39: Breaking Records on Zero Carbs [Dr. Shawn Baker's Carnivore Diet Insights]

[00:00:00] Dr. Shawn Baker: Been able to set world records basically in absence of carbohydrates.

[00:00:03] Michael Kummer: Now, if you burn 4,000 calories a day and you eat 4,000 calories of protein, you are probably undereating.

[00:00:09] Dr. Shawn Baker: Yeah, if my knee hurts, I'm not gonna have a good squat workout. You know, I don't care how, how good my energy is

[00:00:14] Michael Kummer: consuming more carbohydrates, those aches and pains appear to be more prevalent.

[00:00:18] Dr. Shawn Baker: There's that. I mean, there was a study out of the University of Alabama showing that, you know, low carb diet was superior to a low fat diet when it came to actual knee pain.

[00:00:26] Michael Kummer: I, my dreams seem to be more vivid and that also happens when I fast.

[00:00:30] Dr. Shawn Baker: One thing we know is with higher protein diets, and a carnivore diet is clearly higher protein for most people, calcium absorption increases dramatically within the gut.

[00:00:38] Michael Kummer: How much salt do you consume and has your salt intake gone up by eating only meat? You're listening to the Primal Shift Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Kummer, and my goal is to help you achieve optimal health by bridging the gap between ancestral living and the demands of modern society. Get ready to unlock the transformative power of nature as the ultimate biohack, [00:01:00] revolutionizing your health and reconnecting you with your primal self.

All right. Well, thanks so much, John, for making the time. I'm super psyched to have you on the show. I've been following you for a while. I find your, especially your Instagram both entertaining as well as very educational, and I understand that you are one of the few carnivores out there that have been doing that for several years, successfully so, you seem to be thriving.

[00:01:56] and performing optimally, both mentally as well as physically. And [00:02:00] so I'd like to talk about some of the misconceptions that I've come across and some of the experiences that I've made by consuming predominantly only meat in the context of physical performance and recovery. Specifically, you know, different exercise modalities.

[00:02:16] I usually do CrossFit. I've done some endurance work in the past when I was younger, I used to be a sprinter and did it professionally for a couple of years. And so, you know, I've, I've heard different things. I've, I've seen you perform, especially in the realm of strength training and rowing. I mean, you have a very impressive, I think, still a world record on, on, on the rowing ergo, right?

[00:02:36] And I've seen a couple of those clips and, and it was very impressed by that. So maybe just start it off. Let me ask you, do you consume any carbs at all, or is it strictly protein and fat?

[00:02:46] Dr. Shawn Baker: Uh, well, I mean, like, like currently right now I'm eating literally nothing but red meat. This is the whole month. And, um, You know, it's now February 1st and I, and I'll often do it, but I mean, from time to time, I will include some dairy products, you know, that might be in a form of, uh, like a [00:03:00] Greek yogurt or a piece of cheese, which will have a small amount of carbohydrate there.

[00:03:03] Of course, eggs have a tiny amount of carbohydrate, but not any substantial carbohydrates. I'm not eating bread and rice and pasta or anything like that. It's pretty much all animal products and any carbs I consume will be. Kind of incidentally, it's got to be a very small amount at most. So, so,

[00:03:18] Michael Kummer: right. So, so nothing that would really fuel you in any, any shape or form.

[00:03:21] All right. So the second question, and do you think there is a requirement for consuming carbs in the context of optimal physical recovery and performance for humans?

[00:03:32] Dr. Shawn Baker: Well, I mean, that's, I mean, obviously there are people that, that certainly perform better when on carbohydrates. And I think it's what you're adapted to in a way.

[00:03:39] I think if you are used to using carbs performance and they are going to enhance your performance and certainly you cannot deny that they replenish glycogen, which we know certainly they, you cannot deny that they help to maintain, you know, a blood glucose level, which are all, you know, in fact, some of the recent literature I've seen has shown it's more to do about blood glucose than it is about glycogen.[00:04:00]

[00:04:00] to mean that if you crash, you know, and you run out of energy, it's usually because your blood glucose is starting to decline. And so, carbohydrates can definitely help with that, and it's obviously a quick way to do that. Are they necessary to perform? No. Are they necessary to perform at a high level? I would say it depends on the person, the event, and the sport, to be honest.

[00:04:20] I mean, as you alluded to, I mean, I've been able to set world records, basically, in absence of carbohydrates. For me, and there's specific type of activity. You know, these are short bouts of very, very intense exercise. Obviously to do a deadlift, what does it take? You know, three seconds. So it's not like you're doing, you know, maybe not to do the Tour de France or to run a marathon or things like that.

[00:04:41] So I think it depends on, on the sport and the athlete. And I know you've mentioned CrossFit and I think CrossFit can be challenging at the highest levels due to the number of workouts you might have to do. If you're doing three or four wads a day, You're going to have a hard time refueling that with, with just meat, I think, but it's not that [00:05:00] you couldn't do it.

[00:05:00] It's just going to be more challenging. And, and as you know, you know, we can replenish our glycogen through gluconeogenesis, lactate reshuttling. I mean, there's, there's multiple sources. to, to, to sort of do that. Our body has built in those adaptations. You know, when I think about performance advantages that it gives me, it's not so much the, the minute to minute fuel partitioning that I think about, because we know that, I mean, increasing that we're seeing that, uh, higher and higher levels of VO2 max can be obtained via fat oxidation, which before we thought there was a crossover point around 60 percent VO2 max.

