You Can’t Instagram Health: Evolving with Chalene Johnson : 623

Because most of those photos, I knew my body fat was so low that it was dangerous. And how I got there had nothing to do with health. It was the least healthy I ever was in my life. And I felt, and I still to this day feel, that we look at people's physiques and we say, #goals, I want to look like that. But we don't know if they're healthy.

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Today's guest is Chalene Johnson. Chalene is a lifestyle and business expert, a motivational speaker, and you might have heard of her podcast— well, her two top-ranked podcasts, The Chalene Show and Build Your Tribe, which have about 1.5 million monthly downloads. She's one of the Huffington Post's top 50 female entrepreneurs to watch. 1 million Facebook followers and 600,000 Instagram followers. And that's kind of interesting, but there's all sorts of Instagram celebrities. This is, in case you're wondering, this is not the cash me outside kind of Instagram celebrity. This is the real deal because it's not Instagram at all. It comes from years and years of being one of the top names. I'm talking Guinness Book of World Records top names in fitness videos and fitness training courses and things like that. And what's interesting and what's the reason we're doing this interview today is that after many years of this, Shalene decided, you know, you can look good and be unhealthy, and this is a problem. So we're going to talk about that today. Shalene, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. It's an honor.

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Now, you just came out with a new concept, which I think maybe angered some of your followers.

Yeah.

Called the 1-3-1 method. And why did you make the change from sort of exercise all the time to something else?

Well, uh, as I say, when we know better, we do better. Um, I ended up in fitness kind of quite by accident. It wasn't my intention. I've always kind of been an entrepreneur, someone who takes a problem I'm having and then, you know, challenges myself to figure it out. And for me, I figured out a way to enjoy fitness. I was really successful in fitness, but I always say not because of my knowledge of health and fitness, but because of my you know, understanding of the people I'm helping. So when I ended up in fitness, quite by accident, there was a big part of me that felt like an imposter, you know? Like, I better say what everyone else is saying.

I've heard this from other fitness experts where you sort of have to say the same thing as the other people, otherwise you're disruptive, you're the bad one, you're wrong.

Yeah.

So you were sort of going through mainstream, but were you getting results from that?

Sure. If you're looking at, you know, physique, right? And so really that's what I knew from being told that that's what's marketable. Like, get as lean as possible, look a certain way. And in order to do that, here's what we're all kind of, we're all saying, not like we had a big meeting, but you know, you just tend to hear like, well, this person has more credibility. This person has been in the industry longer. This is what they're saying, therefore, Who am I to question that? And I didn't question that. And I should have. I'm a really curious person, I'm skeptical, but when it came to health and fitness, I wasn't as curious or skeptical as I should have been. And as a result, I ended up damaging my own health.

That's a pretty big thing. I mean, you went so far as to remove photos of yourself from social media if they had too much skin or sculpted abs. That's kind of a big deal for someone who makes a living off of fitness.

Yeah.

Why did you do that?

Because most of those photos, I knew my body fat was so low that it was dangerous. And how I got there had nothing to do with health. It was the least healthy I ever was in my life. And I felt, and I still to this day feel that we look at people's physiques and we say, hashtag goals, I wanna look like that. But we don't know. If they're healthy.

But you don't want to feel like that is the problem.

Yeah.

So here's a little humble brag. So I'm a former 300-pound computer hacker, right? The most unlikely thing ever to happen in my life was to be in Men's Health and to be in Men's Health with my shirt off. And you and I both know what people do when they're going to be in a shirts-off Men's Health photo.

Yeah.

Your 3 days of fasting, cut the salt, take some diuretics, and you're super lean and ripped. Well, I didn't get the memo that that they were gonna come in and do a shirts-off thing. And if so, I wouldn't have done all that crap anyway. So in the middle of this photo shoot around all this Upgrade Labs stuff, like, "Okay, take your shirt off and stand in this machine." I'm like, "Are you kidding me? I didn't prep for this. Even without diuretics, I could have fasted for a day or something." And they're like, "No, trust us. We'll just give it a shot." So I'm like, "All right, I'll just do it and whatever." But I apparently had enough abs to pull it off. But I just remember thinking, I know the Wolverine look, the look, and it's totally the look of a starved animal. And it's like a tough lean. Okay, like, wow, that's impressive. But I don't think I could maintain looking that way for very long. And I wouldn't want to because I feel like crap. Like my brain would turn off.

That's right. And especially so for women.

Oh yeah, it's even worse.

Certainly there are people genetically speaking who they, you're going to see their abs when they're at 18, even 19, maybe even 20% body fat, some women. But for me personally, based on my genetics, you're not seeing my abs unless I'm below 12%, 13%.

Really, as a woman, that's really shockingly low.

But for most women, to get to a place where you're seeing a six-pack, you know, seeing that— like, because we're comparing ourselves to fit elite fitness competitors, right, right. And in order to get that low, you're going to have amenorrhea, you're going to lose your, your period, you're going to mess up your hormones, that's when brain fog sets in. It's just, and that's not even taking into consideration what are you doing to get there?

So there's a lot of harmful things. And I actually did some of this when I weighed 300 pounds. I was desperate to lose the weight. So I did an hour and a half of exercise, 6 days a week, half weights, half cardio, went on a low-fat, low-calorie diet, and decided after all that time, I still weighed 300 pounds, but I could max out all the machines. And I thought clearly it's because I'm eating too much lettuce. You know what I mean? It's my fault. And maybe that's more common, that line of thinking is more common in women than in men. But I'm like, I'm a capable guy and I don't want to have any more knee surgeries. And it's my most important thing is to lose this weight. And after a while you just feel like you're a total failure. When you were a fitness model though, or not necessarily a model, but you were training people to do that, and you did get your body weight that low, it actually worked. So didn't you have this sort of feeling like, "Yay, I triumphed over my body fat, like I won"?

I didn't, because I knew what it took to get there. So for me, my body fat, you know, I had, you could see my abs, I was happy, I was content. I never had any body issues. Growing up, my mom never dieted in front of us. She never put her body down. She never said, "Oh, I hate this," and grabbed a— So, I had a really positive body image until I started getting into consumer videos. And even still, I had a really— I mean, that was kind of who I was, like the girl who looked more normal than what most fitness folks look like. And I was really happy with how low my body fat was. I was going to film a new project and I got, uh, my husband actually got the phone call from the producer who said, you know, we kind of like you to have a conversation with Shaleen about getting leaner, like really getting ripped for this project. Like get her body fat low because you know, it, it's gonna help make it more marketable. And, um, that was, embarrassing and devastating. And it, of course, you know, it stirred up all of my, like, imposter feelings. Like, I, I'm, I'm not lean enough to be here in this position. And I didn't know what to do because at that point, Dave, I was already— I'd already messed up my metabolism. I was already, you know, you, you start exercising and eating less because you want to get leaner, and then the less you eat, the more you have to exercise, and the more you're exercising the slower your metabolism is getting. So when I got that phone call, I was already working out a minimum of 2 hours a day.

Good God.

And very, very low caloric intake, very, very little fat, you know, sustaining myself on crap protein bars, crap protein drinks, and anything I could find that was low cal and zero fat, you know, like sugar-free Jell-O and just horrible things because it was like, well, it would make me feel full, And so when I got that phone call, I just started crying.

Wow.

