Barbell Shrugged - Dieting and Macros with RP Strength — Real Chalk #76

Episode Date: May 21, 2019

A super informative conversation on dieting and macros with the owners of RP Strength. These guys are pretty world renowned in the online diet and training space. In fact, it would be a little weird if this is the first time you’re hearing their names.   This conversation hits just about everything that’s important when choosing a plan for you and all the things that make a plan work. Not to mention my favorite part... How important is the timing of macros versus just getting them all in by the end of the day?   Let’s find out and listen to this weeks episode :) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/rc-rpstrength ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @Hylete- Hylete.com - RC15 for 15% ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/ barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

What's up, everybody? It's Tuesday. I'm officially back from my trip out into Columbus, Ohio. I went out there for the Rogue Invitational, saw everybody throw down, and I got to meet all the famous peeps. But not only that, I got to sit down and talk to some of them, too, and put them on this podcast for you guys. So that was the whole reason I went out there. First ones up are the RP Strength Duo, Mr. Dr. Mike and Nick. They are the owners of RP Strength. We get to sit down, get into all sorts of things that are macro and diet-oriented in general. Because Mike has his doctorate in all of these things, I asked him a few questions that have kind of been on my mind for a little while and I wanted to get like some definitive answers. One of my big questions was like, how important is macro timing? Like, you know, with how your

body winds up being, how important is it to get, you know, the macros that you need at a specific time percentage wise as compared to everything else that you can do as far as your macros are concerned. So like, you know, if you're getting all of your macros in for the day, how are you going to look? If you get a minute at the right time, how are you going to look? And he has an interesting perspective on the whole thing. But not only that, we dive into, you know, how to find people out there who are full of shit and are marketing things that are, you know, fake or they're trying to make money on. And then we also talk about why their system does work and if a lot of other people's systems work. And we agree that, about why their system does work and if a lot of other people's

systems work. And we agree that most people have something pretty good going on. I shouldn't say most. Some do. And there's a lot of ways to skin the cat. There's a ton of different ways to get great results. These guys just tell you why theirs is really, really good. But we don't even really hit that until the end, to be honest. We just sit there and kind of chat about macros and diets and nutrition and everything for a little while first. And honestly, it's one of my favorite all-time conversations as far as nutrition goes. I would say this is probably my top one or two podcasts as far as just talking about nutrition. And Dr. Mike has a lot of great things to say, and he has an amazing sense of humor to kind of go with it. So you guys are going to love this episode.

It's going to fly by before you even know it. All right, before we get into the show, I want to talk about the sponsors that make this thing all go round. We only have one right now, so you don't have to fast forward. It's Hylete. You guys know Hylete. They've been around just as long as RP Strength. Actually, they've been around even longer than RP Strength,

created this brand, and now they make a bunch of cool shit and actually on this trip was the first time i actually got to bring my high leap backpack with me and like really fill it up so the backpack that i always tell you guys about actually held all of my podcast gear my computer three sets of headsets all the adapters and everything it held my my Sony a seven three camera, which is a pretty big camera. The mic that went with it, two changes of clothes, um, and a bunch of just like, you know, snacks and just random different things. And I totally felt like the backpack was fine. And it wasn't even like super full or like, I mean, it was full, but it didn't feel like I had this giant, like rock on

my back you know when you get really really full in your backpack and it's just like this giant awkward thing on your backs so it didn't really feel like that and they actually have a bigger version than the one that i have that's what i always talk about too so um this is definitely my new favorite travel bag um it's all black so it looks clean and it fits a ton of shit, and it has a ridiculous amount of pockets, I remember trying to get into the rogue facility, and the guy that was checking the bags was like, Jesus, this thing has so many pockets, I don't even feel like checking it, so, um, you are not allowed to bring snacks into the venue, and I actually successfully brought snacks into the venue, because of how many pockets this thing had, and the security guy

straight up gave up, no joke, this is. This is real stuff that actually happened to me. And this could happen to you too if you guys decide to try one of these backpacks out. Worst case scenario, you don't like it, and they give you the whole 60 days refund policy. So besides the backpack, I highly recommend the shoes. I talked about those before as well. They look like metcons um but they're a lot more durable they have the vibram sole which is like a lot more aggressive sole than the ones that come on nikes and um i'm not trying to put nike down or anything actually i'm wearing a pair of metcons right now and i love them too but um the highlight shoe is it's just it really just is a better more durable shoe in my opinion and they have three different soles in them so uh if you're lifting you can put a higher sole in if you're running you can put a lower one just is a better, more durable shoe, in my opinion. And they have three different soles in them. So,

uh, if you're lifting, you can put a higher sole in, if you're running, you can put a lower one in, and then there's like a mid sole, uh, that just kind of does a little bit of everything. So it's really cool. Like every time you put a new sole in, it feels like you have a new shoe. I think that's pretty dope. They're making some really, really cool stuff. Uh, they have a bunch of really dope materials, like for their shorts or their pants and stuff. Honestly, for me, the shorts are a little bit too long, uh, but I'm a short individual. So maybe if you guys like that nine inch inseam, that's good for you. I'm all about the seven. But yeah, you guys can go over to highleet.com, H-Y-L-E-T-E.com, capital R-C-15. We'll give you 15% off anything in their store and they don't

really do discounts ever. So that's something a little special just for the show for you guys. So it's highly.com capital R C 15. And we're going to get into the show right now with the RP strength crew. You guys are going to love this. I'd probably get it like a little notebook out and just maybe take a couple notes. Cause this is a good one. This is a really good educational episode. And, um, yeah, I'm excited for you guys to listen to it. Let's do it. All right, ladies and gentlemen, I'm out here in Ohio at the Rogue Invitational. I'm with Mike and Nick. And, yeah, I didn't mess that up, so I was happy about that. Anyway, I was hanging out at the Hyperize booth, looked over, saw the RP Strength people,

said, I'm pretty sure I'm looking at the owner right now, and there's two of them. So I have them both on the show. If you guys have never heard of RP Strength for any reason at all, first off, it's weird because they're, like, everywhere. Like, literally, if you've done CrossFit at any point in your life, someone's asked you if you've done RP Strength, I feel like. I hope so, right? Yeah, we got Rich Froning as one of the faces of it, so he's a pretty good athlete who uses it.

He's okay. And Carrie Pierce, which is probably debatably the most jacked person ever. The most, yeah, for sure. For all the girls, for sure. She's very noticeable. I just watched one of their events with the deadlift and the burpee pull-ups. Oh, really? And she's noticeable.

She's noticeable. Oh, man. She's beyond jacked. She's a Michigan alum, too. That's how we know her. Oh. So that's in your favor right now? It is, yeah.

But everybody else here is not in your favor. No, we're... I try to keep that quiet here in Columbus. Yeah, really. I really want to get into the Ohio State room really bad. I was just telling you, I got into Oregon last week, and it was insane. It was the craziest experience of my life, walking through all of their stuff, and how much money Phil Knight's spent on that place is just unbelievable.

Yeah. It's unreal. D1's a real thing. I mean, that's like beyond D1. Yeah. It's like platinum. Is this a pro team or what? Yeah, it's insane.

Oregon Ducks College. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're in Eugene, Oregon, and it's literally nothing and then just the biggest university you've ever seen in your entire life. All right, well, let's talk about rp strength a little bit and um talk about kind of like why you created rp strength so basically i'm assuming you you're a bodybuilder i'm assuming at some point in your life or you still are or still really not so good bodybuilder but i'm trying like recreationally i assume at the time were you competitive at one point? I was not very competitive at one point, but I tried.

And now I'm trying harder, so I'll be more competitive in the future. So I assume you probably went through a bunch of different types of diets, and then there was one that stuck with you really well. And then you kind of narrowed it down and had to make it fit for everybody else. Yes or no? Not really. Not really? No.

