Mind Muscle with Simon de Veer
Mind Muscle with Simon de Veer
Gym Decorum and The Carnivore Diet
Ever wondered why gym etiquette is as important as the exercises themselves? Discover how maintaining order at the dumbbell rack can transform your workout experience and those around you. Join me, Simon DeVere, as I share an impassioned rant on the importance of re-racking weights and respectful gym behavior. But it's not just about rants; I'm also giving you some insider tips on optimizing your machine workouts for incredible muscle growth by focusing on the most stimulative parts of exercises. Prepare to engage your muscles like never before and elevate your fitness game.
Let's unravel the fascinating history of low-carb diets, with a special spotlight on the carnivore diet and its intriguing historical roots. From the indigenous diets that inspired it to the tales of Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, we delve into the evolution of this dietary trend. Examine the parallels with other diet crazes and critically assess the claims surrounding ancestral diets. Expect to hear thrilling stories from Stefansson's expeditions, alongside a healthy dose of skepticism about mimicking ancient eating habits for modern health benefits.
Finally, I challenge the bold claims of well-known carnivore diet advocates, scrutinizing the evidence and potential risks of such extreme dietary practices. Hear why figures like Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan have sparked debate and why their arguments might not hold up under scientific scrutiny. Embrace the journey of individual nutritional experimentation, learning how to adapt and personalize your diet based on your body's feedback. This episode is your guide to questioning dietary dogmas and remaining open to discovering what truly fuels your health and fitness journey.
Producer: Thor Benander
Editor: Luke Morey
Intro Theme: Ajax Benander
Intro: Timothy Durant
For more, visit Simon at The Antagonist
Welcome to the Mind Muscle Podcast. Here's your host, simon DeVere. Welcome back to Mind Muscle, the place we study the history, science and philosophy behind everything in health and fitness. Today I am Simon Devere and there's nothing new except all that has been forgotten. All right, so main topic of today, we're actually going to touch on a little bit of history, science and philosophy, my favorite kind. We're going to do a full breakdown of the carnivore diet. I actually wanted to break this one down because I think there are a number of shared philosophical underpinnings in this diet to any diet that I might call or that tries to reduce the problem of nutrition down to one single thing, whether that is one food group or you should just eat this thing or remove that thing. But anyway, I think this, even if you're not into carnivore. I think from this breakdown we're going to be able to extrapolate out to any one of those ideas which I think are quite relevant and common in the nutrition space.
Speaker 1:That's going to take up most of our time but admittedly, before we get into that, I'm coming in a little bit hot today because I just got done working out in the gym and I got some ranting that I want to get off my chest. So, anyway, we're going to talk about just some gym etiquette. We're going to talk about a quick tip that you can do to get more out of your machine work when you're in the gym. And then I'm going to give you guys one other quick tip on if you're having a hard time feeling a specific muscle in a workout and I'm feeling that right now I was struggling to feel my chest workouts and I have an answer for you guys if you're having a hard time feeling your target muscle on its day. But anyway, let's get into the gym rants first. So the first one. I can't imagine I haven't mentioned this before, but I don't know where you guys are learning this Don't ever do shrugs or rows or anything at the dumbbell rack.
Speaker 1:Get your dumbbells, walk back to your station and get to work. There's two or three guys today that were getting there. One guy was hitting some shrugs. Another guy was literally putting a hand down onto the dumbbell back rack to row One. I'll let you know one reason that you should do this. If you're in a gym with me, I am 100% going to confront you about it. It is not going to go smoothly for you. I am going to let you know the technical terms for that. So that's called being an entitled little shit. And yeah, even though you have your headphones in, I'll make sure you can hear me. But yeah, I really don't know why people are still doing this.
Speaker 1:I know I'm just ranting at this point, but this is really, really obvious to me. But if you're doing an exercise at the dumbbell rack, nobody else can grab a set of dumbbells. Put a set of dumbbells away, you are clogging up the flow of the entire gym and then, admittedly at least this is the stuff I think if I see you doing it, I just assume that you're too weak to carry that weight over to your station, which makes me think you should move out of my way. Go to those literal dumbbells, ones that you can actually manage taking in and out of the racks. This is also now just, I'm talking about cleaning up after yourself, similar to the shopping cart. You know my feelings there. Stop leaving your dumbbells on the floor. Same thing If I see your dumbbells on the floor, my thought as you walk away isn't what a cool dude it's. Oh, wow, that little boy was too tired to re-rack those puny little weights. Look at that weak little guy stagger out of here. So, anyway, do your part, make the gym just a slightly cleaner and more efficient place. You are really impressing no one. Anybody who uses and respects that gym is. If they're not talking to you like I am, they are thinking horrible thoughts about you the whole time. So, anyway, normally I'm trying to allay people being self-conscious in the gym, but if you are the guy doing your exercises at the dumbbell rack, I do want you to feel insecure and I want you to kind of second guess your life choices just a little bit. So, anyway, that one drove me crazy, but there was actually a positive thing that I was thinking about.
Speaker 1:A lot of times when I have been working, I've been working some machines back in, I've had some joint issues, so I've actually been working machines for a couple different movements and it's like every single time I sit down on a machine like I get it. You're going to have to adjust it because people are different. But the thing that I'm noticing when I'm working out at a commercial gym is it seems that the default setting whenever I sit down on a gym is the person in front of me probably set it up so that they could move the most weight possible and that really isn't the best way to set up a machine to get the most results out of it. So this really isn't that hard. This is going to apply to pretty much every single movement. But you want to set up I'm trying to just think of like the least nerdy way to explain this, so I'm fumbling over the words for a second. But so the most stimulative portion of a repetition for muscle growth is going to be when the target muscle is stretched and under tension. So let's put a visual to that, like if I was setting up on.
