House or Wolves Episode Three - Family

You should be a monster, an absolute monster, and then you should learn how to control it. There's an intensity to what we're trying to accomplish, and if you want to be truly great, you've got to bring it every day. Do you enjoy pain? Pain don't hurt. You blitz all night! Standing out is a long-term strategy that takes guts and produces results. If you care enough about your work to be willing to be criticized for it, then you have done a good day's work. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of House of Wolves. I'm your host Jonathan Yanez, and in the driver's seat is Jennifer Yanez.

What are we, in Europe? I'm not in the driver's seat. Hi.

Oh, I get it, because you're on the right side of me.

Yeah, everybody's not watching.

Yes, she's on my right-hand side, not my left. But thanks for deciding to come back. Uh, it's probably a poor choice on your end, but thank you for joining us. We're super happy and excited that you're listening slash viewing, uh, today's episode. We thought we would talk about, um, kind of like health and fitness, but more so narrow in on diet. And maybe not— diet's not a good word because I feel like maybe there's negative connotations that come with the word diet. But maybe a better way is just how to eat. How about, um, eating to support you in whatever you're doing so you can perform to the best of your ability.

Yeah, it's a fuel, right? We're like engines on the road of life, uh, you know, all the tasks and things that are before us, and we need to make sure that to the best of our ability we are able to put in things that are going to fuel us. And everybody's doing something different in life, so your needs and my needs, the kids' needs, um, the people across the street's needs, they're all going to look a little, a little different. But there are some basic things to consider. And I always like to say is, you've got to know all the rules before you can break them. And I think if we know a little bit more, when we choose to break the quote unquote health rules, we can be intentional about choosing when we're going to deviate from the ideal path.

Yeah, I think that's important. I don't really like rules. I'm not a big fan of rules in general, especially ones that don't make sense. Like, I understand like safety rules and stuff like that that makes sense, but other rules, like rules just for the sake of having rules, not really a big fan. So I think it's important that you understand what the rules are, and then as an adult you can make a decision which rules maybe that you decide to break. And in this case, we're talking about, um, health and wellness, and more specifically eating. So I think I consider myself an athlete. I might— I know you might think that's funny, but I'm dead serious right now.

How many authors consider themselves athletes?

I'm— I mean, I feel like I'm an athlete as much as I need to perform day in and day out, and there's no excuses and there's no reason for me not to. So a lot of writers like to say like, oh, I have writer's block. And I mean, I could go on a whole tangent about— that's another— oh yeah, that's another episode. Writer's block doesn't exist. You mean like, oh, you have excuses? Everybody Everybody has excuses. I have excuses too of maybe why I feel like I don't want to write.

Okay. Okay.

But excuses aren't what's going to get you to that next level. So, and if writer's block did exist, how come other blocks don't exist? How come like plumber's block doesn't exist or teacher's block? Like if teacher woke up like, oh, I just can't teach, I have teacher's block or painter's block. You work through that. I've experienced that. And that's not to say writing can't be hard. Like some days the words are just flowing like wine from Valhalla.. And other days the words meet, uh, and other days the words are just like, you know, you're ripping them one word at a time out of your skull. So there's, uh, different days, right? Some days are gonna be easy, some days are gonna be hard, but it's up to you to struggle through those hard days. You can't just have a hard day and just give up and be like, oh well, writer's block, I'm not gonna write today. Get up and go for a walk, go do something, get your mind back in the game. But at the end of the day, you have to get it done. Like, those hard days are the days that count. And a lot of times when I'm writing, there'll be times where I am having a hard day and I am just, you know, ripping those words out of my soul, bleeding all over the keyboard to get the word count in. And then when I go back and edit, like after the book's finished, I have no idea what days, like, the words are just really flowing and it was super easy, and what days, trying to remember back, like, oh, was it really hard?

Would you like to talk more about writer's block today?

No, I think we should talk about, uh, health and wellness and diet. So you are an athlete because you have to perform day in and day out, and the best way to do that is to set yourself up by feeling and feeling your best.

That's a good point. Um, I think that we don't consider ourselves as performers. I don't think in general we're just kind of going through life, and until we stop and consider why we may be tired or why it's hard to focus or whatever it is. It's a combination of things. And we talked before about routine. There's so much to say about routine and application to eating, scheduling your eating, what you're eating, what you're eating and when you're eating it. And that's super micro. We can dive down deep into that. But I think we just start with the basics of fueling your body with the things that are going to help you to reach that performance level that you need, you need, that you want. Start with your needs day in and day out. And, you know, life has demands and requirements. So if you're creative, if you have things that take your mind to focus, you can't have— I know I can't have brain fog. On those days that I've made alternative choices to what I would eat or get enough sleep or whatever that is the next day, I pay for it and I can't, it's hard to focus. Like Jonathan said, it feels, it sounds dramatic, like ripping the words from your skull. But when I need to focus and think creatively about how I'm going to approach a marketing campaign, for example, or design a new layout for an ad, a new piece of merchandise, a presentation or a pitch deck, like I really need to have all my neurons and like synapses firing functioning at a good capacity. And having brain fog isn't going to allow me that creativity. All the numbers on an Excel sheet, if I'm analyzing some reports, sales data, royalty payouts for other authors, or advertising the ROI and any of that kind of stuff, performance, again, they all just look like a bunch of numbers on a page that don't make any sense. Whereas if I have clarity of mind, I can see the patterns. I can see and analyze the information I need because I have a limited window to get work done and work done for each day, right?

