Being Fit Doesn’t Mean You’re Healthy | James Cooper

Being fit doesn’t necessarily mean you’re healthy.

In this episode of the LiveMore Podcast, I sit down with James Cooper, founder of BTX in Hampstead, nutrition graduate from King's College London, and third Dan black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, to explore why modern health and fitness culture may be failing more people than ever.

Despite having more gyms, more supplements, more information, and more “health hacks” than any generation before us…

People are still exhausted, overweight, burnt out, inflamed, injured, and ageing poorly.

I’ve known James for over 20 years, and he’s one of the very few people in the fitness industry I genuinely respect because he actually lives what he teaches.

This conversation goes far beyond aesthetics.

We explore longevity, VO₂ max, ultra-processed foods, obesity, gut health, muscle mass, movement quality, martial arts, Japanese culture, supplementation, discipline, purpose, and why so many people are training completely wrong.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why cardiovascular fitness and VO₂ max are among the strongest predictors of longevity
• Why strength training becomes more important as we age
• Why most people destroy themselves in training instead of training intelligently
• The truth about GLP-1 drugs including Ozempic and Wegovy
• The impact of ultra-processed foods, emulsifiers, and artificial ingredients
• Why protein matters, but fibre and gut health may matter even more
• Why Japanese culture produces some of the healthiest and longest-living people in the world
• The psychology behind obesity, binge eating, and sustainable transformation
• The role of supplements including creatine, omega-3, magnesium, taurine, NMN, and vitamin D
• Why movement quality and martial arts build real-world athleticism
• Why success without health ultimately means very little

One of the most powerful moments in the episode:

“If someone steps out of a Ferrari but they’re unhealthy… people don’t truly see that as success anymore.”

About James Cooper

James Cooper is the founder of BTX, a performance-focused gym in Hampstead, North London. He studied nutrition at King’s College London and has over two decades of experience in strength training, body transformation, martial arts, and performance coaching.

Connect with James

Instagram: @jamescooperbtx
Website: BTX London

Independent Supplement Verification Resources

• Labdoor
• ConsumerLab
• NSF Certified for Sport
• Informed Choice / Informed Sport
• USP Verified

Connect with me

Instagram: @biohackrob
All links: BioHackRob Linktree

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the podcast, leave a rating, and share it with someone who would benefit from it.

Disclaimer:

This podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, supplementation, medication, or exercise routine.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

To get fit and strong, you need to separate your training. When you weight train, you want to be fresh to make sure you're lifting as much weight as weight possible, to make sure your body's adapting and building muscle tissue and recovering. That gives your body the signal to build muscle tissue and to be strong. If you're doing a weight training with your cardio, you're going to be fatigued, you're very likely to get injured. First of all, you're doing complex movements to heavy weight, which are dangerous, and therefore you won't signal your body to build muscle tissue.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

What are your thoughts on the food industry having warnings, ultra-processed foods?

SPEAKER_00 0:27

An example would be where people thought red meat caused cancer. The reason they thought red meat caused cancer was processed red meat causes cancer, the nitrates, the preserved meats. And all these processed foods contain these, these fillers, emulsifiers, so they definitely are bad for them. They definitely will increase your risk of cancer, without doubt.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

So they definitely should have warnings on the Welcome, James, to the Live More podcast. So the purpose of this podcast is to explore the nuances around longevity, peak human performance, health optimization. And thank you very much for taking the time out to come here today. My pleasure, my pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Good to see you.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Been looking, really looking forward to this. I've known you for decades.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Literally two decades, said a minute ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yeah, go. I think I've known you since probably mid-2005, 2006. Yep, it's 20 years, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

That's uh local David Lloyd.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

At the local David Lloyd, yeah. Um so yeah, I know you've been through a lot and uh I'd be really interested to hear your journey. Obviously, you've built BTX to an incredibly amazing business that's doing very, very well. I know you've lived in Dubai for a couple of years and you recently came back from Dubai, and you're one of the people that I actually respect and admire a lot in the space.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

That means a lot to me, thank you. Because you know a lot of people in the space as well, that means a lot to me, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Genuinely. Um, you're someone who embodies their practice and genuinely practices what they preach. Um, I've seen you in the gym for years, and I and I see you. You've seen the gym, you're in front of it, yeah. And yeah, I guess without further ado, it'll be great for you to introduce yourself, your background. Obviously, you I think you did nutrition at King's. Yes, gotcha. Um, it'll be great to go into that as well, particularly around sort of nutrition, how it relates to kind of longevity, PQ and performance, how you think about all of that. And yeah, I'll let you take the stage from here in terms of your intro.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Sure, thank you, Rob. Um, so I went to uh people out my background, my parents are both dentists, um, went to a private school, and going down the fitness journey was sort of unusual because I I actually was thinking about this just before. I don't think any of my friends from school are anything but a lawyer, a banker, or a doctor. I'm not exactly, I was thinking just morning ago, all of them come from finance or law or medicine. Um, so I went when I was at school, went to good school, did ready to do one of my A levels. Um, I originally actually went to university for biomedical sciences at King's same, and then switched to nutrition degree, which unfortunate or fortune was kind of almost the same degree the first year anyway, pretty much. But it was something I was always fascinated about being really into my training, but also seeing the space grow rapidly. Um now it's massively fashionable. Everyone's into the nutrition and everyone loves reading about nutrition. Newspapers are full about nutrition, but back then I was sort of a weird niche thing. Um, so I I, as I said, growing up, played a lot of rugby at school, and then when I was 15 years old, I got into Brazilian jujitsu. And again, back then that was a really niche sport as well. No one knew what it was. Um, I watched the first UFCs and saw that the guy who won the first UFC is a guy called Lois Gracie, um, who was a Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner. And so I was like, I need to learn this martial arts. And I was in Selfridges and I saw this magazine that marked called Martial Arts Illustrated, and on the front had a picture of Roger Gracie. Roger Gracie is in London. I was like, Oh my god, they have a Gracie in London, you know, teaching jujitsu. So the first thing I did was basically say, Dad, I need to go here. Um, I took a took two buses from uh from Finchley, and then basically that that was it. I just absolutely loved it. So I've been doing that since I was 15, now I'm 36, so 21 years, and it was the best thing I ever did in my entire life. The amount of people Rob had met through martial arts is just incredible. The most kindest people I've ever met, the most amazing people. And the really special thing, Rob, about martial arts, is you would have a mat full of top lawyers doctors, binmen, construction workers, uh surgeons, everything, but everyone was on the same uh on the on the same level when they were there. And they really were. That's the only place, it's not pretend it really is everyone, everyone is good friends with each other. But one of the biggest things I learned from doing martial arts when I started martial arts young was that um you have two types of people. People that go there, every single person that goes to a real martial art, like boxing, kickboxing, jujitsu, wrestling, they're gonna get beaten up the first time they go there. All of them do. And you have two decisions to make. Either you go, wow, I'm not that tough, and I want to learn this martial arts and go back again and again, or you create a delusion in your head and then go, it's not for me, actually, a real street fighter would have beaten up the guy, and then you just go off into the distance. Um and it takes a certain type of person to stick to this. And the same kind of thing goes to businesses, right? You're gonna lose a lot of money, you don't know what you're doing, you're gonna make a lot of mistakes, and whether you keep going back and learning, it depends on the type of person, the kind of person that jures with martial arts, same kind of person that jures with everything, relationships, work, and martial arts. So I absolutely loved it, and basically what happened was um going through martial arts, it taught me discipline, work. I know those are the cliche things, but also taught me having a health ego is really important. I think a lot of people nowadays, Rob, will go, oh, you shouldn't have an ego. Nonsense. Because actually not having an ego is the biggest form of ego. If someone goes to someone, right, they go, I don't care about that. Take an example, they go like, oh, I don't care about earning any money. Everyone cares about earning money. You're just saying that because actually you're scared of being successful. The same with Rob, someone looks at your physique, they go, I don't care about being in shape. Of course you do. Every single person cares about being in shape. But actually, the biggest form of ego is pretending you don't have an ego. Actually, using the ego correctly and admitting you want something is the best thing you can do. But also having a healthy ego in terms of wanting to improve, not wanting always to win is super, super important. But um, yeah, so went to uni, did my nutrition degree, um, got into personal training, told my parents, or both dentists, I said I want to be a PT, and they're like, weird, why are you not doing the normal path, right? And they said, look, to be honest with you, as long as you enjoy what you're doing, you'll end up earning more money from it anyway. And that's what I'm here, same path as you. I absolutely love what I do and PT'd in the city, um, did relatively well, and then eventually cut along still short, opened my gym in North London and uh had my gym out there. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

So you opened up your gym, I believe, just before, was it just before COVID?

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Yeah, it was 10 days before lockdown. Um, was not the best, not the best time to open. Um, and basically, yeah, it wasn't great yet, just before COVID.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Amazing. And I think there was a story around that as well when you opened up, I think.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Yeah, so um now we can say it because literally people realise what happened. So basically, what happened was I put all my life savings into, I was going through unfortunately through a divorce at the time as well. So my money was locked up in my house. So all the money I'd left put into my gym. And then basically what happened was 10 days later, the lockdown happened, and I had no money at all, literally no money. I mean, to the point where I had nothing, and now I was back at my parents pretty bad. I was doing really, really well, had a nice, nice, nice house, married, had everything. And then within within within about three weeks, um my mum got diagnosed with bone cancer, um, uh terminally ill with bone cancer, and then my best friend died from a drug overdose one week later after that happened, and they found his body in um in a drug den. Um you'll you'll remember Dan from the gym, actually. Daniel, the guy I used to train with, um, came from a really good family. Dad's a lawyer, went to Oxford University, and yeah, died from a drug overdose. And then Was he into rugby as well? No, that's Osmond I'm thinking of Osman. Yeah, he's a professional rugby player now, yeah. So um, and then basically went through my divorce, moved back home with my parents. It was not great, and then opened this gym. Lockdown happened. But the thing was, I thought to myself, literally, um, there's not another option. People sort of think, I'm sure, with everyone, how do you how do you keep pushing? You have another choice, to be honest with you. You have to dig yourself out of the hole. So basically, what happened was um during during lockdown, you know, people said you know, weren't weren't allowed to work, and I said, Well, they're handing out these government grants. Um, we were given these government grants 20 grand, and I won't talk about how much a business owns was not enough to sustain a business for two years, a premises pays my rent for around you know six months. Um, so I had to keep open. So I was open during lockdown. The police basically came around, knocked on the door. Um, I we just trained literally, you know, a couple of clients at a time, and um the locals basically were just calling up saying this gym's open. Um, and the things I had no other choice, and looking back at it now, a lot of it was nonsense anyway. However, back then, you know, my dad sort of said, Look, you know, this is illegal what you're doing, and I said, Dad, I have no other choice. I said to my dad, I was blunt, you're gonna give me money and pay for my salary and I'll pay you back as no. I said, Well, there you go, I'm gonna keep open. Um, and now we found out how corrupt it was. People were being put on furlough, however, who's going to pay for the furlough? And now we're finding out now we're all paying it back through our tax, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Absolutely. In terms of how you think about training, and obviously you've been training for about 20 years. Is there anything you've changed your opinion on that you know when you started out in your 20s that you think about differently now?

SPEAKER_00 9:20

God, that's that's a really, really good question. The importance of cardio massively. Um, so I think back then people thought that if you want to put muscle tissue on, you shouldn't do cardio, which is one of the most harmful, it is the most harmful thing you can do. As you know, your VOT Max basically column store shows better on how fit you are. Um improving that is the most powerful way to increase your life expectancy and uh your lifespan and your quality of life too. So implementing cardio um uh into my routine and with our clients' routines has been the biggest change because the fitter you are, the more volume you can handle, and therefore you can put muscle tissue on anywhere. That's probably the biggest one, is that?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Absolutely. How do you think of building your aerobic base in terms of obviously the different training zones for cardiovascular exercise in terms of what you adopt yourself, and I guess it varies per client, but the starting point, every client is different, they have different constraints. How do you think about that in terms of improving one's VOT Max? Because it it is the evidence shows that it's clearly one of the most effective protocols when it comes to optimizing health spend longevity.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

So with each client it does differ, but some things are exactly the same for each person. So um a lot of people, one of the things actually is a training too hard. And that's one of one of the things we're talking about before you asked me um what things have you changed over the last 20 years in the way you look at training. And the way I looked at training back then was you hammer yourself, you get stronger, you get fitter. That's just completely wrong. It's not right, out and out not right. You need to train correctly. That is going to actually end say over a year's time, you've got the guy who destroys himself every single session in the weight room and in cardio, the guy who understands the training, periodise the training correctly, actually, quite a lot of a lot of sessions they'll have some room in the tank, and you feel like, oh, but they don't know nothing, it's full of sweat. That person in 12 months' time is going to be a lot fitter and stronger than the person that's hammered themselves every session. So when it comes to training of VO2 Max, um, what the studies show, you'll know the answers anyway, but you're asking me with the podcast. Um most of your sessions should be zone two. So you basically want a ratio of five zone two sessions or four zone two sessions time to uh the ratio of one uh VO2 max session, so zone four slash zone five. So most of your work should be zone two. And that should actually be for every single client, that should be for everyone. So depending on how fit that person is. So zone two, you have heart rate zones. So for someone who's in their 30s, 40s, the heart rates will be around 130 to 140. However, the better way to do that is if you don't have a H10 PODO strap, would just to see whether you can talk to someone. You don't have to be able to talk a long sentence, be able to have a conversation with someone. And the way to describe it is it doesn't annoy you talking to someone, you can have a bit of a conversation with them. That is zone two cardio. The zone four to five, three and above, you shouldn't be able to have a conversation. You have you can do short words or phrases, and that session, the zone four to five one, should be one per week. The zone two, if you can handle the volume over time, you would start with 30 minutes three to five times a week, and then gradually the best you can do is an hour each session, and eventually, Tour de France cyclists and rowers are doing an hour and a half twice a day of that.

unknown 12:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

So I think the standard guideline states 150 minutes of zone two per week.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Spot on, 150 minutes a week, up to 300 minutes a week.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

That's the that's the range. I err on the side of at least 180, like I think.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

I'm exact I'm exactly the same myself. I do actually 180 to 200 a week, so I try and minimum hit 180 and hit 200 probably most weeks.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um moving on to another topic. In terms of the people that you've trained, I believe um you trained KSI's brother, I think. Yeah, Deji, yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Yeah, one of our PTs did Simon. Shout out to Simon.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Incredible.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Um, and I think there was like some kind of bet that was that was that was Yeah, so so Deji has a bet with KSI's brothers, yeah, very famous, who um owns a drink prime and is well known for other things about massive YouTube channels, really, really interesting guy. So Deji um had a bet with his brother. Um KSI said he'll pay him a million pounds, um, so pretty 1.2 million dollars if he could get a six pack in a certain amount of time. Um, unfortunately, Deji came to us quite late. He came to us only with 10 weeks left, and I think he could give him six months. Um, but he did amazingly. I mean, you can see the photos, we put them up. I mean, he he did incredible. He was training really hard, eating really, really well, he got pretty lean, he got close. I reckon if you had another two weeks in him, he would have got a six pack. He did really well.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Incredible. So just it needed a little bit more time.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Just more time, and unfortunately, that was with all clients, right? People, people uh people are a bit delusional how quickly it'll be to get lean. And most people, Rob, you'll know this have more body fat than they think they do. They you'd you'll get a client come in our gym and they'll say, I'll say, How much do you think you need to lose? And they'll be six kilos, and then what we do is put them on in body scanner, which is pretty accurate, it's a pretty good way to measure change, it's not as accurate as a DEXA scanner, but quite often they look at the numbers and they're like, Well, I'd probably have to lose about 20 kilos in the end. People underestimate how much they have to lose.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Absolutely. If you take on a new client at BTX, what is the process in terms of taking them on? And do you do blood work with each and every client that you take on from the outset? Or if they've already got blood work, do you take a look at it?

