, uh, way that most people do intermittent fasting, I believe, um, and that's really the, the eating window and the non eating window. So people will call it intermittent fasting or restricted, time restricted eating all the way up to basically 12 hours. And when it's past that, like, that's just. Normal eating, in my opinion, like the people like I do a 12 12. I'm like, oh, so you eat like you're supposed to like, think about it. Like our bodies were not. Created to be awake for what? 16, 18 hours a day. Like we, you know, before we had electricity, we had our circadian rhythm are basically synced up with the sun, right? Like our bodies were essentially. Programmed to wake up when the sun rises and get start to get tired and go to sleep when the sun sets, essentially

Kevin:

right. So if you actually, if you quote unquote restrict your eating to sunny times, it is technically restricted, but it's a reasonable window that is not overly restrictive because as soon as you start getting overly restrictive on anything, your body's going to rebel. 12 on 12 off is actually just following the normal cycle of the day, which is much more reasonable.

Angie:

Yeah. So, I mean, Intermittent fasting, the way that we're going to talk about it for this episode, is, you know, people that are very strict about their time eating window. So we're not talking about like a 12 hour time, you know, 12 hour window or anything like that. That's kind of just normal. But if you are talking about like a 16 8 or a 14 10 or a 6 18 window, um, that's kind of what we're talking about here. Now, people that are For intermittent fasting will tell you that it lowers insulin and burns stored fat. They'll tell you that it increases cellatophagy, which is like cell death. That's like a programmed cell death. That's a good thing. We need this in our bodies, right? We want our old cells to die. We want new cells to be born. Um, and, It is, it has been shown to be a good thing in research studies that done with people that are obese or that have diabetes type two diabetes specifically. But most likely that's not you. Like if you are not a sedentary obese individual with type two diabetes and not saying that you might not have type two, cause you might have diabetes. If you're listening to this podcast, it's become very prevalent, um, in, in the world today. But. Again, make sure you know what population that these studies were done on, and if it's good information that applies to you. And then if we go and look at those studies even more, even when we look at the women in those studies. That were more sedentary. The women in those studies were not runners. They really showed that there was no, like they didn't have the same benefits as the male participants in those studies. They didn't have the same benefits of insulin sensitivity or improvement in autophagy. There wasn't any improvement in autophagy. There was a slight improvement in HDL levels, but there was no shift or no improvement in LDL or triglycerides. So again, uh, You know, the headlines get thrown out there saying, like, intermittent fasting can help with cell, you know, cell autophagy and help to decrease your risk of type two diabetes and decrease obesity and improves fat burning. But for what population? Who was in that study that made that headline hit you? like that's where it's always really important to start looking. So the other research studies that I've seen, did you want to jump in here with something?

Kevin:

I just love the fact that they, they push the big thing of it increases cell autophagy because most people don't know what that is. And so then they'll really,

Angie:

I know.

Kevin:

And then they'll do a really quick superficial definition of what it is of like, well, this is like, this is the cell death of your old, not working well cells. These guys will now die faster and you'll get new cells

Angie:

so you won't get cancer

Kevin:

so you don't get cancer. That's that's the don't

Angie:

forget that That's

Kevin:

the headline, but your body naturally does this like and as you just pointed out There's actually no increase in the female population. But as as athletes Your body naturally does this at a higher rate because you're breaking down the cells every time you work out. And then guess what? You get new ones. So like this is a normal process in your body. Like it's normal enough that I teach it in taught it in freshman biology. So it's gotta be a relatively normal, easy to go function.

Angie:

Exactly. And that's really the point of all of this is you are already getting. Most of those benefits from exercise from your runs, especially if you are Understanding your effort levels and you're trying to polarize your training where you're doing most of your running easy And you're throwing in some hard days, you know hard days hard easy days easy Yeah, you know the all the stuff that we talked about on our podcast last week if you're training in that way You're already getting all these benefits. You are improving your insulin. Guess what exercise is Improves insulin sensitivity, exercise improves cell autophagy, exercise decreases your risk of type 2 diabetes and obesity and improves your bone health because running is an impact exercise. You are already getting all of those benefits from running. And if they look at some of the research studies that have actually looked at. The active population shows that intermittent fasting has no additional benefit to active people, and it can actually be detrimental to performance.

Kevin:

Right. Cause you're, you're putting all the risk of, you might possibly be not fueling your body for the exercise that you're going to, which means your body's going to have to find the energy somewhere. Is it, is it taking it from muscles? Is it taking it from bones? Yes. And yes, it's pulling nutrients from somewhere. You feed your body, put good food into your body all the time.

