Dr. Spencer Nadolsky on Testosterone, Carbohydrates, and Supplements

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All right. Hey, Spencer, thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate you taking the time on a Sunday of all days. 

Spencer Nadolsky: That’s right. Thanks for having me on. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Sure thing. Let’s just start with a quick introduction of who you are and just for the, if the listeners don’t know and and then we’ll get into the fun stuff.[00:03:00] 

Spencer Nadolsky: Cool, yeah, so I’m a actually a board certified family physician and also obesity medicine physician. I grew up in Michigan. Dad was a biology teacher and also wrestling football coach. I grew up with an older brother, really, in athletics, and the short story is basically, my brother is really good at athletics, and I came into high school right after he graduated and went on to wrestle for Michigan State, and I thought I was gonna be awesome, and I wasn’t great at first, and I thought I was just gonna be good because of my last name, so I got into nutrition and exercise science, and by the time, I was a junior, I ended up Becoming a state champ in wrestling and all state football and all that stuff, but started off JV my Freshman year whereas my brother was already a state champ that year.

So Walking in his shadow. Yeah, and so I really got into nutrition and exercise science And that helped, and my dad was also [00:04:00] a biology and chemistry teacher and into nutrition as well. And then went to college, wrestled at originally went to play football at Michigan State. Long story short, I ended up Wrestling as UNC Chapel Hill’s heavyweight for three years, did pretty well and but, and used the same exercise, nutrition science to become good at wrestling and football, but wanted to use the, that information and spread it across the general population to improve their health.

So I wanted to go to medical school. My brother decided to go to medical school as well. So I went to Virginia Tech’s osteopathic medical school. And basically decided to use lifestyle as medicine. So went to residency, so four years of medical school, then three years of residency is the training.

And I did family medicine. And yeah, now I’m board certified in both family and obesity medicine, and trying to use the exercise and nutrition science that I [00:05:00] used for performance, but now for general population for health purposes. This is where I am. 

Mike Matthews: That’s awesome. And you’re also what’s your role exactly at examine.

com? 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah, so I, I’m their medical editor. I was actually like their director, the head honcho of them for a little bit. But I, it was too hard to juggle that along with my clinical practice. So I just said, Hey, why don’t I just do the medical editing, make, making sure. A lot of their stuff is more clinically relevant as opposed to bench research type of stuff.

So for example, some random supplement that’s out there may have some little pilot study in rats of some sort. And showing some sort of benefit. So I basically sit back and go, Yeah, but is this really clinically relevant? If I had a patient, would I tell them to do this? 

Mike Matthews: Maybe like 7 Keto or something like that.

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah, pretty much. So that’s what I do. I, I don’t do as much with them anymore, but I’m still there as a medical editor. To help them out in that regard. [00:06:00] 

Mike Matthews: That’s cool. And I was thinking it for this podcast that, because, I’ve talked to myself on a lot of different subjects and had a lot of people talking a lot of subjects, but one area that we, I don’t think there’s ever really been a podcast on is just supplements in general.

I’ve written a lot about it. But so I thought that, Given your involvement in examining just given your knowledge especially with weight loss, which is, it’s probably, yeah, it’s a bigger, it’s a bigger button than muscle building. But those would be the two areas that people are most concerned with that we would dive into some supplement stuff.

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah, that’s a great, a lot of my patients ask about supplements too. So it’s a good thing to, to have something, some knowledge in that In that realm, other than Dr. Oz’s recommendations. Yeah, but he’s a doctor, man. That’s true. 

Mike Matthews: Alright, so let’s stop at the top here. I get asked a lot about, just because it’s pushed so much.

There’s just so much marketing on it these days on, on testosterone levels. Are your testosterone levels low, raising testosterone levels, et cetera, et cetera. So I guess this is a two part [00:07:00] question. One is, are there any legitimate Natural ways to boost testosterone levels enough that is, significant in any way.

And the second part of that is, does that really even matter? In the bigger picture, even if you could increase your testosterone naturally by 10%, who cares? Or is it something worthwhile? 

Spencer Nadolsky: No, that’s a great question. In fact, that’s something that my brother’s an endocrine fellow right now, and I get a lot into endocrinology with my patients.

And one of the things on the internet, I heard guys asking, Hey, I heard this supplement may increase my testosterone by 10 percent or eating more saturated fat, this and that. Yeah. And the short answer is that basically if you’re within the normal levels increasing by small percentages and the physiologic range probably won’t matter in the long run.

The long answer is that it really it may depend. So if, for example, I did a natural bodybuilding contest last year. [00:08:00] And I went from a testosterone of 600, which is right smack dab in the middle of the normal range with normal ranges anywhere from 300 to 1, 000 and so I was like right in the middle.

I went from 600 down to 200 and I don’t know if it was 240 or 260 and I can, I could feel it though. And that was at the end of my cut. From a clinical standpoint, just not eating, as people that do intermittent fasting, it’s not the actual intermittent fasting that’s making their testosterone levels lower.

