Sam Miller - Unlocking Wellness Wisdom: Strategies for Transformative Health

Welcome to the Casey Adams Show. I'm your host, Casey Adams, and over the past six and a half years, I've interviewed hundreds of world class entrepreneurs and founders. On today's episode, I sat down with Sam Miller, the founder of Metabolism School and author of Metabolism Made Simple. There's a lot of health experts out there on social media, but Sam is second to none. He is world class at articulating what matters and can help you optimize your health and wellness. I gotta say, this conversation was one that I just was able to sit back and soak in all of the information. I had the opportunity to meet Sam through a former podcast guest, Derek from More Plates, More Dates, and he has a company called Merrick Health. And he has been someone that not only I've been so excited to have on the show, but someone that can truly make a difference on your life or those around you. So if you get value from this episode and you find it insightful, please take a moment to share this episode with a friend or even a family member. And please subscribe. It means a lot to us over here. And once again, thank you so much for tuning in. Enjoy today's episode with Sam Miller.

Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today we are joined by Sam Miller, the founder of Metabolism School and the author of Metabolism Made Simple. Sam, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Appreciate it, Casey. Thanks for having me.

Of course. So you're coming out from Raleigh, North Carolina. Thanks so much for being here.

Yep.

When I first came across you like understanding where you spend your time in the world of health and fitness in your story, it's, it's been super inspiring. And for the people that may not know what metabolism school is, what is the business and where did this journey start for you?

Yeah, so the idea of Metabolism School is essentially providing education for health fitness, nutrition professionals, but helping them bridge the gap between the conventional fitness industry, which is very like macro sets, reps, calories, like, go get your workouts in. And then what we see on more of the medical side of the industry, which is whether that's functional medicine, Western medicine lab tests, you know, some of this more advanced health content and there's this massive gray area that exists in the middle, right. It's like, okay, maybe you've dialed your workouts in or you've started to learn the basics of nutrition. But there's so much that goes into how our lifestyle and our nutrition impacts our internal health. And we can see that through our own sort of health optimization journey. And I Know, you've, you're obviously very active and we've talked a little bit about your pursuits with 75 hard and like your own health optimization stuff off air. And so really metabolism school is helping other health fitness, nutrition professionals do that for their clients. But that wasn't really necessarily where I started in the space. So my background is, before I was ever doing that in a B2B capacity, you know, I was the person sort of serving clients, you know, in my own, in my own business and also just trying to figure all of this complex information out myself, you know, starting out in my teens and just kind of progressing from there.

No, that's, that's incredible, man. And speaking on that, just where did your health and wellness journey begin? You know, growing up in Virginia, as we talked about, I grew up playing sports, played hockey for 10 years, played the cross, played football. That's when I got injured. But I've always had this just deep rooted passion of sports. And that by default led to like, taking care of myself and training and understanding the importance of that from a young age for you. When did this journey start?

So I always, I tell the story that like I did play sports, I was athletic, but I wasn't like the, you know, the person that had the best aesthetics or physique. But I always, like, I, I admired that.

Right.

Like, I, I thought that was like a noteworthy goal, was something worth striving towards. But what actually really, I think was like the slingshot for me was actually two things. One, I had a pretty bad head injury when I was younger, so snowboarding, so naturally like athletic pursuits, and then had an injury. So that led me down the rabbit hole of learning a lot about the connection between the brain and our hormones and our endocrine system, which is basically like how our brain communicates with the rest of our body to produce reproductive hormones and things like that. And at the time, I also was experiencing some issues medically related to my family. So my dad had a 98% blockage, ended up needing to have kind of an emergency heart surgery, have a stent, which is basically a small device that's to help with blockages, like when you're dealing with that plaque accumulation. So I was like, there's got to be this connection because I was, you know, I was someone who was, I was working out. I started to learn the basics of, like, you track your food or you eat protein and you learn like, this is what men's health. Yeah, you know, you follow the magazine, like, this is what men's health you know, says to do, or maybe there's, you know, bodybuilding media at the time, but we didn't have, you know, there wasn't Instagram, I think, you know, I'm a little bit older than you, so for me, like coming up, my fitness journey, there was an Instagram. Facebook was barely, you know, starting. So there were like Internet forums, books or magazines, right? Yeah, but that wasn't really individualized to the person. It would be like, okay, this is what you're going to eat. And it didn't really specify based on your height and weight or activity level or any type of individualization. So you'd see, you know, you're reading about someone who's maybe like a 220 pound bodybuilder and you're like 150 pound kid soaking wet. So for me I was active. But you know, to be honest, I was, I feel like even though I was athletic, I was still. I went through a phase in middle school, like chub your kid and kind of got into working out. And really in high school it was when I realized that like you can really change your body through lifting and resistance training and it also carries over to sports. And so that was really cool for me. But the deeper understanding of internal health didn't actually come until I realized like, okay, when you have any type of injury or you have something, go on how that can physically impact you and then show up in terms of your internal health. And then I kind of. My interest was split across different avenues because it really wasn't a popular topic of conversation at the time. So I'm like spending time with my doctors, like my endocrinologist who's like monitoring this. I went and got an MRI on my pituitary gland. I'm like doing all this testing over here, but I'm also hiring like fitness coaches and bodybuilding coaches. And I did my first bodybuilding competition between my sophomore and junior year in college. So. So I started pretty young and I'm trying to, you know, do that and learn and soak up this information and at the same time, you know, I'm personal training. So I got certified as a personal trainer and started working in college at my university campus recreation facility and working with these clients. And I'm realizing like, hey, maybe there's more to the story for them too than just like, hey, go do three sets of 10 and you know, I'll count your reps. So that's really where that started for me. And I found it just fascinating. And I was like, wait, but like, why is my doctor over here who's talking about like these hormones and stuff like thyroid or testosterone or, you know, my metabolism. But then we're not talking about like my nutrition or my lifestyle or my sleep or these things that are going to impact, you know, terms like inflammation and how my body's operating. So I started to try to really, you know, go to these different sources and then combine it in a way that could actually work for me and figuring out my own case at the time. But it was also super applicable for most of my clients because they had kind of been through something themselves too.

That's so powerful, man. So many avenues to go down. I wanted to reference, though, you said head injury. I'm someone that, I think we touched on it a little bit. But I had a neck injury in high school playing football, and I was in a neck brace for about six months.

Okay.

And for me, that was a very dark time in my life when sort of this, it birthed this whole entrepreneurial journey for you. What kind of head injury was it and. And what was the recovery process there?

Yeah, mainly just a concussion. So this was before we really knew, so after the fact. Right. So I think this would have been in, I don't know if it's quite a decade ago, but Will Smith had that really popular concussion movie. So that really led to a lot of additional research and conversation around the NFL and athletes hockey. Right.

All the.

But like all the helmet design. Yeah, that wasn't really as prominent, you know, for me, just when I was kind of like experiencing that. And it was pretty much a basic, like I do remember, you know, put on a spine board. They're monitoring me. Like they tell your parents, like, hey, like, he needs to wake up in the middle of the night, make sure there's no like brain bleed or anything like that. But the follow up process for me was pretty much like, do some additional testing, get an mri, like kind of monitor over time. But I think what exacerbated the situation for me is it was right at the infancy of like me getting really intense with my fitness. And so the training I was doing, like I should have actually given myself time to recover. But because I didn't understand physiologically what was going on and I didn't have the understanding of what some people would consider more like functional health, functional medicine or we were talking about like integrative nutrition.

Yeah.

You know, with your fiance, that was not a popular topic of conversation. So instead of learning, like, here's how supporting my gut can help my Brain health or here's how Omega 3s can be supportive. I was still in a very restrictive phase with my nutrition and trying to just, you know, get lean, look better. Like all very physical, aesthetic oriented goals. And when you're a teenager and you're burning a ton of calories, like that's not going to help your recovery. So it actually ended up being this like multifaceted things to where, okay, I had this injury but also didn't do myself any favors because I wasn't fueling my body appropriately. I was under eating, basically just trying to like be lean, look good, have these very like more cosmetic oriented goals versus really understanding these deeper components of nutrition of how we need to fuel our bodies, we need micronutrients, we need omega 3, like all of these things that are vital for our health. And that's when, okay, taking that, understanding, seeing like actually being able to see a piece of paper and, and be like, okay, this is off, like this is not optimal. Right? Especially when you're at an age and you've been athletic growing up, you expect to be healthy or optimal. And that's really what fascinated me about, okay, so if I change this with my lifestyle here or my nutrition here or my supplements here, I can begin to improve and have traction with that. So I think I kind of shot myself in the foot a little bit with um, I, I tend to when I do something like I will really push at it. And that was the beginning of getting interested in fitness and bodybuilding and it would have been a better time to focus on recovery. So it was definitely frustrating for me in terms of experiencing that and like doing, feeling like I was doing the right things but not getting the results that I wanted. And I think that's something a lot of people can relate to. They feel like, okay, I think I'm doing the right thing. But it's like maybe mismatched, like their training's not matched with their nutrition or they don't have their recovery down. And it's like, it's really understanding the complete picture of that that I think is really incredibly valuable and can make someone's transformation just really go that much further.

