Mark Bell's Power Project - The Truth About Fasting: Boost Your Health & Reset Your Body!

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

Want to know how fasting can boost your health, change how you think about food, and reset your body? In this episode of Mark Bell’s Power Project Podcast, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and guest Joseph Everett dive deep into the health benefits of fasting and share why it’s more than just skipping meals.Learn how fasting lowers IGF-1 levels, improves brain health, and even changes hunger patterns over time. They break down the connection between fasting, physical endurance, and how your food choices impact digestion, inflammation, and long-term energy. Plus, hear thoughts on the carnivore diet, lab-grown meat, and biohacking methods that could redefine your fitness goals.Follow Joseph on IG: https://www.instagram.com/josepheverett.wilSpecial perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!Best 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast➢ https://www.PowerProject.live➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerprojectFOLLOW Mark Bell➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybellFollow Nsima Inyang➢ Ropes and equipment : https://thestrongerhuman.store➢ Community & Courses: https://www.skool.com/thestrongerhuman➢ YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=enFollow Andrew Zaragoza➢ Podcast Courses and Free Guides: https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz/➢ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamandrewzChapters:0:00 Fasting lowers IGF-1 for better health2:08 Fasting and physical endurance5:58 Benefits beyond calorie restriction7:55 Multi-day fasting and hunger changes11:46 Health benefits after hunger subsides13:53 Mindful eating for better health17:03 Overeating and mindfulness18:27 Fasting as meditation21:51 Why steak is a carnivore favorite23:49 Origins of U.S. salt guidelines27:20 Obesity and diabetes: U.S. vs. Japan29:05 Healthy habits in Japanese culture32:24 Walking boosts brain health34:22 Small step goals for weight loss37:26 Walking aids recovery39:07 Debate over a "healthiest person" claim42:21 Misleading olive oil marketing44:04 Audience reacts to fasting and supplements47:29 Tactics in health product marketing49:13 Challenges with lab-grown meat52:46 Aging tests: Are they useful?54:32 DNA methylation and aging57:53 Puluva shoes for foot health59:16 Choosing the right activity shoes1:02:18 Comparing biohacking approaches1:03:52 Brian Johnson’s fasting method1:07:16 Supplement concerns and vegan gaps1:09:11 Fasting’s role in brain evolution1:13:01 Adapting to different diets1:14:47 Variety reduces cravings1:18:14 Protein keeps muscle as you age1:20:04 Meal timing and insulin sensitivity1:23:20 Diverse training for improvement1:25:10 Challenges of intense training

When you fast, you dramatically drop IGF-1. Resetting the IGF-1 where you drop it down really low and then you eat protein after you're fast, you jack it back up. That allows for the proliferation of stem cells. There's a lot of psychological benefits too. You can get to a point where, depending on the person saying hunger totally disappears, might be overstating it, but you do get to a point where you're feeling like it's not an issue. Your research on veganism, what potential holes might be in a vegan diet? But the thing that I usually talk about is the effect of having all this fiber in your gut. The gut is just not really designed to handle that much fiber. And so when you start cramming the gut with more and more fibrous material,

certain people have really big issues and fiber can inhibit the absorption of specific things. Fasted for five days and you decided to do a marathon. Why the hell would you do something like that? Yeah, it's a good question. So I've done a lot of fasting for health benefits, but this time I kind of wanted to see like how far can you go while fasting. So I had read this book by, what's his name?

Chris McDougall, I want to say, Born to Run. And he laid out this case of how, yeah, we're born to run, right? And he gives the example of the Tata Humara Indians, and they have this culture of just like running everywhere. They're kind of a nomadic group, and most of their traveling is done by running, and so they're running hundreds of miles at a time. And he uses that point along with some points about persistence hunting, where basically persistence hunting is a type of hunting that humans would do where they would just chase an animal down and then it would you know it's fast so it'd get away they would track it and chase it more that it would get away

they track it chase more just keep repeating this but then the animal can't cool down fast enough so after hours and hours of this they tire the thing out and it just kind of falls down in front of them and they just like stick a spear in it. And that was one way to hunt. And so he was making the case that like, you know, these are some examples showing that we're, you know, designed to run. And so I was thinking like, well, okay, if you, you're probably going to want to be more motivated to hunt if you're probably gonna wanna be more motivated to hunt if you haven't eaten anything in a couple days. And we're allegedly born to run. So maybe this is something that can be done. And I had actually done a fast, a five day fast,

and I was like walking as much as I possibly could throughout the fast. And then there was a part when I said, hey, I'm gonna try running. And then I felt a little faint headed or lightheaded. And I was like, oh, this is a bad idea. I can't run while I'm fasting. That's too much effort. Like you can't do that. And then at some point, I was thinking like, is it really though? Like I didn't try that hard. So yeah, I just kind of said, let's see if this is possible. I really don't think I'm gonna pass out

I don't think anything terrible is gonna happen. So let's try it When you were running the marathon, was there any like worry or concern at some point? Were you like? Maybe this was a really bad idea to get a little nervous or scared or anything like that. You felt okay the whole time. Uh So the first Yeah, the first half actually felt really good. I felt really light and like I was performing pretty well. And then once I got into the second half, maybe around like kilometer 26 or something, then I started to feel like, you know, I was hit with the wall and I was feeling terrible and near the end when I was walking with the wall and I was feeling terrible. And near the end, when I was walking a bunch,

it's funny that you say, did I feel scared? Because there's this weird feeling of, like I'd be walking and I'm like, I gotta start running again, I gotta start running again. And then I would like try to get myself to run. I would just like feel this feeling of fear of like, oh, I can't do it. And so I don't know if that was just like putting out

a bunch of effort or something. That's just what happens when you're kind of putting out, doing your maximum effort output. I don't know, that's the thing. I don't have that much experience with marathons to where if I could even say that the fasting technically made it dramatically more difficult than say a normal marathon. The thing that was most difficult was after the fast, after the marathon. Like the two days afterward I

was super cranky, super irritable. I couldn't sleep right. You know I was super exhausted but I couldn't sleep more than like three hours at a time. You did some blood work? Yeah, yeah. Did some blood work and I can't remember what the exact yeah, there you go So eight eight forty to eighty two So my testosterone went from eight hundred forty before the fast and then right after the marathon It was 82. So 90% drop in testosterone and my cortisol was like I Think it was 40. So that's double the top of the reference range. So basically if you want a cocktail to make yourself

as stressed out as possible, it'd be to like delete your testosterone, jack up your cortisol, because testosterone makes you resilient to stress. And yeah, it was terrible timing because I had some friends who came over from Texas and like two days after the marathon, I'm hanging out with them and I'm like,

they're like old high school buddies. Miserable? Yeah, I'm just like miserable, trying to be a good host, but I'm super irritable and, you know, probably wasn't the best guy to be around. I'm sure people are curious, what was your time? 4.40, so four hours, 40 minutes. And you ran a marathon previously,

what was the time of that one? That was like six hours. I have flat arches, so that, probably not the best example because halfway through my feet felt like they were tearing so I just was like kind of hobbling along. Yeah. Yeah. Let me ask you this, like, when it comes to the fasting stuff,

because you did this marathon after five days of no eating, you've probably gotten multiple millions of people to try fasting through your videos. So you have a video that has five million views on fasting two years ago. Other videos on your channel that have multiple millions of views about fasting and keto, et cetera. At this point, with everything that you've continued

to learn and see about fasting, most people when they think about it or they look about it or hear about it, when they hear professionals, it's like, well, it's not really different from Chloric Restriction. There's a lot of professionals that are now coming back and saying, oh, fasting is not really that necessary, et cetera. What are your thoughts on it, having learned about it for so many years? Yeah.

In terms, so I think the arguments that is no different from Chloric Restriction is really shallow and kind of inaccurate because So work by Volter Longo, he showed that When you fast you Dramatically drop IGF one and so you get There's something to this kind of like Resetting the IGF one where you like drop it down really low, and then you eat protein after you're fast, you jack it back up.

Something about that allows for the proliferation of stem cells. So through that, you know, what the degree of the rejuvenation benefit of that is hard to say, but that's kind of an example of where it sounds like really promising and something that should be researched more to see like just how much, cause you think stem cells, you can get all these kind of rejuvenating effects from it.

But it's a kind of example of like, that doesn't happen when you just calorically restrict, right? You're also, there's a lot of psychological benefits too. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah, we were talking about that earlier. And like the, your perspective on hunger shifts so much, especially if you've done a multi-day fast

to where you fast for, it's usually around the day five mark that most people are gonna experience this. Some people, if they're more fat adapted, more experienced with ketosis, they might get it on the day three. But you can get to a point where, depending on the person saying hunger totally disappears,

might be overstating it, but you do get to a point where you're feeling like it's not an issue. It's like, oh, I'm good. It's way less of an issue than when you're eating. Yeah. Like when you eat normal throughout the day, you'll find that you're hungry throughout the day.

