Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #143 Zach Bitter

Episode Date: February 17, 2020

Zach has competed professionally in ultramarathons since 2010. Zach has broken both World and American Records, as well as won three national championships. Zach has competed for Team USA’s World 100km Team on three occasions. In this one we talk about his dietary modifications leading up to marathons, what type of training he has to endure and what the next generation can learn about clean eating.   Connect with Zach: Website - https://zachbitter.com/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/zach.bitter/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/zbitter Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/zachbitter/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmTH6Cz_j8eYq8oiOHDoTXg   Show Notes: Zach Bitter on JRE - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1392-zach-bitter/id360084272?i=1000458576622   Check Out:  Kyle's Inner Circle Course (Private 1 on 1 Coaching) https://www.kingsbu.com/inner-circle   Natasha Kingsbury's E book (30 recipes)   Purchase for $5 at https://www.kingsbu.com   Show Sponsors:    OneFarm Formally (Waayb CBD) www.onefarm.com/kyle (Get 15% off everything using code word Kyle at checkout)   Sated Keto Shakes  https://sated.com/kyle  use codeword Kyle for 20% Off Storewide    AMP Human PR Lotion www.amphuman.com/kyle or KYLE20 at checkout (for 20% off)     Get 10% off at Onnit by going to https://www.onnit.com/podcast/     Connect with Kyle Kingsbury on: Website | https://www.kingsbu.com/ ( Supplement List & Newsletter)   Subscribe to Kyle Kingsbury Podcast iTunes | https://apple.co/2P0GEJu Stitcher | https://bit.ly/2DzUSyp Spotify | https://spoti.fi/2ybfVTY  

Hello, friends. Today's guest is Zach Bitter. And this was an awesome podcast, one that I've been trying to get going for some time. I've been following Zach for a long time. He's an incredible runner, and he's done some really interesting dietary modifications in the race game, as well as recently setting two world records at once. He has a fantastic episode on the Joe Rogan experience, which we'll link to in the show notes. Recently, you guys may have seen that I am off social media completely. I'll be doing a deeper dive into that topic and why coming up. I guess a lot of people saw the final post, but even more did not see the final post. So you went to tag me

or look me up and you just saw the account doesn't exist. So I, of course, will be talking about that in my newsletter on kingsboo.com in this month of February. So that'll be coming out shortly. And then a solo cast coming up, talking a little bit deeper on those topics as well. Be on the lookout for that. Also check out kingsboo.com because we have a few slots left in the inner circle. The inner circle is a deep dive into all things health and wellness from the physical, the mental, emotional, and the spiritual. It is private one-on-one coaching from yours truly. Now, I do group training and group coaching in Fit for Service as one of the four coaches,

and we have a number of great people there. We are doing open enrollment for that, and you can get in for the second trimester if you go to aubreymarcus.com and look up Fit for Service. Outside of that, the private coaching takes you a step further. The only thing I would say is lacking is there isn't the giant community that Fit for Service boasts, but outside of that, we have the benefits of one-on-one coaching. You get cell phone access, text messages on the daily, and weekly phone calls to make sure you're on track with quarterly meetups for transformative experiences. That is transformative experiences. And I promise you, these will change the way you think, feel, and see the world. All right. Next order of business, our show is brought to you by One Farm. One Farm is a 100% USDA certified organic hemp farm located in Colorado. They do 100% CO2 extraction. It is

phenomenal. It is the very best CBD, full spectrum CBDpectrum CBD, full-spectrum of terpenes that I've ever come across, and it is absolutely fantastic. If you go to onefarm.com slash Kyle or use code word Kyle at checkout, you'll get 15% off everything in the store. That's O-N-E-F-A-R-M dot com slash Kyle for 15% off everything in the store. Today's episode is also brought to you by Sated Keto Meal Shakes. These guys make it easy to stay keto when you're busy or don't have time to cook. Now, I haven't followed a ketogenic diet in some time. I've done carnivore-ish and I've done low carb for a very long time and these shakes are absolutely incredible. They have less than two grams of net carbs per meal and And they call it a meal because

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faster. Check out AmpHuman at AmpHuman.com slash Kyle, and you will get 20% off. Don't forget to add Kyle20 at checkout for 20% off. So AmpHuman.com slash Kyle and add Kyle20 at checkout for 20% off. So amphuman.com slash Kyle and add Kyle20 at checkout for 20% off. That's it for today's ads. And thank you to all of our sponsors. They help make this show possible. You also help make this show possible by clicking subscribe and letting some friends know. One of the ways you can help everybody know about that is leaving us a five-star rating with one or two ways the show has helped to change your life for the better. That will move us up in the rankings and get other people to see the show, and that's how the show grows. Thank you so much for tuning in today with my dude, Zach Bitter. And although you can't hit me up online anymore through Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook,

you can definitely hit me up through kingsboo.com. Thanks for tuning in, y'all. Cool. We're going. So tell me about, I followed you for a while. Love your story. You're a fascinating dude. And I want to talk diet. I want to talk all sorts of stuff with you. And I obviously want to talk running because you've now just broken two world records, correct? Yeah. Yeah. Earlier this year, I had probably what I would consider my best race so far, and it ended up with two world records. It's incredible. Well, let's rewind a little bit.

Tell me what gets you into this level of running. Because I've read a few different running books. And just to try to understand my wife better, she ran not at your level, but did run cross-country at NAU. And she's gotten me into running. And I absolutely love it. I think it's great. I'm obviously a different sized person. Like I think somebody, when we ran the ultra in Zion,

she could hear people whispering like, did you see that bodybuilder running? And I'm like, I'm not a fucking bodybuilder by any means. But to them, I might look that way. But running's fantastic. And I just wonder, it seems to me to push through that, you almost have to have some degree of, I don't give a fuck. And that may be the painting with a broad stroke for sure, but to be the best at anything, you have to care. You have to learn how to take care of yourself. And it's not just, you know, I'm going to destroy myself on the trail, right?

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's interesting too, because with ultra running specifically, I think when you get into those really long distances or times out there, there is a balance, I think, between being almost too prepared or caring too much in like the wrong way versus being kind of aware enough that the likelihood is that something will go off plan and you're going to have to adapt to it and you're going to have to adapt to it quick. And the quicker you do that and the better you do that, the better your races tend to be. And the longer they get, the more that kind of mental kind of responding to the situation becomes more important. So yeah, I mean, it's a goofy sport too, because I think like your story is interesting and

everyone's is kind of when you start to talk to people within the community of like how they got into it in the first place. And, you know, for someone like myself, it was kind of just a gradual, like I kind of ended up here versus like this overnight conscious decision. I'm going to go run an ultra marathon, which you do see, you know, you get guys like who kind of wake up and decide I'd need, you know, they, for whatever reason, they're like not happy with where they are in life or something like that. And they're just like, I'm just going to go run this 50 miler and like re re-imagine myself.

Whereas for me, it was like, you know, I got into running when I was in middle school and it didn't take me long to realize I could, a cross-country race or be in the top of a cross-country race or get my ass kicked on the football field. So it was a pretty easy decision for a young guy to decide to do the endurance route then. bit. And, you know, one thing I learned in college was my, when I really started getting into kind of the specificity of the whole sport where like, this is why you do this specific workout and this is why you do this one. And at the end of that whole experience, my takeaway was that my favorite workout of all of them was the long run that we would do usually once a week. So after, after college, I started doing a lot of long runs versus any real structured training for a while. And that kind of led me towards you know races that were just more about how long can you kind of sustain yourself versus

like you know making one mistake like five minutes into a race that takes 15 minutes and having that race be over versus like that's going to be kind of the reality of the way the day plays out yeah so it's a little bit more forgiveness when you stretch that length of time and duration out. Yeah. Yeah. And you have plenty of time to get in your head a little bit too, because like, you know, if I'm racing something really short, it's like, it's just, you're so like hyper-focused, you almost don't have time to do anything but just act. Whereas when you're running a hundred miler, you know, you, you have a mile or so before you get into like an aid station.

So you have time to think about, well, what do I need to do in this aid station to make sure I get what I need, but don't waste time there and then get back out and that sort of stuff. Or, you know, I've done, there's so many variety within the sport, like the world record as I broke the series was actually on an indoor track. So there logistically, it's super easy. You just put one foot in front of the other at the right frequent or the right pace and ask for what you want when you want it. And you pretty much get it right away.

