EP. 19 - EC Synkowski - Deconstructing Popular Nutrition Trends

This week Bryce sits down with EC Synkowski! EC is the founder of Optimize Me Nutrition and the 800 gram challenge. She has an amazing podcast called the Consistency Project where she discusses health, nutrition, fitness and reality.
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Transcript

Bryce (00:01.708)
What's up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the All Smith Project. Today's guest is the founder of Optimize Me Nutrition and the 800 gram challenge. She's got an amazing podcast called the Consistency Project where she discusses health, nutrition, fitness and reality. Today I would love to introduce E.C. Sinkowski. Welcome to the show.

EC (00:23.934)
Yeah. Hey, thanks so much for having me on. Good to see you.

Bryce (00:27.736)
So good to see you. We always talk about this, but I gotta throw it out there real quick. We're both over six feet. I miss you. I miss the good old days crossing paths with you at our Point Loma facility here in beautiful San Diego. And it is incredible to see your face.

EC (00:33.534)
Yes.

EC (00:42.482)
Yeah, that is true. People don't always know our heights when we're sitting on these podcasts.

Bryce (00:47.672)
Yeah, absolutely. The other thing that I also want to throw out is aside from all the amazing things you're doing in the nutrition world and the fitness world and the mindset world, what I really loved was when I got to cross paths with you in the gym, I didn't know who you were, but I saw your work ethic. You had warm energy. We always got to visit a little bit between sets or before and after sessions.

And there's something to be said about you as a human being and also just the community component of CrossFit that I think was like a huge push in the beginning and it's talked about a lot, but now in the realm of like everybody being so focused and trying to get the thing or to video it for the gram, that was just a time where we were just two humans just kind of crossing paths. There was no reputation or like trying to get something from each other. It's just like, you're dope. Maybe game recognized game.

But it was cool to just spend that quality time with you.

EC (01:46.334)
Yeah, well thank you. You always were so welcoming at Invictus, so it started to feel like a second home for sure, so it was always good to see you.

Bryce (01:53.94)
That's great. Where I want to start our conversation today is, I feel like this is a pretty common topic, but it's around this pseudo quote that is, everything is super important until you are sick. Then you realize there was only ever one thing that was important, your health. But nonetheless, we continue to borrow from the bank of our health, taking loans on stress and sleepless nights to pay for something that doesn't really matter.

EC (02:07.758)
Hmm

Bryce (02:24.56)
And I feel like that was a great place for us to start our conversation today because we can get into the nuance of the Xs and Os of nutrition and fitness and all these things. But at the end of the day, at the baseline is our sleep. Or some of these very simple principles that you talk about often where if you don't do those things consistently, you're walking over $100 bills to pick up pennies. So when I share that quote with you,

EC (02:40.305)
Mm.

EC (02:50.382)
Totally.

Bryce (02:53.02)
What are some of the concepts that come to mind?

EC (02:55.234)
Hmm. Yeah, I mean, I do think it's true for a lot of people that it's easy to kind of push off basic diet and lifestyle practices for too long.

It's, I would say it's common in a lot of things. To me, it reminds me a lot of saving for retirement. It's very hard to do that told delayed gratification thing. And the basics of diet and lifestyle are exactly that. And if you eat fruits and vegetables today, you don't necessarily look or feel amazing tomorrow. It's the consistent practice in all of them that make them so powerful over long periods of time. And so I empathize, I understand. It's easy to wanna just get immediate results.

But yeah, it's all too often. And I think what we're stepping over, the $100 bills that we're stepping over are really basic nutrition practices, eating more fruits and vegetables than you probably are right now, getting enough good protein sources, sleeping enough, as you mentioned, that has a huge influence on our ability to make good diet choices, exercising regularly, not even necessarily the most optimal program, but just picking something you like and doing it. And what's amazing about that is when you do all of those consistently.

you probably don't need to worry about the dollar bills or the pennies. That the effect of those hundred dollar bills are going to be enough overall, that you don't need to worry about optimization once you're doing all of those consistently.

Bryce (04:14.076)
Yeah, that's very well said. Something I've been thinking about recently is I was looking at like a basic kind of principle like Monday through Friday. And let's say Monday, you're all full of piss and vinegar and you give 100% effort in the gym. Tuesday, like it's a little bit less, but maybe you give three fourths effort and intensity. Wednesday, you're like, oh, I'm kind of beat up. So you're kind of subpar.

EC (04:25.172)
Mm.

Bryce (04:41.908)
Thursday, you're like, okay, let me finish the week out strong, so you're maybe 50%. And then Friday, you're like, ah, it's almost the weekend, so you just kind of showed up. And everybody wants to create this beautiful narrative and romantic thought process around the Monday. Oh, if I could just have more workouts that are 100% effort, I'm going to crush it. But we fail to realize those are few and far between. Those are maybe five to...

EC (05:01.358)
Mm.

Bryce (05:10.772)
20 days out of the year, depending on who you are. I almost think the thought process around like the Wednesday, Thursday is a little more sustainable. That like 60 to 80% realm of like, it's better than just showing up, but it's also something that when you look at a spreadsheet of 365 days, you're more likely to get more of those Wednesday, Thursday days than you are the 100% effort days. And I struggle, I think.

EC (05:17.763)
Hmm.

EC (05:21.592)
Hmm.

EC (05:36.654)
Mm-hmm.

Bryce (05:39.148)
as a coach and a thought leader, try to share that narrative. What are some of the practices that you use to help create buy-in around the consistency project that is a huge part of the puzzle? I think.

EC (05:43.054)
Hmm.

EC (05:49.909)
Yeah.

EC (05:54.442)
Yeah, I mean, some of it I think just is, you know, your own experience, you're able to speak to it, your own experience, seeing it shake out to results with clients or yourself. And so I think that also then, I don't know if pervades is the right word, but just as part of how you explain it and how your whole attitude about it and the ability to kind of give people that reality check a little bit. You really think that, you know, going 100% on Monday is definitely the only thing that's going to be necessary to drive results. You don't think that

50% on Wednesday and Thursday is gonna have any value. Some of that too, I think helps people just kind of reality check and realize, okay, there's value here. And so yeah, I think that's a little bit of it. You see enough time go by where you can look around at yourself, your clients, and just other people and realize that, okay, no, it's not 100% that drives all of this stuff. That just the basic practices most of the time is necessary for results, yeah. And I think, yeah.

Bryce (06:50.712)
Especially with duration, right? Like when you're in a space for a long time, I think you come to realize that like, oh, the rules of the game have changed. I'm now doing this because my game is now to keep playing. I'm not just training for this event or that marathon or the CrossFit games or just for the wedding.

EC (06:54.539)
long enough time.

EC (07:03.776)
Mm-mm.

EC (07:09.826)
Yeah.

Bryce (07:09.94)
I'm now training so that way I can sustain this across a lifespan. And I think that the creating sustainable habits that may be a little bit lower hanging fruit than the one that is super complex and high and takes an enormous amount of ladders and ropes to get there might be the one that allows you to do the thing more frequently. And then by frequency, you get more volume and reps and then you get the results across time.

EC (07:14.007)
Hmm

EC (07:28.718)
Correct.

EC (07:34.998)
Totally, totally. I think I definitely see that with fitness. You try all these personally, you try all these different things, and then you realize, oh, the reason why I have the fitness that I do is because I've been doing it since I was 12, or whenever I started going to the YMC weight room. And then the same thing with nutrition. It's like you try all these optimal approaches that last for 30 days, and then you're like, oh, it's just because I'm eating quality over 20 years. Oh, okay, now I get it. So.

I do think a lot of it starts to shake out with just experience. And then of course, experience watching your clients live and live the same things that you follow.

Bryce (08:09.596)
You get a lot of case studies and you understand through observation and then through practical application. You see, how did you find fitness and nutrition? Where did it all kind of begin for you where you kind of narrowed your focus a little bit and you're like, this is something that I'm gonna take supreme interest in.

EC (08:19.024)
Mmm.

EC (08:27.982)
Yeah, it was always a hobby, grew up playing sports, that type of stuff. Always had a little bit of intensity in type A persona. So that also continued to drive it and it was early to find CrossFit, largely because my brother who was interested in martial arts and stuff. So he kind of found it early. And I think it just really fit well with the persona. Like I said, the type A, the intensity, all of that stuff, the metrics. And so, yeah, ultimately that was...

That was a big part of my life and I worked for them for some period of time, but they also had a big nutrition component, as you know. And so I also had some background in that. And so I think it was just kind of the two together was, I guess, almost the perfect storm. But then I realized I needed to go on and do my own thing, kind of needed a new challenge and change. And so now I'm focusing on nutrition exclusively, although the more I work in nutrition, the more I think that regular exercise is the ultimate nutrition hack. So I...

Bryce (09:22.611)
Why is that?

