37 - [Alcohol & Metabolism 1] Why We Both Quit Alcohol, & Calories vs Hormones

Johan Vesters: 0:32

What's up guys before we get into the episode I got some news for you next week of March 29 7pm Central European Time I'm launching my very first webinar the body transformation blueprint. In this presentation we're going to share the exact systems and strategies that you need to sustainably lose body fat to effectively build muscle and of course due to unhealthy weight. So what are your goals to live better, perform better just feel better and be healthier? I think this presentation is going to help you we're not going to overload you with nutritional information, but we're going to keep it more tactical more applicable to you walk away from this webinar knowing exactly what needs to happen in order to reach your goals. Sounds good. You could join us live on March 29 at 7pm Central European Time or if you're based overseas, feel free to sign up anyway because they'll be sharing the replay with you afterwards. You can find more information in the show notes or just DM me and I'll send you the link directly. Now without further ado, let's get into the episode. And we're back what's up Welcome back to Talking Nutrition.

Kristine Andali: 1:24

Absolutely. Like I feel like I need to put these on behind the bags under my eyes

Johan Vesters: 1:32

I was wearing my my blue light blockers on for one episode and in their wheelhouse like I look like an idiot like I mean,

Kristine Andali: 1:39

I know.

Johan Vesters: 1:41

I just have been I was I was using my computer a little a little much that that you know Welcome to Episode 37. How to speed up your metabolism. Energy Balance hormone fibroids Deep Dive. The first Happy Birthday, Kristine, thank you. You feel amazing. I

Kristine Andali: 2:09

got really I was just telling Johan. I'm surprised I've made it on here because I got glutened I call it getting gluten when I don't have gluten on purpose and I'll never have it on purpose. I'm just dead to the world if that happens to me and I I definitely feeling it today, but not as bad as I thought so good. thankful for that. I guess.

Johan Vesters: 2:37

I'm glad you're here. Yeah. 32 Yeah.

Kristine Andali: 2:44

All the only two

Johan Vesters: 2:47

I still got to buy one year, so I'll always be older but okay.

Kristine Andali: 2:52

Eric, Eric's turning 37 in 10 days, so I'm still young technically.

Johan Vesters: 3:03

It's about how you feel you know how young you feel.

Kristine Andali: 3:06

Sometimes I feel like I'm at so.

Johan Vesters: 3:11

This morning, I felt a little old. Be honest with you. But

Kristine Andali: 3:14

thanks to the free kid, what I put myself through for so many years in my CrossFit years. Oh, yeah, that's, that gets me sometimes still.

Johan Vesters: 3:26

Oh, so the gluten incident was completely just, by accident just kind of happen. Like it hasn't.

Kristine Andali: 3:35

So like, it mostly happens when I eat Oh, I'm like, I'm obviously very careful at home. But there's times where like, I like I'm very careful when I eat out to like, I'm telling them I have an allergy. I'm asking for like the gluten free stuff. Sometimes it just doesn't work out. Because there's like whatever I don't know. Like they say there's not gluten and stuff. And then there is and yeah, that

Johan Vesters: 4:03

can be made like the same factory or something that has gluten and stuff. Right? Like what sir? Yeah, but

Kristine Andali: 4:09

the thing is, is like I so for example, like Eric has, like, he eats gluten. So like his bagels in the morning are normal. Mine are gluten free. We use the same toaster. And so from like a cross contamination standpoint, like I don't, that doesn't bother me here. Okay, so there's got to be actual, like gluten in the food that I'm consuming at the restaurant.

Johan Vesters: 4:37

Was that always a thing? Or was that kind of part because I don't know, CrossFit thing kind of like oh, stressing the system?

Kristine Andali: 4:44

Yeah, um, no, I used to crush gluten. I used to crush doughnuts and pizza and I'm Italian out of pasta. But then yes, like overstressing this system with CrossFit for so many years. I mean, a lot of people don't correlate what that does to the gut lining. Right? And it starts to basically separate and then we start to see stuff like this happen like the food sensitivities, but it's that as well as like I went through a lot of surgeries in the medications like the pain meds and all of that will cause like, those will destroy your gut if you don't take care of it. And I did not take care of it for a lot of years and so I'm having a very, like, I've definitely had improvements. But it's still like I just can't do can't do the gluten unfortunately.

