2 Bears, 1 Cave with Tom Segura & Bert Kreischer - What Will Make Bert Less Fat? w/ Layne Norton | 2 Bears, 1 Cave Ep. 206

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

Layne Norton is the founder of fitness coaching company BioLayne, a powerlifter, bodybuilder, and author. He joins Tom Segura to discuss powerlifting, bodybuilding, testosterone replacement therapy, stress management, the ketogenic diet, how unhealthy diet soda actually is, why people are obese, and wraps up by discussing Bert Kreischer’s new healthy lifestyle.https://tomsegura.com/tourhttps://www.bertbertbert.com/tourhttps://store.ymhstudios.com/

This week on Two Bears One Cave, you're the three fucking cool nerds. You guys are like the fit nerds. Don't masturbate in public. Right? That's a big one. Is a gallon of tequila good for your lifting? I mean, you can't argue with results. 100% Most of the time my co-host is a mess talking about how he can get his life together and finally My co-host is a mess talking about how he can get his life together and finally drop some LBs, maybe put the booze down for a second. This week we have somebody sitting in who might be considered the polar opposite.

He's doing things like winning power lifting competitions. Give it up for Lane Norton, everybody. Let him hear it. And Mr. Bio Lane, thank you so much. Thanks for coming in. Hey man, thanks for having me, I'm super excited. I'm super excited. I've been following your stuff for a long time,

both Burton I have. We both have chatted with you and about you. And this is so fun because you are the guy for people that don't know. There's no end inside for the amount of people who will tell you what you should be doing, what you should be avoiding, what you need to be eating, what you need to be doing for exercise. Like all these things that people are like, this is it, and they say it with complete confidence, and they stare down the barrel of

the camera, and then you see it, and people share it, and they go, oh, this is the thing, and people share it and they go, oh, this is the thing. And you're like the one guy. It feels like who has the credibility, the credentials, who takes up this information and then goes, I am going to tell you what is bullshit about this? This person's claim, who has,

they have zero hesitation in saying what they say. And then you actually go, this is bullshit. Because your background, for people that don't know, what's your actual academic background? So I did a bachelor's in biochemistry, and then I did a PhD in nutritional sciences. And my specific area of focus was protein metabolism, but after I got out of grad school,

kind of focused a little bit more on weight loss, fat loss, just because that's what most people are striving towards. But got into it because I was interested in learning how to build muscle, lose fat, because I was into bodybuilding. Yeah. And so I mean, it was a completely selfish reason that I got into nutritional sciences.

I just wanted to learn more, because for the same reason, growing up, our education was muscle magazines That's it. Yeah, and you'd read one magazine and say one thing another magazine saying another thing and sometimes in the same magazine Contradict itself. Yeah, so I'm like I don't know I'm trying to figure this shit out for myself You basically were like a competitor who goes well, I want to know More about the science of some of this stuff like I want to be able to rely on what I'm doing. Yeah.

I want to know the truth, so I'll study it. Yeah, I mean, like, kind of lifting, we were talking in the gym. I got into lifting when I was like 15, kind of on and off. Then from 17 on to now, I'm 41. I've been consistent with it. And first starting out, I was in the bodybuilding. I did my first show when I was 19 back in 2001. And just like I won the Teen Division of the show and the Novels Division and I was like hooked.

Yeah, this is awesome. Awesome. And like really got into it. I want to pro card and natural bodybuilding or drug tested bodybuilding. They actually do have that, not nearly as big as the Olympia. Yeah. These guys are fucking so crazy. It's crazy. You know what the human body can do. Do you look at, like, I mean, we were, we were almost the same age, where you, you know, we were all fascinated by Arnold, right?

Like, you see Arnold and you're like, oh my God. And even now, like, that physique is, I'm saying his prime physique is incredible. Like, you look at him and you go, oh my God. But then you look at Olympia guys now, and they don't even look, like he actually looks like a very, an incredibly muscular, like a statue physique,

but it's a physique that you would go, I wouldn't hate having that. I wouldn't feel, yeah, now the Olympia guys, I mean, it's like, It's fucking nuts, dude. And I know a lot of them, but it's, you know, it's a big burden on your system to be that extreme.

You know, that's the word for it. It looks extreme. It is very extreme. And so, you know, people ask me all the time, like, I'll get accused by some people of like, oh, you must be cheating the test or whatever. I'm like, bro, look at me. I've lifted hard for 25 years.

And in a T-shirt, I just look like an athletic dude. You know what I mean? People who are my height, who are competing in Olympia are like 70, 80 pounds heavier than me, you know? What do you weigh? I'm like, anywhere from 205 to 210, when I compete in powerlifting, I compete in the 205 pound class.

Yeah. So, that's why I ended up competing at, just come a little bit to make that. If I was doing bodybuilding, like last time I did bodybuilding was that lean, I was like 190 pounds, like on stage. So wait, how long? Cause I jumped in, but you were doing that

in your late teens. Early 20s. And then how long did you stick with body building? So I did body building up to age 28. I qualified as a pro. And when I finished my PhD, did my first round of pro shows, also my last. I always joke that I got PTSD from that diet

because getting that lean for a dude, like to where you have, you know, like literally looks like you have fingers in your ass cheeks, you know, because you're so lean. You just feel like shit all the time. Like it is the most, the best way I can describe it

is like getting up and walking over across the room can sometimes feel like a monumental task. Because of how you're living, like the way you're living. But TIG, like you just have no energy, you're like in every natural body, bodybuilding case study they've done in the scientific literature, men who get ready for a bodybuilding show are hypogonatal the scientific literature, men who get ready for a bodybuilding show are hypochonatal by the time they step on stage.

So I'm somebody who, like my tester austro right now, like naturally, has been anywhere from 800 to 1100, from anywhere from when I measured it to like 20 to 40, right? And like I think even recently at age 41, I was 950. I wanted to hit this. I, I, I, so there's notes I made, you're the only person I've ever made notes. That on this show. I wanted to hit this for the mat.

Like, there's things that I want to talk about for myself. Personally, there's things I want to address for Bert and there's things that I think are fun. Like, just talk about, there's obviously like a lot of men that listen to this show, that watch the show. So one of the things that is huge now is that people can get testosterone. Like it's in the zeitgeist, like it's what,

it's a thing, right? Where I'm on low dose testosterone, birds on it, and so are, I don't know, millions of probably men across the world. Sure. But one of the things I think that I wanted to point out, and birds on it, and so are, I don't know, millions of probably men across the world. But one of the things I think that I wanted to point out, because I heard you say it one time, to guys who are maybe in their 20s or entering their 30s,

is that if you take care of yourself in that decade, like you did, and like I did not, like we're examples, we're the opposite examples examples is that you, the reason that yours is a great level is basically because of how you lived your life. Like that you ate well, you worked out, you did strength resistance, your testosterone didn't dip as much as many men

who are your age because of how you lived your life. Yeah, I mean, genetics obviously matters. Plays a part, of course. I don't wanna discount that. But yeah, like I'll tell people like, you know, I, for the most part, people who know me, I think you've been around me for a couple of hours now, I'm kinda like the Energizer Bunny.

Like I don't stop talking, I don't stop moving. Yeah. You know, I do two, three hour workouts, and I've still got plenty of energy. We did not, by the way, we went to the gym, we did, I don't know. I just like to reset to it. Yeah, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're,

we're chilling. But I think a lot of that is, you know, I didn't know how I was. I just thought I was gonna set it up. We're just chilling. But I think a lot of that is, I didn't beat my body up with drugs and alcohol when I was in my 20s. I didn't have big party years. I wasn't staying out super late. I'd go do social stuff, but I was really good about when I was ready to go,

I went and if I didn't want to drink a lot, I didn't. I had good boundaries with that stuff. And so I think a lot of that carried over, it's kind of like investing, right? When you're young, I always say, the sooner you can start investing. The better.

The better, because the calculation, the classic one, is if you invested $2,000 from age 20 to age 28 and never touched it again, versus somebody who invests $2,000 every year from age 28 to age 70. I think because of compounding interest, basically the person who started investing later, you never catch up, right? I think health and fitness can be a little bit the same way, right? Like obviously now, you are much better off than you were because of the work you put in. But you're kind of trying

to play catch up now, right? Because of all the stuff that you were talking of the work you put in, but you're kind of trying to play catch up now, right? Because of all the stuff that you were talking about, right? And so I think I just got really lucky in that health and fitness was probably a unhealthy obsession for me at a certain point, but at least that unhealthy obsession was something healthy-ish, if that makes sense. You know, I took it to the extreme,

but I just loved doing it. So yeah, but anyway, by the end of that prep, even my testosterone was low, like out of the normal range. So it just shows like lifestyle can make a big impact. Yeah, and bodybuilding is an extreme thing. Extreme at a high level. At a high level. So I won the heavyweight division,

the first pro show I ever did. I finished top five in all my shows that year. And the year previous to that, I had actually, because I was drug free, it takes so long to build muscle, so long. Like, so I tell people, I'm like, if I'm on drugs, I got some pretty shitty drugs.