So it's like those logistics are really minimized, but then you're battling like the monotony of the environment and just being almost information overload, knowing exactly how fast you're going almost at any given time. And yeah, there's a lot of weird, goofy little nuance within a sport where you have anything from a 50K out on the mountains like you did in Zion to like, sometimes there's an event going on in Phoenix right now where they're doing a one mile loop around a park that you can go up to 10 days if you want. And they have a six day event, 24 hour events, 48 hour events where you're essentially seeing how far you can get in this timeframe. And yeah, so you get that much variety in the sport, which is kind of interesting too. That's bananas. So some people are sacrificing sleep just to see how far they can go. Yeah. Yeah. And it gets to be kind of a chess match when you get up in those multi-day type timed events too, where you'll see there's a guy who's really well-known within the timed running community, Giannis Kurosi, who holds most of the records within that framework.

And he's notorious for sleeping very little during those events. I think he's done some six-day events and slept less than eight hours the entire time. And there's other guys who they'll be a little more liberal with their sleep and sometimes that helps them because they're moving faster when they are moving then. And yeah, so it's interesting kind of how like the dynamics and the strategy comes into something like that. Oh yeah. So, so jump right into, to this track record or the world record that you just brought two of them on track. Uh, you talked about the monotony of, of running in a circle for that long or in an oval for that long. Yeah. You know, it is an interesting experience for me because I did my first track ultra back in 2013. And I kind of got a taste of that world where a

lot of people, especially in North America, they get an ultra running on the trails, like very similar to your experience. Like, you know, they, they, they talked to a friend who says we're doing ultra marathons, there's this trail events, and it's just a very inviting environment for the most part to get you hooked in. So that's kind of how I started, how most people start. But then eventually I did some flatter races and realized my skill set at the time was very much more conducive to running my best performances on more runnable terrain. So I got invited to this event in Phoenix called the Desert Salsa Salsa's track invitational. And I did my first hundred mile 12 hour then. And then I like, I actually broke the American record that day. And that kind of got me really interested in that particular distance and that

particular time and that type of event. So since then I've kind of been more or less, at least for part of the, or targeting events similar to that, or these very runnable hundred milers to see kind of how fast can I run a hundred miles. And that kind of got me, you know, I had some good races, some bad races, everything in between, between then and in this last year. But this last year, I kind of really found myself in a position to kind of hit it on the head, so to speak. And the race was at the Pettit Center in Milwaukee. It's the Olympic training facility. So they have like an indoor speed skating ring, hockey rinks in this track. They built around it. It's about 443 meters.

And, uh, you know, I just went there thinking that I was in good enough shape to take a swing at the world record, but, um, you know, it's a long time to be out there. So you never know. Uh, my training block was actually about half as long as I would have normally liked for something like that. But the workouts I did leading in my last big training block went so well, I thought I got to at least give it a shot if it works out. It works out.

If not, then not. But I had a really good day, split five hours and 40 minutes through 50 miles. And then the second 50 miles actually ran a little bit faster in five hours and 40 minutes through 50 miles. And then the second 50 miles actually ran a little bit faster in five hours and 38 minutes, which is something I'd never done before in a hundred mile race where they call it a negative split in the running community. And, um, so my pacing was like pretty on point the whole way, which was kind of a cool way to execute that race. And that broke the previous world record by about nine minutes and my own fastest time prior to that by about 21 minutes. So it was a fun day.

That's ridiculous. Explain that one more time. The first 50 miles, you were at 540. Yeah. And the second 50 miles, you were at 538 pace. And if you would have asked me, it was funny too, because like my best race for a hundred miles before that was in 2015 at the desert solstice that when I was telling you about in Phoenix and I, I was on a hundred mile world record pace through 80 miles. I remember the race director told me at 80,

he's like, you just need to average seven minute miles. And at that point I had probably been averaging somewhere around like six 49, six 50. The current world record at the time was about a 652 mile pace, minute per mile pace. And, you know, so I was slightly under that. I needed average sevens for that last 20 miles and I just couldn't do it. Like the wheels were coming off. I was struggling to even run seven thirties. So I slowly slipped away from world record. I ended up breaking my own American record that day. But like in the back of my mind, I was like, I really messed up that last 20. Like that's where I got to fix things. So at mile 40 at this last race at the Pettit Center, when I was starting to do the math in my head based on my splits, I was like, well, I'll probably come through 50 and around 540,

maybe 541. And then 100K, maybe like 706, 707. So my mindset was almost like a little bit negative at the time, which you have to be really careful with. You get like in a negative spiral, things just kind of keep going that direction. And my thought was, well, if I come through in 540 or 541, even if I even split, I'm just barely under the world record. Or if I slightly positive split, barely under the world record, or if I slightly positive split barely under the world record. And since I had never negative split one before, even split 100 mile or like that, it was really tough to kind of get through that next like, you know, 10, 15, 20 miles before I got to a point where I realized, you know, not only am I maintaining pace, I'm actually picking up pace a little bit and feeling good, feeling better than I did. And just like things can spiral negatively, they can spiral positively. And for whatever reason, that day was probably a combination of just almost six years kind of targeting this, you know, kind of really learning from the mistakes, where to make moves, where not to make moves. Like, you know, how aggressive can I get before I'm too aggressive and I pay for it at the

end of a race and just really fine tuning those things over the years and the training and stuff like that to the point where I kind of knew my body well enough where you just kind of feel what you need to do, pay attention to the splits. And my fastest miles were actually some of the final miles. So it's kind of a cool way to do it. That's insane. Yeah. I remember reading it and I was just like, wow, that is incredible. That is absolutely incredible. And you've done the Western States 100, and that's one of the gnarliest trail runs on earth. Yeah. Talk about that experience. Yeah.

Western States is awesome. It's in North America, the most competitive 100 miler for sure. It's really unique since it's got what I would call three very distinct sections. So there's like the first third of the race, you kind of go through this like kind of more mountainous spot where you get up to like about 9,000 feet of elevation and you just go through this kind of high country area. And then you dip down into the canyons. You go through like these kind of four distinct canyons where you're in the heat of the day

usually. So you might start in like really cold temperatures. It might even be snow up in the high country some years. And then you can get in the canyons. It can be like over 100 degrees. So you go from like, you know, snow and ice potentially to like, just like a sauna essentially, dry, stagnant sauna. And you have that section. Then you get to the spot about two-thirds of the way in and everything from there in is relatively runnable. So you see such a weird dynamic where if you pace yourself right through those first two sections, you should be able to really rip through that last part. But if you just give a little too much in the canyons

or get behind on hydration or nutrition in that portion, you sometimes end up giving back a ton on a really runnable section of the course. But the interesting thing about that is those three segments are kind of very specific. So if you get really good at one of them at the expense of some of the others, then you have to either play your cards perfectly that day or have a bad experience in some of the spots we are not necessarily fine-tuned at. So it's kind of got that dynamic where part of it's a runner's course, part of it's a climber's course, part of it's a technical runner's course, but it's not any one of those in all its way. So yeah, I've done Western States twice and I've had what I would consider kind of not bad days, but kind of not great days there. Either times I haven't quite solved that puzzle yet. So I'd like to get back and try it again.

And just because, I mean, that's where you find a lot of the competition too. You're always going to have like 10, 20 deep at that race where in a sport like this, you know, sometimes you're lucky to have a race where there's four or five, like really top end competitors there. And that's a pretty good field,

but Western stands out for that. And the only a hundred mile that really competes with it from a competitive standpoint is this one over in Europe called Alter Trail Mont Blanc, which gets, that's probably at least the last couple of years, the most competitive 100-miler. But that one's a little unique too. That's a little more of a mountain course than Western States is. But yeah, I've been 11th and was I 14th, I think, at Western States. So I need to get there and get a top 10 spot. And my wife, she holds the household bragging rights at Western States. She's been top 10 three times now. So it's awesome.