Johan Vesters: 5:43

You see kids don't work out too much. No, but like, I do think we tend to still half is like go hard every day like mentality, especially within CrossFit. Like we both know a lot of people like get across, we're supposed to have a lot of friends who do this stuff, but like, it's, it's almost kind of like taking it easy and nourishing your body recovering like those kinds of things, like the less sexy sexy stuff, you know, like, it's still being neglected on such a big scale, like, it does cause some issues, you know, you can actually take that too far.

Kristine Andali: 6:17

It does. It does for sure.

Johan Vesters: 6:19

But you so before we got on, you mentioned as well, that the non alcohol change you recently made was also kind of combined with like to not try to have any gluten, obviously, but like, Well,

Kristine Andali: 6:35

I mean, I still throat when I couldn't have gluten, I still drank I would just stay away from like beer and stuff like that. And let me preface this by saying like, I'm not judging anyone who drinks. I used to be a huge, huge drinker, of which a lot of people don't know about me. I really your wine bottle collection. Yeah, like I know, well, even then, that wasn't really I'm talking like, years back, I was freaking nuts. So do I think that's healthy? No, obviously not. But then, you know, as I got, obviously, into my CrossFit, I settled down, but I would still have drinks here and there. And then the last few years, it definitely, like settled down a lot. Like I was like, barely drinking. But when I did drink, I would feel like complete crap. Like, it didn't matter if I had one or two. The next day, I'd wake up with like a foggy brain. No motivation just to do anything when was not there. Like I didn't want to make my food. I didn't want to go outside on a walk. I didn't want to work out and like that does not align with who I am. And how I want to live my life. And I don't know, honestly, like, so I've been alcohol free for five months. Johan has been alcohol free for 10 years, just so you guys know, like, that's amazing. Um, but I, I posted about this, and I went out for dinner with Eric. And I had two drinks. And I woke up feeling like that. And I don't know, I think it's just where I'm at in my life. I really just got honest with myself that day. And I was like, do I really want to spend days like this? Like is, is that one to two drinks? Or even if I was to have six drinks? Like, is that really worth it? Is it like, yes, there are times where it's fun, no dough. But is it worth it next day, and I just I couldn't justify it. Like, they're just there's just it's I couldn't like being really, really honest with myself and not saying Oh, yeah, like, it distresses me and like, which in reality, it doesn't do and I know a lot of people do drink for that reason. But you have to be honest with yourself. It's not actually doing that. Right? It's really not. I know, there's a lot of other outlets that are a lot better than alcohol. But again, I'm not judging. This is not like, I'm judging people like I do understand. But when we're talking facts here, like it really isn't, it isn't doing anything for us and we can't get away from the fact that Alcohol Alcohol is bad. That is that is one thing I'm gonna say. I usually I'm like no, like we don't say good and bad and blah, blah, blah. That's the one thing that I'm going to say. Yes. It is not good for us. It is quite literally a toxin to our body is toxic. It is toxic to us. That's why we get drunk. That's why we get all buzz like it's it's this toxic thing, right? And then, you know really just what it does to us. You know the effects it has on sleep, the effects it has on hormones, the effects it has on gut health. Like if you're dealing with any of these brings, no amount of alcohol is good. It really adds fuel to the fire. I guess you know that. Those are facts. Like you can't really get away from that. But this is such a, this is a topic that, you know, a lot of people can easily take offense to because they drank, right? But yeah, it's, uh, I mean, that's it. Like, I just, I couldn't come up with a reason to continue. And like I said, in my post, like, is this forever? Maybe, like, I have zero desire to drink. Now. People are like, Well, what about your writing? Don't care, not like, I don't need to drink. You know, like, I was out with it in Canada, I was out with friends who I used to binge drink with. Like, we would go on binge drinking weekends. And they were drinking and I didn't drink. And, you know, you can't really argue with people if they don't want to drink. You know, if it's bettering their health, like, leave those people alone.