Absolutely. There's so much to dissect here, you know, and even to just Derek from More Plates, More Dates, Merrick, all that stuff. I remember sitting down with him and you know, you see his content. I love Derek. He was an investor in my last company. We've become friends and you start hearing, you know, and you see a lot of different things on social media nowadays. But specifically to like what Derek talks about and what their team at Merrick talk about, like the ability to better understand. Like for me, having having a sit down with him and understanding like, okay, having a baseline of where my blood panels are is valuable, you know, getting it done at 20, 22, 23 years old so that I can look back on, reflect on it. That not to say they never crossed my mind because, you know, I'm quote, unquote, I'm healthy and I take care of myself. But after having a conversation with him and that allowed me to take a step back and that's when I started working with Maric Health and really started to better understand like the value of getting that baseline and understanding, like, where can I improve from the inside and out, you know, And I think too for a lot of people, and I think I'm not the only one hearing that it's a lot to take in, like all these different things to improve on. You're good here, you're bad there, you know, from the inside and out. Like, what do you, how do you speak to it as someone that has spent so much time in the world of health and fitness, you know, when people talk about getting the baseline of health and doing things like Merrick or just better understanding what's going on inside, how do you like to speak to people and how do you get people, I guess, open to wanting to go do this and understanding the importance of it.

Yeah, that's a great point. So here's a couple things, is first to understand why we might do some tests for our metabolic health or serum labs. So first understanding, number one, when you are younger and you feel good, that's a great time to create that baseline because then if you ever experience any deviations in your health, you know where you were. And you can also assess your long term risk, whether it's cardiovascular disease. So like for, for myself, for example, let's use my dad for me, as a younger individual, even though I am healthy because I have, you know, certain predisposition or my family has certain risks associated with what we've seen play out over time. Now with some of that due to lifestyle, 100%, but there could still be something that I need to check up on. And so that could be something like getting in addition to a basic lipid panel that is done by your primary care physician, maybe you want to get some additional more advanced screening so you'll hear Derek talk about like lipoprotein A apob C reactor protein. And that's a way to that folks like Merrick Health will basically assess certain risk or how, how is your body really functioning at that deeper level? But for, for people who are less familiar with labs or blood chemistry or physiology or endocrine, all these terms, which basically means kind of what is my internal health status quo. And we can look at labs to look at hormones, we can look at the function of our blood cells, we can look at our immune system inflammatory response, really a plethora of different things through those labs. But first we need to understand that what's happening is our metabolism is basically a reflection of both stress and energy. So energy would be the food that we eat. So energy intake in the form of calories, but also energy expenditure in the form of exercise and daily living. And then stress could be perceived stress, but also internal stressors as well. So if you're experiencing something like inflammation or maybe complications related to gut health, some folks have autoimmune conditions that's related to inflammation as well. So these different stressors, so I kind of put them into like four main buckets. We like perceived circadian, which would be related to our sleep and overall biological clock. We have inflammatory stressors and then glycemic, which is basically our ability to regulate our blood sugar. So after a meal. And there are other things that impact that too, like your exercise and your sleep and your stress. And so when we look at that picture overall, if I understand that, okay, there are life's daily stressors that are impacting my metabolic health, and I can look at energy and understand that the foods that I'm eating and also the rate at which I'm expending that energy impact my metabolism. Okay, cool. How do I actually see that from a quantitative perspective? And that's really where the health testing comes in. But now it's not just limited to. That's a good way that I like to describe what's basically known as adaptive physiology, or the way that our body adapts to stimulus in our environment and think of it as like a basic survival mechanism. Right. Like thousands of years ago, our body really just needed to keep a really tight measure of accounting on like what is in our environment. That's like stressing us out, that is going to impact survival and then what's going to impact the availability of food, because obviously we would die if we didn't have that access to food. So I start first, like kind of teach just like, what are we even looking at when we're talking about metabolism. And then when it comes to metabolic health and some of the Things that you can do when it comes to preventive screenings and testing that can really run the gamut from something as basic as overall just like bodily function to optimization. So think of it as like if we had a piece of paper in front of us and we could draw a line like basically across here if our status quo or our normal is kind of right in the middle. We really, most of us want to move towards optimal. Right. But a lot of us through our daily living, our habits, behaviors, maybe we're not getting enough sleep or you know, maybe we're not making the best choices with our nutrition or we're not following like the best exercise program. We can actually move away from optimal and start to move in the direction. And this is where we see people, especially in the western world and people eating a lot of what we call the standard American diet or you know, hyper palatable foods that are high calorie, like not a lot of nutrient density, low amount of physical activity, sedentary lifestyle, which may not be your listener base, but it's still a lot of majority of Americans, more than a majority. Yeah. We have so many co comorbidities and so that actually drives us towards dysfunction and disease. So here's our piece of paper. So many Americans have moved towards this maladaptation which becomes dysfunction and disease. And that could be anything from, you know, people who are experiencing cardiovascular disease, diabetes, all of these different, you know, comorbidities that are going to impact our lifespan and quality of life. Now many of your listeners and the people who are watching us right now, it's like we're trying to go from okay or pretty good and we want to go to optimal. And really where the fine tuning comes into play and where serum labs can be powerful is you're able to identify not only risk factors related to your long term health and how to take a more preventive approach there, but what we can also do is look for current maybe deficiencies that we wouldn't know just based off of shopping for healthy food. Right. So maybe I identify that I actually do not have optimal levels of vitamin D. Well, that could impact my immune system, that can impact my hormones and so much more. So really I think where that enters the conversation and how I try to get people to think about that is number one, like let's assess those baselines. Two, we can look at long term risk factors and three, we can also look at like what's going to actually show up and impact your biofeedback and quality of life so that you have the best energy level. So you do perform well at work, you know, all these different. And you feel good in your workouts and you can actually recover from them.

Yeah, it's. It's so interesting. I think too just the past, I'd say, like, year and a half.

Right.

I've always been active and more so from the personal lens of even like talking about Merrick. When I did my panels, I. I was able to see, like, I'm super high in cholesterol, but that's more hereditary. My grandfather was high in cholesterol, my mother high in cholesterol. And, you know, there's some other variables that I learned about myself. And it's interesting because the last year, again, year and a half, I've went on this kick of, you know, I've interviewed the founder of WHOOP to talk about, like, sleep health and like, really dive into that vertical and just like to touch on different ver. Articles of health and nutrition, people like Derek, people like yourself. And you learn so much. And I think one challenge that a lot of people, including myself at times run into is we were talking about it downstairs, like, you have so much information, sometimes misinformation and lack of personalization of a great point, how you're, you know, receiving it, especially on social media and working with a coach or, you know, people like Merrick or someone like yourself, it's extremely valuable because it's that baseline of individuality.

Right.

And I think, just for me, and I'm curious to know for you, when you think about the world of social media and all the content that's online, how do you recommend people to just take a step back and really understand, like, hey, you have to take this with a grain of salt. There's a lot of people saying a lot of different things today. What is your thoughts on that? Like, the world of social media, health and wellness, people talking about different concepts online because you're in the midst of it, I'm sure you see it more, more than I do at times.

Yeah.

