Double Edge Fitness
This podcast is dedicated to showcasing to our members and any of our listeners who are interested in how this northern Nevada gym operates. Our mission is to inspire others to bring health and wellness home to truly make a difference in the household with the ultimate goal of making Reno the healthiest city in the country.In this podcast, we will be talking about things that are on our mind and answering questions from our members and our listeners to provide a unique listening experience.
Double Edge Fitness
Understanding the Fundamentals of Nutrition
Dive deep into the fundamentals of nutrition in this enlightening episode that aims to demystify the complexities surrounding healthy eating. With March being Nutrition Awareness Month, we focus on key elements that can enhance your understanding of food and its impact on your health. Through compelling personal stories and evidence-based discussions, we break down the essential components of nutrition and highlight the importance of individualized approaches.
This episode is packed with valuable insights, such as the role that genetics plays in how we respond to different diets. You’ll discover that nutrition is not a one-size-fits-all scenario, and what works for your friend may not be suitable for you. This understanding encourages listeners to experiment and explore what truly works for their unique needs. Further, we’ll delve into hydration’s crucial role, shedding light on effective strategies to ensure optimal fluid intake—which is vital for overall health and performance.
We don't shy away from discussing the importance of calories and the calorie equation, emphasizing that balance and moderation are key. Throughout the conversation, we encourage you to see nutrition as a lifelong journey rather than a quick fix, and we aim to provide you with the tools to make sustainable health improvements.
We invite you to embark on this journey with us! If you're ready to transform your eating habits and develop a healthier relationship with food, tune into this insightful episode and let’s redefine nutrition together. Don't forget to share your thoughts or questions—we’d love to engage with you and help along the way!
Follow us on Instagram here! https://www.instagram.com/doubleedgefitness/
all right, fam, it is march. March is nutrition awareness month and I was told by people way smarter than me that I should create consistent nutrition content for you guys this month, follow a theme versus just being completely random and whatever pops into my brain. So what we did on social media you saw us post in the little sticker thingy, the question asker thing. You all submitted a bunch of questions about nutrition, because that's great, that guides me better on what you want to learn, which allows me to be a little more, you want to say, structured, but providing you guys content that you actually want to learn about Nutrition. Simple, it really is simple, and with the simplicity I got notes, notes. The goal of these notes is to keep me on track because, as you all know, I'm very talented at rambling on and in circles and wasting your damn time. So, without further ado, episode one March Nutrition Awareness Month. We're going to start off with the fundamentals of nutrition. All right, that's what we're going to start off doing Now. I did clean the office. Most of these videos are going to be recorded in my office because that was one of the few places that we can do things uninterrupted inside the gym. But we got our green tea. Keep the dry mouth away while we're doing this. Got our notes, here we go. Let's dive into it.
Speaker 1:So, first thing, we need to have a little disclaimer, a little background. Now, I am not a doctor or a dietician any sense of the word either one of those. What I am, though, is a fitness coach. I have a precision nutrition certification in coaching nutrition, and I have about 20 years now experience in all the things professionally as a coach. I grew up various aspects of nutrition, healthy living and so forth around sports and stuff like that. We can argue. If some of the ways I was eating during wrestling was healthy, it wasn't Full disclosure. Being at a massive caloric deficit, with high intensity training all the time is not the optimal way to develop a young athlete but later topic. So a lot of this stuff that I'm going to talk about is based on experience, anecdotally for myself. It's going to be based on various people I follow. Some of this stuff might sound regurgitated if you follow certain folks on the social media world, two people in particular.
Speaker 1:I get a lot of content from that. I value well three Peter Atiyah, andrew Huberman and the guests that are on their podcast. I really think they do a really good job when it comes to giving current research, but in a good lens. That is pretty easy for the most part for us normal folk to digest mentally. Lane Norton he's another one that I do value his insights. I think he shares really good content information out there.
Speaker 1:Some one that you might quote unquote, say is a little more fringe, which is Paul Saladino. Dr Paul Saladino, the carnivore MD guy. I have gained a lot of insights into stuff with him, although I don't necessarily agree with him totally on anything. But he's an interesting guy who has an interesting history when it comes to his experience with going from medicine into the way he lives his life now A lot more ancestral oriented, if you will. Is his life now a lot more ancestral oriented, if you will? But those are the first three. The first two andrew huberman, peter t is two main people and the guests that they have on the podcast. That's where I do get a lot of my current insights from and I value their knowledge that they share. And then the other two. I do consume their content and I do value their content. I think they both put out good stuff Again, with anybody in the social media sphere that you're getting any sort of medical nutrition hopium advice from you, need to put it in its bucket of.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is potentially an idea. This may or may not work for me and I'm going to get into why. So a lot of this stuff. I'm going to try to limit any sort of medical connotation around it. We did get a handful of questions that would be more medically oriented and I do plan on doing some episodes this month with my wife, who you know is an internal medicine practitioner. She now has her own practice here inside Double Edge Fitness doing internal medicine, so we will be able to dive into some more medically oriented questions and actually can't still not medical advice, but it's a little more based in that mindset versus mine, which is more healthy living, athletic performance and then for both my wife and I together, a lot of our insights and how we live now is driven around the Clare diet what's been coined as the Clare diet which is my daughter. So because of that, we need to understand the lens that I do look at nutrition through now.
Speaker 1:Right Last November, if many of you guys don't know about this, I think most of you do, at least if you follow me. You know If you're new to the gym you might not know Last November my daughter ended up having some gastrointestinal issues. One thing led to another, really really fast, to her getting admitted to the hospital, ultimately ending up in emergency bowel resection surgery. She had to have two thirds of her large intestine cut out. She was then diagnosed with Crohn's disease and she's nine years old. It was a heavy, heavy month two months back then that ended up, you know, kind of flipping our lives upside down.
Speaker 1:Were you know of the mindset we ate pretty darn healthy, I would say we lived our life really well in that 80 20 kind of rule. 80 of the time we ate, near perfect. The other 20 of the time, you know you quote unquote live life a little bit. You go get some fro yo, you go out to dinner, you know, have some cocktail. You know what I'm saying. So 80% of the time we ate really really well. 20% of the time we had a little fun. I think that very well described our life as a family prior to Claire going through what she went through.
Speaker 1:So she ends up in the hospital emergency surgery, spends almost a month in the hospital, ends up with an ostomy bag that she ended up getting removed and her colon put back together last April and then she recovered from that. And now today I'm happy to say and report that the Claire Bear is a healthy, thriving child. Her blood inflammatory measures, her stool inflammation measures are all rock bottom. She is a very, very healthy child. Now she is on a biologic which is an infusion of an immune suppressant drug that we are slowly able to have been slowly able to back off the intensity of the dose and how often she gets it, because her blood and inflammatory stool inflammatory markers have come down so low, so low To give some context to this, when she went into the hospital her calprotectin, which is a stool inflammation marker, was over 3,000. Her most recent one, it was a seven, went from 3,000 to seven Under 50 is normal. So her inflammatory the main one measured for her IBD is near rock bottom.
Speaker 1:Now, a big part of that, yes, she is on an immune-modulating drug, but for her to be where she's at and doing what she's at and just, uh, the way we took our nutrition and health lifestyle to a whole nother level has had a massive influence on her. It has had, it's had a massive influence on me, my wife, my son. Our health is, uh, top-notch right now for all of us, Feeling better, feeling great, we're all eating the same way, we are all functioning very, very well. So that's been a year journey. So that is kind of the backstory, and the reason I bring that up is a lot of times when I'm sharing stuff, if you don't know that backstory, I can come across as one of those ding-dongs on Instagram that's getting hyper crazy and sounding like a lunatic.
