Barbell Shrugged - Eating For Performance & Longevity W/ Mike Dolce

Episode Date: June 14, 2017

“If you are ONLY counting macros, are you really healthy?” That may seem a loaded question, but this week on the show, we have just the guy to answer it. On today’s show, we chat with Mike Dolce and bust some commonly misguided beliefs around nutrition.  Mike works with some of the top athletes in MMA world and has been a nutrition coach since before it was popular to post your food on Instagram. He has seen the evolution of the health and fitness industry and cuts through the BS that you may have seen on the internet. In this episode, we discuss the importance of food quality, the relationship between longevity and performance, and why you should avoid eating pop tarts and ice cream (even if it “fits your macros”) If you want to step up your nutrition game and pursue your best self, this episode is going to help you dial in the necessary components around nutrition. Enjoy the show, Mike  

Cellular health. We're cellular organisms, right? Nobody can argue or dispute that. So if our cellular organism is not functioning optimally, if it's not optimally nourished, how can we think just by playing with the macronutrient percentage will somehow surpass that necessity and make us into what we need to be? Now, can you get lean and can you hold muscle? Absolutely. Can you get down to a certain weight class? Absolutely. Are you healthy? No. Are you optimized? No. Are you performing to the best of your ability with that style? Abso-fucking-lutely not. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged.

I'm Mike Bletzer here with Doug Larson and AJ Roberts. I don't know why I got some weird pauses in me today. You sure do. We're going to roll with it. I'm not used to announcing AJ. So what? So you're not used to announcing AJ on Barbell Shrugged. He's our special guest. He's our guest co-host.

Yeah, we're in Vegas. And I don't know, we've had AJ on a few times. AJ used to be the host of Barbell Business, so he's here helping out, throwing down with us this week. Yeah, excited. Yeah. Today we're interviewing Mike Dolce, and we're here at Dolce Fitness, and you're the founder of this whole thing.

You've coached, you have a book, you've coached a lot of UFC fighters and just athletes in general on nutrition. And I think you're pretty famous for that. But can you list off some of the athletes you've worked with? Yeah. So we've been doing this, working with mixed martial arts athletes known as UFC athletes, UFC Bellator top promotions. But we've been doing this since before mixed martial arts even existed when it was no holds barred. So before the unified rules came in to see what you see now when it was still banned

in pay-per-view, we were working with these athletes quietly for no money. Like who wants to work with these, you know, sweaty, dirty ringworm, bloody guys with no cash who were doing this really terrible, horrible, you know, difficult sport. And we jumped all in back then. It doesn't make any sense. It makes those stupid. It's insane. It's stupid.

I'm going to, you know, cut 20, 30 pounds. I'm going to go fight that Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt who just killed the last guy for no money, you know, in a jungle somewhere. Like, fuck yeah, let's sign up and do it. It might get kicked in the head in the process. I can see the attraction. But we've worked with, to your question, some of the best athletes on the planet, from Ronda Rousey and Tiago Alves, Vitor Belfort, Quentin Rampage Jackson,

Carlos Condit, Ed Herman on the Ultimate Fighter 3 finale. Some people don't even know Ed was on the finale. You know, I was there, you know, cornering Ed, Chris Lieben from back in those days. I was the head strength coach at Team Quest North. That was when Randy Couture, Dan Henderson, Evan Tanner, Matt Linlin were dominating the world and they brought me in.

Doug, you know me from those days. Yeah, that's actually how we met. You were the strength coach when I started doing MMA back in like 2006 at Team Quest. Team Quest. So in 2006, I already had the credentials in the industry to get a job at probably the number one team in the world arguably next to militich pat militich fighting systems most people most mma fans don't even know who that is they were one of the most

dominant teams on the planet jens pulver matt hughes tim sylvia all had world titles and a ton of other b-set that came out of there so I was kind of operating up in that range back then. So that's, you know, a decade plus at the elite level of mixed martial arts, which is a weight class oriented sport. But then I had a background of competing as a powerlifter, a super heavyweight powerlifter. Stupid. Talk about MMA, right?

Stupid. I'm going to weigh 280 at 5'10". That's a great idea, you know. Perfect for powerlifting. You probably should have been 308. Just going to weigh 280 at 5'10". That's a great idea. Perfect for powerlifting. You probably should have been 308. Just going to throw it out there. Oh, God. Couldn't take it.

But also I wrestled. I was a decent level wrestler, amateur wrestler in high school and at that level, the state level. So I had a, you know, since I was 13, 12, 13, cutting weight, learning about cutting weight, and then working at it for the last 20 years, pretty hardcore. Yeah, cutting weight's an interesting thing. Most people don't do it well at all. Like, even people who have been fighting and wrestling for a long time, so the cutting weight part is, I guess, easier.

People understand that much better than putting it back on. Yeah. Yeah. So the cutting weight hasn't evolved you can all picture someone cutting weight right we all know that one guy with the dark circles and probably the hoodie on and the plastic suit maybe spitting at a cup and like jumping rope and just killing himself on drinking distilled water and like protein powder or something it's destroying his body and our approach is we take a longevity-based approach to weight management.

We're not trying to cut weight. We're trying to manage our weight to a level that we can compete optimally. Because what's the point of training your whole life for an event? Because when you're at the professional, the Olympic level, it literally is your whole life culminates on one individual day, one competition day. So if you're not optimizing performance through nutrition and the weight management process, rehydration process is also part of that. What's the fucking point? Yeah. I'm allowed to curse?

Oh, yeah. Say whatever you want. Okay. So good. So what's the fucking point? You know, really, what's the point of all this fucking hard work and then you're going to put plastic suits on and stop eating and drinking for a week before you fight the fucking Russian national champion? Right. What world does this make sense?

And the athletes still don't get it. Most of them, unfortunately, don't get it. So that's why I think we've been so busy for the last 20 or so years, 10, 10, 20 years at that level. But there's such a small fraction of the population that we can work with. And most don't take advantage or even, you know, pursue other methods. You said about rehydration. I think that's what most people don't understand too with the recent changes

in terms of your ability to rehydrate. There is ways to cut a lot of weight safely, but when they start removing the safe ways, people go to the extremes. And like you said, when you're going into one of the biggest fights in your life, the last thing you want to do is not know how you're going to feel that day. You may come back. You may feel great, but you may have the opposite based on not being out of you know and how much water have you sucked out of the body where have you sucked it out of the body how does it affect

the mind how does it affect the cells like all of that stuff there's such a an unknown and i think that that's you know especially now it becomes a bigger thing so the long-term approach you know you've been doing it, like you said, for forever, but especially with the way the sport's changing and the things they're bringing in, now more than ever, you keep cutting 35, 40 pounds. Is it possible yet? Is it smart right now?

Absolutely not. If you can't, you know, IV bag up straight away and start to put that back into the body, you've got no chance of being peak performance the next day. And that's a big risk. And with the money that they're fighting for and stuff like that, it doesn't make sense. And outside of that, people in colleges and stuff like that,

they see this and they don't know what used to go on to get people rehydrated. They're trying to mimic this. And we just set the whole system up for these unhealthy behaviors that eventually cause massive risk to to injury and stuff and i think that that's something that sounds like you guys have been aware of since the beginning and really focused on okay how do we make someone optimal versus just you know coming in at a class that they they may win because they're bigger on the day of the fight yeah yeah we just we try and mediate the downside to what's an already unhealthy process.

Cutting weight and then competing, especially competing in combat sports, it's not ideal. It's not the healthiest way to go about living your life. So we try and get in there and find the healthiest possible way to do that successfully. Assist the athlete in achieving their goals while not taking unnecessary risks. Hopefully helping them develop lifestyle habits that they can continue on during the training camp. But after the camp and long into the future, we establish these basic principles, nutrition principles, lifestyle principles. So then it's not cutting weight anymore. And we say the weight cut starts 52 weeks before competition.

