Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 363 - RACE TO ZERO ft. Thomas DeLauer

Episode Date: April 8, 2020

Thomas DeLauer is an online health coach, cover model, and fitness entrepreneur, who has made a name for himself by successfully helping some of the busiest business professionals make powerful changes and effective improvements to their health for improved performance. Thomas was once a 280lb, overweight, and unhealthy businessman himself, and took his health into his own hands and lost 95lbs in order to be a higher performer in his business, his relationships, and every other aspect of his life. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Support us by visiting our sponsors! ➢Perfect Keto: http://perfectketo.com/power25 Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 25% off and free shipping on orders of $99! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Icon Meals: http://iconmeals.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

Power Project crew, welcome to today's show. This episode was recorded on April 1st and it is with the one and only Thomas DeLauer. Thomas DeLauer has a huge YouTube following. He shares a bunch of information in regards to fasting, even red light therapy, diet, nutrition, just a whole slew of things. Super smart guy, really, really fun,

charismatic guy to be around. And today we got into a bunch of different things, specifically how the lockdown has affected his content and the viewership of his YouTube channel. And because of some of this, he's actually started changing some of his content, kind of more generalizing things instead of being super specific about certain things, almost dumbing it down a little bit just to try to reach a broader audience. But what really brought this whole thing together was we got a different side of Thomas than any of us had ever seen. Mark had put out one of his multiple posts about the hashtag race to zero followers. And Thomas just plain and simply was like, yeah, sign me up too. So we got into that and we really just, we gave Thomas a, he called it a therapy session. We basically just let him vent

for a little while talking about where his frustrations come in from. You know, he explains he has 2 million subscribers on YouTube and no matter how hard he tries, he absolutely just cannot please everybody. And there's always going to be somebody that has something smart to say. And what brought this up was a post that he made on the Mediterranean ketogenic diet. Uh, somebody went off and he was just like, that was it last. That was the last straw. Uh, you know, I'm going to join Mark on the race to zero. Obviously neither one of them are serious. Uh, well actually, you know, maybe Mark really is serious, but that was the, uh, the gist. That was the main reason why we made this podcast happen. So on top of that, we did

talk about the Mediterranean Keto Diet. We asked him basically, does meat quality matter? Can a hamburger patty from In-N-Out be the same as a grass-fed, grass-finished hamburger patty, along with processed meats and all that stuff? Really, we were just excited to be able to have an opportunity to talk to Thomas DeLauer. And Seema mentioned several times that he was just fangirling the whole time. So it was really cool to see that and really just to have Thomas on the show. Super quick, as quick as possible. Please make sure you guys are taking advantage of markbell.com.

Markbell.com is an easy way for you guys to gain access to all of Mark Bell's workouts every single day, a brand new workout. And right now he's giving out a free 30 day trial. So just head over to Markbell.com, sign up and you have access to the entire website for 30 days for absolutely free. And also on that website, there is a huge emphasis on body weight movements, slingshot movements and hip circle movements. So you already have the body weight.

All you need now is the hip circle and the slingshot head over to markbell slingshot.com right now. And you can receive 20% off any slingshot and hip circle combo, uh, at any slingshot of your, of your choice at any hip circle of your choice. And you'll receive 20% off. And while you're there, please make sure you guys check out the new colorways of the, uh, gangster wraps. Uh, man, they're, they're so dope. There's the red one one the white one and then like a gray and red one it do straight fire and also we have kids hip circles too um for a lot of parents i know we have to have pe at home now and we have to stay indoors as best as much as

possible uh it's really cool to be able to have a hip circle for the kiddos so please check those out and uh ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy the show. Dude, Mark, what's for dinner, man? I'm glad you asked because I'm going to go home and reverse sear a 36-ounce tomahawk ribeye from Certified Piedmontese. I'm going to take that bad boy. I'm going to throw it in the oven for a few minutes on a cast iron pan. And then after that, I'm going to take it out,

and I'm going to sear it in the pan on the stove. But I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to throw some butter on that. I'm going to make some amazing food porn. Oh, wait. Wow. I used to think that it was only fat, like really, really high fat, because I love ribeyes.

That really contributed to a steak tasting good. But, you know, Piedmontese, the ribeyes rib eyes i think have like six to eight grams of fat compared to 20 other places and they're so tender and juicy and succulent on top of all that they'll deliver it right to your door i don't know how it's best of all worlds you guys got to check this out it's piedmontese.com that's p-i-e-d-m-O-N-T-E-S-E.com at checkout. Enter promo code POWERPROJECT for 25% off your order. And if your order is $99 or more, you get free two-day shipping. Yeah. So today we're going to have Thomas DeLauer on. I'm really excited to have him on. And I'm kind of curious what he's talking

about. We got into a small text back and forth this morning, and he was saying how he's kind of frustrated with social media. He said he's done. And he was saying how he's kind of frustrated with social media. He said, he's done. And he said, count me in on the race to zero followers. But I did see that he put up a post about the Mediterranean, a Mediterranean version of the keto diet, which Mediterranean diets kind of keto-esque kind of as it is. And maybe he got a lot of like a blowback from that. Maybe he's pissed about that. And funny enough is last night I had two hot dogs and two flying Dutchman. So my,

my thing was the exact opposite of like the direction that he's heading in. But I think if anyone's to kind of just use their head, I think that anything that's natural from, you know, things that come from the earth, things that are pretty obvious that they're meant for us to eat. I don't think they can really cause you much harm. And I think that you could try to overeat them, but I think over a period of time,

you eventually probably would choose not to, especially if you weren't adding a lot of weird sauces and crap to the food. If you kept the ingredients mild, I think if you're eating rice and potatoes and steak and chicken and fish, along with vegetables and fruit, I think you would live a very powerful and very healthy life. Yeah, the Mediterranean keto thing that he did, I think he made a video about it. It was like two or three months back. It was really interesting because like, I've never heard somebody talk about keto like that, or I mean, yeah, there's keto, but yeah, he like, he, he formulated it in a very specific way and he's done that a lot with a lot of other things too. So I'm just, it's going to be interesting what he, what problem he has right now.

You guys have the ability to look up what the Mediterranean diet is. I'm just on my phone, so I don't have access to anything else. But maybe you can, maybe you can get a definition. I, my understanding is that you are eating like some olives and olive oil and almonds and things of that nature. You're trying to get in the kind of quote unquote, um, they used to be called like healthy fats, but I guess, uh, we would just maybe call them, um, unsaturated fat. Um, and I think that's kind of part of the goal is to get more, uh, fish and, and more, uh, those types of fats in your diet. Not really

necessarily saying that saturated fat is bad because we know that saturated fats, not necessarily bad, but I think that there's the bad rap on saturated fat has been, you know, people think it comes from like a quarter pounder with cheese from McDonald's or something like that. But over a period of time, people have kind of recognized that hey it's not just

a cheeseburger itself it's not the burger it's not the meat it's not the cheese it's the combination of eating all that because that's a surplus of calories with the bread with the bun and with the french fries and with the chocolate shake that you wash it all down with yeah so google says the foundation of the mediterranean diet, fruits, herbs, nuts, and whole grains. Meals are built around these plant-based foods. Moderate amounts of dairy, poultry, and eggs are also central to the Mediterranean diet, as is seafood. In contrast, red meat is eaten only occasionally. Yeah, and there's a lot of people that have lived over 100 years old,

these centurion people that people talk about here and there. A lot of them, they do eat some meat, but they have red meat once or twice a week. So it'd be interesting to kind of hear his take on some of that. And I always think the answer lies somewhere in the middle so to me what he's saying sounds very rational in my opinion let me ask you this mark why is it that because i know you do eat fish obviously looking i've seen you kill sushi beef like in the past past you ate like sushi right but um i don't see you eat fish as much and obviously you can eat fish on a

carnivore diet so do you just like not like it that much or is it you just don't care oh there we go i do like fish and i i eat it uh whenever i whenever i have an opportunity to but i don't normally cook fish at home is the main thing i got you look at this handsome guy and the beard connects there oh yeah it does huh look at that can we hear him yet can you got me you got me yeah we got you buddy what's up man are you uh are you are you coastal or are you in sac right now i'm uh in uh bodega bay so yeah yep you know that's my that's my old stomping grounds. You know that, right? Yeah. You were telling me that that's, that's pretty cool. So we got Andrew Zaragoza on the podcast as well. He's our podcast engineer. And then we have Nsema Iyang is our

podcast host as well. Awesome to have you on the show, man. I'm Really excited to get an opportunity to chat with you. How has anything changed with your business? Anything changed? I mean, you do a lot of YouTube. You do millions of YouTube videos. So that's probably the same, right? No, it's weird. People's minds are in a different place right now, though. And rather than trying to be something I'm not, I just, I've stayed the course and I know that it's going to be a rough ride because people aren't, I shouldn't say rough. I mean, it's still fine, but people aren't interested in like how lean they can get, or they're not interested in intermittent fasting right now. It's just not, not their thing. I mean, they are to a degree, but I think it's going in one ear and out the other, because there's an underlying sort of sense of fear and panic for people right now. So it's,

