Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 424 - How Diet Healed My Illness ft. Mikhaila Peterson

Episode Date: August 31, 2020

Mikhaila Peterson is a podcast host, blogger, and advocate of the “Lion Diet”, a variation of the Carnivore Diet. Mikhaila grew up with a long history of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, depression, and many other negative chronic health symptoms. After several surgeries bouts of SSRI medications and pain medications, she was able to find relief after transitioning to a carnivore styled diet. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Support the show by visiting our sponsors! ➢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 #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Are you aware that diet can massively impact your mood? On today's episode of Mark Bell's Power Project, we dive into it deep with Michaela Peterson who talks about how she has overcome depression through the usage of the carnivore diet. Welcome to Mark Bell's Power Project. Today we have Michaela Peterson on. For those of you that don't know who Michaela Peterson is, she's become a good friend of mine and my brother's over the last year or so because she is a fellow carnivore. She is also the daughter of the very famous,

very, very famous Jordan Peterson. On today's episode, we dove into depression. We dove into the carnivore diet and how Michaela Peterson has overcome many, many illnesses, both mental disease, some physical ailments such as arthritis and many other issues from the time that she was a child through the usage of the carnivore diet. Diet and nutrition intervention can be really, really challenging, can be really difficult. But what if it was the one thing that helped change your life forever? Would you give it a shot? In the comments below, I would love to know how you're going to implement some of the things that you hear in today's episode from Michaela Peterson. Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy the episode.

Howard Stern would sometimes talk about like if he interviewed people's penis. And he's like, he'd be like oh this guy you know his penis would have a really deep voice and this guy so like every once in a while he would just like reference it he'd be like and he would just have like a zipper sound that's funny everyone yeah i think whenever you would like imitate someone's voice you'd always go high pitched it's like i don't want my penis to have a high-pitched voice. You want it to be well-represented. You want it to sound like James Earl

Jones, right? Barry White, right? Something like that. Sorry. My bad. Oh, man. He got kicked out again. My bad. There we go. You're good to go. And we're good to go. We're good to go we're good to go we're all set we're dtf we got a carnivore on the show today yeah a fellow carnivore i'm interested to see like

how uh deep into the diet she has to go because i think she has some autoimmune disorders and a bunch of other things that her seemed like a lot of her life has been riddled with, which really sucks, but it seems like she's doing great. Her podcast is doing really good. We got Michaela Peterson on the podcast today. And before we dive into that, today's episode is brought to you by Piedmontese, certified Piedmontese, the best meat that you can get. It's super lean. It'll get you jacked, and you should check it out.

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And if your order is $99 or more, you get free two-day shipping. Yeah, a lot of chicks have been following the podcast, and I think it's because of the carnivore diet. Yeah, it's really interesting. I think a lot of women are also diving more and more into philosophy, because when I've been talking about it on my youtube channel um i see a lot of comments from women so i'm like that's freaking cool i didn't know i thought this face was too much for women to handle i didn't i didn't know they were watching that's great yeah and then somebody on on instagram sorry i can't remember the uh the instagram handle but they were like um maybe i'm i'm a, I'm a woman.

And I really dig this, you know, this stoicism, uh, philosophy. And I think those two episodes you guys just did were probably some of my favorites. So I'm like, that's dope. That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. And I think when it comes to, um, eating meat, I think, you know, through TV and through just a lot of stuff that we've seen over the, I think, you know, through TV and through just a lot of stuff that we've seen over the over the years, meat and men and like heart disease have kind of all been associated together. And so to have girls talking more about the carnivore diet is fantastic. And to have Michaela on today is is going to be great so that women can see it's not just for dudes. So she's still connecting and we should be good now. Oh,

we can't hear you. She's censored. I feel like we're taking one of those hearing tests. I've done that in years. You just like start to fakely put your hand up. You're like, I'm thinking I'm done that in years. You just like start to fakely put your hand up. You're like, I'm like, I'm supposed to hear something

like this guy can't hear shit. Oh, man. We'll get her. Oh, yeah. At some point. It's her radio radio frequency out there in

Russia or wherever she is. Where is she? Canada's not Russia or is it? No, I know. But she's somewhere weird right now. Yeah. She's Belarus. No Belarus. Where is she? Canada's not Russia. Or is it? No, I know, but she's somewhere weird right now. Belarus? No. Belarus? Oh, really? She's somewhere strange. Oh. Yeah. Something hard to pronounce.

Maybe her Bluetooth's not working? No. maybe her Bluetooth's not working. No. Her. Um, I got on a conference call like a week ago and this guy was like,

he was just sitting there and he wasn't doing anything. Now. Oh, there we go. Yeah. That's so weird. Something weird happened, right?

Yeah. That was strange. I was going to say, I was on a conference call like a few weeks ago with this guy and he was just sitting there like i wasn't sure if his screen was frozen or what but like he didn't realize that he clicked the link already and he was like on camera the whole time he's just chilling like drinking a soda and eat some food and just like hanging out and i was trying to talk to him but he couldn't he couldn't hear me and then finally he's, how long were you there for? I was like, uh, maybe like five minutes or so.

He's like, damn, it's like, I hope I wasn't picking my nose and stuff like that. Yeah. What's up, Michaela. Great to have you on the show today.

Yeah. Thanks for inviting me on. It's good to see you again. Where the hell are you at? I'm still in Belgrade, Serbia. You're still in Serbia. Awesome. What's going still in Serbia? Awesome.

What's going on in Serbia? How did you end up there? We came here because my dad needed help with damage. He got majorly damaged by benzodiazepines. Majorly. Major nerve damage. And there were specialists here that said they could help. So we came to Belgrade in the middle of like right when it opened at the very beginning of June and then everything was wide open. So it was strange going from Florida where everything was closed to Belgrade where everything was open.

And then everybody here got coronavirus about, about a month into it and like i mean everybody if you ask people on the street most people here say they've had it or they think they've had it so my whole family caught it so then we had dad in a clinic all the people in the clinic caught it um it actually wasn't that bad but uh it's been exciting. The way that your dad described this drug that he ended up being on for a while just sounded so horrific. I never really heard anyone describe anything like that before. I think he was mentioning like he felt like his whole body was like on fire and he was just in crazy amounts of pain. What's that drug even for? for benzodiazepines are used to treat anxiety they're also used if you take a really large dose they can sedate you for surgical procedures so they're

used a lot in surgical procedures but at a low dose they're given out very frequently for panic or anxiety and he started taking it after we had this autoimmune flare-up where he couldn't sleep for a very long time, and he had a whole bunch of body pain from this autoimmune problem, and our doctor gave him a low-dose benzodiazepine and a sleeping medication, and he didn't end up taking the sleeping medication, but he took the benzodiazepine,

and at that point, he didn't know. We weren't really paying attention to it and it turns out particularly for most people actually the um they're extremely dependence forming which means if you take them for like some doctors think two weeks straight so it's really not very long then your brain adjusts to them and stops producing, starts down-regulating some of the receptors you use for keeping yourself calm. And it turns out, this is what we found out more recently, it turns out one of the scary things benzodiazepines do is they up-regulate myelin she sheath formation and myelin sheaths are what cover every, like your nerves everywhere. So if you're on them for long enough, sometimes when you go off of

them, then you have myelin sheath damage and then you're just completely screwed because that that's your like a heat and cold temperature sensitivity, light sensitivity, stress sensitivity, pain tolerance. It's just like everything. And I've had a ton of people reach out to me about their experience taking benzodiazepines. And I've always known about the opiate. The opiate epidemic is pretty well known. Everyone knows, you know, if you take opiates for too long, you're going to have an opiate dependency. And they're going to be shitty to get off of if you can get off of them.

But I had never heard of a benzodiazepine dependency. I kind of put them in the same category as like an antidepressant, which you're told are safe. So it's just been hell and he's really, really not having a good time from this nerve damage and nerves take like a long time to recover. So it has not been great. And then how is he doing now? Like he's better than he was six months ago, but it's slow.

Like the people I've spoken with who've also had really severe damage from benzodiazepines said sometimes they couldn't work for a year and a half that they were in like just miserable for a year and a half. And then one day it just turned off, which I'm assuming might be a myelin sheath regrowth just regrows and then they're okay. So from those people, at least said, just wait, like it's just a waiting game. There's really nothing you can do about it other than try and stay in a low stress situation and then, and just wait. So we don't know how long it's going to take,

but he's not having a great time to say the least. Yeah. And then, you know, when I've asked you, like I'll occasionally hit you up and ask you how you're doing. Cause I know that your family has been hit by a bunch of stuff. You dealt with a lot of medical stuff as, as a child and still continue to do so, I believe. And then your mother was dealing with some stuff and now it's your dad.

And just seemed like this seemed like all hell's breaking loose in the Peterson household over there. Yeah, it, it really did over the last couple of years. Well, weirdly enough, about three years, well, more like five. Now I started to get my health under control. So I started to be able to control my autoimmune symptoms, which were really severe. And I got them completely under control just about two and a half years ago, completely gone. And then it was like a year of everything was good. And then my mom got this horribly deadly type of cancer that she somehow ended up surviving from. And then my dad's been dealing

with benzodiazepine damage. He started to like the dose increased when my mom got this cancer and they told all of us she was going to die. It's been a hell of a couple of years. Hopefully we're on the upswing, but I think it's going to be a while. And for you personally, how are you doing? How are you doing now? Like, you know, having overcome a lot of things in your, in your own life, your own autoimmune disorder, switching to the carnivore diet. And I think you also mentioned being diagnosed as bipolar. Like how are you, how are you holding up and how are you doing? How are you holding up and how are you doing? Health-wise, I'm doing wonderfully.

Like, wonderfully. And I have been really for, well, I guess it's about a year and a half that's been really good. But I have been steadily for the last five years just getting better and better. So I'm doing wonderfully. I'm not taking any medication. I haven't in a very long time. I have no autoimmune symptoms or mood symptoms and I'm on, yeah, a strict version of the carnivore diet. So I'm just eating ruminant meat and salt and water. And I've been doing that for almost three years. I recently tried to introduce some plants just to see what my tolerance was like and if I felt better with a little bit of carbs.

