Mark Bell's Power Project - A Practical Approach To Fasting (No Muscle Loss) || MBPP Ep. 1073

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

In episode 1073 Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how to approach fasting to minimize muscle loss.   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below!   🍆  Natural Sexual Performance Booster 🍆 ➢https://usejoymode.com/discount/POWERPROJECT Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎 ➢https://emr-tek.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/untapped ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza & Get Podcast Guides, Courses and More ➢ https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Why do you guys think that there's been like a lot of pushback on fasting recently? I just think that when it comes to some of these things, it just probably shouldn't be done in perpetuity. It shouldn't be done forever, all the time. It just depends on what it is you're trying to do and what you're trying to accomplish. What I'm utilizing it for is to lose body weight and specifically I'm trying to lose body fat. And someone could say, oh, you got to do, you know, five or six meals a day and you got to kind of do bodybuilding style. It's just not anything I want to spend time doing. So you notice nothing from that 48-hour fast? Maybe I was expecting too much, but no, I didn't feel anything. Sometimes we start to talk

about fasting. Maybe somebody listening gets excited and that might be a great route for someone to go. It also might not be a great route for someone to go. If you guys have been enjoying the content we've been bringing here on The Power Project, consider leaving us a review on Spotify and Apple. We've had podcasts with people from Functional Patterns to Ben Patrick to Jack Cruz who roasted us on air, but we did that for you to bring you some of the best information in fitness. We're learning along with you and leaving a review with how you dig the podcast

is really gonna be something that helps the podcast move forward. So if you can, leave us a review there and enjoy the rest of the show. Yeah. I got here today and I did, uh, I did like a little Metcon. I've been messing around with some of those lately. You guys fuck around with those kinds of workouts? A little bit. It's throughout the day though. So yeah. It's been a while. I remember we used to do that in the mornings a lot. We'd have like a little circuit going. Yeah. That was a lot of fun. Actually can get a lot of work done in a short amount of time kind of like cross-fitty type stuff yeah

yeah very cross-fit yeah i did like a a minute on the bike uh a minute of jumping rope um walked with like a i don't know it's like a 45 pound med ball pick that up walk down and back and did some push-ups in between that and uh did some lunges in between that. But yeah, just kind of more recently trying to just, I guess, move more and have my workouts. I don't know, have my workouts where they're just not as like, I do enjoy some bodybuilding stuff, but it's pretty boring. Just sit there and kind of do the three to five sets of 10 minute rest and just kind of stay on that muscle. Um, at the moment that's pretty boring to me. So I've been trying to mix it up with some other shit. How's your body been feeling? Cause I saw that, um, you posted yesterday, this morning you posted your sprinting and, uh, first

off you looked fucking lean. So what's that about? Because, I mean, I know you're lean, but you look super lean. And then you look like you're opening up more. So how's that been going for you? Yeah, again, you know, with any exercise I'm doing, I'm trying to, like, implement some sort of movement that's challenging to me. So, like, a lunge isn't normally challenging to most people. But a lunge is a little bit challenging for me just due to, to like tightness in the quads and tightness in the hips. And so I've been implementing a lot of that. I've been doing a lot of myofascial release.

Body feels really good. And then leanness is a lot of it has to do with fasting. I've been fasting every Monday for the last, maybe like month or so, maybe like the last four weeks or so. What spurred that for you? Um, actually just, you know, listening to, uh, the guests that we just had on the show, um, listening to, uh, Kyle Newell. Um, what's his actual name on Instagram? It's like something panda, right? Panda man or something like that. Yeah, I always liked fasting. I did like the longer fasts.

But it was cool to hear from someone like him kind of saying like a lot of people don't fast long enough. And I'm like, you know what? Yeah, I have done a lot of fasting and I've done some full day fast. I actually did a week of fasting before. I did a bunch of different versions of it. But I was like, you know what? Yeah, I have done a lot of fasting and I've done some full day fast. I actually did a week of fasting before. I did a bunch of different versions of it. But I was like, you know what? He's right. Let me go back and let me revisit some of that and let me give it another go. And so, yeah, I've been doing like basically like they're 24-hour fast, but they usually last a little bit longer.

And a cheat that I kind of figured out was if you – and I guess it's not a cheat. It's still 24 hours or longer. But if I just have like breakfast, breakfast and or lunch and then just discontinue eating for the day, I found that that is easier to make the 24 hours go by faster rather than eating at like 7 p.m. and then having that little extra sleep time and then starting your fast that way. I don't know why I feel that that's easier, but for me, it felt like it was easier doing it that way. Yeah, well, I mean, for me, it makes sense that that's easier because as the hunger signals start to come from dinner, then you can just be like,

well, I know I'm going to go to sleep in like two, three hours. So I'm just going to hold it off a little bit because that's what I did too. And when you fall asleep, you're not thinking about food. And when you wake up, I felt totally normal. I felt exactly as I felt the day before when I had just a regular day of food. And then the hardest part for me though, because I just did a 48-hour fast. And then the hardest part for me though, cause I just did a

48 hour fast was around that 30 hour mark because I, man, I started to literally just like start falling asleep. Like, I don't know what happened. It just hit me like, um, yeah, like I hit like a brick wall and there's nothing I could do. But the funny thing was my wife made just a plain basic chicken salad and that shit looked so good. I was like, oh, man, all I wanted was that lame ass chicken salad. Like a salad with chicken in it or like a mayonnaise chicken salad kind of thing? So, yeah, I know. So a salad with chicken in it. And also she had some kind of dressing in it.

