Barbell Shrugged - You Are More Than Your Diet: A Conversation with Mike Mutzel — Muscle Maven Radio Episode #29

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, everybody. Welcome to Muscle Maven Radio. I'm your host, Ashley Van Houten. And you know, I thought about it for a minute, but I really don't have a good segue into the topic today. So I'm just going to launch right into it because I've gotten some positive feedback recently from listeners saying that generally they like that I don't do a lot of chit chat. I don't talk too much. I just kind of like to dive in with the questions. What can I say? I like to get there the most direct route possible. So I'm going to do that. Today, I'm talking with Mike Mutzel. He is the founder of High Intensity Health. He has a popular YouTube channel and a podcast with the same name. And he's kind of a leader in the world of understanding

Starting point is 00:00:45 fasting and ketogenic diets for health and fat loss. But this isn't a conversation necessarily about convincing you to be keto or skip breakfast or whatever, because I don't really do either of those things. But ultimately, what he and I are talking about today is the fact that we're all kind of complicated works in progress, right? That we are more than just our diet or our workouts or what our body looks like or what our Instagram feed looks like and that we're more than the mistakes that we've made and that we can always learn and make better decisions with the information that we're given to be the healthiest and best versions of ourselves. And I like that message because it's better and more helpful than just telling someone to do a certain workout or eat a certain

Starting point is 00:01:31 food, right? Telling people that they're wrong and you're right rarely changes minds anyway. So Mike's a really nice guy. He's very dedicated to getting good information out to people that they can then use how they want to. So we had a great conversation. I learned a lot more about his background and how he came to be doing the work that he's doing. And also some interesting information that I didn't know about nutrient timing and just some interesting stuff about fasting and really about how crucial our mindset is towards what we're eating and why we're eating it. Like beyond the calories in, calories out debate, it turns out truly, and this is backed by research, that feeling negatively or

Starting point is 00:02:13 positively about the food that we eat has an actual physiological effect on how we digest and how we use that food. Our bodies are crazy, guys. Like, it's crazy. Anyway, I love it. But before we dive into this very fun, useful conversation, got to give a huge thank you, merci beaucoup, gracias, grazie mille, and so on to my show sponsors, ButcherBox and Beekeepers Naturals, my two favorite companies because they're keeping me alive. So you can learn more about Beekeepers Naturals and their delicious, delicious, healthy, raw enzymatic honey products, including nootropics, a honey and a hemp product.

Starting point is 00:02:54 And I could go on about the stuff that I love. Their raw cacao honey, their bee-powered honey that has propolis, royal jelly, and bee pollen. But I've been over this before. You've probably heard it already. So just head to their website instead. Go to beekeepersnaturals.com forward slash muscle maven. And you can see more about my favorite products and what else they have for you. You can use the code muscle maven and get a 15% discount. And if you have any questions about any

Starting point is 00:03:19 of these things or a specific product that you want to know about, just hit me up on Instagram at the muscle maven. I'll tell you all about it. Huge fan of this company before they sponsored me. So it's the real deal. And you can also subscribe to ButcherBox and get their grass-fed and free-range meat delivered directly to your door every month. You can choose from one of the boxes

Starting point is 00:03:39 that they have already for you. You can customize your own. And you're getting the best quality stuff for cheaper because you don't have to go to the grocery store and get it from them. So easier, cheaper, better. And because you're a loyal listener and a smart person, they're going to throw in some free stuff for you and give you $20 off your order. If you go to butcherbox.com forward slash Maven and use the code Maven at checkout. So thank you to everybody. Thank you for still sticking around. And now onto my chat with Metabolic Mike. Yeah. So long story short,

Starting point is 00:04:12 I was this weird kid that was interested in wanting to be a bodybuilder from the early age. As soon as I can remember, probably age six or seven, I looked up to people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and watch all these karate movies, things like that. And then, you know, so naturally interested in health. And then in my early, like when I was nine, 10 years old, an older sibling exposed me to drugs and alcohol. So just had a really troubled youth and got back into fitness when I was 15. And it saved my life, it really, you know, the weights, the consistency, the routines, you know, I didn't pay attention to school at all. But I read a bunch of like bodybuilding books, fitness magazines, like all that growing up. So fitness changed my life and so did nutrition.

Starting point is 00:04:54 And then went and got an undergraduate degree in biology and then a master's degree in nutrition. And I've been a sales rep since I started in sales in 2006 when I graduated college and was very fortunate enough to meet a lot of great mentors in the functional medicine space through that sales position and realized it was kind of crazy, actually. I was meeting with these medical doctors, pharmacists, all kinds of different healthcare practitioners in Colorado at the time. And all these doctors, they didn't know anything about nutrition. And I thought that was so surprising because I just had this presumption, because I was a pre-med undergrad. I thought, well, gosh, don't you need to know biochemistry and biochemical pathways and nutritional biochemistry?

Starting point is 00:05:34 And obviously that's like maybe that's part of the curriculum now in medical school a little bit more so than when it was 15 years ago. And so I started doing these workshops. I thought, you know what, these doctors are so busy charting, doing their, you know, whatever they have to do to get paid by insurance companies and Medicare. So I started holding these workshops back in 2008 for healthcare practitioners and they started to pick up. And then I started doing these webinars every Wednesday night. And then, you know, long story short, I started this podcast back in 2014 called High Intensity Health. And so here we are now. And I figured out, you know, and one of the things I like to educate people on is the difference between kind of how allopathic medicine, you know, works versus systems biology. So if we think about why there will never be a pill that can replace fasting,

Starting point is 00:06:21 or while there may never be a pill that can replace sleep, like getting eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, is because all these different things we'll probably talk about today, whether it's low-carb, high-fat diets, whether it's intermittent fasting, whether it's high-intensity interval training, all these things affect our biological network. And kind of the paradigm, and I'm not poo-pooing or saying allopathic medicine is bad, it has its place, but allopathic medicine is, oh It has its place. But allopathic medicine is, oh, you have high blood pressure. Let's give you an angiotensin 2 receptor inhibitor. Let's give you an angiotensin receptor blocker, right? Or a beta blocker, or let's give you a diuretic. And so we're affecting one very targeted, specific biochemical, whether it's an enzyme,

Starting point is 00:07:02 whether it's a kinase, whether it's some sort of pathway, we're not affecting the network. And that's, what's so powerful about what we're going to talk about today and what you talk about on your podcast and so forth is this network approach. And I've been trying to help people better understand this because a lot of, especially in the baby boomers, they're so trustworthy. It's like this authority. I's a mindset shift. Whereas millennials, we realize like, hey, I can figure this stuff out on my own. I can Google this. I can read a book. I can watch a DIY video on YouTube and figure this stuff out. But our parents and the baby boomers who really need to make lifestyle changes are being told by their healthcare practitioners that diet and

Starting point is 00:07:42 exercise, it doesn't really matter as long as you take this pill regularly. And again, there's various contexts, various pills. I'm not purpuing pharmaceuticals in general, but I think it's helpful that we understand how powerful network biology is and how all of the inputs, sleep, stress management, relationships, meaning purpose, our mindset, our diet, our feeding and fasting patterns, our exercise, all that stuff, you know, really affects this interconnected system that we call the human body. And so it's super fascinating to unearth like all these different mechanisms and share that with people. So yeah, that's a long winded way of how I got into this. No, I love it. I mean, this has given me so much to work with already. I have so many questions and comments. But I mean, first of all, I, the idea of like the baby boomer

Starting point is 00:08:30 generation versus the millennial generation, and how we sort of approach health and learning and understanding it is you're so on point, but it's almost like, they're one end of the spectrum, and millennials are the other end to a fault where we kind of think we like know best because we are on the internet a lot and stuff. So, you know, there's like a nice balance between reading and researching and reaching out to people who have proven that they, they've proven their knowledge and also empowering ourselves to, to, to learn about ourselves and learn about the things that are applicable to us. So, I mean, I think we can hopefully find that balance somewhere. And you also kind of burst my bubble because I would really love a pill that would replace sleep.

Starting point is 00:09:12 Like that would be awesome because sleep is a lot of work for me. But I guess we'll get there. We'll get to that part. And I also really connect with part of your story in sort of being in love with muscle building and like that vision of sort of these strong action heroes from a young age, because I'm telling you right now, whether people want to make fun of me or not, one that movie so much. We talked about this on separate podcasts. I think it's even weirder for me as a woman. But, like, I grew up idolizing, you know, American Gladiators and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jean-Claude, too. So I can definitely connect with that. Yeah, his physique.

Starting point is 00:09:55 I mean, just from a pure aesthetic standpoint, I mean, his physique. I think it's still amazing. And he's very flexible and he can do the splits. And, gosh, my brother and I used to just watch these over and over. And we were so inspired and we would do push-ups. We would do all these things to try to look like him. It's pretty amazing how he's influenced so many people. Yeah, yeah, it's incredible.

Starting point is 00:10:17 And I mean, it sounds like you've lived a pretty full life already as a young person. You talked about having sort of some struggles with drugs and things like that when you were younger and kind of getting off the path. What was it that enabled you to kind of get out of the destructive path that you were on and get back into health and wellness and learning and all of that? Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, it was getting arrested for the second time and my dad just saying, look, we're not going to tolerate this in our household. So you need to go to an outpatient rehab center. I wasn't into hard drugs, but we were convincing. I was into bike riding. So I was BMXing, we were skateboarding, we were sneaking out at night, going to skate parks, smoking weed, and then convincing homeless

Starting point is 00:11:03 people to buy us Mickey Ice and old English 40ss and that's how we would get our alcohol and then you know sneak it from my parents and stuff like that but yeah i was getting arrested for the second time when i was 15 and my dad was like look we're not gonna tolerate this so you need to figure out your life right now and i'm gonna help you so it was really good mentors because i think gosh you know if i didn't have that, I mean, my life would be so different in a, in a very negative way. And so I played a lot of catch up and here's the thing, like, and this is a mindset. And the reason why I bring this up, I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me. I'm not looking for sympathy, but I don't have this weight loss journey. I don't have this.