[00:05:35] And now we're seeing People up around the 90 percent of VO2 max fueling purely on fat. So I think that's occurring, but it takes a while. I mean, it might take six months for an athlete to adapt to that. And a lot of people that, you know, they go carnivore, they do it for a month. They're like, Hey, my workouts are flat.

[00:05:48] I need carbs, you know, because, you know, honestly they do at that point. But the adaptation process, I think for an athlete takes a lot longer. And that's what I've discovered. I mean, it took me about three months before I started to, [00:06:00] you know, see that little upward rise. So I think. You know, as far as our carbs helpful shirt, they're absolutely helpful.

[00:06:07] But the point I was trying to make is for me, I mean, particularly as an older athlete, you know, I'm in my, I'm getting close to 60 years of age now and trying to perform at a high level. You got aches and pains, sore back, sore knees, you know, maybe your energy is lagging carnivore mitigates that for me to the point that I don't feel sore.

[00:06:22] So when I go in there and, you know, do a hard workout. I'm, I recover pretty well. I don't feel sore and I'm able to do it again the next day and the next day and the next day. And so you have this cumulative effect, whereas I can get a lot of good training sessions is whereas on a more carbohydrate based session, I might be aching a little more.

[00:06:38] That's my personal experience. I would find that, you know, if my knee hurts, I'm not going to have a good squat workout. You know, I don't care how good my energy is. I'm going to be limited by that. inflammatory phase and so I think it decreases the inflammatory phase or you know maybe some people argue about oxidative stress which we know carbohydrate Consumption does seem to drive up a little bit.

[00:06:58] So I think, you know, I [00:07:00] mean, from a pure energy standpoint, carotid just may be more beneficial, but from an overall recovery, you know, how you feel, it may be a net benefit. And if you're, like I said, if you're a young athlete, And you don't have any aches and pains and injuries. Hey, you can go balls to the wall, that's rocket fuel, the carbohydrate.

[00:07:17] If you're an older athlete and you got aches and pains, all of a sudden that rocket fuel is causing your knees to hurt. Then it's, then it's kind of like, okay, maybe, uh, maybe there's a, there's a balance point here.

[00:07:27] Michael Kummer: Right. I agree. I mean, I, I'm still a couple of years behind you, but I can definitely feel the difference between, you know, doing CrossFit, even, you know, I don't know when I started, maybe six or so years ago.

[00:07:37] And now, I mean, I'm stronger than I ever was, you know, I perform much better than I ever was, but those little aches and pains. are, you know, make a difference in terms of, you know, quality of life at the end of the day or quality of the workout at the end of the day, you know, and so I've noticed that too, that by consuming more carbohydrates, those aches and pains appear to be more prevalent, whereas when I [00:08:00] was, I was, I did only, you know, strict carnivore for, uh, I don't know, maybe two months or so.

[00:08:06] But before that, three years of, of a very low carb, almost zero carb ketogenic diet, which included some stuff that was not only meat, but, but still, I had significantly fewer aches and pains at that time than I do now. And I think that's a, that's, that, that's a good point. And, and so you're basically saying that by consuming or the carbohydrates can impact the level of inflammation you have in your body.

[00:08:31] And removing carbs reduces inflammation, or at least that's one of the theories.

[00:08:34] Dr. Shawn Baker: Yeah, well, I mean, and there's some, there's some decent literature evidence that backs it up. I mean, there was a nice study looking at, and this is kind of a little nerdy, but I mean, higher insulin levels, and we know carbohydrates tend to drive insulin levels, insulin secretion up in the body, that's pretty clear, that higher insulin levels impact this cell type called the fibroblast like synovia site.

[00:08:55] And what happens when those cells are exposed, and these are the Provide the synovial fluid, the joint [00:09:00] lubricating fluid in your knees and elbows and ankles and hips and you know to some of your spinal joints when Insulin is high those cells secrete these inflammatory cytokines which tend to lead to inflammation even even increase the rate of arthritis And so, you know when you lower insulin and it may be through decreasing carbohydrates or decreasing maybe just overall Calories in general, you know, all these things impact insulin in a way, so there, there, there's, there's that.

[00:09:27] I mean, there was a study out of the University of Alabama showing that Low carb diet was superior to a low carb. Yeah. Low carb diet was superior to a low fat diet when it came to actual knee pain. So we do, we do have some empiric scientific evidence that would support some of these anecdotal observations, because I know a lot of people that will, that will say, Hey, I put, I put some sugar back in my diet and immediately I, my joint started aching.

[00:09:50] I used to think as an orthopedic surgeon years ago, I thought those people were crazy. They come into me telling me when I ate bread, my knee would hurt. And I dismiss them as some crazy person. But it [00:10:00] turns out that, you know, of course, like many physicians, we kind of ignore our patients in some ways, they were actually on to something.

[00:10:07] And I think we're seeing that more and more.

[00:10:09] Michael Kummer: Have you noticed any differences in how you sleep when you remove all carbs? Because there is a lot of anecdotes, at least out there, that by consuming no or very few carbs that you're The quality of your sleep might decrease, you wake up more often, you urinate more often.

[00:10:26] Is that something you've observed at all or do you know why that could be?