If you're living that lifestyle, especially at the professional level, any human should, but at the professional level, the Olympic level, there isn't, you're never not an athlete. You're never not a professional athlete. So there's no Sunday fun days and cheat days. And that's, that's a whole nother cultural concept. That's wrong for those athletes that have that one day of ultimate competition. So they should be living that lifestyle or lifestyle congruent to that goal. Because if it's either that goal completely or if it's not that goal at all, it's that goal plus why, plus variable. We don't know what the variable is, and we try and eliminate that as much as possible. So for athletes that aren't cutting weight and they're not in a weight class sport, like you were saying that you've worked with Lindsay Valenzuela as an example. She's not in a weight class sport.'s a crossfitter and so it doesn't really matter what she weighs necessarily she doesn't have a weigh-in so to speak

yeah i mean it does matter but she doesn't have a weigh-in yeah it matters but it doesn't matter so like with someone like her like would a would a cheat day be more acceptable is that is that more of something that is is okay in your mind or how do you how do you feel about something doesn't have a weigh-in now can, are you allowed to cheat on your wife? I mean, I don't tell her, but sometimes. Okay. No, of course not. Of course not.

Of course not. And that's typically my first response is, well, can you cheat on your wife? Can you cheat on your spouse? Can you cheat on your buddy, you know, in playing poker if you're not married? Whatever. Well, no, of course not. So why would we cheat on our health and cheat on our fitness? Now, we have what we call earned meals. So we put a positive connotation on some sort of reward for specified work. Not, well, it's Sunday, fun day, cheat day, fire the barbecue up, pizza, fucking beers. our office for dietary advice and consultations and meal plans, all that shit. You can imagine how many times I've heard these stories,

these reasons why people don't do what they should be doing. They're selling themselves fucking wolf tickets, and I'm not buying, and I'm going to tell them flat out that's fucking bullshit. You're full of shit. You don't work that hard. You don't eat that well. You don't deserve a full fucking day as a cheat day. Are you crazy?

No, not at all you're here because you're not in the shape that you want to be but you're telling me because your mom's making fucking her famous green chili recipe that you're gonna drink some cerveza you know what i mean sounds awesome on a sunny day sure but listen motherfucker you walked in here with goals so it is or it isn't you know so we draw a pretty hard line now if we want to say three weeks ago four weeks ago my mom's doing this thing on that day, and I want to fucking chow down with no regrets. Awesome. Well, let's build a plan.

Let's have some goals and criteria that we can achieve on the way to that. And then when we do that, we try and minimize the downside. Maybe we get a really hard workout in right beforehand. Maybe we've already eaten optimally throughout the day. So when we do go, we're not eating double and triple portions. We're getting a taste and feeling completely satisfied. So we start to develop those type of lifestyle choices or lifestyle protocols to help kind of fill that in. So no, we don't cheat and it's earned. And we say, if you're doing it every week, you're setting yourself back in our opinion, at least three days. So you cheat

on Sunday. We have all Monday, all Tuesday, all Wednesday to clean that shit out of your body. Then maybe you have Thursday and Friday of actually making some progress. And then Saturday, Sunday, you fuck it up again. Look around the gym. They've been cheating for fucking 25, 30 years. And that's what it is, you know? So you're just kind of circling the bowl, as I say,

and I try and use kind of harsh visual terms. But that's what it is. So you either step it up or you don't you know did you earn it people like oh well how do I know like you fucking know you know you don't google it you fucking know if you're full of shit yeah or not and most people are full of shit yeah one of the things I found one of the things I found is when I was younger and didn't know as much my cheat meals were all out. Like I would just go fucking nuts. And then I was like proud of it.

And then as I've gotten older, the things that I – I don't even like those foods anymore. It's like why was I doing that? And a cheat meal now – I don't classify as a cheat meal, but if I'm eating something that's off of like the perfect diet or whatever, it's like someone asked me the other day, it's like, what do you do for, like, you know, if you're going off the rails, I'm like, oh, maybe some yogurt and some granola. And they're like, that's what I do for a healthy meal. I'm like, that's about it.

Maybe I eat pizza once a month. I don't know. But people forget, too, with food. They think cheat, and it's a reward, and it's based on an emotional connection with whatever they view as cheat. And they don't – and it's lack of knowledge. They don't understand what that does. You said it takes three days to clear out. They don't understand that their body is now inflamed.

Their stomach is upset. There are so many negatives to it. And that's the hardest thing. Most people don't really know what's going on on the inside. So it tastes good. But the emotional response too of, oh, this is good. And then immediately following that, like, I shouldn't have eaten this. Even though they think it's a reward or they're cheating and they're like, it's okay because of my diet.

Same thing happens if you sleep with somebody you weren't supposed to. Like, right afterwards, you're like, oh, shit. The guilt, the shame. Get me out of here. So that plays into all of that. So it goes so deep um and it's one of those things that uh you know having been a guy that just ate you know eat it see it died and walk around 320 and it was okay to do everything and then you change that um you know

i'm not perfect by any means but you start to you start to really dig into your relationship with food and what it means and why do you do what you do and it's like you know at the end of the day it's like why would i even put this in my body like you know why would what does this what purpose does this serve and you know oh it makes me feel good for a split second and and and then it makes me feel like shit for the next 24 48 hours like i know you don't do that with other things you know so um it's uh it's an interesting relationship you have to face and i think that the majority of the population and and you obviously work with thousands of people, but their relationship with food is just – there's really not a relationship. They have – it's just something they put in their mouth and they have no understanding of what it's really doing.

It's probably the big reason about obesity is the big issue. It's just people have no clue what the fuck they should do. And we got into that last night a little bit so i'm sure we'll get deeper yeah um i think a couple points is that i believe most people know what they should do by knowing intuitively what they shouldn't just stop doing what you fucking know you should not be doing stop eating the chips starting eating the cake at 10 o'clock at night stop eating the extra portions of lasagna or whatever it might be. The donut tray comes around at work.

And, you know, we all know the lady that's like, oh, I'm just having a little bit and cuts a quarter off. But you see her at the fucking tray four times. You know what I mean? And this shit happens. This is the human condition. Well, it's, you know, when I've coached people through nutrition, I ask them to keep a diet log. And then they don't even have to turn it in. They just go, oh, fuck, I didn't realize I was eating a Snickers every day at 3.

Yeah. Like, how did you not realize that? But people are on automatic pilot, right? Yeah. It's kind of like doing the thing. And then that journal raises that awareness. Yeah. And they're forced to accept the reality and not sell the wolf ticket, essentially.

Yeah. And we ask people to be mindful. Be mindful at first of what you eat and then how does it taste and how do you feel 15 minutes later 45 minutes later like what's your mood what's your energy like let's start being aware even healthy quote healthy foods if you're mindful of the healthier foods maybe you realize well that doesn't really go well with me you know i'm not a coconut oil guy it sits in my stomach and just feels a little off i am actually but you know that that being the point so we're just a little more mindful and what actually. But, you know, that being the point.

