Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 175 - Bigger Fasting STronger

Episode Date: January 31, 2019

On today's podcast we have special guest host Nsima Inyang! Nsima is one of the freakiest athletes to ever walk through the doors of Super Training Gym and he also happens to be one of the most knowledgeable and well spoken persons as well. He and Mark Bell discuss the benefits of fasting as Andrew Zaragoza asks many questions you might have. Look for Nsima to be a regular on the show from here on out. He is tall, dark, handsome, jacked, tan, extremely smart and now a huge asset to the podcast. Link to sign up for the ST Classic: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/super-training-classic-2019-tickets-53251741392 ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Find the Podcast on all platforms: ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YQE02jPOboQrltVoAD8bp ➢Listen on Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject  FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

Did we get that money from the GoFundMe thing yet? No, it hasn't come in yet. Just fire it up and see what happens. Hopefully it doesn't backfire on us. Fire up the GoFundMe page or fire up the podcast? I think we need the GoFundMe page to fund the podcast. Well, what comes first fund the podcast. Huh. So. Well, what comes first?

The money. Always. All right. I think it goes, I think it goes money, bitches, and weed. Not money, power, respect. Who cares about power? Or respect. What is happening?

Yeah, that's, that's actually a good point. It's really just about the money, right? The bitches in the weird are also pretty. Oh, they're also substantial. Primetime, Deion Sanders, he has a song. It's about the money. Have you heard it? No, actually. I'm going to have to pull it up because the video is amazing.

How old is it? Right after, so I think. After the Falcons, maybe? So after the Niners, actually. So I think when he was with the Cowboys. He was amazing. I think he's like the, I think he's one of the greatest football players of all time. No one ever mentions him, but.

I didn't even know he got into rap. So many athletes do. You lose track. Shaquille O'Neal. Dude, Shaq Fu. Shaq Fu, he was good. And he rapped with Fushnikins. Yes.

Back in the day. Dude, he has a track with... I had the cassette tape. I had the cassette tape of him and Method Man and RZA. It's to this day one of the dopest hip hop tracks on the planet. Shaq has to be the most fun athlete of all time. Yeah, and he's like one of the most endorsed athletes too.

Oh yeah. For the longest amount of time. Icy hot and all of that stuff. Nowadays he's all over on everything. He's killing it. Oh my God. Talking about killing it. Wow.

That's the Deion Sanders thing? Yeah. Oh snap. One of our buddies that knows Deion, uh, was telling me that, uh, they just said like, he just rips you apart. He just makes fun of you all the time. And, like, people talk about, like, working out and, like, dieting and this stuff. And he's like, man, he's like, well, who needs all that shit?

He likes it for some. He's just a special athlete for whatever the hell reason. I'm sure he's really in shape. I'm sure he trains and stuff. But,'m sure he trains and stuff, but man, he was. Wow, this is good. And Timo, we got to make something like this. We could. I could pull that outfit off too.

I'd want to pull that outfit off. Have you ever done, have you ever gone for that look? Like you ever get dressed up and like wear something crazy like that? No, I haven't. Not your style? No. I think all the dress clothes I have at this point, a majority of them don't fit anymore. I used to wear some of that stuff when I was 20, 21, but then I got bigger.

So nothing fits. Dress shirts are ripping at the seams. And now you're so old. Yeah, I'm like 30. Is your back hurt? Dick doesn't work anymore? The second part, yeah, but my back doesn't hurt.

My back doesn't hurt at all. Like my back's totally fine, oddly enough. How old are you now? 26, I'm not that old. Okay, I'm like, oh. Man, complaining about taxes and the government, right?

Pretty much. How you sit around doing all day? 26? A little bit. Here and there. A little bit of jujitsu, a little bit of powerlifting, a little bit of bodybuilding? Mostly jujitsu. I'm joking.

Pretty much powerlifting, bodybuilding, jujitsu, all that good stuff. Love it. You know, we had that golfer in here yesterday and I, like, while I was thinking about my own day today, I'm like, man, my every day of my life is like my golf swing. It's really, really bad. And it's really unfortunate. The direction that I try to go in, I can't make myself go in the direction that I want to. Things always go sideways.

Things always go sideways. And sometimes even backwards. Sometimes straight up in the air and sometimes nowhere. Can a golf ball go backwards when you hit it?'ve never seen that happen before i've yeah yeah yeah we went to top golf and it was uh yeah especially because they have like the uh you know you're in your uh your t or whatever your where and so they have like the they kind of block you in almost so it kept hitting like the barrier and it's like it's like okay boink, boink. It's like, okay, well there's the ball.

It's, it's back here. They changed the name of it after I went, they call it bottom golf now. Top golf. It was so difficult. I went in thinking that I'd be able to do so well, but I had like seven swings where I just wasn't hitting the ball.

And when I did, it like went, dropped it right to the bottom. It didn't even go a distance. Yeah. Are you usually fairly athletic at stuff? Usually sports I can like, you know, I you usually fairly athletic at stuff? Usually, sports, I can like, you know,

I can figure out or watch someone and then, okay, cool. I'm doing all right. But golf is not that. Golf is not that thing. The whole time was just a bad day.

You know what's hard? It's tennis. Tennis is really hard. Like, I can't even serve because like, you got to like, hit it over the net and like, in the box.

And I'm like, how are you supposed to do both? It's impossible. You either hit the net or you hit a home run like that's just going way over the fence that's all you ever want to do is just like they probably don't even call it that but you just like want to spike it every time I go for tennis over golf though tennis I did that a little bit for a few months because I wanted to like learn it um it wasn't too bad after you get the hang of like how

hard to hit the ball just like just get that top spin where you just i didn't go that fancy i think i was just like and just let it go over the net i'm not bad at ping pong i'm the same with ping pong i send it every time i'm not i'm not great but i'm not bad and then i'm really bad at pool how about you guys bad at pool my girlfriend beats me every time we play pool a lot it's frustrating yeah yeah she she legit like beat me all the time well that's when you say midway three like i wasn't even trying next game i'll try harder you know yeah blame it on blame it on the beer or something no i uh i'll i'll accidentally make really tough shots and then when i have a layup where it's just straight on i i've i just missed the the ball complete like i

missed the ball i'm trying to hit like the cue the cue ball. Like, it's just like, boink, it scraped the top of it. It's just so embarrassing. Yeah. The pressure hits you, you're like, oh shit, I just made this really hard one. Now this is easy. You just can't do it.

I know exactly what you mean. Every time. Every time. I'm not horrible at shooting some baskets. Are you sure? Well, I don't know. I'm not good.

I'm not good. I'm not going to say that I'm good, but I'm not bad. Not bad. When we went to the King's practice facility. Yeah, that was bad. We kept trying three-pointers the whole time.

That was really bad. That was a rough day. That was a rough day. We were terrible. That was bad. Did you ever play basketball as a kid? I did. You did?

Okay. I did, yeah. I never played on our high school team, but I played like intramural basketball for like the last, uh, two or three years of my high school career. I, I just, I love playing,

uh, all kinds of sports. So I did, uh, football and boxing and track. Um, I did. And,

uh, just like, I don't know, I'd have afterschool, like whatever. And I ended up doing it. Like we had, uh,

we had this crazy tournament every year that everyone made a big deal out of. And it was Shuttlecock, which we talked about yesterday. Badminton, basically. Oh, okay. Shuttlecock. I don't know why it's called Shuttlecock, but I love calling it that. It's pretty funny. Wait, is it really called Shuttlecock?

Yeah. Badminton is like also. Yeah. Wow. Interchangeable. Yeah. Yeah. But that was like, it was crazy. I don't know why in my school that was a thing, but like also, yeah. Wow. Interchangeable. Yeah. Yeah. But that was like,

it was crazy. I don't know why in my school that was a thing, but like everyone got excited and a lot of people would watch when we'd play and I loved it. I loved like,

I love diving for it and just going all in on it, but I couldn't play tennis worth of shit, but that game is a lot slower. Yeah. It's a lot easier to get to the birdie,

I guess it's called. I played a lot of squash. Oh yeah. I played with like the, like 60 year olds at the gym. I never played that before. It's the, uh, so it's like racquetball, but it has a smaller ball that does not bounce. So you really got to like wail into that thing and it hits the wall and just boop. So it's a lot of back and forth running. And then a lot of like really putting a lot of behind the ball yeah but then it doesn't go anywhere so it's a little bit slower but then you have to react much quicker so it's a lot of like i said agility back and forth work you gotta be fast fast ricky bobby we had uh when

we had ryan in here yesterday it was really interesting talking to him about you know acceleration and power and uh how he's able to develop, uh, and produce like this crazy amount of force in this real short period of time, you know, how he's able to get like this, this just insane burst, uh, without having a lot of like rotation without having a lot of mobility. And I think most of the time we just assume, like, if you can't move that you're not going to maybe be able to generate that much force. Um, you know, a lot of, uh, even like sprinters and runners and stuff like that. You think, man, like if the guy's too tight, he could potentially like blow something off. You could, you know, blow off a hamstring or something.

But, uh, with what Ryan does specifically where he's not a like full-time professional golfer, he's mainly just a, like a long ball player. Um, and that's kind of, that's what he gets paid to do and stuff. Having that amount of power, having that extreme power really plays to his advantage. And he, it was interesting to hear how he trains for it and all that stuff. How does he like, what are like maybe some tidbits on the things he does that you haven't heard of? Yeah. So, well, I mean, most of the stuff that he does, which I just thought would be unconventional for golf. Um, He just does like powerlifting type stuff. Oh.

And he kind of looks a little bit more like somebody that does some power and some bodybuilding and stuff like that. He's a big guy. He's like 6'4", 260. But what I just found interesting about it was he wasn't afraid to do the one rep maxes. He wasn't afraid to do some of that stuff, which makes a lot of sense. My mentor, Louie Simmons, has always said, you power lift and then you go play your sport. Like you lift heavy and you go play your sport and it's not, you know, you do a lot of jujitsu, but it's not like, it's not like you're trying to find a weighted jujitsu movement.

You're just like squatting, benching and deadlifting, right? Yeah, exactly. Um, I mean, it's kind of funny. I think I saw a picture years, a few years ago of Tiger and like the, uh, trap bar. I've seen like, he does those deadlifts too, but in terms of jujitsu, it's kind of funny. I think I saw a picture a few years ago of Tiger in the trap bar. He does those deadlifts too. But in terms of jiu-jitsu, it's the same type of deal where in the gym, I'm still lifting fairly heavy. I'm not doing as many pure one rep maxes as I used to. But that strength does help me on the mats.

And it doesn't help me in the fact that, okay, this guy's on top of me, so I'm just going to push him off. It just helps in like passive strength. At this point, like my technique, if I have to hold a guy off like this, it's extremely easy to do that. Whereas a guy who doesn't strength train, he can just get smashed or that pressure from his opponent is just going to, it's going to dominate him. So I don't see any sport where doing some type of powerlifting movement really wouldn't be beneficial for the athlete as long, you know, as they're being safe with whatever they're doing. And that was the main thing for him. He was like, I'm not going to get hurt.

I'm going to keep it in a safe range. Do you avoid the one rep maxes a little bit because they kind of impede on recovery for the next day and how you feel the next day type thing? I can go close to it, but yeah, I won't do an absolute one rep max where i can't do anymore because it it it would fatigue me for my lifts later on it wouldn't fatigue me for jujitsu but if i wanted to you know deadlift on tuesday and then deadlift again on thursday i'm not going to pull 720 or seven whatever and then you know i'm going to be tired when i come in on thursday i won't be able to perform as well just because of that load also the big thing for me now is making sure that I'm not risking any type of injury with anything I do in the gym. I think that you guys have like, you know, cemented good enough mechanics, right?

