Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Part 2: Nutritional Scientist Chris Talley on The Mechanics of Nutrition
Episode Date: January 17, 2018For those of you who care deeply about what you’re putting in your body, you’ve come to the right place. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to part 1, I highly recommend giving that ...a listen first so you can get some context for who Chris is and why he’s so good at what he does._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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pro today. The difference between first place and second place in most events is less than 1%.
That's the difference between the champion and the person that's wishing that they were there.
And so if you could find those couple little missing links that are going to put that person over the top, because there's a lot of
people who are second place all the time. And they just haven't explored the nutritional
territory enough to find those things that are going to put them there. All right. Welcome back. This is part two with Chris Talley. And for those of you who care
deeply about what you're putting into your body, this will be a great conversation for you. If you
haven't had a chance to listen to part one, I highly recommend it because it gives a framework
for how Chris came to develop the insights that
he's going to share with you. And he's just really good at what he does. So the journey to get this
good, I think is well worth the time to explore. And I also want to thank our partners, Athletic
Greens, for supporting this podcast and all of our podcasts right now and allowing us to keep growing.
So it's certainly
timely that we're talking to Chris Talley about nutrition and our partner is Athletic Greens.
So I just want to thank them for the support. And if you hadn't had a chance yet,
punch over to athleticgreens.com forward slash finding mastery. You'll see what we're doing.
You'll see about their company and learn a little bit more about their product. I love it. I use it every day. I really enjoy it. And they've got an amazing offer right now that maybe you can
take advantage of before it's gone. And so with that, let's jump right into part two with Chris
Talley. What is the one thing or the one or two or three things that you are exceptional at? And
it's like, like I'm saying
brag, I don't mean it that way. I mean, like, what are your crown jewels? What are the things that
you know that have come easy, but you've put a lot of work on to take it as far as you can go?
It would be nutritional science. That's, that's the territory that I'm in that, um,
you know, if you're looking at a very specific portion of nutritional science, nutritional science is a huge territory.
I tend not to get involved in the disease state related things.
It's fascinating, but it's just, again, if you're going to do something exceptional, you can't be good at all of them. And so anything performance-oriented,
where even if it's going to make that half a percent difference, if you get a couple of those put together,
the difference between first place and second place in most events
is less than 1%.
That's the difference between the champion
and the person that's wishing that they were there.
And so if you can find those couple little missing links
that are going to put that person over the top, because there's a lot of people who are second place all the time.
And, and they just haven't explored the nutritional territory enough to find those
things that are going to put them there. And then when you think about, you narrow down or
gate out all of the different parts of your life efforts and say okay it's nutrition science and
then if you were to take that same swath again around your strengths inside of nutrition science
what what are the strengths there it would be in the nutritional blood test side of things
so that's pretty specific territory but but I know when people go back
to really basic nutrition questions, a lot of times I'm dumbfounded by the simplest thing is
someone, you know, my own mom asked me what she should eat for breakfast. And, you know,
it's pretty difficult to answer that when you're dealing with a whole lot of technical information
and that, you know, looking at someone's nutritional blood test and trying to come
up with what's ideal for breakfast. And then someone just asks you general, you know, looking at someone's nutritional blood test and trying to come up with what's ideal for breakfast. And then someone just asks you general, you know,
I actually have to put more answer or more effort into answering that.
So how, how, okay. So you take a, we'll get to the blood analysis in a minute,
but let's make this because that's super, what's the right word? It's very bespoke. It's very
customized information that you're pulling from
somebody and feeding back to them so that they can make sometimes significant sometimes marginal
gains but let's let's go broad stroke for just a minute how do you answer when people say what
should i be eating well and if i have the nutritional blood test no you don't that's the
problem right and so then i go okay what do i on average? There's a whole lot of processing that has to go on when I'm looking at this person and just trying to fill in the blanks of what I don't know about them to enter those territories that are on my spreadsheet of, okay, I need these data points before I'm going to tell someone anything. Okay. Let's say you don't have that information and you were to make blanket recommendations
for people on how nutrition, how they can be better at fueling their body.
I mean, I guess for the average person, that's just a thing where, you know, if you're eating
at any of the fast food joints, that's not a good sign.
I think a lot of people are focused on avoiding carbohydrates,
and that's a terrible call.
In the sports world, that does not work.
And I know just for kind of, I have a split on this one ethically, but as far as eating meat versus being a vegetarian
or a vegan, personally I'm pretty close to vegetarian.
I'll have fish once in a while just because I need some of the fatty acids
and if I don't get them there my blood test looks horrible.
But if I look at other people and I'd say probably five times a day I'm telling somebody
to eat meat,
and it's a thing where I'm leaving the ethics up to them as far as what they want to do with that
and not putting my own stamp on there.
But I think for the average person, meat is a benefit, which is coming from a vegetarian.
So that's not something that you hear very often.
You know, I think I know this, but I want to be super clear. Why are you a vegetarian?
I just don't want to end up killing an animal for no reason. If I could, you know, if someone
gave me a choice of here, here's a cow, go kill it and eat it or get some milk from it, make some
cheese. I'd rather make cheese and have a grilled cheese sandwich than go kill the animal. So it's just I feel bad for the animal, and that's really it.
So you want a compassionate eating, compassionate consumption.
And since I've known you, this has been the case.
So how long have you been a vegetarian?
That conversation first started in college.
One of my friends was a vegan, and we got into a discussion about it
because I was seeing no evidence that being a vegan was healthier than being a meat eater.
And I don't know, I guess it raised some awareness of, well, you know,
if you go to McDonald's and get a hamburger, you've actually killed an animal.
It's, you know,'ve hadn't processed that before.
Okay, so how long are we talking?
Like 30 years.
Yeah.
Okay, so let's spread some knowledge, if you will.
And I want to know this myself.
I think you know I was a vegan for like six, seven years.
I didn't know that.
Oh, you didn't? Yeah. My wife and I were vegan for a long time in college for compassion,
compassion eating. And, um, this was before whole foods. This was before like, so same with you.
It was hard back then. And I think I was much, I was less healthy then than I was after I stopped eating meat because I wasn't doing it correctly. Now I educated myself as best as I possibly could. And I wasn't eating McDonald's fries and bun, you know, like as a vegetarian diet, but I, it was hard. And so I'd love for you to drop some insights on what people could do to become more plant-based?