And thought, how do I go lower? And the only thing I knew to do was, I guess, exercise more. 'Cause I, you know, it's like, what do I do? So I really started exercising like 3, sometimes 4 hours a day. And I got all the way down to like 11% body fat.

Wow.

And I remember showing up to film and, A cameraman, I haven't mentioned this before publicly, but a cameraman whispered to me like, "Don't worry, we can shoot around your trouble spots." And I remember thinking—

Did you just punch him?

I was like, he gave me this wink like, "I got your back." And I just was like, I wanted to just die.

Did you think you had trouble spots?

No, I was really pissed off. I did wanna get up and punch him in the throat. 'Cause you're like, "What trouble spots?" But then you just start getting in your head, you're like, well, I guess I must have trouble spots.

Wow.

And how do I get rid of them if I feel like I'm gonna die based on what I had to do to get here?

Was this guy doing that to be kind or was he just some kind of misogynist?

I think he's in the industry too. In fact, that cameraman, I've worked with him for a million videos.

He was really trying to be helpful. So he assumed that you just had some deep insecurities about these things that he helped you with.

I guess. And I also remember hearing things like, we know you've had two kids and so, "we'll shoot around your skin." It's like, "Oh, oh, okay." Like, so messed up. Like, yeah, we certainly don't want, we don't want the public to know that you're gonna have loose skin after a baby. Like, crazy, just unrealistic.

You know, I delivered both my own kids, and it's amazing how stretchy the skin on a woman's stomach actually is, and in other areas too. And if it doesn't quite come back the same way afterwards, well, man, if you saw how stretched a pregnant belly is, all right, that's fine. That's normal, right?

Yeah. So it was pretty— I didn't feel happy about getting there. I also knew there's no way I'm staying. I can't stay. I can't maintain this.

Yeah. It'll actually kill you. And even professional competitors, they dip in, they look really good, and then they go off season and eat some carbs already, right? Or some fat or whatever they're lacking. So what happens when you have all these followers and all the pictures of your abs and various other curvy bits? And all of a sudden you're like, I'm changing things, 1-3-1 Method. I'm kind of coming clean about this. What did your followers do?

Well, some of them were relieved and said, thank you. In fact, I got a message this week from a gal who said, you know, I'm not blaming you, but I watched you in those videos and I felt I had to exercise longer. You were saying that we could do this in 30 minutes a day and it wasn't working for me. So then I was doing it at night after my parents went to bed and I was doing it after meals and I became obsessed with it. And then I, and I still wasn't getting great results. So then I stopped eating and I became anorexic and bulimic. And, and Chalene, I've been with you along this journey. When you came clean, that was a relief for me to understand, oh, that wasn't health. And she, you know, she said, I've been following you now on this journey to teach us about nutrition and our bodies and what it truly means to be healthy inside out. And I'm 6 months recovered. You know, it's, it's still a battle. But to me, I just bawled my eyes out when I heard that, because to think that I had that kind of a— you want to help people, but to think that I had that kind of a negative impact on young women was hard because I know I have a response. When you have a platform, you have a responsibility. And I didn't. Own up to it. I didn't, I didn't take it as seriously as I should have, my responsibility. I didn't look into research. I didn't ask, is this safe? I didn't think about what people would be seeing and the message it would be sending. And my own health scare really rocked my world and made me realize this is just a gift and I have to take it much more seriously.

Tell me more about your healthcare.

Well, as a podcaster, I, um, I had Dr. Amen on my show. We were talking about attention deficit disorder, and, uh, I was laughing. I've never been diagnosed with it, and, you know, so after we hung up, he said, let me ask you a few questions. He asked me a few questions. He said, I want you to come in and, and have your brain scanned.

That's such a powerful thing to do. He's been on the show so many times, I can't remember. Yeah. Okay, so what happened in your brain scan?

Well, I was excited. I'm like, oh, they're gonna see a brain they've never seen before. There's going to be all these beautiful colors and they're gonna be like, everybody rush in, we've got a genius, right? And it didn't go like that at all. In fact, during the concentration part, I just, I mean, all of the testing, you know, 'cause you've done it, was really interesting, but I knew I was in over my head. Like, I felt like all of my, everything I was trying to cover up were being exposed. And when he looked at my scan, he just said, listen, I know who you are. "and I know what you do, but you're not healthy." And you need to take action immediately. And I sat there at first thinking, he's reading someone else's, like, do you know who I am? Like, do you know what I do? How is this possible?

That invincible thing, right?

Yeah, and he said, do you have a history of drug use? No. Have you recently done chemotherapy? No. Okay. Because obviously I had concussions. But in addition to that, there was this toxicity in my brain that was all the result of lifestyle.

Yeah.

And to think that I am— I have tens of millions of people have done my workout videos who are looking at me as the person who's going to help them with their health. And I'm sitting there in his office with a failing health score. What does that mean I've done to everyone else whose trust I held in my hands? What does that mean for my kids? Like to think that I'm on the fast path for Alzheimer's and that I, I've done this to my brain and my kids are gonna have to take care of my hygiene. They're gonna lose. I just was, I was so pissed at myself. I was so upset. And in that moment, I didn't care what anyone else was gonna say. I, I, and I went to the people whose trust I had and said, I've messed up and I'm gonna figure this out. And I don't know what it is. I don't know what health is, but I will figure it out. And I'll take you along with me on this journey. I'm not going to be the expert, but I'm going to find them all. I'm going to find them all. And this won't be my plan, this will be us figuring out what you need to do, what each of us needs to do individually to get healthy.

So you got generally good response from your followers. What about your tribe of industry experts? I mean, it's a small group and I know many of probably similar people as you do. There's different, there's like the, functional medicine tribe and there's the celebrity fitness tribe. We're all out there and we overlap. I mean, did you get people who were just like, "Don't tell anyone," or people who were shy to ask you about it? What happened there?

For sure, yeah. I got a lot of people who thought that I was blaming a company or blaming a producer or blaming, you know, like a cameraman, which I wasn't. I certainly made, every decision. No one told me to over-exercise. No one told me to stop eating. They asked me to get lean. No one made me do these things. I did it. No one said, "Don't do the research." I was the person who decided not to. So I got backlash from there, like executive level. And then I got a lot of backlash from people who are in the fitness industry who thought that I was being judgmental or calling what they were doing unhealthy, which, you know, a lot of it is.

I was gonna say, weren't you?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of it is, but you know, when people, there's a lot of money to be made in, there's a lot of money to be made in weight loss, a lot. And when you mess with, when people fear, that they have that scarcity mindset, just fear sets in and it can get ugly.

Oh, it certainly can. Doing the thing with, oh my God, maybe some saturated fat might help your brain, that whole discussion, discourse over the last 8 years of Bulletproof, finally you have to call people out, and when Steve Jobs passed away, I did all this research I know exactly whose diet he'd been on for a long time. And I wrote a blog post about it and I called out a leader in the non-fat movement who has harmed more brains and hormones than almost anyone else I know who's in the pocket of the big food industry that's selling corn syrup and diet whatevers. I called him out. I'm like, "You killed Steve Jobs 10 years before he needed to die." I did not know that. He didn't want to come on my show to talk about it.

I don't know why.

But the bottom line is there's huge money to be made in the diet lie and in the exercise lie. And it's a little bit risky to go out there. I kind of wish that I would have had the opportunity. In fact, I went so far as to say, "Tell you what, I'll just moderate. I'll get someone else in to debate you. Let's put the facts out here." Still nothing. Of course not. The corporate endorsements, you want to put those at risk?