And if you stop eating for a little while, yeah, it calms that down a bunch. Exactly, yeah, exactly. And so to have that perspective of, oh, I've gone 72 hours, 100 hours without any food, and I'm fine, I'm not like falling down. I think if people clear their schedule and they say, I'm not gonna do anything and I'm gonna lay in a bed the whole time I'm fine, I'm not like falling down. I think if people clear their schedule and they say, I'm not gonna do anything

and I'm gonna lay in a bed the whole time I'm fasting, then they're probably gonna feel terrible. And then there's a good way to do fasting and then there's a way to do it that's gonna leave you with a terrible experience and have like a terrible impression of the whole thing. And you probably will feel super hungry and agonized doing it.

But if you do it right, where you're like moving around, maybe taking a little bit of salt, you have things to do, people to meet, you're in the sun, you're outside, then yeah, you get this dramatic perspective shift on your hunger. Yeah, it definitely makes it easier to reduce your calories too.

Because if you're gonna, you know, if you're gonna eat twice and let's just say, for argument's sake, you're gonna eat 500 calories twice, that'd be a thousand calories. And if you just wait and you're gonna eat once, if you wait like really long time, then you're probably gonna wanna consume a crazy amount of calories.

But even if you just skip breakfast, now that next meal might be like 20%, you might end up being able to reduce your calories by 15 to 20% very easily without barely noticing it. Okay, you suffered through a hunger pang a little bit here and there during breakfast or whatever meal you decided to skip, but it's just not that bad.

Right, yeah. Yeah, that's kind of the funny thing is I'll see so many, this is an example with keto, but I'll see so many people talking about the fact that, oh, the weight loss you get from keto or the weight loss you get from this, it's like, it all adds up to just caloric restriction. It's like, yeah, but what about the driver of restricting calories, which is hunger? Like it has a dramatic effect on that. So was this, oh, this was the walking one, but the, cause you were asking about what

is the difference between caloric restriction and fasting. And there's so many different changes that happen, but going back to the, that like reset switch of you lower the IGF-1 and then you kind of set the ground to be able to build back stronger so to speak another thing about that is One of the experience my experiments I did was I doubled my testosterone by fasting for Seven days I think was seven or five and then I Refed and after the refeeding it was literally double what it was before. So that seems to be to go along with the same theme of fasting somehow primes

the body to be able to like rejuvenate, build back or be stronger after the fast once you refeed. And I've noticed that a lot after I'll do even a three day fast, I'll hit the gym and I'll, after I refeed and I'll just feel like just way more on fire than when I was eating normally. What, what do you think like maybe a hypothesis, what do you think is like the time, like the amount of time needed to fast to be able to get that effect afterwards? Cause it wouldn't just be like, okay, let me not eat for eight hours, eat. It's not that, right? Right. Yeah, that's a good question.

That's, I wanted to run a couple more experiments and see what, you know, can I get it with three days? Can I get it with two days? Yeah. Just a guess. Like, obviously, we don't know, but what would your, what's your gut telling you, maybe? I would guess, if I'm just winging it, just hazarding a guess,

then I would say it would be after the point, after you reach that point where the hunger has dramatically lessened. Cause it does really feel like there's this invisible wall you have to break through it. And once you break through it, then you start to feel feel you actually feel like hey I actually feel kind of maybe better than normal before that it might be feel like a challenge

But then you know day five six seven. That's when I feel like like oh Maybe the inflammation is lower in my body because I just feel so loose and like my shoulders feel so much more relaxed I'm you know mentally I don't have those like loops of anxiety, of worrying and stuff. So it seems like something is happening there. Like you have some physiological changes that is eliciting this traumatic reduction in hunger. So I'm, that's why I'm guessing that.

It's like, cause something has happened there. And then maybe it's like, after you break through that invisible wall, you can refeed and get these like regrowth benefits. Gotcha. After learning all this stuff, especially about like nutrition, fasting, keto, how do you eat and what do you think is like most effective for you? Yeah, good question. So I don't really follow a particular diet consistently. I always like to try out different things and experiment with stuff.

But for the most part, the through line is I have some kind of, it's like mostly protein animal-based, you know. Protein first. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of beef. Let me see, what are like my go-to things are like beef, oysters, fish. And then around that I might,

what am I having? Being here in California, are you gonna go to In-N-Out Burger? Eh, yeah, maybe. Are they good? Like if you're gonna order like a burger or something at a restaurant, you're gonna order like a burger or something at a restaurant, you're gonna get like no bun type of thing

or you just like- Oh, I'll eat, it depends on where I'm at. Like, you know, maybe if I have a date or something, I'll like hold off the bun because I know it's gonna make me like a little, you know, not feel as good in the stomach. But I had a, just yesterday, hung out with my buddy and I had a burger with the bun and it was fine.

I didn't eat the fries though. So you make some like, you're just eyeballing stuff and you're like, yeah, if I eat the fries and the bread, then it's not gonna lead to the greatest results, right? Yeah, yeah, pretty much. I don't know where you guys are on the seed oils or like how much, like what your stance is. We know everything about them. We had a bunch of people on the show talk about seed oils.

We don't even want to hear it anymore. But I think, you know, where I stand on them, I don't think it can seem as in the same boat. We don't really care that much about them. I just think that if it's disruptive and hurts your stomach, then obviously don't eat them. But I don't really use it at home. I don't really even use oil and I guess like at a restaurant is where you maybe need to be most aware of the fact that You might be getting not not even just seed oil But you're just getting oil kind of right on your food and you're you're gonna eat like 500 calories more from going out to eat easily without With the meal being the same just because it's like oil dumped on it. Yeah

easily without, with the meal being the same, just because there's like oil dumped on it. So yeah, like if seed oils comes up, like of course I have like two different videos on it and all these different ideas about it. But for the most part, I just kind of like, if someone asked me about it, I was like, well, it actually hurts my stomach, so I don't eat it. And so that's just kind of-

Does it hurt your stomach? Yeah, yeah. I don't- That's something to pay attention to. I think sometimes, oddly enough, I think for some people, maybe they don't even realize that it does negatively, like they react negatively to it. Because we just had Stan Efferdig on and he mentioned that he's kind of allergic to it. He has bad reactions to seed oils, right?

But that's something that if nobody tells you to pay attention to that, you just eat certain food and you're like, oh, I don't feel so good, but it's just how I feel. You know what I mean? Maybe it's the seed oil. Maybe for you it's the seed oil. Yeah. I mean, if you ever been to like a diner, like a greasy spoon kind of diner and had some, you know, an omelet or something like that, your stomach just, and it could just be the calories too, but this is sometimes you're like, Oh my God. And you feel like you don't need to like eat for the rest of the day.

Yeah. Yeah. You're just kind of like queasy enough that it suppresses your appetite. Slows you down too, yeah. Sam feels that, my girlfriend actually has bad reactions to that too, seed oils, and then she's realized that too. So again, this isn't something that is like, people shouldn't, you gotta pay attention to this. Right, right. Yeah, and I've had food and stuff like that,

cooked before that had some seed oils, and I didn't notice it like killing my stomach or messing me up too much. And I think also too, I think all of us could agree that highly processed foods, potato chips and stuff like that, those are things that we really shouldn't be eating a lot of anyway. They're very easy to overeat.

And the main issue again is always just, not always, but the main issue to tackle is overeating. Right, and it's tricky because like, say you're eating hot Cheetos and you're like, oh, they make my stomach hurt. It must be the Ceto. It's like, oh, are you sure? It's a hot Cheeto.

It's a hot Cheeto, bro. It's got all this other stuff in it too. Speaking of like we were talking about the psychological benefits of fasting, sometimes I wonder if like, meditation could be a means through which you could improve your diet. Cause then you just start noticing stuff. You're like, hey, I think I'm going to not eat that

cause I feel bad. Instead of I have this like, you know, 15, 20 different papers on my back. Now you're getting into some beast mode Jones type stuff. He's, he said, you know, he's, he's super shredded all the time and he's outside in his yard. He's got like his feet in the grass and he's got the sun on him

and he's talking about how important it is to meditate. He's like, you want to be shredded? He's like, you got to get your head right. You got to meditate on it. I'd buy that. I mean, it's not going to hurt. Yeah. Right. I mean, it's not going to hurt things.

I think there is something that probably could slow down your progress if you think that every little thing that you do is going to like make you fat. That's probably not a great place to be trying to figure out how to get shredded. Right. Like everything's killing your gains.

