Dr. Andy Galpin: The Optimal Diet, Supplement, & Recovery Protocol for Peak Performance

0:00 I'd love to get your take on training while fasted.

0:03 You should be able to not eat any calories for 24 hours and still exercise.

0:07 You don't have to have protein powder ever.

0:09 This is a a great one.

0:10 So, the term metabolic flexibility has been hijacked.

0:13 It's great because it is not a stimulant.

0:15 So, you can take it in the evenings and it doesn't compromise sleep at all.

0:20 CO2 levels rise above 900 parts per million.

0:23 This will significantly and dramatically affect everything from sleep onset,

0:27 sleep quality, next day perceived fatigue, next day arithmetic ability.

0:31 How mad do you want the internet to get at these following statements?

0:35 Hey everyone, I'm super excited to be sitting across the table from Dr.

0:39 Andy Galpin, who is the director

0:41 of the human performance center at Parker University.

0:44 Andy and I have been corresponding for at least the last 10 years.

0:48 I'm I'm pretty pumped to have this conversation.

0:51 He is an expert in in muscle physiology but also has published a wide range

0:57 of I would say exercise physiology related topics

1:01 from you know muscle health to nutrition to recovery.

1:06 He also coaches athletes, Olympians,

1:10 MMA fighters just all around got a lot of experience and the science behind it.

1:15 So I'm really excited to have this conversation with you today Andy.

1:19 I mean, you and I have talked about, you know, a lot of things via,

1:23 you know, X and Twitter at the time, I think email as well.

1:28 So, thank you so much for coming on the show.

1:30 It's just I can't even explain how much of an honor and a pleasure this is.

1:34 Uh, I' I've been telling you for a long time now how stoked

1:37 I am about this and my wife is tired of hearing of it,

1:39 so I'm finally excited to get here and do it.

1:42 Well, um, today it's kind of interesting because, you know,

1:45 you've you've got this vast publication

1:48 history in muscle biology and exercise physiology,

1:53 but I'm kind of taking you in a direction where you've

1:55 also published and you have a lot of knowledge regarding nutrition,

1:59 supplements, recovery.

2:01 I'm super interested in the role of those in helping

2:04 people sort of meet their fitness goals.

2:07 And um when it comes to nutrition,

2:08 I mean this is obviously a field that's constantly,

2:13 you know, there's no agreement ever

2:16 whether we're talking about performance or longevity.

2:18 Sure.

2:18 Um but you know there's a growing number of athletes and people that are

2:25 like myself which are I would say

2:26 committed exercisers that I'm very interested in health.

2:31 um not as much in performance,

2:33 although I'm becoming a lot more interested in performance these days,

2:36 but I'm interested in longevity for sure.

2:37 I mean, that's my primary interest.

2:39 And so, there's there's people kind of trying to figure

2:42 out what kind of diet they could, you know,

2:47 they what kind of diet they could eat

2:49 to sort of meet their performance and longevity goals, if that's even possible.

2:55 Is that something that you've thought about?

2:58 Yeah, I get the question of performance

3:00 versus longevity or health with nutrition a lot.

3:04 And I think as you've done so well over your career,

3:08 there are tenants that are going to agree

3:10 and then there's going to be distension.

3:11 And so I think it's easiest maybe to frame this as what

3:13 are the flags we can put on both sides of this equation.

3:16 Known obvious yeses and obvious nos, right?

3:19 So if you want to live your longest, healthiest life, number one,

3:22 we're all going to agree on probably five, seven, maybe eight different things.

3:27 And if you were to look, I'll just do it this way.

3:30 If I said, "Okay, great." Cuz we deal with these clients.

3:33 I deal with high performance athletes as you mentioned.

3:35 And we have a lot of our clients that are like you.

3:37 They're not athletes.

3:37 Never were.

3:38 Do not care.

3:39 But they are wanting them to live their longest, healthiest life.

3:43 And if I threw their diets in front of you,

3:45 I'd be stunned if you could tell me which one was for which person.

3:48 I don't think you'd have any chance.

3:50 Right?

3:50 So you'd say, "What's that going to look

3:52 like?" We're going to center around protein.

3:54 Right?

3:54 You've talked about that endlessly.

3:56 It's going to be high and high quality.

3:57 We're going to have a lot of variety of foods.

3:59 We're going to have a lot of variety of colors.

4:01 Turns out micronutrients, vitamins, and minerals are pretty important, right?

4:05 Like your entire career.

4:08 We're going to have uh some attention paid to fiber.

4:11 Caloric intake will be managed.

4:13 We're going to distribute carbohydrates and fat in some way

4:16 that helps them hit their needs and goals and personal preferences.

4:19 We could go down the list,

4:20 but the easiest way to think about it is how much overlap is there?

4:24 almost all.

4:25 What are the small differences between these performance and longevity goals?

4:30 Well, depends on what type of performance.

4:32 So, we're talking about a lot of caloric expenditure.

4:35 Are we talking about a power event?

4:37 What do we then?

4:38 Yeah, we're going to find some differences and we can chop that up

4:40 all day if you want to know like exact numbers and hours.

4:42 But the reality of it is both of those people, performance,

4:45 longevity, you have to manage calories one way or the other.

4:49 You have to do all the other things.

4:51 It's not that different.

4:52 uh you can make some arguments of maybe you can

4:56 get away with certain things if you're not interested in performance.

4:59 You can do some different things with food timing, food frequency,

5:03 you can play with some different stuff where you

5:04 wouldn't want to do that with a high performance athlete.

5:06 So there's there's a lot of fun differences with those things.

5:09 But at the highest level for the average person,

5:11 if you're eating like a high performance athlete for the most part,

5:14 you're also eating for longevity.

5:17 Only big fundamental difference there might be caloric balance.

5:21 Yeah, that that's the top layer, but other than that, it's pretty similar.

5:24 I was kind of thinking that was going to be your answer.

5:26 I I do I'm very interested in the intermittent fasting,

5:30 timerestricted eating, training, fat, training while you're fasted,

5:33 depending on the type of training,

5:34 cuz um it's it's something that I do for certain types of training.

5:39 So, you like to train fasted?

5:41 Well, I like to train fasted if I'm going for a 30 minute run.

5:47 Yep.

5:48 Zone 2 kind of run.

5:49 Sure.

5:50 And um the reason I do that is because I mean this was years ago.

5:54 I read a metaanalysis and maybe you I would love to hear your updates

5:58 on the literature because I know that you've you've been keeping up with it.

6:01 But there was there was a meta analysis looking

6:04 at people that were training fasted and if they were

6:06 doing endurance type of aerobic exercise training and they trained

6:10 they were training it was like less than 60 minutes.

6:12 It was like less than an hour, right?

6:13 Yeah.

6:14 And um this isn't you know this is like a a zone two kind

6:16 of below the l l l l l l l l l l l l

6:19 l l l l l l l l lactate threshold type of training then um

6:21 they had better adaptations in mitochondria mitochondrial

6:25 enzymes you know obviously like fatty acids being

6:28 oxidized so um whereas if they trained what they when they were fed again it

6:32 was less than an hour some of those adaptations were blunted somewhat y and um

6:36 for me it was like oh well I kind of want those adaptations so

6:40 I do like to train a little bit faster I don't do hourlong runs anymore.

6:45 That was like a thing of my past for me.

6:48 Um I do I do um my my strength training.

6:51 I do not like to do fasted at all.

6:53 Um I have to have like something like a banana.

6:56 I have to have some glucose or something.

6:58 So I'd love to get your take on training while fasted.

7:02 Yeah, there's a lot of things to think about here.

7:03 Um I know that uh I sent you right before we started here

7:08 our preprint of our one of our fasting studies we just got published.

7:11 So we can go into that if you want.

7:14 But in general, the biggest way to think about this is is

7:16 the magnitude of benefit with the intervention

7:19 exceeding the magnitude of preference.

7:21 And what I mean by that is when I coach people this morning,

7:27 like literally this morning, I'm dealing with uh putting together a program

7:31 for the number one quarterback in college football.

7:35 Right after that, I have to deal

7:36 with one of our executives who's 60-year-old female.

7:40 Right.

7:40 Right after that, I'm also dealing with a guy preparing for a 900 mile hike.

7:44 And so that context is important because

7:46 as I'm answering questions like this, all

7:48 of these avatars are in my head and I'm thinking what is true for person one,

7:51 two, and three, and what is true

7:53 for the other person who like doesn't exercise at all.

7:56 And if something's not consistent across those four,

7:58 then I have to modify and contextualize the answer.

8:01 So when it comes to training fasted, great.

8:04 If you are going for an event like you're

8:07 talking about and you feel better when you do it,

8:11 that matters to me in that particular context more than

8:14 the physiological benefit because the physiological benefit is not fake.

8:19 It's just not huge.

8:20 So, is it more beneficial for your mitochondria?

8:23 Yes, potentially.

8:24 But if you look at the amount, it's not that much.

8:28 Now, if you liked it or didn't care, fine.

8:30 But if you're like, I hate it.

8:31 My performance is worse.

8:32 I don't like it.

8:32 I don't feel good.

8:33 then we actually don't do it.

8:34 And so my first layer answer to all that is number one,

8:37 what are you actually performing best in?

8:39 What are you what are your personal preferences?

8:41 Are you training in the morning?

8:42 Are you training in the evening?

8:43 All these other factors that are now again contextualized are my true answer.

8:48 And I hate to be wishwashy on that, but that's the most honest answer

8:52 because I deal with a lot

8:53 of people with different goals and different scenarios.

8:55 So the science can lead us in one direction but the actual layering on top

8:59 of what would I really recommend a human

9:01 do that in this this scenario matters more.

9:04 So if you look at the research very specifically on fasting exercise always

9:10 depends on the type of exercise you

9:11 mentioned you were really careful about saying

9:13 like I'm under 60 minutes right I'm under 60 minutes like I know you're

9:16 you're aware that that answer will change right what am I optimizing for am

9:20 I optimizing for performance am I optimizing for feeling better that day more

9:25 focused that day am I optimizing for the happiness the personal like there's so

9:29 many different reasons why one would exercise that you have to answer all

9:32 those questions and figure out well what lever am I trying to pull here.

9:35 What am I trying to get out of it?

9:37 So, do we have people am I I'll answer this way.

9:40 Do we ever take somebody and say, "Hey,

9:42 you need to start doing your endurance work in the morning fasted."

9:45 I can't think of very many times when we've ever done that.

9:48 But if somebody shows up with that, well,

9:51 we don't have any strong reason we're not going to pull them off of it either.

9:54 What if someone says, "I I'm interested in fat adaptation." Yeah.

9:57 I'm interested in mitochondrial health and I'm not an endurance athlete.

10:03 I'm just, you know, these are my recovery days.

10:06 I do strength training on other days.

10:07 These are my recovery days, so to speak, right?

10:09 Um, in a way, then would you still kind

10:12 of what would your what are your thoughts on that?

10:15 So, you mentioned MI adaptations aren't it's not it's a subtle difference,

10:18 but what about lipolysis?

10:20 Like what about you know?

10:22 Yeah.

10:22 So, the way that we would frame this is we need more information

10:27 on them to determine whether or not that's going to actually matter for them.

10:30 So, if they're saying, "Okay, I want to enhance fat burning.

10:32 I want to enhance oxidative capacity.

10:34 Great.

10:34 Well, we actually need to look at their capacity for metabolic flexibility.

10:37 We need to test that.

10:38 I need to see that number, right?

10:39 If you're just saying you want more, I'm going to say more from where.

10:42 Like, where are you currently at?

10:44 I don't know.

10:44 Well, then we don't know if we have anything to actually gain here.

10:47 So, we could do that intervention and I

10:48 don't know if it would do anything for you.

10:50 If you're already pegged on that, if

10:51 your mitochondria are already functioning very high,

10:54 if your ability to to utilize fuel independent of food is strong,

10:58 then we're not going to get anything from that.

11:00 If you're really weak in that area, then we would get something from it.

11:04 So our first answer is data, right?

11:06 We have to run some objective test.

11:07 If you don't want to do that or can't do that, you want to give that a try.

11:11 Sure.

11:11 Like fine.

11:12 It's probably not going to hurt much in the short term.

11:14 So go ahead and do that.

11:15 So my answer to somebody who asked

11:16 that question like I want to optimize mitochondria.

11:18 Okay, great.

11:19 Starting off with fasted cardio is not the place we would go,

11:22 but we we might use it eventually.

11:25 Um, if you can do a whole bunch of stuff, uh, and we could do this objectively.

11:29 Okay.

11:29 When you go out and train, how do you feel if you don't eat before?

11:32 Oh, I feel terrible.

11:34 Okay.

11:34 Well, that's like an easy litmus test to say

11:36 maybe we have some stuff we can do there.

11:39 There's way more we could get into in detail.

11:40 I wouldn't only ask that question,

11:42 but that's how we would actually think about that answer.

11:44 So, uh, it could be everything from yes to like I'm not super worried about it.

11:48 If they're really, really stoked to do it,

11:51 I'm probably going to say yes just for that fact alone.

11:53 like, yeah, let's give it a go.

11:54 Um, but I don't necessarily think you would have to do

11:56 that to have healthy mitochondria if that's another way to answer the question.

12:00 What about uh people that are doing strength training,

12:03 resistance training first thing in the morning

12:04 and they don't have a lot of time.

12:05 They're getting their kids ready for school and it's like they they

12:09 want to fuel with something like what's what what's the best option?

12:13 Personal preference in terms of feeding or not feeding.

12:16 The literature would be fairly clear here.

12:18 I would say our personal experience would match that.

12:20 Some people are fine, some people are not.

12:22 Uh if you want to go just like practical recommendations,

12:25 a banana and a protein shake, super easy.

12:28 Uh a little bit of yogurt maybe in granola.

12:30 We have a lot of our athletes that uh will train in the morning.

12:33 That's a really common thing.

12:34 Some granola, yogurt, maybe honey, maybe some berries.

12:37 Small 6 to 8 ounces, right?

12:39 Like really small servings.

12:41 You're talking probably 300 calories, maybe 50 grams of carbohydrate.

12:45 in in these like rough neighborhoods of things.

12:48 Some a little protein, 10 to 30 grams depending on their physical size.

12:52 Remember, some of our athletes are 115 pounds, some of them are 350 pounds.

12:56 So, like the numbers vary, a small size is is different for those people.

13:00 So, um personal preference, but yeah,

13:02 the recommendations would be things like that.

13:04 We don't have too many athletes or clients that uh will intentionally ask

13:11 them to not eat before they train like we sort of talked about.

13:15 But the easy, quick, just get out the door stuff,

13:17 that's what we're going to lean on.

13:18 Like very simple, easy digesting, small amounts of food,

13:21 probably not as much as your full breakfast.

13:23 Uh, but those things will tend to work pretty well.

13:26 Yeah.

13:26 I don't I think athletes are less interested in in that.

13:29 And people that are more interested in body recomposition,

13:32 they're wanting to lose fat, gain muscle, um, are more interested in Okay.

13:37 Well, perhaps they're that that kind of person

13:40 that their liver glycogen takes more hours before it depletes.

13:44 Yeah.

13:44 Yeah.

13:44 And then it's like, well, if I then eat before my run,

13:49 then I'm I didn't fully deplete the liver glycogen and so they're not

13:53 going to be perhaps undergoing lipolysis

13:55 and oxidizing fatty acids for for energy.

13:58 So, um, what about what about people that are interested

14:01 in that are that are fit and they're they're not really athletes,

14:05 but they're exercisers and they're interested

14:08 in just sort of fat loss, body recomposition.

14:15 The acute time frame pre- midpost exercise

14:18 for those people probably doesn't matter that much.

14:20 It really isn't going to have a huge impact.

14:22 What will matter is the days and weeks,

14:24 the total caloric expenditure throughout the day.

14:26 This person, if you're training in the morning,

14:29 you probably have at least 24 hours to recover, right?

14:32 Even if you're training hard every single day,

14:34 most of the time when we get really specific about nutrient timing,

14:37 it's because a lot of our clientele are training twice or more a day.

14:41 That's when timing really is critical.

14:43 Whether you're talking about timing, timing of fat, protein, and carbohydrates.

14:46 So when we hear people say things like, "Oh,

14:48 timing doesn't matter." For the average person, it's not a huge deal.

14:53 But for some of our people, it really significantly matters.

14:56 But what you just described is not.

14:57 It's that other person who's like, I'm exercising,

15:00 let's just even say, seven days a week.

15:02 Probably most people are doing like five.

15:04 So even in between that, you've got a lot of recovery time.

15:07 So what you have before the workout doesn't matter a huge amount.

15:11 uh whether you have it immediately post doesn't matter a huge amount.

15:14 The total in throughout the day the only caveat is

15:17 actually what you asked a little bit before it's personal preference.

