You Don’t Need Another Gut Health Protocol

We got a lot of good and positive feedback from both the first ones, so we thought, like, why not just sit down and spit some more value again? Because you guys seem to be liking this format, just raw and kind of just, yeah, punch through and ask or answer some of the questions and things that we've also seen in the comment section and whatnot. So that's exactly what we're going to do. Obviously now at this point, once again, if you're new, if this is the first or you just saw the other, to kind of restate why you should be listening to this in the first place also. At this point, we've worked with more than 100 entrepreneurs to fix their gut issues, right?

Yep.

Or chronic health issues, whether that's IBS, psoriasis, chronic bloating, whatever it might be. We have such a broad spectrum of clients that has gone through the program and has solved all their initial issues. So we've learned a lot and or through this, of course. And yeah, I'm just gonna break down some of the—

Speak about the experience.

Speak about the experience, some of the things that you probably, or hopefully can take away and implement and see some massive results in your life as well. So that's the standard that I try to do on this channel as well, you know, just help you zoom in and give you clear action steps so that you can just walk away and implement without having to worry too much and hopefully see some improvements in your life as well. I guess—

I think we can start like today with sort of the gut, right?

Yeah.

Maybe start a bit on, uh, I think the whole constipation topic is always very interesting, right?

Yeah.

Like how, how much it can swing just based on stress and nervous system and how big of that plays a role in like, because a lot of people struggle with that one week they're very constipated and next week it's just flushing like the Niagara Falls, right? And like even sometimes in the same week it can jump back and forth. And from our experience, even if the inputs are the same, it's usually like stress-related, right?

It very much is. And we have so many examples of this from clients as well where— and I think we can talk about one interesting that we kind of chat through, you and me, yesterday as well. We were going just back and forth with a specific client, Pierre, that has been struggling with, you know, he's struggling with a bit of constipation and kind of loose stool and fluctuation between those two. And it's very interesting to see that Now when kind of one of the things that he has been doing now in the past, which has worked short term, which is a very important thing to highlight here, is like, okay, every time he had been he has been constipated, he has been taking this. What was the name in English? Rhubarb.

Rhubarb extract.

Rhubarb extract. Yeah, rhubarb. It's called in Swedish. Swedish rhubarb, which has he came and oh this has always worked in in the past, and then it's like. Okay, we have to understand why this works, right? You're constipated because of stress. We clearly see that. Yeah, like every time stress bumps up, that's when the constipation happens. And this works and triggers something because it literally triggers things in your gut. Like it forces your— or it forces your system to flush everything out as a survival mechanism. And this is usually what we see when someone is having these fluctuations in general between constipation and loose stool, right? It's like it's either one or the other of the extremes in the spectrum, right? Which is a massive warning flag because the constipation happens and then the loose stool usually comes because that's literally a survival mechanism for your body. Because if you keep everything within you, it's going to start like grow bad bacteria in your— like that's going to be a mess.

Yeah, it has to go somewhere.

It has to go somewhere. It has to. If we're not Because stool is also a detox mechanism for our body. If we're not releasing everything, it's going to circle back. It's going to become literally a shit show. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, you hear it in the name, right? But so then we have to go back and ask, where is this coming from? Why is it happening? And understand that all these short-term And if you have this going back and forth, it's not a good thing. It has to be addressed and solved, and it's usually a nervous system issue.

The thing is, it's so easy to rely on supplements or laxatives in the short term, but it always stems back to that the foundation isn't in place. That it's like, even if you're going to stress in the future again, the issues will come back. So it's not like it's going to stop, it's just like a short-term solution.

100%.

But in the industry as well, regarding gut health and what everyone is saying is, Like naturopaths and all of these people, they're relying on it. Like they're using supplements as that would be the cure.

Yeah.

Which is so crazy to me that someone can believe that and think that way and just like prescribe a supplement for everything.

And it's just surface level. It works, but it's just surface level. And this is as we talked about in the last one as well, where we talked about like kind of the— where's the root to everything? Because Pierre in this situation had gone to, to, you know, a naturopath style. Yeah, it's like, I'll take this supplement. Okay, is that it? Yeah, you know, and that is usually what we hear from all clients that come to us as well, Anton. It's like, no, I've just had this naturopath that checks in with me every one time every month or every 2 months, and they just give me supplements. Now for the coming period, you should take this, and you should take this pill, and you should take this Candida support pill and this zinc.

Yeah.

To heal the gut lining. And it's like no other reference in regards to food, stress management, and all these things, which is actually what's the root in most cases, which is so interesting that it works like this. Because once again, it might work short-term to do all these things, but it's never solving for long-term. That means that in Pierre's case, if we talk about him, you know, whenever he goes— if he just did this and didn't implement all the things that we're going through with him, right, it might have worked when he took this pill.

Yeah.

But then he stops, and then the constipation comes back.

Yeah.

More stressed. And it's like, it might work, but it's just masking and kind of masking everything and masking reality. That is what it is.

Yeah, I do think it has its place though, right?

Yeah.

Like with the magnesium citrate and the supplements and laxatives and all of that. Now the dog is going crazy. So the dog was going bananas, so we take the question again. But I mentioned that magnesium citrate and all these supplements are like great interventions in the short term, right? But I mean, they have their place. Like, it's not always that you should totally avoid them as like a short-term measure when things are definitely not working like it should.

No, because I like to view it as the real solutions is not probably gonna— like, it's not gonna— you might or you might not see like improvements like this. We have a few examples of clients that have been relying on laxatives for like years and then implementing everything, and they've told us like just within a week that this is first time in years that I don't have to rely on a pill to go to the toilet.

Yeah.

But it can take longer and we don't have to take— we can't take that for granted to begin with. So it's, as you said, like it's a— I don't like to say this, but it's like, it can be good to kind of mask the symptoms short-term to make sure we like, the system is flowing properly.

Yeah.

Right? But also doing all the things that we actually can in order to make sure that we're solving for the long-term as we do that.

But I guess when also when it comes to constipation, besides— because obviously stress is one factor, but it's not like the whole picture— but I guess something that plays a role is most likely like hydration, right?

Yeah.

