(dramatic tones)
-: An extension of the discussion on energy metabolism,
especially systemically, is the topic
of catabolism versus anabolism.
So now in their raw terms, catabolism is breaking down,
anabolism is building up.
And so there is this thought that
you can only be either in a catabolic
or an anabolic state, and that's kind of one
of those like blind statements that,
in its simplest form, if you look at the whole
body as a net equation, yes.
We're only technically anabolic when we're eating.
Every other time, and that's if we're eating
more than we happen to be burning up,
like as I'm sitting right here,
I'm losing heat to the air, I'm catabolic.
Like energy resources, I'm losing them constantly.
Every time I breath out I am losing resources
like my, I am catabolic and breaking down.
Even if there are certain things that are building up,
net wise, I'm catabolic.
So it's a very inappropriate way to think about it.
What I want you to think about,
instead of just this whole breaking down versus building up,
is I want you guys to get into the thought
process of understanding that all of these things
that are thought to be, oh this is a catabolic hormone,
or this is a anabolic hormone,
it's really a shift of nutrients.
We are essentially telling the body,
let's take something here and move it to there
to run a certain process.
So there may be something being broken down,
and there may be simultaneously something being built up.
In a different tissue, or a different group of cells.
So as we go through this, there can be
simultaneously anabolic, catabolic mechanisms.
So you'll hear me use the term anti-catabolic a lot
and me saying that by having this process
that's catabolic to one tissue.
So cortisol being catabolic to fat, right,
could be anti-catabolic to something else
because it's providing it energy.
So we need be thinking tissue specific,
we need to think of what is the actual goal
of these hormones, what is being shifted?
Not just, well this breaks things down,
or this builds things up.
Because a lot of these things are gonna have
multiple roles in multiple tissues,
so we can't go in with those blind statements.
So, many hormones are gonna have both,
it's gonna be tissue specific.
We tend to think of things like insulin
as anabolic, and it is, it's anabolic to
fat tissue, absolutely.
So the way insulin functions remember
is that it is going to essentially set
that fat cell up to the point where
instead of it being in a position
to release fatty acids that are needed for energy,
it's gonna start soaking them up out of the blood,
so anabolic to that.
It's anti-catabolic to the liver
because if we are in a very low carbohydrate environment,
we could potentially have our liver start
releasing glycogen, breaking it down into glucose
and then using that to stabilize blood sugar.
Or if we're low, our glycogen levels are low
we'll actually run that gluconeogenesis process.
The liver is going to expend energy
to actually give up some of its reserves
to the rest of the body.
Insulin is going to blunt all of those
'cause it says hey liver, you don't need to
give up anything, we have plenty.
So insulin, while not anabolic to the liver,
alright, it's anti-catabolic, it prevents
the liver from having to you know, donate any
extra glucose to the blood, or to run the gluconeogenesis,
or to run the ketogenic pathways.
So it's anti-catabolic in that sense.
So different things, different tissues.
If we also look at like lean tissue, muscle tissue,
insulin's gonna be anabolic.
It's going to drive carbohydrates into
the muscle tissue, so as long as there's room
to put more glycogen in there,
you're gonna be able to build some more glycogen,
or it's simply just gonna say,
hey muscle, you're gonna run off of glucose
for fuel right now, you're glycogen levels are full,
that's fine, but I'm gonna push carbohydrates
into you so that you use glucose for fuel instead of fat.
So at that point in time, is it really anabolic?
If it's already full, it can't get any more full than it is,
so it's just shifting the metabolism of those
cells at that point in time.
So that may be something where it's like,
okay at that point in time we're no longer
running on body fat, or just no longer
running on fat period, doesn't necessarily
have to be body fat, could be fat from the diet.
But it's a shift in the metabolism
so it's kind of a neutral change,
but it's still effecting it.
Not necessarily in a anabolic or catabolic way,
you could think of it as anti-catabolic
in that insulin's driving carbohydrates in there
so that cell wouldn't use it's own glycogen stores.
You could look at it that way.
But the big thing is that it's shifting that
lean tissue into using glucose for fuel,
and then switching the fat cells to taking
up fatty acids from your blood
and a small amount of carbohydrates.