Well, that's a hard one to answer only because the 10 worst blood tests I've ever seen,
I'd say nine out of those 10 were vegans. And that's out of more than 5,000 tests.
And so in general, I find that vegans have some horrible deficiencies that are affecting
their health their mental well-being i mean there's just a huge number of things
can you make can you be super concrete on not those five but like the general
problems that vegans run into and let's just do vegan and vegetarian are different
right so vegan is like zero animal
products at all exactly right and that means leather on shoes leather and cars if you're
really doing it and then but no cheese no dairy nothing certainly no muscle yeah and so for
vegans um the first thing that comes to mind is vitamin b12 because it's just you're not going to get it if you aren't eating some meat.
Okay, so somebody says, okay, great, well, I'm going to be a vegan and take vitamin B12 supplements.
Well, and then there's a handful of amino acids that I see come back really low when people are vegan.
So the protein side of things, there's an older kind of school of thought with complementing proteins
that I actually think makes some sense if someone's going to be an athlete and try to be vegan. you know there's a older kind of school of thought with complementing proteins that
i actually think makes some sense if someone's going to be an athlete and try to be vegan
that there are some benefits yeah so because well just because you're going to end up with
some amino acids that you come back very very low in um you know and a lot of those have to do with
uh production of dopamine other important you know okay
hold on let's do this for a moment amino acids are the precursors for
protein their components of it components of it okay so building blocks
is that wrong name okay so they're building blocks of protein many people
say I need X percent fat X percent carbs and X percent protein for a healthy
performance based diet whether you're an athlete or non athlete.
And you're saying, OK, people that are vegan have problems with building the developing or consuming the building blocks for protein.
They end up with an imbalance there and they'll end up with some amino acids that they just are not getting enough of.
I think it's also because when someone's vegan, they kind of settle into, oh, these are things that I can cook.
And it becomes a little less flexible. And they probably eat the same things over and over and
over again, which I don't know if that happened when you were doing it. But it did. Yeah. Yeah.
And it still does now. You know, I still find myself with two regular patterns. I think probably
most people do. Do you remember when I was on that
kick for a while when I would go to a restaurant, like a nice restaurant? And well, nice has lots
of different variations, right? But I would go to a health-based restaurant and I would just ask the
waiter or waitress to pick whatever for me. Yeah. Yeah. So it was like a, it was a test in a lot of different ways, but yeah, you don't recommend,
you don't recommend that.
Leaving it up to the server to pick.
No, I don't think that's a good plan.
It always came back with steak and lobster.
I don't understand.
Okay.
Yeah.
Keep, keep going on the vegetarian, uh, vegan piece.
Okay.
Um, yeah, I think with the, uh, uh, vegan side of things, you know, if someone was to include dairy products, it becomes a heck of a lot easier to work around that.
It's still some omega-3s that I just find that people end up deficient in, which, you know, for me, it's one of those things where I will eat fish on occasion.
It's intentional. It's a thing where I've kind of thought it through and, okay, I need a piece of salmon or something in order to get enough omega-3s.
Because omega-3s are essential fatty acid, meaning you have to consume it.
Your body doesn't make it.
So do you supplement it as well?
Well, and that would be a territory where if I wasn't eating salmon, I would probably take a fish oil supplement.
Almost every blood test that you and I have done together where you're leading it, but I'm sitting in learning is that it seems like
all, I don't know, is this too big of a number? 80% are deficient in omegas. Well, and the issue
there is that the, so there's a, I'm going to kind of go way off into the deep end of science part here, but
take us there. So alpha linoleic acid should be able to be made into other omega-3s.
You said alpha, alpha linoleic acid.
Alpha linoleic acid.
Alpha linoleic acid.
And so you should be able to make some of the other omega-3s from that. The problem is the
rate that those are made at doesn't necessarily keep up with the demand for what an athlete's going to need.
One of the things that would turn into is the stuff called icosapentaenoic acid, EPA.
You'll see that on a fish oil bottle.
That reduces inflammation.
I mean, it's kind of, from a health point of view, lowers blood pressure.
It's part of the gold dust of omegas.
Yeah, yeah.
And same with DHA, this docosahexaenoic acid.
That would be in something like fish oil as well.
So alpha-linolenic acid that you would get from nuts and seeds
should be able to be turned into those things.
But in vegans, I just find that, especially vegan athletes,
the rate that they can produce those things is not sufficient to keep up with the demand.
If somebody were to come in and say, I want to be, I'm already really good at what I do.
Athlete, non-athlete, musician, entrepreneur, executive.
And I want to maximize my fuel, my nutritional side of things.
Would you recommend vegetarian or plant-based diet? Or would you say there's other – based on your philosophy, we can get there, whether it's meat and potatoes on a regular basis or meat and avocados, right?
Or would you push people or recommend people become more vegetarian or plant-based?
On an ethical level, I think that's a much better place to be.
On a physiological level, I'm going to go in a totally different direction
and say that some of the people that I see come back with the best blood tests
are people who are eating steak, especially grass fed beef.
You know, if I'm picking the things that a human would do best with, if they're going to
try to maximize performance, it's going to be a diet that has red meat in it.
Okay. So let's say somebody says, gotcha, but philosophically I'm done eating animals
and I want to be sharp. I want to be switched on. I want my energy high, stable.
I want my mood regulated.
I want to recover in a world-class way because I'm trying to get after it in life.
And I don't want to eat animals or animal byproducts.
What do we need to know?
Well, you know, one of the things that I'm just going to throw out some things that i've witnessed
over the years um carnitine so carnitine is an amino acid that you can produce in small quantities
you need it to use fat as a fuel source that carne is meat carnitine was first found in meat
if someone's eating a vegan diet even vegetarian diet getting enough carnitine for someone who's training hard
can prove to be difficult. What if their training is thinking hard and they're moving five hours a
week in and out of a gym? You know, they're doing, let's say, moderate exercise. They're not an
athlete. They're doing moderate exercise. They're in shape or trying to get in shape. And they sit and think a lot.
Would you say they still need carnitine or L-carnitine as a supplement?
That's probably not going to be as much of a factor.
