WIRED TO EAT | WHY DO WE GET FAT? | ROBB WOLF

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Wellness force radio episode 103 with best selling author Rob Wolf.

You can't burn too much time in the people, they don't want help. But there's also a lot of people who will start into a change in nutrition or exercise or, you know, just lifestyle or what have you and they'll motor along and they're getting success, they're doing really well. And then you see them just implode and self destruct. And when you talk to these people, you get a common story that emerges and they basically start getting this internal dialogue that goes something to the following. This is really hard. I see people around me doing this and they make it look easy. There must be something wrong with me. So I'm just going to give up. I'm a failure, I'm morally flawed, you know, what have you, and it's just kind of off to the races. The fact this is hard indicates that, you know, we have this mismatch between our genetics and our current environment and everything that made our ancestors successful. Everything that brings us to the spot that we are at today is the reason why today is hard.

What's up, my friend? It's Josh Trent and welcome back to another episode. This is your weekly access to global experts in all things wellness, behavior change and new technologies. In this podcast, together, we'll discover the connections between our emotions and healthy habits to live life well and enjoy the process. This podcast is brought to you by Perfect Supplements, a company who actually walks the talk with their values of pesticide free non GMO real food supplements. The fuel us for the wellness journey, save money, support the show, get more wellness. In the process, head over to perfectsupplements.com wellnessforce Enter code wellnessforce to save 10% off your entire order. Have you or the people close to you ever struggled with cravings and appetite that sometimes seems out of control? Have you ever felt anger or frustration with your relationship with food? My excitement for this episode could not be bigger because you're in for an incredible podcast with the one and only Rob White Wolf. If you felt those feelings, you're not alone. There are millions of people in the country and the world that feel the exact same way. And Rob is going to uncover for us today there are peer reviewed scientific reasons and decades of research to back up the fact that we are all wired to eat and how this modern world is set up to capitalize on just that part of our biology. But the incredible news that Rob will share is that we can all use wellness technology and learn from decades of research and from millions of people that Rob's work has positively affected through Ancestral Health and the Paleo Diet framework to finally take that deep breath and trust the process utilizing a 30 day reset and a 7 day carb test that'll help you determine what amounts and types of carbohydrates your specific body can tolerate for. No more guessing because now we can find out for ourselves based on science which foods we can and cannot eat instead of just relying on some B.S. one size fits all framework. You know, after 100 shows, this goes down as one of my top three most in depth, authentic and powerful conversations I've ever had on the podcast. And as you'll discover in the show, not only does Rob unpack clarity around ketosis, anti predation, the normal fed state, optimum foraging strategy, neuroregulation of appetite, reductionism, thinking and the four pillars of health, but he also shares openly about his path and inspiration to serve millions of people. After losing his parents at an early age to health conditions, Rob's heart is huge. You're gonna feel it from his work and in his voice. Let's jump right in to this incredible conversation with my mentor, Rob Wolf. Rob Wolf is a former research biochemist, health expert and author of the New York Times bestseller the Paleo Solution and the highly anticipated new book coming out this month, Wired to Eat. He's been a review editor for the Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism and the Journal of Evolutionary Health, serving on the Board of Directors for the Specialty Health Medical Clinic in Reno, Nevada. Rob is a consultant for the Naval Special Warfare Resiliency Program and a former California State powerlifting champion in Blue Belt and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. With a one of a kind, genuine and down to earth presence in his top ranked podcast, his speaking and writing, Rob has a powerful way of cutting to the fat to give his community clarity in the sometimes misleading nutrition research out there. Rob truly leads from the front with a personal ethos that drives him to influence millions of lives across the world towards better health and wellness. Rob, welcome to the show.

That was the best intro bio I have ever had. Thank you man.

So excited for today man. I mean at this point millions of people Rob, have been affected by your work. And I'm curious, man, with all the info about you, with your podcast and everything online, what's something that most of us don't know about you?

Oh, man, I am a huge sci fi geek, so I love reading sci fi novels. Like, that's kind of my unwinding time. So that might be something that, you know, I do my. Do my diligence in the health and medical research, but then when I really want to crack out and relax, a good sci fi novel is where it's at.

Yes. Now, do you enjoy Neil DeGrasse Tyson's work?

I do. I haven't followed a ton of it, but I do like its work. Yeah.

Well, man, this is such a cool moment for me and for the Wellness Force community. Rob, I've always considered you to be my quasi virtual mentor. Since 2011, in AHS we met for the first time. I have this vivid memory of asking you a question while this NBC reporter was breathing on my neck. And I asked you, what do you say to people that don't believe in this paleo or ancestral health framework? That it's a fad. I remember you responding. I have hundreds of emails in my inbox of people reversing life ending conditions. So if they aren't ready to receive my message, then F them. So I just had to share that. Man, it was such a cool memory.

I've softened my message a little bit, but, you know, and also we've been really fortunate. And so I guess maybe a little bit of background. When I first happened onto this stuff in 1998, there was no Paleo Physicians Network. There wasn't an Ancestral Health Symposium or an Ancestral Health Society. It was maybe about 200 crazy people, you know, researchers, mainly anthropologists, a few physicians that were talking about this whole topic. And so over the course of time, we, you know, we've had some really remarkable growth in this scene. You know, Chris Kresser now has a evolutionary medicine certification that he's providing for healthcare providers. Right. The Cleveland Clinic is now teaching their graduates functional medicine. So it's a really different world. And so although we still need lots and lots more health care providers, you know, when somebody has a problem these days, there is usually someone within half a day's drive that can legitimately help them, that will look at their problem through the lens of this ancestral health perspective. And I just, I think it's such a powerful tool that is still unfortunately underutilized, but it's really changing rather rapidly.

This past winter, I got the privilege of hearing you speak at Mark Devine's Unbeatable Mind Retreat. And the message just inspired me so much. That was why I was so excited to have you on the show and share your message. And I know you're going to be asked this question many times this year about, you know, why you wrote your book. But I want to know, Rob, the emotion behind why you write the book. This book came through you. I feel like this was an incredible path for you to actually put this out. How do you see this changing the health habits for people in our modern world? And what was your emotion behind writing the book?

