S3:E3 - Wolf’s Den: Dan Garner

Hey folks, welcome to the show that entertains and educates. My name is Mark Ottobre and welcome to The Wolf's Den. Today's guest is Dan Gardner, nutritionist and functional medicine expert. Dan works with an array of athletes who are super high performers, from UFC fighters, baseballers, athletes at a super high level. Let's give Dan a huge round of applause and welcome to the show. Thanks, Dan, for coming on.

Thank you, mate.

Excellent. So what we did was we asked a couple of the trainers, a couple of clients, to bring in some supplements, which they all have, and we've got an allocation educated thrower here who's going to throw us some supplements to kick off the show. And what we wanted to do is, is get your thoughts on these supplements in kind of a rapid style format. So without further ado, you want to pick one, pick one at us? All right, what do we got here? So the first one is Meriva.

Meriva being curcumin, one of the demonstrated extracts of curcumin to be quite effective. Curcumin has been demonstrated in the literature to lower triglycerides and improve the ratio between LDL and HDL, which is your good cholesterol to bad cholesterol. It's an excellent anti-inflammatory, but having having some black pepper extract in there is important for total absorption. So when you're looking at the research, having curcumin alone seems to have excellent anti-inflammatory effects within the gut, but curcumin plus the black pepper is what's gonna make its way into the cardiovascular system.

Right, and is there a difference? 'Cause I know there's the SF and then there's the delivery systems of the ones that are kind of slow release and fast release. Do you have a preferred one that you use out of?

I do have a slower release. I prefer, preferentiate the slow release in order to get a slower drip. Over time because inflammation is something that will happen throughout the entire day. And anytime you shock the body with something massive in any sense of the word, there always tends to be some sort of a negative feedback loop. So I'd rather have that slow drip throughout the whole day.

Right, that's interesting. And clients that should be looking at this, or people I should say that should be looking at this, who's the type of person that should be considering Mareva?

I think a lot of people could consider it 'cause I think inflammation is something that a lot of people struggle with. Like whenever you take on a client, before you treat them like an athlete, male or female, you have to treat them as a human first. And humans tend to struggle with inflammation, stress, and sleep. And since this is something that's so powerful for inflammation, I think for anybody who's training extremely hard or anybody who is general population and they're currently in a state of not being very healthy and are looking to make some changes, that can create an excellent well-rounded benefit for them.

So this is one that you'd use a lot of UFC fighters, I'm guessing?

Yes, for sure. 'Cause that's actually, I'm glad you brought it up. That's something that's been demonstrated as well to be as effective Advil and ibuprofen for pain management. So even, yeah, even in populations with osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis. So cage fighters got a lot of joint issues, this brings down joint pain.

Because the ibuprofen is huge in the UFC and then the gut issues associated with that as well.

Exactly.

Bad, bad, bad.

Negative feedback loops.

Yeah, we'll get the next one happening. Maybe, well, this one's glass so we won't pick this one. That one's from my brother, he loves this stuff.

Ah, some GPC. Yeah, I absolutely like this for lighting up the brain. So this is something where I do like it for neural stimulation, for say pre-workout or pre-game performance, because it's really gonna help stimulate the brain for performance and not stimulate the adrenals to kind of force performance. So anybody who's looking at something pre-workout, but they are currently under a lot of stress, they think their adrenals have been adapting too much over time to their stressful lifestyle, this is something that can definitely help them out. This is also something that I utilize quite a bit with my hockey athletes because a lot of them complain about late night games and then not being able to sleep at all. So they, you know, they come to me and saying, Dan, I can't sleep. And I'm like, okay, what are you taking before your game? Well, 300 milligrams of caffeine and tyrosine. I'm like, it's a shocker that you can't get to sleep. Caffeine has a half-life of 5 hours. So for example, if you were to have 300 milligrams of caffeine at noon, Well, then by 5 PM, that's gonna be 150 milligrams. And by 10 PM, you're still gonna have 75 milligrams of active substance within your body. So every 5 hours, that's what the half-life is breaking down at. So if you're having a pre-workout in the evening, even if you do get to sleep, it's something that would be considered shallow sleep 'cause caffeine's gonna suppress your REM sleep levels. So anytime you can avoid the adrenals and use a little bit of brain performance in the PM, I'm a fan.

So Michael Bisping before a UFC fight, is he caffeine and a little bit of?

He's stimulated enough.

Yeah. No alpha-gamma.

Anything we like L-theanine into already. Right, right.

So it's really dependent upon who you're working with, right? So, but for CEOs, execs, a good way to start the brain who want a bit more admin. Awesome.

Absolutely.

We'll go for the next one. What do we got here? Hemp oil.

Hemp oil. I'm familiar with hemp oil, man. I don't use it at all with any of my clients. So no comments coming from me. No comment, right?

Yeah, no comment. So it's different, 'cause I know you did the podcast on the, I think the cannabinoid oils, was that the podcast that you did recently, I think it was.

Yeah, that's right. So I'm going through a lot of the research on that, but I haven't been sold on it yet, if you got the gist from that podcast. So it's something where I haven't dove all the way into it yet in order to have a widespread application. One thing we do know from the literature, although a lot of it is still animal-based, which is why I'm not extrapolating it a lot to humans, is you can get anti-anxiety effects, you can get antidepressive effects, there are certain anti-inflammatory effects, and in one study, this was actually done on humans, it demonstrated that it can improve your ability to do public speaking. So in a format like this, it actually might be pretty beneficial, but I don't prescribe it to my clientele, so I can't talk about something that I don't have true experience with, only knowledge of the literature.

Awesome, awesome, grab that one. BCAAs.

BCAAs.

Hot topic for you.