It’s the fact that they’re just, they’re intermittent fasting too much, meaning they’re not even getting enough calories to support their hypothalamic gonadal access. Meaning their brains basically not communicating with their testicles anymore because it thinks it’s starving, 

Mike Matthews: right? Which should be too big of a calorie deficit or just too long.

Yeah. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yep, and it’s not necessarily intermittent fasting people think oh, you’re crapping on intermittent fasting It’s no actually people it’s working so well [00:09:00] that they’re just not getting enough calories overall Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: I mean my take on if has always been I guess there’s I guess there, there’s some research out there on the benefits of health benefits of fasting, but I would argue that you can probably get a lot of those benefits from exercise alone.

But if it does, I’ve seen with working with people that if people have trouble controlling food intake, it can help with that because it’s hard to, it’s harder to overeat https: otter. 

Spencer Nadolsky: ai You know, from that standpoint, that would be a clinical benefit if you’re not eating enough and you have on the lower end of testosterone, just increasing your caloric intake to maybe scaling it back on your workouts, actually getting the sleep instead of 5 hours a night, getting the 7 to 8 hours of deep restful sleep that may have a clinical impact of your testosterone and may, Increase your, gains in the gym and performance and everything like that.

So after about a month of going back to my normal diet, I went back [00:10:00] up to about a five 50 testosterone. So that alone 

Mike Matthews: makes a good point that you didn’t, it’s not like you permanently damaged your endocrine system by what you did, because that’s also something that’s out there is this idea that if you don’t eat a ton of fat, cause low carb, high fat is very trendy right now.

And if you’re on a lower fat, not a low fat, but maybe something about. 3 or 4 grams per pound of lean mass that’s not enough to support hormone levels. You’re going to crash your endocrine system. You’re going to destroy it. No, you’re not right now. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Exactly. And that’s another thing. Yeah.

People are like, okay, so say I had a 600 testosterone and they’re like if you eat a little bit more saturated fat or something like that, you could increase it by 10 percent or whatever. So I go to a 600 to a 660 or whatever. 

Mike Matthews: Let’s keep it benefit. I’ll say 700 the 

Spencer Nadolsky: big 700. Yeah, so it goes to 770 It’s like that wouldn’t even be they wouldn’t even do anything.

Yeah, you wouldn’t notice any difference. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah 

Spencer Nadolsky: And to be 

Mike Matthews: clear you wouldn’t notice any difference in terms of 

Spencer Nadolsky: In terms of muscle [00:11:00] gain probably well being Anything related to testosterone androgen type sex drive. Yeah. Yeah. You’re already at a high level. That’s that little bit.

It’s not going to matter. 

Mike Matthews: And where, just for listeners that are probably wondering this, at what point would you start noticing it? 

Spencer Nadolsky: If you, if you’re in that low to normal, and I’m going to say around that 300 to 400, now this gets a little bit more complicated because then you start calculating a free testosterone.

Yeah, true. 

Mike Matthews: It’s, yeah. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Sex hormone binding, lobulin, albumin, all this type of stuff. Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: But just to keep it simple, just because these are, I’m just playing, I’m playing readers that write to me. Cause these are the things that I 

Spencer Nadolsky: ask. Yeah, no, so exactly. So if you’re in that 300, 400 range, and then you go from that 300, maybe to a, and you’re not eating a lot to going up to that 500.

You’re going to feel better. And it’s maybe it’s possibly not even necessarily from the testosterone. It’s many other things. It could be your thyroid, partly everything, just your [00:12:00] energy mood from just eating what you want and not being so restrictive. But yeah, that will have a clinical. You’ll notice if you go from that.

Slightly deficient range to a normal, a good normal range. You’ll notice it. 

Mike Matthews: Okay. And then if you’re normal, what you have to start, you probably have to approach the top of physiological. Yeah. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. That’s why, if you end up using super physiologic exogenous hormone, it was just, if you took a bunch of androgel or something like that on top of your normal in the normal range, then you might, then you go into the ranges above the thousands, then you’ll probably notice something too.

But in that physiologic range At least as far as I know, I haven’t seen any study to say it’s made any, Difference. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. No, I actually have seen a study out of you’ve probably seen this out of McMaster university where they said this was basically the conclusion of the study is that, they, with a resistance trained men the small fluctuations or differences in their hormones, hormone levels anabolic hormone levels.

And it wasn’t just testosterone, but it was also a [00:13:00] growth hormone. It just, it didn’t make it like on the program, the guys on the lower end of the anabolic profile, I guess you could say gained. Just about as much muscle strength as people on the high. Like the difference wasn’t significant, but then you look at steroid studies and then so you start going beyond that and you start bumping up to 1500, 2000 plus NGDL and now it really starts to make a difference.

Spencer Nadolsky: Yep, exactly. 

Mike Matthews: And that’s, I think it’s just a point to drive home to listeners that, so these little things that you can do sure, if you do, if you were switching from a lower fat to a higher fat, yes, you can, you probably will see a small increase and there may be some supplements out there that maybe would give you a small increase, but what are you doing it for?

And this is something I know, Spencer, because I’ve seen a post of yours going from low carb to high carb and one of my arguments against doing that is unless you have an insane metabolism and you just get to eat absurd amounts of food, you have to raise your fats, you have to [00:14:00] sacrifice your carbs.

