Is There One Perfect Diet For All Humankind, Keto vs. Plant-Based, Hunger & Carb Cravings Pro Tips & More With Matt & Wade, Authors Of The Ultimate Nutrition Bible.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life.

Podcast, a lot of people get into a diet and they try to restrict their way to health and they mistake the getting the crap out of their diet in the early stages of restriction as the benefit itself. But ultimately every diet as a whole and those holes are going to become apparent. So when people switch from one diet to another, what happens is they mistake the new diet as the fix. Really, the new diet had things that the old diet was missing. And then the fix is where they get the benefit.

Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life Show. Are you ready to hack your life? Let's do this.

Look at that, folks. That is called the Nutrition Bible, the ultimate nutrition bible. I'm holding it up right now on the camera. If you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com nutrition Bible podcast, you'll be able to see it. As a guy who likes to write big books myself because I'm not as good as it was a Mark Twain who said, I if I had more time, this letter would have been shorter. I just can't push pause on books. And neither can my guests on today's show, Matt Gallant and Wade Lightheart wrote this beast. I'm gonna drop it and try not to break my feet or my desk. And if you've been a fan of the podcast for any time, you might be familiar with Matt and Wade. Not only are they the well known figureheads behind the company Bioptimizers, which makes a lot of stuff I talk about on a regular basis like Magnesium Breakthrough and my favorite Gluten Guardian, which lets me actually have bread and pasta at restaurants. But these guys also have taken a deep dive into the science of nutrition and strength, conditioning and exercise. I mean, Matt is a strength conditioning coach. He's got years of formulating supplements and experience in that industry. He's a ketogenic diet enthusiast, he's a serial entrepreneur, he's built over 14 companies. Wade actually happens to, in addition to being just as prolific a businessman as Matt, a bodybuilder, three time national bodybuilding champion, he competed in IFBB, Mr. Universe, the IMBA Natural Olympics. And at the age of 50, he came out of retirement to win the Open men's and Grand Masters category in bodybuilding, and happens to eat. I believe I can catch up with you on this as well. Later on, Wade, more of a plant based approach. And these guys joined me for a podcast on probiotic enemas and digestive Enzymes. And we did another one on fixing metabolic mistakes and ketogenic diet. They helped me pen a couple of super popular articles at Ben Greenfield Life about nootropics as they're also involved with this company Nootopia, which you hear me talk about as like a really great nootropics company. So they're obviously all over the map and we're incredibly blessed to be able to get them on the show today. So, fellows, welcome.

Great to be here.

Thanks for having us, Ben. And we have to give a shout out to Boundless, your book, I remember when that came out, kind of set the standard for.

Voluminous writing. So we're obviously the same camp, right? I share the same challenge that you identified. Like, how do we summarize that? And that started out as 1100 pages, I think, wasn't it, Matt?

Yeah, the first craft was 1100, actually. Fun fact, Ben. Our publishers or literary agents used your book as a reference to negotiate our book deal with Hay House because they say, well, hey, Boundless was successful, so this will work as well.

You know what that you're, you're the third person who's, who's told me that they take the book, scan numbers and they pull it to look for. Is there any successful book that anybody would actually want to read and take on an airplane that weighs two pounds, it's, you know, 600 plus pages. And boundless did fall into that category. I think it was like 1800 pages before I, you know, kiss goodbye to all my babies and edited it up a little bit. But I don't think I've told you this, but behind the scenes, I'm working on Boundless 2.0. So I'm back in the throes of riding for like two to three hours a day and researching and doing all the updates. As you guys know, this industry moves lightning fast as far as, you know, health research, nutrition research, biohacking technologies, and, you know, all the things that people are interested in to the extent to where like Boundless is what, three and a half years old and already I feel like it's getting a little bit outdated and needs a refresher.

Yes. One of the things Wade, I've talked about is how many, how many years can we go buy before we refresh it and write the next version?

So, yeah, yeah. You know, the last time we talked, Wade, you were bodybuilding on a plant based diet. Matt, you were a little bit more involved in the keto diet. And since really based on the title of your book, we're gonna Be talking a lot about diet today. Catch me up on this. Like, where are you guys at as far as your own personal nutrition practices?

Go ahead, Wade.

Yeah, so one of the things that I always find challenging is, is becoming too identified with any single diet strategy. And so I haven't eaten any flesh since 2021.

Oh, you make it so gross when you say it like that. Eaten any flesh.

Yeah.

So cannibalism.

