‘Dad Bod’ Science, Bone Density & Protein Myths | Bryan Johnson Podcast

I'm not prepared on dad bod. I'm only prepared on bone mineral density and amino acids. Mike, did you read up on dad bod?

I read up on dad bod.

Okay, you ready for that?

Sure. Let's talk about dad bod.

Have you experienced the effects of dad bod?

Oh my God. That's such a personal question. I love it.

It's a really important question.

I think most dads have experienced the effects of dad bod. I think it's a thing.

I mean, a new study came out this week, right. About dad bods and this mysterious phenomena that plagues so many middle aged men.

Yeah, technically it was mouse dad bods. So it was only dad mice.

Funny. Okay, so there's a, there's a question of whether or not it's going to apply to humans, but in our, in our friends, in our mice friends. What, what did the data say?

The data basically said that dad bod may be a thing and that not only is it a thing, but it's sort of different than we expected. So I think we always thought that dad bod just came from increasing the fat cells that you already had, like increasing the fat in your cells that were already there. But this study in mice showed that a lot of those cells are actually new. So there's this new like stem cell type of cell that is proliferating in your visceral fat, which is the fat like around your organs. And that, that happens at around the age of what would be equivalent to like 30 or 40 in men, which is the time that the dad bod comes on. So sort of interesting, I mean, that there's something other than just you're eating crap and not exercising anymore. Maybe there's actually some physiological or evolutionary reason for this, this change.

So 30 to 40, an age comes, a new production of a fat cell commences. It forms around the organs and specifically around maybe the belly region. And you get that, you get that protrusion. And this is seen in mice. And so the idea is, has this been measured in humans? Could you measure it in humans?

Yeah, you could potentially measure in humans. They haven't done that yet. This is the first study that was in, that was only in mice. But it comes up with a mechanism that would also explain why this might happen more commonly in men, in humans, because it didn't show the same thing didn't happen in female mice.

I mean, it's kind of interesting that up until this point, I mean, the human race is, is we've got some time, some history and we're now just figuring out these mechanisms of, like, why the body becomes the way it does through various age categories.

I'm always sort of like, interested in, like, the evolutionary explanation for this stuff too. And if you think about, kind of makes sense, you know, if you take a hunter gatherer culture, um, after, after child, childbearing, then the, the male in that system has to go out and hunt and gather more because the mother is taking care of the children in that, in that system. And because of that, they need a, a bigger battery, like a larger reservoir for energy so that they can hunt more, gather more. And then also there's the change in testosterone levels, which may have something to do with why these cells proliferate. And that happens. Well, that's actually been shown in men, like, very consistently, 20, 30, reduction in testosterone after having kids, probably because evolutionarily that's a time when you're supposed to start taking care of kids and stop looking for another mate. So it's sort of. All this sort of makes sense and comes together when you think about it, like, where did humans come from? And it's just in the last few hundred years of industrial society that we've changed these cycles, yet our body hasn't caught up.

Is this like, Is this. I'm not super caught up on the dad bod. Experience. What, what the experience is as a male. Is this like liberation? Like, I've been telling you guys like this, like, no matter how much I exercise and my, my diets change the same. Is this like a common phenomenon among men? And is this the same as beer gut for those?

I think technically beer gut requires beer, and I'm not sure that being a dad requires beer, although I think they are closely correlated.

Right.

I don't, I don't know. I think that, like, I've certainly seen a lot of my friends, like, their visceral or their fat increase. I, I'm not sure about their visceral fat, but I've seen their fat increase over the years as we've aged. But yeah, I think, I think it is. We know it's common. As we age, most people put on weight, and it does seem to be more prominent in men in their middle age. Um, so I'm not sure that it's like, validating in any way necessarily. Um, because I think there's other things that, that, that contribute to this too. There's also, like, you know, societal pressures and lack of time to exercise and focus on work and, and professional life and things like that. Um, but it is I think it's.

Interesting nonetheless in, in the culture I, I grew up in, dad bod was just an expected evolutionary path of being a man that you, you are fit and metabolically, you know, healthy, and then in your early 20s, you get married, you have kids, and then you just slow walk your way into the dad bod. And then increasingly going bald. And like, you just walk this path. It's expected. Everyone knows it's normal. It's not necessarily something to be ashamed of or like something to correct for because that's what everyone else is doing. And so that was in my small rural town. But I wasn't ever exposed to more metropolitan areas where people resisted more fully these aging, changes on, you know, aesthetics, body appearance. So it was, I think, I mean, I moved to the first metropolitan area in the, in, in my life when I was 25, I moved to Chicago. And it's the first time I was outside of like a. More of a small rural place like Utah. Seeing that people had different approaches to like the evolutionary phenomena of appearance and.

Overall physical health, was that like a culture shock?

Dramatic?

Did you feel pressure to fit in with that?

I mean, it's the first time you actually see some contrast where, when, when you're in a community where no one, everyone has basically agreed to the norm that we all have this trajectory. Dad bod, going bald, losing your physical abilities, it's fine. But yeah, when you move to areas where there's contrast, then for the first time you see yourself and you think, have I made the right life decisions or should I. Should I contemplate how I approach life again?

So interesting. Do you feel like you've had to resist dad bod? Like, have you noticed a change in how hard you have to work to avoid gaining fat around the abdomen?

I mean, we've been so meticulous about our, you know, the diet we have and caloric restriction and exercise that I would say probably not so much so. But I bet you like, it would be cool to actually measure. Do I have this, this phenomena? I'm 47 years old, so I'm right in the middle of dad bod formation. It would be cool to actually measure. Is it happening inside my body and have I done something that somehow negates or offsets this evolutionary process?

