The One Trick For Weight Loss Doctors Don't Want You To Know
Chris joins us to talk about scientific studies. We dive into all things research: what scientific research is, what methods are used, how to spot quality research, why similar studies can conclude with contradictory results, and how to compile a body of research so you can arrive at an informed opinion.
TRANSCRIPT
RYAN:
Cool. We can just jump into it if you guys are good.
ACACIA:
Yeah.
CHRIS:
Yeah, let’s do it.
RYAN:
All right.
[INTRO MUSIC]
RYAN:
Hi, friends. Welcome to BIN Radio. My name is Ryan. I’m hanging out here with Acacia, as always. Acacia, how are you?
ACACIA:
Good. How are you, Ryan?
RYAN:
I’m hanging in there. You’re going to be disappearing for a couple of weeks.
ACACIA:
Yeah, I had a- I feel like most of the podcasters have listened to all the episodes, but if you haven’t, my father passed away
about six months ago, and I need to go back to the town that I was born in, where he lived, and to handle some things. So I
am taking off tomorrow to do that. And I won’t see you all until the end of the month.
RYAN:
Which, for our dear listeners, will be sometime in mid-May. We’ll hear back from you at least.
ACACIA:
Well, no, because I’ll be around for podcasting for the next two or three weeks and then May 17th-
RYAN:
Oh, that’s right. That’s right.
ACACIA: Through the end of May is when I have my surgery and I’m taking all my time off.
RYAN:
That’s- I’m getting ahead of myself. Touche. So mid-June. Anyway, today we have- are you our newest coach technically still,
Chris?
CHRIS:
I think so. I started. Well, I’m a month and a half ago, possibly something like that.
ACACIA:
I can’t remember you were you and Lauren Herrera started like right exactly at the same time.
CHRIS:
So I’m practically O.G. then?
RYAN:
Yeah. Yeah, essentially. And he knew us way back when. You used to go to the gym. Chris, how are you?
CHRIS:
I’m good. I’m good. Thanks for. Thanks for letting me come on and invade the podcast. It’s gonna be fun.
RYAN:
I think so, too. For our listeners who don’t know who you are. If you want to give yourself a nice little bio you can be as
comprehensive or as vague as you’d like. Go ahead and tell everybody your story.
CHRIS:
Oh, yeah. I mean, that probably applies to most folks since I’m not particularly well known.
My name is Chris. Obviously, like you heard. I live in the D.C. area. My a full time job right now is a finance officer for the
National Guard, and that’s as boring as it sounds. Growing up, you know, I’ve liked sports my whole life, mostly soccer, track,
volleyball. I was all county in volleyball. Just putting that out there, in 2011.
Let’s see. I went to University of Maryland for my English degree, minor in creative writing. So I like to write some short
stories on the side sometimes and, yeah. Yeah, and then I commissioned into the Army National Guard from there and now
I live in Maryland with my wife Caitlin and my son Naim. And for those weightlifters out there, yes, it’s named after the
weightlifter, so.
RYAN:
Oh, yeah. I was just about to ask that.
CHRIS:
Yep. Yeah.
ACACIA:
Very fun fact. Chris’s wife, Caitlin, actually went into labor a couple hours after leaving my house for Thanksgiving.
CHRIS:
That is true. There must’ve been something in the turkey [laughter].
ACACIA:
Yeah. Basically, my turkey was so good and it was like the first turkey that she had eaten in a very long time. And then, like,
I got a text that like four in the morning or something like that.
CHRIS:
Yeah, I was gonna say Naim was like, “Get me out of this place!”
RYAN:
He was like, “I want some of that for myself.”
CHRIS:
Right!
RYAN:
I did not know that. That’s good for you. Good job on your cooking, Acacia.
ACACIA:
Thank you. Yeah, his parents and Caitlin were over at my house for Thanksgiving. And I met Chris and Caitlin because they
walked into the gym one night and I was doing weightlifting stuff, and I was in the middle of finishing out a heavy set, and I
was like, “I’m so sorry to do this, but would you mind just waiting like, 10 minutes so I can finish this and then sign you guys
up?” And they were like, “Oh, yeah, of course, no problem.” I was like, OK, weightlifting homies.
CHRIS:
Yeah. We were like, yeah, we’re weightlifters too. And there’s just like a glimmer like “One of us! One of us!”
RYAN:
My peoples!
CHRIS:
I liked working out in that gym, it was a good training environment. [Ed. note: RIP Black Iron Gym!]
ACACIA:
Yeah, we had a lot of fun.
CHRIS:
Yeah.
ACACIA:
Except for when your knee exploded.
CHRIS:
It was my hip, OK? And it was a PR clean injury. So, you know, it happens.
RYAN:
You gotta take the bad with the good, you know?
CHRIS:
That’s right. That’s right.
ACACIA:
Right. I think you were actually there when that happened. I think you were up in the office.
RYAN:
I might have been. I think I heard some kind of commotion.
CHRIS:
So I was I screaming, not out of pain, but because I missed the PR lift. OK, just going to put that out there.
ACACIA:
I got video and I and I recently found it again when I was going through and cleaning up some stuff on my phone and I was
like, I’m not going to watch that.