Yeah. Because the time I won my pro card to the time I compete as a pro is four years. And I had about two and a half pounds of stage weight So just not those drugs, you know, I probably could do better. Yeah But because it was so long to keep myself engaged I'm like, what can I do that would be like fun that would keep me engaged in training because training just gets boring and monotonous So I was like, I'll do a powerlifting meet for fun. Because I always, I always lifted heavy

and been pretty strong. So I had a couple powerlifting meets. I was like, oh, that was cool. And then after my pro show, I was like, I'll do some meets again before I compete again in bodybuilding. And I had some friends who were, I always competed in kind of like these smaller organizations

and the big organization in powerlifting is called the IPF. They're recognized by the IOC. They're in the world games. So not an Olympic sport, but it is recognized. And I did a USAPL meet, which at the time the USAPL was the IPF affiliate in America. Hit a good total one didn't really think much about it. It was local meet.

And the head US coach, Matt Gary messages me, and he's like, just so you know, you're total of that meat last year would have put you seventh in the world. And you would have won nationals. Holy shit, I'm like, oh, and this before powerlifting, like it's much bigger now than it was, much more competitive now. But I was like, so I kind of talked to my coach at the time,

Ben, I'm like, you wanna do nationals? You're like, yeah, let's go to nationals. And we trained so differently than everybody else at the time. Like Ben, very smart guy, he was doing stuff that nobody else was doing. And so I kind of rolled into my first nationals as this bodybuilder who was trying to do powerlifting, and I won.

Holy shit. And there was like 100 guys in my class, and like it was kind of like one of those things where I Was like oh, that was cool and then after the meat everybody's asking you go to go to worlds you go to worlds and like Where's worlds Finland? I'm looking at them like you want to go Finland? He's like, yeah, I'm like Let's do it, you know And then like as I got more into it. I understood like, oh, this is actually a big deal. Because the only way you get an automatic bid

to go to worlds is to win nationals. That's it. And again, there's like 100 guys that you're gonna be. How is worlds? Awesome, crazy experience. So I hit a 650 pound squat at that nationals in the 205 pound class, which set the American record. And I realized, oh, shit, I'm only 11 pounds off the world record.

So I'm like, that became like my, I'm like, all right, I'm going to get this, right? And so I'm well off on a tangent, but this is kind of a funny story between me and Ben, who's actually one of my close friends now. Great dude. We have like a really tight relationship. It's one of the reasons it works so well on Meet Day is he knows how to get me up emotionally. Don't cut that.

Ha ha ha ha. Anyway, so we were going originally, I was gonna do World Witches in June, but I was gonna do the Arnold Pro meets so at the Arnold Classic, they have a pro meet. And you can only set a world record at a world level meet. There has to be world judges. It's like very specific criteria. Gotcha. So they were going to have world judges at this meat. It was considered a world level meat. And Matt Gary, the head US coach is like, Hey, this is the place to do it because you know,

you don't have to travel out of the country. You can get more sleep, like you're gonna be on your own time zone. And so the way powerlifting works is you've got three lifts, squat bench press and deadlift, and you get three attempts on each, and they're progressively loaded. So if you miss, you can't go down and wait, you can only go up or take the same. So you have to be pretty strategic about how you do stuff. Because real strategy involved in that. And when you get into like the final deadlift, there's a lot of strategy involved actually. The strongest person doesn't always win.

Right. So we get to my third, I had gone through like some back issues and had to like really work through them a week out. I actually like kind of really flared up my lower back from that meat. Didn't even know how it was gonna be able to go in like two days beforehand. I felt good enough.

I'm like, all right, I guess we're gonna give it a shot. Hit my second attempt, which was like 633. And I'm like, all right, let's load it. Like we got it. So I see 661 go up on the board, which would be a world record, which would tie the world record. Okay. And if it's tied, the person who had it before keeps it. And once you put it in your attempt, you can't change it. So this was like, so I go to Ben, I'm like, hey, he's gonna hate that I told the story on here. We laugh about it now. I'm like, hey, that only ties the record.

And I just see Ben's face go fucking white, like completely white. Like he knows he screwed up. He goes over scores table, he knows he can't change it, ask him anyway, they don't let him, he comes back, he's like, well, he tries to put the spasas up in all, he's like, we're gonna go for the win today, you know? I really go for the win. But this is like, so this is actually one of the moments

I was most proud of in my competitive career, because this is still more weight than I've ever squatted before. And now I can't set the world record. So I'm dealing with like that disappointment having a process all this in like five minutes and it up going out and hitting it and getting it and That was actually one of the hardest squats I've ever done because I guess the way to describe it is it's so much more easy to get Amped up when you know you could do something like that But we're only talking about a pound difference of what it could have been. Like this is still going to be hard.

Anyway, so worlds, I kind of again, like after that meet, my back acted up, and I really wasn't able to start squatting in deadlifting until like six weeks out of worlds. Went over to Finland. Ben comes with me. I'm warming up and my training had been very up and down because we had to cram a lot. The work I did in six weeks, I was training five, six days a week for three or four hours.

It was crazy. So I'm warming up, and Ben was never somebody who would just give me like praise if it wasn't there. I hit my last warm up and so the warm up area was like at this top level and you had to walk down into a holding area where they hold you where there's like chalk and all this other stuff that you know basically like you can prepare to go out and there's like a hallway when you're one or two lifters away you go to the hallway and then the official tells you when it's your turn. So we're walking down the stairs and he looks at me and he goes this is yours today

and I'm like okay we got this. So when it gets to the third squad attempt the record is 300 kilos, 661 pounds. I see 303 go up and I I'm like, Hey, Ben, we only need 300.5. And I'm thinking, if I miss this, I'm actually, I go from a gold medal in squat to not even meddling. Yeah. And he's like, I know, but you're not going to miss today. Like, all right, let's go. And went out, hit it, ended up, I got a gold medal in the squat, set the world record. It's been broken a bunch of times since then, and they got a silver medal overall. And actually it was the first meet. So you have nine attempts. It was the first meet in my life.

I'd ever gone nine for nine at and I'll never forget 12 weeks before the meet, the head US coach Matt Gary, who emailed me originally, who planned to seed my mind. This guys were forgotten more about powerlifting and powerlifting strategy than like he is the goat of powerlifting strategy. He's email me, he knows every single guy in my class, what their tendencies are. This guy misses his third deadlift,

30% of the time, like all this stuff, right? And at the end of the big long email, he says, you have a chance to meddle, but you've got to be perfect. If you miss a lift, you're going to be out. Train like your life depends on it. And I was like, oh, don't tell me that. Like, and I did. Yeah. And it was cool. So like, I was nominated. I think like seventh or eighth, meaning like my projected finishing place, seventh or eight, andth ended up in second Wow, it's pretty cool. It's a very similar story to birds. I don't know if you familiar with his past, but

he Actually, can I tell you something funny about that? Yes, about bird that I have to because I'm gonna get he's gonna love it Because I'm talking about him and I'm sure and and that and I'm giving him credit to this But I think only somebody who lifts will actually appreciate this. This is true. I'm always the first to make jokes, crack on it, but this is actually, I think this is very impressive.

So he's always had really great hand-eye coordination for athletic things. Great golf swing, great tennis surf, baseball swing. I've seen some of the videos. Cracks it. I mean, goes fucking yard on that. I mean, you know, shoots a bow and arrow. I could throw a dart. Like he's just had that that's his gift. Yeah. But strength wise, it was just like, oh, he just wasn't really, you know, into it. It was just like, oh, he just wasn't really, you know, into it. You know, I think he would do like more casual stuff like people do, you know, pick up a couple dumbbells. Yeah, you know, that was a workout. So then we were like, it's like five, six years ago.

We were in Rogan's gym at his LA studio. And we had been drinking. We were fucked up. I like the story already. That's, that's, I mean, definitely something to point out balance, you know, balance life. So we throw two 25 on, right? And like I said, we've smoking, drinking. So are he gets on there? I mean, it just pins him. It's just, it doesn't even move. So we pull it off. Birkets on there and he goes, and it's like here, he can't move it, racks it.

I get on there, I do one, right? And then Joe was like, what the fuck's going on? And he does like 10 or so. So, anyway, I mean, you know, yeah, they were drinking, but like, he couldn't do it. He was like 45 or something. So yes, I have to say this so that because there are people who will weigh that he is on a low doubt, low dose of tea, right? Not a bodybuilder dose of tea.

Right. 25 units, a few times a week. Dude, he fucking, he comes in here. He's telling me like that he's been lifting and and he's telling me, I'm like, all right. And he, he's like, I did 225, 10 times, and I was like, what? So he shows me a video, and I am actually looking at the video

because he's done like fake plate things before I could show. I'm like, is this for real? Like is this for real? Do your stuff. Like to go from that, 10 reps fit. And he's 50, I was like, is this for real? Like, is this for real? Do your stuff? Like to go from that, 10 reps fit. And he's 50, I was like, I mean, that's very impressive. But what impressed me even more was that he calls me. He's like, this is why it impressed me,

is because he doesn't do it. So not the bench thing, it's what I'm about to tell you. He's like, trying to figure out my one rat max for a strict press. Now, even like casual gym goers, they don't all do strict press, you know? It's a pretty specific thing that you are like after. And it is one of the, it's a tough lift.

Like there's, there's like a baseline strength that individual into individual has. And you'll even find people who are traditionally strong, who will have their own struggles with a strict press. It's almost like a pistol squad. There are some people who came into a pistol squad. I can't do a pistol squad.

Yeah, it's like a squad 600 pounds. Bro, so I'm like, he goes, I was trying to figure out, and here's why he impressed me. It means that he doesn't do it regularly. Do you know what he, he was like, when I figured out my one rep max for stripping? 170, I was like, bro, that's really solid. Like that's impressive.

