Interview with Mike T Nelson (part two)

This post is the second part of a tw0-part interview with Mike T Nelson.  You can read the first part here and see how Mike answers a number of questions about different topics, including stress, sleep, oldtime strongmen, kiteboarding and why you shouldn’t fall in love with your foam roller.  

In this part two of the interview, we get into the nitty-gritty of metabolic flexibility.

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Introducing Mike T Nelson (in case you missed the first part)

In case you missed the first part of the interview: Mike is not a run-of-the-mill internet “expert”.  He has spent the last 16 years in college, completing a BA in Natural Science and a Masters in Mechanical Engineering (Biomechanics) before starting his PhD.  He’s also a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), adjunct faculty at Globe University and a founding member of The Movement who will have three certifications for trainers this year which are conducted by invite only: The Biomechanics of Physique Transformation, The Biochemistry of Nutrition and Biopsychology.

In the past, he has completed the RKC, Z-Health Master Trainer and is currently a professional member of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN).

Also, Mike’s going to have a book chapter out later this year in the academic book entitled “Protein and Strength Athletes: A Sports Nutrition Controversy.”

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CB: Mike, can you start by defining metabolic flexibility for us?

MTN: Metabolic flexibility is the ability of your body to use the right fuel at the right time.  When you are doing low levels of activity, you want to be burning lots of fat.   When you go to the gym and put in a hard training session you want to switch to burning carbs to allow your body a higher output (better performance in the gym).    The key is to be able to SWITCH back and forth between those two states.

CB: Thanks for that succinct definition!  And given that most people who read my site are interested in getting stronger, building muscle and losing fat, how does focusing on metabolic flexibility help you lose fat or gain muscle either more quickly or more effectively?

MTN: If you can go to the gym and provide more overload to the muscle, this is absolutely key to more growth.  The readers here are wicked smart and know that already, since we strive to constantly do more work (volume), in less time (better density which is volume / time) and lift more weight (great intensity).   If you are very metabolically INflexible, your body will not be able to shift to carbohydrate metabolism as fast (or as well) and impair the lifting process in the gym. 

Once you finish your training session, you want to switch back to burning fat as soon as possible.   If you are still trying to burn carbs, you are using the wrong fuel for the wrong task.  

We also know that there are some indications that metabolic flexibility is also a marker for health.   Diabetics, for example, have a very hard time using carbs and it is the definition of a Type 2 diabetic, which is not moving towards a state of health. 

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Calories Rant

I also need to mention a rant on calories, since many readers will rightfully have questions.

There is lot of BS going around how calories do not matter.  Pure BS.  Calories matter, and physics is still a valid science.

• Take in more calories than you burn and you will add weight.
• Take in fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight.

Notice that I said WEIGHT and what we really want to change is body composition (more muscle and less fat), but I will get back to that.

The hard part is that in free living people (read, you and me), it is not that simple!  If it was, I would not see so many large and in charge people at the mall!  Most people’s goal is not to see how “hardcore” they can be and eat chicken and broccoli every day of their life.  They want to see how many “bad” foods they can eat and still maintain their health and body composition (read, look good naked) goals.

If you are a metabolic wreck (metabolically INflexible), you don’t have much wiggle room in your diet and you will have to be more strict.  Especially if you are already cutting your calories.

If you are very metabolically flexible, eating some “bad” foods from time to time (or often-oh ya!) should not be an issue as your body can convert them into fuel without many side effects.   Weight loss also has profound effects on health too.  Perhaps you eat “bad” but lose weight and feel better and your blood lipids get better?

The fellow in the US who did the Twinkie diet is a great example.   I am not going to say that Twinkies are a great nutritious food and we are all very low on refined corn products, so eat up.   Twinkies will never be a nutrient dense food (unless you are looking for your density of corn products), but on the flip side they should not send you into a metabolic tail spin either.

The human body is amazingly adaptable, which I believe is the key to health, performance and body composition (looking good naked). 

Back to our diabetic friend who is very metabolically INflexible to carbohydrates.  They have a hard time using them, causing all sorts of other gummed up machinery in their body.  If we look at someone who’s very healthy, on the other side of the scale, they should be able to use carbohydrates very efficiently -very metabolically flexible to carbohydrates. 