And my autoimmune responses and mood responses to vegetables, as ridiculous as that sounds, although your audience knows, has actually improved on the carnivore diet. So I definitely didn't have the kind of reactions I used to have, which were just catastrophic. But I did stop eating them again, because I started slowly getting autoimmune symptoms. But my mood symptoms, I seem to have a less of those. But I only tried to reintroduce like, certain fruit in pretty small quantities. So it's not like I tried eating a sandwich or something, but, um, so my health and that's all good. I'm mostly just trying to, you know, stay less stressed with my dad. I've been living out of a suitcase since January 4th. So we went to like, we went to Russia and then we were in Florida and now we're in Serbia.

So I'm looking forward to going home. I think we should probably be going home at the end of September, mid-September, maybe. You said that you guys all got coronavirus. I don't know if you guys all got it at the same time. And you said it was you kind of just glossed over it and said it wasn't that bad. But like what did happen? Like, how did you guys feel uh so like i said serbia opened up and then they shut it down they're like okay everything's closed again kind of uh everyone needs to wear masks um and we went into a pretty

strict quarantine because i was worried about my dad getting it because he had pneumonia earlier this year, pretty severe pneumonia. I was like, well, coronavirus probably isn't good for him right now. So we went into quarantine and we were all quarantining at the clinic he was staying at. And 11 days into quarantine, we got symptoms. We all kind of got them at the same time. And some of the staff got them at the same time too. So we're not entirely sure what happened. One of us either picked it up before we got in or one of the staff brought it in. But the symptoms were, it was like a kind of a flu-ish cold that lasted for quite a while. So I don't think dad really noticed.

When they did a CT scan, they could see it in his lungs. So they ended up giving him preventatively, giving him antibiotics, kind of preventatively. And he had a very low fever for a few days. And he had a very low fever for a few days. And he probably ended up with about seven days of most like nausea and bloating kind of. So that was his. For me, I had symptoms for about 18 days. So mine actually lasted longer, but it wasn't the most severe virus I've had in the last year.

I get viruses from my toddler all the time. And it wasn't as bad as some of those, but it was like a kind of a flu for us. So bloating, nausea, and then just general stuffiness. I didn't, it didn't end up going into my lungs at all. And I used to kind of be predisposed to bronchitis. So I was happy about that, but it wasn't that bad. I was completely convinced that it wasn't coronavirus, even though the doctors at the clinic were saying, you guys have coronavirus. It was like, there's no way because it's not that bad. Um, but then, you know, five of us got our antibodies. We'd had antibody testing before when we got here and it was

negative. And then we had antibody testing again and it was positive and they were worried about my dad. So they consulted some other doctors and they're like, it's definitely coronavirus. I was like, okay. So yeah, five of us got it. My toddler had symptoms too. She ended up same kind of thing, like digestive upset and she got a full body rash um but like i said it it wasn't the worst cold or virus we've had i've had in the last couple of years um it's definitely not the worst thing that's happened to us this year anyway tell us a little bit about how you transitioned into carnivore diet. Like, how did you even find out about it?

And what kind of led you to even looking into such a ludicrous diet, right? So I started in December 2017, and I had been doing really, really low carb for two years before that. I'd been on a meat and salad diet for a year before I went to the carnivore diet. And the reason I went into it wasn't actually because I'd heard of the carnivore diet. It was because I ended up, I got rid of all my autoimmune symptoms before I had a baby on a very low carb diet. So I was eating, I wasn't, I couldn't tolerate berries for some reason, but I could do apples. I could do salad. I could do sweet potatoes, parsnips. Like it was a variety compared to what I'm doing now.

And all my autoimmune symptoms and mood symptoms were gone. And then I got pregnant. And after the pregnancy, I couldn't get rid of my autoimmune symptoms again, which was really disheartening because I'd like tasted what it was like to be healthy. And then I had joint pain when I was, you know, picking up my baby, sometimes on my wrist, if I pushed myself up on my wrist, my wrist would buckle. And I was like, this is not happening. And all I was eating at that point, because I'd cut more and more and more out. I was like, it has to be diet. I fixed it with diet last time.

And at that point I was literally having salad, which was lettuce and apple cider vinegar and salt and pepper. Because I'd cut, I was like, I need my vitamins from something. So I just cut the lettuce basically and went to meat and thought, well, I'll just do this until I can figure out until I can get my symptoms under control. And then like two days

into the diet, one of my friends who'd been in the Marines and was a Joe Rogan fan had seen Sean Baker on Joe Rogan and sent me that and was like, look, like you're not the only one who only eats meat. And then I felt way better because I was breastfeeding at the time. And I was like, look, like you're not the only one who only eats meat. And then I felt way better because I was breastfeeding at the time. And I was like, I was already getting so much hell from my in-laws in particular about not having enough vitamins, not being healthy. And then I went to all meat and it was just like all hell broke loose. But, um, Sean Baker watching Sean Baker's interview made me feel a lot better. And then I've stuck with it since then. And currently you talked a lot about like, you know, having arthritis as a child and like how your joints have, you know, they've, they've just been pretty painful.

Um, and I think you also had some surgery too, as a teenager on your hips or ankles. Yeah. Hip and ankle replacement. Okay. So how is that? Like, is that improving right now still as you are on this diet? Yeah. So the actual joint damage before I went on, before I managed to get my symptoms under

control with diet, I had arthritis everywhere except for my spine. I was extremely severe and I couldn't sleep at night on my shoulders and my wrist was just like fucked. So it was bad. And I didn't know the extent of that joint damage. I'd already had my hip and ankle replaced when I was 17. And I was almost certain my wrist was going to be next, my right wrist too, which would have been a huge pain. I'd already been getting cortisone injections into it for swelling. And it really, the arthritic symptoms actually resolved faster than the mood symptoms. It was maybe when I first went low carb, it was probably three months. And the second time when I went to the carnivore

diet, it was maybe two weeks. Like, and then the joint pain went away. And so now the only joint pain I, if I get a virus, I'll get joint pain again. But I feel like lots of people get that. And then I have a little bit of bone changes just from the arthritis. So I still have a tiny bit of pain in my wrist, but everything everywhere else is gone and there's no active arthritis anywhere. So all of my joints have healed. Like my fingers straightened out. Um, my thumbs are still a bit wonky, but they're straightening out. And it, I mean, it's only been, well, it's probably been about five years now that I've kind of had the arthritis under control. But yeah, things are definitely still improving.

And they improved quite quickly once I was on the carnivore diet. Why do you think sometimes women are reluctant to try the diet? We were just kind of talking about that before we hopped on with you today. We kind of hear that meat is like a guy thing or steak is a guy thing. What do you think is some of the reluctancy from women um well some of it okay so women generally are more agreeable than men and for some reason what's what we're told is sexy is having a salad and i think a lot of it has to do with fear of getting fat, honestly. Like no one is told salads could cause that. And I'm like, and generally speaking, if you're only eating salad, you're not going to be overweight. But I think it's fear of getting

fat. And I think it's mainly that I don't know. I would just and then it's also a compassion issue because you have more women that end up being vegans and that's certainly a compassion thing. So I would say women are more agreeable, higher in compassion, so less likely to eat animals in that way. And they're worried about gaining weight. It's silly. It's not a good idea. It works for, from my experience. And I've talked to thousands and thousands of people who've gone onto this diet, women, particularly the ones

that have already had kids are some of the people who need this kind of diet the most. Cause you end up with a whole bunch of, if you're unlucky, you can end up with a whole bunch of food sensitivities after pregnancy and this solves that problem um so it's really a shame but it's probably the people not knowing not knowing enough too because they think i mean there are there's ways to do this diet that's sustainable and that's nice to animals right you can get grass-fed beef from a local rancher. It's like that's that's what vegans are looking for, kind of. So, yeah, that's my answer to that question. Well, so going back to the most womanly thing ever, having a baby and nursing, did that improve when you switched over from essentially a plant-based to a meat-based diet?

Well, I was never plant-based ever. This is the funny thing about this diet too, is I always ate a lot of meat for my entire life. I ate a lot of meat. I was never vegetarian. I always knew meat was a health food. My grandpa was a hunter and I never thought it wasn't a health food. I thought that was silly. So technically when I went from meat and salad to meat, I really just dropped the lettuce. I didn't even start eating more meat. I was probably eating more meat before that because I was pregnant before that. So it was really dropping the plants that helped me, not just increasing my consumption of meat, which is interesting. But yeah, my breastfeeding went better. Everything improved. I lost about 10 pounds, which you could argue is water weight. But

after I had my baby, there was about 15 pounds I couldn't lose. And I was eating meat and salad. And I was like, what is going on? I guess this is like a price is something that happens during pregnancy. Um, and I lost that right away. Um, breastfeeding was easier. My milk flow was more after I started the carnivore diet fairly quickly. Um, my daughter used to get stomach aches sometimes after she breastfed. And I noticed that that increased if I had something like collard greens, which I loved. So I cut out the collard greens. That's also part of the reason I got to just lettuce. But when I went to just beef, her stomach aches stopped and cradle caps she had went away. So it made a big difference.

And I've spoken with other people because I generally tell women are scared, especially if they're breastfeeding and they have this obligation to another being to be as healthy as they can be. So they'll email me and say, Hey, I feel better on carnivore, but I'm really worried. And I generally tell people do whatever makes your body feel the best because you know, when you're healthiest, you know, when you eat something that doesn't make you feel good, especially if your diet's pretty clean, um, just do what makes your body feel best. And that'll be probably be the best for your baby too. Does your daughter, like, um, I don't know if you're comfortable talking about, uh, her with this, but I mean, you know, your dad, uh, he has a lot of the similar issues that you have. Does she have any food intolerances also?