But I don't really like dressings. Like I would all do it like a Caesar or something like that. But I think she had like ranch and I wasn't, I don't like ranch, but what I'm getting at is for me, I think that like 24 hour, maybe even 20 hour mark for me is like perfect because it makes that next meal seem incredible. And I might mess with that some more. I don't really see a benefit for me for a 48-hour fast. I just wanted to see if I could do it just for the heck of it. What is the deal with ranch dressing? I don't know. That's weird. Ranch dressing at restaurants is amazing. But if you can buy any ranch dressing and have it at home and it's not nearly as good. For some reason at a restaurant, it's a lot better.

And same thing with teriyaki sauce. It's hard to find good teriyaki sauce. I know these things. They used to be 330 pounds. Yeah, you've done some research. I've done a lot of research on it. No, there's this Bajan's teriyaki, barbecue teriyaki sauce from Costco. Yeah, Jesse talked about

it when he was here. It's good shit. It has like the red cap. If you guys go to Costco, get the Bajan's barbecue sauce or teriyaki barbecue sauce. It's good shit. It has like the red cap. If you guys go to Costco, get the Bajan's barbecue sauce or teriyaki barbecue sauce. It's amazing. Japanese teriyaki sauce. It's good shit. So you notice nothing

from that 48 hour fast that didn't do shit for you. As in like you didn't feel when you started eating again, you didn't feel any magical powers. You didn't float. You didn't sleep better. Maybe I was expecting too much,

but no, I didn't feel anything. The only thing, and this is just unfair, or maybe it's part of why I did actually need this. So I broke the fast around like 9.30 Sunday morning. So I ate breakfast Friday morning. Wasn't sure exact timing morning, and I broke it with just some watermelon. Like, it's got, like, a regular, like, bowl of watermelon, not, like, a gigantic one. Ate that. My stomach started feeling a little funny and just instant diarrhea for, like, an hour straight. Like, I just couldn't stop. And I'm like, okay, like, whatever that was, maybe it was, like, all the electrolytes that I was drinking throughout the weekend.

Like, maybe that's all coming out now. Maybe it just solidified whatever was left in my stomach and it was like yo we got to evacuate everything because someone's cleaning house like get it all out yeah it's your body liquefying muscle no fasting maybe it was a weird color too it was like a bright orange so i don't know what that's all about but i was thinking maybe that was the like espresso that i had just had too you know maybe that's what it was. Cause you know, sometimes like out of like a,

you know, good coffee machine, it comes out kind of like orangey color. Shit. Talk has never made me more nauseous. You have to go and say like, it was orange and like, fuck me.

Yeah. Yeah. But I'm just, you know, sharing all the deets. Thank you. And then after that, I ate dinner and,

you know, again, stomach or an eight dinner, eight. And then after that, I ate dinner and again, stomach, or not eat dinner, ate breakfast and the stomach was still kind of bubbly and stuff. But no, I didn't feel, my body still feels pretty inflamed. In fact, like my whole body's hurting more than it has been in a while right now, but that's just because of jujitsu. Yeah, I don't know. And it's funny because like I've been following

Mike Dolce's stuff and he's like very against fasting. So I'm like, ah, let me just see what happens. And yeah, I don't think I'll like, I'll have to really mess with the 48 hour again. I think a 24 hour or like a OMAD will be very, very helpful because I did like Friday not having to even like be concerned with dinner that night. It was just like, yeah, no, I'm good. And I felt great. And then the next day is when I didn't feel as great. But once I got through that weird 30 hour mark, I was fine. And then after that, it was like, oh, I can probably go a whole nother day.

But I just, I didn't want to. 48 hours is a long time. You know, I think especially for someone like you, that's been pretty thin most of your life, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I think it's like going to be a little bit more difficult for some people than others. And maybe that's maybe a 48-hour fast isn't great for you.

No, yeah. Maybe you got to keep it a little shorter. I had to figure it out for myself though. Why do you guys think that there's been like a lot of pushback on fasting recently? You know, I can't necessarily say. I think there's a phase where a lot of people were talking positively about it.

And maybe some things came out recently in terms of potentially muscle loss or something. But, you know, I think when a lot of people start talking, like when cold plunges, fasting, et cetera, there just seems to always be like, there's going to be a Layne Norton pushback, especially. Layne Norton pushed on cold plunging. Layne Norton pushed on fasting. And then there's just going to be a bunch of people that try it and then they're like, oh, I didn't like it, et cetera.

I didn't like it for doing it for too long. I just think that when it comes to some of these things, it just probably shouldn't be done in perpetuity. It shouldn't be done forever all the time. You know what I mean? I've found the benefit from fasting being every now and then, some days of the week, I'll have one meal a day. Every few weeks, maybe I'll do a 24 or a 36. Every quarter, I'll do a three-day fast. But it's not something you do every single day.

You still get in the food you need to eat. But a lot of people, when they're like, I fast, it's an I fast every fucking day. And that can put you in a bad spot. Yeah, it could be a little too much. And with the guests that we had, Kyle, he was talking about how he likes to do his fast. And then he basically shifts over into one meal a day. And for me, like that seems a little like too drastic for some of the goals that I have, but that's what he feels good with. And then he also likes to eat different food. Like he'll, he'll have some foods that I would probably choose not to eat. You know, he'll eat like pizza and like, I'm not saying he eats junk food, but he'll have that be kind of part of the feast, even though it's still probably in kind of smaller amounts.

