Metabolism Over Dogma: Why We Both Moved Beyond Low Carb

In this episode of Metabolic Mindset, I’m joined by Zane Griggs (@zanegriggsfitness), a long-time personal trainer and host of the Healthy AF Podcast. Zane and I met years ago when we were both deep in the low carb world. Since then, we’ve independently shifted toward a more pro-metabolic, physiology-first approach to nutrition and training.

This conversation is about what actually works for our clients.

We break down why restrictive frameworks like keto or low carb can initially “work,” the psychological pull of diet camps, and what happens when identity becomes tied to a way of eating. More importantly, we talk about what changed our minds—and the client results that forced us to rethink everything.

We also dive into:

•  Why under-fueling and overtraining stalls fat loss 
•  How higher carbohydrate, lower fat approaches can improve insulin sensitivity 
•  Real client transformations (including improved A1C on higher carb intake) 
•  Pre- and post-workout nutrition for performance and recovery 
•  Common mistakes people make when trying to “optimize” their metabolism 

If you’ve ever felt stuck between conflicting nutrition philosophies, this episode will help you step back, think critically, and start trusting physiology over dogma.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey Zane, how's it going?

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Stop, Sean.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

It's been a long time.

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

It's been like two weeks. Uh yeah, so we're just recording a podcast because Zane and I have a similar background. Um which is the title of this one. I called it Metabolism Over Dogma and Why We Both Moved Past Keto and Carnivore. Which when I met you at I think you were keto, right?

SPEAKER_03 0:31

No, I wasn't even I I never stayed in that for any. I mean, I probably had a couple weeks that were keto, maybe at one point, or a few days here and there, but I was pretty low carb with a lot of intermittent fasting and fasted workout. So I was kind of over-leveraging the fasting side of it with a lower, lower carb, but not full keto. And I did carnivore for maybe two weeks and felt like felt terrible, felt drained and dehydrated and underfed at while feeling stuffed at the same time, somehow. Like so underfueled but stuffed.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Push through, Zayn.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

Yeah, just ignore what your body's telling you, right? And and my family was can will tell you that I was a little grumpy during that time as well. Um that's pretty common.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yeah, I um I did well, you're familiar. I think I told you this, and you were really surprised when I told you this, but that I had liver disease. Um and I was much too young. I when I had liver disease, I must have been 20, 21, 22. And I was training for a marathon, so I was just extremely active. Um and doing lots of HIT training and long runs and eating lots of uh at the time my diet was really mixed, and looking back, it was too much fat with too much carb, which we might talk about because they're competing energy substrates. So, like I was doing probably bananas and oatmeal, but then like loading up on coconut oil and eating like ribeye steaks, you know, because wow, you get conflicting information, and so that's that's honestly around the time that I started researching diet at all and becoming interested in diet at all. Um, but I found some Russian studies on just completely starving yourself for 30 days to fix liver disease. Uh gotcha. Yeah. So I did that and it worked. Um but so then obviously I became interested in intermittent fasting and keto diets and you know, high-fat diets because I thought it was the carb that was the problem. And looking back, no, it I don't think it was the carb because now and if for the longest time I blamed bananas because I was eating a lot of bananas.

SPEAKER_03 2:55

For fatty liquor?

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Yeah, no, just in my diet before I did like any looking into nutrition. Um and I I've always been athletic, so running the marathon was nothing for me, like training for the marathon was nothing for me. It was just regular physical activity, just with a fancy label on it of marathon training. Um, but I was eating probably two or three bananas a day. Um and just so much. No, no, I know, I know, and still to this day, I still kind of look at bananas a little funny, where I'm like, I don't know. But I know it's it's not the bananas because nowadays, I think I told you this when we met up, is I will just for the sake of my clients to figure out if a carb is safe because I'm so just genuinely carb scared, like to my core, I will just eat eight potatoes in one day.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

Eight potatoes.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Yeah, I'll try whatever the food is. If I have a client that is like, I don't know if I can do mango, mango seems scary to me. Like, I'll do mango, and I'll do mango like into the ground and send them photos every time I'm eating the mango. Um, and then I'll I'll just write back with them like, no, my energy's still fine, my lab work's still fine, I still feel good, I'm still working out. Um, but I think I think I was just so scared from the liver disease, and I was reading all this stuff that you and I have both probably read online, which reading your the comments on your Instagram is just choice of like the this I think it's so funny to you and I because we've both probably been in that headspace where you're so afraid of carbs that you just like demonize an entire food category and an entire like everyone's way of eating. Um, and like the vitriol of those comments where they're like this guy is Satan and he's recommending to eat carbs. I'm like, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Yeah, I'm Satan, I'm paid by the fruit industry or the produce industry, or I have high investments in grocery stores, things like this. It's like, wow, that's it. Yep, the banana lobby's bringing the Lambo by this afternoon.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Yeah, big potato.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

Yeah, big potato, big potatoes paying my rent. You know, uh, I mean, you know, it's it's really funny how they think that everything's a conspiracy when you tell someone, uh, you know what, these are whole foods that have fed us for thousands of years. Um, you know, let's let's let's let's let let up on the fear a little bit. And uh I was always around, usually around 100 to 150 grams of carbs a day. But it compressed like two meals, you know, um a lot of fasted workouts. So other than a few times where it might have been a little less, but not nothing over time consistently was probably in that in that range. Um so I I was I would use it as like a tool if someone was like dealing with diabetes or you know, insulin resistance or losing weight. Like, hey, let's pull back on the carbs, maybe not have so much fruit right now because you're trying to not because fruit caused it, never said fruit caused it, but but because we're trying to change something. Of course, now I'd have completely the opposite. I would be like, eat as much fruit as you want, please, yeah, and potatoes as you want, please, and let's um just kind of watch the excess fat intake and we can pull protein back a little bit. Don't feel like you have to, you know, stuff yourself with with with fatty meat at all, and um and see how you feel and watch energy levels go through the roof, you know, and sleep improve.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

It's yeah, it's hard sometimes if someone will ask me for exact macros to start off. Um that's always a difficult conversation because I'll have some clients where they're extremely insulin resistant and they're not very active. And for that person, we might start off with more of like a one-to-one ratio of protein and carbs to allow some metabolic adaptation while keeping the fat low. But other people will metabolically adapt in a week, and and they just start excelling with carbs and they say, Hey, I want more carbs, carbs, carbs. I feel good. And you see that person go from, you know, I've I've had people that were keto that came to me or carnivore. One of my favorite clients was carnivore, and his A1C was 5.8. And and he got on the call and he's just distressed and like, I need to change this. I can't be diabetic. Um, and with him, I said, okay, if you're one of those persons that can't just gradually get into something and you just want to do it 100%, let's start with 250 grams of carbs a day. So that was insane for him to go from zero carb to 250. Um, but over three months his A1C came down to 5.4.