And motility, which is also based on hydration, and like stomach acid and everything that's kind of supporting your body to break the food down, making sure that it passes through as it should. So I guess—

And not enough bile.

Yeah, I guess like when it, when it comes to that, besides like managing stress, what could people do to I don't know, not be as constipated, you know.

We talked a lot about this in the last one, right, with kind of viewing things as the stress chart and kind of the banking, the whole banking system, which is one of the most important things you can do, in my opinion. If you don't understand what that concept is, please watch the other one. There are some timestamps or whatnot that you can— so you can find exactly what we're talking about. That is the most important thing. On top of that, it's just, it's the same thing as I said there, it's hydration, right? Making sure you're drinking a lot of good salt water, super, super important.

Yeah.

Sunlight, grounding, breathwork, meditation, all these nervous system relaxing things that you can do, and all those tools are obviously fantastic. But arguably one of the most important things is also being calm when you're eating. Because if we're eating whilst we're rushed and stressed and between calls and all these things, which a lot of people are probably doing, some of you might even sit and eat whilst you're listening to this.

Yeah, probably.

That becomes very problematic because then you're in a low-grade activated state, which will affect your body's ability to produce the acids and the bile and everything in the first place, which means that you're not gonna break everything down properly and you're not gonna absorb everything. That might lead to SIBO, SIFO, leaky gut, whatever, gut permeability, even if we're eating the best of the best food. So it's understanding that as well that is arguably the most powerful as well.

Yeah, I guess besides constipation, if we touch on something as simple as leaky gut, I think like not everyone kind of understands what it is, but what would you say are some very common signs that you most likely have leaky gut?

Brain fog.

Number one, would you say? Skin issues?

Skin issues as well. I'd say skin issues and brain fog, right? Because it's leaking toxins out and then your body tries to get rid of it in some way and pushes through, kind of pushes through the skin and you get issues in that sense. But also brain fog from like, from a sense of, you know, dumping toxins or toxins releasing out in the bloodstream and affecting your mood, affecting your general state and affecting your ability to think properly.

Yeah.

And that's usually how people feel kind of brain fogged. It just feels like there's something a bit off, you know? You don't really feel it hitting like this from one second to another. It just feels like you're a bit slower today, you know? And feels like, yeah, something isn't really right.

Yeah.

But you can't really put a— to exactly what it is.

Yeah.

That's how I would describe it.

Makes sense. I guess, and also for all these certain issues that people are seeing, again, with breaking food down, low stomach acid, implementing apple cider vinegar, it's also short-term solutions, right, to all of these?

Yeah, I mean, it can be good things to do, but it's the same thing, it's not solving for the long term. So taking a shot of apple cider vinegar can absolutely be good to trigger some acid production.

But not when you do have leaky gut, is that really beneficial right now? No, no, no, no.

It has to be like, it's, I like to view it as part of the therapeutic kind of reset slash implementation phase where it's like, you might need a bit of an extra push there to kind of get the system back online, you know?

Yeah, for sure. And I think also most people probably don't know about it, you know, when it comes to leaky gut, because we consume a lot of sugar, you know? Both you and me, like copious amounts of sugar, sometimes, not every day, right? But like if we choose to have a soft drink, And we have to choose between the option of a regular Coke and a Coke Zero, we always go with the regular Coke.

Correct.

But if you look at like rest of the world, like they always go for the diet option. But like, I think most people don't even understand the simple things. It's like aspartame sweeteners. This is what's like actually the beginning of like wreaking the havoc in your body is probably small choices like this, like choosing the Diet Coke, which nukes your microbiome and causes leaky gut and starts 10 times more issues in the first place rather than choosing the sugar, which your body can use anyway.

Yeah, correct.

Yeah.

That's a miss. This whole no sugar propaganda that has kind of been going around over the last couple of years is pretty interesting because that has pushed everything to zero sugar, zero calories.

Zero sugar and protein bars.

Sugar is demonized.

Yeah. protein bars like full of sweetener, whey protein, and like the most gut-wrecking havoc out there. At least in Sweden, they're huge, right? Some of these brands.

Yeah, it's insane.

Yeah.

And, and those are the small like first steps that starts to kind of break everything down. Yeah, right. And then you throw on not digesting food properly, and then something else, and then maybe an overflow of microplastics, then that, and then everything else has affected your detox pathway, so you can't really clear that out, and then it's just, you know, hell breaks loose after that.

Yeah, it's the small things. I guess besides aspartame, is there anything that you can think of right off of your mind that you should probably avoid to, I guess, not cause a leaky gut issue in the first place? Or yeah, seed oils, right?

Seed oils, because they're very inflammatory. But I guess instead of demonizing that, I would like to think of this from the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio, right? So, what's more important than just the seed oils itself, of course we want to try to avoid that, but we also don't want to fearmonger them as we talked about last time a bit as well, is having a good omega-3 to omega-6 ratio in your body. Because if that ratio is off, that is also what's going to cause a bit of elevated inflammation in the first place. And if you're a bit inflamed, you're more sensitive. So, making sure that we're consuming enough omega-3s Yeah, in correlation to omega-6.

But that comes down to, again, because omega-3s is not something that you should supplement, right?

No. So we want to get that in.

That's the whole story itself, like why that supplement is absolute garbage. But I guess, how could someone know that they're getting enough omega-3s? Like, for me as well, like, I have no idea, you know?

Yeah, I guess you don't. What I feel, let me just Describe how I feel. Yeah, I feel a lot more sharper and better energy in general when I get— when I know that I'm getting enough, like when I eat sardines 2 to 3 times per week compared to if I'm out. I feel it like this.

Yeah, really?

Yes.

Is that prevalent?

Yes.

Okay.

So I would say start with consuming, if you're not already, of course eating very good quality, call it pasture-raised eggs, good meat, right? Grass-fed, grass-finished ideally, because that is going to mean that they have a better ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 in the meat, right? If it's completely—

and it also depends on what they eat, right? Because if they eat like a fucking— oh, sorry, excuse my French, but if they eat an omega-6 heavy diet, right, it's going to accumulate in the tissue. Yeah.