EC (09:24.03)
I think CrossFit, you know, it doesn't have to be CrossFit, but I think so many fitness programs really are the first unlock for people. And the reason why is I think it's, I think nutrition's a harder habit to change because it's so constant. You can't do it once a day. You can't limit it to one hour a day at the gym. And you have to be able to do it on your own. And like I said, it's around us all the time. Our food environment and it's just culturally and socially part of so much of what we do.

Bryce (09:37.554)
Yeah.

EC (09:51.342)
that I think it's harder to change. And so I think doing something like fitness is a hard habit to change. And you sometimes have to push yourself to levels that you might experience some pain or some difficulty and you continue to work through it. And it kind of develops the self belief that you can do hard things and you can make diet or you can make lifestyle changes. And therefore, then you're ready to kind of tackle nutrition. And my most successful clients are, I'm sorry.

Bryce (10:15.636)
Correct me if I'm wrong. No, correct me if I'm wrong, but what I'm thinking and a little bit of what I'm hearing is, at least from my observation, the push in exercise and fitness is to just do it. It's to participate, and then you also get the dopamine and the hormonal changes, and then you self-reflect, and you're like, hey, I accomplished the task.

EC (10:32.227)
Hmm.

Bryce (10:41.852)
The thing that in my opinion is tough about nutrition, and I greatly admire your courage to tackle that whole onslaught of a very expensive arena, there's so much conflicting knowledge. Like you said, you're doing it multiple times a day. It's not just, hey, I did my 30 to 60 minute workout, I checked the box. I don't know, there's so much different knowledge coming out, it gets mixed with.

EC (10:53.559)
Hmm.

Bryce (11:09.868)
supplements, it gets mixed with lifestyle, there's doctor this, study that, influencer this, but I see these people doing it and they're professional athletes so I should copy what they're doing. I think the variables in nutrition, they're just more. I don't know, it's a very complex space and every time I listen to your podcast or watch your content, I'm just amazed. Like you really do simplify complex topics and make them digestible for.

for idiots like myself.

EC (11:41.118)
Well, I wouldn't say that, but thank you. Yeah, I mean, that's something I've always enjoyed, is making the complex simple. And when I kind of start to look at my career, at first it might look a little bit convoluted and goes in lots of different directions from environmental consulting to working at CrossFit to now doing folio nutrition. But I realize that that's a lot of what I enjoy, is helping make the complex simple. So I think you did hit the nail on the head that I certainly have enough to work on in the nutrition space. But ultimately, that was what

became the fodder for my 10 principles of nutrition. Because to me, that is how people can start making sense of why does this person say this and why does that person say this? And they can start understanding, okay, what are the through lines that maybe day to day, I pick chicken and you pick beef and this person eats at 9 p.m. and I eat at 7 a.m. But what are the underlying principles that are really driving my results? And so that's how I came up with the 10 principles of nutrition. Unfortunately, they're not...

They're not how you get attention on social media. Social media needs to be entertaining and engaging and sort of sit down with somebody and say, okay, we need to talk through 10 principles and look at all these different nuances. And so I think that's a little bit of why we have so much confusion is all these sound bites in there never really put the full picture together. And so ultimately I try to teach people the full picture. Admittedly, it comes out sound bite by sound bite and Instagram.

Bryce (13:04.336)
What I love about it though, EC, is simple isn't easy, but simple works. And I really believe that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. When we look at the foundation of exercise, which we know works, you're gonna push, you're gonna pull, you're gonna hinge, you're gonna squat, you're gonna have some monostructural things in there. I'd even throw the element of play in there. And maybe there's a couple little things, but they would be more categorized, in my opinion, as

EC (13:09.173)
Mmm. Mm-hmm.

EC (13:14.668)
Mm-hmm.

EC (13:18.926)
Hmm.

EC (13:27.534)
Mm-hmm.

Bryce (13:33.132)
spices, maybe not the meat and potatoes or the macros. And I think developing principles, although they're not this super sexy muscle up or heavy squat snatch, they're real and they're honest and they're going to help people. And I know when I was transitioning from basketball and was fortunate to find CrossFit, I actually crossed paths with the Primal Blueprint and Mark Sisson.

EC (13:34.254)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

EC (13:46.21)
Hmm.

Bryce (13:58.052)
And what I really loved early on was he gave 10 principles. And they were a little vague, but they at least gave me some parameters to follow. And I'm gonna share those with you just as a brief reminder. You probably know them already, but I think it's helpful for our listeners. Eat lots of plants and animals. Right off the bat, that's pretty freaking cool because it narrows you to attempt to eat whole foods, single ingredient foods or limited ingredient foods. Pretty cool.

EC (13:58.137)
Mm-hmm.

EC (14:10.23)
Mmm. Yeah. Go for it.

EC (14:20.855)
Mm-hmm.

Bryce (14:27.936)
Number two, avoid poisonous things. That one's a little vague. We could argue about the definition of the word poisonous, but at that time I viewed it as like, ah, probably should stay away from the Sour Patch Kids. Maybe I'll have this instead. You know, something like that, or trying to stay away from, you know, all of the tremendous artificial powders or things like that. Move frequently at a comfortable pace. Coming from basketball, I always thought like, more was better, faster, faster. I didn't really understand, like,

EC (14:30.39)
Mm-hmm.

EC (14:35.521)
Mm-hmm.

EC (14:48.652)
Mm-hmm.

EC (14:52.323)
Hmm.

Bryce (14:57.7)
Oh wow, it's actually okay to move at a comfortable pace. He created buy-in with me in the comparison of the prototypical caveman versus what he called Grock. And then the guy that was really living the modern American lifestyle, not moving, sedentary, eating fast food frequently, he reversed that and called him Krog. And I thought that was a cool comparison at that time. Sprint once in a while.

EC (15:05.486)
Mm.

EC (15:08.942)
Mm-hmm.

EC (15:19.872)
Mm.

Yeah.

Okay.

Bryce (15:25.68)
I think that's a really cool one. If you don't use it, you lose it. So it is important to touch on that intensity. Doesn't always have to be impactful. You can use a machine to sprint or different forms of sprinting, but I thought that was cool. Get adequate sleep. We talked about that briefly already. Play, that's a great one. We're looking at the growth and development of pickleball currently, which I love seeing it for people. Lift heavy things. That's a really important one that I think can be helpful. Get adequate sunlight.

EC (15:29.067)
Mm-hmm.

EC (15:41.542)
Yeah.

EC (15:50.006)
Okay, that's a good one.

Bryce (15:54.524)
and just natural sunlight in the eyes. We've heard Huberman talking about that to set the circadian rhythm, some cool things in there. Avoid stupid mistakes. Once again, vague, but we kind of have a generalized idea of like good, bad, right, wrong. And then use your brain. So reading 10 pages like it says in 75 Hard, listen to a podcast, try your best to absorb some knowledge or embark on a thought experiment or a fun conversation.

EC (16:15.393)
Yeah.

EC (16:23.671)
Mm. Yeah.

Bryce (16:23.984)
I loved that right off the bat. I thought that was a cool way to set some primal laws that gave me at a young age, you know, some generalized parameters. And what I love is like, you did something kind of very similar, but it's a little bit more complex in its words, but simple when you dive into the context. What are your thoughts when I kind of mentioned some of those ones from Mark Sisson that, I think his book came out 15 years ago?

EC (16:28.919)
Mm-hmm.

EC (16:41.95)
Yeah.

EC (16:45.357)
Yeah.

EC (16:52.83)
Yeah, yeah, they're great. I mean, I think one of the great things about them is it does actually show us that a lot of the basic stuff works. You know, I think people are told all the time about cutting edge science and yeah, that's true. Mostly, in my opinion, for treatment scenarios, figuring out new ways to treat different diseases. I think there is more advancement there and cutting edge and prevention and.

Bryce (16:53.104)
long time ago.

EC (17:22.042)
and diagnostics, I think some of that stuff is really cutting edge and quite changing quite fast. But from a preventative point of view, I think there's a lot of these old truths that just work, that are so basic. Eat more whole foods than not, move your body, do it regularly, you know, engage your brain, sleep well. And you know, people keep looking for the cutting edge diet and lifestyle thing and it's like, it's not there. These are the cutting edge ones, the ones that have worked for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Bryce (17:51.26)
No, I totally align with you there for sure. I wanna say a couple things that stand out to me that I think would be really helpful to share with people. And the first one is shop the perimeter of the grocery store. When I say that, what kinda comes to mind for you?

EC (18:04.014)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

EC (18:07.946)
Yeah, I mean, all of the processed stuff is up and down the aisles, right? So we typically will land on the more fruits and veggies, which of course I like. We'll land on some of the meats. Typically, the bakery aisle is also somewhere along the perimeter. So we might have to remind people that we're primarily talking about the foods that go bad. But I think that's good. And I think it's a really simple way to get people going, because that's the thing is like we can go into all of the nuance and explain all of this stuff. But people, it's.

people don't learn 75 things at once. They learn one thing at a time. And so we get them going by saying shop the perimeter of the aisle and they're gonna be like, well, what about the bakery? And like, well, good point, let's talk about the bakery. And so we go, but so yeah, I think it's a great first step for a lot of people is, hey, let's think about how much we're getting up and down the aisles versus on the outsides.