Yeah. You know, and it, it is a risk, right?

Yeah.

I mean, like, even for me, I, um, I have a number one fitness infomercial on TV right now.

Yeah. You're super famous.

Well, thanks. I don't know about that, but, um, I, I had to make a decision. Like, so when you're on top is when you get all the offers.

Mm-hmm.

Right. And it's, it's hard. It's hard from an ego standpoint. And it's hard sometimes, um, knowing that I might be set, like the perception might be confusing. Like, so are you this or are you that? And I'm all those things, but I am evolved and I have to, I have to keep my integrity. And that's not always easy. But if you, if you just stay focused on what you know and what's, what you believe is right and you just keep taking the next right step, those decisions get a little easier. But not everybody understands, you know?

Being authentic is really important. And there are lots of people who make plenty of money by being inauthentic, but their customers usually know it. And when you're really authentic, the kind of customers you get are the kind who send you that letter, the one that you got earlier. And the real, the technical term is asshole customers. They tend to go to your competitors. And that's okay.

Do people really know when the person who they've placed all their faith in is being inauthentic? 'Cause I see people selling this crap because I know they've got big social media followings and they're pretending to drink the stuff or eat the stuff or use this product. And I know they're not. And I'm like, how does anyone? She's got veneers. She's not using that tooth whitening tray. You know, like all these things.

You know, there's always gonna be endorsements that are, you know, just, for money and things like that, you know, corporate celebrity sponsorships. And that's a tried and true thing since the beginning of the PR and publicity industry, which is post-World War II. That started around 1950. In fact, completely side thing, that started with the guy who was related to Sigmund Freud and came over to the US, and he said, well, we can't use the word propaganda because the Nazis ruined that word. Let's use public relations. And this is the guy who got women to start smoking. He branded cigarettes as torches of freedom for women's liberation. And in one year, 10% of women smoked, went up to 50% of women smoked because of one PR action.

Wow.

So these are— that's the kind of thinking that's behind these endorsements. It's manipulation of broad groups of people. And yes, you can do that. But when you're building a personal brand like yours, Shailene, or like mine, I really think that there are people there watching and they listen to every word you say and listen to how you say it. And some people are easy to fool and they'll be taken in by anybody. And there's a great number of people who have learned to have discernment and they just figured out, like, do I believe this person or not? And are they consistent? And do they know what they're talking about? And do they live their values? And do I find gaps? And my experience has been that engagement with people like that is much higher and I get Hundreds of messages, more than I can respond to every day, saying, "This stuff worked." And you do too. I know you do. But I just fundamentally think people are not as dumb as we have thought they are.

Agreed.

And that means they are going to notice. And it might take them a while. And when they do, the fall can be hard. And some people never fall, but I also believe in business karma and regular karma. If it does not bite you in this life, it will bite you in the next one.

Right. Yeah, it is true. It's gotta be rewarding.

You seem like you're agreeing with that. I mean, do you think that people can sniff that out or do you just think that there's enough suckers born every minute sort of thing?

I wanna believe, I feel like the people who I'm speaking to, the people who hear me really have a strong in-tune bullshit meter. And I love those people. And it's discouraging though, when you see people fall for stuff that just, I'm like, you seem so much smarter than that. Pay attention. I think people do. I know we're smarter than that, but I do think fame warps people's perception of integrity. Because this person has a million followers, they must know what they're doing. Because all these people, numbers attract numbers, and it just provides instant credibility for so many.

There's no doubt that one of the recipes for creating influence is social credibility. Lots of people are commending you and things like that. We're wired that way as humans. I don't think that's going to change. But you can abuse that. There's no doubt. And my perspective on this, and I want to see if this checks in with you, is that if you're going to use a million hours of people's time with your content, how many human lifetimes is that? It's several. I did the math once. And based on total downloads, this is going back when the show was much smaller than it is now, I had either done something good or I had killed 60 people because I had used 60 full lifetimes of content consumption.

Yeah, that's one way to look at it.

And you're like, wow, this is kind of— you hit this earlier, so it made me think of it. It's kind of a moral obligation. You better be right if you're reaching millions of people. And to your credit, and the thing that spells authenticity more than anything else is you said, oh, this didn't do what I thought it was going to do. I looked one way, but my health was not okay. So you evolved, what you were saying. And that's the highest thing you can do. And if you had said along the way, "Oh, I know this is all bullshit and I'm just going to sell it anyway," that's a completely different thing. That's sociopathic behavior. And there's internet marketers all over the place who are sociopaths. I was at a conference. Every now and then I go to internet marketing conferences and I give a talk about basically you can't be a dirtbag and do this. I like to make internet marketers cry. I've done it. It makes me happy. But what I heard two guys saying when they didn't know I was kind of in the room behind them is they were recording a little video on their phone. Oh, I do this 'cause I like to make a difference. You know, the standard mission-driven thing. And then they stopped recording like, "Hahaha, I can't believe they're gonna believe that." Like they knew they were lying. And that stuff just pisses me off, but I think people figure that out eventually.

I do too. You know, one thing that was really, important for me, and I wrote it in the book, is that I will never say this is the only way or the best way. I will always preface it from this point forward with, this is the best so far, this is what, what we believe today. Because I realize I have to be really open-minded now to science and open-minded to the fact that we just are learning so much more every single day, and it's exciting. And the worst thing that we can do is be dogmatic about these things, like to, you know, just put a stake in the ground and say, "This is the answer." And people want one simple answer. They want it to be simple. They want nutrition to be simple. They want health to be simple. And it's not. It's not just exercise. It's not just exercise and nutrition. It's so much more.

The idea that you can exercise off the Snickers bar or earn a potato chip on the treadmill.

Yeah.

It's just garbage science. It doesn't work.

Yeah.

But man, I sure believed that it did when I was fat.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I did too.

In your 1-3-1 method, this new take on everything, I would say, you talk about 4 S's. And you have more practice than most humans at taking complex things and teaching them to people and then causing them to take action. So I want you to walk the Bulletproof Radio audience through the 4 S's and why you chose these to help people from all walks of life understand what you're doing.

Well, I chose them, I'll start with that part of the question, because you can take the smartest individual, they can be an engineer, a doctor, lawyer, scientist, but when it comes to nutrition, I kept hearing the same thing over and over and over again, like, "Tell me what to eat. Tell me what to exercise. What do I need to do?" Crazy how much our customer service got overwhelmed with people calling saying, "Can I eat?" Fill in the blank.

Yeah.

Can I drink water? Like, just crazy, ridiculous, non-common sense questions, right? And I just realized, like, people want permission. So if we could just give them a formula to come up with the answer themselves.

Yeah.

You know, and, and so then, then you know the answer, because what my opinion doesn't matter, and, and someone else's opinion doesn't matter. So you've got to take these things into consideration, and you'll have the right, then, then you know the answer that's right for you because we're all so individualistic.

Okay, and the 4 S's you had were science, self, success, and sanity. And it sounds like you're just talking about the self one. Yeah, like it has to work for you. Um, what is the success part of your 4 S's? What does that mean?