So of course that's probably better than— it's better than some other alternative probably, but we still want to be a bit aware of these things and consume the best that we can from a meat perspective and also from an eggs perspective. But then 2 to 3 times per week, I like to add in canned sardines.

Sardines. What else is okay?

Mackerel.

Salmon is a debated one.

Is salmon something that you should consume? Yes, I think so, if it's good.

But that's also like a tough one, right? Because some people say, oh, you can Absolutely not eat farmed salmon.

No.

But some people say there are good farmed salmon because it depends on the circumstances.

There are a few out in the coast of Norway that actually are pretty good and pretty decent that I eat without any issue or any problem without even thinking about it. But it's the same thing here, very commercial farmed salmon is probably something we want to avoid. But if there's a good salmon, yeah, of course there's going to be some heavy metals and some microplastics in that, but it's not the end of the world. You're still getting the good. We would like to focus on the good instead of focusing on the bad. But in most cases, I choose the smaller fish because I can control it. I like it. I like sardines.

Yeah.

And it's not going to have as much bioaccumulated toxins in it, which is— it becomes a win-win when I like it and not as much microplastics and heavy metals in it because it hasn't— the problem here with the salmons and everything is because they eat All these smaller fishes, so it bioaccumulates, right? It goes from one little thing that has gotten everything in it, and it compounds, right?

Yeah.

But it's not like that is the end of the world, and that you know scares me off of salmon. And it's just like yeah, I like sardines two to three times per week.

Yeah.

I can. That's major as well for inflammation, and I'd also argue that getting enough collagen-rich foods like bone broth is gonna help. keep the gut lining calm and provide it with amino acids that the gut lining needs to kind of repair itself as well. Just making sure that we're not histamine sensitive or whatnot here because then we obviously have to take a different approach at first.

Yeah, it depends on the state of your gut.

Yeah, it depends on the state of your gut but generally speaking, that's some of the best things you can do.

Yeah, collagen, I think for me personally, like the collagen peptide implementation has been so easy, you know, like in my all hot beverage, beverages, I just put the collagen and it improves my digestion and—

Skin.

Yeah, skin. Like, everything is more smooth, you know, and it's such an easy implementation.

Yeah, for sure.

And if we stand back to, I guess, what's causing the issues in the first place, because like it's easy for us to say how like you should eat this, you should do that, and everything is so obvious, right? But like as we speak to more people, like everything isn't that obvious, you know. So like in terms of dietary mistakes, Like when it comes to, I guess for the people listening that want to bulletproof themselves or prevent themselves from getting gut issues or people that want to sort of broaden their perspective of why they might have gut issues in the first place from a dietary point of view, I guess what are the most common mistakes that you typically see people do and eat in their actual diet that's just—

A lot of grains, a lot of seeds, a lot of nuts, which not just is very hard for your gut to process when it's at a lower state, But also cause a lot of, once again, friction in the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio from that perspective of things, right? But it's very, very interesting how many people are eating, consuming so much grains.

Yeah.

And you're fed this lie of fiber is the most important thing for the gut, so eat all these nuts and seeds and grains because that's the best thing you can do for your gut, which is—

Yeah.

Arguably something you can question. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complete anti-fiber. That's not what I'm trying to sit here and say. But for a sensitive gut, it's probably one of the worst things that you can do because it's going to be so much harder to digest and break down, which is going to cause you having undigested and unbroken down things in your system, which also is going to just add to the— or it's going to be fuel to the fire of like the leaky gut or the SIBO or whatever it might be. from person to person what you can get as a byproduct of that, but that's one of the biggest mistakes we constantly see.

And I guess like when it comes to legumes and beans and nuts and seeds and grains, why do you feel like they're such a no-no?

It's mainly for the omega-6, to be honest, inflammation, and then just harder to break down.

Yeah.

And then yes, there's some anti-nutrients here and there in that. I don't see that as a massive problem. If we control the amounts, it's not a problem. Obviously, I wouldn't want to eat a shit ton of beans as my main protein source. I wouldn't do that. But if I have beef and rice or whatever, like a few beans on the side as kind of my diversification of choice, it's not an issue. I'd argue that's good. We don't want to focus too much on the negatives once again.

Yeah.

The problem becomes literally hard to process and end omega-6 for an average person that has a bit of a downregulated gut at the time of watching this and speaking about this.

Yeah.

So the biggest implementation hack I guess someone can take away from this is probably to just overlook fiber completely. Don't fall for this. you have to get this amount of fiber every single day, you have to get the whole wheat this, whole wheat that, whatever.

Definitely not.

Yeah, no, it's very problematic. The first thing you should be doing to help calm your gut down is literally to have a super simple diet with super easy to digest things such as, you know, kind of a reset/elimination diet for most people where you simplify it to the core with just cooked potatoes, rice, beef, I liked the example of LPOs, right?

Lectin, phytic acid, and oxalates. That's something you should, I guess, not be too extreme with, but strive to avoid. Have the understanding that this can be very problematic for the system, for the gut, for digestion.

And mostly for someone that is a bit sensitive in the first place. That is how we have to think about it. But I'm absolutely on the same page, Anton. But at the same time, it's not like I'm walking around afraid of oxalates and think that oxalates will kill me. That's not the framing, but we also want to make smart choices based on where we're at in our own health and healing journey as well.

Yeah, but at the same time, I would probably never see you pick baby spinach over a regular, just out of an oxalate and ROI perspective of eating it.

Of course, but if I'm in front of spinach.

Yeah, you're not afraid of it?

No, but I, I'm still smart with my choices, right?

Yeah, I mean, it tastes like shit anyway, so why would you want it?

Yeah, no, I prefer arugula.

Yeah, for sure. Screw the spinach, you know?

Yeah, screw the spinach.

Yeah, interesting. Also, like, everyone in the, in the protocol and everyone, like, yeah, I guess regardless of having severe gut issues or not, I feel like No one is really consuming gluten. I think it's very personally dependent on how you respond to gluten, how you break down gluten. But the biggest problem with gluten is probably not the gluten, it's what they spray the wheat with, right?

Glyphosate, pesticides.

How they treat the original product.