CHRIS:
Yeah. It was not my best moment, but.
RYAN:
I think the worst thing that I personally saw happen was the girl- were you there for this, Acacia?- when the girl who had,
like, a congenital heart problem was doing... she was in the middle of a WOD and doing a bunch of pull ups and then she just
passed out like mid-cycle and fell to the ground. And her husband was just like, “This happens a lot.” And then they were
still kind of concerned. And then, it took a couple of seconds for her heart to start going again. And so she was technically
dead for a little bit.
CHRIS:
Wow.
ACACIA:
No, I was not there for that.
RYAN:
Oh, it was terrifying.
ACACIA:
I was there for Chris’s. Both of the accidents that happened when you smashed your finger and-
CHRIS:
Yeah. Yeah.
ACACIA:
And the hip injury. And then when Megan fell from the pegboard. Yeah. She fell off and hit her head and like some other
things on the way down and I took her to the E.R.. Anyways!
RYAN:
At least CrossFit isn’t dangerous. Functional fitness, baby.
ACACIA:
I mean I am wearing my Hook Grip sweatshirt...
RYAN:
There you go. I’m wearing vintage- this is rare. I’ll sell to you for $100. Anybody who wants a O.G. Black Iron Gym, oversized
sweatshirt. Hundred bucks and it’s yours.
CHRIS:
Yeah, I’ve got the- I’m not sure if you are familiar with We have a super high end brands for t shirts out here. It’s called
George. It’s only sold at particular high end retailers like Walmart but you can get a t shirt for like three bucks since that’s
what I’ve got. So I’ve got one. Super comfy.
RYAN:
Order of box Gildan tees and post online: Big things are coming! [laughter]
Today, we are going to talk about nutrition research, right.
CHRIS:
Yeah. Erm it really any kind of research, but yeah.
RYAN:
How to deep dive into becoming literate in how to read research. So, you know, we’re going to have something in common
with crypto maximalists and anti-vaxxers in that we’re gonna teach you how to “do your own research.” [laughter]
RYAN:
Rigorous scientific studies have a lot of parameters and sometimes, especially in the world of nutrition, you’re going to find
things that can be, I guess, inherently contradictory. Would that be safe to say? And that’s what makes the nutrition world
so confusing. And that gives leeway, gives space to hucksters and frauds and people who generally just don’t know anything,
gives them space to operate and space to come up with, I don’t know, new fad diets.
CHRIS:
Like “Plants are bad for you” type of ideas.
RYAN:
Yeah, yeah. And I’ve said before, like the definition of health and nutrition is so vague that you can literally make any food
good or bad, which is sort of what we try to fight against because we try to eliminate the morality from there. But yeah, I
mean, you can if you’re keto, then you could say like, blueberries are bad for you.
CHRIS:
Yeah.
RYAN:
Anyway, so yeah. So Chris, let me ask you what people should look fo-r I mean, this is a totally vague question to start off,
but if people want to start reading research, what’s the best way to go about that? What’s the best way to start?
CHRIS:
Yeah, sure. So first of all, you hit on kind of what you started with. You know, why it’s so confusing for the normal consumer
out there. You know, if you’re getting your your science information from the the quote unquote mainstream media or social
media or whatever, you’re probably familiar with, you know, contradicting headlines saying like, “A new study links this food
with cancer” or whatever. And then the next month you’ll see that that same food is like, “It’s the best food to *eliminate*
cancer or lose weight.” Or whatever.
So, you know, just like you use that oftentimes same exact thing will be quote unquote found to both cure and increase, you
know, all these bad things just months apart from each other. So so the average person who just doesn’t have the time or
ability or desire really to understand how the scientific process works, especially in nutrition and in public health, it can be
really overwhelming, you know, to make any kind of lifestyle changes or any kind of dietary decisions. And a lot of times you
just leads to the paralysis by analysis where you just don’t do anything because you’re afraid of doing something wrong.
So there’s two main reasons why there can be so much seemingly conflicting research out there. The first main reason is is-
sues with the process itself. And just to warn the listeners that you didn’t get this already, it’s going to get kind of nerdy up
in here. So if you don’t want to hear me geek about this for a while and I promise there will be practical takeaways towards
the end.
So you can skip to there and it won’t hurt my feelings. But yeah. So issues with the process itself: So many published bodies
of research can reach just straight up incorrect conclusions for a few reasons. So the first is the first major reason is publi-
cation bias: Most journals are more likely to publish statistically significant results than non-significant results.
You know, those are the ones that are you know, they’re more sexy, they’re exciting, they get more clicks. More clicks equals
more money. More money equals more money for research. So oftentimes, like if you’re a researcher and your study doesn’t
turn up significant results, a lot of times you won’t even bother submitting it for publication because that’s a tedious and
lengthy process that I’m actually going through right now.
So I conducted a study for Master’s Thesis. It’s very tedious. There is numerous rounds of revision, things like that. And if
you don’t have something that’s going to make a big splash, a lot of times it’s just the juice isn’t worth the sweets. So this is
a problem in the research because it creates a situation where false positives are published far more frequently than false
negatives. It creates a situation where, you know, we have hundreds of studies out there that are false positives, that are
non-replicable. So if you went and replicate that study you probably wouldn’t get the same results. But the quote unquote
“evidence based nutrition” or fitness professional can just find that study out there and wave it around, support their, you
know, whatever diet or fad they want to support. This is why it’s super important to just not make any strong conclusions
from any single study or even a handful of studies. So yeah, so that’s publication bias.