Starting point is 00:11:40 I used to be 400 pounds and all this stuff. This, my problem was that I literally felt dumb. I felt stupid for many years of my life. I wanted to kill myself because I thought, man, I just screwed up my brain. Like interacting with people was challenging. Like trying to like communicate with women. I was so shy because like for five years of my life, I was under the influence. The only way that I was able to like interact with women was through the use of alcohol and drugs and things like that pot. And so in high school was such a challenge early on for me. And so I used the power of good nutrition. You know, I did a high protein diet, things like that, you know, from reading these different bodybuilding books, Lee Haney's bodybuilding book, Arnold had a book back then, all that and regained my confidence and totally changed my life. And so I went from, you know,

Starting point is 00:12:30 freshman year of high school, raggedy clothes, super long hair. People used to call me, there was this band, Sunny Boys or something like that. I used to get teased all the time to then starting on the varsity football team my senior year. So it was like that major swing. So it's like, if I can do that in four years, anyone listening that is struggling with, whether it's autoimmunity, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, obesity, whatever, the body is so malleable. And obviously it's probably more malleable and modifiable and able to change when you're younger, but we see transformations at all stages of life. So just want to infuse that, but really it was good mentors. And so that's being, meaning my parents, my father and my stepmother, namely. My stepmother was getting,

Starting point is 00:13:17 she, it's funny that I marry a chiropractor because this chiropractor that my stepmother introduced me to actually really got me into doing leg exercises, squatting, deadlifts, lunges, things like that, which really changed my physique. But yeah, so I think we all need to find a coach, a mentor. So if you're listening and you're struggling, you're like, dude, I can't really get from A to B and I want to be at B, then you need to start reading books. You need to hire a coach, hire someone that will keep you accountable. You know, I'm sure Ashley, you get a ton of coach, hire someone that will keep you accountable. You know, I'm sure Ashley, you get a ton of direct messages. People, they send you their life story on a direct message on Instagram and expect you to diagnose them and write a prescription. Yeah. And you wish you could, right? But it's not that easy. Like, look, I have a job too. I have a family, I have

Starting point is 00:14:01 a mortgage. Like, you know what I mean? I would love to individually custom tailor every single person and help them, but that's not the case. So you need to invest dollars so that you're financially committed. Because I think when people are constantly fishing for free information, nothing wrong with that. But if there's nothing that kind of, and I saw this when I was selling supplements to doctors is people would buy these detox kits. There were 150 bucks. I would sell them. And I, you know, I remember looking at these things, when I was selling supplements to doctors is people would buy these detox kits. They were 150 bucks. I would sell them. And I, you know, I remember looking at these things being like, are they really going to do anything? I mean, there's a little selenium, a little zinc, a little phase two herbs that enhance phase two detoxification in the liver protein.

Starting point is 00:14:37 But it was amazing. Like just these kits selling them to pay these doctors would sell them to patients and have workshops. People would have these transformations. And what it was is the kit would cause them to buy in. And they're like, well, I spent $200 or $300 on this kit. I'm making, you know, I'm going to take this seriously for the next eight or 10 weeks. And they would have these weight loss transformations. They would reverse, you know, say gastrointestinal issues, IBS, Crohn's, things like that. And so I really think there's, there's power in coaching and programs because you're paying for it and it's holding you accountable. Yeah, that is such a good thing to kind of reiterate. And I really appreciate that you

Starting point is 00:15:16 kind of tell us a little bit about your struggles that you had earlier, because first of all, that's not something that I knew about you. But also, I, again, have a similar kind of similar story in that I've said on podcasts before, or in interviews, like I don't have the kind of background story that makes for like a sexy Instagram post. Because like you, like I've been very fortunate generally with my health. And I have never really had to knock on wood overcome anything, any significant health issues or weight issues or anything like that. But just because maybe your struggles or your challenges don't manifest themselves in a physical way. So someone can, for example, tell that you have an eating disorder or struggling with health issues or using sort of dysfunctional approaches to nutrition and exercise to try to fix another problem that maybe people just don't see. So I appreciate you kind of talking about that because it was something that I

Starting point is 00:16:15 struggled with before too, where I'm like, no one really cares about my story because it's not that there's, there isn't like that sort of hero arc that people want you know that that makes it kind of sexy and makes a good soundbite but it doesn't mean that you you aren't passionate or that you didn't overcome something or that you don't know a lot and can offer a lot so um yeah so i i really appreciate that and i 100 agree with the pay for the the value of the information that you want like if you're getting everything for free that's gonna be reflective in first of all how much effort you're putting in but also maybe the quality of the information sometimes too. So it's good to think about. It's so true. Yeah. And the thing is, sometimes we can be very embarrassed

Starting point is 00:16:54 by our story and we can look at this. We don't look at the silver lining. And I'll say this just from personal experience. I used to be so embarrassed. Like two years ago, I would never have admit that when I was nine years old, you know, that I started smoking weed. Like it was so embarrassed. I was so embarrassed by that. I was so ashamed of that, but I realized that like, man, I'm so grateful for that experience because it caused me to like not party in college. And I was spending so much time in the library, like relearning how to do math and studying calculus and doing all these things because I didn't study in high school. So I would never change my story. And so that's people listening. They're like, oh my, I'm so ashamed of being overweight. I'm so ashamed that I ate like crap for this long. Like, don't be ashamed of that. That's part of you. And

Starting point is 00:17:38 you need to learn to love all of this because it made you who you are right now. And it could have saved you in some way. So I'm super, you know, again, I used to be so embarrassed by this. I would never have admitted this to anyone, you know, but it's like, look, we got to just be come to terms and love. And it sounds like woo woo, but love who we are. Right. And that can help you then make more. First of all, it's just being really honest, right? Which is good and being more authentic. But then we can use those lessons and have that then affect our future decision making so that we can learn from that and be better for the people around us and also ourself. It's so true. And the struggles that you have are almost always what make you more relatable

Starting point is 00:18:20 to other people. Like what you're saying, I know for a fact, there are people in my life, there are people listening that have had very similar experiences. Like what you're saying, I know for a fact, there are people in my life, there are people listening that have had very similar experiences. Like when you're saying that there was, there were times when you sort of felt like you needed to be high or drink to like interact with women or you, you know, like things like that, or like, it's very hard to kind of be social with people like that is a very common problem these days, right? That's a very common issue that a lot of people struggle with. And I think that we try to make light of it on social media. And we're like this introvert generation because we'd all rather talk to each other on Instagram

Starting point is 00:18:52 than in real life. But I mean, these things that we all struggle with that we're embarrassed by are things that guaranteed other people are struggling with too. And if we have the, I don't know, I guess maybe the courage sometimes to share that stuff, that's, that's, what's going to help other people rather than showing sort of the best version of yourself all the time. Yeah. 1000%. Yeah. Yeah. Except it's, it's hard to do, but anyway, I appreciate you doing it. Um, and we're all, we're all working towards it. We're all working towards being, I guess, better and more authentic, honest versions of ourself. That's a

Starting point is 00:19:23 lot of work and, um, it's getting deep already. That's a lot of work. And it's getting deep already. So I'm gonna bring us back out a little bit to talk about some fasting and food and nutrition stuff. When you were going to school, and you were learning and you decided to start this podcast and do all this great work that you're doing. Did you start from a perspective of low carb or ketogenic or fasting kind of protocol? Or was that something that sort of evolved over time? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I was not really that into it. I mean, I was interested in kind of this whole circadian rhythm influence on our digestive physiology. So I was interested in more so time-restricted

Starting point is 00:20:01 feeding, not so much intermittent fasting. But when I get into this whole podcast thing, part of it was because I had just self-published this book called Belly Fat Effect in 2014. And I was doing these webinars for a while, and I had my head down in the microbiome research for a very long time. Because when I was working as a sales rep, I was also interning with a physician, Gerard Guillory in Colorado, an MD, wanted to go to med school. And one of the MAs that was working there had gastric bypass surgery. This was like 2008, 2009. It was quite a long time ago.

Starting point is 00:20:33 And anyway, she – like about 10 weeks after, 12 weeks after, like she was a new person after this bariatric surgery. And I thought, wow, that's so crazy. Like because she was still drinking Coke, she was still eating crap, but she had totally lost all this weight. And being a kind of curious person back then, I was like, oh, how, what's the mechanism here? How does bariatric surgery cause such rapid and sustained weight loss? And again, I'm not promoting the procedure. I just want to admire the pharmacology, if you will.