And this is the problem with grains in general, right? Because I'd argue if I eat organic glyphosate-free oats, I can handle that very good. You know, it's not gonna mess me up. It can actually be sometimes before some of the big training sessions I had before my Ironman. I actually had that, you know, no issues. Yeah, I had it before my race as well.

No, no.

Yeah, actually I had, um, I, I'm— I had because I, I wanted, uh, like different sources, so I had rice Oats, I had fruits and honey. That was what I had.

We had pasta the other day, right?

We had very good quality, of course. We're not picking any Barilla or some bullshit like this. But average person, obviously now we're speaking to someone that has a bit of a, let's say, not as dialed system as us right now. Avoiding them, not for the sake of just the grains itself, but as you said, like being sprayed in pesticides, insecticides, glyphosate, whatever it might be depending on where you're at in the world. That's also another variable that will disrupt your microbiome and add to and also cause inflammation and problems inside your gut as well.

Yeah, something I found so interesting when I first caught that awareness was around the difference between like— because I was carnivore for quite a period of time, right? But I didn't really understand the importance of ruminants and not like really consuming, uh, what do you call it, gastro or something like that, like pork and, and chicken and stuff like that. Because when it comes to ruminants like cow, beef, lamb, all of that stuff, like regardless of their diet, they can kind of process everything so that the meat will still be sort of good quality, you know. Regardless of what the cows eat, like they'll process everything and the meat will come out fine. So like if you always just want to have in the back of your mind and know that, okay, I'm eating like the absolute best alternative or something that's actually good for me, it's always easy to just strive for the beef option. But it goes down to what we spoke about before. I mean, I mean, the main issue with pork is not that it's pork and it's haram, you know. It's like the omega-6 to the omega-3 ratio is like the, the main issue with it. That's what makes it very inflammatory, is because of the diet of the pig.

Yeah, it's not the pig itself.

And when I made the research myself for that, I came to the conclusion, okay, like The only pork that's actually good is sort of like the pata negra or when they eat this— I don't know the English word for it— Iacollón. I don't know what it's called, but the pata negra, the super expensive Spanish jamón, that's the only good source of pork. And then I just instantly cut out pork out of my own diet.

Boar as well.

Yeah, wild boar, very good. But I instantly cut out pork out of my own diet. And the changes in my skin was incredible. From acne, having issues, boom, cutting out pork, I think that stabilized my omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, because I love to eat bacon. But when I cut that out, boom, massive changes.

Yeah, it's probably because of that, as you just said. And it's a very interesting topic. I usually say that it's more important, it's not about what you eat, it's about what your eat has been eating, that it actually matters. But it's a very good note to mention there as well. If we're standing and have to choose between a chicken that has been fed— a commercial chicken versus a commercial beef, I'd pick the beef.

Every day of the week.

Every day of the week over the chicken because it just has one stomach. It can just produce or process everything one time and it kind of goes straight into the system. compared to—

So it's just like basically always when you're eating beef, you can just know that this is not inflammatory in any way?

Yeah, I mean, there can be.

Really?

In my opinion, yeah.

It depends on the severity?

Yeah, of the kind of commercialization of it. But if the beef has been pumped up with antibiotics and—

Yeah, some of it can be disgusting, right?

Yeah, I'd argue it's pretty inflammatory to eat. To eat that in that in that case, I guess.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I mean, on the topic of vegetables, right? When it comes to someone who's I guess doesn't have the most perfect digestive system, how should they think about?

You should think about it as our whole philosophy on or my philosophy on this is that you know yeah we we can look we can look we can choose to look at all the negatives or all the or the positives with the with veggies. So you can easily sit there and say that oh that's It's it's anti nutrients. It's this and that, and it's this is going to mess everything up and blah blah blah blah blah blah. Which yeah, but that's that's one side of the coin. You know, then there's another side, which is kind of the more positive, which is if we think about our gut microbiome, we need a broad diversity of inputs every single week. I'd argue from a ideally on a micro perspective, but on a macro perspective, we need a lot of different things. Our microbiome needs to keep be active and work. And we always want a ratio between good and bad. So in this case, you can almost view the veggies in this case, let's say bad, but it's still good in a sense of it keeps everything, it keeps some dirt in the system. And if you don't have— if you're over-sanitized from like from within, which happens when you go too restrictive.

Yeah.

You don't like— your microbiome becomes stagnant because it just— okay, this is the only thing that we have to adjust to. This is okay, we can just chill now, right? This is the only thing that happens. Or that we're getting, which as a byproduct of that, we see this so many times with clients that has come in as well being over-restricted for too long, then they go to eat out or something and it just completely messes everything up because they have no diversification in their microbiome and it's just like that becomes like a, just like a bomb in your microbiome and you get all these symptoms and problems as a byproduct.

Yeah.

It's important to understand the progress curve and slowly implement and slowly get the variety and diversification of a lot of veggies, but not in high volume. We're not going to eat a kg of broccoli. We're not, you know, once again, we're not stupid. You know, a tiny piece of broccoli, I'd argue, is a good thing if you focus on the positives that it brings, which is like, yeah, it might be a bit bad, But it also gives your microbiome something else to kind of process and work around and adjust to, which is exactly what you want. Because then as a compounding effect of that, your microbiome will be healthier, so it will be able to take up and absorb the food from the other stuff that you're eating better.

I like the army analogy for this. So if you have an army and you only have foot soldiers in the army, you don't have any navy, you don't have any like Air Force or anything like that, and let's say this army is in your gut. If you just keep feeding the gut with foot soldiers, eventually when you throw a helicopter like a chopper in there, you know, it's just gonna nuke the entire army. That's why you need to have more of a diverse diet so you have like a diverse army for whatever's gonna come through.

You have to have the Air Force in there.

Yeah, you need to be able to shoot anti-aircraft, you know, shoot that chopper down.

You have to have the Navy style as well.

Yeah, some tanks. You need everything in there so you can and handle everything.

Correct. And that's how we have to view it. And approaching your gut like this and thinking of how broad of a spectrum of inputs can I actually supply my gut with is arguably one of the things that will leave you with the most amount of positive impact, right? Not high volumes, but small volumes, and then constantly keep that in rotation. One day it's carrots, one day zucchini, one day some fruit, another day some herbs, whatever it might be, however that looks in your life. But just following that philosophy and keeping, keep supplying the database with such a broad spectrum of inputs as possible.

