Navy SEAL & Doctor: How to get healthy and fit (as a normal person)

Do we really have an obesity epidemic? Is it really a fat problem? Is all the issues that we are seeing obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, is this all a fat problem? No. It begins in skeletal muscle first decades before.

I view fitness as the same thing where it's a piece of hygiene, like it has to occur, otherwise you're decaying, you're dying.

If you can change fitness from a habit to hygiene, you can do it just as frequently as you brush your teeth.

How long do I spend in the gym? 50 minutes? 5? 0? I am in and out. There's no way I'm spending more than an hour ever.

One of the things that's really, really terrible about getting healthy is that it feels so hard and overwhelming if you're.

Not having fun with it, like you're doing it wrong.

Do you make more money if you're fit than if you're fat?

The reality is you're only ever going to go as high as your physical health and wellness.

Hey guys, Cody Sanchez, back here at the Big Deal podcast. For those who don't just want to be rich, but want to be free. Do what it takes to get there. I love this podcast because I love talking to friends about how they made their millions and helping business owners solve their problems. It's fulfilling. I love sharing all the secrets. But when I can't meet in person, there's only one tool I use. It's called Riverside. Riverside ensures I can talk to someone anywhere in the world. Recorded in 4k so the quality of the video matches the quality of the humans you're listening to. Riverside records separate audio and video tracks so we can easily cut out those awkward interruptions that are my least favorite part of interviews. They have in platform editing software based off a 99% accurate AI transcription. And if that's not simple enough, they take AI one step further for their show notes. It summarizes your entire content into an SEO optimized description and chapters, all automatic. Saves me a ton of money. So you can use Riverside for podcast interviews, panel discussions, presentations, webinars, more and best of all, it's simple. Try Riverside for yourself with link in the description. Use code Cody for an exclusive discount. I get a deal, you get a deal. What to do? If you like me, want to be fit, but sort of hate the entire process. My husband, former Navy SEAL and card carrying member of the six pack club weighs in. We're going to hear from the fittest woman I know, Dr. Gabrielle Line on food, fitness and strength. You're going to want to Listen to this one. If you want to know what humans who have real jobs and don't just work out for a living actually do, this episode is for you. Bring the band in.

Let's go.

So first, let's welcome my husband who hates the fact that I bring up all these details about him and post what he calls titty pics of himself, AKA six pack pics of him without a shirt on. Chris Pekis on the con today.

Hi, thanks for having me. Appreciate being here.

I think we're have you on a pod a bunch of different times to talk about things like AI. Since you do stuff with AI for the Department of Defense, I think we'll also have you on here to talk about relationships and how to not marry new wife and have a happy relationship.

Nice.

Today we're going to do that.

Strong.

But today I want to obsess on one thing, which is, you know, you've helped me completely change my relationship with getting healthy. You always talk to me about how to do it in a way where it integrates into your life and doesn't take over your life. You have this very annoying saying that you always tell me when I don't want to work out, which is, do we want to be good white sharks or do we want to be great white sharks?

Amen.

And I thought I could impart some of your wisdom on others today. So let's like get right into it. I think I know the answer of this, but if you can only use one piece of equipment to get fit, what is it, why and how should we use it?

There's one, like, cop out answer and that's your imagination, quite literally. But I mean, truthfully, right? I mean, you don't need a gym to be fit. You don't need the environment to be fit. You just need to care a little bit. But if there's an actual, like piece of equipment I could take with me, it's a kettlebell. I mean, you don't have to be creative with the exercise. You know, basis for which a lot of people across a long, long time have made fitness. You take them with you everywhere, they're easy to go around. What I've actually done a few times is I've researched a place. Maybe they didn't have a gym close by. Maybe I was there for three or four days, didn't have enough time to hit a proper gym. I've Amazon primed like a 53 pound kettlebell to hotels before people like 10. Sure, yeah, whatever works for you, right? I mean, they come in different denominations, Right. Mostly through kilograms. But I found there it's an incredibly effective tool. You can train every single part of the body. At a certain point, you just keep going and don't put it down. And after 15 minutes, you will hate your life, but you will appreciate yourself.

If somebody doesn't know how to use kettlebells. You are a crazy person about programs and taught me a bunch. Favorite two or three kettlebell programs. Maybe favorite two or three cowbell moves. Because you also taught me, you don't need to know that medium.

Yeah, that's very true. I think that the best programming out there is Eric Lahiya's. Goes by Primal Swolger. Trims here out of Onit atx. He shows how to kind of chain everything together. Right. It's not like you're just doing one exercise for a certain part of your body and isolating you kind of flow through the entirety of it. Right. Because at the end of the day, strength and fitness both rely on your ability to connect the strength of your upper body and lower body through a strong core.

And what about like three movements?

Three movements. I think the tried and true kettlebell swing is a fantastic one. I think the windmill, it's a little bit more of an advanced one, but it really gives you a lot of hip mobility, back mobility, strengthens your shoulder girdle and your core. And then I also love the snatch. Right. It's an explosive full body movement. Explosiveness has really been proven to be an incredibly effective tool for a lot of people.

I taught my mom.

Did you really?

Yeah. Lori killed it. Another thing you talk about that changed my perspective on working out was this idea that habits versus hygiene and how you see fitness will change the entire way you do fitness. Can you talk about that?

Yeah, absolutely. I think habits are something that's associated with a decision that you make to become better at a certain skill. Right. Or something that you want to do less of. Habits are kind of a reinforcement. So your habits around, let's say working out is the fact of going at a certain time or following a program or seeing a coach. Like a whole different means of what all those variables do to encompass that piece of hygiene. Right. Hygiene is the aspect of you will decay or die if you don't do it. Right. If you don't brush your teeth, like you're going to have nasty teeth and it's going to break down. Same thing if you don't wash your body bacteria. I view fitness as the same thing where it's. It's a piece of hygiene. Like, it has to occur. Otherwise you're becoming sedentary, complacent, and you're decaying, you're dying.

So essentially, if you can change fitness from a habit to hygiene, you can do it just as frequently as you brush your teeth.

Absolutely. And it doesn't have to be as complex either, right? You can. It can be as simple as brushing your teeth. 20 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day. Maybe you don't have the amount of time to do it. Many weeks, like on layover, sometimes we will get up and we will walk for the entire hour and a half between it. Like, that's a significant workout still, especially for a lot of Americans who don't get the, you know, required or requisite 10,000 steps in a day.

You know, what I was thinking about the other day is it's overwhelming. You know, all of these different things. We can do fads and workouts. And sometimes I just think I'm not going to do anything because it's too much. And maybe I've already had all of the motivation that I can stomach for the day on work, family, small decisions, and it gets to fitness, and it feels like I'm rung dry and there's nothing left. And so I thought of this idea of what if you could whisper in the ear of a person that you love dearly one thing, that if they were to do it, you think it would have the biggest impact on their fitness and health possible, what would be the one thing you would whisper in their ear?

I'm going to say two things. I think the main one will be about nutrition. If it doesn't occur naturally, don't put it in your mouth. And the other one for really, the aspect of getting fit and maintaining fitness is don't overcomplicate it. We both have a very close friend. She had a really, really big struggle with her ability to get to that point. She chose a program. She finally did it. And after seven months, right, she lost double, maybe triple digits. And her response was, I'm so mad I didn't start earlier because it's not complicated.

I don't think she'd care if we said that publicly. That was Katie McCrary, who's a fit and dear family member. She got at 75 hard. You know, I've become close with Annie Frisella over the past, I don't know, a year, let's call it. And she told me she got on 75 hard. It took forever for her to get there, but once she got on it, she Stuck to the program. She just did what the program said, and her life completely changed. Yeah. And she's kind of never looked back. One thing that you had told me before, too, is sometimes it can be overwhelming, this idea of, is it natural or is it not? But you also said something to me which was, look at the ingredient list of the food that you eat.

Yeah.

And if it has ingredients that you cannot pronounce, doesn't go in your mouth.

Yeah, absolutely. And it leads to a little bit more intuitive eating as well. It's easier to make binary decisions about what to eat and what not to. If you get down to micros and macros all the time, you're in this, like, constant balancing act. Right. Of like. Well, now I have to. To consider, like, seven or eight different variables rather than just like, a very easy, okay, I know about how much I can eat. I know about how much I can burn. I know what quantities I want of each. Now, do I eat it or not? Very simple.

You always tell me that there's one word that really matters in the joke, and if you do this one thing, that it's kind of hard for you to be fat. And I'll let you say what the word is. But I thought about it, because I remember we were in the gym, and Andrew Huberman was in the gym, too. We're all trying to be cool. Cause we're all fans of his podcast. And so we're like, you know, don't look at the really big tattooed guy. Anyway, you're doing your thing, which is a series of wild workout moves that I wouldn't touch. And he comes over to you, and I just saw your head get, like, bigger and bigger by the moment as you, like, winked over at me. And he started asking you about your workout routine. Like, what are you doing? What's this? Interesting, you know, can you show me how? And so I think that lends itself to this idea of, like, simple things can make the complex seem so much more intense. But what would be the one word that describes it? And then how do. How do you actually define that work that changes everything in the gym?