At least, you know, again, coming from the background of thousands of athlete blood tests,
but much fewer on the normal population.
With normal people, when I've seen blood tests on them,
they don't show that same carnitine deficiency that an, an athlete would that if they were training really hard.
Good insight. Okay. So vegetarians for athletes, you're saying you got to figure out carnitine,
um, vegetarian for non-athletes, but people that are exercising moderately, it might not pop.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What, what type, what amounts of proteins we're doing macro for a minute? What amounts of
proteins does the average 150 pounder male or a hundred, I don't know what averages are, but
180 pound male and a hundred pound, 120 pound woman. I have no idea what averages are really.
Do you? Yeah. Well, and it's, um, it's usually off of their, um, their lean body mass that I'm coming up with the number.
So it's not just off their body weight.
So if someone knows their body fat, if you take that off of your total body weight.
Okay, do that again for us.
If you can figure out your body fat, you get an in-depth percentage.
So if you know your body fat.
Yeah.
Okay, so if I am 50% body fat, fat i know that's not probably not yeah just for
doing some simple math if you were 200 pounds and 50 body fat whatever that uh number is that
after you subtract out the body fat that's usually kind of where i'm starting to make the calculation
so if someone is and that's tissue now we're talking about bones and heart and muscle but
what's left in tissue right okay so based on this math we're back we're talking about bones and heart and muscle and tissue, right?
Okay, so based on this math, we're down to 100 pounds of lean tissue.
Which would be a very strange person.
Yes, right, yeah.
As far as calculations go, it's going to fall between 0.7 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass and 1 gram of protein.
Somewhere in that territory is going to be ideal. For elite athletes, did you say that? Or is that for the average
person? I would say the lower end of that spectrum would be something that the average person could
apply. For elite athletes, I don't see any need to go above one gram of protein per pound of lean
body mass. Okay. Got it. All right. Okay. good marker. I mean, but you think about some athletes that are 180 pounds of lean tissue. That's a large human being, right? 180 pounds of lean body mass. And you're saying you need 180 grams of protein per day. And you can only break down 30 grams per X number of hours, something like that? Yeah. As far as processing
protein, what I'll see happen is if someone eats too few meals per day, that the ability to process
that, it just isn't able to keep up with the demand. And so somewhere between 30 and 40 grams
of protein, I think depending on the size of the person, that would be a reasonable target per meal to get in. And then is 30 to, you said 30 to 40 grams of protein. Is that about, if I'm cupping
my hand right now and I'm imagining a chicken breast in there, is that about the right size?
Yeah. So most meat products are going to be seven grams of protein per ounce of meat. So if it's,
you know, a four ounce chicken breast, you're looking at 28 grams of protein, somewhere in that area. And what does four ounces look like? I mean,
that would just be a small chicken breast, small chicken breast. Okay. And then a normal, um,
a normal filet that if you were to go out and eat somewhere. Yeah. I mean, you see six ounce,
eight ounce, whatever. A lot of those are more than what you need. Um, but you also have to
take into account if someone's going to cut the fat off of it and you know other things you're going to have
less than what okay got it okay super super granular here but really i think effective stuff
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terms and conditions apply. Fighting Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty
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when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein,
P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. How, if you're a vegetarian, plant-based, how are you going to get enough protein?
Well, and you find protein in everything.
I mean, it's not that it's hard to find.
So beans have a bunch of protein.
The problem is if you just ate beans, you're missing some really key amino acids and you're going to end up with deficiencies.
If you complement beans with grains, well, now you've got some other amino acids
coming in that would make up the deficiency. What type of grains are you a fan of? Well,
so if someone was to work in quinoa, that works great. I know a lot of people are on a gluten-free
kick right now, and I honestly don't find that most people have an issue with gluten. There are
exceptions, and when someone does have an issue with it and you pull it out, it's nothing short of incredible as far as the difference it can make for that person.
But for the average person, I think they probably cause more trouble by going gluten-free.
And then I think your test picks up gluten sensitivities, right? Yeah, of course it does.
Right. Okay. Okay. And then, okay, good. And then maybe we can switch to carbs
for just a minute, carbs and fats. I think it seems to me, I don't know why easier to think
about these, those two variables. Yeah. So with the carbs for athletes, keeping enough carbs coming
in can prove to be difficult. I'd say that's probably the hardest part of the whole thing
is keeping in that or keeping enough fuel coming in from a carb pathway. Because they're burning, burning at such a high
efficiency rate and the output is so high. The training sessions are just long. There's a lot
of carbs burned in it. And, and if you don't replenish them, you're going to, you know,
that's usually why a lot of athletes have to take a day off is just to recover. Yeah. I'm thinking of a story right now. It was a Red Bull project that we worked on
and you made the recommendation. This was an ultra event. Do you know where I'm going with this?
And you made the recommendation, like he's just got to eat Pop-Tarts,
which is like, I know that that's out of left field right now, but that is like,
that's not what I would have expected from you being a plant-based, you're not plant-based, but like really understanding the science of food
and that you're suggesting like this junk, but that was all. I think it was also trying to find
something that would pack in a lot of carbs and, and not, uh, weigh a whole lot and take up a whole
lot of space. And, you know, so that was a simple way to do it was, I don't know that
I've ever suggested that to anybody else. And I think also one of the variables was,
he was like, you know, when you exercise a lot, so this is an ultra issue, or even any,
any of us that exercise a lot, I don't, I don't want to eat right after I don't,
and I definitely don't want to eat while I'm running or doing like any sort of strain and he was having to eat while he was straining which and you don't
definitely don't want to eat a steak you definitely want chicken you definitely don't want to eat not
um well you could do nuts but like beans and you're like okay we got to get some carbs in get
some sugar in this is a way to get some sugar in because he's going to, he's going to bonk. Yeah. And, and sometimes with nutrition, you, you know, athletes are really picky eaters.
And there's some people that you have to just get really creative in how you're going to get
something in. And it may not be what would be considered healthy by other people's standard.
But if you're just looking at, Hey, this, this person's got to perform on Sunday and
how are we going to do this?
Yeah. Okay. Okay. So go carbs for a minute. Okay. Yeah. Just talk carbs in general.