15:20 I don't feel as well.

15:21 Okay, great.

15:22 I'm stomach.

15:22 Awesome.

15:23 Then that's the context.

15:24 It's not the physiology or the biology that's mattering there.

15:27 It's now personal preference or objective data

15:30 that says we're getting less performance out of this.

15:33 Is your recovery slowing down?

15:34 Whatever the case is.

15:35 Um, overall I would say do what feels best for you there.

15:38 And there's not a significant thing you should be

15:40 worried about of productivity you're leaving on the table,

15:43 progress you're leaving on the table,

15:44 or compromised results from no matter what choice you make there,

15:47 whether it is fats, the protein, or the carbohydrates.

15:50 What about people that are doing timerestricted eating?

15:53 And you know, the the the worry

15:56 of time restricted eating would be losing muscle.

16:01 Yeah, perhaps if you're not getting

16:02 in your your protein intake or resistance training,

16:05 what what is what are your thoughts there?

16:06 What you you have a new publication now you've published in this area.

16:10 How how do you feel about people

16:12 that are doing let's say a 168 timerestricted eating?

16:14 Yeah, so we actually ran this study uh we

16:17 started in 2019 and we just published it this week.

16:20 If that tells you, you know how that goes.

16:23 Co killed us.

16:24 We were we had a a big cohort study going.

16:26 our last two groups.

16:29 I was like literally days away from doing the final biopsies and we

16:32 got pulled out of the lab and I was like begging our people.

16:34 I'm like just let let me one day go in and biopsy 10 people.

16:38 No, they wouldn't.

16:39 So, nonetheless, um we ran this study

16:42 and one of the things we're interested in is

16:45 with timerestricted eating 168 all the research

16:48 on that area for the most part is caloric restriction.

16:51 So, how does this thing work for fat loss?

16:53 And that's fine.

16:54 Grant Tinsley.

16:55 I don't know if you know Grant,

16:56 but he's done a ton of work at Texas Tech and lots of other groups have done it.

17:00 You've talked a lot about TR 168 ton.

17:03 Okay, great.

17:04 What I was more interested is what's the opposite?

17:06 What about the person who's trying to gain muscle?

17:08 If I do 168, what's actually happening here?

17:11 And because of the way that I operate,

17:12 I don't care about just a molecular mechanism.

17:14 I don't care just about body composition.

17:16 I wanted to ask questions about sleep,

17:19 about personal preference, about digestion,

17:21 about how hard the diet was, how likely are you to do it.

17:24 Physical performance because when you go into the real world,

17:26 that's how you make decisions, right?

17:28 I want to be able to tell people, hey,

17:29 this 168, maybe it is better for body composition,

17:33 but it's harder to follow or it makes

17:35 your sleep worse or it's better for everything.

17:37 Like whatever combination the answer is going to be, I don't really care.

17:40 But that's the full context people have when they make dietary decisions.

17:44 So that's what we did.

17:44 We took people that were very well trained and we

17:47 did eight weeks of strength training with them in the lab,

17:50 supervised all that already.

17:51 Again, previously well trained men and women, college age as normal.

17:56 We did biopsies, we did muscle imaging, uh we did questionnaires,

17:59 we did sleep stuff, we did blood, we did a bunch of different things.

18:02 And ultimately what we wanted to see was okay,

18:05 we're going to put them all at the same protein

18:06 load and we're going to put them in caloric excess.

18:10 So hypercchloric, not hypocchloric.

18:12 We know the answer.

18:13 what happens with TR if you're trying to lose weight.

18:15 What happens in somebody actively trying to gain muscle?

18:18 So that's the very unique twist of it and it was super interesting.

18:22 The take-home message was it didn't matter a ton.

18:25 As long as you hit your numbers,

18:27 the results were basically the same across both groups, right?

18:29 So standard four, five, six feedings a day versus TR.

18:34 Now, we actually like doubled down on the question

18:36 because we actually made the people train in the TR

18:39 group in the morning and then they had

18:42 to wait at least an hour before they fueled afterwards.

18:45 So, they trained fasted, they didn't recover with protein or anything like

18:49 that immediately afterwards and they stayed in that state until,

18:52 you know, the afternoon.

18:54 So, even in despite of that, it didn't significantly

18:56 compromise muscle growth or performance or really anything else.

19:01 We saw some subtle differences.

19:03 The TR group actually looked like it didn't gain as much body

19:07 fat because you're going to do that when you go hypocchloric, right?

19:10 You're going to especially if you're well trained, you want to add muscle,

19:12 you're going to bring some fat along for the route.

19:15 I don't know if it was a enough of a difference

19:20 and we I spent a lot of time in that data set.

19:22 I don't know if that's a real finding to be honest

19:24 or if that was just a little bit of an artifact.

19:27 The the counter to it was as time went on fatigue got higher in the TR group.

19:33 Legs got heavier performance and the legs started to decline again.

19:40 So much so would I suggest TR is going to be bad?

19:44 No.

19:44 No.

19:45 But it was like, okay, I think there's something happening here.

19:47 I think potentially if we were to change the study

19:49 design a little bit and give them fuel closer,

19:52 that would have made it not exactly sure.

19:54 we would have to run a separate study design for that.

19:57 And so if you torture the data a little bit,

19:59 you might find some subtle differences between the two groups and they were,

20:03 you know, statistically significant and effect

20:05 size and like all those things there.

20:06 But looking at it from a real practitioner perspective,

20:09 my general takehome was it didn't matter a ton.

20:12 If you're trying to maximize leg strength and maximize leg growth,

20:16 I probably wouldn't go to 168 TR.

20:19 But if you have other reasons to do it, you're still going to get gains.

20:22 You're still they still got stronger.

20:23 they didn't get as strong.

20:25 There's some other issues that happen, but either one of them works.

20:29 But but do you think again um if if they were

20:32 allow I mean most people after they're done strength training they

20:36 eat within an hour like like I immediately I'm getting protein

20:40 in me because I like need I just my body wants it.

20:43 Yeah.

20:43 So um do you think that maybe would

20:46 negate some of the performance deficits that you found?

20:49 I think it would honestly was more of a carbohydrate issue.

20:52 carbohydrates.

20:53 Yeah, I think that was the bigger issue because they were

20:55 going so long without carbohydrates and they were training so hard.

20:59 They were and they were doing the same workout multiple times per week.

21:04 I just think over time uh we were also progressing them.

21:08 So they were being tested every time they came

21:10 in the lab and the training got harder, right?

21:12 Like traditional progressive overload.

21:15 I don't think they I wish we had

21:16 actually biopsy data for their um muscle glycogen levels,

21:21 but if I had to suspect, I think that that was starting to leak down.

21:26 And I I just think the legs were

21:27 getting we would say just getting heavier over time.

21:30 Like it just wasn't handling the volume

21:32 because that's actually what happened too.

21:33 The volume that the TR group did started to come down at the end.

21:37 They just couldn't do as much volume as the other group could do.

21:41 Okay.

21:41 At the end of a workout, not like at the end of No,

21:43 at the end of the eight weeks.

21:44 Okay.

21:44 So, cuz we tested them uh premid and post.

21:47 When were they working out?

21:48 Morning or evening?

21:50 Morning.

21:50 Yep.

21:50 So, they're all working out fasted.

21:51 Fasted.

21:52 They're doing strength training fasted.

21:54 Yeah.

21:55 So, let's Okay.

21:56 So, the bottom line is from your study, which is going to be published soon.

22:00 Depending on when this comes out, it may already be there.

22:03 Like any any day, I'm stunned.

22:05 It actually has congratulations.

22:06 This is great.

22:06 This is a great study.

22:07 I You sent it to me.

22:08 I can't wait to read it.

22:10 Um, you can gain muscle on a 168 timerestricted eating schedule.

22:15 Um, it it sounds like if you're if

22:17 you're if you're doing the training fasted, I mean, there's ways to do 168,

22:21 you can stop eating earlier and not have to be fasted in the morning, right?

22:24 Well, so actually, like that's super interesting because

22:26 when I looked at this, I was like,

22:28 man, I think that's just is the better approach.

22:30 Yeah.

22:30 Maybe if they would have done their fasting in the evening afternoon,

22:33 there's a bunch of other arguments we could make that that's better.

22:36 Anyways, that would be a really cool follow-up.

22:39 I would I'd be willing to bet they wouldn't have

22:41 had such a indirect indirect markers of fatigue over time.

22:45 They just didn't have fuel for a really long time.

22:48 I could also tell you these things behind and this is like the veil of people

22:51 that when you run actual studies you can

22:54 make comments about things that aren't in the paper.

22:58 The people had a really hard time with the carbohydrates.

23:01 That was the complaint.

23:02 And so when you had a whole bunch

23:05 remember because you're getting some of these people are

23:07 at six 700 grams of carbohydrate a day and you

23:10 got to get that in an 8 hour window.

23:13 It was GI was just destroyed.

23:15 Like it was a lot of people were like man stomach is just blowing

23:19 up from 600 gram of carbohydrates because

23:21 you imagine eating 200 grams of carbohydrates.

23:23 Couple hours later you got another 200 another 200.

23:25 It was just a lot.

23:26 Was it so high because you were doing this this hyper caloric because

23:30 I mean most people aren't doing

23:32 that many carbohydrates unless they're like endurance athletes.

23:35 Yeah, we had big we have some big people, right?

23:37 So if you'reund 110 kilos and you got to be at a hypo and you're at e

23:42 you know six grams per per kilogram

23:44 of body weight like those numbers get high fast.

23:46 So in order to get there like that stuff got there.

23:49 Even the protein got a little tough as well.

23:52 So, we didn't see I wish we would

23:54 have had more subjective questions in those areas,

23:57 but that what I would say like it was

23:59 just hard for those people to hit their numbers.

24:01 Most of them got there, but they're just like,

24:03 "Woo, I just wish I had another hour.

24:06 Like, give me another two hours.

24:07 Could I get 50 of this grams of this protein a little bit earlier?

24:10 That' make my life so much easier." So,

24:12 I just think from a practical perspective, it was harder for them to follow.

24:16 It was harder for them to hit their numbers waiting the whole

24:20 day than to start and hit it in a caloric surplus.

24:24 So, if you're not in a caloric surplus, different equation here.

24:27 If you're in a caloric deficit, different equation here.

24:30 But for people that are pre-trained,

24:32 pretty well trained and they're actively trying to get bigger and stronger,

24:36 it wouldn't be the first approach I would take.

24:38 Um, but it's still plausible.

24:39 Clearly, it worked.

24:40 They still got benefits from it.

24:42 But switching the order, I think would be cool.

24:43 Would would you would you say that if they were let's say they were

24:46 in a slight caloric deficit still getting

24:48 their protein meeting their protein needs would they

24:52 be still gaining muscle you think I don't think it would have gained as much

24:56 they would have gained some right if you look at um like again all

24:59 grand work and a lot of that hypocchloric state stuffs they gain muscle it

25:04 can happen but can they gain at the same rate as when you add more

25:08 calories I don't think so and I don't think so because in our particular program

25:12 the training program was really aggressive they

25:14 were training hard for really well trained people.

25:17 I don't think the recovery would be there.

25:18 I just don't think it would be there.

25:20 When did they stop eating and how was their sleep affected?

25:24 So, we let them choose their window.

25:26 So, some of them came in and trained at like 7:00

25:28 in the morning because they want to start their eating window at 10:00, right?

25:31 But they're college kids, so most of them trained like 10,

25:34 11, 12:00 in the morning.

25:36 And then they would start their eating windows, you know,

25:38 between 1 and 2 o'clock in the afternoon, like something like that.

25:42 depends on if they work or whatever there.

25:44 So, we let them shift a little bit.

25:46 The the time domains had to be the same,

25:47 but when the like we didn't make them start at noon,

25:50 like you know, depending on their life schedule.

25:52 Sleep didn't really change that much.

25:55 I wish we would have had some of our newer sleep technology.

25:57 We could have really objectively looked at it at the time.

26:01 We just had basic questionnaires, right?

26:03 So, we we'll see there.

26:05 Um what we did notice is the perceived fatigue

26:09 fatigue and naps increased over time in the TR group.

26:14 And so again a little inclination there of saying

26:16 I think fatigue was setting in more didn't some

26:20 of that didn't land statistically significant but you start

26:24 to see sort of multiple things in the same pattern.

26:26 You go all right if we ran a follow-up

26:28 study there that might be interesting to focus on.

26:31 Why is it important for people

26:32 to have carbohydrates before they're doing strength training?

26:35 You don't have to.

26:36 If you can get away with it, you're fine.

26:38 It's not the thing we're super concerned about depending on where you're at.

26:42 If you can get through it,

26:43 if the your total caloric intake throughout the day is fine,

26:45 if your carbohydrate intake throughout the day is fine,

26:48 and depending on how often you're strength training,

26:50 if you're the kind of typical person who's

26:52 training the same body part on non-consecutive days,

26:56 then carbohydrate pre-ex exercise is not a big deal.

26:59 It it's totally fine.

27:00 You can get away with your strength training.

27:02 It'd be a personal preference.

27:03 Again, if you're training though the same muscle

27:06 group in multiple days or multiple times per day,

27:08 that's when the carbohydrate timing will matter most.

27:10 So, you can have it before.

27:12 Um, generally people feel better with it.

27:15 Performance is usually better, but it's not always.

27:18 or or if you're someone that is on on more of a hypoc caloric diet,

27:22 if you're trying to lose fat or perhaps maintain your weight,

27:26 you're kind of really kind of watching your calories,

27:29 then then perhaps you're not having a huge total caloric, you know,

27:34 total totally caloric um intake per day

27:36 that you might want to have carbohydrates in that.

27:38 We will generally as just a highle rule try to get more

27:42 of our calories around training just period

27:46 regardless of what we're doing regardless of what

27:48 type of training regardless of the person as a as a first level thing

27:51 that's our preference we want to either do it premid post in your example

27:55 there if we're trying to bring calories down we're going to go somewhere

27:58 else if we can doesn't always work that way people don't always like it

28:02 but that is that is our default position is yeah we're going to do

28:05 more calories in and around the training

28:07 to support it I want better performance,

28:09 you perform better, you get better adaptations.

28:12 That's generally how we look at it.

28:14 What about people that are are more endurance type of athletes?

28:18 They're they're out running, you know, 10,

28:21 15 or more miles or bike, cycling, biking.

28:26 What about those individuals for different equation now, right?

28:28 So whether you talk about strength training or even endurance training,

28:32 but as you said earlier,

28:33 like you're talking sub 60 minutes at kind of a moderate to low intensity,

28:37 carbohydrate before training for most people is not going to matter that much.

28:41 Now you're talking about something different.

28:43 Really highintensity exercise for a prolonged amount

28:46 and or moderate exercise for a longer amount, right?

28:50 So we'll define longer by plus 60 minutes.

28:53 Now you will very often see performance improvements with carbohydrates.

28:58 That said, we have some of our people, some of our friends, um,

29:02 a good friend of mine that I will never

29:04 stop giving him the business on this one, Cam Haynes.

29:07 You know, Cam.

29:08 Oh, yeah.

29:08 Cam's great.

29:09 The worst performance nutrition you could just possibly dream of, right?

29:13 Like, he will intentionally not eat and drink

29:15 water and then go run 18 miles, right?

29:16 And you're just like, what?

29:17 Like, what are we doing here?

29:18 Right?

29:19 I've made the argument like I will PR him at every race

29:22 he's ever done if he would just like let me tell him,

29:24 he would just follow what I tell him to do, but he refuses.

29:27 So you can do these things.

29:28 This is not a matter of it's impossible physiologically,

29:31 but are you going to get your best out of it?

29:33 Probably not.

29:34 Carbohydrates before exercise,

29:37 probably three or four hours before exercise if possible.

29:40 If you're trying to maximize performance,

29:43 generally looking at something in the neighborhood

29:44 of 50 to 100 grams of carbohydrates, that's a huge plus or minus range there.

29:50 3 or four hours before we were generally looking at starches,

29:53 slower digesting, like give it time, not a big spike.

29:56 Some people we will tinker with 30 minutes before

30:01 something in the neighborhood of 50 60 grams of carbohydrates,

30:04 maybe a little bit more.

30:05 Some people though kind of deal with a glucose double whammy if you do that.

30:09 So you got to be careful.

30:11 Um what what I mean is if you take

30:13 a whole bunch of uh fast responding glucose, right?

30:17 Things that get into your bloodstream

30:18 really quickly right before you start exercising,

30:20 gluc in insulin starts pulling glucose down, muscle starts pulling it as well.

30:24 And so blood glucose actually dips.

30:27 This is a like I had a banana and honey right before I started

30:30 my race and then I got two miles in and I felt like death.