Yeah. By the way, I think I was, like, way cooler in that instance. I don't think that there was any head swelling going on. But I have incredible mad respect for Andrew and what he's done and what he's doing for human physiology and spreading the knowledge around it. The word intensity, I think it has a lot of meanings to it when I look at it in terms of, like, an intention, too. Like, you're not checking your phone. You are strict within your. Your reps and your rest. You're strict within your time under tension. The amount of time that you are actively moving the weight in one direction or the other.

Wait, pause on that.

Yeah.

So like, for instance, you taught me I wasn't seeing really much change in my arms. And as you get older as a woman, sometimes your arms. So, like, it can be a pain point, you know, if you guys have ever seen those, like, turkey arms, it freaks me out.

Yeah, I know. You have great arms.

Yeah. Anyway, those freak me out. I don't want them.

I don't want you to have them either.

Anyway, so you taught me and I was like, God, I'm doing all these bicep curls of movements, but I'm kind of going like, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, two. And to overly simplify for you pros, you're going to laugh at this, but you basically said, you know, on the way up, you want fast twitch on the way up, and then you want like 1, 2, 3. Explain that because that's time under tension. But a lot of people bite that.

Yeah, I mean, you explained it perfectly. I learned it mostly from I follow Marcus Philly programs. I really, really, really like his stuff. He keeps it entertaining, engaging. He hits muscle groups, he keeps the central nervous system guessing, does great priming, great mobility stuff. I really, really recommend his. His stuff.

Wait, can we put a caveat on that? Yeah, Like, Marcus Philly is amazing, but I was overwhelmed when I did his.

So. So fair.

Yeah, you say it's more for like a little bit more pro than a Cody.

No, that was like three years ago. And now he's tailored it to where he has some distinct offerings, where it's like, if you're a top tier CrossFit competitor, you got a program, right? If you're short on time, you have a program. If you're short on equipment, you have a program. I follow his Pillars program, which is like a four day a week lifting that does splits, upper lower or upper push, lower push. That one, I think is very, very accessible for a very large part of the audience, beginner or pro. He has great movement cues as well. He has videos that go along with it. And, you know, form is such an important part of it.

Right.

Never sacrifice form. And time under tension is also, in my mind, part of form. And so I learned a lot of time under tension under him from his tempo count. So your ability to stress the muscles, to put them under tension will increase, you know, muscle definition and size. At least in my experience for me. Right. I'm sure there's studies that say the same or different, but that's what works.

Hi, this is Deetchen Laichman and I am here to tell you toyotathon is on. So stop by your local Toyota dealer.

For incredible year end deals on the.

Cars, trucks and SUVs known for their.

Legendary reliability like the stylish and efficient Camry, the Ready for anything RAV4 or check out a rough and rugged Tacoma.

Or Tundra, all with great financing and.

Lease options available to qualified customers.

Visit buyatoyota.com to find out more. Toyota let's go Places the holidays are all about family, but at the Chrysler Wrap up the Year sales event, it's all about you.

Enjoy every mile in the most awarded.

Minivan in America, the Chrysler Pacifica. With the most standard safety features in its class, Available Stow n Go seating and the available Stow and Vac built in vacuum. Make the most of the holidays with a great deal at the Chrysler Pacifica Wrap up the Year sales event based on Ward's small van segment. Based upon the latest available competitor information, Chrysler is a registered trademark of FCA US llc.

Why does nobody talk about that? Like I've been training with trainers for years and working out, you know, like five days a week for like 15 years and nobody talks about time under attention for us normies. And it's mostly just like reps and weight count.

Yeah, well, I mean like anything else that kind of evolves to the services industry sometimes, right, you're paying somebody else because they've figured out the complexity of something to make it simple for you. So while they might not be prescriptive in their tempo or time under tension, they still a good trainer will ensure that, you know, you're maintaining that burn. But I think these are also just changes that we see across fitness and physiology. Right. Like there's these huge swings back and forth and I think it helps the fact that there's a lot of people studying it and a lot of people who are arguing and debating also the effects of it.

Yeah, I also think like when it comes to intensity, when I see you working out, another thing that's not so scientific or tactical might just be you are drenched by the time you're done working out, like independently, it kind of looks like you were hanging out in a sauna while simultaneously doing a workout. Another thing I learned from you is like if you're not actively sweating during your workout, if you're doing like the Instagram girl workout yeah, those bitches probably are doing bbls. They're not getting their butts from squats. If I could take one other thing away from intensity, it was actually bring it. And if you're not sweating pretty intensely by the end of your workout, that's maybe an easier JV way to measure it.

I think you go even further if you're not sweating when you begin your workout. Like, you're not taking it seriously. Like, if you're not, if your warm up doesn't have a lot of intention behind it and if you're not really paying attention to it. Like, how long do I spend in the gym? 50 minutes? 5. 0? I am in and out. There's no way I'm spending more than an hour ever. That's warm up, workout, cool down, and stretching. Like, you're not there to screw around. You have people say, you know, kind of in the hustle culture, like, 1% better every day. It's like, yeah, like 1% harder every day gets you 1% better every day. So why would I fall below any threshold that I've had before? And that's not saying like, go and over train and be crazy about it, but push yourself to a certain extent, right? Even on those days where I'm not going as hard, right? You're still sweating. You still have significant output. You're otherwise wasting your time and you're regressing.

Let's talk about our Sundays, because you also told me that, which is that Sundays are a recovery day. Talk about what we do on Sundays, how we incorporated that into, you know, both our fitness regime and also our relationship a little bit.

Yeah. I think Sunday for us is like just a major reset day. I think that's the day that we're really good about doing things that give us energy. Because the other six days out of the week, we're kind of giving it out, right? We're kind of doling it out, or it's being taken in a few ways. I mean, you know, not to go through our entire habit, right? We get up, we do a long walk, take the dog with us. When it comes to the fitness part about it, right, like, we sauna, we cold plunge, there's a bunch of different modalities that you can do for recovering. We roll out, we get some movement, like, we create space, we decrease inflammation. And at no point are we trying to raise our heart rate like super high. We're detoxing, right? And I think we're just kind of hitting that reset button that physiologically and mentally really Helps us set like intention for the rest of the week as well. Because if you're constantly just giving and giving and giving and giving, if you start, you know, at a high speed in the mornings, you're probably going to continue on that high speed for the rest of the day. So I think that what drags on into the rest of our week as well.

Yeah. I also think it's nice because sometimes, you know, it feels like everybody's working out all the time, doing these really aggressive things. And you've kind of taught me that rest is just as important as activity.

Oh, it's. Yeah, absolutely. Because you're never over training. You're under recovering.

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, to that point we get up, we do the, you know, coffee with a little bit of mushroom stuff and it's an MCT oil legal.

That's legal. Mushrooms, lion's mane, over the counter.

Right.

I know it's Austin, but still.

Exactly. Yeah. So basically, you know, the kind of hippie dippy coffee, and we go for a long walk, like five miles sometimes with our rock, which I hate. Then we go to the gym, typically, sauna, cold, plunge and roll out, and that's it. And it could be like a two and a half hour evolution or you could take longer if you want to.

I think something that you failed to mention that I think a lot enough people don't do is like create space in their body. Right. Like we do those weird things on the pole that get your spine up and moving around. Right. We kind of like loosen your scapula from the rest of your back and your shoulders. We open up our hips, we kind of like rebalance a lot of the muscles as well. I think that's hugely important because that kind of goes into the like mobility, flexibility thing. You know, I've taken people through that as well. Like taking Khalil through it a few weeks ago. Incredible shape, I think in his late 40s. And he's like, I've. I've never moved into parts of my body like this in my entire life. And I think that's the point of it. Right? Flexibility, mobility, enable longevity. And that's a big proponent of it.

For people that sit at their desks all day. How do you stop back pain and the tech neck slumping over so that you don't have that?

Yeah, I mean, there's posture cues. I do a timer, as you see that I always have 40 minutes. I get up, I go and do something else. There's a lot of different movements that you can do as well to free up your low back, hips and shoulders. Hands behind the head, lean back, opens up your T spine, gets your shoulders. Split squats, right. How many times have I shown you that you're feeling a little twinge one side or the other? You literally do split squats 20 aside, and it quite literally resets your hips.

Anything else?

There's a bunch of stuff, but I think when it comes to those, those are the two big things that will address those portions that hit people most in their. In their bodies.

Okay, how about food? We kind of pay attention to it, but also you're a garbage bin and you eat more than anything anybody I've ever seen before, which is totally fair.

Yeah, I'm a two burrito guy at Chipotle.

Yes, you eat a lot and yet, like, you Never lose your 27 pack that you have. So, like, how do you think? Okay, how do you think about what to eat? What are the parameters that we have around it? And like, what is a core part of how you feed me?