Starting point is 00:20:59 And it turns out that if you look at the research that I was looking at and so forth, and still to this day, I mean, more and more papers are being published. Bariatric surgery, it changes our gut microbiome, it changes our gut hormones, it influences the gut immune neuroendocrine response. So a lot of people, when they start to gain weight, their bodies, like when the gastrointestinal tract, we think that it's just like, oh, you put a bunch of food in there and then it gets absorbed. And then that goes somewhere, like you utilize it in your muscles for fat or burning and so forth. But really the gut has a lot of nutrient sensing receptors. There's a lot of immunological tissue and stuff like that that communicates to the brain. And those, the sensitivity of that

Starting point is 00:21:39 becomes attenuated over time when we get more overweight and insulin resistant. And so, and this research has been published since the 1980s. And I was so surprised that no doctors were talking about that. Anyway, so I started to dive into this and then wrote this book, Belly Fat Effect. And so to answer your question, I wasn't, I was more focused on the gut when I first started this because the gut is so powerful. And it turns out that fasting and the ketogenic diet do influence these gut hormones. They influence these so-called increasing hormones, which maybe it's important to define because I think it's really important for people to understand this. So common wisdom suggests, especially in the fitness space,

Starting point is 00:22:18 you eat glucose, your blood sugar rises, insulin rises as a response to that elevated glucose to lower glucose. That's only half the story. When we start thinking about food, when we smell food, when we cook food, the so-called cephalic phase of digestion is increased. And so this means that our brain is saying to the rest of the body, including the gut and the pancreas where insulin is stored and released, it's saying, hey, body, look, food is coming in. So you need to like anticipate that the homeostatic balance is going to be off a little bit. So let's

Starting point is 00:22:51 start to release insulin. So there's even a pre meal insulin release before you even eat the food. So this, this will tie back in. I promise folks, when we talk about intermittent fasting, because it's so important to understand when you start intermittent fasting, that you need to be a little bit more consistent when you fast and when you break your fast. So some people will break their fast at noon one day, then at six the next day, and it's just all over the place. And so this whole cephalic phase of digestion can be perturbed. And so I think it's also important then that we're not putting a bunch of coconut oil we're not putting a bunch of collagen in our in our coffee because that's stimulating like if you're trying to fast and you're doing all these other things you're stimulating this whole cephalic phase of

Starting point is 00:23:34 digestion and it's going to make you really really hungry because your body is anticipating food is coming in the stevia the sucralose aspartpartame, the flavored collagens, all these things, they're basically, they're food, right? Like they don't have a lot of calories. They don't have a lot of energy, but the flavor profile is stimulating, you know, this cephalic phase of digestion. It's going to make you hungry. It's going to cause insulin and glucose to be imbalanced. So anyway, getting back to the whole blood sugar regulation, you know, much of the post meal metabolic response to how the foods that we eat, meaning how much does your glucose rise? How much does your insulin rise is mediated through the gut. And that becomes imbalanced much earlier than does the post meal

Starting point is 00:24:20 changes. So if we think about hyperinsulinemia, so we hear about insulin resistance and how people, they eat glucose and then their blood sugar rises. They eat carbs, their blood sugar rises, insulin overshoots, then their blood sugar dips down. They feel weak, lethargic and so forth. And it's this rollercoaster that many Americans and people in the Western world, unfortunately have going on. Much of the mechanistic biology as to why that is occurring starts out within the gut first. And this so-called gut response to metabolism precedes insulin resistance. So it's important for people, and I don't want to lose them in the weeds of complexity, but it's just important to understand that the foods that you eat really influence your gut, gut health, and the gut

Starting point is 00:25:05 metabolic response to food. And so I encourage people to chew their food. I encourage people to put down Instagram and their iPhone and all that when they're eating, turn off the TV, really focus on being mindful because just chewing your food, you know, feeling like the food in your tongue, the smells, the taste, the texture, all that helps to kickstart this whole kind of gut brain metabolic response. And so that we're able to better process the foods that we eat in the post-meal window. So I think that's the big take-home message that I would encourage people to kind of focus on. And feeding studies have actually shown this too. And people that eat and don't really chew their food very well. I mean, literally science, scientists have like used really, um, slow wave, like high speed, uh, high camera,

Starting point is 00:25:50 high frame rate cameras, uh, to look at how fast people chew. And they've shown that around 42 chews per swallow is kind of that sweet spot. Now I don't encourage anyone to like start counting how many chews they're doing, but this is where I suggest just being mindful. So you put in, you know, you take a spoonful of food, put the fork down and just chew and think, oh, wow, does this taste good? What are the sensations that you're getting from that? Talk to your spouse, talk to your roommate, talk to someone you care about while you're eating your food, share the meal with someone. And that literally will make, you know, your post-meal processing, i.e. insulin sensitivity and fat burning in the post-meal. And that literally will make, you know, your post meal processing, i.e. insulin sensitivity and fat burning in the post meal window that will enhance that just by doing that one simple thing. And so, again, because so many of us and actually, you know,

Starting point is 00:26:36 this in the fitness space, it's like I eat every two to three hours. And so a lot of us are just mindfully mindless, I should say mindlessly eating because we're eating because we are told we should eat, not because we're really, truly hungry. And because we're eating so frequently in that realm, that diet, bodybuilding type realm, it's taken so much time of our day. We're probably eating on the computer, we're checking our finances, Facebook, whatever, and we're not even really aware of what's foods and what's coming into our mouth. And so anyway, the irony of that too, is that so many of us are eating mindlessly to comfort ourselves. But when we're doing it that mindlessly, we're not even really, we're not even getting at least the momentary pleasure that you would get from being mindful about eating whatever it is you're eating, you know you're eating. I have dealt with this in the

Starting point is 00:27:25 past. First of all, I probably need a couple more chews per bite myself personally because I like to do everything quickly. So I can definitely work on that. But I mean, I certainly have struggled in the past with using food as comfort and stress relief. And when I'm sitting in front of Netflix or Instagram or whatever I'm doing and eating whatever it is that I'm eating to kind of just take my mind off whatever is stressing me out, I'm like, at least I'm not even using the tool the way that I was initially planning to because it's just I'm not even paying attention to what I'm eating or enjoying it. And one thing that I want to ask about this, because I've, of course, heard before, and

Starting point is 00:28:01 I believe in the validity of definitely being mindful when you're eating and taking your time and being present. And I think that's a great exercise that can then translate into other things in your life, too, right? Because we so, so often during the day, we're half paying attention to things, whether we're at work, but also looking at our phone, or maybe we're having dinner with our spouse, but we're also looking at our phone or whatever. I think that kind of even just paying attention to being mindful, just that one time when you're sitting down and having a meal, I think that that could probably have positive benefits and sort of, you know, reflect in other areas of your life. But one of the things that I wanted to ask is whether any of this is related to, because I've read that there are studies that your mindset or your feeling about what you're eating can actually affect your physiological response to what you're eating. So, for example, if you and I sit down and we both have cupcakes and you're like, I've worked real hard this week and I'm just so excited for this cupcake. I'm going to enjoy it so much and it's delicious.

Starting point is 00:29:03 And you sit there and you eat it and you love it. It makes you so happy. And I sit there and I'm like, I'm going to eat this cupcake. I'm going to enjoy it so much. And it's delicious. And you sit there and you eat it and you love it. It makes you so happy. And I sit there and I'm like, I'm going to eat this cupcake and it's going to make me so fat. And I'm such an asshole for eating this cupcake. You know what I mean? And I eat this cupcake with just these feelings of shame and stress that can actually affect sort of how my body reacts to it and uses it.

Starting point is 00:29:20 Do you think any of this is related? 100%. Yeah. And I have some interesting feeding studies that I can share with you along that. But just wanted to highlight something before we lose our train of thought on being mindful and present while we eat. I mean, it's so important because this is a bi-directional system so that the more kind of present we become before we're eating, the more that we're turning on that whole

Starting point is 00:29:41 parasympathetic branch of our nervous system that will make, that will enhance digestion, that will enhance bile acid release, that will enhance, you know, hydrochloric acid secretion and all that. So, so many of us, you know, have GI issues. So many people are like, oh, I'm bloated, I'm gassy, you know, I get regurgitation, I have to go to the bathroom right after I eat, all of that. And a lot of that can be just poor GI motility. And so there's some interesting researchers, Gerard Mullen, he's at Johns Hopkins. He does endoscopy and scopes on a lot of people. He's a gastroenterologist. And he finds that a lot of people say they have acid reflux.

Starting point is 00:30:13 It's really bile reflux because their sphincters are not, they're wide open. Like they're in a fight or flight response. They should be closed. And so, you know, we need to be in this parasympathetic branch of our, you know, nervous system. So, you know, if you struggle with mindless eating, like I do too, Ashley, I resonate with you a hundred percent when I'm stressed out, when things aren't going my way, when I should be, you know, working, researching, whatever, I'll mindlessly eat something. It can be walnuts. It can be cashews. It'd be whatever. I'm like, wait, what am I doing? I'm not even

Starting point is 00:30:43 hungry. So we all are. I mean, I shouldn't say we're all pro this. I know I am. And I know like you admit it. I think a lot of people are for, and so we need to check in. And so if you're not a meditator, the best time that you can just take like 10 deep belly breaths is right before you think you need to eat something or, you know, you're going to eat a meal because that's going to help you just realize like, okay, and this is where fasting comes in or time-restricted feeding, or even eating one meal a day. Cause you're like, all right, this is my one meal. Like, or I've been fasting for 20 hours. Like I am so hungry. So I'm really going to enjoy this because it's not like when you're eating eight times a day, you're like, that's a chore. But

Starting point is 00:31:22 when eating one or one or two meals a day, it's like, okay, I'm going to really savor this. And I think that's part of the power of fasting. The other power of fasting in my eyes is we have to deal with our emotions. We just kind of talked about mindlessly eating. So we're sitting there. We're like, oh, I'm stressed out. So I'm going to go hit the pantry. I'm going to go hit the refrigerator.

Starting point is 00:31:39 But like if you're fasting, you're like, okay, I'm stressed out. Well, how does that make me feel? Like what I need to deal with this, these emotions? I need to realize that I'm anxious right now. I'm stressed right now. I'm lonely. Whatever it is like. And so that's the power of fasting is you literally have to kind of get at the root cause of the awareness and learn other mitigation strategies.