Spencer Nadolsky: Exactly. 

Mike Matthews: And if you want to speak on that real quick, cause I know that you had written a whole thing on that why is that bad? If you’re weightlifting, let’s say you’re a guy or a girl and you’re lifting heavy weights three to five times a week, you’re doing a bit of cardio and your goal is to, the same goal as everybody else.

You want to be muscular and lean. Why is going higher and fat and lower carbs counterproductive unless you have some strange body problem that requires it. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Exactly. I think, with the whole low carb, high fat push for those with more of a metabolic syndrome type picture, those with insulin resistance who seem to have some improvements with their metabolic profile with going low carb, that’s spilling over into the healthier crowd who could really benefit from these, the carbohydrates to fuel their workouts.

You don’t need carbohydrates to do, low rep, high high weight intensity exercise. But once you start getting into that glycogen glycogen [00:15:00] type workouts, like a CrossFit workout. You’re going to see a big performance decline if you don’t eat the carbohydrates. 

Mike Matthews: So I’ve noticed a difference even training a lot in the, probably with about anywhere between 75 to 85 percent of my one rep max.

So it’s it’s heavy, but it’s not necessarily it’s not a powerlifting type of program. And cause I’m not really into the really super high rep stuff. But even working in that four to six, five to seven, six to eight rep range it. It pulls on glycogen because if my carbs are low, if I carb, you’ll feel it.

Yeah. If I carve up, I could squat 30 pounds, 30 more pounds just by eating a bunch of carbs the night before. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. Isn’t it? And yeah, that the whole, the whole thing is to use it for diabetics, people with. Pre diabetes insulin resistance and that type of thing. So now it’s spilling over into high.

Maybe we should use this for Athletes and healthier folks and there are some data for that. Maybe it does help some certain people But honestly for the most majority of everybody I wouldn’t eat [00:16:00] Less carbs, more fat to improve your performance and health. It’s not it’s not a good idea in spite, I’m right now I’m doing, I’m training for a triathlon and trying to keep my muscle on at the same time.

And these carbs are feeling and I’m actually leaner than I was halfway through my bodybuilding cut at a higher weight. That’s nice. Yeah, exactly. 

Mike Matthews: So coming back to the testosterone then. So if there are, let’s say there’s somebody that they go get blood tested and they are on the lower end of normal and they want to do something about it.

What are some general things that they should look into? It could be dietary or nutritional or supplemental. Obviously you can’t make recommendations as it’s going with the person. But what are, what is it like? What are some of the common things? Here’s your checklist. You need to check these things out because these are some ways that most people can naturally, increase testosterone in a significant way.

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. So I have a lot of patients that are like that, it depends. So if it’s a younger guy, that’s like that. I really look into how [00:17:00] many calories are eating, just like what we talked about before. If they’re at all trying to restrict themselves, we take a break from that for sure. The other thing is with low younger guys is going out and partying a little bit.

Alcohol. Alcohol, but, not only that, but also just Not sleeping. Just not sleeping just having disrupted circadian rhythm. Just, it’s all over the place. They sleep in one day till ten, and then they’re up the other day going to work. Whatever, it’s all over the place. So we try to talk about that.

The other thing is they may be doing too much exercise. They’re killing their body. They’re going out and doing long runs and then all of a sudden they’re going to a CrossFit thing and then they’re going to, Doing some high intensity interval training later in the day type of thing and they’re just they’re not even letting their body rest They’re not sleeping.

They’re working out too hard, and they’re not eating enough. That’s pretty much what I see with younger guys now for older folks those in like their 40s 50s guys What I’ll see a lot is, development of something [00:18:00] like sleep apnea is that they’ve gained a little bit too much weight and now they’re snoring.

They’re not getting their brains, not getting enough oxygen. They’re not actually getting into those into the deep sleep. And the other thing is, along with that, with the excess weight, there’s a lot of causes of the low testosterone. The adipose tissue. Turns the testosterone into estrogen. The other thing is with the a little bit of that extra fat that a post tissue there’s inflammation going on at the site of the brain, which is Communicating with you know the testicles.

So there are a lot of different things. So you look at it. So younger guys It’s usually they’re doing Too much exercise, not eating enough, not sleeping enough for the older guys. They just need a healthier lifestyle. Anything, if they need a sleep study and get a CPAP, that’s one thing. If they just need to go from their standard American junk food diet to a, More of [00:19:00] a lower carb Mediterranean type of diet that can help as well.

Just having them lose some weight exercise, almost like the opposite of the younger guys doing too little versus doing too much. Those are pretty much the standard. And of course, if they are really in that pathologic. low testosterone range. And you want to work that up, of course.

But if they’re on the lower end of normal and some doctors may be pushing testosterone. I’ve seen it. I see it all the time. They, 

Mike Matthews: yeah, it seems to be such a thing these days. I 

Spencer Nadolsky: don’t know what the deal is. They push the time. And so if they push, it’s just 

Mike Matthews: easy money because it’s such a big, it’s like a hot button for so many.

