FoundMyFitness - #019 Dr. Darya and Kevin Rose Talk Meditation Retreats, Diet, Seasonal Eating, and More

Episode Date: December 25, 2015

In this episode, Dr. Rhonda Patrick chats with Dr. Darya and Kevin Rose. Dr. Darya Rose, PhD is a neuroscientist, author of "Foodist: Using Real Food and Real Science to Lose Weight Without Dieting," and creator of Summer Tomato, which was featured in TIME magazine's list of the web's 50 best websites in 2011. Kevin you may know from TV, the investing world, or any of a wide variety of things he's well known for (founding digg.com, just for starters). More recently, Kevin hosts a podcast where he's had guests ranging from titans of industry like Elon Musk to notables like his buddy Tim Ferriss, multi-time New York Times best selling author, investor, self-experimenter and fellow podcaster. In this episode, we discuss... (00:00) Introduction (03:23) Darya Rose talks about her 10-day silent retreat (11:32) Mindfulness can be achieved during daily activities (16:10) Kevin's self-experimentation with a ketogenic diet (23:59) Rhonda's interviews with Dr. Valter Longo and Ray Cronise on fasting (29:13) Tumeric increases the body's detoxification enzymes (33:17) Darya's career from PhD student to health advocate (39:32) The benefits of eating seasonally  (45:12) Technology that promotes mindfulness and productivity  If you're interested in learning more, you can read the full show notes here. Join over 300,000 people and get the latest distilled information straight to your inbox weekly: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/newsletter Become a FoundMyFitness premium member to get access to exclusive episodes, emails, live Q+A's with Rhonda and more: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/crowdsponsor

Welcome back, everyone. In this episode, I had a very fun chat with Dr. Darya Rose and her husband, Kevin Rose. We chat about Darya's fascinating experience on a 10-day silent meditation retreat. Yes, you heard me correctly. A 10-day silent meditation. Fascinating stuff. She spent around 7 hours a day doing seated meditation, intermingled with another 6 hours a day of walking meditation. So tune in to hear all about Jari's experience. We also discuss the biological significance of mindfulness while eating, unlocking the mysteries of blood glucose by actually testing your response to foods, or in Kevin's case, food and alcoholic beverages. Kevin talks about his self-experiments with a ketogenic diet featuring large amounts of vegetables combined with fats to drive his ketosis, as well as other ideas and projects he's working on.

We also discuss intermittent fasting and how the body responds to it as a beneficial hormetic stressor that activates gene expression changes that can actually make you more resilient. And we discuss so much more. I hope you all enjoy this conversation with Darya and Kevin Rose as much as I did. Okay, so now that I've given you a taste of what this conversation is about, just one super quick reminder. Get on my weekly email newsletter at foundmyfitness.com. This is where I send all of my best content.

You can't get everything just by tuning into the podcast or YouTube. You have to be on my newsletter too. Go to foundmyfitness.com to get you some. Secondly, if you like the podcast videos and articles that I put together, please consider pitching me a few bucks. I'm over halfway to my next major funding milestone. All it takes is a small percentage of the people listening to this podcast to pledge a few bucks, and I'll be the rest of the way there.

Thank you so much for your consideration. you can learn more about that at foundmyfitness.com forward slash crowd sponsor. That's C-R-O-W-D-S-P-O-N-S-O-R. Finally, if you enjoy this podcast, you should also go check out Darya's website, summertomato.com. It was named one of Times' best 50 websites for 2011 and has a focus on food that I know many of you will find refreshing and informative. She's got a newsletter sign up there for her own blog.

Additionally, you can also check out Darya's book, Foodist, using real food and real science to lose weight without dieting. Without further ado, please enjoy Kevin and Dr. Darya Rose. Hello, my friends. Today I'm sitting here with Power Couple, Kevin and Dr. Darya Rose. Kevin is an internet entrepreneur and angel investor. He has co-founded many companies like Dig, Pounce, Milk, and others. He was a TV personality. He also was a former venture partner for Google Ventures, among many other things.

He also hosts a popular podcast along with a mutual friend of ours, Tim Ferriss, called The Random Show. Dr. Daria Rose has a PhD and neuroscience from the University of California, San Francisco. She is an author and also host a popular blog called The Summer Tomato. So what's up, guys? Thanks for having us. Yeah, great to be here. Yeah, super excited. I hear like Daria you had a very unique and interesting experience like very recently.

Yes, I just came from a 10-day silent meditation retreat up in Spirit Rock up in Marin. 10-day silent retreat. That's like super crazy intense. Like can you explain? So to clarify. So no talking like I feel like it's a bit of a misnomer because it's like, yes, it was silent. But like that wasn't the hardest part. Like, it was, I mean, I was meditating, just sitting meditation over seven hours a day.

And then also, like probably six hours of walking meditation plus instruction. You know, there was time off for meals. I had a little bit of time to exercise. But, you know, it was a vegetarian diet. You know, no, you actually couldn't even really, you weren't supposed to make eye contact with anyone. Was there, like, was it, when you're sitting and meditating for seven hours a day, was there, like, light? Was it dark? Was it?

Well, we started six in the morning when it was very dark. But usually there was a meditation hall where we would all gather and, you know, you sit on your cushion. And it was never a stretch of more than, it was usually either a 30-minute stretch or a 45-minute stretch. And then we switched to walking meditation or switch to a guided meditation or something. But yeah, it was now. Okay. I did not go on this. Intense.

