Bronson Dant

SUMMARY KEYWORDS 

fitness, protein, muscle, eat, life, people, nutrition, calories, lean mass, bronson, metabolic function, cardio, body composition, body, talk, building, improve, body fat, fat, hearing 

SPEAKERS 

Female Age 61, Dr. Philip Ovadia, Bronson Dant, Jack Heald 

Female Age 61  00:10 

He was a morbidly obese surgeon destined for an operating table and an early death. Now he's a rebel MD who is Fabulously Fit and fighting to make America healthy again. This is Stay Off My Operating Table with Dr. Philip Ovadia. 

Jack Heald  00:43 

And we are live. We are recording. All right, well, folks, welcome, this is the Stay Off My Operating Table podcast with Dr. Philip Ovadia, America's favorite ex-obese heart surgeon who's kind of turned into what we call a rebel MD. If you've listened to him anytime at all, you know why considered a rebel. So, we've got with us today, a guy who, frankly, as I look at his website and scrolled your Instagram feed, gave me hope, inspired me that just because I've got a particular number of candles on my birthday cake doesn't mean that I can't get my body back to a place of strength, flexibility, and resiliency that most of us only dream about. Seems like you've done that. So, our guest today is Coach Bronson Dant. I would love to hear from you, Phil. Why? Why this guy? How'd you track him down? And why is he in the honored guest's seat here on the Stay Off My Operating Table podcast. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  02:19 

Sure thing, I was really excited to connect with Bronson. I think as much as I am a rebel MD, Bronson is a rebel fitness coach and a rebel in the fitness space. He wrote a great book. It's called The Ultimate Ketogenic Fitness book. And certainly, excited to get into some of the concepts about that, that are in the book. But before we get to that, let's have you introduce yourself a little bit more to our audience, Bronson. Tell us a little bit about your background. And what led you to becoming the ultimate ketogenic fitness coach? 

Bronson Dant  03:02 

Yeah, that's awesome. Thanks very much no, Jack, I appreciate you saying that. Because that's, you got the heart of what my message is all about. I definitely want people to understand that there is no better time than now. And there is no reason that now can't be the best time. It doesn't matter how old you are, doesn't matter what your background is. But getting to a point where you can live the quality of life that you want to live, is what this whole thing is about. That's what this journey is about. It's not about fat loss. It's not about improving any numbers on a metric or a blood test. It's about living your best life. And that's kind of what all of these discussions really point towards. So, I appreciate that. My background is a little bit of everything. I'm ex-military, I was in shape when I was younger. I did the normal, get married, have kids gained 70 pounds-thing like a lot of people do. And then wasn't until I was almost 40 that I realized that things weren't going the way I wanted them to. I started getting into fitness few years after that, kind of found my groove when it comes to nutrition and in 2018, I started carnivore. And it's pretty much been nonstop since then. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  04:11 

Yeah, and certainly a story that we've heard a number of times here, a story that I share with you, as well. Let's go back a little bit to your kind of to the origin story. You're in the military, and you're in great shape. And if you're like most, that was probably because you were working your butt off and constant activity, and probably weren't eating very well back then. 

Bronson Dant  04:44 

No, and it's actually interesting to think about what we would eat in the military because they literally work you so much that you're eating thousands of calories a day. I mean, 1 MRE is worth 3000 calories and you eat two or three of those a day at time. There are times where you're literally eating those things multiple times a day and maintaining your weight, because you're just working so much. And that is one of those things that kind of sets you up for failure as you progress in age and get out of the military, you think it's just about working hard and eating less, because you used to work hard and eat more, and you didn't gain weight. So well, if I want to lose weight, I just need to eat less, and you don't really realize that there's a lot more to it. And when you're young, the margin for error is a little bit larger than when you're in your 40s and 50s and 60s. So, you have to, and there's a lot less over damage over time that you're that you're recovering from. So, the damage, I think, for me mentally was done early, partially because of my experience in the military, we used to eat our butt off, and work our butt off. And that's all I thought I ever needed to do. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  05:57 

And what led you after the military into the fitness space, what got you interested in it? And I know, you kind of had a few different business pursuits around fitness. Tell us a little bit about that journey. 

Bronson Dant  06:15 

Yeah. So, in my late 30s, I was having issues. I had IVS, I had urgent bowels, I had a lot of gut problems, my life was pretty much controlled by how close I could be to a bathroom. So that that story, we could probably talk for an hour just on that lifestyle, and what that was doing to me, my quality of life. At the same time, I realized that I was overweight, and I was out of shape and the visual of what I look like and what I represented didn't match the image that I had in my head. So, I had an image in my head of I'm this guy. And then I saw a picture, my daughter took a picture of me at the beach and I was like that is not the guy that I'm thinking I am, right? I got man boobs; I look like this beach whale sitting in a chair on the side on the beach. And that was really kind of the first slap in the face to say, hey, do you got to change something, this is not going the direction that you want it to go. So that happened, I started looking at in some fitness, because I've always been interested more in fitness. And I didn't really understand the impact of nutrition. So, for me, I did a little bit different than most people, a lot of people look at that and say, well, I need to lose fat or I need to do something to fix my nutrition, I actually went to fitness first. And that's where I found CrossFit, fell in love with that, started doing that, became a coach, opened up a CrossFit gym. And then several years after owning a CrossFit gym, doing CrossFit for almost 10 years, and realized, hey, I put on 30, 40 of those pounds that I had lost initially. Like I looked at another picture myself, I'm at a pool party with some members of my gym. And I'm like, that guy looks just like the guy that was on the beach six, seven years ago, what's going on here? I'm a CrossFit guy, I'm not supposed to be fat, like this doesn't make any sense. And then it was shortly after that, that I was introduced to carnivore. And the combination of the fitness and getting my nutrition right, is really what's gotten me to where I am today. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  08:14 

Yeah, and I think we, see that a lot. We hear that a lot. People's first inclination is I got to do the exercise more, I got to exercise my way out of this. And while exercise is certainly helpful, and it's a part of the equation. The old adage that you can't out exercise a bad diet turns out to be very true.  