You know, on the meditation that you mentioned though, it's like, on one side, it's taking the time to, let's say you do some meditation. That is frustrating for a lot of people. But fasting in and of itself kind of turns into something like that because you're taking the time away to not put food in your mouth. So there's a level of silence that's going on within your mind because you're not, when you get that feeling of hunger,

you're not reacting or responding to it. Just like when you're meditating, you get all these thoughts. And the goal is like, you're aware that these thoughts are coming, they happen, and then you just go back to maybe thinking about your breath, or you just sit there in it. With fasting, you sit in that discomfort

and you get used to it. And then you realize that it's not gonna, you don't have to respond. That feeling of hunger on day one will go away, right? You'd be better at controlling that. So I think in and of itself, it is a version of meditation. Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. I think even, yeah, exactly as you say, like you're sitting in that space and the hunger is there, your

body is probably like, hey, let's eat, let's eat, let's eat. And it's the same thing with the, like, you're focusing on the breath and your body's like, hey, let's, here's all this other more interesting stuff than this like really low level stimulation. And then you like, just be like, okay, I'm not going to do anything. I think it, you know, it could probably even synergize with meditation if, you know, if you're on the right day, if you're doing it like the first three days, it's probably going to make everything just harder. But there's this point, there's like a peaceful boredom that arises after enough fasting where you're so bored because the only thing that's interesting is eating food.

And so everything, everything else in comparison is just not that interesting, but then everything else is like not no longer a source of worry or anxiety. And you're just kind of like, I've had those moments where I'll be fasting and then all these problems I had in my life just seemed completely insignificant and a non-issue because my mind's like, well, I don't care about that. I just want some food. It's a great thing to realize that food is entertainment. Yeah.

Some people are like, oh, I just eat for the fuel and they get used to the flavor of stuff that has no flavor to it. But I think for most of us, I think food's pretty exciting and it's a form of entertainment. And then how much entertainment are you gonna consume and how much excitement are you gonna have? Like every time you eat, does it have to taste like pizza?

Does it have to taste like ice cream? Or can you eat things that are like, I always, after I eat something, a lot of times I'm always like, this is so good. I don't understand why people have a hard time following a nutrition plan. Cause when you're eating something nutritious, a lot of times it's like steak and stuff like that

and chicken and I think all these pork, lamb, all this stuff, I think all of it, fish, all of it tastes really good. It does take more preparation. Sometimes it costs more money and stuff like that. So I guess I understand some of that and hyper palatable foods, they have a lot of different things going on when you eat them.

Right. Yeah, like I've done a carnivore diet every now and then. It's not something like I do consistently, but people are like, oh, wouldn't you get bored of just meat? And I'm like, I don't know, steak just tastes amazing. So like every time I have like the steak with butter when I'm doing a carnivore diet, it's just I would like enjoy it every single time. I never got bored of it.

That's the main meal at the most fancy restaurants in the world. At every fancy restaurant in the entire world, unless it's a vegan restaurant, there's a giant ass ribeye on there that has a slobber butter on it probably. Right. And it's always the thing that's highest value.

You've been running this YouTube channel for a long time, what I've learned. What are some things that maybe like surprised you or shocked you as you like dove into, you know, you've been like researching all this stuff. Recently. That was great.

As you dove in on this information, has there been something where you're like, holy shit, I did not know that or did not realize that this is this way? Let me see. Well, I mean, that's kind of how I get into most topics is like, I'll usually, it'll usually be a feeling of, oh, I didn't know there was so much to this, or I didn't know it was like this at all.

And then I go on this rabbit hole and eventually I get a video out. I think the thing that consistently surprises me is, well, maybe not, it's not really a surprise any longer, but what surprised me a lot at first was how little rigor there was to doing, say for example, like the conventional guidelines

or the conventional recommendations for how we should formulate our diet. So for example, we were talking about salt and with the salt guidelines, the salt guidelines came out or the recommendations to Americans came out in, shoot, what was it, 1977, is when they did

dietary guidelines for Americans. And they just like picked a number out of a hat for salt. And they were like, this particular researcher, Lewis Dahl says that salt might be bad because of his research done on rats who he genetically bred to be sensitive to salt. Based on my research on these rats that I have bred to be sensitive to salt, they don't do too well with a lot of salt. So salt is probably bad. And then when the guidelines came out, they just said, all right, three grams a day. And that wasn't based on really anything. It could have been 10, three grams a day. And that wasn't based on really anything.

It could have been 10, 15 grams a day. Like, where did they get that? They just had this idea of like, well, less salt, the better. And maybe they were like, well, people eat about this much, so maybe they got to reduce it. And so, yeah, when I was coming across this, I was like, what? Oh, I thought there would have been some big study where they had all these people eating different amounts of salt and then they came picked up that number.

But yeah, so the or of course, what is it with the when they were making the actual food pyramid, you have this what is six to 12 servings of grains was the original recommendation. And Luis light was this woman who was working on the panel. She was like the lead person leading the panel to develop the dietary guidelines. And she had initially recommended, I can't remember how, maybe like three to four servings of grains and rice and so on. And she was like, yeah, here it is. Here's what you guys should do.

And then they're like, okay. And then after they finished editing, they came back to six to 12. And she was like, where did here it is. Here's what you guys should do. And then they're like, okay. And then after they finished editing, they came back to six to 12. And she was like, where did you come up with this? And apparently, if I remember correctly, it was something like, well, we have subsidized all this grain. So we need people to eat it.

And so it was no basis in, you know, like this is gonna foster health better or people need this much carbohydrates because of XYZ. It was just like, well, we got all this stuff. Somebody's gotta eat it. Well, and with that backing, right? And you have this food pyramid and then you could put that Cheerios

and all these different things are like heart healthy or these sugary oatmeal and different things. And now you're able to like sell people on these products because, oh, well, it's in the food pyramid and this is, and you know, the food pyramid is kind of interesting because I want to say first, I don't think that anyone's ever followed the food pyramid.

So it's like not necessarily just the food pyramid's fault. Americans just eat way too much food, very reckless, and we just consume too many calories. And the food pyramid does not have any recommendations on calories. It's just a pyramid that is telling you to like get, you know, some of these different groups of food. I think the principle is actually really good.

It probably would be good to pick, you know, something from dairy and have a little bit of dairy each day, maybe have a little bit of meat each day, maybe have a little bit of meat each day, have some veggies and some fruit and so on, but maybe eating the grains and stuff to the extent that they were sharing might not have been a great idea. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the funny thing is,

I think my most popular video is why are Japanese people so thin and Why is it so easy to be thin in Japan? I think was the the title are they thin? Yeah, or they just smaller well there like what's like what's their body fat percentage? I'm not sure but they're like the the obesity rate is like one tenth than the states. It's a little tricky because the obesity rate is one tenth the states, but the diabetes is one half the states. So you would think it would also be one tenth,

but it has to do with basically the partitioning of fat. So they can get insulin resistant quicker without getting as fat. So, you know, just a little side note. White people can get really fucking fat. It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, it's a superpower. Yeah.

But then in that video, it's like- Maximum fat threshold, that's what it's called. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the, if you've ever been- The main things here that I point out is really simple stuff. It's like you go, the average restaurant, the portion that you get is just smaller. I think maybe the biggest point I put out in here was they just don't really have a

culture of drinking sugary drinks with meals. That's just not a thing. They'll have like tea and yeah, they might have a Coke every once in a while. Of course you can buy Coke in Japan, but the sugar consumption, what was it, like maybe one fifth of the states and yeah, the, what else did I point out in here? It's pretty simple stuff. Like they- Well, see they're, I think a lot of their diet is pretty probably central around carbohydrates. Quite a bit of carbohydrate, like a rice and stuff like that.

You'll have like a bowl of rice that comes with every meal. So the carbohydrate is always there. I don't know if I would necessarily say that the end amount that they're eating per day is as much. Because everything's a bit smaller. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Their portions are way smaller and like things in general are less sweet. So you get a Japanese sweet

and it's just not as sweet as an American sweet. And so the threshold for what feels sweet enough for them is way lower. So they just, you know, they probably enjoy their sweets as much as an American person, but it's just because the habituation to a certain amount of sugar is different that they're like, oh, this is good enough.

That's it. Maybe a little bit more activity too, maybe a little bit more walking and stuff. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. The cities, especially in Tokyo, it's like way more walkable. I don't even own a car in Tokyo

because it's actually more cumbersome to own a car. It's easier to walk and ride the train because the train system is so efficient. So in essence, would you even like, I mean, it's safe to say it's just like harder to be in shape in America. Like the sheer portion sizes, the palatability of the food, the sizes of everything, even in stores, you know what I mean?

It's just harder here for people. Does shaming play into it at all? Because maybe like culturally, like if you get fat, like since there's less fat people, I mean. I wouldn't say people are like actually mean and like. But families though. Ah. You know what I mean?

Like within the household, like hey, you know, if it's your son or something, you're getting fat. That's a good- They might just put it bluntly. I don't know. No, they do say that. Yeah, okay. Like if you gain weight, they'll just be like,

oh, you gained weight. Like just very matter-of-factly. It feels very neutral. But then, you know, of course, when you hear that, you're like, oh shit. Yeah. God damn it. But- I better take care of this.