30:34 Like oh okay, you had two mechanisms at the same

30:36 time that are independent that are bringing it down and blood

30:38 glucose actually dips quite a bit until the liver has

30:41 a chance to kick in and and bring it back to normalize.

30:43 So you you'll feel that response pretty often.

30:46 So, you got to be really careful with um easy digesting carbohydrates right

30:51 before the event and depending on how long it's going to uh last.

30:55 Um but those are like rough numbers to start with.

30:59 In the exercise itself,

31:01 the numbers you're going to see here somewhere in the neighborhood

31:04 of 60 grams up to 100 grams of carbohydrate per hour,

31:09 which is like if you want to maximize performance,

31:12 you'll see the data will show you like 80 plus 80 to 100 grams.

31:16 carbohydrates.

31:16 We're talking you don't want that easy stuff, right?

31:18 No.

31:18 Now you want the fast as possible.

31:19 Oh, you do want the application.

31:21 You're in a race.

31:21 Like you're moving, right?

31:22 This is when the gooze and the packs and things it in.

31:25 So, you're trying to smash it in there as much as you can.

31:28 Um I actually just had a guy named uh Jordi Sullivan, a dietitian in Australia.

31:33 Uh he was just on my podcast and he he actually coached a guy

31:36 named Ned Brockman and Ned did a thousand mile race on a track.

31:42 So he ran on a track for a thousand miles.

31:46 I think it took him like 11 or 12 days, something like that to finish.

31:51 Did he I mean, how was where

31:53 the sleeping what was the sleeping like sleeping situation?

31:56 Sleep on the track right there.

31:58 Yeah.

31:58 He would just like lay down and crash for a little bit and then

32:00 he'd get up and just like run again and he just kept going.

32:05 He Jordy went through the exact details,

32:07 exactly what he fed him, the amounts, the type, the concentration.

32:11 And when you get into things like that, when

32:14 Michael's getting ready for this 900 mile hike thing,

32:18 60 to 80 to 100 grams of carbohydrate per hour is awesome in the lab.

32:22 And I put you on a bike and you're in my research facility,

32:25 like those are the numbers that work.

32:27 But when you cross over into humans, you start getting really tired of goo.

32:32 You like don't want to taste sugary drinks anymore.

32:35 And so when you get past a couple of hours of exercise,

32:38 then you actually start really paying attention

32:40 to texture and flavor profile and mouth

32:42 feel because that stuff starts to matter and you can't hit those numbers.

32:45 They're just not realistic.

32:48 So if you're going to try to do something like

32:50 this, pick your poison in terms of the carbohydrate source.

32:53 This is the, you know, fast sugars.

32:56 But if you're going to go for more than a couple of hours,

32:58 you got to really think carefully about are you sure

33:00 you're going to like that taste of that for six hours?

33:02 Because you probably won't.

33:04 Oh, it's it's just incredible.

33:06 I can't believe people do things like that.

33:08 Um, what about carbohydrate replenishment after

33:13 a long endurance type of workout?

33:16 Um, do you think that's important to to replenish the glycogen stores?

33:21 And depends on depends on what you had starting with.

33:24 So, did you feed before or did you not?

33:26 Right.

33:26 That'll that is automatically our context.

33:28 If you fed before, then we don't have to worry about as much directly after.

33:31 If you're fasted, we've got to worry about more.

33:33 The other context we have to pay attention to again what's our total

33:37 caloric intake what's our our carbohydrate intake

33:39 throughout the day and when are we

33:40 going to train again some of our folks again training multiple times per day

33:45 we we are going to go absolutely out of our way to get 100

33:48 grams of carbohydrate post exercise if it's

33:50 a hard training session it's rough number

33:52 like that again that number scales up and down with physical size and caloric

33:56 expenditure things like that if you're going to get on a plane and drive

34:00 and you're going to do something else

34:01 for the next two carbohydrate post exercise, like the amount doesn't matter.

34:06 It's not a big deal.

34:07 Um, you're up against a race of replenishment time.

34:11 If that matters, you want to again look

34:13 for 100ish grams of carbohydrate pretty close to finishing.

34:17 And unlike protein, timing matters.

34:20 The faster you get that carbohydrate in the the faster

34:23 you will replenish muscle and liver glycogen.

34:25 Protein, as you've covered many times, like timing,

34:28 anabolic window, like not a big deal at all.

34:30 But carbohydrates are different.

34:33 You got to repeat that performance again soon.

34:36 Faster, more, better.

34:37 If you got a lot of time, then your recovery window is plenty.

34:41 Then you're going to be fine.

34:42 Or even if you're just training for a race, right?

34:44 If you're training like every day,

34:46 you're probably going to want to get that replenishment in right away.

34:48 Well, in that case, actually, that's a great point because it's not only

34:51 necessarily just about recovering for your next workout,

34:53 but you actually need to train that system.

34:55 So one pe one mistake people make when they do endurance events

34:58 like that is they will forget to mimic the race in training.

35:02 So then when they get into training they try to do

35:04 something they haven't done it before and their body can freak out.

35:07 This is when you get a lot of GI distress when you get a lot of you're tapering

35:11 and you know the week before all of a sudden

35:14 your performance is down and you're like what's going on?

35:15 Well you're doing something different now than

35:17 you were doing the last eight weeks.

35:19 And so yeah I would actually strongly encourage you

35:21 to treat your practice races like your real race.

35:25 So do your pre-mid post fueling strategies in preparation for that.

35:29 So then when you show up, your body's like, "Yep, this is exactly what we do.

35:34 This is exactly how we handle people for the Super Bowl,

35:38 for world championship events, for the Olympics.

35:41 You try to make those big events

35:43 where they're so incredibly important and there's so

35:46 much pressure and stress and that you want

35:48 to make it feel like a normal practice.

35:50 This is just what we do.

35:51 So while most of you aren't going to be on that stage, I get it.

35:54 when you go run that first 5K,

35:56 like that's still going to be a really you're going

35:58 to be really excited and it's going to feel like that.

36:00 Your body is going to know, wow, this is something I care about.

36:03 Or you go and you finally get to surf that wave

36:05 that you've been wanting to do or whatever the thing is.

36:06 You go on that that hunt that you've been wanting to go after.

36:10 The thing you can control the most is

36:11 making your day feel like you've been training.

36:15 It's a normal process.

36:16 This is what we do.

36:17 This is how we warm up.

36:18 This is the thing we take.

36:19 The more you can do that, the more consistent a response you're going to have,

36:22 the more predictable response.

36:23 And that way you can check out of those things

36:25 and let your body just do what it's been ingrained to do.

36:27 So yeah, would definitely recommend that postc

36:30 carbohydrate for that individual simply for those purposes.

36:33 What kind of effect does that have on performance?

36:35 Is it pretty noticeable?

36:36 I mean, if you're Yeah, it is.

36:38 It is everything from I bonked.

36:40 What happened?

36:41 I felt flat.

36:42 What?

36:42 Like everything went away.

36:43 What's going on?

36:44 To now I hit the PR.

36:46 Like if you play with these things correctly,

36:49 you should feel your best on competition day.

36:51 There's some of our sports that it's just not possible because

36:54 of weight cutting and other dumb things we have to do.

36:57 But for the most part, this is the stuff that matters.

36:59 This is the like there's nothing worse

37:01 than when you PR a week after competition.

37:04 Like there's just nothing worse, right?

37:05 You're like, "All right,

37:07 PR the week before or the week after." These are little details that make you

37:10 land on the right day in the right time in that one race, that one event.

37:15 That's how we help people smash those things and they don't just go, "Well,

37:18 we're just going to train kind of hard and we

37:20 hope that you show up today and perform." Um,

37:23 we want to take all those questions out of it.

37:24 So, yeah, it'll make everything from again, I tanked, I bombed,

37:29 I I failed out to I had my best performance ever.

37:32 Um, to kind of go back to the original

37:34 question about eating for longevity versus performance.

37:38 Now, we're kind we're kind of talking about here.

37:39 Oh, man.

37:39 We're on question one still.

37:40 Well, no.

37:42 I just kind of want to I wanted to circle back

37:44 because if we are talking about someone that is racing, right?

37:48 They're they're competing.

37:50 They're trying to PR.

37:51 They're, you know, all of those things,

37:54 then the carbohydrate sources that they're eating

37:57 aren't going to be what I'm eating.

37:59 I'm not gonna be I'm certainly not going to be chugging the goo,

38:02 but like the the fast like during like intra workout like while you're

38:08 while you're racing or even perhaps like you were saying right before, you know,

38:13 eating eating the the quick like the the stuff

38:16 that's going to spike your blood glucose quickly isn't typically

38:19 stuff that people that are eating for a longevity

38:21 type of like my my carbohydrate sources are typically vegetables,

38:26 you know, fruits that have a food fiber matrix.

38:29 most of the time.

38:29 I mean, some fruits can hit hit your your body a little quicker than others,

38:32 like grapes for example, but you know, um, you know,

38:37 most of the carbohydrate source are more complex carbohydrates.

38:40 Yeah.

38:41 So, fair point.

38:42 This is that small sliver difference at the end, right?

38:45 So, again, if we look at your um,

38:48 we actually have probably I don't know five females right

38:53 now that we're coaching that are plus around your body size.

38:56 So, we'll make just equivalents to you and those individuals.

38:59 We take both your diets for you and all

39:01 those different girls that are in their different sports.

39:03 They're going to be almost identical, right?

39:05 So, they're going to be heavily focused on vegetables

39:07 and starches and fruit and all those things.

39:10 What would that difference be?

39:11 Well, okay, some of them post training might do um a powdered glucose source.

39:19 So, we might give them a carbohydrate supplement.

39:21 uh that we might use a vitargo or something like that where

39:24 it's like a scooped carbohydrate where you're probably never having that.

39:27 You're not having it throughout the day.

39:28 You're not having it pre and post your workout.

39:29 You don't need 60 grams of carbohydrate that's easily d.

39:33 So that would be different, right?

39:34 But what are they going to have post-workout?

39:36 I don't know, watermelon.

39:38 Like they're going to have things that you're probably eating too.

39:42 Do we have a little more liberty with them to add some more grapes?

39:47 Sure.

39:48 But you could also probably eat grapes, too.

39:49 you would just take something else like out or move it around or you

39:52 would have more protein when you have

39:53 the grapes or whatever different strategies we do.

39:56 It's really small the amount of goos

39:59 and powders and things like that that we're doing.

40:01 We're going to eat 95% of their calories as whole real food.

40:05 You got a little bit of supplements on the end and things like

40:07 that, but we're not going to spend too much time with lowquality foods.

40:11 Even for those individuals, I want them eating real whole healthy foods.

40:15 So, that is it's it's a really small difference, I guess.

40:19 Uh so yeah, in some of those situations, but for the most part,

40:22 your diet and their diets would be very identical.

40:25 So fat often gets overshadowed by protein and carbohydrates.

40:29 Yeah.

40:30 Where does that come into the equation of, you know, meeting your fitness goals,

40:34 whether you're an endurance athlete or strength

40:37 training or not necessarily an athlete,

40:39 just someone who's interested in in being healthy and exercising and, you know,

40:46 looking for the longevity aspects of of diet and exercise.

40:49 Yeah.

40:49 So, I would say I mean, you you position it pretty well.

40:53 Most people will start with protein,

40:56 lock that thing in, and then you'll play with carbohydrates

40:58 and fat as a way to adjust overall caloric intake.

41:01 And because we know the role of carbohydrates and exercise performance,

41:04 we will usually go to that second.

41:06 And then fat gets the third consideration.

41:09 Like, okay, fine, whatever calories we have left, we back fill with fat.

41:12 And as long as your fat isn't too low and it's too low chronically,

41:17 then you're not going to really run into too many issues

41:19 with having insufficient amount of of intake of fat, dietary fat.

41:24 That said, this is something I've changed my tune on a lot, right?

41:28 Like I I come from the classic exercise physiology academic background,

41:32 and all those people are carbohydrates first, carbohydrates second,

41:35 third, fourth, and you like fat was always shunned.

41:40 And I don't I don't think uh I don't think I believe that as much anymore.

41:44 I also we've experienced a lot a lot of the people

41:46 we've worked with, they're fine on moderate to low carbohydrate,

41:50 even high exercisers, non-athletes, but they just they train a ton.

41:53 You're talking about guys and girls running 60 miles per week, right?

41:56 Like like real high energy expenditures in terms of performance

42:00 and they're at 100 grams of carbohydrate a day.

42:03 They're not in ketosis at all.

42:05 They're not even trying to be, but they just like are fine at 150 grams

42:08 a day or 200 grams of carbohydrate a day, right?

42:10 For 120 to 190 pound like individuals kind

42:14 of at that just as some frame of reference for numbers there.

42:18 In that case, their fat intakes are way higher and they they're fine.

42:22 We're not seeing any performance decrements.

42:24 They're not having a hard time recovering.

42:25 Their sleep isn't going down.

42:26 Like sex hormones are fine.

42:28 So, I actually have just seen enough

42:30 evidence now anecdotally and empirically being like,

42:32 I think actually you're fine there.

42:34 I I think you're okay if you're

42:35 giving yourself if your indogenous recovery is sufficient.

42:38 I think you're going to be just fine there.

42:40 So, what we do with carbohydrates and fat for that person

42:44 you're describing is we let personal preference drive us a lot, right?

42:48 We also will change it just so that you can have some dietary changes.

42:52 Like fat tastes delicious.

42:54 It's really hard.

42:55 It gets really bland when you don't get to have a lot of fat in your diet.

42:59 So sometimes we'll bring carbohydrate down for a while and let

43:02 them have more fat if we need to manage calories.

43:05 We don't generally see that much for the average person.

43:07 Like we don't see that many consequences performance-wise.

43:10 So I don't think most people um are going to have

43:14 this huge like oh my god I'm I'm not recovering anymore.

43:17 If you're doing a normal amount of exercise,

43:19 I think you're going to be just fine.

43:21 Some people think if they're eating a highfat diet, low carb diet,

43:26 and they're doing endurance type of exercise,

43:29 more more they're more heavily biased towards endurance training,

43:32 y that they're going to be more fat adapted,

43:36 they're going to be more metabolically flexible,

43:39 and their mitochondrial adaptations are going to be superior.

43:45 I would not support that statement.

43:47 I would disagree with that.

43:49 This is a a great one.

43:50 So the term metabolic flexibility has been hijacked

43:54 and the way that it is described now colloally

43:56 is not what that phrase ever started to be

43:58 and it's not what that is intended to be.

44:00 It's so crazy because metabolic flexibility

44:02 has got turned into maximizing fat burning.

44:05 It's supposed to be metabolic flexibility which means

44:08 you have the ability to run the whole gamut.

44:10 I get it.

44:11 If you pluck the average person off the street,

44:14 they're probably less likely to be good

44:16 at burning fat than they are carbohydrate.

44:18 So on aggregate, we probably need to get more people better at burning fat.

44:22 I'm I'm with you on that one.

44:23 But metabolic flexibility is not just maximize fat burning.

44:26 Those are not the same thing.

44:27 That and that's how people will often describe that.

44:30 If you go too hard on one side of the other of the equation,

44:33 you'll see a whole host of adaptations

44:35 that compromise the ability to do the other things.

44:38 That's not metabolic flexibility.

44:39 That is still specialization.

44:40 You're just specializing in the other side of the equation.

44:43 If that's what you want to do, fine.

44:45 You know, we're all for it.

44:46 But we generally like to see people truly flexible on both sides.

44:50 So if you want to go higher fat

44:53 in your performance because you feel better, you like it, great.

44:56 If you can demonstrate no issues, we're all for it.

45:00 But if we're doing it for a theoretical idea and you don't actually

45:04 have information behind that, then like we're not going to support those ideas.

45:08 So you want to go higher fat, great.

45:11 Um, we have had some people where we've tinkered around with some

45:15 some number of people actually we've tinkered around with different things.

45:18 We try a higher fat diet and they actually do perform better.

45:21 So, we stay with that, right?

45:22 Like even independent of any metabolic flexibility data we've got of them.

45:26 Great.

45:26 We're going to stay in that.

45:27 And then we've had others that are the opposite.

45:29 So, these are these really long long duration endurance folks that are

45:33 out there and they just don't do well when carbohydrates get low.

45:36 And so, we have to have room for both of those realities.

45:39 Some people will perform better on a higher fat diet for more fat oxidizing

45:43 lower intensity things and some will just do a lot better um on those.

45:48 And to finish up the point,

45:50 I'm talking about long duration endurance events that are both fast and slow.

45:56 So if you look at uh to be

45:59 ridiculous like like we were talking about Cam earlier,

46:01 you look at some of Rob Rob you know producer these guys

46:06 are under two and a half hour marathon times right Cam's

46:09 higher but you know Rob is a 2 and a half hour

46:12 he's fast he's going to be burning I don't know I don't

46:14 have metabolic data on him but 70 to 80% carbohydrate in the marathon

46:18 so that's a a long duration endurance event but that is

46:20 not a fat burning event that is a carbohydrate gain right if

46:23 you want to run a marathon fast that is a carbohydrate game.