Does that pass on or is she cool? Well, we haven't tested it out. So she's cool, but her diet's limited. My husband, when I met him, he had some pretty severe, not like me. He wasn't diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, but he was extremely depressed and he had joint issues and he cleaned up his diet and that all resolved. So we've been very, very, very careful with my daughter because I think that none of what I have, according to the scientific community is inherited, but, or genetic, but they don't

necessarily know what they're talking about. So we've been very careful with her and her main food is meat. And she has, she basically eats meat and fruit and some vegetables, but it's like 80% meat and she's fantastic. She never gets, she never has tantrums. The only time, and this sounds insane, but the only time she's had a tantrum was when my mom was babysitting her and gave her sausages that had sugar in them. That can happen. And she screamed for two days. Like those, one of those ones where you like shake your crib and scream bloody murder for two days and that was the only time she's had a tantrum so i think you can get a lot of that like evil two-year-old demon child thing out if they're you're not hyping them up on sugar all the time but um we're i don't know i think

that if she was eating a standard american diet i don't know how she would feel but given her screaming response to sugar probably not great are any special types of meat or any specific types of meat for your baby um we started because i was on i what i was doing for the carnivore diet was just ruminant meat. So like mainly beef and lamb. We started her with beef, but she eats like she eats any type of meat and pretty much any type of fruit. And then we just, we're just smart about it, right? If she eats too much fruit, she'll get bloated. You can see that. So like, okay, that's too much. Don't feed her that, that much. Like she'll get a little crabby, like, okay, that's too much fruit, too much sugar, just have less tomorrow. So you can kind of just judge. And I think starting really slow when you have a kid, isn't a bad thing. Cause then you can

introduce one food, see how they react to it, introduce another food, see how they react to it. But, um, yeah, she's eating, like I said, mostly meat, mostly beef, lamb. She likes chicken. What does your diet look like? Do you guys cook meals at home a lot? Do you get a chance to eat out? Do you cave in to eating something weird here and there, despite the negative impact it might have on you?

spite the negative impact it might have on you? I don't do any kind of cheating, uh, like ever. Um, I didn't eat anything other than beef for an entire year. And then I introduced lamb. Yeah. Then I introduced lamb and that was totally fine. Um, and then I didn't eat anything other than beef and lamb for another year. And then I introduced wild salmon and that seemed to work out, which was great. Um, and then, like I said, a couple of months ago, I was like, well, maybe I don't know, maybe I'm more tolerant now. And maybe I'd feel better with some, uh, carbs considering before the pregnancy, I could do that with no autoimmune problems. So I did try, but I'm done with that now.

So for one month out of the last three years, I tried other things. I don't have any spices. I seem to tolerate tea now. So there's definitely some healing going on, but it's slow. And I think I'm going to be stuck pretty limited, possibly just on the meat diet for a significant amount of time.

I definitely felt bad enough reintroducing some fruit that I'm probably going to put that out off for another year. But anyway, to answer the question, we eat at home most of the time, but for the first year also, I ate at home because I was too worried about going out because of cross-contamination because I was so sensitive. But now I know how to order in restaurants and I really haven't had issues in a very long time. So we go out quite a bit. Ordering a plain steak with no seasoning, especially in Europe, is actually pretty easy. In North America, especially if it's lower end and they kind of put stuff on it. So you have to be very specific, like no oil, no, I say no salt

and pepper, like completely plain. I want meat on a plate. So when I say when I order, I want meat on a plate with nothing else on the plate or like, okay. But, uh, some of the places in Toronto have gotten used to us. So that makes it easier. You know, your audience is so big that, you know, you've talked to a lot of individuals that have come to you with specific issues and going carnivores changed. And I'm really curious because you said and you've talked about in the past the type of depression that you had and how switching your diet aided with that. Now, I don't know exactly how that is with you now. So if you can describe that, but I also want to know from all the people that have come to you or talk to you about issues like that, that have made the switch, have you noticed a correlation with an elimination diet along with helping with mood disorders? Yes, for sure. The only time, and I'm serious about this, the only time I haven't seen it work is if that person was taking benzodiazepines, which is unfortunately what my dad was taking. And then I've seen people go to strict beef and weight and it hasn't really helped them. Other than that, I've seen OCD, schizophrenia, bipolar, anxiety, depression,

all those things alleviate. And the timeframe seems to be somewhere between some people it's fast. Some people with anxiety, especially the anxiety that's like in the morning, or it's just, it's not anxiety enough to be desperate. That can be like three days. I've seen that happen. So that's fast. And then sometimes, especially if it's severe depression, where can be like three days. I've seen that happen. So that's fast. And then sometimes, especially if it's severe depression where it feels like you're walking through mud and it's just debilitating, that's like six weeks to five months. So sometimes that can take a little bit longer. For people who have MS and a mood disorder, that seems to take longer. And I think that's because it's a nerve problem and nerves take longer to regenerate. It seems like joint pain is one of the things that's faster.

It's relieved faster. Mood takes a little bit longer. But yeah, I've seen this happen over and over and over again. And it doesn't seem to not work unless you're taking medications that can mess with that. But it's difficult for people because they have to stick to it for at least six weeks. And the six weeks aren't fun. You go through, if you are a coffee drinker, you go through caffeine withdrawal, you go through sugar withdrawal, which is brutal. That was hard for me. And I got off of O oxycontin when i had my hip and ankle done i was on high dose oxycontin for a year and i got off of that and getting off of sugar

was more difficult but less physically like nasty um so it's hard for people to do and especially people with mood disorders they're so like especially people with mood disorders, they're so like, some people are so crazy that they're like, now I'm trying this meat diet, which is also insane and it's not going to work. And then if they start feeling worse, like they go into sugar withdrawal and they have a mood disorder, they're like, what am I doing? And then they stop. So like they, if they stay on it though, for like a six week period, it seems to be really effective. You know, all of it is a better option than like ending up in a wheelchair or something

like that though. Like for, for yourself, I mean, that could have been the result you could have had. I know you had a replacement and stuff like that, but if you would have continued down that path of eating unhealthy, then what would happen to your other hip? What would happen to your other ankle? What would happen to your knee? So I'm sure, yes, it sounds like it would be really, really hard to get past those weeks. But I guess if you could keep the overall picture in mind and maybe understand that, hey, you know, this is going to suck, but it's going to lead to a better version of me.

I just need to figure out a way to, how did you personally hang in there? How were you, are you able to kind of tough it out? Um, I was pretty desperate. It seems like desperate. If you have the comparison of an autoimmune disorder, then those people seem to have an okay time sticking to it. it's like they're already suffering so much that you add in a little bit more suffering and it sucks but just being alive is so shitty that it's like i'll just wait this out because if it works like that would be a miracle so how did i stick it out uh i was i don't know i was just giving it a shot in kind of a scientific way.

Like when I went to, when I cut out most things and went to a really, really low carb diet, I just did it as a science experiment. It was like, okay, realistically, like these are the foods I can eat. I cannot cheat or that'll mess up the science experiment. I have to do it for at least a month because what difference is a week going to make? Um, so I just treat it as an experiment. And when I went to all meet, um, I thought I'll do this for six weeks. Um, and I won't cheat once or it'll mess up the experiment. And then I just, just did it. I don't know if that answers the question at all, but that was my experience. No, I know that. Um, first off giving medical advice is very sketch in general like because i was curious you know you you mentioned that you got off of oxycontin

and you also got off of other medications and obviously people that hit you up probably have the question of hey michaela how do i do this because my doctor doesn't my doctor doesn't want me to get off these medications and they probably think this diet's crazy so how can people navigate those waters when their doctor is telling them hey you have to keep taking this you can't get off but you know they want to and they want to give it a shot uh so I'm probably less careful than I should be because I'm so irritated about what I went through. And I got so much like I went to when I first went low carb and my symptoms started going away and I stopped taking my medication.

I had to lie to my rheumatologist that I was still on my immune suppressants so that he would keep seeing me because you're allowed to fire the patient if they're not listening to you. But I was like, well, I still need someone to monitor my arthritis. fire the patient if they're not listening to you. But it was like, well, I still need someone to monitor my arthritis. So I've had such terrible experiences with the medical system, not paying attention to the fact that I did a 180 with health. Like I couldn't even remember questions people asked me or repeat phone numbers back to them. I was so screwed up. So I'm probably less careful than I should be. But if people ask me, like, should I stop taking this

medication? I don't answer those questions. Like what I did was I did stop some of the medications before my symptoms went away. I stopped my immune suppressants so that I could monitor the arthritis properly to see if I was having flare ups. But something like the antidepressant that I was on, I didn't think the depression was ever going to leave. I thought it was a genetic problem because there's some sort of genetic problem and that I was stuck with it forever. So I didn't actually stop taking that

until the depression left. So a lot of the time I say, you know what? Try not to be that concerned about it. Get your symptoms under control and then you can talk to your doctor about getting off your medication. If you don't have symptoms, then there's no reason to be that concerned about it. Get your symptoms under control, and then you can talk to your doctor about getting off your medication. If you don't have symptoms, then there's no reason to be on them. So, yeah, I should probably be a bit more careful.

But also, if you don't talk about it, nobody knows about it. And then everyone just goes on thinking they're doomed with whatever horrible health problem they have forever. That's worse, I would say, than risking telling people what I did. How long have you suffered from depression? When did that manifest into a problem that ended up being crippling or ended up leading you to even go to a doctor? Symptoms started when I was in grade one. So I used to come home from school and cry. I didn't cry at school So I used to come home from school and cry. I didn't

cry at school, but I'd come home from school and cry. And then my dad realized that what he was suffering from and his dad was suffering from was depression. When I was in about grade four. And when I was in grade five, it started being uncontrollable. I was having, I couldn't sleep very well. I was having nightmares, like terrible nightmares. I was starting to get panic attacks. I had these, it was nasty. I had these OCD tendencies of reorganizing things in my room until like 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. So I wasn't sleeping. And then I started getting into fights with my friends. And I remember thinking, getting into this one fight, and I wasn't, I was so angry and I, I, I could, can remember

slamming my door and being like insanely angry and thinking this kind of response doesn't make any sense to the situation that just occurred. Um, and a few years before that, my dad had started taking an SSRI for his depression and he brought me to a doctor or, so that's what happened. And then I started taking an SSRI and the SSRI actually helped a lot. Like, I don't know how I would have survived high school. Ideally I would have found a diet, but we weren't looking at that at all. So, um, the SSRI honestly helped probably helped keep me alive through high school, but it's a hell of a lot better not being on them and depressed, you know, half poisoned or whatever.