Probably I won't get injured, but I don't have to deadlift that heavy to be able to continue to get stronger or continue to like, you know, improve in the, here in the gym. Um, mainly like I've been doing a lot of like long tempo squats i remember you wanted you wanted me to do that in the past so i wouldn't like dive bomb it's a little but they've been really good for my knees like because i used to have knee issues as like when i played soccer and i had like meniscus surgery but um they've been really good in stabilizing my knees so now my knees don't feel like as unstable as they used to because of those like three seconds down three seconds up um six so reps, maybe like three something.

It's so useful. So, yeah. I think a lot of times we don't realize that how long stuff sits in our system for, you know, I saw a report the other day, uh, from Dr. Andy Galpin and he talked about, um, post-workout protein and how he was like kind of myth busting, which, you know, I appreciate the information that everybody puts out and it was fantastic information is study and everything. And, um, there's a lot of other research that's like this too. Like we were just talking earlier this morning about like fasted cardio.

So what, what they've found basically from what I've seen is that almost every study can be like debunked you know and it always goes back to this principle that jay cutler brought to our attention which was uh don't be fancy just be consistent yeah and so you and i can sit here and like have all these crazy theories on how something works and if you're a good coach you can get me, get me to buy into it. And like, if I'm buying into it and I'm feeling good and I'm making progress, well, then that's something like we have something. Right.

And maybe you help me become a world champion in something. Cause like, we both feel great about this, what we're doing and we both get excited. We both share it with everybody. But what they've kind of found in some of these studies was, you know, the one thing about the protein post-workout, they're like, well, it's kind of been shown to not be as effective as they thought, right? Yeah. Well, hold on a second, because what are we talking about with post-workout? Like, are we talking about a half an hour after exercise, an hour after exercise, or look, you got to eat at some point.

So how do we even determine, how do we even test is post-workout protein effective? I think in this case it was specifically for protein synthesis, but how do you even study this stuff and how do you isolate it? And how do I say, well, how does that play into Nsema who's doing a two-hour jujitsu class after he comes and you fast and like, it's just like, holy shit. Now we're starting to throw a lot of monkey wrenches into all this. Yeah. The same thing has happened with fasted cardio. There was 20, 30 years where everybody thought fasted cardio was the way to go. And there's still a lot of bodybuilders, a lot of coaches, my coach, Hany Rambod, huge fan of it. And he said, look, man, it works.

He's done a great job with a lot of people. He's helped me. And, uh, I, man, it works. He's done a great job with a lot of people. He's helped me. And, uh, I'm not going to refute what he says. If he feels it works, it's working. Right. However, the science shows some different things. It shows that while fasted cardio does burn more fat in the moment, and you actually may, uh, you know, burn more calories from fat during the exercise. Uh, it was shown that you burn a

similar amount of calories period throughout the rest of the day, either way, kind of no matter how you do it. And maybe there's some small, uh, different effect. If you were to eat a giant ass cheeseburger before you got on a treadmill or something like that, but for the, because there's a lot of blood in your stomach or something like that, like who knows, but for the most part, it seems to be pretty similar. That ends up going back to what the four time Mr. Olympia champion said, don't be fancy, just be consistent. Exactly. Yeah.

Pretty much like in terms of the whole fasting deal, we were talking about this yesterday. Like I used to think, because I grew up, um, you know, playing soccer. So my coaches would say, you know, eat a meal two hours before. Is it just me or are you picturing like girls are taking their clothes off when he's talking? No, definitely not. It's just me? It's just you. Oh, okay.

I'll just take my clothes off then. That's actually what I was imagining though. That I was taking off my clothes. Yes. Okay, good. Because I can't see your bottom half right here. So I'm just imagining that they're off. They've been off the whole time.

Dreams do come true. Fasting. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, it's good. It's good. Yeah. So I was always taught, and even my mom, she would have me like, I would always eat something

before I went to exercise because I was always like, well, how are you going to have energy if you don't eat beforehand? So this all went into when I started lifting, start reading about lifting and they're like, you know, eat before you lift, get in that 40, 30 grams of protein. If you have not like even an hour after you lift, have all of that. And I was so bought into that, that I used to feel like, oh wow, if I don't eat, I used to even, I feel like psych myself out. If there was a day that I had to work out and I haven't eaten, I'd work out. I'd be like, oh my God, today was such a bad workout day. It felt so horrible. So when I started this whole fasting thing, I was expecting, cause I did it as an experiment initially. I was expecting that,

okay, I'm not going to be able to perform in the gym, you know, with, if I don't have any food in my system or on the mats. And it was the exact opposite. My performance was just as good, if not better, because I felt more concentrated while I was lifting. Same thing with jujitsu. Like, I was feeling like, did I ever talk to you about how GSP talked about like the- On the Joe Rogan show, yeah. The starving lion. Like, I felt so in tune with everything I was doing on the mats.

I don't even think I rolled nearly as well when I was fed versus when I was doing on the mats. I like, I, I, I can't, I don't even think I rolled nearly as well, um, when I was fed versus when I was fasted. So it's just, you know, it, it seems weird. It seems crazy, but it works. And I wonder how far, you know, how far the like diminished returns, you know, starts to go, you know, like if you, you know, if you fasted for, you know, 48 hours going to a tournament, you know, maybe that's not ideal, but also if you haven't really tried it. Exactly.

And maybe you don't even know, because who knows, maybe the body is just so desperate at that point. Like maybe you would, you would automatically assume that you'd be weaker. You'd think. But who's to say that like your body doesn't take over and say, Hey man, you need a huge adrenaline dump right here. And maybe it makes you as strong as a mom saving their kid, you know, from getting hit by a car or something like you just don't, we don't really know unless we like try these things. Yeah.

I think that'd be, I'm going to probably do not a tournament, but I'm going to do like a 48 or 72 hour to see how I like to see how it feels. Cause you've heard of a lot of people doing that and they talk about resets the whole immune system and stuff. I want to give how it feels. Cause you've heard of a lot of people doing that and they talk about resets, the whole immune system and stuff. I want to give it a shot. I want to see like, okay, if I'm still lifting and doing jujitsu during the 72 hour fast,

will I be able to perform? Will I do okay? I feel like I probably would at this point with all this fasting, but, uh, I got to give it a shot. I know Dominic D'Agostino fasted for like five days and, uh,

and then he pulled like, I want to say like six 75 or 655 for like five reps or something it was kind of actually i'm sorry it was a 10-day fast now he does some things that are a little different too because like his fasting is a little is a little different than others i think he utilizes some aminos and he might use some ketones and some things like that so it's it's a little you know there's there's some stuff in there i think he might even use some vitamins and minerals and stuff. Yeah.

And those are things to be cautious with. Like if you're going to try fasting, you might need to pay attention to how much water you're drinking. You might need to add a little salt to some drinks or something like that. But what, what has your experience been with it? You just fast and you don't worry about it or. Yeah. Since, since I'm not fasting for, I am not doing like 48-hour fasts or anything. I just have water and coffee

pretty much in my fasting period. I make sure, though, I absolutely make sure I'm hydrated. I think that's the biggest thing for me. I've heard a lot of people using BCAAs that don't have any grams of carbs or anything in them, which makes sense. But yeah, I just drink coffee and water,

and I'm good. I've never felt any type of issues. The main thing, but yeah, I just drink coffee and water and I'm, I'm good. I've never felt any type of issues. Uh, the main thing though, like after I fast, um, I'll just make sure to get a lot of food. And I think that's one of the biggest things that I struggled with initially was eating the amount of food I needed to eat in my eating window in five hours. I got to eat 3000 calories. Um, you might eat 800 calories and be like, I'm kind of full. You'll yeah. So I had to start eating more, like more fats. I had to add in more fats cause they're not as dense. Um, I

tried eating the amount of carbs I need to eat and it just get full. Uh, so that was the biggest struggle. But once I started getting the hang of that and like my body composition got better, I'm not like losing weight. Like I thought I would, I'm able to maintain, you know, my physique without trying, you know, and I think that's the goal that everyone has when they do any diet, they want to be able to get to a point and then not feel like they're dieting. That's what I mentioned yesterday on the podcast is like, I think that's kind of the happy place, you know, and maybe like, maybe for someone who's real heavy, like maybe we do need some strict rules. Maybe we need to, um, as you were mentioning with the

lifting, like you're like, I feel like I got enough discipline to keep the form that I need. And now I know what to do. Same thing with your diets. Like maybe like you need someone cracking that whip in the beginning to kind of get you set forth in the right direction. And then maybe after that, you can kind of call your own own plays and call your own audibles here and there and, and maybe make a decision.

You know what? Screw it, man. I'm going to go to that deli. I'm going to have my favorite sandwich and I'm going to demolish a bunch of potato chips afterwards and I'm going to have a good time today. But you can't really make those calls in the beginning. Yeah. Yeah.

Do your, is your caloric intake going up, down, staying the same when you're fasting? Fluctuates on the day to day actually. Okay. So in the past I used to, you know, track macros a lot. And the whole, the whole goal when I tracked macros for a while was to get to a point where, you know, I could look at food and kind of gauge what my calories were. So I wouldn't have to be tracking every day. So nowadays, it really depends on the day. Like if I, today, if I didn't, if I don't go to jujitsu, I don't lift, I'm probably not going to eat as much food.

So I might eat anywhere between 2,000 and 2,500 calories. Is that intentional? That's intentional because like I'll start eating and I'll like, yeah, I'll get to a point like, and I'll be like, Oh, I've probably had like between 2000 and 2,400 or whatever. And I feel okay. I'm not feeling super hungry anymore. I haven't done that much work today. So I'm just going to stop eating. And then tomorrow, um, what does that decision look like? So you eat and then are you kind of like, are you like literally just like sitting there, maybe watching TV and you're like, am I still hungry? You kind of asking yourself that question. I'll wait for an hour or two and be like, do I still feel the need to eat? Oh, let's see. That's the key right there. You said

you wait an hour or two. I think most people, they won't wait. They'll be like, oh shit, I'm still hungry. And they'll already be eating before they even really thought about it. And then they're like, shit, I overate. So maybe that time period, that's what happens to me too, is if I just wait, a lot of times I still want a snack. I still want to have an extra thing. And I'm like, well, let me just wait. And then I wait and then I'm like, well, I don't care. And now I started my fasting already. I'm like, I'm already an hour in my fasting. Why would I break it? I'm good. Yeah.

Yeah. Go to bed. And you were saying, Andrew, yesterday, like you started fasting, you weren't sure what it felt like to be hungry. Was it you that said that? Yeah. Yeah. Because I was referencing, I can't remember who it was on the podcast, but, you know,

they're just saying like, you know, we need to actually know what it feels like to be hungry. And for someone like me, this is going to sound crazy, but like, I don't necessarily enjoy eating. You know, for me, maintaining weight or putting on weight. And see, you would enjoy eating if you were really hungry. Yeah. So that's exactly what I was getting at. You know, I would, I would look at food and be like, like, you know, okay, it's lunchtime. Like, I guess I'll eat and it'll take me like an hour to finish something that like, you know, okay, it's lunchtime. Like, I guess I'll eat and it'll take me like an hour to finish something that like, you know, it shouldn't take me that long. And then, so I'd fast for 18 to 20 hours. And then it's like, dude, where's this food at that I did not want? You know,

now it's like, dude, it's so on let's eat and let's, you know, and so for me, I use that as an advantage of like, okay, let me feel what it feels like to truly be hungry. Yeah. And now it's like, my body's like, hey, asshole, I don't care what you want or don't want. You need to eat right now. Were you, uh, was a little easier to eat something that you maybe normally don't love to eat? Oh, 100% easier. Yeah. It's so much easier. That's what I think is, is a key factor there too, where it's like, yeah, maybe you would rather have a cheeseburger rather than having a steak, you know?