That's actually one thing that inspired me from both the coaching perspective and content creation is there's either misinformation or the good information that's out there is often misapplied because people, it's. There's not like a one size fits all thing. It has to work for you and your personal preferences and be sustainable, but also aligned with your goals. Like, if you're trying to be the best hockey player, that's not the same as somebody who's in like a completely different situation or if you're overweight and you want to lose 20 or 30 pounds. So you're going online and you see like, well, this athlete saw this thing about keto, but like, maybe that's not actually what they need. Or you see people who are adopting certain training regimens that aren't aligned with them. And so like you mentioned, where the value of something like testing comes in or being able to work with a company like Merrick is you're actually getting something that is more tailored and individualized to your body's current, you know, function. And it's a reflection of your past health history and your current habits, behaviors and practices. Right. So it's much better to be able to structure your supplementation, your nutrition. If you do need any type of medications, it should be based off of your body's function and more specific indicators of that, which typically, unfortunately is not going to be pulled by most western physicians. Like in terms of a primary career perspective, even sometimes you go to a specialist and then sometimes it's like out of pocket, gets to be pretty ridiculous. So being able to really tailor your own or having the understanding to be able to take this information, because information is only actually as valuable as like the application of the information, integrating it into your approach. So I think by having almost like a blueprint in front of you, it really can empower individuals to achieve their goals. And it's not just like someone with a crazy goal like bodybuilding, right. It could be you literally just either want to live longer or feel your best to be able to like play with your kids, or you're someone who, you know, has big goals from an entrepreneurship perspective and you need to be performing at a high level or you just want to spot check things, make sure you don't have any deficiencies. That's really where you know that testing comes in. And you know, I personally do that with my own health and you know.

I've been, I was gonna say like, sorry to interject but like when it comes to, I feel that as entrepreneurs, you know, a lot of people, you hear the concept a lot, like you're not growing, you're dying, whether that's in business. But also, you know, when I think about optimization and health, right. If you're not getting better, being in the stagnant zone isn't the way to go, right. That you want to always improve, right. Whether that's sleep quality or what you're eating or you know, if you're, if you ran a 10 minute mile, you know, as humans or People that especially entrepreneurs, you want to maybe run a 9 minute mile or 8 minute mile and you want to improve it. I think it's the same that goes to just the optimization of, as you talked about that baseline of either steering away or you can steer towards. But for someone like yourself, I'm curious, what are you optimizing for when you think about being an entrepreneur, staying fit, bodybuilding, all these different verticals of where people can optimize for what does it look like in your life?

So it's changed. You know, initially it was a lot more physique oriented and also perform. I mean I was playing sports so I kind of went from like the kid who's just playing sport and I didn't realize like why I was doing what I was doing. I was just like, oh, it would be cool to do a pull up with like a 45 pound plate and like you just start like, you know, you're, when you're like a teenage kid, you must have whatever goals you have, right? But then as you mature maybe it goes from cool. I wanted to compete, like I always, I don't know, I'm a little crazy in that sense. Like sometimes I like to do things where I'm like most people probably would not do this, so but I'm not most people so I should probably attempt to do this now. That's changed for me, I think I know that performing at a high level and there are a lot of people who count on me that I need to be able to, if I don't take care of myself to an extent or at least buffer against the strain that I'm putting on my body. Like I'm, I'm a proponent of kind of viewing life and nutrition and training in seasons. So originally this was popular. Like if you're an athlete or hockey player, football player, like periodization, basically the idea of planning or like you follow a different program, are you in season, are you off season? And sometimes like we have a heavy season of work where maybe your training looks a little bit different, you're still going to train because like you want to be healthy and you need to perform your best, you know. But for me right now, a lot of what I look at or you know, let's say I'm like talking to a health coach at Merrick. What I'm really trying to do is basically say, okay, like I have a lot on my plate right now. I do have some stressors, like am I making sure that I'm still mitigating against that despite the Fact that, like, I am probably putting my brain and body through quite a bit and. But that's okay, right? Like, there are seasons of that where there's, like, there's going to be times when you have to push. And so for me right now, it's being able to, okay, how do I, like, lessen any negative impact of that push in that heavy season and then also understand to set myself up for success if I do want to come back to, you know, whether it is, you know, maybe it's a performance goal, maybe it's looking a certain way, being a certain body fat. Um, but right now it's also finding that ability to, yes, I still want to be healthy and fit. I still want to be a certain body composition or, you know, look a certain way and manage, you know, all that. But really, for me, it's. It's. I need that certain level of output to be able to kind of keep up with, you know, the demands. And we were even talking about, like, jet lag and travel and all these things earlier. And if you're not paying attention, that can slowly creep up and impact things like your, you know, insulin sensitivity, which is basically like kind of your body's receptivity to carbohydrate and overall calories, you know, looking at your testosterone as a guy, or even like fertility and menstrual cycle health for women. So I think it's one of those things, if you don't keep an eye on it, it's a slippery slope, especially for entrepreneurs, because most entrepreneurs are very driven individuals who are going to push.

Yeah.

And so there are.

And a lot of times you see this in the course of history with a lot of entrepreneurs of, you know, they're so obsessed with their business that their health takes a backseat. And you see that all the time where, you know, it catches up to them and then they're forced to, you know, pivot and they have to focus on their house. And I think for someone like myself, and I think a lot of young, ambitious entrepreneurs, including yourself, not only understanding the importance, but it's living a life that allows you to. I don't want. I don't. You know, some people love or hate the word balance, but, you know, I feel that I can't operate at the best of my ability unless I am, you know, in the gym or doing something that's making me physically active, sweating. And I think just, you know, you see, especially if studying entrepreneurs in the past, you'll sometimes hear like, oh, yeah, like they were all successful, but they were 300 pounds overweight and were depressed and they couldn't do anything. And it's like you can learn from stories like that of not only, you know, the what not to do, but you see people go off the deep end and that can be vice versa, right? Like you can spend all day only on just your health and you're like, oh, wait, I'm neglecting the business. Like, there's always trade offs. I believe in business. But I love what you said about seasons. You know, I think you and Diego were talking prior to the show of we're doing 75 hard right now. And the last, I think it was the last, like three or four years. I've committed to doing 75 hard at least once a year. And for those that aren't familiar with 75 Hard, the 75 Day Mental Toughness Challenge created by Andy Brisella. And you know, I'll link the details down below, but it, it's something that really allows me to just change how I live my day to day life. You know, I last 2023, October, November, December, I was traveling a bunch and like that was a different season for me, right. I was training for a marathon, I was traveling a bunch, stepping into 75 hard into the new year. Like, I'm not traveling a lot. I'm saying no to a lot of things because you just, you have to operate differently, right? And I think kind of what you said, it brings me back to the sports days, right. Of the on and off season. I think as an entrepreneur, it's embracing that is such a powerful thing. Like what is your on season, what is your offseason for a different industry that might be conferences happening a certain part of the year. Some might, you know, Black Friday is a season when you're super on. But no, I love how you made that, sort of like tied that into entrepreneurship in terms of the sports reference.

And I think there's two things to parse out from that is like even in off season, you still practice, you still watch film, you know, there's still preparation, right? So you're not not working. So I think for entrepreneurs, they're like, well, every season's on season. I don't mean that you're not working. I just mean the work might look different, right? It's just like what you do in the gym, you could go to the gym, but how you structure your sets, reps, training intensity, like what body parts are you training that can evolve and change with work, that can. Maybe it's travel and meetings versus you're doing deep work at home. Like when I was writing the book Metabolism made Simple, very different than like I'm, you know, we were just talking about this trip, I'm out here to see you and I'm doing other interviews. So very, very different dynamic and I think. So one is kind of understanding that and two, the reason I think that level of prioritization of health is so important as you will hit this self imposed glass ceiling of and and for people it's at different levels. I mean they're like you referenced Andy earlier. I think, you know, he was at a point over 300 pounds in his entrepreneurial journey. He was already by most estimate, by most people's like opinion, they would say, well he was super successful already even though he was, he was there, you know, and overweight at the time. But he was able to achieve an even new level of success once he took hold of his health again. Right. And he just found what worked for him. So like that's his system, that's his tune up process for being able to accomplish what he needs to accomplish. But because entrepreneurship involves so much self trust and there's such a lack of certainty, like you create your own certainty, right. And so I think health, fitness, nutrition, by keeping these like very small promises to yourself, you are slowly accumulating and building this bank of self trust that then whether it's a big business deal or a conversation or anything you're doing in your life, you can transfer that evidence to this other arena because you've basically kept these like small commitments to yourself. So that's where I think that conversation of well you mentioned growing or dying or health optimization, all these things we're focusing on. Also remember that part of what health and fitness is and nutrition is, okay, I'm saying I'm going to do this thing or I'm going to invest in myself and like the ROI is literally you.