Oh, man, you know, a really, really good question and hopefully I can do justice to it with the answer. And it's going to be a little bit convoluted. This Paleo diet thing, which is the orientation of my first book, clearly is really, really powerful. It's helped a lot of people, but it's also like on some levels, it has kind of a market. It's like cavemen, really. You know, I don't get it. And also the people even who have had success with Paleo, they tend, as all humans do, to take the things that they value, write them in stone, and kind of turn it into religious doctrine. And so you had this kind of wacky element where people would say, this is the one true way, you know, which really isn't that helpful for getting other people to give something a sniff. But all that stuff said, I moved to Reno, Nevada about five years ago. Guess a little more than that now. And when I arrived here, I met some folks who run a medical clinic here. And they were just wrapping up a two year pilot study with the Reno police and Reno Fire Department. And they had found 35 people at high risk for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. They got these people eating a low carb Paleo diet. They modified their sleep and exercise as best they could. And based off the changes in their blood work and their health risk assessment, it's estimated that the pilot study alone has saved the city of Reno about $22 million with a 33 to 1 return on investment. And this was just like mind blowing to me. I had suspected that we could see savings like that. I suspected we could see efficacy like that. But I didn't really have anything to hang my hat on. Lots and lots of anecdote, one person here, one person there. So this was really huge. And it told me, okay, whatever marketing issues or image issues this Paleo diet concept may have, however annoying people may get when they, you Know, they have their life saved and then they become super annoying about the whole process. This is still something that's really valuable that people need to hear about. But there was also, in the work that I had done previously, it was pretty mechanistic and that it's like, hey, just do this, get on board. Or to your point, you know, when I was talking to the, you know, or bounce, you know, there's somebody behind you that wants your slot. And that's on the one hand, when you, you know, you can't, you can't burn too much time in the people that really don't want help. But there's also a lot of people who will start into a change in nutrition or exercise or, you know, just lifestyle or what have you, and they'll motor along and they're getting success. They're really well. And then you see them just implode and self destruct. And when you talk to these people, you get a common story that emerges and they basically start getting this internal dialogue that goes something to the following. This is really hard. I see people around me doing this and they make it look easy. There must be something wrong with me. So I'm just going to give up. I'm a failure. I'm morally flawed, you know, what have you. And it's just kind of off to the races. And looking at this through this kind of evolutionary biology perspective, I always, you know, I've been kind of like taken aback. I'm like, no, no, no, you don't understand. Like, the fact this is hard indicates that, you know, we have this mismatch between our genetics and our current environment and everything that made our ancestors successful, everything that brings us to the spot that we are at today, is the reason why today is hard. You know, we're. We live in remarkable abundance. We have access to every imaginable food and flavor combination and a bunch of stuff that was unimaginable just a few years ago.

Nachos.

Yeah, nachos. Chili cheese. Nachos, you know, jalapeno chili cheese. You know, it just goes on and on. And if you expect that an organism that evolved to barely eke out into an existence on the planet is thrown into a situation where it can order food to its front door. The food is delicious, and it comes in an infinite variety of options. And you can heat that up and eat it while you watch TV or crack out on social media, and you think that that's not going to be an addictive, difficult process to decouple from. You're Nuts, man.

I really love the part where you talked about people's viewpoint. They see others having success, but then there's a story, there's a narrative saying, I can't do it. You actually wrote about this in your book. This is one of my favorite quotes. You said, we often tell ourselves stories about why we are a certain way, why we can or can't change. The common denominator with most of the stories is fear. Fear of change, of failure or wasting time. The fear sends logical mind searching for credible reasons why embarking on this new solution is a bad idea. Can you tell us about that?

Yeah. You know, so none of us want to look like idiots, you know, I know I don't. One of the things that I do almost daily to put me in a. I wouldn't say a fearful spot, but a spot where my idiocy and incompetency is constantly exposed is going to Brazilian jiu jitsu. Like, there's no. There's no lying there. Like, you. You understand where you are in the pecking order and what's going on. And it's a gut check. There's some days that I just don't want to go. I see certain cars in the parking lot and I'm like, oh, God, I'm going to get my ass.

Get that feeling in your stomach?

Yeah, yeah. And I just want to leave. But it's that. That kind of. That ranking and that. That, you know, the. Again, kind of the ego check. But none of us want to look like idiots. None of us want to be seen as failures. And so even though, let's say we might be overweight or have health issues, we can say, you know, like, for myself, I could say, well, both my parents had type 2 diabetes. My mom had autoimmune disease. Is it any surprise that I'm in the situation that I'm in? And it would be really easy to just kind of relax into that and give up. And is as much improvement in my health as I've had In the last 20 years, I'm still not perfect. Like, I still have some GI problems. I still have some issues. And what this forces me to do is to get in. I have an option. I have a choice. I can accept that level as my new norm and just kind of motor along with that, or I can keep putting myself out there, admitting that I don't have all the answers and continue asking questions and continue making myself vulnerable in the hopes that maybe I can get that next 5% or 2% or whatever it is. Improvement in my health and performance. I have a wife that I love. I have two daughters that I want to see grow up and hopefully see them have kids at some point. So I really want to be in this fight for the long haul. So I have some really compelling whys to affect this stuff. But there are a lot of people that for whatever reason, maybe super critical home environment or whatever the deal is, when they're faced with something like changing their diet or modifying their exercise regimen or what have you, they just don't want to fail again. And I think one of the stats I maybe mention in the book, 40, 60 million Americans a year attempt a diet sometimes four to five times a year, and virtually all of them fail. And I actually kind of open up the book with kind of that point. And I say, if you were smart, you would probably set this book down and run screaming away from it. It's an undernight book for trying out loud. But, you know, I try to do all that stuff so that I'm not the expert on the mountain. I'm in this just like everybody else is in it. I've got a little bit more expertise, possibly a little more insight. And I think maybe if there's something different with me, I was so incredibly sick. Like I didn't think I was going to live to see my mid-30s. Like I was really, really sick. And what that did is it lit a fire under me that, you know, life is short. My ego is rarely, if ever, of particular benefit to me. But if I really want to see and experience the things that I want out of this life, I need to shelve that and I need to constantly put myself in these vulnerable situations where I can continue to grow. And that's like on a professional level, health level, what have you.

Yeah. One of the things I've always felt from you since I came across your work, I think it was 2010 actually, is that as your success has grown, Rob, you have always had two feet on the ground. I mean, you have always been one of these guys in the industry that is putting out incredible content that's life changing. But you don't let it get to your head. I mean, looking at the limbic brain, because I want to set the stage. Many people maybe haven't heard of you from Wellness Force Community yet. So I want to talk a little bit about your background and then really dive into the neuroregulation of appetite and talk about your concepts in the book. But how have you maintained that? I mean, how have you kept your feet on the ground. How have you trained your limbic brain to not become so star studded?

Oh, man, I haven't thought a lot about that. One thing, I have an Italian wife and so they're really good at basically taking you down at the kneecap if you start feeling a little big for your britches. I've also, I've had some mentors who were incredibly influential to me, but who grew into honestly terrible people. I got to watch them up close and personal, develop a degree of fame, develop a degree of financial success, and it did nothing to improve them as human beings. Now the work that they did, arguably, is still really valuable and helps lots of people. So it's this kind of interesting duality where you have a person who has become arguably, and this is my opinion, again, you know, the qualifier on that. But yeah, they've become a quote, bad person, but yet they do a lot of good work. But what I, what I took from that was I would really, you know, love to have as much reach as I can and as much success as I can. And I would still like to not be an asshole at the end of that process. You know, I would like to be someone that, you know, if somebody saw me in the supermarket, they're like, hey, we're having brunch today. Bring the family over. And they wouldn't be like, oh, man, I just did it because I felt obligated, you know, versus they actually want to come hang out with us and stuff like that. So it's. I learned a lot watching some people go from relative obscurity to some significant success. And I really had a front row opportunity to decide how do I want to manage that process.

Yeah. And you made it about the mission. I think that is the thing that's so powerful and authentic. One of my friends here in San Diego last year was speaking at the Organifi event. I asked her before she got on stage, do you ever get nervous? And she was like, it's not about me, it's about the mission.

Right.

Not about me and my ego. So I love that you said that, Rob. And you know, in your 20s, man, you have a really powerful story that you came from really the bottom of the Ocean, your late 20s, diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. You went from 180 to 135. And then this phone call from your mom changed your life forever. What was that phone call?