It's good. And this is like with not going after a lot. Yeah. That coordination carries over. I mean, is it tequila? Cause he has, he is a gallon of tequila good for your lifting. I mean, you can't argue with results.

That's what I was trying to say. You know, it's funny. I think there's because you were talking about the post I put about TRT. I think people like view like, oh, you must be anti-TRT. Yeah. Because you're drug free.

And I'm like, you know, I think the thing I would say is like, look at your lifestyle first. Sure. Make modifications to that. But like if somebody's low and they feel bad, if this makes them feel better, like a low dose, you know, they're not competing anything with they're getting tested. Sure. Why not? You know, like, and you look at the reference ranges for a lot of this stuff, you know,

a friend of mine was telling me this, who works in a hormone clinic, and a lot of it is like, okay, that's the reference range for a woman who this stuff. A friend of mine was telling me this who works in a hormone clinic. A lot of it is like, okay, that's the reference range for a woman who's 50. Sure. Do you want to feel like a woman who's 50? Or do you want to feel like a woman who's 30? You know? And so I think there's this like, and even like primary care physicians,

there's so much stigma around this stuff. You know, my thing is like, I really try not to be dogmatic about anything, right? Like, yes, if you're taking high dose testosterone to the point where you're like, you're getting, like, really fricking jacked, yeah, there's some downsides there. Like, let's not pretend like there's not.

Yeah. But if you're talking about a small dose that's just getting you into like a higher level in the physiological range, you feel better and you've got better energy and better sex drive, better performance. You're staying in like a high normal range. It's like, yeah.

What's wrong with that? I mean, I get that naturally. That's what I'm saying. For one of the reasons why you'd be like, I'm not for it, it's like, you don't need it. Right, so. I'm like, why would I do TRT? I don't need it.

Now, people ask me, what if it dropped when you get older? I think the thing that bothers me is people act like when you turn 30, your shit just breaks. You know what I'm like? No. Like most athletes have their best years in their 30s, you know? Like and it's shifting later. But it's when you take care of yourself, you know? And I think there's been a lot more, man, I put so much more, we talked about this in the car, like emphasis on stress management. You know, like, I think a lot of people mistake getting older as, oh, I'm performing worse, I feel worse because there's something happening with my body.

In reality, dude, you're sleepin' less, you're drinking more, you have way more life stress going on because people have got kids, you got more moving parts. One of the things I kind of had the subiphany this last week is I said this to a couple people, I'm like, you know what? Don't add extra chaos to your life. Like you will get chaos introduced to your life

randomly without you even trying. So if you know something could be chaotic for you, just don't do it, you know? And I think I was somebody who, like I'm such a, I was able to get away with being so energetic and so driven and just say yes to everything and just go, go, go, go.

Yeah. Until it finally caught up with me when I had some extra life stress come in. And that's when I started getting injured, that's when I started like having a lot of pain issues. If you start reading a lot of literature on pain, a lot of it is stress. If you have high stress, the best way I understand,

I'm not a pain expert, but the best way I understand it is pain is like a gate, okay? And things like less sleep, stress, open that gate. So it's not that it will cause you pain, but any kind of latent stuff that could be there Yeah, we'll start to get triggered. It makes sense So yeah, I think just trust management is huge favorite topics and things to Try to get better at is sleep. Do you prioritize sleep? I

Try to you know, I do think something sleep is something that's very individual Mm-hmm. I find that if I consistently get 7 to 7 and a half hours, I feel pretty good. And I'm usually pretty protective of that. I'm usually pretty good at being able to get that. I find typically, so I have shared custody of my kids and I get them week on week off. Weas with the kids, it's a little bit worse only because it's this weird thing like I don't all end up waking up within a half hour of either week. But the difference is when I know I have to get up to get the kids ready, get lunches packed. It's just an added thing and yeah. It's like I

end up like wake I sleep lighter. Yeah. It's like my brain doesn't totally switch off. It's like you know you have a morning flight or something right?? You kind of like I always wake up like 10 minutes for my alarm. I don't know how it happens I know that was crazy. Yeah um And so I think like you know, just try to set yourself up for that stuff Mm-hmm. I mean really somebody somebody said a really good. I don't know if it's Peter or Tia or Huberman But they might not even allow those to, and I like to give credit where it's due.

So I apologize for whoever I'm missing on this. Yeah, they're basically the same guy. Go ahead. Yeah. Some super nerd. Yeah. But if you could bottle sleep up and put it in a pill and sell it,

it'd be illegal because it's one of the best performance in hand that we have. It's the best. You do everything better with sleep. Think about like also the days, the mornings you wake up where you crushed sleep, like where it was the best night of sleep, that feeling, it's like the first thought you have,

you're like, God, I feel so good. And then you look at how much time you slept and you're like, fucking, it was deep and it was like, it was like what you needed. You feel like you can do anything that day. It's, yeah. And it's best to tell every day. And especially when you're stacking that.

You know, like when it's, I find that if I'm consistently getting seven to seven half hours or eight hours, if I have a night or two of four or five hours, it doesn't affect me. Right. Because you're getting the good stuff all the time. Because I've accumulated, you know, like it really is an accumulation of what you're doing overall. Same thing with true is like, it is also tied to, you have to be, I mean, personally,

act like very active to get in. Like in other words, if I'm just like not doing other, you know, activities, I'm not going to have great sleep, but the two have to be tied together. Well, think about the people that don't overthink this stuff. Kids, right? What gets kids to pass the hell out? You run them. You run them. You're like, let's go to a park.

You go to a water park. Do you do shit? I do it with my kids when they're out somewhere. I'm like, you see that goalpost down there? How fast do you think you can get down there? Back. All the time. And then they're like, how can they take off?

And they come back. I'm like, that was pretty good. You think you can do it again? And then they're like, yeah, I just have them running like laps. So I just do the hack where it's like, I'm very fortunate to live in a neighborhood with there's a lot of families. And so I'll just be like, all right, who we have it over today? Let's get them in the pool.

Do the kids in the pool? There's something about the swimming and the sun that exhausts them like nothing else. Cause there's days where they run around where I'm like, how the fuck are you not tired now? But the pool, out of the sun, absolutely. Now I love, you know, so my two kids could not be more opposite.

So my son is 10 and he's nonverbal autistic. Great kid. Like very easy in many ways. He's never like he says isolated words, but he doesn't speak in sentences, but he communicates through a like a handheld device. My daughter, seven years old, the loudest human being in existence and does not shut up. Yeah. And I love her to death. She's like, like, seven years old, one of the funniest people I've ever met. But she's also so slow to do anything.

I'm like, you were like trying to drag a slug around. It takes her an hour and a half to eat dinner. Really? I'm not even kidding. You know? She's distracted. She's, yeah, oh, she's like, I'm ADHD if you can't tell. And she, like, we have a diagnosis to her yet,

but I'm like, I don't need somebody to diagnose this shit. I've seen it before. So, like, when I have them out in a walk or something like that, she'll be like, complain about walking. I'm like, oh, yeah, well, Robert's kicking your butt right now. You're not faster than him. And she's like, yes, I am. And she'll like, oh, yeah, well, Robert's kicking your butt right now. You're not faster than him. And she's like, yes, I am. And so I run after him, you know, me and my own.

Robert's just being happy and skipping, not even know what's going on. He's like the energizer by like, that kid never stops fidgeting. So you guys are all energy in your DNA. Yeah, I don't know what it is, but we're pretty ramped up. You know, we're not, we're, we know how to chill, but it's not our default setting.

I want to ask you, just because I said, like, I'm a huge fan of your page and like, how you approach all this misinformation. Yeah. And we're talking about it. Anybody can just go out there. They make a video. And immediately, here's what happens. People who wanted to hear that go, there it is.

They wanted to hear the thing that somebody had to say as it relates to diet, nutrition, exercise. They're like, that's what I've been saying. Somebody says that- Not my fault. Yeah, it's not my fault, it's just thing. So one of the big ones, and this was, you actually understand the science behind this,

that people got really big on was they go, you know what it turns out, diet, sodas, like they have artificial sweeteners. And the way that it was relayed to the lay person was the artificial sweetener might not be sugar, but your body believes that it's sugar. And so when you consume it, you end up, you're tricking your body and you're getting a glucose spike like you would if you were drinking regular soda anyway. And so it turns out it's just not even worth it to drink the diet stuff because it's the same as regular soda. And then that, we came a widely circulated thing that people would say and the truth is. So first off, this will be like of all the comments on this video.

This will be the most contentious thing really. Like far because people are like religious about anti-artificial stuff. Okay. There is like the church about anti-artificial stuff. Okay. There is like the church of anti-artificial. It's like a naturalism fallacy. We just believe anything that's man-made must be bad. Okay. So if you look at the data,

the reason people start to believe this stuff, and we were talking about this, you can always take isolated studies and find something that supports which you want it to support. Sure. So if we look at what are called cross-sectional studies, or cohort studies, where basically those are, there's no treatment, okay?

So if I do a cohort study, the advanced to a cohort study is you can do it for 10, 15, 20 years with thousands of people. Group A, or sorry, they're just observing what people do, and then they look at, okay, who consumed more of this and less of this? They do it with animal meat, they do it with vegetables, they do it with a bunch of different stuff, and look at incidents of disease or whatever.