and rather than pivot and try to just do a bunch of COVID content, I just, I just, that's not me. I just, I want to talk about what I want to talk about. And so, yeah, I've seen a dip, probably about a 30 to 40% dip in viewership, but it's all based, it's all running parallel with the Google trends on keto and fasting right now anyway. And then, uh, have you kind of paused some of the stuff that, cause you probably have a lot of content that you already shot. So you're just kind of holding onto that and some other time. So much like, much like, uh, much like you, I mean, we're content machines. So usually a video that like I'm filming today much like you, I mean, we're content machines. So usually a video that like I'm filming today isn't airing for three months. So like right now, we had a lot of content that was filmed back in, you know, January earlier. However, most of the content we had filmed was much more geared

towards summer weight loss, things like that, getting people in that mode, which we're pushing that all back a little bit and inserting some some different more entertaining content i just i just don't know if people are in the headspace to have dense science right now i think people just want light-hearted stuff yeah in regards to go ahead in regards to the more light-hearted stuff um have you thought about maybe doing any kind of like just general health stuff like really dumbing everything down um and this stems from a post that i have put out on on the power project instagram where um basically saying like you know a lot of good stuff has come from all of this like people are all of a sudden

now really interested in being healthy whereas before they kind of were just like whatever not washing their hands and then now all of a sudden it's like, Oh, somebody coughs. I don't want to be around you anymore. Um, so has some of the content maybe switched towards like, uh, just kind of dumbing everything down even further. Yeah, for sure. Definitely, definitely dumbing it down. You know, it's a little off brand for me to dumb it down generally. Cause I like to go dense. So I've, I've tried that, which is like, ah, okay. It's really hard for me to not, you know, I come from, I was a, I was a, such a nerd grown up and so bullied all the time. It's like, I always feel like I have to justify with science, right? It's like for at first, first phase of my life, I justified with muscles. And then I realized that didn't do shit part. Oops, sorry. And then I,

so then I was like, okay, well, let me at least try to be smart. Um, so when I try to dumb things down, people actually really do appreciate it, but it. But it's getting over my own mental blocks with that. And yes, it has worked, you know, very basic, okay, foods that, you know, help out your immune system, very simple things that I would say normally, people don't want to see that it's too basic. But I think, you know, much like much like you guys, I mean, household names within the industry, people are going to trust even basic information from us. So, so yes, I have done that. And it's actually performed quite well. And then I'm trying to bridge a gap between the kind of things I normally talk about and perhaps the immune system. Okay. Obviously I talk about fasting. I talk about keto a lot. Let's bridge the gap and see how those actually play in with the immune system. And, you know, at least, at least keep that relevant too. I was actually curious about that. Since you were mentioning a little bit of fasting and the immune system, I'm guessing you're making some content for that. What would, if we're going to simplify a tier list of things that people can do from like one to three or one through five, what would

you have an individual start with to, I guess, boost their immune system nowadays? I know you've probably made a video about it, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I always start with, okay, so you're born with your immune system. You can't necessarily boost it, right? All you can do is give yourself what the problem is that we live in a, in a world where we're not giving our immune system what it needs to properly function. So it's not like you can take something that's going to boost your immune system. Like your innate immune system, you have, it's just generally you can take something that's going to boost your immune system. Like your innate immune system, you have. It's just generally not living to its full potential because it's getting compromised, right? So compromised by so much chronic inflammation that's going on.

It's because your immune system's working on other things. It's like your immune system's too busy fighting off the garbage that you ate to actually be able to pay attention to the virus that's coming in. And that's really what it comes down to. That's where keto, carnivore, fasting, all those things obviously come into play because that modulates that inflammation. I'm touching on this just for a second, because I'm going to make a point with it. I have been recommending that people that aren't adapted to fasting and stuff don't fast right now because it is still a hormetic stressor. It's still going to compromise your immune system. And you can't just crash diet your way into

avoiding this thing. Like it's not, if you crash diet your way into avoiding this thing, you're going to stress your body out. Like the whole purpose of even with carnivore, with fasting, with keto, you're eliciting a stress response on your body so that your body gets stronger, just like going to the gym. And if you are worried about contracting something, you're not going to go to the gym and go balls to the wall and destroy yourself because you know your immune system is going to be compromised. Same kind of thing with your diet. You shouldn't be putting yourself in a ridiculous caloric deficit. The point is with that is in terms of the foods that are going to make a difference, despite what some people say, I am a firm believer in megadosing vitamin C.

Now, that's me. And I've studied Linus Pauling for years before I was even doing this stuff on YouTube. And personally, when you look at how vitamin C really does work in the body, it makes perfect sense. We don't produce it, but you look at every single mammal that does produce it. And what do you know? Their levels go up tremendously to serum levels of 70, 80,000 milligrams in their blood naturally produced when they are stressed or when they're around an illness. Goats, for instance, are the crazy one. Goats naturally have between 10,000 and 15,000 milligrams of vitamin C that are being produced endogenously

within their body. Humans don't produce vitamin C. Goats, when they are exposed to stress, and this has been shown in studies, when they get exposed to stress or illness, those levels go up from 10 to 100 X within their blood. Because any immune cell that gets activated needs vitamin C. The hard part is you don't need vitamin C until you need vitamin C. So like loading up on vitamin C, when you have no problem, does you diddly squat. So it's like you have to be in touch with your body enough to know I'm sleep deprived or I'm stressed, or I've been training really hard. Mark, I don't know if you remember like back in the day, like when I was doing more bodybuilding stuff, like it was, it was actually commonly talked about for hypertrophy right after a workout to actually mega dose vitamin C. People used to, we always used to take like, you know,

echinacea and load up on echinacea because we were trying to counteract some of that cortisol effect. So it's kind of funny how even my old bodybuilding stuff kind of comes back full circle into this world. So vitamin C. And then even in the antioxidant world, I've been loading up on olive oil extracts, so more concentrated forms of olive oil. So I'm not getting a bunch of the calories from it, but I'm getting more of just the antioxidant effect, the hydroxytyrosine, which is pretty powerful. Um, but other than that, I quite honestly, I'm, I'm using this

time to focus a little bit more on just mobility and recovery stuff. So I'm just not taxing the crap out of my body. Hey, don't goats like pass out if they get overstressed or is that sheep? That's a weird breed of goats, but you know, I'm going to start just doing that. I think if you yell at them, they just pass out, right? Yeah. So, I mean, that's kind of like, yeah, that's exactly what I should just start doing. Someone yells at me. Collapse right there. What, uh, what, uh, what triggered you to, uh,

text me this morning about, uh, wanting to join the race to zero to zero followers. I'm just, I've been, uh, I've been laughing just for the last couple of weeks, seeing you just doing that. And like I was telling my wife yesterday, I was like, man, I respect that so much. And she's like, you're the same way. She's like, you should just do the same damn thing. She's like, and it was- You let her rip every once in a while, right? You know, I posted something this morning and it was the tipping point. I posted something this morning talking about, well, first of all, I have to back up. You have a large following,

you get it. Okay. So I've got over 2 million subscribers on YouTube. I can't possibly be preaching gospel for one specific thing to those 2.2 million people, right? I have to just put the information out there and say, these are tools in your toolbox, use them how you apply. I eat certain ways, but I experiment with everything. Like this is how I am. So a lot of people that are like avid followers of my channel know that they know that like, I'm going to put the information out there, they can take what they want from it. And they can extrapolate bits and pieces and studies from where they want. I put a piece out on Mediterranean keto, which is pretty interesting stuff. And the

reason that I was a fan of meta am a fan of Mediterranean keto, not necessarily for my own diet, but just in general, is because I feel like it allows people to accept the ketogenic diet that normally wouldn't because it's widely known that the Mediterranean diet throughout the medical community is probably the most advocated diet. People will say Mediterranean is good. So when you couple Mediterranean with keto, like it or not, people that are normally totally opposed to the keto diet are willing to give it a chance. And we all know that when people start trying that, then, okay, then they feel good. And then they go to the next place, and then they might try carnivore,

and then they might try fasting, and then they find what truly works for them. So I think it's a great barrier. Well, some clown decided to say, well, he went there. I couldn't believe he went there and said, oh, well, Italians are Mediterranean and look at how it's working for them. So now we can go there. Now it's cool to go there. So first we like, you know, ridicule the crap out of anyone that's Asian, but now we're, now we're ridiculing Italians because they have, their medical system has some flaws and it's their fault because they're Mediterranean. And I'm just like, I lost it. And I'm just like, and then the amount of people that actually agreed, I'm just like, there's so much anger and negativity out there right now. I'm just like, you know what? This, this whole thing has given me just a perspective

to just be like, I'm going to be me. I've tried to be whoever I want to be, or whoever these people want me to be for over 2 million people. And it's going to kill me. It's going to kill me. And I don't have the support anymore. So to hell with it. I'm just, they're going to like it or they're going to leave. Cause I'm just like, and I'm tired of just trying to race algorithms and beat algorithms for a certain thing. I'd rather just, I'd rather have a hundred thousand concrete followers that are actually going to, A, trust what I say, B, buy the things that I recommend. Because at the end of the day, I will recommend things that I think are of value to people and are of value to me, but I also have to pay bills. So if you're someone that is just drawing information from me to turn around and spew it in my face and be negative, then there's the door.

