What a family welcome to episode 320 of the genius life.
What's crackin, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the show. I'm your host. Max, Luke of you're a filmmaker health and science journalist in New York Times bestselling author. I've dedicated my life to unraveling the science behind our choices, including what we eat and how we live affect our cognitive and physical performance. How we feel our health, span and risk for disease. This podcast is all about how to live in the optimal state which I call living like a genius. I'm super excited.
On this episode of the show to welcome back. My good friend Thomas de Lauer. Thomas is a Fitness and Nutrition expert and is known mostly for his hugely popular YouTube channel in which he has over three and a half million followers. He's incredibly prolific, putting up a new video, add a seemingly, and I think he's one of the best in the game. In terms of being able to translate science and make that signs actionable for the average person he himself, has lost a whopping.
Hundred pounds and now regularly Graces the covers of Fitness magazines as a fitness model. He has a lot to teach us and on today's episode of the show, we are going to go into the top controversies in the world of nutrition. And fitness, we go in on some hot button topics and we also both share where we've changed our minds on certain topics and then later in the episode, I take questions from my wonderful Instagram audience, which I always love getting to do.
And I ask those questions to Thomas. We talked about lots of different topics is a wide-ranging interview and it was a lot of fun, but also highly informative. So whether you are just a beginner setting out on your fitness journey for the first time, or are a seasoned Pro. Definitely, listen, through all the way to the end, and please consider sharing this with friends and loved ones that you think May benefit from it. Before we dive in. I just want to give a shout-out to Apple podcast app user, melin sc3, who took time out of their day, to leave this review for the show on the
Apple podcast app they wrote so motivating and informative and gave us five stars. I found this podcast less than a week ago and have been binging on the episodes. Love it. I exercised for several hours, most days of the week and really enjoy and appreciate the longer deeper dive segments. The most, they really keep my attention and keep me motivated. Thank you Max for the outstanding guests and really useful information. Well, Mel, thank you so much for leaving that note and I love doing the longer episodes to. It's funny, people are, I guess divided on Long.
Form content, some will leave feedback suggesting they want shorter episodes, many leave the feedback that they want to see longer episodes. I am kind of in the middle. I'm happy to do a shorter episode but always more than pleased to do a longer episode if the content warrant it. So thank you so much. It really does mean a lot that you've taken the time to do that, to leave that review and to anybody out there, everybody please take a moment to do it. It's a freeway to support. And on the next episode I might be reading your review. So, thank
You so very much. As for me, I'm excited for you guys to listen to this. I'm about to get to the gym. It's about 8:52 in the morning, on Tuesday, as I record this and sending you guys love. Lots and lots of love. I'm also preparing for another trip to New York in two, three weeks and maybe even another trip to London, which I'm super excited about. So lots going on in my world will keep you guys abreast as always. And now, without further Ado, here's my conversation with Tom.
Let's go, Thomas De La Rue. What up? What's up, man? How you doing? Good, dude, I love any chance. I get to hang with you for one because I feel like through osmosis. I'll get to glean some of your gains somehow. I don't know the science behind that, but I just feel like being in your orbit, I'm gonna, I'm gonna learn a thing or two that I'm the, then get to get to apply and my training. And if I get even like a quarter of your bicep gains, I'll be a happy man. You know what it's that's written.
In in stone and how it works that is how that's got to be how it works. At least in my head. Well I'm excited to have you cuz there are a lot of controversies in nutrition and and I really value your perspective because you're kind of like Diet Switzerland. As of late, your you take a very neutral ground. You've been leaning into some of the controversies because the sense that I get from you is your like a life learner? You don't have any flag, planted too strongly in anyone diet camp and and you're just on this journey like the rest of us.
Very humble about it. And yet, you know, at unlike your, you know, you really strive to be evidence-based. So let's start with some of the one of the more common controversies in the field of nutrition. The best proteins to eat for fat loss. All right, so I'll come out right out and say, like, I'll be the diet Switzerland. First, the best protein is the protein that you can get, all right, but let's get into the nitty-gritty of it. I just recently released a video was kind of interesting on this. There are some evidence suggesting that when put Side by
By side with other proteins, believe it or not like white, fish seemed to elicit a little bit more of a metabolic effects. If you want to get down to a granular effect, then sure. Maybe Whitefish is a little bit better for fat loss, probably negligible, but it still kind of interesting, which is interesting because when you look at a lot of body builders, it's kind of funny because they anecdotally will like switch to White Fish when they're towards the end of their cut. Probably because it's just maybe easier to digest or, I don't know, but a lot of them claimed that they end up looking leaner with it. There's been a lot of interesting things come out.
Bodybuilding culture, right? Like it's so random and totally like n of one anecdotal stuff that doesn't have massive epidemiological data behind it, but it's this one freak Show that's like, hey, I'm going to try this and it's going to work in a fight. You'd a dog turd it's going to making Jack. Like so they anecdotally have claimed that for decades. I've seen it for a long time, but I mean that's one paper, right? So I can't really like take that to the bank. However, personally I've experienced it as well. It's just a pain in the butt, like I don't like my hate wife hates fish.
I'm going to cook fish at the house, like so then we can get more granular. We say okay what kind of protein is going to satiate? You more well on one hand? You could say. All right, well plant-based proteins are going to have more fiber. So they're going to satiate you more. So that's going to make you eat less, okay? Valid argument. But on the other hand you've got okay, well we've got the red meat argument, okay? If you have a fair enough amount of saturated fat and red meat pie enough protein concentration, then that's going to satiate you. So is it about satiation or is there more to
At than, just the amino acids, right? And I think that's where things get a little bit confusing. Because if you say, all proteins are created equal because they all end up in the amino acid pool and your body's just going to pull from one thing or the other. I think there's a lot more to it than just the amino acids, that make a protein best for fat burning. Personally, I take a little bit more of a Mediterranean approach I go for leaner cuts of meat and why is that? Well it's not because I don't like the fatty cuts of
Me believe me like I'll sit down and I'll eat a raw rib eye with you. Like I don't care, I love the stuff, but at least with a lean protein, I can account for the fat calories, a heck of a lot easier and put it like this, like we have a couple of steaks sitting next to each other so hard to tell which steak has 30 grams of fat, which one has 20 most people. If you look at it you're not going to be able to tell with your naked eye, right? So with that was like, okay I opted for the leaner cuts of meat, if I'm on a fat loss regimen because it allows me to account for those calories.
That would end up like all over the place otherwise, so it's just a safer bet. But when you get into the argument of like plant based versus animal-based protein, both sides, ultimately end up coming down to the same conclusion. That more protein is better. So then you have to ask yourself, how do you get the most protein for the buck with most people when you're doing it from a plant based perspective, I would think that it's kind of hard to get the adequate amounts of
Seeing that you're really looking for without completely going overboard in other macros, or calories, right? Unless you know what you're doing and you've been doing it for a long time, like it's very hard to get, I don't know, 200 grams of protein from Pop-Tarts and fake cheese. It's just probably not going to happen, exactly? Yeah. No, it's so true. I when you post all these incredible videos on your YouTube channel and I can't not click on them, when they pop up on my feed, like Thomas de Lauer's wandering, Costco finding all the best.
Protein options at Costco or Trader Joe's or what have you. So like when it comes to how you shop, like what are some of the like highest impact, high protein foods that you're reaching for? Yeah, so, I mean, if you're looking bang for the buck again, it just comes down to shopping that perimeter. So, for me, the high protein foods that I'm looking for lower fat cottage cheese and I like, trust me, I love the high fat stuff. But again, like if I'm paying attention to calories, it has nothing to do with fats, being good or bad, but cottage cheese is a big one. Low-fat Greek yogurt is a huge
One. I'm still a fan of chicken breast as boring as it is. When I go for ground beef. I go for like the 93 or 96%, lean stuff like Trader. Joe's has been 96%, lean ground beef. Yeah, but why do I go for that again? It's not because I have a fat phobia. It's because holy cow, this is like no pun intended like legitimate good quality protein with very minimal fats. So I opted for that, I tend to stay away from like the fattier cuts of like poultry just because it's very hard to account for and again
A lot of times poultry is relatively low quality in the fat content, like you're gonna get higher quality fats, out of pork and higher quality fats, out of beef than you typically are the fats in chicken like port. For example, a lot of people talk about this but most of the fat in pork is monounsaturated fats. So it's actually a pretty good fat, right? So it's not something to be sneezing at. Like, if you find a nice pork chop, it's got a nice little ribbon of fat and some marbling in it. Yeah, you're going to have saturated fat but you also have a good amount of monounsaturated which is a good fat that we're looking for.