Yeah. But because you fasted most of the day, now you're like, you know what? I'm just going to have the steak and veggies. It just makes, it just kind of raises the importance of like what you're eating. Now you're kind of like, well, shit, man, I trained really hard today. I did all this stuff. I fasted. I came this far.

I'm not going to blow it now. It's like, it's like you worked way too hard to get there whereas for some reason at the end of a typical day we're just we're always ready to kind of give up we're always ready to i think it's just the flow of the day like you you maybe worked and maybe you worked out and you did a bunch of stuff for the day did a bunch of stuff for yourself you did a bunch of stuff for your significant other and now the end of the day comes hands are down defenses are down and that's when like you're like okay netflix and just eating whatever you want kind of and that's so much so much of what you want is sitting right there in those few moments and that that's not a very long period of time because you probably only have that for two hours or three hours you know six to nine or six to whenever you go to bed.

Right. It's not that long of a time period. I think you go to bed a little bit later. You probably get home and done with everything a little bit later too. It's really not that long of a window. So if you can kind of hang on at that point, if you kind of think about this conversation that we're having now and think about what I always preach about, how does this help? How does this hurt? You really don't want the thing. You really don't. It's an illusion. You really don't want

these things. Yeah. You know, it's, um, it's not any different than the urge to cheat on a spouse or to cheat on somebody. It's like, yeah. Okay. We all get it. We all understand. Yeah. There's a, there's a lot of attractive things out there in this world, but I don't know, man, you don't really, I, you know does jeff basos really want his company sliced in half probably not right yeah yeah no matter what slice he was having on the side it's not worth losing half that's right um when it comes to fasting and like especially around the guys we see here in the gym, you know, the thought is mass moves mass. So how are you able to stay strong while fasting?

Like, aren't we depleting ourselves, basically? It might be two different things a little bit. Mass can move mass, but I'll let him answer a little bit more. Well, yeah. So, I mean, that kind of goes into what I mentioned before. Like, I always thought I had to eat before I worked out to get something in your system. what I mentioned before, like I always thought I had to eat before I worked out. So get something in your system. Um, I think that was more of a mental thing because like, if you eat, I eat like maybe three, 3000 or 4,000 calories the night before. Do those calories just disappear when I wake up? Like, what are they doing? Are they gone? No, they're still in my system. They,

so I burned something in my sleep, but I'm going to be able to use some of that while I work out the food. I ate two hours before lifting. What's my body doing with that? I'm digesting that food. I'm not using it as energy. Well, some of it maybe has energy during my workout, but not a lot of it. Like you still have a lot of energy. Now, if you're fasting and this is why, like, you got to make sure to eat in your eating window and you only eat like a thousand calories. Cause you're not feeling that hungry. Cause you didn't have much time to eat. Of course, you're going to feel like crap the next day when you have to work out because you didn't eat enough the night before so it all goes down like if i have to roll and work out on the same

day i have to eat a lot of food the night before so i can actually have energy during those two workouts um but if i if i didn't do that then of course i'd be tired i'd be you know i'd be tired i liked what he said right there about like the next day you know i think we just automatically assume that everything resets the next day but no you had protein the night before i mean there's probably still float stuff floating around your system there's probably still stuff uh being digested i think when we had uh joel green on here who was just probably you know one of the smartest people we've ever had on this show you know he said it takes like 14 or 16 hours for food to totally completely pass through your system in most cases.

So it's like, yeah, that food is still sitting around. A lot of it's still being partitioned out. And George Lockhart, who, you know, who does a lot of the weight management and the weight cuts and stuff for a lot of the UFC fighters, Conor McGregor, and you name it, all the top guys in the company, uh, George Lockhart, he's,

he's a much more, he's a very simple guy. You know, he's not a guy, uh, that you're like, holy shit. He really knows the science like crazy.

Now he does know the science, but he's not like a lane Norton. He's not going to sit here and recite, you know, study after study after study. He is aware of them, but he's not that kind of guy. He's not meticulous with that stuff he's more of a simple guy but when i when i asked him he was he was talking about having like uh some carbohydrates post-workout he talked

about like fructose and i was like well some people might say that might not make sense because it's going to uh restore the glycogen in the liver because that's what fructose will most likely go to the liver not just end up uh in the muscle cells and end up floating around your system and uh he was like hey man i just believe that your body just takes care of what it needs to take care of and it partitions stuff from where it needs to take it from and it just works out that way and it's like to someone who's deep in the weeds with science they'd be like this guy's an idiot and they would be pissed they'd be mad like almost like they an idiot. And they would be pissed. They'd be mad, like almost like they're part of some religion.

But I actually think that what he said has a lot of, makes a lot of sense. And I think that your body is going to pull on what it needs when it needs it. If your body needs fat, it's going to use fat. If your body has to strip off amino acids, it's probably going to do that too. Your body is going to do the things

that it needs to do to survive and to be functional for those moments. Yeah. So you were saying that he has them intake those carbohydrates after workout. And is that so that like by the next time the athlete works out again, they'll be, they'll. That's a hundred percent it. And so you got to take these case by case, right? So MMA fighters are training multiple times a day. right so mma fighters are training multiple times a day his his uh part part of what he's found in working with these people directly and not anything he's read out of a book was look if i if i can

figure out a way to get them replenished from their workout as quickly as possible that's going to have the most dramatic effect and he's like you know how do we do this and so he researched it he was trying to have them utilize a lot of different carbohydrates, dextrins and these different things. And, um, what he ended up coming up with is he uses, uh, dextrose, fructose and caffeine. Okay. And some of this just came from research that he saw. So he, like I said, he does use some research here and there.

And, uh, I guess when you combine the three, it has a synergistic effect and you can absorb, uh, more carbohydrates like per minute than you normally could. And, you know, it's like, these things are from studies. So it's like, I don't put that much stake in them, but not only they come from studies, he's utilizing it on people and he feels that it's working really well. So I think anyone who's doing CrossFit, anyone who's bodybuilding and working out multiple times a day, maybe it does make sense. Maybe it does make sense in between to get something in to replenish from the workout. So you go into the next workout feeling a little bit better.

Now you and I are sitting here preaching about fasting. However, there could, it's definitely possible that there's better ways right oh yeah for sure like okay let's just be real here like i go to come here to lift and then afterwards maybe an hour or two i go i go do rolling at jujitsu i would probably feel that i'd have a little bit more energy maybe if i had a little bit of carbs um i'm not sure necessarily because i haven't done that yet. I usually, even when I was drank some Gatorade and had some orange juice or something on the way, maybe you would just feel like, Oh yeah, I got a little more zip. I probably have a little bit more,

but I don't necessarily feel like I need to at that point because my performance is still really, still really good on the mats. Um, and it's not like I'm going about to head to a competition. Um, if I had to do a lift before, like I was going to compete that night or something, which I would never do, that would be something I would think about, but it's all the situation. Um, but like the, the, the, it's still, you know, it's still the truth that at this point I'm performing the best I literally ever have on the mats. Um, just my movements, my lack of thinking. I'm not thinking nearly as much. I'm just acting on instinct.

It's just so much easier. And I don't know why. It's just, that's the way it is. There's something to be said about leaning into resistance too. You lean into the resistance of life and that's where a lot of the, that's where you pick up a lot of the points. That's where you pick up a lot of the benefits. You get the resistance of strength training and it beats us up.

It breaks us down, but then it builds us back up again. And so maybe even some of what you're doing just from a psychological standpoint is making you feel like a warrior, which is a huge part of jujitsu. Like if you, you know, if you, if you're feeling good, if you're, if you're, if you're in there with the mindset of like, gee, I don't know, man, these, these are some talented guys, you know, and these guys have been doing a long time. I'm not really so sure, you know, about where I stand. If you're going in there with the mindset of like, these dudes don't know who I am. Fucking deadlifted 755. And you know what? I'm going to kick all their asses after I've been here for a little while.

And not only that, I'm going to beat all their asses without any food in my stomach. You know what I mean? Like maybe that's not the exact frame of mind that you have, but like we all are kind of holding onto something internally that like burns us. It gets us fired up. It gets us excited. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I totally know what you mean. This is, this is going to be a total side thing, but from the psychological standpoint, um, you know how people like to take cold showers and stuff. So I do a lot of that and a lot of people do it so that, you know, they can wake themselves up in the morning, but I do it mainly so that I can focus on controlling like my breathing when I'm under cold water. So the first thing, you know, when a lot of people get into cold water, they go like, they start doing that. What I started doing was I was like, okay, this is going to suck. I walk in and I just breathe. I just focus on breathing as calm as possible and slow down my breathing underwater. And I just stand there. And the whole reason why I do it is because like,

I know this sucks. And I know that typically people wouldn't be able to control themselves under this. I just want to be able to control myself under this and have it like, just want to breathe normally. And that's just like, it's that's the first part of my day, but it's just like, I did something really uncomfortable already and I controlled myself under it. And then everything else falls like in jujitsu, when you're in a bad position and you have to control yourself or else you're probably going to get tapped all flows, all falls in line with that. So that kind of has to do with that, but it was just something funny. No, that mindset is, is crucial. Um, and I think, you know, cold is like, it's not, you know,

it's no joke, right? It's hot out. You're like, man, I'm sweating and your body, you know, cold is like, it's not, you know, it's no joke, right? Yeah. It's hot out. You're like, man, I'm sweating. And your body, you know, does some things to help, help with that. You're, I mean, you start sweating and your body trying to cool itself down. Like, holy shit, it's hot out. It's hard to like get a good workout in when it's hot, but man, cold, like cold is some serious business. That's, it's hard to kind of control your mind. So you said you just don't breathe at all?

No, I do breathe, but I focus on. You breathe like normal. I breathe like normal, but I focus on just going into it and not immediately like letting the shock throw me off. So I walk into it and I just keep breathing and I just act like it's not, it's nothing's there. But the whole point of that is to just have a feeling of control, even though it's a very uncomfortable situation. I think it's similar to like when we're squatting and, you know, we have 135 on the bar and we're making our face look like, you know, it's like 600 pounds or it's like, but if you, you know, control yourself and, you know, have your facial expression, like you're not dying, it's kind of almost becomes easier.

Exactly. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's it. Yeah. And also too, it's like, you know, what, what kind of, what kind of preparation did you have, uh, you know, going into these squats where you're making that face? Like, did you just get on, did you just get here late and just get underneath the bar out of nowhere? Uh, or have you warmed up and are you actually in pain?

Kind of the same thing with the hunger that we're talking about. Like, are you really actually in pain? And also too, like, would you act like this if nobody else was here? Or are you trying to send a signal to me of like, hey man, I'm going to have a rough day. I need your help kind of thing. Yeah. And we all, we're all guilty of all these things. This poor body language.