And I feel like the conversation can go super long if you really want to get into like the nitty-gritty of like exactly what to eat. So we could do that, but like as an overview, I think each meal should lead with protein first. And then, you know, you can have like your carbs or your vegetables on the side as opposed to the other way around, or maybe like carbs are your, uh, the main source of your meal. And then you have like a little bit of protein or veggies on the side.

Why, why do you subscribe to that?

Uh, protein helps you build muscle. Mm-hmm. So we can, we're definitely gonna get into exercise in another episode. So today we're just gonna talk about, uh, eating well. But eating well goes hand in hand with being healthy and exercising. So being healthy and exercising, you want to build some muscle. I'm not talking about like huge, like bodybuilder, although you could if you wanted to.

Yeah, but that's like super hard. So for people who think, oh, I just want to build muscle— yeah, you just want— you want some strength.

Yeah, you don't have to be huge like The Rock, but it's nice to have some strength where, you know, you can lift boxes or take groceries out of your car to your house without being winded, like in one load. Always one load, never go back for two loads. Or even walking up a flight of stairs. If you can walk up a flight of stairs and not be winded, you want that type of strength, like usable strength that the average person would want to possess on a day-to-day basis. So I would lead with protein first. And what is protein? We kind of break it down by meal. So usually when we're up in the mornings, we're eating eggs and then some sort of breakfast sausage or bacon or meat of some— even steak, you know, steak and eggs for breakfast. We've done that before for breakfast. And then at times we'll have like a side of carbs too. So that might look like a sweet potato, uh, at breakfast, maybe like a hash. That's what you made this morning.

It was so good, guys. I'll give you the recipe, it's linked in my Instagram.

And I'm not saying that fruit is bad for you. I don't think fruit's bad for you, but just remember that fruit carries a lot of sugar with it. So if you do eat fruit, you want to minimize it. So maybe at breakfast that looks like maybe just like a handful of blueberries, right? Because blueberries are great for you. But just keep in mind, blueberries aren't necessarily what you want to lead with to build muscle like you do with protein. So again, just limit— be careful with how much fruit that you're taking in on a day-to-day basis.

Not that it's bad, right? To get to a little— I was going to say, in terms of like medical advice, talk to your doctor first, get them on board, because again, everyone's got their own restrictions. We're sharing what has worked for us. Jonathan is certified certified personal trainer. He's gone through that process. I'm working on getting my— what is it called— nutritionist, sorry, nutritionist, doing a bunch of research and studying on that so I can be certified eventually. But sharing what we found, and we'll link into the show notes for anyone who wants to get into details or see some of the studies. But in terms of what Jonathan was saying in building out your plate for breakfast is one, you want to kickstart your metabolism, you want to get that body going, going back to whole circadian rhythm of your body being awake and moving and active. Another one is you want to be satiated, and you want to be satiated for a long time because you want to support your glucose index levels, your insulin spikes. And so by having a protein in there and some fiber, that's going to help stabilize you so you don't have those sugar spikes and then crashes. You also don't have the bloating that like a smoothie full of sugars, uh, sugary things is going to give you. So that's one of the things that we emphasize in our household in the morning is getting a really good nutrient-dense breakfast that's going to set everybody up for success. If we don't, if we just give the kids pancakes or a muffin or oatmeal with no protein and fiber added to it, then within the next couple of hours we're going to be having meltdowns. Josephine won't be able to concentrate on her school. Jackson's going to be whining and crying because they're hungry because they've gone through a sugar spike and crash within the 2 hours since breakfast. And so, um, and by that time Johnson's already working, so it's just me in there wondering what in the world is going on with these people. So, um, yeah, so we do eggs. I bought literally a box of eggs this past week, um, huge. I'm gonna say it's like 30-something eggs in there.

And, um, we've done yogurt too. Yogurt?

Yeah, like a kefir yogurt, uh, based yogurt, no sugar added, is good. You can Fresh fruit is best if you're going to do fruit. A little side, my friend Jim Quick likes to call blueberries brain berries just because they're so good for your brain. And having that kind of stuff in there, you can do chicken sausages if you're adverse to red meat. We limit— we have chosen to limit pork intake. You can consider what your sodium levels are with your doctor and your blood pressure to determine the amount of sodium added in processed meats.

And, uh, smoothies can work out well too. Again, if you just limit the fruit and if you're using protein powder in your smoothie with you, that can help out as well. Can help differentiate. But although, even though we're talking about all this stuff, I feel like maybe we only need 2 to 3 options for breakfast and then you can rotate through.

It goes back to your routine. You already know what you're gonna have. You're gonna have eggs and meat and something on the side, or, you know, 4 out of 7 days. Or you might have a smoothie one day, a yogurt, and then a really nicely beefed up oatmeal is nice, especially in the chillier season.

Maybe you can explain to them what you mean by beefed up oatmeal.

Oh yeah, because we're talking not red meat added to your oatmeal. Um, soak your oats, sprout the oats, and then from there you can add in, um, some protein in the form of a beef gelatin. You can do a vanilla protein powder. Um, you could add in some nut butters, um, hemp seeds, hemp hearts, and always to get some of that fiber in there. We add chia seeds and flax seeds, and you can do some fruit on the side. I'm never opposed to like doing sausage on the side for the kids, some sausage links next to their, um, oatmeal or yogurt. Again, anytime they want more fruit or anything else, we always say, sure, eat your meat and you can have whatever you want after that.

