#26 Louisa Nicola - Science Based Methods to Achieve Peak Performance

We've got sun cream that's available here in Europe and in Australia. It's the best type of sun cream because it contains something called bemetrisinol, and that is the ingredient that's actually going to block the UV rays that are actually detrimental to your skin health. Guess what? It's banned in America. Exercising at maximal speed or maximal rate, 85%, 90% of your maximum heart rate, can kill circulating tumor cells. The healthcare industry is a Band-Aid method industry instead of a prevention industry. We can prevent the onset of many diseases through lifestyle.

Do you think doctors and people high up in healthcare know the cure for cancer and they're hiding it for monetary reasons? Louisa, how did you one day wake up and say, I want to be a neuroscientist?

You know what, it wasn't like that, Rob. I was actually a triathlete, so I was an endurance athlete in Australia. I ended up qualifying for Beijing, London. I got a thirst for human performance. I loved it. I wanted to understand how could I perform at my peak. From there, I was already at university. I was actually first qualified as a high school teacher.

Nice.

I know. So I got used to educating people and training full-time. I was training around 40 hours a week. And then I became absolutely obsessed with the brain. So that's when I decided, okay, if the brain is responsible for everything that I do, if I'm gonna get better as an athlete, through my brain. That's what I was told one day, and I think it was at the tender age of 23. I ended up going back to university and that's how I got into it.

Very nice. And so is there anything that made you get into being a triathlete? I always like to get the genesis of my guests.

Funny you ask that. I was a swimmer growing up. And I'm Australian, we have to swim. It's like actually a requirement.

You're Australian? Really? I didn't get that.

It's an actual requirement to be able to swim a certain amount of, kilometers to pass, I think it's Grade 8.

Oh my God, I didn't know that. That's why you're also fit and in good shape.

You have to, it's like a surf lifesaving course and you have to swim in your clothes to pass it. So I was a great swimmer. Then around 18, I for fun, I thought, why don't I just do a triathlon? It was just a regular, just a race in my hometown and I ended up coming first just by chance. This was when no one knew what triathlons was. It wasn't even at the Olympics at that time. So I did one and I was picked up by a coach.

So nice. And so when you're doing your exams in university, how long does that take to complete?

Well, I mean, depends on what you do. So I did undergraduate degree, which was 4 years. I did 2 years of a master's degree, then I went back to Sydney Medical School for 4 years. So it's a long time. Let's just say 10 years all up. And then I've been out just working. I've worked in a clinical setting. I mainly worked with Alzheimer's disease patients. So my, my my core specialty is neurophysiology. It's a subspecialty, if you will, a branch of neurology. And I'm primarily looking at how the brain functions. Have you ever seen one of those EEGs?

Yes.

On your head? Maybe if you've had a seizure or you've got epilepsy, you go and get one of those. That's what I do. So scanning brains and just scanning after scanning after scanning, looking for something called Alzheimer's disease or early onset Alzheimer's disease.

Yeah. And how do you spot earlier on Alzheimer's disease? What's the kind of key indicators that you see when someone's might be developing it?

Oh gosh, well, we do many things when doing a brain scan. We do a combination of, we're looking for something called ERPs, a timed lock actions, if you will, which are happening in the brain. So we're looking for impairments, cognitive impairments. We're looking for lesions, if you will. So it's important to really understand what early onset Alzheimer's disease is and what dementia is. Should we go into it?

Yeah, oh please, yeah, absolutely. We can nerd out. No, I would love that, please.

This is like a full lesson right now. I think it's interesting and important because it is one of the leading causes of death. 55 million people worldwide have Alzheimer's disease. That number is going to triple by the year 2050. So we need to have education around it. So dementia is the umbrella term.

Yeah, that's how I think when people are getting older and they forget shit.

That's what you think.

Okay, so can you educate us on what that is?

Dementia represents a set of cognitive symptoms: forgetfulness, erratic behavior, uh, loss of maybe speech, language impairments. Underneath that sits many different diseases. You've got frontotemporal dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, you've got Alzheimer's disease, you've got Parkinson's dementia. So they all sit underneath the dementia umbrella. Yeah. The reason why we know Alzheimer's disease is because it's the most prominent. That's the most— most people get affected by that. And to this date, we still don't know why.

Any inkling? Is there any, like, do you have like maybe a theory yourself?

Well, yes, there's many theories. And it's funny because it used to be classified as something called the amyloid cascade hypothesis. So right now with Alzheimer's disease, what tends to happen is you will get diagnosed in maybe your 70s. You'll go to the doctor, they'll do a brain scan, they'll do different types of scans, another one called an MRI with volumetrics, and they will determine whether you have Alzheimer's disease. The scary thing is there is no cure, there is no reversal, and at that time I class— and this is a really controversial thing to say, but I classify that as stage 4 metastatic cancer because you've got so many stages before that. Alzheimer's disease, Rob, actually starts in your 20s.

That's what I was just about to ask because the demographic for this age group of listeners is mainly guys in their late 20s, 30s, so Yeah, that's what I want to ask.

And I want the, I want the, I want the men listening, even though 2 out of 3 cases of Alzheimer's disease is female, men still, obviously we all need to be looking out for it. It starts in our 20s. So we have this accumulation of these cognitive deficits over time, okay? It first starts with memory complaints, short-term memory, forgot my keys, What was his name? What street do I live on? Now you're probably thinking, I'm not sure what your age is, but you're probably thinking—

32.

I mean, you're very young, you're probably thinking, but Louisa, that's happened to me. Now that doesn't mean that you have Alzheimer's disease.

Okay, okay.

It may mean that maybe you're just tired or stressed at the time, but prior to getting Alzheimer's disease, you have mild cognitive impairment. That is a pre-dementia state. That's what I was picking up on on these EEGs. I was looking for areas of dysfunction. We can classify it as mild cognitive impairment. Before mild cognitive impairment— that lasts, by the way, about 15 years— okay, before that you've got something called subjective cognitive impairment. And that's the pretty much the first state where you're starting to get a decline in your memory, information processing speed, reaction time. Things start to slow down.

Okay.

And that's when— that's at that time that's when you should be thinking to yourself, that's pretty much stage 1 cancer.

Whoa. Yes, that's heavy.

Yeah.

And so how do you even measure or quantify brain performance and all this? Like, because it's, it's kind of like when we're— so I'm like a fitness coach, you know, I get people in shape. It's very easy to quantify. You have the weight on scales, you have mirror pictures, you have literally the kgs in the gym. It's, it's super maths-based and it's very easy to measure. But how do we measure like our brain performance without like, you know, hooking yourself up to a big machine?

Look, Look, you can do it in many ways, but the first thing you need to understand is your brain, the reason why you are where you are today is because of your brain. Your brain is like the federal government. It controls everything you do, to everything you see, to how motivated you are, to how many times you lift, to how hard you're lifting at the gym. So if you have an underperforming brain, you probably wouldn't look the way you do.

So I must be genius in that case.

Exactly. I agree.

I'm not joking. Me that joke right there. What are some of the, the main levers that we can use to improve brain performance? Like, let's say I sign up with you because you work with athletes. What's the first thing you do?

Oh, look, we do a battery of tests, but the first thing that we're going to do is we are going to scan your brain. Okay, we do scan it, so we look for areas of dysfunction, we look for cognitive impairment. But you can do anything from doing just a basic reaction time test— how well do you react to numbers, letters— if you YouTube something called the Stroop test.

Okay, Stroop test.

Stroop, have a look, YouTube it. And it's basically, it gives you a word like the word green, okay? You'll see the word green, but it'll give it to you in the color purple. And so you have to yell the word purple, right? Okay, okay. So that helps with, uh, word processing, it helps with reaction time. It gets faster and faster and faster. You should be able to do that just very quickly. But if everybody wants to actually understand their dementia score risk, you can look up something called the MoCA test. M-O-C-A. I think everybody should be doing it. It's a test out of 30. You should get 30, I should get 30. If you score something like 18, you'll have mild cognitive impairment.

18. So what's that? That's a percentage. That's like something like the usual 75% pass rate or something. And so what do you do in the, the MoCA test?

Look, it's an— it's a battery of tests. It's just online, and they'll do anything from drawing a clock backwards, you know. So it's very rudimentary. So if you really are not getting 30, then we really have to—

All right, we're doing Stroopwafels and Mochi. They sound like desserts. We're doing that. They sound delicious.

Yeah.

And so, okay, so we start doing the brain scans, we do the brain test, and then what do we do to change the athlete's lifestyle? Like, you know, where do we begin there?

Well, let's still stay on that because there's some other things that we need to pick up on. Another big component of brain health is actually heart health. Okay, so we do a battery of tests that involve physiological testing. So your VO2 max, how good is your aerobic fitness? Because we forget that the brain is the most vascular-rich organ in the entire body, meaning that it, it's around 2% of your total body weight, but it consumes 20% of the calories that you put in your mouth.

I always wonder that, like, I didn't even know that, because the other way, when after hard days of— yeah, hard days of like concentrating, you feel hungry. Yeah, you know, you need some brain food. So that's actually a real thing.

It's 20% to actually fuel this, this thing in your brain that is controlling everything you do. So 20% of the total calories. So it's a hungry organ. Yeah, but it's filled with all of these brain vessels, if you will. So you've got capillaries. These are— this is going back to like biology, but no, I like these little capillaries, or capillaries wherever you are in the world. They're one cell thick. They're tiny little blood vessels. They feed the brain. Right? Then you've got these arteries. Now, these arteries are big, big pumps, right? They're like tubes.

Yeah.

And they've got muscles around them. So you've got arteries going into the brain, feeding it with blood. What's blood doing? It's delivering oxygen and nutrients. So the more blood, or the more efficient that you're getting blood to your heart— to your brain via your heart, the better the health is of your brain. So what does that mean? It means you have to have a healthy heart.

Okay. And so do that. So the first thing that comes to my mind there when you mentioned oxygen going into your brain is of course cardio, working out, but also breathwork.

Breathwork, cardio is really, really important. I know for you, I know you love weights. Yeah, we're gonna get into why weight training is really good for the brain because I want all of your, all of your boys to know that, but But also know that at age 25, your brain is just fully developing.

The typical man, you know.

Yeah, like, this is why I just don't trust like under-25-year-olds. Yeah, like, you don't know what you're talking about yet.

Okay, I agree. I always feel like when I look back at my old videos, because I've been on YouTube at 10 years— actually, it was 10-year anniversary on September 1st. Oh, so like a few days ago. So it just went 10 years, and I was 22 at the time. And so when I look at videos of myself, I'm like, this guy's a kid.

Yeah, how did anyone subscribe?

This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. And I feel like you're right, after 25 things just click and make a bit more sense.

Yeah, things start to develop. Your limbic system, which is where your emotional control is, and we're gonna talk about the things that I see differently with my high-performing athletes as opposed to an everyday athlete. Okay. So that fully develops at around 25. And you've got around 87 billion neurons. They are brain cells, 87 billion of them. They all have around 5,000 connections per cell. So you've got a lot of, a lot of activity happening in your brain. So we need to be feeding it with oxygen and nutrients, and that comes from the blood. So the better your heart is, and we get that from aerobic training, the better conditioned it is to be delivering that blood to your brain.

Okay, so give me a good example of, uh, well, first of all, I'd love to know your cardio routine and what is like a typical cardio routine that you would put an athlete on.

Yeah, so when we talk about cardio, okay, or aerobic training if we talk in science terms, we are generally talking about something that you're, you know, you're going out, you're running, it's taking around 30 to an hour. Yeah, 30 minutes to an hour. What you're doing during that time is you are producing a lot of— your heart is beating. Let's just say it's beating around 65% of your maximum heart rate. Over time, you are releasing molecules These molecules are things such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Have you heard of that?

I, I think I've heard. It sounds like a pre-workout ingredient.

It does. And you know what it is? I mean, some neuroscientists call this fertilizer for the brain. I don't like that word too much, but basically what it is is it's a molecule. It gets released into the blood, and when it goes to the brain, it actually helps with the growth and the proliferation of new brain cells.

Nice.

And the place where this grows is an area called the hippocampus.

I've heard of that one.

Yeah, it's a seahorse-shaped structure. It lives in the temporal lobes where your limbic system is. And that's, that's the first thing to go during Alzheimer's disease. So when you're running, when you're exercising, just remember you're releasing growth factors for your brain.

