-: Now we're gonna get into the systemic
regulation of metabolism by all those systems
that we just previously went over.
So basically we're gonna to look at how the body stores,
uses, moves around energy
from whatever dietary source that we happen to have.
So our different energy sources are obviously one,
what are we getting from out diet?
So the stuff that we have recently digested
that's getting into the bloodstream,
so that's gonna be source of aminos,
protein, carbohydrates, all dependent on
the meal that we happen to consume.
We store fuel, the two major fuel sources
that we store at glycogen and then stored fat.
We don't store protein per se as a reserve,
but we can always break down our proteins
as amino acids.
So you could look at muscle tissue or really any tissue
as potentially stored protein, but that's not
the ideal situation that we want to be in.
We don't want to be catabolic to our tissues
to be feeding the body, right?
We don't want to be in that aspect,
and that kind of leads into this last one,
this assimilated fuel where we're transforming
some sort of fuel source.
The main thing that our body does
in terms of assimilating fuel is it can take amino acids
and certain of those it can break down
and use those to make glucose
when we don't have actual glucose,
so to fuel the brain when we are being carb restricted
or to fuel the muscles when the liver
is not able to provide that.
So that is an important process that we'll look at,
is the ability to turn protein, carbohydrates,
I'm sorry, the ability to turn protein into carbohydrates.
The process is called gluconeogenesis.
And we'll kind of get into the role that that plays
in terms of energy metabolism.
When we look at storage we basically have two places
that we're gonna store the majority of our fuel.
We have adipocytes where we're gonna store fat, right?
Fat cells store fat, that one's pretty simple.
Our muscles, they store most of the glycogen
and a little of the fat, but remember the muscles
are extremely selfish, they're stingy,
they want to keep all that for themselves.
So whatever the muscles store tends to be
for their personal use.
So if I store muscle in my bicep,
that's for when my bicep contracts and needs it.
Now that may seem bad, like poor body,
the biceps are so selfish they won't share
any of their glucose with you,
but in reality, from a performance perspective,
from an ability to be able to move around
and do the things that we need to survive,
the muscles need energy on demand.
When you need to move, you can't wait for energy
to come from somewhere else to the muscle,
it needs to happen like that.
And so the muscles have to be stingy in a way
for your own survival, they have to be prepared
to meet your demands.
So when the nervous system says get up and run,
you can get up and run because there's fuel
readily available right there for them to use.
So that is by design in terms of like survival
and in terms of performance, right?
So we want that actually to be the case,
because it would actually be more stressful
for our body to have to all of a sudden
find a way to meet this long distance energy demand
right away, it just simply wouldn't be possible.
So that's an important disparity there
between the ways that we store things.
The liver, however, is the guy that stores things
for everybody else.
So he is the universal donor, if you will.
So the liver also stores glucose as glycogen.
And it does it particularly for the brain
and the red blood cells, so that's its main job,
the liver is essentially the glucose bank for the body,
but its most important customer is the brain, right?
That's the VIP, he's got like all the safety
deposit boxes and whatnot.
So the liver is the safety mechanism to make sure
we are always able to get glucose to the brain,
because the brain always needs some glucose.
Even on a ketogenic diet, the brain still needs
glucose and so do the red blood cells,
so we always have a certain amount of glucose that we need.
And that's where that assimilation or that transformation
aspect of being able to convert amino acids into glucose
becomes very important, because when we look at
something important like being in a ketogenic diet,
we obviously need to get that glucose from somewhere.
If it's not from the diet it's got to come from amino acids,
but I'm working ahead of myself.
So the liver does that process
and it's called gluconeogenesis.
So that is that formation of glucose from amino acids,
so we do that when we're restricted from carbohydrates
or when we're using so many carbohydrates
from a muscular perspective that we're essentially
draining the blood glucose and we need to be able
to balance that blood glucose.
So the liver in this case will actually start
being the thing that's putting glucose
back into the blood to stabilize that.
When glycogen is really low, especially from the liver,
then it has to run this process
to stabilize that blood sugar.
So the liver has its own glycogen store,
it can donate that to the blood glucose to fuel the brain,
to fuel the muscles, fuel the red blood cells.
When that glycogen store gets low,
it has to do the gluconeogenesis more,
to a greater degree, longer basically,
burning more protein to make carbohydrate.