[00:10:30] Dr. Shawn Baker: Yeah, well, I mean, there's a number of things on there. So there are some studies out there that show very low carbohydrate diets are actually associated with, with more very deep stage, like stage four sleep. So there's some that shows that there are studies that show that putting carbohydrates at bedtime actually improves overall sleep time.

[00:10:47] One of the things I notice. You know, with a lot of people is the overall sleep volume goes down a little bit, whereas some people might routinely require, you know, eight or nine hours to, to feel good. A lot of people on [00:11:00] carnivore say they feel okay on like seven or even six and a half hours, which is, that's about what I get.

[00:11:04] I usually get about six and a half hours of sleep. And the thing with, with urinating at night is often, I think, related to protein metabolism because if you, if for instance, you're on a carnivore diet and you eat a big steak, You know, 8 p. m. you have a big steak for dinner. Your body has to deal with the nitrogen, you know.

[00:11:22] Right. And that nitrogen has to eventually be excreted in the form of urea. Either we breathe it out in water vapor, we sweat it out, or we urinate it out. So if we have a large protein bolus before bedtime, more often than not, two, three in the morning, you're going to wake up to have to urinate. And that obviously disrupts your sleep.

[00:11:37] And so I typically tell people, hey, move that last heavy protein meal quite a bit earlier, because you're In the daytime, it doesn't matter because you know, you might go to the bathroom whenever you want. It's not going to interfere with your sleep, but at night it has an issue there. So I don't know that it's a low carb, but it might be the higher, you know, just because if you're eating carnivore, you know, you're going to be eating more protein.

[00:11:56] Right. And so I think that's, what's happening with sleep. [00:12:00] Some people feel really wired on carbs, particularly when they first go on, they just feel wired and a lot of excess energy and they can't get to sleep. I've seen that happen for sure. But in general, You know, and there's of course exceptions to all this, but in general, most people report a general overall improvement in sleep quality, you know, and I think, you know, we think about why do we sleep?

[00:12:20] What, well, there's a lot of reasons for that. One of the things is we're restoring and regenerating tissue. You remember dealing with all the oxidative stress that we've accumulated through the day. All our endogenous antioxidants systems are working. We're, you know, we, we, we turn over one to 2 percent of our muscle mass every day.

[00:12:37] You know, protein is being incorporated. And the way I look at it is that one, a decrease in carbohydrates drives down a little bit of the oxidative stress. You're dealing with less of that. So you have less time required to mitigate that because there's less, less, you know, oxidative stress you're dealing with.

[00:12:53] Right. And then the other question is, you know, if I'm regenerating muscle tissue and, and you know, bone [00:13:00] or whatever, whatever, you know, we're, we're, we're constantly turning over our tissues. It's all made out of animal, animal cells. Right. And I look at it like, if I'm building a brick house, I would rather have bricks than straw and mud, and I quite like the vegetable based food as straw and mud, you've got to rearrange it and put it together, whereas, you know, animal proteins come in the pre packaged right ratios, you know, you're not going to be short on leucine or lysine, whereas with plants you may not have enough.

[00:13:27] You know, if you don't have enough lysine, it doesn't matter how much methionine you have. Right. You know, that one critical thing, because there's a recipe for every protein. And if you're missing one ingredient, you ain't building it. Right. So that's kind of how we work with that. So these limiting essential amino acids have to be there in adequate ratios in order to build things.

[00:13:46] Michael Kummer: Right, right. And, and I've noticed because I mean, typically only two meals a day. So, you know, one is, you know, breakfast whenever, you know, I break my fast and then the other one is, is my dinner and even though we try to eat relatively early dinner, it's usually a fairly big meal. And [00:14:00] even if I consume it at, let's say 5pm or 6pm, which is usually the latest that we have dinner, it's, it's so much food.

[00:14:08] that, you know, I, I have to get up and pee once, as you said, you know, usually, you know, in the second half of the night. And I was wondering, and other people have, have, have reported it as well, and then the other thing I've noticed is that by consuming no carbs, or very few carbs, I, my dreams seem to be more vivid, and that also happens when I fast.

[00:14:26] And I wonder, has that, is that something you've experienced as well, or heard about, or have any explanation about that?

[00:14:32] Dr. Shawn Baker: Well, I have seen that. I can't say that I, you know, sometimes I remember dreams. I don't, I mean, I, you know, like I said, I typically eat my largest meal early in the day. Like my meal that I'll have, it's 8.

[00:14:42] 17 where I'm at this morning. I'll have a meal around 11 a. m. which will be about two and a half pounds of protein. So, uh, as far as like I said, we see that actually at least the literature supports that you have decreased REM sleep on low [00:15:00] carb. You just have more deep sleep. And so REM sleep is often we're dreaming.

[00:15:03] So I'm not sure, I'm not sure. I, I, you know, it's a, it's not something that I've had a lot of interest in because I'm not sure what it means, you know, as far as. Does it make, does it make a difference in your health outcome? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. So I can't say, I mean, I've heard, I've heard very old varying reports of I've had more vivid dreams or people not commenting on it.

[00:15:21] So I don't know if I can, I can see there's a consistent pattern there.

[00:15:24] Michael Kummer: Yep. Makes sense. If there are someone that comes to us and say, Hey, you know, I am a professional athlete, you know, whatever it might be, what is the best way when they want to do carnivore because of, you know, they have inflammation, they have issues, they may be, you know, metabolic issues, whatever.

