#99 - Robb Wolf: Exploring a Healthier Lifestyle with the Power of Protein

Hi, my name is Jorge Cruise, and I'm the number one New York Times bestselling author and leading fitness, nutrition, and peak performance trainer to the world's busiest celebrities. You may have seen my work with Oprah Winfrey, Khloe Kardashian, Tyra Banks, Kelly Clarkson, or even Dr. Oz. My career started because in my early 20s, I was out of control and addicted to sweets, carbs and salty snacks, and experts told me to simply count calories to get control. They were wrong. My passion to get control of my hunger led me to find simple ways backed by science that would turn off physical hunger as well as my emotional eating instantly. And I know I can help you too. Welcome to the Jorge Cruise Show.

Well, happy Sunday. It's December 6th.

Welcome to the Jorge Cruise Show. I'm Jorge. This is the number one show for, um, for what I would call getting the confidence, the strategies, the tools, the focus for radical control over sugar, carbs, and salty snack foods. Because in my 20-plus years of being an author, I've been a trainer for over 25 years, the only thing that seems to sabotage our weight loss goals, our health goals, are carbohydrates. And it's either carbs, sugar, or a combination. And sometimes there's salt involved, but I always have to say that salt is actually good for us. It's the potato, it's the corn. That's the stuff we got to minimize. And I'm not saying we have to exclude it. Believe me, I still have chips and crackers and all that. I, I do that on special occasions. It sometimes is the weekend. But you know, when you eat in what we call a time-restricted window— and right now a lot of my clients are following the Zero Hunger Plan. And so now through Zoom we've been doing that. And if you are interested in that for the future, you can always sign up. We're closed now, obviously, but we had over 800 people apply, and I think we're right around 120 people are in the plan. So it was a very select group of people that entered and, and made it, uh, into where we're at now. And tonight we have a meeting, uh, as we do every night at 5:00 PM Pacific time. And I hope if you weren't able to get in this time, you'll get in next time. We'll be opening it up in January, and, uh, It's an extraordinary place to really empower yourself to get that radical control so you can really put these things that tempt us, you know, sugar, carbs, and et cetera, in its place and have control over them. So on today's show, I'm so excited. The reason I'm doing this on a Sunday is because I want you guys to have it before the week starts, and obviously you can enjoy this at any time, but it's with Robb Wolf. He is literally the world's leading expert in Paleolithic nutrition, which, basically means ancestral health. And his passion for over 20 years, we're the same age, has been to focus in on what our ancestors ate, you know. And on today's show, you're going to discover the simplicity and the elegance that our ancestors used unintentionally, not knowing. But sometimes when you have divine grace or you have some, I don't know, intelligent design involved here, you end up following things that work. And our ancestors, as Rob will tell us, had health. You know, they may have not lived as long as we did just because there wasn't any medical intervention, no hospitals, no doctors. So if you got an infection, you got a cut, you broke an arm, you know, child birthing, all that, if it wasn't perfect, you know, you could have died. And so, but if you made it past, they say, the age of 30 or 40 back in the ancient days, you probably made it to 70 or 80. And without diabetes, without heart disease, without cancer, without all the things that what we now call our underlying health conditions that can hurt you normally, can hurt you through COVID-19, et cetera. And so on today's show, I think you're gonna have a clarity that's gonna come from his conversation about what our ancestors did and how we can do it too. And it's super simple. You're gonna learn about meat, salt, and water, the three amigos that our ancestors really utilized Shockingly, as much as some of us think we were hunters and gatherers, we were primarily, I would say 99% of the time, hunters, and less than, you know, the minority, minority of the time— I can't say that word— we gathered only for survival. But to thrive, it was hunting, you know. And I know a lot of people that I've worked with have no problems eating in kind of a high-protein, high-fat diet. But on today's show, I think you're going to see how not only is it good for us, but shockingly— and Rob has a new book book called The Sacred Cow, and it's a documentary too, that really talks about how, uh, conscious farming of animals like cows and beef and all these things can actually help the Earth rather than hurt the Earth. There's a lot of people that I know that I love that are celebrities and well-known figures out there are vegan because they want to help the Earth, you know. And so shockingly, you know, Rob has insight on this and wanted to share it. And so his new book is amazing, and he's the author of past New York his bestsellers, The Paleo Solution and Wired to Eat. And truly, his passion comes from not having health himself when he was younger, and, and as I did.

And so it's a great story.

I think you're gonna fall in love with Rob, and you're gonna see how passionate he is about his, his mission and his rebellion, he calls it. He has a great podcast show he'll mention as well. You gotta definitely subscribe to all his stuff. So that's on today's show, Robb Wolf. Super excited and honored he's on the show.

Let's give a shout out to our sponsors, guys.

First, we're brought to you by my website, zerohungerplan.com, and it's a new website that just came out this year, and it's where you most likely have been to if you did try to sign up for our challenge. And if you haven't signed up for the challenge, I want you to check it out and sign up for our incredible daily newsletter that is starting tomorrow for the first week. And every day I'm going to be sending you a simple what-to-eat idea to turn off hunger. So I want to utilize this moment to get you to over to zerohungerplan.com. That's Z-E-R-O ohungerplan.com and scroll to the bottom. It's totally free, just give me your email, and I promise we're not going to send you junk. It's just simple strategies every single day to turn off hunger and give you that radical control in an email format. And you'll get a simple tip, it's short, it's sweet, you can share it with others, it'll inspire you, it will empower you, and it'll give you, um, strategies, truly shortcuts that are proven.. And you know, it'll give you that control that we need. So check that out, zerohungerplan.com, and I think you'll love it, guys. We're also brought to you by Rob Wolf's website, so shout out to him because he's on the show today. But his, his company Elemental Labs has become my go-to place for, uh, sodium, especially on-the-go sodium, because he has these electrolyte packets that are delicious. He's got orange flavor, lemon flavored, all these things. We talk about it on the show today. And what he's giving all of us is if you sign up for a value bundle, you get a 4th box, so a free box of his electrolytes, which is a $45 value, by simply going to the following URL. It's drinkelement.com/jorge. And I'll spell it for you, it's drinkelement.com/jorge. And sign up, guys, and you'll love it. It's stuff I use. And if you sign up for the auto-ship, it's even lower. So the price is really good. It's a great, great thing to have on hand. Uh, you guys know we can make our own drink, what we call Zero Hunger Water, with sodium and magnesium potassium, but this makes it all for you. It's done and it tastes sweet and it's sweetened with stevia, which is natural, so you'll really love it. Good stuff. So thank you to Rob on that for various reasons. And then finally, we're brought to you by shopdrtesse.com. Now, Dr. Tess is America's leading dermatologist, most favorite dermatologist.

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She and I are the same age as well, and she is offering all of us her secret a, I think, potion. Um, it's a tablet to gorgeous skin in collagen format, which comes from bone broth, the bone marrow, and it's called Lively Healthy Skin. And she's giving all of us 50% off at checkout with the code Dr. Tess. So, um, if you wanna have your skin look good, you want it to stay elastic and supple, or say you're losing 20, 30, or I, I usually tell people if you're losing more than 40 pounds, you have to take collagen bone broth, but it's gonna help with the recoiling of your skin. We did a whole interview, she and I, as well, so you can always check that out at jorgecruzeshow.com to see our past shows. But Shop Dr. Tess is amazing, guys. It's the exclusive place where you can get this 50% off. I'll spell it for you. It's shopdress.com. All right, and thank you to Dr. Tess for that. So with that said, guys, I'm super excited, because you're going to sit down with me, and in the next 90 minutes, I think you're going to have some profound aha moments, and I think you're going to understand the elegance of the Paleolithic era, and how our ancestors truly were not people that had disease in their life. You know, they didn't have obesity, they didn't have heart disease, and they didn't have all the issues we had. They enjoyed salt because that was a way to preserve things, but they may laid it even fresher than that. And so this simplicity of eating a high protein, high fat diet, which can be controversial, I think is going to make you feel more comfortable by the time you're done listening to this. And I think it's something you're going to want to share with your loved ones. So let's get started right now. Here's Robb Wolf.

Well, welcome everyone to a very special podcast show today.

I'm super thrilled.

Uh, joining me on the other side of the Zoom here is a man who's really the world's leading expert when it comes to Paleolithic health. He's a New York Times bestselling author. He used to be a biochemist. He's a podcast host. I think he's truly got this, this grasp on nutrition. He's written a couple of books.

His name is Robb Wolf, of course.

The Paleo Solution, one of my favorites, kind of like the initial book. And then this one is kind of a great one, How to Turn Off Cravings with Wired to Eat. And he's here. Robb, would you say hi to everyone, please?

Hey, huge honor to be here. Thank you.

Oh my gosh. The honor is all ours. And I know my listeners, you know, they are people that are trying to get radical control over sugar and carbs and salty snack foods. And I always have to tell them, it's not the salt that's bad, it's the potato and the carbs that we got to be more cautious of. And I feel like you've known this for— oh my gosh, you started, if I remember my history a little bit, back in the— was it the '80s and '90s? You kind of transitioned from being a biochemist to opening a gym and kind of being more proactive with health. And, uh, you had some sort of health crisis, if I remember. But share with us a little bit of your background, because I feel like Your work is pivotal with what you're doing. You have kind of a new rebellion, this new, um, how would you describe it? What's a podcast, but it's also a movement, right, Rob? Yeah, yeah.