Were there other techniques that you utilized to manage it or was it mainly just, uh, the medication helped? No, I just used the medication. I tried exercising. It was so bad that nothing else worked. Exercise made no difference. And I was on sports teams and things made no difference. Like the things I generally suggest to people now, I find an infrared sauna can be really helpful. But I was so like, I was so screwed up that there wasn't anything that would have worked

other than diet, like, um, doing exercise or meditating. Like I used to write, if I got really angry, I used to try and write, but no, like, um, I was, I was, no, there wasn't anything else. Thank God for diet. Where did your depression come from? Any idea or just something that just manifested because you're you? Because I'm me. Well, like I said, my grandpa and my dad have the same the same depression. It's a very severe. Well, severe depression, like brain foggy, horrible, tar like depression. And I assume, I don't know, a lot of people with autoimmune disorders also have mood disorders. And it's probably just general level of inflammation. And some people are more prone to it. But I think it's, I think it has to do with brain inflammation. And when I got my diet under

control, and my level of inflammation went down, then that went away. Thank God. Um, other than that, I have no idea where I came from. Luck. God. You know, um, if you can describe to the audience, cause I mean, a lot of them understand that you had a lot of joint issues. You dealt with depression, which a lot of these things have gotten better, but what else? Cause I mean, when I've seen some of your videos, there was like so many things that you said that you dealt with that are now better that I just, I couldn't keep track. So if you could just help them understand, I mean, I really couldn't, if you could help them understand the other things that you were dealing with that have improved or gone away. Yeah, yeah, no problem. That's a good question

anyway, because some of the other things are more widespread, I would say. Everything that bugged me about my body stopped when I got better and changed my diet. And these were things that I had kind of ignored. So I used to have mouth ulcers. My gums used to bleed when I brushed my teeth. I had constant bloating. I had quite severe lower back pain that had nothing to do with arthritis. That went away. I had this, to make matters worse, after I had my hip and ankle replaced and I went to university and my diet, like I was eating like a university student, which was like pizza and beer. And I got so ill and I started getting this blistering rash.

And that's actually what led me to food because I had this blistering rash and I was like, that is too many things. I can't handle this like bipolar arthritis, um, combination with a blistering rash. That was one too many. Uh, and that's how I kind of linked it to gluten. Um, because it turns out I finally figured out what the rash was. It took like two years. Um, and it was gluten. So there was a rash as well. I had terrible skin in other ways. Like I had acne. Um, what else happened? I used to, I used to soak the bed with sweat at night, which was really unattractive for dating, but just like, and it was a disaster when I was in university and I got sicker, it just got worse. And at points I was wearing pajamas to bed,

waking up in the middle of the night to take them off and sleeping on a towel. Like I was just like sweating at night and it wasn't, it was, I think my body was trying to detox. Um, like I didn't smell or anything. It was just sweating. I had no heat tolerance. So I was overheated all the time. I had eye floaters. My nose was stuffy in the morning. That was like, these are, these problems were like the minor versions of my problems. Like wake up with a stuffy nose. It was annoying, but, um, let's see. I think that covers most of it. There was definitely more, but those are some, Oh, I used to get a slow period. This is something that most people get. If they to get a slow period. This is something that most

people get. If they get like a slow period around four and that's when people have like a muffin or something to give them a pick me up. That slow period was because of whatever I ate for lunch, just giving like a dip. So I don't get any slow periods now. Like I wake up in the morning, I'm awake. I had an impossible time waking up in the morning. I'd have like a whole bunch of alarms and feel like, I'd feel like I couldn't lift up my body. Oh, and the main, the other one was, I was diagnosed with idiopathic hypersomnia, which was just like chronic fatigue.

That was horrible. That was probably as bad as the depression. If I had to order the things that were wrong with me. And that went away. That actually went away about three months into the low carb diet when I first cut out most of the inflammatory foods. So I was taking Adderall for that. I think that covers most of what the problems were. You seem to be really positive and you look great. You look like you're really healthy now. Like, you know, I think it's really inspirational that you were able to overcome a lot of these different issues. When you look back at these things, like, are they in the rearview mirror or can they kind of creep up on you at any time if you kind of go off the diet? creep up on you at any time if you kind of go off the diet you know and even like with your depression like will that sometimes certain things hit and you're like oh shit um no even the last

the last two years of having my like parents nearly die repeatedly uh it was a different that was stress like that was major, but it's different than a mood disorder. They don't feel the same. Like, I don't know which one, I wouldn't say that the mood disorder was worse or better, which is saying something if you're dealing with like possible death. But anyway, are things in the rear view mirror? Yeah. When I first got better, it's amazing. If you stop feeling ill, it's amazing how fast you can forget, which is, I guess, why people have more than one child, right? You don't remember pain. So when I first got better, I thought I was on this really restrictive low carb diet and all my friends thought I was crazy. And I was like, ah, I'll just, whatever, this is good. I'll just stick

on this diet and I'm just not going to tell anyone. I'm not going to talk about it. Um, and then I kept trying to reintroduce foods and I had these horrible reactions over and over and over again. And after about 10 of those reactions, I thought, okay, I have to make a blog or something and tell people because if there's one person out there that's experiencing this insanity of like a mood disorder and autoimmune symptoms linked with food reactions, then they have to feel like they're not alone because I was, it was so, it was so isolating. Um, and that's when I started the blog and I started to talk about it. But the longer I've been on the carnivore diet, I started the blog and I started to talk about it, but the longer I've been on the carnivore diet, the more it fades. Like I'm not, if I ever get joint pain from a cold or something,

it's not terrifying. It's annoying, but I know it'll go away. Um, I was quite concerned when I tried to reintroduce plants cause I, you know, I had a very severe mood disorder. I didn't, didn't want to be, um, totally screwed for like three weeks. But my tolerance seems to have gone up and I didn't go crazy or anything when I reintroduced that. So yeah, I would say I'm feeling pretty safe the longer I'm on this diet. And I've been hit with like at the beginning, I was scared of spices. I was scared of restaurants. And the longer I'm on it, and the more those kinds of experiences I have, the more sure I am about how I'm feeling. So yeah, I would say it does fade if you start to feel

better. So do you think carnivore like healed you or would you say it's more of you're just smarter about the way you handle your food and then maybe even just having a little bit less than what you were having before? I think here's my theory behind it. I think I had severe gut damage. So leaky gut. And I think that everything I was eating, and I know this through a number of blood tests I did, because you can test to see sometimes if certain food particles show up in your blood and they shouldn't, right? They should be going through you. If you eat something, it shouldn't be in your blood. And these food particles were showing up in my blood. So therefore, I think I had severe leaky gut. And I think removing the plants stopped my immune system from reacting to them and only eating meat allowed the leaky gut

to heal. So I think part of the reason I could reintroduce plants a month ago and not have horrifying reactions is because my gut is less permeable than it was. And then I've talked to a number of doctors who've actually used the carnivore diet for a number of years, way before it's gotten more popular. There's this diet called the GAPS diet, which has been around since, I think, the 90s. And that's a Russian doctor. And she treats people with mood and autoimmune disorders and whatnot with an animal-based diet, strictly, and then allows them to introduce foods back in and her theory is the same that it's leaky gut but that people with autoimmune disorders kind of have to just stay on it um and well from my experience i might be stuck on it but it's so

much better than having an autoimmune disorder that it doesn't even matter for you what plants tend to be and maybe also because again so many so many people have come to some of these issues and they're reintroducing food. So when people do start reintroducing certain plants, what tend to be the most, I guess, the most the more difficult ones to deal with? Like, I think you mentioned that you're eating some lettuce, right? Or am I wrong about that? No, no, I'm I'm just on ruminant meat and I'll be like that for, for, for a while. But, um, there's definitely, there's definitely a scale of what's most irritating to the immune system. Grains are right at the top. Those are really hard for people to digest. Um, and there's literature on this, particularly gluten-containing grains

that can increase gut permeability. So people seem to, especially people with autoimmune disorders, but just in general. So grains, I'd put at the top legumes, and that's kind of under, so soy, which is in everything, that's kind of under so soy which isn't everything that's kind of understandable because even just to generally just to eat those you need to do something like pressure cook them to make them edible so legumes are at the top that's what I was mostly reactive to were grains and legumes and dairy and I know a lot of people on the carnivore diet eat a lot of dairy but dairy was extremely inflammatory for me. Um, and I didn't respond well to eggs either. So it was really meat that, um, helped, but I'd say

if you only want to limit your, if you don't want to do a carnivore diet and you want to be healthier, if you get rid of grains, legumes, limit dairy and stop eating processed foods, you can, and you're a healthy person. You can probably just do that. So there's definitely, and then when I tell people to reintroduce, we start with things like carrots, parsnips, um, berries. If you pressure cook things, then they're easier for people with gut damage to start with. Root vegetables, although generally I don't do nightshades like potatoes right off the bat. So we start with like easier to digest things that you might feed babies other than I guess babies eat everything right now. But like carrots, parsnips, apples, stuff like that.