Bryce (18:46.327)
Such a good point.

Bryce (18:53.284)
Yeah, I definitely honor that. What comes to mind when I say, drink a full glass of water before a meal? I feel like that's kind of an old school one.

EC (19:00.568)
Mmm.

Yeah, I don't mind that. I do think, I do think we got a little crazy on hydration. You know, everything has become kind of a bit of a market because we can sell products. So I think some people have these really, really outlandish hydration goals. But glass of water sounds quite reasonable to me, and I think that it would help people kind of understand.

regular food consumption at a meal and maybe also help them not overeat, let's say, some of the processed stuff. So I wouldn't put it out there as a everybody has to do this all the time, but I think it could be a really nice way, especially for people that are looking for weight loss, to start that way. And so it helps them control the volume of food that they're about to eat. Yeah.

Bryce (19:45.712)
Yeah, for sure. I think it's important to note, I played this little game the last couple of days where I typed in the top nutrition trends of 2024 because I wanted to debunk them with you and just chat with you about them. And one of them was about hydration. And these Stanley Tumblers that you see, they're a sidekick for people's outfits. They're matching it with their outfit. They've got...

EC (19:54.904)
Okay.

Okay.

EC (20:02.286)
Hmm. Yes. They're huge. I know.

Bryce (20:11.052)
eight different sizes and colors, and it's an accessory now to the day-to-day. It's funny, but I also think hydration's cool. But it is getting chopped up in a way that's like, this is the answer to the world's problems. What do you think about that? Salt is being pushed left and right. We've seen awesome products like the Rehydrate stuff. We've seen awesome products like the LMNT.

EC (20:12.362)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

EC (20:26.945)
Right.

Bryce (20:36.836)
What kind of comes to mind when we start thinking about that element of hydration that you think would be great advice for people?

EC (20:42.57)
Yeah, you know, for the clients that I work with, most of it is not necessary. Is there a certain population that does need it? Yes. And it's typically going to be our more endurance athletes and especially people who have continuous sweating for at least 90 minutes. So maybe even some manual labor jobs I can think of, especially in certain climates. Right. But for a lot of us, because those are not the clients I work with, they are out there.

but they're not my clients. The clients I work with might be doing a CrossFit type workout or similar, less than an hour, and then have a sedentary job. And so they're getting enough electrolytes and sodium from their diet. They are not losing enough sweat during the time at which they might need that replenishment to have to worry about any sort of specific hydration strategies above and beyond each your diet. And then the hydration.

ones that I like to point people to are just drink to thirst and make sure that your urine is a pale yellow. Like I don't like to put out drink this many liters or this many cups because of course, as you know, it's so variable and it changes based on what different foods you have and what's your climate and how much working out you do. So don't worry about electrolytes unless again, you're kind of these endurance athletes or people with really sweaty jobs and then just drink to thirst and make sure your urine is pale yellow. And I think that's, that's going to fit.

overwhelming percentage of my clients at least.

Bryce (22:00.684)
Yeah, for sure. What do you think about the thought process around blood pressure and salt? I feel like that's one that I definitely get some pushback from. We have found that a lot of people are chronically dehydrated because their urine color has changed, especially in warmer climates during the hotter months out here in San Diego on the West Coast. But another big one is this overconsumption of caffeine.

EC (22:07.158)
Mm.

EC (22:11.188)
Yeah.

EC (22:15.598)
Hmm.

EC (22:28.349)
Mm.

Bryce (22:28.388)
Right, you have all these sexy beverages now that are nootropics or functional mushrooms, or typically have doses of caffeine that are in there in combination with the two to three cups of coffee that many people are having first thing in the morning. That is something that kind of peaks my eyebrows a little bit as far as just generalized hydration trends that does lead me to be a little bit more biased towards, okay, is water enough? You know, how are you salting your food?

EC (22:49.503)
Mm.

Bryce (22:57.333)
What are your thoughts around this blood pressure, salt, and this hydration thought process around that?

EC (23:03.682)
Yeah, salt can definitely affect blood pressure, but having hypertension, like every health condition does come down to more than one factor. And so I actually have my principle five, it is never one thing. So if we just look at salt for somebody, we won't make as many inroads on their blood pressures. We also change their diet and we also get exercise and all of the other things that we can do from diet and lifestyle. So salt is one piece of the puzzle.

And there are people who also are salt sensitive, that they will see a greater reduction than let's say the average person when they reduce their salt. So it is related, but I think like a lot of things we try to figure out the magic pill when it's instead, gosh, the best results I'll have on my blood pressure are let's eat more fruits and veggies, let's decrease the process stuff, let's exercise, let's leave, you know the idea. The $100 bills, let's get back to those guys, right? Then with the caffeine, yeah, I mean,

Bryce (23:46.504)
The hundred dollar bills, yo. Ha ha ha.

EC (23:56.374)
I mean, it's a diuretic, but it can be considered part of your liquid volume so long as you're within what the FDA considers normal levels of caffeine, which is about 400 milligrams a day. So it's not particularly dehydrated if you stay within that. But certainly, if you have people who are not drinking anything besides their cups of coffee, they're probably too low on water and or if they're doing a lot of these energy drinks as you mentioned, and also having all of the coffee cups a day.

then we might be getting into a realm where they should be focusing a little bit more on water. And so this is where general guidelines are really hard because are there gonna be some of your clients who for sure just need to drink some water? Yes, but I think there's a lot out there that's like, drink a gallon of water a day no matter what. And it's like, well, maybe, maybe not. Maybe that's not appropriate. So I think trying to give people guidelines that I think.

move with the person a little bit more, like I said, kind of drink to thirst and pale yellow urine will help them settle in on that volume versus always saying it has to be, you know, eight cups a day or whatever the metric is.

Bryce (24:56.784)
Yeah, one thing I really like about the concept from 75 Hard of drinking the gallon of water that it makes me laugh a little bit. I very much agree with you that it depends. It's probably not always like the answer. But you're really cognitively thinking, can I get this water in? So you're not thinking about other things that might be causing even more stress. You're probably peeing way more frequently, so you're getting more steps in.

EC (25:09.868)
Right.

EC (25:15.851)
Mm-hmm.

EC (25:22.203)
Hmm

Bryce (25:24.58)
you're carrying this thing around. So it's probably almost like a pseudo-ruck or farmer carry. I don't know, as far as movement, those are just kinda comedic benefits that I think come from the gallon of water.

EC (25:28.87)
Right.

EC (25:37.47)
Yeah, I really don't mind the 75 hard. I think it's kind of a little hyped up version of let's do the basics of diet lifestyle. I would throw out the one gallon for everybody for the reasons I mentioned. For example, I eat a lot of fruits and veggies, so I actually get a lot of water from my food. Now, a lot of people don't, so they probably could use more water. But this is where I don't love the absolutes like that. But...

But the general thing, I think the 75 hard hits on a lot of these basic practices, put a good name on it, add a little intensity. I don't see it as that bad overall.

Bryce (26:13.62)
Yeah, I like that. Just on that concept of fruits and vegetables, we're seeing the Paul Saladinos of the world talking about the anti-nutrients. Very entertaining going through the grocery store. I'm sure this stuff lands on your radar relatively frequently being in a similar space. It all comes with context. He's got many things that are very positive. And then some of these, it makes it very challenging to know what's right, what's wrong.

EC (26:18.051)
Hmm.

EC (26:31.723)
Yeah.

EC (26:37.474)
Hmm.

EC (26:42.644)
Mm.

Bryce (26:43.012)
I know for me in particular, there are certain vegetables. I'm like, man, I don't really feel that good. Brussels sprouts is one of them. I love the way they taste, but I just don't feel so good when I have those in comparison. When I have broccoli or spinach, I feel awesome. And so I'm very curious your thoughts. He's putting out a lot of the negatives associated with those things, really pushing more of a meat and honey and fruit, but maybe staying away from some of the vegetables. And I'm just curious your thoughts there.

EC (26:47.811)
Mm.

Yeah.

EC (26:57.047)
Mm.

EC (27:01.656)
Mm.

EC (27:06.155)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

EC (27:13.015)
Yeah.

Oh man, this is a tough one to stay real diplomatic. I'm sorry, no, this is a tough one to stay real diplomatic. I think the carnivore diet, and I'm taking this from other people out there who have said it first, but I agree, I think the carnivore diet will go down in history as the most harmful trendy diet out there. And yes, and I think it's amazing that he's still allowed to have his platform. I think it's...

Bryce (27:17.224)
Could do a whole podcast episode on this, right?

Bryce (27:33.841)
Really? Wow.