The other main fuel source, as we know, is fat.  It can be body fat or that can be fats taken in from food.  There are some people who have a hard time metabolically processing fats – yikes. 

The switching of fuel sources is key.  When you are walking around during your everyday life, you’re not training, and you really want to be using primarily body fat to fuel those activities.  If you are the reverse and still trying to burn more carbohydrates at rest you will need to take in even more carbohydrates and never tap into store body fat as a fuel, in addition to taking in more calories.

Calories matter both in quantity and quality.  We want to be able to use a wide variety of calories from both a compliance and lifestyle without ill effects on our health and performance in gym.  This equates to more muscle and less fat long term.

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CB: And for those trainers who work with endurance athletes, who aren’t necessarily interested in building muscle or losing fat, why is metabolic flexibility important for them?

MTN: Bob Seebohar has a great book on this entitled “Metabolic Efficiency Training” and it is a very similar concept to metabolic flexibility.  I saw his presentation at the ISSN conference in 2009 and I about fell out of my chair since it was so similar to the work I had been doing at the time, even though we had never met or talked before.

Most cardio bunnies take in way too many carbs in relation to their activity level.  If you are Scott Jurek (who lived two doors down from me when I was at St. Scholastic in Duluth years ago) and out running 100 miles or more at a clip, there is no getting around that you need a crap ton of calories.   Many though, take their Gatorade as they walk to the treadmill to walk and watch Oprah (what do they watch in clubs where you are at?)

Now that I have pissed off every endurance athlete, there is a better way.   Teach the body to bun fat primarily since their activity is at a low to moderate intensity.   The awesome part about doing this is that 1) you will drop body fat since you are burning it 2) you avoid what Bob calls the “GI distress monster” since you don’t need to take in very many EXTERNAL calories as carbs in the form of Gatorade and packets of paste-like things since you are using body fat as a fuel, thus dramatically reducing your chance of having an upset stomach.  This alone will save you time during your race since you are not hiding behind a tree in the woods or feeling like Broc Lessnar hit you in the gut. 

Bob has actual lab data showing that some endurance athletes do NOT switch to burn fat very well.  In a laboratory setting, which obviously not everyone’s going to have access to, the simplest thing to look at is what’s called the respiratory exchange ratio (RER).  When you go to a lab for metabolic testing (and I’ve tested hundreds of people this way), they stuff this tube thing in your mouth that measures all the air that you expire.  The expired air enters a machine (metabolic cart) that gives you a little number for each breath you exhale during exercise (the RER number).   The RER tells you the percentage of fat and percentage of carbohydrates you are burning.  Sweet!  

The next question is “What if I don’t have access to a lab?”  A substitute solution is to pay attention to how you feel (your mood) and your performance.  For example, the other day I got up and had a breakfast of mostly fat and some protein – 5 whole eggs, 2 egg whites, spinach and some feta cheese – I felt great afterwards.  If I had pancakes (high carb meal), do I feel like I’m going to fall asleep and my face it going to end up on the pancakes by the end of the meal?  Or, do I feel pretty good?  Ideally, I want to be able to do BOTH conditions (metabolic flexibility) to a high fat and high carb meal.

The next big question is around training times.  Some people do very well having a protein/carbohydrate beverage before or during training.   For those looking to add lean mass, a simple tip is to take a protein/carbohydrate beverage 30-60 minutes before training.  This works to elevate insulin which is a potent vasodilator (increase blood flow to muscles for a better pump since those nitric oxide stimulating products are worthless), increase acute protein synthesis (taking protein and stuffing it into muscles, thus making them bigger) and the high(er) levels of insulin shift the body toward carb metabolism needed for strength training session.   

The take away is that there’s no perfect indicator.  It’s a little bit of playing around with it and seeing how your body responds to it, but it’s really not too much work and the results are well worth the few minutes of time.

CB: And I understand that there are four key variables for manipulating metabolic flexibility, being (1) exercise, (2) fasting, (3) body composition, and (4) nutrition.  For someone like myself, who trains pretty hard, walks a lot and only eats carbohydrates just before a workout, what can I do to manipulate those variables to help me increase my metabolic flexibility?