And what they found in a lot of these studies is people who drink more diet soda tend to be more obese and tend to have worse glucose regulation. People go, see? There it is. There it is. But you have to realize the way studies are designed makes a difference. And it's not that these are bad studies.

You have to understand how to interpret them. So if diet soda is causing that, then we should see it show up in the human randomized control trials. And here's why our CTs are important. Because when you do things in a cohort, people's behaviors are never occurring in isolation. So if we look at people who diets more diet soda, they're also more likely to have binobes than more likely to attempt more dieting phases. This could vary what when you're looking at trying to make an association. Reverse causality is always a possibility, which is it's not that diet soda made these people fat.

It's that people who are overweight are more likely to consume diet soda because they're more likely to make more diet attempts. Right. Because we're not considering when you're studying that they that these are the people who have the diet soda. You have to take into a fact everything else that they consume like they collect. They're consuming a lot of other things, and then this is maybe their attempt to be like, I gotta be good when it comes to soda, you know? So I'll-

And so this is why correlation data is, so you can be so careful with how you interpret it, because you can find crazy correlations out there. Like I think there's a website called Spurious Correlations where they look at like stuff that's really tightly associated that there's no website called Spurious Correlations where they look at stuff that's really tightly associated, that there's no way it actually caused it. I think there was like,

Margarine production in Maine is like a 99% correlation with divorce rates or something of that. Like some crazy stuff like that, right? Oh yeah, here we go. Yeah. Suicides by hanging strangulation and suffocation and look how closely it's associated with US spinning on space, here we go. Yeah. Suicides by hanging strangulation and suffocation and look how closely it's associated with US spending on space science and technology.

What? Do we think that the spending on space and technology is causing people to hang themselves? And a number of people who drown by falling into a pool and film's Nicholas Cage appeared in. Right. So this is what, so. Nick is trying to get people to drown or

I don't know how the reverse calls out to be people drown in pools are causing filmmakers to put Nicholas cage in movies. So this is why random randomize control trials are important because what you do with randomization is you have group A and group B, right? And you you randomized them. Yeah. And when you randomized, what you're doing is you're group A and group B, right? And you, you randomize them. Yeah. And when you randomize, what you're doing is you're taking out a lot of this bias because if you allow people to self select what group they'll be in,

then people may select based on a lot of different things, right, based on all these behaviors that are wound up together. But if you randomize, and then you do two different treatments, you can be relatively confident that whatever weird behaviors or other things that are associated with it

are spread evenly across those groups, that they're randomly spread. And so if you see a difference in your treatments, or if you see a difference in the outcomes, you can be relatively confident that it was your treatment that you made, the one change that you made. That's what was producing this. So when we look at the human randomized control trials and people who watch my videos know I always like stop and go human randomized control trials, because

of what you're saying is true, we will see it happen. This is with regard to artists. Artists are sweet. So in the human randomized control trials, where they give people diet soda in place of regular soda, people lose weight. And they actually lose quite a bit. Like, and even compared to water. So seriously? Yeah.

So there was a study was called a network man analysis where they're looking at, okay, if people replace drinking sugar sweetened beverages with water versus replacing them with not necessarily diet soda, but they called it no calorie sweetened beverages because there's more stuff than just diet soda, but essentially that's what a lot of it is. They see that actually water didn't tend to cause weight loss, whereas the no calorie sweeteners did. Now, it's not that the artificial sweeteners have something metabolically that's making people lose more weight. It's what's likely happening. have something metabolically that's making people lose more weight. It's what's likely happening.

And if you tell people to, hey, stop. They weren't controlling calories in these studies. They were just like, hey, replace this and let's see what happens. People who replace with water, what it suggests is they're seeking out that sweet taste somewhere else. And so they're compensating for those calories somewhere else. But people who are drinking diet soda, they're not compensating as much for it. And so they're actually getting into a calorie deficit losing weight. And on every single post I do about this, all of people will come on and say, all I did

was replace soda with diet soda and I lost 50 pounds. Right. Because if you're like a regular Mountain Dew co-cringer. And you're drinking the regular stuff. And like, you know, the people, because there are people who really pound like 10 of those cans a day and you're like, holy shit, and you cut that out. That's tons of sugar and calories that you're not getting.

And people will go, well, it can't be better than water. I don't think it's better than water. Of course. And again, it's just replacing a sweet taste. The people will like, well, that's just weight loss. They actually they're again, it's just replacing a sweet taste. The people are like, well, that's just weight loss. They actually show that like, Lycemia gets a little bit better too, like you're Lycemia control. So again, like these claims people are making about it, it's just not supported about the human data. And I think Ron White had a line where he's like, shoot the alligator closest to the boat, right. Right? Yeah. Okay.

So let's assume like I think there's really weak evidence that there's anything bad about these artificial sweeteners. Yeah. But let's say there is shoot the alligator closest to the boat, which is if somebody uses that and enables them to lose 50 pounds, you're gonna have a hard time convincing me that they'd be better off keeping the 50 pounds and not consuming diets. So at the end of the day, I just look at it like it's a tool. I think it's a useful tool for a lot of people. Hey, if you can just consume water,

good for you. Go for it. Right? And but if you like this, is there anything to like the people saying or like the chatter that artificial sweeteners are really tricking your body into thinking it's sugar. So this is mostly based on like, I think there was some FMRI studies done where they were looking at like, well parts of the brain light up, all that kind of stuff. This is going to sound flippant, but I don't really care about you in that stuff, because I'm looking at, okay, when they give it to people and they, and because what is the outcome we care about? And for me, I'm focusing on outcomes. I don't, like, you have outcomes and you have mechanisms. So like, oh, this part of their brain lit up and that means that,

that's a mechanism But what actually happens like if it's tricking their body It's like some people will be like oh, it's gonna make you hungrier and you're gonna Yeah, yeah, yeah, then these people in these studies will not wait Right Unless you're saying okay, if it's making you eat more and they're losing weight That means that these things are the best fat burners known to man sure so. So which one is it? Like, you got to pick because you can't explain this outcome based on that. Yeah. So again, I'm like one of those people who like, I think mechanisms are cool.

And I know a lot of mechanisms because I did biochemistry. And when I, before I had nutritional science, as a biochemist, I'd be all in the weeds, like, oh, yeah, if we just tweak this thing and do this and what you don't realize is all these individual mechanisms, these pathways, they do matter. But it's like the economy, okay? So the economy could be going down, even though a big stock is a mechanism, right? Same thing, the outcome of weight loss or Lycemia or whatever it is, that is the summation of thousands of mechanisms. And so, okay, you tweak this thing over there, over here,

that would be positive towards maybe weight gain, right? But then if that same thing tweaks eight other things that are negative towards weight gain your outcome is weight loss Right, and so I think a lot of people get so hung up on the mechanisms because they sound sexy. It's like oh Do this and this triggers this pathway and then you're gonna do this it's like, you're going from A to B to C to Z and you're not considering like the downstream effects of all of this other stuff. And I think, you know, I talked about my PhD advisor

a lot when we were training. Yeah. I was just really fortunate to have a great PhD advisor who challenged me a lot because I would say some of this stuff and he would be like, oh yeah well, they're wide they see this in these studies. You know, like, so I just got very skeptical about stuff. And so now, when even when studies come out, I'm not saying like, data gets fabricated or anything like that, it does happen, but I think far less than people think.

I just, I tell people, I don't really care about one study, wake me up when there's 10. Because I've just seen so many times. So I'm leaving this though, thinking that diets, sodas are okay for people. If we look at the consensus of the high quality data, I think the biggest concern I have right now is some of these, they seem to be very safe. Some of these seem to change the gut microbiome. Now people have gone crazy with that, it's going to destroy your microbiome. No, no, it changes some of the species of bacteria they're emphasized. But we don't know enough about it. I'm like one of the gals who did her masters in the same lab as

me is now one of the world's foremost experts on the gut microbiome her name is Suzanne Devkota. We talk here and there and I always like run stuff by her because I'm not a gut microbiome expert. And she's like, yeah, on the list of things they're going to harm the gut diet so it is pretty low on my list, you know. In fact, whenever she came, he did my podcast I had years ago. She was like, yeah, I'll take a Coke zero. Thanks. You know, once you want something to drink. Here's what I want to know. Why does regular Coke settle the stomach so well? Probably has to do with the carbonation is my guess, but it's different carbonation because regular Coke. No, yeah, if your stomach is upset and you have a regular Coke, like full of sugar, you know what I mean?

It is a stomach, like people have been doing that for years and it does, it also strips paying off a concrete, so I don't know, but it fucking, I've had times where I'm like, oh fuck, and you have a Coke and you're like, I feel good, I feel fine know, but it fucking, I've had times where I'm like, oh fuck, and you have a coke and you're like, I feel good, I feel fine now, thanks. I actually don't know if I had to speculate, you know, the, I have no idea. I mean, it could be, it could be the digestive, like, milu for digesting simple carbohydrates is more like basic compared to acidic, like that could

be it, but I have, I really have no idea. I have another one for you. Probably the hottest topic of the last several years when it comes to nutrition, diet, and a regular co-host, Bertrood Kirschner, who usually sits there, is currently, he's been making countless posts about this in ketosis. And of course, like, you know, like when you look over like the history, like the last 25 years, you get into these fats, right?