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yes, we we we try and we try and do that. So um uh a lot of clients will have blood work. There's someone's really interested in that and have blood work done, but we will try and do blood work with clients. Um, we have a doctor called Dr. Matthew Milner, who's a consultant, an any consultant, very smart man um who understands sports medicine, which is the most important part. A lot of doctors will won't understand blood work when it comes to trained individuals.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Um, so an example would be quite often the kidney numbers will look off, their creatinine will be very high, but actually it's because they have a lot of muscle tissue. And an average doctor or GP will think the person has um kidney failure, but they don't. So that's an example. So they'll do their blood work, and what we'll do is um Matt will go through their blood work, and Matt and I will uh liaise, and then what we'll do is create a supplementation and uh nutrition protocol based based on them. And this isn't a cell, truthfully, it is actually different for every single person. So we had a client the other day who um was borderline type 2 diabetic. Um, we would for them, I believe in redity, moderate carbohydrates, but training how both of us have a lot of carbs. However, for someone that is bordering on that, we would add some supplements in, some berberine. Also he was on metformin that Matt prescribed, right? And we also learned his carbohydrate training for most of the day, and then he would have carbohydrates around his training. So that shows you why it's important to do someone's blood work.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Absolutely. I was looking at some studies around berberine. Um interestingly, I was taking berberine as well, but I switched to dehydroberberine because apparently it's more bioavailable, although there are still studies that are lacking in terms of that. Um I was told that um it's less likely to cause gut issues as well if you're taking dehydroberberine.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

It's funny because berberine with our clients a few of them had got gut issues with it. And I took it for a bit just to give it a go because our clients take it, I sort of give it a go, but gave me some gut issues with the berberine myself. So you have to tell me how it goes. Oh no, I usually use a guinea pig, and you tell me how it goes.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

I've been taking it for a while actually, and I'm someone who's pretty insulin sensitive anyway. But what I think it has helped with is uh managing, for example, like lowering your LDL slightly. I think it has helped help with things like that and APOB a little bit. Oh, not I wouldn't say a massive amount, but there I think there is evidence to show that it does help with lipids.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Do you do you think that's possibly with just controlling a blood sugar better? I'd imagine I would imagine so.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

I don't know, but perhaps, yeah. Um yeah, it'll be interesting to look at the research behind that and the science behind that, but that's what I imagine.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

The strange thing is a lot of these supplements that people thought people give you an example, fish oils, whatever it may be. People thought, you know, it was the not placebo, but thought it was nonsense. The problem is you say, wait, say you're 25 and you don't take them because you think it's a you know a nonsense. By the time the research comes out, you're almost too not too late, but you're sort of putting off time that you could be using them. And I think if supplements have low side effects that are pretty safe and benign, I think why not try them?

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah. I think one of the supplements that you keep mentioning that's important that I take every day and I think it's really important as well, is omega-3s.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Oh, fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah, so two supplements that I think without blood work that people should I'm not saying should definitely take, but strongly consider is creatine monohydrate.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Absolutely, five to grams.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Omega-3. Those two supplements are so and vitamin D as well. Yeah, vitamin D, especially in the UK.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

I mean, you're in Dubai, so probably an issue. Yeah, yeah. So if you're going to take three supplements, that pretty much everyone should take. And look, of course, consult your doctor, of course, do your blood work first. But in in general, 99% of the population should be supplementing with a high quality omega-3. Um, one of the ones I love is Nordic naturals, very high quality supplement. Um, low in heavy metals, quite often, um, cod liver oil or fish ore can have be contaminated heavy metals. Um, so make sure you look for one that is tested, which one of them is Nordic naturals. You want to have two to three grams of EPA DHA total. So you look on the back. People ask me, can I take Holland and Barrett brand? It's not just the heavy metals, but also the actual quant quality, so the amount of DHA and EPA is so small, you're end up spending more money trying to get the two to three grams from the from the Holland and Barrett versus, say, taking Nordic naturals. And then I'll add that vitamin D, 3,000 to 5,000 IUs a day, but you don't really know how much you need. Darker skinned individuals will need more living in the UK, but get your blood work done on that too. And the last one we're saying was creating monohydrate. Now we're knowing that it's incredibly powerful for brain health. Um, originally the dose was five grams a day, it doesn't matter when you take it, but now studies show taking up to 20 to 40 grams a day can be massively uh protective of your brain, particularly after um an injury of some sort. So people have head trauma, rugby players, boxes, after head injury, having 20 to 40 grams can massively decrease the long-term damage from head trauma.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Particularly also around sleep deprivation, I think. Yes. Apparently, if you're taking like let's say you've had a poor night's sleep and you need to really focus, you got an exam or what you know, you got something that requires a lot of cognitive load, then taking 10 or more grams is actually been seen to be an effective protocol for the colour.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Yeah, I remember back in the day. I mean, people would say, I remember when I first got my crub top of creatine, not so much my parents, I sort of knew what it was, but I remember my next or neighbour's mum literally like this and that. Um, I was taking creatine five grams a day, it was maxi muscle back then. I remember the Mary Brand from David Lloyd. And I remember the mum coming over and knocking on my parents' door, and my dad asked the door, and he goes, I think your son's on creatine. And I was like, Um, okay. And then she's like, It's a steroid. But that was like, it's not a steroid, it's completely changing, and every person should be taking creatine monohydrate. And again, people ask me what what type creatine monohydrate is the most researched um supplement in the world. Um, but also monohydrate is the best form. Yeah. Um, people ask me about all the different ones. Yeah, creatine monohydrate works, so just stick to that by far, it's the best.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Definitely. I've actually been taking it in combination with taurine. So I take uh creatine monohydrate with taurine in it, and there's evidence to show that that is helpful when it comes to like endurance, so bouts of heavy endurance.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Funnily enough, I've started taking um taurine as well, three to five grams a day, and it does help. It definitely does help. And I'm one of those people, and I mean I'm a skeptic when it comes to things like this. Yeah, I'm very skeptical of supplements, um, but it definitely works. Yeah, it definitely works, taurine.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Absolutely going back to omega-3, and I think you've highlighted this point as well. It's important, obviously, where you're getting your omega-3 from and what form it's in. So I think you've emphasized this in terms of yeah, triglyceride form versus ethylester, and you know, obviously, triglyceride form is a lot more bioavailable than ethylester forms, which is commonly sold in places like boots. It's cheaper.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Yeah, so yes, an ordinary naturals is triglyceride form. Um, my friend Jordan Peters has an incredible supplement company called Trained by JP. I asked her and he laughed and he goes, Of course it's triglyceride form. So it's nice to talk to people like Jordan and yourself who really understand stuff. Triglyceride form is the best form, it's much more bioavailable. Um, and the amount the problem is you can technically get it from people who asked me, they always ask, Can I take get oily from oily fish, salmon, sardines, etc. But the amount of um sardines and uh salmon you'd have to have, you'd end up with heavy metatoxicity. Because unfortunately, our our oceans are polluted, and we can't, it's gonna be taken a Long time to come back from that. So if you had enough salmon or whatever it may be, uh uh sardines, etc., mackerel, you'd end up with heavy metal poisoning. And in fact, people think that would never happen to me. The guy who um you'll remember exactly who he is, he's on um Entourage, uh Ari Gold. Okay, Ari Gold, the real guy, I can't remember his name now. I think it's Jeremy Pittman, maybe it's it. He um I remember talking to Jonathan Ross a few years. He actually got mercury poisoning from eating fish every meal in a very, very sick and hospitalized. So it's not a made-up thing. So you actually could end up like that. So definitely take the supplement form, and they're much low in heavy metals.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

That's a very, very good point. Back to vitamin D. Obviously, taking something in synthetic form is not as favourable, I think, as you know, getting natural sunlight. Of course, obviously it's something that we have to consider in the UK because we're not getting often we're not getting enough sunlight here. Um that's something to also think about. But also in taking vitamin D, I think it's also important to weigh in other factors such as whether you're whether you have enough magnesium. Um vitamin K. Yeah, so um, yeah, vitamin K, MK7 in particular, I think is important to ensure that um calcification of your artery pulls out the calcium out. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Funny so that magnesium, that's the the fourth one I would add add in. It's funny I didn't want to overdo people with supplements, etc. But actually, magnesium is the same with what we were saying, is another one people should take. It's very difficult to get off magnesium from your diet in bioavailable form because the vegetables and fruit we have nowadays, the the soil is depleted of magnesium just because we over farm, um, and they get leached of magnesium. So taking a high quality magnesium supplement, 200 to 300 milligrams a day, magnesium biglycinate is the most um uh easily of all uh uh uh bioavailable form, but also won't give you stomach upsets like magnesium citrate and oxide can give you.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Absolutely, yeah. I use pure encapsulations. Best company.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Yeah, they're the best. Someone I use as well. Pure encapsulation fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Um it's interesting because I think a lot of people are getting supplements from Amazon, and I think there has been evidence to show that you can get two of the same packages of supplements, but one of them doesn't actually have what it says it's in it, which is pretty insane. So it's interesting. We have companies like Health, um H-E-A-L-F, um that have come out, and I think they're trying to address things like that.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Yeah, I think they're brilliant. So funny enough, when I came back to the UK, I did a bulk order, probably spent too much money on health. Um, but they are fantastic. I really mean that. I'm not just saying this. One of one of my friends, James Grant from school, he's the year below me from Habs. He um has a uh a big uh uh health brand he's building at the moment. You know James Grant by any chance?

SPEAKER_01 24:50

I don't actually. You might know him by face.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

You're gonna contact him, he's a brilliant, brilliant guy from school. Um he's helping out build out Stephen Bartlett's gyms in in um in town. Um what's it called again? Until until Messi. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Until Messenger. Until well, yeah. So he was too at health. You know, he's at he's in doing work with them. And he asked me in a podcast, he was asking what brands you like the most, and I forgot if we did another video afterwards to say because that wasn't me pretending. I think they're brilliant health, they're fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Fantastic, yeah. I think there's also a lot of independent companies coming up that actually do a lot of the testing and third-party testing, right? So it's worth looking into that as well. Maybe I'll tag that into the show notes. Sure are companies out there that actually validate whether what is in the supplement is in the supplements. I think that's right.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

A lot of NMN supplements were fake. I know back then when um Dr. David Sinclair started talking about NMN and mitochondrial health. So Dr. David Sinclair, you know, we both know he is, but he's professor of genetics at Harvard, it's on top people in the whole world. And he was saying NMN being uh good for mitochondrial health. As we age a mitochondria, mitochondria age, one of the things that ages us, and he said NMN was one of the best way to replenish mitochondrial health, etc. And then all these sort of companies in China are making this NMN and loads of them were basically just fake. There's nothing in there at all. That's why it's so so important to get it tested or really go the reptile brand. Do you take NMN yourself? I do, yeah, I do. I take trying to get the butcher the amount, I think it's 300 to 300 to 500 milligrams a day. The brand I use, um I looked up extensively, don't I forgot the name, apologies, but it's it's a grey pack of package. Maybe we'll put it put a picture up afterwards, but yeah. 300-500 milligrams a day.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

One of the interesting things about testing for NAD plus levels, I think I I haven't actually had my NAD test levels checked, but that's the one thing that I haven't really tested yet. But I'm actually thinking of getting getting it.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