It's called The Healthy Rebellion. The goal is to get a million people out of the sick care system. And I guess that's kind of the, the endpoint of, you know, 20-plus years of tinkering with this stuff. Uh, in the late to mid-'90s, I was a bench researcher looking to either go into a PhD track or medical school. But ended up developing a pretty gnarly case of ulcerative colitis. I'm about 165 pounds, 5'9", 165 pounds. At the low ebb of my ulcerative colitis, I was 125, 130 pounds from malabsorption issues. Like, I, I would eat food and it would come out pretty much the same way it went in. And I was pretty much dying. The doctors wanted to do a bowel resection on me. And again, I was about 26 years old, so not super good prognosis for long-term health and all that stuff. And it was interesting, my mom had suffered from a lot of the same things that I was dealing with, a bunch of gut issues, some things that we discovered were autoimmune related. But her rheumatologist did some really comprehensive blood work on her and figured out that she was reactive to grains, legumes, and dairy. And when she told me that, I was like, okay, you react to grains, legumes, and dairy, what on earth do you eat? You know, what's left? Yeah, what's left, and I was kind of noodling on that. And this was, again, this was around 1998. And so now, had you already done your work in biochemistry?

Tell us, take us back to college, why you studied it. And then obviously your mom had an impact.

Yeah.

And then you had an issue. And then take us to where you are, Teddy. Give us the, the kind of the origin story in a few minutes, and then we're going to dive into some questions that I know our audience has for you, because I think of you as truly the godfather of Paleolithic nutrition. And I think— thank you— to have your insights on the ideal diet, I think, is one of the biggest questions out there. I know you're a big advocate of sodium use, which I love. I'm a huge fan of this product, which I think you know, Element. We love this stuff. Um, I've been recommending it to celebrities. So maybe we can get into the solution, but first tell us a little bit of your background from how that started, because you studied biochemistry before these health issues and your mom and all that.

Yeah.

Take us back. Yeah.

You know, my mom had been sick as long as I can remember. And I had this sneaky suspicion that both my parents smoked, my dad drank, they didn't exercise. I had a pretty good idea that, you know, eating differently would lead to better outcomes than what they had experienced. And that drove me in a lot of directions. I was a California state powerlifting champion at one time, got into Thai boxing. I've always been interested in human performance and everything. And that definitely drove me into the biochemistry track. And I wasn't sure if I wanted to do research, wasn't sure if I wanted to do more of a clinical, you know, facing deal being a doctor. But the long and short is that I lived in a way that crushed me. So I shifted from a vegetarian diet to eventually a vegan diet, which I don't actually want to demonize that more than what it should be. Like, for— dietarily, that was definitely not a good fit for me. But at the same time, I was sleeping like 4 hours a night. I was living in Seattle. I had not seen the sun for a couple of years. So, I shudder to even think what my vitamin D levels were. My circadian biology was just terrible. Super high stress, no meditation, no stress mitigation or what have you. I don't think— well, I know now that something like a grain and legume-based, uh, you know, vegan type diet would not work for me. Like, I'm just not cut out for it. I do a lot better on protein and fat. But it was all of this stuff together that, that damn near killed me. And so it was, it was when the, the doctor was figuring out what was going on with my mom. He figured out that she had celiac disease, that she had several interrelated autoimmune conditions. And so, this was where I kind of had an aha moment when my mom told me she was reactive to grains, legumes, and dairy. I was kind of like, "Man, what do you eat if you don't eat that?" And again, this is back in 1998, but I had heard of this concept of a Paleolithic diet or a hunter-gatherer diet because I was thinking grains, legumes, dairy, that's agriculture. What do we do before agriculture? Hunter-gatherers. And it was really just this kind of like free association. So I went into the house, turned on my computer, waited for the computer to boot up, and there, you know, did the dial-up deal. Yeah. And then there was this fancy new search engine called Google, and into Google I put the term Paleolithic diet, and I found some interesting information, and it suggested that there were a lot of potential problems with GI issues and digestion, and it just fit me to a T.

And for the folks listening, not to interrupt, but tell them what Google said back then and what you would say in a briefer statement of what that, what that term is, a What was it? Paleolithic diet is what you typed in?

Yeah.

So, all the folks that don't know what that is, basically the way our ancestors ate to a high degree, right?

That's kind of, you know, within anthropology circles, folks have observed that both contemporarily living hunter-gatherers, hunter-gatherers that are still out in the wild, and then also the archaeological remains of our hunter-gatherer forebears, these people seem to be pretty healthy, and they seem to be generally not suffering from the types of chronic degenerative disease that we see within most of the modern world, the developed world. And it was within anthropology circles, it was more of like a, "Oh, isn't that interesting?" But nobody thought about doing anything about it. It's like, well, these people had no medical care, they had high infant mortality rates, lots of infection, no emergency medicine, but they still had remarkably long lifespans. And if they made it to 30 years old, they were as likely as you and I to make it into their 70s or 80s. There was just this information that was hidden in these high-level academic circles, and nobody had thought to do anything about it.

And this is back in what year?

Oh, yeah.

Approximately.

So, when I ran across it, it was in 1998. Wow. And in 1986, a physician named Boyd Eaton wrote a book called The Paleolithic Prescription, and he's kind of the first person that brought a lot of this information to the forefront. And then it was around 1992 that Professor Loren Cordain found his work, started working with, with Boyd, and then, uh, you know, he did his book in 2001. But Loren and I collaborated for a number of years. A lot of other people work together in this space, but it's really using not trying to do like caveman reenactment, but look at what can we learn from these pre-Westernized societies, both what they do, what they don't do, and can we take some of the best practices out of that and apply it to our modern lives for some benefit? And again, a lot of Loren's early work looked really closely at a lot of gastrointestinal digestive-related issues, celiac disease, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome. And it seems to be endemic in, you know, westernized populations, and you can't really find it in these modern hunter-gatherer groups. And we assume that there probably wasn't much of it going on in our ancestral setting. And so, this was enough of an impetus for me to just give it a shot. And so, I cut out all grains, legumes, and dairy, started eating pastured meat, fruits, and vegetables. Pretty quickly realized that I did better more on the the kind of fat and protein side, a little bit more of a ketogenic-looking profile versus more fruit and roots and tubers and whatnot. And that's been 22 years since I kind of dug into that and made those discoveries.

Wow. Because I feel like, you know, we share a similar background. Around that same time period, I was going through a lot of health crisis. I was trying to overcome being overweight. I was in college and had figured out some basic things, not a lot. I knew a little bit about HIIT training. And you know what I was told back back then, and I'm sure you heard the old solution for anyone who wanted to get healthy was to either count calories, you know, that calories would be the solution. We're told that for I don't know how many years, you know, Weight Watchers still, they don't count points, but they're, they're looking at, you know, calories and trying to see the biggest bang for the least amount of calories. And it seemed to help, but it was so much work. And I'll tell you, during COVID I had— and the reason we're probably talking, so we have to give a thank you to Mark Sisson. I've been friends with him for so many years, and he's been a nutrition mentor of mine for almost 17 We met years ago when I was living in San Diego. And then when I lived in Malibu for about 3 years, we had more time together. And then he created Primal Kitchen, which I'm sure you know of, and his love of avocados and all that. And he, during COVID said, Jorge, I've read a book. You've got to read this. I'm eating less vegetables and eating more animal-based protein. I said, Mark, really? Because, you know, this is the man that sells salad dressing.

Right. Right.

The big-ass salad. You know what Mark always says? He's like, well, I'm still having a salad, but it's not as big and I'm having more meat. And it was the book by Paul Saladino, you know, The Carnivore Code. And so I read that and the light went off.

We—

Mark and I did a couple podcasts and he introduced me to Paul, and that led me to talking to various other people. And I think that's why you and I are talking, because I feel like you've really been there ahead of time. And you worked with— if I remember right, the foreword by—

by— this is—

this was— this your first book, Rob?

That was the first one. Yep.

And there he is, Corden, right there on the— on the— yeah, because he wrote the foreword. So I feel like For anyone out there, the, the blueprint, we'll talk about that on the show here. I think that's important because it's kind of been what has allowed you to have control over your health, I would think. Right. And all those issues that you had and your mom's issues have been at bay now for over 20 years. Is that fair to say? Yeah.

Yep. Yep. And it's definitely been an iterative process. It's interesting. Uh, I remember early on that I would get really prickly when people would say, oh, that's just this all meat diet. And I would, I would, no, no, no. Eat lots of vegetables and everything.

Sure.

And then ironically, I'm the guy that probably does better with fewer vegetables as opposed to more. You know, I do pretty well with tomatoes and avocados, some artichokes.

Yeah.

But it's interesting. Since I've really focused on what things that I eat, so long as I eat the things that my digestion is great with.

Yeah.

I do wonderfully. And then when I deviate off that plan and I get stuff that, that I, I've never really been constipated. I've been more on the, the looser side of things. If anything. Yes. And if I, if I get into that, that area, then the rest of my health is bad.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's really crazy.

Well, and I love that. I mean, obviously it's just such common sense. It's almost like 1 1 2 where, you know, and for me that it was a little bit, it took a minute for me to absorb what Mark Sisson had told me. This is maybe 9 months ago. Um, and, and really this idea of eating more animal-based nutrition, but he kind of did what you just said. He looked at it from an anthropological viewpoint and a historical viewpoint. And, you know, it's hard to argue with history unless obviously it's, you know, you know, made-up history. But I think there's enough science to know and enough history to know that ancient man, you know, and, you know, I recently spoke with Dr. James D. Nicolantonio, and he was talking about how much of our diet changed just in the 1930s with the invention of the refrigerator, right?