HDL related, LDL, lowering LDL, all the things that are kind of blanket statements. When it comes down to the plant-based proteins that I would still get in my diet, although I count them towards my protein, I don't count them as a complete protein. So I try to separate the animal high-quality proteins that I get from my diet and the plant-based proteins that I get from my diet. Because as much as it may upset some people, I do think the animal protein is higher quality and it's so I mean, yes. Do I still count the plant-based protein from maybe flax?
From Chia or you know things like that. Yeah sure I guess at the end of the day it adds up but I try to just forget about that as far as accounting for my protein and focus more on those animal proteins also lately, you know a lot more raw milk. Don't really think of it so much as a protein source as I do almost a supplement. I almost think of my raw milk intake, as I want a benefit from this. So I do sit almost like a supplementary like, okay, I'll have a half a cup here and there, because I want that in somatic effect, I want the microbes I want that.
Yeah. Are you still drinking the the fair life stuff that I turned you on to? Yes, that forgotten like the fat-free one. Just it's almost like a free food. Yeah, yeah. I have no affiliation with Fair life and actually, you know, there is some controversy surrounding company. Like, apparently they a couple years ago and they had allegedly, they've addressed this. I'm not speaking or defending the speaking for or defending the comedy. But, you know, there was like, some animal rights like issues that came up a couple of years ago, but if you put that aside, and give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that they've addressed those,
Choose that that we're certainly significant like the fair life. Ultra-filtered, milks are kind of amazing. They're like, they've got half the carbs. No. Lactose, you know, one and a half times the protein of normal milk. It's like a really great fat loss. Yeah, food. Now it's pretty awesome. I mean again I can't speak to the quality of the milk per se, I can't speak to the the the animal right side like so I can't I can't comment on that but from a sheer macro perspective like the stuff is is pretty awesome and you're
Like the filtered fat-free milk, basically. Tastes like 2%. The filter 2%, basically tastes like hole and the filtered whole basically tastes like half and half. It's so it's like, you're kind of getting this step up. So if you're someone that's maybe on a fat loss regimen and you're saying, hey like I just miss that taste of whole milk or I just miss that. You want a little taste of. I don't think you should maybe be living on the stuff you know just like anything. I think there's a little bit of moderation. We have to exercise their but it gives you that little glimmer of hope that sometimes you're
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Don't guess test. What do you think about this, the controversy surrounding plant-based and animal Source protein? I mean, you've already kind of talked about this, but, you know, there are truth. Be told there are vegan bodybuilders out there and you must be, I mean, you must know, some of them like, so, how are they making it work? I think, first of all, most of those that are doing a plant-based diet and are getting enough protein. Generally, when you look at them, like, for example, like Simon Hills a good example, like he's very meticulous about his diet. Like there's a lot of vegans out there that are not and I repeat
Expect a health-conscious diet conscious, like, Choice conscious vegan, that is actually like making good choices with their diet, in order to get adequate protein, like the difference between Simon Hill. And some of these others is like, Simon Hill is still very pro protein. There's a lot of vegans that are like, think that protein is the enemy to longevity, which was arguably, I think, has been pretty debunked, but I mean, you can find an argument anywhere. So again, I respect that. Hey, if you're getting adequate protein like,
And you're making the efforts to do it then. Good on you. Heck. Yeah, you're clearly making it work. Is it more difficult? It's got to be. I mean, of course because the literature suggesting that it's not just like combining rice and beans to get adequate amino acid profiles. Like there's synergistic effects. Sure. When you combine them but there's also like post biotic effects of certain foods, there's all these different effects that happen when food is in its true. Bioavailable
You know, so what I look at like an animal-based protein, it's there in its natural biological form. I'm not have. And then I'm getting I'm getting kind of anecdotal here and I'm getting a little whoop, but it just doesn't make a lot of logical sense that the body is going to be very, very good at saying, hey here's rice from one continent, here's beans from another continent. Let's magically turn it into red meat. Like I'm sure it works at an amino acid level, but wouldn't you think that like there's more to it than just amino acids? And again, I'm not a biochemist. So I can only
Comment from like the perspective of some logic, like our bodies are very complicated. Like don't you think they kind of have figured out like what a bioavailable food is, that's just like real and its whole form. I don't know if we're going to outsmart that we can to a certain degree but we're probably missing something if that makes sense. Yeah, I remember reading a study that compared like the post there was like a transient difference in the post workout like a post-workout Androgen Spike when they
If subjects either soy protein or whey protein, I think the. So, in this study the soy protein blunted, the post-workout testosterone Spike. Now, that's just like a transient Spike, I don't think that that matters over the long term in terms of muscle gain, and I think they've shown that, if you have, if your protein levels are high enough that plant protein versus animal protein, you can still gain as much muscle. But that's interesting man, that shows like biologically that there's a, there's a difference, a physiologic difference in terms of how we respond to the two different kinds of proteins. And also,
I think it's not even debatable at this point. That among the plant-based proteins soy, is like the highest quality, but as omnivores, I mean, we say all the time, like it's, there's probably value to rotating your proteins, right? I'm not eating only chicken breasts. All the time, I'm not eating only red meat all the time, right? There's value in integrating the fatty fish, so to make the recommendation to somebody on a plant-based diet to just load up on the soy. Doesn't make any sense or at least it? You know, there's cognitive dissonance at least for me.
With that recommendation because I think that there's, why would there be value to rotating your proteins as an omnivore. But it's okay for vegan to just be pounding, the soy, you know, day and night, or why is it not? Okay, outside of ethical reasons for some people may have for us to just pound like maybe even lean red meat and let's take fatty red meat out of the equation for a second. Let's say lean red meat like a filet or something that has very little saturated fat because I can we can we can make arguments back and forth on saturated fat for sure. So let's just take that out of the equation. Look like a lean cut. So
Jubilee, if I eat like three filet mignons a day, but you're going to say that that's terrible because I'm not rotating my protein. But on the other hand, it's okay. If you have, like, five soy protein shakes, it's like you should be rotating these things up in my opinion. But then there's also just a touch on you. Maybe see my post recently on the DIA s score. You know, the protein, digestibility, indispensability amino acids core, which is much better than the pdca a score. Pdca score is like the protein dispense ability, score, that's a score that looks at
Amino acids and protein in given Foods based upon like what is excreted, right? So although it's accurate. So like, for example, eggs have a perfect score of 100 of 0 to 100. This gets a little complicated but from 0 to 100 eggs, score a 100 on the pdca a score, which means on that scale. Eggs are the most perfect protein that you could have. And I agree. Eggs are amazing. Then you look at the DIA a a score, this measures it in the ilium. So it measures it actually within the
Gastrointestinal tract. So it's more accurate representation of what is actually absorbed with this. Believe it or not, like whole milk powder ends up actually be a signal to make a point that these numbers are not truncated. So what that means is when you're looking at like statistics, like if they're not truncated, you don't have to stop it at 100. I can actually go over 100 percent. Okay? So whole milk powder ends up at a 145. Whoa.
Whoa, what I found interesting about this is that whey protein isolate and whey protein. Concentrate are down in the 130s. Why is it that whole milk powder has a higher digestible indispensable? Amino acid score? Yeah, why I don't know but the only conclusion that I can come to is the fact that it has all the components together, making things more bioavailable writers day. So it's only more fodder for our argument that like food and its whole form is best. And that's I mean still a 133 and 135
Effectively, which I think is where isolate and concentrate land is still friggin amazing. Don't get me wrong and it's probably a negligible difference, but the fact that we end up in a 145 with whole milk and then the cool thing is like, you don't see a single plant based protein above 100 and truncated form. Soy, protein isolate comes in, I think it at 95, pretty high up there, but it's all things like pork. It's things like eggs, eggs, come in, and this is where it's funny like even cooking. The egg is different, like a whole egg in its raw form.
