Well, there are whole threads at his site. But just an as example, I’ve cut some of the stuff posted :
Lyle, you might be interested in this. (Warning, long post)
Berardi’s fan: (talking about eggs)…but make sure that you do not combine them with high carb intake in the same meal or you’ll sure be storing away fats.
Lyle’s fan: This is not true. You store fat when calories in > calories out. The idea of food combining doesnt matter in the grand scheme of things.
Berardi’s fan: Technically speaking yes, but if you know how to manipulate your caloric intake by ingesting the right foods at the right time, excess calories does not ALWAYS equate fat gain but muscle hypertrophy.
He is correct that when you ingest carb, you should not also ingest fat at the same time. The body will store the fat as adipose tissues.
Lyle’s fan: Please show me how the body will store the fat everytime you eat carbs and fat together. Because everyone is going to get fat.
Let me guess, from Berardi??
Berardi’s fan: Take a look around you. Do let me know if you think the percentage of lean individuals (note: i say lean here, not fat or skinny) is high.
Berardi’s fan: Insulin is responsible for shuttling nutrients into the body, but it does not discriminate between the good (glycogen and protein) and the bad (fats).
“Insulin is a storage hormone produced by the pancreas. Insulin shuttles nutrients such as carbohydrates, fats and amino acids (derived from proteins) into cells. The main function of insulin is to maintain homoestasis of circulatory glucose and intracellular glycogen storage. It also aids in fat storage” quoted directly from Chemical Muscle Enhancement by Author L. Rea.
When you take sufficient carbs and fats together, you get both an increase in insulin as well as plasma fatty acid levels. And if you understood what i have said so far, you will understand why simultaneous consumption of sufficient amounts and carbs and fats can lead to increased fat storage. (by sufficient carbs i mean sufficient qty to illicit a marked increase in serum insulin, similarly, sufficient fats means sufficient qty to result in a marked increase in fatty acids levels)
Obviously not “everyone” is going to get fat, since we are all different, and we all react differently to dietary changes. Those who are highly insulin sensitive will release lesser insulin for the same amount of carbs compared to a insulin-resistant subject, and the fat-storing abilitites of the combination of fats and carbs will be reduced.
The problem becomes insignificant when the consumption of carbs or fats is reduced to below 5g in the presence of significant quantity of the other.
John M Berardi is a scientist and PhD candidate in the area of Exercise and Nutritional Biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He is also one of the pioneer for the myraid of post workout formulas available on the market today. He also has his own website and contributes frequently to t-mag. What issues do you have about taking nutritional advice from him??
Berardi’s fan: I think i have covered your point in my previous post that such effects will not apply to the same degree across the board for everyone.
The “calories intake < calories expended will lead to fat loss” is oversimplified. I would bet a thousand bucks that an indivudual who consumes an equivalence his caloric requirement will definitely store fat if most of the calories comes from sugar and fats.
Let’s consider a hypothetical individual who consumes slightly above his caloric intake but consumes the right type of food at the right time in the right combination. I would also put a thousand bucks on him that he will not gain a single ounce of fat. He may in fact lean out.
The calorie in calorie out theory cannot be used without considering the effects of insulin changes in the body.
Lyle’s fan: Berardi’s articles are good (i like them too) but the one about food combining (cant remember title) is not. I know what you talking about regarding insulin. BTW, i wasnt the one who pointed out the mistakes behind his premise. Lyle was the one:
"The whole don’t eat protein + fat or don’t eat carbs + whatever is a bunch of bullshit within this context (the usual argument, and the original question, had to do with separating it out across meals and fat gain).
The whole reasoning behind don’t eat carbs + fat is based on a simplistic and outmoded model of fat cell metabolism.
The basic reasoning, that you gave was, insulin = storage hormone + dietary fat = bodyfat
Problems
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It takes only tiny amounts of insulin to affect fat cell metabolism.
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Protein more than sufficiently raises insulin this much so protein + fat works just as well to both inhibit fat cell mobilization and stimulate storage of nutrients.