So, you know, I've had eggs occasionally, I'll have ice cream occasionally, and I have cheese occasionally. Usually on my spike days. Right. Like, it's like, okay, I'm on a social occasion, so I'm not like a vigilante vegan. I don't buy into the ethical story about killing because plants are alive and communicate and stuff. So I kind of strip away all of the ethical or moral grandstanding that people tend to do on diets. I'm seeing kind of that happening also right now in the carnivore space. There's like a, creating sort of this polarity between a carnivore versus a vegan. One of my favorite, one of my favorite influences is Jordan Peterson and him and his daughter saved their lives because of a genetic condition by going on a complete carnivore diet. So I just say, oh, you're evil and bad because you've, you know, avoided yourself. That, that makes no sense to me. And, and why I'm saying that is because a plant based diet I've developed largely in part to address some genetic conditions as well as to explore what could be done on a performance side on a plant based diet, which most people said couldn't be done. And so I realized that there was a gap between what people, what might be common versus what might be possible. And so I got interested in it and it worked for me. And I, you know, one of the interesting points is that if I wasn't in business with Matt and had so many discussions for so many years, there were major holes in my plant based strategy that the ketogenic perspective helped me fill so that I could hit my performance and health goals. So what I, what the whole design of the book was designed is to let's, let's strip past just dietary like cult dynamics and let's get into what is your goals, how do you best achieve them, and how do you enhance your optimal genetics and offset your suboptimal genetics. And so for me, that turns out to be a plant based diet. For Matt, that turns out to be a ketogenic diet.

Now you brought up genetics, a Couple of times there. And you specifically, the first time you brought it up, said that one of the things that drove you towards more of a plant based approach was to manage genetic predispositions. What do you mean by that?

Yeah, if you look at my genes, I've got a couple of interesting challenges. One is I have suboptimal genetics for cardiovascular health. Two, I have suboptimal genetics for feeling full. In other words, left to my own design, I'll overeat. The other thing is, is I have suboptimal genetics for blood sugar regulation. So if I followed a traditional bodybuilding diet, which I used to do before I went plant based, I can stay lean, I can stay fit, I can stay on a high performance side. I had a lot of success in that, at that type of diet. And I would likely have some sort of cardiac event, cardiovascular event when I'm, you know, in my late 70s, early 80s, you know, stroke, heart disease, something like that. So I was like, okay, well the cardiovascular outcomes, a plant based diet are really good. The problem is it's not so good on a blood sugar level. So I had to adapt the bodybuilding mentality, upping my protein content, which can be an issue on plant based diets, improve my digestive capabilities so I can get more amino acids out of the protein I am consuming, which is generally less than someone who is con control or eating animal products. I had to supplement with essential fatty acids that I wasn't getting sufficient levels in my diet. And I used fiber as a way to offset my tendency to eat too much because I have a delay in my fullness feeling. And by doing that I've been able to keep my blood sugar at a level that when you do like a homo IR test, it looks like I'm on a ketogenic diet. I don't have food cravings even on calorie restriction. And I have a spike day every every week where I get to eat all the fun foods without any guilt and association. Now do I know if I'm going to offset that cardio cardiovascular risk? The data says that I'm in a good place right now. I don't know what's going to happen when I'm 80. So I'm betting on that. As I opened up a bet when Dave Asprey attacked my plant based diet and made all these crazy accusations about phytic acid and I was gonna have kidney stones. And the reality was, is all of the things that he said, I actually have data to support that I have none of the things that he was stating that was problems. I was going to inquire from that diet.

Okay, so, so the spikes day, by the way, some people say that and refer to it as like a carb refeed day, others is more like a, a growth hormone stemming day for you. What do you mean when you say spikes day?

Yeah, when we talk about this in the book. And all kudos to Scott Abel, my former bodybuilding coach who created what he called the psych cycle diet. And the concept behind the cycle diet is that you eat below your calorie maintenance levels for about six days a week. And ideally you want, for a male you'd want between a 500 minimum and ideally about a thousand calorie deficit. Part from diet, half from diet, half from exercise deficit. You run that from six days for six days and then on, on, on the spike day you kind of just load up on the calories, refill your glycogen stores, the hormones inside your body aren't able to adapt to. Start putting on body fat. You'll get some water retention and you'll, your weight will shoot up. But what the benefit is, it keeps your body from lowering its metabolic rate from extensive dieting. And that allows you. So if I go through that cycle and by the way, in order to set that up, you need probably at least 12 to 16 weeks of dieting prematurely so that you get your body into a continuous deficit state for an extended time where you wouldn't have spike days. Get your body fat into a reasonable level and then it's going to work better. And then what will happen? You'll spike up, you'll gain maybe anywhere between. For myself, that's around £185. I'll gain about £10 on that one day. It's just intestinal bulk, water retention and stuff. And by the end of the week I'll be down a pound to a pound and a half of body fat because I'm keeping my metabolism high while I'm doing that. So that's what you're offsetting. It's really well done in its book the Cycle Diet for people who want to get into the nuances. And it also fits within. We've adapted it for different styles of diet in the book.

Yeah, it sounds, sounds like a little bit of a variant of like keto cycling or carb cycling or something like that. Hey, hey, Matt, when Wade talks about having the genetic predisposition to not feeling full enough, have you ever just recommended those Epic to him?

Well, I've experimented quite a bit. With tirzepatide, Ozembics off. We've chatted about it.

And what's your take?