I want to say a somewhere in the 130s and a hard-boiled, egg was 113 interests. So how you cook a protein. Actually, affects the digestibility score as well and what you're actually getting out of it. So it's not to say that one. Protein is better than the other but it's kind of saying that one protein is better than the other. Yeah. No super super interesting. Wow I wonder it all kind of just goes back to the value of the whole food Matrix and how how many more questions there are compared to answers even still at this point in 2023. Like, what if
The sugar in whole milk that that leads to enhanced uptake, right of these amino acids creates like a little bit of an insulin Spike. That's actually a really good point. Didn't even think that. Yeah, I mean, it's, there's a million questions or the active microbes, right? Like when it's in one thing that wasn't looked at it, like, okay, if it's whole milk powder is what they looked at. Depending if it is it heat pasteurized. Is it cold? Filtered like are there active enzymes of active microbes in it because we know that that makes a difference so that I don't know. But again, it just begs that
Kitchen like okay, well food in its whole form. Definitely seems to be better than its isolated form. Even though isolated my quote unquote, be more pure, it's kind of odd. Yeah, I've heard it described some occasionally, as the, the Entourage effect of all the different compounds and food. Some of which we have yet, to even identify that all kind of work together, synergistically, and, and lead to the outcomes that we see when people consume mainly Whole Foods the positive Health outcomes related to predominantly Whole Food,
Consumption. So couldn't agree more eyelids move on to the next controversy low carb versus low fat diets. This is, I love that I get to talk to you about this because you are one of the early like Quito guys, right? Like you went and keto helped you lose a huge amount of weight? Yeah, immensely. Yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong. So like you definitely that's like a camp that you I think were once a part of I don't know if you still consider yourself a part of that camp but yeah, how do you kind of see?
And think about the difference between low carbon low fat diets. I feel like low carb diets are largely misunderstood. I feel like they've been wrongly demonized and I've been on both sides of them. I'm not on a very low carb diet. I guess by most standards, I'm probably still low card because I really don't eat more than like 120 carbs. But I was once a keto guy why am I not he do anymore because I've achieved my body composition goals. I've no longer diabetic I was diabetic.
I have fixed my body. Like I don't need to be on key do anymore. Some people want to stay on it and granted. I feel great on it, but I don't see a point. Like now my goal is okay more. Performance-oriented. So I sprinkle carbs and where I need them and now I'm just having fun. Now I'm just like, okay, let me do a bunch of different experiments on myself and see how like different things respond. So being in that camp and really understanding the literature and befriending a lot of esteemed researchers in that world. I can just see how they've just been completely.
Just kicked to the curb because they think in a different vein than the rest of the evidence-based Community, but when you actually look at the literature like it's pretty split. Now when we get into a low fat diet, that's a little bit of a different category, I haven't had a chance to dive into it a whole lot but there's a paper. You may have seen it. That came out just recently. Here in 2023, that was pretty compelling demonstrating that I can low fat. Diet is not sustainable, okay? A low fat diet can work phenomenally well for fat loss.
But it's not realistically, very sustainable. So then you have to get granular a low-fat diet. Like, we have to look at fats like we do carbohydrates, okay. We almost have to understand that there, for lack of a better term is sort of a glycemic index scale of, that's right. If you talk to any person on the street and you ask them about fats, they're probably going to categorize fats in one category and like, the more you start to learn about nutrition and you realize like how complicated
Dated fats are and the carbon chains and how, you know ranges from, you know, butyric acid. You know with very few chains to MCTS having six chains, all the way up to 22. Carbon chain fats that digest it different speeds, I have different impacts on lipids and triglycerides. You're like oh my gosh, like every fat is so different. Just like there is a huge difference between taking a pure scoop of dextrose powder and eating a sweet potato entirely different, right? So when you look at low fat versus low,
It's impossible to just say, one is better than the other like low-fat, okay, what is your protein? Look like okay, low carb, what does your fat look like? Are you only eating saturated fat and not getting any of this nutritional value out of these other fats. Okay, arguably from a health perspective, both could be very, very bad, okay? But there is a such thing as a well-crafted, ketogenic diet and a well-crafted low-carb diet that hits all those micronutrient goals. There's also a low fat diet that can get fairly close
But I would say that the low-fat diet takes a lot more conscious thought to get adequate fat nutrition in. Then a low carb diet does to get adequate micronutrients. So, like on a low-carb diet, it's not that difficult to say, okay, I'm going to limit my saturated fats a little bit more and I'm going to add more olive oil. Some avocados in everything else and don't eat processed junk. All right, on a low-fat diet, you're like, okay, I got to make sure I get enough of these fats and I gotta support my cholesterol, I gotta support.
Lipids. I got to support myelination. I have to support my brain. Your to keep it a spreadsheet of making sure because oh my gosh, I can't go over 50 grams of fat. So I got to make sure oh shoot darn it. I had 30 grams of monounsaturated. Now I'm missing out on my fish oils. See what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah totally. Here is a really easy sell I get asked all the time. What my favorite magnesium supplement is, any answer is easy. I love magnesium Breakthrough by by optimizers by optimizers is amazing because with their magnesium.
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We have a bias towards low-carbon myself, but the idea that it, that it also needs to be high fat, I think that's what's led to a lot of people stalling with their weight loss Journeys. You know, they go on these like, low-carb diets with good intentions and they automatically they start loading up their pantries in their kit and their refrigerators with like, really high fat products. And then that diet is going to be inherently. I think more satiating than the standard American diet. Usually people are transitioned to whatever dietary pattern from whatever obesogenic.
Diet, they were previously eating, so there's higher satiety, but they make them. It's like the, it's like, that's the critical mistake is that people, then start loading in all these high fat and they wonder why they stole, I think you're dead on and I think one of the biggest mistakes that they've made in the keto Community is that simple term of, you know, fat burns fat or it's like the confusion with. That is. It's no wonder. Like, no wonder people get confused and no wonder like the
Space Community comes at that because that just is a logical like, like, oh, you're stoking. This metabolic fire with fat and it's going to condition your body to burn fat. Not quite, I mean it's definitely not. It does condition your mitochondria in the absence of carbohydrates to utilize fats, but that's going to happen with, or without additional fats, like once carbohydrates are removed, then the mitochondria is going to understand how to, you know,
Utilize fats are going to up regulate carnitine. Palmitoyl transfer is one you're going to up regulate these systems that use fat. So you can do that with or without a bunch of added fats. So the common just you know it's just so eat more fat. You're going to burn more fat. No, eat more fat. You're going to eat more calories. Yeah. And you're also going to burn more dietary fat but I think the point that most people like most people probably would prefer to be burning their own body fat. But the more dietary fat you consume, you're just you're just displacing whatever body fat you would have.
Yeah, by eating that excessive amount of dietary fat think of it as like a sink, right? You've got a sink and you're throwing a bunch of, like, food in the sink and you turn on the garbage. Disposal, okay. Well, eventually, you're going to start burning up. All that food is going to go down through the garbage disposal, you have an empty sink, right? Let's pretend that those things that are in your sink, our fat stores, okay? Well if you keep throwing half of a Pop-Tart and some eggplant and some stuff in the sink, then you're never actually draining that.
I think you're just constantly throwing more in the sink. So you may start with a sink full of food that you're trying to grind down through this garbage disposal. But here, you know, let me take a bucket of chow and dump it in that sink wall that garbage disposals running. So even if a burnings going, you're never pulling into your actual stores. You're just constantly burning what you're putting in. Yeah, 100%. And to the credit, but also to the credit of the low-carb diet Community. You know, there's no such as it's true, that there's no such thing as an essential carbohydrate. Whereas as you alluded to there,
Like there are definitely essential fats. Yes. Like we do not want to go too low fat, whereas you could eat a zero carbohydrate diet and survived on it whether or not you're thriving on it. That's another, that's another question. I mean, I arguably and I thrived on like, probably less than 10 grams of carbs for years, interesting. I mean, I felt amazing granted it was in contrast to being obese before. But yeah, I mean, gluconeogenesis is a pretty powerful thing in your body creates glucose, you know, and I think the biggest issue that people might
Face is over the long term. Maybe they end up with micronutrient deficiencies because it's very especially now because there's so many like delicious keto treats out there. He's like, easy to just eat garbage and just end up back at square one. Just without the cars. Do you have any favorite junk foods? Like Indulgence Foods? I mean, I'm a texture guys, like ice cream. Big. Yeah. Big ice cream guy. Yeah. What kind of we talking? Are we talking like the lower calorie ice creams? Are we talking like the real deal? I mean, occasionally I'll have the real deal.
But you know, usually it ends up being like a Halo, top cap thing Hilltop is good. Yeah, it's really good bro. People like I don't know why there's like this hate that. It gets sometimes as if it's like not real ice cream but I think it it's really really tasty taste better than a lot of ice creams you ask me. Yeah. And I have no affiliation sponsor. Me get on top. Yeah, it's good stuff, I go for it. What's your favorite flavor? The sea salt? Caramels pretty. Darn good, pretty good. Yeah I would agree. I'm a sucker for mint. Chocolate chip?