EC (27:41.702)
ironic that he's now added honey and fruit after he wasn't pushing that. And so it's like, okay, so what else were you wrong on? He's a doctor who doesn't have nutritional training, but he doesn't have an MD. So people then respect the credentials, unfortunately. But he has no data in humans eating a diet to say what he wants to say. He will take cherry picked data from cell studies and vitro studies and extrapolate that to people eating broccoli. And it's entirely inappropriate. And I think...

very, very harmful. There's other trends I can be okay with and sort of see, you know, the bigger picture. And even if the science is slightly wrong, I'm kind of like, okay, let it happen, let it go. The carnivore diet, I really can't. And the only reason why people see results on it is because they end up cutting their calories overall. And so it's a way that they've driven weight loss. And so here's what's really interesting. Weight loss, independent of how the diet, whatever diet got them there.

is a health promoting thing. So if somebody is 300 pounds and they get down to 200 pounds and they did on McDonald's, they are a healthier person. And so in that sense, I guess you could say the silver lining on the carnivore diet is somebody who is at a healthier weight is better off overall, if that's the way that they can sustain it. I just don't know that we have to be that extreme or that risky in other ways. But to get back to your first point about like, yeah, sometimes some vegetables don't sit well with me.

That's just gonna be largely based on their fiber content or even kind of the type of carbohydrate they have. And I'm not saying go eat, you know, tons of Brussels sprouts when you don't feel so good on it, but I think sometimes we can have GI distress and interpret that as now I have a systemic health problem versus I just have GI distress. It's kind of like lactose intolerance. Like somebody who has lactose intolerance, they might have gas or diarrhea, which I understand we don't want that.

but it's not like they are now going to get cardiovascular disease because of that intolerance. And so it's sort of the same thing with some of the veggies is you might not feel as good on some veggies, but it doesn't mean that this is a really harmful thing for you in the longterm, if that makes sense.

Bryce (29:44.068)
Yeah, I think I really appreciate the way you said that last part, EC, because I think of it this way. I still like Brussels sprouts. If I'm going out to dinner with some buddies and we happen to get some Brussels sprouts and bacon, like I'm going to have a few of those. That's not going to be my whole plate. But I also think of it this way, and correct me if I'm wrong, even the things that maybe I have a sensitivity to or other people do, I do want to touch on them sometimes.

EC (29:47.744)
Mm.

EC (29:52.443)
You can still have them!

EC (29:57.91)
Yeah, that's okay. You'll be okay.

EC (30:08.76)
Mm.

Mm.

Bryce (30:12.02)
Because I'm pulling this from when I spoke to Dr. Andy Galpin. I don't want to be precious. I don't want to be so negatively affected by everything that now it's like I don't have the ability to manage any sort of distress. Because it's exactly that. Like you said, it's stress. It's not necessarily this huge problem. It's a sensitivity possibly or something to lean into or to explore. I view it as like certain fitness movements. Snatching doesn't feel great on my body anymore. It's not.

EC (30:15.082)
Mm.

EC (30:30.241)
Mm.

EC (30:36.567)
Mm.

Bryce (30:40.104)
the main thing that's in my program every week, but I touch on it every now and then. If my buddies are doing it, maybe I do it at a sub max weight, or I do it in a way that is still fun and I get to integrate with the group and get the community aspect and the core to extremity and all the fun principles, but I'm not trying to set a world record where I'm gonna hurt for three days afterwards. And so I really appreciate the way that you said that, because it's not this avoid at all cost, you know, that thing is the enemy. It's like, okay, within reason.

EC (30:58.167)
Mm.

Yeah.

Bryce (31:08.996)
Maybe we play with some of these things and maybe other times we avoid them. It's a case dependency that doesn't have to have this all or nothing approach. It's really just like, how do you feel? How's it helping? How's it hurting? What's the risk? There's a lot of factors to come into the decision making and I think that's what I'm gathering from what you're saying.

EC (31:19.102)
Mm.

EC (31:22.987)
Yeah.

EC (31:27.874)
Totally, totally. And I do push back a little bit on the nutrition space on the how do you feel. And I know I'm gonna sound like a robot when I say this, but feelings are so mercurial. They change on so many different, so fleeting, so quickly, on so many different things. Like you can hear a song on Spotify and be all of a sudden in a better mood, right? So it changes on a dime. You can get an email from, right? You can get an email from.

Bryce (31:34.141)
Mmm.

Bryce (31:51.344)
Music is powerful in that way.

EC (31:56.126)
somebody and all of a sudden be smiling, right? So, feeling is really interesting to me. I think it's important. I don't wanna sound like we should never pay attention to our feelings, but I think there's been so much in the nutrition space that's like, you have your lunch and then an hour after, how do you feel? And it's just sort of like, I don't know. Or do we do that with everything? Do you do that with every time you do a workout or every time you wear a certain piece of clothing? Are you like, is this the best clothing for me based on how I feel?

I think there's been so much on nutrition that we over-index on feelings. Now, of course, chronic pain or very clear overt symptoms that happen at every single time, every day, go see a doctor type of feelings, right? But I think sometimes it's like, I have this lull after lunch and it's like, yeah, you've been staring at a computer screen for nine hours, that might be the problem. It might have nothing to do with your lunch meal, right? So I push back a little bit because I think we've...

been told so many times to focus on how you feel without realizing how many things affect our feelings. If that makes sense.

Bryce (32:55.208)
I think there's a lot of factors to look at too. Like, what's your skin look like? What's your hair look like? You know, what is your fecal matter like when you use the restroom? Are you straining? Is it full emptying? Is it something that is relatively easy on the system? What are your energy levels? What's your sleep like? What's your irritability like? Like, I feel like there's lots of different factors, brain fog, there's a lot of different things, and then you try your best to put together a...

EC (33:00.654)
Mm.

EC (33:04.664)
Mm.

Bryce (33:25.124)
a habit system or a routine that serves the lifestyle that you want to live. And it's, I think the feeling thing is, is a variable, but I don't think it's the only variable.

EC (33:35.143)
Mm-hmm. Totally, exactly. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Bryce (33:39.6)
Jumping into the carnivore diet conversation one more time, I definitely live closer to that. I feel better on it. I still have my vegetables. I still eat things outside of the realm, so I wouldn't say I'm incredibly strict on it. But something that does come to mind is just that conversation around Jordan Peterson's daughter that had that huge IBS issue. I'm sure you've had this question numerous times.

EC (33:46.403)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

EC (34:00.748)
Hmm.

Bryce (34:06.616)
I also am curious, you know, the fat component, it is helping satiate people. But then of course our world, you know, it's the butter coffee. It's the super fat in everything. And then that leads to its own set of problems. So it's within moderation or I like to think of it as like harmonization within your world. Um, we've seen Dr. Sean Baker talk about it. I've chatted with him a little bit. I've seen Mark Bell talk about it a little bit. Obviously Rogan pushes it a little bit.

EC (34:12.016)
Mm-hmm.

EC (34:16.076)
Right.

EC (34:20.6)
Mm-hmm.

EC (34:24.687)
Mm.

EC (34:28.012)
Mm.

Bryce (34:34.888)
And I think it does come down to like, OK, you're eating something that's a single ingredient food. You're limiting the total number of calories within the day. You're getting a lot of nutrients within the system, especially if you're from the hunting realm and you're getting a wild cut animal that maybe was regenerative. There is a lot of positive associated with it, too.

EC (34:40.963)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

EC (34:50.099)
Mm-hmm.

EC (34:54.986)
Mm-hmm.

Bryce (34:59.012)
And so I think once again, it's not this all or nothing approach, but it definitely, I think also deserves its accolades for sure.

EC (34:59.022)
Hmm.

EC (35:02.35)
Hmm.

EC (35:06.118)
Yeah, yeah the points that you mentioned are positives for sure. I still struggle with it because you are going to be hard pressed to find anybody who knows the research well, and I don't mean Saladino, to be able to really argue that fruits and vegetables are bad and that fiber is not arguably optimal for health. We're talking about human data.

Human data, I'm gonna keep saying that people eating real whole foods not cell studies not animal studies not toxicology studies And so it's like I don't have a problem with people eating meat. I don't have a problem people going low carb I do have a problem with carnivore in the idea that we should not have fiber and we should not have fruits and vegetables That's entirely incorrect and is also in my opinion harmful for people not just oh well harmful for people and the saturated fat

Bryce (35:39.937)
Yeah.

EC (36:05.23)
content is a problem. And I know there are people believe that's, the institution and saturated fat doesn't hurt us. No, that is one of the factors that can lead to high cholesterol, which is one of the factors that can lead to cardiovascular disease. Now I keep saying one of the factors because it's just like the sodium question. Is somebody going to get heart disease because they had high saturated fat? Not necessarily, we need to have the genetics that, it's never one thing they have got genetics was their lifestyle. So if somebody's, let's say, lean, athletic,

Bryce (36:26.788)
It's never one thing. Yeah.

EC (36:33.75)
doing carnivore diet at a healthy weight, are they necessarily as risky as someone who's overweight? Probably not, and who's not athletic and sedentary, right? But they're all measures of risk. But especially in this world of health optimization, again, it's really hard to argue against fruits and veggies and fiber, it's really hard. And again, I'm gonna continue to say that I think it's actually harmful.

