ERF 1,029: Why “High Protein Diets” Might Be Ruining Your Gut Health

When I was 20 years old, I worked at a supplement store called GNC, and every day I would grab a Quest bar off the shelf. And these are healthy protein bars, and sometimes I would grab 2 or 3 and I would eat them thinking, all right, I'm getting my protein in, it's low sugar, I'm eating healthy, I'm gonna be able to lose fat, build muscle, and feel good. Except, oh my God, when I got home, my stomach was absolutely Wrecked. And I couldn't figure out why I would get home. I thought I was eating healthy all day, eating high protein, eating low sugar, and yet for some reason my gut was wrecked. And little did I know, these Quest Bars, these high protein snacks that I was eating, was quietly ripping my gut apart. And there's a chance the same thing is happening to you right now, and you have no idea. So today I'm gonna show you exactly How and why these high protein snacks and diets that you are doing to lose fat and build muscle might actually be the worst thing you can do. And after coaching over 25,000 people, I can tell you protein is the most powerful tool for building muscle and losing fat. But recently, protein got a makeover. It used to be something that. Only meatheads in the gym cared about, to now it's something that is slapped on every shelf in the grocery store. Protein cookies, protein chips, protein ice cream, protein coffee, and most of it, it's candy wearing a gym costume. So today we're gonna do a deep dive on protein and your gut. And everybody's talking about your gut microbiome, so we're gonna cover how the food companies rebranded protein and snuck a bunch of junk in through the back door. So 3 things I'll give you is number one, what's actually in these trending protein snacks and why they leave you bloated and miserable. Number 2, your gut microbiome, what it really does, because it runs way more than your bathroom trips. I'm talking about your muscle energy, mood, Recovery. And number 3, the exact real food swaps you can make Monday morning to kill the bloat and get more out of the protein you're already trying to eat. I'm going to hit you with some real studies, some real science, but if you're not a science person, relax, because I'll break down every bit of it that a 5th grader could understand. And a quick favor first, if the episode today helps you, please share it with a person Who you think is gonna benefit from listening. The only way this show grows is by you sharing it with other people. So whether it's on your Instagram story, whether it's sending it to a friend via DM or text message, myself and my co-host Sophie put a lot of time into this show. So if you find it valuable, please share it with somebody. Cool. All right, let's get into the first section. How protein recently got its makeover. And let me be clear about something. I still believe in a net-net protein being popular is a good thing because after coaching over 25,000 people with their fat loss and muscle building, one of the main things holding people back is they don't eat enough protein and it's not even close. So when the whole world suddenly starts caring about protein, this is great. Like, I love it. I think it's a net positive, but here's what happens Next. The food companies who make a lot of money by making food, they saw that. And so they saw everybody wanted high protein. So they took a cookie, a candy bar, a tub of ice cream, and they figured out how to jam some protein powder in it, be able to print high protein on the front in big bold letters, charge you double for some junk that's not actually a high quality protein source, And could be quietly ruining your gut microbiome. Think of it like a used car lot. You pull up and there's this car with like a fresh coat of paint. It's shiny, it has racing stripes, it, it looks fast, it looks good. But then you pop open the hood and it's an engine that's barely running. It has tons of problems with the transmission, even though The paint on the outside looks really good. It just changed what you saw. It didn't change what was under the hood. And that's a lot of protein cookies. Not all, but most of these high protein snacks is just fresh paint on the same junk. And they have added extra junk in it to make it even more difficult for your body to process digest and break down, which is why potentially it could mess with your gut microbiome. And here's the part that nobody really tells you: to make a cookie taste like a cookie with no sugar and 20 grams of protein, you have to add a lot of stuff. And that stuff would be fake sugars, sugar alcohol, gums, and emulsifiers, which is just fancy words for chemicals that keep things creamy and smoothie. And to be very clear, I'm not one of these people who's like freaking out about the chemicals that you eat in your food. Unless you grow everything in your backyard and you pick it yourself and all of it's from your own farm, there's some level of chemicals in every single thing that we eat. But that level of chemicals is different. So if I'm buying a banana from the grocery store, the level of chemical in that may be different than if I'm buying a high protein cookie, for example. And a lot of this stuff that companies will throw into these high protein snacks, that's what gets your stomach in knots. That's what causes you bloating, causes you discomfort, low energy, poor mood. And again, we'll talk about this stuff later, but let me be clear. I'm not saying all of these are bad, and I'm not saying you can never have any of these. But But I think once you see and realize what's in them, how