Okay, so how did we stumble upon this thing yeah we didn't stumble it we oh yeah yeah you're and you're you're the smart guy yeah yeah well i don't know about that but um yeah so nick and i we went to school for uh in the school of kinesiology at university of michigan that's where we met is in the gym and uh i've been a nerd longer than i've been into fitness i wrestled when i was in high school, and I powerlifted when I was in college, and I started the Michigan Powerlifting Club, and then Nick joined the club. And, you know, at some point you want to get stronger, leaner, fitter, whatever, and you start to think that, okay, I like science, I like the scientific approach to things.

It tends to work well for, you know, like launching space shuttles and discovering cancer cures. So it's probably an effective thing to go on versus like, well, that coach said. So being fans of science first and trying to accomplish fitness second, we tried to look up the best systematic scientific approaches to enhancing muscle gain, fat loss, so on and so forth. And we slowly started to develop an understanding of that. And I went to years and years of school. I went to a master's program after I got a PhD in sport physiology. And as I did more and more school and practiced the art and did a bunch of coaching,

we started to see a synthesis of how science can help people by reducing the practice of fitness, the pursuit of fitness, to a set of dependable principles that are actually not so complicated. Their application can be complicated, especially if you don't know what you're doing. But once you have these principles distilled, you can not only teach them to people, but you can write them in books and you can put them in infographics on Instagram. And better yet, and now you can teach them to computer programs that can make them applicable to people who use a cell phone. So now we have like an AI-based diet app after years and years of really, really fine-tuning

the scientific approach to training. And I met the guy who made your app. Totally. Yeah, yeah. Is he pretty much always with you guys? He was not always with us. Yeah. We met him on the internet.

But now that he's made the app, he met him on the internet recently. Now he is. We don't let him go anywhere unless he has bodyguards. Yeah. He's him on the internet recently. Now he is. We don't let him go anywhere unless he has, like, bodyguards. Yeah. He's very high. High P's. So we basically, we had, I had designed the app a while ago, and then we were in touch with several companies that tried to build this for us but failed miserably, dropped

the ball. Oh, wow. So you already, you dumped money into someone and they ruined it. Oh, God, yes. Not once. Not twice. And you didn't get the money back either, I assume. Yeah, well, you know, we're not at liberty to discuss that, actually.

Just for business people out there who want to open an app. It's tough. It's very hard. It's uphill battle, right? And pick the people you work with wisely. Well, I can elaborate on that one a little bit. So part of the reason that it failed so miserably is because the people didn't fundamentally understand what we were trying to do. They weren't fitness people.

And so how we stumbled upon our current app guy was he was an RP client for a couple of years and lived it until he just knew it. And he's like, I want this for myself. He reached out to us. I feel like that's the best way usually. Totally. Because we didn't have to explain any of the fundamental underlying stuff to him. He already knew it. And I already had all of the logic written.

And I was like, here you go. And he's like, this makes perfect sense. And I was like, okay, sweet. So he started working on it. And then he had to hire another guy to help him. And now we have a bigger team of engineers. And eventually it took him about a year. And ta-da, we had an app.

And then the first version was cool. It did did really good stuff it was fundamentally a really good product but it wasn't so fancy wasn't so advanced and then over the course of the last several months we've been upgrading and updating it we have this whole development timeline plan for the future now it's really good and it does a form of ai technically we could get into that if you like but it's a very advanced product and it basically tells you what to eat, when to eat it. It reminds you of all your meals. And as you make progress, it updates the diet for you to make sure it keeps you on track. But it doesn't update it and like, hey, now you have less food. Hey, now you have more. It actually offers you options. Like, here's the suggested AI expert. That's what you should do,

probably. But maybe if you haven't been super compliant on the diet and it's like, hey, you should cut your macros, maybe let me just actually get compliant for this next week. So you can choose to keep the last week's macros the same. Or let's say you have super low energy, you want more food, you can actually tell it to do that. So it's very flexible. It's essentially like a diet coach in your pocket. But it's purely digital. And it's automated.

It's completely automated. Yeah, super. And you get to pick all the foods you like. And then it tells you how much of them to eat so you don't have to do math anymore. pocket. But it's purely digital and it's automated. It's completely automated. You get to pick all the foods you like and then it tells you how much of them to eat so you don't have to do math anymore or stuff like that. I actually have an interesting question. It's not really interesting but we'll find out shortly. But because you're a PhD in this stuff I always wondered

because there's so many different diets out there, right? There's just like a million different ways to skin the cat on this, and everybody's different and all that. And people are so concerned with how many macros they're having throughout the day. Like I need X amount of fat, X amount of protein, X amount of carbohydrates, right? Sure. All day long.

That's what they're really worried about. And at the end of the day, they're trying to get in whatever they didn't get in. Sure. In your opinion, or based off of facts, how important is it to get the right calories in at the right time? Yeah, timing. Not super. Probably 10% of all diet success variants is accounted for by timing.

So, like, if you get all your macros in at some point during the day and you hit them really strictly, you're going to have really good results. Is your workout performance going to be ideal? No. Is your recovery going to be ideal? No. So, for body composition, like how lean you are, how muscular you are, you can get pretty good results. The thing is a lot of people when they invest time in a diet, they don't so much want pretty good results. They want really good results.

And the thing about timing is that there's an incremental benefit to doing it at least pretty good. So, for example, if you eat all of your calories in one meal per day, can you still get good results? Yes. But, like, who the hell eats one meal per day? If you do two meals per day properly timed, like at roughly equal times, it magnifies the effect of the diet by a lot. If you eat three meals a day, it magnifies it by some more, not as much.

If you eat four times a day and you spread the meals out, you're getting pretty close to optimal. Now, optimal is probably for many people like between six to seven meals per day, five to seven. But the difference between eating seven meals a day and four meals a day, if you're doing them at the right times, is like the tiniest thing in the world. Now, if you're a finalist at

CrossFit Games, you better be eating all the meals you need to be eating, because somebody could beat you by a second in an event, and you'd be like, I should have eaten one more meal this whole training cycle. Yeah. Right? And in some acute circumstances, meal timing is really important. For example, you have a multi-day CrossFit competition, and you have to recover from event to event to event.

You can't just, like, eat all your calories at night because then your events through the day are going to suck, suck, suck, suck. Yeah. So meal timing, if you train twice a day, if you're really serious about your training, or if you're doing a multi-event competition, is super important. But for regular, like just getting leaner and putting on muscle, so on and so forth, it's not the most important thing. So meeting your macro is absolutely number one. Probably accounts for like 80% of all of diet variants. Timing accounts for like 10%. But again, you don't just leave 10% on the ground, right? Like if you had like,

if there was $100 on the ground in fives or something, would you leave two fives? Would you just pick up the 90 bucks and you're like, whatever. You probably would still pay. I'm just trying to answer questions out there for people who are like, how important is it for me to have my post-workout like carbohydrates and protein like within like an hour after I work out? Or what happens if I work out and I don't eat for like four hours? Yeah, not so important to get generally good results. But the thing is, you know, if you're okay with generally good –

so, for example, imagine this reaction of somebody like – like you go to an all-inclusive hotel with like your wife or something like that, and you pull your shirt off at the pool. And other people, like, you know, you start talking to random people, and they're like, you know, if you're missing the post-workout meal by four hours, at some point fitness might come up, and they're like, oh, you know, you're in pretty good shape. And you're like, yeah, I could have used a bit of a booster there. I kind of train a lot.