SPEAKER_03 8:18

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Yeah. And and you know, obviously felt great, was losing weight and all the things, was hitting PRs in the gym, started enjoying carbs more around the gym and kind of feeling the benefits of that. But other people you have to be a a little more careful with, and and they especially if they're afraid of carbs, because like the placebo effect is just as powerful as the carbs can be, in my opinion. So you know, it'll take me, it'll take me around five appointments with someone to finally sort of to finally get them thinking about carbs in a in a positive way, where where they're then excited to try eating the carbs. But most people have been told their entire life to stay away from carbs. Um and I have noticed there's this weird thing that happens where when they start believing in the carbs and eating the carbs, you see the weight loss come off.

SPEAKER_03 9:17

Heard other people say that as well. Just a lack of stress around it, you know, when the stress comes down, the fear comes down. But when they see fear around it, it it's like it elevates the the blood sugar response. Um if not just short term, temporarily, like acutely. Acutely, you know, just like there's a there's a there's a little more of a reaction in the moment, but it doesn't, it doesn't persist. It's like it's not gonna cause them to have have that high blood sugar for two hours or something. It's just it's just it's that it's that uh it's that little it's a it's it's stress hormone response. Cortisol. It's kind of funny. So it's it we we really we really this is really important.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

So um yeah, the cortisol thing is is strange because I will kind of play with them and say, hey, you know that like stressing out about the carbs is causing more damage than just eating the carbs, and the carbs will bring the cortisol down. So I have had I've had clients where I tell them the next time you're stressed out, please just go into the kitchen and eat like as much watermelon as you can eat. Like just sit there and eat the watermelon until you cannot eat more watermelon and tell me what happens afterward. And every time it's like, well, I went in there and I ate half a watermelon, and then I started feeling calm, and I put salt on it, and that helped even more. And then I realized it was only you know 200 calories. So I like the volume carbs in particular. For people that are afraid of carbs, fruit is is almost like a gateway drug because there are some fruits and like potatoes that you can really eat in mass amounts without drastically changing your calories. Um, and you know, once people realize, oh, I truly can sit here and eat an entire bowl of strawberries within reason, I think something kind of flicks in their brain and they start thinking of carbs in a different way. Um but have you have you ever had to explain to someone that there's a difference between like fruit and um like a donut? That the difference in the fat content. Have you had to lay out that argument?

SPEAKER_03 11:39

I mean, I've I've said it in more in um podcasts like this or you know, and things online, but yeah, I mean it's it it's you you would think it would go it would be self-explanatory, but there's a lot of people who don't see the difference. And and so yeah, I've had to explain it. But and I think that's primarily because when you hear people from the keto side talk about carbs, they are referring to it and they show pictures of pizza, donuts, french fries, potato chips. And those I don't call those, those aren't carbs, they have as much fat, almost as much fat as they do carb in them, at least you know, 30, 40 percent fat many of uh many of those foods, and which that doesn't, and a lot of times it's a it's a polyunsaturated fat, you know, it's not even a good fat. But even if it weren't, it's still not a true carb. I'm talking about like a single ingredient that is 100% carb. You know, it's it's 100% carbohydrates, or like it's 95% carbohydrates, like rice is 95% carbohydrates, got a little bit of protein in the grain. That's a carbohydrate. Um, you know, that's yeah. So I know I know where you're at. Fruit, great carbohydrate, you know, potatoes. They have a little bit of protein in them. But they're carbs, it's overwhelmingly carbohydrate, not to confuse people, but it's not that's not the same as a processed food. And so that's where people start talking about carbs, and they immediately that's what they think of. And it's like that's I'm not talking, I'm not like and have have accused me of telling people to eat those things. And I'm I never said that. I said carbs, those aren't carbs. Like I have never I have never advocated for processed food consumption, ultra-processed food consumption. Um, and and everything, half of what I say is about seed oils. So it's like, why would I why would I possibly be referring to something like that? But yet that is the accusation. And it's like those aren't carbs.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:39

Um I don't see it. I do have my little coffee cup for my daughter. On there, so it's like this is carb addict. When everything exploded, this was kind of like the the major accusation in my comments.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

So I know I love reading your comments, and I can't luckily, luckily, I had absolutely zero traction and no followers when I was doing a keto diet.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

Well what caused that because I've been eating high carb for almost two years, two and a half. I mean, like let's say 250 to 300 grams or more since 2023. And so um, but I got a little vocal with it last fall because what I was seeing was a lot of these people saying, hey, I keto or carnivore, and I started having high blood sugar, or my thyroid taint, or my hair's falling out, no energy, gaining weight. And there were people and there was and they were valid. And that's like, well, yeah, I could tell you why that's happening. But then there were, but they got they would get attacked by all these other ketards, I mean, keto people that would say, um, and leaders, including leaders and even some doctors, telling them you're doing it wrong. You must be eating dairy, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, all these accusations, you're doing it wrong. They weren't doing it wrong. Some of them were doctors who had been doing it for a long time. They're saying, hey, this is my problem. And that's when I started chiming in. I started it's like making these uh story text things that saying, this is what I've done, but this because this is what I saw. But what my problem I see is that people are being invalidated. Their experiences are being invalidated instead of actually talking about what's happening to them, it's an immediate accusation. You must be doing it wrong. There's no possible way that if you're following this diet, that could happen when we can clearly explain it hormonally. It's very well documented that those are reactions to a long-term keto or carnival diet. And so that's what got that's what got my got me angry.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

No, that's why I said I was joking. I said push through, Zane. Like because you did two weeks of carnivore.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

Yeah, I did it for a year.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

I mean, it's like yeah, a year, and I felt like absolute just, you know, I was it was terrible. I had zero energy. Um, my lab work was terrible, and it's you know, I was doing the mistake that a lot of like keto and carnivore people do, where you get the urine test strips and you see that you're not producing very much beta-hydroxybutyrate, and you think I'm not in ketosis, so you push even harder. But the the reality of that is that the body gets more efficient at utilizing it so it stops coming out in the urine as much. So I thought for months that I wasn't doing it correctly, and I would just almost starve myself or eat like mostly coconut oil or something, just to try to push those fats insanely high. And this is part of like why I wanted to do this podcast with you in the first place, is I think I I don't think you got quite as brainwashed as I did, but my username is don't do dogma for a reason, because I straight up gave myself an eating disorder following keto. And it's it's funny looking back at it, like I can make jokes at it and poke and prod, but there are a lot of people that are just receiving massive amounts of disinformation, and like you said, being told to just sort of push through and you're doing it wrong. And um, you know, you can see people just do a generally healthy diet and do much better than keto, even if they've got some processed food in there um or some bad habits, but they're not like having the massive headaches, and um the the brain fog and fatigue was so so bad that I didn't even realize something was wrong until I like had a banana, you know, just like break down one day and have a banana, and then you just go, whoa! And it's it's like the MacBook just kind of did it where it zooms out and you just you know, like your brain reopens again. Um but yeah, I think we both the I had a section in here like early red flags you ignored, but it sounds like you're pretty in tune with your body and you've been doing this for a long time. So when you tried carnivore, which is basically keto on steroids, um, when you tried carnivore, it sounds like you felt the red flags and then just went, no, I'm not doing this, it can't be good for me.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

