Chris Kresser & James Wilks Debate "Low Carb" Definition | Game Changerd Debate

It's the pattern. Let me tell you because this is one of the primary misconceptions that people have about consuming meat. When they hear studies that say that meat is associated with mortality or high cholesterol or heart disease or all these different factors, we are talking about these kinds of studies where people fill out a form, tell us what you eat. How many days a week do you eat meat? How many days a week do you eat this? What they don't take into account is whether or not these people are going to Wendy's, whether or not they're eating a grass-fed steak and broccoli, something healthy. There's a giant difference between those two things, but they're lumped in together because this is meat consumption. Yeah, the studies aren't perfect for sure. But you were saying that basically you're saying we should look at outcomes and not just look at individual markets, right? Is that basically? No. I was saying we should look at the diet quality, the overall diet pattern. So, for example, Christopher Gardner did a study at Stanford a couple years ago and he took two, instead of saying low fat, low carb, he took two groups and he advised them all to basically eat a healthy diet. And then one group ate a low fat healthy diet and the other group ate a low carb healthy diet. They all lost weight. But there wasn't that big of a difference between the two. I agree. So, first of all, in terms of health, my opinion would be I'm pretty much macronutrient agnostic. So I wouldn't like, I'm not advocating high carb or low carb. I think that people can do healthy and well. I think for athletes, they need a lot more carbs, which of course getting those from plants. I think there's certain athletes that can, if it's slow and steady state where you're getting more fat oxidation, I think that, you know, stone steady state athletes can do. But like an MMA fighter, a soccer player, a basketball player. We all agree on that. But you just said that you were not low carb, right? You said you're not low carb. I'm not. I'm not a low carb advocate. I've written articles called Seven Reasons You Should Be Cautious. I'm not saying I'm not a low carb advocate. I don't believe everyone should be on a low carb diet. I never believe that. But the thing is, Chris has his own, he doesn't have the consensus definitions of carbohydrate levels. You've made up your own definitions, right? When did I make up my own definitions? Slide 80. Jamie, if you could do that, please. I should just point out that Zach Bitter, the man who I had on the podcast yesterday, who holds the world record in running 100 miles in 11 hours, and I think it's 18 minutes, he's on a low carbohydrate diet. Yeah. And again, those slow and steady state, you can certainly do well. So Chris, your recommendation, your definition of low carb is 10 to 15%. If you can go to the next slide, Jamie, 81. So if you look at the peer-reviewed literature, it's either less than 30% or in the next slide, Jamie, less than 40%. Like if you look across all the literatures, less than 30 or 40. Moderate carb, according to Chris, next slide, Jamie, would be 15 to 30. Peer-reviewed literature, next slide, 40 to 65. And then high carb, Chris calls more than 30%. And the peer-reviewed literature, high carb, more than 65. And the next slide, more than 70, depending on the peer-reviewed literature. So you've come up with your own definitions of what is low, moderate, and high carb. Yeah, just for the purpose of my work. You just said no. Joe. For the purpose of my work with people, that's not related. I wasn't trying to represent research there. Right, Joe. That's what I consider to be low carb, moderate carb, and high carb in my work with patients and in my recommendations. Joe, did you not just hear him say? He did, I mean, that is what you said. I mean, when you wrote this out, you did have a different definition than the peer-reviewed literature. So you're a slide ADA. You do, by his definition, have your own idea of what high carb and low carb are. You heard him say no. Yes. And so slide ADA, please, Jamie. So I just want to sum this up. But what's the point here? Because the point is, the point I think... I've never said that everyone should be on a low carb diet. No, I agree. And I've always argued that it depends on everything from your genes to your exercise pattern activity. But Chris, where are you getting your numbers from? Like when you write low carb, moderate carb, and high carb? He made them up. This is just a... This is a clinical recommendation from my experience working with patients. I'm not representing the scientific literature here. I'm not trying to make arguments about what's safe or not safe. We're talking about nutrition. That's madness. That's absolute madness