It 

Spencer Nadolsky: is. And what I’ve seen is that these, Patients end up on it for a long time, and then I go, Why did you get started on this? You could have done this naturally. And they go, I don’t know, the doctor pushed it. So then you have to wean them off, which is miserable, because your body is not producing it anymore.

But you can restart them if it’s not been too long and they weren’t abusing it. Yeah, that’s pretty much it. With, in terms of sub, I don’t [00:20:00] like supplements for testosterone boosting. In fact men’s health. I got a hold of me a few months ago and was asking me about it. They wanted to, they were, some company had their 

Mike Matthews: wanted you to plug one of their I think so.

It’s better than steroids supplements. 

Spencer Nadolsky: It sounded like that. Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: They pushed the biggest bullshit products ever. 

Spencer Nadolsky: And so I was you’re going to be mad at me, but there’s really nothing, nothing out there that’s really that great. Obviously there are pharmaceutical things that you can use that aren’t testosterone that, that work really well.

And I use them a lot with my patients. If they were in that if they are in that low normal and they need some help but supplements not so much. 

Mike Matthews: Would you say something like if somebody has a vitamin D deficiency is that relevant? Or vitamin mineral type deficiencies, or like a zinc deficiency, or is that just it just doesn’t happen to them?

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah, there’s if you’re deficient in vitamin D, a little, going into the normal range, which isn’t that hard if, if you get a [00:21:00] little bit of sun and supplement with 2, 000 international units, that’s, that, that could, that’s been shown in some studies maybe to be beneficial.

Same thing with zinc. If you’re working out hard you are zinc deficient that, that is definitely something. And taking a multivitamin daily may help. We, at EXAMN, we talk about Being more targeted towards the multivitamin mineral supplementation as opposed to just shotgunning it.

Mike Matthews: Yes. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Looking at that. It’s hard. You can test for zinc and all that stuff. I tend to just if you’re working out hard and sweating a lot, I, it may not be a bad idea to, to supplement with that. But yeah. 

Mike Matthews: Cool. Yeah. Awesome. One other thing I just can’t just came through as you’re talking is, are there, is there any like correlation between body fat levels and testosterone production?

So obviously as you were saying, as body fat levels rise, that’s, we know that depresses testosterone levels. But so we start getting to the lower end though, is is there where you can be too lean where that is going to mess with your [00:22:00] testosterone production? Or is that not really an issue unless you’re like, for instance I, myself, I tend to stay around probably 8 percent body fat, give or take depends on, how much, how I’ve eaten on a week to week basis because little things matter.

I, I, I don’t get blood tested cause I don’t really have any reason to, although I could just do it for fun. I don’t have any, I don’t have any symptoms of low testosterone, but I know that there are it’s just something I see out there in the random chatter of the fitness space of that, this idea that it’s just unhealthy to be under 10 percent body fat for any period of time that, and I see that more as an excuse of people that are too undisciplined to do it.

But what’s your take on that? 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah, so actually there is a mechanism and it may, the threshold may be different for different people. So for instance, my brother, I don’t know if this is from epigenetics or what, from young age he’s always been lean, like very lean with a good six pack and everything like that.

And he’s yeah, he’s gone [00:23:00] up and down with his, Testosterone just when we tested it for whatever reason due to probably sleep and residency and training, but other people, they, if they were that lean they may have they, they may not be able to support testosterone levels and the mechanism is leptin, I’m sure you’ve heard of leptin, but, The leptin is secreted by your adipose tissue, so if you get down to a low level of body fat, your leptin is going to be very low and there’s a mechanism with the brain and your hypothalamus and pituitary and communication to your testicles that if you don’t have any leptin, there’s this decrease in that permissive effect of leptin.

The other thing is though, the people have been dieting so much to get down to those body fat levels, and so your current caloric intake dictates how much leptin you create as well, too. [00:24:00] So it’s a coincidence. It’s a carbohydrate 

Mike Matthews: intake is relevant. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah, exactly. So you have a few things here playing a role into it.

Those that maybe have been sitting at a low body fat and maintaining that they may be fine. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. I’ve also worked my calories up to I haven’t really tried to push them beyond 3000 a day, but maybe my average intake is 2800 a day. I’m 190 pounds. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. So that, you may be you probably find someone else.

Maybe if they went down to that level, they may not. Yeah, it is true. So the thing is the people that are like contest ready, shredded lean. Yeah, sure. If. If someone can maintain that without 

Mike Matthews: drugs, no, they can’t like I’ve tried. I’ve tried to me. I’ve gotten down to, it’s hard to really know setting cadex it, but where there’s not much left, like you can’t pinch anything anywhere.

And I tried to maintain that for about a month and I found that my calories, I couldn’t get them over 2, 400 without gaining fat. I didn’t feel good. It just, 

Spencer Nadolsky: Exactly. And if they’re [00:25:00] maintaining that, it would be questionable whether they’re using exogenous hormones to maintain it. I can’t say, because my brother looks, he looks pretty good and maintains it with a healthy range.