So we're just a little more mindful. What we want to do is help people to become their own coaches. You know what not to do, so stop doing that. And then we run through our Dolce Diet principles, which is we eat real food. Principle number one, if you only do that, you're 80% of the way there. I don't care about fucking counting calories and macros and intermittent fasting and meal timing and all that shit if you're only eating real food you're 80 of the way there and you look better than two-thirds of the population 80 of the population definitely right yeah number two is we eat every two to four hours based upon activity

recovering or pre-fueling for what comes next in these short little bouts these short little bursts number three is we eat till satisfied, not until full. So then we're more mindful of the food that we're consuming. We're either recovering again from what we just did. We're fueling for what we're about to do over that next two to four hour expenditure of energy. And then the last one is just fucking keep doing that. Now, if you really break it down, we don't get deep into the macros right out of the gate

because if you're not doing that, you shouldn't be counting macros anyway. Makes no fucking sense. You're not healthy. Your body's not optimized. You're nutrient deficient, no doubt, completely at a micro level, completely micronutrient deficient. So if you're not fulfilling your body with those earth-grown nutrients with regularity based upon activity, not overwhelming your digestive system so we're getting full and complete absorption, maximum micronrient intake at lower total caloric load bless you thank you that's what we're trying to do to get to that 80 once we get to there then we can start playing with all the other fun little tweaks to you know get the single digit body fat or do you know whatever

performance goals we might have yeah why do you think people want to focus on the tweaks first or you know like they want they want to get into ketosis before they've managed like getting all their their micronutrients and stuff like that because they see that fucking asshole on instagram who's on winstroll and fucking clan and growth and thyroid med who's shredded with a fucking sack of oreo cookie melted ice cream and like fucking macros baby because they see that fucking dickhead with a couple million followers. You know. And there's like 50 of these dickheads. We struck a nerve.

Yeah, but Jesus fucking Christ. Just put your fucking pharmaceuticals on there and then I'm eating Oreos and I'll respect you at least. But don't pran the fucking unassuming population who doesn't know any better. So when we're saying, no, no, no. Drink more water, eat spinach, eat wild, eat clean foods, make homemade foods. I shut the fuck up, idiot. Like I'm eating Pop-Tarts because Johnny fucking juice.

It works for him. I mean, that's how the whole if it fits your macro started like that. And it's crazy because, you know, you see all these guys eating donuts going into shows. And I know for a fact, because my wife was working with a competitor who like she was a drug-free competitor you know she so so man she had to do a lot she had to eat super fucking clean yeah work out super hard do lots of cardio like real

fucking work and she started dating an ifbb pro and she's like i don't understand he's eating cheesecake like the week of the show and i'm like you don't understand he's popping fucking pills like that literally mean he can't eat whatever one he just he eats that and then he takes extra clan at night extra t3 and she's like what the fuck and then she's like well i want to do that and it's like we're not work like we can't work with you don't want to do that yeah she did one show 12 weeks after she left us and she looked okay and then she's never competed again it's been years but it was this conception that she can eat whatever she wants as soon as she got on that train she's never been able to get in shape again and you it's not just her i'm just using this as an example but this is what happens they go oh i can just take the drugs and it's like no look you it's

still hard work but on top of that they think they can eat whatever they want and they don't understand that it does doesn't have any benefit to them sure you can eat what you want but it becomes an addiction when you know hey i can fucking pop a donut or three or four or a dozen and i'll just take you know i'll just up my cleanse for the day it becomes an addiction and that is not a healthy habit and you can't do that forever your hormones crash and then you're fucked you know and then now you're just uphill bad doesn't matter what you do you can eat clean and you're still getting weight if your hormones are fucked so these are risky things and uh these diets that come out it's crazy how they take off and how you see it you know you see these things if it fits your macros and it is it's

shredded people who are doing photo shoots that you know they're taking on all sorts of stimulants and and they're you know eating the donuts and usually they're not doing as much as they show they're doing it too you know like they're not doing it as much as they show they're doing it to. It's for the gram. Well, Mike, drugs aside, a lot of people do the if it fits your macros and it still works for a period of time. What do you say to that? Well, it works now we're skewing the test, right? So I can prove anything if I know what the end result should be.

I can come up with any sort of scientific test. And I can actually come up with 10 different equally accurate results, undisputable results. So if it fits your macros, how is eating Pop-Tarts and fucking ice cream enhancing me to cellular level? Am I optimizing my micronutrient intake if I'm consuming 20, 30, 40% of my total calories from synthetic processed foods? No, I'm not. It's not possible. And if you're taking supplements to try and offset that, that should be an indicator that maybe something's weird here. If I'm eating food, but I have to take more synthesized products in order to mimic what I should be getting from my food, maybe that food's

not fucking good it's common sense so when you're fitting macros now macros work but you can fit macros with high micronutrient density which is why we focus on earth-grown nutrients real food if you have a high micronutrient density then your body actually needs less total calories in consumption to get those micros to be fulfilled then and we fucking play with macros, of course, in here. We have elite athletes competing in world-class competition. But we don't mess with the macros until we have the micros optimized. I don't want to get deep into personal backgrounds and histories, but we work with Galen Rupp.

Galen Rupp won the bronze medal, earned the bronze medal for the United States in the Olympics in the marathon this past year. He runs out of the Oregon project for Nike. They contacted us to help him with his performance. Fascinating to work with that individual. Some of the best teams in the world around that individual. What we focused on solely was micronutrients.

We were able to help this young man at the end of his career in his early 30s, where most other runners are on the backside, have a resurgence in the peak just by focusing on micros we didn't care about macros at all it was micronutrients that mattered most taking an elite specimen like that you can notice if he's one two three seconds behind on laps and splits and intervals and you can really you know calculate and see where there's a little bit of a lag. We have access to that data because this team is so amazing. Seeing that and seeing the marked improvements from a micro level, that's all it was about. So I can extrapolate that onto the general

population who can't. You're not timing. If you're within 10 seconds of your best mile, that's a big deal. These people are so specific with what they do. So for the average person, it all comes down to micronutrient, cellular health. We're cellular organisms, right? Nobody can argue or dispute

that. So if our cellular organism is not functioning optimally, if it's not optimally nourished, how can we think just by playing with the macronutrient percentage will somehow surpass that necessity and make us into what we need to be. Now, can you get lean and can you hold muscle? Absolutely. Can you get down to a certain weight class? Absolutely. Are you healthy? No.

Are you optimized? No. Are you performing to the best of your ability with that style? Absolutely not. Nobody can ever point to a study or prove in any way, shape, or form that that's ideal to micronutrient-fulfilled nutrition, real nutrition, coupled with a macro profile on top of that. Yeah.

Can you break down what are micronutrients versus macronutrients for the audience? And what are the common micronutrients that people are missing out on? You see deficiencies commonly. So micronutrients are essentially in all cellular interactions. Micronutrients would be commonly known as as iron and magnesium and phosphorus and calcium things that we all know of we all hear of but we really disregard people drink milk because it has calcium well spinach has more calcium per gram than milk does i'm not a milk guy but you know he's kind of so there's a whole nother conversation popeye taught us yeah well after the break that's that's the quote that what we'll talk about if we

can remember that yeah um possibly possibly so you know making sure your micronutrients are in effect now let's say iron so if your iron is deficient well your body is not going to be oxygenating the blood supply nearly to what it could. If you're not taking optimum zinc or magnesium, we all know of ZMA products, right? That has a positive benefit on mood, on immunity, on possible testosterone increase, general muscle mass replication it certainly does help with. So if there's deficiencies there, you're not getting them. You can supplement with certain things. Now, somewhere, and there's so many different ones, the most common would be, let's say, a vitamin D deficiency. Most people,

if you got your blood work done, and most people should get their blood work done every three months. Most people don't get it done at least every three years, which is insane. But every three months we're getting our blood work done, we can find deficiencies. We can define micronutrient deficiencies, and that's what we do here. So all of our clients that we have, we work with our dieticians. We ask for blood work. work we analyze the blood work and we can start prescribing meal plans based upon filling out those micronutrient deficiencies helping balance out hormonal states and then also starting to work on blood sugar sensitivities and cardiac function and thyroid so we can assist through nutrition based upon blood work based upon the

data and usually we liaise with the medical team. So it's this group effort. So with that, I'm still on the micronutrient topic. If you're not consuming fresh foods, earth-grown nutrients, produce, nuts and seeds and red peppers and tomatoes and asparagus and chard, if you don't have this eclectic mix of earth-grown foods. You're likely not optimizing. And even if you are, it's difficult to fully optimize your diet in that capacity. So most people are running around deficient.