Yeah, that sounds like super. It sounded way too intense for me. So what was it like, where they're like, were you totally, you know, introspective? just sort of analyzing your own behavior and stuff like that. Yeah. So, I mean, I wish I could say that the whole time I was sitting there and just, like, having epiphanies. But like, it was, I think the best analogy I've heard is it's kind of like getting a deep tissue massage. Like, it starts out. You're like, this is going to be great. And then you're like, oh my God. Oh, my God. This sucks. This sucks. How can I keep doing this

hurts? But then you're like, oh, no, no, that's good. That's good. That's good. And then, so it's like a mixture of like awesome and torture. And then by the end, you're like, that was something else, but like I'm really glad I did it because now I feel amazing. But it was not easy. Not easy. Well, the craziest thing is you didn't do a ton of meditation prior to going into this. Zero, pretty much. I mean, I had a little bit. What? So from zero to 10 days, like, silence, meditating. Anybody who's ever tried to meditate, like meditating for 10 minutes is really hard. So, yeah, I'm kind of crazy. But I was working with the founder of Spirit Rock, Jack Hornfield, and a friend of mine, Adam Gazzali, who was a scientist at UC San Francisco, and we were sort of

piloting an app to train meditation, and I was one of the beta tester. So, like, my whole experience with meditation started there. And, but I didn't know any, I mean, this was a Buddhist, like, Vipasana meditation retreat. So I, like, they were saying words. I had no idea what they were talking about. And I had to, like, you do actually get to meet with a teacher every couple days. And in one of my first meetings, I was like, what does Dharma mean? What is enlightenment? Is that real? So I have a lot to learn. So you're working with neuroscientists there, and were they, like, measuring brain activity and things like that when you were meditating? Or was that? They're working on things like that. The first part was just behavioral. So they were basically trying to train our attention to just focus on the breath and just to see if that's possible. So I was part of that study. And they're continuing out with that.

But that wasn't part of this day. No, that was just my introduction to meditation. Okay. I see. Yeah. It's meditation is something that I've been talking about a lot recently, mostly because I'm very interested in, you may, you may know Elizabeth Blackburn. She works a lot with Eliza Appel. I think I'm saying her name right at UCSF. And they do a lot of work looking at the effects of buffering, the negative effects of stress with meditation. You know, they measure telomere length as a biomarker of aging. So they'll like, you know, they'll look at the effects of meditation, stress and things like that. So I've become sort of, you know, interested in buffering some of the negative effects of stress because, you know, you know, they'll look at the effects of stress. So I've become sort of, you know, you know, I do experience chronic stress. Have you tried any apps like Headspace or any of the others? I've downloaded Headspace at the recommendation of Tim. Headspace is awesome. But I have yet to use it.

You see, because I'm always making excuses because I have so much to do. So it starts off with 10 days, 10 minutes a day. It's their 10 day challenge. Okay. And it's really easy to do. It's all guided. So they walk you through it from the get-go. I found it was a great way to get started for the first time.

Yeah, that's, I've made one step. downloaded the app, and so I know it's there on my phone. I just need to start doing it. I did yoga this morning, and so I think that yoga, you know, sometimes, and I was having a conversation with another doctor that I had met, he's a professor at Meritus. I met him in Amsterdam when I was traveling recently. And, you know, he talked about meditation. It's something that he's been getting into recently in his, at Maris, you know, years, whatever you want to call it. You know, he's been talking about how it changes gene expression, like 100 different genes change when you start to meditate.

And you probably might know more about this, but he was mentioning like immediate changes in blood flow to the brain, brain activity, just like immediately, not to mention the long-term benefits that occur. And so, but then he went on to say, you know, meditation, a lot of people make a big thing about it. Like what you experience is like, that's work. I mean, that's, you know, real, you have to dedicate, you have to really practice, you doing something, but he was talking about meditation in the sense of just taking some time and

being now here, right here, like, you know, looking at, you know, whatever, some nice tree outside of your window, listening to some music, not thinking about what you're planning an hour from now or, you know, what you did last, you know, night, but just being here and now. And so not everyone has to, like, sit there and ohm or whatever, you know, not everyone has to sit there and focus on their breathing. Maybe, maybe focusing, on your breathing helps if you have a wandering mind, which I do. So I think I probably would have to focus on my breathing. But, um, sorry. I was just going to say there's definitely a lot of styles of meditation. And a lot of them are eyes open, focusing on something you're looking at or

or an active. I mean, there's, um, even like movement based meditations. Like, we did some chigong practice while we were there. What's that? It's a, it's kind of like Tai Chi, but it was very much like, it was like full body breathing, you know, so you're focused on your breath, but it's also your entire body. you're embodying the meditation. So that was really fascinating. So someone, like, coaching you and telling you what to do while you're doing. Yeah. So there is some, like, you're having, it's not pure silence for, like, you forever.

But, okay. Yeah. And so what, like, when you're doing some of these, some of these techniques, like, were you experiencing, like, any sort of, like, feelings of, like, happiness or calm? Yeah. So that was, there was a couple, like, big takeaways. I think for, my first big question when I got there, I was like, So I had had tremendous benefits from meditating just after using the app.

I meditate like 20 to 30 minutes a day, a few days a week. Totally helps with my insomnia. Really helps me focus at work stuff. You know, I'm much better at not switching between email, Twitter, Facebook, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, that has helped dramatically. And while I'm there, I'm just like, dude, we've been meditating for 11 hours. Like, why do I need to do two more hours? Can I just go to my room and read?

And they were like, no. And the reason was because when you're in retreat, it's not the same as meditating at home. When you're in retreat, it actually, so I would say it took three to four days before I really felt like I wasn't like completely at the mercy of my compulsions to like check email, check Twitter, check those things. It takes that long to relax. And so like the first day sitting in the hall, everybody was like, you know, we'd be like, okay, quiet time. And people you could hear rustling and sniffling and coughing and adjusting. By the last day, you could hear a pin drop in that room of 100 people because we'd all actually. chilled out. Wow. I know that like when I'm standing in line to like get some tea, I like, I'm like,

I can't just stand here. I got to pull out my phone and do something, you know, so that's, do you, so do you use headspace also? Yeah, I use headspace a lot. I just started using it more. I go in waves. I think all of us we get busy and get caught up with life. And then all of a sudden, you're like, wow, I haven't meditated in a month. So I just started getting back into it. There's a great book called The Miracle of Mindfulness that I recommend. And it talks about applying meditation to everyday life and have it being just outside of sitting, but actually doing other things. One of the things that mentions in there is washing the dishes for the sake of washing the dishes. And the whole practice is about the fact that when most people are washing the

dishes, they're thinking about email. I think about a thousand other things they should be doing. And they're not actually focused on the task at hand. And this is about meditating while you scrub and really being like mindful about what you're doing. You should definitely do more of the dishwashing meditation. Yeah, exactly. I wash a lot of dishes, by the way. I do most of the Well, talking about being mindful where you're washing dishes, I was reading Darya, like one of your posts you were talking about being mindful while you're eating. Yeah, that's hard for me. I found that very interesting.