So that means you defining what, what does it mean for you to be successful with your health. Because you know what, if you're at a stage in your life where it is about being as lean as possible then you have to look at what you're doing and will that help you reach success? But are you willing to make those sacrifices? And before you say yes, consider your sanity. Is that gonna drive you crazy? Is that gonna drive your spouse crazy? 'Cause if it's gonna drive your spouse crazy and it's gonna drive a wedge in your relationship, is that success, right? Like if your relationships are suffering and the impact that'll have on your health. So all of these things have to be factored in. So can you have a piece of chocolate cake? You know, that you buy from the grocery store, that's just garbage. And look at those questions and are, is it appropriate for you? Can you, is it gonna impact the success that you're after this one piece of cake? Like, is, is it not that big of a deal? And for everybody it's different, right? Like it's understanding that there is no yes or no. It's just the, the answer is it depends.

Right. And just being open to that is particularly important. And I deal with that with my kids. My son Alan was just running in here and we're doing a live interview in person, which is always way more fun. And he's like, "Well, Daddy, can I have this?" The answer is always, "You can." But one of the things that made me really happy is I said they food shamed our housekeeper because she went to McDonald's. And they're like, "We don't eat at McDonald's." And they were in the drive-through and they're like, oh my God, there's such a thing as a drive-through? Can you believe it? You talk to a little voice? They're like 5 years old or something, blown away. And so afterwards I said, all right, kids, here's the deal. People eat what they're going to eat. And sometimes they do it to save money. Sometimes it's convenient. And sometimes just because it tastes good and it's all okay. So I'm going to take you to McDonald's. And inside I'm going, oh, this is terrible. I don't want to eat that stuff. I'm going to feel like crap for a week. But look, you guys are going to get fried pies and you're going to get ice cream and toys and you can go play.

And you did that?

I said, yeah, sure.

This is great.

I said, come on, guys, let's go. And they're like, no. And I said, what do you mean no? You're going to get toys. It's totally worth it. They're 5 and 7. And they said, Daddy, we know how we feel when we eat food that's not good for us. We don't like it when our tummy hurts. We don't want to feel that way. You can take us there, but you can't make us eat.

Oh my gosh. This is great. And every parent needs to hear this. But you know what's so important there? Because my kids are older than yours. They're now 22. You in '19, but they, we never gave them food rules, right? And as I started going through this and they were in high school, I didn't tell them what they could and couldn't eat, but I helped share what I was learning, you know, and let them make that decision. And I think that oftentimes parents, you know, they can go one way or the other. Like they're eating healthy, but they're letting their kids live off of crap and they know it's garbage. So I don't, and you're buying the groceries, so I don't understand that. I don't understand why you're buying poison for your kids.

If I— this is going to sound really bad, but if I was in a situation— and people don't know this, I put auto parts in boxes for 5 years to help pay for my college. I've definitely lived on ramen and microwave pizza for longer than I should have when I was younger. But if I was in a situation with kids and only one of us could eat off the adult menu, it would be my kids. I would eat the crappy chicken fingers and mac and cheese for $3, but I'd really rather not put that in my body either, but I wouldn't give it to my kids.

Isn't that crazy though that parents do that? They're like, you know, they eat separately than their children because they know, well, I wouldn't eat that because, well, it's garbage. Like, I would never dream of eating that, but you're feeding it to your children. But then there's also the opposite, right? Like the parents who just will freak out if their kid has sugar and then they tend to binge. They go to their friends' houses and they go crazy. They're sneaking food, they're hiding food. So I think personally, and every parent is gonna parent their kid the right way, or their way, I should say. But I think for us anyways, it worked best to just educate them and to help them make the right decision because eventually they're gonna be outside of my care and outside of my control. And I need them to make good decisions and be good people.

Exactly. And if they eat some gluten, I mean, I tell my kids, you don't wanna do this, And around gluten we're pretty good because they know that it's not really good for them. And my son, he has the same gene I do for nightshades. And it turns out his school was putting potatoes in the soup they were giving him and he and I are both reactive to those. So he was coming home every night going, "Daddy, my neck really hurts. Can you rub it for me?" So every night for like 3 months before bed I'd rub his neck and finally, this can't be right. He's 8 years old. I was like, "What's going on?" So I did some digging and found out. And so we got him to get soup with no potatoes in it. And the pain went away. I knew, 'cause I had that neck pain my entire life till I was like 35. It was just a normal part of like right to my shoulder blades, all up my neck, just knotted muscles. And it's a genetic thing, right? So we took him off those and it doesn't hurt anymore. And so he goes to restaurants and he's like, "I'm not eating that," because he knows. So just understanding cause and effect. But the story that I was told when I was that age and older was, look, what you eat is just calories and it's how effectively you burn them. And we're just like a little steam engine or something.

Calories in versus calories out.

If you believe that, the conversation I had with him was impossible. And you just deal with the symptoms because clearly if it's not anything other than calories, then it's a moral failing. There's nothing else left. Or maybe you have an infection. And it was that mindset that was most toxic for me, and I didn't want to give that to my kids.

It's like, "Hey, you're in charge." When I started this journey, I was realizing the first thing I had to do was just get rid of all the processed crap, and I had to start fueling my body. I had to start, I had to look at fat, and that's really how I discovered what it is that you do and listened to countless episodes and experts. And you oftentimes would be the person who, would introduce me to people in science. And so I wanna say thank you.

Oh, you're so welcome.

For that.

It's an honor.

I appreciate that.

Absolutely. And, you know, it just also, I think that we're so placated to, like, we're treated like we're just too dumb to figure it out. So here's a meal plan.

People are pretty smart.

Yeah. They're really smart. And, you know, listening to your podcast and realizing like, God, this guy's like really popular and he's not talking down to anyone. Like, this is stuff where you've gotta take copious notes when you're listening to one of your podcasts and look things up. Up and practice pronouncing those words and, you know, and—

I can't believe the number of listeners, like, we get a couple million downloads a month now.

It's crazy.

More than 100 million shows.

Yeah.

But it just shows people are interested in going a little bit beyond the Reader's Digest version, right?

That's right.

Yeah.

So I, you know, I first started like returning to Whole Foods and eating all these unprocessed natural foods. And I was still having like major gut problems. And I'm like, you know, what is going on? I had to keep doing testing and testing and testing before I realized that some of the really healthy foods I was eating were inflammatory for me.

Yes, exactly.

And that to me was like, okay. And we were in the middle of kind of like, how do we teach? How do we get people excited about learning about their bodies? How do we get people excited to do the work and not just say, here's a meal plan? Yeah, right. How do we get people to realize that, you know, this is going to have to be customized and personalized and it's going to change because your gut health is going to change and your, you know, different seasons of your life and stress and all these things, that all, that affects your health. And so you have to, you've got to be nimble and you've got to change things up. How do we do that? And at the time we were creating this like, you know, really exhaustive list of inflammatory foods and anti-inflammatory foods and I just had to say, "Ah, we've gotta put on the brakes because these foods that we're calling inflammatory might not be inflammatory for people." And these foods that we're saying are anti-inflammatory, that might be causing a lot of people inflammation. So, you know, and people, that's hard for people to understand 'cause they're like, "Well, wait." They wanna put you on the stand like, "Wait, I thought you, isn't this inflammatory? So-and-so says this is inflammatory." It's like, again, the answer is it depends.