[00:15:37] Would you recommend they go code Turkey? or transition into a pure. Yeah, no, I would

[00:15:42] Dr. Shawn Baker: transition into it. I think, you know, I think you get, I'm not anti carbohydrate. I think if it's, if it serves you for a purpose, maybe you've got some gut issue or some autoimmune disease or you're older and you're trying to mitigate inflammation, then I think it makes sense.

[00:15:56] But I think the way that. You know, I've worked with a lot of high level [00:16:00] professional athletes. I, I think that what it makes sense to do is find a minimum effective dose of carbohydrate, put it in the peri workout time, either pre post or during, figure out what that minimal amount is. And, you know, there's a guy, there's a professor, Phil Prins out of, out of, he's, he's in Pennsylvania.

[00:16:15] He's done some pretty interesting research on this and again around performance and again, It's not so much glycogen restoration, but it is blood glucose maintenance. And so you can maintain your blood glucose was as little as like 20 grams per hour, which, you know, if you look at like some of these endurance athletes area, they're often consuming a hundred grams an hour, 60 grams or something quite, quite high.

[00:16:35] And you might need much less than that. And then what you want to do is you know, tailor it to the workout. You know, some workouts don't require it. Some workouts are going to be, you know, like, you know, when CrossFit, some of them are high intense, you know, metabolic, metabolic workouts, whereas other ones are going to be more form based or more strength based, where I don't think that that extra carbohydrate is, is necessary in many cases.

[00:16:56] So you'll figure it out. And then many people are able to over a period of [00:17:00] about six months, wean off to a point. And then a lot of them literally, they feel better without it at times. And so it's kind of one of those balances. So, and then finding the right carbohydrate. doesn't quite cause gastrointestinal problems is, you know, sometimes challenging for some, some folks, but that's all I.

[00:17:16] often talk to people because you don't do it or do it again in the off season. If your sport has an off season, you can use that time to transition because try to do it in the middle of season is going to be challenging because you are, I mean, it's your performance likely will go down for a period of time, maybe many months until it starts to rebound and go back up.

[00:17:32] But once you make the transition, many people find the performance ultimately goes up. And again, there's, there's, there's now research coming out that shows that people on ketogenic diets, we don't have a lot of carnival research yet, but we do have some, some, I think. You know, extrapolatable experience from, from ketogenic diets that show, you know, actually improved performance over carbohydrate based diets.

[00:17:53] There's actually some studies that have come out now that show that.

[00:17:56] Michael Kummer: You mentioned before that, you know, for the past month, you've only consumed [00:18:00] meat. So that means no eggs. That's

[00:18:01] Dr. Shawn Baker: correct. Yeah, that's, it's every year, you know, we'll carve a month is every January. I started that seven years ago because of my birth taste in January for no other reason.

[00:18:09] And I always use that as like a reset. I just, I just kind of, I Eat nothing but steak, beef, salt, and water. And I always feel fantastic. I literally feel like I can run through a wall right now. I mean, I just feel that good. And then inevitably, throughout the year, I'll eventually, I'll be traveling and it's hard to get a ribeye steak for breakfast.

[00:18:25] So I might eat bacon and eggs, and then the eggs will creep back in and then eventually some beef. You know, cheese will make it back in there and I might have a little bit of yogurt here and there. And that, you know, and then next year I'll do it again, probably settle back in there. But it's, it's something that I'm not dogma, you know, occasionally I'll have a piece of birthday cake.

[00:18:43] I've said that on many occasions. You know, I'm not dogmatic about this, but I mean, generally, I mean, without exaggeration, my diet is probably all told throughout the year is probably 95, 98 percent just, just beef, just right. And I do really well on that. I'm very happy with that.

[00:18:58] Michael Kummer: Right. Is there, [00:19:00] I mean, obviously, you know, muscle meat from ruminants is, is incredibly nutritious.

[00:19:04] Is there anything, I think the answer is no, because otherwise you wouldn't be doing it, but is there anything that you might be missing out? I don't know. Calcium, let's say that you, you know, unless you chew the bones. Might not be getting.

[00:19:17] Dr. Shawn Baker: Yeah, well, I mean, calcium, you know, there's a, there's a wonderful gal.

[00:19:19] Her name is Amber O'Hearn. She wrote a really nice paper. I can't remember which journal it was published in, but it talked about the nutritional adequacy of carnivore diet. And, you know, basically she showed that you could get every nutrient that's basically thought about. The only question mark was calcium.

[00:19:33] And it was like, well, where do you get your calcium from? And it's interesting that one thing we know is with higher protein diets, and a carnivore diet is clearly higher protein for most people, calcium absorption increases dramatically within the gut. We know that. That's originally, there used to be this thing called the acid ash hypothesis.

[00:19:49] So what we would see is high protein diets, people would, They have hyper calcereous. They have a lot of calcium in their urine. And the assumption was it was being pulled from the bones. It was like high protein leaks to bone, calcium [00:20:00] leaks from the bone, and that's why it's being released in the urine.

[00:20:02] Well, that turned out not to be true. They found out that actually it was higher gut absorption. So basically what happens, just as we absorb more from our gut, We excrete more out in urine so we maintain calcium homeostasis throughout the body. So we know that calcium absorption goes up significantly on a carnivore diet and there is some calcium in meat, believe it or not.