they affect you, you will at least try to move towards more whole food items or look at the ingredients to be able to know which of the high protein snacks are better or worse. And that's my goal for you in today's podcast. And so diving into section 2, the 3 things in your protein snacks That could be wrecking your gut. And I call this stuff Frankenfood because it's kind of stitched together in a lab to look like real food, but it's not. And they're the 3 main troublemakers that could potentially cause some issues for you. Now, again, this is not medical advice. I'm not a medical doctor, and everybody's different. So you might be fine with 2 of these things I'm gonna mention, but the 3rd one might really wreck your gut. It all is just dependent on the person, but these are the troublemakers, like I said. So the first one is sugar alcohols. These are fake sugars that let a candy bar say sugar-free. You'll spot them on labels, and the words are sorbitol, maltitol, uh, xylitol. I know I said that one wrong, but I never get that one right. Basically, words ending in -ol, and you'll see them on the label. So when you go to buy foods, Look at the label, and here's the problem with these foods: your body can't fully absorb them, so they slide like all the way down your gut, still in one piece, and your gut bacteria have to like throw a party on them. They ferment them, and fermenting them makes a lot of gas, makes a lot of bloat. So not only is it Hard to digest. Excuse me. Hard to digest and take a long time. But because they have to be fermented, they cause you a lot of bloat, indigestion, and gas. And on top of that, these sugar alcohols will pull water into your gut like a sponge. So now you've got gas and water piling up where they shouldn't be. And that is your bloat. That is your cramp. That's me on the couch after I had 3 Quest Bars. when I was working at GNC. And by the way, this isn't me just kind of talking out of my ass. Researchers have shown for years that sugar alcohols like sorbitol get malabsorbed, which just means your body can't really take them in, and they cause this bloating, gas, and bathroom trips that could ruin your afternoon. And it gets worse when you eat them piled up with other stuff, which is exactly what a protein bar is. For the most part, not all of them, but a lot of them, and a whole stack of it all at once. So you can think of this like a traffic jam. If one car breaks down, moves to the side of the road, cool, okay, it is what it is. It's gonna cause a little bit of traffic, but it's all good. But if it's rush hour and 1,000 cars are stacked up behind the one that is stalled in the middle of the road, that is like your gut when eating most of these protein bars. Everything backs up. Nothing moves and you feel every bit of it. So if you ever had a protein bar or a protein snack or a protein chip or a cookie and you've kind of thought, wow, I do not digest this very well, I do not feel good when I eat this, that is usually why. Nothing wrong with you, it's just there's something wrong with how these are made. Now, number 2 is artificial sweeteners. And again, Artificial sweeteners are not inherently bad, but depending on the person and depending on the quantity that you have, they can sometimes wreak havoc in your gut. And these are things like sucralose, those like little packets of artificial sweeteners, the stuff in diet soda, some protein powders. And again, these are not inherently bad, but There was research in 2022 that took 120 healthy people, split them up, and gave them some artificial sweeteners like sucralose, aspartame, stevia for 2 weeks. And they used small amounts, less than like what they're usually having through a daily diet of food. And what they found was some of the artificial sweeteners actually changed how people's bodies handled blood sugar, and they shifted the mix of bugs in people's guts. And again, I'm gonna be real with you. It didn't hit the same person every way. Some people were worse than others. Some people really had no reaction, and then some people had a higher reaction. That is typically what happens when, you know, we take studies on different things. So you might be totally fine with the artificial sweetener in the amount that you're consuming, but somebody else may not be totally fine with that same amount of artificial sweetener that they may be consuming. And this is why really taking an individualized approach to your health and specifically with your diet, as we're talking about today, is really important. And that's exactly what we do with our online coaching clients in our 8-week fat loss challenge. You would get paired up with a one-on-one coach on my team, and they're looking over your food logs. They're looking over what protein snacks are you eating, what foods are you eating that could maybe be causing some indigestion or bloating for you? And we'll help you personalize the plan to you. So we're not going to tell you don't drink diet soda because of artificial sweeteners if you're totally fine with drinking diet soda. But we'll also tell you, hey, you keep telling me you're super bloated after eating this protein bar. We may want to stop eating that protein bar. But we take a personalized, individualized approach, not only with your nutrition, but also with your workout program design. And We actually hold you accountable and check in throughout the week so you stay consistent with your fitness journey. So if you're somebody who has struggled to stay consistent, you're maybe getting frustrated with yourself that you know what to do, but you're not able to stick with