Oh, one other point I made in there is it's really easy to get pretty healthy stuff. Yeah. Like you go to a convenience store and you could get, you can buy like roasted fish. Yeah, so I'm like pointing some of it out there. Like you just look at the stuff that's in the convenience store.

You got like roasted fish with miso. There's like sushi in there. That's actually pretty decent quality. So even if you're in a pinch, it's not like, ah, I don't have time. I guess I got to go to Burger King. It's like, oh, okay, I guess I'll go here. I'll get like some soybeans and egg, maybe a rice ball

and then like roasted fish. And that's not bad. And the convenienceos are everywhere. So, at least in Tokyo. Some of the videos I remember seeing on your channel, one of them was about walking. And at that time I was walking quite a bit and I remember seeing where you were talking about BDNF

and all these different things that walking can do. If you can share with us a little bit about like just some of the positive benefits of walking. Cause I just think, I always think that walking is like that low hanging fruit that anyone can get involved in. For me, like I like to wear like a weighted vest and go on a walk.

But if somebody lives in an area where there's hills, you can start to do like, you know, a little bit more resisted walking, which is just gonna amplify your walk a little bit. I think that that must've been the one where I fasted for five days and I was walking a bunch, right? Yeah, so I think just that, let me see. I think you were mentioning too, that like test scores

and stuff like that were like increased, maybe after walking or people's learning was maybe increased a little bit from walking or something like that. Oh, that might've been the exercise video. Yeah, so even like low level exercise, after walking or people's learning was maybe increased a little bit from walking or something like that. Oh, that might've been the exercise video. Yeah, so even like low level exercise, just kind of some kind of movement, consistent movement. That was probably the Spark video.

That one's from a long time ago. So I don't remember it that well, but I do remember that this, you're gonna get some kind of benefit to these trophic factors in the brain. So BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor. And the core concept that I put out there that I started out with was this guy, Daniel Wolpert, he did this TED talk and he was talking about how there was a C-squirt where in the start of its life, it has a brain or it has a nervous system. And then what it does is

it swims around and then it finds a rock and it affixes itself to the rock and then it digests the nervous system. So it's kind of like it eats its own brain for food because it's like, I'm going to live on this rock the rest of my life. That is, I don't need to move. And so his big point, he put out some other points, but he was saying... That's amazing. Yeah. Sea spurt. Yeah. And so it's kind of like a human, you know? But his point is like, he said,

we have a brain for one reason and one reason only to produce movement. And so if you think about it that way, it's kind of like, well, you know, you're gonna, your brain's gonna work better if you're moving around. And walking is probably the most, you know, natural movement of humans. And we've, you know, dramatically lessened

how much we do that. There's also studies finding like, number of steps correlates to testosterone scores. Let me see. I think I talk a lot about like 10,000 steps being like a decent marker or 8,000 steps. I mean, I guess it always depends on where you're coming from. If you only get in 3,000 steps and now you're getting in 8,000 steps. I mean, I guess it always depends on where you're coming from. You know, if you only get in 3,000 steps

and now you're getting in 5,000, well, that's great progress. And then maybe don't worry about the 10,000 until you progress over time. Yeah, exactly. So that's something I would, if someone's struggling with a, like let's say they have zero workout routine

and they're really overweight and they need to lose a lot of weight. I personally would just say, okay, you know, signing up for a gym, trying to figure out the movements, maybe you feel a little awkward in there, just start with like walking as much as you possibly can. And then when you lose a little bit of weight, then you'll have a little bit more confidence and your body will feel better. And then you could do the gym. So like, of course, if they're willing to go to the gym, yeah, of course, do that. But it's for the type of person who's like,

I just, you know, I need like the smallest starting point. All right, Mark, you're getting leaner and leaner, but you always enjoy the food you're eating. So how you doing it? I got a secret, man. It's called Good Life Protein. Okay, tell me about that. I've been doing some Good Life Protein.

We've been talking on this show for a really long time of certified Piedmontese beef, and you can get that under the umbrella of Good Life Proteins, which also has chicken breast, chicken thighs, sausage, shrimp, scallops, all kinds of different fish, salmon, tilapia. The website has nearly any kind of meat that you can think of.

Lamb is another one that comes to mind. And so I've been utilizing and kind of using some different strategy kind of depending on the way that I'm eating. So if I'm doing a keto diet, I'll eat more fat. And that's where I might get the sausage and I might get their 80, 20 grass-fed grass-finished ground beef.

I might get bacon. And there's other days where I kind of do a little bit more bodybuilder style 80-20, grass-fed, grass-finished ground beef. I might get bacon. And there's other days where I kind of do a little bit more bodybuilder style, where the fat is, you know, might be like 40 grams or something like that. And then I'll have some of the leaner cuts of the certified Piedmontese beef.

This is one of the reasons why like neither of us find it hard to stay in shape, because we're always enjoying the food we're eating. And protein, you talk about protein leverage all the time. It's satiating, it helps you feel full. I look forward to every meal and I can surf and turf. I could cook up some chicken thighs or something like that and have some shrimp with it or I could have some steak. I would say the steak, it keeps going back and forth for me

on my favorites, so it's hard for me to lock one down, but I really love the bavette steaks. And I also love the rib eyes as well. You can't go wrong with the rib eyes. So guys, if you guys want to get your hands on some really good meat, pause, you can go to goodlifeproteins.com and use code POWER for 20% off any purchases

made on the website, or you can use code POWERPROJECT to get an extra 5% off if you subscribe and save to any meats that are a recurring purchase. This is the best meat in the world. Even along with that though, you know, an interesting thing is when I was much younger, I think I understand underestimated the worst off mental health, but physical health benefits of just like walking again. Why are you walking?

Where are you going? Exactly. What's it burning? What's it going to help with my training, right? But the, you know, everything it does from your back, your hips getting that natural movement, it's something that feeds the body differently than just the typical things that you might be doing in training,

which is why it's just so necessary for people to do. And it's good that it's like, I think more and more people are talking about walking these days, which is great, but it's good that it's like, I think more and more people are talking about walking these days, which is great, but it's funny because it's just something that is just so damn simple, but so crazy effective. Right. Yeah.

A little goes a long way. What's been your vendetta against Brian Johnson? Yeah, so let me see. How did that start? Yeah, so I've been doing this 30 days of investigating of Brian Johnson's story as a scam. So pretty hard. That'd be rough if somebody was going through my shit

for 30 days. I'd be like, damn, like it's like day 15. I'm like, I only made it halfway through and I'm getting clobbered. So I would say that my bar, my threshold for publicly criticizing someone is actually really high. I don getting clobbered. So I would say that my bar, my threshold for publicly criticizing someone is actually really high. I don't think you'll find-

I've never seen you do this on anybody. You go through my whole channel, you'll never find a takedown video of anybody. And so you see these 30 days here, just to clarify, it wasn't like I was like, you know what, fuck that guy. I'm going to talk about him for 30 days. But it's turned into that. Well, I had 30 days prepared.

And then, you know, that's what I saw. So I wanted to do this long form video. But I was like, man, this is going to be like an hour long video. It's going to take so long to edit. And I had, I wanted to do some of that. What do you mean? Or is that his editing? His side, chopping his head off.

That's an AI thing. It's actually pretty simple. You plug it into the AI thing. That looks cool. It just does it. But yeah, the reason I got interested in him is for two reasons. He made this post saying,

I am the healthiest person on the planet. And so part of me was like, who says that? And at first I thought it was like, you know, kind of funny being funny or something. But then he was saying, I'm the healthiest person on the planet and I have the biomarkers to prove it. I was like, oh, he's serious, okay.

And so then I looked at the biomarkers. They looked a little strange. There was, it was just a sheet. There was no actual blood tests. There's no dates on it. You know, he had crazy high testosterone without posting LH or FSH. And at the same time he had posted this, you might've seen on my video, I have something like, here's why veganism doesn't work.