[00:20:20] Uh, you think about every muscle in our body requires calcium, right? We require calcium to contract our muscles. So all those muscles have, have to have calcium in it by definition. So you're getting some. Also, interestingly, there's a fellow by the name of Walter Willett, who a lot of people in the low carb world think he's a bad guy, right, he's a plant based guy, but he's done some compelling research showing that the overall human requirement for calcium, the RDA, is probably overinflated by much, maybe as much as three or four times.

[00:20:49] So our overall calcium requirement may actually be less than what we think it is, particularly as an adult. As a child, you know, we're consuming obviously breast milk and, and, and, and as a kid, we might require more because we're [00:21:00] growing our skeleton. But after our skeleton is grown, I mean, you don't need much because, you know, you're constantly moving calcium in and out of the, you know, the, the, the different tissues.

[00:21:10] So it may not be that we need any. I mean, the short answer is I've yet to see someone on Carnivore who has exhibited any evidence of calcium deficiency. Right. I mean, we've not seen, I've certainly not seen, you know, low, low blood calcium. I've never seen that. I've not seen anybody with any significant fracture risk or.

[00:21:29] osteopenia. In fact, we see the reverse. We often see people laying down more bone mineral density. And I think one of the things a lot of people fail to realize is bone is not just, you know, calcium. It's not, we're not made out of chalk. We have a lot of protein in our bones and you know, it's almost 50 percent of our bones are made out of protein, particularly type one collagen.

[00:21:48] And so that animal products really seems to help. Foster the bones. I mean, there's been a lot of studies now showing people on plant based diets, particularly vegans, are at really high risk for fracture rates, even if they, they [00:22:00] supplement calcium, probably due to protein, you know, bioavailability issues.

[00:22:04] Michael Kummer: Right. That makes sense. All right. In, in terms of salt intake, you mentioned you, you consume salt with your meat. How much salt do you consume? And has your salt intake gone up by eating only meat?

[00:22:16] Dr. Shawn Baker: Well, I don't, I mean, I don't specifically track, I salt to taste, you know, throw, throw salt on my steak till I think it tastes good.

[00:22:22] And I think that's an internal mechanism by which we have, you know, if anytime you over salt something, your body immediately said, well, that's too salty. And I think that's a, you know, like we drink when we're thirsty and I think we have this salt.

[00:22:39] I mean, compared to what? I mean, if we look at the average American's diet, and we're eating a lot of processed food, there's massive amounts of salt in all this processed food. And I think that's where there were, because there's a, an association between salt intake and negative health outcomes. But I think it's because we're eating so much salty food, which would be, the processed food, which is probably the confounder here.

[00:22:59] [00:23:00] Whereas if I just eat steak, and steak has a small amount of, you know, it does have sodium in it and has chloride in that, as well as potassium. But because, specifically because I work out a lot, you know, I'm sweating all the time, as you might be in CrossFit, depending on what part of the world you're in.

[00:23:14] Right. I, I think I, I just need a little bit more salt to, to, to make that happen. There are people on Carver Diet that eat no salt, which is kind of interesting to me. And they seem to be doing okay. But I think specific because of the fact that I prefer to exercise and sweat a lot, then I have to increase my salt intake somewhat.

[00:23:31] Michael Kummer: Do you think there is some sort of adaptation or even, I don't want to call it a necessary addiction, but some sort of, you know, feedback loop going on where if you start consuming more salt you get used to that higher level and then if you, you know, dial it back to, quote unquote, normal levels or lower levels, you might have a negative, at least temporarily, a negative impact?

[00:23:51] And I'm asking this because I've noticed I think we have increased our salt intake. We use more salt on the [00:24:00] foods that we prepare ourselves, but that's probably also again, because, you know, by cutting out all process stuff, we cut out all the salt that we got, not even knowing we got it. And now we have to kind of, you know, add back in to make it taste.

[00:24:13] But I noticed that on days where I consume. Less salt than I did in the past. I would cramp more easily than on days where I, you know, just actively, you know, let's say have a, you know, a glass of, you know, element or whatever, you know, some electrolytes shake with my, with my workout.

[00:24:29] Dr. Shawn Baker: Yeah. I mean, I, can you add up to having more saltier food?

[00:24:32] I do think, you know, I think your taste can kind of add up to a degree. I think that as far as, you know, I mean, there is a homeostasis. Our body does seek. Some level of homeostasis, and you do adapt. If you consume more salt, you look screen more. I mean, it's just you're going to, you're going to maintain, I mean, the body very diligently defends, you know, blood sodium levels.

[00:24:52] You know, if it gets below, you know, one 35 ish and starts getting in the one twenties, you start having signs of hyponatremia. You can get [00:25:00] brain swelling and things like that. So there's, there's. You know, there is an adaptation process, and so you can sort of up and down regulate that. If you consume too much, you'll pee more out.

[00:25:09] If you consume not as much, out less. And so there is something that, that you can kind of do that. But I find that, yeah, if I, if I'm working out really hard, like say I've had a hard leg workout, and sometimes I'll get leg cramps occasionally, but not very often. But usually that occurs when I've either under consumed enough food.

[00:25:25] food or maybe I just don't have enough electrolytes because we do know pretty clearly that cramps are associated with electrolytes. It's really something that's hard to study because it's hard to do a study on cramps because they're so unpredictable. It's kind of like you just can't, you know, assume this person's going to cramp overnight and maybe they do, but I don't.

