Mar 10, 20204 min read

Alex Leaf, MS, CISSN on Some New Ideas on Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, and the Carnivore Diet

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Hello good people, we have a fun one today covering a lot of things. We covered so much we didn’t even get to all the stuff I initially wanted to talk to Alex about. He had 2 good blog posts on Time Restricted Feeding and why we definitely should not restrict protein for longevity that we unfortunately didn’t get to.

A little news before we jump in - I joined Low Carb Denver as a speaker at the last minute. People are apparently pretty worried about this Corona Virus thing and some speakers dropped out. I am not worried, especially because of my super robust immune system due to eating a nutrient dense Sapien diet. If there’s anyone else out there with herculean health please join us in Denver this weekend, the flights are cheap. I also may be getting some free conference live streaming codes courtesy of Food Lies film supporter Amanda if you want to reach out to me. You’ll be able to watch all the action from the warm safety of your home.

Alex Leaf has a masters in nutrition, a teacher for the University of Western States’ Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine master’s program and was a writer and researcher for Examine.com He has a great blog where he breaks down topics simply and cites a bunch of studies to back it up. He’s very into the evidence based approach to nutrition science and has some interesting takes on things.

This wasn’t a debate, but it could have been. I try to continually bring on people I don’t necessarily agree with to make sure we hear all sides of things and don’t get trapped in one way of thinking. I was pretty agreeable with him in retrospect which is what always seems to happen when I’m hosting a podcast.

I realized after he was a proponent of standard diet advice - lean meats & dairy, eggs and fish as well as complex carbs. This is the thing - this can work for people and does fit within the Sapien Framework. Many bodybuilders still do this with success. The vast majority of athletes do this with success. When I was training for the Decathlon last year at UCLA this is what the athletes were doing (for all sports) and yes, they had top professionals using evidence based principles to advise them. The athletes thought I was insane for eating almost no carbs and doing a decathlon. So the story is, yes, you can be ok doing this and you can have whole carb sources (preferably not grains)

We later get into cholesterol. I don’t mean any disrespect, but Alex is not a cholesterol expert and please don’t take his opinion on LDL as a fact or something I agree on.

There’s many guests in the past that have spoken on why LDL is not harmful including Ivor Cummins, Dave Feldman, Dr. Bret Scher, Dr. Paul Saladino, and next week Dr. Aseem Malhotra will be talking about this as well. So again, so I don’t end up in an echo-chamber I heard what Alex had to say. I still don’t think it holds much water. I’ve been reading/listening to Dr. Malcolm Kendrick for quite a while and a great episode just popped up on Paul Saladino’s podcast with him about the real cause of heart disease and how LDL is not the problem. So listen to that one if you want to learn even more.

Anyway, there’s a lot of other good stuff in this one so take a listen. If you want to support this podcast and get some amazing grass finished, sustainably raised, beyond organic meat head to http://nosetotail.org and get it delivered to your door. We will be getting the epic beef bacon back in stock next week. We have the high omega 3 pork and chicken that are fed a special diet. We also have the classic true superfood - the primal ground beef with liver, heart, kidney, and spleen mixed in. We have one that’s 30% organ meat where you can taste those delicious nutritious bits and one that’s 5% if you're not quite ready for the big leagues.

You can also support the show on http://Patreon.com/peakhuman and get the super detailed extended show notes and the private videos of some of my recipes/meal prep and my two 15 minute exercise routines. These aren't available anywhere else.

Thanks so much and don't forget the free-est way to support the show is to share with family & friends and give it a review on the podcast app. Really appreciate each and every one of you! Here’s Alex.

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SHOW NOTES

[9:20] The media’s portrayal of obesity and how it is an issue.
[24:40] Alex’s take on a high protein, high fat diet.
[26:35] Carbohydrate and its role in our diet.
[31:10] Differences in storage pathways for different macronutrients.
[35:20] Pick the diet you can stick with.
[38:30] The Personal Fat Threshold.
[45:30] We need to stop vilifying insulin as the end all be all.
[53:25] Proxidants in plants, are they as bad as some people make them?
[1:00:25] Preparation methods of food lend us the ability to properly benefit from plant foods.
[1:01:50] Importance of plant foods and fiber for your gut health.
[1:05:40] You need to find the diet that works best for you personally.
[1:11:45] Collagen for bone and joint tissue.
[1:21:40] The complexity of LDL cholesterol and its relationship to cardiovascular disease.
[1:29:40] Alex’s ideal diet for the majority of the audience.