But also like Rebel, the rebel Creamery stuff. Oh yeah, are mint. Chip is pretty unreal. Is it man ice cream? Okay, next controversy, I love doing as a human, so fun, you know, your stuff. Okay, fasting. This is topic. You also talked quite a bit about, yeah. What's the current? What's your current view on fasting? I think fasting should always be the anomaly. I feel like fasting. Like, if you start making fasting, just your lifestyle, then
You're doing is walking a slippery slope into caloric restriction anyway and you might as well just restrict calories. Is it more sustainable for you? It might be but I think fasting every day is a recipe for a slow metabolism because you're just putting yourself in that spot. I feel like fasting occasionally making it a shock to your system. That's a much more effective way to restrict calories while still keeping a base that's high enough to kind of keep your body functioning and not kind of get into this serious deficit. That could be detrimental. I also think that a periodically fasting you're getting the cell
Allure benefits the way that you want because you want to have this balance of mtor and ampk, right? You don't take it. Like just that Jim example, for example, like if I go to the gym, I want to have a little bit of an mtor Spike, right? I want mtor to be elevated because that means I'm, that's pro-growth but growth isn't just tumors and random tissue and muscle and fat growth is repair. And, you know, say what you want about someone like Paul saladino like
He's got some strong arguments when it comes down to insulin and growth, right? And we've demonized insulin so much that now we're like, oh well fasting is going to decrease our insulin levels. We should keep our insulin levels, super low. It's like I think at Baseline. Yeah, your insulin levels should be low, but it's also good to have periodic spikes in them and periodic spikes of mtor. So, for people that are just constantly decreasing calories so much the fasting. I get concerned that you're never going to have the cellular repair that you need. So is it a viable?
All tool for weight loss. Yes. And I will go on record and say that I do think it's a smidge more than just the caloric restriction benefits. Like I know that like there's been this regression to the mean where everyone's sort of been bullied into one way or the other to say, like, okay fasting works, but it's just because of caloric restriction. It's almost like they're. I don't know, they're spineless. And they're putting it to bed like no one wants to fight about it anymore. So they're just like, okay, there's enough literature supporting fasting where the evidence-based Community is like, okay, we can't fight with it because the literature suggests that it works. But then the fasting
And he's very pushing it a little too far. So there's been this sort of like Middle Ground where they're deadlock, whether just saying like, well I know you don't I don't like fasting. But yeah, fine, it works. And it's but at the and the reality is like, I think fasting does work a little bit better for certain people like for people that are severely metabolically dysfunctional that really do need to bring their insulin levels down. The literature is very strong that fasting works very effectively at that and does it work better than others in some studies? Yes.
Most of the studies I've seen. Yes. But it doesn't mean that you don't have studies that show, otherwise. So it is safe to say. Yes it is an effective means of caloric restriction and it probably works just as well but I will go one step further and say I think it probably works a little bit better for people that are metabolically dysfunctional, right? Also, weight loss is yes. Weight loss is super important for somebody that's overweight and especially will be, he's losing. The weight is probably should be your number.
Priorities, but beyond that, I mean, I do think that there are probably some, some, you know, there probably are some cardio metabolic benefits to early time. Restricted eating like just eating an earlier dinner and also in terms of helping to facilitate weight loss. Yeah, Beyond calorie restriction. There were a few studies that have shown that early time. Restricted eating can help reduce next day, hunger. And that conversely late-night, eating can increase next day, hunger.
ER, and reduce resting energy expenditure the next day. So we do have these circadian inclinations hardwired into our biology. And that just like saying, okay, we're just going to ignore them. Doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah, we're going to ignore them so we don't have to fight anymore. Yeah, quick pause, you guys know that. I'm a massive fan of 100% grass-fed grass-finished beef. Not only is one of the most nutrient dense foods around, but it is freaking delicious. And for that reason, I
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So let's not forget the positive impacts on early time, restrict feeding and sleep. And everyone seems to agree that sleep is very important for. Yeah. Plus and and in the other side of the equation is like there's some literature that came out last year that I put out in a video. That was really interesting that was suggesting that like losing weight really fast or losing weight. Really slow, didn't ultimately matter when it came down to the rate of regain. Okay, so it was basically 6 and 1/2
Doesn't in the other, whether people lost weight over a year or lost weight over three months. And yet we're told that if you lose a bunch of weight via fasting because it's extreme that that's not good. You're gonna gain it all back while the literature suggests otherwise, I think a lot of that has to do with psychology and that's a different situation. So, for me, my argument has always been okay, if having 100 extra pounds on you is triggering a Cascade of terrible things in your body, every single day that you're
You're 100 pounds overweight. I want to get that 100 pounds off as fast as possible and now that it's somewhat clear that whether you lose it fast or slow, doesn't matter as far as regain is concerned. Yeah. Someone could say, well, no, I think slow and steady wins the race and sure I'm with you on that, maybe it's more sustainable for you. But what about the long-term impact of your health? If it takes you two years to get 100 pounds off, but I get it off in three months. Well, that's 1 month. 1 year and 9 months,
Longer that I am exposed to a healthy body weight. We're in, that's 1 year and 9 months longer that you're exposed to all these a dip. A Keynes and things that are not good for you. So I say get the weight off by whatever means is healthy and sustainable for you. Yeah, 100%. Do you think there's a trade-off between longevity and performance? Yes. What you mean by for sure. I think it's a simply a stress thing. I mean I don't know.
We haven't maybe been around the block long enough to see how long some of these extreme athletes are going to live, you know, but I do think that, you know, I've been on this side of it. You know, that really focusing on performance and going all the way a lot of times comes with a level of, I'll just come out and say it myself psychosis like it's just like, you get so into it and so obsessed with it, that it's a certain type of person that becomes ridiculously performance-oriented that tends to overdo it.
It. And at that rate it's just like you're stressing your body. So of course there's going to be a negative impact. Can that be countered with proper recovery? Like can you go 100 miles per hour and then adequately recover or should you go 50 miles per hour and adequately recover? I guess the optimal thing is like, okay, whatever is going to make you recover the most. But then begs the question we get kind of granular here is like, okay, well, does more recovery mean, more food?
Does more food mean burn hot Die Young so are you burning everything up? Driving up Ross, driving up all these, you know, oxidative stressors and stress markers in the body, may be recovering from the perspective performance, but you're also like consuming a bunch of calories that, but then you have the other side that says, well, if you're in a slight deficit at the end of the day, then you know, it's all coming out in the wash and to keep the metabolic Drive High, it's all about G flux. And
Keeping relative calories high and relative output high but still finding that middle ground like it's much better to eat 5,000 calories and burn 5000 calories than it is to eat two thousand and burn 2000m, you're burning at a higher metabolic rate, you're maintaining more muscle, you have more life to you. It's like comparing someone that's an athlete on the football field compared to someone that's dying in hospice. It's just the amount of energy that is there in that physical being is a completely different radiating effect and
So I do think that we stress ourselves as like performance minded people and like triathletes, for example, I mean training like 8 to 12 hours per day, you know, it's like a professional Iron Man, like there's no way that that can be good for you longevity. So is it about finding a balance? Yeah. But you try telling that to a performance minded person, it's pretty darn difficult. For me, it's harder to convince myself to rest than it is to push myself through workout. Interesting. Yeah I
Not agree more. It's just, you know, within our space there's all this talk about how valuable putting on muscle is and I'm definitely in that camp, like I very much value resistance training and I'm always looking for that new hypertrophic stimulus. And I'm, I'm prioritizing protein with every meal and I'm striving to get 1.6 grams times my weight in kilograms every day, but I wonder if that's optimizing performance, we don't really have any solid data.