I was lucky that I grew up in a home with, with, with cooks, people who were in the restaurant industry for a little bit. So. And like a Mediterranean diet. So everything was about ingredients, freshness. Those habits kind of continued on in the rest of life because I realized kind of garbage in, left garbage out, what occurred from it. Now when I think about it, journaling and an elimination diet was kind of the basis that got me to this point where I could now make those simple binary decisions by again figuring out the complexities early on. So knowing raw cauliflower and kale gave me a lot of inflammation and they ruined my stomach. Understanding how your body then responds and recovers from the food you eat, like, you journal about it, you a b test it. I mean, there's a lot of different apps out there. There's wearables that enable you to do it as well. But once you figure those fine lines, you just have these categories where you definitively know that these types of proteins, these types of vegetables, these types of starches and carbs are best for me individually. And so for us, I find it easy to do the 80, 20, 80% farm to table, non dilutive ingredients. Right. Or non processed foods. And then kind of 20% of a little bit more of whatever donuts I love. Every two weeks, I probably eat how many? Half a dozen. I order them. I don't let anybody in the office eat one. They're mine. But you get what I'm saying, right? Like, I'm also going to Burn that off. And I think about it in the day, right. Like I'll probably have my higher carb and higher protein meals in the afternoons because you're going to burn off breakfast, you're going to burn off most of lunch. Your dinner is really what's going to decide how like what nutrients repair your body. Studies might show differently, but this is what I found that's intuitively worked for me.

When we first met, I was struggling, I was working too much, my stomach hurt all the time, probably drank too much. And you know, if you guys listening have ever felt like that, you're like, God, I kind of had like these bags under my eyes. You know, you feel like you, you're, you kind of have some stomach issues. I hear that on the Internet. Call this hot girl.

Oh yeah, yeah. You know, you got a hot girl. She got a tummy issue.

And that's so bizarre.

It's correlation highly correlated.

I sort of felt like I looked older back then.

You look way younger seven years later.

This is how we stay married.

I'm serious. And you're. And you're more fit.

What I think a lot of it what surprised me was, you know, you clinched it for me which was that I wasn't getting enough collagen. Talk to them a little bit about like what changed from eating with you and what we eat now. That changed.

Yeah, I mean we are a very animal based diet household heavy on proteins. I try to get a gram per pound a day. I think you probably get a little bit less. We have a little bit more fatty meats. Right. I think there's some stuff out there, especially some studies that have shown the increase. We introduce bone broth into our diets as well, which is like extremely helpful. And then we use highly bioavailable fats and everything that we, that are all of our cooking additives, right. Extra virgin olive oil, we use a lot of duck fat, all of those things. Right. I think bioavailability is a big thing to. Right. That's the transference of nutrients to the body. Right. Because you'll eat some things and you'll get, you know, 5% of it because most of it's trash or it's highly processed where there's others where you have a lot higher capability. So like, like for instance, darker vegetables. Right. We always know that things that are colored on our plates will usually have, will be. Be an indicator of a healthy diet. That's why it's like there's four different shades of potatoes. Try every single one of them. They're going to give you a lot of different benefits each.

You should drop the recipe for them for that steak that you make. Plus the Japanese purple potatoes.

Yeah.

With the truffle oil and asparagus that you make on the side.

When you look at, like, Japanese sweet potatoes. Ube incredibly nutrient dense. Lot of antioxidants in them.

With umami.

With umami. With the seasoning. No, they're great. But it's a. But it's simple, right? Like, it's not complicated. We can do it in a few minutes. Usually, like, come home, turn on the oven, go shower. Oven's ready to pour it all in. You know, it's easy.

You basically stopped my hot girl. Stomach issues with bone broths. With an elimination diet that taught me that I was highly lactose intolerant. Getting rid of a bunch of vegetables that I thought were good for me and adding a lot of dark vegetables instead. And then with getting rid of most processed foods. And so we're not doctors, I don't know. But that at least worked for me.

Also, we found out you were lactose intolerant only after we moved in together.

Thanks for sharing that with the Internet.

Last thing, though, on that, too. Not all vegetables are bad for you the way they're prepared sometimes. Right. They're better if you're. They're cooked for a lot of people. There's the whole ayurvedic science about it. That's an Indian method of. Of eating, which is super cool, too.

Love that. Okay, how about. I want to talk a little bit about. You're prepping for Rim to Rim to rim.

Yeah.

Why don't you tell them what that is, why you're doing it, and what you do at least once a year. Because I think that's cool. And you made me do it, too.

Rim to rim to rim is the starting. It's in the Grand Canyon. You start at the South Kaibab Trail, go to the North Kaibab Trail, and then you come back down two different routes. Bright Angel. It ends up being about 42 miles. All in all, about 11,000ft of elevation gain. So you're starting at the top of one side of the canyon, going into the bottom, and going back to the top, back down and back up. It's an extremely grueling, physically challenging event. And it's one of consequence. And I think that is a key to have these major challenges. Right. You'll hear them popularized, called misogi, kind of the Japanese way of challenging oneself with it being of consequence. Right. There's accountability to it. So I think it's a little bit more all encompassing. Right. You have to be consistent about your preparation, your training and you have to have a lot of intention behind it as well. And I find that I have a lot of self introspection through kind of three different methods. And one of those is doing extremely difficult, highly challenging things of consequence. She's going to the Grand Canyon where there's no service after about the first mile from each side. And what are you gonna do? Have somebody carry you out 5,000 miles in the middle of the night, like through the other side? By the way, this is all done in one period of darkness. So some people do it as fast as 12 hours. Take some people closer to 20 hours.

Yeah. I think we actually first came up with this idea of Masogi's from Jesse. It slur. And you also have me do one of these years. So I went to Mount Baker one year, which I regret and never want to do again. And don't at all feel like I learned only through suffering, but I did in that instance. But I thought it was really cool because as a couple, I'm coming with you on this one. I'm not going to do the full thing. I would have been a shorter hike because I'm not a masochist. But I do think that having some component of doing really hard things, not just individually but together is maybe rare for couples these days.

Absolutely.

But is really special for the two of us. Yeah.

I mean it's similarly in where, you know, we've kind of intertwined work lives a little bit as well too. I think it's great I get to learn how smart and capable and really good at life you are. And I think I see that on the physical side as well. Like you are. What does that have to do with it? Yeah, you are. But like where, like what's, what's the tie in there? Keeping each other honest. It's a key to good relationships. Said no one ever. I mean it's a truth. Right. Like you get to see that your partner can struggle, has struggled, will struggle and they'll make it through themselves. They might not always need to depend on you either. And again, the self introspection, like you learned a lot of different things. You probably had appreciation for all the stupid, tough things that I was, you know, had to do or that I choose to do.

Let's do The Rapid Fire 10 Fitness or health things that you can't live without that other people could really benefit from.

Nutrient dense supplement like AG1, kettlebell weight vest, slam ball, rumble roller recovery device, the assault bike, jump rope. A program. It's going to keep you honest. Metal shout out to Pantera and clean water.

Clean water means not plastic, not, not sitting in plastic and spring.

We could absolutely go down the rabbit hole on that if you want, but.

It'S 60 seconds on water because I know how strongly you feel about this. You have concerns about water contamination and how water is stored. What are like the three to five things that you did that you think other people might want to ponder if they care about their water?

Get your water tested and then from there you can do a comparison on what you want to eliminate from your water sources and what products can do that. We have like a just a very simple under sink filter that takes out the majority of chemicals that are now found in our drinking water. Don't drink from plastic. When I don't have to store things in glass. Keep them away from the sun if they're in plastic. If it doesn't taste right or smell right, don't drink it.

Also disgusting. When I pulled out that filter the other day, water is really dirty. You also put a filter on our showers stuff.

I have, yeah. I mean, anything that touches your skin, right? As much as you can eliminate it, I would.

And they're pretty cheap. Like how much were those filters?

They were, they were pretty reasonable. The one under the sink, I think it wasn't the cheapest. I think it was like maybe like 200 bucks. I put the filters that come every three, four months. Hydroviv is the company highly, highly recommend. And the ones on the shower head and faucets, you can just quite literally screw them on.

It kind of sucks, but apparently we're not dying of toxicity, so. Hey, Win, win, what is on your never do I ever to do list? That's health wise.

Ooh, Ever eat an MRE again? Farmed fish, you know, there's parasites being taken out of them. Seeing what's happening there. Food that's been sitting in plastic or is. Comes packaged in plastic for a long time. Microwave. We do not use the microwave in our household any longer just because it's shown to denature a lot of the nutrients and make things less bioavailable. Right. Overcook things, it's a whole host. Turn the oven on for five minutes at 200 degrees, you'll get there right. Cooking with margarine or processed heavy stuff. No seed oils. I know people will say it's not as bad for you as it can be. But at the end of the day, like, we might as well be optimizing for ourselves vitamins that don't meet a, like, functional nutrient requirement that you have in the body. I've seen people who just go overboard with nutrients and supplements, and at the end of the day, I think it's causing a lot of effects that harmful rather than good. And then putting anything on top of your body that similarly is, like, chemically saturated. Right. Be careful the sunscreen that you use, the moisturizer, even the soap. Right.