So my mom had had an interrelated host of health issues for years. For as long as I can remember, she had her gallbladder removed in her 30s. She developed type 2 diabetes in her late 30s. And she just always seemed kind of broken. And it was right around this time that I had some really significant health problems that my mom went in the hospital and her heart and lungs were just about on fire. The pericardium and the lining of her lungs were so inflamed that she couldn't transport oxygen and carbon dioxide in and out of the lungs. The heart wasn't working properly. They put her on some really heavy duty anti inflammatories and immunosuppressant drugs and it saved her life. And through the course of some routine testing, out of that whole process, the rheumatologist figured out that she had celiac disease. And she was pretty likely intolerant or reactive to virtually all grains, legumes and dairy. So she told me this, and at the time I was eating kind of a vegan diet. I was just trying it as an attempt to improve my health.

Was there any morality attached to it or was purely a health decision to go that route?

99% a health decision? I mean, I was trying, trying to get fired up about the morality piece as well, because it supports the overall picture that you've got going on. But it was mainly about trying to find improvements in my own health. And you mentioned I went from a pretty lean and muscular £180. I was a former California state powerlifting champion. And my ulcerative colitis was so bad that I eventually got to about 130, 135 pounds from malabsorption. I was just starving to death. My hair was falling out, my nails were, were cracked and splitting and falling out.

And this is in your 20s?

This is in my 20s, yeah. So this is the point that I was making that I really didn't think I was going to make it to my 30s. And then when my mom described all this stuff, I'm like, so you've got a lot of GI problems? She's like, yeah. And I'm like, is it like ulcerative colitis? She's like, well, it's different, you know. And I talked to a rheumatologist, but I started thinking, I'm like, no grains, no legumes, no dairy. Wow. What the heck do you eat if you don't eat that? You know, that seemed like everything. And it was really kind of a wacky train of thought, literally this kind of gestalt moment. And it popped into my head, okay, grains, legumes and dairy, that's all agriculture. What did we eat before agriculture. It was hunter gatherers. What's a hunter gatherer diet? Oh, a Paleo diet. I'd heard this term somewhere even back in the mid to late 90s. So I wandered into my house, turned on my computer, waited for the dial up to do its gig and there was this newfangled search engine called Google. And into Google I put the term Paleo diet. And I discovered some work of some guys like Loren Cordain and Arthur Devaney. And they described like the anti predation chemicals that are found in grains and legumes, some of the immunoreactivity that goes along with dairy. And it really described to a T what I was experiencing. And so this was my, you know, first exposure to this, this type of stuff. And I basically adopted a low carb paleo type diet. It was like a switch was flipped and for the first time in my life, I didn't have to eat every hour and a half to two hours or face a catastrophic hypoglycemic event. I could go a day without eating once I got fully adapted to this stuff and I would be hungry, but I was completely functional. I felt good, I was leaner than I'd ever been in my life and it was just effortless. I mean, that was the remarkable thing, you know, coming from a Thai boxing and a powerlifting background, I had to work my fanny off to try and stay in any modicum of, you know, reasonable body composition and doing this stuff like it was effortless and I felt great. All this inflammation went away. I tried to get my mom to do the same thing. And I had some buy in, but not particularly much. I couldn't get any buy in from my dad. And that was one of the big kind of heartrending elements to this. And I still face it to this day. I encounter people that I'm pretty sure I've got a good notion about what's going on with them. And I could probably help them if I could get them to try this stuff for 30 days. And you never want to be the crazy person who sounds like, you know, they're like a medium or a psychic or something. And you never know where people are in their journey and their experience. And so I'm reticent sometimes when we're just out and about to really bring any of this stuff up. But it's been a interesting process. But yeah, I went from, you know, really, really, really sick, thinking I was going to die, expecting I was going to die, and then kind of getting a reprieve. And so, man, I didn't let a lot of grass grow under my feet with that. Like, I know what it's like to start facing major surgery and the uncertainties of an early demise, and I really don't want to play with that ever again. So it's made the rest of my process relatively easy. Like, I suffered so much. Everything else, you know, it's like, oh, but you can't eat French bread anymore. And it's like, yeah, that's fine.

Not that big of a deal.

Yeah, corn chips every once in a while. And I'm good that French. That is great. But the corn chips are pretty darn good. And I can have those every once in a while and not suffer the problem. So I'm okay.

One of the things that I think people can feel from you is just the way that you're so open. And in the book, specifically around the 100 page mark, you talk about so powerfully, how this experience where you couldn't get your dad to alter his ways. And in 2005, he was lost from a heart attack. And then you lost your mom in 2013, you also wrote about your wife's mom, Candy, who died in 2003 from rheumatoid arthritis. And in this twist of fate, the same rheumatologist who worked with your mom and her autoimmune triggers, which essentially led you to the Paleo diet, was also Candy's rheumatologist. Can you tell us about that and then we'll talk about the concepts of your book?

Yeah. So, I mean, so I'm not a religious person. I'm not even really spiritual. I'm kind of like, it's positrons and electrons. When you're dead, you're dead. But every once in a while, I just kind of wonder. And here's one of those, you know, it'll make you wonder moment. So I had decided, for a variety of reasons, to leave Seattle and move back down to Chico, California, which is where I did my undergrad. I was actually getting ready to open a CrossFit gym, which was to be the fourth CrossFit affiliate on the planet. And I drove basically in a single shot. I think I stopped to get gas once, peeing in a bottle, you know, the whole way from Seattle to Chico. And I pulled into Chico, pulled in front of a coffee shop, because having lived in Seattle, the one thing that I was really nervous about, moving to rural Northern California, you know, are these heathens gonna have any good coffee? And so I wandered into this coffee Shop. And there were a couple of misanthropic looking girls huddled around this counter. And I walked up to the counter and I said, hey, do you guys roast your own beans? And the girl behind the counter looked at me and she said, no. And she went back to talking to her friends. I said, okay, do you know anybody in town who does roast their own beans? And she said, cal Java. Then she went back to her friends, said, where's Cal Java? And she said, on the other side of town, back to her friends. And this person ended up being Nikki, who is now my wife. And this was the very first person I encountered upon returning to Chico, California. And when I saw her, she was sad. Like, she was talking to these girlfriends. But unbeknownst to me at this time, she was talking about her mom, who'd only died about two months prior to this. And it was. Her mom died at the age of 50. And, you know, just. You can't overstate what an impact that is on a family. And so I, through kind of an interesting set of circumstances, we ended up kind of hanging out later. And I remembered, hey, you're the girl from the coffee shop. Yeah, that. That was me. And then discovered that her mom had died. Her mom had died from rheumatoid arthritis. And we. I was asking Nikki about that because it was all still very raw and fresh. And she dropped the name of the rheumatologist. And I'm like, that's my mom's rheumatologist. And didn't he tell you guys about this, like, gluten sensitivity and all this stuff? She's like, no. And, you know, today if I just go into my Gmail and I put in rheumatoid arthritis testimonial, I've probably got like six or seven hundred testimonials in there of people who have either completely put the condition into remission, where your antinuclear antibodies look completely normal, or it's just stunningly improved. And this thing has haunted me ever since I've met Nikki because, you know, if I had met her nine months earlier, might her mom still be alive? Because they were trying everything and none of it was really, really working. And her mom was highly motivated. Unlike my mother, her mom was motivated. She was willing to do anything that it took. She loved living. And the fact that, you know, I arrived a couple of months too late on the scene, it is really driven me. Every once in a while you get some really crazy social media interactions. People on the Internet that, you know, just hate you for? Because they've got a differing point of view and they can be really vicious. And sometimes I'm like, screw it, man, I'm hang a gone fishing sign, I'm done. Coconut farm, here I come. And then I think about that stuff and I'm like, well, at some point that's going to happen, but there's still enough people out there that really need the help, that just need to be told, hey, I don't know 100% that this could help you, but I think it's a good option. And what have you got to lose? You've got 30 days. We're going to tweak your food, try to get you to sleep better, and we'll see what happens. And that seems like a pretty transparent, honest, not nefarious kind of agenda. You know, let's try this out, see what happens.