I think that for a lot of people, when they cut carbs, they will drop weight. So they automatically think carbs are bad, but it's just because when carbs are stored in your, let's say in muscle,
they hold onto a little bit of water. So water weighs a fair amount.
And if you stop having carbs and your muscles are holding on to less glycogen,
that would be stored carbs, you're going to weigh less.
But that isn't that you lost fat.
It's just you're holding on to less water.
And you have less available energy.
Exactly.
Right. Okay.
When you say carbs, I think many people are thinking pasta, bread,
potatoes. Are you talking about carbs, including that? Because I know that part of your brain is
saying, no, no, no. Cauliflower, spinach, broccoli. Not really. Cause cauliflower, spinach, and
broccoli, they do have some carbs, but it's not a huge amount. I'd rather see someone be eating
those things because they need other nutrients. The carbohydrate content really isn't
substantial. So where do we get carbs? What's the right blend? I mean, my favorite sources would be
sweet potatoes. If someone's okay with that, that works terrific. Even regular potatoes aren't
terrible. You know, the quinoa I mentioned before would be good and i don't know if you get a fish plate
right at a nice restaurant and it's it's not grilled in a bunch of butter or whatever and
it's a proper preparation for fish and you like oils i want to come back to cooking with oils in
a minute but would you recommend that i get a sweet potato versus seasonal vegetables?
Mix them up?
Both.
Yeah, mix them up like one day this, one day that?
Even in one meal because the problem with sweet potatoes is people tend to eat a sweet potato.
And that's a lot of carbs. And so if it's like a quarter of a sweet potato for the average person, that's probably enough carbs.
But then you throw in some veggies on top of that.
Now you've got a nice meal. Okay. So my wife and I should split one, get one and one, get the other.
And then, okay, there you go. And then, and then of course on the sweet potato, we want to make
sure we get sour cream, butter. No, no, no. Okay. Yeah. All right. And then, so let's talk about,
okay, keep going on some carbs that are good. You like the quinoa, you like the sweet potatoes.
Yeah, on the fruit side of things, I don't have a problem with someone having some fruit.
I think, again, when you start going to extremes in that territory and someone is going crazy and juicing everything and having a ton of sugars, that's not good.
And you like, you've taught me berries more than melons. Yeah. And again, the glycemic index of the food is going to matter with the glycemic index,
just being how high your blood sugar is going to respond or move in response to that meal.
Okay.
I want to pull out for just a moment and do like, I've come to know you as a thoughtful
moderate.
And you said earlier, no, it's about being extreme, the min max model.
But when I, when I learned from you and I think about you, this is weird, but I think about you
when I make nutritional choices. Is that weird? Okay. Not like that. No, but I do. You're you,
you've guided me in so many ways from the blood tests that I've done over the years with you and
being around elite performers in as many different domains as you and I, I think would both say we're privileged to work
in, um, that when I make decisions, I'm thinking that you're saying to me, Hey, that's okay. You
can choose that, but make sure you also choose this. Like, but, but I don't ever hear you saying
in the back of my mind, you know, eat chocolate cake. And I know you like chocolate cake, uh,
you know, or eat cereal because I've never heard of any of that package stuff that you would
recommend. But if we're going to eat general foods, like you've, you feel like you're more
of a moderate to me. Um, my, this is another thing that's going to sound weird, but I would say extreme moderation.
Because putting the effort in for an athlete, again, kind of going into that territory,
because they do need to get in carbs, healthy fats, protein, all those things,
you want to make sure that they're getting a large variety of things in, and it's just kind of giving them a palette to pick from of,
okay, here's what you have to work with.
They could go out and eat at some place like Cheesecake Factory
and actually make good choices and not leave there having messed everything up.
So cheesecake in particular, that type of restaurant is not cooking in butter and oils?
Well, you could go in there and walk out
eating a totally healthy meal but that would not be a problem it's just the temptation to do other
things is there and someone needs to avoid that temptation where are you about pasta white pasta
once in a while it's not going to be a problem not every meal not every day no that wouldn't be
ideal okay all right yeah of course right but and think people know that, but then it's like, and when
you go to a restaurant, you want to enjoy the experience and maybe, you know, not necessarily
eat raw something. And where are you on salads? Salads? Great. That's one of those things where
as far as mixing in, uh, you know, if you're picking the kind of school of thought with
trying to put a large number of
colors on your plate, that's probably a good rule of thumb. Yeah. I've learned that from you. Like
when I, so part of the training that I'll talk to some folks about is recovery. The big part is
recovery. And I want to put a pin in that for you. Cause I learned that statement from you.
It's been really valuable. Like fill your plate with color and M&Ms and Skittles are not part of the.
Okay.
So I want to put a pin in recovery for just a minute and then get over to the fats and
then do one step up and do like basic recommendations of percentages.
But I'm imagining when you say fats, you're going to say nuts and avocados and that type
of fat.
Yeah, not necessarily. You know,
I don't, again, have a problem with someone having a little bit of butter on something.
You know, there used to be a school of thought that saturated fats were a huge
problem from a health perspective. And that's largely been dispelled. You know, for an athlete,
I don't have any issue with them having some butter on things.
Okay.
Even animal fat, if they're having a steak.
Clipped in butter or butter on?
I mean, obviously, again, extreme moderation here.
There is a moderate amount of butter where this is going to be okay, but not, you know, sitting in a dish of melted butter.
Okay. So what are the other fats that you recommend?
Nuts and seeds are great.
Like I was saying earlier, with probably five times a day,
I'm saying have some red meat.
It's usually pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, chia seeds.
You know, as far as the fats that are in there in addition to magnesium and
and vitamin e and other other things i find that uh i'm using those pretty often and then what is
the right amount per i don't know how to do this like 100 pounds person i don't even know how to
i don't know how to ask you about amounts because it really varies by the size of the person. Yeah. Smaller person's going to need less of those
things. You know, if someone's looking at the center of their palm, that's usually, you know,
if you have a good size pinch of sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, any of those,
that's a reasonable amount to have. It doesn't take a crazy amount per day to get a good variety of fats in
and you've also taught me the the value of coconut oil okay or like high high heat oils
yeah and with the oil side of things when i have nutritional blood tests on someone that's really
easy to dial in but because you look at the oleic acid. Well, yeah, I just look at some values and go, okay, well, this would be the ideal oil for you to use. It's funny how everyone's
bashing on one oil or another, but they're saying grapeseed oil is great and coconut oil is bad and
all these other things. And it really depends on the person. My suggestion would be to mix it up
and not just use one thing over and over and over again.