Starting point is 00:32:01 Hopefully they're helpful, you know, to deal with that uncertainty with that stress. And so I think that's kind of the hidden, hidden power of fasting is not so much the metabolic switch and burning fat for fuel instead of storing body fat and utilizing glucose, like all that fancy stuff we can get into is great. But again, just being more aware of the fact that so many of us are using food as a crutch, you know, to deal, to kind of mask, you know, emotional uncertainty. And when you're fasting, you have to deal with that, or at least you have to be aware of that, which I think is really powerful. But getting back to what you were alluding to about this mindset around food, I think it's

Starting point is 00:32:40 so powerful. So there's been quite a few different feeding studies, one at University of Michigan. I can't remember the researcher's name present, but this study was super powerful. So anyway, these these groups were randomized to one of two groups. One group was going to have the slimming shake and but the shakes were identical. They both had like 600 calories, you know, a bunch of 80 grams of fat, a little bit of sugar in it. Right. But one group had the slimming shake. The other group had the indulgent shake. And so the labels were totally different. And so of course the indulgent shake was like high fat. It was filling rich, like all these terms that triggered, like this was a dessert. The slimming shake was dubbed as like

Starting point is 00:33:19 only 90 calories and all that, but they're the same. And so the researchers looked at a grill in, they looked at ghrelin, they looked at leptin, they looked at various appetite sensing and controlling hormones in both groups, and they tracked them for, I think, 90 minutes or 180 minutes after they ingested these shakes. And here's what's so powerful is the post-meal metabolic response was totally different. So ghrelin, which is a hormone that's released by the stomach that triggers hunger. So it's when we're fasting, ghrelin is amplified. Ghrelin also does a lot of other cool things that we can get into, but long story short, high ghrelin equals high hunger. So in the group that got the slimming low calorie shake, even though the ingredients were 100%

Starting point is 00:34:00 identical, ghrelin levels, like the pre-meal ghrelin levels were the same as the post-meal ghrelin levels. So they stayed amplified. So these people were hungry afterwards. They were like, okay, well, that was so low calorie. When's my next meal, right? Whereas the folks that drank from the indulgent label had the ghrelin totally dropped. And so it wasn't high and they were satiated. They weren't hungry again. So they looked at these standardized hunger questionnaires and stuff like that, that the food scientists look at. And so that's really interesting when we, you know, a lot of us, you know, we try to lose weights, we diet food, we low calorie food. And, and so just the perception that something's low

Starting point is 00:34:41 calorie, it's diet, it's whatever sugar free, that causes us to actually be more physiologically hungry. And, you know, this study and many other studies have shown that. And I think this is where we need to be careful. And, you know, when gluten free foods really started coming out in like 2008, 2009, I remember I was chowing these things down because if it's gluten free, it's healthy, right? Because gluten was the enemy back then. And the same thing, I love the whole paleo movement. You know, I'm a huge fan of Lauren Cordain and all his work and all that stuff. Probably the reason why I moved to Colorado was actually because of him back in 2006. But you know, we got to be careful of paleo foods. We have to be careful of keto foods. Again, I'm a keto person.

Starting point is 00:35:21 I'm not saying keto is bad, but when we see keto, paleo, sugar-free, gluten-free, organic on a label, we're more likely to eat more of it. And because we ascribe health benefits to being keto and so forth. And one other study, a different feeding group, different research team actually showed that people overate healthy granola. It was, you know, there was same thing, right? Whereas different labels, same product. And so we just need to be mindful of this. And so, but the studies that you're referring to, I haven't actually read any studies where if we have a negative response,

Starting point is 00:35:56 but I 100% agree that it's probably the same thing where if we think, oh, this food is so fattening, I feel terrible for eating it. Like it's probably gonna have a negative physiologic response. It's so fascinating. It's just like, it's so fascinating how much of this is, and it's like a cliche to say, but how much of it is in your mind? And one of the things that you've mentioned recently that I, again, resonated with, and I think this is something a lot of people can understand is the idea of, I want to get into fasting and what that means and what time-restricted eating versus intermittent fasting versus fasting,

Starting point is 00:36:30 all that stuff. I want to get into that. But one of the things that you kind of talked about, why either time-restricted eating or intermittent fasting can be something that either is more sustainable or more reasonable for most people than diets of any kind, whether it's keto or carnivore or paleo or whatever, is because sometimes completely abstaining can be much more mentally easy than restricting, right? And I have said this in a maybe less eloquent way many times. And when I was bodybuilding and I was very strict about how I was eating. Like I would tell friends, I would, I would truly rather eat zero cookies than eat one cookie. Like I really feel that way. Like I, I like my volume and I love, I love food and food makes me happy and I want to indulge in it. And I don't want to have to track my macros or eat half of a candy bar at one time and save

Starting point is 00:37:22 the rest for three days from now. Like that's not how I want to live. I would much rather just not like have certain things that are just not in my life because I don't need them. And it's easier to just, it's cuts down on decision fatigue. It cuts down on all of this kind of inner turmoil. And a lot of this is reflected in your cortisol and your, your, again, like you were just talking about your reaction to the foods that you eat. And it's just, it's such an interesting take. And not everyone feels that way, I'm sure. Like I know people who can open a bar of chocolate, need one piece and leave it in their fridge and forget about it.

Starting point is 00:37:52 I don't understand that personally, but I know lots of people who can do it. So I think it's really ultimately, I think, as you said, sort of earlier in the chat is about figuring out what kind of person you are and what things trigger you and what things motivate you and what things work best for your lifestyle and kind of approaching it that way. It's brilliant, you know, but I think there is, it's easier to, like you said, just abstain entirely. And this is why in Alcoholics Anonymous and other kind of addictive recovery programs, it's not like, oh yeah, you can, even though you're addicted to porn or online gambling or whatever, you can do 10 minutes of porn a day. That's cool. It's

Starting point is 00:38:30 like, no, no, no, you need to get rid of it entirely. Like you can't just have one drink because you know, a lot of people that are former alcoholics, you know, they have one drink that leads to two, three, four, five. So it's just like you're saying, it's like, I think we've, because humans require food, like we need food to eat. I mean, to live, like it's an absolute requirement, right? But it's like, but food also has this highly addictive component and element to it. And I'm not saying food is bad, but it's just that that's just the reality of the situation. If you look at the dopamine reward centers and the nucleus accumbens and these various brain regions of the brain, like food stimulates those

Starting point is 00:39:05 same neurologic targets. And so we need to be mindful of the fact that, yeah, it's sometimes, like you said, it's easier to be like, you know what, I'm fasting, and I'm, you know, or I've only one meal a day, or whatever it is. So yeah, know thyself, understand what's going on. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But I'm the same way. I mean, if I have a little bit of, you know, organic grass-fed ice cream, for example, it's like, I know that if that's in my freezer, like I'm not going to be able to just have two spoonfuls of it, right? I'm going to crush the whole thing. So it's like my wife and I are just like, look, we don't buy this stuff.

Starting point is 00:39:37 Or when we do buy it, it's like on a Friday or Saturday, we're super active. So it's like we're hiking, we're working out, we're doing yard work, whatever. And that's kind of the day where we have a calorie surplus. And then we'll usually fast like today, Monday, I'm fasting. So, you know, we kind of work around these things. But we know that if we have these things in our house, it's just too hard. And it's like, it's not like a death sentence either. When you say abstaining, it doesn't mean that you can never eat a thing that you love ever again, as you've just said, I think for me, it's more about like picking your battles. So like, I know the things that I love to eat, and that no matter how unhealthy they are, don't really need that to live. You know, like I could go the rest of my life without eating like pizza and chips. I know that a lot of people are probably gasping hearing that right now, but I'm a sweets person. Like I don't really care about that kind of food. I could give that stuff up. I could never

Starting point is 00:40:37 buy chips again, never have it in the house. And I'm, and I'm making a good decision for myself. I'm going to do like what you did on a Friday night. I'm going to treat myself and eat some cookies or some donuts or whatever, because that's the stuff that really brings me joy. So I think it's, again, we've said this a couple times already, like it's the mindfulness. It's knowing what you need in your life, what you need to have a sustainable, balanced, happy life and enjoy it. And to also have a healthy life that's vibrant and that you're nourishing yourself and treating yourself well. So that's why, I mean, that's why there's no one prescription for everybody. And that's why it takes a long time and sometimes forever for us to hit that kind of balance or that optimal lifestyle for us.

Starting point is 00:41:16 Because it's constantly evolving and we're constantly evolving. And it's complicated. But it's also kind of a fun journey if you look at it in a positive light, right? Like it's fun. You're learning things. Totally. 100%. And just to kind of finish off for capstone, that argument is that diet breaks are actually helpful. And so I know a lot of people are focused on, well, it's all about calorie balance and however you get there is the, you know, that's all that matters. And one clinical study is a 16 week study. It was like

Starting point is 00:41:43 a very strict low calorie diet versus diet breaks every three weeks. And so clinical study, it was a 16 week study. It was like a very strict low calorie diet versus diet breaks every three weeks. And so these, these scientists, you know, track these individuals where they said, okay, look, so after three weeks, just take, just eat normally, however you would normally eat pre diet, whatever, just eat whatever the heck you want. And then on week, you know, week four, you know, after you do the, you know, or sorry, week five, then you go back on the strict diet for three weeks and take another week off. And the outcome was actually better in the folks that had the diet breaks, meaning they lost more body fat, they preserved more lean muscle mass, and they were able to stick with this more long-term approach. So I think the idea of having a cheat day, I think

Starting point is 00:42:19 in the bodybuilding space, and this was, everyone did this on Saturday or Sunday, they'd have one day, it was a day off. Now, I don't recommend necessarily cotton candy, corn dogs, and Slurpees on that day off. But as you said, maybe a paleo donut, some, some, you know, grass fed ice cream from, from cows or fed, you know, ate grass, pasture raised, things like that. I think having a little bit of flexibility and not being such a, you know, because a lot of people get on this ketogenic diet or the carnivorous diet and they're like, I have to eat meat and eggs and that's it forever. And it's like, well, I mean, maybe if you have scleroderma or lupus or RA, okay, I get it. But if you're relatively healthy, a little bit of a break in the program is going to be okay. So just understand there's actually research.