Bronson Dant  08:45 

Very true. Yeah, exercise is not for fat loss. And that's one of the things, you guys looked at my book, one of the big messages I have in there is that if you focus on fat loss, you will always be focused on fat loss for the rest of your life. Right? If you focus on fixing your metabolism and enabling your body to function properly, then fat loss will take care of itself. And then all you have to worry about is what am I going to do today because you have no limits on what you can do. And that's a much better way to live your life than being freaked out over, stressed out over what am I eating? What am I doing, and cutting and restricting and all those other sorts of things? 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  09:22 

Yeah, very well said. And I think that very closely mirrors what I talked about in Stay Off My Operating Table in my book. And we didn't know each other in our books, but and we came from sort of different approaches. But we ended up at the same spot and that's what we keep seeing over and over again, is, so many of us are coming to that same spot, that same conclusion around how to improve of health. How did you come across carnivore? 

Bronson Dant  10:05 

My ex-wife actually introduced me to the John Baker, Joe Rogan podcast many years ago. And I listened to that and then did some research as much as I could find back then in 2018, there really wasn't that much out there. There are a couple of blogs or a couple, there's like one, maybe two Facebook groups out there. So, I dug into it for three or four days, and then just decided, I mean, it can't hurt, right? Number one, I love eating meat. Number two, I've never been a fan of veggies. So, it's not like I'm missing out on anything. And I just started May 1st 2018, I started doing it. And I didn't even do anything special. I just, whatever meat we had on the house, I ate that stuff until it was gone. And then went out and got more, and I haven't really looked back since. I think it's since then I've probably on average, I do less than 10-15 grams of carbs a day. And that's just kind of how I live my life now. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  11:04 

You start the book off talking about mindset. And I think that is certainly a important part of all of this and something that I oftentimes end up working with my patients on as well. So, go into that a little bit. Why do you think mindset is so important to start with? And then, how do you coach people in terms of changing that mindset around health? 

Bronson Dant  11:36 

Yeah, I think mindset is super important. Because if you don't have the right mindset, then you're never going to be consistent in what you're doing. So, starting off with a goal, what is it that I'm doing, but then understanding why that's important to you. Many times, when people come to me and they say, I want to work with you, I said, why do you want to work with me, and it's because I want to lose weight, I want to lose fat. It's that first level thing that everybody says because that's the thing that's easy to respond with. When you dig into it and you really look at the deep-rooted emotional reason that people want to change, it's because they have limitations on their lives. And they feel like they can't do things. They feel like there's something missing. And they want to be able to enjoy more aspects of their life. We don't get up in the morning, and just go, you know what I'd like to lose 60 pounds. No, it's a buildup of a couple of days, a couple of weeks, years, multiple years, decades of things that you've had to say no to, or things that you've had to spend extra stress or mind, energy, money on medications, doctor's visits, bad relationships, and all of the different things that are health impacts in our lives that are not going the way that we would like them to go. And we attribute those things to being heavy, to having too much fat or being overweight. When really that's just a symptom of something that's going on in your body that we have 100% control over. And helping people understand and getting in the mindset of this isn't something that's happening to me, this is something that is controllable, that I can change the direction of is really key and then understanding what it is emotionally that you're connected to because challenges are only challenges on our journey because they have emotional responses. So, cravings, we don't crave the food. We crave what the food does for us, there's an emotional connection to that food. If my emotional connection to the food that is unhealthy is stronger than my emotional connection to why I don't want to eat that food, then I'll eat that food every time. So, your why, the reason why you want to do what you want to do and why you've made the decision to improve your health has to have an emotional connection to it. It's got to be something that makes you mad, sad, pissed off, angry, happy, hopeful, something, so that when you think about it, you have an emotional, visceral reaction that overcomes whatever that challenge is that you're trying to overcome. 

Jack Heald  14:14 

I like what I'm hearing, but I'm trying to come up with examples or samples. I mean, I know that emotional component is something that we have to both identify and probably articulate. In order to harness the power of that emotion, to help us, to give us the energy to make the kinds of life's changes that we want to make. What I would love for you to do is tell me a story about, that illustrates what you're talking about. 