Yeah, but how broad can you go? Because like for me, for example, I like to eat like a dog, you know. I want to eat the same thing every day. I never get bored. I can just enjoy that. But I guess like some fermented foods.

Some fermented foods, yeah.

Switching the vegetables up.

Throw in some, one week you do this, one you do another, one day you do this, one day you add some herbs to your meat, another day you, Add some good spices.

Rice, potato.

Yeah, one day you have rice, one day you have potatoes, one day you have sourdough, one day you have sardines, one day you have some dairy, some berries, some fruit.

Yeah, interesting.

Yeah.

I think sleep could be a cool topic to touch on as well because we sleep like crazy, right? Like the restorative sleep can be Yeah, through the roof when we track it, like on the Whoop. 520 I had the other night in restorative sleep, which is like 64% sleep quality, which is absolutely insane, right? Yeah, that's, um, but something I had for a period of time was that I was always like waking up hungry, you know, like hungry like I wanted to kill someone, like that type of hungry, you know, like I could just— almost like a beast. Uh, like why would you say that that happens?

What do you think?

I guess it's like meal timings, cortisol spikes, blood sugar. Like, that's the sort of understanding that I've gotten from it.

Yeah.

But I think a lot of people might struggle with that, that they wake up in the night or wake up super early or they're super hungry in the morning. I guess, what's the sort of implementation for something like that? Is it like meal timings or? Why does the cortisol spike in the morning?

You can look at this from a few different ways. You could argue that it's because you didn't get enough sleep, so your body craves another source of fuel to help you recover. So if you're waking up super, super hungry, it might mean that literally your sleep is terrible, but your body craves something to help it recover, so it craves the building blocks, right? That's one argument for the situation. Obviously cortisol rhythm and blood sugar plays into it as well, but I'd argue it can be mealtime, as well, and it can be not giving your gut enough rest because it's also important to rest the digestive system.

Yeah.

Prolonged fasting, depending on where you're at, can be beneficial but also problematic. But I know a lot, I've heard this a lot, and I used to have this as well. If I eat too close to bed, I wake up hungrier. And if I don't eat that close to bed, it's not an issue. Which kind of states a point that you probably leave some— you don't get enough recovery because if you eat too late, obviously it's going to impact the sleep a bit. You're probably not going to digest everything properly, which also means that then you haven't supplied your body with enough building blocks at that time. So then when you wake up, it's like, shit, we're craving something, we need something because the thing from yesterday just caused problems. Yeah.

Yeah, um, so kind of it can be like, it's, it's impossible to say again because it's so many variables. Yeah, if your gut isn't intact, you're not probably going to absorb the nutrients to the extent that you should. Maybe your diet isn't sourced as good as it should be, so it's not as nutrient-dense.

No, there's probably a bunch of variables.

Eating too little, or like the meal timings aren't dialed in.

Yeah, it's hard to say like, oh, this is exactly why, but hopefully you kind of understand the thought process behind it and can see that. it's probably not how it should be. I guess on the other spectrum, there's also a lot of people that has no hunger in the morning, which is also something to address because that's also not a good thing. Because if you're waking up and you're not hungry for the first couple hours of the day, that means that you're running strictly on stress, on stress hormones.

Yeah.

Which is something we have a couple of clients that are struggling with that. And in that case, it's super, super important to In my opinion, eat a small meal because this is something that actually I've learned that I didn't really think about before myself, but having like forcing a bigger breakfast there, which kind of makes a lot of sense when you think about it, and another philosophy that I have, it causes when you're already a bit stressed, you're running a stress hormone, you know, it's gonna be hard to process that, you're not gonna be able to process it.

Yeah.

That's gonna leave you with bloating, gas, whatever might come out as a byproduct. But if we just eat a tiny bit, obviously it's gonna be easier for our gut to digest just a smaller amount of food, And that can work almost as a response of just like, aha, right now we've got some stuff. Now we need to trigger like, I want more of this, you know, when the body actually understands what just happened. So it's the same thing. I've said this before, but if I'm, if I'm coming home and I have a call in 10 minutes and yeah, I can rush through a bigger meal or I can take a small amount of yogurt with some berries and some honey, like super small. because I don't have the proper time to calm down and do this and that, whatever, I'm gonna have the calls for the next 2-3 hours, I'm still gonna choose that smaller meal in like a more suboptimal state rather than force a big meal which is gonna leave me with a lot of problems. So if I come back from training, I'd rather have that and then I'll do my meal, my proper meal when I'm done with what I have to do there. It's the same thing if you had a super stressful day and you come back in the evening and just feel how How wired and anxious you are, and kind of just fired up or fired up in in a bad way, right? But just like activated.

Yeah.

Instead of just oh, I haven't eaten anything today. Like I have to like force feed right now because I have no I haven't had any time to eat. You know, this is arguably one of the worst things you can do because you're not going to be able to address or to absorb the food in this situation. So it's better to have a like as almost as small of a meal as possible that you can. And then we compensate for this tomorrow by eating a lot more when you're in a more or in a better environment to actually absorb what you're eating as well. Does that make sense?

Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Again, comes down to stress, nervous system, where it all starts. Yeah, that yeah is very important.

Yeah, and I guess once again one of the questions that we got asked is like or when on one of the videos I got just like. Okay, but how do you regulate that then, and how do you regulate the stress? And obviously, it's kind of as we've already chatted a bit about it, it's like you have to view yourself as a— you have all these tools in the form of breathwork, grounding, going out in nature, and all these things, which are tools that you can use strategically, but you have to also understand, is it a physical or a mental stressor, which we also dived a bit deeper into in the last one, so I highly recommend—

Use the counterpart. If it's a mental stressor, use physical outlet. If it's a physical outlet, you use a mental. Or physical stress, you use a mental.

Exactly, that's the framework. And we talked more about that in depth in the, in the last one, so make sure to listen to that if that's something that you feel like you're, um, or if you feel like that's your issue, which is most likely is because stress is the issue to everything. So highly recommend to go through that.