Like when we were like high school going into college, it was atkins on it. And then, and there was all these, you know, over the, there's always like a cycle of the newest thing, the thing to do. So Keto came on, it was like all the way. It's still a thing that people talk about. Sometimes people talk about strictly being in ketosis.

Sometimes people talk about the carnivore diet, like where you're not necessarily being in ketosis, but you're doing all meat, maybe some fruits and stuff. Right. Bert, you know, to his credit, and this is like from him, he's been doing it now. I wanna say month, something like that, maybe a little over a month.

He cut out booze. Yeah, it's hard to drink and stay in ketosis. So he cut out booze completely,, it's hard to drink and stay in ketosis. So he cut out booze completely, and he's got the sticks, so he's checking to see, I forget what he's down now, but he's down, he's down at least 25 pounds, maybe not more.

I mean, I know you get asked about it a lot, I'm sure. But what's your take on keto slash carnivore? So I'll take it from a weight loss perspective and then I'll move into more general health. Okay. So a lot of people have said, well, if you're on a keto diet, you know, you're burning so much fat.

That's how it works, right? Like that's why it's better. You're burning so much fat. So again, I go back to like one of the human RCTs say? Like if we straight up compare ketogenic diet or low carb diets versus diets that are equal in calories and protein, which is important caveat because in the late 90s there were some studies that came out that showed that people lost a little bit more body fat on a keto diet compared to a high carb diet, but they didn't equate protein. And we know the protein is, they had more protein in the keto diet.

And can I ask you this though, that like in a true keto diet, like if you're going, I'm doing strictly keto. From my understanding and like, what I read, you actually, some people kind of were misinformed, that it's actually supposed to be much higher fat and you're actually you're not supposed to go crazy with the protein. It just depends on what you're doing ketosis for like how deep into ketosis you want to get. So my good friends is Dom Digastino who's a professor who like researches a lot of this stuff. Like you know typical ketosis is like 0.5 millimolar concentration of ketones in the blood. And if you get your carbohydrate low enough and your moderate protein, you can get to that level.

But it's hard to get to like one or two millimolar unless you're doing really high fat, very low carb, and keeping your protein pretty moderate. Yeah, that's the point I was making. It's like, if you really want to be in it, you're supposed to actually not go crazy with like, oh, I have steaks and chips. You actually have to really have that fat up high, right? Yeah, and that's because 60% of amino acids in protein

are gluconeogenics. So basically, gluconeogenesis is the production of glucose by the liver from non-glucose substrates, and a lot of those are amino acids. So if you get protein too high, gluconeogenesis can ramp up, and you can actually produce enough glucose. I don't, it depends on the individual, like if you were somebody who's like an endurance runner and you're doing ketosis, you could have your protein probably pretty high because you're cycling through so much glucose. But in general, you know, kind of like at least Dom's recommendation is, you don't really want to go above like 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight. If you're really trying

to get like a good level of ketosis. Okay. So, but these early studies kind of had a little bit higher protein in the ketogenic diet, a little bit lower protein in the high carb diets. And they saw that, okay, the ketodiot, people lost more weight and a little bit more fat. And then people started like saying, okay, well, protein is thermogenic, meaning it increases your energy expenditure. So there's what's called the thermic effective food, which is basically your body's kind of like a internal combustion engine, right? So you put gas in your car, it doesn't just turn on, right? Like you have to start it, use a starter in a battery. So

you got to put energy in to get energy out of the fuel you have. Body's kind of the same way. You eat fats, you eat carbohydrates, you eat protein, your body has to put in some energy to get the energy out of the food that you ate. Now, you always get out more than you put in, but it's not the same. So for fats, and I'm speaking generally, this isn't always true. The individual nutrient matters, but for fats in general, your TEF is about 0 to 3%.

Meaning if you eat 100 calories from fat, you're netting about 97 to 100 calories. Cobal hydrate, 5, 10%. So if you eat 100 calories, Cobal hydrate, you're netting 90 to 95 calories. Protein is like 15 to 30%. So you're netting, you know, 7 to 85 calories. So there's like some wastefulness that goes on with eating protein. Now, you know, even if you do a crazy high protein diet, it ends up being, you know, at most, a couple hundred calories a day difference. But it's still meaningful. And over a 12 week study can impact weight loss. And protein helps with retention of lean mass.

So, and if you retain more lean mass, there is some evidence that can help with fat loss and actually keeping the body fat you lose off. So, I think the best study examining this was a study from Kevin Hall back in 2018. It was actually what's called a meta analysis, which is basically, they have certain inclusion criteria for a bunch of different studies, and then they basically compound all the

data together to see what the overall, like what's the consensus, right? So the inclusion criteria, I thought was very smart, which was, when they're looking at outcome of fat loss, so a hard outcome, what we actually care about. And they said, we're making sure these diets had to be equal in calories, they had to be equal in protein, and they either had to be in a metabolic ward, which is basically food jail, where everything's controlled to what the participants eat,

or all the meals had to be provided to the participants. So basically like very highly controlled. Because if you do free living stuff, it's people are horrible at adherence. And what they found was basically no difference in fat loss between these diets. Really? Yep. So, and in fact, it actually, the higher carb lower fat diet was actually had like a slight favoring for more fat loss.

It wasn't a big difference at all. But people will go, well, how can that be? Because on a ketogenic diet, you burn so much more fat. And people equate fat burning with fat loss, but they're not the same things. So fat burning or fat oxidation is a mechanism, okay? But the actual loss or gain of body fat, that's only one side of the equation. So you're always burning fat and storing fat at the same time.

So you think about your fat mass, okay? You have fat flexing into it and fat flexing out of it, right? So how much you store versus how much you burn is going to determine what your net fat balance or like how much fat you lose, right? So on a high fat diet, high fat low carb diet, you burn a lot of fat because you're low insulin, you're eating a lot of fat, your bodies are lying on that.

You're eating a lot of fat your bodies were lying on that But when we look at what what is stored in fat? So what what nutrients get stored in? In order for carbohydrate to be stored fat has to undergo a process called the novalypogenesis And so when they do the best in any of my first album by the way sick like that. Yeah, I like that Westside that's that different so They do the... That's the name of my first album, by the way. Sick. I like that. I like that. What's that? That's the idea for that.

So when they give these metabolic tracer feeding studies, where basically they're giving people food or nutrients that are labeled that they can see where it winds up, okay? Okay. When they label carbohydrate versus fat of The fat that winds up in your actual adipose tissue your fat tissue Mm-hmm in a normal diet over 98% of it originates as fat Less than 2% comes from carbohydrate. Oh, so what that says is I'm gonna bring this all back. I promise What that says is you don't really store bring this all back, I promise. What that says is, you don't really store dietary carbohydrate.

When you eat dietary carbohydrate, your body, I said, other has to store this glycogen or burn it. Now, that, since you're burning carbohydrate, you're burning less fat, right? So on a high fat keto diet, you're burning a lot of fat, but you're also storing a lot of fat. It's the relative rate of each that's going to determine if you lose fat. On a high carb low fat diet, you're not burning much fat, but you're also not storing much fat.

And what ends up being the determinant of how much fat you're going to lose is what we call energy balance, which is how many calories you're taking in versus how many you're expanding. And people have tried to chop this up. They've tried to, you know, make logical fallacies about energy balance calories in versus calories out. And it just, we have a lot of research to show that it holds true. So what is that at the end of the day, it's like, you want to lose weight, you just got to be at a deficit? Yeah. And now people will misunderstand what that means because a lot of people,

they hear that and they go, why in the calorie deficit. I didn't lose weight. They go, okay, so You probably thought you were in a deficit Maybe it should have been a deficit based off of normal calculations But I promise you you're not violating the laws of thermodynamics, okay? Oh, yeah, it's just you right so some of the I'll go through some of the confusion of this stuff. Yeah. First off, your metabolism isn't static. Okay. So we know that like, for example, if I lose weight, so like if I go from 200 pounds down to 180, let's say 10% loss of body weight, one my, my basal metabolic rate, my BMR will adjust. So first off, it'll go down

because I'm carrying around less mass. Doesn't need as much to support it. But also, there's what's called metabolic adaptation, where you have a reduction in metabolic rate beyond what you predict just based on the amount of mass you lose. It's usually about 15% of the average. But then you also see in people who lose

about 10% of their body weight, you can have a reduction in what's called meat, which is non-exercise activity thermogenesis. Name of your second album. That's right. And some people have like a really high, like their meat is just naturally. Figuity.

And they're fidgety people, and they're burning shit up all the time. So people really don't understand like how big of a deal this is. Yeah. You're fidgeting and I tend to be somebody who's like this. Yeah. Like, if I talk on the phone, I'm pacing back and forth. Sure.

You're not thinking about doing that. That's not exercise. Right. But you're burning. But you can, so in people who lose 10% of their body weight, it can reduce their need up to like four or 500 calories per day. Damn. Okay.

So let's couple that together, right? Like my BMR is around 2000 calories a day. Let's say I lost no 10% of my body weight. If there's a 15% reduction in my BMR, that's about 300 calories, right? So 15% of 2000. And then if I reduce my neat by 400 calories, that's a 700 calorie reduction, okay? So if I started, right, like when I maintain my weight on,

I know this very well because in our app tracks, your kind of maintenance calories is like 3350, like pretty much straight down the line. 3350 is what you're, I'll maintain. You're maintain. So if I drop to say 2700, initially, that's a good deficit for me. But by the end of this, I'm not in a deficit anymore, right?