So interesting.

It might be kind of hard. We'd have to biopsy your visceral fat, Brian, which sounds, sounds a little sketchy.

Yeah. How hard is that to get to. I really want to know the answer.

You'd have to like, yeah, I think you'd have to do, like, a small surgery in order to get there. Yeah, I don't think it'd be super easy.

Probably not worth it.

I'm. I'm open to it.

Your game.

Anything for the science, Mike, does the.

Science tell us anything about how we could potentially stop this from happening in adult male humans?

Not particularly. Yet. There was, like, this one signaling molecule that they looked at which seems to activate these particular cells, and there's certainly something that we could do in terms of developing drugs against that signaling molecule, but we don't have anything for it yet. And at this point, really, the only. The only thing we know of that affects that signaling molecule is polyphenols, which is basically these compounds that you get from plants. So eating plants is good for you.

Yeah, our. Our blueprint diet is very rich in polyphenols. In fact, I don't think I really consume very many polyphenols before blueprint. So for five years ago, I was probably. I had zero. Well, not zero, but, like, very low levels of polyphenols and.

Yeah. Olive oil, cocoa powder, predominantly now.

Yeah, it's cool.

And then is there anything, Mike, in the literature about women and mom bods?

But yes, mom bods, I. According to this study, not necessarily a thing. Um, and generally, when we look at women, women hold typically more body fat in general than men at a younger age and don't seem to change as much with age in terms of the amount of, like, fat that they. They hold onto their body. So, you know, women, we would expect body fat composition in women, and that's mostly, we think, evolutionarily for that reserve for childbearing. Right. Whereas men, at this age, 30 to 40, around there, start developing a higher body fat composition. So this doesn't appear to affect women nearly as much as men.

So protocol takeaway. If someone listening at home who doesn't want to get a dad bod, what would you guys say?

I would say the same thing that we say for everything else. Make sure you sleep a lot, exercise, eat healthy. Um, those are the best things to.

Yeah. Also, the key takeaway here is that dad bod is going to try and make its way to your waistline. So you need to proactively do things to prevent that from happening. Also, it's not inevitable that you can do things to blunt that. Now, this is, of course, caveating if this science does, in fact, map from mice to humans. But, like, the evidence in my life experience is pretty convincing. I see a lot of dad bods, and most of the dad bods are on like 30, 40. And then people who don't do anything about it just exist permanently with that dad bod for the remaining part of their life.

Foreshadowing for everyone watching at home. Watch out for dad bod. So, Brian, you love to flex on Twitter. Everyone knows it. You're always top 1%. This time you're top 99.8% of people your age claiming that your bones are stronger than most of those people. So what is bar and mineral density?

Yeah. So to be clear on the flexing, I'm flexing for a specific reason. And Mike, you, you tell me about this. So when, when I got into the field of health and wellness, it's an area primarily dominated by storytelling. It's, you know, it could be like a specific diet program. Like the ones I, I grew up with were like Keto or Atkins or like, you know, certain things that capture the, the, the, the mainstream's interest or it's gurus, individuals that come up with their given approaches. But nothing was really. There was no approach I could survey in the world that actually was offering robust measurement that said, you know, if you do these things, here's the data that you can associate. You could read about those things in papers, but there was nothing in the world like no company, no individual that was actually taking risk, rigorous biological measurements seriously. And that's the hole I was trying to fill. Is that actually the more reliable data point is what your body's biomarkers say instead of a scientist pontificating on a paper or on somebody telling a compelling story or some guru being very charismatic. And that's the hole that I've tried to fill. And so when I share a biomarker, what I'm trying to say is there is a baseline level of credibility when you measure the body. Now, of course, the limitations are this is just my body. Your body's different, but our bodies are remarkably similar. And that having done this for several years now, that when we share these data points, it's a product of the protocol of the past few years. That's why I share this data, because otherwise people don't know how to discern. Most people will hear something about health and wellness. They'll say, very common response is like, first cholesterol is bad, then it's good, eggs are bad, then they're good. I don't believe anything. And so what I'm trying to do is punch through and say, you can, in fact, have a stable basis of approach and health by looking at biomarkers. So let me stop there, Mike. What's your take on that as an approach to evaluating health?

Can I also collaborate? I was poking fun at you.

Yeah. Yes, for sure.

Yeah. No, but I absolutely agree that it's like, you go down one route and it's like influencers out there are all peddling different types of hooks to try and get people into their version of content. And if you misalign what someone's saying with actually what's happening for them personally, it's like, how do you know actually that what they're touting is real? It's different. Obviously, in the. In the medical field, there's a lot of doctors, and Mike obviously don't fall into this camp, but you would know a lot of doctors, like, it's like, do what I say and not what I do. What I say and not what I do. Which is you're then relying on their authority and their years of training. You're saying, okay, even if you're not the example of health, at least you have some sort of training. And so in this influencer world, where there's hundreds of people touting what to do for health, and it's quite seriously the most overwhelming experience, going online and just being bombarded with all the things you should do. I completely agree that the only way to get around that is to actually say, you should listen to me, because I am living proof of this concept. But anyway, sorry, go ahead, Mike.

Yeah, I mean, I think what you're speaking to, Brian, is this concept of objective measurement in place of a subjective sensation of health. And we see this all throughout the influencer community, but also in medicine as well, where subjective health is touted as a marker that we should, for some reason, track, which is ridiculous. You know, like, you can't. Science isn't built off of subjectivity. It requires an objective measurement. And what we. What we measure is what we can change and what we can track. And the only way we can tell if an intervention like the protocols that Brian's doing actually work or not is to have an objective measure. I mean, sure, we can say, brian, how do you feel?