Speaker 1:You know people love to work their chest. So if you were setting up in, let's say, a hammer strength chest press, you want to make sure that when you get to the bottom end range of motion that your pectoral is actually stretched. A lot of time that machine might be stopping before your pec is actually stretched. So this is, I think, counterintuitive to a lot of people on the press. But if you are working a bench press, a hammer strength machine, something like that, with the objective of building the pectoral, that stretch position at the bottom of the repetition is much more stimulative and much more important than the top portion or the lockout.
Speaker 1:I don't want to get sidetracked and talk the differences between strength, power and hypertrophy, but we're talking hypertrophy right now. So obviously lockouts are going to be really, really important in strength and power. But if you are using a hammer strength chest press, you're not working strength and power anyway You're. I want you working with controlled full range of motion. But if I'm being honest, the stretched portion of the repetition is more important and more stimulative for the goal of hypertrophy than the lockout. So I would rather see you not getting a complete lockout than not getting a complete stretch on the target muscle.
Speaker 1:Let's use a different machine to paint that visual and then I'll move on to the next part of this. Let's say that you were doing a leg extension for quads. So again, I think that a lot of people think of the most important part of that lift, as when you are pushing the leg ahead, your leg is straight and you can look down and see all those cool muscles popping in your leg. I think it's counterintuitive to people that actually the most important part of your leg extension is actually the bottom portion when your knee is actually bent. When your knee is bent, the fibers of the quadrastep are stretched and if they are under tension then you're going to get a lot of growth potential out of that rep. So now we're back into the setup, because this is another issue. I see, you know, with people and their leg extensions, people focus on getting a really nice lockout, but again, the biggest portion, or most stimulative portion of that lift for hypertrophy is going to be when the knee is bent. So this is where we're back to set up. Before you ever even do a repetition, you're going to want to adjust the back and you're going to want to adjust the length of the lever so that when you begin your repetition you are as stretched in your hamstring. It's going to have a lot of knee flexion, but you want to maximize that on the machine and what your joints allow. So obviously I'm not expecting that I get done with the machine and everybody else for the rest of the day is going to require the same setup. But that is how you are setting up your lift is you want to make sure that when you are in the stretched portion the target muscle is still under load.
Speaker 1:One more that we haven't talked about, but sometimes I like to use a chest supported row. One of the number one things I'm constantly having to adjust when I get onto this is the chest support. I am trying to make that as far away from the handles as possible, and most of the time I'm actually making it longer than my own arms. The reason, again, is when I am working the row, if that machine isn't going to stop at the end when my lats and the muscles of my back are stretched, I can get more growth out of each rep. So I pull that chest pad way out. And actually here's another pro tip that you can use around the gym. If you guys have yoga blots and mats going around a lot of times, I am strategically using these on the pads to either buy myself an extra inch here or there.
Speaker 1:Let's say that I'm back on my hammer strength chest press real quick. I might actually be throwing something behind my back so that I can increase the stretch on my chest where, if I'm coming into a chest supported row, I'm going to be actually sticking that pad between my chest and the pad. Especially if you're a little bit taller, you may have to start making some amendments like that, and actually same thing on the other end of the spectrum. If you're shorter, you may want to move yourself around in that seat so that you can accommodate for that. So again, I think I gave you enough examples that you should be able to work this out. But the principle here is just remember that when the target muscle is stretched and under tension, that is the most stimulative portion. So if you are going to be using machines, you're definitely not training strength and power. I already know that up front. So when you are setting up your machines, set them up the right way. Don't set them up so that you can move the most weight. Set them up. It's going to sound messed up so you can actually do the most damage. We want to increase the range of motion as much as your joints possibly allow and we want to make sure that the target muscle gets as much work in that stretch position while under tension. That is going to be the best way to set up machines so that you can get the most out of those lifts.
Speaker 1:Last one that I got for you guys on the straight up fitness focus, I was actually just complaining. Well, first friend was hitting me up to tighten up his program. I was giving him some notes, but then I also wanted to confess because I was having an issue in my own workout and I just wasn't feeling my chest on my push day. I have way too many years of experience under my belt to be having this problem. So anyway, after talking it out with a friend, just got done with this workout and again, I already knew the answer and I just want to share it with you guys. So well, at least here's what happens, and it's a very, very easy trap to fall in. So you're doing your push day, you want to feel your chest and you get done with the push day and you're not feeling sore or it just doesn't feel like you got much good work in.
Speaker 1:Admittedly, for me, my leg work right now is awesome. That is a workout that I am like dragging myself out of the gym. I feel like I'm working hard in my push workout and it just isn't doing much, especially versus the volume and how much time I was putting in the gym Really wasn't feeling it. So one of the first things that can kind of happen and I even have a lot of years under my belt is you start adding exercises because you're thinking angles and I just need to stimulate it from a different angle. What can wind up happening here, particularly if you're working out in a public gym, is the workout time starts running long, because when you're switching implements it's just harder to get that equipment locked down and the flow of the workout can get kind of ground down a little bit. So the tweak that I kind of need to keep in mind and I executed well today this is fewer exercises, more sets. So anyway, I just simply added a set from what I was doing, and now you know I should have already known this, but it fixed the problem. As I am sitting here recording this, yeah, I got what I asked for and yeah, my chest is nice and sore. Perhaps overdid it a little bit, but anyway, the reason that this winds up being such a better and more potent way to actually just stimulate the muscle, the biggest problem that you're probably having if you're not feeling the target muscle in a workout is you're just not getting enough volume. So again, I know better than this, but I'm telling you after years, the instinct I think still is to like add exercises, add angles. Today I literally just add I actually worked fewer exercises. I had four exercises running. I knocked that back to three. I just simply added I think I added two sets of the first one to each of the others, but literally just adding that extra volume, I was actually able to knock the workout out in a shorter time than when I had the extra exercises, because it's just simply easier to flow.
