Dr Chalmers Path to Pro - Collagen
Collagen has been getting mixed opinions, but it does more than people think. It provides amino acids your body can use to keep blood sugar stable during fasting and helps protect muscle tissue from breaking down. While it’s not the best option on its own for building new muscle, it still plays a helpful role in supporting strength and overall function.
With today’s food being less nutrient-dense than it used to be, supplements like collagen can help fill in the gaps. It’s especially useful during fasting or low-calorie diets to support recovery and maintain muscle. Paired with a complete protein like whey, it can be a practical addition to staying healthy and active.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:04 - Misconceptions about collagen
01:00 - Collagen and fasting
04:30 - Inflammation and muscle growth
05:56 - Collagen during fasting
07:11 - Nutrient density concerns
09:45 - Risks of nutrient deficiency while fasting
12:11 - Collagen vs. whey protein
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:04] All right. So let's go through some college and stuff. So I keep seeing a lot of people coming out. I don't know their official positions on it. I've just seen, you know, Brekha come out with the perfect aminos. And I talk, you're looking at a lot of other influencers coming out and saying that college is not worth taking. It's no good and you shouldn't be using it. And so they said it doesn't help with muscle, you know, as much and it's just not worth thinking. So let us walk through this real quick. So. Collagen is a protein that's a collection of different peptides. And so when we start looking at where we're going with it, it doesn't help make new collagen per se. But it gives your body all the amino acid ingredients to do it. Now, as far as, You can use collagen for gluconeogenesis to produce more sugars and things like that. This is what people talk about when they're like well we're on a fast and you should drink own broth and stuff like that to preserve muscle tissue. The reason that you're doing that is your blood can only run on sugar and so it can't run on fat, it can run on ketones, your blood has to have sugar and your body makes it. It makes it through a process called lacunae of Genesis. And the way it does it is it uses proteins and breaks them apart and turns them into sugar. There's a whole pathway of that. Protein was never going to turn into sugar enough to make fat. Don't worry about that. It's not going to kick you out of ketosis.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:35] The sugar that is made by your body is part of the lipolytic system or the system that runs on fat. So totally different chemical conversation. Back to this one. All right. So it can help make sugar for your blood. So that helps maintain everything that will keep your body from breaking your muscle tissues down to find the proteins to make the sugars to then feed your blood so that's how we buy it. That's how taking collagen keeps your body. That helps maintains muscle mass and keeps your body from tearing away or ripping apart excess excess muscle tissue to build sugar out. It also can help build muscle tissue. Again, there's all the different amino acids that are in it. Your body requires to build muscle, tissue and keep it healthy and functional and the whole deal. Now, where collagen does most of the time lag is it doesn't have the amino acid tryptophan. So if you're familiar with tryptophane, most people are familiar with it from the, oh, it's the one that's in Turkey. Yes. However, oh, it makes you sleepy. Yeah, can, because what happens is you go tryptophan, 5-HTP, serotonin, melatonin. So yeah, it is in the pathway that makes melatonine, so it is one of the amino acids that can help you sleep. Yes, 100%. However, it also, like I said, makes serotonine. This is where we had the conversation about SSRIs and how we should be using the gut flora and tryptophane to make all the excess serotonins and not using drugs to chemically alter the brain to retain more.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:13] Serotonin like there's no reason like well if we work really hard we mess with the brain we can we can reserve and save like three percent yet we can make a thousand percent more in the gut by just having healthy gut flora up to you however you want to play um the nice thing is that he has the other thing about tryptophan tryptophane also helps increase the production utilization of insulin like growth factor one so as far as would collagen be the very best thing to take if you wanted to build muscle tissue? Probably not because you definitely want the tryptophan for all the serotonin function all the emotional mental stability function but you also definitely want insulin growth factor one and IGF-1 for those of you who don't know helps your body grow it's growth factor growth and it helps everybody. When we say grow, don't just think it bigger. I think heal, regenerate, repair, lay down new tissue. Like, you know, it's the concrete truck. So whether we're building a giant building or we're repairing a road, repairing a bridge, you know that sort of thing. We've got to have that stuff in. So IGF-1 is super important. It's actually released during inflammation. This is one of those big deals when we talk about inflammation, that's irritating. Cause people are like, oh, we got to take all these anti-inflammatories. You got to addual, you got to this by chemically, specifically with NSAIDs.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:33] By breaking down the process your body has was designed to use to heal, regenerate, repair, and deal with trauma, not a huge, not the best option always. There's definitely some times where it's not, you know, problematic and it's beneficial, but there's lots and lots of times where you do not want to decrease inflammation. The number one time you do want to increase inflammation is after you work out. So there's been a Lots of people will talk about this. You never want a cold plunge after a hard workout because the cold plunch will shut off your body's inflammatory response, which means you just killed all the insulin-like growth factor that your body was producing to heal, regenerate, and help those muscle tissues not only go back to where they were before you tore them up in the gym, but then help them grow bigger and stronger. So you just shut off the entire process your body literally has designed to use to. Make benefits of the workout. You are killing your gains by killing your inflammation. So this is one of the things that, you know, we've been trying, this is another one of those things we've tried to talk about for a long time because inflammation used properly, regulated properly is super good for you. It is exactly what you want. It is 100% where you're trying to go. So that's one of these things that we kind of have to factor in.