Bryce (36:57.368)
Yeah, I want to jump into the conversation around studies because there's so much nuance there. According to this study, X, Y, and Z, and you know, correlation does not always lead to causation. We've talked about that. And then the other concept of like, how do we know what to trust now? Right, like who funded the study? Was it from Big Pharma? Who's getting the money trickled back into their bank account? We see it, you know, being

EC (37:00.75)
Mm.

EC (37:04.907)
Yeah.

EC (37:16.086)
Mmm.

Bryce (37:25.944)
The FDA being attacked now. We look at the food pyramid. We look at what you're referencing now Some of things pulled from toxicology reports that aren't in humans and things like that How does the general person get a grasp on this when they're reading men's health magazine or women's health magazine? It says according to this research blah blah, and they're creating buy-in and maybe it's positive intent But it's creating this rapport. I mean we talked briefly offline. I talked to my mom about this. She's like, oh

EC (37:45.602)
Hmm.

Bryce (37:54.76)
You know, she's got the old school knowledge from back in the day that, you know, fat is bad and non-fat everything was good and she should only eat, you know, up until 7pm and everything after that is just going to store the detox dieting. And there's studies associated with all of this stuff. I could continue to, you know, speak this blasphemy. But I'm just curious, like, where does somebody start there? And how do people know what to believe? Because I'm honoring what you're saying. You're in the weeds with the studies.

EC (38:22.666)
Yeah. Yep.

Bryce (38:25.04)
I'm not, I see the references, I see the journals, I see the stuff that I see, and other people see even less of that. So if we're trying to move the needle in the right direction, what's a solution-based mindset around this challenge of the studies?

EC (38:28.052)
Mm-hmm.

EC (38:41.55)
I don't know, I wish I had the answer. It's hard, it's hard. I use this example. I got a dog for the first time a couple of years ago and I immediately got empathetic for people looking up nutrition advice because when you look up puppy training, you can find every opinion under the sun that one thing is completely healthy but then the other person will tell you that it's completely going to destroy your dog for life.

from positive reinforcement training to eat collars, you name it, there's people on every side of the fence and everywhere in between. And so I was like, oh, this is what it's like looking at nutrition information.

EC (39:18.362)
I do think there's a couple things that I try to use for people to help screen when they don't have a scientific background. One is they should not use fear to convey their information. I think that's a big one. None of the people that I respect in the nutrition space use fear when they're educating. Yet a lot of people who are popular in the space do. Oh, avoid this food in your local grocery store because it will kill you. So...

So that's a big one. How are they educating you? I do think also looking at their credentials, to some degree, this is not perfect, but an MD, for example, while they can be quite educated about nutrition, that does not guarantee it. And so for example, I think Saladino is like a psychiatrist by trade. So that doesn't guarantee a carryover to nutrition. So we have to be careful. What is their training in nutrition to know? I also think looking at what they sell is of interest.

You can argue against me and say, well, I've just tried to sell my courses. I do, I do. So of course I'm gonna say what I want for you to buy my products, but I don't sell supplements. That's kind of often a red flag. I'm not saying that they're all bad, but supplements that are specific to them and you can only buy from them, little bit of a red flag. Yeah, I think that just kind of continuing that thread.

they have the secret, they have the answer, you have to buy their products to get the result. I think all of those kind of collectively can kind of help people to be like, okay, this probably is a little bit of a red flag.

Bryce (40:48.96)
Yeah, I definitely like that. I give pushbacks just from a personal standpoint of like, I learned a lot in kinesiology. I learned a lot around exercise physiology. I actually had to spend a lot of the last 15 years unlearning a lot of the parameters that I almost felt like brainwashed my mind and mitigated my innovation and creativity to realize that like,

EC (40:53.408)
Yeah.

EC (41:05.984)
Mmm.

Bryce (41:14.612)
There are lots of other ways to do this. And when I've spoken to a lot of MDs, they actually don't know that much about nutrition. The majority of them that I've spoken to, they're really well-educated on big pharma. They're really well-educated on certain legalities and what they're allowed to do and not allowed to do. They're also really good at documenting because of the fear associated with medical malpractice.

EC (41:16.61)
Mm.

EC (41:23.854)
Correct, correct. Mm-hmm.

Bryce (41:39.012)
And so, I mean, what you and I are discussing here is not like a problem necessarily with just the person, it's a problem with this medical system. And people are now six figures in debt post-graduate and they're like, how am I going to be able to climb out of debt and then support my family and build my life? And sometimes that comes with the selling of supplements, trying to see more patients, right? The average time domain with a patient these days with a primary care physician is like seven to nine minutes.

EC (41:46.283)
Mm.

EC (42:00.107)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

EC (42:07.477)
Mm.

Bryce (42:07.632)
and typically you're referring to a specialist or prescribing. I don't know, I'm just looking at patterns. I'm not saying necessarily that I'm right, but I am saying that like, I don't know, I don't necessarily agree with everything Paul Saladino says, but one thing that I do agree on is that there's definitely a psychological component associated with food. And that's the bridge that I wanna take next with you is like understanding.

EC (42:27.803)
Mm-hmm. 100%.

Okay.

Bryce (42:34.092)
mindsets associated with food. I mean, I coach clients all the time that like, they look better, they feel better, their clothes are fitting better, but then they looked at the number on the scale and they're like, we need to fix this with my nutrition. And you see all these things all the time and hopefully I'm kind of like touching on things that are relatively familiar with for you.

EC (42:35.628)
Hmm.

EC (42:55.116)
You have the answer for that one? You want to help out?

Bryce (42:58.076)
I mean, I think the big one there is just trying to educate, trying to use a little bit of the trial and error factor, the fact that you've unlocked certain life freedoms by enhancing health biomarkers, enhancing movement patterns of push-ups and pull-ups, and you now get off the ground pain-free. You can now pull yourself up. So if you're rock climbing or going on a hike, you can do some really cool things and build some amazing memories.

EC (43:02.23)
Hmm.

Bryce (43:24.444)
The number on the scale is the number on the scale, and then the education around BMI and understanding that muscle in relation to fat. But it's not easy. It definitely has a cognitive narrative that's specific to each individual. And so I'm curious how you attack the relationship of mindset and food.

EC (43:40.468)
Mmm.

EC (43:46.41)
Yeah, I mean, again, if you have the answer, let me know. But I do, I do a lot of education around it. It's definitely very challenging. I also educate people around where we find healthy body fat percentages, which are much higher than what we see on the cover of classic muscle and fitness magazines. So for women, healthy body fat ranges are 20 to 30%. And for men, that's 12 to 20%.

Now those are association studies. So that doesn't mean if you're one percentage in either direction, all of a sudden you're sick or anything like that. But basically the point is, I think a lot of times in our mind, we've associated health again with the cover of a magazine, but that's not what we see in real life. And so letting people know that and also kind of trying to figure out what they're really after. And if they say health, but they're looking at the scale and they wanna look like the cover of Muscle and Fitness, you're like, okay, well, those aren't necessarily one in the same, you know, like, which do you want? Which do you want?

And so really trying to get them to kind of figure out what and why they want. So yeah, I think that's a lot of it. I also like to let people know kind of what you said, finding some other wins because true fat mass changes happens quite slowly. We will see wins like they have more energy in the afternoons, they feel more recovered after their workouts much more early or sooner than we will. I've lost five pounds, especially when you're doing it in a sustainable way.

And so just reminding them that it's constant. It's just a constant reminder because it's easy to get again, so fixated on the scale number when that's been our metric for so long, or that's what we fixated on for so long that you as the coach kind of just have to be the reminder. One of the things, one of the stories I tell all the time and I'll keep telling it is I had a, I had a student in my masterclass and she basically had, had put on weight over a period of four years. So she took my masterclass, which is only 10 weeks long, but then exactly a year later, after my masterclass, she had

taken off the weight. And so she wrote to me in the way that she said it was, it took one year to undo four. Which when you think about it that way, it actually happened quite quickly. She lost the 20, 25 pounds over the course of a year and she had put it on over four years. So the return on the investment on the weight loss process was actually quite fast, but when you're living through the year, it feels so slow. And so you just have to kind of be that constant reminder for people. And I guess the one more thing I say, I know I've been going for a little bit here, but.

Bryce (45:55.709)
Yeah.

EC (46:01.75)
When you go slow, you're cementing the habits that you need forever. And so if you want the results to stick forever, we're gonna have this slow, slow process because you're really cementing the fact that now this is what your breakfast looks like and this is what your lunch looks like and this is what your dinner looks like. So we celebrate those other wins. We understand why the process has to go slow and that by going slow, we're actually gonna hit long-term results, which are hard to do. So a lot of education along the way. A lot of education.

Bryce (46:28.328)
That's beautiful. When you go slow, you're cementing the habits that you want forever. That's great. That's a special one.