Johan Vesters: 11:47

Yeah, it's funny too. Because for you five months from now, 10 years, like, a former client of mine, six months since, like, last week, which he was super proud of. I'm also very proud of for him. But it's kind of like, isn't it funny that we're in society is like now now it's kind of like, it's weird to be the one not drinking. It's weird to be the one who's making healthy food choices. Who wants to go to bed early, kind of like, you know, it's so it's so backwards, I

Kristine Andali: 12:21

think. Yeah, because it's so normalized.

Johan Vesters: 12:24

Yeah, definitely. And I do want to mention, also, like you said, as well, I'm not against alcohol in any way. But objectively speaking, like it is a toxin, like you said, a toxin, it literally means a poison from a plant basically, like, that's actually what it is, you know, and that's okay. And I still think that, hey, if you really like drinking, have a drink every now and then. But it's context, you know, totally, because if you get drunk and shit phase, like, every weekend, or multiple times a week, it's just not going to be worth it. If you have serious body composition, goals, performance, health goals, especially if we're dealing with hormonal issues, gut issues, etc. It's not even a discussion anymore, this shit has to go. I'm sorry, that's true that you want to fix, you know, like, and I'm all for flexibility. And we talk about that all the time. But there needs to be. At some point, we do need to say like, Hey, you know what, it's not worth it. And, and it's, it's a nice change, like, you feel better. You know, for me, like I said, it's been 10 years, but it's not like, for me, it's just normal. It's not that I celebrated my 10 years. It's not like, the actual reason, there was no moment where I was like, you know, this led to me quitting alcohol. Right. But I played in the band back home, I was the only one driving weed began to play more and more shows. I didn't even have the chance to drink anymore. My bands back then they just got worse. So I just got over it. And then the last few times, I did drink, I felt like shit, like, you

Kristine Andali: 14:06

know why my body just rejects it. Honestly, it's just like, it doesn't even feel good to do it. And I used to think, like, I used to say, like, I honestly I love. I loved going and having drinks. You know, with Eric, I love going on dates, having a couple of drinks. Like, it was really nice. And like, I was talking to him that day. I'm like, I think that this is it for me. Like, like, is it? And I'm asking him like, is it worth it? Like, when we're out on a date like to have those couple of drinks? And like he's like, like, no, it's it's really not like we really like it. Like he still has drinks and stuff. And that's totally fine. But he's so supportive of it, too. And yeah, it just just doesn't make sense for me. So I stopped

Johan Vesters: 15:27

it as a good decision. And the client that just mentioned to he quit alcohol six months ago, and he was drinking a little bit more before that. And he said, like, I just feel great, you know, I'm in better shape. And he's like, late 40s turned 50 In a couple of years. He's like, you know, I feel great. I'm in way better shape than my colleagues. I have better energy. I look better like,

Kristine Andali: 15:48

oh, yeah, this

Johan Vesters: 15:49

is just a better decision. You know, I did the thing that we're going to really get into uncle here. But we will definitely do a even more of a deep dive into For so like, if you want to feel better, or you do drink quite frequently, like that's one of the things that will make a huge difference.

Kristine Andali: 16:08

Well, yeah, the even the people in my comment section like it really sparked people to comment because, you know, there's people who have been five months, there's people who had been like 30 years. And they all say the same thing. You know, I'm sleeping better, my performance is better. You know, mental health. That was another big one. Oh, yeah, that's another big one for me, too. There's, so I used to deal with anxiety. And when I started going through a lot of my gut health stuff, it improved because that is correlated, your your gut health and your mental health. Those two kind of go hand in hand. And it's it's another. There's two, there's two situations where I find anxiety creeping back into my life. One is one I have gluten. So it just goes to show you that gut brain connection, okay? No reason for me to have anxiety. But when I have gluten, it's, it's, you know, creating inflammation, it's causing issues in the gut that's directly correlated to my brain. So I noticed that so it's when I have gluten, and then the other times when I've alcohol, and there's no reason for me, what I really think about it, like there's no reason for me to be anxious. And so it's like these external factors that are obviously just affecting that. And I don't want to feel like that. That I know so many people who drink and after their anxiety is so high, my sister's one of them. Like she gets such bad anxiety the next day, and I'm like, well, we see a pattern here you know. So mental health is definitely big with that. My I have a client I was dying. So he's working on reducing his alcohol. And he I don't even know where so he's, he's living in the States, but he's got like a really heavy accent. And he is English isn't great. This check in he goes, Oh my gosh, I honestly want to read it. Let me pull it up real quick here. Cuz I'm like, even though you didn't necessarily say this, right? It makes total sense. Okay, so