Yeah.

So we are doing these things and whether it's you going for a walk outside or going to the gym and training, we are showing up for ourselves in a way. And then when it comes time to bet on ourselves and do something from a business perspective that self trust is actually there because we've done work in other areas that then gives us confidence to be able to perform at a higher level otherwise. You do hear stories about people where they do hit that, that threshold where now their health is, that that is a weakness that is going to impact their ability to perform at a high level. And people experience that at different places. So it's like you do. There are people who pay the price a little bit later on and maybe they do accomplish great things and they're not super healthy. But I don't know if they're actually like happy though. Right. Or there's something. There's going to be some sort of drawback or price to pay eventually. We just don't always know what that is or you know, when that is.

Yeah. What do you think of someone like Brian, Brian Johnson, who's just the epitome of tracking and testing different things. What's your thoughts on everything that he's been putting out there, the blueprint and all the content?

So I think it depends on your. And I don't. I don't have a personal relationship with Brian, so I can't really like speak too much the nitty gritty of it. But I would say whether it's something like whoop or aura or like all these different tracking tools available, things related to nutrition labs, et cetera, part of it does depend on your personality. I do know clients for like, maybe they have had something in the past like a whoop or ORA ring and they need to actually like only monitor that data every week or so. It's like some people will get very. Almost like compulsive or neurotic or.

I heard that a lot because I have the whoop now. Shout out to whoop. I wore the OURA ring for about two years. Loved it. But then I tried the whoop and the whoop team was so gracious to send me out one and like, try this. And I just fell in love with the user experience and the way the data is displayed. And I think too, I've heard friends though, right? It's like you wake up, you can be feeling good and you look at the whoop and it says you're in the red and you're like, oh, I feel bad. For me, that's never happened. I think it's always been like a good estimate and engage, but also just like a reminder of, you know, if I'm trying to stay in the green, I know that I got to get to bed by 9, 30, 10. So if I'm waking up at 5, 5:30, like my sleep consistency is there for me, it's just like the accountability system of being able to see. Like, hey, you said you want to, you know, stay in the green or you want to get X amount of sleep. Like this is how you can measure that.

Yeah, it kind of gamifies a little bit. Cool. Some people though, I Do think take that to an extreme? Or like you said, they look at the score and they're like, oh well, whooper. Ora says that I got a 67 so probably shouldn't train today. And it's, it begins, it begins to be this unhealthy relationship versus what if you woke up and you just thought about how you feel or you feel your feelings. Right. So I like to incorporate a variety of both more quantitative metrics which could be something that you're gathering in terms of biometric data or tracking device. But I do think people need to learn sometimes there's statements used like listen to your body. I think we have to have a system for listening to our body. So the way that I always used to teach clients would be, I actually called it shreds. So sleep, hunger, recovery, energy, digestion, stress. So anytime I would check in with a client, if I was working with them for nutrition or training, I'd say, hey, how's your sleep? How's your hunger? Recovery, energy, digestion, stress. And basically like we're going to rate that, but we also want to open up a conversation around what was your digestion? You know, I'm sure there's been times like if you're on the road or you eat something different or you're like not in your normal routine, you see a change in your digestion or maybe my sleep is off because, oh, I had that caffeine before that meeting and I really maybe shouldn't have done that. Or my hunger's off because like I missed a meal and xyz. So I think we need to blend the quantitative data with qualitative subjective feelings of well being because then that's how we understand what is working for us and when to shift it. And sometimes we have lagging indicators. So I could have something that I'm feeling right now and if I continue to feel that way in terms of my digestion, it is going to show up in my labs. Right. But I, you know, most people don't have the ability to go get labs every day. And so the closest thing we've really had to it would be a tool like aura or like whoop. I mean, I guess you could keep like a blood pressure cuff at home and like check your blood pressure regularly. Totally. But it's a, I think we need a blended approach to both data and then also acknowledging, you know, what we actually feel and how we're responding to that training nutrition. Now sometimes like are you going to feel rundown? Yeah, sometimes. Are you going to feel A little sore after workout for sure. That's normal. But we have to be able to parse through this information. Otherwise it's like information overload. Right. And I never want someone to get to a point where it inhibits them from taking action. Right. Or you actually felt good, like you said, until you saw the score. Whereas if you had it on airplane mode, which some of the devices will allow you to do, they won't sync the data or you turn your Bluetooth off. Well, imagine if you didn't see that. Would you have gone about your day and not changed a thing? That's. That's where we have to have those honest conversations with ourselves in order to do that. But I do really like a variety of different tools. I've had Whoop. I've had the aura. I've used Garmin watches and different things depending on what, what I'm tracking at the time. We think using it can. The biggest thing is it should be used to create awareness around your current habits and then from there use the data or work with a coach and like change your habits based on what's reflected in the device and see if it, if it makes sense for you.

Yeah, absolutely. It's cool, dude. I think Whoop, specifically, they have like a more performance approach where, you know, they're working with the top athletes and you know, you see I'm a blanking on the F1 driver. I'm blinking.

Is it the guy who just signed the deal with.

Yeah. Why am I blanking out his names?

Hamilton.

Lewis Hamilton.

Yeah.

Thank you. You know, he's. I saw him like rocking the Wolver Ronaldo. You're like, you see these great people and they've built a brand that's like all encompassed of greatness, which I think is great in terms of how they approach it. Something I'm curious to know about you. So one test or experiment that I'm sort of in the midst of right now for myself is caffeine detox. I. I'm someone that probably the last two years I would drink cup or two cups of coffee, sometimes three cups of coffee a day, sometimes at the high like 5, 600 milligrams. And for me, I've. I learned that a, like, I love coffee. So that's one element of why I did that. On the flip side, it's sort of. I was desensitized to it. I could drink a cup of coffee at 8pm and go to sleep fine. And it didn't really have that kick to it. So about. It's A week and two days now since I just cut out caffeine, my goal which was like, hey, let's see how I feel in a week. Now it's gonna be two weeks. And I've noticed, at least for me, excuse me, my energy levels throughout the day are way more predictable. I used to be someone that used to be last week where 9 o' clock come around and I'm just like falling over, tired, exhausted. To all my friends, they're like, oh, let's go out having dinner at 8:30, like gotta get to bed by 10, like I'm falling asleep and I boom, no caffeine. And I now like sort of, I don't want to say wired, but it'll be 10 o' clock and I'm so alert and have that focus but can still fall asleep very naturally. So that's a test that I've done recently that I've experienced. So I'd love to talk about caffeine and the element of how that affects someone and your thoughts on that, but also experiments that you've done for yourself that have resulted in just a great outlook on. Wow. Like that really changed my perspective on energy levels or how I operate or how I focus or, you know, whatever that may be for you.

Yeah. So I think the caffeine one is an interesting one for most people because it's just there's a sometimes a societal or community component to like you go get coffee with a friend or you like to maybe with your partner at home, you're drinking a cup of coffee. So I'm situationally pro caffeine. I think where we get into trouble as a society is like, I think it is the time when we are consuming the caffeine. So we need a caffeine cutoff that's far away enough, you know, basically move it away from bedtime number one. So there's a circadian component that needs to be considered or basically our sleep wake cycle next thing is going to be the total quantity. Right. So if you're drinking a thousand milligrams of caffeine, that's a problem. Yeah. So ideally we're, we're keeping it in, you know, a couple servings. Ideally, you know, there's, there's good evidence from like an exercise science perspective to support the notion that taking caffeine pre workout can actually help not only with training performance, but delayed onset muscle soreness and a host of other, you know, positive sort of attributes from the caffeine. So a little bit, but, but then people will take that Too far right. Like don't have Pre workout at 6, 6pm and try to go to bed at 10pm There's a, there's a dose dependent and sort of time orientation that we need to consider. And so I like, for most people, it's usually around lunchtime that we need to start tapering that down, especially if you have a relatively normal bedtime. So we will see people who will fall into that. Now there's also. It's great for cognition or if you've got some, you know, minor sleep deprivation, a little bit of impairment, whether it's traveling or maybe you've got a newborn at home or something, you know, the situational use is okay. I think where we get into trouble is people just, they're drinking it like more than water all day long and then they wonder why it's not doing anything. So one, monitor the total intake. But to really be mindful of what I call a caffeine cutoff and use that as a way, you'll notice a pronounced improvement in your sleep quality from moving that caffeine consumption further away from bed. Even if you don't think, think it's affecting you, it probably is. If we were to look at a deeper level, there's a subset of the population that's a little bit of a faster metabolizer of caffeine. Those would probably be the only folks that maybe get away with it without a lot of negative effects on sleep quality. Yeah, but most people will see it because caffeine also has a bit of a thermic effect. So it's not just the energy, it's also body temperature. And one of the ways we enhance sleep is we need to keep that cool, dark room, regulate our body temperature, keep our bodies cool. And, and so if you're, you know, also getting super warm or it's starting. That's also the problem with like training in the evening with a ton of caffeine begins to impact us not only from that, you know, nervous system stimulation and acuity and alertness, but it's also what's going on from like a temperature perspective too. So try to definitely cut that back if you can. But I'm definitely someone who's, I'm not like the caffeine, like, you know, someone who's just like complete hater on caffeine. It has its place.