Okay.

The second thing we're doing is we are getting cardiac remodeling. So your cardiac system, think about it, right? Think about your heart, even think about your lungs, okay? And we've got our blood vessels that come out of our heart and go into the brain. They get remodeled when they get— when you exercise. And by remodeled is, as we get older, from the age actually of around 30 onwards, our heart heart changes. We get stiffening of the arteries, so they get smaller. That's, that's just natural. Yeah, we just get stiffening of the arteries. There's an area— there's two chambers of the heart. You've got the left chamber, you've got the right chamber. The left chamber is responsible for delivering blood to your organs and to your muscles, and over time, the walls of that chamber become thicker. And when that happens, you can't get a lot of blood pumping through there. So therefore it means less blood to the— to your muscles, less blood to your brain. When we exercise and we do cardiac remodeling, especially when we're doing maximal exercise— I'm talking your VO2 max sessions, your sprints— sprints, yeah, you are changing and remodeling your heart. They've actually done studies. It's a really great study, um, by a guy named Ben Levine, and what he did was he put people, 50-year-olds, he scanned their hearts, like did 3D scans, did everything of their hearts, and he put them under 2 years of maximal aerobic exercise. What he found was that he actually reversed the age-related changes of their hearts by 20 years.

What?

So he changed a 50-year-old heart to a 30-year-old heart.

No, from sprints?

Just, well, it wasn't, it was maximal exercise.

Okay.

Yeah, but it was definitely sprinting or getting on a one of those, what do you call it?

Yeah, something where you're just given pretty much 100%.

So that then proves the importance of exercise. And I have this quote that I say all the time, is exercise is medicine. And we often feel like, we feel invincible. I can only imagine what a boy feels in their 20s, right? Invincible. I mean, I was in my 20s, the glory days. Yes. And I remember, you know, I, I remember all the boys in there, they just were like, let's jump off a car, let's jump off a cliff. It's like, okay, okay. But It's, um, it's scary. You never think about what's going to happen eventually. So I, I really want everyone to understand that these age-related changes do start to happen around 30. Okay, so that's aerobic exercise for me and all the clients that I have. We start with 3 hours a week.

Nice. Yeah, that's pretty manageable.

Oh, it's— for me it is. Yeah, yeah.

And what about for like, uh, like extreme high performance, like professional athletes? You know, they'd probably You probably put them in the deep end.

But that then comes into specificity. Because if you're getting a Tour de France athlete, they're already going to be training at that. But if you're getting an athlete who is a boxer, I'm not going to get them to go out and do that. It's a different protocol. But let's just say we're training for longevity. 'Cause I see a lot of CEOs as well.

Yeah, okay.

I see a lot. Actually, it's around, I would say 85% now of my clientele are.

Okay, that's where the money is.

They can afford it.

Yeah.

And they're great. And they adhere to all of the programs and the protocols, but we're getting them to do at least 3 hours a week cut into 1-hour sessions. Yep. Of zone 2 training. That's 65% of their maximum heart rate.

Yeah. Today I was doing a little bit of— I have got like a Whoop only last week, only a week ago. So we're going to talk about this.

Wearables.

Yeah, yeah. So I only just started, like, I've only got my results back because, you know, the way it takes 7 days.

Yeah.

But anyway, so I was doing some zone 2 today. I'll knock out like a 5K, you know, maybe be in like 25, 23 minutes.

Okay, so it's like a 5-minute— yeah, just under.

Exactly. Yeah. And it says, yeah, I'm in the zone too. And so I've only started doing that in the last year, which is, which is terrible. And I find just the difference I feel. Yeah, it's hard to explain. Yeah, you know, first of all, it doesn't affect my weight training at all. Like, it's such a common myth. Oh no, it's such a common myth. It's an excuse for bros who just don't want to do cardio. It doesn't affect it if you're recovering. If you're— you find it is, you're just not eating enough calories or sleeping enough. It's simple as that. I have no problem eating calories. So I found that it has just improved my life in every single way. But it's hard to explain. It's like you just feel better.

And what you're doing actually is, well, you're actually increasing the capillaries. I actually— I hate when people— when a lot of these big gym bros don't do this type of training, because what you're doing is your muscles need blood. They need blood being delivered to them. If you want to push harder, you need more blood flow. You get blood flow via these capillaries. Okay, everyone can Google what a, what a capillary looks like. You can get increased capillaries from doing this low-intensity exercise.

Yeah, so there you go.

Yeah, so you're doing that. You're also doing something else. You are creating more mitochondria. Okay, now have you heard of this word?

I have indeed.

Yeah, it's so— mitochondria, if we remember back to high school biology, it's giving me flashbacks.

Yeah, PTSD.

I know, right?

I love this.

It is the powerhouse of the cell, right? This is where our energy production takes place. ATP, we call it. It takes place in there. So just imagine it as a factory. Everything you eat becomes energy, but it has to pass through the mitochondria first. So if your mitochondria are dysfunctional which they can be from drinking, from lack of physical exercise, and from sleep deprivation, and from smoking. And by the way, guys, if you are smoking, please, for the love of God, just stop vaping, smoking marijuana, alcohol. It is doing so many bad things to you.

Oh my God. No, no, that we are— we're gonna go in on this.

We're gonna go in on that. But let's just stay on, on mitochondria. Yeah, you can induce mitochondrial biogenesis. That means the creation of new mitochondria from working out in zone 2. What does that mean? That means more energy.

Yeah.

Okay, more life.

That's why I'm feeling better.

Yeah, you know, that's exactly why you feel better.

Yeah, that's wild. And so in terms of weight training, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I heard it was quite a good take. I think it was by Eric Helms, who's also a really good researcher in the— he has very science-based in the bodybuilding industry, and he said like if you're pushing yourself, um, extremely hard in weight training and you're taking a 45-second rest and then you're doing another set extremely hard, it's kind of like HIIT, and that there is cardiovascular benefits even though it is mainly, of course, hypertrophy orientated. But what impact does weightlifting have on not only our brain health but our overall health as well?

Okay, so many things. This is where my main area of research is.

Awesome.

So I'm literally looking at the effects of weight training on mild cognitive impairment patients.

Haven't.

Okay, so first of all, let's define weight training. Now I define it as when you are lifting at 80% of your 1RM.

Yep, agree.

All right, so that's what we're looking for. We want to be placing our muscles under certain tension because we need it to grow.

Yep.

Right, so we're doing many things. Let's talk about what it's doing to the brain first and foremost. But actually, no, let's talk about why we even need muscle. Yeah. Okay, I know you're like, you know, I know you all look fine, okay? I know it's about the— Somebody actually said to me, I'm with a bunch of guys, funny, I'm staying in a villa with like 28 guys. I said, I'm going to see Rob Lipsett and they're all like, you know, fangirling.

I love that. I'll pop down if we do some bicep curls.

Rob should come here. But they're like, he's got an 8-pack. I was like, yeah, that's great. Okay, so I didn't know an 8-pack existed. So I know it looks good, but you're doing so much. The more muscle we have, the more mitochondria we have, right? We need— muscle is the organ of longevity, as my friend Dr. Gabrielle Lyon says. We need this to age better. The number one cause of death over the age of 80 in the US— okay, I know we're in my bay, but in the US is actually falls.

It's rich.

Oh, falling, falling, falling down.

Oh my God, are you serious?

Because what happens is if you are 80, you fall you either, you know, split your head open and— yeah, okay, um, you know, hemorrhage from the brain, or you fall, you break a hip, you go to surgery, you don't survive that surgery.

Yeah.

Or worse off, you do, but then your post-operative risk infection goes up, or you just become so sedentary and depressed after that that it's a very slow death.

So I did not know that.

Yeah, the CDC released that saying that's the number one cause of death. So if we— we remember, you have to reverse engineer everything. If we want to live to 100 I'm not saying live to 100 but be in a hospital bed. I'm talking about picking grandkids up, going for a walk with your significant other, hanging out, being cognitively aware, being able to talk to your kids or your spouse, right? If we want that, we have to reverse engineer everything. So we know we need muscle mass. Muscle mass starts to decline for men rapidly at 40.

40.

Yeah, it even goes even more rapid at 50. Like, it's a huge steep decline. Of course, you actually lose mass at a much more decline rate than than strength. Yeah, actually, no, so I like— you lose, um, you, you lose strength more than mass.

Okay, usually the two go hand in hand.

Yeah, and they measure this via grip strength. So we need both, right? So that's why we need muscle. Why is weight training good for your brain? So one amazing thing happens is we have within the cells of our muscles— so your muscle fibers, yeah, We have— it's pretty much your muscles are a pharmacy, okay? They hold these tiny molecules just like BDNF, but there's a whole range of pharmaceuticals in there, I call them.

I hope it's not a Mexican pharmacy. Definitely not. I've seen some dodgy ones there.

So have I, actually. They just give you anything over there in Mexico. Things that are usually prescription-based, you can get there.

That's wild.

No, so there's these things called myokines. They're muscle-based proteins. They only live in the cells of the muscles. And when you squeeze your muscle, you contract it, these myokines get pushed out. They get pushed out into the blood, they go up to the brain, they cross this thing called the blood-brain barrier. It's a collection of cells that's basically like the bouncer at a club. The bouncer is saying to you, "Yeah, you look good, you can come in." "No, you can't come in, you're too big." I love these analogies, perfect. So these myokines, they look good, so they're allowed to go into the club, which is your brain, and when they go in there, they have positive effects on your brain. They help with mood, they help with depressive-like symptoms, anybody who's feeling— this is why when you go to the gym you feel good. They, um, they help with serotonin. They also help with executive functions. Right here in the frontal lobe sits all of your executive functions— how you think, the decisions you make, your reaction time, your intelligence. Yeah, so you are building a better brain and you're building bigger connections. Okay, so this is all done via myokines. And I think the most promising research now— did you know that cancer rates are going up?

I'm not surprised.

GI, um, GI-related cancers are going up, right? Everything related to the gastrointestinal tract, you know. And these doctors are, um, there's so many, uh, you know, quacks. Well, oncologists thinking, why are these rates going up? What's going on? Like, how do we cure it? and I've just, I've just done— and this is like my new research— I've just stumbled across what exercise is doing in terms of cancer. These myokines, they also have the ability to go into other sites of the body, okay? And they've found that specific myokines, when you resistance train, they can go into the prostate and inhibit tumor cell growth in the prostate.

Okay, so lifting weights is anti-cancer?

Yes, yes. And not just that, exercising at maximal speed or maximal rate, 85%, 90% of your maximum heart rate, can kill circulating tumor cells. So we're now seeing evidence that exercise is not just good for your brain, but it is a prescription for cancer.

Oh my God, I absolutely love that. And also, I'm pretty sure this, uh, this statistic is true, correct me if I'm wrong. Does having muscle mass, uh, weightlifting, whatever, Apparently it decreases your chance of becoming obese later in life by 50%, and then I can't— in my opinion, kind of leads to all-cause mortality as well. Like, in my opinion, I actually— I think it was Peter Attia that said testosterone is decreasing so much and disease is going up because our body weight, our fat, or the levels of fat we have in our body is increasing so much, you know. And so how unhealthy is it for us to be overweight? I know some people, some people like to say you can be healthy at any Body weight. You don't have to be PC on this channel.

Yeah, no, I'm definitely not for advertising, uh, you know, I've seen women who are large, you know, and I, and I think, you know, people say, but you're body shaming. It's like, no, I'm not. No, it's, um, you know, it's an unhealthy lifestyle. I don't think we should be promoting that. So if you have a high— I think about this, right? When you have— get into that obese range, yeah, think of a steak. Think of a filet mignon and then think of a wagyu steak.

Yeah, the marble—

the marble within that is pretty much what you're doing. You're putting all of this fat, visceral fat, into your organs and into your muscles. That is so unhealthy. It's creating an inflammatory state at the seat of almost every disease. By the way, it's taken me 10 years of research in brain diseases to understand this, that the seat of almost everything is inflammation.

And so I, I hear, I hear the word inflammation a lot, and it's kind of, it's thrown around a lot. And what does it actually like mean in really simple terms? Is it like, for example, when a bruise swells up, is that inflammation? You know, how do you kind of define inflammation? Because I think it's also a bit of a buzzword in the kind of, in the kind of like, um, organic paleo carnivore crew. They're like, it causes inflammation. It's thrown around a lot. What does inflammation actually Yeah, inflammation is not bad, right?