I think a really cool thing to get done. Yeah, I think quite a lot of mitochondrial supplements. Another one um all the top of my head, uh NMN resveratrol, I take.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Um resveratrol is an interesting one because I know Dr. David Sinclair's made some claims about that, but apparently they're not well backed. I think the claims around, from what I've understood, NMN are stronger.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Yes, well that yeah, they absolutely are. NMN definitely works, yeah. And you can also obviously get injectable NAD, of course. Um, L-carnitine's another one for mitochondrial health. Acetyl, uh it's actually N acetylcarnitine. But anyway, that was that kind of remember back in the day, this is the weird thing. I mean, it was around 20 years ago, it was very popular L-carnitine, then it came out of fashion again, now it's coming back again.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Um, but uh one that definitely works. You're gonna take one mitochondrial supplement, definitely NMN is is the one to take or injectable NAD, you can get very good companies that make pharmaceutical grade. I know people think it's nonsense getting these drips, but NAD drips can be fantastic for improving pharma um mitochondrial health. So I need to get done done, actually get tested.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Yeah, definitely, definitely are licking to get that tested. Also, there's some nuances around um NMN supplementation at boosting NAD levels. And I think the other reason why it's good to get it tested is there's things like um there's enzymes like CD38, which could actually lower the amount of NMN that you're actually absorbing. So it's like in in some sense, it's like comparing it to like putting water into a sink with the plug not being in it. So yeah, so yeah, it'll be interesting. There's I don't think there's any robust testing around that at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

No, there isn't, that's the thing that isn't. But one thing we are 100% sure we're coming into is mitochondrial health is vital for longevity. It just really, really is. And and the most powerful way to improve improve mitochondrial health is zone two cardio, more than any peptide, more than anything else, the most powerful way is zone two cardio. And um getting your VO2 max high. And then obviously strength training. Of course, of course, yeah, strength training. Of course, I forget because fashionable tobacco cardio right now, I mean strength training is it's very powerful. Again, people just saw it as sort of a vanity thing back in the day, but now people realize that one of the most important things you can do to improve your longevity is strength training. So increasing your bone mass and menopause, women when they go through menopause, you want your bone mass as high as possible before you go through menopause and your bone mass starts decreasing. Um, because trying to weight train after you start going through menopause or as during menopause is much harder to build up bone mass. So you want to be as high as possible before you go through menopause. And it's a really weird thing where someone will have cancer or has wasting disease like HIV, one of the most powerful things they do is they give them anabolic steroids to make sure they're holding on to muscle tissue because that's what kills them in the end. And Anivar was made for burn victims and people that are losing muscle tissue. Um, oxandrolone, medical name, and they'll tell it's weight train. But the weird thing is literally people only recently realize how powerful it is, or they kind of combine the two and realise everyone should be weight training, or has to be weight training, in fact.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Absolutely. How do you think about obviously that there's a lot of talk in the biohacking space around peptides? Um my personal opinion is there's not enough evidence to back some of these peptides up, in particular things like PPC 157 MOT C. I think the clinical data is too early to say whether these things are effective and what the repercussions might be. But there are peptides where there is strong evidence and they are FDA approved things like GLP1s.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

And they definitely work, of course.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Even collagen is a peptide. Yeah, of course yes. So um I take um marine uh hydrolyzed collagen. I take it. Yeah, there's evidence to show that it's good for skin health.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

You know, you're not Rob's laughing because if we can't I wouldn't tell a schmooze and she asked me nice questions. I generally said to how old are you 44? I'm allowed to listen to 44.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

43 still, but I'm gonna be 44 in October, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Okay, so actually 43, yeah. So um the funny thing is talking about that, I'm at the age of 36 now where I start lying about my age a bit. It's terrible. But um I genuinely said to Rob, what he said he's 40, 43. I genuinely mean this. I obviously we're gonna be older because you can't I can't get older and you say the same age, it doesn't make any sense. But by looking at Rob, I'm sure the listeners will tell you the comments gonna be horrible, aren't they? Now but I I genuinely say it's uh mid-30s, it's bizarre. It has a deal with the devil, or you're taking the right supplementation, and that's why she listens podcasts more.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

It's funny you say that. Sometimes I'm in the changing room, and like people ask me about my age, and like when when I tell them, they're like F off.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

No, it's what I thought was weird when you tell me that I'll be saying no, you are because you know we're back in the day, so you would have been, my goodness, you were young, like you were just going to business school, you're 23, 24. It's crazy, isn't it? Yeah, that's how long ago it was. Yeah, yeah. Um, but was it got side traits? So was it peptides, yeah. So what do I think of peptides? I think they're promising. I think they're so one of the ones that definitely were a GLP1 agonist work. I was at university um when a physiology lecturer who as a Greenwood lecture theatre at Kings, she's one of the top uh physiology lecturers in the world. She spoke about this new drug that was a GLP1 agonist back then. And she I remember this picture on our sh on our notes that had uh a lizard on there. And the reason I had that was because um they extract this from the Gila monster, a lizard, and that's where they found out found this GLP 1 agonist from.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

Fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

And um we were learning about gut torments, that's why it came out the GLP ones, and she said this will stop obesity in the next uh 15 to 20 years, and this is why I get annoyed people in the fitness space that have this chip on their shoulder that go, well, you know, they're lazy people taking this. I'm like, well, not really. The thing is, actually, more than ever, you need a personal trainer. What's happening with these GLP1 agonists is people um the people are not eating correctly, and what happens is and they don't weight train, yeah, they starve themselves, they lose muscle and fat at the same rate, and they end up the same body fat percentage, but just lighter, and they look terrible, yeah, look skinny fat, and they end up with a lot of health problems, losing bone mass, etc. So, more than ever, someone needs guidance from a trainer or a nutritionist to make sure they eat properly while they're on these GLP1 agonists and to show them how to weight train while they do that, and that's going to mitigate the side effects you get from GLP1 agonists. Well, it's going to tell your body when it calorie deficit is if you're eating a protein eating well, you'll end up just burning into your fat and all onto your muscle tissue, and therefore you look great at the end. You look a Hollywood star. The the thing about GLP 1 agonists are I think they're a brilliant tool, in particular for people that are massively obese.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Um, people that are really, really big, people don't understand that it's a it's a mental health problem. You don't get to um 160 kilos by just having a scoop of ice cream every night or eating a couple of more biscuits, a couple more biscuits. It's actually very, very sad. So these GRP1 agonists, I think, are brilliant and can save people's lives. And people ask me about the side effects. I can tell you one thing, Rob. The side effects from being 160 kilos are going to be worse than the side effects from GRP1 agonists.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

100%. I agree with that. Absolutely. Yeah, definitely something to take into account. It's funny, I asked the same question to Asim Malhotra, and he's like, I wouldn't give it to my worst enemy.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

He's feeling his worst enemy. What's his name? Uh Dr. Fauci giving him try this new drug. Yeah, but um, no, look, there are going to be side effects. The problem with drugs that just come out, um you don't know what's going to happen with them. However, if you're 160 kilos, so so actually, what the advice I'd give is if you're someone that is slightly overweight, I would do everything you can to get a trainer and a nutritionist and do it, do it the correct way for you. But if you're someone that is massively overweight, to be honest, you have nothing to lose. Yeah. Um, would you have a lot to lose? At least it could be.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

At least it could be a catalyst to get them started. I think the problem with a lot of these things is like take SSRIs for instance, people become addicted and they become reliant. And that is the issue is being able to do it but not rely on it. Do you know, just just to be able to get you going, but spots I think that's the issue more than anything else.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

So it's funny, that was the next point about the GRP1 agonist. So um the whole point how you use them correctly is someone that has has a really bad diet, has a very very has very bad eating habits, binge eats all the time, has a binge eating disorder, which unfortunately probably is 80% of the population have a binge eating disorder. They pretend they don't, they starve themselves during the day, they eat nothing at work, and then they go home and binge your biscuits. That's more than half the population. Um, what it can do, the GLP1 agonist, is take away food noise. So what can happen is basically you don't feel starving or don't feel ravenous, and you basically just eat when you when you need to eat. What you can do with that is then you can you can start to correct your diet because you're not uh brutally hungry, you basically can start to think to yourself, what should I be eating? And you improve your food habits. When you start to lose weight, two things. You feel better about yourself, therefore you you start to feel less depressed, you're less likely to binge eat anyway. But also you build good food habits so you're not reliant on it. So when you come off the gel people and agonist, you already feel more affordable because you're eating enough protein each meal and your food habits have changed. Same with the SSRIs, they can be fantastic for people that are a mess. Again, it's very easy for people. I know, again, personal trainers, people in the fitness industry, it's terrific. Talking to psychiatrists how to deal with mental health is disgraceful. You need to use a two-pronged approach. Of course, diet and exercise, sunlight, connection with people is incredibly powerful, if not more powerful. But the SSRI gets them out of that space, they can think clearly and eventually move off the SSRI once those habits have changed.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

Absolutely. Society signals is uh a big factor. So there is evidence to say that if you take, I think it's 30 grams of protein first thing as you when you break your fast, that can effectively act as a GLP one in a sense because of course, yeah. So there are ways around it if you if you feel like that there's too much.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Eating protein in every meal is the most powerful way you can um uh uh stop yourself being hungry. Most people just don't eat right. Their meal would be um a bowl of pasta or a pack of crisps. No wonder you feel hungry. Rob, if I had that, I seem to be disciplined in my food. I'm not particularly disciplined in my food, it's because I'm eating proper food. My food habits are good in terms of I pick good food. The thing is, this calories in versus calories out. To lose weight, you have to be in a calorie deficit. And then people say, um, you know, move more, eat less, etc. That doesn't work. We know it doesn't work from studies. Just being in a calorie deficit does not work. However, you still need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. So, how do we work around that? The way we work around that is eating good quality food. If you eat foods that are more natural, um, that are whole foods, meat, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, etc., you're going to feel more full. 100%. If you eat 200 calories from a chicken breast versus a couple of scoops of ice cream, the chicken breast is going to make you feel more full, therefore, you're less likely to overeat calories, and therefore do you lose weight?

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Absolutely. Having nutrient-dense foods is absolutely essential in terms of um feeling more full for sure. Spot on it, of course.

unknown 38:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

In fact, MS has launched a whole new range called nutrient-dense.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Actually, so weirdly said that I noticed when I came back to the UK, um when when I go into God, it sounds so snobby when I go into HRA's. Um, but all a lot of the foods and MS as well will have all the ingredients on the front. So you notice this, that a lot of them they've removed all the fillets and everything. So you actually look at them, they're basically like salt, lemon, olive oil, they don't have as much rubbish in them anymore. Because they know people are looking at them.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Absolutely. Another point that I think that is not emphasized enough is fibre, getting enough fibre. Because there's there's a lot of social media noise around protein, but there's nowhere near the amount when it comes to fibre, and I think that's starting to be a new trend in terms of ensuring that you have enough fibre and the benefits of that in terms of improving your gut microbiome.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

It's I can look you in the eyes and go, I swear my life. That's the next topic I wanted to go into. I was thinking of Tim Specter. I was actually looking in the eye. I was gonna ask you about Tim as well, actually. Yeah, so it was at uni, um, one of our lecturers at King's, um, incredible guy from grew up round here as well. Um around the corner. So, about gut health and fibre. So it's not a sexy protein we've known about for a while because people want to build muscle tissue. Because people, I'll tell you this, it's really interesting. Whether people like it or not, longevity doesn't sell. People don't you like to live long, but it's not now.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

What is now is looking good.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

100%.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

Why do people want to buy a Ferrara a nice watch? Because instantaneously can make them look good. That's the thing. So people care about how they look in their image. So that is why people care about protein. You can look muscular, you can look strong, you can look lean, look sexy. Someone saying you can take those fire and do a good shit. I mean, right? But can't have one without the other. Um, so talking about the microbiome, um, the microbiome is um the the types of bacteria you have in your gut, your gut flora, um, the good and bad. And Dr. Sonnenberg at Stanford, the reason why we didn't know about the microbiome until recently, in terms of what was good and what was bad, was because we knew that we had basically good bacteria that helped you digest food and bad bacteria that were gave gave basically cause issues with your gut. However, we didn't actually know what microbes you should have and shouldn't have till Dr. Sonnenberg Stanford and his wife tested um and same with uh Tim Spectr at King's College London, did massive uh epidemiological studies with large amounts of people to see people that had good gut health, what microbe uh microbes they have, people have bad gut uh my uh gut health, what microbes they have. And they took this massive pool of data and then created a microbiome map of what you should have. And that's how we have gut health testing now. What you'll do is you go to a doctor and they'll take a stool sample, they will test your gut microbiome basing what what you have in your gut, what bad and what good, and they'll tell you um how healthy your gut is from that. But it's only because they've done all this epitemiological data and testing that they have now this gut map.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

That's fascinating. On to Tim Spectre as well. Obviously, he created Zoe and the CGM. Do you have a view on that? Uh in terms of do you think we're over optimizing? Do you think there's any meaningful way of actually of tracking your blood glucose? Do you think it's it's useful for some people, maybe not useful for others, or yeah, but good question.