And I think that's a lot of your take too. It's just, it's really hit me recently with how much negativity is out there, man. Anyway, I could go on and on, but it's just, yeah. So some of it kind of has started for me, like, like kind of long ago, really with more with YouTube than anything else. But it was kind of when YouTube started to really spike, and I was already into YouTube early on, in 2008. And as I saw these kind of trends hitting and then people making these certain videos and getting certain responses from it, it just made me kind of think, like, okay, these people, they're trying to monetize what they're doing. And so they're following the trends. It makes a lot of sense because then they're getting seen by more people. And for myself, I was like, you know what? Fuck

all that. I'm already making money. I'm already doing well. I'm not going to concern myself with it. And so I've tried my best and it's impossible. And anyone would probably be lying if they said that they're not dictated by the audience. I mean, you are, you know, you're dictated by the likes, they're not dictated by the audience. I mean, you are, you know, you're dictated by the likes you dictated by the, um, and then the likes, it's like, you know, who even knows what Instagram does with that, how they, you know, how, how much they share with people like cause they maybe don't want you to get as many likes or whatever. And it gets to be kind of a complicated thing.

And you get, it's a weird thing. You get like your identity halfway stolen from you because you're trying to placate to the audience because we do care about the audience. We do care about the listeners. We want to make the listeners happy. We want them to be excited about stuff. But on the other hand, you just want to share like, hey, I had a cool day with my kids. And then people make some stupid comment about your kid and you're like, oh, God, this is just ridiculous. Or you're like, yeah, someone's going to freaking come and like call CPS on your kid because you, on you because you, you know, you didn't hold your kid's hand

the last foot of a crosswalk. Yeah, it's good. It's, it's, it's wild. Yeah. And so it's like, I don't want to blame the, I don't want to blame people, you know, that are just viewing the channel because I feel like they're just in the same boat. They just don't realize it, right like they're just in the same boat.

They just don't realize it, right? They're algorithmically driven. Their lives are algorithmically driven by what they're getting shown now. And it's like feed the beast. It's just like with neuroplasticity. If you give yourself a bunch of negative thoughts, you're going to suddenly start thinking negative. Well, we have this artificial stimulus that's also doing that. So we're people that are negative. It's going to continue to feed them more negative crap, just like the news, right? It's like, um, so yeah, it's just like, you know what? I've got my second kiddo about to be born. And I'm just like, I don't, if you don't like what I have to say, and I'm not going to be a jerk, it's not in my nature to be a jerk, but if you don't like what I'm putting out there, then like, don't watch, go away. Like, it's all good. Like I'm trying to help people. I'm putting out there, then don't watch. Go away. It's all good. I'm trying to help

people. I'm going to continue to try to help people. Why? Because it feels good and it's what I get fulfillment out of. And if you get fulfillment out of it, then great. It's not a self-fulfilling prophecy, but we'd all be lying if we didn't say that we do something because it feels good. In essence, you could say that someone that gives everything to charity and donates is a selfless person. Well, in theory, that's wrong because they're no, they're, they're being selfish because that makes them feel good. So just because they're giving to charity because it makes them feel good, they don't selflessly get the charity because that would be absolutely reckless. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So you're saying that someone that gives up everything is a selfish person in that theory. So I'm going to talk about what feels good to talk about and what I feel is right and what works for me and what I

feel might work for people. And if they want, yeah, whatever. I don't know. It feels good. Thanks for being my therapist has been out. I like it. I like it. I was going to say only Thomas Dillauer can use a term like neuroplasticity in regards to social media. But I mean, if slash when Instagram and all these social media platforms get rid of likes, do you think that's going to open up the floodgates for people to be more themselves? It's a good question.

And that question actually comes straight directly from Gary, Gary Vee. Cause he's saying, you know, once we get rid of the likes, people aren't going to like post the perfect photo because they want to get 100 likes or when they post the photo and it doesn't get 80 likes in the first two seconds, they take it right back down.

So when there's no likes, there's no margin of like, oh, this was a good photo. They're now going to just like, yeah, this is a picture of my lunch or whatever it may be. But I think hopefully there won't be a need for a race to zero followers. You know, there won't be a need to be like, you know, say any inflammatory statements or anything. I think it will allow people like all of us to just be ourselves. Yeah, there's definitely for sure. And I don't, you know, even I don't know if they're planning on getting rid of the visibility of likes to the, uh, to the original poster too, but I still think

there's going to be that internal validation. That's going to come that way. Right? Like we still check our stats and anyone that successfully runs a business online, you know, knows that, you know, in God we trust and everything else, give me data. So it's like, I want data on things. That's how I make decisions. But I also try to look at it very analytically and try to objectively look at data because there's lots of different variables. But I think in general, just the pulse of how people are going to look at it is going to be way different because they're not going to compare me to Dr. Berg. And they're not going to compare. That comparison is going to be gone. So there's going to be a level of, I think, openness that comes with where they get their information.

And I also think it's going to weed out a lot of the influencers that are trying to make a buck in a, well, kind of an underhanded way, right? Because that gets exposed really quick. Because now, initially, it opens the floodgates where there's no public data. So someone could go out and say, oh, well, this person has 500,000 followers, but their engagement might be crap. And then someone's going to come to them and ask them to do a sponsored post, and it's going to flop.

That's going to weed people out really quick. And I think it's going to change how we navigate and how that world is navigated. But then for the people that actually have their own brands, like Mark and like myself that actually are fine at monetizing it just by being ourselves and just by being good business people that are ethical, I think it's going to improve how we function. So long story short, I do think it's going to weed it out. It's definitely going to weed it out. How do you feel that that adjustment is going to be for yourself? Because honestly, I pay attention to a lot of your content, especially your YouTube content, and it doesn't how do you feel that that adjustment is going to be for yourself because honestly it i pay attention to a lot of your content especially your youtube content and it doesn't seem like

you are currently trying to cater to anyone like you kind of alluded to that a little bit it doesn't seem that you're doing that as it is so i'm just wondering like what what is like really gonna change for yourself because it like the content you put out it seems like from a viewer's point of view it seems like these are things that you're interested in and it's not like you're trying to cater to a certain type of viewer. It seems original for sure. Yeah. I don't give two craps about views. I just don't. And it's just, I went through that phase, but it's just, it's a headache. It's a headache. And I like to just put the content out. If the content will naturally do well,

for who it's supposed to cater to, which is going to give me a more concrete following in that avenue. If I post up a video surrounding immunity, and some subset meathead group doesn't care. I don't think well, first of all, they're probably not going to get served that content to begin with. But also, like, who cares? Like they, they may not like that, but the people that are going to discover that video in the evergreen fashion, a year or two years down the line are going to appreciate it that much more because I'm speaking about it with passion because I want to talk about it. And I decided I just don't want to create content. I don't want to create, like it's a lot of work to create content and it's a lot more fun to create it

when you're truly passionate about it. And sometimes I can be passionate about something that doesn't have a practical application in my life, but it is just really cool research. And that's where it's a little difficult right now is because you've got your devout followers that watch everything you put out, but don't necessarily comprehend that you just put out information that is fun and interesting. So then they think you're contradicting because, oh, well, how can you put out a video talking about all avoidable and beneficial, but then talk about the benefits of carnival? Well, I didn't say that I'm doing both. I said, here, take what you need. So I've made that decision that for me to be dogmatic would

be absolutely detrimental to my brand. It's much better off for me to not chase views, dogmatic would be absolutely detrimental to my brand. It's much better off for me to not chase views, for me to not build this cult, and to build more of just people that embrace education as a whole. Because then whatever where I want to go in the future with my brand, I at least have the respect of people that just want to get educated. What is this Mediterranean keto thing about? I mean, ultimately, they're what I would call perpendicular diets, right? Mediterranean diet isn't really a diet. It's just an influence of types of foods from a region that are high polyunsaturated, high monounsaturated fats, which quite frankly, on even a carnivore diet, if done properly, you should be getting a good amount of good

monounsaturated fats if you're choosing the right sources of meat ultimately. And it doesn't even have to do with grass-fed, grass-finished, to be honest. It has to do, I mean, because I know it all depends, right? It's such a negligible amount of omega-3s. It's like it doesn't really matter all that much. Point is, is that it's all the region. So when you look at, okay, these are the kinds of foods that are within a given region. And then here's where keto intersects. Keto is not necessarily in my opinion, a diet, it is more of a molecular kind of process in the body. And then it can be achieved multiple ways. You can achieve keto through just not eating, you can achieve keto

by going carnivore, you can achieve keto by just drinking olive oil, or you can follow a traditional sort of Americanized ketogenic diet or therapeutic keto diet. I think Mediterranean just gives you just the abundance of different phytonutrients that you might want in a typical diet that you might be neglecting in a typical dirty keto diet. Because the nice thing with carnivore, for instance, is carnivore, you're eliminating all the negative influence in terms of your diet. That's what makes carnivore, for instance, is carnivore, you're eliminating all the negative influence in terms of your diet. That's what makes carnivore so great. It's not the fact that meat is the, this is my opinion, not the fact that meat is all

healing. It's the fact that by the absence of all this other stuff, you leave your body no choice but to thrive on some really good nutrients that you're getting out of meat. It's not that veggies are bad. It's not that a little bit of peanut butter is bad. It's that you're making a conscious choice to be able to influence ketosis this way. Peanut butter. Do you miss peanut butter? Let's all pause for a minute. Think about some peanut butter for a second. I love peanut butter. Just see you like eating beef tallow, just imagining that it's peanut butter.