Yeah. BCAAs is something where I believe in the literature that these have been— I wouldn't say disproven, but misapplied. It's something where in the literature, I think that it is— I think it's represented in the literature that these do not have the effect that people think they have. But not reflected in coaching practice. So represented in the literature but not reflected in coaching practice. What we've seen with branched-chain amino acids is a lot of different things. So leucine threshold is, is, uh, there's a very small amount required in order to break through this and maximally stimulate leucine threshold. In younger populations, this tends to kick around 0.2 to 0.3 grams of total protein per kilo of body weight, whereas in older populations it tends to kick around more 0.4 grams of protein per kilo of body weight. In terms of leucine though, if you look at Norton's research or if you look at, at, I can't remember who else did the literature, but there was a difference between stimulation of muscle protein synthesis, which is just adding protein to the body and maximizing protein synthesis. You can stimulate protein synthesis with about 1 gram of leucine only, but maximizing protein synthesis is still gonna be maxed out at around 3 to 4 grams, even in advanced individuals, even post-workout. So it's not something where you would need a whole ton of branched-chain amino acids in order to get the full effect. So something like this can stimulate protein synthesis, but mass dosing it doesn't make any sense. We've also seen in the literature that mass dosing of branched-chain amino acids upregulates the production of something known as ammonia. And ammonia has already been linked to central nervous system fatigue. And in the gym, we need to be fueling not just the muscle cell, but also the nervous system because the nervous system is what actually allows us to recruit muscle fibers for contraction in the first place. You can think about your muscle fibers like a V12 engine, but the nervous system is the driver. It doesn't matter how big your V12 engine is and how much horsepower it has if there's nobody behind the wheel pressing the gas pedal down. If we're creating a lot ammonia, then we're decreasing the ability that we are able to press that gas pedal down. So I think that that's another thing that would negate mass dosing branched-chain amino acids.

When you say mass dosing, what's a mass dose to you?

Um, anything that goes beyond the leucine threshold. So I think that anything— if you're running branched-chain amino acids in a 2:1:1 ratio, which has been seen a lot in the literature, anything beyond 4 to 6 grams of leucine would be considered too much. But I think that I wouldn't actually use it at all because there's also been demonstrated research that this does stimulate muscle protein synthesis, but does not provide the additional amino acids required for actual skeletal muscle repair. So this is what kind of misled people way back in even 2010, 2012, because you can see that this stimulates muscle protein synthesis, but skeletal muscle tissue is not just made up of isoleucine, leucine, and valine, which is what branch chain amino acids are. So amino— these select amino acids cause a stimulation of muscle growth, which is great, but if you don't have the additional amino acids that make up human muscle tissue along with it, you're stimulating growth but not providing the raw material required to actually repair and build a muscle. I like to use the analogy of a construction worker who doesn't have the raw materials in order to build a building. This is the construction worker that stimulates the work shift to begin, but he doesn't have any bricks and mortar to actually build the house that he is supposed to build. And then it was very, very recent research in 2016 actually that found that when you stimulate muscle protein synthesis but you don't provide the amino acids available for recovery, that it can take it from elsewhere in the body. So let's say that you did a hard leg workout today. And then you're using branched-chain amino acids to fill that recovery capacity. Well, those branched-chain amino acids are gonna further support protein synthesis, but since all of the other amino acids aren't available in order to recover your legs, your legs have to get those other amino acids from somewhere else in the body. So your, your body might say, all right, I haven't used my rear delt in about a week. And right now biology only ever cares about survival. And my legs are under extreme stress. So I'm gonna redistribute those amino acids from my rear delt and put them into my leg. My leg will actually hypertrophy and recover, but my total body net protein balance won't go up. So I didn't actually gain muscle from the workout. I just redistributed muscle from one area of the body to another.

To extrapolate that in kind of an analogy in context, it's almost like, well, you've got this rear delt and there's plenty of bricks in the rear delt. They've got all these workers and the workers are kind of busy now. And they're like, well, what do we do? What do we do? We've gotta get to work. And here we are destroying our legs and like, oh, well there's bricks over here, guys, let's just go rob some bricks over here and let's get building. And while your legs might be getting bigger, you're actually sacrificing your legs for say your shoulder growth. So it doesn't make any sense.

Exactly, it's always a battle between muscle protein synthesis and muscle protein breakdown. This provides the stimulus, but it doesn't allow us to fight muscle protein breakdown. So an essential amino acid product would be far superior to a branched-chain amino acid product.

Right, so have you seen the Thorne, the amino complex? The amino complex, that's what I use. That's what you use.

That's what I use, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's what I normally use, but we ran out. So I've been essentially— my one that I brought in, but—

You just wanted to tick me off with that product.

I did, great, great. And we've got this one. This is a probiotic type of formula. It's a new one for, I think.

Oh, we got different probiotics here. We've got our bifido, we've got our lactobacillus. Yeah, so these are the two main types of probiotics that people benefit from. We've got our Lactobacillus and we've got our Bifidobacterium. Now utilizing probiotics, it can be something that can be very beneficial. There's probiotics that have been connected to a lot of different things. For example, Lactobacillus gasseri, that's something that's actually been connected to reducing belly fat, believe it or not. So it's something that's pretty cool. You have your acidophilus, which is something that's very popular, been connected to reducing a lot of different GI symptoms. You have your psycho, Saccharomyces boulardii, which is connected to helping reduce nausea and fight off anything. If you're in a foreign country and you're dealing with something that you otherwise might not be familiar with, these are all things that are pretty good. But when it comes to probiotics, I am a bit of a fan of making sure that especially if someone has gastrointestinal symptoms, that we utilize some lab analysis first. For example, there's actually a metabolite that you can extrapolate from someone's urine known as D-lactate. And if someone has an elevated D-lactate level, it actually becomes contraindicatory to have lactobacillus forms of probiotic supplementation. So what happens is if somebody has an elevated D-lactate, which is actually associated with carbohydrate malabsorption, then including lactobacillus probiotic supplementation can actually further acidify the colon. So it makes your problem worse before it makes it better. So it's something where like I've been big on probiotics. Supplementation in the past, and in almost all cases it's totally safe. But in some cases, just like every other supplement, it's not.

So, so you're testing with a stool test or organic acid test prior?

Yeah. So they're both actually. So I'll have a lot of my clientele, my higher level clientele, go through something known as a Genova Cardio ION panel. And that's an excellent organic acid test when that's where I pick up the D-lactate. But in many cases, I also have people go through a Genova GI Effects panel, which is the stool analysis as well. So we are getting blood, urine, and stool in order to create the most complete plan possible. And D-lactate is something that can be elevated. And I think that happens sometimes because you'll get some people who probiotics will actually bloat them or make them feel worse, or they'll run into, say, diarrhea or bloating, constipation. Something will happen and they just get rid of their probiotic product. But they could have at that time been further acidifying their colon when they're trying to do something that's good for them. So excellent product, but like everything else in nutrition, you gotta use the right tool for the right job.