Although he is at the lower range. End of normal. A lot of times when we test this testosterone, but other people that they may have to maintain a higher body fat percentage in order to keep their hypogonadal Pituitary axis Maintained there. So 

Mike Matthews: yeah, I guess the takeaway there is if you if you’re gonna be if you want to stay really lean And you are maybe experiencing symptoms of low T or you’re worried about it, then you can go get blood tests and find out where you’re at.

And then, like Spencer saying, you can, you can slowly increase calories called, known as reverse dieting, where you are Basically, the idea is you’re trying to speed up your metabolism, trying to get your body to just require burn more energy without putting on fat. So that’s like how you can work your calories up.

And, but I guess Spencer, [00:26:00] some people though, their bodies just might not like being at a certain body fat level, huh? 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah, exactly. And I don’t know if it’s truly been. Teased out of, 

Mike Matthews: I 

Spencer Nadolsky: think, there’s definitely epigenetic type of things, even maybe things that your mom did while she was pregnant with you, all that type of stuff.

It gets pretty crazy when you start diving into that stuff. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. All right. Cool. So that’s testosterone. Let’s now talk a little bit about building muscle because of course muscle building supplements are It’s fat loss and muscle building are the two. Those are the ones that were already, the vast majority of money are spent.

So let’s just go right to it. Are there any supplements that actually help directly help you build muscle? 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yep. So pretty much the standard that I talk about and pretty much everybody talks about is protein, whey protein, leucine, branched chain amino acid type things and creatine, beta alanine in a distant, not a maybe a close, 

Mike Matthews: yeah, an indirect way because it increased can increase your workload of your [00:27:00] workouts, which if you push yourself and the more weight you add over time, the bigger you’re stronger and bigger you’re going to get.

Yep. Exactly. 

Spencer Nadolsky: I, whenever anybody asks me about supplements it’s, my go to is generally whey protein. I know the vegans tend to get mad at me for, recommending that because What 

Mike Matthews: do you think about like a brown rice pea blend for them? 

Spencer Nadolsky: Oh, yeah, I think it’s great. The thing is, a lot of them, in fact, one of my doctor buddies, who’s a vegan, is a bariatric surgeon, smart guy, really into nutrition, he just doesn’t think people need that much protein.

It’s true. I don’t think people need it. But if your goal is to gain muscle, and if that’s your goal, not necessarily longevity for life, just trying to see how long you can live. Which, but 

Mike Matthews: there’s, but you can see an argument that it’s common. There’s quality of life and hey, if I make it to 90, I’m happy.

Anything beyond that, is if my body’s still working well, then I’ll stick around, but. [00:28:00] Exactly. No. 

Spencer Nadolsky: And that 

Mike Matthews: I wanna enjoy myself as well. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Exact. Exactly. So if your goal is to build muscle, you need to hit that leucine threshold, which, of course Dr. Layman and Lane Norton and all those guys have looked into.

And that threshold and you need some pro you need good quality protein and that’s, I think that’s number one. 

Mike Matthews: So that’s the advantage of whey then it’s cause very leucine rich, right? Yeah. And one of the advantages I guess. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah, exactly. And then that’s generally my go to, if somebody says, what supplement do I take?

It’s tends to be whey protein because of first of all, the convenience, people that don’t have very good eating habits. So we try to focus on that first, but. Honestly, it can be one of the easiest little quick things. It’s not even I don’t even consider it a supplement I think if I think of it as food, 

Mike Matthews: yeah me too 

Spencer Nadolsky: And I because you 

Mike Matthews: have it at the office, you’re if you’re at your practice Oh, yeah, you just you know You need to get you know You don’t want you haven’t eaten protein in however many hours and you don’t want to have to eat a hundred, 100 grams of protein and meat at dinner 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah.

Now let’s, exactly. I don’t, I’m not, [00:29:00] I love meat, but I don’t want to force feed myself. So I like, I bounces 

Mike Matthews: and I’m done. I’m fine. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. I have a, I have a shake a day. And that’s tends to be what my first recommendation to patients is, it’s like they’re, they all have jobs unless they’re, like a housewife.

They’re still taking care of their kids. That’s a job. 

Mike Matthews: You know that, right? 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. So if they’re taking care of the kids too, if they’re in the office. Someone, whatever, they’re running around, they gotta they gotta do this and that, they don’t have time for whatever.

It’s always easy to have a jug of protein or just a, shaker bottle with some powder added into it to add some water later. If they want to do the ready to drink shakes, the more expensive, whatever, if they, 

Mike Matthews: I always question the quality of the protein. I do too. I don’t trust any of them, to be honest.

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah, and some of them they, I the taste of some of them, but then they have weird aftertaste. I don’t know. I don’t know. 

Mike Matthews: I exactly, I don’t, every week now it seems like there’s some new story that’s breaking about how shady the supplement is. Oh, it’s, it can’t, it almost can’t trust anybody.

And I really don’t trust those ready made drinks. 

Spencer Nadolsky: It’s, yeah, it’s, it is, [00:30:00] it’s hard to trust anybody, and then like the housewives, so I have a lot of patients that are housewives, they they don’t have to, they’re taking care of their kid, they’re trying to do this and that, they’re running errands and things like that.