Bronson Dant  15:05 

For me. So, I'll tell you about my why. My why is never feeling like I could have done something for somebody that I didn't do. My grandparents both before I got into, I was into fitness, I had a gym, I didn't really have a full comprehension of what fitness was really for at the time. For me, it was about performance. It was about getting in the gym and working hard and doing a lot of work and getting in shape. I had not made the connection yet on fitness, its relationship to nutrition, its relationship to mindset, and its relationship to quality of life. It wasn't until after both my grandparents passed away a few years in between each, where I watch them just completely deteriorate and fall apart. Having to go to my grandmother's deathbed and say goodbye to her while she's laying in an old folks home in a bed face down because she couldn't turn over, having to try and talk to her while our heads mashed in a pillow she can barely talk, holding my hand saying don't be sad for me and having that conversation because she was literally so weak, she couldn't even sit up and talk. And having to go through that process of the years of just deterioration and lack of ability, and just wondering when she was just going to disappear. I don't ever want to have to go through that again. My parents are in their 60s, almost 70s. I have other people and friends and not only do I not want that for myself, but I don't want that for other people. Nobody should have to go through watching their loved ones fall apart. Because it doesn't have to happen. So, what I do to keep that in my mind is I talk about it, I write about it, I keep those feelings, you have to remind yourself. So that's one of the things I do with people is I want to work them as I have them write that stuff down, sit with yourself. Go through I like to do the seven levels of why. Right ask yourself why is this important? This is important because I want to lose weight. Okay, why do you want to lose weight? Well, I want to lose weight because I don't feel comfortable in my skin when I'm overweight. Okay, why don't you feel comfortable and just work yourself down into something that again, creates an emotional response. And then you get it on a piece of paper, you can look at it every week, you can look at it every month, anytime there's a challenge and you're struggling, pull it out of your wallet, whatever it may be. And take a look at that and read that and reconnect with why you're doing what you're doing. So, for me, I love working with my mom now. I’ve been working with my mom as a client for almost nine years. Yeah, so I started working with her when she was 70. She's 69 Now 68, 69. And her favorite thing to do is deadlift. We talk about exercising all the time. 

Jack Heald  17:49 

Well, your mom is 70. And deadlifting. Oh, man, that is fantastic. 

Bronson Dant  18:02 

She almost got 150 pounds the other day like she's, she's freaking it's awesome. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  18:08 

Yeah, that really is amazing. And the without giving it all away, just how you talk about your mom at the beginning of the book was very inspiring. And I find that same thing with my patients, you have to get to that fourth or fifth level of why before you're really getting into the true whys and the true motivation and the things that are going to keep people on the path because if they're just that that first level, and it's just I want to lose some weight, that really isn't typically enough to keep people. It sometimes will get them started, but they're oftentimes not going to make it to the finish line just based on that. 

Bronson Dant  18:55 

Absolutely. Absolutely. Again, it's all about emotion. It's got to get you fired up. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  19:05 

How did you start to, I guess, integrate all of that into, your coaching? 

Bronson Dant  19:11 

Yeah, so it's actually interesting. It's a really weird kind of chain of events. So, I started with the gym, I had the gym for a while. So, one of the things, of all of the fitness certifications and trainings that I've done, I've gone through CrossFit, number one, it gets a bad rap because a lot of people don't know what it is. But the premise and the methodology of CrossFit is basically giving yourself exposure to as many things as possible so that your body can function and as many adaptations as may be required in life. Right? We have all sorts of things that happen in life, we have no idea what those stressors are going to be. So, let's train our body to do things in a bunch of different ways. And that's really one of the things that started my I awareness that what we're doing in the gym has nothing to do with what we do in the gym. What we do in the gym has nothing to do with what we do in the gym. What we do in the kitchen has nothing to do with what we do in the kitchen. We don't eat just to eat, we eat to fuel our body, we eat to give our body things that we can utilize when we live our life. We work out in the gym so that we can prepare our body in a controlled environment. So that we can live in an uncontrolled environment and be safe. Right? Nutrition helps us manage internal, physiological, internal biological stresses. Exercise helps us manage external physiological stresses. So, exercise and nutrition, when you get the two of those things working together, that's what prepares us for life. And owning the gym and BMX was the CrossFit was my first introduction to that. The second thing that kind of started bringing stuff together was when I got my first InBody body composition scan machine for the gym. And I started incorporating body composition into my program instead of just tracking weight. So, when I started looking at body fat percentage, skeletal muscle mass, visceral fat, and all those sorts of numbers, and seeing that there were changes that were happening, based on a lot of different factors that weight couldn't tell me. Just looking at weight, okay, you're up, you're down, I have no idea what that means. But being able to look at the components of how a person's body is built, now, I have a lot more control. And I can start looking at okay, well wait, we're looking at building lean mass. Then you start connecting dots. Body fat, body composition is a ratio of two things. We always talk about losing body fat, well, how can we never talk about building muscle? I can lose body fat percentage and never lose a single pound of fat if I build muscle instead. Right? Because it's a ratio, I can manipulate two sides of that equation. And if I'm building muscle as my priority, not only am I increasing my thermogenesis, not only my increase my metabolic rate, but I'm also increasing my strength, my physical capability and we're reducing my risk of injury, improving my immune system, improving my endocrine system. Like everything good happens when you build muscle first, when you focus on fat loss, what do you get? You get fat loss. What's that doing for you? 