But if you get that meal when you need to, they're going to be like, wow, clearly you're like a fitness professional. Actually, I'm a lawyer. I'm just really good shape because I get my timing right. So it's that extra little bit is a noticeable effect on physique. You'll still be in good shape. Everyone here like around right now at the event, almost everyone's in good shape so most people here get their macros right but the difference between good shape and great shape is where timing comes into play i'll tell

you what there's nobody that steps on a bodybuilding stage that's any good that is like i just get my macros in whenever nobody they all do regimented timing for a good reason okay so it's one of those it's a it's a scale trade-off right so? So I'm not saying, like, you know, within the one-minute mark, you've got to get your food. No way. For sure. But, like, after you train, like, I've got two points to make. One, if you get it within the hour or within two hours, you're well on your way.

If you wait, like, three or four hours, you're missing something tangible there. Second point is, why can't you eat within an hour or two? People are like, well, I can't eat food within an hour or two after my workout. I'm dying to eat. What are you, a Navy SEAL? Are you underwater? Like one of those suits? What are you talking about?

Like, well, I work a real job. That's a fun excuse. Like, I'm a lawyer. Like, is your food forbidden at your firm? Like, no. But I'm working. Like, you can't eat a protein bar and then go back to work. You can't type while eating.

So there's like some people, their excuse to mess up meal timing is just not that great you know so you can do a reasonably good job does that mean seven meals a day like regimented 801 a.m if by 802 you haven't finished your meal like it's disaster no way but can most people eat like four relatively within an hour or two timed meals per day. Yeah. I was just going to add something to that, too, just kind of a real-world thing. And Carrie Pierce, because she's on the poster right there by us, she's one that, like, reaches out every time she has a competition.

She's like, hey, here's the schedule. Can you help write a plan for that? I'm like, yeah, absolutely. So, like, I mean, they're doing, what, six events here at the Rogue in, like, what, 36 hours? Yeah, yeah. Hundreds of grams of carbs for sure. Her whole diet is basically just high GI carbs for two days straight. It's just kind of funny how some athletes are really good about that and they want to know exactly what to do. And then other times, not so much.

A lot of people just don't even care. And they still perform really well. It just kind of depends. Well, the real question is, yeah, not so much. A lot of people just don't even care. Yeah. And they still perform really well. It just kind of depends. Everybody's... Well, the real question is, intellectually, how much better would they perform if they did the right thing? One of my biggest pet peeves as a pedantic intellectual asshole is it works for them. You know, like, you can imagine, like, you know, the liquid versus solid fuel rocket debate back in the 50s. It'd be like, you know know some countries successfully experimented to

some extent with solid fuel rockets and then liquid fuel went out and you could be like you know launch a successful rocket with solid fuel and it's like it works for them be like yeah but are they going to the moon and be like well nobody is well one country in 10 years will go to the moon and that will not be with solid fuel right there's like limitations you just don't even know about so we got to be real careful about when athletes especially people with elite genetics and i'm sure you've been around a bunch of people like that, when they do things that are not optimal on any scientific or even rational basis, people are like, well, I'm going to do that because it works.

And they're like, what part of their genetics do you think you have? Like just mimicking people doesn't work. Yeah, for sure. So it's one of those situations where, you know, when an athlete does something that's clearly just not literature-based, not only just not literature-based, it's not like in the part of science where you just don't know.

We're pretty damn well sure it's stupid. They're just getting away with it. And it's a good idea to see everything skeptically. And then also it's a good idea to take all the athletes or as many as you know and say, what are the commonalities of what they're doing? How many elite CrossFitters don't eat or eat less than twice a day? Elite CrossFitters, most of them eat four, five, six times a day. There's probably something to that, right?

So I think it's important to note that. You know what I mean? You can't just be like, oh, it works for them. Maybe not. And it's funny, too, in bodybuilding and strongman and a lot of other sports we help coach and are involved with, we've actually taken those athletes who were doing stuff that's not a great idea, especially in CrossFit,

and people, because they were already elite before we started working with them, and they would eat in, you know, interesting ways, way under eating carbs, and not even elite CrossFitters, just a ton of CrossFitters just the world over, regular folks that are in really good shape. And, you know, these were the people whose friends, either at their gym, at their box, or just whose friends in life would see them as clearly in really good shape, clearly really fit, and they would say, like, well, you know, that person does, like, super low carb or whatever, they only eat twice a day, works for them, and they start working with RP

or a bunch of other companies that do a kind of similar thing we do, put them on an actual scientific-based diet, and they just blow their numbers out of the water. They just get better for two years straight. And then people are like, wow, what would you do? And they're like, believe it or not, I started eating carbs before and after my workouts and they're like that's crazy how stupid does that person feel for saying like well it works for them right like maybe one of the friends was like oh i bet if they carbs they'd be better i'd be like yeah right you're not elite like them like it works for them and three months later they talk to that same person

they're like wow you're so much better how'd you do it they're like well i started eating carbs they're like oh lost that bet it's so weird how the carbs thing is like a religious matter it's so yeah it's so like in the crossfit space nowhere else like everywhere it's just crossfit space because like when paleo first came out everybody just immediately went low carb of course and like i competed for a long time and i was always like one of the leanest athletes out there and then you still uh still looking Yeah, I'm still pretty lean. Yeah. Just take the compliment. It got a slish.

Awkward. Well, I'm one of the people who I pretty much only eat carbs after my workouts, but I do eat carbs before a workout if I know it's going to be a gnarly workout. There you go. You know what I mean? But I don't always. Totally. Like right now on this trip, I'm probably not going to get the greatest workouts in,

so I don't really eat any going into it. And the short workouts are whatever. But if your workout's like one, two hours, three hours long, like eating before might be a good idea. Yeah, for sure. Definitely. And I just typically tell people because I don't want to have a long conversation is like, hey, dude, just earn your carbs. That's usually what I say.

Totally, yeah. Carbs should reflect your workload. But there's been like a – there was a whole time when I, oh, yeah, look at that. Will train for carbs. I'm wearing a shirt that says will train for carbs. There's a, like, when I first started, it was like, hey, dude, like, if you don't eat carbs, you're going to be shredded. And, like, yeah, it did work for, like, a little bit. Sure.

But then after a while. It reduces calories. Yeah. But then after a while, like, what starts to happen to your body when you start to not eat carbs, right? Recovery is not amazing. Yeah. It leads to lower workloads. Losing muscle and it can lead to a catabolic environment. So what's happening?

When your body goes through gluconeogenesis, for instance, when people don't have enough carbohydrates to feed themselves and then your body starts breaking down protein stores and such, what exactly is going on on a level that we can say in English for people? Because a lot of people are like, oh, I'm just going to have gluconeogenesis happen, and I'm going to get my carbs anyway. And it's like, well, not necessarily.

So the volume of throughput, the volume of carbohydrate generation through gluconeogenesis is just like an order of magnitude vastly smaller than what you would get through dietary carbohydrates. In addition to that, your body feeds. There's two things you have to have carbs for. One is powering muscular contraction, generally, athletic performance. And the other is powering all the other organs and nervous system. And how your nervous system feels and performs can

reflect how your body performs. Because if your brain stops telling your muscles to contract, not much is going to happen. Yeah. And for those of you out there who don't know, he's talking about the day after you do deadlifts. Totally. Your brain's like, nah, I'm good. Yeah. You guys feel something, right? The thing with carbs is that they are the absolutely preferred food of the nervous system. And that means that if you have carbs in your bloodstream, glucose delivered from food sources before training, you are just going to perform better, not because of anything special in your muscles, though if you eat carbs for several days and your glycogen stores build up, that does happen, but because your nervous system is going to be like, holy crap, let's do this.

Whereas if you're fueling off of ketones, for example, which is what your body does when you're not on carbs for a while, you'll perform, but you're not going to perform nearly as well. They've studied this into the ground. There's just not really any way ketones perform, especially in CrossFit-style events. They just really underperform cars. I mean, you can run in a pair of dress shoes, but it's better to run in a pair of dress shoes. Totally, yeah.