Starting point is 00:43:01 Okay. So I want to get into fasting now and I want to just start kind of high level and we'll dig in as we go. But first I'd like to, for you to kind of talk about general terms, the differences between fasting, intermittent fasting, time-restricted eating window. Are those, is it all semantics or are these actually different things? And I know that you've, I've heard you mentioned before that you're not necessarily for everyone, a big fan of like longer fasts. So people, cause you know how human nature goes. People think like if something's good,

Starting point is 00:43:32 then more of it's better. So it's like, oh, well if I can do a 20 to 24 hour fast every couple of weeks, like maybe I should do a one week fast, like once a quarter and that would be good. And I think that you've said in the past that generally maybe longer fasts aren't necessary for everyone, but you could kind of just talk about that, the whole sort of genre

Starting point is 00:43:49 generally, and we'll kind of go from there. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I'd love to. I mean, this is such a fascinating topic and, you know, a lot of people kind of look at this as this new age fad, like, oh, fasting is this fad. But some of the earliest reports in the medical literature of fasting, and specifically intermittent fasting as a method of causing weight loss has been published in the 1950s. And so this is not necessarily a fad. It's been known for a long time that going without food for an extended period of time. And if we talk about what defines intermittent fasting versus just regular eating patterns, well, it's very loosely defined because in the medical literature, it's at least from what I've read, again, there's no like one scientific paper, but it's fasting for at least 14 hours in

Starting point is 00:44:37 a day. And most of the intermittent fasting subtypes, so if we look at intermittent fasting as this big umbrella, and underneath that umbrella, we have different subtypes. So there's the 5-2 intermittent fasting, meaning that on two non-consecutive days, people fast for 24 hours. So that could be, for example, so I'm fasting on a Monday, and then I could fast again for 24 hours on a Thursday. So that would be called the 5-2 diet. There's also, and this is one of the first randomized published intermittent fasting studies at Johns Hopkins back in, I think, 2006, was an alternate day fasting. They call ADF for alternate day fasting. Interestingly, this clinical trial was actually in people that had asthma.

Starting point is 00:45:17 It was overweight individuals that had asthma. And so I want to just underscore the importance of this for people listening. Maybe you don't have body weight issues, but you have inflammatory mediated issues like, you know, asthma, food sensitivities, like autoimmunity. And so, you know, a lot of people have Hashimoto's, they have MS, they have high antibodies for whatever it is. Just understand that although fasting is a metabolic based therapy, it's also an immunologic therapy. And I think people are like, wait, how can it be both? Because the metabolism and our nutrient-sensing receptors are interwoven within our immune system. And so this is a therapy that affects the whole network.

Starting point is 00:45:55 And so anyway, under that umbrella, we have the 5-2, we have alternate day fasting. So you eat one day, then you fast for 24 hours. You eat one day day fast for 24 hours. So I think that's a very viable and, you know, approachable strategy for people that are insulin resistant, that are overweight, that have a lot of fat to lose. And if people are not physically active. And so I think where we kind of get a little bit more trying to figure out what's the best approach for different people, it's, are you physically active or not? Are you an athlete or not? Because if you're training, you're already putting a physiologic demand on the body and then baking in fasting on top of that can be a little bit too much. And so that's where for athletes,

Starting point is 00:46:33 I generally in physically active people, I recommend more of a time restricted feeding where you're having a clearly defined window that is time bound. And when I say time bound, it's not necessarily 16, eight, where you're fasting for 16 hours, fasting for eight hours. It's like, okay, I only eat between 10 and six, 10 AM and 6 PM. And that's what I personally generally do. Some days I just see one meal a day, but usually cause I'm pretty physically active. I try to drive my car as little as possible, lift weights five days a week, do a ton of yard work. We do hiking. So I found for me, like if I do too many prolonged fasts, uh, fasting for 36 up to 72 hours, which that's

Starting point is 00:47:11 kind of where we figure out, you know, the scientific studies show that autophagy or the so-called cellular self-eating, uh, you know, pathway is amplified at around the 72 hour mark. So a lot of people are trying to prolong fast, but we actually know that exercise is an autophagy enhancer in and of itself. And so just by moving your body, just by hitting the weights or doing aerobics, cardio, things like that, you're enhancing autophagy. So you don't really need to also layer in prolonged fast on top of that. So I do recommend a prolonged fast for people that have a lot of body weight to lose. Again, if you go back to the medical literature back in the 1950s, prolonged fasting. So one of the first intermittent fasting studies was a 10-day fast followed by 20 days of normal eating.

Starting point is 00:47:55 And so it was like once a month, right? You're fasting for 10 days and 20 days of the month you're eating normally. And this, you know, several individuals were in the study and they lost a ton of body fat. So, again, you got to kind of look at, you know, and it's kind of like if I call my financial planner and just say, you know, hey, but I want to retire with two million dollars in the bank. Whatever. Let's just say when I'm 65, what do I need to do? He's going to say, well, what's your income? What's your debt? Like, you know, how many kids do you have? I mean, there's a lot of parameters. So we need to look at this like a financial planner would give you financial advice. We need to look at how much metabolic debt we have.

Starting point is 00:48:32 So have you been eating every two to three hours for 20 years, 10 years, 40 years, 50 years? How much weight do you need to lose right now? Where is your triglycerides, your blood work, right? We need to look at liver enzymes. Liver enzymes give us an insight into insulin resistance. We need to look at your lipids, right? Your cholesterol, the LHGL, your blood glucose and all that. So I think it takes a little bit of understanding your physiology, understanding your disease predispositions. Did grandma get dementia at 60 or did she live to 97 and have no disease? Right. So we need to really kind of this is where we need to work with someone that knows what they're doing. If we don't, you know, with with a health professional, nutrition professional and customize things.

Starting point is 00:49:16 But I think most physically active people can do a one day a week fast. I call it metabolic Monday, super simple, just fast for 24 hours every Monday. And then what I personally do is any times when the seasons change or there's a new fiscal quarter, depending upon my travel schedule, you know, so like Q3, Q4 is coming up soon. What I'll do is I'll just do a three-day fast. So it's very simple, 72 hours. Boom, just done. I don't have to think about it. It's on the calendar.

Starting point is 00:49:56 So it's a little bit predictable. And then it's just easy. It's just, you know, done. And so actually in Austin, that was, you know, the end of Q2 start of Q3. Uh, and so my wife and I did have 72 hour fast then, or actually we cut it off like 64 hours or something like that. Um, so when you saw us, we were just breaking the fast and we probably both look really thin because we're already athletic anyway. And then after, you know, you bake in a six hour fast and like, I, when I see pictures of myself, I'm like, wow, look gone.

Starting point is 00:50:24 But then you just, you know, you eat some food and you feel okay. But like my wife, like she has- She's crazy lean, yeah. Really low. Super jealous. I, for long, fasting for her is like bad. Like she could literally probably cause issues because she doesn't have a lot of fat. Like we just got MRIs and stuff, like even around like her kidneys and stuff protecting her organs. Like it's some, you know, heaven forbid she got a car accident.

Starting point is 00:50:49 Like there's not a lot of fat there. So for her prolonged fasting is dumb. That would not be advisable. You know, so that's why at 64 hours, we were like, we're starving. Let's like, this isn't, we gotta eat, you know? Yeah, I know. This is very, this is very helpful.

Starting point is 00:51:04 And I have a lot of questions about this. But it's funny, like the just the last thing you touched on your wife, who yeah, has like the best biceps ever. But she's very lean and not not a leanness that's typical of the average woman, right? And I think so, so often we like we demonize fat to the point where we think that everybody in the world across the board should always be trying to lose fat when that's not always the case, right? And there is absolutely protective and health benefits of fat to a certain extent. So I think that that's worth noting that not everyone necessarily wants to fast because it's just the trendy way to lose fat because

Starting point is 00:51:41 you're not eating, right? But one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about, because I know you've mentioned this before, and this isn't necessarily regarding things like intermittent fasting or like 14 to 16 hour fast, because honestly, like a 14 hour fast is just going to sleep and not eating right before you go to bed or right when you get up. Like a 14 hour fast should be pretty manageable for most people. I would say when we're talking about longer, like 24-hour fasts, especially in a culture and environment where most of us never miss a meal, I mean, that can get a little bit more like you want to work up to it, and that can be a little bit challenging, totally doable, but challenging. But when we're talking about people who are doing maybe one day fasting a week, and then maybe once a month, they're doing three-day fasting,

Starting point is 00:52:24 like they're doing some of these longer ones, and they're doing it for longevity and autophagy and all of these things. And they're, and they're also active, healthy people who generally maybe aren't overweight. There's always this conversation about well, not eating is you're going to have muscle wasting, and you're going to lose muscle. And it seems to me that there is a fair bit of research coming out that that is not the case. But can you talk a little bit about the mechanics behind that? Like, why is it that that fasting seems to be sort of this like magic thing you can do that's going to help you lose fat, but not muscle? Like, why, why aren't we losing muscle when we're doing fasts? Yeah, that's, I mean, and to be honest, this is why I was not interested in intermittent fasting back like five, 10 years ago, because I thought the same thing.