Let's talk about some fitness fails so that people don't think that we're good at this all the time.

Yeah.

For instance, tmi, Internet. When I ate only liver and beef, hard bison and weird stuff that you.

Told me to eat in the ancestral blend.

Right. And I was smelly, I smelled bad because of it, which nobody told me was a byproduct. So careful. If you only eat liver and bison and ancestral organ meat, that's one. What other fails have we had that we're like, yeah, that wasn't necessary, or we didn't do it that well.

I was like, big on the oat milk train, like in ALMOND Milk, like 20, 17, 18, like, listening to health and fitness magazine or something. When I started to realize what that was comprised of and how it was made, I removed it quickly. I mean, you know, it's something you can feel day in and day out.

Paul would be happy. Carnivore MD Yeah. And then, like, actually learned a lot from him.

Yeah.

Notes. I mean, I think now because of the stuff that we talked about originally back when he was here more often in Austin, from, you know, the eating the mangoes to the eating the papayas frequently to having lots of beef in the diet, but like a custom, getting accustomed to those space. We're like, that actually all tastes great now. Now he's an animal. We don't go to that degree. It's been really helpful, I think, for both of us.

Yeah, absolutely. And just because something looks healthy doesn't mean it is. If you get chicken and rice and vegetables from, like, Panda Express, I don't know. I wouldn't necessarily trust in the supply chain that got it there. Right. Whereas, you know, kind of get it from your local places, you're probably more than likely going to have a very different outcome on what it does to your body.

Chronic pain is debilitating. And, you know, if you. You have that right now, if you're struggling, struggling, if you feel like there's been no solution for your back pain, or your hip pain. That's where you were for years. You had chronic pain that you had no solution for. You went to doctor after doctor. They wanted you to get surgeries, and you ended up fixing a lot of it. Can you explain what was wrong with you? What did you do to change it? And what might other people learn from that after they've consulted with their.

Yeah, absolutely. So I had a problem, probably starting towards the latter part of my military career. And then it exacerbated low back and hip pain, a lot of it, to the extent where I had a knee injury. And I thought it was an isolated knee injury, not realizing, like, a bad hip and a weak gluten was causing a bad knee injury. Right. What I had started to discover is going to physical therapists and all of them thinking it was a core issue. It was a core issue. I found one because none of them were working. Sitting in a chair, looking at my phone. He walks up to me. He says, don't look up. Don't move. And then he said, pay attention to your body right now. How are you sitting? And I was like, all the way on my right side. Left shoulder jacked up, middle of my spine. Move the other way. That right there is probably causing half of your pain. He's like, so now we're going to start looking at movement patterns and alignment patterns. And I didn't realize. I always thought, I mean, you saw me, I would stretch like crazy trying to get it go away. And it was imbalances and inflammation were the two things that were the biggest problem. And what he had taught me was smash, strengthen, lengthen. So I realized I had weak imbalance. I had weak muscles, which caused a heavy imbalance. Right. Your hip flex, your lower back is not caused. Your back pain is not caused by your back. Most of the time, I found it's caused by weak glutes and too tight of hip flexors. So focusing on these areas and strengthening them, which actually gave them more freedom of movement. Right. When they're weak, they're stiff. So smashing it, Right. That's why I said rumble roller earlier. I always go through that stuff as often as possible. Every single day I roll out, you find the way to isolate those areas on those smaller muscles, which can then relieve all of the connectors around it and then thus give a little bit more relief for those areas and then lengthen. Right? There's flexibility and mobility. And you have to treat them, I think, separately and then so targeting those. Not a joke. I think probably within three weeks, it completely changed. And you remember if I was on a plane for over three hours, I couldn't work out for like two days. I was overdoing it. And then the inflammation piece. Right. I think there's a lot that goes into inflammation, but reducing that at all costs was a significant helper as well.

This episode is brought to you by Netflix from the creator of Homeland. Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys star in the new Netflix series the Beast in Me as ruthless rivals whose shared darkness will set them on a collision course with fatal consequences. The Beast in Me is a riveting psychological cat and mouse story about guilt, justice, and doubt. You will not want to miss this. The Beauty the Beast in Me is now playing only on Netflix.

Ray Ban Meta glasses come with open ear audio so you can listen to your favorite music without blocking out the world around you.

Hey, Meta, Play Gorgeous. Here's Gorgeous by Doja Cat.

You can also ask Meta AI questions.

Hey, Meta, when's Doja Cat's next concert? Doja Cat is playing at the Los Angeles theater next Tuesday.

Sweet Ray Ban Meta Glasses available at Ray Ban stores and other authorized retailers.

You know, one of the things that shocked me the most was I would have lower back pain just from sitting too much. Not even anything crazy like you jumping off of boats and the helicopters and whatever. You would teach me that the pain is often not where you think it is. So if your lower back hurts, it's actually because your quads are too tight. If you're, you know, one side of your lower back hurts, it's actually because you have too tight of it. Bands. And so sort of realizing, like, what area to pull on I thought was interesting. Also, ladies, I think this is a hack for anybody in a relationship. You could tell me if, if you think that this is right or not giving your man, like, a theragun massage on your legs and back, which is like, really not hard because you basically are holding this thing and it's doing all the work for you. Like, how many points do I get for that? I get so many points.

An innumerable amount of points. They're stacked up high.

Yeah. And I also think, like, you've helped me think about how to integrate health into our relationship. So, like, as you can hear, a lot times, I think in my old relationships, it would be like, well, it's. It's us time, so we're gonna go drink or we're gonna go eat somewhere. Yeah. And. Or we're gonna watch tv, which is gonna be more sitting. And you kind of said, wait a second you know, us time can also be us getting fed, us having recovery time. You know, I would never have thought about giving theragun massages to my significant other while we're watching something or. Right now, we stretch in the evening. So, like, next time you're watching a TV show in the evening, Chris watches something called Wrong Wad. Basically, it's just stretching. It's like 15, 10 to 15 minutes. Yeah.

It's now rebranded to pliability.

Whatever. There's a ton of these. You could pick one off of YouTube on the Internet for free. But basically having a stretching program. So instead of you just, like, watching TV with your significant other, trying to get the two of you to stretch at the same time. And so there's a lot of these, like, two. First, that if you're living a life that is real and you have a lot of work going on and you don't have time to do 37 other things, how can you do them simultaneously that blends so that your relationship gets better, so that your body gets healthier and so you have more time as opposed to less time.

Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a few of those that we do. And I mean, like, for everybody out there listening, I think, you know, everybody that we surround ourselves with understands this. But we're up early. We're up at 5:36am most mornings, and then we're charging until 8 to 10 at night. Right. Full energy for most of the day. A few of those things are like you said, like, we can send out emails, we can watch a documentary, we can watch Netflix while we stretch. Taking a phone call either on a long walk or from the sauna every day. Right. Getting in the cold tub. Right. That's fun. Like, little challenges for each other as well. When we meal prep, it's kind of nice, right? Open a bottle of wine, have a glass. We'll cook dinner, but we'll also cook the meals for the rest of the week. Then we kind of enjoy that piece. Right. And I think the slow forms of life that you can do with your significant other that also have health benefits, again, it doesn't take a lot more time. It's just integration.

Yeah. And we both drink. It's not like we don't drink.

Yeah, absolutely.

Really nice, good quality red wine. Typically Old world because there's less happening there than they do in the US with pesticides, et cetera.

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's, you know, pretty clean, as you will, from that era. And my take on that, again, being kind of an intuitive Eater and drinker, I guess, is cortisol, right. Is a huge suppressor of hormones. I run hot. Really easy to. To get, you know, to have a cortisol increase. I find that a glass of wine or a good glass of tequila can kind of maybe get me into that relaxed state. Lower the heart rate a little longer. Shout out to DNAFit. That told me genetically, alcohol has no effect on me.

So, you know, it's so annoying me, on the other hand, they're like, it'd be better if you never did. So I'd like to have a few more glasses. Maybe the last thing I'll say is, like, making this sort of fun. So, you know, one of the things that's really terrible I think about getting healthy is that it feels so hard and overwhelming and we do a lot of things, which I credit to you, to integrate it into the fun zone. So, like, you know, each morning we'll get up, we might go do a cold plunge. But, you know, he'll ask me, you know, will you be my lifeguard? Which is hysterical because it's like this fake Andy supporter named me Steele. And so how can you just have these little ridiculous things where every time, you know, we're at the gym together, we don't work out together because he works out so much harder than I do. You do a ridiculous dance across the gym from me, like, almost every time. And so I love that you don't take fitness so seriously, while taking fitness really intensely. And I think it's beautiful.

Thank you. I'm the light of your life.

Yes, you are.

