Habits and Hustle - Episode 402: Liron Kayvan: The Truth about Plant-Based Diets + Is Creatine Crucial for Aging?

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

Are plant-based diets less than optimal for health and fitness? In this Fitness Friday episode, Liron Kayvan and I dive into the pros and cons of creatine supplementation and explore whether plant-based diets can fully support optimal health, especially for women. We also discuss why muscle mass is critical for longevity and how animal protein makes it much easier to build and maintain lean muscle as you age. Listen now for our candid take on why going completely meatless may mean compromising your well-being - no matter what supplements you take.   Liron Kayvan founded BFLA in 2019. He’s a NASM Certified Group Fitness Instructor, Personal Trainer, and Transformative Life Coach. Liron has competed in Amateur MMA, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and Rugby and has been a Fitness Coach for over 10 years. What we discuss:   Creatine: most scientifically studied supplement, safe and natural Benefits of creatine for muscle mass, brain health, and pregnancy Plant-based vs. animal protein diets Importance of animal protein, especially red meat, for building muscle Recommended creatine dosage Creatine supplementation is less necessary if regularly eating red meat Thank you to our sponsors: Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off  TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. BiOptimizers: Want to try Magnesium Breakthrough? Go to https://bioptimizers.com/jennifercohenand use promo code JC10 at checkout to save 10% off your purchase. Timeline Nutrition: Get 10% off your first order at timeline.com/cohen Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers.  Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements Find more about Liron Kayvan:  Website: https://www.beyondfitnessla.com/  Instagram: @beyondfitnessla

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle podcast where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up. Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor, Therisage. Their Tri-Lite panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body.

It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go. And I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammations in places in my body where honestly I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach cramps, shoulder, ankle.

Red light therapy is my go-to. Plus, it also has amazing anti-aging benefits, including reducing signs of fine lines and wrinkles on your face, which I also use it for. I personally use Therisage Trilight everywhere and all the time. It's small, it's affordable, it's portable, and it's really effective.

Head over to Therasage.com right now and use code BEBOLD for 15% off. This code will work site-wide. Again, head over to Therasage.com and use code BE be bold for 15% off any of their products. Welcome to fitness Friday. We have my friend, Leeron with us. Hello. Another fitness trainer slash enthusiast slash soccer player. Slash gym owner.

We just opened a brand new gym on Westwood. Slash gym owner. Congrats. Yeah. I love that. What's it called? Beyond Fitness LA. I love it.

We might rebrand at some point, but for now it's Beyond Fitness LA. Beyond Fitness LA. Okay. We're going to talk about creatine. Creatine's all the rage now. This is the supplement that everyone talks about. Do you think there is a way to supplement creatine that's better than others? And how much should people actually take? Okay, so I'm going to give a very nuanced and boring answer.

No, it's not boring, but it's nuanced. Okay. There's a pro and con. The pro is I think creatine is the most scientifically studied supplement ever. Genuinely, I think. You can fact check me on this, but I'm pretty sure it's accurate. I'm going to say that again. Creatine is the most science backed, most studied supplement, I think, on the market right now. By far.

I think of all time, and it's not just studied by companies trying to sell it to the masses. This is very deep medical practice. If a woman needs to get the birth weight of their baby up, if they're dangerously low birth weight, they'll take creatine. I know people take it for all sorts of brain things. That's what I want to talk about. So let's just back it up a second, okay? Because creatine scares me.

I'm a woman. I'm scared of creatine, even though I know that it's the most studied supplement, I know that it helps build muscle. I know that there's amazing research that proves that's great for your cognitive abilities, your brain health. However, I'm not alone when I feel, and I

don't know if it's just like the psychological thing that creatine will make me gain weight. I feel like that to me, cause I've't know if it's just like the psychological thing, that creatine will make me gain weight. I feel like that to me, because I've seen in my life. Well, listen, I've seen in my life, because it's been predominantly used by men. Okay. And up until very recently, right? It's really been like a man supplement. Like every guy I know would take like a scoop of creatine and put it in his shake, right? To get like, you know, to get super mass and get like jacked. Protein used to be like that, but now we realize protein is for everyone and everyone needs more protein essentially.

True, true. But how do women get over the psychological hump that creatine will make them fat? So a couple of things. As I was saying before, it's the most scientifically studied supplement ever. And it was studied not for like aesthetic muscular fitness goals. It was studied for medical things.

So this is safe and they wouldn't give it to women if it made you unhealthy. So that's the first thing you need to say about it. Second, it won't make you fat because it doesn't touch your fat cells. It only touches, it only pulls in water, like hydrogen ions, water into your lean body mass because fat is hydro, whatever, hydrophobic.

