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Show Notes and Podcast Transcript

Welcome to another three question interview from CarbSmart. I’m your host, Dana Carpender, your trusted guide to everything low-carb. Today, I’m interviewing Fred Hahn, owner of Slow Burn Fitness, author of The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution and also Strong Kids, Healthy Kids, not to mention my friend and strength training guru.

He’s also a long time low-carber. Let’s hear what Fred has to say about low-carb nutrition and fitness.

Dana Carpender (DC): Hi everybody. My name is Dana Carpenter. I’m here with another CarbSmart three question interview, this time with my friend Fred Hahn, who I haven’t seen in way too long, Fred Hahn is, um, the owner of Slow Burn Fitness and also the author of The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution.

Fred Hahn (FH): The first book I wrote is called the Slow Burn Fitness Revolution and I’m the coauthor with it, with the infamous Mike and Mary Dan Eades of Protein Power.

DC: Absolutely.

FH: And the second book I. Yeah, they are. I mean, I think of all the experts in the field of low-carb nutrition, I think Mike is like the godfather. And, um, I mean, you know, yeah, and he actually has a, a, um, what do you call it? A, uh, a blog called the Arrow. And it’s, it’s just a fantastic blog.

But in any event, my second book was called Strong Kids, Healthy Kids. And I published that in 2008. Yeah. And it’s basically teaching caregivers, teachers, whoever wants to read the book, that strength training is good for kids and adolescent obesity is, can only be addressed by altering the diet. Exercise has nothing to do with obesity in adolescents or in adults. And it’s just getting the kids to eat bacon and eggs in the morning instead of breakfast cereal.

DC: Yeah. And this was, this was actually, I, I sent you your questions in advance as I always do. And, uh, that was one of my questions. And so let’s, let’s get to that one first. And I, I said the way I wrote it out here, I have my tape here.

DC: I have long felt you can’t out exercise a bad diet. Yes. And so what degree is weight loss about diet and to what degree is it about exercise? And I will say regarding the kids that there was just a lot more background exercise in my childhood. There really was. I walked to and from school twice a day because back then you walked home for lunch.

That’s how old I am. And it was a little over a half a mile either way, so I walked two miles a day just going to and from school, uphill only one way, uphill only one way. Um, yeah, so there was that kind of background exercise, um, and that’s, that’s gone. And I think that probably made a difference, but, um, and a lot of the, a lot of the playground equipment, like monkey bars and stuff are gone because oh my God, they’re a safety hazard. And, and that, I mean, you know, we all know that pull ups are strength training. Um, so, um, so there’s that, but in general, not just kids. Um, how do you, uh, teach your clients, what do you teach them about diet, uh, and exercise?

FH: Well, I essentially say to, you know, I would say 98 percent of the clients that I, pardon me, uh, see on a regular basis, their number one goal is weight loss.

So the first thing I teach them is there’s a difference between weight loss, and fat loss, because if, right, if a woman comes to me and she weighs 130 pounds, if she loses 10 pounds of fat by adopting a low sugar, adequate protein diet, and she gains 10 pounds of lean tissue, meaning muscle and bone, she weighs the same.

So it’s not a weight loss problem. I mean, if someone weighs 300 pounds and they should weigh 140, yes, they’re obviously going to lose weight. But the most important thing is body composition. Not necessarily how much you weigh, you know, the muscle to fat ratio and getting back to the kids. So when I was doing the research on, uh, cause you were talking about how you’d walk back and forth to school.

When I was doing the research on the book, I found a study that involved that looked at, I think it was over 8,000 children lean and obese, like technically on the BMI obese. And it showed you that the children that were lean engaged in, get this, two more minutes, yes I said minutes, of physical activity every day than the, than their, um, over fat counterparts.

DC: Okay.

FH: Two minutes of activity equals zero calorie spent.

DC: I realize that, yes.

FH: So, I, so I tell my clients fat, fat loss, you know I teach them, weight loss and fat loss are different. That loss is one hundred percent diet. And I, and I use Jeff Volek. I quote Jeff Volek a lot. Dr. Jeff Volek, where he says you are not what you eat. You are what your body does with what you eat. And your body does very different things with carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.

DC: Yeah. It’s it’s about the hormonal signaling.