It's.

It's like with, with great power comes great responsibility.

Absolutely. I know I'll definitely be back drinking coffee, I think too. Even a company that, a company that I'm Involved with is called Free Flow Fit Shot. And my, my good friend Jordan DeCicco, he's the founder of Super Coffee which Are you familiar with Super Coffee? Of course, love Super Coffee. We met years ago because I was at home in Virginia at a Wawa and I remember, oh, Super Coffee, like protein coffee. Sounds great, simple concept, love the product, reached out to Jordan and over the years I've had like all the brothers on the podcast a couple times and have become really close with them. And I remember talking to him and we're talking about caffeine intake. He's like, dude, you don't even want to know my caffeine intake. Just like being in the coffee business, you're trying different products, samples like showing the product, doing the whole thing. But they Jordan launched this new product called Free Flow fit shot. It's 75 milligrams of caffeine. L thine prebiotics. Just very like micro dose of caffeine. 75 milligrams for like pre run or you know, not this like overload. And that's been something that I, you know, over the last handful of months I was using prior to a run and that's how I've learned to really, you know, utilize it in terms of like the workout slash run component. So no, it's great there and I love that perspective. I want to talk about the business. So metabolism school, what led to a starting the business and what did that look like in the early days of your entrepreneurial journey?

So I started off around that time that I was trying to figure out a lot of my own health issues. You know, I started off, I was cleaning treadmills at like my university, you know, fitness facility, making like $7.10 an hour doing really basic stuff. Started off as a fitness supervisor, then training, then I was like the coordinator of personal training. And over time what happened is so I was about a decade into alpha business and what's funny is I actually like attempted sort of leaving the industry at one point. Still doing some online coaching. Had gotten my master's degree. Was like trying to, I was trying out some different things. Never really left coaching. It was always either a part time or full time gig for me. It was always like my side hustle to pay the bills when I needed it. And over time, probably around by 2017, 2018, a lot of my clients, a significant portion of my client base were actually coaches. And these are other health professionals. And whether they were hiring me for their own health or they were like using their check ins with Me to basically ask me about their clients.

Yeah.

I was like, huh, there might be something here. And I had always. My sort of reputation that I had developed was because I had this understanding of nutrition and hormones and gut health and, you know, some of the more advanced topics that people didn't learn in their basic certifications. When I really saw this gap of a lot of coaches will go and they get like a textbook certification or they get their PT cert or something with nutrition and they learn about calories and macros, but the actual application after that and more experiential learning or like mentorship has pretty much been lost. So if you look at most trades and actual skilled, like occupations aside from, you know, now we have all these different businesses and technology and entrepreneurship. But let's say you were, you know, like a specific craftsman of some kind. Like hundreds of years ago you would have apprenticed in order to do that. And so it started off as more of this like mentorship apprenticeship concept. And I, you know, you're naturally limited in how many people you can serve in that way. And so I was thinking, okay, we need almost like a modern one to.

One versus one to many.

Yeah. And it's still, you know, at the end of the day, a lot of business still is one to one. And I know Andy talks about that as well, but I needed a forum or like outlet or capacity to be able to serve people. And that's where I realized, okay, so conventional education is kind of antiquated in this regard. We need more of like an online hybrid learning environment. So we need education, but we also need real time client experience. And so what we're doing that's a little bit different is not only are they getting the education platform, but unlike, you know, if you were to go to school for exercise science, very rarely are you interact. Most programs, there's not a lot of like client interaction. There's not case you're not doing, you're learning from a textbook. There's not really case studies. So we've combined it to where, you know, not only are you getting traditional learning or maybe some lectures or knowledge that you actually need, but then you're applying it using not only cases from your own business, if you are a coach, but we're bringing in cases to help you actually learn how to do it. It's almost like, you know, most people, if you're. So let's say you, you go to school, you're, you get a medical degree or you're a physician, you have to do a residency to Me, it was a little crazy that, like, you're responsible for someone's health. Your coach, your trainer, you're a nutritionist, you're a dietitian, but you don't have any type of, like, practical rotation to get exposure to cases. And so metabolism school, basically our nutrition and metabolism specialization program, we're taking coaches, we work with them live, but it's done via, you know, combination of learning management systems, zoom, and also community, where they can interact with other coaches and get exposed to some of these cases. So let's say, like, you know, you had, you know, your food log or testing, or you're prepping for a marathon, or you're changing your training or you're doing whatever. It'd be like, cool. This is Casey. Casey is, you know, working towards this goal. This is what's going on with his health. This is his health history. This is what we're doing with our fitness. This is nutrition. Let's design a program, right? And then how do we make the adjustments and use those different tools and systems? And then part of that is then combining it, giving them resources, telehealth partners, being able to use some of the tools like Merric Health, for example, and then allowing them to really, like, supercharge their coaching practice to provide a lot more value than just the trainer in the gym who's like, oh, cool, good rep, Sally, like, all right, let's do £25 next week. Because there's so much more to, to coaching than that. So that's where that business concept sort of stem from. And being able to provide a base of, you know, educators and instructors who have actually been coaches themselves. So program built for coaches by coaches, but giving them some of the more advanced tools they need in science. But really it originated with just. I was a coach myself. I got to a point where there was a natural progression in my business and I saw an opportunity and it seemed, I was like, wait, this is weird. Like 60, 70% of these people are like hiring me and paying these rates. And they're, you know, yes, we're talking about their nutrition, but they're picking my brain all the time about this other stuff. And so I basically started to pivot, offered, you know, a case study opportunity for people to come into what was like a beta pilot of the program and beginning to offer as more of this, originally more cohort based, so taking in an intake of people. But now we've kind of pivoted from there. So that's kind of the origin story. I recently grabbed like, that metabolism School name and trademarked that and did all the.

I love the name.

So, yeah, try to. Try to think of the concept of, like, what could be more of this, like, modern university school or something we truly need when it comes to nutrition, metabolism, health optimization, that's not being, you know, covered or captured by, you know, social media and even traditional universities and school systems.

Absolutely. I love that organ story. It's like you're so in it, you see the problem and you just. That's. It's such a. I love it. I mean, having so many founders and entrepreneurs on the show, even, you know, speaking about Andy Vercella.

Right.

It's like being in an industry so much. It's like, you know, I don't want to call them me, but you see that. You see the image on social. It's like people are digging and digging and digging. Some people just turn around, but they're so deep into something and just quit. But it's like you discover more opportunities within that. And even for me, really, I started my podcast six years ago and today, specifically this whole article, I did this interview with GoDaddy, and it was about really this domain that I bought listener.com for my new company. And, you know, it was cool reading it because I, for me, I was able to see, like, wow, like, this idea of a podcast stemming from this injury six years ago led to starting a show, which led to my first tech company and, like, raising money and then getting acquired and then, like, going deeper and deeper and deeper into this world of podcasting, like that. Finding an industry, like you said, where, you know, it's something that even if you try to go away from it, you're just going to come back to it once you recognize that. Yeah, like, you just got to keep pushing. And it's so cool to hear that story.

And that was. That was like 2014 for me that I tried. So I'd have been about 10 years ago that I was like, maybe I need to get a real job, or, you know, maybe I need. Or, you know, you have your parents, like, you need medical benefits or whatever. You know, you got whatever family members kind of chirping in your ear. So it was something that I. I was always interested in, I was always passionate about, but I didn't realize the potential. You know, people think like, oh, are you going to be a trainer working on something? It's like, you know, you know, are you going to be a trainer working a supplement store? You're going to do these things, not realizing that the more you cultivate expertise in that arena. You can apply it to larger opportunities and use your knowledge base there. And so that's what led to, you know, I didn't. If you would ask me, five, 10, 15 years ago, like, you're gonna write a book.

