Episode 352: Calories, Carbs and Controversial Foods: Healthy Eating Insights from Max Lugavere

Hi, guys, it's Tony Robbins.

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You don't think that a calorie is just a calorie, right?

That's not your, like there are people who put calories in versus calories out.

That's not what you think.

Uh,

no, do you think that I'm not saying yes or no?

I'm just asking.

Yeah, no, I do think calories matter.

I do think they definitely matter that it comes out.

Yeah, and energy balance matters, but so does the source of the calories.

A calorie is just a unit of measurement, so a calorie is a calorie.

It's like saying a mile is not a mile.

But the problem is, a mile walking uphill is a lot different than a mile walking downhill.

100%.

So, if I had a Mars bar, for example, which is 180 calories, versus having

a piece of salmon that's four ounces, five ounces.

There's a difference in how your body metabolizes it, or you tell me your there is a difference.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, 100 calories of protein is only going to yield about 70 calories.

Right.

Because protein has a much higher thermic effect than fat or carbohydrates, for example.

Calories.

Like we just said, though, that's so true.

A mile up versus a mile down, very different.

Very, very different, right?

100 calories from broccoli is going to be a lot different than 100 calories from Oreo cookies.

So where the calories come from absolutely matters.

And that's not something that I feel like is being discussed enough amongst fitness circles.

Well, that's well, that's why I wanted to bring, I think there's a lot of people, there's 50% of the people who think, you know, your body, I think it does affect your body composition.

That's my take on it.

But there are people who say, that doesn't matter.

If you have, if your diet's 800 calories, it doesn't matter where you're getting those calories from.

I do think it matters.

I think for your,

how you're going to optimize your brain, your overall energy, it makes a big difference.

It's my opinion.

Well, I think everybody would agree at at this point that,

I mean, the thing is, you know, sometimes you'll see headlines like nutrition professor prove that you can lose weight by eating only Twinkies, right?

Right.

Or like the Subway dude that the Subway dude, yes, yeah.

When you control for protein, it really doesn't matter from a weight loss standpoint what the other

mac where the other macronutrients come from, carbs and fat.

Right.

From purely the standpoint of

near-term weight loss and body composition, right?

As long as we're controlling for protein, because protein is what helps us maintain our lean mass.

So if you're talking about just losing weight from your body, which shouldn't be anybody's goal, right?

Then

it really is all about calories.

But if we're talking about losing fat,

then we want to control for protein so that we maintain our lean mass and then you can then dial down the fat and carbohydrate intake.

But

does that mean that you can fill out the fat and carbs with like the if-it-fits your macros model model of just like whatever else crap you want to eat?

No, because your body still needs micronutrients that help keep you young.

And that's going to reflect in your skin.

It's going to reflect in your metabolic health.

It's going to reflect in so many aspects of your existence.

Yeah.

That

I'm absolutely 100%

an advocate of being mindful where your calories come from.

You know, we were saying this earlier, but like vegan, for a vegan diet, right, or a vegetarian diet, I still, no matter how many people come on this podcast or I've speak to like in my regular life, I don't know where they're getting enough protein.

I don't understand.

Well, broccoli has protein.

Broccoli does not have enough protein to build lead muscle mass.

Absolutely not.

But I don't understand how this is not more common knowledge.

Yeah.

It's

just like, yeah, I mean, I don't know who's out there saying,

certainly people are saying that broccoli has enough protein.

Vegans and people who don't eat meat.

They're like, very low, very low quality protein, not

appropriate.

A lentil, though, like lentils have protein, yeah, but you're not.

If I want to build muscle,

is it more, maybe it's more of a, you're the journalist, maybe you've done way more research, but I'm talking from experience.

Oh, yeah, I live and breathe the stuff, yeah.

Right?

Like, I think if I need to like lean out and like build muscle, I need to eat salmon, chicken, meat, like

animal protein, fish.

I don't know where you're going to get your protein from if you're a vegan.

Yeah, I mean, soy is fairly high quality, actually, if you can believe it.

Um, and so there's nothing wrong with that.

Also, legumes are legumes have protein, also, lots of carbs in there, but also lots of other non-protein calories.

So, if you're trying to lose weight, that's where that becomes relevant, right?

Yeah, and not granted, not everybody's trying to lose weight.

Um, but people want to be more muscular and have more lean muscle as you get older.

Who doesn't want to have more lean muscle masses?

There you go.

The highest quality protein is bar non-um animal protein.

It's like the protein, the protein scoring method that um is currently in use to determine protein quality has shown us that, like, whether it's chicken, beef, fish, eggs, dairy,

the best, the best of the best, really.

And soy is up there.

It's not quite as high as animal protein, but soy is decent quality from a digestibility standpoint.

It's not something that I would, you know, eat regularly, but no, animal protein is definitely the way to go.