On what a bodybuilding regimen might look like in terms of its impact on longevity. For example, I think we, we hypothesize that the more muscle you can carry into your later years, the better off, you're going to be and I think that's a pretty sound hypothesis, but we ultimately don't know whether or not trade-offs are being made. Yeah. And there's a lot of different detail that goes in, like a bodybuilder that says, okay, I'm going to get as much muscle as possible and I'm going to try to get as lean as possible via means that do
Necessarily stress my VO2 max. Well then there's a very strong argument that VO2 max is a very strong indicator of your longevity. So it's like muscle mass of strong indicator of longevity vo2max a strong indicator of longevity. So it's the bodybuilder that has a bunch of muscle to Stave off Frailty and to handle a you know, a fall when he's 70 better off than a person that is moderately muscle but has a strong cardiovascular system. That's a tough call, right? And we just don't have that cohort. There's just not enough people that are especially
Surely, you know that are in their seventies and eighties. Now that maybe were extreme athletes, we're not even extreme moderate to moderate extreme that are in that age, there's just not enough people, let alone people that would be willing to be part of a study. So and as far as I know, no one's even looking at that. And, you know, again, like I've talked to even like Lane Norton about this who like he and I oppose a lot of things but like he and I have both talked about like because he's a performance. Might a person like that again, say what you want about? The guy we at least level on that, right? And we agree that like it's pretty much impossible to ever find.
Like a fit cohort that you could really look at like all these Health angles with at the same time as performance, it's very very difficult if you look at my lab work after like a week of hard training, someone might say. Whoa dude, you're like you know, creating kinase levels are through the roof, your creatinine is high, like, you know, you've got these oxidative markers that are high, all these things that indicate the body's under stress cardiac, CRP might be high but then you look at the a week later after recovery and things have come back to Baseline, if not
Better. Like so it all depends on when you look at that data, right? So it's like if you're sampling performance minded people or athletes, it's just really hard data to look at. Yeah, but on the other hand there's there aren't many obese 90 year olds that I'm familiar with fair, right? So I think I think maintaining a semblance of balance is probably very valuable. I do want to ask you some questions for my Instagram audience because I shared with them that I had you come into the studio today and I got a ton of really great questions.
Ian's, you've got a lot of fans out there. Thomas. Probably a lot of people that don't like me too. But well, the first question that I got our UV shred. Okay, I gotta tell a story now twice. Yesterday, in one day, I go into this place called grab a green and T. Oh, it's in Thousand Oaks, it's a place where just kind of build your own stuff, you know, both sweet, potatoes, whatever. And I gonna order my bowl, I go back, sit down my wife, and then, the owner is like, hey, you know yours ready? I
Up there. Just like, has anyone ever told you, you look like that guy that's on, like the ads and stuff like that? And I thought he was joking because I thought he was like, knew who I was and was joking. And I was like, haha. Yeah. That V shred guy. He's like, yes. Anyone ever tell you that? You look like him. And I was like, yeah. All the time. It like really interferes with things. He's like, interferes with what? And I'm like. Well, like my brand new show, you have a brand and I'm like, okay, so you don't know who I am. Do you think I'm V shred? And then he proceeds to say, yeah, someone sent me a video.
CEO of V shred interviewing Paul saladino. And I was just like, wow, what a tool? And I was like okay that was me. Interviewing, Paul saladino, so you just got this wrong and so he was so confused thought that I was V shred. First of all, he hated the interview with Paul saladino because he hated Paul even though I was very neutral in that but that what's funny about that it was just wrong on so many levels. First he thinks I'm Vishal he thinks I look like the shred then he thinks the V shred did a video with Paul saladino Mike. No.
Actually, that one was me. Who is this guy? By the way? Because I'm like that from. I know that you always get mistaken for him and my sense is that he's not, he doesn't have a ton of credibility and attrition space, but I don't know anything about him. I don't know who he is. I'm sure she's a perfectly nice guy. It's just probably is, in fact, I have met him in person, like he's fine, but he, he's just got like an online like sales funnel that. So he runs crazy amounts of YouTube, traffic crazy, crazy amounts of Facebook. Trap like ridiculously clearly. It's working because it's scaling. But what,
Ins, is he looks? And and it's I don't want to like, throw him under the bus but everyone else does so. Like, I'll just like, say, like just look around you. He runs really aggressive, like, auto bill campaigns where it's like you get on his workout routine, Like You by his info product and then you're stuck on auto bill forever, right? Wow. So I have people emailing me all the time you're like I bought your program. Refund me like that my program. You can buy anything for me but then he looks enough like me where if it's in like a little ad that's underneath my below residue.
Yeah, like someone's gonna be like, oh well, that's Thomas's body type quiz because it's underneath my video. So he knows that he can run a ton of ads over my videos and it'll confuse people. Well, it sucks. Yeah, that's not cool. Yeah, damn. Okay, well glad we glad we settled that, Catherine Lynn, s escs, what are your thoughts on orthorexia? Giving your your OCD background? Yeah, you have a, you have an OCD background. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. I've talked about that on a lot of podcasts and I was a kid. I was
Was, it was pretty bad. Like, it was always afraid. My mom was going to die, so it was like, different hop on one foot light switch. Flip like it was bad. It was definitely bad. Wow, you know, pulling my hair out when I was like, 12, 13 years old. Like you had a pretty pretty interesting. Childhood battling OCD and also battling eating disorder. I was anorexic when I was 13 and 14. And yeah, it was, it was pretty bad. And so I've talked about this pretty openly and other podcasts about how it affects me today.
And I think that it's actually learning food, chemistry, and learning biochemistry and learning what is in food has actually given me a healthy Obsession to keep me from doing just to one extreme because it used to just be like, I would eat whatever. But as long as I like could rattle my my wrist around with my fingers, like I put my fingers on my wrist and as long as my wrists were skinny enough, you know? And then I think I sort of self-sabotage why I became obese. I think I was like this revolt against my mom and like, things like that because like my mom,
Kind of part of it. And it was, it was an interesting. Yeah, interesting plethora of different things. Well, so how do I balance that today? You know, I'm well, aware of my Tendencies to become very like obsessed with things but I've also realized that Obsession and focus are two very different things. Being obsessed would Define the as like, I don't care about my family, I'm like just focused on this and it's becoming unhealthy. Like for me, it could easily get that way.
And that's also why I'm very careful with fasting because I checked myself be like, oh you know what, I'm fasting a little too much or getting fixated on body composition, looking in the mirror being like, okay, cool. I want to get that last little bit of fat off and want to get super strip shred and then realize like, like why like, what's more important? So, I get obsessed with, like, my health and my longevity in a healthy way, where I deem it much more as Focus, but once that is in your brain, and once you were an obsessive person, I don't think it ever goes away. You always.
To keep a conscious thought on it. Wow, dude, thank you for sharing that. I had no idea. I are you friends with Sal di Stefano from from black pump. He has a similar story. He used to be like he has to find that balance because you can easily slip back into becoming obsessed with body, composition gym and things like that. It's very common. I think amongst people in our in our space. I feel very lucky I've never had that. Yeah, it's definitely. You know, I started out with a lot of
I ran my first marathon when I was 11, there was a lot of pressures on me as a kid to perform, you know, and with that came body, composition and body dysmorphia kind of like these issues and how I looked at myself. And yeah, it's definitely a wild, you know, a wild experience which I think is why I kind of ended up where I am now, like, I might as well take something that I'm experienced with and make something of it. And if I can Master it and I can be in control of it because obsession is all about control, and it's all about that being
Be able to like soothe your anxieties and coping mechanisms and food was a coping mechanism for me, for a long pipe of my life, which is why I ended up over way. But for a while, the control of abstaining from food was what helped me because that was my coping mechanism. I felt in control if I could control how much I was eating, even if it was how little I was eating. Hmm. Do you are there triggers like that that you have to just like kind of be mindful of in your in your life? Not so much anymore. I will say it's a slippery slope
With me with running because I will like when I was anorexic, I was running a lot. And I would trick myself into thinking, like I just need to be as light as possible. I don't want to eat, I want to be fast because I was a long distance runner at a very young age. I'm, you know, heavily in a running training block right now and however, I think my brand and my credibility as being like a relatively heavily muscled person in the space like I can't lose that. So I have accountability from a career perspective. I'm like I'm going to run but there's no way that I'm going to
Go back and slip into this thing where I want to get as light as possible so I can be faster. I got to maintain my size. I want to maintain. So there's a little bit of but it's easy to slip back there so I'm very careful. Yeah. Wow. I've seen like have you take have you done therapy things like that or it's just been yeah for sure. A process for sure like I mean when I was like 12 13, I was prescribed like low-dose benzodiazepines just for my anxiety and it's definitely been an I still actively go to therapy just because it's so easy like even from a career perspective you get
So hyper-focused in obsessed with career like there's all these different things where there's that fine line again between focus and Obsession. Like can't let things go. Yeah you know and like obsessions with even people pleasing and you like these things that like people might experience in small dosages but if you're not careful like they can consume you and I think it's you know therapy is one of these things that's been so I don't want to say taboo but it's like it's not Alpha, you know it's like
No, I think it's the most Alpha thing you can do, is absolutely. Yeah, to be to be real and to get vulnerable and to share with somebody else's struggles that you're going through and to be able to open up about it, for sure. And to, and to be willing to work on yourself. Yeah. Particularly publicly. Yeah, it's, I mean, you know, I've used even my social media platforms as places to be vulnerable in a real way. Not like there's a lot of phony vulnerability out there where people like I'm vulnerable. Look at me now. I just try to be real. Like I mean it's just did. Come on, we're all just
Pants on the stadium way every day. I think we're just trying to get their life, like, let's be real. Yeah, 100%. Oh my God. So true. Yeah, it's you got to have Grace, man. You gotta, like, be kind to yourself and to. Yeah. And to have an end-to-end to do your best to adopt. As, as best, you can, to flexible mindset, about thing's for sure. Because we're all at the end of the day, all of us falter. And you have to
You just have to get back up. You know. And not and to not feel guilt or Shame about it. I think it's really important men. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Okay, Deb 10, go to, it's funny, username asks, are there any healthy protein bars out there? You protein bar guy.