Speaker 1:The other part is you don't have to warm up for another exercise, and actually I don't know if I've discussed this with you guys yet. So even in the programs like if you see, something like three by eight what we mean by that is three working sets I don't walk into the gym and start my first working set. So anytime I switch exercises it's never going to take me as long to warm up for my second or my third exercise. But I do need to warm up for every single exercise and kind of dial in and get into the right working weight. As you get stronger this actually becomes kind of more of a thing, because when you're starting out you're not using as heavy of loads. It doesn't take as long to warm up. But you just can't walk into a gym straight off the street and get right into working sets. So this is again where it can really speed up. You can get a lot more good quality work done in a shorter time. By reducing the number of the exercises and increasing the number of sets, you're going to wind up doing fewer warm-up sets, which, even though warm-ups are useful, they still do amount to what we call junk volume in a program. You can definitely do too much warming up. Those are not stimulative sets.
Speaker 1:The point of warm-up sets is to get you ready for the working sets. It's to figure out what I'm doing in my warmup is one dialing in my technique. Two, figuring out where I'm at today. If I've got good rest, if my nutrition is solid and I'm feeling good in those warmups, obviously we're going to try to push the progression and we're going to try to overload. If I don't feel rested or things aren't right, then that's where I'm going to get in there and I'm just going to punch the clock and I'm just going to hit what I need to in that session. I'm not going to overdo it, I'm not going to shoot, and then I'm not good at this. But sometimes it's even a good idea to actually scale it back a little bit if your sleep or nutrition is really off. But anyway, I just want to keep in mind you're only counting your working sets. Don't count your warmups towards your total volume.
Speaker 1:The warmups still have value. I don't want to make you scared, but you shouldn't be taking four and five sets to warm up. You should be able to get that done in two or three sets. But again, if you start adding a bunch of exercises to catch a bunch of different angles, you are going to spend significant amount of time warming up in that workout where, if you reduce the exercises, push the sets, you're going to get more high quality work done in a stimulative range and at a stimulative load. So again, fewer exercises, more sets. That's the thing. If one of your days just isn't connecting, you're not feeling the target muscle, start with your best lift on there, add a couple sets, see how it goes. I'm pretty sure you're going to be pretty quickly feeling what you want to feel. You probably just weren't hitting it with enough volume.
Speaker 1:So anyway, with that, that is my gym rant. Take that stuff to the gym, improve your workouts and also make sure everybody's cleaning the place up. It's driving me crazy, but yeah. So I do want to touch on the carnivore diet today. So I do want to touch on the carnivore diet today, if we got any dedicated carnivores out there. I'm going to try to keep this kind and informative. I also want to point your attention to the fact that I have already done an episode on the Game Changers, so I don't have a side in any of this stuff Not picking on you guys. I've already done a plant-based episode, so if that's more the content you want to hear, maybe go that way, but if you're in the carnivore camp, this is probably the one you should be listening to, even though it might not be entirely what you want to hear.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so my real goal, though, today again, it's not to talk down to anybody, as I really try to highlight all the time I have experimented with so many things. I don't have a leg to stand on criticizing in that regard. My goal today is just to see what science has to say about this fad diet, which I guess that's loaded language that I just dropped in there. But no, I will say, like the tagline of our show, there's nothing new except all that has been forgotten, and this is another one of those, again, the philosophical underpinnings and the way it tries to execute.
Speaker 1:This idea, I think, is also shared with a lot of diets that don't seem to have anything to do with the carnivore diet. Off the top of my head, I would say gluten-free for non-celiacs. I would say people avoiding lectins, fruit, other things, anything where people say this is the one thing wrong with diet, or anybody saying this is the way humans are evolved to eat or this is how your ancestors ate All of them. But I think we can honestly tell this story pretty well through breaking down the carnivore diet. So yeah, upfront, obviously this has been around a long time. Indigenous populations such as the Inuit, the Hadza, the Maasai, all consumed diets that were predominantly animal-based. That's going to be a fact that is cited a lot in carnivore literature. We'll get into this more later. I'm not sure that they actually have those diets down there. There's a lot more plants and opportunism going on than a lot of the influence are going to be letting on in this space.
Speaker 1:One of the most interesting guys and it's terrible probably going to butcher his name, viljalmor Stefansson, but he's another one he was actually an Arctic explorer in the early 1900s. He actually had a lot of time living in the Arctic, living on an Inuit diet, and he actually did a year-long experiment demonstrating the healthfulness of an all-meat diet. So his study and his exploration is going to come up a lot in a second we're actually going to take. It's going to be my history dive of the day. I want to talk about his story a little bit more In the mid-20th century, about his story a little bit more In the mid 20th century. Obviously, that is when your low and zero carb approaches were explored. So William Banting was actually the one who kind of launched the low carb thing.
Speaker 1:A lot of people are going to be more familiar in the United States with Dr Atkins All of that, or not all of them but the guy who kind of went farther than even both Banting or Atkins was a guy named, uh, richard McIrniss. And so, yeah, he had kind of expanded on Banting and went even farther than Dr Atkins and he actually had it was called the Stone Age Diet and he sold like 1.5 million copies. He had critics in real time. This was kind of fun. But dietitian Margaret Olson had negatively reviewed his book Eat Fat and Grow Slim, describing it as quote another book on diet based on a minimum of fact but supported by many chapters of what can only be described as propaganda based on badly digested series of half-truths and some outright errors.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, not a household name for me, margaret Olson, but I do feel like I'm carrying on her work. She says that quite well and that kind of has been my core project in the fitness and wellness space. But no, mcinerronus actually continued his crusade later against coffee, milk, eggs and flour. So that was kind of a consistent thing with him trying to go back and be a caveman way before any of our paleo friends had tried that out in the early 21st century. Full disclosure, I am one of those paleo people. So again, we should all be able to talk openly and honestly about this stuff without getting upset. I've made every single mistake that I'm going to break down. But yeah, so low carb, keto, paleo all of these modern diets, I think, are variants from this sort of same branch. And then to me and Carnivore has kind of evolved out of that mold, pushing those trends even a little bit farther than they were doing. But before I get into their specific claims, there was one name I brought up there and I flagged it.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about Viljalmor Stefansson. It's the last time I'm going to say his first name, because I'm pretty sure I'm doing a bad job. Sure, I'm doing a bad job, but, yeah, briefly mentioned, he was an Arctic explorer, and his experiments and expeditions were indeed very informative on this topic. I'm not sure the way they're being represented in popular literature is accurate, but these are objectively very informative studies and experiences that we have drawn. He was an Ivy League guy. On his wiki they throw him up as a Harvard professor. He was also at Dartmouth and a few other schools. At times he explored the Arctic, and so, anyway, first just historical anecdote, that's just kind of fun.