Right.

You're also a big fan of whey protein.

In your book, you talk about it.

Yeah, I'm a fan of whey protein.

I take it.

I use whey protein isolate, it's got a great amino acid profile.

It's very easy to hit the leucine threshold of 2.5 grams of leucine, which we need for muscle protein synthesis.

Which brand do you like?

And then the other thing, well, first tell me what brand do you like?

I'm curious to find a good one.

I currently use,

there are two brands that I go back and forth with, and I have no financial affiliation with either.

One is a brand called Muscle Feast, which is a funny name.

Oh, I never heard of those ones.

That guy or that.

Muscle Feast.

It's on

Amazon.

And I get the way protein isolate.

Like

the vanilla, I think, is pretty good.

The problem that I have with a lot of these protein powders is that they're too sweet.

So sometimes I just buy the unflavored versions.

Really?

Yeah.

I saw what you said in your book.

This is what I was going to say in your book that I also learned about chocolate protein, chocolate flavor versus vanilla.

That chocolate is more,

what was it?

Like, it was more arsenic.

No, more lead.

More lead.

Yeah.

In the chocolate, in chocolate protein versus in any brand?

Well, it varies brand to brand.

But why would chocolate have more lead or it was something else in it, too?

Cadmium.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because chocolate can be a source of lead and cadmium for people.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's,

you know, these are very small amounts.

Right.

These are.

Lead and cadmium are neurotoxins, so they're heavy metals that you really shouldn't be ingesting.

So people should have the vanilla protein.

Yeah, vanilla.

Vanilla, vanilla, you're safe.

You just don't know where they're getting their cacao from in these protein brands.

They're not like chocolatiers, right?

So they're probably just getting like the cheapest of the cheap cacao flavoring or whatever.

And so there was a, I believe the study was done by Consumer Reports that found that

on average, the chocolate-flavored versions of these protein powders had higher levels of lead and cadmium.

Now, are they levels that

are worth worrying about?

Probably not.

But if you're consuming this like every single day, then maybe you do want to be concerned, you know?

The other thing I, okay, so let's talk about this other thing.

I was like, wow, this potato thing, the having a cold potato versus a hot potato.

Yeah.

And, well, I didn't know that either.

Talk about the potato.

Like, can we go over like a

give me a few of these like food hacks?

Yeah, so much.

I love that stuff.

Absolutely.

So Genius Kitchen is full of this stuff, but and the olive oil.

Okay.

Yeah.

Potatoes are,

when we cook them, we create a highly digestible form of starch, right?

A raw potato is rich in resistant starch.

It's resistant to digestion, and we have to cook it to break that starch down

so that it becomes available to us as a calorie source.

Well, you can actually retrograde the starch in a cooked potato and turn it into what's called retrograde resistant starch by just cooling it off, allowing it to return to room temperature

is one option, or you can just throw it in the fridge.

And what does it do?

What's the benefit of that?

So it's a really powerful

food source for gut bacteria.

Really good for improving insulin sensitivity.

So this is like, you know, a lot of people struggle with insulin resistance, but I think primarily

it's like a fiber source, but it's a really potent fiber source for gut bacteria that your gut bacteria, these microbes that live in your large intestine, they consume this resistant starch and they churn out metabolites like butyrate, butyric acid, which is a short-chain fatty acid that's known to be really quite anti-inflammatory.

So, you end up getting this, like

you end up like firing up this anti-inflammatory drug factory in your gut by eating resistant starch.

So, you take a potato, you cool it down for how long?

Yeah, you just, well, you bring it to room tone.

You take a cookie, you bring it to room.

And you'll actually, you could notice that there's a texture change in the potato and it starts to like gel a little bit.

Oh, I see what you mean.

Yeah, it's not so fluffy.

It's not so fluffy and grainy.

Yeah.

You could also throw it in the fridge and like one meal prep tip is you can batch make a bunch of potatoes

and throw them in the fridge and then use them later on in like scrambles or for like, you know, future meals because you'll already have retrograded the starch in the potato.

And so it's great.

I love that.

So it's a good food act.

And also, and potatoes are not the only starch that have that

ability.

Rice can become retrograde resistant starch.

One of the reasons why sushi rice is great.

It's like cooked and cooled rice, right?

Right.

You can do the same thing, not that I, you know, I don't, I don't eat pasta, but like, or wheat-based pasta, but you can do the same thing with pasta.

I believe legumes are another source of resistant starch.

So cooling your starches is a really good strategy.

And so the benefits would be, like you said, for insulin.

Yeah, also like less carbs, like less of a glycemic impact of these foods.

Those are great.

So you take the same potato, one is freshly cooked, one is cooked and cooled.

The net carbohydrate content of the one that was cooked and cooled is less than the freshly baked potato.