[00:25:42] So there's not a lot of data on there. Some of the suggestions, you know, magnesium has a role in that, which it probably does. But I, yeah, I do think it's possible to, Get used to more salt or get used to less salt. That is certainly, certainly, certainly with sugar. I mean, with sweet, you can, you can do that because if you go a long period without eating anything sweet, [00:26:00] all of a sudden, you know, something that's only mildly sweet now tastes quite sweet to you.

[00:26:04] Right before, you know, um, You know, in years gone by, I love to eat dessert. I mean, I still, dessert tastes good to me, but I would like the sweet, I would be attracted to the most sweet thing possible, and now I'm like, well, you know, a piece of fruit is plenty sweet for me these days, and not that I ever consume that very much, but yeah, I do think we adapt.

[00:26:24] Michael Kummer: Right. You said, you know, you're not generally against carbs. Do you think there is a There are certain types of carbs that if you consume them, you should rather stay away from, like, you know, fructose, let's say, or, you know, sweet fruits in general. Is there a difference between the type of carbs that you might be more likely to do well with than others?

[00:26:44] Dr. Shawn Baker: Well, I think, you know, I think, I think this goes really more to whole foods versus highly processed foods. I mean, I think, you know, a lot of the carbohydrates we consume Breads, pastas, you know, uh, certainly all the baked goods and, you know, because any, we are consuming powdered food and, and [00:27:00] let's, let's be real, a cake is basically just a mixture of powder, sugar and flour and things like that.

[00:27:04] The surface area has been so broken down, so yeah, there's an extremely high surface area of food and it's so well rapidly absorbed in our gut, whereas a whole, you know, sort of a whole food carbohydrate, The Microbiome would actually consume some of it. And this is what's happening you know if we look at the you know I think it just actually helps to fuel the obesity epidemic.

[00:27:27] As we've seen over the years that from the 1950s 60s we've seen a significant rise in caloric intake. Then around 2000, it started to level off. I mean we really haven't consumed much more calories. Between 2000 and 2024, it's, you know, within a few, not, not much difference. And yet our obesity rates have skyrocketed because our reliance on these ultra processed foods and those powdered foods has gone up significantly.

[00:27:50] And whereas in the past, our gut microbiome can actually consume up to 22 percent of our calories. And if they're not getting it anymore, and it's all being absorbed by [00:28:00] us, You know, we're just absorbing more of the food. Even though we're eating the same amount of calories, we're absorbing more of it.

[00:28:04] Therefore, we're becoming overweight. But as far as, again, from a performance standpoint of an athlete, and again, there's a difference between an athlete and someone who's sedentary. An athlete who needs that calories, You know, then in that case, yeah, you want, you probably want something that's rapidly absorbable, even things like dextrose tablets.

[00:28:23] You know, those things are what you really want here as an athlete is sugar. I mean, you want your blood glucose to go up and that's what, you know, diabetics use. They use that because they're very rapidly absorbed. It helps them with hypoglycemia. And so something like that may be one of the more ideal things, even though it's a, you know, basically a hunk of glucose rather than something that's going to break down more slowly.

[00:28:42] So it depends on that on the, uh, I guess. The end goal here if it's just I need a little blood glucose bump for my performance Yeah, if it's like I like to eat carbs but I don't want to gain a bunch of weight because I know and then you probably should you you're better off avoiding the Obviously the sugary, highly refined processed [00:29:00] grains and things like that, particularly when they're coupled with some sort of fat, which makes it even like the double.

[00:29:05] The donut is the perfect food. I mean, it's the perfect awful food, right? Right. Processed grains, sugar, some kind of nasty oil, typically. Yeah, those are things I would avoid.

[00:29:15] Michael Kummer: Right. You mentioned before, you know, calories and how calories are being used by the microbiome. Have you seen that? Athletes going on a, on a, on a meat based diet.

[00:29:27] Under consume calories or protein more specifically because I know that, you know, a lot of the protein and even the fat we consume is not only used for energy, right? It's used for a ton of different metabolic processes and so you only end up with a fra well, with a certain amount of those calories that are available for fuel.

[00:29:44] If you burn 4000 calories a day and you eat 4000 calories of protein, you are probably under eating. Would you say that's a fair assessment?

[00:29:52] Dr. Shawn Baker: Yeah, I think it's very, it's very fair to say that it is challenging to eat enough calories on carnivore. That is, that is true. I mean, that's what, eating [00:30:00] carbohydrates makes it easy for you to consume a lot of calories.

[00:30:02] I think that's one of the greatest benefits. If you look at like other dietary strategies, you know, a friend of mine, Stan Efferding, vertical diet, He deals with a lot of big athletes, you know, world's strongest men, competitors, and stuff like that. And they routinely need to consume, you know, 7, 8, 9, sometimes 10, 000 calories a day.

[00:30:19] It's hard to do that. That's like 10 pounds of meat, which is very challenging to do. I mean, I think the most I've ever eaten in one day was 8 pounds of meat. But I mean, and that was difficult for me, but if I could eat, you know, like he does, he uses dextrose enhanced rice because it makes him, it makes him eat more.

[00:30:37] And we have this, you know, there's this, these weight loss drugs, these new GLP you know, Zeppyc. Depound, I think it's the other one. They all act on this, you know, GLP 1 receptor through the, you know, through the screen. These are incredent hormones, glucagon like peptide. And meat naturally stimulates those things.