Speaker 1:On one of his expeditions he has three ships and they are heading out, and so they're basically exploring up near Alaska and across the Bering Straits into where Russia is, and one of the ships actually became trapped in the ice. It was the ship he was on, and so then he leaves the ship for one of the others, and this is the first kind of interesting thing he tells the crew that he's going to go hunting and then bring them back some provisions. A lot of the crew suspected, though, that he was actually leaving the ship, because he suspected it was in like a little ice sheet, that the ice would get broken away and that it would start drifting out uncontrollably into sea. That is what happened, and he actually never did come back with any food. So, you know, stephenson does just kind of slide off this maroon ship. The ship does get crushed on the ice, and then the remaining crew try to make it to a spot called Wrangell Island, which is technically Russia, and three of them take off alone.
Speaker 1:And one of them was by the name of Alistair McKay, and this is really interesting to me because he was actually the doctor from Shackleford's Nimrod expedition, which, if you're not familiar, this was, um, you know, frankly, one of the most famous stories of human endurance people who were stranded and marooned in Antarctica. Um, mckay was one of those who had survived the entire winter. Um, he was in the party that took on the first ascent of Mount Everestbrus when they were trying to get out. So, again, I just found it. I don't know, kind of, I don't know if it's ironic, what the right word is, but just imagine surviving literally one of the most harrowing tales in human history and then, ironically, for this subject, he actually ate penguins and seals during that time. For this subject, he actually ate penguins and seals during that time. But, yeah, just to finally die on the Arctic ice? I don't know. It just seemed wild to me. Just imagine that, after going through all of that, just to go out that way, obviously this was somebody who was incredibly hardy, proven it in just the most harrowing circumstances. What a way to go. But anyway, other than him eating meat in those situations doesn't have much relevance.
Speaker 1:I will say, though, that, stephenson, he said he left the boat to go hunting, but he actually, upon reaching land, he immediately devoted himself to the expedition's scientific objectives. So it does appear that he, you know, left the crew on board to fend for their own devices. He didn't seem too concerned when he got to land. There were a few survivors. They were critical of his indifference. He eventually did escape official censure. He was publicly honored for his later work.
Speaker 1:But so later on he actually tries to get another expedition actually to go out to that wrangle island where, um, his crew had died, but his goal this time was to claim it. So first he wanted to claim it for canada, but the expedition where people had died was for Canada and they didn't want a part of another expedition with him. So then he pitches this to Britain and he gets a crew, but then he actually creates a national incident when he goes there and tries to claim it because it was already Russian land. He left some people there to try to live. They all died and then, ironically, his real plan was he actually wanted to start a tourism company in the Arctic. That never materialized.
Speaker 1:So again, I find that funny and I obviously love to say every episode there's nothing new except all that has been forgotten. I think the thing that that was reminding me of is obviously the Titanic exploration, some of the adventure tourism that is going on today. I think sometimes these things seem novel. It's just always fun for me when you catch a little anecdote like that in the history. It's tough to do anything new in the 21st century, my friends. It's tough to do anything new in the 21st century, my friends.
Speaker 1:But yeah, he actually remained an explorer for many years and he did spend considerable time eating the diet of the Inuit and he had noted its health benefits. He noticed people often went six to nine months eating nothing but meat, went six to nine months eating nothing but meat and then actually on one of his return expeditions he literally turned down a year's supply of what they called civilized food and he did elect to live off the land for four years. He had one assistant out there with him. There were no ill impacts and after this this is when he becomes an advocate for the all-meat diet. Obviously we can find some examples before, but I think it's fair to say that Stephenson's was the first one that was really based on really regimented study and four years quite a sample size where I think he kind of knew what he was getting into by the time he did it. But anyway, he comes back and then they actually do a controlled study.
Speaker 1:That was funded by the American Meat Association and this to me was actually one of the most interesting parts, and this is going to manifest a lot later as we kind of get into the claims that people are making today. So it took a few weeks but Stephenson's partner in the American Meat Association study developed a condition called glycurgia, which I guess is maybe the guy could have had diabetes before. But one of the issues that came up was that they had been feeding them lean meats and at this point Stephenson gives the other people in the study a note that he had already noted in the Arctic that you could get about two or three weeks on lean meat before digestive disturbances would manifest and that it would lead to sickness. So he requested that they actually eat the fatty meats that were typical of the Inuit, rather than the lean meats that were typical of our grocery stores, and so then their health markers were fine. But again, I think this is going to be a claim that continues to surface is that it's really tough to mimic exactly what they're eating in the Arctic in our grocery store. So whether or not carnivore is an optimal eating strategy it's debatable, I guess. But we have kind of seen how this plays out in a pretty controlled manner. If you're using the type of meats that are popular in the grocery store, those cuts today, you probably are going to get about two to three weeks before some pretty serious gastrointestinal issues start to manifest.