One of the things you talk about, and thank you so much for sharing that, man. It was such incredible insight into your psych psyche. And now I feel like I know you even more. So, so appreciate that these pillars of health you talk about, the one that we just kind of really went over was the community and emotion piece. There's also sleep and movement, nutrition. In short, you write in the book, you know, it's our sleep, it's our stress, and our social connections, if properly managed, can really make our dietary changes stick. And there's two concepts that you focus on. One of them is the neuroregulation of appetite. And you know, the studies of all these things we talked about with sleep and stress, but also the powerful tool of personalized nutrition. Can we talk about the genetic and environment first, Rob, and then explain to us what this neuroregulation of appetite is?

Yeah, for sure. So, you know, it's interesting, there's been this peeling of an onion with regards to science. You know, we, maybe the 1930s, maybe a little before that, we started kind of discovering and characterizing the hormones that govern our physiology. And then in the 1950s, we, we knew about genetics and, and DNA and whatnot. But the, the DNA molecule was characterized, the double helix was characterized. Cellular replication was, was kind of figured out on a pretty high level. And once we figured out genes and the proteins that, that are encoded by genes, we thought that we had biology by the short hairs. It's like, aha, now we understand everything. And some time went by and we had the Human Genome Project where we characterized all the genes in the human body. And lo and behold, it was way more complex than what we thought in that these genes aren't destiny, they're a potentiality. And the potentiality is manifested by the interaction of the environment, the epigenetic interaction of things like our gut microbiome and the photoperiod, how much light we do or don't get in our eyes and on our skin, the stress levels that we experience, our social interactions. And so it became really, really complex. But all of this stuff has some simple governing tools. And this topic of the neuroregulation of appetite is interesting in that, you know, we get really wrapped around the axle of these things. Like, you know, you just need to eat fewer calories and you'll be okay. You need to move more. And this usually gets characterized with this term, eat less, move more, everything in moderation.

This reductionism thinking.

Yeah, this kind of reductionist thinking. And I mean, you want simple explanations for the world, you want to make things as simple as possible. And this just seems like good old fashioned folk wisdom. You know, there's this thing like, well, how do you stay so lean? And it's like, I do push aways. Push aways? Yeah, I push away from the table, you know, and it just sounds great. And for a few people it works. But for the vast majority of people living this modern world, it does not work or it doesn't work up to adequate standards. And we really understand the forces that forged our neuroregulation of appetite and our genetics. There's this concept called optimum foraging strategy, where and it's just basic economics. I mean, this applies to running a household or a business or, you know, being an organism living on the planet. And it's basically, you need to get more energy, you need to get more calories and nutrition than what you burn trying to get that stuff. And you need to do that more often than not. If you end up in a deficit, too often, you're dead. And you know, it's very, very simple. But what this did is it created a tendency for people to, for humans, where these opportunistic omnivores, we will eat just about anything. And when we get access to a particular food, we will eat anything that's not nailed down and then we'll go lay down and rest. And that's really smart engineering from the perspective of get as much and give as little as possible. But then when you overlay that process with our modern world of hyper palatable foods and an infinite variety of foods, for all intents and purposes, that tendency that forged our genetics is now working completely at odds to allow us to optimize our health and feel good.

Where does the novelty piece come in? Because cell phones are ringing. Like you said, people are cracked out on social media. The novelty of the stimuli, that our brain is just, you know, Gay and Katie Hendricks call it weapons of mass distraction. Right. So we're constantly under, like, distraction zones here. How do we deal with this? How do we actually recognize when our appetite is working properly in this age of distraction?

Yeah, that's a fantastic question. And so we have these dueling banjo concepts. On the one hand, we have this optimum foraging strategy, which is basically get as much for as little as possible. But then we have this other concept called pallet fatigue, which is basically, even if we get a food that is really tasty and really interesting, at some point we're going to get bored of it. And these two things play back and forth. The reason why we get bored with that food is for two reasons. One is if we ate all of one type of food, we would face a pretty high likelihood of nutrient deficiencies, particularly because, again, we're opportunistic omnivores, Even things like herbivores like. Like cattle or deer, they seek out different types of forage because these different plants have different nutrient profiles. So they will themselves seek out different types of plants again in this optimum foraging strategy concept and also the pallet fatigue concept. So within that back and forth, I have a really good example in the book, and I think you got to see the video of this at the Unbeatable Mind Retreat where I talked about Adam Rickman. He's the guy that used to run man versus Food, and he would do these challenges. Ice cream challenge. Yeah.

Right.

So I saw this thing, like, five years ago, six years ago, and it just stuck in my head. And I was like, I'm going to use that someday. I don't know where I will. But the basic gist is he does this thing called the kitchen sink sundae challenge. And it's an ice cream sundae that's eight pounds of ice cream, plus the sprinkles and hot fudge and all the rest of that stuff. And they present it to him literally in a kitchen sink. And he's got a certain amount of time to eat this food or he loses what he loses, I don't know. And what he wins if he succeeds again, I don't know. But he starts digging into the ice cream, and he gets maybe a third of the way through, and he totally starts bogging down. He starts turning green. He starts gagging when he is trying to take a bite of ice cream. And I think most people would consider an ice cream sundae to be a pretty tasty thing. I mean, it's, you know, you'd be hard pressed to argue against that. But even as tasty as that is, at some point your body says no more, and more specifically, your brain says no more. And so this is palate fatigue. And he was experiencing palate fatigue to such a significant degree that he was actually feeling nauseous. And then he calls an audible that would make most dietitians just completely scratch their head in that he orders a big plate of extra salty, extra crunchy french fries. And so you look at the palate characteristics of this ice cream. It's sweet, it's cool, creamy. And then these french fries are salty, crunchy, savory. There is opposite of this ice cream as you could possibly get. And what he starts doing, he'll eat a french fry and then take a bite of ice cream and eat a french fry and take a bite of ice cream. And he manages to eat that ice cream sundae, which he was going to fail to eat, by eating more total food, probably like 1,000 calories or more of additional food in the form of the french fries. But those french fries played back and forth with the ice cream, allow him to eat more food than he would have eaten if he only ate one of the foods. And this is the modern conundrum that we face. We have constructed our meals, constructed our lives such that we eat kind of like professional leaders. We have infinite variety right at our fingertips. And the notion that you are going to eat less, move more, or show some sense of everything in moderation in an environment like that is nuts. It is absolutely nuts. And clearly it is failing at every turn.