So, and, but you are a fan of high heat oils.
For cooking purposes, absolutely. Yeah. If someone takes a low temperature, like olive oil is horrible for cooking. And a lot of people use it, a lot of restaurants use it. And, you know,
if you start cranking the heat past medium, you end up causing a fair amount of damage to that
particular oil. And what happens when the oil damages? Well end up causing a fair amount of damage to that particular oil.
And what happens when the oil damages?
Well, there's a whole lot of research being done on whether it becomes carcinogenic. There's a lot
of negative consequence on the health side of things when you overcook an oil.
So if my pan is getting so hot with oil in it that it's smoking, is that...
That's not a good sign.
Okay. Bad, bad. All right, good.
And then do general recommendations for general percentages of each of those macronutrients.
Boy, that's, again, like my own mom asking me what she should eat for breakfast.
It's a thing where because I'm dealing in really specific territory, it's harder to come back to just general
information. You know, the zone diet, 40-30-30 type of thing. I mean, that is not terribly far
off from what I see work pretty well. I think there's probably more protein.
And that's 40 carbs?
40 carbs, 30% protein, 30% fat. I would say that you could probably get away with having a little less on the protein and maybe a little less on the fat and bump that into carbs.
And that would be very reasonable.
Why is this so hard?
Why are we as humans having, and I know you can point to the industrial revolution in the manufacturing of food and the cost that's being stripped out, the nutrient cost that's being stripped out.
But why is this so hard?
I don't think it's that it's that hard.
It's just if someone's trying to be optimal, that's different than someone that's just trying to survive.
Cool.
Yeah, reframe.
Yeah. Reframe. Yeah. Because I do see many world
performers that are, they think a lot about nutrition and trying to get it right. So
that begs the question, what is the ratio between the right nutrition being the proper fuel for
going and being able to do hard things as opposed to the proper recovery
module for being able to recover from the hard things that you've just done well you need both
of those uh that's right yeah yeah it would depend if it's an event where uh it's a tournament of
some kind where you know they're going to have to do the same thing the next day volleyball tennis
any of those things where you you have to perform the same or better the next day because your competition has gotten tougher.
That's really tough to, again, carbs are super hard to get in in a short period of time to refuel completely before that next event.
So recovery would be at the top of the list for that type of a sport.
You know, for something like an Olympic athlete that's just competing in one sport, you've just got to for for that type of a sport you know for something like a olympic
athlete that's just competing in one sport you've just got a peak for that one thing you don't have
to do it again the next day you know that may be a very different application for it
how about for the rest of us which are wanting to think clearly and have great energy and are
training or doing some sort of fitness work um you know, five, six hours a week.
And some of it's strenuous and it's not, but it's not terribly taxing. It's interval training,
let's say. But we want to think clearly, we want to have great energy, you know, like
walk us through that. Yeah. And I think for that person, it makes sense to trim the carbs back a little bit if we're looking at,
you know, well, okay, what's this person got to be healthiest with? I'm not saying to eliminate
carbs by any means, but this is the thing where you're not going to need to be toward the high
end of that where you're trying to get the carbs in every single meal to replenish your stores.
I think the average person doesn't eat frequently enough. And I know there's whole schools of thoughts on intermittent fasting and other things that are kind of becoming trendy.
But if you're just looking at brain function, your brain's going to run on sugar.
I mean, that's really what it takes to run.
And I know when you were talking about the Pop-Tarts, I know in college there was a situation where I had some big tests coming up and I was thinking, what am I going to do to make sure my brain is functioning through the whole thing?
And it was down a couple of Pop-Tarts before any major strenuous thinking that I was going to have to do for a long period of time.
How long would that last for you?
That's the thing.
And it's only going to give you about an hour of higher level functioning.
So it's not going to work for someone that's just trying to do this on a day in and day out basis.
And that's because of the insulin spike and the crash that takes place afterwards.
Okay.
So Pop-Tarts will last about an hour?
Yeah.
Or any sort of simple sugar?
I certainly don't want to advertise Pop-Tarts.
No, no, no.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, good.
Okay.
Is there any hack?
And you know my position on hacking,
but is there any hack to optimize nutrition? On my end, that's, you know, I'm looking at so many,
you know, there's more than 200 variables in that test that I'm taking into account. And so it's a
huge amount of information that if we're getting those little tiny percents off of each thing,
that adds up to being a hack because now you've,
you've found a way to optimize this person's, uh, performance.
So when I, the, and I appreciate how you're looking at it, cause I have an aversion to that,
as you know, that there's no shortcuts and that, you know, you've just got to really
go the distance to be able to really figure out the most efficient way for you.
And sometimes that involves the distance of spending time on a nutritional test
or psychological assessment or whatever. And then you got to do the work after.
Well, that's the thing is this is not a simple hack. It's a thing where you get the information,
but then applying that and actually working it into your lifestyle is a,
you know, that's on the person that I just reviewed the
test with. It's one of those things where some people get the information and they're like,
wow, I need a lot of things. And then they don't do anything about it. And you know,
what have you done? You've just wasted a bunch of money on a test and there's no purpose to it.
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at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20
at FelixGray.com for 20% off. What percentage of people stick with it? They take the information
and then change their behavior. I think a lot of people do. It's one of those things where
sometimes you get no feedback and you don't
know whether that person actually took what you said and applied it or not. And then two years
later, you run into them and they said, Oh, yeah, I'm still doing exactly what you told me to do.
And they look great. And they're feeling good. And you just never heard anything. So
and is there something that you've learned to help people sustain that behavior that they want to
make? That's why they spent the money to come see you i've learned not to use big words in the conversation because well it's a lot of
information the review normally takes about an hour and a half to go through and even if i'm
dealing with someone that has a scientific background if you start throwing around
icosapentaenoic acid and docasa hexanoic acid these things that are
you know it takes one of
those two phosphatidylserine well yeah i'm joking yeah right yeah but it's like what well and but
there's a amount of energy required to process that and even for me if i'm holding that conversation
if they're using the full name of things it it requires energy and they're you're going to lose
them in a very short period of time.