I think, you know, one of the, my, my favorite parts of the book and you know, if I could just disseminate one key concept into the world, especially on the weight loss side, is the realization that the reason people have failed is because of genetics and not in the same context you've heard before. The context we're referring to is if you die too hard, too fast, the starvation survival mechanisms kick in. Whether it's hunger driven by ghrelin or NPY in the brain, leptin decreasing metabolism, decreasing loss of lean body mass, mu fat cells being developed, which is actually something a lot of people don't know, like if you get really lean, one of the defense mechanisms is actually creating new fat cells. So before we thought, well, your body's gonna create new fat cells once you're the existing ones are overfilled and then just creates new ones. Well, it just so happens your body will create new ones again so that it's sending more signals to your brain, to your body start eating again and putting on weight. So when we look at Ozembic, any GLP1 agonist from that lens, what it's doing, it's helping people override that survival mechanism. And obviously the results are incredibly impressive. So I think, and I've been a proponent of that, we can attest, I've been saying this for many years, that I think the end game solution for weight loss is probably some sort of gene therapy. I mean, right now you can inject GLP1 agonists and you got to keep re injecting every week. But ideally it'd be, you know, go in, get a shot once every year, two years, or a permanent upgrade where you're eating because you should, not because you're hungry or being compelled by these survival mechanisms.

There is this dopaminergic response to food that's like part of the joy of being a human. You know, just like going out of the steakhouse and like, you know, ordering some great things and having a fantastic meal. And part of me wonders, you know, if we get into gene therapy that downregulates that response. If you're going to all of a sudden create kind of, you know, not that, not that, you know, enjoyment of food is doing us any favors in the obesity department with full time access to hyper palatable foods. But I sometimes wonder, it's like, man, you are supposed to sit down and just enjoy a meal every once in A while and get that neurotransmitter response to it. Right? Yeah.

I think if you eating hyper palatable foods like your favorite foods, there's a massive dopamine response, massive serotonin response. If you're eating a lot of carbohydrates, if you're eating fat and sugar together, you will, your brain will light up as if you're doing heroin. Which I've watched Wade eat a sidecar donut in la and it was, it was pretty, pretty much a heroin like response. So, yeah, there's a massive neurochemical response to food. And, and I know people that consider themselves food addicts or have food issues and for them that's a real problem. Right, right. Like that's what's driving a lot of that unhealthy behavior with food is the pursuit of those neurochemicals. So anyways. But yeah, I think people, even when you're on it, of course you're not going to gorge the way you normally would. You still enjoy food.

Yeah, so. So it's not black or white, all or nothing in terms of the food enjoyment piece. That's helpful to know. What were you going to say, Wade?

Yeah, so I wanted to circle back to just, you know, why not use Ozempic? And so one of the constraints that I've put onto my whole process is, you know, when I'm competing in contests, these are all drug tested contests and stuff like that. So I can't use trt, I can't use any of the enhancements that could distort the results and give me a competitive advantage against my competitors. Now that's not to say I'm against all those things or I think people should, should or shouldn't do. And that's an individual choice. And I'm all about people, make the freedom, the choice. However, when I'm communicating to the audience, I'm communicating from an experiential basis saying, hey, this is a unaltered hormonal profile. Because, you know, I train at Gold's Gym in Venice so I can get to the world championships in bodybuilding. I can't win the champions in bodybuilding on a natural level, but I could walk down to the gym here in Gold's Gym and I can probably on any given moment find 30 to 40 guys that could walk into the contest and win the natural bodybuilding championships, but they're enhanced. And so what I feel is disingenuous to the listeners is that, or people that are buying into stuff is there if, if I'm using hormonal augmentation. It's very hard to separate the hormonal augmentation or whatever chemicals I'm using from the strategy itself because I don't know how much is corrupting that data. If I was doing exactly the same thing I am now and I was on TRT and let's say I was on Ozempic and let's say I was stacking a few, you know, anabolic peptides into the program, I would probably be somewhere between 8 and 15 pounds heavier on a competition stage and I'd probably be a couple of percentage of lower. That takes me from an also ran at the world class level to competing for the championship title. That's the difference between those two things. So I, when I talk about these things and when I go down that route, I'm trying to kick that can as far down the road. For example on trt when I go down that road I would be clear that I would announce that and I believe that's important as an advocate that we're transparent with our listeners. So they know all of the things that are maybe influencing our result. Because some people are, you know, not comfortable sharing all the things that they might be doing that's influencing a result.

On page 99 of the book you guys start an entire chapter devoted to managing cravings. You have like the Japanese pre meal prayer and you know, protein and fiber and ginger and all sorts of stuff. But if I were going out to eat with you guys, let's say tonight for dinner and you wanted to use some kind of hunger management tactic, what would be the top of the totem pole for you guys right now?