No, I.

It wasn't like, oh, even a bucket list thing. You know, we actually just chatted with Seb, who recorded before this interview. And the fact that, you know, some people set out with that, like, very deliberate list of things across off. For me, it was. It's always been more of a progression. It's always felt like more of just an evolution of peeling back these layers and then the more consistent you are, and it's like, I'm really big on, like, one of my core values, like, deliberate, intentional effort. Because without it, like, I think that's where a lot of dreams go to die. And, like, people just kind of, like, fall off. So when you peel back those layers, these new opportunities pop up that you never would have. You know, I met people that allowed me to have an opportunity to even publish a book which, if I would have stopped or if I would have pivoted or gone, you know, too far away from, like, what it was that, like, I was truly passionate about, you know, those opportunities would have never presented themselves. So, yeah, it's really kind of interesting to think about. I know some people's stories or journeys are a little bit different, but for me, it always just felt like when I kept putting, like, one foot in front of the other, it was like I slowly saw the next thing, the next opportunity presented itself. And sometimes you're saying no to certain things on the periphery, but it was just kind of like, take that next logical step. Try this thing iterate, you know, and keep the main thing kind of the main thing and build off of that. And that's what, you know, nutrition and everything has been for me. And what led to all the opportunities with, you know, metabolism made simple and metabolism school.

I love that. So you brought up something that I know we were referencing it a handful of times on throughout the interview, which is Merrick Health. So you guys are partnered with Merric Health?

Yes.

What does that look like? And I know, and again, I've gone through it, have gotten my panels, and it's personally been, like, one of the best things that I've done for my health ever. For people that may not know, I think you do a better job at really diving into it. What is Mary Cald and why are you guys partnered with them?

Yeah, so Merrick Health is our telehealth partner. And we use them primarily for combination of health optimization services. So let's say a coach is working with a client and that client needs hormone replacement or supplementation, hair loss, cognitive support, certain things that are going to be whether it's controlled substances or prescribed. Having a telehealth partner allows us to basically really provide this like 360 all encompassing approach. And so what Merrick really is focused on is combination of, you know, they have optimization, anti aging, longevity, performance, all really encompassed under one roof. And so we have the ability to get access. It's almost like a kid in a candy store when it comes to, I.

Remember when I was going through it, like seeing all the different, you know, verticals and packages that you can select to really get the full panel. But yeah, it's very, as you said, like candy, candy shop.

And it's cool because you could start with something as simple as testing or you could go for a more comprehensive experience, do a consultation with, you know, provider or physician, you know, physician essentially, that is going to be able to tailor essentially certain things that you may need. And they're more health oriented. Like, it's not Western sick care. You have to remember the traditional model in Western medicine is very much based on the insurance model of medicine. It's more, it's more sick care and reactive than it is preventive. So the reason we aligned more so from a core values perspective with Merrick was because we're both, what we're doing with nutrition and lifestyle is, you know, we're very much on the root cause approach to preventive health and looking at things, looking at someone's complete life when making decisions around their health. And so Merrick also shares those values. And what we're able to do is now let's say we have someone who has an autoimmune condition or needs thyroid medication or needs bioidentical hormone replacement or just needs maybe the, the testing that they received from their doctor was not specific enough based on their concerns. Or maybe it's just someone who kind of geeks out on the health stuff like me. And I'm saying, hey, I really want the super advanced lipid panel because my dad had a 98 blockage. And like, yeah, I want to go in the weeds with an expert. That's where that fits. And so for us it's more of this nice arm, like this branch that we're able to take. You know, we obviously work metabolism schools a little bit more business to business working with a lot of health professionals. But giving them tools and the ability to then access some of this. They have a great partner program for coaches. So for people who are health professionals, they have the ability to, there, there are some great tools and resources for coaches that can work with Merrick Health. I'm also like fully bought in now because my girlfriend actually recently started to work with them as well. Now it's like basically like married it. So I'm pretty much, I'm pretty much stuck at this point. That's so great. So more from a personal note, like have that connection there. I originally connected with Steven and a lot of the guys at Mare Cal through. We talked about Mike, the CEO through RT Syndicate with Ed and Andy. And so that really it was just a great forum to be able to meet them in the first place and then understand what they're building. And while there are, you know, other telehealth companies, I think their approach just aligned more. And even my personal journey, and you've obviously spoken with, with Derek as well. It's just having that more comprehensive understanding of physiology, endocrinology, but also looking at like long term risk factors and predispositions and having an array of, you know, whether someone's just trying to lose weight and really, you know, get become the healthiest version of themselves or if someone's already healthy and trying to perform at a higher level or you're an entrepreneur and you feel like you need some extra tools in your arsenal or you're like me and you're pushing, you're getting closer to that red line and you're like, well, I really don't want to, you know, I need to make sure my health's in a good spot. Cross my T's, dot my eyes while I'm pushing really hard in this on season that we talked about earlier, that's really where Merrick fits. So we use them in a couple different capacities. They are a partner of ours for our students, but also they have a lot of other different programs that can be helpful for other, you know, health businesses, gym owners, fitness professionals who are looking to kind of partner on that avenue. And then just for, you know, the listener who's kind of watching or tuning into the show today. It's also a great ability to go beyond like your current experience that you're getting from the average physician and getting someone who's really trained on what optimal health looks like. And if you're someone who holds yourself to a high standard with business or entrepreneurship or your fitness, it's really like get people who are Having that conversation and who are holding that same standard that you hold for your life. Right. Because all too often, if you're already pretty healthy, you go in the doctor's office like, oh, you're fine, you're fine, you're good, you're. There's nothing wrong. Come back in six months, come back in a year. And there are times when it's been detrimental to someone's health and progress because someone didn't take a closer look or they were actually on the vert. Like, if you look at things in terms of more of an optimal range versus just a western range, which based off of largely sick people. And, like, we're so unhealthy as a population, our standards have become so low. You know, you could have a guy who's got testosterone levels of, like, 275, and it's like, yep, oh, you're fine, according to this. And it's like, like. But the person feels like garbage.

Yeah.

And they're. It's impacting their relationships, their work life, their training. Like, there's such a connection with mood and mental health. So instead of holding ourselves to this standard where it's like, looking at these sicker populations, it's also having a conversation of, like, what true health really looks like and finding that and, like you said, individualizing it for that person, which I think is, you know, it's so important right now, especially as the standard gets lower and, like, upwards of 80% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. Most of the people listening to this podcast don't want to be at that place, or, like, they don't want to be held to that standard. These are high achievers who are, like, trying to do their best. Like, we want to be in that smaller percentage, which means we need tighter ranges when it comes to our labs. We need, you know, a much more fine tooth comb. Not just, you're okay, come back in six months. It's like, no, let's have. Let's have a live conversation about this and really dive in and personalize it, which is. That's what I've always done with nutrition and training and helping someone with their stress management, their sleep, their lifestyle. And so it was just natural to. To be able to connect with those guys and be able to offer that opportunity to our students. And, I mean, I even, you know, myself personally, like, you know, I'm a client or patient as well, so it's been helpful to be able to just have an extra set of eyes, too. And, no, it's like, it's like having a spotter in the gym.

Right.

Like, for me, that's their kind of my spotter, which I appreciate and I think they can do that for, you know, a lot of folks as well.

Absolutely. It's. I love how you said that. Where growing up, like even Merrick's the first experience that I've had where it's really that one on one personalization of, you know, go to the doctor, you're someone that takes care of yourself.

Yeah, you're good.

Like, you do your annual physical, whatever it may be great. Like, see you next year, see you in six months. And I feel like a lot of us are just used to that because unless you are aware of the alternatives, like, that's just standard procedure. Like growing up, that's just always been standard procedure for me at least. So it's really unique and cool and hear you speak about it like that as someone that's also has gone through it and is working with a coach at Merrick. It's just, I think it's one of those things where, you know, if you measure, I don't want to say trends, but just like how younger, especially entrepreneurial people think about health. Companies like America are obviously like perfectly prime. When you think about the timing of like the overload on social media, everyone's aware of it, or a lot of people are where it's like you need that special specialization which.