It’s easier to throw together a shake, and without having to cook a meal and while they’re taking care of the kids and things like that too. So that’s whey protein, you can get a blend as well, but whey is generally what I recommend first. And then pretty much I go to creatine which is pretty much standard and one of the most studied supplements out there.

Yeah. And there’s various mechanisms, like you said, with the beta alanine and creatine. It can help you work out harder. There’s also some cellular swelling that may help with hypertrophy in and of itself, too. Those tend to be my go tos. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, same. And just so listeners, in case you’re wondering, in terms of dosages, creatine, the normal would be 5 grams a day Spencer?

Yeah. And beta alanine, about the same. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. Yeah. There’s a, [00:31:00] yeah, a couple of grams, you could do, I do it generally once a day for beta Allen. I generally do a few grams just in my morning shake. Sometimes I do another one after my workout. I hate the tingling, but once you, I like it, really, you like it, I don’t know, a mask is I need to like, Rub my skin, like my scalp.

I’m like, ah, it goes away once you, once I’ve been doing it chronically, it goes away. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. I still get it. I have I guess I’m about five grams a day because I have a line of workout supplements and in the pre workout there’s five grams beta alanine per serving. I still get it every day.

Spencer Nadolsky: You get a pretty high dose all at once then. That’s why. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Oh, true. Yeah. If I were to cut that in half and then. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. If you have like a. Yeah, the thing with beta alanine I’m not sure, I take it every day along with creatine in a way, but some people question the safety and everything like that.

I don’t see why it wouldn’t be safe. I don’t have any reason to believe it’s not safe along with creatine. Just the thing with creatine is if you I mean, creatine 

Mike Matthews: is so studied at this point, how can anyone say it’s not safe? 

Spencer Nadolsky: I don’t know. The [00:32:00] thing is, if you see a your doctor and you don’t tell them you’re on creatine and you go and get a 

Mike Matthews: Sure, and your creatinine levels, 

Spencer Nadolsky: yeah.

Yeah, you get a basic metabolic panel. One of the numbers is the levels of creatinine. And that looks at basically how well your kidneys are filtering. One of the byproducts of creatine, it’ll switch into creatinine and maybe make your levels of 0. 1 or 2 higher than 0. What it would be without the creatine, add that to the fact that you are working out and sometimes that can increase it and then also having a little bit more muscle that will have, you’ll have higher levels.

It may look like you have. decreased functioning kidneys when it’s just it’s not real. It’s just because of your supplements. I’ve 

Mike Matthews: had people write me saying, Hey, my, my doctor says I’m, I have kidney disease because I’m not asking you to tell them that you saw them with creatine. Do you know how much protein you eat?

Does he know you’re lifting weights five days? Exactly. Make sure. No. And then it comes back Oh, nevermind. Doctor says, fine. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. And the other thing, yeah. And you may need [00:33:00] to print out some studies for the doctor cause they may not, they may have never seen that. If they don’t, if they’re not used to patients who are big lifters and supplementers, they, they may get scared of that.

So something to bring up with your doctor if you do those things. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right. So now let’s talk about fat loss. What are, let’s say what would be your go to supplements for helping with fat loss? And also of course, most of the listeners are pretty clued in on, on, on the basics of like energy balance.

And yeah, of course you’re dieting correctly. You’re in a calorie deficit. You’re, you have your protein intake where it needs to be so you can preserve muscle you’re, you’re not beating yourself to death as exercise, but you just want to accelerate fat loss. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. So my, so I’ll just, I’ll reiterate that.

It’s again, whey pro, whey protein is one of my go-tos simply for the lean mass preservation. Sure. Because of how crucial that is. And as you said, yeah. They’re gonna need to be in a caloric deficit. I want them having that, that strong [00:34:00] loose rich. protein because of how well it helps you retain that lean mass.

Beyond that though, I’m a big supporter of caffeine. It’s got a lot, the data behind caffeine is very good. Not only for, a little bit of the fat loss, but just performance. So if you’re in the, if you’re in a caloric deficit, you’re going to need a little bit of extra.

in the, in working out. So like for my bodybuilding competition I got down, I think I was down to 2, 200 calories at one point. And I’m used to right now I’m getting 35 to like 4, 000 calories a day. So can you can imagine that I was just. So tired. But the one thing that was able to help me was a little bit of caffeine.

So the other thing is, is there something else? Are you going to be burning the the fat peripherally, meaning actually helping you burn the fat versus. Something’s [00:35:00] centrally acting, meaning increasing 

Mike Matthews: energy expenditure. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. So decreasing your appetite versus actually increasing your peripheral burning.

There’s some things out there that, that could have, the caffeine may have both. Maybe it will. Some people think it does help with appetite. I guess 

Mike Matthews: there’s what, there’s some research on that. If you raise adrenaline or adrenaline levels that alone can decrease appetite.

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah, exactly. So that’s why that’s thought to be how maybe caffeine helps. Obviously, you know getting more fiber and helping you fill up your stomach glucomannan Supplements and that type of stuff can help with your appetite You know from a actual peripheral Fat burning standpoint things like That dr.