It is no surprise if we're on point in taking care of our emotional health. It makes it so much easier to let go of old weight and have more energy throughout the day. But believe me when I say it's hard to treat other people well and think good thoughts if we're walking around hangry. One of the best ways to support our body's energy systems and help cure that satiety and satiation, AKA hangry, is to add in collagen to your waters, shakes and foods. Over the past year, I've been using powdered collagen from perfect supplements in my morning coffees, waters and post workout shakes to get some organic proteins I can feel good about eating. You know by now, healthy cows eat grass. And these sick cows from CAFOs eat corn. So beyond the healing powers of collagen for digestion and joint health, this 100% pasture raised organic hydrolyzed collagen has 20 grams of protein in two scoops, which helps curb appetite and increase satiety and satiation from ethical harvesting. You can actually feel good about. Collagen from grass fed cows has five times as much Omega 3 and twice as much cla as found in grain fed beef. And best of all, you can sleep well at night knowing you're supporting the change we need for this broken food system. Get a box of single serve packets for on the go grass fed collagen or purchase it as part of the Wellness Force discounted bundle by clicking over to perfectsupplements.com wellnessforce and be sure to enter code wellnessforce to save 10% off your already discounted package And Wired to Eat, the title of your book. You're talking about turning off cravings and rewiring the appetite to let go of weight, but also to determine these foods that actually work for each individual person. And what was crazy about that story, Rob in the video is that he actually ate a big fistful of fries and then he was able to eat more ice cream. How does that on a much smaller scale actually relate to how people show up in the way they have a relationship with food? You know, maybe they're at a dinner and they have that feeling like, oh, I just ate like 3,000 calories at like, you know, some huge plate like Cheesecake Factory. I can probably have a piece of cake. Now is that that same mechanism where they're like, yeah, I can put more calories in the.

There exactly the same mechanism. And it is characterized within kind of dietetic sciences. It's called the dessert effect. You eat your main courses and you say, oh, I couldn't have another bite. Dessert tray comes out and lo and behold, you can have much more than a single bite. And it's, what's happening is you're just really dramatically changing that palate experience so that it bypasses the neuroregulation of appetite. It's different enough that the, the, the novelty factor that is a really key feature of our survival. We want to look for new experiences.

Yes.

You know, it ends up working against us. And if, you know, this is one of the things that on the implementation side, I ask folks right out of the gate, when they start going, you know, towards changing their, their eating and lifestyle, you've got to clean out the house. And there's just no negotiating on this. We don't lay in bed at night dreaming about pork loin and broccoli. We dream about the sea salt and vinegar potato chips and the little Debbie snack cakes and all the rest of that stuff. And it's not to say you never have that stuff again, but we go out to eat to have it. Or if you really, really want to go get something, you get out of bed, bed, drive to the 7 11, eat it in your car, don't bring any home, you know, so there's at least a barrier there to it instead of it just being super easy and super accessible. And the flip side of that is that all of the foods that we do want, people eating, proteins and vegetables and fruits and roots and tubers, we do want all that on hand, and we do want to make that easy and we do want to make that accessible. So you know the direction that we want to drive success, we want to minimize the barriers between ourselves and that food. Food and the things that maybe are more cocaine like and addictive. We want to put some barriers between us and that stuff you talk about.

Eat a whole unprocessed food diet, get out in the sun, move a lot, sleep like you're on vacation, and surround yourself with loving relationships, which that is such. That is like the alt. If I can live my life like that until I perish. Do you think that that sentence really encapsulates really the message and the energy behind Wired to Eat and just this way of ancestral living?

Yeah, I mean, if, if we could have people watch that man versus food video and then just wrap up with that sentence.

I'm gonna link that in the show notes.

Yeah, you know, it, it's. You don't need 400 pages. That's really all you need there. The whole thing is boiled down to that.

There's a normal fed state that you talk about. It constitutes the normal optimal feeding state for, you know, any given person. It might vary depending on genes, stress, sleep, exercise, and the type of food they eat. Can you talk to us about the normal fed state?

Yeah, the normal fed state is a moving target to some degree. And you know, it's hard to perfectly match up if we're using this kind of calories in, calories out model. Because if, you know, are we really going to get. And some people do this and they can make it work, they approach eating more like an accounting problem where if they have a low activity day, they. They dial their calories back. And if they have a high activity day, they ratchet their calories up. But what's Interesting is if we eat foods that are generally, you know, a little bit more akin to what we would experience in the ancestral environment, if we have a low activity day, we're just less hungry. And if we have a super high activity day, we'll be more hungry and potentially more hungry for multiple days such that we make that stuff up. And so over the course of weeks and months and years, we stay at kind of a balance point where our weight may go up a couple of pounds, it'll go down a couple of pounds, but it really doesn't change that dramatically. If we're eating foods, though, that tend to bypass the neuroregulation of appetite and really that go a step beyond this, if they start pushing us into this overfed state, this hyperinsulinemic state, and this inflamed state, then what happens is that even though we are awash in excess calories, even though we're overweight, even though we've got potentially millions of calories stored on our body that we could live on for months, our brain can't sense that it's become resistant to the existence of this state of overfed. And we feel hungry. And this becomes a feed forward mechanism that just keeps going and going and ultimately drives us into these states of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and a host of other issues.

And this is why the templates of calories in, calories out don't work. Because what I read in the book, there's a big concept in your book in alignment with the seven day carb test. There's a 30 day reset. This is where you're, as you had said, cleaning out the crap, you're taking out everything and starting with a clean slate. Because if there's constant novelty and we have these hyper palatable foods coming in, you know, like the nachos, like the ice cream, and even some of these protein shakes out there, rob, with like 50 grams of sugar. Right. So these are things that can block people from starting on the right foot. And why did you design it so that there's a 30 day. And then let's talk about the seven day carb test, because I want to dork out with you about the monitor.

Sure, yeah, yeah. You know, the 30 day is something that I learned ages ago in our gym, in our clinical practice. And 30 days is long enough to really get some remarkable change in body composition, blood work, physical performance, but it's also short enough that you can beg or cajole people to stick it out that long or maybe even guilt them that long. You know, and so you can, you can get them 30, 30 days down the road. They're really used to eating differently, the inflammation is improved, their gut health is improve. And then you can just look back and be very critical about the whole thing and say, okay, so there was some challenge and cost associated with this, but is the net result worth the effort? And in general, people look back and they're like, wow, it wasn't actually that bad, you know, and I like where I'm at. And then they find kind of a new place that they exist at. But as good as all that is, though, the reason why I also introduced this seven day carb test is that people will tend to cling to that thing that worked for them first and then forget that they may have even greater benefit if they start modifying things and exploring a little bit. And so that's where I recommend getting into that seven day carb test where we look at a battery of different carbohydrate sources and I list a ton of different options in the book. And people each day test a specific carbohydrate and ideally they're checking their blood glucose and then validating that against some subjective things like what's your energy level between meals, are you clear headed, do you have good cognition, all that type of stuff. And then we can kind of map what are the amounts and types of carbohydrates that you do best with.

In that 30 day reset though, there's three components, right? There's protein, fiber, and then the appropriate, since we're talking about carbs, the appropriate carb content. You said that 75 to 150 grams is a good starting place for most people.

Right? Right, right, right.

Do you feel like that applies to everyone? And then taking it this step further is when you wear the continuous glucose monitor.