Because I was already over-leveraging stress at that point. Like I was right on the edge because of all the fasting and the fasted workouts. Well, I did the carnivore, I was just starting eating throughout the day just to get enough food in, calories in, because I would get full really quick eating that much food. I couldn't possibly get, I mean, worked very hard to try to get enough calories. I could tell I was way under. And did had no desire to eat because like I just felt, you know, it's just like right here. Um, but yeah, it was it was I started listening to my body, uh at least, and I was trying to find solutions, and that wasn't it. It was like I'm not gonna push through, I pushed through enough things, I've pushed through vegan, I've pushed through vegetarian and all the fasting stuff, and it was just uh for 10 years I did, you know, intermittent fasting for you know, and it was like and fasted workouts for most of that. It was stress on stress, um and and affected sleep, everything, odd thyroid numbers, um, and and just not recovering. So yeah, I it was it was at a point where I'm looking for solutions, and I could tell immediately my body was telling no, and I've ignored it enough times to to realize I should start listening to it.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Um I think it's too because you did vegan. I'd I'd never done that, so you'd had you'd already been in one of the camps, and then you jumped to another camp and tried that camp out, and you're like, all these camps.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

Like vegan was like vegan vegetarian was like in the 90s, you know. I was like three and a half years of of that. Um, and then I kind of added some protein in and started moving a different direction, and then low carb was more like 2002. Started playing with that with clients, and then would got into my own phase of that with fasting and that in 2010. So it was just it was an evolution of things, of experimenting, which I think is important. It's always important to experiment and try things and learn and and never ask, like we've talked about, don't ask your clients to do anything that you wouldn't yourself do or haven't at least tried or experimented with. But it's very easy to get caught in, oh, I found it, I found the solution because you get some early reaction, you get some early responses to the stress adaptation, and you think, oh, this is it. Not expecting the rebound or that those adaptations will take you farther away from a real homeostasis, a healthy homeostasis. It's a it's a whole new homeostasis, which is not healthy, it's an unhealthy adaptation.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Just like Ozempic um offers like a short-term solution to something, and then you can see in the long-term data that people's weight rebounds and they might even gain additional weight on top of their starting weight before they did the Ozempic. Um, but that's I think what's different between you and a lot of other people is that you have I I I remember when I started seeing more of your content, and it was recently, it must have been around a year ago that I started seeing you posting more. Um, and it surprised me the first time because I thought you were still largely sort of doing a lot of meat, and you had made one joke with me one time when you came into Austin for KetoCon. Something like that.

SPEAKER_03 21:35

Oh, but yeah, it was the Keto Con uh hack your health kind of when it was switching over. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

You said something like when I travel, I just have beef, bananas, and butter or something.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

Well, yeah, because I get my I get my I get beef, I get eggs, hamburger, and a bunch of bananas because I don't have to cook much. And uh, but I mean I eat like you know, it was easy for.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

I know, I know. But in my mind, when you said that, I was still kind of I think you were maybe in like a transition period because I was kind of going, well, those are the banana that's high carb, and then you've also got like some high fat there. Like, what's I wonder what's going on with that? And I thought maybe he's just very active and he might be burning off these extra calories or something. But I guess what I'm trying to say is it's very difficult. We both, I think, we're, and and it's more difficult when you have clients and you're telling other people to do this thing. Yes. And with when when I was a personal trainer, and when I when I started going to graduate school for dietetics, I was very much in the like high, high protein. Like I would have recommended 200 grams of protein for someone my size, which is way too much. Um, and you know, higher fat and lower carb. And I'm fortunate that things have played out the way that they have, and I've met certain people at the times that I have because my knowledge is it's evolved, and that's why it's called don't do dogma. It's like I still at this point, even though I'm an RDN and I I'm very successful with my clients, I still don't think like, oh, I've learned it all, I can just stop.

SPEAKER_03 23:19

Like I don't, I don't have to continue reading and that's the problem with a lot of people we we we have these issues with, is they've stopped learning a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

And and then also just like with the COVID vaccine or or these other hot topics where information comes out later. I don't think there's enough people that are willing to just say, oh geez, I was wrong. Because I was very wrong. And I, you know, it's odd when I meet up with my family or something now, and it just everyone knows me as this like I would only eat meat, like carnivore, get the fruit away from me. I want the ribeye steak and water, and that's it. So they're they're so surprised now if I'm like eating an apple. Um, but I would have died on that hill back in the day. It would have been like, don't touch me with an apple. Like, I'm I don't want any carbohydrates in my system, not knowing that the steak is turning into carbohydrates anyway. Um, but yeah, it's it's I think it's hard, and it's not enough people talk about how difficult it is to be a practitioner and to be potentially sharing wrong advice with people and negatively impacting someone's life for your job.

SPEAKER_03 24:36

That that weighs heavy on me for sure.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Oh yeah, yeah, I'm sure it does. If you're a decent person, it should. Um, and it's it it is different now, I can say that. And it's I know that there's still more to learn, which is why I'm I like doing the podcast and talking to people and you know, reading and things like that, things that you should do as a human being. But it is nice that I can meet with my clients and we see them improving their blood lipids and the A1C improves and they start losing weight and they have more energy and they want to work out more. And just talking to someone today who I've only met with three times because she can only afford to meet once a month, she's been sticking to what I call a pro-metabolic diet. That's that's kind of what I do, but you know, it's high carb, moderate protein, 0.6 to 1.0 grams per pound for protein, ideal body weight, and then low fat. And and she just came back and she said, I have I my eczema's gone. I had eczema all over my body, it's completely gone. She was almost mad, you know, because she's I'm sure she's tried everything. Um and she's very, very active. Uh, and she just goes, It's gone, it's gone, and starts like getting upset. And I'm just going, I know, I know it's hard because we're not asking anything extensive. It's like, hey, have some have a potato, have some fruit, eat some lean protein, work out occasionally, and sleep okay. And and that's people want it to be difficult, I think.

