Hello and welcome to this episode of the ESG Fitness Podcast. This is a recording of

Science versus Bullshit. I, for some reason, have cut off the start of this recording. So I did

little intro. And the first question that I start answering, which won't make any sense,

because you won't have heard the question, is,

I've signed up to an eating plan for women over 40. It's very low carb. I inevitably lost weight,

but I had a rap one weekend and this girl went wild. The coaches said I'm insulin resistant,

and the rap is highly inflammatory. She told one of the group members that once she's lost weight,

she could eat sourdough once a month as a treat. Is this my life over 40? And now you're going to

clip in to my answer on science versus bullshit. I hope that you enjoy. So no, this is not life over 40.

That's absolutely not how you need to live. I want to go through each part. So no, this is not life over 40. That's absolutely not how you need to live.

I want to go through each part. So a sudden like increase in the scale weight after you have a

high carbohydrate meal, especially if you've previously cut carbohydrates, is not fat. Fat gain would

require a calorie surplus over time. And the kind of weirdly reassuring

thing is that if you see a jump in the scales short term, i.e. overnight, like you had a rat

on day and then you did the scale weight went up the next day. It cannot be fat gain. So anything short term is not a

change in your body competition, i.e. it's not a change in fat loss or fat gain or muscle loss or

muscle gain, right? This happens slowly over time. So I wouldn't be worried about that.

The reason that it will have seemed like a bit of a jump up is probably because if you're low carb,

what happens is your glycogen storage, i.e. the carbohydrates that are stored within your muscle

are depleted because you're not consuming a lot of carbohydrates.

Glycogen requires water to be stored. So when you store, it's about one gram of carbohydrate,

it requires about three grams of water to be stored within your muscle as glycogen.

...