Yeah. So, you know, there's some interesting research that suggests that we. So if we look at a population of folks that are overweight, the majority of those folks also tend to be insulin resistant. But there is a cross section of those people that are overweight but insulin sensitive. And those people tend to do very well on kind of the classic moderate to high protein, moderate carb, lowish fat diet. Like they really thrive on that. They feel good, they lose weight, their body composition is good. But these are a pretty small, that's a pretty small demographic of the overall folks that are overweight. And also when we look out at society at large, most of these diseases of modern living are insulin resistant diseases. So if we're thinking about, you know, averting a lot of catastrophe and avoiding a lot of suffering, then we do kind of need to cater to that insulin resistant story, which is seems to really benefit from a lower carb approach. And again, for most people. At the end of the book, I do have a chapter on ketosis and fasting and I'm a huge fan of those modalities as specific tools. But we also have some really good peer reviewed research that shows that even in really nasty insulin resistant individuals, something that looks like this higher protein, low glycemic load, paleo anti inflammatory type diet can reverse type 2 diabetes, can dramatically reduce systemic inflammation, can improve blood glucose levels, and so it's a less onerous intervention versus going super low carb. Now in the book I make the point, you know, could we argue that slamming people into a ketogenic diet, let's say they're type 2 diabetic and very overweight, could we argue that slamming them into a ketogenic diet would get them to a favorable endpoint faster? Yes, but it's going to be such a gnarly process that I think that we have a high likelihood of peeling people out and, and it's moving them into a way of eating that is even further removed from normal. You know, that, that kind of paleoesque template. If you still want to have spaghetti, then you can have spaghetti with spaghetti squash and stuff like that. And it's a little bit odd for people at first, but then the first time that they, they throw the marinara sauce over some, some spaghetti squash or like, you know, steamed cabbage noodles or something like that, they're like, oh, the noodles don't actually taste like anything. It's the sauce that you put on it. That's the deal. It's like. Yeah, exactly. So that's an easier way to pull all this stuff off because it's pretty forgiving. Whereas that ketogenic approach is reasonably unforgiving. Like you need to be really on point to get all that right.

Yeah. And I had some experience with keto and it was just like I had headaches. I went through what they call the keto fog. I'm curious, Rob, did you ever try any of the Ketoforce or Pruvit or Dom D. Agostino's work? He talks about the n equals 1 and having a period of time where you used to it. Have you used exogenous ketones?

I have and they're very interesting. The ketone salts almost universally give me the trots and so I will slug some down 20 minutes later. I'm sitting on the can and I can't really do much of anything. MCT oil I do pretty well with. And you know, what I found was a huge piece of that ketosis story that I was failing on. You need to consume a lot of electrolytes and in particular a lot of salt, sodium, sodium chloride, and I mean, like teaspoons of it two or three times a day, in addition to some magnesium and some other stuff. And an interesting thing that happens in very low carb diets. And just in general, when you reduce carbohydrate intake, when carbohydrates go down, insulin goes down. And when insulin drops, the production of a hormone, aldosterone, drops. And when aldosterone is lower, we retain less sodium and retain less water. Now this can be a huge benefit if you've got an individual that has high blood pressure. Like, we will see them really reduce their, their blood pressure numbers rather rapidly. But people can feel lightheaded and, and, you know, just feel like they've been run over by a truck. And a lot of folks that are playing around with that lower carbohydrate level of eating, if they're feeling kind of rough, like supplementing with some, literally just some bouillon or mixing some sea salt into some water and swizzling it around and shooting it down, oftentimes, they'll almost immediately feel much better. And this was something that I thought I was getting enough salt from just salting my food. But then I went and hung out with the keto gains guys, Louis Filissonor and some other people that are doing really amazing job over at ketogains. And they were like, no, man, you're not even remotely close enough on the amount of electrolytes that you need. And so I really ratcheted that up. And when I, I have played with ketosis, I feel much better with that.

I want to go back to the seven day carb test because there's a section robwolf.com monitors you talk about Dexcom. I saw you on Social, though. You had this little cool white dot on your arm. Can you tell us about that?

Yeah. So that was one of the continuous blood glucose monitors that are available. And I was doing some kind of validation work with the company that has licensed the personalized nutrition algorithms from the university in Israel that I reference in the book. And so I was doing some personal experimentation with that. And it's pretty funny when I. So that little disc, it's got a probe that goes transdermal, it goes below the skin. And when I took it out, this thing looked like a hair. Basically. It looked like some fishing line or some hair. It was all floppy and really small diameter. And when I was getting ready to push it into my arm, it looked like, you know, a big bore needle that you would see in, like, a horror movie. I was like, oh, my God, this is gonna hurt.

That's a cool visual. Yeah.

And it ended up, you know, not being any big issue, but this thing samples your blood glucose once a minute. And then you use a scanning device, you put it next to it, and it downloads the information out of the sampling interface, and then that. That logs it into an app platform. And then I would document my food and my sleep and all these other parameters. And then we could overlay all the information with the blood glucose levels.

Man, this is so awesome. Because a lot of quantified self, they focus so much on the device, but really like the meaning behind what you're doing. If you can see. You talk about in the book how you went from rice to lentils and you found that was better for you, but you did that from wearing the glucose monitor. Do you think, based on the people you deal with and special warfare and. And, you know, diabetes and research we will ever have in the next couple of years, you know, Dexcom has this continuous glucose monitor that uploads data, but they have to get a finger prick. Do you think that technology will get us to a point where we never need a finger prick again?

Yeah, I mean, we're there, really, in Europe. There are some wearable temporary tattoos that are basically RFID chips, the radio frequency ID chips. So you slap this temporary tattoo on, it has some probes that go transdermal. But know you, they're tiny. I mean, they're like 1/50 of a human hair. So you can't feel these things going through the skin. And then these things sample the blood glucose. They last about a week. You peel it off, you slap a new one on. It's uploading to, like, a smartphone or a similar interface all the time. There was some discussion that the Apple Watch is capable of doing continuous blood glucose monitoring. What they were trying to do is to get it to a level that it would be medical device ready. And they had some hiccups on that, but, I mean, even that. And I think that that's a spectroscopy deal where they're shining light through the skin and the wrist, and then they're able to, via spectroscopy, get an idea of what the blood glucose levels are. So I Mean, yeah, we'll be at a spot pretty quickly where, you know, the finger prick deal is largely a thing of the past.

And I love how you focused on using technology in this modern world. Yes. We are, at our core cavemen and cave women. Right. Regardless of the paleo analogy, the way that tech can help us, Rob, and what you've done in your book, including that, I just want to thank you for that because I think so many people are, like, focused on the cool device, you know, the Oura ring. And Ben Greenfield's this huge hacker, and he's always, like, shining light on his balls and everything. It's crazy out there. And I really love that you put that in there. Rob, this is the last section of our show. Man, I have so enjoyed this conversation, and this is just seven fast questions for seven real answers. Are you ready?

I will do my best. I usually. I usually fail on these things, but I'll do my best.

What about becoming a parent has most changed the way you look at your life?