it, you're somebody who our 8-week challenge is for. So you can click the link in the show notes of the podcast. So just click on the podcast, click on description. You will find the link there for our 8-week fitness challenge. Awesome. Fat loss challenge. So that being said, if your whole day is built on artificial sweeteners, that piles up and you have more of a possibility to have some gut issues and bloating. I remember one of my clients, this was probably back in 2022, her name was Grace. She consumed a lot of artificial sweeteners because she tried to eat a lot of healthy food, protein bars, the bread, that is supposed to be low calorie and low carb. A lot of these healthy quote unquote foods they slap on the label. And she would always have this like bloated look. She, she wasn't overweight by any means. I think she weighed like 120 pounds, so she was not overweight, but she always had this bloated look. And so what we did was we slowly started to strip away some of these healthy foods and we started to work in more real food swaps. And it was interesting, her progress pictures month over month Even though she wasn't like losing a lot of weight, her stomach and her bloat was starting to come down more and more every single month. And it was solely because we swapped out some of the foods that she was eating. Again, this is what we do in our online coaching program. So if you're interested, you can click the link below. But that's artificial sweeteners. And the third one is emulsifiers, which this is one that not a lot of people talk about. They are chemicals that they add to food to keep them smooth and creamy, to stop the oil and water from separating. And so you'll see names like you can't even freaking pronounce, and I'm not gonna try to pronounce them 'cause I know I'm not gonna be able to, but they're in a ton of protein ice cream, protein shakes, protein creamers, protein cookies. And the thing that you need to know is your gut has a lining. And it's, it's like a thin, slimy layer of mucus that sits between your gut bugs and the actual wall of your gut. And you can think of this like a rubber seal around your car door. It keeps the good stuff in and it keeps the bad stuff out. Emulsifiers act like dish soap on that seal. So think about what dish soap does to a greasy pan. It cuts right through the grease. That's the whole point of soap. Well, that protective layer in your gut is a little greasy and slimy on purpose, and these emulsifiers can thin that right out the same way soap cuts grease. And again, I'm not guessing on this. Researchers had healthy people eat one of these emulsifiers every day for a couple of weeks. The people eating it had more belly discomfort, less variety in their gut bugs, and in a couple of them, the bacteria started creeping into that protective layer where they're not supposed to be, which is one of the first steps towards an inflamed, angry gut. So to put it together, fake sugars that ferment and bloat you, sweeteners that mess with your gut bugs and blood sugar, and emulsifiers thin out your gut lining— all 3 in one healthy protein cookie. So here's your action step from this section: when you buy something that you think is healthy, flip the bag over Read the ingredients, not the front. Don't read high protein. Don't read low sugar. Read the ingredients. Look for the sugar alcohols. Look for the emulsifiers. Look for the artificial sweeteners. If you notice that food is messing with you and causing some bloating and indigestion, read the ingredients. And if you find these things, it may be a wise choice to no longer buy those things and then put something else in Instead. And that's what we can talk about here a bit later in the podcast. But right before we talk about what to swap these things for, I want to go back to your gut microbiome because everybody right now is talking about it and a lot of people are misinformed and/or getting it wrong. So I'm not a complete expert on gut microbiome. Let me just go ahead and say that right now. But I do know a little bit here and there. So here's what your gut microbiome actually does and why You should care. So everybody's throwing this word around, and I'll tell you what it actually means. Inside your gut, mostly your lower gut, you have trillions of tiny bugs. And that sounds weird, but it's just bacteria. It's trillions more than you have in your cells for your whole body. And that entire crew is your gut microbiome. And again, I know hearing like bacteria lives in my guts, it kind of sounds weird and gross, but these are good. Bacteria. Like, you want them— not only do you want them there, you need them there. Think of your gut like a garden, and these bugs are the soil. You can plant the best seeds in the world, the best food, the best protein, but if your soil is dead and dried out, nothing grows right. A good soil means a good garden. A trashed soil means nothing works. And so your gut bugs are the soil, and— These Frankenfoods, the ones that are made in this lab with these things that we talked about, is like putting bleach on that soil. And now I think here's where it gets good, because most people think your gut is just digestion and bathroom trips. And the more research that comes out, it's not, it's not even close. So let me walk you through 4 things that these bugs touch, which is your muscles, your energy, Your mood and your recovery. So first, for your muscles, you think building muscle is simple. Eat protein, lift weights, and that's it. And that is the foundation. So I don't want you to overthink this, but the piece that a lot of people miss, eating