Then the pushback from probiotics, have you seen that recently? People are like, oh, you know, you don't wanna mess up the gut biome. We don't understand the gut biome. So why are you even putting probiotics in it? Put prebiotics, they're better. Do you have a comment on that?

Yeah, I think prebiotics are something that cause long-term health for the colon. So it's something where it's gonna help you build your own colonies and allow you to fortify a colon and an overall gut environment that leads to long-term success. But probiotics used properly, in my opinion, are something that really help accelerate the process and alleviate short-term symptoms. So something that I always say to my students is the symptom is never the problem. The symptom is always the result of a problem. So when someone has like belching or excessive farting or acid reflux, the problem isn't acid reflux or too much gas. That is the symptom of the problem. It's our job to identify the root cause of that problem, eliminate it at the root causal level so that the symptoms no longer exist. And when it comes to dysbiosis, for example, repopulating a flora can be a good thing so long as you're using the right tool for the right job. So I'm a fan of probiotics, but right tool for the right job.

Awesome. What do we got here? Viagra. Whose was this?

Hagen.

Viagra. Anyone got a bit of a stiffy right now listening to Dan talk about it? Suffer ones?

I think it's pretty convenient that Tyrone showed up and then wanted my opinion on this. This is entirely his idea. This is something that you'd have to think long and hard about. You have to think long and hard before doing this, before physical activity of any kind. That's my comment.

That's great. That's great. Now's a good time to subscribe, by the way, if you're watching this on YouTube. Let's give Dan a round of applause for that segment. It's fantastic. Alrighty, now that that fun stuff's That out the way, if we get into the, I suppose we're already into the meat and veg with it with you, you just bang, pop off straight away. But who is Dan Garner and what does he do? 'Cause you've got a lot of elements to you.

Yeah, I've got a, it's a tough question to answer. I've got so much stuff going on, but essentially I'm Dan Garner, strength coach and nutrition specialist. I'm a functional medicine practitioner. I've got a year-round stable of clientele in the UFC, the MLB, the NFL, WBO, all kinds of different pro athletes and a lot of different banners. On my watch, athletes have won NFL Super Bowls and UFC titles and Olympic gold medals. So I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of high-level people. And I own my own certification program as well for the Ultimate Training Mentorship, the Ultimate Nutrition Mentorship, but also have worked with a ton of hockey players. Being a Canadian, you weren't gonna get away with me not dropping a few hockey references on this show. Yeah, I'm a co-founder of hockeytraining.com.

We won the Stanley Cup together. Yeah, check it out on Instagram.

That's the best image ever.

So how did you find these people? How did you fall into that? I mean, did you go up and approach? Are you cold approaching these people?

No, it was just a classic story of a lot of hard work over a long period of time, man. And it is as simple as that. There are 3 things that give you a big advantage when you get into the industry as far as people people listening to you and seeing you as an authority. The first thing that really helps you out is if you've had a successful bodybuilding physique competition history. Another thing that really helps you out is if you've had a successful athletic history. And the third thing that helps you out is if you get into the industry and you have a PhD. Those three things really allow you to have authority even really before you get any experience. I had none of those things. I did not look like a bodybuilder. I did not have crazy successful athletics and I did not get into the industry with any form of PhD. So all I had was effort. So I created high-quality content for a long period of time. I always had the idea of—

What's a long period of time?

Well, I posted every single day on Facebook about the best quality of the content that I could provide from 2011, 2012 to about 2015. And then the first podcast I ever got invited on was Under the Bar. and that's how a lot of Australians ended up hearing about me. So I guess 3 years every single day of dense content. That's how my name eventually got out there, and then from that eventual podcast, a lot of other people started hearing about me, inviting me on their podcasts, but I've literally wrote hundreds and hundreds of blogs for hockeytraining.com, baseballtraining.com, coachgarner.com, thousands and thousands of posts on Facebook and Instagram, And again, easily over 500 YouTube videos. So just relentless, relentless pursuit. And I've always had the mindset of attention rather than interruption. People are online to be entertained and be informed. So I don't want to interrupt them with, "Hey, come buy my product." I would rather educate and inform them and get them to know, like, and trust me. And you only do that by providing them with as much value as possible. Their time and attention is the best investment they could have ever given me. And I wanted to make sure that every second somebody gave me their time, I provided them value.

So let's talk about UFC and the athletes in the UFC for a moment. I mean, any UFC fans here? I mean, I know there's a few. Oh yeah. They're quite interested in the UFC. Yeah. When you've got an athlete like that, I mean, are you walking out with them? You're doing the walkout? Like where are you? You backstage with them? I'd imagine there would be a lot of, I suppose ownership of, you know, the world is watching one of these big fights. And if this guy doesn't perform, shit, you know, I might be cut. Can you comment on that?

Yeah, well, the nutrition guy doesn't get a lot of props. Evidently, he does not get a lot of props. So for example, when someone gets knocked out in the UFC, there's about 20,000 people in the crowd. There isn't one guy that says, "Oh, I wonder who did his meal plan." There isn't one guy who says that. So I end up staying at home for the entire duration of the process and getting no credit. But I just, I stay at home, I do all I do all of my coaching online and remote through Skype, through phone calls, and I'll send everything to the athletes well in advance so that their entire fight camp is predictable, and I'll send their weight cut so that entire process is predictable. One thing that is my job and is everybody's job in fight camp nutrition is to have the athlete focused on the fight and not focused on the diet. If you follow fighters and you follow their interviews and you know fighters, So many times they're focused on making weight and what's my diet like? Am I gonna be able to make weight? I have to make 185. All of these different things are in the air and I don't want them focused on their diet. I want them focused on their fight. I want them focused on strategy. So I do my job. I get everything to them way in advance, but I ultimately stay at home and don't get credit. So that's how it works.

Are there any nuances that I suppose, you know, in, 'cause you've worked with so many different pro athletes from hockey rugby, baseball, you name it. Are there any nuances when it comes to say fight because they're so intense compared to say, getting in shape or doing powerlifting where the calories I suppose aren't being used as in demand. Are there any nuances with the UFC and the fighters specifically that you do nutrition-wise that's different to other sports?