Bronson Dant  22:37 

Right, so that's where the second level was. When I started realizing that there was more to it, and body composition, and fitness and then I did after all of this. This is all happening over the years, of course, this is a few years that this is happening. I did a 21-day sugar detox. Now I was already whole food. I was already pretty much like whole 30 paleo, all natural. I didn't eat a lot of processed things. The only thing that I did was three to four nights a week, I come home from work, go work out, come home, eat dinner, sit down, watch TV and drink a glass of bourbon. Three or four nights a week. I'm a bourbon guy. I got like 12 bottles of bourbon that I haven't opened in five years. Right? I still say I'm a bourbon guy, even though I don't drink anymore. So, I stopped that because I didn't have anything else to stop. I already wasn't doing processed food. I already wasn't doing a lot of sugar. I wasn't doing a lot of carbs. So, I said okay, well, I guess the only other thing that cut out is alcohol. So, for 21 days, three weeks, I stopped drinking three to four glasses of bourbon. I lost 10 pounds of body fat in three weeks. That's off of a body composition scan. That's not even total weight. That's literally my skeletal muscle mass, my lean body mass stayed exactly the same. My body fat mass went down 10 pounds, just by cutting out alcohol for three weeks. That is where I went, okay, something's going on here. What is this all about? And then I started digging into why did this happen? I started looking at oxidative priority and the role that alcohol plays in subverting processing of other macronutrients and getting into that kind of stuff. And then that got me down the whole gamut of nutrition things, about learning about net carbs versus total carbs, and how protein isn't really a fuel. That's another thing I get hot on when we talk about calories in, calories out, stop counting, stop counting total calories because 60% of them don't count. So just getting into all that. It just opened up a whole bunch of things. And that's kind of what's led me to where I am now. 

Jack Heald  24:43 

Okay, I gotta ask you about that, 60% of them don't count? 

Bronson Dant  24:49 

Yeah. So that's that. So, if you think about this, and I like to you. You said this, Dr. Ovadia, that I'm kind of the rebel fitness guy. I don't look at calories. I look at nutrition similar to the way we look at taking care of a car. Okay? If we look at the nutrition of a car, look, let’s talk about the fluids in a vehicle. We don't go to the mechanic and say I have $200, could you give me 30% gas, 40% oil and 30% transmission fluid? Right? We go in and we tell the mechanic to fill up the fluids based on what the car needs. It's the same with our bodies, why are we doing things off of calories that number one we can't track, they don't mean anything. And number two, we're doing it off a percentage that is absolutely arbitrary. How do you know if your body needs 20% of something? Or 30% of something? And then is that 20% of 1500 calories or 20% of 4000 calories? And then how does that compare to the other two macronutrients when I'm putting those in my body? So, it's so much the level of convolutedness, if that's even a word, that we go through to make this stuff work, and it explains why it's never worked. It explains why when people calories in, calories out, it's an up and down, it doesn't work, you have to get lean to get... You have to get weak to get lean, you have to get fat to get strong, all of these things. It's so confusing. So, what I do to sum that all up, that was it a little bit of a rant. To sum that all up, I like to break things up into two different things. So, when we talk about that 60%, basically, protein, we know this, right? Protein is not our body's primary source of fuel. Our body doesn't want to, it's the last thing our body wants to use. We’ll use, will break down amino acids and use those for fuel in the absence of glycogen, in the absence of fatty acids. Okay, so why are we counting calories from protein in our total caloric intake, if it's about fuel burn, right? Not to mention, if we even get into the thermic effect of food, there's another 35% of energy that's expended just to process that. So, it's the highest, it's the most expensive macronutrient we have to process. So, calories aren't one to one, there's a large percentage of your caloric intake, if you're counting protein, that doesn't matter at all. So, if you've if you've read any of Dr Ted Naiman and stuff, the PE diet, protein energy ratio, that's where he's influenced a lot of the stuff that I that I've done, and the way that I work with people. He was kind of like a validation of these thought processes I've been having in my mind for years. And then he came out with the book and I was like, Okay, I'm not crazy. There is something to this whole thing. But basically, I break it down into functional calories, and fuel calories. And I don't even like using calories. It should be nutrients, right fuel, nutrients, and functional nutrients. Because protein is utilized for muscle protein synthesis, cellular repair, immune function, hormone function, all of those things, recovery, it's used for building and maintaining our body. It's not used for fuel. Fat and carbs are used for fuel; they are the fuel that makes our body produce ATP to activate the muscles that protein is building. They're not used for the same thing. So... 

Jack Heald  28:35 

I wish we had a whiteboard going here. I think I'm tracking with you. 

Bronson Dant  28:41 

Basically, there are two different pathways, only one of them affects body fat, the other one affects lean mass. So, we talked like we go back to that ratio of body fat percentage, we're talking about body composition, if you want to control your body composition and focus on building muscle, focus on protein and the things that you're going to do to build muscle. If you want to lose body fat or gain body fat, focus on fat and carbs. They're separate. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  29:12 

I was gonna say I think that, a good way to be looking at this, and it can help to clear up a lot of the confusion that people oftentimes get into, when you look around our kind of standard nutritional advice. It almost seems that it's intentionally trying to confuse people. They just sort of give up and say, okay, well, I'll just eat whatever's around me because I can't figure it out. And it doesn't really matter. 

Bronson Dant  29:45 

Yeah, yeah. Well, if you think if you think about the idea that, I've heard I was listening to Casey's podcast from a couple months ago, and just listening to other people in yet anybody who knows about calories in, calories out, when you cut your calories, when you go into a deficit to lose body fat. Because we're looking at one thing, what always happens, your BMR goes down, you lose weight, which means you're losing body fat and you're losing lean mass. So, you are essentially reducing the efficiency of your body's performance. Because you're starving yourself. It's like I'm building a house. And I got all my workers working. But I've said, you know what, today you're getting half the wood, half the bricks, half the cabling, half the paint, and you still got to finish the house. It's not gonna work. House would never gonna get finished. So, when we split those apart, because protein, okay, here's the other one, lean mass drives metabolism. 