Two things, protein and fiber. So if you are more on an animal protein side you, you probably want to have some protein. If you're on more on a vegetarian fi side protein. And if you, and if you're not supplementing with a protein protein per se and I, I think for most plant based folks you probably should be. You probably don't have enough pool of protein to extract the amino acids out. But the, the kill the killer is fiber. I mean I am the fiber king. According to Matt, I shoot for somewhere around 85 grams of fiber a day. About three times what the average person is getting in in America there's a lot of data supporting that the four different types of fibers for a reduction of all causes mortality anywhere from 12 to 35%.

Wait, the four, four, you said four types of fiber. Is that beyond just soluble and insoluble?

Well that's insoluble is a whole other level. So you got legumes, you got fruits, you got vegetable fibers. So to, you know, I just did a couple of articles on those things specifically on my site to, to, to, you know, illustrate. And then you have serial fibers is, is the other one. And there's a meta analysis of 14 studies, for example. And out of the, out of those studies it was over, I think a million four, about a million 400,000 people. It was a 12 to 35% reduction of all causes mortality. And I kind of outline how much fiber. But from a satiety factor, that's a longevity factor from a satiety factor. I mean, fiber is great. I also believe, and we have evidence from her lab in Bosnia that it's supportive. Different types of fiber are more supportive for a diverse microbiome. So I'm, I'm working on creating a, a working theory of what, what fibers could be used in conjunction with repopulation of microbiome. Because ultimately the goal is as you get healthier, I think you should have an, a, a far greater array of choices than less. And you know, a lot of people get into a diet and they try to restrict their way to health and they mistake the, getting the crap out of their diet in the early stages of restriction as the benefit itself. But ultimately every diet as a whole, like holes in it, and those holes are going to become apparent. So when people switch from one diet to another, what happens is, is they mistake the new diet as the fix. Really, the new diet had things that the old diet was missing and then the fix is where they get the benefit. And I'm dietary agnostic, so I know I kind of diverted there, but I just want to expand on the fiber piece a little bit.

Yeah, you're also like a horse or a cow. Geez, 85 grams of fiber. That's nuts. Matt, I'm curious what your strategy would be. And I also, if you care to tack on after you reply, I'm curious about this secret Batman lab in Bosnia that Wade referred to.

Sure. Well, first of all, I can confirm that when Wade goes to Whole Foods and he puts the salad on scale.

It'S three to four pounds, man. Yeah, that's an expensive salad at Whole Foods.

He's, he's the king of fiber. What do you say?

You know, I, I, I, I don't know why, you know, Jeff hasn't given me a, a Bentley or something as a customer of his or something. Seriously, you know, we're hoping, yeah, I.

From the hunger side I think the number one thing is getting enough sleep, which is not a tactical thing on the day of, but the day before. And if you look at the research on cravings, also a blood sugar response, if you have a bad night's sleep, it's night and day. And I've certainly noticed that myself, I have bad sleep. I'll just be craving more food and tend to eat more. There's, in terms of a drink you can have throughout the day that actually helps. Decaf coffee is the best. So that's a great solution if you want to kind of drink something all day. And I like putting salt. So decaf coffee and salt, it actually tastes almost like a soup. It's more savory, and I'm a big fan of that during the meal. I remember being on a plane ride a few years ago, and the guy next to me told me he lost over 200 pounds. And he told me a couple of things that I had never researched. But then as I was writing this chapter, I dove into it and ended up being true. One of them was not drinking carbonated drinks, which before I used to do a lot, I used to drink carbonated drinks. And the. The data shows that it can increase hunger. So that's one thing that's interesting.

Can increase. That's kind of paradoxical because a lot of people say the bubbles fill you up.

Exactly. So again, the. The references in the. In the chapter and the other one, which I do is like, smaller plates. They told me about smaller. Smaller plates. And then if you look at the data at Chinese food buffets and all these restaurant experiments that have been done, people will eat in proportion to the plate size. So if I'm having, you know, a little bit of Halo top ice cream at night, I'll use a small cup and a small.

Yeah.

And a small spoon. And I know it sounds trivial, but it makes a difference. I really feel it does.

Oh, my gosh. Well, I'm cracking up right now. You see me smiling in the video. My family laughs at me because my wife and my sons, who are both significantly smaller than me, grab these big dinner plates for dinner. And I have two plates, and I'll usually just go into the dishwasher and wash them at dinner because there's only two of them in the house. So these teeny, tiny.

Minuscule appetizer plates. And that's what I put dinner on. And then my ice cream bowl, they laugh at this, too. My ice cream bowl is like a little larger than a shot glass, and it's a Total appetite control strategy for me. And yeah, I even like, I go back for seconds regardless. But if I go back for seconds after a tiny plate and a shot sized glass of ice cream, I'm still eating fewer calories than the big version. It sounds like a silly tactic, but it works. It also messes up all the food on your plate, but I think it's worth it.

Yeah.