Yeah, because when you work out, you work out, you increase cortisol, ergo you increase inflammation. I was just telling Rob, I worked out yesterday. I did a deadlift. I didn't realize that I was lifting kilos instead of pounds, threw my back out. Back is currently inflamed. That does not mean I'm in an inflamed state. We need inflammation. Every time you work out and you pull your muscle fibers, you know, you break them and they grow back. They grow back via blood flow and inflammation. Inflammation is needed. The problem is it's like a Goldilocks hormone. Too much of it is bad. That is called chronic inflammation. Not enough of it is also bad. Yeah, we need it. Yes, you need it for growth and repair. The problem is so many things nowadays is causing inflammation. So the unhealthier we are, the more inflammation builds up. And if we don't clear it out, if we don't do stress-free strategies, it just keeps building up and compiling, right? So you've got inflammation from going to the gym, okay? You've got inflammation from the air quality, which is actually really beautiful here.

Oh, okay. I feel healthier here. Like, I was also in Dubai like a month ago, like in August is the hottest, and I was like, I can't Breathe.

Yeah, exactly. You've got environmental toxins, you've got the foods that we eat, the mass-produced foods, especially in the US. So a lot— a notification from your ex comes up on your phone, like inflammation, inflammation, inflammation. Everyone's getting triggered by it, okay? And then couple that with I'm not sleeping, I'm not hydrating, I'm not eating the right foods, and I'm not exercising. Because by the way, exercise is is anti-inflammatory. I know you said that you exercising, you, you cause inflammation. Yes, but you're also releasing something called IL-6, which is a myokine, and it is anti-inflammatory.

Okay, okay.

So it's like this double-edged sword there. So inflammation in a chronic state is bad. Obesity— when you are obese or more body fat than what is necessary, you are going to be chronically inflamed.

Of course. And it kind of, it kind of makes sense, like it kind of reflects, you know. I— this sounds kind of funny, I know, on scientific, but I'm just going to throw it out there. When I, like, uh, you know, don't get enough sleep in, when I drink alcohol, uh, when I, you know, eat some fried foods or some shitty quality foods, I see it in my face. I, I, I know a little bit of it would be water retention and cortisol and stress, but I look inflamed.

Yes.

Like, is, is that actually a thing? Does it impact, like, kind of how we look?

Oh, 100%. I actually, um, it's funny, if I eat a lot of if I eat a lot of sugar. But like, if I, if I know that I've eaten bad, my— I feel it the next day. And it's like, if you don't sleep— the good thing is actually exercise. There's a really beautiful article that demonstrates the link between resistance training and skin health, that it can help with the elastin and the collagen. So at least you're getting that there, right?

There we go.

But no, so back to inflammation. So it is a bad thing, okay, if in a chronic state, and that's what we're talking about now. So yes, obesity can cause you to be in a chronically inflamed state, which can have a ripple effect. It can help— it can decrease mitochondrial function, so we get mitochondrial dysfunction. Many things happen in the brain if it thinks it's inflamed, okay? If your brain thinks it's under attack, it releases something called amyloid, and it's a— it basically helps like protect your brain. It's like, we're going to protect you. What happens is that's the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, so we have to clear out that amyloid. But if we're not clearing the amyloid out, it accumulates like compound interest, accumulates, accumulates. And that's what you're doing in your 20s and your 30s, and then boom, time locks you in your 70s. Alzheimer's disease, death sentence.

Oh my God. And so we kind of touched on a little bit there, but in terms of diet, okay, nutrition. So we kind of covered training there, you know, we want to be doing a lot of zone 2 cardio, we wanted to be doing some 100% effort work like sprints, and of course lifting as well. But in terms of nutrition, what are the first things you look at when, you know, you work— when working with a CEO or something, where do you start with your diet? Like with me, because it's usually just when someone signs up for me, it's usually just like body composition that they want to change. Like of course they want to feel better, but you'd be more into like the actual function.

Exactly.

You know, I'm just into the cosmetics, guys. If you wanna get ripped, hit me up. You wanna get smarter, hit up Louisa. But so where's the first place that you look with their diet? And is there any like, is there any foods to really avoid?

Yeah, so the first thing we do is we do blood tests. Not your regular blood test that you're getting done at your general practitioner. We're taking around 200 biomarkers, right? So we're getting, you'll go there, you'll probably get 20 vials of blood. We wanna see everything.

20?

Yeah, we wanna see what you're gonna pass out after.

Need a blood transfusion after.

We wanna see, okay, what is happening in your blood? You could, you know, I've seen people who are really thin or, you know, they look good, but their LDL, which is a cholesterol marker, is just like through the roof, right? So we wanna look at that, we wanna make sure everything's good. I also do DNA. Now this has got nothing to do with diet, but I really wanna determine like what are we working with now? Because there are different genes that predispose you to different diseases. So we want to check that out as well. Yeah, but let's just say we do that and we find that maybe you've got a vitamin D deficiency. Maybe—

no problem here.

No problem here.

Yeah, I used to take— well, I still do take it, but kind of, you know, I don't place as much emphasis on it, like a vitamin D supplement. In Ireland and the UK, I'd be hammering that, but, uh, but here, you know, I'm—

morning sun. Have you done blood work?

I have done. Yeah, I get it done maybe twice a year. Perfect. So there's actually some good clinics here in Marbella. They're very, um, fitness and wellness focused.

Oh, nice. Yeah, so, so that's what we do, but with our clients we're doing actually every 3 months.

Okay. What?

Well, it takes, um, you get a fresh batch of blood cells every 3 months. So we're trying to really show them that, hey, our protocols are working.

Yes.

Okay, so we do that. Just say you've got a vitamin D, B12 deficiency, we want to plug those in first with your micronutrients. Then we want to know what your goals are. Are. Some people don't have a goal of being as ripped as Rob.

Yeah, okay, that's my new program, Ripped as Rob.

But we do know that the first thing we need to count for is protein. We're generally doing 1.8 grams per kilogram.

Fully agree. So that works out to, um, in pounds, that's like 2.2.

I think it's around 2.2.

Yeah, or something like that. Um, I, I just usually go with the blanket 1, 1 gram per pound of body weight. Okay, you know, whatever, whatever that is. In kilos. But there's some research to show that you can even go like— there's a lot of research showed that you can go 0.8 grams and be fine. But I always recommend the higher end, mainly because for satiety, to stop people overeating. And I just feel a little bit better on a higher protein intake.

Yeah. And then it depends on— we, we take age into consideration, we take what you're doing as well, um, for lifestyle. A lot, you know, a lot of my guys are traders okay, or portfolio managers. So they're sedentary a lot of the time, which we hate. Yes, I classify, um, sedentary as if you've been seated for 45 minutes or less, uh, or more.

For— that's like very small. That's a very small window. Like, yeah, you know, yeah.

So you should be getting up and doing what I call exercise snacks. If you get up and break that up at 45 minutes, just get up high intensity for like a minute even. You can get benefits from that.

No way. Yeah, this is very easy to do.

Exercise snack, you can do it. You get down, just give me 10 push-ups, right? That's all. So, um, so we're accounting for protein first, okay? And then we want to look at everything else. Now we have somebody who takes care of that on my team. Yeah, that is not my forte. But the reason why I brought up the, um, the DNA is because maybe a ketogenic diet I'm not saying carnivore, right? I'm saying ketogenic is better for some people because beta-hydroxybutyrate is really good for brain energy metabolism. And if we have somebody that comes to us and they're saying, Louisa, look, my mom died of Alzheimer's disease, I have the genes responsible for that, we need to really look at a diet that is better for the brain. So that person is optimizing for something different, so their diet is going to be completely different. To John Smith, who's 45, no Alzheimer's in the family, no DNA that's responsible for that. So he just wants to be lean and feel good.

Yes.

So everybody is very individualized. This is why I don't like the one-size-fits-all approach.

Of course. Yeah. And so going back to the ketogenic diet and how does that— you know, what is it? Is it the healthy fats that are impacting our brain? You know, what's the— what's the link there?

It's because your brain brain works better when it utilizes ketones as fuel. The brain's main energy source is glucose. However, when we obviously eliminate that glucose, if we go into a fasting state, you know, basically prehistorically, if you were not eating for a week, you can still survive because your brain starts to release these ketones, which enables you to— which keeps you like— it's a satiety comes in for that.

Yeah.

And then it also keeps you alert. So your brain is actually utilizes ketones way better. So if we need a really high-performing brain, we want to be in that ketogenic state.

That's wild. So do you know what I do every single morning? I either just fast until maybe 12 to 2 PM, or if I have like a lot of work that I need to concentrate for, you know, I will fast, just have water and coffee or caffeine, or I will just have a protein fat breakfast. So just like— I, I love kind of plain food sometimes. Yeah, I love delicious food, but I can just eat plain. I'm just steak and eggs. Yeah, you know, but it's hot sauce on it, and I feel so sharp. Steak, eggs, and a massive coffee. Yeah, like, you know, some caffeine, and I'm just— I can concentrate so much better. And I'm like, I'll always backload my carbs. Like, I'll have my carbs post-workout and in the evening time around dinner time. I'm definitely not anti-carb at all, but I do notice a huge difference when I don't include them in the morning.

Yeah, because they make you feel lethargic.

Yes, yeah, exactly. It's like I call Christmas dinner effect.

Exactly. And Yeah, no, no, I'm the same. I don't end up— I'm never hungry until about 11:00 AM. So one thing we have to consider as well is electrolytes, right? So dehydration is huge. You probably don't even know when you're dehydrated. There's certain markers that we can pick up on in the blood as well if you're dehydrated, but dehydration is big for your mental state and for your physiological state. Like your muscles are also, you know, you think, oh, made of protein, but no, they're also— because a big bulk of it is water.

Oh yeah.

So if you are dehydrated, you take away from what you can be producing at the gym.

Yeah, I can feel it as well. I smash electrolytes, by the way. Like, I'm big into them. And, um, the company that I work with, Ghost, they just released electrolyte— plug— they released electrolyte product. I think it was about a year or two ago. It wasn't one of their original products, and I was so happy. Like, I legit use it round the clock, and I I significantly notice a difference. It's like your brain— when I'm dehydrated, my brain feels tighter. It's like it contracts.

It does, you know.

And I presume that's because it's all made of water or something.

Well, I love that you said that. So yes, it's made of water and fat, right? But when your brain cells communicate— so one cell communicates with the other and it creates a chemical message, it releases chemical messages, but it creates a synapse. During that state, it uses something called a sodium-potassium pump. So you actually need electrolytes for your brain cells to be working. So imagine if you are dehydrated, your brain doesn't work better. You actually have a decline in your cognitive performance by around 30% if you're around 2% dehydrated. So you've got cognitive performance decline, you've got muscle performance declining, um, you've probably got like less peristalsis happening— that's your digestion. So it's just, it just, it's so bad. Yeah, you don't even know when you're dehydrated usually.

Yeah. And is there any, uh, the one thing is another, you get crazy muscle pumps. That's another good one as well that the bros can relate to. You know, you get like, um, you have sodium, the potassium, like you just—

yeah, you feel your veins are pumping.

Exactly. Yeah, you feel fantastic. And so is there any foods like brain foods that when you start working someone, you'd recommend them to start including in their diet? Like the first ones that would come to my head would be Salmon, eggs, fish oils. Tell me, what are some good, good brain foods?

The first thing that we'll talk about is what does your brain actually need. It turns out that the first thing it needs is antioxidants. Okay, right. So we have— when we are inflamed, right, we release something called free radicals.

Yeah.

Okay, we don't want them. We, we want to get rid of them. Now, the great way to get rid of them is through antioxidants.

Okay, right.

Where do they come from?

Berries.

Berries. The best thing you can eat for your brain is blueberries, blackberries, raspberries. Then you've also got selenium, is great for your brain. We get that from Brazil nuts. Okay. Okay. So every morning we've got chefs right now. I'm staying at a beautiful villa here and, you know, it looks insane. And so every morning she brings me— I tell her what I want. It's egg white omelette, 6 egg whites and a bowl of blueberries and raspberries. It's just perfect, right?