Yeah, yeah, you know, every time almost. Yeah, when it comes to Getting quality sleep. For me, I think the biggest main driver in being able to achieve crazy sleep scores, which obviously I don't have every single night, because again, there's a lot of variables, but I think it's been the natural cortisol spike.

Yeah.

Making sure it's spiking that in the morning, and then in the evening, I have like, when I decide to switch off, I switch off. I like what one of our clients used to do. He had an alarm on his phone, and then when the alarm goes off, He lights a candle, right, and just sits down and takes it easy. I like, I like his idea on the ritual because it's just about like calming down, you know. A lot of people, they just sit on screens, work until they go to bed, like watch something, and eventually like they never calm down in that natural, in that natural way.

Yeah, a proper wind-down is super, super important, and, um, it's been such a game changer for me.

Yeah, like having a wind-down.

And I have— there's so many examples of clients that does everything right from a small habits perspective, but not getting the sleep score that they like were after, right?

Yeah.

And then I've looked at the whole situation and told you, okay, but you're literally working until 10 minutes before when you start doing all these right habits. It's not going to make up for your last hour of work. You know, you have to give your nervous system some time to calm down and come back to baseline. So having like a hard stop on when you're stopping working and things is one of the most powerful things that you can do. Yeah, Joris is a good example here. One client, he had an average of 2 hours one week, and then I told him this. I was like, we looked through everything. I was like, okay, you're doing everything right, but— and then he said, yeah, but I'm sitting in front of my computer until this time. And I was like, okay, hard stop at 9. He goes to bed at 10, right? Like, I don't care what you're doing, you stop working.

You have to.

Yeah, and then you chill for the last hour. Yeah, 100%, uh, up next week, 4 hours average.

Really?

Just that.

So he just doubled the amount of ROI he gets from his sleep. Yeah, that's crazy.

And then imagine what that is going to do to his, generally speaking, his recovery, his mental clarity throughout the days. Yeah, his energy, his hormones, like literally everything is going to be elevated from that.

The results in the business because he's getting more done in the time that he actually spends on it. And that's something I see time and time again, like a lot of people on the On the application calls and they're like wasting like 2, 3, 4 hours every single day to doing tasks in their business that's not actually needed moving because they don't have the energy or they lack the presence, which is crazy when you think about it.

And sometimes—

Some people have the awareness, right, that like this is probably the biggest key driver that I can invest in and fix in my life right now to not only make more money but also have a way better experience in my life. And most people don't, which is crazy. They just push through, right?

Sometimes it's also not like— it's also not groundbreaking things.

No, not at all.

But in many cases, if you don't have— like, I like to think of this as this: if you don't have the clarity and awareness, and like you've been kind of trying to, trying to go around yourself, and like you're doing it but you're not finding kind of the, the, the variable, Yeah. Having someone else looking at everything and kind of speeding up the process for you is what, like, that's what we do basically as well. We have no doubt that all clients that come could fix their issues themselves.

Yeah.

I'm not an alien. I'm not from another planet. I'm from the same planet as you guys listening, you know? It's not like I have some magic information no one else has, but it's having another pair of eyes looking at everything and telling you, okay, do this, right? From— and, and in Joris's case, imagine all the things that he got out as a byproduct from, from me just giving that simple— of course there's a shit ton more to the equation, but just as an example.

Yeah.

That one implementation, just stop working, because that was the, that was the lowest hanging fruit right now.

Yeah.

And then everything that comes as a byproduct of that.

Yeah.

And imagine if he went for months and months and months without actually implementing this, what would happen, you know, and how What would have been the cost of not fixing this thing? Because that would have probably meant even worse energy if you didn't actually fix this and worse hormones and worse recovery.

But it's not always about the cost in the future. It's also about what it's costing you now.

Exactly.

And even if it's just like, if you just tell someone stop eating carrots and their entire life change and they pay a shit ton of money to hear that advice and their life will change, right? does it matter if it's that easy? Like, if you just fix it, you fix it, right? It's the same thing with people going to like seminars, masterminds, whatever. Like, it's, it's about your perspective, right? Because what you go into when you go there, you'll probably get out of— you probably get out of it what you expected, right? So if you expect to not get that much out of it, you probably won't. But maybe it's just like one conversation that you're missing that will change the entire trajectory of your life in a business sense, for example.

We like to think of the domino effect and how, if we think about Jori here as an example, that sleep thing, that's the first domino in a full domino that's just gonna spiral into more positive things.

Yeah.

And just that, so that implementation is worth, you can't even put a price to how much that's worth, right? And this is usually the people that we work with usually kind of have this mindset in the first place where it's like, I just need to fix this one thing and everything will improve, which is exactly usually how it turns out to be as well. Right? Because if you fix that, everything improves. If you fix your gut, if you fix your stress and nervous system, hormones get better, energy better, business better, physique better, everything. It just continues and it just spirals.

Like, uh, them and Claude and YouTube, right? Like against the world for months and months on end. But it's like, it's like we've been saying before, right? It's, it's, it's not that you can't do it yourself, but at some point in your business you hired an accountant Not because you can't do the bookkeeping, just because it doesn't make sense to spend your time on that. You know, there's someone else who's an expert at that— tax planner, whatever you choose to hire, right? Like, there's always— just outsource things.

Yeah.

And that's the beautiful part about coaching as well. Once you've been through a coaching program yourself, like, you start to understand the importance of it and the value, because you just get the clarity and you get the results in months rather than years, right?

Yeah, 100%. And that's, that's how we like— I think that's how we like to operate as well, Anton. Like, if I want It won't— if I have a— if I do a good self-awareness, or I have good self-awareness and I understand this is a bottleneck I have, yeah, okay, find the one that can fix it straight away. Boom, fix it now. Could I figure it out myself? Yeah, but time, energy, it's not worth it, right?

It depends on your awareness. It's just outsourcing. Everything is outsourcing in a business perspective when you're operating out of that perspective.

Yeah.

So I think that's what most people understand.