And then within that same realm of issues with the research process itself, in order to get to that statistically significant
threshold a lot of time researchers will do something called P hacking.
So what statistically significant means is usually referring to something called a P value which is it’s a number between zero
and one. And it tells us the likelihood that the difference between the two groups in a study occurred purely by chance. So
usually the cutoff for significance is .05, which means there’s a less than 5% chance that that difference happened by pure
chance.
The first problem with that is if there’s no issues with underlying study methodology or the data analysis or whatever things
with a 5% chance of happening happen all the time. You know, especially if you’ve got hundreds of thousands of studies
happening in the field like nutrition, where, you know, there’s tons of funding. And that can be that can be an issue with a lot
of false positives.
And then we can get into the actual the actual P hacking, which is just it just describes a variety of methods for finding
statistically significant results in a certain dataset after you fail to find a significant effect that you were actually looking
for to begin with. So one way to do this, you just collect a ton of outcome variables in the hopes that you get a significant
association just by chance so a cool example of this, at least I think it’s cool, listeners are probably like “what are you
talking about?” but there’s one study specifically set out to show how like the ease of P hacking in research. It’s kind of like
a sting operation, right? So they tested the effects of chocolate consumption on a whole host of measures associated with
health. And sure enough, just by chance they got some some significant results showing that chocolate consumption was
associated with increased weight loss, lower cholesterol levels.
[laughter]
CHRIS:
And of course, this got like a ton of press. You know, people love to hear that chocolate is good for them. Oh, and, you know,
it got all this attention before the researchers that did this actually came out with like, hey, guys, we’re actually doing this
thing to show this problem. So don’t go thinking that chocolate is going to save your life.
But I’m sure there’s still people out there who heard that on the news once and, you know, rest their lives are going to be
like, you know, this chocolate is decreasing my cholesterol, science proved it. I saw it. You know, so yeah, there’s other
methods and issues with the research itself, but those are the two biggest ones that I want to talk about.
RYAN:
OK, did you, in your notes, get into part of the issue can also be who funds studies?
CHRIS:
Yeah. That’s definitely a consideration, but it’s it’s also a way to just completely dismiss research that opposes your view-
point. So it’s kind of a you have to kind of tread lightly. So that’s another reason why it’s good to not rely on single studies
and look at, you know, the totality of the evidence out there.
And I’m glad you said that because the next major issue is issues with interpretation.
RYAN:
OK.
CHRIS:
So the biggest issue, in my opinion, that comes along with this is folks making claims about certain things where the
strength of the claim doesn’t match the strength of the evidence. So what I mean by that is, you know, there’s several types
of research. They all have their time, place and purpose. So if you’re familiar with like the hierarchy of evidence, you might
be familiar with this topic, but essentially, results from certain types of research kind of matter more than others, at least
when we talk about applications to like real life outcomes. If I may, there’s there’s some kind of go over.
RYAN:
Yeah, I would love that.
CHRIS:
So I’m going to kind of start at the bottom of the pyramid , which is kind of the weakest kind of evidence. I mean, I’m not
going to talk about every single study, just some of the more common ones in nutrition. So the first one is everyone’s
favorite: personal anecdotes and opinions. This isn’t really research per se, but it’s by far the most common evidence quote
unquote, that you’ll see on like social media or in the news or on like late night TV ads, whatever, or those YouTube videos.
Beastshred, shout out. Anyways. But testimonials and personal experience, they’re super compelling because, you know,
they allow you to tell an interesting story and they usually hold people’s attention longer than discussing data from like
higher quality evidence. That’s foreign to most people. But the problem with this type of evidence is, you know, there’s no
controlling for external factors, no controlling for personal bias. You know, your sample size is often one. So you know, this
is the typical you know, my grandpa smoked and drank whiskey every day and he lived to 120. But based on that, you know,
I wouldn’t be comfortable telling people smoking increases lifespan based on that evidence. But that’s just me.
But anyways! The next one next type of research is cross-sectional studies, which you see a lot of in nutrition. So there’s an
observational type of research. It analyzes data from a population at a specific point in time. So for example, you can pick a
population you’re interested in and see if they are more likely to have X outcomes.
So let’s say you wanted to see if Black Iron Nutrition clients tend to have higher average IQs, you know, you could isolate
that population in that outcome and compare it to a control group which would be, you know, non BIN clients and see if
there’s a link there, which we all know. We all know what that link is. You know, we all have higher IQs than an average
population, no secret there.
[laughter]
But this research is useful in that it it’s relatively easy to conduct. But the downside is, you know, you can only find correla-
tions and you can’t identify, you know, causational positions, relationships. You know, we all know this saying “correlation
does not equal causation” so that’s the downside of cross sectional.
And then and that’s when we have this, you know, it’s kind of touted as the gold standard for study design. That’s the ran-
domized control trial so and the reason that it’s considered the gold standard is it controls for the most amount of variables
possible and gives you the most accurate look at the outcome of interest that you can possibly get.