Oh, because you've reduced your weight. Because I've reduced my weight. So a lot of people will be like, oh, I was in a, like this, I'm eating in a calorie deficit. Because your metabolism changed. Right. Yeah. I'm eating in a calorie deficit and I'm not losing weight anymore.

I like you. So this means that thermodynamics doesn't work. This all be us. No, your, what happened was, if you have calories in and calories out, your calories outside changed, right? So if you had this, if you think about like a balance, right, it's moving you back to maintenance. And the other side of that is, I talk about this in my book quite a bit, is you get hungrier, and you know this been on a diet, right? You get hungrier, and all these things are trying to drive you back to your original weight, right? Yeah, they are. So that's one aspect of it. Then the other aspect is people will

look on their watch, and they'll go, oh, I burned a thousand calories. What I tell people, people don't, there's so many things that come out and people don't second guess it at all. Yeah. It's like, oh yeah, this is definitely a thousand calories. Right, right. What's that validated against? Like, do you think that these things are that advanced? So, in our study back in a couple years ago, they looked at wrist worn devices, like 20 different ones.

Yeah. They all, none like 20 different ones. Yeah. They all, none of them were accurate. Yeah. At best, they overestimate your energy expenditure from exercise by 23-ish percent. They am. Or 28. At worst, 93%.

So if you think you burned 1,000 calories, it's probably more like 550 to 800. I've had a wrist device where I have that on a chest strap and hands on like an elliptical, you know, like the palm reader and they're all completely different and sometimes dramatically different. Yeah. And you can tell too, it's like, I want to say the time that I did that, the elliptical was the one that it was like,

you're like, this just said I burned like 1200 calories doing this thing and you're like, that's not accurate. And so what I'll tell people is like, okay, so you probably thought you were in a deficit. Or maybe because you've been dieting for so long, it should be a deficit based on these online calculators. But again, I'll kind of go, what do you think is more likely that that online calculator

might not be completely accurate for you? Or that you are the one exception. Person who is breaking the laws of thermos. Right. And the same thing with these watches, I'm like, hey, you think it's more likely, you know, that this might not be as accurate as you'd like. Yeah.

But people don't question that and they don't understand that. And so they'll say things that I'm burning, you know, a thousand calories in my workouts. This online calculator says this is what my BMR is. I'm eating less than that. I'm not losing weight. So this is all BS.

And it's like, no, no, you're just, you're not, like you're not, if you eat something, something has to happen with those carbons. Yeah. You're not just flittering them off intoion and if you're creating mass tissue mass. Yeah It's coming from somewhere, right. You're not like we're not wizards creating atoms out of nothing You know, so I think but energy balance that idea I Think is very unpalatable for a lot of people because there is an inherent like

You understand there is an inherent self, you understand there is an inherent self-response ability component to that. Yeah. And that's really unattractive for some people. We were talking about this that a lot of these charlatans, the way it's pitched is, this wasn't your fault. That's the biggest thing that we all want to know. None of this is my fault.

This wasn't your fault. Yeah. It's, they've made processed food as addictive and all of a sudden. Listen, one of the things I have kind of come back to center on is when I went to grad school, I was like, I can solve the obesity crisis and just give people these macros and they eat them and then they just wait and you realize people aren't robots, you know? And I used to think, oh, if somebody's overweight, it's just because they're lazy.

And then I'm like, you have all these people who are overweight who are like so successful in some areas of their lives. And I'm like, okay, it can't be that, right? Like, as somebody went and was like, oh, I'd never hired a obese person for a job. I'm like, that's stupid. Like, just because somebody's bad at one thing

or bad at managing one thing thing doesn't mean another thing. Sure. And when you might not be fun to look at, but they could still do a great job. When you start to look at like character X's of people who are obese, you see that on average, they get a greater reward from food than the average person. They're also like, this was kind of not cool, but very telling. There was a study on obese women versus not obese women looking at the incidence of sexual assault. And they found that women who were obese

were 50% more likely, I think, was the statistic, to have endured some sort of sexual assault in their past versus those who were not. And then when they talked about it to them, a lot of them were like, well, I hated myself. And so I, you know, overeat or I use food as a comfort. Sure. That's a big thing for people. A common thing too is that if you were violated in that way, you do this so that you're not appealing to anyone.

You don't want to keep people away from you. Exactly what was said. And so then you start to go, okay, maybe this isn't like just 100% everybody's individual fault. Right. And I think when it comes to calories and calories out, that can feel like really attacking for people. Oh, you just, you ate too much. You lazy person or whatever. But I like to use financial examples. I'm like, we all agree that like, if you want to save money, you have to earn more than you spend.

Like, I don't think anybody's like, sure, nobody's gonna challenge me on that, right? Yeah, yeah. So why is everybody, why are so many people broke? Well, I can like, I think it's like 70% of Americans can't write a check for more than $5,000 or something like that. Why is everybody broke? You have this information, just go, you know, go action.

It's like, because it's not that easy. That's not that easy. Because it's all, and there's plenty of people who make over $250,000 a year who will broke, right? Yeah. So it's not just the income side of things. People's habits and behaviors really get in their way. And I think we, as people people you have so many decisions you

have to make on a daily basis. You never realize how much stuff you do just on fucking autopilot. You know what I mean? Because it's a survival mechanism. And so like I remember I had this this thought I was in line with the 7-Eleven at like 8 am I just dropped my kids off at school. I was just grabbing, I think an energy drink because I was gonna go train. And in line in front of me is an obese woman and she has like three slices of pizza.

And my initial thought was, of course she do, you know. But I started thinking, you know, I bet you didn't even think about it that way. I bet it's just like, it's Tuesday, it's eight. I always go to the 7-Eleven and this is what I do, you know? Maybe not, but like even think about it that way. I bet it's just like, it's Tuesday, it's eight. I always go to seven, I love it and this is what I do. You know, maybe not, but like I think for a lot of people, it's like that or it's like, oh, I just, I gotta eat something.

Or yeah, or if you're a comedian, well, I just finished show and now it's time to have beer. That's a big one, right? Like you just get, there's so many, when you look at all the things that go into why people eat, there's so much focus on hunger. And I think it's important, but people eat for a lot more reasons

and just being hungry. Celebration is a big one, right? It's like, I think about the last time you went to a social event where there wasn't food. If you go to a social event, there's not food, you're like, what are we doing here?

And also, in all those celebrations, social events, you don't, it's very unusual that the food would be like, hey, we found the most nutritious food you can have for this moment. It's very tasty. Yeah, no, yeah, it's like, this is gonna be the richest, high butter, high fat, like this is, that's the food that people presented those places.

Food is a big part of our culture. Yeah. You know, and I think, it's like when people talk about alcohol too, well, just abstain, just abstain. You can. Food you can't really abstain from. No. And I'm like, I think a lot of people are like,

we just need to get rid of processed foods. Good luck. All right. We're not putting the bullet back in the gun. Like the bullet's been shot. We're not going to put bullet back in the gun. Like the bullet's been shot. We're not gonna put it back in the gun. We need to teach people how to live in this world. Exactly.

I know this is gonna be like a far reach for some people. This is like when people go like, just take everyone's guns away. It's like, yeah, that's not gonna happen. Like if you're whole thing is like, how do we resolve gun, but it's like, your idea of just take gun, like this is gonna happen.

They're here. Exactly, they're here. So you have to deal with it with another approach. And then same way, it's like obesity, you know, people's misinformation about nutrition. Actually, like you just have to deal with the fact that like yes, people are going to eat all types of things.

Like how do you best manage the situation that's already here? One information is the problem. The internet showed that. I was like, oh, you know, all these problems are just information-based. Nope, nope. I know, I felt really bad,

because I never, I can say that I never fell for it, but I can see how somebody would find it so, like, attractive and appealing, was being seduced by the guy who was like, check out the Sixpack, you wanna have to do it? And then you see the stories about how this person got, tons of testimonials, so many people to sign up and they're like, I want the Sixpack.

It's gotta work. And then it's just such a bummer that you realize, oh, that's definitely, this person was just, you're selling bullshit. They weren't even actually giving any real information out. And I think a lot of it, again, it's like, it's not you, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's all, it's, it's all, it's, it's all about almonds.

I'll just get a get these special almonds that I have. And you're like, oh, cool. Yeah. Pay for them. I think that's, you know, I've said, like, I think this is a people problem. Yeah, people want to believe in bullshit. Yeah, it's much more palatable.

They're like, well, you're going to have to be consistent and change your lifestyle and do these things. You know, I think the one thing I come back to, and it's a, I think it's a quote from Joel Smith. So I know that's the most popular person in the world. No, no, no, no. He said, no matter what happened to you, we always want to equate fault and responsibility together.

Yeah. This person hurt you, it's their responsibility to fix it. Yeah. Nobody can fix it. The response, no matter who hurt you, it's their responsibility to fix it. Yeah. Nobody can fix it. The response, no matter who hurts you, what happened, the responsibility is going to be on you to heal yourself. Now we're talking about more like emotional stuff, but the same thing is through the truth with nutrition. You grew up in an abuse of household or you had an overbearing mom or like, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Totally, we can understand why something happened. It doesn't change the fact that you fundamentally

have to make a decision. We haven't talked about your experience, but I'm sure there was a certain point, a tipping point. And I talked to Ethan Supply about this. Yeah, I talked to him onupli about this. Yeah. I talked to him on the podcast too. He was awesome. Yeah, awesome.