Yeah, for sure. You do have to focus on things like pain management. Like I talked about with Meriva and stuff like that because they're in many cases training twice per day. A lot of times they will also train more than they tell me to because they're afraid of the fight coming up, you know, which is understandable. You're getting locked in a cage with someone and you're about to throw down until someone stops. So it's something where it's intense and lots of times I'll be told like 2 weeks later, yeah, I was doing 10 rounds on the bag on Sundays too. And just them not telling me. So I kind of have to first see how fighters act and react to things. I have to include some more joint management protocols. I have to have a greater focus on immune system function function throughout the duration of a camp because just being in a state of hypocalorism, so just being in a dieting state, the immune system is going to start to depress. So go through something known as immunodepression. And then beyond that, when you start overtraining, you're going to go through further immunodepression. So we're not eating enough, we're overtraining, and then what's the third thing that's going to cause immunodepression? Stress and anxiety, which is what all fighters have. So I have to ensure there's pain management, I have to ensure there's true immune system function because the immune system is what's actually allowing you recover from training. So I need to make sure they get to the cage and not just survive their way to the cage. And then also dealing with stress and anxiety.

Is the immune system function true for any athlete or any person regardless? Is that a piece that's gonna come up anyone who's in a calorie deficit?

Yeah, for sure. Just some people have a little bit more luxury.

What are your go-tos when you know someone's cutting weight or they're getting ready for a show So what are your go-tos supplementation-wise or food-wise to support that and make sure they don't hit that hole?

Yeah, so there's gonna be a couple of ways in which you can attack this. First and foremost, I treat them like a human before I treat them like a fighter. So a couple of things that are gonna increase their immune system more than any fancy protocol I could put together is stress and sleep optimization. We have their stress and sleep optimization on point, then it's something where that's gonna do way more than anything else is going to do. But beyond that, vitamin C has been demonstrated to improve immune system function. Zinc has been demonstrated to improve immune system function. And one of the most underrated ingredients or nutrients in this area is actually aged garlic extract. Aged garlic extract is kind of a double-pronged thing, especially for fighters, because it's both anti-inflammatory and one of the strongest immune stimulators that you could have. As well.

So let's say you get a call from someone who's always in the spotlight, be it a fighter, be it an actor. They're like, Dan, look, I need your help. Where does Dan start with this?

Yeah, sure. So I really take a combination approach to try and offer them the best experience possible. If anyone ever invests their time in me, I'm always value, value, value, value, value. So when someone comes to me and they want to start up with me, I'm gonna utilize both the science of coaching and the art of coaching because it's the marriage of those two that allows allows the person to have the best possible result. So from the science of coaching aspect, I'm utilizing the scientific literature that we know about caloric intake and macronutrient distribution and nutrient timing. But then I'm also using from the science of coaching lab analysis. So lots of times when someone comes to me, I'll have them go through saliva, urine, stool, and blood analysis. So basically every excrement that I can get my hands on, I wanna have a look at it because I wanna find out where there's any possible weak links in the chain. If there's any root causes in the chain that they haven't uncovered that I can solve so that the organism can adapt better to exercise. So that's essentially a big chunk of what I'm doing from a science perspective. But from an art of coaching perspective, I'm utilizing carefully designed questionnaires to extrapolate certain things about their motivation, their goals, their current lifestyle, their behavior. And then even something as basic as their schedule is gonna allow me to make the meal plan fit the client and not force the client to fit my meal plan. So when I can get an idea on who they are and then I can get an idea on the physiology that they are, then I can merge the science and art of coaching to make the best plan for that person right now.

Moving into a different kind of topic, you have, you're a nutritionist, you're a nutrition guy and you're also functional medicine practitioner, which is a unique combination but at the same time, not a unique combination 'cause they're also a marriage. But what I've seen today, I suppose in the world of nutrition is you have nutrition guys who are very much just about calories in versus calories out and that's really the whole story. And then you've got the functional health practitioners who are, it's all about your hormones, it's all about your gut. It's not about calories in versus calories out. They almost take more of a Gary Taubes insulin index almost approach to things. You're on both sides of the fence. How do you marry those two together? And also I know there's a lot of layers to this question, but you know, who's right in that conversation? Who's wrong? What are both camps missing?

Interesting. I ride the middle of that conversation because that conversation already is within the middle. Anybody that tells you that calories are the only thing that matters doesn't know what they're talking about. Anybody that tells you hormones are the only thing that matters doesn't know what they're talking about. It is a marriage between both. That's where true physiology lies. And to be perfectly honest, the truth almost always lies within the middle when it comes to nutrition and training anyway. Ways. Biology never operates on extremes. We've learned this lesson so many times. So for example, calories in versus calories out. Why does that matter towards something like human metabolism? And because the size of the organism is gonna determine the basal metabolic rate. That's something that's important to care about. Size is more important than anything else when it comes to measuring somebody's true metabolic rate, how many calories they're gonna burn on a day-to-day basis. This, not to mention that the energy balance equation hasn't been disproven in over 50 years of controlled research at this point. So these are the laws of thermodynamics, they're not the laws of Dan Garner.

So if we just get into that, because I do want to get into that, say that someone like Gary Taubes, or I think it's Robert Lustig, who are promoting the insulin theory of fat loss and weight loss, what are they missing fundamentally, do you think?

And they're missing a fundamental respect for the laws of physics, the laws of thermodynamics. And it was actually Gary Jobs funded the research that disproved his own hypothesis. So actually the gold standard in research is metabolic ward studies. Metabolic ward studies are very much like having human rats. You can put human rats in a room, you can give them the exact amount of calories that you want, you can measure the exact amount of calories they're burning per day, and you can get that, you can control every single variable. So in 2015, Kevin Hall, Kevin Hall did metabolic ward research comparing high-carb diets to low-carb diets and put them in a hypocaloric state and then measured the outcome. And this is in a metabolic ward. And then at the end of this study, it was actually high-carb diet lost more weight than the low-carb diet. So if you remember in 2015 when Kevin Hall— if you are running the same nutritional nerd circles that I do, people went absolutely nuts about this, including Gary Taubes. So what happened was everybody went nuts and then further research was funded by the exact same author, Kevin Hall, et al., in 2016, where it wasn't just high carb, low carb. In 2016, they repeated the entire study for 4 weeks in a metabolic ward once again, but compared high carb to full-on ketogenic and they put both, both control groups groups and a 300-calorie caloric deficit. And by the end of the study, both groups got equal weight loss results. Why? Because they had an equal caloric deficit and not because of any high-carb or low-carb differences between both groups. And that second study was actually funded by Taubes.