Right.

But, like, we shouldn't make any decisions on really on necessarily how we feel in isolation of objective measures. So the objectivity, I think, is 100% required for the level of precision that we're trying to establish in longevity. Health.

Yeah. So, okay, I know you're poking fun. I mean, it's. It's great and it's good fun. Yeah. But I guess, like, giving people context on why we Share these things because we're, we're trying to baseline the conversation that you can more effectively try to address a discrepancy in health by measuring your body. And that's what we've really tried to bring home, is that's if you want a tiebreaker, do that. Otherwise you're just going to hang out in debate land and you will never get anywhere because everybody's going to disagree with everyone all the time. You will never, ever achieve consensus. So just accept that. Yes, on bone marrow density, I had a, I did a DEXA scan last year, a year ago, and I was in the 99.8 percentile. And this time I did it, I was in 99.8th percentile. And that's true for my age and also people at age 30 where, you know, bone mineral density typically peaks around there for men. And so it's. Yeah, my bones are exceptionally strong and I guess. So Mike, what is your assessment? How could that be the case, that my bones are at this level of strength?

What actually is bar mineral density too? Just to clarify before we get into it.

Yeah, let's do that one real quick. So bone mineral density is literally the density of your bones. Your bones aren't completely solid. They're actually the scaffolding of calcium and phosphorus and different chemicals that are put together. And the density of the scaffolding, or the attachments inside the bones is the bone mineral density. And it literally tracks with the strength of your bones. But also it's a really good proxy for overall biological health. More so than just like how healthy your bones are, how are you sleeping, how well you exercising, are you getting appropriate nutrients. All of those things go into the health of your bones themselves. And then of course, the strength of your bones helps prevent fracture risk, which helps reduce your mortality risk or your morbidity risk associated with fracture. For you, Brian, specifically, I mean, it's directly related. I think probably the biggest impact for you is exercise, which is because it's the biggest impact for everyone. But then also the appropriate mineral consumption and sleep, lower inflammation, all those things are going to lead to stronger, more dense bones.

Yeah, that's the thing, is that the bones really are a readout of comprehensive health. So I mean that a substantial portion of your bone, so you get a new skeleton every 10 years.

So it's crazy.

It's. If it's filed.

What does that even mean?

So you have the ability to rebuild your skeletal structure. You're. You're basically rebuilding every 10 years. I've been doing blueprint for five years. So I basically, if that loss is accurate year over year in some kind of linear fashion, I've rebuilt 50% of my skeleton on Blueprint over the past five years. And in doing so, when you optimize for the various parameters like optimal nutrition intake. So we'll go down the list of like, what are the nutrients responsible for robust bone mineral density? Then you say yes. And high quality sleep. That's where a majority of the bone reconstruction is. Remodeling is happening. Even though it happens all day, every day, a lot of it happens in high quality sleep. And there's been studies showing that when you're chronically sleep deprived, you have a loss in bone mineral density. A few things that about bone health that I thought were interesting. Bones are five times stronger than still by weight, yours or everyone's, generally speaking.

Wow.

So good job biology. That's, that's a really cool thing.

That's incredible.

Yeah. Astronauts in microgravity, they lose 1 to 1.5% of their bone mineral density per month. 10 times faster than people on Earth because they don't have. They're not doing the, the load bearing exercises. They're not putting their bones to work in microgravity. So this is a really good point. If you don't use it, you're going to lose it. And so if you piece together your, your, you rebuild your skeleton every 10 years when you don't exercise, if you don't do the activity even in one month, 1 to 1.5% bone loss in one month time. So it moves away very quickly when you realize that chronic sleep deprivation reduces bone mineral density. Like when you start piecing these things together, you realize your bones are living and breathing systems of biological health and you've got to feed them the correct things. You have to load, bear, load, bear, do load bearing exercises, plyometrics, like you need to stack up the things that give your bones life. It's not something that is passively and even like with men, with men, women that post menopause, they can lose up to 20% of their bone mass in five to seven years after menopause. So like there are significant events in life that either you know, whether you're in microgravity, whether you're post, you're in menopause, or whether you're not exercising well. But bones do require constant care and it is a representation of, of overall biological health.

I love that frame that it's a living breathing because I don't think about my bones like that. I think of Them as these stagnant dead things that are inside of me. But instead thinking of it almost like a plant structure where it's like this skeletal frame, obviously, for the plant. That's really cool.

I think the important thing with bones too, to remember is that all of these things are important. I think we jumped to calcium, you know, making sure that you get appropriate calcium levels to keep your bones nice and strong. But you can eat all the calcium like you want. And if you're not exercising, if you're not giving any of that stimulus, that calcium is not going in your bones, it's going somewhere else. So the stimulus is by far the most important piece. It's just like, you know, if you ate 200 grams of protein a day, that doesn't mean you're going to get jacked. Like, you actually have to go to the gym and lift weights. Same principle with your bones. If you're not giving it the stimulus of weight bearing activity, whether that's walking, running, jogging, doing a squat, doing a deadlift, whatever it is, then you're not going to build bones.

Do we know how? Is it this kind of thing where you don't want to lose it because it's really hard to build back, or is it relatively easy to get back?