Oz pushes things like raspberry ketone. I don’t know the data is not very good behind that, green coffee bean Yeah. Garcinia 

Mike Matthews: Cambogia. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. Those types of things. Hey, the effects are modest when you start looking at human studies [00:36:00] green tea extracts pretty good. And that’s one of the more research things when they pile all these things together.

I tend not to use a lot of them in clinical practice because of the so there are a few drugs that are used for obesity that are. I have a lot of clinical data behind them and they are potent. I have some people losing, maintaining a hundred pound weight loss over a few years. Where as a supplement I would probably, use that maybe in bodybuilders at the end of the, when they have the last few pounds to lose, maybe and anything can help.

So him being or something like that. Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: What about something like Sinephrine? 

Spencer Nadolsky: That can have some of the same centrally acting appetite suppression as well. And some of that type of stuff, it’s, and that, 

Mike Matthews: 5 HTP seems to be good for that as well. A lot of people that wouldn’t take it with food.

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. And so actually there are some obesity doctors that use that along with something like Phentermine, which is [00:37:00] another centrally acting agent to help with appetite. They hit in a few different receptors in the brain. I just, I’m careful about supplements that, that have those mechanisms cause they’re not studied as well.

Mike Matthews: Yeah. 

Spencer Nadolsky: And as a physician, I gotta be careful about what I recommend. Sure. And like you said, you never know what you get when you recommend supplements. That’s 

Mike Matthews: also a problem. They go out and try to buy it and it’s, unfortunately if they get lucky, it’s just like they’re not getting something harmful, but it’s just rice flour.

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. So yeah, there’s some reports of supplements that are reported fat burners. Having sibutramine in, in it, which is a weight loss drug that was taken off the market in 2010 due to cardiac adverse adv, adverse effects and events. So I’m just, I’m very careful about the fat burners.

Yeah. I, I. Pretty much stick to caffeine. I use five. Htp does have some things with especially carb craving and probably some of the central appetite of suppressing effect, [00:38:00] too. And then I have used yo him being and for skull and in the past during my bodybuilding competition right at the end, because I was like I also, it’s that last stubborn fat.

It’s so yeah. So yeah. And so it’s these aren’t they’re the ones that tend to have the most evidence behind them, as far as I know, for fat burning, and I was like I’m doing my diet pretty much as, as well as I can. I need I’ll try anything as long as I can. So you got to be careful of the yohimbine though some people get due to its various adrenergic effects you got to be careful with your blood pressure and other cardiac stuff, but if you use it in safe doses I would, if you do it, I would work with a doctor that knows how to use it, but just be very careful because I’ve seen some bad things happen.

Would people take too high of doses of that? 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, I’ve written about yohimbine and, I think the standard dosage is like 0. 1 to 0. 2 milligrams per kilogram of weight, but if start on the low end of that, assess tolerance and don’t [00:39:00] abuse it because you have, like you said It can be, and I rarely hear from people that they get any adverse effects that some people just get a little bit jittery and then just don’t take it then.

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah, exactly. So that’s my thing with fat. It’s biggest thing is the lean mass retention. That’s why I say the whey protein, even though people don’t get excited about that. But once you get down to that to that level and you just want that extra little bit, Yeah.

I talk about caffeine Yohan being four skull. 

Mike Matthews: It’s, yeah, that’s funny. The fat loss product that I have. So the s the formulation is you have synephrine ine heparin, which those, those are all the nian heparin in our, they’re in the same fruit, the bitter orange extract, and there’s research on that increasing basal metabolic rate, 5 HTP, Salicin for the blood flow effects, and then for scolin.

And and then hoarding also is a different, the, what you’re talking about are like, that’s what [00:40:00] we narrowed down as. All right, there, there is enough research on these to where there’s a very, it’s very likely that it’s going to help. And we’ve gotten a lot of good feedback, especially from experienced bodybuilders, like what you’re talking about, where you’re going, they know what they’re doing and they know how their body responds.

They know what, how to diet. And where they’ll come back, like the, probably the most common, like from those types of people like you is when you put it all together with caffeine, we left caffeine out of the formulation just because I like 

Spencer Nadolsky: coffee. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, seriously. That’s why.

I always hated that about fat loss products, even if the formulations are okay, that I didn’t, I don’t want 200 milligrams of caffeine from pills. I want pre workout. I want, I don’t drink coffee. I wish I liked it, but but yeah I’ve, the, I’ve heard from quite a few people that were like prepping for shows and stuff where they noticed that with the supplementation, with caffeine, they saw about maybe about a half a pound extra weight loss a week, somewhere between a quarter and a half pound extra weight loss a week, which makes sense in terms of when you look at, the numbers of what those things should do.

Spencer Nadolsky: Yep. [00:41:00] Exactly. 

Mike Matthews: Cool. All right. So then I guess just to to recap people cause people go on Amazon and they go look at for fat loss products and they’re going to see Garcinia Cambogia, they’re going to see, and again, that’s you look at the research on that. It’s just not very good.

