How A Top Silicon Valley Executive Lost 40 Pounds of Fat And Became A Kettlebell Swinging, Paddleboarding, Semi-Pro Tennis Player With 8-Pack Abs

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Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield here and there's a guy on the line with me today who is engaged in a few things that are near and dear to my heart and that you're also going to find are incredibly intriguing when it comes to optimizing your health, to biohacking, to achieving fat loss, muscle gain, extremes of physical and mental performance. And he's really got a lot of things going for him. He's a Silicon Valley exec who's been a semi professional tennis player while losing 40 pounds, adding muscle, looking and feeling 15 years younger as hugely important factors in his life. And he's done some pretty radical changes to his diet, his exercise program, he's done some biohacking. So we're going to delve into that. And his name is Paul Sebastian and Paul is one of the top executives in Silicon Valley. He's currently the chief Marketing officer at a division of T Mobile and he's previously held leadership roles at Microsoft's Xbox Live division, Disney Mobile, and also had three of his former startups acquired. Like I mentioned, he's also playing tennis and he's gone from not picking up a tennis racket since he was a kid all the way up to playing semi pro level tennis at age 4. So he's accomplished a lot and he's going to share some of his secrets with us today. So Paul, thank you so much for coming on the call.

Great, Ben, thanks a lot for having me.

So there's a lot of places we could start here, but I understand from what you've explained to me that you weren't always like a high achiever from a physical performance and a health standpoint. So can you kind of let us know what your journey has looked like?

Absolutely, yeah. No, I mean, that's sort of the understatement of the year. I really had no particular physical prowess. I kind of grew up skinny. And then as I got into working and sort of sitting at a desk a lot and working on a computer and whatnot, I, you know, as you sort of hit especially age 30, suddenly all the, all that stuff starts to change and you know, I started to gain weight just by itself, despite, you know, doing all the traditional diet, all the traditional sort of government recommended, you know, hey, you know, eat lots of healthy whole grains and fruits and vegetables and all that and do the kind, you know, run, run, do lots of running. And, you know, I sort of did all that, but I was still, still gaining weight and just feeling lethargic and, you know, all that stuff. So it really, man, I, you know, packed on a total of probably, you know, £40. And it wasn't like Jabba the Hut per se, but, you know, you just sort of pack on the weight and you become lethargic and you think, oh, my God, this is kind of going in the wrong direction here. 30s and I had to just turn it around radically. And that's, I think, where it really started to change.

So when you started to change, what exactly happened? Like, what did you do?

It's funny, it's really just been a progression that has evolved and I've gone further and further down the rabbit hole, so to speak. You know, started with a friend of mine turning me on to basically just the low carb thing. You know, it be. Prior to that, I was sort of. I'd laugh at the idea of this sort of Atkins or, you know, this sort of, you know, sugar busters concep going low carb, eating lots of meat, et cetera. And I said, you know what? I'm. I'm going to try this. And I started doing that. I started to basically just eat less carbs. I started to, you know, just have protein for breakfast and lunch. And that started things going that really, I realized that was, wow, this stuff actually is starting to kind of semi in the right direction. And I started just to do a lot more research. And this has been a culmination over the last probably 10, 15 years of heading more and more that way to the point now where I mean, you know, sort of feel encyclopedic around, you know, what I've learned, just so many specific things which we can get into. But the point now where it's a combination of cold thermogenesis with timing my carbs, with specific kinds of workouts, and, you know, basically getting gluten out of my diet. So it's been a combination of things that has now got me to the point where I am, where literally I feel better at 46 than I felt when I was 23, hands down. And I mean that in a very real way. I mean, like, I can do things physically. I can do workouts, pretty extreme workouts and play multiple Sets of tennis, go on pretty extreme paddleboarding, you know, sessions out in the bay, or run or do whatever at a level now that I would, couldn't have imagined when I was literally in my 20s.

And you also swing around, so that's pretty cool. Some pretty heavy kettlebells. I've got a photo that you saw.