SPEAKER_03 26:22

Yeah, they expect it to be restrictive or punitive almost. Which is crazy. And I know you and I have can have a tendency for that as well. Uh uh, but we because we want because it's like this tough thing. You get a little bit of an ego if you're good at it. You see a lot of that ego with some of these people who are wrapped up in carnivore, not for their health, they were probably fairly healthy when they started it, but it's like I could do something hard that no one else wants to do, and it kind of feeds the ego and makes me feel tough. Or they have this thing about restrictive and punishing themselves. There's a little bit of there's a definitely an eating disorder, which you mentioned earlier, there's an eating disorder element to it where it becomes obsessive, it becomes part of the identity, and it's all about restriction and control. And so they don't have to be anorexic to have an eating disorder. This is like, even though there's a lot of that hormonal parallel going on with anorexia, as with keto and carnivore, there's a hormonal parallel with glucagon and those stress hormones, but there's that the mental mindset of orthorexia, anorexia, control, um punishing, restrictive thing. And then you throw in some ego of oh, you know, a lion cannot be bothered with, you know, it's that whole mindset. I'm a lion, I'm a I'm a I'm a they have species dysphoria. They really think humans were been, you know, read to be carnivores forever, and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, no, you have amylase. You have amylase in your mouth, in your stomach. You have, you know, there's a reason you have insulin that's that responds to this carbohydrate that comes in and and and successfully moves it into tissues and which triggers other wonderful hormonal responses. Uh it all works really well for for digesting carbohydrates for energy, not by accident. And so it's it's it's this, it's this uh, you know, it's it's really there's a punitive, restrictive eating disorder. I told you, I you I don't know if you ever sit saw it in my comments, but there was a big blow up where I was talking about whole food, fruit, vegetables, and this woman said, Oh, I can't eat fruits and vegetables, sends me on a binge, even squash, sends her on a binge. I mean, there's a is she getting dopamine from a squash, good luck. But sends her on an eating binge to to start eating other things. But then uh two weeks later, I see her making this carnivore cake or oopsie cake, as they call it, and it looks like something right out of the Betty Crocker cookbook, whipped up icing cake thing with like like coconut powder and and and whole cream powder and uh protein powders in there and some kind of butters, and it's just a solid fat and protein powder. Cake that looks really looks like something you see in a bakery, but that doesn't trigger a binge, something that looks like that, and you're eating it, it's all fat, but no that wouldn't trigger a binge, but a squash does. Well, yeah, and the thing is posted a video of her stump of someone stumbling through a drunk stumbling through an alley falling over, and the caption was me after I eat fruits and vegetables. And I'm like, and this is a leader, this is a coach, a leader of a huge carnivore uh diet group.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yikes. Um it's been eye-opening for me to actually work with binge eating disorder. Um, and so where I where I work currently, you can sort of choose um specialties. And when I started off, you know, mostly just weight loss and working with athletes, because that's what I like to do. Um, but I I had so many people tell me, hey, this way of eating, I feel like it's it's relieved a lot of my like binge eating tendencies. Like I'm not doing this thing where I'm going into the kitchen at eight and looking for something sweet. So I started asking them, well, what's helping with that? And and usually it was fueling adequately throughout the day. And you could point to every single binge eating episode, every single one. And if the person had underfueled at any point during the day, they're gonna have a binge eating episode. And it's it's quite counterintuitive the way that you treat it is to ask someone to eat. And then if they're going to have a binge episode, what are some healthy foods that they can binge on? So we don't want to binge on a carnivore cake made of fat. But if you can binge on something, God forbid you binge on the squash, right? What's gonna happen? What's gonna happen? Like, I know it's it's funny for you and I.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

You might have a bowel movement, which would probably be a big change in shock for some of these keto carnivore people. You might actually have a bell movement like two days in a row, but you know, uh, but other than that, not much else.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Yeah. What you were saying earlier, uh I wanted to interject because I love there's some there's some more people on Instagram that I'm starting to see because my entire follow history for a long time was just like keto and carnivore people, and I'm starting to diversify more now, and it's great.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

Good for you. Branch out.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

I know, I know, but one of the people said, like, sorry, Mark, from accounting, but you're not a lion. I but and it's it's true. We do when I went to go see that vegan documentary that came out that was so so popular, I was deeply ingrained in carnivore, and that movie pissed me off. And I was like, why am I having such a personalized stress reaction to a movie that I just saw? And that started getting the little clogs turn cogs turning, whatever. And it's true, you can argue it both ways. I can see both sides of the argument, but you can look at the physiology of a human being and notice that we have teeth meant for grinding up foods like fruits and vegetables, but then we also have razor sharp canines. So for anyone to argue, oh, we we should subside on completely vegetables or it should be only meat, you kind of have to take pause and go, Well, I feel okay when I eat a potato, but I also love a nice sirloin steak. So, like, there's probably just a normal in-between there. It it makes people angry when you tell them that we have hyperacidic stomachs, but that we also have a positive physiological response to eating fruit. Um, both can be true. That we yeah, we do have a colon. But to the carnivore's point, it has shrunk historically. So we're not cows, we're not, we don't have five stomachs. So one of the largest things I do is no, we're not ruminants, we're somewhere between that of a dog and a pig, is what our digestive system looks like.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

Something between a dog and a pig.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:36

As far as structure and and and ratios of colon to small intestines.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

What's fascinating to people if you just ask them to fish around on the inside of their mouth with their finger. Just I'll tell them to do that during an appointment. And I'm like, just turn off your camera and play around for a minute. And they're like, okay. And I'm like, feel your teeth, feel everything in your mouth, and then tell me what you think we're designed to eat. And they come back with these great observations. We're like, well, it's really soft in there, and then, but I also have really strong teeth, and I didn't realize they're quite as ridged as they are. And so I'm going, okay, cool. So you're designed to chew up some pretty intense things, like you could probably handle chewing on bones, but then it's also soft, right? So we probably don't want to be eating things like roughage all the time, things that are that are gonna be difficult to digest, so we probably can't handle massive amounts of cellulose. And then you just the mental connection that they make, and they go, I go, oh, by the way, like your entire body is just one giant tube. You're a tube, you know, and that whole tube is soft. So the next time we eat a whole bunch of greens, you know, think about what that might do in the tube, and think about the fact that our small intestine is is massive and well equipped to handle fruits and meats. So like, you know, just they they they'll go, whoa, and um I have to make I do have to make a point of that. I don't know if I'll ever, ever go back to recommending very high fiber diets for people because I've worked with so much IBS at this point, and just you cannot argue with the data of someone saying, I have not had an episode in six months. And I don't care, I don't care what you learned in grad school, and I don't care what the textbooks say, if someone goes, Hey, I'm feeling really good, and I haven't had explosive diarrhea in six months, throw a party. Great, man. What are you eating? They're like, Well, just lots of fruits and lean meat and potatoes, and I'm like, great. Um I don't know. It's wild.

SPEAKER_03 36:01

It's so simple. It's so simple. It's like people look at you funny. Like, I I mean, I'm like, I get paid for this. I get paid to tell you to eat fruit, lean meat, and potatoes and not feel guilty about it. And then go be active because you feel better and you have more energy, um and get better sleep.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

So I was gonna ask you about that. Do you do you think most of your job is is I don't want to word it such that it points to the the answer of the question. In terms of calories with people, do you find that you're more often decreasing their calories or increasing their calories?