That is just refreshing to even think about.

And the fact that I don't have to create, like, make anything, it's like even better, right? So that's what I'm having every morning. And then also Brazil nuts.

Nice.

Okay, so that's the first thing your brain wants. The second thing it wants— it turns out that 20% of the total fat content— your brain is around 60% water, 40% fat. 20% is made of DHA. Now DHA comes from fatty fish, so omega-3 fatty acids. Everyone's probably taken them, right? Omega-3s, right? Fish oil. They're broken into 3 parts: EPA, DHA, and ALA. Your brain needs these to, to basically— you're feeding your brain what it's made of. So my second go-to would be having at least 4 grams a day EPA and DHA.

Do you take them in tablet form or from food as well?

You really can't get it in food. I'll tell you why. Like, to get a lot of— like, when you see a piece of salmon, you're not just— it's not just omega-3 fatty acids. I guess you've got like a lot of minerals, you've got fat, you've got protein, and you've got everything. You can't really get that amount from salmon. And not just that, a lot of the food now, I mean, depending on where you are in the world, is farmed.

Yeah.

And even if it is getting it from the ocean, which I really doubt you are, even though it says wild, it's not wild-caught. I don't know what, what that means.

Yeah.

So you've got to be getting it from a really reputable company.

Yeah. Is there any— what's the— where do you live year-round, actually?

Like New York.

Okay. Okay. So yeah, I mean, I'm starting to question— like, do you get like maybe some meat from upstate or something?

Yeah, I get like The bulk of my money goes to rent and food because the, like, the quality of the food I eat is very high quality.

Are you shopping at Erewhon? Be honest.

We don't have Erewhon. No, no, it's only in LA.

Oh my God, when I'm in LA, it's like $1,000 an hour.

Oh, I've got like a cupcake and like, it's wild.

Do you go to Whole Foods?

I— that's what I use. Yeah, I go to Whole Foods.

It's amazing. I love Whole Foods. Like, when I'm in America, I always just shop there. I'm actually I'm going to— I think my— I'm going to Texas definitely for a friend's wedding in about a month, and I'm definitely going to go to Miami after as well because it's connecting flight. But whenever I'm there, you know, I always go to Whole Foods as well. But I find like, I think it's the overall lifestyle, especially in Texas. You don't walk anywhere. Like, you do not walk anywhere. And it's like the food, just like the bread has more calories in it, you know? Like, they add sugar to the bread.

I know, it's wild. Like, I actually feel better. I've only been here for 4 days, yeah, and I already feel good. I don't know what it is.

Yeah, I think it's, it's the coastal living. Like, so by the way, Marbella, as you probably know, it's a huge party place as well. Like, you know, there's like very a lot of like huge clubs and beach clubs and everything, but there's also like a big health and fitness scene here. Like, the gyms here are the biggest gyms in Europe. Like, you got Paddle Gym, Elements Gym, IO, M13, uh, Oxygen Gym. They're, they're all like these 5 mega gyms. They're all like 10 minutes away from each other. You've got the beach, you've got the beach gym that you worked out on. It's a super fit and healthy life as well as the party life as well. So I feel at my healthiest.

Where's the freshest food?

Uh, everywhere's pretty good. Like, I go to, um, El Corte Inglés has a very kind of like Whole Foods-y section there, so that's good quality. I like Mercadona as well for basics, but I noticed like Even if you go into like a gas station, the fruit, the fruit is so fresh. They have like all this fresh watermelon and strawberries. I actually— it's true, I looked up a statistic today. Spain is the healthiest country in Europe, and I think the world, like on overall— yeah, on overall just general markers of health. I'll fact check that, but you know, put up on the screen, but I'm pretty sure it is. And I don't doubt that at all. Like even when you go for like a walk around the village or down by the coast, you see like no one's overweight, like hardly anyone. You don't see any real big, you know, obese people. All the old folks are all fishing. Yeah, they're playing chess. You know, they're out walking. Like, you can visually see that it's a very healthy place. Then when I go to Texas or somewhere, it's, it's just like the Starbucks.

Yeah. And there's— I don't— and like, the, the, the fruit in America just tastes like candy.

Yeah, exactly.

It's like, what the fuck? I know, it's ridiculous. I'm questioning now why I'm there. Yeah, so, um, okay, so we've got the omega-3 fatty acids. Now, look, by the way, I'm a, I'm an omnivore. I eat meat. I eat a lot. I would say 80% of my diet is, uh, plants. Your brain does love plants as well, right?

Good, right? So I'm glad you said that. I want to just, just go in on that, okay? Because a really hot topic right now in the fitness industry is the carnivore diet. Oh my God, like, so what's your, what's your thoughts?

I'm telling you, people are dying from that, okay? I mean I mean, I've interviewed Paul Saladino back in my day, before— back in my day, like before he was big.

I'm just shocked he has salad in his second name, like the word salad is in his second name. I'm like, you couldn't make this up, the world is a simulation.

So let's talk about why, like why is it so bad? Okay, it all comes down to arterial health, right? Okay, the health of your arteries. Remember how I said the health of your brain relies on the health of your heart?

Heart.

We need— so those big arteries, we want them to be flowing of blood. If you have a high LDL, right, this is a part of the— you know, if you go and get a lipid panel, you're looking at total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL, HDL. That's what you're looking at. The LDL— I hate saying this— is a quote-unquote the bad cholesterol. Yeah, there's more nuance to that, but let's just call it that for now. It's the one that ends up building up, and if it gets too high, it forms plaques. In the walls of these arteries. What happens then? They become narrower. That means less blood is flowing through them, it constricts. So how do we get a high LDL? From eating more saturated fat. Where does saturated fat come from? It comes from many things, obviously, fast food, but also a lot of red meat.

Yeah, like high fatty cuts of meat. Do you think you can regulate the negative health effects of a carnivore diet just choosing leaner meats, or do you still think it— but just having that much meat is unreasonable?

I think— I personally think having that much meat is unreasonable. Now, I have a— you know, I have people in my network who are carnivore, carnivores, and they look amazing. The thing that I hate is that everyone is different.

Yes.

And another thing is, just because you look great, right, it means that he has eliminated everything else. It doesn't mean that the carnivore diet is good for him. Him.

Yeah.

Or her. It just means that they've eliminated, and that's why they feel good.

Yeah.

If you eliminate everything and just stick to one food group, you're gonna feel great.

Yeah. So what I love the most is like when people are like, oh, I follow this diet and I lost this much weight and everything. You cut out half the foods you're already eating. So it's like, you know, keto, carnivore, intermittent fasting, uh, low carbs, low fat, whatever it is, it's just a calorie deficit dressed up. So people love instead of correlation, it's causation, or yeah, they mix those two up and they think that it's because they did a certain diet or something.

Yeah, and that really pisses me off. But, um, so I think if you're sticking to a 70% plants, and like, that's still a lot of meat, you can still meet your, you can still meet your, um, protein requirements on that. The reason why plants are so good is because of the fiber content in there. We need—

that's what Lay Norton actually just did.

One of my good friends.

Oh no, yeah. Yeah, so I followed Lane. I think he had 2,000 followers. I swear to God, he— when I was like, my God, I must have been 15 or something. I'm so lucky I like just stumbled upon his page, and I was just lucky I started following his information, uh, from the beginning because it's, it's great, it's correct, it's evidence-based. But like, you can easily just land on like some keto zealot or, you know, some carnivore crazy person, and then whatever nutrition camp you land on first, you're actually entrenched in that for the rest of your life. So it's just a bit of luck on who you click on when you're researching. So I was about like 14, 15, getting into the gym and watched all Lane's stuff.

Wow, that's such a long time ago.

Yeah, he's amazing.

He's wonderful. We were together in Sydney— sorry, Queensland in Australia not too long ago. So, but you know, we need fiber, right? The fiber actually draws all of that saturated fat out and helps it, but it's really great for your brain. As well. So plants are good.

God, but like, I'm, I'm mad for it.

I am not for the all plant-based diet. Oh, that's another bit. Like, I'm like, you know, they're crazy.

I make fun of vegans regularly. It's a religious cult. Yeah, it is nuts. If you even put vegan in the YouTube title, you get like this, this mob come to your video and they like start like slating you and hating you. It's like you summon an even an evil part of the internet. That.

I don't know what it is either. I know. So plants are good. Now let's move on to another thing, which is not food per se, but a supplement that I love that I've gone viral for several times on, on Instagram. I don't know why, uh, but it's creatine.

Let's go!

The most well-studied supplement on the market. I think it's the cheapest.

It is. Yeah, like creatine monohydrate is like, you get a kilo of it for nothing.

Yeah, it's the cleanest, it's the safest, very high safety profile. So many people are taking it to get jacked, right? We know what it does. We know that it's, it's going to help with your muscles, okay? You're going to be able to lift more, lift heavier. We now have substantial research to show that it helps with brain health, right? Brain energy and metabolism. Since it helps with that ATP generation that I mentioned in the mitochondria, that means it helps with the brain. So we're now having seeing a lot of cognitive benefits from taking creatine. We're seeing that in the research. We're seeing research with mild cognitive impairment patients taking creatine. We're seeing postmenopausal women who have got, you know, they're in the pre-stages of osteoporosis, right? Postmenopausal, they're not producing any more estrogen, right? Estrogen, the dominant hormone for females, we lose it at a certain age in the 50s, and that increases our risk of osteoporosis. So bone density can be increased from having creatine.

Yeah, and bone density is something that, uh, you really need to look at in your later stages in life as well. So we got, we got more bone density, more muscle, you know, better brain health. Yeah, it's kind of, it's a wonder drug, it's a wonder supplement.

Here's the, here's the caveat. You've probably heard that dosages are around 5 grams a day. Yes, right. If you want to have the cognitive benefits, you want to be taking around 10 to 12 grams a day.

Okay.

And that's because the uptake via— like, it has to cross that blood-brain barrier, use— it loses some of the bioavailability. So by the time the neurons in the brain uptake it, it's lost some already. So you need to be taking around 10 to 12 grams for that to occur.

Nice. And there's— do you recommend getting that, that 10, 12 grams all from supplementation, or would you rely a little bit on diet because there's a meat and fish? I wouldn't say so as well. And when —when it's so cheap, it's like you might as well. You may as well.

Play it safe, kind of, yeah. So I was mixing it for my parents in their morning coffee. It doesn't lose, you know, it doesn't lose its bioavailability, it doesn't burn out in coffee, it's completely fine. I asked Dr. Darren Candow, he's done his PhD in creatine, so that's all clear. My guy. Yeah, but the great thing is you also, with women, they did this study where they were taking I think it was 10 grams a day, maybe it was 12 grams a day. They had no side effects. So I'm really freaking sick of hearing, "Oh, but it's causing me to lose my hair," which no, it freaking doesn't. That one article came out.

From the rugby players, that study, that's an infamous study.

That one single study that has been retracted. It does not cause any kidney issues, it doesn't cause any liver issues, it doesn't— like all these issues that people are talking about, like it does not cause that. That. And another thing, creatinine on a blood test is not creatine. Okay, so what's, what's that? Well, it's just, I mean, we don't even have to go into—

I'm just saying, like, actually, so I got a blood test, uh, you know, recently enough, and it said my creatinine levels were quite high. So break down what's the difference between creatinine levels and creatinine.

If you do have a lot of creatine in your diet, you will have maybe higher creatinine levels, but that does not mean that you're being poisoned or overloading from creatine. Your kidneys— so your kidneys are fine, guys. There— I just can't see a relevant case for people not taking this on the daily.

Yeah, I'm always trying to get, uh, my fiancée to take it. Uh, I would love to get my parents to take it as well. Does she think she's going to get bloated? No, she just like wouldn't— she just doesn't like— what— it wouldn't be part of her morning routine. I'm like, go and take this. She's like, nah, you know, I'm all right. Like, she understands it's not bad for you, like, you know, she just wouldn't be consistent with it unless I start spiking her coffee. Yeah, yeah, same with my parents. Yeah, they would be like, just the way they're raised and old news articles like that, they would think, oh no, powder muscle building supplements, I'm not taking that. So the message that you want to get across to people is that creatine is healthy, it helps our brain, it helps our body composition, and it also helps with bone density as well, and mineral density.