to come up with your own definitions. And this is why I feel that Chris does. And when you have people like Chris on multiple times, it throws people's perception off as what is a healthy diet. Because Chris misrepresents the data. He comes up with his own definitions of things. He misrepresents things that we said in the film. Okay? What did I misrepresent in the film? Well, hold on. We're going to get into the woods here. Let's just talk about this real quick. So when we're talking about low carb, moderate carb, or high carb, when you're recommending to your patients, low carb, moderate carb, or high carb, these definitions, how are you coming to these conclusions? Just made them up. No, based on... So there are a lot of people, James, that disagree with the ranges in the... The scientific consensus. Yeah, there are. But when you say scientific consensus, how many different scientists were polled on this? How many different studies were shown? Well, I don't know. I don't know. Just consider it. But hold on a second. Is this something that you just found that disputes his position? Or is this a large group of people? No, this is... Okay, so slide 89. Well, consider Virta Health, who uses... You know the folks at Virta, who are all scientists and bees. They use a ketogenic, very low carb diet to treat... No, they choose markers. ...to address diabetes. No, they actually don't. Okay, sure, sure. You will not be in ketosis at 30% carbohydrate. Right. Or 25%, or 20%, or even 15%. For ketosis, 70%. For ketosis, 70%. Yes, totally. Probably less than 10%. I agree. I agree. I don't think that's... So, you know, that... And then, you know, 40 to 65%, you're not even in the ballpark, you know? So if you're thinking about using low carbohydrate diets, for example, for weight loss or for diabetes or, you know, metabolic issues like Virta Health is doing, then low carb is not going to be 30 to 40%. Okay, that makes sense. That's not going to work. So that's where my recommendation is based on ketosis. Based on... No, based on the optimal range, if you have... If you look at the rest of the article, it's going to be like, if you've got diabetes, you've got your overweight, your obese, you're trying to lose weight, this is the range that I've found and other experts like the people at Virta Health have found will be most effective. And these are the ranges... There's no representation that this is the range that is defined as low carb in the scientific literature. So you're calling it low carb because if someone's on a ketogenic low carb diet, in order to get into ketosis, you have to have a low number of carbohydrates. It's actually probably even below 10%. Not even just to be in ketosis, like just to get the maximal weight loss. Someone could be at 15% and still get great weight loss without being in ketosis. I've got to interrupt because just like in the last five minutes, you showed a study from trying to prove your own point that low carb and low fat people had equivalent fat loss. You just said that. So why are you now all of a sudden advocating only low carb diets for losing body weight? I'm not advocating only low carb diets. I said that they can both work for different people in different situations. But James, you're misrepresenting what he was saying. What he was saying is getting people to go on a healthy diet versus the standard American diet. So he's not just talking about low carb versus high carb. What he's talking about is getting off bullshit like processed foods and sugar and eating healthy. I totally agree with that. And when you do that, people, no matter what, low carb or high carb lose weight. But I think you will agree, as well as almost anybody would, that getting on a low carb or a hydrate diet and forcing your body into ketosis makes your body burn fat. That's one way. Yeah, it's true. But it's proven, right? No, it's not. The other piece of this is most of the studies aren't comparing a healthy omnivorous diet with a plant-based vegan diet. They're comparing a vegan diet with a standard American diet that contains animal products. Right. Same with the paleo diet or its NutriVore diet. Which, by the way, has any of your work or your ideas been published in the scientific literature? No, I've never claimed that they didn't have. Right. I just wondered. You didn't wonder. No, I did wonder. I couldn't find anything. That's not what you were saying. You were saying that to try to make it seem that he's less of an expert. Well, he is. I'm not an expert either. So what's the point? Why are you here? Why am I here? Well, actually, I did ask if I could bring my chief science advisor who has a double master's degree in exercise physiology and nutrition. He's a registered dietician. He built one of his... I've read all of his papers and we can talk about him. Yeah, totally.