So, and I've done videos with the carnivore diet, about the benefits of meat. So that's kind of something I've been steeped in for a while. And then he posted this, he used to say, I'm vegan only by choice. So, and when he said that, I was like, oh, okay. Do your thing, I'm not gonna, I have no criticism there. But then he made this post saying, here is the scientific justification

for why red meat did not make the cut into my diet. And this was a guy who had been, you can find, you know, it's in one of my videos, but he says on like every single podcast, anytime his diet comes up, he says every calorie has had to fight for its life in my diet. And like, you know, we put all the science into me and that is how we developed my diet. And so I was like, oh, okay. So the reasoning for why the video, or excuse me, why the diet is supposed to be vegan is gonna be super solid because that, you know, that's what he's been saying. And so I looked at the studies and they were just these,

he posted 10 of these questionnaire-based studies that is like, how many like cups of bacon have you had in the past year? And so, it's these types of studies that you guys are probably familiar with that, where it has all these different confounding factors, where you... Yeah, someone's eating a lot of meat, but are they eating it because it's like bacon in a Danny's Grand Slam, or is it like a steak with rosemary potatoes or something? All these things are put here, he's like, bacon in a Danny's Grand Slam or is it like a steak with rosemary potatoes or something? All these things are put here, he's like, no one's going to click on these, they're

just going to see it's a study. That's kind of what I was wondering. And then, but the thing on top of that is he says he has, that's his other selling point. He's spent $2 million into his protocol and he's hired all these longevity experts, all these diet experts, and he has hired all these longevity experts, all these diet experts, and he has 30 different doctors working with him. So I'm thinking like, oh man, okay, he's got like all the science in him and this is going to be crafted by a team of experts. I was actually kind of excited like, oh, maybe some like, this will be like some really fun, interesting stuff to grapple

with because I've spoken against veganism so much. And then it was those kinds of studies. So then something in my head was like, what is going on here? Like nothing adds up. Or this tweet just felt so suspicious for someone. So it was from there I started like looking around a little bit more and I started pulling all these threads. And so for example, another one is he says he has his olive oil and he says, I think my olive oil is the best priced

extra virgin olive oil on the market. And I was like, okay, bold claim, fair enough. And then I looked around a little bit and I found a clip from him working with, doing a video with an influencer and he was using this olive oil called Amphora olive oil. And that olive oil is cheaper, it's fresher and has higher polyphenols.

So he knows that his olive oil isn't as good. So it was just like little things that I was like, that's kind of weird. Like it was a long trail of like finding, pulling all these different threads. Another one is for example, he expresses the importance of knowing the harvest date of your olive oil.

Because it'll tell you the freshness. So I got some of his olive oil, there's no harvest date on it. I'm like, dude, what is this? His brand olive oil that he sells. His brand olive oil, no harvest date. There's a fill date, but the thing is, if you have a fill date, it means that it could like,

they could just put the olive oil on a stainless steel tank. It sits there for months. You have no idea how long it's been from tank to fill. So that is- And people are probably thinking the fill date is the harvest date. Right. Right. So it was a bunch of little threads like that.

And then once I got, there's so many things. I mean, I legitimately have 28 days or I'm posted and I could do 40 days easily. And so there's other things where I think there was four or five examples where I'm just like, look, based on the public information, you just flat out lying about this. So yeah, it's a pretty big story. What's been the reaction from the audience? When you make these, what are some of the comments? Like are people, you know, supportive?

Are they mad at you? Like, what are you seeing? So that's the thing is like, to be honest, going into this, I was like, all right, I'm going to do 30 days. And I was fully prepared to be roasted and everyone be like, dude, you're like, you're a lunatic, like calm down,

do focus on something else, Like 30 days on one guy. But they were really supportive. They're like, wow, thank you for exposing this. I was, you know, I just took everything at his word and I didn't realize it was, you know, he's like basically deceiving me. And so because people were so supportive, it got me to, you know, be even more thorough to where I was digging up some

pretty substantial things. Like for example, one of the supplements he was selling is technically, uh, trying to phrase this right, so I don't get like sued or anything, but if you look, it appears based on what the NIH says, it appears to be illegal because his supplement, his red yeast rice supplement, on the Amazon storefront says that is 2% monocollin K. And the FDA recognizes monocollin K as chemically identical to lovastatin, which is a prescription drug. So for that reason, you know, it clearly says on the NIH webpage, for that reason, supplements with significant amounts of monoclon K, which is chemically identical to lovastatin, is not able to be legally sold in the US. And his has 2% monoclon K, there's 500 milligrams of red yeast rice. Yeah, so it would actually, it wouldn't be on his, his page would be on this Amazon.

And unless they took it down, he's been kind of like taking down stuff in response to the stuff that I'm posting. So you know, I'm no legal expert. I'm not saying it is illegal. I'm just saying like, I'm looking at this page, this page and this page. And so it might be. I mean, I don't see how it's not is what I would say. What's the effect of lovastatin? Lovastatin is, it's a statin.

It's a cholesterol lowering drug. And so, you know, those will lower your cholesterol, but of course they need to be prescribed by a doctor because they can have really terrible side effects. And that was the funny thing is Brian Johnson actually made a Twitter post about statins and he was talking about some of the benefits of X. And that was the funny thing is Brian Johnson actually made a Twitter post about statins and he was talking about some of the benefits of it. So yeah, could you scroll down a little bit? I wonder if it's still there. Does it still say up, back up to, yeah,

right there. Like ingredients or something? Oh yeah. It looks like you removed it. You don't see 2% monoclon K anywhere, right? I don't see anything. It would have been at the top. Yeah. I wonder if that's still in the supplement though, which is not mentioned. I mean, who knows? That's what I'm saying. And so he says, we test every single ingredient we have. But the thing is with this red yeast rice stuff, you would want to know if there's

Mono-Colin K in there or not, because if there is Mono-Colin K, it's the identical to lovastatin. And you need to be aware of certain things like you can't take alcohol with it. You can't take grapefruit with it. You can't take any of the other things. You can't take any of the other things. You can't take any of the other things. You can't take any of the other things.

You can't take any of the other things. You can't take any of the other things. You can't take any of the other things. You can't take any of the other things. You can't take any of the other things. You can't take any of the other things. You can't take any of the other things. You can't take any of the other things.

You can't take any of the other things. You can't take any of the other things. You can't take any of the other things. You can't take any of the other things. You can't take any of the other things. Because if there is monoclon K, it's the identical to lovastatin and you need to be aware of certain things Like you can't take alcohol with it. You can't take grapefruit with it. You can't Take it while you're pregnant So you yeah, you'd want to know these stuff and you want to know how much monoclon K in it It would be like you go to your doctor and he's like here's some lovastatin. You're like, okay How many milligrams is this he's like, I don't know Because so he tests he tests his products, that's true, he does test his products.

But the last COA that I've seen as of what, four days ago, they weren't testing for monoclonal K. So, yeah, it's a bit of a tricky dilemma. I'm gonna buy it and then we'll see. You were, one of the videos you were mentioning, and I think this is important to bring up, not necessarily about Brian Johnson necessarily, but about influencers in general and people of influence.

I think you were dissecting kind of the way that he speaks and how he kind of has this, and I forgot what you referred to it as, but it was something like you looked up and it's a particular way for people to get persuaded. So do you remember some of that? Can you speak upon that a little bit more? Yeah.

You mean what we're talking about today or what I was talking about in a different reel? Just, I think it was in one of the reels you were talking about, and Seema, do you remember that when we were talking about? He was talking about the way that like an influencer will be influential Utilizing certain strategies and stuff like that might have been the double speak one. I think there you go. Yeah, okay That's the term double speak. Yeah, so it reminds me a lot of the lab meat approach

so I did a video all about lab meat and why it's basically a pipe dream because the thing with lab meat approach. So I did a video all about lab meat and why it's basically a pipe dream because the thing with lab meat is you're never, at least as we can say now, unless there's like 20 new Nobel prizes popping up in the next two years, you're never going to be able to compete with the efficiency of a living thing. You're not going to be able to compete with the efficiency of a living thing. You're not going to be able to reproduce that in a stainless steel bioreactor. It's just not going to happen. There's all these different limitations of like, you know, you have blood vessels in a living thing,

but then a stainless steel bioreactor, you just kind of like, you got to spin the fluid around to get it to the cell. So it's just like dramatically less efficient. And that's why, what is it? They sold some like lab meat chicken nuggets and they were like $1,500 to produce, but like a typical chicken nugget is like 50 cents to produce something like that.

So the thing with lab meat is it's just, there's nothing at the moment to suggest that it will ever be financially feasible. And that's the case that I lay out in the video. So then the question is, how do they get all this funding? If it's not even viable from a scientific standpoint, how could it get any funding? Well, people just hype it up. They hype it up.

They talk about the world's going to end because of global warming and cows are the biggest threat to the planet because they're enhancing global warming. So the solution is lab meat. And then we need this if we're going to save the planet. So they'll start with that. And then they'll talk about how, they'll point out some figures that kind of like make it seem like it's viable, but not give you the full story. And once they get a little bit of investment, then other investors use that initial piece of investment as kind of like mental proof that it works. It's like, okay, if they're investing, then I'm going to invest. And then it sort of snowballs from there.

And so that's how you get this, you know, a big amount of investment into LabMeet, even though it's kind of a pipe dream. And so the thing with Brian Johnson is he speaks very grandiosely about everything. It's like, this is the first time in human history that we can say that death is a maybe. And it's like, why? Nothing's new.

You've never made a model organism immortal in the lab. That's never happened. There's nothing that's happened recently that has completely changed our perception of what it means to die. He'll also say something like, I set a world record for epigenetic age reversal. And the funny thing is,

then it's like, was that a competition? Who was competing? Like how many competitors were there? Now though, is there like, was that a competition? Who was competing? Like how many competitors were there? Now though, is there like, there are a few people that are like on a list or something, right? The rejuvenation Olympics? The rejuvenation Olympics, is that what it, yeah.