It's like, he was like, man, I just got, I got sick of it and just decided to start doing, like, stop chasing all these fads and just start going to work, you know? And he has a quote which I love. And he said, if your house is on fire Just get out of the house. Yeah, we can figure out why the fire started later later. Yeah after you're out of the house I think so many people get stuck in paralysis by analysis of

And that's like with all this like different information coming in. What do I do? Yeah, and it's almost like this different information coming in. What do I do? Yeah. And it's almost like this perfectionist or paralysis by analysis way of like never doing anything. My friend John Deloney actually had a great post about this. He's like, how many self-help books are you going to read? How many seminars are you going to go to? Before you act? How many podcasts are you going to listen to? Before you just do the dang thing. And I think so many people are afraid of like screwing up. You're afraid of failure, right? And it's like, I'm sure during this journey, you screwed up. Yeah, of course.

But it's like, do you, everyone's gonna screw up? God, like I think about like entrepreneurship and stuff and like how many things I've screwed up or like personal relationship and stuff. Like it's, if you like start worrying about that stuff, like you'll get, anybody will get crushed, right? Like comedians, I don't know about your journey, but I'm sure there were times that you bombed tons, right?

Yes. And you just kind of, kind of put your feelings aside and be like, well, we're just gonna keep slogging through this and that it works out. You just, you have to deal. You just, you have to just get back on stage. That's the thing. You get back on the board.

It's like when you fuck up with a, you know, using that like, we fuck up with a diet, you know, like, I was eating so clean. And then I just had like pizza and ice cream or whatever. So like you can, yeah, you can just sit there and be like, oh, I'm a loser. And or you just go, I got to just get back to it. Right. And the case of like, well, like, like, I, so I have a coaching team be like, oh, I'm a loser. Or you just go, I gotta just get back to it, right? Like, in the case of like, like, like, I, so I have a coaching team that like,

I've trained to coach people, why not, one of the things we do is, we'll always go, okay, let's examine, all right, you had this thing happen, okay. Let's break down why it happened. Let's think about things we could do in the future. Yeah. To avoid this or mitigate it, right?

Like, I don't really take on many clients now. It's one of the reasons I worked on building an app because it's like, you know, one-on-one coaching. Like, how many people can you help? Yeah. But the app does a lot of what you could do for somebody individually. Right.

I thought about like, okay, if I wrote an algorithm to basically turn what I do into an app on someone's phone, what would it look like? I mean, we spent like two years developing this called carbon diet coaches, the app. Shout out. Yeah. No, I mean, yeah. But, you know, we have, like, it's crazy to read our Facebook group

and the number of people who've had great results with it. But one of the things we do, yes, it's an app. But we have a Facebook group, we have our support team is awesome. And they have like a lot of like, we kind of teach them the coaching background as well. So it's like, because it's not just, okay, hit these macros. Like it's

how do you get people to do that? Like it's not just save money. How do you get people to do that? Yeah. Like what changes can you make to their lifestyle? So when we have somebody who screws up or whatever, I always say coaching is so important. You want empathy with accountability. If you have one or the other, it doesn't work very well. Because if it's just accountability and somebody's just a drill sergeant, I love me some David Goggins. But for most people, it's a lot. It's a lot. They're just going to go, yeah, I am a piece of shit. They're just going to quit. The fuck are you made of my fucking cat? Yeah, yeah. Like that does work on me, you know? But most people it doesn't.

I'm kind of a robot. I like it, I like it tough coach. Yeah. But I think also somebody like I said earlier, firm but fair, right? Like so that's that accountability empathy. So somebody you can say, okay, I understand why this happened.

Let's talk about it. How do we stop this from happening in the future? And you have to understand that this is not going to be conducive to hitting the goal that you stated you want. A lot of times, one of the ways I help, I try to help people is I will like reflect back the goals they've said to me. That's a powerful tool I bet. And I'm like, do you think that you're what your actions are right now are in alignment with those? You know, and not in a judgemental way

because I'm like, should I have been there too? You know, where I'm like looking at what I'm doing, not necessarily nutrition, but all this stuff. I'm like, I can't say that's a priority because I'm not prioritizing it, you know? Yeah. And so just that those components are so helpful for people,

but it really like, it's when you wanna make a big change, it really is the summation of small decisions that you make on a day-to-day basis. That make it, right? That make it. Like it's not like the movies where there's just this one, like light bulb moment and everything

flips for you. It's that can be the impetus for change. But true change comes through boring, consistent habits that we change. And I always say it's kind of like progressive overload, like in the gym, right? So you can't, but first time you tried 225, couldn't do it. Now he does it 10 times.

He didn't just walk in the gym one day and do it. Yeah. He built up to it over time, right? And habits and behaviors are like that. And that's why when people like, say, I'm just gonna change everything, I'm like, well, that's not going to work. Like at the same time, like usually it's not going to work.

Because if you just try to like completely flip your lifestyle upside down, it's going to be so fatiguing, you know, like emotionally and physically. So you start to make, ideally, you start to make small changes and have a big impact, and you do that consistently, get somebody more confident. I feel like I, I mean, everything you're saying, completely obviously makes a lot of sense. I wanna ask before we wrap up on our behalf because Bert, I mean, Bert and I probably should just

get your app and just do that. But since you're here, I should ask. So like, he's going back on tour, I know this. And he's like, so he's been sober and probably eating better or actually so eating keto, I should say. So that's what he's eating. He's going to go back on tour. So he's going to be out of ketosis.

He's going to be drinking again. What advice can you give to somebody who you know is gonna be city to city? Like he needs to make some change, he doesn't balloon up. Is it mitigate the drinking or is it, you know he's gonna be drinking so everything else. Cause I know somebody else, so I won't mention who drinks a good bit.

But like pretty, you wouldn't necessarily know that. Yeah. But he's pretty disciplined about what he eats outside of his drinking. So that's the thing is, alcohol itself is calorie dense. A lot of people don't realize that I had seven shots of vodka. It doesn't have any calories. Yeah, it does. It has seven calories per gram. So like a shot has like anywhere from 60 to 80 calories. Oh, so you do like seven shots. You're talking over 500 calories You know No, it'll pull right so what I would say is one

so I Don't know Bert Rowell. Mm-hmm. I know what I've seen on social media and what he's talked about He loves him some alcohol. Mm-hmm. And so I think the idea that he's going to be able to cut that out completely for the rest of his life is probably low. Yeah. So if he wants to be able to consume that, then that means one, probably choosing drinks that are as low calorie as you can, right? Would that be because it's a killer, isn't it? Or is that? Stakeola like straight liquor is going to be lower calorie, right? Like light beer, all that kind of stuff. Like if you're consuming like IPAs and Dacqueries, whatever, like you're having so much extra calories

other than just the alcohol, right? Like it's easy to really start to pack it in. And then you've got to look at your food choices as well. I mean, basically you're down to, okay, I'm going to pretty much eat like lean meats and, you know, like filling other foods because alcohol isn't filling. You know, like, fruits, vegetables. If you are going to eat some, some, some junk food, you really want to like isolate it and then try to be, you know, I look at everything like a budget, like a food budget.

Okay, if I'm going to have this stuff here, this fun stuff, I better have stuff nailed down over here. Right? And like, I'll tell people like, I've got a big food budget, right? Because I train hard multiple hours a day. So I can eat 3,400 calories and maintain my body weight. So I can get in all my requirements by protein, my vegetables, fruits, all that kind of stuff. And I've still got a lot of space

left over to play. You know what I mean? And that's kind of like if somebody makes, you know, a million bucks a year. And they can take care of all their, you know, their mortgage, safer retirement, all that kind of stuff. Kids, then they want to blow some money on a car. Okay, nobody's going to say you can't do that. It's a bad investment, but if they like it, but if somebody's got a small budget, is it good to go buy that car if it means you can't pay your mortgage? No, you don't want to, right? Nutrition's very similar, right? So if you've got a small budget, or if you're not, you have, like, it's a low calorie maintenance level for you, you just got to understand that you'd be more constrained with the stuff that you can do.

Yeah. So like the other thing is like, I saw the, but I think it was the video of him like drinking Kool-Aid, right? I'm like, that probably wouldn't be high on the list of things. I think it's a good idea. Only because calorie dense, not filling, right? Maybe get some diet coolade instead, right? I mean, you love some coolade, dude. Right. So I think for people like that, and what I would say also, preparation goes a big way. So if you know that it's going to be hard to find food

while you wire on tour I Mean I hate telling people how to spend their money, you know, but There are people who meal prep and every single place you can think of right that they do meal prep and usually like You can find some people who actually do like some some pretty good stuff. Yeah, it's actually tasty I think maybe that's for me. This is like my thing now, is like I wanna lean out more. So I know I need to dial it in more with diet specifically, like exercise, you know,

I train usually three to four days a week. I'm doing, I'm usually like riding a Peloton bike, honestly, for cardio. And then I just started running outside. Yeah. So like, you know, I feel like, I mean, obviously you can always train harder and more.

But it becomes for guys like you, it's a time thing. Yeah, and I feel like, I'm not like unmotivated to train. Sure. And I'm not, I don't resist, I make me feel better. I like training. Oh yeah. But I feel like I just need to dial in the diet more. Well, and it's all, it's ramping up that progressive overload.