SPEAKER_03 36:42

I I think I guess it depends on where they're coming from. I don't focus on the calories a lot. Um, and if I if someone's coming in, they're kind of it just depends. I mean, some people try to keep that the same, just start changing the ratios and the quality of the food first, and then I see where the calories fall. Okay. Um, and and I don't really because a lot of them I have don't track and won't track total calories, but I'm much more interested in the food quality and the ratios. Like here's your protein target, here's your here, keep the fat in this window. And then if you're still hungry, beyond everything else you've eaten, eat more carb. Just eat carb. And so that's kind of where I make it try to make it as simple as possible. Keep the keep the fat in this range, give them like a 20 gram, 20, 30 gram range, keep the protein in this range, about saying about 20 gram range, and then everything else is fruit, rice, or potatoes at every meal. And it's like and let's just see what happens to your energy. And many times is there if they depending on how they've been eating, if their energy goes up, their calories are gonna go up because they have more energy and be more active, it's gonna work out, but their but their their body fat goes down, or they basically just feel better.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

Yep. Um it's yes, I think um exactly the same, uh, except that there's a there's a clear trend with because I where I work, there's a really great app that tracks, you know, someone just takes a photo and it will pretty accurately log the protein, carbs, fat, calories.

SPEAKER_03 38:20

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Um oh, it's awesome. I love it. It it I it cuts down my work by like 98%. Um, to where then I'm like you, and I'm just and and what I'm getting to is that I always am trying to make people eat more food every single time. I don't think there may have been one client out of the 700 that I've seen at this point where they were maybe overeating, you know, and we had to dial it back a little bit. Um, in this person, it was because they got overexcited about the carbs and what it was doing for them, and they they just literally started, you know, like literally eating something like four potatoes at a sitting and that kind of thing. Um, and once we had the discussion of the K buddy, I think that's a little too much. Um, but that's so, so rare. And I think you and I probably do the same thing, but when you can see this in numbers, you would probably see the trend on your end as well, where if someone is trying to lose weight, 99% of the time, they are undereating, and their metabolism has shut down over the years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:32

Because they've been trying to lose weight the wrong way, basically. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:37

Yeah. And the act's low, metabolism's low, and we gotta pick it back up. And that's not something you do in a week, you know. That's something that does take a little bit of time. But you can start making great changes, you know. Um, it does the calories will come up over over over time. But you know, again, they're more active too. They get get more because you just feel better. They don't, it's not as much like, oh, I can't move, I'm exhausted, I'm gonna go take a nap. Um, it's like they're they're going. Um workouts are probably more productive, taking more walks, you know, that kind of thing. They're thinking more, you know, just more creativity.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Um I haven't had that benefit yet. More creativity with the girls.

SPEAKER_03 40:20

Well, just like with with with work, like for instance, like they're problem solving. They just feel sharper. They're a little more like, yeah, you know, go, go, go. I'm gonna take on take on new projects. I that's what I mean by that.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Uh I'm just messing with you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:32

Problem solving, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:35

So it's a it's a good, it's it's um, man, I see, I see that feeling immediate though. Like within the energy changes. Um and I have several with like some of the keto people come through, just like some of the coaches that have actually come through just my day, DMs that are friends, and and and hair starts growing back, blood sugar comes down, A1C comes down, like you mentioned, pretty quickly. Um, and then they're like, Oh my gosh, I haven't lifted this much in years. I've I love working out, I'm just you know, hitting new PRs and that this kind of stuff, especially with the women. You know, I know with strength coming back.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

So it becomes enjoyable to work out. Um, you know, I've had some people two points like to what you said. I think the ratio is very important. So having that discussion with someone about the Randall cycle, which I know you've talked about extensively in your podcast, like the Randall cycle is very important for someone to know that we require a high intake of carbohydrate, and then the protein and the fat can't get in the way. And if you're overdoing the protein, it's gonna impede the Randall cycle. And if you overdo the fat, it will impede the Randall cycle. Or rather, you don't want to be in the Randall cycle, you know what I'm trying to say. Yes. Um, highest carbohydrate intake, and we'll talk about that because people have days where they get in their head and they go, Well, is it okay for me to eat consistent calories across the board even if I'm not working out? And I tell them a similar thing to you where it's like, hey, as long as your carbs are up here, your protein stays pretty consistent and the fat is low, this number can move a bit.

unknown 42:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

So when you're when you're less active and you don't want to house eight potatoes in a day, that's okay. Don't house eight potatoes.

SPEAKER_03 42:20

Yeah, follow your hunger.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Yeah, follow your hunger.

SPEAKER_03 42:23

Because you'll have days the next day. It's really what comes in over the course of a week or several days that really makes an impact. What happens in one day, you will make up for it the next. You know, I've had days where I eat more one day and I'm not as heavy and as uh hungry the next, or I maybe under-eat one one day a little bit just because of busyness. Um I say undereat, it's not I'm not saying consciously, it's just like didn't eat as much as I normally do. Yeah, a little below average. And so the next day, I feel hunger when I wake up in the morning, or I'm a little more hungry throughout that day and I eat a little more, you know. So it's it balances you let your body balance out, especially when the hormones are are are working correctly. They're uh your body balances itself out. You just follow your your appetite. Um especially if you're eating real meals, you're not just grazing, but you eat a meal and you that can get you through three to five hours.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:13

Uh I'm not against any snacking, I'm not saying that, but if you're eating set some some meals where you have that, you know, um, which aids in digestion and everything else, and you're getting that kind of enough calories in in a sitting, you can really follow your appetite.

SPEAKER_01 43:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:31

And like you, I think that that that that that supports what you're saying with at the end of the day, like that eight o'clock binge feeling is due to an under-eating throughout the day. That's a that's a rebalancing in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