Doesn't like water, fat and water separate. So basically it's a water-based supplement. It pulls water into your cells, primarily your muscle cells. So it gives a volume to your muscle. If you're worried that you're going to swell up, so you definitely won't get fat. That's just something you don't have to worry about at all. If you think you're going to swell up

and start looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger, realize like that type of muscularity is near impossible for a natural woman. Women who look overly muscular have either been training for 10, 15, 20 years, or they're taking steroids, which a lot of women do. So a lot of these fitness people you see at the gym or on social media, the females are taking low doses

of male androgenic anabolic steroids. So you have to realize the smoke and mirrors there. Creatine is a supplement that will not touch your fat cells at all. So you don't have to worry about getting fat at all. It will volumize your lean body mass, which is basically every part of your body that's not fat based. So that's everything. So it's your eyeballs, it's your muscles. Okay, but I believe that it does. You just said yourself, you can retain water on it. In your lean body.

In your, okay. But still, if you're retaining water and that will make you bloated and not one girl I know, not one girl I know wants to get, take that risk of feeling bloated. It's just, it's human nature. I don't care what you say. It's just human nature. It's just, it's human nature. I don't care what you say. It's just human nature.

So how can we take creatine and lower our chances of getting bloated? So the second point coming on from that, the fact that it's safe and it won't make you fat is it's also natural. So creatine is a natural part of red meat, which is what we are. We are red meat. It's part of every muscle, which is what we are. We are red meat. It's part of every muscle fiber in nature. Okay.

So it would be abundant. It's abundant in the meats that we eat, or at least red meat. It's naturally there. And it's part of every, all the energy systems of our body use creatine. Plus again, I haven't done any of this AMP stuff for years. So I'm probably butchering it,

but it's essentially part of a natural fundamental part of our energy system. So the idea that you shouldn't have creatine in your body is another complete myth. You need creatine in your body. We just have it naturally. Okay. So, okay, we have it naturally. What are some of the ways that we can naturally increase our creatine without taking creatine supplements? That's the other side.

So I said this was a nuance. These are the positives for creatine. You didn't give me anything. You just kind of talked a lot. So the positives for creatine, let me sum it up. Okay, no, be much more succinct. So positives for creatine are it's natural, it's safe, it boosts your muscle capability, and it boosts your health. The negatives for taking creatine is you don't need to.

All you need to do is eat red meat and eat enough red meat. In nature, we've evolved to eat red meat. I'm sure you've had plant-based people on here. Don't care. We evolved to eat red meat. That's how we've evolved. It's part of our evolution. You can look at our digestive tract.

You can look at our teeth. You can look at our brains. You can look at the size of our colon. We can look at anything. You can look at our geological, you can look at our teeth, you can look at our brains, you can look at the size of our cola, we can look at anything. You can look at archaeological records. It all adds up. Anyone who tells you that we are not meat based, meaning a sizable amount of our calories in nature should come and we would thrive on a meat based diet, it's talking out of their heart. So you think people who are on a plant based diet, they should be taking creatine. Absolutely. I would imagine that creatine along with a whole host of other supplements would need to be taken

by a plant-based person because it's an unnatural diet, essentially. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. I'm just saying it's an unnatural diet and it's not the optimal diet. Isn't it crazy that you have to have all these precursors now to talk about people who are plat base versus animal based because you- It's a little bit woke though, isn't it? You offend people. You might get canceled, yeah. It's part of the whole woke thing. No, like you'll literally offend somebody if you say you have to eat meat.

Like right when you said, oh my God, we've evolved to be somebody who eats red meat, whatever. Literally in my head while you were saying it, I was like, oh my God, he's going to get in trouble. But to me, that is so f-ed up. It's politicized, it's socialized. But it shouldn't be. It should be like, this is your opinion. That's what you think. By the way, I'm a person that needs to have animal protein as well, or else I feel starving. I have a friend actually, Darren Olean, who's one of my best friends who is plant-based.

I have best friends who are plant-based. Okay. Vegan. And it works for him. Like he looks amazing. Does he take self-numerical? Maybe a couple. He takes like Trunyogen NAD.

He takes, I'm sure he takes a bunch of other things that I don't know about, but the reason why I'm bringing him up is like, he has a lot of lean muscle mass. He looks good, but he's probably one of the only people I know who are vegan, who look that good and who feel to me like that he's super healthy. I could be totally wrong. He is probably really, really healthy, really dedicated and has all his ducks in a row and would probably be five or 10% better if you didn't.