Right.

Dropped our sodium intake. But before, in the 1920s, and you go way, way back, we preserved meat with salt. And Salt intake, he mentioned to us, was as high as 25 grams a day to 80 grams a day. You know, and now today people are, you know, scared of salt and sodium. And I'm such a big advocate of that. So I think we're going to have a great conversation here because I also want to talk about salt with you because I know you're a big advocate of sodium and healthy use of sodium. And but let's do this because I feel like everyone watching and listening to the podcast, you know, they want to eat healthy. And I think the cat is out of the bag, or I don't know if that's the saying, but it's out there that people know that sugar and carbs are something that we need to minimize, we'll say, right? And possibly— and more high protein, high fat is probably healthier. But people feel like, oh, I just don't have the discipline, I don't have the willpower. But I've heard a lot of your conversations on why it's not our fault, because the way, you know, I think it's two-part possibly, and you tell me to guide me on this, but I feel like sugar and carbs have this impact on dopamine and serotonin. So we're kind of like— makes us feel good, you know. So I always tell my clients, it may not be your fault. So I remember when I was working with Steve Harvey, and he He really wanted to cut out sugar, but he's like, Jorge, I just love sugar. I was like, it's not your fault, Mr. Harvey, you know? And I've worked with so many of these high-end television kind of personalities. They feel like they're strong in so many areas, but yet they're weak when it comes to just putting down sugar and carbs, you know? And I feel like there's a biological kind of link to it. So it's not our fault necessarily. But then in today's modern world, I loved your example in one of the interviews I was watching of yours where you talked about the old line for Frito-Lays, was it, right? About you bet you can't eat 2. That's just one, right? And so they do things to food now to kind of make it even more addictive. Can you share with us a little bit why it's not our fault that we probably are overeating a diet that's not based on our ancestors? You know, because basically, you know, if an animal-based, more high-protein, high-fat diet is ideal, and we can talk about that in a few minutes, but tell us why, as much as we may even know that, we— how would you say it, Rob? I feel like we're addicted to sugar and carbs in this world. And I see a lot of that with clients I work with, and they think it's their fault. But I kind of want to say, you know, it's biologically wired that way to some degree. And yet, you know, these food companies make the food even more addictive. And so it's hard to quit when it's everywhere. And it's, you know, and you even talked, I think, in one of your talks about just seeing the food makes you excited and the food porn, right? Want to eat it, let alone that raises insulin and all these insulin-spiking foods cause issues. So would you take it away? Tell us a little bit about how this may not just be our fault and not that we want to blame people, but I want to take the pressure off of people listening because I think a lot of people feel like they're failures because they just don't have the willpower. And I think whatever you can share to help them understand that, that, you know, that it may not be their fault. And yet we'll talk about the solution in a minute and maybe how to make that transition. But would you kick that off for us, please, Rob?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, it's, it's interesting because— and you alluded to this at the outset— that the main tool that we've been given from the mainstream folks is calorie counting. And I, I'm this person, I, I managed to make everybody angry because you have people that are like, it's only calories, and then you have people that are like, it's only insulin. And I'm in this spot where calories definitely matter, but they matter in that we need to figure out a way that we can spontaneously eat in a way that doesn't make us sick. We, you know, we can't do constant moderation. We can't have a lock on the refrigerator. You know, I mean, there's just some stuff there. And what's interesting for me is that generally if people get enough protein, which virtually nobody gets enough protein, that's an amazing beginning point because protein is the most satiating food that we can eat, you know, dense protein sources. And then from there, we have to do a little bit of tinkering. I think that maybe 60, 70% of people do better on a little bit lower carb side of things, but higher protein.

I agree.

I think there are definitely people out there that just crush it on higher protein, low fat, good carb sources. Like clearly everybody knows some of these, these people out there. But the place that people absolutely fail is this middle ground where we're eating fat carb combo meals. And it is, it is just like, it's booby traps everywhere. This stuff is designed to bypass the neuroregulation of appetite, the, the way that our brain tells us whether we have enough calories and we don't need to eat, or we are, are needing some energy and we do need to eat. But these engineered foods basically spin those dopamine receptors in the brain and keep us in this constant inherent, you know, seeking process for food. And if you are telling people just weigh and measure your food, but you give them food that is addictive as cocaine or something, then it, it's kind of like, I mean, give an addict like a bag of heroin. It's like, hey man, have at it. Just be reasonable with it. You know, it's like, that's ridiculous. And it's maybe a, a little bit of a stretch to make that analogy, but you know, the many people that have struggled with, with losing weight, getting healthier, maintaining weight. Well, I'll give you an example. We worked with a client who had been a meth addict, and she managed to change her life. I mean, she was homeless at one time, got, got through all that, but she became a smoker and she became a sugar addict. Um, she started working with us, and we're— we were like, let's tackle one and then the other. So we went after sugar first and she said unequivocally that it was harder to stop sugar than it was to get off of meth. And this is in part because we all eat, you know, 2 or 3 meals a day. There is food all around us. There's— there's— even for a meth addict, meth is not everywhere that they're turning. It's not—

yes, it's not TV, it's not everywhere, you know.

It's— yeah, it's literally everywhere. And so we had to get her through that. And then we did eventually help her to transition from smoking to just chewing nicotine gum, and then we called it a win at the end of the day there. But it's— I think people really underestimate or don't give enough weight to really how difficult it is to navigate the modern food world.

Yeah.

And when people realize that, then all of this guilt and this anger and kind of ugly feelings that they direct at themselves We can kind of let that go. It doesn't mean that we give up. Now, it's kind of like you understand this situation, but we're at least operating from a spot where it's like, hey, I get it that it's hard. It is hard. Now, we need strategies for dealing with this. And I guess my best analogy there is if you don't want to test your self-defense skills, you don't go to biker bars at 2:00 AM with your wallet on your head with $100 bills hanging out. You know, it's like, Like, if you did that and you got jumped and you were like surprised about it, this would be ridiculous. You know, when they—

a little naive there.

Yeah, yeah, it'd be a little naive. And this is one of the first steps that we do with folks that we're working with. We, we one, kind of survey them and make sure they're really ready to change. Like, are you legitimately ready to change? Sometimes people just aren't, and that's okay. But if they're really ready to change, we have to change the home environment. And we basically gut the pantry, gut the refrigerator, all of that food that's not going to do them any good. We give it to like a food bank or something like that. And then we start afresh because nobody lays in bed at night thinking about like pork loin and broccoli. They think about the Little Debbie snack cakes.

No, it's sugar and carbs. And the potato chips, the Lay's, the Lay's. We want the Lay's. And the salt is okay. Okay, in the Lay's, it's just all the other crap that's in there, right, Rob? Because starting with the potato.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I mean, I love that.

I love— when do you feel that people— not to interrupt, but when are people, from all your years of doing these kind of— they feel like interventions, right? It should be a TV show. We should talk about that. It'd be fun. But when you go in there, we thought about it for a while, right? When do you feel, or what's the— for anyone listening, if they're on that verge, what is the key sign that you've seen when people are ready for that kind of— I don't want to say it's a big deal. It's going in there and cleaning out your kitchen. It's not the whole house. And just getting rid of the insulin-spiking foods, it seems, right? The sugar, the carbs, the addictions. What is that signal that you've seen when people are ready for the green light to do that? Because I think that might be valuable for the listeners so they can get their mind in that position, you know?

Man, that's a really good question. I don't know if anybody's ever asked that specifically. It— if these are rough numbers, but like, you know, 100 people come through the gym working with us.

Yeah.

I'd say about 50 of those people, if we sit down, we're like, hey, what's your goal here? And they're like, I want to look good. I want to get back into the jeans that I wore before I had 3 kids or, you know, whatever. It's like, okay, here's how we're going to tackle this. We're going to focus on protein. We're going to focus on your sleep. We're going to, you know, we kind of detail it and they're like— Comprehensive.

Yeah.

Yep, I'm in, done. There's no drama. They clean up the house. They're just in. Then the remaining 50%, about half of those people, 25 people, it's an absolute battle. They fight and drag feet and have excuses. And over the course of time, you start, you get like a hound dog where like somebody just says one word and your ears perk up and you're like, I know exactly where you're going. And those people, you will eventually get there, but it is an absolute battle. And then those are the people that when they flip, they become like religiously converted. They're the people that become annoying about paleo or keto or whatever. You're just like, "Dude, shut up. I get it." Like, you're going to turn people off.

Hardcore. They become big believers, right? Almost like—

As big a pain in the ass as they were on the front side, they're as big a pain in the ass on the backside.

As Tony Robbins would probably call that a quality problem, but it is a problem because they're a little too extreme, right? Yeah, yeah.

A little too extreme.

This is perfect. Yeah.

And then there's kind of this remaining 25 people that, um, the ability to reach them is very, very difficult. And, and it's almost no amount of begging, cajoling will reach them. And usually for those folks, it's some sort of a, a very emotionally based next life event either that is preventing them from, from going forward or that actually inspires them to do something. I, I will, I will say, so you have 3 kids, right? Yeah. Do you want to see them graduate high school? Do you want to meet your grandchildren?

Wow.