I mean, it goes back to the cause of it, right? If, like, I want to be good at fitness, you're like, that's like saying, I want to be, like, good at life stuff. I want to be a good professional. It's like, professional what? Like, fit at what? It's like, be a crossfitter, you know, marathon runner, be a cyclist, be a gymnast, combat sport athlete. Like, whatever it is, you do have a little bit of a focus on that, and then the rest of it kind of comes naturally. And similarly, on that front, like, if you're not having fun with it, like, you're doing it wrong.

Next we are going to go to Gabrielle Lyon, one of the fittest women I know. We jokingly, I call her Ant Woman because we've become good friends. And this little tiny, I don't know, 5, 3, 5, 4, saying can throw these huge boulders over her shoulder. We can insert a video here for you if any of you guys want to see that she has a new book out that's incredible. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend. And I think she's the counterbalance, the fact that there's not that many people out there talking about how women should be fit, too. And it's not like anything against the guys. It's just most medicinal scientific studies, as she's taught me, are done on men, not women. And things like intermittent fasting, I didn't even realize, aren't great for women in a lot of instances, especially if you're trying to get pregnant, et cetera. And so I hope you enjoy this conversation with Gabrielle Lyon. She's a total stud, so I want to start with some swingers.

Swingers. Okay, go.

Ready? You know you specialize in high performers, right? You're a high performance doctor to some of the biggest names out there. There's this feeling by a lot of people that, you know, you can't say things about fitness and performance in leadership or business. But I have the question kind of like blankly, do you make more money if you're fit than if you're fat?

I know that's a little bit of controversial statement, but the reality is you're only ever going to go as high as is your physical health and wellness. You talk about business and business as an infrastructure. Your body is the same way. And, you know, you mentioned my patient population. I take care of operators, mavericks, innovators, and some of the best and biggest entrepreneurs. In fact, I've been trying to get you to do your blood work for at least the last nine years. And those individuals at the top, they are fit. They understand that their capacity is dependent on their physicality.

It's really interesting because, you know, I looked at a lot of your book, which is incredible, by the way, that just came out. New York Times bestseller. You don't have platitudes. You know, this is all backed by science. You have a ton of data that's verified. And some of the studies that I really liked that you had posted in varying ways where there are studies about sedentary co workers making less money than those who are more active, just how much you sit, which I thought was interesting. And then you also had some, some quotes about the things that we eat. So it's not just that we need to be fit and exercise, but also you had a line that I loved, which you said, plant protein is not the same as animal protein. And equating animal protein with plant protein is like saying a Lamborghini is the same as A Prius. They're both cars, they both have engines, and they both get you from point A to point B. But when you look under the hood, they're a little different. What do you mean by that?

Yeah, these are really great questions. Now, why does an entrepreneur care about protein and what they eat? At the end of the day, it's their fuel. And in order to perform, you have to know what you're fueling your body with. And this idea of protein, believe it or not, is incredibly controversial. It is shockingly so because I've been studying nutrition for 20 years. Up until seven years ago, I would say as the rise of social media and more influencers, Instagram, etc. Came out, this is when the controversy really, really started. And you get this mouse with a microphone. Now, I say all that to hopefully open the mind of the entrepreneur who's listening because they've clearly heard about animal and plant protein. We actually, surprisingly don't eat for protein. That's like saying we eat for a vitamin pill. What we eat for are the 20 different amino acids, nine of which are essential, and the others our bodies can make. Animal based proteins have high amounts of these essential amino acids which are required by the body, body for performance, for neurotransmitter function, for muscle protein synthesis, all the things an entrepreneur cares about. You would need six cups of quinoa to equal one small chicken breast. And at the end of the day, if you care about numbers, then you have to understand these things are not interchangeable. They are not. And yet we hear over and over again that if we go more plant based, we will be healthier.

What do you think about plant based protein? Would you ever eat it?

I mean, yeah, there's nothing wrong with it. But to say so it's not that there's something wrong with plant based proteins, it's this conversation that they are interchangeable. And from a marketing perspective, whoever controls the marketing controls the market. Would you say that that's true?

Yeah.

Commodities are whole foods. Commodities like beef and milk and corn and soy. Whole foods. From a marketing perspective, if I say beef, do you know the tagline?

It's what's for dinner?

Yes. Yes, ma'.

Am. That nailed it.

Okay, now way not done. Okay, if I say milk, what do.

You say makes the body good?

Okay, close enough, close enough. Milk does the body good. If I say pork, the other white meat.

Oh, right, the other white meat. Okay.

These whole foods are controlled by the usda. The U. They are under this jurisdiction of the usda, meaning that they have very specific rules. All of the farmers, all of the producers pool their money together. Their collective marketing budget is 750 million. All commodities. This includes beef. This includes chicken. This includes dairy. This includes corn, soy, etc. You have processed foods like if I say Impossible Burger or you pick an oat juice or an oat milk or whatever it is, almond milk. These are all processed foods. PepsiCo is one company. Its marketing budget is close to $2 billion. That's one of the processed food companies. They are under a different jurisdiction. They can make claims against these whole foods like beef, like milk, like pork. A fake meat company can say, this is better for the environment, this is better for your health, this is more bioavailable. They can say whatever that they want until they're shut down or they get their hand slapped versus beef. Can never say no, we're a better source of iron. Children need iron. Those children that don't get iron become stunted. They can never say any of those things.

Why can't they say anything?

Because it's just legal.

Interesting.

So the information that we hear is through a funnel of marketing.

Yeah, it's a good point. You know, I was, we can play the clip right now, but I was listening to this clip which was the mayor of New York talking about basically protein and how we need to eat less animal protein. I imagine you have thoughts on that.

The vast majority, majority of food that is contributing to our emission crisis lies in meat and dairy products.

Yeah.

How much less is he talking about? If you look, look at the numbers for women over the age of 65, 40% are deficient in protein or deficient. They're getting below the RDA which is the minimum to prevent deficiencies. The average woman is getting 68 grams of protein, the average man 100 grams of protein. If it were true that we needed to eat less protein, then the question becomes what are we going to fill that with? We're already overweight, obese. I mean it's pretty abysmal our health and wellness status. So what we're going to further reduce our dietary protein. The one macronutrient that is, is absolutely essential. And the needs change as we age. You know, one could argue that we don't have overt protein deficiencies. Okay, so we could say you don't have quashi arcore or you know, etc, some of the things that you see in some third world countries. But I would argue that while we don't have overt protein deficiencies in the immediate, what we do have is low muscle Mass. What we do have is obesity. What we do have is sarcopenia. All of those are, to me, chronic indications of lower protein diets.

You had a really interesting tweet. You said, we don't have an obesity epidemic. We have a low muscle mass epidemic. And you acknowledge that 39 of the US are obese and 30 are overweight. What do you exactly mean by that? And then how do you fix that?

Yeah.

Which is the entire point of the.

Book, which I love. Now let me ask you something. If when you have a business and you ask a question about the business or a problem within the business, this, you expect to find an answer, yes, somebody's fired. You guys are all fired. This, this place is really great and it's going to be empty. If you were to ask a question and you continue to get the wrong answer, would you go back and potentially question if you had framed the problem correctly? Of course, for the last 50 years, we've been asking the question about obesity. How do we fix this obesity epidemic? Nobody's ever asked the question, do we really have an obesity epidemic? Is it really a fat problem? Is all the issues that we are seeing obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, Is this all a fat problem? No. It begins in skeletal muscle. First decades before. Americans are interesting, and maybe all people are interesting, but when you continue to hear something over and over again, for example, obesity, we have to fix this obesity epidemic, we then believe something to be true, even if it's not at the root. It's, it's, it's about unhealthy skeletal muscle.

Yeah, it's so true. You know, we, we do this series called America 2.0, and it's a little depressing after you look at it for a while, but the institutions that we have built in this country have allowed for incredible freedom. But anything that gets a lot of power over a long period of time ends up getting corrupted in some way of way, shape or form. Typically it just seems to be the state of humanity. And, you know, so we talk a lot here about corporations, the Fed, the government. But one of the areas that I think is hugely important is looking at our food system. And so you could say that's partially corporations, and you certainly could say that's partial government over regulation in areas that don't make a ton of sense. But it's interesting because as a human that is every day just trying to figure it out. The average American is just like, you know what? I'd like somebody to love me. I'd like somebody to pay Me and I'd like some fun in life, you know, that's maybe a foot rub. Yeah, maybe a foot rub. And they're just trying to figure it out. And it's hard out there. And so when we get all of this information on what we can do to be healthy, even you know, me, who has some resources and time and not maybe a complete idiot on all areas, it's hard to figure out what the fuck do we actually do. And I think your book answers that without overwhelming it. It's really great if you want to say, but really show me the science. But if you're talking to just a normal human who's like, like what do I do? I mean I have tried to get more protein in my diet and it's hard.

It is hard.

And so what are some like really quick actionable things you can do today even if we're not going to have the muscle of Dr. Gabrielle?