EC (46:32.554)
Yeah. Well, what we find is, well, thank you. What we find is that weight loss is easy relative to weight loss maintenance. You know, most of the people put on the weight that they lost within five years. I think it's like 95% of the weight people lose is back within five years. I think 80% of the weight they lost is back within two. So I'm, I'm all in on weight loss maintenance and guess what? We got to go slow. We got to cement the habits because the habits are we're going to keep the results around them.

Bryce (46:58.668)
That's really special right there. Weight loss maintenance is tough. I know I've spoken to family members about that and they went through this journey for the photo shoot or for the wedding or for the event. And then when they got there, they just went right back in. Oh, I hit this landmark, now I'm going back. I wanna celebrate. And then you've talked about this before, like the difference between holidays versus celebrations.

EC (47:11.214)
Exactly.

Bryce (47:24.152)
celebrations are every freaking week. This person's birthday, trying our best to get to this. I made it back home from my horrible job and having that drink or having, yeah, totally. Will you touch on that a little bit? Like how to help people understand that like, something that I like to say is the environment really matters. Like if you're trying to stay away from sweets and stuff, like keep them out of the house. So that way,

EC (47:24.514)
Mmm. Every day.

EC (47:31.114)
Yeah, yeah, Taco Tuesday.

EC (47:49.729)
Mm-hmm.

Bryce (47:51.536)
Like if you're going to celebrate, you're making the choice to go to the place, hopefully with the person or the people, to then have a memory building experience. And I heard Miranda Alcaraz now say that around her kids, like her kids don't even know that you can't get ice cream. Or she said they don't keep it in the house, so they have to go to the place to get ice cream. They don't realize you can buy it from the grocery store and have it in the freezer.

EC (47:59.574)
Mm-hmm.

EC (48:06.796)
Mm-hmm.

Bryce (48:20.496)
I thought that was like really cool when I heard her say that. And I was like, well, we should do stuff like that as adults. I know. But what if we'd thought about that as adults? And it's like, keep the things out of the house. If you're going to build the memory and have the celebration, make it inconvenient.

EC (48:20.538)
Right. Yeah. It won't last forever. That lie won't last forever.

EC (48:30.504)
Yeah.

Mm.

EC (48:37.546)
Yeah, it's one of the best hacks out there. I mean, we talk about biohacking all the time in social media land. One of the best hacks is, you know, not X, Y, and Z test, but it's keep the food out of the house. So yeah, I totally agree. I think it's so awesome that we're so blessed to have celebrations all the time, but the truth is celebrations are happening constantly. Now, here's the other thing. I actually don't think most of your days need to only be salmon and broccoli. I think, I should rephrase that, most of the calories that you eat on any single one day are going to be whole foods, but even within a...

day you can still have chocolate or you could still have crackers or whatever. It might not be a ton of them, but you can still have them. So I think every day there's a way in a sustainable diet that you can have something that you enjoy such that you don't have to save up till only Christmas to finally get a cookie. But that being said, I think that we have all of these celebrations like Taco Tuesday and it's warm out that we end up having a lot of these days that look more like holidays. And so we don't realize how our caloric

intake has exceeded so much on many more days than we would have thought. You know, normally we're just thinking, oh no, my diet's pretty good. And it's like, you went out four times this week. Like you probably overshot your calories each of those days by at least a thousand.

Bryce (49:45.812)
Yeah, and a part of me really loves just the social component of having these tribal connections with other people indulging on food. But it's when it gets overdone and it becomes just the norm and the regular, like you mentioned, Taco Tuesday. I also think you can do it in a responsible way.

EC (49:58.603)
Mm.

Bryce (50:09.24)
and try your best to maybe play with a limited ingredient or maybe you do it at home where it's homemade ingredients and you know what's in the food and it's not overindulged while you're just communicating not even realizing how many chips and salsa you're actually consuming.

EC (50:13.771)
Yeah, totally.

EC (50:23.734)
Totally. Oh yeah, and like I'm all for tacos and tacos can be healthy, but I think you're exactly getting at what I'm saying is somehow you're at the bottom of the second basket of chips and salsa when you're out at the bar. There's 1500 calories, you know.

Bryce (50:36.712)
Totally. I have a question for you around nutrient timing. We did a little bit of a case study. We had some people wearing those glucose monitors. I think some of them were from Dexcom. Some of them were from, I forgot, you probably know the other companies that were the glucose monitors. Have you seen those?

EC (50:40.758)
Mmm.

EC (50:47.083)
Mm.

EC (50:56.13)
Some of them, you know, I know them, but some of the companies, I'm gonna forget their names.

Bryce (51:00.196)
Yeah, totally, same. But something that we saw was that when people consumed protein first and then the carbohydrates next, the insulin spike wasn't as huge. And so it led people a little bit closer to that realm of homeostasis rather than this huge blood sugar spike followed by a crash. So I was just curious, your thoughts, do you think it would be helpful for people to consume protein first at the majority of their meals?

EC (51:11.447)
Mm.

EC (51:19.98)
Hmm.

EC (51:27.406)
Hmm. I don't really focus on that. I think sometimes the, a lot of the health tech out there, including continuous glucose monitors, I think sometimes they can help people drive them to better choices overall. Like the continuous glucose monitor might help people pick raspberries over ice cream. And so that's awesome. But I think what gets lost is sometimes these short-term fluctuations

in our hormone response or even our blood sugar don't necessarily translate to bad long-term health effects. And so that's a little bit of my problem is that looking at any one spike isn't necessarily a problem for that individual. And so I like to use this example. Let's say that I can eat 2,200 calories a day, and let's say that I decide to do one meal a day for all of my 2,200 calories. And so I'm gonna wake up, have breakfast, have this massive breakfast of 2,200 calories and then not eat until breakfast the next day.

I will have a massive, massive insulin spike from that 2,200 calories. But because that 2,200 calories is appropriate for my height, weight, age, activity level, I will be healthy and I will not gain weight and I will have all of my health markers be appropriate because I'm eating the right quantity for me. And so that's just an example of where a large insulin spike isn't necessarily going to be problematic of something down the line.

in our modern food environment, because we tend to be overeating and have too many of these celebrations, most people have too many spikes too often. And so this is where it then leads to the health issue. And so I guess what I'm trying to say in a very long-winded way is, if that person is eating the protein before or after, but they ultimately are eating in the right total quantity on the day, it won't really matter health-wise.

Bryce (53:19.095)
On a similar topic.

EC (53:19.422)
Now, I do think there's a downstream effect, sorry to jump in one more time, but there might be an interesting downstream effect that when they focus on protein, they end up having a more whole food meal overall because they're not starting with the chips and salsa, they're starting with the steak and they're like, oh gosh, got to pair this with broccoli and a potato. So there might be some interesting downstream effects on how that affects their overall quantity, but the main driver here is across the day is this person eating the right quantity for them, not necessarily when it happened and how much they were spiking their insulin.

Bryce (53:30.802)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Bryce (53:45.42)
Yeah, it almost sounds to me like rocks before sand. You're looking at the quantity of caloric intake before you look at the hormone ratios and the fluctuations of blood sugar and cortisol. But kind of getting into that rabbit hole a little bit, at least from my understanding, in the morning, what wakes us up is a cortisol spike, or we have to pee. But it's like you have light a little bit in the ice, you're waking up to this elevated level of cortisol.

EC (53:49.559)
Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah, totally.

EC (54:06.743)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Bryce (54:15.112)
From my understanding, insulin, which is spiked with blood sugar, goes up and cortisol comes down. So they're inversely proportional. What are your thoughts around the narrative that's pushed a little bit, which is, hey, let's have protein and fat in the morning and then try your best to have whole foods. And if you are going to introduce more starchy carbohydrates or maybe like a post-workout

EC (54:22.075)
Mm-hmm.

EC (54:32.804)
Mm.

Bryce (54:45.384)
post-workout within that window where your cortisol is really high so you can bring that cortisol or stress hormone down a little bit to then, like I said before, get closer to that even keel homeostasis ratio. That's something that gets tossed around a little bit that I've seen some good success, but I'm curious your thoughts.

EC (54:46.826)
Mm.

EC (54:57.25)
Mm.

EC (55:02.466)
Hmm. Yeah, it's interesting. I think a lot of these suggestions, the cortisol levels and insulin levels, how do I want to say that? I think ultimately a lot of these suggestions end up exactly doing what I just suggested, and that is I think they end up helping the person eat better quantity overall. That our diets in general are so skewed towards processed foods that carry too much carbs and fat. So when you say things like, we're going to start the day with protein.

and we're gonna have more whole foods, and now we're gonna have a protein shake after the workout. I think we're gonna find that while those specifics might not actually matter, the downstream effect, I'm gonna use that word again, of those habits are that the person eats more whole food overall, and therefore they get a better quantity in line, they get more protein on the day than they would have had on the croissant and orange juice breakfast, right? Because what we find is that it doesn't really matter when people eat, especially if we're talking about weight loss.

or if we're even talking about muscle mass, it matters the total quantity of what you consumed. So again, I think there's a lot, and this is like so common in the nutrition space, I think there's a lot of tips that you don't actually need the specificity of them, but the effect of making that choice changes your diet overall, that now you have a big enough effect that's going to make the difference that you want, if that makes sense.