You know, kettlebell workout. Absolutely. You know, the kettlebell thing is great. And you know, I can do that. I mean, I would have never imagined. I mean, you know, also I never had the kind of muscle I had, you know, back then. And so I just thought I was not capable of sort of gaining any muscle. I thought I'd just be sort of the skinny, fat kind of look. Right. And that's just how I was wired. So it's pretty amazing what you can do, how you can biohack your body with some of these very specific things, you know, the kind of things that, you know, you talk about in your blog a lot. Um, and, and once you combine these things in the right way, it's just that the effects are exponential. I mean, it's, it's transformative and it's, I mean, I'm at a point now where I've never felt better. And sustained energy throughout the day, not burning any sugar or carbs, literally. I can go all day playing pretty high level semi professional tennis, for example, which is an extremely demanding sport for those who, who play it, especially at a high level, you know, and I, I just feel great. And it's funny, I watch my opponents are like diving for cliff bars and trying to fuel up on sugar and they just crash and they sort of have that skinny, fat look and it's just, it's just unbelievable.

Yeah, it really is. And, and I've noticed the same thing when I'm playing tennis. Even to the extent where, you know, every time we, we change sides during a tennis match, I actually don't drink water or eat or anything and just go for two hours. And people, they almost get frustrated. She's like, let's play, let's play. And people want to stop and eat and drink and they're like, hey, I'm here to play, baby.

That's so funny. That's exactly what I've experienced. In fact, I just played a match yesterday with a guy that literally every changeover he had to dive into some kind of goo Clif bar kind of thing and just slamming energy drinks. And I was running on sustained energy. I'd had simply coffee with some butter in it in the morning, you know, kind of the bulletproof coffee thing. And I was going all day. Yeah.

So I want to, I want to get into the practical nitty gritty of some of your big wins. Because, for example, we had an ironman triathlete/CEO on the podcast a few weeks ago, and he talked about some of his minimalist triathlon training protocols. And in your case, you know, you're a top exec in Silicon Valley. You're doing a lot of things, you're a chief marketing officer, but you're also keeping yourself in really good shape. So one of my first questions for you, I don't really like those what's a day in the life of eating look like for you? Type of question. I want to get a little bit more practical. So you mentioned that you go low carb for you. Well, what I should say is for a lot of folks who I talk to who want to restrict carbohydrates or eat lower amounts of carbohydrates, they have a difficult time combining that with a day at the office or a day of travel. So for you, what are some of the biggest things that you do that allow you to restrict carbohydrates or to time carbohydrates, and what are your strategies?

It's great. I think one of the most transformative things that I've learned and adopted and tried as an experiment, you know, and of one, especially in the last couple years, that has been just the biggest transformation is literally carb timing. I love my carbs. Let me be very clear. I'm not anti carb at all. I am anti bad carbs, but I am not anti carb. In fact, my God, I live. I love my carbs. So what I've learned was, and this is kind of a variation on, you know, kind of the whole carb backloading idea or carb night sort of idea like.

Like John Keefer's car.

Yes, exactly. It's. It's like that, that, that sort of sparked my interest because I was already trying to sort of eat low carb during the day. But what it. I, you know, once I really just did not do carbs during the day. I literally had protein, some kind of protein for breakfast, if I even have breakfast. I usually will just do coffee and then I'll eat kind of a high protein lunch of sorts, you know, with a lot of vegetables and whatnot, but just very, very low carb and no grains, no other sort of, you know, external carbs like that, and stay low carb all day and even ideally through to Dinner. So, you know, with dinner as well. Low carb. And then literally I am able to eat my carbs in the evening, which is when I want to eat my carbs anyway. I do have a vice and that vice is red wine. I'm a red wine. I'm an anophile. I will not give up my red wine. You can my red wine. Bordeaux glass for my cold, dead hands. Literally. I absolutely love it. And you know, certainly. Right, that's a vice. Right. But as vices go, red wine and a little dark chocolate is not so bad. So when I have the red wine though, I also want carbs, you know. Right. There's the effects from the alcohol, admittedly, but I'm able to basically then have my carbs at night. I'll do, you know, rice based carbs, rice based breads, brown rice based stuff, you know, no gluten, which, although I'm not celiac, I wouldn't have an issue probably with the gluten per se. I just feel better not having that stuff in my body. And I would like to think, and I haven't done a sort of direct experiment, but I'd like to think that the lack of gluten has been also transformative in how I feel. But I can't, you know, scientifically prove that. I just am able to time the carbs in the evening and I have carbs all the way up until. Till bedtime with my red wine as well. And honestly, it works great. I am literally, I've never had an, had, you know, eight pack abs right. Until I, I've done this approach and I eat a lot of carbs. I mean, I'll have like a gluten free pizza of sorts. Right. I mean, it can really get pretty indulgent sounding where I'm enjoying life. You know, I think it's important. I don't feel like I'm restricting anything.