So we have this other process that the liver does
which is called ketogenesis.
And let's look at all these things the liver does
and it's all for other things,
that's probably why it's called the liver,
you can't live without it because it basically supports
all these other processes, all these other
organs, systems, and tissues.
So ketogenesis is basically another way
of transforming fuel.
And in this case it's essentially making fat
more readily available, so what it does
is it takes fat which is this long chain of carbons,
and what we can do is we can cut that fat up
and transform those little pieces into the things
that are more readily available for energy,
so fat is only this big molecule
that has to slowly be clipped and used for fuel,
it needs to be cut up into these small chunks
to be able to use for fuel, so that's a slower process.
So what ketogenesis does is it actually says okay,
we are gonna take and we are gonna essentially
precut some of the stuff and make this fuel
easier and more accessible to other parts of the body.
What that does because it allows basically a faster
and easier way of getting fat to the tissues
to be used for energy is it decreases the amount
of glucose that I need to be using at rest.
So ketogenesis is a protective mechanism
to limit how much gluconeogenesis I need to be doing
when carbohydrates are restricted.
So keto is a very low carb diet, right?
So you take all the carbohydrates out of the diet
and generally you add in a lot more fat.
And if I didn't, if the system didn't work,
if all I did was take out my carbs and at more fat
and I didn't have a way of making that fat more usable,
what would happen is my liver would have to be burning
a ton of protein to support the glucose demand.
So I would still be using a lot of glucose
because fat's just simply too slow
and too inefficient for certain tissues.
So by having the ketogenesis thing kick on
and start making basically easier and more usable
smaller fat molecules if you will,
that's not technically accurate, they're not small
fat molecules, they're small acetylcholase,
but they're what we cut fat into for energy.
So basically like pre-prepping the fat to be burned
for fuel, what it does is it allows
more of my energy demands to be met by that
so I'm burning less glucose, therefore I'm burning
through less protein to make to glucose
which is very important in terms of survival mechanism
because this actually this whole turning protein
into glucose actually wastes energy.
It costs me energy to do it, but I need this
process to exist or I would die,
I wouldn't be able to stabilize my blood sugar
any time I didn't have enough carbohydrates in reserve.
The second my glycogen levels got too low,
that would be it, system's shutting down, we are done.
This allows me to continue to go on,
live another day, live another minute,
and exist until I get more carbohydrates,
until I'm able to replenish my glycogen levels.
So that's an important mechanism for survival,
but it's not something that we want to be doing,
and it's energy wasting.
I would essentially starve myself to death
running that process.
So ketogenesis offers a way to limit how much that happens,
so ketogenesis actually is a very good way
of conserving glucose and conserving energy
in a condition where carbohydrates are being restricted.
So if you look at night time when we're sleeping
and we're not eating, well a lot of people
will go through a short period where they're actually
going a little ketogenic every night.
Not as significant as like you're following
a ketogenic diet, but their body is switching
to utilizing this mechanism to help conserve
protein and limit the wasted energy needed
when at night the glucose demand should be low,
it should be just the brain, right?
So ideally if we get more tissue running off fat,
that would be ideal.
So if the liver glycogen is low,
having parts of the body switch over
and start making ketones can decrease
some of the load on the liver at night
so that you can actually get a better night's sleep,
better recovery, and don't waste a bunch of energy at night.
So moving on, if we look a overview, okay?
So we have our nervous system,
and what we're gonna have is we're gonna have this
fluctuation of communication that's gonna go
from systems to organs, tissues, cells, right?
So if we look at this like a group of cells
makes up tissues, a group of tissues make up organs,
a group of organs makes up a system.
And so we tend to communicate from the nervous system
through this all the way to the individual cells
and this feedback works both directions.
So the cells can release signals
and their metabolic waste and stuff
is a signaling cascade that works its way
all the way back up to the nervous system
and the nervous system starts to cascade events
that's ultimately gonna have effect all the way down
at the cellular level in terms of manipulating energy.
Remember when you look at hormones,
hormones are in a sense a long distance communication
for the body on what needs to happen nutritionally
and metabolically.
So let's get into this,
let's look at this as an illustration
so that it makes a little bit more sense,
easier to comprehend.
So we have our brain up here.
Our brain is gonna interpret metabolic demands
and it can do this from either an external
or an internal stress.
So an external stress would be
something that I sense, something from the environment
that makes me stressful or whatnot.