If I was to go over and, uh, and watch a jujitsu class, I can go over and watch one class and I can pick out some of the best guys and I wouldn't even have to see them roll. I just see the way they warm up. And I be like okay that guy's probably and i might be wrong about a couple people because sometimes in like jujitsu just like powerlifting every once in a while there's a guy in there it's an absolute beast that's kind of a ringer where you're like i wasn't expecting that guy but body posture is a huge thing the way that you walk around the way that you handle yourself and the way that you control your thoughts and your thoughts end up kind of leaking out into your actions and the things that you do on a daily basis and they your feelings like this is going to be really cold this is going to make me insanely uncomfortable well why is it going to make you insanely uncomfortable because you just think that it's going to, maybe it doesn't have to be that

way. Maybe it could be a little different. Maybe if you fasted for 14 hours, maybe you wouldn't be that hungry. Maybe if you fasted for 18 hours, maybe you wouldn't be that hungry. Maybe if you went a couple of days without carbohydrates, maybe you wouldn't die. Yeah. Yeah. Is this the, uh, the thought of not eating on purpose is crazy to some people. Is there any like a actual, like health, like like actual like health like scientifically like health benefits or like anything that's like written saying like this is healthy for you that fasting is healthy for yeah okay so i know there's we i was just talking about this there has been some research done and i don't i can't cite the study but it was on people that did you know 48 72 hour

fasts and talked about how like it's like their immune system reset. There was a lot of things that just like cell death, like they were able to get rid of all those old cells and build new cells and a lot of that type of stuff. But that was with really prolonged fasts. I don't think that anything's been shown in terms of shorter fast to have that type of effect. But in terms of like people with diabetes, there's been benefits with fasting. And that's a big reason why I also started doing fasting because diabetes runs in my family. Um, and I like, I know that, you know, even with how active an individual is, that can still happen to them. So I definitely think that like, that's going to play a benefit into it. Um,

the concentration aspect, that's a lot, that's anecdotal, but a lot of people talk about, you know, feeling more focused because they're not eating all the time. Um, and concentration aspect, that's a lot, that's anecdotal, but a lot of people talk about, you know, feeling more focused because they're not eating all the time. Um, and there's, there's so many more, but yeah. Some of the stuff I've heard, you know, is like, uh, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, um, uh, Alzheimer's, you know, a lot of these things have been, uh, shown to have been, uh, like, uh, you can make these things, I guess you can improve upon these things through, through some fasting. And I don't know exactly the duration of some of these fasts, but, uh, Peter idea has a podcast for people that are listening. Um, and he talks about longevity a lot and he talks about, uh, a lot of the benefits of, of fasting, um, Dominic D'Agostino, who I mentioned already.

Uh, but what happens with fasting, even with intermittent fasting is you get some, you'll get some ketone production, which, uh, can help with, uh, your, your brain kind of help with your focus. Um, in addition to that, you can get what they call autophagy, which is the cells. People, you know, you can kind of read up on these things. It's like, this is not like this is, you know, this is not an area where I'm insanely strong, but you can look into some of this stuff and you can find a lot of great information from some of these other people. But fasting, it's, it's obviously it's been around for thousands and

thousands of years and it's utilized by a lot of, um, a lot of religions, a lot of religions will say, and you know, some people are religious, some people aren't, some people are spiritual, some people aren't, but a lot of the basis in fasting is that you are a lot of the basis in religion for fasting is that you fast and you ask, um, you ask for your prayers to be answered. So it's not like, but you don't fast and you're not like, Hey, I want to be a millionaire. Um, but you're fasting and you're, and you're kind of almost asking the universe in a way of, uh, like what you should be receiving, what you should be like looking out for. And some people might think it's really weird, but this is just a lot of stuff that I've read.

And I'm actually a big believer in a lot of these things. I'm a big believer in that just being positive and having these positive thoughts can really help. And then in addition to that, through fasting, you can gain a lot of control. And if you can gain a lot of control, maybe you're able to have more control over your thoughts,

which is actually really powerful because now we have control over our feelings, which I think that people don't think they have control over. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to ask that question because maybe somebody, you know, who's listening to the podcast, they might send this to somebody who's not so familiar with any of this and be like, oh my gosh, they would totally benefit from this. They hear this and they're like, what the heck? Like, who doesn't want to eat? Like, that doesn't make any sense. I think both of us would, would agree to look, there could be some negatives to fasting. There could be, um, you know, real quick,

the, the religious thing you were talking about, my grandma, she's a, she's a devout Christian. She does, she's done a lot of fasting. She's done a week long fast. She's 95, 96 years old. Whoa. And she should like, she's super sharp though. Like she doesn't. She's 95, 96 years old. Whoa. And she's super sharp though. She doesn't seem like a 95, 96 year old. How much does she bench? No, seriously, even in activity, she'll be on her walker, walking around the house. I told you there was a point that she was carrying a five pound dumbbell and walking around the house with a weight in her hand, just walking. But she did a lot of fasting.

I kind of just remembered that. I never really thought about that. And she still does. But I don't know, maybe a correlation there. That's cool. Yeah, no, no, it really is. In terms of like negatives of fasting, okay, I don't want to sound like a, you know,

a zealot or anything, but coming from a place where I ate all the time. And even though I like, I had a good body composition, I was lean or whatever. I don't necessarily think that I always had the best relationship with food. My excuse would be, okay, you know what? I'm doing so much activity. I'm gonna eat. I'm gonna eat a lot because I know I can burn it. But you know, when you look you look at athletes right and they're college athletes or you know nfl players what happens when they you know they get off the field right they have the same habits in terms of food they don't have any control of it they're not doing the same level of activity and they just gain a bunch of fat and some of them

never recover from that um so in terms of negatives i think the negatives only come if the individual isn't taking the precaution to stay hydrated while they're fasting. Eat enough calories when they have an eating window. Eat enough when they have an eating window, which is a big one. It's one that I fell into for a few weeks when I first started fasting because I was like, I don't really feel that hungry. But then I started seeing the changes in my performance. So I was like, okay, I got to eat a lot of my eating window. And I started seeing the changes in my performance. So I was like, okay, I got to eat a lot of my eating window.

So I think they come like with, with any diet, if an individual isn't doing the things they need to do to make it work for them, then, then you're going to see a lot of bad things happen. Um, but the big thing for me is control over food. I have like, I have absolute control over, you know, what I eat, when I eat, how much of it I eat. I don't binge anymore. I mean, we were at Brazilian Steakhouse, but even though I ate a lot of food, I didn't feel like I was binging. Like I could have still eaten more afterwards, but I was, I was good. You know, I wasn't like eating till I get the

meat sweats and I feel like, you know, so yeah. Yeah. I, I've been hearing that like, uh, and I, this happened to me all the time too. Like when you, you don't eat breakfast and you run out of the house or whatever it is. And it's like, oh man, I got to eat food because I'm going to get a headache if I don't eat. Why do people get headaches with, uh, you know, long periods of not eating? Is that, that just has more to do with what they've already eaten, right? I would. Yeah. So I would also think that there's a difference. There's a little bit of a difference between like unplanned fasting and, and, and having a, having a plan. Um, it might, it might really depend on, on what it is that you ate.

Um, like maybe, maybe, uh, you know, maybe you kind of like ate some junk food the night before and then now you're fasting and maybe you're getting like a crash of sugar. And so may, like if you have poor, if you have poor eating habits and you're not used to food, then I actually don't think that it's not that I don't think that fasting can be effective.

I still think it can be very effective, but I think getting a grasp on foods that are healthy foods that fall in line with whatever beliefs you have or whatever book it is that you're following, because everyone's got these different views on what's good and what's bad but whatever kind of falls in line with that and then i would kind of look into fasting i don't know if like just kind of having it happen out of nowhere is such a great idea yeah so like getting your diet kind of in check first don't fast and then eventually ramp in or ramp up and lean into it right Right. Gotcha. Yeah. Mark, I have a question cause I think this is a, this plays big into why fasting even works for, for us.

How, like you, there was a point where you were, you track calories a little bit, right. Or did you like mainly just do meal planning? Um, you know,

I never really got into actually tracking calories, but diets that I've been on in the past, the calories were kind of tracked almost for me. So in the case of like, uh, honey Rambod, like he, he wanted me to track everything, but I still never really did. Uh, I would track things like once a week, just to kind of get an idea of like where I was at.

Yeah. But he, what he did was he was like, Hey, you have steak once a day, chicken once a day, fish once a day, um, oatmeal and egg whites once a day. And, uh, you know, whatever fills in the other meals or whatever, but he at least had an idea of like the type of meats that I was eating and then carb choices on a bodybuilding diet. You got rice, potatoes, and oatmeal. Yeah.

So it's like, he kind of at least knew what I was eating and we both knew that the calories were around 3000 or whatever most days. Exactly. So the thing is, is like, you knew a calorie amount and you had an understanding of kind of how much food entered in that calorie. Approximately, yeah. Exactly. For sure.

Yeah. I had to weigh it and all that stuff. Yeah. So the, the, the thing that, the reason why I think fasting is being able to work so well at this point for me when I'm, since I'm not tracking any food anymore is because I like I've tracked before, like there were, there were times where I tracked every single meal and this was like for years for like two or three years I tracked every single meal I tracked everything I have a good understanding of food and so do you so now at this point like you know

when it comes to a time that I just had to eat within five hours or six hours personally I don't track anymore but I can understand since I have that knowledge of tracking how much I'm eating. And I think that that, that is where like true freedom in terms of like true freedom lies. If you can understand how much you're eating and you can kind of look at it and engage it, um, and you're not having to carry a food scale everywhere and you could just go like,

you could just eat based on how you feel and how much you know you need to eat. You can maintain whatever body you want for the rest of your life without really having to think about it. In a juj you got different belts you got a white belt you got a brown belt blue belt black belt right um in life we got the same thing you know and in training a lot of people refer to like training years and a lot of people when you say hey you know when you start lifting and if you are talking if a if the question comes from a like pro bodybuilder or the question comes from a high level power lifter you'll say oh you know i started lifting

like 10 years ago but i really didn't get serious until like the last three years like you did that kind of just means like you were a white belt for a really long time you didn't know what the hell was going on for a really long time then you started to investigate a little bit more started to dig up a little bit more and maybe you got into powerlifting or bodybuilding or, or just got more into lifting, um, period. But there's also like diet age, like how long have you been dieting for? How long have you messed around with diet for? Have, and, um, if you've been unsuccessful, then now it's time to try some different things. Maybe it does make sense to, uh, count your macros. Like I'd, I would, I've never been a big proponent of it, but if you don't have any basis for what you're doing, then yeah, you need to like, that's probably a square

one. That's probably like the first, one of the first things you need to do is start to understand. Actually, the first place I would start is just with the food period. And I would just start with getting used to food, getting used to fruit, vegetables, meat, and then, you know, a couple, a couple of carbohydrates that are, uh, you know, don't have a lot of sugar in them. There's a couple of slow acting, you know, potato starches, right? Yeah. Start with that and then start to work your way into, okay, I did that for a few weeks. I understand what that, how that makes me feel. I haven't really lost much weight.

Maybe I should kind of examine how many calories are in some of this food that I'm eating. Maybe I should try to pull back a little bit on the fat calories because I actually like carbohydrates quite a bit, or I don't really care that much about carbs. I'm going to eat a little bit more fat and I'm going to pull back on the carbs a little bit. You really, when you start to really actually diet, you don't have a lot of choices in terms of exactly how you do it. It seems like there's a million choices, but they're all in, they're all in position of manipulating.

Let's forget about calories for a second. It's all in position of manipulating how much food you're really eating. Yeah. If you really like food, if you really enjoy food and you like the volume of it, then you might have to select foods that have, that aren't as dense in calories so that you can enjoy more food. That might mean that you eat chicken over steak more often. That might mean that you have a big salad every day. That might mean you have more vegetables. Vegetables don't really have anything in them.

I personally don't really think that vegetables are that valuable. However, they take up some space in your gut. They provide your body with some fiber. Like they definitely do some, they definitely do some good. And when it comes to trying to figure out like what you're going to eat on a daily basis. And if you're somebody that's really hungry all the time, then eating an apple in the middle of the day, maybe, you know, an hour after lunch or something like that, maybe that makes a lot of sense for you. And that's totally fine. People aren't getting fat from eating an apple.