So make it simple.
Yep. And I keep it, okay, line 32, this is something that you need to produce testosterone.
You're missing this nutrient. Here are the 10 foods that you would find it in. Can we work those
in? Great. All right. Most people listening would benefit from, and this is male or female, I think,
but let's just say men for a moment, would benefit, not most people, that's way too simple, but there's a healthy amount of people that would say,
hey, I'm getting a little bit older, I'm producing less testosterone naturally,
and I bet if I took that blood test with Chris Talley that I'd benefit from some more testosterone.
So teach us.
Yeah, so if you look historically at testosterone,
and this is a pretty complex territory, but going into, let's say, the 1970s, 1980s,
the ability to measure testosterone is the same as it is now. So you're not going to see
a huge variance of the methodology used. But when you were taking those people who,
let's say, were born in the early 1900s,
so let's say someone born in 1910, and now in 1980, they're 70 years old. If you look at their
testosterone at that 70-year-old mark, and you compare that to nowadays, to a person that's 35
or 40 years old, their testosterone is about the same. And so to have a 70 or even 80
year old, some of these people, you know, they've done studies on coming back with testosterone
scores similar to people half that age now and testosterone declines with age. So the question
is, well, what's happening in modern society where we're seeing that decline? And decade after
decade when they, I mean, there was a nice study that came out a few
years back where they actually charted all of that. And you'll see a nice looking graph as far
as, you know, they plot the people born in the early 1900s versus the 1920s and 1940s and so on.
And it's just getting worse and worse. And so is it due to pesticides and other things that are in the environment other pollutants
other things that are interfering with production of it or is it let's say the soil is getting
stripped of certain nutrients that you need and now you aren't getting as much as someone did
you know in the early 1900s but that's a really fascinating territory and for athletes
I see a lot of athletes that come back with the testosterone score in the 300s and 400s, which for a man is very low.
What is the range for a 30 to 40 to 50-year-old male?
Well, I think the range where people feel good for men would be in the 500 to 600 area.
Is that independent of age?
That's not, right?
No.
It would be a thing where that's where you're going to feel good okay i'm not suggesting testosterone supplementation
that's a whole other yeah and you're really clear about that yeah so that even for people that are
non-athletes that can get it i i find there's always something missing that's preventing that
person from producing testosterone at the level that they should be. On the exercise front, you'd certainly see a bump in testosterone if someone was to work out at a
higher intensity. And that's why you recommend interval training as a general frame? Yeah,
that seems to work better for them. And is that because, I think I might be butchering this,
so I want to run it by you and see, is that I think what's, and I can't remember if you told
me, I read it somewhere, I made it up maybe, sometimes I wonder, but tell me if this is right or close to right, is that when you do something
at high intensity, whether that's lifting weight or a cardio strain at an appropriate high intensity
for you, that something happens in your brain and it says, whoa, we're straining, we're stressing,
we need to make sure that we
keep up from a neurochemical standpoint and produce things such as testosterone and growth
hormone to keep up with this demand. And so it triggers something in your system to say, hey,
hey, hey, start releasing and doing better in these two areas. Yeah. So it seems like that
happens at somewhere between 70 and 80% of what you could do for one repetition.
So if someone was just looking at doing an explosive movement, a vertical jump or something of that type,
if you're doing something where you're above that 70% of what you could do that one time,
that seems to be the territory where you're going to produce the most testosterone.
Let's say for, I'm just going to use weight training as an example,
if someone could squat 100 pounds.
Or bench press or something.
Yeah, and so you're, you know, let's say for a training weight,
you use 70 or 80 pounds, that would be a reasonable kind of entry into that territory
where you're not going to hurt yourself and you would be able to produce more testosterone. Okay. Brilliant. And do I have it close that it starts to things in the brain
start to get triggered to say, Hey, you've got to do something to be stronger, dude. Yeah. And that's,
that's a pretty complicated territory. I know for me, it's outside of my, my realm, but it is one
of those things where I get to see what happens when someone does train at this level. And it,
you know, so I'm seeing the testosterone results on their blood test. I know what their trainer has been
doing and I see what's working and what isn't working. Okay. From a nutritional standpoint,
how do we get better at testosterone? Um, as well, let's do that. Cause I also want to get
to growth hormone, uh, in a minute as well, but definitely sleep. I don't know if you're
going to bring that in, but I just want to bring that in now. That sleep in the fifth cycle, longer REM sleep, like getting that right actually helps with the production of testosterone.
That's a huge part of it.
Sleep quality more so than anything else.
I know some people just go, oh, well, I sleep eight hours.
I'm fine.
And there's a big difference between sleeping for eight hours and even six hours of super high quality sleep.
A lot of times that comes back as a nutritional issue. There's, when you're talking about
tryptophan that everyone hears about at Thanksgiving and they think the tryptophan
and the turkey knocked them out, it's not so much that it would knock someone out. It's just
tryptophan is required to go into deep sleep. And there are certain amino acids that compete
with tryptophan at the blood-brain barrier. Which are?
So leucine, isoleucine, valine, tyrosine, phenylalanine.
Too much of those suppress the production.
It would be the transport mechanisms can only move one amino acid at a time.
If there's a bunch of those other things relative to the tryptophan,
you've now made it that you're not going to get as much tryptophan into your brain,
and there's going to be some consequences of that.
Right, and tryptophan is the precursor to our friend...
Serotonin.
Yeah, and so if you're not producing the transporters of tryptophan,
then you're not going to fall asleep well, but you're also not going to be able to produce
enough serotonin to have balanced energy and mood throughout the day. Absolutely. And on that front,
if you look at the cascade of events in the production of serotonin, I'm not measuring
serotonin or dopamine or epinephrine or any of these things onotonin. I'm not measuring serotonin or dopamine or
epinephrine or any of these things on the test. I'm looking at the metabolic byproducts of
metabolism of those things. Just byproducts or precursors? I think it's both. It's not precursors?
Well, in the case of tryptophan or tyrosine or those type of things, those would be
things that would be used to make these. So tryptophan and tyrosine are the precursors to serotonin and dopamine, respectively.
And so what I hear you saying is that you're looking at the waste.
Well, you need to look at something that isn't transient.
