Protein drives lean muscle, raises metabolism, and improves insulin sensitivity, making it crucial for managing blood sugar and cravings. Speaker A pairs it with intermittent fasting or low-carb eating, avoids ultra-processed foods and high-fructose corn syrup, and stresses that each strategy must fit the individual, not become dogma.
But to me, the one that is non-negotiable as far as I'm concerned is protein is king or queen, whatever you want to call it. Like protein is the most magical lever that we can be leaning into because everything gets better when you focus on protein. Everything like your lean muscle mass is going to increase. Therefore you are stronger. Therefore you are improving your lean muscle or your basal metabolic rate because your muscles love glucose and they're burning up those calories just by being bigger. You are more stabilizing your blood sugar. So for those blood— those pre-diabetics or diabetics, here's the antidote, right? Like gaining that lean muscle mass because, uh, your increased protein intake. You are fuller, so you're not going to want to crave those, those chips as much or those those Ritz crackers or those high refined carbohydrates because you're satisfied. You're less feeling a need to fill a gap. And so when you add it all up, the improved insulin resistance, the increased lean muscle mass, being fuller, it's just an amazing lever. Whether you are vegan, whether you are low carb, whether you are Keto Focus. Like, this to me is the non-negotiable. This is the one that I think if you are serious about being healthier, this is where you got to lean into. And some of the other parts, like, I really think it can be individualized. Like, I'm a big fan of intermittent fasting. Like, I don't eat— or time-restricted eating, depending on how, how much strict you want to be with your definitions— but I don't eat till noon and I allow myself about 3,000 calories a day and it allows me to just focus. Like, I don't have to think about the quantity of food. I just get to demolish my meals and assuming they're high quality meals, I just get to eat like a beast and I love it. I love it. And so this is what, it's a good lever for some, not for all. Low carb, I think it works for some, but once again, it's— I think it's individualized. Keto, my main issue with keto is that it's hard to sustain, and any kind of nutrition approach to me has to be sustainable. And then the last one I'll mention is staying away from the middle of the food aisle, avoiding the processed food. And I know that's easier said than done, but I can't see how many— I can't tell you how many transformative, uh, transformations I've seen from people that have eliminated especially specific processed foods. I have had a guy, uh, colleague stop taking pop altogether, lost 30 pounds in no time.
Like, it's amazing to me that people are still drinking soda. Like, this just completely— I, maybe I'm completely naive, but I just I mean, obviously people are buying it, it's in the store. So, you know, but it's amazing. That's like one of the easiest things that you can do to improve your health. Just don't have soda.
100%. I think, I mean, similar to other things, people are just addicted. It's addictive. Like many of the processed foods that we grew up on now, it's hard to believe to say that we grew up on processed foods. Our ancestors—
I was raised on Pop-Tarts and Captain Crunch.
Exactly, like I was, you know, Honey Nut Cheerios, Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, you know what I'm saying? Pudding, Jell-O pudding, like a— Yep. We were overly processed and now I think we're really seeing, I don't know if we were gonna get into this a bit, JJ Virgin, but I can't tell you how exciting it is to see that people are, are really starting to question this stuff, like what we're feeding ourselves, whether it's how things are hormone modified or how— what these ultra-processed foods are actually doing to our, uh, our health mentally, physically. Like, there seems to be almost like a revolution happening right now, and it totally excites me. I'm sorry if I'm digressing, but Like, I think a change is coming.
I love it. So what's interesting, like, you mentioned protein as this foundational piece, and then the other things to me are tools. And you might need to use keto temporarily for something or long-term for cancer, but, you know, it's like you look at these things and go, I used keto when my son had the brain injury. You know, it's like you use some of these tools for what they're needed for, doesn't mean you're going to use them forever. Like, I see carnivore as a great food elimination diet, but not a forever diet. So there's all these tools out there you can use. The one I don't understand at all is this use of low protein for longevity. That one like completely flies in the face of everything, you know, like let's lose our muscle mass and live a long time. The two don't go together. So that one I don't like. I think you kind of were tipping your toe into something, and I've sort of looked at this whole thing and go, I really, I really am not interested in not being controversial anymore. And I don't understand how health is political. Like this the weirdest part. But I'm very excited about the fact that we have this maha movement. I don't know why people think this needs to be political. What it's really saying is, hey, we need to look at what's in our food supply. We need to look at what's going on with our healthcare. And yes, we do. And our food supply, like, just looking at— and I'm assuming it's the same in Canada as the US, I don't know— but like, they're pointing out that there's all these foods in the United States that are outlawed in Europe. And they actually started to show like back in, you know, the '50s and '60s what the foods looked like. The fact they were in boxes or they were in cans or they were in glass jars. And now everything's in plastic and everything has been changed from, you know, from regular cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup, like just garbage all across the board. Is it the same in Canada?
Unfortunately it is, JJ. And I'm— I don't know if you were early to, to the game with this, but I'm, I'm considering myself late to the game to having this aha moment of there's, there's, there seems to be a lot of reason to be concerned, and I'll put it that way. I, like, I, I did a show with a, a nutritionist from the UK, and they were talking about how exactly What you mentioned, there were some processed items that were banned in Europe that we're giving to our kids in their cereal and so forth. It's crazy. Like, have you ever— do you remember when you were a kid when you would, you would have, um, you buy a loaf of bread and I don't know how long it would take before it got molded, but it wasn't very long, right? We've had bread in there in our house, it's like 3 weeks, 4 weeks, and there's not even a glimmer of mold, I'm like, this is fishy.
Uh-oh. Yeah.
You know, like there's something not right here. And what was fascinating about this interview with this dietitian is she was saying anecdotally, I don't have evidence to support this, so just keep it with a grain of salt, less asthma, less autoimmune disease, less gluten intolerance, kids less medicated, Like, there's something off. I'm just gonna say this. I've been saying this for a while, not as much publicly, but there's something off. Like, I went to a little kid's party, or sleepover, and 75% of the kids were medicated for ADHD. I'm like, there's something not right. We can't think to ourselves that, oh, we're better at diagnosing this, oh, we're, We're just more aware. Oh, like there's, there's something. I, I know it in my core, JJ, that there's something that we're doing to, at a societal level that is not jiving.