Yeah, it certainly makes it easy when everyone's on board in the household, right? Yeah, yeah, no doubt. And it's just, it's kind of interesting to look at it too, because like you have that variety in the sport. So the people who are really interesting to me within the sport of ultra running are people who've seemed to kind of solve the puzzle on a lot of these different courses, these different types, because what makes you really good at running really fast on a 400 meter track might come at the expense of running really good up in like the Wasatch mountains or in the canyons in at Western States or out at UTMB and things like that. So like a lot of times people have to hyper focus on the, uh, the course specific environment that

they want to be doing and get really good at that and kind of put the other stuff on the back burner. Some people are able to kind of do both and go back and forth a little quicker. So that's kind of an interesting dynamic to me where you get, essentially, it's like the person who can, you know, play in the NFL, but also be a major league baseball player, kind of a dynamic when you kind of get really good at a mountain race and also really good at like a flat runnable course too. Yeah. There's lots of variety in that and definitely feels like it's something that's completely different, like two different gears. It's almost like, you know, like Lance was really good in the mountains, you know, like he, he'd pass a lot of people in the mountains and that's kind of where his bread and butter lied. But, um, and certainly for a tour to France and things like that, you could see how that paid

dividends for him. But, um, yeah, it's definitely, uh, it's one of those things where until you do it, I don't think you, I mean, I certainly didn't realize like we, when we ran in Zion, there was a huge storm that came in two days before the race and actually sent out an email saying like, Hey, we're issuing out refunds for people. You can pick a different race if you want, because this rain's gonna, I mean, it's like, it's like dust there. So when it rains hard, it turns into clay and uh you know at the time i was like fuck it we're here we're doing the race you know like we're just

gonna do it but i mean like people are losing their shoes like it was it was sliding through slosh you know like you'd take one step and it was like your foot was on a uh like one of those ski boards you just do the splits you know and a shoe would come off and a lot of curse words and a lot of pulled adductors and things like that. But it was definitely interesting. Well, your diet has changed quite a bit over the course of your running career. Talk about what that looked like early on. And then obviously, you know, we've had quite a bit of stuff come out around the ketogenic diet and now carnivore diet. So let's just dive in right into that. And you've been a part of the FASTER study, which I think is really incredible as well. So dive in there and tell us what's

changed over time and what your views are now. Yeah. I started out like I think most endurance athletes do. And I mean, you look at a lot of the endurance, like sports science, literature, nutrition. And I mean, when you really look at it, there's a lot to tease out from the individual standpoint, where I think is where a lot of people sometimes miss the boat as they see what is kind of, here's a great starting point that's going to fit kind of the bulk of the bell curve in most cases from what we know. But then, you know, they forget that there's going to be those individual circumstances and then individual events too. And, you know, so for me, it was like high carb when I started, what I would consider very healthy high carb, a lot of fruits, vegetables,

whole grains, that sort of thing. And, you know, it worked fine as far as I could tell when I was running in college and stuff after that at first. I didn't really notice. I never really thought of my diet or nutrition being something that was holding me back in any way, at least during those experiences. And then I got into ultra running. My first ultra marathon was in 2010 at the end of the year. And it was almost kind of a one of like, it was kind of a, like, I know I want to do these at some point in my life, but I'm not sure I'm ready to be doing them frequently. But there was one that was really convenient location wise to where I was living. So I'm like, I'll just kind of dip my toe in the water, see what happens. And then, you know,

I can always wait a couple of years to do another one. And I did that one and I loved it, but I was trying to be honest with myself. I was like, okay, I don't know if I, cause I was like 24 at the time. I was like, do I really want to like essentially get into this like, like super long distance ultra marathon stuff now, and then kind of bypass a lot of the traditional distances, like finding how fast can I really run a 5k, a 10k, a marathon and those sorts of things. So I kind of stepped away from ultras until that following year. At the same time, I did that same race again. And at that point I was like, okay, I really, this is what I want to be doing. Um, I may as well just go all in. And then I did two more 50

milers later that, that fall slash winter. And at the end of that kind of, it was like a nine-ish week stretch where I did three of those 50 milers, I just started noticing like I was not feeling ideal in some, not necessarily my training and racing, those things were going all right, but it kind of felt like, um, it felt like that was taking so much out of me that the rest of my life was starting to kind of fall apart a little bit. Like sleep wasn't very high quality anymore. And historically I was a really good sleeper. And then I found myself in a position where I was blocking off 10 hours a night so I could make sure I got eight hours because I knew I was going to wake up three or four times to go to the bathroom and take 30 minutes to fall back asleep and that sort of thing. And I was a school teacher

at the time. So like I would notice during the day, like there'd just be like big energy fluctuations. Like I might feel like really energetic at one point. And then in the afternoon feel like really lethargic. Like I could lay down and take a nap anywhere at any time. And like, to me, those were kind of just signs that what I was doing wasn't sustainable. So I was kind of left at a point where I had to, for me anyway, decide, do I want to like cut back on the training and racing? Do I need to change that? Do I need to change something else in my life? And since I was really enjoying and just getting into the sport, that was one of the last things I wanted to kind of pull back on. So that, well, let's try some other stuff first. And kind of at the same time, probably just out of luck, I had started to listen to a lot more podcasts while I was running as a way to like, kind of, I guess, cope with the fact that I was spending upwards of 20 hours a week training sometimes. You start thinking about that. It's like, well, if I'm working a full-time job and then also running 20 hours a week, I got to find out a way to kill two birds with one stone. So,

I started to listen to podcasts to learn stuff because I'm pretty curious just in general. And some of the podcasts I started listening to at first were just kind of health and fitness type stuff. And one thing that started to kind of come up in some of them was like a keto diet or a high fat, low carb diet and kind of how it had maybe a place in endurance sport or maybe a place in just general nutrition as an option for folks. So I thought, well, maybe I'll give that a try. So I was really lucky too. I got to know Dr. Finney and Dr. Volick and get my hands on their books and kind of do a little more deep dive into the actual protocols that would be best for that stuff. So I started that. It would have been fall slash winter of 2011. And the thing that I think hooked me with

it was some of those like kind of tertiary things outside of the training and racing that were kind of the red flag for me in the first place cleared up really quick. Like it took me probably about four weeks to really start to feel normal every day on my running. But I took an off season kind of more or less during that time. So I wasn't doing super structured training. I didn't feel like I had to be nailing workouts or anything like that. But like I started sleeping through the night again for the first time in like over a year. And I started having more even energy at work. Like I didn't feel like I needed a nap in the afternoon. I didn't feel like lethargic after leaving work. And, you know, if I wanted to go for a run, I felt more motivated to do it, that sort of thing. So those were like signs to me that like I'm onto something here,

something's working here. And then it just kind of became a N equals one experiment or kind of trial and error experiment of finding out like, how does this approach kind of work within the context of a full training block versus just kind of me going out and running when I feel like it during an off season. Because that's always the big thing with keto high fat, low carb is like, okay, well, once you start hitting peak performance, you got to step away from it to some degree or your performance will suffer. And I think with endurance events at the traditional distances and intensities, there's probably truth to that. I mean, the literature and the science would definitely be pretty convincing that a strict keto diet across

the board 24 seven in most cases for, especially for like an elite athlete, like an Olympian or something like that, they're going to want to, it's hard to make the argument to take carbs completely off the table as a tool is going to be something that's going to make them better or even at the same capacity. So then for me, it was like, well, how does that translate into a sport? That's different, you know, ultra marathoning, the intensity is much lower. So just, I think, opens up the door for other fuel sources in a much bigger way than it would for, say, a 5K or a marathon or something like that. And then what are kind of the, what's the template for

a lifestyle like mine where I might have a complete rest day where I'm doing nothing and just basically burning my resting metabolic rate, or a day where I'm going out on a 30-mile run with almost 10,000 feet of climbing and descending for about five hours and probably burning three times my resting metabolic rate. How do things change from that to that? And that's where I think a lot of people miss the boat too, in nutrition in general, is they want to plug and play nutrition, but their lifestyle is very kind of rollercoastery. And when you're doing any type of periodized schedule, that's just the reality. You're going to be in peak training phases. You're going to be in off-season recovery phases. You're going to be in base building phases and a lot of that stuff. So then it was just kind of matching up where does a strict keto diet fit within that