You'll get somewhere. And if you're already an elite runner, you'll be pretty good. So this is the analogy. And, Mike, you once said this, and it seems to stick in my head forever. You basically compared it to, like, having a sports car but putting a lawnmower engine in it. Sure. That's just always stuck with me. I mean, you can get there, but you're just...

I've heard analogies similar to that, but yeah. Yeah, like the fuel analogy. Like, can you put regular fuel into a sports car? Sure. Will it go faster than a regular car? Yeah, of course, still. What if you put actual racing fuel? It's going to go real fast, and it's going to win events, and so on and so forth.

That literally defines the it works for them thing. Totally. Yeah, if you put gas in it, it still works. Exactly. Funny enough, we can come at this from a slightly different perspective. If we come at it from a purely logical perspective, imagine aliens came down to Earth. I love this analogy.

I say it all the time. I'm excited already. Yeah, totally. And they start probing, anal probes, the whole thing. For sure. I'm sure you seem to be a person that's been through this. Wait, what part of me looks like that? Once I got anal probed is when i really started getting lean

so aliens come down and they're you know super analytical super smart and they're it's their job to feed a crossfit athlete and they read all the literature in one second or something and they're like hello you will have protein and carbs and the crossfitters like wait why carbs and they're like science and physiology say they are a good idea and you're like okay but what about all these notions and ideas and carbs are bad and the aliens just tilt their head and be like why are carbs bad and you're like well there's not any real science but i just kind of feel that there may be evil and cause me to get fat for no reason the aliens are like that is not evident in the literature and you're like right so basically if you come at it from purely strictly logical perspective carbs are dominant for no reason. The aliens are like, that is not evident in the literature. And you're like, right. So basically,

if you come at it from a purely, strictly logical perspective, carbs are a dominant fuel source for athletic performance. They have no special adipogenic quality. They don't just blow up

body fat on you. That has to be in a calorie surplus. People say, like, carbs make you fat. No, motherfucker, cheesecake makes you fat. It happens to have carbs,

but also a shitload of fats and also a fucking zillion of calories. You can't stop eating it. Right? Brown rice has a shitload of carbs. Do you see motherfuckers getting fat off brown rice? I've never seen that shit in my life.

Can you imagine looking at a person who's like 600 pounds? You're like, hey, buddy, how you feeling? He's like, it's rough. You're like, brown rice, huh? He's like, fucking get me in, bro. Like, what are you talking about? That is great. I love that.

That's pure carbs, right? So if you just logically designed a diet for performance, it would include carbohydrate. And that's the furthest you ever need to think about it. And all the rest is, for whatever it's worth, unfortunately, just highly dogmatic. You know the anti-carb crusade? At some point, you just get into dogma. Like, you just, there's like three degrees of sense.

Like Kevin Bacon, six degrees out. And two or three, you get into anti-carb dogma. You know, when someone's like, you talk to someone, you're like, so carbs, you're like, well, but dogma. It just goes there. Well, they're bad because, and then ideas and theories that just don't amount to shit. My whole life changed once. I was younger, actually.

And you were abducted by aliens. No. Anal probe. I know the story. This guy, how old was I? Man, I was probably 20. And I was working out in a gym in Hawaii at the time. Okay. I went to school out there and I flew out in a gym in Hawaii at the time. Okay.

I went to school out there, and I flew helicopters and stuff. Jeez, that's amazing. Nice. I was a helicopter pilot before I went. I went to school in East Tennessee. We didn't have helicopters. Yeah. Or Hawaii.

Tennessee sounds hot as fuck right now. It's like all the heat of Hawaii, but none of the magic. Yeah, it's hot here. It's got its own magic. But anyway, this guy, I really looked up to this guy in the gym, and he looked like what I aspired to be at the time. And I remember asking him about food and some of the things that he ate. You came up and you were like, hello, sir, what about food?

He's like, I'm sorry, can I help you? Well, we actually goofed around a little bit. He was a humongous fucking black dude. He looked like the Under Armour commercial, like, we will fucking win this house or whatever the hell, right? He was just a massive guy. Super hero. And he was like, I don't want to, he's like, I'm just going to be easy.

Like, everything that you eat, it should have a purpose. Look at it and ask what it's going to do for you. That's a good answer. Holy shit. And that's, like, all he said to me. And it was, like, one of those things where, like, I fucking never, ever forgot that. You did it all wrong. You're like, donut, happiness.

That is the purpose. You could definitely fuck that up right yeah so um i remember obviously i i didn't want to ask him any more questions i want to bother him but also i i wanted to know more about it and because he said that followed him around no i just like would go i'll go on the computer and be like hey uh you know to the computer like what do i need after i work out like what do i need when i wake up what do i do when i do this yeah and then i just started figuring out and i was was like, oh, this is what I need. This is how I'm doing it.

And then I went to school for exercise physiology. Oh, there you go. Changed my major. Sure. And, yeah, started geeking out on that for a while. And I graduated from the University of Utah with Tommy, who we were just talking about. Oh, okay, nice. Yeah, yeah.

And then he was the first gym I ever worked out at. So you went to Hawaii, and then you went to Utah. I was on the Olympic bobsled team. Oh, that's really cool. That's the only, like, good reason to switch from went to Utah. I was on the Olympic bobsled team. Oh, that's really cool. That's the only, like, good reason to switch from Hawaii to Utah. I have a longer, cooler story for you, but in short, yeah, I was on the team for a little bit, and I lived in Park City, which was awesome. Very cool.

That's the hippest place in Utah. One of our coaches almost made the bobsled team in, what, 2018? Yeah. He broke his foot, though. I was 2010, and I tore my hamstring the year of the games, and I didn't get to go. Yeah, well, I mean, our guy broke his foot. Otherwise, he probably would have made the number two team, Alex Harrison. My biggest thing was I had tore my ACL the year before, was coming back,

and a chiropractor noticed that my hips were shifted. And I think it's mainly because when I was coming back, I just worked out my good leg like a motherfucker and just kind of shifted myself out. um he gave me a huge heel lift and i started sprinting with the bobsled and stuff and then like i tore my hamstring or like i pulled it at the time and then i was like fuck this thing pulled the other one oh my god and i was like fuck i gotta put that thing back in put it back in pulled the other one again like back and forth back and forth and then i was like i just had this nightmare injury of hamstrings for like forever.

And then I started just, the barefoot craze came out, and I started just going like five-finger shoes, running outside barefoot. It cured everything for me. No shit. And then now, yeah. Now I try to just wear like flat-ish shoes. Okay. I always wear flat-ish.

I still have like super fucked up hips. Dr. Mike here has probably the best shoes. I saw those. They're very, very low for style. I usually wear Crocs with socks. I feel like that's totally fine, though. I'm a fucking adult. I wear whatever the fuck I want.

Yeah. You know, I'm a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. If you don't like my shoes, come take them off me. Yeah. Some black belt's going to hear that and be like, okay. I'm like, sir, I'm totally kidding. Please don't ankle lock me. Like, dude, I'm like, sir, I'm totally kidding. Please don't ink a lot of me. Like, dude,

your shoes suck. Dude, I own one of the fucking most successful fitness brands for fucking diets in the world. Go fuck yourself. You know what's funny? Nick actually owns it. I don't get paid. I'm a volunteer. Really? Yeah, you know, because I think money is a corrupting thing. I do it for the love. I do it for the kids. What about the tattoo on your left arm with the money sign?

That's to remind me of how evil money is. This actually, okay, it has a back story. Just because we were in that moment, I was like, oh, look at that. Totally, like, wait a minute, hold on. This guy's clearly lying. Well, just because you guys are on the show and you do own this thing that's really cool and a lot of people do know about, what, like, really separates you guys from everybody else that as far as like results

like i mean win me over real quick type of deal man yeah i know you have the science spiel i mean i'll just do a little spiel you can expand on it but really just uh you know relying on evidence based approach and i mean we have 19 phds six registered dietitians on staff like honestly if you just look at that it it's like, I mean. Somebody knows something. Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. And not only that, but it's kind of great from a theoretical standpoint.