Is this, you want to talk a little bit about it? Yeah, yeah. I think actually, so my whole thing is I'm really interested in, I mean, we're sort of in the same subject like nutrition, neuroscience and health, but one of the things I've come up against over and over and over again in my work is that a lot of people want to do this stuff. But it's practicing it. doing it that's the hard part. And so I've really gotten into psychology and behavior change in

terms of like getting people to eat healthy. And mindfulness came out to be like a huge one because so many people don't think before they eat. They don't think about what they're eating. They don't appreciate what's in their mouths while they're eating so they don't know when to stop eating. They don't make the best decisions. And practicing mindfulness in day-to-day eating practices is actually tremendously effective because what happens what the science shows is that, uh, you know, you enjoy your food more if you eat mindfully. And what that means is sort of stopping. And instead of like multitasking, looking at your phone, watching TV,

talking on the, whatever, talking to your friend, roommate, is just actually, you know, turning everything off and just focusing on the flavor of your food, God forbid, chewing and swallowing before you put another bite in your mouth. Yeah. And we actually went through a formal mindful eating meditation practice while we were at the retreat. It was pretty intense, actually. You're supposed to like look at your food for 30 to 60 seconds and like smell it. And you realize it looks really weird.

And then you're supposed to figure out like where the hunger is in your body. Like is it in your stomach or is it in your mouth or is it in your head? And like what do you want to eat first? And then instead of just being a zombie and eating your entire meal sort of like in slow motion because there was a lot of slow motion zombie movement while we were at the retreat, it was like your first couple bites eat really slowly, close your eyes, feel it, feel the texture, feel the warmth, feel the flavor. And then you can eat like a normal person. But it's actually, I recommend everybody try that because it doesn't take that long if you only do a couple bites at the

beginning of your meal. And it's, it really changes your whole experience. Well, that and we have a friend Matt Mullenweg that started chewing while he was eating just as a practice, like actually chewing 50 times before swallowing. 20 times for swallowing each bite. And he lost a bunch of weight just by that one change. Whoa. Just by chewing and slowing down. No other changes. Just you get full. You naturally eat less. And the other thing, the last part of our training was, yeah, when you start to get full, so you start to realize you get full, but then there's, like, it was funny. They were like, there's this committee in your brain. It's like, well, yeah, you're full, but that was really good. And so you should maybe have another bite of that. And then, like,

another one's like, no, no, no, you're trying to lose weight. That's like another voice. And then your mom comes in and is like, you're not, you shouldn't leave any food on your plate. They're starving kids in Africa. And it's, and he was like, what you should really pay attention to you. And this is Jack again, Jack Correnfield, is, um, who wins that conversation? conversation for you. And that's a really important insight that most people never think about. Well, what I thought was really neat, and Kevin sort of alluded to this, was that, and I read this on your cool infographic that you have on your blog, that it takes around 20 minutes for the signals, you know, satiety signals to hit your brain and register, I'm full. And part of that

has to do with your not making as much of the hunger hormone. So grelins, you know, being toned down a bit, you're not like hungry, hungry. So if you do chew 20 times or something like Matt was doing, you are going to eat slower. And then 20 minutes go by and that signal gets to your brain where you're full. So it's like, oh, you know, you don't need as much food to get full. But it's just people are so quick to eat. I can eat two meals in 20 minutes. That's no problem.

So are you practicing some of this? Yeah, I'm trying to, but it's still difficult. It's really hard. It's hard to slow down. You do it on autopilot. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one thing I need to improve on.

I've done all kinds of other crazy stuff in the diet realm, which drives her nuts. But it's the part of the problem with being friends with Tim Ferriss is you try crazy hacks. Well, you were talking a little bit about some experiments you're doing recently with your diet, right? Yeah. I mean, so here about four or five months ago, Tim started getting into ketosis. And so, you know, we get together and he's like, oh, you've got to try this. I'm monitoring my blood.

And so I go out and buy a glucose monitor and ketone monitor from Amazon. And I'm pricking my finger five times a day. Nice. It's like blood all over the house. I'm keeping detailed logs and Google spreadsheets of everything I eat. I would test before my glucose levels before I eat something 30 minutes after and 60 minutes after to test and see what spikes it and what doesn't. If there's anything like weird things like agave and other things that are like

mysteries and whether they actually spike your glucose and what. what alcohols actually spike it versus not because I like to have, you know, a glass of wine. You're impressed by this, right? This is very scientific. It was actually the most impressed I've ever been with one of his crazy hairbrained. I love Lucy's schemes. I've done some crazy stuff. Like, I figured out that, so I've done a modified ketosis kind of diet where I do very high veggie, but also extremely high fat and low protein. So I would do six to nine cups of veggies per day. but always combining them with lots, like extreme amounts of fat.

So a lot of coconut milk, like really dense coconut milk. With low sugar. Yeah, but not the stuff that you see at Whole Foods. Like the stuff you see at Whole Foods is typically like, you know, the stuff in the tall boxes, and you go in there and it has like four or five grams of fat per like half cup to cup of coconut milk. I get the like cooking coconut milk. Do you know what I'm talking about? The really, really dense stuff that typically comes in a can.

You can get it on Amazon, and that has 13 grams of fat per cup. No, per half cup. Yeah. So super, super fatty. And then I would take all these steamed veggies that had been frozen and then put them in a blender along with all that coconut fat. And then just blend it up, along with some coconut oil on top of that, just to give it a little bit more coconut flavor.

And then I would have that for breakfast. But that's like way more carbs than you're supposed to have to keep you in ketosis. Because if you go more than 20 grams of carbs per day, they typically tell you to stay under that to stay in full ketosis. But I was doing that per meal, 20 plus grams per meal. Was this the meal? You were eating the same meal. So it was just the blended. Exactly.

That's all you were eating. That was just his breakfast. Just breakfast. But if you combine it with that much fat, it slows down the digestion and then there wasn't that huge spike. So I'd stay in ketosis if you combine it with the fat. Did you test that with it? Yeah. So you did it without the coconut milk and then coconut oil.