And when you're dealing with dopamine and serotonin,
it's going to flash all over the place,
and you can't get an accurate read on that
and use that for anything therapeutic. If you're looking at, there's this stuff called vanil
mandelate that would be something that would indicate epinephrine and norepinephrine metabolism.
Homovanolate would be for dopamine, 5-hydroxyindolacetate. I'm probably going to
lose people naming off these big names, but these are good.
These are things that, uh, because you can measure it. That's the point. You can measure these.
And okay. So speaking directly to the audience for just a moment, um, I've never said audience.
It's our friends that are listening is that, is that this is where the suggestion that I'm going
to make to everybody, everyone that I work with,
is that there's three steps to optimize nutrition.
The first step is, and Chris, tell me if I'm wrong on these.
The first step is to get some education, but that's not enough.
The second step is education with some behavioral change,
and that education behavioral change can be customized to
you a la blood work so that's where i recommend folks get connected with you or people like you
but you know i don't want to flood you with people from this podcast but i think that is going to
happen and then the third is customized meal planning where and this is what i walk through
every elite athlete or executive, whatever that
if you only want to start in the first phase, no problem. Go meet with your local nutritionist
and get some basic frames. The second is get the blood work. So it's about you and your needs. And
then the third is have somebody make that food for you. And because I think it's hard for people to
make the food to, to, to get all the right stuff in where optimized kitchens with the blood work
can create that pathway does that sound close to being right that sounds like a reasonable path i
know on the nutritional blood testing side of it it's a thing where i'm pretty much you know
nearing capacity so it's it's not that i'm looking to generate business. There's other people in that field. The concern that I have there is, and if I'm looking for just a suggestion for what to give people, would be look for someone who's got a lot of experience in that territory and not just some, you know, because a lot of doctors will run tests.
And they're just going off the summary section that the lab puts together.
They just have an algorithm of, hey, here's what this person's
deficient in, give them these supplements. You know, they don't even discuss food. They're just
trying to pump supplements into somebody. And that's really disturbing when, you know, for me,
those pages of the test with the summary, I pretty much discard because it's just,
it's so far off of what my experience has been there.
Okay. So if you were to be as bold to say,
if you're a human, my recommendation for nutrition is,
what would you do?
What would you say?
I'd probably have to start with eating clean first
as far as just avoiding all the pesticides
and the things that would take a whole other side of things out of the picture
that would be a concern.
It wouldn't be so much on the food side of it, but I would say if someone is just looking to have more benefit
from the testosterone that they do have, lowering sex hormone binding globulin would be a big benefit.
That's something that wraps up testosterone. And if someone has a high score on that, you're basically going to have less free
testosterone. You're going to feel less of that benefit from it. And that's one where I think
there's not enough effort being put in on a team. And let's say with the sports teams,
I'll leave the team nameless, but one of the NFL teams, everyone on the team and you know let's say with the sports teams i'll leave the team
nameless but one of the nfl teams everyone on the team came back with a high sex hormone binding
globulin score and i told the team this is something you guys are doing this is not the
players because everyone's got it and so sure enough we went through and it was the body wash
the shampoo the conditioner the soap at the sink even the massage lotion they were using to do the massage work on the players was loaded full of parabens and phthalates,
which is something that would drive up that score. And so you've got an NFL team where the entire
team has less free testosterone because of some products in the locker room. And that's a super
simple fix from a team perspective. And the team ended up well exceeding their expectations
that season just because they made some simple changes. And when we, you know, everyone on the
team was reporting that they felt better after changing the things in the locker room. But
it's something where, you know, for your average businessman, businesswoman, they're on the road,
they're in a hotel, they aren't thinking about what products are put in the shower,
you know, the things that they're encountering that they're putting on
their body. And that can make a huge difference in how someone feels. How do you make an informed
decision about products? Do you look at the label and see if parabens are high on the ingredients?
Well, and so there's a website, I'll just kind of throw out a site that's useful for that, ewg.org.
And this ewg.org website, about halfway down their page, they have a thing they call the Skin Deep database.
And they've gone out and collected information on more than 70,000 products.
And it's broken down on a scale from 1 to 10 with ones being the best score and 10 being horrible
and so if you're looking at that and you see things that you're using that are above a three
it's worth switching to something else okay cool that's a great resource and heavy metals
in impact the production of testosterone yes right And aluminum is in every deodorant. Is it enough?
Is it, is it, if you're, could you over deodorize yourself with many of the deodorants that are,
you know, that have many of the common deodorants have aluminum?
What's weird is that I haven't found, and this is just going off of my experience in this
territory. I haven't found that aluminum is an issue as far
as the antiperspirant side of it. You are putting it on your skin, but it does not appear to make
too big of a difference in someone's score on a nutritional test. I've found that people that
wrap their food in aluminum foil before cooking it end up with much higher aluminum than people
that put on antiperspirant twice a day. So that's a, I would not wrap food
in aluminum when you're going to cook. And don't put aluminum foil on the grill.
That would be the same thing. Yeah. I remember when you shared that with my wife and I, we said,
oh my God, like we've got a toaster oven and we'll throw like something that we need to reheat for
our son on some aluminum foil does foil so it doesn't spill.
It was like a little hot flash panic moment.
What have we been doing?
Really powerful piece of information.
I've got a couple more tactical things here.
Let's finish on this nutritional piece here.
Talk to me about caffeine.
Caffeine works great for bringing someone up a notch.
I, my concern there is that if someone has too much caffeine, that sex hormone binding globulin
that we were talking about before, you'll see that score start to rise. And how much is too much?
When I'm talking to athletes, I usually say two cups of coffee or less per day is not going to
be a problem. The problem is a lot of these pre-workout formulas have crazy amounts of caffeine in them. And so like four cups for like a,
whatever nitro something. I know I've seen some of them that are 350 milligrams of caffeine,
which is, I don't even know what would happen to me if I had that. What is, what is in a normal
cup of coffee? You're usually looking around 80 milligrams of caffeine. She was. Okay. And how about green tea? I drink a lot of green tea. Like I'm a, I love teas.