That's a great one.

So, what if I take french fries and just cool them down?

Does that work?

You could potentially, yeah, yeah, baked french fries, yeah, yeah, absolutely could.

Or, I was thinking more not baked, I wouldn't do not bake because of the unhealthy fats, you know, and the oils.

Well, the other ones, like you were saying, like olive, let's talk about the olive oil.

Like, people are blending these olive oils without even would I not know if it's blended because you're talking about like olive oils that have been blended, yeah.

You just want to look on the on the oh, so it'd say say like extra oil.

It would say blend.

Yeah.

What are the best oils to cook with?

Coconut oil, olive oil?

I don't know.

No, no, avocado.

That's what I didn't mean that.

Avocado oil.

Avocado oil is great.

Coconut oil is great.

Butter and ghee occasionally I'll use, but primarily it's extra virgin olive oil and it's avocado oil.

It's a myth that you can't cook with.

with extra virgin olive oil.

You can, just I would.

The smoke point, though, I thought was not high enough.

It's not super high.

It's higher with avocado oil.

But for low to medium heat it's perfectly fine to cook with extra virgin olive oil so let's talk quickly about foods that are seemingly considered to be healthy for us but they're actually not healthy but people think that they're super healthy there are a lot of those i know yeah let's name let's talk about your top two yeah i think um

agave syrup is one of those that a lot of people think is healthy do they still think that's healthy well i i'll walk through i mean not to bring up everyone again but like you have to yeah

you on the side come on Absolutely.

No, they definitely don't.

I've never gotten so much as even like a meal credit.

I mean, they should.

You should be on some kind of like retainer for that.

No, I've never gotten anything.

It's really sad.

Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, lots of products there or in Whole Foods will still like proudly

promote that they're sweetened.

It's sweetened with agave syrup.

Yeah.

I think it's got a health halo on it.

I don't know because people perceive it as being natural.

It comes from the blue agave plant or whatever.

But yeah, it's like 80% fructose, which is just this like pure isolated

sugar that has a

metabolic effect on the body that, you know, when we're eating it in this extracted isolated form, it's not good.

Isn't maple syrup so much better than that?

Because it's a natural yeah, maple syrup is better.

It's still very calorie dense.

Yeah.

But yeah, maple syrup is a better option.

And honey?

Honey's good.

Honey's good.

Yeah, they're all different.

There are a number of different.

There's a lot of calories in all of them.

It's all sugar.

It's like pure sugar.

Yeah, I'm very pro

like i mean i'll use like monk fruit stevia i'm there's a lot of people that like for some reason don't like certain sugar alcohols like erythritol like i'm i'm super on board with erythritol

yeah i am i think erythritol is great allulose is another good non-caloric sweetener yeah people are not like why is that why is there such a bad because here's the thing some i'm halo on those things yeah some sugar alcohols i think people have bad experiences with certain sugars i mean sugar alcohols is like a category.

There's a million of them.

There's like tons of different sugar alcohols.

Maltitol, sorbitol.

The bloat is supposed to be bloating as well.

Oh, it does.

If you eat too much of certain sugar alcohols,

you'll get like crazy like gas and diarrhea that you've never experienced in your life if you overindulge on some of them.

And they use them.

They use these sugar alcohols in various...

you know, sugar-free processed foods, like dietetic foods.

And so people will think that it's like a free ride.

They'll eat lots of whatever it is.

Right.

Like, I remember there was a chocolate bar that Trader Joe's used to make.

They probably still make it.

That's a sugar-free dark chocolate bar that I used to buy.

And it had a lot of the, it was like sweetened primarily with sugar alcohols, with these in particular.

Yeah.

And I remember not like being all that aware of what was in them.

And I would just like overindulge in them.

And I would notice I'd get so bloated afterwards.

And I was like, is that the chocolate or is that something in the chocolate?

Yeah, right, right.

That's causing this effect.

And it's like one of them.

It's like sorbitol or maltitol.

I think those are the two primary.

Sorbitol is splenda, or otherwise known as splenda, isn't it?

No.

No, it's not suclarose.

That's suclarose, though, right?

But sorbitol actually is,

I believe it's sorbitol that's naturally occurring in prunes.

One of the major reasons why prunes are such a powerful laxative is that they're very high in,

I believe it's sorbitol, but if not sorbitol, it's one of these sugar alcohols.

It's naturally occurring in prunes.

Yeah, a lot of people think that prunes have this effect of making you go to the bathroom because of the fiber.

It has nothing to do with the fiber in prunes.

It's almost like a drug-like effect.

If you eat enough prunes,

within an hour, you're going to be sitting on the toilet.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

And

it's because of

the presence of certain sugar alcohols in prunes.

I didn't know that.

But what's important, I think the nuance here is that not all sugar alcohols have that effect.