Life? It's made me much more patient, both with myself and the people around me, because there's a saying in Spanish and I forget exactly how to say it in Spanish, but it's dress me slowly, I'm in a hurry. And it's basically this thing of the more you think that the situation necessitates drama and spasticness. If you calm down and you're focused and in the moment, everything's going to go better. And when you're dealing with kids, my wife just got a dog, a Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy. And by puppy, the thing's £90, like eight months old. So. But he can sense when you're stressed out and you're trying to get him to do stuff, and you're like, man, we need to go somewhere, and I want this dog to go in the crate. It's a disaster. Whereas if you just calm down and you're like, okay, he's gonna go in when he goes in, and all of a sudden he just wanders in. So. Biggest thing I've learned being a parent is I just need to stress out less. You know, if it's a life or death situation, then that's the time to get, you know, potentially wrapped up. But almost nothing is a life or death situation.

If you ever found yourself in a room with the Surgeon General of the United States, what were a few things you might ask him about our country's health programs if you had that chance.

You know, I've rubbed shoulders with lots of people who are at the uber high levels in situations like that. And I don't know that I would really bother asking them anything other than like just getting to know them on a personal level and see if I could learn something. Like, I think the implication there is maybe I would try to sow some seed about like, hey, have you thought about this evolutionary biology stuff? But these big institutions are so archaic and slow moving and glacial. I'm really a much larger fan of the guerrilla tactics of decentralization and bypassing the establishment. So I think I would probably ask the guy more about his investment portfolio than trying to influence anything that he was thinking about with regards to health because it's such a institutional quagmire, it's just going to go nowhere.

Oh, I love that answer so much, man. That was not what I was expecting. What about from a national policy standpoint? Third question? If there was a health initiative nationally that you were granted to be the leader for, what would that policy be and what would you lead them?

What I would do. That's a great question. What I would do is I would split up the American Medical association as if it were a monopoly and I would create 6, 8, 10, 15, probably the more the better decentralized entities that competed against one another. And we would set up some very specific endpoints about what that competition meant. And we would have insurance carriers that cater to all these different entities so that the payer and the provider are linked together and they're going to sink or swim together so the incentives are all aligned. And then these bastards would compete. And then all the bullshit about, is it high carb, is it low carb, Are statins good or statins bad? That goes out the window. We make it all outcome based. We create a market signaling situation in which they compete against each other. And 10 years from now we have a completely different healthcare landscape than what we have now. And we didn't have to do anything at like a governmental level of saying we're going to ban sugar, we're gonna ban butter, or what have you. We just let people compete and we let that market sort that stuff out. Okay, cool.

I'm voting for you by the way.

Perfect. Thank you. Thank you.

What, what makes you laugh in life? What makes you laugh out loud? What cracks you up?

Oh, my kids, particularly my youngest, Sagan, like, that kid is so damn funny. Like she. The other night I went in to finish tucking her into bed. We have dimmer switches in all the rooms in the house and so we're able to dial it down really Low. But when the girls go to bed, they like to read their books and look at them and they kind of wind down and they fall asleep. And I walked in there and she had on a pair of sunglasses and I have no idea where she could have found these things. And I actually woke her up a little bit. I'm like, sagan, what are you doing? Where did you get the sunglasses? And she said, all, dad, dad, these are my blue blockers.

Maybe she saw it on like a TV commercial or something.

Well, I wear blue blockers in the evening, you know, so they see me run around with them and it was just hilarious because I walked in and she's like, you know, she looked like she had been hit by a car because, like, the hands were over her head and her head's all sideways and then she's got on sunglasses. And I just had to ask her. I'm like, where did this come from? What are you doing? Oh, man.

I spend time with my nieces. They make me crazy. Crack up too. What role do you think plant medicines or psychedelics will play in the next 10 years for supporting healing and depression for civilians and what the research shows for PTSD and war veterans?

Oh, man, you know? So I'll focus specifically on the psychedelic story. I think that there is a massive untapped opportunity with everything ranging from LSD to psilocybin to mescaline ayahuasca. There's some very preliminary but consistently profoundly impactful therapeutic data coming out of interventions for people with ptsd, traumatic brain injury, and even things like alcohol and other drug addictions showing almost immediate resolution with a managed proper exposure to a psychedelic experience. It's fascinating to me that substances that are non addictive by their very nature, these psychedelics, if you take a dose today and you try to take a dose tomorrow, it doesn't work tomorrow. Even if you, like, triple the amount that you take, like the receptor sites for all this stuff just down regulate. So they're nothing like nicotine, nothing like caffeine, nothing like cocaine. As far as addictive potential, you could certainly get yourself into some deep water if you were unprepared or taking these things in a dodgy environment. But there's just massive opportunity for healing using these psychedelic substances.

We'll definitely link the MAPS organization where they talk about PTSD with war veterans. There's a huge success rate there too. Rob, it's incredible, man. Looking back on your journey to publish this second book, was there ever a point where you were challenged so much that you thought about Stopping. Was there a moment when, when the wheels like fell off the wagon and you had to dig way deep inside yourself to find some grit you didn't know was there?

Yes. And this came about. I love my publisher, they're really wonderful people. But here's the caveat. 98 to 99% of the health and wellness and kind of self help books that are published are ghost written. And by ghost written, that means an individual sits down, interviews extensively, the individual that's kind of like theoretically writing the book. And they usually generate 85 or 90% of the content. And then the primary author gets in and kind of wordsmiths it and tweaks it and everything. But there's a very formularic process to that. Everything rolls out virtually identical from book to book. And this is why, when you pick up a lot of books in this genre, they really feel quite similar. Like the layout's very similar and everything. And unbeknownst to me, I write this stuff, even though it's technical material, I write it in a novel form. So you need chapter one to get chapter two to get chapter three. And my publisher was freaked out by that because they're so used to working within this ghostwritten scene. Like when I went and pitched my book to the publishers in New York, they would sit down and say, okay, so who's writing your book? And I would kind of like point some double thumbs at myself, like, you're laughing at me. They're like, oh, really? And like, it was really this novel thing. It was like, oh, you're from Mars. And so that was really challenging. And we had some pretty good drama around that because they really initially wanted to remove a ton of my voice out of the book. They basically wanted to take all of the back part of the book and somehow wiggle it into the front. Like they, they were so concerned about letting people know that there was going to be an implementation piece. They were so concerned about all the why and the explanatory process that I had in the front. But I have a decent amount of faith in people. And so the way that I had written it, I would say, I know this is a lot of material, this is a lot to get your arms around. I wouldn't go into this stuff if it wasn't important. It's going to answer your questions, it's going to deal with your concerns, and then we can get down to doing the hard work. And I felt like I just needed to say that, say it once and then move on and have some faith in people. And so there was some significant drama with the public publishing process that I was close to firing these folks a couple of times because it was so wacky. But I finally like my wife actually. She said, you know, they're used to dealing with ghostwritten stuff. And so I pinged these folks. I'm like, when's the last time you worked with someone that wrote their book themselves? And they literally couldn't remember.

Wow.

Like, okay, this is the logjam that we have. And I have written this in somewhat of a novel fashion. It goes from chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, etc. This is the way my first book went. The first book is not been Harry Potter successful, but for a first time author in a brand new genre, it has been more successful than. I'm saying this with huge humility and huge gratitude, but it is a singularly unique book in publishing history currently. It's really unique, Done very, very well. And again, there wasn't a paleo diet genre before this and now there is. And so it created a genre. It's been very successful. It has been successful over the course of time. And so I had to do some fancy finagling and also some really good communication so that my publishers, who are very, very good at the stuff that they do, but they were, they're used to a very formularic process and my stuff is not particularly formularic. And so that was a pretty big deal for me because in the past I would have probably just gotten angry and kind of freaked out and kind of Hulk smashed and instead I was able to communicate with them and kind of work our way through it so that they understood where I was and it dealt with their fears because they've put a huge investment into this thing. Just putting this thing into production is a huge outlay of resources on the part of the publishing house. And so they want to get this thing right, you know, and so I had to get into their shoes and be empathic to what their experience was and not just all focused on me. You know, it's like, oh, I'm the artist and this is my vision and all that. And like, okay, that's great, but what's the concerns that these people on the other side have? And this circles around to my point about. I usually fail on these rapid fire questions because I'm concise.