Jack Heald  30:45 

And lean mass is the portion of your body composition that is muscle. Correct? 

Bronson Dant  30:54 

Yeah. So, there's, you can split it up into a few different ways. Lean mass is pretty much anything that's not fat. So that includes water, bone, skin, muscle, everything else. 

Jack Heald  31:04 

Anything that's not fat. Okay, that's all right. 

Bronson Dant  31:07 

Yeah, so lean mass. Usually, when most people say lean mass, they're talking in general about muscle. So, if you want to be specific, then you would say skeletal muscle mass. And that's really what I'm talking about. Skeletal muscle drives metabolism, the more muscle you have, the better your metabolic rate. So, I'll just use myself as an example, in a traditional calories in, calories out model, when you go into deficit to lose fat, your BMR goes down, your basal metabolic rate goes down. Because, not because you're losing weight, because you're losing lean mass. Okay, so I'm doing an experiment right now. 

Jack Heald  31:43 

Hold on, hold on, let me make sure I'm clear. So, when you're in a caloric, when you're in a state of caloric deficit, your base metabolic rate goes down. And what that means is that the efficiency with which your body makes use of the fuel that you feed it, is that correct? 

Bronson Dant  32:04 

The nutrition, the nutrients fuel protein, anything. That's basically how well your body is functioning decreases. 

Jack Heald  32:11 

And is that a... How well your body is functioning? I want you to define that. That means effectively using your fuel or... 

Bronson Dant  32:24 

Yeah, so let's replace fuel with nutrients. Because you're in a caloric deficit for too long, what happens, you start losing your hair, you start getting temperature dysregulation, you start gaining hormone dysregulation, all these other things start happening, right, because your metabolism is broken. Okay, so here's the way that I look at it is, if I'm going to, if lean mass or muscle drives my metabolism, then why wouldn't I always want my lean mass to be in its optimal state? So, give yourself as much protein as you can handle and do everything you can to maintain or improve your lean mass. So, what I'm doing right now, I'm doing an experiment. I’m three months in, okay, following my methodology, and I'm documenting as I go, you can see all my stuff on YouTube. I have gained three pounds of muscle and increased my BMR, almost 100 calories. Okay, and I've maintained the exact same body fat mass as I had three months ago. I actually lost weight. 

Jack Heald  33:27 

Your BMR has increased, at the same time that you've added muscle mass. When in fact, I'm guessing that the increase in the BMR is a direct function of the additional muscle mass. And you've lost weight, which implies... 

Bronson Dant  33:52 

That the BMR would go down. Traditional weight loss under the normal calories in, calories out model, if your weight goes down, your BMR goes down. Because I've separated your lean mass and protein from your fuel, I can manipulate body composition while improving base metabolic function. 

Jack Heald  34:13 

Okay, is this strictly result of resistance training? 

Bronson Dant  34:18 

It starts with the nutrition but the resistance training is absolutely part of it. There's got to be resistance training, there's got to be adequate sleep and recovery. There's a couple other factors that go into building muscle. But it starts with the nutrition. 

Jack Heald  34:31 

Okay, so I'm thinking, who's the guy that sitting and listening to this podcast and what are the questions that he's asking in the feelings that he's having about, do I want to work with Coach Bronson Dant? So, my guess is he's thinking number one, I don't like the way my pants fit around my waist tight. I'm fluffier than I know I want to be. Maybe my sleep is disrupted. I ache in the morning, when I wake up, I'm tired of that I want to play with my kids, I can't get down on the ground and roll around without feeling like I'm 190 years old. 

Bronson Dant  35:31 

Yeah, I want to go into my yard and do yard work, I want to go shopping and be able to carry the bags myself, like, I want to be able to walk up and down the stairs without feeling like I have to stop halfway. It can be all sorts of things like I deal with people in all the different ranges. In fact, most of my clientele, I'm probably about 80% women over 40 is most of my clientele. So, I'm talking about muscle and everything else, you'd be surprised. I mean, you might not be surprised at the percentage of women who don't get enough protein and the percentage of women who don't have enough lean mass or muscle on their body. It's a huge focus. And you kind of see that with the experience I've had with my mom, and the passion I have for making sure that she's at a good place as she gets older. But it is absolutely imperative that women start eating more protein, that women start doing resistance training, and start getting to giving themselves the freedom to do that for themselves and for their own quality of life. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  36:28 

Yeah, I think certainly, the, the science bears that out. And we see, the effects for women when they go through menopause. And the amount of muscle mass loss that typically occurs with that is really devastating towards health. 