Essentially you have two or more groups. You give one group an intervention. So let’s say a low carb diet and then another
group, either another intervention like a high fat diet, or you have a control group where they stay the same and then you
observe differences between the groups on the outcome of interest. So let’s say you want to look at body composition
changes. And then within RCTs, you know, there are several sub design types here that can influence the reliability of
results. But, you know, that’s a general gist.
And then even one rung above the RCT is the meta analysis or systematic review. So a systematic review just looks at all of
the research in a given inclusion criteria, in a specific field and just looks at the data as an aggregate, so as a whole, and
then a meta analysis, same thing you just added a statistical analysis to that. So that’s that’s kind of the highest rung of
the ladder because you know, it can be it kind of takes away from the disadvantages that can come from faulty practices in
single designs.
RYAN:
OK. Where do things like double blind studies, where would those fall?
CHRIS:
Yeah. So that’s usually in RCTs, so if you’re trying to see the efficacy of like a certain medication on something, then Double
Blind would be the patient doesn’t know whether they’re getting the control or the intervention, and the doctor doesn’t
know whether they’re giving that person the intervention or control. So that’s what a Double Blind is because, you know, if
the doctor knows they’re giving a patient the actual medication, there can be some bias introduced there.
So yeah, those are kind of the know, the minutia within the RCTs that can increase its quality. And then you can do like
crossover design. So in exercise science, the cool study kind of methodology that a lot of researchers use is a within sub-
jects study design. So they’ll do like if you want to look at a like what’s the best way to increase quad hypertrophy on the
leg press? You know, is it high volume or low volume? Then you’d have one leg doing high volume and then the other leg and
that same person doing low volume. And that’s really cool because it controls for a lot of other variables because you know
that person is going to be the same from one leg to the other, hopefully. That’s another way to kind of increase the quality.
RYAN:
I didn’t know. I didn’t know that part. That’s interesting.
CHRIS:
Yeah, that’s pretty cool. And yeah, so another is the study that I was thinking about with the leg extensions. That’s actually a
study that was done pretty recently. They did like extensions and leg press, I think.
But another issue with interpretation that that made me think of, especially with exercise science, is like people will take
like results from studies and even if they’re good studies, you know, they’ll kind of overgeneralize them. Like if that study
found that 20 sets is optimal for hypertrophy, then people will give all their clients 20 sets and if a client’s like not doing
well, they’ll just be like, “Oh, you’re not trying hard enough,” “What’s your sleep like?” I mean those are valid concerns, but
if you go back to that study and look at the like the individual level data, you’ll see that like some people did better with 10,
some people did better with 30.
So like the research needs to serve as like a guiding hand. And then you adapt with what’s in front of you, with what your
client’s giving you as feedback.
RYAN:
Yeah, it’s hard to do like blanket prescriptions for that kind of stuff. You know, you got to take into account like training age
too.
CHRIS:
Yeah. For sure.
RYAN:
Switching back over to the nutrition realm. Are there certain study designs... What am I trying to say? I guess it would be
kind of hard to do like a Double Blind study with certain nutrition things because you would have to know one way or anoth-
er, right? Like what some people are is, is indeed like low carb.
CHRIS:
Yeah. So there’s a few like unique consideration with nutrition research, especially a lot of the time, the outcomes that
we’re looking at take, you know, years, decades to develop so we can’t necessarily do an RCT, you know, lock people up in a
metabolic ward for three years and give one group high carb and give one group low carb and see what happens.
CHRIS:
So we do have like a heavy reliance on the observational stuff for the long term outcomes. So that’s definitely a challenge in
nutrition research. And then, I think what you’re getting at, is there is also ethical issues with like back when we’re trying to
establish the link between like smoking and cancer, if you think if your hypothesis is that something causes like an adverse
outcome, you can’t give one group and make them do that intervention and then compare results. But yeah, so definitely
some unique challenges and interesting.
RYAN:
Yeah, I’m going to attempt to kill you for my own understanding.
CHRIS:
Yeah, wow. Yeah.
RYAN:
That’s a minor ethical concern, I would imagine. And from my understanding is a lot of these big conclusions that we kind
of settle on in the nutrition realm also have heavy reliance on like the meta analysis- like there’s probably I would imagine
thousands of studies for like low carb or keto or something and then then you can filter that through some statistical analy-
sis, right?
CHRIS:
Yeah. And you can even- the reason that there’s the opportunity to do, you know, thousands, thousands of studies is high
carb, low carb, you know, in men versus women and old people versus young people, you know, in different ethnicities like
there’s just so many, you know, different socioeconomic statuses. It’s all these things that you can further delve into that
that can have an effect on the outcome as well.
RYAN:
And with your knowledge about nutrition studies. I would imagine you keep up on the latest research and everything. How
does that inform how you go about coaching?
CHRIS:
I definitely do the best I can, but like even someone like me, I don’t do too much, doing deep dives into individual new re-
search because that takes a lot a lot of time. So I’ll I’ll I’ll do a lot of research with, you know, trusted sources. So folks that
I know who understand the research process and try to free themselves from bias as much as possible, and who like, I know
their research interpretation chops are pretty good. So folks like an exercise science community, like Stronger By Science
and the guys at Mass, you know, I subscribe to their their monthly research reviews on the more public health side.