Speaker 1:You know, or we're starting to freak out about the seed oils and the microplastics and, oh my god, you can't have a diet soda ever. And you know zivias are the worst thing for you and you know you can only have grass fed, grass finished. And you know you need to make everything from scratch. You need to grow everything in your backyard, you need to do all this stuff. It comes across extreme and I understand that and if you don't have the lens that I have lived through and the way we function as a house now because of my daughter's health, you might not, I guess, understand or respect the position I'm coming from, because I don't mean to deliver my message in a way that sounds, I guess, condescending. I want to deliver the education and knowledge that we have learned. We have learned a lot of this on this journey and the importance of it. Then now we have lived the importance of it and seen the positive outcomes from that. I just want to make sure that over the course of the month, that we have context of where and what and why and who I am in regards specifically to this topic, and so forth.
Speaker 1:So goal today is to go through the fundamentals of nutrition, and some of this stuff might sound extremely rudimentary. It's a good reminder that the fundamentals nutrition is simple. The simpler you can keep it, the more consistent you can keep it, and when you're consistent with it, it'll drive long-term results. You know, in this industry, this space that I occupy as a profession, when you make things sound super complex, you can charge a premium price for it. So when they make nutrition coaching and nutrition guidance and all these things sound super complex and scary and you know I have, you know, most cutting edge this and that it's chances are it's a load, load of doo-doo and what I want to aim is one optimize. Optimize what we eat, understand why we eat and make sure that you're putting it in the context of you who you are, your genetics, your goals, your life and so forth. So one of the big things I want to throw out here first that I think is extremely underrated in understanding when it comes to I mean myself included, but most folks when it comes to nutrition, is how important genetics can actually play into many factors of nutrition. Your genetic, your heritage, can and does influence how you respond to the environment, how you respond to energy intake, how your body breaks down specific macronutrients, how your body responds to specific macronutrients.
Speaker 1:It is not a one-size Now. There is a global theme that is universal with the human body, but by no means is it just like. This is the diet, this is the best diet and this is the only diet. And what I'm getting at here is when you hear folks say, like you know, carnivore is the only way, intermittent fasting is the only way. Well-rounded pyramid USDA diet is the only way. Vegetarianism is the only way. Vegan is the only way. Episcopalian is the only way. Mediterranean is the only way. Paleo is the only way. What am I missing? Keto is the only way. I can't forget keto. It's a big one, so it's not. It's not.
Speaker 1:Anybody comes at you saying this is the only way red flag goes up and you know that they're possibly completely bullshit. Now they might have a history for themselves that they found success on something for some reason For them that could be genetically. It could be that they had an autoimmune disease, that that diet had a massive influence on them. That doesn't mean it's going to be the truth and absolute for you. Okay, I want to drive that point home for a couple reasons. One back up, my daughter has Crohn's. Her diet may not be the optimal one for you. Now, there are aspects of her diet that will be optimal for anybody, but it may not be the right one for you. You know your friend or your coworker you're sitting next to who's been eating carnivore for the last three months and has dropped 75 pounds and you know you're like, oh, this has to be the way to eat because ultimately they've lost weight, so it must be a healthier outcome.
Speaker 1:That person get lab work done before going on that diet. Did their cholesterol go through the roof? How do they train? What is their activity level like? What is their family heritage? Like you know, for an extreme example, you have Eskimos who live on a high-fat, high-protein diet and then you have people in rainforests who do not live on a high-fat, high-protein diet. Both find success, long-term void of cancer, type 2 diabetes and so forth. From a tribal aspect, a lot of these tribal populations had very low instances of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, basically non-existent, until the processed food world of the Western diet came in and infiltrated their way of life.
Speaker 1:So there are genetic adaptations into how our bodies handle carbohydrates and fats. They're probably the two big ones. Proteins, kind of universal, except there are some people who do very well on a plant protein diet. There are some people that don't, and that's fine. That doesn't mean that vegetarianism is bad, but it also doesn't mean it's the holy grail. Same with the keto carnivore side of the spectrum. So take extremes for what they are. They're extremes, they're not a one size fits all. Nutrition is a journey for you individually that you need to be willing to put time in and trial and error, with some fundamentals wrapped around it of where we play with this trial and error scenario.
Speaker 1:So genetics understand that a lot of people's physiques I know a lot of people don't admit it. But we train for looks. We don't want to be fat. We value, you know, most of the people that come to the gym want to lose body fat. For two reasons I'm going to argue. Number one reason is appearance and number two reason is health. Until you get to a certain age that age being around 40, 45, when you're like, oh snap, blood work looks like crap, doctor said I need to get healthy. So now the driver is longevity and health. But prior to 40, 45, let's be honest, the mass majority of people want to lose fat and gain muscle. 100% for looks, which is fine, it's fine. I still train for looks. For looks, which is fine, it's fine, I still train for looks. I also train for long-term health. I'll say my big driver is long-term health. But I would be lying if you know. Not looking fit didn't matter to me. It does, it does. So it's okay, it's okay. Do not shame yourself for that, all right.
Speaker 1:So next thing, the fundamentals. I'm going to talk about the calorie equation. Calories, freaking, matter. No if, ands or buts about it. Calories is the body's energy. That's how it's measured. Food intake you take in food. It breaks down into carbon or amino acids and if you're really starving, amino acids can also be turned over into usable energy. But ultimately calories come in. It's used as energy to feel the body's metabolic processes, right. So calories matter, the laws of thermodynamics matter. If you want to gain weight, you need to eat more calories than you burn. If you want to lose weight, you need to eat less calories than you burn. All right, 3,500 calories is one pound of fat Now. I haven't looked at that number in a while. This is why we got the computer. Let's confirm real quick 3,500 hasn't changed. Hasn't changed? 3,500 calories and one pound of fat, all right. So calories matter, the rules of thermodynamics matter. Ultimately, weight gain and fat loss comes down to a calorie equation. No matter what. No matter what now, things that can influence our metabolism, gut health, hormone health, muscle mass, activity level these things can influence our metabolism. That drives caloric expenditure. But at the end of the day, the equation still comes out to a caloric equation, comes out to a caloric equation. Okay, so let's talk about it.
Speaker 1:First thing, basal metabolic rate. Get one of these printouts InBody scan. There's a handful of ways. There's online calculators that do this. I like something that accounts for muscle mass. As far as getting an accurate BMR knowing your exact, because I could be 200 pounds and 75% of me be fat that's gonna be a different BMR than where 50% of me is, you know, muscle and my right. Yeah, 100 pounds of muscle. I'm at 208 pounds. Yes, so 50 pounds of muscle. Now the rest of that is made of how much fat. I got 25 pounds of fat on these two chucks and then you got bones and all those fancy things. But to get an accurate BMR, knowing actual muscle mass is an important factor in getting accurate basal metabolic rate.
Speaker 1:This is the rate of calories that we burn, literally doing nothing, nothing, sitting here, breathing, doing nothing, can't even move. All right, not even moving. Once I start doing this, then it goes into the NEAT equation. All right, once you start moving around a little bit, so we have biz metabolic rate. All right, once you start moving around a little bit, so we have this metabolic rate, then you have how many calories from exercise, specifically from exercise. I will say my phone's right here recording me. Can't look at my whoop data right now, but on average most workouts is three to four hundred calories from exercise. And then you have neat n-, n-e-a-t this is non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
Speaker 1:Think of fidgeting, this is NEAT. Tootling your thumbs NEAT. That all takes energy, right? So you think of the busybody, the person that just can't sit still all over the place, right? That's my wife, busybody, always doing something, all right. Then there's me. If I'm not exercising or doing something that has to be done, I'm cool, just chilling. So my NEAT score is probably lower than hers. Hers is up here, mine's down here, right. So during the week I have a decent neat, if you will, because I'm moving around the gym a lot, coaching this, that and the other. On days I'm not coaching as much. I actually log a lot of damn time in this desk. My neat comes down.