Unknown: 18:54

he goes

Kristine Andali: 18:58

I really relate to your post about alcohol different stages. I didn't quit but in some in some meant so many levels. I got it and it makes sense. Something keep coming to my mind. Why are we assaulting? Is that the right word? Laugh out loud. My English vocabulary went for a walk our body so yes, why are we assaulting our body? For what reason? Still, I'm not quitting but the need, but 100% that need is less. I'm like, that's actually a really good word. Because like, it is like some people may not agree, but

Johan Vesters: 19:38

yeah, no, but it is like objectively speaking once again. And again, if you want to have a drink, it's cool. You know? Yes.

Kristine Andali: 19:45

I just found that funny.

Johan Vesters: 19:46

I think that's a great term. And you know what we should do a podcast episode on on things that are sold. Like how you're assaulting your body or something like, like we do tend to do the stuff with shitty food and alcohol and hey, even exercise

Kristine Andali: 20:04

like quite just overdoing it, right? We're doing

Johan Vesters: 20:06

it and over stressing and under sleeping and those kinds of things go on for unfortunately, all this stuff is very common. But hey, we're just about 18 minutes into the episode. So you want to switch to the metabolism topic and then we'll follow up on alcohol after that.

Kristine Andali: 20:25

Okay. Okay, so getting into energy balance. I actually I did a post on this recently on K nutrition if you want to check that out. So basically, energy balance is we're talking about energy in energy, low energy and coming from, you know, food, right food and drinks, how you eat energy out exercise. I mean, do I go into that? So, energy out is BMR. There's four factors that play into energy out which is your B BMR basal metabolic rate neat. So non exercise activity, you know walking, fidgeting, things like that, a thermic effect of food. So how much energy we're burning through digesting our food and exercise, right? So those that's energy out. So when we're talking energy balance, okay, so if we have more food coming in, and we're moving less, this is where we usually see weight gain. If they're balanced, we just see weight maintenance, that if we are eating less than we're expending, we usually see fat loss. But a lot of people really simplify this equation. And they're like, Okay, like, it's, it's eat less, move more, right? And they just simplify it, where it becomes a lot more complicated than that. Or it can become more complicated than that. And so there's this big, like, debate out there the great debate of is it just energy or calories in calories out? Or is it hormones? Right? So like, people say, it's just hormones? And people say, Nope, doesn't matter. It's just calories in calories out? The, the real answer to that is like, no, like, they both matter. And one impacts the other, you can't look at this as two different things. Because hormones can affect energy out, they can, in fact, energy in, right. And same with like our food to sit or what we're eating and how we're exercising, that can affect our hormones. And so it kind of goes back and forth. And so there's just it's such just a huge debate out there that we wanted to touch on.

Johan Vesters: 22:53

Yeah, but you know, what is crazy, too, because I've watched videos, I always I can never finish them, because it literally pisses me off. But these doctors, it's always like the people who misuse that doctor title, you know, totally. And then you look it up in your like a fucking like a foot doctor or something like, chiropractor like, this is not bad by any means. Like, I'm not shitting on those professions, but like, the doctor title, like, we need to understand that there's many different types. And that doesn't mean that you know about nutrition and a minute and a half out of 10 times. If it's in this scenario, they have no fucking idea what you're talking about.

Kristine Andali: 23:32

Yeah, there's one doctor out there. There's one doctor out there that was on like the Stephen podcast, who says that was called I don't even know. He was basically saying calories don't matter. It's like, what, like, calories don't matter.