When I'm in a pinch. Yeah, I do like that. Like the i q bar is pretty good. I mean, it's more plant-based but it's not and it's not super high protein. So I wouldn't say that it's one that you're going to get copious amount of protein, but like, as far as like, simple clean ingredients, it's pretty good. Those howsam akbar's are super good but again, they're not protein bar. You know, you're looking at. I think they should make one. I think you should talk to them and have them. Yeah. Put a little bit of whey protein or something in there. There download the house. Matt guys are great. Yeah. Shout out to have some macadamias big-time the
As far as protein bars, go.
There's not a lot that you're going. I'm going to like stand behind and say like I would think like if you're in a pinch I would much rather see you have a protein shake than a protein bar. Definitely. Like there's just so although it's not entirely practical because most gas stations aren't going to sell like clean protein shakes. You're almost better to just get like a like a lot of gas stations will have like they'll have the fair life milk at gas stations in small little fat free Fair life and like be prepared.
Bring packets of protein powder with you. Like they make single surface, it's just such a cleaner option. Not the protein powder is an amazing thing, but if you get like a super clean one that doesn't have a lot of stuff added to it. It's borderline food. I mean, it is like, so, like a whey protein, concentrate still has. So I guess my point with that is,
Man. Yeah, they're hard. Yeah, not without a bunch of other stuff coming into the mix. I will say that and I have no affiliation with this company. These companies need to pay me, man, because I, because, when I find something, I like, I like to share about it as part of the fun of being in the space, but I did discover built bars. If you're trying to build bars are, damn tasty. Well, here's what I like about them. The ingredients are super clean. No artificial sweeteners. But most importantly, the protein to
Percentage is, I think the highest I've found like a protein, they range in calories, but you can a lot of their bars. Many of their bars are about 100 130 to 140 calories per bar and 17 grams of proteins. Go. So that's that's like almost 50 percent if not higher protein. Yeah. Yeah. It's the only one that even comes close to that. It's not clean ingredients. It's going to be a Quest Bar. Yes. Like it's just like I just I mean I have eaten them on occasion but like I feel
Just bloated. I just don't feel good. Yeah, it's all the like the tapioca fiber and the chicory root fiber. Yeah, it's like gasps City. Those bars? Not fun. Definitely not fun. What about okay? So I mean, my audience is so great, they always have like, the best questions. Actually, this is a, this is a really good one and I kind of think it kind of jumps off of the prior question.
About OCD. But tips, for recovering, from an eating disorder while building lean muscle. Now, none of us are experts in Eating Disorders but I mean, just in a from a general standpoint. I mean, somebody trying to
Do Best by their body gain muscle adhere to, you know, a program. What is the best way to like transition to that? If you have a history of obsession maybe OCD eating disorders and the like, yeah, I found personally having a plan and sharing that plan with like two or three people that are close to me on one hand, it can backfire because you know if you're obsessive then you're obsessed with the plan but on the other hand it's like when
Getting into especially fat loss territory where like you could easily just start restricting more and more and more and more and more like having a plan and riding your week out. Even if it takes you 20 minutes to do it and sharing it with your family. I used to do this with my wife, where I would like to share. This is this what my meal plan looks like? It would help for actual like prep to, but it would also hold me accountable and she would, hold me accountable. So that I wasn't trying to go more extreme on things like that. Yeah. As you mentioned like eating disorders are, so it's so difficult because they're very very complex.
Lex and people end up in them for all kinds of different reasons. So you have to remember that a lot, the root of a lot of it. It's a coping mechanism, you know, an element of control. So identify what it is that you're trying to control and especially with food, like, are you trying to control your body composition or are you trying to control something else? Like identify that and be aware of it. Write it down, put it in a box and remind yourself of it every day. So that, you know what it is. You're exactly dealing with as far as the
Mechanism because no matter which way you spin it, if you go on a fat loss regime or a muscle building regime, it's gonna feel like you're relapsing into this eating disorder territory because you are somewhat to a certain degree obsessing over your food and people will kind of Gaslight you with that even inadvertently. Like don't you think you're slipping up? Don't you think your oh, you have an eating disorder. You shouldn't well. What else you supposed to do? You suppose to just throw it all to the wind and just hope for the best like you got to have a plan, so identifying
With like what your coping mechanism is and why it makes you feel that way and understanding. Why does this soothe me? Like what am I trying to control and really digging deep with yourself and then does that make you want to eat something to satisfy that because with other people on the other side? Like it's Eating Disorders. Also eating something that gives you a sense of control when you eat it or gives you a sense of feel good when you eat it, right? Like you go to food for comfort, for control, for that, coping mechanism, because you feel loved and you it's not
Just dopaminergic or serotonin. There is the deeper rooted things going on there so identifying that is very important.
Yeah, I think one of the things that I've that I've cleaned and again I'm in no way an expert in this topic, but removing the moral value from food, like like not seeing any particular Foods as either good or bad, which I think if you have a healthy relationship with food then
You can you can put Foods in different buckets. Like this food is not the best. For me. This food is going to be very healthy. This food is like a trigger food for me. I'm inclined to over eat them. But I think for somebody it's the the sense that I've gleaned from interacting with experts in the in the in an ambient sense is that for somebody with eating disorders, it's really important to like remove that black and white dichotomous
thinking. Yep, I totally agree there. And being able to just understand that food is a fuel.
And it doesn't have to constantly be about nourishment, doesn't have to constantly be about body composition. Like, when I like, I try to teach my kids because it's a perfect example, like, how do I not pass an eating disorder on to them? Because generational parenting like how my mom was with me, isn't necessarily how I want to be with my kids. My mom did kind of, although a lot of these amazing things, there was a lot of pressures on from my mom like to eat certain way. And and I that back
Fired in certain some would say, no, it didn't like look at you, you got a great career out of it. Yeah. But the psychological turmoil that I go through, as a result of that. Wow, you know, so I try to like, teach my kids. My, how does that food make you feel? If you can truly understand, without mind, screwing yourself without manipulating your own thoughts, how do you feel when you eat that? Well, my son will be like, I feel good. I want to go run around the block, then let's do it. Like an understanding energy balance in a healthy way, not just numbers as far as calories and output truly
Fundamentally inherently understanding what energy balance is. I eat this banana, I feel good. I want to go run. That's not, that's not an eating disorder to say. I want to eat something now. I want to go run only. If you spin it that way, if you eat something, you're like, oh my gosh, I have energy. I want to go do something, I'm fueled. That means your body's healthy and to understand that and relate with, that is great, to eat a steak and be like, I feel like my body's healing, listen to that as woo, as it is. So I try to teach my kids that where it's less about, we don't have the crappy Foods available.
Able in the house, they're not just going to go eat garbage and I don't control their snacking. And I say this with the kids because like kids are always wanting to snack, not going to stop them from snacking. So if he wants to grab an apple, I just want them to be aware. Like okay, like cool. Well how do you feel with that now? It's a good. I want to go play as an adult. I can do that too.
Yeah, I mean I if I overindulge say I'm, you know, I'm at a I was at my brothers or my niece's, first birthday party. And my brother got this key.