Speaker 1:So your non-exercise activity plays a massive role in your caloric expenditures throughout the day. All right, so you have these three things it's metabolic rate, calories from intense exercise and NEAT, non-exercise activity. All these things combined gives you kind of a rough estimate on what you are going to burn, what your calorie needs are going to be throughout the day. So, calorie counters, y'all need to pump your brakes a little bit. But also I'm proud of you because it does help guide.
Speaker 1:It's not an exact science. There are some ways that you can wear a mask and get your total. You'd have to wear it for, I think, 24 hours, everything you do to get like a very accurate caloric expenditure for you for a day. Who wants to do that? Not me. So you got to be careful with the calorie counting and the calorie estimation, right. So Whoop tells me I burn anywhere from like let's just talk about the two different ones. Whoop has me lower calories throughout the day I want to say somewhere in the ballpark at 2,500, whereas Apple Watch has me over 3,000 calories in the day.
Speaker 1:Now, what neither one of these take into account is skeletal muscle mass, which I find interesting that you can't input that into an algorithm yet. This is purely based on weight, height and heart rate and movement. It's picking up movement. So that's not perfect, but it's a ballpark, right, it's going to give you a ballpark. I don't know what the margin of error is there maybe 10%, as far as what that calorie math is doing in these apps that are counting calories burned. Then you have calorie intake, which comes down to using something like MyFitnessPal or any other various apps out there. You log your food and it gives you caloric intake. You need to accurately record every single thing that goes into your mouth, everything what you cook with Olive oil, butter, people those calories all matter, right, what you drink, those calories all matter, right. So the calorie equation matters. It is not perfect science by any means to where a lot of this calorie stuff.
Speaker 1:The mastery comes from learning yourself and understanding yourself of whether you're not in a calorie deficit or a calorie surplus. On the most fundamental framework for that is if you are satisfied and or full all day long, you're probably in a surplus. Good chance of that Like if you're eating, snacking, big meals, you know the slightest bit of hunger kicks in. You got to go eat. Chances are you're pushing into a calorie surplus. On the flip side of that, if you go bouts of time throughout the day where you're feeling slightly hungry not ravenous, not starving yourself but you're feeling bouts of hunger for two, three-hour blocks of time, like currently I ate my breakfast about two hours ago. Right now I'm feeling a little hungry, but I'm not going to go eat something because I'm feeling a little hungry. It's fine.
Speaker 1:You need to let your body be hungry. If you want your body to use stored fat, you need to let your body use stored fat. Does that make sense? So right now I personally am in a pretty good caloric deficit because I am trying to actively get my visceral fat score down, because I am trying to actively get my visceral fat score down. It was a six, now it's a five. My goal is a score three on the in-body scan because visceral fat is the biggest driver of metabolic disease. So I'm trying to optimize that score. So I am actively pushing, working to get my body fat down in a sustainable way, not getting too weird about it, but I do want to try to get that down, fat down in a sustainable way, not getting too weird about it, but I do want to try to get that down a little bit up to optimal numbers. Right now I'm in a healthy spot. I'm in a very healthy spot. I'm in a sustainable spot, but I'm I'm gonna push it a little bit. Let's see what we can do here.
Speaker 1:So feeling hungry, bouts of hunger, is good, right? So that's going to have your body moving into using stored fat and energy, burning those excess calories. Right, I got 25 pounds of fat on me right now. Let me do a quick math on this. How many calories in 25 pounds of fat on me right now? Let me do quick math on this how many calories in 25 pounds of fat. So I have 25 pounds of fat, according to InBody. So at this juncture I have 87,500 calories stored inside my body. If I'm at a 300-400 calorie deficit, I'm good. I'm good, I've got plenty to live off of. I'm not going to die, alright, so I'll just use that.
Speaker 1:Now see, this is where I go on a ramble, because now this just slipped into my head when you are at a calorie deficit, your metabolism will downregulate because not as much food is coming in. So let's say, week one I'm going into a caloric deficit and I'm way more hungry that first week. But then you notice you're eating the same amount of calories the next week and you might not be as hungry. Then the next week you might not be as hungry. So your metabolism will downregulate with caloric restriction. Your body's pretty smart. It's like I don't have as much food coming in, I need to conserve and I need to do this.
Speaker 1:But you have to imagine you're not just going to take total net calorie intake over the course of three months and get to zero calorie intake, total fasted state and then expect to sustain that long-term while maintaining muscle, maintaining hormone health, maintaining you know, not pulling your hair out all the damn time because you're so damn hungry, maintaining, not pulling your hair out all the damn time because you're so damn hungry. It's not sustainable. It makes no sense. So we need to look at this on a larger timeframe scale not just a day, week, necessarily month, but a year, two years, 10 years, 20 years, a lifetime, and what this undulating with your metabolism will do, and how I look at being in a caloric deficit, how I look at being in periods of caloric surplus. Again, I don't get all mathematical with it and the whole shit up on the board.
Speaker 1:I will spot check my calories. I will spot check my protein intake. What I mean by that is I will weigh, measure everything and just kind of make sure I'm not getting a little weird. One thing weird about me is I do actually I don't even know where I was going with that. Oh, I eat the same thing very often, almost all the time. I don't deviate too much. That might not be the best way, but not the worst way.
Speaker 1:I will change up things from week to week from time to time. Like this week we're having some avocado toast. I haven't had avocados in a while, so we're going to have some avocados this week. But for the most part, I don't get bored. What I'm getting at is I don't get bored with food. I know some people do get bored with food and that's important part is having variety. For me it's like food is fuel, food is building blocks. Let's just get what I need in and we'll go about my day.
Speaker 1:So calorie equation it's not perfect. We can figure out starting numbers, we can figure out a starting place for you, and then it takes us on a journey, a very personal journey, to fine tune and understand that if you've been at the same 300 calorie deficit for five years but your body hasn't changed at all, it might be time for some change, might be time to go into a caloric surplus. I'm sure you've heard the stories. Oh, my nutrition person had me eating more and all of a sudden the fat started melting off. But I've been eating this same way forever and this number says you know, I'm at this deficit and this fat should just be coming off. But then I go and eat more food and then the fat comes off.
Speaker 1:But you just said calories and thermodynamics, that you have to be at a surplus or you have to be in a deficit to lose fat. It gets confusing, right. Why would that happen. Why would somebody have you eat more? Well, they probably increased your protein. Then you start eating more. You might start feeling better, more energy, so you might start moving more. Your neat might go up. You might start getting a little more exercise and intensity. Because you eat more, you probably start building more muscle. More muscle is more metabolically demanding in the 24-hour calorie burn equation than anything else in our body. So your metabolism might have just went up significantly and outpaced the caloric deficit and you're still in a caloric deficit, but you're eating more food. Now there might be times that you need to be in a true caloric deficit, eating less food.
Speaker 1:That's how we look at it. We come up with a plan. We implement that plan for anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks. If we're not seeing change the change we're looking for then we pivot the plan. Usually that is a change in carbohydrates, fat, energy expenditure, change of exercise protocol. How much are we training? Are we over training under training? We play with that math and if we're not getting the needle to move Now there have been some instances where some folks have done phenomenal job making the adjustments, going through the eight and twelve week periods. You know a handful of times and we're not really moving the needle In those instances.
Speaker 1:And I do believe this all the time that you should always get blood work and you should have a primary care provider who can look at this blood work from a health standpoint, not just check boxes, because you're in the green and you can potentially identify some spaces there that might be affecting your metabolic health and then take the proper actions to correct that. Weight can come off, weight can come off, muscle can grow, so forth. So, yeah, that's how I look at the calorie equation. That was a big brain dump right there. We got to stay on track here. We got to stay on track. We got two more pages to get through. So, calorie equation, genetics these are two big, all-encompassing factors that play into this whole thing of nutrition. We also have to look at expectations. Expectations are a big deal.