Yeah. As far as our lab, so in 2019, I went to visit our CTO who lives in Bosnia, in Sarajevo. And as I was touring the university that he's a professor at, there was a whole biology department that I didn't know existed. Met the head of the biology department, she's a part time professor there. And then we created a partnership where we supply them with equipment the university would never buy. So we've supplied them with well over a million dollars worth of equipment, equipment so far. And we get brilliant either Master's students, PhD students or PhDs doing non stop experiments. So I like, I meet with them every Tuesday morning. Met with them this morning. Right now, just to give you kind of a, an example, we're rebuilding magnesium breakthrough. So we just ran a whole battery of experiments on red blood cell absorption and how much the water that each magnesium draws in. So we're basically using all that data to build a better version. We did enzyme experiments because we're always working on new versions, better versions of our enzymes. We did a whole battery of P3OM experiments, probiotic experiments, including seed. So we're, we're not just testing our stuff, but we test other people's and we're using basically laboratory split testing where we'll test combinations and a different array of experiments to create the most powerful products in every product class that we're in.

That's incredible. Have you guys seen the mass spec guy on Instagram? He's kind of catching on. He does mass spec analysis of a whole bunch of popular stuff. We do prime energy drink recently is one that I saw. He did some other herbal Ayurvedic supplement. I'm not going to say which supplements I sent him, but I took about five that my listeners ask me about all the time. And I'm shipping him a few key formulations. He's gonna test it and we're gonna do a podcast and using mass spec analysis to see if what's in your product is actually in it. But you guys are just kind of running that on a weekly basis, huh?

Yeah, yeah, we have a HPLC machine and that was, that was about half a mil.

So yeah, yeah, they're not inexpensive. Matt, I didn't get a chance to give you the opportunity to fill me in on what your diet looks like because last time we talked about it was pretty hardcore keto. And obviously I don't think you're ignorant of the fact that it seems that the keto diet has been a little bit more vilified lately as far as the potential impact of long term carbohydrate depletion on endocrine or thyroid function or glycolytic capacity in athletes, et cetera. So I wonder, where are you at right now with the keto diet?

Yeah. Just to bring up the listeners that didn't listen to that podcast really quickly started first ketogenic diet when I was 15, came home from school one day, my uncle said I was fat, pissed me off, decided to start running, do an Atkins diet. Went from like 1:90 to 1:47 in six months and then got into bodybuilding and then discovered the anabolic diet from Dr. Moradipo Squale, which was a cyclical ketogenic diet. Basically you would carb, refeed, you know, couple days a week. And that worked. Looking back, I was making a ton of mistakes, but I went from like 147 to 235, three years. I was training 12 times a week. Definitely added some body fat, but it was a ton of lean muscle mass as well. And I would say right now, yeah, I'm really focusing on rebuilding my nutritional strategy in a completely new way. And not even Wade's heard this, by the way. So a lot of us influenced by the book and the methodologies in the book. So Wade, reference nutrigenomics. A couple of big ones for me is want to have bad genes for saturated fats. And being on a ketogenic diet, that's a big worry. So now what I'm doing is shifting my cuts, the far leaner cuts, replacing the fat with olive oil. So I'm, I'm consuming olive oil pretty much daily. I'm looking at increasing fiber intake because the one thing I haven't been able to optimize in my biomarkers is my lipids. And I think I wasn't aware of the saturated fat genetic issue. And I was probably over consuming saturated fats under consuming fiber. So now I'm looking at my diet, I'm thinking, well, well, what's the optimal quantity of all these critical nutrients from a weekly perspective? You know, if you look at your diet, you got calories, so you gotta optimize your calories based on your goals, you got macronutrients, which carbs, fiber, fats, protein, and then you got nutrients. So I'm trying to optimize my nutrient. My micronutrient intake got bad genetics for zinc, bad genetics for selenium. So I need, I need to intake more of those. And yeah, I'm just looking at my diet from a nutrient perspective like. Cause, you know, calories and macros are pretty dialed in. But can I switch my fats to better fats? We're doing a ton of fat research in our lab. So we've been doing, you know, hundreds if not thousands of experiments on algae oil, krill oil, trying to break them down into fatty acids. You know, what are good fatty acids, what are bad fatty acids and you know, trying to optimize kind of on that level. So yeah, that's where I'm at.

That's interesting. You know, I've kind of intuitively taken a similar direction in terms of my own approach to ketosis. I still eat what a lot of people would probably classify as a low carbohydrate diet, but pretty much every night, you know, I'm eating 200 to 300 grams of carbohydrates while restricting most of the rest of the day. And like you, primarily based on concerns about plaque scan and calcium scan scores, along with some of the genetics components, because I'm hardwired similarly in terms of the inflammatory response to saturated fats have shifted towards fatty fish, monounsaturated fats, a more Mediterranean approach, less butter, less lard, unfortunately less saving the fatty caps of the rib eye and the pork chop for just me. And you know, a few things that I enjoyed for a long time. But it is interesting, I think, you know, I've, I've talked to many other people who have adopted what I would say is a more Mediterranean fat based approach to a ketogenic diet with some amount of cycling thrown in for a lot of the reasons that you've just stated. So there was. There's something that I think is important for people. It's probably a quick question, but when you talk about nutrigenomics, there's obviously a lot of different ways to test. What do you guys prefer as far as the type of test to get?