You look at it and think, oh, okay, well, these people should know a lot, but does it actually work? Does what they do produce results? And, I mean, so I think we have two things. A great, solid team of some of the smartest people in the world and in the industry. But not only that, like, we just have literally thousands and thousands of success stories. So, like, you know, you can't say, like, oh, it doesn't work. It's just like, no, that's wrong. It does work, you know.

So I think those are the two main things. And, you know, Mike can kind of expand on that. He did a little bit earlier. But, yeah, go for it. There are plenty of companies doing great work in our industry. That's what I was going to say. I think that there's a lot of great companies. A lot of things get you from A to B.

Totally. I like the simplicity of what you have going on. Sure. For those of you who can't see, there's a giant iPhone, and you can literally touch it, which is outstanding. Yep. We sell giant iPhones now. It's our main source of income. It's only $5,000 a phone.

Is that how much that thing costs? I'm just kidding. I have no idea. Do we get to keep it or no? No, you don't get to keep it. Damn it. You don't get It's only $5,000 a phone. Is that how much that thing was? I'm just kidding. I have no idea. Do we get to keep it or no? No, you don't get to keep it. Damn it. You don't get to keep it? That thing is sick. It's huge. I would love to go on Bumble on that right now. Oh my god.

Just Instagram. You're like, I never wanted to see this person up close. Complete side note, as soon as I got here, I pulled it up. It's great. Bumble? Oh yeah, there's so many better-looking chicks here. Bumble is like Tinder, but same idea? Yeah, same. Which one gets you more relationship-y, and which one gets you just straight?

Bumble. I think Bumble's more relationship-y. Bumble is more relationship-y. Boring. Next. You know who promotes Bumble is Tank Sinatra. Really? Yeah. Yeah. He's got my vote. You know who promotes Bumble is Tank Sinatra. Really?

Yeah. Yeah. He's got my vote. And he's like the meme king of meme kings. The meme king. So there's tons of great companies. The great companies are all evidence-based in the sense that they're not just making shit up and lying to you. Which, because of Instagram right now, is fucking easy to do.

Easy as shit. There was a study that just came out. I think someone in the UK did it. And they're just like, hey, it turns out Instagram fitness celebrity people don't know what they're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Surprise. 99.9%. It's embarrassing. But it's a supply and demand issue.

People demand bullshit and they get it. People love bullshit. So what we do at RP is we're one of the many companies. We are one of the bigger ones. And we have a pretty cool track record. Our commitment to the scientific approach is pretty uniform, pretty unilateral. We give thousands, tens of thousands of dollars a year to people you could consider our competitors in the space so that they can do scientific research to further the field so that everyone learns how the body works better. We fund science all the time. We

hire almost exclusively scientists. We have a completely data-driven approach to our fitness. So now we do mostly digital products. Our coaches rely exclusively on scientific approaches. So we're grounded in stuff that works, period. But to be completely honest with you, like if you say, like, sell me on RP, we're just honest folks trying to do a good job of helping you get fit. We've got products that work. Maybe they're not ideal for everyone, but God damn it, we're doing our best.

Yeah. And if that's not good enough, we're always getting better. So, you know, like if there's like, there's a thing where like, well, here's the gimmick and, well, you want to fucking have a gimmick for it. People ask me like, hey, what's the app good for? I'm like, it tells you what to eat, when, it'll get you in shape. They're like, alright, so like, what does it

make it, how does it better than other apps? Like, well, the following three things. They're like, that's it? I'm like, that's all you got, man. It's a product that works. Yeah. Right? So it's like, that's all you got, man. It's a product that works. Yeah. Right? So it's like buying a really good quality car. Like, does it have a rocket? No, it doesn't fucking have a rocket in it,

but it's a nice, comfy car, and it gets you where you're going, and it's very, very affordable. Would you like the car or not? And that's kind of an R.P.'s straightforward. I don't understand why people want to make things hard. I don't get it. I think people think there's some secret

that they're missing. Yeah, and it's like, I mean, the secret is there is no freaking secret. It's like you've got to work your ass off, but you also have to have a good plan in place. I mean, that's what we sell, right? We'll give you a good plan, but you can have the best diet in the world, but if you don't use it, it's still dog shit. You've still got to put in the work. You've still got to do it.

That's a really good point. One thing I always tell people is, yeah, yeah, RP, like, we have the path. We know the path real well, like data science well. What are we going to do to help you walk it? We have the support. We literally have a coaching staff that will communicate with you in person. Now we have an AI-based robot app that talks to you and tells you you're doing great and helps you walk the path but fundamentally you got to bring the desire not to just crazy turn your life around just put in a bit of effort and see some good results and maybe if that motivates you you put in a bit more effort

and see even better results just walk the path just try it uh there's no magic because a lot of people are like probably the worst kind of message i can ever get was i would like to call this like a piece of like intractable advice is uh you know dr mike like i'm looking for inspiration i'm like bad news i got none of that for you do you want to get in shape like uh-huh here's the path like but i feel like motivation is like like we have all the answers if you want them not all but we have some good ones. You've got to bring the desire. Well, we can provide some motivation, too, but even that's fleeting. Very fleeting. Before and after.

We can help you, but you've got to help yourself. I think it's interesting if you tell someone, like, they need X amount of grams of protein or carbs and fat and stuff for the day. They're just kind of like, well, what should I eat? And I'm like, oh, yeah. Well, the good news is our app actually takes care of that. I mean, that's really cool. Yeah, for sure. But, like, I'm still always blown away, though. I'm like, dude. Whatever you want that meets that. I'm like. Some? Yeah. Well, the good news is our app actually takes care of that. I mean, that's really cool. Yeah, for sure. But I'm still always blown away, though.

I'm like, dude. Whatever you want that meets that. I'm like, what do you want? Some people don't know food. Some people don't know what a protein is. But you'll be like, well, you want 50 grams of protein a day. And they look at you, and they're like, so that would be like? Sushi.

I'm like, well, sushi is majority carbs. Carrots? And you're like, right. It's not carrots. The thing that trips me out, and people want us to pick their exact meals and food. That's more what I mean. That's a real interesting thing. That's not fundamentally going to work.

That will work for two weeks. It's not fun either. No, it's not fun. That's terrible. No one wants to do that. Maybe if you're a hardcore bodybuilder, that's fine. But what if I say at 3 p.m. you have to eat chicken breasts? What if you want turkey?

What if you want fish? Physiologically, it's the same thing. Right.m. you have to eat chicken breasts? Like, what if you want turkey? What if you want fish? Yeah. Physiologically, it's the same thing. Right. Like, why does it have to be chicken? People are like, well, no, I don't want to think. Like, just tell me what to eat. I'm like, that's fundamentally not going to work.

That's why I try telling people because I get those messages all the time. It's like, tell me what to eat. Like, no, we're not going to do that because it's not going to work. We've tried it before. You're going to burn out. Yeah, it fundamentally does not work. But here, take these, like, 20 foods. You pick what you actually enjoy because guess what? That's going to make you stick to it. Yeah, three ounces does not work. But here, take these, like, 20 foods. You pick what you actually enjoy because guess what?