It helps with offsetting a like if you are sleep deprived, okay, you can have creatine and you will, uh, you'll, you'll feel better, right? So all these cognitive complaints that you're having, you can help support your brain with more energy metabolism via creatine.

And so what's the best form? Because there's a good monohydrate, monohydrate, the classic mono.

Now look, caveat, I'm having 5 grams a day. Yeah, yeah. I was going to ask you, are you doing any pre-workout in the morning?

Yes. So I, uh, are we talking about caffeine intake here or like actual pre-workout non- ingredients.

Yeah, like C4 or something.

Yeah, well, so I do Ghost, you know, Ghost Legend. All the supplements I use are from them. So the main ingredients in their pre-workout is beta-alanine and creatine, of course, as well is in their Size product. And, um, there's some arginine as well to promote blood flow. There's L-citrulline. Great. Yeah, L-citrulline as well. I notice that particularly when I take a pre-workout that's high in L-citrulline. Again, you just just feel amazing. The pumps and the blood flow are fantastic. So yeah, I do take, uh, pre-workout pretty much every day. But so I usually train in the morning at like 10:00 AM, and I'll take, you know, I'll have caffeine in the morning, and then after my workout I consume no caffeine as it kills my sleep like really badly. And then if I'm training in the evening like 3 or 4 PM, I'll have no caffeine pre-workout. Workouts aren't as good, but I'll just have, you know, creatine, L-arginine, citrulline, um, all the kind of ingredients in the non-stim pre-workout that, that Ghost have. But so in terms of one thing that is— I want to touch on while we're on the topic is what is your supplement, supplement list that you personally take and recommend?

Yeah, so I'm glad you said that. I, I, I have coffee in the morning, and by the way, the coffee here is way better than in America. I'm sorry, I'm bashing America right now.

Like, all my American subscribers gonna be like, get her off, it's ridiculous.

So My supplement routine is very different. It's extremely targeted at me being a woman and me being— I'm vitamin D deficient. I'm at 39 nanograms per deciliter, not 39 years old.

Yeah, yeah, nanograms, people, not years.

Gosh, okay. So I know, I'm like, what's your secret?

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Sorry. And I want mine to be around 60. So since it's 39, I'm having 5,000 IUs of vitamin D per day. What else am I having? I mean, I'm having CoQ10. Yeah. Do you have women that listen to this?

Yeah, yeah. No, I do. Yeah.

So CoQ10, coenzyme 10, is amazing and it deteriorates as we get older and it's actually really good for egg reserve and egg health. So just like you need to look after your semen quality. Yeah, women have to look after their egg quality. So I have that, I have L-carnitine, and I have DHEA. Now DHEA is the precursor. It's actually— they call it the hormone of youth. Yes, uh, it's a precursor to many hormones, testosterone. And my— I, during my blood test, I was like— by the way, my, my metrics are very like, they're in this performance zone. Yeah, my, my testosterone was like 1 below than what it should be as a female. So I'm like, okay, and my DHEA was 110 and it should be 160. So I'm having DHEA as well. I'm having Timeline Nutrition. So Timeline actually, it's, and I'm not sponsored by them, I just love them. They have a patent on something called Urolithin A.

Okay, I've never even heard that. And I'm a supplement nerd, so I'm like—

You need to look this up. There is a clear benefit between Urolithin A and muscle health. Health. So it's, it's wonderful. It comes from— it's a compound that actually comes from pomegranates. Okay. Yeah. So I'm having that as well. So there's a lot there. And the reason I asked about pre-workout is because I just saw, um, and I hate to say this, but it's, it's, you know, I just realized that C4 contains, uh, red dye 40. I've heard a lot about this, and I didn't know that. Yeah. And okay, now the dose makes the poison. Poison, right? Of course you can have— the FDA says, even though fuck the FDA, the FDA says that you can have around 430 milligrams of red dye per day. And that's per day. You're not even getting near that if you have one scoop of C4. You're probably getting like not even a gram. They just— it's just a bit of dye. But still, it's like everything compounds. Like, if I'm gonna have red dye, then I'm also going to have like this, and then I'm going to have that. Like, I mean, I didn't realize that red dye it's number 40 or something, is in even cakes.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you can't get that in Europe. And also Ghost had to formulate a Europe, like an EU, uh, formulation to be sold here. So I'm pretty sure my pre-workout doesn't have that. And I'm not sure, maybe it's banned in Europe, maybe it's not. But there is a lot of ingredients that are available in America and that are not available, which is great, you know.

Well, actually, that is— there is— that is interesting because we've got sun cream that's available here in Europe and in Australia, and it's the best type of sun cream because it contains something called bemetrisinol, and that is the ingredient that's actually going to block the UV rays that are actually detrimental to your skin health. Guess what? It's banned in America. No, I—

so I know I, I've been— no, I There's, there's too many things that I, I want to go in on here. I've been— I went down the sun cream rabbit hole recently and— okay, right, well, I'm just going to have to go on this cuz I really could not get an answer. Okay, some people are saying that sun cream is, is cancerous, it's bad for you. Some people are saying, what, what are you talking about? Set the record straight on, on sun cream, please.

I mean, first, sun cream is not— I, I know that there's zinc forms. Look, this came out because a very popular scientist claimed, which there's been no— and I think he's retracted his claim. He said that it can seep through your skin, go into the blood-brain barrier, and affect the brain, right? It can't do that, okay? If you'd be swallowing the, the sunscreen, you know, but it's not. Uh, I'm not too— look, sun cream is not bad. It's actually doing more good than harm. Again, the dose makes the poison. Yeah, if you— I put sun cream on every single morning. Um, I do this to protect myself from— but the one that I do take does contain bemetrisinol, and I get the La Roche-Posay. I don't know how to pronounce it, and it's La Roche-Posay.

Yes, something like that.

But guess what? You get the bottle, right? The one from Europe, you get the identical bottle. In America, you turn them over, America doesn't contain bemetrisinol. No way. Why is Well, why is that?

Wait, so is Ben Mizetrol or whatever, is that a good thing or a bad thing? It's a good thing.

That's the thing that's protecting you.

And then so why the angst leaving it out? Well, this is my theory. Okay.

There is— do you know how healthcare works? Probably not.

Okay. Probably not the way I should.

So you've got— so the government is feeding the— okay, let's just talk about the government is feeding the information to the public. Via news outlets— Fox Media, CNN, all of that. Okay, so where does the government get their information from? Well, they are funded by the 5 food conglomerates—

Pfizer, okay, all these guys.

Well, no, they— that's the pharmaceutical industry. So they're funded by like PepsiCo, the big food guys, they're funded by the pharmaceutical industry, and they're funded by the industrial military complex. So if the government is feeding the, the, the US, okay, I'm talking about the US. If they're feeding us the information, 320 million population, 350 million, whatever, then in order for the, the pharmaceutical industry to be able to make a profit to pay the government, they need to make money. How does a pharmaceutical industry make money? Well, the biggest revenue-generating force in the world is sickness. So it's evil. It's evil. So how, so how is, how is sickness revenue generating? Well, for example, the latest FDA-approved drugs which are still killing patients for Alzheimer's disease are around $70,000 a year. Okay, now there is no promise. It is a, it is just treating the symptoms, and during that stage they're also causing brain bleeds and atrophy of the brain. And there's no cure, there's no reversal. It's just a, a very harsh Band-Aid, right? So how do we ensure that we are— that the, that the pharmaceutical industry or the healthcare industry keeps getting money each month? The same way Netflix does. Netflix requires subscriptions. So does the pharmaceutical industry— prescriptions. How do we ensure that they're going to be getting, uh, their monthly prescriptions from people? Monthly prescriptions are things such as a statin, like cholesterol-lowering medication, or an ACE inhibitor, which lowers your, um, your blood pressure. But how do we ensure that everyone's going to be getting a statin and an ACE inhibitor by the age of maybe 40, 45? Well, we have to make sure that by that time they get sick.

Keep them sick.

Keep them sick. How do we start that? Well, we have to feed them these lies subsidize— first of all, we're going to change the food pyramid. Yeah. The second thing we're going to do, we're going to subsidize all of the bad foods. So the lower socioeconomic people who can't really afford to eat, we're going to make the terrible foods, the ones that are causing type 2 diabetes and obesity, we're going to make those really cheap to make them buy that.

And really accessible. And really accessible. I think that's actually the biggest one. When I'm driving through America or something, virtually there's fast food shops terraced with each other. Yes, like there's, there's literally just row after row. It's like all you see is food. It's crazy.

What else are we going to do? We're going to make things look marketable, you know. We're going to make Coca-Cola look sexy. We're gonna get— was it, um, there was a famous rapper that was hired by McDonald's to like bite into a burger and have his own burger. I think it was Tyga, maybe. Yeah, paid him millions. So we're gonna make all of these bad foods that are going to cause insulin resistance, obesity, we're going to make those cheap and sexy to manipulate people to get that. So by the time they're 40, they are sick. So then they get on the ACE inhibitors, they— and so now they're feeding that.

And so it's like a big hamster wheel.

That brings me back to Bemitrazole. I don't know, but I just think that that's involved too, because they're picked up, they're like, that's, that's keeping them away from skin cancer. Fuck that, we're gonna cancel that. There is no reason, why is it in Australia and in Europe, but it's banned, the FDA has not approved it, when that is the ingredient we've got, we've actually got clinical studies now, I can even send it to you for your crew, like to see that we, bemetrazole is the one that is going to help you like protect your skin from skin cancer. So that's another thing that I think, okay, well.

I've got a big question, right? This is a controversial one. Okay, do you think that doctors and people high up in healthcare in America, do you think they know the cure for cancer and they're hiding it for monetary reasons? That's a, that's a controversial one. What's your take on that? It's conspiracy that I— it's very interesting.

Yeah, I mean, look, I, I don't know. My answer to that is I don't think physician— I think they stick to their Hippocratic oath, which is do no harm, because they could have a family member which Of course, I don't think it's about, oh, we know the secret, we're not— I don't think, I don't think the world works like that.

It's— you would, you would almost like, you'd almost believe it because again with the keeping people fat and sick, it would kind of go hand in hand with that. Yes. But it probably, it's probably a little bit too far in the conspiracy theory ladder.

But yeah, you know, what do you think of it? I think there's a whole— there's another thing that we have to think about, the systemic issue here where, where we're producing doctors who have got these workloads who are based on— they're getting their education from a system that was built 50 years ago. Yeah, that's the first thing. So they're going out, they don't have time. They— you've got it— when you go and see a doctor, they've got to see around, I don't know, maybe 100, 150 patients in a day. They don't have time to understand the nuances of science and medicine. That's the first thing is they also— you've got to think of them as salespeople, they also get money based on the amount of prescriptions that they give you.

I watched a movie on that recently. Oh, what was it? Oh, it was like, it was about like, you know, pharmaceutical sales reps. I'll put it up on the screen. I need to remember it, but it was all about— they would do these seminars. Yes, I watched it too. Yeah, and they would— they've got like, it's like a really well-known female actress, the star in it, and they would do like these seminars and everything, and it's just like selling people Yeah, selling sickness, really.

And so that's where that lies. And what happens is it is a hamster wheel, because once you get sick, then that is just opening the doors of everything. What we're not— what we're not focused on— the healthcare industry is a Band-Aid method industry instead of a prevention industry. So we can prevent the onset of many diseases through lifestyle lifestyle interventions. Yeah, right. What we eat, the quality of the food we eat, the quality of our sleep, and the quality of our exercise, and the quality of our relationships. So if you are— you don't want to be at the mercy of these people. So what does that mean? It means that you need to be able to access the free market. That is through podcasts. Don't be getting your information from the news since we know that they're just fed by, you know, Johnson Johnson.

Have you ever seen that clip? And it's like every— they overlay different news channels and presenters of each other, and they're all just reading from a script. It's, it's crazy. It's nuts. They're all just saying the exact same thing, like they're just given what to say, and whatever.

It's all just, it's just programming. Programming, exactly. And it becomes scary. Not just that, you look— if you look at a scientific study— and that's another thing with Instagram, right? You follow people and people are now saying, oh, one study said this. It's like, do you even know clinical epidemiology? Like, you know, to understand a study is you have to understand it.

So at the bottom of it, it always goes, people about cherry picking and everything.