Speaker 1:And then, you know, maybe we got some liver king fans jumping in saying, oh, he's already solved that. But yeah, that's kind of what the pitch of a lot of these companies is reliant on is maybe they're, you know, some are just not being, you know, good and pushing the idea that it's just eating meat. If some are, you know, pushing this idea that you need to get the livers, the organs, the bone marrow, stuff, like that. Instead of eating those things, they're typically pushing supplements on people to accommodate for the fact their diet doesn't have those things. For some of this I'm going to focus on some individual influencers, but before I dive into their individual things, know kind of individual things and actually we're not going to do liver King Um I, I actually think he's beneath this discussion. Sorry, liver King, I'm going to go a little bit higher up. I want to go do some more intelligent people making this claim that I really don't agree with. But uh, no, that's the first.
Speaker 1:I actually want to just take on the ancestral angle, because the other thing is I don't want this to be purely a carnivore takedown. I want to learn from the mistakes of carnivore and apply them to a lot of other things. So first focus, we're just talking ancestral diets, like broadly and in general. So a lot of diets are making this claim that you know we have to mimic the diet of our ancestors for optimal health. I've been talking this down for years and last week I came across the Scientific American article that I love the framing of, so I want to steal some of its words, but the title on it to eat like your ancestors, eat everything. The scope and focus of this article was essentially but the title on it To Eat Like your Ancestors, eat Everything. The scope and focus of this article was essentially breaking down all of the current and available evidence on what we ate and when and where. And I got to be honest, it is really overwhelming that we are opportunistic omnivores. Overwhelming that we are opportunistic omnivores. All diets that are citing ancient people are cherry picking and or ignoring countless situations that don't make the case. They've chosen to argue for Period.
Speaker 1:Next point replicating the diet of ancient humans is almost impossible. We don't know what they ate, towards the detail that people are claiming that they have. Here's some of the issues. So I think a lot of people are kind of stretching what the fossil record shows because they are finding bones and things like that and they're not finding grains. There's kind of nothing to that. I just think they're over-exaggerating what is left in the fossil record, our tools for processing meat and plants, and new discoveries happening all the time. Um, that that's kind of actually why, even though there was a decent timeline in there, I'm not going to talk much about it because there's a great chance that there are going to be new discoveries, updating and changing that timeline. That's kind of been the lay of the land in this space, so I wouldn't bet much on anything. Um, you know, when people say, oh, this was the first time humans did this and we've had, yeah, that's going to be probably one of the least stable discoveries that you're going to have. Also, just like with modern humans, like you can't say what humans in Los Angeles eat.
Speaker 1:There's a wide variety of what we eat, and the same was true in the past is that you couldn't just point to a geographic region and say, oh, here's what the people ate. The truth is it was varied, even within so-called regions, regions, and really the thing that seems really, really stable is people seem to eat whatever food is available. The meat fluencers and a lot of other people are going to consistently misrepresent or stretch whatever truths, make their case, minimize and play down any of the other ones that don't. I will throw my meat-eating friends a bone here, because meat really did play a significant role in our evolution, but this is one of the things that I think they kind of stretch that it's pretty obvious that we're actually not pure carnivores. We didn't develop our brains solely because of meat, and even probably the first animal tissues we ate probably weren't meat, it was probably bone marrow and scavenged things. So they're right in the sense that the available calories and energy that we were getting helped us evolve these more advanced brains that we have.
Speaker 1:But they're wrong saying that it came from one food source. The critical advantage humans had wasn't that they ate meat. The critical advantage humans had was in the varieties of food that they could consume. So the reason you're here is because your ancestors were omnivores and because they didn't make distinctions like that. If your ancestors did, let's throw them both under the bus, but if your ancestors were either vegans or carnivores, they wouldn't be your ancestors because they died out when some famine hit their region. We all descend from the people who were malleable and flexible and changed with the changing environments and changed with the changing environments.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so no, I honestly think the evidence that we are omnivores and that we seek out novel food sources consistently is really, really solid. I don't think this is too in question. I'm not concerned. This is going to be one that flips. The really identifiable trend in human diets is again a broadening and increasing of the number of food sources that we seek out and use and we pretty much roll with whatever is available to us. And again, a lot of the proponents of this are going to point to like the Hadza in Tanzania.
Speaker 1:But when I look at the claims the meat fluencers make about how much meat the Hadza eat and what the anthropologists who have lived with them for a couple of decades say, it's a big discrepancy. The meat fluencers say they eat all meat. The anthropologists I'm reading say that plants make up about 50% of their diet diet. So this one I guess we can just leave up to. We don't know right. There's no way to tell who's more reliable in this researchers who've lived with them for 20 years or influencers who peddle a message for a livelihood. So yeah, honestly, I wish I could weigh in and solve this one for you there again. There's just no way to tell right. Solve this one for you there again is just there's just no way to tell right. But no, I think we can say that it's very hard to say with certainty what any group of people actually eat. So I know people will feel free to argue any end of what the Hadza eat. I'm still going to say it's probably pretty hard to know exactly what that is. With that being said, I kind of feel like when anyone tells you that there's only one way to eat, you can stop listening. That being said, I have listened to their arguments and I think putting them out in the sun is kind of the best medicine. So, yeah, not going to end the episode right there.
Speaker 1:I did want to actually dive into the specific arguments of what seemed to be some of the most prominent meat fluencers. So if I missed your favorite, I'm sorry, no-transcript, really being a big fan, anyone who's listened to the show knows I am a big fan of Friedrich Nietzsche. Long before Jordan Peterson was a public intellectual and celebrity, he had a video, titled 45-minute video, explaining a five-minute Nietzsche passage. I got about five minutes in before I turned it off because I honestly felt like he hadn't read Nietzsche. I've, unfortunately, paid a little bit more attention, more Now.