And yes, yes. And it's like, well, you're not going to if we don't do something different. And it— I don't have a dog in the fight. I'm going to be here for that. I will see them graduate high school. I will meet their grandchildren. You may And so you need to find the thing that is important enough for you that we can make some change. And maybe out of that final 25 people, might get 5, might get 10, and then there's just one, one group of folks. And I mean, God bless my mom, but like, my part of the reason why, to the degree I'm good at doing this, is my mom was the, the person I could never ever reach.

Like, oh, she was one of the 25.

She was one of the, the, one of the holdouts, you know. And I, it was, it was like I learned a bunch of stuff about my mom very close to the end of her life. She had a first marriage where she was horribly abused. She grew up in the Great Depression. They moved from Arkansas across the country, went to California, lived in logging camps. I mean, my mom was a tough woman. When I think about what she went through and what she did and sacrificed for us as kids, I'm like, "Man, I don't know if I could have done that." And I wish I would have known this stuff stuff earlier in my life, I would have had a lot more empathy for what she had gone through. But I mean, it was literally like the— maybe the last year of her life that I became aware of most of this stuff.

She didn't want to share that. It was a little embarrassing or not, not something she wanted to talk about.

Yeah, I think just soul-crushing for, you know, just, just so, so painful. And so there are some folks that, that, you know, whether— and again, maybe somebody else could have reached my mom, or maybe this was just the lot that she, you know, that she drew in, in this life. And, and that's, that's what it was. I will say that, um, I'm tenacious the way that I am because I didn't ever succeed in getting my mom where I thought I could, could get her, you know. I may have abandoned all this stuff and just become a, you know, research biochemist as a PhD or something instead, you know. But it, it really put a fire in my belly to try to help as many people as, as I could.

Yeah, no, I love that. That's, uh, that's— I, I lost my mom 20 years ago, and, and, uh, you know, kind of a similar type of story. And, uh, it's hard, but it does cause us to have a reason that's strong. So in these people that are successful and want to convert, it's usually they have, they have a reason and they can make that connection. And then obviously 25% maybe just can't, and some adverse childhood event or, you know, young child, young adult event stops them. Because I feel like the very same reason people probably would do a strong drug like meth or something, or cocaine, is kind of the reason they would also do sugars, because it does help them escape, right? It makes you feel good. I mean, and so, and then with the, with the insulin spiking issues of all these sugar and carbs that replace hopefully, you know, the, the harsher stuff, you still end up putting your body at risk. So maybe let's do this, because I Now, in your study, the solution seems to be more of a meat-based diet, you know, an animal-based diet. And I've interviewed enough of these folks to know that for me, I do well on that. And I think the majority of my celebrity clients and clients I work with online and readers of books that I've written in the past, I've kind of talked about it in the last year. 2020 has been my, my awakening. Like I shared with you this whole conversation I had with Mark probably 8 months ago, and I'm the guy that's written enough books. I mean, over 30, I have them back here. It's crazy, right? And most all of them have always brought in this idea of a balanced nutrition, kind of like a template for all. And I'm not saying that, you know, nutrition isn't personalized, but for the majority of the folks I'm now working with and still working with, you know, it seems that their, their health transforms when they follow the diet you've been talking about, you know, a high-fat, high-protein diet and high-fat as well, you know, and, and, and more of an animal-based diet. And I feel like, could we, could we start that part of the conversation a little bit of this, this possible solution? And, you know, obviously it's not for everyone, But I would say a good chunk of people listening already converted to this. But I want them to understand that, you know, this isn't some extreme way of eating that our ancestors— and as you already said, for— I mean, Mark Sisson says up to 2 million years ago, you know, 2 or 3 million years ago, let alone 1,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago, way before the refrigerator was invented, we were eating protein from animals. It just seems to be the thing that was on this earth for us to eat that was available. You know, we didn't have all these carbohydrates and packaged foods, and there wasn't a lot of sugar and fruits and vegetables that were available unless you're around the equator, right?

Tropical, right?

And all that.

And whatever vegetables or nuts, little things you're able to gather, maybe more for the reason of survival. But it seems like we thrived more with a good meat-based diet. But can you share with us a little bit of that? Because I think people listening that may be on to this, this would encourage them to continue. And that's not this is not some fad that you just do for a year. You've been following this kind of a diet for over 20 years, right, Rob?

Yeah, I was ketogenic for— I've been ketogenic more or less for 22, and I would say like the last maybe 2 years, what Paul Saladino would call carnivore-ish, you know, where I kind of— I try to get as much latitude as I can, but there's kind of a reality that for good or ill, I just don't have a ton of latitude. Like, if I want to be healthy You stick to it. I'm fairly constrained on that. Yeah. And it's interesting. I've always— so I did some work with kind of high-level athletes, some MMA folks, a couple of Olympic medalists and stuff like that. Super cool. I did a lot of work with, say, like Naval Special Warfare with the SEALs and police and fire. Really enjoyed that stuff. But my passion has always been people with gut and autoimmune disease because that's right in my wheelhouse, you know? And it was early on that I had this sense— well, there was a woman that came in the gym, different gal, a 20-year pack-a-day smoker. She was a night shift nurse. She was an absolute mess. And we got her in amazing shape. She stopped smoking. We got her out of the night job and into a day job. And I mean, her life was just transformed. And she eventually moved out of California, moved back to where she grew up. And when she left, like, she just hugged me and was like sobbing. She's like, "You saved my life," you know? And one, she saved her life. Like, I helped, but—

You guided her, but she did the work.

I definitely did whatever I could to help, but it struck me. I'm like, "Man, saving somebody's life, that's a pretty big gig," you know? And it's like getting somebody a medal at a regional event or something. And that's cool, but what I noticed working with athletes, I was mainly a speed bump. My main job was to prevent these people from overtraining and trying to kill themselves with exercise, which was okay, but not that gratifying. Whereas, like, if I worked with somebody that had autoimmune disease or type 2 diabetes or something, it really mattered. Like, it, it could dramatically change their life, the life of their family, and everything. So, I really doubled down on that. There's a concept called the autoimmune paleo diet, which I developed early in this story, where it's an iteration even more kind of, kind of strict than the standard paleo diet, that it helped a lot of people with, with lupus, multiple sclerosis, you know, different GI problems. But it wasn't perfect. Like, it helped people, but it wasn't this just kind of like really miraculous shift. And it's hard to do. Like, it's kind of mind-numbingly hard to do. And it was a couple of years ago, I started seeing some stuff from Jordan Peterson, Mikhaila Peterson, some other folks that had like 20-year-long GI problems, you know, a lifetime of depression, autoimmune disease, and they went on this all meat diet, meat, salt, and water, and their conditions just completely went into remission.

And I have to say that one more time. The 3 ingredients, cuz I hear Shawn Baker say those 3 things and a lot of people, meat, salt, and water. Sounds like what our ancestors ate, right? I mean, to dumb it down.

Yeah. Three things.

You know, people love variety, but it's so simple, the solution. Can you tell us why that seems to work for many people? We're not going to say everyone, but for some, for some, the majority.

It's interesting. Some people— so we've— in the, uh, gosh, who's the— Gretchen Rubin. She's the Four Tendencies. And there are folks that abstinence is far, far easier than moderation. Moderation. It's like, uh, it's better to just not have the chocolate cake in the house. If it's here, I'm gonna eat it all. Like, there isn't a moderation deal with that. And I just get it out of the house, not even in the garage.

You got to get it out of the garage, give it out, throw it out.

You either, you either get it out externally or I'll get it out internally. You're like, I'll eat the whole damn thing, you know? And I think that to some degree, a very limited diet is almost freeing for some people in a way, because It's like, here are my lane lines, salt, water, meat, done. I don't need to think. I'm not tempted. I'm totally good to go. And I was just seeing people that they were posting blood work where they had super high antinuclear antibody counts for like lupus, and then it went to normal. That just doesn't happen. I mean, it's super rare and it was person after person and folks with all these really gnarly GI problems and depression. And it was just so consistent.

And how so with depression? Because I think people are not thinking— they're thinking diabetes, they're overweight, they have belly fat. But I mean, a lot of people with COVID-19 are feeling, you know, overwhelmed, super depressed, and depressed. Yeah. But how does that impact that? Spend a minute on that, because I feel like we get the weight loss, but the mind, right?

Well, and what this stuff appears to do— and it still doesn't entirely make sense to me, but there seems to be something going on with the the gut microbiome or healing the gut in some way. And this seems totally crazy because we usually associate fiber and plants with material that feeds the gut microbiome and produce these short-chain saturated fats, butyrate and whatnot, that feed the gut and are beneficial for the brain. But when you really dig into that whole story, the gut microbiota do the same thing with protein. They do the same thing with amino acids. They them for fermentable structures to make butyrate and propionate and all this stuff. But the science, I am not remotely sure of, but the clinical outcomes of people getting healthier, of no longer having gut issues, depression, autoimmune disease, I mean, just shocking transformations. And that was really, that was the hook for me. And I've got to say, I drug my feet on it for a while. 'cause I'm like, "Really? Like, kale is bad?" And, you know, I mean, okay, cook it well and don't eat so much that you get goiter or whatever. But I was actually so close to it that it probably took me extra long to go that last little bit.

Yeah.

As I kind of used the plant intake as like, "Well, this is how I'm mitigating any other kind of like downside factors." But we just recently had one of one of the, the first studies looking at the gut microbiome of carnivore, you know, eating folks, folks that are only eating animal products. And it looks great. Right. I don't know that this is gonna be the story for everybody. I doubt it would be the story for everybody. Sure.