And then what Jen was saying too, we're not doctors, so we're just speaking from our own personal experience. And then we know everybody's body is different too. So different people are going to react to different things. I'm not a doctor, although I know I portray myself very professionally as such. And I also write about doctors in my science fiction novels and fantasy novels, but I'll give you a hint, I try to do as little research as possible. There's some authors who really enjoy like digging into the nitty-gritty of finding all this research and all these historical facts and stuff like that. No, thank you. I would not like to subscribe to that when I write. I just like to let my imagination go, right?

That's where I come in. I'll call them out or do the research, especially when we've written together. So all that to say is the muscle— the proteins use me to help you build muscle. It helps keep your mind clear, helps avoid the sugar crashes, or limit them. A great tip that we— I heard recently was, you know, before we go to kids' birthday parties or holiday outings is help the children maintain those sugar levels by, um, getting them a really high protein snack beforehand. And that could be something as simple as like tuna on crackers or something like that, chicken salad, or just some chicken breast, uh, like a charcuterie style.

Well, we can go into— so we kind of covered breakfast, what's a normal breakfast for us. Now we can cover lunch and dinner. And I feel like lunch and dinner can be interchangeable, like those two meals for us, like we might eat something very similar that we had for lunch or dinner, or lunch might be the previous night's leftovers from dinner. So what are some good examples for lunch and dinner?

I mean, it's hard for me to narrow it down because my mind is so wide on that, but I always start—

my mind is very—

the protein first, um, and then I'll go with a little— I like a little carb snack in there, piece for the kids especially. Um, carbs in the evening help produce melatonin. Which is the precursor to our sleep hormones. Um, trying to get everybody a better night's sleep. Also some healthy fats. Healthy fats are so good for us. That includes avocado, olive oil, avocado oil, a limited amount of nuts, certain cheeses— some cheeses sound like foreskin.

I know. Avocados, avocado oil, avocado toast, avocado butter, avocado. But some examples, like specific examples that you can use for lunch would be kind of like what Jen was saying, a charcuterie board. So you can get some meat and some cheeses and maybe some nuts. Like, that's a great lunch full of protein.

Pumpkin seeds— kids love the little tiny pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds.

Yeah. And then also Jen makes really good, like, tuna and sardine mix that you can either eat by itself or with chips, or maybe even, like, you know, a piece of bread if you needed a delivery system, or some lettuce, an endive, romaine, something there to scoop it Veggie sticks are good as well too for scooping up your tuna.

The reason we do that— sardines are another great source of healthy fats, especially the omegas that we need, and it has a good balance of omega-3 to omega-6 for just brain health and overall good cholesterol health. But not everyone loves the taste or has yet acclimated to the taste of and texture of sardines, and so more people are familiar and comfortable with tuna.. So it's nice to add it in. And as you get used to it, you could, um, balance out your ratios of tuna to sardines and then kind of go in one direction or the other based on preference.

Meatballs are a super yummy lunch, just maybe with like a side of veggies or a side of carbs. With meatballs, it could be easy too. It doesn't have to take that long whether you make them at home or you just buy them from the store, and it's packed with protein. And then for dinner, I mean, just protein first. So it could be anything from like steak to fish, to a hamburger, to— what else? Oh, spaghetti. Just like we pack our spaghetti with— I'm not— I know this is going to sound like a joke, but I'm not teasing right now. I'm being 100% serious.

I'm usually not ever 100% serious.

I'm being mostly serious right now. We will put 2 pounds of ground beef into our spaghetti. So go ahead and make the sauce and get 2 pounds of ground beef ready to go, and then make the noodles. And then we just make sure that we're eating more of the sauce and getting more of that protein in our body. Uh, to give you an idea, each, uh, beef patty is about 19 grams of protein. So if you can imagine how much beef you're eating, how much protein that you're getting. And again, this all works hand in hand with working out, because if you're eating all the right things but you're not exercising, you're still in a better place than somebody who's eating poorly and not exercising. But you'll do the best good for your body if you're eating correctly and then exercising. So your body is looking for things to build upon, and we can talk about more about that in a later episode.

We're talking about exercise. Well, don't people— they're like a saying, an old adage, if you would, that abs are made in the kitchen. Yeah, I don't think that's that old. Okay, well, okay, so, but that's the idea, is that like, what would you say?

Sorry, I just don't think, you know, Grandma Harris is talking to her people on the farm out there back in the day.

She might have— well, they didn't have to worry about that because they were super active and they were eating off the land and they weren't having processing, so they weren't going into town buying boxes of stuff.

I'm just saying, I don't think—

okay, colonizers coming to the US. No, no, no, no, no, we're gonna go ahead and strike that from the record. Stricken. Sorry guys, sorry guys. All I'm saying is that there is the saying that abs are made in the kitchen, which tells us not that the abs are important, but that the importance of eating well plays into overall health. It's not 50/50 between eating well and exercise. It's start with eating well, and you also will need movement and exercise, correct? Yes.

Now let's talk about my favorite thing, which are cheat meals. No. So I think that's important too, because, um, I feel like life is balance.