The point that I kind of skipped over here
is that when we look at these hormones
and we look at the tissues,
sometimes their response is going to be
dependent on the macro or micronutrient status
of your body as a system, and those specific cells.
So you could have
a hormone
and it's receptors need specific micronutrients,
or enzymes within that process that that
hormone stimulates are required.
And those require certain minerals
or certain vitamins to work.
In which case, now the effect of these
catabolic or anti-catabolic, or anabolic,
whatever you wanna call them,
these hormones, it's not going to have
that effect per se, so there are certain times
where the nutritional status is going
to shift what the effect has and the micronutrient
status can effect whether or not
we even listen to the anabolic or catabolic effect
of these hormones.
So systemically remember we kind of have
that conditional response where it's like
maybe things will happen, but it's not a rule
that we're always gonna respond to these hormones.
We can develop resistance and insensitivities
like we talked about with inflammation
kind of blocking the effect of insulin.
So let's move and let's look at kind of how this
unfolds a little bit further.
We had our catabolic stuff,
so we got cortisol and catecholamines.
They're
catabolic to fat tissue, but because they're
breaking down fat tissue, they're donating nutrients
to the rest of the body to be used, right?
So that could be anti-catabolic
to those tissues that otherwise
would have to find reserves from somewhere else,
or use their own fuel sources,
that their own stored reserves.
Catabolic to liver glucose and amino acids
depending on nutritional status.
So this is one of those well it depends.
If the liver is full of glycogen it's gonna
be catabolic to that glycogen to break it
down into glucose.
If there is no glycogen, or the glycogen levels
are getting low, it's going to be
catabolic to protein, it's gonna be a catabolic
to amino acids and that's gonna be used
to drive gluconeogenesis to provide
the glucose that these stress hormones are asking for.
So it's
how
catabolic it is to protein based tissue
is dependent on nutritional status.
So that's why it's like, well it's catabolic, but how so?
What is being broken down?
Well, it's the liver, is where the breakdown's occurring,
but what's actually being broken down there
is dependent on the nutritional status.
The effect of glucose on muscle tissue
is gonna be dependent on a lot of cellular conditions.
So the metabolism of the muscle cell,
the inflammation in the muscle cell,
the nutrients, whether it has the,
enough nutrients for the glucose transporters,
for the insulin receptors, and for all of
the things needed to make glycogen,
those are all going to be important for
how this would respond to insulin.
And it's energy metabolism is going to
effect how it would respond to cortisol
and catecholamines.
So we look at cortisol,
cortisol can be anti-catabolic to the muscle tissue
because, well essentially if our goal is we're training,
we expect cortisol to go up, right?
We want that to happen, we want actually higher cortisol
while we're training.
The whole purpose for that is it's
driving nutrients to the muscles
so it's catabolic to fat, maybe catabolic to liver glycogen
if we're underfed or don't have enough carbohydrates.
Could be catabolic to amino acids, likely not our goal,
but either way, it's shifting nutrients to that muscle.
So as that muscle is working, now that muscle
can rely more on these external fuel sources to
keep it running rather than having to dip into its own.
The muscle's always gonna use local fuel source
because it's the easiest and it's right there.
However, as you get training, right,
as you start training 20, 30 minutes in,
the external sources of fuel become
a much bigger factor on how depleted
you glycogen level's gonna get
and how catabolic that muscle tissue actually
becomes during your training session.
Without a doubt, the muscle tissue's
gonna use glycogen because glycogen
is readily available right there.
We talked in the glucose management
about how it would, it simply would be unfeasible
to have to wait for glucose to come
from somewhere else to the muscle tissue
when you're training, you need it like
the second you contract you need to have that
energy available, so it's gonna use that.
But as the workout progresses,
as your physical activity continues
you start pouring more nutrients
in from the blood which is going to
decrease the amount of glycogen that
you're breaking down over the course
of that training session.
So to simplify this stuff,
okay remember anabolic, catabolic, it's tissue specific.
What is the anabolic and catabolic response
at the significant tissues?
So where is it catabolic, and where is it anabolic?
Where is it anti-catabolic?
Does the nutritional condition depend
on what it's catabolic to?