Starting point is 00:53:07 You know, we're we're conditioned to always have amino acids in the system, you know, bodybuilding books. It's like take a slow digesting weight casein at night, you know, so that, you know, it's slowly breaking down and all that. But, you know, the physiology of fasting and we didn't really define that. So maybe we can talk about it now. What makes fasting so unique? Well, you're making this metabolic switch and a lot of scientists, Mark Mattson, Walter Longo, many people have talked about this in their academic articles and why it's so favorable. So a lot of us, when we're eating every two, three hours, we're eating the standard American diet. We're predominantly utilizing glucose as the main substrate of energy.

Starting point is 00:53:40 And because the hormonal milieu that's associated with chronically eating and having calories in and all that is we're really storing body fat. We're not burning it. So we're using glucose. We're storing fat. But when we're fasting, what we're doing is we're kind of pivoting out of this utilization of glucose to more reliance upon ketone bodies and fatty acids. And instead of storing body fat, we're liberating or breaking that down to enhance both the utilization of ketones and fats for fuel. Now here's what, okay, so that's kind of the broad spectrum. That's what makes intermittent fasting and where we make this metabolic switch is really dependent upon how metabolic flexible, the metabolic flexibility that we have. And so athletes, because of course the nature of physical activity, and I'm very biased here because I love exercise, but it makes us more metabolically flexible. So, and let me just get to something in a minute because it's on the top of my mind.

Starting point is 00:54:31 It's really interesting. If we look at autophagy as this key intracellular cleanup process, that's also involved in creating stem cells and, you know, degrading aggregated or damaged proteins, damaged intracellular organelles like mitochondria and all this, autophagy has actually increased. Like the more physically fit one is, the more autophagy has increased in the absence of food. So for a lot of people chasing autophagy, the best thing that you can do is start exercising and bake in a little bit of intermittent fasting on top of that. So one feeding study that comes to mind, it was published two years ago, showed that athletic lean people, and they looked

Starting point is 00:55:10 at their autophagy biomarkers systemically compared to sedentary overweight people. At the 36-hour mark, there was a statistically significant increase in autophagy biomarkers in the physically active people compared to the sedentary overweight people. So if that doesn't get you squatting, deadlifting, pressing, I don't know what will, right? But getting back to the kind of the fasting physiology and why we don't lose all this muscle mass that we think about, it has to do with the increase in growth hormone while we're fasting. So in the absence of food, the body is trying to repartition energy substrates. And again, burn body fat, break it down, make ketones. It turns out that human growth hormone, the increase in fasting that we get in human

Starting point is 00:55:51 growth hormone helps to not only spare and preserve lean muscle mass, but also help us to utilize fats instead of selectively breaking down muscle. Because why would the body want to break down muscle? Well, muscle and the amino acids that comprise muscle are wonderful gluconeogenic substrates. These are substrates that can be utilized to make glucose from a new. But in the presence of growth hormone, what happens is growth hormone helps to sparingly muscle mass and actually utilize the backbone of body fat called glycerol. So if we think about, if we pinch our abdomen and we can feel fat, or we pinch the back of our arms, we just think that's fat. Well, fat is triacetylglycerol.

Starting point is 00:56:32 It's a triglyceride. So there's these three chains of fats and this backbone called glycerol. Those fatty acids, you know, the triglyceride, those fatty acids can be utilized to directly be burned as energy or to make ketones, both of which are favorable, both of which happen when we fast. And that backbone that's holding those three fatty acid chains is a wonderful gluconeogenic substrate, meaning it's able to actually be converted in your liver into glucose. Because we talk about how glucose is kind of, there's this mindset,

Starting point is 00:57:09 glucose is bad, ketones are good, right? Well, it's like, well, not really. It's not, nothing's bad or good. You need both, right? Your red blood cells absolutely need glucose. Your neurons, your retina, your eyes, they require glucose. There's no amount of ketogenesis or fasting physiology that can surmount the demand for glucose that you need, right? Glucose never totally drops. And that's why even in people that prolong fast, their glucose can still, it's not elevated, but it's more elevated than you might think. And thankfully we have this unique mechanism. So stored body fat can, can be directly converted into both glucose and the ketones and fats. And so this is important for people that are straddling their fasts with collagen, with food, because I think that can actually be paradoxically catabolic because if you're getting energy in, then perhaps,

Starting point is 00:57:58 and I don't have any controlled feeding studies to really talk about here necessarily, but part of the physiology of fasting physiology is you need that growth hormone to be increased to help sparely muscle mass. Because if you don't have the growth hormone around, then yeah, you will catabolize and break down muscle for the obligate glucose utilizing cells in your body, the retina, the red blood cells, neurons. So again, a lot of people are trying to sip on bone broth and have their collagen in their coffee and all that. I'm not anti-bone broth. I'm not collagen. I have a supplement company. We sell collagen, but I don't promote it while you're fasting. This is, if you're going to fast, it's a little bit of, you can do coffee, you can do non-nutritive, no synthetic sweeteners.

Starting point is 00:58:39 So green tea, black tea, stuff like that, like water, salt, like that's, that's pretty much it because you need this, you need the body to, to mount this appropriate fasting response so that the appropriate metabolic switches happen and you're not, you know, catabolizing muscle. So hopefully that, hopefully that helps. And you know, there are, and this is why you see, you know, a lot of people, they generally start to look better, like their skin clears, they're more clear headed when they start fasting more regularly. And I really think part of that is the growth hormone response. And if you look at both the studies in men and women that have actually looked at growth hormone

Starting point is 00:59:20 pulsatile secretions, there's like a 300X. So it's not like growth hormone increases 300 fold, but the amount of secretions, like your brain, the HP access and all that is constantly sending more and more signals like growth hormone, go, go, go, go. So it's just like the frequency at which it's released is very significant in the fasting physiology. And so that kind of happens probably for different people when you're brand new, that might take 30 hours to get to, but when you get more metabolically flexible, this probably happens at a hour, 18, 20, 24, it just depends. So I think it's a, especially for athletes, you know, as we get older, we get more joint pain, we get recovery slows down all that stuff.

Starting point is 01:00:05 And then we have this natural way to amplify that. There's different peptides, GHRP6, and all these things that people are taking. Let's talk a little bit about fasting timing. And I know you mentioned consistency before. And I think probably you'd agree with me and with a lot of other people who have said that ultimately with these things, it's sort of less about dogmatic rules and more about finding a formula that you'll actually stick to, right? Like it's like the whole workout thing, like what's the best workout, the workouts, the one that you're going to do. So whether that's hiking or Pilates or whatever, it's any of those

Starting point is 01:00:38 things are better than not figuring out what you like or doing something you hate and never doing it. But in terms of fasting, I think there's been a lot of conversations about generally speaking for optimal health or energy or autophagy or all of these things that there are some maybe approaches that work better than others. And I know a lot of people have done this sort of like 10 or 11 to 6 or 5 kind of time frame and the sort of like skip breakfast kind of thing. And I know Dr. Rhonda Patrick has talked about kind of doing it the opposite way and having sort of a more big breakfast and then tapering off in the afternoon, which is something I actually prefer, like when I'm trying to do a compressed window, because I just find I'm always hungry in the morning. Like I wake up ready to go and eat and run around. And that's when I'm sort of more active as opposed to

Starting point is 01:01:22 later in the evening when I don't necessarily feel like I need to fuel myself with a big meal. But do you have any sort of in your research or in your experience, is there a sort of approach that generally tends to work better for people? Yeah, that's a great, I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head. You got to figure out what's going to work for you. But if you look at the clinical studies that have been done on this, and actually one was just published on the 26th of July, that kind of reaffirmed what you were just saying and how you personally do and what Rhonda Patrick says is helpful is, and it goes back to where we were talking about this whole metabolic effect of the gut and how the gut hormones and secretory products, bile acids, and all this are active. Like from a circadian rhythm

Starting point is 01:02:05 perspective, our gut is there is like ready to go is primed when we wake up. And I'll just say having, you know, we have backyard turkeys, chickens and pigs, you know, like first thing in the morning, it's not like I couldn't get them to fast. Like I could hide the food, but they'd be looking for the food. Right. And same thing with my dogs. They're like, Hey, where's the food? They're bugging me. They're like barking, they're salivating, all that, right? So I think it's kind of a natural thing for many beings that are living, mammals especially, that like we wake up and we probably should eat, right? But that being said, like do what works for you. But I think, and going back to the feeding study that I was just referring to that was published at the end of July of 2019,

Starting point is 01:02:43 the thermic effect of food. So if we kind of break down our whole metabolism, you know, we have like our resting metabolic rates, we have our energy expenditure associated with exercise, we have the thermic effect of food, we have this, you know, kind of this shivering response. We have all these different things that feed into how much energy do we burn in a day. And it turns out that the thermic effect of food, we can actually burn much more calories from the food that we ingest by eating it earlier in the day because our gut seems to be more active at that time. And that can overall affect how much fat we burn in the day. And so there was a crossover randomized feeding study where they