So that's a speed of aging test. So the thing with the speed of aging is Brian's, he talks about this everywhere. He'll go on like every podcast, he's like, my speed of aging is 0.64, whatever it is, it's gone lower. And he says, what that means is I age one year every 21 months. So what is it?

0.54 right now? Mine's fast, I'm trying to race through life. You're like 60 right now. Yeah, exactly. Like two-point child. I'm like, I saw that, the 62 years old, you're the equivalent of a 62 year old. I'm like, yeah, that's perfect.

I'm wise. Go ahead and quit. And so he'll like go on, you know, tell everyone about these and I don't know, you know, I'm not here to like criticize the test or say that the science is necessarily bad, but he was on Derek Moore Place More Days podcast and Derek was like kind of grilling him on these speed of agent tests because he's talked on. Derek did a good job.

He did a good job. Yeah, he was great. He was like the best podcast with agent tests because he's talked on- Derek did a good job. He did a good job, yeah. He was great. He was like the best podcast with Brian Johnson because he was actually trying to dig in on the details. And so Derek asked him about the speed of agent tests and Derek was like, okay, what is the predictive health utility of these speed of aging tests, if any?

And Brian just says, none. He's like, no, I admit there's none. It's just for fun. But he sells these tests for $325. So he'll like go on on Derek Moore Place More Days. He can't make a basic argument for the for the tests. I think Brian was like, okay, well then, you know, what is the argument for using these tests? And he's like, oh, it's for gamification for fun. But then he has like Instagram and Facebook ads saying like, does keto work? Does carnivore work? Does vegan work? Don't listen to other people. Listen to the data. Check out this speed of aging test, as if that's going to tell you how effective your diet is. But then, you know, when he's actually

questioned about it, then he can't say any, he can't even make a basic argument. And he acknowledges that it has no predictive utility. Well, okay, now I have a question for you. Because to give him the benefit of the doubt in some of this, because like when he mentions it, he has certain markers that are comparative to an 18 year old. Like you'll say, my bone density, right,

it's in the 99 percentile, my this, is at something of an 18-year-old. And before, it would have been higher or worse. Inherently, this is good, right? To have... Like, like, better markers, healthier markers, younger markers. I mean, because that's specifically what he's looking at as far as the... and linking to the rate of aging.

Well, so the DNA... The rate of aging test is based on DNA methylation. So it's not actually based on any... This 0.58 number isn't based on... Yeah, it's not based on bone density or your muscle mass, it's not some kind of algorithm based on any, this like 0.58 number isn't based on, yeah, it's not based on like bone density or like your muscle mass or it's not some kind of algorithm based on that. It's looking at DNA methylation.

So it's looking at like very specific markers in the body to come up with this overall score. Yeah, so, but then to speak on his biomarkers a little bit, he made that post saying I'm the healthiest person in the world because I have the best biomarkers a little bit. He made that post saying, I'm the healthiest person in the world because I have the best biomarkers in the world. And then you look at the sheet and yeah, there's no dates. So it makes you kind of question like, when were these?

Put that aside. He finally updated the sheet and said, like these were my best results in the past 24 months. So he was cherry picking the best scores he got over a time span of two years. Yeah. So like I was saying before, it would be like, like going to your doctor and he's like,

oh man, your blood pressure is sky high, but it was okay, a year ago, like you're good. Plus on some of these tests, like you can do certain things to have better numbers. So like, for example, if I wanted to get blood work done, I want to make sure my test was at its highest. I just wouldn't train for a few days, right? Like it's one of those things.

There's a bunch of things you can do to make sure that you have the best looking markers for any certain thing you're trying to do. Exactly. So like think about the five day fast plus marathon I did. So my test after that was terrible. My test before I started was pretty good. It was like 8.56 or something. And however, when I completed the marathon,

my test was awful. My insulin and triglycerides were probably pretty good, if I remember, they're like really low. And that's, it's generally better to have those lower. So if I said, hey, I have fantastic tests, I have great insulin, I have great insulin, I have great triglycerides, I took them in a span of a week. It's like, yeah, but what were they all on the same day? Yeah. Right. So that's, yeah, there's a lot of different threads

to pull. I don't know. I could talk about this for like three hours. Do you have anything nice to say about Brian Johnson? Yeah, no, he's so... The thing that I would definitely give him credit for is starting this kind of movement and making being healthy kind of a meme. It's like a fun meme, right? Don't die. Yeah, don't die, right? And so it's also him being like the sleep guy,

that's great that he's a sleep mascot because- Sleep mascot. Yeah, he's like constantly bragging about sleep and his sleep score. And then it gets other people to want to try and do it too and like compete with him. And then if you're going to improve your sleep, that's a really basic thing that everybody,

if they can improve, they're going to feel way better. So he's totally right about that. And so if he's, you know basic thing that everybody, if they can improve, they're gonna feel way better. So he's totally right about that. And so if he's doing that stuff, this gamification stuff and getting people to sleep better, then that's great. Some of the things that he promotes are good. I will definitely acknowledge that. So Mark, you have been loving wearing these Paluvas for a long time.

Why is it that you like these shoes that look like this? I'm trying to get my feet to be jacked. I think it's funny how sometimes people will, when I wear these shoes, they're like, oh, those are different. And I'm like, well, maybe you should blame God because this is the human foot. This is the way that it looks.

But Paluvas are awesome because it's gonna allow you to train your feet and train your toes and allow for that toe spread because you got the five finger toe thing going on. It's like a, like put on a glove for your feet. It feels amazing. It's like walking around with toe spacers. You know, we've been working on our feet for a long time now.

You always hear the benefit of people talking about like these tribes who have gone without shoes forever and they have this toe space and have these amazing feet. And these shoes will allow you to just passively get that back by walking around. You don't realize what a disadvantage you're at when your foot is all clumped together from the football cleats or soccer cleats

or whatever else you were wearing when you were young. And so it's nice to be able to splay your toes. In addition to that though, one thing I love about Paluva is the fact that it's not a regular barefoot shoe. I do love barefoot shoes as well, but it also has appropriate padding. And when you're stepping on some crazy pebbles and rocks

and different things, like when I'm out on a run, some terrain is a little different than others. I don't have to be worried that I'm gonna get some sort of stabbing crazy thing happening to my foot because it has an appropriate amount of cushion underneath the foot. And guys, Paloova has a lot of different styles on their website. I think one of the newest styles they just came out with,

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I have a friend who's been doing this for probably like maybe 20 years, maybe a little longer. Kind of behind the scenes, he's just as wealthy as this guy. And he's been like testing all the biomarkers and testing his body. And like, he actually goes as far as to test all the supplements that he utilizes and all those different things.

But he doesn't do it to this extent, you know, Ron Pena. Yeah. He's been doing a lot of these things for many years. He just, he's not like, he's not a big believer in supplements, you know, he wants to get most of the stuff from his nutrition. There's some like side stuff that he'll do here and there from a nutritional standpoint, but there's probably been, you know, and what I didn't

like is when I saw his Netflix special, I thought it kind of sucked that he didn't talk about Dave Asprey because I was like, you know what, like I know people, they, some people don't like Dave Asprey, but regardless of what your thoughts are on Dave Asprey and Ben Greenfield and some of these people, they've been doing some of this stuff for a long time and they've been sharing information for a long time. How many times have we seen Dave Asprey be fairly correct on a lot of things? He was talking about mitochondria, I don't know, probably 12 years ago. That's when I barely knew, I didn't really even barely understand

what he was talking about. But there's been a bunch of stuff. And then what went viral is that guy Ashton, burying his face in the cold water. That's another thing that came from Dave Asprey talking about the mammalian response of getting the cold thermogenesis and stuff like that. So when I saw that, I was like,

well, maybe he has mentioned that before in the past and it was just something they'd left out, but they kind of made it seem like this is the only guy who's kind of ever done any of these kinds of things. And it's just not really true. Yeah, I think on a personal level, that's kind of what was really disappointing to me is because I've been in this space a long time

and I've seen all these people do these different things. And yeah, like Dave Asprey or Matthew Walker was like the big sleep guy or Tim Ferriss, I think he had a guest on and he was talking about nighttime erections and if you wake up in the morning and you have an erection, that's generally a good thing. It's an indicator of hormonal health. And so, but then Ryan Johnson will say things like, no one was talking about this before me. Or he said, I think in the documentary, I'm the first person, this might have been on a YouTube clip.

He's like, I'm the first person to ever publish my, to publish all my data. I was like, what are you, people have been showing their blood work for years. What are you talking about? And so, yeah, that was a kind of like, I don't know if I had mentioned that in my content cause it's not like concrete, like he's, you know, here's the data and contrast was what he's saying, but just kind of like, like, dude, like you're clearly,

you know, basically following Dave Asprey's blueprint. You know, the funny thing is, is Dave Asprey's book super Superhuman, I think it's the first or second chapter, it's called Don't Die. Oh, really? Wow. And Dave Asprey, there's a, what was it, NBC or ABC, I can't remember, a news thing saying like this guy has spent $350,000 trying to do biohacking or something like that.