SPEAKER_00 41:28

So uh about the blood blood glucose testing, I don't I think that's unnecessary. However, people that are borderline type 2 diabetic, absolutely they will need to. And some per certain populations have tendencies towards type 2 diabetic, type 2 diabetes, sort of Asian South Asians, maybe can be more useful for them. But one thing about Tim Spectre and the team at Zoe, the gut health testing is incredible, they are the best in the world at that. Um, in terms of the way they do it with their with their gut health testing, what they'll do is they take your gut microbiome and they tell you how to eat. To be honest with you, you can can do that without having your gut microbiome checked. There's a few things you should be doing. If you want to optimize your gut health, um, there's a few this is the list. Number one would be to increase your fiber intake and the types of fiber you have. And the way you can do that is um eating 30 different plant foods a week, having a diverse diet, so different colours, the the uh reds, greens, etc. But you have to remember this, it sounds like a lot, but a plant can be chocolate, it can be coffee, it can be turmeric, it can be uh herbs and spices as well. Absolutely. And doing that will give you um improved gut health and basically grow the good bacteria and kill off the bad bacteria. What happens is when the good bacteria take over, the they kill off the bad bacteria. Number two would be fermented foods. So eating um things like kefir, sauerkraut, sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, which I love, having two of those per day, two to three per day, every single day. Yoghurt, of course, cheeses at fermented food. Most powerful ones in there are sauerkraut, kimchi, and kefir. Having those three per day, a tablespoon of each and um 150 mils of kefir will massively improve your gut health. And one of the other ones, number three on there, will be cutting out processed foods. So uh processed foods, if you look on the back, quite often they'll have um fillers, emulsifiers. So emulsifiers are to make sure two liquids that shouldn't mix, it will basically help them mix. That's what I add emulsifies, ice cream, a lot of um processed foods. And what that can do is kill off the good bacteria in your gut. So avoiding processed foods, refined sugar, etc., will be number three. And actually, number four would be social connection, exercise, and sleeping well. They're super important as well for um for improving your gut health.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

Absolutely. When you mentioned emulsifiers, it just made me think of this series that I watched recently on proteins. It was like the top ten most popular protein brands. Bars with the bars. I think the uh it was like so it was funnily enough, you mentioned Maxi Muscle earlier. They were one of them, and they were showing. That basically maxi muscle protein, um, gold standard, some of the most popular ones are actually terrible for you in terms of the ingredients that they have in them. Um there's a lot of synthetics in there terrible which are terrible for you. So something that I think people should be cognizant of is actually what they're taking, not because it's just a lot of it's just marketing. Of course. It's it's you really need to understand what you're take what you're actually ingesting, what you're actually taking in.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

The protein powders, um, the ingredients to look at the back. So when you're talking about protein powders, what you look for in the back would be um look away protein, of course, just whatever it is, a protein powder. Um, but the the other things that have in them are um a lot of I know people don't like this, but artificial sweeteners are not good for your gut.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

I love artificial sweeteners, because I used to drink sure like you, loads of Diet Coke, etc., which is um which is aspartame. Sucralose, which is so-called as better artificial sweetener, um, is not good for your gut. So we can say about the cancer risk, etc. The amount of aspartane you would have to have to cause increase your cancer risk is ridiculous. You're not going to have that. However, sucralose, which is in all the protein powders, is bad for your gut microbiome. Yeah. Look, I don't, you know, having a bit per day, if you want to have it, go ahead. But it will make your gut microbiome worse. So the whey protein I have something called Naked Whey, right? Where they it is literally whey grass-fed whey protein. Um, if you have the flavoured one, I mean that is the only ingredient, but if they have the flavored one, it'll be cacao powder and coconut sugar, and that's it. Absolutely go for that brand Naked Way. It's a lot better for you because all the other ones are just full of crap. They just are full of like 400 different ingredients.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

Absolutely. Couldn't agree with you more. Going on to your background, uh I know you're half Japanese. Yes. Yeah, and you mentioned your mum. Um, you went through um obviously you sadly lost your mum. Um I'm sure she's someone that inspired you a lot. Um what have you learned? What's your biggest takeaway from Japanese culture and tradition? I think you went to Japan as well. Yeah, recently when I went around. I would love to hear your take on Japan. Um I've I've read Dan Buten's book as well. Yes, yes, yes. Um really keen to hear your take on like the community aspect, which is strongly ingrained in Japanese culture. And I think matcha's popular in in Japan as well.

SPEAKER_00 46:25

Yeah, of course, green green tea. So I know it's fashionable now, you go to every sort of coffee shop and they're matcha. Yeah. Um, where my mum is from, Shizuka is the biggest producer of green tea in Japan. Um, they make the best green tea in the world. Um, so Japan the first thing is Japanese people, we'll go into sort of the culture aspect in terms of how they behave, but um, they're the longest living people in the world. Um, and funny enough, they actually smoke a lot. And I'm not saying smoking is terrible for you, but this though you'll see where I'm getting with this. Um but they have the lowest level of obesity in the developed world, so the leanest people in the whole world. It's quite rare to use some fat in Japan. Um, and they smoke one of the most actually in the developed world. So it shows you being fat is actually worse than smoking, and obviously it's best to be lean and don't smoke. What it shows you is people avoid the fact we all know smoking is bad, there's a taboo behind it, which there should be, which there should be. Um, but you're not allowed to say how bad obesity is for you. The obesity causes the strain on NHS. If we had a leaner population, if we had the same amount of um overweight people as Japan, the NHS would be flourishing. We're not allowed to say that. So that's one of the biggest things first. They stay lean, they're massively into sports. Um, but the food they just eat is very different. So I grew up with my mum cooking Japanese food, so just eat properly. It was meat, rice, vegetables, like a body boiler, basically, all the time. Um, plenty, plenty of fermented foods, they eat something called natto, which I know people hate, which I actually like being Japanese, um, which is fermented soybeans. So they they eat a lot of fermented foods, pickles, etc. And that's another thing about gut health. And at school, they are fed properly. The school meals are real food. You know, you have rice, rice, and meat, etc. Um, and the main reason, unfortunately, we won't talk about this, people are not overweight, they have a massive shame culture. So people will look down on if you're overweight. They just do, they think you're lazy and etc. etc. Whether it's right or wrong, you know, it's up for discussion, but that is a lot of the reason people just are not overweight there and why they live so long.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

I think another reason why that might be is they have this practice called horrorhachi boo. I don't know what that is. Essentially, it means stop eating when you're when you feel around 80% fat.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

Oh, yes, they don't they they they think it's vulgar. Yeah, it's funny you said that. So my mum would be disgusted at my dad. Like my dad knows he would literally gorge and you know, like you know, typical when you eat more and more. My mum would they always stop early, they're like partially fall, and they go, That's enough. Yeah, that's massively part of their culture. You won't you won't overeat ever. They think it's vulgar to overeat. Do you adopt that yourself? I do, yeah, I do. I don't I don't overeat at all. So I know people get shocked when they go out for me for food and they sort of order loads, and they're like, Well, you don't eat that much, mate, just don't overeat. Um, and what I am one of those annoying people that's chocolate in the house, and I'll just have one or two every day and it'll just go go really so I never really binge eat at all on stuff. Maybe that's what I was brought up, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

Fantastic. Moving on, what do you think is the biggest misconception in the health industry currently?

SPEAKER_00 49:19

God, okay. We'll start with I'll give you two answers. Number one would be my pet hate is high rocks, and there's a reason for this. I know you're laughing because I get it. I get on laughing crap. There's a reason for it. Joking aside, the reason for this is the things I like about high rocks, first of all, I think it's fantastic, gets a lot of people into training, brilliant community, which I think is super important for training. Why martial arts do well? Why I love jujitsu, amazing community. Admittedly, you're better people than high rox people. However, um, being serious, the high rocks, I love the idea of it that you know, it's being a hybrid athlete, you want to be fit and you want to be strong. Just like us, you want to be as strong as possible, you want to be as fit as possible. Where I think think it's nonsense is the way they do it. Um, to do, to get fit and strong, you need to separate your training. I know exactly how you do. So you want to, when you weight train, you want to be fresh to make sure you're lifting as much weight as weight possible, to make sure your body's adapting and building muscle tissue and recovering. That that gives your body the signal to build muscle tissue and to be strong. If you're doing your weight training with your cardio, you're going to be fatigued, you're very likely to get injured. First of all, you're doing complex movements and heavy weight, which are dangerous, but also be lifting less weight, and therefore you won't uh signal to your body to build muscle tissue. The other way around, if you're doing cardiovascular training, not fresh, even your zone two training, this is super important. You want to be as fresh as possible to give your your um your heart and lungs um and your muscle cells the signal to get fitter, to uh make uh to make your mitochondria stronger, bigger and stronger, to increase vascularization of your heart, lungs, muscle tissue, uh extracamillary beds, you need to be doing your cardio fresh. So that is the really, really bad part about HIROX. And this is the issue with training in general. People jump from one bandwagon to the next, and this is the issue I have with training. People need to stick to something long term. Jumping from one thing to the other is my pet hate in the fitness industry, and it's massively damaging to get people getting in shape.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

Absolutely. Um that's well said. Anything that you would like to cover that we haven't covered at this particular point or juncture.

SPEAKER_00 51:30

You know what? First time, no, you've asked me about it. I generally mean that because um I actually know what just one last thing I'd say is um I heard two people talking in my David Lord changing room about talent creatine. And um they uh one of the guys talking about creatine, and then and then and and then he goes, you know, it's not just you know, it's only for really people that weight train. And was that wasn't the problem, Sim saying only people that people only people that train. And I said to him, I said, first of all, that's not true. Second of all, everyone should be training, and this is super important. I hope more people will I think me would not think more people do realize this, Rob. Everyone should be exercising. It's not for someone that's just a meathead, it's not for someone that's into their fitness, it is not a a last-itch effort after all my work, or I'll train or do some exercise. You have to exercise, you have to exercise for everyone. It's not someone I'm not into sports. Well, you have to be into sports. That that's the most important thing with this, and I want more and more people to enjoy their training. And I get a bit fed up of it where people say, Oh, as long as it makes them do exercise, I'm well, no, someone's training wrong. Because I tell you what will stop someone training long term is getting no results. So it's all well and good saying, Oh, that person, you know, that person, you know, they're training terribly, but you know, it's that at least they're doing something. Well, no, not at least they're doing something because they'll quit. The best way to make people stick to training long term is to get results, and if they're training wrong, they're not going to get results, and therefore they'll quit. And hate training.

SPEAKER_01 52:58

Absolutely. I can I couldn't say it better. Another point that I'm thinking of right now is given your Japanese culture and roots, is the concept of purpose and icky guy. What keeps you going every day? And obviously, you're someone that's immensely disciplined, I've seen you over the years. Um, you don't waste a second. So, how how do you think about that? Obviously, you're you're very proud of what you built at BTX. How do you see that in the long term? How the industry's shaping up in terms of longevity, obviously that's becoming a lot more interesting because the age going because the its population is aging. I'm interested to see how you think of that not just in the sense of longevity itself, but from an entrepreneurial standpoint and the use of AI, how are you thinking about that at BTX?

SPEAKER_00 53:57

So the way the industry is going is um this was happening already. Um people realize just having a lot of money or having a nice car and a nice watch isn't success. If someone walks steps out of Ferrari and they're uh fat, people don't see them successful. But then you picture the guy getting out of the Ferrari who is in incredible shape, doesn't have to be jacked, but isn't lean, strong, that's the guy you respect, and that is the way the fitness industry is changing. People realize you have to have all pillars of your life set. Um, but now on to the next step of that, that's not good enough, Rob. That was 10 years ago, that's old. Now what we have is people not just need to look good, but they need to feel good, and also their insides need to be working optimally, and you need to have um everything optimized in terms of getting your blood work done, in terms of not just lifespan but health span. And what that means, I know we talk about this a lot, is if you live to 85 and you were crippled from when you're 40 and you're in a wheelchair, you're overweight, you survive, you hobble along basically to 85. That is poor health span. You want to be strong and fit for as long as possible, and this is where the industry is going. And what we're having is integrated medicine now, where it's not good enough where you just have someone who is your cardiologist, you have someone that's your GP or someone that's your trainer, they're all integrated together as a team. And that's why we have at BTX. We have medical professionals in each field that will do their blood work, look after heart, and also look after your body in terms of physiotherapist, too. Your training, your nutrition. It's integrated as one because quite often what happens with people, it's great having private healthcare like you and me do. You go to uh your GP and they'll say something different to your trainer. The trainer will say something different to your nutritionist. So all you need is integrated, an integrated team like a BTX, they'll talk to each other and come up with the best plan for you.

SPEAKER_01 55:50

Love that. I think preventative medicine is definitely the future, uh, precision medicine.

SPEAKER_00 55:55

Costs a lot more to cost a lot more to get someone healthy after being ill than to prevent it in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 55:59

Exactly. My dad has always told me prevention is always better than cure or treatment. And that's something I've definitely taken on board from him. Absolutely. Just thinking of any other points that we haven't covered at this point. Um I think I've covered quite a lot. No, we did well.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

I think I genuinely asked really, I'm not just saying really good questions. Um, everything wants to cover. In fact, things you asked me, I did this, I was almost like, oh yeah, you are gonna ask me that. Let's get everything came out. You've covered everything. It's also very aligned with how I think, which is awesome. I was really, really thank you for having me on because it was awesome. Like I really, really enjoyed it so much. And also good to talk to someone that loves it as much as I do.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

Pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 56:40

It's good better.

SPEAKER_01 56:41

The other point, actually, I just thought of is I think this is important, the types of training that you're doing. So, one thing that I've noticed about you is that you don't just strength train, you don't just do cardio, but you're also doing martial arts, and I think that's an important point because um because when you're weightlifting, you're only working certain ranges of motion, right? Whereas when you're doing like jiu-jitsu, you're working all planes and angles, right? Yes, yes, and this is partly why I fell in love with b-boying and breakdancing. It's incredible, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 57:11

I knew that's what we were asking this, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:12

Because it's in all planes, not one, yeah. Exactly. So I think that's an important point in terms of actually how you're moving and what actually applies to reality. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 57:23

So yeah, so that's a good question. So, how do you weight train for sports? So, with me specifically being mixed martial arts, so Tybal, so it's a mixture of things, but um, striking, grappling, etc. And I think they're the most pure ways to move martial arts, similar to what you're doing as well, just basically being able to move your body because you have people that can be H use word functionally strong, um, can back squat 200 kilos, but will feel weak as a kitten when you grapple with them. So, the whole point of weight training, cardiovascular training for an athlete, this is super important. People do not get too um too specific with their training. So, all the best strength coach in the world, the whole point of the weight room is to build physical properties for their sport. It's not literally to mimic your sport. What makes you functional for your sport is doing your sport. Super important. So when it comes to weight training for um uh martial arts, you have certain move movement patterns you need to get strong at. A squat pattern, so single leg movement too, um, a hip hinge, which would be like a deadlift pattern. Um actually I'll go through them again. So a squat pattern, you can back squat, you can front squat, you can do a safety bar squat, and picking them will be based on um your mobility and your um training history, injuries as well. Um so then you have your deadlift pattern, hip hinge. So that can be a barbell deadlift, stiff leg deadlift, it can be a trapball deadlift, depending again on mobility, etc. Uh horizontal press, bench press, dumbbell press, um, vertical press, overhead pressing. Uh you'd have horizontal pull, like a row, vertical pull, chin up, pull up, etc. Um, and single leg movements like a Bulgarian or a front foot elevator, spit squat, and then you can add some ab training, etc., leg raises. One of my favourite exercises, I'm sure, same with you, which I think are the best core exercise you can do, are ab rollouts. I think I know you'd agree with that. Yeah, yeah. Of course, it's made my deadlift go up and make me feel so much stronger with jujitsu, and they are brilliant. So again, you regress and progress them from your knees, from standing, etc. Um, the cardiovascular training you pick would basically be something you can do um without getting injured when you do a lot of volume. So that can be running for you if you know how to run properly. It can be a rower, it can be a ski erg, it can be anything you like, but it's just something you can repeat a lot of volume and help um build your heart and lungs without getting injured. It doesn't matter what it is. So I'd say for heavier athletes, rowing, um, rowing, ski erg, a sort bike probably is better than running. I think running is the purest movement in the year, that's why we love running. However, and I think it's the best. However, if you're someone that hasn't learned to run correctly, you're just gonna screw yourself up.