And you can't just be like a random company on social media because there's too many people that it's still. They use a lot of the buzzwords and they use some of the tests, but it's a cookie cutter, right? So it's like everybody gets the same medication, everybody gets the same test, everybody gets the same, you know, nutrition recommendation. Everybody gets the same. It's just same supplements, you know, and they say it's personalized, but it's basically like men, you get this, the supplement and you get this product and like women get this other thing. So be very careful that you're. A lot of things are being marketed right now as more tailored or hey, get this health optimization or there's like conversations around hormone replacement therapy and things become very popular. Telehealth has become more popular. But there's a difference between doing it and, and receiving just the standard. Like everybody gets the same list of and same dose too. Like it's, it's terrifying. Like it's terrifying that people are literally getting things that are these compounded medications that are actually like not even ability to be titrated or, you know, obviously I'm a licensed drugless practitioner, so my thing is, like, I don't script medications, but I have a very enhanced understanding of the implications of pharmacology and also what happens to our physiology when we use some of these exogenous compounds. And that's what's scary for me is just seeing people, like, because these people are very trusting and they're also very gung ho because they, they want to be on the cutting edge, but also realizing that you need people who are doing it kind of the right way or at least are willing to take a multi layered, you know, step by step approach to it or just being able to advocate for yourself and say, hey, like for me, you know, when I was 30, one of the things I was like, I was going to go get a coronary artery calcium score, I wanted some extra lipid screenings and all these different things going through. So that's the cardiovascular side, but also going through what I went through in terms of even like a tbi, the testing that I had to, I had to go to so many different doctors and jump through so many different hoops to be told that like, you're normal, you're fine, whatever. And you're like, dude, I feel like I'm getting sick all the time. Like, it was more of an immune system. You know, I was having issues, getting colds and like frequent. That was impacting my training, my ability to build strength. Like, having that resource can be really helpful, especially for someone who maybe you feel your best right now and you want to sustain that. But there's also people who are really frustrated with the Western medicine paradigm and they want something different. So regardless, like, I think it does fit in this change we're experiencing. I think people are becoming more skeptical. I think this statistic is like 45 to 55% of millennials don't have a primary care physician. And around 45 to 55 somewhere in that it's like 45 of one and then 55 of the other. And that same number also distrusts pharmaceutical companies. Yeah. So who are you going to for your care if you, if you, if half one about of every two in our generation don't trust, you know, physicians or pharmaceutical companies. It's like you still, but you still want an expert. Right. You still need someone to work with. And so that might start for you with your fitness and nutrition. But some people do need that extra layer of support on the medical side, which is, you know, that's where a company like Merrick Fits in.

Yeah. So great. I couldn't agree more. You said something about writing a book, right? You didn't have this plan to go do one. I know you talked about like the past guest on the show. He has this like thought through list. How has writing a book, what was that process for you? I should say, in terms of writing a book and just formulating your thoughts into a consumable, packageable book. I mean, that's, that's something that you know firsthand. Jacqueline, my fiance, seeing her write her book and you know, edit it and go through that process, very strenuous. And it's really, it's a game of patience. And I would love to hear your experience in terms of writing a book and putting it out there.

It has so many parallels. I know this has turned into like the health and fitness episode versus just straight entrepreneurship, but so writing a book, building a business and pursuing fitness or athletics of any kind have such tremendous overlap in the skill set that you build. Like the traits that you have to develop. It is the ultimate test of delayed gratification. So if you've ever experienced delayed gratification in building a business, or you've ever experienced it with fitness or weight loss or getting stronger or building your, you're improving your mile time, there's always like that lagging feedback of, I'm starting to do this, I'm putting in the work, I've changed my habits, I've changed my behaviors. When is the payoff? And with a book, you're literally sitting, staring at this screen, putting stuff from your mind on a piece of paper and the world doesn't even see it for a couple years. Right. There's such a delay. And had I not gone through that same experience with building a business, the entrepreneurial journey fitness, had I not trained myself to be able to take that delayed payoff and understand that there's a tremendous amount of lagging feedback. Yeah, it's a concept that I always teach, whether it's related to fitness and nutrition or if I'm ever talking to other fitness professionals about building a business. It's, you are going to do things now that you will not see the results from. 60 and 90 days, 120 days a year, 18 months, 5 years, 10 years. Like there are things that you're experiencing now that are probably the compound effect of stuff you did years ago. Right. It's like you started early on and now that's paying dividends. You're planting seeds. And so the biggest takeaway I had from writing a book, it Was like this repeated daily practice of, you know, putting, yes, I'm putting these words on paper, but it was like a minimum commitment of I just, you just have to show up, right? It's like not every day are you going to write five pages. Sometimes you're going to strain to write a page paragraph. But it's just maintaining for me what I would do is it had to be first thing you know, I was living in an apartment at the time for the majority of the book. So I'd say about 80 of the book where I was living. I would grab my dog, I would, you know, whether I get a cup of coffee or my water, electrolytes, I would go downstairs and I would sit with him. They had this like little common area and there was like a booth that I'd sit in. I grab him and he would kind of hang out with me and I would just crank as much as I could. And it was like, until like, I wouldn't take meetings, I wouldn't do client related work, I wouldn't do things building my program, I wouldn't post on social media. It was literally, this is the time to work on this. And whether it was an hour, whether it was two hours, regardless, whatever time I could carve out, it was just that repeated commitment of just like going to the gym. And it was very, I think for me, like an enlightening process. But I really started to appreciate the characteristics that being in the fitness industry have like carried over, you know, to this other avenue for myself. Because I wasn't, I wasn't someone that showed up, you know, I didn't come into the industry and say, hey, I'm going to write a nutrition book or I'm going to write a book about metabolism. Again. It was like putting one foot in front of the other, but realizing that what I had done in one arena is going to help me here with writing the book. So I think in terms of the question, the experience itself, it's, it's pretty daunting. Like it's not. People will ask me like, oh, so when are you gonna do your second one? I'm like, are you serious? And that's why I really like, I think it's Steven Pressfield who talks about like the war of art. I don't know if you're familiar with that book or his concept, but it's basically all about like confronting the work. And so as much as people, you know, it's a good sign when people are like, I really liked your first, first book. Are you gonna Write another one. And I'm like, oh, like you're, you take a deep breath and it's like this heavy thing.

Totally.

You know, maybe, you know, maybe I'm kind of, I'm really interested. Obviously things like lifestyle medicine, health optimization are important to me. So I may, if I feel so inclined, like, may do another, you know, brain dump into that as far as, you know, creating, creating a book. But I'd say the biggest takeaways for me is kind of that concept of lagging feedback you're going to do. You have to do the work before the world ever sees it. And then you have this lag time where you are not going to know if it's good or not. Like you are going to agree on what the COVID looks like. I mean, your editors are, yes. You know, your editors are going to say like, oh, fix this, tweak this, do this, do that. You're going to get your cover design back. But the actual purchase, you know, someone making that purchase or leaving an Amazon review or doing whatever, that doesn't happen. Especially not, you know, you're going to be on chapter 17 and you've already written the first 16 chapters and you've had minimal feedback even before it goes to the editor. Right. Like you have to write all of these things. And the way that my process worked was like, you have your first draft, finish your draft, then an editor look at, I'm like, well, how am I doing along the way? Like somebody, you know, you want that like reassurance that you're doing it. And I think that's so true in business. I think it's so true in fitness, it's true in relationships and so true in life. So biggest thing with the book, delayed gratification. You have to trust yourself. And it is kind of this repeated just daily deposits and letting that kind of compound effect. You're going to show up one day, you only have a paragraph, you only have a page. You only got five pages or 10 pages. But if you do that long enough, you're going to look up and there's a 200 page book and it's like you can hold it like in the flesh and it's pretty crazy and becomes a tangible thing. But for me, that's what that process was. I know everyone has a different experience, but for me it was just you have to block the time. You have to create. You know, you have to carve out creative space for deep work and then you just have to be patient. It's a lot of. So like Andy talks about aggressive patience or Gary Vee talks about like, I think it's like micro speed macro patients is like Gary Vee's thing.

Yeah.

I think those concepts are so true. And it was only through going, it was only through like going that. Going into that type of experience, like creating a book, that I learned to appreciate what that actually meant.