It's like spray paint it. Yeah, it's not going to work, right? Yeah. So Mediterranean keto is just, for me, it's more about just getting a high degree of monounsaturated fats that just have a really good benefit overall when it comes down to like receptor proteins like PPR alpha and all these things that just have downstream metabolic effects. And from an anti-inflammatory standpoint. So in the general world of just basic diets that are talked about, Mediterranean diet is the most anti-inflammatory. Well, you couple that with the ketogenic diet, which is naturally inherently anti-inflammatory. You've got a very anti-inflammatory diet that a lot of people can wrap their heads around. What's some of your thoughts on cured meats, fast food, maybe these meats that maybe aren't considered high quality? What are your thoughts, theories, and concerns in those regards?

Yeah. Believe it or not, I don't have much of a concern with a lot of the properly cured meats. I eat a fair bit of prosciutto. I love prosciutto. If you're comparing prosciutto and salami, salami usually has a lot more crap in it. The general rule of thumb with cured meats, what I always say is anything is going to store in the fat. Most toxins are going to store in the fat. So if you're eating cured meats, your safer bet is to go with just a leaner cured meat, right? Because if there are going to be preservatives, if there are going to be crap in it, at least it's going to store in the fat. So like prosciutto, just given the cut that it is, that ribbon of fat that's on the outside of

prosciutto, you could just peel it off, right? And then, so like when you look at pork, it's actually a pretty good fatty acid profile, believe it or not. But the nice thing about pork is, and the same thing with bacon is if you get it, it has the ribbon that's along the outside that is pure saturated fat, which is usually not denatured. It's usually not, it's the polyunsaturated fats you have to be careful with in any kind of meat, right? With any kind of meat, it's going to be, that's what's going to be fragile. That's what's going to get exposed in curing processes and heating processes. So you try to aim for the fats that have a for the cuts that have a higher saturated fat content. And that way, you can at least peel the fat off if you wanted to. But with salami, it's hard because it's so

marbled in. That's my take on it. But like I said, I love prosciutto. I love good quality ham. And that's a big part of Mediterranean diets. What do you know? So I mean, I personally think- What about rolling through some fast food? Well, it's funny you say that because literally the next video that I'm doing after I do this is we're going to roll through the El Pollo Loco and grab their new keto taco and do a review of it, which is my opinion. I mean, I'm just going to talk on that one really quick. I'll let it be heard here. That is some sneaky, sneaky marketing that they've thrown in there. It's literally a wheat tortilla that is by no means keto friendly, but they think because it has some fiber in it, like it's just either

completely naive or completely underhanded. So, um, but El Pollo Loco, believe it, like their chicken isn't that bad. It does have some, um, some yeast extract, which is basically MSG, but I mean, uh, the Carl's Jr. Um, Carl's Jr. is probably one of the cleaner burgers. So I would say that. So, you know, where you're at. Yeah's Jr. is probably one of the cleaner burgers. So I would say that. So, you know, where you're at. Yeah. So it's definitely one of the cleaner burgers. And then Wendy's is actually a clean burger. The patty itself is pretty darn clean. You know, you can't really. And the funny thing is, is actually, ironically, McDonald's burger patties are much better than like the ground meat that you're going to get from Taco Bell or the ground meat you're going to get from Jack Black. So in the world of burgers, the McDonald's burgers aren't nearly as bad as they used to be like Taco Bell meat is really bad.

But so it's not I don't know, I mean, I have a video that just like killed on YouTube that put up years ago, I'm just like best top 10, you know, keto fast food options. Chipotle has a good keto bowl that's pretty non solid if you want to consider that fast food or not. I'm not a big fan of getting animal fat from poultry. If I'm going to get fat, again, I don't know how closely people follow what I put out, but I'm usually a fan. I eat a lot of meat. I eat a lot of protein. I am not the biggest fan of fattier cuts of meat. And the only reason I'm not is because it's hard for me to control. Like I could take a ribeye that has 22 grams of fat or put a ribeye right next to it that has 40 grams of fat. And it's really hard for me to tell. And I'm pretty

analytical with my food. So that's my big reason. But then when you look at the fatty acid profile, the fatty acid profile of poultry fat is terrible. Beef fat is actually quite good. Pork fat is actually quite good. Duck is actually quite good, but most like chicken and turkey is not very good. So your poultry options at fast food, you're not going to really find anything that's that great. So you're always better to lean for the beef whenever you can. So it's, I mean, is there any one in particular that you're curious about? Because there's so many. Well, I usually, I go to like In-N- out burger or like five guys and stuff like that. And it seems like the most offensive thing you can get there is the cheese. You know, if you're just eating the burgers, you know, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a five guys, man.

I'm a five and I'll even do habit. You know, it's, um, habits actually pretty clean too. And, you know, you're going to have, yeah. I mean, you could always, again, make the argument on grain fed, but it's all like a, it's all a Delta of where you're like, how much omega six is you're going to have, yeah, I mean, you could always, again, make the argument on grain fed, but it's all like a, it's all a Delta of where you're like, how much omega-6s you're getting in. Like if you're balancing and you're making sure that you're getting omega-3s from other sources, then the omega-6s that you're getting from the grain fed meat, it's not going to be the end of the world. So yeah, you're, you're going to have that argument no matter what people are always

going to say, you know, say that fast food is going to be bad for that reason. But at the end of the day, what are you after? Like like are you after staying committed are you after staying on what you're after or are you trying to again like appease every single one of your followers right yeah so in and out in and out's clean five guys is clean um you know fudruckers although it's not really fast food like actually he's got some pretty clean stuff and they've got that elk one and everything like that too which is like 24 bucks or whatever it is, but still it's damn good. You know, Thomas, as a guy that's come from being really, really heavy, cause I don't know what your peak weight was, but you talk about it every now and then. Um, and so where you are now, you've

done a lot of different diets. You've made videos, you've done 30 days of carnivore, 30 days of this and that, and then you've done reviews on it, which is awesome. But I'm curious as to like currently do any of the bad habits you used to have when you're overweight ever show themselves, even though you're super in shape now? And then also personally, what kind of diet do you feel? Do you personally feel the best utilizing as an individual? Yeah, that's a, that's a really good question. So yes, they absolutely do rear their ugly heads all the time. Um, you know,

old habits die hard. It's definitely, um, you know, I have a tendency to, you know, yeah, just want to just cave and just, I think everybody does, you know, I don't think anybody's just like a machine, like they might put out in social media, especially right now when everyone's stuck at home. I mean, it's just like, I'm bored. Let me go to the pantry. I either go to the pantry, make a video, or try to monetize something. That's the three ways my brain's going to work. I'm just like, okay, well, crap. I'm tired of trying to make money. I'm tired of making a video. I guess I'll eat. My wife's pregnant, so I'm not really having sex right now. So what else can I do? Sorry.

It's true. It's true. Oh, that's why he's so angry right now. Thomas has got this like new, oh, I can go wise. Sorry. Is this too blunt for the podcast? No. I guess everyone's wives are different, you know, because that wasn't the case with me.

No, no, no. She's got a high-risk pregnancy. So she's got a placental abruption. So she's on modified bed rest and pelvic. Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch. So it's normally, trust me, it wasn't a problem with the first one. But anyhow, so that's for old habits, definitely.

And then right now, like I have found that I feel the best if I, so, I mean, I've been doing keto now for literally 10 years and I'm thinking I'm so fat adapted that my body really does do well. If I do variations of extended carb cycling, where I'll actually go keto for, um for two to three months and then go on carbs for a month. And when I do go on the carbs, I tend to do a lot more fasting that way. So I'm still, because what I'm finding and what I've found literally just this last year is it's been so fascinating. If my protein levels are high, and I don't know if you've watched my experiment that I did on the high protein thing, that was cool. I went high protein, low fat, and it was phenomenal.

I kept my calories the same. Okay. So I dropped my fat significantly, but increased my proteins that I was eucaloric and maintaining the same calories. Well, body fat percentage dropped over almost a percent and a half in three weeks and my weight went up. And I'm like, okay, sure. Some of it could have been glycogen that's getting created from excess protein through gluconeogenesis. But I think there was something to be said there that like this whole always have to be high fat thing is not the way it needs to be. And especially when you're fat adapted.

