2641: Resistant Starch: The Carb That Can Help You Get Shredded by Eric Leija on Fat Loss & Nutrition Advice

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[00:01:11] get shredded by Eric Lea of ericlea.com. And I'm Dr. Neal, your very own personal narrator. Welcome to a Tuesday edition of Optimal Health Daily. Remember, this is one of 5 podcasts where

[00:01:23] we read to you from blogs for free so that you don't have to read them yourself. Except on Fridays, that's where I usually answer your questions. Now to check out our other shows, just search for Optimal Living Daily wherever you're hearing this. I'm going to keep this intro

[00:01:38] nice and short so let's get right to today's post and start optimizing your life. Resistance Starch, the carb that can help you get shredded by Eric Lea of ericlea.com. Typically, the first

[00:01:56] image that pops into our minds when we hear the word starch is all the carby things – fries, bread, cakes, cookies, pasta, etc. – simple carbohydrates we typically limit for more efficient fat loss. However, there are other types of starch, namely a type called resistance starch

[00:02:15] that could possibly help boost your fat loss. Listen on to see why you should consider adding it to your menu. What is resistance starch? It turns out not all starch is created equal.

[00:02:27] Here's an easy example most of us already know. A sweet potato does not equal a candy bar or piece of cake in terms of nutrient value, calorie density, or its effect on your body. One is candy

[00:02:40] that consists of mostly simple sugars. The other is a high-nutrient, fiber-rich whole food. But going even deeper than this, starches can also come in different forms. Regular starches like those in potatoes, rice, and other grains are typically fully broken down minus their fibers during digestion,

[00:02:59] releasing energy directly into your bloodstream. Resistance starch is a little different in that it resists digestion. So it moves undigested through your stomach and onto your colon where it feeds the good bacteria residing there. And if you take probiotics, you probably already know an essential

[00:03:17] part of maintaining good gut health is making sure you have plenty of good bacteria populating your gut. Resistance starch helps with this by selectively feeding the good bugs so they can flourish, which results in a ton of health benefits like reduced inflammation and possibly even reduced

[00:03:34] risk of developing colon cancer. So how can resistance starch help with fat loss? As a bonus, it turns out that resistance starch also has been shown to help fuel fat loss and promote leanness,

[00:03:45] aka get ready to fall back in love with the right type of carbs. Let's take a look at the several ways it does this. One, it improves insulin sensitivity and lowers blood glucose levels.

[00:03:58] When we eat carbs, especially simple carbs in the form of sugar, our bodies release the hormone insulin to help keep our blood sugar levels in check. This process is normal, but it can hinder

[00:04:09] fat loss if it occurs repeatedly and insulin levels stay elevated for long periods of time. This is because insulin plays a large role in fat storage. Namely, if you're eating more carbs,

[00:04:20] think glucose, than your body needs for fuel, it seeks to store this fuel elsewhere. So the easiest option? Storing it as body fat. This may be why studies show suppressing insulin release leads to greater weight loss. Less glucose and therefore less insulin equals less fat storage, which in

[00:04:39] turn allows your body to use its own body fat as a source of energy instead of all that extra glucose. Where resistance starch comes into play in this is that it not only causes less of a

[00:04:50] blood sugar spike and therefore less insulin release, but it also has been shown to increase insulin sensitivity. Insulin sensitivity simply refers to how sensitive your cells are to the blood sugar lowering effects of insulin. When you eat too many carbs too often, your cells can start

[00:05:08] to resist insulin, which keeps your blood sugar chronically elevated and unable to use the carbs as fuel, thus storing most of the glucose as fat to get it out of your bloodstream. When your cells

[00:05:20] are sensitive to insulin however, they readily respond to insulin so you don't need to secrete as much, which may lead to less fat storage. 2. It increases satiety and could cause you to eat less.