I don't know, you're pretty close. We were doing some push ups right before this. But what you're saying is actually very relevant and things are very confusing. There's a chaos making machine. People don't know what to do even if they have resources. A very simple, easy way to think about nutrition is again prioritize protein. One of the reasons why it's hard to get is because when you eat it, you're not hungry. Because dietary protein, because of these individual amino acids, it kicks off certain mechanisms in the body that it decreases hunger. It you're just able to manage your blood sugar better. You're not all over the place. You're able to think and execute and not sleep under your desk. First meal is most important and that needs to be a high protein meal and that needs to be 30 to 50 grams. That could be a scoop to two scoops of whey protein, something easy. It could be some Greek yogurt, it could be some eggs. It can't be your oatmeal alone, it can't be your fruit smoothie alone. It should not be your donut or pancake, et cetera. It is something that everybody could do. And understanding just hitting that high protein at that first meal is critical. And then the other thing is, let's say you're interested in only two meals, then that last meal before you go to bed. Actionable items, 5 ounces of steak or chicken or fish. It doesn't have to be complicated, but it does have to be executed.

Yeah. So basically moral of the story is like I heard because when you say 5 ounces or 6 ounces. I am like the average American. That's like. The thing is, I don't know what that is. So how do we make this so stupid simple for people? So you're a high performer. You're like, don't eat cereal. Don't eat donuts in the morning. I want you to grab something the size of this or like, what a quick little hack.

A little bigger than the palm of your hand.

Okay.

So palm of your hand would be. Or a card deck. People say that that's around 3 ounces.

Ah.

So a little bit more than that. Easy. Doesn't have to be complicated. The other thing is eliminating chaos. So once you understand what you need to be doing, even if the first time you do it, let's say you track in an app for two weeks or a week, people are busy, Right. They don't want to do that. Do it for a week.

Yeah.

Figure out how you track your money. You track your, I don't know, the speed that you're going and driving. You got to track your calories. You got to track your macro. Just do it for a week.

So you don't do it all the time.

I don't do it at all anymore.

Yeah. Because I got a trainer, and they were like, the thing is, we want you to wake up in the morning, we want you to get on the scale. Then we want you to go to the cold plunge. Then we want you to drink a gallon of water. Then we want you to work out at least six days a week. And then you got to track all your meals. Also be great if you tracked how your sleep went. I'm like, jesus Christ.

No, that is very robust.

Yeah.

And that would be amazing if you could do it. But the reality is, my. My patient population, they do not do that. What they do is I could call Bedros, and I could say, hey, B, what did you have for lunch two weeks ago on a Wednesday? And what time was that lunch? You would know exactly. Because the best of the best limit chaos.

So they just. It's just about repetition.

It's putting in the reps. It's boring. It's putting in the reps. It's understanding once you identify. So what I recommend is 1 gram per pound, ideal body weight. So if I'm 110 pounds, then 110 grams of protein is easy. I'm going to hit that first meal. Let's say I'll hit it with 50 grams of protein and then another 50 bones before I, you know, for dinner. Right. Not right before I Bed, go to bed. But dinner and then maybe I have another smaller protein meal in the middle. Super easy. But you do have to understand how much you are getting because the majority of people will be just based on the data set will be way under eating dietary protein.

So the other thing I thought was interesting about your book is it's not just about looking fit and being hot and finding a partner. Because I do think one of the best ways you know to find a partner in business or in relationships is just, just if you become interesting and exceptional, you find interesting exceptional people. Like networking is not really necessary then because they come to you. Right. You're not struggling with a lack of really interesting friends. No, they come to you and but the, that's not the only reason why it's really important to eat more protein and to lift. In your book, a lot of it is about living longer, right.

And better.

So talk to me a little bit about why you think muscle and thus protein and, and lifting weights are really important for just living a longer, better life.

Well, again, it's all about the quality. What is the outcome that you want? It's great if you're exceptional at business, but if you don't have a framework where you're strong and capable physically, what does that matter? I have never met someone that would, that has said to me I would exchange a successful business for my health. There's not one person, there's not one person that given a dire circumstance would not give up their business to make sure that they are healthy. And before I tell you about muscle and all that stuff, people, the, the entrepreneur will say I don't have to time. If they do not have time for the things that we are talking about, how are they going to have time for being sick? They're not. And all the things that come with it. It is an absolute non negotiable. Now when you think about why skeletal muscle again, this is about becoming antifragile. This is all about America 2.0. This is becoming a better, stronger version. And the only way that there's a very simple formula as to how to do that that is to be strong and physically capable. There are a multitude of ways that we put that input in. But the two primary ways are train hard, nail your diet. 100% of people eat, get the protein in. You don't need to be a carbivore. All of that, all that stuff is distraction. This idea where I can't or it's this last meal and I'm just celebrating. That's all distraction from an ultimate goal. Training hard isn't necessary. You could get into the nuances, and people will say, oh, you could train with lower weights and still get hypertrophy benefits. All that is true from a fundamental perspective. Muscle is current currency you can't buy, you cannot pay for, and you can't bargain for. It's actually currency you have to earn. And the only way to earn that is by instilling habits and becoming a certain type of person. So I would say don't let yourself off the hook. Yeah, you want to go to yoga, Yoga's great. But put yourself in a position where you have to physically challenge yourself. I think for the entrepreneur, that's really important, because an entrepreneur might be like, I don't care that muscle is the organ of longevity. But you do care about having good brain function. You do care about having good immunity. You do care about picking up your kids or your dogs or your car. I mean, you might not pick up your car, but maybe our husbands would pick up their car. But the rest of people may not, but you do care about showing up and being a contribution to society. Skeletal muscle is that you don't want to be sick and have to be a burden to somebody else.

Yeah, 100%. I was kind of giggling. I was at this conference called the Network State and talking to a young man whose entire focus was longevity. And one of the attendees, little in his face and was like. Like, you're talking about. He was talking about, you know, this contraption he was wearing around his neck and all of these scientific procedures he was doing. And looking at the gentleman, he didn't look especially healthy. And so, you know, the guy said, hey, man, do you, like, lift weights, workout? And he was like, no, not really. And he was like, do you, like, eat protein or what? And he said, no, not really. And I kind of giggled because I feel like if you're around a group of traditional tech entrepreneurs, they will tell you until they are blue in the face about their blue blocking light glasses.

It's all about the hack.

Oh, but they won't go throw up a bunch of weight and eat a bunch of protein.

You know, I've thought about this a lot because in today's society, we're looking for quick fixes. It's all about efficiency. But is it what it. What is the cost of that efficiency? There are some things that it's very valuable to be efficient, like grocery shopping and cooking. I mean, okay, but training and putting in the time and actually going through a period of suffering that's valuable. That doesn't need to be efficient. It needs to be effective.

What do you think about Brian Johnson and the fact that he doesn't eat any meat?

An interesting choice. You know what I mean? That's a lot of supplements and a lot of stuff and a lot of lasers.

So you would still say even with all of those additional things you do, you're choosing. No, I'd rather just do animal protein as opposed to.

I mean, because it's not just about the protein. It's about the food matrix. It's about bioavailable iron and zinc, selenium, creatine, carnitine and serine. You shouldn't need to take a million different supplements.

Sense.

We didn't evolve that way.

What about Ozempic? It's great. I'm taking it.

Yeah.

What do you think? I haven't done it because it freaks me out. I don't like anything the pharmaceutical, I mean.

Fair enough, fair enough. I will tell you that now. I did my fellowship in obesity medicine, so I did a fellowship in geriatrics nutritional sciences and I ran an obesity clinic for two years. And part of the research that I did at Washu in St. Louis was all obesity based. One of the things that they did a lot of of, they did a lot of gastric bypass, they did a lot of sleeves. They did not use a ton of these GLP agonists. They did not use Ozempic, semaglutide, triazepatide. They didn't use these things. These medications are more effective than surgery. There is less downtime. Now your original question is, what do I think about it? And then we can talk about the uses of who should be using it. I think there's a place for medication. I think that it's unfortunate that we have the need that we do right. The majority of our population is overweight. We have to do something about it because the downstream effect is catastrophic. We've seen it. The wider the waistline, the lower the brain volume. We need a smart America. We need people smart that are going to show up. So these drugs work. Ozempic is not my favorite. There's too many side effects. I'm much more interested in Mounjurno or Triazepatide. These drugs have also been around for a very long time. Semaglutide, Ozempic has been around, I don't know, 20 years. It's not a new drug. These are not new drugs.

Why are we just hearing about.

Because they are now being able to be Used off label and now they're approved for weight loss, which they weren't. They were approved for diabetics. You know, you hear that it slows gastric emptying, right? That's like the big thing. And, and you hear it has these negative effects on skeletal muscles. The two biggest things that I hear, excuse me, is that it affects gut function. Guess what? It's supposed to, that's what the drug does. It slows gastric empty. I don't think that the medications should be criticized for doing what they're supposed to do. The other flip side of the coin is people will say, well, ozempic affects skeletal muscle, which muscle is the organ of longevity. I have not found a mechanism of action. The reason people lose lean tissue on these medications, which is the other big criticism, is because they are not training and they're not eating dietary protein. It's not hard. Now, what do I think about the utilization of these drugs on people that are, quote, healthy? I would say, well, what is healthy? How are we defining healthy? So we think that it's okay. Anything less than 30 body fat is okay. Is 25 body fat okay? I mean, I think that we're probably too lenient.