Yeah, and dose matters too. Kale is one of my favorite things because roughly— you were just with our friend Naveen from Biome, and I've been saying this for many years, it was in my very first diet book, but a lot of people cannot digest the plant defense systems in kale, and they're not lectins, it's oxalic acid, and it causes vulvodynia, which is like really painful crystals that form in the vulva. You really don't want that, and it can cause even autism. They're doing some research around oxalic acid as a trigger for inflammation in the brain that can cause autism-like symptoms, and joints, and kidney stones, and all this. Yet roughly 60% of people probably can digest kale if they don't eat too much or if it's cooked differently. So is kale good or bad?

Right? Well, if you ask my husband, it is salad garnish, you know, it's the stuff they put on the outside of the salad bar. But even I remember when he used to say, "It's horrible. I hate it. Absolutely, it's not good for you." wouldn't say that because it wasn't good for him. And this is at the beginning of my journey. I'm like, you can't say that, that's gonna offend everybody. But now I know. And you mentioned biome, um, you know, it was doing that testing that I discovered a food that was a regular part of my diet, which was, uh, quinoa.

Oh yeah, that stuff wrecks a lot of people.

Yeah. And I had no idea, like, literally I was having it for 2 meals a day.

Yeah.

And I would have never known because that's not anyone's— at the time, it wasn't on anyone's inflammatory list. And so many other things. Cucumber, for me.

Oh, was that the thing that offends you? I find that most people have a cucumber problem. They know they burp from it a lot, so they tend to know. But the concept of lectins, these plant defense systems, it's one of the 4 categories that I put in the Bulletproof Diet. But even then, the number of people who have a problem with nightshades, and grains and legumes is higher than the people who have a problem with, say, cucumbers. So I'm like, I'm going to stack-rank these things. I'm going to put cashews in my bars even though they're a legume because they're heated and they throw away the shell, so few people react to the inside on that. But to go through those and realize not everyone is going to deal with everything the same way, that's the hard part.

Why do people get so angry about that?

You know, it's because they think it's a moral judgment. Oh, right. So if you eat this food, you're bad. And if you're bad, then, you know, they, they just stop thinking. Yeah, right. And it's like, Mom's yelling at me kind of, kind of behavior.

It's like you've attacked their, um, their identity.

Yeah, their character, right? If you're the kind of person who eats that. And I haven't found like a parenting habit that most parents have that makes food such a thing. So I, when I see that, I revert to mitochondrial behaviors. This is the whole Headstrong thing. So if you look at where the most of our energy goes, it's into things that might kill us right now. So that gets, you know, I'm just making up a number, but that's going to get 70% of our attention and we're going to remember negative things 10 times more than positive things because they're things that might have killed us. So that's fear. And that's the first thing is don't die right now. The second thing that everything, even a bacteria, does is don't starve to death. Because throughout all of history, famines have killed every life form over and over and over. So don't get eaten, and then don't forget to eat. Well, okay, if that's the second thing— So in your mind, you look at that little voice in your head, the stuff that Daniel Amen called the automatic negative thoughts. The first ones are, "Will I be kicked out of the tribe?" Because by the way, that's death for most of human history. And is there something threatening? Is that car going to hit me, et cetera? And then what's for lunch? And when you get rid of the fear stuff and you get rid of the food stuff, man, all that's left is, should I have sex with that person?

Procreation.

Right? Okay. And then if you can kind of dim those either by actual procreating or at least getting some, what's left is that fourth F word, which is like friend and community and like form a system and support people. But I think it's the reason— this is a long answer to your question. I think it's because It's the second F word. Right after not being killed right now is eat. And if you tell someone that you're eating the wrong way, you're telling them something about their survival and that triggers all the defensiveness.

It's a little bit like you're saying something about me. I remember that. I remember anytime I, even today, if I post anything about food, people come at you and they wanna tell you, their opinion and the food police jump down your throat and get into word wars. And there are times whenever I say that, I'm like, why does that trigger me? Why does that upset me? Why do I need to prove to that person that they're wrong? I don't. But it still triggers something in me. And I think it's because, are they saying something about me? Are they saying that I'm not intelligent, that I haven't done my research? And so I get it. I understand that people are fiercely protective of their identity, A, and B, what you said about tribe. Like, people love to say, "I am fill in the blank diet." And I just caution people not to do that because once you have labeled yourself as having a particular diet, you know, then it means that you've removed any ability to like, personalize it or to change seasons or to phase your diet, which is a really important piece of the one for one.

You just can't continue evolving. It stops your evolution.

Yeah.

So I was in the car with the kids the other day and something came up in a conversation and my son Alan goes, "Daddy, what's a flexitarian?" And I looked at him and I said, "Someone with no standards." Oh great, you're going to get the letters. Oops. But okay, here's the deal. Oh, I'm vegan. I don't really know why. "But when it's not convenient, I just eat garbage." And you're like, "Good for you." But why you need an identity and a tribe around that, I don't know, because isn't that what most people have been throughout human history? I just eat what's around. I don't know, but putting a name on it makes you feel all good. And I go into restaurants now and I go, "Excuse me, do you have a vegan-free menu?" That's a mind F. 9 out of 10 times, immediately they go, "Oh, we have a—" And then they look at me and they start laughing because they're so tired of this.

I might have to steal that.

You can steal that. But then I'm the guy who goes, "I'm like, look, I don't want any gluten and I don't want canola oil because that stuff is garbage and I don't want any nightshades. So cook my vegetables in butter if you're going to, please, and don't put red pepper flakes on them." And I order exactly what I want. And they used to, 20 years ago, if you did that, they'd get all mad or the chef would come out and, "How dare you?" Now it's like, excuse me, I'm eating for how I'm going to feel and I'd like it to taste good. And I'm going to tip well. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to pay for this. Extra avocado? Sure. $2? You got it, man. But I'm just happy you can do that today because you couldn't before.

And not in all areas. We're pretty lucky where we live, right? You know what, you travel a lot too. There are places where you go and you're like, holy cow, I've got a lot of privilege, health privilege almost, you know, because you go to certain areas and you're like, how are we going to find something that's not processed unless we're going to walk out into the woods?

I was in Alaska fishing with a bunch of friends last week and we went to this restaurant before we went off to the lodge. And I'm like, "I don't know. I'll get this." It was a smoked salmon thing. I said, "Do you have any blueberries? I figure they might grow in Alaska or avocados or something." The guy looks at me and goes, "Look, man, this is a greasy spoon." I'm like, "All right. I'll own that." But you're right. There are food deserts where there's really little you can do. And the one thing that makes me happy though is even in most of those areas, if there's any grocery store, there's grass-fed butter. Kerrygold butter is widely distributed. And for $3, for like a pound of butter, it is one of the cheapest calories out there, on par with rice. So people saying you can't do this, like, look, if I was in college, I'd be doing white rice cooked and cooled to get resistant starch and put some butter on there and have a couple eggs. You can pull that off, unless you're allergic to eggs, in which case you're screwed. But I just feel like there's always a way, but you might be short on veggies. It might not be perfect.

But at least you've got something. But you've got to be educated too, right? Because if you're listening to, common pop culture and what they're telling you is healthy, you just get, it's so confusing. And I do have to say, it's hard for people because they get it from so many different angles and so much of it's conflicting because it is conflicting. It is conflicting.

And I feel like you've done a good job of telling people it's okay that it's conflicting because you have to figure out what works for you. What else, in the 131 Method has pissed off your fitness competitors the most?