[00:05:33] Some starches seem to want to make us binge. Bag of chips anyone? But resistant starch appears to do the opposite. Research shows resistant starch can increase feelings of fullness from meals while also causing people to eat less calories overall. As we know, feeling satisfied from our

[00:05:50] meals goes a long way in sticking to a weight loss regime long term. 3. Improves gut bacteria. As we just heard, studies show that resistant starch selectively feeds our good gut bacteria, causing them to flourish. And it turns out these good bugs are pivotal when it comes to losing

[00:06:07] weight and keeping it off. Just to show you how powerful feeding and growing your good bacteria can be, one study found that over the course of three months, women taking probiotics lost 50% more weight compared to a group taking a placebo. Even better, they also continued to lose weight

[00:06:24] during the maintenance phase of the study. Another study showed that people taking a probiotic for 12 weeks reduced their belly fat by 8.5% while also reducing their body mass index and hip circumference. Other research has found that when transplanting gut bacteria from obese mice into those of lean

[00:06:43] mice, the lean mice gain fat. So it's possible that gut bacteria may differ in people with higher versus lower body fat percentages. Researchers believe good gut bacteria have these positive effects on weight loss by releasing a hormone called GLP-1, which helps promote fullness and

[00:07:01] may help your body burn more calories. 4. Where to get resistant starch. Okay, so where do you get this weight loss friendly starch? The easiest options include cooked then cooled potatoes. Cooling is essential as it transforms regular starch into resistant

[00:07:17] starch through the cooling process. It's best to let them cool overnight. You can also get resistant starch in green bananas and plantains, raw potato starch like Bob's Red Mill, that's a great brand. Sprinkle a couple of teaspoons into your smoothie. Properly soaked beans,

[00:07:33] soak them overnight before eating. Try to start with small portions and a lower dose like one teaspoon of potato starch if you decide to go that route. If you eat too much at once, you may

[00:07:44] experience some bloating as your gut bugs adjust, so it's best to ease into it. Another tip, combine your resistant starch consumption with probiotics or probiotic foods like yogurt or sauerkraut. Since resistant starch feeds good bacteria, you'll be adding them in while also encouraging more to

[00:08:01] grow. A final note, let's toast to a carb that may help us get shredded. You just listened to the post titled, Resistant Starch, the carb that can help you get shredded by Eric Lea of ericlea.com and

[00:08:19] I'll be right back with my commentary. Dr. Neal here for my commentary. Folks often ask me how they can keep their gut microbiome healthy and I've actually talked about this quite a few times on

[00:08:30] my Friday Q&A episodes. People always want to know how to like reset their gut microbiome or how to promote the health of their gut microbiome, make sure that they have more good bacteria than bad,

[00:08:42] for example. And something that I've always said, my response has always been to keep your gut microbiome healthy, make sure you have a good amount of fiber in your diet. Now foods that are

[00:08:54] forms of resistant starches are also good sources of fiber. Just like the author Eric explained, if something's resistant to digestion, in this case we're talking about starches, it's probably because

[00:09:07] it has a pretty good amount of fiber in it. Fiber is non-digestible and just as he explained, by not digesting some of those starches what's happening is when that non-digested starch gets to your large

[00:09:19] intestine, the good bacteria love it. It helps them flourish and yes absolutely consuming foods that contain natural good bacteria like yogurt, other fermented foods like sauerkraut can absolutely support the health of your gut. So when it comes to potential fat burning, there are a number of

[00:09:39] mechanisms that Eric did explain that might be going on here. Resistant starches may help keep us more satisfied which may help reduce our calorie intake the rest of the day. That if we do that

[00:09:50] consistently enough may help us lose body weight and potentially lose body fat. But he's also correct that resistant starches don't raise our blood sugar, they don't spike our blood sugar in the same way

[00:10:01] like a soda or candy would. High blood sugar levels like after a soda or candy tells our body to release more insulin and what we're learning is when insulin is present, the body likes to store

[00:10:14] the energy we get from our foods as fat and so we want to keep our insulin levels in check as much as we can. So if we can avoid spiking our blood sugar which would then spike our insulin, then we

[00:10:26] can potentially keep our insulin levels in check at the same time. And so consuming resistant starches regularly may help keep our blood sugar levels a little bit more even and therefore prevent big

[00:10:38] spikes in our insulin levels as well. Alright that's a lot of information so that's enough for me for today. I thank you for listening, thank you for being a subscriber of the show. I hope you have a

[00:10:49] great rest of your Tuesday and I'll see you back here tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.