Sure.

But, you know, for people that have like tried everything and there's one last rock to turn over, like a carnivore type diet, man, give it a shot. Particularly if you just, you know, if you haven't been able to get a foothold with your health any other way, I would have been way more circumspect making that recommendation 5 years ago. It's like, man, this seems really, really extreme.

It does.

You just have more and more people. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I feel like when Mark Sisson told me that he's eating less salad, I was in shock because, you know, this is the guy selling salad dressing and he still does eat that. And, you know, some of his dressings are good on meat, which I love. And his avocado mayo, I put a dollop of it on my steak and and all that. And it's good fat. I think avocados are still healthy to some degree. Yeah. And I haven't cut that out. But, um, but yeah, I've limited my diet really to an animal-based diet. It makes it so much easier, you know, whether I get the meat at Costco. Now there's a debate, maybe you can help us for a minute on this because I feel like— Hey, it's Jorge Cruise, and I just wanted to interrupt the show just for a moment to invite you to head on on over and sign up for my daily Zero Hunger email that'll give you each day a simple what to eat to get radical control over your sugar, carb, and salty snack food cravings. And if this is something you want to conquer and make a lifestyle, the newsletter is important. It will really give you tools every day to keep building that momentum to create a lifestyle where you're in control of sugar and carbs. So if that sounds good, check it out. So simply go to zerohungerplan.com.

I'll spell it for you.

It's with a Z, Z-E-R-O, zerohungerplan.com, and it's all free.

I'll see you there.

Let's get back to the show. You've written a new book and I have a copy of it and it talks about the planet, the sacred cow. And you know, a lot of people think eating meat— and I've met some of these people, especially in Hollywood, you know, some of them are aren't doing it for their health. You know, they're doing it to help the Earth, you know, and I won't eat meat because meat is so bad for the planet. It's destroying the environment. It's worse than carbon, the carbon footprint and all this stuff. And I know that there's another opinion. I think you share that other opinion with many other experts that that may not be true. So we can talk about that. I think that's important. There's a lot of people that I've met that were vegan or are vegan, do it to not kill the poor animals and do it not to hurt the Earth. And so their intentions are obviously, I mean, that's a good thing, you know, amazing, destroy, and let's, let's be positive and let's eat these, these vegetables. But, you know, when you talk to people like Paul Saladino, he'll tell you 99% of most plants are toxic and are here to harm us if we eat them. You know, they've got their guards up and it's like 1% of things out there in the vegetable world may be okay for us to eat. And, you know, I still have on occasion some squash. That's something Saladino told me to eat, but, and avocados are okay and things like that and a few berries. But I, I'm cautious of that. But this meat-based diet, I feel like it's so— for me, it took a while. Mark had these talks with me and then we spoke to all these experts from Shawn Baker to Paul and now with you. And I feel like you have been cautious of this. But I feel like if anyone has studied this at a high level, you're one of these very incredible, you know, people that are— their attention to detail is high. For someone who's on the cusp of doing this, I mean, let's talk about what the diet is. I mean, it seems like it's only 3 things if you cut— if you just simplify it, right? Truly an animal-based diet. And I don't know if you want to share if it has to be organic or grass-fed and all that. I know some people say it's not that big of a deal. Some people say it's important. Some people say you need organ meat. So maybe give us a little bit of what the meat is. The salt— let's get into the salt talk, because I love salt, and you know how much we need that, especially if we're on a keto diet. And also, maybe if you, if you don't mind talking about how salt can help us control hunger, because a lot of my clients will end up fasting and doing the OMAD type of vibe, you know, the one meal a day. And they're in shock that, you know, that I've told them to do 1,000 milligrams of salt or sodium in their water, or to do one of these little packets that you guys have. And they're doing it, and they may have 2 or 3, maybe, you know, they may go a little extra, 4 or 5. And, you know, and they have no hunger when they drink that in 32 ounces of water. It just goes away. And they have control for an hour or two until, you know, they may pee, but that's about it. And you don't pair it with carbohydrates and insulin-spiking foods, according to like Dr. James, you know, you don't have that high blood pressure issue, which I'm sure you know, that combo. And so, and a lot of people are cutting out the carbs that I work with, so they seem to be fine. There's no high blood pressure, there's no like, oh, I'm gonna die, because people think salt's so bad. So we have meat, we have salt, and then water, right? Those are the three, right? Could you walk us into that? We'll start with the meat and tell us what, what, you know, what, what your thoughts are on that, because obviously You know, is it, is it just red meat? Is it fish? Is it chicken? What, what, I mean, how, how broad do you make that? And then how specific is the meat? Is it grass-fed? Does it have to be grass-fed? Because I know some people are on a budget and, you know, if you go to Costco, you can get 4 ribeyes for about $40. And if they're grass-fed, they may be a little bit more, you know, and maybe double. And I don't know how, what your opinion is on that. And obviously the organ meat. So maybe we start with the meat. Let's start with that. And then we'll go into salt. And then however you want to talk about water at the end, that'd be awesome.

Cool. Cool. It's funny because you would think that explaining a carnivore diet would be the easiest thing in the world, but digging into this, you— like as a kid, I could never figure out why there were so many different religions. I would ask my mom, I'm like, so all of these people are Christians, but they're all, you know, it's like Methodist and Protestant, you know, I was like, how the heck does this happen? And when I've seen the growth of dietary, you know, niches, I'm like, oh, that's how it happens. Because you kind of like a religion. This is it, you know. So I'll do my best job on this, but you know, there are some people like Paul who are adamant you have to eat nose to tail. You know, you have to do all the organs, all the fiddly bits. Bits.

Yep.

You can include seafood.

The fiddly bits. I like that.

The fiddly bits.

The organ meat. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Seafood, crickets, you know, I mean, on and on and on. But then you have some people like Michaela Peterson, and I'm, I'm blanking on, on the, the woman's name. She's been eating a carnivore diet for 26 years. She had rheumatoid arthritis. And what she found is that she, if she ate anything other than a rib ribeye. She had problems, so she has eaten ribeye, salt, and water for 26 years. She's in her early 50s. She's beautiful. She looks amazing. I mean, re— hot woman, really good looking.

And just ribeyes, I mean, that is one of my favorites. I don't know why, they're just so juicy and easy to make in 10, 12 minutes.

They have adequate fat, so you don't really have to add fat to them. They're kind of a one-stop shop in that regard. So I've called like one-cut carnivore, where there are some people that for health reasons or whatever reasons, they just ribeye or, you know, whatever, that's kind of their gig. And then it goes all the way over to, you know, nose to tail. It's interesting. I've eaten nose to tail. I've eaten not nose to tail. I can't say I've noticed all that much difference. I'm a big fan of things like menudo and stuff like that, and so I just kind of— I use tripe and, and things that I enjoy. Um, being nearly 50, I've reached this point where I'm like, damn it, I don't really— it like— and I'm limited enough in what I can eat where I'm like, damn it, I'm gonna eat what I enjoy and that's it. And so like, I like, I like pho, I like menudo, I make those things, you know, within this kind of carnivoresque world. And so I, I do some of that. But, um, do you ever do a little liver or heart, beef heart. I do a little liver, I do a little heart. Like, we do some, some heart, a lot of salt.

It tastes good, at least I've noticed.

Yeah, yeah. But like, kidneys, I'll starve to death before I eat kidneys. Like, I, I— and, and, you know, Paul was like, oh, you just need to do this and that. You eat it, I'll save it for you and freeze it for you. He's, he's only like 30 minutes up the road. I'll save it for him. Like, I'm never gonna eat kidney, you know. So, yeah, yeah. And I just don't know, like, I I, it makes sense to eat as broad a diet as, as one can, but at the same time, I've seen people eat a remarkably, like a stunningly curtailed diet, but like, uh, Mikhaila Peterson, she did a really comprehensive, um, nutrient analysis, her vitamin C levels, B vitamins, zinc. She looked great. And she had been eating one-cut carnivore for for 3 years, you know.

And it's just a gal that looks really good for 20 years, or that's another gal?

Well, Michaela is very good looking too, but, uh, Michaela's like in her early 30s, so late 20s, early 30s. So, um, a different person. But it, it's interesting, like if somebody was gonna like keel over and die or have nutrient deficiencies, we should, we should see it clinically, we should be able to see it on the blood work, and we don't. And And again, is, is there a situation here where McKayla developed the autoimmune condition she has in conjunction with— so is the reason she developed autoimmune disease because she would do very well on a carnivore diet? I don't know. Like, and, and this is some of the stuff where like when people just go into this with like religious fervor, I think it's an amazing tool, but it's like hammers are awesome. Saws are awesome. Screwdrivers are awesome. But I don't want to like lay flooring with trying to cut wood with a screwdriver, you know, like that.

Yeah, I getcha.

So like right tool for the right scenario. So there's a big spectrum on what people consider to be like carnivore. And I think it's just one of these things where get in, tinker, eat the food you enjoy. You should look, feel, and perform better. If we do a little bit of blood work, you should look better, not worse. And then we're doing pretty well with that. On the, on the quality of the meat side, for sustainability reasons, I really push for the pasture-finished meat.

Yes.

But, uh, and this is something that people just rail against me, but as a biochemist, when I look at the nutrient differences between 100% pastured meat versus what you would get from like Costco, yeah, there's not that much difference.