Yeah, because it is. Because you don't know if Kellogg's, okay, or Froot Loop companies, whatever, the Kellogg's company is, is funding the study. So you have to look who was the study funded by. Like even that documentary that came out, um, it was like a twin study.

It's like, I think that was even like Yeah, like the, the Game Changers vegan documentary, that was just like funded by like Beyond Burger or something like that. So you always got to look at who's funding a study. And there's also an interesting one that, you know, the whole concept of having cereal at breakfast, like, where— why did it— why did we choose cereal?

We want to increase type 2 diabetes in kids.

And so it's actually a study, the whole study was funded by Kellogg's back in the '50s. And it's like, you know, why do we just start eating cereal? Why can't it be like meat in the morning? You know, why can't it be like eggs in the morning or like fast in the morning? Why did— why did we just come up with having cereal in the morning? Yeah, and it's so foreign to me. Zero protein. Yeah, highly palatable.

It is so foreign to me if I hear anyone eating. It's like very foreign to me. I don't know anyone that does it, but evidently there are populations that are still doing that. So it's And, you know, and then there's good foods that are being demonized, right? Like demonizing— like the vegans are demonizing the red meat, the carnivores are demonizing the plants. It's like, what is going on? Yeah, exactly.

I think there's like— if you just listen to the right people and you listen to people that aren't speaking in extremities. Yeah. So like, it's kind of like, here's the far left, vegans, here's the far right, carnivores. The answer is somewhere in the middle, literally. Yeah, so that, that's how I sift through 2 things. Another topic I want to hit on, and we kind of touched on there a little bit, pharmaceutical industry— this goes back to the brain— is SSRIs, antidepressants. What's your take on them? Do you think they have their place? And after we cover that, I want to talk about what advice you'd give someone with depression, anxiety, who wants to alleviate their mood and be more positive.

First thing is, I do think there is a place for people who have got major depression. I don't think we can, um, discount that now, uh, disclaimer, I'm not a psychiatrist. Yeah, right. So I think when it comes to, you know, major depression, there is definitely— when it comes to anything, there are pharmaceuticals, there are medications that do save lives. Penicillin, antibiotics, without them we wouldn't be here today, right? So that's why—

is that the main reason why, um, why we're living— why we're living longer is modern medicine?

Yeah, I thought so, because of penicillin. Really?

Yeah, just this wonder drug, penicillin.

Well, yeah, that was, you know, if the— I mean, the, the greatest reason for the reason why we are living longer is because we've abolished some of the biggest, uh, viruses in the world. Yes, first and foremost. Okay, and then everything comes from that. So let's talk about how SSRIs are just being prescribed like candy.

I have a crazy story, but go on.

Yeah, so I think— and, and there's a really great book called Brain Energy by my friend Dr. Chris Palmer. He's a psychiatrist, and he believes that at the root of all mental illnesses— he actually talks about a personal story about his mother, uh, having schizophrenia, I believe. So he worked with a lot of patients with major depression and schizophrenia who he fixed their diet via a ketogenic diet, by the way. Interesting. And he eliminated their symptoms. So he believes that that all brain diseases in terms of psychiatric diseases are mitochondrial diseases. So diseases of the mitochondria caused by dysfunction from the foods that we eat. Okay. So I think that outside of the realms of major depression, I think that experiencing something like depressive-like symptoms— we all have, it doesn't mean we've got depression. I know.

Yeah, it's like a normal human emotion.

Yeah. In 2019, 2019, I was— that's when I was working in clinical practice, and my father had a stroke in Australia, and it really killed me. I was in America and I couldn't go home, and he was fine, but it really hurt me. And I went through this like, oh my God, you know, what am I doing in this depressive— like, I wasn't depressed. Yes, there was no suicidal thoughts. It was a moment in time. Did I go and get a serotonin reuptake inhibitor? No. I just knew that at that time there were other things I could do. But it turns out that through food and through exercise specifically, you can change the mood, your mood, and you can have an effect on, on depression. If you go on my Instagram, I've put a really great article— you just scroll down a bit— um, on the effects of creatine and depression. There we go. Yeah, a really great study on that.

Yeah, so my, my story, similar to yours, it was actually around the same time as well. I was just going through like a really hard time, you know. Life wasn't going too great, you know. I had some personal issues. And, um, my GP, just like that, you know, I was telling about it, prescribed me— what was it? It was, it was, it was an antidepressant of some sort. I forget the actual brand name. And it was weird. I had this like packet in my hand, and I was kind of like looking at them, and like it kind of felt like I was, I was on the edge, you know. I was like step off the edge. Not suicidal, I mean like about to take it, you know. And I was like, I was like, this isn't permanent. I was like, I'm just going through some hard shit right now that I need to sort out. It's, it's acute, not chronic. And then I just threw them in the bin. I threw them away. Oh, I've sorted my shit out. Yeah. Felt my normal self again. And I'm like, imagine I started taking these. It was like a 6-month thing. And then I started reading into it, and it's like, you completely— there's long-term effects, you know. You're, you're messing up your serotonin and your dopamine. And it's just mad how easily prescribed they are.

Yeah. And you know, I'm seeing actually like another subset of females being prescribed this for low libido and low arousal. And I just— I can't— I'm talking like girls in their 20s and in their 30s. And it's like, clearly, if you don't have a libido at that age, there is— it's not, you know, and you're not depressed. Yeah. Why would you be giving them an antidepressant. Yeah, that doesn't— yeah.

And so, so actually, a quick one on that as well, just while we're on topic, um, birth control, something that is a debatable one as well. I'm going in all the debatable topics. We had cancer, conspiracy theories, food, SRIs. I'm having this, this— I'm having a great time. Okay, right. So, uh, birth control is a debatable one as well. Some people people think it is— it just wreaks havoc on women's endocrine systems. Uh, what's your take on that?

I think it does. I'm not— you know, I can't comment on it because I don't know too much about it. My really good friend, uh, Dr. Casey Means, talks about it often. She came on my podcast and she said that, uh, we shouldn't be taking them, we shouldn't be messing up our bodies. That's all I know about it.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's pretty obvious. It's like clearly just not taking them, just not taking them.

Yes. I mean, I just— but you know what's surprising thing, Rob, and this is coming from a woman, a female. I didn't realize how many women actually didn't understand, uh, the whole conception process. I have friends now, and I'm at that age where a lot of my girlfriends now are like, oh, we're trying to have a baby. And I'm like, okay, great. Like, you know, I talk to them, I'm like, yeah, so you've got 5 days to, yeah, conceive. I, you know, I go and they're like, what? Yeah, yeah, 4 even, 4 or 5. And they're like, what do you mean? And I said, what do you mean? I'm like, I'm like, how are you gonna put— she's like, I don't know, I was just gonna do it every day. I said, well, I bet he loved it. Your husband loves that.

Yeah, husband probably knew all the research and all the studies and he was like, I'll just tell her.

Exactly. So it brings me back to education. If you are not educated and educating yourself through the free press, the free media, free on YouTube. Yeah, has a lot of like tutorials, right? You can literally look up— I, I swear I could do anything with YouTube.

Me, that's where I learned virtually everything. Like, I dropped out of college, you know. No, truly. And I was like, I was learning more on YouTube. You can— I always say this— you can look up a billionaire's Q&A who's in your industry. You can just go to whoever's the most successful person in your industry, fitness, medicine, marketing, sales advertising, anything, you can just Google the CEO. Yeah, you can look up and you will get an hour podcast with them on YouTube, and they will tell you everything, and they will give you way better information than you would ever get in a college lecture, you know. Exactly. You can literally—

so if you're ever in doubt, like, just research, like, how to fall pregnant. Yeah, yeah. How to not fall pregnant. Like, it's very simple. So I think that that's where it comes down to. It's like feeding people things that they don't necessarily need or necessarily want, but they just believe somebody such as their practitioner tell them they need it, they pay the money.

Yeah. So one thing I want to go in on as well is, you know, like the biohacker world. Okay, so we got red light therapy, saunas, ice baths, uh, cold water immersion. What is legit? What moves the needle? You know, and especially not only for our physical fitness but our brain as well.

So one of the things we do at my company, Neuro Athletics— we have an education company, so we're actually We teach the science of human performance, so we teach coaches. So my biggest thing is— I'm going to get into what you said, but my biggest, uh, one of the biggest things that I hate is that when I was looking at how can I— my, my mission is to eliminate cognitive decline. I want everyone to— I don't— Alzheimer's disease is an optional disease. I'm going to get in trouble for saying that. It's the soundbite. It is, it is an optional disease, but we don't need 55 million people people having that disease. We don't need 75 million, okay, by 2050. So how do we do that? So my mission is we have to lower that. And how do I do that? Well, I know that people only see their general practitioner for their physical maybe twice a year. They're going to their coaches for health advice. So then I thought in 2019, I'm like, but most coaches don't know anything when it comes to blood work, brain health. So we formulated, um, a course. It's a 6-week course, and it's like basically one-on-one mentoring with me. Yeah, we've done over 2,000 students now. Can be done online or is it in 100% online, right? So within it, okay, I give you this pyramid of human performance, the thing that is really going to push the needle forward. And it goes exercise at the base, sleep, nutrition. Outside of that is accessory items. It's like the icing on it, on a cupcake, right? The accessory items are red light therapy, sauna, ice bath. They are great, and I, I love them, by the way. Yeah, I, I am very for them. We'll go into the science of them. But if you cannot ice bath your way out of a crap diet— so I'm like, and look, okay, I'm gonna pick on him. I don't put people down. Yeah, I really don't. I'm gonna pick on Gary Brecker because I do.

Oh no, he is just like— have you seen the one about the water?

That's what I was gonna bring up. That is— oh wait, wait, he developed his own water.

No, that is like— he claims has health benefits, and it's— Lane Norton broke Man, it is the most ridiculous thing ever. I can't even explain it, but it was just this, just complete pseudo science, pseudoscience. Everybody said he's crazy. Like, yeah, that he is probably the biggest bro scientist I've ever seen online, and he's making like tens of millions. Oh yeah, you know, Dana White's got him on the bankroll. Yeah.

And so I didn't know he made his own water. I just thought he had his own water system at home because I've broken that down with Lane as well. Yeah, that he's just saying like the most ridiculous thing. But one ridiculous thing he did say was that you lose more— it was so— I can't quote it, but you know, it's a famous clip that went out. You lose— there's nothing more powerful for weight loss or fat loss than cold water.

That's— I've seen it, I've seen it. It's like, how is that going to put you in a deficit? Exactly. Absolutely wild. I've seen so much—

didn't even bring up calories. Okay, so just eat all you want and just get into the ice bath, right? So that is wrong, okay? But ice baths are great, okay, for different reasons. The first one is you get the release of cold shock proteins. We know that they are great. They can go into the brain, they can help the brain perform better, okay? What happens is when you vasoconstrict— so when you get cold, your blood vessels constrict and they, they think that you're under attack because you're too cold. Yeah, they want to heat you back up, so they send all this blood to the brain. When it's doing that, you get a rapid release release of norepinephrine. Okay, norepinephrine is the neurochemical. So when it's released in the brain— can get released in the body, okay, and it can get released in the brain. When it's released in the brain, it's involved in dopamine. It's also involved in vigilance and drive. That's why when you get in, it like— it releases at like 530%. Wow. So you get in, you get this massive release of norepinephrine. So you feel—

that's why when you're—

you're pumped up, you're like, I'm ready to go.

Yeah, yeah, I do ice baths and that's the main benefit, it wakes you the fuck up. Yeah, so is that's the norepinephrine? Norepinephrine, yes. So that's, that's kicking in there when you get out. Does it happen when you're in the ice bath or when you get out?

When you're in it. Okay, okay. So when you get in, that's when it— when you get— when you start to get really cold, it's like, okay. Yeah.

And is there like, is there a timing or protocol that you recommend, or it's kind of something that you just build up over time.

Everyone's different. Okay, so I'm sure if you get into a 42°F water, and I do too, we're going to feel it at different effects. Okay, depends on how, how cold adapted you are. I have an ice bath, so I'm pretty cold adapted. Nice. So generally I'm recommending to start at 48°F for 3 minutes. Okay, right. So norepinephrine, and that's because your brain, when it thinks it's under attack, it's like it wants to get you focused and vigilant so you can run away from the tiger. Yes. Second thing it does in that moment, it's It's like, guys, we are freezing. We need to generate heat to heat her back up or she will die. So when it generates more heat, your heat production is in the mitochondria. So it says, guys, mitochondria is working overtime. We don't have enough. Let's create more mitochondria to create more heat. So you're inducing mitochondrial biogenesis. Just from doing— Just from cold water immersion.