Yeah.

And then the next thing, by the.

Way, I should mention that I'm, I'm similar with wine at night. And I have a similar approach too in that if you save the carbohydrates for the evening. And actually Kiefer goes into that in his carb backloading protocol. I actually have that program. And he explains hormonally how if you do it at night, you get enough of an insulin effect to where you do get a growth hormone and an anabolic response that doesn't occur in. If you time your carbs early in the day, like some people are like, well, I exercise early in the day, so I'm going to front load my carbs early in the day and it turns out that you can exercise in the day, still keep things low carb, high fat, moderate protein throughout the day, shift your carbohydrate intake to late in the day and still get that growth hormone response. The only thing I do that's a little bit different is I'm still kind of careful with the insulin just because I've done genetic testing. I know I have higher than normal risk for type 2 diabetes. So I actually use prior to my evening wine, which is indeed usually accompanied by dark chocolate. I do bitter melon extract about a half hour or so before I need to try that. That really, really helps with the glycemic response quite a bit.

So that's basically keeping your glycemic response lower.

It's on par with, with metformin in terms of its ability to do that.

Interesting. One thing I've been doing recently is I've been taking some of Dave Asprey's bulletproof cacao butter and chocolate. Right. And I'll do kind of my own variation on a kind of a hot chocolate mocha. It's really just the cocoa, the cocoa butter, water, and I'll add some cinnamon to that. Right. And cinnamon also, you know, there's some evidence that it can sort of help blunt the glycemic response. I'll do that after dinner, sort of before my wine. And I've been experimenting with that lately, which, which may help with that as well.

I actually, I sprinkle cinnamon on my dark chocolate.

Oh, that's great. No, I mean, that's absolutely great. And a little bit of cayenne pepper in there too is actually great. So, you know, and the cocoa and the cocoa butter apparently has some liver protective effects which are pretty well documented, which I think helps with the wine, you know. So you're, you're basically not killing your liver, you know, because I like to have a few glasses of wine and I'm just not going to give it up. Yeah, exactly. But it's amazing to do that and to feel like, okay, here I am eating a pizza, chocolate, all this stuff at night, right. And then, you know, I have ripped a pretty ripped body and that's pretty incredible. Yeah.

And I do want to ask you about your workout routine momentarily, but I have a couple more questions about nutrition. First of all, as an exec, do you travel a lot? And if so, what are some of your go tos when you travel?

Yeah, that's a great question. I do Travel. And I've had to radically modify what I do because of course, as you know, airports are just a, just a disaster in terms of trying to get food and trying to find anything that could be, you know, remotely healthy. It's just really hard, especially at certain airports. It's, it's, it's just a train wreck. I travel with canned sardines now like a complete freak. So literally, I will bring my delicious Matisse brand, you know, sardines with me in cans.

Yep, we're on the same page. Except I'm Bella brand.