People like Barbell Medicine or Dr. Spencer Nadolsky, you know, people like that. Just because I know the way they talk
about research, I know it’s legit. Like once you know some of these basics, you can kind of spot the charlatans. I don’t know
if you want to do call out or anything, but like-
RYAN: I can bleep it out!
CHRIS:
I mean, guys like Paul Saladino, you know, like carnivore diet-
RYAN:
Yeah.
CHRIS: We can talk about that a little more in-depth if you want. But Mark Hyman who, like, will tell you that eating one
gram of sugar will literally kill you in your sleep. And the thing is, like, most of the stuff that they post are things like, “Oh,
you know, get more sunlight, exercise more like eat whole foods, whatever.” Most of it, it’s harmless. But then you have the
fearmongering that can really create kind of an issue, in my opinion. But that’s how it be sometimes.
RYAN:
Yeah, I have my own personal issues with him. Just like the way he goes about things. But I do trust like Lane Norton.
CHRIS:
Yeah, Lane Norton is another really good one. Yeah. And it’s a shame. Because the quality and content that guys like that
put out, but then you look at their follower counts next to the Paul Saladinos and Mark Hymans of the world, it’s like, man.
That’s tough.
ACACIA:
For an average person who may not have background, what are some things that you would suggest for them to look out
for when they are looking at research? Because obviously for us, we do have a decent amount of knowledge, you know, and
we’ve read studies or looked at research, but a lot of people haven’t. So what are some things that you would suggest that
they look for?
CHRIS:
Yeah, I’m glad you asked. That’s literally my next bullet point.
RYAN:
There you go!
CHRIS:
Oh yeah, seamless transition. If you’re just completely uninterested in reading research, or even reading some of these
secondary sources that I mentioned, it’s totally fine because, you know, most people don’t have the time or desire to do that
kind of stuff. Then there’s some good kind of red flags so you can look out for in folks that are talking about research.
One of them is if you see someone kind of citing one study as, you know, quote unquote proof of their viewpoint, especially
if that one study contrardicts the totality of the rest of the research, that’s a red flag. Another one is having an overreliance
on mechanistic research outcomes, especially when higher quality evidence exists.
RYAN:
What’s that?
CHRIS:
So mechanistic research outcomes, like if you look at like the carnivor guy, he’ll go on about how plants have these anti-nu-
trients and these phyto antisteroids that are literally designed to kill whatever eats them. And the problem is that there’s
like tiny grains of truth in that. Like those things do exist and they have effects on like certain insects, but I think a key
component of what he’s missing is we are not insects.
RYAN:
Dose makes the poison.
CHRIS:
Yeah. The dose makes the poison Also. Does he not, you know, consume caffeine or capsaicin like any spicy food because
those are all kind of in the same boat. But anyways, people who have reliance on that kind of stuff or like cell culture
studies. So like if you if you drown a petri dish of liver cells and aspartame, and bad things happens to the liver cells, do you
then say that aspartame is terrible for humans? Not necessarily.
You want to look at the human outcome evidence and make a decision from there. But yeah, it’s an overreliance on mech-
anistic research outcomes- discussing those observational studies without proper context. So like you said, super common
in nutrition but if you can take those with a grain of salt and understand or ask yourselves certain questions when you hear
the results of studies like:
“Was this conducted in animal cell cluster models?”
“Is there human outcome data supporting that finding?”
“How do those results stack up to the rest of the evidence?”
“Are there confounding factors that have influence that result?”
A good example would be like in nutrition research, the most common things that you want to make sure are happening,
at least in weight management and body composition is, “Were calories equated between all the groups? Was protein?
Fiber? Were all these things equated?” Another question you might ask, kind of how you mentioned, Ryan, “Are the dosages
consistent with what you would find in normal consumption?”
An example in the exercise science side of things: if you have heard of concurrent training, it’s just the pursuit of strength
and endurance at the same time. So we’re all familiar with the notion that “Cardio will just completely destroy your gains,”
right? And one of the reasons was, the early studies on this would compare groups where one was doing strength train-
ing programs and the other was doing the same strength training program and then an additional super vigorous running
training five times a week. So if you’re doing that like no shit, you’re going to see less straight gains. But that’s not to say
that those researchers are like incompetent or doing anything malicious. The purpose of that kind of research, the early
research, is to find an effect. So you want to see if an effect is even possible for you to do these extreme kind of designs to
see if it’s even worth pursuing with further research.
So yeah, so those are some of the questions that I kind of go through in my head when I see the flashy headline.
RYAN:
I think it’s valuable to be naturally skeptical. Not to the point of being contrarian because I think that’s how you end up with
the climate we’re in where you just have people reflexively just being like “I’ll do my own research” and suddenly you read a
headline and you’ve deemed yourself an expert but yeah.
I do think there’s a healthy amount- it’s beneficial to be skeptical and to be a good consumer because otherwise you fall for
things like “The Red Bull diet is great for weight loss!” You know-
CHRIS:
We heard that!