I mean, it is, you can get it back, certainly. So if you, you know, live the last 23 years of your life not doing weight bearing activities and all of a sudden you start doing them, you will build bones back. But it is certainly just like muscle, easier to keep than it is to put back on, especially as we get into our older years. So women start losing bone mineral density in their early 30s, plateau, you know, basically plateauing and then decreasing in their early 30s and then a dramatic drop after menopause. Um, so making sure that we lengthen that plateau of maximum bone mineral density that happens in your 20s by doing weight bearing activity and appropriate nutrition and sleep, as Brian was talking about, that's going to be way easier than trying to get it back later once you've lost it.

Yeah. And specifically when in, in an elderly person, this is a pretty stunning statistic. Only 63% of men and 75% of women are still alive one year after a hip fracture versus 90% of people without a fracture. So it's, you do want to aggressively build bone mineral density, take care of your bones as you, you know, your early 20s, and then keep it up. But this is also like, I've, I've had friends reach out who are in their 40s and they've had a DEXA scan and the bone mineral density came back a little below what they wanted. And they, they were under the illusion they couldn't do anything about it. And that's just not the case. You, your skeleton, you know, you do rebuild bone all the time. You can in fact increase your bone marrow density. So it's weight bearing, exercise, plyometrics, you know, specifically fast movements. You want to make sure you have the proper nutrition.

When you say weight bearing exercise, Brian, I feel like we should, like, we should quantify that for people to some extent. Like, so what does weight bearing mean? Like, is cycling on a, on a, on a bike, is that considered weight bearing activity? And the answer is no, it's not. Right. Like, so you have to be doing things where there's an impact. Um, and walking can be that one thing that I really like for people that are just trying to get started they're doing exercise a lot is actually just like, put a little bit of weight on, like a backpack with some weight in it. That takes walking from like a minimally impactful activity to all of a sudden, like, fairly impactful. And it's going to have a much higher impact on bone mineral density. But like, the other things, jumping, plyometrics, running, jogging, stair stepper, even elliptical, although it's fairly minimal impact, does have enough impact to increase bone mineral density.

Yeah. And progressive overload if you're. Yep.

If you're lifting weights, it's actually. So I have. And I'm sure a lot of, a lot of other people have this too. Like, I don't want to do high impact things like running. I find it's not great for my joints. So what I do is elliptical with a weighted vest. So that would, that combo would essentially get what you need in terms of, I mean, in addition to lifting and everything else.

Yeah, I mean, if I had my way, I would say let's also do some squats and some deadlifts and to squat jumps. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, I, I'd want all the things, but like, if you, if you're. If I'm only gonna get one thing. Yes. Like, elliptical with the weighted dust is, is a great option.

And then. Do you guys know anything about. I feel like I've seen the vibrating plates come become like a very trendy thing. And I've heard people talk about the burner mineral density. Do you guys know. Does that actually work?

Yeah, my understanding is it does. It's a good option for people who can't do other types of weight Bearing activity. I wouldn't choose it as like a first option though, just because there's other advantages to other weight bearing activity. Right. Like there's metabolic health, there's, you know, VO2 improvements, things like that. But if for whatever reason you can't do those other things, then the vibrating plates do work for activating your bone mineral density for sure.

Measuring your bone marrow density is easy. You can get a DEXA scan. They're widely available. I, I think they're a few hundred dollars.

It's very less like $30 per session, like very, very, very cheap.

And it's less than one days of back background radiation. So you, you can safely do it. It's not like a CT scan where you only want to do it if it's absolutely medically necessary. You, you can do a DEXA scan. I do one per year.

They've even got mobile ones. So it's, it's because I feel like people hear DEXA scan and they think they have to go like it's an MRI or something like that. It's actually really accessible, really easy. It takes like 10 minutes. Very straightforward.

Yeah, that's what I did. When I went and did mine, there was this van that was pulled up in the parking lot. You're like looking a little sus. If you walk up, someone jumps out and it's like, step on in here. What are we doing?

I love it. You're like, still intrigued?

Yeah, I'm open minded. What's going on in here?

And if you're gonna, if you're gonna do a DEXA too, you can also get the expanded DEXA that does, that looks at your muscle, muscle mass, visceral fat, things like that. So that also comes from a DEXA scan. Or you can just get just the bone mineral density and those are a little bit, priced a little bit differently. But it is nice to know, like, you know, what's my muscle mass, what's my visceral fat percentage? Like those things you can track over time too, and it can be really helpful.

Yeah, let me run down this as well. For those of you interested in the nutrients for bone health, we built this into the blueprint stacks of. One of the things that people don't understand about blueprint is most people enter health and they think like a green juice is good or protein is good, but anything more complicated, it gets difficult to understand. And so blueprint we've definitely, we have played on the frontier of health and wellness in doing things that just are not common wisdom in cultural norms. But Let me just explain to you like we, we have been very insight, very methodical and tried to apply all the scientific evidence. So when you do the blueprint stack, so in the longevity mix, it's a third of the day's calcium plus magnesium, plus 2.5 grams of creatine in the essential capsules. It has vitamin D, B12, B6, folate, calcium, zinc, magnesium, borons and selenium in the soft Gels, vitamin K1, K2, and then we've got collagen and then the protein, which is a complete amino acid profile. So, yeah, if you don't understand this, like, we have identified the specific things for whole body health, including bone mineral health, and we have identified the proper clinical grade dose. So I don't think we get credit in the market for this. That I think, I mean it is, it's a complicated product, but so much effort has gone into trying to make this thing meticulous. And again, like my evidence, like I'm on the blueprint stack, I take this daily. And I think the evidence, my results speak for themselves. So for those of you who are on the staff, just know that we've thought through this and we've got you on anticipating the nutritional needs.