Speaker 1:I'm really trying to prevent the four-letter words here in case you're all watching this with your kids, but the Instagram reel comes. Words here in case you're all watching this with your kids, but the Instagram reel comes across and this person's looking all jacked and shredded. And they did it in six weeks. Get the hell out of here. No, you didn't. No, you didn't. No, you didn't. All right, probably multitude of factors. Now that doesn't mean somebody who was previously muscular and fit can't shred down way quicker than somebody who wasn't.
Speaker 1:If you have an underlying base of a significant amount of muscle mass and you go into a caloric deficit it and optimize a couple things, you can shed weight pretty quick If you have a natural high burning metabolism. We've all met them. We've all met those people who are, you know, skinny. They come, they have the comment I can never gain weight. I can eat, and I've coached these people to gain weight, but they have just a high burning metabolism. You know it just screams. So they run through food and calories way different than, say, me. I do not run through food and calories, I tend to store. All right, I gravitate more towards the storage side of things versus the burn side of things. My body's always preparing for the apocalypse and I got to keep that in check. Some people they're SOL in the apocalypse because they just burn through the energy.
Speaker 1:So back to managing expectations. When you set out on this journey with nutrition and health, especially if it comes to weight management, we have to have expectations of what is realistic. Most of what is put out there in the social media spaces the high price fitness and nutrition coaching programs. They're full of it and they sell a dream for a high price and then when you don't hit that dream, it's because you didn't have the self-discipline or whatever, and that might be the case. I'm not going to sit here and pretend. A lot of people don't stick with something long enough to actually see the benefits. But you just have to take it with a grain of salt, like a little grain of salt. The expectations of I'm going to start this diet and look like this or my blood work is going to be this way. It's not that simple. I've been managing my blood work now for the last like six years and fine tuning things over that to optimize it. It's been a six-year journey and then more recently, since Claire's deal, really optimizing my nutrition in a massive way, and that's been a 16 month journey to get to where I am now right. So just for context, in this process from April 2019 I was 196 pounds at 18.6% body fat with 90 pounds of muscle. It's April 2019.
Speaker 1:Fast forward to February 2015,. I'm at 100 pounds of muscle. So 10 pounds of muscle in almost six years. 10 pounds of muscle gain in almost six years. For somebody that doesn't shy away from weightlifting and eats pretty damn optimal numbers of protein all the time and who is on hormone replacement therapy, these aren't massive numbers and increases. They're consistent, which is pretty cool. That from age 34 to 40, I'm able to. I'm consistent in my trend. But if I get 10 pound gain over six years, it doesn't sound sexy. And then I went from 18% body fat. Now I'm at 12.6% body fat in that same six year timeframe Right, and you can see how subtle those trends are over six years. That doesn't sound fun, it doesn't sound glamorous.
Speaker 1:I want it right now 30 days. I want it right now, 12 weeks. I, I want it now. I'm here to tell you if that's your mindset. It's not gonna work long term. I've seen it in the last 20 years.
Speaker 1:People go hard, 75 hard. I did 75 hard, went from 18.6% body fat down to 14% body fat in three months. And then what happened? I went right back up to 17.2 percent body fat because what I did during that time simply wasn't sustainable. And let's be honest, most people that you know that have done crash diets and all kinds of stuff and this and that that lost weight fast usually gain it right back. It is the case. Now, if you take this on a building block approach over sustainability of a lifetime, then we can start having these constant trends that feel like they're truly manageable as part of a lifestyle. But you have to take the building block approach, not the get it, get rich, get rich, hit the lottery type of approach right. Diet lotteries is not a thing. All right. So expectations.
Speaker 1:Now let's get into some fundamentals of things. All right, water intake this thing tell me how much water I have in me. According to this in body, 127 pounds of me is calculated as water. Total body water 127 pounds of me. That's a lot. So when you think of that, every cell in your body needs hydration, needs hydration. So water is a big deal. Okay, can you drink too much water? Hell yeah, you can, and it can kill you, absolutely kill you. So what's some rules for water intake? Here's some rules.
Speaker 1:Basically, your ideal body weight, divided in half roughly, is your water intake. If your pee is clear, you're probably well hydrated. Now, if you have pee that's clear or faint yellow to it, you're probably pretty well hydrated. If your lips aren't chapped all the time and your fingers. Your skin feels healthy. You're not getting a bunch of split fingers. These can be cues of dehydration. For me, chapped lips is a big one. If I'm short water for just two days, sometimes even just a day, I'll notice my lips drying out. So ideal body weight if you don't know how to come up with your ideal body weight, I'm not talking about ideal body weight. You were when you were 17 and right now you're sitting around four years old. That's unrealistic. What is your healthy ideal body weight right now? For me personally, I'm living it. I'm at 200 pounds. So divide that by 200 ounces a day is kind of my low end of water intake. If I have a really long workout, I'm going to add probably another 20 ounces one more of these bad boys to that equation. So I roughly drink a gallon of water per day as my goal. I'm not going to say I hit the gallon perfectly every day and hot.
Speaker 1:Take hydration. You still get some hydration from coffee. Now it's not like that whole 12 ounces of coffee is 100% diuretic. It's not right. There's still hydration value there. There's hydration value in the zevia you have. God forbid, you have a diet soda. There's still hydration value. There's hydration value in juice. These all matter. But if you are betting on your hydration source being from those bat, not bet from those subpar fluids, it's not the best right. So so when we think of hydration, we want to think that. You know, I usually have two cups of coffee a day. I usually drink four to five of these a day and that's pretty good, right. P stays pretty clear. Happy with that Feel good. That's how you kind of gauge that right.
Speaker 1:If your body makes you millions of dollars a year because you're a high-level athlete, hydration can become a very important factor and you can really fine-tune it, really fine-tune it. But for us normal folk, we're gonna take our ideal body weight, divide it in half, add about 16 to 20 ounces for every hour of that exercise and and then, if your pee's not clear, drink a little more. On that note, electrolytes are very important. Sodium, magnesium, potassium are key components to good hydration.
Speaker 1:If you use reverse osmosis water, like I do at home and that we have at the gym, you need to be adding and I did not add that to cell electrolytes. I added it to remove all the toxins that can be found in water and I did that at home for my daughter it felt inhumane to subject you all to that kind of water and not offer you clean water. But reverse osmosis strips everything out but just the h2o. So you have to add minerals back in when you use ro. Now there are ro machines that you can put a remineralizer back on there that'll run the water through minerals. To add the minerals back in never looked into them. They're probably super expensive. Ours just takes everything out and leaves just water.
Speaker 1:So with that, I either add Himalayan salt a little bit quarter teaspoon into one or two of these a day For the most part, though, I use unflavored elements or right now I got some raspberry up here and I usually two to four of those per day. Heavy training days I shoot for four grams of sodium. On less heavy training days, two is plenty. We can get into the whole blood pressure thing with sodium and so forth at some other time. You maybe want to hear me and my wife banter about it. Uh, I've actually dealt with blood pressure issues that I have to keep tabs on, and, um, my increase in sodium has been nothing to my blood pressure, and my blood pressure is arguably better now than it was before that.
Speaker 1:But there are other factors in there, like sauna, um, nitric oxide, a couple other things. But I wouldn't necessarily stress about sodium intake, because what your body doesn't need, it's going to pee out Okay. But hydrating properly does require electrolytes, so adding some electrolytes of your favorite choice. I try to keep it as simple as possible. Sodium, magnesium and potassium A lot of fancy ones out there that have a whole bunch of their crap in it. Yeah, I stick to the basics there.