I I like to explain it like there's a little accountant in the head, and it gets pissed off if like the numbers are unaccounted for at the end of the day, and it's like, okay, you're you're just gonna go in there and you're gonna eat an entire cheesecake. Because we have a lot of ground to make up right now, and I am not going to bed fasted. Um, but yeah, I it's it is it's it's more about paying attention, and you're talking about a specific level of metabolic adaptation that I think takes a little while. For my clients, I've noticed they do not have accurate hunger signaling when we first start working together. Because because their metabolism has been so wrecked from years of dieting, and I really try to get across to them like this is not your fault. This is because of information that you've seen for years, and you've thought eating less would serve you, and this we're gonna have to reprogram the brain to eat more throughout the day. But then you see them getting excited when you talk about the physiological signs of metabolism increasing, like warm hands and feet, good body temperature, resilience to stress and illness, good sleep, more powerful workouts, which you were talking about, and you can feel that 100%. Yeah, but they the the women in particular, they do, they get so excited and they'll come onto the appointment. They're like, I was hungry today. I I got hungry at like 2 p.m. and I've never been hungry before at 2 p.m. And I go, nice. Did you did you respond by eating? And they went, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had like normally I wouldn't. Normally I would just wait till dinner. But I had a little apple and I had like a sip of a protein shake, and I went, oh nice, nice. And then the next time, the next time they come back on, they go, Oh my god, oh my god, I got hungry at four. I got hungry at 4 p.m. this week. And I go, cool. Did you respond appropriately? Because you you you do want to reward someone when they respond appropriately. If they say something like, no, I was hungry, but I just stayed at my calories, I go, no. No, no. And then but if they go, you know, I was at my calories, but I thought, like, what's a little Yasso bar gonna do? So I had a Yasso bar at 8 p.m. and I go, oh, nice. What happened the next day? And they go, Well, I was down half a pound when I woke up the next day. So it's it's really about like trying to let someone have fun in this process of being afraid of like carbs and eating. And it's you the that you just watch people take off on their own, where you know, I'll have someone, I'll just like I'll pull a random client. Oh, there's someone that's maybe 45, working a really hard job and working like 10 hours a day and severely under-eating, eating 800 calories, if that in a day, and doing HIIT training every single morning. Okay, you're shaking, I know. But then all I did was ask this person to not do the HIIT training, okay, and we changed nothing about her diet, and two weeks in we meet again, and she's like, I'm down five pounds. I'm like, how hard was it? And she's like, it was so hard to not wake up and kill myself in the morning. And it's every morning she said she was dealing with this terrible like voice in her head saying, like, you're you're you know, you're not you're gonna gain weight, you're a terrible person, you're lazy. Um, she's like, Yeah, I'm down five pounds, so you know, whatever you want to tell me, I'll do it. And I'm like, Well, we have to eat more than 800 calories for starters, you know, they get so mad, they're like, I do not want to eat more, and I'm like, sorry, bud. And and I try to explain at some point, like, I'm being gentle with you, but we're still only at 1200 calories, and I'm gonna have to push you off the cliff. Like, at some point, you're gonna have to eat 1800 calories, like at least. Um, but then you know, it's fun to push them off a cliff too, because then they come back the next week and they're like, Yeah, I slept better and I was in a better mood, and I got to eat some extra potatoes and my libidos back, and I lost three pounds. But and they're still, it's weird, they still have this mentality of like maybe I should go back to less calories, and you have to every week do this and go, no, no, no, no, no, keep going. You know, it's nuts. It's nuts. Do you work mostly with men or with women?

SPEAKER_03 48:23

It's a good question. It depends. I mean, overall, I would probably say it's now half and half. It used to be mostly women, like early in my career. It was mostly especially when I was in gyms or like training studios uh for most of my career. So until the last maybe five or six years, and I was going into homes. Um, so my network shifted older, and it was more like professional men as well started coming in. So it's probably half half and half, you know. Um but for a long time it was probably 70, 80 percent women, and all of my weight loss, right? Metabolic. And at the time I really didn't know what I know now, of course, and didn't um you know, still learning at the you know those early years. And low carb could get someone to a certain point, but then we get stuck, right? It's stop. So but it's been mostly mostly women over the decades, and uh last so I've been working as a trainer for 28 years, and uh and now it's more remote and focused more focused on diet over the last several, but I still um of course incorporate exercise with with with every plan, and it's um that they are more they are more uh they need a little more attention, and I don't mean that in a bad way, but they need a little more like reassurance, reassuring and detail, and because the female body uh adjusts differently than a male body, or a male body is pretty steady and it's kind of easy, it's like you just almost predict the response, whereas a woman's like, okay, this week we're way up here, this week we're down here, and the thyroid and everything is so interconnected with hormone changes and cortisol stress that because they're so much more sensitive to stress hormone, um that there's just there's it's it's more volatile, it's a more volatile response hormonally. Um so there's just has to be a little more there's a there's like a fine line between being intuitive and and and paying attention to that at the same time realizing it's temporary and next week it won't feel that way, but we need to stay the course.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

Yeah, not too intuitive, please. Like don't dial in so yeah, it's it is rough, I think. With my I mostly work with women, um, but uh you know, I have 15 or so male clients sprinkled in at a time, and the males, they just hop on, I'm like, here's your macros. And they go, Okay. And they just they just I go, Well, how are you feeling this week? And they go, feelings, what are you talking about? I'm like, never mind.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

Exactly. You're good.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

Um they come back out. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:13

Yeah, that's basically what we can talk about is getting a sick pump in the gym. Um, but the yeah, it's you know, fun supplements like citrulline and beetroot and all that. Like, that's we end up talking with the males, they they want more of the hard science and none of the feelings and uh the all for it. Um, but if you tell them, hey, this is why I've set your macros this way, this is what I want you to do, and I want you to eat these carbs, and they go, not a problem with the carbs, because males haven't been told their entire lives not to eat carbs, so it's at least not to the extent that women are. Um and so they go, Yeah, but you bet. And then they come back two weeks, like, yeah, yeah, well, it works, and then nothing to talk about sometimes. Where I'm like, we have an hour, and they're like, They don't need an hour. I know they just go, it's fine.

SPEAKER_03 52:05

It's just a text, it could be a text, literally text. Would you okay, cool? Let me take a look at it. Looks good, wouldn't change a thing, keep going. You can literally do it, you know, by text, by a boxer or something, you know, like a voice mo.

SPEAKER_00 52:18

Yes, and then women, yes, women want to talk about like how every meal made them feel. And I sometimes think that in general, the women will overanalyze and I'll just stop them and I'll go, hey, I set these macros for a reason and we're gonna have water shifts and like everything's gonna be okay, I promise you. Just go get 7,000 steps, do your weight training, eat your food, and I promise you it'll be okay. And if they if they can just relinquish the control and relax, they go, Oh, it worked. Like, yeah, yeah, it does work. You just you gotta be chill though. We have to keep the cortisol down. So, like, just eat the sourdough bread, don't worry about it the next time you're stressed. Um, I was gonna ask you a funny question, I didn't write it in here, but I wanted to know how did you keep your job when you did a low carb diet for people? Because, and this is a joke, and it's kind of not, because like what you said, it starts off well. And and because you're cleaning up a person's diet so much, you're taking them off of processed food a lot when you do lower carb diets. And you were training them, obviously. So they they saw results from that, and then they saw results from doing the low carb, but inevitably they hit the plateau, which is where I get clients after they've hit the plateau and they're tired of it. Um, and I'm asking this because it's personal for me, where I'll sometimes get transfers from other dietitians of people that are just fed up. Um, and I wonder how those dietitians keep their jobs, because my job depends on outcomes. And that's part of what keeps me up at night. Is if someone is plateaued, I'm like, I gotta figure this out. Or that person's gone. How do you deal with that?