Should we be taking things, especially women, Mike, should we be taking things in addition to this? So, for example, I take a little bit more vitamin D and calcium to try and, you know, add for, specifically for bone health. Is that accurate?

Yeah, I think a little extra calcium is probably okay. Um, it, it's not, not a bad thing. Vitamin D depends on how much sunlight you're getting. Um, so depending on your, your latitude may determine how much vitamin D you need. Best thing to do is just check your vitamin D level and figure out if you need more. Uh, but I've found that there are some people who need higher levels of vitamin D on blueprint stack. And, and I think it makes sense for women to take a little additional.

Calcium as well, just to really hit home. So I think if it's women watching this, this bone marrow density is particularly important for them because of the hormonal changes that we go through throughout our life cycle. So Mike, can you talk a little bit about that? Like, I am 29, someone at my age and then also someone post menopausal, what should they be doing for bone mineral density? What should they be looking out for?

So at this point in your life, Kate, the most important thing is you're getting those appropriate nutrients. You're focusing on sleep and exercise and including those things in exercise that we were talking about the, the, the high impact weight bearing activities. That's the, that's really the most important thing. If you're doing those three or four things, I think that you're crushing it. You're doing great.

Kay. Have you had a DEXA scan? Oh, sorry, Mike.

No, yeah, yeah I have. I actually should get another one, a follow up done and see where I'm at.

Do you know what you're.

My, my bone marrow density was not bad. Like it was good. It wasn't anything concerning, so I'll have to check.

Great question. I was actually going to ask like, do you know where you are at currently? Because I think that changes a little bit like how, how aggro you need to be with those recommendations. Right. Like, I mean if you're good at a good place, you're standard within a standard deviation of the mean for your age, then that's probably a good place to start. You don't need to really do too much. But if you were already lower, then you would want to be way more aggressive, potentially making sure you're optimizing your calcium intake, your magnesium, your vitamin D, Maybe even your K2, making sure those are all perfect and then focusing on the high impact stuff. Um, perimenopause, you know, I would, I would say keeping that level of activity, those nutrients during your, your pre menopause premenopausal years. Tracking with adexa, probably at your age you don't need to be tracking yearly, but every couple of years makes sense I think. And then once you get to that perimenopausal age, I would think tracking needs to go to closer to like every year and it's gonna be just way closer monitoring and making sure that you're keeping on top of things. One, one thing that we start thinking about postmenopausal is hormone replacement therapy. So replacing estrogen can be really beneficial for women that are having difficulty with, with maintaining their bone mineral density in that perimenopausal and postmenopausal stage. So that's something we, we often add on increasing calcium sometimes and then just continuing into weight bearing activity.

Yeah, that, that's great. Yeah. I think a lot of women don't realize that they need to lift weights. So like there's so much of a focus on cardio and there's this. People I don't think realize how important maintaining bone mineral density, bone health and muscle health is in this like early stages of your life. So yeah, if anyone's listening at home, make sure, you get that checked out. And like for me, getting a baseline DEXA scan is super helpful because I know that I'm preparing for as I get older. I know I'm going to want to check back to the number and see have I actually lost bone mineral density. So.

Oh, one of the thing, creatine I think is something we haven't mentioned yet. So there are some studies that show that like 3 to 5 grams of creatine a day of which I think 2.5 in the blueprint stack. Right. Can increase bone mineral density, bone strength in older adults. So nice thing to add to the nice additional reason to add creatine to your stack.

Like, my mom is in her early 70s and I've been encouraging her. She does a lot of walking and I've been encouraging her to incorporate weight training as part of her protocol. So what things could I tell her to do that specifically? I mean, what I, I'm trying to imagine what she would specifically do. I mean, maybe walking with a weighted vest or, you know, I'm trying to think of. Yeah, how could she incorporate this into her life in some kind of a practical, easy way.

What do you think the easiest thing might just be to get a weighted vest and walk with a weighted vest? Um, you know, you can get fairly comfortable like 5 to 10 pound vests that, that you can start with and it's very minimal change in terms of routine. And then you could also use that vest for some squats or some other like strength training type of movements. That would be like a super easy place to start. A small kettlebell might be a good place to start. Start. When I start thinking about people in their 60s, 70s who are taking on strength training for the first time, my mind immediately goes to a trainer. Like I, you know, I, I get very nervous about adding new movements to people that age without like someone eyes on like next to them, making sure that they're doing everything right. Just your body forgets how to move at that point.

As I was asking my question, that's exactly what I was thinking. I was imagining her in the living room in the house, right. Weights and she's doing something. I'm like, okay, this, this doesn't check. Like, yeah, I was trying to figure out what specifically to say to avoid her injuring herself. Could she, could she wear a weighted vest maybe around the house as she does chores?

Yeah, she could certainly do that. I would just be careful about once you put additional weight up top and you start bending over or like moving in positions and putting your Back in compromising positions. You are increasing your likelihood of injury. Injury. So like you just want to be mindful of like you don't want to be like leaning over to grab a mop in a weird position with an extra £10 on your back. Right. So I would say maybe with some chores but be careful with movements.

All right, so begin with a weighted vest in, in walking where you have postural control, you know, movement patterns and then. And then engage a trainer on yeah.

Also some weight of vests aren't really well designed for weight distribution and making sure that you're not gonna mess up your posture. And then some also allow you to have modular weighted vests so you can very slowly as opposed to just like jumping right in with like yeah, ten pounds.

There's this company that came out with weighted shirts where they have these little tiny microweights all over the shirt. They look kind of funny. Almost looks like you're wearing armor. But it's nice in the sense that it like it wears very well and it feel it's all over your body as opposed to like some of those weighted vests, like they put it all on the chest. It's not great for women. A lot of weighted vests are actually uncomfortable for women. So make sure you're getting something that fits your body type.