the protein isn't enough. You have to actually absorb that protein. You have to break it down and get it to where your body can use it. And guess who does a big chunk Of that work, your gut. You can think of your gut like a loading dock at a warehouse. The protein you eat is the delivery truck pulling up. It's full of goods. But if that dock is a disaster, the door is slammed shut, there's boxes everywhere. Half the shipment truck sits on the— half the shipment sits on the truck and just rots. It never goes where it needs to go. It doesn't matter how good the delivery was. If the dock is a mess, You don't get the goods. And there's a whole area of science on this now coming out more and more. And I believe they call it the gut muscle axis, which just means your gut and your muscles are talking to each other. It's newer science. And again, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that like I know everything about it or it's even all figured out because it isn't. But what we keep seeing is when your gut bugs are healthy and well-fed, they pump out these little healthy compounds made from fiber and all of these things that help your muscle handle blood sugar Better, run their engines better, and stay less inflamed. But if you trash your gut, you're making all of that harder on yourself. So if you're somebody who wants to build muscle, you would— it would behoove you to have a healthy gut microbiome. And the second part of this that a lot of people don't know is your energy. Have you ever ate a healthy snack and you almost somehow feel more tired? Like you feel bloated, you feel foggy, you feel groggy, just kind of like blah. Because these helpful compounds I just mentioned, the ones your good bugs make when you feed them right, they help power tiny engines inside of your cells and the parts that make you energy. That, that's literally how you get energy. Your cells make them. So when your gut is running well, you've got a steady, clean-burning energy source. When your gut is inflamed and irritated from all of these Frankenfoods, your body is basically fighting the same fire all day. And fighting fires costs energy— energy you wanted for your workout, for your kids, for your job. And you can think of it like an app running in the background of your phone all day. You can't even really see it, but at 3 PM you look down and you have 10% battery left on your phone. That's like low-grade Gut inflammation. It's quietly draining you all day. And again, you may not even notice this stuff. It may not even come to your mind until I'm saying it right now. But think about all these things start to add up in both positive and negative ways. So we talked about the artificial sweeteners, we talked about the emulsifiers. Now we're talking about the gut microbiome, the good bacteria, the, the good gut bugs. And so If all of these things are adding up in a negative way, that's how you might be like, what? I'm eating healthy, I'm working out, I'm getting my steps, but I'm still not feeling the way I want to feel. And then vice versa, if let's say you start to make some of these changes that we'll talk about in today's podcast, you're like, wow, I'm starting to have more energy, I can recover better, I'm noticing less bloat on my stomach. These things, these little things start to add up in a big way day over day. So that is your energy. Now, the next one is your mood. And this one typically blows people's minds because your gut and your brain are directly wired together. There's a nerve, you can think of it like a phone line running straight from your gut up to your brain, and it has constant calls in both directions all day long. And most of your serotonin, that's a feel-good chemical, most of it, like 90%, is actually made down in your gut. Not your brain, your gut. Now, again, I'm not going to tell you a probiotic is going to cure depression or automatically make you feel better. It's not. And anybody who tells you it is is lying to you. This is still a bit newer science. But if we think about your own life, when your stomach is a wreck, you're bloated, you're cramping, you're gassy. Are you typically in a good mood? Of course not. You're miserable. You're short with people. It kind of like clouds your whole day. When your gut is screaming, your brain hears it and vice versa. When you're having— like, this is why when a lot of people start eating healthier, they start noticing. They're like, wow, like, I can tell if I go eat something bad or eat something that is, you know, more processed, higher calorie, whatever. They're like, wow, I feel a difference. And that's not just because like you're feeling guilty for eating a bad food. That is physiologically because of the gut microbiome in your body, because different foods will produce different levels of healthy gut microbiome. So that's a big one. And again, this could be something that is like quietly stealing, quite frankly, the quality of your life. Because if we think about first your energy, now your mood, you could be having a shit day for no other reason than You're eating shit food, which is kind of crazy to think about. The third one is— or fourth one, sorry. The fourth one is recovery. So this is the one that kind of ties everything together. Recovery is just your body repairing itself after a workout, after a stressful day, while you sleep. And your body can only repair so much at once. It has a budget. If you are an avid listener of the podcast, this is something I often talk about, which is recoverability. Your body only has so much recovery to go around. If a chunk of that recoverability