And can you notice like how long do you have to be be consistently doing ice baths to notice a benefit?

Look, I generally say you got to do it around at least 4 times a week. Yeah, you can start with anything that's cold, like start in the shower. That's actually arguably harder because it's like you've got these little pellets.

Yeah, I know. Do you know how I actually started with, with cold water therapy, whatever you call it? It was in Dublin. The water is ice cold and my heating was broke, my hot water was broke, and I kept just like, I'm a busy guy, and I kept forgetting to call the plumber. And every day, and it went on, on for a month, and I'm just like, I just did a month of cold showers because I was too lazy to call the plumber. And then I got really into them, you know. So today it started off with my heating being broken, and still to this day, an Irish shower, particular fucking hot water comes out of the thing in Spain. But if you're in Ireland or the UK, the water in the shower is so hard, it's so cold. Cold, and it— there's no, um, how do I say, a thermal layer can't build around you. So it's, it's freezing. They actually— there's a gym here, a paddle club in Marbella, that in the ice baths they have jets to keep the water moving. Now they are killer. It's the hardest, hardest ice bath I've ever done. Like, oh, I want—

yeah, I want to get— yeah, it's right there, just, just over there.

And though they do day glasses and stuff. But you go in and it's like— I'm not sure in Fahrenheit or Celsius— Fahrenheit, it's like 3 degrees, very close to zero. And it has the jets going and you're just like, oh, you're gonna die. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's great though. You feel amazing.

You don't want to start too cold because then it basically scares your brain. Your brain's like, I'm never doing that again. Work your way, like go to from 10 degrees Celsius and then go down from that. It is going to get cold. The shock is good, right? So that's, that's cold water. I love it. Again, it's an accessory. Yep. All right, then conversely, I love heat therapy. If I like— I want a sauna, obviously, when I move out of New York and I've got a backyard. We've got one in the villa. Okay, so it's a Finnish sauna. No, I love them. I, I like infrared saunas.

They just don't get hot enough. Oh, I've been in some and it's just useless. I'm like, I'm kind of wasting my time here. You know, I want you— I want to go in and straight away feel something.

Yeah, you have to wait like 40 minutes in it.

Yeah, it's— I had one at this place I was staying in Dubai, and like I would do it every morning, and I was kind of like, meh, you know? You know, it wasn't powerful enough. I love the one that you go in and you, you put the— you dump the steam on, and you're just like, you're baking. Jo's mad for saunas. I watched a big thing she did, Rhonda Patrick. Yeah, she's crazy into them.

She's crazy into them. Yeah, and, and look, they are great. We're seeing now now preliminary effects on brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, mainly because of the blood flow, because you're basically dilating the vessels, you're increasing blood flow. It's amazing. It is amazing for that. It mimics exercise. It does. It mimics the cardiovascular benefits of exercise.

Yeah, I would probably like— and if all the things I named, I think I would probably place sauna at the top of all the, uh, the accessories. Yeah.

—now actually, Charles Raison, he's a psychiatrist I interviewed. What he's doing is he's trying to eliminate SSRIs. And what he did was he took a group of people who had major depression, who are actually clinically on, like, on these drugs, and if they get off them, like, it can be catastrophic, right? So he got them and he basically gave half of them the SSRIs, the other half just a, you know, a sugar tablet. Tablet, right? He put them into these saunas, but he was doing it around 200 degrees Fahrenheit, okay, which is what a Finnish sauna gets up to, 200 or 220, and infrared gets up to like 170. Put them in there for, I think it was like probably 30 minutes, but he did it multiple times. What he found was that he mimicked the effects of the SSRIs on the people who were taking the the sugar tablet. Oh my God. So those people who were taking this, they didn't know. They thought they were taking their— they didn't know. There was a blind study. He didn't know anything. They didn't know what was going on. But they just said— he just said, you know, how you feeling? They're like, yeah, I'm good. Like, the tablets are working, you know, the, the medication's working for me. I'm feeling really good and I feel stable. Oh yeah. And he did this for 2 weeks. So he's trying to get this approved in psychiatric wards and get them to be doing that. That's the powerful benefits. Of this, um, of saunas. So I love that it produces heat shock proteins as well, uh, can help with DNA repair, etc. So we're now seeing that it can actually eliminate toxins.

My skin always feels amazing. Yeah, after doing it. Yeah, just feel fresh.

I mean, did you see that study of BPA in the testicles?

Yeah. Oh, the, uh, microplastics. Yeah, the microplastics. Yeah, that, that was a crazy one. Yeah.

And so I'm like, huh. So you, you can eliminate things such as like BPA and all of the toxins that build up in environments and the foods that we eat when you go into these saunas as well. Yeah.

So what are some kind of easy ways to cut back on microplastics as well? Like, it's something like people say, glass, glass, uh, like drink from glass flasks and everything, and don't use a plastic chopping board, you know, all pretty easy switches. Is there anything that, that you've like actively do?

No, I won't. I've— I'm really cautious now. I try and always drink out of glass. Yeah, but let me tell you, for me to do that in the US, I buy— what is these green glass bottles? That's— it's costing me like— oh yeah, it's like the same as rent.

I, I would say so.

So it's like, it's just ridiculous. So I'm doing that. I don't have a chopping board that I don't— I, I cut on wood.

Yeah, me too. It looks better.

It looks better. So it's nice. I'm trying to do everything I I can, but the great thing is I do go into the sauna. Yeah. Right? But you don't have to just, it's other things. It's like phthalates as well that you have to be mindful of and all these other toxins that I didn't know about. Like I just found out that if you cook hot food or citrus food in foil, like that can raise the amount of like— Yeah, you wouldn't even think about that as well. Aluminum, yeah, in the blood and they're finding that. I'm like, oh my God, I just wanna live on an island and not talk to anyone.

Live in a Spanish coastal town, it's the next best thing. Exactly. But I love what you said about the pyramid, like your kind of hierarchy of importance, 'cause I use the same in my industry as well. It's quite, you know, a common, well-known pyramid. And so just like that, at the very bottom, you have sustainability and adherence. So you have to give someone a program that they will be able to stick to. Then after that, this is for body composition, then after that, you've got calories. Then after that, you've got macronutrients. This. Then after that, you've got timing, you know, meal nutrient timing, because it's not that important. Like, if you want to do 6 meals, 6 small meals a day, or you want to intermittent fast, your calorie intake is the main thing, your total daily calorie intake. And then at the top, you have got supplements. So that's, that's the pyramid in terms of body composition that I recommend people follow, and that is quite common in the evidence-based fitness community.

And then you also— that's individualized, so So the calories you have would be different to mine.

Oh, completely. Yeah.

So you do like, just say 2,000 calories, and then you do your macros from that?

Yeah. So the best thing is this— what I would do, right? I've got like a calorie calculator on my app, you know, on my website, and you can even use some free ones online. Either way, you need to put in, you know, your body weight. There's a ton of calculations like multiply your body weight in pounds by 18 and all this. Either way, you just— you need a starting point. So you need to just go somewhere. So you'll put someone on a calorie intake, you'll give a good educated guess, and then you adjust over time. So I recommend doing daily weigh-ins and then taking a weekly average. And that's especially important for women because at that time of the month, your weight will just fluctuate completely. So I actually recommend— yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so I recommend men take a weekly average of their weight and women take a monthly average. So kind of even bigger picture. And then based on that, based on what you see in the mirror, you know, do you look leaner? How's your gym progress going? Well, then you will, you will adjust the calories from there and you'll figure out your maintenance calories, you'll figure out what's a deficit for you, you'll figure out what's a surplus. But you just have to pick a starting point and apply trial and error. Because like some people as well, you'll give them an educated guess on a starting point But some people just have crazy fast metabolisms, you know, and some people have really slow metabolisms, you know. And that's, uh, a lot of it comes into as well, like, you know, their adherence to diet and stuff. But that's what you mainly do when you're figuring out someone's calorie intake. You just pick a, pick a starting point. Yeah, interesting.

Yeah. Okay, and then on top of that, you also asked about, um, red light therapy. Yes, I love red light.

Okay, meant to be good for the skin.

Yeah, look, it helps stimulate collagen in the face, uh, but they're now seeing that it can actually penetrate these superficial organs and help like repair that. So if I had my red light therapy— I've got a handheld one.

Oh no, I have one as well. It's about the size of like an iPad. Yeah, put it to my face.

Yeah, I have that and a handheld one. I'm like, keep me young.

Have you seen the masks you can put on your face as well? So they're like light up there, but apparently they're not as strong.

They're not strong enough.

I, I heard that as well. My one is like, it's like mega strong. Yeah, yeah. So I, I do all that stuff, but I really love what you said about like there's a level of hierarchy. There's a level. Yeah. Now one topic I've been saving it, it's huge, I'm obsessed with it— sleep. Oh wow, it's, it's the heavy hitter. Yeah, it's, it's apparently people are sleep deprived. Like me myself, probably up until about a year ago or more. So first of all like I've been waiting, waiting. I think this is the biggest— I'm gonna guess it's the biggest, uh, it has the biggest impact on your brain health and dementia. So give me some sleep facts. How does it affect Alzheimer's, dementia, brain function? Just go, go hard, go hard on the sleep.

So there's only really two main stages that we need to talk about. Sleep is just comprised of stages of sleep. You've got stage 1, stage 2, 3, and 4. 3 and 4 is what we're going to talk about, right? So you, you sift through them all throughout the night. Stage 3 sleep, this is the, this is the one that we need to bank on. This is deep sleep. It's also known as slow wave sleep. If you go into a sleep study, that's what it's look— because the brain waves are big luscious brain waves like that, delta waves, right? Slow wave sleep. What is happening during this state? 2 main things are happening. The first one is you're getting, guys, you're getting the release of your testosterone. This is why when we do testosterone tests, we do morning waking testosterone. Yes, right. So you're getting the release of testosterone, and you also get testosterone release during, um, obviously weight training and exercise as well. We've got a testosterone deficiency epidemic happening right now, which is in the US.

The microplastics in our balls, it's everything.

It is is lack of sunlight. Yeah. You know, lack of physical activity. A lot of men, you know, men are feeling more depressed. They don't go out as much and it affects their testosterone. Testosterone deficiency is clinically classified as 300 nanograms per deciliter or less. I've seen, I've had somebody come in at 150. He's now at 900, right? He's feeling, he's like, Louise, I feel like a man. I said, that's great.

That's what we want. There we go. Yeah. Lifestyle here is very conducive to— like, I feel my testosterone getting higher. Sun, you know, beautiful girlfriend, fiancée as well, lifting weights, a lot of nutrient-dense food, swimming in the sea, you know, plenty of sleep. I can feel it.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so if we don't get into this deep sleep— oh, it's also— that's where you release growth hormone.

Oh yes, yes, that's a big one.

Yeah, it releases and then obviously it declines throughout the night, but we get that. So that's responsible for repairing your muscles, right? So we get a big release— that women get a release of estrogen as well. Yeah. Another thing that happens during that, that sleep stage is the activation of something called the glymphatic system, right? So in your brain you've got different— you've got neurons, you've got these other specialized cells. They sit between the neurons and they're like glue, so they stick to neurons. They're called glial cells, right? Glue. Yep. Okay, now Now, when we are in deep sleep, they shrink in size. It's a really beautiful process. And when they shrink, all of your fluid in your brain washes like a washing machine, okay? And it comes out through here. And it's like a lymphatic system in your body. You know, you've got lymph nodes and you need to move them around.

Yeah, I've got a lymphatic massage drainage or something before, yeah.

I actually think we need to. I think a lot of cancers and diseases actually can begin through not activating our lymphatic system. Yeah, yeah, I believe that.

I think everyone feels amazing after a massage, you know? Yeah.