So if I'm very very well fed,
and I have a lot of stress hormones,
I could get a lot of glucose from
the liver and not release near as much fatty acid
in response to those stress hormones.
As my glucose levels are getting lower
and I have those stress hormones,
I might release more fatty acids
which is why when we're low carb for a while,
we tend to actually start
releasing and running more on fat for fuel
because the carbs aren't there to
you know fast, or quickly respond
to those stress hormones.
It's a condition specific.
So when I'm training, obviously I want cortisol
to be driving nutrients to my muscle tissue.
If I am not training and cortisol is elevated,
is it anti-catabolic to muscle tissue?
No, because the muscle tissue wouldn't
be expending any energy.
So now it's increasing the metabolism
of that tissue to the point where it's wasting fuel.
So stress hormones are now, it's like oh,
like that's why when you get stressed you get hot,
even if you're not doing any physical activity
you will get warmed up from those stress hormones
because if they're driving nutrients into things
and I don't have anything to do with it,
we essentially will waste that nutrients,
we'll burn it for heat just like
throwing wood on a fire, right?
It doesn't do anything, but the heat gets released,
that's where the energy is actually released.
So condition specific.
So that may be anti-catabolic during
training, but high stress with no physical outcome,
then it might be catabolic to all tissues.
So it's very condition specific.
If we draw up kind of a little pathway of like
where we tell a story of how this happens,
it might help you visualize some of this
a little bit better.
So I'm gonna try and actually draw on here.
So,
we've got muscle tissue, we got a liver,
we got our kidney's.
We've got the brain.
Just gonna give you an idea of like how
how this communication would start to, to go down.
So
we got a line here.
So first thing that's gonna happen
is we're gonna have some contractions.
And that's going to be my brain communicating
to the muscle tissue.
Okay, we're good there.
So my brain tells the muscle
to contract, 'kay?
As that is contracting,
what's gonna happen?
Well, I'm gonna be expending energy in the muscle tissue.
If I'm expending energy there,
well I'm gonna need to send more fuel there.
So simultaneously this is what happens,
my brain as it's saying hey we need
to contract these muscles,
as I'm doing that and with the intensity,
there is a synergistic response
where I am going to simultaneously
send a signal down here to the adrenals
that are sitting right there on top of the kidneys
to say hey, release some cortisol,
get some more nutrients in the blood
because I'm sending money,
or I'm sending a signal to these muscles to use energy.
I was getting ahead of myself in my metaphor.
What I meant to say is it's like sending
somebody to go buy something for you
with your credit card and then you,
or your debit card would be a better example,
like you know you don't have money in the bank.
You would also need to call and say
hey I need to transfer some money into this account
because I just sent somebody to the store
to buy something with this card.
That's how your brain is working when it
says okay we're gonna contract some muscles,
but if you're sending enough intensity or you're
contracting continuously because you're doing a set,
it's gonna say alright, we're actually gonna be
consuming a decent amount of fuel here
to the point where we're gonna need to
up regulate the amount of fuel we're delivering
to that tissue, or it's gonna fatigue out.
It's gonna run empty before I possibly
am done doing whatever I need to be doing
which you know, from a evolutionary perspective,
hunting or running from predators,
but from our perspective, actually training in the gym.
So,
we get that signal going.
So it tells the adrenals to release the cortisol.
What's that actually gonna accomplish?
Well, it's gonna accomplish the mobilization of fuel.
So if we say we got some fat stored here.
Everybody's got a little fat stored there, right?
Well the adrenals are gonna say,
alright, let's get some fatty acids outta there
to send to the muscle tissue.
So that's getting some fat,
but fat is a slow energy source,
so the more intense, or the more frequent
my contractions are is gonna tell this signal,
the cortisol is gonna go up higher
and it's gonna say we don't just need
extra fatty acids, we need a faster fuel source than that,
so that signal is gonna go to the liver.
The liver is gonna do what?
Well it's going to release glucose for us.
We're gonna release that glucose,
that glucose can then go to the muscle
and then be used for energy.
So from the
from the neurological stimulation of
muscle contraction, we get a simultaneous
and proportionate response to the adrenals.
And that cortisol release will be proportionate
to how my brain interprets this whole exercise
thing going down.