SPEAKER_01 59:57

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 59:57

So to answer the question with with training, it needs to be actually not that specific. I'll also add some polymetrics in there as well, some jumping thrills. Um, it shouldn't be too specific for a sport, it should build physical properties that enable to play your sport without getting injured and build too high volume. What makes you specific for sport is doing your sport.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:15

Absolutely. How do you think about peak human performance and minimizing injury? Because you've performed at the top of your game in martial arts, and you've you're someone who I know has genuinely pushed the limits because I've seen that like you lift ridiculous weight and you've injured yourself throughout the years a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:35

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:36

So, how do you think about that now, like moving on to like your late 30s? Do you think about that differently? Do you do you think right now I'm gonna hold back a bit more than I used to and like give myself a little bit more time to recover? Just interested to think about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

Yeah, that's a good question. I think there's two questions I would like to another question, but I think good ways to answer it. Would I have done something different if I went back is one of them. So when I'm younger, yes. Did I enjoy lifting really heavy? Yes. However, one of the ones I've learned is basically, like I said earlier, was trade, you can train correctly and still hard, but hard enough. Hard enough will give you more results than destroying yourself. Destroying yourself, all that's gonna happen is actually you'll hold yourself back, to be honest with you. You'll end up getting injured. So, any example, if you get three months, three years of training without getting injured, but you leave a bit in the tank and leave a couple of reps in the tank, you'll end up much stronger than the guy who crushed himself every session because he'll get injured four or five times in that time period, end up back at zero. Because getting injured is the worst of anything. You know, if you're literally being able to train consistently for a long period of time, even a skill development, say at grappling or boxing, whatever it may be, not getting injured is going to rapidly increase your progress. Getting injured, you're back at square one again. Um, so what would I do in terms of the training training differently? I would train smarter, not harder, and that's cliche again. Um, and as I get older, how am I training differently? Um, I train with a bit less volume. I do I so I'll keep keep my movements very simple. So I would only do two full body sessions a week um to maximize my recovery. Um, but also I would always leave room in the tank. So when I do my weight training, I'll leave two reps in the tank. But real two reps in the tank. A lot of people think they're leaving reps in the tank and they've got 20 reps in the tank. But I mean, I genuinely ground ground out as hard as I could to get one or two more reps. The extra rep, yes, in terms of mechanical tension, you will build a little muscle tissue, which is also true, but the risk of injury is not worth it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:30

Right. How do you think about sets and reps in terms of muscle hypertrophy and getting the most out of each session? Well question. Yeah, finding that fine line where you know you're not overdoing it, but you're doing enough to you know to reach that point. And I think there's a lot of nuance around this because some people know how to push themselves and push themselves too much, but some people aren't pushing themselves sufficiently. Good question. It's a good question. Yeah, I'll be interested to right.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:01

So your your you and my what my idea of pushing ourselves is very different to an average guy around the corner to us. Yeah, so what I think pushing myself would be I can't see literally I'm like on the floor or or getting sick in a bucket. Yeah, exactly. What I think pushing myself. Um right, that's a good question. What I do what I do with clients um is I'll make them um do a weight, as many reps as possible on that weight, and then I can work out what's pushing them. So what I'll do is say we have a uh a uh a bench press, I'll say do as many reps as possible and 60. And I literally almost not spot them, I literally leave them to the point they physically can't do it. And then you kind of have an idea of how hard they're pushing them, and then from that, like one all-out set, I can work out what weights to give them. Because quite often, if you say, Have you pushed yourself, they're yeah, I have, I've done as many reps as possible, they haven't. To be honest with most people haven't. Um, it is very difficult, you're right, because we can know ourselves what to how hard to push ourselves, but it's very, very difficult to gauge with other people how hard they actually are pushing them. Our perceived effort is gonna be completely different to somebody else.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:00

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:01

It is very difficult, it's very difficult.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:03

Absolutely, yeah. So I think some people say, for example, like 80% of one rep max for six reps or something like that. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:11

So, in terms of hypertrophy, yeah, you want to be doing um, I know again, it's what everyone kind of knows, but it has to be said again, um, between six and twelve reps. And yes, you can build muscle tissue with really low reps, threes, fives, but the thing is the risk of injury goes up. So the reason why you have these ranges six to fifteen, there's a reason for it. If you go lower than that, yes, lifting heavy weight will be muscle tissue, but the risk of injury goes up.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:35

100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:36

Then therefore you go up with with the with the um with the reps. Yes, you um you can you you will build less muscle, but the point is you go too high, you went the weight's too light and you won't build muscle. So you can go you basically the six to fifteen is a sweet spot for most people. It's around 75% of your max is going to be the working weight. And between six and ten working sets per session, and that sounds really low, but that's not many working sets. If you're pushing yourself hard, say I'll do some deadlifts, right? Deadlifting in one set, I'm doing between I've done heavier, but say 220 kilos for 10 reps. I can't I'm not gonna do another set. One set's enough. Um same as you do a heavy, I've seen you dumbbell press. You're doing what 45 the other day? 48. 48, yeah. Okay, right. 48, right? Remember, you're seven, how how heavy are you? Uh anyway around 75 kg. So this is the real important. Um the more advanced you are, the less sets you do because you accumulate fatigue quicker. So the stronger you are, the less sets you need. If I have a beginner coming in, they aren't able to accumulate that much fatigue because they're too weak. So for a beginner, I would do three sets of eight to 12, the usual, even five. But someone um who's very, very strong, two work sets is enough. Uh, and for body parts per week, you want to be hitting um each body part, when I say proper work sets from moderate to advanced, for about eight sets per week. I know it sounds low, but that's more than enough. And you also want to hit each Body part twice a week. You need two spikes of um of uh uh of damage based muscle to get the the get the right amount of protein synthesis to muscle tissue. But you have to remember this, Rob, when I say hitting your body part twice a week, if you're doing a shoulder press, say you're doing a um an inclined dumbbell press, what muscles hit chest, but it's also hitting your shoulders that counts hitting your shoulders. So if you do a shoulder press another day, that's still counting because you need two sets of each, that's four sets of shoulders. If that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:29

That makes sense. Just something else I thought of. Um back on the point of GLP ones, just sitting on socials. Um I know you're familiar with KinoBody. Yes, I am, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh Greg O'Gallagher, I think his name is, yeah. Uh interestingly, I think he's been experimenting with like low dose GLP ones. But I think my perspective on it is that he's probably over-optimizing at this point. And it's it's it just seems a bit ridiculous. Like the guy looks great already, he can take anything once. Exactly. Is then like what you're really getting at? You know, taking even doing it low dose. He's like, well, it's out here, we should use it.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:09

But right, so a lot of people, it's funny you said that, and you're you're racking your brain there. Why are they doing this? Well, I'll tell you firsthand from people in the fitness industry they have eating disorders. And they and they'll pretend they they they don't, but I know a lot of people in the fitness industry, and unfortunately, they should not be giving diet. Well, say Gregor Gardah, it's really important on him. Yeah, um, I don't know my life, maybe you shouldn't. Um, but a lot of people in the fitness industry are mental when it comes to their food and their training, and they're advising people how to eat and train. It's scary, and they're ballooning up and down all year round, they're all over the shop, they're they should not be giving dietary advice to people. It's like a the issue of the fitness industry is you get your qualification or whatever a month, you can give dietary advice to anyone, um, and no one knows if you're sane. Be very blunt, yeah. Genuinely, right? A psychiatrist or a psychotherapist will have to have meetings with a psychiatrist every so often to make sure they're still able to practice. There's no one making making sure they're able to practice when it comes to uh training, nutrition, and PT. And so, what I'm trying to say about the GLP one agonist is um a lot of these people are saying take it because you want to even be even leaner, and that's the point where they shouldn't be taking them. That's exact per that's the exact person that should not be taking them.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:17

That's my line of thought as well. I think over optimizing can be dangerous as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:21

Of course it can, of course it can. Someone who's already lean, obviously, 8% body fat looks fantastic. I don't think he's taking any steroids for why are you taking another drug? What's the point? It's it's crazy. Yeah, and people, I think what it is, as men, we think we always want more. And what's next? And it's our purpose. People always you can be why why are billionaires still working? Everything's purpose, right? Literally it's purpose. You can look great. I know for a fact you're gonna be doing your dumbbell press. I know in the next six months you'll be 50 for 10, Jerome. I know, I know it is, and our men work, and you're a David Lloyd, that won't be heavy enough. Yeah, but of course, when you hit that, you'll be bored. Well, you'd you know what's your best 5k time now? 16 minutes 12. It's absolutely disgusting. I can't fathom how quick that is. In fact, that's the 13 per kilometer. That is disgusting, literally. That's not even normal. So, in fact, I don't know of anyone. In fact, I know a lot of very, very fit individuals, a high-level athlete. I know anyone that hits that, but I know literally thinking you want sub-16. I know you don't need to, of course. So, what I'm trying to say is that's the date where danger comes with this kind of stuff over optimizing. Um, what would be a good goal, say for something like you is that fit? What's your weakness? Maybe getting a bit stronger. You're already very strong anyway, but then maybe keeping the same fitness and getting stronger. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:31

To be honest, I want to do martial arts. I think I did do Wing Chun at a point.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:34

Like you'll be able to do martial arts, really, with your movement, you'll be able to do martial arts, super easy. Um what's your thoughts on like Kraft Magar? So Kraft Magar is good for um self-defense if you want to learn something quickly. Yeah. Um, I think it's fantastic for that. But if you want to learn martial arts, give me an example. Like a top Kraft Magar instructor um would go against a Western boxer who's been doing it for 20 years, or a jiu-jitsu black belt or a wrestler. The all those martial arts would be the shit out of the Kraft Magar instructor. However, I think the best way to do something like this would be to do a martial art, like Brazilian jujitsu. Um, as a man, you were doing this already. You what what's what's the pillars of being a man? It's um, I know it annoys people, I think being educated is important. I think being I think it's part of the pillar of being a man. I think you should be well read. Um, another one would be being physically strong, physically fit, um, earning money. And the other one would be being able to defend yourself. And then when you go down that path, defending yourself, um, you need to learn some sort of stand-up martial art, like striking martial arts, which is brilliant for um for uh for particularly street confrontations, yeah, and to learn how to grapple. So, what would that be? Um, if you want to learn two martial arts, I'd learn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and I'll learn to tie box. If you do those two, you'll be pretty tough. And those are the things that um I would definitely go and find a good tie boxing academy, go and find a good jiu-jitsu academy and learn those. Um, you'll be golden. Absolutely. There's a lot of stabbings in London.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:03

Oh my god. So let's be let's be real.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:06

Just happened that close to us, didn't it, recently? I just came back to London, like it's perfectly safe and get slabbed in the head. I think in Primrose Hill, something like Primrose Hill.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:13

I think someone's I think it was last week. Like a 21-year-old kid got stabbed. Yeah, for his camera, I think it was. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:19

The thing is, no one gets away with it, they get caught within one week. It's madness, it's absolute madness. Um unfortunately, if someone comes up to your life, the best way is just not to get in a confrontation, give them, give them whatever you want.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:32

Um, but something in terms of martial arts, though, do you think there's martial arts that deal better with that? So, do you think let's say you're in a knife situation?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:40

Well, yes, Kraftman Gar would be better for that. Yes. Yeah, but you actually literally learn how to disarm people. Still, I'm sure the Kraftman Gar instructor would say, avoid it still. But yes, if the guy literally in the situation, the guy is going to stab you, then yes, that would be better. Yeah, to learn a proper self-defense martial art is really, really good. But also if you've been confident in those situations, I'll tell you something is super important, and maybe a touch of wood hasn't happened. If you're confident and understand how to handle yourself, you'll come off differently. Yeah, people won't start a fight with you. They just they just don't, literally. I mean, but genuinely, people know people won't start fighting.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:09

Yeah, I've seen a clip. I think someone was on Oxford Street and a chat was one of these electric bites, and he pulled out like a machete. And this guy was so confident, he realized that giving it, he was like, Come on, son. He was like, and the guy, because the guy was so confident, he backed off.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:25

He was just like because they realized the guy's gonna, yeah, he might get cut, but he's gonna harm you as well. Yeah, they're looking for soft targets. I think a lot of people don't realize that now.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:33

And that is exactly it, it's people looking for soft targets. That is it. So if you come across weak, they will literally take advantage of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:40