Balance and everything. Can we, can we not call them cheat meals? What would you like to call this? It has like a weird negative guilty connotation to it.

Anything weird or negative you're bringing to the table.

Well, all I would say is that let's call them less than ideal situations. Less than ideal situations. Okay, I don't know what we'll call them, but let's just—

okay, fine. So less than ideal situations. So now that you know some of the rules— protein first, Uh, it's good to eat 3 meals a day. We talk about snacks too. We'll talk about snacks later. But for cheat meals or less than—

what was your term? Uh, less than— how much protein a day? What are we looking at?

Do I just need like a tiny bit of protein? So, okay, 2 things. First of all, when you're looking to gain muscle, you want to eat 1 gram of protein for every pound you would like to weigh. So if I'm 205 right now, if I would like to slim down a little bit and get maybe to like 195 before my next roll, I would look towards eating more protein. And I know for my body, so this is interesting, some people I know can eat exclusively protein and they're fine. It works for them. They can just eat protein, meat all day, right? Carnivore diet. For me, I've tried doing that before, just eating protein, and I look like death. We were on the set filming Infinity System one day and everybody kept on asking me if I was okay. It was the day before I was going to go and have my mycine. So, you know, cutting down on the calories, making sure, you know, I'd lost weight for the role. I was getting ready to go, and last day I'm only eating meat and vegetables, and I just look like pale. Everybody's checking on me, make sure I'm okay. And then Jen was like, have you eaten any carbs today? I'm like, nope. And she's like, you need to eat some carbs. So sure enough, ate some rice, which is another good carb. So we're talking about good carbs like sweet potatoes, rice— those are good carbs for you. So I ate some rice and I felt better. I was immediately fine. So everybody's body is different, and depending on what you want to do would be how much protein you want to take in. But I would say always lead with protein first.

Um, yeah, so you would say like try to shoot for, depending on your body weight, it could be— and even people are over 100 pounds, so that would be 30 grams of protein per meal, right?

1 gram of protein for every pound you want to weigh, right?

Okay, great. And that could be in all kinds of forms, whether it's, you know, breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks in between.

We should talk about snacks. Let's finish talking about cheat meals. Okay, what's— what did you want to call them? I'm not being funny, I really don't remember.

No, I don't know that that's a good name. Less than adequate?

No, ideal.

Because then again, has like a negative connotation. Let's just—

I don't know, I don't know, I don't mind having negative connotations.

Well, psychological implications, that's another tangent. So I don't know what most of those words mean. It just goes back to our emotional relationship with food that we have. In this Western modern civilization where food can be a comfort, food could be a reward, as opposed to food simply being what your body needs to perform. So anyway, go on. So you can call it cheat meals. The Rock calls it cheat meals.

You can call it cheat meals. So since Dwayne calls it cheat meals, I'll call it cheat meals too. So now that you know some of the rules Now we can talk about breaking some of those rules. So I feel like life is balanced. You wanna keep saying, I know not every day's gonna be ideal. You're gonna be super busy with kids. You're gonna be running off to rescue the world on your next mission if you're a Navy SEAL or whatever you might be doing. So you're gonna be busy. So there are gonna be times where you can't plan, you're not gonna be home to eat the food that you know you should be eating and you're gonna be out. So I always say, think to, you know, extend yourself some grace. So instead of doing, a cheat day— like, I've heard a lot of people like, okay, I have like a cheat day throughout the week to eat all my bad stuff. The problem with that is you can eat way more bad carbs for you in a full 24-hour period just going like bananas Willy Wonka style compared to dividing that, uh, cheat day into 3 individual meals throughout the week. So if everything's super crazy and you're running around, you need to get to Bible study with the kids, you don't have time to come home and cook a meal, then going out to eat, that's one of your cheat meals. And then you can divide the other two throughout the week, and you'll eat less bad carbs by dividing 3 individual meals throughout the week than you would on a full day. So kind of keep that in your back pocket. And of course, like, when you go out to eat, there's still things that you could eat that would be better than other things. Like, not all cheat meals are created equal, so we don't want you to go like in a full-on bender going, you know, bananas to your cheat meal. And like, you know, like with like fried foods and extra Big Gulps and Twinkies and a milkshake with Oreos and just drinking that down your throat. So remember, a cheat meal doesn't have to be that. A cheat meal could be like, hey, we're gonna go out to go eat some, uh, Chinese food. And maybe with the Chinese food you have your protein still with some sort of like chicken dish, and then you have some rice, and then maybe like a vegetable dish. So again, is it the best? Maybe not, because you don't know what oils and stuff they're cooking with. Probably not as healthy as you can make at home, but it's still going to be way better than going out and getting like fried mayonnaise balls, okay, dipped in, uh, crème brûlée.

What? Right, exactly. Don't you knock crème brûlée, that is amazing. No, okay. So, um, you're talking about cheat meals, like you sound like you're saying like 3 cheat meals a week. A week, yeah.

Oh, okay. So you can divide that up, whatever your schedule looks like, what that might look for you.