Yeah, babies usually have food that has one ingredient you want to try to have. And I think that that's a great rule for a lot of people to follow. I think when we start to mix a lot of ingredients is when we start to, you know, maybe really run, run into some trouble with, with your depression. Maybe you can help somebody that's listening right now that either has depression or has a child that has depression, what are some things to maybe avoid? I would imagine it takes a great deal of work on yourself. You mentioned that you had medication and that seemed to be helpful, but I would guess that in today's day and age, like with social media um just even people

having relationships like i don't know if you can speak on your own relationships like i would just imagine that that's really hard i have a lot a lot of friends that have been diagnosed as bipolar my oldest brother pretty much died from being bipolar and i know that it's recommended a lot of times from a therapist they'll say hey you know i sorry, but you can't have a relationship because you're not you don't have a Jesus. You don't have you don't have a relationship with with yourself that's intact yet. And so they're not going to say, like, hey, you need to break up with whomever you're with. They're going to say, hey, I wouldn't advise the even bother looking just at the moment because let's make sure that you can get your own kind of thoughts. What are some things that you think people should maybe kind of look out for?

Like I would imagine social media just might be a little more dangerous until you can get yourself in a strong enough position to be able to resume. Yeah. Well, I can understand if a therapist would say avoid relationships because when I, even when I was on antidepressants, like I was crazy compared, like, so it was not good. Relationships were not good. I was extremely volatile. Like it really wasn't manageable. Um, I generally tell people if they have a mood disorder, having a mood disorder is miserable. Having a mood disorder, especially a severe one is way worse than the arthritis I experienced. They're not even in the same universe. It just destroys your life. And so for those people, I say like, what is there to lose?

Try the diet for six weeks. Cause if it works, that's huge. Like taking medication, it doesn't work. The antidepressants I was on probably saved me from doing myself in, but I wasn't not depressed. I was just numbed. So I say even before exercise or anything, because like sometimes you're so sick, you can't, you literally can't get out of bed. And so for those people, like just control what goes into your mouth until you feel better. Other things, and really the reason I say that is because really

nothing else worked for me. Like, um, I tried a lot of things and nothing worked until I fixed my diet and then other things could work. Like now if I'm feeling down, exercise will make me feel better. Getting in the sauna will make me feel better. Um, getting in the sun will make me feel better, but that's like, you know, a 20% increase in mood when I'm not depressed. When I was depressed, it made absolutely no difference. Social media, I can't imagine, is good for people. It's definitely not good for body image. But also, if you avoid it, then it kind of, it's not great.

Like, I think we kind of have to figure out a way to adapt with it. Otherwise you can't tell your kid not to use social media, right? Because how are they going to have, not, not how are they going to have friends, but kind of, you can't like what you don't have Facebook, you don't have Instagram, you're going to be an outcast in school. So telling them not to use it isn't really sustainable. I know my family tried to put, like my cousins, they tried to put time limits on it,

which is probably a good idea. But honestly, I just go straight to diet. Try and clean up your diet. If you have a kid that's depressed, like get rid of some of the more inflammatory foods. Even just getting rid of the gluten-containing grains might make a difference. And that's a good test.

That's actually the smallest test. I tell people who really aren't willing to do much, go gluten free for a month and then eat a bunch of gluten. And if you feel significantly worse, then food has something to do with it. It was like, and that's, you can pretty much convince people to do that because they make gluten free

everything now. And that's a good test just to see if you're not convinced that food has anything to do with your mood. We eat pretty healthy, all three of us in this room. And we'll come in every once in a while with a story like, oh, man, I just spent the whole – like, sorry I'm 20 minutes late because I spent the whole morning on the toilet. And it's because, you know, we ate a burrito or we ate something that was off plan. So it's interesting because, you know, when you normally eat bad, I just think that you start to think things are more normal. You know, to have a lot of gas or to have problems in the bathroom or any of these things. You just kind of feel like, yeah, this is just the way it should be. And for me, you know, I didn't realize like in my powerlifting career when I got as big and as strong as I could, I could squat and bench and do certain things, but I could barely tie my shoe.

Or, you know, doing something like lunges or something like that would just, it would give me tons of pain in my knee. And so I think, I think as we move forward, we're always kind of just thinking, oh, well, these things are just kind of part of it. This is just sort of part of my life. This depression is probably fairly normal. So I'm not going to talk to anybody about it. These things are just normal. I'm a teenager. This is, this is normal. And I think we just kind of accept these things. But when something's not feeling right, it's probably not right. And you should probably, you know, start to investigate. Like, what's it going to hurt if you just kind of look into it, research it? Like you said, you know, why not? Why not try to eat a little healthier?

Did you notice when you switched to the carnivore diet, was there a two or three day or two or three week adjustment period to it or did you instantly start to feel a little bit better because i know sometimes someone will go like well you mentioned you went low carb but some people will go low carb and they're like yo like i feel like i feel like crap i feel like shit and they maybe don't realize like hey you know if you got to take, it might take a little while to start feeling better. Yeah. Yeah. So I had my transition into carnivore was rough and I literally dropped lettuce. So I didn't have like, I, you wouldn't think that that made much of a difference, but it did. Um, it made a major difference. My arthritis probably improved within three days um i was at that point because i was not taking any medication um but i was experiencing all my symptoms so i was crying in the mornings and that went away in three days um i had full body itching that went away in three days

then the depression left in six weeks and anxiety took five months. But my digestion was a mess for like six weeks. And I've spoken with a lot of people, particularly the ones with autoimmune disorders. And generally, and Joe Rogan, when he tried the carnivore diet, he experienced this too. Generally speaking, if you go to the carnivore diet and you're not a hundred percent healthy, not to throw Joe under the bus or anything, um, you get diarrhea and that can last anywhere between three days. Generally it's two weeks, which is quite a long time. Uh, and for me, it was more like six. And for people with autoimmune disorders, it seems to last a long time. And I think that has to do with a couple of things. One, your microbiome does change when you go to a carnivore diet.

If you're not consuming carbs, then your carb-consuming bacteria die off. And I don't know if they had anything to do with the problems I was experiencing, but I'm only healthier on it. So I don't know if it's a problem that they die off. And they do seem to come back if you start eating carbs again. But yeah, there's definitely a transition. There's a huge transition if you go from the standard American diet to the carnivore diet. Because like I said, you can go into caffeine withdrawal and sugar withdrawal. And so going into withdrawal is not going to make you feel better. So that's why you have to do a six week

period and you just have to suck it up for like six weeks to see if it works. And if you're only like there were a couple of newspaper articles where they're like, I did the carnivore diet for two weeks and it was miserable. It was like, yes, it is miserable for two weeks. So you just have to wait. And most people, I think, don't have like a great time for the first month or so. But then I've seen some people, generally the healthier ones.

I had this guy from Silicon Valley message me and he's like, I stopped eating. He was like on a burrito diet, speaking of burritos. And he's like, yeah, I just switched to steak because it was easier. And I was like, I don't really want to cook anyway. And he felt better in three days. But he didn't have anything wrong with him, really. He was just like, I don't want to cook or I just want to be slightly faster. anyway and he felt better in three days but he didn't have anything wrong with him really he was just like i don't want to cook or i just want to be slightly faster um so it depends if you're

healthy you're probably not as interested in going on the carnivore diet but it's probably going to be easier than if you're unhealthy uh i know this is probably like just a minuscule question but do you stay like when you cook your meat, do you just stay away from like oils and stuff where you just cook it straight? Yeah. The, if anyone takes away anything from this episode, I would say get an air fryer.

I've been ninja air fryer. Air fryers. Number one life hack. So I'm glad you're, that's literally how excited I am about air fires. I've been advertising them for free on YouTube or on Instagram. Like you need to get an air fryer and I just take a frozen steak. Cause if you cook it from frozen and it's crispier on the outside and not

cooked on the inside, you just put it in for like 10 minutes aside, depending on how thick it is. Thicker is better. Cause it gets crispier on the outside. Cook it at 200. I like, to spend 30 seconds a day cooking. And then you just put the whole thing in the dishwasher. There's nothing involved. It's so easy. So yeah, I don't use oils. I use an air fryer. Or if I do decide to cook something like a burger is

probably better fried. I use beef tallow for oil. Cool. I think that's the best part of this episode. Like get an air fryer. It's so worth it. I wish I had one in university when I was eating pizza, it would have been like,

you can cook every, you can get chicken wings in there. It's great. Everything with your,. It's great. Everything. With your, uh, your dad's, uh, popularity. Uh, what has some of that been like for you? Uh, positive, negative. Um, there, there hasn't been a lot of, well, that's not true.

Um, nevermind. I'm just being, that was overly. Yeah. Like, I mean, anything, anything anything anything he does i mean he's so he's polarizing but he's also count counterculture in a lot of ways and maybe people think that everything that he says is your same views and people you know people get triggered people get really upset i've seen people at his lectures, you know, screaming at him, you know, and things like that. And have you been subject to any of that? Do people just come on social media and just grill you because they're like, your dad's an asshole or whatever? Or is it? I mean, I love

him. And I know a lot of other people have gotten tremendous value from I've texted you all the time. I listen to another another thing from your dad, so there's millions and millions of people that love him and he's sold millions and millions of books and everything like that. But, uh, what about the kind of maybe negative side to it too? Um, so in, in actual human to human interaction, there is no negative side. I got, if anyone comes up on the street, it's always positive. Um, If anyone comes up on the street, it's always positive. I don't think I've ever had a negative experience that way. But on social media, yeah. And I get haters from people who don't like my dad.

And there are extreme leftists and extreme right people who don't like dad. So I get both of those sides. And then I also get vegans. So social media can be stressful. Like Twitter can is probably the most stressful one or if somebody, but most of the negativity that's been directed at me hasn't really had anything to do with dad. of the negativity that's been directed at me hasn't really had anything to do with dad. Honestly, it's mostly just been purely directed at me, which I'm not sure if that's better or worse, but, um, with dad, like a lot of that is people coming up on the street and that's just purely positive. Have you kind of maybe learned, you know, because you're talking about all these

things that you're just, you're opened up to it, right? Like, that's the way I look at it. And I'm just like, you know what, I'm, I talk about all these different things. So I'm subject to people, you know, flaming the shit out of me. And I'm totally fine with that. What I don't like is, is when it reflects like my team or a friend or especially family like that, you know, that does hurt that, that is really frustrating. But if it's just me, I have learned to not give a shit about it. Yeah, I've had, um, I think the hardest thing I've dealt with is people giving me shit this year because I've been like taking care of dad throughout this for eight months and it's been

all my bullshit that I'm dealing with yeah and it's been really hard and it's been the hardest thing I've done and I I've done some hard things and like this year has sucked and I have and so there are people online that are like what are you doing to your dad and it's like you have no idea what's going on here and those things once you're in once you're already stressed then those will bug me but but again like that's what happens when people know of you because they stop thinking of you as a real person and then just say whatever they want so So yeah, it's tough sometimes. I find Twitter the worst one. What about exercise? We talked a little bit when I was on your show about some exercise.