Okay. So I, I've tried those as well. Those are very, very good. I like the Matisse ones because they're sort of big and fat and they're from Spain and they're nice anyway, so it's funny that, and I will, you know, I'll do that. I actually bring coconut oil with me as well. So, you know, that is a staple. I bring my grass fed butter with me as well. So it's sort of a combination of having those fats available. And then usually when I can get to a proper restaurant, you know, so for dinner, for example, you know, I'm able to get, you know, a very low carb, you know, healthy meal of sorts, usually with some kind of fish or, you know, something like that. Or if I can find a decent sushi place, I can do this, you know, this sashimi and then, you know, by, by evening time again, I can introduce the carbs. And it's fine. You know, I'll even bring with me my, you know, sort of gluten free chips and whatnot or even bread with me there. So I have my sort of staples and I'm not, you know, tempted to sort of stray into some dangerous vending machine territory at night. Yeah, so, so yeah, literally it takes, it takes a little bit effort, but honestly, it's so easy. It's so, it's so natural now just to, you know, I'm going on a trip. I just pack the sardines and the, and, and the butter and whatnot. And I'm, I'm good because again, I'm. During the day I'm not eating on meals of carbs and all kinds of random stuff. I, I'm usually not having a breakfast. I'm usually, yeah, coffee and I'll have really good, nice sized, protein packed lunch. And then there's dinner at a, at some kind of a restaurant, which, you know, is usually workable. And then evening, I'm on the carb thing. And then, you know, workout wise, Also traveling is very hard, or, you know, it used to seem like it was hard. You can get a great body weight driven workout in your hotel room. Even just doing sort of absurd things like lifting the objects in your hotel room. Like literally I'm sitting there in my room lifting chairs and tables. And it's all about getting a short, minimalist, high intensity, ideally weight bearing training in where I feel like I can get the hormones up there for even 15 minutes at a high intensity rate. Not a cardio thing per se, but just literally getting, lifting heavy things as much as possible, including my own body weight, you know, the push ups, burpees, et cetera. And that's generally what I'll do if I don't have access to a gym where I can get hold of some weights or you know, like a kettlebell.

Yeah, yeah. I love it. And it sounds very similar to some of the protocols I use when I travel. Probably a couple things I do a little bit differently are in addition to the sardine, I actually typically we'll pack in an avocado and a bunch of nori wraps. And that's usually my go to when I'm at the airport is I just, you know, grab a, grab a knife and chop open the avocado and spread that in the nori and throw some soybeans in there.

I should do that because I do that at home every day. I love the nori. I, I eat at least, at least one whole avocado a day, if not more. Yeah, so.

And the avocado has its skin, so that stays safe. And the nori is usually in wraps, so.

Exactly, exactly. Nori. By the way, seaweed is a huge staple. All the micronutrients you get from seaweed. So anytime I eat sushi or sashimi, I always insist on getting extra seaweed.

Nice. The other question I wanted to ask you is, you know, we kind of talked about carb backloading, we talked about bitter melon extract. I'm curious from. While we're on the nutrition front, from a supplementation standpoint, are you doing anything else?

I am actually. And it's funny, I mean, I more than ever, I'm sort of an evidence based guy where, you know, there's just a lot of contradictory information out there about which supplements work, which, you know, do we even need supplements? I still err on the side of taking some. So I'll do, you know, like a new chapter Organixx multivitamin, because at least it's food based. And I'll do that like, like Half of one. And I'll do it every other day, for example. So I'm not getting a lot of that because I try to eat well. I try to get my nutrition from food, which I think is really just the best way. I don't think, you know, isolating supplements that there's a lot of good evidence and there's a lot of good, I think, counter evidence that, you know, taking isolated supplements, especially in high doses, you know, is going to help you. In fact, it can hurt you. So in addition to that, I will do, you know, I'll do occasionally a good krill oil if I'm not eating enough fish. So I'll take a good krill oil supplement. I do do some sort of sports nutrition related stuff. I will every other week or so. I will do a little bit of creatine monohydrate either prior to workouts or after, along with some L glutamine powder. I really have found that from a sort of recovery and even performance standpoint, those have, have definitely helped. And then I actually do some brain hacking kind of stuff as well. So I, I basically take PS and PC. Basically, you know, PS is I. For the phosphatidylserine. Yes, thank you. Phosphatidyl, serine, phosphatidylcholine. I will take each of those.

Is that something that you kind of do in the morning when you get up or.

Yes, I will do that. Especially if I have even a little tiny something for breakfast, like a little bit of a sardine or something like that, or a couple nuts or something like that. So just I'm taking it with food. So I will actually take those on certain days, especially if I know I have a large kind of cognitive load ahead of me that day. And really, I think though, the coffee, really high quality coffee brewed in a French press, sort of getting all of the chemicals from the, the coffee, I think those, I mean that really has, I think probably the biggest brain boosting effect on my day above all else. And I sort of use the PC and the PS and other things as kind of additional supplements.