Hey, hey folks, hope you're enjoying this episode of The Wolf's Den with Dan Gardner. Just a quick message, make sure you subscribe and check out our awesome content. We've done a lot of great episodes with the best minds in health, fitness, and performance, from Tony Doherty to Andrew Lock to Sebastian Oreb, heaps of great content. We'll get back to it in just a sec, but if you wanna join us here at Wolfpack, do visit personaltrainermentoring.com where you can download my free e-classes or my free ebooks, which will help you with your personal training journey. See you on the other side of this epic interview. Where does the insulin resistance piece fit in for you when working with say fat loss physique performance?

It fits in just like everything else. So you have to look at the individual and make the meal plan for the client, not make the, make the client fit your meal plan. So when you look at something such as carbohydrate tolerance, if somebody is running into insulin resistance, insulin resistance isn't the problem. Insulin resistance is the result of the problem. So it's our job as coaches to determine why is this person insulin resistant. Okay, well, simply being in a high percentage of body fat causes insulin resistance. So that's number 1. Number 2, being stressed out causes insulin resistance. Number 3, sleep causes insulin resistance. And number 4, inflammation causes insulin resistance. So when I'm looking at somebody and they are currently insulin resistant, and I guess number 5, genetics can also cause insulin resistance. So if you have somebody with a, if you have a genetic predisposition to diabetes in your family, that's something else that will cause insulin resistance. I guess number 6 would be PCOS females are very insulin resistant and do better on low-carb diets. And I mean, number 7, we could probably go on forever here, but vitamin A, magnesium, and zinc are required for glucose metabolism within the muscle cell. So if somebody has low zinc, vitamin A, or magnesium levels, then that's something that's going to decrease the amount of carbohydrates they can safely metabolize on a on a day-to-day basis without causing inflammation in their body. So when I have someone coming to me and they're insulin resistant, it'd be very silly for me to put them on a high-carb diet because I believe in carbs. At that point, it doesn't become about energy balance anymore. At that point, it becomes about matching the correct protocol for the client in their specific scenario. So they would still be on— they would still have their calories calculated for them, them, but there would be a varying ratio of carbohydrates to fats. If somebody's insulin sensitive, they can have a lot more carbs. If somebody's insulin resistant, we are going to go more fats until we figure out and solve that insulin resistance problem, because they can't stay there for life. So it's simply the right tool for the right job, and that's ultimately what's going to allow that person to move forward. Because there is actually research— it's actually by Cornier et al. And they found when comparing insulin-sensitive subjects to insulin-resistant subjects, it was actually an excellent, excellent research study. And the insulin-sensitive subjects, they lost about, it was, I think it was 13.6 kilos on a low-carb diet. But in the crossover design, when they switched to a high-carb diet, they only ended up losing 6 kilos. But the insulin-sensitive people they lost 13 kilos on a high-carb diet, but only lost 6 kilos on a low-carb diet. So you saw exact opposites. Insulin-sensitive people lost twice as much weight on high carbs, whereas insulin-resistant people lost twice as much weight on low carbs. So it doesn't come down to the insulin hypothesis applies for everybody. It doesn't. It comes down to individual context and applying the right diet for the right person at the right time their progression.

So I'm going to play a little bit of devil's advocate because that's what makes these shows interesting. Say we've got a client and the client— they're on Viagra and they're on Viagra, they're a bit stiff and they're not losing weight and they're not, they're not where they want to be. And is it simply a case— and I say simply, but this is often the, the, you know, the sound bite that gets in media and in people's head— is it simply that they're eating too much, or is it they're, they're eating too much on the wrong diet and what they need to do is is take a, say, a keto approach, get them as if they're insulin— if we identify them as, say, insulin resistant, then build them up, then eventually once they're more able to handle carbs, switch them over to a higher carb diet?

Yeah, so I mean, that's something that you could do, definitely. But in almost all cases, it's because they're eating too much or moving too little. Because if somebody's metabolic rate— even if somebody has the wrong foods, they're still going to lose weight. That's just, that's the laws of thermodynamics once again. So even if you have somebody who's insulin resistant but they're only eating 500 calories per day of carbs, you better bet they're still going to lose weight because they're only eating 500 calories per day.

And if you worked with clients who are like, you know, they swear black and blue in the eye, this is what I'm eating, these are the calories that I'm eating, and then they're not losing weight, they're not getting results, what are your goes-to? I mean, at that point, do we identify that, right, this person's not telling the truth, they've got more of a psychological issue and they need to go see a psychologist rather than see a nutritionist? How do you handle that?

Yeah, I'm glad you asked because it kind of takes us back to previous question regarding hormones and, and actual caloric levels. Because when I say that both sides of the equation are wrong if they pick one side, it's because they're so married. Because the levels of and sensitivity to hormones such as leptin, such as testosterone, such as estrogen, such as thyroid, these all play a huge role in the equation that is your basal metabolic rate. So if somebody does have hormonal dysfunctions, it absolutely can reduce their metabolic rate on a day-to-day basis. So if somebody swears up and down that they are following the plan to the T and it should be a deficit and their training program design is applying progressive overload over time and everything is where it should be, then it's our job to start then investigating and probing with more questions to try and identify what could be going on internally that's causing this weight loss resistance.

Have you ever seen any situations, and I'll give a couple of like theoretical situations where the law of thermodynamics may be bended in slight ways. Let's say for example, you've got a guy and he's doing a whole bunch of performance enhancing drugs, he's roiding up. Do you think in that case, if he keeps his calories the same, he's gonna be able to basically be more insulin sensitive, therefore lose body fat because you've driven, and I say it as an example because he's on the same calories, but if you're boosting testosterone, and in that situation, is he not then gonna be more insulin sensitive even though keeping the calories same, gonna be able to facilitate weight loss or fat loss because he's gonna be building more muscle?

Yeah, well, it wouldn't be bending the law. It would be respecting the law because when you have an elevation in testosterone, your metabolism goes up. So you are going to burn more calories on a day-to-day basis. And you're also gonna be stimulating more protein synthesis on a day-to-day basis. So that energy is going to be preferentially stored into lean tissue, but it's still an energy in, energy out equation at the end of the day.