MTN:  Sweet, sounds like you are right on track.  I will break each one down: 

I.  Exercise

If you were to do ONLY one thing (which is not reality, but everyone asks this one all the time), I would pick exercise for its long term effects upon health and metabolic flexibility.  This is a bit different than if your goal was fat loss, then calories must be dropped and most will not do enough exercise to put themselves into a calorie deficit by ONLY increasing exercise.  The great part is that in the real world, we can change more than one thing over time. 

We know that type 2 diabetics, post exercise are much more sensitive to insulin and thus can handle carbohydrates much much better.  I will save you the diatribe on GLUT-4 translocation.    Strength training also increase the amount of muscle mass (muscle hypertrophy) thus increasing the most metabolically active tissue in the body – muscle!

Without a stimulus (lifting heavy objects), there will not be an increase in muscle and you will being to lose muscle.   Send someone up to the space station in zero gravity and they lose muscle (and bone) at a wicked fast rate since there is not even the effect of gravity on their system.  To look good naked, perform better, be healthy and enhance metabolic flexibility, exercise is a must. 

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II. Fasting

You will need to hang on with me through this section as there is so much BS to be sorted around fasting it could be post all by itself!  As I have been pounding away now, I believe (a la metabolic flexibility) that your body should be able to perform well under a variety of conditions.

The 2 most basic conditions for training are:

1. Lots of food (high levels of insulin)
2. Low levels of food (thus low levels of insulin)

Each has a specific purpose and a time to be used best.

• High levels of insulin – when insulin is very high, your body is shifted towards carbohydrate metabolism.  This is great right before a high intensity weight training session since the main fuel source to power your workouts will be carbohydrates.
• Low levels of insulin – when insulin is low, your body is shifted towards fat metabolism.   This is awesome when you are trying to drop some fat and lean up a bit.

Here is a 3 step approach to add some lean mass without tons of fat in the process.

1. Moderate insulin levels during the day – your food for these meals will be protein (about 20-40 grams), fats, and veggies.   While all foods have an insulin response, a mixed meal with protein and fats as a base results in a more moderate insulin response (especially if you add in some fiber from the veggies).
2. Spike insulin levels pre-workout – we want to shift the body to carbohydrate metabolism for the upcoming weight training session, so by using a simple carbohydrate and protein (whey protein works great) drink consumed pre-training we can increase insulin, and vasodilation effects as a side benefit. (Sample pre-workout drink: 2 scoops dextrose, which is about 80 grams (or 1 packet of Vitargo), 1 scoop of whey protein, 5 grams creatine monohydrate (optional), 3 grams beta-alanine (optional): mix with about 750mL of water and drink half about 30-60 minutes before training and the rest during training. Note: if you have not done this before and have been on a low carb diet for a long time, I would recommend that you test this beverage in place of your breakfast to determine your response. A few people will experience a drop in blood sugar after consuming it and become a bit dizzy, which is not conducive to lifting heavy objects. This is rare, but test it out at breakfast on a non-training day and note your response to it.)
3. Monitor and continue – if your muscle to fat gain ratio of your new weight is still good, then continue on. That ratio will depend on each person. For me, if I can gain at about 2:1 or even 1:1 muscle to fat, I am happy with that since adding lean muscle is more difficult for me than dropping fat.  At times in the past I was happy with a 0.5 to 2 lb ratio.

When you are gaining more mass and calories are higher (especially carbs), your body gets really good at using carbs, but not as good at using fat (constant higher levels of insulin = burning more carbs and not fat).  One symptom is that when carbs are spiked, you may get a bit hypoglycemic and dizzy.  A recent study by Færch K et al. (4) in 2011 provided data that messed up glucose/insulin regulation is associated with metabolic INflexibility.

Getting Dizzy

Remember what I said about testing it first?  This happened to me a few nights ago here at the Extreme Human Performance Center.  I went to lift and just felt bad during lifting and dizzy.  I came back in and crushed 2 glasses of water and 2 Cliff bars.  About 20 minutes later I felt better, cranked out a personal record (PR) and called it a night.

Even during a bulking phase, we want to maintain some ability to burn fats when needed! In a perfect world, we want to be able to go back and forth between burning fats and carbs seemlessly (metabolic flexibility) to use body fat to fuel muscle growth. While it is hard to get the body to do this without drugs and extreme approaches, it can be shifted that direction.