Got it.

Beyond that. Yeah. And then I'll do a B vitamin. So I actually do a B complex. There's that Jaro brand B. Right. Which is, which has, you know, pantothene in it, P5P. It has the, the methylated form of B12 which is much better absorbed than the, the non methylated version. And it's just a nice combination. I found that to be one of the better ones for Me anyways, that I really feel the effects from that. And days I don't take that. I notice that I think I'm one of those people who just really needs the extra B vitamins despite my diet. It just makes a massive difference in terms of stress levels and sleep and all of that.

Got it. So you kind of went into traveling a little bit and some of the body weight things that you do when you're traveling. But what about from a workout standpoint just for kind of like your, your daily routine or your weekly routine, what's really worked well for you in terms of the optimum combination of injury prevention, being prepared for sports and also driving the time or the timing of your workouts with your work.

Yeah, you know, so with work and sort of being, you know, an exec in Silicon Valley, plus travel and all that, you can imagine time is, is, is tough. And I'm not a morning person, so I'll be the first to not an early morning like get up and work out kind of person. And actually it's funny, that's sort of proven to be I think an advantage. Again, sort of going a little bit into the timing of the car backloading and the John Keefer thing. I've found that for me doing workouts after work. So basically, you know, 6:00pm or so even 7:00pm that for me has been kind of the key timing and it, you know, I'll do it in a fasted state, meaning I won't have eaten anything since my sort of large lunch. I used to eat some sort of something before the workout, thinking that I needed to. And wow, what a huge difference I found at least in fat loss and how I feel when I work out in a fasted state and then follow that up afterwards with a high protein dinner and then of course some, some carbs if necessary with it, but then you know, doing the carb backloading thing after it. So I'll work out after work. And what I do typically these days is because of my tennis and because tennis is such an intense cardio workout unto itself. A lot of fast stop and starts. You kind of naturally in tennis you get that sort of high intensity training factor where you're suddenly going from a motionless position to extreme sprints, extreme jumps and leaps and things like that. I'll do weight bearing stuff, so I generally will do, you know, just you know, deadlifts, you know, some squats, bench press, et cetera, et cetera, arm weight stuff. Basically trying to just do full body compound movements with weights of some kind that's what I'll focus on. Start light, start with just some, some, you know, just hand weights and just basically get the blood going. Doing you know, the kind of thing where you start sort of near the ground in a squat position with the weights and then you push all the way up, you know, to the top and, and I'll start light like that and then I'll get into the heavier weights. But for literally a total of maybe 25min, even with sort of, you know, a couple minutes rest in between sets. And I only will generally do a set or two of each weight class. It's really almost just to get the hormones going and just to basically try to get those muscles in that particular weight set to get to failure. And once I got it to failure, then I'll, I'll, you know, move on to the next thing. Usually a counter thing to what I was just doing. So if I just did a bench press, I'll then do pull ups for example, you know. And as a side note, I never used to be able to do a pull up, you know, so I mean this has sort of been kind of real journey. Now I can do 15, 20 in a row, no problem.

And you're, you're 46 now.

Yeah, I am.

Got it.

I am. Yeah, exactly.

Now what about, what about for injury prevention and soft tissue work? Are you doing anything, you know, kind of like Kelly Starrett's becoming a supple leopard book or foam rolling or anything along those lines?