I love the answer though, man, because I think we're getting even more of an insight to, you know, the, the younger man that showed up at the coffee shop that wanted the roasted beans, like he wouldn't have been ready for that conversation?

No, I would have been totally emotionally unprepared to look at these people who were, who were, from my perspective, making my life difficult. And I would have given no credence to the fact that they had valid concerns and decades of experience doing what they were doing. But we were each kind of approaching this, this story from a different perspective.

Oh man. Good things take time, right? And that's honestly how I feel about my progression. I don't think you and I could have had this awesome of a conversation in 2010. I wasn't ready either. So, last question, Rob, what is wellness to you? How do you define wellness in your life now?

Being able to do whatever I want to do, you know, with very little preparation or effort. And I guess there's some back caveat to that. Like you could say, well, I want to be able to stay up all night and snort coke and be okay. And you know, that probably won't work. But you know, within the parameters of understanding that we have these four pillars of health, sleep and photoperiod, Nutrition, movement and community, we need to have some balanced interface of that stuff. And if we do that, then we will be well enough to largely be able to do most everything that we want to do.

There is robwolf.com wired to eat. There's some incredible bonuses and people can pick up the book. It's coming out March 21st, right?

March 21st in the US and March 8th in the UK.

So exciting, man. Tell us real quick about the bonuses and then we'll say goodbye.

So the bonuses, yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. I tend to forget that I created a workbook for the 30 day reset and also the seven day carb test. And also there's a really, I'm pretty proud of it. There's a pretty slick triage process in the book book that helps you figure out where you are on the insulin sensitivity, insulin resistance spectrum. And it. That helps to. Helps you to figure out where to drop into the 30 day reset. And this workbook really just walks you step by step through that whole process. It would have been awesome to have it as part of the book, but the book's already 400 pages. This thing's like an additional like 50 or 60 pages or something like that. So it just was way too big to plug into the book. And then I have an interview with Dr. William Cromwell. He is the head of cardiovascular disease research at Liposcience and LabCorp. He is the primary lipidologist that we consult with at The Reno Risk Assessment program, where we. We deal with cops and firefighters and we talk about all the blood work that I recommend in the book, the conventional lipid Panama versus the things that we look at, which involve some advanced testing, looking at lipoprotein. We also go off reservation a little bit and talk about some really interesting stuff, like some new molecules like Glyca, which may have some insulin resistance predictive potential 15 or 20 years before you see anything else going sideways. It's really interesting stuff. And he's a fascinating, brilliant guy. And then we have a chapter from the book that didn't make it in the book. It was actually supposed to be chapter one of the book, and it's called Lies Damn Luck.

I like that title.

It sets a historical kind of perspective on how we have arrived at our current food, healthcare, political system. So it looks at the political environment, the economic environment, and also the kind of academic misdeeds that all got woven together in creating the recommendation for the high carb, low fat experiment, as well as, you know, how the modern junk food industry basically came into being.

I'm actually personally stoked on this Lies Damn Lies and Statistic chapter. Thank you for offering that.

It is my favorite chapter of the book. And again, to circle back to some of the drama with the publishers. I was so emotionally attached to this chapter because it really sets the situation for how we got here. And this is something that some people ask. They're like, well, how did all this happen? Like, junk food is subsidized. Like, how does this happen? And so I explained all that stuff. And, you know, this is one of the things, though, as important as that is, it is a really big, really detailed chapter. And when most people are wanting to basically have a diet book experience, they're not actually looking for kind of a Malcolm Gladwell, like, connect the dots in this kind of nonlinear fashion. And so this was one of the points where my publishers were right. You know, it's a really valuable chunk of material. But offering it as a bonus is great because then the people that want to take that extra step and really understand the historical kind of underpinnings of all this, that's great. And then the people who just have a health problem and they're like, hey, just the facts, man. Just let me do it. Then they're able to just jump in.

And go, well, Rob, I am so grateful for the way that you've shared with us powerfully, man, authentically and deep. And I'm really excited to share your book with the Wellness Force community. I'm giving away three copies. I'm going to preview purchase three and they're going to be ready for anyone that replies@wellnessforce.com WiredToet Rob, I want to read this last quote to say goodbye and it's from page 84 in your book. People are not swayed to action by information. Most people make changes in behavior due to emotion, not facts and figures. This is not a bad thing. Our emotions coupled with our logical intellect is what makes us human. Rob, thanks for coming on the show, man.

Hey man, thank you. Just such a huge honor to be on the show and you are doing such incredible work and are so good at what you're doing. And it's mind blowing that I've played some small part in that process. Like, it's just, it's incredible. Like I can't think of more gratifying work to do than what I've been fortunate enough to endeavor into and to know that folks like you have picked up this next generation of this quest and are driving it forward.

Man, that means so much coming from you. Rob and I will be following your work all year. I'll see you at PaleoFX and we look forward to everything you're bringing to the wellness world in 2017 and beyond, man.

Awesome. Bring your Jiu Jitsu GI to Paleo FX and we'll do some rolling.

Oh, I've never done jiu jitsu, so you might like humble me ten times over.

Dude. It's not about humbling, it's about getting you cocaine addicted to the process. So I'll make it super fun.

Awesome. Thanks so much, Rob.

Take care.

That is a wrap for episode one zero. And if you're like me, you're feeling fortunate and inspired in this moment. After spending that hour with Rob Wolf, who I believe is one of the most forward thinking and impactful leaders in our wellness world. All the resources, videos and links from today's show can be found@wellnessforce.com wired to eat and as I mentioned in the episode, we're giving away three copies of Rob's new book, Wired to Eat in the show notes page, wellnessforce.com wiredtoeat you know, in this sometime, sometimes incredibly confusing informational world about health and wellness, we all can take inspired action if we have the right information. I think Rob does such a phenomenal job of cutting to that most pivotal information we can all take action from. So if you just get one thing from this show, it's to live like you were intended to, including loving relationships that are connected and expressive, eating real food that comes from the earth without labels and getting plenty of natural movement, which we talk so much about on the show, including Episodes with Daryl Edwards and Posture with Esther Gokhlay. If this show inspired you, I invite you to join us for further conversations over at the Wellness Force Community Facebook page. Just head on over to wellnessforce.com group or simply search Wellness Force Community on Facebook. I want to welcome you to the group, so let's continue this conversation in our private group. Now, if you're headed out to the Paleo Effects Conference in May, email me. Joshua wellnessforce.com I want to meet up with you and talk with you in person about some of the impacts you've had from the show and what's up for your wellness, how myself and this WellnessForce community can support you in enjoying the process of living life well. So now there's just one final thing for you to do, and that's click off the phone or your device, step out into the world and show up in the best way you can for the people that you care about. So until I see you again real soon, I'm wishing you love and wellness.

It.