FH: Absolutely. A fat loss is a hormonal game, not a numbers game. So, uh, and I tell them when it comes to exercise, if you’re exercising vigorously enough in order to expend a significant amount of energy, virtually all that energy is not coming from your fat stores.

That energy is coming from your intramuscular sugar glycogen stores. So, you get on a treadmill, you bust your butt, you’re pouring with sweat, an hour later the machine says, you burned a thousand calories, well, the first thing you have to do is subtract the amount of calories you would have burned anyway, doing nothing from that number.
So not a thousand, say nine hundred.

DC: Basal metabolism.

FH: Right, so something of that nature. But then you have to say, okay, I burned 800 calories of what? 800 calories of fat? No, you didn’t. Oh, no, you didn’t. You burned roughly 800 calories of intramuscular glycogen. And in your blood system, you have between 2,000 and 3,000 (a bigger person maybe) 4,000 calories worth of intramuscular glycogen that can be used for the fuel you need in order to, uh, and let’s say instead you go for a very slow walk, a much higher percentage of your energy will come from body fat, but the total amount of energy you expend will be nothing. So, it’s, it’s, like, if you want to burn the most amount of fat percentage wise, you Take a nap. That’s all fat being used.

DC: Sadly, I’m not good at napping. But, um, now what if people are already in at least a mild state of ketosis so they are burning fat rather than glycogen? Because I, you know, I don’t, I don’t go for deep ketosis and, and this is something I keep pointing out to people is that ketosis proves that testing positive for ketones proves you’re burning fat for fuel.

It does not prove that you’re burning body fat for fuel and adding a whole bunch of fat bombs and bulletproof coffee into a deeper ketosis, but it doesn’t mean you’re burning body fat. So I’m in a, I’m in a ketosis most of the time. Um, so, so What about me and glycogen and stuff? And I realized we’re getting beyond four questions already. But

FH:: yeah, yeah, whatever I’m happy to discuss. So, so what was the question again? What about meat?

DC:: No, what about, what about me? What about when I’m, when I’m already, already in a mild state of ketosis. Um, so I’m burning, obviously I’m burning fat for fuel, whether it’s dietary fat, body fat.
Um, what happens then? If I, you know, say, go for an hour-long walk, which involves some hills and like that.

FH:: Well, If you, let’s say you’re a pure carnivore and as Dr. Jeff Jeff Volek and some of the other experts that I respect say if you’re, if you’re on a strict carnivore diet and you’re deeply in ketosis due to the fact that you’re eating no sugar whatsoever, your intramuscular glycogen stores will be gobbled up and at most 20% to 30%. So, and that’s one of the reasons why going on a low-carb diet is kind of cool because let’s say you go to a party and you cheat and you have two pieces of pizza, the carbohydrate that you took in is not going to go to your fat still your fat storage first, it’s going to be converted to glycogen and go to your muscles first.

And then as soon as you’re on intramuscular glycogen is filled, then it will convert the sugar to a lipid and shove it in the fat cell and lock it there. But even if you’re in that deep state of ketosis and you do a strength training exercise, you go for a, uh, a strong run or you do something vigorous, you’re still primarily burning intramuscular glycogen for fuel.

The only difference is when you’re at rest, you are as Jeff Volek calls it, fat adapted, though you are more efficiently using stored body fat for fuel. But like you said, and Mike Eades points this out in Protein Power, if you eat too much dietary fat, even if it’s all the good fat, saturated fat, lard, whatever you want to eat, your body’s going to choose that first and leave your stored body fat alone.

That’s why you don’t want to put butter on your steak. If you want to lose fat. You don’t want to necessarily add a lot of fat to the fat you’re already eating that’s in the salmon or the steak or whatever.

DC: And there is a balance to be, to be made because I have learned that, um, I do tend to run a higher sugar if I eat too much protein.

My body appears to be really good at gluconeogenesis, really good at gluconeogenesis. So I do better with say pork shoulder, which is nice and fatty. Um, then I would with loin chops or something like that. And they taste better too. Um,

FH: well, the fattier, the better in terms of taste, in my opinion.

DC: Okay. Let’s, um, let’s go to, uh, This, this is interesting to me. Um, many people are convinced that they need carbs specifically when they’re lifting to build muscle. In fact, they talk about using insulin as an anabolic. Um, and please, please tell us why that’s basically, you know…

FH: Kind of bogus. Well, again, I’ll give you my, my anecdotal opinion from 30 years of doing this. And I’ll also, and I’ll, and I’ll also talk about that. Yeah, the research behind it, uh, but, and again, I quote Dr. Jeff Volek and some of these other experts, um, essentially whenever you, whenever you exercise, you, the primary source of fuel is intramuscular glycogen. And so your body then is using that for the carbohydrate it needs.