RYAN:
Yeah, I don’t even think it was a study. I think it was just some British person who just drank Red Bull, only Red Bull, for a
while and lost a ton of weight. And it’s like, well, yeah, no shit. Of course that’s going to happen. And then can we talk about
like, you know, his heart health after that? Just like extremely low calorie and high caffeine.
CHRIS:
That reminds me of another interesting study I heard about where the participants literally were only allowed to eat pota-
toes, like white potatoes. And would you believe it? They ended up losing weight. Now, is that because potatoes have some
kind of compound that just melts body fat away or do people get sick of eating potatoes and just end up eating less? But
yeah, so that’s like something that kind of goes against like the whole keto thing having like magical properties. Is it that?
Or is it that you’re eliminating, two thirds of your entire meal options?
RYAN:
Yeah. Dr. Oz used to on his show be like, “Oh, well, you know, you eat an orange for every meal and you’re going to be
healthy.” Like, I mean, yeah, the oranges are a great source of vitamin C and phytonutrients, but like, it’s kind of the forest
for the trees.
CHRIS:
Yeah.
RYAN:
I like that you mentioned about the, the carnivore guy because, yeah, plants have mechanisms that they have naturally
evolved to have to try to not be eaten and not try not to die. That’s everything’s goal in the world is to try not to die.
CHRIS:
And there’s, I mean, and there are kind of the methods that people like him can use is that there are these really compel-
ling and believable narratives like we were evolved to eat this way. You know, this is how our ancestors ate blah blah. No,
but that whole basis is kind of kind of tenuous at best anyways because in reality, you know, ancestral man, ate whatever
was available to them. Some of them ate a lot of meat, but some of them literally only ate vegetables. Like there is no one
ancestral diet. But yeah the House of Cards kind of falls apart.
00;39;08;17 - 00;39;18;06
RYAN:
Well, yeah. How else do you expect your immune system to develop if you’re not subjected to environmental factors?
CHRIS:
We’re super adaptable to different kinds of diets.
RYAN:
I could get ranty about that, but I won’t. I mean, I’m sure you could too, because it’s very frustrating. And you hear little
tidbits like that and they sometimes can stick and then you develop a belief around it.
CHRIS:
Yeah, yeah. And then nutrition is like one of those things where since everybody eats, you know, everybody has an opinion.
And since it’s tied to emotions and cultures and everything. Yeah. Like it becomes like a religion-
RYAN:
I was just going to say that.
CHRIS:
where you have that bias. And then when you try to become evidence based to fit that belief system instead of the other
way around, that’s when it becomes kind of an issue. But yeah, it’s still pretty interesting.
ACACIA:
I get really frustrated when people are like, like they say ultimatums. Like if you’re X, you should do Y you know, when it
comes to things that are generic. Like I got into a discussion the other day with this coach because he said that if you’re
cutting, you should eat chicken breasts and if you’re gaining, you should eat chicken thighs.
CHRIS:
Did he have a green a green checkmark on one of them and an X on the other?
RYAN:
Yeah. And I get the theoretical component behind that. But again it’s-
ACACIA:
And then he was talking about like trace fat and how with chicken thighs like, unless you’re weighing the fat separately, you
know, there’s more trees fat and like all this other stuff. And I was like, dude, if you’d like, sit down and do the math and like,
compare four ounces to four ounces, we’re talking about a calorie and a half.
CHRIS:
I think that’s kind of a challenge, and I find myself kind of playing this all the time- As like nutrition professionals, we’re we
kind of always feeling like we have to be doing something with macros or focusing on one thing. So people will find that, like
the trace fats, this matters, OK? And this is what I’m going to push on my clients and emphasize this so that they know I
know what I’m talking about. And it seems like I’m doing something. But sometimes it’s best to just keep it simple, stupid.
RYAN:
Yeah. The approach we use is based off of- there’s been so many studies you can start to basically say “This is true.” Your
caloric balance is the most finite thing that will determine your body weight. Your body uses a certain amount of calories.
It varies day to day, so you got to look over a longer timeline. But if you eat more than that, you will gain weight. If you eat
less than that, you will lose weight.
Now, there are there’s the second tier to the pyramid where we say okay, there’s also these things called macro nutrients
and micro nutrients. And over time- and we’ve known this stuff for decades- that if you prioritize protein at a certain level,
it will have an impact on where you’re losing the weight, how you’re losing the weight, what tissue is being shed from your
body.
I think that’s important to remind people that there’s been so much stuff that just time and time again that validates all this
stuff. And you’ll get people like oh, what’s this face? The guy who wrote Good Calories, Bad Calories- have you ever read
that? It’s basically the Carbohydrate Hypothesis that it’s like everyone has to eat low carb. It was popular around the time
CrossFit was going like low carb Paleo is just this.
It was just like, “Well, that was a weird decade.” And, you know, you can you can go through and we’ve done it before, trac-
ing fad diets and everything. It all circles back to like these fundamental things, it’s not particularly sexy. It’s not particular-
ly compelling, but it just works. Yeah. Exotic.