That's not what the battle is against. That's not the fight. That's not where the fight is. The fight is against people over-consuming food in general. And then also people just having too many snacks, too much access to fried food. One of the problems, and my daughter, you talked to me about this this morning.

She said she had crystal light at school and her friend's like, let me see the ingredients. And her friend's like, this has cancer in it or something. She's like, it has aspartame or whatever, right? And so they went back and forth. And I explained to her, I said, yeah, there's artificial ingredients that some people have linked. They believe they're carcinogenic, which is, you know, cancer promoting, right? But I said, you know, most of what's in today's world is cancer promoting,

like the environment, your cell phone, your wifi, like everything's cancer promoting. It's not very safe anyway, regardless of how much aspartame you're consuming. But the biggest difference on whether you continue to stay healthy or not is your lifestyle. You know, you getting enough sleep, you staying hydrated on a daily basis, you being active on a daily basis.

And then probably the main thing, probably the most important thing is that you're not eating like a slob, that you're not over. I didn't say that to her, but I said, you know, just that you're not over consuming food, not over indulginguming food, not overindulging on food. So if you are, and this is, this is, this is pure fact. The more fat that you have, the more shit that your body holds onto, the more estrogens, the more heavy metals, the more pollution, the more junk that your body holds onto, the less body fat that you have, the less likely you are to hold onto some of that stuff. So that's what makes all this conversation so hard is that Enzima might work with somebody who's 280 pounds and he might have to, he might put them on a diet and get them on a plan. And he's like, man, I'm not sure how this is working, but I got to get this guy on an 1800 calorie diet somehow. Meanwhile, he eats, you know, 4,000 calories

and can stay the same size. But a lot of it has to do with where that person is in their life, what their body looks like at that time, their body fat percentage. They don't have enough muscle to eat 4,000 calories yet. Yeah, exactly. Like, and, and the whole, you know, start of a diet, especially when someone just first starts out, it's, you know, you might not even know what a carb is. That's like, that's difficult. Like what's a carb? What's a protein?

What's a, what's a fat? Is butter a carb? Exactly. Right. It's difficult. What's a carb? What's a protein? What's a fat? Is butter a carb? Exactly, right? So that's why just diving into any type of diet, anything is going to work. Anything you try is going to work. And slowly it's figuring out what works best for me. Is it keto? Is it low carb?

Is it fasting? Is fasting good for me? I would say the thing that's easy about fasting, if there, if there is such a thing, that's, that's easy is that even if you weren't to subscribe to like a lot, like a long intermittent fast, even if you only subscribe to, I'm just going to start eating every day at like two, or I'm gonna start eating every day at like 12, I think that's a good place to start and you cut out a meal or two i mean you just now if again if you love eating that that should actually

uh send off a light bulb in your head because you should be like oh okay well now i can get things down to about three or four meals and i can kind of enjoy like a big dinner i can enjoy i mean look at uh you, you know, years ago they had slim fast where they would, uh, people would drink, um, two shakes a day. The two, um, they were like pre-made shakes. They'd have two pre-made shakes a day. And then you'd have a, uh, what they called a

sensible dinner, which was, you could have like a thousand calories at dinner and people loved it. People were like, this is great. And you know, that's, again, that's not things like that. Sometimes they're not sustainable. That's, that's pretty extreme because now the person probably only had like 1500 calories for the day or something.

That's a little wacky. Um, but the intention is good. The intention of let me starve off some calories for the beginning of the day and save them for later. And, you know, we can talk about autophagy and all this crazy things about fasting, but there's a million different ways you can fast. If you want to have a protein shake in the morning, uh, that has very low calories and you want to just say, okay, you know, for the morning, every day between, you know,

the time I wake up and 2 PM, I'm only going to have about 500 calories. But after that it's game on and I'm going to have 2000 calories because I have 2,500 calorie requirement every day. Why not try that? And it might, it might be great. Like what if, what if you try something and what if it changed your life forever? Exactly. That's honestly one of the biggest things for me too, or one of a very big thing for me is like, I like to enjoy my meals. I do really, really like food. I really like food. And if I like when I've had to break up my meals into five,

maybe meals a day or whatever, didn't enjoy it as much. Cause my, my meals weren't as large. They weren't as sad. So sad. Right. You just have a little piece of like cod and like,

and a little tiny thing like veggies. And you're just like, Oh, this is so sad, right? You just have a little piece of like cod and like, and a little tiny thing of like veggies. And you're just like, oh, this is so sad. And like three, three chopped up potatoes or something. You're like, this is, this looks awful. This looks so bad. That sounds terrible. And that'll, that'll cause some instability for some people. Because after that, they're like, I'm not full.

I need to eat more now. Oh, it makes you crazy. It makes you crazy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then the snacking thing i don't have any snacks at home i don't because i know myself like we were talking about the nature valley granola bars you can get from like costco yeah yeah you know like i could i in the past

great i could eat a box i could eat a box of 50 in three days that's why i said like even though i had a healthy looking body i had some bad bad habits. So for, for me, it's like, okay, you know what? Anything that I know that is easily accessible to me, a small package. I know I like it a lot. It's not going to mess with it anymore. I'm just going to mess with it. We have on any given day, we have pre-made like meatloaf in the fridge. We got pre-made, uh, meatballs. These are all things that my wife makes. We have filet mignon. We have all kinds of just delicious food. We got whole milk.

We have a full fat, like yogurt. We got all this stuff in the fridge. That's just amazing. And my kids always say, man, we don't have anything. Like, can you guys go to the store? We can't got nothing. Yeah. I'm like, there's like $5,000 worth of food probably sitting in that fridge right now.

We, we did a, like a massive Costco run. It was after one of the podcasts or something where I was like fired up. Like, I'm going to get some gains. Like, let's go nuts.

And we spent all this money at Costco and then we get home or we get to Stephanie's parents' house. And then Jasmine, she goes, man, we don't ever have any food at the house. And Stephanie, I just both slow turn, look at her like, what did you just say?

Like, you know, made us feel bad. Cause she's like, you know, complaining. Where's the Cocoa Puffs? Yeah. Oh man, those are so good. What's your favorite cereal? Uh, it was Raisin Bran Crunch. And if you guys have ever had a Raisin Bran, the normal one, it sucks.

Cause it gets soggy. But Raisin Bran Crunch had so much sugar, had these little kernels of like granola in it. It was like, that would be another thing that I used to like go ham on. If there was ever Cereal, yeah. No, no, yeah, yeah. When I was younger, like 16, 17, 18, like I'd have

multiple bowls of raisin bran crunch. Michael Jordan was selling me those Wheaties, man. Yes. All over it. And I'd take like, it was great because you know, I grew up like eating like fruity pebbles and all this other stuff. But then like Wheaties came around and they had like less sugar and stuff, but there I was dumping sugar on them. Yeah.

Yeah. Cocoa pebbles is where it's at. That's so good. Chocolate milk at the end. Cinnamon toast crunch too. Cinnamon toast crunch is getting a little too sweet, but. I haven't had it recently, but back in the day, I loved cinnamon toast crunch. Mix that with raisin bran crunch and you got a little too sweet. I haven't had it recently, but back in the day, I loved Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Mix that with Raisin Bran Crunch and you've got a party.

My favorite pre-workout back in the day was cereal with protein powder on it. I would mix up a protein shake and dump it on there. It's amazing. So good because it's like double chocolate. So I'd do it with like Cocoa Puffs or with Cocoa Pebbles or whatever. And people come over to the house and house and like, what are you eating? And I'm like, it's like a protein shake and cereal. That's disgusting.

I'm like, try it. Try it. And they'd be like, oh, I get it. Is fasting the same for male and female? Yeah. the same for uh male and female yeah they're like as as far as i know there i there isn't any big differences that a woman needs to take versus a man maybe you know if both if you're deficient in something like vitamins or whatever this is a good question but there's really not a lot of differences i think when it comes to dieting other than like the muscle mass and things like you know

a lot of times a lot of times guys have a lot of muscle mass, um, or might just weigh more period, but that's not even always the case. So, um, you know, some people ask a lot about, uh, metabolism on a diet like this, you know, they'll ask if your metabolism like slow down. And that's kind of a complicated question because there's so many things to talk about when you talk about your metabolism slowing down. And I don't even know if that term even makes any sense, but some things that I have seen, you know, when it comes to a low carb diet, they'll say that your thyroid will slow down. And then some people immediately jump to the conclusion that that's a bad thing. Kind of like somebody might jump to the conclusion that, uh, you know, having protein post-workout is not a good idea. Having carbohydrates post-workout is

not a good idea. And it's like, well, maybe it isn't it depends on what you're doing depends on what the result is that you want but maybe your t3 and maybe your t4 maybe they slow down because your body doesn't need it as much anymore maybe regulating your body weight is potentially i'm not saying this is a fact but maybe it's a little easier when your insulin levels aren't spiked all the time when you don't have a lot of glycogen floating around in your system. And so sometimes these things that happen, you know, they'll study will come out and they'll say eggs are bad. And then the study will come out and say,

eggs are good. And they'll say, you should only eat the whites. And then there'll be another study. So you'll only eat the yolks. And you get all this different information. I think that everyone just kind of jumps to conclusions, but let's just go back to what we said earlier.

Don't be fancy be consistent and so try to figure out a way to be consistent this fasting stuff i gotta tell you i thought for sure that this was 100 bullshit a couple years ago when people started talking about intermittent fasting i was like oh my god this is ridiculous why is anybody even like you don't eat you you need protein. You need to eat like five or six times a day to be big and strong. I thought I was insane. Yeah.

And now I'm starting to buy into, I'm like, I cannot see a reason why I wouldn't do this the rest of my life. Maybe I would, maybe I'm not going to fast all the time forever, uh, 18 hours every single day or 16 hours every single day, but I can see utilizing some form of fasting almost all the time. Yeah. I mean, like I said, even me, you know, if someone wants to get breakfast one day or, you know, someone wants to go get something to eat, I have no problem just like eating in the morning and eat like just going throughout my day.

It's not that limiting. But on most days where I don't have any obligations to anybody else, there's no problem. Like it's, it's easy to get right back into fasting. I just make sure that like the thing that I think another pitfall is that people tend to like, maybe they'll eat something small, right? They'll start with a small meal and then they'll like, that'll start driving everything else. That's happened to me before when I was experimenting it, when I was starting off, I'd be like, okay,

well let me just eat an apple right now. Maybe I'll eat more food later on today. Once I ate that apple shit, it seems like it's like a small, something is almost like the kindling that like ignites the fire. And then all of a sudden it just starts burning everything up. There's a YouTube channel called what I've learned. And on that,

it talks about the difference uh between eating a little versus eating nothing and that video explains so much everyone should watch it's like 15 minutes out of your time so uh it just it just nails all the points that you need to hear about about fasting and what a huge how hard it is to eat like hardly anything versus and i do think that there is a is some room for a little bit of a, like a liquid fast. If you do want to throw some butter and some coffee, or you're really struggling, uh, with, um, not having any calories and maybe you are getting a headache and maybe some things

are happening to you. Maybe you do want to try, you know, having a, you know, a scoop of protein powder in the morning or something, but experiment, you know, he said he experimented and he ate an apple and he wanted to go off the deep end. So each person's going to feel, but just be honest with yourself on how you're feeling. Like, you know, in terms of your like physique, it's probably not going to, I can't imagine it

making a huge difference that you broke your fast and had a small protein shake or something like that. I can't, I can't see that how that would make any sense but it's possible i guess yeah also losing muscle that's that's one thing that like a lot of guys even i was scared of you know when i when i started doing the whole thing i was like am i going to get really small am i going to lose a lot of weight i mean i knew i was going to lose weight because i was already doing jujitsu but i'm like well if i'm not eating as much and as frequently, the frequency was the big thing for me. Am I going to get really small?