Once I get the hypoglycemic feeling, I schedule a fast starting that night to sensitize my body to carbs and teach it to burn some fat again.  A recent study by Harvie, MN et al. (1) showed that intermittent fasting was a bit more effective than even caloric restriction for reductions in fasting insulin and insulin resistance.  One of the benefits of caloric restriction is centered around its positive effects on insulin and glucose management.

How often do I do an intermittent fast when looking to add lean mass?

It will vary from person to person, but about 1 every 14 to 21 days seems to be average for those training 4-5 days per week with pretty good levels of training volume.   If you are looking to build muscle and you are skinner to start with, you will need to increase calories. The goal is to get those increased calories shunted towards muscle growth and not your gut.  We only want to fast the minimal effective amount (mEA) to keep insulin in check and not lose the ability to burn fat between meals.

How often do I do an intermittent fast when looking to drop body fat?

I recommend people work up to one 24 hour fast once a week and see how it goes.  If you are still drop fat and strength is good, stay with it!  If fat loss has stalled, then add in another fast that week.  Rarely do you need to ever do more than 2 per week and most do fine on just one a week.  
There is nothing magical about the 24 hour mark, so don’t kill yourself trying go from eating every 2 hours to not eating for 24 hours, gradually work into it.   This leads us into more broscience and BS about meal frequency.

Busting Broscience: Meal Frequency

This will always bring up the question of meal spacing next.  Newer research by Dr. Layne Norton has shown that CONSTANT levels of amino acids (proteins) in the blood may ironically NOT be best for muscle growth (2); so eating every 1-3 hours is not ideal. Plus it is a huge pain in the butt.   Typical spacing is about 4-5 hours since this gives the body time to burn a bit of fat between meals (insulin drops a bit, but for it to get really really low takes up to 24 hours) and appears to “reset” the mechanisms involved in protein synthesis (stuffing proteins into those muscles).

In an experiment done by Bohe et al. (3), a constant infusion (via an IV stuck in their arm) was done to keep amino acid levels high for 6 hours. What they found was that DESPITE high levels, muscle protein synthesis started to DROP at about 2 hours; so CONSTANTLY high levels of amino acids is not ideal.

What about calories?

I already addressed this, but the confusion around calories is endless. I get emails from people stating,
“Bro, Metabolic flexibility is crap.  I don’t eat much and I am ripped, so screw you.” Or “All this talk about metabolic flexibility has not done crap for me getting hyoooooge.”

Each time I get a reply back, these twigs trying to gain lean mass (or any mass for that matter) are barely eating 1,500 kcalories a day.  You can’t build a large frame from nothing!

Calories are king, so if you are looking to gain some lean mass and your calories are really low, it will take quite some time.  If you are looking to drop some fat and your calories are still sky high and you are not doing Michael Phelps 3 hour training sessions, you will need to drop them down. No matter what anyone tells you, calories do matter and should be accounted for first!

One final thing is data showing metabolically INflexible subjects become more metabolically flexible during a 24 hour fast as their body can still tab into body fat as a fuel source.  If they could not do that, they would be dead pretty fast since there is no incoming fuel (this is a true fast, not that maple syrup, lemon juice and hot pepper BS) and there is a limited amount of stored carbohydrates (glycogen in the muscles and liver).  

Fasting key points

1. High levels of insulin = carb burning, low levels of insulin = fat burning
2. We want to be able to effectively switch back and forth seemlessly between both conditions
3. Space meals farther apart to about every 4-5 hours
4. Calories matter and are king

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III. Body composition

In general, those with better body composition will be more metabolically flexible.   We used to think that fat cells sat around on their collective fat butts all day, but we now know that fat cells are some of the most hormonally active little buggers around.

As you add more visceral fat especially, your ability to use carbohydrates gets worse.  Data from Sparks et al. (7) in 2009 showed that reduced metabolic flexibility was associated with higher body fat.   Waist to hip measurement is also a much better predictor than body mass index (BMI) in addition to being a risk factor for early death (all-cause mortality) (5,6).

Don’t forget that we all want to look good, and there is nothing wrong with that at all.  A more optimal body composition (more muscle and less fat) also looks much much better.