Like you're talking about, right? Like, so you're now you're probably used to, okay, it's not that hard for me to make some of these nutritional decisions more conducive. Now I can ramp it up another notch. Yeah. A little bit more preparation, right? Like, that's sort of stuff. And I do, I think it's important to bring something up because people ask me like, what's

the best diet? Yeah, sure. So I think if I, like listeners are gonna leave with one thing here to take away, it's if you wanna lose weight, you gotta restrict some way. Like you're not gonna get something for nothing. Right. Like for me, I kinda eat whatever I want,

but I track my calories, I track my protein, all that kind of stuff. So my restriction is calories, but also like, okay, I have to log my food, right? And I do that in my app and then what not. To me, that's not a big deal. I'm used to doing it, doesn't feel fatiguing. And if you tell me, if I do that,

and I can eat some of the foods that I love, I'm so consistent. Other people logging and stuff, giving so much anxiety, they hate the idea of it. Most of them actually end up after they do it for a while and they realize it's not gonna take them hours a day. They all, this is cool because I can have, like I can eat some of the foods I love and still fit it in.

But there was a recent meta-analysis, again, so a compilation of studies, where they looked at 14 popular diets, and these ranged from low-carb ketogenic all the way up to like, Ornish style plant-based high-carb, right? And what they found is over the long term, none of them were better than others for fat loss. They were equally bad, basically, because people don't adhere to them over the long road. But they took people and then they stratified them based on their adherence, regardless of diet. So basically, like, least adherent to most adherent, linear effect on weight loss.

So what that tells me, my take home from from all this stuff and this is kind of like the five minute condensed version of what my book Foulos forever on is the best diet is going to be the one that you as an individual can stick to can be consistent with. Any diet will work if work if you consume less calories than you burn. But so many people approach things from, I'm just doing a diet. And so they'll do keto for power long.

Dude, I did it. I did it in 2017. You lost weight? You lost weight? And then I gained weight. And you get it back? And also, I feel like I knew during it, just to speak to what you're talking about.

There was a part of it during it where I was like, I had heard people say, yeah, this is like, you can do this for life. And I was just, I remember going like, yeah, but I can't. Like, I was like, I don't think I could do this for life. You're like, you know, pasta's cool. You know what I was like, I don't want to do this for life. So I think the way I eat now, which,

and I weigh less now than I did when I was doing that, is just more balanced. Right, balanced but healthier. I feel like that's, I mean, look, if you wanna do keto for life, do it. Absolutely. But I think what you're saying is the most true, it's like if you cannot keep doing it, you know.

Yeah, you gotta kinda look, so I say you have to do some form of restriction, but probably pick the form of restriction that feels the least restrictive for you. Right. And for me, that's just tracking and being consistent that way. For some people, they say, I did intermittent fasting, never felt hungry, felt easy, didn't even feel like I was dieting.

Because it even appealed to me in the least. Me either. I remember. ketogenic, same thing. I've had people say, I was never hungry on keto. Yeah. People do plant based, that say that all of it's perfectly viable. And listen, there's trade offs,

upsides and downsides to every different approach you can imagine, all right. But overall, I think people over complicate this stuff way too much, when it comes to health and stuff. And like, I love me, some, you know, Peter T is a close personal friend of mine. Andrew Hubertman loved the guy. And we love to geek out over a little stuff.

Sure. Because that's where the disagreements aren't science, right? But really, in my opinion, 95% of longevity and health, you can boil down to kind of six buckets. Don't eat like an asshole and why that I mean just don't eat too much. Yeah. I say that just for funsies. Yeah, yeah. Don't masturbate in public.

Right? That's a big one. That's a big one. Yeah. Um, you know, exercise. Mm-hmm. Don't smoke or, you know, really limit smoking. Mm-hmm. Because it is, it is it is a big big big problem

Don't over consume alcohol or drugs, okay? Yeah, I'm car kids Get enough sleep and manage your stress and if you do those six things I'm not saying you can never smoke, I'm not saying you can never smoke Yeah, I'm not saying you can never drink. I'm saying over the course of your life Make it a very small part of it. Yeah, right? If you do those six things That's the man There's not a lot of people who do those six things. Yeah, you know, especially the stress component of it. Yeah

I'm about that But yeah, and then so I'll leave one other thing Because I think this is important because when you're watching social media and I'm known as a BSD bunker, people go, man, I don't know. Like, what do I, oh, like this person says this person, this and they're a doctor and this person says that. They're a doctor and one, understand that you can always find a study to support what you want to be true. So, all you smoking thinking about this gave me this example.

There was a men analysis of the risk of smoking on a dent, sorry, of smoking and the risk of a dental carcinoma, right? Add no carcinoma. We all know smoking causes cancer. Yeah. Very clear, right? And if you look at the meta-analysis, the end outcome is I think people who smoked heavy smokers were like seven times more likely to get this, right? But if you looked, you can actually find two studies that were to the

other side of that. So there's like 50 studies in here. And there's the center line, which is basically the center line of force plot is there's no effect in this study to the right side it was increased risk and to the left side was decreased risk or two studies in there actually showed like it wasn't significant but a slight decrease risk. If I want to show that smoking is good for you you could yeah I can pull one of those studies and be like oh see look at this study when it's decreased risk it's like but what's more important that one isolated study or all those other studies, right? So just understand, anybody can create a narrative

to seem like they know what they're talking about. What you wanna look for is the way people talk. People who are real experts, very rarely use words like best worst always never. It's like we were talking, like if I come to you it can mean like, hey, what's the best joke? Yeah, yeah, of course. Okay, you know, okay.

Go to a financial advisor, what's the best investment? Yeah, hopefully, they're gonna ask you a bunch of questions back. That's how it should be. The same they would apply over the joke, I mean, I gotta know more about you in your sense of humor for what you's gonna, what you'll find the funniest, do you think? Exactly. Exactly.

So, like, I just think people don't understand. So when you're looking for people who are experts, it's actually weird. You wanna look for people who sound uncertain. They say that maybe we think, you know, they're not using superlips. It's actually the people who sound confident are usually the most ignorant.

That's so funny. And I always say that on social media, the dumbest people are the loudest. That's usually who will fill up your comments with certainty as somebody who doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about. It happens all the time. I mean, I just had something that I was like,

oh, why am I even engaging this nonsense? All the time. But yeah, they're so dumb. There's a quote, one of my favorite quotes in my Berkshire Russell, it says, the whole problem with the world is only fools and zealots are sure of themselves and wise people are filled with doubts. What's?

And yeah, I mean, that's what people ask me all the time. How do I know? It's one of the reasons, like, one of my businesses, I have a research review where like every month, I break down different scientific studies and I try to make it in a way that's palved for people because I understand not everybody is gonna go out and get a PhD, but when you're looking for people to follow,

listen to less of what they say and more of how they say it. Do they allow for nuance? Do they give you the devil's advocate argument? Like those are some of the things I try to do. Yeah. Well, you're a great, I said, if you're interested in this kind of thing, if you don't yet follow him on Instagram,

it's bio-lane on Instagram. It's a great follow because you're basically, you'll highlight somebody who's making a claim. Oh, caffeine causes your cortisol to spike and you'll get a big fat belly. Like, what the fuck? And it's the guy saying it with complete certainty. Call that mental gymnastics. And then the cool thing is that you play it and then you're like, oh, here's actually what's up.

I try to realize how big this shirt is. It's really, really big. It's not inside out. I know people are going to say that. I try to like, you know, educate, to realize how big this shirt is. It's really, really big. It's not inside out. I know people are gonna say that. I try to like, you know, educate, bothering me, entertain, you know, bring something different. Cause I think no scientists, you know, it's like, oh God, snooze fast.

Of course. And so it's like, yeah, I talk some mad shit. But you, you, Peter and Hugh Roman, you're the three fucking cool nerds. You guys are like the fit nerds. Yeah. But I'm the coolest. For sure.

And I'll tell you that. And also, congrats. Why not? I mean, I just want to tell people, you're 41. You recently won the Powerlifting Nationals in Scottsdale. First place in your class with a squat of six hundred and six pounds, bench of three hundred and sixty nine pounds deadlift of six hundred and ninety four pounds for total of sixteen seventy. That's amazing. It's almost as good as any. He

there's no way you could beat him. He's in our booth. He's very very strong. I saw him in Fair Jack. I'm one of those that breaks the laws of thermodynamics, but everybody else. He's a special stuff like. He's very special. Very special. And he can't lose. He's very special. Very special. And he can't lose. He likes to say I can't lose. So if you were watching Deadpool the other night, the gal, I was at Domino. He said, what's your superpower?

She's like, I'm lucky. That's not a superpower. She's like, yes, this. That part was great. I can't wait for you to go at it, man. I'll set up a contest, okay? Yeah. Let's do it. Let's do it. I like it. Thank you very much for coming in. Yeah, it's a real joy to talk Just fun to work out with you this morning and yeah, I mean, I could do this for hours

But we got to wrap up and thanks man. I appreciate you. Yeah, I appreciate having me on and it's I love doing this stuff It's a lot of fun. Love educating. Thanks, brother. See you guys next time I love doing this stuff. It's a lot of fun. Love educating. Thanks, brother. See you guys next time. Thank you.