In general, a little bit of caffeine every day is not going to be a problem. Again, it's that
extreme moderation where you're, you know, putting the effort into, uh, let's say maximize
performance. So if someone's trying to kind of stay focused and
and alert and they want to have a couple of cups of tea per day that's not going to be a problem
it's when you start going to the extreme of someone that's only drinking diet soft drinks
that are caffeinated whatever all those things that becomes a major problem but yeah that sex
hormone binding globulin that will rise if someone's having too much caffeine okay and then do do do sodas for a minute because you brought it
up how bad is soda yeah it's bad and if you're gonna drink soda would you recommend um staying
away from the sugar-free zero calorie whatever you know um i don't know that i've ever seen any soda that i was a fan of so that's
you know for me i very very seldom drink soda um i you know i i don't encourage anyone to do that
and then yeah i totally hear you and then and i think everyone that drinks it knows it
yeah this is the part about the the behavioral change and the psychology of food. Majority of people know what
they're eating is not good for them for, because they've been educated, but they make that choice
anyways. And, or they know even hasn't come from education. They feel like crap afterwards.
Like I had last night, I knew it. There was a bag of popcorn that my son likes to eat every once in
a while. So I said, you know what, let me watch this game. And it was a sports game on TV. There was a bag of popcorn that my son likes to eat every once in a while. So I said, you know what?
Let me watch this game.
And it was a sports game on TV.
It was the end of the night.
I was going to catch the last quarter of the game.
And I pop open the bag.
And almost 20 minutes after I ate a little bit of popcorn, I just felt awful.
And so I don't know.
I'm sure that that's a common experience for a lot of people.
Yeah.
That's not much I can say to make you feel better on that one.
No. Okay. What should our kids be eating?
The problem with kids, I think for a lot of parents is their kid gets into a groove of,
hey, he's eating a healthy food. Let's just keep that one thing going because it's the
one healthy food and there's just no variety. So that's a major problem with kids is just lack of variety.
I think, obviously, I'm kind of skipping over keeping out the junk food, but that's...
And when you say junk food, you're talking about packaged...
Yeah, the cupcakes and whatever, all the processed whatever, all the, uh, kind of the process, you know, even,
uh, chips and those types of things. Um, there's not going to be anything healthy in that territory.
Is it bad or just not healthy? Um, it's bad. I mean, that's just, there's nothing that's a
positive to it and it's, there's a ton of negative. Brilliant. And then what about ice cream and the kind of sugary stuff like that?
In moderation a problem or get it out?
I don't want to make it so that someone's kid has an issue with having a dessert once in a while.
But it's a thing where if someone's having a birthday party and there's some cake and ice cream, fine.
But having it in your house all the time where that's a part of the diet,
it would, would not be a good call. Brilliant. Okay. Now I know that folks listening cannot,
you're, you're, you're not a nutritionist, meaning that you give nutritional advice,
right? Like you're really very customized in, I'll open my mouth and give, give some guidance
from blood work is really your sweet spot. And then even develop the
meals to help you be more optimal. So where can people find more of you? Like your business
website? And I don't think you're on social media, right? It's funny. I've actually discouraged
business, which I know for most people, they're not being a good salesman and
not being a good businessman. But I, you know, I've tried to stay off social media and off,
you know, off the grid just because I've had my hands full. But precisionfoodworks.com is the
website for the business. The nutritional testing tab would be the part that would be associated with what we were discussing.
I know from a business perspective, it's a thing where I'm in the process of developing technology that will make it so that it's not going to be dependent on me to grow the business.
It's just a thing where there's only so much that one person can do on the nutritional review side of it.
No one wants to work with the apprentice.
They want the person who's got the experience.
And so unfortunately, that's been a bit of a limitation there.
Yeah, cool.
And so people can find you there.
Like that's the right place to do it.
Precisionfoodworks.com.
Chris, thank you for your friendship.
Thank you for the time today. Thank you for helping me be a better person based on the choices I make around food. And seriously, like what you've offered me and my family and the athletes that I work with, you've made me significantly better in what I do and who I am. So I'm, I'm geeked to be able to share who you are and what you've come to
understand with people. And this is, uh, for me that the best form I know how to do it. So thank
you. Oh, you're welcome. I'm glad I was able to provide anything that was a benefit. I know that's
a, one of those things where coming in on here was a little bit of a unknown cause I, uh, you know,
just, uh, anyone that knows Mike and I know that there's a little bit of,
uh, uh, jostling that goes on. That's, uh, there's a lot of love in it,
but I wasn't sure what I was in for. So, um,
yeah, it was good. I think we're both unscathed, which is rare for us.
And so, um, good. So, uh, seriously, Chris, thank you.
And then for those that are listening, I highly recommend, Chris is going to cringe when I say this, get, good. So, uh, seriously, Chris, thank you. And then for those that are listening,
I highly recommend Chris is going to cringe when I say this, get over to his website.
It's not cheap. Save up for this. If you, if, if you're in that kind of financial scenario,
and if you've got plenty in your life, spend the money. It is worth every nickel to be able to know
exactly the choices you've made on food, how it's impacting your wellbeing and your performance. So I can't encourage it enough for people to be able to do
it. My experience has been when I recommend it to an athlete, like two weeks later or two days later,
they're like, Hey, do you think he'd do that for my wife? And I go, or my husband, I go, yeah,
a thousand percent. So it's like this gift that keeps giving. So highly recommend it.
And for those of you that are listening
and been part of this journey of finding mastery,
thank you.
And being part of the tribe has been fantastic.
There's going to be nuggets and pearls of wisdom
that Chris has shared on a second podcast
called Minutes on Mastery,
which is insights in less than three minutes.
And if you're new to this podcast
and want to subscribe,
head over to whatever podcast
player you're on and please write a review for us. Subscribe is great. And please write a review.
It helps us with the success of our venture here. You can also find me on Twitter at Michael Gervais
and that's G-E-R-V-A-I-S after Michael. And then Facebook, we've got a tribe called the Finding Mastery Tribe.
And it's really fun.
And so that's Finding Mastery.
No, I'm sorry.
Yeah, findingmastery.net forward slash tribe.
And then also find us on Instagram at Finding Mastery.
So thank you, everyone, for being part of it.
And that's it.
So thank you, everyone.
Chris, you're stud's it so thank you everyone chris you're stud yeah
thank you all right thank you so much for diving into another episode of finding mastery with us
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