That's going to make you stick to it. Yeah, three ounces is three ounces. Four ounces is going to be, I mean, it's going to be, like, you know, times seven grams of protein or whatever. You don't look at a guy who's jacked and ripped and you're like, that's chicken breast physique, bro. There's no way that guy's eating fish. Unfortunately, a lot of people say that. Yeah, I know because there's a lot of insane people that are wrong. I remember seeing a video of Jake Cutler walking through Costco on YouTube

when YouTube was starting to get big. He was eating huge bags of orange ruffian tilapia. That's how Jay Cutler gets lean. It's not like hours of training, meticulous macro counting. It's just the tilapia. You can eat pizza and just get tilapia on it and you're eating pizza and slowly your fat is shrinking away

and you're like, oh my god, I knew it. Orange ruffie. I gotta be honest, I probably remember watching those do think that way. Orange roughy. I mean, I've got to be honest. I probably remember watching those videos way back in, like, 2009. I probably went to Costco and bought the same stuff. Oh, for sure. I was there with you when you bought that stuff. There's a little bit more knowledge out there now.

Yeah, for sure. It's so much easier to feel yourself. You still have to go out and get that knowledge. As Nick mentioned, the Instagram study, there's a lot more knowledge. That's the beautiful thing about the Internet in the modern world. You have a ton of knowledge. But it's only smart people looking for it. Right?

It's like a self-selecting paradigm. Yeah. So it's not unfortunate. It's just the reality of life. If you want dumb Ponzi scheme bullshit, holy fuck, we're in the golden age of that shit. Golden age. But if you want science-based shit that fucking works, we're in the golden age of that shit too. Yeah.

So, one of the, there's actually, I've been asked this before by other people, as a non-expert in the field, how do you choose what the fuck is right? Because, like, imagine I gave you, like. I think the answer to that is just who looks the best on Instagram to you. I mean. Unfortunately, that's not the right answer. The more of their asshole I can see in their posts, that's who I go with. Yeah, so I mean imagine I put you into, let's say

you had to go and talk to 10 aerospace companies. Do you know anything about aerospace? I don't know shit about it. And you had to pick the one that has the most reasonable proposal for America's next air superiority fighter. And you'd be like, how the fuck am I supposed to do that, right?

It's an uphill battle. But there are a couple of tools you can use, especially in fitness, I mean, aerospace, I mean, most companies are pretty serious. But a couple of quick tips for navigating the space if you don't know what you're doing. First of all,

if they claim to have something revolutionary, it's almost certainly bullshit. Like our app, we say it's like, it's really sweet. They're like, is it revolutionary? We're like, sure. But we're not like, this is it.

I might use that word. Yeah, but you're not going to be like, you guys, this is it. We're changing the game. We've got a great effective product. And also there's reasons for that effective product. It's not like this is like this. Every time you get a religious undertone, you're like, eh, okay, this sounds more like a cult. I was going to say the only thing I absolutely agree, like in terms of revolutionary,

I mean it from the standpoint of like instead of having to pay $500 or $600 for a diet coach now, like a three-month diet will cost you $30. For sure. I'm sorry, yeah. Ten weeks will cost $30. Ten weeks will you $30. For sure. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 10 weeks will cost $30. 10 weeks will cost $30. And that's like, you know, that sounds almost too good to be true, but there's actually a product we sell that is a two-week free trial, so you lose nothing. Like, you can totally buy it and be like, oh, wow, they weren't kidding, legitimately.

Another one is how much do they value being science-based? If you never hear anything about science-based, not a great thing. Now, people can lie and say it's science-based. Yeah, that's tricky because people like to... Totally. But how bombastic they are about it is definitely another factor. Like, if you're really salesy, I think it's kind of one of those, like, maybe red flags. Here's another one.

Saying that everyone else has it wrong. What did we do earlier in this podcast? We were like, there's tons of great companies out there doing great work. Give everybody else credit. Totally. because there's a bunch of companies doing great work but if like no we have the only answer and that's where the revolutionary part comes in like everyone's wrong no everyone's not wrong we may even be the best at what we do but we're on the tip of a mountain with a pretty flat slope there's guys pretty close right yeah so if you look for stuff like that uh secrets, here's another one, simple tricks.

If you don't know anything, can you imagine, like, okay, so you're looking at different kinds of fighter designs. You're like, this one's stealth, this one's that. You're like, this one costs almost nothing. It's got a force field around it, and it, like, warps into other realities. You're like, really? It's 2019. It's not 2119. I was going to say if they use the word hacks.

Hacks. But that's like the perfect example of how can you wormhole your way to a way simpler like, and the hacks also implies everyone else is just really fucking wrong and we figured out this way to save you infinite effort. Like, what do we say about the app? It's super fucking cheap. It's super fucking effective.

But you're going to have to fucking put in the work. It's going to fucking, you're going to eat food and you're going to want more food and the app's going to say you probably shouldn't eat that because you're just have to fucking put in the work it's gonna fucking you're gonna eat food and you're gonna want more food and the app's gonna say you probably shouldn't eat that because you're just not gonna get results but if people are like you can do whatever you want and it doesn't matter they can imagine someone's selling you a fighter plane and you're like where does the pilot sit yeah exactly like you're like it's stoked the fight the fighter plane they're like so we need a trained fighter pilot like nope child could fly this and still win missions you're like like i'm sorry so it's one of those things where when they when it's presented as effortless So we need a trained fighter pilot. Like, nope, child can fly this and still win missions. You're like, get the fuck out of my face.

I'm sorry. So it's one of those things where when it's presented as effortless, easy, it's a hack, like it's some kind of trick. No mention of science-based, although that can be fudged. And like it's a bombastic, unbelievable product. If you check all those boxes, that's probably not your gem, right? So if you just focus on the stuff that doesn't check those boxes but promotes effective products in a sort of common, logical way and presents the results and be like, hey, look, here's our science background. Here's our track record.

We're doing good work. We can help you out. Here's an effective product that you might like. Give it a shot. Then you're like, you're not trying to sell me on anything. Like, that's not what we do here. We actually have an effective product. We don't need to sell you on anything.

Just give it a shot. Or don't, right? And you'll see We don't need to sell you on anything. Just give it a shot. Or don't. And you'll see it on Instagram for a while, and other people will be giving it a shot. They'll be getting in shape, and you're like, all right, fine. So it's one of those things where it's just tough. It's tough to navigate. I think that applies to almost every industry. If someone's like, shazam, pow, you're like, eh.

I mean, I could definitely see just coming into the fitness space having no clue. It would be very, very hard. Imagine how your parents, imagine how my parents look at fitness. What the hell do they do? I actually had a whole podcast with my mom. Holy shit, that's awesome. It was actually one of the greatest ones. That's amazing.

Like, to me, like, sentimentally, it was amazing. And I just, like, I went over, I was like, Mom, and I didn't even tell her what we were going to do. Mom, don't say the following things, okay? She cursed so much. She cursed so much more than we just did. But I was like, Mom, like, what is the first thing that you remember as far as, like, nutrition goes? Oh, man, this is fascinating. And she thought of, she was like, you know, like, people talked about the cigarette diet at the time.

Oh, boy. And, like, what? You eat the cigarettes? Well, it, what did it do? It curbs your cravings. It curbs your appetite. That's not wrong. That's the thing, right?

Just slowly kills you while it does that. And then she talked about there was Slim Fast. Yep. And then there was some pills that they were selling to people. Like Dexedrine? Yeah, Dexedrine. Yeah, something like that. That's Adderall.

Oh, maybe it's not that then. Dexatrim? Maybe. I don't know. There was some sort of pill that's no longer around anymore. It was before Ephedrine even. It was a super long time ago. It's the chemical equivalent of Adderall.

Yeah, maybe that was it. It's math. And she was talking about, like, it was on TV. Yeah, yeah, sure. People were taking this pill, and then, you know, it was interesting. Stupid FDA took away math. And then my mom brought up on the show, which was hilarious, too, because she was like, you know, I brought all you kids to the dentist,

and your teeth were rotting out, and the dentist was like, you know, what are you feeding your kids? And she's like, well, I feed them, you know i brought all you kids to the dentist and your teeth were rotting out and the dentist was like you know what are you feeding your kids and she's like well i feed them you know all sorts of fruit and stuff like where are you getting the fruit from she's like oh i buy fruit snacks from the store and that's not actually the doctor's like no that's like sugar they say fruit and it was cool because my mom admitted it she's like i didn't know you know i had no idea and like at the time like there wasn't even the computer wasn't even around i hate to say that i was fucking alive at that time. But there was no computer. I remember dial-up internet for a while.

