Charles went live this weekend and hosted a surprise “Ask-Me-Anything” with the Cardano Community. He started with “Bonus questions” which were pre-asked questions from the community and went on to take live questions from the AMA viewers.
Here are the questions from the AMA with timestamped links:
How does Charles run a company with all the travel and handle all the stress? What is his lifestyle? (Jump to question)
About peer review: There is a perception that peer review slows down the development process. In this hyper-competitive cryptocurrency space, if we involve this process-oriented, disciplined way of doing things then we’ll somehow miss out on great opportunities and ability to beat incumbents in the marketplace. (Jump to question)
Loving this “bit more philosophical” AMA. Terrific to hear that he’s so health-conscious now too, with the intermittent fasting and the mindfulness. Barring accidents he should be around and fully functional for a long time!
Not really, the hard part is changing the life-style to a sustainable one which will have huge impact on health and weight anyway.
The biggest issue is the convenience, in general, ppl tend to choose the easy way: listening to the self proclaimed health professionals, who even do not know where and how the fat leaves the body. Not really, as these days they know more and more, but if you would’ve asked them abt it just 5 yrs ago they wouldn’t know anything abt it, and when they hear the fact they almost wont believe it.
I happy to see, that he has chosen the hard way, the life-long learning. There are lot of diseases which can be cured by life-style and/or some “sustainable” diet and luckily the reflux and gout are two of those (facts and self experience).
But the jurney he has chosen on this is hard and time consuming one, but worth doing it, really.
To understand the body, genetics, biology (cell, molecular etc.) was the main driven to me to do some MSc in Biology in the UK purely for fun an “expensive” fun. When I was young I thought that the Universe is the most complex thing until I explored biology.
It’s much more than just ‘hard.’ It’s not the losing part that’s hard - it’s the maintaining part.
The gnarly beast we fight when ‘losing’ weight is called a ‘metabolic set point.’
Unfortunately, shifting one’s metabolic set point without sustained, both, near perfect diet (most protein, some carb and the rest veggies) to a desired level where it maintains the achieved weight after a period of losing weight is … well, nearly impossible. Not impossible, just out of reach for 95% of people.
Fortunately, there are other options, like metabolic surgery (VSG)… which permanently reset that point and even after 5 or 10 year follow ups, the weight stays the same. Problem is, most people are addicted to food and would rather not sacrifice a part of their stomach so they can be healthy for life…
To see the big picture means to understand the underlying Biology of metabolism requires the understanding of the relevant parts of the different branches of Biology (Anatomy, Biochemistry, Cell Biology, Evolution Genetics etc.).
But to understand Biology, you must understand the underlying Chemistry.
But to understand Chemistry you need to understand the underlying Physics.
But to understand physics you need to understand Math.
So, how do we expect the ordinary ppl to understand the most complex system when they have no deep understanding of these disciplines, which requires years or even decades of studies.
There is no magic, the body is a very well controlled system and who understand the fundamentals will understand the causes and effects.
There things that affect our health:
Environment (where you live),
Lifestyle (how you live, means what you do, eat etc.) and
Genetics.
Currently, you cannot change your genetics, but the lifestyle and environment can affect your body systems based on your genes.
.
So, there are a lot of environmental and lifestyle’s decisions that would affect these systems and their parts (thyroid functions, insulin-, leptin- and ghrelin resistance, Beta cell’s functions, humoral-, neural-, endocrine systems and a lot more) and therefore will reflect your health and weight.
CH’s started a journey on this, which takes a lot of effort to gain some benefits, (and did some changes in his life) that’s good, but the bad part of it is in his current lifestyle either frequent travels, which definitely affects his endocrine system (Circadian cycle -> SCN -> Hormones -> cortisol/melatonin etc.) and therefore almost every other parts of his body systems.
So, I would not expect too big changes in his health due to his current lifestyle
An other misbelief. Excess protein will be converted to glucose by gluconeogenesis, but it will be stored in the liver as glycogen, therefore it won’t really affect the blood sugar level if there is space to store glycogen in muscle cells and/or liver. What is excess? Oversimplified explanation: Let’s say we need 1g/bw per day, so ~70gr/day (~280kcal/day), so if you eat more than 15% of your intake as protein it will be converted to glucose.
And, you did not mention fats. Fats are very important (40% of cells membrane are lipids) and would say they’re very underestimated.
Continue the thoughts: I have mentioned: “if there is space to store glycogen”, but if we hardly do anything even walking, but sit in the office almost all day, and later just laying on the couch at home, watching the TV and snacking, then what can we expect?
Our body responses to these kind of lifestyles. As an example: When we’re snacking/eating:
glucose molecules enter the bloodstream (concentration is ~25gr in 1.5L blood),
The pancreas releases insulin hormones into the bloodstream (by Beta cells), to clear them up
muscle cells say “I do not need more as I am full”, as we do not use it, (~1% of muscle cells, means ~400gr)
so they start reducing the number of the insulin receptors from their cell membrane by endocytosis (or some other methods)
(Oversimplified explanation of the Insulin resistance)
means less glucose enter the cells.
therefore, glucose builds up in blood.
insulin also builds up in the blood.
But the glucose must be cleared somehow from the bloodstream, as there are ongoing glucose intakes (eats)
So, the body tries to store them in the liver storage (~8% of the Liver means 120gr)
But, the liver does not need more, as its storage is full either, so there are, at least, two options to solve:
store them as fat cells (create and store) or
absorb them by fat cells (store, means growth of the fat cells).
(oversimplified explanation of weight gaining)
This above a very oversimplified explanation of the glucose metabolism, insulin resistance (1st stage of DB2), and weight gaining.
yah, I’m familiar w/the gluconeogenesis process… only by virtue of knowing some diabetics :). Proteins, or I suppose fats as you said, is what we do not manufacture… and my friend (the diabetic) was basically saying there’s zero need for carb intake. He lost massive amounts of weight because of his modified diabetic diet… though I can’t see myself living w/out any carbs.