And part of that again, so you're saying in the sense our nutritional health personally, not maybe for the earth, but go ahead.

There's just not that much difference. Like it, when I analyze it and look at protein, uh, uh, amino acids, um, vitamins, minerals, there's just not that much difference between them. There's a tiny bit more omega-3s in grass-fed meat than there is in conventional meat.

Okay.

But you need to eat 8 pounds of grass-fed meat to get the same amount of omega-3s as you get in a 2-ounce piece of salmon. Of salmon. So if we're getting wrapped around the axle of omega-3s, that— it's a silly argument. It, it's really kind of a silly argument.

Not practical. No, it's gonna eat 8 pounds.

It's not practical. It's not the best to, to be concerned. Yeah. Um, uh, pastured dairy is a huge difference versus conventional dairy. Wild-caught fish is a huge difference versus conventional. Um, pastured eggs are a massive difference versus conventional eggs. So there are situations where that really does matter. And the fact that this is kind of all over the place and I don't have like a wall of religious doctrine makes people hate me.

Well, I mean—

It's just funny though.

Yeah.

No, go ahead. Yeah. People have their preconceived notions. And I would love— it would be so good from a storytelling perspective. No, man, grass-fed meat is way, way better than pasture me. That just fits my whole narrative, but it's actually remarkably easy to disprove that fact, and then I lose any scientific credibility on that.

No, no. And you have to be fair.

Also, you know, in this time where people talk a lot about, like, access and privilege and things like that, I think that that's a very legitimate, you know, kind of like social justice concern to think about. And at the end of the day, a family of 4 that's living at the margins, and they're just trying to do good by themselves, just eating more animal products, eating fewer refined carbohydrates, they will be healthier, they will be more resilient, they'll be less likely to get sick. Like in this, this age of COVID we know for a fact that metabolic health outside of, of age is like the greatest indicator of whether or not you, you successfully or unsuccessfully navigate COVID or how severe that is. So that's where I get really prickly about the meat elitists where they're like, it has to be 100% organic pastured. And it's like, okay, that's great for you. But what about a, a, you know, a family where both, both parents work and they're, they're doing the best they can for their kids. They want to be healthier.

Yeah.

This is a difference between they can have enough animal-based protein to be really good for the whole family or not have any at all. And that seems like kind of a, you know, ridiculous ridiculous elitist thing that is, is too pervasive. And again, if you make good money, if you want to put, you know, support local farmers, want to support that, that regenerative vaccine, absolutely do that.

Sure.

But let's not make it so elitist that somebody feels bad because they're not doing that. It should be okay for anybody to access this and do it any way they want. And just to kind of flip this around, a vegan human doctor or advocate would never tell someone you can only eat organic broccoli or nothing. Like they would never do that, you know, but yet we have this impetus to do that on the meat side of this.

Interesting.

Interesting. I'm so happy to hear that you're, yeah, that you're, that you're, you have a range there. And then obviously there's, it's, it starts at good. It's not bad to eat, you know, non-grass-fed beef, we'll say, or something like that. But it definitely can't hurt to do the other end. And I think in today's world, as, as so many people are on a budget, right, right now, I mean, everyone's on a budget, it seems, and we want to be cautious. It's nice to save. I mean, you save some money, right, when it's not grass-fed. I mean, it's maybe not double, but about maybe half.

What do you think? Pretty close. Yeah, yeah, pretty close to double.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right. Well, I think that's powerful. Now, before we jump to Salt, since we're gonna talk about meat, salt, and water in the meat world, I know cheese and eggs and butter and things like that may not be considered meat, but I would kind of chunk it in there. How big of a, like with your diet, we'll just go with you as an example.

Maybe.

Do you think some of that is necessary? It's okay. Because I do have eggs. I'll have some cheese at times. I try to make sure it's all real cheese and not, you know, good stuff. The stuff my mom used to get out of a can and pour it out and make nachos for me. It looks like Elmer's yellow Elmer's glue, right? I don't think it's real cheese. It never was. But how much of those animal, you know, these, you know, from the butters to the eggs to all these, what would you call those, that category of animal?

Animal products?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, how far on there do you suggest or not suggest? I know dairy is always polarizing for people because sometimes people get all sorts of issues. I remember a million years ago, probably like 30 years ago, I met Dr. Andy Weil, Dr. Weil, you know, with the white beard. And he said, hey, Jorge, I don't eat a lot of dairy because I had asthma. Is it the casein protein? It can cause you to have issues with breathing. And I remember removing that, and I was in my early 20s. My mom was still alive, and I had this big, like, whoa, wow, I really could breathe again without milk.

Right.

You know, and yet I'll use sometimes in my coffee, if I have a coffee, I'll put a little heavy cream or half and half because it doesn't have as much sugar. But are you some flexible on that? I like the idea of keeping it simple, just meat, salt, and water. But then, you know, there's always that, you know, temptation since it's connected to an animal Is it okay to have some dairy? Where are you on the dairy, the eggs, miscellaneous little animal products? Or what are your thoughts on that briefly? And then we'll jump into salt. Yeah.

Yeah. I, I think folks should kick the tires on all that and kind of see how they do. Yeah. Personally, I think I got myself into an, an egg intolerance. So when I eat eggs now, I get really bad gut cramps and like, it, it doesn't go well. It's kind of a, a dash to the bathroom. I switched to duck eggs and it was great. And then one day I ate them and I was on the toilet for like 5 hours. And then I was like, I wonder if that was it.

Yeah. With eggs, because it seems, is it the fat? It can't be the fat. Maybe it's the protein or—

No, it's the protein. It's the protein. I just, I ate them too often throughout too many years and developed an intolerance to them. So, so I, I think eggs are amazingly nutritious. I can have a little bit of yolk every once in a while. Like if my, you know, it seems a little, little easier. Here's kind of an interesting thing though. Dairy used to, like, if I had cheese, if I had yogurt, I would get acne along my chin, on my back. Like, it looked like I was like 17 years old. Yeah. And then when I did this more carnivore approach, if I don't eat plants that give me gut issues, then I can eat dairy with absolute reckless abandon and have no problems. No joint inflammation, zero acne. But if I eat like a salad, ironically, yes, I will have gut problems. And if I have a salad with cheese, I will have acne. So there's something about like irritating my gut. Like, so long as I don't eat anything else that irritates my gut, then I think the gut integrity is fine. And I do great with dairy, like Greek yogurt and stuff like that. Like, I absolutely crush it. So it's, um, it's another one of those things where I would encourage people, particularly if they're heading down this, this lane, tinker with it, see how you do, you know. And, and if you do well, um, that's fantastic. If you notice like some, you know, oh, I had, I had yogurt, now I'm kind of snarfly and sinusy, maybe it's not a good option for you. And I would encourage people, don't, um, don't overly rely on eggs for breakfast. Like, I know they're such a nice go-to, they taste really good, but like with I have daughters that are 6 and 8, and we're really trying to rotate what we do for breakfast because I really don't want them to develop an egg intolerance, you know, long-term. It's so easy to do it. It's so easy for them to eat it. They love them, but we, we really try to break that up so that they don't develop an egg intolerance.

Yeah, that's great.

Well, I, I feel like that really simplifies it. You did a good job, so no one's going to keep you on this podcast. I hope not. Talk to us about sodium, would you? Because we recently had Dr. James DiNicolantinio. Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you. Dr. James, as I call him for shorthand. And you know, the salt fix is a big deal. He spent 3 years, 500 articles. You endorsed his book, you're on the back cover of it. I mean, so we're all on the same page. And you know, I'm a fan, shall we say, of your, uh, elements. 1,000 milligrams of sodium. And, you know, Dr. James really educated us recently talking about how before the refrigerator we were having 25 to 80 grams of salt in preserved meats, whether it's fish or, you know, whatever kind of meat it was, was the only way to preserve it, you know. And people weren't eating a lot of carbohydrates back then. And he seems to really believe that the connection to the carbs with the salt, kind of like the pairing you just talked about, like when you you do dairy with certain— what was it that caused that reaction? The acne with— was salad? Dairy with salad for you caused acne. I think he said, you know, with carbs and salt, if you do the two, then you could get high blood pressure and things like that. But when you get rid of those carbs, those salads and all that, it changes. So tell us why salt sodium is so important. And did you always know this, or how did you get so— because I would say you're— that's one of your passions right now. It's kind of part of the Healthy Revolution is to get people to enjoy more sodium them in their life, right? I mean, it's become kind of one of your gigs, right?

Man, it's interesting. And this really makes the case that we all need a coach. Like, we all need people who are outside of our sphere of influence and can provide some input. So I'm a biochemist by training. I know the metabolic pathways and biochemical, you know, ins and outs of ketosis pretty darn well and have eaten this way for a long time. But I'm a big fan of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I just got my brown belt. It's a very demanding sport, you know, particularly as an old codger. Like, there's a lot going on there. But I always had problems fueling Brazilian jiu-jitsu on a ketogenic diet. Like, I just felt like I didn't have that lower gear. So I would add some carbs in. That would kind of help. But then I would notice I would get on kind of a blood sugar roller coaster, and it just seemed like I was—

I get acne too. You got your acne, you got all sorts of crap happening.

Yeah.

Just so you have energy to do your sport. Right. So yes.

Continue please.

I think I know where you're taking us.