framework? Where does bringing some carbohydrate back into what level work? And that was just a lot of playing around. And I usually, what I did was, you know, I wanted to be really honest with myself because my goal is to run as fast as I can. Like my goal isn't necessarily to try to say like the keto diet is great or the high fat, low carb diet is great. You know, I want to run fast. So like, you know, had high carb been the answer for me for that, I probably would still be doing high carb, but it just didn't seem to be that for me. So once I kind of got into my first training phase where I knew I was gonna be doing faster workouts, I played around with using carbs a little more strategically. So during some peak training days, you know, I would maybe flex those up to like 20%,

sometimes even 30. It's pretty rare when I go up to 30% of my intake from carbohydrate, but there's a few days here and there and that it's, it'll get up that high. Um, but then, you know, in those phases of training too, I'm building up for two or three weeks where it's really intense, like, you know, just barely recovering from one workout to the next. And then I'll take like a week that I call like a deload week where I reduce volume and I reduce intensity and let everything kind of catch up. And during those weeks, I'll kind of reset back down kind of a keto level and then go back into that next block of training. And during those weeks, I'll kind of reset back down kind of a keto level and then go back into that next block of training. And I'll bump my carbs up a little bit for that. And then, you know, you'll do a race. A race is what I found, especially with ultra endurance. You know,

I can, I still want to use carbohydrates in those, but I can use them at a much lower frequency and volume. So like historically when I was high carb, I would be, you know, aiming for three, 400 calories an hour in some of these like 50 mile races. You know, now I'm probably aiming for closer to 200 an hour. So I've been able to almost kind of half that. There's nuance within the events, shorter, faster ones. I'll do a little higher carb, longer, slower ones. I can get a little less carb on those because the intensity is just a little lower. So there's a lot of kind of teasing out there. And I think that's where, where a lot of times I joke around sometimes I say, I think I've confused as many people as I've educated with

this because you know, everyone wants the quick, well, not everyone, but you know, a lot of times people want, they want something that they can quick rip that, wrap their heads around and decide if it's a good move or not for them. And if they look at like my, my race day nutrition versus like my off day nutrition, they're like, well, which one is it? Or you'll get someone who wants to like speak to the positives carbohydrate and they'll be like, well, look, Zach uses carbohydrate for performance purposes at times. And you know, the person who wants to like speak to the advantages of fat and protein, they'll like say, well, like look at Zach on his week after the race, he went on a zero carb diet for seven days. He ate basically nothing but

animal products. Um, and so you can almost find the answer you're looking for if you pick the right day out of the week from my training and nutrition. Whereas I think where it gets interesting is, you know, I live a lifestyle that's pretty drastic relative to the most people. A lot of people probably can get a little closer to kind of plugging in almost the same nutrition day in and day out and kind of stick to more of a routine. Whereas I kind of have the routines, but they just change as I move from system of training to system of training. And, you know, within that framework, because I've been doing this now for about a little over eight years now, I've been pretty closely within the macronutrient ratios since I kind of figured

out what worked for me after that first experience. What I've changed a few times throughout that is kind of what that entailed, like where was I getting those different macronutrient ratios. And I've done everything from kind of just, you know, like almost mostly plant-based and a little bit of like animal products, all at that kind of like high fat, low carb, moderate protein levels. And I've done everything that was like almost entirely animal products and very little plants, but still kind of within that same framework of the macronutrient ratios that I found work well for me. And today I'm kind of somewhere probably in between that. I wouldn't call myself like, I'm certainly not a strict carnivore, but I'm

certainly not plant-based by any means either. I'm probably eating at least half my stuff as animal products almost any given day. And some days it fluctuates up to being more if I'm not doing, if I'm doing like no carbohydrates during a recovery phase or an off season or really low carbohydrates, then, you know, the one, the food groups that are going to get eliminated quickest are going to be the starchy carbohydrates or the, the like fructose type stuff. And, you know, those tend to be more of the, the plant-based stuff too. So, um, yeah, it's interesting. And I couldn't tell you for sure if like, say 70% animal product, 30% plant product is better than say 30% animal product,

70% plant product within the macronutrient. It probably just depends on the individual's tolerability of those different food groups, their digestion and kind of where they're at with that stuff. And I find know, I find that when I go too high, or not too high carb, too high, like plant-based, like digestion is just a tough hurdle to get over. And some of that's just the product of my lifestyle too. Like, you know, I'm a small dude, I'm like 140 pounds, but I got to eat like someone who weighs probably 280 pounds some days. So that's a lot of volume of food. So if I'm eating tons of food that are bound to fiber, you know, I don't want to have to be going to the bathroom four or five, six times a day.

That doesn't seem like a good move from health to me anyway. So kind of paying attention to digestion is one kind of compass I've used along with kind of the performance stuff as to like, what is a good kind of ratio of plant products to animal food products and things like that. And then just like protein too. I know that's kind of a controversial topic as well, where like the plant-based folks will say, well, if you eat enough, it doesn't really matter because you're going to get enough of just variety proteins. You're going to meet your protein needs versus the kind of animal product-based folks who are saying, well, proteins of higher quality or animal proteins higher quality, you don't have to eat as much of it to get the return you're looking for. And for me, I kind of look at all this stuff

maybe a little more along that angle of, well, which one does a better job of this? I'm going to kind of angle it that way. So if animal-based products are a superior protein source, well, that's where I'm going to allocate my protein sources. And if a plant product is going to do a better job of giving me this thing, so like if I want to bring carbohydrates back, you know, a potato is probably a better version of a carbohydrate to get some carbohydrate on board than trying to find an animal product version of that that's going to have trace amounts of carbohydrate. Or I guess technically you could count honey as an animal product version of that that's going to have trace amounts of carbohydrate. Or I guess, technically, you could count honey as an animal-based product or milk with lactose in it. I think only a vegan would tell you that honey is an animal product.

Yeah. So there's a lot of goofy stuff within that stuff. For me, I'm looking at these things as tools. So I never want to say this tool is evil or this tool is perfect. I think it's like this tool is better for this particular thing. So that's where I'm going to put it. And this tool is evil or this tool is perfect. I think it's like this tool is better for this particular thing. So that's where I'm going to put it. And this tool is better for that particular thing. That's where I'm going to put it. And I think when you look at it that way and then let like kind of performance or your health markers be your guide, that's probably how you're going to find what you need to do. And I mean, you can certainly learn from a lot of the science out there, but nutrition science as a whole, I think is, you know, I feel bad for the nutrition scientists out there because they've got such a hard job because there's just so many confounding variables when you're trying to identify how a food interacts with a person

when there's all these other things that could also influence that. Like, you know, whether you're just healthy outside of your nutrition in general, or if you're like really unhealthy, you're sedentary, you know, there's like so many things that kind of play into health and longevity and the way you feel outside of what you're eating too, that it's, it's difficult for them to point to like a specific diet and say, this is definitely the way most people or everyone should be going. So then at that point, you kind of have to like, you have to be like, I think, aware of where the science is, but also be aware of the limitations to nutrition science in general and how much we just have to be careful about saying, this is what we think we know or what our best guess is right now.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that's what's going to work for you as an individual versus what they've seen in big groups of people. Yeah. Who is the study population? It reminds me of what you're talking about right now, the French paradox. It's like, why can they smoke cigarettes and eat pastries and chocolate croissants and this kind of thing and still have far less heart disease and strokes and dementia and all the things that we run into in the West. And that's in large part due to

community. It's due to walking everywhere. It's due to having a different level of stress in their everyday, day-to-day life. All those are factors too. And if you're constantly in a state of fight or flight because of the relationships you have and the job that you have, you're going to process all food, no matter what it is, poorly because your body is switched on the sympathetic nervous system. As opposed to if you're relaxed and you enjoy life, you might be able to get away with a little more garbage. I'm not saying smoke cigarettes is the answer, but you could probably get away with a little bit more if you have an easygoing, relaxed lifestyle. Yeah, no, I think that, yeah, it's, I think when you look at like healthy lifestyle habits as a whole and then start to kind of put them in their categories,

you start to understand maybe why nutrition is so hard to get a grasp of what is a good way versus a bad way. Because when you think about it, if I'm talking about just fitness in general, that's kind of nebulous too. It's like you can make a strong argument that I'm very fit, but if I got into a cage fighting ring with you, I would be very unfit. You know, if we went out and ran a hundred miles this afternoon, like you, you could make a strong argument that you're very fit. I wouldn't make it. Yeah. So I mean, it's. I wouldn't make a hundred miles.