You know what I mean? I'm like a 16-year-old kid. All I wanted to do was watch porn. It's like a 30-minute dial-up connection. Pictures, bro. Pictures. Oh, yeah. I did that.

The pictures slowly load, and they get to the nipple. And you're like, oh, my God. I mean, the news anchor would come on. And I'd be like, this is it. This is my time. No, seriously. I was just going to say, like, the 90s, man. That was like, wasn't that like there was like a low-fat craze?

And then like, yeah, right. Like everything was fat-free in New York. And then the 2000s was Atkins. Yep. Literally in reverse of itself. Yep, we talked about the Atkins diet. Yeah. And then it's like, we're almost, what?

So where are we now? Because that keto is really popular, right? So I guess we're still in that 2000. You know, we're in a really interesting place where we're in like a bunch of them kind of mixed together. Now it's like vegan, keto, paleo. I think we're actually in, I would like to coin this right here and right now. We're in the poison elimination diet scheme where you pick a food or a series of foods, or really if you want extra

credit as many as possible or food groups they're what's killing you and what's making you fat so the more you can eliminate the more brownie points you get with yourself and it's also like a masochistic like survival element so if you like simultaneously vegan keto paleo and all that stuff and you can eat like an ice cube every hour then well not every hour because you're in intermittent dry fasting oh Oh, yeah. An ice cube every day. Fasting is big. Fasting is big, right?

Fasting is really big. But fasting is of that elimination ethos, right? It's of that like food, no food, gets my fucking body restarted or whatever, fucking autophagy or whatever bullshit you want to make up. And that's the thing. So I think now it's like. But it's simple, right? Yeah, sure. Don't eat and you will lose weight.

Yeah, well, you know, that's not wrong. You'll also fucking fuck your hormones. It's just wildly unsustainable. Totally. And females are the ones that first want to do it and are the ones that should not be doing it. Yeah. So it just kind of – there's a lot of limitations on a lot of things. Yeah.

I was just going to say when we're talking if you're new to fitness and like how do you kind of start to detect what's bullshit and what's not. Everyone goes for this, right? The first thing to do is you have to eliminate X, Y, Z. Honestly, like, anytime I hear a diet and the first thing they're talking about is, like, the things you can eat, I immediately go, like, really? That's what you're going to focus on? Like, what can you actually eat, though, right? Because, like, you know, whatever, flexible dieting, if it fits your macros, you know, macro counting in general, it's usually like, well, here's what you can eat.

So usually everyone kind of, you know, can't eat this, can't eat this, can't eat this, can't eat during this time. It's just like. Yeah, the flexible dieting thing is big, too. But basically what's happening is everyone's in a caloric deficit. Of course. Yeah, you're in a caloric. I mean, you ate a donut, but now you ate nothing else the rest of the day. Totally.

So, yeah, you can eat a fucking donut. So, like, the best kind of dieting, the scientific-based dieting, is informed, structured, adjustable, flexible dieting, where you know it's flexible, and that's okay. It gives you some freedom. But fundamentally, you stick to mostly whole grains, fruits, veggies, lean meats, the good kind of stuff that keeps you satiated. You time it relatively well throughout the day, so you're eating multiple healthy meals throughout the day. A cookie here and there, a donut here and there, you adjust a little bit, and you're good to go.

It's not like IFYM to the extreme where you're like, I'm having protein shakes all day so I can have one pizza at the end of the day. That's insane. And then also the people who are like, well, I eat clean, so I don't have to count anything. Like, okay, if you're not losing weight for 10 months, there's not a mystery there. You probably have to count shit.

So I think that if it fits your macros, it's great, but it needs to be bounded in with just really generally healthy, effective nutritional practices. You don't have to do them all the time, just most of the time. People have a real hard time with that. Another thing is like to that end of like the ethos of elimination, the absolutism is crazy sometimes where people are like, okay, you must have an eight-hour fasting window. What if it's seven hours? They're like, fucking sell. Nope. And you're like, okay.

You're going to look older. Totally, yeah. Instead of younger. Totally. People ask, like, you know, how many meals a day do I need to eat? I'm like, you know, if you can eat four, that's pretty sweet. And they're like, okay, so five is okay. I'm like, yeah, five's cool.

And they're like, before is not as good. I'm like, buy a tiny bit, maybe. And they're like, okay. They just say, clearly, after a while, you want a yes or no answer, but it's a spectrum. It's like, if I want a skyscraper, how big is big? Well, 100 stories is pretty cool. And they're like, what about 110? You're like, that's even bigger.

And they're like, which one's better? You're like, I guess 110 if you want height. And they're like, but 100's okay? I'm like, look, they're all okay. Even a one-story house is fine if that's what you want. So the idea of a spectrum of nuance is sometimes lost on dieting. I just have, like, two questions. I love where this show is going, though.

This is fucking one of my favorites of all time. Stop it. You're flattering us. No, I really like this because I love kind of geeking out but also having a good time at the same time. People are really going to dig this. That's why I said, you know, so Ryan comes up comes up with me he's hey you want to be on the podcast i'm like yeah sure oh that was my first get out of my face how much are you gonna pay i'm nick

shaw and i was and he was like he's like hey who's that other guy that like you know like short like stocky guy i'm like oh mike he's like i was like yeah like oh he should be on the podcast because like he's really entertaining and stuff so i'm like no one wants to listen to me talk i'm boring no boy i'm just i'm so nonsense i didn't say short and stocky because i've i've been short He should be on the podcast because he's really entertaining and stuff. So I'm like, no one wants to listen to me talk. I'm boring. No, boy. I'm just boring. I didn't say short and stocky because I've been short and stocky my whole life. But I did say the bald guy. I'm fucked up. I've got a rich head of hair somewhere.

Who loves money. Obsessed with money. My whole life is in money. What do you think of food allergy tests? Yeah. So we have an expert on the matter at RP. Her name is Dr. Gabrielle Fandaro. I would follow her.

Vitamin PhD on Instagram. She's worth a follow. And she has a PhD in gut health and nutrition. Okay. And she's working on her RD, and she's super, super smart. And she says that almost every single allergy test administered is total bullshit. That's what I think as well. And food allergy tests can be administered by your doctor, but they're very meticulous,

and they take a really long time, and they don't test a whole lot at once. And you have to do a lot of, like, test, hypothesis, eliminate food, see how it goes. Usually a lot of food allergies are pretty, like, clear. Like, you're allergic to milk. You will have not a fun time drinking milk. It's not like you drink milk and you're like, I don't know, I kind of feel... People are like, oh yeah, you have a milk allergy. You don't fucking have a milk allergy.

You'd be instantly shitting yourself. Totally. Which could be fun in some contexts. I've been to some interesting parties. I'm just kidding. I've never been to a party. Two girls, one cup. Yeah, yeah. It was a lot more than two girls. It was popular. Isn't it really?

Don't quote me on that. I thought it was Aladdin. So VHS of two girls, one cup. So you just load it in and the kids are entertained for hours. I'm just going to put it all on my head. Oh, that was all time. Right. So basically the allergy test a lot of times is just, it's like a cannon of bullshit fodder.

You load it, you shoot it, and people are like, yay. And it gives people that illusion of the one thing wrong with the discovery. Like, aha, it was oatmeal cookies the whole time. Like, no, it was fucking treats and pizza and snacks. It was the sugar in the oatmeal cookies. Yeah, but people want that one thing. They want that one thing to pinpoint. Yeah, without a doubt.