And that's like Brian Johnson's big thing. I'm spending $2 million. Let's also not forget about Mark Sisson. And Mark Sisson, Primal, that got stolen by Brian Johnson. And Blue Friend. The other Brian Johnson. Yeah, right, the other Brian Johnson. Why is it always Brian Johnson?

Right, I don't know. Like. I think that's the lead singer of ACDC too, was Brian Johnson. Oh really? I guess that's just a name. Yeah, lead singer of ACDC too, is Brian Johnson. Yeah. A lot of shit going on with these Brian Johnsons. It is kind of funny though that that Brian Johnson was like primal, he's all about meat,

he's all about, you know, and then this Brian Johnson's vegan. He's, it's like they're polar, almost pretty much polar opposites. This one's on a fuck ton of drugs and this one is on a few drugs. It's different. So, you know, Peter Itea and a bunch of these guys

have been, you know, trying to figure out ways of, you know, they've been doing this stuff for a long time, sharing it for a long time. And I know that Brian Johnson might not have anything to do with like exactly how the movie went or whatever, but I was like, man, I think they really missed the boat. They could have included some other people that have been really important to this longevity space.

But I do think what he's doing is cool. Like I think the fact that he's testing stuff and he's trying to figure out like, you know, what works best. And then I guess like him profiting off it, I think that's maybe where people in general will be like frustrated with it. I'm not frustrated with it. I think, you know where people in general will be frustrated with it. I'm not frustrated with it.

I think do whatever you want in the United States and we get to do things this way, but hopefully not too much of his stuff is full of shit and hopefully people don't get hurt. That's what I, you know, you don't still want to see anybody have a real problem from some of the supplements that they're trying or some of the protocols that they're trying. That's the protocols that they're trying.

That's one tricky thing, you know, before, I don't want to like go on the Brian Johnson thing forever, but one of the things was he ran this study called BP 5000 and it was to test the blueprint supplement stack in thousands of people. And he told the people in writing at the start, there's an FAQ that he gave everyone and he said, I will open source the data

and share it all with you. So what we're gonna do is everyone's gonna take the stack for 90 days, we'll get your blood done before and after, and then you'll give it to us, we'll process it into a study, see how everything came out, and then share it with everyone. And so basically people did this study and then he said he would give them the results in summer of 2024 and then he never gave anything until

January 2025 and it was just like a tweet. He just like tweeted out some results and it wasn't a study. It didn't have the full data set., didn't mention side effects. And it was like thousands of people, I think like maybe 1700 people completed it, I can't remember, but over a thousand people. But then in the results that he tweeted, it said N equals 311. It's like, where'd everyone go? What's happening here?

And so there's like just a huge question mark over it, like what's going on. And so I got in touch with people who were in that program and there was like a BP 5000 Discord. And so there was like a side effects channel and a glow up channel. And the glow up channel had like a, oh, so the side effects had like a thousand,

no, no, excuse me, 10 times more activity than the glow up channel. And people were talking about all kinds the side effects had like a thousand, no, no, excuse me, 10 times more activity than the Glow Up channel. And people were talking about all kinds of side effects, like, oh, this is giving me insomnia, this is giving me gastrointestinal distress, this is giving me tinnitus, all kinds of side effects. And then he never talked about this. So the data was never published properly. It was never, yeah, never allowed to be properly vetted.

So that's the kind of thing. Like, you know, based on that, you know, most programs are going to have some kind of side effect. You know, certain people are going to be sensitive to certain things. He's testing all these, all kinds of different things. So the fact that there's side effects is, I mean, it's going to happen,

but it's like, what is the extent of that? Do the side effects outweigh the benefits or the benefits outweigh the side effects? Like we don't know because, you know, he's not sharing the data. So yeah, that's another tricky thing where I had actually learned about that very early on on the process.

And that was kind of another thing where I was like, okay, maybe this is a story worth pursuing because it's not just about like, oh, hey, that guy's lying. It's like, wait, what's going on with these products and why isn't he sharing this? This might actually be a pretty big issue for people. So, yeah.

And be careful with those supplements you take. Seriously. Yeah. What do you think in your research on veganism, what potential holes might be in a vegan diet? Yeah, that's a good question. That part of the question is trickier and trickier because there's better and better supplements coming out and so people are able to plug in any holes like better and better. I think so when this topic

comes up what I usually lean towards is okay so to answer that side like you could probably plug in a lot of holes if you're like really savvy with the supplements and for example if you know you pay close attention to how your gut is reacting to everything and are you able to actually liberate and process B12 properly or do you need to go not from a swallowed vitamin but maybe a sublingual vitamin like there's all these kind of like things you have to finesse on the on the vitamin side so that's that's tricky in itself but the thing that I usually talk about is uh the effect of like having all these this fiber in your gut like the gut is just not really designed to handle that much fiber because when we

you know evolved um I do quote unquote, because, you know, I know it's like, it's a complicated process. And then there was a particular point at which the brain suddenly dramatically increased in size. So that's the point that I'm referring to. When the brain dramatically increased in size and then led to the advent of Homo sapiens, the gut also shrink, which would suggest that we were getting a different type of nutrition, a more efficient type of nutrition, likely animal fat, very likely animal fat.

And so the gut specifically evolved to process less fibrous material and more animal fat. And so when you start cramming the gut with like more and more fibrous material, certain people have really big issues and like fiber can inhibit the absorption of specific things like of particular minerals, it can interact with the processing of B12,

things like that. So usually it's the gut issues, I think, that people have to contend with. There are some people like Rich Roll, that guy seems to be doing great for a long time. So, you know, I'm not saying it's impossible, but when I was making that, here's why veganism doesn't work.

I was trying to find like different, what people were talking about in terms of what made them quit the diet. And there were just so many people talking about bloating, digestive issues, digestive issues, bloating, blood in my stool. I developed like some kind of Crohn's disease like issue. And that just kept coming up more and more and more.

It seems like it can just be very inconvenient because you don't have the luxury of utilizing dairy and then there's like meat is kind of everywhere. And so it just seems to be potentially very limiting. On the flip side, what about carnivores? There's some holes in that. Yeah, I think so that was what I mentioned at the end of the recent carnivores? There's some holes in that? Yeah, I think, so that was what I mentioned at the end of the recent carnivore video I did,

where I think the electrolyte issues are pretty legit. I've experienced something like that myself, where you have to like, I don't know if this was the best strategy, but I was just trying to get it to work. And this did work for me, but I had to like, I was like crushing electrolytes and salts because yeah, when you, when you lower insulin so much, then you start to excrete more electrolytes. That's just kind of how the kidneys respond to low insulin. And so there are some people who do better than that.

What's interesting is Amber O'Hern made a post on Twitter, I want to say, where she was pointing out that the electrolyte issues might be exacerbated by too much salt. It's like your body adapts to the increased salt intake and therefore it's excreting even more. So you have to, you've kind of created this cycle. But I think she does a carnivore diet that is basically, it's not particularly high in salt. And so she has a post that was saying something like the carnivore diet was never a high salt diet. And yeah, so I think, saying something like the carnivore diet was never a high salt diet. And yeah, so I think I see the electrolyte issues. Paul Saladino has talked about the fact that if your insulin is crushed too low for too

long, it'll increase the SHBG, which will lower your free testosterone. That's not good. So yeah, I think there's probably some other ones that I'm not remembering right now. The truth seems to be that like we don't need much to be able to like survive. You know, we've been here for a long time and we didn't need an element packet with us, you know, hundreds of years ago or thousands of years ago when we were primarily just maybe living off of some meat. And then there's probably times a year where it was harder to get other foods and you were

eating like roots and whatever you can probably get your hands on, some forms of fruit or vegetables or whatever, and maybe not as much meat at certain times. And I'm sure that's what makes it so hard, right? It makes it hard to dissect because like, what can someone get along with? Like someone can probably get along fine with 500 or 800 calories, probably for a pretty long time, before they start to really,

depending on their size, before they really run into a brick wall. And nowadays we have so many modern conveniences, no one's gonna really end up doing that, but they could go months or years without carbohydrate, or they could go a long period of time being vegan, and maybe never really see that many negative side effects. Yeah, it's really tricky,

because there's a lot of individual variation too. So, you know, some people don't worry about the salt, they do the carnivore diet, and they're fine. Some people do high salt, they're fine. Some people do high salt, they're fine. Some people do high salt with element packs and they're good. But yeah, I think for the most part, I think in general, humans are pretty resilient.