46:27 If you want to run a really, really long one and you don't care about speed,

46:32 you're still going to burn a boatload of carbohydrates,

46:35 but now we can afford to go slower with more fat oxidation.

46:38 And so when we say endurance,

46:40 there's also like another level of question is like,

46:41 okay, fast endurance or just like endurance for the long term.

46:45 So all that goes into our calculus

46:46 of thinking about how we're going to fuel somebody,

46:48 how we're going to ask them to recover.

46:50 Um, to get to the like to go back a few minutes earlier,

46:53 Jordy was talking about this with Ned Brockman, like 1,000 miles.

46:58 He's not giving him fat only.

47:00 He's not on an 80% fat.

47:01 Like, that is his most fat oxidation oxidation possible

47:04 thing you could come up with, thousand dang miles,

47:06 and he's still relying heavily on carbohydrates to get him through.

47:10 So, I don't know if that actually answers your question,

47:13 but you can think about like that's the stuff that we frame it against.

47:16 Well, yeah, it does answer the question.

47:17 It's basically like, no, you don't have to.

47:19 You don't have to you don't have to be eating eating eating

47:21 a higher fat diet isn't necessarily going to make you better at burning fat.

47:25 Um Oh, no.

47:27 Definitely not.

47:28 I certainly think that, you know,

47:30 when it comes down to that metabolic flexibility,

47:32 exercise again, like when you're when you're doing a lot of exercise,

47:36 you you become you're you actually are becoming metabol

47:40 more metabolically flexible through exercise in in my opinion.

47:44 Absolutely.

47:44 than anything else.

47:45 Actually, I think the one thing that's

47:46 kind of interesting here that that does get

47:48 left The way that we think about metabolic

47:51 flexibility is more of an innate human skill

47:54 rather than an exercise performance one such

47:56 that I think you all we all should have the ability to go for 6 hours

48:02 and not have any food and still perform cognitively.

48:06 You shouldn't be hangry and cranky because you missed lunch, right?

48:09 Like that is now you're in the kind of like you're

48:12 not super resilient whether this is a metabolic flexibility issue or not.

48:17 If that's happening consistently with you,

48:19 I would say we have some room to grow with metabolic health likely, right?

48:23 You should probably be able to go 24

48:25 hours and maintain cognitive function and maintain physical performance.

48:29 If you've ever you've done some fasting, like longer fasting stuff, right?

48:33 You should be able to not eat any

48:34 calories for 24 hours and still exercise, right?

48:37 You're not deplete really of of very much anything.

48:41 If you're the person who is the like, I I can't do anything.

48:44 I skipped lunch or didn't get deep breath,

48:47 then I think we we have some stuff to do.

48:48 But this is more of like you have probably are lacking some

48:50 innate physiological skills that are going to help you in multiple ways.

48:55 But past that, uh the metabolic flexibility thing

48:58 is again not often packaged correctly in my opinion.

49:02 What do you think about so you know I've had Marty Kabala on the podcast

49:04 talking about highintensity interval training and you

49:07 know how obviously when you're doing

49:09 a lot of people think when you're like doing hit that it's like

49:12 this all I'm only burning glucose or you know if I'm doing zone 2 I'm

49:16 only burning fat I'm only oxidizing fat

49:18 and using mitochondria and they don't realize

49:20 there's actually a lot of gray going

49:21 on like you're doing highintensity interval training

49:24 types of exercise you're yeah you're you're

49:28 you know going above the lactate threshold you're you're using glucose as fuel

49:31 But you're also still using your mitochondria, right?

49:33 I mean, yeah, you're pushing them hard.

49:36 And there there are many things to say about uh

49:41 poor understanding of metabolism is is how I'll say that.

49:44 There is no way to fully metabolize carbohydrate without oxidation.

49:50 You just can't, right?

49:51 Like you can run through and we can do it.

49:54 It's probably not the most interesting thing,

49:55 but you can't get very far anorobically with even carbohydrate.

50:00 You have to finish that story aerobically.

50:03 Does that mean your fuel in the exercise

50:06 itself is the same as the total net expenditure?

50:09 No.

50:10 So in the case of Marty's work and higher intensity stuff, yeah,

50:14 in the actual exercise bout itself,

50:16 you're going to be well above anorobic threshold.

50:19 You're going to be well above an RE of 1.0, right?

50:22 You're going to get really really in fact we have seen many times 1.3s,

50:27 1.4s, fours right for re or rqs that's mathematically impossible 1.0 means 100%.

50:34 So what you're mean is like the the the the carbon dioxide expenditure

50:37 is so exceeding aerobic or oxidative intake

50:41 that your numbers get like astronomically high.

50:44 So yes, but that said those anything you just burn there

50:48 that's sitting either in lactate or in pyuvate or some other

50:52 intermediate form there it's going to be finished in the mitochondria

50:56 with oxidation you want to recover faster and I'm talking about within

51:00 the minutes to hours post exercise as well as couple of days

51:05 now this is an aerobic capacity issue that's how you handle

51:08 these things uh for our athletes that fight in five five minute

51:11 rounds like in the UFC or we do 12 rounds in boxing,

51:14 whatever the case is, there is a huge aerobic component to that.

51:18 Huge.

51:18 Despite the fact that they are going as hard as possible,

51:21 they are pegged heart rate wise and other things.

51:24 Getting them to recover, especially from session to session,

51:28 the morning workout to the evening workout,

51:30 the higher functioning aerobic capacity we have there,

51:32 and I don't mean V2 max per se there.

51:35 I truly mean aerobic capacity.

51:37 That is a huge component of their ability to recover

51:40 and to not be completely trash the next day.

51:43 The ones that are really really smashed anorobically,

51:46 like really high, they can't train as much.

51:49 We have to back them off more.

51:51 The volume has to be lower.

51:52 We have to be really strategic.

51:54 We run into injuries more frequently.

51:55 We run into just physiologically running into the ground.

51:58 Our recovery metrics get lower.

52:00 Um the taper has to be longer.

52:02 We have to just make adjustments with calories.

52:04 They can't handle as much.

52:06 The ones that are higher in aerobic fitness, they can handle things more.

52:10 There's consequence of that, too.

52:11 Yeah, the you can pick the highest intensity thing you could possibly do

52:15 and there's still um like anorobic and aerobic is not two different things.

52:20 It's the same gear, right?

52:21 It's just the top side and bottom side of the same gear.

52:23 There's not different units.

52:24 They're just, you know, the front side and the back side of it.

52:27 So, they will always complement each other.

52:29 They're not distinct things.

52:30 Um I mean, and look at all of Georgia's work on lactate.

52:35 Like we we know these answers now.

52:38 This is not a one system.

52:39 These are not different systems.

52:40 These are just the different side of the same coin, right?

52:43 No, it's it's true.

52:45 I mean, it's it's but people like to kind of put this I I think Lane

52:49 explained this in a in a good good way how people like just put things in bins.

52:52 Like it's like this bin or this bin and it's

52:54 like well there's sometimes there's a lot of there's not bins,

52:56 they're just kind of just overlap.

52:59 That's rarely how physiology works.

53:01 Yeah.

53:01 Right.

53:01 We have redundant systems on purpose.

53:03 I I kind of wanted to ask you just because we were talking

53:05 about the timing of um we talked about the anabolic window for carbohydrates,

53:09 how there really there truly does seem to be

53:11 an importance there with respect to at least

53:13 if you're doing more endurance type of training

53:15 and you want to be ready for the next day.

53:18 But protein, you know, Stu Phillips has been on Luc Vanlon,

53:22 you're in agreement there really the anabolic window is more

53:27 uh of it's more of the total daily protein intake is

53:29 that I mean I guess you know when Lane came

53:32 on the podcast he said maybe there's a little something you can squeeze

53:36 out if you're like top level yeah you know type yeah

53:39 powerlter muscle bodybuilder whatever yeah and honestly that comes down though

53:42 to practicality it's just simply because I said earlier it's just

53:45 really hard to get 400 grams of protein in a day.

53:48 So just you just end up having to do protein like all like Yeah.

53:52 Right.

53:52 So you're just Look at Mike Ormsby's work out of Florida State.

53:55 He's done all that pre bed carbohydrate stuff or uh protein ingestion stuff.

54:01 So it's like 40 grams of protein 30 minutes before bed.

54:04 Now in all that stuff, he hasn't shown these huge massive benefits to it.

54:08 He actually doesn't show any consequences either.

54:10 So you don't uh compromise fat, you don't gain more fat,

54:14 you don't reduce fat oxidation by having

54:16 this big bullet of protein right before bed.

54:19 And so the way he will package that is

54:22 to say if you're struggling to hit your total protein numbers,

54:25 this is just another window to get you there.

54:27 If your protein numbers are fine though, there's no added benefit here.

54:30 There's no huge win.

54:32 And so that just is another example I think

54:34 of this point when it comes to the protein game.

54:36 probably what Lane was saying, like if this is just maybe a way for you

54:39 to to smack in 15 more grams or 20 or 40, then great.

54:43 But outside of that, there's no magic benefit.

54:46 Yeah.

54:46 Um Luke Fanlon actually did a few studies.

54:48 I don't know if he collaborated with um the person just mentioned,

54:52 but also on this pre like pre-le protein

54:56 loading where it it's like they're giving people protein,

55:00 a bolus of protein right before bed,

55:01 and it it does increase muscle protein synthesis while they're sleeping.

55:05 And it, you know, again, I think the way he also framed it

55:07 was you're you're getting more of your total protein.

55:11 You're you're getting more of that, you know, total protein for the day,

55:14 but also it seems to make a difference for like elderly

55:17 people who are just terrible at getting making meeting that protein requirement,

55:22 you know, for whatever reason.

55:23 I don't know, it's just hard to chew

55:24 chew food or their appetite isn't they don't have,

55:27 you know, their appetite hormones are kind of disregulated, whatever the reason.

55:31 So, um, what I wanted to ask you about cuz it was kind of interesting.

55:36 I saw a study you were a co-author on with respect to protein.

55:40 Kind of on that sort of same, you know, token, people meeting,

55:45 it's it's hard for some people to take

55:46 in 1.6 g per kilogram body weight or more.

55:50 Yeah.

55:50 Right.

55:51 Tough.

55:51 Um, so they're taking protein powders.

55:54 They're they're doing the protein powder.

55:55 It's the easiest thing, right?

55:58 What are your thoughts on whole foods versus powders?

56:00 Now, you published an interesting study on egg

56:04 p egg white powder versus the whole egg.

56:06 Yeah.

56:06 Yeah.

56:07 But I' I'd love to like to know your thoughts in general.

56:09 Yeah, that was um actually a pretty cool study.

56:15 Whole food is always the answer, right?

56:17 That is always our default position.

56:20 If we ever have to go to supplements or even

56:22 supplemental food like a protein powder or a powdered carbohydrate,

56:26 that is our second choice.

56:28 Full stop right there.

56:30 That particular uh paper and actually set

56:32 of studies on that found basically the same thing.

56:36 So whole egg versus egg white.

56:38 And it turns out potentially we don't we

56:40 didn't have mechanisms behind this but potentially some

56:41 of the stuff that's in the egg yolk

56:43 itself was contributing to additional muscle growth micronutrient wise

56:47 vitamin D right of course and like any

56:49 number of things are in there absolutely right whether

56:53 those actually were the case I don't get

56:54 we didn't have mechanism on those it was just

56:56 sort of like why do you think this is

56:58 happening even when you match it for calories

57:00 seems to be the case nonetheless to back

57:03 out your question yeah it's a whole food

57:04 answer right if we can get there with whole food and I will say this we have

57:08 many of our professional athletes that take almost

57:10 no supplements and they definitely don't supplement protein powder.

57:13 Some of them don't like it.

57:15 Doesn't sit well with their GI.

57:16 You don't have to have protein powder ever.

57:18 I I can't think of a compelling reason why outside of practical,

57:23 you know, easier flavor, taste, whatever.

57:26 So, protein very specifically whole food muscle growth whole food.

57:33 There are other use cases for other supplements

57:35 and things that you know other strategies but that is

57:38 our answer and I think that the that paper

57:40 you're referring to showed the same thing.

57:43 Yeah, I was kind of it was I was a little

57:46 shocked to be honest because you know protein was equated,

57:49 calories were equated and they were they were training

57:52 and it's like the the one the the people eating

57:55 the the whole eggs had increases I guess it was

57:59 slight in in muscle mass wasn't strength strength also right?

58:02 Yeah.

58:02 But you would anticipate it to be slight.

58:04 Like how much of a benefit would a couple

58:05 of egg yolks a day plausibly give a a healthy person?

58:09 It shouldn't be much.

58:10 Had those data come back and it was more than that, I would have been like,

58:14 I don't know about that.

58:15 Yeah.

58:16 Well, it's a little interesting because you always think about, well,

58:18 lucine is the major signal for, you know,

58:20 protein synthesis, muscle protein synthesis.

58:23 And you would think, well, if it's the lucine and the egg white powder,

58:26 it should be why why is there why is there a difference, right?

58:29 I mean, well, again,

58:30 this is what like it's actually funny because when the reviewers came back,

58:34 it was like we I knew it was going to happen.

58:35 Everybody knew and it was that, right?

58:37 You're just like, okay, how we're like, well, I don't know.

58:40 We don't have this.

58:41 And so, you just start making as you

58:43 mentioned choline and you start making like,

58:45 well, plausible this and then you make plausibly that and then plausibly that.

58:48 And like you're trying to run Well,

58:49 there's also some omega-3s in eggs and you might think,

58:52 well, the cell membranes now maybe the transporters are getting more lucine in.

58:57 Who knows?

58:58 Totally.

58:58 Who knows, right?

58:59 But I personally, you know, I I don't like protein powders to be honest.

59:04 And it's a processed food.

59:05 I mean, you look at protein powders and it's like never just protein.

59:11 Never.

59:11 And so I have every reason to be motivated to eat my turkey burger,

59:17 my homemade turkey burger.

59:18 Yeah.

59:18 You know, versus the protein powder.

59:21 But I get it.

59:22 I get like I have these like pre-made homemade turkey turkey burgers,

59:26 you know, they're they're food food prepped

59:28 and they're there ready to just microwave.

59:30 I'm not scared to microwave.

59:31 So easy for me to do, but there's a lot of people that it's like they're

59:36 not going to cook some if they don't meal prep.

59:38 Totally.

59:38 Then it's it's the go-to, right?

59:40 You're going I don't like protein bars.

59:42 Same same thing where it's like it's processed.

59:45 It's all it's all the stuff like you know.

59:47 So, I I kind of liked the um little extra motivation to say,

59:53 "Yeah, go for the whole foods.

59:55 Go for the whole foods." You know,

59:56 I have had a a lovehate relationship with those things as well.

1:00:00 Spent many decades like smashing many scoops of protein powder a day

1:00:05 and then probably went a decade or more with like almost no protein powder.

1:00:09 Now, I'm back on it a little bit more for for other reasons.

1:00:11 Like, they're getting better with some of those things.

1:00:14 But if you're asking me what I'd rather do,

1:00:17 have a candy bar or have like a piece of whole food,

1:00:20 I'm always going to take the whole food for preference, just flavor preferences.

1:00:24 Like, I like eating food more than I like supplements.

1:00:26 Before we continue, I just want to mention something important.

1:00:30 If you're finding these episodes valuable,

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1:00:45 Now, back to the episode.

1:00:46 So, we've talked a lot about uh macronutrients.

1:00:49 I think there was I, you know, I didn't know if there was going back

1:00:52 to the fat just before we move on to the micronutrients.

1:00:57 Is there is there really an optimal fat ratio or timing?

1:01:02 I mean, or is it mostly come down to if they perform better,

1:01:06 if they if that's what they want,

1:01:09 or do you think that it's something that's just not as important as well?

1:01:14 I'll answer this two ways.

1:01:15 I'll be short.

1:01:16 I actually think it's an interesting question.

1:01:18 I don't think people spend a lot of time studying.

1:01:20 I'm open to the possibility that there it's way

1:01:22 more important in different timing scenarios than we think,

1:01:24 but that people just have not done that work.

1:01:28 So, that's an open-ended question that's never been there.

1:01:31 The other way I'll say it is because of that I guess

1:01:34 yeah like I just don't feel like at this point we have

1:01:36 any compelling reason to think that it is a a critical thing

1:01:39 to pay attention to in terms of timing and stuff relative there.

1:01:44 If you just think about plausibly what

1:01:48 these different fueling sources are intending to do.

1:01:51 It makes sense that fat is probably

1:01:55 the thing you should be third concerned about.