That's a really interesting point and one that I actually haven't considered before. So how do you then factor in the metabolism or the metabolic rate for someone who say has differences of, you know, high testosterone versus low testosterone? 'Cause now I suppose it opens up, if you're working with someone who's got low testosterone, then they're gonna have less calories really, they're gonna be able to get away with. So is that something that you factor in or able to factor in?

Yeah, you have to be able to factor in and whenever you're talking to somebody who's like a super knowledgeable nutrition coach, at the end of the day, the first program we give them is our best educated guess. No matter how much lab work, no matter how much lifestyle equate questionnaires, no matter how much anything that we have, our first plan is the best educated guess that we could ever fit for them right then and there. But the real money in coaching, and this is what I think really separates the difference between coaches and programmers. A lot of programmers can go shot for shot with guys like me and you about high-level physiology and high-level scientific principles of program design, but when it comes to actually getting results, they fall short because they work— they coach numbers, they don't coach people. And when you learn how to coach people, that's when you're adapting to the program over time. So if somebody has low testosterone, I'm going to do a a couple of things. I'm gonna increase the amount of fats that they have on their day-to-day diet because we have seen from Volek's research that fats actually run linear with anabolic hormone production. So when someone has more fat in their diet, IGF-1, testosterone, and growth hormone are all at higher levels than lower fat diets. So someone has low testosterone, I'm gonna give them a little bit more fat. And also testosterone's highest in the morning. So even though I know it's trivial, I would prefer that they do their workout upon waking because I want to use whatever testosterone they have during their periods of physical activity. So I would kind of start them off that way. But as far as what I would do for this individual and accounting for their metabolic rate, I wouldn't change anything at all with my initial calculations of what deficit and or maintenance and or surplus that I would put them in. That would all come in the magic of coaching and the of coaching is your ability to adapt over time. So like I said, there's a, there's a best educated guess that we can do in the beginning. And then every week after that, I have my clients do a weekly check-in with me. And if things aren't going the way that they should be, I would simply adapt from there. So do your best in the beginning and adjust accordingly based on how their body's responding.

I heard you say something really good on your podcast show, The Gardner Report. You said that a lot of coaches, you know, if the client's coming in and they haven't lost any weight, they freak out. It's like, well, I'm supposed to get this client I need to, they need to lose a kilo and they start stripping carbs out and doing, they freak out. My question to that is, well, what is a long period of time? How long do you see the program out? Let's say the client doesn't get results for 12 weeks. Are you then going, all right, well, something's clearly not working. What's your approach?

Yeah, I'm pretty famous for not doing anything at all and letting people sit at maintenance for about 2 to 3 weeks. That's what I'll do. Lots of times when someone comes to me They've been trying a lot of different things for a long period of time. They, they're coming to me because what they've been doing isn't working. So lots of times I have to kind of clean up the metabolic mess that they currently are. And that can happen very effectively with just putting somebody at maintenance and seeing what happens. So I think that's a true sign of being a confident coach is not your ability to change everything all the time, but your ability to remain patient and allow physiology to adapt over time. Because one thing we know for sure is biology always responds to averages over time. Nobody gets in shape with one great week of training. Nobody gets in shape with one week, one great week of dieting. Biology always responds to averages over time. I'll put somebody at maintenance for 2 to 3 weeks, put them at a good— put them on a good training program for 2 to 3 weeks, allow physiology to adjust and then we'll see how everything shakes out at the end of 2 to 3 weeks. 'Cause it's only at that point where we probably would have had a meaningful difference in changes of stress, changes of testosterone, changes of DHEA, changes of sleep quality, needing to catch up on sleep debt. These things all take time. So I'm very big on just sitting back and seeing how their physiology relax, and then I'll, I'll reax, and then I'll adjust accordingly from there.

What'd you eat for breakfast this morning?

This morning? I trained upon waking and then I had protein and carbohydrates right after my training supplementation. And then after that, I just went right to lunch and I had meat and rice.

So it was a liquid, liquid train, fasted, liquid protein.

That's right.

Yep. Question you must get asked all the time. What should I eat?

What should I eat for breakfast?

What should I eat? I mean, metaphorically people coming up to you, Dan, what do I eat? I wanna get lean, I wanna get bigger. What do I eat?

Yeah, well, if anybody is coming and they're super general, then that's somebody who would just benefit a lot of just basically going on a, on a whole food, minimally processed diet. You know, if it's somebody who doesn't want to do caloric equations, if it's somebody in an elevator asking me what they should eat, it's pretty simple. Have a protein source with every single meal and have whole minimally processed carbohydrates because they're not going to that are gonna kill you and have natural fats. And the type of fat source that's been demonstrated repeatedly in the research to have the most wide array of health benefits would be monounsaturated fats. So things like avocado, extra virgin olive oil, raw nuts, natural nut butters, those types of things. Basically, you know, I, I have critiqued the diet in the past, but for general people, the Paleo diet is actually not a bad idea. Getting in more protein and having— eliminating all the crap is what a lot of general people would benefit a lot from. But if you're an athlete or a top business exec or something, then we're going to need a longer conversation.

So how do you weigh in on something like if it fits your macros and the, you know, Pop-Tarts, make them fit in, and that kind of thing?