I can smell it, and this is super important. The end of the day, we're still animals, and why so those pillars? People, unfortunately, in Western society and and eastern society too, people do it. Um we unfortunately realize the end of the day we're animals. That's the way it is. And I know you realize it because you do a lot of reading and really understand yourself. We're animals at the end of the day. So we're built in a hierarchy, that's the way our brains are built. If we talk to any psychiatrist, medically trained psychiatrists, tell you our brains are like that. And women objectively will look for men that are physically strong and have money, just the way it is. And they'll say they don't. The reason women say that is because they don't believe they can get a guy like that, just the way it is. And attract women will go, Yeah, of course I am. Um, so the the bet the like I said before, one of those pillars is being able to fight, it just is, and when it comes down to it, and the truth is, we know when you sit in a room with someone, if someone an example would be this, actually, like this. So if you walk into a room and you have a guy who's um very well off, top lawyer, say, not billion, but very wealthy, and uh, but he's really overweight, fat, proper fat, not just chubby fat. But then John Jones walks in, who's the toughest person on planet earth? John Jones is the man. Yeah, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:43

Are you laughing because I think you made this analogy with Elon Musk as well?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:46

Yeah, Elon Musk, yeah. And Elon Musk, but the funny thing is, all billionaires, none of them admit they don't want to be in shape. Um, was it uh what's his name? The guy who owns Fox. Uh that's about Bernie Madoff, his name now would have butchered. The guy owns Fox News anyway, he's 95. Right. And um succession the programme's made about him. Yeah, the guy is still lifting weights. People are super wealthy to get earned that kind of wealth, you have to be very honest with reality. You're not gonna build a billion dollar company without being honest with reality because you're gonna lose a lot of money if you don't literally look at numbers and you're very honest. Those kind of people all admit they want to be in shape. Zero billionaires will say, I don't mind being fat. Doesn't exist. They may not be in shape, but they're like, I'd rather be in shape than be fat. Look at um um Bug Zuckerberg. Yeah, funny, acquired all this wealth. Now he's getting all the martial arts to train him, isn't he? He's training with training with um Alessandya, all of those guys all day. He's training jiu jitsu martial arts because he's like, Yeah, I'm really wealthy, but I want to be tough. Because there's still extend animals, of course, he wants to be physically tough. Um, it's just unfortunately a lot of people don't admit that. They like themselves to protect their ego.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:46

I think a lot of it's about perspective as well. Yeah, and it's one thing having money, but it's another thing also being present and actually to live your best life and be present. It's not just about living to 120, 200. No, no, no. It's about being capable.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:04

It is, yes, exactly. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:07

And I think that's what often is missed in the longevity space. It's like, oh, I want to live till 200. It's not really about that. Yeah, that's by default you will live longer, but it's more about optimising your health today and your mindset.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:22

What what um question about mindset? What built your and I know you're asking me a question, but genuinely interested um as a friend watching how you've gone through your self-development. What made you change the way you look at your life? Because obviously, again, you went to similar school, yes, similar school system to me, etc. etc. What made you suddenly change? You go you always been into your training, that's really you always trained, right? What made you really pivot that way and sort of go like I I really, really want to change my life, leave corporate corporate world and do this? What made you do that?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:52

The honest answer to that is I've always been passionate about health. I know you have, you know, something like me. And and social construct has made me think initially, oh maybe I should pursue this path. And Persian culture, they always expect you to do you know, become like a doctor, lawyer, same culture, say that, and all that kind of stuff. And I wasn't really following my true instinct and what I actually wanted to do. Whereas this is what I feel like I really want to do in my life is actually help people, and it's longevity space is what fascinates me. I think it's funny you said that, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:31

Because you know, a purpose and it really is not pretend purpose. I and I know you're exactly saying the eyes, I want to make people love training and exercise as much as I do. I think I know how much can change their life. My favorite thing in the whole world is our gym, is someone that was really overweight in a corporate job and happy, and they get into serious shape and just fucking love training, and they know how happy it makes. I want other people to be like me where they're excited to go to the gym with their mates, go lift some weights, get stronger each time, go on a run, they feel great, you're beating PBs, because I know how much they'll improve their life. I know if they don't do that, they'll never really be happy. They'll pretend they're happy, literally, but they're deep down will not be happy if they can't look at themselves in the mirror and be proud.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:08

Absolutely. And I think everything is a domino effect, as in if you get up in the morning and you train and you you know you're more likely to eat well, you're more likely to adopt healthier habits.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:19

Your work will go better, your relationships will go better, your family, your kids, everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:23

Absolutely feel better. One last point around the long-term space, and I know you've spoken about this as well before, but keen to get your thoughts on Brian Johnson and his don't die concept. What are your thoughts about him? I know you've said before that he's a net positive to the world. But obviously he's testing the boundaries and he's got a whole load of money to do that. But do you think that is part of the reason why I've started live more is to try and make it more applicable to the average Joe or to as many people as possible? Because I think it's one thing using AI and you know living your life, because I think his thought process is using AI and algorithms and give your life over to an algorithm. Like to the degree. So I think it's finding a balance. Obviously, AI can help us to some degree, but I don't I wouldn't give my life away to an AI to decide what I'm gonna eat.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:30

Yeah, so so with Brian Johnson, um, people ask me this and people sort of belittle him and think it's fashion it's fashionable to do that, but he's super wealthy. He's I think he's a really nice not think, I know by re watching. I don't know personally, but I'm 90% sure he's a good person. He genuinely is a loving-kind person, he's not the evil person.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:46

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:48

Um, but people find it difficult to connect him because the guy is you know worth hundreds of millions, um, and he has endless funds to do this. Um, however, he's definitely net positive in regards to what is fascinating, he does always talk about this, is he's an N of one, which is useful. Yeah, because when you have an intervention of some sort, say it may be a drug, exercise, doesn't matter what it is, you can't control everything outside of that. But because he is so regimented with everything he does, and he adds an intervention, that if the intervention causes some sort of change, you know it's because of that intervention, and that is incredibly rare. That's why he's so powerful. So when you start doing the sauna and he told me the exact numbers that he got came back with when you sauna, yeah. The most powerful intervention is used, unfortunately, and you don't want to say it's hyperic chamber, but then you're doing 40 sessions, hyperact chamber is gonna cost you around 10,000 pounds.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:37

Um, so he is very careful. He goes, Look, I know this isn't really doable for most people because the amount of money and the amount of time you have to do, but if you're planning to do this, you can do this. So look, are you going to follow everything he does? No. But like he said before, you can take bits of it. Yeah. So an example be, oh, well, you know, he does 10,000 things per day, it's going to cost this much. I might as well do nothing. Well, that's not true. Do some of the things he does. So maybe finishing your last meal earlier, it may be having more plant foods, it may be you have access to sauna, using the sauna three to four times a week. Um, he can definitely teach us stuff that we are applicable to everyone. And the way he looks at life, don't die, and you know, his whole point of living is to live long, right? Which is bizarre to a lot of people. But maybe that does give him purpose, maybe he enjoys it. Because he thinks that by doing this, he's helping enough people, and that will give him purpose. Because I can tell you one thing, people that moan about him and say, Oh, this guy's a dickhead, etc. etc. I can tell you Brian Johnson is doing more to help people than you are.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:37

100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:37

I can tell you he's it positive influence more people than you have, the person complaining about him, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:44

I agree with that, absolutely. In terms of biohacking protocols, I see you do the sauna, for example, the dry sauna. Is that something that you do religiously four times a week?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:53

I'd say the sauna um talk about how it massively improves cardiovascular health, longevity. With you know, the I'm not gonna use the get the numbers um correct, but they did a large Finnish study because Finnish people um it's part of their culture to sauna, so they had a large group of people, and they what they did with this group of people too is they um would would make adjustments based on if they smoked or didn't smoke, etc. So you have to remove all the confounding factors. Um but they would live longer, had better heart health, low risk, low, low, low risk of getting cancer by saunaering. And the numbers are saunering uh four to six times a week for 20 minutes on a hot sauna, not an infrared sauna. Yeah. Um so that means 80 to 85 degrees centigrade, up to 90, 20 minutes, I think 15 to 20 minutes, 20 minutes was the maximum, four to six times a week. And I do that religiously um pretty much every day or four to six times a week, I'll do it. Um, in terms of other by hacking, I use a red light therapy device. Um funny enough, that's one of the things that people thought was weird before, and I thought that's not gonna do anything. But Dr. Dave Sinclair spoke recently on Stephen Bartlett's podcast, and he said, No, it does actually show promise in terms of increasing improving mitochondrial health. Yeah, it does work. And there's a guy on um Dr. Huberman's podcast who's one of the top lecturers, UCL, right? Top, top people in the whole world, and he said high quality light, so full spectrum light, like getting light into your eyes in the morning, sunlight, red light therapy. Yes, he says incredibly powerful mitochondrial health. And when people say, Oh, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about, these people are the top people in the world. You have to remember this, Rob. Back 20 years ago, if I wanted to get access to these lectures, I'd have to go to the university. Now we're very lucky to have the top people in the world on podcasts who listen to them firsthand. 100%. What other things do I do? Um, when I say biohacking, the usual thing is going to bed early, but the fun ones would be I've also used a hybrid chamber for 40 minutes, sorry, 40 sessions. Um, and that's reduced my CRAC to protein to put it inexistent. 40 sessions for an hour and a half. Hybrid chamber, really important. Use that you go to medical grade, the hybrid chamber that's hard with two atmospheres. The soft hybrid chambers don't do anything, so you need to be going to medical grade one. I went to someone called pneumotherapy in central London. Um, one other ones are great. Uh sauntering, cold plunge is a weird one. I um cold plunge people, you know, you're supposed to use it two to three minutes, five, six times a week. One thing we're certain about, it does make you feel good. That's one thing. But people have this issue with it blocking hypertrophy response.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:25

So blocking inflammation after weight training stops you building muscle.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:29

Um, so the reason why it's good, cold plunge, is it reduces soreness, that's for a fact, and reduces inflammation. So for weight training, you don't want to avoid after weight training. However, if you're doing a skill-based sport like a martial arts or football, whatever it may be, that takes fine motor movements. If you can do more volume while being less sore, you can do more high-quality sessions, therefore, you'll get better at that skill over time by being able to do more volume, and that's what cold plunges is really, really powerful for.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:57

In terms of cold plunges, is that something that you adopt first thing in the morning? So I do a cold shower. Yeah, that's what that's essentially what I do instead of the cold plunge.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:05

Well, when I when I when I was in Dubai, I used to use it um pretty four times a week, and it made me feel really good. So one thing it definitely did do is a uh muscle tissue is the same, but it made me feel really good in terms of I felt less sore, my mood was better, I'll sleep better. And timing I'll do usually whenever I could get in. But if I could optimize, if I just had the time and had my own cold plunge, I'd do it first thing in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:27

Like a cold shower, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:29

I believe it's beneficial in that it helps you, I think, create is it brown fat in terms of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:34

Yeah, the amount the amount the the amount of extra energy you you you expend while doing it is so minimal to basically but what happens is you increases brown fat, which this type of fat basically you burn more energy with. Um but the amount is minimal, it's just not not gonna make any difference. I could literally a handful of excuse me, not even a handful of nuts, but five nuts, and that would make up for it's all the difference to make. Right. You may it may be a difference between you literally not weighing your food properly one day and the other, it just doesn't negligible anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:01

Absolutely, that makes sense. And in terms of three tips that you would give someone who is building a business, obviously you've gone through the whole experience in terms of particularly in this space. Going back from having built BTX to what it is, and I'm sure you want to grow it out and build more branches. What advice would you give to someone who's actually thinking about starting their own gym or what whatever it is entrepreneurially? How would you how do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:33

The first thing you have to do, this is the most important thing, and I think it goes for any service-based industry, you have to start from scratch. So it would be you can't build a fitness business without being um on the floor first. So say you have a gym, a PT gym, you need to personal train yourself to understand how to give good quality service. The same would be to go into a chef, right? Say someone wants to own a three-mission star restaurant, mission star restaurant, whatever it may be. They've had to work as a sous chef before. They've had to work under people. And the best thing you can do really originally is to go and work in a high-quality gym to understand service quality and also see the mistakes and the good things uh the business do. And you'll learn from that without spending your own money. I mean, that'd be number one, because you let them make the mistakes before you make them. Because you will make loads of mistakes and lose a lot of money. But if you're watching um or working for a business, let them waste their money first and watch what they're doing. Hopefully, not what my PTs are doing, watching me. But um, yeah, the first thing to do is basically work the floor, work as a personal trainer in person first. Um is the most important thing. Number two would be to make consistent content that helps people, um, is really, really powerful. Um, you want to be known as an authority in your in the industry or a certain space. Um, so the easiest way to do that is make content based on what questions you get asked by clients. So a client may ask you, James, um you have this issue where I, whatever it may be, um, oh it'll be how many grams of protein should I how do how how how do how how do you weigh your food, etc.? Then you'll basically come up with a solution, doesn't matter what it is, and put a video out on Instagram about that. That's all it is, or should I eat high carb or low carb? Do a video on that, whatever it may be. The question you most frequently get asked is going to get the most um the most um the most eyes, but also it's gonna get the eyes you want because if a client asks you, that's the person you want watching your Instagram, right? So get your new clients. Um, number three, I understand it's gonna take a long time. You're gonna having a business, everyone, this is not for any of any business. I don't think you're going to lose a lot of money, you're going to make loads of mistakes, you're going to wake up during the night drenched in sweat, probably thrown up in the toilet. You're gonna and you're gonna think, am I doing the right thing? But the most important thing is just to stick to it. And number four would be if we're on number four, is ask people who've done it before.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:51

Don't have an ego issue while not asking people, people have made the mistakes already and they're willing to help you. Because by asking someone who's successful have done it before, people think, oh, they won't tell me. They will. Because they they by asking this person, you're feeding their ego as well. Because they're like, oh, you're gonna ask me. So they'll blabber on about anyway and give you some advice anyway. So make sure you ask people that have done it before, they've gone through the grind already.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:13