Speaker 1:What I see is that he is a person who has an agenda and he likes to use big thinkers like that to try to make it seem like they back what he's doing. So he's similar to a fitness figure and to me is that he has an agenda and he likes to cherry pick literature to try to support the case that he wants to make. But anyway, since he is the PhD and teaches at Harvard, I don't really think I should come at him on the philosophical ground. I'm going to let the other professors who've already done that do all that for me. But as Dr Peterson has become an advocate for the carnivore diet, he did kind of step into my wheelhouse on that one. So ad homineming me as not a PhD and not an Ivy League professor isn't really going to work in this domain. So I'd rather do that. No, and in the past, because I think all of this is fair, I've said done the same thing for a Dr Gundry at Yale with his book Plant Paradox. So I understand they're more credentialed. And PhDs book Plant Paradox, so I understand they're more credentialed and PhDs. What I am really going to rest on is the counter arguments that I'm about to make and anyway I think that, even though I don't have that pedigree that these thinkers have, I do think the arguments can kind of speak for them, speak for themselves, but anyway. So the first question to me is why is a psychologist talking about nutrition at all?
Speaker 1:Dr Peterson never has studied nutrition. Most of his psychology work deals with. At least his published work has a lot to do with substance abuse, anxiety, things like that. There isn't much of a focus on nutrition, so how he got into this is through his daughter. His daughter is a food blogger who also hasn't studied nutrition, and she is now a proponent of a diet that she calls the lion diet, l-i-o-n. It's carnivore variant. I think there's an obvious pun to be made there. It's the lion L-Y-I-N-G. But no, anyway, no jokes, let's actually get into the issues that I actually have.
Speaker 1:First off, no issue with this. She had suffered from autoimmune reactions to food, and so she was experimenting with elimination diets. She removed gluten. She noticed some improvements. Then she cut some dairy. She noticed more improvements. Then she cut all the carbs. She noticed even more than she added some intermittent fasting and eventually she's down to eating like meat and water and I don't know, it's pretty much it and her symptoms alleviate.
Speaker 1:At this point she starts promoting carnivore as the cure for a lot of things. Here's the things she says you can cure with the carnivore diet. Her first thing is improvement in mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. I've dealt with depression, so I am receptive and sensitive to this, but I do want to point out anything like this is nebulous, could be, but you're going to need a lot more controlled data. I am playing devil's advocate, but what if, in the period that you started that diet, you got a new job or you were in a divorce and that resolved Again? We can't just Even if there really was an improvement in depression and anxiety. You're going to have to have a lot more controls in place to start making any claims like that Increased energy levels. Similarly, that one is also nebulous and undefined. Devil's advocate. You could have placebo effects. You know you're taking this intervention. You've heard people say cool things about it and that can trigger a positive result. We'll say could be, but you're going to need better proof and it's probably in your head. You know.
Speaker 1:She talks about it reducing reactions to autoimmune symptoms. That one I'm actually going to have to push'm actually not pushing because obviously, if there was something in a diet causing it and you weren't eating it, yeah, not eating the things that cause you to react is going to reduce autoimmune systems. Whether meat is the only food in the world that doesn't cause autoimmune systems, I think that's going to be pretty debatable. Um, weight loss and better body composition. I want to give this one the same treatment that I give it every time. Uh, so this is what we technically call stupid bullshit. Um, say that again. It's uh, it's stupid bullshit when people tell you that you can get weight loss from eating like a specific food.
Speaker 1:It is still about caloric deficit. Caloric deficit, caloric deficit. I really do get sick of saying it, but it is fun shooting these down every time. This is yet another failed attempt to upend physics from nutrition influencers. I am keeping scores like zero and 17 million. No, if you want to lose weight, you need to get into a caloric deficit. If you lost weight on carnivore, it was because you were in a caloric deficit. You could totally gain weight on carnivore too. Really, just depends on how many calories you're eating. Um, there's no way out of this one. People, I can't. I don't know. I'll keep doing this. Cause it, I don't know. I say I hate it, but it's kind of fun shooting that down. Uh, devil's advocate too.
Speaker 1:On her elimination diet experience, but, but in a different route actually. Um, to me it actually sounds like she did the elimination diet, so I kind of don't doubt that she had some symptoms she was trying to address through this, but it literally sounds like she did the first part of removing the potential allergens without doing the next part of reintroducing the foods back in a controlled manner to identify what was actually causing the symptom. Causing the symptom. Does that make sense? So it's like she just went through the elimination part and then now, whatever was triggering this immune reaction in her diet, she's no longer eating and she doesn't know what it is because she didn't add the things back in. All she knows is that when she gets down to meat and water and salt, that she's not eating that thing. There's a whole nother step that is yet to be done and again, I don't know, but I would kind of be willing to bet money that if she did the back half of the elimination diet and reintroduce stuff, she might find that there are more foods besides meat and water that she can tolerate.
Speaker 1:And I say this is somebody who you know basically did this, coming off of my ancestral time in paleo, and this was how I unlearned a whole lot of things that I used to think about. You know, I had my thing with oats because they were Neolithic and I was pretty convinced I wasn't evolved to eat those and, anyway, doing that process for me was insanely informative. But I did both parts of it. I did the elimination part and I did the part where you reintroduce. So I do think that I think that is one mistake that I don't. I didn't see that she did in her elimination diet process. That that's really important.
Speaker 1:But anyway, all of this is where Dr Peterson's use of carnivore originates, because we're now told that in 2017, he gets prescribed benzodiazepine by a family doctor for immune reactions to family food or sorry, it's a food, it was a family doctor. Some skepticism was in there, because I do want to remind everybody, benzodiazepine isn't typically prescribed for autoimmune reactions to food. It's an anti-anxiety medication. Happens to be the same drug that Michael Jackson was taking when he died. I think he was using it to go on tour. He started this drug in 2017. He became a celebrity in 2016.