Bronson Dant  36:49 

So, we actually did. I have a white paper that I can make available to you guys. I'm trying right now to actually get it published in a journal. That's a whole process I've never done before. But we'll see how it goes. We did an eight-week study with 30 women all over 40, peri and postmenopausal, following my nutrition protocol, using my fitness protocol for eight weeks, and then just document the whole process. So, they all had body composition improvements. Every single physical performance benchmark that we tested improved over the eight weeks. They got stronger, they got faster, they improved their lean mass, they reduced their body fat. And then the non-scale, the non-metrics, the responses, and the feedback from every single one of them on the quality-of-life stuff that we talked about was improved, less hot flashes, better sleep, more satisfaction from their food, all sorts of things. So, there's a lot of things that go into the struggle that people have... The benefits of doing things differently when it comes to nutrition are more than just the body composition. So, when we talk about prioritizing protein to build lean mass to maintain our metabolic function, we're also talking about nutrient density, sources of protein are more nutrient than anything else. We're talking about sources of protein being more satiating than anything else. So, we know you're going to be hungry for longer, you're not going to be as snacky or craving. We know that the bioavailability of nutrients from protein sources are better. So, you're going to get more actual usable nutrition from the protein sources. So, there's a lot of benefit to focusing on protein not just from what it does physiologically. But what it does biologically and what it does mentally because it takes care of the things like cravings and being hungry. Like I've never had a client tell me as they're losing body fat, tell me that they're hungry or that they feel like they don't eat enough. Because I basically tell them to stuff their face. Just do it with me. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  38:56 

Right Yeah, exactly. I oftentimes use that example I said, no one gorges on steak. And we eat until we're full and when you're eating the whole, real foods and especially the animal products, your body can tell you when enough is enough and the sad reality is that for most people, they can't get enough protein. We are such a new protein depleted or protein restricted nutritional approach in our society that the answer is almost always eat more protein. 

Bronson Dant  39:43 

Pretty much I've never had, I've yet to tell someone they're eating too much protein. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  39:48 

Exactly. Let's talk about the fitness part of it a little bit, in terms of exercise and what do you recommend? There's always the big question about, should I be doing all my cardio? Or how should I spend my time when I'm focusing on fitness? 

Bronson Dant  40:09 

Yeah, I see this question on social media all the time. If you only had 20 minutes, what would you do and it's so all over the place. The way I look at it is if your goal, which my recommendation is that your goal should always be, choose the thing that's going to improve your metabolic function, not replace or supplement that. So, cardio simulates good metabolic function while you're doing it. But it doesn't help long term metabolic function. Right? The better you get at cardio, the more efficient so the less you actually burn if you're looking at it from a calorie perspective. You get efficient at it, so you burn less. So, you have to do more. So, it's a diminishing return, that eventually becomes a net negative, because you got to do it so much in order to keep your fat loss. If you focus on building muscle, if you only have 20 minutes, I want you to do something where you're moving your body against some kind of resistance. Even if that resistance is bodyweight. Do something that's going to move as many muscles and activate as many total muscle fibers in your body as possible. The thing in general about fitness that I want people to understand is one, we talked about this before, you can start it anytime. It doesn't take a lot, doesn't matter how old you are, doesn't matter what your background is, if you have any experience or not, there's always something that you can do. And then the second thing is, it doesn't take a lot. 1% more, one little thing more. If your biggest struggle in life right now is walking up the stairs, then the exercise for you is to walk up the stairs as many times a day as possible. That's all you got to do. Pick the thing that is physically challenging for you, and work on making that thing easy. 

Jack Heald  41:56 

So, that’s a really cool shift of perspective. Pick the thing that is difficult for you. But on a regular basis, and work on making it easy. 

Bronson Dant  42:14 

Absolutely. Because if it's difficult for you now, then that means one thing. It means it is a physical limitation that is currently affecting your quality of life. And the goal is to improve quality of life, you don't have to go to the gym for that. You don't have to pay thousands of dollars for personal trainer. If getting on the floor or getting up and down on the floor is challenging, and you have a hard time doing that to play with your grandkids, start doing it more. Don't avoid the things that are difficult. Figure out a way to make it work. 

Jack Heald  42:46 

Oh, my goodness. Oh, 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  42:49 

Yeah. I think that's great advice, in general. Do difficult things sometimes, and then figure out how to make them easier. And that's going to really get you far in life. Absolutely. 

Jack Heald  43:07 

This seems blindingly obvious, but for some reason, it's never really occurred to me. 

Bronson Dant  43:14 

Because we get so caught up in the struggle that sometimes we forget that, we need to be reminded that we have power. We have power, you can take control the situation. And once you acknowledge, wait a second, I can do something about this. And it doesn't take a lot. Here's the here's the cool thing about beginners, if you're stuck, if you've never done anything before, or it's been years since you've done anything, it's called the beginner gains. Right? We call it an extra in the fitness industry. Though you don't have to do a lot as a beginner to see a huge improvement, see a huge impact. Right? I've been working out for 12, 15 years, the things that I want to change, I really have to focus on and spend a lot of deliberate focus, time, to see improvements on things. But if you're just getting started and your biggest thing is walking up and down the stairs, you walk up and down the stairs a couple extra times every day for a week. And you're gonna be like, holy cow, my whole life has changed. Because it doesn't take a lot. 

Jack Heald  44:17 

I love that. Okay, so one of the questions I've wanted to ask you as a coach, I assume that you hear the same sets of complaints and or excuses over and over again. So, what I'd love to hear is, the top three or four or five complaints or excuses and how you move your clients past that. 

Bronson Dant  44:58 

Sure. This is real. This is an easy one actually. It doesn't matter what the excuse is. The reframe of your excuse becomes a reason why you should do this thing. I'm too old. I'm too old, I can't do that. Well, that's why you need to do it. I don't have the time to fit this in. Well, that's why you need to start making the time and make it a priority so that you can get better at time management, and improve your ability to manage your day. Oh, well, if I do that, then I won't be able to spend time with my kids. Get your kids involved. Set an example for your kids so that they know how important health and fitness is for them. Every single excuse that you have is actually a reason why you need to be doing it. 