And that honestly, with the people that I, I do fasting myself and anybody that I've had doing fasting, there's like no muscle loss, or at least it doesn't seem that way. Strength stays, muscle stays. You know, we, we think that we need to eat so much to stay big, but you know, if you're trying to bulk and fast, it gets a little bit difficult because, like, you need to be in a surplus in a smaller window, right? Which you just got to be on top of, but you can still do that. They might have to have a bigger window, maybe, yeah. A bigger window.

A bigger window or have, again, like, meals that aren't, like, not as much fiber, not as much maybe carbs in general. So maybe you have higher fat so you can hit that caloric intake. That's a surplus. That'll make it easier too, but you can bulk while doing it too. Maybe it's not ideal in a four hour window, but like Mark said, in eight to 10 hour window,

you could definitely make it happen. Yeah. And less carbs make it a little bit easier the following day to hit your, uh, like whatever, 24 hour fast, right? Like it just seems like it,

you're a, if you have more more fat, kind of gives your body a little bit more sustainable fuel for the next day. I personally feel like if you have kind of, uh, you know, and I don't know if there's like a real switch over, but I think if you kind of have taught your body to kind of run off of fat that you, that it, that it might be a little bit easier to fast. However, back to what George Lockhart said, I think your body's just going to kind of use whatever's sitting there. And I think that, I think that mentally it'll probably be the hardest part.

And it'll probably take the longest period of time. But again, if you're eating junk and you're trying to mitigate the fact that you just ate a bunch of junk with fasting and you're a rookie and you know, you're still a white belt, I don't think that's a great way to do it. Cause we've seen a lot of people in fitness make that mistake and they go to the gym and they do like cardio and it's like, well, now you're just, you're really kind of screwing things up. You didn't meet your protein requirement last couple of days. You were eating a bunch of junk.

Now you're not even feeling that great. You're trying to get a workout in. We know what you're trying to do. You're trying to do something good for yourself, trying to burn fat. You're trying to lose weight, but you're going about it the wrong way because now you're not even feeling that great. You're trying to get a workout in. We know what you're trying to do. You're trying to do something good for yourself, trying to burn fat. You're trying to lose weight, but you're going about it the wrong way because now you're kind of, you're really just probably burning up some muscle and really not taking care of what you need to take care of. So just make sure that you're, you're getting on track with the foods that you're supposed

to be eating. And, you know, the one gram per pound of body weight that's been around forever. And I don't think that there's, I don't think that you have to have that much. You can probably go all the way down to almost half of that. Maybe, um, each person's going to be a little different, but when you start to fill out your caloric, uh, needs for the day, it probably will still creep back up towards, uh, being one gram per pound of body weight. But I mean that if you're, if you're going to fast and you really don't want to pay attention

to a lot of different details, maybe that would be a good place to start is to say, I'm going to fast. And, uh, you know, if a pizza gets in my way, then so be it, but make sure you get that protein requirement. And then can you overdo it on intermittent fasting? So not necessarily just in case people don't know, like not fasting for like three days straight, but like just like an 18 hour fast. And what I mean is like, can you do it every day for a week, every day for a month?

Like at some point, is there some like diminishing returns? Personally, in my experience, I haven't, there's been nothing that I've seen as a negative. If it can be maintained well, and the big thing again is just making sure that you eat enough in your window uh you stay hydrated um and that you're you know that you're doing those main things i haven't found any negative effect on that like if if i don't have to go eat with anybody and i say like like my girlfriend pretty much she wants to eat breakfast then i could literally fast every day and not feel literally any type of back down as long as I'm staying on top of eating enough food. You know, I could only see that really happening if they have bad habits in their feeding window,

which is, that's where a lot of people get drawn back. They don't get enough food in their feeding window. And they don't hydrate too when they're fasting. Like they'll forget to drink water because they're forgetting to eat. No, that's also a pretty big deal too. Yeah. I think that, you know, you're not, you're not going to end up noticing like real negative effects.

And I think that if you're just feeling a little beat up from it and you're feeling a little tired from it, take a day, you know, have a day, a day of eating, you know, say, you know what, tomorrow I'm actually just going to eat the whole day. We'll see how I feel. That's actually what I've been playing with. So I fast nearly every day. And then like, uh, so this Friday will be probably my last big bench session before the,

uh, ST Classic, every 9th and 10th at Cal Expo. Um, I will, I will fast, you know, pretty, pretty aggressively kind of going into that, uh, going into some of that. Um, but on Thursday, which is tomorrow, yeah, tomorrow when I wake up, I'll start, I'll start eating. I'll have some carbs in there for the day. Normally I'm not really eating a lot of carbs.

Uh, even in the morning I might have a breakfast and I kind of recognize that the breakfast probably isn't really like launching that workout. But part of the reason why I do that is because it just helps me hold on to, uh, nutrients. It helps me hold on to some water. So it just gives me a little extra body weight for the workout. So I might weigh like this morning I weighed two 33 and when I work out on Friday, I'll probably weigh two 37. Like I just know from training from a long periods of time and power lifting forever. If I got a little bit more weight on me, at least if nothing else, from a mental standpoint, I feel more powerful. And there's definitely something to

some of that, um, like hydration of carbohydrates. They, they help hydrate your body. Uh, they help hydrate your muscles. And, they help hydrate your muscles. And so by storing a little bit more water and hold onto that, I feel really powerful. I also think that, and I don't really know what the details are behind this, but I also think some super compensation happens to where maybe you can hold onto a little bit more than you could have in the past because you starved yourself away from this. And I think that might be, it might explain the reason why when a bodybuilder,

you've worked with a lot of bodybuilders, you stepped on stage a bunch yourself. When the coach says, Hey man, you know, have at it the next two days, you feel like a tank and you're so strong. You grab 120 pound dumbbells and they feel like they're sixties.

You're like, what is going on? Meanwhile, the week before you're on your deathbed, you grabbed the one twenties and you pressed it once and almost died, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So that's been a lot of my experience lately. And I can't wait to talk about it more. I haven't mentioned a lot of it cause I don't want to like pour out information that I'm not a hundred percent sure of, but that's at least what's going on now. Yeah. That actually, I did that same thing before my last jujitsu tournament. Like the day before I, I ate, I ate breakfast, I ate lunch. I ate multiple meals during that day. I still like I stopped eating. I think at maybe 10 or 11 PM, the tournament was around 5 PM the next day. I didn't still didn't eat anything that like,

you know, after I went to sleep on that day. So I still fasted there, but I did eat more before the day I had to perform because I knew that, you know, I would be able to perform a little bit better since I had many more calories in my system, probably ate around 44,000 to 4,500 calories on that, in that day. So I could see that being a massive benefit. And it's, it doesn't matter. I think really, if there is a certain day that you end up breaking your fast, you just want to eat on a certain day. That that's also a good thing because it could be just like you know you're saying you're or you can feel that okay i feel a little bit hungrier today too that'll happen to me sometimes i'm just like uh tomorrow i i don't i feel like i'm a little bit underweight right now so i'm

not gonna fast tomorrow then i'll start fasting again the next days that's just like being able to it's called auto-regulate, but being able to just like on the fly feel that you need to eat more or maybe feel that you need to eat less. And you're also using the scale. Right. I mean, that, that's a big thing for me. Like I'll weigh myself every now and then be like, okay, I'm 252, 253. I'm climbing up.

Let me just eat a little bit less these next two, three days. Right. Yeah. And he brings up a great point about struggle. You know, it's like, how much do you want to struggle and how much do you need to struggle? You already got a lot of the struggle. You already understand a lot about fasting. You already understand what it's like to be under cold water. You understand what it's like to be under pressure in a jujitsu tournament

and in practice, like you, you have a good grasp of these things. And then you kind of ask yourself over and over again like is this okay like is this okay for me to like i know i get reward out of pushing into stuff but you know hold on a second am i still maybe i'm not ready to push this hard into and those are good questions to ask because otherwise you're going to get hurt and you're going to hurt your progress and not enhance your progress so a lot of times people say they went through a workout, they went through a bench program or something like, ah, it worked out pretty good, man. I, you know, gained a little bit of strength and, you know, they'll say I didn't get hurt or

something like that. But it's like, well, maybe the whole time, you know, your version of getting hurt, like just there's different versions of it. Maybe you were hurting your progress. Maybe you're hindering your progress a little bit. Maybe you weren't getting the exact results that you should have. Maybe there could have been a more optimal way. And that's all we're trying to do. We're trying to figure out like more optimal ways to do things. When Encima walked in today, I was doing some dumbbell bench press and I had my mouth taped shut and I, I did some cardio and I did some back training and just did a little

bit of stuff for the chest. Just kind of open it up, get some blood in there. And, uh, I've been messing around with that quite a bit, but I'm not an idiot. I'm not going to, I'm not going to go on the treadmill until I fucking pass out and end up getting launched through the, uh, slingshot store. You know, I, I have judged it myself and I'm starting to run on there pretty fast. Now I got the treadmill up today to like 10 and I'm doing, uh, some like hit training. And it's like, there's a couple times where i had to pull the mouth tape off and just say hey you know what you idiot like just take your time with

this like get your breath but i'm noticing a lot of reward from it so far i mean taping the mouth shut i've talked about it before about taping the mouth shut uh before bed and i not only tape the mouth shut but i put the Breathe Right strip on there too. Just kind of pull the nose up a little bit, get a little bit more air through the nasal passage. It's been helping my sleep tremendously. It's taken a little while, taken some time for it to really work. But now that I'm using it on cardio training and stuff, that I think is helping my sleep. And in turn, it also uh enhancing my progress on my cardiovascular training i'm really interested to see you know what it'll be like when i go outside and run

because running on a treadmill is quite different than running outside yeah um the first thing you mentioned though about the struggle when it when it comes back to this is that if you're a person that you know when you start something you want to push it to the absolute limit, that's where things can get dangerous. You know what I mean? Because like Andrew was saying, are there dangers when it comes to fasting? Like, yeah, like if you're someone who your personality is like, I'm going to take this and I'm going to eat.

Some people like will fast and they won't eat. And like, and then they'll eat like, you know, maybe one meal, one small meal and they'll just keep fasting. They'll take it to that level where you got to find that there has to be a happy medium there. and they'll just keep fasting. They'll take it to that level where you got to find that there has to be a happy medium there.

But in terms of like that, the cardio and the nasal breathing thing, that's been so big. That's changed my athleticism night and day. Like when I was lifting here and I was only doing lifting, I would try not to breathe too much through my mouth anyway,

but it wasn't because I researched it or anything or I looked anything up. It's just because I just felt better that way. After I started like focusing on doing that on the mats, um, it's just, it's, it's so crazy how like, you've heard of like the flow state. Yeah. No, you know exactly what that is. I feel like I could tap into that all the time, all the time when I roll, I can tap into that where I'm not, I'm literally not thinking about anything. I'm not thinking of anything when I'm rolling, even bad situations, good situations, not thinking my body's just going and it's going and it's going based on what it does because I'm just breathing through my nose and I'm just, I'm not, not focusing on anything.

And I've never been able to tap into something like that so often where everything's running on instinct. That used to happen a bit when I was playing soccer um but i did have a bad habit of like breathing through my mouth a lot on the field and i feel like if if i knew what i know now in terms of how to breathe and how to focus it would have my athletic performance there probably would have been so much better too it's amazing like these these small changes small changes, you know, and they sound weird, you know, they sound strange and it sounds so foreign to some people, but it's just,

it's just worth a shot. You know, it's worth, it's worth trying. You might, you might as well, you might as well give things a try. Might as well give things a shot.