Yeah, the ideal situation honestly would be, as they say, like to build a life you don't need a vacation from, to create systems and routines and patterns in your everyday eating that doesn't feel so cumbersome that you feel like you cannot like you are looking forward to that cheat meal. Your palate will change. The way your body's running is going to change, and it's going to feel so good that you're not going to want perhaps fried mayonnaise balls anymore. They're not going to taste as good as they did before. Your body's going to react negatively, and you're not going to want that anymore. It's kind of like, you know, that saying, like, you had a certain adult beverage the night before and you had too much of it, and then the next day you're like, never again, because you don't feel well. Well, that's what it's like with certain foods once your body and your mind is just feeling so much stronger and, and more able and clearer. So you're not going to want the brain fog, you're not going to want the sluggishness or the bloating or whatever it is that comes with the ultra-processed fried fake food that we tend to get when we're out. That's like a funny thing too, by the way. I take my daughter grocery shopping. She— I say she loves to come, but I, I love when I enjoy when she comes. There's a lot of just conversations that happen. But one of the funny things is she asks, like, what is this? Can we get that? What is that? It's a bunch of foods that we don't have in our home or that we specifically have chosen not to purchase. She's like, but I don't understand, why is it here? And I'm like, it's not even food, dude. Let's read the ingredients. And not one of those things is actually a food product. And I tell her, if we were to make this at home, these are the 4 ingredients that we would use that are actual ingredients, food. That farmers, farmers have grown. And it could be even farmers we know from like our local farmers market and whatnot. Um, but that's the reality, is like eat real food. Um, start there. Avoid ultra-processed oils. And, and do the same thing when you go out and you're eating on the go.

Next, let's talk about my bloating.

I don't— you guys, if watch on the analytics, it's gonna be like, well, that's weird, everybody jumped off the cut the video at, uh, 27 minutes.

No, you're going to want to stick around for this part. So I feel like, uh, carbs, like mostly bread, like I feel like if I eat a lot of bread— that's carbs.

Yeah, simple carbs. Simple carbs that, you know, we can get to the science of it, but basically the way it breaks down—

get—

it breaks down quickly and then dumps a bunch of sugar into your system, right?

So for me, I noticed when I cut out bread— we still have bread every once in a while, like the kids sandwiches and stuff like that, but we don't usually eat bread. It's more like for the kids.

Yeah, no, I try to go with the fermented sourdough, right?

So we don't eat that much bread, but I noticed that was a big indicator. Like, before, what I would eat, I'd always feel bloated, and then when I cut out bread from my diet, feel great. So I know I get most of my carbs in like, uh, an oatmeal, maybe if I have oatmeal in the morning, or like the potatoes, like what we were saying, or rice. I love sushi, so that's great too, having the protein and the carbs So that's really helped to thin that out. And now we can talk about Jen's favorite subject, sucralose.

So for a long time— Jonathan's favorite subject. Dang it.

Not again. So for this is— this is— makes sense though in this conversation.

Okay, go.

We should talk about this. Oh yeah. So sucralose is a man-made sugar that they put in a lot of what people would think would be healthy alternatives, whether they be food or drinks. But since it's a man-made sugar, what happens when sucralose passes through your gut is it destroys 50% of that good bacteria that you want in your gut to help break things down before it passes through your system. So there's little Jonathan Yanis going through life thinking he's doing everything right, because I try to drink protein shakes, and then I try to get clean, like zero sugar or no sugar energy drinks, which you previously considered clean. Previously, yeah, uh, protein bars, BCAAs even. Um, we can get more into that when we talk about the fitness. It's an amino acid, but amino acid, yeah. So like 4 times a day, protein, protein bars, energy drink, amino acid. I was taking all this stuff that had zero sugar, right? But they were just packed with sucralose. I didn't realize that I was just destroying my gut every time I was taking that. So I'm taking like 4 servings of sucralose a day, a day, thinking that I'm doing good because it doesn't have any sugar in it. And then I would say multiple times a year. Would you say 2 or 3?

I would say it happened maybe twice in each year, the past couple, few years.

Yeah, so maybe 2 to 3 times a year, just like horrible— no, don't say horrible—

graphic. No, upset stomach, very upset stomach, like lava coming out of me. Stop it.

I'm sorry, everyone. So bad. Too much.

So bad. You were quite ill. Yes.

Oh my gosh. 2 to 3. Times a year. And as soon as I cut out, I was like, finally, I just came to a point like, we got to figure what this is, because I would be down for, you know, multiple days. And just, I can't be down that long from our family, I can't be down that long from work, because if I'm not working, no new content is being created. So I gotta, you know, continue kind of going back to that, you're an athlete, you got to show up every single day. So I kind of started looking at my diet, like, what am I eating that's causing this? Sure enough, did a little bit of research on the interwebs. Sure, sure. And begorum, it was sucralose. So keep that in mind when you're looking and you think like, uh, if you were to feel like energy drinks and you pick up an energy drink, you're like, oh, this is packed with sugar, let me go see if I can find another one. And you find one that says zero sugar and you're looking at it but it has sucralose, avoid that like the plague. Like throw that far away from you. Uh, I would recommend looking at energy drinks that have maybe stevia leaf as a natural alternative to sugar, or monk fruit, or monk fruit. Yeah, so, uh, stevia leaf and monk fruit are not man-made. Like sucraloses in the laboratory. They actually come from nature, and they're not sugar either. And there's no studies, there's no research to show that stevia or monk fruit destroys your microbiome in your gut when it's going through.

