The Benefits of Becoming Metabolically Flexible

I think there is a little bit of misinformation around protein can kick you out of ketosis side of things. I know there was a big, there's a big period of time, you know, I think it was a few years ago, where people started to get, especially in the low carb community is like, oh, protein is gonna, because of gluconeogenesis is gonna kick you out of ketosis like proteins, bad all this stuff.

Actually, when I first started out in keto, like I actually took that approach where it's like, okay, I'm just gonna, and this is what the study was looking at, right? I told you, we, we just had them look at like, reduce their carbon take and their protein and fat could fall where it may were, where it happened, right. And it ended up being that they did just inadvertently consume a little bit more fat. But their protein intake wasn't like super, super low, it was on the low to moderate side. But I have found over the years that implementing a like higher influencia, higher protein approach, within a ketogenic diet has been so much more beneficial for anybody who's just looking for general health, body composition, all of that, I think restricting protein can actually be very disadvantaged to someone who is trying to do that. I think that a standard keto approach where you're doing very low carb, high fat, low protein should only be used in the MediCal population, if it's warranted.

And the reason for that is, is if because you are trying to elevate your ketones so high, to treat something, or to mitigate something or to get those ketones to fuel your brain, you know, throughout the entire day for for long periods of time. But for your average person, they don't like you don't need to have really, really high ketones, right to get the benefits of that. And with that being said, you know, having protein we know, there's so many benefits to a higher protein approach for all things like when it comes to body composition, health, longevity, all of that. So I think there's just some misinformation out there.

And if you don't, you know, and you know, this too, like with the education side of things, if you're not educated on what you're what you're doing, so if you just Google ketogenic diet, and you're like, oh, okay, I'm gonna follow this high fat, low protein, low carb, like, that is where a lot of the issues come because people are just not educated on Oh, like, you can actually follow a higher protein approach and get a lot more benefits from that, and just reduce your carbs, and you can get into a state of ketosis. So I definitely and over the years, I've advocated and definitely myself followed a higher protein approach for many different reasons. But with all that being said, I don't think a standard high fat keto diet, in my opinion, is a good route to go unless you're really like, you want your ketones to be super high for a specific reason. And so this is going to come back to the individual as well.

So I think it depends on like, where they're on where they are on, on where they are at on that spectrum that I mentioned earlier. But from my experience, like we can bump bump protein up pretty high, and it really just comes down to what your carbon intake is, like, if you can reduce your carbs. And that is where, you know, we kind of are getting into that state of ketosis or not. But then also realizing like, you don't have to, like, there's a little bit of like confusion with being in ketosis, like 24/7, is that beneficial. And so that's where like, my kind of metabolic flexibility side of things comes into play, like, we don't need to be in ketosis, 24/7 to get the benefits.

There can be benefits to that, but it's so dependent on the individual and what their ultimate goal is. But with like the metabolic flexibility side of things, and my big thing is like being able to use the fuel source that is warranted at the time of the activity that you're doing, and being able to efficiently go back and forth between those fuel sources. Whereas someone who's metabolically inflexible, whether it's on the side of they've been super hike, like they've been, you know, super low carb keto for a long time, and they just their body is not to use carbs anymore, or they're on the other side where they've been high carb, high calorie, high consumption, maybe insulin resistance and their bodies becoming more resistance to use resistance resistant to efficiently using carbs.

And so they're on those sides of the spectrum. And it's really finding that middle ground so that you can, you know, if you're sitting at your desk throughout the day, and you're literally sedentary, you're you shouldn't be typically burning a lot of carbs for fuel, right? Because you're just sitting there, right, you're sitting there working on a computer for hours, whatever may be, you should be be able to tap into your fat stores be able to tap into potentially getting into a little bit of a state of ketosis to use that as fuel because that's gonna be more efficient. Versus if you're, you know, out doing exercise or you're sprinting on a treadmill or whatever it is, like obviously glucose is going to be what you're using.

So it's basically being able to efficiently go back and forth between those and also like kind of thinking about you know, if you're able to wake up in the morning and intermittent fast and not feel like you have to eat right away and not feel like you are you know ulling up that third cup of coffee to get that caffeine hit like if you're able to do that that is a sign of metabolic flexibility because your body is saying okay I'm okay like I have some fat sores on me I'm safe I can use these for fuel versus if you weren't able to do that that would be kind of a sign of metabolic inflexibility