SPEAKER_03 54:09

Well, that was the thing. I mean, we tried to tweak and change, and things would go down. Sometimes they get stuck at like a 40-pound loss, and they're just like, they're thinking of something wrong. We keep going. Um, I guess I'm fairly likable. Some people just stuck with me. Uh, there was one, there was a couple years ago that I remember I had a couple people who were one had been with me for a long time. She'd lost at this point probably a good 70 pounds. Um, another couple that was talking to them separately, but they're a married couple and they're trying to lose like 10, 12 pounds, nothing serious. But their pl their weight loss had stuck on each of these three. And this is when I was starting to kind of get the so this is probably three years ago. So we're gonna add in breakfast, and it's gonna have carbs and a little bit of protein, so like you can have a couple eggs and some you know, and some fruit within two weeks, the weight loss on all each each of the three began moving. And they lost the weight within a couple pounds, you know, a couple weeks, and one of them kept going for she kept going that way for like six more months, lost another 20, 30 pounds. And so it was like trying to change, but there were times when it was just like, okay, stuck, can't, you know, nothing's moving. Um and they would just kind of wander off. But I didn't, I mean, I was self-employed, I was just working for myself. So uh it was, you know, um it could be I mean there were there were those times where someone just like, well, I'm gonna try somebody else because I'm stuck here, you know, things nothing's changing. Um and that happens sometimes for through compliance as well. Some of these people were maybe they suck at the diet, but they're just you know, still drinking a lot. Uh you know, but it was it was definitely, I mean, it's it's work to keep that to keep that juggling. Um and then it makes you question on some level what you're doing when that happens, you know, what you're what you know. So um I do feel that I've got this point with understanding what I understand, abundance of confidence in what I'm telling people. Like uh of like this, this is it. No, this no, trust me, this is how it works. And I can explain it, and they go, oh, and they and then hopefully that helps them, even if they don't understand it. But I have far more confidence in what I'm telling people now than I did 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 56:31

Same, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 56:33

And so um, but it does make a difference.

SPEAKER_00 56:37

Yeah, that's I mean, I've had to have conversations with people sometimes uh on both ends. It like as a dietitian where they're not being compliant, and I have to sit them down and go, hey man, I know you're not walking because I can see your steps. And like, you know, they go, oh, and or like I can see your locks and you're not following, and they go, I'm so mad, I'm so mad, I'm not losing the weight. This diet doesn't work as a holdup. It works. And I go, I know it works, because I have way too many people that have lost good weight and feel really good and have gained muscle mass and their blood, their blood lipids improved and their A1C improved. And it it is very it's a good feeling now to be where I'm at, where um I'm very fortunate, like I said, where I've I've just happened to meet the right people at the right times, or read the right books at the right times, or had conversations that I needed to have, where someone put me in my place, like, you know, and a few of those were just someone being realistic with me and going, you know, like we're designed to handle carbohydrates, and I have to sit there thinking I know everything and go, Well, I guess so. And then, you know, I'm going home and I'm like googling curiously, like, you know, but it's good, it's good, and that's great. I think I think I've I've had to have some honest conversations with people in my process of learning, where in the beginning I maybe wasn't doing enough carb for people, and they would plateau, and I'd be sitting here going, Oh my god, I don't know what to do. They're doing everything correct, and I'm looking at their logs and they're taking a multi and everything should be working. And I'll just have an honest conversation with them and say, Hey, I'm kind of stuck. What do you think would benefit you? And they say surprising things sometimes of like, well, if I'm honest myself, I don't think I'm walking as much as I should be walking. Or they'll go, actually, I'm a little bit hungrier than what you're providing me. I think I might need a little more calorie. Um, and I think just with you and I so much patient or client experience, like it is good to be in a constant mindset of I need to continue learning because there's gonna be a client that's gonna come along and I'm gonna give them these perfect macros, and it's not gonna work. Yeah, but yeah, okay. The last thing I know you probably need to get going, right?

SPEAKER_03 59:06

Well, I got my son to get to basketball practice actually today. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:10

You need to go now?

SPEAKER_03 59:11

Well, no, right now we got what you got? What you got?

SPEAKER_00 59:13

Oh, just like 10 minutes, maybe?

SPEAKER_03 59:15

That's fine.

SPEAKER_00 59:16

Okay. Um, this one I think people would like. So just what you do daily for metabolism, and I'd like to break these down like individually. So I just really super curious about your breakfast habit and what you do for breakfast.

SPEAKER_03 59:32

Well, I tend to get out the door early in the morning. Um, so it's a little bit on the go. So it's usually fruit uh right away, or what I typical breakfast would be like a smoothie. Like I just juice, I put in some little protein or BCAs with some glycine and some creatine, and that's and maybe a sweet potato on the side or something like that. And I'm and that's pretty much it. It's usually very high, very high carb, extremely low or non-existent fat, um, um a moderate amount of some sort of protein. Sometimes it's even just a gelatin protein. That's why I get the collagen gel gelatin type glycine uh in there. So it's really, I mean, and then then there's mornings where I wake up like I want, I want, I'm gonna have some chicken with my whatever, or it's or it's some some yogurt. You know, it's it's like a it's like a fermented, you know, like a yogurt uh thing with it, or cottage cheese or something like that. But most of the time it's just a juice smoothie with some with some fruit and and a sweet potato.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:32

You lost me a chicken 100%. I just zoned out after you said chicken for breakfast. I was like, that's disgusting.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:39

Yeah, it's sometimes just wake up like or I feel hungry, like I need like you have those cravings where you hit I need a craving some real protein, real fat with it, and I just listen to it. But that's that's rare. Usually it's get up and it's just let's just get the easy to digest carbs in with a little easy to digest protein and get moving, you know, and some coffee with some honey in it, and uh ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:06

Uh, I think lately, uh, just reading more, but I'm reading Nickelantonio's win book right now, which I'm really enjoying. Um, but if I've been focusing more on pre-intra and post-workout nutrition, so I will do the standard lately is a banana and a 15 gram protein shake. Um, because if I do the 30 grams, I notice I'm too full to eat the post-workout meal. Um, but post-workout is usually a whole meal if I can. Like a whole container of oatmeal with protein powder, or like you said, real food. Um, which there for a little while on Instagram, I was posting every single day that I would have like eggs and egg whites, a whole orange, and then maybe like an entire apple, like all post-workout, which I'm sure you're laughing and going, that's like nothing, but it was it's a lot of food for me mentally right now. Um, do you do I'll have to pick your mind another time about the BCAAs, but do you do any intra fuel or are your workouts short enough that you don't really need intrafuel?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:13

Mine are pretty short, but intrafuel. I mean during the workout, almost never, unless I just feel like I'm tanking for some reason. Like if if it's it's more of on a case-by-case basis, but generally no, unless I just feel like, okay, I really didn't eat enough before this workout. It was a few hours since I and I, you know, so I and that would just literally be a juice. It'd be like three or four ounces of juice mid-workout. That'd be about it. If I if I feel that, but and I would have to like it would something would have to trigger me to feel that, like, oh, it's just not there. Oh, I haven't eaten in a few hours. I didn't have anything right before, so have a little juice just to just to boost me to get through it. But most of the time, um that's not necessary, or I'll remember to do a little juice of some sort, or have a banana half an hour before, something like that, you know, before the workout to make sure I've got a little like easy to access fruit coast.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:06