So, so two very good friends of mine, Luis Villaseñor and Tyler Cartwright, they founded this, this outfit called Keto Gains, and they just work with thousands of people on ketogenic diet implementations. The results they get are just stunning. And, and I was noticing they have had a number of people that were in combative sports, some MMA fighters, some jiu-jitsu people. I'm like, hey, could you guys just look at my, my food and what I'm up to and try to give me some input? Like, I always feel like I need to eat more carbs for jiu-jitsu, but then I don't feel as well. I'm not as cognitively sharp and everything. They looked at it and they're like, your food is great, but you're woefully under in your electrolytes, specifically sodium. And I'm I salt my food. I'm good. Because what do you do when you have a coach? You ignore what they tell you for at least a year. Of course, you don't listen to them.

I know what I'm doing.

And so, yeah. And so a good year goes by and both of them were very patient with me, but they're like, "Dude, we're just telling you to up your salt. Do it in this ABC way." And I did. And it was just a light switch was flipped, which shouldn't be surprising because every muscle twitch we do, every thought we have is a consequence of sodium-potassium pumps working in our physiology. Like, this is the way that life works, is pumping sodium-potassium in and out of our cells. It's how ATP is produced. It's basically, you know, cornerstone for life. So this was just like this huge eye-opener for me, and I started poking around. And what's so interesting, and this is a case for where medical interventions, when they get out in the wild, can lose some of the important underpinnings. So if I'm diagnosed with epilepsy and I'm put on a ketogenic diet and I go to a registered dietitian and they lay all this stuff out, they make certain that I get somewhere between 5 and 10 grams of sodium per day. Because when we lower insulin levels going on a low-carb or a ketogenic diet, we, we lower insulin. That lowers a hormone called aldosterone. And when aldosterone is low, we just shed sodium like crazy. We pee sodium out. And this is one of the benefits of a low-carb diet. People with high blood pressure notice that they pee a whole bunch, and then their blood pressure normalizes. The problem is that that's also what we call the keto flu. People feel like hell for a, a period of time, and potentially for a very long time, because when you're in a low-carb state, you just need more sodium to, to, uh, to kind of equilibrate things. People really focus a lot on potassium, and we do need potassium, but what's interesting is if we don't have enough sodium, our body will excrete potassium. And this is actually the downward spiral that happens. Like, every year we hear about people in the military, at football double days, or doing triathlons, where they die from over-consuming water. They consume water without electrolytes, their sodium gets, gets diluted, so then the body starts excreting potassium and sodium trying to equilibrate things. So, you know, when I started digging into this, I'm like, well, shoot, like, people who implement ketogenic diets medically know that you need 5 to 10 grams of sodium, It had— I knew that sodium was important, but it had just never really gotten on my radar. But Tyler and Luis work with a shocking number of people at a very high level. And they, they just knew that, you know? And so that was really the impetus for this, this whole thing. And then just kind of a funny aside, the way that LMNT came about, we posted a how to make your own, you know, a homebrew. So it's like this much regular salt, this much no salt, some magnesium. You know, mix it all together, do some lemon juice, do a little stevia. We had like 300,000 downloads of this thing. Like, people loved it. They were like, "This is amazing." But then a funny thing happened. People started tagging us on social media, and they're like, "Hey guys, love the, you know, the salt recommendations, but when I carried the 3 bags of white powder through TSA, they didn't like it." You know, and they would have a picture. It looked like they were like a mule or something. And we just started getting tons of this. And then I was like, I wonder if people would buy a conveniently packaged electrolyte. Something simple.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Honest to God, the whole genesis of this thing was just trying to help people avoid the huge mistake that I had made. And since we launched this thing, we've had some really wacky medical communities come towards us. POTS, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, it's basically basically a, a scenario where it's mainly kids, but it can be adults. They go from seated to standing, and they— their heart rate goes up super fast. They're not able to normalize their blood pressure, and they can pass out. And, and it can be life-threatening because you can hit your head and suffer a traumatic brain injury. So folks in these POTS communities started using Element, and they— it just went like wildfire through there. And something that we were not looking for that. Another one that was pretty interesting was breastfeeding communities, like the exclusive pumpers, like the moms that do exclusive pumping.

Sure.

A couple of them, you know, they showed pictures of like a bottle with like hardly any milk in it. And they were like, this is what I did yesterday. I took Element today. And then it was like 3 or 4 bottles full. Wow. And I started digging into the, like, the physiology on that, and sodium suppresses cortisol, it downregulates aldosterone, it increases fluid volume, which all of these things are really important for increasing breast milk production.

Sure.

But this is stuff we had absolutely no thought that we were going to, like, affect these people in this way. We were just kind of like, oh, we want to help our, kind of, you know, the people that, you know, that we kind of hang out with in these kind of low-carb athletic spaces. And then it's really gotten these amazing legs within these kind of, uh, wacky but interesting medical circles.

So I think that's incredibly powerful. You know, I have, I have a question from a client of mine that she asked me to ask you this, and she's one of my top clients, and she's been doing the OMAD. And for her, she's been using your product, you know, loves this stuff or, and was making it at home, homebrewed style.

Oh, cool.

Cool. And, you know, and it's not that hard to make. I mean, it's, I mean, you always say it right here on the box, you kind of give the recipe away right there. Right.

Yeah.

1000 milligrams. And you can get all that stuff on Amazon or whatever, you know, and things like that. But obviously making it convenient is tricky. But how does this biochemically, you know, maybe you can explain this to us when it comes to hunger regulation, because a lot of what we do, you know, and kind of like the theme of our podcast is to help people reduce hunger, you know, especially with sugar and carb cravings and all that. How does sodium help so well to curb hunger? Because I feel like in layman's terms, you can probably explain it, but it seems to turn off hunger, you know, and it helps you feel energized and you have energy. And most people are like, oh my God, I need a glass of orange juice, which is as much sugar as a Coca-Cola. And they think, oh, I need orange juice, right? You know, a lot of these athletes and, you know, they'll, they'll do things like that. I always remember When friends of mine were playing sports, they always carried bags of oranges. You know, it was like the magical thing, but should have been bags of salt, but, or little, or little, right, packets like this, you know, instead of oranges. But explain how sodium is so good because, you know, there are a lot of people are like, ah, you need fiber to turn off hunger, eat more fiber, right? That'll turn off your hunger, you know, bulk up and that's what turns off your hunger and, you know, eat high, high volume, low calorie food. But sodium sodium for me has worked, for all my clients seems to work. How does it turn off hunger where it gives you, I, I would say, radical control over your hunger, right, Rob? I mean, explain a little bit of that in layman's terms if you could.

Yeah, so I— what's happening specifically with the sodium is that sodium does suppress cortisol production. And this is interesting, like, people that go on like adrenal fatigue recovery programs, which doctors don't like the term adrenal fatigue. Technically, it's HPTA axis dysregulation, hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal. People are sick and broken and they're not functioning well, but sodium really helps that situation. So, when cortisol elevates, we tend to get elevated blood sugar, we tend to get a suppression in some of the other appetite-controlling hormones, because when we're in a stressed state, evolutionarily, it would be good to find some food and, and to eat. And so on, on that front, the suppression of the cortisol, I think, is a major driver in this story. And, and I think that, that, that works, you know, very independent. It's just specific to the sodium. With the Element, we have a little bit of flavor, and we sweeten it with And I'm guessing on this, like the sodium part is solid. I'm guessing on this part, but there've been studies where they will have people run on a treadmill to exhaustion. And what they will do then is have people rinse their mouth with a sweet flavored solution, but it has no calories in it. And just the taste of sweet gives them another 5 to 7% before they hit failure. And this is not unlike the whole process of tasting sweet-tasting things and having that affect our neuroregulation of appetite. But I think something is going on there where we're suppressing cortisol on the sodium side, and then on the neuroregulation of appetite side, we taste some sweet, and so the brain's like, "Okay, we're good. We've got a little bit of calories. We don't need to freak out." And so, I think it allows you to kind of motor through that. That second part, I'm pretty speculative on. The sodium part, I think is very concrete. Concrete. But yeah, yeah.

And it really connects to cortisol on the sodium part. Just give us one more minute on that. So when we are trying to do a fast of, say, 24 hours— because I have a lot of clients doing this as a kind of a lifestyle, you know, you hear people in the Silicon Valley, like, uh, the, the owner of, uh, or the, the man who created Twitter, right? You know, um, I'm blanking on his name.

What's his name?

Jack Dorsey.

Jack. Good old Jack Dorsey. He does one meal and not doing it to lose weight. He just wants to extend lifespan. So there's a lot of, you know, a lot of ideas out there that if you do OMAD, it's good for you. But the biggest concern is hunger, right? And so with cortisol, when it's high, you, you, you tend to, like you said, you tend to look for food, but with the sodium, it lowers the cortisol. Is that what I'm getting? Just help me maybe go a little deeper. Not so— yeah, that's really it.

Yeah, that's really it. And maybe the more powerful example of it dealing with cortisol isn't hunger, but sleep. One of the greatest problems that people have when they start a ketogenic diet, or in particular fasting, they'll feel very energized, but so energized that they can't or don't sleep well. And 2 or 3 days of that, and whatever potential health benefits you had from fasting are ruined because it's, it's like you've been at a a, you know, a college bachelor party or something like that. And what's interesting is some sodium before bed, again, downregulates cortisol, downregulates antidiuretic hormone. Both of those are adrenal hormones. And when you're kicking those off, you usually kick off a little bit of adrenaline. So when you suppress those, you tend to suppress hunger, but you also allow for a normal, more restful sleep. So it is a very powerful effect. And folks that are fasting, um, if they're, they're fasting, for sure, you want to stay on top of the sodium so that the sleep that you get is as restful and restorative as possible. If, if you're, if you're fasting is making your sleep poor, in my opinion, you would be better off not fasting because there's nothing you can do that is more beneficial than, than sleep.