Angie:

All right. The other, the next diet I want to talk about is keto. Um, same idea. Okay. It does have some okay results in sedentary women. It does have some good results in people that are obese, but again, body, your body needs carbs to kickstart fat burning. Okay, especially as an athlete. So women, our research shows that women who do keto have more muscle fatigue. They have decreased bone remodeling. So basically when, when we do like an impact exercise, basically we're breaking bone down and then our bone builds up stronger. That's part of the benefit of impact exercise. But. But if you're, they've shown that women on a keto diet, less of that happens. So there's less bone building, less bone remodeling, increased appetite and increased fat storage. And again, cortisol rises because the body is in a stressed state, which therefore then depresses like decreases the activity of the thyroid and increases belly fat storage. So again, kind of the opposite of what you're, what we're all wanting and what we're going for. And this is the really big thing that I want you to understand is that Keto or intermittent fasting or just calorie restriction in general can help you lose weight, right? And this is what happens is people are like, but I lost weight like it must have worked But how did you feel on it, right? and because a lot of the reason that these diets quote unquote work is that they're restricting calories if you're not allowed to eat eat for 16 hours out of your day. You're only allowed to eat for eight hours out of your day. Chances are, you're probably going to eat less than if you were to eat 12 or 14 hours out of the day like you were doing before, right?

Kevin:

Yeah. I mean, this is the idea of you're going to eat a lot if you go to a buffet, like whatever the restriction is on it. And, and, and, Intermittent fasting people like oh, but you can eat whatever you want during that window. It's like okay, but you've restricted the time But

Angie:

there's still a boundary

Kevin:

keto. You have to wrap everything in bacon if I remember correctly is the rule to that one So there's a restriction I could make up my own diet and be like it's the five letter diet You're only allowed to eat four foods that you can spell with five letters. That's going to drastically limit what you can put into your body. The fact that bread is on the list. Some people be like, Oh, I can eat the carbs. Yeah, sure. But you can only eat things with five letters. It's naturally going to make it more difficult to figure out what to put into your body. And because it's more difficult, you're going to put less into your body. Congrats. You're going to be in an energy deficit.

Angie:

Right, but the problem that nobody talks about, like I just heard a statistic, um, this week from Dr. Vonda Wright, who's an orthopedic specialist that, uh, an orthopedic surgeon who is a specialist in, uh, menopause care. The problem is when you lose weight via calorie restriction, 25 to 50 percent of that weight loss is muscle. Okay, that is huge because your body, it's not like you're just burning fat. Like if you are restricting calories, you're not just burning fat. You're also losing muscle. You might be losing bone. 25 to 50% Of that weight loss of calorie restricted diets comes from loss of muscle. Okay, as women, especially as men too. Okay, but I'm speaking for the ladies here as women in perimenopause menopause. We do not need to be losing muscle, right? We are already losing enough muscle because of the declines in estrogen and because of just normal aging processes. We do we need to be preserving our muscles. Okay, the the other thing is. Because those diets are often unsustainable, like people can stay on them for a certain amount of time, but it's not a way that you're going to live the rest of your life, most likely, because they're too restrictive. So that at some point, those quote unquote, those diets stop working. I would argue that they never actually worked in the first place if they're not sustainable, but that's another topic for another day. When you gain that weight back, 80 percent of the weight that you gain back is fat. Okay. So when you lose the weight, 25 to 50 percent of that weight is muscle. And then when that, when you gain that weight back, 80 percent of it is fat. So all of a sudden the body composition, it just keeps it in. The people are on these yo yo diets where they lose the weight, they gain the weight, they lose the weight, they gain the weight. And basically what we're doing is losing muscle and gaining fat.

Kevin:

Right. Over, over multiple yo yos, you're definitely, even at the same body weight, you're coming up with more fat percentage over time.

Angie:

Exactly.

Kevin:

And I mean, the low end of that range of 25%, you're still coming back with more fat because the balance of that would then be 75%. Like you're coming back with a whole heck of a lot more fat. If you're losing 50 percent muscle and coming back 80 percent fat, that's not going well for you. If you've, if you've worked this cycle multiple times. Yeah.

Angie:

And like, you're not losing 50 percent of. Your muscle, right? The 50 percent of the weight that you lost. So if you lose 10 pounds, five pounds of that is muscle,

Kevin:

right? But then when you put the 10 pounds back on eight of them are fat.