So we say, well, in order to have a really strong workout, you have to have carbs. You got plenty of carbs. They’re inside your muscle already. You don’t have to put it in your head.

DC: Some of us are really good at making them.

FH: That’s right. So even if it were true that in order to have a really highly productive, intense workout, you need carbs. You don’t have to stick it in your head to get it. You got plenty of of it in your muscle. There’s no need. I mean, you know, I’m sure you’ve heard of Dr. Timothy Noakes and Dr. Yeah. And he wrote the book, the Lore of Running. And over the years, he gave himself type two diabetes. By, by advocating for a very high carbohydrate diet for runners. And now, as you know, the trouble that he went through, he almost lost his license or he did lose his license. Well, is he in Australia or New Zealand? I think it’s New Zealand. Yeah, I forget exactly.

But, uh, eventually he won his case. Um, but he basically said everything that you have read in my book, the Lore of Running that discusses diet, toss it out because it’s all wrong. So now he’s like the godfather of running. So if, if, if there is any expert in the world that knows what he’s talking about, what it comes to, do you, or don’t you need carbohydrates in your diet to excel at your particular sport?

You should look at the YouTube videos, recent ones of Dr. Timothy Noakes talking about how he was dead wrong about that.

DC: Well, and and I keep telling people that, you know, people are, are like, well, you have to eat good carbs. And I’m like, I had not bought a loaf of white bread or a box of white rice in 15 years. When I went low-carb. I whole grain and beaned my way up to 200 pounds of five foot two.

FH: That’s right. That’s right. Because like, um, like Dr. Robert Cywes says he’s calls himself the Carb Addiction Doc. I’m sure you’ve heard of him or maybe met him on one of the cruises. Yeah, Dr. Robert Cywes. The last low-carb cruise that I participated in was in 2019.

And he was there. He’s brilliant. He’s brilliant. Uh, MD, PhD, and basically he says that people are carb addicted. So let’s say for example, let’s use alcohol. For example, if I say to a client says to me, I have five weeks to lose 10 pounds. I got to go to a wedding. I got to look my best. I say, okay, increase your protein, decrease or eliminate your sugars and don’t touch alcohol for the next five weeks.

Most clients go, all right, that’s hard Fred, but I got it. But if a client says, don’t touch alcohol. Well, what about like a glass of wine or two? Uh, you know, uh, you know, they have an alcohol problem. Like if I say, don’t eat eggs, they go, okay. If I say, don’t eat a pork, just eat chicken and beef. They say, okay. You say, don’t have any alcohol. They go, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Hey. So when you say to somebody, okay, no English muffins, no oatmeal. And they say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, uh, you know, they’re addicted to sugar, which, which if, if a person is over fat, they are addicted to sugar. There’s you, as you know, right?

Cause you can’t get over fat unless you are, right? You can’t.

DC:So I keep coming back to the fact that I, I had quite a few addictions in my youth. Um, the one I stole to get was sugar. The one I stole to get was sugar. And interestingly, when I quit sugar and white flour at 19, my other addictions over the next few years started to drop away.

FH: Yeah.

DC: For me, sugar was the core.

FH: Yeah. And when people say things like, Oh, what about the good carbs? Well, whatever you put in your mouth and chew it and swallow it, the good or the bad carbs goes into your stomach, stomach puts hydrochloric acid on it, turns whatever’s in your stomach into like applesauce, and then it goes into your large intestines.

Your brain, your body doesn’t know good from bad. It, it’s all glycogen. It’s all Blood sugar. That’s it. Yeah. Glucose. Right. Right. And whether or not that particular glucose source spikes your blood sugar or raises it but at a slower level, it’s still the same. So that’s why Mike Eades once, when they were talking about, he did a lecture on this, and they were talking about the glycemic load.

And he said, who cares about the glycemic load? If you’re, don’t eat the carbs in the first place, then you don’t have to worry about it. So, uh, so that’s, that’s what I would say to them is there are no good, like, there’s no good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. Cholesterol is cholesterol. It’s all good. All cholesterol is good.

