What If Low Carb Is Wrong? Does ASP Prove That Insulin Doesn’t Matter and That Its Calories That Really Count?
June 30, 2009 by admin
So there I was on the forums of t-nation.com answering questions about my recent interview piece with Gary Taubes when I started to wonder if this low-carb thing was legitimate after all. “Have I been giving bad advice the whole time? Should I just be telling people to ‘eat less and exercise more?’ But that’s never worked… What I do now works like clock work… But all these posts keep telling me how ‘retarded’ me and Gary are…’”, I worried to myself.
What’s not authoritative and intimidating about being insulted over and over again by anonymous people on a forum? If they can type it on a forum it must be well researched and true! Right?
I did come to my thin-skinned senses eventually, BUT the folks on the t-nation forums did leave me with one question that I wasn’t entirely sure about: Is ASP the overlooked flaw in low-carb dieting?
There were a lot of posts saying in effect: “What Tuabes and the rest of the low-carb community don’t like talking about is a little compound called acylation stimulating protein (ASP) which stores dietary fat in the fat cell with ZERO rise in insulin levels.”
I started doing some digging and found statements like these in peer reviewed research (I’m paraphrasing to make them readable and concise):
#1. “ASP is far more powerful than insulin in stimulating the creation of new body-fat.” (1)
#2. “ASP is released in response to an oral fat load.” (2)
Did I Get Served On A Forum?
I started really getting into ASP research at about 10pm on a Saturday night, and by the time I found the above statements in peer reviewed research I started sweating and my stomach was twisted up in knots. I tried to let it go and hang out with my fiancé, but I just had to know – “What’s the deal with ASP!? Is this something the debunks low-carb?”
So I spent the next 6 hours combing everything that I could get my hands on about ASP, and every time a paper made on of the above statements (#1 & 2 above) I noted the paper they cited. (By the way, my biochemistry textbooks were no help at all.) Pretty soon it became clear that those two statements were pretty much built off of two papers published in 1989:
• Statement #1 above was pretty much built off of a paper titled “Purification and characterization of acylation stimulating protein”, but let’s call it “ASP trumps insulin” for this article.
• Statement #2 above was built off of a paper titled “Metabolic response of acylation stimulating protein to an oral fat load,” but let’s call it “ASP is released in response to fat, not carbs.”
Does ASP Trump Insulin?
For the “ASP trumps insulin paper” the researchers grew fat cells in cultures (outside the body). It is true the addition of ASP REALLY accelerated the creation of new fat (triglyceride) – it was faster than insulin.
HOWEVER, both the ASP and the no-ASP cultures had insulin and carbs added to them. So the water is very muddy:
Could the ASP be a way in which insulin accelerates its activity? Maybe the super deadly combo a high-fat and high sugar meal? Maybe the only thing to learn from this study is that frosting is more fattening than candy? Why not test ASP without insulin and carbs if your goal is to see what the difference between them is?
Or, for that matter, why not just test ASP in actual people instead of cultures? (1)
Is ASP Released In Response to Fat, Not Carbs?
For the “ASP is released in response to fat, not carbs.” The “lipid meal” or “oral fat load” that was used to induce the ASP response was cream + one tbsp table sugar (sucrose) + one tbsp nonfat dry milk.
That mixture is 25% carbs by weight! So, that really doesn’t tell us anything at all.
Why not just have people drink olive oil or melted butter instead of cream plus a bunch of sugary stuff?
Take It Home Gary
I shared my research with Gary Taubes and he had this to say:
Gary and his cat
“Nice to know you’re suitably obsessed Josef.
“One thing to keep in mind in all this is the need to explain the observations, not just work with possible mechanisms that can’t explain anything. So one of the observations is weight loss on a high fat diet — the Atkins diet.
“So if ASP was good at sequestering dietary fat away in the fat tissue without carbs being needed, why would people lose weight when they ate an Atkins diet?
“Another observation we’re trying to understand, as I point out in lectures, is the obesity in poor populations eating low-fat, high carb diets. So there ASP would be irrelevant. Now if we had obesity in populations eating low-carb, high-fat diets, that would be telling and a reason to invoke ASP, but, as far as I know, no such populations exist.