Yeah, well, the if it fits your macros, or IIFYM, that's something that actually it wasn't born as an excuse to eat crap. It was born— IIFYM was actually a diet that was created in this old thing that used to exist called forums. Forums. Yeah, and it was actually a bodybuilding.com nutrition forum where IIFYM was born. And what was continually happening was people were for they were misrepresenting the fact that biology responds to averages over time. So you've got— no one food will ever make you unhealthy. Only diets can make you unhealthy. So provided you're making more good decisions than bad decisions, your biology is gonna respond positively over time. And people were thinking that single foods were going to destroy their health. You'd get very orthorexic people that would freak out about things. So what was happening over time is people were doing 95% of the process perfectly— whole minimally processed foods, calories, macros, the whole deal, and from all clean foods. And then they'd be like, I'm going out on Saturday night, can I have white potato? If it fits your macros, you can. You're fine, you're not gonna die. And then someone else would say, you know, can I have white rice Can I eat white rice post-meal instead of brown rice? If it fits your macros, you're gonna be fine. Can I go out for Valentine's Day dinner with my wife? Of course you can. You're not gonna die. Make it fit your macros. So then, if it fits your macros was said so often that everyone got lazy and turned it into IIFYM. You know, like a bunch of proper Aussies, it was just shortened. The word was just shortened right down to its nominal form. I'm surprised an O Totally. So that's how it was born. And provided you're making more good decisions than bad decisions, it's not something that needs to be taken into, not needing to be something that is critiqued, I would say. Once again, it is the marriage of, this is what I essentially, it's just how I approach nutrition. It's from the outside in and the inside out. The outside in is all the factors that we know from the research that apply to people. So getting in your calories in the correct point, getting your protein, carbs, and fats at the correct point, and getting all of this research from the outside in to be able to apply to that client. But then we also have to care about the inside out because that matters just as much. So their hormonal balance, their inflammation, their sleep, their gut health, all of these factors, their personal lifestyle, all these things need to be married in one. And if you can have a treat every single week and that allows you to maintain your diet over the long term, then that's something that you should do because consistency beats intensity 10 times out of 10. Nobody, like I said, nobody gets in shape off one week of dieting. People get in shape off 16 weeks of dieting. So if having a treat fitting in your macros allows you to maintain 16 weeks of a deficit, it rather than 2 weeks of a wildly extreme approach, then do it because consistency beats intensity every time.

So I see in nutrition, and love to get your thoughts on this, is again coming back to the 2 sides of the pole where, you know, you've got the if it fits your macros crowd, you've got the hormone crowd, and they're just violent, for a lack of a better word, towards each other. And then there's everyone in between. But, you know, if you get out of line, you say something about calories, you know, you get attacked you get attacked from the If It Fits Your Macros. If you say something about, you know, it's all about calorie, you get attacked from this side. How have you struggled with that? I mean, I know you're very balanced and having a great conversation, very balanced on things, but looking at this world of nutrition, it really isn't reflective, I think, on good practitioners, but where is this, I suppose, polarization born out of? What do you think of it?

I think polarization is born out of people just needing attention. Online. I think that's one. I think a lot of people don't know how to market themselves at all, so they try to be extreme with their approach and then that'll get you attention. So that's, I think, number two. I think number three is just a complete ignorance towards the knowledge of the data because it's absolutely silly. So for example, like we talked about, if you got two people of equal weight and equal height and equal activity, but I put that guy on 600 milligrams grams of testosterone per week and this guy on 100, he's gonna have a better body composition because it impacted his metabolism. So it's an extreme example, sure, but it is an example of the effect that hormones can have on your metabolic rate and therefore your calories in versus calories out. So inside out matters. In turn, your calories in versus calories out, we know that if we exceed our calories in versus calories out for too long, we are gonna gain weight. And that weight gain is gonna cause a transient increase in estrogen and drop in testosterone. Testosterone. Therefore, that guy is going to have less protein synthesis. He's gonna have more protein breakdown, less energy, and that's also something that's gonna cause insulin resistance over time. That's gonna impact his metabolism. So to say that those two aren't connected is absolutely bizarre. We need to be able to marry both, and that's why I have never struggled with it, because I don't see the argument. I avoid the argument online because they're— they have the same point. They're both saying the exact same thing. They're just using different angles at which to get there.

As people try to pull you into that argument, I imagine quite frequently.

Yeah, but I'd never do any of that stuff online. Yeah, you could scroll back for 10 years. I've never been in an online debate and I never will.

Wow, fist bump for that.

I never ever will.

Yeah, so if you're watching this on YouTube, make sure you leave comments. No, I'm joking. Fasting, that's been all the rage, keto and fasting, but let's not talk about keto on this one, but fasting, is that something you implement with you guys? Is that something you do for mental clarity? What are your thoughts on fasting?

I don't do any kind of fasting. It's a part of my jet lag protocol. So I did a podcast called The Ultimate Jet Lag Protocol. And fasting has been demonstrated to dramatically reduce jet lag symptoms, even of water retention, energy loss, all of this stuff. So it's something where if you fast 48 hours prior to your flight and then have your first meal in the new country at their time, And that's something that can really help. But overall with fasting, it's something where it's, again, it's the right tool for the right job. As far as the literature is concerned right now, it's something that can be great for fat loss and muscle retention during fat loss, but not— seems to fall short in terms of muscle gain. So if somebody is interested in fasting, I would utilize that approach more so for a diet than I ever would for a bulk working phase.

And have you seen any research that indicates it's better for males than it is for females?

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, actually Precision Nutrition did a pretty cool thing about that too. So they've gone over the research in that and then Dr. Krista Scott-Dixon, who's somebody who I respect greatly, she went through it and saw a lot of metabolic hiccups that otherwise weren't there in her regular meal frequency pattern.

So if you're female, avoid the fasting. If you're male, you're okay. It's actually funny you said about fasting, 'cause I know when I jump on a plane to go to another country, I just choose not to eat. I just fast. People go, what are you doing? I'm fasting. I just don't want to eat the food because it sucks, it's airplane food, but I, I'm fasting. Hey, who got you into doing what you're doing today?

Um, as far as like how I got into the health industry in general, like who would you influence?

Is there someone who's influenced you and your mindset?

And, uh, uh, not really. I've, uh, I've had many influencers who've taught me things and have got me excited about stuff, but when I first got out into the industry, it was, I had my back up against the wall. So a lot of people don't know, I did terrible in high school, absolutely awful grades in high school, because I just didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't really care about anything at that point. So after high school, I graduated, and then I got in a job as a, in a machine shop. And was looking back on it, I could have been considered at a certain level of depression. I was so unhappy with my life. And all the guys in the machine shop hated the jobs, they hated their boss, they hated how much money they were making, they hated their wives. It was just like, I was like a 17-year-old kid and being impressionable on all these guys, like, is this life? This is terrible. And then the best thing that ever happened to me was that I got laid off 3 and a half years into that job, and the company wasn't actually making enough airplanes to pay everybody. So then I ended up getting laid off and I saw it as a second chance at life. And I went back to school, went through college, finished that thing, got on the floor as a personal trainer and went forward from there. And when I was in the machine shop, I was actually not working and usually researching training and nutrition the whole time. I ran something known as the water jet, which actually operated about 8 hours all by itself. So I'd get paid for being on those weird forums and reading. And then I was already doing the training and nutrition programs for everybody in the machine shop already in there. So I just knew that that was my true calling. And when I got out of the machine shop, I went absolutely insane and have not stopped going insane ever since.