gets spent every day calming down an irritated, inflamed gut, there's less recoverability to go around to build muscle that you trained for, to have good energy, and to get you ready for tomorrow. Think of it like your paycheck. You've only got so much. If a surprise bill hits every single month, that is your gut inflammation, There's less left for the stuff you actually wanted, and your gains and feeling better are the stuff that you actually wanted. So here's the big picture, and this matters. I'm not telling you your gut is some magic switch, and if you just buy the right probiotic, then you'll get shredded and you'll feel great and you'll cure depression. That is not what I'm saying. And that's the kind of gimmick I think a lot of people are trying to sell you right now on gut microbiome stuff. And that's not true. But I am telling you, your gut does quietly support everything— your muscle, your energy, your mood, your recovery. So don't sabotage it with these foods that you may not be able to digest well and then wonder why you're feeling like garbage. Take care of your soil, and the basics you already know work, work even better. Which brings me to the good part— how to fix all of this. So section number four is real food protein, and again, we're focusing specifically on the protein rebrand. I could talk about gut microbiome and all this stuff for a long time, but I want to kind of simplify all of this for you because really none of this is that complicated, and that's the whole point. So fix number one: real food protein first. So every meal starts with a protein that came from. The ground or an animal, not a lab. So eggs, chicken, Greek yogurt, lean beef, fish, cottage cheese, ground turkey— these foods digest clean. There's no mystery ingredients that could fuck up your gut microbiome. Your gut knows exactly what to do with these real foods. So most of your protein Call it 80/20. 80% of your protein should come from real food. Then 20% can come from a protein bar, a protein shake, these foods that can supplement real food. And by the way, I work with a supplement company called Legion Athletics, and I'll talk about them here in a second as well. But I work with a supplement company. I take protein myself. But protein should supplement your diet that is real food. It should not take up the majority of your protein sources. So flip it to where real food is 70 to 80% of your protein for the day. Protein supplements are 20 to 30% of your protein for the day. And that brings me to fix number 2, because you have to use a clean easy-to-digest protein powder. Because let's be real, most of you, including myself, still might need a protein shake to hit your goal, and that's fine. Protein powders are a tool that you can use, but you just have to get a clean one. So you should be looking for a whey protein isolate. Again, if you look at the protein powder, look on the back of the label See what whey protein you're actually consuming. Whey isolate just means most of the junk and the lactose is stripped out, so it's easier on your stomach to digest. There are fewer fake fibers, fewer sugar alcohols. There's a shorter ingredient list. And quite frankly, this is why I use and trust Legion Athletics. Their Whey Plus protein powder is a whey isolate. It is the purest form of whey protein that you're gonna find. It is the easiest form to digest. It tastes great. It's very clean. There's no sugars. It's not loaded with all of the garbage that I was warning you about this entire episode. So if you want to try out their Whey Plus isolate, Just head to legionathletics.com, look at their protein powder. You can use my code ERIC at checkout, which will give you buy one, get something else 50% off. So if you want to buy a protein powder and the probiotic they have for your gut health, you can do that. You want to buy a protein powder and a pre-workout protein powder and creatine, you can buy one, get one half off. But if you're gonna buy a protein powder anyway, you need to buy a good one if you care about your gut microbiome health. If you don't really give a fuck and you're fine, don't spend the money. But in my opinion, if you're going to put something in your body and you want it to work as best as possible, I'm willing to spend a little bit of extra money for something I am literally putting into my body. And I'm willing to spend the extra money to get a good brand. And not only is Legion clean, but they're also third-party lab tested, which means The stuff you see on the label, on the ingredients, is actually correct because supplement companies can lie and nothing happens to them. So again, if you want to get their protein powder, legionathletics.com, you can use my code Eric at checkout. Now, fix number 3 is feed your good bugs. So we got to eat fiber. Remember those helpful compounds your gut bugs make, the ones that help your muscle, your energy, Your bugs build those out of fiber. So fiber is the food your good gut bugs use. No fiber and those good bugs starve. So eat your fruit, specifically raspberries, blackberries, kiwis, bananas. Eat your vegetables, typically lean— I'm sorry, green leafy. I was gonna say lean griefy. Green leafy vegetables. Get your beans, your oats, get some at, at least 2 out of 3 meals in your day. And again, we should be eating real fiber foods. Taking a fiber supplement is not eating real food. And this is where I will push back on supplements because most fiber supplements are something called insoluble fiber. All that means is you take it and it goes right through your stomach. That's why you shit your brains out. Versus