Yeah. I mean, listen, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I listen, you and me both, I believe that like most, I would say everybody's different, but I will say the majority of people in my world or I've meet, cause I mean a lot of people that they saw a significant difference in their health, in their energy, the way they feel when they incorporated animal protein back into their diet.

When they were vegan. Which is another thing we talk about women, women, if anything need, I wouldn't say they need more, but we know like women lose their period. I know, I know girls, I know a lot. They lose their periods when they go plant-based. You even have to take iron supplements. What is the most, what is the most like ironic? Well, it's so ironic, right? I find this to be really interesting because the problem is unless you know how to do food combinations really well as a vegan, you're going to be missing out on fundamental

nutrients because you have to know that beans plus a rice equals a protein. If you are a bad math student or you don't understand how combinations work, please add animal protein to your diet and make it simple for yourself and call it a day. Yeah. If you don't know, then just like stick to just moderation and you don't have to take my word for it. Just eat at least a little bit of animal protein. Well, I find that you can look very emaciated and unhealthy and gray. Like there's a place in LA. Oh my God. Gray or great?

Gray, gray, like the color gray. Okay, great. Yellow. Very different to gray. Yeah, not gray, ja. Okay, great. Yeah, very different to gray. Yeah, not gray, jaundice. There's a place I used to go all the time. It was so hilarious. It was called the Co-op.

It was like this grocery store in Santa Monica. It's probably still there. Some hippie thing. I would go, yeah, it's very hippie dippy. And I would take, my mom would come visit me from Canada and we would go there to get like, you know, after the gym and I would take her there. And my mother was so perplexed because she looked around. It's supposed to be like a health food store.

And she's like, why does everyone here look like they were like jaundiced out of the hospital? They were like, they all looked very like weak and either too thin or like just unhealthy. And like the irony is that like, that's like a health food store. That's supposed to be, it was supposed to be like for all the, you know, where all the healthy people looked, but yet like Ralph's down the street had way more of a healthy, like a healthy person looking.

Yeah. I just find a lot of this stuff to be so absurd, right? Yeah. And I don't know, I just found that to be funny. I did 10 parts on my podcast about this, about that whole, just the myth. I used to plug your podcast on my podcast. Doesn't everyone do that? Doesn't literally everyone do that? First of all, that's what I'm supposed to do.

Second of all, no, genuinely, I've just done this to death. Like I've done 10 parts on this and I explain and I kind of meander away from the actual kind of lie itself that meat is bad for you And you kind of trace the roots of it. And you start to see like big pharma and the big food companies and like people are benefiting from this. And again, we were talking about business. We're talking about like capitalism business and like, there are people profiting off of this idea that you shouldn't eat meat, you know?

And they've also people profiting off the idea that you should be sick. Like being sick is very profitable in America, hugely profitable. It's very profitable, but at the same time, if you say that just to play devil's advocate, then there should be people profiting on the meat side, saying that you should eat meat.

Because I mean, you have people- It's the meat industry. You have people on both sides who profit. I'm talking from actual personal experience. Yeah, like neither of us are going, I'm not going to make a cent off of people eating meat. No, but what I'm saying is like, I know when I'm not eating protein, like animal protein, I have less energy.

I can't work out as hard. I don't look as good. Like how do you build lean muscle without eating more like animal protein? It's very difficult. It's very difficult. Like you need, I mean, I reckon if you're on steroids, you probably don't need as much. So my theory, and this is like maybe wild and whatever, but like I think a lot of the plant-based athletes were probably either built their muscle when they weren't plant based. So for example, Arne Schwarzenegger, like Arne Schwarzenegger spent 70 years eating three steaks a day. And then he goes, oh, you

know, you don't need so much meat. Like you can go live meatless Mondays or whatever. That's horrible impression. But it's like, okay, well, it's all well and good. You being 70 years old and having dominated like Hollywood and the bodybuilding industry, eating three steaks a day and being on steroids. But now you're, now you can say go meatless Monday. Like too late. If you, if you did that in your prime, fine. So I think one is they either built the muscle with the meat and then once they were just

maintaining it, they weren't plant-based. And so that was okay. Two is they're on storage. Yeah, I think that's a good, okay. By the way, I think that's a great impression. I also think- It's not my best. Go meatless, I think having the idea of meatless Mondays

is a fine thing because- I do it sometimes on Saturdays. I actually do meatless days. I have no problem with that because it gets like a one day or two days a week, isn't it? But as like a general rule where you're like excluding meat from your diet completely, it's crazy because this is the bottom line. Muscle is the answer and I guess the secret sauce to overall longevity.