1:01:59 you have backup stores of it already.

1:02:01 It can be mobilized when you ingest it or you're using your endogenous fat.

1:02:05 It still happens at roughly the same rate.

1:02:08 So on and so forth.

1:02:08 So with all that, I think that's our answer,

1:02:12 but I'm open I'm open to other things.

1:02:14 What about So you mentioned earlier, you know,

1:02:16 that you're mostly concerned if people aren't getting enough fat.

1:02:21 Yeah.

1:02:21 And so I'd love to you for you to explain to people why that is,

1:02:24 but also I'm interested in your thoughts about the quality of fat.

1:02:29 Are some fats better than others?

1:02:30 Do some fats hinder performance?

1:02:32 Yeah, this is actually a whole category of questions that are super interesting.

1:02:38 We grew up in the same nutritional generation, right?

1:02:42 Low fat, low fat, low fat.

1:02:43 And then we saw those consequences.

1:02:45 Okay, if you are really low fat for a long time,

1:02:48 there are like cataclysm of problems that can happen

1:02:51 with that, especially if you're combining that on top of hypocchlorism, right?

1:02:55 Endocrine disruptions, sleep disruptions,

1:02:58 probably long-term health disruptions in many areas.

1:03:01 Like, it's going to be a huge issue.

1:03:03 What does low mean?

1:03:05 I don't think we have a great definitive number

1:03:07 on that, but if it's less than 10% of your calories, again,

1:03:10 combined with hypocchloric for a long period of time,

1:03:14 then you're probably running into all kinds of issues from cell membrane,

1:03:18 like you don't you don't have the basic building

1:03:20 blocks to keep cells together to the other ones,

1:03:23 endocrine health, organ health, uh a ton transporter health,

1:03:27 storage health, like it has so many roles in our body.

1:03:30 So, you don't want you want to stay away from those things.

1:03:33 Now, past that, terms of fat quality, um, boy,

1:03:38 how how inflamed your audience is probably uh a little bit better,

1:03:42 but how how mad do you want the internet

1:03:44 to get mad uh at these following statements, right?

1:03:49 I the truth is all that matters to me.

1:03:51 So, I know what matters to you.

1:03:53 you you've been clear in your career of, you know, how you approach things,

1:03:56 but there's there's just not a lot of compelling evidence that whole

1:04:03 fat in itself can be disregarded as always healthy or always bad.

1:04:10 Right?

1:04:10 So, animal fat, vegetable fats, seed oils, right?

1:04:14 We'll throw it out there.

1:04:17 Hm.

1:04:18 when managed under all appropriate situations, we're okay here.

1:04:23 Like, we're really just okay.

1:04:24 You're fine.

1:04:25 We're going to handle these things.

1:04:27 But you go exaggerating any one of those areas,

1:04:30 you're going to run into problems, right?

1:04:32 So, if you're eating copious amounts of saturated

1:04:34 fat and combining that with low physical activity,

1:04:38 hyper hypercorism, you're going to have problems.

1:04:42 Same thing with seed oils, right?

1:04:44 You cook them, you process them, you do all those things.

1:04:47 You combine, you're going to run into problems there, too.

1:04:50 So, what does a quality fat mean?

1:04:53 I always default back to the same thing.

1:04:55 I don't want to eat anything that's processed.

1:04:58 I don't care animal, plant, you pick it.

1:05:00 I'm trying to eat whole food versions of everything.

1:05:03 And that is true for my carbohydrates, my proteins, and my fats.

1:05:05 So, we don't approach the fats that differently.

1:05:08 Um, so I don't deal with it that much because rarely

1:05:13 are we going out of our way to give people processed foods,

1:05:17 processed fats included.

1:05:19 So when we're eating for most of our people,

1:05:21 they eat animal animal sources, right?

1:05:23 So we're going to be getting fats from animals in a reasonable amount.

1:05:27 We're paying attention to those other factors,

1:05:29 vegetables, protein, uh, whole foods.

1:05:32 So because of that, animal fat just doesn't come in huge quantities.

1:05:36 We don't have the physical space.

1:05:37 It comes in a normal amount and we're okay.

1:05:40 At the same time, we're not having to be so guarded against

1:05:43 seed oils because we're not consuming most foods that come with seed oils.

1:05:48 We don't have to worry about that, right?

1:05:49 It's the company.

1:05:50 It's the company, right?

1:05:51 Like it's like these things are not critically I

1:05:54 know some people get so like fired up about it.

1:05:56 And what about uh olive oil?

1:05:59 Great.

1:05:59 Avocado oil, avocados, nuts.

1:06:01 I mean, omega-3, fatty acids, fish,

1:06:03 like those are all if it's if it's in a whole food,

1:06:05 we're going to like we have no issue with it, right?

1:06:08 You have to be a little bit careful with exogenous oils just because

1:06:13 of as you're aware like chloric intake just gets really really high there.

1:06:16 But do we have our people eat nuts?

1:06:19 Yeah.

1:06:19 Avocados?

1:06:20 Yes.

1:06:20 Like all the above.

1:06:21 Whole foods are almost always going to be on our list.

1:06:25 You just be careful with additives.

1:06:29 you put something in an oil and low quality in the sunlight it,

1:06:32 you know, fill in the blank there.

1:06:34 Same thing with nuts, right?

1:06:35 Those can come in low quality as well.

1:06:37 So, we always try to get those things uh in the appropriate

1:06:40 standards and then we we don't have any issues past that.

1:06:42 So, um I don't know how much we've successfully dodged

1:06:45 or didn't dodge any landmines on that one, but um man,

1:06:48 I just don't have a lot of aptitude for I mean,

1:06:51 we we'd have to spend hours talking about it because there's so much nuance.

1:06:54 That would be a whole other whole other episode.

1:06:56 Thank you for saying that rather so I didn't have to say it.

1:06:58 That's one kind way to put it, but my goodness people.

1:07:01 Yeah, there's there's a lot of emotions involved in nutrition for sure.

1:07:05 That's a great way to put it.

1:07:06 There's a lot of emotions involved.

1:07:08 Um, so micronutrients, this is an area that, as you know,

1:07:11 I'm very passionate about and I think it's a good

1:07:13 segue into um some supplements that I'm interested in talking about,

1:07:18 but you know, exercise does increase requirements for several micronutrients.

1:07:23 How do you how do you approach that so that people are

1:07:26 more intentional about their diet and trying to get some of those maybe

1:07:30 talk about some of those micronutrients and then yeah and how

1:07:34 so micronutrients vitamins minerals phyitochemicals if

1:07:39 you're doing your job with nutrition

1:07:41 those things are mostly taken care of if you're eating the variety

1:07:45 of the foods the type of foods that we've been talking about

1:07:48 the the big basic stuff you're in a really good spot now do

1:07:51 we need to go on top of those things and supplement particular vitamins,

1:07:55 minerals, nutrients.

1:07:56 Context dependent here.

1:07:57 Magnesium is the one that jumps off of course as the one where if

1:08:03 our food quality sources were I don't want to say how they used to be

1:08:08 or what we would like them to be and we had adequate amounts

1:08:12 of those in our food then we would literally

1:08:15 just not have to worry about supplements at all.

1:08:16 But that's not always the case.

1:08:18 So because of that you can look and you'll see all kinds

1:08:21 of numbers about things like magne

1:08:22 magnesium deficiencies whether that's clinical deficient

1:08:25 subclinical or just suboptimal I don't know some some papers 40% of people

1:08:31 some people 60% like those numbers can get really really high when

1:08:34 you look at athletes because of caloric expenditure and because of sweat

1:08:39 and because of how much tissue breakdown that's happening through many like then

1:08:42 the needs are even higher with them so I would say magnesium

1:08:46 as a supplement comes in probably 90% of the people we work with.

1:08:52 It's really really really common for us to add uh magnesium as a supplement.

1:08:57 We try to add higher magnesium bioavailable foods more.

1:09:01 That is our starting place, but we're probably going to add supplements on top

1:09:04 of that in addition because you just it's just hard to get there.

1:09:08 You got to be careful with this a little bit though because if

1:09:12 you were to look at your magnesium levels in like a classic blood draw,

1:09:16 that's a terrible place to look.

1:09:18 The magnesium that comes on your blood work that you get is

1:09:21 not an indicative of all of what's actually happening in your body.

1:09:24 The vast majority of it's going to be

1:09:26 stored in bone anyways and it's super transient.

1:09:28 And now there's there's good information you can get there

1:09:30 and there's other ways you can look at it, markers of it.

1:09:33 But I always like to flag that because people get really freaked out.

1:09:36 they going for a blood work for whatever reason,

1:09:38 they see that and they're like, "Oh, I'm super high.

1:09:40 I don't need it." Like, "No,

1:09:41 like that's not a good way to interpret your overall

1:09:43 magnesium status." We can talk more about that, but in general,

1:09:48 because of those things, we end up adding magnesium as is one

1:09:50 of our topline micronutrients to pay attention to.

1:09:54 So, I'll go on for more,

1:09:54 but I'll stop on magnesium if you want to talk more about that.

1:09:56 Yeah.

1:09:56 No, it's it's I know you're a fan.

1:09:58 Yeah, for sure.

1:09:59 Um, I'm glad you mentioned the plasma levels, magnesium,

1:10:02 which is mostly what's being measured in a standard test,

1:10:04 I guess, you would get from like a routine physical or something like that.

1:10:08 Yeah.

1:10:08 You pull it out from your bones and and and really

1:10:11 um it's it's it's it's kind of like this.

1:10:14 Your bones are this reservoir and by the time someone reaches older age,

1:10:17 like 50% of their magnesium has been taken out of their bones.

1:10:20 I mean, it's incredible and it plays a role in osteoporosis,

1:10:23 a huge role, but people aren't really focused on that as much.

1:10:26 Um, yeah.

1:10:26 Yeah.

1:10:27 So about if if half the country isn't as you mentioned depends on the paper

1:10:30 that you're reading and what you

1:10:32 know what's being defined as magnesium insufficiency.

1:10:35 Most of the time it's looking at what the RDA is.

1:10:38 So for women it's about 320 milligrams per day.

1:10:42 For men about 420 milligs per day and so people aren't

1:10:45 meeting that requirement and so they're

1:10:46 considered to be getting insufficient magnesium.

1:10:49 And so you're talking about half the country basically.

1:10:52 So you've got a one in two chance of whatever athlete that walks into your door,

1:10:56 they might be not getting enough, right?

1:10:58 So that's kind of I I would say that it's good insurance,

1:11:01 but then as you mentioned, you these athletes are sweating magnesium.

1:11:05 They're breaking down tissue.

1:11:07 Um they're, you know, urinating more.

1:11:10 I mean, there's lots of like it's coming out.

1:11:12 It's coming out.

1:11:12 And so they can require up to 10 to 20% more than the RDA.

1:11:16 And so if they're not even meeting that RDA, um it makes sense to supplement.

1:11:20 Now, I've heard you talk about different magnesium supplements like mag

1:11:24 magnesium citrate being being one that um is often preferred for recovery.

1:11:30 You uh magnesium source is different.

1:11:33 Back when we were kids, you had to be really on top of this uh

1:11:38 because of ineffective forms of magnesium and because of GI distress.

1:11:42 Most supplement companies have cleaned that up.

1:11:44 So now you can look at bislycinate is is a really common one that is fine.

1:11:48 and citrate's fine.

1:11:50 Obviously 3 and8's become more popular now.

1:11:53 Any of those are generally okay, right?

1:11:54 It's the old forms, the oxidase,

1:11:56 the different ones like that that you like really

1:11:57 had to be careful of, but you're generally okay there.

1:12:00 They've also in large part dosed these things

1:12:04 so that GI distress is not huge anymore.

1:12:07 So, this is actually something we would we would pay

1:12:09 a lot of attention to way back in the day,

1:12:10 but for the most part, you're okay as long as your dosage is is reasonable.

1:12:14 Um if it is giving you problems then you can

1:12:17 go down a little bit or you can try a different

1:12:18 form but we haven't seen uh the huge differences between

1:12:23 various forms um they're all basically getting to the same spot.

1:12:27 So like most of our people coming in the closest accuracy you can look at is

1:12:32 like it's not uncommon for us to see people below 250 in terms of their intake.

1:12:36 So like you said 320 400 like and that's

1:12:39 not an athlete that's that's the standard person.

1:12:41 And athletes can be 20% more.

1:12:44 Yeah.

1:12:44 So we actually have generally found our non-athlete,

1:12:47 our our normal people population is generally higher with magnesium intake.

1:12:52 Our athletes tend to be lower.

1:12:54 Um that's a little bit of well that's a lot of selection bias.

1:12:57 Someone's coming in to work with me, they're probably pretty health consscious.

1:13:00 They're eating more meat, less greens.

1:13:02 The athletes are not like always health conscious.

1:13:06 So it's little section bice.

1:13:08 Yeah.

1:13:08 But like really common.

1:13:09 I'm like so much so to be candid I barely look at it anymore cuz I'm

1:13:13 like I just know I assume you're going

1:13:14 to be low until you prove prove otherwise.

1:13:16 But yeah, the forms of it um yeah what

1:13:20 kind of dose do you typically and and and have

1:13:23 you noticed um it affect performance or do

1:13:27 you already are they already supplementing with it?

1:13:29 It's it's not really No,

1:13:30 most most aren't actually surprising enough most are not taking with it.

1:13:34 standard dose juice if you look at the big high quality

1:13:36 brands 150 200 something like that in that range right that's going

1:13:40 to usually take a scoop a scoop and a half if it's

1:13:43 a powder three pills caps if it's capsule like something like that so

1:13:48 those would be sort of our starter dosages we have gone double

1:13:51 that plenty of times again context we deal with many 300 plus pound

1:13:57 people so when we're doubling it I'm not doubling it for theund

1:14:00 you know something nothing pound uh individuals So we can get high there.

1:14:07 The only real drawback in general,

1:14:10 as you know, when you start tinkering with vitamins,

1:14:14 you have a range of like, okay, not a big deal, to like really big deal.

1:14:17 Phyitochemicals, antioxidants, same thing.

1:14:21 Minerals are different.

1:14:22 You got to be careful with rocks, right?

1:14:24 Magnesium, though, is pretty inert.

1:14:25 It's okay.

1:14:26 You start tinkering with iron, you got to really be paying attention.

1:14:29 You start tinkering with other rocks, you got to really understand.

1:14:32 But magnesium seems to be like pretty okay.

1:14:34 Like the worst thing we're going to deal with is GI distress.

1:14:36 And as I talked about like most people are okay now.

1:14:38 It's not a big deal.

1:14:40 So I'm not super concerned with going a little

1:14:42 bit aggressive with magnesium because of that because

1:14:44 we also um are asking so much of them

1:14:48 in in other areas of performance or movement.

1:14:51 It's one I'm saying like don't worry a ton about the dosage on that one.

1:14:55 If you're a little bit high, you want to go a little more aggressive.

1:14:58 I'm fine with that.

1:14:59 We will see some people be respond very well in terms of physical recovery.

1:15:04 Totally subjective.

1:15:05 They feel like their legs are not as sore

1:15:08 anymore or they're not getting it as much.

1:15:10 I don't know if that's actually happening.

1:15:12 Totally.

1:15:13 Honestly, I don't know.

1:15:14 Um, we will see pretty pronounced improvements

1:15:18 in a bunch of sleep metrics though.

1:15:21 That seems to be re and that that's all very objective.

1:15:24 Like our sleep technology is incredibly advanced that we use.

1:15:27 It's not just um like a consumer wearable.

1:15:30 And so we have a ton of metrics we can look at there.

1:15:32 And that one seems to be a really clear jumping off point.

1:15:35 And it doesn't seem to matter which form we use.

1:15:38 That was my next question.

1:15:39 Yeah.

1:15:39 Yeah.

1:15:39 Doesn't seem surprised.

1:15:40 No, I mean there's been actually probably two or three

1:15:42 papers in the last 6 months on 3 and8 specifically.

1:15:46 We're finally starting to get human trials um need more work,

1:15:50 but we haven't noticed a big difference between forms.

1:15:55 Most people are on three and eight right now, but uh not a big deal for us.

1:16:00 What about So omega-3s?

1:16:03 Um and I do want to talk about we're going

1:16:05 to get into recovery and and supplements for performance as well,

1:16:08 but omega-3s is another one.

1:16:09 I mean, I personally, as you probably know,

1:16:11 think that most people are not getting enough omega-3.

1:16:14 In fact, if you look at if you look at data on the omega-3 index,

1:16:17 people are mostly not.

1:16:18 They're in the low range.

1:16:20 And there's a lot of longevity reasons, you know, cardiovascular health,

1:16:24 inflammation, why getting up to a higher omega-3 index would be ideal.