I, I am doing it now. Finally added a little bit of foam rolling in there. And actually rather than foam, I'm using actually the PVC pipe. So a trainer friend of mine kind of turned me on to using kind of the, that really firm, hard kind of plastic pipe. Yeah, that's hardcore. Yeah, it is. And it hurts like utter hell, especially from tennis. It's amazing. Last couple years from playing this level of tennis, my hips, my sort of, you know, the, the connectors between legs and glutes. Wow. The pain I get is just pretty intense. And that PVC pipe foam rolling has made a massive, massive difference. But I really have to credit the diet, I think more than anything else to just overall mitigating the kind of pain and injury that I would otherwise have. I mean I used to, when I did kind of the old fashioned diet, I felt constantly sort of inflamed. I mean there was just pains, you know, aches and pains and I, I just don't get that anymore. Despite the kind of level of stuff that I'm doing, I mean, I certainly get sore. I also would credit the cold thermogenesis. Basically. I'm really huge on that, that I think, you know, again, it's an n of 1. But for me, doing that after a workout, doing a kind of a cold ice bath or starting with a hot shower and then getting into, you know, a cold bathtub, pouring some, some ice in there for 15 and that for me, I feel so great afterwards. And honestly, the next day I'm able to get up and play another six hours of tennis if I need to. And I've relied on that as a therapy for after the really intense workouts. I might do a massive workout at the gym on a Friday evening with kettlebells and the whole thing. And the next day, Saturday, I'm playing two tennis matches in a row, three sets each at least. And this is high level tennis too. This is not sort of like the old days with wooden rackets where you're kind of lightly prancing around the court. I mean, this is like, you know, I mean, if you watch modern tennis, for those who don't know, yeah, it's a tough sport. It's a tough sport.

It beats you up. I had a match yesterday and crawled out of bed this morning. And I mean, like, you know, I follow an anti inflammatory diet and use cold thermo and foam roll. And you still feel it the next day?

Yes. I mean, look, I'm human, I totally feel it. But I swear, the difference between when I do a CT session, you know, the cold thing and not doing it, I have done my experimenting on that to really understand whether that helps. And it's night and day, also the foam rolling, night and day difference. And I also think that the ct, you know, again, it ties into the fat loss and just overall health and longevity. You know, my skin looks better. It's weird, like I said, just pretty much every aspect of my health is just better once I started the ct. So I just can't recommend that enough. And again, even if we don't fully yet understand the full range of effects from that, or it could be the combination of all these things together, but, you know, there's some pretty good evidence coming out. And if you listen to someone like Dr. Jack Cruz, you know, for example, on CT, he cites a whole lot of, you know, sort of very, very specific, even atomic reasons why CT helps and works and why it's important and in fact why it's, it's critical. So I think it's a good thing to do. And for me it's been transformative.

Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. So in terms of stress and sleep management, what are you doing from that standpoint?

Great question. You know, I really think that the carbs at night, where I feel like I can frankly indulge, I don't feel deprived. I'm really enjoying my food, my carbs, you know, at night. And of course, the brain effects that you get from eating the carbs. I mean, you do get that nice dopamine release in your brain from the carbs in the evening. And the red wine, if I'm really enjoying a fantastic, you know, French Burgundy or some great Washington wine, and I'm really into it and I'm relaxing. I'm doing some kind of, you know, reading at night or watching something interesting like the Ben Field, you know, Ben Greenfield podcast, for example. A little plug for you there, really. It's just relaxing and, and being in a relaxed state in the evening, where I'm just truly indulging and enjoying both from a sort of food, drink, standp standpoint and doing something enjoyable that just, I think, really takes the stress load off, you know, not doing intense work late into the night. And then, honestly, I've installed that F Lux app on my, my, my computer, which of course is, you know, it's sort of a, you know, poor man's version of basically blocking the blue light. So basically getting the blue light out of the picture as much as possible close to bedtime. That has made a difference in my sleep and actually track my sleep, you know, with a basis watch and a couple other things. So.

Yeah. Have you gotten one of those on your, on your smartphone yet?

Well, so I actually use the, the. No, I, I, I should do that actually. At night. I tend to use my, my computer and kind of a large monitor at home more than my smartphone, but I should actually, you know, get that on my, my phone as well.

Yeah, I think, I think the actual name of the app for the phone is called the Blue Light app.

Oh, good to know.

I've got it on my phone. I don't even remember the name of the app now, but it, I think it's just called, ironically, the Blue Light app. Even though it dims blue light, it doesn't cause blue light. And if you, if you have a jailbroken phone, there's actually, if you, if you open up, like, if you have a jailbroken iPhone and you open up Cydia, there's a version of Flux on that as well.

Oh, great.

My phone isn't jailbroken right now because I made the mistake of upgrading to 7.1, so.

Yes.

Anyways, yeah, a lot of different things you can do from that standpoint as well. Are you doing anything like yoga, tai chi, qigong? Do you do it? Do you experiment with any of that type of stuff?