So that could be me sensing fear,
like that release of catacholamines
that comes from fight or flight, something like that.
That's automatically gonna get my heart rate elevated
and get nutrients flowing into the blood stream.
And then I have my internal stressors,
and those internal stressors are usually gonna come
from the cells or the tissues themselves, right?
So that's something internally, something is going on
metabolically and they are gonna send a signal back
saying hey, we're gonna need some nutritional support.
So cells that are burning through glucose might
be releasing a bunch of lactic acid.
That lactic acid is gonna work its way into the blood
and that eventually through this complex
biochemical reaction is eventually gonna lead
to the brain and the adrenals
releasing cortisol saying hey,
let's get some more blood glucose out here
because we're burning through a lot of glucose right now.
We know those muscles are gonna need it.
So we have these internal and external things
that are gonna work cyclically, right?
And then when those external stresses are removed,
we're gonna have the opposite happen.
What we're gonna have is things are
gonna start to calm down
and those stress hormones are gonna lower
and the nutrient, or that flow of nutrients is getting low.
So cortisol will lower down,
catecholamines will lower down,
and we'll get back into a place
where maybe now we can actually start
actually storing nutrients again,
and homeostasis rebalances.
If we look at signaling for fuel release
and kind of how that happens,
it tends to work like this.
It tends to go from neuro
to cardiovascular to muscular,
so this would be a good way of looking at it, right?
So we have something that signals our cells
at the neurological level,
or something that signals our brain
at the neurological level,
whether that be external or internal.
And what it's gonna do is we're gonna one,
we're gonna have to tell the heart to start
beating faster.
We're gonna have to tell the vascular tissues
to start dilating where we want that nutrition to go
because we need the blood flow to get there
and we need it to stay there long enough
to dissipate the nutrients,
so we're gonna have that cardiovascular aspect, okay?
The muscular system has to then be able
to receive that and use it,
so between the nervous system and the muscular system,
there might be this amplification of communication
meaning that now I'm able to contract those muscles
faster, harder, more aggressively
because my nervous system is now like primed alert.
In terms of the endocrine system, okay,
that's where we're gonna get all the hormone
messengers that are gonna make this whole thing possible.
So the nervous system, the brain,
we'll say hey, we're gonna release catecholamines
and cortisol, right?
So now we're at the endocrine level, right?
Those catecholamines are gonna elevate my heart rate,
that cortisol is gonna release nutrients
into the bloodstream, that elevated heart rate
is gonna pump those nutrients around.
Those catecholamines are also gonna affect
the vasodilation and constriction,
so where blood flow is able to be used
at a muscular level will also be affecting
what's going on with the vascular tissue,
whether or not that tissue is able to dilate or constrict,
and so that determines whether or not
the blood's gonna pool there.
So when you're getting that pump,
the vascular tissue is dilating there,
so the blood comes and it stays there longer
and engorges that tissue
so that you can soak up as much of the possible
nutrients out of that blood as possible.
The oxygen, the glucose, and the amino acids,
whatever happens to be needed at that particular time.
So we get through this whole process
where we're signaling all of that stuff,
we get this massive release of blood sugar
and nutrients coming out,
getting to the muscle tissue,
and if we're doing work we're using it.
We're contracting muscles,
we're actually burning the glucose,
we're making use of the cortisol,
the catecholamines, the elevated heart rate,
all of that jazz.
If we stop, we desist the muscular work
and we're no longer consuming the fuel,
what's gonna happen is that blood sugar
is gonna continue to rise, right?
To the point where now my pancreas is gonna be
like whoa whoa, what's going on here, right?
There's this huge surge of nutrients coming in,
there's a threshold at which that pancreas
is gonna basically say there's so much nutrients
coming in here into the blood
that we need to do something to get it out of the blood
or it's gonna become toxic to our system.
So it releases insulin and reverses this whole cascade,
whereas cortisol is pulling nutrients out,
the insulin is gonna say alright,
now we need to get nutrients from the blood
back into storage.
Now we need to do the opposite,
we need to reverse what's going on.
Instead of having all these nutrients out
because we think we're gonna use it,
now we've got to put all of it in storage
because we have this excess and we don't sense a need
for it to be out there, we don't just see
that we're gonna need to use it right now.
And then things go back to normal.