So I found that, okay, periodically alternating, like when I go high fat and then go low fat, high fat, low fat and keep my body. So within this, this is kind of getting deep here for a minute, but we always talk about the process of being dual fueled, right? The goal with the ketogenic diet isn't to become a one trick pony and only be able to utilize fats. Like that's just as bad as burning a bunch of glucose. If you're only burning fats, like the goal is you want to make yourself nice and have your body be kind of opportunistic for lack of a better word. You want to be able to have your body burn fat when it needs to. But if I want to shift gears and I want to lift some heavy ass weight,

and I want my body to be more glycolytic, I want it to be able to shift gears and burn glucose with or without glucose coming in. See, the point is that your body will still burn glucose, right? Still going to burn glucose even when you're keto, but you want it to be efficient at flipping that switch when it needs to. If I'm going to go under a heavy bench, I want my body to be good at that. And I don't want it to have that lag that some people talk about with keto. And the way that you can condition your body to do that, in my opinion, is A, through high protein, because high protein's excess protein is going to get converted into glucose and your body will find a need for it. It doesn't just store as fat. Protein doesn't just store as fat that easily. If you are creating extra glucose through extra protein, your body

is going to do something with it. It's either going to burn it and give you energy, or it's going to store it as glycogen and give you energy in the gym. Are you guys following? Does that make sense? Absolutely. So more protein and I want to add more protein without adding a crap load of calories. So I go leaner protein. It's not because I'm anti-fat. It just makes more sense. And then the same thing applies with cycling in and out of carbohydrates properly, not going like three days keto, one day carbs. That you're never giving yourself a chance to adapt to one or the other. That's just like constantly sitting in a gray area. So I like to go keto and just go hardcore with a lot of keto and a lot of fasting for like three months and then switch gears and let my body utilize glucose. So it doesn't become glucose intolerant. Then I find when I'm back

in keto, my body can flip that switch a lot quicker. And if I do have a cheat meal during like a stint of keto, I can have two or 300 grams of carbs at night. And I can be back in keto within 24 hours, not fasting. And that's just a testament to like how your body is just able to flip those gears really quick now i'm actually curious about this on the the few months that you go or the month that you go to carbohydrates when you're cycling i'm just curious because i know everybody will end up eating a different amount based off the weight the amount of muscle they have but for you personally being such a heavy muscle dude what does that amount of carbohydrates average at for like a weekly period it's still not a ton. It's usually going to be like daily. It's going to be 150 to 200. Okay. Yeah. That's what I wanted to get at.

I was, I was assuming it wasn't going to be something like 400 grams of carbs. Okay. I just don't feel good when I have that many, I just, you know, um, strength wise, like if I was only after brute strength, yeah, I'm not going to deny that. Yes. I would probably feel more strength, but like, it's like, I call it, it's totally a non-clinical term, but it's like an inflammation spillover. It's like, I just feel like my cells are just like, what the hell are you doing to me? So I find like 200 is kind of that upper intake. And then I try to usually keep it low glycemic. I just keep it, you know, I say responsible carbs, right? Just don't go eat sugar and crap. I used to eat, uh, before bench, before big bench workouts,

I had what I called bench bagels and I would get, uh, I would get salted bagels and, uh, just load up. I'd have like three or four of them, but it'd make me so like bloated and puffy that I'd feel, uh, just insanely strong. And, you know, I, I think it's kind of a funny thing. I don't know like what the science would show, but sometimes maybe the inflammation isn't necessarily a bad thing. And maybe, you know, the, the, the gluten and everything, like, you know, maybe it does something for you, but I don't know. It always felt like it worked. And, you know, when I look back at stuff

like that, I'm thinking like, could there have been, you know, something different that I could have done that could have been more optimal. It's like, oh yeah, you can always look back and kind of say that, but that's what it felt right to me at the time. And I know some of my friends and stuff like that, they had their own foods that they would go to, like a couple of guys would eat Doritos because Doritos had so much salt in it. It was just a way to like stuff in a ton of sodium, obviously not a very healthy practice to do any of this but but it did make you feel strong right seriously like i mean it's just internal leverage right it's the same reason that creatine works it's not creatine isn't like you're not getting this massive amount of like

atp regeneration like it's that's bullcrap no what's happening is you're getting you're stretching the cell out because it's hyper hydrated and you have osmotic sensors in your you know sarcoplasm that's going to trigger that it It's going to sense that. So it senses like the cell is engorged and it says, so it triggers animalism. It's straight up. So it's to protect the cell, right?

So the same kind of thing when you hyper load with carbs and you drink a bunch of water and you load up the cell, those osmotic sensors say, Oh gosh, the cells engorged in order to protect trauma. Let's make this cell stronger and bigger. So the muscle cell gets bigger and then you have more internal leverage and you're stronger. And that happens very, very fast. The downside is of course the inflammation cascade later on down the road.

So it makes me wonder like if you had have been like during peak weeks and things like that, if you had have loaded up on carbs like that, but then during your actual training phases were more ketogenic, I just wonder how your body would have reacted. So yeah, I would, I usually would switch back to keto, um, as soon as the competition was, was over with, you know, and I would lose, lose a bunch of weight pretty rapidly when you were doing your, um, when you're doing your keto stuff and your carnivore style diet and stuff like that. Have you noticed that your, um, your blood glucose goes up a little bit because you are turning some of those proteins into sugar, basically. Yeah, totally a normal thing, especially when you're training, especially right after training.

But yeah, you should check out that video I did about a month ago. It was really interesting. What I found was when my protein was higher, and it was dramatically higher. I mean, we're talking like 2X. So I was like well over 300 grams in some days. And I was having to get was dramatically higher. I mean, we're talking like two X. Um, so I was like well over 300 grams in some days and I was having to get some from shakes and it was all for, you know, well, I say it was all for experiment. It was because I fricking wanted to. And then I turned it into an experiment later on and I want to try to get some of the data published. But anyway,

the point was is that, uh, normally after a workout, my ketone levels would drop significantly. And that was kind of normal because you have liberated glucose because you're working out and that's going to blunt ketogenesis. It's totally normal. But when I protein was super high, my ketones actually stayed the same and sometimes higher at the end of a workout. And we're like, what the heck is going on? Well, the theory behind that was that because I had so much glycogen, my body was actually able to just utilize that glycogen and it wasn't having to stop any ketogenic process. So, it was just... That's the only theory that we have for it, but it was wild because normally I would be

knocked out of ketosis. I don't sit into a deep state of ketosis and I think it has something to do with how just by the muscle that I carry and just my training style and the fact that I'm just always working out. My cortisol is probably always elevated. I never really have, my ketones are never much more than like one to 1.5 millimoles tops, unless I'm deep fasting. It's just the way I am. So after a workout, almost invariably I'd be out of keto for at least an hour. And then what I was finding is, okay, well, when I kept a protein very high, I'd still be at like one to 1.5 millimoles, which was just so weird. Um, I don't have a solid answer. I mean, I consulted with some of the friends that I have over at Oxford university who do a lot of ketone

research and they didn't really have an answer either. Cause they're like, well, we don't really have any data on people that have been doing keto for 10 years. Like your body is just so different. Um, so I'm kind of a, kind of a weird unicorn in that sense. Yeah. Earlier, I think you said the Mediterranean keto diet was a little bit easier for people to follow? It's not necessarily as easy for people to follow. It's more so it's easy for people to grasp. Because what I'm always trying to do is like, how do I, for lack of a better term, spread the gospel of keto without sounding like a dogmatic prick?

And how do I get people to make it their own decision? It's just like when you're, you know, you always got to make it your wife's idea, right? You know, it's like she says she wants to do something, you know, you want to do something, position it so that it's her idea. Well, it's the same. But the thing is i want people your your wife do this one uh thomas is say hey do you want dessert but it's really she that was you know she wants dessert so she wants you to be like yeah sure and then you and then you and then they want to split it it's like hey look if i'm gonna have fucking dessert i'm not sharing it with anybody okay yeah yep or yeah yeah just usually it's just like yeah i'm you know i'm exhausted i don't really feel like

cooking dinner you know then you know she plants the seed and then you know 20 30 minutes later then it will be you know yeah then it will plant the seed of getting takeout somewhere doing yeah it's always this yeah but the dessert thing very common very common but yeah so with Mediterranean keto it was just about okay how do I kind of indoctrinate this idea for people that would normally not even consider keto so that's kind of the point there's these people these are people that wouldn't they've heard about it obviously they listen to me but you know they they maybe they follow me for other advice or for something else. Or there's a ton of people that intermittent fast but don't do keto. I have a large following with that world where they follow me because they like intermittent fasting, but their heads are too

wrapped up in that to really think about keto. That's surprisingly a lot of people. So if I introduce it in a different way, then if that gets 100 more people to give it a shot, then great, because they're looking at it from a different health angle. They're still looking at it from like, Oh, all those saturated fats are bad. I can't be doing that. Like what the heck. So at least if they understand that, Hey, here's an entry point for you. But I also do think that it's easy for people to follow because it's really, it's really not far off from what people would typically see as just a general healthy diet. You know, you're eating leaner cuts of meat. Yeah. You know, you're eating a little less in the way of, you know,

like the chicken thigh or eating more of the chicken breast or eating more of the lean cuts of steak, you know, a little less in the way of just like the ground meat. So, I don't know, it lends itself just as sort of a healthy diet. It doesn't lend itself to someone that's just trying to get started on keto and doesn't know what to do. I just think it's a barrier to entry for people that are just opposed to all the fats generally. I see you making, you know,