Well, probably the first thing was that I told my publisher I wanted to— they're like, "We really want something healthy on the cover." And I said, "Well, I'd like to have chocolate and wine and a salad." And they're like, "Wine on the COVID of a health book?" That's brilliant. And I said, "Yeah, you know why? Because if you know how your body processes it and if you find—" If you do your research and actually understand how wine domestically is made, then you know you probably don't want most domestic wines. And you can find really high-quality spirits that are not gonna mess up your sugar levels and aren't gonna make you feel like you've got hit by a Mack truck. And so, I want a couple things. I wanted people to know, just about anything you want, there's probably a healthy way for you to find it, number 1. Number 2, is no rules. Like, the only rules are your rules. That's what really— and so the other thing that really makes people mad in this book is that I, I don't think there's one exercise program that everybody needs to do. And frankly, a lot of people would have tremendous benefits if they gave their body permission to rest.

Oh, oh my goodness, it's almost like you could start a whole company on recovery. Oh wait, that's Upgrade Labs, but But I was beating the crap out of myself when I was doing that 6 days a week, an hour and a half a day. And I see this a lot in CEOs. I don't know if you do stuff like whether you're working with different types of clients or you do any one-on-one stuff lately, but I don't do a lot of that lately either. But about 3 years ago or up till about 3 years ago, I was still doing one-on-one coaching with people, usually executive types who were saying, "I want to perform better cognitively, physically." These guys would call and like, "Look, I run a hedge fund and I'm doing the Kona Ironman and I want to do it in ketosis and I'm dating 6 women on 4 continents on my airplane." You're just like, "Holy crap, dude. Let me just guess. Your hair is falling out, you can't sleep at night, you can't get it up in the morning and you're getting sick all the time." They're like, "How did you know?" It's called overtraining. Wired and tired, yeah. You need to sleep more. Yeah. And maybe doing a CEO job, which is an enormous amount of work as a company grows. Yes. And, and doing an Ironman at the same time is just a bad idea.

Right. Right. And like, it's okay. Just— but we so celebrate busyness and, you know, just that go, go, go, hustle, hustle mentality. And I was there. I felt incredibly guilty if I slept for 6 hours. That was me being lazy. You know, I was sustaining myself on 4.5, 5 hours of sleep. We're building these companies. And in order for me to exercise and not have it, and to fit in that many hours, as I told you, I had to start early, you know? So I had to wake up every day at 4:30. And I just did. My alarm went off, I got up, and it never, I never thought, boy, it would be healthier for me to sleep in an hour. I always thought I better get up if I wanna be healthy. I better get up no matter how little sleep I've had. And it didn't dawn on me the damage I was doing to my brain and how that isn't health, that, that was abuse, you know? And I would— and people were looking at me and I was sharing my daily routines and, and telling other people to do this. And I was never telling people how many hours I was exercising because I was embarrassed by that. I thought I was broken, you know? And so— and also the marketing behind most my programs is 30 minutes a day, 40-minute workouts. And I— it wasn't that I was lying, I just believed, well, that is true for other people, but I— not for me. I'm broken. Like, my metabolism's messed up.

Wow.

So I never wanted anyone to find that out. It was like a dirty little secret, like, because then they would kick me out of the club. Then I wouldn't be a fitness professional, be like, oh, that imposter.

Yeah, like, if I admit I need more exercise than the next person, knowing it's individual and you really needed more sleep. Wow. Yeah, it's such a trap. Tell me about women and keto in your new book.

Well, you know, I think that it's, it's difficult, especially for women of my age, who we've spent 12, 15 years being convinced that fat means you will get fat. You know, I remember the first episode I listened to of your podcast and hearing about this concept of adding healthy fats. And I'm like, how can fat be healthy? Won't that make you fat? Totally doesn't make sense. And adding butter to your coffee. Are you like— I literally would joke about like, are you kidding me? And oil, you know, now it's breakfast every day, right? Oh, we do our Bulletproof coffee.

That you would even try it. Oh, for sure.

Yeah, we live on it and it's a part of the book. Um, so the first step is helping people to understand what it means How it can help you. And really, for me, it's not just telling people like, here's a lifestyle. It's understanding that there are ranges of keto and there's mild ketosis and there's phasing in and out of ketosis. And for some people, it might be staying there steady. If you're, you know, got some type of cognitive function that you're really trying to heal, it might make sense for you to be deep in ketosis. And for other people, you factor in those 4 S's and You can't stay sane, perhaps, staying in deep ketosis, but maybe to phase in out of mild ketosis. So there isn't a set prescription, but one— so there's 3 phases in the book, and the first phase is I'm teaching people what that feels like. So you can figure out, do you want to be in mild, deep into ketosis? Do you want to do this from time to time? I do, you know, based on what we know today, believe it is incredibly beneficial from every aspect to at least be in a mild state most of the time. And I think a lot of people need to phase out of it. I also think it's really unhealthy for some people because they take it too far.

Yeah, I, I've been giving this talk lately about dirty keto. And again, I have this sign, this idea of like the keto bro. It's like, dude, my ketones are bigger than yours. And it's sort of like saying my blood glucose is higher than yours. That might not be a good thing. So the fact that your body can't process ketones because you're not metabolically flexible, that's why you have high ketones, or because you're taking a bunch of probably not bioidentical ketones. That's pretty much like taking Stinger packs, but those are fat instead of sugar. Stinger packs are like the sugar packs you use on a triathlon to get more sugar in faster. And so I'm just like, the deal is, The levels that matter are 0.3 and 0.5 millimole. Those are the ones that affect hunger, that affect the set point, and I get my levels there just about every day with what I put in my coffee in the morning, and I can use it on a blood stick test and it's usually there. So given that, yeah, you might want to go more, but I'm much happier if I get some carbs. And sure, I'll fast for 2 or 4 days, or I'll go on zero carbs for a little while, But if you want to get stuck there forever, women will break before men. So I love it that you're telling people, like, find the one that works for you and that you're calling it out specifically for women because it kind of scares me when I meet women who are saying, "I've been in ketosis for 8 weeks." I'm like, "How's your sleep? Are your hormone cycles the way they were before?" And they're like, "Actually, come to think of it, I'm not dreaming anymore." You're like, "Yeah, you're kind of not doing well. Do you have a ring to track your sleep?" 'Cause if you do, you're going to notice that it's not working for you. 'Cause the same thing happened to me. It just takes longer for guys. Right.

You know, and one thing that's really frustrating, if I can be honest, is that this teaches people over the course of 12 weeks how to phase their diet, right? In the first phase, we do talk about what it means to be in ketosis, but it's not a keto diet. But statistically speaking, people will only spend about 5 weeks based on our research, 5, 6 weeks of following a plan, and then they fall off. So, you know, the second phase of the 1:1 method is very much plant-based. And the third phase is what I call macrophasing, where you're kind of alternating days. And I will hear people say, "Well, isn't that a keto diet?" I'm like, "I know you only made it to that mark. You made it to that 4-week mark, right?" really important for people to not fear phasing and testing to see what makes them feel their best. You know, I do a, um, a 3-day business conference in Southern California where, you know, it's kind of a one-woman show. I mean, I have other speakers too. Smart Life one? Uh, another one, very similar. It's called Marketing Impact Academy. And, um, I've got to be super focused and I've gotta, you know, I've gotta memorize days and days worth of content and all. And it's always stressful and I never sleep well and I never eat eat well, and I pack all these foods, and, and, um, my feet hurt, my back hurts, and I, I'm an introvert, an outgoing introvert. So, you know, I just feel drained every day.