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Insulin is important to increase LPL activity. Lpl was thought to be rate limiting for fat storage but this is not the case. All LPL does is release fatty acids from chylomicrons.
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Acylation stimulation protein (ASP) is the real player in triglyceride synthesis in the fat cell. It is stimulated by the mere presence of chylomicrons in the bloodstream and is insulin independent. So whether you eat your fat with carbs protein or by itself, the dietary fat is going to get stored. Separating it out from carbs isn’t going to make a shit’s worth of difference.
Whether you end up gaining or losing fat will depend on 24 hour fat balance (oxidation - intake) which will essentially be 24 hour calorie balance.
Of course, food combining nonsense will keep you leaner in the sense that, by setting up rules that only allow you to eat fat at every other meal, you’ll probably end up eating less fat total over the day…
Food combining in some form or another has been around for decades. The usual craptacular arguments have to do with carbs and protein not being able to be digested together. Some nonsense about pH is usually bandied about.
The ‘new’ sciency sounding arguments revolve around insulin and fat storage which is based on a 5-10 year out of date model of fat cell metabolism. It ignores some very concepts about fat cell metabolism.
The body is smarter than all of this crap: we evolved on a mixed diets and our bodies aren’t going to waste calories through inefficient digestion or waste fat for storage just because you didn’t eat it with carbs. That would have been stupid during our evolution. Hence we have many mechanisms (such as insulin independent ASP) to make sure that any excess calories get stored for later use."
I was like you, thinking that its not so simple as “calories in > calories out” but it still comes down to that.
"It’s the net effect, storage vs. oxidation that affects whether you gain or lose fat.
In a caloric deficit (no matter what the macronutrient intake), you spend more time in the fasting (post-prandial) state over a 24 hour period. That includes between meals (b/c they are smaller) and while you’re sleeping.
In a calorie surplus (no matter what the macronutrient intake), you spend less time in the fasting state over a 24 hour period.
This is also why, generally speaking, shuffling around fats and carbs has no real impact on things, at least not within an identical calorie intake. As you eat more carbs, you lower fat intake so even though you burn less fat, the difference may be identical to a diet where you’re eating less carbs and more fat.
That is, what matters at the end of the day is fat balance (fat oxidation - fat intake). Under most circumstances, fat balance will be identical to calorie balance. A positive calorie balance will turn up as a postive fat balance (fat gained) and vice versa.
Raising the seminal question: why bother with one diet vs. another?
Becuase there are other factors including adherence, maintaining training intensity, food preferences and others that go into a diet. If you can’t stick to a high-carb/low-fat diet (b/c you’re hungry or whatever), it doesn’t matter if it should generate the same fat loss at a given calorie level: if you eat more, you’ll lose less fat.
Lyle"
Berardi’s fan: I drew reference from an expert. You also drew reference from one. Both unfortunately have different take. Both have sufficient theory to support their arguements.
Does that make me wrong? Does that make you wrong? Go figure.
While studies done on rats with deficient LPL compared to normal rats, both showed the same degree of adipose storage. It was established that there could be an alternative method of storing fats in LPL deficient subjects. It did not show that LPL was not the determining factor in adipose storage, did it?
And while it is found that LPL appears to act as only one member of a series of metabolic steps which are regulated in a highly coordinated manner to induce fat storage, the writers of the same study also concluded that fat storage involves regulation of the pathway of fatty acid uptake and esterification, and appears to be regulated by a number of factors including insulin.
"Dietary fish oil increases lipid mobilization but does not decrease lipid storage-related enzyme activities in adipose tissue of insulin-resistant, sucrose-fed rats.
Adipocytes were isolated from rats fed for 3 wk a diet containing 57.5 g/100 g sucrose and 14 g/100 g lipids as either fish oil (SF) or a mixture of standard oils (SC); there was also a reference group (R). The stimulation of lipolysis was greater in adipocytes isolated from SF-fed rats than in those from SC-fed rats. Lipoprotein lipase (LPL) activity was 2.2-fold higher in the adipose tissues but not in the muscle in rats fed the SF diet than in those fed the SC diet"
edited for length