Speaker 1:Anyway, this is not going to be the central thrust, but I'm not sure if the benzodiazepine was a response to autoimmune reactions from food. It seems more likely that it was probably lifestyle changes from becoming a celebrity, traveling and making media appearances. But anyway, I'm not speculating on the drugs for any other reason than this is what actually launches him to go into a detox facility in Russia. He gets addicted to benzodiazepine and then now he goes to Russia, they induce him into a coma and run the drugs out. He described this as an incredibly harrowing time and when he returns now we're back to Carnivore he goes on his daughter's nutrition advice to address the food allergies and everything, and Carnivore has now solved all of the problems that. So, yeah, anyway, his story now becomes that basically, you know, western doctors and this Western food and all this stuff you know made him a drug addict and put him out there, and carnivore you know drinking water and eating meat has solved all of the health problems.
Speaker 1:Again, I think I've already got my opinions out there. I don't find much of this story that credible. Michaela Peterson has been able to make a name for herself as a food blogger. This has gotten her lectures at Oxford. I even took this out of my notes, but I'm going to say it anyway. It's just funny because Jordan Peterson is very, very upset when women do a lot of things in life, but he was very, very happy and proud that he and his daughter were lecturing at Oxford at the same time. It's just a little ironic with his brand. Just the fact that, you know, admittedly, his daughter might not be the most qualified nutrition expert and she did get to speak at Oxford, kind of on his coattails. Usually I think that type of thing would bother him, but doesn't seem to in this case, isn't that funny? But yeah, I actually think their story in Carnivore though for them, is seen as proof of its efficacy. I think it's kind of anything. But Again, I think Michaela Peterson did half of an elimination diet.
Speaker 1:She then started advocating for it and again, I don't really know what's going on with her father's health, but I find it very hard to believe that the diet has cured whatever put him into that state. But anyway, too much of this is speculation. So you know, I think we have a better case where I don't have to quite speculate as much. All right, all right. So next one we actually have is also a physician, or this is a doctor, uh, phd. We have physician paul saladino, and he actually was past tense, a major meat fluencer, but he is no longer carnivore. So again, like our last one, he has a personal arc with it. But I actually think that Dr Saladino probably got to the thrust of it, or at least got to the plot here. Not only did Paul Saladino embrace carnivore, he literally wrote the book on it, it, he created a supplement line, um, and he now has discontinued the diet for himself.
Speaker 1:Um, his old claims he used to cite, you know optimal nutrient absorption from animal-based foods, reduced inflammation and a decreased disease risk, better skin health and reduction in acne, and enhanced cognitive function and mental clarity. We've seen that one twice, but he went on podcast recently and he offered up why he is no longer the carnivore MD Quote. I started to think maybe, going long term, ketosis is not great for me. Ketosis, by the way, that's when your body is going to be using fatty acids as its primary energy source instead of glucose. So yeah, he said that he conducted some research and concluded that ketosis is probably not a great thing for most humans. And after five years on the carnivore diet his testosterone levels had tanked and he also believed that the diet was causing some sleep issues, joint and muscle pain. He then also said it's humbling. You put your thoughts into cement and then you change your thoughts.
Speaker 1:I've learned that including carbohydrates in my diet improved my health, fair point, and I was literally at the exact same place in my own fitness journey at one point. I am a you know, recovering carb phobic uh, body building, you know body dysmorphic nut myself. So I've been there, done that. I'm not trying to be a hipster about it. I probably low-carbed harder than almost anybody, you know, because, because I was into it and, yeah, I actually had the exact same experience it wound up really compromising my performance, my ability to recover from workouts, my ability to lift heavier. This is something I think people think that I do, that I really haven't done for a long time.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, wholeheartedly applaud this. Just because the incentives of changing your mind in public are so hard. Props to you for this, dr Saladino. That's good work. It really is great seeing people change their mind. And since I did just say nice things, I do want to say though maybe you could have done it before writing a book and starting a supplement company. That's just me, I guess, but no.
Speaker 1:So I actually did read a registered dietitian, sidney Green, reviewing Saladino's situation, and keep in mind he followed diet for five years, which is a good amount of time. Most people aren't going to get that far. So, anyway, sidney Green said that Dr Saladino was probably deficient in nutrients that are responsible for producing important hormones like testosterone and melatonin. Second, low glucose levels can cause heart palpitations. When you eat a food with carbs in it, your body breaks it down into glucose or blood sugar. It's your body's main source of energy and plays an important role in maintaining normal physiological functions for overall health. So today I think that green and Saladino would be mostly aligned in their opinions.
Speaker 1:But I'm going to take one more shot at Dr Saladino. He still hasn't fully embraced becoming an omnivore. He incorporates some honey, some fruit and some raw dairy. We did that one last week. Load that up if you need to, but yeah, that's how he gets his carbs. Still, no veggies. So the jaded part of me is like oh, he's still pushing fad diets. People don't like veggies, so that'll sell. But anyway, let's keep our eyes there. Um, I like that. He, you know, publicly changed on something difficult. Um, that's cool. I'm a little skeptical that he's going to start getting into pushing a no veggie fad diet, though we'll see. I'm jaded um joe rogan uh, he's actually done a little experiment of his own with carnivore. And yeah, rogan uses 19 daily supplements and he doesn't appear to be buying the carnivore pitch either.
Speaker 1:It's not just me. He was on Huberman and he said the problem that I have with pure carnivore was that I work out very hard. The main issue with this diet is the low energy. When I work out very hard with pure carnivore I was struggling. I didn't like it. There's a reason for quitting. He initially reported feeling great, with increased energy level and weight loss. Eventually experienced severe gastrointestinal issues, including diarrhea.