Now when things become disregulated,
that's when we see that cortisol insulin seesaw.
So say we have something like an external stress
that is not leading to a physical activity,
so you're stressed out 'cause you're sitting in traffic
or some relationship stress or something that's
causing a catecholamine, a cortisol response.
We're getting increased heart rate,
we're getting nutrients and blood glucose
and fatty acids flowing into the blood,
but the muscles aren't gonna do shit with it.
They're just gonna be like well, I don't need that.
So it's just gonna elevate in the blood.
So the cortisol is gonna be high,
but your blood sugar is gonna shoot up really high
because nothing is using it,
and then insulin is gonna have to do something about that.
The pancreas is gonna have to do something about
that via insulin.
And so it happens that you go from high cortisol
to high insulin and because what happens in this state,
because the muscles basically did nothing
with any of that nutrients, is blood sugar and stuff
rose so fast and so out of control
is that your body will learn to overcompensate.
So it creates so much insulin that it drives it back down,
but now blood sugar actually gets a little too low,
and when blood sugar gets too low
the cycle starts again.
Because in order to get blood sugar back up,
guess what I need?
I need stress hormones.
So then the cortisol goes back up, right?
But if I'm not actually doing anything with it,
well then the insulin's got to go back up
to get rid of too much blood sugar.
So every time I overdo it or I unnecessarily
release cortisol or insulin in this case,
then I create this potential for this seesaw
where I get this exaggerated response on both ends
and essentially this is the way to partition
nutrients away from lean tissue and into fat tissue,
because I'm just creating this surge of like oh,
we need glucose, we need glucose.
So what's the liver do?
It makes more glucose and sends it out.
How does it do that?
Well it's gonna burn protein and turn it into glucose
and send it out into the blood.
Well if I don't need the glucose at the muscle tissue,
guess what I'm gonna do?
I'm gonna store this fatty acid.
So it's literally, the insulin cortisol seesaw
is the way of depleting your muscle tissue
and continuing to gain fat,
in a sense without necessarily having to have
a large calorie excess.
So its nutrient partitioning towards fat tissue in a way.
So when we look at external stress,
our nervous system interprets that external stress
and we have a response.
So that signaling cascade of getting energy
from an external stress was extremely valuable
when there was a physical stress to deal with.
When it's like, I've got to fight somebody off,
I've got to hunt and chase something,
I've got to escape a predator, whatever, right?
But that doesn't happen.
For our modern life, its extremely inefficient.
So because most of our stresses don't require
physical activity, they're mostly mental
or emotional stresses or they're dealing
with technology stresses or environmental stresses
that don't require any physical exertion,
therefore there's no point in having that
excess nutrients in the blood stream
and it starts that cortisol insulin seesaw
and we're left with a lot of negative outcomes from that.
So while this thing is awesome for training,
because we want to have all those nutrients
for muscles to perform, to actually be able to be
confident and strong in the gym
and be able to tolerate volume and perform on demand,
not so good when we look at life stress
outside of the gym, not very practical,
very inefficient system and actually partitions us
to more fat storage.
So if we look at hormones, hormones are not good
or bad in that cortisol is not a bad guy,
insulin is not a bad guy.
They're really just the middle man.
So the fact that cortisol gets elevated
under an external stress, it's not cortisol's fault.
It's responding to what the brain says.
It's responding to the survival response
that we have established is necessary to that
type of a stress.
Is it inappropriate to modern times?
Yes, but cortisol is just following its job.
It's just doing its job.
Same thing for the insulin.
If insulin didn't bring blood sugar back down,
blood sugar would get to a toxic level, right?
You would get to the point where you would
start glycating and like gunking up all of your tissue
because you'd have all this glucose floating
around with nowhere to go.
So you need insulin to do its job,
you need insulin to control that blood sugar
and you need cortisol to function,
you need it to elevate that blood sugar
under the appropriate stress response.
What we have to do is avoid the inappropriate
stress responses.
So when we look at systemic regulation of metabolism,
controlling the stress response and putting appropriate
stress responses on the body is gonna be key
in using that for performance or changing the body
composition or what not.
And so you can see how stress can drastically affect
somebody's recovery and how it can affect
somebody's goals in terms of body composition
or gaining muscle mass because of this kind of vicious
cycle of insulin cortisol see saw
when we are responding to an inappropriate stress,
if that makes sense.