We're actually working on our own tests. So obviously if you get a genetic test, a 23andMe, or any sort of test, you get the raw data. So what a lot of companies are doing is they'll pick certain snippets, certain variants, and then essentially create an Insight report. So what we're working on is one that's pretty much hyper focused on nutrition supplements so that we can, you know, give people really powerful insights. And I feel like it's one of the greatest investments anyone can make in their health. I mean, what's the value for me knowing that I shouldn't over consume saturated fats? Maybe that's adding an extra decade, two or three to my life. You know, what's the value of the insights for Wade to know that he's also predisposed to cardiovascular problems? It's massive. Right? We're making corrective actions years and decades before alarm bells are ringing. And I think for everyone listening, I would assume everybody listening is focused on health, lifespan, healthspan. So the value of it is massive.

And then that, that, that'll be, that'll be at home salivary.

Yeah, yeah, at home Salivary. And then we also built an app. So our goal is to feed your data into our nutrition app that's going to look at it and then make personalized recommendations based on your goals or trying to make it as simple and easy as possible to have a truly personalized nutritional experience.

I like that. Well, there. Will there be a cause? You know, I, I still, Right Now I'm coaching 10 people on diet and fitness. Will there be a trainer feature? Like, could I actually use that with my clients?

That's the goal.

Yeah.

That's cool.

Yeah.

The other, the other quick question I had for you guys just to make sure I'm cleaning up things as we go here is you, you both mentioned some of your micronutrient and calorie tracking. I'm aware tronometer is one good tool for that. What do you guys prefer to use for that?

It's tracking my calories. Yeah, yeah, no, I use our app. So we built an app that can do that. Ultimate nutrition app.

Oh, and that, that's like available.

Yeah.

I didn't even know you guys are holding. I thought I read your book thoroughly. I must have missed that part.

Yeah, it's out again. We're a bunch of recipes. We support a bunch of nutritional diet styles. We've got barcode or you can scan barcodes. Ton of cool features and yeah, just download and use it.

And on my side, Ben, because left to my own devices, I, I just, I, I just will go off the rails. And so I just eat the same thing every day all week long. So I keep that calorie deficit that I was sharing with you, and so I keep that calorie deficit About a thousand a day. And then I have my spike day where I can just go, you know, let my inner, you know, lizard man just go to the buffet and go wild. I love that. And, and then, and then every year on holidays, I take a holiday in December and I take several weeks off where I, I just eat whatever I want. And then I try to put the binders on, and the binders never come on fast enough. You know, like, I'll gain, I can gain weight so easily. Like, like, like I could just become a fat doughboy and like, no time. And so I, as a reminder, every year, the Christmas holidays, because I go back to my cultural roots and my co. We're from the fattest, unhealthiest province in Canada. And Christmas is a bonanza of just everything that you would never put on any kind of diet regimen at all. And I go to it, and I don't disappoint all my relatives and information. You know, it's bad enough that I'm a vegetarian. That's weird enough. And I just go crazy. And then, you know, I spend the next six weeks after Christmas to get myself back to my, my normal weight. And then I celebrate that for six months and I go on a vacation maybe in the summer, and I do something for a couple of weeks and go off again. And so I, I know that those little cycles and those little, those little nutrition breaks on the holidays allow me to sample foods that I wouldn't get access to. Like, you know, I went to Turkey a couple years ago, and I mean, I was just overwhelmed with the plethora of cool foods there. I went to Dubai, I found a whole bunch of foods over there. So I like those, those food tours where I get exposed to things that are outside of my range. Because before I was so restrictive, I would just never, I would just never deviate from my diet. And then I was a real party pooper, you know, that side. So I try to make, I try to limit the amount of fun I have in my diet to, to calculated times.

I, I deviate all the time when I travel. And the only trick I have for that is I rarely uber or take public transport or taxi. When I travel. I walk. Like, I average about 25, 000 steps a day. When I'm traveling, like, people will be like, hey, where's the event? You know, it's three miles down the road. Hey, I'll be there in 50 minutes. And I just brought my backpack and walk. And because I'm such a foodie and like, to try a wide variety of foods. Especially when I travel. I think just that simple step alone. I'll come back from a vacation or a workstation eating 4,000 calories a day. And I've often lost four or five pounds.

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Yeah, that happened to me last year. I went to, brought my family to on a cruise and I lost weight. I was in Europe three weeks and there was just a. Walking, a lot of walking. So yeah, it's, it's a great shroud.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, I gotta ask you guys because I think people would get upset if I didn't since I get asked this all the time because there are a lot of people still championing the SECO message. Calories in, calories out. What's your guys take on that?