But if you add some sodium, it could help definitely improve the sleep.

Absolutely.

And I love that you guys have recently come out with a chocolate version of your Element, which is kind of like a nighttime treat, you know, with— and it tastes like chocolate milk even though there's no milk in it, you know.

And yeah, we, we do some, we do some whole cream and mix it up. I'll do one of those in the morning with coffee and a little bit of whole cream. And then in the evening, sometimes I'll just do the hot chocolate alone. Yeah.

Wow.

Amazing.

Well, I think that's so powerful.

I mean, salt Salt is key.

I think it's key. When you get to water, what are your tips on water? And we'll start wrapping up here because I don't want to take all the day from us, but I feel like water is important. You hear a lot of debates on that. Do you keep that kind of simple to spring water? What's your suggestion on a good source of water since, you know, if we're looking at meat, salt, and water, what do you tell people about water these days?

I wish I had stock in these guys. I live— so I'm 8-balling like Element and Topo Chico right now. You know, if you live in an area where— and you can get a very easily go online and look at your water quality report for the area that you live in. Sure. And if you have some like organic solvents or something like that, there are some good but inexpensive water filtration systems that— sure, that will pull the bulk of that out. I think that that's smart to do. Not to drag this back to sodium, but somewhere along the line, the the discussion of hydration. If you look in a textbook of medical physiology and you look up hydration, it is the water and the electrolytes associated with the water that constitutes hydration. Somewhere along the line, hydration became water only, and we forgot about the electrolytes.

And that's a huge error, right, Rob?

A huge error.

It's a huge error. It's a life-threatening error. Um, you know, football practices, military military events, people used to not die from, from hyperhydration in the past, you know, the 1940s, 1950s, that didn't happen. It's kind of crazy. They recommended that people would take salt pills, so they would do a little, you know, 100 milligram salt pill. And then what you would do is you would sip on water to satiety with the sodium and water kind of, kind of doing what they do. But yeah, when you consume water absent electrolytes, or if you're not eating enough whole unprocessed foods, I think that that's where people can, can get into some, some problems there. So I mean, I'm not— I, I maybe should be a little more Nazi-esque on like the water quality. Like, we're lucky we live in a nice area of Texas. Our well water is good. I don't do anything beyond that, and, and that's it. And then I, I drink Topo Chico.

Like, tell us, they're mineral— it's a mineral water, right? It's a mineral water. Tell us the brand again.

Mexican mineral water, Topo Chico.

I've seen that in stores. No, well, I've had it once or twice in a restaurant, but it's the best.

It's amazing.

And it's from Mexico, my hometown, or I was born in Mexico City. So it's, uh, Mexican water. I can't even believe that.

It is amazing.

Wow.

Yeah.

And water should come from a spring source of some sort, right? We don't want to do distilled water with nothing because that has zero in it, right? Distilled, all that. We want to make sure— I mean, the water and not tap necessarily. This tap doesn't have minerals for the most part, right? Has more fluoride and all these chemicals, right?

Depends on where you live. Depends on where you live. So like in Central Texas, there's a ton of limestone around you. Even the municipal water, people need to use water softeners because it has so much mineralization in it. Like your, your showers will look like it's frosted glass, and that's the stuff coming out of the, the city water. We have well water And so it's—

we don't need to ingest that, right?

No, that's all calcium and magnesium and stuff. Like, it's, it's fine. It's, it's part of it. But it really depends a little bit on where you're located. I'm not an expert on this, but there's a, there's a water device called a kangen or something like that, and it will automatically add like calcium, magnesium, some sodium, potassium, phosphorus into your water. And it filters it first for like, say, like organic impurities, and then it adds adds some minerals back into it.

I love it. I love it.

Well, let's do this since we're running a little— not short on time, but I feel like I want to end on this note. Your new book and how the planet really can benefit from, you know, because a lot of people think eating what we talked about with meat and all that— I don't think sodium— sodium seems to be a good guy. Water seems to be a good guy. But meat is controversial.

How—

give us the nutshell of the new book, please. I want people to get this book as as well. I feel like there's an argument in there that the Earth, the planet, can benefit from this kind of a lifestyle, not just us. And I know a lot of people avoid meat because they think it's harmful to the planet, but give us a minute or two on that and then we'll wrap up. Yeah. Yeah.

It, it's, uh, that's gonna be a tough one to be real succinct, but I'll, I'll do my best.

The, the, give us your, your best.

The book.

Yeah.

Yeah. The book covers the health, environmental, and ethical considerations of a meat-inclusive food system. So here's maybe one of the biggest examples that pops up. There was some memes going around from some pretty high-level people saying that 80% of greenhouse gas emissions come from animal product production. This was patently false. The real number is closer to around 2%. But if we get that wrong, wrong. If we really want to address climate change, but we're looking at something that causes 2% of greenhouse gas emissions, but we're saying it causes 80% of greenhouse gas emissions, hmm, what are we going to allocate resources towards? You know, like, it, it maybe just as an example, um, if you think you have a fire in your house but you don't really know where? Yeah, you know, how are you going to be able to address that, you know? And, and so climate change is a real deal. We need to do stuff to address it. But the irony is that properly managed, uh, pasture-finished meat can sequester more carbon, put more carbon underground, pull it out of the atmosphere than is produced in its manufacture. And there aren't many things like that. And there are huge tracts land, grasslands, desertified areas. In the movie that we have, I'm not sure if I sent you a link, but I can send it. Please, yeah. There's a rancher down in the Chihuahuan Desert, and he has recovered a million acres of the Chihuahuan Desert back to grassland.

Wow.

And what this does is it holds water, it produces food, it sequesters carbon. So the thing that I would throw out to people is, Don't believe me at a surface level, but also don't dismiss what I or someone like me is saying just because it doesn't fit the nuts and bolts of all the dominant media and social media narrative. I think all of us really owe it to ourselves and to our children to put a little bit of effort into understanding this. And I've got to say, from a career standpoint, point. Sure. If I just said all meat is bad, it's destroying the environment, let's go buy some, uh, Impossible Burger, and I put— and I invested money in it, my life would be a lot better and I would be a lot wealthier, you know. And, uh, so the reason why I'm pushing this stuff is— and I could be wrong within science, you always have to have the caveat that, that what, what your, your hypothesis is may may not be accurate, but I have done my damnedest to understand the nuances of this stuff. Like the grass-fed versus conventional meat is a good example of that. Yeah. So I would say if people are concerned, you know, Sacred Cow, the book, and also the film is coming out soon, and that's a really good jumping-in place to at least get a sense of kind of both sides of what, what the story is and what the arguments are. And again, maybe each person individually will be like, I don't really buy that, but if nothing else, they will understand what the, the, I guess, the counterpoint is that's coming out of the regenerative vaccine. Yeah.

Well, I feel like you are on the cutting edge here, Rob. I mean, have been on the cutting edge for over 20 years, and I think if people need to follow you, they need to listen to your podcast and, and, and perhaps subscribe to your newsletter and find you on social. Would you share with everyone watching and listening listening, where you're available and all your social and website, et cetera. And then the film is coming out soon. Is it next year, 2021, or when's the film coming out?

Yeah, I think January 5th, it should be available pretty much everywhere, all platforms. Yeah.

Oh, fantastic.

And the book is sacredcow.info. You can track me down at robwolf.com. I honestly try to stay off of social media. As much as possible. Um, I, I do, uh, do a little bit over on Instagram. My handle there is @dasrobwolf, D-A-S-R-O-B-B-W-O-L-F. And then, uh, yeah, yeah, those are— and then over at, uh, the Drink Element website, uh, drinkelement.com. I spend a lot of time there.

Oh no, we love that product. And, uh, and if people want to listen to your podcast, remind them the name of the show.

Oh, the Healthy Rebellion Radio is the name of the show. I love it. I love it.

We're part of the rebellion with you. I feel like we have to. We're all here together, and I think with the intention of improving health, my hat's off to you. I think what you've done for the last 20-plus years is incredible, and I'm so happy to have this new friendship with you. And one day, with COVID hopefully downplayed and all that, we'll meet in person. I don't know if you're coming to San Diego anytime soon, but we'll figure that out one of these days. But Rob, thank you Thank you so much. It's been such an honor having this conversation with you. And I think what people are going to discover is that they don't have to be as scared about certain things and that there's a really great solution out there. So thank you, Rob. Thank you for your, for your hard work and your efforts and your passion. We really appreciate it. All right. Today's episode is complete, guys. Thank you so much for listening. And I want to ask you to please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts., and please leave a review on Apple as well. Give it 5 stars if you think the show has helped you in some way to transform your thinking. I hope it has. And more importantly, share your comments, your review of what today's episode did for your thinking, how it shifted your thinking, and what you got out of it, because I think that is how we spread this. And for me, this is a revolution.

This is not a podcast. This is a way of life.

And I hope to transform over a million lives in the next couple years, and I need your help. So please become part of the Zero Hunger Revolution by leaving that review on Apple Podcasts and subscribing today. Thanks so much. Have a great one. Peace and purpose, and I'll see you on the next episode.