Is it like light exercise, is it intense exercise?
Is it a continuous exercise?
I'm gonna get an appropriate then response
between, from the stress hormones
to alleviate some fat and some carbohydrates
from the fat tissue and the liver respectively,
to start going to the muscle tissue
to
actually continue to perform the exercise.
So I am going to clear all of those.
Now we're gonna continue down here.
So we've got, we've gotten fuel to the muscle cell,
now,
well let's talk about what happens
as I'm burning that fuel.
What do we make in that muscle tissue
when we are exercising?
Especially if we are exercising at a high rate.
We make lactic acid as we're burning carbohydrates.
That lactic acid is going to go
back to the liver.
The liver will recycle that lactic acid
into carbohydrate and send it to the muscle.
That in itself is a signaling process.
The liver is saying wow we're making a lot of lactic acid,
that means this guy's burning a lot of glucose.
So,
what am I gonna do from there?
If I can sense that, well now I gotta have
some feedback going to the brain
that says hey man,
we're burning a lot of glucose
so when this is all done,
yeah we're gonna need to calm things down
and change gears.
We're gonna need to switch over to
using some more fat so that we can
shift over to replenishing those glycogen
levels that we just burnt through.
So we get this lactic acid recycling thing going on.
So it's, in a sense, this is catabolic to the liver
because it actually costs the liver energy
to do this, but it does provide a way
of continually getting glucose to the muscle
without having to burn through protein.
So lactic acid as a metabolite is maybe
anti-catabolic to protein even though
it's catabolic in terms of energy.
'Cause if I could be getting the fat
from here to the liver, the liver's using the fat
for the energy to recycle the lactic acid
into glucose, well now my liver's burning fat
to feed the muscle carbohydrates.
Isn't that awesome?
With that whole process happening,
I get that message that oh we burnt
a ton of carbohydrates and you guys know this now,
what's my brain gonna say we're gonna release now?
We are gonna release growth hormone.
What's growth hormone do?
Well it shifts our metabolism so
everything that can run off fat, let's run of fat.
Growth hormone is actually gonna use a different
mechanism, non stress hormones,
it uses something called hormone sensitive lipase,
up regulates that so that the fat cells
will release more fatty acids
and it also works as a insulin antagonist
so it gets the rest of the body to stop
taking up glucose unless it needs it.
And this muscle tissue, because it trained,
will take up glucose anyway, so the growth hormone
doesn't prevent your recovery.
It actually increases it because what it's gonna do
is it increases the amount of glucose
that's gonna be available to go specifically
to that tissue by decreasing the amount
of glucose being used by every other
tissue in the body that could run off of fat.
So I ask you at the end of this story,
who is catabolic, who is anabolic, who is anti-catabolic?
Well it all changed, right?
It was a shift of nutrients all around the body.
So all of it to facilitate what?
To facilitate what the goal, the initial goal was.
The brain wanted the muscle to do some contractions.
So I needed to do that.
What did I do?
I did whatever was needed.
I pulled fat when I needed it to,
I pulled carbs where I needed it to,
I recycled lactic acid when I needed to, right?
And then I shifted and controlled my
metabolism of carbohydrates when I needed to
all to facilitate the performance and recovery of that.
So,
in essence,
that entire process was catabolic.
Every, there was no food coming in
the entire process was catabolic.
But there were a lot of catabolic processes happening
that were decreasing the catabolic effect of this tissue.
Or decreasing the catabolic effect of the liver tissue
like the lactic acid coming in
preventing it from having to burn through as much protein
to
replace the glucose that's being burned.
So,
a lot of this stuff is nutrient management,
nutrient partitioning, changing metabolism
at specific moments in times to meet a demand.
And it's macro nutrient dependent.
What would have happened in this story
if the liver had no glycogen to give
at the get go and no lactic acid?
It would have had to have burned amino acids.
Totally different story in that case.
What would happen if the muscle glycogen
was empty from the get go?
Well blood sugar would have dropped much faster
so the stress response would have been
much more exaggerated which would have meant
all of this stuff would have been
increasingly more catabolic in proportion
to what the muscle was actually doing.
So it's very conditional.
A lot of this stuff is not black and white
and I hope you guys are getting that concept now.