And for the longest time, we just ate whatever was available. And then we got where we are now. It seems like time and time again on this show, what we always come back to is, you know, some natural foods. Yeah. Just, you know, some meat, some fruits and vegetables. Maybe people want to organize that some different ways

and maybe some rice, maybe some grains of some sort, maybe some potatoes and a little bit of dairy sprinkled into the mix. And it sounds like you have a plan that could, and there's, when you're on a plan like that, that has that much diversity, like when you're utilizing something like the Dolce diet or something from Stan Efforting, the vertical diet or just this way of eating basically natural foods, it doesn't really feel like there's a lot of pull to want to cheat on that diet because

you have the luxury of getting a lot of different flavors. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Have you guys gotten into Western? Do you like Western Price much at all? Yeah. I know some of his work.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's just the ancestral diets he was talking about, they seem really simple. They just seem very kind of wholesome, straightforward. Some had carbs, some didn't. Yeah, and if like a keto diet causes like a couple of little negative side effects,

maybe you just sprinkle in a little bit of carbohydrate and you're fine. Or you do like keto for three weeks and then something else for three weeks. I think that makes a lot of sense too. I personally like shifting my diet around. When it gets colder out through the winter time, I tend to want to do a little bit more of a keto based diet.

And as the weather, as the sun comes out a little bit more, I don't know if it's like a circadian shift of some kind or just a mental thing for me, but I want things that are sweeter. I want to eat some watermelon and some oranges and so on. There's a thing on sun exposure, well red and near infrared light, which would also, you'd get it from the sun,

where you basically, your postprandial glucose is gonna be like, well, in this particular case, it was like 30% lower when you were exposed to the light for 15 minutes. So I think you could probably actually physiologically process more carbohydrate with less of a blood sugar spike if you're in the sun, right? And literally eat in the sun.

I do that a lot in my backyard. I go in my backyard and hammer some food. Would you, just for experience sake, would you try a vegan diet for any period of time or have you actually? Let me see. I was a vegetarian in high school. I'd try it, you know, just because like if I'm going to... It kind of feels like a, like a form of intellectual honesty, like, okay, I'm going to like knock it this much. I might as well try it. I could, I just know that

what's going to happen is I'm going to get very, very gassy and it's going to be very uncomfortable. So I could do it. You know, If people really want me to do it, I'll do it. They sell special underwear that have charcoal in them. It blocks the... Charcoal lined underwear. Oh, don't act like you're not wearing a pair right now. Shit, I want those. That's what you're saying. You don't fart as much on the show as you used to. No, I want those. That's what you're saying. You don't fart as much on the show as you used to. No, I don't.

No, not really. You used to let him go and then he wouldn't say anything and then it would just, I'd be like, oh my God. It's the silent hot ones that really get people. Yep. If they're cold, then you got to go to the doctor. Yeah. If they're cold.

Yeah. As I think, you know, again, you can get along with any of these style diets. What are some things that you learned that really you think might move the needle in terms of something like longevity? Oh, yeah. Good question. Obviously, we've got like exercise, we've got like some proper nutrition, but do you think there's some other habits or? Yeah, I think in terms of like the biggest dietary thing,

I know there's a lot of really good research on protein because basically as you get older, a big issue with your health and your metabolic health is gonna decline dramatically when you're older because of sarcopenia. And so there's study finding that simply eating more protein, more protein correlates with more muscle mass. Now that's not necessarily to say like you just eat a bunch of protein and you're going to get jacked on your couch. It's likely what's going on there is that

because protein has this anti-catabolic effect that the people, you're seeing this correlation with protein intake and muscle mass because these people are preserving more muscle mass. So the people who are lower are losing more muscle mass. And so, yeah, I think that's a really big one to eat more protein. And I would say animal protein is easier to digest. And elderly people generally have like a decline

in digestive function. And particularly the stomach acid, I think it's weaker. And so if we're going for like a simple dietary thing that moves a needle, it would be sustaining a reasonable amount of protein intake throughout your life. Maybe some sort of fasting as well. Maybe like just people utilizing some intermittent fasting strategies. Just doesn't have to be anything crazy. Just an eight hour or 16 hour or something like that. Right. Yeah. I think, let me see. That's kind of something I've been wondering. Like,

is it better to do, say, a consistent intermittent fasting routine. Even then, yeah, maybe, okay, excuse me. Like I was thinking about it. I was like, well, that's what I do. It's not that. And I just don't think about it anymore. Like I'm on kind of like an 18, what do we, 18 six without thinking about it.

And it's pretty sustainable. So I would say, yeah, something like that, like if you want to get real technical, maybe shifted towards earlier in the morning because your insulin sensitivity is worse at night and you just, you know, process thing better earlier in the day. Have you looked into any of that?

Like the circadian, you know, circadian eating, you did mention like eating in the sun, but some people say you might want to even take it a step further and when there's no more light, just get rid of carbohydrates. Oh yeah. I could, yeah, that totally makes sense. Well, because your insulin sensitivity is worse at night,

so you're just gonna process them better earlier in the day. And there's a study finding that just the earlier in the day you eat, the lower your blood sugar spikes. So that makes a lot of sense. In terms of other factors with circadian eating, like maybe if you're like super sleep-deprived, don't eat so many carbs, because your insulin sensitivity is gonna be terrible.

But yeah, I think when it comes to circadian eating, I don't know what else you could do other than just like eat earlier. And we know sleep is super important. Have you noticed anything in particular for yourself or any of the research you've been doing with having X amount of time before bed Where you shut down eating?

Maybe like an hour two hours something like that. Yeah, I'll definitely sleep better if I can stop eating maybe I Say four hours is best. I think after four hours. I don't really notice too much of a difference But at the very least two hours, this is a good. I think it's a great habit. It's just, I can never figure it out. Yeah, right. I'm always still eating. It makes a difference though. Huge difference.

I mean, at least for me, it makes a difference. We actually put into application, better sleep always follows. Right. And, you know, going back to Brian Johnson, let's give him some credit, that is one thing that I think he helped other people popularize. He helped popularize that for people,

because I think he eats, he stops eating at like three or four p. That is one thing that I think he helped other people, he helped popularize that for people, because I think he eats, he stops eating at like three or four p.m., something like that, right? I think there is some like wisdom in being hyperbolic in certain things. So he's like, I stopped eating at like 11. Oh snap, okay. Yeah, yeah, 11 in the morning.

So that's like really driving the point home. So maybe some people will be like, oh man, Brian Johnston, he stops eating at 11. Okay, I can at least stop eating by five. And that's gonna be super helpful. So, you know, it's kind of when you shoot for the stars, hit the moon, something like that, right? So, yeah, yeah.

I think it'd be a huge benefit for most people because that's probably where most of their calories are consumed when they come home from work after they have dinner It's like you're already pretty full if you can make arrangements to shut it down right at that time would probably be the best I don't avoid like the Netflix calories, right? Right, right Where can people find you? So I've got my YouTube channel what I've learned.ed. I've got Instagram is josepheverett.wil and I also have a sub stack.

I think that one's josepheverett.wil.substack.com. And yeah, I also have a Twitter. That one's a- X. Yeah, X, excuse me. Yeah. I can't remember, that might that might be Joseph Everett, W-I-L-2.

What do you do for exercise? Oh. You mentioned you ran a marathon, but do you still run here and there? Yeah, a little bit, depends on the day. I'm kind of, it depends on what's going on. Like lately, part of this whole Brian Johnson project was to like improve my editing skills and my scripting skills and kind of like, you know, put my head

down and see how much story have a shorter story than a YouTube video. Yeah. So it was kind of an exercise to sort of improve my, my whole process. And so I've been, been really... That's kind of hilarious. This man was just you getting better at scripting short. Hahaha! Sorry Brian, I needed to up my game with my editing. Oh man. That's amazing. So I've been totally swamped the past month. So I'll just go, what'll I do?

I'll just go in and do like some leg press, maybe hit the punching bag. Nothing too, pull ups, nothing too intense lately. There was a while where I was doing CrossFit. There's a while where I was doing like, you know, big five movement oriented weightlifting. So it's kind of shifts up quite a bit. But-

You play some sports and stuff like that when you're- I just did track in high school. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, I think one of the best exercises you can do is go and smash on a heavy bag. I think it's great. Yeah.

Oh yeah. I think that really gives you a lot of coordination. You can work on explosiveness. You can, you can lighten it up and work on a cardio and footwork and just coordination. I did this boxing match where I basically trained for three months and then fought this guy who was training to be a professional boxer. It was really fun.

But leading up to it, doing the training, that was probably the most ripped I've ever been. Shit's hard. Yeah, yeah. How many rounds did he go? Exhausting. Oh, that one was only two rounds. It was kind of like...

But that's hard. Yeah. Even two rounds is tough. Yeah. But yeah, I would do like, my trainer had me doing like 10 rounds on the bag and stuff and that was like, man, that's exhausting. Yeah.

Thank you so much for your time today. Appreciate it. Thanks guys. Appreciate you inviting me. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.