Correct. That's why, that's what we got going as well to begin with. Yeah, I was like, I want someone that is on the same level that can, that can help me and that can help me take the, take the first initial, initial calls and, and, uh, bring the people in so I can focus on working with the, with the, with actual clients and not have split focus there. So I mean—

Exactly, that's always how it is, right? Yeah, you just outsource, delegate, do stuff that you are not as good at, or not because you can't learn it again, but because you save your own time and get more results in the long term by doing so.

100%. But I think sleep is one of these things as well, where it's like, if there's one thing you should dial in on top of gut and stress, which we've already talked about, it's arguably sleep and making sure that you get good quality sleep. And some of the best things and tools that you can do in order to do that is having a proper wind-down ritual with— yes, you want to throw in some good habits, don't get me wrong, One of the things that actually mattered in Joris' place, if we go back to him, was obviously having the habits in place as well. Just like chilling might be good, but having the habits was going to absolutely amplify it. It's the same how we view it with all these things, like not being super stressed with fearmongering about the sea levels and microplastics and all these things. We don't want to do that from a stress perspective. But if we are aware of that and we do the right choices when we can, but we're not stressed about when things are not good, So we pair the good inputs with the right mindset, if that makes any sense. That's when, like, when you create the masterpiece, basically.

Yeah.

So that's how we want to think about this. We want to pair the, the, the good habits with the right structure. That's how we get the, the, the best results.

Yeah, makes sense. I think when it comes to also something interesting to speak about is like testosterone, libido, and all of that jazz, right? Because I mean, it's very hard to tell because blood work is one thing, right? But blood work can go up and down every single week. So to actually get like— someone might say, wow, I have 800 nanograms per deciliter testosterone, right? But how do you not know that the next week it's 400, you know? Because it's also kind of short-term from what I understood, that specific marker. Uh, so I guess in the long run, how would you actually like determine that you have Good testosterone because again, the blood work is not going to tell you accurately, right?

Yeah.

Because this is something I think most men are very interested in, right? Testosterone, you know.

Good energy, good drive, good willpower, good— like no problems with executing work. Like basically the opposite of brain fog.

Yeah.

Waking up, yeah, is also like we said, nitric oxide and hormones, hormonal health.

Yeah.

That is arguably the most important things. And then just making sure that you're, from a nutritional perspective, you're eating enough minerals, you're eating enough, enough of the good food that is actually going to, going to help you and it's going to be the building blocks that your body needs to produce those hormones. Right. So make sure we're getting a good amount of saturated fats and cholesterol and, you know, oysters is one of the best things we can eat before again. So we give our body All the vitamins and minerals that it actually needs as well to function properly from, from within.

Yeah, a lot of people when it comes to testosterone, they always look at a supplement alternative, or like using supplements.

This herb will fix my testosterone.

Yeah, like Tongkat Ali or something like that. And I'm like very anti-supplement myself, but I guess in terms of a dietary perspective, it's just again broad diet, right?

Broad diet.

Yeah, yeah.

Good fats, good minerals, good sleep.

Yeah.

Good gut health so that you actually can absorb the, the good food that you're, you're putting in, right?

Yeah.

Always comes back to that once again, like literally. Um, so if your gut health is optimized, you're gonna have good hormones. Let's just put it that way. And if you feel like you're maybe struggling with like the mood and like libido, Some people might not just have super severe symptoms, right? It might just be something like that. You have lower mood, don't feel as sharp, 100%.

Yeah.

There's something in your gut. Might not be severe, but everyone experiences the symptoms in different ways. It's different manifestations depending on person. And this is where genes play in, in my opinion, depending on your genes and whatnot. That's kind of how it's going to dictate how, how it manifests in you. You know, we can have, we can have the same problem, you and me, but you get joint pain and I get—

Yeah.

Bloating.

Yeah, that's interesting as well because it's also genetically dependent, like it seems, as you're seeing for yourself. Yeah, when it comes to the testosterone piece, also something I, I believe this is true, it's like when you are in a very competitive environment, you also force your body to produce more testosterone, right? So if you're training like a lot of martial arts and competitive sports and stuff, you probably need more testosterone. You know, you mimic that effect of going back a couple thousand years. Uh, I don't know, do you have any, any takes on that? Do you believe in that?

Yeah, yeah, I think community and like pushing others, but like a healthy competition almost, because that's what, what it creates. So I think that's massive. And just seeing others put in the work and kind of like having, it almost becomes a bit egotistical, but for the better. It's like, fuck, that guy did that. I have to do it and I have to do it better. Or I have to be better, which is something that constantly just pushes and forces you to grow, which is, I think, where it's all at.

Yeah.

liked stagnation. We have always evolved, evolved, evolved, and, uh, and gotten more efficient and, and all these things. And I think that's in our nature as well.

Um, yeah, I think that community aspect is pretty cool, like with what we're going in the Superhuman Protocol, right? Because I mean, most people who are interested in these topics, they're pretty lonely about that, right? Like nobody really cares or knows about this and Like nobody is as invested in these topics as someone like you and me. So it's a bit of a lonely thing, you know, health and optimizing and maxing sleep. And probably everyone who came to us prior to joining, like, never really had anyone around them caring about something like that.

100%. And I think why I think it's so beneficial as well is because some people there are living very similar situations from their life perspective as well. So if 2 persons that, like, where I might not exactly understand how their life is set up, but one of them gets like, oh, this works for me, then everyone shares it and kind of it becomes this, this, uh, this like everyone values of everyone else kind of situation.

Yeah.

For it. So like one of the things that we— that Jordi openly shared in the community is like, okay, I hard cut my work at 1 hour after, changed everything, you know. Perfect, boom. And everyone probably, or a lot of people also tried that and ended up seeing the same thing.

Yeah.

Without us even having to kind of go through that bottleneck analysis and understand, okay, what is the actual issue here for you? Yeah. It also becomes like a speed of implementation when everyone around you is always constantly trying different things as well. And like, you get the kind of, uh, not the shortcut, but like, okay, this worked for me, this is kind of the setup.

Yeah, you can try it and build your own experience. Yeah. And that's also valuable. Yeah, 'cause it's like, when it comes to health, there's so many variables that people don't know. Maybe you think you know a lot, and you probably do, but how many small variables don't you know about that can make such a major impact in your life?