And the more diverse your food intake, the more rich your food, the higher quality of food, and that's not coming from Pop-Tarts. They might be delicious. They are delicious. What about Fruity Pebbles? Fruity Pebbles are delicious. They got minerals in them.

They do. They look like real rocks, right? It's the whole concept. Delicious, but let's not fuck around and pretend. Now, if you're already doing that,

and you're in that top 80%, and you just slam a fucking chest workout, high-intensity resistance workout, you've dumped all the fucking glycogen, all the glucose, purged your body, you go and slam a fruity pebble, fucking bowl of fruity pebble, or two or three with chocolate milk,

yeah, we can prove that that's going to fucking work. That's going to work. We're going to re-glycogenate the fucking blood supply, the muscle supply. We're going to do that for sure. But can we do it better? Could we fucking blend down some jasmine rice and mix with some fucking coconut oil and some grapes and blueberry and fucking slam that instead? Yeah, we can fucking do that too.

That's what we're going to do over here. So you guys can pop your fucking tarts and eat your ice cream and do all your other shit. But that typically leads to disordered eating. And that's what you were talking about before. Most people have disordered eating, and it doesn't mean anorexia or bulimia. It's just your relationship with food is fucked up. Well, I never eat after 6. Why not if you ran a fucking marathon until 5.59?

Like, whoo. You know? So they have this really weird relationship with food. What kind of testing or tracking do you do with your athletes blood work workouts um meal tracking photos of meals things like that like what do you do with your athletes that you have found effective so what we do is quarterly blood work and dexa scans so we want to see um you know all their blood work at a complete panel we have baselines um also we dexa scan so we can look at composition you know we can look at bone density. Also, DEXA scans, so we can look at composition.

We can look at bone density, but also we can get segmental mass analysis. We can look at intranet extracellular water, and we can have a good understanding of if we're making progress, the whole team is making progress within the system because Olympic athletes are on a four-year cycle. Fighters are typically fighting two or three times a year, so quarterly, essentially. DEXA scans are nice because you're going to get segmentally each different part of the body down to like a tenth of a gram

of how much body fat you have yes like it's very accurate where would someone go for a dexter stand because i know like a lot of this stuff people go i have no idea who the fuck do i go for for blood work or dexter stands like it's you know they hear it but i know most people are like i have no idea where to go no great question great question. So blood work, go to your primary doctor. And you can even find places online, relatively inexpensive. You can go to a local lab core or whatever, you know, blood testing facility if you don't have a primary doctor. DEXA scans is more like an MRI. So there's hydrostatic weighing, which is water immersion.

There's a bod pod, which is air displacement. Both awesome, very effective with what they put out. A little harder to find and get to. DEXA scans seem to be a little easier, and they're more accessible to the average person. You just lay down on the table. It's like a tanning bed more so than you're sitting in this fucking egg with a swim cap on, and some people get uncomfortable with that.

DEXA scan's easy, and out of everything I've done, it's the coolest. Because you get to see your bone density and how much the picture is cool. You look at the picture and you're like, there's my liver. Oh, you can see like, oh, that's my muscles. And that's like the fatty tissue outside the muscles. It's a visual representation.

It's not just numbers. I've always thought that's how trainers should sell training, by the way. It's just dexter scans. Because chiropractors scan your spine, and they go, you're all fucked up. And you go, oh, shit, because you see it. But with training, people walk in and go, I want to lose 30 pounds. And you're like, where did that number come from? It's just arbitrary.

But if you showed them. So we got derailed. So quarterly blood work and quarterly dexter scans. Quarterly blood work, quarterly DEXA scans. So that makes the athlete accountable to the test to make sure that we're in range where we should be. Now, we don't do take a photo every day. We're not babysitters. I'm not leaning over their shoulder.

We're paid professionals to provide a service. That's what we do. And we just ask anyone who works with us to work as hard as we do. So if we have a question or if we have a suggestion, we ask that we communicate that and converse about that and implement that if we agree to do so. But, you know, for people that just disappear and they pop their head back up and like, oh, life's been crazy. You don't get a lot of our attention. Because there are people that are compliant. They are doing what they need to do. There's only so many hours and so many days. And there's only so many people that we can work with at that are compliant. They are doing what they need to do. There's only so many hours and so many days,

and there's only so many people that we can work with at that elite level. So you work with us as hard as we'll work, and we'll fucking work hard here. You know what I mean? But we're working for others. So we're serving, and that's really truly what we're doing. And if they're not receptive to that, we don't do the babysitting thing. Yeah, I find the babysitting comment really interesting because I think a lot of people in the general they get they get a personal trainer or something like that

and they're they are wanting to get a babysitter in a lot of ways like just tell me what to do like i don't i don't want to know i don't want to think about anything just just tell me exactly what to do hold me accountable if i don't show up give me a call so i show up and it seems to be very much the opposite like you're saying, with working with professional athletes. It's like if they don't show up, it's like, what the fuck are you doing here? Like you're training for a world title and you miss practice. This probably doesn't happen that often. But like for that person, yeah, you wouldn't think it would happen, but I guess it probably does.

For that person, you know, you shouldn't have to be the person to motivate that person like like i grew up um kind of more in strength and conditioning where it was it's mostly like um college and and professional athletics was kind of like the standard for how you're supposed to act with your athletes where um it wasn't like general population personal training and so my strength coach growing up well he always emphasized that like my job is not to motivate you that is not what i'm here for if you need motivation then go somewhere else because that is not the dynamic like you're supposed to show up motivated and be excited to fucking work out and be think you're lucky to be here and if you have a problem working with with being motivated and you don't want to be here then don't show up like i am not here to babysit you and i always thought that was a standard so it was actually hard to transition

out of that to like working with regular people who this is not their life. This is something that they feel like they kind of have to do on the side in some cases. So I like having that distinction because it's a whole different world working with professional athletes versus just regular people. It's a big difference. You know, I don't want to – the regular people are compliant for different reasons you know narcissism being narcissistic that's it's not a bad thing and everybody is to a degree the pro athlete they want to win the money and get the cheers and make the you know look good in the in the bikini or the suit or whatever the hell it is and the average person they just want to look good for their spouse or at the beach reunion or whatever it is there's a narcissism

to that too but that's not the driving driving force so those that come in here you know because we work with everybody you know from elite athletes to morbidly obese doctor says you got six fucking months unless you make a serious change so when they walk in they walk in motivated with different goals those who aren't the pros walk in with i think more valuable goals it's for their for my kids I had the life scare you know I'm just I'm fed up with this person I have been for the last 20 years and I've today's the day today I don't smoke a cigarette and I move forward I enjoy that more you know the pros are great

and all that good stuff and individually there's a few that are just amazing human beings that do it for the right reasons just so happen to be so genetically gifted and hard-working that they excel in their their passionate you know sport or activity but it's it's internal you know and every every person here in this room every person you know listening and watching every person has that ability to internalize and create the life that they want and make the decisions and be mindful. And we're very black and white. It's yes or no. It's success or failure. Either way, every decision fucking matters. It makes up. It's no gray. So we're making the yes, the good decision, the positive success decision, then fucking life automatically.

And everything sweeps that way. You can't be a really good businessman and be really fucking shit you know health person you can't be a really like fucking scumbag spouse but be a really good friend it's it's all or fucking nothing in our opinion so we fucking throw everything to the yes and we fuck up all the time we make mistakes we're human right but we're always intentionally skewing towards that success towards towards the yes. And we align best with individuals, pro athlete or regular, who has that same mentality or at least adopts that mentality. And we say, we meet you where you are, and we'll walk with you. We'll make that first decision with you, and the next decision, we'll go through that way.