Speaker 1:Fiber next is on our list. Fiber keeps your gut healthy. Vital little microbiome thingies in there they chomp on fiber. They need fiber. Fiber keeps your gut healthy. Vital little microbiome thingies in there they chomp on fiber. They need fiber. Fiber keeps things moving through. You know what I'm saying, because what comes in here goes out there.
Speaker 1:We must optimize fiber intake for many, many reasons. It's very important for our gut microbiome. Our gut controls so much of our body's processes mental health, the gut. It's massive and we're going to nerd out on this in the future a little bit, but it is a big deal, right. So gut health is a big deal getting enough fiber. Our Western diet is pretty void of quality fiber, right? You don't get a lot of fiber when you're eating a super high processed Western diet. So fiber sources are gonna be vegetables, fruits, good grains, starches, lentils, beans, avocados I mean that's just to throw out a handful. They're gonna be great fiber sources for you guys. Now I have read, depending on your size that for I mean, like somebody like me can shoot for 60 grams of fiber per day. General rule, though, for most folks, if we're getting close to around 30 grams, maybe 40 grams of fiber per day, both soluble and insoluble fiber, you're in a good spot.
Speaker 1:I personally do supplement fiber. I use the first form fiber, unflavored one, add it to my smoothie just to kick in another seven grams there. But fiber is vital and I brought that up before protein for a reason because lots of times we get so stuck on protein that we forget fiber and then our gut health is not optimal. So we got to keep the guts happy. We need fiber. Fiber manages blood sugar in a big way, feeds our microbiome, helps keep things moving, helps slow down the absorption of cholesterol. It's very important in cholesterol management. Lots of good things with fiber, all right.
Speaker 1:Next is protein. Oh, back to fiber. Real quick You'll notice. Vegetables. We talk calories and fiber. I personally don't. Fiber can negate the calories from carbohydrates, so it's like it's called net, net, net calories. So if you take total calories, say, your one serving has 30 grams of carbohydrate but it has seven grams of fiber, your net there is 23 calories of carbohydrates 23 grams of carbohydrates. I've never dove and thought into it too much, but I will say, when it comes to fiber as a source of energy or not, fiber vegetables as a source of energy there's so much fiber in there I don't find it to be a great source of energy when it comes to like training performance. Great source of minerals, great source of fiber. I'm an absolute child when it comes to eating vegetables. It's not a strength of mine, but that's something to be mindful of. Really high fiber stuff is going to negate some of that carbohydrate load to a degree.
Speaker 1:Next we have protein Protein. Four calories per gram of protein, all right, protein is a gorgeous, gorgeous thing Because even though it's four calories per gram, you only actually get three. It has a 25% reduction in calories because that's how much effort it takes the body to just break it down into usable amino acids. You're going to expend about 25% of the calories from that protein just to break it down in amino acids and use it as energy. Be able to use it as building blocks for your musculature. That's a gorgeous thing. Fats super easy to break down. Carbohydrates maybe a little more difficult, but not much. You're getting all the calories from those two pretty much, but protein you're only getting 75% of those calories into your body and most of those calories aren't being used as fuel. Unless you're just only living on protein, then your body's got to do some metabolic gymnastics and it can actually derive glucose and ATP from protein through some gymnastics.
Speaker 1:But it is not the optimal way your body wants to function. It's not. It wants to use the protein, the amino acids, for skeletal structure. You know, healing the body and rebuilding the body. That's where we want to be using a lot of our. That's what the body wants this protein for. So you get four calories per gram. How much this protein for? So you get four calories per gram. How much? How much shall we be consuming? 0.7 to one gram per pound of ideal body weight All right, ideal body weight for health, okay. So for me, I'm living it. 200 pounds. I shoot for 200 to 220 grams of protein per day. All right, per day, throughout the day. Get that much protein in. That is my goal.
Speaker 1:Now there is research, and Peter T is a big pusher of this. As you get older, you need to increase your protein consumption to offset your muscle muscle waste to offset can't remember what the fancy medical term is but to keep your muscles from wasting way as we get older. So protein protein alone is not going to do it. You got protein will help, for damn sure. It's very anabolic in nature but you must stimulate the muscle, keep lifting heavy weights, training the body to offset muscle decline as we age. It's a massive protein. If there's any macronutrient that you want to measure that you should measure. It's optimizing your protein intake to your needs perfectly. First, because if you hit the protein number, for the most part everything else falls in line. For people, 200 grams of protein unless I'm just drinking, it is a lot of food to eat and I am very satisfied from a hunger management standpoint all day long. So that's a big deal for me. Hitting the protein, I would say, is number one thing to track and figure out for yourself.
Speaker 1:Next, two things are energy users, fats and carbohydrates. Fats we got nine calories per gram of fat. It's a very calorie, dense. Lots of energy from fat, which makes sense. We store fat. Our body does store fat and it stores. Most of our stored energy is fat. It's not glucose, it's not glucagon or muscle glycogen. Most of our stored energy in our body is fat. Then you think of it, you go back to the old hunter-gatherer time of life. We might go a couple days without eating. Lucky, we got that stored fat. We got that stored fat.
Speaker 1:Now Western lifestyle is taking it to a whole other level. People out there be storing all kinds of fat. There's a health, there's an optimal place to live with this. But fat, very calorie dense, very calorie dense. Need to be mindful of it. But it's essential for hormones, it's essential for brain health, it's essential for energy. Right Fat is vital for the body.
Speaker 1:Now I'm very mindful of my saturated fat intake because my liver does not like to remove Cholesterol very efficiently in the higher saturated fat you have. Your liver has to deal with that and if it's not able to remove excess cholesterol to your system, you could end up with some sticky stuff inside, just inside your Tubes. That can lead to some issues down the road heart issues, super medical, super scientific, right there. But there is an equation now, before you carnivore people come at me super weird, like I will say that I have seen people with high cholesterol, zero buildup in the arteries. There's a metabolic health equation here that there's a handful of factors that can be played into this. Genetics is also a big component of this. There's a bigger picture to look at all right. So just because, so just because you know, I still am in the camp that keeping cholesterol on a healthy level, understanding how your body responds to fat, and if your arteries, if you're a very inflamed body and you are oxidizing cholesterol and it's sticking to your walls as an oxidative stressor to protect your arteries, that is going to end up killing. You can't. It's just. It is what it is. Now there are people that are really really metabolically healthy, that have high cholesterol, nothing, no signs of plaque anywhere in their body. There's an an equation there. It's for the few, not the many, right? So this is where it's really important working with a healthcare provider that actually knows some shit, because it is going to massively matter in how you approach your diet, your nutrition and so forth, making sure that what's going on the inside of your body is reflective of good health outcomes and you can't guess it.
Speaker 1:Just because when you get on a high-fat diet and you lose body fat doesn't mean that everything is turning out in a healthy way. I have seen people drop a lot of fat, cholesterol go through the roof. Then they have to go in. They go in the hospital, get some blood work and they get a CT calcium score and that thing is through the roof. They're already. Calcifications are starting to build up in their arteries. That's not a healthy outcome. That is not. So. There are so many variables.
Speaker 1:There's a handful of things here that can be played on the extremes of these two things when it comes to diets. So high fat, high protein diet can be good, can be bad, but as a rule that should be, you know, controlled and, like I said, kept in check. Now I try to. I really only focus on saturated fat, but I try to keep my total saturated fat less than 300 calories per day. My top end caloric intake is 3,000 calories. That's my top end. That's when training really hard. That is kind of a neutral calorie place for me on a very busy, active day. So 300 calories or less for me of saturated fat is an area that I do maintain, um, but in theory, you know, a paleo diet. You're roughly, you know, anywhere from 30 to 50% fat. I'd try to lean more towards the 30% side, potentially, but that depends on the carbohydrate level.