I know Tim Ferriss states in his 4-Hour Body book that if you can recomposition someone’s body by 20 lbs, you will see a huge difference and I would agree.  That could be dropping 20 pounds of fat or gaining 20 pounds of lean mass; but the visual difference of those 20 pounds either way is huge.  

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IV) Nutrition

I covered quite a bit of it above, but one more tidbit for all of you.  In most healthy people, when you eat more fat, your body will shift to burn more fat.  When you eat more carbs it shifts to burn more carbs.

Using the metabolic cart machine described earlier, will show a change in the RER (the amount of fat/carbs being burned) with the consumption of carbohydrates.  This is also why a low carbohydrate approach for fat loss works well for many people.  It provides low(er) levels of insulin and more fat for their body to burn.

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CB: And I think you have a product coming out soon about metabolic flexibility?  What can you reveal about it at the moment?

MTN: Yes I do!  There is so much confusion out there it’s insane. 

Low carb diets work for everyone, right?  Fat will make you fat.  Too much protein is not needed and will destroy your kidneys.  Calories don’t matter.  Carrots will make you fat.

No wonder people can’t figure out what to do since each week they are bombarded with more and more information.   Just hop on the ole’ interwebz and you will find enough nutrition information to make your head spin like an owl. 

People are so confused that they don’t take action, and that is a mistake.  I’ve been there too, so its time to clear up the confusion.  I’ve been working on it for the past few years, both in the lab with my PhD research, talking to other researchers, reading everything that I can find on metabolic flexibility and even presenting it to the elite military research group DARPA here in the USA.

Most importantly, I have tested it on people just like you and me to ensure that all this geek speak works in the real world.  The end result is a very simple to use system that will allow you to lose fat, gain lean muscle and strength. 

In addition to the concept of metabolic flexibility, I give you the TRUTH about proteins, fats and carbs so that you will know how to optimize each one.  These are the building blocks to the body and performance that you want, so I cut through all the massive confusion and retarded broscience out there to give you the simple principles to make massive changes in your body.  To find out more, click here!    

CB: That’s great to hear.  I hope it’s a tremendous success.  Thanks so much for your time, Mike.

MTN:  Thanks again Chris for allowing me the chance to do this interview.  I really appreciate it and keep up the great work you and all of your readers are doing.  You are making a difference!!

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References

1. Harvie MN, Pegington M, Mattson MP, Frystyk J, Dillon B, Evans G, Cuzick J, Jebb SA, Martin B, Cutler RG, Son TG, Maudsley S, Carlson OD, Egan JM, Flyvbjerg A, Howell A. Int J Obes (Lond). 2010 Oct 5. [Epub ahead of print] The effects of intermittent or continuous energy restriction on weight loss and metabolic disease risk markers: a randomized trial in young overweight women. Genesis Prevention Centre, University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, UK.
2. Dr Layne Norton “My Powerpoint presentation from the 2008 International Society of Sports Nutrition Symposium” accessed on December 31 at 10:01am from http://biolayne.com/
3. Bohé J, Low A, Wolfe RR, Rennie MJ. Human muscle protein synthesis is modulated by extracellular, not intramuscular amino acid availability: a dose-response study. J Physiol. 2003 Oct 1;552(Pt 1):315-24. Epub 2003 Aug 8. Division of Metabolism, Department of Surgery, University of Texas Medical Branch, Shriners Burns Hospital, Galveston, TX 77550, USA.
4. Færch K, Vaag A. Metabolic inflexibility is a common feature of impaired fasting glycaemia and impaired glucose tolerance. Acta Diabetol. 2011 Jan 5. [Epub ahead of print]
5. Seidell JC. Waist circumference and waist/hip ratio in relation to all-cause mortality, cancer and sleep apnea. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2010 Jan;64(1):35-41. Epub 2009 Jul 29.
6. Chan JM, Rimm EB, Colditz GA, Stampfer MJ, Willett WC.  Obesity, fat distribution, and weight gain as risk factors for clinical diabetes in men. Diabetes Care. 1994 Sep;17(9):961-9.
7. Sparks LM, Ukropcova B, Smith J, Pasarica M, Hymel D, Xie H, Bray GA, Miles JM, Smith SR. Relation of adipose tissue to metabolic flexibility.Diabetes Res Clin Pract. 2009 Jan;83(1):32-43. Epub 2008 Nov 26.