Angie:

Yes, exactly. That's

Kevin:

the problem. You just gained three pounds of fat off of the 10 pounds that you're the same weight, but there's a bonus three pounds of fat,

Angie:

right? And that's where it becomes really problematic. And that's also where it becomes more risk for your health. Why then this is one of the reasons why people that are on diets that have a history of dieting have. More risk for chronic health conditions, like metabolic syndrome, like diabetes, like, um, cardiovascular disease, all these other issues because you're actually losing your muscle and you're just gaining fat. And a lot of times it's that belly fat, which is the visceral fat, the fat around your organs in your belly. That's the problematic fat, right? That is the fat that actually increases your risk for those chronic diseases and those chronic problems. So. I hope, I really, really hope that we've given you enough evidence here or enough at least reason to start questioning me. I hope that you'll stop dieting forever. That is my goal is for you to actually fuel your body. And so you might be thinking to yourself, Andrew, well, what do I do now then? Okay, because I was doing this. Now what do I do? What I want you to focus on, there's two main things I want you to focus on. Number one. Focus on fueling your body for performance. So ask yourself. What is it that I want to do? What do I want my activity level to look like? What do I want my life to look like and focus on fueling your body for that? That answer is going to be different for every single person, right? And so I can't tell you what Well, you should eat this and this. You should have this amount of grams of protein and carbohydrates because it depends on what you want to do. It depends on your body type. It depends on so many different factors, right? So that's number one. Focus on what you want to do. And then number two, I want you to focus on adding things in. Versus taking things out, and this is a really powerful mindset shift because if your mindset has always been around restriction and like trying to eat less or decrease your calories or create a calorie deficit, um, I want you to instead focus on not Okay, what do I need to cut out? What can't I have? But focus on what do I need to add in, right? Maybe I need to be adding more protein, more fruit, more vegetables. Because when you start eating more of those things, your body's not going to want all of the sugar and the simple carbohydrates and the things that you might be craving right now because you're actually going to be meeting the the energy and the nutrient needs of your body. And so it's just going to feel a lot better

Kevin:

if you eat like a good meals, good meals throughout the day, filled with protein and nutrient dense fruits and vegetables. You just get full and you don't then have to supplement it with nutrients. Something and I need something right now because I'm really really hungry and I'm bordering on that hangry. I'm feeling starving I'm starting to move into that like body freaking out. There's not enough energy inside of me mode You just actually put in good high quality foods into your into your body like when you make dinner When you put it on your own plate, I've watched you do this. You put protein on your plate before you put anything else. I put things on my plate in the order that they're sitting on the table. Like generally, whatever is closest to me goes on my plate first. I've watched you fill yours. You put protein and then you put veggies. Like there is a specific order that you put it on. So there's just not that much room on your plate. By the time you get to, I don't know. Potatoes, rice, whatever else. Yeah,

Angie:

and I still eat those things because those things are still important for me as a runner and as an athlete but the way that my body is as a 43 year old woman like I need certain things in certain ratios for me to feel and perform my best. And that's what I think it's important for all of us to understand and to learn.

Kevin:

But you pointed out, make sure that you're fueling for what you want to do. I want to run stupidly long distances. So on days where I've run absurd mileages, I'm like, all right, bring the pot of rice over here, cause I'm going to cover my plate with it. And then I'm going to make sure that I have enough other things also, but I need to make sure I've got a good load of carbs sitting on my plate.

Angie:

Yeah. And that's important for you because of what you want to do. And also because you're a male and you are a male with a, your. What we would call an ectomorph, which we're not going to get into tonight. Cause we're already, you know, kind of at time limit, but it's your body type too. Right. The way that your body type, the way that your body uses energy and burns energy is much different than mine. And then, then other men, even your same age.

Kevin:

Yes. Also very true.

Angie:

Yeah. So. I really hope that this episode was helpful. If you guys found it helpful, please, um, could you take, you know, a minute or so and just leave us a review over on Apple podcast or on Spotify or share it with a friend that you think might benefit from this? Because my goal is to really help runners to feel better. And for. Yeah. Runners to be able to build strong bodies, to carry them through the next decades, like decade upon decade of their life so that you can feel strong and do what you want to do, you know, and not be plagued by some of these chronic, uh, diseases and disabilities. So, um, as always guys, thank you for joining us. This has been the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 375. Now get out there and run your life.