Starting point is 01:03:20 had people eat earlier in the day, doing an early time-restricted feeding versus eating the same amount of food just spread out between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. And what they found is it did affect fatty acid oxidation favorably. That is early time-restricted feeding. Their feeding pattern was 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. You know, in this particular study, I mean, so if you switch that to 10 a.m. to 6 or 10 a.m. before, it's probably still okay, right? But again, it just depends on your diet, your lifestyle. But what we're seeing here is kind of this bifurcation in the research where there's a lot more data actually kind of realizing that, hey, the gut has a

Starting point is 01:03:56 circadian clock system, just like the hormones do and the GI tract is influenced by circadian rhythms. And we know that everyone now, I think, listening to this is probably familiar with the idea, the premise that blue light at night suppresses melatonin production. I mean, this has been known since 2015. So we know that light influences our biology, but now we're recognizing that, hey, when you eat similarly affects your circadian clock system. And so I think that's the biggest take home that I can say for people is like, whatever fasting window you decide to do, right? If it's 16, eight, if it's whatever, just try to be a little bit consistent with your fast times and your fast window. So if

Starting point is 01:04:36 you're always going to break the fat, so, so, you know, let's just say you're like, all right, I'm going to test this theory about eating breakfast and eating a big breakfast and maybe skipping lunch, having a kind of a late lunch, early dinner and making it smaller. Okay. Try to be consistent with that for say three weeks and track your heart rate variability, track your sleep, track some different biomarkers and just, and maybe see how you feel. And then if it doesn't work for you, then try to skip breakfast and eat a lunch and early dinner, right. And see how that resonates with you. But I will say, very unscientifically, when I was living in Colorado, I wanted to be a

Starting point is 01:05:11 pro bike racer and was training with a lot of athletes that raced in the Tour de France and did Ironman professionally, things like that. This guy, Matty Reed, wonderful athlete. You know, the mantra amongst these athletes who were very lean, performing at a very high level, it was eat early and sleep early. So they'd have a big breakfast, go out and train, and they would have like an like a late lunch, early dinner, and then cut off the food. Right. And so this was pre Instagram, pre Facebook. So we don't know what their fat feeding fasting windows are, but you know,

Starting point is 01:05:39 anecdotally, this is what a lot of people that stay lean and perform at a high level actually, actually do is eating earlier and going to bed earlier. And it enhances sleep and does all these different things. So hopefully that helps to answer the question. And the other thing that I think is actually really interesting, because I know autophagy is kind of a hot topic right now, there's been some research actually at University of Alabama at Birmingham where they do these, again, early time-restricted feeding studies. And they actually looked at various longevity genes, these sirtuins, they looked at AMPK, mTOR, and various autophagy initiation factors. And just by eating earlier

Starting point is 01:06:16 in the day, again, the feeding window for this group was 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. again. And what they found is just by doing that, doing nothing else, not changing calories or anything, compared to the group that was eating eight to eight, there was a significant increase in a myriad of different enzymes and pathways that are linked with longevity and cancer protection and autophagy. So I think when you eat, it certainly does matter. And when you fast, it does matter. It's very helpful. All right. I don't want to keep you for too long, although I could keep you forever and keep asking you questions.

Starting point is 01:06:46 But I do have a couple more before I let you go. We've talked a lot about not eating. I'd like to talk about eating and what you eat. And as I've said, we're Instagram friends. And I'm friends with your wife, too. And so I see what you guys are kind of preparing your Instagram stories and stuff. And it's always incredible, awesome nose to tail. And I really mean it. I am's always incredible, like awesome nose to tail. And I really mean it. Like I am a huge fan and advocate for nose to tail eating. And I,

Starting point is 01:07:10 I think the most common question that I get asked on Instagram is like, how can I make liver not taste gross? Because I'm always posting about eating liver and hearts and tongues and things like that. And I know I saw actually, I saw your wife. Do you, were you eating brain recently? Yeah. Yeah. You guys had some brain. Yeah. yeah. Because I reached out to her. I'm like, how do I get some of this? Because I literally I source most of my meat from a local farm. Like I actually go to this like local farm and get they have an incredible sort of range of like, just really, really high quality meat. And even when I asked them, like the actual farmers, I'm like, Hey, are you guys able to throw in some of the you you know, some awful, like, can I get some brains?

Starting point is 01:07:48 Can I get some? And they even they looked at me like I was crazy. And I'm like, you guys are the farmers. Like, come on, how am I supposed to get get the good stuff? But anyway, that's that's me going off on a personal tangent. But the question that I actually I wanted to ask the first question is, are you guys like pretty strictly keto or is it more like whole foods, low carb, real food? You're not necessarily testing your blood glucose every day. You're just kind of like a whole foods, lower carb approach. Like how do you kind of frame it? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I think when I first got into the keto thing in 2015, it was, it was very strict, very low carb. And, you know, I got into this mindset, carbs are bad,

Starting point is 01:08:32 blah, blah, blah. But, but now, you know, it's a little bit more flexible and we try to just, you know, have the carbs that we have are in season and it's local. So this is not a sexy way to think about diet, but I think it's the only diet that humans really lived by is like, try to eat what's in the a hundred or 200 mile radius to you locally. So look, if berries are in season and which they are right now, we eat them, but I'm not going to have a, you know, a big berry smoothie right before I go to bed. It's going to be after a, you know, an intense leg day or chest day, or, or if I'm, you know, yesterday, I got 32,000 steps just by working on a new patio in the backyard. Right. So it's like, I was starving and craving carbs, you know,

Starting point is 01:09:10 after I did that project, you know, yesterday afternoon. So I had some berries, right. And we made some swoop tater fries. So yeah, to answer the question, you know, I think all these different diets have an amazing effect, like carnivore. If you have autoimmunity, if you have a lot of GI issues, like it can be super powerful. Right. But should you be carnivore, strict carnivore the entire year? I don't know. I think if you look at hibernating animals, if you look at our microbiome, our microbiome changes with the seasons, right? Like our insulin sensitivity changes with the seasons. Our hormones, like males, testosterone is at its peak right now, as you're listening to this in the late summer. Women, their testosterone levels are much higher

Starting point is 01:09:49 in the winter. So we need to keep in mind that our body changes throughout the season, throughout the day. And I think our foods, we should have a little bit of flexibility in that. Now, of course, if it's a very specific targeted diet for a different disease, that's one thing. But once you hit a kind of a baseline level of health and you want to just maintain, I think having some flexibility is good with that. And just be a little bit smart about this. If you're going to have carbs, sweet potatoes, squash, whatever, try to think about, well, is this carbohydrate in season? Like, should I be having mangoes on Christmas if I live in Wisconsin? Probably not. Like it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, right?

Starting point is 01:10:25 But, you know, if you're having pineapple and you're in Los Angeles, like it probably makes sense. Like it's not, you know, that far away if you live there in the summer, right? So that's the way that we approach it. And again, we're not anti-carbs, but the carbs that we do eat, we try to focus on what's in season and is the amount that we're having and the carbs that we do eat, we try to focus on what's in season and is the amount that we're having and the frequency that we're having it, is that commensurate or is it congruent with our level of physical activity? For example, you know, if I'm, if it's a rest day, let's say I,

Starting point is 01:10:56 I don't know, I'm tired, I hurt my ankle, whatever. I'm not going to have 300 grams of carbohydrates. Like I don't need that much because I'm just sitting around. Right. But if I'm grinding, we're doing a hike, I deadlifted in the morning, like, and it's summer, I'm going to have some carbs. Like that's just how it is. So it kind of rubs people the wrong way, because I think we want to put ourselves in buckets. I'm a keto person. I'm a carnivore person. I'm a, this person is like, well, okay. Yeah. Like you can be, but I think having that flexibility, but, you know, a thing with me, I'm a little bit biased when it comes to the microbiome and diversity, but I think, you know, the diversity of the foods we eat helps stabilize the diversity of our ecosystem

Starting point is 01:11:36 internally, i.e. the microbiome. So yeah, we're jamming with it. It's delicious though. Did you like it? The brain thing is new to me. You know, Deanna's all into that. You know, it was porcine and brain. The thing is it had a very unique smell when she was cooking it. And I'm the one that takes care of it. I have two hogs in the backyard and I take care of them. And for me, it was just, I was making associations between brain. We have pigs and I don't know I mean that's a harder one to take for a lot of

Starting point is 01:12:10 people I think I think people have different associations with different things that's why I always try to get people to go with like beef or like a large um animal heart or heart first because if you just like slice that up and put it in a pan like it kind of tastes and looks just like meat right like a tongue is a bit of a harder sell, you know, because it looks a lot like a tongue until you're done preparing it and brain the same way. But I think so. I mean, going back to kind of what you were saying, like, I love your approach. It's something that I try to do too.

Starting point is 01:12:37 And I think that it definitely does a disservice to people when we try to put ourselves in a box and be too dogmatic. And I understand that the benefits of being paleo or keto, you have this built-in community and you feel you can belong and you can interact with people and learn, and that's great. But I think that having too much of your identity wrapped up in a diet, first of all, can be problematic. And it also doesn't allow you to learn about yourself and evolve. And I think that the way you're doing it is just so intuitive. And again, going back to the mindfulness thing, it's like paying attention to what your body really wants and requires from you rather than what somebody that you follow on Instagram tells you you should eat or what a bodybuilding diet tells you you should do.

Starting point is 01:13:23 I think that it's just such a more sustainable and also just a happier way to approach eating. So I really appreciate that. But one quick divergence I had to make, because you mentioned this and I thought it was really interesting. Why is men's testosterone level highest in the summer and women in the winter?