Yeah, I have been absolutely jamming with orange juice because you know, coming from our background, orange juice is like forbidden. Like, don't even think about it. Um, but I love it. And I've been buying organic orange juice. One of these days I'm gonna get a juicer for sure. But during the workout, I'll drink a whole really I get made fun of, I'll drink a whole glass of orange juice with sparkling water and like a tablespoon of salt. And I've had someone try it and they go, that's disgusting. It just tastes like salt water with orange. And I'm like, that's the that's the idea.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:47

You made Gatorade, you made the original Gatorade essentially before Coke bought him out or Pepsi, whoever it was, that bought him out. The original Gatorade when I was a kid was pretty salty. You drink Gatorade, it was like it was it has you tasted this the sodium, yeah. Um, but you basically you made Gatorade. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:07

Yeah, well, I've I never told you this, but I was in the process of formulating a ready-to-drink um water called salt water that I might still work on it, but yeah, it's it's a lot of sodium, it's a lot, and I might have to have some sort of label on there that says like more than FDA recommended amount of sodium or whatever, like because it's it's an obscene amount. Yeah, and up like all caps, um, but designed for people like you and I. Um, and and it I I can bench 30s now, and I I was never able to do that before, and it's drinking orange juice and salt.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:47

Um, yeah, in the summer, especially would need that in the summer, so I think, yeah. But my hydration is so much easier. I don't even think about electrolytes now that I'm eating all the carbs. Whereas when I was very low carb intermittent fasting, I was constantly doing electrolytes. Now I don't even think about it because if I really want something, I will go get juice, and there's not much more hydrating than juice or um you know, uh juice and banana, something like that. I mean, you're getting the potassium in there, which is what helps hold on to everything, bounces out the sodium. But I mean, it it's uh, but that sounds amazing. I might have to try that.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:23

I'm a sodium monster, I just need it. I have to even high carb, even eating eight potatoes a day, I still need like in a in something like this, don't ask what that is. It's exactly what it looks like it is. Um, but I will do like a whole tablespoon of salt. Wow, and it it scares people, and they go, Oh, but but the amount of fluid shifts that I was having before I started doing sodium, I could wake up one morning and have a massive belly, and that's not fun when you're lifting weights and walking. Right. For a lot of female clients that are having. Those massive fluid shifts, and they're going, Oh my gosh, I'm up five pounds today. What do I do? Like, have you been having your salt? And they go, No. And I'm like, um, or or they have the carbohydrate shifts too, where they're like, Well, I had 200 grams yesterday, and then today I'm only at 50 and it's 4 p.m. And I'm like, Well, you see, those carbohydrates hold on to water and soda salt. So if you're having massive fluid shifts, let's try and just keep everything like kind of stable for a little while. Right. Um, and then last thing I'll ask you about do you you you walk pretty frequently, right? Um do you aim for like a step count in a day, or do you just generally try to move your no?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:45

I just try to get it in. I do, I I walk as much as I for for trying to undo all the sitting I have to do as much as anything else. It's like warms up the hips and you know, it's like to feel better and move better. But yeah, the walking and just and to think and relax. So it's not like a step target, it's more of like the activity of getting it in on a daily basis. Is it's it's it's not just physical, it's mental and you know, sun exposure and hip movement mobility. It's just that act of doing it. So whether I get in uh two miles or three or four, you know, it just it's it's it's always beneficial.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:22

You're in a better uh mental place with it than I am right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:25

I'm old. So it's like check the box. Okay, I check that box. I check that box.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:32

All right, it's it's the one that I won't, I can't stand it. Like, I can't, it's more I hate it. I hate walking. And my clients will be like, you know, you're telling me to walk all the I don't want to walk 7,000 steps a day. I'm like, do you think I enjoy this? Like, I hate it, and I'm like I'm out there walking.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:51

Yeah, I get seven, sometimes it's five though.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:56

You don't want to see mine, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:58

But I mean, then there's days I go looking like, oh my gosh, it was only three, and it's because, but I, you know, stuck on a on a computer all day, you know, like sitting here or whatever, sitting and and just either talking, catching up on things, sitting in a car, driving, you know. So there's those days where it's like it's not about being perfect, it's more about being consistent over time.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:22

Yeah, I would advise people to to think about walking the way that you did, where it's like vitamin D exposure, stress relief, all those things are a lot better than like, you know, how I explained it of like I can't stand this and I hate doing it. That's one is better than the other.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:36

Sure, it's a little more motivating. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:40

Cool. Uh yeah, I think you should get going to take the kiddo to uh basketball.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:46

Basketball, he's a beast, yeah. I don't know if you remember he was at Hack Your Health in 90, in two 90, 20, 2024. But I think it's when I gave the talk, and I think you were there for the talk. I did the book signing thing. And he was there at the time. He stood next to me and he tried signing a book too, but he was like, you know, he was like 11 then, and he he was uh like maybe like five, nine, five, ten. He's now taller than me. He's like a solid 6'2, 200-pound 13-year-old. Uh yeah, he's a beast on the on the court, and he hasn't even really started lifting because his upper body isn't really developed. That's his legs are bigger than mine, they're huge.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:34

And he's just so when I get him lifting the summer, he's gonna pull a little more. He'll be starting high school at you know, pushing 6'3 at 205 to end muscly. I mean, I know I wasn't like that. That was not me. He's gonna be he's gonna keep going. He's gonna be so he's a basketball beast.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:47

Yeah, do you think he'll go pro?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:49

I don't know about pro. I'd love to just let's we're working on college right now. We're working on college. Okay, so a 6'4, 6'5, let's say 6'5, 215, you know, who can hit three-pointers and and you know, that kind of thing. That that's not a bad uh college player. That that's a good, you know, so yeah, skill and and is and playing club and school both back and forth and some person some one-on-one coaching and developing him, but it's just fun. It's kind of fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:18

Yeah, you're you're his trainer nutritionist, I'm sure. Uh you're like loading him up with oranges, but that would be fun. That's like the only reason why I want to have a kid is to have like the ultimate client that's just like the time to listen to you.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:33

Like my clients listen to me better than he does, but we get it in him. But he's you know, creatine, um, you know, good stuff. It's like all these things, you know, protein when we're trying to fill it in. He doesn't feel like eating in the morning protein shake with creatine with some things in there, just get get fuel in, and then when he does feel like eating, he just he'll when he's catching up, it's that catch up thing, we'll have three dinners. It's just crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:54

But yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:56

But it's you know, wait, he'll like wake up taller.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:00

It's nuts, yeah. At that age, that's gotta be fun. Um, well, yeah, this was fun. We could do this in the future about a million other topics, but sure. It was fun chatting.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:11

Um absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:13

So you said I'll no problem, Zane.