Speaker 1:So these fat and carbohydrates are going to work back and forth, depending on how you expel energy and what your lifestyle looks like. Because next we got carbohydrates, you're getting four calories per gram carbohydrates. All right, carbohydrates, unless you've trained your body to be fat adaptive or your genetics lead you to be more fat adaptive by nature. A couple things there. If you're fat adapted genetically, you're probably not gonna be a high-performing power athlete, sprinter, olympic weightlifter, these things that massive power outputs fat's not the most optimal. Now, high level endurance athletes have had success being fat adapted.
Speaker 1:That comes down to how our body deals with fuel. A big chunk of that is genetics, but in general, our body's preferred fuel source is going to be carbohydrate. Carbohydrate is going to break down the quickest in the glycogen, then into ATP, phosphocreatine, and be used as energy. Atp adenosine triphosphate is going to be the end product for our body to do anything. It is the ingredient that drives what I'm doing right now this. For this to happen, I'm using ATP. All things in the body. That is the end product. Fat gets converted into carbon ATP. Everything breaks down ultimately into ATP. Now your body can get resourceful and do that to protein too. We don't want to go there. That's a starvation kind of state. It's not ideal. So our preferred source for activity is carbohydrates.
Speaker 1:Now your muscle, in the form of muscle glycogen, stores carbohydrates. Your liver stores carbohydrates. Your liver creates carbohydrates gluconeogenesis right. It creates glucose. Right. Your liver can create it. It can take fat and turn it in glucose. So you can put somebody on a zero carb diet. This might blow some of your minds zero carb diet, not eating any carbohydrates, period meat, fat, and you're gonna go poke their finger at one week and they're gonna have have glucose in them, probably anywhere from 80 to 110. And then you're going to poke them at two weeks. Still haven't had any carbs, they're still going to have glucose in them. Guess what? They're always going to have glucose in them. Your body is going to create it because your brain and body run on it. Brain needs glucose. Your body needs glucose. Your muscles are going to want to need glucose. Now your muscles can function off ketones. This is a more fat adapted state. But at the end of the day, your body is still, from metabolic processes, going to create glucose if it's not coming into the system for the body to use. Liver is a beautiful organ that can deal with a lot of shit.
Speaker 1:I said I was gonna keep the four-letter words to a minimum. Sorry, kids, this is anecdotal. Probably some research haven't dove into it too heavily. But the high-intensity training model doing on a low carb let's put it in this way, on an extremely low carb diet, because technically, depending on who you talk to, I'm still living a low carb diet space, an extremely low carb diet. You know, let's say, 50 grams of carbohydrates per day and you try to do high intensity exercise because it's the most efficient and effective way to maintain fitness and to get fitter without spending all day in the gym. You might not feel great and that's because high intensity training, weight lifting, your body wants glucose to do that. All right.
Speaker 1:So carbohydrates, don't hate on them, hate on processed garbage carbohydrates, but don't hate on healthy quality carbohydrates. For me, my main sources. I do eat some sprouted bread. I eat a little bit of oatmeal, honey, fruit. We have potatoes from time to time. I'm not a potato a day kind of guy, but we do have, you know, sweet potatoes and regular potatoes, lentils. I have some carbohydrates. It's actually significant carbohydrates in them. There's carbohydrates in the milk I drink. There's carbohydrates in the milk I drink. There's carbohydrates in milk I drink milk. All that stuff matters. Off the top of my head I'm probably between 200 and 300 grams of carbohydrates per day. I kind of gauge it around training volume, but I don't get too weird with it. Now I pretty much eat the same way. But if I do end up training for an hour and a half, two hours, because it's just that day, for whatever reason, decide to be an idiot, I will increase my carbohydrate to recover properly for the next day.
Speaker 1:Because when your muscles can start, neat carbohydrates for protein synthesis. So if you want your muscles to rebuild, heal Need carbohydrate for that. If you're supplying it orally, your liver doesn't have to go through gymnastics to create it and it speeds up that process. It gets back into your muscles quicker so your muscles can perform better again. Just recently listened to a thing.
Speaker 1:Everybody was in the camp that most of these ultra endurance athletes were going fat adapted so they don't have to eat as much when they're doing their 10 hour long events. The reality is quite a few of the top endurance athletes, especially in the cyclist space, actually have trained their body to be able to consume up to 200 grams of carbohydrate per hour while in the activity. Now if you go out and do this, you're going to get bubble guts and you're going to be on the toilet. It is a training adaptation to tolerate that kind of carbohydrate intake while doing an event. But that is one of the hacks that a lot of the top cyclists and. They do it through supplementation goos and juices and various easy to absorb digest carbohydrate. But that's because the body really likes to fuel on carbohydrate. It is the happiest fueling on carbohydrate.
Speaker 1:So don't hate on carbohydrate. It just needs to be kept in its bucket and if you can keep it unprocessed is the best place for it. Whole food unprocessed is the best place for that carbohydrate to come into. And you need to think of carbohydrate as your energy for activity, fat as your energy for inactivity. So if you are a relatively inactive person and you want to manage weight body fat, it's probably better for you to be on a lower carb diet because you're not doing a lot of activity.
Speaker 1:No, carbohydrate does fire up the pancreas. You need insulin to be able to get um. Correct me if I'm wrong here but you need insulin to be able to shuttle glucose into the muscle. These things have to happen, but it happens around a training stimulus. It's not just elevated blood insulin because you're sitting around all day munching on potato chips and candy bars, that is bad right. If you're eating carbohydrate to fuel, munching on potato chips and candy bars that is bad right. If you're eating carbohydrate to fuel performance and activity, that is good right. If you're not doing a bunch of activity, we opt for the lower carb side of this equation. All right.
Speaker 1:And then back to genetics. Individuals tolerate converting different fuel sources to energy differently. I've seen some people perform really, really well at high intensity exercise. I put myself in this category on a lower carb diet. Now I still. For me, you could put me. Me and Chase are actually two good examples. I eat probably 200, maybe 300 grams of carbs per day. He's more like 400 to 500 grams per day. When he's training hard, he can tolerate a lot more carbohydrate intake than I can. Genetics it all matters. Age matters matters. These things matter.
Speaker 1:So figuring out your intake for how you want to feel in the gym, how you want to recover, how you're managing your weight. You play with them a little bit. Play with them a little bit. All right, not a one size fits all. You have to navigate that in blocks of time. I've gone extremely low carb 50 grams of carbohydrates per day for about four weeks as long as I made it and I felt like absolute garbage. Workouts were terrible, wasn't recovering from anything, felt like absolute trash. Too many carbohydrates. I start getting fat. Just the right amount of carbohydrates. I feel fantastic. I recover, feel good energy for the next day. Boom, love it. So you got to figure that out Again. I don't weigh and measure everything. I spot check Again. I don't weigh and measure everything. I spot check. But I actively engage my brain into what I'm eating.
Speaker 1:Next, alcohol, alcohol. Holy hell, we got to talk about it. Alcohol, you get seven. We're going to do a full video on alcohol because my wife went on biochemistry a couple weeks ago. She's nerding out on all the metabolic process of alcohol. But here's a quick dirty of it. Alcohol messes you up. It is zero positive things for your body. Now you can extrapolate and get all political with alcohol and make it sound like there are some positive things, but the nuts and bolts of it, there is no positive health outcomes from alcohol. Plus, you're getting seven grams, seven calories per gram in alcohol. Now I've gone and done, got a little note here, just so we can understand what alcohol does to the body.
Speaker 1:So alcohol you first take it in. It converts to acetyl alcohol, acetyl aldehyde, sorry, which is toxic poison. The body wants nothing to do with that, so it comes in. You take some alcohol, it comes into your. Just take some alcohol, goes into your gut, meeting your blood stream. Your body's like oh, oh, hell, this stuff's gonna kill me and I need to get rid of it. So it sends it off to the liver. The liver then converts it into acetate, which converts it into energy that your body will burn off. Okay, that's the quick and dirty of it.