Do you walk? Do you run? Do you lift? I know you've mentioned I think running would be too hard because of your ankle. But what do you got for exercise? Right now, walking and then doing floor exercises. And I'm pretty much just there. I tried starting to lift, but I had my ankle re-replaced January 2019. And that was a year and a half healing time fully when I wasn't supposed to

do a lot. And I tried pushing that a couple of times and then put myself back. Uh, so right now it's walking and the left side of my body because of my ankle is so weak that walking is good enough. So I'm at the walking point, but I think after maybe six months or four months of like trying to build up atrophied muscle, I can probably more safely do gym stuff. It's just like my left side is pretty wobbly. So I need to start slow. Started, started up your own podcast and that seems to be going really well. I think you're what, 20 episodes in or so. Yeah. I'm really, really enjoying it. That's the one thing like, um, Eric's my sound guy and he's the one who like pushed me to do it. It was like, I think you'd be good at it. You should start it. And I was like, uh, doing like, um, life is in the way, but, um, that's been one of the things

that's actually really helped give me a break or doing podcasts like this. Cause it puts you, really helped give me a break or doing podcasts like this because it puts you well puts you somewhere else for an hour or so so I've been really lucky to talk to a very large number of interesting people and it's great it's like I can decide what I'm interested in and then talk to someone who's a specialist in whatever area that is it's's crazy. So, and people seem to like it. So it's really fun. I'm really enjoying it. I know you have limited time, but I was curious after one of your lecture videos, I saw that you said you're trying other things like, you know, you mentioned heat, cold therapy, light therapy, et cetera. Are there any other things totally on the outside of the diet that have been pretty beneficial to you that you really didn't expect?

The only thing that's made a significant difference was an infrared sauna. And that's like, especially if I accident, like at the beginning when I was not feeling good or when I was trying to reintroduce foods and not feeling well, an infrared sauna made about a 20% mood increase, which is a lot, especially if you're having a reaction. So the main thing I've noticed is an infrared sauna. I started meditating and exercising and both of those like combined to definitely make, especially if you do in the morning, make the rest of my day go well. But I would say,

you know, 99% of it was diet. And then if I need to change it up, the infrared sauna and then meditating, I've tried a lot of things. I tried hyperbaric oxygen and cold therapy and, and light therapy. And none of those made much of a difference. Like they all, they kind of make me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside but like nothing major okay i think in 2021 you'll have to make your way out here to super training gym in west sacramento california to get some lifting in i will definitely do that that sounds like fun nice where can people find you and find out more about you um i'm on youtube um I think it's Michaela Peterson videos. That's where the podcast is and or on podcasting sites.

I'm on Instagram at Michaela Peterson. Facebook. I have a page, Michaela Peterson and Twitter. Michaela Alexis because Peterson was too long. Michaela Peterson was too long for Twitter. Well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you very much,

Mark. Thanks for having me on guys. Yeah. Thank you. Have a great rest of your day. Awesome. Thank you. You too.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Yo, that was dope. I think something that really caught me off guard, and I think it caught Andrew too, was,

uh, people don't remember pain. That's why they have more than one. All of us were just like laughing. I'm like, Oh boy. For about five seconds, bro.

I was like, Whoa. Like, yeah, that is true. That is true. That's huge. I mean,

um, you ever have like a, you know, pretty bad, like injury bad injury or even illness? Like you're just super, super sick and five days goes by and it's gone. And then you're like when you're sick, you're like, when I feel better, I'm not going to fucking take it for granted. You know, like I'm going to be thankful every day that I wake up and my stomach doesn't hurt or my throat doesn't hurt. Or, you know, I mean, I remember having that from, you know, when I fell with the squat, you know, it's like

I was in just massive amounts of pain, but I don't remember any of it now. I mean, I just, all I can tell you is that it sucked, but I don't remember. I don't really, I can't really, I can't really bring back that same level of pain. Well, I mean, how many people have been hung over or even drunk and been like, oh God, please, if you just help get me through this one night, I promise I won't do it. And what happens? They do it again. Cause yeah.

Well, I mean, I know that's a little bit different because people literally who get drunk can forget like an entire night. But nobody remembers how terrible it was. Or you got some injury because you didn't warm up consistently. And then you're like, once I get healthy, I'm going to start warming up. Every workout. Going to warm up for 30 minutes. At least 30 minutes.

I'm going to start focusing on it. Everything I need to do. Going to sit in the infrared sauna. Get everything all ready to go yeah oh my gosh that was some good stuff man she's uh you know she's been through a lot and um you know what i find interesting is that i think that you know if every person if you had like these boxes to kind of check off and tour in terms of uh If you had like these boxes to kind of check off and tour in terms of disorders, illness, disordered thinking and just all these different things. I think that for most everybody, you can kind of check off some boxes for just about everyone. It's just kind of like the level or the degree of depression or anxiety. Like, I think we all have some of it, but then we all don't

always suffer from it. It doesn't drag all of us down. And I think, um, there's so many different things that can trigger these things. Like for her, she didn't even know where her depression came from, which is really interesting. Like, you know, that doesn't. So I think it's, I think a lot of times somebody is like, oh, you're bipolar or this happened or that happened. Like, you must have had some sort of fucked up background. Like there's, you know, your parents weren't good to you or something happened, you know, and that's not what happened in my household. And I don't think that's what happened in her in her household. And I think people often think somebody that gets addicted to drugs came from like a bad upbringing or came from something.

There's, you know, some missing piece of the puzzle and there very well could be. But it's probably an internal thing rather than things that happen with Michaela in particular. And so I find it all to be really interesting, but I also think that anyone that tries a, you know, anyone that has kind of a nutritional intervention or just tries a particular diet for a little while, I think it's just, it's in your best interest to give it a shot. Because I do think that it will make you feel better. And I think that feeling better is a weird thing to really like quantify.

Like, oh, how's the diet going? Oh, I feel great. We kind of hear that all the time. But like, what does it really mean? But if it can kind of, if it can kind of push some of these issues to the side even just a little bit it's it's worth it i think i think a lot of people feel a lot worse than they even really know um i remember for the first time when i started to lose weight i was like i just probably need to lose like another i might have lost 20 or something at the time and i was like i probably just need to

lose like another 20 and i'll probably look pretty good in the mirror, you know. And I was wrong. It was like I lost another 20 and I was like, wow, I think I got another 40 to go actually. And I think that when you start to, you know, shake some of these things and anxiety or depression or some of these things, or some of these things, I think that you almost don't even, you almost don't even recognize how much of it you might be suffering from until you start to get into a diet and start to shake some of these things. Yeah. And it's unfortunate.

We're not great at remembering the pain. I guess now it is bad, but it'd be interesting. Like if you could somehow time travel and be like, Hey, remember you six months ago, this is what it felt like. And they'd be like, Whoa, that was completely different. You know, you can journal, you can log, you can do as much as you, you, you can try to do as much as you can, but actually feeling it, you know, and, and also just being aware, you know, like, Oh, I'm not supposed to be tired all the time. Like I'm not supposed to have back pain, like, you know, that sort of thing.

Smartphones are great for that. Like, I mean, sometimes I can't compare it, like you know that sort of thing smartphones are great for that like i like i mean sometimes i can't compare it but you know we'll look back at old youtube videos and be like what the hell was going on with me you were so out of shape no no i'm not even talking about that just like you know you you like if you take video of yourself i think it's actually you know now that you say that andrew i think that would be a pretty great practice, not just journaling things, but maybe keeping a small video journal for yourself. And it doesn't have to be on the Internet or anything, because like like like I mentioned, I'd look back at old videos and I kind of remember where I was in my mind space. I remember certain things like, damn, this aspect really improved or wow, this is really changed. But you don't realize it if you if you never get to see it.

So I think I might start doing that you bring up something really interesting imagine um if you did record and you said i'm just going to talk about how things are at the moment and so you say talk about covet 19 you talk about your thoughts about that you talk about the upcoming election and the weird thing is is that you a year from now, you may feel a little bit different. But 20 years from now, you might feel completely you might have been Republican at the time that you recorded it. And you might have changed your tone, you know, several years later or whatever. Or maybe coronavirus ends up being much worse than we anticipated. And you got to change your thoughts about that. Or maybe it was less impactful, whatever. And you can kind of see like how like, I guess, how on target your own beliefs were or weren't. Oh, here's the current diet that I'm on.