But I will say that I tend to avoid stevia because I get headaches from it, right? Everybody's different. Everybody's different. But maybe you don't need energy drinks. Maybe you just need to go for a brisk walk. Often— not always, but often— some of that fatigue that we feel, especially in the afternoon, um, is just from from a lack of oxygen and movement because most of us are kind of sitting or sitting at a desk or staring at a screen, working in that way. So that's where a really good, um, a walk where you just slightly elevate your heart rate, you're getting— taking in more oxygen, you're outside, you're getting in some sunshine, you're getting that vitamin D up in your skin and absorbing it and getting that sunlight into your eyes, all of that is a much— or moving. You can do some like quick inverted yoga. By that, I just mean like reach, touch down your toes, getting the blood moving, because the blood carries the oxygen to your brain. Um, or downward dog. All of that is more effective, and it's taking from what you already have inside of you instead of adding in anything else. But I, you know, if we're gonna have energy drinks, because this guy's a beast and he is giving 110%, 110% of the time, except for 9 PM to 5 AM. Uh, that's what I'm just— he's in a coma, right? But your body's still working super hard and your brain is actually like just as active anyway. Um, all that to say, yeah, you might need the energy drinks. Yeah, you might need a little, a little something in there, but, uh, avoid sucralose and aspartame, obviously.

Okay, what was that thing that used to be back in the day when it was like, um, ephedrine? Yes, you know exactly I was talking about. Ephedra.

Co—

no, just kidding. Did they, uh, remove that from the market?

Yeah, it's giving people heart attacks.

But also, wasn't it giving them like leaky guts and stuff?

Oh, that was a different thing. That was another fat, um, like a diet thing. They were like, it prevented your body from absorbing fat, and then the fat would go straight through you.

Yeah, yeah. What was that, like in the early 2000s? Yeah, mid-2000s.

Ephedra, and then whatever that's— I don't remember what it's called, but yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. There, there's no shortcuts. Um, it's less about, it's less about like being thin in a certain size and just getting our bodies to a place where they can, and our minds, where they can perform optimally. Because we realize we have so much more that we can do and get out of life and enjoy. And like relation, whatever it is that floats your boat, whatever it is that stokes your fire, you can have more of that and share more of that, um, with the people around you, you know, when you're able to, to, to perform and to be. Yeah.

And I think the older and older that I get, I see the difference between being healthy, right, to being skinny, and then to being strong. And I feel like the older and older I get, I admire strength and I find strength attractive. Of in all forms, whether it's physical or mental or spiritual, whatever it might be.

Um, yeah, I was just reading some information from Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, and she was, um, she's a big proponent of muscle as our longevity organ or, um, source of longevity. And that means like your body will be around for healthier and a better quality of life in those latter years, as well as even in your mind. So your brain in terms of like Alzheimer's, dementia, what they're calling type 3 diabetes and all of that is better protected when you have more muscle. So again, you got to fuel that, you got to move it, and it just, it keeps the body strong so you can continue to feed the muscle that you do have. All of the excess, call them calories, but calories are great, I'm trying to work to get over 2,000 calories a day, but it's not the calories, it's the quality of the calories that I'm trying to intake. Um, and if you would have told me that 5 years ago, 6 years ago, 10 years ago, that would have blown my mind. You know, everyone's— I had a client once who like was doing 500-calorie diet. That was crazy. That's, that's insane to me. That is like as much as our children have.

Well, I think that's the difference between being skinny. I think a lot of people think like thin thin or skinny is healthy. But again, remember, thin or skinny doesn't mean muscle. Like, muscle is healthy for you. Thin or skinny might not be right, the best you, you're able to become.

Well, you don't have the muscle there to process and to synthesize things and help your body break down and use the things that you are eating, you know, using those energy calories, right? And then at the same time, you know, protects your brain protects your structure, right? You're going to have a lot more aches and pains on your bones if we don't have a good insulation protective movement system with your muscle. And I think that comes from the core, the back, the leg, like it's all over. And in terms of building muscle, we'll talk about that in the movement episode. But it starts with fueling your body and your muscle and your mind with with good things.

So we've talked about all 3 meals, we've talked about cheat meals, or the other thing you want to refer to it by, but we haven't talked about snacks because I think snacks is a good point to hit on. Everybody gets hungry in between meals.

Are they hungry or are they bored?

It's a fine line. Okay, so maybe we can give them some ideas or options to eat in between meals that could be good for you and help promote— beef liver. Yeah, yeah, beef liver. It's— it actually wasn't that bad to begin with.

How do you sell that?

That's like But now I actually like it. So what Jen's talking about is there's— I think there's two places that we buy it from.

Do you remember the names? Yeah, uh, Carnivore Aurelius, uh, and it's beef liver crisp. Who is it? Carnivore something.

Links in the bio. So yeah, so beef liver, like, I'll eat beef liver. Jen makes it and mixes it up with our regular beef, and it tastes okay. Like, I've kind of grown accustomed to it.

You want to try raw beef, like liver kink? Sure. I mean, raw liver. Yeah, you do it. Okay, I'll give it a shot.

All right, put anything in my mouth. So one thing that we can talk about is beef liver, but it's been dehydrated, so kind of like beef jerky. Think about like that, but it's so thin it's almost more like a chip. Where beef jerky is kind of like leathery and chewy, uh, beef liver when it's dried out is super, super thin like a chip. And I think all that is in it is just the beef liver and all the great vitamins and minerals that come with that. And then they season it with like a tiny bit of salt, and then that's it. And comes in bags like beef jerky would come in, and we can snack on that. And I don't know about you, but I, I'm not getting any money from this either, so don't feel like we have something to sell you or some like code, like, oh, here's a code.