“So maybe ASP plays a role in obesity in rats that are fed high fat diets, but we’re not all that interested in rats.”
Epilogue – Falling Asleep At A Wedding
My obsessive researching kept me up ‘till 4am, but I had to be up at 8am to workout, shower and be at a friend’s wedding the next day. I couldn’t put off my workout and sleep in because I had deadlines to meet that night. So, while everyone else was watching the cake cutting and dancing, I passed out, face down on the table. Even though I woke with drool on my cheek I felt a lot better.
References
#1. J Biol Chem vol. 264, Jan 5, 1989, p.426-430
#2. J lipid res vol 30, 1989 p. 1727-1733
5 Celebrity Fitness Secrets For A Great Beach Body
June 26, 2009 by admin
Summer is officially here. The clothes are coming off as we go to the beach or pool, and people want to look their best. So we had award winning Washington, DC personal trainer Josef Brandenburg compile 5 secrets that celebrities use to create and keep amazing beach bodies:
No high fructose corn syrup EVER
#1. Marissa Miller – Don’t drink your calories: Marissa told Cosmo “I hadn’t had soda in about five years, and I came home to find this thing in the fridge that rolls soda cans out like a dispenser. I’m like, ‘What are you doing to me?’” referring to her husband’s new soda dispenser.
“There are almost no beverages with calories that aren’t just pure sugar – juice included. Sugar spikes insulin and insulin makes you tired, fat and hungry,” says Brandenburg.
#2. Jason Statham… click here to read the rest of the 5 celebrity fitness tips (free as a press release).
Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s top personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.Why Are You Peeing In Your Pants? The Myth Of Motivation
June 25, 2009 by admin
A lot of people tell me that they’ll start exercising or eating better when they get motivated. I don’t know if you know anyone like this personally? (Like, I don’t know, yourself maybe!)
The attitude is, “oh, I’m just waiting for my motivation to kick in. When my motivation arrives its on, I’m gonna eat right and work hard and get sexy!”
People start saying this when they hit a size 10 and they’re still saying it when they hit a size 16.
Motivation is a myth. Motivation does not exist.
The only things that exists are:
#1. You
#2. Your standards
Everything else is a figment of your imagination. Just some BS you made up so that you don’t have to take responsibility for your own behavior. “Its not my fault, my motivation hasn’t shown up yet!”
What Really Matters
What really matters are your standards – what you are and are not willing to accept from yourself.
Back when I was like 20 years old I saw this homeless guy living outside of the WSC that I worked in and really wanted to help him get off the streets. I thought to myself, “all this man needs is an opportunity to get on his feet again and I’m gonna give it to him.”
So I went to REI and a few other stores and got him a huge box of toiletries, books on job hunting, new clothes, etc. I wrapped that box up in bright red wrapping paper and tied it up with a giant white bow – it was Christmas time.
I asked him if he’d like some help getting off the streets and he said “yes!” So I gave him the box and then took him to a boarding house in Foggy Bottom.
I told him that his job was to apply for jobs every week and to get one. I would pay for all his food and housing, and he had a month to make some serious headway in getting a job.
The funny thing is that he actually did nothing. He didn’t drink at all. He just acted like a lazy high school kid over the summer. He stayed inside, watched M*A*S*H and ate pizza. He cleaned himself up, but he literally did nothing.
To make that even worse one day when I was driving him around trying to help motivate him to seek job opportunities around he peed in my car! He gave no warning, he just let it rip and soaked my passenger seat in urine. NO, he did NOT have a bladder control problem or anything like that.
Living on the streets he had gotten into the habit of just letting “it” go in his pants if he felt like it.
Do you remember Ren & Stimpy?
The point of this is that I seriously doubt that any of you has peed in someone else’s car as an adult. Why? Because that kind of behavior is completely unacceptable. Its so far below the standards that you have for yourself that you would never even dream of doing something like that.
The food that you put in your mouth and the exercise that you do or do not do is EXACTLY the same thing. It is a standard.
A standard of behavior and YOU are where the buck stops. Raise your standards and you will change your life. Keep waiting for your motivation to show up and your pants will keep getting tighter.
It’s YOUR choice an NOBODY else’s.
Get off your ass and get to work and the motivation will follow. Stay on your ass and the motivation will never show up.
Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s top personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.