Right. So we're both technically fit. We're just fit in different ways. So like, I think you find like your pillar of activity. So like, what do you enjoy? What are you good at? What's going to make you happy? Work within that framework for that one.

And then, you know, sleep, same thing. Like that one's maybe a little more fine-tuned where ideally you're going to get probably, most people are going to get a certain amount of sleep, but then how you kind of break that up is maybe a little more open to interpretation. Relationships, like good quality, like emotional relationships, socializing,

kind of checking that box to being healthy. You know,, stress management, that sort of stuff, and then nutrition. So if you check the box or you find where you belong in all those other four categories, then you get to nutrition. It's probably going to be easier to figure out what works for you within that when everything else is working well too. And you can look at it the other way as well as like, well, first, maybe I need to figure out nutrition and then I'll figure out all these other things too. But I think like when you look at, I think if you, there's healthy ways to do all of those things and there's some nuance to it all. So like kind of finding the one that's going to work for you within your lifestyle is

kind of making them all work together versus trying to find the magic bullet for each one and then just kind of hit that program or something like that. Well, I do want to get a little bit more linear here with what you've come to now to know for yourself. And obviously, everything is individualized. I had Darren O'Leary on this show, who's for sure one of the most yoked vegans I've ever met. No one's going to tell Rich Roll that that diet doesn't work for him. It fucking works for him. Point blank, it does. And then I had Paul Saladino on the carnivore doc, who definitely, you look at that guy and you see how in shape he is, and you can check his blood work, and you're like, that dude's dialed in. Obviously, there's

a genetic component to this. And certainly uh whatever you're choosing to do from an activity level will also play into this and i know that sean baker is is big into glycolytic workouts and he he believes very strongly that 100 carnivore will not have a negative impact on glycolytic workout at least within the realm of what he's doing i'm sure crossfit athletes would would argue otherwise um and that's all okay. That's the nuance of the discussion, right? That's exactly what you're alluding to. But one of the things that I wanted to break down was what now does it look like? You talked about the different phases of your training. If you have a deload week, that's going to be 80-85%

animal products and maybe some lower carb plant products to round out that diet. And then I just wanted to have you unpack a bit of what those carbohydrate sources look like as you prepare for a race and what the carbohydrate sources look like on race day. Yeah. Yeah. So when I start kind of, so let's, if you look at like, say take an off season, I kind of cut carbs out for a little bit or bring them like really low. And then I start getting back in the training and I start kind of adding them back. What I usually do is once I start adding back, I kind of have some staples that I found work really well for me. Um, and some of it's just personal preference too. So like if I'm going to bring back a little bit of carbohydrate early on, you know, I might have some raw honey with coffee or

tea in the morning, uh, before a run, you know, I I might have a baked potato or a sweet potato or something like that in one of my meals later that day as a way to start bringing them back. Then as I increase the volume and intensity and bring back a little bit more carbohydrate, I just add to that. Then I'll bring back some fruit sources like some melons, some berries, usually whatever's in season is fine. I don't get too picky about like the glycemic index of some of that sort of stuff, just because my lifestyle is so active anyway, I'm not really fighting a battle of like limiting how much I get in. And usually I'm fighting a battle of getting you nothing. So, uh, yeah, I think that opens the door a little bit to the

different varieties of carbohydrates a little bit versus someone who's on a fairly fixed calorie diet. They might want to be a little more careful someone who's on a fairly fixed calorie diet. They might want to be a little more careful about that because it may stimulate appetite differently from one person to the next. The other thing I've been doing more recently is I'll do... One thing I did have changed quite a bit when I first started the keto high-fat, low-carb stuff is I looked at things like grains and that sort of stuff as like, that is kind of just a bad food source. I should just kind of like avoid that, like the plague altogether. So I did that for a while. And then when I kind of started looking into that a little more, I found really interesting that I think it's less about kind of what I was saying before. There's not really a bad food and

a good food. A lot of it comes down to the context, the situation, and then the preparation. So even when you take something like a grain or like an oat, I think like there's ways to prepare that even if you're willing to put in like the, put in the work to prepare it versus just, you know, you know, grab Wonder Bread off the shelf. You know, you can make that stuff fairly nutritious and digestible as well. So like all, when I'm, when I'm kind of at my highest carb phases of training and I have a little more flexibility as to what I'm bringing back from that side of things, I'll do some oats or cornmeal fermentation type stuff and get into that stuff, soaking, sprouting. Yeah, nourishing traditions. They talk quite a bit about that, how the old world style of food preparation that's been done

for thousands of years to make this food actually more digestible, right? Stripping the phytic acid off of beans by soaking them and draining them. There's a number of ways. And fermentation is a big one as well that helps the body break down and access those nutrients a little bit more easier with getting rid of some of the anti-nutrients, as they'd call them, some of the oxalates, things like that, lectins, that so many people in the carnivore game are worried about, and rightfully so. Obviously, if people with autoimmune diseases, it's a completely different conversation right now. We're just talking about performance. But I think for those people who do want to eat those foods, grains in particular and things of that nature, preparation is everything.

Right. It really is. And it might be way down the road for them. You know, another kind of group that I found really interesting is that paleo-medicina group over in Hungary with Dr. Saba Tuthin, Dr. Sophia Clemens. They are working with folks who have just essentially had like destroyed their digestion for whatever reason. And, you know, a lot of times it's just like, you know, food intolerances and things that just kind of built up over time. It wasn't something that just happened overnight that they can also fix overnight. And they work with people and they put them on strict like keto carnivore diets. And they've got a pretty fine tune where it's like 80 to 82% fat, 18 to 20% protein.

And when we had Jofia Clemons on the show, I asked her about that. I was like, well, how are people that you're working with, are they in such a rough spot that they're like super strict with this and how long do they stick with that? And she said, well, based on what we've got, the information they've got from like the thousands

of people at this point that they've worked with, she said, when we have someone who's got a leaky gut or has a digestive issue, if they want to turn that around as quick as possible, they get as strict as imaginable. They stick right to those parameters, and that cleans things up really quickly for them. And then they can get in a position where, I think she called it like a vegetable allowance, which I think most people are gonna be like, what? A vegetable allowance. But you know, I think, so then that gets the individual component too. It's like, how badly do you want to bring that back into your life? And if you do, and you've dealt with those nutritional things in the past, those digestive issues, maybe you do have to be very on top of the soaking, the sprouting, the fermenting. So you can bring those back in a way that's going to work well for your body and not kind of come at a compromise of your own well-being,

so to speak. But yeah, I just think that I find that stuff interesting. I mean, I think some people find it as a hurdle to get over, like, oh, I got to prepare my food. I just want to grab it and eat it. But I kind of find it kind of fun. Like the fermenting stuff, like preparing your food from scratch, that sort of stuff is like when you get busy, it's a little more difficult, I think. But I think if you learn how to do it and get in a routine with it, that kind of helps. And then it's just kind of a cool thing to explore, in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. I remember you doing, we used to make, when we lived in California, you could get raw milk. And even though it was the, I think the A1 casein, you know, it's gondry.