all different kinds of crazy coffee, you know, concoctions. And I'm a huge, I'm a huge fan of doing that myself. Like sometimes it might take me a bunch of, a bunch of time. Cause I'm like throwing in a scoop of this and throwing in some MCT oil or MCT oil powder or butter or whatever. What are some of your favorite like coffee combinations and what are they doing for you? Yeah. You know, a lot of times it's just, I mean, at the end of the day, it's just something different, right? Something I always try to try to put something together. That's going to be fun and going to be interesting and going to have a health benefit. And there's certain things like I wouldn't want to combine, but you know, I'm much more rather than doing mct or coconut like i'm just a big guy i double up on the ghee and if you again my content

lately has been like i've been preaching ghee like crazy just because there's so much benefit there um in terms of just short chain fatty acids and i think as far as like ketone production and gut health and everything like that says i load it up on ghee so with coffee it's rather than putting coconut oil now i'll put like two three tablespoons of ghee in there and then mess around with it. And then believe it or not, if you put like a little bit of turmeric in your coffee, it cuts the acidity and it gives it a whole different taste. So take like coffee, take a little bit of turmeric, take a little bit of ghee. You can throw, people will say you need the black pepper thing, but I'm not in it for the curcumin. I'm in it more for the artemarone and the other like kind of antioxidant effects of turmeric. So

it doesn't really matter to me one way or the other. But the other thing is that turmeric helps the bioavailability of the different fats. So it helps the absorption of the fats that kind of work together kind of synergistically. And then again, if it still tastes funny, I don't know if I think you can probably mess around with this because I think you and I were talking about it a while ago, a couple of years ago, adding salt to your coffee changes like the taste of it. It's super weird at first, but it cuts the acidity altogether. So like salt, some yeast and turmeric, whip it up, add a little bit of stevia if you want to give it a sweet effect, but it's kind of like

a mix between golden milk and coffee. It's just, I don't know. It's weird. You know, I'm, I'm really curious about this because, uh, uh, you, I think in one of your videos, you talked about how, like you talked about like your, your background or your past. And it's not like you, you studied all of this in school or something. You, you had a totally different job. I don't know if it was like selling, you sold medical equipment or something like that. Kind of. So I, I had an ancillary lab services company. So, uh, we provided, so we were still within the realm of a lot of the stuff that I talk about. So we were providing like the early stage, like salivary cortisol testing and things like that. So like back when like ZRT labs was in its early stages,

like long before people were doing at home testing and stuff, this is, we were providing testing kits and a lot of the lab work and lab testing stuff to fee for service physicians. So basically what that means is back in the early days of like concierge medicine, where doctors would be working with patients independently outside of the insurance continuum, right? So it was like, let's say you had a highly affluent patient that wanted to have an individual doctor and didn't want to have to go through the insurance bullshit. So they would have, you know, their concierge doctor that at the time,

like 2008, 2009, things like that, they were paying 10 grand a month to basically have access to a doctor, right? It was back in concierge medicine was totally different. And this doctor would work with a small amount of patients. Well, because they were fee for service, they were held to a completely different set of guidelines that were a lot looser, right? So we were able to provide them with the ability for them to do different kinds of testing and blood work and things like that, where they didn't have to bill out insurance and cause a big headache for their patients. Well, the doctors that I was working with, when they're working in that capacity, you have to think about how much of a better situation it is in terms of how they keep up

to speed with research. Because if you go to McDonald's healthcare systems, like typically what it is, where they're just running you through an assembly line, they don't care. They just want to slap an ICD-9 or ICD-10 code to you. They want to bill it out. They want to bill insurance. They want to collect a check and they want to see you and prescribe and boom, run you through. That's the whole idea. At least with constant errors medicine, the idea was like, well, shit, if this patient doesn't have a positive outcome, he's gonna fire my ass, you know, and it's the way that it should be, like, in my opinion, like, right, not that we should be paying 10 grand a month. But I mean, doctors should be somewhat held for like, the

patient outcome to some degree, not lifestyle factors. But like, if I'm paying you ultimately, even though I'm paying insurance, to help me with something, I don't want you to just give me a symptom masking pill. I want you to help me with my damn issue. And that's the way that these doctors were because they were working with patients that would kick them to the curb. So the point was, is that the doctors, the 1200 doctors that like I managed in that group, they were all doctors that were like-minded like that. So they were on the cutting edge of stuff. And they were guys that were talking about the ketogenic diet in 2009, 2010, before it was ever cool. And so that's how I learned about it. I learned about it through them. And I was, you know, ironically overweight during

the early stages of that part of my career. And, you know, they're the ones that kind of like, Hey, like you should try this. Like you go to the gym, you lift some heavy ass weights, but you know, you look like a fat bodybuilder. Like, what are you doing? Like, so it's not like I was just sloppy and obese and people like, I never tried to say that I was, but people of course will put words in my mouth. I'm very open with the fact that like, I was still a heavily muscled dude. I just didn't give a shit. I would work lift heavy shit two days a week. And then I'd go sit on my ass in an office and eat whatever I wanted. You know, just because I had some muscle on me, it doesn't mean that I'm completely'm completely, don't know what it was like to be overweight. Same kind of thing with you, right?

It's like, Marcus, it's like, yeah, you were a power lifter. You were fat in some stages of it. You still knew how to change your body and you knew how you felt. It doesn't change a thing, you know? And that's what actually had me so curious because it's like, I was curious about what your learning process is like these days. Because obviously you have a very deep understanding of all these different aspects of nutrition and training. And it's not like you, I don't, I don't know if he wants college for this or whatever, but how do you keep up to speed because you're always learning and putting out

new types of content within this realm of nutrition. What's your process look like? Do you have a team of people that feeds you certain things to maybe read up on or how do you do it yourself? Yeah. So I've got like a filtration process. So usually what I will do is I will find something that has to interest me first. That's the big thing, right? So like if there's no interest, like, yes, I will get fed some things from people that are either on my team or not my team that will say like, Thomas, this is interesting. You should see this piece of research because people don't realize like with PubMed and with like a lot of these journals, like if you, if you open up a journal of metabolism or journal of endocrinology, there's going to be like one to 200 new studies that are

coming out a month, right? There's constantly new stuff. And if you wanted to create content based on that, you always could. But the truth is a lot of it ends up being quite lame outcomes that aren't that exciting, that are pretty negligible, that aren't worth really talking about, especially in the nutrition world where it's all nebulous and everything conflicts each other anyway. But then, so I try to find things that I'm passionate about. And then I always try to have a practical application for myself because it's the only way like my content is engaging because I have a practical application because the only

way I can get excited to share it with other people is if I think that I can apply this in my life. And I always have to have a level of self-experimentation and kind of play mad scientist on myself. So it starts with that. And then, you know, my team is pretty simple. I still have a pretty small team. My research team is about four deep. I've got two guys that are essentially full-time employees that are Oxford University PhD researchers. So those guys are guys that are like cutting edge on the ketone stuff. And yes, they will be the ones that will be like, hey, this is some pretty cool stuff regarding NADPH or this cool stuff with keto. And then from there, like, okay, well, that's usually not enough to do a video

because if I do a video on that, it's going to be a five-minute explanation of a study. Let's take this content and let's apply it into something practical. And then kind of weave multiple studies together. But as far as the content that's coming to me, what I will usually do is, you know, say to my right-hand man or a couple of people and be like, this is like what I'm trying to get across and what I've experienced with this particular application. Like find me as much research on it as you possibly can. So, then they go, they find all the research and and they will either send me the studies directly, or, you know, they will go through them, and they will try to find, you know, what's going to be interesting enough for me to talk about.

And then I end up with, I say Cliff Notes version, but it ends up still being, you know, 15, 20 pages deep of ultimately the conclusion that would normally still be probably 200 pages. And then from there, I'm like, okay, this is cool. This is enough to craft a video, you know, and then I spend a couple days kind of researching various topics and things like that. 200 pages. And then from there, I'm like, okay, this is cool. This is enough to craft a video. And then I spend a couple of days researching various topics and things like that. So it's a pretty drawn out process. But the point is, I'm like, how do I have an extension of myself? How do I use my assets, my amazing team to help me just get more of what I want to do, but can't do in a day? And rather than just outsource it to them, I like to read the science. So I can't, what I want to do, but can't do in a day. And rather than just outsource it to them, I like to read the science. So I'm like, you guys just find the science and bring

it to me because 90% of the job is going down those rabbit holes and finding it. Um, and trust me, they're all out there. The great, great studies are all out there. They're just, they get buried and they get overclouded by, you know, pharma and everything else that pushes the other ones to the top. Hey, thanks. Thanks so much for your time today. Really, really appreciate it. And hopefully we can connect again soon and, and chat more about how we can both end up with literally zero followers. Maybe we can both go and vote for Trump. Let's do a live broadcast of it. just do a live broadcast of it awesome no it was really it's fun to hop on here thanks for the therapy session i didn't feel like doing zoom with my my therapist it just seemed unrealistic you guys have you guys been great

giving me an opportunity to vent awesome dude yeah where can people find you thomas um it's more like how do they avoid me um that's right yeah i'm just youtube's where it's at i mean youtube instagram uh you know youtube for the science content uh instagram if you want to see photos of my family awesome man thanks again appreciate your time yeah for sure thank you bye thank you sir shit that was super cool. It's good to hear him rant, too, because he's always like, I mean, he was even good with his words when he was ranting. But he seems to be very selective of his words so that he has a particular message, you know.