Yeah, and it kicks you out without it. What were the steamed vegetables you were using? So I'd use kale, spinach. I'd use almost everything. Like I used sea vegetables. Gosh, what else did I use? Anything I could find at the store charred, cucumber. It wasn't really for flavor because all that stuff blended up just tastes nasty.

So it was just when you add the coconut, you could cover up most of it with the coconut. And if you steam ahead of time, though, it actually turns the veggies into like ice crystals. So you don't need to add ice. So it kind of makes it a really, almost like ice cream like thing that you have every morning. Green coconut ice cream. Okay, so that was breakfast. Yeah, throw some avocado in there as well. Right.

Any extra fat that you can get in there. Yeah. I make a smoothie somewhat similar to that. I don't, it's raw vegetables, charred, kale. And then I do carrots, tomato, which are more high in sugar. I'm confused at why you add banana to yours, though. I don't always, you know. I saw that on there.

I was like, yeah, you know, originally I added it because I was adding a lot of really nasty vegetables. I was doing mustard greens. I was doing kale.

Yeah, I was doing broccoli sprouts, which are really potent. Yeah, yeah. And, like, disgusting in a smoothie. Yeah. And, you know,

sometimes it helps with the, the texture of it, but I like the avocado now instead for the texture. So I kind of occasionally put the banana that we share it. So it's like, I have a banana.

Yeah. Yeah. So, So then lunch you're eating... Lunch are just full-on salad with as much fat added as possible. Sometimes I know this isn't really good in that. I tried to stay away from processed meats, but I would do bacon at the place on top of that to get a lot of fat.

And then just, you know, really high-fat dressings on top of that, mostly olive oil, stuff like that. And then dinner was just... Dinner was a free-for-all. Steak and veggies. It was like steak and veggies. Cheese. You know, but grass-fed meats, things like that. We're not going crazy and do anything in the death.

Oh, yeah. If you're eating that much fat, you have to eat. But you were doing it with him? Were you? I did a two-week experiment, which is totally not characteristic of me. Measuring ketone bodies and everything. Yeah, I did this. I did the stabbing just because he was like, well, I've never seen him with so much energy. So that was one of the reasons he was doing this. Waking up in the morning, like going to work all day, coming home, running 5Ks. I was just like, who are you?

It was really kind of crazy. I've never had fatigue problems. I'm generally really healthy and don't do diets ever. but he was like, I'm like, he was like, you should know what this feels like. And I was like, okay. So I did a two-week experiment. I felt pretty good for the most part. I got into pretty high ketosis. You had one day where you were just like, I have insane energy. I had one day where I had insane energy. So what were your ketone levels? Like when you were measuring? Two and a half, something like that. I got up over almost three and a half ones. Yeah, yours were really high. My blood sugar, that's the thing, I already have pretty good blood sugar control, you know? So for me, it was not life-changing. I didn't lose a single pound. I got really sick of butter.

But it was interesting. I found out tricks on how to get myself back in pretty quick, though. So if it get kicked out, it's sometimes really difficult to get back in. It's really hard to explain. But like, have you done any of the stuff yet? I have not. Okay. So like, basically what happens is, you know, I have to do a lot of entertaining and events

and things like that at night. And so sometimes, like, you have either more red wine than you should or things like like that and that will kick you out of ketosis. You'll go home at night and I'll measure myself and I'm like 0.3. And I'm like, oh, well, I'm falling out right now. now. That's like, you know, anyone, anyone can be point three if they just try for a few hours of not having sugar. And so, you know, to get back in the next morning, I would fast a lot. I've been big into fasting. Back in is like over 1.0. Yeah, over 1.0. Yeah, over 1. Yeah. So I would just,

like, I would fast a lot in that I would typically try, if I fast for 16 hours, so I do a lot of intermittent fasting as well, then that would get me back in right away. And especially if my breakfast was, I would do grass-fed butter with coffee, kind of like bulletproof coffee, but I don't like believe in all that modified MCT stuff that he does. But I would just do straight up coconut oil with butter in coffee, blend that up and drink it down and just have so much energy. It's like the best thing ever in the morning. It is insane. Okay. So have you looked into some of the like beta hydroxybutyrate and the effects on the brain? Apparently it's like not only you being used by the mitochondria as a really, you know, easily accessible source of energy. So it shunts right into the

TCA cycle and is used to make energy. But it also increases BDNF. Like, it's a signaling molecule. I was just, I think, recently, no, it wasn't that. It was Eric Ferdine at UCSA. If you may know, he's at Gladstone. Pellish a couple years ago. I keep thinking recently, but it's been like two years now. So, I have that same problem. Yeah. I graduated recently five years ago. So, but yeah, so the effects on the brain are very interesting. I've, you know, I do a lot of intermittent fasting, where I won't eat for like the day and then I'll eat, you know, dinner. I've done the 24-hour fast as well. What do you think of that new study that came out about the simulated fasting?

Did you read about that? Volta Longo at UCLA. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, I read it when it came out like a few months ago. Yeah. I don't remember exactly what the diet was composed of. Just a little tiny bit of food to keep you in a slightly fasted state.

Yeah. They didn't release what it exactly was, but they were saying broths and stuff. things like that. I downloaded the paper. I reached out to him, I think. I mean, I have to follow up because I don't think he got back to me because I was curious and I wanted to talk to him about it. I'm actually curious a lot about it. He does a lot of work on fasting and the effects of fasting on IGF1 levels and the effects of protein on IGF1 and the relationship to aging and age-related diseases. It's all very interesting. But, you know, there's a lot of benefits from the intermittent fasting. I'm actually going to meet with Ray Kroni's tomorrow. He's, um,

doing a, he just is wrapping up a 20-day fast. Wow. Dr. Supervised. Yeah, exactly, right? That's crazy. 20-day fast. Like, I'm super excited. Like, I don't even know.

With what, though? What? That's like biblical. It is. I don't know exactly. I don't know the details. I'm going to talk with him tomorrow about it. He's doing some sort of medically supervised 20-day fast.