And these guys talk about it as more of an issue for most people's guts than A2 casein, which you'd find in goats, milk, or European cows, Jersey cows, things like that. It was still A1, but it was raw. And we'd make kefir. And we'd make a gallon of kefir at a time. And through the fermentation process, I had no runny nose, no phlegm, none of that stuff because that had, for whatever reason, made it more digestible and it wasn't an issue. But we'd make our own kefir. It'd take three days and then we'd have this super sour milk product that was awesome. And it lasted at least a week

or two, but it was really, really tasty and super pungent. And, um, you know, I could feel the difference. I could feel energized from it. Not, not this, uh, you know, Oh, it comes at a cost because I'm having a cheat meal type feeling, you know? Yeah, no, that's a great, great example. And I had a very similar experience. I cut out, I swore off dairy a few years ago. I was like, cause that same things I'd wake if I had like, you know, even a couple servings of dairy, like for dinner, like I'd wake up next morning, my nose would be stuffed up. I'd be like coughing up mucus during my run next morning. It was like night and day difference. And whenever I take it out, that would go away. As soon as I'd bring it

back, it'd be right back to it. So it was fairly convincing to me in a way that, um, that that was something that just wasn't working well for me. And then I actually talked to one of my buddies, Jeff Burns. He's a runner and a PhD candidate up in Michigan at the university there. And he's really into fermenting. He's like, I wrote a blog post about swearing off dairy and it was, he read it and he's like, you know what you need to try to do? You need to ferment it, try that for a while and see if you can just inch back into it. So, I mean, I grew up in Wisconsin, so I didn't want to give up cheese and dairy. Like, I mean, that was something I enjoyed most of my life up until like it wasn't working well for me anymore. So I did that. I started bringing that back some like more raw cheeses, fermented kefir, that sort of thing. And I did

that for probably about a year where I wasn't eating any dairy that wasn't prepared the right way, so to speak. And now I can actually bring back some more kind of commercial dairy. I don't want to do that holistically, but as long as I have some of the fermented stuff in combination with the non fermented stuff or the commercial stuff, the commercial stuff doesn't bother me anymore. And we had a guy, Dr. Bill Schindler on the podcast, and he was saying that, yeah, once you get that bacteria in your system, it sticks around for a few days. So if you eat fermented dairy in combination with some commercial dairy, you're going to get enough of the digestive enzymes from the fermented stuff to kind of tolerate the other stuff. And I mean, I haven't played around to the point where I'm drinking loads of skim milk or anything like that, where you get a lot of lactose and a lot of highly pasteurized things. For me, it's more like most of my dairy is still fermented or prepared. And then the stuff that's not as

hard cheese is for the most part or something that's going to have a little more of an aged process just in general versus your typical skim milk or something that you'd get at the grocery store. Yeah. Well, I mean, we're, we're, we're touching on something here, kind of back and forth, and I'm sure I've confused the hell out of my audience through having a Darren Olean on and then, you know, Paul Saladino and I've had Sean on the show before, you know, where do I stand kind of thing is always the question. And I think, you know, a lot of this is nuanced. I think we're only in a time now where we can say, I want to actually eat only meat or only vegan food products, right? It's only now in human history that we can decide that for ourselves. The argument that we ate only meat in a period

of time, like, sure, all right, you know, Saladino's got some good evidence there. The argument that there are tribes that sustain themselves on solely plant-based food and they look perfect, like, yeah, okay, no one's going to argue with that. But these are different sectors and different people and groups of people, populations that are living in those ways. And here we are. Most of us have some sort of Northern European ancestry here in America. And I shouldn't say most of us, but quite a few of us do. And I think that it is a nuanced approach. And without a doubt, we are omnivores. So what does that look like? It looks different for everyone. but these hardline arguments of what's healthier than the other. I think that's where we start getting into these giant polarized debates,

which is no different than our current political climate. But one thing I wanted to dive into with you, obviously you have a podcast with Sean Baker, who in large part put carnivore on the scene, is this idea around regenerative agriculture. Because I think one of the arguments from both camps is, you know, the plant-based folks will tell you this is killing the earth and we're going to kill ourselves if we continue to eat meat.

And, you know, one of the things that I brought up with Darren Olin, I don't think it came out on this podcast. We had to record twice because I lost the first one, but nothing is worse for the environment than chopping the rainforest down to create factory farmed animals and then monocrop soy and corn to feed those animals. Yes, there is zero argument there. We should not be doing that.

But outside of that, and I know Rob Wolf's working on a book right now alongside, I forget the name, Sustainable Dish is her Instagram handle. And they have a documentary coming out called The Sacred Cow. And a lot of this is around these issues. You've had quite a few people on your show talking about regenerative agriculture. And I want you to unpack this because I know you brought this up on Rogan's. And for whatever reason, I think just due to Rogan becoming as big as he is, he's got to play devil's advocate. So this other argument of, yeah, but is that something you can, can you feed the masses this way? Yeah, can you scale it, right?

I don't think that's the argument. I think the first argument that I had talked about with Paul Saladino is, does this help humans and does this help the earth? And I think that's unequivocally yes. So dive into some of the things that you've learned about that because you brought up this epic bar and General Mills and there's a lot of cool information here. Yeah, and I think that story is kind of cool too

because that's almost like what I hope the vegan carnivore communities can eventually get to where let's find what we can agree to and just all like go hard in the paint on that and make sure we get that. So we actually do have a plant that is inhabitable for us down the road versus like, let's get in these fightings with one another about whether like humans should be eating meat or not, or eating plants or not. And we can argue about those semantics, those semantics down the road when we've gotten our soil quality back to where it needs to be. So I think regenerative agriculture is something

both those camps can probably hang their hat on at the end of the day as something that's good for the soil quality. And one camp might say, yeah, we need to regenerate the soil with ruminants and things like that. We just don't need to eat them at the end of it. Whereas the other camp is going to argue, yeah, we need to fix the soil with ruminants, but we just, you know, we're going to eat them at the end of their life stage. And, you know, so like whether that, that, that end point is the semantic point, right? That's the point that is, uh, something that we can worry about down the road when we fix the things that really need to be taken care of, like what you mentioned with the rainforest or the deforestation and the monocropping side of things and really kind of tackling that.

And I think there's probably some nuance even within that. Do we need to turn our entire agricultural world or network into this savory hub slash white oak pastures type scenario? Or is there like a hybrid version of that that can maybe take what, what are the benefits we have in terms of the scalability of commercial farming versus like small scale farming? And how can we kind of blend those a little bit? And I don't know what the, I don't know if there is an answer to that or if there is, I don't know what it is, but I think there probably is ways to take some of the efficiency from, from like the factory stuff and, uh, you know, but, but ultimately kind of do the things we need to do to fix the soil from the

regenerative side of things. And, uh, I think that would be a pretty good, good way to look at it as from a problem solving standpoint. Um, I also think like I also think there's a lot to learn yet with it. We should probably learn it fast. But when you see examples, I think Savory, he's turned desert environments into grasslands and stuff with moving ruminants around in the right way. So the hardest part, I guess, is just the context part of it, where it works one way in this spot. So like Will Harris of White Oaks Pastures has a method to make it work very well for his setup. And he's got the data to prove it. They're in Georgia, right?

Yeah. Talk about that data, because I thought this was really fascinating to me. Right. And the thing that I think is the most interesting about it was, I mean, he was saying that he's like, I'm a farmer. I can tell you that this is good for the environment. I know it by, he was saying that he's like, I'm a farmer. I can tell you that this is good for the environment. I know it by looking at it. And he's probably right. It's like the art side of what he does. So someone who's done that for as long as he has can probably

almost intuitively see that stuff. Whereas, you know, everyone else, the science community, especially, they want the data to support that. So he had been a supplier for Epic Bar from when Epic Bar started, I believe. And Epic Bar had some pretty nuanced or new kind of advertisement when they first came to market with their products saying, we're giving you what you want, but we're doing it in a way that's good for the environment and good for you. So it's all the good with none of the bad. And I think when General Mills bought Epic Bar, they saw some of their claims and they're like, I don't know if we can back this up. And you know, a company as big as General Mills are always worried about getting sued, I'm sure. So they're probably thinking, when are we going to get sued for this claim? So we need to either prove it or take it off. And so they spent,

I think it was like $80,000 into doing a big study on Will Harris's white oak pastures to find out, can we claim that the meat being raised in this area is actually moving us forward versus neutral or stepping backwards from an environmental standpoint? And if so, then we can keep claiming it. If not, we need to change our language or change things in some shape or form. And they went in and they did a study on his particular, his specific operation and found out that not only was his stuff not producing carbon emissions overall, he was actually sequestering. So his operation was taking care of itself plus a little bit about everything else. So it was a net negative carbon impact.