Works on a 3-day conference. I do one every year with Bulletproof, and oh my God, you're, you're done.

Have you fasted through one?

I have not fasted through one. Did you? Game changer. That's pretty— that's nuts.

And I, I thought, this is kind of crazy, but I'm gonna do it, and I'll bring food just in case. But my husband will tell you, it was insane. It was like I, I had all my synapses firing and my feet didn't hurt and I could take in people and I could be present and I slept well. All of these crazy things. Now, of course, the— it's not an audience of biohackers, so I couldn't really tell them what was going on. I don't think they necessarily understand. They probably think that I was doing it to, you know, look thin or something, but I was doing it for my brain. Yes, I want— and my energy. And a friend of mine, another podcaster, Pat Flynn, I just told him, he's got his first conference coming up, I'm like, "Dude, you gotta fast through it." Wow.

I always tell people that, look, if you're doing something that's really physiologically demanding, that's enough stress, and that fasting is a form of stress, but see, you're fat-adapted, which means you can do it. So I would have no problem, for me, I would probably want to do Bulletproof Coffee just for the extra energy for the neurons to fire, which isn't— it depends. There's this Bulletproof intermittent fasting where you have coffee with zero carbs and zero protein. Your insulin will not move one notch according to some third-party people who did a study on it. So I'm going to count that in the universe of fasting and autophagy still happens, etc. Absolutely. But if you want to do it on a water fast—

No, to be clear, I wasn't doing a water fast. Okay. Oh, okay.

That's what I thought. I was like, okay, so you did— tea and black coffee?

I did Bulletproof. Oh, oh, okay, got it.

So you had the calories to get through, but you were— so you kept your blood sugar okay? Yeah, I was like, okay, yeah, I thought your cortisol was going to go wonky, your blood sugar was going to have to crash.

And that's something I talk about in the book, is that there are different levels of fasting. Yes, right.

Like, I mean, if it's a fat fast, basically, basically, yeah.

In fact, that's what I call it. Okay. Um, and you look at like even the stuff that Dr. Longo is doing, where his people are, you know, they're actually eating food and food with some carbohydrates in it too.

It was funny. I've been— I'm married to a Carolyn Scott trained doctor. She's wonderful. And she does a lot of the biohacking stuff, but she doesn't do everything. And she's just never been that attracted to fasting. But over the last 6 months she's like, "I'm just going to do more other than just intermittent fasting," which she likes. So 2 weeks ago, she decided when I was on a trip, she was going to do a 4-day water fast. Well, she would do matcha and coffee, but without oil in it, other than maybe a little Brain Octane the first day. So she's doing this, and then I come home and she says, "I totally did 4 days. I feel so amazing. I kept the fat in the right areas and went away from the inflammation. I'm really liking this. I can't believe I haven't done this before." And then the kids look at her and say, "Mommy, you had half a bite of ice cream on your third day.

You were on an ice cream fast." Busted.

The joys of kids.

But you know, even with the fasting, I make a really important, I talk about the different types of fasts, A, B, you have to prepare your body. You have to get it ready. People hear us talking about this and they'll be like, "Oh, well, I'm gonna try that." Big.

Yeah, do a one-day fast first, right?

Yeah, there's, you know, learn to get fat adapted first and then it's a breeze, then there's nothing difficult about it, number one. And number two is not all populations are safe to fast, and especially those who are, um, they have a propensity or they lean towards obsession.

Yeah, it can become super unhealthy. And my point with a little scoop of— or not scoop, a little bite of ice cream— is that it didn't affect her fast at all because it's like Walter Longo's stuff. Where you don't have to be so perfect. A lot of people were accusing Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter. He was like, "Look, I'm doing OMAD, one meal a day." Jack and I have tweeted about Bulletproof Coffee going back for years and all. I was so amazed the first time. I'm like, "Oh, this is amazing." I just had a chance to email him recently about it. But in the press, they're like, "This CEO is only eating one meal a day. He's starving himself. He has an eating disorder." I'm like, "I'm kind of sure the guy's CEO of two companies and he's kicking your ass and he's doing what works for him and he feels good." When some business press person throws around eating disorder things like that, there are the people who will fast to obsession. There are orthorexic people out there. There are also people who found out what works for them. And if they're healthy and they're doing well and they feel good. Yes, yes.

And there are people who are eating 6 times a day, as I was, and destroying my health. And of those 6 times I was eating per day, none of it had any nutrient density, right? And so, you know, we just can't judge other people based on how often they're eating. You really have to look at what are you doing? It's a lifestyle where— and all of us need to factor in far more than— and that's my mission. My mission is to teach people that health is not something that is easily photographed on Instagram.

So if you were using the 1-3-1 method line of thinking and you were to look at someone like Jack Dorsey, for instance, how would you know whether that is, you know, a healthy— like, I'm following the 4 S's, I'm science, etc. Versus this is one of those people who fasting is unhealthy, their population tends to get obsessed. How would you know and how would someone listening to the show know? Am I one of those obsessive people or am I a healthy person?

I think personally when it becomes all-consuming, it's all you can think about, if you're not doing it exactly, you feel like you failed, you're obsessing about it, it's controlling your thoughts, your behaviors, decisions, time with family, you, you are missing out on things, it, it's taking over your life, then yeah, I mean, we're talking about an obsession. And that can be both healthy and unhealthy. You know, orthorexia is a real thing, you know, and, and it can very easily slip into disordered eating. But what is disordered eating too, right?

Like 6 meals a day and lots of carbs, right? Yeah.

So like, that's a term I, I I take issue with because it's like, well, who's setting the order?

Who defines order, right? Oh, I know, the government grain pyramid. I'm sorry, food pyramid. I named it wrong. Or my favorite, the British Diabetics— I'm sorry, they call themselves Dietetic Society, but they cause diabetes with their recommendations. Perfect. They should be called the British Diabetic Society. I don't know why they're named wrong. But these are the people out there still in the face of mountains of evidence telling you and me and everyone listening to do the crap that broke your health and made me weigh 300 pounds. Yeah. And they don't even feel guilt about it. I don't understand that.

No. And, and, you know, so many of our chronic diseases, if we would just realize we could fix it with, with food, start with food, but it's deeper than that.

Yeah, just put down the fork for 8 hours and see what happens.

Oh my God. Like, when, you know, all these things I would go to the doctor for, I never had a doctor ask me how much sleep I was getting. I never had a doctor ask me what my stress level was or what I was eating.

Never. And that is something that I feel is changing. The functional medicine doctors, they're coming out. You have to find the right one.

Right, but it's not covered by insurance. So it's such a— health is a white privilege.

That's a big statement. I mean, I know lots of people aren't white who totally own themselves. I mean, you go to the Bulletproof Conference. That is not a white conference, right?

But what I'm saying is you— we have to recognize that there is a health privilege and it comes with money. It is difficult. It's a wealth privilege.

Wealth privilege, for sure. Yeah, I'll give you that. But I know I'm from Silicon Valley, so much harder. There's probably more, more wealthy Indian and Chinese entrepreneurs. Yeah, white entrepreneurs. Just left one. Yeah, Naveen's a good example. Yeah, but there's 100% certainty that the number one predictor of whether you'll be fat or thin is economic, right? If you're from an impoverished area or from a family with lower income, your odds of being obese go up dramatically. And it's more predictive than anything else. More predictive than race, more predictive than trauma in your life. It's crazy.