It's like, he's not doing it. As far as I know, it was like water. But I could be wrong, and I'll find out the details. soon. Crazy. Totally crazy. But the intermittent fasting is more what I'm like, that's more doable. Like as Darya mentioned, you know, the problem is people need to like have these procedures and protocols that they can actually do. That's like, you know, it's reasonable. It's not like crazy. Like who's going to do it, you know, 20-day fast? So it's also really good for weight loss as well. I don't know if you've seen intermittent fasting. Yeah, it works for me.

Did you see Hugh Jackman, you know, he plays Wolverine? Yeah, I know who he is, but I didn't see him. So he has a video on YouTube where they interview him about Wolverine and he talks about the fact how he was able to get shredded was through intermittent fasting 16 hours every day. Oh, really? For how long? Just during shooting, leading up to shooting and then during the film. So the thing with that is, was he, so was he, like, skinny and just, like, muscular? I'm sure he was already pretty muscular and skinny, but he just used to shred up a little bit. A lot of people, like men are, like, for females, it's kind of like, we like to be thinner.

Like, intermittent fasting for us is, like, super easy. But, like, you know, my husband, who wants to have more muscle mass. It seems like it's a little bit more of a challenge because you need more protein. You should check out the fasting twins on YouTube as well. The fasting twins? They're crazy. They're bodybuilders at fast. And so they were able to put on a muscle.

It's a whole rabbit hole that you probably don't want to go down. They're funny. They're funny. And they also, they call it like bro science. They're not really scientists. Okay. But it's just. So they acknowledge it.

They acknowledge it. They're not doing it. But they figured out little hacks. It's like all these people that are in this world. Like 90% of them aren't scientists, but they just like to have. hack and try out different little things. There's little insights there to be found. So question for you, since you've done, how long was your ketosis experiment? A few months, yeah. A few months. Yeah, a couple months, I would say. Okay. So you've done that, and then you've also, you've brought, you practice intermittent

fasting. Like, how frequently? I did it where she was on her 10-day retreat for two days. I try to do it, I would say six days a month would be ideal, I think. Six days a month? And is this a 24-hour fast? 16-hour fast? 16-hour fast. All right. So what would you say, like, if you compare the brain benefits or the changes. And I mean, this is totally subjective. Yeah. Intermitt fasting for me has never given me any type of cognitive kind of boost. It's always been more about weight loss and just trimming up.

I've never felt, if anything, like, you know, I find there's this really weird state where when you intermittent fast, it throws you kind of a temporary ketosis really quickly. But it's a bad place to be because I feel like your body's not sure what it should be doing. It doesn't know whether it should be like burning carbs. or fat, right? And so in ketosis, like, they talk about this keto flu that's during the induction phase, like the first few days are hell.

Because you're just like, you're not in full on ketosis. You get this kind of sick feeling where you don't have enough energy, you just want to lay around a lot. And so intermittent fasting for me is difficult in that it kind of puts me in this temporary state, especially if I do it two days in a row. And so my body's not in full on ketosis mode,

but it's not, you know, so it's, I don't like it. I do it because I keep reading the paper, papers and you keep writing about how fasting is good for you and that's why I keep doing it. Well, have you actually measured your ketone levels after an intermittent fasting compared them? So what are your levels? You know, I haven't in that. I've always been doing ketosis when I've peppered it in. I should probably do that. Interesting to see like how they compare. You know, but you're mentioning your body doesn't know what to do. That's actually part of the stress response, I think, you know, that's, that has positive benefits, right? So you're

you're stressing your body. It's like, what do I do? And what it does is it's, it's, starts to like change gene expression. That's one of the main things it does where it starts to turn on all these genes involved in, you know, helping your body deal with stress because you're stressing it and it's like freaking out. It's like, what do I do? It's like, okay, I'm just going to like, I'm going to do this like whole thing where I just go around and turn on all these really good genes that help me deal with everything until I figure it out, you know? Right. So it can be beneficial as what you're saying. Yeah, absolutely. So you said that turmeric does something similar, I think, in one of your... Yeah, so there's, um, what this process I'm talking about

is often referred to as like hormesis, right, like the hormetic effects, where you're putting a little bit of stress on the body. And the same goes for exercise, the sauna, cold shocking. So high-intensity interval training is another example of that. Exactly. High-intensity interval training. And also some of these plant polyphenols. So tamaric, eG-cg from green tea, quercetin found in like onions. So do you intermit that? So my question, I had, sorry, I have one question for you. I know it's your show. I feel bad. On the turmeric side, is that something that you would do intermittently then?

Or would you, because some people take it daily as a supplement? And I was thinking, well, if you're doing that every single day and your body gets used to it, is it going to turn on those gene expressions then? That's actually a good point, but yes, it does. Because it is slightly toxic to our body, our bodies don't like tamaric. It's some of the compounds, some of these cucuminoyans in the turmeric are made as a response to the plants to fend off. like insects and, you know, fungus and things that are going to kill the plant. So, or the root,

I guess, it's not really a plant, right? It's a root, right? Yeah. So our body doesn't like it. It's slightly toxic. It's just like, you know, alcohol is slightly toxic. But as a consequence, it activates all these phase to detoxifying enzymes, which are involved in preventing your body from converting something like nitrite in your bacon to nitrosamines, which are carcinogens. Right. So we have all these enzymes in our body that are capable of detoxifying. I hate the word detoxify because a lot of woo-woo people use it. But we actually do have enzymes in our body called Phase 2 detoxifying enzymes.

And so they do serve a purpose. But not only that, tamaric also. So there's two really interesting compounds in it. One is the one that most people are familiar with, right? So that is the curcumin, right? And that's the one that turns on all these anti-inflammatory genes, these phase two detoxifying enzymes, all that good stuff. But there's also something in it called aromatic tumorone,

which is why specifically I like to get turmeric or make turmeric tea not just curcumin. Because aromatic tumorone has been shown actually just in the past year to cross over the blood brain barrier and increase, I think it was in the subventricular zone, increased neural stem cell proliferation, and it affected like memory and performance in mice. And so this is like all preliminary, you know, but, and it was like a very robust. Like, it was like something very robust. I'm not going to say the number because I don't remember, but it was pretty significant increase in new neural stem cells, which is kind of your area. But yeah, very interesting.