Bryce (56:25.988)
No, it makes total sense. And I also want to point something out that I think you'll very much appreciate. The influencer space, the social media space, there are a lot of tips. Many of them do work. Many of them are probably really good tips. But it's saying a lot of things when you actually get to the experts like yourself. You're saying eat more whole food in the right quantity. That's right here. And then like.

EC (56:34.381)
Mm.

EC (56:39.886)
Mm-hmm.

EC (56:52.214)
Yeah, don't eat too much. That's it. Ha ha.

Bryce (56:55.752)
There's all this other mumbo jumbo. And so I think the beauty is going back to what we discussed before. It's like the simplicity. You're delivering a lot of information in less words. And I think that is more sustainable to the majority of humans than saying a huge onslaught of sexy words that sound good and perk the eyebrows, but then eventually fall. And.

EC (57:08.216)
Hmm.

EC (57:22.368)
Yeah.

Bryce (57:22.673)
I like that. I like that a lot. It creates a lot of reputability for me and hopefully our listeners, too

EC (57:28.462)
Well, thank you. Sometimes when I hear some of these pieces of advice from different tips, we'll say, you know, and let's just stick with the food order one as an example. I saw something that was something along the lines of eat vegetables first and eat this many, and then you're gonna eat this much protein, and then, and only then you can have whatever. Let's just say, let's just say for fun that ultimately did lead to a slightly better health outcome. I don't know what it is, but let's just say you run your mild time slightly faster with that. Now we have to deal with the fact

that that's not going to work for most people. Like a lot of times I'll see these tips out there. I'm like, have you ever worked with parents and like feeding children at 6 p.m.? Like have you ever, have you ever worked with the businessman when he's in the airport in between flights connecting? Like some of this stuff, even if there was some slight gain in it, and the question is gonna be slight because a lot of it's theoretical, this falls apart when you deal with the 99%. And so I think there's a little level of realism that even if some of the science shows it's slightly more optimal,

It's not optimal once we look at real life.

Bryce (58:31.636)
That's very well said. I think the one challenge that I have around just the simplicity of eat whole foods in the right quantity, is there's not necessarily like parameters. I feel like our education system really teaches you. That's why I think your 10 steps are genius, because it's like, if people don't have parameters and they're not following the rules, they kind of just like, they're forced to critically think and most people don't really know how to do that.

EC (58:39.244)
Yeah.

EC (58:44.695)
Yeah.

EC (58:57.175)
Yeah.

EC (59:01.462)
Hmm.

Bryce (59:01.796)
And that's why I think you're steering your education, your community in the right direction around these 10 principles, which I do wanna touch on them real quick. We've kinda touched on most of them, inadvertently. But the first one, the quantity of food you eat in calories determines your weight. How would we kinda summarize that for people?

EC (59:12.65)
Okay. Yeah.

EC (59:23.746)
Calories matter. You wanna change your weight, you gotta change total calorie intake, and we wanna think about it in long-term, long-term changes, not just what you ate today.

Bryce (59:33.096)
Totally. Step number two, the quantity of food you eat in macronutrients determines your body composition.

EC (59:41.342)
Yeah, so the macronutrients are protein, carbon, fat, and they have a relationship to the calories that you're eating, but how you break those calories down into protein, carbon, fat will dictate your body composition within the limits of your genetics. But if you wanna have that lean physique, we gotta make sure especially that we're focusing on enough protein, not just calories from any source.

Bryce (01:00:00.072)
Totally. This number three summarizes what we just discussed. Timing only matters to the extent it affects quantity.

EC (01:00:03.922)
Mm-hmm.

EC (01:00:08.246)
Totally. We'll focus on total quantity across the entire day. And I think again, 99% of people are going to get the results they want.

Bryce (01:00:16.248)
Number four, the quality of food as determined by micronutrient density determines your health.

EC (01:00:23.454)
Yeah, and my principles aren't perfect. Weight can affect health too, but the idea here is when we look at foods in terms of do they have enough vitamins and minerals, and if we're eating enough of those, then we're going to have better health outcomes.

Bryce (01:00:38.288)
And my favorite one, number five, it's never one thing.

EC (01:00:41.999)
It's never one thing. I think this is my favorite of all my clients too, because they'll ask these questions, what about eggs or what about salt? And it's always like, hey, we got to remember that everything, whether or not it's your weight outcome to whether or not it's the performance outcome to whether or not it's a disease outcome, it's never, ever, ever whether or not you just had salt in your diet or whether or not it's only your genetics or whether or not it's, I don't know, did you have enough protein today? There's so many factors that go into all of these outcomes.

Bryce (01:01:10.468)
Number six, all diets control quantity to varying levels of precision.

EC (01:01:15.998)
Yeah. So when I say quantity, remember its principles one and two, it's calories or macronutrients. And there's so many diets out there that tell you just cut out this food or only these types of foods. And so they're trying to control calories and macronutrients without you actually measuring them. And so this is why we have so many variable results. Some people lose weight on Paleo, some people don't because we're not actually directly counting calories or macronutrients. So this is why there's so much variation. Sorry. Yeah.

Bryce (01:01:39.996)
Just on the topic of paleo real quick, I do wanna share this with people, just because you're using paleo ingredients or a potentially natural or healthy alternative doesn't necessarily make it a better choice, correct?

EC (01:01:54.827)
Mm.

EC (01:01:59.406)
Correct, yeah. I wondered why I didn't lean out on my paleo days. It's like, well, yeah, I was doing paleo brownies and paleo cacao, whatever.

Bryce (01:02:08.036)
Yeah. There's definitely a narrative there, where it's just thought like, oh, this is better. Why? Because it was more expensive, and you bought it from Whole Foods, and it was your whole paycheck? I don't know.

EC (01:02:15.101)
Correct.

EC (01:02:20.398)
Correct.

Bryce (01:02:22.724)
Sustainability is the most important factor in diet selection.

EC (01:02:27.902)
Want results in the long term? You gotta do it forever. Now, it's going to be the most sustainable level of change. Like if you do not have the results that you want, you do have to change something. So maybe my cupcake diet is what I consider the most sustainable right now, because that's what I'm doing. But if I wanna, let's say, lose weight, I do have to change something. So there is a little bit of a tug there that if you aren't where you wanna be, that it's gonna be the most sustainable level of change.

Bryce (01:02:52.116)
If you always do what you've always done, you'll always be what you've always been. So that's a solid one. The universal diet problem is processed foods.

EC (01:02:53.522)
Yeah, totally, exactly.

EC (01:03:01.034)
That's it, find me the person who's overeating carrots. I haven't run into them. It's all of the packaged foods. It's the processed carbs and fat that are all too easy to overeat. No one's overeating clementines. I don't wanna say no one. We're gonna find the exception, Bryce, but no one's overeating clementines and carrots for the most part.

Bryce (01:03:17.38)
It's not a perfect rule, but I definitely like the thought process around if it comes in a bag or a box It's probably not the best So you know you can have it as long as it fits, but make sure you don't overindulge on it This one's a cool one I think it synergizes with the mindset talk that we had earlier around your diet can't be validated

EC (01:03:23.914)
Right.

EC (01:03:29.994)
Right. Totally.

EC (01:03:36.802)
Hmm.

Yeah, this one actually has a couple different ways it can go. It originally started because people would ask me, they'd say, well, I'm having one glass of wine on the weekends, but I eat everything else is quote clean. Am I OK? And it really started with the idea of, I can't guarantee your health outcomes. We have ideas of where we see more healthy people, but that won't guarantee it. We generally know that eating more whole foods than not is

better than processed foods, but can you slant more meat? How much alcohol can you have? How much added sugar? I mean, again, we have some okay guidelines on this stuff, but there's unknowns there. There's a certain amount of health risk in every sort of question that you wanna ask. Is my diet okay? Yeah, that's really kind of what that was getting after.

Bryce (01:04:23.608)
And the final one, there are diminishing returns on attaining perfection.

EC (01:04:25.443)
Hmm.

EC (01:04:30.154)
Yeah, this is really for, I really originally meant this one on people specifically either leaning out or super optimal fitness outcomes they want, you know, maybe CrossFit Games type stuff, but let's stick with the leaning out one. You want six pack abs, either you're going to be working in the gym multi, multi hours a day, or you're going to be so, so perfect with your diet, and you might not want that trade off, you might not be ready for that level of commitment or work to get that outcome. And so the closer and closer you get to this ideal goal, the harder it's going to be.

Bryce (01:04:59.832)
I think of it almost as like everything costs something. Right, you're either gonna have to spend more time in the gym or you're gonna have to give more time, attention and detail orientation to your, what you're putting in your mouth. So that's a really good one. Where I wanna wrap up our conversation today is just the concept of travel. You came out with a really cool post around travel. I've traveled quite a bit in the last few months and I definitely have found ways to, in my opinion,

EC (01:05:02.411)
Mm.