And so, you know, it just depends on what it is you're trying to do and what you're trying to accomplish. And for me, like what I'm utilizing it for is to lose body weight, and specifically I'm trying to lose body fat. And someone could say, oh, you got to do, you know, five or six meals a day, and you got to kind of do bodybuilding style. That's just not anything I want to spend time doing. It's like, I guess I don't want it that bad when it comes to doing it that way. But fasting feels easier for me, feels simpler,

costs me less time. I don't have to kind of, you know, be as prepared. I don't have to meal prep. kind of be as prepared. I don't have to meal prep. And so I think the rewards kind of outweigh some of the risk and some of the time that it would take to do this in another way. But I do think there's a lot of ways for people to lose fat. And so I think sometimes we start to talk about fasting. Maybe somebody listening gets excited and that might be a great route for someone to go. It also might not be a great route for someone to go. It also might not be a great route for someone to go. There's no shame in wanting to have great sex. And there's no shame for wanting your member to perform the way it should be. A lot of us sometimes have some issue with blood flow, but that's where Joy Mode comes in.

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Yes, that's over at usejoymode.com slash powerproject. And at checkout, enter promo code powerproject to save 20% off your entire order. Again, usejoymo.com slash POWERPROJECT, promo code POWERPROJECT. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. At the end of the day, though, if you have two meals or you have one meal or you have six meals, if the caloric intake is similar, does it even matter? Right. And I think that's what you're, you know, that's what you kind of repeatedly find out is like, there is some sort of energy balance that happens,

you know, on a daily basis, weekly basis. However, if you're somebody that likes to eat, if you're somebody that likes to eat when you eat, you like to kind of get after it when you eat, then some fasting, I think can be really wise because we can probably, it could probably like estimate that you're going to still, because almost no matter how hungry you are, you're only going to eat a certain amount. And I realized for some people, they might have to fast for three days to kind of like balance that out or something like that. But normally you strip somebody of 2,500 or 3,000 calories and it's going to be a little bit harder for them to overeat.

Obviously they could still do it, but if you're like, hey, try to get to your maintenance calories or a little bit lower, it's not hard to eat 15, 20, maybe even just 10% less within those two meals because there's still going to be huge meals for the day. Each meal, if you can have 2,500 calories, you could have 1,250 in two meals. And one meal could be at 3 p.m., the other one could be at 6 p.m. And most likely, that's going to fill you up really well, keep you very occupied. And that should work really well for someone to try to lose weight. One thing I will say that I think this podcast might come out after Kyle's, when he mentioned that like 50 to 60 grams of protein a day thing.

Wild. That 300 to 400 grams per week. Yeah, that kind of caught me off guard a little bit there. Because the one thing is I can see how for somebody that has already built a certain amount of muscle, that might be enough to have them maintain it. If they're also doing some resistance training to stimulate that muscle,

they might actually be able to maintain off of that amount of protein. But to build new how he's helping a lot of people make crazy body composition changes through fasting. Yeah, I think protein is kind of the ticket for most people that are hungry. And so that's why I encourage, I don't really just encourage people to eat protein for muscle gain or for muscle mass, although I think that helps.

I do think that there's plenty of research and information out there and anecdotal evidence that one gram per pound of body weight or one gram per pound of lean mass could be overkill for some people. There's probably not a reason to do it. Could you go down to like half of that? You probably could. You probably could get close to maybe half of that or 75% of that and still build a lot of muscle tissue. You think so? I think so. The one thing I would say though is that,

because I mean, you're going to need a surplus of probably carbohydrates and fats and stuff like that to kind of make up for that because they're protein sparing. But one thing I would say is that, just why? You know, like you can eat, we know that you can eat more protein and that protein's not a great energy source.

So just why wouldn't you? You know, especially if you're somebody that likes to eat, why wouldn't you consume more protein? It's not gonna, in my opinion, it's not gonna negatively cost you anything unless that protein is accompanied by large amounts of fats and carbohydrates putting you over your caloric limit. Yeah. I thought it was interesting when he was saying, you know,

it was 300 grams of protein per week. Three to 400. Yeah. On one side, because it's like, wow, like, okay, maybe we don't need as much as I'm thinking in my head. But the other side of it is like, well, if it is for weight loss, then I'm going to, you know, I'm going in my head. But the other side of it is like, well, if it is for weight loss, then I'm gonna lean on what you say, which is like, no, let's load up more on the protein side of things. Cause yeah, it's super filling. And one thing I've been doing lately is,

like I just started this week, I will have, I'll put egg whites in with regular milk and I will put in protein powder in that and have like a really thick protein shake. It's good and so with stuff like that where it's like if I'm gonna recommend somebody to have a protein shake for weight loss or whatever I'm like yeah drink this because you're gonna probably get a lot more full than you would with without like you know that in the egg whites and that sort of thing so yeah but it was interesting because I'm like maybe we

don't need as much as we thought or he is, you know, whatever they say, like an N of one and let's just keep rolling with the higher protein instead. Yeah. Again, my thoughts are we don't need as much as we thought for maintenance. But, and maybe if you're somebody new who the gym is something that's new for you and you start lifting a gram per pound of protein, you might not need that much. But if you've been lifting for a few years, right? I do think that you should probably be getting, you know, whether it's 0.8 grams per pound or 0.8 grams per pound to lead body mass, I think that's probably going to be a good minimum spot to be if you want to gain as much muscle as possible along with eating enough calories. You know what I mean? But protein

is going to help you build new tissue. That's one of the main, like, it's not the best fuel source for fueling your workouts, but it's the best fuel source for helping you build tissue. You know? And I think that's maybe where the difference comes in and where I may disagree with Kyle. There's some people that will say, you know, to double that, you know, there's some people, I think, uh, uh, there's some bodybuilding coaches and some people that will say, Hey, you know, to double that. You know, there's some people, I think, there's some bodybuilding coaches and some people that will say, hey, you know, push that to 1.25, push that to 1.5, all the way up to two. And I think, you know, this is the reason why you experiment with stuff. And this is the reason why you kind of individually mess around with stuff and try different things. But I think it's nice to know that you have the option. You can basically