That was what my thesis was on. Oh, cool. The SVV. Oh, the sub particulars on, okay, so you know more about that than Ivey. But the fact that this aromatic tamarone in turmeric is in tamaric, it's also very interesting. Do you add black pepper to your tea? Yeah, so the piperine, the component in the black pepper can. So our bodies like to get rid of these polyphenols, and a lot of them like EGCG, a lot of them are on the same class.

There's certain enzymes in our liver, the CYP enzymes that get rid of it. So that's why their half-life is very short when you get to Merrick in your body. It's immediately, your body's immediately trying to clear it out because it's toxic. It's like, no, get rid of this, you know. But the piperine stops that enzyme from working. So you really have to be careful for people. Like, you guys are very health conscientious and probably don't, you know, take prescription drugs or things like that, but a lot of people do.

And prescription drugs are also metabolized for that same pathway. So if you are taking a prescription drug, probably best to avoid piperine because that will extend the half-life of whatever drug. And God knows what effect that's going to have, right? So that's always something to keep in mind. But I kind of was, you know, Darya's got this whole academic, you know, she brings academics to your relationship. And I suspect that Kevin has influenced your entrepreneurial side.

You know, you're not slaving away in a lab right now. So I'm kind of curious, is there some sort of, was there like an influence of Kevin on you choosing to the path you've taken or something else kind of? I mean, for sure. But when we met, I already had a pretty. popular blog and was like getting, you know, book agents, like, interested. So, but he's definitely, obviously, huge help in figuring out how to monetize my site and figuring out, I mean, definitely helps find me developers and designers and stuff like that. Oh, cool. So you had already, like,

decided to take a different path. Yeah, I was, I was in my second year of grad school, and I had just finished my qualifying exam, and I was just like, so I was like, I don't know if I want to be this when I grow up anymore. And, you know, funding was getting really low back then, you know, just from the NIH and NSF and stuff. I had an NSF grant. I was really lucky. But, yeah, I just, and I was interested in this other stuff on the side. And I had been struggling with dieting my entire life from, like, the age 11 all the way up until I was like 25 or whatever. And when I solved it for myself, it was such a life-changing experience because not only did I finally stop struggling with weight, which, like, that alone is huge. But I discovered.

I heard I loved food. And like that was, food was my enemy for like 15 years. So that was so life-changing for me. I discovered farmers markets and cooking, this whole new community of people. And so I just started my blog, started writing. I started writing for the UCSF paper, actually. I was like writing for the school paper as a science and nutrition editor. And yeah, and so I just, you know, being here in Silicon Valley, I just, it was so easy to go online. I was able to market for free on Twitter and Facebook. and yeah, and it just sort of took off. People really resonated with what I was saying about not dieting and not using willpower all the time

and not having to suffer to be healthy and look the way you want. So, yeah, it was already pretty deep. That's how we met, actually. We met on Twitter. That's so cool. She retweeted me one time, and I saw her little profile, and I clicked to zoom in on the photo. I was like, she's kind of cute.

He was talking me for a while. Yeah, right. You're the one that followed me. me first. That's so cute. Yeah, your book, in your book, The Foodist, you do focus a lot on eating real, like, whole foods, something that you call like a healthful lifestyle. Yeah. And that really, and eating a broad spectrum of it. And that really resonates with me because it's something that I also think is very important, eating whole foods, real foods, and a broad spectrum. Well, that was the one thing that I kept coming up against, like,

because what I did was like, okay, this is a problem I've been struggling with for a long time. It's not neuroscience, but like I have been studying biology for a long time now. And so I just, I was like, what is the best diet? That was like the question I went into, I just dug into PubMed for like months. And I discovered there's no best because I was like, I was like, is it low carb? You know, like I was trying to figure out that. Turns out they all don't really work for more than six months. Definitely at a year.

They don't. They're all the same. And but then I was like, well, there are people that don't struggle with this. What do those people do? And it came down to they eat real foods. Turns out they don't have slim fast and like protein bars and stuff like that I was living off of and like diet soda. And then, yeah, and then they eat, they have habits around those foods. And then they have a broad spectrum of foods.

And that's generally, to me just generally means eat with the season and don't be a picky eater. So I just started doing that. It was terrifying because I was assuming I was going to just gain weight because I hadn't eaten carbs or fat or anything for so long. But I didn't. And I was not, and the biggest thing for me was when I started eating that way and actually nourishing my body, all my cravings went away. All my, like, skin problems went away. Like, all my hair started growing on all thick. And I was just like, what is going on?

This is amazing. I'm healthy. Yeah, and, like, I'd never experienced that before. You know, I'd been like, I thought I had to suffer. And then all of a sudden, like, I'm eating this amazing food and, like, all my problems went away. So is that something that, Kevin, you're, like, you adopt now. Do you help out with the cooking and like... I cook certain things.

He's amazing. But I push us in certain directions. The cool thing now is that she's taught me to eat seasonally, which I didn't know about before, which I actually look forward to things being in season because they taste better. And then also I read about all this stuff and so I'll push us in different directions.

Like, for example, she talked me out of it, but I was going to make my own fermented natto at home. I do a lot of the fermenting at the house, so I do all of our sauerkrauts and all of our... He's the crafty one. Like, I go and buy the chimerick and make our teas, and, like, I was big into traditional tea for a long time and, like, studied that whole area for a bit. He's difficult, though. Like, I've been trying to talk about eating organ meats for, like, years. I've been doing that. I'm bored now.

Somebody, some other scientist said it, and finally he was like, oh, let's start eating organ meats. Well, Tim also was doing more that. Yeah, because it's also high in K2. You don't have to do the fermented natto, right? It's fun, though. Nato's fun. Good Nato is pretty good. Really?

I've never tried Nato. I take a K2 supplement. But I've never tried Nato. You can make it yourself at home. Just ferment it. Just buy some soybeans and you get the starter. I think I'm going to try eating it first. You go to a good restaurant.

Like a really good restaurant. It's really nasty. Is it really nasty? Yeah, you need a lot of flavor on it. Have you made your own almond milk? No, I haven't. Oh, that's the easiest thing to do. Yeah, I know.

It takes two seconds, and you can use. in your smoothies. Right. But you can also get a lot of K2 from like Parmesan cheese and Natsiago and stuff, right? Hard cheeses. Oh, I wouldn't say a lot. There's some, but not a lot. I think that some people overstate that if you compare like to Nato, it's like nothing.