Jack Heald  45:46 

Every excuse you have for not doing it is a reason why you need to be doing it. I like that. Okay. Wow, this is very, it's just timely for me because I have this faceplant I did a week ago. Yeah, it's just made me. Yeah. It's just maddening, for your body to go. 

Bronson Dant  46:19 

Right. Yeah. Like you're out of control. 

Jack Heald  46:21 

Yeah. And I don't think it was a lack of fitness that led to my blackout. But I feel like I was in a car wreck. My back is all torqued up and my muscles are all messed up. And I can't help but think if my fitness level was better, I wouldn't be so damn sore from taking a fall. I mean, would it have prevented the fall? No, I don't think so. But I don't know that I'd be feeling like I'm, I've been run through the spin cycle or the washing machine. 

Bronson Dant  47:10 

Yeah, that's one of the things about muscle in general. We look at the numbers, the more muscle or more lean mass is correlated with shorter hospital stays. The more psyker sarcopenic a patient is the longer they tend to stay in hospital. 

Jack Heald  47:29 

Sarcopenic means? Low muscle mass. Okay. 

Bronson Dant  47:34 

Yeah. So, the idea that having more muscle is going to help you be more survivable is an absolute real reality. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  47:46 

Yeah, certainly, we see that over and over again, in the medical literature, in the scientific studies, and whatever population you want to look at, we've demonstrated it in people who have heart attacks. The more muscle you have, the better the outcome is going to be. 

Jack Heald  48:07 

Wow. Okay, so thing number one, I'm just kind of I'm working through this mental list that I'm having built inside my brain. Thing number one. What is your excuse? Okay, that's the reason... What your excuse for not doing it, that's the reason to do it. Yeah, what stupid... I should probably shouldn't be that inflammatory with my words. What excuses are you making to yourself? Or what silly stories are you telling yourself about eating that are just simply wrong and keep you from making the kinds of successful gains that one of the things I'm hearing is focus on muscle building. And with the focus being building muscle, that will inform how you make choices about eating. Am I right? So, protein builds muscle. 

Bronson Dant  49:32 

Yeah, let me give you I'll give you my three the three tenants of nutrition. Nutrient density, bioavailability, satiety. 

Jack Heald  49:41 

And satiety, just mean it makes you feel full? 

Bronson Dant  49:44 

Makes you feel full for longer. So, there's a difference between feeling full and then being hungry 20 minutes later. And feeling satisfied for four hours. That's satiety. 

Jack Heald  49:58 

I've heard Phil talk about standing in an operating table for hours on end, having not eaten all day long. Finish up doing something that is both physically and mentally and emotionally, wildly taxing. And since he became, since he started eating primarily carnivore, he finishes that up and sometimes isn't even hungry, which is to me it was like, just, I can't sit and write for three or four hours without getting really, really hungry. 

Bronson Dant  50:32 

It's crazy. Yeah, we can talk about the mental clarity aspect of it. But I'm at a point now where I'll do that. I'll sit, I'll get up in the morning, get something to drink. And then it'll be like, oh, crap, it's one o'clock I need to eat. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I need to eat something. Because if I don't, then by the time I am ready to eat, then I've got to eat so much to get what I needed. Yeah, probably not gonna finish it. So that's a whole another discussion. But, yeah, so if you focus on nutrient density, bioavailability, and satiety, number one, you're going to make decisions that give your body the most nutrition possible. And it's probably going to be me. Just that out there. 

Jack Heald  51:24 

I've told my wife; I grew up in Oklahoma. I grew up in the cattle country, and my memories of being a kid, or are we just always had fresh beef. And, and I don't know whether I feel good when I eat beef, simply because it's kind of takes me back to being a kid and I have warm feelings about it. Or if my body just literally prefers beef. 

Bronson Dant  51:56 

Why does it matter? If you feel good... 

Jack Heald  51:58 

Well, it doesn't matter. I've reached a point in life where I'm just like, my answer all the time, if you could eat anything in the world? My answer is always beef, bring me beef. All right. So, it's funny, Phil, this is what we've been hearing basically the same message over and over and over. But I'm hearing something here that has kind of reframed my understanding. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  52:26 

Yeah, I think Bronson has a unique way of looking at all this that really, brings it together well. 

Bronson Dant  52:36 

Yeah, I really... So, I have a background in IT. 20 years in IT, project management, doing a bunch of engineering, stuff like that. And one of the things that I developed in that career was taking really technical stuff, and trying to make it understandable by people sitting at the computer actually doing the work. And I think that's served me well in this phase, because I like getting into how all this stuff works. But then I also want to be able to explain it to people that I'm trying to help in such a way that they go, oh, that makes sense. And I think when you boil it all down, when you boil everything that everybody talks about, and this is why I really wish there was a way that I could just wave a wand and get people to stop talking about calories. And stop talking about fat loss. Stop talking about this, that whole side of things. Because it's not about fat loss. It's about quality of life. And when you reframe everything and look at what can I do to make my life better, it changes the entire paradigm of how we look at health and fitness. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  53:45 

I think that's a great way to sum it up and a great way we should all be looking at this. So, for everyone out there who's saying, I gotta work with this guy. Tell us a little bit more about how people find you. 