Yeah, go get some.

Every link has a code.

What was his name?

Coronavirus?

No, Carnivore Aurelius.

Carnivore Crisps. Yes, we don't have any codes or anything like that with them. Not that I'd be opposed to if they listen to this, but, uh, what I'm saying to you is I eat it and I feel healthy. Like, I feel afterwards, I feel energy. I feel— I don't know what other way to say it— energy, healthy, clear-minded. Yeah, satiated.

So it's not like um, like an instant, like, uh, hey, I had brain fog and ate this and I feel better. It's like I'm hungry and instead of feeling bad if I had like cinnamon roll Doritos and spinach artichoke dip, I feel better. Yes, is that what you're saying?

Yes. Okay. Uh, not just that, not just like mentally I feel better because I know I've made a good choice for my body. Yeah, but physically I feel better you, like, physically, I feel like you have more energy.

Yeah, beef liver, organ meat is so key. We're getting into it. Um, it's not as easy to come by as we'd like. Like, you can get ground beef and chicken breast anywhere, but it's hard to come by some really good beef liver, um, liver, heart, all the good organs. We haven't worked our way down to beef meatballs, beef testicles.

Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't be opposed to trying them though.

No, no, for sure. I know, fear factor over here. But, uh, no, I mean, it was a very— those were commonly eaten things. Is that like Dave previously? Joe Rogan?

No.

Okay, so, uh, so yeah, so those are good snacks. Again, the snacks should be in line with the same concepts, um, right?

And Um, we only give them one idea for snacks, so it always says beef liver. I think that's optimal. But other things you can do is beef jerky, protein bars. Again, look to make sure there's no sucralose, but protein bars and protein shake.

I would like to put in that I try to avoid protein bars just because I'd rather get my nutrients from real food, but to each their own. It's very convenient and it's not a bad choice. I just prefer not to. So if there's anyone out there, it's like, oh, I just don't like them, Fine, that's totally fine. I don't do them, but I avoid them. But I will do it if I'm hungry.

Make them sound like drugs. No, no, no, I'll do it.

I say no, I don't—

I say no to protein bars. So I'll throw a protein bar like in my backpack or have it on hand easily so I can grab it when I'm working. Our protein that we drink, as well as our kind of like our green drink that has all the different vitamins and minerals, we get those from Jocko. So his website, um, I think it's like Origin, Origin Maine, maybe his website. It's also on Amazon too. So that's where we get our protein and kind of like our green drink for vitamins and minerals. Got it. And other snacks, uh, could be, you know, like a peanut butter and apples. Um, that's what we give the kids a lot of times.

Nuts, almond butter and apples, sunflower nut butter, cheese, like a cheese stick.

For kids, like if they're hungry, because they're hungry all the time. Oh my gosh, they're so hungry.

They're like black holes of hunger where you just throw in food and they spit half of it back out because they don't like it.

Oh yeah, we're trying to work through that right now. Anybody who has kids, they don't like half of what you make for them to eat. We're like, hey man, we're not running the kitchen here. This is like the food. This is the food that we have to eat. You don't like what we have to eat. Then after you finish what we've already given you, then maybe you can go and get something. Again, leading with protein first. We're not talking about like treats or anything like that, but the same thing.

But we're working through that process. Yeah, cottage cheese, tuna.

Um, yeah, we should do another episode just about kids.

I'm—

I don't feel qualified. Oh, I do. Okay, about raising kids, 6-year-old and 2-year-old, and like different things that we're in context of like, you know, well, we're still publishing and producing and the banana lifestyle that's going on around here.

Okay, uh, bananas with peanut butter or nut butter. We don't do bananas too often.

That's what I was about to say.

We don't get a lot of bananas. So one thing about fruit that people may not realize, like, that's a tropical summer type of, um, item. So it was available sparingly, not as open as it is now. And so, you know, it was like a delicacy, a dessert, a treat. So one, training our palates to crave less sugary items and more actual sugar, not the fake sweetened items. So one, resetting our palate. But two, knowing that it wasn't like an everyday thing. So while we do allow what would be considered traditional fruit, but there are other fruits like cucumber is technically a fruit, tomato, Um, broccoli is a flower. Um, so other things like that have those. We have those more often than we have, um, like pineapple or bananas, oranges. Those are more sparingly. We used to buy them in the bags, like the big multi-pound bags, but now we'll only buy like 1 or 2 a week, if that.

We should talk about looking for fruits that are in season. So different fruits have different, uh, times throughout the year that they're in season, and that time changes from like country to country when they might be available.

Like right now, blueberries are faded out of the US, but they're really hot.

They're like growing in Peru. So look at like where your fruits or vegetables are coming from and like what's in season, because I have a crazy story to tell you. We're gonna go down this rabbit hole. Okay, it's 45 minutes in. Okay, we'll finish up quick. One last story about this. This. So I'll leave out names because we don't want to get anybody in trouble with the government, because I'm sure they're listening to this.