Right.

Like you sometimes you hear concepts like, like people post on these. It'll be like, you know, an entrepreneurial page or like something mentorship related to like building a business. Or there's these quotes that circulate or you read something in a book like, oh, that makes sense, but like it doesn't really hit you until you actually do it and you're like, this is what they mean. Like this is what they're talking about. So that was the book experience for me.

I love that it speaks to the, you know, you can hear all these things, but until you go through the process, it's even, you know, someone like David Meltzer, he always says don't pay the dummy tax, which is like, you know, if you can learn from others mistakes, why not? But then in the. On the flip side, I always think as well, it's like there's times and as you just said, exactly what you just said, you see all these things online, whether that's about raising capital or starting a business or finding the right business partner, being in a relationship, whatever it is, and you kind of hear it and hear it and hear it. And you may not like subconsciously, you might not consciously, like take that and say, oh, like this is going to be huge for me. But then as time goes on, at least for me, you, you go through things and you go, oh, like that. This is what I'm supposed to be learning. This is exactly what this meant. And now I'm dealing with it, I'm going through it. And I think too, that kind of, at least for me, you know, like looking around the room and seeing all these books I couldn't recite, like page by page, different things and concepts. But I know if I go through something and I'm a big biography guy, like I'm reading Richard Branson's second biography and. Or no, it's.

It's. You've got some good books.

Yeah, the first one's called Top Left. It's. It's called Losing my Virginity and founder of Virgin. And then the new book is called Finding My Virginity. And it's just all these crazy stories that he went through. And I tend personally and hence why I love Doing the podcast, like, learn through stories. And I think there's so much lessons.

So you would like, like Shoe Dog.

Yeah, I think that's like somewhere, right? Yeah, right behind me.

Probably in there.

Yeah. Books. I was like, I read Traction. That's a good one. Deep. I was just literally talking about carving out time to work. Like, that's how the book got written. So there's so many great books in here. I'm just big. Like, I love frameworks and principles. Like, as much as you talked about stories. Like, when I read a book, I try to think of, like, how does this change my perception of how I think about things? Like, I'm really big on how can I learn from someone else's mistakes or successes, you know, and then apply it in a way to think critically because we're all going to face problems and challenges in our life. It's just how can I take the tools from others and use it and create a framework that I can adopt that then I can repeatedly use that framework to work through life's stuff, you know, that pops up. So it's really cool that I'll have to check out those, those biographies for sure. I haven't read those yet. Okay.

Love it. Sam, last question before we wrap up here. It's such a pleasure having you. If you could go back in time and give your 18, 21 year old self a piece of advice related to fitness but also business, you can answer these separately. What would the, what would that be and why?

Oh, man, they're so different. I don't think I gave myself enough credit on the fitness side, like just appreciating, you know, I always had a pretty good work ethic with my fitness and also that commitment to, to learning more and how it would pay off from a business perspective. So I think for fitness, I think there's something to be said, like it can be a good thing to have a chip on your shoulder. But I think I almost like, didn't, didn't acknowledge the work that I was doing. Now in some ways it's a good thing because I, like, kept my head down and did the things that I needed to do. But I think you do sometimes need to have a level of appreciation for the work that you are doing or that you've done. And even like, dude, I was like, what, 19, 20 years old, competing in like a bodybuilding competition at the time, doing these random things that, you know, it wasn't like a huge. I wasn't at like nationals or the IFBB Pro, you know, league or anything like that. But you know, for a kid who picked up fitness and just even the fact that like I'm setting goals like, like competing, I'm placing, you know, I placed like I think in the top three in that one. So just being able, just being able to understand that it is appreciating the pursuit and the journey because I look back, I'm 35 now.

Okay.

And so, you know, I think as much as I still, I never was doing, I, I never viewed fitness. It was never coming from a place of that. I, you know, had this like self hatred or anything like that. Like, for me it was always an investment. Like I, it was a commitment and I knew that it was a way to improve myself and I was always happy when I would see the result coming from that. But sometimes I don't think I actually reflected as much as I could to learn those lessons earlier on, it takes like now I'm looking back and there's so much more time in the rear view. I have this perspective, but I really didn't do that. And then from a business perspective, I think it's, man, what I tell myself it's, you know, like you, you. I would probably just tell myself that you can do it. But it is, it is going to be hard, it's going to be challenging. But you know, not to abandon those goals. Not to, not to give up. Because it's funny, I think. So Andy actually went on Ed's podcast and he asked, I think they asked a question like, would you do it all over again? And it's sometimes hard to, to think about that.

It's a good question.

Yeah, it is a great question. You know, with the perspective that I have now, I think I've gone through more than I ever expected that I would. But I think I've also accomplished more. I think I, I hit a point in my early 30s where I out achieved what all of my initial goals were. And then you get to this new like blank, blank slate or canvas. So I think I would tell myself from a business perspective that you know, you, you can do it number one, like continue to be consistent. The hard work will pay off. You can probably accomplish more than you think you can. But I might also go back and tell myself to think bigger, you know, because I, I think I'm such a, like blinders on, head down person that I, I need to allow myself to extract myself from the week, the day to day grind and actually be able to not only have that appreciation on the fitness side of what's going on, but achieve a greater level of perspective because there's something to be said with business especially, there's a power in like the type of problem you're solving. But how are you applying your effort? Like, there are certain things that have like a larger total addressable market. Right. There's like, there's something to be said for what opportunity are you pursuing. And I think I got like, so laser focused on certain things that I may have, I may have missed. You know, I may have lacked a perspective there. So it's on the fitness side, I think it would be appreciation for, you know, showing up and doing that work. The business side, I think would be trying to achieve a greater level of perspective, telling myself that I could do it. But. But it's going to be a challenge. It's going to be hard.

Yeah, that's powerful. I really appreciate the, the answers there. And Sam, before we wrap up, where's the best place for everyone to follow you to stay connected with everything that you have going on?

Yeah, of course. So everything related to nutrition, you know, science related content we talked about today. I'm very active on Instagram Ammler Science website for that is samlerscience.com the book we talked about is Metabolism Made simple, which if you guys actually want to check out a free audio version for that, it's FreeNutritionBook.com give you guys the link for.

I'm just going to link everything below.

Yeah. If you want a paperback, like I do have the, the URL for that's metabolismmadesimple.com. if you're more of like, if you're looking like at Casey's library and you're seeing this behind us and you want to get the printed copy, we can, we can link that for the listeners. So Samler Science is my personal brand. The company that we talked about today in the business, that's Metabolism School. So I try to keep that simple. It's Metabolism School on most social media accounts, Instagram and metabolismschool.com I've also. So you said you've done the podcast for six years?

Yeah.

Okay. So I started my podcast fall 2019. It's mostly solo episodes about nutrition, about lifestyle, about fitness and health optimization and some of the topics that again, online, it's like so much misinformation or the good information is not, it's not explained in a way that the person can actually apply it to their own journey. So my podcast, similar Science, I recently started a YouTube channel for that. But Apple podcasts and Spotify is the best place to find, you know, that personal brand, you know, podcast and channel. And I talk about more of the things we discussed today in depth around. Maybe it's a particular topic you're interested in. Maybe it's gut health, maybe it's hormones, maybe it's nutrition, different diet styles, maybe it's cholesterol, like you asked me.

Yeah, yeah.

So that type of stuff is, you know, great if you're into more intermediate to advanced health and fitness content. The book is more of like, like give me the layman's terms way of thinking about, you know, I really want people to break free from like the diet dogma. So, yeah, you know, the subtitle of the book is Making Sense of Nutrition to Transform Metabolic Health, which I think is true. And then metabol, you know, Metabolism Made simple is just getting people to. I don't think we've ever been taught how to think critically about nutrition and lifestyle. We're just told follow this diet, do this exercise program, you know, go do this or cut your calories here or eliminate this food. And But I need, you know, people need to understand the why behind what they're doing and so they can find, you know, that that's the book that we talked about earlier. So similar sciences, personal brand Metabolism School is more for health and fitness professionals. And then Metabolism Made simple is the book which I think if people appreciate more like the conversation today, that's kind of how they get that. So love it.

Well, Sam, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Appreciate it.

And for everyone watching, make sure you, if you don't already, make sure you subscribe. Go check out all of Sam's his stuff social media company. I'll make sure to link it all down below and we'll talk to you in the next episode.