We like to think of the GTA map. It's, you're dropped at the map, and then you just see your point of view from what you have explored, but then there's this whole other map that is blacked out, grayed out, that you don't even see. You're not even aware how it looks. and, and you think that you, you have the right perspective just seeing what you see, and, ah, this is everything, when there's a whole nother map that you haven't explored yet.

Yeah, CJ need to get out of Los Santos at some point. Yeah, in San Andreas. Yeah, legendary game. Yeah, for sure. I think that, that just highlights the importance of, of having like-minded people around you. It's not always about like, yeah, I need these people to push me, but it's like, what can I gain from— you can always learn something from from everyone.

Yeah, and we, we really saw that at the retreat as well.

Yeah.

So many interesting people.

Yeah.

Valuable conversations. And like, as I, as I said in another video, like, I got so much value out of that as well. And not just, uh, like the client extracting from me, like, I extracted a shit ton of value from out of them as well.

Yeah, that's what it's about, right?

Yeah.

It's about mutual value as well. gaining from each other.

Yeah, that's how a rising tide lifts all boats. I like that, uh, that, uh, that quote, you know, when, when one, uh, rises, everyone— or, you know, everyone rises at the same time.

Yeah, if we— if we— because it's a lot of talk about, from the dietary perspective again, about minerals, right? But I think there's multiple, multiple issues to why people are so like demineralized. For example, like the soil nowadays, completely like there's like no nourishment in it.

Yeah, generally speaking, we have a lot— we have a worse, uh, the average person gets less minerals.

Yeah, no one consumes, uh, sea salt, which again goes back to that Scandinavian thing that before when we used to preserve everything in salt, in minerals, in, in sea salt, we consumed like 100 grams of sea salt every single day. 100 grams. Nowadays people consume like 3 to 5 grams.

If you tell a doctor that, he tells you that you're gonna get a heart attack.

Yeah, you're an idiot, right? Yeah. But again, that is minerals, and so is the food, so is everything that you eat. So it's like, because a lot of people think, oh, but why, why weren't this a problem like hundreds of years ago? But this is precisely why, because just everything that we eat and the soil and everything going on is just like so demineralized to that extent. And this supports everything in the body— gut issues, hormones, sleep. Yeah, it all goes down to you being able to properly mineralize yourself.

100%.

Without consuming artificial electrolytes. Yeah, but like aspartame, this sort of newfound stuff that just messes you up. It's just if we could just go back 300 years, gut issues probably weren't as present as now. Barely existed, right? Maybe from the stress perspective, but in a dietary perspective, hundreds of years ago, non-existent.

In 100 people, maybe a few had had some issues.

Yeah. Now— but do you really believe that that would be input? I, I would argue that that is just from the stress, you know?

Correct, correct. That was exactly what I was gonna say. And now, of 100 people, a lot of people have struggles.

Yeah, like everyone almost.

And, and for, for For majority of them, there's obviously gonna be a chunk that is allocated towards the stressed people, but a lot of dietary inputs and messing up your microbiome, which things as artificial sweeteners and things that is gonna disrupt your microbiome and all these things, it's also a chunk of those people, right?

Yeah.

And not having optimized detox pathways so you can't clear out the toxins and all these things. So it's accumulation of all the bad things, so to say.

Yeah, that's also an interesting point with the toxins and that stuff in terms of plastic.

We're exposing ourselves to more toxins right now once again. That's also a variable. There's a bunch of variables to that. Yeah.

But again, when it comes to drinking plasma, drinking sea salt in your water, which we've been speaking about a lot, it's also a modern solution to a modern-day problem, right?

We shouldn't need—

We shouldn't have to do that.

No.

But now the world is like that. And because of the circumstances, that's something we need to do because like the diet isn't enough anymore. Yeah.

Good spring water used to be more than enough, but now we need to do something because as you said, modern problems require modern solutions. That's how I like to think about it. And that is exactly how it is because we're getting less minerals from the, from the, from the food that we're eating. We're getting more exposed to toxins. We're getting— we're more stressed, which drains the minerals even more. And there's so many things that just adds up and stacks up to this. So then we have to do something like that.

Yeah. Again, it all comes down to that.

Yeah. I think that's a good way to sum it up as well, Anton. And once again, if there's one takeaway here, sleep, dial in the sleep. We talked about the plasma as the takeaway in the last one, and then dial in the sleep.

Yeah, I think the biggest key thing with the sleep is to manage your cortisol curve.

Yeah, cortisol.

Go out in the morning, take a walk, do movement, get sunlight, whatever spikes the cortisol so they can naturally slow down throughout the day and have a proper wind-down routine.

Those things will carry you a long way. Yeah, and then some small implementations on top of that to amplify it.

But yeah, there's some nuances, right? Like in terms of— now we might go too deep again, but with the diet, right, that you like On days you don't train, structure carbs in the PM to lower cortisol, calm you down.

On the days you train, structure around training.

Yeah, it's also with meal structuring, but I think that's been such a game changer for me in terms of really optimizing sleep quality, so on the sleep side of things.

And once again, it's when you kind of dial in all these different pillars where you actually create the big masterpiece, and when every single piece is in the right place and the puzzle becomes whole. And yeah, I guess if you're listening to this and you're interested in that, obviously you can check the first link below. It will, yeah, where you can read a bit more about how it actually looks to work, you know, or join the Superman Protocol, join and work with us. So if you're interested in that, check that out. And if you qualify, you will be speaking to this guy.

Yes, sir.

And you guys will just kind of talk through Your situation, see where where you're at and kind of your where what you're struggling with and and get a clear action plan on on what we think you should be doing going forward and obviously present how it looks to to to work with us directly. So check it out if you're interested. But without further ado, good chat, good chat one again. It's always a good chat when we sit down, Anton.

Hundred percent.

All right. Good stuff. Yeah, it's good.

Free flowing a bit.

Yeah, yeah, hundred percent. But appreciate you guys for watching and I hope you enjoyed.

Appreciate it. Have a lovely rest of your day.

We'll see you in the next one.