1:16:28 And most people, there's been studies showing like taking around 1.5 to two

1:16:32 grams a day will get you there from a 4% omega-3 index,

1:16:35 which is low, to an 8% omega-3 index, which is high.

1:16:38 And um what h how do you approach omega-3s from a performance perspective?

1:16:44 Have you seen the data on omega index and professional athletes?

1:16:49 No.

1:16:49 I think, don't quote me here, but you'll make the point.

1:16:52 I think that the uh the NBA data was like 50% or below five.

1:16:58 It's stow.

1:16:59 Yeah, it's just like very low.

1:17:01 Stunningly low, right?

1:17:02 Nobody is at 15.

1:17:04 Like, it's just like you just don't get it, right?

1:17:06 The numbers might even be higher.

1:17:07 It's it's outrageous.

1:17:09 So, yeah, we magnesium is a pretty big staple.

1:17:13 And unless we have strong contraindication,

1:17:16 pretty much everyone's going to be getting omega-3 as well.

1:17:19 Uh I know again another like we'll throw it out there.

1:17:23 Yes, I saw the AIB paper like everybody's

1:17:26 aware of the omega-3 and heart flutter, heart palpitations.

1:17:31 Great.

1:17:32 Um if you are a cardiologist, you can treat that however you'd like.

1:17:36 If you're concerned about work with your cardiologist, do whatever you want.

1:17:38 But outside of that, there is so much other information, so much benefit,

1:17:44 so many rationale reasons uh for omega-3s that we use it very consistently.

1:17:50 We always start food first, blah blah blah, all the things.

1:17:54 But because of that, uh a moderate to low dose of omega-3,

1:17:58 pretty safe place to go.

1:17:59 Yeah.

1:17:59 On the on the aphib thing, um there's, you know,

1:18:02 it seems to be at a 4 gram super high dose range.

1:18:05 Four grams ethyltor form.

1:18:07 Yeah.

1:18:07 And also the recent paper that came out the it was a correlation paper.

1:18:12 It wasn't a randomized control trial.

1:18:14 Bill Harris has had publishing a response to that.

1:18:16 It was a like terrible statistics and all this stuff done.

1:18:19 So anyways, did you see the absolute effect by the way?

1:18:22 Um yeah, it was like extremely low.

1:18:24 It's ridiculous.

1:18:24 Yeah, it's it's it's not so I think it

1:18:27 was just creating a lot of anxiety, you know.

1:18:30 No, now of course there's people that maybe have

1:18:33 a family history or prone maybe shouldn't be taking five

1:18:36 grams of ethylster you know high vipa or whatever

1:18:40 a day but um man I got torched for that recently.

1:18:45 Yeah I talked about somewhere people flew off the handle like my god like you

1:18:49 have to pay attention past line the top line you do look at the absolute effect

1:18:53 it's like again it's like one of those things

1:18:54 where you're going to have to spend a little bit of time talking about

1:18:56 all the nuance to like really convey everything.

1:18:59 You can't just do a little like, you know, sound bite.

1:19:02 It's just not.

1:19:03 People are gonna have their emotional response and and that's that.

1:19:05 There's also like just look, humans are weird.

1:19:09 You can't pick a exercise, a supplement,

1:19:12 a nutrition thing that we've ever done where somebody of the seven

1:19:15 billion of us won't throw their hand up and go,

1:19:17 "Oh, I did that and I had this crazy negative response." Right?

1:19:20 Like, yeah.

1:19:22 Yes.

1:19:23 Like, totally happens.

1:19:24 And I believe you.

1:19:25 I trust you.

1:19:26 I can't explain it.

1:19:28 Right.

1:19:28 Physiology is wild.

1:19:29 There's nuance here.

1:19:30 People respond differently.

1:19:31 Not to mention that maybe it was something else.

1:19:33 I mean, like, you never really know, but totally.

1:19:35 Have you So, I had um a young professor on the podcast,

1:19:39 Chris Mcllory, and he's been doing some pretty pioneering and interesting work.

1:19:45 He trained with a couple of the couple of the the big guys.

1:19:48 Steu Phillips is one he trained with.

1:19:49 Um, but he does work on on on highdose omega-3 and disuse atrophy.

1:19:56 And he's done a couple of randomized control trials showing has

1:20:00 to be preloading because it's

1:20:02 completely independent of the inflammatory effects,

1:20:04 anti-inflammatory effects of omega-3s, right?

1:20:07 Where it it seems to be you have to like

1:20:10 get these people on omega-3 for at least a month, right?

1:20:14 They're doing like four or five weeks before

1:20:15 the tri before um before the trial starts.

1:20:19 So, they have to be loaded up.

1:20:20 That's how long it takes to accumulate in cell membranes.

1:20:23 and um it's accumulating in their in their cell membranes

1:20:26 in their muscle and people then have a disuse event.

1:20:30 So he'll put a cast or whatever on them

1:20:32 and it cuts disuse atrophy like in half and he's

1:20:37 like you know trying to figure out what's going

1:20:40 on but it appears to be sensitizing muscle to amino acids.

1:20:44 So it's almost like what exercise is doing.

1:20:46 Yeah.

1:20:46 Yeah.

1:20:47 So, which is of course when you're having a disuse event, you're not exercising.

1:20:50 And so, um, but anyways,

1:20:52 it's something interesting I kind of wanted to throw out there

1:20:54 and get on your radar because it's kind of in your world.

1:20:57 And yeah, look, when you you'll see a cornucopia

1:21:01 of things like this when you take people,

1:21:04 I would assume I don't know his population database in that trial,

1:21:07 but I would assume it's fairly inactive, unhealthy people, women, young women.

1:21:12 Okay.

1:21:13 The only reason I'm saying that is you just

1:21:15 seems to see these type of crazy things happen

1:21:18 when you go from like somewhat suboptimal to poor

1:21:22 health and you just get them back to baseline.

1:21:25 Wild stuff just starts happening like this.

1:21:27 Like I have no idea.

1:21:28 We could probably get a whiteboard out and start tossing up mechanisms,

1:21:31 figure out like what's plausibly happening there.

1:21:33 But you could infer is okay a healthier cell membrane probably then can

1:21:37 do a bunch of things that it was trying to do but what

1:21:41 wasn't healthy enough to do however we want to determine healthy and now

1:21:45 it can it be a reactionary response could be all these things

1:21:48 yeah awesome that is quite different than going from already pretty healthy

1:21:52 there so I would imagine that case if you take people who are

1:21:55 already pretty healthy and did the same thing you wouldn't see as much

1:21:57 of a response but that goes to the point of saying okay Now,

1:22:03 given the fact we know most people are not already pretty healthy.

1:22:05 These were healthy women.

1:22:06 I I think I think that generally speaking healthy.

1:22:10 So, we're looking at the effects of omega-3.

1:22:12 They weren't high.

1:22:13 They don't they didn't have high levels of omega-3, right?

1:22:16 So, that So, the idea is you take someone that's already Yeah.

1:22:19 Yeah.

1:22:20 eating fish.

1:22:20 They're supplementing with omega-3.

1:22:22 They're exercising, whatever, and you So, you put them in a disused event,

1:22:25 you know, where they're not not moving a limb for four weeks or whatever.

1:22:29 and um healthy or not, they're going to lose muscle mass.

1:22:32 Oh, yeah.

1:22:32 Right.

1:22:33 Yeah.

1:22:33 Yeah.

1:22:33 So, it's kind of interesting that super interesting that you

1:22:36 you take something like omega-3s which are known to affect transporters,

1:22:40 receptors, anything embedded in the cell membrane and makes it better.

1:22:44 You means make it makes it functional.

1:22:45 So, when you have a deficiency of it, like they're not as optimal.

1:22:49 So, it's kind of it's kind of interesting because it kind of interesting.

1:22:52 Yeah.

1:22:52 For me, it has it's not just important for like elderly

1:22:56 people and perhaps a surgery or an event a disuse event.

1:22:59 you can plan for.

1:23:00 But I think just injury like in general like having having you know

1:23:04 these omega-3s in our cell membranes built

1:23:06 up to that level already would be important.

1:23:08 But also um what about recovery?

1:23:10 Have you looked at omega-3s in recovery at all?

1:23:16 Not in my lab ever.

1:23:20 Um, yeah.

1:23:21 I don't I don't think I don't think I've

1:23:23 spent a ton of time outside of the obnoxious again,

1:23:26 going from deficient, super low,

1:23:27 just back to a standard number, going from good to high.

1:23:32 Uh, no, I don't I don't think I

1:23:33 have anything super interesting to say on that stuff.

1:23:37 Well, to be determined some other time.

1:23:39 Um, I I do want to get into some of these performance enhancers.

1:23:42 And this is kind of, you know,

1:23:45 it's a it's an area that I'm I'm interested in myself.

1:23:48 I, as we were chatting earlier off camera,

1:23:51 I had I had recently had Derek Darren Kando on the podcast and he's

1:23:54 done a lot of research in the creatine world and so I'm kind of curious.

1:23:58 I I take creatine now.

1:23:59 Um, but I wanted to ask you about, you know,

1:24:02 the top sort of performance-enhancing supplements and then we can kind of get

1:24:06 into some of those like just kind of what what your thoughts.

1:24:09 I'm sure creatine is at the top of the list.

1:24:10 Yeah, of course.

1:24:11 Right.

1:24:11 Like how how's that not going to be on the top of of everyone's one?

1:24:16 Um the way that we would think about

1:24:17 supplements in general is number one remove remove

1:24:22 reduce try to eliminate any any physiological insufficiency

1:24:27 whether that is coming because of caloric restriction.

1:24:29 So we have dealt with a lot of people

1:24:31 whether this is again as our athletes or non-athletes

1:24:33 where chloric restriction is a thing and I'm saying

1:24:36 that because that's why supplements tend to be helpful.

1:24:40 I would prefer you to get all your stuff from food.

1:24:42 But when food is limited for a bunch of different reasons,

1:24:45 now we can use supplements to backfill vitamins,

1:24:48 nutrients, minerals, and a bunch of other stuff.

1:24:50 That is our topline performance enhancement.

1:24:52 When your physiology is in a healthier spot, it will perform better.

1:24:55 So, we can get into betalanine and other things for sure,

1:25:00 but that's really important for me to state

1:25:01 because that is where we have actually

1:25:03 seen by far the most enhancements in performance

1:25:05 and recovery and sleep and cognitive function.

1:25:08 You name it.

1:25:08 It's by just making sure we call them performance anchors.

1:25:12 That you don't have any anchor behind you.

1:25:13 Nothing's just like dragging your physiology down.

1:25:17 We get that thing solved, get it up back to normal,

1:25:20 and then for the most part, I want to step away.

1:25:22 Like I want to let your physiology just run how it wants to run.

1:25:25 But if we have big holes, we plug them first.

1:25:28 Whether you want to pick your metric is again recovery, muscle growth,

1:25:32 testosterone levels,

1:25:33 like pick your thing that's going to get your brain most excited.

1:25:36 That's where we see the most impact.

1:25:38 like by a landslide.

1:25:40 If your house is cleaned up there, now we can get into creatine, beta alanines,

1:25:45 um you can get into fatigue blockers, you can get into stimulants,

1:25:49 you can do a whole bunch of things like that.

1:25:51 Um adaptogens, there's a whole host of things we could cover there,

1:25:54 but that part of the equation is where you will most

1:25:56 all of you will most likely see your biggest benefits, right?

1:25:59 So, so pretty much the things we've been talking about,

1:26:01 you want to make sure you're optimizing your diet,

1:26:04 making sure you're getting your micronutrients,

1:26:05 your magnesium, vitamin D, I'm sure.

1:26:09 Yeah, we we do this actually quite differently.

1:26:11 Um, we spend a lot of time on a bunch of biomarkers.

1:26:16 So, we take a ton of blood, a ton of urine, stool,

1:26:20 and saliva, and we get really precise with vitamin,

1:26:25 mineral, nutrient recommendations.

1:26:26 like wait we it's hard to get into that on a podcast without

1:26:28 like exact examples but that's where we get so yeah we can start off

1:26:32 with general recommendations but being precise

1:26:34 to physiology uh we're able to paint pretty good molecular portraits of people

1:26:38 and figure out what's happening with them over

1:26:40 time and then get really specific with recommendations past that then is when

1:26:45 we get into like our direct performance

1:26:47 enhancements so like that's how we handle

1:26:48 that equation yeah some people are really into to measuring and trying to to you

1:26:54 know quantify I their deficiencies

1:26:58 and their sufficiencies and see where what's best.

1:27:01 But not everyone just not everyone's going to do that, right?

1:27:04 So, some people you kind of put them in that in that bucket of, okay,

1:27:08 yep, 50% of the country is not getting enough magnesium.

1:27:11 Most people not getting, you know, omega-3s and the vitamin D again, you know,

1:27:14 more than half the country's not getting

1:27:16 enough because we're spending all our time indoors.

1:27:17 And so, you kind of you kind of go

1:27:19 for the the biggest ones that you're like probably going to help, right?

1:27:22 Yep.

1:27:23 Um, it's always better to measure things though, right?

1:27:25 Especially with like things like vitamin D where you can measure it.

1:27:28 It's a simple test and most doctors will do it.

1:27:30 Yep.

1:27:31 And like vitamin D is a good example of it's also one where

1:27:35 I feel pretty good with you just taking vitamin D without a test.

1:27:38 I ain't tripping if you're just like, "Hey,

1:27:40 I want to take vitamin D." Like, all right, I'm I'm probably cool.

1:27:43 Like, what's the worst that's going to happen?

1:27:44 Not much.

1:27:46 Very limited downside.

1:27:47 Strong likelihood you're low.

1:27:49 Even if you're not low, very little harm here.

1:27:52 So, there's most of the things we've talked about.

1:27:54 You don't need any test at all to go do some things.

1:27:58 I'm going to say, hey,

1:27:59 like we want to see actual markers on this before we start tinkering with that.

1:28:02 We said like minerals in particular,

1:28:05 be really careful of you have big downsides in them.

1:28:08 But yes, most people the big stuff we're going to put

1:28:11 you in a better spot and that's what to pay attention to.

1:28:13 So the minerals that are are are sort of not as risky would be the magnesium.

1:28:18 Now, iron, you said iron is something that probably more focused on with male,

1:28:23 sorry, females that are um menrating, right?

1:28:26 Premenopausal females.

1:28:28 Yep.

1:28:28 A lot of them can become low in iron and and reds

1:28:31 like red's a really common thing to pay attention to.

1:28:34 Um so, this is a concern you have with relative energy deficiency, right?

1:28:38 So if you're not only combining being female as well

1:28:41 as a lot of caloric expenditure and calories are moderate to low,

1:28:46 then we have all kinds of problems we have to pay attention to there.

1:28:49 So there's just a whole bunch of other factors that that go into that.

1:28:52 Um iron gets really complicated really fast.

1:28:55 So I mean we can come back to that one on a different day.

1:28:57 And but don't and don't you also like as an athlete

1:29:00 you kind of like you're you're losing your you

1:29:03 know tear down like red blood cells are are being

1:29:05 torn down and so you're probably losing even more iron.

1:29:09 No.

1:29:09 Okay.

1:29:10 So there is a uh a thing that we will

1:29:12 talk about for for many decades now called heel strike homalysis.

1:29:17 This is exactly what it sounds like.

1:29:18 If you run a lot and your feet smash the ground,

1:29:21 when your blood is going past the bottom of your foot,

1:29:24 just normal blood moving through your body,

1:29:26 and that blood is between your foot and the ground,

1:29:28 and then you smash it, you will smash your red blood cells.

1:29:32 We see this in our combat athletes, right?

1:29:34 So, you have physical things hitting your body,

1:29:36 you will physically smash those red blood cells.

1:29:38 You will smash that iron.

1:29:39 And so, yeah, it's not just menration.

1:29:42 It's not just breaking down of tissue.

1:29:45 You will actually physically smash your own red blood cells.

1:29:47 So it is a huge concern for not just

1:29:50 females but young old like it's a whole thing.

1:29:52 Iron is like it's also insanely related to sleep quality.

1:29:57 So you will see numbers go all over the board when you are

1:30:01 having spleenic contractions at night because you're

1:30:03 having mild sleep apnea or other disturbances.

1:30:06 So the numbers that you're paying attention to there um

1:30:08 they really throw people for a loop when their blood work.

1:30:10 So you got to be really careful and pay attention to that.

1:30:13 And as I said that's not an innocuous supplement.

1:30:15 You can't just smash it and just be like, I'll just take some more.

1:30:18 Not a good idea at all.

1:30:19 So, so you definitely want to measure your iron,

1:30:22 your feritin, like what are the main things?

1:30:23 A bunch of ones.

1:30:24 Yeah.

1:30:24 I would say that there's probably at least seven markers that we would pay

1:30:29 attention to before we're really truly understanding

1:30:32 what's happening with your overall iron status.