You said something important there, the internal motivation. And I think that it's the same with those that get success that aren't athletes. An athlete is internally motivated because of a belief system they've created about winning the prize. Yeah. Right? And so they're driven and their commitment is to that prize. With a regular Joe, just anyone who's not competitive in a sense, like that internal drive often doesn't exist. And their motivation comes from an external source.

They see a friend that has abs or a model that has abs and they all want abs based on an external motivation there. And so when they get into it and then they realize this is what it takes, they're like, oh, I'm not fucking committed to this. But then they lie to themselves because society says you should be skinny. So they go, oh, I need to get in weight. But it shows in their work and it quickly becomes clear. And that's why, I mean, people don't show up. It's like, well, you're not committed. And like, oh, I have all these other issues.'s like the issues are is this is not a priority and so the when you you talk about

like the doctor the person coming in that they understand their why like this is life or fucking death i don't you know it's at that point most people don't unfortunately don't get to that until something fucking happens you know and and there's a trigger uh and it's sad but it does it has to come from the internal motivation because if you're looking what everyone else is doing and that's what's motivating you you're fucked yeah you know it's just you're fucked so i mean it sounds like that's exactly the people that come to you are those people they found that they found their true why like this is why i want to do this and it's like now i can fucking work with you you know true so earlier we dug into macros and and uh that's obviously one of

like the big trends in nutrition right now in the world um i wouldn't necessarily say it's new but like the way it's packaged and the name is is new of course and it seems really popular people are getting results from etc um but you you had some strong opinions about it i'm wondering what other trends are happening right now that you have strong opinions about you know ketosis intermittent fasting etc oh this sounds amazing yeah so we should take a break take a break okay okay are happening right now that you have strong opinions about, ketosis, intermittent fasting, et cetera? Oh, this sounds amazing. Yeah. So we should take a break.

We should take a break. Okay. And get right into it. We won't forget. I'm fucking fired up right now. We're back with Mike Dolce. What are the trends you're seeing that maybe seem ridiculous to you or disagree with or maybe some trends that you like.

Well, I think the ones that I disagree with are what I call exclusionary diets. So telling the mass population that they all must exclude certain vital nutrients, certain healthy nutrients, certainly scientifically researched and supported nutrients, they cannot consume those because this fucking orange and blue book says you shouldn't you know what i mean i don't know

about that now if you say hey like here's a great way to eat that's good for some people it's not right for everybody but you know this is the reasons why i think rob wolf paleo talks a great thing paleo is very good as a transitional diet to get people off of processed foods to kind of start making it it's boxed in a very nice manner people can easily transition off and widen their their their food choices yeah i think what's common uh is people think about going paleo all the time no matter what yeah and a lot if you listen to rob wolf's podcast or you listen if you you read his book, you realize, I mean, if you're looking at it from my perspective, the way I've seen it is it's a great thing for people who are sick. Yeah. If you're sick and you're fat and you just you don't know where to start and you you need to make a huge change. That's the best place to go. But a good place. I wouldn't say the best place. Yeah. Okay. But, like, it's a good place for people to go.

Sure. But when athletes who are doing a lot of work try to stick to that, it becomes problematic. They don't even know what the fuck it is. That's the biggest thing. The same with the keto diet. People, I mean, ketosis. Are you? You're not.

And keto, that fits well into this conversation because most people follow the quote keto diet and the keto lifestyle and they're fat adapted. But they're not. They're just eating a high fat, usually high protein diet. Now, a high fat, high protein diet does not mean you've achieved the metabolic state or initiated the metabolic process of ketosis where your body is now preferentially running on fat. That's not the case for the vast majority of the population, even though you're eating zero carbs. Now, are you eating a zero-carb diet, a completely zero-carb diet devoid of any carbohydrate? Are you eating a low-carb diet, which we would determine to be below 40 grams, but low carbs should be probably closer to that sub 20%.

Are you eating a, that's very low, or a low carb diet? Low carb diet would be, you know, between 120 and 150 grams of carbohydrate today. Are you carb cycling? You have your high days and your low days. Most people who quote, say they're in ketosis or they're following the keto diet have one or two high carb days per week. Now, if we think about it, they also say, well, it only takes three or four days to hit ketosis. So if you're having one carb day per week, well, then you're out of ketosis for at least four of the seven days. So you really, you're not on a ketogenic diet. You're on more of a low carb diet. And that's okay to say that, but don't think you've achieved the metabolic state of ketosis because the vast

majority of people have not they simply have not we see a lot of people that come in here and they have the questions and those that say they've done it say well have you been measuring your your you have um keto sticks so you're measuring your urine like now not really but i mean this is not meeting like that well how the fuck you know you don't know these people don't know but they assume so what we do is we take that. Now, if anyone's ever followed the ketogenic diet, typically you feel like shit. Have you guys ever followed it? No.

I wouldn't say I've, like, done the ketogenic diet. I've cut enough carbs out of my diet where my piss starts smelling. Low carb, very low carb. Okay. Does your breath stink? Yeah. Okay. So maybe you have achieved it, but maybe not.

You don't know. And how long did you sustain it for? Always. Always. This guy never brushes his teeth. But how long did you follow it for? Was it months on? I wouldn't say I've ever followed a diet.

What I'm saying is I cut out enough carbs to cut down. I was cutting down on weight. Yeah, I didn't feel great. And then to kind of back out again. I suspected I was in ketosis, but I wasn't measuring. And who knows? Now, ketosis is not a bad thing. It's a great thing, and it's very scientifically sound.

But for the average population to walk around and try to attain ketosis or believe and fucking wear the T-shirt that they are fucking in ketosis, that's not exactly true. If they were more understanding of what's actually happening to their body, they would be better custodians of their body and of their health and then they could truly dictate rapid physique augmentation or performance performance parameters so if you're following a low carb or a very low carb diet for more than three or four days and you try and do something explosive something requiring glucose as the primary fuel source well you're going to fucking shit out all your lifts are going to go down it's going to be very hard to make quote gains so if you're an athlete or if you're even just an exercise enthusiast it's not ideal if you have some sort of insulin issue and insulin sensitivity or you're sensitive or insensitive to insulin you know

i'll explain that in a second having a low carb very low carb ketogenic style meal plan is a great way to begin but slowly you want to start integrating carbohydrate sources to be stored as glycogen to be readily used as glucose when the muscles actually need those because the body simply cannot from ketones from stored fat so there's a dramatic performance issue also those that are following ketogenic diets typically fall on the nutrient deficient side because they dramatically limit and this is what i say exclusionary diets they dramatically limit their their their pool their food pool their nutrient source their micronutrient source it becomes very difficult now most humans

are fucking lazy and they're not going to go to three different supermarkets and buy all the necessary ingredients that they need to be optimized if they were to achieve ketogenic or to achieve ketosis. So I don't, I'm not mad at keto at all, but what it is, it's, it's a man at the people who blindly follow fucking logos with not knowing the context behind it. Like, if you're following a ketogenic diet, are you actually in ketosis? And if so, for how long? And it takes a hell of a lot longer for most people to achieve ketosis than three or four days. Some people, it takes weeks. And all the science is there that supports that and points to that.

You're not going 40 fucking years eating carbs every day, and in three days, you're magically fucking fat adapted. The shit's not fucking working that way. the body doesn't work that way with everybody some people some outliers maybe it will some may be kind of close and some fucking never not even close that's the way the human body really works so then we need to understand and i speak like this so people can be like oh fuck you you're you know you don't know what you're talking about you're just hating no i'm not i just want people to open their minds and understand more about what they're consuming and what's happening metabolically. What are they doing to their body? What are they doing for their body? And then how are they asking their body to perform as a result of this?