Johan Vesters: 23:47

It's always the people who don't understand energy balance. That's the issue. So because there'll be like our calories, not Academy, blah, blah, blah. And then they get into Yeah, and protein burns this many calories and blah, blah, blah, yeah, you're fucking you're explaining thermic effect of food right now. And you're explaining energy balance. It's

Kristine Andali: 24:06

literally your only mean Like literally, yeah,

Johan Vesters: 24:09

it's, it's true, like, yes. 100 calories from a doughnut, or 100 calories from an apple that is different. Obviously, you're gonna get different amounts of fiber, protein, carbs, fats, all that stuff, micronutrients. But at the end of the day, it does boil down to those calories. And there's no way around it. Like, we cannot create energy out of nothing, like the universe doesn't work that way. Right? You know, and that being said, like, knowing that body fat is stored energy, where's that gonna come from? You know what I mean? Right? It doesn't make sense. It always comes down to energy balance, but those hormones are interconnected there. On both sides.

Kristine Andali: 24:58

percent. Yeah. So like, let's talk about that a little bit. So common factors that make this equation calories in calories out more complex. So like sleep, for example, sleep is a huge one. Because that can affect both calories in and calories out. Okay, so like when we don't sleep we see. So we have hunger hormones, leptin and ghrelin. Basically, leptin tells us when we're full ghrelin basically tells us when to eat. So when we have chronic, chronically poor sleep, actually, not even chronically, it happens when, you know we have acute poor sleep or like one or two nights of poor sleep, we'll see that leptin decrease in that that Granlund increase, and so we're more likely to over eat in situations like that. Same with cortisol. Cortisol kind of acts very similar where we can see cortisol increasing from The stress of poor sleep. And then a lot of time when we have that elevated cortisol, we're going to be craving more hyper palatable foods. So like we want chips, like we don't want protein type thing, right? Very easy to overeat. And then also, like poor sleep will play into less activity, right? Less movement, like when your sleep is just poor, like, do you really feel like working out? Do you really feel like going on that walk? No, you kind of feel like just sitting there and doing nothing. So that is one big factor. chronic dieting, another one. So that can affect our hormones, right? So we see downregulation there, that also affects our hunger hormones that affects our thyroid, we can see a decrease in NEET. So that's affecting it. What else did I have here, poor food quality. So this can increase cravings. So that is affecting energy in and then as well can influence hormones and energy levels. So again, that can affect energy out, we're not moving as much, okay, what's happening with our hormones, they're chronic stress is another big one. Again, increase in hunger and cravings. Sometimes, it can go the other way, depending on the person. And again, can influence hormones and energy levels as well. And then things like hypothyroid, PCOS, menopause, low tea, that can all impact our metabolic rate our metabolism as a whole. So we're not burning as much at rest. So again, as you can see, like, it's all intertwined here, it's not just one or the other, they both affect each other, and impact each other.

Johan Vesters: 27:53

Yeah, and it's also when we're talking about insulin stuff, because I, I've recently got a few few people like this, entering our community. I asked him, like, What's your main struggle, and you mentioned, there's actually three people now think about it. They all say, hey, I really want to lose fat, but my insulin levels are high, etc. So I can lose the weight, you know what I mean? But it's actually a little backwards. Which is also one note should be a whole episode by itself. But like those hormones like that can be the cause of your metabolism not being a great integrate spot, you know, but they can also be the effect of all the things that you just mentioned, and the effect of years of over or under eating, or over training, or maybe not at all, etc. So we do need to zoom out there, we do need to understand like, hey, you know, like calories. And we just talked about this in last episode, when we addressed David's question about, you know, burning calories, and, you know, him just having that 2500 calories and like that was just like, okay, cool, like, yes, calories, like that's at the very foundation, but we do have to dive a little deeper here to really understand nutrition, you know, and make sense of it. Alright, that is it. For part one, guys. We will be back on Thursday for part two, where we're going to get a little bit more nerdy in terms of thyroid health things that will speed up or slow down metabolism and just generally the things you want to look for in case you are struggling with thyroid issues. Or if you're looking to get blood work done. Remember to another March 29. Next Wednesday, 7pm Central European Time I'll be hosting my very first webinar, the body transformation blueprint, which I didn't mentioned at the very beginning of this episode, not if this is something you're interested in, make sure to sign up via the link in the show notes. It's absolutely free and a true thing you've got to benefit from this presentation. Hope to see you there.