1:30:34 everything from hematocrit to hemoglobin um feritin of course but then you have

1:30:41 even like red blood cell magnesium

1:30:43 concentrations and maybe probably closer to 10

1:30:48 actually I would pay attention to mean corpuscular volume there's a bunch

1:30:51 of different things that we would look at so yeah we we'll come

1:30:54 back to that one just cuz I'm I'm stopping myself from going

1:30:56 this is going to be a 40minut like part right now okay because it's

1:31:00 it the reason why I don't want to do right now is you

1:31:03 can't get your toes deep in without just making more confusion than not.

1:31:06 Yeah.

1:31:06 Got it.

1:31:07 It's one of Okay.

1:31:07 Well, you mentioned stimulants, um, cognitive enhancers,

1:31:10 and that's something I'm I'm interested in.

1:31:12 Um, starting with, of course, caffeine.

1:31:13 I mean, that's probably one of the most widely used stimulants globally.

1:31:17 And I'm I'm sort of there's I've come across a few

1:31:20 studies where caffeine if used before exercise seemed to enhance fat

1:31:26 burning like pretty significant you know and now this is not

1:31:30 and someone that's already an athlete and doing long amounts of endurance

1:31:34 exercise is not going to make a difference but someone like

1:31:36 myself I'm I'm running like a 30 minute doing 30-minut run

1:31:40 or I'm doing a 20-minut hit um I don't know this might

1:31:43 make a little bit more of a meaningful difference to me.

1:31:47 Uh, I wouldn't I I would be skeptical on that one.

1:31:51 Caffeine works.

1:31:53 No question about it.

1:31:54 It will it works as an erogenic benefit.

1:31:56 You will perform oftentimes better.

1:31:58 Boom.

1:31:58 That's it.

1:31:59 So, there you go.

1:32:00 Right.

1:32:00 Like if you burn more calories, train harder, went faster.

1:32:03 Yeah.

1:32:04 Now, will it have a lipolytic effect?

1:32:07 Yeah.

1:32:07 You take it right now, you will see free fatty acids go up in your blood.

1:32:11 That will happen.

1:32:12 You don't do anything with it,

1:32:13 they will be restored and placed right back in their position.

1:32:16 So if you look at the research on even fat burners,

1:32:21 you're not going to really significantly aid in fat loss, right?

1:32:25 Stimulants, caffeine, combinations of them, they are an acute effect.

1:32:29 If they are used then to train better,

1:32:30 more frequently, more motivation, work harder, great.

1:32:34 Sometimes they have an appetite suppressant effect as well.

1:32:38 But that's how they're getting to any substantive

1:32:40 fat loss rather than the actual mechanism itself.

1:32:42 Absolutely.

1:32:43 Yeah.

1:32:43 So, it's it's essentially just you're working

1:32:45 harder kind of like with creatine, right?

1:32:46 You're you're more more volume training, performing better,

1:32:49 and so um what whatever the reason,

1:32:52 motivation, um what what about the dose of the caffeine?

1:32:57 Does that Yeah, I mean, typical doses you're going to look at something like

1:33:01 most is 150 to 400 milligrams on those things.

1:33:07 We way back in the day,

1:33:10 people were tinkering with like 10 grams per kilogram, milligrams per kilogram.

1:33:14 So, you're getting really high dosages and you're like you're in these trials

1:33:17 and you're just sitting there and you're like your head is going to explode.

1:33:21 Like these numbers are outrageous.

1:33:22 Four to five is like more of a standard one now,

1:33:26 which is going to equate to that, you know,

1:33:28 like two, 300, 400 total milligrams depending on your body size.

1:33:31 you start crossing past like 500 milligrams of caffeine

1:33:34 and like you might have an existential event.

1:33:37 Like you're going to be like, "What is happening?" And I just remember sitting

1:33:42 there with other students and stuff just being like,

1:33:43 I just want this to be over with.

1:33:45 You just do not feel good at those high dosages at all.

1:33:48 Yeah.

1:33:48 So, the downsides would be at a higher dose depending depending on the person.

1:33:53 Some people are pretty sensitive,

1:33:54 but how can someone know if they're it's actually affecting their performance?

1:33:57 Like I mean okay so that's actually there's there's

1:34:01 a lot of conflicting research as well on adaptation.

1:34:04 So there used to be this idea that you want to desensitize yourself to caffeine.

1:34:09 So even if you're a normal habitual caffeine user let's just say an average

1:34:13 dose of caffeine in a say a coffee or an espresso is 200 milligrams right?

1:34:18 Like whatever tea is less and you get the idea.

1:34:22 So if say you do two of those a day

1:34:23 and you're like a 3 to 400 milligram per day user,

1:34:27 you would come off of it entirely for a day or 5 days or something

1:34:30 like that and then you would reintroduce it

1:34:31 and you would have this like super response.

1:34:33 You will feel that.

1:34:35 But the question was is that actually then doing anything for performance.

1:34:39 People would do this in like the powerlifting and weightlifting

1:34:41 worlds and even in the endurance world for a long time.

1:34:45 But there's more recent data that suggests it probably doesn't matter.

1:34:48 There doesn't seem to be a correlation.

1:34:50 Well, it doesn't seem to be a 100% crossover between your perception,

1:34:55 your personal stimulation of it, and the performance benefits.

1:34:58 Those seem to be disentangled quite a bit.

1:35:01 So, even if you're normally at 400 milligrams a day and then

1:35:04 you take your normal 400 milligram dose and you don't feel anything different,

1:35:09 you might still have those performance benefits.

1:35:10 You don't have to feel like you're, you know,

1:35:12 like super stimulated uh to get that thing.

1:35:15 So, that those data have changed over the years, right?

1:35:17 It's gone back and forth.

1:35:18 and said like it has to be novel

1:35:20 or now it's looks like doesn't really matter that much.

1:35:23 So that game of like do you want to reensitize or desensitize yourself I

1:35:28 leave it up to people whatever you want to do generally we don't worry

1:35:32 about it but it seems to be the performance benefit there so how would

1:35:35 you know if your performance is getting

1:35:36 better we just have to have some objective

1:35:38 marker of performance like are you lifting are you running like what are you

1:35:41 doing are you are you either going more um we'll back up the two

1:35:45 ways we would typically do this in the lab is like a time trial

1:35:49 right or maximum performance like so you you can play the So you can say,

1:35:53 "We're going to lock this in at 30 minutes and say,

1:35:56 how much work can you get done in 30 minutes?

1:35:58 Oh, you got more work done this time

1:35:59 than you did without the caffeine." Or the opposite,

1:36:02 we're going to run a 5K and does your time get better?

1:36:05 Like those are the kind of like the two ways to pay attention to it.

1:36:07 And you'll generally see benefit in both of those scenarios.

1:36:11 What about um what about music as a performance enhancer?

1:36:15 Yep.

1:36:15 You'll see that like pretty consistently.

1:36:18 You'll see that actually even with muscle growth.

1:36:21 So intentional playing of of music generally will

1:36:25 give you a small benefit in muscle growth.

1:36:28 Mechanism there being obvious like probably are happier,

1:36:31 you're probably training more, probably training harder.

1:36:34 Um the type of music doesn't seem to matter that much.

1:36:36 Seems to be pretty independent.

1:36:38 What do you want like you want death metal?

1:36:40 Cool.

1:36:41 You want to play jazz?

1:36:42 Cool.

1:36:43 Really, it doesn't seem to matter that much.

1:36:44 It doesn't have to be the only thing you'll kind of see here is tempo.

1:36:48 Generally higher tempo better.

1:36:50 like you don't want to be down slow.

1:36:53 I don't know like what those beats would be actually.

1:36:57 But anyways, faster or higher tempo stuff would

1:37:00 would uh generally be what you're looking at.

1:37:01 We actually ran a study in my lab

1:37:02 years ago where we had professional drummers come in.

1:37:06 Uh this is totally unrelated, but we ran a bunch of metabolic equivalents like

1:37:10 we have put them on a metabolic cart and looked

1:37:12 at V2 max during drumming of a bunch of different

1:37:15 like songs and things like that and looked at caloric expenditure.

1:37:18 But yeah, nonetheless, you're a music pretty good idea for most people.

1:37:23 So, I've heard you talk a little bit about

1:37:24 um you and Andrew Huberman talk about Rodeiola Rosa.

1:37:27 Yeah.

1:37:28 And I've been sort of interested in this um as a you know,

1:37:32 fatigue reducer, cognitive enhancer.

1:37:35 I'm kind of interested how does it work?

1:37:37 How does it compare to caffeine?

1:37:39 You know, dose, all those things.

1:37:41 Yeah, rodeiola's been around for a long time.

1:37:43 I've probably been using it, I don't know, at least a decade or more.

1:37:48 It was always hard to get and you were like scared

1:37:50 of where you're going to get it from kind of thing.

1:37:52 You don't really know.

1:37:53 Now we have enough data on it.

1:37:54 There's quality providers, NSF certified places and such.

1:37:59 Um, more research is coming out muscle endurance in terms of like

1:38:03 how many repetitions can you do of a of an event,

1:38:06 you know, 30 reps versus 35 reps, like that kind of muscular endurance.

1:38:09 And then we're seeing benefits otherwise.

1:38:12 Andrew talks a lot about uh like he feels cognitive stuff from it.

1:38:15 I don't really personally there but to each their own.

1:38:19 How is it working?

1:38:20 Nobody knows.

1:38:22 We don't really have outside of like stuff

1:38:24 in yeast and I think there's some fruitfly data.

1:38:27 There's not a lot of mechanism here.

1:38:29 I could guess I could spout out.

1:38:31 Is it an adaptogen?

1:38:32 What is is it a polyphenol?

1:38:34 What is it with both?

1:38:35 Right.

1:38:35 Right?

1:38:36 So you have both of those effects,

1:38:37 but the only little bit of mechanism data is maybe cortisol, right?

1:38:43 Maybe something HPA access, maybe dopamine,

1:38:45 maybe serotonin, like something's happening here.

1:38:47 What you will generally see is if

1:38:50 you look at markers like heart rate variability.

1:38:53 What will often happen with rodeiola is the same dose of highintensity

1:38:57 exercise when you use rodeiola will not drive HRV as much.

1:39:03 That's why we say it's like an adaptogen.

1:39:04 That's why it mitigates the stress response.

1:39:07 I have not seen any evidence that rodeiola would

1:39:09 do something like improve baseline resting HRV over time.

1:39:13 So it's not like a recovery agent,

1:39:15 but it seems to make harder higher intensity exposure

1:39:17 things not as damaging if that without compromising performance.

1:39:21 Right.

1:39:22 Okay.

1:39:22 So it's not it's not compromising adaptations.

1:39:24 Correct.

1:39:25 In fact, the some data like have indicated that but most

1:39:29 of the research suggests actual performance enhancements from it.

1:39:32 We're just now with the cortisol and stuff,

1:39:34 we're speculating because at some point if you actually block cortisol response,

1:39:38 then you actually inhibit stimuli, right?

1:39:41 Which you don't want.

1:39:42 So our hands are up in the air.

1:39:44 Like I haven't seen anybody really do a lot

1:39:46 of human trials and figuring out definitive mechanisms.

1:39:49 It's hard to get funding for these sort of things that that too.

1:39:52 But yeah, what um what dose do you need to get the performance enhancement?

1:39:56 Is it like dependent on your body weight always?

1:39:59 Right.

1:39:59 But most products are going to be something like I

1:40:02 think 150 or so is like a reasonable starting point.

1:40:07 I haven't really seen like we've tinkered with really high ones.

1:40:11 Um there's some some papers I think have done like 800

1:40:13 milligrams like way up there all at once like one dose.

1:40:17 Yeah.

1:40:17 Yeah.

1:40:18 Um I'm not going to lie to you and say we haven't tried that too.

1:40:22 Does it make does it have a caffeine effect or is it like totally different?

1:40:26 No.

1:40:26 So you don't feel liked?

1:40:28 No.

1:40:28 Yeah.

1:40:28 No.

1:40:29 Great question.

1:40:29 It's not a um yeah, not not a stimulant like that.

1:40:32 We actually haven't seen any like changes in sleep or anything like that.

1:40:36 I would always take it in the morning personally if I'm going to use

1:40:39 it at all and we generally recommend in the morning just in case.

1:40:43 But no, not a stimulant in that that sake at all.

1:40:46 It's it's generally again the way to think about it is you take it if I were

1:40:48 to put you in a placebo control right now and gave it to you, you wouldn't know.

1:40:54 I don't I don't think you would feel like if if I

1:40:56 gave you beta alanine or if I gave you caffeine or you

1:40:59 you'd be like whoa you like you know there but we

1:41:01 could blind you to rodeiola almost surely and you wouldn't know it.

1:41:04 And and what about in terms of like you take you say take it in the morning just

1:41:08 to be safe but like if you're wanting a performance

1:41:10 enhancement you can take it at night no problem.

1:41:12 So it's like it's like something that's

1:41:13 in your system for a certain amount of time.

1:41:15 It doesn't have to be like right before you work out.

1:41:17 Yeah.

1:41:18 We will use it chronically.

1:41:19 Okay.

1:41:19 Yeah.

1:41:20 But again we're speculating here because we

1:41:21 we don't know where we have mechanism.

1:41:23 we understand at least roughly how a a beta

1:41:25 alanine or sodium bicarbonate are working or caffeine.

1:41:30 I I don't actually know.

1:41:31 So I I should back up.

1:41:33 I I don't know the answer to your question.

1:41:35 We are not super worried about it that you have it right before your workout,

1:41:39 but I guess it's plausible that we should, but we're not.

1:41:42 Yeah.

1:41:43 Today we don't.

1:41:44 Okay.

1:41:44 Well, 150 milligrams.

1:41:46 Um I guess I'm going to try that out and see.

1:41:48 I I kind of want a little performance enhancement

1:41:51 in my especially my strength training my my my CrossFit stuff.

1:41:56 Yeah.

1:41:56 Uh I think that is a pretty good place

1:41:58 where you would likely to see some benefit there.

1:42:00 That would be a good place to try.

1:42:02 Okay.

1:42:03 Um you me you mentioned the beta alanine.

1:42:06 I want to get to that in a minute.

1:42:07 But um before because we're kind of talking about performance enhancement,

1:42:10 there's this whole category of these blood flow enhancers.

1:42:15 Oh yeah.

1:42:15 Oh yeah.

1:42:16 Yeah.

1:42:16 And there's like so the beetroot juice,

1:42:18 beetroot extract, and then there's the citruline arginine.

1:42:22 Yeah.

1:42:23 Um, so I'd heard of the beetroot juice

1:42:25 and and you know the these nitric oxide boosters,

1:42:28 but the the citrine and arginine are something that I haven't

1:42:32 really I mean arginine I know about for for blood pressure,

1:42:36 but not for this performance enhancement.

1:42:38 And so I'm wondering um endurance type of exercise or high rep type of exercise.

1:42:43 I mean, is this something that actually can

1:42:46 make a difference in someone that's already well trained?

1:42:48 Is it like not well-trained people?

1:42:51 How much?

1:42:52 Talk about what it's doing.

1:42:53 Sure.

1:42:54 There's actually a lot of research, right?

1:42:57 Andy Jones uh has done so much stuff here.

1:43:00 Um he's done a ton of work on it and there's a lot

1:43:02 like you're talking about a solid decade or more in lots of populations,

1:43:07 lots of different stuff.

1:43:08 So, it is really well studied.

1:43:10 It's funny you bring it up because it it gets no love.

1:43:13 Like people don't talk about it that much

1:43:14 despite it's not a small amount of research here.

1:43:16 If you want to especially stack up like rodeiola to be like you have

1:43:20 a mountain to go on with beetroo juice and you have a pebble like on rodeiola.

1:43:26 We like it.

1:43:26 We use it a lot.

1:43:27 We use I've used a ton of different forms over the years.

1:43:30 It's great because it is not a stimulant.

1:43:32 So you can take it in the evenings and it doesn't compromise sleep at all.

1:43:38 We will all use it a lot for our individuals who

1:43:41 are either exercising at night or training multiple times per day

1:43:44 and their stimulants come in the morning but they still have

1:43:47 high fatigue and so they want to use it in the evening.

1:43:49 So that is our our common use case.

1:43:51 You see it a lot in the endurance

1:43:53 world particularly the steadystate endurance world.

1:43:55 So cycling, swimming, running, things like that.

1:43:58 Um you're talking about nitric oxide.

1:44:00 This is a basil dilator.

1:44:01 You're going to open up blood flow.

1:44:03 You will feel it.

1:44:04 If I were to put you in that blind test right

1:44:06 now and I gave you any of those forms you mentioned, you will be like, "Whoa,

1:44:11 something just happened." There's no blinding to those studies.