Now, most of the time that you're following the ketogenic or zero carb diet, you know, from a very low carb to a zero carb to a ketogenic diet, and there's differentiation between those categories. Most people don't understand the differentiation between that being in ketosis, being zero carb, being very low carb, being low carb, being carb cycling, completely different fucking meal plans. That's, that's NFL to fucking Aussie rules right there. That's, it's a dramatic difference. People don't grasp that. We grasp that here because this is what we do every fucking day. We see the blood work. We see the people. We hear the stories. We know the lifestyle. We see the budget. You know, we know the broke's grocery. I know the

fucking bowel movements of our clients in here. You know, we get down, we get that dirty with it. So we have a unique understanding that maybe some people don't. They have intellectual academia. They have read it, but they don't have as many case studies that they get to discuss this with and then have their own petri dishes that are in field right now that we're constantly tweaking and learning and hypothesizing and concluding and and continuing on yeah the uh the fat adapted piece yeah my perspective on it it's it's a really ketosis is a great place to be if you're a sedentary individual like A lot of these Silicon Valley types, they actually aren't doing hardly any physical activity. They might be doing a little bit of yoga or something like that.

It's a lot easier to be in ketosis in that situation. But somebody who's doing CrossFit or fighting, it's a very glycolytic sport to try and cut out all sugar or all carbs. It is really ridiculous. I've seen a lot of athletes do that, and they can't understand why they can't get past this plateau. They add in carbs, and magically all these doors open up to them. Absolutely. And then they're like, oh, I went from depressed to feeling amazing.

I would counter and add to that that those more cerebral, more cognitive of individuals that maybe they're not athletic, they're not physical, but they're more cognitive, well, they need glucose also. Because glucose, in our opinion, is the preferred fuel source for the brain. Those in the keto community will refute that and point to great science. We'll refute theirs and point to other great science. So then it comes down to real-world observation. What do i see i see dramatic benefit to those that have controlled carb intake from healthy carbs from earth gram nutrients

to you know based upon activity recovering that big fucking you know simple sugar white rice fucking surge post workout or kind of slow and sustained sustained thinking into the future almond butter sprouted grain bread steel cut steel cut oats, berries, raw honey, drizzled a little bit to kind of coast through because you have the next two to four hour block of activity. That's the way we look at it. So when we have a lot of high net worth clients and the executives and CEOs, powerful people that use their brain, typically they're physical also.

If they're fucking low carb, zero carb, fat adapted, they're fucking foggy and they're slow and they're fucking emotional. And that's real-world understanding. Now, I can make a shitload of fucking money off of keto. If I was like, keto's the fucking best, and I'll follow that through and go all the way through, I could fucking sell products and do the whole deal, just speaking honest. If I didn't, if it sucks that I do see that, that we do see that,

that our team sees that. So because of that, I still don't agree that a ketogenic diet is the best for the majority of the population. I think there's a small segment of the population it can work really well for, 10% to 20%, but probably closer to the 10%. The rest of the population is better served through a wide variety of earth-grown nutrients eaten with regularity to maximize micronutrient diversity. That's our approach. And then we skew that based upon performance. If you want to run a marathon or if you want to be in a USAW meet, what's your goal? Because we can do both within those same confines. You can't do both within paleo. You can't do both within keto. You can't do both within

Atkins or intermittent fasting. You can't do from our perspective ego free but what's the best way for the vast majority of the population to nourish themselves this is the way that's why we have principles we don't have rules we don't say hey it's body weight times x equals your uh you know protein grams per kilogram we don't fucking care about that shit now that's minutiae that's what when do we have a comp up set up? Okay. You know, 12, 16 weeks, eight, six, eight weeks beforehand, we come up with a periodized peaking cycle.

Nutrition goes into that too. Until then, it's all fucking diversity, you know? And that's, I think, you know, kind of went long on this topic, but the show, I'm not, you know, in the headlines, Doug Larson, you know, wife scandal. The headlines. Not again. Not again. Not again. She watches every show.

He's fucked. I know. My first wife, she watches every show we have. And the headline sometimes is like Dolce Bash's Keto. No, I don't. It's fucking great. And we use that concept sometimes. But it's not great for most people and that's what the education

because we're an education company a content company we're an endorsed educational provider for the national strength and conditioning association and the national academy of sports medicine that's what our content is supported by so putting that out there i hope that everyone who's listening they really take another look at this information and maybe add some quinoa and some fucking steel connotes to their diet and not shut that shit out especially if they're fucking going ham in the gym and fucking trying to hit prs like we all should in whatever capacity we all should be pushing ourself and challenging ourself i mean we would have got a segment i think i feel like you would

have said the same thing about what if we had picked any other specific diet that is every every diet no action yeah same thing so and and that's what's interesting is that this is kind of the time we're in now is everyone wants to think they're the same you know like there's this like we're all the same therefore there should be one diet one thing marketing one and one that sells like you said uh the reality is is that we're not and that's kind of the biggest thing and what you mentioned earlier in the show i think it's important to bring up as well it's like we never know what like if someone is on keto who is sedentary and and sits at a desk all day you know what else are they taking are they taking

adderall are they taking monster energy drinks like they're that is a big thing and i think you mentioned earlier it's like if you're having to substitute supplements because your diet is is deficient not because your diet is right and the body's still deficient. That's kind of probably a sign, you know, people listening, if they're eating a diet and they're having to take a lot of other supplements to make sure their blood work is right, it's probably a sign that the diet's probably not what's best suited for you. And, you know, you can test your DNA, you can test your blood, you can get the baseline for where you should start. but the from my understanding

correct me if i'm wrong like all bodies need carbohydrates protein and fat there's not one you can cut out the body's highly adaptable the body will survive in perilous states but that's not optimal so and we're trying to find optimal states of health for longevity again we're a longevity company we're not a sports performance company. It just so happened that when we focus on longevity, sports performance is immediately improved. Body composition, immediately improved. General well-being, immediately improved. This is becoming a very common thing amongst coaches

who've been in the game for a while. They start focusing on longevity, and all of a sudden, the immediate performance, it might lag in the very beginning, but a few months in when you're looking at longevity and putting that you know as important as as how we're performing tomorrow all of a sudden the athletes start performing at a much higher level absolutely yeah yeah and that's what it is because it's long term you know it's it's our body this is our tool we have to protect it you know we have to go home We have to sharpen our ax and rub it with oil.

We've got to put it in its sheep very gently, and we have to take care of it. Most people don't. They just fucking throw it in the back with the beer bottles and zoom on down the road. Leave the windows down. It's fucking raining inside. They just don't give a shit. They take it all for granted. You're describing my 20s.

I was looking at you. I had an idea. So regarding optimal, you mentioned intermittent fasting a second ago. Yeah. Is there any benefits to intermittent fasting? Yes. Like why do people do it and what do you see as the pros and cons? So intermittent fasting is a great concept and it works well.