Bronson Dant  54:02 

Yeah, so, you can find me on Instagram at coach_bronson_keto. I have a YouTube channel, Ultimate Ketogenic Fitness on YouTube. My website is ultimateketogenicfitness.com. I do a bunch of things. I have one on one coaching. But what I'm really pushing right now is I've actually partnered with InBody. So, the guys that make that body composition scanner that I think is the best out there on the market. And we do 10-week, nutrition, fitness body composition challenge. So, we run those every three months. And I think our next one's coming up in October. And we try to bring people in it, right? It's a group thing. Everybody can sign up; we get 15, 20, 30, 50, 100 people doesn't make a difference. And we try to just walk you through what the process is understanding my methods and protocols, trying to help figure out how to make nutrition and fitness work for your specific issues in life. So, it's a group thing but I don't give meal plans. I don't give specific programming, right? I have guidelines and workouts that can be followed, but it's about meeting everybody where they are. So, if you're not used to eating a lot of protein and you feel like I have to have my veggies, we'll figure out a plan that's going to fit you but also help you move forward. If you've never worked out before, you don't even have a gym or equipment, we'll figure out some bodyweight exercises and get you doing something that's going to help you move forward. So that 1% more is all we're looking for. And that's what those challenges are really about. 

Jack Heald  55:33 

One percent more. All right, well, I will remind our listeners, as always, all the contact information for Coach Bronson Dant will be available in the show notes on the podcast. So, I've got to tell you, this is I don't know why my brain is just spinning. I think this question is bubbling to the surface. You talked about cardio. And there's a there's something inside me that goes yeah, that makes sense. So let me see if I can articulate the question and ask you to expand on it. So, the problem with the problem, try the wrong word. The promise that being that heavy duty cardio has been, that we've been given over the last several decades by going all the way back to Kenneth Cooper is that that's the path to fitness. But what I hear you saying is that when you're engaging in hardcore cardio, Orangetheory kind of stuff, or rowing or running on the treadmill, you're simulating through heavy cardio activity increased heart rate, what a metabolically healthy body would do sitting on a chair. 

Bronson Dant  57:09 

yep. That's a good way to put it. Another way to put it is cardio only works while you're doing it. 

Jack Heald  57:16 

Cardio only works while you're doing it. And I've heard that before, but I've never heard anybody put it the way you put it. That cardio, that doing the cardio activities simulates metabolic health. Yeah, without actually being a super fat dude could simulate metabolic health for the 15 minutes he's on the treadmill. But the instant he stops and his heart rate comes down, he's back to... 

Bronson Dant  57:47 

Sure. And the thing that's even worse about that is if simulating metabolic function, and it's not even doing anything to it. In fact, in some ways, it's actually a detriment to physical function. Right, there's no range of motion work being done. There's no balance, coordination, agility, there's no strength, there's none of those aspects of fitness that go into the full definition of what it means to be healthy are being applied when you just do cardio. 

Jack Heald  58:19 

Well, wow. This is fantastic. Okay, I'm gonna show here Bronson's book, The Ultimate Ketogenic Fitness Book. I got started on it, but this mess kept me from finishing it. I'm going to finish it. If you like what you're hearing here, follow the various links that we're going to provide to get a hold of coach Bronson Dant. His challenges. His book. I know I can hardly wait to sit down and kind of absorb this. I think I'm more motivated than I was two weeks ago. 

Bronson Dant  59:00 

Yes. My job is done. 

Jack Heald  59:04 

Phil, man, you just keep doing it, man. Keep knocking out of the park with these people. All right. I feel like we could go on for a while. But we're, we're over an hour right now. I want to thank you. 

Bronson Dant  59:18 

I really appreciate you guys having me on. It means a lot. 

Jack Heald  59:22 

Yeah, I'm looking forward to learning more and hearing more. All right, well, let's call it a show. It's been a good one. I have a suspicion. I'm gonna read this book and then and then send you an email. Hey, Bronson. Remember me? Questions. All right. Well, for Coach Bronson Dant, the ultimate ketogenic fitness guru, I'm Jack Heald. This is the Stay Off My Operating Table podcast with your host Dr. Philip Ovadia. I would recommend that you go to Phil's website ifixhearts.co and take his metabolic fitness quiz. You can kind of get a quick look at where you are just on that website. You can also follow him on Twitter which is a great way to keep tracking him @ifixhearts and his website if you would like to have a little bit more detailed help with maintaining your own health and that of your corporate business culture is Ovadiahearthealth.com just like it says on his on his shirt there. Phil, any last words before we call it today? Don't know what happened, but I just literally, I'm not hearing you at all. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia  1:00:49 

Another great podcast and I'm sure we'll have Bronson back on sometime. 

Jack Heald  1:00:53 

All right. Well, that's it. I've really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. All right, well. This has been the Stay Off My Operating Table podcast, and we will talk to you guys next time. 

Jack Heald  1:01:12 

America is fat and sick and tired. 88% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy and at risk of a sudden heart attack. Are you one of them? Go to ifixhearts.co and take Dr Ovadia’s metabolic health quiz. Learn specific steps you can take to reclaim your health reduce your risk of heart attack and stay off Doctor Ovadia’s operating table. This has been a production of 38 atoms.