So far, you know, so far so good for me. I'm enjoying it. I first kind of learned about some of this stuff from Ron Penna, who built up quest nutrition. He shared some stuff with me about like taping the mouth shut and he he's kind of guy he kind of screws around a lot too so i was like what like what is he talking about he tapes his mouth shut like he's a weirdo you know yeah but his wife was like no he tapes

his mouth she's not kidding he tapes his mouth shut and he's got like a specific way of doing it or whatever i just used some strips that i bought but um i've been i've been noticing a big benefit it's been helping my sleep it's been helping me uh to be able to kind of recover like doing these hit workouts just able to calm yourself down a little bit and what you're talking about you know getting into like a flow state that's a big reason why i go to like coffee shops and stuff like i'm able to go to these coffee shops throw on some headphones listen to music listen to a podcast or something and somehow i'm not sure how it works for me but i'm able to like not even listen to like what's going on the headphones anymore and i just drift off and i start thinking about like other things

and it helps me be creative helps me kind of get into that, uh, flow state. But when it comes to things like meditation, uh, when it comes to some of these things, I think, I think sometimes people just think it's so weird, but stop thinking that it's weird. Be open-minded to it. You know, I shared a quote with you the other day and you really liked it. It was, uh, you know, um, don't allow yourself to be, you know, be open minded, uh, but don't be so, uh, overly like connected to any one thing, you know, be, be open to it. Um, but I think people are

just kind of always waiting for somebody to say something wrong. They're always waiting for it to be insulted. Like you said something wrong about carbs, you know, or you said, and they're waiting for you to say something that, uh, you know, goes like, I can't believe he said something positive about Donald Trump. Like they're just, they're, they're waiting, they're waiting for that thing. Like, oh my God, I can't believe the guy said that. And it's like, man, you just missed a lot of great information because you're holding on to like this one negative thing that they said, or one thing that you think is negative. No, no, I totally agree with that.

What you got over there, Andrew? No, I just, again, we got another question about like what your caloric intake should be when you're fasting and whatnot, but it's basically, it's just going to stay the exact same, right? Like if you're trying to gain, then you're going to want to be in a surplus. If you're trying to lose, you're going to be in a deficit. Yeah. Yeah.

So nothing changes, right? I mean. Nothing changes. Yeah. It's really easy to maintain a caloric deficit when you're fasting. So it's why it's really beneficial, you know, if you're trying to maintain a deficit and if you have a problem with control over food, it's really good if you fast. But, you know, if you're trying to be in a surplus and you're trying to gain, you still can be in a surplus and fast and gain

muscle. You just really need to try a little bit harder at it and maybe give yourself a bigger win. Same thing. Your calories don't change. Yeah. And then Mark, you, you've been talking about, um, kind of doing like a, uh, a liquid fast. Um, do supplements fall into that line also? Cause we had a question about like, uh, you know, flavorless creatine or, you know, the nasty BCAs that have no shit in them. Like would something like that be okay to have on a quote liquid fast? Yeah, I think so. I think there could be room for that stuff.

But, but if you're really looking to like try to tap into the positive benefits of fasting, then I think you should try to just fast mainly. Some people even go as far to say don't have coffee and don't have water. It's like, you know, we start like making this insanely, uh, unenjoyable, you know? So with that being said, I would say like mix in things that will allow you to do it. Mix in things that allow you to try it. If you want to make a bulletproof coffee or if you like, I do this maybe a couple times a week where I just don't feel like fasting.

And so rather than like actually fast, I might make a, a, a coffee with some protein powder in it and with some, uh, like coconut oil in it or something like that, you know, and I love the flavor of it. It gets,

still gets me to 2 PM or 3 PM when I start to actually eat. So, you know, do, do what's going to allow you to actually feel this out and to actually do it because that's going to be the key to any diet is, is that you're able to actually follow through with it and that you're able to stick to it to some, to some extent, you know, I think that that gets to be the hardest part. And we're,

what we're sharing is like, you know, it should feel kind of easy, especially after you've been doing it for a little while, you should be like, Hey man, I lost 10 pounds. And if I'm being a hundred percent honest, it wasn't that hard. It wasn't that bad. Yeah. There's some life changes that went on, but I'm not dying over here. Yeah. And then having just straight black coffee while fasting, it makes you appreciate how good it can taste, you know, and it's, it's amazing. But, um, what for, for me, if I have too much caffeine with on an empty stomach, I get kind of sick. Like that's just the way I feel, but that's because i was having like oh i'm gonna have my black coffee like okay let's have a cup and i'll down the cup and then it's like okay i was simply too

much so like i'll honestly i'll have like maybe a third of a cup you know like a third of a mug and it gets me through whatever like you know the the first wave of hunger that comes through yeah it'll get me through that and I won't feel sick and I'll be awake and I'll be alert and I'll be ready to go. And, you know, we talk about like the waves of the hunger and stuff like that. And so that's how I get through that first wave. You know, like right now I kind of want to have some coffee because like we were talking about doing this episode yesterday. So I'm like, you know, I want to be in that fasting state.

So I haven't eaten anything today, but like right now I could totally go for some coffee. This is something that was shared by, uh, Paul Check and Paul Check is the creator of Bulletproof Coffee. And, you know, Dave Asprey is the one who monetized it and called it Bulletproof Coffee. But Paul Check, uh, is the one who put, um, butter in coffee in the first place, ghee butter and coffee in the first place, ghee butter in coffee. You can put heavy cream in there too, but heavy cream is a very slippery slope because it tastes so damn good that you might use way too much of it. The reason why he did it was a lot of his clients were trying to fast, but they were just drinking enormous amounts of coffee.

And he was like, I'm not totally against caffeine. I think that caffeine's okay, but you know, we need to drink, you guys need to drink less of it. Like you're going overboard with it. What he was also noticing is the caffeine was kind of just messing with their system. They were just getting an influx of caffeine in too short a period of time. And that's the problem with liquids period is like when we have a orange juice, it's way different than eating an actual orange.

If you ate one orange, you're probably totally fine. But if you had orange juice, it's you're dumping down orange juice in 30 seconds and it might be the equivalent of five oranges and one orange alone might take you like a minute to eat. You know, if you're just kind of eating casually,

right? Plus there's other cofactors in the orange that help slow down the absorption that are no longer in the orange juice. Kind of the same deal with coffee when you're fasted. Some people say this, so to relate it to everybody that's listening a little bit better, how jacked up do you get when you have a beer on an empty, you know, when you're really depleted or what about, you ever have a beer after a workout? You're like, whoa, you're like, holy shit, what happened?

You know, it's like, it nails you like just one. You're like, whoa, even if you're not a lightweight, it was still hit you pretty good. So what he did is he put fat in the coffee that kind of slowed down the breakdown of the caffeine a little bit. And it ended up, you know, it ended up kind of changing the way that people were drinking their coffee. And so they started adding, they started adding some stuff in there in relation to fasting in general.

There's some things to be aware of too. You'll get hit really hard with these like pulses. And I kind of almost compare it to the way that you feel when, when you have to throw up, like you get that feeling where you're like, oh my God, I got to throw up, right? And then it kind of passes, right? And then your stomach settles back down. You're like, holy shit, I got to throw up.

And this is involuntary. Like you don't really always have control. You can't really talk yourself out of throwing up, I don't think. Although I think I have a couple of times. But you really, you end up just doing it, right? At some point. Start promising a higher power

that you're going to be a better person if you just help get me through this night. Or at least just tell me which end it's going to come out of. Help me out here so I know which way to face when I go to the toilet. I won't cuss anymore, I promise. That's right. Oh shit, my stomach hurts.

I'll go to church. I mean. But anyway, you'll get these pulses that are really strong towards eating and they'll keep hitting you throughout the day but after you fast for a little while after you get used to it the hunger hormone ghrelin will start to slow down it will start to die down your body will say hey man like this is we don't really we don't need to be releasing this much of it every day this guy's doing totally fine he's not losing a bunch of weight. He's maintaining his body weight.

Everything's looking good. Energy levels are good. So the body decides to kind of shut it down a little bit. And so you'll get hit by those pulses a lot less. And when you're getting hit by those pulses every single day, just realize that they're kind of false alarms. They're not, you're not nearly as hungry as you think, and you don't need food. You just want food.

It's the same thing we've talked about on this show many times with having a young children in your family. You got a young niece, young nephew, young child in the house, and they just engorge themselves with a ton of food. And they come in the kitchen like, I'm starving. And you're like uh well we have we have more pork we have more chicken we have more steak and they're like i'm not hungry and then they walk out of the room but they were looking for potato chips they were looking for

doritos they were looking for dessert so a lot of times you're not nearly as hungry as you think so hang in there when you get hit by those strong pulses, because they will, they will pass. It just takes a couple of minutes. Oh yeah. It definitely, that, uh,

initially it feels like, it feels like you're starving, but you're not, like you said, understanding what hunger feels like, what real hunger feels like that after you start doing that for a while, you'll, you'll, you'll get the hang of that.

Yeah. One more thing I wish I knew when I started fasting was, um, uh, when you start to actually eat started fasting was, um, uh, when you start to actually eat, eat slow, um, eat slow or eat small. Yeah. Either one or, or eat small because like your stomach is sensitive after a long period of fasting. So it happened a few times where I just start eating. I'm like, Oh my God, I feel nauseous. I want to throw up. And it's not because of the

food was bad. It's because I just, I just engulfed it. And it's not that I had that one thing. I knew this is all the food I'm going to eat. So I just started mixing different foods together. Usually it's not an issue at all, but when you're, when you're fasted and then you come out of it and you eat something too, totally random foods that you usually don't pair together. Well, you're going to feel nauseous. So eat it slow. There's even stories in history of like people that have been not fasted, but starved. And somebody thought, hey, I'm going to come to the rescue and I'm going to give them all these fish and this bread and all this stuff. And they've died because all of a sudden out of nowhere, their body got hit with this food.

So this is not even fasting. This is starvation of, you know, five, six, seven days, but be, be careful with it. You might even want to just have something really small, like a couple pieces of cheese or like, sometimes I'll have like bone broth when I get home. Yeah. Cause like my wife's cooking and it takes another hour or two to get some food. So yeah, have something small, eat slow, take your time. Yeah.

Yeah. Not to freak anybody out, but I can't remember where I heard it, but basically I think it was in like, uh, I don't know, some foreign country where they were, they were, um, uh, imprisoning or whatever. They were throwing a bunch of people in jail and they weren't feeding them. And, you know, they were bad people or whatever. And so the warden would be like, okay, that, I don't like that guy. Like, hey, guess what? You just made bail or whatever. You know, you're out. And so as soon as they get out, they would feed them a bunch of bread to kill them on purpose.

Oh, my God. And so they would just keep doing that over and over and over. So, I mean, it can get a little dangerous. Watch out for those carbs. Yeah, carbs. Yeah. I believe there's a war on carbs. What about being flat

like are you a little bit flatter than normal like in terms of you know when you're when you're consistently uh feeding yourself kind of nutrients throughout the day and um you know getting a pump in the workout and all those different things if i didn't need as much food at least as much food as i typically do the night before i'll be a little bit flatter during my workout the next day, but not so flat like the bodybuilding sense of it when you're depleted and you're actually flat. I'll still get a pump. I'll still have a great workout.

I'll still get a really good pump. But on the days where I do eat a lot like I should, I'm totally like I have a serious pump the next day. It's like any other time though. It's no different than if I were eating the whole day and I ate less versus fasting. And then, um, you know, I eat in that window. It's just, if I eat a little bit less, I won't

have as much of a pump. If I eat as much as I should, I'll have a great pump. Hugest benefit of fasting, in my opinion, is just the amount of time, the amount of time it saves. I mean, and it's saving money too. I mean, you're, you're, you are, I guess you are in a sense eating the same if in, in Seema's case, he's eating the same amount.