So the takeaways from this section for everybody is get a DEXA scan. It's low cost and it's easy and it's very low radiation. Learn your baseline and then know that you can in fact, no matter where your measurement comes back, you can in fact rebuild your bone mineral density. Your skeleton is replaced, rebuilt every 10 years. So no matter where you're at in your life, you can still do something. Get high quality sleep. Make sure you're getting the proper nutrition. The ones we mentioned, the blueprint stack is a good option for you or it just has it all packaged in load bearing exercises like a weighted vest. You can do progressive load bearing with weights, although if you are not routinely doing exercise, make sure you are doing proper form. So if you need to get a trainer or get you learned through an online course, consider that and then proper sleep where you're rebuilding, remodeling. Is that about right on? Summary of this section.

One quick question, Mike on if someone's like I actually don't want to take supplements, like I'm anti supplement for whatever reason and they want to check is my diet sufficient? Are there blood tests for things like calcium? That might be a silly question, but are there ways to know yeah, there's.

Some micronutrient panels that you can do to check for those. Check for those levels. You'd probably want to check for more than just calcium too. You'd want to check your, your vitamin D, your vitamin K, your magnesium levels, all those play big roles, even amino acids. Amino acids play a big role in, in muscle and bone development. So knowing what your amino acid levels are. But yeah, there's some tests out there that work for that.

Cool. It's actually a perfect segue cuz the next topic is about amino acids from protein. Brian, you want to talk us through? Um, you released a tweet about this recently.

One of the opportunities for this podcast is just to explain what we're doing in the world and why we do it. Because a lot of it is again, is not common sense in modern health. And so yeah, getting a complete amino acid profile every day is really important. And so we built A2 protein products. So I guess like when I talk about blueprint, what I'm trying to share with you is we went through this process and we said how could we potentially achieve the best known biomarkers in the world? Because there's a category for the fastest human in the world and the richest poop person in the world. But before we started, there was not a category of the person who had the best comprehensive biomarkers in the world. And we wanted to set off and say, can we create a new category of quantified health and try to go towards this objective of we are the first generation who won't die. And so in doing that, we were mapping out that a critical part of health is having a complete amino acid profile. And so once you step into that world then people start bickering about amino acid source. So it's meat versus plant proteins or whatever you want to throw in there. And so yeah, actually if you want to put this image on the screen, this is a summary of the two proteins that I consume on a daily basis, which is Blueprint, longevity protein and metabolic protein. You can see the 20amino acids there and you can see the corresponding amount for each amino acid from each of the proteins. And you see that it's a complete coverage of all amino acids excluding methionine, which is actually looking at longevity studies. You want to be lower on that. So it's comparable to, you see here on the columns, comparable to beef and pork, chicken, eggs, et cetera. So we tried to do this in a plant based protein, pea and hemp. And yeah, so amino acids are really important for Every fundamental element of the body, you need them on a daily basis. Nine of the 20amino acids you can only get through foods. Your body does not produce them. So we wanted to make sure we had that in complete coverage. Yes, I get. I didn't do this, I don't think as before blueprint. I had the idea that protein was good for you, but I also had this very skewed perspective that I was much like common culture today where you want to pound protein. So before I would get these, the big tubs of whey protein, you have 25 grams of protein, scoop it up, you know, zero like one net carb or whatever. Cause you're trying to like reduce carbohydrates. Because the idea was carbohydrates are bad. And it's actually the appropriate way to consume is you want to have a combination of proteins with the appropriate amino acids and fats and fiber and carbohydrates. You want to have the whole collection of things that's what helps the body metabolize well, satiation for digestion. So maybe Mike, you can comment on this, that we've deviated from the cultural norm here where norm is pound protein. Eliminate fat and carbs. That's a good idea. And we took a different approach and we said a more balanced approach of taking fats, carbohydrates, proteins, you know, fibers. Having that in, in a protein meal is the better way to go for health.

Let me take us back a step and just talk about a couple of things that you said. So you mentioned a complete amino acid profile and just amino acid, like what is an amino acid? Amino acid is basically this compound that the body uses to build proteins. So your body takes lots of amino acids and puts them together to make these big proteins that do all kinds of things in your body, from everything from building muscle to making enzymes to neurotransmitters to hormones. All of those things are built by amino acids. And when we say a complete amino acid profile, we mean has all of the amino acids that your body needs. So some, some amino acids your body can actually make from other amino acids. But there are a list of essential amino acids that you can only get from the diet. Right? And these are, these are things that we have to make sure that we get an ample amounts in the diet. And there's a lot of talk about like it has to be a complete protein, which is like completely kind of old school, to be honest. I mean, like, there's plenty of human societies that do not live on meat that live on plants only. And none of the plants in isolation are complete proteins. But when you eat them together, for example rice and beans, you have all of the complete proteins necessary to do all the things that need to happen in the body. So like what you did with Blueprint Brian was you took two different types of proteins. For most of these, I think it was P and hemp. Right. And together, when you combine those proteins together, you get a amino acid profile that looks like what you're, what you're showing on the screen there. And that is good because it does a few things. It gives you ample amounts of the branch chain amino acids, which are particular types of amino acids there, which are isoleucine, valine, and uh, there's also the leucine, which is very important for muscle protein synthesis, which, it has ample amounts of leucine in it and it doesn't have too high levels of methionine. So methionine is interesting because it's really high in animal proteins. And there's been multiple studies that have shown that methionine restriction leads to increased longevity. Not really in humans yet, but we've seen this, I think in mice and flies, if I'm not mistaken. So if we're trying to make mice and flies live longer, reduce their methionine intake. But there, there's reason to believe because methionine activates MTOR and reduces autophagy, that methionine restriction is actually good for longevity. And that's one of the benefits of the, the protein that you've put together there is that it's got relatively limited amounts of methionine in it, so about 60% as opposed to a hundred percent of the daily value. And methionine is important because we need it for things like um, making glutathione, for example, and for methylation. But in excess it has the problem of over activating the, over activating MTOR and reducing autophagy. So there's a very nice balance that we want to try to hit. And it seems like these two proteins mixed together do a very good job of that.