Another question. Given all the types of gyms out there, for example, we have David Lloyd with third space, Equinox in some parts of London. If you had an endless amount of money and you could build up a new gym train, how would you approach that as in thinking about that going forward and how the industry is shaping around longevity? How would you build a better gym than let's say David Lloyd, Equinox, anything like that? So you had an endless amount of money. What do you think is the niche? What do you think is missing out there?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:53

Absolutely simple. I think I think they do a good job a lot of them. Um I think you say, give me an example third space to a very good job, so we'll start with third space, very good gym space, very clean.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:02

Um I'm interested because of your experience in Dubai, by the way. That's why I went to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:06

Yeah, so what was the difference? I actually think they don't do I don't think they do it as well, actually, to be honest with you. I think I think London does does it well. I think people don't realize this to give you out service-based industries. I think it's very fashionable being in London. I'm a Londoner, so I love doing this. We bash London all the time. Because there's a lot of problems here. Of course there are a lot of issues with taxation and the way the country's going. But one thing we do have is service-based industry is very good to him. Um, something to buy us better in terms of actually face-to-face service, that waiters are friendlier, they're better trained. But in terms of quiet quality service, you have to remember this. Um, in terms of Michelin-style restaurants, and I believe hide restaurants and hotels are the pinnacle of quality service and what fitness-based industry should be following. They need to follow the restaurant-based industry. Um, London has the fourth most Michelin-style restaurants in the world of any city, number one being Tokyo, two, Paris, number three, uh, Kyoto, number four Osaka. So basically all Japanese, which I'm proud of. But um, so you need you need to realise that London is good at service-based industry, and these these people think that London doesn't do well. I think they do do it well. I think we have a lot of good gyms. If you go, give an example, Rob, if you go to any other city, I'm sure you've done this for work, you go to Berlin or wherever it may be, it's a place in Italy, gyms are crap. Like London does it really well. I don't think they have an issue with that. And asking what I'll do better, the only thing which I think they are doing is basically having um uh on-site medical teams in terms of literally doctors and taking blood work and assessments. And I think that you know, people would upsell people who go to third space, two things, they have excess income, but also this willing to spend that excess income on health, therefore it's very easy to upsell because there's someone who values it. So that you mean would be upsold easily. Um, they should have on-site doctors. That'd be the big that'd be the biggest one, really. Yeah, and also the recovery stuff, of course. But I think that's a bit of fun stuff. You have on-site sawner and cop, but they have that stuff already. So the recovery stuff they are doing now, that's been added to the gyms, right? All of them have it. But the next thing would be the integrated medicine. 100%. Uh, what did you think of Gymbox as well? So, Gym Box, I I know the owners, um, very, very good guys. So, Gym Box, I think what they did really well was in the city, they what niche they saw was similar to Ultimate Performance, they realized that investment bankers and lawyers and uh professionals wanted to train hard. So, this idea of literally it's like back in the day, I remember when I started weight training, me very blunt, it was like that. The bodybuilders and meat heads, it's a bit shabby almost to train. I remember growing up, right, when we started training. However, they saw the niche that these guys in the city wanted to train hard. Because anyone that basically is hardworking and wants to earn money, the world was changing. They saw it, and they're basically what they they're like kind of at hardcore bodybuilding gyms, but for professionals pretty much, and they saw that uh niche. But now I think third space in these places are kind of overtaken. Even David Lloyd's are pretty, you know what's funny, they're actually not good gyms. You agree with this? Do you remember when we first started training 20 years ago? I was weight training with my friends from school. I remember people saying, you know, complaining, going, we don't want these bodybuilders in our gym. And I was thinking to myself, mate, Josh goes to Imperial College London with Haberdash is the basic bodybuilder. But what I meant was um these they they are they are actually catering for those sub-clients. Well, I think David Lloyd does well. People moan about it, but I think they cater to everyone, I think they do quite well. You're gonna have like a mum in there, um, and you're gonna have like a meathead bodybuilder. I think they actually cater to everyone in those gyms. I think they're doing a pretty good job, to be honest with you. But I only think the only thing they don't do is um is having integrated medicine. I think the spark's brilliant though. Like, how can I complain about this? Sorn and cold plunge are fantastic. The only thing is they need heavier dumbbells for Rob. Have their 60s investing for you. Is that the 55s and 60s soon?

SPEAKER_01 1:32:45

The other thing I was thinking of having like on-site VO2 Max testing. Oh, I love to have, I love to have that.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:50

I think people stick to stuff more with numbers. So if you get a client in, right, and you come to third space and you get blood work done, you have your body fat checked, you have your VO2 max test done, some strip numbers. I guarantee that client will stay longer if you retest them in 12 weeks. You make the so actually from that business, if you make the product more sticky and they feel like they need to be there, you'll have much more longevity with that client.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:14

100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:15

Or spend more money there.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:16

So yeah. If it if I was doing it, I would definitely have like a VO2 Max test. If you had a VO2 max test, yeah, I've had it done too. What was it? Uh it was 55. 55. I suppose not higher than that.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:27

Yeah, I think I thought it'd be higher than that with your week, because you're because you're light. So if you're lighter, the algorithm works or the equation works, you're lighter, it's usually higher.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:35

So I want to get retested, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:38

Yeah, you're dead. You're definitely in the 60s. You're definitely in the 60s.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:41

Peter Attie was making this Peter Ati's VO2 max is extremely high. I think it's like I think it's something like I think he said it was like in the 70s or even like 65, 70 or something, very, very high. But he said he used to go cycling with a friend who had like a VO2 max in like the 50s, I think, mid-50s, similar to me. But he would make he would make it look easier. Yeah, so it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:02

It's only it's only it's only one measurement. It's like um the heart, we have ejection fraction, you have stroke volume of the heart. They're like one measurement, it doesn't mean you're fit or unfit. Because you have to remember with this, also, there's other things that take into play, literally, like vascularisation, capillary beds, uh, identity, all this stuff. So it's not that simple, which is not one equation. It's a it's it's it's a good indicator of how fit someone is. You're not gonna get someone who has a VO2 max of 80 and they'll be unfit.

unknown 1:34:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:27

Do you know what I mean, right? Yeah, and you're gonna have someone who's VO2 max of 25 and they're healthy, right? So that's anything to think about. I think probably with a lot of these measurements, when you get to the high end where the we're getting very someone who's extremely fit, they're probably a bit less accurate. It's like measuring on body fat. Some body fat's very, very low, it's very hard to measure. Similar to think to VO2 max.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:45

I think a lot of with these things you have to get tested multiple times because just you do, you do, you do.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:52

You have to get you have you definitely do because on the day you could be tired, so you have to do literally two two or three tests.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:57

You absolutely do. So the reason why I also say that is I've like, I think over the years I've had about four or five DEXA scans. And and sometimes it's shown my bone mineral density to be lower, on others it's shown to be a lot higher. So I think there's it's also to do with the actual where the facility you've had it done.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:16

Yeah, probably the best thing to do is I had mine done at doing a DEX, I had mine done at um UK body UK body scan, pretty similar to where you went in the world. Yeah, I went to Marlobone, yeah. I remember bone density being the highest they've ever recorded. I find the sheet for you literally, it's actually that they said that you actually have high bone dense come across any human being. Yeah. And they said they go to me, I said, What is that genetic? And they said, about 50% genetic, but they said about bone density, they said it's also doing martial arts to contact sports and lifting weights, basically with the highest bone density. So to have women wanting to get really dense bones, which is super, by the way, super important, they won't make you look that much bigger. So if women are scared, but it'll make you healthier long term and get less fractures and osteoporosis, etc. Um, lifting weights. Well, I'm trying to tell them to contact sports, do a martial art as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:02

Yeah, absolutely. What are your thoughts on biological age tests?

SPEAKER_00 1:36:07

I I don't know, but you know what? I'm gonna say I'm not gonna answer that properly because I don't understand enough about them. I know it's about Tileman length, but I don't know how accurate they are. Anything I say would be sort of like a it's like the the the the uh it's like the Iran war. Anyone asks me, I go, what do you think is going to happen? I go, I have you say with it. Anyone smart is gonna go, I don't know what's going to happen long time. Yeah, no, I respect it. I don't know. I don't I don't know enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:29

I respect that. Um I think a lot of it's marketing, and I think it makes people curious. They're like, what is my it's it does make people? Because you're in a course, you're curious, don't you? For example, I came across Inside Tracker through listening to Andrew Huberman, and I was just curious to get that tested. But is it actually effective? I'm sure it gives you a good benchmark, but I don't know. I wouldn't say it's like I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:53

Yeah, I would imagine it's not that accurate. Yeah, I would think it's very because I think there's going to be other factors in play. Literally, I think that you can't just look at telomere length and then everything else comes into play, right? Literally, you're an example. Some of telomeres now look really healthy, like long, but they have a bad heart. Do you know what I mean? Literally, anything we have you have cancer on there, but it wouldn't test that, would it?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:16

That's another example. It's great, it's great. You have good good telomer length, um, which I mean shortened over time, so your biological age is young, but then literally you have cancer growing somewhere. Do you know what I mean? Literally. So it doesn't really mean anything anyway, to be honest with you. I think people want all these answers and numbers, and I think numbers and testing are fantastic. However, I think people know that what they should be doing anyway. 100%. That's another thing as well. People are asking all these questions. We had clients asking 4,000 questions, which is great, and they love they love it, just like I do. I'm interested in numbers, but also go to let's be honest here, the first thing, let's just make you lean. Like let's let's get you strong and lean and sleeping properly. Don't drink alcohol, don't smoke. That kind of thing. Why do you pull those levers first rather than worrying about 400 different supplements, etc.?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:56

100%. Going back to also why I think it's all marketing spiel as well, for example, Whoop, they've come up with like some kind of age tracker as well. A lot of these devices are like I mean, you just gotta go back to first principles and see what is actually scientifically.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:12

It's that the Whoop thing. Funny enough, I'm sure a lot of people do you know. I used to use one. I think that what one thing Whoop's good for. So they the tracking on this great, but once you have the data of what affects your sleep and doesn't affect your sleep, then you're where are you going from there? So an example would be to a man, but I'm sure you do the same sort of thing. The Whoop would go to you, had terrible sleep, you're not recovered. I'll just choose to ignore it and train hard anyway. And when it says I'm recovered, I train even harder. So what's the what's the use anyway? Ignore it anyway. Yeah, you know, you know yourself, you know, you know yourself. And admittedly, both of us have done this before. You feel like crap, and then you actually train really well, and you you feel great and you you're really weak. But in general, you you know yourself, and also the one of the biggest things I learned from Whoopactually about sleep, um, what improve my sleep quality. Having caffeine to a certain time weirdly enough doesn't affect me. Like you, I can tell I drink I drink a lot of caffeine, it doesn't seem to affect my sleep that much. But one thing that massively affected was eating late at night. So eating just before I went to bed, having you know, go out your mace and have a late dinner, destroyed my sleep. Always would destroy my sleep. That was one of the most powerful things. And I know Brian Johnson stops food at like 11, I think. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. What I would do for most people is just stop your have your last meal three to four hours before we go to bed. I agree with that. You go to bed at 10, have dinner at seven. Not asking to do much, but don't have these late dinners at 9, 10, it's going to destroy your sleep.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:27

Yeah. You're a big fan of coffee. Obviously, coffee is said to have a lot of has a lot of polyphenols in it. Um, there are new brands coming out there like Exalt that are claiming to have more polyphenols retained in the grain. I don't know if that is just a marketing spiel or what are your thoughts on that stuff?

SPEAKER_00 1:39:47

It's a good question. So um, right, it's actually one someone wants to bring up. So the quality of coffee makes a difference. Um coffee tends to harbour mold toxins, a lot of them. Very easy to know about mycotoxins, depending on how they've been kept. So you want to, when you buy a coffee bean, make sure it's mold free and be tested for mould. Also, coffee is very heavily sprayed with glyphosates, which definitely do cause cancer. So, literally, this thing about organic versus non-organic, look, I eat non-organic food like everyone does. But in general, go for organic coffee, um, not sprayed with glyphosates. Um, so the the reason I'm going through this, I'm I'm getting is there a particular brand that you favor? I use what do I use? Is it Excel or I can't remember what it's called now, the coffee? Um Mindful Coffee, it's called by Amazon Mindful Coffee, right? Um, and it's an expensive coffee, but then in the end I buy the beans, literally each cup is about 30p, which is expensive for coffee, but it's cheap compared to keeping coffee out. Um, so right, how so about the polyphenols, right? It contains more polyphenols. Yes, some will will do. However, the best way to retain polyphenols, a few things. Number one is to grind your coffee beans fresh. That doesn't make a difference. I have a sage coffee grinder, right? It actually does make a difference when you grind coffee, it does actually taste better as well, but that will retain more polyphenols and less mold. When you grind coffee, it will tend to get more mold on it. So you have a bag of ground coffee, it will retain more mold. Another thing to do, I have filter filter coffee. Filter coffee retains again the most polyphenols more than espresso, because espresso you're pushing some steam, so very hot, hot um water and steam and gas um that burns the coffee beans. So, what you do with filter coffee, if you go to any proper barista, they'll boil the water and then leave it aside for a bit to get to about 90 degrees, so it cools down a bit. When you pour it over, it burns the beans less and that retains more polyphenols. Another thing to do is use brown filter paper, non-bleached, because you have to think about this. When you're using white filter paper, that's a crap load of bleach in there, and you're drinking the bleach. So, what I was trying to say was it's more important how you make your coffee um than just picking a high polyphenol coffee and also making sure it's organic and grinding fresh.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:49

Got it. Yeah, I think you're right. It's actually X. I said Excel, but I think it's XL. I think it is XL, isn't it? I know they're XL XL coffee. Yeah, I think they are good.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:56

I think XL coffee is good. I do think, I think, I think if it was organic and mycotoxin free, which I think it is Excel, 90% sure it is. Yes, Excel, yeah. Yeah, XL coffee. Um then yes, I think it is better to get good quality coffee. I think people were willing to spend four quid on a Starbucks coffee, but then four pounds. Um, and then and then when they buy XL coffee, which cost 40p instead of 20p, it makes no difference with drinking coffee out anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:21