We're ready for this one, man. Yeah, I think we've settled the debate. Right. So just to give everybody kind of the landscape, there's two camps. One campus says calories in, calories out is a law of thermodynamics, no one can escape. And there's another campus saying, well there's all these variables, you know, hormones, leptin, et cetera, et cetera. And the reality is they're both right. And you know, when we look at. Let's just Take a look at calories in. I think it's pretty simple, right? You ingest calories, whether it's carbs, proteins, fats, fiber, your body has to deal with it. You know, I think the two key points to keep in mind is that when you're consuming protein, your body has to break down about 25 to 30% of the calories consumed to just metabolize that protein, break it down into amino acids, which is awesome. So your net calories are lower if you consume a lot of protein. That's a really important point. And that's what most pro bodybuilders do. As they're getting closer and closer to the show, their percentage of protein just gets higher and higher and higher. And that's true in a ketogenic diet or on a carb based diet. And then with fiber, you know, Wade being the fiber king, knows this very well. You only absorb about half the calories. So in terms of being satiated and, you know, not over consuming food, it's a great strategy. But I think where it gets a lot more interesting and complex is looking at calories out. And probably the number one variable is anabolism. And I know this because I know some bodybuilders that have done some crazy experiments where they did a DEXA scan, they doubled their calorie intake. So they're trying to eat 7,8000 calories a day. Like they're eating to their biological limit, you know, and they lost body fat on a dexa scan after 10 days despite gaining 15, 20 pounds of weight, because they cranked their anabolism to the, to through the roof. Now, again, I'm not advocating doing that. They were doing a lot of things that I, I would personally never do. But it just showcases how powerful anabolism is. And for anybody who's had a child or has a kid, you know, that anabolic period, it's like, man, they're just consuming calories, growing like crazy. I remember doing the math with my baby girls about to turn two. If an adult was consuming the same amount of calories per pound as she was, it was over 10,000 calories a day. You know, that's how powerful anabolism. And Wayne and I, of course, having had spent a lot of time bodybuilding, you know, you have to eat more, your body's burning more energy. So there's a lot of natural ways you can improve anabolism. Great sleep, probably being number one, you know, consuming mtor, activating meals at least, probably four times a day, weightlifting, obviously a big one. Critical one. So there's all these things people can do that can probably increase their calories out 10, 20, 30%. So that's huge. And I'm not even talking about the metabolic boost of having more lean muscle mass. Right. Which we know a pound of lean muscle tissue burns about 300% more calories in a pound of, of fat. So that helps over time. But there's other variables. You know, mitochondrial strength is a big one. Mitochondrial health. You know, Wade and I just did a really hardcore brain training experiment and we did five days of 750 milligrams of NAD. And the theory is, day four, day five, you get mitochondrial fusion where your mitochondria are just at a new level. And I think, Wade, you can attest that for about two months there's a boost there.

Yeah, I, I, for me, I get, I get a, my when I do nad, I get about four months now. And now I need less nad. I've done about four, I think it's maybe five courses. And now like the last time I went, I only needed one day of nad and I was good. I felt my energy levels were really high. So there is a cumulative effect. I do like those five day infusions, kind of like a doctor Conover worked out.

Yeah.

And that's going to vary from person to person, their age, their tolerance level, all that sort of stuff as well. So there is a lot of uniqueness and you want to have a medical professional. And just to finish off on Matt's side of things, in those anabolic conditions, people were taking a tremendous amount of exogenous hormones and you know, energy partitioners and, you know, like, you know, insulin and growth hormone and, you know, peptides and testosterone and all these sort of things to totally activate massive amounts of anabolic effect. So if you're not course correcting for those things, same thing as I got a friend who, I'll give you another example, and I had a friend that did the Camino Trail in Europe. So he's walking approximately 20 to 25 miles every single day. And he's having these massive pasta meals and wine every night, like these huge dinners and everything. And he's losing weight. Like he gets back, he's like 25 pounds lighter after just going hog. And so people go, yeah, well I was, you know, I was all in walking in Italy and I ate pasta and wine every day and I lost weight. Yeah, well, what was your activity level? So that's part of the calories out. And then there's, you know, all those Variances.

Yeah, I'm glad you guys brought up NAD too, by the way. I, I, I agree with that idea of regular infusions or large boluses followed by keeping levels up with daily supplementation. I mean, literally, I'll keep this TG rated, but on my butt right now I have a NAD patch, you know, one of these ion layer patches, and I slap a patch on one or two times a week, which gives me around 750Migs a couple of times a week, and then I just top that off with oral supplementation. So probably my two biggest, like 2.0 hacks for that type of thing. You know, just longevity, feeling good, sleep deprivation, inflammation, you know, busted ribs from Frisbee golf, whatever you is any mitochondrial peptide or mitochondrial supporting peptide, and then NAD, you know, so right now I'm on SS41, MOT C and NAD. And it's hard not to feel like a million bucks when you're optimizing those two parameters.