Can I ask you guys, and this might be too hot of a question for you to answer, but so this is essentially like debunking this idea that you can't be plant based and get what you need as far as amino acids. If you want to be plant based and not have protein powders, can you still get from a regular diet? Sounds like you can. What should someone do? And if someone's a carnivore and they don't want to do plant protein, but they're open to other proteins. Like what are the different variations of a diet that can still get you the full amino acid profile you need? Like, can you get it from meat? You know, like is, is that also a complete protein source?

Me, meats are complete protein sources. In, in general, the, the only challenge with meat being that they are high in methionine. So if you're trying to restrict methionine, it's gonna be challenging to do on a, on a meat only diet. Plant only diets can certainly be complete protein sources. The, the trick is if you're not taking a protein supplement, like um, pea protein, hemp protein, things like that, you need to get a variety of plant proteins. So you need to get your proteins from multiple different places. Um, soy is a good source of complete source of protein that would meet that requirement. But you know, chickpeas, lentils, combined with other vegetables, you're gonna get a complete source of protein for sure. The challenge I think becomes with the plant based diets is the amount of protein. So if we're, if we're really pushing for you know, 1.6 to 2 grams per kilogram, that's when it's hard to get there with plants without some sort of like protein supplement which Brian has found. And the reason you take two, two scoops of protein a day, Brian, is that right?

Yeah, yeah. So actually let me, a friend of mine just asked me about this the other day. Let me read off what I wrote to him. So I get 130 grams a day of protein. And so I get 26 grams from longevity protein, 30 from collagen peptides, 25 grams from like a super veggie like dish that has lentils, broccoli, cauliflower, hemp seeds, and then another 27 grams from metabolic protein. And then a third meal today, you know, some kind of legumes, berries, nuts, seeds that has 20 to 25 grams which equals 130 grams. So actually I easily get my full protein requirements on a daily basis. I mean optimal levels easily from these plant based sources. Now again, if you want to eat meat, cool. We are saying nothing about meat. We're simply sharing what we've done and why. But if you like meat and you want to include meat, great, eat meat. This is really trying to an explainer. It's. I, it's really interesting that every time we talk about this stuff I have to give that meat disclaimer because people lose their and like it's so insane.

It's so, I mean so it's like, it's so irrational.

The energy around it, it's like, yeah, if you eat meat, cool man, like do it, it's fine. But I like, and to be clear.

Like your son Talmage eats meat. Like you are not like going out there and being like, oh, you guys like don't eat meat.

I, I have not said anything about meat. I have said this is what I do and why and I, I, I've explained this is why I don't eat meat. But I've never said you shouldn't eat meat. Uh, so yeah, it's definitely, we try to be as friendly as possible and as open minded as possible and we are not trying to threaten anyone. Uh, we're simply sharing what I do and why.

And to further clarify, your primary reason for not eating meat is ethical, right?

Yeah, I mean I think there's, there's two ways to approach this. One is, yeah, so primarily I am plant based, excluding collagen peptides. Because I think the most important thing happening on the earth right now is that we are giving birth to super intelligence very on a very short timescale. And if AI becomes sentient to some extent in whatever form you want to define that and we don't have a meat. Yeah. When it says like oh hey, intelligent beings, hey, hey, hey humans. How do you guys treat other forms of intelligence? I think we want to be seen as a thoughtful and compassionate species and not brutal. And right now we are brutal. And so I think we really want to contemplate the, just like who we are as a species. And then number two, I think you could probably make an evidence based argument that a plant based diet with collagen peptides is a, not the, a leading approach for top tier biomarkers. This is not to say somebody couldn't beat my comprehensive biomarkers with meat entirely a possibility and it would be great if someone did. It's only to say we chose a track, we based it upon scientific evidence and we think there's, yeah, we think it's compelling in terms of the evidence, supporting evidence, but it's not the only way. So again if someone else wants to take a different approach and you, if you look at the studies, for example, the recent speed of aging studies, the DNA methylation, the green Mediterranean, Mediterranean diet is the best performing and I believe that has some fish and some other meats. So there's definitely a presence of meat in some of the best performing diets. And so this is not to Say that all meats are bad. It's just to be that we've chosen a particular path.

So meat eaters, we love you. Please don't come at us.

Yeah. Also we should talk quickly about amount of protein. So the, a lot of, you know, the quote unquote official recommendation of protein intake is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight, which is too low. The more appropriate recommendations. So for endurance training, 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram a day. If you're doing strength, power hypertrophy, you're in the 1.6 to 2.2 kilograms a day. You could go higher but you, you know, than 2.2 grams per kilogram. But you just want to be mindful that you're not overdoing it because you can have negative consequences. So you want to make sure, you're measuring your body to make sure that it's not causing some kind of harm. And then of course females, depending upon where you're at in your cycle, you want to modulate with the first part of your cycle. Your, your lower protein. It's. What is that?