Speaker 1:So your liver grabs onto it because it is a toxin. When it hits your system, your body registers it as poison. Your liver grabs it and converts it into something that's not poisonous and that still comes out to seven calories per gram of alcohol. This is all alcohol, all of it. The red wines, the tequilas, the whiskeys, the beers all alcohol. Now, some of those have more calories and more carbohydrate load than just the seven grams that you're getting from just the alcohol. Now you heard that Acetylaldehyde will kill you. It's toxic. Your liver deals with it, converts it into acetate seven calories per gram. That can add up quick.
Speaker 1:And when you're drinking the alcohol, because your liver's dealing with the poison, your liver's not managing homeostasis of the rest of the body, so your blood sugars can go whack-a-doodle. Your body's not using fat. You can actually go hypoglycemic and then you feel a craving that you need carbohydrates and then you got to go order the pizza to get your blood glucose up. And then you overshoot it and then your pancreas kicks out insulin to bring down your blood glucose and then you repeat that process and then you get pancreatitis. And then all of a sudden, five, 10 years later you're type two diabetic with a fatty liver and not happy.
Speaker 1:So keep alcohol very, very limited, very, all right, it's got to be in here, included in the macronutrients, because some people treat it like a damn macronutrient, that's. I gotta have my glass of wine per night. No, you don't. You want to know why you have need to have the glass of wine per night. Probably because you strung out and you're trying to use it as a depressant to get your sympathetic nervous system to calm down. That's why most people do. It's a trigger, it's a way to wind down from the day and it has that effect. But then if you start adding up the negative effects all the time, it doesn't equate. So figuring out other ways to manage that stress and find ways to wind down is more ideal.
Speaker 1:All right, because you don't need it. It's a crutch and you know it is. Be careful with it, be mindful of it, be intentional with it. I'll still have a glass of whiskey from time to time Hell, I had one on Saturday, right. But I am very, very much trying to be intentional with it. Not binge drink, not you know. All of a sudden, six beers are gone. I actually don't really drink beer that much, unless it's non-alcoholic or occasional light beer once in a while. But these are. It's something that you've got to, got to, got to be mindful of, right, and now we'll get all biochemical one day and break it down. But I told you, alcohol goes to the liver. Alcohol turns into acetaldehyde, goes into the liver. The liver deals with that toxin to get rid of it so it doesn't kill you and then it converts it to acetate, which is energy at 7 calories per gram. Funny enough, long term alcohol has been shown in mri scans to shrink your brain brain shrinkage. So the more you drink, the dumber you're gonna get.
Speaker 1:There's a handful of other things here I've noticed with drinking real quick. As you guys know that I wear a blood glucose monitor. It will have a drink, blood glucose will come down. All right, it'll come down. But then the whole next day my blood glucose is elevated, maybe 10, 15 points the whole next day and it looks like a freaking EKG. It's not steady, it's not constant, it's freaking wackadoodle just from a couple drinks. That goes hand in hand with sleep deprivation. So if I have a terrible night's sleep, no alcohol. My next day blood glucose is a little wackadoodle. But if I have alcohol my sleep is for sure messed up and it's a combination of sleep deprivation, body dealing with the alcohol that can't manage blood glucose, glucose it's all whacked out the next day.
Speaker 1:Um, another thing alcohol and anxiety with me go hand. It's it's hand in hand. Have a drink to calm down the anxiousness, but then the next day my anxiousness is much more elevated than the day before because didn't sleep. Chemical things in the brain maybe, I don't know, but my like. I need a drink to wind down, calm the anxiousness, and I get a terrible night's sleep. Next day I'm way more anxious than I was prior to the drink and it becomes this gross compounding effect that I feel like I can't get away from. So be very mindful, cautious of alcohol.
Speaker 1:All right, we're going to simplify this down to a golden rule Stick to unprocessed food as much as humanly possible. So you have unprocessed, processed, then ultra-processed. If you can get rid of the ultra-processed, awesome. If you can start getting rid of the ultra processed, awesome. If you start getting rid of the processed, awesomer. For instance, the milk is technically processed. Um, there's quite a few things that come in a box that are processed. But then you have the ultra process, which is the stuff that has a shelf life of like 35 years. You want to be careful. You want to get rid of as much process as you can and get to unprocessed. The closer food is to nature, the healthier it's going to be for you. That is the biggest thing that came out of with my daughter with her Crohn's is.
Speaker 1:Once you start diving down the road of processed food, how cruddy it is for your body and all the additives that are put into it to stabilize it, to keep it on the shelf for 35 years, what these additives can do to a gut microbiome you start getting like overwhelmed. You know I would go through the grocery aisle and start looking at every box oh, claire, can't have this, claire can't have this, claire can't have this. After about a week of that trying to find things in boxes that she could have, you just have to come to the conclusion that we can't eat things out of boxes anymore. Now we have found some brands and a couple of things that do make life easier, that are processed, not ultra processed, that are do have clean ingredients and not a bunch of the additive crap. But if you can get away, get away from processed food and just eat whole food, prioritize protein. You are going to be protein. Fiber, you are going to be leap years ahead in your health, massively, all, massively, all right.
Speaker 1:So the closer it is to nature and basically the best way to know that is if the food is the word. For instance, when you eat a steak, well, it's steak. The food is the word. Now I'm gonna eat chicken nuggets. Do me a curveball there. The food is no longer the word. I'm gonna eat chicken, but chicken nuggets. Look at the list of crap that's added to chicken nuggets Now processed Garbage.
Speaker 1:I have not yet found a clean chicken nugget Clear clean, that is. There are some healthier options out there, for sure, but clear clean, that is. There's some healthier options out there, for sure, but clear clean, that is. No raspberries you need some raspberries. Tomato processed.
Speaker 1:Now breads breads are still processed, but you want to look at the additives. There's only one bread that I eat. It's a sprouted bread. Sourdough could probably be pretty good too. Very simple ingredients and it's fermented. So sourdough is a good option for most people. We can't eat it, but we get another ad a different day. I hope that makes sense. All right, probably beating a dead horse here.
Speaker 1:The reality is, a lot of people know this. They just don't implement it. They don't implement it as a lifestyle. It's like a once in a while thing. So really, really focused on just trying to eat what the food is and prioritize protein.
Speaker 1:Okay, get into eating styles intermittent fasting, grazing. Do I need eight meals per day or two meals per day? This is all personal and it's something you play with. Intermittent fasting is a lifestyle. It is not necessarily a diet. I do think it's healthy to take your gut to take breaks from digesting food, but then you're going to eat some bigger meals in your eating window, which could leave you a little bit more hungry. Some people have great success eating smaller meals throughout the day. For the most part, for most people, it comes down to a calorie equation, weight management equation. I've known many people that have great success intermittent fasting. I've known many people that have great success eating a bunch of small meals throughout the day. I've known many people to have great success eating a bunch of small meals throughout the day. I do think it comes down to personal choice and how your body responds to that carbon intake, if you will. If you have questions about eating styles, let me know. We can go deeper on it, but at the end of the day, I truly believe it is an equation that you have to figure out for you and your lifestyle, your calorie needs and what fits you daily living. That's what I think.