So maybe it doesn't, maybe it, uh, but you're still, it's still less frequent meals. So it's still probably kind of costing you less. Is that right for you? Or, um, or is it similar? Actually, actually. Yeah. Because I tend to buy food, food. I don't, I don't tend to buy like small things here and there.

I don't use protein bars anymore, you know, cause there's no reason to snack on it. I just eat food. Cause when I, when I finished fasting, I don't want to eat a snack. I don't think a lot of people realize how much money that saves just buying food. Cause they're like, oh man, if I buy steak all the time and I buy chicken all the time, it costs a lot of money. And it does. Yeah.

Like the price on there is going to be huge. It's definitely a lot higher than a box of the, uh, nature Valley, uh, you know, those granola bars. Yeah. Yeah. The granola bars. You have those in one sitting as opposed to, you know, meal prepping for a couple of days. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, and also, I mean, it's saving a lot of time with meal prep and, uh, I love being able to tell people that like, here's my meal prep. Like it's nothing, I don't have to prep anything. And for those of you that work a lot and you're away from the house a lot, it's, it could be awesome. You don't have to worry about the microwave at work. You don't have to worry about the fridge or you don't have to be, uh, have anxiety about where you're going to go to eat or when you're going to eat. You don't have to worry about any of that stuff. You can kind of just flatten all that out and maybe you don't fast the whole day. Maybe just bring one meal with you rather than to eat. You don't have to worry about any of that stuff. You can kind of just flatten all that out. And maybe you don't fast the whole day.

Maybe just bring one meal with you rather than bringing three. Exactly. Like it just, if for people that are really busy, you have kids, you got to pick them up and take them to practice,

all that type of stuff. It just feels like it makes more sense because you're not worrying about having to eat the whole time. Yeah. You could go home, you could eat, you can enjoy your meals

and you can go to sleep. I think, you know, the thing is, is like you mentioned this, all of this food didn't used to be as accessible. And I don't really like like talking about ancient times or whatever. When you think about it, you know, people had to go through very long periods of fasting before they could get a meal. This isn't normal. We didn't adapt and evolve to be eating like every two hours. So like, it's not as weird as it sounds if this is what's been done for hundreds of thousands of years no it's not that weird it's actually probably makes

more sense i don't think our systems change at all when it comes to that yeah right it's the exact same almost i mean i would imagine it's the exact same that's why it feels so normal for us to like not eat it doesn't feel like i'm starving you're, I'm not eating. I'm unbothered because yeah. On a lot of days, I just barely notice it anymore. Exactly. Me too. Like I, I. I know that people are frustrated listening right now.

How is this possible? What are you guys talking about? They're like grinding their teeth at us. You know, they're mad, but you can get used to it. And like we're saying, man, just, you know, first things first, get used to some food. If you never tracked calories, that would be a great place to start too. And if you've never done any fasting, like just fast for like longer than you have been in the past. So like if you normally wake up and eat at eight, try eating at 10, just take some small

leaps. And then maybe, maybe every other day, try a fast. It's like 12 hours, 14 hours. And then over a period of time, maybe you work your way into, uh, fasting more days than you don't. Maybe you fast four days a week, five days a week, and maybe they're more like 16 or 18. I don't really know about like the magic of like the number. I do know that like Dominic D'Agostino and some people have done some research and some people do feel that the magical stuff starts to happen if there is anything magical about it within a 16 to 20 hour window just for people just so you know. But I don't think it really makes a big difference. I think ultimately you're still just partitioning out when you're eating your calories and that's kind of the main benefit of it. Yeah.

My fasting window is usually every like four, I mean, not my fast, you know, my eating windows usually about four to six hours. So I'll go for, you know, an 18 to 20 hour fast. Um, but that's exactly what I did when I first started doing fasting. I didn't just like start fasting 16 and 20 hours. I think a lot of people might think, oh, I got to do that. I just, you know, my, the first time I was like, okay, I'm going to eat at like one today. I'm not going to eat breakfast.

I'm going to eat at one. After I got used to that, was like okay i'm gonna eat at like one today i'm not gonna eat breakfast i'm gonna eat at one after i got used to that okay i'm gonna eat at five okay i'm i'm really good i'm gonna maybe eat at like eight maybe eat from eight to eleven and that that's fine like i could fast for a day and i feel like when i do a two or three day to just see what happens it's not gonna feel bad because like when i have to actually begin eating it's not going to feel bad because like when I have to actually begin eating, it's like I have to make myself eat. It's like, I mean, I'm hungry, but I'm not,

I don't ever feel that hunger where like I'm starving that I used to feel when I ate every few hours where I'd feel like I'm starving. So yeah. Yeah. Um, Jerry asked a question and I don't know if we're qualified to quite answer it, but what if somebody is hypoglycemic with fasting? With fasting?

I'm just saying, like, what would happen? Can they? So, hypoglycemia, I feel like you just need to be careful about your immediate carbohydrate intake and maybe the type of carbs you intake right after you begin eating in your eating window. of carbs you intake right after you begin eating in your eating window. Um, it's probably not a good idea to, you know, have a bunch of pop tarts immediately once you, once you end your fast, because of the spike that's going to happen post fast. Um, but I don't think it's, there's necessarily going to be any type of personally, I'm not a doctor, but I don't think like, you know, because you're fasting, that's going to play and that's going to have a negative effect on hypoglycemia. It depends on what you actually eat, whether you

fast or you don't. Yeah. I also think that like your blood sugar, again, like I think that things work a little differently than we anticipate a lot of times. So I think that with like low blood sugar, I think that maybe even a low carb diet, which sounds like doesn't make any sense at all. Maybe it would help. I know it sounds weird, but it doesn't, and it goes against maybe some stuff they've heard before, but it's worth, it's worth trying. And like we both said, we're not doctors, but it's worth kind of giving it a shot. And a lot of times you're, uh, the traditional thought is that, yeah, you want to try to eat multiple times a day to kind of keep your blood sugar like stable.

Um, but fasting could be a benefit for this person. Um, in addition, they could try their own version of fasting. Maybe they, maybe they do have a small amount of carbohydrates with, uh, something that they eat in the morning. And when I'm talking about small, just whatever, uh, low amount they could have that makes them still feel good. Uh, if this person has messed with lower carb diets before and it hasn't felt good, then there's probably no reason to really push into that.

But who knows, like maybe following a ketogenic diet, but now your body's running on fat. You've kind of switched over and maybe you kind of bypass feeling like shit because your body has always been running on sugar. I think a lot of times these, these sugar, uh, issues, hype, hypo or hyper, I think a lot of times it's just like, we just, we just have really, really, really bad habits as Americans with our eating and not just our own eating, but the eating that your mom does. But while, while she's pregnant with you,

these, uh, send off a huge cascade of things. Even your palate, your palate is built like in the first like year of your life, pretty much. And so like, if you were just never fed,

if mom or dad didn't feed you some junk when you were little, uh, you probably still to this day would probably be in a little bit better position in terms of what you like to eat as, uh, as an adult. That's crazy. I know it's nuts. Definitely. My palate changed, which I didn't think would ever happen. Um, now, like, like I said, I'd never really got to a point where I was really, really

overweight, but I did eat a lot of sugary type food. Ben and Jerry's is like my, my shit. I'd eat one of those, sometimes even two in a day. Right. I love doing that. That's my favorite. Cause you're like, Oh, I really like this one. You're like, I really like that one. You're like, I'll just get both. Yeah. But, um, and, and I was never wanting to really be like, uh, you know, I was always like, you know, anything not in excess is okay. So sugar, et cetera, all that type of stuff. But I found that without even really, I guess, wanting to, or willingly wanting to do this, the sugar, the amount of sugar that I eat

has been drastically lowered. And I'm not talking about like apples and stuff like that. I'm talking about sugars from ice cream and like those types of foods. I don't feel a craving for that type of stuff. Like I want food. I don't want ice cream. Like I could have some, but I won't eat as much as I used to. I don't, I don't eat, I don't like eat that stuff nearly as much. And it's not because I'm making a choice to, or I'm, I'm forcing myself not to, it's because now I just actually don't want to eat that stuff. Just don't feel as good afterwards. Well, and even, even if you do, you know, like what it's going to be at the end of the day, you already ate like two pounds of meat. Probably. It's going to be a small thing. I day you already ate like two pounds of meat probably it's going to be a small thing i think when we went to eat that uh brazilian steakhouse thing

you had uh just like a small piece of spoonful of the cake whereas usually i would have had i would have been like right yeah but it's like man what percentage of your diet is that that's like i mean we talk two three percent like3%, like I mean, it's tiny. It's not going to make any sort of difference. It's not going to have any negative effect, that's for sure. We're all good?

Yeah, we're all good. I'll just, I mean, I guess real quick, like what's your guys' favorite way to break the fast? Like a certain food, just like,

yeah, more protein. I like meat. Yeah. Oh, no. Yeah, you're all right. Okay. You've said worse. Yeah. Hey now. Yeah, how about you. You're all right. Okay. You've said worse. Yeah.

Hey now. Yeah. How about you, Mark? Uh, yeah, same thing. You know, I was usually have like steak or something. You know, I try to like, at least still have some sort of variety with my food just cause it's fun, you know? And so like, uh, you know, I might have fish, I might have steak, I might have, um, and

then like I said, occasionally I'll have some, I might have, um, and then, like I said, occasionally I'll have some carbs because, uh, of the trying to keep that bench strong and trying to keep my body weight a certain, a certain level. Um, there's nothing real fancy that I do or anything like that. And occasionally, and this is, I've done this on like a keto style diet forever. I love having breakfast at dinner sometimes. So done before and and also too like what a awesome way to end your day like sometimes i'll i might eat dinner and then i might like make like an omelet and uh you know those of you that are you know feeling deprived and feel like it's such a savory meal like you chop up some sausage and some bacon and get some cheese and throw it in an omelet.

It's like, holy shit. That was really like, you can't ask for anything better than us. It's fucking awesome. It's a good way to kind of end your day. And it's, it's almost like, it's almost wet, like a way of feeling like you kind of cheated on your diet in some weird way. So I like to kind of end my day with that, but in terms of, you know, turning the fast off and switching into eating some food, sometimes I'll have like some bone broth or just eat something small, eat slow, and then kind of get into it. But you're going to want to eat fast.

You're going to really want, that urge will, that urge will be there. Just don't do it. Yeah. And then we, so we just started recording, started talking, we got into it. But what's Nsema doing here on the podcast? He's jacked and he's tan.

That's pretty much it. Yeah. You know, I came to use the restroom here and then, you know, he was like, just hop on here real quick. So I was like, cool. Okay. Yeah. You know, we're, you know, just trying to add some color to this podcast. I got him pretty good with that.

Nice. Yeah. Yeah. We're just, uh, you know, trying some new things here, man.

So I, uh, we're at the LA Fit Expo and, and SEMA comes through a lot of trade shows with us and stuff. And so I thought, Hey, this would be a good opportunity for all of us, uh,

for Andrew, for me, for SEMA. I think that, you know, having somebody like him on this podcast can help make it grow. Uh,

let us know what you think, man. If you think he's a piece of shit, let us know in the comment section. If you think he's handsome, let me know. If you think he's natty. If you think.

Oh, let's not start. No. We're going to open the floodgates. The natty professor. If you think that he makes me look short and fat, let me know. I'll get rid of him immediately. But yeah, this is something that we want to do.

We want to bring them on more and hopefully we'll get them to be kind of full time. But I really think that this will set us up in a good position to do more than we're even already doing. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch you guys later.