The problem is, number one, are we fulfilling our micronutrient requirements? If we have a shorter and shorter window, some people are doing a six-hour feeding window. They're only eating for six out of 24 hours. It's difficult to get in enough micronutrients and total calories that can be digested efficiently and absorbed without causing a cascade of other digestive issues. That can't happen if you think about it. If I'm eating 220 pounds, if I'm eating 25 to 3, calories in a six hour period it's a little difficult

for my gut to break down especially when I'm eating you know you know bulky fibrous you know nutrient you know diverse foods I want to give my body time to break those down efficiently store those and I want to be running kind of empty for a little while in between my meals until satisfied not until full we're not trying to bog down our digestive system. We always want to kind of feel loose and light and fueled. Now, intermittent fasting does work for short periods of time. It's a great way to increase insulin sensitivity. So is keto. When we go to that very low carb or zero carb intake, your body becomes very sensitive to insulin. And that is a good thing. We want our body to be sensitive to insulin so we have a good healthy working relationship inside our body the insulin isn't just shooting all over the place fucking

shoving everything on your hips and you're fucking you know um you know donut around your belly or ladies on the side of their ass that's what happens we want to become more sensitive with our insulin and we do that by controlling it by controlling the intake by controlling the timing by controlling the types paired with exertion what did we and again that's what did we just do or what we're are we about to do so we become more mindful that's why keto is great if is great also because the body goes a long time without that insulin surge so it becomes more insulin sensitive it can manage nutrient intake much better that way we and I look at it like 12 hours is enough. And if you're sleeping for eight hours or so, you wake up and do a little light fasted cardio for

general health and fitness. That's going to add another hour or two sleeping for eight, nine, almost 10 hours. And if you don't eat two or three hours before you go to sleep physically, when you're asleep, well, shit, you just hit your 12 hours right there. You know, 11 to 13, 12 hour hours. That's great for the general population. Some people, maybe they can close that to about 10 hours or so. Some people do eight. Now we're getting a little fucking crazy and it's short term for short term little peak. You know, you got beach thing coming up or, you know, want to squeeze things down, you

know, three weeks or so. You can kind of play with that a little bit, but I wouldn't suggest it. I go a little longer on a 10 or 12 hour window and establish a healthy relationship with food. And what we call the health and habit phase, the first four weeks of when people come on board with us, we just establish healthy habits. They kind of, they go grocery shopping at the same place. They buy the same stuff. They kind of prep it about the same time. They eat about the same amount at the same time each day. And you can interchange in and out, but we remove a lot of the variables. So we just kind of get in this really nice, simple habit. We're completely fulfilled from a micro level.

We start to kind of understand how the body works. When are you hungry? When are you full? What meal did you devour? What meal was a little tough? Hmm, did we eat too much the meal prior or maybe the night before, which is why you're a little slow and sluggish and full.

And we kind of play with that. We dial that in over those first four weeks and then we kind of hit it zooming but we're not you know if we're not paleo we're not excluding we're actually trying to put a lot of different variety in there to really see what's working what's not working to dial in the individual and then going back of course we have blood work so we're making you know informed suggestions on what the menu should be in the ingredient list as a result of what deficiencies there may or may not be what about what about um less um not intermittent fasting but just fasting in general like instead of doing something every day what about i hear people more and more recently talking about doing like a 24-hour fast once a month or a 40-hour fast every every six weeks or

something like that they're not doing it generally for body comp reasons. They're doing it for more general health reasons. But I haven't dug too far into it, and I don't necessarily know what all those reasons are. Do you have any perspective on pros and cons of doing that? We typically do once a week. We call it a modified fast. So typically a Sunday or so, we'll wake up and we'll just hydrate and we'll skip that breakfast because typically Sunday is a lower expenditure day for us anyway.

So it gives our digestive system time to kind of relax a little bit and switch into neutral. Kind of repair itself, if you will, and reduce all the traffic through and some of the inflammation as a result of. And then we'll kick in our meals typically somewhere between 12 and 3. Kind of start with a lunch. And usually that lunch is more fresh and raw, like a salad, something that's kind of salad in a soup. Easy, but a lot of hydration, a lot of fluid throughout the day. We'll do teas. We'll do some coffee in the morning so it's not super hardcore.

Maybe some coconut oil in the coffee, like an Invincible blend or something like that. We'll do to kind of get that little bit of energy perk. And so I have no problem with those that do a longer fast. But, you know, going a full day I just I don't think I think it's diminishing returns and you can show again good science that said hey there's good stuff but in practical use I don't really think that does anything different than kind of a midday a third of the day kind of fast let's get some good nutrition let's super hydrate let's continue to clean

out your body but let's put some you know really solid nutrients into you to assist that detox or cleanse or whatever i'm not a fan of the juice cleanses that doesn't make sense just fucking dumping sugar down your throat for you know one two three days at a time unmediated that doesn't make sense to us for sure so i'd rather eat fucking nothing than just be dumping sugar down my throat yeah i've seen a lot of people they do a juice cleanse they don't eat well at all yeah where they don't get a lot of micronutrients at all. And then they drink nothing but juice for three days. And then like, Oh, I feel amazing. Yeah. And it's like, you just, you just made a really big swing. It's like someone who just came off of fast food, you know? And, uh, well, fuck, I forgot the analogy I was going to use, but someone who,

who just comes off of fast food and, uh, or stops drinking soda, but they're still eating hamburgers. And it's like, oh, I feel amazing. It's like, well, compared to where you were at, this is really, really good. Yeah. But, yeah, I'm with you. Like, if I'm going to fast, I'm just going to have water. Have water. Yeah.

And just flush and chill and keep low activity. And, you know, and that's fine. But, you know, so there's a lot of and that really comes with are you doing that because you're following a proper meal plan for three to six months beforehand and you feel the need to do that? Most people do that because that's going to fix me. And then I'm going to start and I got these new fucking shoes and I'm going to go for a run on Monday. Like, hoorah, I'm going to fast this weekend. I'm going to run. I got my new fucking

shoes and my ipod thing no you're not it's good it's the same fucking cycle let's rewind three months when you do one thing at a time please yeah it is funny i got people want to start 10 things at once yeah i mean i say that people because i've done it we all just like yeah all right oh it's like oh i I've lived long enough to know. I want to implement one thing per month. New shoes this month. Next month, eat some carbs. When I was bodybuilding, my coach, he said the basics.

When he sent over the original plan, I was like, oh, what about this? What about this? He was like, well, if we start there, where do we go? Yeah. If you start with start there where do we go yeah if you start with everything where do you go it's like if we just start here in 30 days we look where the body's responding maybe yeah maybe we add a second session of cardio and maybe we add another weight session and maybe maybe we we change the diet up a little bit but it was like very it was like not the first time but i'm a very all-in person and it's just that's what you think at the beginning.

I'm just going to start everything, but then it's like if you do everything, where do you go? How do you know what's working? How do you know what's not working? It's true. That one's real big, is knowing what works and what doesn't work. I've bought the big supplement stacks. I start five new supplements. Which one works?

Fuck if I know. None of them. Placebo. Placebo. Exactly, it is. Fuck man. Almost all the sports supplements don't work. Okay, so which supplements do you like? Which ones do you dislike?

The ones that we like, and truly we have one in market, which is the Dolce Whey. It's a grass-fed whey protein isolate. It's cold processed. It's cross-flow microfiltered. It's non-GMO. It's as good offed whey protein isolate. It's cold processed. It's cross-flow microfiltered. It's non-GMO. It's as good of a whey protein isolate as anywhere on the planet. There's some as good. There's certainly none better. And no one can refute that. That being said, we say not everybody should be taking that. That's safe for those that are in the 20% fucking mark. And they need to get 250 to 300 grams of protein per day on certain days. And they need the convenience

of that you know easy to dissolve fucking powder they can just jam down right after a workout that's not for everybody for sure that being said like bcaa is their campaign containing the fucking whey protein isolate why are you going to take a bottle of fucking bcaas or the stupid scoop of the blueberry fucking raspberry fruity pebble flavored fucking bcaas That's all fucking sucralose or aspartame. Why are you going to consume that fucking garbage synthetic bullshit? And I fucking say, if your supplement company is putting sucralose and aspartame and acylthamepatassium in your fucking health supplements, they give two fucking shits about you all they care about is fucking

margins for their company and that's okay too because they're running fucking businesses but don't pretend they fucking care about your health because for a little less fucking margin they can do it with quality ingredients and they choose not to we choose to and i will always choose to if i ever support a supplement or put a supplement out there it's going to be the highest quality fucking ingredients and the highest margins that we can maintain while maintaining that fucking core concept. Yeah. Those other companies out there fucking read their ingredients.