Speaker 1:So this is long. A lot of this is going to be chopped up, so the full-length episode will be on YouTube and the podcast, but then I'm going to cut a lot of this up, so I'll take a little note here. So I had a question what are the biggest game changers for me in the last couple years? So basically, what are some low-hanging fruit kind of unexpected things that have actually moved the needle on my health pretty well? One of them is I hardly ever had milk growing up, didn't really have it and last year I have started consuming anywhere from 16 to 24 ounces of two percent milk per day, whether via coffee, protein shake it's the two main places that I have milk or overnight oats. So it's either added to my overnight oats, it's in my coffee, eight ounces latte every morning you know what's up and then a protein shake. If I have a second protein shake, I'll put eight ounces of 2% milk in that. It's helped me hit my calorie goals, protein goals, carbohydrates I feel really good Now.
Speaker 1:Milk can make you fat. Whole milk has a lot of saturated fat in it. Depending on how your liver deals with, saturated fat might be a non-issue for you. In a perfect world, I would get raw or vat pasteurized 2% milk for me. If you're at Whole Foods at just the right time, alexandra Farms has Vat Pasteurized 2% milk, which is, for me, my favorite one to score. But it's not always there and it has only barely a two-week shelf life, so it actually goes bad, which is good. It's way less processed. That's my favorite.
Speaker 1:I gave up half and half. Used to think fat is king. Well, half and half is very calorically dense, has no protein, no carbohydrate and it's just fat. And you measure it? Two tablespoons. Nobody ever does two exact tablespoons in their coffee. Let's be honest. Me it's like whoop, big old pour, pretty much ditched. Half and half for the most part. I still occasionally have it in coffee at the gym. But I I was a big half and half consumer. I consumed a fair amount of it, so got rid of that with that.
Speaker 1:Really managing my saturated fats has had a big influence on my body composition. I didn't think it would be that dramatic. But then when I added up the cashews and peanuts and peanut butter half and half this was a significant chunk of saturated fats and I had to cut it way down. That was a big one. I dramatically increased my sodium. I used to hardly ever do sodium. I now do on average three to four grams per day. I feel better, brain like I don't know. Energy wise, training wise. I feel better. It was noticeable and that's been consistent for about a year.
Speaker 1:Last thing I have on this list for me is fermented foods, committing to daily intake of fermented foods. Sauerkraut, cottage cheese, plain yogurt are my main sources of fermented foods, so that has been huge for my gut health. I used to take a probiotic. I used to do some digestive enzymes. I no longer do any of those anymore. I'm very consistent with fermented foods. Fermented foods are a big staple in my house. Kids eat fermented vegetables. They eat yogurt. They don't eat cottage cheese. They should. That's a big deal. Kefir is another one. I can't stand the stuff. I'll put it in a smoothie or something. But in general I can't just drink kefir. But it is a good fermented food. But being consistent with fermented foods pretty much five to seven days per week has been a big deal for me. My gut feels better, my digestion's better and don't feel bloated at all anymore ever, unless I eat a ton of broccoli or something like carnivorous vegetables. Those mess me up, but in general my guts feel good.
Speaker 1:Another question that came in was protein timing. Is it better to spread it out throughout the day or stack it in like big chunks of protein day for me, and trying to consume that in two meals is very, very difficult to do it in a small window. So for me to hit 200 grams per day, I need to be spreading it out throughout the day. Okay, because I need to get that protein in eating that in two meals. Uh, talk about gut balm like it. Just it's a lot on the stomach to digest, especially doing it before bed and your gut's trying to churn through that and turn it into usable amino acids. I would highly suggest spreading it out throughout the day as being the best. That said, there are studies that show consuming massive amount of protein 80 to 100 grams. Your body is going to break that down and your body's going to use what it needs to use to rebuild. So that knowledge. I do put a bunch of protein in the first half of my day, less in the second half. I'm not trying to hit equal portions all throughout the day. I do consume more protein in the morning hours than I do in the afternoon hours and yeah, so hope that helps. But again, gotta figure out how your time, your life, works best for you all right.
Speaker 1:Next, the food calorie trap. Healthy food calorie trap. All right, this is a sneaky one. I got caught up in this. We're eating super clean, perfect quality foods. So you're getting this mindset because I mean everything's unprocessed, everything's healthy, I can just eat whatever I want. What gets you is the fat. This is the, this is one. When you're eating super clean, healthy food, the fat's usually going to be the one that sends you sideways on a total caloric intake. For me, it was nuts. It's the one thing that really sent it over. I'd snack on nuts a lot and peanut butter. Those are two deals on peanuts.
Speaker 1:You have to be careful when it comes to weight management. In healthy food. There's a calorie trap there. You got to be mindful of it. The other piece of that is what you're cooking in olive oil and butter. Those calories you need to add how much you use to your meal. Same with olive oil and salads. Also, something you need to be very diligent about how many calories you're adding to these things, because it adds up it's a lot. These are healthy fats. They're good for you, but quantity matters. All right, liquid calories.
Speaker 1:I don't know why some people think just because you drink it, those calories don't matter. Furthest from the truth possible. You need to account for every calorie that you consume in your mouth, whether liquid or food. Just because you didn't chew it doesn't mean that's not a calorie. So juices and smoothies and protein shakes and milk, soda, alcohol, I mean all these things the calories matter when it comes to weight management. Things the calories matter when it comes to weight management the calories matter. It goes into your mouth and your stomach. There's going to be some sort of caloric number to that. At least I hope that you're not ingesting things that aren't ultimately breaking down in amino acids and carbon Makes sense. Account for the calories. Closing thoughts here at the end of this podcast, this video.
Speaker 1:Nutrition is a journey. Start with the basics right, the simplest things. Get it in-body scale. Understand what your ideal body weight for health looks like. Understand what your basal metabolic rate is. Understand what your daily caloric expenditure is through exercise and non-exercise activity right. Start figuring out the calorie equation. Then start playing with protein, fiber intake, carbohydrates and fats. Pull those levers up and down. Start making adjustments. Do things single, block changes, single step changes over the course of 8 to 12 weeks. If we're not seeing the change in the direction that we want in that period of time, we pivot, we make adjustments. All right, it is a journey, lifelong journey. The way I eat right now is different than the way I'll probably eat in a year or two years, three years from now.
Speaker 1:All right, it is something to be constantly mindful of. How are we feeling, how are we performing? How's our blood work looking? This is all very much controlled by what we consume. Don't take it as a one-size-fits-all. Don't jump into any sort of fad diet. Take most of the stuff on social media and include what comes out of my mouth, maybe with a grain of salt, as an idea that maybe we could implement into a process and see if it works for you.
Speaker 1:Remember the fundamentals matter. Protein, fat, carbohydrate are the main ingredients that the body needs to function. Within those you get all your micronutrients for the most part. When we get into supplementation, we'll talk more about micronutrients. You eat a healthy, unprocessed food diet. You're getting micronutrients. You're getting macronutrients. You're sustaining healthy body composition without adding to surplus. You're able to rebuild muscle and recover and live a healthy life free of metabolic disease. That is the goal. That is the goal.
Speaker 1:So I hope you guys know this was long. This was the first big one to get a chunk of this from fundamentals through a handful of ideas, opinions and answer a few questions that kind of fit under this topic. I'm going to be cranking out content all month, but if you have questions on this, maybe put them in the YouTube video comments and I'll go there and police that and then be able to do a follow-up with questions. If anything god forbid I misspoke or I'm completely wrong, call me out on it, let me know. Let me know because I want to. I want to learn. I'm in a learning journey with you and if I'm wrong, I want to learn why and then I want to correct it.
Speaker 1:I do not want to put out false information out there. I'm not trying to Like. I said, I gave you my experience. This is where a lot of this comes from. So throw the criticisms If I'm wrong and also any questions in the comments on the YouTube video. For this you can email me at thegmcom, but if we throw them in the YouTube video, this or you can email me at the gym, text me, but if we throw them in the YouTube video, I'll be able to aggregate them, probably the easiest there. All right, love you guys, and we're going to keep at it. We're going to learn some stuff this month, all right, hope you guys have a great week.