And so it was kind of cool to hear him let loose a couple times there. Yeah, well, he's such a likable guy. And, you know, yeah, he would never, like, say anything inflammatory or say anything to, you know, make anybody like, wow, Thomas is kind of a dick. Like, he would never, ever even get close to that. So to hear him just to say, like, you know, what he said about, like, I can't please everybody. It was like, oh like oh shit this is awesome i was found going hard man i like i love thomas's content and i love the way he puts forward his ideas too so i learn a lot from a lot of his videos so it was it was so great that you uh

when you sent that text i was like hey yay i was so excited bro i hope we get to talk to him more because there's a there's a lot of other things I'm curious about his opinion on, you know? Yeah. I think he tackles, you know, everything the same way. I think he is someone that, you know, he finds a point of interest and then he goes after it. He's got a bunch of different businesses. There's a bunch of stuff that he owns that, you know, people don't even, people don't even know that it's his, you know, and he does a,

he does a great job with all of it it's really really pretty cool we'll have to go visit him in los angeles uh whenever we get an opportunity to start moving around again um because he's got a studio down there so that would be really cool to kind of check out the whole operation meet his team and all that stuff yeah i like hearing that he has like a research team too that's freaking cool yeah i didn't realize he's in la although like i that he has a research team, too. That's freaking cool. I didn't realize he was in LA. I thought he was somewhere in the Midwest. He's kind of in the Los Angeles area, yeah.

Yeah, we met him when you were down in Malibu for a month. He stopped by. That was cool. Yeah, he has a lot of amazing content content and anyone that hasn't checked this stuff out you really should because you want to know um you know the questions that we get asked uh he's answered them a million times over um you know in terms of like artificial sweeteners in terms of natural sweeteners i mean he's got videos that breaks down you know why you may want to avoid aspartame you know he's got videos on and he just you may want to avoid aspartame. He's got videos on – and he just gives you the facts.

He just flat out says this is the way this is. I don't particularly choose to eat some of those types of foods, but these are the things that they can do to you or do for you. He just spells it all out for you. So that's, that's what attracted me to watching his videos. Um, probably about five or six years ago. Yeah. And the cool thing about him too, it's like, you remember when Caldeet said, uh, what was it? His favorite six words are like, I'd like to change my answer. Well, like Thomas, um, it's not like you see this a lot, right. But there are some videos where he said, like, I did reference this in the past, but then he kind of adjusts what he's talked about.

So he's not one to like exactly dogmatically stick to an idea because he said it in the past. He's always, you know, trying to be on the cutting edge, looking at new things, researching new things. And that's why I think he's a pretty trustworthy guy. He was a little bit more laxed with some of the fast food stuff than I thought he would be. I thought he would be, I thought he would be all upset. He was pretty, pretty chill about it.

I think the truth is that no one really knows. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if those foods are full of junk, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if there's are full of junk. It wouldn't surprise me if there's grains in the burgers or something like that. It wouldn't shock me at all because they're trying to make the best profit that they can. So it wouldn't surprise me if they had something cheap in there. you know told me anything otherwise and then i've been getting questions about um people been asking about like whether meat gets injected with like dye and stuff to keep it certain colors and to my understanding like that is definitely not true um in terms of like steak ground beef chicken those types of things now it might be the case with um like sliced meats um like cold meats like that are in like a deli um they might mess with those because maybe they get to be weird colors but i in terms of like yeah i i don't i i don't even i don't even know and so i i kind of

get a little frustrated sometimes when i hear people talk about quality of meat because I don't even know – like here in the United States, I don't even know where you would go to find poor quality meat. I don't know what their – I guess I don't know what their definition is because it's either grass-fed or grain-fed. thing I can think of, you know, that people might want to be mindful of is that, you know, when something is grass fed and grass finished, a lot of times that has less of an impact on the environment. But even that is like just opening up another, you know, giant can of worms that I personally don't know anything about. But Paul Saladino talks about it quite a bit. There's regenerative agriculture. And if you care about the planet and you want to make an effort towards that, then you can find out, you know, farms that utilize that technique. And then you can put your money towards that if that's what you believe in. I know I asked you about that, I think, a couple months ago, too. Because I remember if you look at a pack of steaks and they're layered on top of each other,

when you peel off a layer, wherever that top one was touching, the bottom one will be a different color versus around the whole rest of the steak. I'll try to take a... If I end up buying something, I'll take a picture. But it almost looks like there was red was like red dye spray painted over the top and then wherever the meat was covering the one below it didn't catch that that paint you know that spray paint and then when you remove it you can see like oh this is like a different color but i again like i have no idea i think joe rogan talked about it a couple of years ago too. And I think maybe that's probably what planted the seed in my head that,

that like store-bought meats actually do, you know, inject some, some, some color. But again, like I have no idea. Yeah. I don't, I don't know. Yeah. I don't, I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me either. You know, they're trying to make a profit. They're trying to sell you something, but I think that meat, you know, it has to do with like oxidation and stuff like that sometimes. So sometimes that's why they put those other packets in there. They put those weird little things in between them. I think that that might have something to do with it. But again, I'm not really 100% sure. It wouldn't surprise me if they just used

like the blood from the meat, you you know like what that would make the most sense is like to utilize that but what process would that be and that's like another disgusting another disgusting thing to think about you know yeah yeah just don't get meat from like walmart shipping containers andrew you understand that reference i know i i got i i want to finish the the whole series but uh we started watching Tiger King with Jasmine last night. And when that girl gets her arm bit off or whatever, she's like, I'm out. Like, nope. She didn't want to watch anymore.

Yeah. Our country is pathetic. All right. Tell us why. What do you mean? What's going on? That show is just such trash. Wait, did you watch some of it?

Yeah, I watched way too much of it. It is so bad. There's not one redeeming quality of that show. Do you find it entertaining at least? No, not really. no dude what's crazy so like we we re-watched the first episode so she can kind of get an idea what's going on and i'm like dude the memes write themselves and it's like no wonder why we're seeing so much on social media because after watching it with like just a different pair of eyes i'm like oh my god that would be hilarious like i need to make x y and z memes now one thing one thing i

would say that i found interesting is that you know the main guy joe exotic right like the one thing i find pretty fascinating about it is he obviously like he fucking lost his mind you know or or maybe he never had it maybe he's bipolar or something like the guys he's he's got a screw loose um for for sure but what was really interesting it's like i know that everyone's kind of like uh making a mockery of him in a way he's got the mullet and stuff like that so people are putting their face on his face and and things like that but i'm kind of laughing because i'm like those people that are making fun of this guy they wish they could be half as successful as this motherfucker he's got he's got nearly 200 fucking tigers each one of them costs 3 000 bucks you have any idea how much it costs and how much like he has all this land. Like he

had a lot of really, he had a lot of crazy stuff. And not only that, not only that, like who knows about like the finances that he had, he had everything that he wanted. You know, I don't agree with a lot of the stuff that he was doing or saying, but, um, I was just thinking, man, this guy created his own little fucking paradise. And here's people are talking shit and making fun of him. And he's like a parody. And I'm like, he really shouldn't be a parody. I think people should be kind of looking at him like, hey, man, he did exactly what he wanted to do. Again, his morals and values and stuff.

There's a lot of shit that's way off base with things that I think or things that I do. But I appreciated that he had a lot of hustle behind them. Yeah. Yeah. And on top of that, he had two husbands. That's right. I know.

I like he had, he had multiple husbands and the other dude had multiple wives. Right. Yeah. That was weird. You know, guys watching this documentary, honestly made me realize how much i need to uh

how much i can't trust documentaries and let me tell you why like we mean what the the series was six hours it was like what six episodes so six hours right but the person who made this documentary had like seven years of footage, which he put into six hours. And the footage, what it does is it makes you, number one, you root for Joe Exotic. At the end of the documentary, most people are rooting for Joe. They still like him, even though he had a lot of weird stuff. They're like, why is Joe in jail? You hate Carol Baskins, and you think that she killed her husband, right? Doc Anil, you kind of don't like him, you know, or you kind of like him, but it frames

it that way. And, you know, I was thinking about this. I'm like, there's a clip out there of like Joe Exotic saying, wait, someone said something about the N-word, right? And he's like, wait, why can't you say that? Right. And like, I'm not like, he was like, he said, why can't you say the N-word, right? And he's like, wait, why can't you say that, right? And I'm not like, he said, why can't you say the N-word? So it's not like he even said the N-word.