You know, admittedly, no. And it's something. It's not for lack of want. I really want to. I've done some yoga in the past. It's funny, I totally understand the benefits from it. I should be doing meditation. I know that would help me. I guess I'm a little impatient. I'm just so constantly kind of wired and I sort of want to do my specific things that I'm. I. I think I'm kind of in my own little rut and I've just found a whole program that just works well for me. And so I haven't sort of felt this burning need to branch into it, but I absolutely should. I fully appreciate the, you know, just the myriad benefits from it. It's interesting what for you has been most interesting. I mean, what of all those things do you do that is most impactful?

On my morning routine, which really basically consists of rolling over and grabbing my heart rate monitor, starting at my HRV measurement in the morning. So I measure heart rate variability, I measure stress. And while I'm doing that, I have my journal out. And I journal what are the three major things I could do that day to make the day fantastic? I journal what my daily affirmation is, meaning what I want to say about myself to the world. And then the other thing that I do is I read. And typically for me, it's a chapter of a biography and a chapter of a spiritual book. Then I get out of bed and I do 10 minutes of yoga. So that's 20 minutes. That's how I literally start every day without fail. And that's the biggest thing for me.

That is absolutely amazing. That is sort of a model for what I would love to be able to do. And admittedly, because I'm not an early morning person, I find that I sort of time it so that I get, you know, as much sleep as I can.

I'm not either, but I get up about seven, right. And I got it. So my kids get up about 7:30. So it allows me to squeeze that all in before my kids come piling.

Out of the bedroom. So, yeah, that's great. That's great. That's something I should do. I tend to, actually. Unfortunately, I think that's probably not the best aspect of my morning. I Get up and I tend to go. I do the mistake of checking my phone first thing when I wake up and I get going and I do kind of feel that stress there in the morning, if you will. And I think it's probably suboptimal, although hopefully it's mitigated by the end of the day in my evening routine that I just get so much enjoyment out of that that no matter what I do, I know that I've got this great evening time ahead of me. And that in itself is something to look forward to and is relaxing. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you've got so many things going on and I've been keeping notes as you talk. I've got a picture of you swinging the kettlebell here in the show notes and a list of some of the stuff that we've talked about like the, you know, the carb backloading and the Flux app and some of these other things. But are there any other things that you found to be big wins for you that you want to share with the folks listening in who want to know how to be successful in business but still not kind of lose it from a physical health standpoint point?

That's a great point. So for me it really comes down to, you know, either being educated or not being educated about the stuff that we're talking about. You know, I think, you know, information like you have in your podcast on your website and the likes of the other sort of luminaries I think on the leading edge, whether it's a Dave Astbury or, you know, there's, there's just a lot of great information out there now around kind of this loosely paleo related, you know, kind of biohacking, performance hacking stuff. The information has never been more available than ever. There's frankly, in my opinion, no excuse not to become educated. And once you are, you really make very specific and very easy changes in your day and your routine that anybody, you know working at a company, I mean I, all my co workers, people I see at these companies and startups, you know, who are just choosing because they simply don't know better or don't care to just eat loads and loads of, of bad carbs and just snacking on office foods that just happen to be lying around during the day. It's like they're, they're like grazing sheep. They're sort of unaware of what they could be doing and feeling and then they complain about health issues and they get fat and they're saying, oh, I need to start running more. They, they just don't know, and I think so that education, getting educated is so key. You know, certainly your listeners are of course going to be on the leading edge because they're be, they're being educated. But you know, making those specific changes. Like we talked about, just doing the protein and not doing the carbs during the day. Right. Doing the coffee if you can tolerate it in the morning and just getting your body to run on fat, on, on high quality fat and, and protein and doing your carbs in the evening. You know, that plus the cold thermogenesis, you know, these are transformative things that are so easy to do in my opinion. Take so little time and then keeping your workout short, intense and sort of weight bearing, you know, compound body movements. You don't need to do the, oh, I got to go to the gym and do an hour on the treadmill or on an elliptical or, you know, it's just, it's really like being Neo in the Matrix and waking up and sort of seeing, you know, reality. Once you learn this stuff and you look at everything differently and it's hard not to be judgmental actually of people out there who are just at their desk doing all the things the wrong way.