What should it be?

It depends on a person. For me, I, I can give you an example. For me and like for your husband, we are genetically leaner, right? So let's say your husband, let's say, hey, Chris, let's say Chris naturally exists at 8% body fat, right? Dude, go punch yourself in the neck. Same with my husband Shane. Yeah, right. You guys can just go play in traffic. But if he were to be 14 body fat or 12 body fat, he'd like have a little extra fat on him. And that might not be so healthy. But we have these strict guidelines where we say, okay, well now you're 30 body fat. Now you're, now you're overweight now, now you have a problem. But what if that person naturally sits at 14? Now is a medication a quick fix? Yes. Is that going to be long lasting if you don't change habits? No. Have I seen these drugs work for individuals with emotional eating, with alcohol, with drinking problems, maybe not alcoholism, but with cravings and desires? Absolutely. Have I ever seen anything work more effectively? No. Now I'm going to throw something else out there. We can prescribe drugs to make individuals less overweight, but testosterone is not FDA approved for women. You can still prescribe it. But it is fascinating to me that anabolics and certain medications that could affect muscle mass aren't legal. To prescribe. I'm not saying that testosterone is one of them, but these other anabolic agents, physicians, you know, for the most part, it has to meet a need. Aren't prescribable.

And why is that?

I don't know.

Government regulation.

Do you think they should be within a knowledgeable physician? Yeah, I think that there are anabolic agents that can affect sarcopenia in a positive way that. That have been used for burn victims that can actually help augment skeletal muscle. Yeah. Versus targeting body fat. Yes, I do.

What about women and getting lean and lifting? Like, there are all of these things that I remember I was told early and used to believe if I eat too much protein and I lift too heavy, I'm going to turn into Hulk.

I mean, I look like the Hulk, right? I mean, let's.

Let's.

What is.

Does Emily call you? I can't remember, but basically I'm telling you Tornado. Yeah, exactly. Well, you're like ant woman. You can lift, like, 4 extra body weight because you do weigh probably 110 pounds. You're the only woman. I would ask that on a podcast, for the record. No, you don't look like that at all. But maybe explain to women, like, how would that happen? Does that really happen?

It doesn't happen. Do you know a woman that is lifting heavy and being bulky?

No. Except if they try really, really hard. Hard. They have to try really hard.

I actually believe that there is this inherent discomfort that we are so culturally indoctrinated that women don't feel comfortable going into the weight room and just throwing around weights. Maybe because it's not what they've done. If you walk into any gym, where do you see the women? Truthfully, maybe not here in Austin, but where do you see the women?

Yeah, the machines.

Exactly. Or the cardio equipment. Where do you see the guys?

Yeah, they're by the weights. Yeah, it's true.

So it may be more of a cultural perspective.

Yeah. Socialization. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I saw a video the other day by Mount Walsh, who I like, but he was talking about a young woman that was really, you know, quite fit and had tattoos and. And his assertion was men want feminine women that are not muscular and with tattoos. You and I both have tattoos and are kind of muscular and. And I don't think either of us have ever had a problem in that regard. But I think it's a disservice that men would push women to this idea of feminine, which is just really thin and not a lot of. Of muscle mass in them at all. But I think we're almost like culturally going back to that. Like, I can feel the murmurings of it. Have you seen that also?

I think, actually, I think we're at a precipice. I think, you know, people will ask about the book. And the book is really. So the book Forever Strong is really about a mission. It's about changing the conversation, understanding that people can be strong and that women can be strong and be capable and feminine and do all the things. I think that the world is ready. The world is ready. That it's not the bro science anymore. It's not the being, you know, jacked with the skinny tank tops. There is going to be a shift to strength. The world's ready for that.

Well, you do a couple things that I thought was really cool. You're a doctor, you're an author, you run businesses. You're also a mom of two. And so when I was FaceTiming you the other day, you know, it was like, what, five in the morning or something? It was early. And your little one was in the gym with you every morning. So maybe talk a little bit about how you integrate being a mom and a parent and physicality.

That is a. It's a good question. I will say that I. I don't make excuses. We don't make excuses. There's a million things that I could have said. I'm not going to go because my daughter's there. We don't have help in the morning. You name it. And there's a lot of parents out there probably listening. You better believe that. My kid gets up, and it's not that I force her to get up. And by the way, I have two little ones. My husband works 100 hours a week. He's up at 4, and he trains before he goes to work.

He's a surgeon, too, not a dummy.

Right? Question. No, I'm just kidding. Just kidding, honey. No, no, no, no, no, no. He's a really smart guy, but he gets up at 4 and he trains before he goes to work. My kids, they work out with us. They work out with me. She comes to work before she goes to school. She comes to work out, and they love it. I would have to say is that habits become very difficult to break.

Break.

When you have habits in your 30s and 40s. If you don't address that, you will spend the next three decades on that hamster wheel of habit breaking. And we've all seen that if you can instill habits early, then those kids don't have to Go through that experience of finding themselves physically, of feeling comfortable in their body, of knowing what to eat. You make it a part of their life, and you eliminate that struggle. There's also a responsibility to a parent. I trained through both pregnancies. I was extremely ill. I carried a barf bucket with me through the first pregnancy. I was sick for 10 months. But the mom creates an epigenetic environment for the child. The healthier and fitter the mother is, the healthier and fitter the child is. So for the moms out there or the people that are becoming parents, it's It. It has to be. You would never want to set up that child in a way where they have to struggle for that. Let them struggle with business, let them struggle with other things. Don't have them struggle physically. Have them. Teach them to push themselves physically, but don't have that. Take that struggle off the table.

Yeah, I've really, I've struggled with this verbiage constantly that says, well, my body's telling me today that I don't want to. Or, you know, I. My body feels like this, and I feel it in Austin a lot because it's a touchy feely land. But there's a lot of people here are really fit. And then there are a lot of people here that I think have been told a bunch of lies. And the lies are that it's. It's actually a giving thing to let your body slip into being overweight, unhealthy, and not something to be proud of, but in fact, you become proud of it because somehow society says that that's okay. And if we look at the math, the numbers just say you're going to live, you're going to live not as long, you're going to make not as much money. Your likelihood to, you know, have disease, and not just longevity, but. But not, you know, comorbidities. Yeah. And, you know, it's not just lifespan, it's health span. Right. Is going to be so much worse. And so I think it's really important that a book like this gets out here and that people talk about it in circles where people aren't obsessed with fitness because everybody in fitness loves you is obsessed with you. But people who are in business, too need to also listen to the same thing.

Yeah. And again, the best entrepreneurs, the best business owners, their house, their. Their physical house, it's in order. And, you know, when you think about this idea of listening to your body, and I might get some pushback on there, but, you know, I'll tell you What? Human beings are totally predictable and the entrepreneur even more so. Late nights, early mornings, pushing themselves hard. I guarantee you you are not going to. I mean, I'll and complain about wanting to train every single morning. I'm not shocked by it. I know tomorrow morning I train at 9am So I train with a bunch of people. We train outside. It's brutal. We're going to be pushing sleds and doing air dynes. You think I want to do that? I already know I'm going to start complaining about it. But does it mean I'm going to do it? I'm still going to do it. Not going to listen to how I feel about it. Okay, fine, if I tore my hamstring or I can barely move. But you have to know yourself. You have to know that you are going to try to talk yourself out of it and not be shocked by it.

Just do it anyway.

You know, the other aspect about entrepreneurship that I have found and seen multiple times, and this doesn't directly relate to the book, but it is something that touch on a little bit in the book. I think that especially entrepreneurs, they fail to recognize this because again, what we're talking about are habits that become incorporated into a livelihood, a way of being. And there's this really fascinating thing that I've seen. So I've been a physician since 2006. I've seen thousands of patients. And you know, as my career progressed, the types of patients that I've seen have now. You know, they are a certain archetype, as high as someone is going to go. So let's say you create a mastermind, you buy a business, you are so amped up, you're working on this launch, this digital product is high at the pinnacle, as high as someone is going to go, that is their point of vulnerability. That is the moment that they are going to look to eat something, look to buy something new, look to whatever, I don't know, porn, Whatever it is that they are vulnerable for. At the peak of a sale, at the peak of their performance is a spot of vulnerability. As high as that individual is going to go, the depth and as low as they are going to go is going to be a mirror. So when an individual is at their pinnacle, as high as that feeling gets is as low as they're going to go. And that is the second place of vulnerability for an entrepreneur. And why as a physician, do I care about that? Because that's where they fall off. Increase stimulant use, increase alcohol, increase. Maybe they buy a new car. Maybe they buy a new house, maybe they cannot. Maybe they become depressed. I see it all the time. The question becomes, how do you not just navigate the physical, but how do you plan for the mental ebbs and flows of these neurotransmitters of just the way in which humans respond? And again, this isn't talking about protein or muscle, but this is the second thing that I always see with an entrepreneur, especially early on in their career, is that if they can step into that high with a little bit more neutrality, they won't be vulnerable to vices. And that's so important because the vices.