So when you look back at your life, you know, you said, like, how old were you when you found, wow, this is what I want to do with my life?

I think that I knew it earlier, but I didn't have the self-confidence to go through with it. I just think that I was like, ah, I got bad grades in school. I don't know what I'm going to do. I like training, but I don't know about being a coach. I was doing all that about 17 to 20. I was in the machine shop with those, not a lot of confidence. And then once I actually got into college, I realized how much I knew because I was in college and then I was actually tutoring the year above me when I got into college in my first year. And I was like, okay, I know a lot more than everybody in here and I'm the guy who came from the machine shop. What's going on? And it was like the first time in my life I actually felt intelligent about something. Cause I never did good in high school. And then I was just a machine shop guy. And then, uh, and then I got into college and all of a sudden I was the smart guy getting good grades and tutoring the year above me in the exact same course as me. So it was, uh, I think at that point then I started building confidence and then I was designing programs for the other students in my grade and even the grade above me. And while I was in school, I went so crazy that I got 6 certifications while I was in school. So on top of the curriculum, I did 6 more certifications on top of that curriculum. And it's funny that you ask because I used to listen to Maximus Mark radio.

No way.

Yes, sir.

Oh my God.

True story, true story. I put them on these old things called CDs and I used to have Maximus Mark and they would actually actually only 1 or 2 episodes would fit per CD. And I would listen to that. It was a commute to London, Ontario to Brantford, Ontario every day. And it was about 90 minutes of commuting there and back. And I'd put on a Maximus Mark episode. So you were doing podcasts before podcasts were cool.

That is true, honestly. So for those who don't know, my, I suppose, name used to be Maximus Mark and it was maximusmark.com. And I was doing podcasts back in 2010. And I'll tell you the story how I got into podcasts. Podcasting was I read Randy Roach's book, uh, Muscle, Smoke, and Mirrors, and I thought it was the most phenomenal thing I ever, ever read.

Yeah.

And I thought, well, I'm just going to do a review of this book. And I put it up online, I sent it to the guy, said, hey Randy, I don't want anything for this, I just— your work, you've touched me as a person because, uh, you're, you're blind and you've written 3 volumes in history, and I just can't fathom what you've gone through to put this together. I just want to say thank you. And he emailed me straight back with like within 10 minutes. And was like, well, that is the nicest thing anyone's done for me. Um, if you want to have a chat, feel free. If you want anything else. And I was like, wow, of course, you're Randy Roach. Uh, 100%.

Yeah.

Um, can we have a chat? And then I asked him on the phone, can we do a podcast? And he said, yeah, sure. So after that, I didn't have a podcast show at that point. I spoke to my web guys and I said, I just interviewed the most amazing person. What do I do with this? How do I put this up online? And their immediate answer was, oh, just put it up on iTunes, we'll just start a podcast show. I was like, okay. And then when I had it, I was like, well, they've just gone to the— I've just spent money to develop a podcast show, I might as well just get the feelers out and interview a bunch of people.

Yeah, for sure.

That is so funny, dude.

I listened to it and I actually had the thought in the cab ride on the way over here that you were doing podcasts before podcasts were cool. And this video show is something that no one else is doing with the studio audience and all this other stuff.

So I like to be—

I applaud you for being innovative Innovative, man.

Well, it's one of our values. There it is, innovation.

Oh, innovation's right there. Yeah, right on.

Yeah, I gotta be innovating constantly. Yeah, let's get back to the interview. Let's do the one-word game to wrap up the show.

Let's do it.

So the one-word game, if you haven't played this before, it's, you know, I say, say if I said Batman, or if I said, sorry, let me say that again. If I said superhero, you might say Batman, for example. So you ready to go?

Oh dear.

Superhero.

Batman.

Favorite food. Burger. Most hated food?

Cilantro.

Favorite exercise?

Oh, wide pronated grip pull-ups.

Athlete you admire?

Anderson Silva.

Oh, he was just in Australia. My brother just met him.

Yeah.

Go-to supplement?

Creatine.

Least favorite supplement?

BCAA.

Bodybuilding mag Muscle and fitness. For breakfast, Dan eats?

Eggs, omelets every time. Except in Australia, I guess.

Mine is scrambled eggs every time. Movie you love?

Into the Wild.

Most common nutritional pitfall?

Carbs make you fat.

A good book or book you gift most?

Alan Aragon's first book, The Girth Control or something like that.

Underrated food most people should eat more of.

Blueberries.

A comfort food.

Burgers again.

Which burgers? Have you been to Grilled in Australia?

Yeah, I had to, no, I went to a healthy burger place and they put beetroot and an egg on my burger and I died of happiness.

But you haven't been to Grilled yet? No. Oh, we gotta go to Grilled. We are going to Grilled. A podcast you listen to?

I listen to Under the Bar.

A mentor or peer you respect?

Dr. John Verrardi and Dr. Christopher Scott Dixon.

We are at a bar, what are we drinking?

Moscow Mules.

Protein powders?

Whey isolate.

Veganism?

Eh.

Fasting?

It's okay for dieting.

CrossFit?

Eh.

Something you want to see less of? Something you want to see more of? Pasta. Hobby or pastime? Boxing. Biggest nutritional myth?

Carbs make you fat.

An athlete or celebrity you wish you could consult for?

Sidney Crosby.

So Dan, this was a blast. Where can people learn more about you?

You can learn more about me on Instagram at @dangarnernutrition. You can learn more about me and my courses at coachgarner.com and on Facebook at Dan Garner Strength Coach and Nutrition Specialist. Or if you're into the fitness business world, you can catch me at createfreedom.com and @createfreedomcoaching on Instagram.

So you've got the 3, the 3 products, I believe the mentoring for nutrition, the mentoring for training, and the mentoring for business, is that right?

Yes, that's right.

Yeah, awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you for watching another episode of The Wolf's Den. Be sure to subscribe and ring that bell while you're at it as well to make sure you get all of our updates. Make sure you follow Dan on Instagram and stay tuned to the Enterprise Fitness Instagram and my Instagram. Till next time, folks, train hard, supplement smart, and eat well.