If those fucking ingredients are in there, they don't give a shit. They're fucking maximizing margins. And that's okay from a corporate perspective, but not in my fucking house, not in my body, not with my family. That's not what I'm fucking doing. I don't compete with them because we have one fucking, you know, one little bag of whey protein that's just fucking floating around. Yep. You know, so I'm not a supplement manufacturer.

But that being said, you need to be very conscious of that, very clear of that. So you know what you're consuming, what you're fucking putting in your body, and who you're in business with. Yeah. Who you're supporting with your fucking, your consumer dollar. All right. So you like whey protein? Yes. If it's the highest quality.

Highest quality. What other supplements do you like? Like a vitamin D3. I think we're all vitamin D deficient. I take 10,000 IUs of vitamin D3 per day. I live in Las Vegas, one of the sunniest places on the fucking planet. I'm a meathead. I'm outside with my fucking shirt all the time trying to fucking be that dude.

And I have... You are. I'm surprised you lifted on. Fuck you if you're not. But really, even I tend to run low out here right i eat a fucking better diet than most people not the best in the world but i eat really conscientious and i'm still not able to always maintain optimal d level so vitamin d3 i personally take a dhea supplement as a man i've noticed through blood work that my level is low and i need to supplement it now i

can't at 41 years old maintain what it was in my earlier days um what else i take a coq supplement coq10 supplement made by jarrow which i've really been testing that for the last few months watching my blood work i don't know if it works or not but all the science is really solid i don't see any downside to it um what else do we do and sometimes i'll supplement with additional uh an additional b complex additional vitamin c um my iron's good magnesium's good so all those areas are good just through food sources if i'm getting trying to put on some mass or some sort of comp i might supplement a little bit with that but that's about it nothing on the sports supplement side all right i do want to get let's see any supplements that you see are really popular right now that you just

don't pre-workouts bcaas um fat burners stimulants um fucking espresso this is the only fucking espresso and a little bit of metallica probably the only pre-fucking workout you need right you know i mean that's if you need fucking more than that go the fuck home you shouldn't be in the fucking gym anyway you know it makes no sense um so dumping that fucking garbage and it's it's i almost said poison but i'm gonna i'm gonna pull back from that a little bit you're gonna be polluting your body with fucking junk and then trying to go and be fit and healthy it just doesn't make fucking sense it makes no sense so products like that and i could i mean 95 of what you're going to find in any

vitamin store is all fucking shit you know does is it quality maybe it's quality i'd say probably half or less than half or actually what they say is on the label because supplements are unregulated right right there's no fucking fda really digging in and making sure that these these manufacturers are putting out there so even though what you're buying you don't know there's contaminated shit you hear about athletes all the time getting popped for contaminated stuff. That's legitimate. Yep. Because the USADA will go and test the batch and they'll be like, holy shit, there was

fucking D-ball in there. Like, oops. Oh, fucking bullshit. I think I took muscle tech that was loaded when I was a teen. I gained like 40 pounds off of strawberry muscle tech. It tasted so fucking nasty, but I got jacked. And I look back and I go go I took muscle tech later on and I'm like

this shit sucks and I'm like I bet you my shit was laced with stuff back in the day when it first came out because you think about it right

you put a supplement out there you lace it everyone gets results take out the illegal ingredient and all of a sudden everyone's like it's the best

yep that's the formula every time a supplement company comes out like there's certain supplement companies that come out with a brand new product

I'm like yeah I'm gonna get that I know they put some shit in there i know i know it's good shit right now i forget the name of the company but they came out with mag 10 yep remember the product remember taking mag 10 when it first came out fucking eyes went bloodshot i was like i'm like fuck i'm like benching a lot and then yeah i look back on it years later and I was like, they put D-ball in that shit. How was it? It's amazing. It wasn't amazing.

Jack 3D, right? It's got crack in it. Jack 3D. This is the best shit ever. Yeah, it's a methanthetamine. That's why it's

fucking good. Dimethyl methamath. That's what we call it. Artificial sweeteners. Garbage. Why would you put it in your body? Why would you

pollute your body? Why would you risk your fucking digestive environment? If nothing else, science has proven definitively that artificial sweeteners negatively affect your digestive environment. Okay. Many, many, many scientific studies say there's a whole list of other negative health effects. And some of which we might not even know for another 20, 30 years. Some of which might not affect us consuming. They might affect our children.

That science is there. That science is very valid. That science isn't often discussed because there's a lot of fucking money over here. A lot of fucking money. So this eventually will slowly make its way. And the FDA will go, oh, that was, quote, generally recommended as safe, but now not so much. So we're going to fucking swipe that off the list, ban that. But look at these other five little beauties that we don't have a lot of research on that are generally, generally recognized as safe.

I mean, doctors used to recommend a certain brand of cigarettes at one point, just to kind of create some context with that. Yeah. Do you think, though, and this is just an argument you hear, and you hear this, what John Mackey says is about Whole Foods, like the reason he doesn't have all just the purest, greatest food ever is because, you know, you've got to kind of wean people off and move it. Do you adopt that approach? Yeah, do you adopt that approach in a sense that it's better than what's there, so it's a step in the right direction, or is it just basically black and white? I feel like you're a black and white guy.

So I can be crass with my cheating on your wife. Well, maybe your wife just lets you go and get a blowjob so often. I don't think that shit's going to fucking fly either. So that being said, and that's just human nature because we're like no that's fucking bullshit most of us anyway some of the population is like no why not what the hell um but just threw him off what we do is we'll trend help transition we meet you where you are and we'll make that walk with you if you're every day making more positive decisions we just yesterday had a consultation with a young man in the military

and he's stationed overseas and he will be for a while and he wants to be fit and healthy he's got high job stress as you can imagine he's right you know in the thick of shit and he doesn't have access to what we have here in the fucking first world nation i got fucking three whole foods you know within 10 minutes and i'm fucking pissed like if i gotta wait in line to get my fucking fruity little espresso you know before i go fucking shopping him on the other hand it takes two weeks to get a fucking you know bag of fucking you know flintstone vitamins sent to him over there so with him it's making choices that are slowly following the principles getting him in the right way that we need to be yeah so that's really the process so do i say hey you way that we need to be. So that's really the process.

So do I say, hey, you know what? Drink the sucralose for a little while. That's cool. It's like, no, that's the shit we ban. We get that out of our fucking life. Are you going to go drink Windex under your sink? Probably not. So let's put sucralose to me in that same fucking category.

Let's avoid that and let's go eat a fucking banana. Let's blend a banana in or a half a banana, a third of a banana. The artificial sweeteners are going to be like the first thing you cut out. Gone immediately. Yeah. Immediately. I mean, really, any synthetic product we're cutting out. And we're going so with the young man overseas, for him, it's like, don't eat any of the synthetic shit. Don't eat any of the fucking processed shit.

Only eat the real shit. Now, people are like, well, oats are processed. Like, shut the fuck up. You know, are we debating fucking semantics here and fucking words? Are we talking as adults and having rational discussion about lifestyle habits? Cut out the fucking shit and start doing the good stuff first. Now, if everybody accepts that, then argument over. I don't want to say argument one, argument over.

But if you want to fucking fight about what a chemical is, well and fucking you can go back and forth on those topics that's that's the fucking politician you know fucking look over here while i'm fucking you in the ass over here yeah that's what's happening we avoid that so it's very straightforward excellent i think we should end it right there all right there we go if you want to find out more about what you're doing what you're up to where this where should they go you go to the dolce diet what you're doing, what you're up to, where should they go? You go to thedolcediet.com. We have an online membership program, which anybody is happy to become a part of. We're on Instagram at the Dolce Diet. Everywhere, it's just the Dolce Diet everywhere you go.

Hopefully, we've gotten your blessing in the way we branded ourselves, and we're pretty easy to find. Love it. Thank you. Awesome. Gentlemen, thank you guys so much. You bet. Thanks, Mike.