eat protein, as much protein as your little heart desires. I sent Andrew that picture because that right there, ladies and gentlemen, is a Piedmontese bull. And Piedmontese beef is super lean. In some cases, it's even leaner than chicken breast. I love the Piedmontese fillets. I eat those all the time. And then the bavettes are really good. They have a great

selection of meat you guys should check them out good life this morning yeah yeah it's good stuff yeah i'm gonna try their sirloins because according to their website it has like no fat yeah we'll see what happens yeah yeah it's interesting too they don't really like advertise or promote that the their red meat has basically hardly any fat in it. And you figure it would be something they would want to promote more. So I always feel like it's my job to talk about it a lot because it's a, it's a great resource. I think a lot of people think that, you know, red meat, they don't want to get all the fat calories associated with red meat for some people. And I think it's awesome. And then also too,

if you want fatter cuts, you know, if you want fattier meat, they have other options. And just the other day I had, I made in the crock pot with salsa verde pork butt. And it was so... I haven't had that. It was so, I invited my had that. It was so... I invited my brother over and I was cooking something else while that was just sitting there. And my brother just kept hitting that up. He's like, this shit's good. Oh, nice.

He's like, is there bone broth or something in here? I'm like, no, it's just the fat from the pork butt. That sounds so good. Yeah. So with Pete Monti's something something again, you and I had this cool conversation in the gym yesterday about cholesterol and saturated fat and that sort of thing. So when we think like, okay, we want to get our cholesterol down and then we stop taking in, or we want to lower our dietary cholesterol intake, we think we can't have red meat anymore,

right? Because we instantly go to ribeyes and all the saturated fat and all that good stuff. But with Piedmontese being so lean, you get to enjoy the red meat and you can kind of like get around some of the saturated fat, like warnings and stuff that people want to talk to you about. So I'm super grateful that we have that. You can also go grass-fed, grass-finished, which changes the like omega-3 profile a little bit. But yeah, I mean, they have amazing selections of meat. You know, something to keep in mind when you're fasting, like if you're fasting and you're trying to mainly lose body fat, I think the rules are a little different. And I like to utilize some of Walter Longo's protocol. He does like a fasting mimicking diet,

to call, he does like a fasting mimicking diet is what he calls it. And fasting mimicking, you know, you can also kind of utilize some principles of a ketogenic diet for that. But some things that I allow for myself to consume during a fast, I try to be strict with it. I try not to have anything, but occasionally if I'm hungry or somebody else is eating, it's convenient to be able to eat something or do something. And then also just kind of keeping yourself like occupied. So if you're going to fast, then pick a day where you're really busy because that's really helpful to kind of keep yourself occupied. But I have bulletproof coffee sometimes. I have bulletproof coffee sometimes. I'll eat pickles.

I'll eat olives, essential amino acids, and then kratom, kava, hydration, tea, tea or coffee. So I just try to utilize. Sometimes I might even utilize caffeine, which I've really pushed way back on caffeine recently. But that little stim I found just kind of, I don't know, just puts you in a different frame of mind. And your mood is so hugely connected to your hunger. is so hugely connected to your hunger. You know, if you're kind of bummed and kind of blue, like the real easy way to get that dopamine hit is to eat something shitty. You know, I feel like I'm gonna go get a donut or something

or get some pizza, right? It works. I think that's why the food is so addicting. It works. It makes you feel amazing and it tastes amazing. But sometimes later on, it makes you feel worse because you didn't follow the plan that you were trying to do. But I found it helpful to kind of, you know, have some of that. Some people ask questions about like protein shakes and stuff. And I would, I would say like,

it's not a great idea to have like too many things or too many options, but a scoop of protein powder. And again, you're utilizing the fast to keep muscle mass and try to lose body fat. I don't really see any problem with that. I know some people will go, oh, you're not fasting anymore. I was like, okay, well, that's fine. But I'm still utilizing a strategy where I'm keeping the calories super low. Walter Longo, I think wants people to keep the calories. I think it's like 500 or less is kind of what he suggests and recommends and that's like he does like a five-day fasting protocol which i've done before and then um you can't he has a specific way that you kind of spin out of that so it's

actually like a full it's a full week uh but it's five main days of fasting. Yeah. I utilized the Kava shot from MindBullet. Again, when I was saying how 30 hours in, I started feeling kind of weird and things were getting difficult. So, I did that with some sparkling water. It was phenomenal. That stuff helped me out so much. Yeah. And then also, I just enjoy it. It tastes really good.

It's kind of like I'm having a mixed drink. I don't drink anymore, but having something to sip on was really, really cool. That stuff was super helpful. Yeah, I've been going over to the Kava Bar here in Davis. Pretty nice. Pretty cool. Cool vibes over there. They have a kratom drink, too, on tap.

They have a kratom tea. They just pull the thing down. Pretty cool. Interesting. It's not crazy strong. You put your head under it and just pull the thing. It's not crazy strong. Stick your head under it and just pull the thing? It's not crazy strong.

It's super mellow, but they have different ones too. They have like a red one. They have, the different colors, I think, represent like different strains

and different effects it can have on you. But I had a red one the other day with some kava and that was really good. Have you guys, have you adjusted at all

how much Kratom you use these days? Because I know you go like, it's up and down from time to time. Yeah, I try to always be mindful of everything that I'm using, whether it's testosterone or whether it's kratom. Everything always gets evaluated. And I think- We know you blast testosterone.

Shut the fuck up. I've been blasting a lot of testosterone. Shut the fuck up. I've been blasting a lot of testosterone. Shut the fuck up, dude. No, bro. I'm hardly on anything. You know, there's appropriate times to like talk about exactly what you're doing. And there's times where it just doesn't do you any good. And right now is a time where it wouldn't do me any good to be like,

I'm only taking it. It's like, it's not even any fucking. Yeah, I'm totally titrating back. It's like, well, what are you taking? Don't worry about it. What are you doing right now? Exactly. There's just no reason.