CHRIS:
Yeah, it’s definitely a challenge for like not to oversimplify it, but then not getting too much into the weeds. There are folks
who just say, “Oh, it’s just calories in, calories out.” I’m like, “Yeah, that’s true.” But that’s like me, you know, telling my
football team that they just gotta score more points than the other team. That’s it!
Or like, you’re poor. Just make more money, you know? That’s all you gotta do!
RYAN:
Stop being poor!
CHRIS:
Yeah. But then on the other end of the spectrum is like, “Oh, you got to eat three grams of carbs 20 seconds before you
workout or otherwise, like, you’re just, you’re just going to be the worst person alive.”
RYAN:
Yeah. I mean, if you’re taking your post workout shake like 16 minutes after you workout, you might as well just eat M&Ms.
CHRIS:
Yeah. At that point, there’s no point. You know? Science.
RYAN:
Have there been any studies you’ve come across that have actually changed your mind about something you had ingrained
in you?
CHRIS:
Yeah, for sure. I used to be more aversive to certain diets like, like keto or intermittent fasting. But at the end of the day,
nowadays, I look at those as tools. So intermittent fasting, for example, as long as someone I’m working with understands
that there’s no magic inherent to that particular style, but if not eating during certain times of the day simplifies things for
you and gets you to your energy balance goal, then I’ll totally be on board with that.
Similar with keto but like as long as the client understands that, like OK, if you want to, if you want to do keto that means
you’re OK with not having carbs the rest of your life? Because if we’re just doing a diet for a few months, then what’s the
point? Might as well do it right the first time.
And it means, I mean if somebody does, like if they just hate carbs for whatever reason, then cool, let’s do it. But there’s
certain considerations that we can talk about for it affecting performance or whatever and like how to best mitigate that.
But yeah, I think I’m just more open now than I was before.
RYAN:
I’m definitely in that camp and you know, it’s interesting, we have coaches that we all generally preach the same stuff. And
there’s some of us that are really, really anti intermittent fasting. They rage against it. And I’m just like, “Eh, it’s fine.”
I don’t have an appetite in the morning. And I’ve worked it out to where my first meal’s kind of like an early lunch and that
works for me and I’m not going to listen to anybody that tells me what I’m doing is super wrong.
CHRIS:
Yeah. If we want to talk about simple interventions, that’s the simplest that there is. If somebody is struggling, trying to get
the right amount of calories and that’s a great tool, as long as, like I said, they understand that you’re not doing anything
magical.
RYAN:
It’s like not this miracle panacea that like it’s like, well, if you don’t eat breakfast, magic. A lot of the qualms with something
like intermittent fasting comes from people saying like, “Well, if you skip breakfast and everything, then you’re just like
super hungry later on, you might overeat.” Well, if you can control for that, then it’s less of an issue.
CHRIS:
Yeah it’s almost as if people can adapt to their surroundings and the way they feel.
RYAN:
Yeah! It sounds like you’re the type, like we all try to be, which is we try to meet people where they’re at instead of just
being like, “Well, the purpose of you joining Black Iron is to bear witness to the glory of our coaching. And we have all the
answers. And if you don’t do it exactly our way, it’s not going to work!”
CHRIS:
Yeah. And I’ve seen that a lot recently. I’ll have clients who have been in the fitness space for a long time and the typical
recommendation of like, 1.7 - 2.2 grams of protein per kilo body weight, they’ll just be like struggling so hard to get to
that 2.2 and like, OK, well let’s, let’s try 1.8, you know, we’ll see what happens. And they’re like, “You’re going to lower my
protein? Are you crazy?” Well, hang on a second. Let’s try it out. See if it’s more sustainable for you to do that consistently
and then, hey, you get to have more carbs and fats if you want. So win, win, all around. Yeah, but yeah, just I think being just
flexible within those bounds, I think it’s it’s a must in our field.
RYAN:
Yeah. The flexibility of the protein is something that, again, like the past decade kind of tapered off a couple of years ago.
People started like being less crazy about it. It’s like, dude, there’s no magic macros.
CHRIS:
Yeah. I mean, I’ve even had a client where like I’ve given her like 0.9 or one gram per kilo because she was struggling to
hit like point five. So, like, if she it’s you’re in a position where you’re struggling to hit that. I’m like I say, nope, you got to
get up to 1.8 to point to like, OK, let’s, let’s try and hit this more achievable level. And then, if you find strategies to do that
sustainably, then we can talk about going up if you want. Or we don’t if you feel good that way and it supports your goals,
like, hey, let’s do it.
RYAN:
Yeah, I told Emi when I started like tracking again, I had a conversation with her and said look, protein level you had me on
before I was honestly struggling with it. It’s unappetizing I have some personal ethical considerations because I don’t want
to eat an unconscionable amount of meat. And it was mostly just hard on my digestion. And so I’m like 40 grams lower this
time. And I’m seeing plenty of progress. So. It’s just weird. You can kind of tell there are coaches out there that don’t know
that much because they don’t know how to be flexible with clients.
CHRIS
Yeah, I think it’s definitely a telltale sign.
RYAN:
Were there other things you wanted to touch on? Because I veered us off topic?
CHRIS:
Oh no, that was, I think that was great. Yeah. People get to know how, how I coach so I’m accepting clients, by the way.