It’s bad lifestyle habits like smoking and drinking and eating too much sugar and breathing in asbestos and whatever else that damages the artery. The endothelium that makes your liver make the cholesterol that needs to go and repair that. That’s like saying firemen are bad, because they’re always at fires.

DC: Yeah, I’ve heard that. I’ve heard that analogy and it’s, it’s right on.

FH: I think Gary Taubes, I think Gary Taubes, Use that analogy, uh, in Good Calories, Bad Calories. I think it was Gary, but whatever.

DC: Well, and, and, um, you know, there’s absolutely no evidence that, um, having lower, in fact, cholesterol under 170, I think it is, is associated with increased all-cause mortality, especially In men and in men, it’s associated with increased all-cause mortality, among other things from suicide and violence.

Because your brain’s made of, I assume it’s because your brain’s made of cholesterol and well, not entirely of cholesterol, but a lot of it’s cholesterol. We know that statins aren’t good for your brain.

FH: Right, I mean, virtually every cell in your body makes cholesterol. Not every, but virtually every. The human body exists to repair itself, to help itself, to nurture itself, to build itself. Nothing that your body makes on its own can be bad. How is that possible? So it’s a shame that so many people are on statin drugs that virtually none of them need it and it’s damaging their neuromuscular system and it’s, But we could go on and on about that.

DC: Yeah, my, uh, every time I get a new primary care, and I’m kind of in the market for one right now, I tell them I have a few deal breakers, one of which is they can’t give me trouble about my low-carb diet.

They, they give me trouble about my low-carb diet, bye bye. But also, if they’d ever like to stop being my doctor, go ahead and push me to go on statin. We could, we will, we will end the relationship right there. It will be over. Bye bye. And, and my cholesterol is technically high, technically, um, that’s with really high HDL and really low Trigs.

So, you know, I actually had a doctor sit there slack jawed for, oh, you know, 30 seconds staring at my blood work and then say, I don’t know what to say, I’ve never seen blood work like this before. This is something to be proud of, and my total cholesterol was over 200, but my HDL was at 107 and my trigs were at 36.

FH: That’s the key. It’s the trigs, that are the key.

DC: and, and my, um, my A1c was, uh, less than four, which is as low as they measure. So

FH: yeah.

DC: Um, okay. Third question, since this is a three question interview, although I might try to sneak up or personal question in your experience, how does lifting affect metabolic syndrome? Um, all the various facets of that.

FH: Wow. That’s a, uh, it, it affects it all a lot, but specifically, um, so the, your metabolism is largely your muscular system. And so for example, why is strength training so good for a diabetic, a type two, a diabetic any type one or type two, if you have this many muscle fibers, you have this much room for glycogen storage.

You lift weights, now you have this many muscle fibers, so now you have a lot more room for glycogen clearage. I mean, ideally you don’t want to eat it in the first place. But so, so part of metabolic syndrome, or a large part of it is type two diabetes. Uh, that’s, that’s one of the most rampant and one of the worst conditions of metabolic syndrome.

Um, other, other areas of the, what they call the metabolic syndrome, it has to do with. Um, obviously, fat loss, strength, no form of exercise actually helps fat loss much. Even if you gain 15 pounds of lean body mass, it, it, it really isn’t going to do much for me. You have to adapt a diet as we know that is low in sugar, low in carbohydrate. We’re not talking about broccoli and, uh,

DC: Nobody ever gets fat eating lettuce.

FH: That’s right. And in order to do that, you’d have to eat this much broccoli. And nobody can do that. Right. So, uh, so the most important way, by far, to, to, um, address metabolic syndrome is altering your diet. Strength training, lifting weights helps a little bit.

But it’s strength training. Lifting weights is better for other things. Building bone, building muscle, building muscular endurance, flexibility, aerobic capacity, uh, blood pressure, uh, gastrointestinal transit time. Uh, actually they now show that the stronger a person gets, it improves their mood. It elevates their self-confidence because they just feel better about themselves and the things that they can do.

But when it comes to metabolic syndrome, um, unless you’re altering your diet, the strength training, it isn’t really going to do you much good.

DC: Okay. Um, okay. Here’s my, here’s my personal question. And I know we’re getting close to the end of allotting us, but. I was, of course, you know, doing Slow Burn, and then I sprained this wrist badly, and then I broke this wrist, and then I broke this wrist again. I broke this wrist twice.