I don’t think it’s enough to sell it at all. And green coffee extracts also very popular. Would you say don’t waste your money on that or 

Spencer Nadolsky: Wouldn’t waste the money. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Or, yeah. Or raspberry ketones. Carnitine kind of had its 15 minutes of fame for fat loss.

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. I mean it’s, it would make sense, but it just doesn’t work. Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: It’s one of those things. Like you would, it increased, like you, you feel hotter, but it doesn’t help you lose fat. 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah, exactly. 

Mike Matthews: Which is actually funny that a lot of companies, they, they include evodiamine in their fallow supplements, just so you feel like, Oh, this must be doing something.

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. I think so. I think that’s why they put a lot of caffeine in it. That’s, pre workouts a lot of times have a lot of that. And I think, it’s similar to which actually caffeine is [00:42:00] one of the best things for, I love 

Mike Matthews: caffeine. Thank God that caffeine doesn’t destroy you as long as you don’t abuse it.

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. No, it’s, it’s a very, it’s one of the most well studied. Invest things out there for workout performance and things like that. But a lot of these places put a ton of it in just to make you feel it, and it’s as they pixie dust the rest of their, 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. It’s a, it’s the prop blend scam of whatever’s first in that problem could be 99, 98 percent of the entire blend and it’s always going to be something cheap that they just load up or there are manufacturers out there.

I know from. Whatever from being in the business that plenty of manufacturers out there that don’t care. They’ll do anything you want Like you want you like that thing that came out of New York State. There’s the Attorney General Oh, you want houseplant and asparagus in your pills and you’re gonna cool.

Sounds good We don’t care what you sell them as 

Spencer Nadolsky: yeah, exactly 

Mike Matthews: Okay. So now let’s say someone’s on a budget something I get asked for that often and they only can afford a few supplements And they want [00:43:00] to they want to build muscle. Let’s say what would be, so it’d be whey protein, creatine, beta alanine would be your, 

Spencer Nadolsky: that would be my go to.

Mike Matthews: Okay, cool. And then if someone wants to lose fat then it would be whey protein, something with caffeine. And is there one or two other things that you would. 

Spencer Nadolsky: If, yeah if I, if they were really on a budget, I may. Still say the creatine, even though their weight may 

Mike Matthews: yeah. 

Spencer Nadolsky: And continuing your performance.

Yeah, that would probably be my go to way. Creatine and caffeine. Cool. 

Mike Matthews: And then yohimbine If once they get 

Spencer Nadolsky: down to the Once they get down to the But I hate to even say yohimbine. It’s very, It’s controversial. I’ve seen such bad things coming. I used it myself because, it wasn’t banned.

In the competition that I did the natural, whatever, INBF or WNBF or whatever [00:44:00] it was. So everything’s pretty much banned, but, yohimbine wasn’t and it has a little bit of good data behind it. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, but you have to be in a fasted state, probably should just mention that, right?

Like the insulin, the higher insulin levels are, the more, it doesn’t do anything for fat loss, right? 

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah, I’m not, I think the effects are modest regardless, but yeah, as far as I understand. Yeah. I’ve used that many 

Mike Matthews: times. I’ve noticed that, like you said, when you start, once I start getting under 10 percent and that, and then it starts to slow down I’ve noticed, him being in caffeine together has definitely helped just, keep the, where you’re just trying to squeeze out that half a pound a week.

Spencer Nadolsky: Yeah. So I, I hate to even say like for it, I wouldn’t even want anybody to use that unless they’re really like bodybuilding and they’re at that last little bit and they want, 

Mike Matthews: it is a very niche product. 

Spencer Nadolsky: They want an edge. So I would still say the I would still say the way creatine and caffeine, I know it seems so Oh, that’s boring, but it’s not.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, but supplementation is boring. That’s all you’re right. Tried and true. So yeah, there aren’t that many [00:45:00] things that you can do to improve performance, build muscle and lose fat. It’s just, the majority of it is eating right, resting and putting in the work. And, if you have the money, this is how I always pitch it.

If you have some money that you want to put into it, there are some things you can buy that are probably worthwhile. If you don’t have the money or you don’t want to, then that’s, you can still do great. Exactly. Cool. Okay. Awesome. That’s all I’ve got. Where can people find you, find your work 

Spencer Nadolsky: So people can find me.

I have my own personal blog. It’s just dr. Spencer. com. D R S P E N C E R. com. I also have a blog with my brother docs who lift. com. We try to promote doctors who push exercise and lifting weights. And then of course I have a Facebook page Dr. Spencer Nadolski and then Twitter is Dr. Nadeau at Dr.

Nadolski. That’s pretty much it. 

Mike Matthews: Awesome. Thanks a lot for taking the time, Spencer. I really appreciate it. 

Spencer Nadolsky: And thanks for having me on. Hope [00:46:00] you enjoy a good day down there in Clearwater. Oh it’s 

Mike Matthews: heating up. Summer is basically here.

Hey, it’s Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also, head over to my website at www. muscleforlife. com, where you’ll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you’ll also find a bunch of different articles that I’ve written.

I release a new one almost every day, actually, I release four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I’m involved in over at muscleforlife. com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.