EC (01:05:10.754)
Totally. 100%.

EC (01:05:19.007)
Ha ha.

Bryce (01:05:30.612)
make better choices, but there's also a lot of temptation. It's really easy to make the bad choice when you're on the run, trying to catch the flight after the stressful packing experience and the Uber to the airport, and you're sweating, you're stressed, you're overthinking about what's gonna happen, what you're missing out on. I don't know if other people go through the travel stress and anxiety that I do, but what I really appreciated that you posted was the real difficulty.

EC (01:05:37.828)
Yeah.

EC (01:05:43.735)
Totally.

EC (01:05:53.159)
Oh yeah.

Bryce (01:05:59.076)
of staying on track while traveling is not finding options, it's choosing them. I'd love to unpack that a little bit with you.

EC (01:05:59.778)
Hmm.

EC (01:06:05.695)
Yeah. Yeah, I've done a good amount of travel internationally and domestically. And I really don't think it's that hard to stay on track. Now, of course, I have more experience doing this and just educating about this. So I know where to look and stuff. But I just think, you know, unless you're going to a true fast food place or only a pizza joint, most places have some sort of protein and then some sort of.

fruit and veggie type side, whether that's a baked potato, whether that's the fresh broccoli of the day, whether that's a salmon filet, but that's really easy to find in different cultures here in the US. Like that's really not that hard to find. And so I think the difficulty is often when you're sitting down at the cheesecake factory, it's ordering that salmon filet and the potato and not necessarily the pasta dish that's made for three people, but it's a one person serving. Because there's again, the temptations all around us.

And so yeah, that's really what I meant by that. I do also think a tip for travel for people is you have to do what you can when you can and to also look ahead. And so what I mean is there might be sometimes that you actually literally only have the pizza joint to go to for whatever reason. Okay, you have the pizza, you go and you have the pizza. I get it. But when there is the opportunity to choose between the pizza joint and the Cheesecake Factory where you can get the salmon filet, you go to the Cheesecake Factory and you order the salmon filet.

And another thing is that I think is really helpful is what I said is when you have the opportunity to take advantage of it, this is really good for airports. When you pass the sandwich place that has the fresh apples in front, you don't just buy one fresh apple, you buy two or three depending on how long your travel day is, because you're gonna be sitting on the tarmac or in the rental car, and you're not gonna have the time to go to the grocery store. And so that can be a nice way too, that you kind of can have some healthy options to go, but you kind of catch as catch can and think about, okay, can I bring something with me to the next travel junction?

Bryce (01:07:56.88)
Yeah, I call that like proactive problem solving. And I think I like to do that when cooking because I don't want to cook every day. I'm getting home late from coaching. I definitely like over cooking. That way I have it available. So the convenience leads to the consistency.

EC (01:07:59.81)
Yeah.

Yeah.

EC (01:08:12.974)
Totally. 100%. Yeah.

Bryce (01:08:14.832)
That's awesome. What are your thoughts around the fear of the white things, the breads, the pastas, the rices, in some cases the potatoes? Is that something that comes to mind a little bit, is not having all the nutrient density it is processed, typically paired with sauces and all the things? What are your thoughts on this? I mean, it could be eating out, but also just having it readily available in your house.

EC (01:08:21.041)
Mm.

EC (01:08:24.247)
Yeah.

EC (01:08:30.21)
Mm.

EC (01:08:34.894)
specifically eating out.

Bryce (01:08:42.064)
you know, where you're in that pinch, you can grab that real quick and you can overindulge on something that, you know, might not have the most nutrient density, isn't really a whole food. What are your thoughts there?

EC (01:08:45.515)
Yeah.

EC (01:08:54.039)
Yeah, I definitely keep potatoes a little bit separate. I would encourage people, even if they have roasted potatoes at home, snack away on them, I think they're great. Bread is interesting. I think the calories can add up quite quickly. I'm not afraid of it. I actually have some in my fridge downstairs, but I think a lot of nutrition is knowing yourself. If you know that you're going to eat the six slices of bread or eat the entire fresh sourdough loaf.

Okay, we're gonna find some other things to have in the house, right? It's just not a great food for your own, but if it's something that you have as just part of your day, I think it's great and it can be part of a healthy diet for sure and have some nice nutrients in it.

Bryce (01:09:28.38)
The last thing I'd love to throw your way is the human mind is conditioned to believe or think what can we get away with? Where is that boundary? Because there are the people that get away with it and then they stop getting away with it. Lifestyle changes, more responsibility, more stress. And I like to think how you got here is not how you get there.

EC (01:09:37.491)
Ha!

EC (01:09:46.062)
Mmm.

EC (01:09:52.96)
Mm.

Bryce (01:09:53.107)
So when you have the human that's like, ah, well, I got away with it in my 20s. Why aren't I getting away with it now? Maybe that's a bad example, but I think you're tracking what I'm saying.

EC (01:09:58.641)
Mm.

EC (01:10:03.346)
Yeah, well that's interesting. That's actually a little bit of how I set up my whole diet approach for people, is I actually try to put the least rules on them. Because I do think that when you do these diets that are never eat this food or, you know, avoid all sugar, you end up creating a not sustainable plan for them. And so I think by design I really like to think about people as being able to pick...

whatever foods they want, there has to be some constructs around that, like again, more fruits and vegetables than Cheetos. There has to be some contracts around that, but giving them as many choices as possible and as few absolutes as possible, because then they're going to be able to put together a plan that really gets after the results they want, instead of just sort of checking the box of like, I followed this or not, you know?

Bryce (01:10:50.728)
the true intention behind their nutrition choices.

EC (01:10:54.706)
Yeah, that's what leads to the results. That leads to results for sure.

Bryce (01:10:59.124)
I love that. EC, what's the best advice you've ever received?

EC (01:11:03.966)
Holy cats. You need to prep people for that question. Well, I'll say it for entrepreneurship, because that's the only thing that I can think of right now. But for entrepreneurship, fail fast, fail often. It's like, or fail early, fail fast, or something like that. But yeah, got to keep failing fast and keep going.

Bryce (01:11:09.524)
That's a big one, right?

Bryce (01:11:23.388)
I'm good at that one. The other one that I'll share with people along that same topic is don't be afraid of rejection. Right, like if you truly believe the mission that you're on, like you're gonna get told no, you're gonna get kinda flipped, twisted, turned, kicked out the door a few times, and all that is a data point to move the needle in the right direction and gain more knowledge and experience. And like you said earlier, it doesn't feel good, but it's definitely worth it to gain that level of experience.

EC (01:11:30.93)
Yeah, that's up there.

EC (01:11:39.426)
Yeah.

EC (01:11:48.94)
I'm sorry.

EC (01:11:52.569)
Oh yeah, there's gonna be some rejection along the way, yep.

Bryce (01:11:55.632)
What's the worst advice you've ever received?

EC (01:11:58.546)
Oh dear. These are the questions you have to prep people for, Bryce. These are not nutrition questions. Worst advice.

Oh, I don't know. I'd probably go something nutrition related, like, you know, fruit is too much sugar or something like that. It's probably not the worst life advice, but I definitely can't think of that right off the top of my head. My goodness.

Bryce (01:12:16.231)
I love it.

Bryce (01:12:20.216)
Yeah, totally. That's kind of why I like doing it. I like throwing you on the spot just for a couple. It's been such a pleasure playing ping pong with you around all things health and nutrition today. I really honor, like you get lots of controversial topics. There's so much nuance out there and I really appreciate you kind of clearing the fog out of our nutrition lenses today and allowing us to gain a little bit more clarity. And I hope this episode has a lot of great value for people today.

EC (01:12:27.367)
Yeah, it's fun.

EC (01:12:35.47)
Mm.

EC (01:12:49.27)
Yeah, thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here with you.

Bryce (01:12:52.628)
Keep doing what you're doing, EC. Don't be a stranger. For those of you listening, if you enjoyed my conversation with EC Sinkowski today, please rate, review, subscribe, and share with your friends. Remember, greatness is forged, not found. Till next time.

EC (01:13:09.014)
Awesome, thank you, that was fun. Yeah.

Bryce (01:13:10.256)
That was so fun playing today. Thank you so much for conversing with me and I got you out five minutes ahead of schedule.

EC (01:13:16.718)
Sweet. Yeah, and I'll reshare on Insta and I'll also drop it in my email or whatever when it comes out, so let me know.

Bryce (01:13:23.964)
So much appreciate that yeah, we'll share all those things with you, and we'll get you on board I'm such a big fan of what you're doing. It's seriously really courageous. There's so much stuff out there

EC (01:13:34.991)
You know, I used to worry a little bit and you get crazy messages and people hate you, but it's okay. It's okay. Keep going. Well, good to see you. We'll be in touch on Instagram or wherever. Take care.

Bryce (01:13:42.152)
You're married to the mission, and I admire that.

Bryce (01:13:49.192)
Cool, I'll talk to you later. Have a good day. Bye bye.