Yeah, some other calories out variables, obviously, neat, non exercise activity, thermogenesis. And I think I agree with Thomas DeLauer, you know, putting walking in that bucket. I think it's a great one. And obviously I think everybody on this podcast is a big super fan of walking, and that's more of a lifestyle decision thing. And another thing that's really interesting that's gaining steam that I've been looking at for a few years, is kind of micro burst throughout the day and you get a huge boost, right? The delta, the difference between not moving and, let's say, sprinting up a flight of stairs, or, you know, doing a set of push up after every Frisbee hole. You know, those make a big difference on calories out. And I think you're gonna see a lot more research. Was hearing Rhonda Patrick talk about it with a guest recently. Those little microbursts, it's powerful.

I, I 100% agree. You know, these days, you know, like I mentioned being in book writing mode, I'll sometimes go in my office and just set a pact with myself that I can't open the door for the next seven hours. And a lot of times that means I'm skipping the gym. But I have a very light kettlebell, you know, so there's not a big barrier to entry. It's a 16 kg kettlebell I'll do some light swings with. I've got four pound hand weights. Again, low barrier to enter, but it, but it allows me to just stop and do something like some overhead presses and some knee touches. And then I have one of these, these Carol bikes. And so I'll sometimes work for eight hours in my office, come out and still have gotten like a good hour of exercise in accumulated with five to ten minute bursts.

Yeah.

Powerful.

And then you got cold exposure, I think, both from the heat loss during. And then brown fat activation, which again, obviously you got more mitochondria being turned on and get stronger. And by the way, Ben, we'll probably have to. You. You're one of the few guys I'd be willing to send this prototype to. So we built a brown fat cap that is so potent that we have to make it milder. The early protocols. What do you mean?

It's like, it's like, like cool. Like cooling technology for the head.

No, no, this is a capsule. You take the cap.

Oh, a supplement. Okay.

And then even if you're exposed to air conditioning, it's enough to activate it. And then a lot of people, I think, just scorch through their blood sugar because they're shivering.

Yeah.

And.

Yeah.

So it's really potent.

Wow.

So I'll have to send you some prototypes.

I know you like that kind of stuff, man. Well, you guys, I. I know we're. We're starting to run up against time here. Wait, I. I thought that you were going to throw something in. Were you about to say something?

Just one brief thing. Is the top of the pyramid. We'd go to gut biome, supplements.

Oh, we didn't finish the pyramid yet.

Yeah. Food allergies and food sensitivities. And then final lifestyle. Those are the top part of the pyramid. So at the bottom, spiritual and cultural, emotional, psychological. That's the bottom of it. Then goals, calories, nutrigenomics, Gut Biome. That's the middle of the pyramid. And then the final stages are supplements, food eliminating food allergies and sensitivities, and then getting into the lifestyle that you feel you're best at.

I like that. That's a good approach. You know, as you guys might know, in Boundless, all I did was the last chapter is 13 different popular diets, like the Weston A. Price, vegan, Mediterranean, et cetera. And then the blood, the DNA and the gut testing results that would indicate whether or not that might be a good diet for you. But this idea of spelling out also, like, values, goals, lifestyle, biome, et cetera, I really like this approach. So it's obviously all spelled out in the book, the Ultimate Nutrition Bible. Wade and Matt even put together, like, this massive package of bonus recipes. Pretty steep discount on the book, which is obviously big and heavy, so we know it's hella expensive. And I will put links to all of that if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com nutrition Bible podcast. That's BenGreenfieldLife.com nutrition bible podcast. I'm kind of surprised, guys. I got through a full episode with both of you, and neither of you told me of some new enema recipe. Because it seems like every time I talk with you, you tell me to, like, put yogurt or whatever up my butt and hang upside down.

I've got one.

All right, we'll finish with this. What do you got, Matt?

And full disclosure, I have not tried it. I'm a little apprehensive.

Great, great. Thank you.

But I know you and probably excited you. So according to a Russian friend of mine, he says that proteolytic enemas are the ultimate thing. So basically taking Mass Times as an example, doing an enema with it, he says it's so intense that he tends to not do anything else that day, so.

Well, I'm not going to be the first guy to eat away the lining of my colon, so maybe I'll let you do it, Matt first and you can let me know how it goes.

There you go.

But I'll look into it. Honestly, if you send me that, the research or any info on it, I'll put that in the show notes as well, because I've got at least 0.5% of the listeners who heard that and are adding that to their Sunday checklist this week. Guys, thank you so much. I'm going to link to the other shows we did. They're always wide ranging and highly entertaining. Time just flies by when I'm talking with you guys and this new book. It's good, everybody. I. I actually had to get it back from my friend who borrowed it within like a week after it arrived, and he was enjoying it so much, I had to get it back before this show. But it's the Nutrition Bible. BenGreenfieldLife.com Nutrition Bible Podcast is where you can access the show notes. Leave your comments, your questions, your feedback for Wade or Matt or myself. And until next time, I'm Ben, along with the guys from Bioptimizers signing out.

Do you want free access to comprehensive show notes, my weekly roundup newsletter, cutting edge research and articles, top recommendations from me for everything that you need to hack your life and a whole lot more. Check out BenGreenfieldLife.com it's all there. BenGreenfieldLife.com.

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