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:56] So, I take college every day. Especially when I'm fasting. This is one of those big things, I take a bunch of college and when I am fasting, for a couple of reasons. One, I want to support my body wherever I can, but the number one thing is that if I'm fasting, I'm not consuming any excess protein. So I'm bringing in these amino acids so my body can make sugar out of that instead of tearing apart my muscle tissue to create the sugar it's gonna have to meet. So here's the thing. While you're fasting, your body still has to make all of the biochemical function happen that it does when you're not fasting. And so you can not eat, and that is fine. If you're trying to do the whole like, I'm just not gonna consume anything and just for religious or philosophical or challenge reasons, knock it out. Like I have no issues with that. I think that's fantastic. I love. Some of those hormesis things like, you know, a little bit of suffering teaches you who you are and that sort of thing, fantastic. Suffer all you want. The thing is, is that if you're doing this to build your body better or to be healthier or to do whatever, I would recommend that you understand the biochemical pathway as the entire thing that's going on, the holistic view of what's going on when you don't eat.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:11] When you don't eat, your body still has to have the B vitamins, it still has the omega-3 fatty acids, it still still has saturated fat, it's still has all the things that it's required to build, regenerate, repair, and heal tissue. If you don t have those things coming in, you're not going to get them. And people are like, well, your body stores all that stuff. And it does store quite a bit of it to a decent degree. The problem is that go ahead, if you've just been eating and not taking much of supplements, go ahead and Google this. Google nutrient density in the United States. Just look at the nutritional density in the food we have today versus 20, 30 years ago. And what you'll find is that the amount of electrolytes, magnesium, the magnesium and potassium, the calcium, the selenium, the boron, the iodine, definitely look up iodine. These things are radically reduced in our. Nutrition. So if you're not taking a bunch of supplementation, if you are not bringing those chemicals in from the outside source, the chances that you have tons of it stored up and you're ready to go is very slim. So the idea that, you know, well, I just want to eat for a couple of days and it's going to be super healthy for me no matter what, that's not necessarily accurate. Yeah, autophagy is a thing and your body can run, you know, your body was designed, 100% designed to run without food for a couple of days.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:33] However, if we're gonna look at it, and we're like, okay, I'm gonna make the best functional move for building muscle tissue, losing fat, staying healthy, staying whatever. You need to recognize that your body is a machine. It's a beautifully designed machine, but it's still just a machine, it requires specific things, specific technique, it requires specific frequencies of light, but. Let's go with the chunked up version. It requires a significant amount of different chemicals. And so giving it divided as chemicals and making sure it has those chemicals is something I highly recommend that you look into doing because just not eating, you have to still understand what's all about chemistry function that has to happen to keep me alive and functioning and healthy and how is that biochemical pathway supported. So if you've got enough stuff, like you have plenty of fat in your body, you don't have to worry about ATP production necessarily from a fats and sugars function. Your body's gonna terrible eating protein it has, so that is definitely stored. So it's gonna feed your sugars and your blood as long as your body is healthy enough and functional enough to go through gluteal genesis. So those two things, your ATP production, your fuel function are definitely taken care of, don't worry about that. However, the biochemical nutrients that you probably are low on.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:45] And so if you go too low on that, your body has to start ripping apart other tissues to get those chemicals to run everything. So keep that in mind. But this, when we start looking at collagen, if you want to maintain muscle mass while you're fasting, collagen is one of the best things that you can add into your smoothies or not your smooths, but like your, your, like your water and stuff like that. You can take capsules, however it is. That will help maintain the muscle mass that you're trying desperately to build and maintain. Everybody is talking about and rightfully so everyone's talking about how critical it is to have more muscle tissue Because that's where all your mitochondria live and that's why a lot of your actual metabolic function takes place So yes muscle tissue is hyper critical to long-term quality of life energy levels You know longevity like all like if we it's very very very important and yes, you should all be working on it The other side of that is that if you're trying so we understand that muscle tissue super important to maintain And then if we start fasting, if we don't give the body a way to create the sugars, the blood has to have the function, we're going to start losing muscle tissue. So just kind of keep that in mind. That's this is why I use collagen. I use it, you know, every single time I'm fasting, just to maintain blood sugar function, which regulation and maintain muscle mass. So keep that in mind. This is also obviously applies to low calorie diets.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:05] You guys are still running a calorie based diet. Stop it. Like, come on. Like learn just a little bit of chemistry. Like the idea that sugar, fiber, starch and protein are all this work exactly the same, which is what the calories in calories out model teaches is totally dumb. It's laughable. So I get it. Like, you know, you've learned a system, you were programmed a certain way, but. You literally have to argue that proteins, sugar, fiber, and starch all work exactly the same way because the calorie system is, they're all worth four and you're just counting them up. So learn your chemistry, if you're going to do this, take in some of your collagen, maintain the muscle mass you're so desperately trying to build. It also helps to maintain functionality within the muscle tissue. So, collagen is not one of those things that I would necessarily skip. Especially if you're going to be fasting, you can get essential, you can get all the essential proteins in, in different protein and different like actual like full proteins like whey. Whey has all these essential proteins and essential amino acids in it.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:12:11] So that's fantastic. That's why it's actually why the protein that we have on the store, at Pillage of Wellness.com, that's why that one is called Muscle Build because it has extra amino acids and to help you build muscle tissue. But that's kind of how that one. So yeah. Collagen is a great thing to take. I take it all the time. It is the chief function that I use for gluconeogenesis to maintain muscle mass while I'm fasting. But, you know, and I do think it helps to create muscle tissue in and of itself. So keep that in mind, it's I don't think it's gonna help build extra collagen. And it would be easier to just take away a whey protein. So keep in mind that that's kind of where we are on the collagen discussion. It kind of up to you how you want to play. Thanks for your time you guys have a fabulous day. See you tomorrow
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