And I think, you know, one thing, because I was curious about that, because when I first saw that study come out, I was trying to be careful to listen to like what the counter to that was. Like, what are the anti-animal agriculture folks going to say to this in terms of kind of a rebuttal? And there was a lot of people saying, well, that study's not conducive of scalability or that's not going to work everywhere. Were that kind of the two ones that popped up? And the other thing that popped up that I didn't really know about was they said, well, there's been a lot of studies on regenerative agriculture. And I found out that regenerative agriculture is kind of an umbrella

term for a variety of different processes, some that have been proven to work like Will Harris's and some that are not up to par in terms of actually being net negative or neutral even. So I was then told that what you need to do if you want to look at the science on the type of process that Will Harris is doing is you need to look for multi-paddock adaptive grazing. And that's the type of terminology that identifies his specific type of regenerative agriculture, I guess, versus just someone who's claiming like, oh, we've got organic grass-fed, therefore we're good. That type of sustainable label. Because people get creative with those words to be able to market their products and things, I think, sometimes. And that's where we run into some problems where if you look at the worst of that world, you can find a reason to say, well, look,

this doesn't actually work. We need to stay the course where we are now or we need to do something completely different. Whereas if you look at the multi-paddock adaptive grazing stuff, the evidence there seems to be something working for at least in these areas that we've looked at. And then it is a scalability thing. So, you know, some people are going to argue, well, this isn't necessarily reinventing the wheel. It's just kind of going back to what we would have been doing before we commercialized a lot of this stuff or factory factorized, I guess, this type of stuff. And, you know, but then again, it's also like, you know, the whole argument,

how we're trying to feed X number of people with this type of stuff, which I think is a little goofy. I think all this stuff is goofy when we look at it at a global scale, for one, because so much of this is regionally based. Like, you know, eating an animal, all animal diet could be good for the environment if you live in a certain spot of the world where there's like, you know, ruminants and animals that are invasive and overrunning the area.

Whereas it could be detrimental if you live in an area of the world and the stuff you're buying is resulting in, you know, forests getting taken down to be replaced with monocropping fields to feed, you know, factory farm stuff. Which is hard to say for people because I think because then cause then it's like, there's a, there's an element of privilege there then too, right? Like, are you able to move around to a place where you want to be, to be able to eat what would be considered a sustainable all meat diet? Or are you living in an area where you're quote unquote, you know, doing a disservice for the environment by eating your animal based diet? No doubt, no doubt. But I do want to jump in and just say, like, if we establish that this is good for the environment and it's good for humans to eat the highest quality meat, right? There's no doubt grass-fed, grass-finished ruminants are far better for us than factory

farmed ruminants. No question. Yeah. So if we know that's the case, and then we know there's science that supports that this is actually good for the environment, has a net negative carbon imprint. Then can we take that to an area like Brazil, where they're just burning down the fucking rainforest at a rapid rate and say, all right, there's a different way we can farm. And whatever you've cleared, we don't need to do monocropping here. We can have this multi-paddock rotational system where they're

going to rotate on different grasses at specific times of the year, and they're going to move through this. And then we can still have room for different crop rotation even, right? So we're not just getting this same exact product growing in the same place, raping the soil and requiring chemical fertilizers to go on top of it. But we can rotate that way. People wonder about that too. Why do you need to rotate a crop? Well, whatever is in that plant is going to be pulled from the soil. So say there's a high amount of beta carotene. All right, cool. That helps some people if they can process beta carotene and turn it into vitamin A. My wife and I can't. We need it from animal sources. But for those that can,

if that's going to go into the sweet potato or the corn or the carrot, it's only going to come out of that soil until there's nothing left in the soil. And then at that point, it's going to stop drawing from it because there's nothing left in the soil, right? So you move those around.

That way, different plants will put certain things back into the soil and different, and you just draw back and forth like that through the pattern. And I think that's where things can begin to help, at least from the plant side of it too. Because the idea that you're going to feed the whole world genetically modified organisms is complete shit. It's not good and it's hurting the planet more than it's helping it. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's the way I think I look at that is like, let's say we make it a goal to feed X number of people in the easiest way possible. And we went like a GMO slash factory farming road. We're just kicking the ball down the road because, you know, like

7 billion to 10 billion to 15 billion, that's just going to keep going that way until eventually we can't fix it anymore. And then, so it's like, yeah, maybe we're preserving the world for one more generation, but then that generation is going to have to get in a fight with one another about how to fix that problem and stuff. So I think you're right in the sense that like, you know, we need to find a solution that is going to kind of fix a variety of these problems without necessarily causing an even bigger problem down the road or kicking the ball down the road. And I think that's, I think you're right. I think like, I think it's just also just like getting a little creative too with a lot of this stuff. Like when you look into waste,

when you look into just the way we use what would otherwise be very good grazing territory or farming like land and stuff like what are we doing with some of these these areas that we could otherwise be you know making use of and uh you know one thing i can't remember if i brought this up on rogan or not but i was like well you know what would be cool i think is i mean we have the framework in place to educate the next generation it's called elementary middle and high school's like, why aren't we leveraging that and saying, like, let's teach the younger generation about these practices and do it by doing it, not by just setting them in a desk for seven hours a day and talking about rotational grazing.

Set up a small farm in the back of the schoolyard and have them go out there and actually do it. They're going to remember it that way. Then it's going to be ingrained in their lifestyle and their memory in a meaningful way versus a very forgetful way like you'd get from reading it in a textbook or something like that when you're 12 years old. So I think there's just a lot of creativity that we haven't leveraged yet that would fix a lot of these scalability arguments or this practicality arguments. It's just like, where are we putting our resources now?

And how would we have to shift them? Or how can we shift them to make this work the right way? And I think all that stuff is doable. We just need to do it. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of this, you know, we think about these problems as whole and we think of them as broadly as we can on impact.

And as with anything, whether that's, you know, if you have a race in six months that you're thinking about, you start with the end goal in mind and then you work your way back to the nitty gritty of each little block that you're going to have. Right? Yeah. So you make it small in your training. You make it small all the way down to what your daily thing looks like in each little section of that training block going into and all the training blocks that lead up to that. Right. So if we think about how to feed the whole planet and we say what works, then we scale back down to how we feed a community, not how we feed the whole world. Yeah.

Right. And that becomes each community's idea of how they're going to feed themselves. In each community, it gets smaller and smaller all the way down to how we just work from a simple farming practice in your neighborhood. And I think if we scale it down that way, and everyone scales it down that way, then we have the opportunity to go local and have the highest quality local ingredients in every corner of the earth. Yeah. Yeah. And you're creating local economies then that I think are just going to be great in general too for the people living there. And I keep forgetting to look into this, but I want to say Detroit started doing something similar to that not too long ago, or they had someone who decided to, they tore down some old buildings and they started building like an urban farm in the middle of the city. But I keep forgetting to look into that and see like what all that entailed or if it was as good as it sounded the first time I read it. But stuff like that, I think, you know, it's like, you know, that would localize it. It would give you

the, give you an opportunity to, you know, teach it. And for folks who are looking for that type of food, a way to access it in a way that's maybe not super unaffordable too, when it's that local. And I think you're right. I think, yeah, if everyone kind of just centers down into their own little community in uniform, so I guess we would need the uniformity of everyone agreeing to maybe do that, or have some places kind of... I guess it would be like a business who would have like, here's our flagship stores. We're going to try it out in these 16 stores first. And then if it works really well here,

we'll branch it out to 32, then 64, then 128 and kind of keep going. Something like that. And there's no doubt that works. I met one of the ladies who started Belcampo out in Northern California. They're way north near Oregon. And they have an awesome regenerative agriculture spot up there, similar to White Oak Pastures.