But what I'm getting at here is that you're framed to think a certain way about all these characters. And if you look at the internet, people are trying to go after Carole Baskins. It really pushes you in one direction. So now that i'm like thinking about this and i look at other documentaries i'm just like i need to take everything i watch in a lot of these documentaries with a grain of salt because the guy or the documentarian has an agenda for what they're trying to make you think so so is this gonna keep you away from going vegan from game changers but exactly game changes is another thing like it it

there's there's an agenda behind every type of documentary you just gotta take a take a bit from it that's why people don't want to watch michael moore's stuff but he has he has outstanding documentaries but then they're they're full of too many of his own thoughts. And then people are kind of, uh, people are turned off, you know, by, unfortunately, cause he there, he does present good information, but people are understanding of the fact like, Hey, he's going to really twist this his way. And I don't even want to, I don't even want to know what the hell he thinks. Cause I don't want my mind being bent that way, you know,

being kind of steered that way. He did the McDonaldcdonald's one right i don't i was the mcdonald's one he did no no um he did um like bowling for columbine and and those types of movies i don't know if you've ever seen those i don't think i have i mean my ignorance is running high right now so i need to i need to check it out fahrenheit 9-11 the movies are fucking amazing they're so good i think i saw i think i was young when that came out right fahrenheit 9-11 yeah he's got and you know he paint like again uh he paints the picture the way he wants to paint a picture but um he talks about you know how they

had they had information about uh planes being driven into buildings and uh and he and he he talks about like you know in the in documentaries they do a good job of like uh unveiling like the irony you know and they're like he says perhaps the title of the book was too complicated for i was it bush was the president of time for perhaps the uh title of the book was too complicated for president bush to understand what was in the inside the book itself it's this, it's a giant book. It's like three times the size of a Bible. And it said, I'm using planes as weapons of mass destruction. It's like the title of this, you know, giant thing that they had.

And who knows like if that's even a real thing or whatever, but like, that's what he, that's what he, yeah, that's what he, he shows you in the, in the movie. It was, it was, there's a lot of crazy stuff in those documentaries but you're right they're gonna edit it and um you know reality tv shows are are that way if they took if they took us three they would they would take our personalities and magnify them you know times uh times a hundred and that's what everybody would see you know everyone they would and even if they even if they couldn't get it out of us all the time they would just edit it that way yeah yeah they're always going to push a narrative um what isn't there a connection between fahrenheit 911 bowling for columbine and bigger

stronger faster i'd yeah yeah the the guy that you got i think you ended up meeting uh uh kurt he came he came to the gym for a while back kurt was one of the one of the producers and one of the editors yeah he he worked he worked on all that that's all that stuff but yeah you're really trying to like really trying to make a real story out of it you know um um people don't want to know that the truth lies in the middle. They, they want to see the extremes. They want to see, you know, something one, one way or the other. They want to see something really really crazy.

And I think one thing that that documentary did do the tiger King is it just showed, like, I don't think anybody knows anything about any of that. And so it exposed you to a world where you're like what people own own these things like and it's like fairly common it's pretty uh it's pretty crazy and then what do you do about it like what do you do about something that's already going on and the answer is nothing you can't do much about it i don't know i don't know what you would do and then it's just hard it's hard to like regulate it's hard to regulate shit like that and then people are just you know i always find it fascinating that there's no degrees to stuff and there i always feel that there is degrees to stuff but i think that

somebody would be like oh what's the difference between owning that and a cat, you know? And it's, and it's the same thing with like guns and stuff. And it's like, I don't know if you saw the, you know, the weapons that the guy has, like, I don't know, man, like I'm all for protecting yourself and like, you know, I don't want too much government intervention, but man, do we need like need weapons like that? I mean, I, I don't know. Maybe, maybe the world will come down to that, but man, do we need like need weapons like that? I mean, I don't know. Maybe,

maybe the world will come down to that, but like, I don't want to live in that world anyway, if it does come down to that. Yeah. I had some crazy ass weapons. He did explosives too. It was,

it was, Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I think that that's more like a, uh,

um, location type thing too like florida area yeah those types of yeah yeah that's no rules that shit's not happening in davis california you know it might be good might be good to talk to like john bartlow um he might be good to talk to um he's uh john's out in vegas he works for a gun company been a friend of mine for a while body bodybuilder he's been on the show before uh fal fal falcon uh yeah right yeah he used to be with that whatever that gun i forget i forget what the name of the company's with now but uh he might be good to have on the podcast because you know there's there is kind of a fear of like that this is like an apocalypse you know it might be interesting to kind of get some of his uh his

take on it and i mean the amount of guns that he has it was it was like his whole his whole truck bed it's not a guy that you want to uh it's not a guy that you want to try to like run off the road his entire truck bed is like low because the amount of like weapons that he has in there fucking crazy yeah and then i think like the first like couple sentences after meeting him he's just like oh i hate california i gotta travel with knives instead of guns like oh okay shit oh man he was pulling guns out of everywhere he had like underneath his like seat and like he was showing me all kinds of crazy stuff and i i'm like a very uncomfortable around guns i i'm just not i'm not familiar with them i don't have any issue with them i'm just i don't i haven't used one um that much i've only gone

shooting like three times so they just they just scare me i'm like i don't know how to use that thing i know it can you know kill somebody I don't want to fuck anything up. Yeah. And have you ever admitted that in front of other gun people that like guns scare you? Yeah. You know, and they've actually, they've, they've always been really good. They're like, they should scare you. You know, like they, people that are, um, I have found that many, many times over that people are way different than the perception that you hear a lot of times.

These are not people that are taking their guns like Joe Exotic and shooting them in the air. These are people that are like every time you put the gun down, you put it down, you face it away from you. You don't ever point it anywhere at anybody ever. Shit like that. I don't even know the rules, so I'm going to say them all wrong. They want you to hold the gun a certain way, and you're not putting your figure on the trigger unless you're ready to pull it and stuff like that. They're super respectful. When they walk you through it, it makes you a lot more calm you're like oh okay well if i handle this responsibly then the weapon does nothing actually because i control it i i

i'm in control of it i'm utilizing i i put my hands on it and i determine what it does you know yeah i think these rules are just useless but like yeah like the fear of it it's very real because just a few just point and a little bit of pressure someone's life is gone just just just that much pressure a slight miscalculation and that's it right then the guy in tiger king he just like blew his brains out or something right yeah i think he i think he thought he was fucking around right coming next coming next yeah something to look forward to yeah when i've admitted that like around other dudes i'm just like yeah i i would like to learn how to shoot um i love shooting the uh the bow like that's been like i miss that but when it comes to guns i'm just like yeah it

scares the shit out of me like no you'll be fine it's not even that bad i'm like i miss that but when it comes to guns i'm just like yeah it scares the shit out of me like no you'll be fine it's not even that bad i'm like you say that because you've done that you know but have you do you remember the first time you got behind the wheel like yeah you're probably excited but you're also nervous so yeah yeah so i don't know i i would like to especially with what is going on sorry about my dogs again. Um, my, so my fiance's father, he's a retired police officer. So he does have some guns in his house and he's like, yeah, I can, you know, drop some off. I'm like, uh, like dad, like, I don't, I wouldn't know what to do with it. So let's go shooting. Don't, don't, yeah. Don't drop them off. Yeah. For reals. He was joking.

Of course he would never just like, here you go. was just like yeah you guys need ammo like he's literally joking so i don't want anybody to get all upset um but i was like no like yeah it would be cool to uh like hit up the shooting range and like so i could learn how to like literally everything from start to finish like you see like the uh like like military movies where they're taking apart their weapons and cleaning them and stuff and you know i would love to learn all of that. It's just, you know, like they, they do scare the shit out of me. When you go let me know, or I'll schedule something and we'll, we'll, we'll go.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That'd be fun, man. We'll power project shootout. That'd be awesome. I got to go and hit up a big old walk and I haven't done my 10 minute squat yet today. So I got to make sure I up a big old walk and I haven't done my 10 minute squat yet today. So I got to make sure I get that in there. Andrew, can you take us on out of here, buddy? Absolutely.

Thank you guys for checking out this episode. You just heard Thomas Salawer talking about low carb keto, whatever the heck Mediterranean keto stuff is. If you guys want to get a jump on your ketogenic diet, please head over to perfectketo.com slash power 25. Oh, music. I like it. At checkout, enter promo code power project for 25% off of any orders of $99 or more. Please make sure you're following the podcast at Mark Bell's Power Project at MB Power Project on TikTok and Twitter. This is awesome. I'm at I am Andrew Z on Instagram and Seema when you're not dancing, what else are you doing? And Seema Yin Yang on Instagram and YouTube and Seema Yin Yang on TikTok and Twitter. Like Mark said, y'all should be

hitting up these 10 minute squats every single day. And Mark has posted some content, I think, on his youtube channel and on instagram that explains some super easy ways that you can build up to it so make sure to check that shit out guys mark all right peeps strength is never a weakness weakness never strength catch y'all later peace power project crew thank you for checking out today's episode we had a blast with thomas de lauer i hope you guys enjoyed it uh real quick we wanted to thank everybody that's been rating and reviewing the podcast and we want to give a huge special shout out to katie r par katie says best podcast dot dot dot ever quote i'm very impressed so impressed that i'm writing

a review i've never written a review in my life this podcast never fails to make me laugh contemplate a fitness question and most importantly work harder i have found so many great influencers to follow and listen to throughout this podcast along with tons of fitness and nutrition tips i live by this one really keeps me going. Thanks for a killer show, you guys. Thank you so much, Katie. We sincerely appreciate that. That's one of the biggest, best thank yous we could ever receive.

So thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to do that. If you're listening right now, if you'd like to hear your name on air, please head over to iTunes, drop us a rating and a review, and you could hear your name on air just like our homegirl, Katie R. Parr. We'll catch you guys on the next one. Peace.