Speaker 1:Didn't have this note in there, but you guys want to guess that it happened at like week two or three. I do think that's one that, looking at Stephenson, probably could have avoided that experience. But again, actually no fault for people experimenting. That's how I learned most of what I say. So anyway, guys, we're getting close, we're coming up, but I've been all over the place. I actually just want to put it all in one succinct spot. Let's put a little timestamp or something here. This is the place to go if you want to get the meat out of the episode.
Speaker 1:What does science say about the carnivore diet? All right, we ran most of it down, but quickly summarize First, I think it's a pretty telling anecdote that a lot of the major people who promoted it have already moved away from it. Obviously, the Petersons have, not Saladino Rogan they have. I haven't tried a full carnivore, tried something very close, had a very similar experience myself. I think all of this stuff aligns with the vast majority of the research that it just typically isn't sustainable for a long time. The examples that we have of carnivores in the meat fluencer carnivore world is of indigenous tribes that actually ate significantly more plants than the influencers typically say, and they also typically ate different animal products than the ones that people are going to be buying in their grocery store today.
Speaker 1:One piece, they do get right. Meat was really important in the evolution of our species. It's really important for our brains, but it wasn't exclusively the kinds of meat we eat today, like we mentioned, scavenged bone marrow, eggs, whatever was available, and the same is also true for plant sources. At the same time, the main arc and trend that you're going to notice in human diet is again broadening, selecting more and more food sources, not isolating it down to one. That's our critical advantage. It's malleability, it's flexibility, it is lack of reliance on any single food source that has really made us thrive.
Speaker 1:Most of the major benefits suggested by the dieters, including weight loss, include blood sugar markers, skin, digestive issues literally no research. Obviously only digestive issues. The opposite seems to be true. The weight loss one is particularly annoying and, yeah, literally the opposite is true for most of the claims. Those following a carnivore diet are more at risk for vitamin and mineral deficiencies because of lack of variety. If you source it at the grocery store, you're probably going to get gut issues in about two or three weeks. Lean tissues are not what has been used on successful attempts on this diet. Again, no fiber in the diet too. That's going to add to the risk of the gastrointestinal issues if you just completely run fiber out of your diet. Not good for the gut microbiome, not good for what's going on.
Speaker 1:So anyway, though I know I would feel bad doing this when I'm like talking down because one, I don't want to alienate anybody that's been associated with any of these camps, I really do want to just keep reminding you guys. I feel like we're all in the trenches here together trying to do this. Though I didn't buy into the carnivore claims before researching this, I really did learn a lot do this. Though I didn't buy into the carnivore claims before researching this, I really did learn a lot doing this. So on the one hand, a lot of the figures that we talked about today.
Speaker 1:They represent everything I don't like in modern society and I'm not exaggerating. I feel like they're kind of peddling agendas and products under the guise of scholarship, self-help or self-optimization. That being said, I also can't help it when I see people who are genuinely suffering from conditions and seeking solutions to them. That still resonates, and even in the case of the Petersons, I believe that is their initial motivating factor. God knows I don't agree with how they're applying the rest of it, but at least to that regard that I can actually relate to in spite of all my ranting. That's actually why I like training. I really relate to that on a basic human level and I like to be involved in that process of helping people actually find the solution. So that is essentially where my frustration comes from, with people getting lost along the way. These people don't entirely escape responsibility.
Speaker 1:In my book, though, I do feel some empathy for the problems that they're trying to address with their diet, and that's because they have been misleading other people, not giving them the full picture. I have read the accounts and reviews and I should acknowledge that some people have followed the advice and it's alleviated some symptoms. Again, like I would say, just like I did on Michaela Peterson, I don't doubt that, I just don't think that your nutrition journey is finished. I think you've done half of an elimination diet and I think you have a lot more to learn, and again, that's not talking down, I'm still learning a lot about my own individual nutrition needs. I think you're about halfway through the process there, but again, every person we mentioned today was attempting to use nutrition to address health issues and problems in their life, and I also want to say that there was just flat out nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with experimenting. If you do it, though, make sure you're clean, make sure you're isolating variables, otherwise it can be really hard to understand what actually worked and why.
Speaker 1:When I survey the available literature on this topic, I really don't think it points towards exclusively eating an animal-based diet or towards selecting for any single food type. We constantly seek out novel food sources. Our ability to live and thrive as a species has come from the variety of foods, not a fragile reliance on anyone. That's why we thrived. I remain really confident saying that all attempts to recreate the diet of the ancients are flawed. There are going to be new discoveries. To constantly overturn the timeline, constantly overturn what you think you know. To constantly overturn the timeline, constantly overturn what you think you know.
Speaker 1:I just don't think this is a bedrock that you want to rest your nutritional attempts upon. Any attempt to do that is going to be flawed. This is why all, not just carnivore, but this is why all of the diets profess the one thing wrong with diet. This is where they all go wrong. They share the same philosophical underpinning and I don't ever think that they're going to address our health problems.
Speaker 1:Anyway, nutrition, as you guys know, to me this is an individual process. This is why I don't want to discourage the experimenting and trying out of new things. I think that you can learn a lot in processes like this. But don't be dogmatic. Also, be reactive to the data that you're seeing and how your body is responding. If you even try to experiment with something like this, log food, wear a tracker, do those annoying, tedious things that I talk about, otherwise you aren't going to really have any idea how your body actually responded and then you're going to kind of be stuck in those nebulous markers in the land of placebo effects.
Speaker 1:But anyway, guys, I really do hope again that this isn't just I don't want to sit in as just a carnivore takedown. I really hope that this is the way that we can really understand any one of these attempts to frame. You know, the one thing wrong with diet we did carnivore today. I'm sure we'll touch on some of these other ones at a later date, but anyway, if you guys think this is going to be helpful to anybody you know, make sure to pass it on and share. I always appreciate your time and attention. Remember, mind and muscle are inseparably intertwined. There are no gains without brains. Keep lifting and learning. I'll do the same.