Aging, mental health. Yes. It's an organ. And especially as you're aging, especially middle age, you need to have muscle on your body. The leading cause of death is lack of muscle, right? In elderly. Yes.

But let me finish what I was going to say. I was going to say that if muscle is the main driver for longevity and for aging well, right? And you need to keep muscle on. And as you get older, it's harder and harder and harder. You're depleting and you're losing so much muscle. How much is it a year just by overall age, right? So the problem is how do you keep it on? What's the easiest way to keep it on?

Besides heavy weight lifting, you gotta lift weights and you got to eat a lot of protein. A fuck ton of protein. Yeah. So how I'm going to, I am. Creatine is very good for aging too, just to pull it back to creatine. But I think where, what I was going to say about the downside of taking creatine is you don't actually need it. It's present in red meat.

The reason why it's so studied and the reason why it's so pumped by the sports industry, by the muscle building industry, by even the medical industry is because in nature we would have it just as part of our body, our makeup, because a healthy society would eat a good amount of red meat. We would hunt and eat a good amount of red meat. We will be getting in all the creatine we need naturally. But in modern society where we're divorced from red meat, where most people maybe eat red meat once a week or something like that, then we need to supplement. The only reason why we need to supplement is because we're divorced from our natural

habitat and our natural diet. That's the only reason. And the reason why creatine is good for your hair and good for your muscles and good for your pregnancy and good for your, when you're old and you have Parkinson's or whatever, right? I'm throwing things out. The reason why it's good for everything

is because it's such a fundamental part of how we are, it's a building block of everything. So it's gonna have all these benefits aside from just muscle gain, right? Muscle gain is interesting, but it's just one thing. Okay. How much do you take? Like, okay, because for a woman... Me? Nothing. But yes, how much should someone take? Oh my God. So you, after all that big yelling and screaming about creatine, you're not taking it.

But I eat meat. Because you eat a ton. Yeah. But so you don't take creatine as a supplement because you're getting it from your red meat. Yes. Okay. So let's say this. for someone who's not eating red meat, and maybe they're just eating chicken and Turkey, let's just say, or salmon or whatever, then they should be taking a creatine supplement.

Yeah. Definitely. Five grams for men, three grams for women. Okay. And for people who are regularly eating red meat, who regularly eat animal protein, to take the creatine supplement is not as necessary. Is that what you're saying? Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Exactly what I was saying. Okay, good. Thank you. All right, guys. That is the end. Okay, so by the way, should we do this shot of Magic Mind before we leave?

Yeah. Speaking of it, have you ever done this before? Yeah. You should have done this before. I've got to go build my gym right now. I need some Magic Mind. Oh, I should get you some.

They're delicious. They're my favorite shots because it's, A, good for great energy and growth. And B, Have you ever done this before? Yeah, I've got to go build my gym right now. I need some magic man. Oh, I should get you some. They're delicious. They're my favorite shots because it's good for great energy and great for focus. We should have done it before the podcast. But Ashwagandha, yeah, a lot of good stuff. A lot of great stuff. I love Rodeola.

Huge fan of Rodeola. You know what Rodeola is, by the way? Rodeola is the natural herb for like what people use for like for ADHD. Like it's like a natural, what do you call it? It's a natural Adderall. That's what I heard. Really? Yeah.

It helps you like really with like your focus and your attention. I've been, I've been actually, I've been on the Rodeola tip for a while. I love it. I've always loved it. Why do you take it then? I think I initially it was for stress adaptation, but now I take it as a tea just because I like it. But it's got a just general, I think, yeah, mostly it's like stress adaptation, but it's got this general feeling. Like you feel it pretty quick. Like you can, like I can drink a tea of rhodiola

and I can feel it within a half an hour. But what are you feeling? Like I just sort of, I know you don't like this word, but balance. Like I just feel like I'm good. Just drink your shot so we can finish this podcast. Wait, you're not going to do it? Yeah, I'm going to do, I did like two already today. I forgot.

I can't take more than two. Down the hatch. We live by the way, we're just rambling. No, go, go ahead. Oh, cheers. Yeah. And by the way, guys, before we say goodbye, I should say this at the beginning of the podcast, but if you're still here listening, always, if you guys can leave me a review,

subscribe if you haven't, it really helps with the podcast. So I always am remiss in saying that to people. So I'm going to, even though I said the end of the podcast, I'm glad. Like and subscribe. Yeah, like and subscribe. Yes. Thank you. Bye. Bye.

Bye.