All that stuff is just super, super funny to me. Super interesting. You know, like you find out that someone's like, oh, that guy's taking a gram as opposed to like him taking like 400 milliliters. I don't know. All of it's just funny. It's super funny. But yeah, I do pay attention to everything I utilize. I personally view Kratom as a drug.

I do view it as something that can be addictive. So I do my best to be, even though I sell it and I enjoy it, I like the product a lot. I think it can be safe for people. Otherwise, I though I sell it and I enjoy it, I like the product a lot. I think it can be safe for people. Otherwise I wouldn't sell it. But it is something I think people need to be cautious with. It's more than coffee. You know what I mean? Like it's easier for someone to be like, oh, well, coffee is addictive too, or food can be addictive too. I don't view it that way. Kratom can be dangerous. And so you do need to be careful with it. I'm excited. We have a guy from a company called Etha.

He's going to be on the show this week talking about kratom. So hopefully we can get more detailed information to people. What I've learned over the years is that there's a big difference between the extracts of kratom and the whole leaf kratom. When you consume the whole leaf kratom, you're getting the mitragyne specioso. You're getting the full plant botanical with all of its properties in place. What is that called again?

Mitragyne specioso. Okay. I think that's how you say it. Abracadabra. That's a Harry Potter spell, dog. Yeah, somebody will- Wingardium specioso. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Somebody just turned into a fucking bullfrog. say it yeah abracadabra somebody will potter spell dog yeah somebody will guardians special yeah yeah exactly somebody just turned into a fucking bullfighter

um but anyway uh the whole leaf kratom is uh is a little safer in my opinion because the extracts are adulterated they're they're made to be stronger. And you're extracting Kratom, the straight name, the drug. You're extracting that. It's almost like if you just take straight caffeine from coffee, and then you put it into an energy drink. I think most people would say, what's healthier? I think a lot of people would say, those energy drinks. I don't know man like they're they're a little suspicious because it doesn't have all the other properties of maybe like the coffee bean which i learned the other day by the way the

coffee bean is not an actual bean uh it's a cherry it's a uh it's like a fruit it's like a pit yeah what was that noise i don't know so then when it's roasted, it's... I think we just call it beans. It does look like a bean. Yeah, it does look like a bean. Yeah. I've completely stopped taking all kratom, period. Good.

I just, I don't know. A lot of this stuff had to do when I stopped taking artificial sweeteners and like all these additional things that I'm like, am I doing too much of it? Am I, you know, whatever. And then what it ultimately comes down to is what I want my son taking it. And I mean, I don't think Kratom is harmful. It can be obviously, but for me, it never was an issue. And I don't think it would be an issue for my son if he ever, you know, discovered it or whatever. But I just, I was just like, yeah, no, I'm good.

I just don't want to have to lean on it anymore. And I found myself not making an excuse for it, but I would say like, oh, I want to get a lot of work done. Let me take some kratom right now. And then I would forget to take the kratom and I'd get a lot of work done. I'm like, oh, I didn't even need it. It was just the ritual.

So I'm like, all right, you know what? That's enough. I'm just going to cut it out. And like, yeah, it didn't even need it. It was just the ritual. So I'm like, all right, you know what? That's enough. I'm just going to cut it out. And like, yeah, you know, it's just another thing to take. And so I'm like, all right, I'm good. Kava though. Kava's great. And I know I didn't substitute it.

It's just, I just enjoy kava like on a Saturday night. Yeah. I like kava a lot too. You guys might like these gummies. They taste pretty good. Yeah, those are dope. I did see those when I walked in here and I'm like, ooh. And I'm like, ah, you know, I'm good.

Just because it was a gummy. Yeah. Yeah, I think obviously like if you can make it through this world without any drugs, that might not be a bad idea. But I think it's a really bad idea to try to make it through this world without drugs. Because they're awesome. Yeah, I'm still drinking a lot of coffee. I mean, well, a lot. like um i'll do coffee every day yeah i enjoy it i feel great yeah bless you thank you have you been uh messing around with any fasting i know you said that you like occasionally will do like a longer fast but i mean a lot of times you do a meal a day

type thing do you still do that yeah i still do's like, again, on certain days when I feel like I just don't need to eat, I just won't eat. There are certain days I wake up where maybe the day before I didn't, I ate a lot of food and I didn't have as much expenditure as my body felt like it needed. I'll wake up the next day, just not feeling hungry. I just won't eat. That's that, that like, I don't think, uh, okay, I'm going to fast on Wednesday. I'm going to fast on Thursday. I just like end up fasting based on how my body, my body feels and what it needs, you know? So that's how I look at it. And that's, that's why I think it's like, I don't think it's that big of a deal in terms of it's not dangerous because, um, wherever you are, like when you're trying to lose a lot of weight,

you'll end up finding that you're in a deficit a lot of the time. And something like fasting may actually feel like it's harder because you're already eating in a caloric deficit, right? But when you get to a point where maybe you're maintaining or even at a point where you feel like you're trying to build, you'll just find that on certain days, you just had more energy than you needed and you don't need more energy that's all it is how has it changed from when you were like bodybuilding you know because you're kind of saying

like you're thinking in your head nowadays maybe you know maybe on certain days I just don't need it that's probably a big shift from bodybuilding yeah well when I was bodybuilding the only thing I was thinking about was eating more food because it was all about growth. So it's like, if I'm not eating, I'm not growing. You know what I mean? And that's different now because the thing I think about now