But you can only eat like one bite of Nato and you can eat a lot of cheese. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. So that there's that. And we eat all the organ meats. How do you like when you're talking about eating seasonally, like if you walk into, for example, like Berkeley, Berkeley Bowl, which is where I should. Like, how do I know what's seasonal and what's not?

I mean, I kind of know just from knowing, but like, is there, like, someone who doesn't know? I've been trying to tell you to make this app forever. I want her to make an app that tells where your location is and tells you exactly what the... Does it really exist? There are a few. None of them are very good, but they exist. It's... When you eat...

I mean, I like to sort of really generalize it. So, yeah, if you walk into a grocery store, it's really confusing because there will be strawberries all year, there will be oranges all year, there will be apples all year, and then they all sort of taste the same all year, which is terrible. But when you shop at farmers markets and places, Berkeley bowl is actually pretty good. I mean, one good, if something's from the southern hemisphere, it's not in season. It's in season down on the other. Like, if it's spring here and it's from the southern hemisphere, it's fall there.

If you're eating Brussels sprouts in April, they're not from here. And vice versa, if you're eating tomatoes in January, they're not from here. But generally, the way I like to think about it is early in the springtime, which is the most exciting time, because it's been long winter. And in the winter, you're getting things like root vegetables, bitter grains, hearty greens, like cabbage, turnips, beans, turnips, things like that. In the spring, all the grasses start coming up, right? So you get beautiful lettuces, chives, asparagus, like all the light, crisp, delicate greens. As summer progresses, it gets hotter. You start to get more sweet things like stone fruits, which are cherries, apricot.

plums, peaches, berries, and, you know, things like tomatoes and the more ripe, rich, more dense fruits and vegetables. As fall progresses, it gets even sweeter. And then also you start to see a little bit more robustness, like things like winter squash start showing up, you know, hot peppers, things that are a little more robust. And then in the winter you start to get, the citrus is like sort of the bright fruit of the winter, but otherwise you get more into the case. and cabbages and things like that. And actually root vegetables, something people don't know often, is that they can be really, really spicy and kind of hard to eat. In the winter, though, they get sweet. They get sweet and mild. I'm really delicious. I think it has something to do with the cold

and how it shocks the – shocks the plant. But they get really delicious that time of year, whereas earlier in the year they can actually be kind of hard to eat. So – Interesting. Yeah. And so you sort of learn by experimenting. To me, it's one of the most delightful things about eating, hopefully, is because you never get bored. As soon as you're sick of corn, it's like squash season, you know, and you don't have to eat corn anymore. I, you know, I tend to like cook the same meals, like where I stick to these, almost kind of like a, like a slow carb diet thing where Tim talks about, like, just, you know, you have these meals, and it's the easiest thing that you keep making them out. And for me, I'll have these core meals

that I make. You know, I eat a very plant-paced diet, a lot of vegetables. a lot of fruits as well. And then I eat a lot of fish, like wild salmon, wild cod, and a little bit of chicken. I don't really cook red meat often. I mean, it's once in a while, like, when we go out to dinner. So I have all these meals that I like, and a lot of lentils. I like beans. I like high fiber foods.

So, but I do, I know, I know my husband, Dan gets sick of it because I'm, I just, you know, rotate between the meals. And it's easier for me because I work a lot. And then I'm trying to, like, also exercise and meditate and enjoy life. And it's just, like, trying to book it all in, you know. So we do something similar. I call them my home court recipes. They're sort of, like, my basics that I sort of go to.

But what I'll do is I'll take basically the same cooking technique and just swap out a new veggie. You know, and so, and then I have, basically, I have home court recipes for every season that way. Cool. So you just sort of, like, I have a roasted cauliflower dish that's, like, pretty popular. I do that. But it's cauliflower is usually in season. It's usually pretty good. But, you know, in the winter, in the fall, like, I'll start rotating in Brussels sprouts,

delicata squash. And then, you know, in the springtime, I'll just move to more salads. You know, less roasts more salads. And it's just, it's not that hard. Is it basically the same idea, though? It's just, it's a little bit more cycling of the rest of it. No, it sounds great. You know, I often will shift in different vegetables and stuff when I, like, am not,

I don't have what I need. And so I'm pretty good at, like, improvising and, experimenting and like I'll throw together stuff that I have and all of a sudden I'm like, oh, this is really good. So that makes sense, you know, doing something like that. Do you have recipes? You have recipes on your blog and stuff, right? I do. Yeah, but I mean, I only put those on there by like popular demand. Like I don't really cook from recipes. I'm a big, big advocate of cooking from instinct and cooking without recipes. Okay. Yeah. Cool. I have a whole program where I teach people how to do that because I feel like if you're forced to cook from a recipe on a

regular basis, it gets daunting and overwhelming, whereas if you have like the instinct of like, oh, you know what, I have these ingredients, I bet it would taste really good with some garlic and some parsley. That's just a, you lower the barrier to being able to cook. It's what works for me. So important. Because when you're exhausted after work or whatever, and like, you just need food in your mouth, like, you really need it to be as easy as possible.

Otherwise, you're just going to order a pizza or whatever. So, yeah. No, it's such a great point. That's definitely what works for me where it's like, yeah. Yeah, I don't even think I ever look at recipes. And every time I've tried, it's been, it has to be like, okay, I'm hosting a party or Thanksgiving or something. Yeah, they have their place. It still becomes daunting.

But, yeah, other than that, you know. Isn't for inspiration sometimes, too. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, Kevin, I know you like to, you know, drink wine and talk about random things a lot. So, like, what's going on in the tech world? Like, anything cool? That's a good question. You know, I think that for me, technology.

and is just a little overwhelming. I'm trying to find my time to find breaks. And so this is a period where I've decided to do less tech in my life. We moved to New York, so that was a big shift for us. I was at, you know, we're here at Google Ventures. When I was here, we used to probably see 10 new entrepreneurs per day. And you talk about bad diets. Oh, yeah?

Entrepreneurs. Do they tell you what they eat? I mean, they just, I mean, it's the classic. It's just all pizza all the time. Yeah, all pizza, fast food. Is that because they just have no time? They're working. Exactly.