[00:30:57] So meat naturally has a [00:31:00] satiety effect. And so a lot of people, particularly people that require a lot of food, struggle to do that. I mean, you know, I routinely eat about four pounds a day. That's about, depending on how much fat in there, that's between 3, calories. and I'm a pretty big person. I'm, you know, I'm six foot five.

[00:31:15] I'm 265 pounds. You know, a lot of people, that sounds like that's a lot of food, four pounds of meat, but in, in, in reality, I need that much. I mean, just, uh, if you plug my numbers into any dietary, you know, energy calculator, it's going to come out, you know, somewhere around 4, 000 calories. And so, and, and eating four pounds of meat a day is for some people would be hard.

[00:31:34] I do it pretty easily, but a lot of people would struggle with that.

[00:31:38] Michael Kummer: And I've noticed the same with almost with, I mean, there are only two meals that I eat per day. And with every meal, I really have to stuff myself to feel like I'm getting Enough and and and you know people look at me like I don't know how you how you eat that much without gaining weight I'm like, well, it's mostly fat and protein and if you do that and don't you know, make up your calories with carbs You can easily do that [00:32:00] without the only thing you gain is probably muscle tissue At least you maintain it, but not any body fat, you know, and, and I think that's a huge misconception with, you know, people trying to perform on a very high protein diet and they just don't eat enough.

[00:32:14] And then they, you know, they wonder why they are not gaining or, you know, potentially even losing, you know, muscle mass.

[00:32:19] Dr. Shawn Baker: Yeah. I, you know, like I said, there is obviously with, you know, the fate of protein in the body has a couple of fates, you know, it's going, it's going to be incorporated into the structure, you know, turnover, muscle mass, bone.

[00:32:31] Organ, you know, skin, whatever, gut lining, all the, the protein is going to go there. Once it's done that, then, you know, there's, then, then these amino acids have, you know, they can either become, they're gluconeogenic or ketogenic. And so they, some can do both, but I mean, they're going to either turn into ketones or they're going to turn into glucose.

[00:32:49] And so if you don't have enough carbohydrates, you're kind of relying on adequate protein. And, you know, and there's been good studies on particularly like endurance athletes, particularly [00:33:00] low carb endurance athletes need to eat more protein. That's just been clearly shown because some of that protein is being turned into energy.

[00:33:06] Now it's not as efficient as it might be for carbohydrates. And so you're like, why don't you see carbs? Well, that could be the answer if you tolerate that. But if you're an older guy like me and it gives you inflammation, you're like, well maybe that's not the best route for me in particular. So, I mean, there's, you know, again, there's pros and cons of both of these things.

[00:33:24] Michael Kummer: Right. Have you seen a difference between male and female athletes? And I'm asking this because a lot of the studies, a lot of the medical advice is really geared towards men. There is significantly less studies and evidence, you know, in the terms of, you know, female health. Have you noticed a difference?

[00:33:40] Is it, can, can women just as well do a pure carnivore diet? Should they be doing a pure carnivore diet? Is that? consistent with, with, you know, human history and evolution, or is there a case to be made for women to eat differently? Yeah,

[00:33:55] Dr. Shawn Baker: I think, I think women do have some different needs. Obviously we're, we're, we're, we're, [00:34:00] we're very different in many ways.

[00:34:01] We're alike in most ways, but different in some ways. You know, around menstrual cycles, I think that women in general, I mean, they carry more body fat. I think they, I think they require a higher amount of fat in many cases, you know, and so they might have to eat a higher fat percentage and say something like you or I could eat.

[00:34:18] I mean, I still eat high fat. I mean, my calories are still probably 65, maybe 70 percent of my calories are coming from the fat and the rest is generally protein and the trace amount of carbohydrate. Women might have to skew that a little bit higher. And it may.

[00:34:34] I've seen, I mean those differences also depend on like, you know, if we're talking about young, healthy people that are athletes, those are the major difference differences when we're talking disease states, you know, I see certainly differences in fat requirements for different disease processes. But I think that women generally have a little bit different energy demands than men do.

[00:34:54] And they, I think, you know, sometimes they need a higher percentage of total energy to protein. [00:35:00] I took particularly in certain times of the month.

[00:35:02] Michael Kummer: Right. But that doesn't necessarily mean those. sources of energy have to come from carbs, right? It means

[00:35:08] Dr. Shawn Baker: no, I think it's just energy. I think, you know, in my view, I think carbs and fat are just energy and you can, you can, you can have your choice.

[00:35:14] I mean, and I think the literature is fairly clear on that, that, you know, whatever you're adapted to. And again, this is, you know, cause most of the data we have is, based on general population data. So we just assume that, you know, it's like most of the data we have on heart disease are on sick people. We don't have a lot of healthy population data.

[00:35:35] And we certainly don't have a lot of data on low carb people. It's just not, you know, I mean, most of the data we've ever gathered has been on people that consume 55 to 60 percent of their calories from carbs and kind of a grain based population. So we don't really have as much data as we could. We could certainly use on this.

[00:35:52] You know, we'll, we'll, we'll, hopefully we'll get some more of that as time goes by. I think more and more studies are being done, but it's a slow process.

[00:35:57] Michael Kummer: Do you consider not consuming [00:36:00] carbs to be a, a stressor for the body? Be it a hormetic stressor? I mean, I certainly, I don't think it's a negative stressor, but is it some sort of stressor?