Yeah. So Christopher Bonilla on Instagram, you want to look me up. Shameless plug.
ACACIA:
And Chris is both a Condensed Lifestyle and Lifestyle Coach
CHRIS:
Yeah! Promotion!
RYAN:
I think it’s good. You’re obviously you’re of like mind. That’s why we brought you on.
CHRIS:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s crazy how that works. Yeah, I did. Didn’t just a trick Acacia with baby black eyes.
RYAN:
Yeah.
ACACIA:
Or your cute son or your wife.
RYAN:
In six months he just starts talking about how if you eat a single carb, it’ll kill you.
CHRIS:
Well, one thing I did want to mention is I do have a new brand of detox teas I think we’re going to put it on Black Iron.
ACACIA:
Anyone want some diarrhea?
CHRIS:
Sometimes that’s what you need.
RYAN:
Yeah. How else would you lose weight if you’re not pooping it out?
CHRIS:
That’s. That’s right. It’s got to go somewhere.
RYAN:
I have my own line of “supplements”, they come from Mexico. They’re actually given the horses but I have packaged them
for human consumption.
CHRIS:
Yeah. I mean, if they work in horses, they’ll work on humans.
RYAN:
Exactly!
CHRIS:
Like we discussed earlier. If you were paying attention.
RYAN:
Yeah, you know who’s stronger than humans? Horses.
CHRIS:
Man, checkmate.
RYAN:
Yeah. Yeah.
CHRIS:
Checkmate. Science.
RYAN:
Yeah. You can also drink milk from cows that HAVE been treated with bovine growth hormone.
CHRIS:
That’s right. That’s how you get steroids without having to put it in your butt.
RYAN:
Yeah, exactly. And you know, if you eat plants, you start to get the the phyto estrogens and that. And then, if you’re a man,
you’ll start to grow breasts. So you should not eat plants.
CHRIS:
That’s right. Because estrogen equals femininity. That’s as simple as it is. And you know what? We’re on I don’t know if you
guys have watched the documentary Game Changers, but, you know, they make the argument that cows are super strong
because they eat grass. I think we should just cut out the middleman and just lay out in the sun.
RYAN:
I mean I gotta lawn right there.
CHRIS:
We’ll just photosynthesize those gains and be on our way. You know?
RYAN:
Yeah.
CHRIS:
Why even bother eating plants.
RYAN:
What what’s the what’s the thing on Instagram? Sunning?
CHRIS:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know.
RYAN:
You need to point your butthole at the sun is basically what that is.
CHRIS:
Yeah. I mean, it makes sense there. They kind of look alike in shape.
RYAN:
Yeah, exactly. And then go eat your neighbor’s lawn, and then you’re good.
CHRIS:
Yeah. Don’t even ask permission. They won’t have to mow it.
RYAN:
Exactly.
ACACIA:
Oh my god.
[laugher]
CHRIS:
Has this gone off the rails or is this okay?
RYAN:
I think we just invented a new diet as well.
CHRIS:
We have to trademark the Black Iron on its way before this goes out. So we have something.
RYAN:
To be Hollywood’s next big thing. We can convince a ton of people to do this.
CHRIS:
Yeah, I’m pretty sure Chris Hemsworth use this to get fit for, what is he? Captain America?
RYAN:
Thor! Yeah. And Captain America, Chris Evans did it, too.
CHRIS:
So, yeah, if it works for him, then it will work for all of us.
RYAN:
12 weeks. That’s all we ask. Yep.
CHRIS:
One easy step. Doctors hate us.
RYAN:
Doctors don’t want you to know the truth. That’s right. Do your own research.
CHRIS:
That’s right. Now you know.
ACACIA:
Way to bring it back.
RYAN:
Yeah!
CHRIS:
Full circle.
RYAN:
Well, thank you, Chris, for joining us. That was very fun.
CHRIS:
Hopefully! My pleasure.
RYAN:
Yeah. Hopefully people got a lot out of that. If you have questions, hit him up. Plug your Instagram again.
CHRIS:
Oh, God. I actually just recently changed it when I got hired, but I think it’s Chris.PaulBonilla. I usually only hear that when
when Caitlin’s mad at me, or when somebody mistakes me for he singer or the rapper. Wait, that’s John Paul. Wait no, that’s
Paul Wall!
RYAN:
Chris Paul’s the basketball player.
If you have any questions about studies or you want to sign up with them, get at either Acacia or Chris directly. Chris Well,
we’re all we get questions all the time. We’re more than happy to answer them to a certain point. We’re not going to give
out all of our tricks and tips for free.
ACACIA:
We can’t give out ALL of our secrets. Yeah, we’ve got to keep some of them.
RYAN:
Yeah. Or you just got to listen to them, like literally every episode because we’ve more or less laid it all out for you anyway.
So thank you for joining us. Stop by anytime. We can talk, whatever, whatever, whatever you want.
CHRIS:
Oh, I definitely probably will hit up Acacia.
RYAN:
Yeah, we’ll get Keifer on here too and have like a boys’ chat.
CHRIS:
Boys night, yeah!
ACACIA:
Have a boys day!
RYAN:
That’s right. All right. Bye, guys.
CHRIS:
Bye.