is like not necessarily growing, but more so my metric is my performance in the gym, my performance grappling. So if I feel like my performance is good and I feel like I have enough energy, then I'm okay. But if I don't feel like I have enough energy, then food's going to be necessary. Like, you know what I mean? So I look at it as just like how I feel for the stuff I'm trying to actually do. How long do you think it took you to like, you know, I guess like eat a lot and train hard to put on a good amount of size from like maybe the age of like 15 to like 20 or so. Cause you probably put on like maybe what, 15, 20 pounds, maybe, maybe, I don't know, maybe more. It's, it's a complicated one, man, because, uh,

when I was 16, that's when I started playing soccer again, but I was 220 at 16 because I wasn't playing soccer for the past three years. That's when I put on quite a bit of muscle. Cause I was only lifting from 16 to like 20. I ended up going from 220 down to like 195 because I was playing soccer again. You weighed 195 pounds. Yeah. On the soccer field. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. My peak on the soccer field was like, maybe I ended up being around 200 to 205 in college. But I ended up dropping weight because when you go from only lifting, now you're lifting and you're running around on a field

for five to six days a week, you're going to drop some pounds. And then I gained a lot of weight after that because I got injured from soccer. Now the only thing I could do was lift and eat. So I gained a lot of weight. So it's like, yeah, I don't know. That's a hard question to answer. But through that time, I mean,

I was still gaining muscle when I was playing soccer. It was just at a slower rate. And I dropped mainly body fat when I dropped weight. Because I think a lot of people are probably, people that are listening, they're probably kind of wondering how long it was going to take me to put on an appreciable amount of muscle.

I know for myself, from the time I started lifting until I started to look like I lifted, that process took a really long time. That probably took almost like eight or ten years. I remember I would lift certain weights in the gym because I built up a pretty good amount of strength. And then people were like, oh, man, you're going to be okay. You need a spot. And I was like, no, I'm okay. Like I could, you know, I've been, cause at that point I already been lifting for a long time, but I could see, you know, why people would have concern. They see this like young kid, you know, bench pressing with like 275 or doing squats with three plates or something. And they're like, this guy's going to die probably. Cause I didn't have, I didn't look, you know, even though I was big, I just,

I didn't probably really look like I could move those weights around that well. Yeah. I think also maybe, you know, I think sometimes we underestimate the effect that things like sprinting, things like unilateral work, like lunges, split squats. I think we underestimate the amount of like muscle that could put on because of the ranges of motion it puts us in. Because like when I got my DEXA scan done again, the area that I actually ended up gaining a bit of muscle and it's multifactorial, it could be that, okay, since I haven't been working as much volume in my lower body, maybe working a bit more volume allowed its gain, but I gained like two pounds of muscle in my lower body, right? And my bone

density went up a bit too. And the main changes that have happened were really progressing certain types of movements and then adding sprinting back in or developing that skill again to now where I can sprint pretty fast again. Right. Um, so I think like, I know we're going to have someone that's going to come on the podcast and talk to us a lot about sprinting. So I'm kind of excited about that. But I think, you know, for, for a lot of people who may have been athletes in the past, or they may have done those types of things in the past, it might really be a good idea for you to try to develop that skill again, along with the lifting stuff you're doing. And if you're not a competitive power lifter, then you don't need to be married to only doing that, you know? I think sprinting, jumping, you know, even if you're like, man, I don't know. I don't know if I want to really get into sprinting. I think I'm going to hurt myself. At least get some jumping in I think could be really useful. Do surges. Yeah, exactly.

That's what I've been doing is I'll just do these surges where it's not a full-on sprint. I will start with a walk, and then I'll jog, and then I'll just pick up speed. Start with a walk and then I'll jog and then I'll just like pick up speed. I'm also like in my head, I have to constantly tell myself, don't try to run fast. Do not try to run fast. Just move well. And I found every single time that I just feel like I'm moving better. I'll look at the time and it's better every single time. So you want to try to be moving like more effortlessly. And when I'm just out on a jog and then sometimes I occasionally

like start to run, I'm like, ah, this is the right feeling right here. But at the moment, I can only feel that for like short periods of time because I'm not skilled enough to like hold that all the way through on something. And so I'm still like learning it. And I think that doing the movements over and over again, it's going to kind of over time, progressively, you know, progressively my feet will kick back a little further. They'll kick up a little higher. Progressively, my knees will come up a little higher. Progressively, I'll be able to put more force into the ground. But there's all these like little things that you just don't think about. Like sometimes my feet just kind of hurt from taking off and sprinting. I have like little, almost like little bruises underneath like,

kind of like right where that knuckle of your toe is, which fucking hurts. So then it prevents you from like, you know, maybe just going as hard as you want to. But all those things are just, you know, it's the price of admission. You know, it's like this is what the cost is of this. And it's not necessarily like bruising. It's just my feet aren't strong enough

to really handle some of this stuff yet. So it's just going to take a long time. How do you guys handle or I always say schedule eating carbs? And I ask that because sometimes you guys might do like OMAD or you might have two meals a day. Let's say you have a training day on Wednesday. Would you use the carbs to fuel that day, like preemptively, or would you eat them like after that hard,

like training session on that day? I'd get them in before. Before? Yeah, the day before or whatever. Yeah, because like if you only, it depends on the type of training session. You know, if it's a, if you're trying to bodybuild,

if you're trying to lift a good amount of volume, definitely want to get them in before. Jiu-jitsu, it's neither here nor there. I think that you can probably have a decent jiu-jitsu session if you've had enough fat calories in. And you're used to that. You have to be used to that because my jiu-jitsu sessions, it doesn't really make a difference if I have a lot of carbs in my system.