[00:36:08] You think from an evolutionary perspective that. Whenever we did not get carbs that caused or triggered some sort of stress response and is this something that over time You get used to and it's not a stressor anymore, or is it always some sort of, you know, stress response that's going on in

[00:36:26] Dr. Shawn Baker: Yeah, well, I think you know I mean There's obviously certain cortisol levels with people appoint to in short term studies do seem to can to sort of agree that In the short term, yeah, you're going to see, you know, elevations, you know, serum, hypercortisol, anemia will, will occur, but that does seem to attenuate with time.

[00:36:43] You know, that is something that I think you get, you, you adapt to it, just like anything else. Obviously, I mean, if we look at an evolutionary model on human existence, we spent much of our time in ice ages as Homo sapiens, and then. Pre, pre, uh, pre that and the other homo species that have [00:37:00] been around all, all of which are considered humans technically.

[00:37:03] So I think there is a level of adaptation to not having carbohydrates for either months at a time, or in some cases, maybe years at a time. I, you know, The whole thing about high cortisol is always bad that there's some nuance that just like everything else there's nuance There's actually indications where higher cortisol can actually be protective and beneficial So it's not just like you know, we find nothing's black and white, you know, we don't want to write, you know Glucose being as low as possible.

[00:37:30] Maybe not may not be the ideal situation Insulin being as low as possible may or may not be the ideal situation So we have to just sort of you know realize that there's a lot of nuance around this, but I do think many people adapt to that because, you know, and, and as you mentioned, there is you stress, you know, good stress and hormesis and things like that, as opposed to, you know, negative stress or negative chronic stress.

[00:37:52] And I don't think, I think with time with adaptation, you know, and I've looked at, and not a lot, I mean, not a lot of people check this, but I've seen quite a few [00:38:00] people where they've been carver chronically and their cortisol levels are fine. They're not abnormally elevated or decreased. Right. So I think.

[00:38:06] There is a period of adaptation that goes there and realistically, one of the things is, you know, why do we have this cortical cortisol secretion? Because as our blood glucose often drops, we get into this, but it's pretty clear that prior to using cortisol, we use glucagon, you know, we have this sort of tiered system out there and glucagon very rapidly and quickly restores blood glucose to hepatic glycogenolysis.

[00:38:31] You know, that's what it does when you secrete one of the alpha cells in the pancreas, secrete glucagon. It tells the liver to break down glycogen to restore the blood glucose. That's before cortisol ever gets involved. And so it's not until your blood glucose gets down into the, into the low fifties that we'll often see a, you know, a cortisol, a significant cortisol response.

[00:38:49] And so, you know, I think it's, I think, you know, if you go on any diet, I don't care what it is, you can go vegan diet, you can go Mediterranean. If you do a significant shift from your standard day to day food, it's going to be a stress on the [00:39:00] body. Peace. Your body will adapt to it. It might take three weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, something like that.

[00:39:05] Typically what I see. Right.

[00:39:07] Michael Kummer: Okay. Now, if, if people want to learn more, especially, you know, if there are athletes out there, they might be interested, okay, how can I, you know, leverage a carnivore diet to improve my performance in the long run, to reduce inflammation, to improve recovery? to reduce aches and pains, especially, you know, in the master's kind of category, once you get older and you experience more of that.

[00:39:26] Is there any way where, do you have some sort of platform or program where people can reach out and, you know, get some guidance, get some more information, or what would be your recommendation?

[00:39:34] Dr. Shawn Baker: Yeah, well, I mean, we've got, we've got a couple. We've got, you know, we've got Rivero Medical or Rivero. com, where we're just a healthcare, we're a digital healthcare company, we're licensed in all 50 states, you know.

[00:39:44] We just launched. 2 weeks ago, in fact, so we have something like 7, 000 people in the waiting list. So that's, that's for healthcare. You know, if you're like somebody that just needs someone to help you with diabetes, metabolic disease, or, you know, probably not, not your crowd most likely, but from an athletic standpoint, we have [00:40:00] a platform carnivore.

[00:40:00] diet, which, you know, has a lot of resource on just how to implement the diet. consultations, you know, you can always book a consultation with me. I usually do, I usually do that for an hour a day during the week. You know, and, uh, and so, I mean, there's ways to do that. There's obviously, it's not that complicated, but I mean, I, I do think there's some nuance around sports that, uh, you know, it, it, it, it, yeah, and, and we've talked about some of it already, but I mean, how to, how to implement it, when to implement it, how to, how to transition, because it does make sense to transition, you know, like I said, any athlete that's considering doing this, I would consider doing it in the off season if you have that, if you have an off season, so that you can kind of allow your body to adapt to it and realize that.

[00:40:40] It could take many, many months to, to adapt to this, you know, and it's, it's something that. You know, I mean, depending on how, how bad off you are, like if you're an old guy with a bum shoulder and you're like, I really want to keep doing snatches and my shoulders not letting me, you know, you might need to do Carver for three to six months before you can sort of get, get back to [00:41:00] that.

[00:41:00] Michael Kummer: All right. Sounds good. Well, I much appreciate your time. There are a lot of very good information. I think you're active on Twitter and on Instagram, right? Any other platforms that work? I

[00:41:10] Dr. Shawn Baker: hate to admit it, but I have a TikTok page and I also do, I have a YouTube channel. So all those things are places where I can go, but hey, I really appreciate it, man.

[00:41:18] This has been fun, fun chat.

[00:41:20] Michael Kummer: Sounds good. Appreciate it too. Thank you. All right.