(low pitched droning)
-: In module five, we're gonna switch over
and focus on cellular metabolism,
so we just kinda looked at systemically
the body is this snapshot as a whole
and that's a very important part of the picture,
but we also have to look at the individual cells
and what's going on there because there's gonna be
this communication between the whole body
and the individual cells.
And there's going to be this kind of disparity
between sometimes the body will want one thing
and the cells will want a different thing.
We have to understand how those conditions come about
and ultimately how those two interactions are gonna happen.
So, first thing we're gonna look at it
in this first unit, is the systemic control of metabolism
is going to be conditional and it's going
to be conditional on whether or not the cells
are actually going to respond
to some of these systemic signals.
So our hormones, like insulin and cortisol,
we know what they do, or I should say,
we know what their function is
in terms of our systemic biology,
but the cells have their own ability
to regulate which hormones they're going to respond to.
And so we have to take that into context
when we look at how these hormones are gonna
affect the body because sometimes we're making the hormones
and we're just not getting the effect
that these hormones should have,
or that we would expect them to have.
And that can create this regulation on it's own
because like in the case of insulin,
if we need to lower blood sugar
but the cells are not responding to insulin, guess what?
We still need to get that blood sugar down
so our body's gonna respond by making more insulin.
So, our response is conditional via the cells response.
So cells have their own regulatory function,
so they have their own metabolic rate.
They have their own energy system,
their own energy stores and they have to decide
if they are in a position to be able
to carry out the task that the body as a whole wants.
We are a collection of cells, right?
So we are an organism.
We are made up of organs that made up of tissues,
that are made up of cells, so we're dependent
on the function of every single one of those cells.
So in the order of operations,
a cell has to look after itself first.
It's first priority is its own survival
because if the cells don't keep themselves alive,
ultimately we won't be alive.
If the cells don't keep themselves performing
and functioning, ultimately we won't function.
So in terms of selfishness, the cell is always
gonna look out for it's own survival first
rather than that of the whole
because ultimately the whole is an extension
of the cell with out that getting too much like
(explosively exhales)
Let's focus on just the fact that we're back
into this system again where it's like okay,
do I get the response that I'm looking for?
If not, is it always gonna be the hormone to blame?
Or is the hormone doing its job
but the cells just simply aren't listening?
So, let's look at this conditional control thing
and an example of where that would come into play.
So we have a low energy status
and let's say we're talking about a cell now,
not the body as a whole, so a cell does not have enough ATP,
which we're really gonna get into that
in the subsequent units, but that's essentially
what cells use for fuel, for energy.
It's the equivalent of us not having any food.
We're starving.
If we're really hungry and we're really starving,
our energy level's gonna go down,
our performance level's gonna go down,
we're essentially gonna be lethargic and worthless.
Same thing happens to a cell.
It starts to inhibit its cellular function
because all of the things that that cell does
require energy.
That includes responding to hormones,
carrying out its jobs whether that be muscles contracting,
cells detoxifying, or making hormones,
or secreting digestive enzymes,
whatever that cell happens to be,
it stops doing that job to conserve energy.
In that state where it doesn't have enough energy,
it is going to ignore any stimulus from the outside.
It can't meet the demands of the body
because it can't even support it's own functions
at that point.
So, if this lean tissue, for example,
and we're trying to get cortisol to act
on that insulin or testosterone,
we're tying to get one of those hormones
to act on that lean tissue, it's not going to do it.
It's not going to focus on anything
other than getting its energy levels back up to play.
So all of the enzymes, all of the receptors
that that cell happens to express
are all gonna be focused on self-preservation,
getting its energy systems reestablished.
So its gonna focus on trying to get nutrients in.
It's gonna focus on trying to metabolize
that nutrients into energy and nothing else.
And essentially, this is what we want in a muscle cell
when it is training and it's burning through energy,
that's one of the reasons that those muscle cells
will open up and take up more glucose
because they're trying to restore their energy balance
so that they can continue working,
so that they can recover and be ready for future work.
If that wasn't the priority, so let's say you have
a muscle cell, you trained it.
I go in and I train some biceps
and I signal all this anabolic processes to go on.
If I were to jump to those, without establishing energy,
what I would end up, is I would end up in place
where I didn't actually have the fuel, or the energy,
to carry out those anabolic processes.
So I would start something that I essentially
didn't have the resources to finish.
And then that cell would be in a lot of trouble.
It would be like halfway through a process
and out of energy.
That's like trying to, you're going to build a house,
that's like only having half the money you need,
spending all of your money building half of a house
and then not having anything.
You just have half of a house.
What can you do with, well I have no roof,
I have no windows, I just have boards and stuff.
Well, okay, you can't live in that.
That's what your cells function would be
if it didn't focus on establishing it's own resource
and energy balance first.
If you look at the other side,
missing micronutrients can also be something
that would cause this to happen.
So if I don't have certain micronutrients,
what it does is, it affects certain cellular functions,
either because I need that micronutrient
as a building block for something like an enzyme.
So we have enzymes that are basically,
our cells' little machinery that help us
do tasks faster, or build proteins, or whatever.
And most of those require some sort of vitamins
or minerals in order to be built.
If we don't have those, well then we can't
carry out those functions, meaning if a hormone
says, hey, do this, I have to have the enzymes,
or I have to have this substrate to be able to do that.
It even comes down to things like essential fatty acids.
Like if I need to repair part of my cell membrane,
I need phospholipids, a specific kind of fat,
in order to be able to do that.
If I have oxidative stress I need
the antioxidants to be able deal
with that oxidative stress and some of those
are fat-soluble, some of those are water-soluble,
so I need specific ones.
So, I get this bottleneck in this case.