Yeah, I'm on the same page as you with all this stuff except the part about short workouts. For me there's two things for me as far as the workouts go. The first is that I typically am always signed up for something every year that's incredibly difficult and scary. Like this year I've got kind of like a hell week for civilians down in San Diego at Seal Fit. And you just have to have workouts, you know, where you go out and destroy yourself for a couple of hours and major respect for that. It's only about once a week that your, that your nervous system is able to handle that. But I, I have that concept definitely where I, I do have some hard, long workouts that I, that I put into my life that, that may, yes, take a few minutes off my life.

But so I should clarify, I think that's, that's great and, and is key and actually I wouldn't recommend to be optimal that people actually only do the short, high intensity workouts. I actually think that your body benefits from and needs the, you know, once a week or so, longer, much longer duration workouts.

And obviously for you, yeah, I was going to say for you it's probably tennis.

So yeah, I'm talking about the people who are, you know, most people in Silicon Valley, for example, especially in these startups, literally are sitting all day at a laptop. Right. And they're coding and they're doing, you know, whatever for them it is, you know, if time is just really tough, you know, just getting that short, high intensity workout in there is, is going to be 90% of the benefit that you need, if not 90% of it. For most of those people, obviously when you get into elite fitness and at the level that you're at, it's a whole different ballgame, so.

Yeah, yep, exactly. So and then, and then the other thing I was going to mention is one of the things that I don't do much of is this concept of mindfulness based meditation, which is really big right now, 20, 30 minutes of meditation per day. And I instead use my workouts especially like, like something like a run run for, for meditation. And I'll do like deep nasal breathing and things along those lines that some people would be like, oh, you're out doing chronic cardio. But it's actually, for me that's not chronic cardio.

I think he's, you know, I saw the, the Mark Sisson post, of course, from, you know, a long time ago around chronic cardio. And I think the spirit of that is, is spot on. However, a good run, I do the same thing. If I'm not playing with tennis, especially in my legs and, you know, can handle it. I'll do, do like a half hour or 45 minute or even hour, you know, run for the Zen, like meditative benefits. That's when I get my ideas, I get creative ideas during that run. It really does the same thing, you know. Yeah. As meditation.

Yeah.

And, and for me, workouts are spiritual. I mean like if I'm out there on the bay, paddle boarding, I also do, you know, stand up paddle boarding, which I combine with jumping into the bay for my, my ct because the bay is so freaking cold. People look at me like a freak because I'm, I'm wearing a swimsuit out there. I'm the only guy in a paddle board in a swimsuit on the bay. People are literally pointing and staring and I will jump in there and I will just be, you know, splashing around and I get my ct plus a great workout, full body workout with the paddle boarding. That for me is Zen time. That is spiritual. That's like church. Being out there on the water. It's amazing.

I love it. Well, very cool. Man, I could, I could geek out with you forever. But I know you have a tennis match today. Today. Yes, and so does my wife.

So I have to go as do.

You Watch her play and, and you got to go do your thing. So if people want to learn more about you, like are you blogging? Do you have a website or anything that, that people could visit or anything like that I can include?

Yeah, I mean I'm certainly on LinkedIn and you know, Facebook and Twitter and things like that. I, I'm not blogging yet. I'm going to start because I feel like the things I picked up and learned and kind of put together are worth sharing, especially from the context of, you know, people sort of in working in high tech and who just, you know, quote unquote, don't have time and, and don't know how to do things. So yeah, I'm going to start to share that, that wisdom. So I will have something up there soon, but you can just find me. I'm just basically at, at Paul Sebastian on Twitter and I'll post links there and that kind of stuff for, for.

Twitter and for LinkedIn. For folks who want to connect with Paul and see what he's doing, I'll put the links in the show notes. So, so Paul, thanks so much for coming on the call today.

Thank you, Ben, and huge kudos to what you're doing and all the impact you're having on people like myself out there. It really is nothing short of life changing.

Awesome.

No exaggeration.

Thanks, I appreciate it. And folks, you're going to be able to find access to everything we talked about over in the show notes. So until next time, this is Ben and Paul from BenGreenfieldFitness.com sign that.

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