I'll still feel pretty good. But it's the lifting sessions that I can definitely tell the difference in my output. Yeah, for me, I do most stuff fasted, I would say, or at least partially fasted. So a lot of times I will run after the podcast. And I may or may not have had breakfast that day. And if I did have some breakfast, maybe there was some fruit in there to give me a little bit of carbohydrate.

I don't really sweat it too much before or after a training session, but if I was trying to get bigger or stronger, I would. If I was trying to get bigger and or stronger, I would do both. I would put it before and after the training session just to kind of, I always felt like it's important to kind of like put an exclamation point on whatever it is you're doing. And so rather than worry about it too much, I would probably just make sure I did it before

and after. It does seem like there's more information and more research kind of pointing and alluding to the fact that like, if you just take care of your nutrients, like you're good. Like the nutrient timing, which everyone's pretty obsessed about, maybe it does matter, but it's probably a pretty small amount. Mike Gizritel has this magical where you turn into a superhero if you eat 400 grams of carbohydrates a day. And basically, he's like, look, man, if you have 400 grams of carbohydrates a day, you're, you're pretty, you're pretty set, you know, to train at any time. It doesn't really matter, you know, when the carbohydrates happened. Right. And so I, I agree with some of that. I think that, um, we have a tendency to think that, you know, what you're going to do, like, you know, right now is going to have a direct impact on your next workout.

But I think your carbohydrate intake isn't necessarily like a pre-workout. Your carbohydrate intake isn't necessarily like a cup of coffee. You could have it the night before. If you had a cup of coffee the night before, it'd be a big mistake, right? But if you have some rice the night before, some potatoes the night before, it's my belief that that glycogen is going to be floating around and you should have access to it without any problems. Agreed. Yeah. I'm just trying to, you know, get the most bang for my buck out of every, you know, training session. I think everybody can agree with that. And so I was

just, yeah, kind of thinking, cause you know, with sleep, you know, we can't like catch up, right? Like if we get a bad night of sleep Tuesday, have a decent training session Wednesday, we can't get a lot of sleep Wednesday night to make up for Tuesday's sleep. So it's like you want to preload that. And so that's what just got me thinking about the food. And with obviously my thing being jujitsu, do I eat a lot more the night before? Do I just, you know, I just keep it the way it's been because it's been okay. But again, just trying to like,

where else can I optimize when my diet is already on point? I, you know, pretty much no, no bullshit anymore. Like I don't even go to In-N-Out anymore. Um, it's just all home cooked stuff. And so I'm just like, yeah, where else can I, what else can I pick off? That's like easy to do. And so then I started thinking about meal timing and, you know, again, preloading the, I say preloading, cause it's not really pre-workout cause it's like a whole day before preloading tomorrow's workout with today's meal. I would say for myself, I've found that, uh, eating before something has more of a negative outcome than a positive. Um, cause a lot of times, again, like I just, I don't like to eat a little, I like to eat a pretty good amount. So it's like, I don't know once that door is open. Now, if I have like a small snack, you know, like that might,

like if I have like a Kai's bar or something like that, um, which is like some fats and some carbs and a little bit of protein beforehand, it's 250 calories or something like that. Like that's not going to do any damage really, but. And probably while you're already on your way to the thing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's like almost like immediately before. And it's more of like, it's almost more of a pleasure thing than it is like that I actually need it, you know? And I, I just, I really tried to divorce myself from the term need. Like I don't, it's nice to just be like, I don't fucking need that. Maybe I want that and maybe it will help me from a mental perspective.

There is some things though, when it comes to hydration, which could be really pivotal and important. So, you know, if you're, if you live here in Sacramento and it's pretty warm and you, your, your water is kind of fluctuating throughout the day and you, maybe you had some breakfast, but you didn't eat throughout the day. Then you go to do something later on in the day. If you didn't have enough salt and stuff like that, you didn't have enough carbohydrates, it might be a little hard to hold onto some of that water. And we know how detrimental that can be. You know, just small dips in your hydration

can really have negative outcomes on your performance. So that would be something to really pay attention to. And it might be the reason why people are so obsessed with having their carbohydrates right before a particular workout. It could just have to do with like fluid, probably more so than anything else. For years on this podcast,

we've been talking about the benefit of barefoot shoes. And these are the shoes I used to use back in like 2017, 2018, my old Metcons. They are flat, but they're not very wide and they're very stiff and they don't move. That's why we've been partnering with and we've been using Vivo barefoot shoes. These are the Modus Strength shoe

because not only are they wide, I have wide ass feet and so do we here on the podcast, especially as our feet have gotten stronger, but they're flexible. So when you're doing certain movements, like let's say you're doing jumping or you're doing split squats or you're doing movements where your toes

need to flex and move, your feet are able to do that and perform in this shoe, allowing them to get stronger over time. And obviously they're flexible. So your foot's allowed to be a foot. And when you're doing all types of exercise, your feet will get stronger, improving your ability to move.

Andrew, how can they get their hands on these? Yes. Head to vivo barefoot.com slash power project and enter the code that you see on screen to save 20% off your entire order. Again, that's at vivo barefoot.com slash powerproject. Links in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. Fields.

You guys should go out. And if you, if we've talked about this before, but if you're interested in sprinting, just go out to a field. And if you, again, if you played a sport or if you want to have some fun, just take a ball out with you. That's something that I've been doing a lot of too.