Okay, Kitt was one of the most delicious things I've ever had and I went to town on it. I'm not I must have eaten, 1,500 calories worth of his keto cake. It was that good. It was like a, it was a keto carrot cake made by some. I forget the name, I wish I could give him a shout out but it's like one of these like top-tier l.a. bakeries and I was like grain-free Quito and all that stuff but I ate so much. The next day I did increase my cardio little bit knowing that I probably went a little too overboard the next day, but I still feel like
it's not like, I feel like I have a nun. I had an unhealthy relationship with that experience. I just, you know, I kind of like I see Life as a balance and sometimes you gotta like,
Compensate. When you've when you've had a little too much fun in another way. You know, if I when I was in college, if I would go out, you know, one night and and drink a little too much. The next day I would get back onto the wagon. Maybe I'd spend a little extra time in the sauna and it's about it's about balance, but I think many people probably use exercise to punish themselves for four things that they've eaten right now, it's like a form of punishment, like martial law, that they self impose a
huge difference between punishment and just like a Penn Stater.
He responds, you know, and understanding basic energy
balance, I love how you put that. So put there's a difference between punishment and a compensatory
response. Yeah. I think it's healthy to understand, oh, shoot. I overdid it like, you know, maybe not down to the calorie like, dang it. I had 20 extra calories, that's three more minutes on the stair climbers. Like, but understanding that like, also on the flip side, there's a lot of people that will totally look down upon using food as a reward. And I don't mean like, hey, like, if you finish this, you get this Snickers bar.
But I mean like having a cheat meal now and then like people be like no cheat meals like it creates a binge and Purge mentality. We are humans we are hard-wired to seek food, okay? So I don't think that everyone should go out and grab like a hyper palatable bowl of garbage but I do think that having healthy relationships with food where you do understand but I worked hard. I went for a long run. I'm going to go enjoy a really delicious meal focus on the wholesome ingredients. Focus on nourishment, don't be focusing on the macro so much it.
It's so in like even with our kids, it's like my son. When he was four years old hiked like eight miles at Volcanoes National Park. It was it was his longest, he's four years old, he hikes 8 Miles and he was enjoying every minute of it. And you're like, you know what, dude, you're getting a milkshake. Like am I a bad parent because I rewarded him with a milkshake that I just create a circuit. No, he had an amazing time hiking and he enjoyed the hell out of milkshake. And you know what? He hasn't asked for a milkshake since. Like, it's not like he's like created. This hardwired thing where now he's like every time I exercise, I need a milkshake.
No, he had a good time with Mom and Dad, and he got a nice, neurotransmitter hit and everything was copacetic, right? It's, it's okay to have that relationship. As long as you're aware of it. Yeah, I love it.
Wow. So glad we have this conversation. All right. Next question, which fruits? This is kind of an interesting and it's like somewhat related in the way that it's phrased. So I'm curious your thoughts on this, but Peg 192 asks, which fruits are a must and which to avoid
Lloyd and which ones need to be organic.
So the organic question is difficult because that's always changing and it also uses the new stuff on appeal and all that stuff that one's a really
difficult. What does it feel? People have been asked
so it's a I don't know a whole lot about it because it's only like one paper that's come out on it yet but it's apparently this thing that goes it's like sprayed on and like there's anecdotal things. Like it's being sprayed on avocados right now to keep things fresher, right? And then people are like leaving their avocados out and bugs are
In touch with them now. So it's this, it's basically going over the peel to add an extra peel where it's like protected from Bugs and protected. Let's going to last long as like avocados will last a week on your counter now. And what's supposedly sketchy about this? And I haven't vetted out entirely is that there's no notation that this stuff is on specific Foods. Well, so it's not, I think they're working on designating that but it is a little bit scary. Like so like where you're buying your food from now is now becoming more
important, obviously to
Kris profit, right? Like Foods going to have a longer shelf life potentially
increasing shrink and produce is a huge shrink product. So you know, the more that you can it's not always realistic for everybody. So you don't hate me on this. The more that you can go to a farmer's market or local local grocer that really, you know, where your food is coming from, that is becoming a real thing and then back to the original question. So outside of that, it's so difficult with the organic. Like I would say, like apples are always a good one to go organic because they don't have like
Out of waxes and things like that on the, you know, anything that's got like a peel, like where they would like to add the wax. It's definitely not something you want to be ingesting. A lot of as far as fruits they're a must dark berries, anything it's going to be super antioxidant rich. I think that almost all berries are fair game. I think that low carb enough, those are ones. Just I think you can liberally add those into your diet without much problem. I think ones that are probably the most satiating like apples, gala, apples honeycrisp apples,
I'm a huge fan of apples just because you just like you're still feeling like you get so much runway out of them, anything with, you know, High soluble fiber content. So a I think are really, really good. I wouldn't really worry too much about the fructose content and things like that. You're likely not going to overdo it. Some of the fruits that you may need to be a little bit more aware of. I would say some of the tropical fruits can get pretty caloric really quick. You know, you start getting into the the mangoes in the guavas and things like that, although they're delicious and good. Those are the ones you
gotta be careful because, you know, half a cup of those. Yeah, you're getting up there and carbohydrates, so just be aware of it. But then, again, caloric density, like you have to ask yourself the question, are you diabetic? If you're diabetic, then definitely be careful with that. Are you insulin resistant? Definitely be careful with that. If you're a healthy active person, you can probably handle a hundred grams of carbs from mangoes. It's going to be still pretty low calorie. You're looking at probably, for to 450 calories, right? So it's not that bad. So I think people probably overthinking the
Little bit much. But I think at the end of the day, like the more antioxidant Rich, the more deep, the color, the darker, the color, the better.
Yeah. Couldn't agree more. You did a video recently where you revealed that you were kind of reluctant to indulge in tropical fruit for time. And now you kind of you're a little bit more amenable to them.
Yeah, I think well, there's certain tropical fruits that have more benefits than others, right? Like pineapple has different enzymatic benefits that are quite quite good pineapples.
So I mean just delicious. Yeah, it's also very very sweet sees. You know. The dose does make the poison with these
things. Yeah. Like you're super active guy, right? Eating pineapple for you like no big deal. It's going to fuel your workouts, feel your act, your highly active life. But if your insulin resistant, if you're pre-diabetic or a type 2 diabetic, and you're just sitting around a desk all day. So you're a computer engineer pounding, the pineapple like that just probably doesn't make a lot of sense.
No. And I don't think it's going to like magically make you fat, but I think that it's going to contribute to you, no more.
Insulin resistance if you're sedentary like it's just, you know, there's a Houma IR score and there's a lipo score. We're like, when you actually look at your insulin resistance, you look at insulin resistance, as related to, you know, your hba1c as related to your insulin related to carbohydrates. And then there's actually a score that looks at your insulin related to fats. People don't realize that fats impact insulin resistance significantly because obviously fats can impact fatty liver visceral fat just as much as carbohydrates can. So you look at those scores and I
And saying that is that one argument will say, well no that's not true, they can be a sedentary as they want and they can consume a bunch of pineapple as long as they reduce their fats that will solve half the equation. But, you know, without looking at those two scores, you don't really understand where your insulin resistance lies. Is it coming from lipids? Or is it coming from carbohydrates? I don't know. The metrics, I don't know the exact numbers, but I'm going to imagine that it's probably a combination of both.
Yeah. And also, when assessing, whether or not a food is right, for you, you always have to consider what you're comparing that food to, right? So if we're talking about pie,
Apple. But it's like the alternative to Pineapple are is our chips. Yeah. Right. Pineapple, can be a better option about who you are, right? Then like the bag of chips. So we're really, we're kind of just talking in general, has ations here, but to kind of to kind of, like, raise awareness and to, and to inspire thought around these Foods, right foot high. A
direct by the way, is something I learned if you like, you know, when you go to Hawaii and you have papayas in Hawaii, they just taste totally different from when you get them on the mainland. There's a company now known.