soluble fiber that is found in actual food, it actually goes into your gut, it helps your good gut bugs, it expands in your stomach to help keep you more full, which is also good for fat loss, and it gives you these nutrients that you need. So do not take a fiber supplement. You should be eating foods with Fiber. Try to get at least 20 to 30 grams per day. And one more side note on this, do not rely on these healthy foods that have fiber in them. I'll never forget one of our Clubhouse members, Brad. This was probably back in like 2021, which congrats Brad and Christy both for getting engaged. Let's go. Funny, those Brad and Christy, they are now engaged. They met each other in the Clubhouse, which is kind of crazy, but I'm super happy for them. But I remember Brad was eating like 70 grams of fiber per day and like 50 of it was coming from this like high fiber, low calorie keto bread. And he was like, dude, my stomach is wrecked. I'm like, dude, I think that's why. And that in fact was why, because that low calorie, high fiber bread was all insoluble fiber. That's how it could be low calorie, but that's also why it wrecked his gut. So real food, 20 to 30 grams per day. Use that, do that every single day. Now, number 4, drink your water because fiber needs water to bind to, to move through. So if you crank up your fiber and don't drink enough water, you've now got a different kind of backed up problem. Trust me on that one. So the more fiber, the more water, they're a team. How much water should you drink? Typically aim for around half of your body weight in ounces of water per day. And fix number 5, walk after you eat. That's it. A 10-minute walk after a meal is gonna help everything move through your gut, keep your blood sugar steadier, and cut out bloating. The most underrated thing on this whole list, beside, like beyond protein powder, beyond the probiotic, beyond this and that, Walking after a meal and it costs you nothing. So just after dinner, don't sit on the couch, go outside, walk around, even if it's raining or whatever, walk around your house. Just don't go and sit down. Make sure to take that 10-minute walk. And I can tell you a quick story on this. This actually, it helps me so much. When I went on, I went to Mexico last weekend and I ate dinner pretty late and I like to go to sleep early. So I would eat dinner at like 7:30 or 8:00. And then by the time 8:30 or 9:00 rolled around, like I was ready for dinner. So I would go sleep right after, and I could tell a noticeable difference in my bloating, my digestion, and my sleep quality because I didn't walk after my meals. So, you know, I feel like this is like an old wives' tale kind of thing, like people walking after a meal, but it works. Like, I just— there's no other way around it. So those are the 5 fixes that you can do to make sure you Feed your good gut microbiome. And so let me show you how this all fits. I call it layering your plate, and building a good plate is like packing a suitcase for a trip. Your protein and your veggies, those are your clothes. You kind of have to use them unless I guess you're going on a nude trip, but you pack those first. Those take up most of the bag. That protein cookie or the bag of protein chips, that is a souvenir. It's totally fine to bring one home, but you don't pack your entire suitcase full of souvenirs and leave your clothes in the closet. So you pack your essentials first. The fun stuff fits in whatever room is left. And again, 80/20, 80/20, 80/20. If you truly look at your daily food log, which again, this is what we do with our clients in my 8-week fat loss challenge, you look at your daily food log, how much of your protein is coming from whole food? And how much is coming from supplements? Worth taking a look at. So let me run this all back because I know I just covered a lot. So one, protein got rebranded. Food companies used it to sell you candy in a gym costume. Number 2, that candy is packed with 3 troublemakers: sugar alcohol that bloats you, sweeteners that mess with your gut, and emulsifiers that thin out your gut lining. Number 3, your gut runs way more than you think. Your muscle energy, mood recovery— it's the soil Your whole garden grows in, and number four, you fix it with eating real food, a clean protein powder, fiber, water, and walking after meals. And listen, if you've been doing everything right, eating clean, and you still feel like you can't lose weight, you're bloated, you're low energy, it's probably not you. It's probably some of the foods you're eating. It's probably you're not recovering well enough from your workouts because you're doing too much in your workouts. All these things that may not be your But now you know, so now it's on you to change it. So if you want me and my team to take out all the guesswork, build your food, your training, your recovery, all of it around your real life and tell you exactly what to do, that's what we do in our 8-week fat loss challenge. You can think of it like a GPS. You know where you want to go. The 8-week challenge is telling you, turn here, avoid this pothole, there's a cop on the road over there. So you stop wasting time taking the wrong exits and get to your goal as fast as possible. So there will be a link in the show notes of the podcast. Click on the podcast, click on description, click the link and apply for my 8-week fat loss challenge. And last thing, stop buying so much candy that is cosplaying as protein. Eat the real food. Get your gut blood microbiome fixed. You Your energy and the mirror will thank you. Thanks for listening, guys, and we will chat next time.