I recently talked about trying to heal Epstein-Barr virus. I have an outbreak of that every once in a while and talking about things I'm doing to keep it in check, right? And I went through all of the things that I do. Okay, I've gotta get serious about my sleep again. I've gotta pay attention to my stress, the way I'm scheduling my work. It's all those things. And I also said, I'm doing hyperbaric oxygen chamber treatments and I'm doing glutathione. And I got a lot of angry responses from people saying, well, that's great, but the average person can't afford to do that. And I said, That's a problem. But that's, it doesn't mean that I shouldn't tell you that these things are out there because there are those individuals who are going to prioritize doing this. And I listed 5 things you can do that are free. But it does upset me that the insurance industry, the healthcare industry isn't at all interested in health.

It drives me nuts. And also this idea that, oh, you can't talk about it because it's expensive. Dave, here's what happens. And this is—

You must get that.

I get it all the time. But here's the deal. Do you remember cell phones maybe 25 years ago? So if you had one of those Mercedes 500Ds, whatever, the whole trunk of it was— this is in the mid-'80s— the whole trunk of it is your cell phone. And you have this big antenna on top and you have this giant thing on your face and you're driving out and it's $25. A minute to use this thing. And everyone sees you going, oh my God, what a jerk. Who does this person think they are on the phone while they're driving? And it was $40,000 to get it put in your car. Look at the world we live in today. Those things have changed the world. And this is probably in what, 50% of my lifetime? Right. So keep pushing. When demand happens for stuff that works, The industry will respond. And when people stop buying crap at the grocery store, you know what'll happen? The companies will replace it with stuff that's less crappy. It won't be perfect, it'll just be better. And I've been sort of a little bit negative historically on that, like these big companies don't care. But I've had a chance, and you probably have too over the course of your career, I've met the CEOs of the big food companies. I sat down with You know, the former CEO of Pepsi. And you know what is universal about these people? Most of them have kids. All of them want to make the world a better place. And they're all saying, how can I sell healthier stuff at prices that people will pay? And they want to do it. They desperately want to do it. Some of them have no clue what health means. Like their assumptions are wrong. But there are no like big, bad, evil—

Like we're going to make people sick.

Like let's add some cadmium to that. There's no bad people. They want to do it. Some of them are just completely wrong. But if you and me don't do our job to tell people, look, this stuff is $7 right now and it should be $3 and you shouldn't be doing the other thing. It'll be $3 in 3 years. But if we don't do our job, no one will ever know. And so yes, my job is to make everything I talk about almost free.

It's just going to take a few years. That's encouraging. That's a really positive outlook on that and I'll adopt it.

I would think about that. The other thing to think about, it's entirely unrelated to this, except you talked about Epstein-Barr virus. You know how expensive antiviral agents are, right? Do you know about BHT? No. So BHT, butylated hydroxytoluene, is a food preservative that's been soundly beat up. It's funny though, in the '80s and '90s, it's one of the earlier tested and well-tested anti-aging substances because it's a synthetic antioxidant. It just so happens that chickenpox, herpes, and EBV are all lipid-encapsulated viruses, and BHT, which will cost you about one penny, maybe 5 cents to take, will inhibit the ability for these viruses to replicate. People have a herpes outbreak, take it, at the end, about 3 days, it usually goes away. Shingles, totally Wow. Now, why is it that we have people spending $1,000 on antiviral treatments when they haven't used the 10-cent one? Yeah, what? Lack of knowledge. No one told you. Sure. Right? And so there, we just shared that with however many hundreds of thousands of people are going to hear this.

And where do they find it? You can buy it on Amazon.

It's BHT, as in like berries, hydro, I don't know what the T stands for.

Time.

Time, there you go. I actually have used that for a long time. And so you get the cold sores and all that stuff. And people say, "Oh, it might be dangerous." Yeah, if you take 50% of your body weight or something, but we're talking about a small dose. One of my good friends, a guy who's been on the show, wrote a book about this 30 years ago. And the knowledge has been out there, but it's not evenly distributed. So your job and what you're doing in 1-3-1 Method, just get the knowledge out there. And if people say it's too expensive, you know what's expensive? Not dying. Do your best. That's okay.

Being sick is expensive. Yeah.

Anyway, I wanted to share that with you because Dave Asprey—

That's amazing. Thank you. I have to update my audience.

Well, you'll share it with your audience, right? For sure. And do some Googling. You'll find it out there. Now, I have one more question for you at the end of our episode here, and this has to do with my next book, which is on anti-aging, and it's called Superhuman. It just hit the presales thing. It's exciting. Now, I've been really public in that Men's Health article where I was afraid to take my shirt off. About living to at least 180 years old. How long do you want to live?

I've heard you say that many times, and I always think, 180? Do I want to be 180? And, and I don't know that I've given it a number, right? Um, I know I'm going to be 100 at least, and I think, I think 120 sounds nice, but I— it's also quality of life, right? So I, I don't know what condition I'll be in by then.

We haven't seen people do that. So as long as your quality is good, you're up for this stuff.

Yeah, my quality of life is good, for sure. I think quality of life is really important. Oh yeah. If at 150, Dave, you are just being wheeled around and you're blind and you're deaf and you need assistance to do a lot of just normal bodily functions. Yes. Do you still want to live to be 180?

No, the real answer is I would like to die at a time and by a method of my choosing. And that's really anti-aging in a nutshell. I just think that 180 is pretty reasonable for someone in my condition with my history and my access to good quality food and clean air and whatever. And knowing all the science that's coming, and not science that's always mystical in the future, but stuff that's been under development for 20 and 30 years that's coming to fruition now.

When we're looking at the genes of centenarians and—

We're going to do some crazy stuff. So I think that at 180, the deal is I should be driving, I should be able to walk under my own power, and I should be able to function as a contributing member of society.

That's the goal. What is the oldest person we know right now on record?

Well, there are people in their 120s who are well documented. And the problem is getting above that, it's pretty rough because I mean, what kind of birth certificates were there 180 years ago? For sure. I have on my nightstand a book about a guy who was allegedly 185, and it's written by the son or grandson of the guy's caretaker in India. And it's got a huge amount of detail in it. So maybe the whole thing's fiction. Maybe he just said 185, it was really 165. This guy was older than 120. 120. And so you look back through historical stuff and you have to go back to history to find someone who's that old. So I just know we can do 120 because we have hard evidence of that. And if we can't do 50% better in the next 100 years of my life, come on. Then we failed as scientists.

Well, it's audacious. And I think, you know, so was the 4-minute mile.

It was. So, you know, I hope you'll join me in being highly functional after 100. We'll throw a party. Count on it. Chalene Johnson, your website is 131method.com, same as the name of your new book. Thank you for sharing with your massive audience all the things you're doing and for taking time to come on Bulletproof Radio.

Thank you so much. Thanks for being a disruptor. Thanks for leading the way. Super grateful to be here.

If you liked today's episode, you know what to do. Check out the 131 Method. It is really cool stuff. And the idea that you don't have to be perfect, it's actually real.

The Human Upgrade, formerly Bulletproof Radio, was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider. Carefully read all labels and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider. This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own, and this This podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guests' qualifications or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. This podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media.