Hello, friends. Guess who? That's right.

It is I, the replacer. Once again, I've been called on so you can play the new Call of.

Duty Black Ops 7 with three expansive.

Modes, 18 multiplayer maps, and the tastiest sums gameplay you've ever freaking seen.

Call of Duty Black Ops 7 available now.

Rated M for mature.

Welcome to Walgreens.

Looking for a holiday gift?

Sort of. My cousin Freddy showed up to surprise us.

Oh, sounds like a real nice surprise.

Exactly.

So now I have to get him.

A gift, but I haven't gotten my bonus yet. So if we can make it something really nice but also not break the.

Bank, that'd be perfect.

How about a Keurig for 50 off.

Bingo savings all season? The holiday road is long. We're with you all the way. WalGregreens offer valid November 26th through December 27th. Exclusions apply.

I have two other things I want to talk about. One is you've become my go to. You know, hey, should I worry about this person? I watched this video the other day, which they can show that. Shows that things like. Like even my Lululemon pants contain what's called forever chemicals. You'll have the smart word for it. That can cause hormone disruption and even potentially cancer. How much do we need to worry about these external chemicals as well? Or do we have to worry about them less if we focus on fitness and. And eating the right amount of protein?

That's exactly right. I would say that we. The unfortunate truth is that we live in an environment that's totally polluted. The air that we breathe, the WI Fi, whatever it is, is. It's impossible to control. We have to control what we can, and that is a handful of things. Do I think that we need to worry about forever chemicals? Probably. And we probably have to worry about drinking out of plastic. How much of an impact is that going to make? It will probably impact an individual less if they have other things Straight in their life. Like their training, their nutrition, their detoxification. There's other things. But. Yeah, the world we live in is. Is toxic.

So do I have to throw away my Lululemon pants?

No, I still have mine.

Okay, fine. Good. I like that.

Just wear underwear. You're fine.

Yeah, I do. I always found that weird. Women don't wear underwear. I do too. I'm like, lady, I know what happens down there. That's not good. That's not what we should be doing. The other thing that people are obsessed with right now is seed oils.

Yeah.

And so, you know, my husband's a psychopath, and so he is, like, getting all the stores that don't use seed oils, and that's the only place we order from. And I'm on board, so I'm, you know, great. But what do you think? Like, how if you have a list of, like, what you care about, it seems like it's like, lift heavy, eat enough protein, eat less processed stuff. But where's. Like, where are seed oils and Lululemon?

That is hilarious. I have never thought about that. Because people talk about seed oils collectively.

Right?

How about this? If you're not eating processed foods, you don't have to give a. About seed oil. The reality is, what kind of seed oil are we talking about? Are we talking about canola oil? Are we talking. I mean, you name it.

Yeah.

What kind of. What are we talking about? Do I think it's a huge problem if you are not eating processed foods? Probably not.

What about these guys that all they eat is fruit and meat? Like Paul, who we both know that.

I like.

Like, what's it? Is that the way that we have to go?

I mean, you don't. Nobody has to do anything. And also the body is totally diverse. There are certain eating patterns that are great for. For people. Meat and fruit, I think is great. We eat a ton of that in our house.

House.

But we also eat rice. We also eat potatoes.

Thank God. Okay.

Everything.

I could have a salad.

Yeah.

Okay, good. Because I don't think I could do, like, cheeseburgers and mangoes for breakfast every morning.

I mean. No, probably not. Although my daughter probably could just totally crank that down. What we're going to see is if we can pinpoint what people need. You know, I think the next frontier is the gut microbiome, which has been. People have been talking about a lot. But, you know, as we get better at that, we will see that. That certain individuals do better with certain kinds of diets, and you'll really be Able to pinpoint that.

Yeah, you probably get a lot of hate on the Internet for having some of these controversial takes. What do you think? What do you think the detractors say? So what are the people that are like, I don't think that, you know, muscle mass actually matters with lifting weight. What do they say and what do you say back to them?

So let's let, let, let's talk about where the pushback comes from. Yeah, this is actually very funny. The Pilates community and yoga community get very angry with me.

Oh, interesting.

Which I had no idea that lifting heavy stuff and training was so controversial, but apparently it is. And here's what I would say, that yoga and Pilates are great, but is that going to allow a football player, Navy Seal or anyone else to build an optimal amount of muscle, including you and I? Probably not. And you will hear a lot that that would be adequate. And I would say probably no. Not that it's not good, but is that the primary way that you are going to focus on hypertrophy and strength over time? No, the other thing is individuals. I, I don't think that there is an argument about muscle mass and strength. Right. I think that's something that we can all agree upon. Where there will be some pushback which, which may or may not be so relevant is this idea that the mass doesn't matter. And people will say, well, skeletal muscle mass doesn't matter, it's all strength that matters. But we haven't been directly measuring skeletal muscle mass. We are making statements and we have a huge body of research that doesn't directly measure the tissue. There are now new ways that they are going to be measuring it. It's D3 creatine. It's a tagged creatine. It's a different way which will measure skeletal mass directly and they will begin to see because in these earlier studies they see that mass and strength matter. So that's the other thing, the other thing that people will say is that you don't need animal products. You can get everything you need through plant based proteins. That's absolutely correct. You can get protein equivalents. But again, we are talking about what about protein as a food matrix? Iron, zinc, creatine, all these other things that we need. And as individuals age, they're not eating more, they're eating less. So the food matters.

That's a really good point. Yeah. So basically if I, if I think about it visually, you have like your quinoa. Well, you wouldn't even have that. You'd have a, some sort of synthesized protein that was created that's equal to a chicken breast. But if you were to show a grid in the chicken breasts and a grid in the thing that's synthesized, you're not getting those same.

The metabolomics are different.

Exactly.

The, the metabolomics, the breakdown of the product is totally different. And while the protein content might be the same, the actual again, the metabolites are different.

Definitely not something that's talked about. This is so cool. I'm so excited for you on this book and the next ones you're going to come out.

Thank you for having me.

Let's go to deal of the week. Honestly, I'm a little bit embarrassed about this because this is the one I was epic and I thought about taking it. You know, we all, I think, have those extra couple pounds on us. And I'm over here seeing celebrities go from thick with like four Cs to heroin addicts overnight. So tempting, right? So I thought, what is the numbers behind Ozempic? And I realized that they might actually create the first trillion dollar drug stocks. So the two companies, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, could be trillion dollar drug stocks. The reason why is they have basically a few similar categories of weight loss drugs to Ozempic and they're driving huge revenue for both pharma companies. Now how much this blew my mind. Novo is having the highest record profits of all time, $13.9 billion. And Ozempic alone accounted for like 41% of that, which makes it the fourth highest sold drug of all time. Other pharmaceutical companies could be a threat in the future, but for right now, Eli and Novo appear to be on a path towards a trillion dollars with a couple drugs that apparently make us all skinny. The worst part of think about it is how much does it cost to make? Well, Yale says that Ozempic costs less than than $5 a month to manufacture. And yet we're getting charged $1,000 a month for this drug. While the exact same product can be bought in Canada for $155 a month and $59 a month in Germany. So they want to feed us McDonald's for cheap. So we pay $1,000 a month for drugs, which is insane. Now I think we should be careful with Ozempic for a lot of different reasons. Yet we can't even find doctors who are willing to talk about the potential problems on it. Rachel and I are working on it. We'll report that one person talked about the fact that women have been left out of the demographic research on this. So maybe this is something for us to dive more into. Now, I don't want to spend a ton of time on this, but tell me if you want to hear a whole episode on Ozempic. The reason is because if you do, we want to have a couple different professionals talk about Ozempic. When to use it, when not to use it. Should celebrities be using it as well? Okay, so for our outro today, how about I leave you with Ozempic's hottest hits on pop culture. This is TikTok, where Travis Scott dropped a banger supposedly about his ex, Kylie Jenner, saying she doing Ozempic trying to be different, trying to be a newer woman. Nah, that shit. Look, if he need her sick, he need her to move something iffy. I'm sure he does it better than I do. You can see the video here.

Doing Ozempic trying to be different, trying to be a new woman.

But the moral story is Ozempic is not only pulling profits from Americans like crazy, but also breaking into pop culture just about everywhere we go. All right, that's a wrap. You know that we always bring you the deal, so why don't you seal the deal with us? Subscribe and follow this podcast wherever you are. It's the only thing we ask of you in this place is for you to follow along so other people can hear the word. I just want to tell you thank you for being a builder in a world of consumers. You are a big deal to us, and we'll see you next time. You know that. I got it. No need to look all in a.

Bag, stunning like this.

Because I work so hard, I'm the best. I only speak facts.