You might look back and go, that was that was kind of dumb. I can't believe I did that i only ate meat you know or whatever because now i mean if we just if you look back into what about the clothes you wear you know wear or war you know you find a picture of yourself when you're like 14 you're like i used to think that was i used to think i was so like i remember being pumped leaving for school being like yo when people see these sneakers or they see this shirt they're gonna flip yeah when i get to junior high with these jinko jeans it is so on fubu sean john jinko used to be dope what else is all this stuff from jc penny bro it was bad pelly pell that was the shit when i was in middle

school man my mom used to drop me at school right i don't know do you ever remember the phase that tall t's were a thing of course yeah you do okay cool but she dropped me at school and i'd be wearing like my shirt tucked in looking good once i get out of the car i'd run to the bathroom i had a tall t that a friend bought for me because my mom would have never bought me a tall t took it out of my backpack pull my pants down put my talty on that's great for whatever reason whenever i picture whenever you tell me about when you were a kid i just picture a like a shrunk down version of you but you're still jacked i don't know why because that's it's pretty accurate yeah i used to wear a woo wear a lot too woo wear yeah uh wu-tang clan they have

their clothing line yeah bring it back bro bring it back what's what's funny is like uh whenever i'm like either just tired of wearing something or just like i don't know this is gonna blow away in the wind if i throw it away my dad gets so mad so i give him like like hey dad like these are like this is going either donation or trash like have at it he gets all excited and like he he will wear a bunch of woo wear shirts from back in the day there we go the funny thing is because you know back then baggy everything was like that was it so a lot of that stuff would fit me still pretty big today. So like, yeah, I might have to bring it all back. You know, coming back to the carnivore thing real quick, I think it is really cool. Um, and it's also kind of sad because there, there are a lot of individuals that like are in my life,

right? That when they talk about going healthier, it's okay. I got to start eating my oatmeal, whole grains. I got to get rid of meat. Um, and it's, it's literally that direction and they don't end up feeling better, but it's what they're told. It's what their doctor tells them to do. And no matter what you may try to try to talk to them about, you just can't convince them, you know? So I think it's really cool. Like someone like Michaela, I feel like because she doesn't look like us, that message is going to get to so many other people that typically would be like, meet someone healthy and toxic and acidic. They'll actually listen because it's coming from her, which is why I'm going to use this episode to send to some people that maybe should take a look. Haven't you seen what the health? I can't have meat.

God dang it. Haven't you seen what the health, I can't have meat. God dang it. Yeah. I think a lot of people, when it comes to fat and they say that they can't eat like something like a ribeye or something like that, I think they're just thinking like, you know, like they're like fat has been kind of demonized,

you know? And then they're also just thinking like, like they're, they're thinking is not completely wrong. It's like, Oh, uh, you're okay. So let me ask you a question. Why do you think you should remove, you know, red meat?

And they might say, oh, cholesterol and these things. Some of these things you can't like unwind all of it, but you could just kind of say, oh, well, you know, really, if you were to remove, you know, fatty meats from your diet, it would reduce the overall amount of calories perhaps, and it could help. But, you know, are you going to work on, you know, trying to get rid of some of your other habits? Because I know you like to go to fast food or I know you like to do these things. So I think people are going to, they're kind of thinking like, oh, I'll get rid of this

steak, which is a weird thing to think to get rid of, in my opinion, because it's a lot of times it's, well, it could could be you could eat it out, I guess. But a lot of times like a home cooked kind of meal versus, you know, that you're not going to get rid of all these other shitty habits that you have drinking soda and whatever the hell else. Those are the real those are the kind of main perpetrators, I think, to get rid of first, because they're probably well, it might not be easy. It's probably the simplest thing to move towards. Yeah. And then back to Nsema's point about like, oh, I'm going to get healthy. I'm going to get rid of meat.

I'm going to eat salads. I'm going to eat a bunch of carbs or whatever it may be. Then they start feeling bad. Then what happens? Like I've tried every diet. It just doesn't work for me. No matter what I do, I can't lose weight or whatever. I just can't get healthy because they matter what i do i can't lose weight or whatever you know i

just can't get healthy because they're just still not doing it right like they're going from one extreme which is everything to you know another extreme of having more of everything but less meat now which is probably the only thing that was good in their diet yeah yeah but it's crazy man especially her situation the amount of things that she's had to deal with that she's dealt with and that's gotten better it's uh someone's going to be able to find something that they deal with within that you know and then i think that one of the really cool things is just the effect that it does have on mood disorders and bipolar disorder potentially other type of mood disorders it's uh a, I think that really, really, really piques my interest just because depression is like, first off, it's something

that's been on the rise for years, but so many people deal with it at some level and how many people would find it, you know, alleviating to, to, to understand that if I just kind of change the foods that I eat, I could probably really be able to deal with this. I think another tough thing sometimes that when someone does have a mood disorder, they lean towards drugs, right? And then for people that haven't leaned towards drugs or even people that have come off of drugs, the only thing that's still fun for them is food. the only thing that's still fun for them is food. You know, that's like kind of the only like, you know, extra, I guess, like entertainment or fun or maybe another word would be like escape. You know, because that's I mean, that's all anyone's ever trying to do is just escape, escape reality.

You know, whether you're talking about sucking down some coffee or having some kratom or smoking a joint, doing mushrooms, really any of it. I mean, even exercising is kind of a natural way to kind of escape sitting around and getting too caught up in your own thoughts. And so I think it makes it really hard. A lot of people that have, some of the people I'm thinking about that have some mental disorders and mental disease, rather, they're very heavy. So then it's like, well, shit, man. As much as I would love to see them kind of turn the corner and change things, I know it's like, like man you kind of just they're they're already uh sedated from drugs you know from from uh drugs that they get prescribed to them um so that they can be a little bit more of an even mind um and then it's like well you're going to kind of take away the last thing that they really love you know like which might be food and then it's just like man that's just

it just sucks but you still know like shit man i know if they tried it that you know, like which might be food. And then it's just like, man, that's just, it just sucks. But you still know like, shit, man, I know if they tried it that, you know, they would at least, they at least be able to see some of the impact would be felt. But yeah, it's tough. Yeah. And then if, you know, people do think that it's like, oh, eating meat's not going to, you know, make me feel better. Even if you do or don't have any, you know, depression issues or anything like that, it's just, you're going to probably get in better shape and you'll probably like yourself a little bit more.

I know that sounds a little shallow if you aren't, you know, kind of in that direction, but I mean, it's just the truth, right? Like look at the people around here that have lost weight, you know, and just look at the difference in how often they smile. You smile a lot more when your face is a little leaner, when you're a little less fat, like you're just, you feel, whether it's true or not, you feel like you look better. Like you feel like you're representing yourself a little bit better and you're kind of proud of yourself, you know? And I think it just, it creates, it creates happiness in some ways that I don't think you can end up getting to. And maybe the, maybe the thought process you had about yourself before wasn't good.

And that's, you know, that's okay to admit that. And maybe the thought process of like, now all of a sudden you're happy because you lost a bunch of weight. Maybe that's not great either, but it does happen. Smokey's still angry though. Oh, he's, well, he's like five foot two. Poor guy. He gets picked on a lot too by this guy.

He gets picked on by me? It's because he's always late. He never gets here on time. Yeah, why can't he just be on time? I don't understand it. It's like such a responsibility. Get here at six. He's here at 6.05.

I never understood it. And you can set whatever schedule you want for him. He's still going to be late. But I've been able to teach him. I've been able to tell him, you know, maybe just set your alarm 10 minutes earlier in the morning and give yourself that time. Do the things you got to do. Get here on time.

Maybe get here 10 minutes early for once. Well, you taught him, but it's still not working. Every now and then, though, he's doing a little bit better. He's doing a little bit better. Traffic today was insane. Yeah. What the hell? I have no idea

yeah that was crazy my um because like before i left because you guys were saying that there was you know there's traffic so i checked and google maps said that i would be here by 6 30 so i'm like oh okay cool like let's let's go i didn't get here till after seven and it normally takes me only like 20 20 or so minutes to get here like period so i'm like what the heck is going on here that's classy i was supposed to lift with smoky this morning and we still lifted but it was like um i think he was going to get here at five and then he got here um at six yeah he got here yeah he got here at 6 20 typical he needs to account for traffic late hey why didn't he just just another excuse so i i so i was uh i was coming in after smoky and

um i texted or he texted me and he he showed me the traffic or whatever and then i was like well can i go like a different way because i know there's some like back roads back here he's like no man he's like it's. And after he texted me back, I was already past our exit. So I was like, oh, now, and I saw all the traffic on the other side of the freeway.

I'm like, no, I just got to go sit and all that shit. But it, I don't know, it gave me something to do, I guess you get to move around. But then I was on the side of the freeway,

which is like, you know, there's these semi trucks scary going by. I'm like, this is not a good way to end it all, right? And this was after, so crossing Midtown, a fucking taco truck damn near ran me over. Like, it was bad. I'm like, oh, shit.

Like, I never honk. I never, like, I don't, I mean, I'm pretty chill. But I'm like, hey, I'm right here. Like, you cannot see me. And I don't know. I just had to, I had to go off into the median. Taco trucks are important, though. They are.

And you know what? Now that I live in Elk Grove, there's no taco trucks out there. Hurts the soul, doesn't it? Not one taco truck. Is that good or bad? I mean, depending on how you look at it, I see it as a fucking atrocity. But maybe less taco trucks, less fireworks being shot off randomly.

I will take that. Yeah. Andrew, I have a question for you. Here we go. Okay. So we just talked to Michaela and you know, you,

we've all talked about carnivore. I know you've done carnivore before. Twice. Twice. Twice. How long did you do it? Uh, the, the first go I want to say was, ah, shit, I think three months. No, maybe somewhere between two and three months. Two and three months.

This was going from kind of whatever straight into that. It was after we had Sean Baker on the podcast. He was talking about inflammation and so I'm like, dude, my back's killing me. He's like, Oh, you'll be great on carnivore. It was pretty successful. Um, I, you know, I love carbs, you know, I have, I enjoy that. And I was already pretty thin. So having that didn't make sense, but I'm like, let's see what happens. And that was actually the first time where I was like, Whoa, like diet makes this big of an impact on me. Like I just, you know, this was a, I don't know how many, like a year or two ago. I can't even remember.