Starting point is 01:13:52 Yeah, that's such a great question. know i've read about this um why are they different i don't know it's super interesting to me i'm not really sure exactly why but i think i think they're at opposite ends of the spectrum so that there is so true we just be doing push-up contests all day long in the summer at the same time, it might create issues, I guess, evolutionarily. So I don't know. I think it's super fascinating. But we've got to keep in mind that our bodies are not this constant. And that's kind of, you know, it's tongue-in-cheek. You know, I poke fun at all the calorie counters on Instagram and stuff like that. But, you know, you know, there's this perception that our body is just this uniform static machine that just is this calorie depository. You just put stuff in and stuff comes out. And if you put too much in, then it's not going to work

Starting point is 01:14:33 right. But it's like, you know, our metabolisms change. And if you actually look at like the metabolic response to meals and young people versus old people and men versus women, like it's so all over the board and it changes with, with age and all that. So yeah, we just got to be more mindful and I think it's, it's, it's intuitive and now we were getting more science to support this idea that we can eat seasonally and all that. And so, yeah, I just think that, you know, I want to encourage people to take what they see on social media or on podcast or whatever, or books and be, be,

Starting point is 01:15:06 feel okay. Customizing it. Right. So it's like taking the grain of salt. Like, so if you see Sean Baker, who's like six, four, the guy's a savage, he can deadlift 415 pounds fit for 50 repetitions. You know, it's like, look, okay. He can eat four pounds of meat in one sitting Sally Smith in Des Moines, Iowa, who's never lifted weights, you don't need four pounds of ribeye in one sitting. So we need to just realize that, and it's same with financial advice. Like if you're just starting to save for retirement,

Starting point is 01:15:37 it's gonna look different if you start at 26 versus 56, that the aggression, how aggressive your investments are versus how conservative, like all these things. Yeah, a little bit of critical thinking goes a long way. Okay, so one last question before I let you go. And this relates to low carb eating for families and for kids. And the reason why I want to ask this is because I think that people can get very concerned if you try to ascribe any particular dietary approach, even if it's just by name only to children, because it gets complicated with restricting and shaming

Starting point is 01:16:14 and kids having growing bodies that are different from adults or older people or whatever. Conversely, I've always thought it really interesting, and I won't name any names, throw anybody under the bus, but I've had friends or people that I know in my life who maybe are working towards a specific goal or they're bodybuilding or they're keto or they're whatever, and they're eating like super healthy food. And they have young kids who they say are picky, so their kids are eating chicken fingers while they're eating steak and broccoli. So it can go kind of both ways, but I know that it's a tricky, it's a tricky subject when you're talking about what to feed your kids. So I'm assuming that you

Starting point is 01:16:50 have the same approach for your kids too, which is sort of just intuitive and eating what's local and seasonal and healthy. But is there any kind of different sort of approach or thinking when you're looking at sort of growing kids? Yeah, this is a great question. You know, I think some of the feeding studies have actually looked at children with epilepsy and where the ketogenic diet, like a strict ketogenic diet was used, and there was a difference in height outcome compared to kids who just ate ad libitum. So I think there could be a concern there because, you know, carbohydrates do affect insulin. They might affect the whole insulin micro factor one axis and all this. So that's where, you know, strict keto, unless your kid has a disease, whether it's that pre-diabetes,

Starting point is 01:17:41 diabetes, autoimmunity, you know, maybe have some seasonally available carbohydrates and get your kid active and running outside. So you don't necessarily worry about that. But yeah, I mean, I do, I do worry about that a little bit with my kid because we were strict keto for a while. And I was like, you know what, I don't know if she really needs that. You know, she doesn't have, you know, thankfully she's very healthy. So we've, we've been a little bit more liberal with the carbohydrates that she has like we're not having wonder bread of course but you know we do have sweet potatoes with her you know she'll have berries she'll have an apple stuff like that so we're we're in no way restricting necessarily but we have a hard you know boundary on processed food and sugar and junk food and things like that but yeah you know parents i mean just kind of wake

Starting point is 01:18:24 up it's like you know and i was thinking about this the other day when we were, you know, my daughter went to a birthday party and all these parents were like, okay, here's the kid food. It's like, I don't get how we can spend so much energy and so much resources in trying to raise our kids properly, you know, have them say, please, thank you. Good manners to, you know, read books and all this stuff and teaching some people spend a lot of time in church and all this, but then we feed them crap. And then we somehow think that, oh, when they're 18, they're just going to grow out of this, but we're, we're, we're training their brain, right? We're training their tape files. We're training their whole physiology. And so I think parents need to just, and this can be

Starting point is 01:19:04 uncomfortable. Like I think for parents, a lot of us are super busy in their jobs and everything else. And we only get a few hours with our kids a day. We don't want to be arguing over food. So we just settle and say, okay, fine, have the mac and cheese. But you know, look, you're, you're training that you're, you're basically saying tacitly or implicitly that this is okay. This is healthy. Like I feed this to you and, and it's just not acceptable. And so we've created some hard boundaries in our house and, and just with a little bit of education and our daughter started to notice kids that don't look so healthy. They

Starting point is 01:19:35 have baggy eyes, dark circles around their eyes are a little bit overweight. Like she's starting to pick up on this because sadly, you know, even if she's going to be in the second grade this fall, we're starting to see kids in her classroom are already developing what we normally would see in adults, like metabolic syndrome type characteristics, the typical, you know, increased abdominal obesity and, and all this. And it's really scary. It's really sad. So I'm really concerned about our future, to be totally honest with you. And I want to help, you know, other parents. And I want to help other parents. And I don't know if my approach in doing this is the right way of kind of teasing people. But I think we need to understand and realize that your kid's not suddenly going to grow

Starting point is 01:20:15 out of this. Just like if you use a bunch of profanity in your house. Yeah, I mean, I think it's fair to assume anybody who has kids or was a kid that we know that 18-year-olds don't just sort themselves out. That's not how it works. You know, so the more the more education and the more sort of support and understanding and positive modeling I think we can do for everybody, kids and adults, I think we're better off. And I do think that you're doing an important thing. And that's what I'm trying to do with the podcast too, which is just providing information, you know, it's just

Starting point is 01:20:47 providing information and resources and experience and allowing people to learn and ask questions and interact and kind of take what information, as you said, that they can use and kind of incorporate it into their own lives. We can all find our own sort of path forward. And I think that, yeah, I mean, I think that that's what it's all about. It's hard work, but it's good work. And I appreciate that you're doing it, Mike, because it's important. It is important. You know, just to kind of capstone that argument is a lot of people will say well look i grew up in the 80s from the 90s and we had a bunch of junk food it's like well look man when i was growing up my parents spanked me and sometimes you know my mom

Starting point is 01:21:36 hit me you know whatever she didn't know like we didn't know that there was developmental repercussions potentially from physical abuse like abusive type parenting or spanking or things like that. Right now we know better. So we don't spank our kids. And so we now know we didn't have all these studies back in the 80s or 90s about processed food and metabolic syndrome. But now we know we know that hyper palatability, processed sugar laden junk food is problematic and creates disease. So we can't use this argument, why eat it and I'm fine thing anymore. So I think we all need to just really do a better job about this and educate the parents. And because our kids are being infused in school, I mean, gosh,

Starting point is 01:22:17 you know, it's in the first grade, there was a birthday party every other week. There was a treat day. There was Halloween. Yeah. And when you, when you know better, you can do better, right? I think that's what this is all about.'s the it's there's downsides to the information age but that's that's the the biggest upside is we have more access to information than ever so it's just about being critical thinkers and using that information to our advantage so mike where can where can our listeners um connect with you and learn more about what you're doing? You've got a fantastic YouTube channel too. Yeah, thanks so much, guys. So if you enjoyed this podcast, my two online platforms that I'm pretty active on is both

Starting point is 01:23:04 Instagram and YouTube. So it's just Mike Mutzel and the YouTube channel is called High Intensity Health. But yes, I'm most active, you know, on the YouTube, we do a lot of videos. Awesome. Mike, thank you so much for taking the time. I knew this was going to be a good conversation. And it was even better than I expected. So we've got to do it. We've got to do it again sometime because I learned a lot and I think our listeners will too. So thank you for that. Hey, my pleasure.

Starting point is 01:23:27 Thanks for having me on. It's been a blast. Okay. Thank you, everyone, for listening. Thank you, as always, to ButcherBox and Beekeepers Naturals for supporting my show. You can use the code MAVEN to get your ButcherBox, your meats. You can use the code MUSCLEMAVEN to get all your delicious honey and nootropics products. Get all those sweet discounts, all those healthy, awesome products that will make you happy and healthy and jacked in my experience anyway.

Starting point is 01:23:58 And if you liked this podcast, please share it. Please leave me a nice review. Please post about it on social media so that we can share it and get it in front of more people. And you know, say hi to me on Instagram. Tell me what you like or didn't like, you know, sometimes people send me messages about what they don't like and I accept that too, as long as you're nice enough about it. So reach out to me on social media at the muscle maven. And please, whatever you do, you have to join me next week because I am talking to a very special guest that I have been hounding for a long time to have her on the show. Her name is Courtney Olson. She's the founder of Girl Clothing, and she is the badass muscle woman who went super viral on the internets because she can crush a watermelon between her legs. So if you're wondering what my next fitness goal is, go check out Courtney Olson,

Starting point is 01:24:43 Watermelon Crushing on Instagram, and you will see what's up and you'll be into it. Pretty sure. I love her. I love her work and her message. She's doing amazing things and it's going to be an awesome conversation. So don't miss it. Meet me here again next Thursday for Muscle Maven Radio. And until then, have a great week.

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Barbell Shrugged - You Are More Than Your Diet: A Conversation with Mike Mutzel — Muscle Maven Radio Episode #29

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