But we know someone—

government, please subscribe— who has, who has developed, um, technology that is able to examine fruit. Like, you could take it to Walmart and look at an apple, it'll scan the apple and tell you exactly right then what nutrients are in that apple. So this person went around with this technology and tested all kinds of different farmers markets and grocery stores, and what they found is you're not eating what you think you're eating. None of us are, right? And by that I mean, like, you can go and Google, like, what's in an apple right now, and I'll tell you, like, protein, fiber, and different things that are in an apple. But that's like the most optimal apple when it's picked, and I don't know when that's been updated, right?

Exactly. So that testing, the universal testing, maybe for a federal system isn't super current.

Maybe that data is from 10, 20 years ago, and maybe they only tested, you know, like a dozen apples and then got the information from there. That's what about what's online when we go and look like what's an apple put in MyFitnessPal, right? Exactly. That's what everything goes off of. So this person with their tech went to the grocery stores and found out that's not what is in, uh, fruits and vegetables. And the reason being is like what Jen's saying, like not all fruit and vegetables are available at all places year-round. Like how come you can go to the store and buy blueberries at your grocery store year-round? They're not in season. So what happens is a lot of times these fruits and vegetables are picked and then they're either frozen or held over time. He was telling us about apples that were— the oxygen was like taken out of the apples, out of the atmosphere, out of the atmosphere, sucked out of the atmosphere. So the apple could be like in stasis for like a year before it was then sent to the grocery store where they need it. So when it gets to the grocery store, it's not the same vitamins and minerals in it that you think it is. So what this person told us is they tested everything from like Trader Joe's to Walmart to farmers markets everywhere around to see kind of like who had the best overall source of food. And this person shared with us that it was actually Walmart in the Midwest. Yeah, and it's Walmart, he was explaining to us, because their supply lines work, uh, like clockwork. So it's not necessarily that they're the freshest by default, it's just like overall their transport system runs the best, runs the most efficient, so that when the fruit is picked, it's put immediately put on the truck and taken to the grocery stores to So, for example, Washington apple season may be sometime between August and October.

So if you're eating a Washington apple in March, that was picked months ago, up to 6 months ago.

But it still looks like super fresh and appealing.

So what happens is, although they've stopped some of the oxidation process, or you know how fruit deteriorates, inside it is compromised. And so the molecular structure or the nutritional profile, it's not what we expect, and the thing that kind of sustains is sugar.

Again, man, this is a lot of information. Yeah, it's a lot of info. Just make the best decisions you can and kind of think too, like, what's grown in season. So if you're picking up blueberries, like, hey, is this a blueberry that's in season now that could have been picked locally? And you can see where they're from too. Like, a lot of times when you go to the grocery store, on the packaging it'll say where it was from. So if it's, you know, picked somewhere, you know, out of country and who knows how fresh it is, as opposed to like, oh, I recognize this area in my state as being, you know, close by and it's that season for it.

So think about that too. Yeah, so that's what I do just to like help, like, because it can be overwhelming, right? You get into this analysis paralysis. I don't know what to eat. How much protein do I need? Can I eat this blueberry? Kids only like blueberries. Can they have blueberries every morning? Keep it simple. Like, you don't have— we don't have to vary it up that much. Um, you know, don't exhaust or fatigue your decision-making. Come up with a plan and then you can stick to it. And then, you know, one week of grocery shopping, you modify one area, and then the next week of meal planning, uh, meal planning, you modify another area. So you build into it with steps towards the eating lifestyle that fits your family.

And again, going back to the conversation where how do you build— how do you eat a frog if you're listening to our last conver—

our last podcast. But in case they weren't, how do you eat an elephant?

It's one bite at a time. So if you're looking at this conversation without like, oh my goodness, I don't even know where to start, start with protein first and cutting out sugars and carbs as much as possible. Keep the good carbs like potatoes and rice.

Well, I mean, cut a lot of that sugar, complex carbs, keep complex carbs, like fade out rice and potatoes. Yeah, and the simple ones are starch sugars like, uh, cakes, white breads, white— some white rice, pasta, and shift over to things that take longer to break down in terms of sweet potatoes, rice, um, some— yeah, don't—

yeah, rice, um, actually technically fruit's considered a carb because of the way it breaks down, right? So again, you can only take away 2 things, you don't know where to start, start there. Protein first, cut out sugar. Just do that. And I promise you, you'll feel a difference. And then you can start building from there, kind of like, what's next? What's a good protein? Or what's a good, like, a liver to try out?

So all this helps to give you clarity of mind, lose weight, uh, protect your gut, which helps you stay healthier more frequently, more often, right? So you get sick less, more energy, more energy, so that you can build and perform to your better level in the life that you're called to.

And there's a lot of good that you can do for yourself mentally too. Like, there's a lot of benefits of doing the hard things that you know you should be doing but maybe aren't. So when you do those hard things, there is a sense of accomplishment and there's a sense of well-being that like, hey, I know this is hard, it's much easier to go get a triple cheeseburger with fries and a chocolate shake.

But I'm not— for that, that sounds hard.

But I'm not. I'm gonna eat what I know is healthy for me. So there is a lot of benefits from living the life you know you should be, even though it might not be the easiest. It's easier to go out and make bad decisions.

There is value in it. All right, well, wishing you guys health and wellness, especially as we're coming up on New year, new season, um, and a new way of doing life together.

Thanks everybody, we'll see you next time. Thank you.