Obviously I've learned a lot since then, but I, before that I just figured like, oh, well I'm pretty slender. So I don't think diet's going to really affect me that much. And holy shit, I was wrong. Um, and then after that i started in vertical diet because i was you know like i said smaller thinner then the next time was right before we had paul saladino on and i could not do it i had i had uh like the worst diarrhea for uh it was three and a half weeks well i mean that's expected right it is, but the first time I didn't get it. And then this time I did. And I want to say my diet was even healthier this time around,

but maybe because I was having like a lot of ground beef and a lot of rice, maybe the carnivore diet didn't appreciate the rice. I was kind of hanging out in my gut. And maybe that's why it just annihilated me. But after that that like after that because paul was like oh dude just give it one more week i'm like okay another week of shitting he's like dude just keep going and i'm like i'm calling it at three and a half weeks because like i'm like this is too much for me okay but yeah since then very much meat-based yeah you know

majority of the diet i'm still having 200 and like 30 to 40 grams of protein every day good yeah all right cool yeah that's i think that happens to a lot of people like sometimes if you just if if i still go just like all meat you know i kind of liquefy liquefy some of the food, but it also kind of depends. I noticed that it depends a little bit on the, uh, kind of meat, you know, like if I'm eating the fattier stuff that seems to have more of impact. Um, but yeah, I've been, I've been feeling really good lately. Everything's been going really good. I have potatoes here and there.

I have rice here and there. I have some fruit here and there. Um, but yeah, it's just keeping the protein really really high it's uh i try to get in 400 but i think i just i think i always end up at like 350 or something like that yeah i totally agree with the uh the the leaner cuts that's why you know we this episode sponsored by piedmontese but that's why i love it so much i feel so much better on it if i get a uh like a big box store ribeye i personally feel slow i feel heavy i feel uh it sounds weird but i can eat like two of them in a row and i will feel kind of like that sick hungry feeling i don't know if

that makes sense but like i just i'm not I'm not, I'm satiated. I'm not satisfied. But when I have like one or two flat iron steaks, like I'm like, yeah, that was fun. You know, like it was great. I will have it with, you know, something else, but I'm not sure. And those are super lean. Yeah, they are. Yeah.

Two of them will only give you like, I think eight grams of are. Yeah. They're so good. Two of them will only give you, like, I think, eight grams of fat. Yeah. Anyone who's hungry that really struggles with their diet, just smash protein. You know, eat more protein. Get some chicken breast. Get some egg whites. Like, whatever way you got to do it. Tilapia.

Or you can have just a lean. You can have a lean cut of steak. But, like, red meat a lot of times will continue to raise your fat levels as well. So you might want to with your steak, you might want to have a chicken breast or with whatever meal it is that you're eating. You might want to have a couple of a couple of egg whites. I found it to be really helpful to the point where when I get done with my last meal, I just don't really I don't care about food anymore. Where that was always really hard for me. I was, you know, sit down and watch TV.

I'm always like, oh, let me just have something. And, you know, I'd usually do pretty good. It was still just a protein shake or something like that. But I don't even feel the need for any of that anymore. The protein just, it just really kind of changed stuff. And I've only been doing it for a few weeks. So I need to do a lot longer to really just kind of see how it's assisting. lot longer to, uh, really just kind of see how it's, uh, assisting. But I also in the gym, even with minimal amount of carbs, cause like in a given day on a training

day, like I might have some post-workout as well. So I might have a hundred, but a lot of times it's probably like 40, 60, somewhere in there and, uh, just good pumps and everything. And I think just, I think a lot of it has to do with just eating a crazy amount of protein. I think it just will turn into some glucose for you if you need it. And I feel like I can train really hard. Everything just feels a little bit better. I'm starting to feel a little stronger again.

So all that's going good. But like I said, I need to do it for probably a couple more weeks, kind of see. And I got a couple other people that are messing with it too, that are on diets. And I'm just like, well, just like, oh, I eat this amount of calories. And I'm like, well, just add 50 grams of protein and just see like, are you a similar body weight? Are you heading in the same direction still?

Because if you are, it's nice to know that you have that option. You don't have to really do it, but it's nice to know that you have that option you don't have to really do it but it's nice to know that you have that option because uh i think that's usually the biggest problem when it comes to nutrition or it comes to a diet is just to try to freaking stay on it because you get hungry get really hungry every now and then i uh like from what you're saying there i'll think about how crazy or how crazy it is that back like years ago. Right. I would.

It was told to me so much that you need this amount of carbs to fuel your performance. You need to eat this like 200, 300, whatever, to be able to fuel this type of performance that you're going to do. And now barely eating close to that much and even training fast at times at least with some electrolytes or whatever i feel great within training whether it's jujitsu or in the gym it's like i think a big part of that also is just like a mental like when you see all these athletes also doing this and then you don't you kind of feel like oh i'm missing out on something or i'm not doing you know it's not working the right way but it's crazy how well you can perform in the gym or whatever cardio that you're doing without an insane amount or even a typical amount

of carbohydrates they're not that necessary I would agree with that 100% I also think that I think when it comes to nutrition the worst thing you can do is get in the way of your own body. So your, your body, your metabolism, it knows how to fucking do everything the right way. But if you start to eat Snickers bars and pizza and stuff like that,

then you're kind of disrupting what it would normally want to do. And if you somehow have decent genetics and that's not interrupted, then your nutrition probably won't really ever make that big of a difference. I mean, that's why we see such a wide variety of athletes being able to have different diets. You know, we would really see like the best of the best even would have to have their diet like, you know, intact and they'd have to adhere to a very specific protocol if it was the case that in the third round of an MMA fight that you just bonk out and you'd

have no more energy. But we don't really hear that. We hear many different diets being utilized. We hear a lot of different, and usually, you know, again, the answer usually always lies, you know, not always lies in the middle, but it's usually in the middle, right? It's usually like, hey, let's just use some common sense. You could probably use a good protein source. You do need carbohydrates because you are putting in a tremendous amount of effort. Probably don't need 500 grams. Probably a little excessive.

But on a day of a fight or, you know, when you've got these tough training sessions, you know, use it accordingly. But use it as a weapon of energy. Like, that's really all that it is. And then the fat, I would just say when it comes to fat, the fat obviously is a great energy source, but I wouldn't even really look at it that way. I would just eat enough fat to make sure that your hormones don't go out of whack. And that would be, you know, different for each person. Yeah. Yeah.

And I know everyone is different, but like, what's a minimum like amount of fat somebody should be consuming? No less than I would say 60 in most cases. somebody should be consuming no less than i would say 60 in most cases like i even even a very light man or woman i wouldn't i would be like if you're eating 40 is typically too low for everybody honestly um 60 i would say is minimum 50 is okay if you're super light like if you're 140 150 pounds 40 but 60 would be the low end of fats i think people should be eating just as a general statement and how much protein do you think you're getting in me like per day yeah uh averaging upwards of 220 like the minimum i have is usually 220 but this 400 stuff mark's talking about i've never done that that's a lot of meat it's hard yeah you you getting any of that through protein shakes too? Yeah, I have. Yeah, I have.

It's been helpful to, you know, just eat anything that has protein in it. So I'll eat egg whites to try to jack it up a little bit. It's really what gets to be hard is I usually only eat like twice a day. That gets to be really hard. But a lot of times I'll have a protein shake with a meal and this protein shake might have 75 grams of protein in it. And so and then my meal has like 100. So if I do that even just like twice a day, then I'm starting to get close to where where I wanted to get to. Amen.

The body is shocking. A lot of food, though. Like, you know, I think we talked about this a little bit before but i mean you're eating or you've had phases also but also right now you're eating a little bit less than you used to in the past but you're maintaining your body weight and even gaining correct yeah like that that's the same thing for me my body has been the same weight with like with all the activity all the lifting all the jujitsu all that stuff and even though some days i'm definitely in a deficit because of the lack of fat and lack of carbs um it doesn't it doesn't move 240 245 246

every single day i never would have expected that especially eating the way we do right now yeah you'll dip you'll you might go up a little bit you might go down a little bit but in general you're like you got like a they call it like a set point and you might go down a little bit, but in general, you're like, you've got like a, they call it like a set point, right? You have like a set point where your body, uh, always kind of goes to.

And yeah, I'm the same way. I, I came back from wherever the hell I was, Utah, I guess. And, uh,

because I've been, you know, on this diet where I'm doing the protein leveraging, um, I was like really curious to kind of see like what I would weigh when I came back. And I was actually like four or five pounds lighter just because I just didn't have, just didn't have the amount of time to put towards the food, you know, that I do when I'm here. But yeah, it's been working.

It's been working great. I'm really excited to kind of see what I can do with it. I saw an announcement from Phil Heath just a couple weeks ago that he's doing the Olympia, and I was like, oh, I'm going to kind of diet with him. Like, I'm going to, even though, like, I'm not going to bodybuilding diet. I probably won't take it to that. Well, I won't take it to that. What I'd like to do is not take it to that extreme of all the cardio and all the other shit that I did but see how lean I can get kind of without some of that little little extra side

things that I was doing that's exciting yeah see what happens why not it's uh I think it's like mid-september or something so okay yeah I was gonna say hopefully you're not bodybuilding because I don't want to see you get divorced yeah yeah no no bodybuilding right I'm just glad phil he's coming back i know that's pretty cool that'll be interesting he wants that title back come back take us on out of here andrew all righty thank you everybody for checking out today's episode if you guys liked what you were hearing well hold on there we go uh please hit that like button. Please subscribe. Uh, hit that bell notification. Uh oh. Hit a like for that. Look at, oh my goodness.

Uh oh. Oh, oh, oh, the biceps. Hopefully people have 4k for that. Damn, you still got it, bro. Yeah. Never really left. Bam. Suckas.

Uh, yeah. Hit that bell notification. because we do these live all the time. So if you guys want to interact with us on air, we take fan questions. We do all kinds of fun stuff like that. Please make sure you're following the podcast at MarkBell'sPowerProject on Instagram at MBPowerProject on Twitter.

My Instagram is at IamAndrewZ. If you want to get in touch with Nseema, how can they do so? At NseemaYinYang on Instagram. At NseemaYinYang on Instagram. At NsemaYinYang on Twitter. Mark. Have you ever had striated glutes? Yes.

I don't want them back. He's like, I had those yesterday. Dude, sitting on a toilet was the coldest experience of my life. Oh, I didn't even think about that. Oh my God, bro. You sit on a toilet, it's like, okay, your dick would just shrivel. Of course. You'd just be like, no.

The negative side effects of striated glutes. Not good. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch y'all later.