And I think that's actually been improving my sprinting more than going out and sprinting on concrete like I have been. I've just been taking out my cleats, gone out to a soccer field, kick the ball around and just sprinted around the field. Because it's softer. I don't know. There's something about it where just sprinting just feels better out there. Could be an aspect that I was used to it since being a kid. But it's a lot easier on most people, I think, than sprinting on concrete. And it will slow you down too. The field, the grass will slow you down a little bit. I was watching my daughter play volleyball a couple of days ago. And I was just thinking like how weird sports could be. Like if you were to take the ball out of this equation and you were

just observing these kids jumping around and doing these things that you're doing, how weird it would be. If you were Drake? People in the audience got that one, but keep going. And just like how weird it would be, but also how weird, like the kids wouldn't want to do it,

you know, because like there's a ball to go for and it's part of the sport. And so jumping up and then, you know, just swiping your hand through the air as hard as you could, you can almost make an argument that it probably kind of like hurt. You know, if there's a ball to like dive for, to run for, if you're kicking a ball in like a soccer field and you're trying to keep up with the ball, or someone kicks it to you and you're trying to block it.

Same thing with a football. Someone throws a football and it's low. It's like maybe normally you don't care to like stretch that way, but now you're going for the ball. It's something more exciting for you to do. And so you kind of move your body in that way. So a sport is a really great way. And we promote that all the time here on the Power Project, really great way. And we promote that all the time here on the Power Project, continually hoping that people will try, you know, some other sports and maybe try something that they hopefully fall in love with. You know, hopefully someone tries tennis because they're listening to this show because we talk often about trying different things. And hopefully that's something that kind of gets them moving. And then in, you And then as they're doing tennis, golf, baseball, whatever the hell it is that they're doing, hopefully they're like, well, it'd be kind of cool if I was a little bit better at this. It'd be kind of nice if I could hit the ball a little bit harder.

It'd be kind of nice if I could be a little bit quicker. And then maybe that gets you. You don't have to necessarily end up in a gym, but hopefully it helps you to kind of like head in a direction of getting some sort of fitness done yeah it's a nice nice distraction for sure

because without that you know imagine jujitsu if we weren't playing jujitsu yeah I know just a bunch of dudes

laying on each other sweating and a lot of things would just look like dancing huh you know people already think the sport's gay enough, man. At least it's not, oh, I don't like no gi.

I was going to say, I think this was brought up on a recent show too that we did where fasting is like a good reset. So if you've been off your diet, it's a good way to kind of reset. But also, it's a good way to kind of reset. But also, it's a good way to kind of reset your palate. I think it kind of centralizes you around the foods that you actually need. I've said this many times before, but if you're not hungry for protein, then you probably are experiencing some fake hunger. You're just kind of bored. So if you try a little bit of fasting,

the odds that you're going to be hungry for the foods that you really need are going to be really high. And you can kind of just hold yourself captive to that in a way of saying like, okay, I'm going to break the fast, but I'm going to break the fast with this steak. And then once you kind of did that, whether you decide to go like off plan or not, it matters a little bit less. Yeah. When I broke my fast, I had half an avocado. It was phenomenal. It just didn't even make sense how good that avocado tasted. And so I've said this in the past, fasting helped me actually eat more better foods, right? I would snack on whatever throughout the day. And when it came to dinner time, wasn't really interested in whole

foods. Once I started fasting and I got rid of dinner time, I wasn't really interested in whole foods. Once I started fasting and I got rid of all the snacks, now all of a sudden whole foods were amazing because I actually had real hunger like you just said. So I don't know. I know when we talk about fasting, it's kind of geared towards weight loss and that sort of thing. But for me, it really did help just reset everything, and it helped me just add the correct weight because before it was just kind of like, blah, and now I'm eating real food. You know what I think we should find?

We need to find some medical practitioners from some other cultures to bring onto the show because those Chinese medicine doctors, there's a lot of stuff that they do over there, including fasting, acupuncture, et cetera, that again, Western medicine's gonna scoff at or turn their nose up. Researchers here will scoff at.

They're communists though, aren't they? Yeah, I guess they might be. I don't know. But at the end of the day, it's like there's certain things that they've been doing for thousands of years that like actually have moved the needle for people that definitely has not been

researched over here. Same thing in India, same thing in Africa. Like there's, there's just a lot of, there's a lot of practices that people have been doing for a long time and fasting is one of them. And again, you come to the West and you got people saying that it's, oh, it's useless. And the only reason it works is because of it's a caloric deficit. And then partially it's because it's a caloric deficit, but there's a lot of other things that end up going on too. And I just think that if we, I don't know, just kind of staying in the bubble of Western nutrition science and medicine,

I think maybe keeps us from a lot of things that could be really beneficial for us. So we got to find some people. If you guys got any suggestions of anybody, let us know. I think that that'd probably be good. That'd be good because we don't know everything over here in the United States. Yeah, I think fasting is incredible. And I think it's good to know that you can just do it.

You know, you can fast for 24 hours. You can fast for 48. And you can actually be exercising, you know, on top of that. It's important to make sure that you have your hydration, you know, on top of that. It's important to make sure that you have your hydration, you know, make sure you're drinking plenty of liquid, make sure, you know, try to add some salt to your water or utilize your favorite hydration product. Those are all really good ideas. But I think just hearing other people talk about it and saying like, oh yeah, I fasted or I did, I only had

a meal after jujitsu. I went the whole day and I'm doing high level jujitsu. Like this, this can be done. I'm not a mutant. I just adapted to it over time. Right. Yeah. And, uh, same thing with myself, like with running or lifting. Um, I don't find that it's, it's really never, I haven't noticed it being like exponentially harder. I guess there's been a few times where I'm running and my legs will feel a little bit more tired maybe. But I don't know if that's just from like the accumulation of all the running or if that is, or if that has to do with maybe, you know, not having the proper like nutrients for that particular day. But in terms of like my head,

like in terms of headaches or in terms of cramps or anything like that, I haven't run into any of those things. I think I, again, I think I do a good job of staying hydrated enough to where that's not a problem for me.