1.1.5?

Yeah, 1.5. And then post, it's around 2 grams per kilogram of weight on the second.

When you ovulate those two weeks following before you get your period increase to 2 grams per kilogram of body weight specifically because your estrogen drops your risk of muscle mass decrease. And so you want to maintain that and then the same for later in life. Once you hit menopause, you're kind of in that state constantly. So you wanna make sure you get enough protein to maintain muscle mass.

Yeah. Again, I'll, I'll say one more thing on the, the blueprint proteins and how we built these things because when, when people look at the, the protein panels, they see protein, but they also see carbohydrates and fats and they say like, oh no, I don't want to do this. I want pure protein zero everything else. And Mike, is, is that fair to say that it is a, is an evidence based approach that it is a reasonable, is it evidence based approach approach to have a more balanced macro profile when consuming proteins, fats, carbohydrates, fibers?

Yes, I would say so. I would say that you're, you're going to get an overall greater benefit and than if you took protein in isolation. Especially like, especially post workout. There's really good data showing that you need to consume protein with carbohydrates post workout. Otherwise a lot of that protein is just going to get used for energy production as opposed to muscle protein synthesis. So, yeah, I would agree with that statement. In general, when we're consuming foods, it's better to have a broad range of macronutrients as opposed to just isolating one macronutrient and trying to stuff it into the body.

Body.

You're not just going to only turn on muscle protein synthesis. You need, you need more things happening in the background.

I was just gonna say we are actually trying to solve for people's issues. So, for example, I'm lower, much lower calorie per day than Brian. And so when I get into my luteal phase where I'm trying to increase my protein intake, it's kind of hard to balance that because I've already got my meals all optimized for my daily protocol. And then I'm trying to like, how do I fit in extra protein without going over my calorie budget? And so we are actually coming out with like a pure protein source for those who do want to modulate their diets accordingly. But yeah, agree, like, better to get it in a complete source.

Yeah. Ali just messaged me here and he said, he said, I bet those who embrace, who do embrace meat in the diet will say that Brian is healthy because he's consuming the 33 grams of collagen peptides a day. So, Mike, assessment on that.

Collagen peptides are predominantly just one amino acid. Um, so I'm not sure that they're doing much for your overall amino acid profile as opposed to the, the broad range of amino acids you're getting from hemp and P. That would be my assessment.

Yeah. This is like one of the things, like the several people were very critical of me online where they were accusing me of being on testosterone replacement therapy because my testosterone levels have been averaging above 700 and I'm not on testosterone replacement therapy. And I have done this on a plant based diet with collagen peptides and exercise. And this one prominent person in the health world, I gave him a call and I talked to him and he said, I don't believe it. I think you're lying. And so I showed him my labs on the call. I'm like, here's my lab report, here's my levels, here's my lh, here's my fsh. I'm not on testosterone replacement therapy. Here's all the data for you. And he just said, I've never seen it in my entire life. So I guess those of you listening, what I'm trying to establish Here is we have really defied cultural norms on how we approach health and wellness. I've published my biomarkers. I arguably have the best biomarkers of anyone known in the world. If there's someone out there better than me, we don't know who they are, but we're doing a really good job. What I'm trying to convey to you is that many of the ideas that you hear on a daily basis are outdated. These new emergent ideas of how we approach amino acids and proteins and bone mineral density and et cetera, that it is supported by the evidence and is supported by the data. I do feel like I need to give this airtime because it's very hard to articulate these ideas in social media snapshots. You need more long form discussion. And people, even when we provide the evidence, they don't believe it. And that's why we provide the secondary data. Point of like here are my biomarkers. So you can't just like if I have high testosterone, whatever. But it's like that plus bone mineral density, plus the lowest recorded speed of aging, plus plus, plus, plus. And once you look at down the list of 60 plus biomarkers, it's very hard to argue that we haven't actually nailed a protocol that is like elite level.

You know what it also is? It's like people are coming at this from this viewpoint of camps. So carnival camp, plant based camp, gluten free, organic. And then they're trying to associate that category of behaviors with you're either healthy or not. So meat either are healthy or they're not carnivores or vegans are healthier than not. And it misses the actual. So it's. I was thinking about this. I was like, you probably should. You're not, you're not any of those camps. You're not plant based. Like you actually aren't because you consume collagen peptides. So like Ali's point about Brian will be saying he's a healthy person because he. Well, kind of partly, yeah. Like he is kind of like collagen peptides is an important part of your protocol. Like you're not a meat eater, you're not plant based, you're just blueprint. And that's like the problem right now is everyone's coming at you from a camp perspective and it's like, but wait, that's not even, that's not even the conversation we're trying to have here. Like coming out from camp based perspectives, just flawed, period. No one's going to be categorizable that way and be healthy.

That's really well said, Kate. It is like we are in the don't die camp, which means we love evidence, we love data and we love measurement and we love to follow those things and just make the right decision on the objective of don't die. So yeah, we really. I would refuse to associate with any camp. Like there is no ideology, no group, no framework that I agree with evidence. Data measurement is the only loyalty we have on doing this.

Cool. I like that.

Listeners, let us know, is this hitting for you? Do you want us to do something else that would be more useful? We really are trying to. I know in my personal podcast listening experience I want to get in and learn something useful. I want to remind myself of good things to do in life. I do enjoy hearing people like chit chat about life, but really I want to focus on bettering my life circumstances in some way, whether it be through knowledge or behavior or something of the sort. So let us know what hits for you, what misses so we can be more relevant in your lives.

All right, you guys, that was fun.

That was great.

That was good.