And they have a few different stores in LA where you can go in and you can actually go to the restaurant. There's a little marketplace up front where you can buy the cuts of meat and take them home. You can get organ meat. You can get all sorts of good stuff, or you can actually just sit down and eat from this super high-end meat that they provide, right? And all their produce is organic as well. It's a really cool experience. When I was out in LA to go to sit there and eat food that is of the highest quality. But that scales well in California because it's easy to get to. When you start... If I was buying Belcampo meat in Florida, it's easy to get to. When you start, you know, if I was buying Belcampo meat in Florida, it's going to come with a much different price tag. Right. And I think that's, that's kind of the issue with scaling it is it's more about scaling the idea of what works and

what's good for us and what's good for the planet. And then from there you make it local. I mean, that's really what it boils down to. Yeah. You minimize that transportation arm too. And then you could argue that we're fixing what the bigger target should be from an environmental standpoint anyway, to begin with, with transportation and that sort of stuff. But yeah, it's a deep rabbit hole. No doubt. It's fun to go down everyone. Yeah. There's an excellent book for people who want to learn a little bit more about this called The Soil Will Save Us. I heard the author, I think, on Ben Greenfield's fitness podcast a couple of years ago. But it really does dive into the science on carbon sequestering and things of that nature for ruminants and really what we would have

found with them in their natural environment. And know, and Saladino breaks that down to how gets that kind of connotation where this is all bad. Whereas it's like, well, it's bad when you put it in the wrong place or when you don't use it properly. But when it's part of that cycle, then it's actually feeding into the cycle. So it's a good thing to have. Like, you want it, you need it for that. Yeah, and methane wasn't an issue when we had all the megafauna on the planet. You know, we can look back through, you know, carbon, all the ice poles that they're pulling out of the Arctic Circle and things like that in Antarctica and looking at that.

They can look back and see when we did have very large amounts of megafauna that were eating grass and pooping it out and having much higher levels of methane that that did in fact cycle back exactly as it should. We didn't have higher levels of carbon in the air then. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting stuff. It's hopefully something that will get more of a public spot eye in the next few years and you can educate more people about it. Cool, brother. Well, tell us about your podcast with Sean.

Yeah. It's been interesting because the reason we started the podcast in the first place is because i actually reached out to him on twitter and it was uh i thought it was interesting because we both had a similar like we had a we both i think he may have just been starting his kind of carnivore stuff back then but he was more on just like a high fat low carb like strength power like really short glycolytic athlete. And I was like this kind of high fat, low carb, like endurance run all day type of athletes who are like polar ends the opposite athletically. He's literally twice as big as I am.

And, uh, you know, but we kind of had a fairly similar new, like a nutritional idea as how to do it. I thought it'd be cool to like, kind of unpack, like, well, why does this work for you? And why does it work for me on two episodes of spectrum? What What happens in the middle areas? Like where's the nuance there? And I think our original thought was we would interview a lot of athletes and stuff like that. And ultimately we ended up just bringing on mostly like professors, doctors that are in different topic areas. We've done deep dives into like protein metabolism with guys like Don Lehman, Stu Phillips, Professor Jose Antonio. And then the regenerative side of things, you know,

Sean brings the big meat component to that podcast for sure. Like, so there's a big listener base of ours who want to know more about that. You know, what happens if I eat only meat? What happens if I eat a meat heavy diet or,heavy diet or that sort of stuff? So then bringing in, that's where the regenerative agricultural component came in. And just the agriculture component in general, we've had interesting people come in that are more in the conventional side of things too and talk about that and why they do things the way they do and what does a ruminant's life cycle actually look like even within the context of a factory farming setup where like they're spending 80% of their life on pasture and then

they're moving to the factory side of the things versus I think a lot of people just think these cattle are born in a factory and they stay in a factory. And that's maybe a little more true for like chickens and things like that. But I'm digressing a bit. So we go down these different rabbit holes. So we don't necessarily have a specific angle, I guess, in terms of like, this is kind of only what we do. Like this guest doesn't fit that parameter. So you can't come on the show. You know, we usually just take suggestions and, you know, if someone says we'd love to hear this person talk and reach out to them and they respond and bring them on. And like, you know, Sean and I are both curious. So we bump into people that we want to have on the show and ask them if they want to come on,

they come on. And yeah, so it's, I think we'll just kind of continue to branch out with that and have even a wider diversity of guests, like as we keep getting, getting more and more episodes in the hopper. And what's the name of the show? A human performance outliers podcast. That's awesome. So yeah, I think we, we, I want to say we're coming up on two years now, two years in April. So it's, I've learned so much from it. It's just fun to, you know, I loved going on podcasts before that. I thought that world was kind of a lot cooler than like the Instagrams and Twitters. I mean, I don't mind those either, but like that long form stuff was always interesting to me. So going on podcasts is always a blast.

So then kind of doing it from the other side was a lot of fun too, where you kind of do a little more listening and a little less talking a lot of times. And you look, you learn a lot from it too. Like, I like to go in with like, okay, I've got three questions for this guest that I'd love to hear their take on. And then you also, you usually end up doing like six or seven extra ones that, um, you didn't think you were going to come up that come up when they answer your question or when they lead you down a different path that you didn't expect. So it's a cool, it's a cool gig for sure. That's awesome, brother. Uh, what do you got coming up? You got any big races planned? Yeah, I think I was just getting to the end of the year for athletes are always kind of

a little interesting because you're trying to like plan your next year. And you're also trying to like, you know, figure out where your sponsors are going to be in that sort of thing. And sometimes those dictate one another a little bit. So I've just been kind of getting all that narrowed down a bit the last few weeks. But it looks like the first half of the year, I'm going to do a race over in New Zealand called the Teraware 100K. And that's going to be kind of within a buildup for the 100 miler on a track over in London.

I talked about the logistics being minimized in those track environments earlier. The one logistic I haven't been able to minimize yet is just usually I'm jumping into the context of like a 24-hour race or a 48-hour race. So you're going around people in the lane too a lot. So you're actually adding a little distance. Like my a hundred mile time is actually further than a hundred miles if I were able to just stay in lane one right up against the line. So this particular event is geared just more towards a hundred miles fast. So you can stay in lane one basically the whole time. So I'm gonna do that in April. And that's going to be kind of like where I structure the first half of the year. I'm most likely going to be on the World 100K team.

The World Championships are in September in the Netherlands. So I might do that second half of the year. I'll probably do 100 miler then. And I've got this big kind of elephant in the planning room right now where I've been working with, or I've been talking with Justin Ren

from Fight for the Forgotten. Oh yeah. Doing like a big, there's this route, it's called the TransCon, where you go from San Fran to New York. It's like about 3,100 miles. And the current record holder

averaged 72 miles a day in about seven weeks. So like I want to do, I've been interested in that route for a while. And it's just one of those things that's really easy since it's such a logistical battle or hurdle to get over to do it

in the first place. It's easy just to say, all right, maybe, maybe next year, maybe next year and just keep doing that. But then, you know, after talking to Justin Wren and like just seeing his passion for that, you know, it's something that I think for me anyway, like I wouldn't do something like that without like a component of like awareness for some charity or something. Cause at some point it's going to be hard to want to be doing that for yourself still. I think for me anyway, like I think, you know, week four, when like my ankles are like completely like racked and like, I have to figure out a reason to be out there for 70 more miles that next day. It's like, I, it's nice to be like in a position

where it's like, okay, no matter how bad this hurts, this is raising awareness for something I care about. And his, his setup was just kind of a slam dunk for me personally. So talking to him and seeing how excited he was about it, just from me mentioning it to him, kind of motivated me to. And then talking to Joe about it, like when I went on Joe's show, like I knew Joe would be interested just because he's friends with Justin. But when he offered to kind of promote and potentially sponsor it to a degree, like, you know, that kind of sped things up a little bit, I think. So right now there's a chance I would maybe do it this next fall of 2020 in like September,

but the most likely spot is probably spring of 2021 because you kind of have to work with the weather patterns a little bit with something like that if you want to really have the best possible experience versus trying to go through mountain passes in the winter or the Midwest in the dead of summer or something like that.

So that's kind of on the horizon as well. It's a big project I'm excited to work on. That's beautiful, brother. Where can people find you online? The easiest spot is my website at ZachBitter, Z-A-C-H-B-I-T-T-E-R.com. There you can kind of link to my coaching and my Instagram at Zach Bitter

and my Twitter at Z Bitter. Awesome, dude. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun. Hell yeah, brother. Thank you guys for listening to today's show. Remember, head over to kingsboob.com

where you will get only one, just one monthly newsletter of everything that I've been into. You can also look up the Inner Circle. There's a small questionnaire to see if we are right to work with each other. And then from there, we'll have a 30-minute Zoom call interview for the two of us to also further see where we're at in the game of coaching. Should we work together? Should we not? Can we help each other? Can I help you? All those things are very important, and we can iron all that out with a 30-minute intro call. Thank you guys for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed today's show and I'll see you in a week.