So imagine how your brain feels. So when your brain actually activates that lymphatic system, it clears out the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. One of the hallmarks of it is the protein that I mentioned earlier, beta amyloid. Yep. Okay. So that amyloid protein that builds up, that's when it gets cleared out. And remember, we build up amyloid as a protective mechanism when we're stressed. Yeah. So I mean, fuck, every day I'm stressed, right? So you need to clear that out. Now, I've just read new research stating that it is not the quantity but the quality of that deep sleep. So you could say to me, "I slept, Louisa," but I get this all the time, "But Louisa, I slept 2 hours of deep sleep last night. That's what my wearable said, but I still feel like shit." Yeah. It's like that means the quality of that was not good. And by the way, I am— I love my Oura ring. Yeah, I love Whoop. Yeah, I have.

So last week I got an Ultrahuman ring, and yeah, it's just, you know, the same, same thing, different company. I had one of them, I wore that for a week, and now this week I'm doing the Whoop.

Okay.

And so I'm kind of trialing the two of them. I'm going to do like a YouTube video breaking them down, uh, at the moment, just because I can't really lift weights with the, with the ring on, with the barbell —well, at the moment I'm preferring this one, but the sleep tracking was amazing on the Ring. And it's really good on this as well, but apparently it's just a little bit more accurate on the Ring. But, um, yeah, so talk to me a little bit more about the deep sleep or REM phase that you're—

The reason why I brought the Ring up is because these are not good at tracking. They're good for tracking total sleep time. Yes. It can't tell you really when you're in deep sleep or REM sleep. And that's what— so I've been in a— as a neurophysiologist, we have to get trained in in sleep science, right? So we have to go into— I've been into a sleep lab. I'm telling you, when we hook up patients who maybe have sleep apnea, right, some people want to come and do sleep studies. Yeah, to the CPAP machines. We've got everything. We've got leads coming off their eyes, we've got leads coming off everywhere, off their brain. I'm like, how would you fall asleep?

How would you fall asleep?

It's funny because it's like, it's such a creepy, like, profession because you're just watching someone sleep. Yeah, all night. It's like, oh Oh my God. And so you— to think that that can— like, this can replicate that is just ridiculous. So take this with caution. But anyway, let's go back to deep sleep. So that we, we need deep sleep for those two things: glymphatic system and the activation of all of these hormones, right? The problem is a lot of us aren't getting deep sleep. Why? Timing of sleep. So we should be sleeping— my ideal bedtime is 10 PM to 6 PM. Yeah, beautiful.

Roughly the same. I'm usually like maybe half 10, 11 to 7. Yes.

Okay, anytime before midnight is beautiful. Yeah, right. You want to be sleeping before midnight. You want to be getting up with the sun, right? Yeah. So another thing is alcohol completely diminishes both deep sleep and REM sleep. Um, antidepressants, a lot of medications. Yeah, a lot of medications can actually kick you out of deep and REM sleep. Uh, and lying Yes. Right?

And what about marijuana as well? Marijuana is not helping you sleep.

Yeah. It's actually just sedating you, the same as alcohol. Yeah. So it's just knocking you out. So that's that. We need to be getting deep sleep. And then when we look at REM sleep, so that's that stage 4 sleep, that's when we are completely paralyzed from the neck down, but our brain is active, right? It mimics an awake patient if you actually have a look at it. And you've got your eyeballs go back and forth like this.

Yeah, on REM sleep. So if you open some of the eyes, they'd be tweaking out.

Um, and this is where we get a lot of our vivid dreaming occurs during this stage. I call this stage emotional first aid. Yeah, right. If you're lacking like REM sleep, I know you're gonna have a short fuse the next day. So if you already, already have a short fuse, then that's going to be like exasperated the next day if you haven't had your REM sleep. Yeah. Is, um, vivid dreams—

is that like healthy? Like, is it healthy? I've heard it's healthy to have like intense dreams. Yeah, I don't have—

I don't remember my dreams. It's like rare, and if I do, it's like the weirdest dream. Yeah. Um, but what I love about this stage is we can, we can actually pick up on Parkinson's disease 20 years prior to a diagnosis if we do a sleep study on you, and you are are in REM sleep, there's something called REM behavior disorder where you get up and you start choking or you're violent with your spouse, but you're not a violent person in, in day-to-day life. Yeah. Oh my God. And that's called REM behavior disorder, and that is one of the earliest signs of Parkinson's disease. Wow. It's not sleepwalking, it is literally— that's so specific. It is. Yeah, it's acting out your dreams. But I've— let me tell you, it's, you know, I've seen it often, like you know, wife will say, he's like bashing me, like he's actually like punching me. It's, it's scary. Oh my God.

And so what about, um, in terms of like brain performance? So let's say you work with a lot of CEOs. Yeah, they've got a big meeting the next day. Yeah, they have a shitty sleep. You know, what's happening there? Is their reaction slower? Are they less creative?

Everything. Absolutely everything. Cognitive decline is that— it's— and we, we actually, we, we have a system set up for this, right? But the first thing is you can actually, um, eliminate a lot of the effects from a bad night's sleep with exercise. What?

Yes, but it's kind of a catch-22 because you don't feel like—

you don't feel like it. Yeah, so we can eliminate a lot of that. We can then— we can go, okay, great, well, what are the major symptoms? A lot of the time it is brain fog, and that's because they didn't get into deep sleep because they didn't clear their brain out. That's what brain fog ears, right? You didn't clear your brain as you feel that lack of, you know, clarity is there, foggy. So then we're like, okay, great, we need to increase the amount of water and we need to hydrate you. We need to get as much nasal breathing as possible. So I would actually go and recommend like an hour or 30 minutes of nasal breathing, um, and exercising at the same time.

Yeah, Jonah, I always feel amazing doing— when I'm doing like some less cardio, like low intensity, how do you say I'm consciously breathing through my nose, you're just getting like— you just get going for a walk even. Yeah, you know, around the mountains or whatever, on the beach, and you're just really concentrating on your breathing. You just feel all around so much better. Correct. And so let's set someone up for a perfect sleep. What is like an ideal evening routine, uh, to guarantee or, you know, ensure a really solid night's sleep?

First thing is I want you to eliminate all of the mess that you have in head, right? Just say you're angry at a co-worker, you're angry at your mom or something. Just eliminate it by putting it down on paper. Say whatever you are mad at, just put it out of your head. So we know we've got that covered. The second thing is you want to have your last meal 2 hours prior to sleep. So let's just say your last meal is at 8 PM. Only thing you can consume after that is water, right? I want you to start putting the lights— dimming so it creates a more nighttime environment because melatonin starts to release as the sun goes down. But we don't want to block it completely with light. So we want to get some, you know, just eliminate as much artificial light. And no, I don't believe in blue light blocking glasses. They do like probably 1% effect, right? Uh, the second thing is I have a sleep stack that I have 20 minutes before bed. It consists of GABA gamma-aminobutyric acid. It's our chief inhibitory neurotransmitter. I'm having magnesium L-threonate. Like, I have magnesium L-threonate probably 4 times a week. Nice. Um, and then I'm having like ashwagandha and rhodiola as well.

Yeah, I take ashwagandha too, and I take magnesium glycinate. Um, is there any like specific magnesium you're meant to take, or—

L-threonate is better for nighttime.

I'm pretty sure Andrew Huberman has He's mad for that as well.

It can penetrate the central nervous system and calm you down. Yep. Yeah, so that's my, my nighttime sleep stack. And then I'm always sleeping in a cold room. I sleep on a temperature-controlled mattress. I sleep on the Eight Sleep.

I'm dying to get one.

I'm dying to get one. They are incredible.

Okay, because I've got like the aircon, and sometimes like in Spain when it's, it's like peak summer, yeah, the aircon is like canceled out. It's still not strong enough. I know, I You need to get the Eight Sleep. I've been hearing so much about it.

Oh my God, it helps me because we know that in order to fall asleep and stay asleep, our core body temperature needs to drop 2 degrees. Yeah, so sleeping in a cool environment and then sleeping in a dark environment. So I use an eye mask.

Nice. And also clean bedsheets. Oregon, I feel as well, if my room is cluttery and messy, I can't sleep. Me either.

Yeah, so that's my, my routine. And And consistency is key. So if you can fall asleep and wake up the same time every day— I have a hard time doing that because I travel so much, but that is the best thing for you.

Okay. And morning sunlight, does that, does that live up to the hype?

It does, it really does. It sets your circadian rhythm. Yeah. Hey, Joe, the way—

so I've started, I started doing that. That's one thing, like, like I've been lifting it and I've been in the fitness industry for like a decade, but only in the last year a year that I've started doing pretty much everything that we've spoke about there. And I find— how do I describe this— your day only begins when you see sunlight, effectively. You know, you know, when you actually think about it, you're at— from a biological, physiological standpoint, your day actually only— your mind only knows the day has started.

Yeah, when you see sun, but actual direct sunlight, because it gets attenuated or blocks— it gets blocked from glass. So you've got to go outside.

Yeah, no, I go out on—

I've got like a terrace, walk straight out, and I'm like, hello world. Yeah, it's Amazing.

And so one thing that I've always wondered— so you here, guys, Ganj, you've been always talking about the looking at sunlight. Are you staring directly at the sun? Are you staying staring around the sun? Are you looking at it through trees? Yeah, you know, how, how you actually do it? You're looking at the sky? Okay, that is— I feel— yeah, don't burn your eyesight. They're like burning my, my corneas. Yeah, burning them off. So you're right, you look around the sun. Yeah. And is there any, like, um, is there any specific amount of time to do that? Like 20 minutes? Okay, 15-20 minutes.

Generally you want to look like towards the horizon, but if you're looking when the sun is coming up, which is what I've been doing here— oh, it's so beautiful, Rob. I've been going for a run every morning on a beach, on the beach, watching the sun literally rise.

You just feel like, like, how can you have a bad day? It's just amazing. Yeah, you should go like for a Sunrise and sunset are both amazing. You should go for a little swim. I'll give you the location of like— there's obviously beach everywhere along the coast. There's a certain spot, and I don't know why, but the water is so clear, like it's like crystal. And it's like, you don't— it's not— you don't have to pay into a beach club, you can just go straight on. I'll give you the location. I want that. Yeah, you have a good time. And here, tell me, what are you doing in Marbella? Like, what's the actual—

I didn't even ask you. I know. Yeah, it's funny, I'm actually here on a mastermind, business mastermind. So I'm part of one that I do to help me as a business owner, very different from being an actual practitioner and being a scientist, if you will. So yeah, so I do that to help my company. We're doing everything, every single day something different. It's like finance, business, marketing, this, that, how to become a better leader.

Yeah, I was looking at your stories, it looks amazing. Whereabouts is the villa again? It looks like it's near the Marbella Club or something. I don't even know.

It's like a 20-minute walk from that beach gym.

Oh yeah, that's, that's like the nicest area. So look, I think this episode is going to change so many lives. I was just— I'm getting a masterclass here. Yeah, like, I absolutely loved today. Tell the people where they can find you and how they can learn more.

Thank you first of all so much for having me and for what you do. I think it's amazing um, I hang out a lot on Instagram. Nice. Link it, Louisa Nicola underscore. If you are a coach and you're like, I really want to learn how to do this for individuals, longevity, you can come and join us on our 6-week course, the Neuro Athletics Coaching Certificate. It's all linked on my Instagram. And I have a YouTube as well.

There we go. Louisa Nicola. YouTube is my favorite platform. That's kind of my main platform. I love Instagram and all that as well. But these episodes, they of course go on YouTube and Spotify. Oh nice. But they go on Apple, everything. They go on everything. But YouTube is, is— I think it's powerful, you know. If you really want to get your message out there, your video is just how it's got to be done. And the 8-second TikTok clips, the 8-second Instagram Reels, they're great. But think of actually, like, look at it mathematically. Think of an 8-second clip, someone listen to that. Think of a 2-hour podcast, someone listen to that, you know. So that's, that's how you make a real fact. But look, I'm so glad that we got to do this while you're here in Marbella, because you're only here for a short amount of time. Me too. Are, are you flying directly back to New York?

No, so I'm going to London. Okay, nice. Yes, I'm going to be on a few podcasts there, and then I might go to Greece, um, because my family's there. Yeah. And then I'll go back eventually. I, I'll probably get— by that, I'll be like, I'm not going back to New York.

You're just living the European lifestyle. Look, put it there. Thank you so much. Boom. Uh, amazing episode, and you've got me just feeling pumped for the rest of the day. Thanks, Rob. No worries.