With the low energy the cell's just like,
no, we have something else to focus on.
When it's a missing nutritional status thing,
I have this bottleneck where I could be
getting an external stimuli,
but either the process isn't able to go through,
or it goes through really slow because something,
either I don't have enough of the building block,
or I'm missing an important co-factor
to make something run faster and so everything slows down.
So instead of ignoring the function,
what I get is slow function.
As that slow function starts to back up,
I eventually will start ignoring that external stimulus.
So this is the same way that like if we looked
at low energy, we could get to a point where the cell
is going to stop responding to things over here.
Here we could get into a place where we could
even stop responding to the things that the cell needs.
So say the cell is low energy and it's low micronutrients
because I've been eating very, very poorly
and training very poorly, I could be in a position
where my cell is very slow at recovering
and it's also very depleted and it's really
not gonna wanna do anything.
People do this a lot to their body,
especially tissues other than muscle tissue.
The main tissue, I would say, that really takes a beating,
is the liver because it has so many jobs.
So people get their liver inflamed,
which we know is going to inhibits a lot
of cellular function and they demand a lot of it,
which is going to deplete a lot of micronutrients
and they don't tend to eat very well
and they have a lot of high stress.
So we see both sides of this going
and ultimately get to the point
where their liver function is very, very poor.
So their blood sugar management is poor.
Their detoxification is poor.
And you will see all sorts of subsequent problems
with cholesterol, mood swings, blood pressure,
adrenal function, all sorts of other things
that are downstream start to fall ultimately
because the liver just isn't able to do its job
as efficiently because every cell is starting
to get slower and slower or not really functioning
at least the majority of the time.
So, let's overview this.
The metabolic needs of the organism are
those are up here, but the metabolic needs
of the cell have to be met before we can meet
the metabolic needs of the organism.
The metabolic condition and nutritional status
of a cell is the most important thing
because we're made up all of those cells,
but it's not black or white, meaning that cells
may not be on or off.
There's gonna be this gray area between
okay, so let's say there's 100% function
and then okay, it could be at 80%,
it could be at 60%, it could be at 40%.
It's not necessarily on or off, which is why
most of us exist in some state of inefficiency.
We're just not quite aware that we're in a state
of inefficiency because it's not like
there was a sudden shift,
like I felt great today and then sluggish tomorrow.
It's a very slow, gradual thing that creeps up on people
over time to the point where they don't know
what it feels like to actually
have a healthy cellular function
and balanced systemic energy metabolism in their body.
So it's like the frog in the pot, right?
You put a frog in a pot of hot water, it jumps out.
You heat the water up slowly, the frog stays in there.
We are all kind of frogs sitting in that water
that's slowly turning up if we are not doing things
that are going to correct cellular function,
if we are not training and eating in ways
that compliment each other to allow ourselves
to adapt and improve, rather than accumulate
stress and abuse over time.
We're finishing up in here.
When there's a discrepancy between the body and the cells,
that's when we're gonna see the imbalance in hormones
because the body is still gonna want what it wants.
The cells may disagree, so what the body's gonna do,
it's like an argument and so the body says, do this.
The cells say, no.
The body is gonna raise its voice, be like, no do this!
Cells are gonna be like, no!
And then it just escalates.
And so that's where we get a lot of these imbalances
is the body starts increasing either the hormonal response
or whatever it is, that's the stress response,
that it's trying to get a result from those cells on,
and the cells then actually start to become
more attacked and more stressed
because the body's trying to push them
into something that they either not metabolically
or nutritionally prepared to do.
And so both sides kind of lose,
but that may be necessary short-term, for survival.
Like you may need to sacrifice
some cellular health to survive.
Now, in our modern life, that probably isn't very often,
but when we think of going to the gym on a day
we're under-recovered, to our body,
we need to survive that workout.
We need to survive that stress.
So it's gonna sacrifice some health factors
'cause it doesn't know that really it's not important
how many bicep curls and tricep extensions you do that day.
Alright, it really doesn't care that you're trying
to get on stage, it thinks you're fighting for your life,
that what you're doing is necessary for survival.
So it's gonna sacrifice some long-term health
for short-term survival.
And that's where sometimes embracing the grind
may not be the smart play.
We like to reward people for hard work
and ambition and discipline and things like that,
but that shouldn't override intelligent,
being intelligent in terms of listening
to your biofeedback and taking health into concern
and realizing when you're doing the insanity thing,
or approaching the same thing over and over and over
again and getting the same result,
expecting something different.
Like when you're banging your head against the wall,
in your training, or your nutrition, change.
Don't just do it for the sake of discipline.
Be intelligent because this may be what happening.
Your body may be resisting what you're doing
and the harder you push, if you do get to the point
where you're getting an effect, you're likely sacrificing
health or you're likely getting some short-term progress
at the expense of long-term progress.
So there's that tug of war that's gonna be there.
We want to avoid getting into that tug of war
because something's always going to lose out
from a health or long-term goal perspective.
The disagreements, like I said, they tend to get heated
and that's where we get a lot
of metabolic problems as well.
So we get imbalances systemically
when those arguments get heated.
From a cellular level we start to see,
that's where we start to see the metabolic damage
because as we make the cell continue to do things
when it doesn't either have the resources or energy
to do so and that's when we really start to see
the mitochondria become unhealthy
or the cells become extremely inflamed
because they're actually doing damage to parts
of their tissue because they don't have the nutrients
to deal with the metabolites
or the oxidative stress or whatever it may be.
And that's where we start to see the metabolic
problems happening on a cellular level.
So systemically we see hormone imbalances.
Cellularly we start to see metabolic dysfunction
of those cells once we get into this tug of war
between the body wanting something and the cells
needing something else and we continue to butt heads.