Yeah. Given the matcha crate, just another point on that. What do you what do you think of obviously matcha has um caffeine in it, right? Yes. Albeit a little bit less. But are there benefits to having matcha over coffee? My understanding is that there's it's more slow, stable energy release versus like coffee.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:43

Yes, it um it is more it is slower and more stable. Um it contains I'm not 90% sure it contains something called L-theanine. Yes, yeah. So what it does, it basically mellows you out and uh calming. More calming, exactly. So it's less less of a stimulant, but it's still stimulating, it's got caffeine in. So matcha, um, the way it's grown is they they grow the green tea leaves under shade. So the reason why matcha has more polyphenols and anti-uh cancerous compounds than normal green tea, both of them are anti-cancerous, right? They're fantastic. But matcha is grown under shade, and so what that does is puts the leaf or the plant under stress, and they and they make these compounds that based on anticancerous because the what it does, because it's under stress, they create these uh it calls something called hormesis, which is basically reacting to a stressor. Yes, and um, what it does is make these compounds to basically counteract that stressor, which you ingest and are anti-cancerous, and that's why matra is healthier than having green tea. It's the same hormesis with when you train or go in a sauna. So you go undergo hormesis, which is basically a healthy stressor, yeah, which uh which reduces your risk of cancer, and that's why matra is better than having green tea. And comparing green tea and coffee, or matra and coffee, I just have both every day, to be honest. Why not? I mean, I have a cup of coffee in the morning and I will add some into my um kefir, I'll just add a bit of matra in there, like a teaspoon in there. Um, I still find matcha a little bit of a homosexual thing to do, but no, I only uh funnily enough, I actually always drank matcha as a kid because my mum before was well known as like after rugby matches when I was 12, 13, used to make me matcha. I remember my friends coming around, what the hell is this weird green drink? And now it's you're laughing because now it's mental. The same as a kid who used to eat raw fish and people thought it was a weirdo, and now it's uh sushi's everywhere. But yeah, but being serious, um, matcha is better than green tea, and yes, it does have a more level um energy spike. You don't get you don't feel as wired having matcha compared to coffee.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:39

What are your thoughts around intermittent fasting?

SPEAKER_00 1:44:42

Good question. Okay, so right, intermittent fasting does look like it has some benefits in terms of um clearing out old cells that are damaged. Yes, and essence cells. Yes, in essence cells. So if you have everything optimized, it'll be a great tool. Going from the the problem is you should be doing long fasts. It's another thing. People just look, people say do anything you can, but usually having water, just water for a day. I think that had benefits doing it every so often. Not think it does have benefits. However, that's great for you and me. Most people should not be messing with it because it causes eating disorders to most people. A lot of people will be intermittent fasting so they can binge eat later in the day. That's what I think about it. So for you and me who have a diet dialed in, I think it's fantastic. Um, for performance athletes, not so much. So you want to have regular feedings and carbohydrate intake for performing the best when you're running or lifting or doing this, etc. But someone like you and me can use it every so often. I think it's fantastic, has a lot of health benefits. But for the average Joe who wants to lose weight, no. I think it can be really harmful. Some people it can work. I've come across people it does work because they control their calories, they don't eat in the beginning of the day. But the reason it works for most people losing weight is because they're just eating less food, because they're packing the food into one part of the day. So really beneficial, yes. Good for people like you and me, yes. Average Joe, probably not, unless they have really good control of their eating already. Is it something you adopt yourself? Uh no, I don't. No, I don't. I think they have benefit benefits to it, but because I weight training, I do so much training, I'm just gonna end up just being exhausted. Um, but I would, I would be up for it to give it a go. I know a lot of people I know train very hard, do do it every so often, or like a water fast.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:20

Yeah. Um do you do it yourself? I do, yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I do usually 16 to 18 hours.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:27

So probably fast then, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:28

Yeah, okay. Um water only uh black coffee in the morning to suck my appetite sometimes for about two or three hours. Um I usually have the coffee at least 90 minutes after waking up. Yeah, uh I think that's something to do with your adenosine levels. Um yeah, so yeah, I've been I've been doing intensive fasting, honestly, for probably now eight, nine years. Yeah, I remember you talking about it a while ago about doing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:55

You asked me about it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:57

But I obviously I don't binge, I'm very careful. That's what I meant.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:01

It's because your your that's the thing with you, I think is great, and I think that nothing I know it's great for people that have a diet diet in doing it every soft. Another thing it does, um, ensure you find this beneficial, it gives your um your gut a rest.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:12

So uh Tim Spector talks about it. Fasting every soften is really good for your gut. Um it's brilliant for your gut health, just giving it a rest.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:20

I also think for inflammation. Oh, it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:23

Your joints hurt less, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:47:25

Yeah. Um I mean, I've seen my CRP come down virtually to like zero less. I mean, the last Randox test, I think, it was literally untraceable, it's less than 0.3.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:36

Yeah, it's trying to say non-existent basically, so I'll be always. I thought that was normal. So it's but that's the weird thing, it's weird because my CRP always comes out non like non-existent, like like actually. I think I'll find it, so I'm not lying. I think it was 0.0. And I thought it was normal. And then my my Dr. Mill is a blah blah that's not normal. Because I don't realise saying with us how healthily we eat. I think that's normal. It really goes, I see everyone having two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil per day, two cups of mycotoxin free coffee. That's normal. Um, but yeah, that's really interesting what you said about that. Yeah, really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:10

You're a big fan of extra virgin olive oil as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:12

I am, yeah. Uh for this huge amount of studies to show how good it's for your heart. So that's another one. Having three tablespoons is the sweet spot. I know it's a lot of calories, so if someone's really overweight, maybe don't do it, lose weight first. But um, it is just brilliant for your heart. Inflammation, the the the the populations that live really long have a lot of olive oil. Um, but don't don't cook with it. It's really high quality olive oil. It's actually not going to cause any harm. People think it's gonna harm you, it's not gonna harm you, but to get the most of the benefits from it, just make sure you're um having it raw. Um the best cooking oil, though, to have is avocado oil has a high smoke point. That's what I use for my cooking.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:49

Umvocado oil, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:50

It's the best for cooking, it's got a high smoke point, etc. Um, it's about the seed oil thing, actually. People ask about seed oils, another one. Is that our seed oils bad for you? So it's actually a really simple answer. So seed oils, um this is the weird answer, but that's actually what it is. So seed oils themselves uh don't cause any issues, however, they contain a lot of polyunsaturated fats, so they are sensitive to heat. When you heat a seed oil, that's when you get a lot of trans fats and fats that will cause inflammation and will cause your LDL to rise, etc. So if you're gonna have seed oils, which no one does have them this way anyway, this is the whole point. Yeah, if you have literally a tablespoon of sunflower, will it cause any issues?

unknown 1:49:33

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:34

But the way we're having it, cooking it, etc., and everything, deep frying, it it does cause issues. So I definitely would avoid cooking with seed oils. And I also don't see the point as well. There's a lot of things that show that it does cause issues. Why are we trying to look is it gonna cause any issues having a bit of every sulfur? No, it's ridiculous. Yeah, but when people say I was completely fine, like slathering with everything, I wouldn't do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:54

No, absolutely. I just thought of Paul Saladino when you mentioned when you were mentioning all of this. One of the things I definitely agree with, but that I don't think it is nearly emphasized enough is food marketing. And I think Paul Saladin has emphasized this point. On like for example, on cigarette um packets, we have you know warnings cancerous and all that kind of stuff. What are your thoughts on the food industry having similar kind of warnings on ultra-processed foods?

SPEAKER_00 1:50:27

Yes, they should. I've gone back and forth with this, but I actually think about it long term. So the reason why I was against it before was because um I didn't realise how harmful they were. I thought everyone knows they cause some sort of harm. But people thought as long as you're eating a calorie deficit, but you know, they're not harmful, but they clearly do show harm now. An example would be where people thought red meat caused cancer. What they found out was unprocessed red meat does not cause cancer. The reason they thought red meat caused cancer was processed red meat causes cancer, the nitrates, the nitrites that um the preserve meats. Um and all these processed foods contain these, these fillers, the multifiers, so they definitely are bad for them. They definitely will increase your risk of cancer, without doubt. So they definitely should have warnings on them. Because again, we live in a bubble thinking everyone knows about this, but they don't. They really don't. Most people don't know about this. They really, really don't. I, most people having a couple of eggs in the day, we know that dietary cholesterol does not affect your own cholesterol. Most people still will not have a couple of eggs that well it's gonna give me uh make my cholesterol grow up. Like, no, it won't. And then those are the same people that will uh down literally four lagers and then will be worried about two eggs, which is craziness. But absolutely they think they should have and warnings on there.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:39

There's so much nuance around this, in terms of, for example, what you just mentioned there around red meat and the source of red meat, for example, whether it's grass-fed, and then for example, chicken as well. Oh god, it most of terrible issue. Yeah, a lot of it's corn fed. Like where the actual meat is being sourced, I don't think with chicken, it's a lot more difficult. I mean, on one hand, it's seen to be healthier because it has less saturated fat, but on the other hand, the source and how it's being, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:11

The healthiest meat you can have is um lean red meat. So the reason why red meat does cause an issue, and I don't agree with this thing, slightly having loads saturated, but saturated fat does show that increased LDL.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:24

Having very high LDL does increase your risk of heart disease, actually. There's there's no point in this thing, it's fine to have really high LDL. Do I think having moderately not think? I know from cardiologists, having slightly elevated LDL won't won't cause a heart attack. However, having very high LDL for long periods of time will cause a heart attack or cause issues with your heart. Um, so the point I'm trying to make is yes, um, red meat is the most micronutrient dense meat. If you compare that to chicken, chicken is it's okay, but it's no it really isn't, it's just protein um with a few vitamins and minerals, etc. But having lean red meat is definitely the best source. The reason why I say that also is not just because of the micronutrients, but also it's easy to source good quality. You can get good quality grass-fed pasteure pasteurised um beef from your local butcher. Chicken is very hard to source proper pasteurised chicken, it's very, very difficult. That's therefore I mainly lean red meat. Most of my most of my food is lean red red meat. That's a good point.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:18

In terms of lipid profiles, I think one of the actually this was a point that came up with scene. He mentioned that triglycerides are something that needs to be looked into a lot more. Perhaps we're looking into at the moment, in terms of like mainstream NHS. Um wondering what your thoughts are around that. Obviously, HDL cholesterol is important, having enough HDL.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:42

Yeah, so I don't think anyone argues about the one thing LDL people funny about the same Dr. uh what's his name? Um argues about LDL, and I think he has the same view of a lot of more prominent cardiologists that may seem more modern. The having really high LDL is bad, but having moderately raised LDL is not bad. Um, however, having low HDL is definitely bad, and there's ways you increase that having lots of monounsaturated fats. Exercise also increases HDL. Um insulin sensitivity is another thing. Yeah, that's really powerful. So controlling your blood sugar. Um was getting out with that, sorry, about um about uh triglycerides. Yeah, so try having high triglycerides. Um a few of my friends are cardiologists, they say that is definitely bad, having high triglycerides. You do need to be watching triglycerides.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:36

I think HDL to triglyceride ratio is another one to level.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:41

Yes, yes, as well.

unknown 1:54:41

Yeah, it is, yeah, yeah, as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:42

But um obviously APOB.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:44

APOB is the you know one about having as high low as possible. It's funny, that's another question, isn't it? I think that people ask whether Putribean lifelong statins.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:52

Um, I know Peter Tia talks about it. I know I think so does David Sinclair. I think she should be on a small statin.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:58

So many different schools of thoughts on this.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:00

It's if that is one of the, you know, a lot of things people, well, not a lot of things people agree on. One thing was so on that note, yeah, about having statins to keep it as low as possible. No one knows what the correct answer is. But one thing that is definitely correct with what people ask me, is there one thing you're sure of? One thing I'm 100% sure of everyone should be doing is having less processed foods. Yeah. That's without doubt. Having less processed foods because you will, there's obviously a lot of issues with cancer, etc. But the biggest thing is you'll be more full. Yeah. Much less light to get overweight by having less processed foods.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:29

Um there's a lot of nuance around, for example, biomarkers like LP little A, which is a genetic risk factor. Yes. But LP little A is very high. So I actually got a CAC scan done, but it came out as zero. Oh amazing. That is good, but it shows that there's um no calcifite plaque, but the problem is it doesn't pick up soft plaque. So um my cousin, he's a well-known cardiologist in LA. So he suggested maybe getting um the one with the dye, I think it's called a CT. A CT. Yeah, to test for soft plaque as well, just to have complete peace of mind. Yeah, yeah. Um, so I might do that as a next step. But then there's like, for example, what's his name? There's this guy from Harvard, um, he's pretty well known. Um he's a qualified he's he's a very, very smart guy. The name's not coming into my head right now. But he was just saying that if you've got low visceral fat, the LPA is not such a big issue. So like interesting. So I'm like, shall I spend the like two grand and get the test done or what?

SPEAKER_00 1:56:35

It's like you're someone that probably would want to get it done again.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:39

Why not? Um, so yeah, there's a lot of nuance around soft plaque and calcified plaque.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:44

Yeah, that's a that's another one that's so nuanced, and people have completely different opinions. We're talking about people that you know, not asking the top doctor, you're asking three top doctors and have different opinions. It's quite scary. Yeah, it's quite worrying, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:56:54

Yeah, yeah. So like a scene was like it's not that much of a big deal, but like so it's it's it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:01

Some doctors you're doing the right thing anyway, like we said before, keeping lean and strong and basically just avoiding going crazy with saturated fats. It's not much else you can do. That's another that's another way of looking at it sometimes. You're doing all the things you can do anyway. Yeah, yeah. You can't drive yourself mad, basically, right? Can't drive yourself mad. Absolutely.