Deconstructing Dr. Tommy Wood; Developing Metabolic Efficiency And A Healthy Gut For The Win! (Part 2 Breather)

Knowledgeable health experts are really making gut dysfunction the heart and center of a variety of real issues that can arise within. The recent discoveries being made is that the impact on our guts is enormous. Tim Noakes says insulin resistance and gut health are the future of medicine. Most of our immune function and half of our serotonin function happens in the gut. When you have a stomach that isn’t performing optimally, the digestion and assimilation of food as it’s passed doesn’t correctly absorb nutrients, and you're left with uncomfortable gas and bloating, and nutrient deficiencies as well. High stress puts a ton of pressure on your digestive system. For example, when performing a triathlete circuit, it’s your stomach that will be the first to suffer the consequences.   

Getting off carbs is one of the best ways we can save our stomachs. You burn fewer carbs at rest, AND during a workout (including the warmup and peripheral movement before the meaty, hard stuff) where you definitely do burn carbs (glycolytic). BUT you can make carbs from fatty acid metabolism or have ketones replace your carb needs. You don’t need a bunch of carbs coming from your diet. Excess carbs end up wreaking havoc on your gut.  

Tommy points out that if you cut dietary carbs, you can still meet your glucose needs. By making carbs via gluconeogenesis (your fat metabolism makes glycerol split off of fat).Glycogen stores carbs in your muscles and liver. It binds with 3-4 grams of water/gram of carb ingested. That’s why you quickly lose 10 pounds when you dramatically cut carbs out of your diet.  

Polarized training is tremendous to metabolic efficiency. Working out at Maximum Aerobic Function (MAF) or at brief intensity works with our genetics and PB laws. We want to stay in a range of completing daily movement and entering a very short cycle of fight or flight overall. Going all the way to the threshold is a punishment not just for our hormones but our poor guts. If you don’t want a leaky gut, polarized training is the way to go.  

Tommy counters the boilerplate keto talk that fasting is actually the ultimate health practice and that eating fewer calories equals longevity. I think my calorie increase experience has increased energy AT REST because I’m not overcompensating for exercise while fasting and on keto. This is the best step toward metabolic efficiency. 

We also have to consider the emotional stress of adhering to keto. Peter Attia got tired of it after three years after all.  

Tommy also believes that athletes that are doing depleting workouts also get autophagy. Personally, I like the intuitive approach where I may be fasting/keto several days and other days may pound out workouts in the morning.  

How awesome is it to ‘eat more food till you get fat’? …Yes, you will find ways to increase thermogenesis. It is hard to believe though because the calories in/calories out concepts are so ingrained in us.  

Tommy was talking about how we know what to do, but need the psychology part. Why is this so? We have so much temptation in modern life to engage in digital entertainment, exhaust ourselves in work or training. We also have poor mechanics like sleeping habits. We’ve become so far removed from knowing what our bodies really need.  

Lack of respect appreciation for the importance of movement - Katy Bowman lazy athlete mentality. If we sit, we store fat, if we move, we burn fat. Don’t be a fitness freak. Nutritionmovement.com - mechanotransduction