So. Does that affect their brain function? I could go off on that. Not at that age. You should like, does. It should be some kind of like, really? It does. Yeah.

I mean, you're less effective. You're more foggy. Yeah. Yeah. And not sleeping and like living on coffee and pizza. It's not good for your thoughts. Yeah. But for me, I've been trying to spend actually a lot of time figuring out how to develop

technology to force us off of technology. So I'm kind of working on some anti-tech ideas right now. It's called a 10-day silent retreat. No, it's that too. But like, for example, one of the things that you'll notice is when you're sitting at dinner and you're like drawn to these devices, if there's ever, you know, a pause in the conversation when you're with someone, especially it's horrible when you're with your wife or husband or boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever, and you want to look at your phone. And you flip it over and you start doing your phone thing, and it's really rude, but you're kind of drawn to it. So I have this really weird thing in my head where I envision like aliens looking down on this and they see us with our heads in our phones.

And it's especially apparent in New York where you walk around and everyone has their heads in their phones. They're like just like this, like almost getting hit by traffic. And so I have this idea of this technology fast, the software that I want to create that will force fasting on cell phones. and you'll actually use some gamification to get points by going long periods of time without using your cell phone for certain activities. So blocking text messages, something like, let's say you sent me a text,

you get an automatic reply saying Kevin is in a tech fast. If you need this to go through, respond with one and it would allow that text through, some of these things you can only do. Interesting. So some of these things you can only do on Android because you have full access to all the right APIs to be able to do all the messaging stuff.

But on desktop as well, I feel like multitasking is really hurting us. I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where you have 20 tabs open. And then you go back to one tab and you're like, wow, I wrote that email five hours ago and just forgot to hit the send button. So it's like I'm trying to figure out what we can build. I know this is horrible, but to like kind of dial us back from technology. I haven't checked my email since getting back from the retreat. Wow. I'm so scared.

But I'm also like, I'm so happy. It's like it's really hard to want to go read my emails. It's the weirdest thing. I feel like I'm at the age now where we need to like have less of that in our life. Technology is amazing for so many things. But there needs to be a balance. This point, like this sort of gaming aspect to it, like is there going to be like a competition between people? For sure.

I want to see you'll see your score and Tim score and everyone else's score and see how we're doing on the fasting front. And then you're going to like social media like to talk about like. But that will help spread the word which leads to less tech use, which is ultimately pretty good. That's very interesting. It's an interesting concept. We'll see if I ever build it. It's one of the thousand ideas that I have in notebooks in places. Yeah.

But it's fun to think about. I know that, you know, Dan, he's also very techy and he has a problem with not looking at his phone. Like, when we're out to eat. And sometimes I won't bring my phone with me. And so I'm sitting here and it's like, I feel like, well, if you're looking at your phone, you'll feel pressure then to take your phone out too. So, like, well, otherwise I'm just sitting here. I guess I could be mindfully eating and, like, enjoying the food.

But, you know, it does. I just smile at him until he notices. Yeah. Yeah. No, but it's a big problem. It's getting worse, I feel. That's the scary things. I feel like we're getting more and more involved.

And the Apple Watch, I think, is a horrible invention. What all does the Apple Watch do? It just, it brings all that stuff to the forefront. And it gives you all that stuff right in your face. You don't have to pull out your phone. You can just look down at your watch. I don't know. I don't think it's, I shouldn't say horrible invention.

There's certain, like, the fitness aspect and tracking your steps and things. like that are very positive things. But I think that it's leading to more distraction, which is worrisome. It's interesting to hear someone like you talk about this. I'm used to hearing like my father's generation complaining. In fact, he constantly, him and his, my stepmom constantly complain about how everyone's always on their phone and there's no social interaction. But it's rare to hear someone that's in the tech world, you know, of that generation and known for it to actually... Well, I think when you've been through the acceleration, that is the tech world in Silicon Valley and it spits you out the other end, you all of a sudden be like,

wow, I just like lost a bunch of years of my life to like this really intense life. And there are really good pieces of it. But we just have to be careful. We have to be careful. We have to be careful those are the balance. You should go try this 10-day silent retreat and see how you feel if you still feel this in way. You want to hear something crazy?

So, and I was, we were allowed to talk for like the first couple hours. And then we had one group meeting and then like the 10 days. and I'm normally terrible remembering names and faces. Like I'll have had an over long conversation to someone and not remember who they are, not remember their name. It'll come back if I get like a click. But I remembered everybody's name on this. Everybody.

And people that I met for like two seconds on the first day, I was like, oh, hi, Dina. How was your retreat when we were leaving? And I've never had an experience like that. The only main difference was no tech. That is incredible. I have a similar problem. Were these like... female only male was like the separation it was co-ed yeah i mean our buildings were

were there a lot of people there it was almost 100 people did you start to like smell people's be oh and stuff like because you know your senses get heightened like when you're not talking i literally had to move seats once because i was like someone needs to shower and it's so funny because they're like they make you use fragrance-free shampoo fragrance-free soap and i'm like they should at least require functional deodorant if they're going to make us do that because like I'm sensitive. I'm sensitive to your smell. It's really bad. Yeah. There's a couple of people like that. That's crazy. All right. Well, you know, I think that's been a very interesting conversation. All over the place. Yeah, totally all over the place. You guys have at the power couple here, Kevin and Dr. Daria Rose, super cool individuals.

If people want to find out or follow more of what Darya or Kevin is doing, where can they find you? I'm just Kevin Rose on pretty much every social network thing. So you just find me on the Instagrams or Twitter. If you're really interested in my stuff, the best thing to do is go to Summer Tomato and sign up for my newsletter because that's where you get all the, that's where I actually interact a lot. I'm also Summer Tomato on Twitter and whatnot. Awesome, guys.

Really, really enjoy the conversation. Thanks for having us. Thank you. All right, y'all, that concludes this episode of the Found My Fitness podcast featuring Kevin Rose and his wife, Dr. Darya Rose. Before you go anywhere, remember to get on my weekly email newsletter for access to more detailed written information on many of my podcasts and videos I put out there. You can sign up at foundmyfitness.com. If you're not on it, you were seriously missing out. So sign up now. Also, if you like these

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