1:44:13 But it sounds like if it's increasing blood flow,

1:44:15 it should make your cog you make you cognitively more sharp as well.

1:44:18 It will.

1:44:19 Yeah.

1:44:19 You you'll I don't like Now we're

1:44:21 talking beetroot juice or we're talking citrine arginine.

1:44:23 You're going to you're going to have a same answer for basically all the above.

1:44:27 There there will be noticeable effects.

1:44:30 There are differences between all three of those.

1:44:32 If you were to take literally beetroot juice

1:44:34 and concentrate it into like a 3 ounce shot, you could see the same stuff here.

1:44:39 Most of the time with like citrine and arginine though,

1:44:41 you're getting really high concentrations.

1:44:43 I don't know typical dosage of those off the top of my head to be honest.

1:44:46 Um, but what you're going to normally

1:44:48 see there is a very pronounced stimulant effect.

1:44:51 Like it's not going to be caffeine,

1:44:53 but you're going to be like, whoop, especially citrine.

1:44:56 Like you're going to see that right now.

1:44:58 Um, you will see if you go to the gym and you take any of those forms,

1:45:02 particularly like the arginines have fallen out of favor,

1:45:05 like they're not as popular anymore for a host of reasons.

1:45:09 Um, but even the beetroot stuff, like you will see a pump,

1:45:12 a physical pump, like you will see I was reading about that.

1:45:15 Yeah.

1:45:15 Yeah.

1:45:15 Yeah.

1:45:15 That's not a that's not fake at all.

1:45:17 What What's better, beetroot juice or beetroot extract?

1:45:20 I mean, I typically go for the low sugar.

1:45:23 Yep.

1:45:23 Which would be the extract.

1:45:24 Yep.

1:45:25 But um does it matter?

1:45:28 Um does it matter?

1:45:29 We use extract more.

1:45:33 You could make a compelling argument though that juice is better.

1:45:36 You could do that.

1:45:37 So it kind of depends on multiple parts of that equation.

1:45:40 We use the powder though for a bunch of different reasons.

1:45:44 A lot of them are practical.

1:45:46 A lot of them are travel related.

1:45:47 Right?

1:45:48 You you don't want to take a whole bunch of juice with you

1:45:49 on your airplane and you're flying all

1:45:51 around to different places and you're just like,

1:45:52 "All right, I can take the powdered supplement.

1:45:54 It lasts longer." shelf stable.

1:45:56 Um, if we're talking about like antioxidant, polyphenol properties,

1:45:59 well, we know we're losing them the powder.

1:46:01 Like, we're probably losing some of that relative to the juice.

1:46:04 Okay.

1:46:04 But then we're going to back fill that with whole foods and other things there.

1:46:08 So, um, lots of research on both of those.

1:46:10 I would say a lot of people would say would prefer juice.

1:46:14 I would is I think is a fair thing to say, but u I'm not fully against powders.

1:46:18 Well, if you're going for the powder, um,

1:46:20 what kind of dose can you do you have to take it?

1:46:22 How how soon before exercise?

1:46:24 Can you take it chronically?

1:46:25 Is it going to stop working?

1:46:27 Can I start taking it before my podcast?

1:46:29 I mean, like, how does this work?

1:46:30 You you can if you put a scoop in there right now,

1:46:33 you would uh you would know that you did it.

1:46:35 There's no question.

1:46:36 So, you can take it um you're talking

1:46:38 about I don't know five minutes to take effect.

1:46:42 Like, it happens fast, like really like like caffeine.

1:46:45 Like, you're going to have a pretty acute effect of it.

1:46:48 And it will last I think you can think of it like caffeine.

1:46:50 It will last probably 3 hoursish.

1:46:54 Some people are going to metabolize it faster, some people are slower.

1:46:56 So, it is not a it's not a shortlasting thing.

1:46:59 It'll be there for quite some time.

1:47:00 Um, so if you're going to use it for performance benefits,

1:47:03 whether it's in the podcast room or in the wait room or dealing

1:47:08 with the assembly at your kids school or whatever thing you got to get through,

1:47:12 uh, yeah, right before would be the time to go about it.

1:47:14 um we will sometimes use it hours before exercise when we have uh high fatigue,

1:47:22 high like motivation issues, right?

1:47:24 So like you start having these associations like uh let's

1:47:27 say for example we have somebody training at like 4:00

1:47:29 in the afternoon and at 2:00 this is when we

1:47:32 start having problems with like am I going to train today?

1:47:34 Am I not or whatever.

1:47:35 All right, let's give them a little hit right there.

1:47:37 And we don't want to go to caffeine.

1:47:39 We don't want to go to other stimulants like that.

1:47:41 So, we'll simply use it as like an afternoon pickme up,

1:47:45 if you will, for even on a non-ex exercising day if if we're trying,

1:47:49 especially if we're trying to get caffeine out of somebody's

1:47:52 equation or or lower it in the amount in the afternoon.

1:47:54 So, we use it then is just simply like a okay, motivation's back up.

1:47:57 I'm feeling good again and I'm ready to go.

1:47:59 You'll feel it.

1:48:00 Can you use it with caffeine?

1:48:01 In other words, like Okay, so this What are the downsides?

1:48:05 Do I mean it affects blood pressure presumably, right?

1:48:08 I think I remember reading studies about that years ago.

1:48:09 at least beetroot didn't this is nitric oxide right so

1:48:12 this is your primary health concern is going to be anything

1:48:15 related to blood pressure right so you handle those equations

1:48:18 our downside GI like GI distress is going to 100% be

1:48:24 there um with with beetroot or with citrine all the above

1:48:28 particularly the beetroot though right the juice there if you

1:48:32 eat beets and you forget and then you go

1:48:35 to the bathroom like so like That's the part of you're like,

1:48:40 "Oh, like you can freak people can freak out and they

1:48:42 forget that they took it or they don't know why." So,

1:48:44 you you can have things like that, but as long as they're not GI issues,

1:48:47 um very minimal concerns outside of if you have

1:48:50 again medical conditions that you got to pay attention.

1:48:52 Do you have a preference to citrine versus beetroot?

1:48:55 We uh beetroot.

1:48:57 Why?

1:48:57 Yeah.

1:48:58 Generally, we're going to be there.

1:49:00 The issues we issues is a strong word.

1:49:03 The slight things we've had to consider with citrine is power.

1:49:08 like it's just too powerful for some people.

1:49:10 They're just way like whoa like this is too much for me.

1:49:13 I don't like it.

1:49:14 Um I don't feel it.

1:49:16 So you can titrate those dosages down.

1:49:18 Um the other again issue is the wrong word.

1:49:20 Issu is too strong.

1:49:21 But the other like little bit of like uh we've had is why

1:49:25 can't I just get this out of close to something closer to whole food?

1:49:29 Okay.

1:49:29 So if that is your preference,

1:49:30 then we can go back up a little bit to be or beet root juice.

1:49:33 Um but that's not a strong argument.

1:49:37 Yeah.

1:49:37 What about just baking some beads?

1:49:39 Would you get a similar effect or would it not be concentrated enough?

1:49:43 Uh, probably like 15 years ago, I had a friend who, you know,

1:49:48 actually you met before who did this and he would blend beets like

1:49:53 in a blender in a smoothie or something or like you could call it a smoothie,

1:49:56 but he would like juice it and blend it and he would do a combination.

1:49:59 It was probably like eight to 10 whole beets he would

1:50:02 consume pre-workout and he did it about three times, I think.

1:50:05 And two of the three times he just threw

1:50:07 up everywhere and then he's just like red blood.

1:50:11 You can It's a dosage issue though.

1:50:13 Like right will you get a small benefit?

1:50:16 Um I can't like I've never personally felt like

1:50:19 a blood flow benefit from eating a bunch of beets personally.

1:50:22 Some people say that they do.

1:50:24 Um but you wouldn't get the dosage.

1:50:26 That's why they're juiced.

1:50:27 That's why they're concentrated.

1:50:28 Now you said arginine's fallen out of favor.

1:50:31 Why?

1:50:31 Why is that?

1:50:32 Okay.

1:50:32 So like you're probably pretty aware of nitric oxide metabolism.

1:50:36 You can't just consume nitric oxide nitrite

1:50:38 nitrate like immediately like you're toast, right?

1:50:40 So then the argument is oh can we go back

1:50:42 up the chain like can we go up to arginine?

1:50:44 Can we go back up the thing?

1:50:46 So the first stop on that train was arginine.

1:50:50 Uh and then the issue you're going to fall out

1:50:51 there which is almost always the case with supplementation was bioavailability.

1:50:56 Like how can we just get enough of it?

1:50:58 And that one just seemed to fail.

1:51:01 uh well just it seemed to get better once we started going there.

1:51:03 And then there's other concerns uh cold sores and things

1:51:06 like that started popping up that people were like

1:51:08 not super stoked about and so citrine seems to be

1:51:11 the better approach that right now that's the short version.

1:51:14 Okay, got it.

1:51:15 Yeah, the the arginine is used for viral replication and I

1:51:20 thought that was kind of an interesting I mean I've I've never

1:51:22 tried but um I was reading a little bit about the cold

1:51:25 sore thing and I was like I guess if someone has herpes,

1:51:28 cold sores or whatever that might that might flare them up or something.

1:51:31 But um I'm going to try the beetroot.

1:51:34 It's totally worth it.

1:51:36 I experimented with it like 10 years ago for blood

1:51:41 pressure and um I was giving it to my mom

1:51:46 but I just I couldn't at the time I was you

1:51:49 know more low carb and I couldn't find a quality source.

1:51:54 I'm sure now it's probably there's like great sources

1:51:57 of it but um yeah so now I think I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to go

1:52:01 back circle back and try try it out again.

1:52:03 I love how you experiment on your mom.

1:52:05 That's great.

1:52:07 I I I'm I mean I'm, you know, try to do what you can do.

1:52:11 Yeah, I'm I'm judicial.

1:52:12 I don't I don't do all the crazy stuff,

1:52:14 but um told you I told you she's doing CrossFit now, which is like amazing.

1:52:18 CrossFit for seniors.

1:52:19 It's fantastic.

1:52:20 I love it.

1:52:21 It's definitely a tone down from what I'm doing, but yeah, you're getting Yeah.

1:52:26 And confident, too.

1:52:27 For sure.

1:52:28 Um and I'm also interested in all this stuff to, you know,

1:52:31 I'm I'm going to kind of play around a little bit.

1:52:33 You mentioned the beta alanine and um I

1:52:36 don't know if sodium bicarbonate is in there,

1:52:38 but beta alanine I'm sort of interested in.

1:52:40 I've never really heard of it until I heard you talk about it.

1:52:45 I didn't know anything about the fatigue buffers, what what it's doing.

1:52:49 So, how does it work?

1:52:50 Tell tell us a little bit about it.

1:52:51 It's been around for a really long time.

1:52:54 Really simple strategy with this one.

1:52:57 So, enzymes work in a certain pH range, right?

1:53:00 If you come too acidic inside of a muscle,

1:53:02 we have a hard time running any metabolic process.

1:53:04 Aerobic, anorobic, strength, it doesn't really matter, right?

1:53:07 Contracting muscle power.

1:53:09 We start running into acidic environment, we start running into problems.

1:53:12 So, Andrew then a whole cascade of supplements designed to buffer fatigue,

1:53:17 which is a way to say like, let's keep you within that acidic range.

1:53:20 Now, you can do this by starting off more

1:53:22 alkaline or you can just do this by putting intermediaries

1:53:24 in there that say like we're just going to keep

1:53:26 you within that certain range so you don't get too high.

1:53:29 Beta alanine was a great stop

1:53:30 on that because we're looking at intracellular carnosine.

1:53:33 That's what we're trying to do, right?

1:53:34 So he's like saying, "Hey, this is our limiting factor.

1:53:36 Beta alanine being the amino acid, the limiting factor.

1:53:39 So if we can give you more of that, you can build up more carnosine.

1:53:42 Then we can buffer more effectively." And it works.

1:53:45 There's a good amount of research on it.

1:53:47 It works for the things that you would anticipate it working for.

1:53:50 Doesn't do much for maximal strength.

1:53:52 Doesn't do much for speed or power.

1:53:54 Doesn't do a lot for long duration endurance.

1:53:58 Um though again you can see some positive benefits there.

1:54:00 Where it mostly works are things of really high intensity

1:54:03 and by that I mean um cardiovascular intensity right so high

1:54:08 intensity strength training again I just said not super relevant because

1:54:11 you're doing two reps acidic pro is not the problem there.

1:54:16 So beta alanine is something that you would take chronically.

1:54:20 you will feel an acute effect um at certainly at somewhat of a higher dose,

1:54:26 but you need three to five weeks

1:54:29 for this to build up intracellular before it makes a difference.

1:54:32 And so much like caffeine or creatine rather, unlike caffeine,

1:54:37 this takes a while for you to dose it.

1:54:39 Um so you can you can do a bunch of things to mitigate that.

1:54:43 Um, but you will see a a pretty classic like CrossFit would be a great example.

1:54:48 Like you couldn't basically couldn't engineer a supplement better for acute

1:54:52 or or for for CrossFit performance um outside of beta alanine.

1:54:56 And as I mentioned, it's been around a really long time.

1:54:59 It's just an amino acid.

1:55:01 It's not a stimulant.

1:55:02 It won't affect energy.

1:55:03 You you could take it right now and again like you wouldn't notice.

1:55:07 You wouldn't be like, "Oh,

1:55:08 I'm fired up and ready to go." You wouldn't feel anything different.

1:55:11 Um, but you would just feel the burn is not as bad uh as you're training.

1:55:15 What What would be the optimal dose?

1:55:18 Um, man, I'm blanking on dosage right now to be honest with you.

1:55:23 Okay.

1:55:23 Um, so we can look that up,

1:55:24 but I I did read that there's some kind of tingling effect.

1:55:27 Oh, yeah.

1:55:28 Yeah.

1:55:29 So, can you can you mitigate that by Yeah, back in the day, uh,

1:55:33 we would say like this is an dump, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

1:55:37 There there's actually a couple papers that came out.

1:55:40 It seems to be something to do with sensory input.

1:55:42 So there there's some sort of sensory receptors that are being

1:55:45 clicked on and tingled and it kind of feels like a fire.

1:55:48 It feels like you're itching,

1:55:49 feels like you rolled around in grass a bunch, right?

1:55:52 Uh don't tell anybody this.

1:55:53 We would we would give people beta alanine a bunch like

1:55:56 our friends as a joke and they're like not paying attention.

1:55:59 So you like put some like we were younger and so you're like sitting

1:56:02 there doing work or whatever and all

1:56:03 a sudden you just like start itching everywhere.

1:56:04 You're like what the We would do this a bunch.

1:56:08 I did this to my wife one time actually and she was like like what is going on?

1:56:11 She's like something's Yeah.

1:56:13 But that's like a higher dose, right?

1:56:15 Not even like a moderate dose.

1:56:16 You'll feel that at really.

1:56:17 Can you just can you It'll desensitize super fast.

1:56:20 It'll So it's really like not something you're going

1:56:22 to continue feeling once you you can also just back dosage

1:56:25 down like you just go down a tiny bit

1:56:27 and you'll find that level of like okay I feel fine.

1:56:30 And as soon as you start training it typically goes away.

1:56:32 So 30 45 minutes before or so you take it.

1:56:35 You'll start feeling those like itchy kind of crawly feels a little

1:56:38 bit soon generally as soon as you start training it goes away.

1:56:42 Um if that's still bothering you just lower the dosage.

1:56:44 What we'll do a lot of the times because it's not

1:56:46 an acute stimulant is we'll just split the dosage up throughout the day.

1:56:49 Half in the morning half a night.

1:56:50 Couple grams in the morning, couple grams at night.

1:56:52 Like that that is a general place that we'll go.

1:56:54 Um so like if the four grams is like killing you or you don't like it

1:56:58 or three is better then again split them up

1:57:00 throughout the day and they won't have any effect.

1:57:02 So we will do that.

1:57:03 Um you will develop a little bit of a um a tolerance to that though.

1:57:08 So this is one of the cases where you

1:57:10 we actually want to build that dose over time.

1:57:13 So when we get within like eight weeks of competition we will start

1:57:16 strategically increasing that dosage to get that as high as we possibly can.

1:57:20 Uh where other things we don't have to worry about dosage going up.

1:57:23 What should you is it like a cycling kind of thing where you cycle it?

1:57:26 You don't have to cycle it because there's no feedback loop here.

1:57:28 It's just an amino acid.

1:57:30 Okay.

1:57:30 So there's no um like creatine like there's no

1:57:32 you're not shutting down any indogenous process by doing it.

1:57:36 But we will tend to to bring it away just for if

1:57:42 we don't have a particular purpose with supplements, we don't take them.

1:57:44 It's like for that purpose alone.