No affiliation. But I was just on the big island for a couple weeks. I spend a lot of time in the Big Island and big shout out to Maui right now by the way. That's like got a. But anyway, good way to support Hawaii. There's a company called Hawaii direct or papaya, direct that you can they'll free FedEx ship, two-day shipping papayas from Hawaii. So they well, yeah, so they'll free FedEx shipping. So you just buy a box and then they keep pretty well. Anyway. I mean they go soft in like a week or so but like yeah. So papaya directed so I've marked I'm just I just tried it out. So I'm waiting for my order to
count
Damn dude, I love the past. The best pie is so freaking good. Well, this was so fun. We've covered a ton of ground bro. Is there anything else you want to add or talk about like again, it's such a treat any time I get to talk to you and your, as I said before, we started rolling like your output on YouTube is so impressive. Like definitely somebody that that you guys should all listen and go and follow And subscribe and do all the things because Thomas is a he's dedicated to learning and yeah not a
Afraid to admit where his thinking has evolved, or where he perhaps has been wrong in the past, which I think, is like the true Mark of a person with Integrity particularly in this space. Yeah, thanks
man. Well, I got a question for you. What do you, what do you think about sort of the? Do you think that people that call out people online? Like, do these reaction videos where they're just like shaking their head? I mean,
I love this question. Like do you think
that they are doing a service to the Health Community or
disservice? I think they're doing
A service and I think that they're not good actors. Typically, I mean, I think that there's probably some extent there are probably some exceptions, but if you find somebody who their whole shtick is, is beating down on others and calling people out. I, I think that the, it's just another form of they're doing it from a place of narcissism, and, and clout, chasing, and it's intellectually lazy. It's not a, it's not a force of positivity. I mean,
They're going to ultimately create their own Echo Chambers because there are audiences out there that enjoy, that kind of content. Right? But I don't think it's, it's not positive. Yeah, it's not positive and it creates I think it creates more. Yeah. It says negativity. I'm not a fan of it. Yeah. Obviously there's a lot of people on social media is a double-edged sword. It's given everybody. A voice, which is led to people like you and me.
Being able to wield platforms responsibly. I mean, I aspire to do it and I know that you do as well. And of course, the fact that it's given everybody voices led to some people using it more for commercial gain and the like. And so there's a lot of you know, there is a lot of like bad information out there. But rather than I think you want to water the flowers not the weeds. Yeah. And I think if you have a platform I think you should ultimately use it to add to the conversation, right? I mean, imagine being like an MD or PhD.
HD having all this insane, amazing knowledge having gone through the gauntlet of that academic path, right? And then coming out on the other end and using your platform to just shit-talk others. Yeah, I
just, yeah, do it. Like, I like the way you put it just intellectually lazy. Like I can't imagine a world where that was my content strategy, because it's just like, wow, like that. That you scroll like what do you do for RND? You scroll like seriously, like that's what you do like. Yeah. And it's and we're like
You do people like will tag these people that do reaction videos because they're like they are so is such an Impulse like response for them to get this visceral reaction there that I want to see someone eat this guy alive, Little Sally, that's doing a video talking about adding lemons to her water. Is she really harming the world so much that you need to do a reaction video putting her down because even if she got the science wrong and a lot of times they do,
Do is she really hurting Society by encouraging people to put lemon in there water? You know, like granted there is literature behind limit in the water. So don't get me wrong. I'm just saying as an example, but I think that is a detriment, like, so, what is the trade-off? Okay, instead of putting lemon in my water. Now, I'm going to consume something toxic as far as continents concern and probably down regulate all kinds of neurotransmission making me just a more miserable person. So how about instead of
In a reaction video and feeding the - problem we have in this world, you let her do what she's doing as long as she's not hurting people. You know, it's like, that's the thing. I just don't understand, like when someone is blatantly, even if they're blatantly wrong, if they're not being malicious, then like,
why are we doing this? What is wrong with people? Yeah,
it's so frustrating. And I spent a lot of my time like trying to like not get attacked by these people. I know you have to and like it's almost like in a weird masochistic way. I would like go.
Looking for it. Like who's talking smack on me? Who's talking smack about me? And now I've realized that like like no, like I think the cream is floating to the top. I think people are starting to realize that like reaction videos are here like good quality information is here and it's only gonna be a matter of time before people that do reaction videos. Like they're only swimming in their own - Echo chamber, period.
Yeah I think there's also a lot of jealousy that they harbored that for quote unquote influencers. Now I don't consider myself an influencer. I'm an author.
Health and science journalist. But a lot of these academics are terrible communicators. The terrible communicators their antisocial. They're socially awkward, right? So they see all these other people on social media garnering. These huge platforms. People who are good communicators, people who are not antisocial, people who like to connect and connect the dots and talk ideas, and maybe even ideas that are like, at times getting a little bit ahead of the science, but are communicating and talking about those ideas.
Nobly in rationally and responsibly and they have this seething Envy under the surface. And so they feel, I think, I think what it is that they feel compelled to call those people out. And so, that is why I don't consider them to be good actors. I don't think that they're calling of others. Out is coming from a good place of a place of. I really just want to do good in the world. I think it's coming from plays of envy and again narcissism and jealousy and you know all this stuff and it's really toxic. I luckily I'm not really
Goodbye. Many of them like the the feedback that I have gotten over the years, has been overwhelmingly positive. They're just like a very small handful and it's mostly, it's mainly. I get frustrated seeing them do it, to other people. It's the same five or six people. Yeah, they don't, they don't really do it to me. I mean, they do it to other people and I get frustrated for those other people. Yeah. Like, they just like
totally bash glucose goddess and stuff like that. Like,
she's very reasonable her. Like she's a very reasonable
person and she's a legit biochemist.
Like, Yeah. And I don't agree with everything that she's sexy. Yeah.
There. But like I'm more than happy to have a conversation with her. I think that she's doing more.
And I could be wrong here, but I think that he's doing more good than harm. 100%. Um, and you know, she's promoting people gaining greater insight and data over their own biology, which I think is a good thing. I mean, and there's exact other examples of people that are doing more good than harm, but these clout chasers on social media who, by the way, claim to be all about nuance and yet, they're happy to take a thin slice of something they've seen come across their social media feeds and then go all in on that as if that's the
So message delivered by this person everywhere at any time and they just like, they go in on it and it's just, it's so screwed up, and of course, the algorithm favors it, and there are people that are just hyper aggressive out there that like to see a fight. And so they'll start following those people, they build followings of their own. And so it just creates this like vicious cycle, but I think it's really bad. And you'll, you'll notice, I never call people out on social media. I mean, I might post something ridiculous and like, at a LOL, like, comment underneath on Instagram, like something snarky, but I'll never call.
Pull out. I never like I try not to ad hominem attack and less people ad hominem attack me. I'm happy to go. I'm happy to roll my sleeves and get into the fight if they do that to me. Yeah. But in general I don't yeah. I don't call, it's not my game. I'm like, I've got my sights set higher than that.
I mean, imagine the day when like, you know, the White House calls upon an expert and they say, well, here we have. So, and so, he's the leading reaction video, you know, expert. Like it's never going to get them anywhere.
And it's very evident that well, clearly you're doing this for money, you're not doing this to help anybody because you're never going to get to the actual top. You're never going to get to the proverbial Finish Line. You're going to be doing reaction videos for the rest of your life. So have
fun.
It's not going to happen. Yeah. It's they don't, they will they develop their own little bubble? But it's not, it doesn't go beyond that because again, they're not adding anything new to the conversation. They're just like trash talkers,
it's frustrating. But as curious, your take on that because there are people out there that think that they're doing a service and I just in mind boggles me but it's
yeah, no, I mean that's where I stand. Yeah, I'm not a, I'm not into it. Well, it's been great having you Max
Thanks, brother. Thanks for the question. No, I'm glad you asked me that because that's something that I do think about. And it's kind of, you know, as much as I try to remain impervious to it. It is par for the course on social media these days, especially when you're in a space as polarized as ours can be. So yeah, just eat real food, just eat real food if you're
going to fight with us on that and that's a sad argument.
Just just eat real food and find the I think it was mr. Rochester.
Others said find the helpers? Yeah, find the helpers. People with Integrity. People that don't punch down. I'm happy to punch up. Yeah. Like I will go after the dietary guidelines, I will go after the, you know, the dietary guidelines committee 95% conflicts of interest with Pharmaceuticals and and the food industry. I punch up. I'm happy to punch up. Don't punch down. Yeah, 2%. Yeah. Well Thomas you're the man. Thanks for being here. No, thanks brother. Where can people connect with?
On social media. Where can they find you and
support? Yeah, YouTube Instagram. YouTube just type in my name, Instagram at Thomas de Lauer. That's about it.
Love it, dude. Cool. I don't. Well, thanks guys for listening. Share this episode with friends and loved ones that you think might benefit from it and leave a rating review for the show on your podcast. App of choice is freeway to support what I'm doing here at the genius life. It means a lot and I'll catch you on the next episode of peace.