FH: Yeah, you fell or something, right?

DC: Yeah, yeah. And then I had surgery on, on this hand, and, and just in general, it went to hell. And it’s hard to, you know, lift without your hands. And, um. And since then, I have also had, uh, three or four bouts of very severe back pain. I either have no back pain at all, or I’m completely crippled by it.

And in fact, I go to physical therapy to see my ortho when we’re done with this. So um, how do I cautiously get back into lifting? Because I, I’m flabby and it pisses me off. I, I have always had a horror of being a feeble old lady. Thank you very much.

FH: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so, so first thing, strength training or weight lifting or resistance training, whatever you want to call it, uh, is a, is the single most important form of exercise that anybody can engage in.

Um, it is the only kind of exercise that can cause positive tissue remodeling, more bone, more muscle, more mitochondria, blah, blah, blah, um, uh, for the whole body. Like running is good for building mitochondria in your legs, but it isn’t good for your knee joints and your hip joints. So it’s a, it’s a, that’s like smoking cigarettes to reduce your stress. Not the best idea.

So for you, you would have to do exercises. Like if you were a client of mine, I would do, I would try to discover the exercises you can do and omit the exercises you cannot do. Like you might not be able to do a biceps curl, but there’s other exercises we could do. roundabout, so to speak, to still strengthen your, your whole body and work around the maladies until they start feeling better.

And then, and then go from there. Um, yeah. So, so that’s one made it one way to work around it. And the other part of your question was, I’m forgetting it now. Uh, uh, you said working around the injuries and then

DC: And not, not triggering back pain, but I got to tell you, Zoom just told me that we’re running out of time.

FH: Okay, so back pain, lumbar strengthening. If you don’t have the right machine for it, you can’t do it. And you, and if you have pain in your back, it’s almost always due to lumbar muscular weakness.

DC: Okay, this, um, this is nerve pain. It is not, it is not muscle pain having been a massage therapist….

FH: No, no, no, no, no. What I mean is the discs compress and hit the nerve. You need to open the discs.

DC: My, um, my ortho, orthopod says that my, uh, disc space is actually very good. So that’s good news, but there may be a little bulging of one. So we’ll, we’ll find out. And my, um, my PT has me doing a ton of ab work. So, um, anyway, Fred, so good to see you.

FH: Same here Dana.

DC: Um, and I hope to be back on the cruise next year that.
Would be cool. Um, I might even see if I can speak because it’ll be my 30th year of low-carb. Yeah. Wow. Wow.

FH: Wow. Congratulations.

DC: Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, the older I get, the happier I am. I grew smart about nutrition at a young age because it helps if you have some youth who preserve. Um, so anyway, love you, Fred,

FH: Love you too Dana.

DC: And, um, wave, wave in the direction of New Jersey for me.

FH: I will.

DC: Okay.

FH: All right. Good talking to you. Bye Now.

DC: Thanks, Fred. Folks, having tried different methods of resistance training, I can honestly say that That Slow Burn gives me the best results with the least time invested of any weightlifting I have ever done. I am in the process of getting my strength back doing slow burn on my Total Gym.

If you’re interested in strength training, do yourself a favor and read the Slow Burn Fitness Revolution LINK and do, well, exactly what Fred says. He also posts on Tik Tok , so take a look there. And remember, you can’t exercise your way out of a lousy diet. Do you do strength training? Do you go to a gym or work out at home?

Do you like free weights, use circuit training equipment, or like me, a piece of home resistance training equipment? Let us know in the comments below.

About Fred Hahn, Owner and President of Slow Burn Fitness

Fred Hahn is a certified personal trainer by the American Council on Exercise since 1990 and has been instructing 9 to 90 year olds for over 20 years. He instructs some of the world’s most prominent business men and women and celebrities in the world.

Since 1998, he’s owned and operated Slow Burn Personal Training Studios located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and in Montclair N.J. He is the co-author, along with Drs. Michael and MaryDan Eades of the best-selling fitness book The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution and is the author of Strong Kids, Healthy Kids.

Fred has appeared on numerous television and radio shows including NBC’s The Today Show, CNN’s The Biz, The 700 Club, WABC Morning Show, NBC Live at Five, Fox Five News, ABC Eyewitness News and much more.

Until next time, stay low-carb, happy and healthy.

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