So allergy tests do work in the context of being appropriately applied in a very meticulous fashion by a registered dietitian or medical doctor. If your naturopath has given you a 150-span allergy test and you're like, well, you're allergic to blueberries? I literally just had one. I could show it to you. There you go. You're like a fucking wreck probably. You're allergic to everything. It was like all dairy, avocados.

What? Avocados? You mean the Mother Earth, Gaia herself, coming from her bosom or whatever. What's funny is I eat a shit ton of beef, and it was the lowest thing. Because usually they say what comes up is the things you eat the most. Sure. And that was the lowest. So I was like, oh, maybe it's relatively valid. But whey protein was off the charts.

Eggs were off the charts. But you can eat them just fine and nothing happens. I eat eggs and I'm fine. I mean, yeah, I fart and it smells horrible. Clearly you're allergic. I think everyone does that. Everybody dies within a 30-minute radius. Right.

If you don't fart when you eat eggs, you're not human, and I don't trust you. I don't want you in my circus. No. The RP motto right there, Dr. Mike Izzardel. Yeah, you bet. You must fart a lot. I was going to say, you know, my wife, Lori, went through a bunch of that stuff. You know, she had some tests, and it was like, you know, came back like, you know, 30 different things or something crazy.

She ended up working with Gabrielle. Yeah, well, Gabrielle was like, go low FODMAP. And, like, that legitimately works. I mean, low FODMAP, I mean, it's a pain. It's a pain. It's a meticulous process. I literally feel bad for my wife because, like, she just has so many things that, like, she can't eat. And then, yeah, she had to do that for a while.

And then slowly reintroduce. Slowly reintroduce, yep. Yep, like one or two things at a time to really test it out. Now, let me tell you something before we continue. At RP, you can get an RP-branded allergy test, 15 easy payments of $599.99 will get you sorted. I mean, we're going to learn shit about you you didn't even know. The allergy test

works for figuring out what food allergies you have. Bonus points, it actually tells you about your past lives. So, sign up for RP and we'll tell you about, like, you used to be like a pirate, or like you were a crab. 15 payments of $600.

What is that? Was it $9,000? It's expensive. Listen, do you want to know about your past lives or not? Oh, $9,000. Nine lives. Was that? Boom.

Cat. You may be a cat before. This is interesting stuff right here. This is revolutionary. This is revolutionary. Oh, boy. Revolutionary. Listen, I didn't want to be the one to use it, but since you did, we'll take the credit. You lobbed it up to him.

Yes, we've got an app that predicts all of your past lives for you. It's live, folks. Find it. All right. Well, where can everybody find you guys? I don't want to be found. Where's all the connections? Well, please, please, please don't find Dr. Mike online.

That's my only family. If you go to Bumble and you see a bald man with a... I'm happily married. I'm just kidding. My wife and I, catfish people on Bumble, I'll have you know. Have you? I'm just kidding. Oh, that sounds awesome.

I might be kidding. I don't actually know if he's kidding or not. We use my wife's profile and I show up for the date. I'm like, hello. Oh, my God. You're not a tiny Filipino woman. Close. Listen, I've known this guy for like 11 11 years i don't actually know if he's kidding

right now or not like i'm looking at him straight in the eye i literally have no idea but yeah no to to answer your question um yeah man uh at rp strength i think that's how most people know about us uh through instagram um are we on Twitter? We have a Twitter account. We tweet. I don't understand it. I don't get Twitter. I don't get it. It's just a bunch of people saying at, at, at, at, at.

And then they say one word and that's a post. I've never even looked at it. When I first opened my gym, my business partner was like, oh, we've got to have a Twitter. And I was like, who the fuck uses Twitter?

I think you'd say news stuff. I don't even know. Donald Trump. There's too much. Once Snapchat, or actually once Instagram picked up video, I was like, delete Snapchat. Like, I got that. I'd like everything to just explode and Instagram is the only thing left. I use MySpace.

Do you? I'm just kidding. Truth be told, my business partner actually made MySpace. Oh, yeah? That's where I got the money for my gym. Holy shit. That must be like a trillion dollars. He's a bad dude.

I think he got $55 million when he sold at the time. Who did he sell it to? Well, he's not Tom. He's the guy who made the operating system. But his portion was, I think, $55 million. Because that was my next question. I was like, is he that one guy that's on all the pages? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's Tom. It wasn't him, but it's the guy who actually was the nerd who made all of it. Oh, that's awesome. That's so sweet. Yeah, he works out still at 7 a.m. every day. He must be not a very intelligent person to have designed that single-handedly. He's a badass. Dude, he still is such a badass.

He doesn't even have to work anymore, and he still works so hard. Dude, that's how successful people are, man. I love him. He's such a great guy to have around. All right, so we got you on Instagram, rpstrength. Is there rpstrength.com? Yeah, rpstrength.com. Yep, rength.com? Yeah, rpstrength.com. Yep, renaissanceperiodization.com, same site.

They'll take you to there. Honestly, man, we're really excited about the RP Diet app. It's free to try out for two weeks. We're super, super creative with the name for it, just RP Diet. Yep, and you guys are really responsive. I know that because I actually messaged them, and he responded back to me really fast. Our guys with us that you talked to are head customer service guy. So that's better at it than we are by a factor of 10.

That's literally why we're at Rogue right now because this place has like the most balling customer service. That's why I stick with them. I actually purposely pay more on my shit just because I know that Rogue is good. Good customer service is fucking priceless. It really is. And we have the app is available on the

Apple Store and Google Play Store. And if have the apps available on the Apple Store and the Google Play Store. All right, guys. And if you want to come to my house, the app's available in my bedroom. It's technically a dungeon, the builders say. Is there a giant iPhone in there where people can try it out? Oh, there's whatever you want. Just come over. We'll start.

People love the giant iPhone, man. It's huge. That thing is unreal. I've been mesmerized the whole time. It's revolutionary. Yeah, you've been staring at it the whole time. That's why you haven't been paying attention, I guess. It's the one weird trick that's going to That thing is unreal. I've been mesmerized the whole time. It's revolutionary. Yeah, you've been staring at it the whole time. That's why you haven't been paying attention, I guess. It's the one weird trick that's going to get you in shape.

Just picking it up is going to be like fucking exercise. At least. All right. Well, thank you very much, guys. I loved it. I hope you guys loved it. And you guys can find RP Strength anywhere on those channels that they suggested. All right.

See you guys next week. All right, guys. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode with the RP Strength crew. I hope you guys loved it. A lot of knowledge bombs in there. A lot of great jokes in there. And it was just an all time great episode. And I absolutely loved my time out in Ohio at the Rogue Invitational. If you guys ever want to see what I got going on, go over to jimryan.com, G-Y-M-R-Y-A-N.com, and you guys can pick up all my interval bodybuilding books. I got travel and home gym workouts with just dumbbells, just kettlebells, all that stuff.

My newest book just dropped, the HIB 100, the High Intensity Interval Bodybuilding 100 series, where I combine old school German volume training with a little bit of interval weight training with a little bit of my own little bodybuilding spice on top of it. It's probably my best selling book to date and it's doing really, really well. Also, the carb cycling challenges I throw about every seven weeks and you guys have seen it all over my Instagram and on my website as well. The before and after photos are pretty insane. And there's a formula in there for you guys to figure out exactly what you need to do with all of your macros at any given point in time. And it will help you guys get to where you want to be. And just like RP Strength, we all have our own ways of doing it.

This is my way of doing it. It works really, really well. And the winners get to come out to California and hang out with me and do all the fun things. Or you guys get to pick a whole bunch of cash to win as well. So you can go ahead and check that out at jimryan.com as well and just click carb cycling challenge. I will see you guys next week. Thank you for all the love and all the support. Yeah, I just love you guys. All right. See you later.